Happy New Year from SMC

Yes, we have been watching this, too

Haha, the last time I posted was last July, so fast-forward to January 2012 and Happy New Year!  Will update soon with what DS and I have been watching - right now he's going through a Speed Racer redux, and it's been fun to go through the episodes we have on DVD.  Not so crazy about Scooby-Doo anymore, which is sad in one sense but I think there'll always be a soft spot in his heart for those meddlin' kids and their dog.  His advancing age (he's almost 10) makes me think he's ready to handle Gatchaman so thinking about changing back to the 1-DVD-at-a-time plan with Netflix and go through the ouvre again - I think I'm ready to go back and tackle these, as well, now that I have a bit more Japanese subtext under my belt.

Yahoo! Answers question about anime vs. American cartoons

My Yahoo! Avatar

Because I need to do grading I have decided to procrastinate by posting the following question on Yahoo! Answers:

What American cartoons do Japanese people like?

I'm a longtime fan of anime but I never hear about the American cartoons Japanese people like to watch - or do they like American cartoons at all? Can anybody help me answer this?

 

Haha, can you tell I C&P'd this from the website?  So, here are some of the answers I've gotten so far (there are four days to get answers to this question):

 

 

1.  Avatar the Last Airbender.

 

2.  Hello Kitty to the highest degree.

Source(s):

one of my friends is japanese.

 

3.  I heard they really like Scooby-Doo (for some odd reason)

 

4.  The original Tom and Jerry cartoons, as well as The Pink Panther's original shorts translate well overseas because there is no soundtrack to translate since the title characters remain silent through most of their adventures.
And while I can't say why The Pink Panther remains silent, Tom and Jerry never spoke in the originals because William Hanna and Joseph Barbera could never agree on what they should sound like.

 

I am totally dubious of answers 1 & 2, and answer 4 doesn't really answer the question and seems almost like speculation.  I like answer #3 the best just because it has a S-D reference and S-D is awesome so why wouldn't people around the world love Scooby-Doo?

If you've got some spurious information on this question, feel free to post on the Yahoo link, here.  I've had this question rolling around for awhile and watching Total Drama Island with DJ made me finally decide to pose this question to the Internets.

The Scooby-Doo blog

Happy Valentines day everybody! Here's a link to the shown valentine, which you can print in color or black and white (to color in your own self).
Okay, this is getting creepy. If this isn't the dead animator's obit blog, it's the Scooby-Doo blog. Honestly, that's all we've been watching now since I started this blog. Brief, wonderful interludes are filled with Spongebob and 1-dollar Popeye DVDs (Fleischer and Paramount). We're even watching "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo," which I would blog about (and may still do so) but it is just too pathetic.

Iwao Takamoto dies, too!

It's some kind of Scooby Doo curse, or just being old. Good bye to another great of the animation world. Here's an AP photo of the Scooby-Doo balloon in the 2006 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Wither Misty?

As you may have surmised, my sole purpose as a parent lately has been to warp my young son's mind with cartoons that I consider classic--some trashy (see Scooby-Doo entry), some considered artsy like early Warner Brothers, and kitschy (see Speed Racer entry). Time will only tell what deleterious effect this will have on his developing psyche, but I am content for now to ignore these possibilities and revel in satisfying my own cartoon-based obsessions.
Much to my husband's chagrin, one of those obsessions happens to be the Pokemon saga. Before there was a child, there was my insatiable thirst for Saturday Morning Cartoons which would lead inexorably to the WB where I saw my first episodes of Pokemon. I really don't know what it was about this particular cartoon, but I fell in love with it from the get-go. I didn't go all the way into fangirldom with the card-collecting frenzy that afflicted so many 10 year-olds during that time, but I watched the series and the new movies religiously. My husband was helpless to save me then and is now watching with the same helplessness as my son twists his way into Pokemon hell.
I knew this would lead to embarrassing situations in the real world, and I was right. We were over at a friend's house for a playdate and of course these particular friends are smart and don't let their children watch TV, so they were scratching their heads when my son suddenly blurts out, "Bulbasaur, I choose YOU!"
But vicariously living the Saturday Morning Cartoon lifestyle through my son is not what I wanted to talk about or, rather, ask. Where the heck did Misty go? As seems to be the usual for me, I rely heavily on Wikipedia to source me on the 4-1-1 about my favorite character of the Pokemon series, especially because of all the hentai sites you have to wade through on Google. Now when I watch newer Pokemon movies I get a little nervous when I don't see Misty, but after reading the Wikipedia entry, it seems like Misty is going to phase in and out, being supplemented with May, who seems like a Misty wanna-be if you ask me.
Am I a dork, yet?
Wait, no I'm not -- here's a chat thread about the whole May Haters/Misty Likers school of thought, supported by a Cole Sprouse website, whoever the heck that is. Oh wait, I'm sorry -- They're all 10 YEARS OLD! My bad, I really am a dork.

What's New Scooby Doo?

I went into this past summer pretty much with the idea that it was going to be the Summer of Junk as far as enriching media for my son. So I started him on a steady diet of Scooby-Doo TOS which he was immediately resistant to because it was kind of spooky. And, like an idiot, I encouraged further viewing as much as possible! He caught on and is now joyfully and irretrievably obsessed with all things SD. My old man, God love him, is a gifted story-teller in the Scooby-Doo genre and so car trips are pretty entertaining -- he does a mean Norville "Shaggy" Roberts which, if you listen closely, kind of sounds like a castrated Bill Clinton. I think this Christmas we're getting DJ the complete first two seasons of the original series but, you know, in retrospect SD:TOS is not as enjoyable to watch in my dotage as it was the first time around. The animation is pretty hideous; for one thing, Daphne often looks like she was born with an unfortunate eye deformity.
Anyway, we started watching the latest Scooby-Doo series on DVD, What's New Scooby-Doo? and I have to say, out of all the configurations of SD it is probably my favorite. The writing is snappy, the theme song is appropriately poppy for the new millenium, and the animation is a far, far cry. Also, they reinstated the song-during-chase-sequence which began in the second season of TOS and then was sporadic through the rest of the different SD shows. Less Than Jake even has a song ("Ghosts of Me and You") that was featured on an episode (don't ask me which one). Simple Plan does the theme song for the show. Go to smallages for a cool blogspot blog entry about the Scooby Doo music from WNSD.