shadokitty

As part of my cartoon marathon I just watched my first ever episode of Naruto, on Cartoon Network. It's too early to make a judgment call on how I like it however.

shadokitty

I plan to watch cartoons all day today, so when I woke up, I started with an episode of MASK. It was about VENOM making giant vines grow in L.A..

mrcellophane

Yesterday evening, I went out to dinner with my sister and brother-in-law, and then we played some new board games. I got home rather late, but decided to pop in The Croods. I'd forgotten just how adorable and enjoyable the film is. The animal and character designs are so inventive. I especially love the owl bear and the land whales. However, Belt the utility sloth is my favorite; I have a plush Belt that hangs on my desk lamp, and a friend made me a clay Belt figurine. I'm usually not a fan of animal sidekicks in cartoons, but Belt is enduring but not grating.



He's just so darn cute!

shadokitty

After finishing Disc One of Volume Three of MASK, I decided on a change of pace, and popped in Schoolhouse Rock. I just finished 'Conjunction Junction'.

shadokitty

I think I'm gonna look for something on TV, cartoon or otherwise right now. I'm stuck. Maybe a documentary or outdoor show.

BobO'Link

I officially started by watching the first 6 episodes of Cowboy Bebop. I'm finding few similarities to Firefly - maybe I misread comments and they were more of a "If you like Firefly then you'll probably like Cowboy Bebop" type and *not* that it's *similar* to Firefly. The only "similarities" I've noticed are that both are in a somewhat distopian future. The animators *do* appear to have stolen a few imagery items from Babylon 5 and other classic SF programs.

So far it's "OK" but had I watched a few episodes first I'd probably have not made the purchase as it's really not my type of program. It seems to be all about a bounty hunter who's a martial arts expert and his buddy and the "deals" they make to stay somewhat solvent. I must admit the animation is excellent, if you discount the Japanese tendancy of everyone having a sharply pointed nose. At least everyone doesn't have those "doe eyes" that are so popular in that culture. The open theme is simply awesome. I wish the show were as exciting.

I watched a few episodes while switching back and forth from English to Japanese language and think this *may* have been produced with English speakers in mind as the lip sync, which is always somewhat iffy in anamation, seems to match better with the English track. I've also been watching with subtitles on and think the English audio track tells a more cohesive story than you get by reading the subtitles - there are *frequent* differences in what is being said.

I'll finish the set but it's not something I'm in a hurry to do. I'd show it to my grandson to see if he likes it but there's more profanity than I'm comfortable with for a 11 year old.

shadokitty

In a better mood now, so watching cartoons again. I just finished an episode of Superman: TAS on Amazon Prime, 'Knight Time', in which Superman masqueraded as Batman.

LJG765

I watched The Lorax today. Not my first watch, but it's been long enough that I had forgotten some of the elements, like how long the Onceler takes to tell his story. I love the colors of this movie. The trees, fish, birds...very pretty. The music is fun, though I really like the last song the best. Just very catchy.

I noticed that my DVR was filling up, so I spent most of the rest of the night just watching things off that to get me some more room, but I have a small stack of animation already picked out and ready to go. I remembered that I was only partially through the Pink Panther set I picked up a couple years ago, so I really want to finish that this month. Plan on starting that tomorrow.

shadokitty

I'm doing a free seven day trial of a Roku channel with a lot of newer animated movies called Istreamitall.

Since I woke up in the middle of the night, decided to watch some cartoons. Just finished another episode of MASK. That theme song really sticks in my head.

N8 Storm

M.A.S.K. has one of my favorite theme songs. 80s cartoons had some great ones.

mrcellophane

Yesterday, I finished up Cowboy Bebop and enjoyed the series, especially the later episodes. It reminded me of Firefly since both overtly meld science fiction and westerns. Both get a lot of mileage out of adapting western plots and genre conventions with spaceships. While Cowboy Bebop didn't hit me on the same level as Wolf's Rain or Fullmetal Alchemist, some of the episodes made me contemplative and emotional.

Last night, I popped in a disc of American Dad!, my favorite Seth MacFarlane cartoon. The series refines MacFarlane's humor and features more complex characters.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I started going through Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 1. I'd planned on watching it sometime but one thing that always held me back was the movie. I never thought it was that good. The show is much better so far.

wishbone

I started Cowboy Bebop this weekend and I have been enjoying it so far. The backstories are starting to pick up and hopefully build toward a satisfying conclusion. As already stated the soundtrack is very good. I will watch the movie once the series is done.

Ash Ketchum

One of the strengths of Cowboy Bebop is that no two episodes are alike. Some are dark and melancholic, some are light and funny. There's some social satire in them, numerous pop-cult references, and some noir-like plots. And the music style changes in every episode. I remember going to hear the director speak at the Big Apple Anime Festival back in 2002 (in NYC) and he told the audience, "I've seen more classic Hollywood films than you have," evidently referring to the vast majority of much younger audience members there and not to an old movie-saturated fart like me.

LJG765

It's kind of funny that you all are mentioning Cowboy Bebop. I went through one of the animation lists over at Icheckmovies and ordered as many of the last ones I haven't watched as my library had (about 5-6 of them), which of course, included Cowboy Bebop. I'm hoping I can just watch without having to watch the series...if not, I'll be very confused!

BobO'Link

Based on the 12 episodes I've now seen I doubt you'll be confused. There seems to be little "continuing" story involved. While there are a few characters that show up in more than one episode, and have a bit of history with the main character, I think you could easily drop in the middle and not miss a beat.

Where I am in the series they've just added the character "Ed," whom I find to be incredibly annoying. It's the character type (frantic/bouncing around/over the top "comic relief" antics) that completely turns me off most Japanimation series and the character has the requisite artwork/animation to match (another turn off for me). What I've read about the movie indicates "Ed" is in it as well and that the film takes place sometime before the last few episodes of the series. That means Ed is in most, if not all of the last group of episodes. If so, I'm hoping the character is played down in the series. If not I'm in for a rough time during those final episodes.

shadokitty

I just reached the halfway point of MASK, having finished volume three of six. I'm enjoying the show, but haven't decided yet if I'll continue, or take a break to watch something else.

Ash Ketchum

At the Big Apple Anime Festival in 2002, I attended a Cowboy Bebop panel at which the director, Shinichiro Watanabe, and the composer, Yoko Kanno, along with other key personnel, appeared. Watanabe made it clear, in a very cleverly told anecdote, that the character of Ed was based on Ms. Kanno and she turned away from the panel in embarrassment as everyone laughed.

I hope you're watching it in Japanese and not English, because I found Ed very funny.

coyoteblue

Just bought the The Mr. Magoo Theatrical Collection (1949-1959). Looking forward to cracking the set and sampling some Mr Magoo shorts. It also includes the 1001 Arabian Nights (1959) movie. I'll be picking up the Mr. Magoo: The Television Collection, 1960-1977, eventually (eventually being when the set drops to a price I like).

Hmmm, for next year's check list, maybe we could have an actors list, with voice actors like Jim Backus, Mel Blanc, June Foray, Dan Castellaneta, Jim Cummings, Ed Asner, Maurice LaMarche, etc...

Ash Ketchum

...and Megumi Hayashibara, the voice of Faye Valentine in "Cowboy Bebop"...



...and Lina Inverse in "Slayers" and the main character in PAPRIKA and a million other things. Plus she's my favorite singer in the world.

coyoteblue

I concur. It wouldn't be a proper list without her.

mrcellophane

That sounds like a very entertaining panel! I watched the English dub of Cowboy Bebop, and I thought the English cast did a good job capturing the characters, especially Beau Billingslea as Jet and Wendee Lee as Faye. I'm planning to watching the series in Japanese soon, perhaps later this month. There's too many visual nods to classic films and different genres to get with one viewing.

mrcellophane

I started watching The Legend of Korra yesterday, and it is addictive. I'll probably finish the first season today and will have to pace myself when it comes to the rest of the series. Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of my favorite series, and while different and darker in tone, the update utilizes the world built in the original series in surprising and nuanced ways. Obviously, steampunk and its aesthetics are an inspiration, and the series expertly melds the 1920s with the fantasy world.

Warning: possible spoilers:

shadokitty

I just finished my first movie of the challenge. I was in the mood for some stop motion, so dug out my copy of the original 1933 King Kong. I'd forgotten how much of the movie is on a lost world. The movie still holds up today too.

LJG765

Thanks! I meant to do this earlier, but I added them to the first post so people have them listed a little easier.

You know, I thought about this a few days ago. I was going through the sci-fi one and wondered if an animation one would be feasible. Then, I thought about the fact that more recently most of the actors now are more famous live action actors that usually do just one or two well known characters (Mike Myers-Shrek, Steve Carrell-Gru). But you have a nice core group. It's not like these have to be a long list of people. It's too late for this year's, for sure, but it'd be nice to have something ready for next August. Are there any other names that interest people?

It's always good to have a diverse group of actors/actresses. Any others you can think of?

I'll add these to the first post as people suggest them so next year we can just add any new ones people think of and don't have to redo the whole selection process.