Gephyrophillia | Watch This Space #6

Originally Posted on 08/25/2002 by Jeff Harris

Okay, so I'm not perfect. I've never said I was nor will ever make such a proclamation. I make mistakes, and I'm man enough to apologize for them to you, the public. Here goes my list of apologies:

- I'm sorry to insinuate that Cartoon Network's Big Pick contests in 2000 and 2001 were rigged. Maybe it was bitterness from my personal favorite from last year, Kitty Bobo, winning praises from animation fans and critics alike, but not the big deal. Maybe it was my animosity towards the growing suburban climate of the Cartoon Cartoons, which also fueled my bitterness against the network for not picking the urbancentric KB. Maybe it was because weeks before the 2001 Big Pick, some animation site said that Tom Warburton admitted that his pilot, Codename: Kids Next Door, was already in preproduction (which wasn't true, as Mr. Warburton told me in a recent letter; the action-comedy began production this past January). To Mr. Warburton and Cartoon Network, my dearest apologies, and I hope I haven't caused any ill will.

- I'm sorry that I said that David Lucas was the voice of Coop, the reluctant hero in this weekend's cool pilot Low Brow (and on a non-apologetic note, I LOVED that short as well as Jeffrey Cat, who seemed like a very, very cool hybrid of classic Hanna-Barbera characters Top Cat and Super Snooper). That was wrong. In fact, Steve Blum, a cool David Lucas "soundalike", provided the voice of Coop's "street monkey" of a sidekick, Jamie (Coop himself was performed by David DeLuise [wonder if he's related to famous comedian Dom]). I apologize for crediting Steve Blum as David Lucas. They are not the "same guy." My bad.

- On a related note, I'd like to apologize for saying that the mech in Low Brow was going to do a People's Elbow, when it was actually just a standard elbow drop, though it did appear that he did the Tombstone. And Star Blazers fans might have noticed the Space Cruiser Yamato in its chest, which was hella cool!

- I'm sorry I didn't make an update talking about how much I LOVED Friday's video game review with Sara and TOM reviewing a role-playing game. Sara liked it and TOM was indifferent to it, which was funny as all get out. I liked the review, even if you don't care.

- I'm sorry I had this space empty. My bad. I couldn't think of anything to say. Oh yeah!

- I apologize for not giving Nickelodeon enough credit for their SLAM concept. Unlike my friends over at Cartoon Network, who treats the Toonami block as its own little corner of the network universe but not letting it have their logo in the corner (unlike Adult Swim, which has its own corner logo), the SLAM logo is prominently displayed in the corner. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is up to the individual viewer. And Speed Racer X was really, really good (Nick actually had a series with one commercial break . . . unbelievable!). I'll admit that DiC's name in the credits was a bit jarring, considering their past history with Sailor Moon, but I'll give their adaptation of MachGoGoGo Y2K a decent chance. I'm just glad to see it in the US after hearing about for over five years.

- I apologize for heavily promoting Transformers Armada to be as good, if not better, than the original Transformers series. In fact, as much as I don't want to admit it, it's not really all that good. At least if the premiere movie is any indication. The whole thing ended up like a strange hybrid of Transformers and Pokemon with a touch of Dragonball Z. Trust me, that's not a good thing. Armada ended up looking like another "collector" series with the Autobots (with the three kids that found the Minicons) collecting Minicons to grow stronger before the Decepticons could find them for their own twisted purposes (okay, they want to use the Minicons to grow stronger to rule Cybertron [guess they really don't want to rule the Earth, eh?]).

I probably shouldn't judge the series based on the first three episodes (two of which had extensive flashbacks to the FIRST episode), but if the remaining episodes are going to the Autobots and the Decepticons scouring the globe to look for Minicons, I have very little hope for the series. I mean, if anything, a successful series should never add a third polarizing factor in it. Pinky and the Brain fans will tell you that. The Minicons may be important to the story they're trying to tell, but they're an unnecessary element in the mystique that is Transformers. I mean, I know that people didn't like the revamped Masters of the Universe (either because they prefer the 80s version a lot more or because they're just a pretentious otaku punk that hates anything American in the first place), but at least MotU was in tune with the feel of the original. Armada didn't exactly have that attraction for me, but I'm reluctantly giving the series a chance, hoping it'll be a lot better than the first three episodes.

What will I do tomorrow?!? Who will I tick off? Who will I befriend? And what will I have to say? And do you care? If you care, check out the site.

Until we are one, later.
Jeff Harris
CNX Creator/Webmaster
August 25, 2002