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Featuring Arthur , Digimon, Christmas Toys ,TMNT + MOREBlast from the Past: Digimon World![]()
During the wake of Nintendo’s Pokémon franchise,
Digimon reared its head as what many saw as a shameless rip off. While it didn’t necessarily slam Nintendo into the ground. Digimon had and continues to remain fairly popular.The original Digimon World released on the PlayStation 1 was the first game to spawn from the tamagotchi-like devices released in 1997 as Digimon’s premiering toy. Digimon World centred around the original keychain devices acting a portal to the Digimon world. The protagonist was sucked into one of the toys and tasked with returning peace to the Digimon World after the inhabitants of the city lose their memories and run away.
Digimon World enticed players in just the same Pokemon Stadium would two months later. Seeing your raised creatures turn from flat black & white sprites into fully 3D monsters was a sight to behold and cherish but BanDai’s attempt brought the adventuring aspect with it unlike Nintendo’s efforts with Pokémon Stadium. Something Digimon wasn’t capable of showing in the keychain devices.Even the CD case of Digimon World was exciting. On the reverse side of the cover was a map more akin to a diagram naming the areas players would eventually reach. Without the proper detail it was hard to imagine just how big the in-game world was.
Taking the monsters to the big screen was a big deal. During the start of the game players would be asked a series of questions and given a “rookie” stage digimon based on their answers. Taking their new friend with them, players had to raise them with food, training and a discipline system which would all add up to play a role in the eventual evolution of their creature. Raising them in specific stats would result in a wide variety of different resulting creatures all bigger and badder than the last with bad raising being punished by evolving into the weak poop shaped creatures of Numemon and Sukemon – Classy Bandai and their animal cruelty lessons!
The battle system in place for Digimon World wasn’t revolutionary, but it was different. Rather than randomly running into another monster, bearing a transition screen and taking turns to smack each other in the face, Digimon World rendered all the enemies on screen within the environment. Running into one would begin a fight right there and then with you commanding your “mon” to attack specifically or just do whatever the hell it pleased. Often times it seemed broken with your monster and the opponent just running around and pausing before finally deciding to attack after what could be between 2-12 seconds. The fights were a little confusing but were admittedly a lot of fun with a lot of close calls and frantic, probably pointless button mashing – attack! attack! attack!.
Digimon World was as close to world as we could hope for on a console back then. Coming from an environment-less keychain game to a 3D utopia, players had a lot to look forward to. Wondering around the branch-pathed forest, you’d soon find yourself wandering through mines, climbing mountains, exploring a vampire filled mansion and even crossing the sea, each time being treated to more 3D representations of monsters previously unseen. There was no clear way to distinguish whether a certain enemy would wipe the floor with you or offer an easy victory, and while that may sound like a downfall, it probably resulted in the better caring of your creature through the sheer will to not get smashed into the floor.
It was disappointing to see the Digimon World series transform from such a promising game into a simple turn based dungeon crawler in the second release. It seemed like Bandai had abused the “digital” setting of the franchise to pump out an incredibly basic and boring design for its sequel. Bandai’s original 3D outing for their franchise was a gem ignored by most and defiantly something retro games should go back and play.
The TMNT's 'We Wish You a Turtle Christmas' Musical Raises So Many Questions![]()
Should you ever need a reminder that the 1990s were a strange, strange time, look no further than
We Wish You a Turtle Christmas. Released in 1994 at the height of that hazy, pre-
Pokemon era when when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise reigned as the most popular thing in the entire world,
Turtle Christmas was a 25-minute video in which the Turtles sang Christmas songs
about themselves.
If that sounds weird, believe me that it's actually
even weirder. So today, deck the sewer walls and wash that pizza down with eggnog as we take a look back at this holiday classic, and the great many questions it raises just by its very existence.
This is unquestionably my favorite song of the lot, and it also raises my first question:
The accents. Why?I mean, I get the insanely over-the-top Brooklyn accents. The turtles are, after all, cartoon characters from New York, so that's at least semi-understandable. But once they start singing "Deck the Halls" and go into their equally over-the-top Jamaican accents, I am
lost.
Next question:
Why can't Leonardo figure out how to string up Christmas lights? He's the leader of a ninja team, but he gets tangled up in those things like he's being trussed up for a human(oid) sacrifice, and when you combine that with his unmoving smile and dead, unblinking eyes, the whole effect is pretty creepy, even with Raphael doing an inexplicable Walk Like an Egyptian dance in the foreground. I guess you can just chalk it up to the fact that Donatello's the one who does machines, even when those machines are just tiny light bulbs.
Also,
why are the Turtles' shells clearly held together by what looks like a black velcro strap? This one, at least, I have an answer for: Because this thing was shot in about three hours on a budget of $26.
Wrap Rap:
The question I've got about this one:
How exactly did hip hop survive the '90s with stuff like this going around? Though to be fair, despite the title, this is less rap and more New Jack Swing, so if you were wondering why you don't really see Bel, Biv or Devoe around anymore, you now know where to place the blame.
"Gotta Get a Gift For Splinter"
This one actually asks its own question, namely
"What Do You Get The Ninja Master Who Has Everything?" To be honest, that might be the single best line in a Christmas song, ever. It's like the opposite of every sentence in "Do They Know It's Christmas." On the other hand, does Splinter
really have everything? He's a four foot tall rat who lives in the sewer, guys. He doesn't even have
shoes.
Also, their reason for rejecting golf clubs: "Splinter's not athletic." What?
HE'S A F***ING NINJA MASTER! That might be the most athletic thing that it is actually possible to be!
We Wish You a Turtle Christmas, I am starting to think you don't make any damn sense at all.
And finally, the title track:
We Wish You a Turtle Christmas:This one... man, I don't even know where to begin.
Why are there children hanging out in the sewer on Christmas eve? Related:
Could the makers of this video not find children with any rhythm at all? Also,
Where do you get a framed pizza? And
Who exactly is that pair of Adidas for?Wait... did they actually take my advice and get Splinter shoes, even though those kicks definitely could not fit on his misshapen mutant rat feet?
Why,
It's a Christmas Miracle!!The 15 Geekiest Episodes of PBS’s Arthur
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Our household has always had a kind of special connection with PBS’ Arthur, because it’s one of the first kids’ shows I remember specifically sitting down to watch with my daughter. The show debuted in September 1996, so it’s almost the same age as my daughter herself – although she’s in high school now, while Arthur’s still in Mr. Ratburn’s class at Lakewood Elementary.
I’ve written before about what makes Arthur a great show for geeklets, so when Mike Wood at WGBH in Boston sent me a note about the show kicking off its 15th season today (there was a full year break from April 2005 to May 2006), I thought it would be fun to round up a list of the 15 geekiest episodes so far. Mike sent his list of suggestions, and then my daughter and I tweaked it with our own favorites and settled on the following:
15: Team Trouble – Arthur, his best friend Buster, and their classmate Francine decide to do their group project on Ancient Rome in comic book form.
14: The World of Tomorrow – During the school sleepover at the science museum (I know: Awesome, right?), Classmate Binky Barnes stars in a classic “dream trip to the future” storyline.
13: Muffy and the Big Bad Blog – Muffy and Francine deal with severe cases of “Someone is wrong on the Internet”-itis.
12: Castles In the Sky – After the gang’s treehouse collapses, the kids design a new one. With help from Frank Gehry.
11: Arthur and the Big Riddle – “RiddleQuest” stands in for a kids’ version of “Jeopardy!”, with Alex Trebek lending his voice as the TV show’s host.
10: Sue Ellen Gets Her Goose Cooked – The Lakewood kids deal with pwnage issues as Sue Ellen takes competing at Virtualgoose.com to the next level.
9: Arthur the Wrecker – Our favorite aardvark becomes addicted to a video game called “Deep Dark Sea.” (Includes the ever-popular “I wasn’t playing, I was just showing the game to my friend” gambit.)
8: Prove it! – Arthur’s younger sister, D.W., latches onto his interest in science and demands to join him on a trip to the Exploratorium. Her views on snake evolution are illuminating.
7: Tales of the Grotesquely Grim Bunny – Changes on the shelves at the comic shop have the kids debating the merits of different expressions of sequential art.
6: The Return of the King – Arthur and his friends go to a Medieval Fair and knowledge-joust against a superior team of students. Bonus points for the episode title itself, naturally.
5: Prunella’s Special Edition – Elwood City’s fandom for the latest book in the saga of Henry Skreever, the boy wizard, reaches a fever pitch. (Yeah, kind of far-fetched, I know.)
4: The Boy Who Cried Comet – Buster spots a celestial visitor that’s not in his usual UFO style, and even points out that kids have discovered Stuff Out There, too.
Buster meets astronaut Mike Fincke. Image copyright WBGH / Cookie Jar Entertainment, Inc.
3: Buster Spaces Out – Buster gets inspired by moon landing footage. NASA astronaut Mike Fincke guest stars.
2: The Secret Origin of Supernova – Arthur designs his own superhero backstory and costume for a visit to a comic convention. Includes a Jack Kirby reference, too!
Neil Gaiman, in animated form. Image copyright WGBH / Cookie Jar Entertainment Inc.
1: Falafelosophy – Geekiest Arthur ever, no contest: Neil Gaiman stars as himself and inspires Sue Ellen to write and illustrate a graphic novel.
Classic Christmas TV During the Reruns
Well, the holidays are almost upon us which means family, carol singing, good food, and no new TV until after the new year. Wait what? No new TV? Screw this season! If there's nothing new on, what's the point? At least the summer is warm. Oh well. Seeing as we can't change anything here, we don't control TV (yet), is there anything old we can watch? Yes! Namely, old Christmas specials.
1. The 90210 Christmas episode "A Walsh Family Christmas," first airing in 1991, is a good one. Who really knows what happens in the bulk of the episode, the important thing is that Brandon or Brenda, one of the twins, brings home a hobo for the holidays, which is a grand tradition of television Christmas episodes.
2. There's a great Saved by the Bell episode called "Home for Christmas" about a hobo family living in the shopping mall (get the title now? It's a double entendre) that Zach, of course, rescues. But he really only rescues them because he has the hots for the hobo's teen hobo daughter. Oh, Zach. Well whatever, the ends justify the means, and everyone sings Christmas songs by the piano at the end of the episode. It's one of those weird episodes where you see a lot of one of the kids' parents, which is always a little unsettling. Wasn't Mr. Belding supposed to be everyone's dad? Is this show not about an orphanage for teenagers? It's confusing.
3. Perhaps the greatest Christmas Hobo episode is My So-Called Life's "So-Called Angels," in which '90s guitar girl darling Julianna Hatfield plays a pretty, mystical hobo girl who's also basically an angel and who teaches all the Christmas kids a Christmas lesson. It's tonally a little weird for this otherwise realist show, but it's still well done. This is arty Christmas Hobo television.
4. Back to 90210, but continuing on the angel theme, there is a rather insane Christmas episode of the show that is narrated by angels. Mmhm! 90210, otherwise a fairly straightforward soap, has an episode narrated by two angels and at the end god saves everybody from a bus crash. Oh, bus crashes. Is there anything more Christmasy? Seriously though it's a good episode, a good Dylan-and-Brenda-and-Kelly fight episode that just happens to be narrated by angels. It's from the third season, in case you need to consult your DVD collection.
5. The Simpsons has many good Christmas episodes, perhaps the best of which is "Marge Be Not Proud," in which Bart gets caught stealing a videogame at the local Try-N-Save, thus breaking his mother's heart. The rest of the episode is him trying to make it up to her and it's very sweet and there are some funny videogame jokes. And it features a terrific guest starring voice performance from the late Lawrence Tierney. It's great! "You have selected: No." Classic.
So those are the specials that you should immediately program your DVR to record. Of course just about every show has some sort of holiday episode, more than one perhaps, but really if they don't have a hobo, an angel, or Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge, they fall short. .
Dragon Ball Z x New Era limited edition caps
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Cap legends
New Era have hooked up with the Japanese animation to pay homage to the main character,
Goku, via a series of limited edition caps.
The collection is available in Japan from
On Spotz, which makes sense given its immense popularity and core fanbase there, however don’t be surprised to also find New Era stockists with a few of these a bit closer to home. Check out more pictures of the collection downstairs.
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Since the dawn of time, children have had the attention span of a walnut and the energy of a Jack Russell terrier. But a brilliant soul (probably a fed-up parent) came up with the idea to occupy their spawn with toys -- rocks shaped into the original wheel for cave children, voodoo dolls made by the infamous Tituba for Puritan kids, and copious amounts of experimental drugs and the sexual revolution for children of the '70s -- so inventors and creators are constantly adapting to changing tastes and interests.
Never is our society more focused on toys than during this most wonderful time of the year, when you can no longer walk down a Boston street without hearing a blend of Christmas music and the comforting jingle of a Salvation Army bell. Stores are advertising their “you better buy this awesome [insert thing here] now, or your loved ones will look at you on Christmas morning with unmatched scorn and irreversible disappointment” sales, and before you know it, you find yourself buying your roommate a cashmere beer koozie and the Magic Bullet College Edition, which whips up Ramen and Rubinoff smoothies in less than eight seconds!
Our tastes may have grown up -- we're no longer wishing for a trip to Space Camp and a piece of the Aggro Crag -- but that desire for the latest and greatest goes way back to childhood. While most of us probably have no clue what a FIJIT friend is, we still remember that must-have toy that was at the top of our wish lists so many years ago (me, I’m still waiting for my Easy Bake Oven).
Babies of the '80s listened to NKOTB, watched The Smurfs and Fraggle Rock, and wanted toys that had "the right stuff" -- a unique equilibrium between technology and imagination. Toys were cool enough to be interesting and fun, but playtime wasn't entirely pre-scripted.
“Back then, most toys you had to make yourself,” said Michael Conte, 28, who remembers putting together his first G.I. Joe accessory, the Rolling Thunder missile launcher, with his dad. “The pieces came in a bag, which was part of the fun actually,” although today's kids, who even have virtual Legos, may not think so.
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G.I. Joes first appeared in the '60s as 12-inch dolls, but they were too big and too expensive, said Conte, a vintage toy collector; when high oil prices drove up the price of plastic in the '70s, toy makers experimented with other options. But G.I. Joes experienced a resurgence in the '80s, following in the footsteps of the decade's popular Star Wars figures, which were small enough and cheap enough for buyers to purchase whole play sets.
“Parents who had G. I. Joes in the '60s could now buy the smaller versions for their kids,” Conte said, adding that the toy's popularity grew tremendously with its cartoon series and 1987 movie.
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cabbage patch kid.jpgLittle girls, meanwhile, coveted Cabbage Patch Kids -- adorable collectible dolls, each with their own birth certificate and name to make them unique. “Every girl had to have their Cabbage Patch doll,” said Conte. “They were definitely the Tickle Me Elmo of the '80s.” But the love began to fade when "generations of girls that grew up with [Cabbage Patch dolls], grew up,” he said. “There was no timeless aspect to it.”
By that time, the '90s -- a decade of overalls, overfed Tamagotchis, and the height of Nickelodeon -- were in full swing, and wish lists were full of awesome toys, including Socker Boppers, Pokemon cards, Power Rangers action figures, and Beanie Babies. The most-wanted and most unique toy, however, had to be the Furby (I Double Dare you to prove me wrong). These odd little mutants were unimaginably irritating, yet incredibly addicting (sort of like most shows on TLC). A new Furby would blink and make strange noises, which I’m certain were cries of love, but once it got to know you, a Furby began to actually speak your language! Although this was exciting, I lost interest after a few sleepless nights (thankfully, I'm still far away from motherhood).
I loved it as a kid, but looking back it was super weird,” said Sarah Sullivan, 19, who remembers wanting a Furby for Christmas. “I brought it to school for a while, and our Furbies were all friends with each other, and we created Furby drama between them.”
Another '90s toy that became a matter of life or death was almost as weird as the Furby: Crazy Bones, head-shaped figurines about the size of a quarter that came in various colors and expressions. Although I had (and still have) a respectable collection, I’m not sure if I ever actually used them the right way: I kept them tightly sealed in a Tupperware container and growled at anyone that came near me, except my best friend Mike, who sported a fashionable rattail (before I found out he had an incurable case of cooties).
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“I was captivated by the magic that was Crazy Bones,” said Michael Finch, 21, who remembers thinking his brother's collection was some sort of candy. “But the magic faded pretty quickly, so I moved on to things like Pogs and Fistful of Aliens.”
As we ushered in the new millennium with an appropriately named Backstreet Boys CD and Y2K paranoia, technology boomed, but toy creativity dwindled. Now, kids are asking for the latest Leapfrog learning system or game console. Don’t get me wrong: I loved my N64, and the XBox Kinect is so cool, it’s almost scary -- but as someone who's older than the Internet, I think it's crazy that all the top toys are electronic. Some kids will even find their new friend Siri under the tree on Christmas morning -- and they don’t even have to walk 15 miles uphill in the snow each way to get to the app store.
1 2 3 4 3It's Christmas Eve ONTD :D :D Merry Chrismahanakwanza to all <3 <3
What toys did you want as a child? What are your favorite holiday tv episodes?
BTW thanks guys for making these posts alot of fun this year :3
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appropriate gif is appropriate :)
