The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin (1985) TV Movie Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So last night was the monthly VHS Club Watch Party that Katie, Nat, and I do and we watched a double feature of mid-80s non-theatrical films. The first was the made for TV movie, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, which aired on the ABC Weekend Special on November 30th and December 7th 1985, then got released on VHS in 1986, and the second was the 1986 direct-to-video movie based on the My Pet Monster toyline. So today I'm going to review The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin and then tomorrow I'll come back and review My Pet Monster. Let's get into it.

The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin is the first VHS tape my parents ever rented for me when I was a little kid. I was 3 years old when they first rented it for me in 1990. I watched it endlessly. The first time we rented it they had gotten it from West Coast Video, and then everytime after that it was from Rogers Video. Eventually, Rogers discontinued the tape, and we ended up buying it and I watched it numerous times after that.

This was originally meant to be the pilot episode for a full live action/animatronic TV series, and it aired in two parts on ABC in the U.S. I don't actually know what channel it aired on here in Canada, if it even aired here in Canada. It may have only been direct-to-video here, I don't know. Regardless, I wasn't born yet when the special aired on ABC, so all of my memories of it come from the VHS.

The reason this pilot never went to series is because the animatronics would've been too expensive for a weekly or daily series, and the network didn't want to spend that much money. In the '80s ABC wasn't owned by Disney yet, and Disney didn't have any involvement with AlchemyII's work on the show (unlike with Welcome to Pooh Corner only a couple of years earlier). Basically the special cost $1.5 million dollars, which was a much higher cost than most TV specials on ABC at the time. Which is why for the The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin TV show that aired in 1987, they went with an animated series in first run syndication.

The voice cast for this special is pretty much everybody who voiced the various characters in the original Teddy Ruxpin book and tape stories that were produced to go with the toy. Phil Baron voiced Teddy, Will Ryan voiced Grubby, Tweeg, Prince Arin, Wooly, and Louie the Grunge (the Wizard's cameraman), Tony Pope voiced Gimmick, Katie Leigh voiced Princess Aruzia, and Russi Taylor voiced Leota.

The special is an adaptation of the first two book and tape stories, The Airship and The Missing Princess. Tweeg and L.B. weren't in the original book and tape stories, most likely because the Child Safety PSA at the end of The Missing Princess took up enough time that there wasn't time to include the two characters in the story, as a result they were removed from The Airship. At least that's the prevaling theory in the Teddy Ruxpin fandom, as it's never been talked about why Tweeg and L.B. weren't included in the first two book and tape stories even though they were part of the original story that Teddy Ruxpin creator, Ken Forsse, wrote for the book and tapes.

I love this special. It's not only nostalgic for me, but it actually holds up pretty well for something that's over 40 years old. The animatronic suits and model work are really good. For the time obviously. But it's all practical effects. Which is really cool.

Overall this is a very good special. Both Katie and Nat enjoyed it when we watched it last night, and of course, I love it because it's so comforting. You might appreciate it more if you have some history with Teddy Ruxpin, be it through the animated series or the original toy in the '80s, but I think it's enjoyable on its own.

That's gonna be it for me for today, but I'll be back tomorrow with my review of My Pet Monster. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord (2026) Season 1 Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. The season finale of Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord dropped on Monday, and I watched both episodes that night, but I wanted to give it a day to simmer in my brain before I wrote about it. So, here's my review of the first season of Maul: Shadow Lord. There will be some spoilers for the end of the season, so if you've been watching the show and haven't watched episodes 9 and 10 yet, this is your warning. Let's get into it.

I'll admit that I was a bit on the fence about this show when it was announced, and even as the marketing campaign for the show started up and trailers came out. Mostly because, as you all know by now, I'm not a fan of shows or movies about villain characters. This comes from the fact that I was born in an era where villains were evil, without any kind of redemption or morally grey elements to them or anything like that. Nobody was writing them or portraying them as sympathetic. Especially in animation. However, I was also interested because, of course, it was produced by the same team at Lucasfilm Animation who did The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Bad Batch, and I knew they'd do Maul justice in a show focused on him. Plus, I love Sam Witwer as an actor, particularly as the voice of Maul. Even then, I didn't start watching the show as soon as the episodes started coming out, mostly because I kinda wanted the hype for the show within the Star Wars fandom to die down a bit before I started watching it.

It was a really good show. I liked the characters, especially the characters of Devon (a Twi'lek), Two-Boots (a Tactical Defense Droid), and Brander Lawson (a human). Devon and her master, Eeko-Dio Daki (a Mosyk, an alien race new to this show) are survivors of Order 66, and have been in hiding from the Empire for the last however many years since the end of the Clone Wars. Lawson is a law enforcement officer on the planet Janix, which is a new planet to this show. They all become embroiled in Maul's schemes to take out local crime lords so he can use Crimson Dawn's resources to take out Palpatine and Vader. It doesn't happen obviously being that this takes place years before Maul's appearance in Rebels, but at least he has a goal in mind for revenge against Sidious.

I haven't seen any of Maul's appearances in The Clone Wars, so I don't really have any context for where Maul is at this point in the timeline. But, that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the show, because like so much of Star Wars, you don't need to have seen a previous show or movie to enjoy the current one. Having said that though, I'm sure there are some nods to The Clone Wars that I didn't pick up on since I haven't seen anything past the halfway mark of season 2, but they weren't all that obvious.

With a show like this it's difficult to talk about individual episodes because they all lead into one another, however, my only real complaint is that the last two or three episodes of the season was basically just one long lightsaber duel between various characters. Not that that's a bad thing necessarily, because it was Maul, Devon, and Daki against two Inquisitors, First Brother and Eleventh Brother for some of it. But, then Darth Vader shows up, and without a single word he attacks Maul and the two Jedi survivors. And when I say Vader doesn't speak, I mean doesn't speak AT ALL, like no lines of dialogue. Not even to taunt Maul. Both Lawson and Daki are killed by the Imperials and Vader, but that's not why I have a problem with this lightsaber duel. My problem with it is that Vader showed up at all.

I get it, Vader was Palpatine's enforcer, but I kinda feel like he was unnecessary in this show. The two Inquisitors were more than a match for Maul and the two Jedi, as was shown in earlier episodes of this season, so Vader just made them a bit too overpowered. Plus, it just feels like the story people were just repeating what was done in the season 2 finale of Rebels, right down to Maul trying to turn Devon to the Dark Side, much as he tried to do with Ezra in Rebels. Or would try to do with Ezra in Rebels depending on whether you wanna look at it from the real world perspective, where Rebels in 2018, or look at it from the in-universe perspective where the events of Rebels haven't happened yet. And not in the "it's like poetry. It rhymes" way that George Lucas crafted elements of the Prequel Trilogy either. It's more like Filoni has wanted to see Maul and Vader duel each other for the past 27 years, even though there was a story where Vader and Maul dueled in a comic book story called "Resurrection", which was published in Star Wars Tales #9 back in 2001.

My favourite part was the dynamic that Lawson had with his son, Riley, as well as with Two-Boots. I'm not a huge fan of police procedurals, the fact that Lawson's storyline feels like a police procedural, where the cop or detective is also a single father, it makes the Lawsons more relatable and makes their story more familiar for the audience. Well, except for the fact that his ex-wife, Riley's mom, works directly for and with the Empire, believing strongly in its ideals and policies. Which makes me really wonder what kind of person the former Mrs. Lawson is, given what kind of entity the Empire actually is.

Overall, this was a great season of television. Despite the singular problem that I have with the season finale, it was really fun. I thought Maul's status at this point in time was interesting because it gives a bit more context for his appearance in Solo: A Star Wars Story, since he was the head of Crimson Dawn, with Dryden Vos as his lieutenant. I loved all the new characters though and am excited to see where Devon and Riley go in season 2 since of all the new characters, they're the only ones, besides Two-Boots, to survive the season.

That's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with another review. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Redshirts by John Scalzi (2012) Book Discussion

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm going to be talking about Redshirts by John Scalzi and published in 2012. I don't have much of an introduction for this one because I really just wanna start talking about it. So let's get into it.

I had originally planned to talk about this book on here when I first read it over the Christmas holidays, however I had so much going on that I just ended up not doing it. So this time around I read it specifically so I could talk about it here.

I probably first heard about this book about ten years ago. My sister told me about it even though she hadn't read it before. Fast forward to late 2024-early 2025, and I read my first Scalzi novel, Starter Villain, which I already talked about here on the blog and that book really got me excited to read more from John Scalzi because I'd never read anything written by him before I read Starter Villain. Honestly, that book was so insane and out there in terms of the story that I had to read Redshirts next, because obviously, I'm a huge Star Trek fan, and this book calls out the stupidest tropes that Star Trek ever had.

This book is about an Ensign aboard the Universal Union Starship, Intrepid, the flagship of the Union Navy, named Andrew Dahl. He's fresh out of the academy, but he notices some strange things going on onboard the ship. Then he and his friends discover they're characters on a TV show and decide to put an end to the crappy writing that caused the deaths of so many "Redshirt" characters. Hilarity and hijinks ensues. 

I'm not going into spoilers but that's my general synopsis of the book. It's hilarious. Also, you have to remember that this came out in 2012, before Seth MacFarlane ever came up with The Orville, but at the same time, it's also 2012, 13 years after Galaxy Quest. So this book sits right in the middle, between two Star Trek parodies. But I don't think anything, with the exception of some episodes of Stargate SG-1, and maybe Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, had fully copied the Star Trek formula or setting the way Galaxy Quest, Redshirts, and The Orville have. 

My favourite character, who doesn't get as much to do as Andy does, is Maia Duvall. I know, it's not a surprise that I like the female character the best, but when they're well written, even if she isn't the main focus of a story, I like them the best. I guess it's because many of them remind me of the awesome women in my life. Not all, but many. In the case of Duvall, she's not the voice of reason, she's there for the ride, and takes things in stride, leaving Hester and Finn to be the doubters in this scenario. She's also a security officer. Not the ship's chief of security like Tasha Yar was in the first season of TNG and La'an is in Strange New Worlds, but a solid security officer. Again, no spoilers.

The crazy thing is is that this book specifically targets Star Trek because no other Science Fiction TV show has ever had the "Redshirt" character so frequently. Oh sure, the Stargate franchise has the nameless soldiers that got killed off protecting the main characters in whichever Stargate show the main characters were part of, but Star Trek was the only show, up until 2015 when The Expanse debuted, to have the starship setting be the main setting of a show. Yes, there was Firefly for like 12 or 13 episodes in the early 2000s, but that wasn't a Starship with a full crew complement, exploring space and meeting new species every week. Star Trek is the only TV show to have that. And, there are episodes that have really shitty writing in them, and really stupid things happen that kill characters off for no reason other than the sake of drama on a weekly television drama series. 

This book asks the question, "But, what if, in some other timeline that's affected by the writers of the show, those characters are real people?" They ask the question, "What if Ensign Ricky is real?" "What if Captain Picard is real?". It's an insane question to ask, but as a lifelong Star Trek fan, many of these characters are more real to me than some of the people I see in the news. Because I've lived with them on my TV screen for nearly 39 years. And so that question is a valid question for those of us who are fans of Star Trek, but makes less sense to those who aren't. 

This is Scalzi's third standalone novel, and it's very well written. It's exactly the kind of book I need these days. The funny thing is is that back in 2012, I would've stayed far away from this book as possible. The reason being that I felt that parody was pure evil because it always made fun of a movie, book, TV show, or comic book and I felt it was just unfair to the work being made fun of. Look guys, I was 25 years old, naive, and took this kind of shit way too seriously at the time. I didn't understand that it was supposed to be funny, because so much that has come out as parody for things that I love, has ended up being mean spirited, especially in the '90s and early 2000s, before The Big Bang Theory, The Dark Knight, and Iron Man finally made it okay to be a geek in the eyes of the outside world. Of course, we've swung back around on that again unfortunately it seems, but hey, society sucks, and we still gotta live in it, while still staying true to ourselves and never letting anyone else tell us what we should and shouldn't like when it comes to the books we read or the movies and TV shows we watch, if those are things that we like to do.

Scalzi is a geek. A full on geek. He worked on Stargate Universe, he loves Star Trek and Star Wars. And I think that's what makes it okay for this book to make fun of Star Trek a little bit. It's not someone on the outside making fun of this stuff, while making fun of the fans for liking it. It's one of us saying, "It's okay to be a fan of Star Trek, but Star Trek does a lot of dumb shit". Which is true. Star Trek has done a lot of dumb shit. In fact, they've done some of the dumbest shit ever in all of Science Fiction, but that dumb shit was done with heart and in a way that resonates with those of us who are fans. And we're not so uptight that we can't make fun of some of it ourselves. Like, Tasha Yar getting killed off by an evil oil slick is pretty dumb. But, it worked...sort of. 

Alright my friends, I think that's going to be it for my discussion on Redshirts. I debated doing this post on The Star Trek Journal, but since it's not a Star Trek book, I decided to post it here on Josh's Geek Cave. If you've never read it before, I definitely recommend you do so. It's pretty great. That's it for me for today. I'll be back over on The Star Trek Journal tomorrow discussing the state of Star Trek in 2026 in the wake of the cancellation of Starfleet Academy. Until then, have a great evening, stay safe out there, and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Clerks Movie Discussion and DVD Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. Today I'm here to talk about Kevin Smith's 1994 debut film, my history with Kevin Smith's films, and the DVD release, which I got last week. So, let's get into it and talk about Clerks!

 A few months ago I picked up Mallrats on Blu-ray and I also got it on VHS at Ottawa Comiccon. However, Clerks is a very different movie than Mallrats is. Probably because Clerks was made so independently and is much cruder than Kevin Smith's later films in terms of how it was made. The movie was filmed in black and white, which is probably the filmstock that Smith could afford in the early '90s when he was making this movie, being that filmmaking was still analogue, even if visual effects were starting to become digital. Of course by the time Clerks was being made, black and white movies weren't as common as they had been from the late 1800s (the dawn of film) to the early 1960s, when colour film was deemed too expensive for most studios to use, so it was a pretty unique choice to film this movie in black and white.

I really enjoyed watching Clerks. I've heard about it for so many years, yet I never got spoiled on the actual events in the movie. Not even by Mallrats. I don't really have a favourite character, but obviously I was excited to see the beginnings of Jay and Silent Bob, played by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith. Mainly because of when I first encountered them and how I first encountered them. I loved Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti) as a character, but I wish she'd been in it more. I think it's because I saw Mallrats first and Brandi (Claire Forlani) and Rene (Shannen Doherty) played a much larger role in that movie than Veronica and Caitlin (Lisa Spoonauer) play in this movie, so I was anticipating that Dante's girlfriends, both present and past, were going to play a bigger role than they did.

I was surprised by the scene where Dante and Randal are talking about the contractors who potentially worked on the Death Star in the Star Wars franchise. I wasn't surprised by the scene, because in an issue of Star Wars Insider magazine from 2007 that had an article on the novel, Death Star, in it, they mention that scene. However, I was surprised because I'd forgotten that the article mentions that Dante and Randal are talking about the second Death Star from Return of the Jedi, not the original Death Star from Star Wars. I just looked up that article, and reread the first couple of lines which talks about the scene from Clerks before going on to the topic of the article.

My introduction to Kevin Smith actually came from the DVD for Spider-Man in 2005. I'd owned the movie on VHS but I'd gotten the DVD for Spider-Man 2 for my birthday or Christmas in 2004. So a year later, I picked up the DVD for the 2002 movie since I'd just gotten my first DVD player, which was a portable one. Kevin Smith is interviewed in the bonus feature covering Spider-Man's history and people's love of the character on the second disc. 

My next encounter with Kevin Smith came in the form of his guest role in season 5 of Degrassi: The Next Generation where he played a fictional version of himself, making a new Jay and Silent Bob film that gets filmed in Degrassi Community School. within the fictional movie, he also plays Silent Bob. This was actually my introduction to Jason Mewes. After this I've mainly encountered him through his work as a writer on the Green Arrow comic (reading it in trade of course), and as a director on several episodes of The Flash, Supergirl, and The Goldbergs.

 

Like I said, back in August I picked up Mallrats on Blu-ray and then I ended up watching it that night. This was the first Kevin Smith movie I ever watched and I loved it. To the point where I asked Brad to grab the VHS for me at Ottawa Comiccon in September, since I wasn't going until the Sunday and couldn't guarantee that the VHS would still be there when I got there on Sunday morning. And then I decided that if I found Clerks on DVD, Blu-ray, or VHS, I'd grab it too at the very least. When I was out with Brad a week ago I found Clerks on DVD, so I grabbed it.

I found the Canadian version of the 1999 DVD for Clerks, which is really cool since I don't have a whole lot of DVDs from the late '90s. It's a pretty decent DVD release for 1999. It doesn't have a ton of bonus features (they saved those for the 10th anniversary Clerks X DVD that came out in 2004), but it has the alternate ending and deleted scenes as well as a music video and a Film Recommendations section. One of the movies in that section is Chasing Amy, which has a "Coming Soon" tag beneath the title. Clerks was originally released on DVD on June 29th, 1999 while Chasing Amy was released on DVD on April 2nd, 2000. So almost a year apart. But I'm wondering if Chasing Amy was supposed to come out in late 1999, but got pushed back to April 2000 instead. That would make sense if the people who produced the DVD thought Chasing Amy was coming out sooner than it did, but didn't have any kind of release date for it, hence why they included the "Coming Soon" tagline under the movie's title (and VHS cover) in the Film Recommendations section on the Clerks DVD.

Overall this was a fun movie and I'm glad that I finally got to see it after all these years. I'm also glad that I found it on DVD. Physical media is very important to me. Particularly physical media formats from the '90s and early 2000s like VHS tapes, DVDs, and CDs. Those are the formats I grew up with and I love finding movies, TV shows, and music from that era on those formats. So finding the first DVD release of Clerks from 1999, albeit the Canadian version, is pretty cool. 

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I don't know when I'll be back on here or over on The Star Trek Journal, because I got stuff going on next week that may prevent me from posting. I promise that I'll be back as soon as I can. Until then have a great afternoon and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Sherlock Holmes: The Novels (2015) Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I had originally planned to do a bunch of Christmas related posts this year, but with everything I have going on in my personal life right now, I was only able to manage to do the one Christmas movie review that I did on the 13th. However, today, I'm going to be reviewing all four Sherlock Holmes novels because I read them in the compilation, Sherlock Holmes: The Novels, which was published back in 2015. Let's get into it.

Sherlock Holmes: The Novels is a great way to read the four Sherlock Holmes novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as all four are collected in a single tome. I got my copy about a month ago and I dove into it immediately as it had been over 20 years since I read a Sherlock Holmes story. All four novels were pretty good, however there's one that didn't grab me the way the other three did, and one that I enjoyed more than the others. I'll go into that more when I talk about each book.

As I mentioned in "My History with Sherlock Holmes", Sherlock Holmes is not a character that I'm overly familiar with, having only read one novel and one short story collection up until now. I've also only seen the 2009 movie adaptation. And being that this is the first time I've read of his adventures in over 20 years, I found it almost refreshing to read books that were written a 137 years ago, which I usually tend not to do with any other genre, preferring more modern books. But, being that I grew up with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew novels and a few mystery stuff on TV like Ghostwriter, I really wanted to get back into the book world of Sherlock Holmes. This book was the best way to do that since there are only four novels and over 60 short stories, collected in five collections.

While A Study in Scarlet was originally published in magazine form in December, 1887 and in book form in July, 1888, aside from the language, and era the book was written in, and is set in, it felt pretty modern in a way. Not in the way where there are cell phones, social media etc, but reading it didn't feel like I was reading a book that was 137-138 years old. I guess it's because once a year I go back to 19th Century London, England to watch Mickey's Christmas Carol and The Muppet Christmas Carol, so the time period isn't completely foreign to me as it might be for someone reading the book in the 2020s, who didn't grow up with either version of Charles Dickens's story.

What I enjoyed most about this book is seeing how Holmes and Watson met in the original source material, rather than how it's been adapted in movies and TV shows. Too often in modern storytelling the writer skips the origin story, especially if it's the origin story of a superhero that people have practically memorized at this point, and simply throw the characters into whatever situation they find themselves in in that particular story. So, to have the first novel in a series, being the first time two legendary characters meet is pretty cool.

I was fascinated by how the book was split into two parts, with most of the second part featuring the backstory of the victims of the murder case. In other stories I have found that distracting as it takes away from the main characters of the story, however in the Sherlock Holmes stories it works as Watson's backstory was taken care of in the first chapter of the book, and Holmes's backstory would be dealt with in the short stories rather than in the novels.

The Sign of Four, published in 1890, is the story I found to be the weakest of the four novels. Not that it was bad by any means, I just didn't find the mystery itself to be very engaging. I guess because I never quite understood the desire to kill for money or treasure. 

However, the love story between Watson and Mary Morstan, the daughter of the late Captain Morstan, was great. Doyle took his time letting it evolve and grow as the story went on, and Holmes didn't interfere in the relationship though he did have some words on it when he found out about it. Romance was very different in the late 19th Century than it is today in the early 21st Century, so when two people get married at the end of a story set in, and written in, that time period things are going to seem faster than they happen today. It's also interesting that the romance didn't become the focus of the story while Holmes was working the case elsewhere.

The Hound of the Baskervilles, published in 1902, is my favourite of the four novels. Not just because I read it as a teenager and have history with the book. As far as the mystery is concerned, it's the most interesting one of the four novels. I think it's because of all four novels, the mystery in this book was the most difficult for me to deduce as I went along. With the other three, the mysteries were your standard Whodunnit with several immediate suspects. This one however had no real suspects that Watson, who was on the case by himself as Holmes had other responsibilities to take care of.

I find it interesting that Watson's wife, Mary, wasn't even mentioned in this book. I don't know if it's because something happened to her in one of the short stories or Doyle just didn't feel the need to mention her in the third and fourth novels. I just know that she's not in this book or the next one and Watson is back living at 221B Baker Street with Holmes. I might do a full review of this book in particular at some point in the future so I can go more into the story.

The Valley of Fear, published in 1915, was an interesting read. The structure of the novel was similar to A Study in Scarlet, however, the backstory of the people involved with the case that Holmes and Watson are working on in the story, takes up the entire second half of the novel, with a quick epilogue to wrap up the case for Holmes and Watson. 

I think Doyle should've stuck to the structure of The Sign of Four and The Hound of Baskervilles. Not that we didn't need the information in that second half of the book, but I think that in this case it might've been a bit more efficient if Doyle had simply relayed the information through a letter sent to Holmes or a newspaper article or something to that effect. As he had in the previous two novels. I say that because I felt Holmes solving the mystery felt a bit rushed and I would've liked more time to see how he worked his process to come to the final solution.

However, while the character does not appear in the novel, The Valley of Fear is the first, and only, time that Holmes's archnemesis, Professor Moriarty, is mentioned in the novels. He first appeared in the short story, "The Final Problem", which was released in North America as "The Adventure of the Final Problem", published in 1893, and set after the events of this novel.

Overall though Sherlock Holmes: The Novels is well worth the read. Like I said, all four novels are completely collected, and being able to read all four of them finally is great. If you've never read Sherlock Holmes before, this is probably the best way to do it. There are also several collected editions of all of the short stories if you want to read those. But this is the best way to read all four novels.

I had such a great time reading the Sherlock Holmes novels. As I've said, not being overly familiar with Sherlock Holmes, I was very surprised at how accessible these books are as pieces of literature. And being that it's been over 20 years since I read The Hound of the Baskervilles, it was fun revisiting that particular book. 

I think that's going to be it for me for 2025 my friends. I might post something next week, but this is it for my reviews for the year. I'm taking January off, but I will return in February. 2026 is going to be a year of change here at the Geek Cave, so I might not post as frequently come summertime. We'll see though. Right now though, I'm signing off from reviews for 2025. Have a great holiday season, no matter what you celebrate, and I will see you all in February. Take care. 

Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year (2002) Movie Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. So, today I'm here to review the 2002 direct-to-video movie Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year, which I own on VHS. There will be some spoilers since not only is the movie itself 23 years old, but the special that's included as part of the movie, Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too (1991), which is now 34 years old as of tomorrow. Let's get into it.

If you've been following my blog for a long time, you might know that I'm a huge fan of Disney, Winnie the Pooh, both the Disney version and the original book version, and physical media. So when I have the opportunity to talk about all three things in one blog post, I'm gonna take it. Until last night though I'd never seen A Very Merry Pooh Year before. I was in high school and about to turn 16 when this movie came out. So while I loved the Winnie the Pooh shorts and movies I'd grown up with, I wasn't really looking at the new ones coming out, not even The Tigger Movie (2000) or Piglet's Big Movie (2003). I don't even remember seeing the commercials for this release on TV during that time either.

This was a fun movie though. I think it's because I grew up watching Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too on TV every year at Christmastime starting when I was five years old in 1991, and half of this movie is that special with the rest of it as a wraparound story, which starts with the Hundred Acre Wood gang coming together to celebrate Christmas and they end up telling Roo about the Christmas they experienced in the earlier special, being that Kanga and Roo weren't in the special.

The rest of the special was Pooh looking for Piglet's Christmas present, which he'd hidden and forgotten where he'd hidden it, and after annoying Rabbit once again, with Rabbit, yet again, threatening to leave the Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore all make a New Year's resolution to change, which makes them weird. Pooh stops eating honey and becomes gloomy, Eeyore starts eating honey, becomes cheerful, starts walking on two legs, and wearing one of Pooh's shirts, Piglet starts bouncing and starts to be brave, and Tigger stops bouncing and becomes afraid. Which was really weird for me to see, but still pretty fun too.

My favourite line is at the beginning where the gang starts knocking on Pooh's door while Pooh is trying to hide his present for Piglet, and after hearing Pooh inside even though he's not answering the door, the gang opens the door only to find Pooh eating a pot of honey, trying to cover for taking so long in answering the door, and Rabbit says, "Now why doesn't this surprise me?". I laughed so hard at that part because nobody should've been surprised at Pooh ignoring his door when he's eating honey. Even right before Roo opened Pooh's front door I was like, "They're gonna find Pooh eating honey aren't they?" because I KNEW that that's the gag they were going for with this movie, because it's Winnie the Pooh.

My other favourite line is from the Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too segment. It's near the end just before Christopher Robin shows up with everyone's Christmas presents from Santa Claus, and they hear bells in the distance. Tigger says, "If it's another one of those phony Santies, I'm gonna nail him!". Leave it to Tigger to be the violent one. 

This movie incorporating Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too into the movie isn't the first time the direct-to-video movies have done this. Also in 2002 Mickey's House of Villains incorporated the 1952 Donald Duck cartoon, Trick or Treat, the 1937 Mickey Mouse cartoon, Lonesome Ghosts, and the 1944 Donald Duck cartoon, Donald Duck and the Gorilla as part of the cartoons shown at the House of Mouse night club. But, in 2001, the direct-to-video film, Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse incorporated Mickey's Christmas Carol from 1983 into the movie as a cartoon shown in the club. So Disney was really trying to put out their money's worth since it was still a few years before Mickey's Christmas Carol would be released on DVD and this movie is the only way Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too was ever released on DVD.

Overall, this was a fun movie. It's available on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and on Disney+. I'm glad that my mom found it on VHS for me earlier this year. It's been a cool addition to the VHS collection and I'm planning on watching it again next year...or on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve, depending on what I feel like doing those days. Regardless, I'll be revisiting it soon for sure.

Alright my friends, I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back next week for another movie review and then the week after as well, so that I can finish the year off and go on hiatus for January. Until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

VR Troopers/Power Rangers Flipbook #3 Facsimile Edition (2025) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. Today I've got a comic book review for you today. Last week I was at the comic book store with Brad, and I got the VR Troopers/Power Rangers Flipbook #3 Facsimile Edition issue, which is a reprint of a 30 year old comic, originally published by Marvel in 1995. So, let's get into it.

So I remember watching VR Troopers when I was a kid, but I don't remember much about it, nor do I remember what channel I watched it on, as it aired, in the U.S., in first run syndication much like Star Trek: The Next Generation and many of the cartoons I watched back then. It wasn't as popular as Power Rangers was, so I don't remember seeing any toys at the store or anything like that. Though I do remember getting the Happy Meal toys from McDonald's at the time too. I think that's why I picked up this comic because it was a way for me to experience VR Troopers again since I don't have the show on DVD, and I'm not able to keep up with BOOM!'s new comic based on the show.

The story is pretty straightforward. The Troopers, Ryan, Kaitlin, and J.B., have to protect an ancient space titan, who looks like something out of Kamen Rider or the early seasons of Super Sentai, from Grimlord, the big bad of the series. Being that I'm not as familiar with this show as I am with Power Rangers, I didn't really notice any major continuity issues with the comic, though for some reason, Kaitlin's last name is Scott in this issue, though it's Star in the show. I don't know if Scott was an early choice for the character's last name when Saban was developing the series, following the failed pilot, Cybertron, which starred Jason David Frank as Adam Steele, who became Ryan Steele in the series proper, during one of his early hiatuses from playing Tommy in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

I like the story. There's nothing really grandiose about it. The artwork is your standard '90s Marvel house style, but it's still pretty cool. VR Troopers was a bit more involved in the way Saban produced it because the shows they adapted didn't have giant robots fighting giant monsters, so they had to use more footage of the heroes fighting the bad guys, which meant more editing because Ryan's Trooper suit comes from a different show than Kaitlin and J.B.'s Trooper suits did, so you never saw all three of them in the same footage unless it was original American footage. Similar to how you never saw the White Ranger with the other Rangers in Sentai footage as the White Ranger came from Gosei Sentai Dairanger while the five main Rangers came from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger.

Which just means that the fight scenes in VR Troopers are shorter. And because this is a flipbook, half the comic is the VR Troopers story and the other half is the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers story. Though because this was reprinted by BOOM! Studios rather than Marvel Comics, the original ads from the 1995 Marvel version aren't recreated here. There's just ads for the new VR Troopers comic, the new comic based on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind video game, and Playmates Toys's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Reignition toyline. In other words, modern ads. Which is fine because the Marvel True Believers series reprinted classic comics with newer ads in them. At least this comic recreates the small letters column that the original comic had.

The Power Rangers story is a bit...weird. In a way it perfectly fits with both Rita and Zedd's tendency to create evil Rangers or evil duplicates of the Rangers, especially because Lord Zedd did create his own Dark Rangers in the season 2 episode, "Green No More". However, I'm not sure how to take the story. For two reasons. The first is, if these Dark Rangers wore the Rangers's original suits with their powers coming from the original Dino powers, why did the Dark Rangers from the show wear those bad suits that look like they were stolen from the Putties? I mean those TV show Dark Rangers were created with the Green Crystal, which had taken Tommy's Green Ranger powers from him, so the Dark Rangers shouldn't've looked like they were going Trick or Treating on Halloween.

The second reason I'm not sure how to take this story is that in the show the Thunderzords were completely destroyed by Rito Revolto, which is what damaged the Rangers's original Power Coins, separating them from their powers in the first place. So why do Rita and Zedd say in the comic that the Zords were abandoned? Two possibilities. Either the writer of the comic had no idea what he was doing because he didn't know the lore of the show, or the comic isn't based on the show.

We didn't see the Zords before the Rangers lost their powers in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. We just saw the Ninjazords for the final battle against Ivan Ooze at the end of the movie. Marvel's other Power Rangers comic, titled Saban's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (similar to how the two series by Hamilton Comics were titled), seemed to be set in the continuity of the movie, with the Rangers's suits looking more like the armored suits from the movie. So the other possibility is that this comic, despite the Rangers wearing their Ninjetti/Ninja suits, was meant to be set in the movie's continuity, which would account for the Thunderzords and the Tigerzord being abandoned rather than destroyed.

However, Zordon and Alpha recount how the Rangers got their Ninja powers from Ninjor in the Temple of Power. So, like so many comics based on TV shows, writers are hired to write the issues, but they have no idea what they're doing because they don't know the show they're adapting. Sometimes you'll get stories that are generally consistent with the show's continuity, even though they take some liberties to make the story work, like with DC Comics's Star Trek comics from the '80s and '90s, but up until BOOM! took over publication in 2016, Power Rangers comics have always gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to storytelling in the comic book medium. Here, I think the writer just didn't care enough to watch the four part episode where the Rangers get their Ninja powers. Though it is cool to see the Thunder Megazord fighting the Ninja Megazord and the Tigerzord fighting the Falconzord. We were never gonna get that in the show.

Overall, this was a fun issue. All five issues have been reprinted as facsimile editions, so if you're a fan of '90s North American Tokusatsu and wanted to experience a comic book based on VR Troopers, I think this is the best way to do it. For the Power Rangers story, I think you're better off picking up the first volume of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Archive trade paperback collected edition, because all of the Hamilton Comics and Marvel Comics runs are collected there, except for the comic book adaptation of the movie. The collected edition is only missing the final page of the story, but nothing really spectacular happens on that page.

Alright my friends, I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'm going to have movie reviews out on December 15th and December 22nd, and then I am going to be taking a break from the blog in January to deal with life stuff. But I'll be back in February for sure. Until then, have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.