Yes, I keep track of this stuff!

We watched over 241 movies in 2009 (up 25% from the 193 we watched last year), so our TV-series viewing was down in 2009. Still, our list of TV shows watched was quite sizable. Read on for the full list.

I try to list the more obscure stuff first, as it’s probably no surprise that I watch Heroes.

AWARDS:

MOST FUCKED UP SHOW OF THE YEAR: Food Party, followed by Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job
BEST NEW CARTOONS ADDITIONS: Producing Parker, Spaceballs:TAS, Strange Brew:TAS, Flapjack, The Goode Family. (Slacker Cats would get this if it was last year.)
BEST COMEDY CARTOON: Metalocalypse, South Park, American Dad
BEST PSYCHEDELIC CARTOON: Superjail
BEST LIVE-ACTION COMEDY: Food Party, Tim And Eric Awesome Show Great Job, The Office
BEST LIVE-ACTION: Heroes, Weeds (which I don’t consider a straight comedy; more of a dramedy)
BEST SUPERHERO CARTOON: Wolverine & The X-Men – most faithful X-Men yet
BEST SHORT FILM: Red: The Tube Bar Prank Calls – For it’s insanity, and it’s importance to The Simpsons legacy.

CELEBRITY APPEARANCES:

  • Andrew Dice Clay – Howard Stern 20090303 appearance – amazing watching Dice try to keep up his persona while trying to deny his real feelings. Howard did an amazing job making Dice look kind of foolish, while at the same time being quite chummy with him.
  • Ren & Stimpy: Howard Stern – John Kricfalusi Vs. Billy West – not a documentary, but it was ALL About Ren & Stimpy and the politics behind it. John K (Ren) definitely has some animosity directed at Billy West (Stimpy)! It was an amazing show, with epic tension.

DOCUMENTARIES, ABOUT SHOWS:

  • Johnny Quest: Johnny Quest Presentation, by File 037 – a 2hr fan-made documentary about the original Johnny Quest series. Although Carolyn and I did not watch the original series, it was *incredibly* interesting. It covered absolutely every aspect of the show. It’s still censored on the dvds today. Anyway — we watched this over the course of 10 meals or so. We didn’t expect much. I had been dreading it. Instead, it really held our attention. It should have taken 20 meals, but sometimes we didn’t stop watching when we were done eating — because it was so damned interesting!

DOCUMENTARIES, MISC:

  • 50 Outdoor Skills – finally watched this after having it for so many years. Good camping lessons.
  • PFFR – Hands Of God – (click for my review) damn funny — but insanely scary as well. These Christian puppeteers really think God gave them the gift of ventrilloquism. Gawd.

CARTOONS, AIRING, COMEDY:

  • American Dad – arguably better than Family Guy and The Simpsons
  • Archer pilot- preview of new series by creator of SeaLab 2021 and Frisky Dingo. Will start in Jan of 2010.
  • Dating Guy, The – Only 5 episodes so far, but a great Canadian adult series about dating crazies while living in the city.
  • Family Guy
  • Goode Family, The – Click for review. Mike Judge came out with something better than King Of The Hill, and it was promptly canceled. ABC tends to always cancel their cartoons after one season — like MTV. This was a major improvement over King Of The Hill, but people didn’t like it as much because it made fun of liberals instead of conservatives. Get a sense of humor, people!
  • Kid Vs. Kat – #1-#3: click for review. Disappointed, stopped watching. Total kid crap.
  • King Of The Hill – it’s finally over. I like it, but I’m glad it was over, because it allowed Mike Judge to create The Goode Family!
  • Marvelous Adventures Of Flapjack, The – Although made for kids, this show is just twisted and subversive enough to be our primary choice for “I’m drunk, let’s watch one more show right before bed”. Recommended by Radha and Andy H.
  • Metalocalypse – Really frickin’ awesome!
  • Producing Parker – Click for review. An excellent new addition to the lacking category of “adult cartoons” NOT on AdultSwim or Fox
  • Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade Of Comedy – a one-shot animated series of sketches from Seth MacFarlane, creator of American Dad and Family Guy. It basically felt JUST LIKE those shows, but with unknown characters. Good stuff!
  • Simpsons – Still some really funny episodes now and then. Still better than King Of The Hill!
  • Sit Down, Shut Up – different! and still good! Will Arnett!
  • South Park – Duh. This latest season had a couple weak episodes, but for the most part this show is as strong as ever!
  • Spaceballs:TAS – Pretty damn awesome. 5/5 stars. And I didn’t even watch the Spaceballs movie until after the series. The Grand Theft Auto episode was memorable.
  • Squidbillies – Awesome. And occasionally disturbing. Like the one that caused Parthena to hide in the kitchen for the duration of an episode.
  • Strange Brew:TAS aka Bob And Doug McKenzie – Pretty damn awesome. And surprisingly dark at times. Carolyn hadn’t even seen Strange Brew, so we re-watched the movie before watching this. And yes. That’s 2 Rick Moranis cartoons!
  • Snake N’ Bacon pilot – Uhhh… What just happened?!?!?!
  • Venture Bros., The – Superhero parody kicks ass! If only this show was as consistently good as the best 50% of the episodes!

CARTOONS, AIRING, SUPERHERO:

  • Batman: The Brave And The Bold – Worst Batman cartoon ever (not counting Superfriends). Still quite watchable. It almost seems like they had intellectual property/licensing issues at the beginning — they had all the imitation heroes and supervillains. Not The Joker, but FunHouse. Not ClayFace, but this… other dude. At first, every episode had a new, random hero who we’d never seen before — working with Batman. It’s like The Justice League, except nobody knows who these people are. I suppose we could view it as refreshing in that they aren’t using the same old characters… But when your characters are clearly derivatives of original characters FROM GOTHAM, it’s not refreshing. It’s just distracting trying to figure out “who” the imitations are. However, once we got a few episodes in, they seemed to start using typical characters (Aqua Man, Green Lantern) and villains (The Joker, Two-Face)… And when we started watching 1 or 2 episodes every night, we very quickly blazed through all ~25 episodes of the season. The final verdict? Still the worst Batman cartoon since Superfriends, but still a Batman cartoon nonetheless. And it’s kind of hard to go wrong with Batman. Some of the episodes were abtract and interesting. It’s definitely the *funniest* and *most immature* Batman incarnation since Adam West. There are a few laughs in every episode, and Aqua Man is HILARIOUS in this interpretation. Also, there’s almost no story. It’s action, action, action. Whereas the 1990s Fox Batman cartoon seemed aimed at an older audience, this one seems aimed at a younger audience. Still good fun, though. But man was the musical episode painful. Interesting, but incredibly painful. Batman sung? WTF?!! He uses Auto-Tune! He keeps it in his belt, in case he needs to sing perfectly to avert disaster.
  • Spectacular Spider-Man – Greg Weisman, creator of Gargoyles, proves he can still make a decent superhero cartoon.
  • Star Wars:The Clone Wars – I only keep watching this because the animation looks great in 720p, and I like Star Wars. Really… It’s kind of poor. Only for completist fanboys.
  • Wolverine & The X-Men – The X-Men are back in style! I loved X-Men Evolution, but it was nowhere near as good as X-Men:TAS (1990s). X-Men Evolution was very unfaithful — putting them all in the same high school together [even the villains], and adding Spike when it should have been Marrow. It was a tad more juvenile. But this X-Men series gave the original 1990s series a run for it’s money. It is by far the most faithful X-Men animated series ever, and the one with the best budget and most characters. And it’s obtainable in 720p, too.

CARTOONS, RECENT:

  • Gary The Rat: #12 – Missed one! Oops! I wish SpikeTV hadn’t given up on their foray into adult cartoons so quickly. ‘Toons take awhile to build fanbase.
  • Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy: “MOVIE” #2 (45min): Wrath Of The Spider Queen – Somehow we missed this! Finally got around to watching it! A great series! The most AdultSwim cartoon on Cartoon Network that is not on AdultSwim (if that makes sense). Too bad it’s canceled, and too bad Season 1 DVDs are already out of print. DUMB. But you can find it on the bittorrent tracker named after a body part.
  • Kevin Spencer: Series Finale – with John The Canadien & Parthena … This is one of the greatest cartoons ever. The “Canadian South Park”, but more like Beavis & Butt-head than anything. Canadian white trash acts like white trash.  We still haven’t watched the earlier episodes, and will probably go back and re-watch all ~90 episodes of this series. I’d place it in the top 20 animated series ever.
  • O’Grady – A Stronger O’Grady – Oops! Missed one! Though not necessarily for adults, this cartoon, and its “weirdness”, is very trippy and delightful.
  • Slacker Cats: the 6 episodes that never aired were posted on the ABC family website. Of course they canceled it. This is soooo NOT a family cartoon. It’s TV-14. This belongs on AdultSwim. I predict they’ll pick it up a few years from now.
  • Space Ghost Coast To Coast: Chambrainge, Brilliant Number 1 – with Parthena & John The Canadian. The original AdultSwim show. Parthena had never seen it, and had to be exposed to the insanity. Plus, Brilliant Number 1 is how I got introduced to Rammstein.
  • Superjail – psychedelic ultra-violence the likes of which I’ve never seen… If Willy Wonka ran a prison in acidland based on 1960s animation, this is what it would be like. Someone needs to create 2 montages: All the opening sequences, and all the fight sequences.

LIVE-ACTION, COMEDY:

  • PILOT: Area 57 – Click for review. Peewee Herman as an alien? Matthew Lillard? Jane Lynch? 7/10. Pretty funny.
  • Ali G – Borat’s Television Program – #1 & #2 – frickin’ hilarious Borat and Bruno stuff presented as 2 specials for The Ali G show. This could easily have been a dvd extra for the movies. Hilarious stuff. Like getting more of the movies.
  • Delocated – more adultSwim brilliance from PFFR, creators of Wonder Showzen, Xavier:Renegade Angel, and the Hand Of God documentary mentioned above
  • Food Party – wow. Like Pee-Wee’s Playhouse meets Wonder Showzen meets Tim And Eric meets lots of drugs. Ballsy for the IFC to try an AdultSwim-style show. Easily the most insane show since Tim And Eric.
  • Fat Guy Stuck In Internet – Have stopped watching this twice now. It just isn’t impressing me. [AdultSwim live action]
  • Human Giant – MTV 24-Hour Takeover Special (1h15m). Great comedy show; hadn’t seen this appearance.
  • Kenny Vs. Spenny – including webisodes – awesome reality competition
  • Ed Vs. Spencer – a tribute show that is a UK version of Kenny Vs. Spenny?? Wish I could get more of this!
  • Michael & Michael Have Issues – Unfortunately, Stella and The State were funnier than this. It was still funny, though.
  • The Office – including webisodes (Kevin’s Loan, Kevin’s Outburst)
  • The Rising Sun [adultSwim] – Click for review. This show reminds me of what you would get if Delocated and Moral Orel had a baby: A parody live-action show that’s completely sacrilegious. The Virgin Mary is kind of a horny older blonde woman, and in 23 years of marriage to Joseph, he’s never gotten to take her to the “bone zone”. That’s because she’s still fucking God. By episode 3, God wants a threesome. But not with Joseph. Click the title for my review, which includes embedded video of the episodes [though CartoonNetwork probalby pulled them by now]
  • Tim And Eric: Tim And Eric Awesome Show,Great Job, The Tim And Eric.com show, Tim And Eric Shrek promos (finally found them!), Tim And Eric Attack Of The Show appearance where they hijacked the show and pissed off the host hilariously–he threw their dvd on the ground later
  • Troma’s Edge TV – Vol. 2 – I’d like to see more of this Troma makes great “bad movies”, but even better “bad television”
  • TV Funhouse: #4: Mexican’s Day – a rerun, but a good show. Almost a precursor to Wonder Showzen in a way. Nice Sally Jessie Rafael self-parody too. And Joe Camel.
  • Wrong Door, The: UK’s first sketch-comedy show to incorporate CGI into every sketch. Some laughs, but overall the decision was to not continue watching past episode#1.
  • Young Person’s Guide To History (both parts) – Click for review. That was some of the craziest stuff I’ve ever seen. Yay, AdultSwim This is basically the same team that did Saul Of The Mole Men. One of the most random things I’ve watched in my life!

LIVE ACTION, VINTAGE:

  • Spike Jones – All Star Revue (19520112) (b&w) (49m36s) – did not expect it to be nearly that funny!

…and another revue, some interviews about him, including Weird Al saying Spike Jones was his influence

ANIME:

LIVE-ACTION, ACTION:

  • 24 – they’ve finally picked up from their 2-season decline, and the quality is back to what one expects
  • Heroes – Staying as awesome as it always was! Sylar tried to kill me in my dreams!
  • Smallville – This show is really going downhill. Damn it sucks to be a completist sometimes.

LIVE-ACTION: DRAMEDY:

  • Weeds – S5 – Sooo happy this is renewed!

MUSIC VIDEOS, FULL LENGTH:

  • Rammstein – Lichtspielhaus – full length videos + live shows + making of all videos + commercials/promos
  • Weird Al: The Compeat Al. Review will be posted much later. A 1985 mockumentary about Al, including many of his videos. 7/10.

MUSIC VIDEOS, ONE SONG:

  • Testament – More Than Meets The Eye (4m39s) – not that exciting, ‘cept for the guitar solo with lightning going into the fretboard. At least Alex Skolnick is back with the band?
  • lots of The Church videos prior to the concert
  • lots of KMFDM videos prior to the concert
  • lots of Pixies videos after the concert
  • some Chemlab videos

DVD EXTRAS (incomplete list):

SHORTS:

  • Tim Burton – Vincent [from Nightmare Before Christmas double-dvd version]
  • Tim Burton – Frankenweenie [from Nightmare Before Christmas double-dvd version]. Apparently this is now being made into a feature-length film.
  • Aspiring Adult Actress PSA 1117 – who sent this to me? Greg? hilarious!!
  • Ultima IV – final dungeon – I played this for a year but couldn’t get through the final level due to my Apple crashing consistently during it. 20+ years later, I finally get to see how it ends! Thanks, Dave O!
  • Red – The Tube Bar Prank Calls movie to short film adaptation starring Laurence Tierney. The basis for Bart prank calling Moe constantly.
  • and tons of other shorts, but I don’t usually keep track of them [sorry Compn…]

And that’s it!

For past media consumption lists: https://clintjcl.wordpress.com/category/media-consumption-lists/

Mood: annoyed at chkdsk
Music: Pixies – Lovely Day