Author: artofthecartoon

Bootleg Classics: The Simpsons “Homer at the Bat”

| artofthecartoon

Awww Yes… Players have reported to spring training and baseball season is about to begin. With Griffey Jr. returning to the Mariners, I thought it would be fitting to have this Bootleg Classic dedicated to one of Griffey’s greatest guest starring roles ever. Even though baseball is tainted at the moment, and because of the “steroid era” we’ll probably never feel the same about baseball ever again, this Bootleg Classic takes you back to a time when baseball seemed as genuine as Griffey’s smile on his Upper Deck rookie card.

The Simpsons “Homer at the Bat” 1992 (originally aired Feb. 20, 1992…17 years ago!)

homerathtebatBackground:

Do I really need to do a background on The Simpsons? It is one of the most influential animated programs in the history of cartoons. So influential that folks have written books on the Simpsons’ effect on society. So I am going to assume everyone knows about the misadventures of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson, as well as the other loveable townfolk of Springfield.

The Episode:

Homer and the other Power Plant workers sign up for their work’s softball team. Thanks to Homer’s homemade bat, the Power Plant goes undefeated and makes it to the championship game vs. the Shelbyville Nuclear Power Plant. Mr. Burns (owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant) makes a million dollar bet with the owner of the Shelbyville Power Plant that his team will win. In order to secure victory, Mr. Burns hires 9 Major League players: Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Ken Griffey, Jr., Steve Sax, Ozzie Smith, José Canseco, Don Mattingly, Darryl Strawberry and Mike Scioscia, so they can play for the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant softball team.

Hilarity ensues…

(Hit the Jump to find out what makes this episode a Bootleg Classic)

Continue reading →

Racist(?) Cartoon

| artofthecartoon

I feel like I have to say something about this:

delonas
New York Post, Feb. 18, 2009. Sean Delonas

So the article compared the The Killer Chimp from Stamford to the author of the new Stimulus Bill…

(sigh…) 

I can see the racial allusions…I really don’t think the artist meant anything, but that doesn’t excuse anything! 

(shakes head in disappointment)

I don’t really want to get into this, but I will say that there are a lot of folks that are mad about this and I don’t blame them. All over a little cartoon!

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the power and the Art of the Cartoon (see what I did there). 

This issue deserves a longer post (and rant) in the future… stay tuned…

He’s Back!

| artofthecartoon

Ken Griffey Jr. is returning to my hometown Seattle Mariners. I’m excited! I have a treat for folks tomorrow, but in the meantime, I present to you, what was, in my opinion, the best looking baseball video game in 1994. 

Welcome Back Junior!

Review: Coraline 3D

| artofthecartoon

Coraline/ dir. Henry Selick/ 2009

coraline-movie-poster-1Being an animation student has inspired me to see anything and almost everything animated. I’ve known about Coraline for a couple of months, and I really wanted to see it when it first came out on February 6. I mean how can you go wrong with the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and based on a novel by Neil Gaiman! Here’s the trailer that got me hooked:

Life gets in the way many times and I didn’t get a chance to see it that opening weekend. I heard that the box office numbers for that opening weekend weren’t as big as LAIKA (the animation studio that produced the film) hoped for. And that a dismal showing of this film could spell doom for this Portland , OR based company. I made it a point to see the film, even if I was by my lonesome. Luckily that didn’t happen. Many thanks to the cutest newlyweds in Seattle (maybe a lil too cute), Daps and Cherry, for a journey that started with brunch, went through Coraline and a trip to Fry’s Electronics, and ended with Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations: Philiippines. (BTW, “Best Pig Ever” according to Anthony Bourdain…that’s high praise). 

On to the actual review: WOW…(hit the jump to continue): Continue reading →

The NEW Devastator

| artofthecartoon

Devastator was the first “combiner” transformer. It took six constructicons combined to make the dreaded Devastator. I was excited when I heard they were bringing the combiner Devastator (as opposed to the stupid tank from the first live-action Transformers) to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Here is comparison of the original Devastator and the movie version (thanks to Gizmodo).

devastator2009

My first reaction…eh….

We’ll have to see if this NEW Devastator is going to rock. My nostalgia for the original overbears my critical judgment on this matter. I will always treasure the original G1 designs. But lest I point out, many folks were critical of the first live-action Transformers designs, and I have to say they turned out pretty well. I’m going to have to trust the animators on this Devastator thing, so I’ll hold off judgment.

What do you think?

Love

| artofthecartoon

I hope Valentine’s Day went well for most. Everyone has posted this video to death, so I think I’ll join in as well. It makes sense for Love Day, plus Bambu is in it…

Love – Greyboy feat Nino Moschella/ dir. Patricio Ginelsa/ 2009

Hit the jump to see the video:

Continue reading →

Inang…

| artofthecartoon

scan10015It has been a little over a year since my Inang (ilokano for grandma) passed. Her passing obviously saddened me at the time, but since I was so busy with the many things happening in my life at the time, the impact of her loss didn’t hit me until a month or so later, where I almost broke down at an Arts Kollective meeting.

My Inang was responsible for raising me until I was about 4 years old and I visited her in San Diego every summer after that until I was teenager. She had a big hand in making me what I am today. Here’s the thing though and I never noticed this before until just recently, but reflecting back one year later, her passing represented a huge paradigm shift in my life. Ever since my Inang’s passing, here’s a partial list of things I have done/ accomplished

  • 222 Show
  • Had an art piece in a gallery/ exhibition space
  • Established a brand new department at the Wing Luke…Visitor Services
  • Hired 4 new staff
  • Opened a brand new museum
  • Partied in Vegas (or maybe I didn’t….shhh!)
  • Lost a couple of pounds
  • Completed 2 marathons
  • Had 2 art pieces auctioned off
  • New clothes/ New Image
  • Went back to school
  • Started a new blog…=P

Okay so back on topic (I have a hard time doing that sometimes), this is a blog on animation and cartoons and the like, what does my Inang’s passing have to do with cartoons? Well, here is the painting(s) I did for the Sarili Cycle exhibition. It was entitled “Homage to the Fallen” and it was inspired by the passing of my Inang:

img_04061

Can you see the cartoon/ animation influence?

dscn0524

Rest now Inang. I may have just focused on your influence on MY life in the past couple of words, but I hope you also know that you had influence and love for many countless others as well.

I’m starting to ball, so I better end this…

NBA on NBC (1990-2002)

| artofthecartoon

Animation and sports. I don’t think folks realize the importance of one on the other, especially in the television broadcast world. But let’s be real, many times the intro animations set-up the game. And a great set-up can be the difference from a good game and a great game.

In my humble opinion, the hands down greatest animated intro was the NBA on NBC from 1990 – 2002. Check out out their intro to the 1998 NBA Finals:

From the highlighting of the NBC logo, to the sliding NBA logo, all the way to brushed aluminum background, the animation for this sequence was beautifully done (I wish I knew who the designers and animators were). And to this day, no intro from the other networks (NBA on ESPN, NBA on TNT, MLB on FOX, NFL on FOX, NFL on CBS, NFL on NBC, etc…) has given me that WOW factor.

It isn’t all about the animation though (blasphemy, this is an animation blog..), what really makes the NBA on NBC’s intro shine is the sum of all the parts: the Bob Costas voiceover, the montage of previous games’ (heavily filtered) highlight clips, and of course the best network sports theme ever, “Roundball Rock” and it was composed by John Tesh of all people. The best example of the complete intro was game 6 of the 1993 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns. Check it out:

Alright, the real reason I’m reminiscing is because football season is officially over. The Mariners don’t play an actual game until April (Spring Training does not count and by all accounts the Mariners are going to suck this year). And the Seattle Supersonics are no longer here (no comment), so there is no NBA for Seattle…

But we do have this:

Once again, greatest animated sports intro…EVER!

PS: Enough time has passed, we can officially add Delonte West and Danny Fortson to the list of obscure Seattle Sonic players…

EDIT 2/11/09: BOO on youtube user TRJ22487, who has disabled the embed feature on the Bulls vs. Suns, and Bulls vs. Sonics intro videos. It’s all good though, just double click on the videos to get directly to the youtube feed.

EDIT 2/13/09: THANK YOU BILL SIMMONS! Thanks to the sports guy, Bill Simmons, from ESPN.com, for introducing me to this clip of John Tesh performing “Roundball Rock” LIVE! The set-up is classic, John Tesh humming the theme on his answering machine, and it ends with some sick violin vs. guitar action. YOU READ RIGHT!

Set the VCR: Here Comes The Ambulance! (Madden 92)

| artofthecartoon

This new segment in the blog goes over the moments in cartoon history that have to be recorded and seen over and over. Since I am old school and remember the VCR days (when setting the VCR took a whole day’s work), I am calling this segment “Set the VCR.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

There is still time in 2009 to talk  football. Now folks now-a-days are spoiled with the  current “Madden NFL” series. The player models are looking more realistic with every passing year. The old school football game to go to will ALWAYS be Tecmo Bowl, but Madden 92 was the first to really bring the realism (and humor) of football to my eyes.

john_madden_football_92_gen_screenshot11

Background

Before Madden, Video Game football was not too realistic. Bo Jackson could potentially zig zag his way to score on every play in Tecmo, and there was always one play where no matter what, you could score (cough..flea flicker). I mean Tecmo only had like 4 plays! You could just mash buttons and play decently.

Playing Madden 92 for the first time was actually like football in that you had to know what the fuck you were doing. When I first played Madden I hated it because everything seemed so complicated (look at Madden now though…you need a degree to play that game). As I kept playing and getting used to the game, I started seeing how realistic this game was compared to Tecmo. 

And then the “Set the VCR” moment came that totally made me fall in love with the game…

Set the VCR

I was playing as the Seahawks (obviously)  against the (then LA) Raiders. My QB, Dan McGwire (aka QB #10) dropped back looking for a deep pass to Brian Blades (aka WR#89). Suddenly Howie Long from the Raiders (aka DE #75) came off the edge and totally blasted my QB. The game told me QB #10 was injured. Then something shocking and at the same time hilarious happened…

An ambulance came from nowhere and ran over 6 more players!!!

Don’t believe me, watch the ambulance montage in this clip:

The Impact

Ok so after that, I wanted to see someone get injured on every play! Not only was it the first time I saw a video game ambulance drive onto the field, the programmers and animators saw it fit that they add a little more realism and run over other players that was in the ambulance’s way (bravo, now that is art!). 

To me, this was a new path for video game sports. Madden 92 obviously started a franchise that is booming today. It even helped start a franchise based on absurd & hilarious Video game  violence (NFL BLitz). I don’t think its a stretch to say that Madden 92 helped pioneer the sports video games of 2009. However, they took out the ambulance around 1994 (bad move), and to this day I wish it would make a return. I know it won’t because the NFL (No Fun League) has Darth Vader Force Choke on violence in any NFL License video game. 

But for know, I’ll Set the VCR one more time…

HERE COMES THE AMBULANCE!!!

PS: Inspired by Chad Cocelmo’s The Memory Card on the Destructoid Blog.