September 27, 2022 • 38 mins
Can Dirk the Daring save the princess? That all depends on your supply of quarters!! The gang discusses Dragon's Lair, based on the cutting-edge laserdisc arcade game! But first, they get all adult-y and talk about a healthy (???) cereal: Raisin Bran! Actually, the healthy part depends on which brand you buy. Listen and find out why!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
It's time to PLoP down in frontof the TV and the way back machine
with a bowl of your favorite cerealto relive the cartoons that made it work.
Waking up early on the weekend,it's the Saturday Morning super Cast.
(00:34):
Good morning, and welcome to theSaturday Morning Supercast. I'm Jeff Corey and
I'm Olivia. Where it's always Saturdaymorning in the cereal bowl is always full.
I forgot that part. Yeah it'sokay, but you guys truck to
idloge. I appreciate it. Thanksfor picking up my slack. We do
the yes and you can just yes, that's true. That's true. I
had to explain to somebody at workyes and concept once. That was fun.
(00:58):
So we are here today to talkabout, if I believe, if
I'm correct, one of Corey's favoritecartoons, at least one that you remember.
Finally, Dragon's Lair, another cartoonbased on a video game. But
first I wanted to talk to youguys about Raisin Brand and the reason we
chose Raisin Brand for a couple ofreasons. We haven't talked about it yet
and it's a mainstay. But Dragon'sLair premiered in what year was it nineteen
(01:25):
eighty four, eighty five, Andin eighty five post reintroduced raisin brand as
natural raisin brand. All right,so I thought that's a good time to
tie it in together because it hitthe shells. And what happened then was
the only thing that changed about theformula was they took the sugar off of
the raisin. So we'll talk aboutthis because we have two types of raisin
(01:48):
brand on the market, Kelloggs RaisinBrand and Post Raisin Brand. I have
a preference. I will not beshocked to find out that neither of you
have a preference, but I'll askanyway, Olivia, do you have a
preference between Kelloggs Raisin Brand or PostRaisin Brand. And for those listening at
home, if you're confused, Kelloggsis the one with the sun, the
little sunny. The sun is theirmascot and Post Raisin brand doesn't really have
(02:08):
a mascot because it's for adults.Jeff, you are correct. I do
not have a preference between raisin brandsbecause in general, though I do occasionally
dabble in quotes, adult cereals,a grown up cereals, raisin brand is
(02:31):
just never on the palette. Forme, It's one of those things that
if I was staying at somebody's houseand we were running out the door quick
and we needed to eat something,and they said, oh, I only
have a raisin brand? Is thatokay, sure, not a problem.
I'll eat anything. But in termsof like, am I seeking it out?
(02:54):
Am I buying it? And muchmore even more so, am I
buying name brand? The answer toall of those collectively, no, No,
okay, what about you? Doyou have a preference between the two
or do you even eat either one? Very often? A man, I
don't even touch them. I ain'tgot no time for him. Do you
(03:15):
just not? Do you not likeraisins or I like raisins? I just
have never cared for the combination?Interesting? Yes, okay, well this
is this is well, this willshock no one. I have a preference
because raisin brand. I actually,Raisin Brand is probably one of my favorite
cereals because it's one of the fewthat I can eat and I feel like
I've had a meal. It's like, if I ever have cereal for dinner,
(03:38):
chances are it's Raisin Brand. BecauseI eat a bowl and again I
feel like I've had a meal.Now I prefer Post Raisin brand because they
don't add sugar to the raisins.If you go back and eat Kellogg's Raisin
brand as an adult, it's likeyou're eating raisin flavored candy with the brand
flakes, because the sugar is justcaked on there. And in fact,
(03:59):
it is so bad that in nineteenninety one, Kelloggs complained that the guidelines
for the USDA Supplemental Assistance Whip Programdidn't allow for the purchase of Kelloggs Raisin
brand because it contained too much sugar. It currently has seventeen grams of sugar
per cup, which is a highercontent of sugar than Lucky Charms, Reese's
Puffs, and Cocoa crispies. Thatis significant, Yes, And I would
(04:24):
never have assumed it was that high. Oh it is. It's bad.
Uh and uh, Like I said, the last time I had, someone
was like, well it was onsales, So like, I'll get the
Kelloggs. It's you know, it'sall the same. I get home,
I'm like, oh, this isnot the same. Again. It's not
not awful, but I always adda little bit of equal or splendor or
something to mine anyway, And WhenI did that, I was like,
oh, this is this is likeeating candy. Uh and uh, and
(04:46):
I do. I don't like raisinsby themselves. I like oatmeal raisin cookies,
but that's that and raisin brand arepretty much the only time I will
eat raisins. So and I'm kindof on that camp because I'm one of
those people that struggles with raisin trustissues. Raisins are okay in specific places.
(05:10):
I am okay with raisins in coldcereal, though I prefer if it
wasn't just raisins maybe if it wasbalanced out with some other things as well.
I'm okay with raisins in hot oatmeal, I'm okay with raisins in a
granola bar, in a trail mix. I draw a hard line though it
raisins in baked goods. And soif you've ever been in a gift shop
(05:35):
and seeing signs or gift items thatsay cookies like cookies that look like chocolate
chip but are actually raisin or thereason why I have trust issues that that
type of saying like that, thatis I am the consumer for that that
(05:55):
choky so um. And and actuallyto the point where my father and I
have a running joke where he andI want to collaborate on a cookbook called
Ruin It with Raisins trademark trademark,don't y'all go out there and steal it
from me? And the point ofthe cookbook is it's it's kind of a
(06:18):
reverse cookbook. We're going to takelike we would take famous recipes with raisins
and instead offer you a selection ofoptions. Literally anything bought raisins that is
probably going to improve it. Okay, yep, So yeah, Raisins are
(06:41):
a fanicky thing growing up in thebrief household because they could be in certain
places, but they could not appearin others, and so they're a limited
use item basically, yes, yes, all right, good to know.
And Corey, what did you dealwith raisins? Do you do you like
(07:03):
raisins? Okay? Or yeah?I absolutely love raisins. The only thing
I don't like him in is likepotato salad. But otherwise yet trail mix
on their own and potato salad.Yeah, it's a white person thing from
what I've heard, Um, thatis an abomination, right, I have
heard, I've heard tell of this. I'm just thankfully never experienced it.
(07:23):
Yeah, thank thankfully I haven't either. Um, no, I'll take I'll
take Raisins anytime. But you don'tlike Raisin brand? Don't like Raisin brand?
Is there a reason do you not? Is it the brand part of
it that you don't care for?Or I just I didn't like the taste
and I you know, and itstuck with me and I've just never gone
back to uh to try it outagain. All right, So a childhood
(07:46):
trauma that you've never been able toovercome. I understand that, correct,
We can all understand that I'm workingthrough it. So this is interesting.
I think this is the well,this is not the first time I've liked
to see real it now that oneof you have really cared for, um,
and it will be the last,right do you? So? I
think we've discussed this before. Corey, where do you stand on wheaties?
I don't care for him. Okay, wheat checks if it's in like like
(08:11):
a mixt mix, yeah, allday, all right, But but just
brand on its own, you're justnot a fan of it, seems like
as well. Yeah, okay,So if I get it, it's brand,
not the Raisin's interesting brand, well, brand a brand flake by itself.
It's a very specific um gosh,it's a very specific grain type of
(08:35):
flavor. Um. I like Ilike brand with malts, but there's no
sweetness balanced with the malt. Andit's which now makes it sound like I'm
homebrewing. But um it, no, I get it. I get it.
Um. If I were to haveraisin brand, uh post natural raisin
(08:56):
brand, um, I might,I might throw a little spoon shake of
sugar over the top just to smooththings along. Well, and I do
as well, And that's that's whatand it just it tastes good to me
that that is just a perfect combo. We put a little bit of a
bit of sugar, a little bitsweetener in with it, and it's perfect.
And again it's it's it's very fillingto me. So uh. There's
(09:16):
also Total has their own raisin brandas well, but it's just Total with
raisins in it. I'm reminded ofthe a bit on Family Guy where they
had a whale staying with him andhe says, do you have any raisin
brand? Peter says, oh,we got Total, We got raisins.
You can put them together. It'dbe like raisin brand Wilts it'd be like
Raisin brand, but it's not Raisinbrand. Can you go get me some
(09:39):
Peter Counters with what times your flight? Again? But I did want to
give folks a little bit of backgroundon the history of Raisin Brand because I
find this kind of interesting and maybeyou will as well. Skinners, the
Skinner Manufacturing Company, was the firstcompany to produce a Raisin brand cereal in
nineteen twenty six, and for seventeenyears they had ownership over the product its
(10:00):
name until Kellogg's and Post began tosell their own versions of Raisin Brand,
and, of course, with concernsabout losing money within grocery store sales,
Skinner filed a cease and desist orderin attempt to keep ownership over the Raisin
Brand product. The name Raisin Brandwas at one time trademark best Skinner,
but in nineteen forty four, theUS Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
found that the name Raisin Brand couldnot be appropriated as a trademark because quote
(10:22):
a name which is merely descriptive ofthe ingredients, qualities, or characteristics of
an article of trade cannot be appropriatedas a trademark, and the exclusive use
of it afforded legal protection. Interesting, So it's it's they're they're basically saying,
they're just saying what it is.It's just their version of this.
I guess it would be like trademarkingoatmeal, sure, big meal of them.
(10:43):
So I find interesting because I've I'venever heard of Skinner's raisin brand,
and I'm assuming the Skinner Manufacturing companyis no more because I've never heard of
them, and if they are stillaround, they are probably very, very
small. The serials vitamin D threesupplementation is made from lannel, which is
an animal product, rendering it asa non vegan breakfast cereal, so everybody
(11:03):
beware. And then we already wealready talked about the the sugar content in
it. So yeah. Research suggestedeating commercially produced raisin brand containing sugared raisins
produces acid, which can lead tocavities, while homemade raisin brand created by
adding plain unsugared raisins to brand flakes, produces less of this acid. So
if you're going to have one,it sounds like the post unsugared raisin version
(11:26):
is probably a little bit healthier.Well, and I will say that I
was very amused though by the postmerchandising with well or the post advertising I
should say with John Denver. Ohyeah, you can't get more wholesome than
(11:46):
John Denver. Nope. Meanwhile,Kelloggs, you know are they're famous for
saying two scoops of raisin in everyraisins in every box. And the science
created quarterly A fifty found that afifteen ounce box of Kelloggs raisin brand contains
between two hundred and one and twohundred and forty one raisins, which led
to the conclusion that a scoop containsroughly one hundred two one hundred and twenty
raisins. Now, you know,I feel like that's kind of a skimpy
(12:09):
scoop. I don't know that's Imean, you think about it, one
hundred raisins. It seems reasonable tome in a fifteen ounce box. It's
a smallish box. So yeah,exactly. So I think that's all there
is to say about raisin brands.So probably more than there is to say
about raisin brand. But interesting thatI'm a fan. You guys don't really
care for it. M interesting.So we'll take a short break. We'll
(12:33):
be back to discuss dragons Lair.Okay, so Dragons Lair. This is
not the first cartoon that we've discussedit's based on a video game, but
it is the first one that mightactually look worse than the video game.
Yeah, unfortunately, anybody not familiar. Dragons Lair was an arcade game produced
(12:56):
by Don Bluth, who started outas a Disney animator and struck out on
his own as a very specific style. You can always tell a Don Bluth
yea product. I love it hisanimation. I think it's gorgeous. The
art style and the animation is gorgeous. The video game is what's called a
twitch game, so it's it's completelysell animated like you would see in a
(13:18):
feature film, and it is gorgeous. It was. It was used to
used a laser disc in the arcademachine, your arcade cabinet, and it
costs like fifty cents to play,so it was double the price of most
video games. I never played it, but I used to watch my friend
Turtle play it all the time,and basically I say it was a twitch
game because you would follow the storyalong and at certain points you would have
to hit a button to go leftor right or or something along those lines
(13:41):
right, Corey. Yeah, youcould go left or right, and then
it was just a single big redbutton to jump or whatever and whatever the
action required. It's it's is nowquick time events in a video game,
okay. Yeah, and it's allabout timing. So I don't I never
saw anybody even remotely far into thegame. What about Yukory, Yeah,
(14:03):
I've seen the end. I've neverreached it myself, but I've seen people
do it. Several years ago thePlayStation network you could buy for like two
or three dollars. There was becausethey did dragons Layer and they released Space
Ace a year or so later.You could buy them and you could watch
a branching version of the game whereyou would go from start to finish successfully.
That's the only way I've ever seeneither one. Okay, and it
(14:24):
lasts, you know, a goodten fifteen minutes. It was a decent,
decent amount of time. But againit looked gorgeous. Yeah, so
of course it came out of nineteeneighty three, so they immediately decided to
do a cartoon version of it,which Ruby Spears produced, and it ran
for thirteen episodes from September eighth ofnineteen eighty four to April twenty seventh of
(14:46):
nineteen eighty five on ABC, andthen of course you know ran and reruns
or repeats. I never saw thisas a kid. I saw a few
episodes as an adult years ago,and then of course watched a couple of
episodes in preparation for the show.So that's my experience. We'll start with
Olivia first. What is Do youhave any experience with the show? Did
you watch it when it was onthe first time or was it before your
(15:09):
time? Yeah, very little priorexperience. In its initial airing in eighty
four eighty five, I would havebeen about four years old, so yeah,
little, a little too young forthat first airing. I am vaguely
familiar with it in the sense of, you know, watching through a few
(15:31):
episodes. I was like, oh, yeah, okay, there's little shreds
and bits that seemed familiar. Butin terms of having, you know,
watched episodes or remembering plotlines or anyof that, I was largely a blank
slate, all right, and itwas like, I guess it waspience the
same for me. I think Ihad seen two or three episodes and knew
(15:52):
the basic plot and the basic vibeof it and that was about it.
So Corey, you're you're sort ofthe fane here. So first off,
how much experience do you have withthe game. Did you ever spend your
quarters on or or did you justwatch other people? Boy? No,
I probably dropped, you know,back in that time at least like fifty
sixty bucks between dragons Layer and SpaceAce. Those are my two go to
(16:14):
games. It was even to thepoint where, I guess last year they
released a mini cabinet of dragons Layer. Oh yeah, you could play it
on and I bought that, andso I still play that every now and
then, but it mostly sits onmy bookcase. But I absolutely loved the
video games. I thought they wereamazing. Oh and they are. They
really are very much ahead of theirtime, very rudimentary now, like you
(16:37):
talked about, it's sort of flashanimation now. But yeah, it looked
gorgeous. No, So when theTV show came out, was it something
that you just jumped on because youwere such a fan of the game.
Heck? Yeah, okay, Andso I'm assuming as a kid you probably
liked it, okay, but asan adult your mileage is varied a little
bit. Yeah, I remember enjoyingit greatly as a kid, and then
(16:57):
when I rewatched a couple of episodesfor this as we'll get into that,
the animation was really subpar, andhonestly, I think the probably the writing
was on par with what the gameoriginally was, but I I just did
not hold the nostalgia for me likeI thought it may have. And I
(17:18):
think you're absolutely right about the writingis definitely I won't say the writing is
not a problem, but the writingis not the big the biggest problem I'll
have here. I did watch.I watched the first episode. You can
watch most of the episodes on YouTubefor free. You can also buy the
episodes digitally on iTunes or anywhere,and you can probably get them on DVD
I think from Warner Archive a printon demand. Um So. As we
(17:41):
mentioned, the show was produced byRuby Spears. It was based on Dragons
there by Rick Dyer and Don Bluth. The voices we had Dirk the Daring
was voiced by Bob Sarlatta, PrincessDaphanie by Ellen Gerstell. M King either
Hard was voiced by Fred Travelina,who who was an actor that I know,
but nobody else really seems to know. Oh, Fred's great and a
(18:03):
hell of an impressionist. Yes,uh he. In fact, I believe
he was the sound alike for JoePesci for years for TV and aeroplanes,
especially for Goodfellas. Timothy was voicedby Michael Mish Singe. The Dragon was
voiced by Arthur Berghart, the Great, Peter Cullen versus a voice Bertram the
(18:25):
Horse, and Sir Hubert Blunt.And Clive revel who was the voice of
the who Believe the Emperor in TheEmpire's Tracks back originally and was a voice
for the Emperor was the storyteller.Arthur Berghart is an actor that did a
lot of soaps. He also voicedDevastator on Transformers, Destro and Stalker,
and Iceberg on Gi Joe. Thatthat's where I know him from, right.
(18:47):
And Ellen gerstelluh did did a lotof stuff. She had a voice
on Jem for Jem on Holograms anddid some anime work as well. I
believe so, yeah, Fred Trevelina, you might all so, I believe.
No, that was Dave Thomas.Never mind, I can always get
Fred traveling and Dave Thomas confused,especially like early to mid eighties Fred Traveling
(19:08):
and Dave Thomas because I look alot alike. Okay, um, I
was gonna say he was in stripes, but he was not. That was
Dave Thomas and stripes as EMC atthe mud wrestling thing. But yeah,
Fred Travelina once did a split screenimpression of John Lennon and Paul McCartney,
like in the same bit. Yeah, he's he's like you said, he's
he's great. He's a great impressionist. So yeah. The first episode is
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called The Tale of the Enchanted Gift, where Dirk has to find the perfect
gift for Princess Daphne's birthday, andthat's the one that I watched most recently.
Um so we also had Certimothy's Quest, Tournament of the Phantom Night,
which I couldn't find but sounds likea lot of fun, The Smithy's Haunted
Armor, The Pool of Youth,The Story of Old Alf and I'm assuming
that's not one from l Nix now, The Song of the Chimes, The
(19:56):
Girl from Crowswood Mirror Mirror this whichthe Tale of Dirk's New Sword, The
Legend of the Giant's Name, andthe Mist of Wishes, which also sounds
interesting and for most of the episodes, it's Dirk was trying to do something
and sends the dragon was constantly causingproblems, and all of his sending his
little minions after Dirk to try toeither Waylaham or kidnap the princess or what
(20:19):
have you. That's pretty much atright, Corey, Yeah, pretty much
every single one. Okay, So, which is you know, pretty common
for Saturday morning cartoons of this type. So Olivia, let's start with you.
Since you didn't have any experience withit, did you have any key
takeaways from the show as you watchedit? For this recording, I found
the plot mines and of voice acting, because in general this is a pool
(20:47):
of talented performers with experience. Ifound the voice acting much less irritating as
I did with some other kind offantasy see based shows in particular like Dungeons
and Dragons. Um, so thisthis was a little more pleasing to the
ear and accessible for me in thatway. Um visually, Uh, there
(21:12):
are issues, and I'm going tolet y'all tear into that because I know
you have more more vested in that. Yeah, Corey's definitely get more skin
in the game on this one.Yeah, yeah. Um, I will
say the I do feel like themusic holds up. Oh yeah, um.
(21:33):
And the music was done by umJohn Dabney, which I recognize as
well. Yeah, um, whohas done a lot of television scoring uh
Star Trek, Next Gen, DeepSpace Nine, SeaQuest, but has also
done some uh not just in thefantasy realm, but like has also done
(21:59):
like Cagney and Lacy for um,let's see what else? Oh, animated
Police Academy series which we did,well, we can't talk of that was
that was That was a first roundsyndication. I still want to talk about
that show though. A good filmstuff like a Passion of the Christ,
Bruce almighty elf. He had ahand in you know, Spy Kids.
(22:22):
He's done a lot of stunt manhe's the Iron all the Iron Man films
as well. He's worked with JohnFavro quite a bit. Yeah. An
Academy Award nomination too for Passion.So again a heavy hitter here as well.
Yeah, yeah, so did did. It's got some legit credits.
Um, no surprise that uh.He worked uh quite a bit in his
(22:48):
younger years with Hohyte Curtin. Ohright, of course, who didn't Yeah,
of Hannah Barbara Family. Well,all the smart people did. I'll
put it that way, because theman was a crack composer. M um
but um. Anyway, yeah,I think the music is one of the
(23:08):
most enjoyable elements of this for me. Well, I would also like to
mention he did the music for hocusPocus and also did the score for hocus
Pocus Too, which is coming uplater this year. Corey's very excited about
that one too. So yeah,some some really really exciting people that are
involved here. And you're right,Olivia. The voice acting, for the
(23:30):
most part, I was a littleannoyed with Princess Daphne, but that's more
the way the character was portrayed andless the voice risingly listenable. Um.
And and I guess yeah, itjust it seemed like they were actually,
you know, at least taking thework seriously, um to an extent.
But and and you know, wetalked about the you know, the the
(23:52):
animation, and I'll say the animationis not great, but the art style
I have no problem with because itdoes if you're looking at a still frame,
if you're not looking at the depthof the frame, it does look
like what we saw in the gamefor the most part, wouldn't you agree,
Corey, Yes, it does,but it's just that you know,
that toned down, bare bones SaturdayMorning cartoon animation just really makes it suffer,
(24:19):
especially if you go in expecting itto look like the game. So
Corey, when you were a kid, you mentioned that she liked it because
we had characters like the Lizard King, the Giddygoons, and the Mudman.
So that stuff is like Taylor madefor kids. So as an adult,
what did you find? Was thereanything specific that still worked for you?
(24:41):
I think overall for a fantasy cartoonit was fine. I think, knowing
that the Arcade game as well asI do, and seeing as you said,
the stripped down animation that they didsimply so they could crank it out
fast, it hurts the overall product. But were I think, were you
not familiar with the original video game, you probably wouldn't have noticed that much
(25:07):
or familiar with the other down blueoutings. But yeah, I watched it
again. Um, it was funand it was cute, But they're like
we have found with many of thecartoons around the mid eighties, there was
not just there was not a lotof substance to it. It was just
(25:27):
to make a quick buck, tosell a couple of couple of action figures,
and that was about it. Now, to counter what Corey just said,
I am not at all familiar withthe video game, have not played
it at all, not familiar withits visuals. That being said, I
still watched this also with a blankslate, and still recognized that the animation
(25:53):
was a bit of a crap sandwich. So it's not hard to notice when
you have a discerning eye like youdo. And while and I had a
and I you know what, Iwill say this, I have learned a
lot from doing this podcast, becauseI would say that would be a thing
I would never have really noticed orhonestly cared that much about before. And
(26:15):
now I can watch fifteen minutes ofa cartoon I barely remember existing from my
childhood and see a moment in Idon't remember if this was episode one or
two, but the characters are standIt doesn't even matter who really characters.
(26:40):
Characters are standing in the woods likea true Saturday Morning cartoon creator. Yeah,
people are standing in the woods andlittle gobliny things are gonna like throw
ropes around the guy and tie themup. And we got to that point
it was it was done. AndI'm gonna guess maybe like, um,
(27:03):
a couple of frames really, becauseit was like, you know, two
steps for them to just put upbe standing next to him and then just
chucking the ropes around him and thenhim instantly just kind of freezing standing there,
going oh, because to fight toresist would necessitate animation. So yeah,
(27:30):
that that was. It was likethe little moments like that that I
could I could watch and think tomyself, Oh, that's a shame.
That's a shame. Right. Sogoing back to Corey, what is something
that struck out that stuck out toyou watching it as an adult? Was
there anything that worked for you ina different way than it did when you
(27:51):
were a kid that still worked butjust kind of kind of for a different
reason. No, I think itjust it still worked because it's still fantasy.
It's still you know, like dungeonsand Dragons. That was very much
into just the high fantasy of it, and that still works. That still
holds, and it's fun to listento Peter Cullen doing something other than optimist
(28:14):
Prime and you know, it wasit was a nice bit of nostalgia,
but I don't think that I'm gonnalike go out and buy the DVD of
the all thirteen episodes like I didwith Dungeons of Dragons, right, No,
I think it probably doesn't hold.This seems like one to me that
you could put on in the backgroundwhile you're doing other stuff and enjoy the
(28:37):
audio if you're not having to watch, if you're not having to really pay
attention to the story, and you'renot having to really pay attention to the
animation, if you're just enjoying thenoise, for lack of a better word,
yeah, that's very true. Decentvoice acting, nice music, music
explanted the screen and gleam, what'shappening? And there you go. And
(28:59):
one thing that I forgot about thatI didn't notice when I watched it,
you know again years ago, isthat it does take a page from the
video game, and that every timeyou go to a commercial, it's a
cliffhanger and the storyteller is narrating Dirk'soptions and an asked a view or what
would you do yes, which isexactly what the game was doing a couple
events to figure it out rather thanlike a split second, right, and
(29:22):
then after the commercial break the outcomesof the various choices were shown before Dirk
axe on the correct idea to advancethe story. I don't remember seeing that
a whole lot in the episode Iwatched on YouTube, Corey, did you
notice that, No, there wasthey showed it, and like I think
it was the third episode that Iwatched. I tend to think that with
a couple of these episodes the peoplejust cut that out in addition to the
(29:45):
commercials. I'm guessing that yeah,when they were sold, like in a
syndication package or something, they justcut that part out because you know,
who cares these days. But that'ssomething I would very much be interested to
know if it was on if youif you were to purchase the episode,
you know, either on on DVDor digitally, if if they were there,
because that's the stuff that would bethe most interesting to me, and
(30:07):
that would be the only reason Iwould go back and want to watch every
episode was just to see stuff likethat. It's kind of like the end
of Clue Clue the movie. ButI thought that was great. I thought
that was a really nice touch thatthey put that in there to call back
to the video game, because again, this was a huge This was a
phenomenon in eighty three, the mideighties. If you went to a an
arcade at all, they had thismachine there. It was this one.
(30:30):
It was space Ace and it wasa hologram one. Um. I can't
remember what the hologram one was called. But I had a gun slinger in
it, and that was the coolestthing. I know. It wasn't Wild
Gunman, was it. I couldn'ttell you. I just remember it was
like a flat round video game thathad three the holograms on it. Oh,
(30:51):
I know what you're talking about.I don't. I don't remember that.
I just I barely remember that.Yeah, so wow, that was
all the range back then. Butthat was also, you know, the
time of laser desks, which youknow, and I got like two hundred
sitting in my closet that I barelyever watched because you gotta flip them,
don't you not with this player?Oh you gotta flip a player that flips
(31:11):
them for you. I got aplayer that has a laser on the top
end the bottom. So I justreads it. Yeah, but they're all
letterboxed, right, They're not widescreen? Um, yes, Muslim are the
letter box? How far we've comeso um so yeah this you know again,
we have thirteen episodes of this one. It's it's not the worst show
we watched for this, for thispodcast, it's not the best. But
(31:36):
but I do feel like I feellike if they redid it, I want
to say there was some there wasa time that they were thinking about rebooting
it, and if they did,well, I think they could. I
think this is when it could berebooted, if they did it in a
traditional animation style, and maybe itwas a feature film they were thinking about
doing. Um, because I'm tellingyou if if Don bluthn is Don Bluth
(31:59):
even still around, I think hemight be Yep, he's still around.
He's eighty four, but I forgotabout that. I want to bring him
young. Wow. Um lives rightnear me. E'll pass. It was
like a day's drive. Uh,but so say near us in the sense
(32:22):
that it's still on the opposite sideof this ginormous state. Right. But
but I guarantee you, if DonBluth was involved and they did it in
the style of the original game,Uh, they could make it, you
know, an hour and a halffilm, you know, a feature film
version of this. It would probablybe phenomenal. It could very well be,
and I think it would. Ithink it would have probably do very
(32:44):
well, especially with people our age, because you know, I'm somebody who
is sort of tangentially aware of it, because I did. Again, I
never played it myself. I justwatched other people because I was too cheap
to spend two quarters on a game, especially when I saw it was only
gonna you know, I was onlygoing to get a couple of tries at
it before it would be done.So Corey, you you're not gonna seek
out any more of these aff ofthis. No, I'll still play my
(33:06):
little mini arcade and live life.But it was fun going and seeing it
again. Yeah, it really was. I don't feel like this was a
waste of time as I like Ihad with some of our others. Olivia,
I'm assuming you're have no interest ingoing back and revisiting or visiting for
the first time any of these.No, I'm good, I'm cool,
okay. Well in same for me, you know, although I don't know,
(33:28):
I might actually track down some moreof these episodes, because there's a
couple of these that sounded vaguely interestingto me. The turn with of the
Phantom Knight. I just want tosee what the Phantom Knight looks like,
because the Phantom Knight kidnaps a kingand Dirt must return of the hostage.
And my guess is Black Armor.I'm guessing so well, you can grab
(33:49):
him on the Warner Archive collection.I can't. I don't know if I
want to buy them, though,I'll see if if I could watch them
for free, that would be okay. I'm surprised this isn't streaming on like
h Bio Max or anywhere like that. I don't know. Uh. And
the legend of the giant's name,which sounds a lot like rumple Stiltskin King
the latest plot against King ethel Red'skingdom. Sinja awakens the last of the
(34:10):
Ardue giants by saying his real name, and then the Mist of Wishes.
Sine wants to create a magic mist, but his plans are disrupted by Dirk
and Blunt. That one sounds likeit might be kind of eerie as well,
anything having to do with a mist. I'm always always down for.
Of course you are, yeah,but but again I don't know that I
would pay money for them, allright? You want free mists? Yes,
(34:30):
I want free mists. I'm sorry, ABC. So it wouldn't be
it wouldn't be on It wouldn't beon HBO Max because that's other stuff.
Maybe Hulu. I'm sure it's noton Hulu. Huh. So your congressmen
and figuring out I will so.Okay, So we're we're all on a
on Raisin brand, we're all uhon Dragon's Layer. Uh. Corey.
(34:52):
Since you've got the tabletop little arcade, Um, how far into it have
you gotten? There's no say functionon it? So I think probably I've
gotten maybe like fifteen minutes into it. There's got to be somewhere online where
you you can find like the movesthat you need to make. Yeah,
there absolutely is, but that justdefeats the purpose for me in that regard.
(35:14):
I like, I like the mistakes. I like it's fun, see
the death animations. It's it's thenostalgia of it. Okay, fine,
I don't want to beat it.I just want to play it and have
fun, all right, fair enough? Um? Is it one of those
How big is this one the onethat I have? Yeah? The screen's
(35:35):
about four inches so i'd say intotal, and you can output it through
HDMI to like a full TV.I think it's maybe like they're like seven
eight inches tall, so it's aboutthe size of like the old tabletop like
pac Man games that we have,But it's just you've actually gotten instead of
just like dots on the screen,you've actually got the image from the Yeah,
like it's it's the full resolution.And yeah, the joysticks a little
(36:00):
miniature. So yeah, it's it'suh, it's it's fun. It's cool
to even came with like a littlefake laser disc player with a little laser
disc that you can put into I'veseen that. Yeah, I think you
said in me a picture of itwhen you got it. I probably did.
That's that's that's hilarious. And whenyou plug it into your TV,
does it upscale? Okay? Doesit look okay? Oh yeah, it's
it's full ten eighty And you caneven plug in a controller in the back
(36:22):
of the USB and play on theTV. Yeah. That's really really cool.
Yeah. Wow, very limited thedish. I think they're all sold
out, but it was like ahundred bucks when it came out. Do
you have the option to watch thegame start to finish? I don't think
so. Yeah, I don't thinkI do that. Would be something that
I would have would have would haveliked for them to have added to that
(36:44):
a little movie version. Yeah,yeah, I got you, all right,
Well though, I would think thatwould be something that somebody would stream
on YouTube out there, Yeah,and some kind of playthrough of it.
Yeah, yeah, there's there's gotto be um, so okay, cool?
So well there you haven't folks said, those are our thoughts on Raisin
Brandon dragons Layer. We'd love tohear your thoughts, so I headed to
(37:04):
the Facebook page and leave us yourthoughts and if you have a video of
you completing dragons Layer on YouTube,send us the link. Um. Yeah,
but don't you know, don't likeKing of Kong It where you you
splice it? And yeah, Billywhat was his name? Billy? Uh?
I will say Billy Mays, butthat's not it. Yeah, freaking
(37:25):
freaking American Americans all that. Yeah. Oh, dear folks, go go
check it out. It's a greatdocumentary, great fist full of quarters.
All right, well, folks againfor the Saturday Moving Supercast. I'm Jeff,
I'm Corey, and I'm Olivia andit is time for college sports,
(37:45):
so it's time to go outside.I'm gonna blame my dragons Layer. Screw
you guys. I'm gonna watch collegesports. Sigh. Thank you for listening,
and don't forget to follow the showon Facebook Saturday Morning so Pcast and
follow at Marvin Dog Media on Twitter. M h m hm, m hm
(38:07):
h m hm
It's time to PLoP down in frontof the TV and the way back machine
with a bowl of your favorite cerealto relive the cartoons that made it work.
Waking up early on the weekend,it's the Saturday Morning super Cast.
(00:34):
Good morning, and welcome to theSaturday Morning Supercast. I'm Jeff Corey and
I'm Olivia. Where it's always Saturdaymorning in the cereal bowl is always full.
I forgot that part. Yeah it'sokay, but you guys truck to
idloge. I appreciate it. Thanksfor picking up my slack. We do
the yes and you can just yes, that's true. That's true. I
had to explain to somebody at workyes and concept once. That was fun.
(00:58):
So we are here today to talkabout, if I believe, if
I'm correct, one of Corey's favoritecartoons, at least one that you remember.
Finally, Dragon's Lair, another cartoonbased on a video game. But
first I wanted to talk to youguys about Raisin Brand and the reason we
chose Raisin Brand for a couple ofreasons. We haven't talked about it yet
and it's a mainstay. But Dragon'sLair premiered in what year was it nineteen
(01:25):
eighty four, eighty five, Andin eighty five post reintroduced raisin brand as
natural raisin brand. All right,so I thought that's a good time to
tie it in together because it hitthe shells. And what happened then was
the only thing that changed about theformula was they took the sugar off of
the raisin. So we'll talk aboutthis because we have two types of raisin
(01:48):
brand on the market, Kelloggs RaisinBrand and Post Raisin Brand. I have
a preference. I will not beshocked to find out that neither of you
have a preference, but I'll askanyway, Olivia, do you have a
preference between Kelloggs Raisin Brand or PostRaisin Brand. And for those listening at
home, if you're confused, Kelloggsis the one with the sun, the
little sunny. The sun is theirmascot and Post Raisin brand doesn't really have
(02:08):
a mascot because it's for adults.Jeff, you are correct. I do
not have a preference between raisin brandsbecause in general, though I do occasionally
dabble in quotes, adult cereals,a grown up cereals, raisin brand is
(02:31):
just never on the palette. Forme, It's one of those things that
if I was staying at somebody's houseand we were running out the door quick
and we needed to eat something,and they said, oh, I only
have a raisin brand? Is thatokay, sure, not a problem.
I'll eat anything. But in termsof like, am I seeking it out?
(02:54):
Am I buying it? And muchmore even more so, am I
buying name brand? The answer toall of those collectively, no, No,
okay, what about you? Doyou have a preference between the two
or do you even eat either one? Very often? A man, I
don't even touch them. I ain'tgot no time for him. Do you
(03:15):
just not? Do you not likeraisins or I like raisins? I just
have never cared for the combination?Interesting? Yes, okay, well this
is this is well, this willshock no one. I have a preference
because raisin brand. I actually,Raisin Brand is probably one of my favorite
cereals because it's one of the fewthat I can eat and I feel like
I've had a meal. It's like, if I ever have cereal for dinner,
(03:38):
chances are it's Raisin Brand. BecauseI eat a bowl and again I
feel like I've had a meal.Now I prefer Post Raisin brand because they
don't add sugar to the raisins.If you go back and eat Kellogg's Raisin
brand as an adult, it's likeyou're eating raisin flavored candy with the brand
flakes, because the sugar is justcaked on there. And in fact,
(03:59):
it is so bad that in nineteenninety one, Kelloggs complained that the guidelines
for the USDA Supplemental Assistance Whip Programdidn't allow for the purchase of Kelloggs Raisin
brand because it contained too much sugar. It currently has seventeen grams of sugar
per cup, which is a highercontent of sugar than Lucky Charms, Reese's
Puffs, and Cocoa crispies. Thatis significant, Yes, And I would
(04:24):
never have assumed it was that high. Oh it is. It's bad.
Uh and uh, Like I said, the last time I had, someone
was like, well it was onsales, So like, I'll get the
Kelloggs. It's you know, it'sall the same. I get home,
I'm like, oh, this isnot the same. Again. It's not
not awful, but I always adda little bit of equal or splendor or
something to mine anyway, And WhenI did that, I was like,
oh, this is this is likeeating candy. Uh and uh, and
(04:46):
I do. I don't like raisinsby themselves. I like oatmeal raisin cookies,
but that's that and raisin brand arepretty much the only time I will
eat raisins. So and I'm kindof on that camp because I'm one of
those people that struggles with raisin trustissues. Raisins are okay in specific places.
(05:10):
I am okay with raisins in coldcereal, though I prefer if it
wasn't just raisins maybe if it wasbalanced out with some other things as well.
I'm okay with raisins in hot oatmeal, I'm okay with raisins in a
granola bar, in a trail mix. I draw a hard line though it
raisins in baked goods. And soif you've ever been in a gift shop
(05:35):
and seeing signs or gift items thatsay cookies like cookies that look like chocolate
chip but are actually raisin or thereason why I have trust issues that that
type of saying like that, thatis I am the consumer for that that
(05:55):
choky so um. And and actuallyto the point where my father and I
have a running joke where he andI want to collaborate on a cookbook called
Ruin It with Raisins trademark trademark,don't y'all go out there and steal it
from me? And the point ofthe cookbook is it's it's kind of a
(06:18):
reverse cookbook. We're going to takelike we would take famous recipes with raisins
and instead offer you a selection ofoptions. Literally anything bought raisins that is
probably going to improve it. Okay, yep, So yeah, Raisins are
(06:41):
a fanicky thing growing up in thebrief household because they could be in certain
places, but they could not appearin others, and so they're a limited
use item basically, yes, yes, all right, good to know.
And Corey, what did you dealwith raisins? Do you do you like
(07:03):
raisins? Okay? Or yeah?I absolutely love raisins. The only thing
I don't like him in is likepotato salad. But otherwise yet trail mix
on their own and potato salad.Yeah, it's a white person thing from
what I've heard, Um, thatis an abomination, right, I have
heard, I've heard tell of this. I'm just thankfully never experienced it.
(07:23):
Yeah, thank thankfully I haven't either. Um, no, I'll take I'll
take Raisins anytime. But you don'tlike Raisin brand? Don't like Raisin brand?
Is there a reason do you not? Is it the brand part of
it that you don't care for?Or I just I didn't like the taste
and I you know, and itstuck with me and I've just never gone
back to uh to try it outagain. All right, So a childhood
(07:46):
trauma that you've never been able toovercome. I understand that, correct,
We can all understand that I'm workingthrough it. So this is interesting.
I think this is the well,this is not the first time I've liked
to see real it now that oneof you have really cared for, um,
and it will be the last,right do you? So? I
think we've discussed this before. Corey, where do you stand on wheaties?
I don't care for him. Okay, wheat checks if it's in like like
(08:11):
a mixt mix, yeah, allday, all right, But but just
brand on its own, you're justnot a fan of it, seems like
as well. Yeah, okay,So if I get it, it's brand,
not the Raisin's interesting brand, well, brand a brand flake by itself.
It's a very specific um gosh,it's a very specific grain type of
(08:35):
flavor. Um. I like Ilike brand with malts, but there's no
sweetness balanced with the malt. Andit's which now makes it sound like I'm
homebrewing. But um it, no, I get it. I get it.
Um. If I were to haveraisin brand, uh post natural raisin
(08:56):
brand, um, I might,I might throw a little spoon shake of
sugar over the top just to smooththings along. Well, and I do
as well, And that's that's whatand it just it tastes good to me
that that is just a perfect combo. We put a little bit of a
bit of sugar, a little bitsweetener in with it, and it's perfect.
And again it's it's it's very fillingto me. So uh. There's
(09:16):
also Total has their own raisin brandas well, but it's just Total with
raisins in it. I'm reminded ofthe a bit on Family Guy where they
had a whale staying with him andhe says, do you have any raisin
brand? Peter says, oh,we got Total, We got raisins.
You can put them together. It'dbe like raisin brand Wilts it'd be like
Raisin brand, but it's not Raisinbrand. Can you go get me some
(09:39):
Peter Counters with what times your flight? Again? But I did want to
give folks a little bit of backgroundon the history of Raisin Brand because I
find this kind of interesting and maybeyou will as well. Skinners, the
Skinner Manufacturing Company, was the firstcompany to produce a Raisin brand cereal in
nineteen twenty six, and for seventeenyears they had ownership over the product its
(10:00):
name until Kellogg's and Post began tosell their own versions of Raisin Brand,
and, of course, with concernsabout losing money within grocery store sales,
Skinner filed a cease and desist orderin attempt to keep ownership over the Raisin
Brand product. The name Raisin Brandwas at one time trademark best Skinner,
but in nineteen forty four, theUS Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
found that the name Raisin Brand couldnot be appropriated as a trademark because quote
(10:22):
a name which is merely descriptive ofthe ingredients, qualities, or characteristics of
an article of trade cannot be appropriatedas a trademark, and the exclusive use
of it afforded legal protection. Interesting, So it's it's they're they're basically saying,
they're just saying what it is.It's just their version of this.
I guess it would be like trademarkingoatmeal, sure, big meal of them.
(10:43):
So I find interesting because I've I'venever heard of Skinner's raisin brand,
and I'm assuming the Skinner Manufacturing companyis no more because I've never heard of
them, and if they are stillaround, they are probably very, very
small. The serials vitamin D threesupplementation is made from lannel, which is
an animal product, rendering it asa non vegan breakfast cereal, so everybody
(11:03):
beware. And then we already wealready talked about the the sugar content in
it. So yeah. Research suggestedeating commercially produced raisin brand containing sugared raisins
produces acid, which can lead tocavities, while homemade raisin brand created by
adding plain unsugared raisins to brand flakes, produces less of this acid. So
if you're going to have one,it sounds like the post unsugared raisin version
(11:26):
is probably a little bit healthier.Well, and I will say that I
was very amused though by the postmerchandising with well or the post advertising I
should say with John Denver. Ohyeah, you can't get more wholesome than
(11:46):
John Denver. Nope. Meanwhile,Kelloggs, you know are they're famous for
saying two scoops of raisin in everyraisins in every box. And the science
created quarterly A fifty found that afifteen ounce box of Kelloggs raisin brand contains
between two hundred and one and twohundred and forty one raisins, which led
to the conclusion that a scoop containsroughly one hundred two one hundred and twenty
raisins. Now, you know,I feel like that's kind of a skimpy
(12:09):
scoop. I don't know that's Imean, you think about it, one
hundred raisins. It seems reasonable tome in a fifteen ounce box. It's
a smallish box. So yeah,exactly. So I think that's all there
is to say about raisin brands.So probably more than there is to say
about raisin brand. But interesting thatI'm a fan. You guys don't really
care for it. M interesting.So we'll take a short break. We'll
(12:33):
be back to discuss dragons Lair.Okay, so Dragons Lair. This is
not the first cartoon that we've discussedit's based on a video game, but
it is the first one that mightactually look worse than the video game.
Yeah, unfortunately, anybody not familiar. Dragons Lair was an arcade game produced
(12:56):
by Don Bluth, who started outas a Disney animator and struck out on
his own as a very specific style. You can always tell a Don Bluth
yea product. I love it hisanimation. I think it's gorgeous. The
art style and the animation is gorgeous. The video game is what's called a
twitch game, so it's it's completelysell animated like you would see in a
(13:18):
feature film, and it is gorgeous. It was. It was used to
used a laser disc in the arcademachine, your arcade cabinet, and it
costs like fifty cents to play,so it was double the price of most
video games. I never played it, but I used to watch my friend
Turtle play it all the time,and basically I say it was a twitch
game because you would follow the storyalong and at certain points you would have
to hit a button to go leftor right or or something along those lines
(13:41):
right, Corey. Yeah, youcould go left or right, and then
it was just a single big redbutton to jump or whatever and whatever the
action required. It's it's is nowquick time events in a video game,
okay. Yeah, and it's allabout timing. So I don't I never
saw anybody even remotely far into thegame. What about Yukory, Yeah,
(14:03):
I've seen the end. I've neverreached it myself, but I've seen people
do it. Several years ago thePlayStation network you could buy for like two
or three dollars. There was becausethey did dragons Layer and they released Space
Ace a year or so later.You could buy them and you could watch
a branching version of the game whereyou would go from start to finish successfully.
That's the only way I've ever seeneither one. Okay, and it
(14:24):
lasts, you know, a goodten fifteen minutes. It was a decent,
decent amount of time. But againit looked gorgeous. Yeah, so
of course it came out of nineteeneighty three, so they immediately decided to
do a cartoon version of it,which Ruby Spears produced, and it ran
for thirteen episodes from September eighth ofnineteen eighty four to April twenty seventh of
(14:46):
nineteen eighty five on ABC, andthen of course you know ran and reruns
or repeats. I never saw thisas a kid. I saw a few
episodes as an adult years ago,and then of course watched a couple of
episodes in preparation for the show.So that's my experience. We'll start with
Olivia first. What is Do youhave any experience with the show? Did
you watch it when it was onthe first time or was it before your
(15:09):
time? Yeah, very little priorexperience. In its initial airing in eighty
four eighty five, I would havebeen about four years old, so yeah,
little, a little too young forthat first airing. I am vaguely
familiar with it in the sense of, you know, watching through a few
(15:31):
episodes. I was like, oh, yeah, okay, there's little shreds
and bits that seemed familiar. Butin terms of having, you know,
watched episodes or remembering plotlines or anyof that, I was largely a blank
slate, all right, and itwas like, I guess it waspience the
same for me. I think Ihad seen two or three episodes and knew
(15:52):
the basic plot and the basic vibeof it and that was about it.
So Corey, you're you're sort ofthe fane here. So first off,
how much experience do you have withthe game. Did you ever spend your
quarters on or or did you justwatch other people? Boy? No,
I probably dropped, you know,back in that time at least like fifty
sixty bucks between dragons Layer and SpaceAce. Those are my two go to
(16:14):
games. It was even to thepoint where, I guess last year they
released a mini cabinet of dragons Layer. Oh yeah, you could play it
on and I bought that, andso I still play that every now and
then, but it mostly sits onmy bookcase. But I absolutely loved the
video games. I thought they wereamazing. Oh and they are. They
really are very much ahead of theirtime, very rudimentary now, like you
(16:37):
talked about, it's sort of flashanimation now. But yeah, it looked
gorgeous. No, So when theTV show came out, was it something
that you just jumped on because youwere such a fan of the game.
Heck? Yeah, okay, Andso I'm assuming as a kid you probably
liked it, okay, but asan adult your mileage is varied a little
bit. Yeah, I remember enjoyingit greatly as a kid, and then
(16:57):
when I rewatched a couple of episodesfor this as we'll get into that,
the animation was really subpar, andhonestly, I think the probably the writing
was on par with what the gameoriginally was, but I I just did
not hold the nostalgia for me likeI thought it may have. And I
(17:18):
think you're absolutely right about the writingis definitely I won't say the writing is
not a problem, but the writingis not the big the biggest problem I'll
have here. I did watch.I watched the first episode. You can
watch most of the episodes on YouTubefor free. You can also buy the
episodes digitally on iTunes or anywhere,and you can probably get them on DVD
I think from Warner Archive a printon demand. Um So. As we
(17:41):
mentioned, the show was produced byRuby Spears. It was based on Dragons
there by Rick Dyer and Don Bluth. The voices we had Dirk the Daring
was voiced by Bob Sarlatta, PrincessDaphanie by Ellen Gerstell. M King either
Hard was voiced by Fred Travelina,who who was an actor that I know,
but nobody else really seems to know. Oh, Fred's great and a
(18:03):
hell of an impressionist. Yes,uh he. In fact, I believe
he was the sound alike for JoePesci for years for TV and aeroplanes,
especially for Goodfellas. Timothy was voicedby Michael Mish Singe. The Dragon was
voiced by Arthur Berghart, the Great, Peter Cullen versus a voice Bertram the
(18:25):
Horse, and Sir Hubert Blunt.And Clive revel who was the voice of
the who Believe the Emperor in TheEmpire's Tracks back originally and was a voice
for the Emperor was the storyteller.Arthur Berghart is an actor that did a
lot of soaps. He also voicedDevastator on Transformers, Destro and Stalker,
and Iceberg on Gi Joe. Thatthat's where I know him from, right.
(18:47):
And Ellen gerstelluh did did a lotof stuff. She had a voice
on Jem for Jem on Holograms anddid some anime work as well. I
believe so, yeah, Fred Trevelina, you might all so, I believe.
No, that was Dave Thomas.Never mind, I can always get
Fred traveling and Dave Thomas confused,especially like early to mid eighties Fred Traveling
(19:08):
and Dave Thomas because I look alot alike. Okay, um, I
was gonna say he was in stripes, but he was not. That was
Dave Thomas and stripes as EMC atthe mud wrestling thing. But yeah,
Fred Travelina once did a split screenimpression of John Lennon and Paul McCartney,
like in the same bit. Yeah, he's he's like you said, he's
he's great. He's a great impressionist. So yeah. The first episode is
(19:33):
called The Tale of the Enchanted Gift, where Dirk has to find the perfect
gift for Princess Daphne's birthday, andthat's the one that I watched most recently.
Um so we also had Certimothy's Quest, Tournament of the Phantom Night,
which I couldn't find but sounds likea lot of fun, The Smithy's Haunted
Armor, The Pool of Youth,The Story of Old Alf and I'm assuming
that's not one from l Nix now, The Song of the Chimes, The
(19:56):
Girl from Crowswood Mirror Mirror this whichthe Tale of Dirk's New Sword, The
Legend of the Giant's Name, andthe Mist of Wishes, which also sounds
interesting and for most of the episodes, it's Dirk was trying to do something
and sends the dragon was constantly causingproblems, and all of his sending his
little minions after Dirk to try toeither Waylaham or kidnap the princess or what
(20:19):
have you. That's pretty much atright, Corey, Yeah, pretty much
every single one. Okay, So, which is you know, pretty common
for Saturday morning cartoons of this type. So Olivia, let's start with you.
Since you didn't have any experience withit, did you have any key
takeaways from the show as you watchedit? For this recording, I found
the plot mines and of voice acting, because in general this is a pool
(20:47):
of talented performers with experience. Ifound the voice acting much less irritating as
I did with some other kind offantasy see based shows in particular like Dungeons
and Dragons. Um, so thisthis was a little more pleasing to the
ear and accessible for me in thatway. Um visually, Uh, there
(21:12):
are issues, and I'm going tolet y'all tear into that because I know
you have more more vested in that. Yeah, Corey's definitely get more skin
in the game on this one.Yeah, yeah. Um, I will
say the I do feel like themusic holds up. Oh yeah, um.
(21:33):
And the music was done by umJohn Dabney, which I recognize as
well. Yeah, um, whohas done a lot of television scoring uh
Star Trek, Next Gen, DeepSpace Nine, SeaQuest, but has also
done some uh not just in thefantasy realm, but like has also done
(21:59):
like Cagney and Lacy for um,let's see what else? Oh, animated
Police Academy series which we did,well, we can't talk of that was
that was That was a first roundsyndication. I still want to talk about
that show though. A good filmstuff like a Passion of the Christ,
Bruce almighty elf. He had ahand in you know, Spy Kids.
(22:22):
He's done a lot of stunt manhe's the Iron all the Iron Man films
as well. He's worked with JohnFavro quite a bit. Yeah. An
Academy Award nomination too for Passion.So again a heavy hitter here as well.
Yeah, yeah, so did did. It's got some legit credits.
Um, no surprise that uh.He worked uh quite a bit in his
(22:48):
younger years with Hohyte Curtin. Ohright, of course, who didn't Yeah,
of Hannah Barbara Family. Well,all the smart people did. I'll
put it that way, because theman was a crack composer. M um
but um. Anyway, yeah,I think the music is one of the
(23:08):
most enjoyable elements of this for me. Well, I would also like to
mention he did the music for hocusPocus and also did the score for hocus
Pocus Too, which is coming uplater this year. Corey's very excited about
that one too. So yeah,some some really really exciting people that are
involved here. And you're right,Olivia. The voice acting, for the
(23:30):
most part, I was a littleannoyed with Princess Daphne, but that's more
the way the character was portrayed andless the voice risingly listenable. Um.
And and I guess yeah, itjust it seemed like they were actually,
you know, at least taking thework seriously, um to an extent.
But and and you know, wetalked about the you know, the the
(23:52):
animation, and I'll say the animationis not great, but the art style
I have no problem with because itdoes if you're looking at a still frame,
if you're not looking at the depthof the frame, it does look
like what we saw in the gamefor the most part, wouldn't you agree,
Corey, Yes, it does,but it's just that you know,
that toned down, bare bones SaturdayMorning cartoon animation just really makes it suffer,
(24:19):
especially if you go in expecting itto look like the game. So
Corey, when you were a kid, you mentioned that she liked it because
we had characters like the Lizard King, the Giddygoons, and the Mudman.
So that stuff is like Taylor madefor kids. So as an adult,
what did you find? Was thereanything specific that still worked for you?
(24:41):
I think overall for a fantasy cartoonit was fine. I think, knowing
that the Arcade game as well asI do, and seeing as you said,
the stripped down animation that they didsimply so they could crank it out
fast, it hurts the overall product. But were I think, were you
not familiar with the original video game, you probably wouldn't have noticed that much
(25:07):
or familiar with the other down blueoutings. But yeah, I watched it
again. Um, it was funand it was cute, But they're like
we have found with many of thecartoons around the mid eighties, there was
not just there was not a lotof substance to it. It was just
(25:27):
to make a quick buck, tosell a couple of couple of action figures,
and that was about it. Now, to counter what Corey just said,
I am not at all familiar withthe video game, have not played
it at all, not familiar withits visuals. That being said, I
still watched this also with a blankslate, and still recognized that the animation
(25:53):
was a bit of a crap sandwich. So it's not hard to notice when
you have a discerning eye like youdo. And while and I had a
and I you know what, Iwill say this, I have learned a
lot from doing this podcast, becauseI would say that would be a thing
I would never have really noticed orhonestly cared that much about before. And
(26:15):
now I can watch fifteen minutes ofa cartoon I barely remember existing from my
childhood and see a moment in Idon't remember if this was episode one or
two, but the characters are standIt doesn't even matter who really characters.
(26:40):
Characters are standing in the woods likea true Saturday Morning cartoon creator. Yeah,
people are standing in the woods andlittle gobliny things are gonna like throw
ropes around the guy and tie themup. And we got to that point
it was it was done. AndI'm gonna guess maybe like, um,
(27:03):
a couple of frames really, becauseit was like, you know, two
steps for them to just put upbe standing next to him and then just
chucking the ropes around him and thenhim instantly just kind of freezing standing there,
going oh, because to fight toresist would necessitate animation. So yeah,
(27:30):
that that was. It was likethe little moments like that that I
could I could watch and think tomyself, Oh, that's a shame.
That's a shame. Right. Sogoing back to Corey, what is something
that struck out that stuck out toyou watching it as an adult? Was
there anything that worked for you ina different way than it did when you
(27:51):
were a kid that still worked butjust kind of kind of for a different
reason. No, I think itjust it still worked because it's still fantasy.
It's still you know, like dungeonsand Dragons. That was very much
into just the high fantasy of it, and that still works. That still
holds, and it's fun to listento Peter Cullen doing something other than optimist
(28:14):
Prime and you know, it wasit was a nice bit of nostalgia,
but I don't think that I'm gonnalike go out and buy the DVD of
the all thirteen episodes like I didwith Dungeons of Dragons, right, No,
I think it probably doesn't hold.This seems like one to me that
you could put on in the backgroundwhile you're doing other stuff and enjoy the
(28:37):
audio if you're not having to watch, if you're not having to really pay
attention to the story, and you'renot having to really pay attention to the
animation, if you're just enjoying thenoise, for lack of a better word,
yeah, that's very true. Decentvoice acting, nice music, music
explanted the screen and gleam, what'shappening? And there you go. And
(28:59):
one thing that I forgot about thatI didn't notice when I watched it,
you know again years ago, isthat it does take a page from the
video game, and that every timeyou go to a commercial, it's a
cliffhanger and the storyteller is narrating Dirk'soptions and an asked a view or what
would you do yes, which isexactly what the game was doing a couple
events to figure it out rather thanlike a split second, right, and
(29:22):
then after the commercial break the outcomesof the various choices were shown before Dirk
axe on the correct idea to advancethe story. I don't remember seeing that
a whole lot in the episode Iwatched on YouTube, Corey, did you
notice that, No, there wasthey showed it, and like I think
it was the third episode that Iwatched. I tend to think that with
a couple of these episodes the peoplejust cut that out in addition to the
(29:45):
commercials. I'm guessing that yeah,when they were sold, like in a
syndication package or something, they justcut that part out because you know,
who cares these days. But that'ssomething I would very much be interested to
know if it was on if youif you were to purchase the episode,
you know, either on on DVDor digitally, if if they were there,
because that's the stuff that would bethe most interesting to me, and
(30:07):
that would be the only reason Iwould go back and want to watch every
episode was just to see stuff likethat. It's kind of like the end
of Clue Clue the movie. ButI thought that was great. I thought
that was a really nice touch thatthey put that in there to call back
to the video game, because again, this was a huge This was a
phenomenon in eighty three, the mideighties. If you went to a an
arcade at all, they had thismachine there. It was this one.
(30:30):
It was space Ace and it wasa hologram one. Um. I can't
remember what the hologram one was called. But I had a gun slinger in
it, and that was the coolestthing. I know. It wasn't Wild
Gunman, was it. I couldn'ttell you. I just remember it was
like a flat round video game thathad three the holograms on it. Oh,
(30:51):
I know what you're talking about.I don't. I don't remember that.
I just I barely remember that.Yeah, so wow, that was
all the range back then. Butthat was also, you know, the
time of laser desks, which youknow, and I got like two hundred
sitting in my closet that I barelyever watched because you gotta flip them,
don't you not with this player?Oh you gotta flip a player that flips
(31:11):
them for you. I got aplayer that has a laser on the top
end the bottom. So I justreads it. Yeah, but they're all
letterboxed, right, They're not widescreen? Um, yes, Muslim are the
letter box? How far we've comeso um so yeah this you know again,
we have thirteen episodes of this one. It's it's not the worst show
we watched for this, for thispodcast, it's not the best. But
(31:36):
but I do feel like I feellike if they redid it, I want
to say there was some there wasa time that they were thinking about rebooting
it, and if they did,well, I think they could. I
think this is when it could berebooted, if they did it in a
traditional animation style, and maybe itwas a feature film they were thinking about
doing. Um, because I'm tellingyou if if Don bluthn is Don Bluth
(31:59):
even still around, I think hemight be Yep, he's still around.
He's eighty four, but I forgotabout that. I want to bring him
young. Wow. Um lives rightnear me. E'll pass. It was
like a day's drive. Uh,but so say near us in the sense
(32:22):
that it's still on the opposite sideof this ginormous state. Right. But
but I guarantee you, if DonBluth was involved and they did it in
the style of the original game,Uh, they could make it, you
know, an hour and a halffilm, you know, a feature film
version of this. It would probablybe phenomenal. It could very well be,
and I think it would. Ithink it would have probably do very
(32:44):
well, especially with people our age, because you know, I'm somebody who
is sort of tangentially aware of it, because I did. Again, I
never played it myself. I justwatched other people because I was too cheap
to spend two quarters on a game, especially when I saw it was only
gonna you know, I was onlygoing to get a couple of tries at
it before it would be done.So Corey, you you're not gonna seek
out any more of these aff ofthis. No, I'll still play my
(33:06):
little mini arcade and live life.But it was fun going and seeing it
again. Yeah, it really was. I don't feel like this was a
waste of time as I like Ihad with some of our others. Olivia,
I'm assuming you're have no interest ingoing back and revisiting or visiting for
the first time any of these.No, I'm good, I'm cool,
okay. Well in same for me, you know, although I don't know,
(33:28):
I might actually track down some moreof these episodes, because there's a
couple of these that sounded vaguely interestingto me. The turn with of the
Phantom Knight. I just want tosee what the Phantom Knight looks like,
because the Phantom Knight kidnaps a kingand Dirt must return of the hostage.
And my guess is Black Armor.I'm guessing so well, you can grab
(33:49):
him on the Warner Archive collection.I can't. I don't know if I
want to buy them, though,I'll see if if I could watch them
for free, that would be okay. I'm surprised this isn't streaming on like
h Bio Max or anywhere like that. I don't know. Uh. And
the legend of the giant's name,which sounds a lot like rumple Stiltskin King
the latest plot against King ethel Red'skingdom. Sinja awakens the last of the
(34:10):
Ardue giants by saying his real name, and then the Mist of Wishes.
Sine wants to create a magic mist, but his plans are disrupted by Dirk
and Blunt. That one sounds likeit might be kind of eerie as well,
anything having to do with a mist. I'm always always down for.
Of course you are, yeah,but but again I don't know that I
would pay money for them, allright? You want free mists? Yes,
(34:30):
I want free mists. I'm sorry, ABC. So it wouldn't be
it wouldn't be on It wouldn't beon HBO Max because that's other stuff.
Maybe Hulu. I'm sure it's noton Hulu. Huh. So your congressmen
and figuring out I will so.Okay, So we're we're all on a
on Raisin brand, we're all uhon Dragon's Layer. Uh. Corey.
(34:52):
Since you've got the tabletop little arcade, Um, how far into it have
you gotten? There's no say functionon it? So I think probably I've
gotten maybe like fifteen minutes into it. There's got to be somewhere online where
you you can find like the movesthat you need to make. Yeah,
there absolutely is, but that justdefeats the purpose for me in that regard.
(35:14):
I like, I like the mistakes. I like it's fun, see
the death animations. It's it's thenostalgia of it. Okay, fine,
I don't want to beat it.I just want to play it and have
fun, all right, fair enough? Um? Is it one of those
How big is this one the onethat I have? Yeah? The screen's
(35:35):
about four inches so i'd say intotal, and you can output it through
HDMI to like a full TV.I think it's maybe like they're like seven
eight inches tall, so it's aboutthe size of like the old tabletop like
pac Man games that we have,But it's just you've actually gotten instead of
just like dots on the screen,you've actually got the image from the Yeah,
like it's it's the full resolution.And yeah, the joysticks a little
(36:00):
miniature. So yeah, it's it'suh, it's it's fun. It's cool
to even came with like a littlefake laser disc player with a little laser
disc that you can put into I'veseen that. Yeah, I think you
said in me a picture of itwhen you got it. I probably did.
That's that's that's hilarious. And whenyou plug it into your TV,
does it upscale? Okay? Doesit look okay? Oh yeah, it's
it's full ten eighty And you caneven plug in a controller in the back
(36:22):
of the USB and play on theTV. Yeah. That's really really cool.
Yeah. Wow, very limited thedish. I think they're all sold
out, but it was like ahundred bucks when it came out. Do
you have the option to watch thegame start to finish? I don't think
so. Yeah, I don't thinkI do that. Would be something that
I would have would have would haveliked for them to have added to that
(36:44):
a little movie version. Yeah,yeah, I got you, all right,
Well though, I would think thatwould be something that somebody would stream
on YouTube out there, Yeah,and some kind of playthrough of it.
Yeah, yeah, there's there's gotto be um, so okay, cool?
So well there you haven't folks said, those are our thoughts on Raisin
Brandon dragons Layer. We'd love tohear your thoughts, so I headed to
(37:04):
the Facebook page and leave us yourthoughts and if you have a video of
you completing dragons Layer on YouTube,send us the link. Um. Yeah,
but don't you know, don't likeKing of Kong It where you you
splice it? And yeah, Billywhat was his name? Billy? Uh?
I will say Billy Mays, butthat's not it. Yeah, freaking
(37:25):
freaking American Americans all that. Yeah. Oh, dear folks, go go
check it out. It's a greatdocumentary, great fist full of quarters.
All right, well, folks againfor the Saturday Moving Supercast. I'm Jeff,
I'm Corey, and I'm Olivia andit is time for college sports,
(37:45):
so it's time to go outside.I'm gonna blame my dragons Layer. Screw
you guys. I'm gonna watch collegesports. Sigh. Thank you for listening,
and don't forget to follow the showon Facebook Saturday Morning so Pcast and
follow at Marvin Dog Media on Twitter. M h m hm, m hm
(38:07):
h m hm
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