After Lunch

The Return of Jetpack Tiger! In response to our episode on the Cartoons and Kids TV Show Themes Sweet 16, Dashiell and Carlin Trammel critique the decision to include the medium of animation as a separate category that competes with live action genres like sitcoms and action shows. Should animated shows be included with live action shows of similar genres?

Michael and Rob welcome Ben Graham, Kay, and Pax to talk about the greatest cartoon and kids show theme songs of all time. Only sixteen tunes can go in the brackets, but there are honorable mentions galore. Even so, we've undoubtedly left out some great ones, so let us know your favorites!

Michael, Rob, and Pax ditch Dom and Mia for Roman, Tej, Monica, and Suki. And talk about whether or not that was a good move.

Michael, Rob, and Karen watch Pierce Brosnan's introduction as James Bond and talk about how well GoldenEye rebooted and reinvigorated the series after a few years' break post-Licence to Kill. Directed by Martin Campbell, the movie also features Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen, Joe Don Baker, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Cumming, and introduces Judi Dench as the new M.

Michael, Rob, and Pax talk about Marvel's Indiana Jones comics, DC/Marvel crossovers, Marvel novels, Deadpool and Wolverine pre-work, movies about the Greek Empire and the rise of Rome, the Despicable Me movies, Tár, the Ti West/Mia Goth Maxine movies, Clone Wars, Kimba the White Lion, Marvel's Blood Hunt event and other comics, Ernest Hemingway, favorite movie props, IF, the final season of Star Trek: Discovery, Season 3 of Bridgerton, Delicious in Dungeon, John Lennon's supergroup The Dirty Mac, and ever so much more.

Michael, Rob, Pax, and Evan talk about snakes, TV shows and documentaries about politicians, Lawmen: Bass Reeves, sequel novels to Star Trek TOS episodes, Classic Nerd Lunch, Furiosa, Brats, the Beverly Hills Cop movies, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, The Boys, Cobra Kai, X-Men cartoons, Ripley, space cat novels, Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and other stuff by Agatha Christie, The Acolyte, and much much more.

Michael and Rob welcome Jeeg and Mike Westfall to help nominate 16 favorite TV sitcom theme songs, then vote on them until we determine the single greatest TV sitcom theme of all time. This was crazy hard with some impossible decisions, so let us know what we forgot and which themes should have advanced further in the tournament.

Michael and Jess discuss their love for Samara Morgan in Gore Verbinski's 2002 US remake of Ringu (1998). They also talk about whether the sequels are any good: the short film Rings (2005), The Ring Two (2005), and the feature-length Rings (2017).

Michael, Rob, and Karen wrap up 1980s James Bond as well as Timothy Dalton's too short time on the series with Licence to Kill. It's one of Rob's favorites, but not so much one of Michael's. And it's Karen's first time seeing it. So there's a lot to unpack as always.

Michael, Rob, and Pax are going to kill time between Fast and Furious episodes by watching some old superhero stuff. We're starting with the wildly influential Superman cartoons released by Paramount in the early 1940s. The first nine were produced by Fleischer Studios and their fingerprints are also all over the eight that followed by a renamed studio under different leadership. Because of that, all seventeen are usually referred to as the Fleischer Superman cartoons and we talk about the whole set: what worked, what didn't, and what went on to inspire not just future cartoons, but even the comics themselves.