Merry Christmas

Hope everyone has a great christmas. Here's a crude picture.


Wub, Sy.
xxx

Part 4: Columbo

I was pondering what the last one today should be, in the end Columbo was always the best bet. A staple of my childhood and adult TV watching life.

I grew up watching Columbo since the new series started in the late eighties/early ninties and I still watch it today. There's a lot that can be said that's wrong with it, the main thing being that it's entirely formulamatic but that's just outweighed by Peter Falk's performance and turning Columbo into a realistic believeable character. That's the reason I watch the show and continue to enjoy it. If there were Columbo action figures when I was a kid I would have bought them.

One of the greatest aspects of Falk's portrayal as Columbo is that he makes constant reference to his wife who's simply called Mrs Columbo and even though she is NEVER seen throughout the entire run of the nearly 40 year running series she is a fully developed, and major, character that Columbo makes constantly present through his words. This is not only a testament to the writers but to Falk's portrayal and making it so convincing.

The thing that makes this show stand out from other detective shows is that Columbo reveals the murderer at the begining of every episode. You know who did it, you know Columbo's gonna catch them. The thrill is watching Columbo hound the murderer and try to make them slip up until he forces them into a corner or gets the evidence he needs using the pretense of a scruffy, slow-witted detective. It's crazy that it works but it does so very often.

That doesn't mean to say that this works all the time, there were points during it's run (especially in the 90's) where they tried to break the formula of the show but in it's place losing the charm and part of what makes the show so special. The worst of these is 'No Time To Die' where Columbo's nephew is getting married and his future wife is kidnapped by some criminally insane guy who is obsessed with her. Only Columbo can find her! Man I hate that episode, it's too cheesy and full of gimmicks to actually work.

I've been buying the UK DVD releases(which piss me off no end because not one of the DVD spines match up) by Universal or Playback (one of them) as they've been released and there's one episode that stood out to me as being well... really odd in the Fifth Season called 'Last Salute to the Commodore'. Not only does it break from the formula by not revealing the murderer until the end but Columbo seems... WASTED! Yeah he's going around like he's stoned! It's so odd to see and doesn't really work. The weirdest thing is that after he solves the murder she gets in a rowboat and floats away with no explanation! I was seriously left thinking, 'What the hell did I just watch? Was that even Columbo?'.



One of the main things I like about the show is that guests could be murderers more than once and it didn't bother you in the sense of continuity and that they were playing different characters. My favourite of these is easily Patrick McGoohan (The Prisoner, another show I love), Jack Cassidy and Robert Culp who always make great murderers you love to hate. Johnny Cash also makes an appearance as a murderer in 'Swan Song' as a country singer (how creative) and William Shatner turns up twice, the second time sporting a tiny moustache that just looks so out of place you can't help but laugh when you see it.

Well that's it for Columbo and that's me done for the day! Oh, Just one more thing. More Super Gerbil.

Wub, Sy.
xxx

Part 3: Ghostbusters!

These are taking longer to write than I imagined they would but it's oddly amusing, fun and kind of horrifying to dive back into your childhood sometimes and look at it from a new perspective. Like how much money you got your parents to spend on Ghostbusters toys. £1,000? Over the years it probably adds up to that much. What a spoiled brat I was! Anyway that leads me into this. Ghostbusters! They need no introduction.

This was probably one of the biggest franchises I experienced whilst growing up and that's mainly due to all the toys that kept coming out supposedly based on the cartoon although like the Ninja Turtles toys it seemed like most of them were never in the cartoons or the movies at all. A brief list of what I remember having was Slimer (who came with a rubber pizza), the main four ghostbusters, the Ecto-1 (everybody has one of those), the firehouse (which I begged and pleaded for one christmas), some old lady with a monster mouth, a wolf man, the four ghostbusters again but when you pressed their arms they made weird faces, tubs of that fucking shitty ecto plasm stuff, Janine (for the firehouse, for the firemen?), colour changing Ghostbusters (why I wanted these I do not know), the ecto copter or some shit, Stay Puft, a proton pack, a ghost trap... the list just goes on and on and on. Then again that's the hold marketing has over kids, you want them but you don't know why.



Now let me recal back to when I was playing with Ghostbusters when I was a kid. I'd just unwrapped the firehouse to which I wanted so much and it was really fun for a while I liked it a lot but two things really pissed me off about it... wait, make that three things.

1. The Ecto-1 was so fucking huge it didn't fit in the firehouse right so you had to park it outside.

2. Stay Puft was TINY compared to the firehouse which I guess was ok but even back then I was a stickler for detail.

3. The Ecto Plasm tubs you got with it to pour down the grates were horrible! It dried really quickly when you poured it down the grates so it stuck to all the plastic leaving you having to clean it up for about half an hour after only seconds of Ecto Plasmic fun and most importantly IT SMELLED LIKE AN ARSE! Terrible.

But I can't lie, for the most part the toys were awesome, especially the proton pack, and even though Egon's tie snapped on the run of figures where you squeeze them and looked shocked I can take solace in the fact that everybody else's tie snapped as well. Yeah, take that. Where did we get the urge to buy these toys though? Well that would come from the TV series titled, The Real Ghostbusters.

The Real Ghostbusters was one of those shows that when you were a kid just made you feel just that much more grown up. It's not that it was particually mature but it just had that style, look and feel that stood out from most other cartoons at the time and it was great for a time. I do remember that during it's run they changed Peter's voice actor to someone else. People probably say that kids don't notice that stuff, well I know I did! I tried watching it after the voice change but this new guy just pissed me off. Then they went the double shit and putting Slimer cartoons at the start. Bastard.



The Extreme Ghostbusters was pretty bad from what little I saw of it (Two episodes I think). I can't even be bothered ranting about it. At least Egon and Janine were there is all I'm gonna say.

Too be honest I don't think I saw the movies until much later, though I was still pretty young at the time (about 7 or 8 I would imagine) and I remember it being a ball busting experience. Seeing the Ghostbusters in real life shooting realistic ghosts was just overload. But wait... WHY THE FUCK ISN'T EGON'S HAIR BLONDE??

The scene with Slimer in the hotel from the first movie will always remain a classic with me along with the Stay Puft rampage. The best thing is that the Ghostbusters movies still hold up today as funny as they ever were. Sure the special effects are mostly outdated but who cares, the effects still have that certain charm and everything else ticks the right boxes. I'm sure I'm not in the minority when I say that the first movie was miles overhead of the second but that's not to say the second was really that bad and has some classic scenes like the courthouse. Even though not as good as the original it's better than most comedy movies being made today. A tragic trend?

What do I think of Ghostbusters 3? Well from what little info we've got about it it's going to be CGI and that's an instant BLECH from me I'm afraid but as to if the movie's going to be any good? We shall wait and see. I'm willing to give it a chance and since Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, Enrie Hudson and Harold Ramis are all set to do the voices that's at least one plus with me.

Well that's it about the Ghostbusters from me. Now cover yourself in ecto-plasm and take a look at some more Super Gerbil.

Wub, Sy.
xxx

Part 2: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Second up on the list today is those childhood stealing ninja turltes... or was it hero turtles...? Fuck it, it's Ninja turtles, even as kids we all knew that!

In the late 80's early 90's kids went crazy over these creepy human sized turtle things who whent around with deadly weapons, fighting samurai and kicking the shit out of a brain thing that lives in a giant golf ball. And why not? When you're 5 years old that's the best synopsis for a series you could ever hope to have. So where did it all start? Well I know it started with a exceptionally dark comic book but that's not where it started for me. For me it started with a cartoon that started in 1987 and ran until 1996. What do I remember about it? Not much really, Krang and Shredder were the bad guys, the Turtles and Splinter were the good guys and they beat the shit out of each other every week on Saturday mornings. Awesome. Oh yeah they were named after painters too.



What I never got was that when people used to play Ninja Turtles in the playground at school (don't pretend you didn't) there was a big fuss about who was going to be Leonardo. Who gives a shit about Leonardo, he's so full of himself. Raphael and Donatello were so much more badass and I'll explain why. Raphael was the no shit guy as in he wouldn't take any shit and was the rebel of the group. He was taking no shit! Donatello was intelligent, he could come out with these weird gadgets and although everyone considered him the 'nerd' of the turtles and only carried around a stick just remember this. Leonardo had swords, Rahpael had a pair of daggers, Michelangelo had nunchaku and Donatello had a stick. That says something right? The dude just needs a stick to knock your shit together! Badass. Oh yeah and Michelangelo... well he was a party dude I guess. Nobody wanted to be him either.

Onto the movies. Well I do remember the movies vaguely. I remember the cheesy jokes, the cool animatronics and the ball busting martial arts (well it seemed like it back then). I remember being pissed off that the foot clan weren't wearing those purple uniform things and I remember Shredder's pathetic death by being crushed by a harbour after turning into Super Shredder (a little bit anti-climactic). It was kinda cool that in the second movie you got two new mutants that kinda seemed like they could be Beebop and Rocksteady from the cartoon. Overall the first two movies while a prime stickynote in my childhood don't really have the same kick today HOWEVER there's still that nostalgic flavour mixed in there that when the movies come on TV I've just gotta watch them.

What's that? There was a third movie? Yeah, well. Lets just forgot about that piece of crap.

What else do I remember about the Ninja Turtles? Well the merchandising. who could forget that. Toys, bedsheets, lampshades, VHS, a lunchbox, wallpaper and all sorts of other stuff. My god the crap we buy into as kids, right? Well my main focus in my turtles phase was the toys. I had loads! All the four turtles, Shedder, the turtle van, April O Neil and her motorbike or something, a shit load of bad guys I don't ever even remeber from the cartoon or movies, a basketball giraffe(what the fuck?), a samurai panda (you have to actually read the back of the box to tell what side he's on)... ok I'm going to stop because it gets pretty damn stupid after that... talk about milking a toy line.

Another thing I remeber fondly about Ninja Turtles was the the games. Two of them specifically. The first ninja turtles game for the Amiga (I think) and the arcade game. Now the arcade game was bloody brilliant, I loved it but the Amiga game... god damn! It was impossible. They expect kids to finish something that hard? I guess they don't but still I tried and tried and failed and failed. Man I was pissed off at that game. I think the furthest I got was the dam, however far that was.

Most recently I watched the new movie called TMNT. I guess that ties in with the fascination of abbreviating just about EFT (work that one out, the second word rhymes with trucking). I have my reservations about the movie being made in CGI because I am not a fan of the overuse of it in cinema at the moment and it's overall (to me anyway) cheap look compared to more traditonal animation or even animatronics. I was rather surprised however, it was a pretty fun movie if I'm being honest. The sturtles looked decent in their CGI form but the human characters just looked balls. I was also kinda cool to see Raphael and Leonardo go at it one on one. It was nothing amazing and pretty predictable but I enjoyed the darker tone and even though I'm not a huge fan of CGI I have to admit that some of the action sequences looked really good visually and flowed smoothly. Decent, though I wanna see Krang in a movie!


Well anyway that's the turtles for ya as I remember it from my childhood days. There's also a mass of other turtles crap as well like an anime(Krang's voice sounds hilarious in Japanese), a new TV series, a live-action TV series (with a female turtle... Girtle power!) and the entire confusing comic series which actually sounds amazingly violent (I've also seen a page where Splinter has a heart attack! What's with that??). Here's some more Teenage Mutant Ninja Gerbil.

Wub, Sy.
xxx

Part 1: The Rocky Franchise & Day of the Gerbil

Since I've been falling behind with uploading Super Gerbil, today shall be the first part of day of the Gerbil where i'll upload a batch on comics on the hour for four hours whist commenting on franchinses of the past of which I hold certain affection for. First up, Rocky.

Ah yes Rocky, the movie franchise that just pongs of uber-manliness and ultimate 'HYYYRUUUUGHHH' factor. These movies is so manly that if you're a girl and like them then you probably should have a sex change, actually a sex change won't be needed because you'd probably grow a penis anyway. Well no not really, but they are fucking-A movies (for the most part).

The Rocky franchise follows fictional boxer Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), his girlfriend/wife Adrian (Talia Shire) and Paulie (Burt Young) Adrian's brother on Rocky's rise to the top into a legend right from the very bottom as a nobody. A simple premise that did Stallone very well. I remember having vague memories of the movies as I was growing up, specifically in awe in my tender youth that a movie could have so many damn sequels. In fact I think I thought it was a TV series at one point. Despite the number of sequels the movies always remained entertaining and I managed to watch them all the way up until Rocky IV which when I was younger the most amazing movie ever.

Looking back at the franchise at the age of 20 it has aged extremely well for the most part and the original is still a bonafied classic which I hold in high regard not particually for the boxing but for the characters and the interaction been Adrian and Rocky which to me is the franchises greatest strength. Surpringly the sequel 'Rocky II' stands the test of time as well. Sure it's a little formulamatic but the characters still remain as strong as they were in the first installment and it felt natural, kind of like it was meant to be one long movie in the first place.

'Rocky III' is where, looking back, the franchise starts to seem a little odd to me. The Balboa's moved away from Philadelphia and up into high society. Don't get me wrong, it was still a good movie but there was just something missing. Maybe it was that the interaction seemed a little more forced or maybe it was Stallones somewhat over the top, and during one particular scene which I won't mention being rather cringeworthy, acting. Despite that it was great to see Adrian growing from that painfully shy person she was in the first movie to a confidant woman she is in 'Rocky III'. Mr T is also hugely entertaining to watch, as always.



Well this is it, 'Rocky IV'. One of the most fucking awesome movies of my childhood. Surely looking back at this would bring those memories flooding back in. Surely the movie I loved so much when I was ten or so years old couldn't be that bad. Well yeah, it fucking is that bad. I was quite shocked in a way while watching it actually. I couldn't believe it, the movie I considered as one of the most fantastically awesome cinematic achievements back then was the steaming lpile of horse bollock in the franchise.

Looking back when I was a kid though I can see how I enjoyed it so much, I mean what do we have. A big bad guy from Soviet Union called Drago who comes complete with catchphrases ('I will break you'), Apollo Creed gets his fucking ass handed to him in the ring by said bad guy in the most extreme way and of course to pay him back our hero Rocky sets out to the soviet union to do some serious manly training, like pulling around horse and carts and climbing up mountains. Oh yeah let's throw a robot in there for good measure. Wait... a fucking robot?? Yeah, that's right. At the start of the movie Rocky gets Paulie a robot that talks and gives him sexual favours I guess. Who's bright idea was that. I guess it was just the 80's.


There's just so much about this movie to complain about but i'll keep it short. My main problems with the movie revolve around the fact that it lost it's personal feel to the story. The first two movie's in the series felt like a story that you could relate to (a nobody struggling his way to the top) with some great characters taking you there in a believeable way. Here we have what I can only describe as a superhero movie... with boxing. Everything feels distant, unrealistic and like pure fantasy. We have a set bad guy (Soviet Union), a set good guy (America). Hmm, yeah. Is this a not so subtle attempt at poltics? They should have called this movie 'Rocky vs Communism' or some shit because it doesn't feel like a continuation from 'Rocky III'. The speech he makes at the end was the final straw. Oh and did I mention that there's a fucking talking robot??

One last thing I'll mention about 'Rocky IV' is that it's the only movie in the franchise not to have two things. The word 'Rocky' scrolling by on the first screen of the movie and Bill Conti's wonderful score, so there's no 'Gonna Fly Now' either. I wanna hear 'Gonna Fly Now' in a Rocky movie, end of story.

Anyway onto 'Rocky V' which I hadn't seen until recently. I didn't know what to expect since it seems to be constantly hailed as the worst movie in the franchise and after 'Rocky IV' I really didn't know what I was in for. Could it actually get any worse? Well no it couldn't. In fact it got better. A whole lot better. I don't actually understand why this movie gets shitted on so much because even though it seemed a bit gimmicky them losing all their money and moving back to Philadelphia it's what the characters needed and there's some great scenes again that people can possibly once again relate to. 'Rocky V' brought back that warmth to the series. Also we got one of the best Mick lines ever in the form a flashback, 'Get up ya sonuvabitch because Mickey loves ya!'. Sure the movie has it's faults but I can look past them and see a movie that breaks from the formula but is still more a Rocky movie than the previous installment. Also here is the triumphant return of Bill Conti's score which remains in the final movie as well.


So now here we are, the end of our Rocky adventure with the final movie in the series, 'Rocky VI'... Um... I mean... 'Rocky Balboa'. 16 years after the last installment and 30 years after the original how could this believably work out? Somehow it did and it did it with the style that takes you all the way back to the first movie. Rocky is still living in Philadelphia and owns his own Italian resteraunt named after his late wife, Adrian (yeah, that was kind of a downer). Despite Adrian having died prior to the movie and not actually being in it it still feels like she's a main character and still around somewhere. What we get out of this movie is the natural progression and finale fans deserve and are left with the parting note that Rocky was always the best.

I raise my glass (well, coffee mug) to Stallone for making such an inspiring franchise. Good on ya, now here's some Super Gerbil.


Wub, Sy.
xxx

More to come

Last night while doing some work for college I managed to watch the first 4 Rocky movies but more on that later. I'm am so far behind with uploading Super Gerbil but i'm going to try and catch up. Scanning is a pain in the arse and i've been avoiding it (which hasnt been hard what with college). Here's another lot of Gerbil. More later today.

Wub, Sy.
xxx

Ham

Wub, Sy.
xxx