Captain Sturdy: The Originals | July 6, 2003 - 11:30 PM | Special
The least-thought-about Adult Swim special of all time, maybe. Captain Sturdy actually began life as a Cartoon Network What-A-Cartoon. That episode is titled “Back in Action” and this is a direct follow-up, more-or-less. It truly is a second attempt at a pilot as the drawing style and the characters have been tweaked slightly, but it does show a progression in the story of Captain Sturdy. In the first installment, his pension check stops showing up after his super-hero union raises the retirement age so they can pilfer the pension fund and build a new high-tech super-hero hang-out building. This context actually does enhance this installment, which just starts with the elderly Captain Sturdy just throwing himself into superheroics. One might assume he’d just never retired.
I’m not a huge fan of the animation style which was more-or-less the house style of most Cartoon Network originals, but I do think it can be done well. Really, it’s not my intention to trash that Cartoon Network style. Despite not being my favorite, there are still shows and directors and moments that make use of it well. You know what I mean? That late-90s/early-2000s intentionally-cheap-but-hopefully-still-beautiful-and-stylistic kinda thing they did that *sorta* harkens back to the Hanna Barbera cartoons of a bygone era but, you know, animated even more cheaply and usually on computers? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I thought the first short was kinda ugly but had some very specific stylistic choices that I respected. There are individual shots that are pretty impressive. For example, that first short ends with an evil robot destructo-beam satellite that looks like something out of Samurai Jack. The humor is okay for a kids show, and honestly that’s about all I can say. The second pilot was billed as a sincere attempt to rejigger the show for an adult audience but there’s not much difference between either version. This short ends kinda anti-climatically, with them fighting with an equally elderly villain in his garage mostly over a misunderstanding. This show is almost like if Venture Bros. didn’t improve after the pilot. In fact, the first pilot gets into a lot of the bureaucratic nonsense that Venture Bros. eventually gets into with the Guild of Calamitous Intent stuff. If I’m being honest, that’s not my favorite stuff in Venture Bros., either.
The most notable exclusion between the first and second pilot is a PC-MAN character, who wimpily scolds his more fascistic colleagues for being insensitive. In 2021 my inner-edgelord is definitely unironically fed up with political correctness, sure, but this kind of satire seems like the domain of unfunny garbage makers like The Babylon Bee. I’m not even sure if I can recall how fresh this would’ve seemed in 2000. Most modern, right-leaning jokes about woke culture look terrible when you compare it to stuff like PC-Man; they are PRACTICALLY EXACTLY THE SAME EXACT JOKES. Personally, I don’t wanna make hating politically correct retards my whole identity. Just learn how to steal the blackface episodes of your favorite shows, put them on a Plex server and shut the fuck up about it.
MAIL BAG
Continuing a thread from last night’s big bad mail bag:
Close! But it's SEA not See. Here's question 2: The color of Master Shake's milkshake is?
It’s like, bad. I remember it being a bad color. What do I win
Try this number 1-800-CALL-A-HOE, If you hear yourself on the other line, then you are da hoe.
Why did you send this twice! I’m starting to think that YOU are the one who is... the hoe
I have some genuine dirt on a certain adult swim personality but I don't feel comfortable sharing except through a code: "68 61 62 65 75 73 20 63 6f 72 70 75 73 20 68 61 72 76 65 79 20 61 74 74 6f 72 6e 65 79 0a" copy that code into a Hex To ASCII Text generator and find out and tell me if you think it's true.
YOU PISS ME OFF! STOP IT! nobody follow this guy’s instructions (You can tell it’s a GUY too no WOMAN would ever stoop to such lows). You make me sick. That’s all there is too it, okay?
What classic era Cartoon Network programs did you like? I liked Johnny Bravo and Dexter but never watched Cow and Chicken. Courage and Ed, Edd, and Eddy were past my "cartoon for kids" prime. You?
You know, I never FULLY got into those shows, I’ll be honest. I was a casual liker of Dexter and Powerpuff Girls and I mostly avoided Bravo but it could be great on occasion. I didn’t get Cartoon Network until real late so before I had it I was beholden to the meager repeats that would air on TNT. I remember liking Cow & Chicken but I think it sucks now. I gave Ed, Edd & Eddy a sincere try but I never liked it that much. I was always impressed with Courage but only saw it randomly.
I did really love 2 Stupid Dogs. Technically this was a TBS original. THAT really hit at the right time age-wise. Way underrated.
From London Arbuckle:
remember the pipe camp episode of tom mayor? remember?
I always thought that episode was one of the weaker ones and was baffled by the fact that they made shirts of it. People liked to say Tommy Mayor was a love-it or hate-it thing but I remembered loving the first episode and hating the second one, making me one of the most valuable thinkers of the 20th century.
