A Special Presentation, or Alf Will Not Be Seen Tonight

Mike decided to do something very stupid and did a deep dive on Twitter into 22 years of the webcomic Sinfest by Tatsuya Ishida, the famous early 00s dude bro comic that did a hard turn into sex negative second wave feminism in 2011 and then a harder turn into TERF maga chud Q-anon anti-vax lunacy in 2019. But could Sinfest be saved? In this episode, we talk about the trajectory of the webcomic it...

You know Asterix, of course! He's the hottest comic character on five continents! This little dude is beloved by comics fans everywhere except the United States! So if you're an uncultured American, join us to learn about this little barbarian who uses a magic potion to kick Roman ass in his first ever animated feature film.

You know Asterix, of course! He's the hottest comic character on five continents! This little dude is beloved by comics fans everywhere except the United States! So if you're an uncultured American, join us to learn about this little barbarian who uses a magic potion to kick Roman ass in his first ever animated feature film.

Your hosts Mike and Ethan are no strangers to weird children’s books, as any fan of our coloring books episode knows. (Are there any?) This week we look back at 2018, a more innocent, pre-pandemic world, when the two hosts got together in the real world to record some fun videos about locally published children’s books! First we have a short subject about Marshall the dog (or is he?) going on a to...

Way back in 2018, Mike and Ethan were messing around with some YouTube videos, and got into a huge digression about comic strips. That’s right, the podcast that always digresses from comic strips started as a digression INTO them! Witness the sticky conception and awkward birth of Special Presentation as we take you through our very first comic strip adaption: Garfield A to Z Zoo, one of the riche...

Last week we looked at the comic strip Queer Visitors from the Land of Oz, so this week we're looking at a biopic of that strip's creator: L. Frank Baum. This made-for-TV movie starring John Ritter and Rue McClanahan was a favorite of Ethan's as a kid, so we see if it holds up.  How much fiction does it mix with fact? Well, one thing is for sure: L. Frank Baum was DEFINITELY an old west gunslinger...

After L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz was a book and a play and a musical extravaganza, it was also a comic strip. Your favorite characters the scarecrow, the tin woodsman, the...uh... Jack Pumpkinhead, the gump, and (in theory) the wogglebug escape from Oz and encounter mundane real world situations where they dispense trivia. Queer Visitors from the Land of Oz originated the most popular meme of '0...

This week, instead of looking at COMICS THAT GET TURNED INTO OTHER THINGS we're looking at OTHER THINGS THAT GET TURNED INTO COMICS... specifically video games! In case you didn't know this, there used to be these things called magazines and some of them were about video games. Mike literally only knows about Computer Gaming World magazine, so Ethan introduces him to several comics from Nintendo P...

C’mon in, and pull yourself up a jug (that’s Jughead!) Let the fun(?) begin, it’s time to be very puzzled Archie’s loud and shrill (uh HUH!) he’s hoping that you will (yes, you!) Sit patiently, through Archie’s Fun House (AAARGH!) It’s another special guest host this week as Ethan and three-time returning champion Steph Cherrywell wax nostalgic about the ritual of Saturday morning, and how gratefu...

Ethan couldn't join us this week, so THIS TIME Mike gets to run the show! Joining us this week, we have returning guest Aurelina (co-host of SHOW and creator of Furry Found Footage) and first time guest but longtime pal Lucius to talk about The Dragon That Wasn't (Or Was He?), an animated movie based on the phenomenally popular Dutch comic strip Tom Puss. You've heard of Tom Puss, of course, haven...

Remember Witch's Night Out? Did you know that Rankin-Leach made a movie BEFORE Witch's Night Out? They did. It was The Gift of Winter!

It's the holidays and it's time to learn all about the 7 Principles of Kwanzaa with the Rugrats!

Leapin' Lizards!!!! Little Orphan Annie's back! And this time, she's VERY animated... or at least as animated as Saturday day morning cartoon animation can get as Annie's ghost takes Daddy Warbucks on a whirlwind Christmas tour of the present and the future. No past, though.

Everyone loves the classic Peanuts Christmas special! In fact, people liked it so much that they... made ANOTHER Peanuts Christmas special? For reasons? In this episode, we derail to talk about Hathor the Cow Goddess instead for like an hour.

Bill Melendez turns his Peanuts power to a new special, the classic Christmas story of a little girl who wrote a letter to the editor.

Halloween continues into November as friend of the pod Steph Cherrywell joins us to talk about that family that's creepy and kooky and altogether ooky... it's the 1991 film version of the Addams Family, starring Raoul Julia, Angelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, and the film debut of everybody's favorite goth girl Christina Ricci. Watch Thing steal the show!

Halloween continues into November as friend of the pod Steph Cherrywell joins us to talk about that family that's creepy and kooky and altogether ooky... it's the 1991 film version of the Addams Family, starring Raoul Julia, Angelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, and the film debut of everybody's favorite goth girl Christina Ricci. Watch Thing steal the show!

This week, we return to the universe of Garfield Gets Real to watch the  final leg in this trilogy of insanity, Garfield's Pet Force. In this  one, there's ANOTHER alternate universe where Garfield exists as a  superhero named Garzooka but, in the cartoon world of the real garfield,  Garzooka is a comic book character. What happens when Garzooka breaks  into the cartoon world and also there's a gu...

This week, we return to the universe of Garfield Gets Real to watch the final leg in this trilogy of insanity, Garfield's Pet Force. In this one, there's ANOTHER alternate universe where Garfield exists as a superhero named Garzooka but, in the cartoon world of the real garfield, Garzooka is a comic book character. What happens when Garzooka breaks into the cartoon world and also there's a gun tha...

Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard the stories… exactly one year ago today, a bunch of podcasters got together, in this very spot, to watch Halloween specials and rate them good or bad. In fact, some say they’re still here to this day, watching things like The Witch Who Turned Pink, Casper’s Halloween, The Crown of Bogg, and even short subjects like Mysterious Mose, Face Like A Frog, and Swing You Sinners!...

If you lived through the 1980s, then you probably remember Timer, a dancing, uh, apparently a lemon? Wearing a stovepipe hat? And singing about healthy eating? Well, he was a thing.  But what was the origin of Timer? Well, turns out he came from this 1973 TV movie where he takes two children on a magical tour of their Uncle Carl's body like it's Osmosis Jones or something. 

So back in the days of yore, there used to be Scrabble games in the newspaper, next to the Junior Jumble and the Bridge. That's enough for us to justify this: A Halloween special with the Scrabble People, a failed attempt to market Scrabble to kids. Kids didn't go for it, cuz no one likes a game that tries to teach you stuff!

The Phantom Tollbooth is a 1970 Chuck Jones adaptation of the book of the same name by Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer. You know, the Village Voice cartoonist? That's enough justification... or should we say... JUSTERification... for us. Let's do it!

The Phantom Tollbooth is a 1970 Chuck Jones adaptation of the book of the same name by Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer. You know, the Village Voice cartoonist? That's enough justification... or should we say... JUSTERification... for us. Let's do it!

The Phantom Tollbooth is a 1970 Chuck Jones adaptation of the book of the same name by Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer. You know, the Village Voice cartoonist? That's enough justification... or should we say... JUSTERification... for us. Let's do it!