Disturbing Chritmas Wishes From The Joker

Unless you have a serious aversion to LedJoker impressions and/or disturbing Santa Claus iconography, this video is a virtual lock for Geek Christmas card of the year.


This is an off-shoot from the fanvid series Batman: The Joker Blogs, which, despite a terrible title, is startlingly good and will probably get it's own post eventually once I've had time to collect myself. Seriously, even if you're not feeling the Xmas vid above (dude kind of falters at the deep 'n' scary Joker voice, I know), you'll probably still want to check out The Joker Blogs. As fan tributes go, TJB is an extremely well written, well acted, and dare I say insightful piece of work, and when he departs from Heath's line readings and starts inhabiting the character on his own, dude's Joker impression is something special.

Master Chief is the Comedy Sensation of the Decade

Arby & The Chief is just about the funniest web series I've seen. It's mostly gamer humor, which means lots of satirical uses of l33t/LOL speak, but it's so well done I want to give the kid that puts it all together his own 6-picture deal. Hell, this dude show be running a studio. He knows what people want. People want Odd Couple style humor coming out of the mouths of Halo figurines with Stephen Hawking voices.

Despite the first few minutes of the above video, this series isn't a machinma. Perish the thought. It's good old fashioned action figure actors, like you used to do when you were a kid with a VHC-C video camera.

And if you already knew about this series, congrats, you're a bigger nerd than me. Perhaps you'd enjoy reading my comically scholarly review over at Tilzy.TV.

There Will Be Brawl: In-Jokes, Analysis, and Serious Geeking Out

By now, most web-savvy gamers (is there any other kind?) are well-acquainted with the newly minted classic, There Will Be Brawl. If you haven't seen it already, check it out above (mildly NSFW). It's a grim, Noir-ish look into the Mushroom Kingdom, and features awesome production values and appearances by the biggest names in Smash Brothers history (and those who aren't in Episode 1 are on their way...we hear the Pokemon Trainer is next up for the spotlight! Can Pikachu be far behind?).

I recently wrote a detailed review of the show, which you can read at Tilzy.TV. But more importantly, our resident Nintendo specialist Degan was good enough to take meticulous notes on the series, including annotations for the show's many in-jokes and references. You can play the video and read along, or just skim through to see all the nerdy references you may have missed the first time.

• Abductions and mutilations? I'm not sure if this is a yet-to-be-revealed plot point or a reference to some character i'm not thinking of... are the abductions referencing the weird trophy-fying gun that Bowser uses on the characters in the brawl story mode?
• Toad people! Its not the mushroom kingdom without Toads!
• I believe the first Noir music cue is a tune from Mario 2.
• Wii fit ad a nice touch ("unseen arbiter").
• Creepy mask guy in the hallway is from Mario 2.
• "Pileup on Moonview Highway to Moo Moo meadows" is from Mario Kart.

More after the jump? You better believe it.

• Lakitu newscaster is from a bunch of games, but the fact that he's a newscaster is a reference to Mario Kart, where he's the cameraman for the instant replays, and fishes you out after you throw yourself off a cliff. Here, he's complete with fishing pole, and if you look closely you'll see his desk is cloud with eyes.
  
• Luigi's drinking the classic red health potion (I believe first seen in Zelda-but its such a video game convention that I'm not even sure anymore). [edit: there's some debate on the TWBB forums about this potion... many there seem to think its the warp potion from Mario 2... I still maintain that it's regular old health potion. For one, they never drank the warp potions... they threw them on the ground to create doors! So in the context of the scene, it doesn't make much sense for Luigi to be drinking a warp potion... unless he's trying to commit suicide by "internal door".]
  
• Police chief Link and his "Hylean" brand justice-reference to Lake Hylia in Hyrule... apparently an authoritarian police state... never knew. [edit: apparently the "Hylians" are the people of Hyrule... not just lake Hylia]
  
• Awesome violin Mario music that starts as the Mario Death tune and leads into the classic Mario Theme!
• Power up boxes! sweet! And power up mushrooms complete with Mario World sound effects!
• Wario's awesome! And those ice climbers are super creepy... why does Nana need a monobrow?!?
• Roy and Pichu are two characters who didn't make into the line-up for Smash Brothers Brawl...now we know why.
  
• More reference to the mutilations and "tiny guts"? Is that just cause Pichu is tiny... or is there some shrinking thing I'm not picking up?
• Blinking Wario growth a nice touch too
• "Tunic-wearing fairy"- nasty way to refer to Link... "his pigs"? Either just your typical slur for police or possibly a reference to the pigs of Ness' New Pork City? Are there even pigs there though? I don't know...
• Mario Dungeon Theme when Mario confronts Wario and Luigi (actually its the Haunted House theme from Mario World)
• I love the princess' undercover-celebrity-glasses and hoodie! At first I thought the princess was terribly acted... then i realized she's trying to do that obnoxious high-pitched monosyllabic speaking style she always has in the games... pretty clever.
• Mario's medical practice! Dr. Mario reference, natch. [edit: it only just occurred to us the reason for Mario's "failed medical practice"... Dr. Mario isn't featured in Brawl-it's how they killed him off (like they did Pichu, Roy, and MewTwo)]
  
• Shrinking noise from Super Mario World when Mario attacks Wario.
• Ha, "Been a referee (Punchout), been a doctor (obviously Dr. Mario)". Man, Mario's been around.
• Is there tension between Waluigi and Wario? He seems pretty touchy about the issue.
• Awesome awesome ringtone! Sonic Boom! The theme song from the barely played Sonic CD for the even more barely owned SegaCD (I think I owned the only one) I guess that means she's in contact with Sonic... Also surprising they used this since I was one of 7 people who owned SegaCD.
• Ha, "dance around in your skin!" Cause that's kinda what Kirby does!
• "Her own court anymore?" And since when have the Mario Bros not been useful? Not sure if these are game references or again, yet-to-be-revealed plot points...
• Megavitamins.... that's what Dr. Mario used!
• Kirby's a scary freak!

That he is, Degan, that he is. No, seriously. When I had to check the credits for my review, I put my hand over the screen in case I went too far back and ended up on a still of him. Not joking, people.

NBC's Big Deal Sci-Fi Web Series Is Actually Pretty Good

The square media is finally starting to respond to the fact that their days are numbered, and those numbers are ONE and ZERO. Binary. I'm talking about original web content, and in the world of webshows there's no bigger story right now than NBC's newest bid to join the new century, a 50-episode web series starring Rosario Dawson called Gemini Division.

The series premiered on Monday, and my review is currently up on Tilzy.TV, a news and reviews hub for web shows. Though I went in fully prepared to write a hilariously cruel review (the trailer does the show no favors), it's actually an enjoyable piece of work. I guess RENT and Josie & The Pussycats weren't enough to show me the full range of Rosie D's charm, cause she's kind of adorable in this. But maybe you already knew that.

First Look At Joss Whedon's New Web Series

I haven't even watched this thing yet, because the computer I'm currently working on is from like 1993 and doesn't want to run Vimeo. But here it is, courtesy of the official fan site, the teaser trailer for Dr. Horrible, Joss Whedon's new musical web series that he wrote with his close friends and relations during the writers strike. Because Joss Whedon CAN'T NOT write. It's like breathing for him.

It's kind of killing me that I can't watch this right now. Anyone want to tell me if the trailer is any good?

Update: Oh wow. I just watched it. It's really good. This might be Neil Patrick Harris' finest work, although I could just be saying that because he's rocking my favorite outfit of labcoat and goggles. Odd that there's no singing, maybe they're concerned about scaring away geeks who think themselves too manly to associate themselves with anything all-singing, all-dancing. Or maybe the mixes just aren't in yet.

Checking In On the MST3K Renaissance

Our man Fred, who brought us the controversial MST3K Cash-In Race article, gives an update on the plans and projects of the segmented MST3K alumni...

Last time we checked in, the former cast and crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000 had split into three distinct camps, each embarking on a new MST3K-related project in a phenomenon we're calling either "The Renaissance of 2007" or "MST3K: The Great Cash-In Race," depending on our mood. For a quick primer on the players, click here. To see what what our friends are up to now (and to see who the current frontrunner is), read on...

Team Joel
On December 6th, Joel and his posse (Coniff, Beaulieu, Pehl, Weinstein) debuted Cinematic Titanic as a live show for a closed audience at Lucasfilm headquarters. There were a few accounts of the night posted throughout the MST3K webworld, and while most of them were big sloppy wet fanboy kisses (OMG, JOEL IN PERSON!!!), it bodes relatively well for Team Joel that their first outing was a success, even a softball success. Even more encouraging are the production stills posted at cinematictitanic.com. One shows Trace Beaulieu examining a promisingly good-looking prop (revealed, in the caption, to be a "TimeTube"). Another shows an impressive green-screened soundstage with the new silhouette setup. While it's hard to make solid judgments based on these, they firmly put to rest any notion that Team Joel will be half-assing it.

Still, not all is baked goods in the Titanicville: the initial release date of XMas 07 has been pushed back, with no new date announced. Sez Joel: "...there will be slight delay on the delivery date...once we got this curious new show on its feet, and were finally able to see it manifest in the real world, we realized we wanted to have a bit more fun playing with some of the creative ideas that emerged in the process." Translation: they got trigger happy with the release date. So while things are looking pretty good (this uninspired Frank Coniff strike video nonwithstanding), the delay is going to cost Hodgson and Co. the holiday gift-giving rush, and further delays will mean they'll miss out on the current media interest in all things MST3K.

Team Mike
Midwestern Nice Guy(tm) that he is, Mike Nelson came out of the gate with cries of "the more the merrier," jokingly suggesting in an interview with MSNBC that the various MST3K camps establish professional wrestling-style rivalries to increase the audience. However, a close reading of the transcript reveals some minor discomfort, with Mike offering up the occasional "we got there first" statement ("the more people doing the RiffTrax thing, the better") and calling the new MST3K.com "cute." Note also his telling omission when referring to "the new [site] that Jim and my buddy Paul put up." Mike, is Jim not your buddy?!

But we kid Team Mike, which, despite the aw-shucksing, has been quite busy. A number of new Rifftrax have been posted, including one for the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special, which coincidentally (or not?) was rumored to be Cinematic Titanic's first movie (it turned out to be 70's monster flick "Brain of Blood"). Mike and the Bots his RiffTrax friends Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy have also put together a holiday greeting video which is actually pretty funny until Murphy shows up and the whole thing takes a turn for the scatological. All of this is well and good, but the most significant developments have been two serious improvements to Rifftrax's content delivery scheme, which (aside from, let's face it, the occasionally mediocre writing) has always been its Achilles heel. First up is the free Rifftrax player, which will automatically synch up the film you're watching with its accompanying commentary track. Bravo! Now I won't have to sit there desperately fast-forwarding and rewinding to get that annoying toaster to synch up with Princess Amidala. Secondly, Rifftrax is teaming up with DivX to offer downloadable versions of the films that Legends owns, complete with pre-synched riffing (to entice fans to register, they're offering a free driver's ed short, "Signal 30"). In other words, despite all the doves and olive branches, Team Mike is streamlining its approach and battening its hatches. And in the midst of all this, someone has quietly added the tags "cinematic" and "titanic" to Rifftrax's YouTube previews.

Team Jim
Initially promising a new animated webisode posted every week, we're almost two months into the new MST3K.com and Team Jim has only delivered three (four if you count the short snippet of Crow/Servo dialogue posted on Thanksgiving). Hard to say exactly what's causing the delay, but fifty-foot waves of fan outrage can't be helping. While bringing original series writer Paul Chaplin on board to voice Crow was a good (if possibly cynical) decision and it hasn't hurt Mallon any, so far it hasn't shielded him from a healthy dose of messageboard ire (my favorite photoshopped piece of hate mail featured Mallon's face affixed to the Incredible Hulk's body). And while the generally tight-lipped Mallon doesn't seem like the type to bend to fan pressure, it's hard not to imagine that he and his minions are scrambling to come up with something to turn the tide. Perhaps the surest sign that this is the case: about two weeks into the new site, when the messageboard derision was reaching fever pitch, a poster claiming to be on Mallon's production team (his unfortunate psuedonym: "SHAD") took to the web to defend the new cartoons. He acknowledged the clumsiness of the site, avowed the team's Mistie cred, and generally offered promises that "If it doesn't get a heck of a lot funnier...we're out of here." Fair enough. I'll give them points for open communication and an obvious desire to improve the quality of the webisodes (not to mention the Space Mutiny-themed T-Shirt now sold in the store). But, as we all know, the path to Internet Webcomic Hell is paved with good intentions. And just in case you're wondering, the latest video sucks.

The Frontrunner: Team Mike!
Predictably, Team Jim has stumbled right out of the gate. Team Joel is showing good promise, but blowing its Xmas release date has cost it this lap. It's Mike's race to lose.

Special Prize: Satellite News. Revamping it's format and offering more regular updates, the unofficial (in name only) MST3K news clearinghouse has been on top of the '07 renaissance every step of the way. Despite the site's occasionally cloying "Guys! It's not a competition you guys!!!" appeal for peace, love and understanding, it's still the best thing going for Misties the world over. Kudos.

Honorable Mention: YouTube "Shreds" Videos

My vote for the most innovative internet adaptation of the MST3K concept.