This is old news now, I guess, but…
Achievement Hunter, the group of hilarious let’s play nerds who basically kept me virtual company throughout my math degree at the U of I, is disbanding/shutting down.
I originally discovered them through Tumblr; or, more specifically, I discovered Michael Jones/Rage Quit through this video while working at Pima (I watched a lot of videos via Tumblr on that job, haha):
I didn’t know what Rooster Teeth or Achievement Hunter were for a while after that, but after watching enough Rage Quit vids on YouTube, another one of their Let’s Plays with more than just Michael in it got recommended to me. I think this was the first video I saw with Geoff, Ray, and Gavin:
Then I was hooked. I got my mom hooked on them too, haha.
Anyway in honor of the tons of laughs I got from them over the years, here are some of my favorite videos of theirs:
And all the Rage Quits I listed here.
Just let me have my talking planets
I am 100% invested in SolarBalls now, haha.
I haven’t fallen this quickly into an obsession in a long time, and because I have no one I can rave to about it, y’all get in on the blog.
I love the characters. They’re all enjoyable and have their own distinct personalities and quirks.
I love the voice acting. It’s top notch and better than what you hear in many animated TV shows out there.
I love the animation. It’s so smooth and there are a ton of little details in there, like the designs of some of the moons, the little glow around Earth, Mars, and Titan to signify they have atmospheres, and the fact that Uranus (or at least his rings) is often animated to be tilted heavily to one side.
I love the story they’re telling and how they’re doing it. There’s a main story going on right now that I’m about 1/3 of the way through, but intermixed with that are shorter little one-off episodes that are almost like little “what ifs?” or “how comes?” (though some of those are starting to tie in to the main story).
It’s just fun, yo. I’m not having a great time right now and I don’t want to talk about it because people will be like “go see a counselor!” and I’ll be like “counseling is a scam!” and they’ll just get mad at me, so this is acting as an excellent little comfort show at the moment.
Okay, this is cute.
[Edit: this was originally published as two videos, but now they’ve put out a single one with the whole story, so I’ve replaced the originals with that one]
Personified planets doing stuff together? I’m into it!
I saw a small clip of this on TikTok and was intrigued, so I looked it up on YouTube. Turns out this is the most recent video of a whole big series about the planets. I gotta check them all out now.
Edit 2: yeah, this is my new obsession now.
Flashback:
So one of my favorite movies as a preteen was Mystery Men, as I’m sure some of you know. My mom, GE, his parents, and I went to see it in the theatre when it came out in 1999 and I watched it on like continuous repeat after I had my appendectomy during the summer of 2000 (my mom can vouch for this, haha).
We of course had a VHS copy of it back then, which has since been replaced by a DVD. However, the DVD does not have the little “extras” clips/interviews that were at the end of the VHS tape.
But fear not! The DVD may not have them, but the internet certainly does:
Anyone else freaking love this movie?
“Disco is NOT dead! Disco is LIFE!”
Ah, Hell With It
This won’t be the first time I’ve humiliated myself on this blog, and it certainly won’t be the last.
So let’s get to it!
Remember back in the summer when I was off the wall enthused by all those home movies that we finally got converted to digital form?
And remember how I posted like three of them and then you never heard about them again?
Yyyyyeahhhhhhhhhh, that’s ‘cause I got busy.
But I’m still working through them! So in the spirit of “better late than never,” here’s the next installment.
Back in the summer between fifth grade and sixth grade (I think?) I took my mom’s camcorder, a brand new blank tape, and filled said tape with a whole bunch of nonsense that I dubbed “The Fifth Grade Movie.”
It’s basically me being super hyperactive in my room and filming a bunch of shorts, improvised songs, commercials, and interviews.
A few notes:
- I am an only child. This whole video is proof of why I’m an only child.
- This is how an only child entertains themselves. A least in my case.
- I call everything “Tony” because this was during the time that I was obsessed with the “Hey Tony!” Frosted Flakes commercials. Don’t ask questions.
- This is not me acting for the camera. I was just like this. Ask my classmates.
- Yes, my room is very, very messy.
- I sure screeched a hell of a lot, didn’t I?
- My FREAKING HAIR
- I have no idea how my mom put up with me.
You are under no obligation to watch this. In fact, just skip it for sanity’s sake.
Frasier Collab
So as you’ve probably noticed from some of the posts on this blog, I love the idea of animation collabs (examples: this one from the Clock Crew, When I Was Done Dying, the “steamed hams” clip from The Simpsons).
I also love “Frasier.”
So I obviously really enjoyed this:
The voice acting is great, too.
They need to do more episodes, haha.
Fairy
When I was a kid, my dad had several episodes of Rocky & Bullwinkle on VHS. I never watched any other episodes of the show except those on the tapes, but I remember I really enjoyed them.
One of the segments of the show was called “Fractured Fairy Tales,” which featured a humorous take on a classic fairy tale.
For some reason, the Rapunzel one always stuck with me. And now it’s on YouTube!
Rapunzel’s voice is super familiar. The cackling witch sounds is really familiar, too.
So this is cool
Have you seen “The Last of Us?” Did you know many of the scenes were filmed in Calgary (and across Alberta)?
It’s too bad that none of the filming took place near locations where I usually walk/run; it would have been cool to see!
I remember that there were a lot of road closures for the 4th Avenue Flyover filming and it caused a lot of chaos because the closures lasted longer than expected, haha.
Hey!
Do you want to watch Ocean’s Eleven, but don’t have 127 minutes and/or don’t want to watch a bunch of attractive actors?
Have an 11-minute, Lego stop-motion version instead! Brought to you by me, when I was a senior in high school with way too much time on my hands.
I hate myself.
The Grandpa Twins Redux
So I posted about The Grandpa Twins a while back, but now that we’ve got the tapes actually professionally pulled into digital format instead of me recording them with my camcorder by pointing it at the TV, here is an updated video with all of the episodes on it. Timestamps in the comments, for anyone who remotely cares.
Wacky Peter
Yo! So let’s continue the home movie marathon, shall we?
So around the time of my last year of high school, I came up with this Lego character I called “Wacky Peter.” He had all these misadventures and was always dying. Mr. Bill-type stuff.
During 12th grade and the summer between graduating and going to college, I made a whole bunch of stop-motion Wacky Peter videos. Just like when I was a kid, I LOVED recording stuff and making my own movies and the like, so this was sort of the end of that era of my life before I went to college.
(I did this instead of having friends, which is a pretty common pattern for me, haha.)
(I also had my Cape Cod Radio Mystery episodes playing in the background as I worked/filmed, so that’s what all the noise/talking is.)
So here are all the episodes condensed into one video. There are timestamps for each episode in the comments in case anyone actually cares.
Welcome to Hell!
In other words, welcome to several weeks of home videos and other nonsense that no one else cares about!
First up: Hamlet performed by Legos. I made this sometime in 12th grade and my 12th grade English teacher let me show it to the class near the end of the year. They freaking loved it and a bunch of people mentioned it when they signed my yearbook, haha.
It’s actually crap, but so is the taste of 12th graders, apparently.
Anyway.
*raucous excitement* THE HOME MOVIES ARE HERE
Well, they’re not really here yet…my mom is in the process of uploading them to a joint YouTube account so that I can download them, edit them (splice ‘em up and give ‘em names), and make them pretty.
So expect a lot of home movie garbage in the coming weeks. That’s all I’m going to say.
Live Reading
This is FANTASTIC. This is what I ALWAYS wanted to do with movies (well, and also act them out) but I never had anyone who’d do it with me.
Love it.
Final
Dude, this is a super interesting little retrospective of the first three Final Destination movies.
That highway scene at the start of the second movie is amazing and terrifying. I saw it on TV once without knowing what Final Destination was and I was like NOPE NEVER GETTING INTO A CAR AGAIN.
OH JEEBUS, NEW RIVERDALE
The hot mess that is Riverdale has a new season that is, most likely, a hot mess.
Apparently the town gets transported back to the 1950s? I don’t even know.
But I guess if Cheryl can absorb everyone’s superpowers and then use her Phoenix power to BLOW UP A COMET, anything’s possible.
(Yes, that happened.)
Tell me something:
Have you heard of the movie “The Full Monty?”
I’m asking because, at least in my experience, this seems like a fairly obscure movie that most people haven’t heard of. I’ve never heard anyone reference it or even refer to it in passing. I always thought it was just some one-off British comedy that was made and then just fell out of sight.
Apparently, though, it was in the running to win Best Picture (and several other Academy Awards) in 1997. It was beaten out by Titanic.
And, according to Wiki, it was the highest-grossing film in the UK until…Titanic.
That’s…that’s wild. Do any of you remember this movie at the 1997 Academy Awards? Because I certainly don’t.
Wild.
Time Before Land
HEYOOOOOOOOOOO so did you watch (and love) The Land Before Time as a kid?
I did.
But I never watched any of the 10+ sequels.
Lucky for us, though, Alteori did, and she’s got hilarious reviews of all of them in a big YouTube playlist.
Her review of the first one is pretty chill, but they get more hysterical as the movies get worse. Her laugh is infectious.
Popular Opinion:
Toy Story is a trilogy. The story was wrapped up perfectly in three movies. I refuse to watch the fourth one out of principle and I’m so GODDAMN PISSED that Disney is destroying Toy Story further by making a fifth one.
Leave it be. It was perfection.
UGHHHHHHHH.
Cake
This song was the audio for some random TikTok I stumbled upon today and it immediately released a weird wave of nostalgia from my mid-childhood, back when I’d spend the weekend at my dad’s condo and I’d watch all the weird shit Cartoon Network had on after 9 PM (including Adult Swim, when that became a thing).
Edit:
This show was over my head at the time, but MAN I remember that intro.
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