Conan Steals a Movie

Last week, I caught Toy Story 5.

I've seen every Pixar movie in their theatrical runs. Yes, even the "Disney Plus"  exclusives: Soul, Luca, and Turning Red. With the fifth entry of the story of toys, I can happily say that the streak remains intact.

Well, with two exceptions: The Incredibles (never got around to it) and Onward (lockdown happened just as I was gonna go see it).

But anyway, my verdict: way better than Toy Story 4. Nothing will ever top the first two, or most of Toy Story 3, but overall I enjoyed it.

(WARNING: Spoilers ahead)

Did this movie need to be made? No.

Did Woody need to be in this movie? No.

Was it good anyway? Yes.

They tackle the "tech vs toys" plot pretty well here. It's not "oh no, tech is here and making kids dumb!" like a lesser movie would do. If anything, the tension between the toys and Lilypad is a parallel to Woody and Buzz in the first movie: a new, advanced toy shows up, upstages the older toys, they eventually learn to coexist, complete with the requisite chase scene at the climax.

It also shares a lot of plot beats from Inside Out 2 in a way: Lily is like Anxiety, the new toy/emotion that thinks it knows what's best for Bonnie as she tries to make friends, casts out the old guard, finds out the hard way that their way alone doesn't help (Bonnie getting cyberbullied hits HARD, not gonna lie.), the old toys and the new ones learn to balance their involvement in Bonnie's life. Everyone wins.

Oh, and Jessie is the lead in this movie, and it delves into her backstory that'd been on the backburner since her introduction in Toy Story 2. Did you ever cry at THAT scene? Well, they revisit it. And prepare to get emotional over it.

If I had to say a negative about this movie it's that the cast is too damn big. Every movie introduces a new "gang", which leads to less screentime to the older "gangs" over the series, with this one being no exception. Most of the old guard gets a line or a bit to let their voice actors retain their SAG benefits, and they spend most of the movie in a box in the garage. Rex and Hamm still deliver the goods, and Mr. Potato Head finally got recast, so he has actual lines again. As for Bonnie's toys, my favorite of the new group is Forky. He's so blunt about everything, it sets him apart from the sardonic and sarcastic Andy toys.

Hell, I was surprised to see some of the Toy Story 4 gang, too. Duke Kaboom (the one played by Keanu Reeves) was the only one that talked. That's how stuffed this movie was.

But the MVP of the new "Gang" was Smarty Pants, voiced by Conan O'Brien.

Yes, he's an early 2000s potty training device, with all the bathroom jokes that go with it. He can only count to 2, he has two buttons, he'll make any pun about gas, it makes a toilet flush sound every time you pull his handle, and he looks like a damn roll of toilet paper. You get the idea.

It's incredible character design. There's one sequence that gives him Conan's hair, and the resemblance is uncanny. And his first scene has him acting like a belligerent drunk. You just gotta think Conan was having a field day in that recording booth.

Oh, and he can text and interface with a camera and a GPS somehow. Don't think about that too hard.

But the best part is that, yes, there is a real toy of Smarty Pants and does everything he does in the movie, even the drunk talk. There's a video of Conan seeing it for the first time and he is HORRIFIED.

"I'm being interrupted by myself!"

"Join the club!" says everyone else lol

But the biggest surprise was the voice of Snappy the digital camera.

It was Shelby Rabara! The voice of Peridot from Steven Universe!

Snappy even acts like Peridot, too! Well, more like post-character development, but she's still anxious, and tiny, and uses a digital interface, but she's more positive.

All in all, a definite recommend.

And now June, Pride Month, comes to an end. And now we enter July: Wrath Month.

Especially if the five day forecast is any indication.

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It's Gonna Be June

 Man, this month was both long as hell and whizzed by so fast.

Just today I saw The Mandalorian and Grogu movie. I have to confess, this was the first new Star Wars thing I've seen since Rise of Skywalker. My verdict? Way better than Rise of Skywalker.

I actually went out of this not sad, or disappointed, or angry at any of the choices made in this movie. The main complaint I've seen for this was that it was a standalone story that would've disappointed fans of the show because there was nothing new plot-wise or any character development. Well, it was more aimed for people like me, and if this movie existed solely to get me interested in watching the rest of the series? Well, mission accomplished. 

I wasn't exactly blind going into this, either. I knew Rotta the Hutt from the Clone Wars pilot movie was back (Jeremy Allen White giving a performance that would make Hayden Christensen proud), Zeb from SW Rebels making that rare jump from tv character to someone in the official canon, and Sigourney Weaver standing around and wondering what life choices she made that led her to be in this movie. And also Martin Scorcese was in this for some reason. You'll know him when you see him, he voices the Italian-sounding alien with big bushy eyebrows.

It was a solid Hawk and Chick-esque adventure with tiny puppet aliens that sounded too much like the Minions. I liked seeing more Babu Frick aliens, but their voices were almost too distracting. But if that was the main complaint I have about a Star Wars movie, it's definitely worth watching.

But the name Grogu still rubs me the wrong way because American Dad introduced a similar looking tiny alien thing named Rogu and he showed up first.

See? Way more worthy of the name. I wish the people running Star Wars came up with literally any other name for Baby Yoda. (Who was of course, adorable and an actual animatronic puppet!)

Other stuff I did? Conventions!

First up, the big Long Island TCG show! Man, this scene really pissed me off this past year or so. Streamers and resellers have ruined this hobby and I've barely bought any cards since more or less the last big show they had here last year.

Seriously. Crazy prices.

And this set of Gem Mint Van Gogh cards were going for $65K. Just insane.

And that's on top of seeing a Black Lotus in the flesh. But it wasn't from the sets people really care about, it wouldn't have been just in a penny sleeve in a big case with the rest of the rare stuff.

I was mostly there to see voice actors.

Was finally able to scratch a few names off my wanted list, like Eric Vale (Sanji from One Piece), Justin Cook (Kirishima from MHA), and Eric Stuart.

He joins Matthew Sussman, the original English voice of Meowth on this print. It's really sad that Rachel Lillis, the original dub voice of Jessie passed away, so I can't complete the set. I just need to wait for Michelle Knotz to come around again to get a Jessie on this.

Oh, and I met Professor Oak.

Yes, the real one. Stuart Zagnit actually cosplays as Professor Oak and he was as delightful as everyone else. It sucks that most voice actors charge extra to add quotes these days, or else I would've gotten him to add "now's not the time for that!" on this pic:

And then later in the month came Cradle Con!

The main event was a few cast and crew of the original GI Joe cartoon were there, and had a panel.

I don't have a lot of nostalgic attachment to that cartoon (I've always been a Transformers guy), but the highlight was hearing Bill Ratner, the voice of Duke, talk about the Barbie Liberation Organization, the people that switched the voice boxes of talking Barbie and Duke dolls. It happened one Christmas in New York City but it was enough to inspire a Simpsons gag:

It was a trip to hear Duke's voice talk like Barbie, and him imitating Barbie yelling "YO JOE!" If it weren't for my social anxiety (and I didn't want to pay the fifty bucks), I would've asked him about that Simpsons gag.

I still managed to pick up these Canari cards. They're from the then-recent Ascended Heroes set and pretty much the only card I wanted out of it. I got the Japanese one at the TCG show, and found the English one at Cradle Con. Thankfully they didn't break the bank too much because everyone wants the fancier (and rarer) SIR cards, but I like this art much better.

My other pickups at that con. Action Comics #454 has a notoriously silly cover:

I bought the original a few years back, but recently DC has been rereleasing various old classic issues, and for some reason they reissued this one, and with a blank cover variant to boot. I'm gonna have some fun with this one.

And while I didn't pick up any new pins at Cradle Con (gasp), I snagged a few at the TCG booth. The Mewtwo one from the official store, and a few from Wild Bill's. Had no idea they sold pins, and two for six bucks was a deal I couldn't pass up.

And finally, various other pics I got at Cradle-Con:

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Give Thanks, 2025

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. I did the same thing I usually did, watch the parade.

In a "striking while the iron is hot" way, the main event was K-Pop Demon Hunters. Wigs, balloons, fireworks, Ken Jeong as Bobby, all capped off with the singing voices of Huntr/x singing "Golden" in a prime spot in the parade, just before the Bluey balloon.

And again striking while the iron was hot, there was a Pop Mart float filled with, what else, Labubu.

Meanwhile it took 45 and 40 years, respectively for Pac-Man and Mario to get balloons. The latter is at least promoting the Super Mario Galaxy movie. I don't know how Bandai Namco got the scratch for Pac-Man, but there was a whole display for him in the Herald Square Macy's.

And Goldfish had the talk of the parade with this tiny float, life-sized for the little crackers.

And the Luffy balloon finally got a nice day to fly, since his last two appearances were ruined by high winds and rain.

And what was not on the bingo card but welcomed was a marching band tribute to Christmas Vacation.

All in all a pretty decent parade. Other highlights include Shaggy singing "It wasn't me" (appropriate for 11am on Thanksgiving morning), Busta Rhymes on the TMNT Float, Lil Jon on the Toys R Us Float, and Al Roker giving a golden ticket to se the Rockettes to a little girl...who already saw them the day before.

And just like last year, someone watching the parade recorded the whole thing.

Oh yeah, the week before I was in the city for Big Apple Con again and went to THAT Macy's all prepped for the parade.

Of course Santa doesn't arrive at that Macy's until after he shows up in the parade. Clever.

This year was the 99th parade, even though the parade's been going since 1924. They took two years off for World War II, otherwise there's been a parade every year, even 2020. Next year is number 100 and I bet there will be some great merch for it.

I mostly went to Big Apple Con this time for the very short window to finally meet Larry Lieber, Stan Lee's kid brother.

He's 94 and doesn't do many conventions. And the ones he does go to, he only goes for one day and for a few hours. He WAS at NYCC, but I missed him and I jumped at meeting him this time.

He's a creator in his own right, co-creating Iron Man, Thor, and Ant-Man, and responsible for the Rawhide Kid comics, and the Spider-Man comic strip. He was there promoting his novel Chirps, about a parakeet that got superpowers.

It's not often these days to hear him speak at a panel, and he had some good stories to tell. Seeing Pinocchio at Radio City at a young age gave him his spark for creating.

I did find one of my ISOs for a good price, Spidey Super Stories #39. It's the first appearance of the Cosmic Cube (normies who only follow the MCU know it as the Tesseract or the Space Stone), but it's also the first appearance of something even better:

The Thanoscopter!

Now why does Thanos need his own helicopter, especially one with his own name on it? Who cares, really. It was all an excuse for him to lose the Cosmic Cube so it gets into the hands of a little boy.

Honestly, we wouldn't have even needed Endgame if Thanos was able to lose one of the damn macguffins this easily.

And here's one of the wilder books I found that day, but I didn't take it home because it was in poor shape and I didn't feel like paying twenty bucks for it.

Had the classic Charles Atlas ad on the back and everything, too.

I did some digging at what exactly SIR! magazine was, and...hoo boy. I stumbled upon the UK's version of Playboy. More for the risqué and bawdy articles, no one's really naked in these things. Unfortunately.

And the stores in this, especially that Tahiti one...well, let's just say they haven't aged well. I found an even wilder book behind it about war stories and that's even way more un-PC, even for this blog.

Before I digress even further, let's talk about the National Dog Show.

I'm starting to get good at picking the winners, this was like the third year in a row I guessed it right. I called that Soleil the Belgian Sheepdog was gonna win the moment in won for the herding group.

When you see the competition, it was fairly obvious. Baby Joe the Miniature Schnauzer was the only one I thought was gonna be close.

I mean, look at him. Now that's a dog right there.

And now here's the other highlights:

To quote Fred Willard from Best in Show: "and to think that in some countries these dogs are eaten."

And of course with Turkey Day comes the MST3K Turkey Day marathon. This year they added the Netflix episodes to the rotation, alternating a newer one with a classic. 

You know, with Twitch running a 24/7 MST3K channel, with the marathon running through the whole weekend now, it made this feel, I dunno, less special? But in any case, I was multitasking by watching it while watching TCM at the same time. In that pic was the classic Dr. Doolittle, but earlier in the day they showed something even more baffling:

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. It's the only movie Dr. Seuss made in his lifetime, and it goes without saying that it's super weird.

This movie is about a boy named Bart dreaming that his sadistic piano teacher Dr. Terwilliker (heh) will torture him and 499 little boys to play his giant piano to live out his weird musical fantasy.

The titular 5,000 fingers would play this monstrosity.

"Wouldn't it just sound crummy?" Well, this is a dream and the whole set was designed by Dr. Seuss, it's not meant to make any sense.

And of course it gets destroyed at the end. People had to physically build all of this, it was a miracle this movie got made in the first place.

It's probably best known for the roller skating twins that are conjoined by the beard.

Like I said, blame Dr. Seuss for all this.

You could say that I'm thankful for programmers for niche channels. Good to know that they're still out there.

But of course, I'm thankful for food.

Still just me and the parents, but it was a good meal.

And what else am I thankful for this year? The usual: my family, my health, the fact that I still have a job and a roof over my head. My friends, and of course, all of you, my readers. And hopefully I can keep doing this.

I'll see you all in December to close out 2025.

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