. . . got the commentary recorded yesterday. More details on the session—which included Paul Rugg (the voice of Freakazoid), Tom Ruegger (the executive producer), and John P. McCann (the voice of Douglas Douglas, Dexter's father)—here.

Interesting tidbits: the character Cosgrove isn't just drawn to look like Ed Asner: it actually is Ed Asner. And the guy who looks and sounds like Ricardo Montalban really is him. Ditto Jonathan Harris, from Lost in Space.

Too bad the show was so short-lived: I always thought there was an anti-Freakazoid insurgency going somewhere in Warner Brothers at the time, and that's why the show started to get scheduled at odd times, began to lose resources, and was eventually killed.

So, you know: that time, "the terrorists won."

And then the WB network people moved in. And AOL took over. And soon enough, quality animation shows at Warner Brothers were a thing of the past. But if Paul, Tom, John and the rest of 'em from the 1990s—those who worked on the funny shows like Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, and Freakazoid!, as well as the serious ones like Batman Beyond—were to put all their Emmies into one room, they'd need a specially reinforced building just to hold 'em all.

And someday, another animation house will decide it wants to start making kick-ass television shows again. And these are the people they'll want to call: the veterans of the "golden age." (N.B.: not out-of-work sitcom writers. Animation writers. People who know the form.)

UPDATE: Post edited to reflect the fact that there was, indeed, a final episode. I should have remembered that: it cost Warner Brothers a fortune to use "We'll Meet Again."

And, you know—I guess they did meet again. Yesterday. Though I kind of wish they'd gotten paid for it.

See you later; I'm going out for a mint.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:02 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 312 words, total size 2 kb.

Make me of clay, make me of steel,

But whatever you do don't try and make me real.

Make me your dream, a secretive deal,

But don't ever scheme to try and make me real.

Stop trying to make me real;
I haven't got the kind of heart a lover can steal.
Stop crying, I just can't feel
Any sympathy for someone trying to make me real.

Make me of shit in a two-teenier deal;
Make me of pornography—a pedophile wheel
Whatever I do, whatever I feel,
By your double standard I will never be real.

Stop trying to make me real;
I haven't got the kind of heart a lover can steal.
Stop crying, I just can't feel
Any sympathy for someone trying to make me real.

Why can't you settle for a fantasy?
You're so convinced that I'm the man to see.
I can't live up to
What you give up to
I fail to see the perfect man in me.

Make me from your magazine a listed ideal;
Dress me in the doll's house your knickers conceal.
Make me your brother-lover beau-ideal,
But you will soon discover lover can't be real.

Stop trying to make me real;
I haven't got the kind of heart a lover can steal.
Stop crying, I just can't feel
Any sympathy for someone trying to make me real.

Pete Townshend, Darrell, my husband, Sean Connery. It's really quite a short list.

And here's Jane Bond, from "I Made Love to a Communist":

Personally, however, I prefer Cubans. They seem so—well—experienced.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Here's an interesting little think piece by Ace on Stallone's reasoning for not having Rambo take on Bin Laden in the latest Rambo movie. It would be, Stallone tells us, "insulting" to the real-world heroes who are out there hunting UBL down.

Yup. And yet Ace is skeptical about whether Stallone could have used that subject matter even if he'd wanted to.

I know that one of the issues Jason Apuzzo of Libertas (and The Liberty Film Festival) has had with Hollywood is its reluctance to use Islamist terrorists as real villains in feature movies. And I personally would like to see it done—but it has to be done with some delicacy. Not, as Ace puts it, made into a "comic book" based on a real (and contemporary) struggle.

The fact that Bruce Willis hasn't been able to get a movie made based on Michael Yon's writing about Deuce Four is tremendously frustrating to me, because that is a real story—there would be no question of whether it was respectful to do it. It would be an homage. But the problem may have to do with Willis looking to traditional fundraising sources. Had Mel Gibson waited around for that sort of money, Passion of the Christ might never have been made.

The film industry has issues, and its willingness to throw huge amounts of money down the drain on anti-war propaganda that people don't want to see—and forego a fortune from making movies that people might want to—is pretty illustrative of its political neuroses. But. So what? There is a market out there, and we all know it. All that's necessary is to get the talent and the financing into the same room at the same time, and to come up with creative distribution channels.

The bottom line? We need more independent filmmakers. Truly independent filmmakers, who are willing to secure alternate financing for their work, have it shown at center-right/libertarian film festivals, and rely on DVD sales to create the necessary buzz. In the final analysis, movie theaters will let films be shown that are going to bring money in. We need a parallel structure to the existing Hollywood machine.

And we need it now. This is, as a famous lady once put it, "no time to go wobbly."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:40 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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. . . from Brian May:

Oh, rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still;

Oh, lady moon, shine down—a little people magic, if you will.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . is to start watching more television this year.

Expecially the stuff on the History Channel, but also—gasp!—network shows.

I've got it figured out how I can get back into the habit of seeing Boston Legal. But what else do people like? What's worth watching—or was until the writer's strike upset the applecart?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:16 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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