Dic Geeks

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.