Underground Comedy and the Radio Free Latveria Podcast is taking comedy and making it full color and glossy with a gatefold cover this summer in a comedy tour of comic shops and bars around the midwest! If there’s a comic shop anywhere near you, we’re going to try to get there! Get ready folks, for the comicbook/comedy event of the summer!

In a brilliant PR move, stars of the trailblazing IFC sketch comedy sensation ‘The Whitest Kids u’ Know are coming to Wooly’s in Des Moines Iowa, a city that is mostly kind of sort of almost completely full of white people.
With the addition of the Whitest Kids in Des Moines, for one night, will actually push the total percentage of White people over the 100% mark and, according to some scientists, towards infinity.

The show is April 4th at Wooly’s, is 1 night only, and is going to melt your face. Get tickets here. Also check out www.woolysdsm.com for more amazing shows as well as www.standupdesmoines.com for other info on comedy in town!

Twitter: @woolysdsm @whitestkids @UCatB

1. This very special classic cartoon critique is direct from the mind of Joel Fry, the brains behind the Iowa Comedy Festival, Cornstar Comedy and it’s recording extension as well as his most recent endeavor, The Blurst of Times podcast, which delves into the finer points and comic antics of Simpsons fandom in general.  Enjoy!
   

When you’ve been on television for 24 seasons, you’re bound to fall flat once or twice. It’s also fair to say that when your best years are nothing short of transcendent, it causes the mediocre times in your existence to be magnified and scrutinized more closely than, say, Bosom Buddies’ leanest times*.

I co-host “The Blurst of Times,” a podcast dedicated to the Simpsons, the greatest sitcom in television history and an institution that belongs on TV’s version of Mount Rushmoreii. We focus on the positive side of the show, and stay upbeat about the program even when discussing years/episodes/characters that the general consensus categorizes as “crummy.” That’s not to say we drink the show’s Kool-Aid; we just want to point out that even when discussing non-golden years seasons, it’s possible to find a moment where the show struck oil.

I’ll tell you a little about my history enjoying the show first, because these “5 Worst Episodes” are going to invariably be different from your “5 Worst Episodes.” That’s because every generation over the past 25 years has encountered the show at a different time in their formation as a human being, and that introduction to the show is certainly going to shape how you view the characters, situations, and gags during that time frame. For example, my 5-year-old daughter’s favorite episode is “Lisa Goes Gaga” because she is a huge Lady Gaga fan. Is she wrong? Well yes, because she’s five and therefore stupid. But her 2nd-favorite episode is Mr. Plow. This gives me an intense amount of pride.

I first saw the show in 1993 at the age of 6, and the first episode I ever saw was “Rosebud.” In this episode, Mr. Burns pines for a long-lost teddy bear that is a symbol of his youth and innocence before being adopted by an old billionaire. It was a layered half-hour of TV (roughly 64 layers to be exact), and therefore could be enjoyed by adults and children both. I didn’t realize it, but I had the good fortune of enjoying perfect timing with the show: Over the next several years, I would enjoy the greatest run of televised animation the world has ever seen (or ever will). Countless television shows attempted to match the creative genius the Simpsons had tapped into on a weekly basis, and all of them would fail to be that good for that long. This dysfunctional family had become the exception that proves the rule: 1 in 10,000 shows resonate with the general public in ways that are both the same and different, so you can enjoy a show at the age of 6 or 16 for entirely different and similar reasons. The Simpsons had done that.

But that greatness came with a price: The show’s popularity and sheer dominance of a medium gave it the right to go away on its own terms. And around 1999, the terms became clear: “We are not going away.” Writers came and went, ideas were hit upon again and again, situations that made it a relatable situational comedy became exhausted to the point where the show’s creators were forced into more outlandish scenarios. It was still good, but it didn’t feel like The Simpsons. Not those Simpsons, at least.

It’s crazy to say, but the show has actually been average longer than it was great. Young fans don’t remember the intense level of anticipation you got back in 1996 when 6:55 (Central Time) hit and you were waiting for the seconds to tick away and Danny Elfman’s iconic theme to start. The thrill was incomparable to anything else boob tube-related.

It was good while it lasted, but it couldn’t go on forever. The show could (as we’ve been taught), but not their Mt. Everest stage, Seasons 3-8. The show has gone from average to perfect to great to great-but-inconsistent to pretty good to average to “they renewed it again? How many pictures of Rupert Murdock does Groening have?” Even in these past few seasons (I say they fell off the cliff of “pretty good” around Season 18, and fell out of “average” range soon after The Simpsons Movie came out), though, there have been inspired moments. Moments that reminds you that this show shaped the senses of humor for countless children, young adults, and possibly super-intelligent cyborgs.

Thinking about the five worst episodes in the show’s history reminded me of how great the show was. It was actually a healthy exercise in considering why they were bad: Because they weren’t as good as the best thing I’d ever watched on TV. All shows should be so lucky that their worst is compared to THE best.

(Note: Season 1 is exempt from this list)

5. The Great Money Caper

This had the laziest ending to an episode in the show’s history. I would go with “The Frying Game,” but in Frying Game they at least tried to connect the episode to something. Otto bursting in and yelling “Surf’s up!” is so far beyond my threshold for crummy endings that I wonder if they did it to intentionally get the Internet griping about it.

4. Saddlesore Galactica

A potentially good episode ruined by several missteps: One, the writers began rehashing old episode premises (the Simpsons have had two horses now); two, the idea that jockeys are soulless elves is a direct affront to the elastic reality the Simpsons live within; three, the dialogue and ending are banal at best. Aside from the horse’s exploits as a bad boy, nothing about this episode should have made it past the word document it was typed up in.

3. The Real Housewives of Fat Tony

Good job with all those pop culture references that only appeal to 18-to-34 year olds who watch celebreality television. This was right in the middle of a point in the show where the writers switched between trying to appear smarter than everyone and going after the young hyper-trendy demographic on a weekly basis, often times failing at both.

2. Old Money

The show had not hit its stride on a consistent basis yet, and this is the episode that exhibits Season 2 at its worst. Aside from two moments (two, that’s all), this episode misses completely. Sentimental to be sure, but the show has to have laughs to really make that pathos hit home. Otherwise it’s a drama.

1. Gump Roast

This conversation did not take place, but if we discovered it actually had, I would be surprised zero percent.

(Dan Castalanetta bursts into the writers’ room)

Dan: I’ve done it! I’ve written the perfect script!

Mark Kirkland, staff writer: Dan, please, we’re going over some ideas for an episode where Marge & Homer get framed for an old woman’s murder as part of an elaborate game show.

Dan: That sounds awful.

Mark: It is, but we have to fill 20 more episodes this season one way or another. What’ve you got?

Dan: In my hands, I have the show fans everywhere have been dying to see: A roast of Homer!

*Silence*

John Swartzwelder: … Why?

Dan: Because he’s Homer! The Springfield Friars Club will hold a roast for him and they’ll look back on moments from his hilarious life.

Mark: Wait. It’s a clip show?

Dan: Yeah! And we’ll make sure to use amazing clips in it! People will love it!

Mark: *Grabbing the script and thumbing through it* I’m confused. Where are the jokes?

Dan: In the clips we show!

Mark: So there aren’t any jokes in the actual script you wrote?

Dan: No, that would take away from the clips. Well there’s one joke in it where Moe dresses up like Austin Powers and says “Oh, behave!” It’s hilarious!

Mark: What’s the reason for him doing that?

Dan: … So the clips I want to use are clips we’ve already used in past clip shows, but we’ll throw Kang and Kodos into the main plot to make it different!

John: But Halloween isn’t for months!

Dan: Yeah, people won’t know what hit ‘em! And the amazing part is, I’m in no way embarrassed about anything I’m saying right now!

Dan: I’m calling Matt (Groening, the show’s creator).

*Dan pages Matt Groening, who comes in wearing a Bart shirt that says “Underachiever and Proud of it”*

John: Matt, Dan wants to do a clip show with no jokes that includes a forced Austin Powers reference, Kang and Kodos showing up within the show’s actual canon, a non-funny repetition of laughs from a couple different characters, and… is this a Billy Joel parody?

Dan: *Laughing* you bet it is! And I want them to animate a picture of Homer jumping over a shark… because the show definitely hasn’t done that!

Mark: Matt, please make him stop.

*Silence*

Matt: Are people still buying our DVDs?

John and Mark: Yes.

Matt: Then I love it!

*Matt leaves the room, Dan is smiling while Dana Gould has fashioned a noose out of the other writers’ shoestrings*

*Bosom Buddies’ leanest times refers to “The entirety of Bosom Buddies’ existence.”

ii The Mount Rushmore of TV is: The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, 60 Minutes, and Stressed Eric.

I like to think that I try to do good things for myself, that I try to take care of myself, despite all the evidence to the contrary in the form of beer and high cholesterol foods. But I’ve subjected myself to some real terrible crap through these classic cartoon features. I’m going to try get through the entirety of the most dangerous holiday themed cartoon I could possibly watch and tear to shreds without being driven mad myself. This time, I subject myself to the banality of the He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special.

But Dan, it’s not Christmas, you say. Dan, you missed Christmas by almost three weeks, you say. I know. I did it intentionally. I did it for you.  I managed to miss every single major winter holiday. Nobody deserves to have Christmas/Haunukah/Kwanzaa/Tet or anything else ruined for them.

This came out in 1987, in the middle of a recession, when I expected a robot for Christmas. Not just a robot, but a Rocky 4 fully operational talking servant-bot. So when I was six and this sack of crap aired the same Christmas I didn’t get the wildly unrealistic robot that I had been made to expect because of my lack of understanding of money and my further lack of understanding of the capacities of human technology at the time, my Christmas was entirely ruined. Bear in mind, I was aware of how bad this was, THEN. So seeing it now is….ugh. Basically, if you watch this thing, you’re more or less voluntarily amputating your Christmas spirit, and it will grow back in roughly 11 months, so I’m giving you EXACTLY enough time, for your sake.

Seriously, though?

We’re opening on a city covered in snow, an Eternian city where apparently the first bar of ‘ Happy Birthday’ is an acceptable Christmas song for the ridiculous intergalactic Mannheim Steamroller knockoff they got to produce the music in this special. The supporting cast of b-list, jobber cronies of He-Man and She- Ra are hard at work decorating the palace. ‘Purple would look good up there, Peek-a-blue,’ says the guy with the heart on his chest I don’t remember. He’s got a moustache and a heart on his chest and a gold half shirt that exposes his midrif? What’s his name, Closet-dor? Man-not-out?

The king says he’s been preparing for this festival for days, and then Queen Marlena points out it’s like preparing for Christmas, a very special Earth Holiday. EARTH HOLIDAY. You ask yourself, these people on this planet not only possess high technology, enough to determine where and what Earth is, but also a cultural curiosity enough to think about celebrating it? No, no, no, silly. Marlena, the Queen, is a stranded earth astronaut. No, Not only is she the mother of a magical superbeing imbued with magic and invincible powers of Aryanism, but she’s also a Queen and an alien. The queen of this planet is an alien. It sort of makes Skeletor seem a bit more sympathetic, keeping things Eternian and all.

So after they reuse the same damn shot they used less than a minute ago, we cut to Man at Arms and Adam working on a spacecraft in the Eternian frozen wilderness. It’s referred to by Man-at-Arms as a ‘Skyspy’ to check on Skeletors devious doings. Orco, being an almost unforgivably one dimensional walking accident, manages to not only gain entry to this completely security lacking rocket that Man-at-Arms and Adam built, but manages to turn it on, initiate a take off, and lock out remote controls.

Because theft of death-rocket isn’t a contingency Eternians plan for.

After being pursued by Skeletor, and Two-Bad , He-Man does his best to rescue the errant rocket from it’s disorganized pursuers to no avail. Orco, who’s any move can’t POSSIBLY make things worse, takes the initiative to cast a spell on the rocket, which naturally causes it to malfunction. So Orco ends up hurtling through space, in keeping with Eternian Yule tradition. At this point Orco ends up, where else, but on Earth.

This pisses off Neil Degrasse Tyson like you wouldn’t believe.

LET ME POINT OUT HERE THAT ORCO, THROUGH HIS UNCOMICAL ANTICS, HAS MANAGED TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAVEL TO ANOTHER POPULATED STAR SYSTEM, A PROBLEM PLAGUING EARTH PHYSICISTS AND ASTROBIOLOGISTS AND THEORETICIANS FOR OVER 100 YEARS, COMPLETELY BY ACCIDENT. HE IS THE SIDEKICK OF A MAGIC NAKED ARYAN WITH A SWORD. SUSPEND ALL DISBELIEF.

Let’s not forget that he survives entry into an atmosphere and lands the craft and exits without any damage to himself. Who gives a shit? He hasn’t got any legs.

He sees, and saves two white children ( one of whom is inexplicably named Miguel) who are illegally cutting down and stealing a Christmas Tree from a nature preserve. After using magic to save the kids from a violent avalanche they caused, he calmly and amicably explains he’s a fucking goddamn space alien and his mothershitfucking spacecraft is parked just over that motherfucking hill. The kids come with him, somehow without shitting their pants and passing out.

Hey you kids want to see my spaceship, it’s concealed by magic and sorcery. Don’t let that freak you out.

The kids then sit inside of the space-aliens flying saucer and explains very matter-of-factly that Christmas is a time when greedy consumeristic kids who steal Christmas trees from nature preserves get a whole shitload of presents from their parents who are cruel enough to name a white kid Miguel in the 80′s. The magic of Christmas. They add that that’s not all, but a time for thinking about peace and goodwill toward men’..at least that’s what the angels say.’ says the girl. ‘Now I’m really confused’, says Orco.

Somehow the blue-skinned floating ghost-alien from a planet of naked magic Germanic barbarian supermen and horribly monstrous wizard-ghoul abominations is baffled by the concept of angels and peace.

Meanwhile on Eternia the Queen and Man-at-Arms discover Orco’s on earth, and the only way to power the skyspy back to earth is something he made up that might exist on She-Ra’s bullshit planet.

She-Ra visits one of her ridiculous friends, a Mermaid thing with a breathy drawl, that tells her that she knows where this made up ‘Something Water Crystal’ is. It’s in a cave guarded by the Beast-Monster.

Yep, Beast-Monster. Someone got paid to write that because that was a creative thing they came up with.

No single thing in your life, no matter who you are, is that hollow an accomplishment. Nobody ever said to you, ‘I’ll pay you money to come up with a creative evil thing for a kids cartoon hero to fight’, and you came up with something as phoned in an awful and redundantly uncreative as ‘Beast Monster. Quick, She-Ra, get on your horse-steed you woman-lady, and prepare to fight the Beast-Monster.

She-Ra flies her Lisa Frank Gay Pride Rainbow Unicorn to the planet of the Beast Monster. After she fights alongside Mermista against the Beast Monster to obtain this Water Crystal, there is suddenly a rumbling, to which her here-to-fore silent unicorn Swift-Wind says in a voice as gruffer than a 40 year old alcoholic billy goat, ‘What’s that?’

Tonight, in an abscense of something way gayer to voice it, the part of Swift-Wind the Unicorn will be played by a hungover Edward James Olmos.

Well Commander, here’s your flipping Cylons, what you’re hearing is the sound of your doom:

How the hell are we getting out of this molecule thick membrane of fats suspended by gas pressure?

Next thing you know they discover that the planet pf the beast-monster is also home to robot-androids! Which live in the ground! And are very oddly shaped! And are very powerful, says She-Ra. Robots, we see, that are so powerful that they have powerful lasers that trap unicorns in bubbles.

The robots then inform each other they all need to go to Monstroid Central to prepare for battle.

Monstroid Central?

These monsters are bureaucrats?

‘Welcome to Monstroid Company-Business Central-Headquarters Base-Place. If you’ve got an appointment with the Beast-Monster, queue up and take these paper-forms to fill out, they’ll be collected just prior to your death-murder.’

Aww, I don’t transform into anything.

The 3 Monstroids prepare to transform and roll out. The first, transforms into a rocket, the second, with tank treads, transforms into a tank and blasts off. The third, shaped like a sort of minotaur with machine gun hands, shrugs it’s shoulders, cocks it’s feet into the air and follows the rocket-bot.

She-Ra then uses the power of her sword and an inordinately extravagant roundhouse kick to free herself from the bubble, and make it back to Man-At Arms.

They fire up the transport beam and zap Orco, The sky-spy and the two kids that taught him Jingle Bells back to the center of Eternia.

Meanwhile, on an asteroid, a sinister presence is way pissed off because he has detected the SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS in his midst. No, the magic of Greyskull and the Eternian battle-mages is nothing in comparison to this earth holiday. A robotic hand cloaked in darkness presses a button saying, ‘ Summon Skeletor, and Hordak!’ Which is probably what the button does, making it very unnecessary to yell at it.

I’ll insinuate a homoerotic crush on your arch-enemy all I want, Skeletor!

It informs the two villains that it doesn’t need any more good will on the planet Eternia, and they have to find it and crush it. The two argue about how they will succeed where the other will fail. Hordak utters the line ‘What about the way He-Man handles you, Bone Brain?’ What about it, indeed.

Seriously, who is that guy, and to hell with everything going on in this picture.

Meanwhile on Eternia, the landscape is covered in an idyllic snow of hydrochloric acid, and that one thing with rainbow ears is floating in the air next to Closet-Dor who is now playing a lute. The only job options for young men on Eternia is being Nazi-supermen and or queeny-gay stereotypes. Closet-Dor let’s them know at roughly 22 and a half minutes into the film that it’s the perfect time for his new song. I’m giving you the time, because I want to spare you from having to hear it. The two kids inexplicably know the song, and that’s odd, but that’s all you need to know. You can restart at exactly 23:31. If you sit through the song, seriously, you’re shitting on your own next Christmas. I didn’t ruin it for you.

Oh sick, dude, is that a…dick-copter?

But just then, Hordak shows up in a….is that…is that a dick-copter? Closet-Dor is somehow frozen in place as he readies his bow, and the rest of the crew, kids, Orco, Perfuma, and that one rainbow eared thing,  get tractor beamed into the dick-copter.

Yeah, dude, that’s totally a dick-copter.

As Hordak’s cock-pter attempts to escape to Etheria, it’s violently grabbed out of the air, and jerked around to the ground by one of the Monstroid robots who steal the hostages, and send Hordak and his goon’s away on the Heli-penis.

She-Ra knows the kids are in the ominous sounding ‘Fright Zone’ so she had Peek-A-Blue use her Jodorowsky inspired far-sight to find the kids. She sends He-Man and She-Ra to rescue them, telling them the Man-chines have already gone to find them. Man-chines are basically Smurf robots. Cute, silly, and would be cuddly if not for all the hardened aluminum alloy.

One of them, Cutter, as already caught up to the kids outside their cell and says he can get around the bars to their cell because they don’t call him ‘cutter for nothin!’ No, he takes the snipper hand attachment which looks already perfectly suited to cut through bars, and somehow turns it into a buzz saw. Another Man-chine, with the voice of a retarded Bill Cosby and the body of a big wheel, named Zipper, (who they don’t call Zipper for nothing) whisks them all away from the Monstroids, and then very capably right back into the midst of them.

But He-Man and She-Ra show up in the nick of time, to deliver well timed blows, and ill timed puns. After the battle the realize that their self-satisfied genocide of an entire race of sentient robots is a bit premature, as during their battle, Skeletor made off with the precious Earth kids who carry the power of Christmas inside of them.

Skeletor attempts to outrun Hordak, who, with a laser weapon manages to take down Skeletor’s craft. As he’s about to crash land from incredible heights to certain death, Skeletor shouts that ‘He’ll get (Hordak) for this.’

But Skeletor and the kids survive, crashed on top of a mountain. She children beg the musclebound living skeleton sorceror in front of them to be nice to them, because, after all, it’s Christmas right? Skeletor expresses his disgust as the little girl passes out from hypothermia, and the boy, who is wearing a winter coat, hat, gloves, and a scarf complains to the musclebound living skeleton sorceror who’s purple skin is exposed to the elements because he’s wearing little more than a codpiece and shoulder pads that, ‘We’re so cold!’

I swear they give you an extra long shot of Skeletor just for that to sink in. Skeletor gives in and use his sorcery to give the kids….two slightly thicker coats. He then lets the kids keep the Manchine puppy that had tagged along with them, instead of leaving it to die in the freezing cold. Skeletor is being swayed by the power of Christmas. He’s a necromancer, deathworshiping living skull with muscles like Lou Ferrigno and a goat staff like Anton LaVey and he’s now carrying a robot dog and learning about Christmas. He takes the kids close to Horde Prime, the creepy robot smoke creature that hates Christmas, and is saved, just in time, by He-Man and She-Ra. Or so we think, as Hordak and his robo-minions show up and knock out Skeletor. As He-Man and She-Ra defend against endless robots, the kids run right into the clutches of Horde Prime’s spaceship.

But then, overcome with the spirit of Christmas, Skeletor rouses himself and with a blast of necrotic evil energy, burns up the giant metal spaceship dick Horde Prime was trying to use to capture the kids. After it crashes, He-Man and She-Ra throw the wreckage off of the planet and out if the planet’s orbit.
WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION AS TO WHY ONE OF THEM COULDN’T HAVE JUST THROWN A CRAFT INTO SPACE AFTER ORCO AND COMPLETELY AVOIDED THIS WHOLE STUPID MESS.

As they laugh at the fact that Skeletor (who’s social anxiety disorder makes him prefer feeling evil to pleasant) feeling so kind, the camera fades back to Eternia. As the kids prepare to disembark on a teleport ray back to Earth, Prince Adam give both of the children a flight belt. No way the kids could misuse that shit back on Earth.

I know all about the other world kids! The one where your mom is a princess and I’m a super plumber who fights turtles and eats mushrooms! What? Space sorcerors? What the hell is a Beast-Monster?

When the kids instantly zap, seemingly right into their living room, their parents (apparently Super Mario and Peach) and seem not to have been troubled by their absence at all, and don’t need a single explaination. After all, who gives a shit kid, if you were brought to a planet of barbarians and sorcery and changed the culture by preaching a gospel of love and caring, or if you were abducted by a child molestor who permanently scarred both of your minds so badly that you made up this outlandish story to cover up your pain, it’s Christmas, so don’t bother me with this crap.

This is how you celebrate Christmas? Giving children technology they should never be able to get their hands on?

Ho Ho, Ho. I hope I’ve exacerbated your holiday depression enough. See you soon.

For only $6 you get Adam Cayton-Holland and Andrew Orvedahl of Denver-based Grawlix and fine comics like Zach Peterson, Ian Douglas Terry, Mike Perry, and Ryan De La Garza as well as Alex Carter and Dan Umthun.

All tickets can be obtained at tikly.co/undergroundcomedy

This week the guru of posters and visual art, the master of magic and the bane of future ghost hunters ALEX CARTER takes over as co writer of this weeks classic cartoon critique! Many cartoons have passed his gaze, and many bowls of sugar coated cereal eaten while watching them. His expertise is second to none! ENJOY!

So it’s 1980.  Star Wars has officially hit, Scooby Doo and his band of drug-addled misfits are at the height of their popularity, and Conan the Barbarian and He-Man are in development.  Now imagine all those characters in a Human Centipede.  At the end of that line a cartoon is pooped out.  That cartoon is Thundarr the Barbarian.

Thundarr follows the adventures of its three main characters in a post-apocalyptic world.  First is Princess Ariel, who definitely isn’t Princess Leia.  Second is the titular character Thundarr, who definitely isn’t He-Man, Luke Skywalker, or Conan the Barbarian.  Also, he wields a weapon that IS NOT a light saber.  It’s a “sun sword”.  BIG difference.  And finally, Ookla the Mok, who definitely is NOT a wookie.  He also shouldn’t be confused with Ookla the Accountant.  He’s Ookla the Mok.

To say that Thundarr borrowed heavily from other characters and franchises would be like saying Jerry Sandusky “borrowed heavily” from little boys.  Upon watching several episodes of Thundarr, it becomes very clear that the producers spent upwards of 85% of the writing and development budget on recreational drugs and copyright litigation.

You know what?  I’m making Thundarr sound bad, and it’s not.  This is the laziest kind of cartoon making by committee, which also makes it the best.  This was the Saturday morning cartoons in the 80′s when there was NO call for educational content in children’s programing.  If it wasn’t selling toys, cereal, or candy, then there was no point.

Oddly enough, Thundarr was never a cereal or candy, and wouldn’t have a toy line for another 24 years.  All Thundarr was selling was awesomeness.

So join me now as we examine that awesomeness in Season 2 Episode 7 of Thundarr the Barbarian:  Master of the Stolen Sword.

Each episode of Thundarr starts out with a prologue that explains the world in which we find our characters.  Apparently it the world goes to shit in 1994 when a runaway planet comes between the moon and Earth. I can attest to that I graduated from high school in 1994 and things have gone downhill since then.
The year: 1994. From out of space comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction! Man’s civilization is cast in ruin!

Runaway planet never going back.

(Ed. note: I graduated from high school in 1994 and things have pretty much gone downhill since then, so that holds up.)
Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn.  A strange new world rises from the old: a world of savagery, super science, and sorcery.
Nice job, writers!  You’ll never run out of ideas or have to think too hard when you have created a world that has a veritable buffet of enemies that include everything from werewolves, wizards and witches to mutants, Martians and munchkins.  Anything is possible in the year 3994!
But one man bursts his bonds to fight for justice! With his companions Ookla the Mok
If Hulk Hogan and the Cowardly Lion touched their dicks together and, through super-sorcery had a baby, it would be Ookla the Mok.

and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his courage, and his fabulous Sunsword against the forces of evil.
Goddamn if that Sunsword isn’t fabulous!

He is Thundarr, the Barbarian! NOT to be confused with Conan the Barbarian or He-Man.  Blonde, pageboy haircuts we’re all the rage with barbarian heroes back then!  You don’t even know!!

The episode starts out panning across post-apocalyptic Beverly Hills.  That’s one of the main features of the show – the gang travels across the country (and once inexplicably to London, and once to Central America) on horseback to major cities.  You know what city they are at because when they arrive there, there is a broken down sign of the city’s name.  You know, like all cities have.

A thunder storm rolls in and – get this – the rain and lightning are both RED!
The gang rolls into town.  We hear Ookla roaring, as he does 90% of the time.  And it’s always a very annoyed “Raaaaawwwwaararararrr!!”.  If you could translate it, I am confident that you would find that Ookla is just constantly saying “Fuck this!”

Princess Ariel then announces that they are in the midst of a “nega-storm” and they should find cover immediately.  As they ride their horses they…well, two of them are riding horses.  Ookla is riding something that, while horse-like, is not a horse.  It’s like a horse and some sort of sea creature were spliced together.  And it has a big fat tail.  It’s pretty awesome.  Anyway, the gang is riding through the storm and they almost get hit by the red “negative lightning”. Thundarr exclaims “Lords of Light!” after nearly getting nailed with said negative lightning.

Thundarr has two catch phrases: “Demon dogs!” and “Lords of Light!”.  He also frequently talks about the Lords of Light and prays to them.  So I have to imagine that Thundarr yelling “Lords of Light” would be like us yelling “Jesus Fucking Christ!”.
Thundarr spots what appears to be the three wise men on their way to see Jesus on the road up ahead. Then Ariel spots a giant sky dragon in the air, then Thundarr sees a wizard riding the sky dragon.  Instead of just letting the scene unfold, everything is announced so no one gets lost in the “action”.

Thundarr:  Look!  A caravan of traders!
<cut to 3 dudes on camels>
Princess Ariel:  Look a giant sky dragon in the air!
<cut to giant sky dragon in the air being ridden by a wizard>
Thundarr: With a wizard astride it!
<zoom in on wizard astride it>

Sigh.  I wonder if the writers were so high that they forget they were writing a cartoon and thought it was a radio play?
In any event, the wizard immediately throws a handful of bombs on the camel riders, knocking them all over hell.  Thundarr immediately screams his patented battle cry (Ahhhhhhhh-HEE!) and goes in to fight with his fabulous Sunsword.  Followed by a clearly irritated Ookla.

The wizard, who we learn is named Yando, catches one of the traders.  The trader is an old man who is wearing a tuxedo with tails.  Yando informs him that he must pay tribute to him for entering his domain and he has not.  So “by the ancient masters of abracadabra (???), let my vengeance be done!!”  His vengeance is comprised of a green scarf that comes out of his wrist and begins to magically tie up his very formally dressed victim.

Thundarr ain’t having any of that, and the fighting ensues.  Ookla and Ariel defeat the henchmen, and Thundarr goes after Yando.  And just when Yando was going to see just how goddman fabulous Thundarr’s Sunsword was – Thundarr gets hit with a bolt of negative lightning!!

Now at this point, Thundarr and his buddies are all down for the count.  If you we’re Yando and had writers that weren’t whacked out of their gourds on coke, what would you do?  Why you would dispatch of the whole lot of them and get your goddamn money from these over-dressed idiots on camels.  But that wasn’t the case here.  Yando proclaims “The barbarian is down!” he and his henchmen then proceed to fly away proclaiming “We shall be back!!”Where are they going?  Was the flying sky dragon just a rental and it had to be back?

A weakend Thundarr and his crew travel with their new comrades where they learn about the history of Beverly Hills and Womack, the village scholar talks about how great Yando’s magic is.  Thundarr doesn’t have time for this nonsense for you see, his sunsword was depleted, what with it getting hit by negative lightning and all.  Ariel tells him that there is a magic pool nearby that it just so happens is where he can recharge it!  What are the odds!  Good thing Thundarr didn’t get hit by negative lightning the week before when they we’re battling werewolves in New York!  he’d have been shit out of luck then!

Thundar, Ariel, and a clearly annoyed Ookla ride off to the Power Pond.  Meanwhile Yando has caught wind of this and he and his two flunkies head off to meet Thundarr there.  Yando catches up with Thundarr and unleashes a…I don’t know…giant space grasshopper?  Yes.  Giant space grasshopper.  Thundarr goes rushing in to fight it and realizes his Sunsword is still all limp-dick from the red lightning.  The space grasshopper knocks away the Sunsword and of course Yando flies in and snags it.  As you can imagine, Yando was quite pleased with himself.  Ookla frees Thundar and the crew takes off to the “Pool of Power” where the sword is and, as Ariel says, “So is Yando.  Probably.”

Well said, Ariel.

Sure enough, Yando is down there with the Sunsword.  Here we learn that he who charges the Sunsword is bonded to it!  Didn’t see that coming did you???  Thundarr attempts to fight Yando, but Yando is so bad with the goddamn thing that all he does is knock the ceiling of the cave down on himself.  He drops the Sunsword and flees with his henchmen!  Wow, what action!!

Thundarr finally gets his sword back, charges it and bonds it to himself.  Whew.  Another problem solved by Thundarr and his crew!

But wait?  What’s this?  Yando doesn’t care because he is already created his own sword!  Sooo all of that plot has just been rendered useless?  Ok.  So what is Yando going to call his own magical blade??  Umm.  I don’t want to say.  Please watch this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA6TfvptwMM

Taste the power of your what now?  Are you sure you want to call it that?  Ok then.

So Thundarr goes to battle; he with his fully charged Sunsword versus Yando and his…uhhh N-word sword.  The gang all fight valiantly, but somehow Yando and his African American Sword have……..oh.  “Nega” sword.  As in negative energy.  Gotcha.  Yando and the Nega Sword have got Thundarr hanging from a building.  At this point Ariel notices that his Nega Sword has a couple of power cords on it attached to a car battery that is sitting in his lap.  Wow.  So two thousand years into the apocalypse and this is what passes as technology?  A possibly racist Radio Shack sword?

Ariel yells to Thundar to cut the cords to the battery.  This is where we get another one of Thundarr’s signature moves.  Whenever he doesn’t understand something, which is often, he says the thing he doesn’t understand like he’s just learning English for the first time.  In this instance it’s battery.  “Ba-tah-ry???”.  Holy shit.  Yes Thuundarr, a battery.  Cut the fucking wires!

This of course is the end of Yando’s terrible reign of terror.  He flies off in defeat.  And honestly, if I got beat by Thundarr, I would get the hell out of there in a hurry as well.  That shit is embarrassing.  The gang follows Yando to his lair, which, of course, is the Magic Castle in Hollywood.  Yando makes one last lame attempt at defeating Thundarr by performing magic tricks on them.  For example, he gets Ookla to lay on a table, then makes him disappear.  Yes.

Thundarr and company finally defeat Yando and, in true Scooby-Doo fashion, unmask him to discover Yando was actually Womack the village scholar.  Ariel then exclaimed, “Who else could it have been?!?!”  Who else could it have been indeed.

They hand Womack over to the Villagers of Beverly, who promise that he will be punished.  That’s good enough for Thundarr, and they take off on their horses to who-knows-where (Spoiler Alert: they go to Atlanta and fight a bunch of hillbilly pig-men police officers).

All hail Thuundarr!

THE END!

The second G.I. Joe I got with my meagre allowance in the middle 80′s was a bearded naval ensign named Shipwreck. I don’t remember the first, but I remember the second. I

Enter the thunderdome that is the fractured psyche of Hector Delgado

know it was Shipwreck. For the longest time, he was easily my favorite toy. The best toy ever from a television show that was basically a half hour commercial for toys, American supremacy, and right-wing propaganda for the public acceptance of the relationship of American foreign policy to the military industrial complex. G.I. Joe was easily the funnest form of brainwashing to which the American public willfully subjected itself.

What I forgot, and what I couldn’t know as a child, is just how much the writers of the show must have hated the transparently one note hyper-commercial format they were forced into. Rewatching some of the latter episodes of the series sees a lot of self-referential jabs, comic lampooning of characters and tropes that in some cases the show had created, as well as introducing children to the concept of horrific psychological torture with mind altering hallucinogens and the existential hell that governments and terrorists use them to create. Specifically, the Shipwreck-centric two-part episode ‘There’s no place like Springfield.’

Shipwreck and Lady Jaye find themselves on a jungle island in search of scientist Professor Mulaney who has been shanghai’ed by Cobra (a terrorist organization of unlimited financial and personnel resources with a sketchy mission statement and unclear political leanings) to build a bomb that will make water explode.

How very Cobra of you, Cobra. What won’t you weaponize?

The last part of this very secret formula is, inexplicably but predictably, held inside of ol Mulaney’s noggin. ( Remember kids, all intellectuals are bearded, eccentric, and possibly crazy enough to help terrorist build a bomb. Lesson: Don’t think too much)

Mulaney explains that the rest of the ingredients are at a location called ‘Temple Alpha’, a Cobra base (Remember kids, most terrorists apply religious overtones to their ideology. Lesson: Religion= Terrorism) But Mulaney uses an electronic device to implant the secret final ingredient into Shipwrecks brain.

Sure, you’re under attack and sought after for the secret ingredient you conciously keep in your mind, why not give MORE people the knowledge of how to build a weapon that could destroy the earth and be used by terrorists?

Cobra does precisely what they tend to do, yell Cobra and attack with blue lasers, shooting down the SHARC amphibious aircraft ( yep it’s a thing) that Shipwreck and Lady Jaye attempt to escape in after utterly failing to protect their high profile asset they risked their lives for. While Lady Jaye manages to escape the craft, Shipwreck sinks into the ocean.

Shipwreck, or rather, Hector Delgado (Yes, Shipwreck is a beaner, Mr. Mencia. Write a sketch about it), awakens what seems to be 6 years later to discover that he’s married and has forgotten the last implausibly good 6 years. You know, the six years in which the clumsiest and most confused member of a high profile anti-terrorist organization who is kept on only for his endearing buffoonery and wacky antics not only saves himself at the last minute from certain death but single handedly wins the final battle with Cobra, and himself does what millions of then 6 year olds wanted to do, uppercut Cobra Commander in the faceplate. He also forgot how he managed to marry a woman, buy a house, convince his wife to let him keep a sentient talking parrot in the house, and forgot how he fell off the one story roof trying to install a satellite dish ( Remember kids: Satellite dishes are dangerous to install and often don’t get good reception in the winter or bad weather. Lesson: Stick with basic cable). He also forgot the fact that he named a perfectly innocent daughter ‘Althea’ condemning her to an undeserved life of Art School, Theatre geekery, stripper poles, or possibly all three. Althea Delgado sounds like an alias an art thief would invent, then discard gracefully like wearing a lie made of silk….something.

Althea Delgado sounds like the name of one of Boner’s crushes from Growing Pains.

Althea Delgado sounds like the name of the first female New Mexican congressperson.

Althea Delgado sounds like a form of hibiscus native only to the Catalan region of Spain.

Althea Delgado sounds like the name of one of Jay Manuel’s friends. One of the lesbian fashion designers that wears huge orange framed glasses and shirts covered in acrylic paint.

Althea Delgado sounds EXACTLY like the name Cobra Commander would give a child, if asked.

But I digress. Part one is relatively tame from this point, aside from the instance in which Shipwreck gets face punched by Hawk for mentioning that his new squeeze is a little better looking that the ( now unbeknownst to Shipwreck) now deceased Lady Jaye. Seriously Hawk? You crack a dude you fought alongside with in a dubiously jurisdictional war against a terrorist organization with a bizarre snake related motif, after that guy just had a serious concussion resulting in memory loss? NO, NOT SERIOUSLY.

Why?

BECAUSE IT ISN’T HAWK.

After a series of bad dreams in which he is ruthlessly interrogated by Cobra Commander

Record high temperatures on Temple Alpha

inside of a carwash, Shipwreck goes on walkabout and finds himself at the carwash, face to face with what he thinks is is friend Roadblock, until he melts right before his eyes. After causing an appropriate scene after seeing someone melt, he’s shuttled to jail, which I guess is where you go for insisting someone who melted did, in fact, melt. The guard give him a tuna-fish sandwich which he says is ‘On the house’ as though a county jail was a five star restaurant. But Shipwreck doesn’t get time to ponder this mystery as a single bite from this tuna-fish sandwich, as with any tuna-fish sandwich, renders him unconcious. ( Lesson: Taxpayer-funded tuna-fish is as evil as Cobra)

Shipwreck falls into a pit where he is forced to fight melty-goo copies of four other Joes before they all melt and recombine into a blob of semi-transparent evil which envelops him.

No, lady. Your kids will be perfectly psychologically fine after our show. They'll never have a history of drug abuse, and be productive reasonable members of society. Certainly not stand-up comics, Mrs. Umthun

This is the point probably, in my elementary developmental stages, where I developed a fascination with both reality bending sci-fi and experimentation with hallucinogenic narcotics. I mean, Cobra has stooped to some wacky shit right? Telethons, Toys, food production, but now Cobra has engineered an entire island, a simulacra of a real city full of synthoid people, robots made from animated plastic, to cause….eh…it’s not entirely clear a sense of unease in Shipwreck so he gives up the goods or a false sense of security so he gives up the goods. This is why Cobra doesn’t win. They spend exorbitant amounts of money on a Ricardo Montalban on acid Fantasy Island to get one piece of information from one Mexican-American who just wants to have friends who melt in his mouth, not in his hands. Why spend the cash on R&D to just find the right ingredient if we can make an extravagant Dick-esque nightmare world full of melting pseudopeople?

Part 2 opens with Shipwreck passing out in front of his wife and child after being transported through the sewers by the sentient nightmare blob, and Polly, his bird flies off to inform Shipwreck’s doctor, (who despite being in the presence of the bird is talking to him on a telephone) and then flies into a secret bunker in the car wash, only to cry out ‘COOOOOBRA!’

Oh Cobra, what won’t you corrupt? That’s right, Polly is a synthoid double agent. In a world where your friends are made of Nickelodeon Gak, it shouldn’t be surprising that your best friend is a talking parrot-fleshbot.

Behold, the beak of betrayal.

Under the guise of hospitalizing him, Shipwreck is restrained and brought to the Cobra Wash to be subjected to their torture device, a brain-discombopulator/ bitchin disco light rig.

The Crimson Twins Xamot and Tomax send a Crimson Guard cadet into interrogate the bound Shipwreck with the discomachine, and when unresponsive, they authorize her to set the machine to (gasp) Factor Seven! When the cadet is finally instructed to set the machine to full power, a setting which apparently produces hawk ghosts and spectral demons, Shipwreck and the Cadet pass out after a heated if over emotional exchange.

Cobra makes the reasonable decision, knowing that Shipwreck needs a codeword to remember the formula to place him under a loudspeaker reading, in order, every word in the dictionary. It’s now that I point out that they could have again, saved billions in creating a fake island and just gone ahead with doing this in the first place.

In order to keep him sedated, Shippy is served a nice cup milk, laced with sedatives.

At once, a cartoon bearded man forcing a nurse to drink milk is humorous, and entirely terrifying.

But he’s just a bit too smart for the crosseyed nurse, who he assaults then forces to drink the entirety of his milk while his REAL pet parrot uses a laser to deconstitute the fake Polly.

Do I need to jump in here and remind everyone that this was geared toward children between the ages of 5 and 12 right? Hallucinogens, espionage, assault, existentialism? It’s like Lemmy Caution and Jerry Cornelius had a Mexican-american baby and gave him a parrot. Way too heavy for a kids show.

Shippy- (to Polly)’ How do I know you’re not a fake?’

Polly-(RAWK) ‘Remember that night in Annapolis?’

WHAT?

Yeah, Hasbro, remember that time you implied your characters engaged in illicit sex?

RAWK, Remember that time you put your blunt out in that hookers eyes, then made her smoke bleach after you carved the word DESTRO into her right thigh and left her broken body in the cobana shack at that shitty motel six in Annapolis?

The jig is up for Cobra at this point. Shippy sneaks into the Cobra base and learns Springfield is the aforementioned Temple Alpha, and not only that, he conveniently learns the secrets of the synthoid doubles that have surrounded him. He also finds the room with this partial formula is being kept, and in a moment of brilliance decides he could destroy the formula if only he could make the formula first….wait what?

With Polly’s help and the original codeword he needs, Ship makes the exact formula that Cobra has been waiting for, and leaves it for them.

When cornered though, he dumps the formula into the drain of the island, and once Cobra starts shooting at him, the explosion starts to tear the island apart.

With the Joes on the way and cavalry in tow, Shipwreck makes his way to his fake house to his fake wife and daughter so he can embrace them gently before their demise, only to find the synthoid family packing serious heat ready to gun him down. But at the last second Polly manages to deconstitue the two of them. Yes, to his utter shock, the two members of his family that he never knew were actually synthoids also. Oh come on, Shippy. You didn’t really know them. You should have been more broken up over Roadblock going all Baskin Robbins on you after the carwash. You guys had a history.

He runs out of the burning house to be embraced by the real Scarlett.

Scarlett- Shipwreck, was anything important in there?

Shipwreck- Snif* No. Nothing important. Just a dream…or two.

(Remember boys, you will only find happiness in the arms of plastic dolls, and it’s fleeting. Lesson: Buy all the female G.I. Joes and have an impossible standard of beauty and competence for future women to live up to.)