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Does this thing work God dammit?

Hello, is this thing on? From One Fry 2 Anotha?

An e-mail from the weekend:

"dude i think the blog is brokeneded"

Well said, indeed it was. Friday marked the first blog meltdown since it's inception in October of 2002, and I'm ashamed to admit it, but I probably would've choked myself to death with a coffee machine if my friend Kevin wasn't able to put it back together. Sure, it's silly stuff, but it's two,enna,half years worth of silly stuff. I feared the worst (I don't use any kind of posting system on the main site because I have such terrible luck with 'em), but looks like we're back to form without a single thing out of order.

Spent most of Sunday putting the finishing touches of several thousand Transformers-related articles going up on UGO next month. Three of 'em are DVD reviews, but I don't want to hold off on telling you that Transformers: Season 3 Part 2 & Season 4 and Beast Wars: The Complete Second Season are absolute must-haves for fans. The Transformers set even includes the semi-rare Rebirth trilogy, where some of the Autobots and Decepticons willingly allow their heads to be modified into baby robots. Also features the rare appearances of Fortress Maximus and Scorponok. The three-disc (!!!) set even has the Optimus Prime resurrection two-parter, plus a kickass chapter selection screen featuring a battle-damaged Rodimus skulking about a shuttlecraft. Awesome, and Amazon has it on sale.

The Beast Wars DVD is a two-discer, and jeez, I'd forgotten how much I love this show. It'll probably take new viewers three or four episodes to really see the glories within, but once you do, you'll be hooked eye swar eet. Back to Amazon, they're practically giving the sets away at just twenty-three dollars a pop. Can't ask for better than that. The other DVD review was for two quicky Armada titles, and all I'll say about those is that they failed at transforming (HA!!) me into a new fan. Oh well.

In case ya missed it, I threw a new article up on Friday. Simple stuff -- I get requests for more commercial downloads constantly, and had a bunch laying around that were either already mentioned or not beefy enough for a full tribute. So, the article has ten. With reviews and downloads, and a peppered background. My favorites of this bunch include the spot for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, and a weird old Bugs Bunny ad where he warns about the deadly dangers lurking in every kitchen everywhere every.

So, with the blog outta whack and, uh, all of the trouble in the Middle East, I eased my troubles with another spirited round of LET'S BUY FISH. Oh yes. Three of those painted parrotfish I bought a few months back died from that deadly "Ick" disease (picture dipping a fish in a bowl of salt, that's what they looked like), and the trio that survived looked healthy and happy enough to annoy with a NEW FISH INVASION. Thankfully, Petland is like, thirteen steps away from out apartment. Here's the new monsters:

An algae eater without a name. Everyone seems impressed at this guy's size; we were more impressed at how much he resembled a frog trapped in a snake's body. Unnamed Algae Eater simply strolls along the bottom, sticking his suction cupped mouth all over everything. Cute, but I can't shake the feeling that he'll disintegrate fast upon death. Not looking forward to scooping out gooey parts of Unnamed Algae Eater. Not this week, anyway.

We also nailed two pleco fishies, each pretty huge. One has the standard color pattern, the other has weird zebra stripes. I bet he feels cooler than his brother. I've got a tank full of semi-aggressives, but nobody fucks with the Pleco Pair. They're too disinterested and spiny.

Okay, my new favorite thing on the planet is this, a Geophagus Whatchamacalit. For simplicity, I named him "Wolfie," and happily narrate his thoughts as the beast glides through the tank, eating, inspecting and looking all cute n' stuff. "ME. WOLFIE. MARCH. TOWARDS. FOOOOOOD." Guess how long it took for my girlfriend to get sick of that one. I've seen fish of this type before, but never so large. Really, really beautiful creature -- it's got all of these funky glowy dots, lionfish-like spines and appendages, and eyes that absolutely positively lock with mine and thank me. Incredibly, the leader parrotfish (a yellow asshole with a God complex) constantly berates Wolfie, even though he's about half his size.

Wolfie has these two feathery strands that hang low while he swims. I've already made it known that, in the case that Yellow Asshole Parrotfish bites off either one of these strands, he's out in the sun in an empty Dixie cup. With a fucking bullet in his head, because Wolfie is worth the extra mile.

I think that brings us up to speed. Sorry for the downtime. Sorry for the -- oh wait, I did have one more thing. Looney Tunes cereal is about the closest thing to old school Trix we'll ever see. The fruity balls are a bit smaller, but it's so close to the old non-fruit-shaped Trix. And this discovery makes me smile. New article coming tonight, and it's an odd one. HUGE thanks to Killer Kevin for fixing the Killed Blog.

Consider this the comments section for the two latest articles, while we're at it.

Posted by Matt on 04/20/2004. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 119 comments

TinManFan I know what you are talking about they served those happy face fries at my jr. high and high school.
On the article from Fri. I remember that bugs bunny PSA and I would tell my mom the would dialogue of it.
This is something totally off topic but, in my media class on friday we watched an outdated video on ads and it showed a clip from the Pac man cereal commercial.

Chestnuts roasted by pikachulover @ 04/21/2004 8:08 PM

Purple? chips?
o_o >_< o_0
man the fish should be called fishy McGills….
cant think of anything creative right now cept for spazmoid…

Chestnuts roasted by Allie @ 04/21/2004 9:03 PM

Been trying to post this comment for awhile. I remember a film strip from my elementary school that was an extended version of the Looney Tunes home safety stuff. Perhaps the commercials were excerpts??? There was another filmstrip (that’s pre-DVD and VHS for you young people. Gees, I am not even 25 yet) that dealt with "bad touch." Now, I am sure that I am mistaken but, I have faint memory that Bugs and company were in that one too (!). Surely I am blending my educational films but, does anyone have any insight.
Matt, any word on an article about that "lost" GREMLINS 2 trailer I sent you????

Chestnuts roasted by manimal789 @ 04/21/2004 9:08 PM

Yeah, should be a question mark after "insight." D’oh!

Chestnuts roasted by manimal789 @ 04/21/2004 9:11 PM

ATTENTION Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans, I have a question!

(Of all the places I frequent, this seems the most appropriate place to ask.)

Are you getting the same Pizza Hut campaign in the States that we’re getting in Canada, where, if you make a certain order at Pizza Hut, they’ll include a DVD of either Lost in Space (the 1999 TV retread), Weekend at Bernie’s or the original live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Something about that campaign bothered me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it why but I just had an epiphany… didn’t the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film have product placement for a certain pizza chain in it? That in itself isn’t a problem; I’m a capitalist and everyone’s got to make a buck and I prefer seeing real brand names in movies anyhow, since it adds to the realism (okay, not that realism is that important in a movie with animatronic humanized turtles).

My problem is… if I’m not at all mistaken, wasn’t the pizza chain product placement in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film for… Domino’s? So Pizza Hut is now delivering a film wherein there is essentially a short commercial for their competitors? Did they screen these films in advance before approving them? Or maybe it’s digitally-altered.

(And, yes, I remember that, in the NES adaptation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game, there was product placement for Pizza Hut. That’s why I remember that it was for Domino’s in the movie, because, since the game came later, I was surprised that the Turtles switched their pizza joint allegiances.) :P

Chestnuts roasted by Steve Brandon @ 04/22/2004 12:49 PM

I spent one weekend watching all the transformers episodes i’ve downloaded. Actually saw the headmaster/target masters episodes for the first time. I never even knew they existed.

On a related note to the commercial article: I got a patch of skin that changes freaky colors in warm/cold water (or just in general) got it from an accident I had. I’ll include it on my upcoming action figure.

Chestnuts roasted by Spiffy Mckracken @ 04/22/2004 1:19 AM

No, I’m pretty sure it was pizza hut in the TMNT movie, because they also sponsored the "coming out of our shells" tour if my memory serves. Maybe the Matt that owns this site can verify that…I just remember there being a TMNT giveaway tape at the pizza hut…

Chestnuts roasted by Matt Obscure @ 04/22/2004 3:20 AM

No, it was definitely Domino’s in the movie, because I remember how odd it was that they switched EVERYTHING(games, music tour, whatever) to Pizza Hut after that…

About TF: Season 3, very good way of putting it, Matt. Best I’ve ever heard. Personally, I like the post-movie opening songs better than pre. Be neat if you tossed up the openings to the first few seasons of TF from Japan. Strange stuff… Season 3 there is TF 2010…

Steve Brandon: Glad to see someone else doesn’t adhere to this country’s whole obsession with the word "pop." Tell me, though, do you call Snickers and stuff "candy bars" or "chocolate bars." My wife insists on chocolate bars, which is hard to argue given the general narrow-mindedness the candy up here seems to have… stuff like Pay Days, which have no chocolate in them whatsoever(that I can tell) are near impossible to find…

LBD "Nytetrayn"

Chestnuts roasted by Lord Black "Nytetrayn" Draco @ 04/22/2004 7:36 AM

LBD "Nytetrayn:"

Down here in Texas, we call soft drinks "Coke." Even Dr. Pepper is referred to as "coke."

I also think "pop" is a very annoying word to use to refer to soft drinks.

And it should be "Candy Bar" Not "Chocolate Bars"

Chestnuts roasted by Cameron @ 04/22/2004 8:29 AM

I’ll just say this about your fry drama…
I think the purple fries increase the popularity of the green and purple ketchup.

Speaking of commercials above, is there anywhere online where I can download the Thick Dairy Queen Blizzard one from last summer with the two ‘dudes’ DJing a beatbox hip hop scratch?

Chestnuts roasted by AngeFaitore @ 04/22/2004 9:01 AM

"I wish I wasn’t potatoes."

No one line has ever made me weep so much in my life.

I named my pleco’ after some greek god (always thought plecostomous sounded greek to me). Well, I’m not sure it was greek, it was one of the characters in clash of the titans ^ ^

Never had any problems with him in my tank though (150 gallon ocatagon tank) but I also stocked mine with aggressive fish. If you want to add some cool flavor to your tank though, try getting an Apacu, it’s a toothless pianah that grows to immense sizes. I’ve had mine for almost a year and he could probubly feed an ethopian family for a few months.

Also, that bugs bunny commercial was complete tits, totally forgot about that from when I was a kid. Just one question though, where’s the Hi-C bendy straw commercial at?

Chestnuts roasted by Toxikfoxx @ 04/22/2004 9:24 AM

The touching story of what it’s like to be a potato, facing the inevitability of either being eaten or thrown in the trash, reminded me of this… thing: http://www.monkeon.co.uk/potato/

Chestnuts roasted by Aaron @ 04/22/2004 9:39 AM

So, uh, is Pizza Hut gonna superimpose their brand pizza over every Domino’s image in the movie?… that would RAWK! I think I hear the Noid laughing in the background.

Right on, Cameron! It’s fun trying to explain to people outside the South that "Coke" means soft drink… See, this is how it works:

Person 1: "You want a Coke?"
Person 2: "Sure."
Person 1: "Ok, what would you like? We’ve got Coke, Sprite, and Dr. Pepper."

Isn’t that AWESOME?!

Chestnuts roasted by Nachokhaki @ 04/22/2004 10:01 AM

Great commercials..well rounded variety there. Shaddow ninjas were lame…and had kung fu action..i still have my storm shaddow one some wheres. His arms twirled as a spinning attack…its gay.

As for the he-man pics…battle damage he-man proves my theory that he-man loved the cock.

Chestnuts roasted by chris the drunk @ 04/22/2004 2:28 PM

Steve Brandon: It doesn’t matter that the pizza that was delivered to Mikey was Domino’s, because if you remember…the pizza guy was late and Mikey got it for cheaper. That was showing us that we could rip Domino’s off if we ordered pizza from a sewer. Now they don’t have the thirty minutes or less shpeel, so the turtles moved on to pizza hut where the pizza is better anyways.

Chestnuts roasted by Lonewolf @ 04/22/2004 2:32 PM

Actually, to be perfectlyt honest, I knew that it was Domino’s in the movie because I looked it up prior to typing all that out, I just phrased it as a question because I wanted to point out the total absurdity of Pizza Hut delivering a film with a blatant Domino’s ad written into the plot, and didn’t want to come across as being too much of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles authority. And I think it’s funnier to phrase that sort of thing like a question. Unless all the reviews I read were wrong when they mentioned product placement.

Lord Black "Nytetrayn" Draco: I’m a "chocolate bar" guy. "Candy bar" just seems weird, since, while I accept chocolate as a category of candy, "candy bar" just brings to mind sweet confections in a bar format without the cocoa bean in its list of ingredients, and the only non-chocolate candy I can think of offhand available in bar format in most Canadian convenience stores is Macintosh toffee.

On a related note, I remember reading an article a year or so ago about European Union bureaucrats getting into a snit with Nestlé because many of their former Rowntree brands like Aero and Smarties (the real Smarties, not the American candy of the same name produced by the Cee-Dee Candy company) are milk chocolate and not pure chocolate, not counting the black Aero which is pure chocolate, so they didn’t want Nestlé calling them "chocolate"… I don’t know if they ever got anywhere with that and if Nestlé has to advertise their confections as "candy bars" in Britian now.

Chestnuts roasted by Steve Brandon @ 04/22/2004 4:33 PM

Steve> Crazy shit, man… reminds me of those jokes you hear from some stand-ups about women and colors… "It’s not red! It’s ‘maroon’!"

I prefer candy bar country, ‘cuz I likes my Pay Days and living beyond the boundaries of the cocoa bean.

Nachokhaki> I spent 21 years of my life growing up in the South(NC to be precise), and all that time I thought people were just ignorant. This is certainly enlightening…

…then again, whenever I ask for a Coke here in Toronto, I get the same question. Sigh. Wouldn’t bother me so much except I hate having to repeat myself.

LBD "Nytetrayn"

Chestnuts roasted by Lord Black "Nytetrayn" Draco @ 04/23/2004 9:23 AM

*Wife to me on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning when I should be outside doing Spring cleaning*: "What are you doing?"… Me: "I’m downloading a Bug’s Bunny commercial."

Curse the speed of dial-up! She had the opportunity to interrupt me three times before I finished.

Regarding the Bugs Bunny PSA, all I can say is "goosebumps". I always considered myself pretty immune to PSA’s and cartoon horror, but man, that morphing pot STILL gives me the heebie-jeebies. The sound of the rattling potlid doesn’t help. Too effective.

I believe that PSA was one of the immortal Mel Blanc’s last voice-over gigs before he passed on to his greater reward.

When I was very young, I noticed that the WB cartoons showed only one entry under the closing credits "Voice Characterizations": Mel Blanc. And I had wondered why no one else ever got "credit" for any of the other voices. I assumed he was the "bigshot" and the other people who did the other voices were underlings.

Little did I realize that with few exceptions, there WERE no underlings doing the voices, he did all the voices in the tooncast…."The Man of a Thousand Voices."….Hmph. WB probably saved a bundle on salaries and benefits by using one guy to do all the voices.

Little known fact: Larry Storch (Agarn from F Troop) did a lot of cartoon voices also, but no matter who he did, he always sounded like Agarn. If you closed your eyes during one of his voiced cartoons, you’d think there was only one schizophrenic cartoon character.

I believe Mel’s son Noel has followed in his father’s footsteps and has done some Looney Tunes voices.

Many, many thanks for this trip down memory lane…………..… Er, make that FOUR interruptions.

And please make my day. Please find the Fluffernutter commercial. The tune was a classic, not to mention the sweet sandwich itself. You might start another cult with this one.

And the Drake’s Fruit pie commercial. The one that starts with the 50′s acapella-style rappers singing "Gooooooood………Gooooooood……Also, the same ringleader guy sang a Papermate Pen commercial: Write-on brothers, write-on……he had a great voice.

And the gum with the liquid center, I forget the name, but a gorgeous blonde comes up with "I didn’t Know" as part of the refrain about not knowing the "gum" (nudge, nudge. Say no more. Say no more ) was loaded. I’d marry that blonde if I found her today.

Chestnuts roasted by ibinsomniac @ 04/23/2004 10:59 PM

In regards to your new commercial article (or however new it is), you state "There were several versions of Voltron through the years — some made of cheaper plastic, others with vehicles replacing the lions". This is both true and false (don’t know if you have had a voltron tirade yet, so this is just my two cents). Yes, there were several material differances of the lion voltron over the years, however, the lion voltron (Voltron 3) never significantly varied. There were, to my knowledge, three total voltron incarnations. The first was one you briefly mentioned as "cars replacing lions". This had a short lived american cartoon debut (though whether voltron 1 actually released stateside before or after voltron 3, I can’t say). This voltron had a series of cars and space ships, and the final combonation of vehicles (the ultimate last ditch move) was when a sleek red spaceship docked on the chest of the megolith (it looked rather like the prototype planes they develop nowadays that can fly to Alpha Centuri and back if they could just get physics to stand still). -continued

Chestnuts roasted by Jason Braaten @ 04/24/2004 5:02 PM

the second incarnation of Voltron came with an even briefer american release than the first. It was rather simple (which is likely why it didn’t last). It was three Mech’s (yeah, I know…I am cross-cartoon-contaminating), that combined together to be one large six armed robot. There were toy releases of all of these voltron incarnations (as you acknowledged), but the lions seemed to pack a little more punch with kids and marketing experts.

Chestnuts roasted by jason braaten @ 04/24/2004 5:05 PM

A little late, but…
I remember the Bugs PSA- it freaked me out when I was little, but it wasn’t that bad. I was a little uneasy, though.

And those fries make me ill just thinking about them. Ugh. (But not as bad as Jimmy Neutron’s other fries…) Why does everything have to be all wacky? My friends and I still would not have eaten crazy ketchup (catsup?) or fries, etc. when we were little.

Chestnuts roasted by Rainbowfeet @ 04/24/2004 11:13 PM

If it seems like that Bugs Bunny PSA ends abruptly, what they actually did was take a longer educational film and edit it down into several 30 and 60 second spots for TV. There was also one with Daffy Duck testing the smoke alarms, and Tweety in the bathroom warning that "Scalding hot water can burn in less than THREE SECONDS!!!" I swear, I remember when this came out, and the Shriners trotted out Mel himself on some LOCAL talk show to plug it.

Chestnuts roasted by Evil Colonel @ 04/25/2004 11:46 PM

Finally, Goggles has come back to the XE blog! I’m sure you’ve all been on the edge of your seats wondering what happened to Goggles, right…ahem, right? Anyway, i’ve been in the process of relocating to a new job over the past couple months. I’m a copy editor for a newspaper now, and Matt, when my plans to take over the paper are finally put into motion the first thing i’ll do is get the XE print article. Great commercials article. The Hulk ad is priceless, as was the line: "I still can’t believe God didn’t hand the reigns over to Hulk Hogan after seeing this." To this day, on the rare occasion I cook something, I always turn my pot handles inward because of that Bugs PSA. Great stuff.

Chestnuts roasted by Goggles Pisano @ 04/26/2004 12:11 PM

Yup, Smiles have been around up here (Canada, of course) for a few years. They’re kinda weird; not quite fries as much as mashed-type potatoes in a crispy/soggy (depending on how long you like to cook them) batter…something…? They’re not bad. A little dry, though.

As for fish, I have a currently empty 25 gallon or so tank and I hope to fill it up someday. I definitely want an algae eater and maybe some of those little guys that look like eels/snakes. You know…those striped things.

I once had a goldfish that lived for 4.5 years. Haven’t had any live nearly that long since. I suppose you’ve had some that lived longer than that, huh Matt?

Chestnuts roasted by Ripplin @ 04/26/2004 1:33 PM

wow yo i hate you

Chestnuts roasted by caillou @ 05/04/2004 9:13 AM

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2004 at 1:22 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.