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Dic Geeks

Dic Geeks

By Mostly Kobolds

Between 1971 and 2008, DiC Entertainment was a staple of Saturday Morning Cartoon blocks, producing over 100 TV childrens series. Now two dorks must sample them all; Join Mark & Avery as they voyage endlessly back in time to watch every single show that DiC released!
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We're Back! A Dic Geeks Story [Bonus]

Dic GeeksSep 30, 2020

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23:42
Genius (1999)

Genius (1999)

Once rejected into the "Lost media" pile on our watchlist, only to be saved by the neither-here-nor-there land that is Disney+, it's Genius (1999)! The first and only DCOM produced by Dic whilst they were still under Disney's wing, this one follows the story of a child prodigy who just LOVES hockey. I mean damn, he's got a hyperfixation on science, but that hockey though!! Sure, he just made international history by isolating and consequently manipualting the graviton BUT HOCKEY THOUGH!!!! Get your pucks at the ready folks cos this one is a real doozy of an episode.

Oct 20, 202043:39
We're Back! A Dic Geeks Story [Bonus]

We're Back! A Dic Geeks Story [Bonus]

Okay admittedly that was more of a hibernation than a hiatus, but it is with great pleasure that we can announce that Dic Geeks is finally back once and for all! This here is a little bonus episode to test out our remote recording setup (needs work, as you might be able to tell) and to get the ball rolling again. Listen in as Mark tests Avery's piss poor memory of the show.....and that's actually about it. Yeah, it's a short one, but merely the starter before the main course! 


Sep 30, 202023:42
I'm Telling! (1987)

I'm Telling! (1987)

 In a very bizarre out of nowhere move in the late 80s, Dic made a kid's gameshow. Why? No one really knows, and for the most part, everyone's kind of forgotten about it. ...Mainly because, it's genuinely very forgettable, barring the celebrity specials. Taking the newlywed game and giving it a sibling-based twist, I'm Telling has two closely related children answer specific questions about each other, hoping that they'll both say the same thing in order to earn points and get access to the elusive Pick-A-Prize Arcade where they could win fantastic prizes. Sound familiar? Well yeah, it will do. It's a very generic concept for a show, much less one aimed at kids. As a direct result of this fact, we only spend half this episode actually talking about it, with the latter half dedicated to discussing far more interesting and unique gameshows from the UK. The most notable things we find about it are its creator and some of the young celebs that found their way onto the show back in the day...but who are they? Find out in this week's edition of Dic Geeks!

Jun 27, 201933:24
Wish Kid/Mary-Kate And Ashley in Action! (1991/2001)

Wish Kid/Mary-Kate And Ashley in Action! (1991/2001)

Child Stars! Y'know, those scrappy actors that start doing stuff from a young age and have prolonged popularity before inevitably fading into obscurity before suddenly coming back and doing interesting things. Take this trio today: Macauley Culkin, who now runs a satire site called Bunny Ears, and the Olsen Twins, who are now established (?) fashion designers; And indeed, most of their back catalogue of acting work can be looked back on as "Regrettable".

So with that regret in mind, lets look back at two of their most forgettable appearances. First we have Culkin's "Wish Kid", wherein he plays a kid who owns a baseball glove that was struck by a shooting star and gained the ability to grant time-limited wishes. And secondly, we have Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action! which has the twins play a pair of really quite pathetic secret agent types with a snarky constantly quipping robot dog with a pseudo-scottish accent. You get the idea they were trying too hard with that second one a bit?

May 08, 201930:09
Iz and the Zizzles (2007)

Iz and the Zizzles (2007)

Released in 2005 to widespread disinterest and bemusement, the Zizzle Iz was the new music toy created by the bloke who made Furbies. For the most part, it just kind of existed for a while before quietly petering out into obscurity, though if you're in the UK, you may know of it thanks to a McDonalds Happy Meal promotion where they included a far cheaper and almost feature-free version of the toy. Somehow, it ended up with a near hour long cartoon special by Dic which manages to almost completely fail at properly selling the toy to you by way of obscuring its actual functionality. And yet...it isn't so bad? Tune in to DICG FM to find out our full thoughts today!

Also yes, we finally fixed all of our audio problems with this episode. Turns out recording on an old "media PC" that's perpetually on a death knell isn't such a hot idea! Who knew?

Apr 24, 201954:24
Super Mario Bros 3 / Super Mario World (1990/1991)

Super Mario Bros 3 / Super Mario World (1990/1991)

Yes indeed, we're finally getting the other two Mario cartoons done and out of the way with this episode, as we take a look at two more Dic shows that were instrumental in the creation and perpetuation of the early Youtube Poop fad/movement of the mid to late 2000s. I uh....I don't exactly have much else to say other than that. It's more Mario shit! Yay...?

As a sidenote, to echo this statement a third time already: there will not be an episode coming out at the usual time in 2 weeks time! This time next week we will be attending EGX Rezzed, a fun indie-focused video game convention in London and as a direct result of that, we aren't going to have much time to record and edit another podcast. About...3 or 4 days worth and thats also going to be whilst battling travel anxieties and then post-con exhaustion thereafter. So unfortunately there wont be a new episode of Dic Geeks until either the 17th or 24th, with that latter date seeming as if its the most likely one. Thanks a bunch for your patience and for listening!!


Mar 31, 201938:26
The Dic Geeks 4-in-1 Fun Pak!!

The Dic Geeks 4-in-1 Fun Pak!!

Okay, so "Fun" might be somewhat of an inaccurate title for this here special episode of Dic Geeks, but we definitely deliver on bringing you 4 mini reviews of trash garbage cartoons this week! For the Appetizer, we have the mundane and mildly racist Super Dave: Daredevil For Hire (1992)...Meanwhile overin the Entree we have the noise polluted Stunt Dawgs (1992) with a side order of the hideously bland Speed Racer X (2002)...and finally for Dessert we have the least garbage-y of them all: Pole Position (1984), a cartoon that merely lifts the name off the classic video game and then goes off to be a weird kind of almost but not quite spy show?? I have no bloody clue, honestly. 

Basically put, we tried to do an episode of the latter two toons, failed and popped them on the backburner. Fast forward a few months and we end up in the exact same situation with Super Dave and Stunt Dawgs. So we figured we may as well just get all four of these beasts out of the way and done with rather than vaguely flounder about and try to fill a half hours worth of time trying to talk about some of the most genuinely boring and dull shows we've come across whilst doing this show. None of these are explicitly awful so to speak more just...meh. They're not exactly watchable, they're not really very fun or enjoyable and overall they're all ripe for being tossed into the bargain bin of life. So, sod it, let's bundle them up and make a quick buck! After all, it's 4-in-1, so that means it's better value for money by default!

Mar 12, 201944:21
Photon/ALF Tales (1984/1988)

Photon/ALF Tales (1984/1988)

Another episode, another duo of dull boring Dic shows. What do we have this week? A laser tag tie-in and yet another Fairy Tale Theater knockoff? Bahh surely these can't be any good. ...Wait, for serious? These two are genuinely really good? Well, hot damn, look at that! Photon brings us a quality bit of 80s Cheese, ripe for riffing MST3K style (if you can comprehend its plot) and ALF Tales is a wonderful bit of Fractured Fairy Tales style show combined with the fun poking writing sensibilities last seen in high ranker "Jingle Bell Rock". But what of our full thoughts? Why, dear listener, just have a cheeky peek for yourself. Come in, we have free tea and biscuits, sit down and enjoy yourself for once. Cos this episode is all positivity, baby.

*You may note the lack of a fucked audio warning! While we haven't fixed the problem, we were lucky enough for the issue to start occurring precisely as we started figuring out the ranking for these shows, thus allowing us to neatly cut and re-record that section albeit in a more brief manner. Enjoy the first smooth sailing episode in quite a while. You deserve it for sticking with us through these issues.

Feb 28, 201949:21
Pocket Dragons Adventures & Lady Lovely Locks (1996/1984)

Pocket Dragons Adventures & Lady Lovely Locks (1996/1984)

Another lightning round of mediocre Dic cartoons for you this week as we look at the excitable yet dull Pocket Dragon Adventures and the utter travesty that is Lady Lovely Locks. Mark's audio goes a bit funny as per usual at this point (to my dismay) but clears up not long after. So! The cartoons. One is inexplicably based off a series of ceramic knick knacks that were popular in the 90s so already the mere concept makes no sense since the thing it's based off isn't meant for young kids to play with. As for Lady Lovely Locks, she was, of course, based off a doll toy...and as per usual for a girls cartoon from the 80s, everything that happens is entirely nonconsequential and nothing bad ever truly happens to the cast, thus making the entire thing ultimately pointless. Hooray. 

Sigh. Yeah, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel today, folks. Let's hope for a better pull next episode.

Feb 12, 201941:54
Meet Julie (1987)

Meet Julie (1987)

Content Warning - Mention of a cop shooting early on in the episode; Mentioned as part of the discussion about World of Wonder's downfall starting at around 3:21 and ending at about 5:33.

Oh, also Mark's microphone starts getting a case of the ol' crackles & distortion around 21 minutes in - it ends completely at 26:05 but note you'll miss the ranking by skipping to that timestamp. We apologise for this unexpected occurrence and, once again, are looking into the cause of this. We're reasonably sure its down to the aged media PC we use to record on, rather than the microphones themselves. Also Avery needs to start using a pop filter if theyre going to be sitting that close to the mic from now on.

Regular episode synopsis is as follows: It's time for yet another product-placement special this week on Dic Geeks and today we're taking a looksee at World Of Wonder's last vaguely notable product: Julie. Julie was basically like an ultra Teddy Ruxpin in doll form; she could speak (sans audio tapes, this time) and move her mouth whilst doing so and had rudimentary forms of speech recognition to allow for further interactions between the child and the toy. Whilst it's this fascinating bit of 80s tech, it's also completely and utterly cursed. So, perfect material for an overly long special that's incredibly light on the plot, then. Great...

Jan 29, 201930:34
Legend of the Hawaiian Slammers/McTreasure Island (1994/1990)

Legend of the Hawaiian Slammers/McTreasure Island (1994/1990)

Dic Geeks returns for the third year running to tackle the still-pretty-bloody-large remainder of the dic catalogue! This week we cruise it easy with two half hour toons; a failed pilot for a superhero show loosely based off POGs and a McDonalds special based loosely off Treasure Island. Come, bask with us under the cool shade of cynical 90s garbage designed to sell worthless gubbins and fast food.

Jan 15, 201953:22
A Christmas Carol/"Xmas Marks The Spot" (1997/1986)

A Christmas Carol/"Xmas Marks The Spot" (1997/1986)

Christmas special time yaaay. A Christmas Carol (1997) is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the Dickens classic with awkwardly bodged musical numbers scattered throughout; meanwhile "Xmas Marks The Spot" being the ending to the first season of The Real Ghostbusters whilst doubling up as a Christmas special. But how do we fully feel about these things? Is this entire episode mostly mailed in because we wanted to get it out of the way and enjoy a nice break from watching this trash? Listen in and find out.

Dec 16, 201827:53
Inspector Gadget (1999)

Inspector Gadget (1999)

Mark and Avery finally tackle Dic's big movie McGuffin, Inspector Gadget (1999) starring Matthew Broderick. How does one describe Inspector Gadget the movie? Well, first take about 3 or 4 vague character traits from the cartoon along with their names, hire actors that have a vague passing resemblance to their cartoon counterparts and then consequently ignore everything else the source material has to offer. Then proceed to create an hour long movie that constantly throws cartoon antics at you in a vague attempt to keep you engaged to the film whilst it blasts bizarre product placement at you. That should just about do it. Put simply, it's bloody awful. And it's time to give it its just desserts.

Now the eagle eyed of you might have noticed that this episode is an entire week late. We acknowledged this as being a possibility in the original recording itself due to the length of it nearly clocking in at 2 hours along with also getting a new computer (which theoretically means more efficient editing), but then new life issues suddenly reared its ugly head in right as things were seemingly starting to settle down. Oh, and the microphone gave us the gift of corrupted audio again. Yay. So, yeah, this episode is not only late but its not in the best of condition either. There's an audio warning before Avery's microphone gets REAL bad along with a timestamp so you can skip that part of the episode; you'll miss some of the discussion, but at the same time you'll also save your ears from quite the grating experience. The episode intended to come out this week will be coming out shortly after this one as compensation, and then we'll try to resume our regular schedule. Ta for putting up with us!

Music at the end by ghostwerk: https://ghostwerk.bandcamp.com

Dec 06, 201801:36:47
Groove Squad (2002)

Groove Squad (2002)

What happens when you cobble together dusty old stereotypes, a second hand vhs of sailor moon and a half-arsed stab in the dark at pandering to kids? You get Groove Squad, DiC's only Sunday Movie Toon not to be based on either an existing property or public domain literature. And what a toon it is; this early 2000s relic attempts to mimic what Totally Spies and Kim Possible did so well and ultimately fails on so, so many counts. On a more positive note, we got a new microphone cable and (touch wood) so far, so good!

Nov 11, 201836:02
Monster Mash (2000)

Monster Mash (2000)

When Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolf Man are indicted by the monster council for not being scary enough, hijinks ensue. Which is basically another way of saying 'Generic Cartoon Antics'. In this slightly late Halloween Special we examine this forgotten Halloween classic, and then almost immediately forget it ourselves. It's all very forgettable. I think there was a version of Jason made out of spaghetti? Anyway, we counted about three genuinely decent jokes throughout this entire feature-length cartoon, and for one of those three, it trod on its own toes and ruined the joke. There's only two words that can perfectly sum up this special: Wasted. Potential. Well, as wasted as you can get for a cartoon whose entire base concept is "What if we turned the Monster Mash into a cartoon?"

Note; This episode was 100% intended to be out before Halloween but due to awkward scheduling circumstances and general mental health issues, Avery has only just now been able to properly sit down to edit it. Apologies for the delay!

Nov 04, 201840:22
Bump in the Night/Mummies Alive! (1994/1997)

Bump in the Night/Mummies Alive! (1994/1997)

A show that is far too much to watch for more than 5 minutes and a show that has a fantastic theme song and immediately plunges downhill thereafter. Oh joy. 

Well, we've already covered Bump in the Night before on our Christmas special episode last year, with the dreaded 60 minute long "T'was the Night Before Bumpy" but now we're paying our dues and actually looking at the show as it should be and yeeeeah no it really isn't improved in its shorter form. Mummies Alive! fares a little better but not by much - apart from the kickass theme tune created by the same dude who composed the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers theme tune, it's a bit bland and has a lack of any real substance past tired cliche tropes and cartoon antics. 

This episode is a little bit on the naff side since Avery was falling asleep in real time and honestly couldn't put up with either of these shows for very long. Sorry about that. We'll be back next episode with Monster Mash.

Oct 14, 201833:09
Time Kid (2003)

Time Kid (2003)

As we were at a gaming con last week (which we probably should have mentioned beforehand, whoops) we decided that the only way to make up for last week's missing episode was with time travel. Sadly we don't have access to a Delorean, so instead we had to do with watching Time Kid. This clunker was one of DiC's series of Sunday Movie Toons, and was based on H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine', a novel we haven't read but are pretty sure has something to do with eugenics. Thanks to us coming down with con crud this one is a little shorter than usual, but quite frankly there's not much to say about 'DiC tries to make a Victorian novel cool and fails'.

Sep 30, 201824:11
The Mysterious Cities of Gold/Liberty's Kids (1982/2002)

The Mysterious Cities of Gold/Liberty's Kids (1982/2002)

History has always been a ripe subject for fiction, and so it was inevitable that in our dives through the DiC Archives we'd find ourselves a matching pair of shows with very different approaches to historical accuracy. THE MYSTERIOUS CITIES OF GOLD is a pseudo-historical romp through South America inspired by turn-of-the-century conspiratorial ramblings about lost continents and ancient technologically advanced empires, whilst LIBERTY'S KIDS is an extremely detailed look into the American War of Independence made in an effort to try and get children to learn something for once.

But can slow-paced French anime from the early 80s keep Avery's attention? Will Mark gain an appreciation for American History? Should Aaron Carter be allowed to rap patriotically over scenes of a brutal 18th Century conflict? All these questions will be answered and more!

Sep 09, 201835:04
New Kids On The Block/Hammerman (1990/1991)

New Kids On The Block/Hammerman (1990/1991)

What? *Two* cartoons an episode?! Yeah, that's the new structure, get with the times my pal. We're trying out something new; not only are we reducing the overall workload by doing this but also it allows us to have a more relaxed and proper discussion-y feel to each cartoon instead of just droning on about plotlines and bad characters. This week we have the New Kids On The Block cartoon ("Everything wrong about celebrity toons" according to TVTropes) and Hammerman (Literally Mc Hammer's very own cartoon). One's a stinker and ones a corker, and I feel I may have ruined that already. But hey!

Oh, right, yes, also here's a SPECIAL ALERT for this episode: You guessed it - fucked audio! This time round it was nothing to do with us directly; instead my microphone inexplicably started distorting audio every so often throughout the recording along with making a bunch of clicking noises. Now, the clicking noises I've managed to remove, but I wasn't able to keep the distorted audio in. Thus, A Totally Not Noticable At All replacement recording has been spliced in where this happened. Yeah, this episode is a bit of a mess but it should hopefully give you some idea of the structure and next time we're going to take more precautions to hopefully stop this from happening so we can give you a good quality episode for once. Thanks for your patience and we love you!

Aug 26, 201830:05
The Poochie Special (1984)

The Poochie Special (1984)

An interesting collection of jobbers, an entire plotline pulled out of literal thin air and a dog that was known mostly from being a brand of stationary. Against all odds The Poochie Special, a pilot from 1984, genuinely ends up being one of the more enjoyable Dic shows we've seen in a while. Barring the 80s mild racism, a fun loving attitude and an adorable talking dog that is part time adventurer and part time temporary CEO of a newspaper company, this cartoon is a little strange. A lot of it happens out of nowhere; it opens with a kid being inexplicably chased through the streets of Cairo with no explanation, only for the guys chasing the kid to completely disappear the moment Poochie and her robotic assistant Hermes get there. And then theres a bit where they somehow end up at the hands of the last remaining worshippers of Osiris (who is inexplicably female here)? It's...weird. Again, somehow despite all this bizarre and completely unexplained bullshit, The Poochie Special ends up being genuinely a pleasant watch. Whilst there's not much opening for more episodes after this one (which is probably why it failed as a pilot), it's definitely worth a look at for the sake of a random cartoon being made out of a popular-at-the-time series of plush toys and stationary.

Once again, I must apologize for the audio in this one. It was all over the place once more and we ask of you to please be patient with us as we try and figure out a more solid recording method that allows us to have more decent and consistent levels. Next episode will be coming in a fortnight, now that we're finally back on the right schedule! Thank you for putting up with our constantly stumbling arses.

Aug 12, 201833:10
Double Dragon (1993)

Double Dragon (1993)

For some inexplicable reason, DiC thought it'd be a great idea to launch a cartoon based off a popular game that came out in the arcade and at home...approximately 6 years after it had come out. They then further thought it'd be a swell idea to have only one episode actually vaguely based off the lore of the show itself to string kids into watching, only to then take it completely off the rails by the second episode. Did we mention there were toys too? Really really cheap and shitty looking toys? If that hasn't made the pieces fall in place, us talking about it will. This thing is frankly one of the most dire excuses for a cartoon we've ever seen.

Fair Warning: The audio on this episode is a bit fucked, honestly. Mark had a cold and Avery was sleepy. I've set both our tracks to the "Heavy" setting on the Hard Limiter effect, so there may be points where it gets a bit too loud. The alternative was to have both of us be a bit too quiet, unfortunately. So yeah, partly gross audio ahead from Blocked Nose Man and varying noise levels from Obnoxious Dork.

Aug 05, 201852:01
Sonic The Hedgehog (1993)

Sonic The Hedgehog (1993)

More affectionately known as "SatAM", Sonic the Hedgehog was Dic's second cartoon featuring the blue blur. Rather than take a second spin at the cartoon antics of AoSTH, SatAM is considerably darker and edgier. It features Sonic, Tails and Robotnik, with them having been placed in a cartoon that has basically nothing to do with them, and the Freedom Fighters, a group of generic animal people which the cartoon actually focuses on. Yeah, if it's not too obvious by this point, we weren't too appreciative of this one. The entire show feels drab and dull and Sonic's arsehole personality (which worked nicely in the silly antics environment of AoSTH) sticks out like a sore thumb and makes him utterly unlikable. Listen in to hear us go a bit more indepth into the whole thing and why it simply didn't work anywhere near as well as Adventures did.

On a partially related sidenote: Hello! We're back! Season 3 of Dic Geeks is officially commencing with this episode, and we're shifting ourselves back to the biweekly schedule we originally started on. Turns out, much as we wanted to push through the exhaustive and exhausting list of shows that Dic made, doing it weekly tired us out quicker than ever. But we've had a nice break from it all, and we're diving straight back into it. We wont normally announce these things in order to allow us more freedom of choice with regards to picking shows out, but next episode we'll be taking a little look at the phenomenon that is Street Sharks.


Outro music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8I6OLsOb00

Jul 15, 201851:38
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors (1985)

Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors (1985)

Remember Ulysses 31? Jean Chalopin certainly did. So when Mattel comissioned DiC to produce a cartoon based around their failing toy line 'Wheeled Warriors', the result was yet another french-style anime set in space. But could the cartoon series save the toy line? Did Jayce ever find his father and the other half of the root or whatever that medallion thing is supposed to be? Will we annoy a bunch of people by describing this cult classic as 'kinda mediocre'? All these questions answered and more in this, the grand finale of Season 2 of DiC Geeks.

Jun 03, 201837:16
Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater (1987)

Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater (1987)

With Hello Kitty's birthday being only a mere 164 days away, we decided to do a bit of early celebration by watching the very first Hello Kitty cartoon broadcast on TV! Furry Tale Theater, despite the name, largely consists of weird half-arsed parodies of both public domain books and films that were popular at the time. Because there were only 3 other Sanrio characters that weren't very import-friendly (namely due to Japanese names and also due to one being just two angelic humans), some one off characters were created to fill out the cast. We have the Sanrio lineup of Kitty and her extended family, My Melody and Tuxedo Sam followed by the Dic creations Catnip and Grinder. There's also the strange anomaly character of Chip the seal who appears to be both a Sanrio and a Dic creation, having been made especially for the purposes of this show. Unfortunately, this show ended up being a bit flat and overall naff - I mean, the stand-in characters Dic made just look like rejects from The Catillac Cats for gods sake. So in order to spice it up, we spend the first half of this episode talking about how good the new Netflix series Aggretsuko is. Seriously, go watch it, it's so good.

May 20, 201829:40
Defenders of Dynatron City (1992)

Defenders of Dynatron City (1992)

When Maniac Mansion co-creator Gary Winnick tried to code his very own NES action game, the results were underwhelming. The marketing however took on a life of it's own thanks to input from a young(ish) Steve Purcell, and so there exists both a Marvel Comics miniseries and a DiC pilot for 'Defenders of Dynatron City' that far surpass the quality of the game they were created to sell. We'd say some more about it, but that's it. It sort of just, existed for a while before fading into obscurity. Apologies for the somewhat rushed episode this week, we should be back up to standard as usual next week. Well, provided the cartoon is decent, at least.

May 13, 201833:21
Ultraforce (1995)

Ultraforce (1995)

With the success of Fox's X-Men cartoon, studios spent much of the early 90s looking for the next big superhero team. Unfortunately, it was the early 90s and therefore comics were ugly and barely comprehensible in a way they had never quite been before. On that basis, Ultraforce is an excellent translation of the Malibu Comics series (remember Malibu Comics? Neither do we), mining several months of deep continuity for its unengaging plots and almost entirely unlikable heroes to work with. Of course, by the time the cartoon came out, the entitre of Malibu's continuity had been completely reset, making the cartoon completely redundant. Even if the timeline hadn't been reset, it would feel redundant. Ultimately, the show is a time capsule to an age of tedium. 

May 06, 201821:03
ProStars (1991)

ProStars (1991)

In 1991 DiC made a show in which the three most famous sportsmen in North America teamed up to fight supervillains with sports-themed gadetry. That's the entire premise. Despite everything about this show, despite the fact that there should be no conceivable way of it working, ProStars ends up being one of the best things we've ever had the pleasure of viewing whilst doing this show. So listen in for this lovely episode in which we enthuse about the cartoon that is all about helping kids.

Apr 29, 201835:37
Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990)

Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990)

In honor of Earth Day, we used a heat-spewing, energy-wasting mathematics machine to show us an infamous environmentalist superhero cartoon from the early 1990s. But is Captain Planet as wonderous as his Emerald Mullet, or is 'Captain Planet and the Planeteers' just another piece of trash in an earth-choking landfill?

 

(It's the latter. its a DiC show, its always gonna be the latter.)

Apr 22, 201843:30
Knights of the Zodiac (2003)

Knights of the Zodiac (2003)

Saint Seiya was already a relic by the time DiC licenced it for international distribution, but by addding weird transitions and a pop-punk theme song they somehow managed to make it look even more dated. Rather than risk making the same mistakes as we did during our 'Sailor Moon' episode (ie, being baffled and unable to really work out exactly what we're supposed to talk about) we decided to take this one in a rather more loose and cosy direction, which was a blessed relief because DiC's adaptation of Saint Seiya is pants.

Apr 15, 201829:30
Kidd Video (1984)

Kidd Video (1984)

We've used the names 'Haim Saban' and 'Shuki Levy' on this show a good number of times, and for good reason; they created some of the catchiest theme songs of the 80s and 90s. Well, this week's sees them as creators (alongside DiC founder Jean Chalopin and MVP Andy Heyward) of a show that revolved entirely around music: 1984's 'Kidd Video;. In this musical adventure, four teenage bandmates are dragged through... some sort of mirror... by some guy... to a place called the flipside? It's something like that; nobody's motivations or characteristics are particularly well explained so we did the best we could with the episodes we watched. All we can really tell you at this point is synths. Lots of Synths.

Apologies if Mark sounds a bit... weird. This is his second bout of common cold this year.

Apr 08, 201841:22
Battletoads (1992)

Battletoads (1992)

See now, we did actually PLAN on doing Jugman for this weeks episode, but after the utter tradegy that was To Riverdale And Back, we had to take a break from all things Archie. I mean it's April now anyway, so it's not like we can really keep up the facade that it's still "Marchie". Anyway! Battletoads is a very curious 30 minute special based off the well loved 1991 NES title. This little gem is somewhat of a blatant take on the equally well loved TMNT cartoon at the time, no thanks to one of the lead writers for the latter show being on the team. Despite that, and the fact that it was made purely in the hopes of it being turned into a proper cartoon itself, does this short hold up at all? Have a listen and find out! Also included is basically our miniature knockoff of the podcast Story Break wherein we create the plotline for a brand new 2018 Battletoads game.

Apr 01, 201838:26
Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again (1990)

Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again (1990)

You may have noticed that this one's late. Here's the thing. This movie was...so mentally draining, both to watch and talk about, that our initial recording of it was just completely unusable. Outside of the fact that the levels were fucked, neither of us had anything to really say about anything and it largely amounted to Mark just running through every plot point as fast as possible. So we had to do a second take on this episode, this time approaching it like a regular Dic show...except we still somehow fucked the levels. So in this great™ episode, Avery sounds a bit too loud whilst Mark sounds as if he's sitting further away from the microphone than usual. We deeply pologize for the awkward sound quality of our new recording set up, it turns out there are a lot more problems and variables to factor in when you introduce a secondary microphone. Bare with us through these teething stages, and hopefully we'll get to a point where it somehow sounds BETTER than before. 

Anyway, by the fact that I've just written a paragraph of text and none of it has to do with the movie in question, you can probably insinuate that we have very little to say about this thing. It's...just bad. None of the characters are themselves; Archie is a bit of a jerk, Jughead somehow has not only a job as a Psychiatrist, but also an ex-wife and a kid which he's inexplicably been left in custody of...and then there's Big Ethel whose meeting with Jughead is hyped up for half the movie only for her to inexplicably be a Baywatch beach babe type and also used as a joke for a mere two scenes. It's bad, it made us miserable, and we're sorry to inflict that on you.

Mar 26, 201833:27
Archie's Weird Mysteries (1999)

Archie's Weird Mysteries (1999)

When someone pitched 'Archie vs. B-Movies', it would have been so easy to just have the gang fight a new Universal Monster each week. And yet this obscure late 90s series pits Archie and his friends against sci-fi and horror predicaments specifically catered to the many character flaws of one of comics' most beloved groups of friends. But the truly weird mystery here is just how a show that was mostly ignored and then cancelled after one season turned out to be anywhere near as good as this one is.

We're trying a slightly different audio setup in this episode, but beacuse our master plan basically involved doubling up the same equipment we started with it's pretty much resulted in a podcast that sounds exactly the same as normal. So that's nice; we're consistent at the very least.

Mar 18, 201844:29
The New Archies (1987)

The New Archies (1987)

Today on "Dic Ruins Yet Another Perfectly Good Franchise", we look at The New Archies. Basically, take the regular Archie cast, age them down back to pre-teen times and throw some bright and suitably 80s clothing on them. The problem is, most of the good stuff with the regular Archie comics stem mainly from the whole "being a teenager in high school" thing. So when you remove that aspect from it...there's not really anything left to work with. So join us, why don't you, as we discuss the nitty gritty of why this show ended up lasting a mere 14 episodes before dying.

Oh, and by the way: Mark had a rather nasty cold during the recording of this, so his voice ain't up to its usual Quality(tm). Also of note, we accidentally call Reggie "Richie" for the entire episode. Oops.

Mar 11, 201836:02
Barbie And The Rockers (1987)

Barbie And The Rockers (1987)

Barbara Millicent Roberts has been a lot of different things in her lifetime; teen model, doctor, game developer... but what she's always been more than any other thing is a tool; a massive hammer for Mattel to swing at anyone who tries to get in on their carefully-cultivated patch of the girls' toys market. And so in 1986 when Hasbro attempted to get into the fashion doll biz with 'Jem and the Holograms' Barbie was given an outfit, some new friends, a microphone stand, and a two-part DiC Entertainment produced VHS cartoon with which to crush the usurper.

Mar 04, 201831:22
Hey Vern, It's Ernest! (1988)

Hey Vern, It's Ernest! (1988)

Hey Vern! Have you heard about this podcast thing called 'DiC Geeks'? There's these two folks in England that talk about cartoons, you know, like I do to you all day? Anyway, this pair of dorks only went and found this old 1988 live action sketch show made by the people who made those cartoons! And guess who stars in that sketch show, Vern!... No! It's me, Ernest P. Worrel! Can you believe it Vern? A podcast! About a TV Show! About me!

Feb 25, 201840:46
ALF: The Animated Series (1987)

ALF: The Animated Series (1987)

ALF: The Animated Series, or ALF Animated Adventures, or even ALF on Melmac was somewhat of a cash-in on the sudden hit popularity of the "classic" 80s show ALF; a sitcom about a snarky yet lovable alien crash landing on Earth and integrating into an archetypal human family of the era. Thankfully it was spearheaded by the two creators of the original sitcom to begin with, so you'd think that it'd have at least SOME value, considering its about his life on his home planet before it literally got blew up in a nuclear explosion? Well, have a listen and find out for yourself what we thought of this rather interesting relic.

UPDATE: Avery made a bit of an error with the initial edit of this episode and forgot to put the ranking segment in. We've now fixed this problem and the ranking section is included once again. This issue was partially due to us making a complete mess of this recording in general, but hey, at least it kept us on our toes.

Feb 18, 201840:48
Stargate Infinity (2002)

Stargate Infinity (2002)

When FOX BOX first launched, its crown jewel was 'Stargate Infinity', DiC's cartoon based on then-popular live action Sci-Fi series 'Stargate SG-1'. However, far from being FOX BOX's very own Star Wars, audiences avoided it like it was 'Battlefield Earth'. This week, Mark and Avery look back at Infinity in all of its ugly, garish glory and try to work out why nobody watched the animated spinoff to one of TV's most popular and enduring science fiction shows. Spoiler: It's because it's not very good.

Feb 11, 201801:04:58
The Power Team (1990)

The Power Team (1990)

We'll be honest here, we done goofed up again. We originally thought that The Power Team was created by DiC Entertainment, which seemed reasonable considering neither of us thought they'd really bow to the rules of loyalty and would go wherever money called. Unfortunately, in doing this we were placing our faith entirely in the Wikipedia article for it, which lists DHX Media as the distributor and has the "Television shows by DIC Entertainment" category attached to it. This same article also happens to have a "several citations needed" box at the top of the page, which has been present since 2008. I mean we're not going to back down from doing it now that we've said we're gonna do it but, we're definitely gonna make sure that what we plan to watch in the future is actually Dic beforehand*.

Now, The Power Team is actually a cartoon segment within a larger show, entitled Video Power. Video Power is a largely throwaway encasing for the cartoon, in which the hyperactive sentient 90s haircut Johnny Power gives the viewers "reviews" and "hints" to various NES games. I say that but watch any episode of the show and you'll find out that the reviews are actually more along the lines of endorsements and the hints are massively inaccurate and technically another endorsement for a magazine. As for the cartoon itself, well...it's alright? It's a fairly harmless cartoon antics team based show, in the vein of but certainly not the same as Captain N (despite what people say). As an added bonus we also mention the completely different second season of Video Power, wherein the cartoon is discarded and the entire thing is converted into an awkward game show.

Feb 04, 201843:31
Captain N: The Game Master (1989)

Captain N: The Game Master (1989)

The inhabitants of Videoland are in grave danger! The King has been trapped within a mirror world, leaving the (obviously) helpless princess in danger! Despite her trio of comic sidekicks, she's unable to defend the land, hiding away in a generic palace-y type area. But suddenly, the Power Glove, almighty being that it is, exclaims about there being an ULTIMATE WARRIOR, and that it's now opening the ULTIMATE WARP ZONE to bring him in. Aaaaand it's Generic 90s White Kid #4928, everyone! Err, I mean Kevin! Yes. 

For as exhausted as we sound in this episode (trust me, we were very exhausted), it's a pretty fun one! To welcome Season 2 with open arms, Avery has done some dark incantations and introduced a little Spice(tm) to the episodes. We hope you enjoy it, cos they sure did (trackball complications aside)!

https://mostlykobolds.com

Jan 28, 201850:38
DIC Animated Christmas Blast (2008) - Part II

DIC Animated Christmas Blast (2008) - Part II

In the second and final part of our Christmas DVD spectacular, we take an in-depth look at Disc 2 of that Shout Factory DVD boxset. 'Twas The Night Before Bumpy (1995)' is a feature length stop-motion animated Christmas special of Danger Productions' 'Bump In The Night', and is as about half as enjoyable as you'd expect a 10-minute cartoon format stretched out to over an hour could be. 'Jingle Bell Rock (1995)' on the other hand was an original made for TV half-hour special which gives an origin story for the hit Bobby Helms Christmas song, and is a weirdly enjoyable Christmas artefact for reasons we'll get into on the podcast itself. 

We hope you've all had some happy holidays, whatever it be that you celebrate, and we're looking forward to getting onto season 2 proper in the new year!

Dec 31, 201701:21:02
DIC Animated Christmas Blast (2008) - Part I

DIC Animated Christmas Blast (2008) - Part I

It's a Christmas Miracle! Not only do we return, but we return to cover an entire Shout Factory published DVD boxset of Christmas specials! In the first episode of this very special two-parter we take a detailed look at the three cartoons on the first disc: 'Sonic Christmas Blast (1996)' is a Christmas special for Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog aired three years after the show was cancelled, made to advertise a game that never materialised, 'Santa What-A-Mess (1995)' is the Christmas special for DiC's take on the Frank Muir/Joseph Wright childrens books and is nothing short of charming, and 'A Hollywood Hounds Christmas (1994)' is a one-off special made to advertise a horrifying-looking toy line that the internet barely registers the existence of. We get a bit angry at that one, so heads up.

Avery would like it to be known that the editing is perhaps a little jankier than usual because she's a little out of practice. Also, this episode is hella longer than our usual content, so a heads up on that too.

Dec 24, 201701:32:21
(Slimer! and) The Real Ghostbusters (1986/1988)

(Slimer! and) The Real Ghostbusters (1986/1988)

Whooooo~ Spooky halloween podcast~! Be very afraid! Bad audio problems, buggered up recording, and all sorts of other errors and problems abound!! And on our final episode too! Golly gee gosh darn. Well, either way, here's our impressions on The Real Ghostbusters (or Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters. We count the two as separate things due to how shit the latter one is.) See you in a couple months!! https://mostlykobolds.com

Music taken from both the official Real Ghostbusters ost and also theres a track from a PSP game called Onore No Shinzuru Michi Wo Yuke in there too. Because why not??

Oct 30, 201753:33
Sabrina: The Animated Series (1999)

Sabrina: The Animated Series (1999)

The year was 1999, and a supernatural comedy series about a blonde-haired young adult with powers was on everybody's watch-list. But this isn't about the sadly never produced Buffy The Vampire Slayer animated spinoff (there's a test reel on Youtube, incidentally): Instead we're talking about the OTHER late 90s supernatural series Sabrina The Teenage Witch. But with ABC's money, Archie Comics' licence and Melissa Joan Hart's family ties did DiC actually succeed in putting out something half decent with this antic-filled teen comedy?

Oct 15, 201741:34
Little Clowns of Happytown (1987)

Little Clowns of Happytown (1987)

Somebody truly thought that 'Clowns that are nice to people, but who are also children, and are also sort of an ethnic minority group maybe' was the greatest ever idea for a childrens' show. 

Oct 01, 201734:59
Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling (1985)

Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling (1985)

Not even the voice of Brad Garrett imitating the Hulkster can save this from mediocry, brotherrrrr!

Sep 17, 201736:56
Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century (1999)

Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century (1999)

With a title like this and a theme tune ripped directly from the Best of eJay Demo Tunes 1996 Edition, this was guaranteed to be a fun romp. Fortunately, in a pleasant turn of events - it was! 22nd Century is a bit of an interesting one, not only in its entire premise, but also in that it's a successful co-production between Dic Animation and Scottish Television (aka STV). Featuring a no-star cast of characters (save for Lestrade's voice actor, who went on to be Lieutenant Liu in Alienators) and a striking blend of 3D CGI and 2D animation, SHIT22C aimed to bring Holmes "back to life".

Also we mentioned that we wished they had just dressed Watson up in his old clothing - upon looking up screenshots of this cartoon, I found that he does eventually get the clothes which makes his design infinitely better.

Sep 03, 201738:08
Sailor Moon (1995)

Sailor Moon (1995)

Taking a cue from every mid 90s geocities website we spend a good half hour talking about the DiC dub of Sailor Moon. But with fewer sparkly gifs.

Aug 20, 201739:21
Meet The Deedles (1998)
Aug 06, 201748:09
The Legend of Sarmoti: Siegfried and Roy (1996)

The Legend of Sarmoti: Siegfried and Roy (1996)

Did you know that in 1996 DiC released a fantasy miniseries based around Vegas magicians Siegfried and Roy? We didn't either.  I'm, not sure anybody does. 

https://mostlykobolds.com

Jul 23, 201731:03