list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures [Animated Series] on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Bill_Ted_s_Excellent_Adventures_Animated_Series/249994/default.aspx Title: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures [Animated Series]
Year: 1990
Number of blog posts: 2
]]>Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:01:08 GMTBill & Ted's Excellent Adventures [Animated Series]19902http://www.spout.com/images/no_image.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Bill_Ted_s_Excellent_Adventures_Animated_Series/249994/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/13/33965.aspxPost By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/13/2008 3:01:08 PM
Body: From what I hear, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is really bad. Bad enough for the king of the fanboys, Harry Knowles, to reportedly write, “I hated the film. HATED IT. REALLY HATED IT.” Bad enough that Warner Bros. had the review removed from Aint it Cool News due to a review embargo — though probably it had more to do with it being so damaging to the studio’s marketing of the film (apparently Warners had no issue with Variety publishing its so-so review on the same day). I’m not in the least bit surprised. Most people I know who used to be big Star Wars fans won’t be bothering to see the film. But if it bombs at the box office this weekend, what will that mean for Lucasfilm’s upcoming Clone Wars animated series, which is set to spin off from the movie? The show will probably do OK, thanks to the few geeks who still worship the franchise, but it’s not likely to make my list of best animated series spun off from movies: Muppet Babies - The cute infant versions of Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie and (most of) the others officially debuted in The Muppets Take Manhattan, so this cartoon series counts. Even though my brother disagrees (”the Muppets are a whole entity outside of the movies”). And it’s so good that I’d almost say it’s the best Muppet project ever. It’s at least better than the movie it spun off from. Plus, it was especially entertaining for movie fans. Long before Family Guy did it, the Muppet Babies had their own brilliant animated take on the Star Wars films. Star Wars: Droids - When I was a kid, I definitely preferred the cuter, longer-running Star Wars: Ewoks (both cartoons were later united as Ewoks & Droids Adventure Hour), but looking back, Droids was the cooler series because it retained Anthony Daniels as the voice of C-3PO (R2-D2 was humorously credited as himself) and featured characters like Boba Fett and IG-88. As a bonus, it also featured an awesome theme song co-written and performed by Stewart Copeland. The only theme that might top it is the Fat Boys’ rap for Police Academy: The Series. Back to the Future - I’m a sucker for cartoon spin-offs that feature voices from the original movies, and this one had both Mary Steenburgen (Clara Brown) and Thomas F. Wilson (Biff Tannen) reprising their roles. Strangely enough, the animated Doc Brown was voiced by Dan Castellaneta (also the voice of Homer Simpson), while the live-action Doc Brown, who introduced and closed each episode, was actually played by the movies’ Christopher Lloyd. Someone please put this show on DVD already. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures - Even better than BTTF, this cartoon initially featured the voices of the three original stars of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter and George Carlin. Unfortunately, the bogus second season of the series screwed everything up with a different production company (DiC instead of Hanna-Barbera), new actors (Evan Richards and Christopher Kennedy, stars of the live-action Bill & Ted series) and a broader premise (the dudes could now travel into literature, TV shows and the human body). At least for awhile, the series was most triumphant. Beetlejuice - Talk about changing the premise. I don’t know what the creators were thinking when they decided to suddenly make Beetlejuice and Lydia best friends, but somehow it works. And, as much as I’d have loved for Winona Ryder to reprise her role, I’m glad Lydia was voiced by one of my favorites, Alyson Court (Jubilee in X-Men: The Animated Series and Veronica in The New Archies). I don’t understand how it really fits with the plot of Tim Burton’s movie anymore than I get why Daniel and Mr Miyagi were suddenly adventurers in the Karate Kid cartoon, but I was at least a big fan of the imaginative Netherworld setting of the Beetlejuice series. The Real Ghostbusters - Like Beetlejuice, this animated version of Ghostbusters turned enemies into friends by making Slimer a cute mascot. In fact, the series was eventually retitled Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters because of how kids responded to the green guy, with Slimer receiving his own half-hour storylines. This despite the initial attraction of the series having a darker tone than most Saturday morning cartoons. TaleSpin - Forget all the later Disney cartoon series based on animated features, this was the best and most inspired. Maybe because it’s another example in which the premise of the series is completely different than the premise of the films. Aside from starring the characters Baloo, Louie and Shere Khan, it has nothing at all to do with The Jungle Book. And except for the lack of songs performed by Louis Prima, the series is much cooler than the movie. She-Ra: Princess of Power - I’m counting this even though the movie it’s spun off from, The Secret of the Sword, is also the first four episodes of the series. It was released theatrically, though. Besides, including it on the list means I don’t have to choose a best of the three lame Jim Carrey movie spin offs (The Mask; Dumb and Dumber; Ace Ventura), nor do I have to familiarize myself with The Animatrix, which I’m sure has it’s fans, or attempt to justify the cool in theory but terrible in reality Teen Wolf cartoon. Toxic Crusaders - Among all the R-rated movies that were turned into cartoons for kids — including First Blood (Rambo), Highlander, RoboCop and Police Academy – the decision to make an animated series out of The Toxic Avenger is the most questionable and therefore the most ingenious. I doubt something like this could be created today; we kids of the ’80s were just more exposed to inappropriate material and also had room for more sanitized versions. I saw the original, extremely violent movie when I was 8 years old and would have also loved this cartoon back then, despite it’s lack of head-crushings and nudity. Unfortunately, it didn’t debut until I was in my teens, when I was typically sleeping in on Saturday mornings and napping on weekday afternoons. Clerks - I’ve honestly never seen this cartoon, but I have a good reason to include it. While taking a film studies course titled American Film Comedy in college, I had a classmate who literally finished each session — having just watched The Circus, The General, Sherlock Jr., Duck Soup, The Palm Beach Story, It, Trouble in Paradise, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, His Girl Friday, It Should Happen to You, Tootsie or some other classic — by saying, in all seriousness, “I guess I don’t have the right sense of humor for these movies. I prefer smart comedies like Chasing Amy.” A devout Kevin Smith fan, he also continuously would reference the animated Clerks series, despite the fact that nobody else seemed to have any familiarity with it. For a cartoon spin-off to so completely appease the biggest fan of the movie, it has to be considered a success. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:01:08 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/13/2008 3:01:08 PM From what I hear, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is really bad. Bad enough for the king of the fanboys, Harry Knowles, to reportedly write, “I hated the film. HATED IT. REALLY HATED IT.” Bad enough that Warner Bros. had the review removed from Aint it Cool News due to a review embargo — though probably it had more to do with it being so damaging to the studio’s marketing of the film (apparently Warners had no issue with Variety publishing its so-so review on the same day). I’m not in the least bit surprised. Most people I know who used to be big Star Wars fans won’t be bothering to see the film. But if it bombs at the box office this weekend, what will that mean for Lucasfilm’s upcoming Clone Wars animated series, which is set to spin off from the movie? The show will probably do OK, thanks to the few geeks who still worship the franchise, but it’s not likely to make my list of best animated series spun off from movies: Muppet Babies - The cute infant versions of Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie and (most of) the others officially debuted in The Muppets Take Manhattan, so this cartoon series counts. Even though my brother disagrees (”the Muppets are a whole entity outside of the movies”). And it’s so good that I’d almost say it’s the best Muppet project ever. It’s at least better than the movie it spun off from. Plus, it was especially entertaining for movie fans. Long before Family Guy did it, the Muppet Babies had their own brilliant animated take on the Star Wars films. Star Wars: Droids - When I was a kid, I definitely preferred the cuter, longer-running Star Wars: Ewoks (both cartoons were later united as Ewoks & Droids Adventure Hour), but looking back, Droids was the cooler series because it retained Anthony Daniels as the voice of C-3PO (R2-D2 was humorously credited as himself) and featured characters like Boba Fett and IG-88. As a bonus, it also featured an awesome theme song co-written and performed by Stewart Copeland. The only theme that might top it is the Fat Boys’ rap for Police Academy: The Series. Back to the Future - I’m a sucker for cartoon spin-offs that feature voices from the original movies, and this one had both Mary Steenburgen (Clara Brown) and Thomas F. Wilson (Biff Tannen) reprising their roles. Strangely enough, the animated Doc Brown was voiced by Dan Castellaneta (also the voice of Homer Simpson), while the live-action Doc Brown, who introduced and closed each episode, was actually played by the movies’ Christopher Lloyd. Someone please put this show on DVD already. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures - Even better than BTTF, this cartoon initially featured the voices of the three original stars of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter and George Carlin. Unfortunately, the bogus second season of the series screwed everything up with a different production company (DiC instead of Hanna-Barbera), new actors (Evan Richards and Christopher Kennedy, stars of the live-action Bill & Ted series) and a broader premise (the dudes could now travel into literature, TV shows and the human body). At least for awhile, the series was most triumphant. Beetlejuice - Talk about changing the premise. I don’t know what the creators were thinking when they decided to suddenly make Beetlejuice and Lydia best friends, but somehow it works. And, as much as I’d have loved for Winona Ryder to reprise her role, I’m glad Lydia was voiced by one of my favorites, Alyson Court (Jubilee in X-Men: The Animated Series and Veronica in The New Archies). I don’t understand how it really fits with the plot of Tim Burton’s movie anymore than I get why Daniel and Mr Miyagi were suddenly adventurers in the Karate Kid cartoon, but I was at least a big fan of the imaginative Netherworld setting of the Beetlejuice series. The Real Ghostbusters - Like Beetlejuice, this animated version of Ghostbusters turned enemies into friends by making Slimer a cute mascot. In fact, the series was eventually retitled Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters because of how kids responded to the green guy, with Slimer receiving his own half-hour storylines. This despite the initial attraction of the series having a darker tone than most Saturday morning cartoons. TaleSpin - Forget all the later Disney cartoon series based on animated features, this was the best and most inspired. Maybe because it’s another example in which the premise of the series is completely different than the premise of the films. Aside from starring the characters Baloo, Louie and Shere Khan, it has nothing at all to do with The Jungle Book. And except for the lack of songs performed by Louis Prima, the series is much cooler than the movie. She-Ra: Princess of Power - I’m counting this even though the movie it’s spun off from, The Secret of the Sword, is also the first four episodes of the series. It was released theatrically, though. Besides, including it on the list means I don’t have to choose a best of the three lame Jim Carrey movie spin offs (The Mask; Dumb and Dumber; Ace Ventura), nor do I have to familiarize myself with The Animatrix, which I’m sure has it’s fans, or attempt to justify the cool in theory but terrible in reality Teen Wolf cartoon. Toxic Crusaders - Among all the R-rated movies that were turned into cartoons for kids — including First Blood (Rambo), Highlander, RoboCop and Police Academy – the decision to make an animated series out of The Toxic Avenger is the most questionable and therefore the most ingenious. I doubt something like this could be created today; we kids of the ’80s were just more exposed to inappropriate material and also had room for more sanitized versions. I saw the original, extremely violent movie when I was 8 years old and would have also loved this cartoon back then, despite it’s lack of head-crushings and nudity. Unfortunately, it didn’t debut until I was in my teens, when I was typically sleeping in on Saturday mornings and napping on weekday afternoons. Clerks - I’ve honestly never seen this cartoon, but I have a good reason to include it. While taking a film studies course titled American Film Comedy in college, I had a classmate who literally finished each session — having just watched The Circus, The General, Sherlock Jr., Duck Soup, The Palm Beach Story, It, Trouble in Paradise, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, His Girl Friday, It Should Happen to You, Tootsie or some other classic — by saying, in all seriousness, “I guess I don’t have the right sense of humor for these movies. I prefer smart comedies like Chasing Amy.” A devout Kevin Smith fan, he also continuously would reference the animated Clerks series, despite the fact that nobody else seemed to have any familiarity with it. For a cartoon spin-off to so completely appease the biggest fan of the movie, it has to be considered a success. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/6/23/31558.aspxPost By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 6/23/2008 1:00:41 PM
Body: Though it may be more appropriate to watch videos of his comedy routines, particularly of his classic “Seven Dirty Words” bit or his routine on death, this is a film blog, so I’m sharing a clip from … an animated television series. But it’s a cartoon spun-off from a movie, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which is probably Carlin’s most memorable film, so I find it worthy. Especially because Carlin reprised his role as Rufus. The first season of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures actually featured the voices of Carlin, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, as Rufus, Ted and Bill, respectively. It wasn’t completely rare for cartoon spin-offs to retain the lead actors of the original movies/TV shows, and it’s not like any of the principals were too big for Saturday morning (Reeves didn’t really become a big star until a few years later), but in retrospect it at least seems surprising. The main reason I wanted to share this clip was to recognize Carlin’s ability to transcend his iconic status as a pioneer of obscene stand-up in order to do a lot of kid-friendly work. In addition to appearing in the Bill & Ted movies and the first season of the animated series (none of the stars stayed on for the second, much-altered season), Carlin lent his voice to Pixar’s Cars, Disney’s Tarzan II, the Weinstein Company’s Happily N’Ever After and the children’s program Thomas the Tank Engine and appeared as the conductor on the Thomas spin-off Shining Time Station. And in the above clip Carlin’s two sides meet, as the animated Rufus comes across a George Carlin comedy album. Were kids suddenly introduced to the obscene Carlin? Did they run out and buy his albums only to discover that he had a filthy mouth? Probably not. I had grown up with his comedy, hearing his routines before I was even as old as there are dirty words, but I’m sure that when this episode aired, I failed to see the true genius of the joke. Now I appreciate it to its fullest. To quote the animated Carlin, the reflexive moment is indeed “most amusing.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:00:41 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com6/23/2008 1:00:41 PM Though it may be more appropriate to watch videos of his comedy routines, particularly of his classic “Seven Dirty Words” bit or his routine on death, this is a film blog, so I’m sharing a clip from … an animated television series. But it’s a cartoon spun-off from a movie, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which is probably Carlin’s most memorable film, so I find it worthy. Especially because Carlin reprised his role as Rufus. The first season of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures actually featured the voices of Carlin, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, as Rufus, Ted and Bill, respectively. It wasn’t completely rare for cartoon spin-offs to retain the lead actors of the original movies/TV shows, and it’s not like any of the principals were too big for Saturday morning (Reeves didn’t really become a big star until a few years later), but in retrospect it at least seems surprising. The main reason I wanted to share this clip was to recognize Carlin’s ability to transcend his iconic status as a pioneer of obscene stand-up in order to do a lot of kid-friendly work. In addition to appearing in the Bill & Ted movies and the first season of the animated series (none of the stars stayed on for the second, much-altered season), Carlin lent his voice to Pixar’s Cars, Disney’s Tarzan II, the Weinstein Company’s Happily N’Ever After and the children’s program Thomas the Tank Engine and appeared as the conductor on the Thomas spin-off Shining Time Station. And in the above clip Carlin’s two sides meet, as the animated Rufus comes across a George Carlin comedy album. Were kids suddenly introduced to the obscene Carlin? Did they run out and buy his albums only to discover that he had a filthy mouth? Probably not. I had grown up with his comedy, hearing his routines before I was even as old as there are dirty words, but I’m sure that when this episode aired, I failed to see the true genius of the joke. Now I appreciate it to its fullest. To quote the animated Carlin, the reflexive moment is indeed “most amusing.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog