I was a 90s kid.

If you haven't experienced it already, one of the first moments in your life when you realize that people get old and life changes is when you look at someone younger than you and realize they grew up on different television shows than you did. This happened to me a few years back when I was at a friends house and their younger sibling was watching the Disney Channel. This kid was a big fan of the Jonas Brothers and High School Musical and I realized, "this kid is the child of a new decade." A 90s kid like myself didn't grow up with the Disney Channel, I'm not saying we never watched it, we just watched Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network a hell of a lot more. This is the reason I'm writing this post, I want take a few of you on a nostalgia trip and the rest of you on an educational journey, to a time when the Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers were not to be messed with, to a time when Bakugan's didn't exist but Pokemon roamed the Earth, and to a time when Amanda Bynes was relevant. Welcome to the 90s!




SKETCH COMEDY
A lot of the post will be about television, why? Because it seems to me that most 90s kids grew up on television. So just to get her out of the way, lets talk about Amanda Bynes first. If you had to google the name because you had no clue who she is, you're not a 90s kid. Furthermore, if you did recognize the name, but only from Hairspray and Easy A, you're not a 90s kid. I'm talking about The Amanda Show-Amanda Bynes, I'm talking season 3-6 of All That!-Amanda Bynes. These shows were the SNL's and MADtv's for kids and they were a fuckton better than those shows (at least with the earlier cast. Also, pardon my French.) Anyone aware of a show called Drake and Josh? Guess were they made it big? The Amanda Show! Amanda Bynes was practically the Queen of Nickelodeon, the kings being Kenan Thomson and Kel Mitchell stars of their own show featuring a lot of Orange Soda and a little gem of a movie called Goodburger. Back in the day, these actors were famous, they were good, now... well, lets hope Nick starts showing reruns of All That! or something. (Which they're totally going to do by the way!)




NICKELODEON
Clearly this part of the article is going to get a lot more into Nickelodeon. I just want to skim through this real quick and mention a few shows, see if they pop out for you. Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Clarissa Explains It All (Melissa Joan Hart has children now... weird.), Doug, The Ren & Stimpy Show (before it aired on Spike), Rocko's Modern Life, Rugrats (the black kid wasn't always on the show and yes they were once babies), Salute Your Shorts (at least the reruns), The Secret World of Alex Mack, Animorphs (which apparently only had 2 seasons, for some reason I remember it having more), KaBlam (best show ever), Hey Arnold! (taught me long division), The Angry Beavers (before you could call a group of feminists the name), CatDog, The Wild Thornberrys, and Rocket Power (although this and Thornberrys were late 90s). These were among some of the shows I caught on Nick when I was a youngin. Out of all of them, however, I feel I should get into further detail about Rocko's Modern Life.




ROCKO'S MODERN LIFE
This show deserves to be explained in further detail simply because of SpongeBob SquarePants, or as I eventually began to realize "Rocko Under Water." Yes, both shows share some of the same writers and producers, so I suppose its understandable that they'd be at least similar. But I've come to realize they're pretty much the exact same show (only Rocko's Modern Life was original and part of the 90s.) Both shows feature animals, the star of the show is a single male who lives with his pet, he has a next door neighbor who hates him, a near-mentally challenged friend, and lives a pretty average life if it were in a weird cartoon world. Now I was there to watch the first episode of SpongeBob and I like the show and all, but to me, it was the death of the 90s. SpongeBob SquarePants became the Rocko's Modern Life of the new millenium, except it doesn't have as much adult humor in it. Rocko was the best.




CARTOON NETWORK
This is the part were I mention shows from the other network 90s kids watched avidly. Courage the Cowardly Dog (late 90s, but still), Cow and Chicken (remember the episode with the quarter-heads?), Dexter's Laboratory (Ego Trip was a bitchin' movie and apparently an episode was made were Dexter cusses a lot but it only airs at conventions, also, this show launched the career of Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane), Ed, Edd n' Eddy (loved jawbreakers), I Am Weasel (and I R Baboon), Johnny Bravo (adventuring with the little neighbor girl, nobody asked questions), and The Powerpuff Girls (same universe as Samurai Jack, google it). That's just the regular shows, Cartoon Network also introduced our generation to anime (and american shows like animes) with Toonami. It aired shows like: ThunderCats (incase you didn't grow up in the 80s), Voltron, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (incase you didn't grow up in the 60s), Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball FUCKING Z (HELLL YEAH!!!!! Before they shortened and re-aired it, which they're doing now), ReBoot (CGI show that was way cooler than TRON on more than one occasion), and even Gundam Wing (which may have been a year after the end of the 90s). Who here reading this remembers the CGI robot that hosted Toonami? Remember the transformations it went through? Awesome! For all the younger generations who watch Cartoon Network now, I just want to mention that at one point in time, Cartoon Network showed ONLY cartoons, this pretty much stopped when they aired the Scooby Doo live action movie and now you can find live action stuff on Cartoon Network.




POKEMON
Gotta catch 'em all! This franchise is still popular today. The 90s was the Golden Age of Pokemon. Back when Ash set out on his adventure with Misty and Brock. It was a time when there were only a set amount and kind of Pokemon in existence, before they started coming up with new ones. Also, Digimon sucked in comparison to Pokemon back in the day. You weren't a 90s kid if you didn't cry when Ash died in the first movie. Also, I can probably find my old Pokemon trading cards if I looked hard enough through my messy closet. This was the best anime show of the 90s for kids.




POWER RANGERS
Go, go, Power Rangers! Guitar solo! Go, go, Power Rangers! Guitar solo! Go, go, Power Rangers! Mighty Morphing Power Rangers! The masters of martial arts. Sure the Ninja Turtles were just as awesome, but they were a cartoon. The Power Rangers were live action and they kicked ass! The Mighty Morphing Power Rangers in particular kicked a lot of ass because they were the original. Eventually the show ended its Zordon story arc and each subsequent series pretty much "rebooted" the franchise. The original Rangers existed in the 90s and they were undefeatable!




STUFF AND THINGS
Who owned a Giga Pet? What about a Tamagotchi? Or a Furby? If you were a 90s kid, at one point in time you owned one of those toys. Or countless other toys to come out of the 90s. The toys of the 90s seemed all about taking care of virtual pets. You questioned getting a real pet when you realized you couldn't take care of your virtual one. That's what the toys of the 90s did to us, made us question shit!




CONCLUSION
I'm glad I was a 90s kid. The first generation of kids raised on television, but could still enjoy playing dodge ball with the neighbor kids and so forth. We seem to be the last in a generation who watched violent shows when we were young (evil parents and networks have cracked down on this), last in a generation who enjoyed playing outside (childhood obesity is STILL on the rise), and last in a generation who enjoyed life without the good internet (we existed during the time of Dial Up!). We were also the first generation of kids to master the art of gaming (try to beat a 90s kid at Mortal Kombat, I dare you), the first generation to experience the weird advances in computer technology (you could take care of a virtual pet!!!), and the first generation that no longer had to sneak porno mags into their rooms because we could find that shit online. The 90s seems to be right there on the line that seperates the generation of older decades from the generation of the millenium. We still have the values of our parents and could grow up in similar ways, but we can also use all this new age technological stuff kids play with these days. We didn't have to be as conservative as our grandparents, we didn't have to be on drugs like our parents, and we weren't addicted to technology like the new generation (well, if you don't count television). So I raise a glass to the 90s! You were an awesome decade and made one awesome generation of people! Can't wait to see what the future holds for the post-millenium decades!

Movie Review: Thor

Alright, so last night I saw Thor. Today I felt like getting back into my movie reviews. I'm going to try to start making these different, write more freely and such. But I'll more than likely get back into the groove of previous movie reviews. Now, let us talk about Thor! Also, possible spoilers.




So in general it was a decent movie. The story structure seemed to work really well, Asgard looked absolutely amazing, and the acting as well as the directing worked well. Many parts of the film were absolutely stunning. However, I did have at least one negative note and that was the pacing of the film once Thor came to Earth. It paced like an awesome-mythical action movie while he was in Asgard... and it pretty much didn't stop. Once he hit Earth, were things are naturally going to be a bit more calm, some of the scenes began to feel a little rushed. My example for this is when he comes to the conclusion that S.H.I.E.L.D. are the good guys and offers his allegiance to them (for the Avengers film.). It literally happens in the amount of time it took you to read that last sentence. But all in all, it was a fun and funny movie and worked out well.




The writing for the film was pretty good too. It had plenty of humorous moments and the characters felt true to the comic. I just wanted to put this paragraph here to mention J. Michael Stracynski, one of the story writers for the film. This guy writes comics and if anyone read Earth One Superman, then they know the guy is very good with theatrical structuring and can handle comics really well. Unless we talk about Superman Grounded which was the shitstorm about Superman walking around the USA that led to the other shitstorm in which Superman renounces his US citizenship, which is written by the guy who helped come up with The Dark Knight oddly enough and is writing the next Superman film. So I guess the lesson here is, if you want to be a good writer, write a few good things, then something crappy, then come up with something brilliant. Man I'm looking forward to The Man of Steel. But that topic is for another time.




The acting in this movie was pretty darn good I must say. Chris Hemsworth was excellent as Thor. I was expecting something more cheesy and Almighty God like, as the trailer showed, but Hemsworth brought a certain humanity to the role that actually made me sympathize for the character. Natalie Portman is just a fine actress, can't really say more, she was wonderful in Black Swan and wonderful in this. Tom Hiddleston as Loki, holy shit, the guy just embodied the smooth tongue trickster god so well. Sir Anthony Hopkins as Odin, little overacted on a few parts, but it's Anthony Hopkins damn it! YOU WILL RESPECT HIM! Stellan Skarsgard, alright part, I guess he'll be in the Avengers, I'll have to judge him better then. Kat Dennings, she was cute, that's all I can say. Idris Elba as Heimdall, he had my favorite part in the film, this guy was an absolute boss. Everyone else was decent but nothing worth mentioning except Jaimie Alexander as Sif, she played a warrior goddess well. The warriors three were funny, the wife of Odin was a wife, and the frost giants and SHIELD agents were in the film too.




As far as directing goes, Kenneth Branagh did an excellent job. Like I mentioned, so many shots in this film were stunning and a lot of stuff worked well visually. I haven't seen much of what he has directed (a ton of Shakespeare stuff). But this guy did play Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, making him an okay guy in my book.




Let me take a moment now and talk about the audience. I was one of 3 people. I was 1/3 the audience! Granted it was 9:50 and people were waiting to see Pirates at 12, but come on people! Start watching movies! Find a way to get $11 and go see some movies! I don't care if you have to work the street corners, get the money!




I give this movie a good B+. If you remember my grading system, B is for see it if you get the chance, the plus is an added bonus of: make it this movie if you have to choose between it and something else. That is all, can't wait for some Avengers!

Smallville

As you all may know, I am a big Superman fan. I own countless Superman paraphernalia among which include a pair of Superman boxers, behind which holds every women's kryptonite if you know what I'm saying. Wink face! Anyways, not many may know this, but a lot of the reason I'm an avid Superman fan is because of Smallville. Yes, I once started out as a dude who simply liked a show, but that liking evolved into something far bigger than what it was when it began, kind of like a Pokemon. So this blog post is dedicated to Smallville which airs it's final episode on the CW tonight, check your local listings. (Oh, just so you know, I used to like the Green Lantern before Superman, but now the Lantern's like 4th or 5th on my list.)




Smallville has been on for the past 10 years! This show started when I was 10 years old, I didn't fully get into it until I was 13, which means that I became a teen and legal adult all within the span of one show. When I first heard about the show back in 2001 I had no clue what it was about. All I knew was that it involved Kansas and tornadoes (which seems about right for Kansas, being from there and all.) It wasn't until I did my research at a local library 3 years later that I found out that Smallville is the name of the fictional town in Kansas where Superman grew up. I knew from that point on that it was my duty to watch the show and watch I did, little did I know that it would become one of my favorite shows ever.




Now I'm not going to get into an explanation on how the show started, you can just google that. But I will mention what I love about the show. Before that, however, I'll mentioned the things I don't like.

1. Getting rid of Pete Ross. They got rid of him early and he was Clark Kents only dude friend. So for years Smallville was a show about Clark Kent "The Ladies Man...Not!" This changed with the addition of the Green Arrow to the show.




2. Following WAY to close to the Christopher Reeve's movies. Now don't get me wrong, Smallville has taken plenty of creative liberties over the years but time and time again they've tied the show to the Reeve's movies. A crystal Fortress of Solitude, the same Phantom Zone special effect, etc. It seemed to do more than just pay homage to the movies and made the show seem less creative and original whenever they pulled it off.




3. Killing off Jonathan Kent. This relates to note 2. Different versions of Superman handle the Kents in different ways. In most, they live very long and healthy lives, in others Pa Kent dies, usually followed by Ma Kent. Smallville didn't have to kill off Pa Kent, but they did, more than likely because the movies did it. Oh well, it was a good episode, though.




4. The writing, but only on some occasions. Usually I'll sit down and watch a really good episode of Smallville. But some of the times the episodes feel like they're written to strictly fit the type of show it is: a teen romance drama. Other times it will rip off the plots to movies, especially when it did the Hangover episode and quite recently the 300 episode. But when Smallville is original and relates to Superman more, it's a really good episode and I'll fully enjoy watching it.

Here's the list some of things I like about the show.

1. The cameos. Holy Special Guest Star, Batman! This show had a ton of cameos from people related to Superman over the years. Lois and Clark's Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher have been on the show. Christopher Reeve's became a series regular at one point (being Clark's mentor no less!) The voice of Jor-El is the same guy who played Zod in the movies! The list goes on.




2. Going from teenager to Man of Steel. They kept to a good progression with this. The first 3 or 4 seasons involved a High School student discovering powers and weaknessess, then Clark goes to college, then works at the Daily Planet, meets Lois, and hopefully will become Superman in this last episode. Now, while I would have liked the show to be more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a topic for a different discussion), the show progressed nicely on its own.




3. Smallville is Superman. I've had people tell me that the show has bad guys from the Superman comics that shouldn't appear until much later in the mythology (i.e. Brainaic, Zod, Darkseid, Doomsday, Metallo, Bizarro, etc). But Smallville tackles this in an interesting way. The bad guys appear, but even they are an earlier version of the one's in the comics or changed in some way. Bizzaro is a phantom not a clone, Doomsday still looks human before becoming a monster, Zod is a clone of a young Zod, so on. The show seems to blend the idea of a young Superman and Superman really well. Also, as far as Lex Luthor goes, the Superboy comics established that Clark and Lex knew each other when they were young.




4. Characters. Early season had the classics (Kent, Ross, Luthor, Lang.) As the show progressed they've added people. Perry White and Jimmy Olsen have made appearances. Lois Lane finally got on the show. Heck they've managed cameos by other heroes like The Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, Black Canary, The Martian Manhunter, and Green Arrow. The characters fit in the show so well too, it's suprising. Just like with the bad guys, the writers know how to make them work.



5. The Rules. No flying and no uniform. These two rules have kept the show grounded over the years. The rules allowed the show to stick with the "early Superman" concept really well. However, they've almost broken their rules on occasion (making for awesome episode.) Clark levitated above his bed after having a flying dream once, he claimed to fly inside the Tornado at the end of season one, he full on flew when he became "Evil Kryptonian Kal-El", other characters have flown plenty of times. As far as the suit goes, they probably should have put him in it sooner. They managed to explain the color scheme because he always wears jeans and a red jacket on the show, this changed to "The Blur in a Trench Coat" look, which changed into his current one (which I like about as much as his offical Superman unifrom, which they actually have on the show, he just hasn't worn it.)

So that's that. Smallville: a show I have loved for years that I now have to say goodbye to. I can't wait to see what other live action Superman stuff appears in the future, but until then, I'll watch reruns of this show. I raise a glass to Smallville, for staying strong for 10 full and wonderful seasons. Here's to you!

I've got nothing.

I'm going to take a break this week from really writing something. Got to let the creative creating computer in my head reboot. (Alliteration, I like it!) But no need to fear, I will come back with something good next week and I have a few ideas for stuff I may start writing on days other than Friday. 'Cause that's what we all need, more blogging from Casey! So thank you for checking in and thank you for reading.