ThePanda

Happy 57th B’day Mr. Spilberg, and thanx for producing greats such as JP (me was never a very big fan of ET, though arguably its one of his most famous movies). Movies and cartoons, specially cartoons have dominated most of my life. Ever since 1988 when my parents went out, bought a VCR, and recorded 50 hrs of Disney cartoons, cartoons have been a staple 4 me. Me went from Disney’s circa 1968-70 cartoons (featuring the original Mickey, Donald, .... gang) to watching Asterix movies, to watching TaleSpin (starring Baloo the piloting bear), to eventually watching the Looney Toons, Johney Quest, Adam’s Family, SwatCats, Road Runner Show, X-Men, etc. when Cartoon Network eventually arrived. In all this time few cartoons have beaten the pure innocent humor of those original Disney cartoons, and Looney Toons. New 10-15 minute disney cartoons, Tom and Jerry, and well the original Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck cartoons haven’t been produced much in the past 10-15 yrs (as opossed to the 30 minute series cartoons, like X-Men, Sqat Cats, etc…), mostly becoz their value is doubted. Now this is a very unfortunate thing becoz while full length features (2 hrs+) are gr8 to watch at a movie theatre, short cartoons are probably the only anime form that can be watched daily at home. Besides most of these cartoons were self contained units with no attached “To be continued…...” badges and cud be watched in ne order u wanted. This really allowed for some gr8 cartoons and some really crappy ones, since u pretty much had to get a storyline which lasted for something like 15 minutes, abt two-three written pages at most. A few yrs back Disney announced that it was gonna revive making some of these nice 15 minute thingees, but I haven’t really seen any results of this revival till now….....

Not all cartoons r created equal, which is y my vote for the most useful cartoons go to The Road Runner Show, and the Aladdin mini-series. TheRoad Runner Show had an amazingly accurate physics engine (OK I am getting game thingees into the realm of animation, but what the heck). While Wiley E. Coyote often got into some really crazy plans to get that damn Road Runner, and despite the fact that the writers and producers (Chuck Jones I believe) often pulled a fast one to prevent him from getting hold of the road runner, most of the things in the shows were amazingly accurate. Wiley accelerated as he fell down, his springs stretched and unstretched exactly as they do, inertia was conserved as it shud have been and well friction stepped in ever so often. Hell a few yrs back a friend & I were discussing how replacing an insanely boring Physics teacher, with a TV set and Road Runner Show playbacks, wud probably help the classes grades in physics….... Now Aladdin I liked because of the sheer world that it painted, a world where even the damn villains were loveably villainish, I guess it was more like a more believable, older version of some of the super powered cartoons coming up now, and well it was there at the right time for me to see it and enjoy it…...........

The unfortunate fact of life is that no PANDAS are famous as cartoon characters, and considering that Pandas are supposed to be cute black & white characters (quoted from what someone told me a long time back), its kindda strange ‘coz everytime I have to supply a photo of myself, no easy replacements are available and I invariably have to bring a scanner into play…............ HMMMMMMM wonder y no one puts a Panda as a cartoon character, since they have pretty much tried all other animals…... WONDER Y?????????????????????

In the past 2 or 3 yrs fantasies have dominated books and webspace, as much as cartoons and in much the same context. Ppl usually stick to Harry Potter and LOTR while discussing nething in this particular genre, and both have resulted in pretty successful movie productions. Unfortunately in the middle of all of this Potter/LOTR discussion ppl have skipped out MY FAVORITE FANTASY BOOK, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy (more popularly known as H2G2)... Now I have read all three of the aforementioned serieses and well all 5 of the Potter books r good, though rather simple. The LOTR trilogy is also good, and the books r as complex as Potter is simple, and while both of them have their funny moments, almost everything that they say can be related to human life. H2G2 is slightly different in this regard with the books focusing on events, so out of the world that u have to work to actually work to relate them to nething in RL, while at the same time painting a picture so amazing that everyone who reads the book ends up loving it. I know ‘coz for some yrs my nick on all chat rooms read BEEBLEBROX. No one seems to be getting H2G2 out as a movie to compete with Potter and LOTR, & that is sad ‘coz H2G2 is as good, if not better than either of these. Besides I never got to hear the H2G2 radio show broadcast by Douglas Adams (wasn’t around to hear it) and well never really say ne of the TV series which it supposedly inspired. That being so I doubt most ppl my age or younger have done that either, and well I WANNA WATCH H2G2 AS A MOVIE, ME WANT A MOVIE, ME WANT A MOVIE, ...........................

On another note Lego’s supposed to be encouraging ppl to make freeze action films using lego blocks. Basically take a photograph of a scene constructed by lego blocks, move a little and take another, keep on doing this until ur scene is complete, and then take all these pics combine them to form an animation. Since me not have lego blocks, or digi cam, me haven’t tried this out, so cud one of u guys/gals pls try it out and tell Ze Panda what it is like…......

Ze Panda
....waiting for his H2G2 & Lego movie

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 18th, 2003 at 3:12 am and is filed under article. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.