The older I get, the less inclined I am to do daily drawing challenges. But it turns out if they're funny, I cannot resist. Thus, Botober! Created by Janelle Shane, who asked a neural net to create a set of drawing prompts and wound up with this:
Because I so dearly love it when humans play along when computers ask for silly things, I have generated drawing prompts for #botober2021!
So TetZoom 2021, which occurred about a week ago and ran all day and into the night, was an absolute blast! This was the second ever TetZoo Convention I've ever been able to attend and I really really hope they keep the online/livestream portion of the show. Handy Sketchbook on my knee, I took a lot of notes on the presentations and here they are, though considerably cleaned up:
One of the highlights of the show was getting to attend the Paleoart Workshop, which I wisely snapped up tickets for as soon as I could. And so I drew this beautiful Kronosaurus along with our teacher Mark Witton. What an awesome experience!
They say the past is like a different planet. What I have to share with you today, as an early birthday present, is a very powerful example of that idea.
I've explored "Jurassic Park" in several different ways over the years. As one of the most significant ever pieces of paleoart (which it technically is), as a groundbreaking moment in animation history (which it also technically is), as a distinctively 1990's pop culture moment (which it ALSO also technically is), and as, well, a really good movie (let's not talk about the sequels though.) This strange video is mostly an artifact of the pop culture moment, and I say artifact because I don't even know if this kind of video is a thing that exists anymore.
Let me set the scene for younger readers out there. Back in the Age of Video Stores, owning a physical copy of your favorite movie was a pretty big deal. The people who ran the video stores would often get early promotional copies of movies on VHS sent to them by the movie studios. And most of them had the movie itself preceded by a film like this one to convince the video store owner that stocking copies of the movie for rent and for sale would be a really good investment. You weren't usually able -or allowed to- watch these promotional copies unless you worked at a video store or were friends with someone who did. So I have seen a few of these, and I promise you that this "Jurassic Park" one is one of the best:
I really can't decide what my favorite part is. The Mtv Beachhouse! The survival pack contest! The excitement over their Official "Jurassic Park" Website (in 1994, can you even imagine)! The fact that we don't even get to see any "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs in full until they show off that incredible standee! The fact that, in 1994 mind, it's even presented as questionable that stocking the biggest hit of the decade thus far would be a good idea.
As a fellow admirer of crows once sang in a song that has been drilled in the tooth of my memory since high school, maybe this year will be better than the last. God I hope so. I at least intend to blog more, when I can; anything that strikes my fancy and is also too weird and/or wonderful NOT to post about.
Case in point: "Along the Moonbeam Trail". This is a short silent film recently restored to the best of the editors' abilities (here's hoping they find the ending). I'd like to thank Tyler Greenfield for posting a clip on Twitter because it's honestly astounding that I've never seen it or heard of it. It has everything! It is not my Entire Aesthetic (for one thing, I'd have more than one [1] major female character and she'd do more than being a Deus ex Machina), but it's about as close as a movie from this time period could hope to be:
Everything about this is great but I'm torn between the random witch, the "pterosaur" who's really one of the first movie dragons, and the stegosaurus and his cute skink-tongue.
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Art of the Day!
I painted this back in 2018 and I'm reposting it here to bring this wonderful magical energy into 2021. Happy New Year!
Welcome to what is effectively the Year Without a Halloween. Stupid pandemic. I'm determined to keep the spooky season alive even if I can't pass out candy or keep a running tally of what costumes I see most often, always a fun pop-culture barometer. Here are some mostly Halloweeny (or not) links for you.
* Boundless Realms - I don't think I've met a single foolish mortal, Disney Park geek or otherwise, who doesn't adore the Haunted Mansion. Foxx, of the fantastic Passport to Dreams website, has just written a gorgeous book on the Mansion and it is a must-have.
* You're Wrong About is my new podcast obsession that goes over historical events, famous figures, and urban myths that, it turns out, we got all wrong. It's fascinating, if not exactly light listening. Get ready to scream in anger at various decibels at least once.
* I am so, so happy that people are starting to rediscover "Michael Jackson's Halloween", if only because it proves I didn't hallucinate all those years ago. Have a podcast and a video essay.
* Saturday morning and weekday morning cartoons are coming back thanks to MeTV, who will be airing blocks of classic theatrical cartoons starting in January. Consider this your early DVR alert.
* "Eli Roth's History of Horror" is back for another season and I'd be very happy if we got to do this every year please and thank you.
* And if that wet your appetite for horror movie docs, I also love The Kill Count, which, while it is exactly what it sounds like, is also a surprisingly good kind of a Cliff Notes of gory horror for wimps.
You might have guessed, given the wait between Blog posts, that your germphobe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder suffering buddy Trish hasn't been having a very fun time during the pandemic. And, you're right. The past few months have been surreal. Back in the beginning, when people were taking Covid-19 more seriously, almost everyone suddenly agreed, "Always have disinfectant spray or wipes. Use them to sanitize
everything in your home and clean everything that comes into your home because your home is your Safe Place. Avoid public transportation and above all Wash. Your.
Hands!!!"
And there I was, already deep in the middle of a sustained anxiety attack for everyone I care about and incidentally also myself, thinking, “Normal people DON’T do these things?"
Because if I have to
fill the bird feeders or ride the subway, my entire day centers around that
because for me it is a Whole Thing. My home is my Sanctum Santorum of Sanitary, so after such activities, I must go through a thorough dermatopic purification (hot shower) before entering. Everything is a potential danger
you must prevent somehow or Bad Things Will Happen and it Will Be Your Fault.
What I'm saying is, in the early days of the pandemic, what people were freaking out about was my "normal." (I and a few others were very quietly hoping that maybe, just maybe, OCD people would get a bit more sympathy from all this. Or
at least that most folks would start going over your phones with a wet wipe when you charge it at night because I honestly still
can’t get over the fact that most of you apparently wouldn’t normally do
that?!?)
But I don't want to dwell on that right now. For the first blog post in ages, I want to post something silly and upbeat instead.
And so, let me share the ridiculous 1984 CBS Saturday Morning Preview show! I talked a little bit about these programs way WAY back in the Archaen Eon of my Blog, and I'm surprised I've never revisited them since. After all, if there are things I love to write about here, two big ones are 1) Animation and 2) Unintentionally Hilarious Vintage TV Specials.
So here's the preview special for the... honestly pretty bleak lineup
for CBS in 1984. The highlights were "Dungeons and Dragons" (better
than I remembered), the then-brand-new "Muppet Babies" (not as good as I
remembered), and Looney Tune and Charlie Brown anthologies series.
Lowlights include about a half-dozen cartoons based on arcade games.
Mediocre-lights are the "Shirt Tales" and "Get-Along Gang". The
IDKWTF-light is a live-action show I completely forgot about, kind of a
precursor
to "Pee-Wee's Playhouse", made by Sid and Marty Krofft, and starring
Richard Pryor. (When I need to tell a kid what the 90's were like, I
usually tell them, "Monks had a double-Platinum hit record."
From now on, when I need to tell kids what the 80's were like, I shall
tell them, "Richard Pryor hosted a children's show.")
What's
really interesting about this special, the reason I want to share it, is
the "plot". Janet from "Three's Company" is a reporter who hates hates
hates cartoons but must write about how they are made. And so Henry
from "Too Close For Comfort" is going to show her. What follows is more
delightfully strange than you'd expect, but hey we get to see the cast of
"Muppet Babies"!
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Art of the Day! And now, totally botanically accurate humor.
I have to start by saying it feels really weird to be finally writing about Pandora: The World of Avatar now. It feels like I'm extremely late to the party, and that the conversation in Disney Theme Park Internet World has moved on. To a Galaxy far, far away in fact, and if anyone is talking about Pandora, it's judging it as a sort of test run for Star Wars: Nothing But Star Wars: Here, Have More Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge.
And comparing it to Harry Potter over in the competing park down the road. That too.
I really don't want to do either of those things. Instead, let's back up. A long time ago, a terribly long time ago it feels, it was announced that a whole new Land was going to be built in a Walt Disney World theme park: Pandora, the World of Avatar. I was generally more enthusiastic than, uh, everyone else it felt like. You can read my initial thoughts here. But that was many years ago and I've only got the chance to visit Pandora myself last month. Everyone in the Disney Blog-verse has an opinion about the new land and here's mine:
I really like it.
I'm a sucker for a good, truly immersive, "You are in an imaginary land turned real" experience. This delivers quite nicely. The overall effect of the land is stunning, but I mostly appreciate all the smaller details. And goodness, I wish I'd had more time to explore the land at night.
For now, Pandora has two rides. I want to give some love to the Navi River Journey, as it tends to live in the shadow of Flight of Passage, the big state of the art headliner. I'm just happy River Journey exists, because we've been losing so many slow-moving atmospheric rides lately. Rides like The Great Movie Ride that you can enjoy with your grandmother. "Grandma Rides", if you will. If this is a genre, River Journey is an excellent standard for them.
And then, there's Flight of Passage. I have no words, man. This is damn near everything I always dreamed of in a flight simulator. It's good and long, too! It's also notoriously difficult to acquire Fastpasses for and has a standby line you could pretty much watch "Avatar" in while waiting. Still, everything I've ever wanted from a flight simulator.
Plus it turns out I make for a pretty cute catgirl! Look at my Avatar, look at her! Dang, she even has the same "They're taking my picture! Oh, please don't blink..." look!
The earlier Disney Parks specials have a certain "'70s-ness". This special, however, celebrating the 25'th anniversary of Walt Disney World, has what I can only describe as a '90s-ness.
And also a '70s-ness. See, I remember reading somewhere that you'd never be able to write a truly accurate depiction of life during the '70s without including the rampant '50s nostalgia. Guess what rampant nostalgia '90s kids were bombarded with?
And so, we have a Disney Park special that whisks two little boys from 1971 through time to land in 1996. Yup, it's bonkers. It's more fun than "The Dream is Alive" at least; we actually get to see Walt Disney World for one thing.
Highlights to watch out for include the infamous Castle Cake, a deeply troubling walk-around Quasimodo costume, a God-damn "Really 700 Years Old" gag in a Disney special?!? 😨, and -of course- a mime! Because it isn't a truly baffling vintage Disney Parks special without mimes.
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Art of the Day!
So, I've been thinking about the "Kingdom Hearts 3" trailer a lot, and I think my very favorite part is when this happens:
I reiterate: I like to watch vintage Disney Park specials before heading down to The World. I like to see what's changed, what's stayed the same, and what I missed out on that I honestly wouldn't believe actually happened unless they were documented on film for posterity.
"Walt Disney World's 20'th Anniversary: The Dream is Alive" does not preserve much of the latter (save for a brief glimpse of a Pleasure Island marquee). In fact, this Disney Park Anniversary Special contains almost NO footage of Walt Disney World at all. What it gives us instead is Michael Eisner -a LOT of Michael Eisner- struggling to be as charismatic as possible.
Whew, they really don't make them like this anymore. Look for Eddie Murphy's expression at about the seven minute mark, because I had a similar one watching this.
Side note: Me having to pause and rub my temples at the sight of Michael Eisner's credit in "Bojack Horseman" is the new me having to pause and rub my temples at the sight of Seth MacFarlane's credit in "Cosmos".
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Art of the Day!
Speaking of Especially Weird Disney Things, we recently got a look at "Kingdom Hearts 3" and...
😍😍😍 HEY WOW WOWIE WOW AWESOME COOL FUN PARTY BARBIE BIRTHDAY AWESOME WOW YIPPEE YAY WIZARD WOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😍😍😍💩🍹🍰
😨
Okay, this one is going to take some explaining.
If you spend any significant amount of time in the Disney fan portion of this vast sea we call the Internet, you'll find that one thing Disney Park fans like to complain about is the inclusion of popular established characters in Epcot attractions. This hasn't been bothering me nearly as much as it does others, but after watching "BARBIE BIRTHDAY PARTY AT WALT DISNEY WORLD EPCOT '94!!!" (henceforth, "BARBIE IN EPCOT" because I just... can't) I can see where the dissent is coming from.
The whole "BARBIE IN EPCOT" thing was actually a contractual obligation between Disney and Mattel and ye gods, does it ever look like it. I feel like this must have been the Faustian bargain for all the Mattel characters they got to include in "Toy Story". The stage show lasted a little over a year and a half, and just about the only real evidence that it wasn't some kind of group hallucination is this video. The video was available for purchase with special Barbie dolls for a penny, which seems about right.
On the one hand, it's always neat to get a behind-the-scenes look at Disney stage shows, and the segments about how birthdays are celebrated around the world are very nice. On the other hand, you have the screaming 90's child actors. Do anything you can to prepare yourself, because the screaming 90's child actor hosts of this special are like entire seasons of "Full House" made flesh. I hate them, I hate them so much, and it's as much about the screaming and their being genuinely horrible (get your damn fingers off that beautiful cake you monsters!) as it is that I wish I could get as excited about anything as these screaming 90's child actors get about literally everything.
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Because it's my Birthday and I love you (and also because Faebruary's still in my rear-view mirror and St. Patrick's Day is this weekend) have a Bonus Especially Weird Disney Thing! Let me show you the traditional dances of my people:
This isn't what I saw a few nights ago in Raglan Road after downing two Kilkennys (though it's close). This is "Light Magic". It's from 1997 and was meant to be the replacement, in Disneyland, for the Main Street Electrical Parade. Once again, home videos like this are about the only real evidence this wasn't a mass hallucination.
It's also from that very weird, very specific, and thankfully very over period where Disney Parks defined "parade" as "Three or four floats that ride down the street, then stop and stay still for several minutes at a time to do a long elaborate show, then start moving again to suddenly stop and do another show and so on". It went over even less well than "BARBIE IN EPCOT", not even surviving one whole year.
May the good Fairies draw near to you,
And spread love and luck with their weird little dances every day.
And may a good strong drink
Make the memories of horrible screaming 90's child actors go away.
I am going to celebrate a big momentous birthday in Walt Disney World! And I really like to watch vintage Disney Park specials before heading down to The World. I like to see what's changed, what's stayed the same, and what I missed out on.
And this time, I've found some really weird ones. First up, we have a special celebrating what, in my opinion, was the most awesome Disney Parks anniversary of all, the fifteenth anniversary of Walt Disney World. I think this might have even been one of my family's first trips. Every fifteen minutes, someone entering the park would win a prize, and the decorations were terrific.
This special doesn't focus on that at all. Instead, we get half of the Golden Girls, a really strange tour of World Showcase, a reminder of how 3/4ths of the Monkees were everywhere in the 80's, a seemingly endless patriotic production narrated by Charlton Heston, and previews of upcoming attractions, including something about a "studio tour"...
It's Twitter Moments time to post screenshots from a particular website that... I'll be gentle and say we've become disillusioned with it! Since these are screenshots, the posts couldn't be edited for spelling or anything but they have been shuffled around a little for clarity. Thank you, everyone who watched along and contributed.
(There's supposed to be a screenshot of Arlo in his egg here but Blogger hates that one picture for some reason.)
