Caught in the Snare of the Stupidvision.
I never watched much of the programming on Cartoon Network outside of an occasional Tom & Jerry fix or some other similar cartoon.
Then, late this summer, I began to put on "Adult Swim" in the background.
I've watched a lot of the shows to the point where I have an opinion on a few of them.
"Sealab 2021" . . . I read the bio on the website. I caught this show a couple times a while back, on accident. I liked it then, and I like it now, and I feel it's a shame that it won't continue. This show is good. I especially liked the one with the old guy who ends up trapped under the tipped jazz soda machine, who befriends a random scorpion. That robot maid in that episode was a variant of B.O.B. from The Black Hole. Bonus points for that episode.
"Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" . . . This one's also good. Williams St. does a good job at recycling old shit. I wish they'd do some more old Hanna-Barbera stuff for the bin. The Fred Flintstone "Sopranos" tie-in was pretty awesome. They introduced a Bird Girl, which is supposed to be Falcon 7's daughter. This opens up a whole buncha new sex jokes, so that'll be fun for a few episodes.
"Space Ghost" . . . stinks. I caught it a long time ago, someone recommended it to me, I hated it then, and that's probably why I never really tuned into much "Adult Swim" after that moment. Why do I not like it? 15-minute segments of poor jokes and celebrities pimping shit does not make for entertainment.
"The Brak Show" . . . mistake. "Space Ghost" stinks, and so does Brak. Okay, Brak's likeable, but with the quality of "Sealab 2021" and "Harvey B . . " . I really don't enjoy it. Not for me.
"Aqua Teen Hunger Force" . . . that's some funny shit because it does a better job at nonsense and violence than "Space Ghost" and "THe Brak Show" . . . "ATHF" stands on par with "Sealab 2021." I grew up with "Tom & Jerry" and "Warner Bros." on my daily staple of things to keep me in front of the Stupidvision before I hit the books. This comes closest to the insanity of "Tom & Jerry," but since it's fresh off the creation plate, it comes all over that ol' cat and mouse.
"Family Guy" . . . network import show that I've watched so many times but I can't ever hate it in overplay because there's always some detail like the ass-piñata for Stewie's b-day party that makes me laugh.
"Samurai Champloo" . . . anime import. I have this suspicion that the normal demographic for "Adult Swim" hates this show, but fuck everyone who watches "Adult Swim." Wait. I just told myself to fuck myself. Anyway, this show's good. This one's just good, but it's borderline on that anime shit with the fairy-tale fantasy naked cartoon chicks with gigantic boobs. That chick they have as part of the trio tries to sucker in the male crowd, but the best part is when the two sword-slingers start cutting fools. If I want to see titties, then I'll ask my girlfriend.
"Paranoia Agent" . . . anime import. I love this show. I get it. I watched the final episode the other day. This show is fantastic. Beautiful story, beautiful design, beautiful people, beautiful detail, beautiful connections, beautiful flow, and it's probably going to be wasted on the normal "Adult Swim" crowd. Most people won't ever enjoy "Paranoia Agent" because normal anime freaks are looking for giant cartoon Japanese girls in sailor school uniforms with impossibly-huge titties. Fuck an anime freak. Wait. Don't.
"Cowboy Bebop" . . . plays every once in a while. I am not really into Japanese animation. I did see Akira a loooong time ago and liked it a lot. There was an episode of "Cowboy Bebop" where some gelatinous mass was infecting everyone on the ship, and it took a comical Alien turn. I kind of like the show, but I have to see more.
"The Venture Bros." . . . take it or leave it. It's interesting, but I haven't watched enough of it. This is when I usually do other shit, like get sleepy. What's with the chick with a man's voice?
"The Oblongs" . . . I have a feeling this show aired previously elsewhere, like "Family Guy." It's all-right. I get the whole blue-collar/white-collar deal, but that kind of refrerence point's been done a lot of times by other shows and movies. Another sleep-inducer. Will Ferrell's voice can't save me from sleep.
"Robot Chicken" . . . fucking fantastic. Reference-laden stop-motion heaven. This is where you go after death, if you've been a bad California Raisin who sat in front of the TV too much. The He-Man gags have been making their way around other shows. Is it around that time, about 20 years later, after He-Man's glory days, for this to be horribly referenced into Clichéland? Holy shit. 20 fucking years have passed since I touched one of those toys. I was 8 in 1985. Back to the Future was a huge fucking film, and I loved it. What has time done to me? Oh yeah, made me 20 years older, going on about some back-in-the-day shit. Fuck. It's gonna suck when the early 1990s step up to the reference plate. That means no one will give a shit about 1980s and the childhood. And then, some MTV show will put out some stupid kids in a house filled with 80s shit and call it "80s House," around the year 2015. By that time, maybe we'll have hovercars, or at least, shit will hover. Fuck.
"Inuyasha" . . . anime import. I kind of like it. The half-demon that travels with the girl and the midget girl-animal and the lecherous Japanese guy and the Japanese lady with the giant boomerang . . . he does a good job of cutting things. I should give this one more credit because I do half-enjoy it, and there's nothing better than stuff getting cut, but I think it's the magic and the fantasy aspect of it which kind of takes it down a notch. Not that any of that is bad, but on the Science Fiction/Fantasy spectrum, I fall decidedly on the Science Fiction side. It does have a decent story with it, so I can't really complain about anything with this show.
"Futurama" . . . Simpsons creator's other project. I never watched it while it was on the networks, and I should have, but that would have been one half-hour too many in the long line of too many half-hours in front of the stupidvision. I do like this show. I caught the first episode the other day, and that was a good introduction. The whole show makes a lot more sense. Origins are key.
"American Dad" . . . looks like an 'other' project from the "Family Guy" people. I like it on the networks. Why is it listed on "Adult Swim" as part of the lineup? I never see it. It's clearly not as good as "Family Guy," but hey, if the "Simpsons" can have others, so can the "Family Guy."
"Case Closed" . . . when I'm up that early, it's like the last show before they switch to mind-numbing "Pokemon" and other kid-nonsense. If I was a kid, I'd get up reeal early to catch this one before the daily dose of morning stupid. I like "Case Closed," as I'm kind of that guy who likes Edgar Allan Poe and mysteries done well that don't take forever and are not horribly British. Don't get me wrong, the Holmes books, nothin' wrong with 'em, but all those British low-budget films based off Holmes make me change the channel. They are better than "Murder, She Wrote," but I'll take "Case Closed" as a decent attempt to make me think at a really odd hour to be thinking, and plus-one for that.
"FLCL" . . . completely undecided, as I haven't had enough looks at it as of yet. Beautiful animation does not equal a great show. It better start making some fucking sense in a hurry. To contrast, I caught some things about "Paranoia Agent" right off the bat, and it intrigued me to keep watching. This one keeps wanting to jostle through a lot of fantastic fights that don't seem to relate much to whatever thin story I've noticed. "Samurai Champloo" has a weak premise, but premise it is, and they're searching for it, cuttin' fools and survivin' along the way. I almost want to hit the eject button on this "FLCL." Wait and see.
"Fullmetal Alchemist" . . . Nein. Wizzerds and Warriers. Alchemy, for God's sake. Fuhgeddaboudit.
"Lupin the 3rd" . . . it took me a while to figure out that Lupin and the detective were two different people. I kept wondering why the hell those two other guys kept palsy with him and then kicked the shit out of him like two Jekyll n' Hydes. Whoops. Yeah, I figured out Lupin's some master thief and his buddies are doin' jobs, livin' the high life, the chick-thief, the bumbling detective. It's okay.
"s-CRY-ed" . . . another magic trick among magic friends. Whatever. I wasn't impressed, and you can't talk me into this one. Similar in one aspect to a lot of Japanese work . . . they are influenced heavily by the US bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Anyone who can't see the body of Japanese work as artistic center around horrible surprises, catastrophe, and aftermath, well, it's like not noticing the 1,000 Godzilla-like films they put out there in the 1950s and 1960s, or anything else they've done. "Paranoia Agent" goes there, briefly. Everything Japanese goes there, briefly. I don't blame them. The American people went apeshit over 9/11, but the casualties from that day totalled far less in numbers. You'd be an asshole to get pissed at the Japanese for going there on a constant basis, but hey, that's not why I don't like this show. Post-apocalypse has been done far better with dystopian future in far more films and TV shows. I've no interest for much post-apocalypse dystopian cartoons.
"Tom Goes to the Mayor" . . . oh well. Bad idea. I don't like it. The last thing I need to explore is some shit-ass Americana town, especially with 2-D 2-tone characters in poor carbon copy quality. Half the people who watch "Adult Swim" are from shit-ass Americana towns. Why watch more of the same? Oh wait, yeah, to get connected with one's self. To find the essence of self. To feel comfortable watching shit that is familiar. Nah, fuck that shit, I don't know what I'm talking about. This show stinks, and the writing's not good, which is the reason why I don't like this one. They don't reference enough pop culture. Whatever they referenced had the stank on it.
"Trigun" . . . a saw a few of these earlier this year. They have the stupid anime girls in it. It was remotely entertaining, but they stopped showing it. Oh well.
Any of the other shows on the website's list, I either did not see, or they haven't been playing, or both. There's one thing I wonder if it exists outside of comic books and a couple NES carts . . . "Golgo 13." I dunno if this one made it to anime, but if it did, they should show more assassins and killing. Killing is good, especially with cartoons.
Why do they complain about the ratings in the self-promo spots? What the fuck is wrong with those producers? That they have hundreds of thousands for the early shows is lucky. Everyone has TiVo, but me. Nobody watches TV live. I'm not paying close attention to it in the background.
If a show sucks for ratings, then it sucks. It's only good after it's been on the networks, cancelled for not selling enough toothpaste spots, then rerun on syndication on some forsaken late-night cable network devoted to obscure and animated shit.