Into the Woods (1987)

Kristen’s pick is the Sondheim take on the classic fairy tales. This musical was recently released as a movie. 

The musical combines the Baker & his Wife, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk and a few more tales.

The original cast included Bernadette Peters as the witch.

Kristen played the witch in her high-school production.

Kristen post transformation. 

Pick up the filmed live production on Amazon or iTunes and the soundtrack on Amazon, iTunes, or streaming on Spotify. Avoid the new movie (that’s our consensus) but if you really need to see it you can find it on Amazon and iTunes.

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NEXT WEEK: We’ll continue our look at musicals with Jules’ pick Jesus Christ Superstar.

You can follow us on twitter @newtoyoushow and you can leave comments down below!

You can follow John on twitter @lordjoho 

You can follow Kristen on instagram @kristnsherm.

You can follow Jules on twitter @beautifuljules

You can check out Keith’s art on his tumblr earthlingkeith.tumblr.com

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (1998)

We kick off musicals with a conceptual underground drag club punk show turned off-Broadway musical turned rock opera film turned Broadway musical.

Hedwig is a gender-queer punk rocker who underwent a botched sex reassignment surgery to flee East Berlin and came to the US where she became leader of a dive-bar band.

Left to Right: Katie Roumelprod (producer on the film), John Cameron Mitchell (creator, writer), Christine Vachonprod (producer on the film) and Stephen Trask (composer and lyricist).

The song “Origin of Love” features a great animated sequence from Emily Hubley.

You can purchase the soundtrack on iTunes and Amazon or stream it on Spotify. You can purchase the movie on iTunes and Amazon. You can see the live show on its current tour. 

NEXT WEEK: Kristen’s pick is up as we go Into the Woods.

You can follow us on twitter @newtoyoushow and you can leave comments down below!

You can follow John on twitter @lordjoho or on snapchat notdeadjohn

You can follow Kristen on instagram @kristnsherm.

You can follow Jules on twitter @beautifuljules

We wrap up horror this week and as we get into the pick Keith brings a couple things that are new to him to the table: Turbo Kid from Netflix and Malcolm Galdwell’s Revisionist History.

Horror VR (Vive or Gear)

Jules had us over one by one to play a variety of VR horror games. 

A Chair in a Room: Greenhaven is a spooky Myst puzzle psychological horror game. Pretty creepy.

Brookhaven Experiment is a shooter thriller.

The Scary sisters is on the Gear VR, a simple story based experiment.

The Vive allows you to interact with the environment with hand controls and a little bit of actual tracked body movement. The gear is a simpler headset system with a controller.

NEXT WEEK: We return next week with a new guest for the topic Musicals!

You can follow us on twitter @newtoyoushow and you can leave comments down below!

You can follow John on twitter @lordjoho or on snapchat notdeadjohn

You can follow Giaco on twitter @giacofurino & see his clippings here.

You can follow Jules on twitter @beautifuljules

You can check out Keith’s art on his tumblr earthlingkeith.tumblr.com

From Beyond (Movie, 1986)

John brings a b-movie from the 80′s to the plate, the less successful second Lovecraft based film from the director of Re-Animator. 

The imagery is pretty interesting and the visual effects are very entertaining.

The original Lovecraft story that the film is based on, also called “From Beyond” is not considered one of Lovecraft’s better stories.

The cast and sets are pretty sparse, but John contends that that is something the director intentionally sought.

From Beyond is available on Amazon. 

Giaco recommends the Seattle EMP music museum. They are currently hosting a Horror Film exhibit.

NEXT WEEK: One more week of More Scarier with Jules’ pick .

You can follow us on twitter @newtoyoushow and you can leave comments down below!

You can follow John on twitter @lordjoho or on snapchat notdeadjohn

You can follow Giaco on twitter @giacofurino & see his clippings here.

You can follow Jules on twitter @beautifuljules

You can check out Keith’s art on his tumblr earthlingkeith.tumblr.com

“PSYCHO” Elvis Costello (Song, 1989)

Keith’s pick this week is a cover of a strange country tune.

There a couple live versions and a studio version of Elvis Costello’s rendition out there.

The track was originally written for Eddie Noack.

You can find the track on the extended version of Almost Blue, but it is a tough one to dig up to buy.

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NEXT WEEK: John brings a movie of Lovecraftian horror from the team that brought you Re-Animator.

You can follow us on twitter @newtoyoushow and you can leave comments down below!

You can follow John on twitter @lordjoho or on snapchat notdeadjohn

You can follow Giaco on twitter @giacofurino & see his clippings here.

You can follow Jules on twitter @beautifuljules

You can check out Keith’s art on his tumblr earthlingkeith.tumblr.com

We’re starting a new topic this week with a returning guest host, Giaco Furino. 

Before digging into the first pick John recommends “Stranger Things” from Netflix.

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Shock Value by Jason Zinoman (Book, 2011)

Giaco’s pick is a non-fiction book that explores the rise of the ‘new horror’ genre in the 60′s through the 80′s.

The book explores masters of horror that wrested the genre from the likes of Hitchcock and Corman.

Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left is used to define the strong shift from code films into post-code.  

The genesis of the film Alien is explored in the rocky career of Dan O’Bannon.

You can purchase Shock Value on Amazon.

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NEXT WEEK: More More Scarier with Elvis Costello’s rendition of the song “Psycho.”

You can follow us on twitter @newtoyoushow and you can leave comments down below!

You can follow John on twitter @lordjoho or on snapchat notdeadjohn

You can follow Giaco on twitter @giacofurino & see his clippings here.

You can follow Jules on twitter @beautifuljules

You can check out Keith’s art on his tumblr earthlingkeith.tumblr.com

Oh Brother Where Art Thou Soundtrack & Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde 

Before we get into our topic John tells us about his recent experience seeing Weird Al on the Mandatory Fun tour. 

Pat and Keith tell us about what they want to share with their sons, and the consensus is music.

Pat has been playing for and singing with Henry. His hope is to get Henry playing music with him, and if anything come to love the traditional/gospel music as represented in the Oh Brother soundtrack.

Keith is excited to share some of the later Blonde on Blonde tracks with Felix. At the moment Felix is into the Jack Johnson Curious George soundtrack.

A pale imitation of Spider-Man House.

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NEXT WEEK: We’re joined by our friend Giaco to reprise our topic Scary with our new Topic MORE SCARIER.

You can follow us on twitter @newtoyoushow and you can leave comments down below!

You can follow John on twitter @lordjoho or on snapchat notdeadjohn

You can find more about Pat on his website patcupples.tumblr.com/ and his band on hotelsandhighways.com.

You can check out Keith’s art on his tumblr earthlingkeith.tumblr.com

Kubo and the Two Strings (Animated Feature 2016)

Before we dive into our pick we discuss two new series:

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell from the BBC and The Get Down from Netflix. We also expound on the virtues of a forgotten piece of tech, the antenna.

This was a consensus pick, we all saw this film recently.

You can likely discount the conspiracy theories about the formation of Laika, we’re ill-informed animation nerds, but you can take our word at face value on the process- that’s our jam.

Laika continues to push the boundaries of stop-motion animation. We can’t stress enough that seeing their movies and telling other people to go watch them supports this art.

Kubo is still in some theaters and is available for pre-order on streaming and physical formats. 

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NEXT WEEK: We’ll return to discuss a new topic for an episode, Father’s and what they want to share with their kids.

You can follow us on twitter @newtoyoushow and you can leave comments down below!

You can follow Mr Mr on his instagram @mrmrinsta and see more of his work on his wife’s instagram.

You can follow John on twitter @lordjoho or on snapchat notdeadjohn

You can follow Jules on twitter @beautifuljules or on snapchat beautifuljules

You can check out Keith’s art on his tumblr earthlingkeith.tumblr.com

Teylor kicks us off this week with a details of her Pokemon Go exploits. 

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pt4: Cowboy Bebop (Anime 2001)

Keith’s pick this week is the genre-blending series from director Shinichirō Watanabe. This 26 episode series (plus a movie) explores a futuristic galaxy with a group of bounty hunters.

The writers started with extensive world building, detailing all the different planets and expressions of civilization throughout the universe. They then played with different tropes within the world they had built.

Originally imagined as a toy vehicle Bandai gave them cart blanche, the one condition being they have cool space ships. Part way through the project Bandai toys realized the series wouldn’t work for their purposes. Bandai Visual (a separate division) swept in before the series was cancelled to be a production partner.

Composer Yoko Kanno formed a Jazz & Blues band “The Seatbelts” as part of the process of composing the score and soundtrack for the series. The music is some of the best written for television.

The opening title sequence, which includes the song “Tank,” is at once retro and original- it has influenced a number of animated series opening since, like Teen Titians on Cartoon Network.

The cast of characters are unique individuals with their own stories. Each character has their storyline explored through the course of their adventures.

You can purchase the anime on Amazon, or stream it on Hulu. 

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NEXT WEEK: We’ll return to discuss a new topic for a couple of episodes, Father’s and what they want to share with their kids.

You can follow us on twitter @newtoyoushow and you can leave comments down below!

You can follow Teylor on twitter @teylorsmirl go listen to the fun and heartfelft podcast she does with her sisters: Still Buffering, and go check out her art on her tumblr- teylorsmirl.tumblr.com. You should also go out and get the comic she contributed to Amazing Forest #5 from IDW. (available @ Amazon, Comixology, and perhaps your local comic store!)

You can follow John on twitter @lordjoho or on snapchat notdeadjohn

You can follow Jules on twitter @beautifuljules or on snapchat beautifuljules

You can check out Keith’s art on his tumblr earthlingkeith.tumblr.com

In our opener Keith expounds on his favorite museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You can get a membership to this beacon of culture in a desert of lots of other culture that is NYC.

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pt3: Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad (Manga & Anime 1999-2008)

John’s pick this week, which he gets to after a rambling retelling of his path to discovering Anime, is the music/rock band anime & manga “Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad.” 

The Manga started in 1999 and finished in 2008, it was collected in 34 volumes. Unfortunately the US localization rights were released before the entire series was published in the states. The mangaka Harold Sakuishi was a fan of wrestling and baseball, both of which he did comics for and references in Beck.

The animated series is pretty economical and relays the first third or so of the manga over 26 episodes.

The Beat Crusaders provided most of the music, making this one of the better series about musicians and bands, with fun and poppy rock music.

Fender released a series of guitars inspired by designs from the series, which themselves were inspired from actual guitar models.

You can purchase the anime on Amazon, or stream it on Hulu. 

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NEXT WEEK: We conclude our topic and our time with Teylor (but we need to get her back- to find out what Slipknot mask she’d have). Keith’s is the last pick, the series Cowboy Bebop.

You can follow us on twitter @newtoyoushow and you can leave comments down below!

You can follow Teylor on twitter @teylorsmirl go listen to the fun and heartfelft podcast she does with her sisters: Still Buffering, and go check out her art on her tumblr- teylorsmirl.tumblr.com. You should also go out and get the comic she contributed to Amazing Forest #5 from IDW. (available @ Amazon, Comixology, and perhaps your local comic store!)

You can follow John on twitter @lordjoho or on snapchat notdeadjohn

You can follow Jules on twitter @beautifuljules or on snapchat beautifuljules

You can check out Keith’s art on his tumblr earthlingkeith.tumblr.com