August 6th
Today is the first day of the August Block of weekly weird articles, and so I'm just going to do a little meta recap if anyone missed June: there will be Artfight articles on Tumblr and I'm abridging some old Kablam articles for some daily articles this month. Also, Miz and Nat have joined the website and will now occasionally have grab bag articles. Also also, I'm working on my second game now that Artfight is over. I think that's everything, and if not, Mouse or Cal will probably correct me.
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August 7th
Today's a Kablam day, and the short I'm talking about is "Dave, Son of Hercules." This toon is about Hercules having trouble connecting to his son Dave, as Dave just wants a normal life but his dad is a Greek demigod. I will say it's not exactly clear if Dave's dad is really Hercules or just a weird guy.
The short was created by Mark Marek, who Also created the Henry and June wrap-arounds. The short is a follow up to Marek's earlier comic series "Hercules: Amongst the North Americans". The biggest difference is the target audience, as the earlier "Hercules" was an adult comic featured in the National Lampoon that depicted Hercules as a fish out of water, living in North America in the 1980's.
[WEBMASTER'S NOTE]: Be careful if you look up Mark Marek online because he coincidently shares his name with the owner of a very very "Not Safe For Life" shock website.
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August 8th
Today is International Cat Day. As I am writing this article I am petting that one semi-stray cat Joey and Cal keep feeding. I don't know what this fluffy little friend's name is but it is the cutest orange tabby.
[ASSOCIATE'S NOTE: We named the little bugger Brak]
Archeologists believe that cats domesticated themselves. Unlike dogs and livestock, where humans started keeping wild animals and breeding for friendliness and other traits; cats were said to have just shown up on farms to eat small animals that would eat the farmers' crops. Likewise the cats would be allowed to stay on property without intervention and eventually they got comfortable enough to come into people's homes and hearts.
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August 9th
Today is a grab bag article, and It's from Cal
Hello world, it's Calexta and I have created a monster. Ok so since I've moved into the Finch house me and Joey have been watching shows together, and if I think Tom would like it I show it to him. So after a rewatch with Joey and an "I've been meaning to watch it, I like all the clips I've seen but never found a good time to watch it" from Tom, we ended up watching "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" (plus Cartoon Planet, The Brak Show, a little Aqua Teen, and a number of Toonami bumpers) together. And I swear the show melted his brain. He's in full hyperfixation mode. I love seeing him so dorky and happy.
Anyway that's only kinda half of what this article is about, because in nerd trivia land "Don't cross the streams" need not apply. Ok while looking online for space ghost stuff, you will see comparisons between the show and Homestar Runner, which is already Tom's go to cartoon for a while. And aside from the fact they were both limited animation series produced in Atlanta with surreal humor and They Might Be Giants and everything, but I have a specific point I'd like to address.
In particular I've seen people point out that Brak and Homestar sound alike, and even if Brak plausibly influenced Homestar, there's a je ne sais quoi that can't be chalked up to a simple impression. These characters have the exact same accent. And I think I know why.
Brack is Voiced by Andy Merrill and Homestar is Voiced by Matt Chapman, and both men are writers voice actors who moved from the Midwest to the Atlanta area, and both have decided the development of their own character's voice as "I was just trying to do a silly stupid guy voice". So I think that if you put a Midwestern guy in Georgia and ask him to voice a stupid guy that what comes out. Anyway if you are fans of both voice actors you can rest easy knowing that they both did voicework on the series finale for Gravity Falls. Thank you Alex Hirsch or whomever pulled that one.
[WEBMASTER'S NOTE: I have been listening to space ghost interviews lately and I'd like to add to this speculation that Merrill and The Chaps have very similar natural speaking voices. Like it's to the point that if you told me they were cousins or something I'd believe you. it's very distracting]
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August 10th
Today is National Lazy Day. So I'm going to be lazy and not finish this article. Yes I think I'm hilarious.
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August 11th
Today is the birthday of the TV show Rugrats. Rugrats is a show about babies created by Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó, and Paul Germain and famously animated by Klasky and Csupó's "Klasky Csupo" animation studio. Rugrats was the biggest cartoon Nickelodeon had until SpongeBob came along,
I didn't really know what I was going to talk about in this article until I learned something interesting about the show's style. The series pilot direction, first intro direction and initial charter designs were done by famed animator Peter Chung of Æon Flux fame. While this absolutely explains a lot about everything if you know about Rugrats and Æon Flux, I can honestly say I've never thought about Rugrats long enouth to look it up before. I'm more of a Rocko's Modern Life guy myself.
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August 12th
Today is Middle Child Day and I'm technically one of those by 11 minutes. If it wasn't for the standard length of a standard US Television animation segment I would have been an oldest child. I'm okay being the middle child. Just like Wacko Warner and Malcolm. You know Malcolm. They Might Be Giants did his theme song and they gave Flansy a medal for it.
You know what, let me talk about that because it's pretty interesting. "Boss of Me" was actually the first time a TV show theme song won the "Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media". Flansburgh contributes this win to all the other nominees being underwhelming. The other nominees were:
"A Love Before Time" from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "My Funny Friend And Me" from "The Emperor's New Groove", "Win" from "Men of Honor" and "There You'll Be" from "Pearl Harbor". I've only seen one of those movies, The Emperor's New Groove, and I don't remember the song it was nominated for being in that movie. I've seen it in the last year. Regardless, They Might Be Giants needs to write more theme songs.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Funny story about that. “My Funny Friend And Me” was a song written by Sting for the film back when it was the traditional Disney musical Kingdom of the Sun. When executive meddling neutered the project into the wildly different but still outstanding The Emperor’s New Groove, the song was relegated to the closing credits. Now go watch The Sweatbox.]