Iron Fist Teaser

With the release of Daredevil's Season 2 we started getting a lot of information about the other upcoming shows.  Luke Cage got a release date and a teaser trailer.  Iron Fist got a confirmed star and this image.

I'm beyond excited.  This image is also a reminder that I need to continue my Iron Fist 101 series, so I'm announcing that it will be returning in April.

Daredevil Season 2 Trailer

Netflix has just released the trailer for Daredevil Season 2.  It doesn't give away anything but still managed to make me even more excited for the show.  On top of that it confirmed the release date as March 18th.

The upcoming season is going to guest star the Punisher, So Matt's reluctance to kill is going to be pushed to the extremes.  In fact some of the released set photos make it look like they are copying a very famous comicbook meetup between the two.  

I'm looking forward to more Daredevil and the eventual Luke Cage.   Hopefully we will get some Iron Fist casting news soon.  

Jessica Jones Trailer

November 20th can not come quick enough.  We finally have a release date for the second Marvel Netflix show, Jessica Jones.  Daredevil set a very high bar but everything released about Jessica Jones looks promising.  For those unfamiliar with the Alias comic series the show is set to go to some pretty dark places.  We know Luke Cage is going to be in about half the episodes, so it will be interesting to see how they handle him since I would have guessed his own show would focus on his origin.

Not only do we have a Jessica Jones release date but there has been a lot of casting information for Luke Cage released lately.  The two announcements that excite me the most are for long time Iron Fist supporting characters Misty Knight and Rafael Scarfe.

Amell Vs. Stardust

In one of the more strange/wonderful things I can think of Steven Amell is going to be wrestling at Summer Slam this Sunday.  Amell is a long time wrestling fan that had been tweeting out how much he wanted to be involved with WWE.  When his dream finally came true he began a feud with Stardust.  Stardust is the character played by Cody Rhodes.  Rhodes is known for being a fan video games and comic books.  He has come to the ring dressed as Mr. Sinister from the X-Men and even before he became Stardust he would wear a Tri-Force symbol on his boots.

The impressive thing about this is Amell’s passion and the fact that he’s been training to get into the ring.  Usually when a celebrity gets in the ring with a wrestler you can expect some badly thrown punches and maybe a slam of some sort.  Considering how active Amell is doing stunt work on his own show it looks like this is going to be an incredibly entertaining match.

To celebrate his match Amell is selling a limited time shirt.  Featuring Stardust and the Arrow the shirt is pretty cool looking.  Even cooler is that a portion of proceeds benefit Emily’s House, a hospice for children.  You can order the shirt by clicking HERE.  

Lego Mystery Machine

The August Lego sets have started to sneak onto the store shelves.  That might not mean a lot to some people but I’ve been anxiously awaiting their release.  The reason I’m so excited is that this year Lego has created a line of Scooby Doo toys.  I’ve always liked Scooby Doo but that love has been rekindled lately.  A while back I realized even though I had all these streaming services I couldn’t show my son the original Scooby Doo Where are You? cartoons.  Just showing him the show opening had him excited so at that point I pretty much had to order the DVD set.  We’ve watched all four discs, two full seasons of Scooby Doo and we both loved every second of it.  Charlie the Robot is easily my son’s favorite.

So the Scooby Doo line consists of sets across all sorts of different price ranges.  The smallest is a Mummy set, then Headless Horseman/biplane, then the Mystery Machine, a haunted lighthouse, and finally a huge haunted house.  I showed incredible restraint and only picked up the Mystery Machine.  That night I started up a mini-marathon of Mystery Incorporated and started putting the set together.  The Mystery Machine comes with Fred, Shaggy, Scooby, a Zombie, and a tree monster.  Notice it doesn’t include the girls.  Sadly to get everyone you’d have to pick up the big haunted house as well.  I get separating the figures but having to pick up the big set to round out the gang sucks.

What also sucks about the wonderful Mystery Machine model is the number of stickers.  It makes sense, the less printed pieces Lego makes the cheaper it is for them but the Mystery Machine comes with 23 stickers.  If you don’t have a steady hand you’ll probably want someone’s help when putting this one together.  The other thing I didn’t love is it is going to be a tight, tight fit to get everyone in the van.  Lego is a strange size.  Make a vehicle fit the right amount of people and it looks out of scale.  I think they could have gotten away making the van a little larger than it is. 

All that said, it is a fantastic toy.  Looking at it just makes me happy.  The sides fold out so you can see in the back easily and the roof lifts off for the same ease of access.  The mini-figures are great.  In the other sets all the villains can be unmasked to show that they’re really people.  It’s that level of detail that makes these sets so much fun.  I had so much fun I couldn’t resist throwing together my version of the Wacky Races.  I had so much fun with the Scooby Doo sets I’ve already got some customer Lego ideas in the planning stages.  I won’t spoil it now but I’ll give some hints.  The first and easier is putting together a few of my favorite supporting cast members.  The second would be more involved and would be building another Hanna-Barbera character that would be right at home in that race picture…

Daredevil gets Elektra

It has been announced that Elodie Yung has been cast as Elektra in Netflix's Daredevil.  Between Punisher and Elektra it looks like Hell's Kitchen is going to be pretty busy.  It's pretty big news since it's hard to have a conversation about Daredevil without someone bringing up Elektra.  Hopefully that means there will be lots of Hand ninjas this time around.

The Muppets Offical Trailer

ABC is doing a new Muppet show.  They are calling it an adult Muppet show.  I didn't realize the original was only for children.  Regardless I'm excited.  They had me at, "Animal does nudity if tasteful".

One thing I've never cared for in the movies is how Kermit and Piggy are always an item.  It the TV show he was always trying to get away from her.  Anyway, bring on the Electric Mayhem.

BJ and the Bear Thunder Roller

Before fully getting into today’s topic I feel the need to explain a little bit.  Since the Mallrats lines, “Why don't they ever bring back or remake good shows, like BJ and the Bear.  Now there's a concept I can't get enough of, a man and his monkey.” I feel like the show has become a one note joke.  I honestly love the show.  I picked up a horrible quality bootleg years ago and have watched every grainy episode.  It’s pure 80's cheese in every way, shape, and form. Again this is said in a non-ironic way, even the theme song makes me happy.

While I had a toy of BJ’s semi when I was a kid, I have no idea what ever happened to my toy cars after I grew up.  I wanted that big red rig to sit on my shelf though, so I kept an open search on eBay.  I’m not the only one out there for a soft spot for Greg Evigan, those toys were expensive.  Expensive enough that I never pulled the trigger and ordered one.  I hadn’t been on ebay for a couple months so when I returned last week I was amazed at all the red trucks on my search page.

I don’t pay attention to the toy car market.  I had a worker at Toys R Us tell me that the local action figure collectors had nothing on their toy car guys.  Just like anything else, there is apparently a huge obsessive market.  So I missed that Hot Wheels had released a BJ and the Bear truck.  I quickly checked the stores around me and came up completely empty.  Instead of doing a circuit of stores every week I decided to just order the truck on eBay.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about the toy itself.  The paint job is accurate to the show.  Under the driver’s window it even has the Billy Joe McKay scripting.  The packaging is basic, clean, and has a bit of a retro feel to it.  The only thing that may be confusing is it is sold as a Thunder Roller.  The Thunder Roller is just the name of Hot Wheels’ Kenworth K-100 cab over semi truck.  It’s a model they’ve been using since 1983 and has multiple different color variations.  If you’re a fan of truckers with a heart of gold you should track one down.  I’m going to go dig out my bootlegs.

Marvel and Netflix

Yesterday Marvel announced a new partnership with Netflix that will develop four series and a mini-series based on Marvel characters.  These live action shows are set to start Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage.  The press release goes on to say that Netflix has committed to “a minimum of four, thirteen episodes series and a culminating Marvel’s “The Defenders” mini-series event that reimagines a dream team of self-sacrificing, heroic characters.

 

It’s an exciting announcement and it raises a lot of questions.  For budget reasons, it was smart for them to focus on some of Marvel’s street level heroes.  The group of characters they picked play pretty nice together.  Luke Cage and Iron Fist are the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups of the Marvel Universe.  Jessica Jones and Luke Cage have a daughter named after Danny Rand aka Iron Fist.  And finally, Rand actually took over for Daredevil for a short period of time.  These series have a great potential to be interconnected awesomeness.  I’m not just saying that because Iron Fist is my favorite Marvel character.

The strange part is the mention of the “self-sacrificing” Defenders.  The way it is written makes it sound like the Defenders is going to be this team of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist.  If it was called Heroes of Hire that would make total sense.  The Defenders originally were Doctor Strange, Hulk, Namor, and the Silver Surfer.  There have been a few different versions of the Defenders team and Iron Fist was on one of them.  Doctor Strange has been in most of the Defenders’ lineups, so it is very possible he could be introduced in all of this. 

I really like Marvel’s street level characters, so to me this is probably the most exciting thing that has been announced in a while.  What do you think?

Talky Tina

Bif Bang Pow! has been doing some pretty neat things with the Twilight Zone license.  Figures, bobbleheads, and that wonderful “To Serve Man” journal.  Then they just had to go and do it, they’ve created a Talky Tina.  This 18 inch doll has eyes that open and close and speaks 5 lines that are straight from the original audio of her episode.  So it should sound perfect when she says, “My name is Talky Tina and I’m going to kill you.” 

 

This was the only episode of Twilight Zone that scared me as a kid.  It’s strange because I saw Trilogy of Terror around the same time and never had a problem with the Zuni but Tina scared the shit out of me.  Tina is going for around 150, insuring that she’ll never end up in my house.  I haven’t watched her episode since I was a kid.  It’s still scary to me that way and I think I like that.  Watching it now would probably destroy that feeling.

Shark Week Letdown

(Hey Ken, why are there two posts today?  Tuesday's update is posting early because I'm too pissed to wait another day).
Sunday night Discovery kicked off Shark Week.  It should be very obvious to anyone who spends any time on That F’ing Monkey that I love sharks.  I look forward to Shark Week every year and I’m excited that my birthday usually falls during the week.  That said I don’t think Discovery Channel’s offering is perfect.  The shows are too focused on the great white and shark attacks in general.  Considering how many shark species are threatened there should be a much larger conservation message.  I was prepared for those concerns; I wasn’t prepared for last night’s offerings.

 

The first show of the night was Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives.  Had this been a documentary about the prehistoric shark I would have been thrilled.  A shark that measured between 46 and 59 feet is ridiculously cool.  Instead this show was full of “found footage”, bad CGI, and misinformation.  Much like the mermaid special they ran, Discovery presents this information like it is fact.  I stuck it out for half an hour, hoping I could find something redeeming in this special but it defeated me.

I understand you may be confused at this point.  I’m the guy who loves Sharktopus.  I’m so excited for Syfy’s Ghost Shark that I can barely contain myself.  Why am I so upset about another channel running a shark focused mockumentary?  It all has to do with what channel it’s on.  Discovery channel is supposed to celebrate how amazing the Earth is.  It’s there to remind us how cool science it.  This is the channel that ran those wonderful “The World is Just Awesome (Boom De Yada) commercials”.   From whale sharks to dwarf lantern sharks, all of them are cool.  You don’t need made up flimflam to make an exciting shark special.

I look forward to the rest of the week but I’m really let down by Shark Week’s start.  You’re better than this Discovery channel.

IMFDB

As Clarence Boddicker once said, “Ooooh.  Guns, guns guns.  C’mon Sal.  The Tigers are playing…tonight.  I never miss a game.”  Guns are a very important part to a number of my favorite movies.  And everyone knows the famous ones.  Sure Bond has the Walther PPK and Dirty Harry has his Smith & Wesson Model 29, but what happens when you want to know what gun Terry Crews uses in the Expendables? 

Enter the IMFDB.  The Internet Movie Firearms Database might be the coolest website I’ve seen in a long time.  Pick a movie, television show, anime, or video game and it will tell you about all of the guns that are used in that property.  Decide you really like one gun and want to see everything it has been used in?  You can do that too.

It has crazy amounts of information too.  So say you look up one of my favorite guns, the AA-12.  The IMFDB will give you where it was made, what years it was produced, who makes it, it’s caliber, cartridge type, weight, length, barrel length, rate of fire, range, and feed system.  Once the hardcore gun statistics are there it lists the films, TV shows, and video games it’s been used in. 

If you like guns, you can seriously spend a lot of time clicking around the IMFDB.

Hangover Thursday: Winter Beer is Coming

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? Mine is clear this morning, I’m saving all my drinking for later this week when all the holiday shenanigans kick off. I might be brave enough to bust out the Tom and Jerry recipe this year but only time will tell.


Earlier in the year I showcased an artist who was making beer logos using the various factions of Game of Thrones. These types of designs are all over the internet and usually pop up on sites like Tee Magnet and Shirt Woot. I’m always divided on these things, I love the creativity in some of them but it is also strange to see someone selling things based on a licensed property that they have no claim to. Luckily I won’t have to feel bad when I enjoy an Iron Throne Blonde Ale.

Ommegang brewery has teamed HBO to create beer based on the Game of Thrones series. The very first beer, the Iron Throne Blonde Ale is going to be released in March. What else happens at the end of March? Oh yeah, the start of Season 3! This is an amazing tie in. Think of how many viewing parties are going to start off with people popping open a bottle of Iron Throne. It is going to be available in 750 ml bottles and on draft. They are currently working on sword-like tap handles. Game of Thrones tap handles. Does it need repeated one more time? Game of Thrones tap handles. That’s fucking awesome.

There are three more beers in the Game of Thrones line that are in the works. Ommegang is a good brewery though and they aren’t rushing this. The second beer won’t debut till fall and the other two beers probably won’t be released until the next seasons of the show are released. It’s a smart move, it shows they are actually thinking about the product and not just slapping new labels on existing brews.

A big thank you goes out to Carlos who sent me a heads up on this one.

Llama School

I’m extremely busy, so today I take you all to Llama School.  Besides it just seems like a musical week.

I miss Sifl and Olly.

RIP Jerry Nelson

I’ve got very sad news to report today. Long time Muppeteer Jerry Nelson died on August 23. He was 78. Like most of the Muppeteers you’ll probably recognize his characters much easier than you’ll recognize his name. Nelson was a long time member of the Henson group, going as far back as the Jimmy Dean show.

Jerry started working on Sesame Street during its second season. He stayed on the show for over 40 years. Back in 2004 he stopped performing his other Muppet characters but he continued to work on Sesame Street. During his time there he created Count von Count. He also preformed characters like Sherlock Hemlock, Herry Monster, the Amazing Mumford, Little Jerry, and Frazzle (one of my favorites).

He was a major player in the Muppets too. He was Floyd Pepper. He was also Robin, Cmilla, Pops, Dr. Julius Strangepork, Lew Zealand, Crazy Harry, and Uncle Deadly. In one of my favorite holiday movies Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas he played Emmet. In Fraggle Rock he was Gobo.

His performances played a major part in my childhood. The Muppets I’ve listed here are just a small portion of the characters he preformed. He was an amazing talent and his passing makes the world a little less magical.

Shark Week: The Jaws Edition

Shark Week is in full swing over at the Discovery channel. Tonight they are premiering the special, “How Jaws Changed the World.” I’ve already got my DVR set, but I’m sure I’ll be watching this one as it airs. Jaws is without a doubt one of my favorite movies and it’s probably the reason I love the lesser shark movies too. I’ve never thought about real life sharks as monsters though, way before I saw Jaws I had already fallen in love with the hammer head.

In an amazing coincidence Jaws was just released on BluRay. Shark Week is thick with commercials for it. As soon as I saw the first commercial the voice in my head screamed at me, “We need that!” That impulse is why at one point I somehow found myself owning 3 different versions of Jaws on DVD. I’m down to two now, and I need to compare the two editions I currently have and find a home for the other.

To further cement the Jaws/Shark Week connection there are currently two mobile phone games based on Jaws that are free to download during Shark Week! I’m on an iPhone so I can only vouch for their App Store, if you use something else you’ll have to check for yourself. The games are Jaws and Jaws Revenge. The Jaws game has you playing sheriff. The first stage has a beach full of swimmers and you have to flick them towards the shore. Jaws will swim across the beach and try to eat your vacationers, so you’ll have to maneuver the swimmers out of the shark’s path.

Other stages have you out in the open water. There isn’t a beach to flick your swimmers to; instead you also have to control rescue boats. The boats hold different amounts of people, so you’ll have to juggle all of these things to keep everyone from becoming shark food. It’s a fun diversion, but honestly if it wasn’t a free app I wouldn’t have downloaded it.

Jaws Revenge on the other hand is something I can see myself wasting a huge amount of time on. If you’ve ever played the Flash game Miami Shark you’ll be very familiar with this. You’re Jaws in this version, a very hungry version of Jaws. Pressing on the screen allows the shark to dive down, releasing sends it launching through the air. The game is full of things to eat; fish, birds, divers, skiers, etc. It is non-stop carnage.

The game does give you objectives. Things like eat 7 skiers before you reach the third buoy. When you meet these objectives you’re rewarded with shark tooth coins. Those coins allow you to upgrade your shark. Bigger health bars, more damaging bites, and others will help you hit your objectives faster and allow you to cause even more destruction. I downloaded both of these games while watching Sharkzilla last night and I think my shark in Jaws Revenge is already level 4.

Freaks and Creeps

I love animal shows. Animal Planet and Nat Geo Wild are constantly on my television. While I am completely addicted to Call of the Wildman, I’m mostly fascinated with the animals people don’t like. I want to see monitor lizards, snakes, eels, sharks, and Tasmanian devils. Thankfully Nat Geo Wild has a show full of the things I like seeing, it’s called Freaks and Creeps.

Lucy Cooke has made a number of different shows for channels like NatGeo, Discovery, and the BBC, but in this new show we really get to see her passion. There are millions of animals out there, let’s talk about the ones you don’t always see on television. The first episode I saw had her going to Borneo and ignoring orangutans; instead she focused on the proboscis monkey. Another episode heavily features the Tasmanian devil, an animal infinitely cooler than the Warner Brothers cartoon character of the same name.

It’s also nice to see a hosted animal show again. There have been so many reality shows on the animal channels I had forgotten how nice it was to have a hosted show. What is Jeff Corwin doing nowadays anyway? Lucy is genuinely funny. Her excitement about the animals she’s showing off is infectious. She also makes sure to make the researchers helping her look good. These people are doing things to help protect the animals the program is showcasing, their fifteen minutes of fame is well deserved.

If you see Freaks and Creeps is on, give it a try. You may get lucky and see the episode with the animal kingdom’s strangest penis.

Flash Friday: Big Bang II

Happy Flash Friday everyone! I’ve briefly mentioned that I don’t really care for the Big Bang Theory. I can’t seem to escape it though. For one, my wife loves the show. Now that it is syndicated it is hard to get away from. Wearing a Flash shirt out in public brings out the BBT fans too. We won’t discuss how many times I’ve been asked if Sheldon is my favorite character. Now you may be reading this and thinking, “Come on Ken, Sheldon isn’t that linked to the Flash.”

This is the Sheldon Wacky Wobbler Bobble-Head. I’ve never really understood bobble heads either, so this is like a double whammy. Despite wearing a Green Lantern shirt on the box, Sheldon is rocking the Flash shirt. As a side note, I don’t like bobble heads but I dig dashboard hula girls. It’s mostly the same concept, but the hula girl just seems cooler.

How about a Sheldon you can take to bed? Or turn into a Voodoo Doll. Yet again, that is unmistakably a Flash shirt. I feel bad for anyone actually buying this thing; the Flash shirt is the only thing that even gives you a clue that it’s supposed to be Sheldon. Even if I don't like the show, I can tell this is a pretty crappy product.  I've seen better likenesses from Claw Machine toys.

Eu Tu Funko? I’m a big fan of the Funko line. I have a Flash. I bought my wife a Beauty and the Beast. We have a plush Creature from the Black Lagoon. Of course their Sheldon is decked out in a Flash shirt. In their defense I think they are doing a couple different variants with different shirts. I couldn’t stay mad at Funko anyway.

Just recently stores started showing Big Bang costume shirts. Guess what Sheldon’s shirt has on it? Underneath the straps and other shirts is a Flash symbol peeking out. I think I probably need to stop at this point and say I have nothing against the actor playing Sheldon. Jim Parsons had a great cameo in the latest Muppet movie. I’m just starting to miss the days when everyone got Flash and Flash Gordon mixed up.

Hangover Thursday: Game of Breweries

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? I had a light drinking night last night, but I did hit my 50 beer milestone last night at World of Beer. A bottle of Guinness Foreign Extra was the beer that put me over. This week we are talking about beer that doesn’t exist.

Redbubble user Satansbrand has been busy designing beer labels based around George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones series. If you like one of the designs they are available as stickers and as shirts. I think the Night’s Watch label is pretty amazing, but it is combing one of my favorite beers with my favorite group from the series.

There are a lot more designs than just the Starks and the Night’s Watch. The Lannisters, Greyjoys, Baratheons, Tullys, Targaryens, and the Seaworth all get the beer label treatment. I really like the designs because to me, they seem subtly geeky, although I guess with the series success on HBO liking the fantasy series probably isn't seen as geeky anymore.  Check out Satansbrand’s portfolio to see them for yourself. He has a lot of other great rockabilly and luchador designs too.

Flash Friday: May the Fourth

Happy Flash Friday everyone! Today is also May the Fourth, a day seized by Star Wars fans because it sounds like “May the Force be with you.” So I know what you’re thinking, “Ken, how are you going to tie the Flash and Star Wars together?” Speedsters. Star Wars has its very own speedster, Teek. You may not be familiar with Teek, that’s okay. That F’ing Monkey has your back and today we’re going to forest moon of Endor.

Teek was one of the main characters in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. Battle for Endor was the second made for TV movie that starred the Ewoks. The first was Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure. At one point both of these were available on one DVD, but that has been out of print for awhile. I’m getting off track here, back to Teek. Teek is a member of a species that live on Endor’s moon called Teek (not a typo, the race and the character have the same name). The race is covered in white fur and has an extremely fast metabolism. They run so fast they are often seen as a blur. They did not always come from Endor and most other sentiments viewed them as pests and thieves.

Teek (the individual not the species) was the only friend of a stranded human hermit named Noa (played by Wilford Brimley). Earlier in the movie the Ewok village is attacked by a new group of villains and all of the human characters from the first move are killed; except for the little girl Cindel. The Marauders capture the Ewoks and only Cindel and Wicket manage to escape. Cute little girl + crotchety old man + 2 furry/cute comic relief characters = yeah you know exactly where this is going. The bad guys are stopped, the Ewoks are freed, Teek gets to live with the Ewoks, and Cindel goes off to live with Wilford Brimley and his newly fixed starship.  They probably eat oatmeal every morning, it's quite sappy.

Teek later showed up in the boarding video for Disney’s Star Tours ride. His costume must have been lying around when they were trying to find random aliens. A figure of him was released in the Star Tours Boarding party set that was sold at the Disney parks. He also showed up in some of the children's books based on Endor.

Before the Attack of the Clones came out there was an official website called the HoloNet news. It ran numerous news stories to give people a better idea what was going on in the galaxy before the movie. A good number of the articles were humorous or filled with obscure references. One of those articles was about the Mobquest Presents: Fastest Land Beings event. A Teek named Yeep hands down one the biped race. The Teek race was so unknown that his win was contested and he had to be declared “adequately sentient.” Once awarded his medal, Yeep tried to eat it.