FUNPAK - Week 1 Review

This week's show featured:

Gruesomestein's Monsters!

Witchy Wart Wichelson a recovering child eater decides to move her candy house to the burbs. Children make short work of her house.

Pro - Good Character design and overall feel to show.
Con - Poor voice acting.

Martini & Meatballs

Meatballs creates Michelangelo's statue of David out of scrap metal and a giant apes head, it comes to life and turns against them.

Pro - Excellent mix of classical 2D and cut out photo realist images. Cool Characters.
Con - Non gibberish speaking main characters would add so much to this series.

The Wild Wild Circus Company

An introduction to a crazy surreal circus done in 3D. The travelling circus pulls into to town only to find out that there is no town.

Pro - Think of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas and they asked him to make a show for toddlers. They also told him that he cannot use any black or grey.
Con - Voice work, speaking main characters would go a long way to making this series more enjoyable.

Cool Man!

Lester B Coolman is trapped in a mundane black and white world finds things that bring him joy and escapes to a world full of colour and jazz.

Pro - Nice visual style, cool music and speaking characters.
Con - Idea seems done before, don't know of the long term appeal.

Vote: Martini & Meatballs

Cast your vote at YTV

Super Sunday

You wait all year and it's finally here. I'm so excited. I'm not talking about the Superbowl half time show (which for some reason seems to be behind pop culture by about 10 years) where you can watch "Remember him, he was so good. Whatever happened to him?" or "When was the last time they put out a CD?" as they lip-sync to a montage of their hits while surrounded by a 100 dancing idiots that were paid to be there and cheer like it's the greatest show in the world. This is only a pre-show and an excellent excuse to have your friends over for nachos, chicken wings and beer. What I'm talking about is what's on after the Superbowl.

For the last couple of years it's been a premier of Survivor (which is also good) but now that the Superbowl is back on Fox its time for them to roll out a new show. First there's the primer, An all new Simpsons featuring guest voices of several pro atheletes.

Then the main event - Premier of Seth MacFarland's new series American Dad.

American Dad is Stan Smith a CIA Officier who embodies every American Cliche and his corn-fed white bread family. Loving the U-S of A and fearing everything else that is different. Its looks like a winner if Americans can stop and laugh at themselves. Meanwhile everyone up here in Canada is already laughing.

Also Family Guy will return from the grave May 1st with new episodes.

Yo Joe!

YTV's FUNPAK Starts Today

For all you crazy cartoon loving Canucks, like myself be sure to tune in to watch YTV's new program FUNPAK airing at 7:30pm EST on Thursdays (tonight!...Also repeats Tuesday at 9:30 pm).

Each 1/2 hour show will showcase 4 shorts from 10 different series. The FUNPAK will run for 13 weeks while viewers can vote on-line to select their favourite at YTV.com. The winner will be selected and run for the full 1/2 hour on the 14th week and will be produced into a full length series.

Series Include: Cool man!, Gruesome Monsters, Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant, Martini and Meatballs, Miracle Koala, Rotting Hills, Sidekick, The 9th Life of Sherman Phelps, The Manly Bee, and The Wild Wild Circus Company.

I'm looking forward to Harold Rosenbaum, Rotting Hills and The Manly Bee.

Also check out the website for tons of extras including full length episodes, concept sketches and background info on creators.

Many popular shows started as shorts before they were developed into series, including The Simpsons and Spongebob. Its usually crazy off the wall stuff that company big wigs are too afraid to take a chance on but once they find out that people love it, they're willing to invest in it. This is the first time that this has been done in Canada.

Watch it!

T-7 Days to Potato Land, USA

One week to go before I head off to Boise, Idaho, USA...U-S-A! U-S-A! I feel like declaring war on someone.

Sorry. I just got caught up in the moment. It's a cheap shot but what are you going to do, declare war on us?

Some people (namely everyone) had me in a bit of a panic by telling me that I now needed a passport (which I don't have and takes about 3 weeks to get) to crossover into the states. I was pretty sure we were still on their good side and could cross freely with a birth certificate and license. I hadn't heard anything on the news (and by news I mean the 8 minutes of AM radio I catch drifting in and out of sleep while I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock every morning for about an hour.)

I checked it out on the net... 2 minutes later.

Result:

• 5 fat field mice
• 1/2 thinly sliced onion
• 1 small tomato
• 1 cup of cracker crumbs
• Salt and pepper

Are required to make mice pie and that you do not need a passport to cross the border from Canada.

I'm sure I'll get hassled anyways. I can't help but look nervous, sweat profusly and answer every question with, "None of your business Chief!", but hey what fun is a trip to the airport without a full cavity search.

What do you mean I'm the Taster's Choice guy?

The guy on the Taster's Choice label just found out that his face has been on the label since 1986 and sold in several countries without his knowledge or permission.

Mr.Russell "I'm aroused by the smell of coffee" Christoff replied when asked why he had never noticed that his image was being used too sell coffee for close to 20 years, "I don't buy Taster's Choice, I do beans"

Oh yeah that's right, you never see instant coffee for sale, right next to coffee beans! I'm pretty sure they don't even sell coffee beans in the same store as instant coffee.

His love of beans and total tunnel vision when buying coffee has netted Russell "I can't believe no one told me" Christoff a cool 15.6 million.

How big of loner do you have to be to not have anyone you know mention, "Hey, you know what? You kind of look like the Taster's guy."

Arcade Fire on Conan - Tuesday

Arcade Fire will be performing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on Tuesday February 1st. Check it out, they're from Montreal.

If you don't have the cd you're missing out.


Funeral

Watch it.

Mmmm...Mozilla

Goodbye Internet Explorer, Hello Firefox.

I just downloaded and installed Mozilla's Firefox. Its an internet browser. I bet you're thinking he's must of made the switch becasue he was tired of IE's whore-like approach to letting everything on the internet install itself on it. Being the information super highway hussy that it is. Or maybe he switched over so he could feel that in some small way he was sticking to Mr. Gates.

Sadly you're All wrong.

Look at this freakin' logo! How cool is that!

And name like Firefox...now that's a kick ass name.

That's why I downloaded it and why you should too. When a company can put together a cool name and wicked logo you have to give them a shot.

Hoooray for Mozilla!

Download it.