Category Archives: Cartoons
Who Knew There Were So Many Beetlejuices?
This Is Animated is back and they’ve done Beetlejuice! And where did they find enough Beetlejuices to animate? From stage productions around the world! That’s dedication to one’s bit, I tells ya.
I used to watch the Beetlejuice cartoon when I was a kid and it was a ton of fun! So this bit takes me back. I haven’t gone to see the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice movie sequel, though, because I just don’t care. I’ve only ever been mildly entertained by the original film, and I keep hearing bad things about this sequel. So I think I’m just going to let it pass me by.
And, as always, the next Tell It Animated should be about Robin! Though judging by upcoming movies…he might do one about Kraven, if he can find enough. And Sam Wilson has a new Captain America movie early next year. There have been plenty of Falcons and Captain Americas to draw from!
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We Have Toph for Live Action Avatar Show!
Remember the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender show from earlier this year? It was a huge hit, and will be coming back for two more seasons. I can barely remember that show, and I’m pretty sure I was lukewarm about it. But they have now cast actor Miya Cech as Toph Beifong, the Earthbender!
Toph is a great character, obviously, so hopefully Cech can bring even a fraction of her charisma from the cartoon into the live action show. I don’t know Cech’s work, but good for her landing this role in this hit show! I look forward to watching the show going forward.
I’m not sure when it will return, but the live action Airbender (and Earthbenders!) will be back on Netflix one of these days!
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My New Favorite Sonic Character is Surge the Tenrec
OK, so feel free to ignore this post completely because it’s just some silly stream of consciousness nonsense I wanted to write. I don’t really engage in Sonic the Hedgehog media. I don’t play the games, watch the shows or read the comics. But in my random stumbling through the internet, I have discovered a silly factoid that I want to share: There exists a character named Surge the Tenrec in the Sonic the Hedgehog Universe, and she’s my new favorite.
Longtime readers of this blog might know that Knuckles the Echidna is my all-time favorite comic book character, and that remains true. (Remember when Knuckles had his own live action TV show, and it came out earlier this year?!). But Surge the Tenrec, man…this is crazy.
Why is Surge the Tenrec my new favorite, you may ask? I can answer that question by posing another question: What the heck is a Tenrec?!
Surely you’ve asked yourself that very question upon seeing the headline of this blog post. Surely you’ve already gone to Google, like I did, to find out. If you haven’t, let me save you the search.
This is a tenrec:
It’s a real animal! It’s a little shrew-like mammal that lives exclusively on Madagascar. I’d never heard of a tenrec in all my years on this planet, until randomly stumbling upon this character. Did her creator already know about tenrecs and always wanted to create an original Sonic mammal character? Did they spend time searching up hedgehog-like animals to turn into new Sonic characters?!
I don’t know why I find this fascinating, I just do. Surge is pretty much exclusive to the new IDW comics, but it seems she’s been in the Sonic Rush mobile game too. Maybe she’ll appear elsewhere someday.
I just think it’s really, really nifty that a tenrec is a real creature and has now been turned into one of these tiny, furry mammal Sonic characters. What a world.
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More Arcane is Coming!
Sadly, we have since learned that the second and upcoming season of Arcane: League of Legends will be the end of it. Maybe it costs a lot of money to do all that amazing animation? It obviously takes time, considering season one came out in 2021. Whatever the case may be, we’re just gonna have to appreciate this second season all the more when it comes out in two months!
Looks great! Nothing too spoilery in that trailer. It just looks like some awesome action, some awesome character development and all that good stuff! I don’t know the first thing about League of Legends, so I don’t recognize any of the new characters in that trailer. But the first season ones look awesome. Can’t wait!
Arcane season two comes to Netflix sometime in November.
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Low-Key Great: The Hit-Monkey Cartoon
You know what’s low-key great? The Hit-Monkey cartoon on Hulu. I just finished up the second season and I’m here to tell you that the showrunners go all-out for season 2! Honestly, I’m sure they were all surprised to even get a second season, so they really gave it their all. This show gets my highest recommendation!
Hit-Monkey is actually a Marvel cartoon, based on a fairly recent but now also obscure Marvel Comics character. He’s a monkey who wears a suit and is an assassin. I never read any of the comics, but Hit-Monkey was named way back in 2019 as one several shows being considered by then Marvel Television to turn random characters into shows.
Of that group, we only ever got M.O.D.O.K. — which was great! — and Hit-Monkey. The first season came out all the way back in 2021. I have very little memory of the season, but I’m confident I enjoyed it. And it’s just plain shocking that anybody involved greenlit this show for a second season an entire three years later! Marvel Television is no more, it’s all subsumed into Marvel Studios. There’s no M.O.D.O.K. season 2, for example.
But I’m not about to look this gift horse in the mouth!
This is just going to be a brief review/recommendation to go watch Hit-Monkey. The first season was good, from what I can remember, and the second season is damn great! The writing is awesome, the jokes are fun, the story really goes to some crazy places, episode-after-episode. It’s an ongoing, serialized story across the entire season, but they do something new and different each episode. The characters are a lot of fun and the voice acting is no slouch. Jason Sudeikis does not phone it in as the show’s real protagonist, Bryce, and then the likes of Olivia Munn, Leslie Jones, Stephanie Beatriz and Keith David round out an excellent cast.
The animation is awesome, the action is excellent, and it’s an adult cartoon with swearing and real violence, and that’s always a plus.
The show isn’t steeped in Marvel lore, so you don’t need to know anything to enjoy the show. There are a few minor characters throughout, like Fat Cobra in season one, and Lady Bullseye in both seasons, but it’s mostly a stand alone show that just happens to be based on a Marvel Comics character. It’s actually kind of crazy that, in 2024, we got a show starring Hit-Monkey, with Lady Bullseye in an ongoing subplot role. Madness!
Hit-Monkey is currently available to watch on Hulu, which I think is part of Disney+ now anyway, so all the Marvel stuff is in one place. Take it from me, this show is a damn fun watch!
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Henchman-4-Hire 