Garfield Halloween

It's become a tradition for me to post videos around Halloween, so I'm going to keep that up. This one isn't a Disney one, unlike the previous three posts about this holiday. No, this one is the Garfield Halloween Special that we would watch every year as kids. I think it still holds up pretty well, and ends up being on the scary side, even with all the candy, candy, candy candy, candy.



It's a shame that we don't have any Halloween specials that have come out recently that have this kind of staying power. (Cue people in the comments proving me wrong.)

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Interruptions In Service

As you know, my wife has been working for the first time in quite awhile. What you don't know is that she's also been having some issues with medications changing and various drug side-effects. As such, if I'm not working or taking care of our daughter, I'm taking care of her. So, you will no doubt have noticed a distinct lack of podcasts coming out.

"But you've been on Back to the Bins all month!" That's because I don't have to edit those. You see, for what you hear, it normally takes 3-4 times that to edit it. So a half hour episode could take up to 2 hours of work. I'm sorry, but I can't justify that kind of time investment when I have family issues. I feel bad about missing my schedule (which is on;y once a month anyway), but this is a hobby and family comes first.

I've got two episodes recorded, one for The Hammer Podcasts! and the other for Comic Book Fight Club, that need to be edited. I promise I'll get to that as soon as I can, but I'm not sure when that will be yet. Sorry, everyone, but I'm going to have to ask you to be patient.

The blog, on the other hand, is firing on all cylinders. I've actually got posts written for the next several weeks, so you're weekly does of geekiness will still be there every Thursday.


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What If ... Star Trek: The Next Generation

As a dedicated listener of the podcast "Listen to the Prophets: A Star Trek Deep Space Nine Podcast", I have been re-watching Deep Space Nine so that I have some idea of what the hosts are talking about. In the first episode, we learn that Commander Sisko was at the infamous Battle of Wolf 359. That got me to thinking about the battle itself, or specifically the tail end where the Enterprise D comes in. This was detailed in the amazing two part episode, "The Best of Both Worlds", in which Picard is captured by The Borg and turned into Locutus. In the cliff hanger (which is responsible for all season ending cliff hangers on TV now-a-days), Riker issues the order to fire the new weapon that Commander Shelby has devised at the Borg cube. Spoiler: It doesn't work.

What if it did, though? What if, as intended, the weapon fired and destroyed the cube, killing Picard. We would then have an Enterprise D commanded by Captain William T. Riker. This two parter straddled the end of Season 3 and the beginning of Season 4 of the show, and marked a distinct turning point, for me, anyway, where the show really took off.

What would have happened to the remaining seasons if Riker had been the captain? Would he have settled down to be more of a Picard and had Shelby (the new First Officer) be more of the action hero? We see some of that in this episode, but I think that Riker would have become more Kirk-like than he was to begin with. He would probably have gotten much more directly involved that Picard had and, for better or worse, made more direct decisions without consulting the committee of officers.

This would also have effected Deep Space Nine in some way, since Picard was integral in convincing Sisko to stay there. I'm sure Riker could have delivered the same speech, but I don't know if it would have had the same impact. Of course, Sisko might not have been such the tortured soul as the person responsible for his wife's death would have been killed at the battle.

What do you guys think? Would TNG have been a better or worse show if we had Captain Riker?

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What If ... The Muppets

I'm crossing the streams a bit here, as I did a Muppets post last week, and I have another What If post coming up next week, but this is the case where something got into my head and just kept nagging at me.

As I stated previously, I'm not a fan of the new premise of The Muppets on TV. How could it be improved? Well, what about a talent show? I know that "America's Got Talent" is an NBC show and not on ABC, but that's kind of the set-up I had in mind.

Picture this: Sicily, 1931 ... wait, sorry. Senior moment there. (And thank you to the two of you that laughed at that.)

Picture this: A nation-wide talent show hosted by Gonzo, who gets involved in some of the acts (much like Nick Cannon). The judges are Fozzie (the nice one), Piggy (the harsh one), and the celebrity guest of the week. Behind the scenes we have Kermit wrangling everything, and dealing with the various personalities in order to get the show running properly.

Statler and Waldorf would be in their standard box in the audience, Bobo would be security, Rizzo and Pepe would be in the booth directing things, and we could have various Muppets on camera. Rowlf and The Electric Mayhem would come out to provide musical accompaniment to some of the acts.

In this way we update The Muppet Show to modern day, but we also keep the variety acts that made up some of the best bits.

I expect I'll be seeing my contract as show runner for this new concept in the mail any day now.

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The Muppets - A Reaction

As I write this, we have seen the first episode of the new Muppets TV show. You all heard what Michelle and I were hoping for before sitting down and watching it, but we just couldn't get a time to sit down and record a reaction, so I'm going to do that here. That reaction is, overall, disappointment.

One of my big problems with Muppets Tonight was that it was a little too disjointed. Where as The Muppet Show had an overall theme for each episode, beyond the guest star, Muppets tonight was just a bunch of sketches strung together, held together only by the guest star. This show is the complete opposite of that. There are no sketches, at all. It's just one big plot, broken up by the "reality show interview" segments. It's like they looked at The Muppet Show and threw out everything that worked.

It's not a horrible show, to me at least, so I'm going to give it some time to find it's feet and see what happens. If I drop watching it, I won't be surprised, though. It's just disappointing that they took all the potential they had after The Muppets and wasted it with ... this.

For another perspective, check out the Instant Reaction episode on Muppets In Character.

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Like what I'm doing here on the blog and podcast? Why not check out my Patreon Page to see how you can help me do more? http://www.patreon.com/TheHammerStrikes