The greatest animated detective

When I think about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, Sherlock Holmes mystery stories, the actors, Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett come to mind. Heck, even the new Sherlock Holmes movie I saw early tonight, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law has not passed by without notice. But interestingly enough, I discovered a Russian animated cartoon (directed byAlexander Bubnoff in 2006), depicting our favorite detective and his trusting side kick, Dr. John Watson (see picture of our favorite duo below), a few days ago. While the animation may appear to be simple and not quite, as polish as other animation styles (i.e. anime or CGI), Bubnoff nonetheless made a really good short animated film that is both humorous and interesting.

The animated short, Bubnoff directed is entitled, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Murder of Lord Waterbrook (2006), which involves our favorite duo investigating, you guest it, a murder of a local lord (Waterbrook) in his home. Bubnoff’s animated short is somewhat a parody of a typical Sherlock Holmes murder mystery because the corpses of both Lord Waterbrook and his butler both make comments to Holmes and the others, even though, they are both suppose to be dead. Bubnoff also seems to like using exaggeration is his animation because he gives the maid an extremely large bust and makes Holmes tall with a thin neck and thick middle. The most absurd or humorous part of the short comes towards the end, when the dead lord decides to kill himself again (that’s right, Waterbrook actually killed himself, though the cook tried to do him in) when he finds out that his wife was having relations with his driver (who turned out to be his illegitimate brother in disguise), thinking it was him.

Overall, Bubnoff’s animated short, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Murder of Lord Waterbrook, is a humorous and entertaining animation that effectively utilizes the art of parody and exaggeration really well. While the animation appears to be simple and not quite, as polish as other animation styles (i.e. anime or CGI), Bubnoff’s animated short is still a delightful little piece of work. In the end, Bubnoff’s animated short is a humorous cartoon that Sherlock Holmes fans should see.

Crazy does not begin to describe this

Are you a fan of weird or absurd cartoons? If you are, than the Japanese anime series, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo is the one for you. It has everything from talking squirrels living inside hair to bad musical numbers. Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo can best be described, as a series, where the patients run the asylum. In other words, this show is an unpredictable and insane roller coaster ride. This anime is one of the strangest and funniest animes I have ever seen. In fact, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, is one of the best animated series to employ sight gags, puns, character exaggerations, and spoofs in one show.

Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (see picture of characters below) is about Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo or Bobobo, a crime fighter who protects people’s hair (with the use of nose hairs and an overactive imagination) from an evil empire (led by Czar Baldy Bald the Fourth) obsess with shaving people’s head bald. Joining him areBeauty (female protagonist who constantly complains about Bobobo’s eccentric behavior), Don Patch (a demented and insane ball-like creature with a star-shape head who is even more eccentric than Bobobo), Gasser (teenage boy who Beauty likes and employs the use of fart bombs to combat enemies), and Jelly Jigler (a being made of jello who is often physically abused from both Bobobo and their enemies).

Other characters that are in Bobobo’s group are Softon (a person with ice cream for a head), Hatenko (a blond hair male who worships Don Patch and uses keys, as his primary weapon), Dengaku-Man (a cute character that is generally forgotten by the others or is the butt of jokes), and Torpedo Girl (a female torpedo who has a crush on Softon and hates joking around). Topedo Girl (see picture below), interestingly enough, is the female form of Over (one of Czar Baldy Bald’s top generals).

The episode, I selected is called, Silly Singing Saves the Show from a Scoundrel, and this episode is arguably one of oddest, yet funniest episode in the entire series. The episode begins basically with a recap from the previous episode where Softon is beaten by J, the strongest member of Giga’s (one of Czar Baldy Bald’s generals)  “Six Cyber Knights” and has an onion for a head. J proves to be too strong for Bobobo, even against his antics and absurd behavior, so Bobobo calls out to Don Patch to change into a piece of candy, so they can merge into BoboPatch (a fusion of Bobobo and Don Patch).

Unfortunately, Dengaku-Man gets in the way and he is swallowed instead of Don Patch. What happens next, stuns Beauty because she was expecting a new male warrior, instead a female appears named Denbo. J laughs this off, but soon finds himself trapped in her world, where anything some one sings about comes true. In fact, J is attacked by many things including hearts, carrots, jello, sugar, Vitamin A juice, and egg plants. J is finally defeated by Denbo, when she uses her nose hair attack to beat him. With J beaten, Giga eagerly awaits Bobobo and the gang to finish them off, which is where the episode ends.

Overall, Bobobo’s and Don Patch’s eccentric and strange behavior is what makes the entire series fun and enjoyable because you never know what to expect from these two. In fact, when I first saw this episode, I started to crack up because I was not expecting Denbo or the singing to be used against J. If you have the pleasure or time to watch this series, I recommend it because of the surprise factor and the comical gags. In the end, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo is one of the strangest and funniest animes I have ever seen that employs the use of sight gags, puns, character exaggerations, and spoofs, really well.

The little people inside your computer

Imagine, if a group of people were residing inside your computer and basically, doing all the normal stuff we do like eating at a local diner or riding a bicycle in a park. Think, this is crazy. You’re right, but in the world of Mainframe Entertainment’s (now called Rainmaker Entertainment) Reboot, however, there are whole cities with people living inside a computer just like mine and yours. Reboot is about the adventures of Bob the Guardian, Dot Matrix, Enzo Matrix, Frisket, and Phong (see list of characters) as they battle the evil autocratic Megabyte and his chaotic loving sister, Hexadecimal (see picture of both computer viruses below), who has a love/hate thing for Bob.

Reboot, which came out in 1994, is considered the first animated series to use computer graphics imagery or CGI, according to Wired.com’s article (written by Rogier van Bakel), “Before Toy Story there was Reboot.” When you first take a glimpse into the CGI world of  Reboot, you will see a world filled with lots of imaginative characters, computer related humor, and visually colorful graphics. Despite this though, Reboot does have a few kinks with regards to the animation in the early days (i.e. characters look either too block-like or not realistic and little or no shadow effects). A lot of these problems were rectified as the series progressed. In the end, Reboot is a charming series with lots of good characters and wonderful animation.

The episode, I selected is an episode, I really like because it highlights the creativity and imaginative storytelling of the series, really well. The episode is called Painted Windows and it starts out with Hexadecimal breaking into the Princple Office’s archives and stealing an old paint program to cause mischief and mayhem. Within a matter of  moments, Hexadecimal causes complete chaos to the city of Mainframe (the city where our heroes live) by flooding the streets with paint, turning Megabyte’s lair into a place to hold sun flowers and him into a jester (she also pastes Megabyte onto the sky), erases Phong’s face and replaces it with a green apple (Phong too, ends up pasted onto the sky), and Enzo ends up turning into a VidWindow (VidWindows act as a form of face-to-face communication).

Bob comes up with a plan to undo all the destruction that Hexadecimal has caused, by tricking her into giving an interview with Mike the TV (see picture below), while Bob quietly sneaks off and undoes all the problems. At the same time, Dot and Enzo head to the Princple Office and wait for Bob’s signal to break the link between the archives and Hexadecimal’s lair, where she is controlling the paint program. Hexadecimal, however, soon gets suspicious and realizes that she has been tricked and targets Bob.  When Bob sees her coming, he freaks out and uses the paint program to remove her mask, not realizing that by removing Hexadecimal’s mask, her powers become unstable and could obliterate Mainframe.

Realizing his mistake, Bob tries to use the paint program to re-paste Hexadecimal’s mask, but is thwarted by Dot, when she broke the link after Bob fixed all the mess that was done to Mainframe. Thinking quickly, Bob uses his key tool called Glitch to close the file that contains Hexadecimal’s mask and than copy and paste it back onto her face. The removal of the mask caused damaged to Hexadecimal’s already fragile mind and Bob decides to leave Mike the TV behind to keep her company.

Overall, Reboot is a fun and imaginative series filled with quirky characters, computer related humor, and visually colorful graphics. The episode, entitled, Painted Windows, in my opinion, does a good job at highlighting, the creativity and imagination of the series because of the use of computer based humor and colorful visuals, especially with regards to Hexadecimal hijacking a paint program and going wild with it, in Mainframe. In the end, I recommend Reboot for people who enjoy computers, good CGI animation, and lots and lots of humor.

I thought this video memorializing the late Tony Jay (voice of Megabyte and Judge Frollo from Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame) was very touching.