In Which I Establish That I Never Said Five Days IN A ROW Now Did I?: The Five Days Project (Day 3)

To read more about the Five Days Project and how I never said that it would be five days IN A ROW click here.

---

This weeks resolution: I will write blog entries for the next five days (one per day) about whatever my friends post in the comments on my Facebook Page. 

Comment posted by writer/journalist I've never actually had the pleasure of meeting in real life but have worked with on a few occasions now and he seems like a nice guy Marc Dadigan: Favorite 80s cartoons and new insights gained by re-watching them 20 years later

---

Modified this one a bit because I have Netflix and Netflix is this awesome land of plenty where videos go to exist and make you watch things you never thought you wanted to watch (again) until they are there. I am a Netflix subscriber. 

So for this entry I decided that I would watch the cartoons available under the "80's cartoons that will make you wish you were nine again" section that is available on my Netflix page. This is because my daughter likes to watch He-Man and She-Ra (for realz!) because she is awesome. She knows the back stories of the characters and has already decided that she wants to be She-Ra for Halloween next year and that she wants her dad to be He-Man. I am very, very excited to see him in this. (Furry underwear FTW)

What I decided to do was to watch the first five minutes of the first five cartoons available under this heading. I would write my immediate reactions to them and base my judgment off of only those five minutes. Challenge created and accepted. 

---

(5 minutes with) The Super Mario Bros. Super Show (1989): Pizza, check. Checkered table cloths, check. Big mustaches, check. Wassa matta witch you paisanos? Ima Italiano. Here is me Googling what a paisano is. Italian for - "A friend or acquaintance" Also -- "an Independent student run newspaper of the University of Texas at San Antonio established in 1981." 

Learn something new every day. 

(New insights gained by re-watching...five minutes) - Kinda like Jersey Shore, except without tanning, or the gym. Mama Mia! Somebody get that guy a cannoli! 

---

(5 minutes with) Garfield and Friends (1988): This episode is entitled "Identity Crisis." In this episode Garfield probably has an identity crisis. He probably eats lasagna. He probably says something mean to Odie. John probably sighs. There's some sort of deep and meaningful analysis in here about how mean Garfield is to the Dog Catcher. The Dog Catcher essentially represents the authority, the cops, the people sent to make you "do work" or "conform" or "follow the rules." Garfield takes it upon himself to take this authority figure down, why? Because you don't get to tell people what to do and cite them and take them to the pound. Essentially, we must run away from the constraints of society, we must rebel against the man. The Dog Catcher is the man. He's there to catch you and force you into domestication. We must not be forced into domestication. Also, dogs are dummer than cats. 

(New insights gained by re-watching... five minutes) - Heathcliff was better. There, I said it. 

---

(5 minutes with) Jem and the Holograms!: Full disclosure I am a Jem fan. She is truly outrageous, truly, truly, truly outrageous. I can still sing the entire theme song for you. Jem... Jem is excitement. Ooooo Jem... Jem is adventure (Glamour and glitter, fashion and fame!) I'll stop now. But the more you watch Jem the less sense it makes. Take for instance this episode where they are kidnapped (in a previous episode) and are being held as JEM and the Holograms in some warehouse. Jem talks to Synergy (her trusty computer who can conjure up whatever Jem needs as long as it's in Hologram form) and says "Synergy, make it look like the police are coming and also put a tiger in the room." Somehow this confuses the kidnappers who are scared of the tiger and then run out of the warehouse only to think they have been captured by the fake hologram cops. This is when Jem and the Holograms make their escape. However, now they are stuck out in the middle of nowhere and don't know where to go to get back in time for their show! The question becomes "Well, Jem, how come you didn't just ask Synergy to call the real police, who could have come to get you and police escorted you to your real show?" 

This, ahem, is the same question I have when they are stuck on the desert island and everyone is all "how will anybody ever find us, we don't even know where we are?" And there is Jem, talking away with Synergy going "what will we do Synergy if you can't keep up the hologram while we are crash landed on this desert island" but never "Gee Synergy, could you maybe call the coast guard or something and tell them where we are? Cause you are a super computer and everything. I'm sure you can Google Maps it..." 

(New insights gained by re-watching... five minutes): We are the Misfits! Our songs are better! We are the Misfits! (The Misfits) And we're gonna get her! 

(5 minutes with) The Transformers: Optimus Prime is freaking tall. 

Also - whatever that was that Michael Bay tried to pass off as Transformers was NOT Transformers. That movie could NOT capture all that was the glory of the autobots, more than meets the eye. I like Megan Fox in that movie though, because she can fix cars and press her boobs against them at the same time. 

(New insights gained by re-watching...five minutes) Optimus Prime is still the man.. bot... truck... awesome. I don't think I could handle watching the cartoon feature movie where he dies. Spoiler alert... twenty-seven years later.

---

(5 minutes with) GI Joe: First of all, I could sing this entire theme song too if I had to. He's a real American Hero. And he's there. Second of all, why does Scarlet have to wear a leotard? Nobody else has to wear a leotard. And third of all, Duke spends most of his time in these first five minutes sexually harassing Scarlett. 

See at one point there's some big Cobra attack happening so he grabs her right below her boobs and throws her on the ground so he can roll on top of her. She looks at him and says "Hey, why didn't you just yell 'look out!'" Cause, you know, she is a grown GI Joe herself who could probably get away from a fighter jet or two. And Duke just smiles at her and goes "Didn't you hear, I'm a man of action." 

Later he gives her some look when she's climbing out of a fighter jet after she just helped him save the GI Joe base in which he means "you did alright, oh and nice leotard." 

Duke, however, is also given one of the best lines I heard in any show "I'm gonna kick the mustard outta that crazy hot dog." Indeed. 

(New insights gained by re-watching...five minutes): Cobra Comander and Destro are in a relationship... and it's complicated. They definitely have some love for each other, which culminates in them being slightly annoyed with each other. Well mostly Destro. You can tell, he loves that crazy mofo Cobra Commander, and he just wants the guy to take a breath and relax a bit.  Best exchange between potential life partners- bffs - trusty sidekick to your evil overlord happened in the first five minutes of this episode after Destro comes wandering in from the rain into this huge, stone, castle thing that is covered in carved cobras and guarded by cobras with a few cobra accents on the doorknobs and table decorations -- just for ambiance and what not: 

---

Cobra Commander: We are dissssss-apointed. You were expected dayssssss ago Dessssstro.
Destro: The shipment was difficult to assemble and I lost more time climbing to this ridiculously melodramatic location.