Weekly Weird: June 11th-17th (Supermen, Anti-Piracy Confusion, Spliced! and No!)

June 11th

Today is the anniversary of They Might Be Giants first children's album, "No!". Now TMBG is kinda weird because aside from being an indie rock band that loves singing about death, sour romances, and hating your boss, they make rock music for kids. With the expectation of their first and latest childrens albums, most of their children's music, including the theme songs for "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" and "Higglytown Heroes", were made for the Disney company. However, we are talking about that first kids album today.

Aside from the whole “being for kids” thing, No is also known for coming with an interactive flash site that has simple yet stylish sing along music video animations for each song on the album. It is achieved here ( https://jonuleis.com/tmbgno/ ), and I recommend checking it out if you need a website with music for little kids or you just like TMBG or graphic design. It's up to you.

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June 12th

Today is dedicated to pop culture's favorite Superhero, Superman. Everyone kinda knows superman. He's DC’s flying brick who landed on earth after his planet blew up and now he fights other aliens and business people and sells you fruit pies.

Few people know about Superman's true origins. Before he hit comics, he was the titular character of a sci fi short story where he was a far more antagonistic figure. Written and illustrated by the same Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster who would later create the superhero everyone knows today. This was the story of Bill Dunn, a homeless man given incredible powers by a chemist named Ernest Smalley. Dunn would instantly use his powers for evil, killing Smalley and planning to take over the world. However, Dunn would quickly learn his powers were only temporary and with Smalley dead, he was once again just some guy and he returned to life in poverty.

After the first story Siegel and Shuster decided a heroic superman would probably be fun to write about and, following a bad first draft Shuster set on fire, they created a better second draft for Detective Comics (now just DC) that ended up featured in Action Comics 1#, and the rest is history.

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June 13th

Today is the anniversary of the first time "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" aired as its own TV show. Previously to this day in 2003, the show was half of the "Grim & Evil" package show that had been running for two years. But today marks Billy and Mandy becoming its own TV show without its sister series Evil Con Carne.

Billy and Mandy was actually the other show to win the Big Pick Weekend the year before Codename Kids Next Door, as I talked about back in December. Funny enough, both series ended up having a crossover special where both shows' characters end up fighting each other. Also, I need everyone to know the series creator Maxwell Atoms has stated all three of the series main characters are on the spectrum like he is, so that makes Grim Adventures the only media I know of where Death has Autism and a Jamaican accent. We need more of that energy in the world.

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June 14th

Today is Strawberry Shortcake Day, and yes, I'm going to talk about the doll cartoon card character. I have a twin sister, and my parents were already ignoring the gender labeling on kids products when I was a kid, so I can say I grew up with miss Shortcake. In particular, my sister had the Princess Strawberry Shortcake DVD we used to watch on roadtrips. To deviate from the topic further, I'm going to talk about what I remember the best from that DVD.

There was this anti-piracy PSA in the 2000's that was like "you wouldn't steal a car, piracy is illegal too". The thing is this PSA was the first time I heard about media piracy and I just found it very confusing as a kid. My best guess at the time was that it was a trailer for a movie about a girl getting into a crime ring after getting a virus on her computer. Now I think piracy is almost always a good thing in the big scheme of things. Thank you Strawberry Shortcake.

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June 15th

Today is the anniversary of one of the best Disney television animation shows ever made, first hitting the airwaves and making people "believe in mysterious". Gravity Falls, created by Alex Hirsch, is a 2012 cartoon about twins Dipper and Mabel Pines spending the summer in the series titular town with their Great Uncle Stan. And a lot of paranormal stuff happens where the twins end up having to save themselves, their family, and even the world.

Also my semi-obscure homestar runner reference in the first paragraph wasn't random. Matt Chapman was a writer on the series and voiced a number of characters including Soos grandma. According to insider sources (read: TV's Kyle on a podcast) Chapman was invited on the show because Hirsch is just a massive Homestar Runner fan. Alex has since appeared onsite in a Sbemail easter egg, so he really went all the way in the ascended fanboy department.

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June 16th

Today is fresh veggies day and I'm here to tell you to eat your veggies. But seriously, if you don't eat enough vegetables and you have the option, I encourage everyone to try or retry a vegetable today. There's something for everyone, but I personally recommend carrots.

One thing about vegetables in particular that bugs me is people seem to believe it exists in a mutually exclusive binary with fruit. Fruit is a botanical classification for a variety of edible seed vessels . Vegetables are a culinary concept that savory, plant based ingredients should be categorized together. Why did people decide there couldn't be any overlap in these groups? Tomatoes, Pumpkins, Peppers, Avocado, cucumbers and various squashes fit well into both groups, and you'll see people debate the status of a lot of these as fruits or vegetables. It Seems clear to me that tomatoes are both fruits and vegetables at the same time. My wisdom for today is to question the stability of binaries because things are so rarely as simple as they look at a glance. Also make sure to eat your veggies if you can.

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June 17th

Today is a grab bag day, so I'm going to pass it on to Kevin.

Heya bud! Its Kevin again.

Today i'm writing about an obscure canadian-animated late 2000s show called Spliced! The show was a loose adaptation of the H. G Wells science fiction novel ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’, where the mad doctor would do many DNA mixing experiments. In the show canon, Dr. Moreau was arrested for what I assume is crimes against nature, resulting in all of his mixed up creations being left to their own devices on Keep Away Island. It ran from September 19, 2009 to March 13, 2010 with only one season.

The two main leads, Peri and Entree, are your typical dumb main characters who’s shenanigans create the plot. Of course, everybody is a mix of two or more different animals (minus the platypus, whos the token normal one) which creates interesting character designs. Some are more obvious with their inspirations, such as Entree being a blend of commonly eaten animals such as pigs and cows. Others are more abstract like Peri, who is believed to be half fox half squid (yet that has never been confirmed) or Fuzzy Snuggums (nobody knows what he is- all we know is that he was apparently created to be a super soldier?).

Almost everyone has a presumed role on the island, especially now since they were left to govern themselves. Theres two-legs Joe, who is 90% Rhino and 10% bird, a very ill-tempered man who made himself the mayor of Keep Away Island. Theres also Mister Smarty Pants, a half dolphin half chimpanzee (and apparently a little bit of a jack russell terrier?), the main antagonist who paints himself as the smartest creature on the island, and is also the best character in the entire show. He often dresses in drag for presumably no other reason than his own joy, even goes on to say something along the lines of ‘No this isnt an excuse to wear a dress’ in one episode. It doesnt even play into transphobic tropes like you would expect, this behavior is completely normalized to everyone else on the island. Very based.

As you can probably guess by now, the show has that distinct flavor of canadian weirdness with its sense of humor and plot ideas. The humor itself is very fast paced and sometimes has a pseudo-improv dialogue flair with how some lines are delivered. The pacing can be a lot though as it can be easy to get lost if you aren’t completely glued to the screen as things happen. The art style still maintains influences from earlier 2000s shows with mildly thick outlines and strong silhouettes, although not as bold. It can also be very smooth at times for it being early tv flash animation.

This article was actually very hard for me to write because despite only running for one season and the episodes themselves being fairly short in runtime, there is just so much to unpack and it would be a disservice to attempt to describe all the oddities beat for beat. If you’re able to track it down somewhere, I highly recommend it. Bear in mind that it is a mid/late 2000s kids cartoon so expect some gross-out humor. Otherwise its a really fun time!

I really wish it lasted for at least another season, because it had a lot of potential.