Cartoon Disassembly 101: Session 5 (guest blog series)

The following was originally written by the homie Galen Henderson... With his permission, and in response to a Facebook status message about how comically asinine the villains' plots were on Voltron while snowed in this weekend led him to share this piece with me. With his permission, I am presenting it to the two of you.
There are surely more parts to this series, but I will be sharing the all of them with you complete with link.
Lesson 4 was a break in the series and has therefore been skipped here, nothing more to say about that than what I just did.

[Phlip note - that was it for all of them right there]

And now we will get right down to business...




What's going on class?

I hope everyone's had a good week up to this point, other than Hurricane Weezie (if you don't get the reference, then too bad) causin' trouble for some of y'all.

Now, this week, I'm gonna have some fun. Why? Cause we discuss another favorite of mine & the Conglomerate's. As I stated before, this is the 2nd greatest 80s cartoon of all time. Others have tried to duplicate it but never came close. There were follow up series that tried to match the popularity of the original but fell way short. Of course, I am talking about TRANSFORMERS!!!

That's right!! Along with GI JOE if you were to choose which one was the number one 80s cartoon, then arguments could be made for either one of them... they were that damned close.

Now this one is another favorite of mine that I loved as a kid as well. My brother and I had a nice chunk of the figures (when we could afford them, beg our parents for them, or got them for birthday or Christmas) along with our friends. And of course as kids, we traded figures to get other figures.

Ok now what could I possibly find to dissect about Transformers? Heeheeheee!!!

Well now let's start with the obvious.

First off the Transformers, just like GI Joe, was a large scale gang war. What sets them apart, was that they had gang symbols. Not only that, some of them even knew the lingo. Perfect example: Rumble said this to one of the Autobots

"If on Decepticon Turf you happen to tumble, look out boys cause here comes Rumble"

And proceeds to kick some ass.

Not only the gang bangin aside, but several of the Autobots had a helluva lot more soul than the other Autobots & Decepticons.

Here's the list:

Optimus Prime - He's been caught using ebonics on occasion
Jazz - that's all he lived for
Blaster - He transformed into a boom box, 'nuff said.
Rumble - The biggest gang banger in the Decepticon Camp
ShockWave - Chilled all day on Cybertron not doing too much

I can't think of the others right now.... but they're there!!

Next up, Johnny Quest....

Now this show, it was ok at best.... and I caught a couple of eps now and again. But what drew me into this show was the fact that to this day, no cartoon has had a better theme song at all.

I'm still kinda trying to understand this show.... there was too much that you COULDN'T miss about this show. Let's look at it....

You got a show about a kid who goes around the world and gets into trouble. That's pretty much about it basically. But what's going on underneath the dome? Let's find out.

First off, the kids are running around the place after his dad (he gets discussed too) has told him to stay put. Now as most kids are tend to disobey every now and again.... but every single damned episode? Come on. Johnny along with Hadji and that lil rat of a dog [Note from Mani - "Bandit"] ended up needing to get rescued all the time after getting into trouble. Now if that had been me, I'da got my ass kicked after the first time that happened.

Dr. Quest... Johnny's dad. Can anyone say 'Child Neglect' here? This guy would take his kids (he adopted Hadji) with him around the world... and then when something goes wrong, he takes his "partner" Race Bannon with him and leave the kids UNSUPERVISED to do whatever. Then when it all hits the fan and his sons are missing, he gets concerned. Now I don't know about you, but who would wanna kick the Doc's ass for his lack of parenting?

Race Bannon... why was he there? He never really served a purpose..... or did he? They go on adventures together, he's like a 2nd father to the boys.... if you believe that tripe, then I'll call myself Harvey Birdman from now on. As some speculate, myself included, Race was Dr. Quest's 'life-partner'. Johnny & Hadji really had no clue as to what all that meant. The only thing they knew was that they had two dads.

Speaking of which, where was the mother at in all of this? Well she left cause (1) she found out Benton was gay and (2) he always put science ahead of everything else in his life. So she got fed up and left him never to return again.

Hmm.... well I think that covers about everything. The curriculum for next week is in the air right now.... should I hit y'all with the mid-term or maybe hit y'all off with more knowledge b4 then.... only time will tell. So enjoy class and have fun!!

CLASS DISMISSED!!!!!!

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