Blog / Platypus Comix

The articles at Platypus Comix boast so many tropes that they now have their own page.

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All Sections

• Audience-Alienating Era: invoked Peter claims in "The Boxcar Children (with colorful commentary)" that The Boxcar Children became less exciting after Gertrude Chandler Warner made the children grow up, and that he appreciated her successors de-aging them.
• Caption Humor: Articles that rely on this include those included in "The Ancient Lost Art of 'TV Guide' Advertising", "Things You Can't Ever Have" (found in the Interactive Entertainment Celebration Section), and "What's Powell's Throws Out" (found in the Oregon Survival Guide).
• Deadpan Snarker: Peter Paltridge.
• End-of-Episode Silliness: Most of the articles hosted at Platypus Comix itself end with two links: one that leads back to the home page, and one that varies on each article, leading to a page that has either an adequate or nonexistent relation to the article's subject. Articles written on Peter's Toon Zone blog bear neither links.
• MST: Every now and then, Peter will do a humorous summary of a So Bad, It's Good or completely awful movie. Also played to the letter in his review of St. Helens.
  • "The Boxcar Children (with colorful commentary)" shows off some of the snarky comments Peter scribbled into his copies of Boxcar Children novels.
• Narm: Invoked in articles featuring commercials from the 1970s and '80s.
• Shout-Out/Reference Overdosed: See ShoutOut.Platypus Comix.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Invoked whenever Peter points out something in an old work that conflicts with modern society.

History Channel Department

Peter Paltridge records the history of stuff.

• Chickification: Discussed in "Superman's Hall of Super-Shame!" The "Stepford Lois" section laments how The '50s eliminated Lois Lane's strong-willed personality to make her a Damsel in Distress who dreamed only of marrying Superman.
• Grandfather Paradox: In "Why I Don't Want to Travel Back in Time", Peter theorizes that if Marty McFly from Back to the Future had indeed failed to make his parents fall in love, he would cease to exist, and therefore never prevent his parents' meeting in the first place, which means they would get married and give birth to Marty, who would eventually go back in time and make himself cease to exist... On the last page, he realizes Stimpy from The Ren & Stimpy Show also caused one after he pushed the History Eraser Button, and appeared to erase his own birth, raising the question of how Stimpy would push that button...
• Hilarious in Hindsight: invoked When reviewing a TV special about Bugs Bunny's 50th birthday in "Dr. Ruth and Chuck Norris: Together At Last", Peter notices Raven-Symoné wishing a happy birthday to Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck^note whose 50th birthdays did not happen in the same year as Bugs', even though this special aired several years before Raven started appearing in Disney Channel movies and shows.
• I Warned You: In "Superman's Hall of Super-Shame!," Peter comments, "The Superman concept is bizarre in nature, and it's certainly resulted in a lot of bizarre literature. (Scroll down the page to see Superman as a tree.)" After the reader sees that cover◊, he quips, "Told ya."
• Kids Are Cruel: "Kellogg Middle School: The Happiest Place on Earth" epitomizes this trope completely. As such, it's one of the darker articles on the site.
• Middle School Is Miserable: The article "Kellogg Middle School: The Happiest Place on Earth" sees Peter recount his time in middle school, and the title quickly proves to be a sarcastic. He notes that middle school in general is a hellish time in general for a lot of kids, and that this wasn't helped by the sordid state of Kellogg itself; he specifically recounts an incident in 1991 where a female student was kidnapped right in the middle of class.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Peter's "Farewell Toys R Us Tour" ends with him being kicked out when an employee catches him taking pictures and assumes the worst, when he was only taking pictures of the scenery and toys.
• Once Original, Now Common:
  • invoked Discussed in "Superman's Hall of Super-Shame!", using Superman and Doom as examples. They both launched new genres in their respective mediums (Superman the superhero comic, Doom the first person shooter video game), and both became perceived as quaint by fans of later entries in those genres.
  • invoked Peter admits in the "Super Bowl Past-Blast" articles that the special effects in such ads as this 1992 Exxon Supreme commercial and this 1985 canned foods promo might seem less revolutionary today than when they first aired.
• Phlebotinum-Induced Stupidity: "Magazine Alley" warns that Highlights For Children can cause this if you read it too often.
• So Bad, It's Good: invokedWhat Peter says about George Schlatters Comedy Club and D.C. Follies in "On Beyond Yeller!"
• Start My Own: Peter recalls in "The Boxcar Children (with colorful commentary)" that while he enjoyed reading about the Boxcar Children embark on adventures without adult supervision, he found the writing style so condescending, he wrote his own series of Boxcar Children comics.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: invoked In "The Boxcar Children (with colorful commentary)", Peter designates The Deserted Library Mystery as his favorite Boxcar Children book, since it had more life-threatening stakes than any before or after it.
  Unlike any other book in the series, this had real danger and suspense; [the villain] could have killed them at any time and came close once. So, naturally, this never happened again. The editor must have been furious: "You can't put actual peril in a novel for children; they might get entertained and therefore corrupted!" All future books would deal with the likes of stolen paintings and soft sabotage.

Interactive Entertainment Celebration Section

Peter Paltridge muses about video games and video game memorabilia.

• Follow the Leader: invoked "Exclusive Next-Gen Preview Special" foresees a video game market overrun with First Person Shooters and Third Person Shooters. Of the ten games announced, only two buck the trend.^note These include the umpteenth re-release of Super Mario Bros., and a Valve game that doesn't even exist in Peter's imagination.
  What do you mean "whatever happened to platformers"? What are you, a female gamer? No one wants you around anymore! Get back in the kitchen! Video games are strictly a MAN'S medium! RARRR! Bite head off bat!
• Game Mod: "So You Want a New Mario Game, Do You?" is about Super Mario World ROM hacks.
• Left Hanging:
  • At the end of "So You Want a New Mario Game, Do You?", Peter says that "there are even more hacks for NES titles" and to "Stay tuned for more showcases soon". This was in 2005 — he never made a follow up article.
  • "The Twilight Princess Diaries" documents Peter's progress in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, but only up until the first time Link turns into a wolf.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: One of the entries in "Big Fat History Of The Arcade: Volume One" details Peter's struggles to find a home copy of Roadblasters after a local pizzeria replaced their arcade cabinet with a different game. Finally, his stepfather ordered him the game from Yahoo against all odds, but the pizzeria brought back their Roadblasters game the following week.
• So Bad, It's Good: invokedHow Peter describes Chaos CompleXX in "So You Want a New Mario Game, Do You?"

Things You Can't Ever Have

• Misaimed Marketing: invoked In the "Summer 2013 edition", he questions the use of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII in a Pepsi ad◊:
  If there's any match made in heaven, it's Pepsi and a video game based on themes of corporate greed and destruction, right?
• Running Gag: The Summer 2011 edition had a picture of a Wii autographed◊ by eight actors from Glee. Peter lamented, "...but no Jane Lynch." He later repeated this phrase for other autographed objects featured.
• Tough Act to Follow: invoked Peter worries at the end of the Summer 2014 edition that none of the future installments will share anything as impressive as the one chosen to close that page: Michael Thommason selling over 11,000 video games◊ for $750,250.00.
  That's it; TYCEH has jumped the shark. Anything we show from this point will pale in comparison to this. It's impossible to go any higher

People Section

Peter Paltridge writes all about famous people

• Harsher in Hindsight: invoked Lampshaded in "Walt Disney: One Man's Nightmare." The TV special Peter reviewed in that article came out in 1981, and had Michael Landon as a host. In one of the segments promoting EPCOT Center, concept art for an airplane capable of space travel◊ appears, and Landon says, "Hope I'm still around," unaware he would die only 10 years later.
• Irony: In "100 More of the World's Greatest Whispers", Peter shared a Whisper from someone who lamented finding nothing good on television, and resorted to the Internet for entertainment. Peter tries to retort with a Long List of acclaimed TV shows. However, the list includes some shows from online platforms (such as Daredevil (2015) and Jessica Jones (2015)) and at least one that ended years ago (Breaking Bad). Additionally, the program he tries to treat as the crowning jewel (Rick and Morty) didn't air any new episodes that year.
• Needs More Love: invoked Peter interviewed Chad "CR" Rocco because he thinks Familiar Faces doesn't get as many fans as it deserves, and decided to give CR a chance to publicize himself.
  It's a very fascinating series, and both it and Chad deserve more exposure than they currently get. Or at least more exposure than THE ANNOYING ORANGE gets."
• "Not So Different" Remark: While "Walt Disney: One Man's Nightmare" makes it clear that Peter didn't find a lot to enjoy about the biased Walt Disney Biopic One Man's Dream, he did admit appreciating the shot of Walt's original business card◊ as a reminder of how his career started out as humble as that of any aspiring cartoonist.
  This guy started out just like me. Maybe 15 years after I'm gone I'll have a multinational corporation kissing my dead feet and claiming I had magic powers and spending 800 mil on bringing buildings I quickly sketched out into reality. If you laugh, you're no better than Carl Reiner.
• We Interrupt This Program: His copy of the One Man's Dream TV special was interrupted at one point by breaking news from CBS. It reports on Poland being under martial law, but Peter found the special so insufferable by this point, he initially welcomes it as something interesting.
  Wait a minute, am I supposed to be enjoying this tragedy? This dull special has warped my mind.

Hollywoodland

Peter Paltridge reviews movies and TV shows, and occasionally delves into obscure facets of screen history.

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:invoked Referenced◊ in the review of The Hudsucker Proxy, regarding a Carmen-themed Dream Ballet that Peter suspected only made the movie to Avoid the Dreaded G Rating.
• Celebrity Resemblance: "Proto-Stars" describes the then-current Wendy's spokesgirl◊ as, "a beautiful actress with vaguely Wendy-ish Lupa hair".
• Designated Love Interest:invoked "Love is Hard" discusses some examples, such as Mary Jane from the Spider-Man Trilogy, and Lana Lang from Smallville.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Name-dropped in "Love is Hard", when Peter admits that some fictional characters take so long to develop, their personalities in their first appearances can greatly differ from those they end up settling on later.
• Irony: Two of the channels listed in "Cable Networks That Never Made It" still exist, but have undergone Network Decay since they began. MTV's inclusion was Played for Laughs ever since Peter first wrote the article, but he has admitted that he didn't learn about CBN's transformation into [[Creator/Freeform ABC Family]] until after the article's publication.
• Needs More Love: invoked The review of The Hudsucker Proxy begins with Peter lamenting on how few of his readers even heard of that movie.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Peter has acknowledged "Failed TV Pilots," a recap of an ABC special about failed TV pilots, as a negated moment:
  Unfortunately, after [a Lost promo] the tape ran out and I didn't get the last quarter of the program. And it's a real shame...If I had been able to give you the full scoop on that one pilot about the midget private eye in Las Vegas◊, that would have pushed this page into "Greatest Page On The Entire Site" territory.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • invoked "Proto-Stars" contains some commercials featuring actors who would each later get a memorable role in a famous movie or TV show.
  • "Submitted For Your Consideration..." makes the following note about a Malcolm in the Middle videotape with a case◊ promoting◊ Bryan Cranston's pre-Breaking Bad performance as Malcolm's father:
    An oldie from the days of VHS, this one's a classic. A videotape promoting Malcolm in the Middle and spotlighting Bryan Cranston in what is sure to be the defining role of his career — wimpy, whimpering Hal.
• Sequel Hook: Probably unintentional at the time, but "Jack Valenti's Movie Ratings System" ends with Peter concluding, "Movie makers think the system is too strict and parental activist groups think it is too lenient, and no matter what happens, they always will. I have to wonder...does the Canadian Ratings Board have to put up with this?" Years later, he would learn that Canada actually has more than one movie ratings board, including one (the British Columbia Film Classification Office) that attached a silhouette of a cougar to movies that the MPAA would rate "R". Cue a tribute to The Restricted Cougar.
• Spiritual Antithesis: Peter considers Loser (2000) to be this towards American Pie.
• Strangled by the Red String: invoked "Love is Hard" showcases some fictional romances that audiences found unbelievable, because the writers decided to pair the couples before determining if they had proper chemistry.
• Time Marches On:
  • Peter originally wrote his article on Betty Toons as being the most obscure cartoon he could possibly review, unaware that it is actually a spinoff of Yo soy Betty, la fea. Once Ugly Betty got some recognition, the article was revised in 2006 in light of the source material.
    An "Ugly Betty" cartoon. Yes, such a thing exists and this being 2004, I taped it not knowing what it was.
  • "Submitted For Your Consideration..." noted that the Grand Finale of How I Met Your Mother would air soon, and that it remained to be seen whether or not the show would end on a high note. After the finale aired, Peter updated the page to summarize the general reaction.
    As I write this, How I Met Your Mother is just ending (and WHAT a finale, EVERYONE loved it!).
• Trailers Always Spoil: In his review of The Hudsucker Proxy, he chastises Warner Bros. revealing Norville's big idea on the DVD cover.
• Understatement: Peter admits in "The Platypus Comix Almanac of Special Houseguests" that he "implied once or twice" that he likes Winnie Goodwin from Free Spirit (1989). By the time this almanac came out, Peter had already inserted Winnie into one comic each from Electric Wonderland and Keiki, wrote about Free Spirit twice for the Dark TV Vault (see below), and even kicked off a series of Free Spirit Fan Web Comics.
• Vanilla Edition: The review of The Hudsucker Proxy acknowledges a complete lack of bonus features on the DVD, so Peter links to a Hudsucker-themed excerpt of Entertainment Tonight as compensation.
• Villain Decay: "Fall of a Movie Monster" discusses how scary cinematic villains gradually become less scary due to media overexposure, using the Xenomorph from Alien as an example.

Dark TV Vault

Peter Paltridge reviews some short-lived TV shows and rare TV specials.

• Bad "Bad Acting": In Peter's coverage of the Free Spirit (1989) Halloween special, he admits that his first article about the show didn't include any clips of the now-most famous cast member, Alyson Hannigan, because he didn't think she'd want people to see how unprofessionally she acted back then. However, since the Halloween special marks the only time the sitcom gave Hannigan's character A Day in the Limelight, he shares some footage of her anyway. Afterward, he tries to imitate her as best as he can through typing.
  "Winnie! This is GREAT!" You have to wonder at several points what kind of medication fog she was under.
• Call-Back: In 2015, the site reviewed the 1988 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. During that parade, Willard Scott appeared at the end of the Rockettes' number. Peter responds to this by Photoshopping in the "Hi, Mom!" speech bubble◊ that appeared at the end of the Rockettes' appearance◊ in '81.
• Crazy Is Cool: invoked The Free Spirit review praises Magical Nanny/Blithe Spirit Winnie Goodwin's unwillingness to enforce limitations on her magical abilities.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In "Super Bowl Past-Blast: 1985":
  Another thing you're going to have to get used to is how....normal so many of these ads are. For the most part there are no sight gags, no cartoon antics, no adorable animals, no crotch shots and no bikini babes. Like I said, this was the beginning, and the formula for a Super Bowl ad was still forming in the womb. It would take a few years, but the Super Bowl would not see the likes of Andrea Giles, Sinus Sufferer again.
  • He points out a second example in the Super Bowl's halftime show:
  As for what halftime WAS, ho-boy. The current standard of using a popular musical act was not originally the case. Instead halftime shows would usually be handed to an ultra-dorky performance troupe called Up With People. That was still happening in 1985, and the theme this year was "The World Of Children's Dreams." It's such a radical contrast from what halftime would become that it's unbelievable. I'm not uploading it. You don't deserve that punishment.
• '80s Hair: Peter takes time in his article about the Free Spirit Halloween special to admire Winnie's unruly hairstyle:
  I even loved her character design, which is an odd thing to say about a real person — but I'm referring to her bird's nest of a hairstyle, which is your only visual clue that something is off about her, but not enough to raise suspicion. And the thing is......given eighties fashion, I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. Winnie really picked the right era to hide on Earth in.
  • Later, he comments that the breeze from broomstick-flying caused Winnie's and Jessie's hair to look "...even more 80's than before◊."
• I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham:
  • Peter admitted that he expected to find Free Spirit as lame as most ABC sitcoms from The '80s, but Winnie Goodwin "enchanted" him so strongly, he plowed through all the episodes he received just to see more of her. After he finished, he even decided to write some comics about Winnie and her friends.
  • Peter recalls in "Let's Watch a Blossom Episode" that he didn't watch Blossom during its original run, out of fear that it would prove too girly for him. However, the episode he reviews, "Who's in Charge Here?", proves Actually Pretty Funny.
• Late to the Punchline: Peter confesses in his article about the Free Spirit episode "Blast From the Past" that he had to let the humor of the line, "I'll call you on the broom phone." sink in.
  And I thought, what a lame joke! He just took the word "phone" and added "broom" to it? .....then I realized, he meant "car phone." This was back when if you wanted to call somebody in a car, you had to own a phone fully installed into the car itself. This kind of thing was seen as a luxury for big businessmen — if you mentioned you had a car phone, everyone was instantly impressed, because it meant you were doing well. Winnie's dad must be living in a better house now than the one we saw in the flashback.
• Nerds Are Virgins: When discussing the Free Spirit Halloween special, the sight of Winnie using her witchcraft to perform stage magic prompts Peter to recount which comic marked the debut of Zatanna's father, Zatara the Magician ("...Action Comics #1, right after Superman."), since the two of them also used that shtick. He then offhandedly admits that he doesn't have a girlfriend yet.
• Nominal Importance: In his coverage of Otherworld, Smith, the youngest of the Sterling family, matters so little to the show that Peter doesn't even bother bringing up his name, instead urging the readers to "forget about him because he won't be mentioned again".
• Out of Focus: Mentioned off-handedly in "Super Bowl Past-Blast: 1995", which featured a Bud Bowl that doesn't revolve around the usual beer bottles, instead telling the cartoon-style story of a man trapped on a "Far Side" Island with a few companions and deluding himself into believing he's watching the Bud Bowl on a television made of sand.
  Why was it so hard to focus on the actual Bud Bowl during these later ads?
• Product Displacement: Discussed in "Blast From the Past", after Peter points out a R-Type arcade cabinet with its logo altered to read, R-TY◊.
  I love how putting electrical tape over one letter in a logo effectively dodges copyright.
• Rule 34: In "Super Bowl Past-Blast: 1985":
  The McDonalds ad in this break is the closest it comes [to the grandiose/"wacky" nature of Super Bowl ads]. They apparently had some BIG furries in their ad department. Having uploaded this, I expect to see a few dozen drawings on Chad Rocco's Deviantart next week of the fox-women, both sporting GIGANTIC butts.
• Seasonal Rot:invoked
  • Referenced in the first Free Spirit article, saying the disappearance of the show without giving any closure robs us of "The really weak final season after Winnie and Thomas have gotten married, Alyson Hannigan has left the series, and an annoying little child has been adopted".
  • His Past-Blast on Super Bowl 29 featured Bud Bowl VII, describing it as "the ad that killed the Bud Bowl" for shoving the beer bottle football players aside in favor of a Live-Action Cartoon in which a delusional castaway thinks he's watching the Bud Bowl, culminating with him sending himself into the game and winning it for the Budweiser team.
• Special Effect Failure: invoked "Platypus Comix Covers The 1981 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!" includes footage of two Days of Our Lives cast members botching a lip-synced musical performance. It also includes a picture◊ of somebody walking into a shot where he shouldn't be, revealing Strawberry Shortcake (who was supposedly interacting with Ed McMahon) to be nothing more than superimposed footage.
• Spiritual Successor: Peter writes some for X-Entertainment's recaps of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, starting with a 2011 article about the 1980 parade.
• Super Bowl Special: Peter explains in "Super Bowl Past-Blast: 1994" that he watches the Super Bowl live mostly to watch all of the commercials, and eventually decided to write annual articles covering ads shown during a past game.
• Tainted by the Preview: invoked Peter recalls in "Super Bowl Past-Blast: 1985" that after Apple's "1984" ad became instantly iconic, Apple spent weeks hyping up their next Super Bowl commercial, which viewers had to wait until the very last break to see. Unforutnately, the commercial, a Macintosh Office promo titled, "Lemmings", didn't leave a positive impact on viewers, apparently mostly because of Too Bleak, Stopped Caring.
  It's creepy and terrible!
  
  After letting so many competitors' baseballs whiz past them while uttering "That's not my style," Apple thought they could nail this with one blow — and Mighty Casey has struck out. It's mainly due to a complete misinterpretation of why the first ad worked. "1984" was dark because the book it was based on was. But it was also grand and epic and got your adrenaline going — plus, it told a complete story by only showing a portion of it. "Lemmings" does none of those things.
• Take Our Word for It: "Super Bowl Past-Blast: 1985", Peter explains that while the Super Bowl Half-Time Shows of recent years typically consist of performances by popular musical acts, earlier on they instead have performance troupes that appealed to children, usually Up With People. For 1985, the performance was "The World Of Children's Dreams" by the United States Air Force^note themed after Hollywood, pirates, the circus, space, sports, and American freedom. Peter then left it at that.
  I'm not uploading it. You don't deserve that punishment.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • Originally, reading the Free Spirit review on Internet Explorer caused this message to pop up in spots where readers with different browsers would find HTML5-encoded clips:
    If you're reading this instead of seeing a video, why are you still using Internet Explorer?
    • The message disappeared after Peter allowed readers to choose whether to use HTML5 or Adobe Flash to watch the clips.
  • "Super Bowl Past-Blast: 1994 begins with Peter calling his readers, "an audience of geeks," for not expressing excitement for the Super Bowl.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: invoked In "Super Bowl Past-Blast: 1985", Peter comments that the practical special effects of this Hyatt commercial, about a Hyatt Hotel IN SPACE, have aged pretty well, even after 31 years. This is especially notable when compared to a CGI commercial from the Canned Food Information Council, which he points out was actually the most talked-about of the ads at the time despite having not aged as well in comparison.
• Wanting Is Better Than Having: Peter reveals at the end of his critique of an early draft of the Free Spirit pilot that he finally found the Missing Episode "Love and Death" on YouTube, and downloaded it to his computer. However, he also admits refusing to watch it right away.
  Here's the thing....I once thought I had burned through every second of Free Spirit footage there was. I had no reason to think there were any more than 13 episodes, because there usually isn't. Then, miraculously, more of it showed up. Now if I watch it, that's really and truly all there is. I've been given a second chance, and it feels more poetic to just bottle that wish and preserve it for later. So I saved Episode 14 to my hard drive, and whenever I decide to view it, I'll let you know.
• What Were They Selling Again?: Peter comments in "Super Bowl Past-Blast: 1994" that he only remembers an ad for the 1994 Isuzu Rodeo just for the "Gut-Be-Gone" the man in the commercial receives for his birthday.
• Writing Around Trademarks: Each YouTube upload in "Super Bowl Past-Blast: 1985" abbreviates the game's name as, "SB". Peter admits that the NFL's trademark of the full name prevented him from spelling it out.
• Zeerust: Regarding an ad in "The 1980 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" for Bell Laboratories:
  We're then shown a glimpse of the future, in which a woman hits some keys on a giant computer board and two monitors display simple data graphs. In her own home??? It'll never happen. I mean, it still hasn't....

The Island of Misfit Christmas Specials

See Blog.The Island Of Misfit Christmas Specials

Stupid Kid Show Area

Peter Paltridge helps you learn about the past of children's pop culture, mostly cartoons from the 1980s and '90s.

• Actually Pretty Funny: Peter recalls in "Cinderella Gets Weird" that he realized Cinderella III: A Twist in Time would prove funnier than he expected once he saw how exactly Lady Tremaine and Drizella reacted when Anastasia showed them the magic wand she stole.
  Lady Tremaine: A stick......
  Drizella: Ooo! Let's beat her with it!
• The Artifact: "Why you may never see some of your favorite childhood shows on DVD", a list of shows whose fans need to Keep Circulating the Tapes, has some comments regarding Fox Kids shows that stayed up for several years after some corporate exchanges, between Disney^note who, according to the page, acquired a significant portion of Fox Kids' library while purchasing the [[Creator/Freeform Fox Family Channel]] and such studios as Saban Brands, Shout! Factory, and Mill Creek Entertainment, rendered them obsolete. For instance, the article ends with the lament, "It's a real tragedy moments like 'Fish Don't Stink' can't be legally bought," followed by a link to the Bobby's World clip. Amazon started selling official Bobby's World DVD boxsets in 2012, but this ending remained.
• Better by a Different Name: "Braver" makes the Adventures of the Gummi Bears episode "Girl's Knight Out" seem like a proto-Brave, albeit with a more courageous and rational Tomboy Princess in the form of Princess Calla.
• Bile Fascination: invoked "Cinderella Gets Weird" admits that some people might only enjoy Cinderella III: A Twist in Time for this, although Peter found quite a few genuinely good qualities as well.
• Clueless Aesop: The review of Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams points out some hypocrisy behind the creators of Disney's cheap and pandering direct-to-video sequels making shorts that try to teach little girls not to take the easy way out of their tasks.
• Forced Meme: Errors in Corporate Judgement included several failed attempts for entertainment materials to appear relevant to late '80s-early '90s children. Among them, a Magic Eye puzzle◊ using "Froggy" as a synonym for "awesome." Peter subsequently decided to close the article by declaring "Froggy" official slang for his website.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: "Parents' Guide to Kids TV" does not show any retro ads. Instead, it comments on how the Moral Guardians writing the children's television previews sometimes had overly strict standards, and also incorrectly predicted which shows would become successes and which ones would never catch on.
• Popularity Polynomial:invoked " Can Batman survive without Scooby-Doo?" comments that during the '90s, Spider-Man had become less popular than Batman, who had Batman: The Animated Series to bolster his popularity. However, Batman & Robin eventually killed Bats' reputation, while Spidey regained fame through Sam Raimi's movies.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In "The Five Most Embarrassing Moments of the Real Ghostbusters", Peter imagines his selection for #4 prompting J. Michael Straczynski to quit The Real Ghostbusters.
  Q5:"And finally, the animosity between Slimer and the gang should be toned down. Do you think Slimer and Egon could take a shower together?"^note "Big Trouble With Little Slimer”, the 10th episode of the 2nd season ABC aired
  Straczynski: "I’M OUTTA HERE."
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: invoked "Cinderella Gets Weird" uses Cinderella III: A Twist in Time as an example.
  It's so tonally off, but truth be known, I would rather watch this than the original movie, and more people out there than you think probably agree with me. Cinderella is an action heroine, the Prince is a swashbuckling stuperstuntman, the villain is supremely all-powerful. Stuff is CONSTANTLY happening.
• Time Marches On: "Why you may never see some of your favorite childhood shows on DVD" originally included The Real Ghostbusters among the shows whose fans needed to Keep Circulating the Tapes. After Time Life went and released all the episodes on DVD, Nicktoons and ReBoot took its spot on the list. Later, Shout! Factory managed to release DVDs of those, so they got removed from Peter's article, later replaced by KaBlam!.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Discussed in "Five Best 'Aladdin' Episodes", when four Aladdin: The Series episodes with Dark Magical Girl Sadira share a slot.
• Wrongfully Attributed: "Cinderella Gets Weird" ends with Peter concluding that Cinderella III "...is incredibly unfaithful to the tone of the original film and even blasphemous to it in places, 'but don't you see, that's what makes it so grand.'" He quickly realizes afterward that quote didn't come from Cinderella, but rather, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Kids' WB Yourself!

• Actually Pretty Funny: In "Kids WB Yourself!-The Last Day", Peter finds Skunk Fu! mostly unimpressive, but singles out one joke as genuinely funny.
  "Phew! Glad I caught you before you got to the top of Devil's Peak!" says Skunk—then the camera pulls back to reveal that's exactly where they are. This did get a chuckle out of me, I'll admit.
• Clueless Aesop: Parodied in "Kids WB Yourself!-The Last Day". Peter brings up an episode of Will and Dewitt called "Small Potatoes". Instead of actually describing the episode, however, he instead gives a plot summary of RoboCop (1987), with Will in place of Alex Murphy.
  From this, I learned to share.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Peter pokes fun at Skunk Fu's use of this trope, saying the ninja monkeys featured in the episode are most likely all named "Monkey".
• Mind Screw: His opinion of the Magi-Nation cartoon, as stated in "Kids WB Yourself!-The Last Day"
  Then a talking bathtub appears and says "We must aerate the Power Noodles, Patrick!" Then everyone dances the Funky Chicken until the sun turns into cheese and Gene Simmons discovers his secret power to fly.
• Stacy's Mom: In "Kids WB Yourself!-The Last Day", he repeatedly cites the mother◊ in Will and Dewitt as an example.

The Full Experience

• Actually Pretty Funny: The Jabberjaw review makes the series seem dull and unoriginal, until Jabberjaw tries to distract a villain by donning a Paper Thin Disguise of an exotic dancer.
• Catchphrase: Ever since the third installment, Peter has begun each article by putting the show into historic context, then pointing out today, one could enjoy the episodes on DVD. Then, he segues into the rest of the article with, "That's all well and good. But it's not the FULL EXPERIENCE..." He doesn't use this phrase when reviewing shows that don't have comprehensive DVDs available.
• Clueless Aesop: The Beetlejuice article includes a PSA in which the stars of Perfect Strangers attempt to teach kids not to feel bad if they don't meet society's standards of physical attractiveness. Peter admits this PSA, in which Larry consoles Balki over having a more crooked nose than Bruce Willis, loses its effectiveness for viewers who believe Balki's actor found less box office success than Willis because of his failure to meet those standards.
  Hope you learned something, kids. Just don't question the fact that Bronson Pinchot was available for the lead role in Die Hard yet never got the call.
• Dada Ad: The 4Kids' One Piece article refers to a Burger King commercial with some abstract shapes for mascots as, "this strange fever dream of an ad".
• Don't Explain the Joke: When Peter reviews the second episode 4Kids Entertainment aired of One Piece, he laments that their version of the script spends so much time explaining why Luffy fought Coby in front of the Marines/Navy, the scene no longer seemed like a joke.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The series consists of reviews of the first episodes of Saturday morning cartoons from the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, accompanied by videos of some of the commercials and bumpers that played during the cartoon's premiere. The first article recaps the day Pokémon: The Series began airing on Kids' WB!, but Peter decided not to review the episode^note "The Problem With Paras" because the series seemed Strictly Formula. Also note that article has three pages, while others (such as the Beetlejuice review) only have one. For even more weirdness, the original version of the Pokémon installment only had one video. The rest of the commercials simply got written descriptions and pictures.
• Fanon Discontinuity: invoked Peter has confessed that for him, Beetlejuice begins and ends with the cartoon. He didn't see the movie Beetlejuice until after he saw the show. When he did, he felt disappointed that, among other things, Beetlejuice was a seldom-appearing villain instead of the star, and that he and Lydia were enemies instead of friends.
• I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: Peter begins the installment about The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper^note which he refers to as simply, Casper, per the title used on the copy he reviewed by calling Casper the Friendly Ghost unfunny and uninteresting. Consequently, he avoided watching this show, until he learned that it shared two writers with Animaniacs: Sheri Stoner and Deanna Oliver. He ended up calling the episodes he saw of Spooktacular New Adventures the funniest and least boring Casper cartoons he ever saw.
• Late to the Punchline: Peter admits in the Beetlejuice review that he didn't notice Beetlejuice and Lydia blowing snakes instead of noisemakers until after he took a screenshot◊ of the scene.
• Misaimed Marketing: invoked Peter closes the Animaniacs article by wondering why his local Fox Kids station showed a commercial for a wine-tasting event during each episode from the first season.
• Needs More Love: invoked The 4Kids' One Piece installment argues that the uncut version of the anime deserves a larger American fanbase than it had at the time of the article's posting.
• Oddball in the Series: The second installment, covering the premiere of The Pink Panther Show, was written on Peter's Toon Zone blog instead of at his website. Unfortunately, this inadvertently led to the videos ceasing to work after a site update.
• Take That!:
  • From the page about Animaniacs:
  Those cheesy Power Rangers could go jump in a lake; Animaniacs was 1993 to me.
  • invokedThe first section of the second page of the Pokémon Full Experience suggests that Peter does not think very highly of the Spyro the Dragon games, claiming that they they were made "before [Insomniac Games] learned how to make games" and brushing Spyro himself off as just another "mascot with attitude" that tried to out-Sonic Sonic and fell into obscurity like all the other ones. (Ironically, Spyro would make two separate returns, to much rejoicing and critical acclaim, only a few years after the article was published.)
• Tempting Fate: The 4Kids' One Piece article laments that when fans of the anime tried to predict or joke about changes 4Kids would make when importing the show to America, some of those predictions and jokes actually proved accurate.
  They figured Sanji's cigarette would be reinterpreted as a lollipop, and the prediction came 100% true. "They'll probably make the opening sequence into a rap," they said sarcastically. And that is exactly what 4Kids did. Must've been taking notes.

Educational Rockin' Fun Zone

Peter Paltridge educates on subjects not covered in school.

• Clueless Aesop: At least some of the stories Peter features in "Emails Your Mother Reads" boast some.
• iProduct: Discussed in "Seven Failed Brand Crossovers"; the section about "Colgate TV Dinners" explains that TV dinners got their name to ride off of how high-tech and advanced it seemed to own a TV back then, musing that The New '10s equivalent would bear the name, "iDinners".
• Older Is Better: Before listing his favorite Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition DVD or Blu-Ray box sets, Peter begins "The Five Best Sets Ever" by noting that old DVDs often have better picture quality and more bonus features than he might get if he streamed those movies and shows instead. A chance exists that this trope doesn't apply 100%; he says these qualities of streaming media could bring people back to the "primitive lifestyle" of VHS.
• ...Or So I Heard: In the Platypus Comix Subculture Guide:
  Contrary to popular belief, a fursuit isn't created for dry-humping, as they are much too cumbersome for that (...I know this because I heard about it, all right?).
• Self-Deprecation: Again from the Platypus Comix Subculture Guide:
  The only sight sadder than an Internet Video Reviewer is that of a Web cartoonist.
• Serious Business:
  • The public service announcements in "ABC PSA Insanity!" warn children about such dangers as chewing food too quickly, or drowning food in condiments. Peter admits finding them trivial in comparison to drugs, which PSAs from his childhood warned him about most often, but evidently ABC thought otherwise before the War on Drugs.
  • "The Top 5 Most Annoying Christmas Carols" gives some pretty extreme examples of how continued overexposure of the top choice, "The Christmas Shoes", could ruin people's lives.
• Spiritual Licensee: invoked The review of The Sweatbox, a rarely-seen documentary about the evolution of Disney's Kingdom of the Sun to The Emperor's New Groove, delivers the following praise to New Groove:
  Disney made a far better Looney Tunes movie than any feature with Bugs WB has put together.

Surfin' The Web Section

Peter Paltridge gives a sample of what he does on the Internet aside from making comics and articles.

• Stylistic Suck: Like several of the amateurish articles RetroJunk features, "Retrojunk's Greatest Article Ever" contains plenty of bad spelling and grammar. Also, its attempts at Fanservice fail since many of the "Top Ten Hottest Cartoon Women Ever" have inadequate pictures, the top two choices are male, and the # 1 choice is not a cartoon character.
• Technology Marches Oninvoked: "The Future of Tomorrow...Tuh-Day!" takes a humorous look at the excitement the public experienced during 41 years' worth of advancements made to the Internet.

Psychiatry Zone

Peter Paltridge lets you get inside his head.

• Take That!: Peter Griffin's Guide to a Stress-Free Life is one big slam against Family Guy.

Things To Do When You're Bored Division/The Ancient Lost Art of TV Guide Advertising

Peter Paltridge has gathered a random selection of things to do when you're bored.

• Call-Back:
  • Part 2 of the ABC Afterschool Special ad gallery references one of the oldest specials when Peter jokingly remarks that the 100th special, The Gift of Amazing Grace, could have benefited from Timer the Cheese Guy exploring Tempest Bledsoe's brain.
  • In Fall 1982, after Peter explains that a show he discovered in TV Guide inspired him to create a comic series based on it, he asked, "Could it happen again? What in this new batch of scans could potentially be resurrected THIS time?" He immediately dismisses the first advertised show◊, Tuckers Witch. This wasn't brought up again until a scan advertising the Laverne & Shirley episode "The Mummy's Bride◊" appears.
  Maybe I should start a comic series based on this one Laverne and Shirley episode? ....You know, I think I will. Look for it January 2015!
• Couch Gag: Volumes 11 onward each use a different font for the volume numbers in their respective introductions.
• Follow the Leader: invoked When showing ads for Fish Police and Capitol Critters:
  The early years of success surrounding The Simpsons led to some bizarre greenlights the like of which we'll never see again...the kind that said, "I'm an executive in his fifties who has no idea why a grown person would watch a cartoon, but whatever, just put Saturday Morning material on prime time." CBS did that literally with "Toon Nite" in the spring of 1991. For a brief period of time, their Tuesday evenings were filled with Bugs Bunny specials and Ninja Turtle episodes. It attracted me at least, but probably not many thirtysomethings.
• Hilarious in Flashback:
  • In "Spring 1997", an ad◊ for the series premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer bears this annotation:
  Not sure what this is. Something about a cheerleader? I'm sure there's something about it in a couple places on the Internet. I think there was a 1992 film by the same name, and then the guy who wrote it didn't like how it turned out and made it as a series instead.....who knows how it'll go. Maybe the geeks will get into it?
  • One of the ads◊ in "Fall 1989" promotes Free Spirit (1989), a sitcom starring a Cute Witch who becomes a Magical Nanny to three motherless children. Paltridge points out Alyson Hannigan, who would later play Buffy the Vampire Slayer's witchy companion Willow, portraying one of the children.
• Harsher in Hindsight: invoked Lampshaded:
  • One of the pictures◊ in "Spring 1984" promotes a Love Boat episode, in which several Miss America winners gather to honor the then-newest Miss America, Vanessa Williams. Peter subsequently asks, "Why do I get the feeling this episode was going to live in infamy for a while?"^note Williams would later lose her title after nude pictures of her turned up in Penthouse magazine.
  • The Neil Goldschmidt quote in one of the TV special ads included in "1988 Writer's Strike" mentions giving teens "special attention◊." Below the ad, Peter comments, "...Neil Goldschmidt really meant it..."^note Goldschmidt was later revealed to have committed sexual abuse.
• In Name Only: "Winter 1992" comments that the animated series Fish Police had almost nothing in common with the comic of the same name. Peter theorizes that after Hanna-Barbera finished coming up with the concept for the show, they found out It's Been Done by an independent cartoonist, and subsequently paid him to use the title so that he wouldn't sue them for using a similar premise.
• Mistaken for Gay: "Spring 1980/Pink Lady and Jeff" includes a link to a website containing further information about Pink Lady and Jeff, but marks it as NSFW on the grounds that no working man would want the other employees to see him visit a website with so much pink.
• Mood Whiplash: Happens in the installment about ABC Afterschool Specials, as ABC's fluffy children's specials give way to Darker and Edgier, teen-oriented stories.
• Older than You Think: "invoked 1988 Writer's Strike" includes a cover◊ promoting a 1988 TV movie of the novel The Bourne Identity, prompting Peter to remark, "Everything's a remake these days."
• Popularity Polynomial:invoked "Bicentennial", written in 2008, comments on the then-current domination of live-action over animation in popular children's television by pointing out that live-action shows◊ dominate◊ the ads◊ for children's television in 1976, suggesting that "history is cyclical". Indeed, just as the '80s brought an abundance of new children's cartoons, so would the 2010s a few years after that article's publication. Part of "Winter 1992" recalls how animation went from becoming popular enough to get its own network, to almost disappearing from that channel in favor of live-action programming, to becoming a large draw for it once again.
• Quote Mine: In reference to an ad◊ in "Dallas" for CBS' miniseries Master of the Game:
  TV Guide reviewed it as "a masterpiece of incoherence and bad acting," which was undoubtedly edited in the network promos to read as "A masterpiece! —TV Guide."
• Retroactive Recognition: invoked When discussing an ad◊ in "V-The Final Battle" for The Duck Factory, Peter points out that the man making goofy faces looks familiar - it's Jim Carrey.
• Self-Plagiarism: The ABC Afterschool Special gallery calls Summer Switch, "...the one that teaches you not to plagiarize!", since the plot sounds nearly identical to that of Freaky Friday, and the two stories even share some characters and an author (Mary Rodgers).
• Tainted by the Preview: invoked "Spring 1984" implies that the network television premieres of Time Bomb and Alien could have fallen victim to this. The Time Bomb ad appears to oversell◊ it, to the extent that a viewer could ultimately feel disappointed, while the one for Alien undersells◊ it, to the extent that a reader might skip it.^note The Alien ad re-appeared in "In Search of the Perfect Tagline", alongside some rejected campaigns for the original theatrical run.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: invoked After "Spring 1980-Pink Lady and Jeff" features an ad◊ for The Stockard Channing Show, starring Stockard Channing as an undercover TV reporter, Peter wonders why such shows as Pepper Dennis and Anchorwoman couldn't mine all the comedic and dramatic potential that could arise from a reporter on a gimmicky news program hunting down criminals.
• This Is Going to Suck: "Fall 1982" ends with a two-page ad for a sitcom from The '80s. The first◊ consists almost entirely of "Ha!"'s written in Dom Casual and urging you to turn the page to find out what's so funny, making Peter comment, "Whenever I see something like this, I groan. There's no way what's on the other side of the page is anything but a painfully unfunny, rightfully forgotten show---" The second page◊ reveals the ad as a Cheers promo, eliciting the response, "---well, I think I'll shut up now."
• The Unfavorite: Peter finds it surprising that the Simpsons episode "Brush with Greatness" has no ad hyping up the guest appearance of one of The Beatles, until he figures they decided Ringo Starr didn't seem worth the trouble.
• Unusual Chapter Numbers:
  • Volumes 8 and 9, which contain slideshows of ABC Afterschool Special ads, have a drawing of a computer mouse instead of a number at the start, possibly to reference how much more clicking the reader has to do compared to previous volumes.
  • Volume 10, a slideshow of ads for the first two seasons of The Simpsons, begins with the awesome smiley replacing the number 10.
  • "Parents' Guide to Kids' TV" does not have a number at all.
• Viral Marketing: invoked "V-The Final Battle" shows four◊ examples◊ of NBC using◊ this◊ during May 1984 sweeps to promote the second V miniseries.
• Waxing Lyrical: Peter quotes a song by The Police in "1988 Writer's Strike", after an ad◊ for 14 Going on 30.
  EEEEEEEE-WWWWW!!! Magically aging yourself 16 years does not make this any less creepy! In fact, turning yourself into Alan Thicke in the process makes it even creepier! Don't stand so! Don't stand so! Don't stand so close to me!
• Wolverine Publicity: Discussed in the Simpsons slideshow, regarding episodes promoted with ads that make Bart Simpson appear to have a larger role than he actually does.
• Zeerust:
  • The first ad◊ in "V-The Final Battle" features a special promoting EPCOT Center by featuring then-developing technologies that could revolutionize the future. Peter points out that among the seven predictions listed in the ad, three or four of them had failed to come true by the time EPCOT turned 25.
  • "Spring 1980/Pink Lady And Jeff" kicks off with a wildly exaggerated description of how the Intellivision could change the TV-viewing experience.

The Section Only I Will Care About Reading

Peter Paltridge will share a few details about his life, his interests, and Platypus Comix history to those who care.

• Cynical Mentor: "My Ocarina of Time Walkthrough" plays this for laughs as Peter tries to give tips on winning The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to someone with a habit of saying stupid things.
  What is Miyamoto?
  A Japanese car that flies.
  Where can I buy one???
  You can't; you're not old enough to drive.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: "Tour My Christmas Tree" declares "the greatest tree ornament in all existence◊" one that Peter made of a construction paper tree with, "Oh, Yeah!" written in glitter. Peter claims that he could make anything better by writing,"Oh Yeah!" on it with glitter.
• From Bad to Worse: Why I Couldn't Update This Week! details a week in which Peter had to stay in a cheap hotel during his house's remodeling, then got sick. Fortunately, it ends with Peter randomly finding a $5 bill, as an apparent pick-me-up from God.
• Homage: The Section Only I Will Care About Reading resembles John Kricfalusi's blog. It also includes a link to the blog, so visitors could compare them.
• I Warned You: In "My Ocarina of Time Walkthrough," Peter calls the Great Fairy, "an ugly barely-dressed Tammy Faye-thing". Later, the player encounters her, prompting this exchange:
  Eww...why isn't this game rated T?
  Hey, I warned you about that fairy...
• Long List:
  • This list of every comic series Peter has ever made.
  • The list of every comic Peter made and posted online also has a rather daunting length, since it even mentions stories no longer included in the Platypus Comix archives.
• No Ending: "My Ocarina of Time Walkthrough" only goes up to Link receiving the Zora Tunic.
• Self-Deprecation: When asked in "My Ocarina of Time Walkthrough" why he decided to write a walkthrough that no one might use, Peter answers, "Because it's fun. I'm also crazy."
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: "My Encounter With the Treasure Truck" recounts Peter's efforts to find an Amazon truck selling Super NES Classic console overstock, and purchase a console for himself. Unfortunately, he ultimately learns that the Treasure Truck only gives the SNES Classic to people who pre-ordered it from Amazon's website, which sold out by the time Peter found the truck. Fortunately, he eventually bought an SNES Classic from Target, instead.
• Stealth Insult: When the player in "My Ocarina of Time Walkthrough" exclaims that he/she can't think of someone more annoying than Navi, Peter says he knows someone worse, but doesn't say who.
• Take That!: From "My Ocarina of Time Walkthrough":
  Nintendo Power said there was a hole in the maze that I could drop down, and battle two Wolfos inside for money! I can’t find it...
  This is why you can’t believe everything you read in Nintendo Power...remember, they described the GameCube’s memory capacity as “Fatter than Jennifer Villarreal!”
  Why do people complain about Final Fantasy games having too much cinema if this game has about the same amount?
  Because they need an excuse to slam Square. A more accurate reason to bash them would be Final Fantasy 8, or the fact that the next FF will be online and they think that type of game counts as another number in the series...
• Terrified of Germs: "Why I Couldn't Update This Week" depicts Peter as this, at least when staying in an old hotel room.

Thing Where The Totally Rad Videos Go

Peter Paltridge posts some rare and interesting videos, including plenty of music videos.

• Amazon Chaser: In "The Top 10 Best Videos from MTV'S First Day", regarding his rules for what makes a good song in his opinion:
  #5: I really, really, really, really like it when a woman sings about how she's going to kick my butt. And number 5 is 90% of Pat Benatar's repertoire, so it's no wonder.
• Big "WHAT?!": Peter's reaction when the biggest song on the 1984 edition of MTV's Year End Countdown turned out not to be "Thriller" by Michael Jackson, as he anticipated, but "Missing You" by John Waite instead. It's so big, it's imprinted on a screenshot of◊ Van Halen (whose song, "Jump", made it in at #2).
• Blatant Lies: He claims that the videos in "The Ads of the Star Wars Holiday Special" look blurry and distorted because he "applied a special filter" to protect readers from the cheesiness of The '70s.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: One part of "Starship HBO" warns that if the HBO logo has aliens inside, they might want to subject people who enter their ship to a Sex and the City marathon, which he calls, "...worse than an Anal Probe."
• Incredibly Lame Fun: Peter claims in "The Ads of the Star Wars Holiday Special" that if Kenner still sold the Trailtracker during his childhood, he and each of his friends would have wanted one. He even wishes to buy one now. All this amazement for a toy truck that traces lines drawn with a crayon.
• Lyrics/Video Mismatch: On Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time":
  I'd always thought 'Time After Time' was a beautiful song about a couple looking forward to their future together. But according to Cyndi, it's about that one time she was living in a tin trailer hugging a plastic dog and watching old Bette Davis movies. Oh Cyndi, you're so unusual!
• Network Decay: Discussed in "MTV's Top 20 Videos of 1984" as part of an conversation he imagines having with a cable man in the present day.
• Significant Anagram: "The Ads of the Star Wars Holiday Special" has two, both of which involve spelling a word backwards (riffing on the TOBOR commercial saying that TOBOR is ROBOT spelled backwards):
  HSUBL is BLUSH spelled backwards!
  There were a TON of undergarment ads during the Star Wars Holiday Special. And by TON I mean NOT. Because NOT is TON spelled backwards.
• Take That!:
  • From the 1984 MTV article:
  #12 is Billy Idol with "Why did people ever think I was cool?"
  • In "The Ads of the Star Wars Holiday Special", Peter admits that if George Lucas actually did start hunting down and destroying every bootlegged copy and download of The Star Wars Holiday Special, that hunt would probably make a better use of Lucas' time than "whatever [he's] working on would".
• Take That, Audience!: Played for Laughs in "Cynical Ad Campaigns of the 90's.
• Think of the Children!: Regarding the Sheer Indulgence pantyhose commercial in "The Ads of the Star Wars Holiday Special":
  I would say they should have thought of the multitudes of children watching that night, but the part with the Wookiee watching the erotic video had already aired, and that was WAY more traumatizing.

Bloom County County

Before the publication of the book series The Bloom County Library, Peter Paltridge took it upon himself to keep his favorite newspaper comic available to enjoy.

• Homage: The layout of the Bloom County archive page resembles one of the strip's recurring splash panels.
• Take That!: In Opus's Married Life in the Year 2007, Peter explains that unlike how Opus's dream about 2007 depicted it◊, the ozone layer is slowly but surely recovering thanks to CFCs being globally banned.
  You might have not heard about this. Al Gore doesn't care about mentioning environmental crises that are going WELL.

See also Bloom County

Interviews!

Peter Paltridge has interviewed Jon McClenahan, Tom Ruegger (twice), Rich Arons, and Howard Scott Warshaw.

Lair of Alternate Projects/For Portlanders Only

Peter Paltridge takes you to see his other endeavors. The biggest is For Portlanders Only, a selection of advertisements, newspaper scans, and other emphemera pertaining to his hometown of Portland, Oregon.

For Portlanders Only

• Needs More Love: invokedHow Peter feels about truly interesting side characters in this article, citing Abby Scuito, Paris Geller, Luanne Platter, Anna Wu, Temari, Toph, and Parker (whom the article focuses on) as examples.
• Orphaned Series: "For Portlanders Only" has not updated since 2010, and Warner Bros. Club (a division of Toon Zone, an animation site to which Peter is an occasional contributor) has not updated since 2008.
• Shown Their Work: In "Lux Sux!", he admits that the producers of Life Unexpected were completely accurate in their portrayal of his hometown of Portland, Oregon. However, he feels that the show fails in almost literally every other aspect.

What Powell's Throws Out

• Accidental Innuendo: invokedIn Part Six, Peter shows a SpongeBob SquarePants story◊ from an anthology book written by first graders:
  Book: "This party is cool. I like Sponge Bob's party. I like Sponge Bob's juice," said Patrick.
  Peter: Any other website would have leapt at the chance to point out what Patrick said, but I don't work blue.
• Continuity Lockout:invoked He experiences this in Part Six with ElfQuest, saying that his troubles with fantasy tropes as a whole (elaborated below) prevent him from understanding a single sentence of the work.
• Fan Disillusionment: Part Two expresses his disllusionment with reading as a whole:
  When I was a small kid, I read books all the time. I would go to the library about every other day, come out with several juvenile fiction tomes, and read each one within an hour. I read a book about a kid who has to eat fifteen worms in fifteen days for $50. The writing was pure off-the-wall anarchy, and I loved it (read it again, it's even better when you're grown up). I read a book about a school that is thirty stories tall and full of weird kids, clever wordplay and living dead rats — it's still my favorite book of all time. I read a book about a kid with unusual talents who united a racially divided town and spent a summer with a poor old illiterate man. It was better than chocolate. But as I got older, books aimed at my age level started getting less imaginative, less humorous, and less fun.[…]Reading books became a chore, not an enjoyment. And when I finally graduated and had the free will to stop, I quit 'em cold turkey. These days, I look at the rack of books for adults and feel massive boredom. They take themselves too seriously, are way way more wordy than they need to be, and are sorted by machine. If you want a crime drama, you go to the Crime Drama section and pick from 6,500 Crime Dramas with very similar covers and very similar plots. If you want a Murder Mystery Starring a Psychic Dwarf, you go to the Psychic Dwarf Murder Mysteries Section and choose from 7,352 of those. It feels so...cold.
• Faux Horrific: When discussing From a Buick 8 in Part Two:
  The truth is, not everything Stephen writes is intended to be scary and this is one of his 'others.' It's just dressed up by the publisher to fool you into believing it's the next Shining, at least until you've paid for it.
• Mind Screw: Peter declares Wezens die je toch nooit ziet^note Dutch for "Creatures You'll Never See" from Part Four "The Weirdest Book of All Time".
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Peter's disgust in Part Six with the drawing style◊ of some 2004 Cricket comics makes him (and King Leonidas from 300) exclaim, "This! Is! Zoot!"◊
• Sincerity Mode: In a part that we won't link to from here, Peter admits that he recently bought a Webcomic Print Collection, but didn't find it funny at all. However, he refuses to refer to the comic or its author by name, to lessen the chances of him getting his feelings hurt.
• Strictly Formula: From Part Six:
  Through the thousands of books I've now sorted, I've noticed a popular trend among the fiction variety. Most mass paperback novels I've run across have the following things in common: 1) They're part of a series (even though I never find any other book in said "series"); 2) They have a female protagonist; 3) Said female protagonist is a massive "Mary Sue" with an attitude who wields weapons, fires off karate kicks, and has every lead male fall for her instantly; 3) They contain supernatural elements, usually garden-variety cliches dressed up by calling them different names. For example, if there are fairies, they won't call them fairies, they'll call them "Fae." At the very least, they'll spell "magic" with a K; 4) They all (without exception, they ALL) have a subtitle like "A Kit Gunwielder Mystery!" or "A Sasha Spunkmeyer Adventure!"
• Take That!: In Part One, he boasts that he could find a way to make a FernGully: The Last Rainforest book◊ seem marketable in 2010. Cue a crude alteration◊ of the cover to include Avatar characters.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:invoked In Part Two, he mentions how he dislikes fantasy novels because "they often get so bogged down in their own world they forget how to relate to the real one, where I am, trying to understand it." He points out that Worldweavers: Spellspam actually has a good premise (about e-mail spam that has magical powers), but a third of the way through, it gets bogged down in the fantasy tropes that he hates so much.

"Other People's Cartoons" Area/Worst Comix Ever!

Peter Paltridge shares his favorite and least favorite comic strips and comic books.

• Actually Pretty Funny: "World's Most Baffling Garfield Strips" ends with Peter clarifying that even though a number of Garfield strips rose too many unanswered questions, he still loves the older strips and Garfield and Friends.
• Awesome Art: Invoked. "My Favorite Comic Book Covers" contains some examples.
• Crazy Is Cool:invoked In his opinion, the title character of Nemi.
• Interpretative Character: "Sabrinas Through Time" showcases various incarnations that Sabrina the Teenage Witch went through in both print and TV, including a supernatural troublemaker, a magical do-gooder, and an Animesque fantasy heroine. Peter followed it up with reviews of Sabrina's first animated appearance, an Archie Show TV special titled Archie and His New Pals,^note This article also shared brief thoughts on Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which had both yet to debut when Peter wrote the first "Sabrinas Through Time" and the first episode of the live-action sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
  I have a theory that she's the only other living survivor of the planet Galifrey, because every time Sabrina is killed off, she mutates into another Sabrina and keeps going in a different manner.
• Ironic Nickname: At the end of the first part of "Who is Archie Comics' Most Obscure Character?", he claims Marvelous Maureen has one.
  They never clarify what she did to deserve the title "Marvelous."
• Irony: In "Sabrinas Through Time II", Peter calls Sabrina's then-latest animated show, Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch, "limply-animated" by The New '10s standards. A reader might expect her first cartoon appearance, the Filmation TV special Archie and His New Pals, to have even worse visuals. Surprisingly, Peter ends the article by noting the special had a noticeable Animation Bump compared to the studio's other work. A clip he embedded of the musical number "You Need an Image" (which he acknowledges as an Ear Worm) illustrates this.
  I'm in a bit of disbelief that it bears the Filmation label, given that the one nice thing I can say about Sabrina's first TV appearance is that it's decently animated for 1969. At no point is anybody standing still with dead eyes and their mouth moving, there are no really long pans of static backgrounds, and only one shot is reused (the image of Reggie in the Nixon pose). Everyone displays a variety of vivid facial expressions. Normally Filmation had a Moose-level ineptitude about these things.
• I Warned You: Peter opens his article on U.S. Acres Runs Amuck by saying, "I'm going to have to warn you ahead of time not to be eating or drinking anything while viewing what you're about to read." After another paragraph elaborating how funny U.S. Acres is at this point, strips from the book are shown uninterrupted by commentary.
  What'd I tell ya?
• Just Eat Gilligan: Peter admits wishing in "Sabrinas Through Time III" that after Sabrina accidentally turned the Alpha Bitch Libby into a pineapple, she and her aunts ate Libby, instead of turned her back to normal.^note Aunt Hilda made the same suggestion in a gag missing from Peter's recording.
• Needs More Love: invoked Peter wishes that more Americans would read Nemi. He tried to give her some more exposure by reviewing the third and fourth Nemi books. Unfortunately, this might have made Platypus Comix more popular among people who ship Nick Jonas and Demi Lovato.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: invokedPeter says that the first year of U.S. Acres wasn't very good since it relies too much on exposition, and the attempts at spontaneous jokes usually fall flat. He goes on to say that the strip gets funnier when the Debut Queue is over and done with, reaching its zenith by U.S. Acres Runs Amuck: The Fourth Book.
• Special Thanks: Peter laments in "Sabrinas Through Time III" that the opening credits to the Sabrina the Teenage Witch sitcom don't give George Gladir credit for creating the title character. To compensate, he closes his review with, "Created By George Gladir".
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Invoked on Peter's behalf when he decided to celebrate Spider-Man's 50th anniversary with a review of Spidey's newspaper comic. The storyline he reviewed made Peter and MJ pawns in Loki's scheme to take over Asgard, but with less drama and epicness than Peter hoped.
  • Peter hints in "Sabrinas Through Time II" that he might have felt less disappointed with Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch if had a greater focus on Sabrina's adventures in the Witch World.
• Time Marches On: Peter originally made a series of articles on U.S. Acres since at the time, an archive of its strips were nonexistant. The official Garfield website now features an archive of the strip, which led to the article losing much of its relevance. However, it still has little value left — the Garfield site removed a caption box from the October 13, 1986 strip that encouraged kids to mail drawings to Jim Davis, the final five strips are not archived (the strip rolls back to the 1987 strips on April 15), leaving out the culmination of the End-of-Series Awareness strips, and the collection books are long out of print, leaving the article one of the few places to see the covers.

Worst Comix Ever!

• Actually Pretty Funny: The review of some American Pokémon comics deems most of the strips moronic and unfaithful to the franchise. However, it also comments that one strip starring Misty and Psyduck◊ would actually have made an amusing gag for the anime.
• Bears Are Bad News: In the installment reviewing Bears in Love, Peter deemed the comic even less funny than Garfield, Hägar the Horrible, The Family Circus, and Marmaduke.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computerinvoked: One part of this review of the Pokémon: The Series comic chastises the cartoonist for drawing Starmie shooting water from its jewel◊. ^note Ironically, Peter himself made an error: he mistook the five-tipped Staryu (who, to his credit, can't shoot water from its jewel either) for the 10-tipped Starmie.
• Viewers Are Morons: The Action Files Part One: Picture Not So Perfect begins with a tutorial◊ explaining the concepts of word balloons and text boxes, and ends with a glossary◊ defining such words as "accident", "photograph", and "future".
  Are they serious? They're serious. I read my first comic book at age four and it wasn't too difficult to discern how they operated. If you have this much trouble with a comic book, then you probably also need instructions on how to make a peanut butter sandwich.
  • Peter's scathing review of The Adventures of D & A called it "another creation that underestimated kids' intelligence and tried to serve us dumbed-down sludge we couldn't connect to in any way."

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