Drug-addled cartoonists created anti-drug cartoon

Do you remember this?


It's the circa 1990 Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, and it shared the honor of Battle of the Network Stars and 9/11 of being simulcast on all the major networks.
I had a hockey-stick-to-the-face blast of nostalgia when I stumbled across this today. I have a very specific memory of sitting on the stained gray carpet ("I told you to keep your food out of the living room!") on Cable Avenue woah those many years ago watching this on the bulky ginormous television set that was probably someone's vision in 1985 of what household appliances would look like in the 21st century. Apparently no one had the foresight to envision that televisions might actually get flatter, and less silvery.



For a little kid whose life rotates around the Saturday morning cartoon schedule, seeing all your favorite characters on one 27-minute spectacular special is like walking into your bedroom and finding all the Transformers and Voltron characters installing a moonbounce where your bed used to be.
Not since Who Framed Roger Rabbit? had such little mind-bending fantasy world amalgamation been accomplished. When you're a kid, you like to think that all the TV characters are friends (um, at least I did). The cartoon-all stars proved it, and proved that
they're all fairly pedantic conservatives.

The cast included, according to Wikipedia:
* ALF: The Animated Series: ALF
* Alvin and the Chipmunks: Alvin, Simon, Theodore
* DuckTales: Huey, Dewey, and Louie
* The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger
* Jim Henson's Muppet Babies: Baby Kermit, Baby Piggy, Baby Gonzo
* The Smurfs: Papa Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Hefty Smurf
* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Michelangelo
* Garfield and Friends: Garfield The Cat
* The Real Ghostbusters: Slimer
* Looney Tunes: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck

Thanks to shows like this, and the very special episode of Saved By the Bell where we learned caffeine pills are the No. 1 killer of students in California, the nation's drug problem immediately ceased and was never heard from again. I wonder if cartoons today would endeavor to do something similar now, but tackle something like meth or jenkem that is actually threatening today's youth. Never mind the fact that shows like SpongeBob and My Gym Partner's a Monkey were clearly created by people who've never not been high.


SPONGEBOB: Hey! Let's do something silly!
KID: Get the eff away from me before I jab this homemade meth lab in your eyes.
JIMMY NEUTRON: UR doing it wrong.

Playing Tee Ball with Chris Mathews

Chris Matthews sets this one up as a softball question for Big O, but he turns it into a slam against all the bloviators of the world. Could you say Chris Matthews was bitter after this exchange?




Also, how many college students are really beating down the door to see Hardball live when he doesn't have Obama as his guest? I can't imagine many, unless of course most people assumed it was Darrell Hammond doing his impression of Chris Matthews, which is infinitely more entertaining (and informative) than real Hardball.

So again, why do people watch cable news? Because it's easy. It's the informational equivalent of microwaving a big, greasy burrito at night rather than settling in to cook a healthy meal. You know you should spend the time to cook, but that burrito is right there, and you know it'll taste OK, even if you'll be regretting it later.

The Weekly Winkerbean

so, um, assuming anyone reads this blog, which I have no reason to believe anyone does other than a more drunk version of me (when I can often trick myself into believing all sorts of delusions, including that I have interesting things to say) I promise I'll update more frequently once Heritage dies down. Or once I stop being called a bully by anonymous posters on our newspaper's Web site. The only thing I can be accused of being a bully towards is Funky Winkerbean, who I would gladly pummel into a puddle of unfunniness if I ever saw him on the school bus. If I could. These lean vegetarian arms aren't good for much, you know.

Mooch slips by the school system's post-Columbine zero tolerance policy

Can't follow all the action and plot twists every day in "Funky Winkerbean?" We read it, so you don't have to.

Friends sitting at a bar eat pizza and inform Darin that his marriage, which is entering its sixth year, is becoming way too serious for their liking. Mooch has somehow upset someone with the power to not only ban him from MySpace, but also cyberspace as a whole and any hypothetical universes that may or may not exist. This is due to Mooch's record of arson, for which he has no regret.

Mooch goes on to admit he has commitment issues, except for his desire to move in with Darin in a same-sex partnership that may be legal sometime after he turns 90. At this point, a flannel shirt will be used as a drool rag, his friends inform him.

Pete then asks the friends to follow through with their earlier commitment to help him move comic books, which none of them care to do, even though they were just fatted with pizza and beer. Mooch enacts sweet revenge on his alleged friend by stealing from his prized collection. Apparently, all this time Pete has had on his hands a tremendously valuable first issue of "The Amazing Spider-Man." This is later revealed to be a filthy lie.

On Sunday, due to what can only be assumed are the magical properties of a girls' championship trophy that just arrived somewhere unrelated to the storage unit Pete, Mooch and Darin were in, Superman and Supergirl appear. It is reveled Superman is kind of a sexist jerk, and ironically looks like Stan Lee of Marvel Comics.

I wonder if sc can forcibly secde just myrtle beast. I'll check the state constitution and get back to you.

Video Game Currency Exchange Rate

From Maxim (wait .. really? Maxim? Jessica Alba must have been spread eagle on this page somewhere and I just missed it) comes a fairly clever jab at the U.S. economy via the video games we used to buy when the economy wasn't in the crapper and we could afford such things.

They made an exchange rate for various video game currencies as compared to real products you could buy in the non-digital world. For instance, 1 rupee from the Legend of Zelda is worth about $3. Or maybe more once you consider the astronomical Hyrule taxes levied on nearly all products to ensure the princess is constantly in flowing pink dresses. Maybe you should spend some of that tax on castle security there, your highness, so I don't have to constantly be saving your ass from a guy who's making a mockery of your rotating-door jail system propped up by a culture of corrupt wizard elders. I mean, c'mon!


read more, via Maxim.

The Weekly Winkerbean

It's not my turn to do the Weekly Winkerbean recap this week, but I wrote one anyway, because my rage towards the Wink is just that powerful that I would go out of my way to try to be ironic about it.



Newspaper misspellings will kill you faster than heart disease

March 24-30
Our new loyal pizza parlor employees is tasked with closing shop for the night. He speaks aloud to himself about how this will be a good learning experience. We learn that this business serves a product that causes severe heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.
A newspaper article about a robbery at the pizza restaurant was framed and posted on the wall. The protagonist decides that the crime of misspelling the restaurant’s name in the newspaper is on par — or perhaps worse than — the actual robbery that occurred. An old Space Invaders machine is discovered in the basement. It runs on quarters, and playing it requires existence on a temporal plane, our character reminds us.
He then has a hallucination of generations of young people eating pizza, only to realize he is actually still just alone with his thoughts. He reminisces about a mural on the wall that depicts Europe. The mural’s artist was required to paint on the wall and fill space, as artists often do.
This character still has coats that smell like salted meats thanks to that time he lived above the restaurant. On Sunday, there’s a dance party at which no one speaks. It is unclear if this dance party is a hallucination caused by heart medication.

Avril's SUV

Seriously?

spotted in front of me today approaching the Sea Pines circle. I have a hard time legitimate skater boys (or girlz) drive such behemoths.