Of all the shows mentioned on this web site, no one has mentioned Biker Mice from Mars. This truly underrated show had some surprising adult characters and situations.
First let’s look at the main characters. Throttle is the quintessential leader who is smart and your average guy. He is the only one with a girlfriend who is tough and very loyal. Vinnie is the classic young, hyper, oversexed man. He boasts and brags consistently and of course tries to get women (I’ll explain that more later). Modo is the lovable big guy who is committed to family (he is pretty much a mama’s boy). Charley is a woman who lives alone and is a mechanic (she is also the most realistic looking woman as she rarely wears sexy clothing). She obviously enjoys the company the Biker Mice bring her. The villain Limburger is very similar to the British villains seen in James Bond films. His assistant Carbunkle is androgynous in both look and voice. Greasepit, a henchman, is an idiot.
Now, there are tons of sexual overtones and innuendos between Charley and Vinnie. It is evident in the first episodes (in the second episode when Charley is dressed in a short skirt and falls over in front of them, Vinnie asks her to “turn around again”). Other incidents include: his reactions to when Charley is in danger (male protectiveness of his woman), flexing in front of her, jealousy (evident when Charley’s old boyfriend showed up), and many incidences in which he wants her to check him out. Charley flat out refuses all his advances (after all, that is bestiality) but even including that kind of relationship which is more obvious than Elisa and Goliath in Gargoyles is bold.
Also, the Biker Mice are borderline chauvinistic in most of the episodes. They fight while Charley sits in the garage only because they make her. She often has to fight to get equal treatment from them which mirrors the women’s rights movement and the glass ceiling issue.
The villain Limburger could be considered gay. He never does anything himself against the Biker Mice, he hires someone else to do it. Limburger has no family to speak of (except for a nephew…think of Scar from The Lion King) and is often running, yelling, and screaming (with Carbunkle in tow) from the Biker Mice. Also, Limburger has an inferiority complex. He loathes anything dealing with being Plutarkian (he is an alien). He despises doing the Plutarkian greeting and always has on his human mask even when he does not need to (in fact an episode showed a flashback where he was infatuated with Earth movies).
One thing about the show that seemed negative was the portrayal of rats. All the rats on the show are evil or do evil things. Modo, in particular, gets angry when anyone compares him to a rat. The person(?) that brings down the Martian forces is a rat disguised as a mouse who infiltrates the group. He also kidnaps the girlfriend of Vinnie (note that this takes place before they get to Earth). This smells of racism (the rats being African-Americans) and the rat kidnapping one of the mice’s girlfriend goes right into the stereotype of African-American men craving white women.
There are also lots of in-jokes. The voice of Vinnie is Ian Ziering of 90210. Thus, the show had guest appearances by people from 90210 including Luke Perry, Jason Priestly, and Jennie Garth (in fact, Luke Perry’s character looked like a twisted version of him). Also, an episode of the show dealt with Shakespeare. The voice of Limburger is a Shakespearean actor.
I hope this gives you an idea of the show, which was on the air for three seasons. Even though the animation was not nearly as good as Disney or Warner Bros., the writing combined sexual tension, humor, action, and adult in-jokes in virtually every episode while staying within the realm of children’s television. Also, what show geared toward kids would stretch out a storyline through 3 weekly episodes (as it did in its final season, before shows like ReBoot or Beast Wars did it)? Anyone who is a fan of this show or vaguely remembers it should comment and tell me what you think.
A long-running – seemingly endlessly iterated, in fact – conflict between enemies known as Tom and Jerry. Where else have we seen this? That’s right, the First World War, in which the Brits were known collectively as “Tommy Atkins” and they called the Germans “Jerries” (well, when they weren’t calling them “Huns”). Interesting, then, that it’s with Jerry – the historical loser – that our sympathies lie. Revisionist propaganda? Perhaps. Perhaps.
Come to think of it, weren’t the majority of these cartoons produced during and shortly after the second World War, in which Jerry (if you will) was once again the enemy? Posited: a subversive attempt to counteract the “all Germans are Nazis are Evil” propaganda then current – a sort of Don’t Let’s be Beastly to the Germans, without Noel Coward’s sarcasm. -Contributed by Jeffie
You know, if you think about it, The Muppets were quite a sublime commentary on the human condition. None of the Muppets were good at what they wanted to be. Piggy wasn’t beautiful. Fozzie wasn’t funny. Kermit couldn’t make his show a success. The Swedish Chef could not cook, etc. They all constantly failed, yet kept trying. -From Scott Kurtz’s PvP, 12/10/2008
There’s one reservation I have about [The Rescuers Down Under]. Why does the villain have to be so noticeably dark-complexioned compared to all of the other characters? Is Disney aware of the racially coded message it is sending? When I made that point to another critic, he argued that McLeach wasn’t dark-skinned – he was simply always seen in shadow. Those are shadows are cast by insensitivity to negative racial stereotyping. -From Roger Ebert’s Review of The Rescuers Down Under
The Count from Sesame Street shows classic symptoms of OCD. -Contributed by Jim W.
In WALL•E, the span of years listed for each of the Axiom’s previous captains is ambiguous about whether it denotes each captain’s lifespan or the number of years in which he or she was captain of the ship. It should be noted that there is no overlap in the years for each captain. This leans towards the possibility that each person’s time as captain lasted an average of 133.2 years. Regardless, whatever each captain’s span of years denotes, they just happen to total out to 666.
From the first captain to the last one before Jeff Garlin’s character:
143+131+140+124+128 = 666
-Contributed by Joon K.
As I type, I’m glancing at some grotesque thing on ABC, about the Grinch and Christmas, in which humans interact in brotherhood with a variety of monstrous looking other species, and a little girl has a tender relationship with an unsettlingly hideous but sensitive and kind-hearted being called the Grinch, and everyone loves each other. This is not our society celebrating the beautiful holiday of Christmas. This is the Liberal Controllers of our society carefully teaching children an unnatural and dangerous lie that they would never believe unless they were carefully taught. How many whites will militate against vitally necessary immigration restrictions in the decades to come, how many young white females will be raped and murdered by nonwhites in the decades to come, because of the message of trusting and loving racial aliens that programs like this implant in them?
As an holiday bonus, one can click the link below to read an additional Who-sized comment about the Shrek movies.
Undercover Black Man: Lawrence Auster has a Question
> Catena Ex Situ
We are thankful here at J. Cart. Overanal.: thankful that a picture is worth a thousand words.
Take, exempli gratia, this still from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973 C.E.):
Two immediate items of note:
Linus Van Pelt, acting in his customary role as spiritual leader, is sitting at the head of the table.
Franklin, the sole African-American member of the Peanuts ensemble, is sitting all by himself on one side of the table.
Here is a passable video of the sequence, including anightmarish Guaraldi-seasoned tête-à-tête between Snoopy and a beach chair:
The scene in question is, in fact, somewhat questionable itself: the numbers of chairs and servings fluctuate throughout, giving the meal a disorientating Kubrickian quality. This produces in the scene a sense of unease and tension which reflects the viewers’ discomfort at the casual racism on display. Indeed, Franklin is seated in the malicious beach chair, which humiliatingly places him at an eye level below that of the others.
Though this segregation is not limited to racial issues only: Marcie, though eccentric and possessing of an ambiguous sexuality, is caucasian enough to be allowed to remain close to the rest, but is still seated at the end towards the left side of the table. Linus chooses to seat Marcie as far away from himself as possible, separated from the larger group by the dog. Indeed, the beagle is deemed a more fit companion than any heterodox humans. (Though, perhaps Snoopy is allowed to sit with the elite in due respect for his cooking prowess. It is also noted that Snoopy, in an act of defiant compassion, serves Marcie and Franklin first.) Furthermore, to extrapolate, the only characters exempted which could reasonably join the table next are the obsessive-compulsive Schroeder, the filthy Pig Pen, or the unloved and sadistic Lucy, who, if arriving late, would be forced to sit in one of the chairs next to Franklin and Marcie. Thus, the entire left side of the table would be relegated to odd, unhygienic misfits and belligerent, racial outcasts.
The characters are not evil: Peppermint Patty shows genuine remorse for embarrassing and bullying Charlie Brown, and Linus is often a beacon of compassion and temperance. But the point is made: the virus of casual discrimination is insidious and unaware, and can manifest itself at an early age.
Nota bene: this troubling issue uncovered via Super Punch >Catena Ex Situ
I don’t know if others have noticed, but Pepe Le Pew is a glaringly insulting portrayal of the French people and all things Gallic. The cartoon relies on the stereotype that the French don’t bathe, hence Le Pew being a skunk, a rather malodorous animal. (Some people might think that the cartoons portrayal of the French as oversexed is a stereotype but, as anyone who has been to France knows, this is an astonishingly real picture of the French.) He speaks with a funny accent, too! It is completely galling! Could it get any worse? At least there was never an episode of Pepe capitulating to the Nazis. Vive l’amour!
-Contributed by Mark C.
Brendan S. mentions several characters seen in the feature Who Framed Roger Rabbit? that were created after 1947, the year the film takes place. I read an interview with the filmmakers where they stated their excuse for this was that these characters were hanging around Toon Town in that year until they were “discovered” a few years later by the studios, as if they really existed and shared the same legends as live action movie stars. A bit of dramatic license. I think a bigger problem is the glaring lack of Tom and Jerry in the film. I guess they couldn’t get the rights to these characters.
-Contributed by Mark C.
Is it just me, or does Panthro of the Thundercats seem like a feline representation of a black man? It’s interesting to me that even when human protagonists are replaced with somewhat more bestial protagonists, that animation directors would feel the need to express racial diversity. If you ask me, Thundercats was already demonstrating diversity by depicting feline humanoids, which have been grossly under-represented on television and elsewhere. (I mean, just because they don’t exist doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be represented, right?)
-Contributed by YHN
There’s a delightful article by Adam Gopnik in the latest (September 22, 2008) issue of The New Yorker about some controversies surrounding the Babar series. Here’s a clip:
In the past few decades, a series of critics on the left, most notably the Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, have indicted Babar in the course of a surprisingly resilient and hydra-headed argument about the uses of imagery and the subtleties of imperialist propaganda. Babar, such interpreters have insisted, is an allegory of French colonization, as seen by the complacent colonizers: the naked African natives, represented by the “good” elephants, are brought to the imperial capital, acculturated, and then sent back to their homeland on a civilizing mission. The elephants that have assimilated to the ways of the metropolis dominate those which have not.
Fascinating. As is the rest of the article, which among other things touches on: a wholly different controversy regarding the fate of Babar’s mother, the occupations of animals, nationalistic representations of order and disorder in children’s literature, and Matisse.
Regarding Exosquad, one thing that I am surprised hasn’t been touched on is the relationships between the Terrans and the Neos on a personal level, mainly Nara Burns and Marsala. Marsala, being a Neo Sapien, is completely sexless (although he appears male and is referred to as a male), and was created at least 30 years before Nara was born. This creates obvious problems.
Although he is nearly emotionless at the beginning of the series, he acquires human traits as he is assimilated into the Terran way of life. He evolves. He begins to care about Nara, even though he feels no need to show it because he doesn’t understand how. From the first time Marsala shows any kindness to her (giving her his oxygen mask in a very early episode), Nara is extremely attached. Unlike his confusion, she knows exactly how she feels about him. In the final episode, she tries to tell him that she loves him, but he gently reminds her that he cannot be a part of her life. She’s devastated.
What this symbolizes: It shows a message of love, in simple terms. Love can happen to anyone, even if it’s not for the best. But, the events and people surrounding them illustrate pure racial prejudice–on both sides, art imitating life. Nara is sharply criticized, even scolded, for her friendship with Marsala (by her own brother!). Marsala is nearly killed by an enraged Phaeton when he sees Marsala trying to protect Nara instead of fighting for himself. This shows how deep the hatred between Terrans and Neo Sapiens runs, in contrast to the love that they could feel, should they like to try.
The following was contributed by VanFossen.
The treatment of Neo/Terran relationships is in Exosquad quite complex all around, but the relationship between Nara and Marsala demonstrates man’s natural fear and dislike for those different from himself (something that is at the root of much racism) and the hatred of those deemed the enemy.
While the Neos were unable to engage in sexual relations and reproduce, I believe this was actually based on brain chemistry and not physiology. Neos came in both sexes and were generally very well endowed. Most certainly, the female Neos could engage in sex, though they were rendered unable to reproduce and quite possibly had little to no sex drive due to brain alterations. And those who created the Neos would certainly not want these big, powerful males to be sexually active, so they were also chemically altered to remove sex drive and the ability to become aroused. This certainly did not mean they were unable to love.
I don’t believe that Neos were an unemotional lot. In fact they were often quite emotional, especially when angered. Lydia quite obviously loved Phaeton and remained loyal until she realized how insane he had become. And in his way, Phaeton loved her–she was the only member of his elite followers that he did not clone, because he trusted her so and could not think of destroying her (until madness won out). Marsala had seen much in his forty years and probably preferred to keep his relations with Terrans formal, but Nara’s beauty and kindness captured his heart. He truly cared for Nara, but realized that he could not give her what he knew to be the most important thing to her live: family. Because he felt he could not be a complete man in her life (physically as well as emotionally), and give her children, he bowed out as gracefully (and quickly) as he could, denying himself her love. What I find surprising is that he couldn’t see that Nara was now something other than human, herself. Genetically altered by injection, she was changing and would probably never be a candidate for a normal lifestyle with husband and children. Perhaps his own pain and feelings of inadaquacy blinded him to her real need of him when he left her on Venus. I like to think that this relationship would have been resolved in the unaired final season. Nara’s developing ability to restore and regenerate might even have been able to alter Marsala’s brain chemistry and make him potent.
We usually don’t like to post two Ex Sitibus in a row, but several readers sent this one in (thanks!), and it is too good to delay. Derek Zumsteg has written an exhaustively detailed account of the famous Gas House Gorillas vs. Tea Totallers baseball game of 1946 which was featured in the short film “Baseball Bugs.” (For reference, the fermentable Cartoon Brew has posted a video of the film.) Here are two short excerpts:
We next learn that Bunny has taken the lead, 96-95. This means that at some point during the game, the official scorer ruled at least one of the Gorillas’ runs invalid, as we had previously established that they had scored 96 runs when Bunny took over for the Teatotallers. The cause and resolution of the disputed run is not documented in available footage.
Consider that given fifteen outs, Bunny scored 96 times. His RC/27 would be 173. Now of course Bunny could not always face a team so ill-equipped to deal with his high-percentage take-all-four-bases running style and bean-all-nine-fielders hitting ability, but even dramatic penalties placed on him would still make him the greatest offensive player of all time.
Everybody knows Mickey Mouse to be the icon of purity and wholesomeness. However, Mickey was (one of) the most evil characters of his time, circa 1927-1932 (As compared to Harman/Ising’s Bosko, Iwerk’s Flip the Frog, and Lantz’s (formally Disney’s) Oswald the Lucky Rabbit). Disney’s most well-known representative was abusive to animals, abusive to women, vulgar, and racist. Sighting his first cartoon, (Plane Crazy), as well as Floyd Goddferdson’s newspaper comic strip (Disney’s Mickey Mouse) Mickey, in an attempt to recreate Col. Lindbergh’s transcontinental flight, makes his own plane. For the motor to spin the propeller, he twists up a wiener dog. Attempting to take off, he taxis around, chasing animals. He chases three animals towards a tree: a goat, a chicken, and a pig. His plane causes the goat to run into the chicken, who in turn, runs into the pig, literally. All three animals run through each other, becoming a new hybrid of farm stock.
Fine, that is not too bad, you say. In Mickey’s next film, Gallopin’ Gaucho, Mickey lives in Mexico, and spends most of his time frequenting a bar where Minnie works. In this cartoon, he vulgarly spits, drinks alcohol (ale, in fact), slaps Minnie’s rear end.
In his third film (first film with sound), Steamboat Willie, we find Mickey trying his hand at working on a steamboat. In the original version (that Disney has been trying to repress from the public), once the music begins (a goat eats sheet music) Mickey starts playing animals as musical instruments. This goes beyond animal cruelty. Mickey swings a cat by its tail and throws it off the boat. He then finds a several baby pigs suckling on their mama. He picks up the mama pig and forcefully shakes off all but one of her babies. He then kicks the last baby off the mama pig and begins to squeeze her teats as if she were an accordion!
In The Little Orphanage (1931), Mickey and his pals put on a play for the children: “Uncle Tom’s Cabana.” If this is not racist enough, the characters try to repair a generator which explodes and puts them in blackface.
In Floyd Goddferdson’s newspaper comic strip (Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse), Goddferdson takes us on a several-month run of a newspaper-version of Plane Crazy. I already cited the dog/engine and farm animal incident, but Goddferdson shows us how Mickey copes in the jungle. After crash landing, we find Mickey cursing (represented by symbols), dealing with racistly-depicted natives with enormous lips, shrunken heads, and a dialogue consisting of “Oogle Moogle Noogle,” etc.
Finally, I cite the first Mickey Mouse Club. Not the show with Cubby and Annette, but the Saturday cartoons the theatres ran. Walt, himself, recorded the theme song, “Minnie’s Yoo-hoo.” In this song, the voice tells of a girl he has in the barn and uses animal sounds as sexual innuendoes. This song can be found on one of Disney’s CDs.
I’d like to point out something I’ve noticed about older cartoons: Crows are almost unanimously represented as African-American, and vice versa.
The best example I can think of is Walt Disney’s Dumbo. In the film, Dumbo and his little mouse friend wake up after a night of drunken revelry in a tree, and can’t figure out how they got there. After climbing out, (if I remember correctly) the mouse hypothesizes that Dumbo used his huge ears and flew into the branches. This concept is suddenly and loudly cat-called by a gang of crows on a fence. These crows speak in an urbanized dialect, are dressed everywhere from snazzily to shabbily, and loud. In an especially poor showing of sensitivity, I believe the leader was named “Jim.” As in Jim Crow. (For those of you that were educated by the public school system, “Jim Crow” is the nickname given to segregationist laws ratified in the Southern states after the Civil War and during the Reconstruction.)
The crows are the typical late-vaudevillian stereotype of blacks: raucous, like-minded, and quick to gang up on isolated non-blacks. The crows have a good laugh at Dumbo, reiterating over and over how stupid the very idea of a flying elephants is and making jokes at Dumbo’s expense (“An elephant, fly? I dunno ’bout that… but I seen a dragon fly!” “I seen a horse fly!” “Well, I seen a house fly.”) And naturally, because they’re “black,” they sing a song and do a little dancing. But then, I must say, Disney surprises me.
The crows suddenly seem to warm to the little elephant, and are actually instrumental in his mastery of flight. This would make them seem to be protagonists in a film heavily populated with antagonists. Very odd. Because of that, I have surmised that the “Black Crows” of Dumbo are in no way malicious portrayals, but are simply presented for their comedic value, and augment the film with plot development and a few cheap laughs. Besides, the time period in which this film was created is not renowned for it’s accuracy in racial representation.
Far less tactful is the use of “Black Crows” in the Ralph Bakshi film Fritz the Cat, based on the cartoons of Robert Crumb. Here, the crows are are regarded with a mix of contempt, fascination and mystique. They are shown as stiff competition for pretty young women, frustrating a horny Fritz, and alternately shown as quick lay for the cat, no less in a scrap yard. Not exactly complementary. Then again, Fritz later initiates an orgy in a bathtub with a number of women, none of which are crows. (There is something lacking in general in the treatment of women in Bakshi films, but that’s a whole different rant.)
I believe the crows in this movie are not shown the way they are for racist reasons, though. One has to remember that Robert Crumb wrote the original “Fritz.” Everyone is portrayed rather badly in his cartoons, and that would naturally translate into the movie.
Of all the shows mentioned on this web site, no one has mentioned Biker Mice from Mars. This truly underrated show had some surprising adult characters and situations.
Posted by The Editor 
Posted by The Editor 
Posted by The Editor 
