It doesn’t say exactly where or when this “Mechanicsburg Travel and Adventure Show” is supposed to take place, and I have a hard time believing that someone would give you free cruise or airline tickets just for coming to an expo.
In this Trix commercial, the rabbit finally gets a bowl of Trix!…but unfortunately he’s out of milk. Turns out, this was actually a “Got Milk?” ad.
Looney Tunes—in Soup or Sonic, Wile E. Coyote finally catches the Roadrunner…but because of some toon physics shenanigans, Wile E is too small to eat him. That orange thing he’s standing next to is Roadrunner’s leg.
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream—the sadistic master computer AM tells the characters, who are starving, that there’s a cache of canned food to find. They finally find it…but AM deliberately didn’t leave them a can opener.
So, he censors people's swear words (except his own), and glitches out when Zooble mentions wanting to have sex, and says that the Circus is a family friendly place. But "The Mystery of Mildenhall Manor" would've been way too scary for kids (I'm an adult, and that giant face thing freaked me out) and I can assume "The Curse of the Violent Psycho Butcher" would've been even more so. It's entirely possible to make something spooky and family friendly at the same time.
The Good:
-Matches Malone returns
-Carrie Kelly is back, plus Grey Ghost reference.
-Alfred was the MVP, not only creating but also distributing the antidote to the Joker toxin.
-RIP Roxanne, she did nothing wrong.
-This version of the Riddler seems to be referencing Frank Gorshin's (the laugh, the hair color, his outfit under the trench coat, having a pretty girl around).
The Bad:
-The way they alluded to some characters' comic book names. Hattie said people called her "The Mad Hatter of News" even though she had nothing to do with Alice in Wonderland. Julian Gregory was called "Calendar Man" since he was good with dates, or something? Riddler "riddling [people and buildings] with bullets." And then Commissioner Gordon referring to the guy who just unleashed a zombie apocalypse on Gotham as "this Joker."
-People complained about Season 1 gender-swapping the Penguin, but at least she actually did things that the Penguin would do. Hattie never uses mind control, and never will since she's dead now, so why make her the Mad Hatter in the first place? Riddler not only never uses riddles (except for that stupid pineapple thing), not even in the form of puzzles or traps, but also doesn't even seem particularly intelligent. He was so unlike himself that, at first, I thought Eddie wasn't this universe's version of Riddler, and another character would take that title. But then, they did the "riddled with bullets" thing.
-I liked bringing back the name "Mr. Zero," but I didn't like the design or MO of the character.
-I was unfamiliar with the Mad Monk, but when I found out the OG version of him was a vampire, what they did with him here felt like a waste.
-They wasted Hugo Strange.
-Didn't like what they did with the Spectre. I thought he was supposed to be Solomon Grundy until his eyes did the skull thing? How did that experiment give him the Spectre's powers? There was nothing magical or spiritual involved, just mad science.
-I know this version of Joker is referencing how he was in the earliest comics, but I did not like it. Joker should have a sense of humor, even if it's very dark and is only funny to him. This guy just rambled on about how he was a "teacher," and how the people of Gotham were "insects," and how he and Batman were "brothers"? What was his point? How does turning people into zombies relate to anything he was saying? What was he trying to accomplish?
-I've seen people praising the increased violence, but BTAS proved that you can have a mature tone without people constantly getting bloodied by machine guns, so it just felt gratuitous here.
A Bad Case of Stripes- Not eating lima beans due to peer pressure causes Camilla Cream to break out in rainbow stripes. It’s funny at first, with her skin changing to different colors and patterns, but then things start growing out of her skin, and her body morphs, eventually becoming her living room.
Operation- Cavity Sam’s ailments are things that wouldn’t be too bad in real life, but in the game, they’re taken literally. There is an actual butterfly in his stomach, his broken heart really is cracked in two, etc. All these items have to be surgically removed.
Theme Hospital- your patients can have conditions such as Bloaty Head (pictured), Slack Tongue, and Kidney Beans. Some of the cures for these are pretty horrifying. For example, Bloaty Head is cured by the doctor popping the patient’s head like a balloon and re-inflating it.
Pepper Ann was a slice-of-life Disney cartoon that aired from 1997-2001. It centered on the titular 12-year-old and her experiences with navigating middle school life. She had frequent imagine spots, many of which involved her reflection talking to her.
I’m referring to the scene in “Leader of the Pack” where Fox is reading philosophy books in her prison cell. I know her mention of Kafka references “The Metamorphosis,” but I don’t know anything about Nietzsche.
Osmosis Jones (2001) is a buddy-cop movie set inside a human body. Some of this is concept art, and some is from the finished film.
Cyberchase is a PBS Kids show that started airing in the early 2000s. It was designed to teach math to older elementary school kids.
I don’t think this is supposed to be the same bus from the original MSB; I sure hope it isn’t. This iteration is geared towards preschoolers, and it shows in a way that I hate. It’s another example of the awful “YouTube Kids” style that most preschool shows have nowadays. The OG bus’ face looks like it belongs on a vehicle, with the headlights as eyes and the front bumper as the mouth. This one has a nose-less human face just sort of growing out of the front, so it’s disconcerting to look at. I’d be afraid to get on this bus.
I’ve seen animals mating at zoos a couple times, but never when a zookeeper was around. At the time, I was already old enough to know about the birds and the bees. I don’t think there’s necessarily a right or wrong response to the situation; I’m just curious about how you handle it.
I don’t have the game yet, but I want to put the Universal Monsters and the Looney Tunes on my island. If you’re familiar with those characters, you know that some of them are less than nice. I’ve looked through every personality type, and they all seem to emphasize positive traits. The “visionary” or “maverick” types could work for a mad scientist character like the Invisible Man, but that’s about it. Do some of the personalities come with negative traits that just aren’t listed?
Since today is Juneteenth, I feel compelled to mention this. The short is called “Rebel Without Claws.”
Sylvester is invited to all the cookouts.
For me, it’s Sylvester. In a lot of his shorts, he’s a stray cat who has to go through garbage cans to find food, so you understand why he’s so desperate to eat Tweety. In others, he’s being kept with Tweety in the same house, and when he exhibits natural cat behavior by trying to eat Tweety, the owner gets mad. What did the owner expect when they’re keeping a cat and a small bird in the same house?
And then, there’s all his attempts to catch prey so that his son, Sylvester Jr., will be proud of him. He really does try his best, but when he inevitably fails, Jr. puts a paper bag over his head and goes on about how ashamed he is. Poor Sylvester.