Invincible

Invincible

Reegs: Welcome to Bad Dad's Film Review, where Parenting Meets Passion for Film and tv. The weekly podcast where a group of movie loving dads who are too busy with their parental duties come together to catch up on all the movies they missed. And because our kids love to watch tv, we also review the shows they watch to make sure they're not filling their minds with absolute horse shit.

Make no mistake, it's the two best dads this week, Sadie, who can eat an entire 15 inch deep pan pizza in less than 10 seconds and res whose opinion of himself is more inflated than Sam Smith's Strous. We've got an absolutely jam packed show for you this week, by which I mean we have considerably less than usual.

We start with a special treat for all you animation fans out there as we count down the top five animated characters in movie and tv. And then we move on to our main feature, a review of the animated superhero, gore Fest Invincible, which I am excited to talk about. Please note that our humor can be a bit explicit and we may use a few rude words like Git or WK from time to.

So if you're sensitive to that kind of content, this might not be the show for you. But if you're ready for us to ruin your favorite movies with what passes for our hilarious banter, then you're in the right place. Did you know side on average a person laughs 17 times a day? Did you know that?

Sidey: I didn't know that. It seems low, I think.

Reegs: Well, we'll certainly add at least some laughs to

Sidey: Can we subtract laughs with

our podcast?

Reegs: can you, can you actually negative laugh? Yeah, we'll find out.

So we are chatting away on, on anime on Valentine's Day.

Sidey: Yes. Super, super cute, isn't it?

Reegs: It's lovely, isn't it? Yeah. Did you get any nice Valentine's Day gifts? Pair of socks or something? Or a card?

Sidey: no, we don't do any of that nonsense.

Reegs: You don't do any of it?

Did you have

Sidey: no, well, our anniversary is on the 3rd of February and the iron chancellor's birthday is on the 13th, so adding in a third thing

Reegs: it's not gonna happen, is

Sidey: a bit, seems a bit crazy really, with all the expense of everything these days. So, no, we don't, we just don't, we just, you know, avoid each other.

And we do, I do podcasts and stuff.

Reegs: Yeah. .

Sidey: Yeah. So what about you? You, you guys

Reegs: I got, well you can't, you can't really see this, but I got a sort of series a selection of chocolate covered pretzels and nuts and popcorn and stuff

Sidey: Oh,

Reegs: my Good Lady, which is, you know, because I'm worth it

Sidey: It is shame we're not doing this. You in the man cave and we could have shared those.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah.

Sidey: I did

ha I did happen to, yeah, I took delivery of a box, like a giant great big box got delivered to my house. And it was from Johnny, Utah, Stevie fan of the pod who sent me a box of, I think there was, Four big like selection, you know, big like jumbo packs of tato crisps and then a huge, huge slab of tato cheese and onion chocolate.

Reegs: Yeah, you better have kept some of that for.

Sidey: Yeah, yeah, definitely did that but that was fucking awesome. So I really was loving that. So thanks Stevie. That was awesome.

Reegs: yeah.

Sidey: I've got something to send his way, actually, but I just haven't got round to it. So look forward to that

Reegs: Is it a spy balloon?

Sidey: No, they're, I think that would be in danger of getting shot down

Reegs: Yeah. So that's been weird this week, hasn't it? Now that we are just regularly blowing up UFOs.

Sidey: Yeah. I dunno. There'll be some fucking conspiracy nuts going on about something or other, who knows. But on topic, did you watch anything good this week?

Reegs: No. I'll tell you what we, well, I started, we started, your Honor, which was the Brian Cranston follow up. I guess you know this, what was he gonna do next TV series wise. And he picked a only passable drama about a judge whose son gets himself into a bit of. So it's not really a recommend from me just yet on this.

It's strange project I getting a slight sense. The more I watch a bit that they may be just, you know, in this classic Simpson style, just drove a truck full of money up to his house and said, pick something.

Sidey: Yeah. I didn't watch any last of us this week. I've only done the first three. I think there was two episodes this week cuz they, they, they pushed one up the schedule cuz of the Super Bowl, didn't they?

Reegs: Yeah,

Sidey: I've got two of those to, to, well, the Super Bowl.

Reegs: No,

Sidey: All the last

Reegs: the the last of us.

Sidey: So I've got two of those to catch up when I am up to date with 1923, which I'm really enjoying.

And we watched a movie Matilda, we watched Matilda, the movie with my daughter,

Reegs: All right. How did

Sidey: the DeVito one. The DeVito one, not the musical one that's currently on Sky. So I hadn't seen it before and I didn't, you know what? I didn't know anything about the story either, cuz I, it just passed me by. So, it was quite, quite enjoyable.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad. And your typical roll doll stuff of like really horrible adults and yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. So

there was that.

Reegs: and punishment and stuff. Good

Sidey: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Shall we go top five

Reegs: Yeah. Why not?

Sidey: Right? We are gonna do top five. animated characters, which seems like an incredibly broad topic.

Reegs: It was broad, wasn't it?

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: It was so broad. It was difficult to know how to focus it.

Sidey: Well, let's see what you came up with then. What, what? Go on. Kick kick us off

Reegs: Well, I, I'm probably gonna start really boringly with Mickey Mouse. Made his debut in 1928. Dan remembers it fondly with Steamboat Willie, and

Sidey: Yeah, we watched it.

Reegs: that not so long ago. And I think probably his strongest moment has gotta be Fantas. Yeah. Really. It's a, it is an absolute classic, really.

But yeah, Mickey Mouse, he's been around. He's, he's got a whole castle, a whole corporation devoted to him.

Sidey: The House of Mouse. Have you ever been to Disney World?

Reegs: yeah, it's all right.

Sidey: Well, I'm gonna go for an animated character who appears in a live action movie.

Reegs: Okay.

Sidey: It's

Roger

Reegs: be a few Roger Rabbit. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah, it's Roger Rabbit. Sorry I didn't even give you any time to guess Roger Rabbit. Cause that movie is fucking rad. And he is like zany and caught up in this mad plot. He's got super smoking, hot wife, so he is obviously got something about him.

But this. Like completely captured my imagination as a kid. I fucking loved it. Absolutely unreal. And then it has Christopher Lloyd, you know, as the fucking terrifying villain, like, to be

honest. Yeah. And the scene of him melting the shoe in the dip is just like scarred me. I think as a child. It was this fucking torture.

Great movie.

Reegs: Yeah, I was gonna, I'm, I'm still with the classics. I'm with Bugs Bunny now. Made his debut in 1940. Constantly in beef with people. That was what I remember about

Sidey: Daffy

Reegs: You know, he's supposed to be wise, cracking and mischievous and all that. Bit of a dick. I think just kind of constantly winding people up.

I know Elmer Fud was a hunter and you know, Daffy Duck and all that. Yeah. He was a bit of an idiot. But know, and I, I think my prejudice against Bugs Bunny is probably born, born out. He's got some pretty hideous things in his, in his locker. He's some nasty stereotypes of Asian people in the classic cartoon Bugs Bunny rides again, where he like wears a sort of, you know, Chinese style hat and

Sidey: Oh, he does? Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: And there's another one where you sort of nasty about Native Americans and, you know, the classic. I'm sure you remember side the classic cartoon bugs Bunny nips, the nips. He's dressed in dragon using exaggerated stereotypes of Japanese people to make fun of them during World War ii. So, you know, he's not the nice bunny that everybody thinks he is.

He's a cunt,

Sidey: Right. Wow. Okay. Well, I could stick in the world of Disney, and I've mentioned this before, but the Disney princesses is they are like a proper licensed thing. So if you want to dress up as a Disney princess from, you know, as your job, you have to be licensed to do that. And one of the ones that's in the Disney official princess collection is Princess Jasmine. From Aladdin, easily the hottest of the princesses. And that is a great movie. And also someone who I'm a big fan of is Jade Thurl from Little Mix and she cosplayed as Princess Jasmine not so long ago.

Reegs: And you enjoyed the pictures very much, I'm

Sidey: so yes, so, that is in for sure, princess Jasmine. Hmm.

Reegs: I'm a big fan of, of Rick and Morty and. Probably a decent, you know, time to talk about it with Justin Rowland being caught for being a prick as, you know, another, as we've just talked about in El cast venue routinely finding out that great pieces of art have been made by pieces of shit.

Sidey: Well, what's he been up

Reegs: Oh, the same, just the same old stuff.

Me too. And sexual. Yeah, just a dick. I mean, thankfully it sounds like he hasn't contributed to the show in any meaningful way beyond doing the voices for like years, but yeah. What a shame. What a shame. Something from my youth that we've reviewed on the show at the behest of Pete was Renon St. The adventures of a short-tempered cau and a dimwitted cat and I, it'd be impossible not to talk about the episode that we watched Son of Stimpy where Stimson, j Kat is watching television.

He accidentally breaks wind and he's birthed a his virgin birthed, stinky. So, He, he tries to convince Ren that he's given birth to his son Stinky, who then goes off to be in the big city and Stinky falls heartbroken into a deep depression. Ren has persistent sexual advanced advances to him.

But thankfully anyway, it all pans out when Stinky returns home with his fiance, which is a discarded fish head, and the rejuvenated cat officiates their wedding which is consummated in one of re's nostrils.

was totally fucking mental,

Sidey: standard stuff.

Yeah.

Oh man, that show is fucking awesome. I had, I used to have about four or five t-shirts of stuff with Benton piano. I wish I still had them.

Reegs: He, it gave us the, another character that I really love. Powdered toast man. Do you remember this From, from Renon Stimpy. He was in the episode pounded toast man. I think he. Traditional superpowers like flying, but he's also got super flatulence and the ability to scrape toast shavings from his head.

And he dies in the episode dinner party where Ren hosts a sort of swanky dinner party, holds in a burp and it blows his head off and is eaten by a baboon. It's totally normal. Totally.

Sidey: Yeah, I've got another quite fanciful one, but not in that sense. Spirited away.

Reegs: Oh yeah.

Sidey: The studio Jibe one, and this one was a real success story and it's Chihiro is She's a young girl in it, but like everything in it is really memorable. There's that that sort of silhouetted figure with the, just the eyes and the, and it can kind of shape shift around and it's the story of her parents just take a wrong turn and they end up going into some.

Other magical world where they're transformed into pigs.

And so it's the story of her going into this spirit world and just going on this journey to try and find them. And just so just the visuals and how like inventive. The world is, is just really remarkable. But, you know, they've done that time and time again in those those films.

Cause I've also got my neighbor Totoro on here.

And

Reegs: both me as aki, aren't they?

Sidey: yeah. And Totoro is the one who is that big kind of cuddly, almost like, well tutorial's, the one that's looks like a kind of, bit like a bear. And then, becoming the kind of logo of the glee Maki, like world's like branding in effect. So he was like super, super memorable.

But the cat bus is one, one we always talk about on here as well. Love all those. Fantastic. Have you ever tried to get the kids onto them?

Reegs: No, I haven't. I don't know that they would cope with the weirdness of it. It'd be interesting to

Sidey: Because there's various levels. There's one that's just, you know, the one that's just all about cats. So I, I think I starred my door off on that one. She really liked it. And there's, there's varying levels of, like, weirdness, so you can find one to, to, you know, like a, a gateway drug one.

Reegs: Yeah. Aside, I know you're a big fan of anthropomorphic travel access. And Dora the explorer has got you covered for having loads of those. She's got a map, she's got a camera, but she's got a backpack. Yes, sentient backpack. Seemingly full of its own hopes and aspirations but also constantly stuffed full of weird objects and having non Euclid and geometry.

So yeah, that's a bit strange.

Sidey: Yeah, it is.

Reegs: one from my youth that I enjoyed. Wacky races.

Sidey: Oh yeah.

Reegs: that only 17 episodes produced Penelope, pitstop, dicks, Dick Dastardly, and Mutley. Obviously everybody remembers, but it was like the really inventive cars, the Creepy Coupe, which was like a sort of gothic mansion on wheels that fueled by a dragon.

And there was A tank called the Army Surplus Special, and there was the Arkansas Chugga Bug, which was essentially like just a wooden shed with wheels powered by a stove. Pretty weird.

Sidey: What was the gangster lot? What was, because they didn't, didn't they have two cars?

Reegs: yes, they did.

Sidey: didn't they have one? I wanna say the ant hill mob, but I dunno if that's true or not.

Reegs: Oh yeah, it could be.

Sidey: Didn't they have one in wacky races? And then weren't they also in

Reegs: Catch the

Sidey: Pene or Yeah, or Penelope Pit stop. She had her own show and weren't they in that?

Reegs: Could have been.

Sidey: of trivia to know.

Reegs: Could have been. So yeah. Wacky races.

Sidey: that's very good. Another old school one would be Tom and Jerry.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: They, so I've recently taken on a dog and it's true that cats and dogs don't get on particularly well and our do sort of perform a little bit like Tom and Jerry do less like plate smashing and that sort of stuff. More just trying to scratch each other's eyeballs out. But obviously Tom and Jerry less than a, the inspiration for What are those?

Fuck in the

Reegs: Itchy and scratchy.

Sidey: It in scratchy, taking it to the, to the next level of violence.

But Tom and Joey also had that kind of racial stereotype thing, didn't they? Where they had the,

Reegs: There was a black housekeeper,

Sidey: yeah, you just saw the housekeeper. It was like the hired halve. I dunno if that's bad or not. It's hard to know what's right and what's wrong these days.

But we always used to wonder if they were friends off screen. Tom and Jerry,

Reegs: Yeah. I think it was all just played up for the cameras.

Sidey: Yeah. But they were a pretty iconic duo

Reegs: Yeah. Also, Tom got heavily into meth as he got older, which really put a strain on the relationship.

Sidey: shave his life, you know?

Reegs: Yeah, I mean, the Simpsons obviously, we could just talk endlessly really about the Simpsons and all the great characters in it. I'm

Sidey: Well, you say that, but it's the, it is the podcast Low point, isn't it? Is is the

Simpsons

Reegs: Revere the Simpsons. Yeah. You, you'd think it would be difficult for us to pick out one specific low point, but that is one. still smart about. But yeah, there, there's tremendous characters. Obviously the Four Simpsons themselves are worth talking about, as was basically anything done by the incredible Phil, what's his chops?

Five Simpsons?

Sidey: three kids.

Reegs: Simpsons. I forgot about the baby.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. Five Simpsons. Anybody who was done by Phil Har. . Also one of my sort of unex underappreciated characters that I really enjoy, Han Moleman the sort of Clutchy old man of, of Springfield. One episode showed that he was 31 years old, which I enjoyed.

Never seen him, that doesn't mean anything to you, so,

Sidey: Yeah, it's, I Are the episodes any good these days? I mean, I haven't seen a new episode in Simpsons for so

long.

Reegs: watched one for so long. Yeah. I don't know.

Sidey: To me, it just seems like it's become one of the things they used to take the piss out of, you know, this

Reegs: Oh, he is absolutely flogging a dead horse, isn't it? That surely.

Sidey: But yeah, I still, I still think occasionally watch, you know, the classics and they still make me laugh.

So there's, that's good. Something that I hated at the time, but have come to quite enjoy would be be with. And Butthead,

Reegs: Hmm.

Sidey: I just didn't get it. I just thought it was stupid and irritating when it first appeared. But that sort of thing yeah I would actually, I quite enjoy it now.

Reegs: Actually watched they've got beavers and butthead do the universe on Paramount, and I started watching it the other day. It's really stupid. And, and

Sidey: I bet it is. Yeah. They would just watch stuff ont and comment on it and then just be like hideously violent to each other and you know, that kind of thing.

Reegs: They would often,

Sidey: M T B.

Reegs: they had they, they would actually watch a music video of something that was big at the time, wasn't it? And usually just talk about how shit it was or how awful, how much it

Sidey: Or, or how much it rocked if it was, if it was good.

Reegs: Or how much they wanted to sleep with them. It was a bit like listening to us. Really.

Sidey: yeah, pretty much. That was Mike Judge, wasn't it? Who did went on to do other things, other movies like office space and stuff like that?

Reegs: I always thought it was really cool that this like came as part of it was on the same show that did Eon Flux as well. You can't imagine two like more diffi, different animations.

Sidey: Yeah, MTV used to do some quite good stuff and then it just became a complete fucking catastrophe.

Reegs: Yeah. Another Mike Judge. One was King of the Hill and that had the character boom Hower in it, who never really said anything, just kind of mumbled. He was probably worth talking about the Incredibles, Edna mode.

Sidey: she the costume designer.

Reegs: Yeah, she was sort of like Q mixed with I've forgotten literally every fashion. Vivian Westwood, should we say she was sort of half Japanese, half German, an author. Really? And called everyone Darling. So

Sidey: passionately, passionately, passionately, fucking hates that movie. I mean, Thinks it's like a propaganda film, really like a rational hatred of it. I quite enjoyed it. I think I went to cinema for a second one as well. I quite enjoyed that one too.

How about sometimes these things become just so huge. They're like a cultural phenomenon such as Pikachu of Pokemon fame that kind of cutesy little yellow electric chick thing. And it just says Peka peka and and gets angry and shoots lightning bolts. It just, at one point, just fucking everywhere.

Reegs: Yeah.

Yeah. When I was at university, it was huge. Absolutely huge.

Sidey: Gotta catch 'em all. And then people started playing that fucking one on their phones. You know, you had to walk around and people would die cause they'd walk in front of traffic while they're trying to catch Pokemon on their fucking phones. Yeah. Yeah. But it, you know, it was just like ubiquitous for a time.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: I suppose it probably still is, they, they just bring out more games. Like, I know someone who still plays it. We both know them. And it's it just seems like it's the same, you know, maybe people would say that about a lot of things, but just to me, it's just the same thing every time. It's just,

Reegs: Yeah. I mean, people endlessly buy like the FIFA game series. They buy every iteration of that. That comes out every year. I think it's

Sidey: Yeah. My good luck's in there, they're enjoying the.

Reegs: Yeah. South Park.

Sidey: Yep.

Reegs: a couple of characters I was gonna mention for that. Everybody would be, you know, obviously would talk about Carman. I'm probably more a fan of the, you know, usually sort of softly spoken and good natured.

Leanne Carman is mother she's a terrific cook. She's got a voracious sexual appetite and she's a hermaphrodite. So that's interesting. And then also there's Mr. Hank. You know, really stupid, the Christmas poo. Born from a real story that when Trey Parker was being toilet trained and he didn't wanna flush the flush the toilet, his father told him that his poo would come to life and kill him if he didn't flush it.

And that's how Mr. Hanky, of course, he ended up being a phenomenon, really didn't he? Stuffed toys and considering it is literally a piece of shit, like took them two minutes to come up with and some stupid voice, and they've sold millions and he had a, I think a number one. Song in

Sidey: he have a Christmas, did he have a Christmas number one or was that chocolate salty balls?

Reegs: it was chocolate shock. There was also there was also Mr. Hanky, the Christmas Poo. He Loves Me, we Love You or whatever. Ridiculous.

That's, that's South Park.

Sidey: I never got into the series so much. I watched. Like fleeting episodes here and there, but love the movie, but I just never got into watching the series religiously. But it's, that's still going strong, isn't it?

Reegs: I think so. I don't know. I, I got bored of their devil's advocacy type approach to every single complex issue.

Sidey: Howie's a big fan of it.

Reegs: you see, but I do appreciate the sort of commitment to offending people.

Sidey: Yeah, I'm into that. Couple of stop motion animation ones. Don't think we've had any of those yet, have we miss Mr. Fox of the fantastic Mr. Fox fame.

Reegs: Fanta and what wonderful animation that is as well. I, I, I've missed all this out actually, cuz I just thought of traditional hand drawn animation, but

Sidey: Maybe we should keep, like stop motion for a different one.

Reegs: yeah,

Sidey: Okay, well let, let's annex Mr. Fox. You're out, you're out of there.

Reegs: You're out Fox.

Sidey: Robert Williams. Arguably greatest role would be in my opinion the genie from Aladdin. That's real good. I've got another one that we reviewed recently was SpongeBob, wasn't it?

Reegs: Yes. I I didn't review that. That was part of the teeth one, wasn't it? But

Sidey: That's right. It's like an epic like money maker. That one. It is just vastly popular and successful. I saw someone had put the sound effect of Squidward, you know, Squidward the way he walks.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: They had put that over the Sam Smith walking down the red carpet of the Brits in his , in his incredible.

So it was really good. So that's a contender. And then I've got about a million t-shirts and jumpers and things with Snoopy or Charlie Brown on. So they've got, they've gotta go in that's more kind of like crudely animated but kind of sweet and innocent. I guess, the peanut stuff.

Reegs: Yeah, Charles Schultz.

Sidey: Yeah. And the they

Reegs: the movie,

Sidey: I was just about to say

Reegs: ago, the Peanuts movie, and it massively exceeded my expectations. It was, it was really fantastic.

Sidey: Yeah. I thought it was really good. So they're, they're definitely in with a shout, I think.

Reegs: Yeah. Shall we just quickly talk about Disney's love of associating evilness with physical deformity in some way using some characters? Well, we've got Ursula the Sea Witch from the Little Mermaid the Queen of Hearts. She was a small red face shouty woman. You had D Drella and Anastasia Tremaine neighbor, the ugly sisters from Cinderella, captain.

Sidey: Oh

yeah.

Reegs: didn't have a hand scar.

Sidey: What's wrong? Him?

Reegs: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I guess I did try to think, is there a flip side of that? So there's Dory from Finding Nemo. They also had a disability but weren't evil as far as I know. The best I could come up with was the gingerbread man from Shrek, cuz he, he loses his legs. . And also Eor cuz he's just a bit depressed.

I dunno if he's Disney. Actually. He's Winnie the Poo. Do they own Disney? Di Disney Do they own Winnie the Poo?

Sidey: Question mark. Dunno, don't think so, but

maybe they've acquired it. Yeah.

Reegs: Oh. And Benson from the regular show. Remember him? He was just a t a totally normal sentient gumball machine.

Sidey: Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Couple of other classics that we've not mentioned, but we all know about. It's Belu from The Jungle Book

Reegs: Yep.

Sidey: Mr. Finn Stone from the Finn Stones.

Reegs: Yes.

Sidey: Just love that show when I was a kid. Right.

Reegs: But did you always suspect he was smacking Wilmer around or,

Sidey: Yeah. But it was different attitudes back then. It was, they

were talking about cavemen. That's what they did.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: I mean, I'm not saying it's okay, I'm just saying it's different back then

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: just to be absolutely clear about that. Right. Should we try and compile then our top four?

Reegs: Yeah. Who are we putting Who? How many are we putting in? Two each?

Sidey: To each. Yeah. And then when I do get round to putting this on the Twitter sphere, we'll get some other noms. So we'll keep it strictly like proper classical animation, not stop motion.

Okay.

Right. Go for it.

Reegs: I'm putting it in Stimpy.

Sidey: Okay.

I'm

Reegs: in, oh, sorry.

Sidey: I'm gonna put in Princess Jasmine.

Reegs: I'm putting in, I don't know who to put in, but I wanna put in somebody from the X-Men Animated series, cuz that was so rad. You remember that in the nineties? It

Sidey: yeah, we reviewed it really early on in the poll. I think,

Reegs: yeah, that's right. We did

Sidey: jubilation Lee as

Jubilee.

Reegs: put Jubilee in. Yeah, let's put Jubilee, shouldn't we in?

Yeah. From X.

Sidey: Oh. Only one more. It's really tough, isn't it? Uh, I didn't even mention anyone from Toy Story that I was gonna talk about. But I will put in Jasmine,

so I'm also gonna Oh, now then no how, oh, the agony of choice. Oh, I think it's gotta be Roger Rabbit. I think it's gotta be Roger Rabbit. Yeah, it's in.

Reegs: Nice. Good

Sidey: So all that we need is one extra from our beloved listeners. riggs.

Reegs: Yo.

Sidey: I think I'm right in saying that you are a fan of Invincible, which is what we are watching for our main feature.

Reegs: Yes. Yeah,

Sidey: I've seen a tweet or two possibly about it in the past.

Reegs: yeah, probably I, I, yeah. I was pretty blown away by it actually.

Sidey: It's based on a graphic novel series.

Reegs: Yeah. By Walking Dead Creator Robert Kirkman

Sidey: That's right. Yeah. And it's image comics, isn't it? I like them. They do good stuff.

Reegs: and I never got the chance to actually read the comic. It was on my. It was on my list but I was super excited, super excited about it. When I heard that Amazon Prime were doing an adaptation produced by Seth Rogan, amongst other people actually, and then even more, I guess, enthusiastic when I found out about the voice cast and saw all the, the animation itself as well, which, yeah, looking

Sidey: Well, the voice cast is pretty amazing actually, cuz,

Reegs: It's incredible.

Sidey: episode one, series one where we jumped in right at the very beginning I didn't realize Quite how many stars there were attached to this. And then you're watching it and you pick up on 'em like pretty much straight away. So, we can, we can get into who's, who's, just what, I guess.

Reegs: Yeah. Well, where do you wanna start? Do we wanna talk a little bit more about the background to this, or do you wanna get into it or? I think with animation you've gotta talk about what it looks like a little bit, haven't you?

Sidey: it's visual style.

Um, What would you compare it?

Reegs: I think it looks like, well, you know, we were talking about, or I was talking about X-Men, the animated series. I think it's strongly reminiscent of that with a sort of simple line drawn animation and a really vibrant color palette. But it switches using sort of 2D and 3D animation techniques throughout it and

Sidey: Yeah, you could take

Reegs: as well.

Sidey: Yeah, you could take quite a lot of just, if you just freeze framed it, it does, like you say, have that kind of a little bit of a throwback visual style to it where it's, and I don't mean this in an unkind way, it's not basic. What's the what be a nice way

Reegs: it's traditional. It's more sort of traditional hand drawing animation techniques.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: and I think that lulls you into a sort of false sense of security as to what it like as to what this is like because this is a superhero animation show. But it is very mature content. Really, really very graphic depictions of violence and gore,

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: throughout.

Sidey: Yeah, so Seth Rogan, you mentioned to him, he's, he does a, a bit of voice acting in this, but he, he brought this, one of the people who helped bring this to the screen, but he'd also al done preacher was one of his, and then of course the boys as well. And so this would've been around the series two-ish sort of time with the boys.

I guess

Reegs: Yep.

Sidey: looking, thinking back and both having. Super, super violent, graphically violent content in it.

Reegs: This is much less cynical than the boys. Though this is, you know, the, the violence is there to explore different themes in this. It really is though straight, even from the simple stuff, a very visually striking experience to watch. I.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Particularly as it moved through the action scenes, which, which sort of use 3D animation and allows for a sort of fluidity and movement through the animation, that is unlike anything I've really seen in anything else.

Sidey: Yeah. And it does start off, you know, right out the gate, well there's this conversation between two security guys isn't there at

Reegs: Yeah. One of Whom's John Ham.

Sidey: Right. And

just

Reegs: how they need to do superhero evasion training. It's like a, it's like a health and safety certificate that they need or at work, but then how he's supposed to deal with that with a guy who can shoot lasers from his eyes.

Sidey: Yeah. And then they are in the midst then almost immediately of a, a battle scene where two guys, the

Reegs: I just before, sorry, just no, it's really annoying, but just to talk before the Mall of Brothers turn up. It's one of the things that I really like about this, cuz you get these two sort of side characters and Ham is talking about how he's going on vacation for a couple of weeks with his, with his stepson, who's turned his life around after getting involved in, and Dr.

In drugs and crimes is actually a pretty moving moment. Really good acting, great animation as he talks about how proud he and his wife are of his stepson. You know, the moer twins emerge, like you say, but a bit of, you know, a bit of substance and maturity behind it.

Sidey: Yeah. And they seem to have. They basically appear out the ground, don't they? They've been tunneling and one of the brothers says to the other one, you know, we've come outta the wrong place. They're supposed to come in behind the walls, but they're out in front. And he says, well, you're just a fucking clone, so you are useless.

You know, you can't do anything right. And they've got

Reegs: They argue about who the clone is, don't they?

Sidey: Yeah, and one of the security guys manages to get off a shot. They, they seem basically impervious or anything. There's, there's sort of automatic gunfire just raining down on them. And this not, not have any effect, but one of the security guys manages shoot one in the eye and that does take his eye out.

Reegs: it's John Ham actually, and he's about to be completely taken up cause he features his character features in the second episode. So thankfully spoilers, he, he does survive and he survives because a, a team that's very much like the sort of justice league of this world turns up.

You've got Aquarius, Martian, man, dark Wing, green Ghost you know, clearly Batman analogs who, what was his name? The Martian man, hunter. There's a Wolverine, someone who's a bit like the flash. He takes the civilians away from the scene and they puke with motion sickness. And then there's a fish guy there as well for some reason, which I just loved.

Sidey: Yeah. Was that who Seth Rogan was doing?

Reegs: Yeah. And so one of the twins throws like this innocent guy into the air and he's saved by the black Batman character. And that's when we're introduced. He's almost crushed and that's when we're introduc. To JK Simmons, Omni Man. Dramatic stuff.

Sidey: Of, you know, the sist of all the superheroes.

Reegs: Yeah

and it's clearly his inference that turns the battle.

Sidey: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He we get to see all their different powers throughout the battle. It goes, you know, it goes on a little while. You get some good, some good violence in this bit.

Reegs: the Moer twins are captured. Everyone gets a good chance to use their powers, even the Fishman, and we, anyway, we, it's a good scene because we transition from an explosion in the street as the Moer twins are captured to an explosion on the back of a comic book as Mark Grayson, Stephen Yn sits on the toilet, where his mother.

Debbie Bursts in it's Sandra o. And this is, this is Omni man's family. Nolan Omni Man is revealed, his name is JK Simmons, and they're just kind of, you know, this is all fairly routine for them. He returns home. It's a bit like that show Modern family, I think it was with ar O'Hanlan or whatever. Do you remember?

Sidey: No.

Reegs: It was like a superhero show. It was comedy sitcom on the bbc. But this has got a lot more like punching through people's faces and stuff than that

Sidey: Yeah, definitely has that about it. Yeah.

Reegs: But this is more, you know, omni man comes home, gives his wifey a little kiss. They're a little bit over sexual for parents as Mark points out.

but it's all family happy families, isn't it?

Sidey: Yeah. Mark's I think he knows he's gonna get powers at some point. At least he's, he's waiting for this to happen, these powers to develop. And he's getting quite impatient about it. He's sort of, you see him leaping around on.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: the drive outside his house, but nothing happening. And he feels like he's missing out on all these adventures and,

Reegs: He can't wait for his powers to kick in. He, he knows he's descended from somebody who's

Sidey: You'd be the same though,

right?

Reegs: Yeah. What am I gonna get?

Sidey: Yeah, exactly.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: What would you be keen for? Power number one?

Reegs: Oh, well, if you say invisibility, it just means you're a pervert, doesn't it? And

Sidey: Yeah. Or x-ray vision.

Reegs: yeah, I dunno. Being able to

Sidey: would be a cool one though.

Reegs: would be,

Sidey: Yeah, it would be. Flight would be cool. Strength or all those boring traditional ones. Yeah. Tech stuff would be it. It Yeah, it's difficult.

Reegs: It'd just be really useful.

Sidey: Would you use it to just do like your work

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. And then

Sidey: be more efficient at work?

Reegs: Yeah.

Anyway Mark's at school. And his best mate is perving over a picture of Omni man, which obviously makes Mark A. Little bit uncomfortable.

Sidey: it would do.

Reegs: and some asshole is harassing Amber, a girl that he sort of knows and he sort of, he gets beaten up when he goes to defend her and she kicks the bully in the nuts

Sidey: Yeah. It's been emasculated.

Reegs: And then one night he's at his job at Burger Mart. It's like a McDonald's standing.

Sidey: Hm.

Reegs: and he's putting the trash out, Isn't he? And then suddenly his powers like literally kick in that he opens the dumpster and he's just about, he slings in one bag and then just as he goes to sling in the other one, he just launches it miles into the air

he suddenly says, oh, it's about time.

Sidey: So we get a whole thing about him just wanting to instantly be a superhero really, I guess is the, the crux of it.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: He's he's impatient and he can, he can fly, but he can't control that. He he can sort of zoom about, but he can't control it. He can't land without crashing into things or really control which direction or how fast he's gonna go.

So,

He could do the

Reegs: when Nolan eventually trains him, yeah, we get a bit of a training thing. Nolan trains him and says, oh, it's like when a baby's learning to walk, they have to think about where their steps are. But you know, as you get more into it, you don't even think about where you're flying. Cuz we see him careering near e, nearly hitting a passenger jet and all sorts

Sidey: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. We do. They he still, he keeps telling him how he is not ready, though. He can't, you know, he can't be going into the front line of Superhero stuff. He does wind up getting involved in some skirmish, doesn't he?

Reegs: Yeah. He gets involved with Mahershala, Ali's Titan,

Sidey: I mean, there's some like stellar names we've

had so far in

Reegs: names in this. Yeah. So yeah, he improvises this like red and yellow and blue costume with a neckerchief and some goggles. And he goes out looking for trouble and he finds it with, with Titan and there's a big superhero fight.

The fights are great. They feel weighty. They feel like what would happen with if two sort of B beings with these kind of powers had those kind of. Mark wins the fight. An omni man turns up at the end and he tells him off. You know, he did more damage than good. And they've had this thing as well, haven't they?

That as part of his training that Nolan's been given to him. He's hit him, isn't he?

Sidey: Yes. They have a row and

Reegs: now he wants him to hit him again.

Sidey: yeah, he gets like, God, hit me, hit me. I'm not gonna do that. And his mother, he has to get some sage advice from his, from his old dear.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: What happens next?

Reegs: well, we're, his, his dad takes him to superhero costume designer, art Rosenbaum that's played by Mark Hamel.

Sidey: Yeah, and like another, like superstar name is incredible.

Reegs: yeah. And he's made him a co, he's, he's making him a costume and he asks him for a You know, a theme and he says he's working on it.

Sidey: Yeah, he doesn't like the first costume that he puts him in disease. He doesn't like the colors and it's just not into it.

Reegs: there's a lot of training scenes. You know, a lot of it is about Mark trying to prove to his dad how strong he is, you know, that he's strong enough that he just wants to be just like his dad. And his dad not really wanting that for him. In fact, he says one night he reluctantly says to Sandra to Debbie, Sandra owes character that he wishes Mark's powers never cut kicked in

Sidey: Which he overhears. They have a nice little ca session of playing catch, which was

Reegs: they do

Sidey: quite good cuz

Reegs: literally throwing a baseball around the world.

Sidey: yeah. I, I saw some nerds on the internet saying that they were picking holes in that that it wouldn't have been possible

Reegs: Why? Cuz the world's flat

Sidey: The ball is traveling extremely fast, much faster than the speed of sound, yet they hear it coming, which be, would be impossible at supersonic speeds. Also, at that speed, the board would not circle the earth, but would break orbit and fly off into space.

Reegs: yeah, yeah. We need Homer. Why would a man with

Sidey: and then a second nerd said that when Omni Man and Vince were playing catch, they're throwing the ball around the world.

It takes roughly 15 seconds for the ball to arrive and would mean that the ball was traveling at near light speed, which would make the ball and the gloves disintegrate.

So some

Reegs: away near light speed. No, I don't. No, no. It wouldn't be near light speed. Nowhere near anyway. We get a great suiting up type sequence of Mark, like jumping off and flying through the city to a cage. The Elephant song, it's a pretty good soundtrack in this as well. The part of the soundtrack is done by Holy Fuck, which is a band I've always liked and, you know, really surprised that they've never got mainstream attention.

Sidey: Well, they're not on top of the pops. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. And anyway, some guy, a villain turns up kill Cannon and there's a Superpowered fight through the city and we get a great fit. He says, you might as well give up. I am. And he's about to say invincible, but we get a hard cut to the title. We don't hear the answer, which is a repeated thing that they do throughout this.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: And then after the credits, you know, we get a load of scenes of the whatever they are. The Justice League stand in going

Sidey: Gardens of the globe, aren't they?

Reegs: That's who they are. That's right. The guardians of the globe. They're all going about their normal stuff, but they get a call to action on their wristband to go to their sort of fortress of solitude style secret base, don't they?

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: But when the last one gets. Batman stand in. It turns out it was a trap laid by omni man who takes them all down, I think, fairly easily, I have to say, even though he's pretty beaten up by the end of it. But I mean, it's so vicious. What you see, you know, he crushes and pops, the red rushes head, head with his bare hands, you know, brutally and viciously punching through the head of one.

He uses another, like a ragdoll to beat one. The fish guy has his head taken off with a mace.

Sidey: Yeah, it doesn't go well for them at all.

Reegs: it decapitates the Immortal.

Sidey: I was shocked

Reegs: Yeah. . It's not really,

Sidey: cuz he's been being like, father figure up until this point. And this was definitely a side step

Reegs: Well, this was definitely the show, letting you know that you weren't gonna know exactly what was gonna happen all the way through.

Sidey: Exactly.

Reegs: and that was the, that is how it ends, isn't it, with him sort of badly beaten and the rest of that team just dead, horribly, horribly, horribly killed. Setting up the big like mystery of like, what happened?

Why

Sidey: Yeah. And I haven't watched anymore, so I, I, and I will, I, I want to want to get into it.

But you've obviously seen all of this. Is there, is there just season one at the moment? Is there another

Reegs: there is. There's a season two coming out, I think fairly imminently.

Sidey: Okay, cool. Well I'll try and smash this so I can be ready for season two coming out cuz this, this was a hit for me. I really, really enjoyed it.

Reegs: Yeah, this is a huge, huge hit for me and the season itself. I don't wanna say too much cuz I'll ruin it, but it's classic father and son themes and themes of identity and detachment and the consequences of absolute power and how Mark's invincible is about his love and compassion, you know, and the fact that he keeps going.

Yeah, great. Great, great stuff. This, and it looks incredible.

Sidey: Yeah, it does, it does look really good. And the the cast like just keeps blowing your mind, . It's just like, how are they like slight Avengers assemblers, there's so many fucking people in it. It's cool man. It's, it's really good. So yeah, looking forward to getting stuck in some more of this.

Reegs: I would say as well, it gets better and better and better.

Sidey: Oh strong. Recommend then from us.

Reegs: a real strong recommend.

Sidey: Right. Three weeks on the bounce rigs that we've been doing this remotely. I've had enough of that,

Reegs: It is varying degrees of success as well. The, it's not as easy is it?

Sidey: it just seemed I, I dunno, I think the tech problem might be my end. Not my end, my

wifi, but yeah, it's just shit. So, I promise that we will do something. In the same room. I think Pete's around next week as well, so we can get together and do something, even if it's in Pete's shed.

Reegs: W weird shared. Yeah,

Sidey: so that will happen.

We don't have nominations. Maybe if Pete's around he could nominate. I dunno. We can we can sort that out later. But yeah, usual levels of disorganized chaos from us. So all that remains is to say society.

Reegs: it res out.