Show #206: Space Jam

Before it's New Legacy dunked our collective brains 25 years later Space Jam was pioneering new and innovative ways to exploit our most merchandisable popular culture figures. With an existing working relationship Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan teamed up on the basketball court in a baffling display that somehow netted an adoring following, inspiring fashion designers, music mash-ups and salacious art for decades to come. Does the original squad still have the stuff to take it to the hoop though? Athletic actors and the genesis of the green-screen cinematic wasteland also get some play, with a Post-Podcast Repaste that's guaranteed to put you back in winning form.

COME ON AND SLAM!

Drawn Or Alive #6: The Addams Family VS The Addams Family VS The Addams Family VS The Addams Family

It's a monster sized edition of Drawn Or Alive as four seperate branches of The Addams Family jostle for rightful inheritance to their creator's legacy! The first live-action adaptation from 1964, and the first screen version to boot, dances a deadly tango with Hanna Barbera's 1973 effort, the dearly beloved movie from 1991 and the second go from ol' HB inspired by that same movie in 1992. It's a family feud like no other; they may all be Addams, but only one gets the seat at the head of the table!

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Show #205: The Venture Brothers Series 4 and 5

Our boys have grown up so much! And that's just us going off on a longer-than-expected tear about the Venture Brothers when we thought we had the measure of them. Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer saw that coming though, proceeding to sweep aside sizeable swathes of their world of aimless adventurers and vacuous villains to allow something new to grow. It was a tough row to hoe for both the creators and the fans incensed at the change, but did all their hard work pay off? Teenage rebellion, the sins of the fathers and a catchy hit single underscore an immense inventory of a turbulent time, still keeping a little space for a Post-Podcast Repaste of course.

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Show #204: Osmosis Jones

Seasonal ailment Joseph Wade spreads the word about one Osmosis Jones, a Piet Kroon and Tom Sito cartoon film that got hit with a bad case of the Farrelly Brothers for the live-action segments of its cops & robbers caper inside Bill Murray's decaying body. It's gross, it's educational and for some it was the apex of their celebrity at the start of the millenium (with a soundtrack to match!). TV spin-offs and other animated fantastic voyages await our diagnosis, and if you can stomach it there's a Post-Podcast Repaste to help you get your strength back.

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Drawn Or Alive #5: The Tick VS The Tick VS The Tick

 Masked avenger Brian Smith answers the clarion call of justice as the unstoppable force meets the immovable object meets the inevitable cliff edge! A Drawn Or Alive first, it's a triple header of titles all adapting comic crazy Ben Edlund's big blue maroon as he thwarts crime in animation in 1994 before becoming larger than live-action in 2001 and 2016 respectively. With Edlund himself pitching in rather than working these ideas out on the page each version could be deemed the realest deal, but what makes each Tick... tick? There's no time to waste chum, as evil is out there handcrafting mischief for the swap meet of villainy!

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Drawn Or Alive #4: A Chinese Ghost Story VS A Chinese Ghost Story - The Tsui Hark Animation

Tsui Hark, writer/producer/director plus visionary, seemed hardly content with his contribution in 1987 to the gnarly adaptation of Qing dynasty novel Strange Tales From A Chinese Studio. A decade later he saw fit to realise the true scope of the collection of fables within the supposedly boundless limits of animation. With the original already a groundbreaking hit in special effects that spurred on a nascent cult film appreciation scene in Hong Kong & China, what could its cartoon counterpart bring to the table beside being another outlet for Hark's incredible enthusiasm & self-belief? It is a strange tale indeed, filled with spirits, romance, musical numbers and explosive exorcisms, pitting two rough & ready productions against each other in an eerie encounter from which only one will emerge drawn or alive!

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Show #203: The Venture Brothers Part 2

 
Arch-villain Brian Smith is unleashed to cast a wiser eye upon the awkward transitionary phase of the Adult Swim darling in our second retrospective chunk, comprising series 2 and 3. While we get a better sense of the cartoon it would become, and the ambitions of Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer for it beyond an outlet for coarse humour, The Venture Brothers still had a lot of growing up to do. The good news is you get a whole lot more: more dumb-voiced duos! More genuine pathos! Ever more oblique cultural references! And more to come way down the line with the prospect of a movie to cap off the whole lot. It's bigger, it's louder, and it's got an appetite for a Post-Podcast Repaste to match!

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OH! That's A Baseball Episode! #5: Johnny Bravo, Cow & Chicken and The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy

 

The other side of a great rivalry is at bat next, the creative contemporaries to the Nicktoons outfit that were the Cartoon Cartoons from Cartoon Network. That's a lotta cartoons! A lot of very popular cartoons at that but only the finest contain an obligatory baseball episode therein: Death stalks the ballpark at the behest of Billy & Mandy; I.M. Weasel talks ERAs and OBPs; and Johnny Bravo strikes out in all senses of the phrase. 

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Show #202: Love, Death & Robots Volume 2

Brian Smith is the vital component in our merciless machine that plows a furrow of destruction into more Love, Death & Robots. A trimmed down continuation of the Netflix adult animation anthology this batch of shorts still delivers everything we've come to expect: future dystopias, literary adaptations and just how wide or narrow some folks' understanding of Adult Animation really is! Another exciting game of Did This Really Need To Be A Cartoon? is played, we once again all reach for the diamond in the rough, and the reward of a Post-Podcast Repaste fit for the Post-Robocalypse awaits the survivors!

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Show #201: James Bond Jr.

Having dodged responsibility for long enough we undertake a dangerous mission to uncover the true identity of James Bond Jr. Is he an established brand's attempt to reach a younger audience? How does it involve the story of the Irish animation industry? And will this be more fun to discuss than initially expected? Keep your ears peeled and find out before it's too late agent, and do stop by the lab on your way out for a cunningly concealed Post-Podcast Repaste!

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Show #200: An Emotional Animation Exchange! aka No Sea For Old Lastman

 Against expectations this abberation in animation appreciation has racked up 200 instalments (plus about that amount again in extra-curricular activities) and we're in a celebratory mood. And what's a party without favours, as we each perused our respective repositories of cartoon knowledge in search of a fitting gift for each other. Dwayne classes up the joint with an Oscar winning adaptation of Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea; Niall blows it all away via the spectacle of French action adventure Lastman; both invite moments of profundity and true kinship! These podcast boys have become podcast MEN.

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SOTSM x OST Party: Interstella 5555

Pod pals Libby and Joseph generously entertained our proposal for a job tailor-made for The OST Party. They lend their critical ears to a survey of the musical merits accompanying the Daft Punk and Leiji Matsumoto anime collaboration Interstella 5555: The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, one of those uncommon cases where the film arrived after the soundtrack. Will this newly-formed podcasting supergroup ever find their way back to their home planet? Drop the needle and listen up to find out!

OH! That's A Baseball Episode! #4: Doug, Rocko's Modern Life and Hey Arnold!

 Those lumpier, stranger looking children get their chance on the field, which describes both our shared national school experiences and these baseball episodes from the Nicktoons stable! A subject we've surprisingly touched on only briefly in our many recordings, we give Nickelodeon's influential animation block a tryout the only way we know how. Doug becomes embroiled in the reckless gambling of Patty Mayonnaise; Rocko hunts for fortune & glory out at the ballpark; and Arnold learns the loneliness of the cleanup hitter. It's the sport your parents don't want you to play, on the podcast they don't want you to listen to!

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Show #199: The Venture Brothers Part 1

Jake de Búrca joins our expedition into the world of mystery, danger and offbeat musical references inhabited by those strange siblings The Venture Brothers. Dreamed up by the even more peculiar pairing of Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer it proved an ostentatious outpouring of their influences and enthusiasms that set the show apart from its stablemates at Adult Swim. Our multi-stage journey begins here in the murk of the first series and its preceding pilot, wherein we may discover the Venture Brothers' not-so-secret origins and glimpse their potential for growth beyond arbitrary late-night television weirdness. Of course this'll require a space age Post-Podcast Repaste to satiate us for more voyages with the Ventures in the tomorrow that is yet to be!

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Drawn Or Alive #3: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure VS Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures

Joseph Wade crams into our booth to travel to the parallel timelines of the Bill & Ted live-action film franchise and their 1990 animated TV spin-off. Featuring most of the principal cast from the movies and produced under the watchful eye of the man responsible for CatDog, will the lads pass this history test in a most triumphant manner? Or be forever remembered as a most heinous episode? And that's before we even broach the subject of the Bad Live-Action Us-es from 1992! It'll all make sense by the end of the story dudes!

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Show #198: Night Hood, aka Les Exploits d'Arsène Lupin

His grandson may be the one who gets all the attention these days but the OG Arsène Lupin was no slouch by any stretch. Maurice Leblanc's seminal gentleman thief character got his day in the sun back in 1996, taking a few noirish cues from spiritual successors such as Batman and Diabolik to thwart the real villains in a stylish 1930s setting. But is this incarnation the genuine article or merely wearing an elaborate disguise? Comic criminal chronologies, righteous disparagement of law enforcement and a mysterious Post-Podcast Repaste are the calling cards by which our infamy shall be known!

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OH! That's A Baseball Episode #3: FLCL, Samurai Champloo and The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya

 

The tour heads back Eastwards again for another triple-header of anime athletics, facing a team of 2000s era titles that had the good sense all those decades ago to stick some baseball episodes in and force us to confront our own mortality in the present day... Anyways, FLCL #4 dials down on the robots erupting from heads for a poignant baseball meditation on growing up (and boners~); Samurai Champloo #23 has Team Japan beat the USA at their own (not) game; and The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya #4/#7 threatens to destroy us all unless they can throw the opening pitch! Stay in your seats folks, it'll all make sense soon!

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