DR. BELCH
11-10-2001, 03:22 PM
POKEMON: JOHTO LEAGUE CHAMPIONS
*"A Ghost of a Chance"
Ash and company finally reach Ecratique City, which is an old place, filled with history, and vaguely European-looking.
On the way they meet a Curly Howard-esque fellow dressed as a harlequin who breathes fire. After unsuccessfully soliciting them for a handout, the clown directs them to the Ecratique gym.
They find the place all right, but are amazed at how vacant and burned it looks. Brock says the marks look old, as if the fire ahppened long ago. However, right before their eyes the whole joint bursts into flame!
They panic and call out Totodile and Staryu to douse the flame, until they realize--with Nachtowl's help--that they are illusions created by Ghastly. (Wouldn't they realize something was wrong when they didn't feel the fire's heat? Or are ghost Pokemon illusions full sensory, not just sight?)
Turns out that a local--whose slow manner of speaking and general creepiness reminded me a bit of Christopher Walken, but blonde and wearing a bandana--shows up to explain that they're standing in the former Pokemon gym, burned by invaders cnturies ago and left as a memorial to man's inhumanity to man. The current Pokemon gym is several miles due northest.,
Meantime, Team Rocket is sstarving, and Jessy--notthinking quiote straight due to hunger--sends James with money to buy food. James has a history of getting swindled (cf. the St. Anne episode and the Magikarp salesman) and sure enough runs into the Curly clown man. Great line here: when the clown asks James slyly if he was looking for someone in particular, he indignantly replied, "I was not looking for a guy!" Oh, poor self-hating, constantly in denial James. ;)
James buys a treasure-seeking divining rod fro mthe guy which he is told can find the ancient vuried treasure under the Ecratique streets, it being an old city with a wealth of history. All Team Rocket manages to find is a sack of bottle caps--which is just ginger-peachy by James, as he collects them.
Meanwhile, Ash, goes into a fit over a stone carving on the gym wall that looks like the bird he saw on the road from Pallet after the Fearow attacked him. The gym leader--Morty by name (as in the Spanish muerte, meaning "death", which is appropriate for a master of ghost Pokemon...incidentally, are they the souls of Pokemon that died or something else entirely?)--explains that that's a Hoho, which died out millennia ago and that Ash couldn't have seen one. Ash vehemently diagrees.
Morty recommends he and his friends stay overnight at a hotel and rest up--meaning this one's a two-parter, like the last gym eppy. Possible trend developing here?
*"From Ghost to Coast"
In the second half, Ash prepares to battle Morty for a fog badge, and does a little research on Gengar in his Pokedex. Not much information available, and here Ash says he has never faced a ghost pokemon in a gym match before. Technically that's true, but he forgets that he used one from Lavendar City, against that creepy psychic girl...met several aboard a ghost ship in "Shipful of Shivers", and fought one to a draw in the Orange League, so he should have some inkling of their capabilities. He does recall, I suppose, that they are pranksters by nature, easily amused, and tend to behave like chidren, so that seems to be his edge.
Brock suggests Nachtowl as an ace in the hole, so when he faces Morty, he calls it out first thing. Brock and Misty think it was a big mistake to play his trump too early, but Ash has a scheme. By using the owl Pokemon to force to show itself, he's able to withdraw Nachtowl and call on Cyndaquil...which defeats one ghost pokemon easily but unfortunately ends up on the recieving end of some serious hurt by a second. Ash calls out Nachtowl again, which handily defeats the little spook, and Ash wins his fourth badge...as well as an admission by Morty that maybe his did see a Hoho after all, which to the boy is even better than any badge..
How many badges are there in the Johto League? Eight? At this rate, presuming all episodes air moderately uncut, it may take another season and a half to get to the big tourney.
As for Team Rocket, their little toy leads them to treasure beyond their wildest dreams--or so they think. Actually it's some nasty ghosts playing a prank and creating the illusion of a banquet...and Jessy and James and Meowth almost get eaten by a buffet table. Team Rocket is running off again (and Wobafett runs pretty fast for a chubby boy, I'll give it that).
JACKIE CHAN ADVENTURES
The Panku box indicates that the portal of the moon demon is located in deep space, halfway between the moon and Earth. Chandu decides that he and the Dark Hand will head to Cape Canaveral and board a launching rocketto their next destination.
When Capt. Black hears that Valmont/Chandu and his thugs are headed to Florida, he contacts Jackie with orders to intercept them. He feeds Jade some false information about where he's ehaded to encourage her to stay home and do her science project (after her homemae volcano is a bust), but while looking for ideas on something else to turn in she spies the Dark Hand on TV at the Canaveral moon launch. (Is Chandu that stupid as to let himself--well, Valmont's face, anyway-- be caught on tape with Ratzo, Finn, and...um...the other guy? Or does he just not care, feeling that he has to answer to no human laws?)
Jackie boards the rocket...and great sequence when the pieces of the rocket disconnect in mid-launch and he has to scramble to reach the top cone (I've always wndered why the bother to build a whole rocket when they jettisson ninety percent of it into the ocean. Seems a waste of money and effort, unless they retrieve and reuse the pieces)--looks like something Chan always wanted to do in a movie but never had the budget or the physical capability. When the shadowy figure (insert trademark here) appears meanacingly behind him on the wall just before acut to commercial, how many knew it'd be Jade? Hands? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? ;)
Great bit with Hok Fu learning his punches and kicks don't work too well in zero grav. "Sloth kick!" "The eagle has landed!" (and later, from Jade, another space movie cliche, "Houston, we have a problem.")
Another great bit with Chandu's moon brother scoffing (looking in the space chimp's direction), "This is Jacke Chan?" "No, that is!" Chandu corrects, pointing at Jackie's face pressed against a glass window. Anyone else epect the moon demon to say something like, "Frankly, I don't see the difference"?
Uncle feels he is too old to go into space ("Do I look like Buck Rogers?") and sends Tohru instead ("You make faces at me?" he demands of his apprentice, seeing his features distorted by gravity pressure) with the lotus and the jellyfish jelly (the flower I understood, being the symbol of the ancient who banished the moon demon, but do I really want to know what the jelly was for? [shudders]).
The demon plans to cause an eclipse and force the moon into the earth, destroying it (which doesn't sit well with the Dark Hand boys (Tick's line, "Destry the Earth? But that's where I keep all my stuff?" came to mind). "Just be glad you're up here," admonishes Chandu.
Jackie is in a bind--the lotus is inside his spacesuit, and it has to touch the demon to work, but he can't take off his helmet or the pressure will crush his skull like a rotten breadfruit. He solves this problem by, as Uncle speaks the chant into the helmet mike, releasing his airhose, shooting out the flower, which binds the moon demon and forces him into the door.
Note Tohru expertly keeps Jade at bay and out of mischief, saying he needs her assistance. Apparently "apprentice" translates as "live-in babysitter" as well.
Watch for the bit where Valmont comes to his senses, realizes that they're in space, and demands of the "pilot" to "turn this thing around right now!" He screamed like a woman when he realized it was a lower primate at the wheel (with the craft on autopilot).
And yes, Jade does a moonwalk...on the moon, no less.
Also watched The Mummy again, and though I really don't care about Imhotep or his little sneering Renfield-type assistant, I do find it interesting that historical figures from the '20's and '30's show up within the story. This week was Einstein; last week, Babe Ruth. Being a picklehead and not realizing it was a period piece, I was looking in "Orb of Aten" for the Trade Center towers to see if they had been edited out--not knowing the dang story was set some 50 years before they were erected.
I als caught that new Moncholi Knights show, and--aagh. This may be even more embarassing, badly animated, poorly dubbed, weak, and unwatchable than Yugioh.
*"A Ghost of a Chance"
Ash and company finally reach Ecratique City, which is an old place, filled with history, and vaguely European-looking.
On the way they meet a Curly Howard-esque fellow dressed as a harlequin who breathes fire. After unsuccessfully soliciting them for a handout, the clown directs them to the Ecratique gym.
They find the place all right, but are amazed at how vacant and burned it looks. Brock says the marks look old, as if the fire ahppened long ago. However, right before their eyes the whole joint bursts into flame!
They panic and call out Totodile and Staryu to douse the flame, until they realize--with Nachtowl's help--that they are illusions created by Ghastly. (Wouldn't they realize something was wrong when they didn't feel the fire's heat? Or are ghost Pokemon illusions full sensory, not just sight?)
Turns out that a local--whose slow manner of speaking and general creepiness reminded me a bit of Christopher Walken, but blonde and wearing a bandana--shows up to explain that they're standing in the former Pokemon gym, burned by invaders cnturies ago and left as a memorial to man's inhumanity to man. The current Pokemon gym is several miles due northest.,
Meantime, Team Rocket is sstarving, and Jessy--notthinking quiote straight due to hunger--sends James with money to buy food. James has a history of getting swindled (cf. the St. Anne episode and the Magikarp salesman) and sure enough runs into the Curly clown man. Great line here: when the clown asks James slyly if he was looking for someone in particular, he indignantly replied, "I was not looking for a guy!" Oh, poor self-hating, constantly in denial James. ;)
James buys a treasure-seeking divining rod fro mthe guy which he is told can find the ancient vuried treasure under the Ecratique streets, it being an old city with a wealth of history. All Team Rocket manages to find is a sack of bottle caps--which is just ginger-peachy by James, as he collects them.
Meanwhile, Ash, goes into a fit over a stone carving on the gym wall that looks like the bird he saw on the road from Pallet after the Fearow attacked him. The gym leader--Morty by name (as in the Spanish muerte, meaning "death", which is appropriate for a master of ghost Pokemon...incidentally, are they the souls of Pokemon that died or something else entirely?)--explains that that's a Hoho, which died out millennia ago and that Ash couldn't have seen one. Ash vehemently diagrees.
Morty recommends he and his friends stay overnight at a hotel and rest up--meaning this one's a two-parter, like the last gym eppy. Possible trend developing here?
*"From Ghost to Coast"
In the second half, Ash prepares to battle Morty for a fog badge, and does a little research on Gengar in his Pokedex. Not much information available, and here Ash says he has never faced a ghost pokemon in a gym match before. Technically that's true, but he forgets that he used one from Lavendar City, against that creepy psychic girl...met several aboard a ghost ship in "Shipful of Shivers", and fought one to a draw in the Orange League, so he should have some inkling of their capabilities. He does recall, I suppose, that they are pranksters by nature, easily amused, and tend to behave like chidren, so that seems to be his edge.
Brock suggests Nachtowl as an ace in the hole, so when he faces Morty, he calls it out first thing. Brock and Misty think it was a big mistake to play his trump too early, but Ash has a scheme. By using the owl Pokemon to force to show itself, he's able to withdraw Nachtowl and call on Cyndaquil...which defeats one ghost pokemon easily but unfortunately ends up on the recieving end of some serious hurt by a second. Ash calls out Nachtowl again, which handily defeats the little spook, and Ash wins his fourth badge...as well as an admission by Morty that maybe his did see a Hoho after all, which to the boy is even better than any badge..
How many badges are there in the Johto League? Eight? At this rate, presuming all episodes air moderately uncut, it may take another season and a half to get to the big tourney.
As for Team Rocket, their little toy leads them to treasure beyond their wildest dreams--or so they think. Actually it's some nasty ghosts playing a prank and creating the illusion of a banquet...and Jessy and James and Meowth almost get eaten by a buffet table. Team Rocket is running off again (and Wobafett runs pretty fast for a chubby boy, I'll give it that).
JACKIE CHAN ADVENTURES
The Panku box indicates that the portal of the moon demon is located in deep space, halfway between the moon and Earth. Chandu decides that he and the Dark Hand will head to Cape Canaveral and board a launching rocketto their next destination.
When Capt. Black hears that Valmont/Chandu and his thugs are headed to Florida, he contacts Jackie with orders to intercept them. He feeds Jade some false information about where he's ehaded to encourage her to stay home and do her science project (after her homemae volcano is a bust), but while looking for ideas on something else to turn in she spies the Dark Hand on TV at the Canaveral moon launch. (Is Chandu that stupid as to let himself--well, Valmont's face, anyway-- be caught on tape with Ratzo, Finn, and...um...the other guy? Or does he just not care, feeling that he has to answer to no human laws?)
Jackie boards the rocket...and great sequence when the pieces of the rocket disconnect in mid-launch and he has to scramble to reach the top cone (I've always wndered why the bother to build a whole rocket when they jettisson ninety percent of it into the ocean. Seems a waste of money and effort, unless they retrieve and reuse the pieces)--looks like something Chan always wanted to do in a movie but never had the budget or the physical capability. When the shadowy figure (insert trademark here) appears meanacingly behind him on the wall just before acut to commercial, how many knew it'd be Jade? Hands? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? ;)
Great bit with Hok Fu learning his punches and kicks don't work too well in zero grav. "Sloth kick!" "The eagle has landed!" (and later, from Jade, another space movie cliche, "Houston, we have a problem.")
Another great bit with Chandu's moon brother scoffing (looking in the space chimp's direction), "This is Jacke Chan?" "No, that is!" Chandu corrects, pointing at Jackie's face pressed against a glass window. Anyone else epect the moon demon to say something like, "Frankly, I don't see the difference"?
Uncle feels he is too old to go into space ("Do I look like Buck Rogers?") and sends Tohru instead ("You make faces at me?" he demands of his apprentice, seeing his features distorted by gravity pressure) with the lotus and the jellyfish jelly (the flower I understood, being the symbol of the ancient who banished the moon demon, but do I really want to know what the jelly was for? [shudders]).
The demon plans to cause an eclipse and force the moon into the earth, destroying it (which doesn't sit well with the Dark Hand boys (Tick's line, "Destry the Earth? But that's where I keep all my stuff?" came to mind). "Just be glad you're up here," admonishes Chandu.
Jackie is in a bind--the lotus is inside his spacesuit, and it has to touch the demon to work, but he can't take off his helmet or the pressure will crush his skull like a rotten breadfruit. He solves this problem by, as Uncle speaks the chant into the helmet mike, releasing his airhose, shooting out the flower, which binds the moon demon and forces him into the door.
Note Tohru expertly keeps Jade at bay and out of mischief, saying he needs her assistance. Apparently "apprentice" translates as "live-in babysitter" as well.
Watch for the bit where Valmont comes to his senses, realizes that they're in space, and demands of the "pilot" to "turn this thing around right now!" He screamed like a woman when he realized it was a lower primate at the wheel (with the craft on autopilot).
And yes, Jade does a moonwalk...on the moon, no less.
Also watched The Mummy again, and though I really don't care about Imhotep or his little sneering Renfield-type assistant, I do find it interesting that historical figures from the '20's and '30's show up within the story. This week was Einstein; last week, Babe Ruth. Being a picklehead and not realizing it was a period piece, I was looking in "Orb of Aten" for the Trade Center towers to see if they had been edited out--not knowing the dang story was set some 50 years before they were erected.
I als caught that new Moncholi Knights show, and--aagh. This may be even more embarassing, badly animated, poorly dubbed, weak, and unwatchable than Yugioh.