Then there was that time Oprah spent a whole episode interviewing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Here's a breather post because the next couple of posts, especially the one prompted by a recent comment, are taking a while to write.  So until then, as probably the weirdest possible placeholder, have yet another helpful reminder of something I hope we never ever lose sight of:

Mother of God, the 1990's were so f**king strange...



You can't even believe how happy I am to have found this. I saw this episode when it aired and now I finally have irrefutable proof that this actually happened, that the "Coming Out of Our Shells" "live" tour actually happened, and that the whole thing was not a fever dream I had as a preteen.  Above all, I am glad to have proof that -and I reiterate this so as not to ignore the largest issue here- this is an actual event that actually happened on the actual "Oprah Winfrey Show" for the actual full hour of the show.

Now all I need is for someone to upload more than this tiny portion of the New Kids on the Block Christmas Special...

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Sketch of the Day!

Happy Year of the Snake!

"Drug Avengers" will Break Your Mind

We all know that the "Drugs Are Bad" trope when applied to animated series can result in unintentional hilarity. But Everything Is Terrible just dug up a doozy. I'd like to point out the eye-wateringly trippy animation and the fact that nobody seems to give a crap about the horrible little creature they brought along for reasons that are unclear.

DRUG AVENGERS from Everything Is Terrible! on Vimeo.

I would like to apologize for screwing up Earth's admittance into the Diplomatic Organization of Planets a hundred years from now because my friends and I shared a joint at the Radiohead concert at Great Woods a few years ago.

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Sketch of the Day!

I don't think I shared this tyrannosaur yet? Well, have a tyrannosaur:

A Brief History of Figments

While perusing Progress City's videos, I happened upon this post that included... well, see for yourself:

Imagination 82 - The Original Imageworks from Martins Videos on Vimeo.

Oh wow. Oh WOW!!! Such a nostalgia buzz, where do I start?

So this fellow has kindly shared all the footage he has collected over the years of the original not-embarrassing Journey Into Imagination pavilion. It does not include footage of the ride itself, but it is otherwise about as complete an audio-visual history of the attraction as you can get, so you can see that us 80's kids aren't just running on misaimed nostalgia here. Highlights include:

* - Two variations of the Rainbow Bridge

* - A nice, long sample of Dreamfinder's School of Drama

* - A never-publicly shown preview short film by special effects wizard Mike Jittlov

* - And the 3-D film "Magic Journeys" in almost it's entirety. (I'll warn you there are moments that freaked me out as a child and I can see why now. Nothing explicitly scary happens, but the haunting score and dreamlike mood are a tad bit unnerving. In the "this is the kind of soft-focus 70's movie that makes you think you are high even though you are stone-cold sober". That kind of unnerving.)

For less rosy nostalgia for lost Disney attractions, I give you this hilarious look at the very early days of California Adventure:



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Sketch of the Day!

Eevee?

I am sick! Here are for you Links of Interest!

So... remember how I said I was sick last post? Yeah. Well, guess who has been infected by the magnificent bacterial Bronchitis?

Penicillin is a hell of a drug, it turns out. At this point, I am really miserable and sick and tired OF being miserable and sick and tired. I hope I am really getting this blog post ready to publish and that this isn't one of those horribly vivid dreams I've been having.

Oh God, oh God, the dreams... My recovery schedule has been like, 1) Wake up and take drugs; 2) Pass right back out; 3) Dream an entire day; 4) Wake up and learn than only an hour or two has passed by and freak out; 5) Repeat for second and third doses during the day.

So in lieu of anything of real substance, here are some Links of Interest...

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Spa Studios has shared their amazing character design work from "Rio".

ToughPigs shared their photographs of an incredible Epic Muppet Mural.

If I could round up enough pictures, I would love to do a post about Mickey Mouse with totally random and unlikely people. This picture would be a grand place to start.

Speaking of two people from utterly different worlds meeting together and somehow the universe didn't implode...

Ladies and gentlemen, the magnificent (and very strange looking) Florida Softshell.

In bittersweet news, Lauren Faust has stepped down from Executive Producer to Consulting Producer on "MLP: Friendship is Magic". More immediately important: how am I going to survive the hiatus!

The beloved film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is - ready for this? - forty years old. The cast recently had a reunion to celebrate. This article reports on it and what every child who grew up with the film is secretly thinking.

Apparently Barry Sonnenfeld and Grant Morrison are working on a hopefully better than it sounds multimedia franchise informally called - and I promise you I am not making this up - "Dinosaurs vs. Aliens". (I move that we retitle "Independence Day" to now be, "Mammals vs. Aliens".)

Also apparently, if you liked "The Flintstones" as a kid, you are probably going to want to hurt somebody after reading this news. I can guess exactly what this series is going to be like and I'll bet you can too.

Speaking of strange dinosaurs, Tetrapod Zoology has written a fine article about a very weird theory about sauropods that I am very happy I didn't imagine.

Speaking of strange, er, Ornithodirans, guess who's back? Back again? Dave Peters is back. Tell a friend.
More serious stuff involving dinosaurs: our own Dave Maas has created an awesome CGI Archaeopteryx. OMG, that walk cycle!

Blacknick Sculpture scored a rare interview with stop-motion animator Lee Ashworth.

Here's a surprisingly poignant behind-the-scenes video of the lead animators of "The Little Mermaid" touring the long-awaited Little Mermaid ride.

And in other animation news, they finally released a trailer for the long-in-the-works Speilberg/Jackson Tintin movie! Now I promised I wouldn't make any assumptions about this movie until they finally showed what the characters actually look like. The fact that we haven't even seen MoCap!Tintin's face... let's just say it did not make me optimistic.

Wow, this trailer looks pretty especially the scene with the pirate ship and the desert near the end! Maybe they will finally reveal what Tintin looks like at the end of this trailer?



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Sketch of the Day!

I love designing T-shirts!



And yes, this lake monster might be from a Penicillin-induced dream.

Err, that is to say, drugs are bad, impressionable younger readers. Don't do drugs.