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!

Listen up!

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!

Listen up!

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!

Listen up!

 

Show #179: Toons 'N' Tunes - Robot Rock!

We can party longer, harder and faster; we have the technology! Toons 'N' Tunes once again explores the convergence of animation and music, this time with all the power and precision of a mighty robot!

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A surprisingly varied mixtape awaits our listening pleasure with the peculiar ubiquity of robots in music videos both past and present. The killer androids of the wasteland are on the hunt backed by Megadeth and Iron Maiden and inevitable synth-based dance tracks are forged by Equateur and Perturbator while the machines display their capacity to adapt and evolve with some singular singles by Bjork, Pete Miser and Caravan Palace. Why were we programmed to feel funky?

Show #178: Love, Death & Robots

Brian Smith roves out with us upon the barren media landscape of the near future, sorting through the charred fragments of the amorous android anthology they called Love, Death & Robots!

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Noted directors and Netflix darlings David Fincher and Tim Miller present their latest outing on the ubiquitous streaming service, a collection of animated science fiction shorts for adult audiences of varying content and quality all ostensibly united under one or more of the themes mentioned in its title. Is it fertile ground for an interrogation of complex ideas relating to artificial intelligence, the purpose of existence and the nature of the soul? Or is it carte blanche to let animators' libidos run wild in the shallowest interpretation of "mature" possible? Famous authors, faithful renderings of genitalia and the recurring ratio problems with anthology works may just guide us to the answer!

Show #176: Battle Angel Alita (1993)

Us? Jump on a bandwagon? Perish the thought! We're merely embracing our new cyberpunk present and getting into the spirit of things with the Battle Angel Alita OVA!

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James Cameron's long gestating adaptation of Yukito Kishiro's classic cyborg manga is tearing up cinemas around the world at last, so we thought we'd look back at the last time Battle Angel Alita, aka Gunnm, appeared on screens in this two part OVA that gives you the broad strokes of the story in fairly short order. Considering it served as a design influence for the live action how well does it capture the essence of the original manga? Comic comparisons, real world dystopias and fashionable director photos are taken apart!

Show #164: The Iron Giant

A towering behemoth whose mighty powers can bring destruction or salvation! But enough about Brad Bird already, this one's about The Iron Giant!

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Having conquered the realm of prime time cartoon sitcoms the ambitions of Brad Bird turned to bigger things, and challenges don't get much greater than directing an animated feature during a period when such a thing was a hazardous undertaking if your name wasn't Disney. So how did they pull off this now well beloved tale of a boy and his bot? Failure is fomented, tears are shed and visitors from the stars are venerated. It's heavy stuff!

THE SHORT VERSION

Aspirational figures

Very special agents

Sad robots

Show #154: Concise Cartoon Combat Combo! Kizuna Ichigeki and Trava - Fist Planet

Niall has returned! To get him back into shape in short order though we'll need a special intensive workout session, so what better than the one two punch of Kizuna Ichigeki and Trava - Fist Planet!

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A brace of brief battle shows presented itself before us and believing them a tad short for a podcast by themselves we elected to roll them up into one outing. Kizuna Ichigeki gives us the tale of a crazy karate family defrauding a martial arts tournament and their efforts to deal with the repercussions that follow, while Trava is a little episode in the lives of two of Redline's favourite racers years before they competed on the big screen. A pair of strong contenders indeed, but who will win? Does it matter? To find out you'll just have to listen up!

THE SHORT VERSION

Pint-sized pugilists

Space aces

To Be Continued? (no)

SOTSM x DITB: The Big O Season 2

It's a Sure Promise as we join back with the Dynamite In The Brain boys (and Elliot Page of UK Anime Network) three whole years later to put to bed once and for all just what's what with The Big O Season 2. Does it hold up a decade later? Has the ending become any clearer? Why haven't more shows ripped off that piston punch? The answers to most of these questions can be found if you LISTEN UP!

Show #148: Gandahar

Far-out French sci-fi is back in vogue as we take a fantastic voyage to Gandahar!

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 A strange journey but down a path we're actually quite familiar with, director Rene Laloux delivers another travelogue to a bizarre world filled with amazing scenery and incredible possibilities. There are enough ideas in this feature alone to float a half dozen films, but are they given short shrift in service of the story? Contemporary cinema is compared, the secrets of its animation production are revealed and we get bamboozled by time travel for the second time in as many months!

THE SHORT VERSION

Merry mutants

Fantastic fauna

Innuendo island

Show #147: ULTRAFORCE

Pouches? Ponytails? Shredded jeans? SLIME? The Nineties called and they want ULTRAFORCE back!

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Recent pop cultural trends have shown there exists a need out there amongst some audiences for their comic book media to be stern, mature and taken seriously. However history has proven that this is not a new occurrence and just like the early to mid 1990s this approach more often than not left them ripe for ridicule. Ultraforce is an exemplar of this heady period where common sense feared to tread and naturally we fall down a rabbit hole of questionable business practices, even more questionable fashion choices and a whole lot of weird ooze.

THE SHORT VERSION

Slimy supermen

Misunderstood monsters

Stealth saxophone

SOTSM x DITB: Japan Animator Expo Part 3

Again?! Yes again! Once more Niall and the DITB boys dive in to take on the final fusillade of shorts from Japan Animator Expo. This one has it all; savage superheroes, robots both giant and perverted, the prototype Yuri On ice and a hefty dose of nostalgia for older franchises and video formats. And when all's said and done we may get around to deciding which are the best of the whole bunch!

Listen up!

SOTSM x DITB: Japan Animator Expo Part 2

The exploration of the weird and wonderful auteur anime showcase continues apace as Niall and the boys immerse themselves in the everyday lives of ghosts, robot girls and mascot characters, solve a murder, indulge in a vague yet also somehow heavy-handed political allegory and even throw in a bit of good ol' fashioned SEX and VIOLENCE with MACHSPEED. What does that even mean? You'll just have to listen up!

Show #144: Dexter's Laboratory - Ego Trip

A podcast as short and to the point as the small man himself as we take a brief journey with Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip!

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An ego trip by name and by nature as this TV movie served to cap off the run of the successful TV series with an all guns blazing bonanza that maybe goes a little too all-in on the action and a little too light on the beloved weirdo humour. And that's without going into the time travel aspect, which neither IMDB or Niall have grasped fully, and the secret childhood wishes of your hosts revealed live on air!

THE SHORT VERSION

Dexter, Dexter, Dexter and Dexter

A cool robot nonetheless

BUTTS

Show #139: Romie-0 & Julie-8

While you may not agree with the tenets of a corporate holiday just remember that even robots have the capacity to love, as demonstrated in Romie-0 and Julie-8!

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Nelvana are probably best known for their oddball seasonal specials, so jumping off from that this adaptation of Shakespeare's ubiquitous play is a good fit for the supposed most romantic day in the calendar, right? The sweeping tale of young love, family feuds and tragic ends is compressed down into a family friendly half hour, workmanlike but nonetheless energetic, though it does raise some alarming questions about the far future society it depicts. Robot rights, sleazy spacemen and other animated versions of the Bard's work are just some of the topics of discussion we expend more thought on than expected!

THE SHORT VERSION

Robot romance

Odd couples

Android admirers

Show #134: He-Man & She-Ra - A Christmas Special

Doing all the hard work for toy companies everywhere this season, we're joined by Joseph Wade to learn the true meaning of He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special!

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Still baffling sarcastic blog writers to this day who can't seem to get their heads around what a cartoon is, He-Man and She-Ra unite to receive the teachings of a wonderful winter holiday that definitely has nothing to do with Christianity. Villains are vindicated, rival toy robots are ridiculed, kids get kidnapped and myths are dispelled about the fallacy of enjoying media "ironically".

Experience more holiday cheer with Joseph and company over on Christmas Creeps!

THE SHORT VERSION

New traditions

One Skeletor and his dog

Transforming robots, an awful and terrible idea right?

Show #133: Transformers - The Movie (1986)

Hitting the shops just in time for Christmas, Greg Driver and Paul Shipley show off their impressive collection of knowledge on Transformers: The Movie!

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Much has been writ of this fondly remembered cinematic outing on its 30th anniversary this year, so we'll do our utmost to add a personal touch to our remembrances of everyone's favourite 80s toybox slaughterfest, uneven as it may be but still one heck of a good time. Tales are spun of early lessons in the finality of death, myths are busted about the talent behind the scenes and inspiring anecdotes of the films marvellously upbeat soundtrack are shared.

THE SHORT VERSION

Robot Galactus

Robot upgrades

Robot-o-cide

Show #127: M.A.S.K.

Working overtime to get this show out to you, Greg Driver of Ace Comicals stops by to take us for a spin into M.A.S.K, aka Mobile Armoured Strike Kommand!

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The lesser cousin to the 80s cartoon stalwarts it borrows from, MASK has some nifty ideas but finds itself lacking in the execution. All the usual suspects are here; relentless background music, inconsistent visual quality, an irritating child character taking up precious screen time. Pockets of quality exist in the mechanical design and the better directed episodes, but spread all too thin over a long series. We can all agree that the opening theme is still fantastic though!

THE SHORT VERSION

Sweet rides

Time to try and not get fired today

Scott Trakker: Robo Racist

Show #123: GI Joe (1983 - 1985)

Honouring America's annual tradition of celebrating their independence by blowing things up, it's a sample party platter of the GI Joe miniseries!

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While we're not entire strangers to GI Joe we deemed a franchise as venerable as this one was worthy of a closer look, removed from the bizarre influence of secret snake people and back to good old fashioned red lasers vs blue lasers. The results surprise even us as we find both a fond portrayal of the American ideal embracing all cultures & backgrounds and even stranger goings on than a dozen GI Joe movies. All that plus sailor scam artists, impressions of famous actors and the subliminal message to kids with destructive younger siblings everywhere!

THE SHORT VERSION

Cartoon combat

The lighter side of the fight against international terrorism

Workplace romances

Show #121: Jonny Quest (1964)

The warm weather has arrived so you know what that means; a theme we'll actually try and see out to the end as we kick off the Boys of Summer with Jonny Quest!

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Who would have thought Hanna Barbera would be ahead of the curve by producing a primetime animation series that wasn't a straight comedy (now don't that sound familiar?), packaging familiar stories within an appealing and distinctive style. Limited in animation and cultural sensitivity but triumphant in design, atmosphere and soundtrack, the fact it is still both celebrated and satirised to this day is evidence of its impact.

THE SHORT VERSION

Scientific investigations

Cultural portrayals

You said it Bandit!