Bruno & Boots: The Wizzle War (2017) - Movie Review

 Hey guys! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm going to be taking a look at the 2017 TV movie, The Wizzle War based on the book, The War with Mr. Wizzle (renamed The Wizzle War in 2003) by Gordon Korman. This was an interesting experience so let's get right into it.

I watched this movie the way it was originally intended: On TV, complete with commercials. I also came upon it by accident. I knew this movie existed, because I'd seen the other two TV movie adaptations of Bruno & Boots books, Go Jump in the Pool! (2016) and This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall (2017) before. But I was on the YTV website, looking through the schedule for this weekend, just to see if the premiere of The Hardy Boys was on it yet. It wasn't unfortunately, but then I noticed that this movie was going to be on last night and since I hadn't seen it yet I decided to watch it.

So, Bruno & Boots: The Wizzle War is actually based on the 2003 revised version, The Wizzle War, rather than the original 1982 version of the book, The War with Mr. Wizzle. So instead of the Magnetronic 515, which was Wizzle's large computer in the original book, the movie has WizzleWare, which is the software that is featured in the 2003 revised version. As I said in my first Animorphs book review I personally don't have a problem with changes like that in reprints of my favourite books. After all, sometimes you have to update books for modern audiences. And the same goes with movies. I'm sure if this movie had been made anytime between when the book was published in 1982 and when it was revised in 2003, then it would've been based more on the original version of the book rather than the revised version.

One of the changes made in adapting the book into this movie is the dress code. In the book a suit and tie dress code is implemented by Wizzle. But here, because that dress code is already in effect, Wizzle makes them wear jumpsuits that look more like pajamas than actual clothing. Which is kind of hilarious that Wizzle implemented jumpsuits due to the change in his educational philosophy, which I will get to talking about shortly. Before I do so, I would like to talk about the cast of this movie. 

The cast in this movie is excellent. First let's talk about Bruno and Boots. Bruno is played by Jonny Gray and Boots is played by Callan Potter and their portrayals of those characters are dead on target. When I watched the movies I can imagine these two being those characters in the books. Same with Hannah Vandenbygaart and Kiana Madeira as Cathy Burton and Diane Grant. The only one I've seen in anything else is Kiana Madeira as she played Spencer Young, a tech based villain in the fifth season of The Flash who faced off against Nora West-Allen. But other than that these actors are in alot of indie films, TV movies and TV shows that I've never heard of or wouldn't be interested in. Hannah Vandenbygaart is in alot of Horror and/or thriller films that I wouldn't be interest in since those aren't my genres. The adults are likewise mostly unknowns to me.

I can't find the name of the actress who plays Miss Peabody. Nobody is listed for that role on IMDB. Mr. Sturgeon is played by Peter Keleghan and that's pretty much how I imagined Mr. Sturgeon looking. Miss Scrimmage is a genius piece of casting though because they got Caroline Rhea to play her. I mean I didn't even dream of her playing that role, but seeing her in three movies, not to mention seven seasons of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and the Tom Bergeron/Whoopi Goldberg era of Hollywood Squares, I can totally see why they cast her as Miss Scrimmage. Before I talk about Mr. Wizzle though, I wanna talk about the difference between Miss Scrimmage in the books and Miss Scrimmage in the movies.

In the books Miss Scrimmage was this oblivious, insane, and over-protective woman who had no idea of the behaviour shown by Cathy, Diane and other girls at the school, often blaming Mr. Sturgeon and the Macdonald Hall boys for things that the girls actually did. She also carries a shotgun and is the bane of Mr. Sturgeon's existence. In the movies however, Miss Scrimmage is a goofy, Zen, peaceful woman who is fully aware of what Cathy and Diane are doing, which she often encourages. Her relationship with Mr. Sturgeon is much more civilized in the movies too. And apparently the writers decided to give her the first name, Eugenia, since Gordon Korman never gave her a first name in the books. Onto Mr. Wizzle.

Walter C. Wizzle is played by Matt Baram, who was in Suicide Squad in 2016 as Dr. Van Criss, the creator of the nano bombs that were implanted into the members of Task Force X at the beginning of the movie, and was in two episodes of the Canadian series, Murdoch Mysteries. He plays the character pretty well. However, there's a huge difference in the way Wizzle is in the book and the way he is in this movie. In the book he's simply a young, idealistic man who is excited to test his ideas for updating the way education is at Macdonald Hall. He's uptight and a little awkward around other people, but he's relatively harmless. In the movie however his methods are more extreme and actually harmful to the students at Macdonald Hall. I mean his teaching methods in the book are actually updated as computers were integrated into our education systems sometime around the late 80s or early 90s. Here though it doesn't seem like Wizzle likes people at all and wants to turn the students into mindless automatons which doesn't do anyone any good. He doesn't even make them write lines after a certain number of demerits. Instead he has them write a computer code containing whatever he'd have them write if he assigned them lines. 

There are so many other things they changed from the book. But none of those things are important because regardless of the changes made in the adaptation process, this was a great movie! I've wanted to see a movie or TV show about Bruno & Boots since I first read The War with Mr. Wizzle in grade 5. So to see this TV movie, and the other two was like a dream come true.

One of the things I like about these three movies, including this one, is that, while the books mostly stayed away from romantic storylines between the guys and the girls, the movies, including this one, leans into it a little bit more. Particularly between Boots and Diane. A romantic angle was never really necessary in the books, and even here it isn't all that necessary either, but romance and crushes are part of a teenager's life, so seeing that it's probably part of the lives of Bruno, Boots, and their friends is weirdly satisfying. Even if we don't actually see them going on dates.

I loved this movie. Is it a perfect adaptation? No, but no adaptation can be perfect. Is it a good movie? Definitely. The only thing that I thought was unnecessary was the addition of George Wexford-Smyth III. He's not in the original book, in fact he was written out of the series after Beware the Fish!, after having been in This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall and Go Jump in the Pool!. So I thought he was incredibly unnecessary in this movie. I also would've enjoyed seeing Sidney Rampulsky's disasterous ballet lesson at Scrimmage's as more of a reason for Wizzle to go to see Ms. Peabody. The Wizzle War isn't streaming anywhere. It used to be on Netflix but it doesn't look like it's there anymore and neither are the other two Bruno & Boots movies, so I was lucky enough that the movie happened to be on TV so I could finally see it. It's worth watching though if you're lucky enough to catch it on TV or if it ever ends up back on Netflix (it used to be on there, but it doesn't seem to be anymore).

Alright guys that's it for me for today. I'm probably going to take tomorrow off, but I might be back tomorrow for a chat about early 2000s teen dramas that populated the airwaves, like Degrassi: The Next Generation, The O.C., One Tree Hill, and Smallville. I might wait until Tuesday though. Regardless I have another comic book review coming your way, another movie review, and possibly a review of the second book in the Animorphs series, The Visitor at some point during the week too. It's a Rachel book and I am really excited to review that one. So until then have a wonderful evening and a good day tomorrow if I do decide to take tomorrow off and I will talk to you all later. Take care! 

Check out my last movie review Here and the first Animorphs book review Here

Animorphs #1: The Invasion (1996) - Book Review

 Hey guys! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Earlier in the week I reviewed a movie that I've been wanting to review since I began blogging six years ago when I reviewed Jetsons: The Movie. Today I'm going to be reviewing a book that I've wanted to review since I started blogging six years ago. That book is the first book in the Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate, The Invasion. Because I have the 2020 printing of the 2011 re-release, I'm going to be talking about the changes that Scholastic made to this book. Believe it or not this isn't the only book series that Scholastic has done this with in the last eighteen years. But I'll talk about that more a little later on. Right now, let's get into the book.

The Invasion is probably the best opening to a long running series of novels I've ever read, if not of all time. Unlike The Tower Treasure, it introduces all of the major players, with the exception of Ax, but I'll talk about that when I review The Message, and unlike This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall, this book is pretty much what the series would be as a whole, with some little changes as the series went along. Which is to be expected with any long running book series. 

I was in grade six when I first read this book. I borrowed it from the school library in like January or February 1999. It also wasn't the first Animorphs book that I read either. The first one was book #23 The Pretender and I think I started watching the TV show before I read the books. So I was pretty late to the series and by the time I got around to it, they were already on book 34 or 35. And while I enjoyed The Pretender, I fell in love with the series with The Invasion. I think that's just because this is book 1 and so I was better able to become integrated with the series reading the first book than I was reading the 23rd book. Although to be honest I actually like The Pretender quite a bit more than I do The Invasion just because I don't like Jake as much as I like Tobias, and this is a Jake narrated book, whereas The Pretender is a Tobias narrated book.

The Animorphs themselves are a bit of a mixed bag for me. When I first read this book back in 1999 my favourite characters were Jake and Tobias because I wanted to be Jake and I was Tobias. I didn't like Marco, despite the tragic backstory of his mom being killed in an accident two years before this book opens, and his dad falling to pieces about it because people who joked like that were people I had difficulty dealing with at that age, as I thought they did it just to be mean. I also couldn't really relate to Marco's circumstances, especially since I didn't know anyone who was in that sort of situation. Rachel was a bit different, since I knew people whose parents were divorced.

As an adult, I can still relate to Tobias the most, though differently than I did when I was a kid. However, despite her lack of anything to do in this book, Rachel is my absolute favourite character. In these first few books, though she'll be slightly overshadowed by Ax after book 4, The Message. Again, I'll get there. The reason I like Rachel so much despite her lack of screen time is that when she is in the book, interacting with the other characters, she does so in a strong, assertive, and aggressive way. Which I enjoy in fictional characters, as well as in people in my real life. Especially in the 90s. Only three years earlier you had Kimberly and Trini on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and while I like both of those characters, neither of them felt very assertive or strong. Inspiring, sure, but Kimberly was always getting kidnapped by Rita and Lord Zedd or screaming for Tommy to rescue her (just wait until I review "Green With Evil" and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie because I got alot more to say about Kimberly in both of those reviews) and both Trini in season 1 and Aisha in seasons 2 and 3 did pretty much nothing the whole time they were on screen. But Rachel? Rachel will kill you with her pinky finger if you even try to suggest that she needs protection. She IS the protection.

Rachel is also the most loyal, unselfish, person in this entire book, aside from the Andalite, Prince Elfangor. Even when she was afraid when confronted with the possibility of dying if she decided to help her friends fight the Yeerks, she did it because her friends needed her and that was more important than her own fears and doubts. And she became angry when Marco kept trying to convince the kids to walk away from the call to action because she felt that he was being selfish when the world needed them to save it. But here's the thing, Marco isn't being selfish and it's not that he doesn't want to try to face the Earth. It's that Marco is looking out for the person who is closest to him. His father.

As I said, I really didn't like Marco much when I was a kid. But reading this book as an adult I completely understand where Marco's coming from when he says the kids shouldn't have to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. His mom is dead, and because of this, Marco and his dad only have each other to lean on, and at this point in the series Marco's dad has fallen to pieces, doesn't have a great job, or doesn't go to work if he does have a job. So naturally, Marco wouldn't want to leave his dad alone if anything should happen to Marco during a mission. And that is perfectly understandable. It's just that Jake, Cassie, Rachel and Tobias don't worry about that as much as Marco does. Which actually brings me to Tobias.

Tobias is a character that I identified with when I was a kid because he was the loner/outcast kid and he wasn't loud and obnoxious like Marco was. However now, as an adult I can relate to him because when he got trapped in his hawk morph at the end of this book he disappeared from school and nobody, but his closest friends noticed. His closest friends, being Jake, Rachel, Marco, and Cassie (obviously). When I graduated from high school I left school before the semester was over because I had all of my credits needed to graduate, and I had all of the required community service hours as well. The only people at school who noticed were Brad, Amber and a girl named Julie. Which sucked in a way because I'd hoped I'd made more of an impact at OTHS than that. But by that point all of my other real friends had already graduated or had transferred away from OTHS, so I didn't have as many people at the school who actually cared about me enough to notice or care that I had suddenly disappeared from school before the semester was over. Though Tobias doesn't even have family who care enough about him to report him as missing.

People in the LGBTQ identify with Tobias because they see him as an allegory as it's been thought that Tobias was very unhappy in his own body, based on some of Jake's narrative and dialogue in this book, and got trapped as a hawk deliberately to escape his life. I see that as well, but I also see it as an allegory for anyone who has a terrible home life and will do anything to escape that life. In Tobias's case, he went over the two hour morph time limit and got trapped in hawk morph. Of course Tobias's life gets alot more complicated as the series goes on and his true parentage is revealed.

Despite him being the narrator and focus character for this book, I don't really have a whole lot to say about Jake. Even with his discovering that his older brother, Tom, was taken by the Yeerks and became a Controller, Jake's biggest dilemma in this book is how to tell Tom that he didn't make the junior high basketball team, Tom's old team. In fact it's really not until book 31, The Conspiracy, that Jake has an actual life changing dilemma to figure out. Whereas in book 7, The Stranger, Rachel has to decide to give up fighting the Yeerks and go live with her dad, or to stay in town with her mom and sisters and continue fighting the Yeerks as an Animorph. Not to mention she has to deal with the fact that her boyfriend is a hawk named Tobias and his lifespan is now shorter because hawks don't live as long as humans do. But I'll get into that another time. Which brings me to Cassie.

Cassie has never been a character that I've liked. Of all of the Animorphs, Cassie is the most hypocritical, well, okay, with the exception of Ax later on, but we'll get there. I get that Katherine and Michael wanted Cassie to be the peacemaker of the group, but in all of her scenes where she's refereeing an argument within the group, she just ends up being a people pleaser as a result. For example, in the opening of this book where Jake makes the mistake of asking Rachel and Cassie if they want the guys to walk home with them because they're girls, and Rachel starts to tell Jake off, Cassie just says, "I'd appreciate it if they did walk with us. I know you're not afraid of anything Rachel, but I guess I am." Cassie basically just said that to shut Rachel up and so that she could spend time with Jake.

It's even more of a problem in later books when the group is voting on pivotal courses of action in their war against the Yeerks and Cassie's blatant indecision or outright disgust with what they have to do to prevent the Yeerks from totally conquering Earth often hampers the group. It gets slightly better after book 19, The Departure, which is a Cassie-centric book that really does not paint her in a good light at all, but there are still pivotal moments that might've gone better if Cassie hadn't been so against fighting the Yeerks. I'm not saying that that is a bad character. My problem with Cassie is that they're inconsistent with what she opposes. There's a moment near the end of the series that perfectly highlights this inconsistency that I'll talk about when I get to that book. 

My only problem with this book, the unnecessary changes made aside, is a problem that I actually have with this series as a whole. And that's the rotating first person POV used in every book. Marco and Ax's books are better at this than Rachel, Jake, Cassie, and Tobias's books are, but I find that in the Jake books, with a few exceptions, they could actually be Marco books because we get so much with Marco in them almost to the exclusion of the other characters. I get that Jake and Marco are best friends and at that age Jake would spend more time with Marco than he would Rachel or Cassie. But when you have an ensemble cast, especially a large one like this, using first person POV seems to be very restrictive as the point of view doesn't change and so not only are you not getting the perspectives of the other characters unless they're with the POV character, but you're also not getting much character development either. Unfortunately it doesn't get better when the Megamorphs books have chapters that alternate between all five Animorphs and Ax. 

 Before I give my final thoughts on this book, I just want to talk about the 2011 re-releases and the "updates" made to the first eight books of the series. In 2011 Scholastic began a re-release program for the Animorphs series, starting with the first two books, The Invasion and The Visitor. The idea was to modernize it and introduce the series to a new group of kids because it was pretty popular with kids my age in the mid 90s to early 2000s. Except their attempt to modernize the books were inconsistent and consisted of changing things like "Sega" to "console" when referring to Jake and Marco's gaming systems. As well as changes in technology used and updated, but still out of date cultural references. This book doesn't have as many of those changes as the next seven books do, but it's still something that Scholastic didn't need to do. The original fans hated the changes (obviously) and nobody under the age of 24 or 25 were interested. In other words, the kids that Scholastic were hoping to get interested, weren't. This isn't the only time that Scholastic has made these kinds of changes when re-publishing a book series.

In 2003 when Scholastic chose to re-release the Bruno & Boots series by Gordon Korman, they changed the name of the series to Macdonald Hall, changed several of the books's titles, and made the same sort of changes to the books that they made to Animorphs in 2011. Inconsistent with technology use, and cultural references.

Personally, I don't have a problem with the changes themselves. What I do have a problem with is how inconsistent they are. For example, if you're going to update certain references then actually update them and update them throughout the books. If you're going to leave them alone then leave ALL of them alone. Animorphs is supposed to be set in the 90s and 2000s. Therefore replacing decade specific with generic ones doesn't make sense. I'll get into this more with book 4, The Message when I review that in a few weeks.

Overall the story and characters hold up pretty well for a 25 year old book. What doesn't hold up are the changes made in 2011 just because they're so generic and take away from the fact that this series was published in the mid 90s to early 2000s, they're of that time, and shouldn't be messed with. Like if you want to re-release the series then that's fine, but don't change them needlessly like that. Having said that I still enjoyed this book. Not just because it's nostalgic, but because it's a good book and a great start to an awesome series of a kind that just doesn't get made nowadays.

Alright guys that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow with a review of the 2017 TV movie, Bruno & Boots: The Wizzle War, based on the 1982 novel, The War with Mr. Wizzle by Gordon Korman. It's on YTV tonight and I am really excited to watch it. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you tomorrow. Take care.

Superman & Lois Trailer Discussion

 Hey guys! How's it going? Happy Friday! So yesterday Warner Bros. dropped the season 1 trailer for the new CW/DC Comics series, Superman & Lois, starring Tyler Hoechlin as Clark Kent/Superman and Elizabeth Tulloch as Lois Lane. I talked about this series a little bit in my post about the things that I am looking forward to in 2021 that I did a while back, and in that post I said that I was incredibly skeptical about this series because the quality has dropped considerably on most of the CW/DC/Arrowverse shows since the second season of The Flash. The reason being is that this show, just like all the others is produced by Berlanti Productions, the production company founded by Greg Berlanti and I find that between the company producing so many shows and movies, the quality just isn't what it could be and what it was back in 2014 when it was just Arrow and The Flash they were producing. But then this trailer dropped and I was immediately blown away. So let's get into it.

The first thing that I noticed in this trailer is that it looks and feels different from the Arrowverse shows, even though it's technically a spin-off of Supergirl. It doesn't feel like it though. I don't know if this is just for the first couple of episodes or not, but they seem to be using the same kind of filter on the camera lens that Zack Snyder seems to like using. I don't know if they want to make this show separate from the Arrowverse and have it be it's own thing because apparently there was originally supposed to be a crossover between Superman & Lois and Batwoman this season, introducing the new Batwoman into the rest of the Arrowverse, and David Ramsey is reprising his role as John Diggle from Arrow on all of the Arrowverse shows this season, including Legends of Tomorrow. So I don't know what exactly they want this show to be. From what I can gather it is going to be part of the Arrowverse, with that shared continuity and legacy behind it, but it's going to be even more of it's own thing than the other shows have been. So like Barry isn't just going to zip in and out at random like he did on Arrow.

One thing that I mentioned back in the last post I made about this show, which you can read here, is that the premise of Superman & Lois felt like a more modern version of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. But looking at this trailer, it actually doesn't. It actually feels more like what we've been getting from Bendis in the comics, mixed with Smallville. From what I can gather in the trailer, both Lois and Clark get fired from The Daily Planet at some point, which actually explains why they were able to relocate to Argo City at the end of Supergirl season 4, where we found them at the beginning of Crisis On Infinite Earths, and not be missed on Earth at all. Though we're still not really sure if they were fired before or after Crisis. So, once they're fired, Lois and Clark move to Smallville with their two sons, Jonathan and Jordan. I don't know where Jordan came from, but I know that Jonathan Kent is supposed to be Jonathan from the comics though not exactly the same as the comic book version.

One thing they're doing which is a continuation of previous incarnations is having a dark haired Lana Lang rather than the traditionally ginger Lana from the comics. Personally, I don't have a problem with it since I went through high school with Kristin Kreuk playing a dark haired Lana on Smallville. They also had a blond Lana on Lois & Clark, and a blond (possibly since it's in black and white) Lana in the failed TV pilot, The Adventures of Superboy back in 1961. So Stacy Haiduk, who played Lana on Superboy which ran from 1988 until 1992, is the only actress to portray the character with red hair in a live action TV series. Again, I don't have a problem with that.

Alright, so now I want to talk about the cast for Superman & Lois. There are three cast members that I am familiar with going into this show. Tyler Hoechlin, who is reprising his role as Clark Kent/Superman from Supergirl, is someone I've seen in the past. He was on Teen Wolf for at least three of the show's six seasons, though I never saw him in the show, but I remember him from the last few seasons of 7th Heaven where he played Ruthie's boyfriend, Martin. The other two I'm less familiar with, but I've still seen them in other things. The first is Emmanuelle Chriqui, who is going to be a series regular on this show as the aforementioned Lana Lang. It's been about 20 years since I saw her in anything but she played Mark Webber's crush, Claire Bonner, in the 2000 Nickelodeon film, Snow Day, which my parents rented for me on VHS, and I saw it on TV once too. 

The third person I'm familiar with, who is going to be a recurring character, is Stacey Farber. I'm not familiar with the character she's going to be playing on Superman & Lois, so I'm going to assume she's original to this show rather than someone the writers pulled from the comics, but Stacey Farber played Ellie Nash in seasons 2 through 8 of Degrassi: The Next Generation, which is around the time I was watching the show in the early to mid 2000s. I haven't seen her in anything since she left Degrassi in 2009, so I thought that was cool that they cast her in this show. Everyone else in the cast is unknown to me, with the exception of Elizabeth Tulloch of course, but that's just because she's been playing Lois Lane since the 2018 Arrowverse crossover, Elseworlds

There is so much more I could talk about like Superman's costume which looks even better in action than it did in that still image that WB released either last month or in November, whenever that was, and the choice to replace Adrian Pasdar as Morgan Edge. But I'll save that for when the show premieres. Or whenever I get to watch it because I have no idea where it's going to air here in Canada yet. If it's on Netflix or Showcase then I'll be able to buy the season on iTunes and then watch it as each episode drops. But if it's on CTV Sci-Fi Channel then I'll get to watch it as it airs. Right now though I don't know where it'll be airing here.

Alrighty that is going to be it for me for today. I've got one chapter left in Animorphs: The Invasion so I will be back tomorrow to review that book. And then I'll have another movie review for you on Sunday as I'll be reviewing Bruno & Boots: The Wizzle War, based on the book by Gordon Korman because YTV is playing it on Saturday night so that's exciting. Other than that have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Jetsons: The Movie (1990) - Movie Review

 Hey guys! How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty well for a Thursday morning. Today I'm going to be looking at a movie from my childhood that I've been wanting to review since I first started blogging in 2015. I'm talking about the 1990 animated movie, Jetsons: The Movie. Let's get into it.

Based on the cartoon series from the 60s and 80s, Jetsons: The Movie is one of those movies that is the epitome of what the 90s was about. The 90s was all about saving the Earth and protecting the environment, which played into alot of TV shows like Barney & Friends, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, among others. Some critics have said that the environmental message comes out of nowhere at the end of the movie, but at the beginning of the movie we see Rosie the Robot press a button that raises the Jetsons's house above the smog, so it kind of shows that Earth is so polluted that Humanity has to live in the sky. Which is something that the TV show never touched upon.

After his new plant, the Spacely Sprocket and Spindles Orbiting Ore Asteroid, has been sabotaged and the head of the facility runs away, Mr. Spacely promotes George Jetson to the position of Vice President and head of the plant. This forces the family to relocate into outer space and George discovers that there's more to what's going on than what Spacely told him originally. The movie came out in 1990, we were just coming out of the 80s and animation was just starting it's rennaissance in popularity thanks to films like The Little Mermaid and All Dogs Go to Heaven which had both come out the previous year. However it did not do very well, making only $20.3 million at the box office in total, and only opening to $5 million on it's first weekend, opening against Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Days of Thunder, and Dick Tracy, all of which had been out for a week or more at this point. Critics hated it as well, with Siskel & Ebert giving it two thumbs down.

 

Jetsons: The Movie is probably one of my favourite non-Disney animated movies of all time. I didn't get to see it in theatres unfortunately but I had it on VHS and watched it all the time. In fact, I still have it on VHS. The Jetsons, which had long been in reruns when I was growing up in the 90s, was one of my favourite cartoons when I was a kid and I watched it all the time, along with The Flintstones. So it was exciting to me that it had a theatrically released animated movie that I owned on VHS. And like I said, I watched it all the time. What's cool about this VHS release is that there's a promo for Universal Studios Florida, which had just opened on June 7th, 1990, at the beginning of the tape. This is one of the reasons that I still collect and watch VHS tapes, as much for the promos and trailers at the beginning (or end) of the tapes as they're like time capsules of the period of time when the tape was released, as for the movies themselves.

My favourite scene in the movie is at the end when Spacely, voiced by the legendary Mel Blanc, orders George, voiced by the late George O'Hanlon, to restart the plant despite the Grungees revealing themselves to the Jetsons and Spacely, and after years of bowing down to him and saying, "Yes Mr. Spacely" and "Right away Mr. Spacely" George puts his foot down and says, "No Mr. Spacely" for the very first time. It felt so satisfying to see that, because again, I watched the cartoon in reruns for years when I was a kid. Of course it took some heavy convincing from Jane and the rest of the family, but George came through in the end. And it was also satisfying to see the look on Spacely's face when he realized he was outnumbered.

My absolute favourite thing about this movie is the soundtrack. The songs in this movie are so late 80s/early 90s songs that you can't help but sing along to them every time one starts playing. Tiffany, a pop singer who was huge at the time, not only voiced Judy Jetson, replacing Janet Waldo, but recorded three songs for the movie. "I Always Thought I'd See You Again" is the one that sticks out to me the most with "You and Me" being another favourite. All of these songs are iconic for me just because I watched this movie so much when I was a kid.

Jetsons: The Movie wasn't released on DVD until 2009, long after the first season of The Jetsons was released, but before the first volume of season 2 was released. Then it got re-released again on DVD in 2015. There's no North American/Region A Blu-ray release yet, though a Region B release did come out in the U.K. in 2016. Apparently Kino Lorber is putting out a Region A Blu-ray release on February 16th, 2021, which is less than a month away. So that's cool. I've only ever had the VHS of this movie and have never seen the DVD in person. Just the pictures online, and it doesn't show any special features on the back cover so I'm assuming that it's a barebones release. According to the front cover of the VHS for this movie there's also a novelization from Grosset & Dunlap (original publisher of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew) but I can't find any information on it or an image of the cover. So either there was one but it's been lost to the sands of time or there was supposed to be one but it didn't get published and they didn't have time to remove that from the VHS cover before that went to press. 

If I had to give this movie any negatives, I think it would have to be how Mr. Spacely is portrayed in it compared to how he's portrayed on the TV series. Specifically near the end of the movie when George says, "No sir, Mr. Spacely". Now Spacely has always been a grumpy person, having numerous encounters with George because George is a bumbling fool most of the time. But in this movie Spacely is teetering on the edge of actual villainy because he KNEW the Grungees lived on that asteroid, but he chose to mine it anyway all in the name of profit. I mean on the show he was never heartless and actually helped George on occasion. Here though he was knowingly outright destroying the homes and lives of the Grungees. Also, how were the board of directors not aware of Spacely building the plant in the first place? In their very first scene, Spacely is unveiling the plant to them for the first time though one member has received reports on it prior to that meeting. It doesn't make any sense.

Overall this movie is still one of my favourite movies from the 90s. The music is great, the story is good, and the Jetsons still act like the Jetsons though Mr. Spacely is pretty out of character. It's not the best movie ever made by any means and the story could've been alot better than it ended up being, but it's still entertaining after almost 31 years. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it unless you're a completist when it comes to The Jetsons though, just because it isn't a good movie and wouldn't appeal to everyone. I still love it though, even if the music is the best part of it.

Alrighty that is going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow to talk about the trailer that dropped today for the new Superman series that is debuting next month, Superman & Lois. I'm also going to have my review of Animorphs book #1, The Invasion up on Saturday and the TV movie adaptation of the Bruno & Boots, The War With Mr. Wizzle (retitled The Wizzle War since 2003) on Sunday. YTV is airing it on Saturday night so I'll definitely be watching it since I haven't seen it yet. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all tomorrow. Take care. 

Detective Comics (Issue #359) - Comic Book Review

 Hey guys! How are you all doing today? Today I'm going to be doing a comic book review for you. I realized that aside from my overview of the Archie digests I haven't done a comic book review since my review of Batman #348. So naturally I picked another Batman comic. I don't know what to tell you guys, Batman is my favourite comic book hero of all time. Today I decided to go with a Silver Age delight with Barbara Gordon and Batgirl's debut in Detective Comics #359, published on November 29th, 1966 with a cover date of January 1967. So let's get into it.

In 1966 Batman starring Adam West as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Burt Ward as Dick Grayson/Robin was dominating the airwaves and had such an influence on the comics at the time that oftentimes you couldn't tell the difference between the two because their tone and the writing was similar on both. Even going as far as pressuring DC Comics to bring back Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler and confidente, who had been killed off in 1965 in favour of Aunt Harriet, who had also made her way onto the TV show. 

In late 1966, editor Julius Schwartz, writer Gardner Fox, and artist Carmine Infantino created Batgirl, who later debuted in the premiere of the third season of the TV show after ratings had started to drop at the end of the second season. There had been a Bat-Girl in the comics before this, in the early 60s. That Bat-Girl had been Betty Kane, the niece of Batwoman a.k.a. Kathy Kane but Schwartz didn't like her apparently, and according to the DC Wiki page for this issue Schwartz, by editorial decree, ordered that all stories featuring the Betty Kane version of Bat-Girl be declared apocryphal or non-canon as we call it today. The new Batgirl was Barbara Gordon who was the daughter of Commissioner Gordon, Batman and Robin's biggest ally after Alfred. This character would appear in pretty much every version of Batman ever created, from the TV show, to the cartoons, to the comics, and...well not the live action movies, but we'll get into that at a later time.

Before I get to the issue itself, I just wanna give my opinion on the Batgirl thing. Every account I've seen on the DC Wiki, on Wikipedia and even in documentaries all say that the TV show writers created Batgirl but asked DC to develop the character in the comics before her debut on the show. However, I don't actually think that's very likely. Detective Comics #359 came out on November 29th, 1966 with a cover date of January 1967, as I said. The show was not even at the midway point of the second season yet at this point and Batgirl didn't debut on the show until the first episode of the third season. Almost a year after this issue was published. So, what I think happened is that the producers, and most likely ABC too, saw that the ratings were dropping in the second half of the season and they saw that the new Batgirl was popular in the comics, as she had her next appearances in issues of Batman and Detective Comics only four months after her debut in this issue, and decided to use her on the show rather than the generally accepted story of them creating the character for the show and asking DC to put her in the comics and develop her there first.

"The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl" is a pretty good story. Killer Moth isn't a villain that I'm super familiar with as he wasn't used very much in the 90s when I started reading comics, and his last appearance in modern comics was during Infinite Crisis in 2006, but in pretty much every comic book version of Barbara's Batgirl origin story, Killer Moth is the first villain that Batgirl fights. In fact, I don't even think Barbara's Batgirl origin has changed all that much in more than fifty years though it has certainly been expanded upon over the decades.

What I find interesting about this story is how incompetent Batman and Robin are compared to Batgirl. Even in the scene where Batgirl stumbles into Batman's plan to capture Killer Moth and ruins it. Obviously Batman couldn't've known that Batgirl would show up again, but he probably should've had that possibility accounted for just in case. But, the Silver Age Batman isn't as with it when it comes to contingencies and considering every possible outcome as the modern day comics version is. Of course you don't want your new character to look bad in their first appearance, and I think the way Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino handled Batgirl in this issue is the reason she's endured for over fifty-four years. It's the reason DC kept her around as Oracle for twenty-two years. And despite my disappointment with their decision, it's why DC chose to put her back in the Batgirl costume

Speaking of Carmine Infantino, aside from Dick Sprang, he is my favourite Batman artist of the Silver Age. Just the way his designs for Batman and Robin look are iconic and very much set the tone for the comics of the mid to late 60s. His art was so bright and colourful that it draws me in every time I read a comic that has his artwork in. Many modern day comic book artists use darker styles and that brighter, more cheerful look has faded over time and has now become synonomous with cheese, camp and ridiculousness. Which is unfortunate.

One of the reasons I like the Silver Age and the Bronze Age so much is that the stories are simple and entertaining, but they still have good character development, more so in the Bronze Age as that's when DC began making ongoing storylines after one shot stories had been the primary comic book storytelling method since the mid-30s. Also, during that era comics conveyed their point to the audience without going as convoluted and brutal as today's comic book stories can get. And that's not to say that modern comics are bad or worthless. They're just different but equally valuable in the way they inspire people who read them.

There's an Elongated Man story in here as well, but there's really not much to say about it. Outside of the TV show version on The Flash and reading Identity Crisis I'm not super familiar with the character and it's not the feature story, so there isn't much to it. It's good but I don't have anything to say about it. It was written by John Broome with art by Murphy Anderson. Broome helped to revamp Batman in 1964, along with Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson. Though Julius Schwartz, Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino are the ones who are talked about in the documentaries and books the most. 

Overall this was a great issue. Barbara Gordon is one of my favourite characters, whether she's Batgirl or Oracle. I just didn't like the direction they were taking her in back in 2011 with the start of the New 52. Not only did they take her out of the wheelchair and back into the Batgirl costume, but then they de-aged her to the point where it made no sense for her to have been both Batgirl and Oracle in the short amount of time the stories took place in or...that's a rant for another time. I have the facsimile edition of this issue and it's wonderful. It's also been in several collected editions, both trade paperback and hardcover, over the years too, so this is a very easy issue to find if you want to read it. 

That's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow with a movie review and then on Friday I'll have a review of The Invasion, the first book in the Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate ready to go up too. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care! 

Living With Disabilities: Winter and Snow

 Hey guys! How's it going? I'm not too bad. I tried to do a blog post yesterday but neither of the ones I thought up worked very well, even as I was writing it. So I realized that I hadn't done a Living With Disabilities post in like two months, so I decided that that's what I'm going to do today. Inspired by the snow we got last week and the colder temperatures, I picked Winter and Snow as the topic for today's post. So let's get into it.

If you've spent any amount of time in a wheelchair you know that they don't do well in the snow. And it's definitely true with my wheelchair to this day. When I was a kid, going outside for recess at school, I was very limited in where I could go because my wheelchair couldn't get through the snow. So I had to stay on the pavement where the snow had been cleared. Which usually meant staying as close to the school as possible because even though it was cleared of heavy snow, there was just enough of it still on the pavement for me to have problems wheeling myself around. And most of my friends would be playing on the giant snow hills that covered the football field and the area near the play structure. 

At Greely Elementary School we had three recesses during the course of the day. Two fifteen minute ones, and one thirty to forty minute one. The thirty to forty minute one was the lunch recess and then everyone would go in and eat lunch before class started again. Because I was also being tube fed at the time, for the two fifteen minute recesses, I stayed inside to prevent the feeding pump's battery from dying. So I read books for fifteen minutes while my friends and classmates went outside to play in the snow. The lunch recess is where I went outside and played with them as I could get off my feeding pump while my nurse went on her lunch break. In middle school it wasn't such a big deal because the grade 7's and 8's had one recess, which was the lunch hour and I was getting off my feeding pump for the hour anyway. And at OCTC it wasn't a big deal because we had indoor recess all the time. But for those five years that I was at Greely Elementary School, I was only outside for one recess every day.

As I said, I read. In grades 4, 5, and 6 I borrowed books from Mr. Meredith's classroom library, even though I was only in his class for grades 4 and 5. He didn't mind though. That's how I read the first four books of the Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights YA novels, as well as a couple of books in the Bruno & Boots series. In grade six sometimes one of my friends would stay inside with me, but more often than not I was by myself, with the teacher and my nurse. That's probably why I got through so many Animorphs books in grade 6.

Things were a little different in grade 3 though. Once a week, on Fridays, I would walk down to the Junior Kindergarten classroom, which my brother was in, and read to the class. Mrs. Sherriff asked me if I'd be willing to do that, and I had no problems with it, since I got to see my brother at school. And I'd do that until it was time for them to go outside for recess, as they went out just before the primary and junior grades (1-6) came in for lunch. Meagan and/or Trina would come with me sometimes and it became an event for the Kindergarten kids. They always paid attention when I read to them, though a certain person named Shayne would be a little brat from time to time, but he learned to shut up when I glared at him. Older kid versus younger kid, that sort of thing. Oddly enough, Shayne and I would become friends when we were in high school and I was in my final year. And I think it was just Meagan and Trina who came with me. It was 25 years ago so I don't remember if it was just the twins or if someone else from my class came with me. Either way, I pretty much did this all winter. Particularly on the really cold days where I couldn't be outside because of my asthma and heart condition. Even if I was completely bundled up. 

At home, playing outside in the wintertime was really fun. At home I could get off my feeding pump whenever I wanted to go outside, as long as I could finish the number of cans of formula that I needed each day. Of course I wore a full snow suit because I was crawling around in the snow since I couldn't walk without my crutches at the time. Plus most of the time the snow was too deep for me to have walked in with my crutches anyway. Aside from that though, playing outside at home was much the same as it probably would've been if I wasn't disabled. I played with my siblings, and we went tobogganing, threw snowballs, and enjoyed the weather.

So that's it for me for today. I realized it had been two months since I did the last Living With Disabilities and I thought today was the perfect day for this. Especially since we actually have some snow on the ground. I'll be back tomorrow with a comic book review that I decided I was going to do this week. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you later. Take care. 

WandaVision (2021) Episodes 1 and 2 Review

Hey guys! Happy Friday! So I ended up watching both of the first two episodes of WandaVision on Disney+ this morning instead of just the first episode because there's not much to talk about in just the first episode, at least for me. So let's get into it.

 I think WandaVision is a very good show so far. But, I think it works better if you're a fan of these characters in the comics and a big fan of Marvel overall. It's still enjoyable for someone like me, who doesn't know these characters outside of the MCU and isn't a huge Marvel fan, but it works better if you do. I also think that this show works better if you're already a fan of the classic sitcoms from the 50s, 60s and 70s (70s is next week's episode) because if you're not familiar with the way television worked in those decades, especially for sitcoms, then it might be a little bit jarring for you.

I was wary going into this show because it is a mini-series, and the promotional material hasn't exactly made me excited for it. Not because the trailers and posters are bad, but again, I'm not a big Marvel fan and I'm not as familiar with sitcoms from the 50s and 60s or 70s as I am with some of the ones from the 80s, 90s and 2000s so it was a very bizarre experience for me.

The cast of this show is amazing. I mean Elizabeth Olsen has always done a great job as Scarlet Witch and Paul Bettany is great as Vision and was good in Solo: A Star Wars Story (the only non-MCU movie I've seen him in). The supporting cast in these two episodes are interesting. You have Kathryn Hahn as their neighbour, Agnes, and her characters tend to be one note. Especially when she's a supporting character in a comedy. But she's a wonderful actress. The surprise cast member for me was Debra Jo Rupp as the wife of Vision's boss. While she's been in several shows and movies since That '70s Show ended in 2006, I haven't seen her in anything since then, so it was a nice surprise to see her because I don't think her being cast for this show got any attention. She was in both episodes so far, and episode 3 is based on a 70s sitcom, so if she's in it, we're basically getting Kitty Forman in the MCU, which is a really weird thing to say. The rest of the announced cast like Kat Dennings as Darcy (from the first two Thor films), and Randall Park as Jimmy Woo (from Ant-Man and the Wasp) haven't shown up yet though Teyonah Parris, who plays Monica Rambeau, is in the second episode, though it wasn't clear that that's who she was. 

Overall I think this show is good. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to stick with it, just because I don't have any attachment to any of these characters, but I am going to watch next week's episode for sure, just to see the 70s setting they're going to be in. After all I do love television, even if I'm not as familiar with shows before 1983 aside from Star Trek and Batman and some cartoons from the 50s, 60s and 70s. So I at least want to see what they do in that decade. Plus it's only nine episodes. It's enjoyable enough on it's own for me to recommend it. But if you're a fan of Wanda and Vision, the Marvel Universe in general, or you're a fan of classic television, it definitely provides you with those things. I'm just not getting as much out of it because I'm not familiar enough with those characters or with classic television to catch all the easter eggs and classic tv tropes they put into the show.

That's it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow with a review of a pilot episode. Not sure which one yet. I'll probably do Titans or Stargirl tomorrow and then either Swamp Thing or Constantine on Sunday. We'll see how things go though. So until then have a great rest of the day and I will catch you all later. Take care.