Giant Robot Invasion! – Home of Comedy Writer Matt Willard

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a big fan of DiC Entertainment. (These days they operate under Cookie Jar Productions, but a nostalgic retrospective should use nostalgic names.) While they were involved with a few decent cartoons, most of them were forgettable and mediocre. A lot of them are also plagued by weak writing and bad animation. Sometimes the animation is so awful I think, “Man, I could be watching The Blue Screen Adventure Hour instead of this.”

And yet, I watched DiC’s shows all the time growing up. Why? Well, back then I really didn’t know how to spend my free time besides watching TV and playing with friends. Besides, how else was I supposed to kill time until Saturday morning? I can’t be proactive like that other guy. Once he killed time on a Monday, and the next thing we knew, it was Halloween. I missed five months of classes because of that jerk.

Now, some of DiC’s more infamous cartoons have already been picked on, such as The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show. But those are too easy. Instead, today I want to talk about a DiC production that doesn’t get as much hate as it deserves. When you talk about DiC, it’s definitely a show you should mention along with the dozens of other awful shows they’ve made. I just hope the government will agree with me and reopen Alcatraz to keep bad cartoons away from the public. I also hope Cobra knows where to put the bombs.

But enough talk. Welcome to Mummies Alive.

Here’s the concept of the show in a nutshell. There’s this kid named Presley Carnavon who just happens to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian prince named Rapses. It turns out that an evil sorceror named Scarab wants the life force of Rapses to gain immortality, so it’s up to Rapses’s old guardians to come back to life as mummies and use their magic Power Rangers armor to kick Scarab’s ass on a weekly basis.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Wow, that sounds pretty stupid.” It is. But that by itself doesn’t make Mummies Alive awful. The devil’s in the details this time. Once you look in real close, with the mind of a sophisticated adult, you find a bunch of reasons why Mummies Alive is a poor cartoon. We’ll start as soon as I change my underwear. I don’t like how wide Spider-Man’s gotten.

For example, let’s take the mummies themselves. There are four of them. It’s pretty easy to tell them apart-not only are they color-coordinated, but they each have a recognizable and cliched personality!

Ja-kal: The serious, prudish leader-type character. His hobbies include spouting awful words of wisdom and SLICING DUDES IN HALF. Seriously! The only reason I tolerate this guy is because his magic armor makes him badass. Designed to resemble an eagle, it lets him fly, shoot fire arrows, and chop people up with claws. I’m not sure which kind of eagle can shoot fire arrows, though. I guess we just made it ourselves, because the eagles Mother Nature came up with weren’t American enough.

Rath: The stuck-up smart guy. He knows a lot about magic, but the challenge is tolerating him until he gets to the good stuff. His armor is patterned after the snake, which means he has a gigantic golden tail hanging off his helmet. This serves practically no purpose, and yet somehow he never trips over it because it’s always moving out of the way. Who knows. Maybe the snake just can’t control its own butt. I know people like that. For them, using the toilet is like giving a toddler a bag of candy and thinking, “Now I’ll get some peace and quiet.”

Armon: Big, stupid guy. His annoying gimmick is that he eats everything in sight. The only problem? He is a MUMMY, which aren’t particularly known for having appetites. OR STOMACHS. He also only has one arm. When he puts on his ram-styled armor, he gets an extra one that lets him break people like Ivan Drago. Personally, I’d like to see Armon fight Drago and Bane at the same time. The winner? Everyone who bought a ticket.

Nefertina: Token wild, fun girl of the group. Still has a full head of hair after all these years, and more importantly, her chest is still really perky. Basically, her armor turns her into Catwoman, with a whip and everything. Really, couldn’t we have been a bit more creative here? Just because she’s a girl doesn’t mean she has to use Catwoman armor. Why not give her an armor with the powers of Triple H? She’ll gain the useful ability to spit water at people while standing on a turnbuckle.

But here’s the thing about Nefertina. In her past life, she had to disguise herself as a man in order to guard the prince and drive chariots. She keeps this up until her death, and when the guardians come back to life, she finally confesses her secret to them. And, you know, I really think this would be an interesting angle…other than the fact that she doesn’t try to hide her breasts AT ALL.

I’ll be fair for a change. When they come back to life, they immediately summon their armor to fight Scarab, which covers her up. Fair enough. But then after the fight, they escape the museum, dismiss the armor, and WALK BACK to Presley’s house. At no point does any of the male mummies catch this until they get inside the house, and even then, Presley’s the one that points it out!

What’s the problem, guys? When you’re not using your armor, you’re wearing nothing but bandages and skirts. It should’ve been really easy to tell that Nefertina was a girl by the way the bandages hug her figure. Were you just not paying attention or something? Or did the false prophet called World of Warcraft claim some new victims?

Anyway, as I’ve said before, the mummies are trying to stop Scarab from stealing Rapses’s life force. They actually have a long history together-Scarab was the Pharaoh’s most trusted advisor when Rapses was still alive. Of course, since an advisor named Scarab is obviously evil, he killed Rapses and the guardians to ensure that he would get the throne. However, that didn’t really work. He gets entombed alive for fifty lifetimes as punishment, but before that time’s up, a couple of explorers opened the tomb he was in and freed him. Now Scarab wants Rapses’s life force so he can live forever.

Buuuut, considering his track record, maybe he should just go vegan instead.

By cartoon villian standards, Scarab is par for the course. Evil lair, evil clothing…he even has his army of statue warriors to throw at the mummies when he’s ready to lose that week. Sometimes he mixes it up by summoning Egyptian gods or demons, or using his own magic armor, but it never really works out. So, if that doesn’t work, why doesn’t Scarab just find out where the mummies are hiding and shoot them while they’re vulnerable?

Simple. He can’t find the mummies’ hideout. And just where are the mummies hiding?

Only a giant replica of the Sphinx in the middle of San Francsico.

I’m sorry, but this has to be discussed. This Sphinx replica is easily the most nonsensical plot device I’ve ever seen in a cartoon. First off, it’s a REPLICA of the Sphinx. Do you know how much money that would cost to build? I wouldn’t mind this so fact if it wasn’t for the fact that it was built for exactly ONE museum exhibit about Rapses. Was a billboard not complicated enough for you or something?

And do you know what they want to do with the massive Sphinx replica after the exhibit is over? How about TEARING IT DOWN?

WHY? If you spend a buttload of money building a replica of the Sphinx, WHY WOULD YOU TEAR IT DOWN? That’s a huge money sink! The guys who built this thing should be milking this to get back their investment! But no-they basically just abandon it, because they can get their money back from the rare California money trees they have in their backyard. This means that the mummies can hole up inside the Sphinx, with access to electricity and cable TV, in a place that no one ever checks or uses again.

And I’m JUST getting started. If you think that was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

“But gee!” you claim. “What can possibly be worse than-

THEY HAVE A MOTORCYCLE

THEY HAVE A CAR

THEY HAVE A BOAT

That’s right. All of a sudden, there’s a toyline for this show, so somehow the mummies randomly acquire these incredibly ridiculous vehicles. Do they explain it? No. Why should they? This is a children’s show, after all. Why bother with logical storyline development when we can give you a speedboat with LASER GUNS on it?

Of course, since this was a crappy DiC cartoon, it only lasted for forty-two episodes. We never reach any conclusion to the battle between the mummies and Scarab. Instead, they figure the best way to end the series is with a clip show featuring all the great past moments of Mummies Alive. You remember that fight they had with the giant dough monster? Or how about the time where Armon wrestled a guy made of iron for the heavyweight title? Personally, I can’t forget the moment some nerdy guy actually got to kiss Nefertina. Normally, I wouldn’t recommend this. I’d probably say something like, “You don’t know where she’s been!” But I do know where she’s been-in a dirty sarcophagus for thousands of years with our good friend decomposition!

This show stunk, and I’m not talking about the mummies here. It had some cool ideas…but it also had really stupid ones. Why do writers for animated series think they can half-ass it just because it’s a cartoon? That’s no excuse. You don’t have to shoot for art, but at least you should cover up plotholes and explain things. Otherwise, the only thing you’ll end up doing is pissing off nerds on the Internet.

In fact, to avoid this in the future, I’m gonna look up some of the writers and make sure to avoid any shows they’ve written. Let’s see…

Eric and Julia Lewald, eh? What else did they write?

OH MY GOD AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

A lot of children’s shows use gimmicks to try and grab a child’s attention. The guys in charge figure that they have to do that if they want the child to pay attention for any lessons they might want to pass on. So they use the typical stuff. Bright colors, flashy effects, silly humor…things like that. Personally, I don’t see what the problem is. Kids are always coming up to me and paying attention to what I do, just as long as I have something else besides Diet Pepsi.

But several shows in my childhood proved that you didn’t need to be loud to entertain and inform children. Sure, I didn’t learn a damn thing from Bill Nye, but even though most of his show involved talking directly to the audience, it was still a great show to watch. Same goes with Reading Rainbow and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood-both low key programs that many people remember to this day. If only these memories were loud enough to cover other bad memories. Like Clueless.

The only problem here is that no one is bleeding from multiple wounds yet.

But in any case, Science Court was a lot like those shows. It aired on Disney’s One Saturday Morning, but it didn’t feel like any of the other shows on that block. It used a very reserved style of humor to talk about science…which makes sense, since the creators were also involved in shows like Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist and Home Movies. Science Court also used the “Squigglevision” animation style these shows had in order to make everyone jiggle like Jell-O. Sure, it gave people headaches, but hey, anything to create more jobs for animators with palsy.

Of course, that’s probably why it bombed. It’s too bad. To this day, Science Court is an interesting piece of educational nostalgia, and I think it deserves a bit more praise. In fact, to show you a bit more about Science Court, I’ll do something different and walk you through an entire episode. AKA, the ONLY complete episode I managed to find. I’m currently trying to recreate the other episodes frame-by-frame with a new team of animators, but it’ll take a while. Since they don’t have palsy, the only way I can duplicate Squigglevision is by hiring people to kick the animators’ tables.

“Particles in Motion” starts with the entire town gathered at the house of movie star J.C. Cramwood. Tonight, he will unveil a brass plaque of…himself, which he is dedicating to, um…himself. Revealing the plaque on a stage, Cramwood asks that ALL of the spotlights are turned on so everyone can see the plaque. This manages to blind everyone. However, the frame surrounding the plaque suddenly pops off, and the whole thing falls down on Cramwood. (The crowd thought it was a promo for Cramwood’s next movie-Maximum Overdrive 2: Night of the Heavy Trophies.)

So Cramwood is sitting on stage moping after the ceremony when a lawyer named Doug Savage comes in. Savage figures that Sonya Sondheim, the person who carved the plaque, should’ve used a bigger frame that would’ve kept it in place. This is why he decides to help Cramwood sue her. Meanwhile, defense attorney Alison Krempel meets with Sondheim and agrees to defend her. There are some high stakes involved-if Savage wins the case, then Sondheim has to make a 200-foot tall statue of Cramwood. Now he can finally have the confidence he needs to seduce Jolly Green Giant’s wife! Don’t worry, Statue of Liberty-you’ll get your turn.

But that’s the basic premise. Something bad happens to a person and the person sues someone else over it, so Savage acts as the prosecution in Science Court. That’s the keyword here-this is Science Court, where the culprit-big spoiler here-is always some scientific principle that Savage NEVER knows about. His case gets ripped to SHREDS in every episode by the defense using SCIENCE, and not once does Savage realize, “Hey, maybe the guy I’m suing DIDN’T do it. Maybe it’s the water cycle. Yeah, he’d do something like that. I bet that jerk Photosynthesis put him up to it.”

So they finally get to Science Court, and Savage makes the first opening play by calling Cramwood to the stand. Here is every word of his astounding examination:

Savage: Cramwood, did a brass plaque made by Sonya Sondheim fall on top of you?
Cramwood: Yes!
Savage: Was it supposed to?
Cramwood: No!
Savage: Your witness, Miss Krempel.

Wow. That is talent at work, ladies and gentlemen. Savage would be great on CSI.
“Did you kill this woman?”
“Nope.”
“Fantastic. Gentlemen, you’re looking at your next Officer of the Year.”

Krempel opens the defense by calling Dr. Julie Bean to the stand, who is a five-year-old. (And she even sounds like one.) She says that the heat from the spotlights caused the atoms that made up the brass plaque to expand. That’s why it fell out of the frame. To demonstrate, she takes everyone into the judge’s chambers for an experiment. By turning the heat up all the way, a piece of brass she has expands enough to move a pointer, which is what happened to the plaque after Cramwood hit the lights.

Well, that case was easy! The brass expanded under the heat and fell out of the frame. Simple. Guess the jury can just declare Sonya not guilty and we can-

I call materials expert Dr. Henry Fullerghast to the stand!

…no, Doug. No, you don’t. You lose.

Oh what the hell. You’re really gonna try and screw this up some more, aren’t you? Look, it’s okay to admit defeat when you’re beaten. You never saw Alex Murphy from Robocop sit up and go, “Nah, I think I can take a few more clips.”

So Savage calls up another child expert named Dr. Henry Fullerghast, who confirms what Savage is thinking-wood also expands under heat. That’s enough for Savage to rest his case, which is, uh…not working very well for him so far. The defense counters with the awesome Professor Parsons who explains that, while wood does expand under heat, it doesn’t expand as much as brass. (Or Icarus, for that matter.)

Savage’s case has, once again, been completely and utterly shot. What does he do in response? He calls Sondheim up to the stand and accuses her of rigging the plaque to fall on Cramwood because…she’s secretly in love with him and he rejected her advances!

J’ACCUSE!

Okay. Stop. Stop this right now. Um…is this really how you’re gonna go out, Doug? Not with any dignity, but with some wild and random accusation? Hell, if you’re gonna do that, you might as well tell a really huge lie. I dunno…judging by her looks, maybe Sondheim’s really the lost member of Milli Vanilli you don’t hear about because she has talent. Be creative!

I gotta say, though, Savage’s failure of a closing argument is pretty awesome:

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury…I’m STILL winning this case if everything Professor Parsons, and Dr. Bean, and Dr. Fullerghast, and Sonya Sondheim said is wrong.

I’M NOT LISTENING, I’M NOT LISTENING! NAH NAH NAH NAH!

Well, if you’re gonna go out, you might as well go out in style. I wouldn’t know about style. I’m the kind of guy who’d be right at home if Earth adopted a planetwide uniform of jeans and a black shirt. That’s called “setting the trend”, boys and girls.

With that, the judge asks for Krempel’s closing number-er, argument. And that’s no slip up. For some reason, Krempel’s closing argument always turns into a song number, with everyone in the courtroom dressing up and participating. It’s really unneccessary. I mean, you saw how Savage got destroyed. This is probably just to rub it in his face. My only question is why the prosecution doesn’t get a song number. I guess they’re saving up for when Doug actually wins a trial. It’ll have a really awesome band and everything. Of course, by the time Doug wins a case, everyone in Motley Crue will be dead, but hey-a guy can dream, can’t he?

All we need is Tom Lehrer and then we’ll have a party.

And so, Sonya Sondheim is (unsurprisingly) found not guilty of sabotaging the picture frame. The episode ends with everyone posing for a picture painted by the stenographer, who tells everyone to “not move for a long time”. This may be hard, because the evening shift just began, and that means we’ll see a pickup in kicking speed for a while.

So that’s Science Court. Above all, it’s interesting and worth a watch if you can find it. The problem is that the only way to own the Science Court episodes is to purchase educational packages offered by Scholastic, which teachers can use to instruct their class. I’d say how unfair it is, but let’s face it-Science Court wouldn’t sell very well as a normal DVD. Looks like we’ve got no choice but to shake down the educational packages for the goods. Fortunately, I know a guy named Vinnie Rattolle, he’d be perfect for it.

If you get the opportunity to watch Science Court, do it. It might be up your alley. Sure, you may not learn anything in the end, but hey, at least you won’t have to defend your ignorance in a court of law.

If you’d like to see the Science Court educational packages, click here.

Some time ago I found something interesting on YouTube-a promotional video advertising the features of a little operating system called Windows 95. Now, I grew up with ’95 running on old 386 and 486 computers, so you can imagine the warm memories I have about it. Plus, it introduced a bunch of great features that carry over to the versions of Windows we see today. That’s why Windows beat out all the other operating systems for dominance. To be fair, though, Mac OS never saw that steel chair coming.

So, naturally, I watched the video, and, um…well. This is a blog post about that video, so you KNOW I don’t have anything good to say. This video is holding the bad report card, and I’m the one who has to sit there and wonder why the video won’t apply itself in math. Also to make sure the video stays out of the cookie jar. I SAID NO COOKIES BEFORE DINNER, VIDEO!

To be fair, only one section of the video was uploaded. There’s actually three of them-the last two cover a list of features and frequently asked questions about the system. But to get there, you’d either have to fast-foward through the tape or sit through the first section…AKA, the “cyber sitcom”.

I’m surprised no kid has ever seen these windows on their computer and tried to play baseball near it.

The “cyber sitcom” doesn’t seem that bad at first glance. After all, it stars Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry from the hit series Friends! Surely with a cast like that, the cyber sitcom can’t possibly…yeah, I’m gonna cut this sentence off right here because I know this is gonna suck to high hell. It kinda reminds me of all those crappy sitcoms FOX makes, and how fast they cancel them. You know, shows like Arrested Development.

Anyway, the “sitcom” starts off with Perry and Aniston waltzing into Microsoft. They want to speak to Bill Gates about starring in his crappy Windows 95 video guide, but Bill’s assistant/harpy Bernice says that Bill’s out at the moment. Instead, Bernice takes Perry and Aniston to Bill’s office to show them the features of Windows 95 herself.

That’s when you realize something. I mean, these top-billed stars are from Friends, right? Wouldn’t the “cyber sitcom” be even better if it had a little bit of that popular show’s magic? That’s what the writers believed, so they went out of their way to add those little Friends-esque one-liners and details that everyone loves.

The only problem? THIS FAILS HORRIBLY.

I’m pretty sure there’s a joke that begins with these three people walking into a bar.

For one thing, Perry and Aniston are CONSTANTLY making unfunny quips throughout the entire “sitcom”. It doesn’t matter what they’re doing. When they’re walking to Bill’s office, they make bad jokes. When they’re using Windows, they make bad jokes. No matter what’s going on, they’ll find any excuse to drop another stupid remark.

Perry: “Sorry that you’ve got cancer, Jennifer.”
Aniston: “Don’t worry, you’re a Leo. We’ll get along fine.”
Cymbal: “HA HA HA HA HA! Oh, man, I’ve always wanted to give Jennifer Aniston a rim shot!”

You’d think that at least one of these lines would make me laugh. But they don’t! I didn’t even smile while I was watching this. And you know what makes it worse? EVERY TIME Perry or Aniston makes a bad joke, they actually play that little music beat you hear on Seinfield. I’m not exaggerating. These jokes suck so much that they had to steal a bit from ANOTHER sitcom just to keep them afloat. Look, if you’re gonna do that, why can’t you make Aniston walk upstairs with a basketball and never come back down?

Okay, I guess I can’t really judge the quality of the jokes because I haven’t watched Friends, but I just can’t shake how bad the writing feels. I hope Friends was written better than this, because if this “cyber sitcom” represents that show’s legacy, the forecast is not looking good. Then again, if I really wanted the Friends experience, I’d just get my own group of friends together and trade witty remarks. Unfortunately, the best lines we come up with will go, “When’s the game on?” and “What does this word mean?”

Now, if the whole “sitcom” was just Perry and Aniston shooting the breeze, I wouldn’t hate it so much. But that’s not the whole story, is it? About halfway through, the “sitcom” suddenly changes direction, and they start bringing in these stereotypical characters to show off certain features of Windows 95. Why? Hell if I know. It’s like the writers watched a group of performers and decided to turn the “sitcom” into an ensemble show. Unfortunately, they forgot that the group performed in a big tent and one of the acts was a guy eating fire.

Hey, it’s one of the Brothers Karamazov! You know…Gary.

Oh, sure, it’s not so bad when Boris the window cleaner thunders in to talk about Plug and Play in his thick accent. But when a nerdy mail guy named Chipster slinks in to demonstrate the Microsoft Network, you get a bit concerned. Personally, I just start hating life when a damn Chinese delivery boy named Lee shows up and starts pointing out right-click menus like some mystic Zen dipwad.

But just when you’ve had enough, a new character skateboards into Bill’s office, placing the other stereotypes on edge! Who could this newcomer be?

Chipster answers that question. He takes off his glasses, stares straight ahead, and says…

“It’s Joystick Johnny.”

PFFFFFFT BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh my God, are you serious? Joystick Johnny? Are you KIDDING me? I love how everyone is so intimidated by him. Lee says Johnny’s the “most feared video game warrior in the territory”, but just look at that stupid expression on his face-how am I supposed to take that seriously?

And if that wasn’t surreal enough, Johnny says-

“Somebody better step up and volunteer, or we start fittin’ everyone here for ONE-MAN BUNGALOWS!”

What the HELL does that even MEAN? Who the HELL is this kid? And really, WHY is everyone so afraid of him? His name’s JOYSTICK JOHNNY! Do I even have to mention what that SOUNDS like?

So Johnny’s here to show off the wonderful gaming features of Windows 95. He demands that someone play him in “3D Pinball”, and when no one else will take the challenge, Aniston steps up to the plate.

“HUH! A GIRL? DURR HURR HURR HURR HURR!”
(Note: some of this dialog may have been revised for accuracy.)

Son, you have a rearview window hanging off your helmet. You don’t exactly scream “focused in class”.

So Aniston plays Joystick Jackoff in his stupid little game and manages to defeat him. With that, Johnny declares that Aniston is now on his “list”. I wouldn’t worry about it, Jennifer-his list starts with your name and ends with his favorite color of M&Ms.

God, I hurt all over. But there’s one more awful set of characters to go-Tim and his stoner rock band come in with a CD holding their latest music video. Bernice pops it into the computer, and as it plays, everyone begins dancing and rocking out for the rare chance to get personally shot by me.

Aniston and Perry hang back to sum up how great Windows 95 is, and Perry notes:

“And the best thing is that we’ve met some incredibly freakish and frightening people.”

Son, you are preaching to the choir.

Meanwhile, Aniston decides to push a large, red button mounted on Bill’s desk. Somehow, this manages to suck up all the awful dancing characters into Bill’s computer.

Bill Gates stars in Revenge of the Nerds.

Surprised at this sudden turn of events, Perry wonders what they should do.

Aniston: “Leave.”

There is a god.

Windows 95 sold a lot of copies, and hopefully it wasn’t because of this painful, comedy-deprived video. So far this is the only “cyber sitcom” ever made, but if Microsoft ever considers a sequel, I have a few ideas on how it can be improved. Most of them involve hiring writers that don’t groom others for ticks to eat.