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I have been watching Sheep in the Big City on and off. It was another Cartoon Network that I completely missed out on when it aired. I can confirm that unlike Class of 3000, it was aired in both Portuguese and Spanish. I didn’t get to see either of them, because at 2001-2003, I was already only watching anime. I had grown tired of western animation.
In middle school and high school, p2p and torrent sites allowed me to deep dive on anime, beyond what aired in my region. It was really easy for me to get lost on it, because there was too much of it that I didn’t know, and that made a lot of western animation at 12-18 look “kiddy” by comparison.
The opposite with my problem these days, where I just can’t stand anime (and animation in general) that looks like grim dark edge fests. I rather put on shows like Sheep in the Big City. It took me a long time to get around to it and I can confirm the show is as good as I had heard over the years. I knew it was going to be good, because the creator was no other than Mo Willems who authored many children’s books full of witty rhyme and stylish animals.
He is almost a modern day Dr. Seuss, though not as skilled, despite his over
20 years children’s book career. I like how much the show feels like his own spin on a Jay Ward cartoon. It is very much like a children’s book put on TV. And I don’t say that because he made children’s books after he finished with this show, it looks and sounds like his books. It is no surprise he went on to do books, even while he worked with Tom Warburton doing Kids Next Door.
When you ask someone to name jazz in a cartoon, you either get big band like Cowboy Bebop, or hard bop like Kids on the Slope. Maybe post-bop like Blue Giant. Cool Jazz like those '60s and '70s Peanuts animations, or Jazz-Funk like the Fat Albert special, before the TV show. Maybe both like Hey Arnold. Sheep on the Big City’s feels more like Acid Jazz. Not Acid Jazz like Hellsing TV, Soul Eater, or Blood Blockade Battlefront, but more like the OST to Harriet the Spy (1996)
I tried looking to no avail for an OST rip. Julian Harris has composed for a few other things, like Bear in the Big Blue House, The Book of Pooh, and Jammin’ in Jamaica, but nothing that sounds like his work on this, so I can’t quite call it, Acid Jazz: The Cartoon, but it looks the part, at the very least.
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First episode of Lazarus very fun, realising one of the things I really vibe with Shinichiro Watanabe is how lived in his futurescapes feel. Apparently the English release that aired is a rougher edit? Couldn’t really tell from that one episode, worried it might be more pronounced as it goes along, Adult Swim has been, kindly, uneven with its anime track record lately, looking at Ninja Kamui and Uzumaki.
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Been in a real, uh, desperate nostalgia regression, given current events making shit way too uncertain, so I’m finally partially rewatching/mostly watching for the first time The Venture Bros.
It’s…still extremely good for the most part but also goddamn is it a show from 2004 in many, many ways. Wonder if that tapers off in later seasons, given how long it was in production.
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imo they manage this transition remarkably well, it still feels totally authentic and consistent with itself as it ages out of the worst period of popular culture in my lifetime
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have sort of run out of stuff to watch while eating dinner (i.e. things i don’t need to be 100% invested in) and have chosen to try to get through Adventure Time for real, now.
it’s cute and fun and it makes me laugh, but so much of it is so “of an era” that i feel like it’s aged pretty weirdly
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the thing that Felix said about Venture Bros. is weirdly also kinda true of Adventure Time in a way! i actually cant think of another animated show that leverages its long-running status and the developing production as well as those two. you get really honest to glob invested in the character growth of these goobers
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The Latin American Spanish dub is really nice.
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The Sheep from Sheep In The Big City is a drivable character in the Cartoon Network GBA kart racing game
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So is Swanky. Where has this show been all my life? On a sad note, the dubs for this show are mostly lost or incomplete. I get that it is a difficult show to translate, and the only dub I can find in YouTube for more than a few clips is Latin American Spanish, where they seem to be having a blast doing the lines. If I could make a clip, I would single out the scene with the narrator going apeshit about amnesia being used as a plot device.
WHERE ARE ALL THE FUCKING VHS PRESERVATIONISTS?
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Right? A real step down from Space Dandy
and a real step up from singular point
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is the joke that this won’t whip ass
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yes
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toh enjoe’s episodes of space dandy were excellent, one of them was art directed by kevin aymeric and the other was like a 20 minute remake of flatland
I’m just always encouraging people to watch space dandy because its the best
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I have a big soft spot for his short story collection Self Reference Engine and Singular Point was a great script and fun characters trapped in a show that had no time to breathe. Crossing all my fingers that this plays to his strengths.
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OH ok i actually meant it i figured i wasn’t getting the joke lol
Space Dandy fucking whips ass imo ftr
sorry for overusing the expression “whips ass” it’s simply very evocative. and getting yr ass whipped rules
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So this being announced has led me to a new novella released last year that I had no idea about so even if it’s shit (doubt it), I’ve got that to thank for at least
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