Now it's time for 1990's kitsch!
So pure 1990's Sat AM's!
Best 1990's cartoon!
Animals of Farthing Wood and Animaniacs are pretty high up. Earthworm Jim has one of my favourite cartoon characters ever (Peter Puppy), and Eek! the cat (aka Eekstravaganza!) was just an awesome show in general, next to having Sharky the sharkdog. Bucky O'Hare had a great intro and was fun to watch as well.
Re: Best 1990's cartoon!
Speaking of earthworm jim, will that ever come on DVD?
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GeorgeC
Doug TenNapel has no control over what happens with Earthworm Jim. He created the characters but a company owns the IP.
Shiny Entertainment originally had the rights but they then transferred to Interplay. Shiny's gone now having been absorbed into another videogame company; Interplay's been in and out of debt over the last 6-7 years.
Universal owns the Earthworm Jim animated series and has the power to release it again on home video. There were a few (horrible) LP/SLP VHS releases of episodes in the 1990s. So far, Universal continues to sit on its thumbs where animation is concerned and we're lucky we got as much of Woody Woodpecker uncensored on DVD!
TenNapel has been contracted to design for different Earthworm Jim projects but they generally don't get very far. Most of the projects that make it beyond planning have been remakes of the first two games including ports of the SNES versions to the Gameboy Advance and most recently Earthworm Jim HD, a remake of the first game released exclusively on PSN and XBox Live. There were plans for an Earthworm Jim remake on the PSP (which TenNapel was not involved with) but it never got beyond a remake of level one of that game!
Right now, the only thing set in stone is an HD remix of Earthworm Jim 2 -- ONLY if the HD remix of the original game sells enough in downloads.
I think Earthworm Jim has been a source of frustration to Doug TenNapel over the years. He's a highly creative artist -- read his graphic novels to see for yourself -- but EJ is definitely his best-known creation and to my way of thinking the last great, original platform character in videogames. I think so highly of the games that I still have the Genesis cartridge of EJ1 and the Saturn CD-ROM remix of EJ2. No platformers since EJ1 have been as impressive IMHO including the repetitive Donkey Kong Country. It's a travesty that first DKC game outsold EJ1 -- particularly badly on the SNES -- but the public is fickle. I considered EJ1 much more innovative in level design and mixes of graphic types than DKC which was a very low-res polygon game.
It's a shame there hasn't been a great, original Earthworm Jim game in 15 years but one thing after another keeps happening that delays the reintroduction of the character in a new videogame!
P.S. -- I used to post on TenNapel's forums but I found him to be a difficult individual to relate to. He's eccentric in his own unique way and very strict/set in his personal ideology. (Some people get put off by the religious iconagraphy in his comics but don't seem to question the mindless nihilism in most current superhero comics.) He's very right of center of right of center (YES, I typed it that way on purpose!) but draws like a rabid mongoose on LSD. (TenNapel would probably say more properly that he drops like a doped-up salamander -- if he even thought drug jokes were funny!) It's an acquired taste in cartooning but actually attractive. He's also got a ragtag band of regular posting fans that are sycophantic.
Oh, he's nowhere near as bad as some comic book writers that I can think of or Harlan Ellison but the TenNapel experience is definitely different! Not as bruising as being an Ellison fan can be (Ellison is the tyrannical center of his own universe!) but definitely an experience that will leave you shaking your head and wondering what the heck just happened!
Shiny Entertainment originally had the rights but they then transferred to Interplay. Shiny's gone now having been absorbed into another videogame company; Interplay's been in and out of debt over the last 6-7 years.
Universal owns the Earthworm Jim animated series and has the power to release it again on home video. There were a few (horrible) LP/SLP VHS releases of episodes in the 1990s. So far, Universal continues to sit on its thumbs where animation is concerned and we're lucky we got as much of Woody Woodpecker uncensored on DVD!
TenNapel has been contracted to design for different Earthworm Jim projects but they generally don't get very far. Most of the projects that make it beyond planning have been remakes of the first two games including ports of the SNES versions to the Gameboy Advance and most recently Earthworm Jim HD, a remake of the first game released exclusively on PSN and XBox Live. There were plans for an Earthworm Jim remake on the PSP (which TenNapel was not involved with) but it never got beyond a remake of level one of that game!
Right now, the only thing set in stone is an HD remix of Earthworm Jim 2 -- ONLY if the HD remix of the original game sells enough in downloads.
I think Earthworm Jim has been a source of frustration to Doug TenNapel over the years. He's a highly creative artist -- read his graphic novels to see for yourself -- but EJ is definitely his best-known creation and to my way of thinking the last great, original platform character in videogames. I think so highly of the games that I still have the Genesis cartridge of EJ1 and the Saturn CD-ROM remix of EJ2. No platformers since EJ1 have been as impressive IMHO including the repetitive Donkey Kong Country. It's a travesty that first DKC game outsold EJ1 -- particularly badly on the SNES -- but the public is fickle. I considered EJ1 much more innovative in level design and mixes of graphic types than DKC which was a very low-res polygon game.
It's a shame there hasn't been a great, original Earthworm Jim game in 15 years but one thing after another keeps happening that delays the reintroduction of the character in a new videogame!
P.S. -- I used to post on TenNapel's forums but I found him to be a difficult individual to relate to. He's eccentric in his own unique way and very strict/set in his personal ideology. (Some people get put off by the religious iconagraphy in his comics but don't seem to question the mindless nihilism in most current superhero comics.) He's very right of center of right of center (YES, I typed it that way on purpose!) but draws like a rabid mongoose on LSD. (TenNapel would probably say more properly that he drops like a doped-up salamander -- if he even thought drug jokes were funny!) It's an acquired taste in cartooning but actually attractive. He's also got a ragtag band of regular posting fans that are sycophantic.
Oh, he's nowhere near as bad as some comic book writers that I can think of or Harlan Ellison but the TenNapel experience is definitely different! Not as bruising as being an Ellison fan can be (Ellison is the tyrannical center of his own universe!) but definitely an experience that will leave you shaking your head and wondering what the heck just happened!
