Potpourri October 2020

 I haven't felt like writing anything--even blog entries--for a few weeks.  Here are some random thoughts and junk.

One of the happiest moments during the pandemic so far was when I found out there's a Rifftrax app for the Roku!  It's something I've looked for a few times in the past because Pluto TV only shows a small percentage of Rifftrax videos and Amazon Prime can be really wonky with titles coming and going at random.  When almost all of them disappeared from Amazon Prime I checked the Roku channels and found the official app.

For $5.99/month or $65/year you can get access to almost all the Rifftrax VODs up into 2017.  There are a few missing like Supersonic Man, Neutron the Atomic Superman, and Brainiac, but there are some others that haven't been on Pluto TV or Amazon like Super Mario Bros, The Wizard, Red Dawn (with Joel McHale), and Viva Kineval, a really lame 70s movie starring Evel Kineval as himself versus an evil promoter played by Leslie Nielsen.  And there are a lot of ones that used to be on Pluto TV but got dropped like Ghosthouse, Last Slumber Party, Rock n Roll Nightmare, Cool as Ice, and Psycho II.  And there are some that were briefly on Amazon Prime like Ruby, No Retreat/No Surrender, and Kingdom of Spiders starring William Shatner.  Plus there are lots of the shorts, some of which have been on live shows but more that haven't.  So it's a bonanza of riffing!

Plus you can buy stuff from the main Rifftrax site and watch it on the app, though it only works with the videos on demand, I think.  I bought one on sale to try it out and it worked just fine.  Recently they added Oblivion, a low-budget sci-fi Western and I hope they add the sequel and more stuff from 2017 and later.

When I wasn't watching Rifftrax I managed to watch a few other shows.

I finally got around to watching Agent Carter on Disney+.  I never caught it on ABC and it was never on Amazon Prime or I don't think on Hulu.  Anyway, I liked it a lot better than the only season of Agents of SHIELD I watched.  I think because it takes place in the 40s it's better.  Unlike SHIELD you don't have to worry about what's going on in the MCU and you don't keep wondering why Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, etc won't show up because other than Thor, none of them were really around in the 40s.  Dominic Cooper reprises his role as Howard Stark a few times and the Howling Commandos show up in an episode but otherwise there aren't any cameos.

I think the first season was a little tighter, maybe because it was 8 episodes and not 10.  The second season moved from New York to LA but it seemed like it could have been wrapped up a little sooner.  It unfortunately ended with a little bit of a cliffhanger when Peggy's boss is shot by a mysterious assassin.  And then of course Endgame's ludicrous ending made the whole show irrelevant.  Hooray?

I also watched Crossing Swords on Hulu.  It's another project by people who work on Robot Chicken.  I don't really like it as much as some of their other side projects like Supermansion and Titan Maximum.  Instead of puppets the people in this look sort of like the old Little People figures only they're more squarish.  It takes place in a world sort of like a Middle Ages kingdom.  Patrick (voiced by Nicolas Hoult) dreams of being a knight.  In the first episode he participates in a tournament to become a squire and manages to get the job.  Soon he's working with the selfish king and his equally selfish wife and daughter.

Since it's from people involved with Robot Chicken there's a lot of the same low-brow humor so I'm sure no one who might ever read this blog would watch it.  I did enjoy it, though maybe not as much as those other two shows I mentioned.  One thing is certain:  the main character has the best name ever!

A random thought on watching more recent seasons of The Simpsons:  Julie Kavner needs to retire.  Her voice is just getting so bad that I started muting it.  I suppose it's not unexpected after so many years.  Jessica Walter on Archer is getting the same way where sometimes it's hard to listen to.

As far as writing goes like I said, I haven't done a lot.  It's mostly a bout of "writer's malaise" where I have stuff I could write but I just don't feel like it.  Maybe it's just all the covid stupidity finally getting to me.  I did recently think of something and started doing some preliminary work.  Basically I thought that I had done a Transformers-themed gender swap story and one based on a GI Joe episode, so why not like a Voltron/Power Rangers-themed gender swap story?  Right?  I think part of the inspiration was I rented the Rifftrax movie Attack of the Super Monsters that was this really awful thing where it's half that puppets/guys in suits Power Rangers stuff and half late 70s anime stuff.  The way they combine these is anything but seamless.  I think the "movie" was like 4 episodes where pretty much the evil dinosaur puppets would mutate and sic animals on humans.  The most bizarre one involved mutating rats.  The female member of the good guys is at the dry cleaner to pick up a blouse when a rat suddenly rips through her blouse.  The weird thing is her brother gets all pissed off at her because she didn't demand her money back from the dry cleaner.  Later the dry cleaner is being chased by rats and the chick wants to go out and save him.  Her brother actually hits her!  I mean like hard enough to knock her down.  Then he goes out to try to rescue the guy.  It was just WTF?!  I hope that gets on the Rifftrax app someday or maybe I'd buy it because it is truly bizarre even for Japanese TV.

Anyway, I even went and made some Sims for this story idea since I had Power Rangers costumes based on the 2017 movie.

Maybe I should try to wait until November and do a stupid NanoWriMo on it.  Or not.  Whatever.