L o b a B l a n c a {dot} c o m

So I mentioned last Friday that one of my future flashbacks would be a response to an ImagiFriend^TM challenge. I’m to blog about music. While drinking.

Well, guess what, denizens? Loba has, indeed, been partaking of a great deal of beer-y goodness this evening. And it still continues to flow as I type. I’m finishing up the vestiges of a double chocolate stout, which is chasing on the heels of a London ale, a smoked porter, a…something dark…followed by a something lighter but not too light because I hate those beers…bottom line is, I’ve been drinking. Drinking to the point where my tongue feels a little numb and everything has that pretty hazy glow. And I’m still drinking. So that part of the challenge is being met.

What sparked this challenge was two-part and started with this review of Madonna’s most recent CD, Hard Candy. The only comments I would add to this review are that the only thing hard about this album is trying to listen to it. And, just like candy, it indeed sucks.

The second part of the challenge came from this post, in which my ImagiFriend^TM expounds upon memories of the music that served as the soundtrack to his youth.

It’s like a Flashback Friday. Only better. And boozy-awesome.

Well, denizens. I can’t really expound on music in any sort of knowledgeable way. I think I’ve proven that every time I’ve written something tagged under my Music category.

Wow. That’s a weird cross-selection of posts, innit?

But I can tell you why I love Madonna’s Ray of Light and why I think it’s going to be remembered as her greatest album EVAR.

First, a little backstory. RoL was Madonna’s first new studio release since 1994′s Bedtime Stories. This ’94 offering is actually a fine album and indicative both of her continuing evolution away from her early bubble gum pop days and her journey toward a more mature sound and style. I think the evolution had actually begun on 1992’s Erotica, but Madonna was deep in the throes of a very public bout of titillation-itis at the time, including her little role-playing game as Dieta vonSchtoopyPants, so many of Erotica’s better points were drowned out by the roar of “She’s nekkid! Again!!” I’d argue, though, that those who ignored Erotica because they were a bit turned off or burned out by Madonna-Nude-A-Rama should give it a try now.

Back to Bedtime Stories. Solid effort with a nice urban vibe, even if it is a little on the bass-heavy side (Madonna would go on to prove that she hadn’t even begun to bass it up, giving us in Hard Candy several songs that sound like they’re playing through tinny Value Village speakers with blown-out subwoofers). Madonna was beginning to move into a more adult sound quite expertly, which wasn’t all that shocking. If Madonna has proven anything throughout her career, it’s that she’s not at all averse to changing things up a bit.

However, her music career became side-tracked after this 1994 release by being cast as Eva Perón in the 1996 film adaptaion of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical, Evita. I won’t lie, denizens. I was in line on opening day to see Evita. I had been waiting pretty much the bulk of my lifetime at that point for: A) the film adaptation of this movie to finally get the green light; and B) for Madonna to finally be given the role that seemed to be her destiny.

Yeah, I said destiny. Your density has popped me to you, Lorraine.

Unfortunately, the movie didn’t not suck. Which was a huge disappointment to me. I wanted so very much for this to be the greatest musical film in the history of the genre, but Hollywood polished the soul completely out of it. And, prophets bless Antonio Banderas, but the man can’t sing. Plus, they covered up Madonna’s diastema, which probably upset me more thna it really should have.

[Loba Tangent: Get your minds out of the gutter, denizens; that’s just a fancy word for the gap between her front teeth. I kind of have a weird fascination with people with diastema. I can’t explain it. I just enjoy it.]

I will say this, though: This is the very best performance I think we will ever see from Madonna in a leading role. I say this based solely on the one song she was allowed to perform “live” on set rather than lip-sync. It’s toward the end of the play. That’s all I’m going to say. Every time I have seen this particular point in th emovie, I get teared up.

Yeah, so after Evita, Madonna sort of went silent for a while. Well, there was the fact that she found out that she was pregnant while she was filming. That might have had something to do with her radio silence. She gave birth to her daughter, Lourdes, in October 1996. Then, we heard nothing from her.

Until March 3, 1998.

I was a flat-broke student at the University of Maryland at this point, with barely enough money to cover all the parking tickets that I kept getting. But I knew damn good and well that I was going to buy this CD, the day it released, no matter what it cost. I had been waiting four long years to hear something new from the Material Girl, goddammit. Nothing was going to stop me.

Oh, what a circus! Oh, what a show!

This was a Madonna like no other. All those months she’d spent preparing for her role as Eva Perón had left her with a voice much stronger, much more refined, and much more nuanced than it had ever sounded before. And, gods, that sound…William Orbit took her from the land of bubble gum pop that she had previously inhabited and shifted her to a completely new ZIP code deeply entrenched in a land of rich bass and bad-ass electronica sizzle, a sound that was on the fringes of acceptability at the time but slowly working its way into the mainstream. However, Madonna being who she is, grabbed onto this still underground sound and dragged it into the light in one of the most amazing returns to pop culture prominence ever recorded.

To me, RoL is practically perfect in every way. New sound. New image. New outlook. Gorgeous, rich vocals; lyrics overflowing with eloquence and depth; and these infectious beats that were so new and inventive…like nothing we’d yet heard. Sure, it was destined to be played out to the point of nausea, but Madonna was one of the first artists to really explore the space of this particular beat-heavy genre. And she did it in tellingly classy ways, something that would diminish with time until we ended up with the hot mess of Hard Candy.

I remember reading reviews of RoL that were…well, unkind is a nice way of putting it. The review in teh school papper was particularly scathing, with the reviewer ending with a comment that basically stated that he hoped Madonna was a better mother than she was a musician now. I couldn’t understand this sentiment then, and I still don’t understand it. Minus a few minor stumbles (I have to confess, denizens, I’m not a particularly big fan of “Mer Girl” or “Little Star”), this CD is holistically such a powerful series of songs. Hell, even the songs that I don’t particularly like retain a redeeming quality or two, either through strong lyrics or a particularly tasty beat. I can only assume that these negative sentiments stemmed from the fact that this was such a

[Loba Tangent: Okay, see what happened there at the end of that previous paragraph? I started watching YouTube videos of songs from RoL and I ended up forgetting what I was going to write. Yeah. But I have realized that I would love to have a DVD collection of Madonna's videos. Except for that one where she's dry-humping Justin Timberlake. No one needs to see that.]

Beyond being a powerful compilation of music in its own right, RoL also helped re-establish Madonna as a standard bearer for the club culture. It’s no secret that Madonna is a dance club icon. She got her start in the NYC club scene, ffs. But, oh the tasty phat beatz that came from remixes.

My own clubbing days had a very limited shelf life, butMadonna was definitely one of the major players from the soundtrack of those days.

Wait. Let’s relive Loba’s Club Days, shall we?

Woah.

That video would probably look way better to me if I was high rather than tpisy. Er, tipsy. Still…Madonna with something close to her real hair color, and those icy cerulean eyes? Snerf!

How about this one? It’s another remix that I remember being HUGE during my club days:

I could grok someone for a Long Island Iced Tea right about now. And, really, “Frozen” was not only one of my favorite RoL songs in whatever format I heard it, it was also my favorite video from this album. I remember sitting there for several hours, waiting to download the Quicktime version through my 56K connection. Oh, those crazy dial-up days.

One more. Calderone Club mix of “Beautiful Stranger,” the song Madonna did for Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me:

And I’m spent.

I love how this song supposedly sprang from the friendship that Madonna and Myers had formed during that SNL “Wayne’s World” skit from back when the show was funny. I only wish that she’d stopped at doing a song for the movies that spoofed James Bond. Because, really, did any of us need to hear “Die Antoher Day”? I mean, come on, Madge…did you really use Sigmund Freud’s name as a lyric? Really? Plus, by this point, Madonna was starting down the path of self-immolation through excessive self-emulation. She was dancing dangerously close to turning herself into a parody of herself…something that she didn’t completely achieve until American Life, (rapping about soy lattes, Mini Coopers, and pilates? IT BURNS!!!) with a brief respite with Confessions on a Dance Floor, before returning full-throttle to parody mode with that shit she just recenlty released.

Really, she’s just a hot mess now.

I actually really like the original version (both song and video) of “Beautiful Stranger.” In fact, when I think of Madonna’s most “prime” physical appearance, it’s usually the Ray of Light/”Beautiful Stranger” era of videos that come to mind. Gone was the baby-faced vixen with the peroxide-frizzed hair and “Boy Toy” buckles. She was still smokin’ hot but now with haute couture coif and clothing and a body toned beyond belief. I mean, look at those arms in “Beautiful Stranger”! I still want arms like that. And, even though I know it’s in no way true? In my mind, I was dancing just like she was in that Austin Powers video when I was getting my grind on in the clubs.

Oh wow, but I love Madonna. Not Madonna now, but the Madonna of my misspent youth. Now, she just makes me sad. But back then? Not sad. At. All.

What the hell was I saying? I don’t even know anymore, denizesn. But my beer is now all gone and I have a suddne craving for a peanut butter and banana sandwich. And I see lots of little red squiggles, letting me know that my typing has officially gone to shit in this post. But I’m leaving it the way it is. Because that’s the kind of wolf I am. One who lives up to challenges. Especially ones that involve alcohol. I don’t even know if what I’ve written makes any bit of sense. But I know at least that I have included a lot of links to videos. Hopefully, those will keep you entertained. They’ve definitely made me happy.

No, I’m not blogging about that Charlotte Rampling movie of the same name. Wouldn’t make much sense since I’ve never seen it before, now would it?

Truth is, I had two completely different ideas for today’s Flashback Friday entry, including one that would have involved me drinking copious amounts of Limoncello while I wrote, as a means to satisfy an ImagiFriend’s^TM request to blog my thoughts on a particular subject while drunk.

I still plan on taking on this challenge, but not today. Today, my thoughts were preoccupied with daydreams of swimming. It reached a high of 104 degrees Fahrenheit here today. Add to that the almost tangible thickness of humidity and the heat index soared to something in the upper Kelvin range. As much as I love a sassy summer swelter, this was a bit much. And, sadly, it wasn’t the first such day we’ve had in the D.C. area. D.C. summers are notoriously hot, hazy, and humid, but seems like this year has been particularly unbearable…like being trapped inside the Devil’s jockstrap.

Ew.

As I was coming back to my office from refilling my water bottle for the third time, I happened to glance out my window at the apartment complex across the street. The community pool was busier than I have ever seen it before, with people splashing about, diving, floating, doing laps…and I was painfully jealous.

Not an unfamiliar feeling, I can assure you. See, the family who lived next door to us when I was little had a pool installed in their backyard. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen; because of a particular addition they had made to the design, the outline looked like a guitar. It even had a little Jacuzzi tucked off to one side, and both the pool and the Jacuzzi were fitted with lights that had different-colored filters. Often, they would set it so the Jacuzzi glowed red and the pool glowed blue. It looked awesome at night and also attracted bats, which I kinda thought was way neater than the color aspect (yes, I have always been a little bit on the creepy side). And the best part? There was a metal sign that hung on the gate that read, “Welcome to our ool. Notice there is no ‘P’ in it. Please keep it that way.”

I used to love it when they would invite me over to swim. Okay, maybe not swim. More like flail around like a slightly challenged albino walrus with a damaged flipper. I was chubby, pale, and didn’t know how to swim at all. Thankfully, the youngest daughter (the same one who would let me take her Big Wheel for a spin or two down our street and who also, incidentally, taught me how to roller skate…yeah, she was pretty cool) had pity on me and taught me how to swim. It took a little while, but I finally managed to eke out the skills necessary to doggy paddle my way from one end of the shallow end to the other. I did get better with time, even finally gaining enough courage to start using the diving board, but it was a long road, denizens…a long and water-logged road, indeed.

Actually, I’m amazed that our neighbors had any form of patience with me at all when it came to that pool. I was like a little Pavlovian monster. I could recognize the distinct sound of the pool gate’s double latch no matter where I was in the house or yard, and when I heard it, I made damn certain that I moved to a point where they could see me. Because, you know, if they could see me, they were bound to invite me over, right? Because who doesn’t want to have the neighbor kid over every single time they want to swim!

Usually, I would position myself on the bench swing that my dad had hung from one of the trees in our backyard. It was right across from where the pool was located, which to me meant that it was the perfect place for them to see me sitting, with my well-practiced hang-dog face, watching them getting ready for what should have been an enjoyable bit of pool time for them.

After a while, they made a wise investment into privacy shades, which totally ruined my mood for weeks. Honestly, though, I’m amazed they didn’t offer to pay for me to be shipped off to summer camp. In Siberia. I would have.

As I grew older, I grew less obnoxious (at least I hope I did) about trying to finagle an invitation to swim. Then came the day when the neighbors who had lived next door my entire childhood decided that it was time to pack up and move on. The new neighbors tried to maintain that beautiful pool for a little while, but it soon grew to be more than they could handle. By the time I moved away from home, they’d allowed the pool to deteriorate into a stagnant green mosquito motel. It was a sad end to such a lovely pool, but to this day, I count the time I spent splashing around in that giant guitar as some of the best memories I have of my childhood summer vacations.

I know what you’re thinking to yourself right now: What the hell, Loba? You’re flashing back to a Broadway actress/songstress who’s hardly older than you are and is still working regularly? Did you mix up the vodka and the water again this morning?

Let me ‘splain. I was going through my previous blog, looking for something else that I was going to post for today’s flashback when I stumbled across a post I wrote back in 2006. It was part of a series of posts I’d written about my spectacular 30th birthday trip to Dublin and London. In fact, I’ve already re-posted one entry from that series in a previous Flashback Friday.

[Loba Tangent: Don't you sometimes feel like this series needs a recap voice-over? "Previously, on Flashback Friday..."]

Anyway, when I came across this post, I paused long enough to read it…and by the end, I was grinning like such a goofy fool that I decided I needed to re-post it today instead of doing the post that I had originally intended (don’t worry, denizens, I’m sure I will return to my original idea soon enough).

There are so many happy memories wrapped up in this post, memories both of this amazing performance and of the trip in general. How could there not be? I had already fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with London during a previous trip there; I was now courting a serious crush on Dublin; and to wrap it all up, I was sitting in a theatre (it’s mandatory to spell it this way in deference to the English, you know), getting ready to see Menzel reprise her role as Elphaba—one of those great “Broadway experiences I’ll never have” that I had already filed sadly at the top of my list near “Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford as Christine Daaé and the Phantom” and “Patti LuPone as Eva Perón.”

Yes. Yes, denizens. I’m a musical geek, too. Hell, the first “Poster Pick” entry that I did of a poster from my own collection was of the poster to Wicked! It is what it is. I hope you don’t love me any less.

Anyway, here then is my original 10.03.06 post, originally entitled “Flying Monkeys Edition.” First, though? This is a desktop wallpaper collage that I designed for the first iteration of the lair (back when it was much more than a blog…but also much less fun). This is a very early example of my burgeoning PhotoShop skillz, and I remember being very excited about the final result. There are a few things that I would fix or do differently, but actually, it’s still not that bad, is it? Oh, and if you’re so inclined, you can “click to embiggen” the image below (tip of the paw to Wil Wheaton for the embiggening quote).

I am completely remiss. In all my ramblings about Dublin and London, I have missed speaking of the climactic ending of the journey: second night previews for Wicked. I had seen this musical on Broadway in March of last year…front row seats that we won at that evening’s ticket lottery. That was to die for—my first Broadway show and everything. Shoshana Bean had taken over the role of Elphaba at that point and was doing a marvelous job. It’s a phenomenal musical and does the story beautiful justice regardless of the many turns away from the book it takes along its own yellow brick road. Still, there was that small kernel of sadness within me that I didn’t get the chance to see Idina Menzel as Elphaba.

Flash-forward to the curtain rising at the Apollo Victoria on September 8, 2006. The Time Dragon Clock above the proscenium awoke, smoke curling from its nostrils, red eyes flashing at the expectancy rising from the audience. It was amazing and so exciting to me that here was this primarily British audience packed to capacity, joyfully embracing this thoroughly American musical and its thoroughly American star. It was only second night of previews, and there wasn’t an empty seat to be seen.

Glinda arrived by bubble, Australian and perky (it was an interesting choice that they chose not to hide their accents from the audience a la the London version of Chicago; just emphasized American Elphaba’s differences even more). We all quickly fell into the cadence of the music and the words, the beauty of the sets and costumes.

Then the spark of green as she finally made her entrance, charging to the front of the stage in true Elphaba style…and the musical literally almost came to a stop to allow the thunderous wave of applause and cheers buoy this tiny green girl with the white stripe of a smile against emerald skin. Had Idina Menzel worried about whether the West End would welcome her as she had been welcomed on Broadway, there certainly could be no further doubt. The applause, the cheers, the laughter, and in the end, the tears were not in short supply at all that evening.

And, dear gods, that voice. Were I to take my CD and hook it up to the largest speakers I could find and crank “Defying Gravity” as loudly as it could go, that would only reach a fraction of the volume and richness of hearing her live. There was not one brick of that building that was not touched by her voice. And the moment when she was suspended high above the stage by both platform and vocals, singing my favorite song from the soundtrack…that was the moment most worth the price of admission. It was the front seat fluttering giddiness of an inverted coaster, squared. Yes, it truly was that spectacular.

Idina Menzel is only slated to play Elphaba long enough to welcome the Brits into this new Oz. By January, there will be a new Elphaba, but I predict that Wicked is going to be defying gravity for quite some time to come at the Apollo Victoria (ironically, the inside of this theatre is emerald green, with lots of Ozian type glasswork…very flattering).

And there you have it, snoggees. I have rectified my error, both in not seeing Ms. Menzel when she was actually on my side of the pond, and in not sharing with you all the experience. Hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into the special place in my heart reserved for musicals.

Yes, I’ve taken another pass on Flashback Friday. I wasn’t intending on doing another PhotoShop Trickery so soon here at the lair. Then, this idea hit me on Tuesday evening. I blame it on all the Tilex fumes I was inhaling at the time:

While not as original or intricate as my CYBORG poster from last week, this still delights me in the most wonderfully nerdy ways. Now, I know that it’s all a bit anachronistic, with the DS9-era runabout and the delta shield from the recent movie being used alongside Deanna Troi. But, hey, if JJ Abrams cares so little for continuity or things that make sense in the Trek universe, why should I? (Yeah, if you haven’t gotten this yet, I really hated that new Trek movie).

Anyway. Random Geek Rage^TM moment aside, I hope you all enjoy this as much as I enjoyed designing it. I especially enjoyed being able to tie it all back to that famous litany that always applied to the indomitable Lwaxana Troi. Regardless of the fact that Deanna didn’t think very highly of her obviously royal Betazoid lineage, even once dismissing the Sacred Chalice of Rixx as nothing more than “an old clay pot with mold growing inside it,” this was still her legacy. One day, she would become the Daughter of the Fifth House.

Sounds very ninja, doesn’t it? Maybe this could be all about Deanna finally learning the truth of what this title really means, how her family is one of the defenders of Betazed’s greatest treasures and darkest secrets. And now it is time for her to step into the place of her now gone mother (sorry, Lwaxana) and prove to her people that she has the skills and abilities it will take to defend and uphold the duties of the Fifth House (and finally clean the mold out of that sacred chalice).

Okay, that’s just a tasty bit of awesome right there, isn’t it? I’m envisioning this with lots of martial arts fighting, lots of high-speed chases, and lots of smexy CGI. And Mr. Homm.

Who wants in?

Taking another pass on the regularly scheduled Flashback Friday, denizens. I was going to write about today’s final shuttle launch, but it gave me a horrible case of the sads just thinking about it.

So I decided to do something that would make me happy.

This, my friends, made me immensely happy:

I’ve had this idea in my head for a while now, mainly because I was always so amused by the fact that Ron Moore gave his Cylons number designations…with the exception of “Seven.” Did any of you ever notice that? The “Significant Seven” actually were One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Eight. So what happened to Seven?

According to BSG, One wiped out all the Sevens in a fit of jealousy. I, however, like to think that this was Ron Moore giving a tip of his hat to the fact that there is only one Seven. She just happens to be in another time and another quadrant of space.

What would happen, though, if Cylon met Borg? If Six met Seven? Does anyone else out there think this would be EPIC?

Think about it. A Cylon resurrection ship somehow gets transported through some kind of space/time rift (who knows, maybe Wesley’s playing around with those warp bubbles again), and it ends up in the Delta Quadrant, right as Voyager is being attacked by the Borg Queen. Imagine what would happen if the Borg Queen got her slithery hands on those pretty, shiny Cylon Centurions. All that compliant metal, just waiting to be controlled. Plus, all the different models of Human Cylons, ready to be assimilated, ready to die for their new Queen only to be resurrected each and every time.

But there’s hope! Never underestimate the power of that Tertiary Adjunct, Seven of Nine, especially when she combines forces with Caprica Six! Two 6-foot-tall, weapon wielding blondes with cybernetic enhancements, come to kick ass and take names…er, numbers? I would so pay to see this. And you know you would, too.

I even came up with the following, which I tried to work into the poster but decided to leave off:

Two ships in search of home.
One enemy in search of the perfect drone.
Now, two species once reviled by humanity may be humanity’s last hope.

Again I say…EPIC.

Someone get me Ron Moore and Rick Berman. It’s time to fire JJ Abrams and get Trek back on track, cyber style!

This was another one of those mnemonic moments, Johnny, sort of similar to the one that kicked off this whole Flashback Friday idea in the first place. It was a faint whiff of something random…I’m not even sure what it was that I was actually smelling, but suddenly I was 5 years old again and asking if there were any more red Dino vitamins in the bottle of Flintstones Chewables that my parents regularly bought for me.

It was quite a brilliant marketing strategy, really: vitamins pressed into the shapes of popular cartoon characters, advertised to infinity and beyond during prime time cartoon viewing hours, accompanied by a catchy jingle that you can’t get out of your head for days once it’s in there…so catchy, in fact, that decades later, you find yourself humming it softly as you stroll to your car after work only to be caught by the person standing next to you at the traffic light. And do they laugh? Of course. But it’s not a mocking laugh. It’s a “Great, now I’m going to be humming that all afternoon, too!” laugh.

Like to hear it? Here it goes:

Yeah, this song came much later than when I first started taking these vitamins, but it’s the theme that I remember the most. It’s the theme they used up until quite recently (who knows, maybe they still use it…I just don’t watch shows during which they advertise Flintstones Chewables. Crime scene investigations and children’s vitamins aren’t really a popular combination these days).

Like I was saying, brilliant marketing strategy. And who wouldn’t trust Fred Flintstone? He’d never try to sell your children something unhealthy for them, right?

Oh. Well, okay. Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles aren’t necessarily healthy. But it’s not like Fred and Barney ever tried to sell you something that could kill you. Right?

Well, shit. Misogynistic and carcinogenic. Those were the days.

Like I mentioned earlier, Dino was a vitamin. He was my favorite, in fact. The other vitamin shapes included Fred, Wilma, Barney, Pebbles, Bamm-Bamm, the Great Gazoo, the Flintstones’ car…what’s that? I’m missing a major character? Actually, I’m not. But the vitamins were. There wasn’t a Betty Rubble vitamin until almost 30 years after the Flintstones vitamins debuted. She finally got her own shape thanks in part to Rosie O’Donnell. Check it out.

Amazingly, you can still buy Flintstones chewable vitamins. They come in all kinds of different varieties and flavors now…I even recently noticed gummy versions while standing in the vitamin section looking for glucosamine. Sadly, glucosamine doesn’t come in fun cartoon character shapes. If it did, though, I’d be shaking the bottle, searching for the last Dino…

First, I’ve had a few people point out that they’re surprised by the absence of one particular theme song here for Toon Tune June. My response to this surprise is that I decided a while ago that my very last Flashback Friday will be dedicated to all things pertaining to this particular cartoon…as it is teh awesome and deserves to be the final word in my flashback endeavors. So, when that particular cartoon appears here, you will know that the end has arrived. Until then…

I decided to end Toon Tune June with a theme song from the great pantheon of Disney cartoon themes…and also with a nod to the very first Toon Tune June entry. See, Disney seriously rocked the after-school syndicated cartoon world for many years. And why not? They’re Disney. They’ve got the money and the resources. So there was a long line of cartoons that played on constant rotation on all the syndicated networks: Tale Spin, Ducktales, Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles (oh, there’s a post all to itself…oh, the Trekness of Gargoyles!!)…but of all the theme songs and all the cartoons, I loved this one the best: Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers.

And, before anyone points this out, yes, I know it’s actually called Chip ‘N Dale’s Rescue Rangers. I don’t know why, but that “‘N” just really irritates the English major in me. It even irritated me when this show was first airing in syndication. Leave me to my proclivities, denizens.

Oh, and I did say that I was going to give a nod back to the first cartoon theme I posted, Tiny Toon Adventures. So, here it is: The voices of both the titular Chip and Gadget Hackwrench, the team’s pilot, mechanic, and Jane-Of-All-Trades, were done by none other than Tress MacNeille, she of Babs Bunny fame (and still HI-larious as Crazy Cat Lady on The Simpsons).

Tress MacNeille is teh awesome. So is the theme to this cartoon.

Sticking with a superhero theme tonight, denizens. It’s no wonder, considering what I’ve been reading this past week…but you’ll just have to wait to hear more about that, now won’t you?

So Space Ghost. He wasn’t the greatest superhero on the block (although he’s still cooler than Aquaman). And to be completely honest, I don’t really remember all that much about his adventures. I do remember his theme, though. It was so blatantly 60s sci-fi groovy with the horns, the beat, and that crazy theremin vibe:

Of all the superhero cartoons that I watched when I was little, Space Ghost’s theme was the one that stuck with me. Probably because, much later on, I used to watch the Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost Coast to Coast, which featured the same theme, updated with funky 90s electric guitar and some R&B-lite harmonies added in:

For those who never experienced the surrealistic joy of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, it was a talk show spoof hosted by Spacey himself, with his sidekick nemeses Zorak and Moltar. It was utterly bizarre in the way that only those fledgling shows from the early years of a new network could possibly be. There were no rules, no expectations, no limits to what the Cartoon Network could do in those early days…so they pretty much did whatever the hell they wanted. Throw it against the wall and see what sticks. Well, Space Ghost stuck for almost a decade before finally retiring to that Old Superhero Talk Show Host Home. If you can find some copies, check them out. Here’s a little something to wet your whistle…

I know. Technically, this is not a cartoon theme song. However, here’s the great crime in my life, denizens. The only Pink Panther I have ever seen is the cartoon version. I’ve never seen any of the David Niven Peter Sellers movies (see? I didn’t even know the actor who was in these movies; I told you I’ve never seen the damned things!), and prophets know I’ve never seen the Steve Martin remakes.

Nope. All I’ve ever seen were those silly, silent, and very pink cartoons. I’d watch The Pink Panther Show every morning while getting ready for school. I honestly couldn’t tell you anything about any of the cartoons (other than the fact that they had a ridiculously distracting laugh track), but dammit if I didn’t love this theme. Simple, cool, and jazzy, it’s one of those themes that the minute I hear it, I smile. Henry Mancini gave us so many wonderful, memorable tunes throughout his career (and he gets bonus points from me for having scored so many Audrey Hepburn movies, including Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Charade, and one of my all-time favorite Hepburn movies, Wait Until Dark).

Waitatick. How’d I get from a cartoon panther to Holly Golightly? Oh, yeah. Anyway, so I love this theme song. It was the first ringtone I ever downloaded, and the proof of my love for the theme is the fact that I actually enjoyed getting phone calls when I had this as a ringtone (people who know me well know that I hate telephones). So, there you go. And here you are:

So I’ve decided that since June rhymes with tune (and toon) that the Flashback Fridays this month will all be…toon tunes.

Mainly, I decided this because I’ve had the theme song to this cartoon stuck in my brain for the past few days and I’m not really sure why. It’s the theme to Tiny Toon Adventures, one of the few things to carry Steven Spielberg’s blessing (and backing) that doesn’t make me want to gag from all the excessive schmaltz.

I loved this cartoon when I was a teenager (yes, I did mean teenager). The animation was a much higher quality from the myriad Saturday morning cartoons I grew up watching as a wee wolf; the writing was also a lot more sophisticated. There were plenty of jokes for younger viewers, but a lot of what was going on on-screen was delightfully multi-layered, with plenty of jokes for older audiences.

Also, this is one of the cartoons that really made me fall in love with voice-over artists. There were appearances by classic voice artists like Don Messick and Frank Welker (the one and only original Scooby Doo and Freddy Jones) as well as June Foray, better known as Rocky the Flying Squirrel or, for my generation, Jokey Smurf. Then there were artists like Cree Summer, who we all knew as Freddie from A Different World…and then there was Tress MacNeille. By far, MacNeille was one of the standout artists from this show. Her performance as Babs Bunny was always perfectly timed, perfectly delivered, and perfectly funny. Quite the proliferate voice-over artist, MacNeille is probably most well known to most people for her roles on The Simpsons (she pretty much does every voice not done by Harry Shearer…okay, maybe not that many, but pretty close). Plus, she’s Crazy Cat Lady. Seriously, how do you not love that character?

She’s also done Futurama voices and can even be heard as various voices on a Star Trek video game. Ace.

So, there you have it: Tiny Toon Adventures. Not everything that Steven Spielberg has been involved with makes me feel like I need an insulin injection.

Happy Toon Tune June at Flashback Friday, denizens.