Short, Colorful and Loud

Just a quick announcement from Elle regarding our summer break!

Jinkies! Zach and Elle are ralking Rooby-Roo this week, and to help them out, they’ve called in the Hanna-Barbarian himself, Nick Wood of Stranger Still! We sunk our teeth into the 2002 live-action adaptation of the beloved cartoon series and even solved a couple of mysteries along the way - like why does everyone hate Scrappy-Doo so much? Talking Points: James Gunn’s Horny Scooby-Doo cut; Hanna-Barbara cartoons; 2002, in general, and specific; fart jokes.

Zach is on vacation this week, so Elle was joined by Helen of Falling in Love Montage to talk about the 1990 "film" Happily Ever After! And just in time, as it's #flyerdrive, Flying Machine Network's patron drive! You can learn more about our drive and uh, this movie, in this episode. Talking Points: Gumball; Kids These Days; Limited Animation; He-Man; Magnanimous Ass Women.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled episode to throw you some free stuff! July is FlyerDrive, our patron drive! To celebrate, we're dropping one of the bonus episodes we produce for our $5/month patrons into your feed. Zach and Elle discuss Heavy Metal, a movie based on Heavy Metal magazine that is super duper absolutely not a kid's movie, but had a huge impact on Zach. 

Want to learn more about FlyerDrive and the awesome perks you get for pledging? Right here: https://www.patreon.com/flyingmachine

Brain Blast! is the catchphrase of the main character of the movie we watched this episode. Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius rocketed into theaters in 2001, launching a classic Nickelodeon TV show and snagging an Oscar nomination. It also might be a prequel to the Big Bang Theory/Iron Man/Elon Musk’s career? Elle and Zach are unsure about of a lot of things this episode, including the lyrics to the Jimmy Neutron theme song. Talking Points: Judy Neutron is fine; why are there no girl geniuses?; Slime Time Live.

This is a pretty cool episode guys. Super chill. Zach and Elle are talking about the very first Blye Sky Studios film: Ice Age. The first entry in an iconic 2000’s kids movie franchise, this is the only Blue Sky film to ever get a VHS release, a fact that leads us from jokes about megafauna and sloths to some pretty serious talk about death, extinction, and growing up. Talking Points: The Freaky Mammal; Glaciation; Death, Extinction and Growing Up; Rusted Root.

This week, Zach and Elle invite you to join us on this journey to the past! We’re talking the 1997 Fox Animation film, Anastasia, and guys, we’re not alone! Meg Griffin of like, too many wonderful podcasts to name sits in as we sink our teeth into this film that builds a magical monarchist fairy tale out the ashes of the Russian Revolution and scores points primarily for being the most convincing Disney Princess look-alike ever.

We’re throwing it back to the halcyon days of the Dark Ages this episode with Quest for Camelot, a 1998 movie that’s Arthurian but is Arthur-adjacent at best. What it lacks in animation finesse, songwriting, and jokes, it makes up for in spades with heart. There’s a card joke there, but I’m not clever enough to make it. Spoiler guys: the girl holds the sword a lot in this one. Talking Points: Could America have fixed the Dark Ages?; punching fantasy creatures to death; 12-year-old math class daydrea

Cacaw! This week we talked about Rio, a 2011 film produced by Blue Sky Studios about birds and Brazil! It’s a gorgeous, heartfelt story with impeccable animation and music and also, like, the most stacked voice acting cast. We also discuss, in detail, what exactly makes birds the comedy goldmines they are. Talking Points: Springtime; Brazil; endangered species; the exotic pet trade; birds are actually just sitting in trees all day yelling about how horny they are and you know what, it’s hilarious.

Elle and Zach harken back to the halcyon days of 1997, when they’d look at VHS tape covers in supermarkets for the movie they watched this week. Cats Don’t Dance is a 1997 animated film with a big heart, lovely animation, and a seriously imperfect grasp on how to talk about disenfranchisement in Golden Age Hollywood. But hey, guess nothing was going to stop them… then. Talking Points: The movie rental section of Price Chopper Markets; Tiny Toons and Looney Tunes; animals are a bad metaphor for racism