Cartoon Cartoon!

Or how Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network generated a veritable Old Faithful, oozing out classic after classic like clockwork (not orange).

Ah sixth grade, back to New York, new school, middle school awkwardness (which from my eventual escape of said awkwardness is still in question) and... cartoons :D.  Nicktoons... so good that i'm feeling warm fuzzies as i write this.  Started of course with the insanity of Ren and Stimpy, though I don't remember that being on a ton.  The era of Rugrats and Doug was a ton more innocent but nonetheless adventurous creative and tons of fun while teaching mini morals.  Doug had street cred when banging on a trash can with The Beets.  Tommy Pickles was leader among babies. The best parts of the shows were the imagination of the worst case scenarios of Doug in a moral or social pickle, and of course when the babies went on epic imaginary adventures.

That was the first round of Nicktoons, I remember the premiers of many of the later ones.  Hey Arnold premiered on SNICK and I was pretty excited for it.  Turns out it was filled with sweet Jazz, cool handshakes and amazing urban legends such as Stoop Kid.  My favorite of the second gen of Nicktoons however was KaBlam!  It was a lil comic book variety show with such classics as Sniz and Fondue (my favorite was the the previous link and the one with the Scorpion... Sniz's voice makes me happy)  Next favorite was Action League Now!  It was pure kid fun, and I loved the intro (and not just because the Flesh was Super Naked).  Prometheus and Bob asked the timeless question of what would have happened if an alien came to our planet in the cave man days to teach us.

Ok Ok i promised some Cartoon Network goodness here too.  Johnny Bravo, Powerpuff Girls, Cow and Chickin, and of course What a Cartoon,... i heart you guys but my real favorites were Courage the Cowardly Dog, Dexter's Laboratory and Two Stupid Dogs.  Cartoon network was really outlandish, epic and ridiculous.  Actually they still are, but they aren't "indie" anymore (same with Nick) {yes i went there, prideful hipsters unite}  The voices alone were amazing, the animation choppy (not always on purpose, but always unique).

Next post, more cartoons!

-Mr. James E Harrington

Hello Everybody

Hi Dr. Nick!

So its been a while my faithful reader. Its not from a lack of care, or concern for your entertainment needs. In fact, i've got fantastic... nay a creativity that needs to escape my brain (since its working overtime) and invade yours so without further fanfair, here's the latest and/or greatest.

So the new Arrested Development uhm, development had me thinking about my favorite shows of yore. So begins a TV collection of posts.

So TV and I have had a good relationship over the years, which is not to say it was always accessible. In fact, the France and Japan days were pretty sparse on content from the Etats-Unis. My only TV memories in France are of Nintendo so... that wasn't even worth mentioning. Sorry for wasting your time.

Japan was one step better with riveting international shows like "Danger Bay". MTV Japan was always a good time (its always great to hear a foreign language with random English band names inserted). Luckily Japan had a great video rental store. They not only introduced us to amazing indie movies, ala High Strung (there's some language in there, its one of those old school PG movies. We rented it because it had Jim Carrey on the cover and it was 1995... he was in it for like 4 minutes tops. Its a huge sketch comedy act, uber negative and ironic and over the top, but hilarious). Anyways, point is, my brother Matt introduced us to the X-files at the rental place. We rented the tapes, it was fantastic, I had nightmares and much trouble sleeping. I remember staying up past my bedtime and watching it from around the corner, then totally regretting/loving it. The show is still creepy and alien abduction and subsequent drop off in a dark forest still is one of the scariest notions to this, your humble author (though the giant mutant worm probably isn't as scary as it was back then). I haven't seen the show in many a years but I would love to revisit it again (preferably with a ladyfriend...well i guess i could use that qualifier on everything...so i guess its not really a qualifier then... again with the time wasting, sorry)

We only had a few American channels there, mostly just ran old reruns ala Remington Steel, Family Ties and Macgyver... good times for sure...but i wanted me cartoons :)

Throughout all this, we did spend summers in New York, and had a little bit of TV. 3 channels to be exact. So while my mom ended up watching the Trinity Broadcasting Network preachers, I was more interested in cool shows such as "Unsolved Mysteries"(i always liked anything alien related... and the theme song was fantastic) or local Poughkeepsie news. We also spent a week or so up in Vermont with my Grandma and cousins. This was TV heaven for us. She had cable! So I bonded with my siblings watching MTV, Nickelodeon and the like. Oh Ren and Stimpy... charming creatures really :)

Next post will focus on the move back from Japan to Hopewell Junction circa 1996 when our home officially got cable and never looked back... (well besides this past year when i didn't have cable :)

We'll meet again, don't know how... don't know when

Later my friends :D

James Elvin Harrington of Poughkeepsie township