Here He Comes to DVD!

I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mighty Mouse on DVD. The classic Terrytoons shorts that were produced in the 1950's and 60's were a major staple of my cartoon diet growing up and I've always loved the little guy. There were a few hard to find releases of the original shorts on VHS, but all-in-all just a handful of the library was ever made available. There were also two other series where Mighty Mouse appeared; The New Adventrues of Mighty Mouse & Heckle and Jeckle produced by Filmation ran for two seasons beginning in 1979, and there was Mighty Mouse The New Adventures which was produced by legendary adult animator Ralph Bakshi which popped up near the end of the 1980's. I love all three versions of the show, none of which have been on television in quite a while. I do have a few segments of each in the ol' VHS collection, however!

It's been reported that a nice deluxe DVD set of the original Mighty Mouse cartoons is scheduled to be released with a brand new CGI-movie that Nickelodeon is producing. In the meantime, in between time, it's just been announced that Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures! is going to show up on shelves on January 5, 2010. My least favorite of the three different shows, it's still a great show with a really warped sense of humor and plenty of jokes thrown at adults to make it even more fun. It will be a welcome addition to my DVD library.

When the show originally aired, some people were uneasy that a Saturday morning cartoon for kids was being produced by a studio that formerly turned out X-rated cartoons. Some media watchdog group accused the show of featuring a scene where Mighty Mouse snorted cocaine even though it was clear he was just smelling a flower. (I've seen the clip, he's smelling a flower!) Besides, why would Mighty Mouse need to do cocaine!? He doesn't need any drugs to beat up cats! He's Mighty Mouse!? Duh!

Classic Commercial Sunday - #8

This has got to be one of the coolest old toys:

The little girl in this ad is a very young Patty Duke.

Five Villans Who Need To Make A Comeback

Times are tough for everybody. Not just us decent hardworking Americans, but the bad guys of the world are feeling the pinch too! I don't know what any of this means but here's another random list of mine...Five bad guys who I'd like to see get back to work:



1) Hordak Everyone remembers Skeletor, but ya never hear anyone evoke the name of Hordak. Hordak was so bad even Skeletor didn't like him. When Hordak wasn't being a pain in Skeletor's side, he was busy trying to enslave She-Ra and the citizens of Etheria. Well, who knows how that all turned out for him but he needs to get some new PR people! I mean, Frank Langella played Skeletor in the 1987 Masters of the Universe and now he's getting critical acclaim for his role in Frost/Nixon...and no one has yet to even play Hordak in a live action film! Let's get on the ball there, Hordak! Stop trying to find Loo-Kee and let's get back to doing that voodo that you do so well!





2) Oil Can Harry Where the heck has good ol' Oil Can Harry been? Well, a quick search on the internet might lead you to believe he opened up a male strip joint in Austin, TX...but I'm hoping that's another fella with the same name. Back in the day, Mighty Mouse was part of our steady diet of before and after school cartoons, and Oil Can Harry was always right there trying to get one over on little Mighty Mouse. Seriously, the kids today with their MTV, iPhones, and sneakers with wheels in them...they don't even know who Mighty Mouse is. Oil Can Harry's been slacking and needs to start making some more giant cat robots or giant pieces of cheese that he hides in and get back to giving Mighty Mouse a run for the ol' opera singing money!



3) Lt. Mauser While other kids my age were soaking in the Star Wars or Indiana Jones films, I was watching and rewatching all of the Police Academy films. There's a special place in my heart for all six of the original films (not the 7th, direct-to-video one). Lt. Mauser was the bad guy in films 2 and 3. All the other films had Lt. Harris as the meanie. I've got nothing against Harris, but how about a little love for Mauser! For crying out loud people, they switched his shampoo with Super Glue and his hands got stuck on his head! If they make another Police Academy film...and oh, for the love of all that is good and delicious in this world - they should, let's see if we can squeeze a little Lt. Mauser into the picture, eh?




4) The Hamburglar Seriously folks, there's nothing more scary than a dude who steals hamburgers!

5) Brain Gremlins is one of my favorite movies. (Have I ever mentioned that before!?) When the sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, came out six years after the original who would have thought it would be just as awesome as the original. While cute little Gizmo stole the show in the first film, it was the mega-smart mutated gremlin Brain that stole the second show. Voiced by the late Tony Randal, Brain led the troupe of mutant gremlins on a New York City rampage that resulted in the death of Leonard Maltin and a giant all-Gremlin musical number. As Mr. Futterman as my witness, if any film franchise deserves another go-round....you can keep Star Trek, Ghostbusters, and all the Superheroes in the world....What the world needs now is Gremlins 3. `Nuf said!