Batman!

Back last fall, I took advantage of my now-defunct Amazon Prime account to watch some classic Batman: The Animated Series episodes, which I had not seen in many years. Yeah, there was something about curling up in my bed in that funky-smelling rental house, watching the great theme before the show started. Well, I did watch most of them, and for a lot of them I wrote down mini summaries/thoughts.

The series was in the early 1990s, but I saw them more toward the late 1990s, because at that time, eventually the original series was discontinued and replaced with Superman: The Animated Series briefly before The New Adventures of Batman & Superman which did include at least one crossover episode, but mostly added in new Batman adventures (drawn in Superman's crisper art style, which unfortunately I was not a fan of because they mangled the art of the villains, especially the Joker, who even lost his trademark white grin), while repackaging the Batman series. It was for the cartoon blocks, but the creative team made it great with stellar writing, great art (pre-Superman, at least), and pushing the boundaries of what was allowed to be shown (in censorship, there was a Spider-Man show in the 1990s that had some ridiculous limits of what was allowed). Eventually, after both were cancelled in favor of Batman Beyond which was a series where a new Batman took over in a futuristic Gotham City, and then Justice League/Justice League Unlimited which I think didn't work to its potential. While it did finish up a hanging arc from Superman, instead of an anthology series full of backdoor pilots, it ended up making Batman Beyond canon, which in addition to mucking up continuity in an episode where Superman was in Batman Beyond, and also ensuring a miserable ending for Bruce Wayne and Tim Drake.

Otherwise, it was a bright spot in the Batman mythos while the comics had Batman replaced with a doppelganger that actually killed people, and Joel Schumacher was making a laughingstock out of the Dark Knight, culminating in a point where no Batman movies were made in nearly a decade.

So without further delay, here's what I wrote down back in October. Keep in mind that although I never finished all the episodes, I did watch most of them.

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The Last Laugh - This was a great Joker episode with a great soundtrack (here), and includes Batman's battle with Joker's robotic henchman, Captain Clown. Captain Clown meets his end when "he" is crushed, but it begs the question--where did the Joker get a nigh-invulnerable, highly-advanced looking (when Batman rips off the "face") robot that can be programmed? Clearly someone is making this technology--if it's the Joker, why would he ever need to commit a crime again?

The Underdwellers - This was kind of a weird episode, since it used a one-shot villain with no origin story or real introduction. Just as well, since the episode referenced child abuse/slavery, and to make the Sewer King as repulsive a creep as possible, there wasn't any backstory to how he came to be. Most of Batman's enemies have a rather sympathetic backstory--an actor with an addiction to an untested compound, a district attorney with a bunch of repressed anger issues, a scientist trying to save his wife...but nope, none of that for the Sewer King.

Beware the Gray Ghost - This episode is one of the better ones, as it involves Bruce Wayne meeting one of his childhood heroes, a washed-up actor who played "The Gray Ghost" a long time ago, and was not able to get serious acting jobs later because of that association with the Gray Ghost. Of course, I was reminded of Adam West (the "original" Batman), which is exactly who cameoed as the Gray Ghost.

Dreams in Darkness - They actually showed a real gun with what is obviously supposed to be blood coming out of it! That's STILL hard to get away with in kids' shows today.

Mad as a Hatter - Up until the third act, the Hatter actually did nothing wrong except cheat a few people out of some money (the chef creating a spectacular meal on the house, for instance), what got Batman interested in investigating was the thugs that tried to commit suicide, and even that, the Hatter wasn't actually scheming for them to kill themselves, he was just trying to impress his date and avoid getting robbed.

Harley & Ivy - Ah, this episode. Much like "Beware the Creeper" later, they got away with a lot in this episode that normally wouldn't fly, namely some very, very light references that Harley and Ivy were, um, more than friends.

Vendetta - As much of this build-up of this episode suggests, I feel the pay-off just isn't worth it. Maybe if Killer Croc had an introduction (heck, I don't even think they gave him a real name), it might be better.

Perchance to Dream - With a device that will artificially create dreams, it's a wonder why the Hatter won't just market this and make money.

Appointment in Crime Alley - This episode ends in kind of an "aww, isn't that sweet" way, but Daggett gets away with extortion, kidnapping, and a bunch more things--as if he hasn't already ruined Matt Hagen's life.

Moon of the Wolf - This one annoyed me, partially because the werewolf in question never gets cured and simply disappears, or because Batman doesn't believe at first it's an actual werewolf and needs convincing. While this is perfectly reasonable, keep in mind that at this point, he's battled the Man-Bat, meeting Catwoman who literally became a cat woman, and others.

Almost Got 'Im - Batman can do a lot, but surviving an electric chair (shortly before it EXPLODES from too much electricity) AND pulling off a great Killer Croc imitation seems too high a bar for the Caped Crusader to actually do.

The Man Who Killed Batman - This is another episode that I enjoyed. Whether it's Harley playing "Amazing Grace" on a kazoo, or the line "I think I served you a subpoena once. It was a small subpoena", this episode was great.

Beware the Creeper - This was a fun episode. It definitely had some parts that normally wouldn't fly with children's TV (TVTropes' "Getting Crap Past the Radar" lists at least three incidents in this episode alone), but it feels like the script started out as a Freakazoid! crossover, especially since F! was by the same creative duo.

Better cafeteria food and other musings

So recently, I got some old film turned into photos. Walmart still has a photo center, but they don't process photos there, so it went to some facility and I paid out the nose for it (little prints and one roll, and still $10). The quality was junk, either from sitting in the camera for 7 years or bad transfers, but they did have some memories intact. [The photo above, in case you're thinking "Hey that doesn't look too bad", I did some partial digital restoration on that.]

One memory in particular was visiting the Midway High School in Hewitt, Texas for a fine arts competition (which fine arts did I do? Well, I won't share that) in late 2007, so here's that photo. It was a Subway in a school cafeteria, which I had never seen before. Unfortunately, due to the fact that it wasn't a school day, I didn't actually see it in operation. The only other indication that it was ever there was a Subway there was a mention in this review, and that indicates that despite draconian federal and state rules, there is still Pizza Hut available sometimes (the price at my high school on pizza days was high too, probably because they actually need to turn a profit and it's not subsidized). I'm surprised they mentioned Chick-fil-a too, because they only had that stuff in college, and even then it wasn't nearly as good as a real Chick-fil-a. (Later on in college, I moved to a neighborhood where a Chick-fil-a was less than a mile away but was perpetually crowded not just because it was a Chick-fil-a off a major thoroughfare but also close to a bunch of sorority houses)

Carbon-izer.com Updates

Carbon-izer.com has been updated for the first "true" time since its induction. Here's what's new in this round:

- The AppleTree list has been updated with new store numbers (and a few new entries!) courtesy of an old phone book. Further updates to this are coming soon.
- The Games Index has been revised with a new index format and four new entries: Mario Kart 64, Blobbo, E.V.O.: Search for Eden, and EarthBound. To make this entry in a timely manner, corners were cut, and thus, not all of the entries have thumbnails (the newest entries do have thumbnails). In addition, a few broken links and other errors within that section of the site have been fixed.
- The Zachry page has been updated. Part of the reason was a lot of photos and videos were messed up in uploading. Good thing they were still on the iPhone.
- The Former Fast Foods list has received minimal updates in certain entries to fix HTML errors.
- The Northwest Freeway page has been updated. See that page specifically for what's new.
- Because the Blobbo FAQ has been inducted into a new entry of its own, it no longer has a main page link.
- Kmart link fixed.

I know I didn't hit everything I wanted to do in this update, which is why next update I'll take a break from Northwest Freeway and focus more on the other pages. Games will still be added, but only maybe two or three this time. I intend to go ahead and add the new Retail page, and in the meantime, try to keep this blog up for one-shot items that won't see a full page, such as a Subway in a fairly unusual place.

Movies!! (Spoilers Ahead)

Recently, I've watched the original Superman and the 1990 Total Recall, both of them enjoyable.

Much like Die Hard, Total Recall is another example of a good "hard R" type film, with the right amounts of "LSV" to work. Enough f-bombs to know that the situation is serious, but not enough where you wonder if they have some debilitating verbal tic, enough violence to show some nasty injuries (I've had that sort of thing applied to me by professionals that were mentioned in a national publication once), but not depicting torture or anything like that (and arguably no worse than what you'd see on the news), and no more than a few risqué elements, though not enough to be disgusting. The plot is somewhat complicated, but I think it's less a matter of "was it a dream or not" is if Hauser really was evil all along or not. My theory (and any responses to it, hopefully) can be seen on TVTropes since I know that it will never be seen here.

Superman is far more optimistic, and probably one of the very few good superhero movies made before 2000 (Superman II not sure of, but the "using the S emblem as a weapon" probably one of the stupider movie weapons, personally). It lacks the cynicism of even the Marvel Cinematic Universe and even comes off as less dated than Spider-Man did. It has problems, of course, and not because of the fact how no one notices that Clark Kent is just Superman with glasses (Christopher Reeve pulled it off convincingly), but like Man of Steel, it starts with a very long exposition, the entire "Act I" of the film is just exposition, and 40 minutes until Superman even gets to Metropolis, and an hour until Lex Luthor shows up, and maybe halfway into the film does the "A Plot" even begin. The second big problem is that Lex's evil plot required that the military was completely incompetent (with inexplicably ARMED NUCLEAR WARHEADS, no less), especially with a staged car accident (flipping the car over and over again) but having the "victim" looking completely okay with not a scratch on her. The third is having Superman fly fast enough to go back in time, which besides the "earth spinning backwards" problem, makes you wonder why he couldn't have stopped the other warhead from going off to California, or why he couldn't repeat the process to make multiple Supermans (Supermen?) be on hand in an emergency situation, nor does it answer any of the other questions about time travel. In the original timeline, Superman saved the San Andreas fault, a bus full of kids, and a small town about to be flooded, but Lois dies when her car is swallowed up, causing Superman to go back in time, but that creates a contradiction, in that if Superman Prime is still saving things, then how is he going to go back if Superman prevented Lois from dying? (That is a run-on sentence. I'm sorry) Nonetheless, it's arguably at least as good as Man of Steel (on a different level of course, both have strengths and weaknesses) and better than the weaker entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, in my opinion). (I admit, I enjoyed the little part where Clark Kent was insinuating that Lois Lane was smoking weed)