Welcome to the Wilderness an Hour from DC

 "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints." - unknown.

Looks like a scene from My Neighbor Totoro

This quote has been attributed to a number of environmentalists and founders of conservation movements. A quick Google search claims it to be from John Muir, but a quick scroll down the search page shows that there are others who might have coined this phrase. 

But who said the quote doesn't make it any less important when you go to wilderness for an adventure. 

This weekend I went to the Shenandoah National Park and stayed in one of the three Lodges off Skyline Drive. It was so much fun (worth the scolding I got from my cat when I got home). I found the accommodations perfect, though they're more like motels or cabins rather than 5-star resorts. I had little to no cell service and the only area with wi-fi was the main lobby. The main lobby was incredibly inviting - excellent for bird watching or curling up in a rocking chair next to a roaring fire in the fireplace. 

I stayed in Skyland which had several trails within walking distance of my room. Some were very popular like Stony Man and White Oak Falls. Others had almost no one on them like Miller's Head (which led to a beautiful view on an old fire watch). There's also a stable for horses on Skyland with the option for horseback riding starting in late May.

I walked so much that by Saturday afternoon - when the weather took a turn to grey skies and rain - I found myself passed out for several hours before crawling out of bed for dinner. 

I've never hidden my love of hiking and getting lost in the wilderness. It's dangerous to go off by yourself, especially if you don't know what you're doing, but I've made it a habit to always let people know where I'll be going, knowing how to handle an emergency, and picking trails that will have some people around.

Thankfully, the Shenandoah National Park has an app with maps and resources for hikers. If you can't use the app, most trails have a map at the beginning of the trails that you can take a picture of. They'll also let you know the estimated amount of time to complete a hike, how much water you should have, and any other gear you will want to have on hand. 

One of my favorite investments has been my headlight flashlight that sits snuggly on my head and provides white and red light. It makes climbing up rocks easier in the dark without precariously balancing a flashlight in my hands.

As I don't have much service up in the Shenandoah, I don't have my headphones in. I can take in all the sounds of the woods. There are plenty of bird calls and songs, the sway of the trees, and the occasional howl of wind. Its in this atmosphere that I have nearly ran into deer, had a close call with a depth-perception challenged hawk, and a startling encounter with a bald eagle. There were a lot of deer this trip...and possibly a majestic peregrine (its a type of falcon). 

Surprisingly, the closest I have ever gotten to a bear was less than 10 miles from my house in New Jersey. It was while I was at my favorite hiking spot with two guys on our way to a place aptly named Bear Swamp. 

I didn't seen any bears this trip, but I'm sure they were around. 

Though spring is in full swing in and around Washington D.C., the Shenandoah mountains appear to be about a month behind. Certainly there were plenty of flowers (some of my favorites on this trip were little purple buds clinging to the eastern side of rocks). Friday and Saturday had hardly any trees budding, but this morning there were little dots of green everywhere. What a difference waking up in a cloud makes. 

Yep, that's right, last night I went to sleep on a mountain and today I woke up in a cloud. I could go five minutes of the road and see clear blue skies, but the next moment the wisps of water vapor were flying up the western ridges. It was eerie. It was beautiful. 

All of this is why Shenandoah National Park continues to be one of my favorite places in the world. I highly recommend it. There's plenty of hiking, amazing views, camping, and horseback riding (seasonal). There are great places to eat and park rangers to ask questions to. 

The wilderness is about an hour and a half from D.C. The next time you want to visit the capitol, might I suggest I short detour to the wilderness in Virginia...the Appalachian Trail is there.

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 About Three Decades

 I'm tired and don't have much to say tonight, but here are some thoughts as I process that I've lived on this Earth about three decades...

I love this photo I took in Iceland.

Nothing really changes, but nothing stays the same. I'm a 90s kid who remembers a time before the Internet, yet now I can't imagine a world without my smart phone. My first computer was a Windows 98, though I know I played games on an even older laptop - that first game had Mickey Mouse - in the apartment we lived in before the house.

All of my first cousins have graduated from high school. It seems like it was last summer I was babysitting them for 20 bucks an hour. That was over 5 years ago. I hope babysitters are getting paid better. 

My childhood didn't end in one traumatic or a summer in transition like in "Stand By Me" or "Now and Then". . It was a slow death spiral that started in April 1999. The final knell of the requiem bell was in December 2012, but by 2003 the pessimism had fully set in.

Those last two lines I might use later in a poem.  

Speaking of which, I had a professor tell me I didn't have the heart of a poet. Little did that guy know that this year I'd publish my first chapbook. I'm not stopping at that. Hopefully I'll get a book deal sometime soon. 

I've moved three states, but haven't lived overseas. Unless I count those weeks I spent in Japan as a kid - which I sometimes do. It was six amazing weeks spent with my aunt and uncle. It took me nearly 18 years to visit again. 

I miss the days I spent in school. Then I remember the stress of tests, the anxiety to "fit in", and the unpleasant changes my body went through. I appreciate that those years are long over. 

Three decades seems like a long time, but so did five years when I turned six. Some days I feel too young for the problems that I face and should be ordering kids meals at Fridays. Other days I'm so ancient, I haven't a clue who's the guest host at The Kid's Choice Awards.

Were the 70s really 50 years ago?

My sibling's been married, my friends are having kids and I'm at home binge watching "Naruto" for the nth time. Somehow I ended up with a cat.

Three decades is a weird spot to sit. I'm an adult, but I still am learning like I did as a kid. I pass, I fail, I play in the dirt - it's now called gardening. I'm thinking about buying a home, but I don't want the responsibility. Then again, I somehow ended up responsible for a cat.

When I think about the present, I usually hate it. But the past is always a fairy tale. The harsh edges and rough patches glossed over like one of the photos in my albums. Do people still keep photo albums or is that just me?

So here's to the 2020s, the 2010s were a ride. And here's to the 30s, 40s, and 50s - may the 90s kids excel. Three decades are gone and three more are to come.

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.

Now how to update my blog summary...?

Welcome to National Poetry Month 2021

 April is National Poetry Month. I might have written about this last year (or the year before...things are all starting to blend together) or you might have seen me on social media (if you follow me on one of those) post a poem a day. 

I'll admit that the poems I'm currently posting everyday aren't necessarily my best. So, why do I post them?

April 11th 2021

The honest answer is as a challenge to myself. Writing and posting a poem a day forces me to actually write something everyday. Some of these poems might turn into something else entirely. I've already started taking a couple of the poems I've posted and started to expand them. 

If you're interested in reading some of my better poems, I do have a poetry chapbook available for purchase (*cough shameless plug *cough *cough) by clicking this link. It's a Gothic collection - because if I'm going to write and publish poetry, it will have a horror theme. 

But enough about me and my non-existent writing career.

Let's celebrate poetry. 

Poetry is as fluid and adaptable as water melting off a mountain. Or maybe I should say that good poets can make a poem flow and form from a tiny spring into a mighty rivers. Bad poets just create a landslide with their words. 

Like the many different paths water can take, poetry can be so many things. I've made arguments that song lyrics are a type of poetry and worth being studied in the same way that Shakespeare is. The best example of this might be Queen's famous "Bohemian Rhapsody". There are so many layers to the lyrics of that song. Then there are the poetry collections that make me question my place in the universe. I get that T.S. Eliot's book about Practical Cats inspired a trippy Broadway production, but dear universe did it take me a long time to get through this very short book. It needs to be placed on the shelf "things that exist, but are no longer relevant."

Currently, there's a big movement on Instagram, Tumblr, and other social media sites for people to post inspirational words and call it poetry... oh and there are some awesome and legit poets posting awesome poems there as well. I am one of them (I'll leave it up to you if I'm the former or the latter). I personally like the blackout poetry writers and have had a ton of fun turning my public domain books into blackout poems. My attempts at it and showing them to my friends inspired one of those friends to tell their daughter, who then had her class of students write blackout poems of their own. I wish I could share some of those poems, but they really aren't mine to share.

This is an older one of mine.

However, there are a lot of other types of poetry to follow on social media. Some of them have their collections published on an annual or bi-annual basis like Amanda Lovelace (who's work speaks to some people, but doesn't do much for me) and Rupi Kaur (who I enjoy reading). Most recently I read light filters in poems by Caroline Kaufman who was a teenager when she published this collection. I thought it was fine, very pretty.

Now, Nikita Gill is a master poet as far as I'm concerned and recently wrote an entire novel in the form of a collection of poems called The Girl and the Goddess: Stories and Poems of Divine Wisdom. I loved it. I love pretty much all of her work. And she's also a social media poet.

So, if you want to try reading more modern poetry, but don't feel like shelling out a ton of cash up front I recommend checking out the social media poets and supporting them with likes and shares.

But poetry isn't always about inspiring phrases and bad breakups. Sometimes poetry is in response to the troubled times we are living through. Since the start of the pandemic, a lot of my poems were about the feelings of isolation, fear of COVID, and my other anxieties. As politics began to heat up and a lot of terrible things continued to happen, my writing reflected those moments in time.

Poetry can be used to help people process trauma, either by writing or reading. It can give people an insight into experiences they will (likely) never experience for themselves. Some collections I read and felt a connection to included Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith (which focuses a lot on being a black man in America), War Torn by Hasan Namir (which is a reflection on being a gay man growing up in Iraq - consequently the Namir liked my review of his collection and I am very flattered by this), American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassins by Terrance Hayes (which is a collection of poems written in the first year of Mr. Trump's presidency), and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange (which is actually a poetry collection that is meant to be seen performed on stage and one day I will see it).

Currently, I'm reading i am the rage by Dr. Martina McGowan (who is a gynecologist - that's really cool) and focuses on social and racial justice. Many of her poems are based on the events (such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor's murders) of 2020. 

These poets aren't your Emily Dickens or Walt Whitman writers. They're not traditional, rarely rhyme, but are incredibly lyrical, soulful, and tell stories. 

Poetry is what you take out of it. Not all of it is going to connect with you personally. Some of your favorite poems might be song lyrics or an inspirational phrase broken up and sprinkled across a page. A few poems might give you flashbacks to High School English class and having to analyze each word into an inch of it's existence - it wasn't fun then and reading these poems now only make me want to cry more. There will be poetry that speaks to you even if you have no context for the subject other than what you see on the news. 

You might not think that you can write a poem to save your life. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. I'm going to tell you to try writing poetry anyway. You never know what flow of water turns into a mountain stream, then grows to a raging river, only to flow out to an endless sea for everyone to read.

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 More Muppet Movies

Happy Easter everyone!

And to avoid controversy, I'm going to talk about fan casting the Muppets into stories. This should go well.

Every once in a while, I'll see people put together their perfect Muppet cast for one of their favorite stories. They'll usually have one of their favorite actors be the only non-Muppet in the cast (though there can be more) and then fill in the rest of the characters with Muppets. Fights will ensue as commenters clash and their dream Muppet team is torn to shreds.

A lot of this is for Lord of the Rings Muppets.

I wasn't a huge Muppet kid, though I did grow up with some of the later movies like Muppet Treasure Island (that one is the perfect Muppet movie and can never be remade) and the occasional episode of Sesame Street. I was more familiar with the Muppet's 3D show at Disney World...and to some extent Muppet Babies.

But it wasn't until I was much older that I started watching the old Muppet TV show and the movies. Other than my love of Muppet Treasure Island, I have a special fondness for Muppets From Space - aka, the one where we learn where Gonzo comes from - and Muppet Christmas Carol. I also remember seeing the Muppets Wizard of Oz when it premiered on TV.

Additionally, if they count, I've seen The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth many times. I'm more confused by The Dark Crystal than entertained by it and find that I've watched it a few times to simply understand what is going on. Labyrinth is another masterpiece that I love to pieces and see something new every time I watch it. David Bowie cannot be replaced as Jareth, but I have a short list of actors who I will accept in a remake, reboot, or sequel. 

Wait....

Where was I?

Oh, right, Muppet movies that I'd like to see made.

I recently watched The Great Muppet Caper and think this would be a fun one to have a sequel to (see what I did there - wacka wacka wacka). All the cameos are perfect and Diana Riggs is the real treasure. Plus, I love it when human actors fall in love with Miss. Piggy and would love for that to happen again. 

I understand that Muppets Most Wanted might be a bit of a spiritual successor (though it's really a sequel to the 2011 The Muppets movie), but I think there are ways we could add the Caper story.

For example, let's make it with the Night at the Museum team. Basically, the Muppets would have to stop the cursed Hope Diamond from being stolen. Ben Stiller as Larry Daley would be our main human "good guy character". Our bad guy could be one of several human actors as well. My short list includes Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Daniel Craig. The bad guys must again flirt with Miss. Piggy (now married to Kermit). Or maybe have all three of them as a bad guy team up - yes, this is a better idea.

I also wouldn't mind a Muppet Austen interpretation. Like Kermit as Mr. Darcy and Miss. Piggy as Elizabeth. Robin would be Georgiana (with a wig). For the rest of the sisters, Janice as Jane (ergo Mr. Teeth will be Bingly...or maybe Rowlf?). Skeeter dressed as Scooter for Mary. The other two could be new Muppets. 

I have no idea who would be Wickham...let's have them be the human actor. 

But Gonzo should be Mr. Collins with Camilla the Chicken as Charlotte. That is clearly the match we are all rooting for.

For a Halloween special, I'd love to see the Muppets take on a classic Hollywood horror story. Like having Miss. Piggy as Mina, Kermit as Johnathan Harker, Janice as Lucy, Gonzo, Rizzo, and Fozzie as Lucy's boyfriend squad, and the human (maybe get Gary Oldman to reprise the role) as Dracula. 

(Edit: Animal is Renfield by order of my friend Jeff...can’t believe I left this out originally).

I'd also take an interstation of Phantom of the Opera with the ghost haunting their new show location, setting their sites on Miss. Piggy as the lovely, but still sassy Christine. 

I know! We need the Muppets Three Musketeers! 

Kermit is Athos. Gonzo is Aramis. Fozzie is Porthos. Rizzo is D'artagnan. The king can be Sam the Eagle (I knew I'd find a role for him yet). M'Lady is Miss. Piggy (she'll get a redemption arc). Bad guy again is human - someone who can really ham it up and chew the scenery... Nathan Lane! 

When we get right down to it, the Muppets could do any number of versions of stories and make them amazingly entertaining. Yeah the Lord of the Rings lists will pop up every now and then (come on guys Kermit has to be Aragorn because Miss. Piggy was born to play Arwen), but I have so many other stories that I want to see get the Muppets treatment. 

Do you guys have a story that you'd like to see the Muppets turn into a classic movie? Do you disagree with any of my ideas (you can disagree, but know that since this is my blog, I am - of course - right)? Are you a Disney executive here to steal my ideas?

Let me know in the comments section. I expect royalties Disney!

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 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.