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Entries in TV (14)

Friday
Jul252014

Top Five Saturday Morning Cartoons!

Saturday Morning Cartoons were an integral part of any American kid's youth.  They dictated what games you played with your friends, what sort of lunch box you brought to school, and what you asked for on your birthday.

As adults most of these cartoons are distant memories that we hope can remain a beautiful piece of nostalgia connected to a simpler time for us, and not some crappy Michael Bay movie.  Here at Rated Wrong we are not satisfied to let sleeping dogs lie and a list has been constructed assigning value to each of our precious childhood memories.

Now, to the rankings!

But first...

Before we get down to it, there are some ground rules.

#1.  The Cartoon must have originally aired between 1986-1995 (Age 0-10 for your's truly).  So, Sorry He-Man, but the only real memories I have of you are my siblings and cousins talking about you.

#2.  It must have actually been a SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON.  This means Batman The Animated Series, Ren and Stimpy, Animaniacs and all Nickelodeon and Disney cartoons (who only aired old Looney Tunes and cartoons for babies in the AM) are out!

#3.  Toys matter.  Let's not kid ourselves, 99% of Saturday morning cartoon episodes were interchangeable, disposable, crap.  It was the look of the show that made it great.  Looks count.  Toys count.

Now, to the rankings!

But first...

Honorable Mention

G.I. Joe (1985)

You know, if there was some sort of technological apocalypse and suddenly no one could access a television or computer, I'm not certain I could even be convinced there was ever a G.I. Joe television cartoon.  By far the most memorable thing to spawn from them was the PSA's.  I challenge anyone to tell me about the plot of any episode of G.I. Joe the animated series.  I don't think it can be done.

What can be done, is a massive plastic war between all the great action figures.  I probably had twice as many G.I. Joe toys than anything else growing up.  I even remember that I somehow ended up with three of the same guy at one point.  My favorite were probably the little helicopter dudes.

Also, the movies aren't totally awful.

Surprise Ommission

ThunderCats (1985)


I'm just gonna kill the suspense right now, ThunderCats doesn't make the list.

I could make up some nonsense reason about animation or characters, but the truth is, I simply don't remember ever watching it.  Maybe I'm a weirdo, maybe it only aired when I was at baseball practice, I don't know.  But aside from the theme song, the names of a few characters, and "ThunderCats Ho!" - all of which I didn't discover until years later - I couldn't tell you a thing about this show.  So ThunderCats, I'm sorry, but if it's any consolation you had to make room for this next forgotten classic...

#5

Dino Riders (1988)

"Harness the Power of Dinosaurs".  Dino Riders had, bar none, the coolest toys of any Saturday morning cartoon ever.  Just Look at it, LOOK AT IT!

My connection to Dino Riders pretty much solely extends to visiting my cousin Brian's house as a child and watching his VHS tapes of the show.  I loved it, but to this day have never met another soul who remembers it.

Dino Riders was the pinnacle of cynicism in children's entertainment.  A mere 14 episodes were rolled out to help promote the toy line (but oh, what a toy line!).  In spite of this, the show did have a few memorable characters and a plot that was brilliant in its simplicity (even if it was kind of a Transformers rip off).

Also, the main bad guy sounded exactly like Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget.

#4

Transformers (1984)

"More than Meets the Eye."  Tranformers is another one that I can't remember much about it in the way of characters or engrossing story line.  I knew there was Optimus, Megatron, Starscream, Bumblebee, the cop car one, the one shaped like a cassette, and Hot Rod (that little bitch) from the movie.

What I do remember, is my 7th birthday, when I got Starscream the action figure.  I instantly knew, I KNEW, it was the coolest toy I had.  It had guns, missiles, was surprisingly big, and could turn into a fighter jet.  I mean, I also had Optimus Prime but c'mon, Starscream turns into a freakin' fighter jet.

#3

ExoSquad (1993)

The surprise pick on this list and also - by far - the best show.

ExoSquad, according to Wikipedia, was made in response the rising tide of Japanese anime.  The end result was a fun and surprisingly intelligent sci-fi war cartoon.  Drawing inspiration from a slew of Sci-fi sources including, Star Trek, Mechwarrior, and Starship Troopers (the novel).  Interestingly, the plot is quite similar to the remake of Battlestar Galactica, although it predates it.

If you can track down the two seasons for viewing, I highly recommend.

Also, the toys are awesome, of course.

#2

X-Men (1992)

X-Men, an unabashed classic of childhood for anyone between the ages of 25 and 35 had a lot going for it.  The show itself had strong, fun characters thanks to the source material.  It also had actual plots and memorable episodes.

The opening is great.  Introducing the cast of heroes (with Cyclops first, because he is the best).  And it will be forever immortalized in the party arcade game (dibs Nightcrawler!).

It was one of the most talk about shows at Center Road Elementary.  But, for me, it was difficult to catch it on Saturday mornings, because it ran in direct competition with the next show on the list...

#1

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)


Was there ever any doubt?  You might have played X-men with your friends growing up.  You may have even watched an episode of G.I. Joe.  But everyone played TMNT.  

Everyone had a favorite (Mine was Michelangelo, for his love of pizza, fun personality, and wearing of the greatest color of all time: orange).  Everyone saw the movie when it came out.

There was an endless supply of action figures, and you and all your friends had 'em.  Even the side characters were memorable.  Casey Jones and Mono Gecko will always hold a special place in my childhood memories.

People still wear TMNT t-shirts and dress up like the characters on Halloween.  I could probably sing most of the theme song from memory (Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines "That's a fact, jack").  And in the UK, they had to change their name to Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles because Margaret Thatcher thought they were destroying the youth of the world!  How cool is that?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a lifelong celebration for children of the 80s, and it will never stop, at least until Michael Bay ruins it.

Thursday
Jun262014

Fargo: Exactly Half a Great Show, But Still a Failure

Roger Ebert called Fargo 1996 a "quirky, infectious American Masterpiece".  He does not exaggerate.  Fargo (which shall heretofore be differentiated from the television series "Fargo" by it's usage of italics) was an expertly crafted and original telling of a very complex story, lush with memorable characters, stunning camera work and a haunting score.  

"Fargo" also suceeds in a lot of these areas.

"Fargo" was beautifully shot, used a similarly haunting score, had atmostphere to spare, moments of quirky brilliance and featured exceptional performances in both leading and supporting roles.  Where "Fargo" failed, utterly and completely, was two fold: in its efforts to tell an original and complex story and then bring that story together in an interesting way.

The film and show share many similarities and the show "Fargo" does a magnificent job of weaving these references into it's world.

The storytelling wasn't completely inept.  The show particularly excelled at using tie-ins from the film and subvert audience expectations by zigging when the film zagged.  Case in point: Oliver Platt's character, Stravos Milos, attempts to exit a parking garage shortly after entering and encounters a dutiful toll booth operator insisting that he pay the fee anyway.  In the film, Steve Buscemi's character faces a nearly identical dilemma and begrudgingly pays the operator (before murdering him in a later scene).  While the audience expects fan service and events to repeat themselves, Milos demands the operator to release him by the will of God and the operator obliges, allowing Milos to leave free of charge.

In moments like that one, the story thrived.  Little scenes around the edges that gave depth and meaning to the world.  Unfortuantely, the writers could never bring this deft touch to the forefront of the story.

The writers of "Fargo" new that they wanted to make a complex story, too bad they didn't how to construct one.  Too many times while watching "Fargo" you have to ask yourself, "why", "how", "who", "What"?  Where some threads are needlessly convoluted, others ramble on before dissolving into nothing, still others are so absurd they bring the bounds of belief for the audience to the extreme.

There is one especially bizzare sequence in which the devilsh villain, Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton), executes an incredibly elaborate blackmail plot against Stravos Milos culminating in Malvo betraying his dimwitted partner (Glenn Howerton) in order to distract police.  How does he do this, you ask?

Well, Malvo, (after having his partner make a phone call that Malvo could have made himself) first renders his partner unconscious then bounds and gags him to a workout device facing the front door of their hideout and forces an unloaded shotgun into his hands.  Malvo then rigs up an assault rifle in the window and fires it several times attracting a large police force.  Malvo has already fled by the time they arrive, but took the extra time before doing so to place a trip wire in the front yard to trigger more rounds from the assault rifle when the police approach.  This, of course, ends with the police breaching the hideout and gunning down the bound and helpless partner.  Confused?  It isn't much more comprehensible when you watch it.

Why didn't Malvo just kill the partner in the house, shoot the gun into the street a few times, then leave?  The result would have been exactly the same and it would have taken a fraction of the time.  Did he actually think the police would be so stupid as to believe a man bound and gagged holding an empty shotgun was the same person firing an assault rifle moments earlier?  What the hell was the point of that whole scene?  Well, it was to make thinks complex, or so the writers would say.

Lorne Malvo, a great character, but ultimately wasted.

The entire blackmail plot between Malvo and Milos is poorly executed.  It's beginnings are promising, using one of the great MacGuffins of film history: the lost money from Fargo, as a central tool to both Milos' character and Malvo's exploitation of him, but the story sputters and is dropped uncermoniously two thirds of the way through the season.  The build-up is well done at times, but the climax is non-existent and ends with Malvo either giving up on or forgetting about the money (unless his intention was for Milos to bury the money all along, which I'll touch on later) and Milos crying in the street.  Tragically, the audience scarcely cares as we never know why anything is happening and the central plot with Martin Freeman is far more interesting.  Truth be told, it was difficult to realize what a disaster this side plot was because I had forgotten about it not five minutes after its conclusion.

From there the story only becomes more absurd and, whats worse, predictable.

There's an utterly ridiculous sequence in which central character and William H. Macy doppleganger, Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman), sneaks out of a hospital (while under guard) and spends several hours going around town in a stolen vehicle framing his brother for a murder he himself committed and is able to return with no one the wiser.

Potentially fascinating characters are thrown into the fray as straw men, simply awaiting their turn to be killed off.  Not a single recurring character on this show that is introduced after the first episode has any sort of rewarding payoff.  It becomes painfully obvious, very quickly, that every character serves as fodder for the convoluted story.  Rather than using these character as gears in a grand machine, "Fargo" relagates them to ride an assembly line uselessly on their way to an incinerator.

In the scene in which Nygaard's second wife is killed, it was so obvious what was coming I was actually expecting it NOT to happen.  Of course, it did, and I sighed a sigh of exhaustion.

Many folks complained about the finale of the series, for taking what they perceived to be an overly violent turn (probably they were just disappointed fan favorites Key and Peele were killed, which was always going to happen).  I didn't find the finale to be disappointing because it was violent, I was disappointed because it was completely unnecessary.  Everything happened exactly as it seemed it would.  There were no real surprises, no twists, to great "aha" moments or rewarding payoffs.

The episode opened with the image of a knocked over snowmobile near a whole in a lake of ice.  As soon as you see Martin Freeman on that snowmobile in the final minutes you know: he is gonna fall in the ice.  And it all plays out so predictably you don't even need to watch.

It really is a shame, because the things that worked in "Fargo" worked so well.  It really was a great looking show.  It really did have fantastic performances.  The character of Malvo was one that would have been among the greatest in recent televion history, but it too ended a missed opportunity.

Malvo was more than just a sociopath or heartless killer.  He was sinister.  There was something in his character that was quite literally, demonic.  A stroke straight out of the very best pages of the Cohen brother's playbook.  From his seemingly supernatural escape from Nygaard's house to his biblical musings in conversation, Malvo often seems more than what he appears.  Some of the best things the show does are with this metaphor of evil and personifying it through Malvo.

The image of the lone wolf and Malvo are often used together in the show.

Maybe he was something more.  Maybe he did mean for Milos to return the money to the wilderness where he discovered it as some sort of payment to God.  I'd like to believe that, but I can't, because there is simply too much left unexplained.  We don't know why Malvo is after Milos in the first place, we don't know what his end game is, we don't even know that he knows about the lost money.

Malvo as something more than just a terrible human being is a compelling idea, and one that the show decorates the edges of the frame with tremendous precision.  But that's where it stays, and with it is never brought front and center the audience is forced to accept that it was never meant to be front and center.

In what was probably the greatest scene of the entire season, Malvo sits down for a piece of pie and some very tense double talk with a sherrif turned diner owner (Keith Carradine).  The scene features Thronton at his wicked best delicately trading barbs with Carradine as he tries futiley to extract information from him.  As Thornton gives up and leaves he drops the gem of a quote "I haven't had pie like that since the Garden of Eden."  

It was that kind of tense, atmospheric scene on the edge of the story that supplied the juice that made "Fargo" run.  If only the writers had been able to bring those edges into the center "Fargo" might have been the show it deserved to be, instead of the terrible disappointment that it was.

 

Monday
Jun022014

10 Worst TV Protagonists

The anti-hero is a popular choice for tv shows these days.  The trick of good writing is creating a flawed character with outward faults and inward turmoil and still making the audience love them.  Just because they can be fun or charismatic we can forget how awful these people truly are.  So now, I have taken it upon myself to remind all you good people just who you are rooting for when you turn on your TV.

*Two ground rules:  The show must have been on air in the last year and the character does not lose points for being involved in a criminal enterprise.  This is purely based on the flaws in the protagonist's character.

10.  Jax Teller - Sons of Anarchy

I don't mind that he is the head of a murderous, drug dealing biker gang.  But does he really have to be such a self righteous prick about it?

9. Rick Grimes - The Walking Dead

Rick Grimes is a good man trying to find a way for his family in a hard world, I get it.  But he cries way too much, worries about all the wrong things (It's a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, Rick!) and for a man that has done the things he has, he's sort of a wuss.

8. Sansa Stark  - Game of Thrones

Lady Stark has come a long way since the show's beginning and she has more than paid for her naivety, but I still watch episode 2 of season 1 and get so mad that she sided with Joffrey against her sister.  Joffrey, what a dick.

7. Jack Crawford - Hannibal

 

We may not have to worry about Jack's utter stupidity anymore now because he might be dead (along with everyone else), not that he wouldn't deserve it.  Seriously, what a freaking boob this guy is.  Now, I'm not alaw enforcement officer, but if I was, I'd like to think I'd be smart enough to not just collect evidence but use it to catch the bad guy.  Spoiler Alert, the bad guy is Hannibal!  Get it together Jack.

6. Jack Bauer - 24

I really don't think I need to explain this one.  George Bush's wet dream of foreign policy personified.  Bauer spends most of his days torturing people and shouting "go, go, go"!  The only reason he doesn't end up higher on this list is that he's so ridiculous I can't take him seriously.

5. Nucky Thompson - Boardwalk Empire

The sin of Nucky Thompson ultimately is not that he is cruel, or sadistic, or greedy, but rather, he is boring.  I love Steve Buscemi in nearly everything he has ever done, but in Boardwalk, I fear he was woefully miscast.

4. Jessie Pinkman - Breaking Bad

Oh Jessie, how we all loved you so.  Jessie rarely ever hurt anyone intentionally and his greatest victim was always himself, but that does not change the fact that a multitude of his selfish and ill-conceived actions led to the misery of scores of people.  R.I.P. Andrea.

4. Martin Hart - True Detective

Supremely unlikable and depressingly realistic, Det. Martin Hart is a terrible father and worse husband.  Hero to the outside world and destroyer of his own, Hart is a someone that you know exists in many police stations around the world.  We don't like him, but we must root for him because of the evil he faces and the hope that he can change.

3.  Sookie Stackhouse - True Blood

 

An obnoxious, empty-headed, selfish girl who would let everyone around her die horribly as long as it meant hot guys fawn over her.  Even fans of the show hate her.

2. Walter White - Breaking Bad

So, just to sum up, Walter manufactured a highly potent version of meth, teamed up with nazis, murdered dozens of people, responsible for ruining the lives of countless more all because he was too proud to accept charity from a friend?  Okay got it.  At least he had the decency to feel bad about it after.

1. Don Draper - Mad Men

You have to hand it to Jon Hamm and the writers of Mad Men for how effortlessly they get fans to root for and like a character as awful as Don Draper.  Utterly self-absorbed, emtionally abusive and manipulative, Don leaves few standing in his wake.  He has demons from his past, but even those circumstances are largely of his own creation and factor only passingly into his actions.  He never met a woman he wouldn't screw or a man he wouldn't screw over, and what's worse, he doesn't think there is anything remotely wrong with that.