Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Once Upon a Time, and No Deposit No Return...
...This has been a good weekend for watching things. First of all, I happened upon a couple first-season Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego eps that I hadn't seen since they first aired--and after 20 years, it's just like watching them for the first time because I didn't remember anything from them. Of the ones I saw, the best was definitely "The Case of the Roamin' Roman Ruin," largely because of Rockapella parodying "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (as "The Brute Still Creeps Tonight"--Eartha was the crook of the day), and just as I was still squeeing over that, the very next clue is Sean as the rarely-appearing-but-always-amusing Messenger; Greg and the Chief go over the candygram he brings (which he calls "a bizarre confectionery-gram," LOL), but props to the Messenger for his faked amusing accent, plus his look of subtle annoyance as he doesn't get the gratuity he clearly wants for having delivered the candygram in the first place; after that, it becomes clear why he starts throwing snowballs after that, LOL (it was an early-recorded ep, even if it wasn't shown early; you can tell because Rockapella didn't have their color-coded dress shirts yet and were just wearing casual clothes...).
So, after that, I checked out the latest ep of Once Upon a Time, which happens to be the last new ep until January (sigh...). It's... a real shocker of an ep, what with Regina/the Evil Queen killing Sheriff Graham, who (as I had predicted to Faye some time ago) was her Huntsman in the fairy tale world. But, as Faye pointed out, it seems oddly early to kill off a character, so we're both wondering if it can somehow be reversed. At any rate, I'm much more intrigued by the preview of the next ep that will be airing in January--it's centered around Rumpelstiltskin, and it is heavily implied that he will be turning against Regina/the Queen; Regina is heard saying something along the lines of "How dare you turn against me," and then she and Emma nearly get caught in a flash of fire, and Henry's there, too. This really backs up my previous theory about Rumpelstiltskin going after Henry and/or putting him in danger.
So, yes, I really am intrigued by this series, so much so that I made a couple references to it in this morning's chapter of the wax museum fic--their is a Grimms' fairy tales exhibit in the museum, and while Carter comments that the Evil Queen looks as though she could be continuing her reign from a small town in Maine (which is exactly who Regina is and what she's doing), and Newkirk comments on how unsettling Rumpelstiltskin looks (because he definitely is eerie). But while most of the fandom seems to be enamored by the prince, Graham, and even Rumpelstiltskin, I find myself in the minority by having Jiminy Cricket/Archie Hopper as my favorite character. Just... how he finally gets enough courage to chew Regina out in episode 5 really made me like him very quickly, and you feel so badly for him after finding out his backstory. I find it interesting, though, that while he seems so very close to Geppetto in this series, he isn't close to him at all in any other of the Disney canons, with the notable exception of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. And *that* I find especially intriguing, because KH:COM, just like Once Upon a Time, has a central plot involving fake memories. Hmm...
But, anyway, today I got a chance to see another part of the Disney-verse that I have been meaning to see for a long time--the movie No Deposit, No Return. Eeee, I loved it! So many familiar faces--Don Knotts, Barbara Feldon (this is pretty much the only other role I've seen her in aside from Agent 99), and... Darren McGavin, who was my main motivation for seeing it (and he was absolutely wonderful in it--this is definitely my second-favorite role of his, after Carl Kolchak). Barbara's character, Carolyn, is a busy magazine head who's never able to be with her two children, Tracy and Jay (who totally remind me of Jane and Michael from Mary Poppins), usually sending them off to stay with her wealthy father-in-law, who can't stand the kids anymore than they can stand him. Darren's character, Duke, is a former safecracker who used to be as good as Newkirk, but then ran out of luck and tried to give up safecracking (Don's character, Bert, is his new assistant/brother-in-law); when Duke and Bert are threatened to pay up $9000 to a thug, Duke is forced to try safecracking again. However, his attempt is ruined by Tracy and Jay's attempt to run away with their pet skunk (it makes sense in context), and the kids decide to invite themselves along to Duke and Bert's place. Then they get the idea to have Duke and Bert call their grandfather for $100,000 to ensure their safe return, but the grandfather realizes that it's a trick by the kids and doesn't go along with it. Meanwhile, though Duke and Bert both agree that the kids are more trouble than they're worth, it's clear that Duke is warming up to them, particularly Tracy, whom he starts treating like a surrogate daughter. It is so adorable seeing them interact, and the various hijinks that everyone gets into at the hands of the kids is hilarious.
Things get even more complicated as Carolyn arrives, worried sick for her kids and screaming at Duke and Bert for "taking" them. Duke tries to set the record straight, and then calls Carolyn out on never being there for her kids ("We just spent three straight days with your kids. When did you last do the same?" And she can't answer...). Meanwhile, while that's going on, Duke and Bert's "debt collectors" decide to hold the kids for ransom for real, but they escape and end up at their grandfather's house, but then get locked inside his walk-in safe, and Duke is the only one who can open it, as no one knows where the grandfather currently is. Thing is, the sergeant who has been trying to track down Duke for years is right in the room, and Duke knows that if he cracks the safe, it's very likely that he'll be arrested for his previous crimes. And the crowning moment of heartwarming is when he goes ahead and cracks the safe (he and Tracy hugging after he rescues her and her brother is just so incredibly sweet), and though the sergeant realizes that Duke is the crook he's been chasing, he decides to let him go. Carolyn vows to spend more time with her kids, and they all agree to stay nearby. Also, it seems as though there are hints of a Duke/Carolyn shipping going on at the end (one that Tracy emphatically supports... d'aaaaw). Meanwhile, the kids and their grandfather have warned up to each other, and he agrees to pay a loan to Duke and Bert to help them make an honest living, so happy endings all around!
So, yes, this was an awesome movie; really, the only thing that could've made this movie better is if Simon Oakland had somehow showed up. And I am now seriously plunnied for a Kolchak fic with Carl, during the course of one of his monster chasings, ends up coming across/rescuing a kid who wants to tag along and though starts off getting Carl into trouble, ends up actually being helpful to Carl when he might be in too tight a bind (like something similar to, but not exactly like, the TMNT 2k3 ep "Lone Raph and Cub"). As of now, my idea is for it to be a crossover with either Yu-Gi-Oh (in which case, the kid would be Mokuba) or Jackie Chan Adventures (in which case, the kid would be Jade). As of now, I'm leaning more towards Jade than Mokuba; I haven't written for JCA before, which means that I could have the crossover take place before the series ended, so that I could involve Valmont and the Dark Hand, with Shendu, the Pan Ku Box (possibly? I have to re-watch season two to see if the demon portals could be opened again...), the Shadowkhan, and the Talismans. Or I could go a different route and involve Daolon Wong and his dark chi demons instead (or better yet, Daolon Wong and his demons *versus* Valmont and Shendu, with Carl stuck in the middle of it all... or something; the specifics will be figured out later, I suppose...). With Mokuba, the only thing I could think of would be my old idea of Gozaburo trapping Carl in the Virtual World, and that idea seems too weird to be any more than an isolated blurb or two. So yes, Jade. Besides that, can you imagine the possibilities of arguments between Carl and Uncle--and Tony's reaction to them?
Carl: I'm telling you, a blessed crossbow bolt should be able to take care of those... things!
Uncle: No, no, no! The Chi spell is the best method! Dark Chi is best countered by Good Chi!
Carl: I'm sure that there's enough "good Chi" in a blessed bolt--
Tony (exasperated): Look, can't we just leave this to the proper authorities?
Uncle: No! Magic must defeat magic!!!!
Tony: *blank stare*
Yeah, more and more, I'm liking the idea of a Kolchak/JCA crossover.
So, after that, I checked out the latest ep of Once Upon a Time, which happens to be the last new ep until January (sigh...). It's... a real shocker of an ep, what with Regina/the Evil Queen killing Sheriff Graham, who (as I had predicted to Faye some time ago) was her Huntsman in the fairy tale world. But, as Faye pointed out, it seems oddly early to kill off a character, so we're both wondering if it can somehow be reversed. At any rate, I'm much more intrigued by the preview of the next ep that will be airing in January--it's centered around Rumpelstiltskin, and it is heavily implied that he will be turning against Regina/the Queen; Regina is heard saying something along the lines of "How dare you turn against me," and then she and Emma nearly get caught in a flash of fire, and Henry's there, too. This really backs up my previous theory about Rumpelstiltskin going after Henry and/or putting him in danger.
So, yes, I really am intrigued by this series, so much so that I made a couple references to it in this morning's chapter of the wax museum fic--their is a Grimms' fairy tales exhibit in the museum, and while Carter comments that the Evil Queen looks as though she could be continuing her reign from a small town in Maine (which is exactly who Regina is and what she's doing), and Newkirk comments on how unsettling Rumpelstiltskin looks (because he definitely is eerie). But while most of the fandom seems to be enamored by the prince, Graham, and even Rumpelstiltskin, I find myself in the minority by having Jiminy Cricket/Archie Hopper as my favorite character. Just... how he finally gets enough courage to chew Regina out in episode 5 really made me like him very quickly, and you feel so badly for him after finding out his backstory. I find it interesting, though, that while he seems so very close to Geppetto in this series, he isn't close to him at all in any other of the Disney canons, with the notable exception of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. And *that* I find especially intriguing, because KH:COM, just like Once Upon a Time, has a central plot involving fake memories. Hmm...
But, anyway, today I got a chance to see another part of the Disney-verse that I have been meaning to see for a long time--the movie No Deposit, No Return. Eeee, I loved it! So many familiar faces--Don Knotts, Barbara Feldon (this is pretty much the only other role I've seen her in aside from Agent 99), and... Darren McGavin, who was my main motivation for seeing it (and he was absolutely wonderful in it--this is definitely my second-favorite role of his, after Carl Kolchak). Barbara's character, Carolyn, is a busy magazine head who's never able to be with her two children, Tracy and Jay (who totally remind me of Jane and Michael from Mary Poppins), usually sending them off to stay with her wealthy father-in-law, who can't stand the kids anymore than they can stand him. Darren's character, Duke, is a former safecracker who used to be as good as Newkirk, but then ran out of luck and tried to give up safecracking (Don's character, Bert, is his new assistant/brother-in-law); when Duke and Bert are threatened to pay up $9000 to a thug, Duke is forced to try safecracking again. However, his attempt is ruined by Tracy and Jay's attempt to run away with their pet skunk (it makes sense in context), and the kids decide to invite themselves along to Duke and Bert's place. Then they get the idea to have Duke and Bert call their grandfather for $100,000 to ensure their safe return, but the grandfather realizes that it's a trick by the kids and doesn't go along with it. Meanwhile, though Duke and Bert both agree that the kids are more trouble than they're worth, it's clear that Duke is warming up to them, particularly Tracy, whom he starts treating like a surrogate daughter. It is so adorable seeing them interact, and the various hijinks that everyone gets into at the hands of the kids is hilarious.
Things get even more complicated as Carolyn arrives, worried sick for her kids and screaming at Duke and Bert for "taking" them. Duke tries to set the record straight, and then calls Carolyn out on never being there for her kids ("We just spent three straight days with your kids. When did you last do the same?" And she can't answer...). Meanwhile, while that's going on, Duke and Bert's "debt collectors" decide to hold the kids for ransom for real, but they escape and end up at their grandfather's house, but then get locked inside his walk-in safe, and Duke is the only one who can open it, as no one knows where the grandfather currently is. Thing is, the sergeant who has been trying to track down Duke for years is right in the room, and Duke knows that if he cracks the safe, it's very likely that he'll be arrested for his previous crimes. And the crowning moment of heartwarming is when he goes ahead and cracks the safe (he and Tracy hugging after he rescues her and her brother is just so incredibly sweet), and though the sergeant realizes that Duke is the crook he's been chasing, he decides to let him go. Carolyn vows to spend more time with her kids, and they all agree to stay nearby. Also, it seems as though there are hints of a Duke/Carolyn shipping going on at the end (one that Tracy emphatically supports... d'aaaaw). Meanwhile, the kids and their grandfather have warned up to each other, and he agrees to pay a loan to Duke and Bert to help them make an honest living, so happy endings all around!
So, yes, this was an awesome movie; really, the only thing that could've made this movie better is if Simon Oakland had somehow showed up. And I am now seriously plunnied for a Kolchak fic with Carl, during the course of one of his monster chasings, ends up coming across/rescuing a kid who wants to tag along and though starts off getting Carl into trouble, ends up actually being helpful to Carl when he might be in too tight a bind (like something similar to, but not exactly like, the TMNT 2k3 ep "Lone Raph and Cub"). As of now, my idea is for it to be a crossover with either Yu-Gi-Oh (in which case, the kid would be Mokuba) or Jackie Chan Adventures (in which case, the kid would be Jade). As of now, I'm leaning more towards Jade than Mokuba; I haven't written for JCA before, which means that I could have the crossover take place before the series ended, so that I could involve Valmont and the Dark Hand, with Shendu, the Pan Ku Box (possibly? I have to re-watch season two to see if the demon portals could be opened again...), the Shadowkhan, and the Talismans. Or I could go a different route and involve Daolon Wong and his dark chi demons instead (or better yet, Daolon Wong and his demons *versus* Valmont and Shendu, with Carl stuck in the middle of it all... or something; the specifics will be figured out later, I suppose...). With Mokuba, the only thing I could think of would be my old idea of Gozaburo trapping Carl in the Virtual World, and that idea seems too weird to be any more than an isolated blurb or two. So yes, Jade. Besides that, can you imagine the possibilities of arguments between Carl and Uncle--and Tony's reaction to them?
Carl: I'm telling you, a blessed crossbow bolt should be able to take care of those... things!
Uncle: No, no, no! The Chi spell is the best method! Dark Chi is best countered by Good Chi!
Carl: I'm sure that there's enough "good Chi" in a blessed bolt--
Tony (exasperated): Look, can't we just leave this to the proper authorities?
Uncle: No! Magic must defeat magic!!!!
Tony: *blank stare*
Yeah, more and more, I'm liking the idea of a Kolchak/JCA crossover.