Pokemon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (1998/1999) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's Saturday and it's sunny, but cold, outside today. Which is good. So today I'm going to be talking about Pokemon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back, the very first Pokemon movie, the movie's soundtrack AND the VHS release. So, let's get into it.

Pokemon The First Movie is a movie that I have a very weird relationship with. Mainly because, as I said in my series review yesterday, I stopped watching Pokemon near the end of Indigo League, but saw episodes of Adventures in the Orange Islands and saw bits and pieces of The Johto Journeys, so I wasn't as interested in this movie as my siblings were as they were the bigger Pokemon fans. I loved the first five games as well as the early side games such as Pokemon Pinball, Pokemon Snap, Pokemon Stadium, and Pokemon Stadium 2, but with the show being as repetitive as it was, I quickly lost my interest in that side of the franchise.

So when I sat down to watch the movie on VHS last night, I didn't remember any of it aside from Mewtwo's armor that he had during his backstory at the beginning of the movie. That's probably the only thing I saw one of the times my siblings watched it on TV, as I probably went to see what they were watching and then went back to whatever it was I was doing at the time. I can't believe I didn't watch this movie in the 2000s though. It's a great movie.

It's a little bit pointless, because you know the show is still airing new episodes so nothing permanent is going to happen to Ash or Pikachu, or Misty and Brock, or even Team Rocket, but it's still pretty cool to watch. The story is pretty thin, as many Pokemon stories are when it comes to the show, but at the same time, it's intriguing because you want to know what Mewtwo is going to do next and if Mew is going to save the day or not. I mean, Mew doesn't save the day, because Ash and Pikachu are our heroes, but Mew still shows up.

Misty and Brock are actually pretty useless in this movie. They spend most of it standing on the sidelines, watching their Pokemon fighting Pokemon clones. Which is pretty much their role in the gym battle episodes of the show, apart from the ones where they ARE the gym leaders Ash has to compete against, but this is a more action film up there with Batman Beyond and other animated shows that were on when this movie came out back in 1999 (1998 in Japan). 

Team Rocket is...well...they're Team Rocket. You can't help but laugh or roll your eyes at them, because they're so incompetent. They're also redeemed slightly, because even they recognize that what Mewtwo is doing is wrong, even though they're criminals. I do wish they'd had more of a reaction when they heard the lead scientist's message, discovering that their boss, Giovanni, was behind the creation of Mewtwo though, considering he didn't see fit to tell them about it. Mind you, Jessie, James, and Meowth aren't exactly high up in the Team Rocket organization given they keep failing to capture Pikachu, but still, I would've liked to see them be outraged that Giovanni hid this massive project from them.

The animation in this movie isn't all that different from the animation in the show. However, being that this is a movie that came out in 1998 in Japan and 1999 here in North America (and in other areas too), late '90s CG was used for many of the scenery shots of Mewtwo's palace, both the interiors and the exteriors. Especially once Ash, Misty, Brock, and the other Pokemon trainers arrive. It's not all that jarring since Digimon used CG for some of it's Digivolution sequences and Disney was using CG in their films as early as The Great Mouse Detective back in 1986. But unlike those late '80s and early '90s Disney movies, the CG animation isn't blended into the 2D animation quite as well.

The soundtrack to this movie is soooo 1999 it's not even funny. I've never owned it, but looking at the track listing on Wikipedia, I see so many late '90s/early 2000s pop bands and solo artists it's not even funny. I mean you have M2M (anyone remember them?), Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, NSYNC, B*Witched (anyone remember them?), Emma Bunton (Baby Spice in the Spice Girls), Vitamin C, 98 Degrees, Billie Piper, and Aaron Carter. If that doesn't scream late '90s and early 2000s I don't know what does.

My siblings and I never owned this movie on home video when it was out. I don't even remember renting it, so they watched it on TV alot. But the VHS was in the big VHS haul that I got back in November, and being Pokemon, I kept it in my collection. It's definitely a Kids WB VHS release. There was a preview for the Century 2000 Collection, which contained mostly VHS re-releases of movies that had been out on home video for two years or longer, like the Free Willy trilogy, The Amazing Panda Adventure (I have it on DVD, so I'll be reviewing that movie in the very near future), and Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, among others. But then there were previews for Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, which was about to come out on VHS and DVD, and Kids WB, which was the kids block on The WB that Pokemon, Superman: The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, Batman Beyond, and reruns of Animaniacs aired on, among other animated shows. Plus the soundtrack for this movie had a preview for it before the movie too.

The tape included the short movie, Pikachu's Vacation before the film too, and I laughed so hard with that short film. I mean it was just the Pokemon of Ash, Misty, Brock, and Team Rocket, including Meowth, on vacation at a Pokemon amusement park, getting into Looney Tunes style antics, and it was great. Especially since the main movie was so heavy. It was also the introduction of Snubbull and Marill, two Generation 2 Pokemon from Gold, Silver, and Crystal, into the anime as well, since the Generation 2 Pokemon wouldn't show up in the show until The Johto Journeys started airing in late 2000, nearly a year after Pokemon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back was released in North America. So that was cool.

Unlike with the TV show, I don't have nostalgia goggles on when it comes to this movie, since I didn't see it in it's entirety until last night. So I can say that it's a pretty great movie. Though I'm not sure I would've kept the VHS if I hadn't watched as much of the first season of the show as I did when I was in my early teens (I was almost 12 when the series started). It's very much a movie for Pokemon fans, and honestly, that's okay. It's trying to be more than the TV show was and it succeeds for what it is. It's not formulaic, despite the fact that Team Rocket tries to stick to their usual routine, and it's a fun, albeit cheesy, late '90s animated movie, which is what I needed last night.

Alrighty that is going to be it for me for today, and for this weekend. I'll be back next week with part 2 at my look at the Walt Disney Classics VHS line, as well as some other reviews or posts. So until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Pokemon: Indigo League (1997/1998) TV Series Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? Happy Friday! Today I'm going to take you back to 1998 to talk about Pokemon: Indigo League which is the first iteration of the Anime that I watched when I was a kid. I bought the first two episodes on iTunes a while back so I watched both of them for this review. Before we start though, I would like to point out that I'll only be talking about the English dub. It's what I grew up with and it's what I know best. Also, aside from these first two episodes, I haven't watched Pokemon since late 2000 or early 2001 when The Johto Journeys was on, so I don't have any knowledge of later incarnations of the series as I did not continue watching the Anime once I was in high school, college or adulthood. Also, I will be reviewing Pokemon the First Movie tomorrow, and only that movie as I haven't seen any of the subsequent films. With that out of the way, let's get into it.

Pokemon was one of the shows that my siblings and I watched all the time when we were kids. It aired on YTV at 4 pm on weekdays (according to the Pokemon Wiki), and we loved it. As I mentioned before, I only watched it up to the third season of the Anime, The Johto Journeys and even then, I didn't actually watch very much of seasons 2 and 3 when they were on. By that point I was in middle school, and was spending alot more time up in my bedroom. Though I would still come down and watch the occasional episode of both season 2, Adventures in the Orange Islands, and season 3, The Johto Journeys, with my brother and sister. Plus, by 1999 I was more interested in Digimon than I was in Pokemon.

The big reason that I was more interested in Digimon is because, Pokemon had become repetitive by that point. It works fine as a video game, because, for the most part, the games are standalone with new characters and new Pokemon every single game, with enough having changed when you return to previous regions for it to stay interesting. With the Anime however, Ash is still the protagonist, and while his traveling companions are switched up from time to time, with Brock being the only really consistent one, Ash and Pikachu have been the central characters of the series since 1997 in Japan, and 1998 here in North America. And unfortunately, Ash doesn't grow and change as a character, neither does Pikachu. Whereas in Digimon the characters all have development and arcs throughout each version of the show (of the four that I watched anyway). Plus the story always progresses in Digimon.

And it's not that Pokemon is a slow burn either. It is in some ways, because it's not like Ash meets Brock or gets his core team of Pokemon right away. No, it takes several episodes for that to happen. But, because it's based on a video game, where character progression isn't always supposed to happen (especially on the Game Boy, and early Nintendo consoles), the writers don't have a whole lot of leeway in the adaptation process. Not to mention for the localization process, several things had to be removed due to broadcast standards for children's television being different here in North America than they are in Japan.

Despite these problems, rewatching these first two episodes, "Pokemon! I Choose You!" and "Pokemon Emergency!" is nostalgic for me. Simply because, like I said, watching Pokemon was something my siblings I did alot together. Especially during the initial 1998/1999 run of the series. That's Pokemon to us, in terms of the Anime anyway. We did have Gold and Silver in our Game Boy collection.

The voice cast is pretty cool and iconic. Though what I didn't realize is that Ash's mom is voiced by Veronica Taylor in this incarnation of the series. Veronica Taylor voiced Ash for the first eight seasons of the show. So that's bizarre, but honestly, not that surprising since animated series tend to use the same voice performer for multiple characters, which goes all the way back to the early Disney short cartoons from the '30s and '40s. 

What also surprised me was that Jessie and James weren't after Pikachu in episode 2, figuring he was just another Pikachu, which aren't rare or valuable. Which is cool. But then, the thing that makes them decide to capture him is because...he defeated them by using Thunder Shock which was boosted from electricity Ash was somehow generating through Misty's burnt up bicycle? Huh? That doesn't make any sense to me at all. Especially since, the bike wasn't connected to any power source. So unless Pikachu was powering the bike, and I completely missed it, there is no reason Team Rocket should be impressed enough to classify Pikachu as a rare and valuable Pokemon all of a sudden. 

I looked this up on Wikipedia, because I didn't know what came first in North America, but apparently the Anime debuted only ten days before Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue were released over here. "Pokemon! I Choose You!" first aired on September 8th, and the two games were released on September 18th. I always thought that the games came out here first, and THEN the Anime debuted with a year in between. But, nope, that is not the case at all. 

So one of the most nostalgic things about watching these first two episodes is that both retained the Poke Rap at the end and episode 2 has the "Who's That Pokemon?" segment during what would've been the show's first or second commercial break. Now, I have never seen this show on home video formats before, so I don't know if either retained these sections. What I have seen online are VHSrips of episodes from their original North American broadcasts on the Internet Archive and elsewhere, so because they were taken from the TV, those segments were included. So I thought it was cool to see the digital releases on iTunes keep them.

It was fun going back and rewatching these first two episodes after so many years. The animation holds up pretty well, seeing the Poke Rap again was cool, and it's just as cheesy a show as I remember it being, watching it on the TV from the floor of the family room with my siblings. Especially since all of the show's elements that I remember, including Team Rocket's introductory speech, which they give in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, are presented in both episodes. 

That's going to be it for me for today. I'm going to be watching Pokemon the First Movie on VHS tonight, so look for my review on that one some time tomorrow. In the meantime have a wonderful afternoon and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

My History with the Walt Disney Classics Collection Part 1: My Childhood Collection

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's Tuesday and I have a new episode of Superman & Lois on tonight, so I'm looking forward to that. Right now though I'm here to talk about the Walt Disney Classics, which is a series of VHS releases that Disney put out from 1984 until 1994 and was responsible for kicking off the practice of releasing the filmography of Walt Disney Feature Animation (now known as the Walt Disney Animation Studios) on home video, which continues to this day. However, unlike the post I did over on The Review Basement in November 2020, this post is going to be the first of four in my personal history with the series. So let's get into it and talk about the Walt Disney Classics!

If you were born between 1980 and 1990 and watched Disney movies on home video then you most likely saw this logo. If you had kids who were born between 1980 and 1990 and watched Disney movies with them, you most likely saw this logo. Oddly enough this particular logo only came into being in 1988. A different logo was used from 1984 until 1987, but as I didn't own any of the tapes in this collection from before 1989 when I was a kid, I won't be talking about that first logo in this post. Growing up, I spent alot of time at home or in the hospital and movies were how I kept busy when I couldn't be at school or just wasn't able to play with my younger siblings. The biggest movie collection my siblings and I had was Disney. 11 of those tapes belonged to the Walt Disney Classics line. So, let's talk about those tapes. 

The earliest Classics release I had when I was a kid was Bambi. I didn't have it at home though. My grandparents bought it because Bambi was one of my grandfather's favourite movies. It just happened that they had a grandson (me) who watched movies, and a granddaughter (my sister) on the way. Bambi was released on home video on September 28th, 1989 and the opening includes a trailer for The Little Mermaid, which was coming out in theatres in less than two months. Because I had it at Nana's and Grandpa's house, I didn't actually watch Bambi all that much. Maybe even only one time if I had to guess. It definitely wasn't a tape I rewatched thousands of times like some of the other releases in this collection.

The first entry in the Walt Disney Classics that was bought specifically for me was Peter Pan. I actually watched this movie quite a bit when I was a kid. I don't remember who bought it for me, probably either Nana or Grandma, most likely Nana, though I my parents had to have bought us one of the Classics tapes. This is the first Disney feature that I owned. I'd had the Winnie the Pooh shorts, and a couple of the Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes, but this was the first of the feature films that I owned and was at my house, not just at Nana's. The opening includes a trailer for The Little Mermaid, which had been released on home video four months earlier, and a sneak peek at The Rescuers Down Under which was coming out in theatres two months after this tape was released. Peter Pan is one of those action films that has mostly good songs, with one that REALLY doesn't hold up today. It's still one of my favourite Disney movies to this day, despite that unfortunate scene in the movie. It was released on September 21st, 1990.

Up next is of course the first one I really remember watching all the time when I was a kid. That would be The Jungle Book. This is still my absolute favourite Disney movie of all time. It's not the greatest movie of all time, but it's my favourite. The Jungle Book was released on home video on May 3rd, 1991 and the opening includes a Making of sneak peek preview of Beauty and the Beast which was going to be released in theatres that Thanksgiving weekend, and a trailer for the home video release of The Rescuers Down Under, which was going to be released a few months later. I finally got this tape back in my collection a few weeks ago, but I'll talk more about that in a couple of weeks when I talk about my current Walt Disney Classics collection.

Speaking of The Rescuers Down Under, that's the next tape coming up on my list of Walt Disney Classics tapes that I owned when I was a kid. It was released on September 20th, 1991, and I think I actually might've gotten this tape at the same time as The Jungle Book as I got most of these tapes for my birthday or Christmas and I'm pretty sure I got both tapes for either my birthday or Christmas in 1991. I didn't like this movie as much when I was a kid, but I grew to love it when I watched the tape as a teenager in the early 2000s. The only preview at the beginning of the tape is one for the home video release of The Jungle Book.

The next tape on this list is Fantasia. Nana and Grandpa had this tape at their house, and I remember watching it only once when I was at their place one afternoon. I have a copy of this tape in my collection now, but I haven't watched it yet, so I don't remember what the opening of the tape is. As I recall, the tape didn't have any previews on it at all, and I don't think the Walt Disney Classics logo is on this tape either. It's not on the cover or the spine at all. Instead the tape says "Walt Disney's Masterpiece" which is funny, because the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection would replace the Walt Disney Classics in 1994. But this tape came out in 1991, a little less than three years before the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection started, so I don't know if Eisner and Katzenberg intended for the Masterpiece Collection to replace the Classics line sooner than it did or not. Also it's interesting to note that 1991 has the highest number of Classics release of any year, as there are three new releases that year, and four re-releases of the earliest releases from 1984, 1985 and 1986. 

Next up is 101 Dalmatians, which was released on April 10th, 1992. I wish I could remember when exactly I got this tape, but I don't because that was 30 years ago and my grandparents bought tapes for us quite often and even the ones we got for Christmas and birthdays tended to blend together in my memory. Especially the ones we didn't watch as often as others. For example, I know the 1991 VHS of The Jungle Book so well because I practically watched it every day for a year when I first got it. Whereas I don't remember this tape so well because I didn't watch it as often. I do remember this being the first Classics tape that promoted the then upcoming theatrical release of Aladdin. It did so with a short sneak peek preview that was less involved than the ones for The Rescuers Down Under on the Peter Pan tape, and for Beauty and the Beast on the The Jungle Book tape. 

Up next is The Great Mouse Detective, which was released on July 17th, 1992. Again, there's a preview for Aladdin, which was still an upcoming theatrical release at the time. This was the last Classics tape that we had at Nana's and Grandpa's when I was growing up. As a result, I didn't watch as much as I would've liked to, but I borrowed it as a teenager and watched it a few times. Especially after I got a TV/VCR combo set from my uncle for my 16th birthday in 2002. I quite like this movie though it's been a while since I've watched it. I am planning a complete watchthrough of all the Classics tapes that I have in my collection so far so this one will come in that rotation at some point.

Tape #8 in my collection was The Rescuers. I remember getting this tape much later than the other ones in my collection that came out the year this one came out in (1992). Again, I don't remember if it was a birthday present, a Christmas present or a random present from someone. I just remember watching the movie several times over the span of about fifteen years or so. I actually saw a soundless clip of the movie before I ever owned this VHS tape. CHEO had a Fisher Price Movie Viewer in the play room. The Movie Viewer looked like an old style film camera in which you placed big yellow cartridges into the back of it. Those cartridges contained a single scene of a movie or TV episode. One of the cartridges I watched was the scene where "Tomorrow is Another Day" is playing over shots of Orville the Albatross flying over New York City, carrying Bernard and Bianca to Devil's Bayou on their mission to rescue Penny. There's no sound, just the animation, but I remember playing with that Movie Viewer with the cartridge for this movie before I ever had this particular VHS tape. Oh, and the previews on this tape are for the home video releases of Beauty and the Beast and The Great Mouse Detective.

I think besides The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast is the Walt Disney Classics tape that my siblings and I watched the most when we were kids. I'm pretty sure this was my sister's tape rather than all of ours, but we all watched it together alot. It was released on October 30th, 1992. This tape probably has the most previews on it out of all of the Classics releases. Our copy had previews for Aladdin, which was out in theatres by this point, a theatrical re-release of Sleeping Beauty, which was supposed to happen near the end of 1993, but got delayed until 1995 for whatever reason, a home video preview for Pinocchio, which was the next tape to come out in the Classics line, and then a home video preview for 101 Dalmatians at the end of the tape. 

Pinocchio was not a tape I watched very much until I was a teenager and had my own TV and VCR in my room. We had it at our house, but the movie scared my sister so we didn't watch it a whole ton, if she wanted to watch a Disney movie with me. We did watch it occasionally though. The previews on this tape were for Aladdin, which was in theatres, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, which was scheduled to be released on October 29th, 1993. Of course Pinocchio had been released on VHS all the way back in 1985, as the second release in the Walt Disney Classics line, so this was a re-release. However, the cover and the spine didn't include the Walt Disney Classics logo on it anywhere. However, unlike with the Fantasia tape, having Walt Disney's Masterpiece on the cover makes sense since this tape came out on March 26th, 1993 and by then Disney was most likely planning to start the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, even if they didn't yet know that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was going to be the line's launch title.

The last Classics release I owned when I was a kid was Aladdin, which came out on October 1st 1993. This was another tape my siblings and I watched constantly when we were kids. Aladdin is one of my favourite Disney movies, because it's such a good movie, and it still holds up after almost 30 years. So that's cool. The previews on this tape are for the theatrical release of The Lion King, which was due to come out in the summer of 1994, and the home video release of Pinocchio, which I just talked about. 

So that's it for the Walt Disney Classics tapes that my siblings and I had when we were kids. But, there are five tapes that we rented or that I watched at the hospital. So that's what I'm going to be talking about next time. Until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Emissary (1993) Novelization Review

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was nice and quiet. I had a video call with an old college buddy and that's pretty much it for actually doing stuff this weekend. Today I'm here for another book review. This time I'm going to be talking about the novelization for the pilot episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Emissary", written by J.M. Dillard, based on the episode script written by Michael Piller. So let's get into it.

One of the things I've always loved about novelizations of movies and TV show episodes is that you get inside the characters's heads and know exactly how they feel, which the show and movie versions can't always get quite right. The novelizations also tend to expand upon scenes that would just slow the story down in a two hour movie or 30 minute to an hour long episode. 

"Emissary" is probably the best series premiere of any Star Trek series. While "Encounter at Farpoint" is my favourite Star Trek pilot of all time, "Emissary" is the best one. It never feels like it lags at all at any point in the episode, unlike "Encounter at Farpoint" from TNG, and "Caretaker" from Voyager, which both feel like they're way too long. However, the episode does feel a little unfinished near the end when Sisko returns to DS9 from his encounter with the Wormhole Aliens/the Prophets simply because he's meant to have a second conversation with Kai Opaka following his debriefing by Captain Picard, but before his walk through the Promenade with Dax and O'Brien, which closes out the televised version of the episode. It's a deleted scene, but it's not on the season 1 DVD set or any of the complete series sets that have come out over the years.

The novelization ends with that particular deleted scene, rather than showing the new lease on life that DS9 has gotten thanks to the discovery of the wormhole. Which actually feels better to me if I'm being honest, because it gives the reader, and the audience a sense of excitement, because we don't return to Sisko's role as the Emissary or to the Prophets for most of the first season, until the season finale. In fact, it's really not until the Dominion arc in seasons 5, 6, and 7 that Sisko's role is more heavily examined.

An interesting thing about this novelization is that Keiko and Molly O'Brien are actually seen. In the televised version Chief O'Brien mentions them, but they don't actually appear. We also get stuff with Jake and Nog, which is actually from later episodes of the first season, but, due to Dillard not being able to see episodes while writing the novelization, as security around production of the show was really tight during the first season, she didn't know that the material with Jake and Nog had been moved out of the pilot and into subsequent episodes. Including the incident where Jake runs into Keiko.

I also felt that Sisko's progression is alot more fleshed out in the book. In the televised version it's alot quicker, simply because the episode is only two hours long (90 minutes without commercials) and there wasn't enough time to flesh out everything, since there was the parallel story of Sisko with the Prophets, and Kira trying to keep the Cardassians from attacking the station and gaining control of the wormhole. In the novel though, there was time for all of that. We also get some more details concerning the massacre at Setlik Three which Miles O'Brien and Captain Maxwell, from the TNG episode "The Wounded", were a part of.

Overall if you've never read this book, or any of the Star Trek episode novelizations, I recommend that you track them down. Unlike the Star Wars novels, which can be overly complicated due to their own legacy and lore, the Star Trek novels are fairly simple in terms of story and characters. The episode novelizations are pretty good looks at early versions of the episode's script, particularly with the pilot episodes, and a look at expanded versions of the adapted episodes.

That's going to be it for me for today, but I will be back tomorrow or Wednesday with my history with the Walt Disney Classics home video line, as well as a look at my original Walt Disney Classics VHS collection. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Radio Fifth Grade by Gordon Korman (1989) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Thursday. Today I'm here to talk about a book that I just finished reading for the first time in 23 years. So join me as I talk about Radio Fifth Grade by Gordon Korman. So let's get into it.

Radio Fifth Grade is a standalone novel written by Canadian author Gordon Korman and published by Scholastic Inc. in 1989. It was the eighth standalone novel that Korman had written since 1978. The story is about a elementary school radio called Kidsview hosted by fifth graders named Benjy Driver, Mark Havermayer, and Ellen-Louise Turnbull. It's also one of my favourite books from when I was a kid.

I first read the book in either late 1998 or early 1999. I was in grade six and I had been introduced to the novels of Gordon Korman the previous school year through my grade 5 teacher, who used the fourth Macdonald Hall book, The War with Mr. Wizzle, as one of our novel studies for the year. The edition I read was the 1991 Apple Paperbacks edition from Scholastic. I actually found it at the school library. I was looking for something different to read and I hadn't discovered Animorphs yet. However, I saw Gordon Korman's name on the spine of this book, and I grabbed it immediately, not even caring what the book was. If Gordon Korman wrote it, then that was good enough for me. Actually one of the draws of this book for me is that it focuses on an elementary school radio show. I was still in elementary school and had actually started watching a show called Radio Active on YTV, which was about a high school radio station. I was also a huge radio listener, so this book basically begged me to borrow it from the library that week. I read it and loved it.

 As I said earlier this book is about three fifth graders who run an elementary school radio show at a local radio station. The show, called Kidsview, is sponsored by a pet store called Our Animal Friends (all of this is fictional of course), which is their only sponsor. For their Mascot of the Week segment Benjy, Mark, and Ellen-Louise are given a parrot named Winston Churchill, but it takes six weeks for them to sell the bird due to various misshaps on each show. Meanwhile the kids get a new teacher, Ms. Panagopoulos after their old teacher Miss Gucci won the lottery and skipped town. The new teacher does things in a more sophisticated manner, giving the kids more homework, and angering Benjy in a way that is very reminiscent of Bruno Walton and Cathy Burton when they got mad at Mr. Wizzle and Ms. Peabody in The War with Mr. Wizzle.

Having not read this book in 23 years, there was so much of the details of this book that I had completely forgotten. I remembered the basic story of the parrot and the radio show, but I didn't remember any of the characters's names, not even Ellen-Louise, who I share a last name with, or the quiz segment based off the kids's homework assignment, or how they prevent Ms. Panagopoulos from listening to Kidsview and discovering what they using for the questions in their quiz segment. I also forgot about Arthur Katz, the student who goes on a rant every week about various environmental and scientific topics. Those parts of the book were pretty funny.

Benjy, Mark, and Ellen-Louise very much feel like the usual Gordon Korman characters. Mark is clumsy and does questionable things much like Sidney Rampulsky and Benjy is very close to Bruno in some ways. Ellen-Louise isn't like any of the characters in the Macdonald Hall series. Maybe she's like some characters in other Korman books, but again, I haven't read his other standalone novels, nor have I read his other series or trilogies so I can't tell you. Especially since, besides this one and the Macdonald Hall series, the only Gordon Korman written book I've read is book 2 in the 39 Clues series, and those weren't his original characters he was writing there. 

Because Scholastic had this thing where they liked to update the books whenever they were republished in the 2000s and 2010s, I was expecting Radio Fifth Grade to have alot of changes made to it since radio broadcasting has changed alot since 1989. I was in the radio broadcasting program for a semester when I was in college, and that was only three years before the edition of the book that I have was published, and a year after the book was first republished in 2006. However, the only change is that in one sentence when Mark tells Ellen-Louise that it's "2010" the year was changed from 1989 to 2010. But, none of the broadcasting equipment has changed. When I was in college we still used a soundboard for the microphones, but the equipment was in the same room as the broadcasting desk, and sound effects, songs, commercials, and the canned station callsigns were all routed through the computer. So I just thought that was interesting as someone who has read the revised versions of the Macdonald Hall series and knows how arbitrary Scholastic's decisions for what would be changed and what wouldn't.

I am so glad that I got to revisit this book again after 23 years. I was so afraid it wouldn't hold up rereading it as an adult, but you know what? It absolutely does. Proving that Gordon Korman writes books and creates characters who are timeless. If you're a Gordon Korman fan and have never read this book I recommend you pick up Radio Fifth Grade. It's out of print everywhere, but it's available on Amazon through secondary sellers. That's how my grandmother got the copy she gave me for Christmas.

Okay, I think that's it for me for today. I might be back tomorrow for another post or I might just wait until next week. We shall see. In the meantime I hope you all have a wonderful evening. I'm gonna be settling down in about two and a half hours for this week's episode of Star Trek: Discovery and this season is interesting so I'm looking forward to that. So until next time have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Star Lost (1993) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm going to be doing a comic book review and the comic I'll be reviewing is a trade paperback which collects issues #20-24 of DC Comics's 1989 Star Trek: The Next Generation and came out in April, 1993. It's also a more recent addition to my comic book collection. So let's get into it.

According to the DC Comics TNG Timeline, which was published in the letters column of Star Trek: The Next Generation (Volume 2) #'s 1, 37, and 69, and recreated on Memory Alpha (the Star Trek Wiki), this story takes place during the show's fourth season, between the episodes, "Future Imperfect" and "The Final Mission" as Wesley Crusher is an Ensign and is in the story, and the stardates presented in the story bridge the gap between those two television episodes. Which is interesting. And, no, Wesley is more in line with his Ensign era version from the show's third and fourth seasons, rather than how he was portrayed in the earlier mini-series that DC published in 1988. 

I got this comic back in November when Brad and I went to the Ottawa Comic and Card Show for the first time in almost two years. It was a pretty cool find since I never see Star Trek trades out in the wild like that, mostly the single issues. And it was cheap too. If I remember correctly it was only like $5 or $10, which is pretty good for an out of print trade paperback collection.

While the Enterprise is delivering medical supplies to a Federation colony, a shuttlecraft carrying Commander Riker, Lieutenant Worf, Ensign Crusher, Doctor Selar, and some medical ensigns, who we never see again in this comic, and don't see on the TV show, are pulled through some sort of subspace vortex that transports them to an unknown part of the galaxy, where they discover this space station made up of dozens of starships from all over the galaxy. Riker is injured so it's up to Worf to take command and figure out a way back to Federation space, where they're all presumed to be dead by the Enterprise and her crew, which are on another mission.

The B-plot with Worf and Wesley is actually very similar not only to the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode, "The Time Trap", but also issue #6 of DC's original Star Trek: The Next Generation mini-series from 1988. Not exactly the same plot of course, but similar in that the crew finds themselves in an alternate dimension, where races from all over the galaxy have congregated and they all have to find a way home again. And actually, the "space station" made up of many different ships in this book reminds me of the scavenger base level from Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force which is now more than 21 years old, though in that game the scavenger base is much smaller than the station in this book.

While I enjoy the Wesley/Worf plot, the one that's more interesting is the story that takes place on the Enterprise with Picard, Data, Troi, Crusher, and La Forge. After the ship had successfully delivered the medical supplies to the two colonies, including the one the shuttlecraft was trying to deliver them to before getting sucked into the vortex, the Enterprise is sent to evacuate a planet that is on the verge of destruction due to a rogue comet heading it's way. If this was in the DC Universe, Superman could just divert the course of the comet no problem, but this is Star Trek, and as we saw from the TNG season 3 episode, "Deja Q", diverting a comet from it's trajectory of crashing into a planet is pretty difficult and the Enterprise probably doesn't have that kind of time at this point.

However, the species they're evacuating, the Lanatosians, value property and things instead of people, which frustrates the Enterprise crew to no end. Especially when another species, that resembles sea dragons, is revealed to be living on the planet as well. Because, naturally both races live underwater, which isn't something we've actually never seen on Star Trek except for the Voyager episode, "Thirty Days". 

What makes this story interesting though is how we get into Picard's head about the situation with the missing crew members. When Tasha Yar was killed in "Skin of Evil" we don't really get Picard's reaction to it, even at her memorial service at the end of the episode. We got everyone else's, but not Picard's. Here though, we get Picard's. He's torn because he doesn't want to believe that his friends are dead. Particularly Wesley, because if Wesley is dead then Picard has to inform Beverly, which he already had to do when her husband, Jack Crusher, was killed during a mission on the Stargazer, long before the start of TNG. But at the same time, he knows their chances of finding the missing crew aren't good and he really has to let his missing crew go and assign people to the now vacant posts in the ship's command structure.

I also love the nods to TNG continuity in this book too. Doctor Pulaski, Deanna's mother, Lwaxana Troi, and Riker's father, Kyle, are all shown when they're informed of Riker, Worf, Wesley, and Selar's disappearance and of course Selar is in the issue as well, so that's cool. And as Ron Moore pointed out in his introduction to the book, the comics medium allowed them to do this story, free of the constraints of a TV show budget, particularly a '90s TV show budget. It allowed them to do the Lanatosians and the Skriiti (the sea dragon creatures) as well as the vast ocean world of Lanatos. Definitely not something you could do on TNG's budget in 1991 when these issues were originally published. 

This book was produced by the regular TNG comic book crowd. Michael Jan Friedman is the writer, Peter Krause is the penciller, and Pablo Marcos is the inker and I absolutely love their work on this series. There are a couple of shots of the Enterprise where her neck is slightly longer than it should be, and Data is manning the CONN station in the first bridge shot of the book, but otherwise the artwork is pretty great. And as usual Friedman really gets the voices of these beloved characters in his writing. Which I love.

Overall, this is a pretty great book. The issues come from before I got into this comic book series, but they're actually pretty good with a story that fits the comic book medium, which is always good. As I said earlier, it's been out of print for at least 25 years. It never got a second printing, nor did it ever get another edition from DC Comics. However the five issues got recollected in volume 58 of the Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection released by Eaglemoss Collections, the same company that does all of the current Star Trek starships line of diecast models. That edition should be available somehow. Or just find this original collection at your local comic book store or at a geek sale or comic book sale or even at a used bookstore.

Alright folks that's gonna be it for me for today. But I will be back either tomorrow or Friday with my review of Radio Fifth Grade. So until then have a wonderful night, stay safe, and I will talk to you all later. Take care!

Star Wars Reviews: The Book of Boba Fett Series Review

 Good morning everyone! How're you all doing today? Welcome back to Star Wars Reviews, the series where I review and discuss all things Star Wars. Today I'm going to be reviewing The Book of Boba Fett, which just had it's finale on Disney+ this morning. So, let's get right into it. There will be spoilers, including for the finale, because I think by this point anybody reading this review has at least caught up on the first six episodes, if not watched the finale by now. So, like I said, let's get right into it.

I can't seem to find anything about whether this is a limited series or not. Wikipedia doesn't say it's a limited series, but the way Jon Favreau talks about it in the Wikipedia article, it seems like there won't be a second season for the show. Which makes sense because when it comes to franchises like the MCU, Star Trek, and Star Wars, the studio producing the shows knows which shows will be multi-season shows and what will be limited series shows when they start producing a new series. So I'm writing this review as if we're not getting a second season.

I said this in my last My Geek Life post, but I think that The Mandalorian and it's spin-offs, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka, should all have their titles dropped and just be called Star Wars because season 2 of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett set up both Ahsoka and The Mandalorian season 3. Plus with the number of cameos this show had, including Luke Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano in episode 6. Plus it's all Star Wars anyway, so why not call it that, without all the second titles.

I'll be honest, I was very skeptical about this show going into it. I mean Boba Fett really isn't that interesting of a character in the movies considering he has a total of five minutes of screen time and three lines of dialogue in the entirety of the Original Trilogy, and he was a kid in Attack of the Clones. And yes, I know he showed up in The Clone Wars and has had numerous comics and novels written about him, but what I saw of him in The Clone Wars wasn't all that interesting, and pretty much all of those novels and comics were written in the mid to late '90s, before Lucas made Attack of the Clones. All of which were completely superseded by the Prequel Trilogy because they had a very different backstory for Fett in them.

The first four episodes of this show were okay. They weren't great, but they also weren't bad. The biggest problem I had with them was the flashbacks. They attempted to do these flashbacks the way Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg did them in seasons 1-5 of Arrow and it just didn't work for this show because of how unbalanced those episodes were. To be fair the flashbacks in Arrow could be unbalanced too, but usually the flashback heavy episodes happened only when Oliver was incapacitated in the main story, like in the season 1 episode where Felicity finds out that Oliver is the Hood, but for this show, the flashbacks really weren't necessary the way they did them. Particularly in episode 2, just because of how short this show was. When you have seasons or series that are under ten episodes long, you REALLY don't have that much time to divert to other storylines, or doing entire episodes that take away from the main story you're trying to tell. This show did that three times. Episode 2 was almost entirely flashback, episode 5 was the return of Din Djarin, a.k.a. the Mandalorian, and episode 6 was the return of Grogu, a.k.a. Baby Yoda, plus appearances by Luke Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano.

The first four episodes were still pretty good, even though I didn't like the flashbacks. Episode 2 was interesting, because it called back to older Star Wars tales, namely the deleted scenes from A New Hope, as Luke's friends, or former friends I guess, Fixer and Camie make appearances. This was actually their first appearance in filmed canon ever. Deleted scenes don't count, but they have appeared in novels since Disney bought Lucasfilm.

The best episodes of this show were episodes 5, 6, and 7 simply because they drew in the wider Star Wars Universe, which is how it should be with this franchise as a whole. Unlike with Marvel, DC, and Star Trek, where a story isn't necessarily served by having the wider universe come in and intrude, because Star Wars was always a more collaborative endeavour in terms of the expanded universe material and the authors reading each other's work, supporting each other, and using each other's characters, a story is more fleshed out when characters from elsewhere in the Star Wars Universe show up.

To be honest, this show does have it's problems. For example, it's way too short. I've been saying this since season 2 of The Mandalorian but the superhero and Sci-Fi stuff on Disney+ need more episodes because six to eight episodes isn't enough to be telling these grand, epic, stories in these universes. And this is a Disney problem because if you look at the DC shows on HBO Max and The CW, and the Star Trek shows on Paramount+, they all have between ten and fifteen episodes per season and they work out much better than the Star Wars and Marvel shows do. And The Book of Boba Fett seems to be the worst offender of this because Favreau and Filoni are trying to tell this epic Boba Fett story but it's hindered by the fact that there's too much story to tell and not enough time to tell it in. 

So when you have a show with a particular character's name in it's title, that show should focus only on that character. Which is a problem I had with the more recent seasons of The Flash. Too much time was put into developing the supporting characters, like Iris, Caitlin, and others that Barry himself ended up not being as interesting. Especially when the writers, just like they did to Oliver Queen in the last four seasons of Arrow, kept writing Barry like he's stupid, when the Flash is supposed to be an intelligent character. And yes, I just went on a tangent on the Arrowverse shows in a Star Wars review. I'm a geek, what do you expect me to do?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that The Book of Boba Fett, the way it was written, is unnecessary. I liked it for what it was, but it could've been alot better than it was, and I do feel like the character was wasted in his own show in favour of setting up the wider Star Wars Universe for what's coming with Ahsoka and season 3 of The Mandalorian. Personally, I liked it, especially after episode 4, but it could've been way better.

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with another post. I just started reading Radio Fifth Grade by Gordon Korman, so I think that's going to be my next book review. As for comics, I'm trying to figure that out still, and I'm working out some details for other posts that I want to do, like that Walt Disney Classics VHS series review that I've been promising for the last week or so. And I will try to get to the last part of my Movies I Saw in Theatres series that I've been doing lately. Until then have a wonderful afternoon and I will talk to you all later. Take care!

Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street (2008) Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm okay. Today I'm going to be talking about a very cool book called Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street by Michael Davis, which was published in 2008. I'm also going to be talking about my own history with Sesame Street at a later time because I have alot to cover on that topic and it'd make this review super long and I don't have the patience for that today. So let's get into it.

I first laid eyes on this book back in 2009. My mom and I were in Indigo Books near where we live now, and we were just looking around. My mom saw this book, and asked me if we should get it for my grandfather because he loved Oscar the Grouch. I said yes because I thought it would make for a good birthday present for him, so we bought it and gave it to him. Then a few weeks ago, my parents were out visiting my grandmother and helping her do some stuff around her house and when they came home, they had this book for me as Nana had found it while going through some stuff. Even though it's been a little more than two years since Grandpa passed away, I had never asked about this book. I kept meaning to, but it always slipped my mind. I started reading it that night before bed.

As someone who watched Sesame Street all the time when I was a kid, I found this book to be fascinating. Yes, it's a kids show, but the production process is exactly the same whether the show is for adults or for children. So I thought it was really interesting to find out so many things about the show's early years in 1969 and the early '70s, before I was even born. I even learned things about the show from around the time I started watching it in the early '90s. For example, I did not know that Alan Menken, who worked on alot of Disney movies in the '80s and '90s, and the 2000s and 2010s, wrote songs for Sesame Street prior to being hired at Disney. So that was cool to find out.

The thing that surprised me about this book is how biographical it is. Most of the book is taken up with biographies of all of the major players involved in the creation and production of Sesame Street in the '60s, '70s and '80s. Which is cool, because there's still a ton of actual production stuff that was talked about in the book. I just found it a bit odd for a history of Sesame Street book.

What I liked most about this book is the connections to both Captain Kangaroo and Barney & Friends. I watched both of those shows and I was interested to find out that many of the writers for Captain Kangaroo ended up going over to Sesame Street when that show began development and production.

For Barney, it makes sense that Sesame Street's producers wouldn't feel threatened by the purple dinosaur until Barney & Friends started airing on PBS in 1992. The initial Barney & The Backyard Gang videos from 1988 and 1989 really only sold in Texas. Even when they became widely available in 1990, and sold in high volumes, the Sesame Street home video releases at the time, still outsold the Barney tapes, and of course the distribution of the tapes didn't affect Sesame Street's ratings any. It wasn't until Barney exploded into popularity with the first season of Barney & Friends in 1992 did the producers of Sesame Street begin to worry.

One other thing that I'd like to bring up in this review is how the book covered the popularity of Tickle Me Elmo. By the time the toy came out in 1996, Elmo had already replaced Big Bird as Sesame Street's mascot, so naturally if a toy of Elmo came out then it would be a popular toy. The fact that the toy sold out all over the country is something I don't think I've seen since...well, probably since 1993 when the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers initial toyline came out around the time that show debuted. 

Honestly, I really enjoyed this book. It reminded me of why I still love Sesame Street even though I haven't actually watched it in about 25 years. It's funny, it's important, and it's spectacularly made. It may be a preschool show now, but that doesn't matter when it comes to the production quality on the show. If you've never read this book before, I highly, HIGHLY, recommend you do so.

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow though for my full series review of The Book of Boba Fett, which ends tomorrow with the finale. So until then have an awesome evening, stay safe, and I will talk to you all later. Take care!

My Geek Life: The Orville Season 3, The Book of Boba Fett, Star Trek: Prodigy, and A Nostalgia Trip of Epic Proportions

 Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been around much this week. I've been making preparations for reviews of the Walt Disney Classics, the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, the Walt Disney Limited Issues, the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection, the Walt Disney Platinum Editions, the Walt Disney Diamond Editions, and the Walt Disney Signature Collection. I've done this before on The Review Basement, but that was more of an overview series. This time it's going to be the releases that I own from each line in a more review style format. So I'll be giving you more details on that in another post. In the meantime, let's go ahead with this week's edition of My Geek Life. I've got a few things to talk about so let's get into it.

Hulu put out a sneak peek of the third season of Seth MacFarlane's Sci-Fi series, The Orville earlier today, along with the announcement that the season premiere has moved from March 10th, to June 2nd 2022. For the sneak peek, we didn't get a trailer. Instead we got the entire opening scene from the first episode of the season, plus the new opening title sequence. Which is what I'd like to talk about.

Basically in the opening scene of Season 3, Episode 1, Marcus Finn, Clare's older son, is running through the Orville while it's under attack by the Kaylon. There's a massive Union and Krill fleet as well, being decimated by Kaylon ships. With the ship exploding around him, Marcus makes his way to the quarters he shares with Clare and Ty. Ty is there, looking out the window at the destruction around them. They turn and see Isaac appear and move towards them before his face becomes monstrous and it cuts to the new opening title sequence. 

That whole opening scene is a dream sequence, in case some of you haven't figured that out by now. I mean, it has to be because of the way Isaac's face changed and the fact that, well, these writers, not to mention Seth MacFarlane himself, wouldn't just blow their budget on a big epic space battle in the opening scene of their season premiere. Even if they have a much bigger budget this season. Personally, I would've preferred an introduction to the new character, Ensign Charly Burke, but this at least shows us that Marcus is having difficulty dealing with the Isaac and Kaylon stuff from season 2. The last time we saw Ty and Marcus was in the alternate timeline shown in the season 2 finale. So we haven't seen them outside of the alternate timeline since "Identity Part 2", which was when the Kaylon stuff was happening. So that'll be interesting to see when the show starts on June 2nd (hopefully).

I don't really have anything in particular to say about The Book of Boba Fett but, I'd still like to point something out. Can Disney just drop the subtitles from these Star Wars Disney+ shows and just label them as Star Wars? For example, seasons 1 and 2 of The Mandalorian would be seasons 1 and 2 of Star Wars and this show would be Star Wars season 3 and so on and so forth. Especially after the last couple of episodes that have brought in characters introduced in the first two seasons of The Mandalorian. And with both Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni involved with all of those three shows, The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka, with the same crew involved as well, the three shows may as well be one show. Especially because of the number of guests on this show in episodes 5 and 6.

So the mid-season finale of Star Trek: Prodigy aired last night and I enjoyed it. However, while modern Star Trek usually has the tendency to over-explain a villain's reasons for doing something, this show barely gave us any details on the Diviner's reasoning for doing what he was doing. I won't spoil it, but they basically made him the more kid friendly version of Nero from Star Trek (2009). It's not a bad story by any means, I just wanted a bit more detail thrown in. And I think the Hagemans and their writing staff either couldn't provide that much detail, because it's a kids show first and foremost, OR they're holding off until the second half of the season, which I'm hoping is the case, because so far the writing has been tight and we still have ten episodes left in the season. But there's still tons of story to tell. Now it's time for a Nostalgia Trip of Epic Proportions.

It all started with my friend, Katie, giving me three Disney VHS tapes for my collection. The other two were the 1997 VHS release of the live action film, starring Glenn Close, 101 Dalmatians, and the VHS release of Lilo & Stitch. Those were really cool. However the third tape she gave me, and the one that started this all for me, was the 1991 Walt Disney Classics VHS release for The Jungle Book. As I've mentioned before, The Jungle Book is the first movie I remember seeing in theatres back in 1990. This VHS tape was one of the first Disney VHS tapes that I remember getting. The earliest ones like Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree and Disney Sing-Along Songs: The Bare Necessities I don't remember getting, I just remember having them. So Katie dropped those tapes off on Monday night and almost as soon as dinner was over I popped that tape into my VCR so I could watch it.

I don't have a problem admitting that I teared up as the sneak preview of Beauty and the Beast, which was coming out in theatres in the fall of 1991, started playing on my screen. And I teared up even more when the Walt Disney Classics logo came on screen. Yes, I've watched a few of my other Walt Disney Classics tapes in the last three years since I started collecting VHS again and have seen that logo a few times. But, it felt special this time around because this was the tape that I watched constantly when I was a kid. Even more than any other VHS tape that I had growing up, aside from my Teddy Ruxpin and Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes that is. Speaking of Teddy Ruxpin...

On Tuesday night, I was sitting down to dinner with my parents, as I do most nights. So nothing special there. However, after dinner, my dad went upstairs and came back with two VHS tapes. The kind you recorded shows and movies on off the TV in the '80s and '90s because DVRs didn't exist yet and neither did streaming. On each tape were episodes of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin that my dad taped off the TV for me in 1989 and 1990. The first tape, which is in the picture above, contained six episodes. Episode 64, "L.B.'s Wedding", episode 2, "Beware the Mudblups", episode 3, "Guests of the Grunges", episode 4, "In the Fortress of the Wizard", episode 5, "Escape from the Treacherous Mountain", and episode 6, "Take a Good Look". Across both Tuesday and Wednesday nights I watched all six episodes as well as the old commercials on the tape, though my dad actually skipped over the commercials on some of the episodes. One of the commercials not skipped over was for Dragon Warrior which came out for the Nintendo Entertainment System in August 1989. So my dad recorded that string of episodes sometime between June and October of 1989. So that was a REAL throwback since, aside from "Guests of the Grunges" and "Take a Good Look", this tape is the only way I could watch these episodes if I missed a rotation of reruns on the TV. The second tape has four more episodes, but I'll talk about that tape next week.

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with more great content, including my review of the Walt Disney Classics VHS line. So until then have a wonderful evening and wonderful weekend and I will talk to you later. Take care, and stay safe!