Daily Cartoon: Adventure Time S03E13 “From Bad to Worse”

Welcome to the beginning of our final week of Halloween episodes! I don’t know about all of you, but if you’ve been following along, I’m getting pretty tired of Halloween and really can’t wait to get to start something new.

On the other hand, jumping around with all these different shows has been fun in its own way and I’ve got to see some things I’d never have probably checked out if I didn’t need material to fill a month of website content. Such is the story of today’s show: Adventure Time.

You probably think I’m already nuts for saying that, but it’s true. With all the cartoons and shows in general that I watch, I have never seen even 30 seconds of Adventure Time. No particular reason why or how, I just never have. Yes, I’m fully aware that it has a huge following and is super popular to all the kids. I’ve seen a gazillion people cosplaying Finn at Comic Cons and one time at a porn convention (I’m completely serious…and the people there loved it so the crossover between this show and porn must be insane), but me, the guy that always feels like he has his fingers relatively near the pulse of what’s happening in pop culture has never taken the time to watch this.

Well, chief, that changes today! We’ll be firing up those Hulu machines and getting hyped because right now is adventure time (not to be confused, but strangely blends in with Adventure Time)!

Daily Cartoon: Aqua Teen Hunger Force S02E15 “The Shaving”

Welcome to another Halloween episode recap! Crazy to think that this is already the 18th installment in the series this month, but here we are. Keeping this week going with another adult-centric cartoon comes a huge hit from the early 2000s: Cartoon Network’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It’s crazy how long ago that already is, but what’s even crazier is the fact that this show actually pushed out 11 seasons and didn’t finish airing until 2015! I must have stopped watching after like Season 4 because there is a whole fuckton there that I just have no memory of.

In case you forgot or were too young to remember, Cartoon Network fell into a whole bunch of hits in the early 2000s with their Adult Swim lineup. In addition to ATHF, you had other shows like Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law, The Brak Show and Sealab 2021 which were all blocked together and marketed towards adults that went on to create it’s own niche in the pop culture landscape for a period. I don’t have any facts or data to back up anything, but I can tell you that it certainly felt like Aqua Teen was the most popular. It spawned a ton of merch and, as someone who was spending a lot of time in a lot of bars during that period, it was quoted by a lot of people.

Like everything, it eventually ran its course which is why I was shocked today to discover that it only stopped airing new episodes four years ago when it honestly feels as if it was closer to fourteen. Hey, these things happen. Regardless, the early seasons of ATHF were must-TiVo (yes, TiVo) programming for those few years and this Halloween episode is a standout.

Daily Cartoon: The Venture Bros. S05E01 “A Very Venture Halloween”

Welcome to another week of Halloween cartoon episode recaps and I couldn’t be more excited than I am to be kicking it off with an absolute favorite show of mine: The Venture Bros!

I was kind of late to the party when this show starting airing in 2003, but once I got on board I was hooked and there was no turning back. Even now, it’s one of those shows that I’ll put on and rewatch when I can’t figure out what I want to do.

For all I know, it could be still running. In the past sixteen years, there’s only been seven seasons with the latest coming just last year so who’s to say it won’t be back three years from now? Regardless, today we’ll be taking a look at the Season 5 premiere which really wasn’t that at all since the rest of Season 5 didn’t come out for like another eight months after this. This was just a one-off special for Halloween that fits in as Episode 1. OK, semantics, who cares? But it’s good, so fire up those Hulu machines and hit play.

Daily Cartoon: The Powerpuff Girls S01E05 “Boogie Frights/Abra-Cadaver”

Welcome back to another week of Halloween cartoon episode recaps! I think last week got the ball rolling with some pretty solid stuff and it’s kept me exciting to keep it going. Today we’re grabbing an early episode of The Powerpuff Girls! In the late 90s, The PPGs got over huge and inspired all sorts of licensing that kind of culminated in a full-length movie that…was not so great. But it did feature a 55 minute game of tag that didn’t end until Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup had completely destroyed their entire town.

Good times.

I wasn’t a diehard PPG fan by any means, but I was definitely entertained when I’d catch it and even saw the movie in theaters. A small group of friends have still not forgiven me for that. I’m telling you: that game of tag was longggggggggg.

Regardless, The Powerpuff Girls was big business and 21 years after debuting on Cartoon Network, they’re still going strong with a reboot series as well as other merch like toys and comics.

As for today, however, we’re just concerned with Episode 5 of their first season. It’s Halloween time in Townsville so let’s see what kind of antics the girls get into.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E13: “Awaken the Serpent”

Friends, we’ve made it. It’s not the results, it’s the journey and I’m happy to say that the last two months on this journey through the telling of the mythos of the happenings on Eternia has been incredibly fun.

From the beginning, I’ve been upfront about my love for all things MOTU and when I decided to go back through the wormhole of rewatching this series I was admittedly a bit nervous to see how it would hold up since I had remembered enjoying this reboot very much when it was new and hip and fresh and I’m pleased to report that it has confirmed my feelings as well as further stoking my love for the property.

It’s been a really fun ride and although I’m happy to have gotten to this point, I am already feeling a tinge of sadness that we’ve come to the end. We can delve more into my feelings at the end once we’ve finished the episode, but right now we’ve got a story to complete. There is no “until next time.”

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E12: “History”

Friends, we’ve got so much to get into and only about 44 minutes of actual He-Man time to go. With just two episodes remaining, we’re coming off a dramatic turn of events in yesterday’s episode where King Hiss was able to escape with the Medallion of Serpos that – I’m assuming – give him super snake powers. Which is wild because he was already pretty powerful as a regular snake with no medallion.

I mentioned this in my final thoughts yesterday, but I’m really worried about getting left with a cliffhanger as there just feels like so many unanswered questions remaining, but I’m hopeful for a satisfying conclusion. Doing this rewatch of the entire series has been a lot of fun and a nice, tidy finale would leave me with a very good and lasting memory.

If you feel like you missed out on anything prior, simply head back and read all the other recaps (which I obviously encourage you do regardless) and come right back here to watchalong.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E11: “Rattle of the Snake”

Welcome back! This is it, people. Our last three days with the 200X He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series! Thirty-six down, three to go and let’s hope these last 90 minutes knock it out of the park and leave us with nothing but fond memories.

When we left off, the Snake Men decimated all of Webstor’s spider-children who had been fed ambrosia, the potent food of the bee people that normally toxic to non-Andreenids, but – because of Webstor’s insect-biology, it mutated him into a more powerful version of himself.

As the Snakes combed through caves and mountains looking for fresh meat to bring to King Hiss, they came across the spiders, murdered and consumed them and, with that, the ambrosia that filled them. The final scene left us with a silhouette of Hiss feeling the surge of power caused by the ambrosia.

We can take guesses about what today’s title will lead to, but that would just be wasting time. Let’s hit play and do this, Brutus.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E10: “Web of Evil”

Welcome to your Friday episode rewatch! We’re coming off one of the better episodes in the series to date and with only four remaining, let’s hope we get a goodie to close out the week strong.

Let’s recap everything going on:

• King Hiss and his Snake Men are alive and well
• Skeletor just welched on his promise to serve Hordak by destroying his sanctuary so he’s unable to return to Eternia from Despondos
• Evil-Lyn is still acting as if she’s down with Skeletor after having allied herself with the Snakes and is the only one – outside of He-Man – who is aware of what Skeletor has done to Hordak
• Zodak is deep into his meditation and can’t help with anything
• The Sorceress is fucking useless and for someone with a ton of power, she’s not very effective at using it
• The Masters getting overwhelmed. They’re dealing with threats from the Snake Men as well as Skeletor and had the looming threat of Hordak over them and it’s an awful lot to take on seeing as how all these great allies King Randor has made with his council are never around to help when the battling happens

With that out of the way, we are ready to rock ‘n roll.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E09: “The Power of Grayskull”

We’re back with another He-Man episode rewatch! This is Episode 35 overall and what a ride it’s been!

When we left off yesterday, the Masters had foiled King Hiss’s big plans to turn everyone in Eternia into Snake Men, but the Snakes were able to get away and will, no doubt, return to fight again. Up until this point, the Masters had been unaware of the Snakes survival after the battle for Grayskull in which it appeared Hiss had been killed by Zodak and dropped into the abyss.

Also unaware of Hiss and the Snakes’ survival is Skeletor and that dynamic should begin to get fleshed out now that they’ve reappeared into public consciousness.

There’s a lot of angles in play here and you can fantasy book a lot of wild shit. Personally, I’d have He-Man and Skeletor team up to fight the Snakes and then have an Eternian pizza party to celebrate. But that’s just one man’s opinion. Let’s see what people who actually got paid to come up with this stuff did.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E08: “Second Skin”

Welcome back to another He-Man episode rewatch! I’m excited for each of the remaining episodes we have left just just to see how this series was closed out. Seeing as how this is just a hobby for me, I always have good intentions when starting projects like this, but a lot of times, life gets in the way. This time, however, I was able to keep it going, and it looks as if we’re going to be closing things out right on schedule.

But you didn’t come here to read about me, you’re here to dabble in a bit of He-Man so that’s exactly what we’re going to get into. Even though it’s been quite a while since I’ve watched this series through, I’m surprised by just how much I didn’t remember. I was completely under the impression that just about the entirety of Season 2 revolved around the new feud with the Snake Men and I was way off on that. They’re still around, lurking, waiting, judging, but not as the major focus I thought I remembered.

As we wind down, I’m hoping for some sense of finality to things. How reasonable of an expectation is that? I really don’t know, but any kind of closure would send me home with a smile.

With that said, we have six episodes left counting today so let’s hit that next chapter.