We look at Stitch.

Anime  Lilo and Stitch 

       Flashing back to my Powerpuff Girls Z  lookback , I ended it with this line
             

         That's our lookback and tune  in next time when we find out that Lilo has left Stitch and now Stitch has  moved on to a different country and a new girl.

                       I knew what I was doing there, and was actually planning this much sooner than over 2 years later, but better late and well thought out then early and messy.  So the theme of this is related to that Powerpuff Girls Z  in that we are looking a another  American cartoon series being made into an anime.  I did like Powerpuff Girls Z  and think it was  a fun adaptation series , will this be the same?  (Who Knows?)

        "Lilo and Stitch" is a popular Disney movie that came and 2002 and it was popular and then spawned sequels and a television series.  So after the final episode and TV movie came out in 2006 , Lilo and Stitch kind of just stopped , but still popular there was nothing more the whole thing, then again that's not a bad thing.  But apparently, there were other plans.

       Walt Disney Television  International (so at least, someone didn't just try to make an anime knock off) , TV Tokyo , and Madhouse (For those that aren't anime inclined they are a major studio in the anime business)  all go together to create "Stitch!".  This series ran from 2008 to 2011 with 83 episodes and 3 specials.

       Going back to "Powerpuff Girls Z" a second, that series took the American show and aged up the characters, made them not sisters, not related to the professor, and normal girls that happened to get hit with 'z-rays'.  That's a change , now back to my line from the end that started this, "Lilo has left Stitch and has moved to a different country and a new girl.", that's what this anime is in a short amount of words. 

    In episode 1   this whole series kind of wipes out the whole thing "Lilo and Stitch" was about , family, even as the series showed a weird family like Lilo's with her sister being her parental figure, and also having 3 aliens in the family. That  they are family and always stick together. This episode  obliterates that.    In fact that means the whole series obliterates that. It's not an alternate take of L&S it's like a continuation. Jumba mentions that Stitch is running away because as he says, "...just because little girl,Lilo, has new boyfriend now and is all washed up with 6-2-6 is no reason to act bad. "   So yes Stitch left Lilo because Lilo has a new boyfriend and isn't paying attention to Stitch. (What?)  That's what I got from that part , but  I'll say something else down later on that frames this differently. (so stick with us , please)

Yuna and Stitch / Copyright Disney and Madhouse 

          Now that new girl part.  There's a girl named Yuna  who lives In Japan or close enough to it  and who is 10 years old (ages up to 11 in one of the seasons) and likes karate.  She's an alright and actually a good character.   So Stitch crashes into her Island part of Japan  and eventually the end up meeting in this episode.  She tries to "arrest" Stitch  then they fall in the water. This series does remember that Stitch can't swim and of course Yuna saves him.  Later there's a thunderstorm and the find a shelter and she's afraid of thunder. Stitch shows once again how sweet he is and comforts her. ( awww)  After the storm , Yuna's grandmother finds them and there's a stone that can grant wishes and Stitch wants to be ruler of the universe. ( Ehhh I wouldn't mind that) The grandmother tells Stitch that he has to prove he is worthy by doing good deeds.  Stitch decides he will stay them and Yuna is going to help  They are also going with the dog cover story thing.  We got a new phrase to replace Ohana  , it's  Ichariba Choodee  as Yuna says it means "Meet ones cousins forever". Also poor Ghantu doesn't get a break , at the end of "Leroy and Stitch" he gets to become part of the Galactic Federation but apparently he gets dishonorably discharged before this series starts and he's back to working for Hamsterveil.


     Episode 2: Are Jumba and Pleakly in this series  ?   I am not going to give everything that happens in an episode just to make this easier. But yes Jumba and Pleakly are in this series.  But first, Yuna does start her helping Stitch with his good deeds.  Yuna does stay with her grandma but that's because her father is away she gets a postcard from him and he won't be coming home when he planned because he got a new job.  Jumba and Pleakly are tasked with spying on Stitch to make sure he acts correctly.  As I said before, this series has this it's "arc" like Lilo and Stitch the Series' task was for them to find the other experiments made by Jumba.  Jumba made Stitch a  good deeds counter. (We are getting our 100 deeds for Eddie McDowd mixed up  in our Lilo Yuno and Stitch)  I am watching the dub for reference but Stitch has really upped his English speaking  (or Japanese in the other version) or something.  They didn't get the same voice actor of Stitch to speak in this series for the dub, but he did sound close. (Still minus 5 pts for not getting the original voice)  Jumba and Pleakly decide to stay and make their own guest house to work with Stitch and help him too. (Got most of the old gang back together)  Also, the voices for these characters are different than their movie series counterparts.

Yes they are. / Copyright Disney/ Madhouse

     Random line: Yuna's Grandmother doesn't seemed phased by all this E.T stuff


more after the jump

But First These Messages: The Sun is out to get you

But First These Messages 


   So it's summer and that means the sun is out to get you with heat and burning and everything. If people chose to go in  that, there's one important thing to use , sunscreen.  We look at summer-y things as well.   So take a break from what you are doing and be back later , but first, these messages.

      Hey kids like do you like the Powerpuff Girls? Good.

   Wait, does Bubbles think that dangerous thing is that cat that seems to be stuck in that tree or is it because that cat is stuck in the tree that the tree is dangerous, or is the cat dangerous to the tree?

Yes, fear the sun.

    Also, hey you get a free toy (well I mean you pay for the sunscreen) with it yay sunblock! 

   Hey Sunblock isn't easy to tell that it's on your body! So let's make it colorful to umm what? 

        
     Why is that lady excited that kids are turning purple and blue?

 

Hey, that's not real, that water is fake. 

  

     There was a color sunblock war apparently,  and  both lost,  Banana Boat decided to also get into this idea of color sunscreen.  

 Not to be out done , they have 3 colors vs Coppertone's   2 colors.  Also they have flavor names I can eat this ?

Legend has it , that if you are in the sun too long you will see late 90's CGI sunblock figures in your madness. 

    Alright, forget this kiddie stuff  it's time for a little simple sunblock ad instead. 

  This comes from the Australia . It's simple but effective.

It's color coded (sorry Colour coded) 

    You know that song "Here Comes the Sun"? Yeah I found a use for it. 

 Humans 3  , Sun 0

The sun is not happy good thing we don't know what's saying there. 

It's kind of quirky as a commercial and a little simple not bad though.

  More after the jump 

The CW announces fall 2018 premiere dates

The CW  TVLookfall2018 

    The CW has announced their fall premiere dates.  Of note, this is the first season since 2009 to have Sundays on the CW but with that change, they still save their start of fall for October.  They kick off their fall Tuesday, October 9th and continue through the month.  "The Flash" and "Black Lightning".  There's also been a change to the schedule from previously announced : "Arrow" moves up to 8pmet while with it's premiere on October 15th  and "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" now at 9PMET with its premiere the week after.   Here's the fall premiere dates below:

 All times ET (subject to change)

Tuesday, October 9
8PM  The Flash (season premiere)
9PM  Black Lightning (season premiere)

Wednesday, October 10
8PM  Riverdale (season premiere)
9PM   All American (series premiere)

Thursday, October 11
8PM Supernatural (season premiere)
9PM    All American ( Encore of premiere)

Friday, October 12
8PM  Dynasty (season premiere)
9PM   Crazy- Ex Girlfriend (season premiere)

Sunday, October 14
8PM  Supergirl (season premiere )
9PM   Charmed (series premiere)

Monday, October 15
8PM  Arrow (season premiere)

Thursday, October 18
8PM  Supernatural (original episode)
9PM  Charmed (Encore)

Monday, October 22
8pm  Arrow (Original Episode )
9pm   DC's Legends of Tomorrow (season premiere)

Thursday, October 25
8PM  Supernatural (Original Episode)
9PM   Legacies (series premiere)

Press release after the jump

NBC Announces Fall 2018 Premiere Dates

NBC TVLookFall2018 

  NBC announced their fall premiere dates  for the fall season.

 The week of  September 24th is the big premiere week they  kick off with another new season of "The Voice"  on September 24th for two hours.  New series : "Manifest" and "New Amsterdam" premiere the same week.  "This is Us" returns on September 25thTheir night of "Chicago" programming starts on September 26th with the premieres of "Chicago Med", "Chicago Fire," and"Chicago P.D" . "The Good Place" gets an hour long season premiere on September 27th.  Followed by a 2 hour premiere of "Law and Order".  The rest of the Thursday line up returns the following Thursday, October 4th.  Meanwhile, Friday gets pieced together over the weeks.  "Dateline" starts September 28th, "Blindspot" starts October 12th ,  "Midnight, Texas" starts October 26th.

  Here's the schedule ( subject to change) all times ET

 Monday, September 24th
8PM  The Voice
10PM   Manifest

Tuesday, September 25th
8PM  The Voice
9PM  This is Us
10PM New Amsterdam

Wednesday, September 26th
8PM  Chicago Med
9PM   Chicago Fire
10PM  Chicago P.D.

Thursday, September 27th
8PM The Good Place (one hour )
9PM   Law & Order SVU ( two hours)

Friday, September 28th
10PM  Dateline NBC

Thursday, October 4th
8PM Superstore
8:30PM The Good Place
9PM   Will & Grace
9:30pm  I feel Bad
10pm  Law & Order SVU

Friday , October 12th
8PM Blindspot

Friday, October 26th
9PM   Midnight, Texas


press release after the jump

A First Look at "Big City Greens"

Disney Reviews 

   There's  a new Disney animated series , coming to Disney Channel on June 18th 2018 called "Big City Greens" . They've released the first half hour of two eleven minute episodes on demand. The episodes called "Space Chicken" and "Steak Night" . 

 Spoilers ahead 

  First off  "Space Chicken" 

  

   So this episode mentions that our main characters have moved from the country to the city  which is also shown in the intro.  We are introduced to Cricket and his sister Tilly as the fly into their yard on a lawn mower. Their father wonders of course what Cricket has been doing as the mower is engulfed in flames. The father says that the neighbors don't know them yet and they want to make a good impression implying he wants Cricket to behave. This is not how  Cricket  hears it.   He takes it to mean they need to be impressed. So of course, his idea is to send one of their chickens INTO SPACE! (It has to be read dramatically)  A random kid named Remmy is asked to join the fun of helping to send the chicken into the infinity and beyond. (He's Random because he was walking down the sidewalk when Cricket calls him.)  The episode there's also Gramma (that's how they spell it) and she's not one to wake up in the middle of sleep -- she has a sword.   This episode goes through Cricket, Tilly, and Remmy's attempts to launch a chicken into space and causing some havoc instead.  Eventually, one of the chickens ends up being "sent into space" and everyone around is impressed.

Second, "Steak Night" 

mmm night. 

       The Greens are on their way back home with big plans of their tradition of having a steak night.  Cricket wants to hold the steaks which he is allowed to do , and they take the subway. Since this is new for the kids ,they are amazed and dazzled by the sights and sounds.  Tilly makes friends with the rats. As they get into a subway car, Cricket realizes that he left the steaks back near a bench at the station. So he tries to go back and get them.  He goes on the trip hopefully get them. Funny enough due to the steaks being mistaken for a suspicious package  the train on the way  back to the station stops. Tilly talks to a down Cricket and encourages him to not give up.  He does get them but is now chased by the bomb squad  and a bomb squad robot.   Cricket explains that he was trying to get the steaks because it's important for the steak night but his father says that family is important for steak night.  So he goes up from the tracks while the bomb robot and the steaks are lost.

  This is a nice start for the series.  It's  a more slice-of-life style comedy and at least so far, I don't think it's going to be an over arching mystery or quest series ,which is just fine.  If you are the kind of person who's looking for a quiet animated series with some funny laughs and outlandishness it's this one. 

  Cricket is a fun energetic but well meaning character.  In the first episode he's not being malicious or causing havoc for the sake of havoc but mostly mis understood his father's use of the word impression.  In the second episode he thinks that the steaks are the most important thing about the night because that's what his family says so, when he tries to go get them back he's doing it to makes his family happy. 

    

  Tilly is quiet and kind of in her own world.  She's  a little quirky  but works well with her brother and is supportive of him. Hopefully we will get to know more about her a character as the series goes on. 

  The Dad, named  Bill is a caring father who might be a little annoyed by his son's antics but at least sees the good intentions. He can be a little goofy as shown in Steak Night. Again hope we  learn more about him as the series goes on. 

 Gramma Alice is going to be that one character you can't forget she's feisty and as stated above apparently sleeps with a sword for protection.  She so far, isn't over the top just a fun a little crazy character. 

more after the jump

Those PSA Episodes: Hitting Is Bad so Don't do it

PSA

         Sometimes TV shows want to teach a moral as a public service.  We delve into an infamous episode of "Arthur" that had a message , it gets scrambled  somewhere.

      Our Show : Arthur
        What are they trying to tell the audience: Hitting is Bad.

        This is from Season  4 episode 1b.  Codename : Arthur's Big Hit.  This episode aired in 1999.  Also it is weird not use our normal "Arthur" format for an "Arthur" episode.

         Arthur is working on a model  airplane and D.W is inquisitive about the model at this point isn't over zealous but does annoy Arthur when he is trying to work on the plane.  Eventually, the airplane is finished.  D.W decides to play with the airplane while Arthur is distracted and eventually she ends up throwing it out the window because she thinks it can fly.  She tells him that he made the plane wrong because it didn't fly.  Arthur puts 2+2 together and finds out the truth. Arthur gets angry and punches D.W who cries and runs away. He gets in trouble.

the most famous image from this episode , apparently. Copyright WGBH 

          The episode continues where Arthur and D.W's  parents want him to apologize  he doesn't think he should because he feels justified in hitting her because of her destruction of the plane.  Binky, whom at the time in this series was the bully, and his friends in the 'tough customers' group hear about this as well and Binky is surprised that Arthur hit  his sister. Now his friends want him to prove that Binky still has it in him to hit someone so they tell him to hit the next kid who turns around the corner. Guess who is the first kid to turn around the corner?  If you said anyone but Arthur then you've not been paying attention.

        They tell him that the next time he sees Arthur he has to hit him.  So Binky tries not seeing Arthur.  Meanwhile Arthur is annoyed that people don't see his side in this story.   Eventually Binky and Arthur meet up and the tough customers are around so, he has to hit him and does. Arthur explains what happened  and he felt being hit. He apologizes for hitting D.W  and later Binky apologies and Arthur thanks him for hitting him. (Maybe he got hit too hard.)

     
         Did it do it's PSA message clearly?  Well no.  I am going to start from the start of the episode.  Arthur was shown to be working on this model they did the hammering in of showing how much dedication he was working on this model. It also shows D.W being inquisitive because of course she would. She's a little sister who has been shown in the series to want Arthur to spend time with her and be interested in her. Maybe she was getting interested in the plane to spend some time with Arthur who knows?  This episode doesn't explain more than she's inquisitive.    Now at the part where D.W touches the wet paint plane and Arthur tells her not to touch it comes back when he is getting mad at her before hitting hitting her. He did tell her not to touch it.   The audience may justify that Arthur was in the right to hit her because he was mad and explicitly tell her not to touch it.  Again, this episode is there to tell us hitting is wrong.   It does seem to try to say why the justification of why he hit her wasn't right but they missed at telling you why.  Now, I know why  it was wrong to hit her, but this episode is supposed to be a way for your audience to learn why it's wrong to hit people and maybe telling you why it is wrong to hit someone even when you feel justified.

     There's a part with Arthur's parents punishing him and they tell him again what she did was wrong , and that's true and that they'll deal with it. (which wasn't brought up at all after that moment)  Then they said to Arthur what he was wrong too but not explain a  little of why it is.  Arthur is surrogate for the audience who also is maybe not understanding why it's wrong to hit someone.   Now the Binky part is maybe there to give Arthur a lesson on why hitting is wrong.   This episode did a good job at showing Binky's conflict of not wanting to hit Arthur at all and his internal conflict with that and peer pressure. We are part of a group and the group wants us to do something wrong and if don't do it we be removed from the group is actually given more clearly in this episode then its main plot.  The part where Binky later would rather disband the whole group than let it continue with their hitting rule also shows his learning of a lesson he gathered ,again, better than the main plot. Arthur does learn his lesson in this episode that hitting is wrong, but D,W was still in the wrong too and the episode didn't show what repercussions  she got for her actions. Unless, the hit count as her punishment but that would render the whole episode pointless.   So it didn't get the message out clearly, it seemed like it was focused on saying yeah hitting is bad , but it didn't fill in the gaps well.


           Was it a good PSA?  No.  I think it would have worked better if they had taken out the part where Arthur says don't touch the plane and toned down D.W where instead she wasn't seen for much of the process then she sees the plane the first time and either tries to play with it like in the episode without malice and it breaks and Arthur gets frustrated because of all the work we saw him do and that in a moment of anger hits her, or she brakes it by accident and insert the rest of what I said before. It would give a focus that maybe the episode was going for that when you are angry the best solution isn't hitting and it  removes any implication that the viewer could make that  it's justifiable because of D.W's actions.  The rest of the episode could maybe still even work the way it does.


         Also ,  we know this episode became a meme because of course it did.

  Tune in next time when we find out  why  D.W still brings up the punch 20 years later in therapy.
 
 

 

More to Say: More on "It was My Best Birthday Ever , Charlie Brown"

The Flashback 

 
    Since we are on somewhat of a break with Peanuts specials , I thought it would be good to something a little different.  I've been doing this since 2015 ,I've looked a lot of non-holiday Peanuts specials.   The tones and  lengths of them have changed over some time it might be good to look at some of my early ones and see if any thing can be expanded or changed.

     The second Peanuts review ever we've done was on "It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown."   There were a few reasons I started the lookbacks on Peanuts specials , one was because it was the 65th anniversary  in 2015 , the other was an opportunity to maybe catch some I've not gotten to see before. This was one of those that I hadn't seen before the lookback at all. The background information on this special and the 1990's specials over all is that  after  "It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown" aired  CBS , the home of Peanuts specials kind of gave up having anymore new ones. As mentioned in my "It's Spring Training , Charlie Brown"  that was meant to be on CBS but was part of cancelation after 1992 and didn't make it to TV until 1998.   This specia came out on VHS (direct to video) release in 1997, one of the last specials over seen and worked on by Charles Schulz.

    This was also the first special to be worked on with the process of digital ink which you can kind of tell compared to the old fully hand drawn style of the past specials.

   In my look back I didn't breeze through the opening or take out anything .

This special is about Linus , he does a lot of roller skating  which leads him to girl ( of course )  named Mimi.

    The thing is this special starts with a scene of Linus just roller skating with some music backing it. A lot of Peanuts specials  do have filler  but, this one felt excessive to a point.  I did skip one thing, it also had Snoopy trying to go up a skate ramp without skates.  But if you were to skip everything upto the the title cards at 1:50 past, you'd miss nothing in this special.  In fact, after the title cards there's more Linus skating. That lasts  a minute.     Then the rest is Linus goes to a birthday party , there are other characters there too and he gets down tonight (or shakes his groove thing, pick whatever song you want.) .   Going by the title of the special you would think that this was the birthday party in the title well, nope.  It's 2 minutes of just partying and barely any dialogue. Well it is more filler.  There's  scene where  Sally and Charlie Brown talk about the party then it goes back to more Linus skating.  It's recycled footage from earlier too.    The space between 0:00 and 7:25 (except for the title cards  and credits from 1:50 to 2:30 in)  was pretty much what could be classed as filler.

He's a dance machine/ Copyright Peanuts

    This was the 2nd Peanuts special to use the aira,  "O Mio Babbino Caro", the other was "She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown" where Peppermint Patty uses it as her ice skating song.   This time it's a girl named Mimi who is singing it and it is so beautiful to Linus that he stops skating, walks into a garden just to find the siren who has this voice. (the siren part is the only joke in that sentence)  The voice of Mimi is also the voice of Lucy in this special.

  If  are one of those people who look at animation deeply , you will notice an error since before Linus was wearing roller skates, then he takes them off and you his red socks ( I thought he'd be a Rangers fan) then when he's helping Mimi he has his normal shoes on.  Later the shoes are gone again when are drinking lemonade together on a bench.

    Linus is so in love with the girl he blushes heavily and helps her garden while staring at her.  Linus mentions he was coming home from a birthday party (yeah we know) and Mimi says she loves birthday parties.

                                             

       It happens  that Mimi is visiting for a birthday party, she loves Birthday parties.  so conveniently his birthday is  in a couple days  (Hmmm Linus)   so he invites her. The special continues where  Linus hears her amazing singing in his head  for awhile. (He's high on love , or the inspiration for the Kylie Minogue song)

     Linus has really fallen smitten with this girl her song plays either in his head or she's singing again  both ways he's in love.  The animation to speak up again, when he for example, is skating back home seems to be more traditional looking than what we saw at the beginning.  Linus tells his best friend, Charlie Brown, about his new love because that's what best friends do.   This special gives us the funniest facial expression I've seen on Linus ever.

        There are some normal Peanuts antics  in this special like Snoopy and Woodstock scenes.  For the party Linus waits for his girl of the hour to come.  They also got the rights to sing Happy Birthday in the special (since it wasn't public domain or whatever was going on yet)

     This is a Peanuts special where you could skip the first 7 minutes and not miss anything  does kind of seem they needed to fill the whole 24 minutes but didn't have enough story for the 24 so they maybe had enough for the 16 to 17.  It's plot we do get isn't bad it's simple story  with some enjoyment to it.  I don't recommend it  to someone who hasn't seen a Peanuts special as the first one to see or for someone who is to recommend as the first one to see it might make it harder to get into the other specials.

Nice retro car

   This special isn't on DVD, it's on VHS  though if you buy it used on somewhere, or watch online. It hasn't aired on television though ironically, ABC could use it as a filler special when they add more time to a special to air the whole special without editing it , but they still  need commercials. They could air this with the 7 minutes cut out of it as a back half special to fill in hour.  (That's kind of a joke there) 


       To give it a rating out of 10  it gets a 7.2/10 it's not a bad special but the filler does bog it down.

  Might do more of this ,we'll see.