Best Seat on the Couch

On this week's episode, according to Michael, we're talking about the movie Chicken Little tried (not very hard) to be, apparently. As he draws the connections on the whiteboard and makes the connections the other 3 of us failed to see, it is clear that Michael is actually correct. But where Chicken Little failed to justify its baseball subplot to create the father-son connection, How to T...

It's honestly pretty incredible that Chicken Little kickstarted the reverse of Disney's post-Renaissance slump as its very first 3D animated film, because this movie is frankly pretty bad. It does not look good (no offense to the hundreds of animators that learned Maya for this), its plot is weirdly disjointed between a feel-good baseball film and an alien invasion film, and pretty much ev...

I was surprised to discover that our episode on Shrek was over 2 years ago, as it feels like our discussion on that movie's themes - and its recent induction into the Library of Congress's National Film Registry - was fresh in our minds as we tackled the sequel Shrek 2. Solidly a great movie but arguably a perfect sequel, Shrek 2 builds upon the world from the original with the introductio...

At long last, 6 months later, the Gang has finally arrived at the end of their Bizarre Adventure. Stone Ocean is the final anime adaptation available to the JoJo's manga and wrapped up just last year in December, and with it comes what is perhaps the most intriguing and captivating story yet. The story, characters, villains, and conceit are so good that it actually has convinced Michael to not...

In its infancy, DreamWorks Animation studios began its quest to swing at Disney and attempt not to miss. Their best animators were tasked with a project flanked with music by Hans Zimmer and an ensemble voice cast, and anyone who couldn't make the cut was relegated to animating Shrek . That project was The Prince of Egypt , and the gang rapidly discovers that the number of members with religio...

This week the gang talks about Pixar's Up , a movie from 2009 where the first 10 minutes are so transcendent that the section has its own Wikipedia page. We talk at length about that little short film, of course, but it's interesting to analyze how the movie draws upon that first 10 minutes and why the rest of the movie itself - characters, plot, villains, resolution - does or doesn't...

In this episode, the gang talks about one of the animated movies of all time.

The Legend of Vox Machina returns to television for its second season, fresh off of the party's victory from Season 1 and thrust right into conflict with the Chroma Conclave in Season 2. The gang continues to ooh and aah at the impressive animation and well-choreographed fight scenes, and the adaptation from tabletop stream to animated series continues to wow Michael and Iris who have seen pie...

Our JoJo's...er, GioGio's...Bizarre Adventure train has no brakes! The gang takes a cross-country flight to the picturesque views of Italy and joins Giornio Giovanna, illicit son of Dio Brando who we discover very early on basically has no resemblance to his father, on his quest to improve the country and eradicate its rampant gang problem. There's a couple of parallels that can be dra...

Released in April of last year and taking the anime world by storm, Spy × Family is an adorable action/comedy that follows a spy, Twilight, in an East/West Germany-esque fantasy setting tasked with creating a family as part of his most important mission. While the setting is dark and tense at times, the content of the show is lighthearted and honestly hilarious at many points, culminating in an un...

At long last on the podcast, the gang discusses the legendary Pixar film Finding Nemo , perhaps the first of Pixar's films that really elevated their standard of animation and kicking off their own sort of "Golden Age" as Michael dubs it. It's a children's movie that feels much more mature than its predecessors, looks gorgeous for a film in 2003, and has one of the most heartfelt stories of the de...

In our second-ever foray back to a show we've discussed prior on the Couch, we return to the realm of Xadia with the long-awaited fourth season of the The Dragon Prince , now rechristened as The Dragon Prince: Mystery of Aaravos . We've waited patiently since we last discussed the show two and a half years ago, but it's hard to say that our expectations were met for this season, as it...

We continue on our "JoJourney" with Alex's favorite part of all of JoJo's so far, Part 4! Season 3! Diamond is Unbreakable! Now that Dio is confirmed dead and gone at the end of Stardust Crusaders , the series takes a pretty sharp turn towards a "small-town horror" vibe in the city of Morioh, and in turn the Stands get even crazier and move from less physical to more...metaphysical. Stands like a...

Short and sweet, Tales of the Jedi is just six short episodes of some nice and easy Star Wars content animated in the Clone Wars aesthetic. So there's probably not too much to discuss, right? WRONG! The gang's propensity for unbelievably overbearing nerdiness is on full display in this episode, and there's a lot more behind the scenes that we have to discuss to make sure we get full un...

There's a depth of tone and humor, as Iris puts it, in the critically acclaimed anime series One-Punch Man , which satirizes and twists the classic shonen hero anime style of My Hero Academia and bolsters that with excellent characters, a mix of serious and humorous scenes, and some real Saitama character development! Here to further add to our discussion and chip in some friendly sibling bant...

Does anyone else remember this movie? From 2005? Did you know that Ewan McGregor is the VA of the main character in this movie, while almost certainly just coming off filming Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith ? I won't blame you for forgetting Robots , as it's broadly pretty forgettable, neither enjoyable nor boring. Robin Williams is also in this movie, and does Robin Williams...

Now on their 3rd year running, Alex's Straw-Hat-gang-away-from-home returns to the Couch this holiday season to once again continue their discussion on ONE PIECE , picking up where they left off in Episode 66 . Midway through the Wano Country arc in the anime in that episode, the Wano arc has actually just ended now, and there's plenty of good discussion to be had between Katy, Kyle, Lony,...

A few weeks ago the gang was thrust into Parts 1 and 2 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure , the legendary 1987 anime series, and learned everything there is to know about the Joestars, the evil vampire Dio, the enigma that is Speedwagon, the Pillar Men, and Hamon. So anyways, literally none of that is relevant anymore, as Stardust Crusaders elevates the series to heights never seen before, with the intro...

Right on time for the holiday season, the gang puts on a couple of the best known Peanuts specials - It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown , A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving , A Charlie Brown Christmas , and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown - for some leisurely viewing. A cornerstone of all our childhoods, this 1940's comicstrip character loses more often than he wins, but when he wins it...

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is the love child of Studio Trigger's animation reputation (see our previous episodes on Kill la Kill and Little Witch Academia ) and video game studio CD PROJECT RED's longstanding success from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk: 2077 , and also it's on Netflix so I guess it's a bit of a triangle. But even if you were disgusted by Kill la Kill 's...s...

It's always nice to come into a movie that appears to be about supervillains, spycraft, action scenes and whimsical gadgets and ends up being about the beauty of family. Despicable Me features Steve Carell's excellent dubious Eastern European accent (as well as an impressive voice cast overall), three lovable little girls that steal your heart, weirdly prominent marine life, Kingpin from Spider-Ma...

Our first post-centennial episode comes with an introduction to an absolute classic in the anime sphere, originating all the way back in 1987, with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. We start with Parts 1 and 2 for this week's episode, following the stoic Jonathan Joestar in Phantom Blood as he faces off against the evil Dio, and then continuing with his grandson Joseph in Battle Tendency as he fights the...

Over 2 years and 4 months ago, the four of us came together with a pandemic-era idea to simply record ourselves talking about TV shows - and in that moment, Best Seat on the Couch was born. Humor us now as we come together for our momentous 100th episode, as we take a look back on how far we've come, our favorite moments together, and some of our opinions on where we'll see this show go in the fut...

Toy Story is the first completely computer generated movie from start to finish, and is therefore the grandfather of all animated children's movies that came after it, cementing its legendary status both in pop culture and in the National Film Registry's archive of preservation. But how does a CGI movie from 1995 hold up over 25 years later? Honestly pretty well - Tom Hanks and Tim Allen steal the...

Today is a momentous occasion on the Couch, as for the first time ever we are revisiting a show we previously discussed on the podcast over a year ago, DOTA: Dragon's Blood . Now bolstered with a second and third season, the show continues to suffer for its ludicrously erratic pacing and increasingly this-is-getting-out-of-hand plot but also introduces new characters, hype fight scenes, politi...