Ep. 288: Addams Family Review

Hulu has resurrected the Warner Brothers and the Warner Sister for the highly anticipated reboot of Animaniacs. The 13-episode first season (of a total of two ordered so far) is now available to binge-watch on Hulu. Not everyone is super thrilled at the manner in which Yakko, Wakko, and Dot return -- evidenced by our own Gregory Lawrence's review, which you can read here -- so we thought we'd take a look at this "legacy-quel" for ourselves.  I was joined by regular Collider contributor Rafael Motamayor for this super-fun episode in which we picked apart the new Animaniacs to bring you the Good, the Bad, and the LOL. Rafael brings a different perspective to the show from both myself and Greg, so you'll have three slightly skewed looks at the reboot thanks to our combined critical powers. You can also check out our own Drew Taylor's interview with the creative minds behind Animaniacs (keep an eye out for it on Collider) and read Rafael's own articles at Rotten Tomatoes, Observer, and here on our own site for more. Will we dip the rebooted toons? Tune in to find out! If you’re new to our podcast audience, Saturday Mourning Cartoons is a long-running podcast for all things animation, including reviews and interview. If you want to support the podcast, and help us to bring original animation into the world, you can do so at our Patreon page and by subscribing on YouTube. You can find all of our previous and continuing episodes on Podbean, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite iOS or Android app. And if you have any animated movie or TV related questions for us, please suggest a title to review here, call us at the cartoon hotline: 202-681-4406, or drop us a line at [email protected]. You can also contact us through Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or reach out directly @DrClawMD and @seanpaulellis.    

'Blood of Zeus' creators Charley and Vlas Parlapanides talk about how their reimagined Greek mythology epic made its way to Netflix.

Whether or not you're a child of the 1990s, you can probably appreciate the adorable cuteness of Bobby Generic, the lead character of Bobby's World. It might creep you out a little bit to learn that the Fox Kids' animated series co-creator Howie Mandel wasn't just the voice of dad Howard Generic, but also Bobby as well. (He also voiced Gizmo in the Gremlins movies, so that cutens things up a bit, yeah?) But since we're keeping it creepy, we wanted to revisit the spookiest stories in Bobby's World lore for this special Halloween episode of the podcast. Just how scary did the Minnesota-Nice family get, anyway? Over the course of the Emmy-nominated animated series' seven-season run to syndication, Bobby's World included a couple of Halloween-themed episodes. For this episode of the podcast, we revisited the Season 1 episode "The Night of the Living Pumpkin" and the Season 2 episode "Nightmare on Bobby's Street." I can absolutely recommend revisiting Bobby's World for yourself, especially these holiday-themed episodes, but you'll have to tune in to see if my co-hosts feel the same way! - Support the Show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/saturdaymourningcartoons - Special Guest: Tony Lazzeroni! Twitter: @CrwddElvtr https://vimeo.com/crowdedelevator Want to find our cohosts online? Dave Trumbore collider.com/author/dave-trumbore Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrClawMD Buy the book 'The Science of Breaking Bad' - https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/science-breaking-bad Sean Paul Ellis IG and twitter @seanpaulellis Performer at Washington Improv Theater where you can find tickets and times. The Bureau podcast: https://tunein.com/podcasts/Comedy-Podcasts/The-Bureau-p1290704/ If you are digging our show and want to help you out, then you can do so in the following ways: 1. Recommend a cartoon to us: Call us and leave a message at 202-681-4406. If you call then we will 100% review you recommendations if we haven't watched the cartoon yet. 2. Leave a review on iTunes with the following message titled "genERic?“ with the review, “GEN-eric." 3. Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SaturdayMourningCartoons/ 4. Follow us on twitter @MourningToons 5. Check us out on Instagram @SaturdayMourningCartoons

October means it's time for spooky toons! We've covered our fair share of supposedly scary (but usually just silly) cartoons on the podcast over the years, but somehow we missed out on an all-time classic: The 90s animated series The Addams Family! This ooky, kooky, mysterious, and spooky series came at a time when interest in the titular family -- Gomez, Morticia, Wednesday, and Puglsey, with Uncle Fester, Lurch, Thing, Cousin It, and Grandmama -- was running high. The cartoon was released in between the live-action The Addams Family movie and its sequel, Addams Family Values. And everything old is new again as a pair of new animated movies based on the title family is here again, courtesy of MGM. We'll get around to the 2019 feature film at some point (maybe when the sequel arrives next year), but for now, it's back to the 90s to see how The Addams Family holds up.

Looking for some outstanding animated action the whole family can love? Check out Season 3 of the Emmy-winning series The Last Kids on Earth, which is now streaming on Netflix. The story of Max Brallier's bestselling book series comes to life with action-packed animation from Atomic Cartoons and a stellar voice cast led by Nick Wolfhard as the main character, 13-year-old Jack Sullivan; be sure to read our recent chat with Wolfhard here. stars Garland Whitt (Quint Baker), Montse Hernandez (June Del Toro), and Charles Demers (Dirk Savage) round out the core cast, complemented by guest stars Catherine O’Hara, Mark Hamill, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Campbell, and more. It's an out-of-this-world animated series you don't want to miss! With the launch of Season 3, which adapts Book 3 of Brallier's series dubbed "The Nightmare King", I had a chance to chat with Brallier and showrunner / executive producer Scott Peterson about all things Last Kids. The duo reflected on the year so far, their pleasantly surprising Emmy win, and the wildly imaginative story that plays out in Season 3. They also teased what might be next for the franchise, but you'll have to keep an eye out for more of our Season 3 and beyond spoilers in a future article. Stay tuned!

Season 3 of the Emmy-winning series The Last Kids on Earth, with action-packed animation from Atomic Cartoons, is now streaming on Netflix. It hails from bestselling author Max Brallier and showrunner Scott Peterson, and continues the adventures of Jack & Co. as the kids attempt to survive a monstrous post-apocalypse. The new season adapts Brallier's Book #3, "The Nightmare King," and uses clever storytelling techniques to explore the dreamscape nestled inside the kids' minds as the narrative unfolds. It's definitely worth a watch so put it on your list now at the very least! With the arrival of the new season of Last Kids, I had a chance to chat with star Nick Wolfhard about the events of "The Nightmare King" and where Jack's head is at this season. Jack and the kids will have to face terrors both real and imagined, but they'll also have to deal with internal conflicts within their friend group. It's not all doom and gloom though! Above all else, The Last Kids on Earth is a super-fun ride into the post-apocalypse. Read on below for Wolfhard's insight into just how fun it was to make! Some light spoilers follow:

The bittersweet news is that Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts has come to a close after only 30 episodes released over less than a calendar year. But what a year. Kipo, one of the best new animated series in recent years, is definitely a silver lining in 2020 and will be a memory I chose to revisit more often than, well, pretty much everything else from this year. The sweet part is that all of those episodes are still available to stream on Netflix and will be fore the foreseeable future. Who knows, maybe if enough people out there (re)discover the fantastic and progressive Dreamworks Animation story, we might just get more of it. That's what I tried to get co-creators / showrunners Rad Sechrist and Bill Wolkoff to confirm when I chatted with the duo recently. Looking forward to a hopeful future full of possibility was a better topic of conversation than lingering on the show's natural end, which was apparently planned from the very beginning. Equally enjoyable was looking back at the show's brief but meteoric rise to critical acclaim to really take stock of what Kipo was able to achieve and what the show, its story, and its characters mean to so many fans out there. All that and more can be found in my interview, so feel free to follow along!

Ben 10 vs. The Universe: The Movie producer Will Patrick talks to the Saturday Mourning Cartoons team about the all-new adventure!  Cartoon Network’s #Ben10 takes on the whole galaxy (literally!) when “Ben 10 vs. The Universe: The Movie” premieres worldwide Saturday, Oct. 10. The TV movie will be available for fans across the globe with the US/Canada airing taking place at 10:00 a.m. ET/PT, only on Cartoon Network. The movie will also be released digitally on Oct. 11 on all major platforms as well as on DVD Oct. 13 by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The action-packed TV movie will focus around a blast from Ben’s past returning to do double the damage on Team Tennyson and planet Earth itself, forcing Ben to go interstellar to save the day. Meanwhile, Gwen and Grandpa Max team up to help protect the world in Ben’s absence. But when our boy hero is confused for the villain in space, Ben must figure out a way to get back to Earth to help save it! New episodes of "Ben 10," currently in its fourth season, will begin airing the week of Sept. 13, kicking off with a half-hour special taking fans on a journey to Tokyo. Premieres will air every day that week at 7:00 a.m. (ET/PT) through Sept. 18. ”Ben 10” is also available on the CN App as well as VOD.

Arriving on DVD and Digital tomorrow, October 6, 2020, and just in time for Halloween, it's Warner Bros. Home Entertainment's Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo! I had a chance to sit down with writer/director/producer Maxwell Atoms (The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy) to chat about the latest holiday special for Mystery Inc. This flick features guest stars Bill Nye the Science Guy and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark along with the sleuth crew you know and love, but keep an eye out for some special guests along the way. Atoms and I talked about how he came to be on this project, his history with Scooby-Doo and notable voice acting legends Frank Welker and Grey Griffin. Plus, Atoms revealed the unplanned but not-so-surprising connection to his Halloween work on his hit show The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and this new Halloween special; fans of Atoms' cartoon should spot it pretty quickly. But we also talked about some of the surprising crossover characters from the wider Warner Bros. universe who show up and how they fit perfectly into the story. - Support the Show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/saturdaymourningcartoons - Want to find our cohosts online? Dave Trumbore collider.com/author/dave-trumbore Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrClawMD Buy the book 'The Science of Breaking Bad' - https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/science-breaking-bad Sean Paul Ellis IG and twitter @seanpaulellis Performer at Washington Improv Theater where you can find tickets and times. The Bureau podcast: https://tunein.com/podcasts/Comedy-Podcasts/The-Bureau-p1290704/ If you are digging our show and want to help you out, then you can do so in the following ways: 1. Recommend a cartoon to us: Call us and leave a message at 202-681-4406. If you call then we will 100% review you recommendations if we haven't watched the cartoon yet. 2. Leave a review on iTunes with the following message titled "I would have gotten away with it“ with the review, “If it wasn't for you pesky kids!" 3. Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SaturdayMourningCartoons/ 4. Follow us on twitter @MourningToons 5. Check us out on Instagram @SaturdayMourningCartoons

Today, I'm not just bringing you the latest episode of our long-running animation podcast Saturday Mourning Cartoons, I'm bringing you a very special and personal project. After 6 years and well over 300 episodes, our little animation-fandom podcast has finally made its own original animation in the nightmarish and hilarious IRONFACE. We made this short animated teaser trailer for the ongoing Kickstarter campaign -- of which I'm the manager and community liaison -- as a proof of concept for what the franchise could look like as an animated series. It was a labor of love and a learning process, all of which we talk about in the video above. If you've ever wondered how the animated sausage is made, this is the podcast episode for you! As background on IRONFACE, it all started decades ago when Dan Paul wrote a bunch of scary stories between the ages of 9 and 11. Those stories were steeped in 80s pop culture, brutally violent, darkly comic, and totally innocent, as told through the mind and imagination of a child. Perhaps unlike most kids, however, his mom saved and preserved all of those stories for thirty-some years. Recently, Dan, better known by his handle of @SourKoolaidShow, unearthed those stories to share them with his Twitch community. And that’s where the cult following of IRONFACE was born. You can find out much more at the ongoing (and fully funded!) Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ironface/ironface-meet-your-new-nightmare