Random rant

The advertising for Adventure Time is really starting to bug me. The disconnected butchering of dialogue makes it sound like poorly written stream-of-consciousness poetry.

Ice King!
...cold-hearted marauders...!
Lumpy space princess.
Piñata!

I don't care much for the show. I get that it's supposed to be a pastiche of old-school fantasy video games, but for the life of me, I can't tell WHAT sort of fantasy video games they were trying to make fun of. You'd think after all these years of games based on the basic molds set down by Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons, and World of Warcraft, a parody of such things would be recognizable as such.

I find the art terribly unattractive- it's like the scribbles of a teenage girl from high school who decided to experiment with marijuana and confused Zelda with the Care Bears or Candyland or something.

I watched an episode and didn't really find it funny- it was more confusing than anything. Worse, the one part I was looking forward to, the scene with the Dream Fish wannabe owl, was a real let-down. I really thought it was going someplace clever, but then it didn't!

I sure hope the episodes with the teenage vampire aren't nearly as disappointing- I get the feeling that I'd like the character. I guess if I really want my fix of fantasy video game parodies, I should stick to webcomics.

Iansferret

http://www.freewebs.com/iansferret/

"Sorry, no right-clicking allowed." You might find out that nearly all of the images are hotlinked! (And that the coding is horrible.)

Toon Music: America Sings- Modern Times

I think the fourth and final act of America Sings is my least favorite. It covers approximately six-and-a-half decades from the '10s to the early '70s (with the '60s barely making a scratch), a period of accelerated musical evolution, and would be more aptly titled "The Jazz Era and Early Rock 'n' Roll squeezed together plus a recent hit tacked on to the end". It's fairly obvious that Buddy Baker (the musical director) and Marc Davis (the character designer), knew next to zip about rock music, evident in that they assigned the rock 'n' roll songs to hippy-dippy Summer-of-Love musicians. Oldies-revival music was only just beginning with such things as "Crocodile Rock" and American Graffiti. The fact that the '60s is almost completely glossed over also shows ignorance of the genre.

Luckily the songs in this act aren't nearly so obscure as past ones.

"Ja-Da", written by Bob Carleton in 1918.

Toon Music: America Sings- The Gay '90s

The era animators and other filmmakers love, an era of gentility, straw hats, handlebar mustaches, and ragtime piano. This is the era Disneyland's Main Street USA takes place in, though more recently that has been expanded to a broader "old-timey" era, with '00s-'20s and a little bit of '30s, as well as more recent throwbacks (you'll hear songs from The Music Man playing among the authentic tunes). Disney's lack of research shows through again as a few of these songs aren't even from the 1890s.

The third act begins with "She May Be Somebody's Mother", written by William C. Carleton, which is all that I could find out about it.

"The Bowery", music by Percy Gaunt, words by Charles H. Hoyt, part of the Broadway play A Trip to Chinatown.

Don't worry, it's in there somewhere.

The "songs stuck in my head" list

Being the weirdo that I am, I'm sure the songs that get stuck in my head are the strangest songs to ever get stuck in anyone's head ever. Usually it's something weird that is suddenly excavated from my memory, and has absolutely nothing to do with anything I've done, though about, or listened to recently. If I can figure out why it's playing, it won't go on this list.

So think of this as a peek into my pop-culture-addled mind.

• "The Two of Us Together" by the Sugar Bears (Oct. 24 '09)


• "Twinkle Twinkle Patrick Starr" from Spongebob Squarepants (Nov. 9 '09)


• "Superlove" by the Cattanooga Cats (Nov. 14 '09)


• "The Perfect Nanny" from Mary Poppins (Nov. 22 '09)


• "The Dreidel Song" (Jan. 30, '10)


• "Daddy" -some weird hybrid of Red Hot Riding Hood and Bobby Troup Trio (Mar. 9, '10)


• "Frosty the Snowman" by ???, "Cool Dry Place" by The Traveling Wilburys (Mar. 18, '10)


• "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" by Frank Sinatra (Mar. 22, '10)


• "Silver and Gold" by Burl Ives (Mar. 25, '10)


• "All Together Now" by the Beatles (Apr. 10, 2010)


• "You Can't Catch Me" by John Lennon (May 5, 2010)


• Great Giana Sisters overworld theme (May 14, 2010)


• "Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley, "Whistling Ping-Pong Game" by Andy Griffith (May 23, 2010)


• "Hotel California" by the Eagles, "Real Love" and "Words of Love" by the Beatles (Jul. 2, 2010)


• Soundtrack to Disney's Lullaby Land (Jul. 19, 2010)


• "What More Can I Do?" by the Beagles (Jul. 31, 2010)


• "Russian Dance" from the Nutcracker Suite (Sep. 8, 2010)


• "Hibiscus Hula" from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (Sep. 20, 2010, and sometime last week too, I think)


• "Sugar and Spices" by Marshmallow Way (Sep. 26, 2010)


• "I'm a Man" by the Spencer Davis Group (I think- I listened to it on YouTube and it doesn't sound right) (Oct. 1, 2010)


• "I Just Don't Understand" by the Beatles and something else(?) (Oct. 7, 2010)


• "Saturday's Child" by the Monkees (Oct. 18, 2010 and several times before that)


• "Mashed Potato Time" by Dee Dee Sharp (Oct. 19, 2010)


• "Sweeter Than Sugar" by Ohio Express, "The Good's Gone" by the Who (Oct. 24, 2010)


• "Rainbow" by The Symbols (Oct. 29, 2010)


• "We Wanna See Santa Do the Mambo" by Big John Greer (Nov. 10, 2010)


• "Don't Ever Change" by The Beatles (Nov. 13, 2010)


• "Turn Around, Look at Me" by The Vogues (Nov. 16, 2010)

Toon Music: America Sings- The Old West

The Old West- where you couldn't throw a rock without hitting somebody singin' a song about hittin' the trail, workin' hard, or that ol' gal I left behind me. This was the time of the Westward Expansion, the Transcontinental Railroad and COWBOYS DADBURNIT.

"Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill", a railway song first published in 1888, and one of those folk tunes that changes lyrics and even melody depending on who's performing it, if these wildly different versions are any indication.

Toon Music: America Sings- The Deep South

America Sings first section showcases the songs of the Southern United States, where popular music began, dramatically shifting the focus of music from classical composers to the melodies of the common man. It was also during this period that the nationalism movement began, and fully orchestrated arrangements of folk tunes began cropping up.

Just a little warning: some lyrics are a tad racist.

"Dixie", traditionally attributed to one Dan Emmett, 1859. Wikipedia, as usual, provides a detailed history that I couldn't possibly summarize.