Welcome to Not Wanting to Meet My Heroes

 We’re all human. We all make mistakes.

But being a creep is not a mistake...it’s being a creep.

Today I was sad to pop on Twitter and see another YouTube celebrity scandal trending. It’s not the first time I’ve learned through a social media platform that a person or group I enjoyed turned out to be terrible, but it never gets easier to learn.

There’s a famous saying (one that I have no idea whom to attribute to) that you “should never meet your heroes”. I’ve interpreted this saying a few different ways. One way is that everyone is human and that putting someone you don’t know on a pedestal is going to hurt everyone. Heck, putting someone you do know is going to backfire spectacularly and it’s inevitable that the relationships won’t end well.

Another is learning that the person you admired is actually terrible.

I remember there was a great Hey Arnold episode called “Pre-Teen Scream” when the character Phoebe gets the opportunity to meet her favorite singer. Long story short, Phoebe learns the hard way that her idol isn’t worthy of her affection. She makes a lot of assumptions about the singer, Ronnie, and builds him up to be a perfect person. Once Phoebe learns the truth about his inability to write, let alone sing, his songs, does her fantasy come crashing down. Oddly, it’s her very flawed best friend Helga who is there to help her through the realization.

I think this was the first time I was exposed to a plot like this. Hey Arnold was a wonderful show that tackled a lot of heavy topics like addiction, mental health, poverty, bullying, and even death in ways that children could handle. The “Parents Day” episode never fails to make me cry buckets of tears. Honestly go watch Hey Arnold - I think it’s still on Hulu.

I’m glad Hey Arnold had an episode like this. It set my expectations to not idolize people, especially ones I don’t know. It helped me learn how to handle that disappointment and sadness that comes from that knowledge.

A few years ago, I learned that one of my favorite YouTube teams didn’t treat some of their coworkers all that well. It was a big scandal in that community and a lot of nasty gossip and truths were shoved into the public light. Because of the fight, I found that I couldn’t enjoy the creators who did the bad things. 

And it got me worrying. I started thinking things like: was I a bad person for enjoying their work while they were acting bad? Am I bad for having supported them? Were there signs I missed? 

I stopped watching that YouTube team’s videos. Their actions and the fall out distinctly put them in the wrong. Sometimes I’m annoyed with myself by how much I liked their work before I learned that they weren’t great people. But the reality is there’s nothing for me to do but move on with my life and find new people (who hopefully don’t do bad things) to watch.

The same thing is true about mainstream celebrities, politicians, and anyone else who spends more than 15 minutes in the spot light. They are people who have flaws just like I do. Sometimes they snap at a fan when they have a bad day. Sometimes they’re absolute creeps (*cough Woody Allen *cough). 

After so many years, I’ve just come to the conclusion that I don’t really want to meet the rich and famous. I’m good watching them on TV or in movies or reading their books and keeping my distance. 

I know this blog post sounds like a complete downer. Some celebrities, politicians, and famous people are really nice and genuine. If they were still alive, I would have loved to have met Vincent Price or Carry Grant. Vincent Price seemed like a really cool person.

But building people up to be perfect isn’t fair to them. Wanting to meet celebrities is fine, but stalking them (especially if they’re kids) isn’t cool. Demanding a person’s attention that you don’t know isn’t something we should do.

It sucks that another celebrity I liked in my early 20s decided to do a terrible thing, but that’s not a moral failing on my part. It’s theirs. If you’ve ever been disappointed by a hero, you’re not alone. 

Sometimes people get redemption arcs. Sometimes they don’t deserve them.

The moral of this post is: everyone makes mistakes, but sometimes the people making them are terrible.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to the Horrors of a Wax Museum

 Have you guys every been to a wax museum? 

I’ve gone to one...maybe two in my life time and I wasn’t that impressed. Seeing fake celebrities that creepily smile at me with soulless glass eyes wasn’t all that fun. I did kind of like the Chamber of Horrors portion because it looked really fake,  it even that wasn’t as cool as some of the decorations that would go up around my neighborhood at Halloween.

However, one of my favorite classic horror movies takes place in a wax museum. House of Wax, the 1958 starring Vincent Price, makes a great case for visiting wax museums. Then again, that might just be the amazing Vincent Price’s charm and ability to camp everything to an eleven out of ten. He is the star of this movie for a reason and every scene he is in is fantastic - no part of the scenery goes in chewed!

Now, it’s well known in the horror community that this movie got a remake in 2005. It’s basically an in-name-only remake and not even Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki or Paris Hilton at her peak can save it from being terrible. I’ve seen it a couple of times (the first thinking it was the Price version) and was left annoyed and confused.

But what’s less well known is that the 1958 version is also a remake. In 1933 Warner Brother’s released Mystery of the Wax Museum. What’s cool about this movie is that it’s pre-Hays Code. Without the moral demands placed upon it, the movie can get away with characters having questionable motivations, doing illegal activities without facing (narrative) consequences, and not being subjected to silly censorship rules.

Honestly, the Hays Code is a pox on classic movies and story innovation. The number of stories that had to be changed when they were being adapted for the big screen is long and includes the likes of Rebecca, The Bad Seed, and even Pride and Prejudice. Sex was a big NO during the hay’s code period - which is why the famous train coming out of a tunnel became a symbol of sex in movies. Also married couples weren’t even allowed to share a bed on screen. 

I can’t list all the annoying stipulations of the Hays Code in this post (I’m sure I’ll go through it eventually), but if you’re curious, you can read more on the TV Tropes page. Needless to say, the sticky fingers of the Hay’s Code is all over the 1958 version. It’s made even more obvious compared to the 1933 version.

The 1933 Mystery of the Wax Museum was considered lost for a long time. This happened to a lot of movies in the early days of Hollywood. Most classic silent films have been lost to history and it’s a miracle that we still have the ones we do. Fortunately, the film was rediscovered in one of the producer’s collections and recently remastered.

And I was fortunate enough to catch it on this week’s Svengooli!

For those of you unfamiliar with the METV weekly show. Svengooli hosts a science fiction or classic horror movie every Saturday at 8:00 PM ET. He’ll talk about the history of the movie, who is in it and other movies we’ll know the actors from, do some silly games, and even sing a song. 

I learned most of my information on Mystery of the Wax Museum from him. He even pointed out a lot of the similarities between the 1933 and 1958 versions. Some of the scenes really were redone shot for shot or the dialogue was a direct carryover. One of my favorite scenes is in both movies and it’s when the coroner’s are wheeling a body through the morgue, a body pops up, and the mortician goes “you’ll get used to it, it’s the embalming fluid makes them jump.” Because clearly embalming fluid causes a body to just sit up on its own.

 However there were a lot of differences. A lot of them were due to the Hays Code. Some were because the 1958 was shot to be in 3D - a gimmick that is still driving up movie tickets today.

The biggest difference between the two films is when they are set. The 1933 version takes place in the 1930s, whereas the 1958 version is set at the turn of the 1900s. The main leading lady in the 1933 version, Florence (played by  Glenda Farrell), is a reporter chasing a story to the point where she doesn’t want to involve the cops in case someone else poaches the scoop before her. Whereas the 1958 version mostly follows Sue Allen (played by Phyllis Kirk), whose character in the 1933 version was Florence’s friend Charlotte Duncan (played by the famous Fay Wray). The Florence character is instead merged with another to become Cathy Gray (played by the original Morticia Addams herself Carolyn Jones), Sue’s flirtatious roommate.

Why are the characters changed around? 

There are a few reasons. One is that the 1958 version streamlines the 1933 movie’s plot with the changes. There’s no longer a side plot with an accused boyfriend of a murdered heiress, Florence’s character isn’t snooping around to catch the latest scoop, and the Charlotte/Sue character gets a lot more developed in the 1958 version. Honestly I kind of miss the Florence character. She added a lot of humor to the movie.

Where the Hays Code comes in is within the details. Both Sue and Charlotte are targeted by the evil bad guy, but Sue is saved by her boyfriend and a couple of conveniently places cops instead of a snooping Florence, a concerned Charlotte’s fiancé, and a gaggle of police officers. I found Charlotte’s character in the 1933 version to be dull and bland compared to Florence, whereas Sue has character...and a very strong moral compass (which is probably what saves her). Sue doesn’t flirt, she doesn’t go out all the time, and she finds can-can to be scandalous. Cathy is a flirt and bares more than a passing resemblance to the 80s slasher trope that insists that the sexually active characters must die.

Oh yes, I’m saying that the Hays code directly influenced 80s slasher horror tropes. I don’t find it a coincidence at all that the less conservative, more freethinking Cathy gets axed, while conservative and repressed Sue is saved at the last second. Florence might have jumped a foot in the air when faced with a moving box (honestly I would have too), but she’d have also beaten  the crap out of the 1933 bad guy. Charlotte just kind of stands there and screams as the wax mask falls off big-bad’s face.

They also changed one character from having a drug problem to being an alcoholic. I’m not sure how one is worse than the other, but Svengooli assures me that that was a Hays Code change. Also the cops openly talk about meeting up with bootleggers in the 1933 version, so the police were allowed to be corrupt in 1933, but not in 1958 as far as I can tell.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you guys that one film is better than the other. I like both for different reasons. They both have flaws. I much prefer the friendship between Sue and Cathy over the sniping shared between Charlotte and Florence. Sue and Cathy seem to genuinely like and care for each other, which makes Cathy’s death and Sue’s motivations all the more emotional. 

Finally, these films are far from perfect. There’s the period typical sexism, the city of New York is far too homogeneous to actually be the city of New York, and I really have to question those ending scenes.

Both of the films have really weird endings. After Sue is saved in the 1958 version, the cops, Sue, and Sue’s boyfriend are at the police station joking about a wax head growing a long beard. It ends with all the characters laughing and there’s little emotional fallout from Sue nearly being killed by hot wax. In the 1933 version, Charlotte is saved and then it cuts to Florence finishing up her story and her editor (who has been a bit of a jerk the whole movie) proposes. Florence accepts the proposal despite having spent most of the movie flirting with a nice rich guy and squabbling with the editor. I legit yelled “no don’t” as this was happening.

Oh well, maybe this is how Hildey and Walter got together the first time in His Girl Friday.

If you’re interested in classic horror movies, Vincent Price, or ore-Hays Code films, I’d recommend checking both movies out. They’re cool to compare and contrast. And further proof that Hollywood will remake anything.

Oh and about the 2005 version...I’d give it a pass.

Will I ever go to another wax museum? Maybe if it’s a Groupon deal. The art might be amazing, but I have a hard time being around wax figures.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.

Welcome to OMG Ducktales WooHoo!

I've made it no secret that I love animation as a medium, art form, and story telling tool. I find that some stories are better suited for animation than a live action adaptation. There's a lot more freedom with animation to exaggerate emotions and character features.

So about DuckTales...WooHoo!

When I was a small child and would go to visit my grandparents in Michigan, they had a VHS tape that had two episodes of DuckTales. These episodes were "The Curse of Castle McDuck" and "Dinosaur Ducks". Since DuckTales came out in the 80s and I showed up somewhere in the 90s, these were the only episodes I really saw of the show. I did have a VHS copy of DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, but it doesn't feature all of the characters that would be created for the 3 season long show.

I enjoyed what little of the original DuckTales I was able to watch, but I knew that it was flawed. Deeply flawed. The DuckTales movie featured a very racially insensitive character who also appears in the final season of the show. And though I can probably credit "The Curse of Castle McDuck" with my interest in ancient British culture, I admit that seeing Uncle Scrooge take advantage of the Druids in the episode made me feel a little uncomfortable even as a kid.

Because I have no life and a Disney+ subscription, I opted to finally watch all of the original DuckTales episodes to get a better idea where the reboot (which is fantastic by the way) came from.

I'll be honest, I didn't have that much hope that an 80s cartoon would hold up well after nearly 30 years...and I was sort of right. The original DuckTales is definitely entertaining and easy to just kind of leave on in the background while I clean my apartment.

But there are also a lot flaws. Deep, deep flaws. Thankfully, most of these weren't carried over to the new series. 

Like a lot of 80s entertainment, depictions of characters not coded as alabaster white are more than a little problematic...especially characters that are coded as being middle eastern (one of my biggest complaints of the movie I mentioned earlier as well). There's also some classist stereotypes that are also harmful.

I can confidently say that the reboot took steps to either update characters to not have these same problematic issues or has opted to remove the character entirely. Fenton and his mother, for example, goes from being a white trailer trash characters in the original to middle class Latinos, one of whom now works in law enforcement, in the reboot (I 100% prefer Fenton's mom in the reboot to the original). The character Dijon seems to have vanished completely (not that I'm going to complain about that). And efforts have been made to have more inclusive, less culturally insensitive story narratives in the reboot.

Another thing the reboot has going for it that the original doesn't is character development.

The reboot DuckTails has also made an effort to give better characterization to its leads. In the original nephews,  Huey, Dewey, and Louie, were fairly generic boys who were pretty much interchangeable - so much so that it looks like they all shared a voice actor. Webby was basically the annoying little sister trope. Mrs. Beakley seemed to serve no purpose in most of the original episodes. And Duckworth was just there to be a butler.

The only character who has any emotional arc in the original is Scrooge and that's a shallow assessment at best.

Now the reboot has character arcs galore. 

To start, the boys now each have distinct personalities and I can tell them apart (not only because of the different voice actors) by their mannerisms. Louie is definately the "laziest of the bunch with a laidback posture, while Huey is much more mature and responsible. Dewey is an energetic ball of energy in pretty much ever scene he is in (especially if Webby is with him) and it shows. I don't even need the color schemes to tell the triplets apart.

Both Dewey and Louie have great emotional story arcs over the 2 seasons I've watched of the reboot. Louie definitely takes after Scrooge in his money hungry ways, but lacks the hard work ethic Scrooge has. He also is very dissapointed that he wasn't named Rocket like his mother (Della) wanted to name him. Dewey's character journey is equally interesting and often involves Webby as an accomplice/instigator to their antics. Much of season 1 is dedicated to him finding out what happened to his and his brother's mom and the conclusion is really good.

If I had one complaint about the reboot's treatment of the triplets, it's that Huey seems like an afterthought or is treated as a the "stick-in-the-mud" in most of the episodes. As I've only seen the first two seasons (and an occasional episode in Season 3), I can only hope that eventually Huey gets the same character development his brothers are getting.

Webby is probably one of my favorite characters in the reboot and probably wouldn't exist as she is today with out characters like Mable Pines from Gravity Falls. She's hyper and feeds into Dewey's energy, which makes them have a great relationship. She also no longer feels like a "tag-a-long" but a fully realized character with her own motivations. I love the episodes that really focus on her and the friends (not just Dewey and his brothers) she makes.

That leads in to Mrs. Beakley. Like I said earlier, in the original, she's just kind of there to mother and tsk the children. In the reboot, she's basically a retired Bond girl and I love it. She's strict and worries, but is also fully capable of protecting the kids. She works for Scrooge before the series starts (which means that Webby grows up in Scrooge's house) and we get the impression that her employment is more as a deceptive bodyguard than housekeeper or nanny.

Duckworth they turned into a ghost. He's not a nice ghost either and it's implied a couple of times that he didn't make it into heaven in the afterlife, but managed to get somewhere else.

Scrooge is updated too. He's still the money loving adventurer, but his backstory is better fleshed out, we get to meet his parents, and he really truly loves his family...even more than his money. He's still the pinnacle of the "good capitalist" trope, but he's given a much more rounded character.

I could go on and on about the DuckTales reboot, but that isn't the purpose of this post. I watched the original cartoon to see where and how the reboot made it's updates. I can safely say that the reboot is a lot better than the original in pretty much every way. Though it's deeply flawed, I can understand why people love and still watch it. 

Do I recommend the original DuckTales? Not really. 

Is the reboot DuckTales a perfect masterpiece? No, it has its flaws like any story - though it might take another 30 years to recognize that.

Go watch the reboot and when you run out of those episodes, check out Gravity Falls or The Proud Family or Kim Possible. 

In another 30 years, we'll probably get another reboot of these classic cartoons. Transformers seems to have a new cartoon every five years or so. The My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic did a fantastic job at rebooting the series. I do hope that some of the cartoons I grew up with get an updated reboot eventually. I'd love to see a modern take on Hey Arnold, Rugrats, or Code Name Kids Next Door - especially that last one as two-by-four technology must have improved since the early 2000s.

What are some stories from your childhood that you hope get a reboot? I've already listed a few of mine, but I've got a whole list that grows every year. Nostalgia is powerful, but that shouldn't mean that something we enjoy isn't free from criticism. The adults in the room can still share their love of DuckTales with their kids, but I hope it's with the reboot.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.

Until next week.