My book buying budget has been tight of late, so I just recently had the chance to sit down with Terry Pratchett’s most recent Discworld books. Before I begin discussing them, let me just say that I do believe Terry Pratchett to be the finest writer I have ever had the privilege of reading. This is no small compliment; I have read great authors from Austen to Hemingway and playwrights from Shakespeare to Miller, and Pratchett is consistently sharp, clever, witty, endlessly readable and re-readable…and more than that, he is filled with a deep and incisive understanding of what makes human beings people. Reading his biting and yet tremendously loving satire has given me, I think, a deeper understanding of human nature, both the good and the bad of it, and I would recommend his works to anyone and everyone.
And perhaps that’s why it has been such a bittersweet experience, reading his latest work. Anyone who cares even a little about Pratchett is already aware of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and it’s hard not to read his latest books (one in the ‘Young Adult’ line of Discworld novels, one in the main line, although honestly Pratchett never writes down to kids and never writes too inaccessibly for adults, meaning that the distinction seems mainly to be where they’re filed in the bookstore) without feeling like Pratchett is all too aware of it as well. Not that it’s affected his writing; I heard one or two people tell me that they felt like ‘Unseen Academicals’ was a little less sharp than his other books, but I didn’t feel that at all when I read it. Lord knows that if the man is feeling the effects of Alzheimer’s in his writing, there are a lot of writers out there (myself included) who should feel tremendously humbled that he still writes circles around us.
But it is clear that Pratchett knows that there won’t be that many Discworld novels. Having written for decades in an open-ended universe of his own creation with no particular destination in mind, it finally feels as if Pratchett is saying, “Time to wrap things up, I think.” That’s not to say he’s planning a ‘last’ Discworld novel; it’s more that he’s keenly aware that each Discworld novel now could be the last, and he’s writing them as though he won’t get to say anything more on the topic.
And so, in ‘Unseen Academicals’, we get something of a summation of the theme he’s been working on for quite some time; overtly, since ‘The Truth’, but on many levels he’s been heading there ever since ‘The Colour of Magic’. This is about the transformation of Ankh-Morpork (and by extension the entire Disc) from a medieval “fantasy kingdom” straight out of the cod-Tolkien Dark Ages that every third goddamned fantasy universe seems to exist in, through to a modern city with rules and laws and what we laughingly refer to as “civilization”. (“Because Ankh-Morpork cares deeply about the right of all oppressed peoples to govern themselves! Oh, it must be the way I tell them.”) Pratchett stopped hitting the “it was all evil magic and the hero has stopped it and things are back to normal” reset button a long time ago, and in ‘Unseen Academicals’, we finally get the ultimate logical extension of his grand theme; who’s to say that even a creature created by dark magic specifically to be evil can’t be good if given the chance? Pratchett finally makes the break with Tolkien clear and clean. Our problems will not be solved with the return of the king, the orcs are not genetically imprinted with the sins of their ancestors, and wizards don’t always know better than everyone else. Your future is what you make it. So make it something worth being proud of when it’s your past.
Over in ‘I Shall Wear Midnight’, meanwhile, he’s summing up the journey of Tiffany Aching from girl to woman and from apprentice to witch. Tiffany long ago took over the role of “principal witch” in the Discworld books, primarily because Granny Weatherwax had become so absurdly powerful and dangerous that she practically had to fade into the background and become a wise old mentor just to keep the book going beyond thirty pages. (Anyone planning to burn Granny Weatherwax as a witch would wind up having the first mob in history that went home after a sharp scolding.) So here we get a novel that could stand quite serviceably as the culmination of that journey, even if we wind up hearing more about her as an adult, and we also get old-home guest appearances from just about every witch to appear in the books before (including one I was very surprised by. Although I admit to wishing Magrat had gotten more to do.)
The books are excellent as always, and of course I recommend them; anyone who’s not reading Terry Pratchett should be, because otherwise you’re missing out on some excellent writing. But these are a little bid sad, I think, because they feel like they could be the last.
My preview of Fan Expo things is up at Torontoist, and I am pretty sure that between the Layton obituary and this article I have a greater breadth of difference from highbrow to lowbrow in a single week in Torontoist history than anyone ever has or ever will.
Also: obviously, I will be at Fan Expo. I’ll be running a bunch of board game events at Snakes and Lattes’ open gaming tables, and I’ll also be bumming around the con at various points.
I am absurdly happy that you did this. Said cartoon had nearly passed into the realm of “things I thought I’d hallucinated.”
Everybody has things like this, don’t they? Even in the age of Google.
One of mine, for example, is an educational cartoon from the late 70s/early 80s, that if I had to characterize it in a single sentence I would say was basically “Civilization, the cartoon series” – it was a series of vignettes about human advancement, with a trippy proggy synth-based theme. I’m not sure if it actually existed and I watched it, or if it’s the remnants of dreams as a kid. Does this ring a bell to anybody else?
Post your own “did I hallucinate that or what?” in comments, or answers to other people’s hallucination-or-did-it-happen TV shows.movies.
Been a busy weekend, but let’s face it, I had to get to this sooner or later. I can’t talk about DC’s greatest heroes winding up at J.K. Rowling’s magical wizard academy without talking about Marvel’s big heroes and where they’d wind up. (I’d discuss the X-Men, but let’s face it, they already are at a school for people with strange and unusual powers run by a manipulative old guy who’s training them to use their powers to fight evil. The only difference is that Dumbledore didn’t generally chuck bowling balls at people’s heads to test their reflexes.) So who would wind up in which house? Who am I picking as an “Avengers” lineup? Let’s find out!
Captain America: An obvious choice for an Avenger, but a less obvious decision over which house he winds up in. On the one hand, you can’t question the courage of the star-spangled Avenger; this is a guy who wanted to join World War II before it even started, because despite the fact that he weighed ninety pounds soaking wet, he wanted to go sock Hitler on the jaw. And that’s before you even get into the “standing toe-to-toe with Thanos despite Thanos having the Infinity Gauntlet and Cap having his fighting spirit” thing. But courage, while it is an important trait of Cap, is not his defining trait.
The recent Cap movie actually showed it best, in the scenes between Steve Rogers and Professor Erskine (some of the best scenes in a great movie.) Cap doesn’t join up because he wants to go out and prove his courage fighting Nazis, he joins up because he believes strongly that he should stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves and it never even occurs to him that he’s one of them. He joins out of a sense of duty to protect others, and if that’s not Hufflepuff, I don’t know what is.
Iron Man: Lately, of course, it seems like Tony is a prime candidate for Slytherin; somewhere around the time he conquered his alcoholism, desperate writers have settled on “asshole control freak tries to use technology to control his surroundings and finds out the hard way just how badly that turns out” as his default story arc. (That is, when he’s not being mind controlled to kill lots of people. You begin to understand why they rebooted him three times.) But underlying the whole desire to control is a naive, almost pathetic belief that he can solve all his problems just by inventing cool enough stuff that it will fix everyone’s problems in the whole world. Tony Stark thinks that if he can create a better process, a better system, then he can create a better humanity. This belief that intelligence, properly applied, can solve any problem makes him a perfect Ravenclaw!
Thor: Thor routinely goes out and fights giants. Because he can. You’d just have to wave the Sorting Hat in his general direction to hear “GRYFFINDOR!” shouted out in the Great Hall.
Hawkeye: He’s one of my all-time favorite characters and a staple Avenger (who has, in my personal opinion, been mishandled worse under the Quesada/Bendis era of the series worse than any other character in the entire franchise, and that includes the decision to make Power Man and Iron Fist Avengers.) He’s also a joyously uncomplicated character, a brash manchild who found purpose and meaning to his life by joining the Avengers and adopting their ideals as his own. Arguably, Hawkeye’s turn under the Sorting Hat would involve a long, telepathic argument over whether or not they should just make a fifth house, because it’s downright insulting to stick Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in a bunch of lesser outfits. But eventually, the Sorting Hat would decide that a guy who deliberately forgoes Hank Pym’s growth serum to battle mad gods and alien armadas armed with a bow and arrows belongs in Gryffindor.
Hank Pym: Okay, maybe Hank Pym was handled worse by Bendis than any other character…let’s call it a toss-up, okay? (Yes, I have issues with Bendis’ handling of the classic Avengers characters. Specifically, I have several hundred issues, and all of them establish clear character beats that Bendis ignores because paying attention to established characterization takes up time he could be using to plot his latest three-issue long halting conversation.) The point is, Hank Pym’s defining character trait isn’t anger or emotional instability. He had a major nervous breakdown at one point that caused him to lash out against his friends and loved ones, but what caused that breakdown was the stress of trying to be a superhero even though he was never really cut out for it. He wanted to be a scientist, helping people through his inventions instead of hitting people, but duty to the people he cared about kept calling him back to it. It’s that sense of dedication to the Avengers that makes the Sorting Hat choose Hufflepuff over Ravenclaw, even though it might take a while to choose.
Wasp: Let’s see. Janet became a superhero because her father died and her new boyfriend suggested she help him avenge that death (two emotional connections early on.) She spent her free time volunteering at a local hospital reading to sick children (duty to the helpless.) She met a bunch of superheroes and immediately suggested they all bond together into a common group (more dedication to community and family.) She eventually wound up becoming the chairwoman of the Avengers–not because she was ambitious, but because a chairwoman was needed and it was time for her to step up and help the team. She eventually sacrificed herself…um, sort of, because Thor did something, or…*sigh* Bendis… *sigh* The point is, when you look at the Wasp’s career, she’s always been about dedication to her large, self-made, extended family. She might never have become a hero if she’d been left to her own devices, but she cares about heroes enough to want to help them out. She’s a Hufflepuff if there ever was one.
Bonus non-Avenger characters! While I will maintain, to my dying day, that the inclusion of Spider-Man and Wolverine into the ranks of the Avengers was a colossal mistake that shows that Bendis not only never understood any of the characters he was writing, he actually never understood the core concept of the book he took over and should not have been allowed near the series with a ten-foot pole, I also know that people probably want to know where they wound up. So for the record, Spidey‘s a classic Hufflepuff (“with great power must come great responsibility”), while Wolverine would be a Gryffindor until he got expelled for sneaking non-butter-beer into the dorms and wound up getting kept by Hagrid as a pet.
Which still leaves a lot of Avengers. Let’s face it, unlike the JLA, the Avengers has a constantly fluctuating line-up; feel free to add your favorite Avengers in the comments!
MGK: So we’re back, watching Animalympics again. FLAPJACKS: …I know that. Why are you saying that? MGK: I’m setting the scene for my readers. FLAPJACKS: It’s really annoying. MGK:Anyway – so slalom star Kurt Wuffner is missing.
FLAPJACKS: Why is the entire search party looking for him composed of elephants? I mean, if you’re gonna pick an animal to be in an alpine search-and-rescue team, “elephant” wouldn’t even make my top thousand picks. Because elephants are big and heavy and not winter-friendly animals and aren’t really known for their mountain-climbing abilities. MGK: They aren’t known for their gymnastics skill either, but that didn’t stop one from competing on the uneven bars! Elephants are doin’ it for themselves. FLAPJACKS: “So we know this is a tragedy – but now, how about some bobsledding?” MGK: And the European team – which is British – is composed of… are they beavers? They look basically like beavers. They have beaver tails. But beavers aren’t native to England. FLAPJACKS: Immigrants. MGK: I wonder how the Animalympicverse version of the BNP feels about beavers coming to England and takin their jerbs. FLAPJACKS: I’m more interested in the octopus bobsledders from Italy. These are the first crustaceans/fish/insects we’ve seen competing so far, right? It’s all been reptiles, mammals and birds thus far. I think we’re seeing another facet of the dreadful class system in this universe. MGK: Meanwhile, Kurt Wuffner is dying on a mountainside when suddenly he finds “Dogra-La.” I don’t remember if this is a real thing or if he’s just hallucinating prior to his death from exposure. FLAPJACKS: Given that he’s turning to “the camera” to point at the sexy dog girls dressed in kimonos that all look exactly like him, I vote the latter. MGK: But enough death hallucination! It is time for hockey now! FLAPJACKS: The American team – for they wear USA colours – is populated by Quebecois bears, apparently. And the other team is bulls, because… I dunno, I’m out of logic to explain any of this now. MGK: It is amusing that they are totally playing hockey up as a game where people try to murder one another. FLAPJACKS: Well, this was the early 80s. The Broad Street Bullies era of the Philadelphia Flyers had just ended. Hockey players beat each other up all the time. It’s not like now, when they beat each other up for a purpose. They used to maim each other for fun… why is the arena exploding? MGK: Because that’s funny. FLAPJACKS: And because we were briefly entertained for a moment there, how about a pointless vignette featuring the coaches of the two marathon runners where silly voices are apparently supposed to be endlessly hilarious? MGK: I blame Gilda Radner. Baba Wawa ruined things for a generation. FLAPJACKS: This California otter isn’t really… funny in any way. Or even interesting. I mean – he’s a hippie, sorta? He drives a car, he’s a vegetarian, he surfs, he likes to hang out in a hot tub? Where are the jokes? These are just things Californians do. And not even most of them. I mean, they at least had Bolt Jenkins living in a sewer like a respectable New York alligator. MGK: New Yorkers think making fun of California is endlessly hilarious. They will never admit it’s because of their latent insecurity issues, of course, but that’s why they think it’s endlessly hilarious.
FLAPJACKS: Hey, it’s a dolphin! Who… somehow has legs! MGK: That freaks me out more than anything else in this cartoon so far. Including the lioness nipple flash. FLAPJACKS: They’re so polite to not mention his horrible, terrifying mutation. MGK: And one of the swimming contestants is a manta ray! So that makes two non-traditionally-cute animals competing! FLAPJACKS: I like how the octopuses get drummed into multiple competitions in the Animalympics. It’s like the animators just gave up trying to think of animals to draw. “Ah, let’s just use the fucking octopuses again.” FLAPJACKS: In proud Animalympics tradition, the Japanese athlete is named “Ono Nono.” HA HA HA it’s funny because it’s racist! MGK: At least the American announcers are acting like American announcers and only concerning themselves with how the American athlete will do. That’s realism for you. FLAPJACKS: And now, the “hundred-meter dive.” Which is appropriately ludicrous for a cartoon. MGK: And the bird diver is totally cheating! He is flying! That should be some sort of disqualification, not reason to give points. This world makes no sense! FLAPJACKS: It’s a world with talking animals that can’t remember how many continents exist. I think that was more or less a given, wasn’t it? MGK: That having been said, the hallucination sequence that the California otter has is actually decently trippy animation and the music is fun. FLAPJACKS: The “history of Animalympics” sequence is… weird. I mean, you know they wrote it just so the animators could draw dinosaurs doing sports, but then they have no animated dinosaurs doing sports. MGK: Also, the “pot showing the earliest depiction of animal sports” has dinosaurs on it. That pot is therefore tens of millions of years old. It should be dust. But it is not dust. Did dinosaurs die out much later in the Animalympic world? FLAPJACKS: Consider, if you will, that at the beginning of the movie, the Animalympic Torch is lit off fire breathed by a dragon. I don’t think it’s a stretch to have dinosaurs still be alive. MGK: Then where are the dodos? FLAPJACKS: Well, that would just be silly. MGK: And we’re back to the downhill skiing and the Kurt Wuffner saga. Since Kurt Wuffner is dying on a hill somewhere, we are introduced to a boar who has been rebuilt with bionic technology “for speed.” FLAPJACKS: Shame he wipes out early. MGK: Okay, you know what’s bitchy? This boar is clearly suffering through a major near-death experience right now, and the announcers don’t seem to care at all. Bitchy Dog Announcer makes a joke about him being used for “spare parts.” Ah, cartoons, you are heartless. FLAPJACKS: And Kurt Wuffner returns and wins, of course.
MGK: Here’s what I don’t get. Right before Wuffner returns, the announcers are whining about how the best time today was a “disappointing” minute-fifty-eight. Then Wuffner shows up, and finishes the course in a minute-fifty-six-point-eight-nine. That is only about a second faster. These announcers are whiny. FLAPJACKS: Is a second a big timespan for competitive downhill skiing? MGK: Quickly checking Wikipedia, it looks like generally the top ten skiers in a downhill real-life Olympic event usually span about two seconds’ overall difference. That would make Wuffner’s time better by a lot. I withdraw my complaints as regard realism, but maintain that the announcers are whiny bitches. FLAPJACKS: Why is that? MGK: Name three sports announcers you really like. FLAPJACKS: That’s easy – MGK: Who aren’t dead and therefore can still bore or annoy you. FLAPJACKS: Well then. Zero. MGK: My point exactly. They should’ve just done narrative stories instead of the fake sportscast. The most entertaining bits of this thing are always when they get away from the sportscast and focus on individual characters. I mean, the goat/lion marathon battle is weird, yes, but at least it’s interesting. FLAPJACKS: Speaking of which, the goat and the lion are officially now in love, it seems. Despite, you know, not having talked or spoken to one another during the race. MGK: Well, that’s how love works sometimes. FLAPJACKS: No, it doesn’t. MGK: True. But, on the bright side, we get to see the announcers lose their shit over the goat and the lion running hand-in-hand. “Is it an international conspiracy?” asks Henry Kissinger Turtle. FLAPJACKS: Then the turtle orders bombing in Cambodia. Tens of thousands die over his taking offense at the goat and lion’s relationship, born in the heat of competition. MGK: Dark! FLAPJACKS: Only that sort of thing can distract us from the worst part of this yet, which is Billy Crystal voice-acting against Billy Crystal. MGK: This is offensive on so many levels. FLAPJACKS: Could this get any worse? MGK: Sure it could. For example, Robin Williams could show up and voice-act his “look at me, I’m pretending to be a black guy” bit. Or his Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation. Or, really. anything Robin Williams does, since his characters haven’t changed since we were eight. FLAPJACKS: Oh, man, I just realized Billy Crystal is trying to imitate Muhammad Ali. That’s so wrong. MGK: …why do I think that Billy Crystal, as the turkey interviewing the defeated boxer who isn’t Billy Crystal, is doing a reference? FLAPJACKS: Because he is. Howard Cosell did that thing, remember, where he called someone who lost a match of some kind or another a bum who had let down his country? MGK: I forgot for a second Billy Crystal doesn’t so much do jokes as he does riffs on people who exist. FLAPJACKS: “Volleyball is rapidly becoming one of the most popular sports in the world.” Really? Did I miss something? MGK: Even the referee looks bored here. I mean, lobsters playing volleyball, you’d think that was funny, but no. FLAPJACKS: And we’re back to the marathoners! For some reason, they have decided to ask random athletes what they think of the goat and the lion being in love. The racist penguin makes some martial arts noises. The California otter says nothing of consequence. This feels like they’re padding out the show at this point.
MGK: Bizarrely, the weightlifting competition is somewhere in between a professional wrestling competition and a beauty pageant. This makes no sense at all, and I say that in comparison to the entire rest of this cartoon. Compared to this, the rest of the cartoon is perfectly sensible. FLAPJACKS: Even the fencing segment, which turns into a swashbuckling fight scene? MGK: That’s perfectly acceptable, because every fencer wishes that fencing actually had jumping about the room and vaulting through the air and swinging on chandeliers and dramatic entrances and exits and punning as elements of competition. FLAPJACKS: The turtle once again insists that the continents are “locked in a five-way tie,” ignoring that at this point they’ve identified seven different competing teams, not counting Scandinavia, which may be something else altogether. Once again, he is offended that the goat and lion are in love. FLAPJACKS: And they win together, after a musical sequence, and the fans… I dunno. I can’t care about it any more. MGK: And this show wraps up with some shots of the “crew” and recap sequences, because re-using footage saves you lots of money when you’re animating. FLAPJACKS: So was this as good as you remembered? MGK: God no. You know what? We should all be thankful for Pixar. We really should. The musical stylings of one-quarter of 10cc aside, this was mostly pretty bad. FLAPJACKS: Nostalgia lies. Except for TRON. MGK: Well. Actually. FLAPJACKS: SHUT UP I WILL CUT YOU.
FLAPJACKS: So what are we watching? MGK: “We?” FLAPJACKS: Well, I brought back your wok, so I figure I might as well hang out. MGK: That’s not my wok. That’s a frying pan. FLAPJACKS: So? MGK: You had my wok for three years. FLAPJACKS: Yes, and now we’re watching something. Keep up! What are we watching? MGK:Animalympics. It’s an old cartoon from when I was a kid. FLAPJACKS: …why are we watching this? MGK: I used to watch this all the time when I was six. I remember one time, my parents were going out for the evening, so they took me to the video store and I got it for like the fifth time, but I’d accidentally gotten it in Beta instead of VHS, so my dad actually took me back to get the right one. FLAPJACKS: That is deeply touching. Your life is a Hallmark card. So why are we watching it? MGK: Because I’m curious to see how bad, in fact, it actually was.
FLAPJACKS: Fair enough – wait, that announcer sounds like Harry Shearer. MGK: Bingo! It is Harry Shearer, explaining “Mount Animalympus.” FLAPJACKS: That sounds dirty. MGK: There’s probably going to be a lot of that. FLAPJACKS: So, wait, animals carry the Oly…Animalympic Torch over water? What happens if that seal drops the torch? MGK: Overthinking it. FLAPJACKS: Like we’re going to do anything else? MGK: Point. FLAPJACKS: “Featuring the voices of” Gilda Radner, Billy Crystal, Harry Shearer and… some other person! MGK: This was originally made by NBC as a pair of specials in 1980, which explains the cast. But the summer special never aired because of the Moscow boycott. FLAPJACKS: Did you know that at the time? MGK: Yes, because I was a geopolitically-interested six-year-old. No, of course I didn’t know. FLAPJACKS: …why does the announcer turtle sound like Henry Kissinger? MGK: I have no idea. FLAPJACKS: I see Gilda Radner is doing her Baba Wawa voice. MGK: And Harry Shearer is doing his Kent Brockman voice. FLAPJACKS: And Gilda Radner does a slightly different voice. MGK:And Billy Crystal does a bad Howard Cosell impersonation. FLAPJACKS: And… wait, are they giving us highlights of the movie in advance? MGK: Padding for the home video market, I think. FLAPJACKS: That’s just sad. MGK: A “grazing-room only crowd” at the stadium. FLAPJACKS: But what about the carnivores? Are they telling us that the Animalympics are herbivore-centric? MGK: Are you surprised? Herbivores control the animal media, you know. They just want to make a perfectly valid lifestyle choice a crime. FLAPJACKS: A choice? Ahem. Carnivores were just born that way. MGK: I stand corrected. FLAPJACKS: …okay, they really put way too much effort into making sure that rhino’s butt moved in a taut, rhythmic manner. MGK: Are you bothered? FLAPJACKS: No. But it’s weird. Wait, why does the “mayor of Animalympic Island” sound like a Richard Nixon impersonation? Did Rich Little need some work that week? MGK: Dude, that Nixon is nowhere near Rich Little’s. Rich Little does quality Nixon. It’s practically his calling card. FLAPJACKS: Okay, that sports graphic looked appropriately cheesy. I can believe this was made in 1980. MGK: “Rene Fromage.” That is the name of the European marathoning goat. “Frenchy McFrance” was already taken, I guess. FLAPJACKS: Oh, man. This is all gonna be things that bad comedians think kids will find funny, isn’t it? MGK: This hails from an era where Leonard Maltin was the only man over 25 who would admit he still watched cartoons. This is not going to be sophisticated or clever, I think. FLAPJACKS: “Kit Mambo” is, I take it, his nemesis in the film. MGK: Yes. FLAPJACKS: And again with the ass. Man, these animators were butt-lovers, huh? MGK: Try not to think about it. FLAPJACKS: And we’re over to gymnastics. Okay, so this mink is… oh, wait, no, not an athlete, another interviewer. And she’s interviewing another mink. MGK: Oh, yes, I remember this from when I was a kid. I thought they were ripping off Bugs Bunny even then. FLAPJACKS: Did you really? MGK: Probably not, no. FLAPJACKS: But wait, she visibly fucks up during the routine and still gets a perfect 10? Is this commentary on the Soviet system here? MGK: Given that the coach is prepared to hang himself if she fails, I suspect so. Subtlety is not what you expect to find here.
FLAPJACKS: And this gymnast is a hippo who hails from “Fatgard,” competing for Europe. MGK: Why is a hippo competing for Europe? They don’t live in Europe. FLAPJACKS: Maybe she emigrated. Ever think of that? MGK: But she’s teaching all those other hippos to swim. Are there German hippos we don’t know about? FLAPJACKS: It would be just like those Germans to keep a secret hippo community hidden from the rest of the world! MGK: It would? FLAPJACKS: I dunno. Wait – the pommel horses at the Animalympics are actual horses? MGK: Well, the starting gun for the marathon was a bird that they squeezed to squawk, like in The Flintstones. FLAPJACKS: Yes, but in The Flintstones, humans are still in charge. This use of animals as tools sort of implies a slavery-based system. MGK: So basically what you’re saying is that the Animalympics are a distraction for the masses? Distracting them from their downtrodden position through sport? FLAPJACKS: Yes, that’s exactly it. Why is this penguin Japanese? MGK: “Asian.” FLAPJACKS: But he’s Japanese. He’s clearly Japanese. His name is “Kwakimoto.” That is clearly a takeoff from Japanese naming conventions. And he is initially shown in a crowd full of other Japanese penguins waiting for the subway. MGK: Even so, in the Animalympics there are only five continents competing. FLAPJACKS: But they’ve already identified athletes from “Asia,” “Eurasia” and “Europe,” along with African and North American athletes. MGK: There was also a South American anteater competing in the marathon. FLAPJACKS: Oh my god, did they blow up Australia? MGK: Well, I don’t – FLAPJACKS: I bet they did. Those marsupials would be like horrific aliens to these walking, talking animals. MGK: Can’t we just go back to talking about the racist cariacature in penguin form? Listen! His martial art is called “No-Can-Do!” FLAPJACKS: Asians love martial arts! MGK: And Harry Shearer is doubling down on the vaguely racist mock-Asian gibberish. “Me-Washy-You-Facey.” “Say-You-Punky.” FLAPJACKS: You had horrible taste as a kid. MGK: It was the early Eighties. Everybody had horrible taste then. FLAPJACKS: And I note that, after the elephant gymnast wipes out on the uneven bars, the winners in women’s gymnastics are “Eurasia” and “Asia.” My geography theory continues to be supported. MGK: More racist penguin! FLAPJACKS: More marathon! MGK: You know what’s weird about the marathon? The male goat is a very typical, asexual cartoon character, and the female lion is sexualized with distinct feminine curves. It’s honestly kind of creepy if you think about it: this is training kids to accept a double standard for male and female appearance. FLAPJACKS: Also it’s a goat and a lion. The lion is not attempting to eat the goat. MGK: There is that. FLAPJACKS: And in passing, a panda athlete is identified as Yu Fat Ting. This cartoon just keeps getting more and more racist! MGK: And the tour of the commissary! There are literally big chops of meat just waiting to be eaten by carnivore athletes there. They slaughtered presumably-intelligent animals to do it. This is so fucked up. FLAPJACKS: Wait, it turns out Animalympic Island is being powered by slave labour! MGK: Look, we don’t know that those snakes serving as tow cables are slaves. Perhaps they’re fairly compensated. Maybe they’re union. FLAPJACKS: What type of seniority do you need to avoid being a cable? What do you move up to? Shoelace? MGK:THAT’S SNAKE-RACIST! Armist? Limbist? Whatever. FLAPJACKS: Figure skating! And there’s more “Eurasian” athletes. Where does Eurasia end and Asia begin? MGK: More importantly, why is a salamander marrying a chicken? FLAPJACKS: They’re in love. Duh. MGK: …OH MY GOD THIS ANIMAL WORLD HAS AN EQUIVALENT OF “PLAYBOY.” You know what this means? It is standard for denizens of this world to beat off to animals outside their species. FLAPJACKS: Well, it happens here too. MGK: But it’s not normal. FLAPJACKS: Dude, are you going to start making anti-miscegenation comments now? MGK: They’re actually different species! FLAPJACKS: And you don’t have any idea that they even do this, you know. Maybe there is porn for every species in this world. Like, “Playdog.” And… “Playgull.” And… MGK: “Rustler.” FLAPJACKS: “Flank.” MGK: “Scenthouse.” We’re too good at this. We should stop. FLAPJACKS: Wait wait wait – the flamingo skating star skates professionally in the “Ice Parades?” Are they saying that the Animalympics doesn’t respect the difference between amateur and professional athletes? Well. I am shocked. MGK: I’m more trying to figure out how a cobra took third in figure skating. Where does it put on the skate?
FLAPJACKS: Too slow! We have moved on to an alligator doing a John Travolta impersonation! MGK: Ah, good old Bolt Jenkins. FLAPJACKS: You remembered this? MGK: Surprisingly, yes. They’re about to do high jumps of 77 feet. FLAPJACKS: Man, they aren’t even trying to suspend my disbelief! MGK: This is a cartoon that can’t quite remember how many continents there are, you know. FLAPJACKS: But they can remember to play his theme music as he pole vaults 180 feet. MGK: And then a Wheaties parody before we get a musical montage. FLAPJACKS: Oh my god, they bothered to do a race-walking bit? MGK: That pigeon is totally going to out-race-walk that beaver! FLAPJACKS: These are kind of boring. They couldn’t come up with any gags for the all-skunk relay team? MGK: Well, that elephant and that… coyote?… are hitting each other with lacrosse sticks rather than play. That’s kind of funny to a kid, right? FLAPJACKS: Was it? MGK: I don’t know. FLAPJACKS: Seriously, they could just keep showing me the race-walkers. That was actually legitimately funny. Because race-walking looks silly – and now they’re back to long takes of waggling anthropomorphized animal butts. MGK: Okay, is this an equestrian event? Or the equivalent thereof? Because it makes no sense. No sense at all. FLAPJACKS: They totally need some guy running alongside banging coconuts together. MGK: And apparently the no-questrian event has a deathtrap in it. That seems sort of cruel. FLAPJACKS: Dude, they make the competitors do 180-foot pole vaults. The Animalympics depend on death-sports to keep competitors from wondering why herbivores and carnivores aren’t always at war with one another. MGK: I’m just wondering why the organizers decided to have all the events at the same time. It looks like a lot of athletes are getting hit by hammer-toss hammers. FLAPJACKS: And now… the 100 meter dash! MGK: Harry Shearer’s announcer: “Ah, 46 seconds. Not bad for fatso.” Uh, no, that is a terrible time. I’m pretty sure you can do a hundred meters in an electric wheelchair in 46 seconds. FLAPJACKS: So, competing in the dash, we’ve got an African, a “Eurasian,” Bolt Jenkins – who, I note, is an “American,” and I’m not sure if that means he’s from the Americas or if they think the USA is a continent – and a rabbit from Europe. This whole “five continents” thing still bothers me, because at this point it looks like both South America and Australia have been destroyed. MGK: And Bolt Jenkins wins the gold medal, and then gives it away to the African runner because the other athlete was “better” than him. Uh, Bolt Jenkins, this is sports. It’s not the Academy Awards. There is no qualitiative discussion going on here. You were faster. FLAPJACKS: I dunno. That cheetah seems quite happy to get a pity medal. He’s probably thinking “as a stereotypical African, I am probably expected to say something about how this can feed my entire village for a year!” MGK: Ugh. Back to the marathon! FLAPJACKS: And the goat and the lion are becoming attracted to one another! MGK: That must be confusing for the lion to be attracted to what it, let’s face it, her prey. FLAPJACKS: Yes, I – OH MY GOD A DISCO SEQUENCE?
MGK: Oh, yes, they needed to pad out the time somehow. I mean, come on. Disco. Who doesn’t love disco? After all, this was 1980 so it was totally cutting edge and relevant. Hey, look, it’s the racist penguin again! FLAPJACKS: Hey, wait! I just saw a team of four platypi! That means Australia isn’t destroyed after all? MGK: You never know. Maybe they’re refugees. FLAPJACKS: I never thought of that. Maybe they’re protected by species-rights legislation. A distinct society. They probably can’t get jobs anywhere because they bear live young and then nurse them in pouches. MGK: And Bolt Jenkins again! In a Travolta-style white disco suit! Just in case you didn’t yet understand that Bolt Jenkins is intended to be a John Travolta parody, it’s another hint for you! FLAPJACKS: You know what’s interesting? That sort of joke wouldn’t work today. MGK: I don’t think it worked then. FLAPJACKS: No, wait, think about it. That joke depends on commonality of celebrity culture. You can get laughs parodying John Travolta in the 1980s because everybody knew Travolta. Can you do it today? Who’s a big enough celebrity that everybody will go “oh, that guy?” Will Smith, maybe? And Will Smith isn’t funny to parody because he’s Will Smith. MGK: I get your point, but there’s also the important factor that this cartoon impersonation isn’t even remotely funny, so how would we know? FLAPJACKS: Needs more Rich Little. MGK: And now we see some soccer, as the Germans – okay, the “Europeans,” but come on, we know they’re the Germans – clean the clocks of the American team from New York. So this is at least realistic. FLAPJACKS: Incidentally, the fact that they then defeat the “South American Llamas” merely upholds my belief that something is deeply weird here. We’ve been told there are five continents competing, but so far there are teams from South America, “America,” Europe, Asia, Africa and “Eurasia.” Is there some sort of civil war going on in Eurasia? Two breakaway republics? MGK: Maybe Bolt Jenkins isn’t from “America.” Maybe he’s actually Brazilian. And New York, in Animal World, is in Chile. It could happen. FLAPJACKS: And we still don’t know about the Aussies. MGK: Well, they are busy going back to the marathon and the oversexualized lion who is inexplicably falling in love with a goat she should more properly regard as a snack. FLAPJACKS: Well, the goat clearly lusts after the lion as well. That makes more sense. I would expect many goats have secret desires to sexually humiliate their predators. MGK: Do you really want to speculate about this? I mean, you’re one step away from hardcore disturbing bronyhood at this point. FLAPJACKS: Actually, I want to talk about his hallucination/dream sequence. Because, in this sequence, he hallucinates human women which he pointedly avoids, because he is concentrating on the gold medal of course, but still. That suggests that in this world, they knew humans existed at one point. MGK: My god. I think you have cracked the code. FLAPJACKS: Really? MGK: No. I was actually more interested in the fact that they depicted him as smoking. I mean, even though he’s French, I would have thought 1980 was late enough that they wouldn’t show cartoons smoking any longer. FLAPJACKS: OH GOD THE MEDAL HAS TURNED INTO THE SEXY LION AND IT HAS NIPPLES AND EVERYTHING. MGK: This cartoon just keeps getting more and more disturbing. FLAPJACKS: How did you not end up a furry if this was your favorite cartoon when you were a kid? MGK: I’m not sure. But regardless: that is one damn demented goat. FLAPJACKS: Okay, in the slalom skiing, we see competitors from Europe, North America, South America, and Scandinavia. Which is not a continent! My god, what is the situation in Eurasia? Have the Finns convinced the rest of the Nordic countries to go it alone? MGK: There’s got to be some brutal war going on that we’re missing because we can’t get past Billy Crystal’s godawful “funny” Swedish accent. Billy Crystal: willing to make kids miserable since… well, forever. FLAPJACKS: It is so bad that we almost missed Kurt Wuffner’s disappearance! After a triumphant victory in the slalom, he has disappeared while climbing a mountain! MGK: Approximately thirty seconds later, apparently. FLAPJACKS: This smells fishy. I believe there is foul play afoot. Why would a devoted extreme athlete decide to climb a mountain in between his two primary events? I think this stinks of Eurasian manipulation! MGK: Certainly. After all, note that Wuffner’s disappearance gives the win to Scandinavia. Presumably the Scandinavians are rebels warring against the European regime, and Eurasia’s central committee seeks to embarrass the EU, which broke away from it, by repeating their rebellion in microcosm – at the Animalympics! FLAPJACKS: This goes down so many layers it’s scary! But I think I need a break. MGK: Agreed. There is only so much Billy Crystal “funny voice” schtick one can hande in a day. We’ll finish it tomorrow. After you return my wok.
Your guest judges are Luther, Blake and Mary Murphy, who I assume is now present for the rest of the season with the American show over (oh goody).
Lindsay and Christian: salsa. Lindsay and Christian have already demonstrated that they are an insanely capable pairing when it comes to salsa, and this was basically their week one routine except with more intricate floorwork and Lindsay improved in skill. The choreo at a few points dragged a bit – the big stunts felt very standy-still rather than fluidly incorporated into the routine – but this is a relatively minor complaint and certainly nothing that can really be attributed to the dancers.
Melissa and Adam: contemporary. This is one of those routines I can really respect but not especially like – amazingly physical work from these two, and simply watching it was exhausting because it was so energetic and powerful. But I didn’t especially care for the choreography, just because it felt very frenetic and hyperactive. This is a matter of taste; I can’t fault Melissa and Adam, especially when they nailed the crazy difficult choreo that I didn’t particularly like.
Denitsa and Matt: hip-hop. Mehhhhh. Good choreo from Situation, but the performance wasn’t quite there; Denitsa’s actually at that “passable” level where a good partner would disguise her weakness in the style, but Matt just isn’t; a bit behind the beat at points and just trying to compensate for lack of technique by overperforming every single move. Also, hip-hop choreographers for this show need to learn that putting a tutting section into their routine is the exact opposite of helping dancers through the routine, because nothing exposes a weak hip-hop dancer like a tutting section: you can’t just throw on a sneer and try to act street and fake your way through tutting. It just doesn’t work. Matt remains the sole dancer in the competition where I continue to wonder how he’s survived over others.
Yuliya and Shane: jive. Reasonably good. Shane actually impressed me more than Yuliya in this, for the value of “performing past what was expected” – Shane did some very good work here, and he honestly had more performance quality than Yuliya for me (although Yuliya’s technique was, of course, obviously better). Yuliya’s very… internal, I suppose, in that her dancing always feels a bit subdued to me.
Geisha and Joey: afro-jazz. This was good enough. Sean Cheeseman hasn’t put together an afrojazz of this quality in a while. Geisha was far more into it than Joey was; Joey is technically brilliant, of course, but the performance was merely okay from him tonight, I felt – a very strong opening, but then he just trailed downwards dialing it down and dialing it down and getting milder and milder, whereas Geisha had the technique and much better performance quality.
Jordan and Francois: contemporary. Very good: Francois partnered Jordan perfectly and was a very good forklift, and Jordan’s control is just insane. That having been said: I am so, so tired of contemporary routines on this show that are A) “a tribute to love”, B) “a couple find one another,” C) “somebody cheats on somebody else,” D) “a relationship ends.” FIND SOME NEW FUCKING PLOTLINES. Please.
Probable bottom three: Denitsa and Matt, Yuliya and Shane, Geisha and Joey. Should go home: Yuliya and Matt. Will go home:: Yuliya and Matt.
I’m not asking “why does he support the National Popular Vote.” I agree with him that a national popular vote, assigning each state’s electors by percentage of votes to each party, is a much better and fairer way to assign electors to the Electoral College than the current winner-in-each-state-takes-all system, since it’s both more reflective of the populace’s desires and it also means that Presidential candidates can’t skip campaigning in their “solid” states. It ends the swing-state phenomenon. This is good.
But the NPV movement is going about it in a stupid way: they’ve decided to round of 270 electoral votes’ worth of states and, when they hit that number, they agree to all commit to popular-vote elector assignment. This sounds nice in theory, but right now, at about the halfway mark (132 electoral votes), they’ve signed up California, Vermont, Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Washington and the District of Columbia.
What do all of these states (well, and D.C.) have in common? Not a one of them has gone to the Republicans since 1988. These are blue states, every one. And the problem with NPV is that if only liberal states are going to jump on the bandwagon, you’re basically saying that the only candidates electable to national office will be Republicans – since Republicans will get all of the electoral votes from their “safe” states in the Deep South and the plains, and then snag all the additional votes in blue states that they weren’t previously getting.
This is a recipe for electoral disaster for liberals in America – and liberals in America didn’t exactly have it easy to begin with. I understand and agree that, generally speaking, the national popular vote is a movement favoring good governance – but if only one side cares about it, the other side can take exceptional advantage of it.
EDIT: So apparently the National Popular Vote isn’t a proportional allotment of electors, making this entire post pointless! Just pretend it is about unicorns or something instead. You like unicorns, right?
