August 22, 2023 • 39 mins
What do you get when a toy line has one toy? A pretty not-bad cartoon! My Pet Monster was a great concept, and the cartoon took that concept and...walked with it. Did they stumble? You'll have to listen to find out. Which is also what you'll have to do to find out how to pronounce Mueslix, a cereal that is aimed squarely at adults who can say the name properly.
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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 relift the cartoons that made it worth
waking up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning super Cast. Hello,
(00:37):
and welcome to the Saturday Morning superCast, where it's always Saturday morning
and the cereal bowl is always full. I'm Jeff, I'm Cory, and
I'm Olivia and we get a bitof a mixed bag today, folks.
We're gonna talk in a little bit. We're gonna talk about My Pet Monster,
which was a cartoon. After itwas a plush Dolly, but before
(00:59):
it was a cartoon, it wasa like a TV special that I was
not able to locate. But beforethat, I wanted to talk about another
cereal. It was introduced in nineteeneighty seven, and as far as I
can tell, is still on themarket, and that is Kellogg's muse Licks,
not mouse licks. Muse licks muE S l I X. Who
(01:22):
think it was mouselicks, right?I always I always read it as musilage
like the glue. Well, Ithink it's the two dots over the U
or give it the muslicks. Idon't know. Ye I'll just ask.
Have either of you ever tried Muselickscereal? Absolutely not? Oh god,
(01:44):
no, okay, yeah, it'sbasically trail mix in milk. Uh.
It's it's a cereal that has wholegrain, barley, oats, wheat,
raisins, almond, and dates.Literally trail mix the only thing it's missing
or like the random eminem's that theythrow in trail mix for some reason.
Yep. It came out of nineteeneighty seven. It's based on Musely muesli,
(02:07):
which is a cold Swiss breakfast dish, the primary ingredient of which is
rolled oats, which is what wehave in Museliks. Now. Musely is
set to soak overnight and eating thenext morning. So what we're talking about
there are overnight oats, which we'veseen in the last few years they've started
marketing those. Have either one ofyou ever had overnight oats? Yes?
Oh many times. Yes, Ohmy god. I tried them once.
(02:30):
It It was disgusting stuff to it. You can't just by themselves. What
I bought was was meant to be. It was like you know, buying
like the instant ote meal, soit had flavor to it. It was
just that it was cold in themorning. It was cold, and the
texture just didn't work. I neededit to be warm. Okay. Oh,
now I'm a weirdo and that Iactually like them cold. Well,
(02:52):
and I'm sure a lot of peopledo. I'm sure I'm I'm the weirdo
obviously, because you know, Coreyeats it a lot. You eat it
a lot. I just and maybeif I tried it again and I knew
what to expect, it would bedifferent. But I just didn't. It
just didn't work for me. Well, and a lot of like the combos
that I make are ones that sortof lend themselves to be eaten cold because
I like to put in a glopof Greek yogurt and because I like the
(03:15):
creamy ness, and I'll throw inlike frozen berries or other frozen fruit.
I do one version with peanut butter. Yeah, I just tend to I
like them. I like them cold. Okay, Well, I mean that's
(03:36):
fair. Like I said, Ijust it did not work for me.
I just I just tried at theone time, never again, So maybe
I should give it another shot.I don't know. I do like oat
meal though, but they do addingadditional ingredients like grains and nut seeds,
fresh or dried fruits like you wereat you were saying, along with milk
or cream or honey even, anda lot of people add yogurt to it.
(03:57):
So the idea was to recreate thatin cereal form in the eighties,
and I sent you guys a linkto a YouTube commercial. Did either of
you have time to watch that commercial? Yes? Do you remember the commercial?
Frankly I did not. I reallyneeded you. No. As soon
as it started, I remembered it. I hadn't. I couldn't, couldn't
(04:20):
think of it. But like Iknow, I've seen this. As soon
as it started that music started,I was like, oh, oh wow,
I'm I'm eleven years old again.This is interesting. Yeah, this
is this is great, or youknow, ten to eleven years old.
So no, I've never tried muselicks. I don't know anybody who has.
(04:41):
But it's been on it is stillon shelf, you can still buy it,
so obviously somebody's eating it. SoCorey, you said absolutely not.
What is it specifically about the cerealthat makes it unappetizing to you? I
think, as you already said,it's just trail mix. If I want
trail Mix, elite trail mix,but I don't need to have it with
milk. Okay, would you eattrail mix and have a glass of milk
(05:02):
with it? Probably? Not?Okay, Olivia, what about you?
What is it about about this thatthat that turns you off of it?
Uh? I feel like it's tryingto be too many things, Like it's
it's trying to be like a brandcereal and a fiber cereal and oh so
(05:23):
it has nuts in it. Ohand we throw in the raisins and the
dates, and has this kind offlake and that kind of flake, and
it's no. Just so it's acereal of all trades, but a master
of none is where you're where you'recoming round with that one? Right?
For me? I think it's Ithink it's the almonds. You put almonds
livers in something and I choke.I don't know why. They're just they're
(05:47):
they're they're dry. I like almonds. I love almonds, actually, but
I have trouble eating them because they'rethey're very dry, They're very dense,
and especially that the shaved almonds inthere. I've had cereal before they had
almond flex in them. For lackof a better word, and it just
did not work for me. Andwhen you add into that dates along with
(06:09):
raisins, there, those things aretoo close together that I'm not sure why
we need both. Yeah, soyeah, can see that, but I
have to imagine it's it's actually fairlyhealthy, right, given everything that that
goes into it. Yeah, Idon't want to assume. Well, I
(06:30):
looked at the I looked at alabel, and you're still for the dry
cereal itself, despite the fact thatyou've got these like grains, and then
yeah, it's real heavy on thecarbs because of the grain content and not
even a lot of fiber. Andthat's what was weird to me. You
got grams of growth of carbs onlyfive grams of fibers, So you're still
(06:55):
looking at forty five grams of netcarbohydrates on it, right, and heavily
protein and heavily processed carbs at that, right, with the exception of the
rolled oats, which pretty much justlook like they're tossed in in their typical
kind of flake form, right.But it's not like you're looking in there
(07:17):
and seeing whole pieces of barley,right exactly, not that I remember from
the box arts. So that's heavilyprocessed. Your wheat flakes, those are
heavily processed. Yeah, and withthe but with like the adding of the
(07:40):
dried fruits and the nuts, thatstill only gets you to six grams of
protein pre milk. Right, Yeah, you can do a lot better,
a lot better than that with betterwhole form carbs, like you know,
slow acting carbs and more protein anda good jillion other cereals. Okay,
(08:05):
not a good jillion, but several, but quite a bit. Yeah,
more more than a little more thana few. The only thing that you
get with this one that that's healthyis you don't get a lot of fat.
You only like three and a halfgrams of fat. That's moll cereal.
Yeah, there's cereal does not havehigh fat content because it's quick carbs
and sugar, right, we haveno cholesterol and very little sodium, like
(08:26):
one hundred fifty milligrams. There's likeseven percent of your daily amount of sodium.
So we get really good there.But you again, you're getting twelve
percent of your of your sugars,your daily sugars of an added sugar.
Well, and then for that,I might as well go have a bowl
of crackling out brand and enjoy myday exactly. And if you go back
and if you go in and youlook at all like the vitamins to listening
about them into et calcium, iron, potassium, you're getting two to four
(08:50):
percent of most of those. Soyeah, and again you can do better
than that in a lot of othercereals. It seems like a cereal that's
marketed at people who want to eathealthy but aren't reading box labels. To
start reading box labels, right,like maybe like they really like they really
(09:13):
like brasen Brand and just want tostep it up a little bit, right,
you know what Raisin brand is missingeverything else that you find in the
forest. That's basically what kind ofreminds me. If you remember a while
back we talked about Big Mix.Do you guys remember that one, the
one I had. They had tolike the moose or the elk or something
on the on the box cover.Yeah, yeah, it's kind of what
(09:33):
this one reminds me of. It'slike they had it's all everything they had
left over from all their other healthycereals. They just put it in a
box. So they took a dustpanand a broom and just like cleaned off
the production line and then to exactlyand again, I've been seeing muse looks
on store shelves for what we're fortyyears, we're coming up on forty years.
(09:54):
I can't remember not seeing it,right, Yeah, So clearly somebody's
buying it, but I can't figureout who. And it's you're not going
to be me, but I wasjust curious. I wanted to talk to
you guys about it, to seeif if you had had it before,
and if you had any desire totry it. And I think we're all
on the same page on that one. It's it's not no, but hell
(10:16):
no, right exactly right? Yeah, all right, So fortunately or unfortunately,
that's all there is to say aboutmusic. I don't want to belabor
the point here, you know,we just we just do. It's one
of those you just don't get.It's been around forever, and I was
shocked when I started researching it tofind that it's not any healthier than it
is. Sure, it's a lie. It is it is, And when
(10:39):
you look at all the ingredients,how can it not be healthier than that?
I don't know what is it?The way they're processing everything? Do
you think could be. I don'tknow, it's a reasonable assumption. Well,
if any of our listeners know,I'd love to hear about it,
So hit us up on the Facebookpage and let us know if you know.
(11:03):
Right. So we're going to takea short break now the movie back
to discuss My Pet Monster. AndI hope neither one of you have the
theme song stuck in your head theway I do. Nope, not a
bit. Nope, all right,My Pet Monster. I did not realize
(11:30):
that there was a cartoon. I'veobviously always been familiar with the toy because
when it came out, I thoughtit was I would think I was what
I was like nine or ten yearsold when it came out, and I
thought it was a genius idea.I never had one, but I had
a friend who had one, andI just thought from a design standpoint,
the thing was really cool. Right, Yeah, absolutely, Corey, Did
you have one? I did nothave one? No, And Olivia,
(11:54):
I don't know. Did did girlshave My Pet Monster? I'm fairly certain
that my sister and I did nothave one. I know for a fact,
though, that I had a friendwho did, because I distinctly remember
playing with those breakaway plastic handcuffs.Yeah, well we'll talk about that in
a second. How that his ismaybe a little cringey? Now are formative
(12:24):
years. Yeah, Let's explained somuch about our generation, doesn't it,
and our predilections. So if you'renot familiar with My Pet Monster, it's
it's got blue fur, horns,a fang, smile, and a big
nose. It's just a really cooldesign. Like when I think of my
pet monster, this is exactly whatI would think of, right yep.
In fact, our friend Taylor thatI don't know. I don't think either
(12:50):
one of you a met Taylor,but my cost I'm talking to was a
Taylor and Jeff when he was incollege at U and t was in a
short film by one of the studentsin the film department where or maybe he
I don't remember, but I knowmy friend Josh Coore, you know Josh,
our former pilot episode host, wasinvolved in this as well, where
I think I can't remem if itwas Josh or Taylor that played the main
(13:11):
character in this film, but theyhad this this it was my Pet Monster,
and it was all about this friendshipand it was it was hilarious and
uh because it was supposed to bereally sappy and everything, but it was
just this guy with this this oldmy pet monster doll. So that's what
I always think of. Yeah,he came with these breakaway orange plastic handcuffs.
I guess you could keep him atbay and and so we'll talk about
(13:35):
on the cartoon what those meant,what that meant. But the property was
was created by American Greetings in nineteeneighty six, so much like a shirt
tails or care Bears by a greetingcard company. And it became out in
nineteen eighty six, and it wasone of the few plush dolls marketed to
(13:56):
boys. So it was very popularpopular in the late eighties into the ear
nineties, which is a long shelflife or something. That there was just
one. I was shocked if therewere no other no other monsters. Yeah,
I guess it's sold well enough orI don't know. I don't know.
But the handcuffs could be worn bychildren and came with a breakaway link
so that they could simulate breaking thechain. So a little cringeing now,
(14:20):
right, I guess maybe I assumethey're breaking the chains of the patriarchy and
impression. I didn't think anything else. Why, Okay, I'm liar.
Yeah, you a dirty liar,I call I called Shenanigans. Right.
(14:41):
It turns out there were other charactersthat go like like they named Guank,
Wogster, and Rurk, but Idon't know that they ever they ever made
those. Those names just roll offthe time, right, But they had
like coloring books, uh, puzzleand everything like that. But I'm not
sure that they ever released any othermonsters, not that I'm aware of.
(15:03):
Toy Max released a twenty two inchtalking my Pet Monster doll in two thousand
and one, so almost twenty yearsafter it debuted. Huh. So.
The character's popularity resulted in a liveaction directed video film in nineteen eighty six
about a boy named Max who becomesthe pet monster effort being exposed to a
statute, and he changes into themonster when he gets hungry. I can
(15:24):
relate to that. And doctor Snyderwas a scientist who originally discovered the statues
and the legend behind them. Wantsto kidnap the kid and his sister helps
him out. So it was apilot for an unproduced series, So it
ends on a cliffhanger, and thecartoon series sort of picked up from there,
but it changed things quite a bit, but it had much of the
(15:45):
same cast. It was produced by. It aired on ABC for one season
from nineteen eighty seven from it startedSeptember twelfth, nineteen eighty seven, and
air till December nineteenth of the sameyear. The cartoon, however, in
the cartoon, the boy Max washe becomes a monster in the special,
but he's a separate character in theTV show, and the monster is from
(16:08):
monster Land and he ends up inour world and on the cartoon, when
they put the hand the handcuffs onhim, he becomes a stuffed animal,
and when he takes handcuffs off,he turns into this, you know,
a live monster who sounds very muchlike a cross between Taz from Tasmania and
Dizzy Devil from Tiny tun Adventures Right. It was produced by Ellipse in France,
(16:33):
Nelvana in Canada and High Tops Videoin association with Golden Books. And
the kid in the live action moviealso voiced Max in the cartoon, and
the actor's name is Sunny Basin Thrasher. If you had the Disney Channel in
the eighties, you know this kid? I already asked Corey this off,
(16:55):
Mike, So I'll ask Olivia,have you ever seen or heard of a
television series called The Some Twins.No, well, you used to be
I don't know if you still can, but you used to be able to
watch it on help me out,Corey tub Yes, okay, Tubi.
It was a Canadian series, alive action series that aired on the Disney
Channel in the eighties, and itwas about these two twins there they were.
(17:18):
Is it fraternal twins? Are thosethe ones that don't look alike?
Yes, not identical, because itwas a It was a boy and a
girl who were like these science geniuses. Their little brother is a normal kid
and he was played by Sunny BasinThrasher. This show is what taught me
about the Canadian accent, because Inoticed right off the bat that they would
(17:38):
say out and a boot, nota boot. They would say about and
out, I need to go out, but everything else I dided normal but
out and a boat. That's whenI thought, why are they saying it
that way? Even when I wasa kid, I you know, I
had I've always kind of had anear for that, and I kept listening
for it here and I heard ita time or two but not that often.
(18:00):
So that's that's how, that's myconnection to this show. I had
no idea that this kid had doneanything else, so that yes. Sunny
Basin Thrasher voiced Max Smith. Themonster was voiced by Jeff McGibbon, and
again sounds like a cry to me. Did you guys know what I'm talking
about when I say Dizzy Devil fromTiny Tune Adventures? Yeah? Yeah,
yeah, he sounds a lot likethat to me. His Max's best friend,
(18:25):
Chucky, is voiced by Stuart Stone, and most of these folks have
not done a lot. Stewart Stonewas in Donnie Darko and did a voice
on The Magic Schoolbuster ninety four toninety seven. Jill Smith, Max's sister,
is voiced by Alison Court, andshe's another one that has done some
(18:45):
stuff as a kid, but notmuch sense. The two main villains are
mister Hinkel, who's his suspicious neighborwho was sort of takes a place of
doctor Snyder, and he's the nextdoor neighbor who's thing he thinks he's he
sees the monster and is always tryingto catch Max. And the Monster voiced
(19:06):
by Colin Fox and Colin Fox hashas quite a few. I believe he's
the one. Let me see realquick. He's got a bunch of credits,
but it's all stuff like you know, guest spots here and there.
Yeah, if you look, buthis voice work. At first I thought
(19:26):
it was Sandy Helberg. And that'sthe name that probably doesn't mean anything to
either one of you. Sandy Helberg. Now, okay, have either of
you ever seen a movie called Upthe Creek? Yeah, years ago?
Okay, he was the nerd andUp the Creek the not Eddy Dason and
Up the Creek and when I'm andhe's also the father of one Simon Helberg,
(19:51):
who you will know as Wallowitz fromThe Big Bang Theory. Okay,
okay, so yeah, I justit's it's just interesting that he sounded so
much like him to me, andI could have sworn that that's that's him.
And he's also in Spaceballs if youremember in Spaceballs, if you remember
the scene where they were going togive Princess Vespa back her old nose,
(20:12):
right, he's the doctor that's goingto do the surgery. Okay. So
I've spent a lot of time talkingabout somebody who has no involvement in this
whatsoever. But that's that's what thevoice reminded me of. And then we
also have a character called Beaster whois voiced by Dan Hennessy, who is
a giant monster who is also fromMonsterland that pursues my pet Monster with the
(20:34):
intention of bringing him back, andhe's, you know, very sensitive to
light and everything. He was voicedby Dan Hennessy, who has a ton
of credits, and he sound tome, sounds like Captain Caveman. Did
he sound like that to you,Cory, maybe a little bit sure?
Olivia? Did you did you hearthat at all? Either? I would
(20:59):
say possibly Captain Caveman, I wouldsay really both with Monster and Beaster,
both of them kind of gave mewhat I call the Harvey Firestein effect.
Yeah, yeah, which is whereI constantly feel like I need to either
clear my throat or I suddenly cravea lozenge. Right, So they did,
(21:22):
they did. They did work uponme in that way, makes sense?
Yeah, he uh. I wasshocked to find that he'd never voiced
Captain Kyman. He did, however, on the Police Academy TV series,
a cartoon show he voiced z andTackleberry. Oh oh god for him yeah,
(21:42):
and he also did. He voicedSloop and Egbert Petty on alf the
animated series and al Tale. Sowe talked about him before as well.
So lots lots of he's got,Like I said, he's got a ton
of credits, but he but hedoes. He sounds like Captain Caveman to
me. And the other thing Ifigured it out with the monster the voice
(22:03):
also at some point I think it'shis accent reminds me of and I'm gonna
make another reference that I know Corey'sseen this, Olivia. Have you ever
seen the movie Midnight Madness. It'sgot Stephen First, David Naughton, Michael
J. Fox in it. It'sabout these kids who go on a clue
hunt, not a scavenger hund,It's a clue hunt in La on a
Friday night. It was made innineteen eighty. If you saw it played
(22:26):
on HBO a lot in the eighties, which we did not have, my
guess right off the top of myhead would be no, okay, Well,
there is an old woman in there, and if Mike Reisinger is listening
to this, he'll know who I'mtalking about. But this old lady comes
in and starts talking about a strategyboard. That is what the monster's voice
(22:47):
reminds me of. Anybody who's listeningwho knows I don't know, way people
who listen who know the movie Astrategy boyd. That's what the monster reminded
me of. So okay, So, how many episodes were you guys able
to get through? One? Okay? Yep? One? Was it the
very first episode? It? Okay? Yes, sir, yes, sir.
(23:07):
So I watched two and a half. I watched two and a half.
Good for you. Yeah, Iwatched the first episode. I watched
the second episode because I wanted becauseI looked at the at the the plot
on Wikipedia and it's called the WolfmanAre Coming and the hard Rout Group The
Wolfman hold a concert in town.Max is trying to get tickets for his
(23:30):
sister to go, and his effortslead to the Monster becoming their guest singer.
And I said, I've got tosee what this is all about.
And then I watched number episode numbereight, Escape from Monster Land. For
a couple of reasons. One,it aired on my birthday in nineteen eighty
seven. It aired on my eleventhbirthday. And this is where Max and
(23:51):
the rest of the game, gettrapped in monster Land trying to get Monsey
back, and I'm calling him Monzibecause that's what Jill calls him, the
sister calls him, and I wantedto see what that looked like. So
let's talk about the first episode,the one that we all watched and in
news it will shot neither of you. If you've watched this first episode,
you've seen pretty much all of theothers, with very few exceptions, I
(24:15):
do know. So first off,we do have a full sixty seconds of
opening credits, as per usual,m and the song has been stuck in
my head all day. Really interestingbecause do you know what my reaction was
to this? And this was immediatetoo, like they had maybe gotten no
(24:40):
more than three lines into the lyrics. My immediate gut reaction was, well,
hell, I could have written betterlyrics than this when I was in
middle school, Yes, which Istill hold too. Yes, because there
there's also somewhere about three quarters ofthe way through there was an absolutely horrible,
(25:07):
forced rhyme between two words, andI remember again my gut reaction of
oh, come on, see theonly lyrics I remember are my pet monster.
I have my pet monster. Blahblah blah blah blah blah blah,
my pet monster blah blah blah blahblah. That's all I've got, but
(25:29):
it's stuck in my head and itwill not leave. Rent free. Yeah,
Rent free. So the first episode, Bester gets hold of Monster's magic
cuffs and so Monster, Max andChucky have to retrieve the cuffs before Monster
is exposed and Max loses his bestbuddy forever, and we meet as if
we were discussing this on the pilotepisode. As pilots go, it actually
(25:52):
sets up everything pretty well, setsup the universe pretty well. We meet
all the characters and everything. Butyeah, yeah, the one thing that
I did They did make me laughin this episode is when they dress him
up as a dog. They dressthe Monster up as a dog to try
to trick everybody because they can't gethis his handcuffs back, and they just
(26:15):
kind of they safety pinned a tailonto him and the dog. He's just
his face is always so happy.The Monster's face is so he just I
don't know, for some reason,him on all fours with that tail,
walking like a dog. I don'tknow why, but it made me laugh.
Oh good for you, Yeah,for you. The other note that
(26:37):
I had is the next door neighbor, mister Hinkle, calls the cops,
and the cops basically show up andthey're like, oh, okay, sure,
whatever you say, sir, becausethey can't he can't prove that there
is a monster there. It's alsopossible that happened in the second episode,
and I'm conflating the two, butfirst you get the vibe though that he's
(27:03):
to borrow the modern adage a bitof a Karen and it's probably a frequent
flyer on you know whatever. God, I hope not nine one one.
I hope the non emergency number,but he's probably not that considerate. So
yeah, totally down nine one oneon this one. If that was even
(27:26):
a thing at that point in theirtown. Maybe it was one one one
probably, I don't know. Sowas there anything about the show and about
this episode that worked for either oneof you? Did you find anything you
could latch onto and say, Okay, this was not bad. I liked
the animation style, I liked mostof the voice work. You know,
(27:47):
it's for kids, and so therewas a couple of times so I chuggled
throughout it. But it's just it'snot one that I would revisit. Okay,
Olivia, what about you? Visually, it kind of like what we
said, visually, it didn't botherme, which makes it not really sounds
like a compliment. But for somethingthat's not for you to say it doesn't
(28:10):
bother you, I think is fair. I think that's a good thing.
Okay, thank you. So yeah, visually that didn't bother me. There
were a lot of elements that struckme as perhaps a pastiche of a few
other things, very stereotypical grouch nextdoor neighbor slash bad guy that you could
(28:37):
find in a ton of other cartoons, the Beaster specifically, because Beaster and
Monster did not exactly have the sameproportions. Yeah, Beaster is much bigger.
Yes, And and you notice thisreally with Beaster was that kind of
(29:00):
affect or body style where he doesn'tnecessarily have much of a defined head.
It's just kind of all torso,and that the size of his mouth sort
of takes over the torso. He'sbuilt like the Tasmanian double exactly. So
(29:22):
between between his body proportions and Besterand Monster both having these similar kind of
raspy, gravelly voice dare I say, stereotypical monster esque voices that all felt
very much like kind of a bitof a Looney Tunes pastiche. Again,
(29:49):
to their credit, I did notfind the kids annoying, right, because
that is a frequent plaint of mind, to be totally honest, as it
is just just occurring to me rightnow, that I often I often find
(30:10):
children and cartoons inherently rude. Ithink I think there was so much Canadian
involvement in this that everybody is polite. You know, that is entirely possible,
and even more so, I hopethat's true because Canadians can can produce
(30:33):
a darn fine product. So yeah, like, there was nothing about this
that I took issue strong issue with, nothing about this that I thought,
you know, oh oh, thishasn't aged well except for the handcuffs,
(30:55):
and but honestly, I mean thatwas just my I'm a twelve year old
sense of humor taking over. Andbut at the same time, is there
really anything in this that like strikesmy interest or makes me want to come
back to it? No? Notespecially. Yeah, I think I think
(31:18):
you guys both kind of hit thenail on the head. It's it's very
inoffensive vanilla. It's very vanilla.But but yeah, there's not anything that
really wants you, wants to bringyou back. You mentioned, you both
mentioned the animation style, and onething I noticed is that it seems crisper.
The look of the show seems crisperthan a lot of shows of this
(31:38):
era. Okay, I can't decideif I like it more or less,
but it is certainly different. I'mglad you guys picked up on that.
It's it's almost it looks almost moremodern than a lot of the shows that
we watch from this era. AndI'm not sure why that is. I'll
(31:59):
give you I will definitely give youthe animation quality though, Yeah, it
is, it's it's it's it's muchbetter than a lot of what we see
from this from this time period.And you mentioned you mentioned Baster. In
this episode, they go after himwith solar powered flashlights so that when when
(32:21):
the sun goes behind the cloud,they can't use the flashlights anymore. And
I think I misspoke earlier. Actually, I actually skimmed through another episode,
so I watched The Wolfman Are Coming, and this this is where I noticed
that Baster sounds like Captain Kaman.And so bonds. He becomes a singer
of the Wolfman without even singing anyactual words, right, he's just going
(32:42):
like he's just basically growling into themic. But I did watch another one
episode five called The Masked Muncher.It's about a pie eating contest, and
is it just me or we're pieeating contests much more prevalent in the media
of the eighties than they are inreal life. Yes, oh yes,
it's right, along with with quicksandbear traps and right, bear traps had
(33:07):
a good point, and people withbriefcases handcuff to their hands, right,
right, all of these things Iwas expecting to see as an adult.
I used to actually walking around witha with a with a briefcase handcuff to
me when I was doing concert promotionsfor a couple of guys, because I
was the one walking around with allthe ticket money. They were plastic like
(33:28):
toy handcuffs, much like the onesyou might see on My pit Monster.
But that was kind of the joke. So there. So they're going to
enter the Monster in the piating contestso that they can beat Leo, who's
like the town bully, but Monsiends up over eating, so Chucky has
to enter the contest, but thereis one shot where the monster has gotten
(33:50):
so big he's bounding towards him andyou're getting that bounce noise every time he
lands, and that's another thing thatmade me laugh. And again it's just
the fact that he's always miling,he's always in such a good mood.
He's always very pleased with himself.And so of course the kid that ends
up winning is neither Chucky or Leo'shenchman, who's a big, a big
(34:13):
fat kid, but it's a littlenerdy kid on at the end of the
table who just out eats both ofthem. So you kind of had that
coming in the eies. So episodeeight, which I mentioned to Escape from
Monster Land, I wanted to seewhat the creative team thought of as scary
and frightening, and I have toadmit, it's actually pretty creepy. The
sound design and the music is actuallypretty spooky when they go to monster Land,
(34:37):
and there are a couple of thingsabout the episode that I really liked.
So if anybody's going to go watch, when I would recommend Escape from
Monster Land, it's it's episode eight. But I believe if you go to
the YouTube channel that has them all. I believe it's episode seven, okay,
but the monster's what's funny about hereis the kids come up on a
(34:58):
monster. I'm sister Mom walking hermonster kid in a stroller. She's terrified
of the humans and runs away,right, So it's sort of bizarro land.
You might've ever seen the cartoon,the Disney cartoon Donald Duck Donald in
wacky Land and Donald goes to wackyLand something like that. Very surreal.
It's got shades of that. Andthe kids are in actual, real peril.
(35:22):
Max's sister Beast his kidnap. Yeah, Max's sister Beast his kidnapped her
and puts her in a cage overa bottomless pit and he like throws a
rock down there to prove that it'sbottomless. You never hear Land and the
kids are getting chased by these realmonsters. They're actually in real peril rapscallion
(35:43):
right, what you know, contrastsat with when they're in the real world
and it's all about trying to keepManzi a secret. They're not ever in
any real danger, but this they'reactually in an actual peril. So I
would recommend if anybody use it allgo go give that episode to watch.
It actually had some some pretty neatideas on on Okay, so, okay,
the show, like you said,it's it's kind of standard fair as
(36:05):
far as humor and pacing, butthe look of the show is unique,
and like you guys said, thevoice acting by the kids is not nearly
as annoying, right, yeah,yeah, And the writing is maybe half
a notch above what we get withwith some other shows we discussed from the
same time period. But me personally, I just always loved the concept of
(36:28):
my Pet Monster in general, andI like the way they've expanded it in
the cartoon. Like I think,as a concept, I think it works.
Yeah, I think so, Andyou could do worse, and and
Olivia, you know you said it. I think you both mentioned the kids
not being annoying. It was anice change of pace that the brother and
sister actually got along and that Yeah, the sister is not annoyed by the
(36:52):
monster. No, in this matterof fact, to the monster is quite
infatuated with her, right as itshould be. But I did I always
love the concept of the monster beinga toy with the cuffs on and being
alive without them. And then againMonsi's voice cracks me up. So I
(37:13):
I don't know. I said,this is one I if you've never seen
it, I would really would.I think I would recommend everybody at least
check out the Monster Land episode Cauch. Again. If you go to the
YouTube channel, it's retro. It'sa like retro TV YouTube channel or something
like that. Retro rewind, Ithink is what it's called. I believe
it is episode six or seven.I would recommend that. So would either
(37:36):
one of you recommend anybody try thisif they're not an eight year old kid.
Why not? It's it's it's cute, it's fast paced. I don't
see why you wouldn't. Yeah,yes, okay, it is. It
is a product out there for y'alllooking to to dine on some mid eighties
(37:59):
goodness. And I think if youare somebody who did watch it as a
kid, I think you're gonna findthat it is exactly what you remember,
good or bad. I think Ithink that's probably a safe safe to say.
So I think that's fair and quitehonestly, no, not joking.
(38:19):
Because it's a Canadian that's arguably oneof the reasons why it's a better product.
I agreed. Yeah, I agreed. So that's gonna do it then
for this edition of the Saturday MorningSupercast. But we'd love to hear your
thoughts on both the muslicks and mypet Monster, so ahead to the Facebook
page and let us know what youthink. Until next time for the Saturday
(38:43):
Morning Supercast. I'm Jeff, I'mCorey, and I'm Olivia and it is
almost time for college sports, solet's turn off the TV and maybe go
outside. Okay, bye, I'vegot these plastic handcuffs. Should I bring
them? Nope? Thank you forlistening, and don't forget to follow the
(39:06):
show on Facebook It's Saturday Morning Supercastand follow at Marvin Dog Media on Twitter m M
It's time to PLoP down in frontof the TV and the way Back Machine
with a bowl of your favorite cerealto relift the cartoons that made it worth
waking up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning super Cast. Hello,
(00:37):
and welcome to the Saturday Morning superCast, where it's always Saturday morning
and the cereal bowl is always full. I'm Jeff, I'm Cory, and
I'm Olivia and we get a bitof a mixed bag today, folks.
We're gonna talk in a little bit. We're gonna talk about My Pet Monster,
which was a cartoon. After itwas a plush Dolly, but before
(00:59):
it was a cartoon, it wasa like a TV special that I was
not able to locate. But beforethat, I wanted to talk about another
cereal. It was introduced in nineteeneighty seven, and as far as I
can tell, is still on themarket, and that is Kellogg's muse Licks,
not mouse licks. Muse licks muE S l I X. Who
(01:22):
think it was mouselicks, right?I always I always read it as musilage
like the glue. Well, Ithink it's the two dots over the U
or give it the muslicks. Idon't know. Ye I'll just ask.
Have either of you ever tried Muselickscereal? Absolutely not? Oh god,
(01:44):
no, okay, yeah, it'sbasically trail mix in milk. Uh.
It's it's a cereal that has wholegrain, barley, oats, wheat,
raisins, almond, and dates.Literally trail mix the only thing it's missing
or like the random eminem's that theythrow in trail mix for some reason.
Yep. It came out of nineteeneighty seven. It's based on Musely muesli,
(02:07):
which is a cold Swiss breakfast dish, the primary ingredient of which is
rolled oats, which is what wehave in Museliks. Now. Musely is
set to soak overnight and eating thenext morning. So what we're talking about
there are overnight oats, which we'veseen in the last few years they've started
marketing those. Have either one ofyou ever had overnight oats? Yes?
Oh many times. Yes, Ohmy god. I tried them once.
(02:30):
It It was disgusting stuff to it. You can't just by themselves. What
I bought was was meant to be. It was like you know, buying
like the instant ote meal, soit had flavor to it. It was
just that it was cold in themorning. It was cold, and the
texture just didn't work. I neededit to be warm. Okay. Oh,
now I'm a weirdo and that Iactually like them cold. Well,
(02:52):
and I'm sure a lot of peopledo. I'm sure I'm I'm the weirdo
obviously, because you know, Coreyeats it a lot. You eat it
a lot. I just and maybeif I tried it again and I knew
what to expect, it would bedifferent. But I just didn't. It
just didn't work for me. Well, and a lot of like the combos
that I make are ones that sortof lend themselves to be eaten cold because
I like to put in a glopof Greek yogurt and because I like the
(03:15):
creamy ness, and I'll throw inlike frozen berries or other frozen fruit.
I do one version with peanut butter. Yeah, I just tend to I
like them. I like them cold. Okay, Well, I mean that's
(03:36):
fair. Like I said, Ijust it did not work for me.
I just I just tried at theone time, never again, So maybe
I should give it another shot.I don't know. I do like oat
meal though, but they do addingadditional ingredients like grains and nut seeds,
fresh or dried fruits like you wereat you were saying, along with milk
or cream or honey even, anda lot of people add yogurt to it.
(03:57):
So the idea was to recreate thatin cereal form in the eighties,
and I sent you guys a linkto a YouTube commercial. Did either of
you have time to watch that commercial? Yes? Do you remember the commercial?
Frankly I did not. I reallyneeded you. No. As soon
as it started, I remembered it. I hadn't. I couldn't, couldn't
(04:20):
think of it. But like Iknow, I've seen this. As soon
as it started that music started,I was like, oh, oh wow,
I'm I'm eleven years old again.This is interesting. Yeah, this
is this is great, or youknow, ten to eleven years old.
So no, I've never tried muselicks. I don't know anybody who has.
(04:41):
But it's been on it is stillon shelf, you can still buy it,
so obviously somebody's eating it. SoCorey, you said absolutely not.
What is it specifically about the cerealthat makes it unappetizing to you? I
think, as you already said,it's just trail mix. If I want
trail Mix, elite trail mix,but I don't need to have it with
milk. Okay, would you eattrail mix and have a glass of milk
(05:02):
with it? Probably? Not?Okay, Olivia, what about you?
What is it about about this thatthat that turns you off of it?
Uh? I feel like it's tryingto be too many things, Like it's
it's trying to be like a brandcereal and a fiber cereal and oh so
(05:23):
it has nuts in it. Ohand we throw in the raisins and the
dates, and has this kind offlake and that kind of flake, and
it's no. Just so it's acereal of all trades, but a master
of none is where you're where you'recoming round with that one? Right?
For me? I think it's Ithink it's the almonds. You put almonds
livers in something and I choke.I don't know why. They're just they're
(05:47):
they're they're dry. I like almonds. I love almonds, actually, but
I have trouble eating them because they'rethey're very dry, They're very dense,
and especially that the shaved almonds inthere. I've had cereal before they had
almond flex in them. For lackof a better word, and it just
did not work for me. Andwhen you add into that dates along with
(06:09):
raisins, there, those things aretoo close together that I'm not sure why
we need both. Yeah, soyeah, can see that, but I
have to imagine it's it's actually fairlyhealthy, right, given everything that that
goes into it. Yeah, Idon't want to assume. Well, I
(06:30):
looked at the I looked at alabel, and you're still for the dry
cereal itself, despite the fact thatyou've got these like grains, and then
yeah, it's real heavy on thecarbs because of the grain content and not
even a lot of fiber. Andthat's what was weird to me. You
got grams of growth of carbs onlyfive grams of fibers, So you're still
(06:55):
looking at forty five grams of netcarbohydrates on it, right, and heavily
protein and heavily processed carbs at that, right, with the exception of the
rolled oats, which pretty much justlook like they're tossed in in their typical
kind of flake form, right.But it's not like you're looking in there
(07:17):
and seeing whole pieces of barley,right exactly, not that I remember from
the box arts. So that's heavilyprocessed. Your wheat flakes, those are
heavily processed. Yeah, and withthe but with like the adding of the
(07:40):
dried fruits and the nuts, thatstill only gets you to six grams of
protein pre milk. Right, Yeah, you can do a lot better,
a lot better than that with betterwhole form carbs, like you know,
slow acting carbs and more protein anda good jillion other cereals. Okay,
(08:05):
not a good jillion, but several, but quite a bit. Yeah,
more more than a little more thana few. The only thing that you
get with this one that that's healthyis you don't get a lot of fat.
You only like three and a halfgrams of fat. That's moll cereal.
Yeah, there's cereal does not havehigh fat content because it's quick carbs
and sugar, right, we haveno cholesterol and very little sodium, like
(08:26):
one hundred fifty milligrams. There's likeseven percent of your daily amount of sodium.
So we get really good there.But you again, you're getting twelve
percent of your of your sugars,your daily sugars of an added sugar.
Well, and then for that,I might as well go have a bowl
of crackling out brand and enjoy myday exactly. And if you go back
and if you go in and youlook at all like the vitamins to listening
about them into et calcium, iron, potassium, you're getting two to four
(08:50):
percent of most of those. Soyeah, and again you can do better
than that in a lot of othercereals. It seems like a cereal that's
marketed at people who want to eathealthy but aren't reading box labels. To
start reading box labels, right,like maybe like they really like they really
(09:13):
like brasen Brand and just want tostep it up a little bit, right,
you know what Raisin brand is missingeverything else that you find in the
forest. That's basically what kind ofreminds me. If you remember a while
back we talked about Big Mix.Do you guys remember that one, the
one I had. They had tolike the moose or the elk or something
on the on the box cover.Yeah, yeah, it's kind of what
(09:33):
this one reminds me of. It'slike they had it's all everything they had
left over from all their other healthycereals. They just put it in a
box. So they took a dustpanand a broom and just like cleaned off
the production line and then to exactlyand again, I've been seeing muse looks
on store shelves for what we're fortyyears, we're coming up on forty years.
(09:54):
I can't remember not seeing it,right, Yeah, So clearly somebody's
buying it, but I can't figureout who. And it's you're not going
to be me, but I wasjust curious. I wanted to talk to
you guys about it, to seeif if you had had it before,
and if you had any desire totry it. And I think we're all
on the same page on that one. It's it's not no, but hell
(10:16):
no, right exactly right? Yeah, all right, So fortunately or unfortunately,
that's all there is to say aboutmusic. I don't want to belabor
the point here, you know,we just we just do. It's one
of those you just don't get.It's been around forever, and I was
shocked when I started researching it tofind that it's not any healthier than it
is. Sure, it's a lie. It is it is, And when
(10:39):
you look at all the ingredients,how can it not be healthier than that?
I don't know what is it?The way they're processing everything? Do
you think could be. I don'tknow, it's a reasonable assumption. Well,
if any of our listeners know,I'd love to hear about it,
So hit us up on the Facebookpage and let us know if you know.
(11:03):
Right. So we're going to takea short break now the movie back
to discuss My Pet Monster. AndI hope neither one of you have the
theme song stuck in your head theway I do. Nope, not a
bit. Nope, all right,My Pet Monster. I did not realize
(11:30):
that there was a cartoon. I'veobviously always been familiar with the toy because
when it came out, I thoughtit was I would think I was what
I was like nine or ten yearsold when it came out, and I
thought it was a genius idea.I never had one, but I had
a friend who had one, andI just thought from a design standpoint,
the thing was really cool. Right, Yeah, absolutely, Corey, Did
you have one? I did nothave one? No, And Olivia,
(11:54):
I don't know. Did did girlshave My Pet Monster? I'm fairly certain
that my sister and I did nothave one. I know for a fact,
though, that I had a friendwho did, because I distinctly remember
playing with those breakaway plastic handcuffs.Yeah, well we'll talk about that in
a second. How that his ismaybe a little cringey? Now are formative
(12:24):
years. Yeah, Let's explained somuch about our generation, doesn't it,
and our predilections. So if you'renot familiar with My Pet Monster, it's
it's got blue fur, horns,a fang, smile, and a big
nose. It's just a really cooldesign. Like when I think of my
pet monster, this is exactly whatI would think of, right yep.
In fact, our friend Taylor thatI don't know. I don't think either
(12:50):
one of you a met Taylor,but my cost I'm talking to was a
Taylor and Jeff when he was incollege at U and t was in a
short film by one of the studentsin the film department where or maybe he
I don't remember, but I knowmy friend Josh Coore, you know Josh,
our former pilot episode host, wasinvolved in this as well, where
I think I can't remem if itwas Josh or Taylor that played the main
(13:11):
character in this film, but theyhad this this it was my Pet Monster,
and it was all about this friendshipand it was it was hilarious and
uh because it was supposed to bereally sappy and everything, but it was
just this guy with this this oldmy pet monster doll. So that's what
I always think of. Yeah,he came with these breakaway orange plastic handcuffs.
I guess you could keep him atbay and and so we'll talk about
(13:35):
on the cartoon what those meant,what that meant. But the property was
was created by American Greetings in nineteeneighty six, so much like a shirt
tails or care Bears by a greetingcard company. And it became out in
nineteen eighty six, and it wasone of the few plush dolls marketed to
(13:56):
boys. So it was very popularpopular in the late eighties into the ear
nineties, which is a long shelflife or something. That there was just
one. I was shocked if therewere no other no other monsters. Yeah,
I guess it's sold well enough orI don't know. I don't know.
But the handcuffs could be worn bychildren and came with a breakaway link
so that they could simulate breaking thechain. So a little cringeing now,
(14:20):
right, I guess maybe I assumethey're breaking the chains of the patriarchy and
impression. I didn't think anything else. Why, Okay, I'm liar.
Yeah, you a dirty liar,I call I called Shenanigans. Right.
(14:41):
It turns out there were other charactersthat go like like they named Guank,
Wogster, and Rurk, but Idon't know that they ever they ever made
those. Those names just roll offthe time, right, But they had
like coloring books, uh, puzzleand everything like that. But I'm not
sure that they ever released any othermonsters, not that I'm aware of.
(15:03):
Toy Max released a twenty two inchtalking my Pet Monster doll in two thousand
and one, so almost twenty yearsafter it debuted. Huh. So.
The character's popularity resulted in a liveaction directed video film in nineteen eighty six
about a boy named Max who becomesthe pet monster effort being exposed to a
statute, and he changes into themonster when he gets hungry. I can
(15:24):
relate to that. And doctor Snyderwas a scientist who originally discovered the statues
and the legend behind them. Wantsto kidnap the kid and his sister helps
him out. So it was apilot for an unproduced series, So it
ends on a cliffhanger, and thecartoon series sort of picked up from there,
but it changed things quite a bit, but it had much of the
(15:45):
same cast. It was produced by. It aired on ABC for one season
from nineteen eighty seven from it startedSeptember twelfth, nineteen eighty seven, and
air till December nineteenth of the sameyear. The cartoon, however, in
the cartoon, the boy Max washe becomes a monster in the special,
but he's a separate character in theTV show, and the monster is from
(16:08):
monster Land and he ends up inour world and on the cartoon, when
they put the hand the handcuffs onhim, he becomes a stuffed animal,
and when he takes handcuffs off,he turns into this, you know,
a live monster who sounds very muchlike a cross between Taz from Tasmania and
Dizzy Devil from Tiny tun Adventures Right. It was produced by Ellipse in France,
(16:33):
Nelvana in Canada and High Tops Videoin association with Golden Books. And
the kid in the live action moviealso voiced Max in the cartoon, and
the actor's name is Sunny Basin Thrasher. If you had the Disney Channel in
the eighties, you know this kid? I already asked Corey this off,
(16:55):
Mike, So I'll ask Olivia,have you ever seen or heard of a
television series called The Some Twins.No, well, you used to be
I don't know if you still can, but you used to be able to
watch it on help me out,Corey tub Yes, okay, Tubi.
It was a Canadian series, alive action series that aired on the Disney
Channel in the eighties, and itwas about these two twins there they were.
(17:18):
Is it fraternal twins? Are thosethe ones that don't look alike?
Yes, not identical, because itwas a It was a boy and a
girl who were like these science geniuses. Their little brother is a normal kid
and he was played by Sunny BasinThrasher. This show is what taught me
about the Canadian accent, because Inoticed right off the bat that they would
(17:38):
say out and a boot, nota boot. They would say about and
out, I need to go out, but everything else I dided normal but
out and a boat. That's whenI thought, why are they saying it
that way? Even when I wasa kid, I you know, I
had I've always kind of had anear for that, and I kept listening
for it here and I heard ita time or two but not that often.
(18:00):
So that's that's how, that's myconnection to this show. I had
no idea that this kid had doneanything else, so that yes. Sunny
Basin Thrasher voiced Max Smith. Themonster was voiced by Jeff McGibbon, and
again sounds like a cry to me. Did you guys know what I'm talking
about when I say Dizzy Devil fromTiny Tune Adventures? Yeah? Yeah,
yeah, he sounds a lot likethat to me. His Max's best friend,
(18:25):
Chucky, is voiced by Stuart Stone, and most of these folks have
not done a lot. Stewart Stonewas in Donnie Darko and did a voice
on The Magic Schoolbuster ninety four toninety seven. Jill Smith, Max's sister,
is voiced by Alison Court, andshe's another one that has done some
(18:45):
stuff as a kid, but notmuch sense. The two main villains are
mister Hinkel, who's his suspicious neighborwho was sort of takes a place of
doctor Snyder, and he's the nextdoor neighbor who's thing he thinks he's he
sees the monster and is always tryingto catch Max. And the Monster voiced
(19:06):
by Colin Fox and Colin Fox hashas quite a few. I believe he's
the one. Let me see realquick. He's got a bunch of credits,
but it's all stuff like you know, guest spots here and there.
Yeah, if you look, buthis voice work. At first I thought
(19:26):
it was Sandy Helberg. And that'sthe name that probably doesn't mean anything to
either one of you. Sandy Helberg. Now, okay, have either of
you ever seen a movie called Upthe Creek? Yeah, years ago?
Okay, he was the nerd andUp the Creek the not Eddy Dason and
Up the Creek and when I'm andhe's also the father of one Simon Helberg,
(19:51):
who you will know as Wallowitz fromThe Big Bang Theory. Okay,
okay, so yeah, I justit's it's just interesting that he sounded so
much like him to me, andI could have sworn that that's that's him.
And he's also in Spaceballs if youremember in Spaceballs, if you remember
the scene where they were going togive Princess Vespa back her old nose,
(20:12):
right, he's the doctor that's goingto do the surgery. Okay. So
I've spent a lot of time talkingabout somebody who has no involvement in this
whatsoever. But that's that's what thevoice reminded me of. And then we
also have a character called Beaster whois voiced by Dan Hennessy, who is
a giant monster who is also fromMonsterland that pursues my pet Monster with the
(20:34):
intention of bringing him back, andhe's, you know, very sensitive to
light and everything. He was voicedby Dan Hennessy, who has a ton
of credits, and he sound tome, sounds like Captain Caveman. Did
he sound like that to you,Cory, maybe a little bit sure?
Olivia? Did you did you hearthat at all? Either? I would
(20:59):
say possibly Captain Caveman, I wouldsay really both with Monster and Beaster,
both of them kind of gave mewhat I call the Harvey Firestein effect.
Yeah, yeah, which is whereI constantly feel like I need to either
clear my throat or I suddenly cravea lozenge. Right, So they did,
(21:22):
they did. They did work uponme in that way, makes sense?
Yeah, he uh. I wasshocked to find that he'd never voiced
Captain Kyman. He did, however, on the Police Academy TV series,
a cartoon show he voiced z andTackleberry. Oh oh god for him yeah,
(21:42):
and he also did. He voicedSloop and Egbert Petty on alf the
animated series and al Tale. Sowe talked about him before as well.
So lots lots of he's got,Like I said, he's got a ton
of credits, but he but hedoes. He sounds like Captain Caveman to
me. And the other thing Ifigured it out with the monster the voice
(22:03):
also at some point I think it'shis accent reminds me of and I'm gonna
make another reference that I know Corey'sseen this, Olivia. Have you ever
seen the movie Midnight Madness. It'sgot Stephen First, David Naughton, Michael
J. Fox in it. It'sabout these kids who go on a clue
hunt, not a scavenger hund,It's a clue hunt in La on a
Friday night. It was made innineteen eighty. If you saw it played
(22:26):
on HBO a lot in the eighties, which we did not have, my
guess right off the top of myhead would be no, okay, Well,
there is an old woman in there, and if Mike Reisinger is listening
to this, he'll know who I'mtalking about. But this old lady comes
in and starts talking about a strategyboard. That is what the monster's voice
(22:47):
reminds me of. Anybody who's listeningwho knows I don't know, way people
who listen who know the movie Astrategy boyd. That's what the monster reminded
me of. So okay, So, how many episodes were you guys able
to get through? One? Okay? Yep? One? Was it the
very first episode? It? Okay? Yes, sir, yes, sir.
(23:07):
So I watched two and a half. I watched two and a half.
Good for you. Yeah, Iwatched the first episode. I watched
the second episode because I wanted becauseI looked at the at the the plot
on Wikipedia and it's called the WolfmanAre Coming and the hard Rout Group The
Wolfman hold a concert in town.Max is trying to get tickets for his
(23:30):
sister to go, and his effortslead to the Monster becoming their guest singer.
And I said, I've got tosee what this is all about.
And then I watched number episode numbereight, Escape from Monster Land. For
a couple of reasons. One,it aired on my birthday in nineteen eighty
seven. It aired on my eleventhbirthday. And this is where Max and
(23:51):
the rest of the game, gettrapped in monster Land trying to get Monsey
back, and I'm calling him Monzibecause that's what Jill calls him, the
sister calls him, and I wantedto see what that looked like. So
let's talk about the first episode,the one that we all watched and in
news it will shot neither of you. If you've watched this first episode,
you've seen pretty much all of theothers, with very few exceptions, I
(24:15):
do know. So first off,we do have a full sixty seconds of
opening credits, as per usual,m and the song has been stuck in
my head all day. Really interestingbecause do you know what my reaction was
to this? And this was immediatetoo, like they had maybe gotten no
(24:40):
more than three lines into the lyrics. My immediate gut reaction was, well,
hell, I could have written betterlyrics than this when I was in
middle school, Yes, which Istill hold too. Yes, because there
there's also somewhere about three quarters ofthe way through there was an absolutely horrible,
(25:07):
forced rhyme between two words, andI remember again my gut reaction of
oh, come on, see theonly lyrics I remember are my pet monster.
I have my pet monster. Blahblah blah blah blah blah blah,
my pet monster blah blah blah blahblah. That's all I've got, but
(25:29):
it's stuck in my head and itwill not leave. Rent free. Yeah,
Rent free. So the first episode, Bester gets hold of Monster's magic
cuffs and so Monster, Max andChucky have to retrieve the cuffs before Monster
is exposed and Max loses his bestbuddy forever, and we meet as if
we were discussing this on the pilotepisode. As pilots go, it actually
(25:52):
sets up everything pretty well, setsup the universe pretty well. We meet
all the characters and everything. Butyeah, yeah, the one thing that
I did They did make me laughin this episode is when they dress him
up as a dog. They dressthe Monster up as a dog to try
to trick everybody because they can't gethis his handcuffs back, and they just
(26:15):
kind of they safety pinned a tailonto him and the dog. He's just
his face is always so happy.The Monster's face is so he just I
don't know, for some reason,him on all fours with that tail,
walking like a dog. I don'tknow why, but it made me laugh.
Oh good for you, Yeah,for you. The other note that
(26:37):
I had is the next door neighbor, mister Hinkle, calls the cops,
and the cops basically show up andthey're like, oh, okay, sure,
whatever you say, sir, becausethey can't he can't prove that there
is a monster there. It's alsopossible that happened in the second episode,
and I'm conflating the two, butfirst you get the vibe though that he's
(27:03):
to borrow the modern adage a bitof a Karen and it's probably a frequent
flyer on you know whatever. God, I hope not nine one one.
I hope the non emergency number,but he's probably not that considerate. So
yeah, totally down nine one oneon this one. If that was even
(27:26):
a thing at that point in theirtown. Maybe it was one one one
probably, I don't know. Sowas there anything about the show and about
this episode that worked for either oneof you? Did you find anything you
could latch onto and say, Okay, this was not bad. I liked
the animation style, I liked mostof the voice work. You know,
(27:47):
it's for kids, and so therewas a couple of times so I chuggled
throughout it. But it's just it'snot one that I would revisit. Okay,
Olivia, what about you? Visually, it kind of like what we
said, visually, it didn't botherme, which makes it not really sounds
like a compliment. But for somethingthat's not for you to say it doesn't
(28:10):
bother you, I think is fair. I think that's a good thing.
Okay, thank you. So yeah, visually that didn't bother me. There
were a lot of elements that struckme as perhaps a pastiche of a few
other things, very stereotypical grouch nextdoor neighbor slash bad guy that you could
(28:37):
find in a ton of other cartoons, the Beaster specifically, because Beaster and
Monster did not exactly have the sameproportions. Yeah, Beaster is much bigger.
Yes, And and you notice thisreally with Beaster was that kind of
(29:00):
affect or body style where he doesn'tnecessarily have much of a defined head.
It's just kind of all torso,and that the size of his mouth sort
of takes over the torso. He'sbuilt like the Tasmanian double exactly. So
(29:22):
between between his body proportions and Besterand Monster both having these similar kind of
raspy, gravelly voice dare I say, stereotypical monster esque voices that all felt
very much like kind of a bitof a Looney Tunes pastiche. Again,
(29:49):
to their credit, I did notfind the kids annoying, right, because
that is a frequent plaint of mind, to be totally honest, as it
is just just occurring to me rightnow, that I often I often find
(30:10):
children and cartoons inherently rude. Ithink I think there was so much Canadian
involvement in this that everybody is polite. You know, that is entirely possible,
and even more so, I hopethat's true because Canadians can can produce
(30:33):
a darn fine product. So yeah, like, there was nothing about this
that I took issue strong issue with, nothing about this that I thought,
you know, oh oh, thishasn't aged well except for the handcuffs,
(30:55):
and but honestly, I mean thatwas just my I'm a twelve year old
sense of humor taking over. Andbut at the same time, is there
really anything in this that like strikesmy interest or makes me want to come
back to it? No? Notespecially. Yeah, I think I think
(31:18):
you guys both kind of hit thenail on the head. It's it's very
inoffensive vanilla. It's very vanilla.But but yeah, there's not anything that
really wants you, wants to bringyou back. You mentioned, you both
mentioned the animation style, and onething I noticed is that it seems crisper.
The look of the show seems crisperthan a lot of shows of this
(31:38):
era. Okay, I can't decideif I like it more or less,
but it is certainly different. I'mglad you guys picked up on that.
It's it's almost it looks almost moremodern than a lot of the shows that
we watch from this era. AndI'm not sure why that is. I'll
(31:59):
give you I will definitely give youthe animation quality though, Yeah, it
is, it's it's it's it's muchbetter than a lot of what we see
from this from this time period.And you mentioned you mentioned Baster. In
this episode, they go after himwith solar powered flashlights so that when when
(32:21):
the sun goes behind the cloud,they can't use the flashlights anymore. And
I think I misspoke earlier. Actually, I actually skimmed through another episode,
so I watched The Wolfman Are Coming, and this this is where I noticed
that Baster sounds like Captain Kaman.And so bonds. He becomes a singer
of the Wolfman without even singing anyactual words, right, he's just going
(32:42):
like he's just basically growling into themic. But I did watch another one
episode five called The Masked Muncher.It's about a pie eating contest, and
is it just me or we're pieeating contests much more prevalent in the media
of the eighties than they are inreal life. Yes, oh yes,
it's right, along with with quicksandbear traps and right, bear traps had
(33:07):
a good point, and people withbriefcases handcuff to their hands, right,
right, all of these things Iwas expecting to see as an adult.
I used to actually walking around witha with a with a briefcase handcuff to
me when I was doing concert promotionsfor a couple of guys, because I
was the one walking around with allthe ticket money. They were plastic like
(33:28):
toy handcuffs, much like the onesyou might see on My pit Monster.
But that was kind of the joke. So there. So they're going to
enter the Monster in the piating contestso that they can beat Leo, who's
like the town bully, but Monsiends up over eating, so Chucky has
to enter the contest, but thereis one shot where the monster has gotten
(33:50):
so big he's bounding towards him andyou're getting that bounce noise every time he
lands, and that's another thing thatmade me laugh. And again it's just
the fact that he's always miling,he's always in such a good mood.
He's always very pleased with himself.And so of course the kid that ends
up winning is neither Chucky or Leo'shenchman, who's a big, a big
(34:13):
fat kid, but it's a littlenerdy kid on at the end of the
table who just out eats both ofthem. So you kind of had that
coming in the eies. So episodeeight, which I mentioned to Escape from
Monster Land, I wanted to seewhat the creative team thought of as scary
and frightening, and I have toadmit, it's actually pretty creepy. The
sound design and the music is actuallypretty spooky when they go to monster Land,
(34:37):
and there are a couple of thingsabout the episode that I really liked.
So if anybody's going to go watch, when I would recommend Escape from
Monster Land, it's it's episode eight. But I believe if you go to
the YouTube channel that has them all. I believe it's episode seven, okay,
but the monster's what's funny about hereis the kids come up on a
(34:58):
monster. I'm sister Mom walking hermonster kid in a stroller. She's terrified
of the humans and runs away,right, So it's sort of bizarro land.
You might've ever seen the cartoon,the Disney cartoon Donald Duck Donald in
wacky Land and Donald goes to wackyLand something like that. Very surreal.
It's got shades of that. Andthe kids are in actual, real peril.
(35:22):
Max's sister Beast his kidnap. Yeah, Max's sister Beast his kidnapped her
and puts her in a cage overa bottomless pit and he like throws a
rock down there to prove that it'sbottomless. You never hear Land and the
kids are getting chased by these realmonsters. They're actually in real peril rapscallion
(35:43):
right, what you know, contrastsat with when they're in the real world
and it's all about trying to keepManzi a secret. They're not ever in
any real danger, but this they'reactually in an actual peril. So I
would recommend if anybody use it allgo go give that episode to watch.
It actually had some some pretty neatideas on on Okay, so, okay,
the show, like you said,it's it's kind of standard fair as
(36:05):
far as humor and pacing, butthe look of the show is unique,
and like you guys said, thevoice acting by the kids is not nearly
as annoying, right, yeah,yeah, And the writing is maybe half
a notch above what we get withwith some other shows we discussed from the
same time period. But me personally, I just always loved the concept of
(36:28):
my Pet Monster in general, andI like the way they've expanded it in
the cartoon. Like I think,as a concept, I think it works.
Yeah, I think so, Andyou could do worse, and and
Olivia, you know you said it. I think you both mentioned the kids
not being annoying. It was anice change of pace that the brother and
sister actually got along and that Yeah, the sister is not annoyed by the
(36:52):
monster. No, in this matterof fact, to the monster is quite
infatuated with her, right as itshould be. But I did I always
love the concept of the monster beinga toy with the cuffs on and being
alive without them. And then againMonsi's voice cracks me up. So I
(37:13):
I don't know. I said,this is one I if you've never seen
it, I would really would.I think I would recommend everybody at least
check out the Monster Land episode Cauch. Again. If you go to the
YouTube channel, it's retro. It'sa like retro TV YouTube channel or something
like that. Retro rewind, Ithink is what it's called. I believe
it is episode six or seven.I would recommend that. So would either
(37:36):
one of you recommend anybody try thisif they're not an eight year old kid.
Why not? It's it's it's cute, it's fast paced. I don't
see why you wouldn't. Yeah,yes, okay, it is. It
is a product out there for y'alllooking to to dine on some mid eighties
(37:59):
goodness. And I think if youare somebody who did watch it as a
kid, I think you're gonna findthat it is exactly what you remember,
good or bad. I think Ithink that's probably a safe safe to say.
So I think that's fair and quitehonestly, no, not joking.
(38:19):
Because it's a Canadian that's arguably oneof the reasons why it's a better product.
I agreed. Yeah, I agreed. So that's gonna do it then
for this edition of the Saturday MorningSupercast. But we'd love to hear your
thoughts on both the muslicks and mypet Monster, so ahead to the Facebook
page and let us know what youthink. Until next time for the Saturday
(38:43):
Morning Supercast. I'm Jeff, I'mCorey, and I'm Olivia and it is
almost time for college sports, solet's turn off the TV and maybe go
outside. Okay, bye, I'vegot these plastic handcuffs. Should I bring
them? Nope? Thank you forlistening, and don't forget to follow the
(39:06):
show on Facebook It's Saturday Morning Supercastand follow at Marvin Dog Media on Twitter m M
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