Merry Christmas, everyone. In the last episode of Casual Chats for 2016, Patricia and special guests Manic Expression members RowdyC, Some Jerk from Boston, Whyboy, and new guest Nero Angelus discuss about the 19 Rankin-Bass Christmas specials and decide on which still have the charming Christmas spirit and which deserve to placed on the naughty list. Get comfortable, it's our longest podcast to date.
Intro and outro of the Rankin-Bass Guitar Medley done by Nick Tsakir.
Day 3 of our 5 year anniversary celebration now takes us from blog to podcasts. Back in November 12, 2012, Kevin and I wanted to have some more content on the Old School Lane blog that was simple and fun to produce since we were still limited on producing videos due to outdated computers and no knowledge on editing them. Since then, we've done close to 100 podcasts from Casual Chats, Turtle Talk, and Nick Jukebox. But which ones have been my favorites? Again, this was very tough to do since a lot of them have been fun. But then again, a lot of the earlier podcasts are so painful to listen to because Kevin and I had crappy microphones and the background noise and echoing is a lot more noticeable. So with that said, here are the podcasts I've had the most fun doing.
10. Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 61: Good and Bad Reboots, Remakes, and Revivals
Around that time, recent reboots such as Ghostbusters 2016, the Powerpuff Girls reboot, the Ben 10 reboot, and Teen Titans Go! was reviled on the Internet, Manic Expression members Jim and Kyle, Re-Open Nickelodeon Studios founder Zac, and myself talked about the good ones to show the listeners that they do exist and are sometimes needed. Of course we did talk about the bad ones, but that wasn't our main focus. The point was that sometimes reboots, remakes, and revivals are needed because the originals can be retooled and be just as important and beloved.
9. Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 64: The Carmen Sandiego Franchise
The beginning of the Carmen Sandiego Retrospective kicked off with RowdyC, That Long Haired Creepy Guy, Jockerlee77, Ingoyama70, and myself talking about the video games, game shows, and animated series. We had a lot of fun memories to share and lots of laughs when talking about Carmen's henchmen and the crazy over-the-top items they stole. Carmen Sandiego was a massive franchise from my childhood and I had a blast sharing it with them. For those who are asking, yes I will continue the retrospective next year.
8. Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 58: Pee-wee's Big Holiday
This podcast felt like going back to my original roots of how Old School Lane got started. In this episode Jaimetud, Jim, Alex, and Inside Pee-wee's Playhouse author Caseen Gaines talked about the newest Pee-wee Herman movie in almost 30 years titled Pee-wee's Big Holiday. We briefly talked about Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Big Top Pee-wee, The Pee-wee Herman Show, and Pee-wee's Playhouse. Afterwards, we talked about the movie and some of us are very mixed on the overall film. Who knows at this point if Pee-wee will be relevant for the new generation, but for those who grew up with it still hopes that he can still be around after the movie.
7. Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 46: Tiny Toon Adventures
It was the 25th anniversary of Tiny Toon Adventures and Kevin and I talked about the shows from our favorite episodes, characters, and the movie How I Spent My Summer Vacation. We had so much fun talking about the show since it was one of our favorite cartoons of the 90's and a few people also posted their comments on Tiny Toons. We will definitely cover the other Spielberg cartoons in the future.
6. Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 37: All That
It was the 20th anniversary of All That so Manic Expression member The Cartoon Hero, For Entertainment's Sake co-founder John, and myself talked about our fond memories of the show as well as our favorite skits, cast members, and the controversial revival era. We had a lot of laughs about the skits and jokes that were featured in the show as well as talking about the so bad, it's good Good Burger movie. This podcast has become a favorite for a lot of people, including myself.
5. Old School Lane Casual Chats: Ghostbusters/Back to the Future
In the Ghostbusters podcast, Manic Expression founder James quoted saying "I can't think about Ghostbusters without Back to the Future". I can see why since they're both classic 80's comedies with memorable characters, sci-fi elements, and quotable lines. With the Ghostbusters podcast, it featured James, Alex, Klancy, Kevin, Gurning Chimp, and myself talking about the two movies, the two animated series, and the recent Ghostbusters video game. There was also the talk that Ghostbusters 3 was never going to happen since Harold Ramis had recently passed away and I even brought up the idea that the only way that Ghostbusters can come back to theaters is if they did a remake of it. Well, guess what? They did do a remake of it. I'm sure we'll do a podcast on it in the future.
As for the Back to the Future podcast, James, RowdyC, That Long Haired Creepy Guy, Alex, Martin, Kevin, Kevin's friend James, and myself talked about the movies and animated series. We went in depth with 3 of the movies, the animated series, the change of the rating system, the PG-13 and R-rated movies that were made into cartoons for kids, and why some people didn't want to see Ghostbusters or Back to the Future remade. It has been the longest podcast for over a year lasting for over 2 hours, but it will be replaced real soon with the upcoming Christmas podcast.
4. How the 3 Original Nicktoons Influence Pop Culture w/Mathew Klickstein and Caseen Gaines
During 3 Original Nicktoons Month, I was doing podcasts about Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren & Stimpy Show and how much they became an influence. I did one on Casey and Ashli from The Friday Night Nicktoons Podcast about how much it influenced entertainment, but the one with Mathew and Caseen where we talked about how the Nicktoons influence pop culture was my favorite. Since Mathew and Caseen were pop culture enthusiasts who loved the Nicktoons, I thought it was perfect to have them as guests talking about this topic. I have had Mathew and Caseen in podcasts, but this was the first time that they've been together and hearing them talk was so fascinating. Even giving my 2 cents on the subject was fun as well.
3. Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 23: The Adventures of Pete & Pete
This podcast means a lot to me in multiple ways. It was the 20th anniversary of my favorite Nickelodeon live action show and it was the first podcast where I was recording podcasts on my sister's hand-me-down laptop as oppose to the old, bulky computer I was using for 2 years and would use it until a year later when I bought a brand new and updated laptop with my tax money. In this episode, Kevin, Alex, his brother Nick, and Jim talked about The Adventures of Pete & Pete, our favorite episodes, characters, and the soundtrack. This will be the oldest podcast that'll be on this list, but regardless, it's one that I have fondness for.
2. Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 40: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Now, let's talk about a podcast based on my favorite Nicktoon. It was the 10th anniversary of the critically acclaimed animated show and is tied with the most amount of guests next to the first Christmas podcast. In it, Jim, That Long Haired Creepy Guy, TheOtherDude92, John and Douglas from For Entertainment's Sake, Timdiana and his brother Patrick, The Cartoon Hero, Comic Book Cast member Joel, and myself talked about the show, the characters, the soundtrack, the settings, and the crappy movie. Because there were so many people with different personalities, it was such a blast with all of us talking about the show. There was so much to talk about that we went about it for about 2 hours. I'm sure in the future, there will be a podcast on The Legend of Korra.
1. Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 62: Metroid
It's no secret that I love the Metroid franchise. So when the 30th anniversary of Metroid was approaching, especially when Nintendo wasn't doing anything to celebrate it, I felt like I needed to show my love for these amazing games. In it, Jim, Lily from Dom and the Chapel of Church, and myself talked about the Metroid franchise from praising Super Metroid to bashing Metroid: Other M. It was also the same day that Another Metroid 2 Remake was released, so it was a fantastic day for Metroid fans. I had so much fun and felt so much happiness doing a podcast on my favorite video game franchise.
That's it for now. Tune in next time as I go over my top 10 podcast interviews. Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Thanks for reading.
Day 2 of Old School Lane's 5th anniversary celebration has arrived and this time, I will countdown my top 10 favorite interviews Kevin and I have done via blog. When Kevin and I were first starting Old School Lane, we were thinking of what content to put in. Kevin suggested that we should interview actors, actress, and show creators on our blog. I thought that it would never happen in a million years since neither of us were famous content creators or journalists. We were just two pop culture enthusiastic nerds with no connections or recognition online. But 5 years later, we were able to pull it out with over 60 special guests. From 2012 to 2013, we interviewed close to 30 people on our blog so choosing 10 of them was very difficult. But, with a sad heart, I was able to whittle it down to 10. With that said, let's begin.
Originally posted on September 14, 2012, this was during the time where we did a week dedicating to Hey Arnold! with reviewing the show, doing our top 10 list, and interviewing 3 of the voice actors involved with the show. Out of the three, Ben Diskin had a nice mixture of talking about his early years of voice acting, his well known characters, and advice for anyone who wants to pursue in an acting career. While he didn't remember his experience working in Hey Arnold, he still had a love for the show and had respect with all the people who worked on it, including Craig Bartlett.
Originally posted on November 30, 2012, Kevin had just finished reviewing Invader Zim and we wanted to have an interview with someone who worked on the show. We wrote to various voice actors, but the one who responded back to us was Wally Wingert, the voice of Almighty Tallest Red. He talked about his influences, his love of Batman, and his other voice acting roles such as The Riddler from the Batman: Arkham games, Jon Arbuckle from The Garfield Show, and more. He gave some good tips on voiceover work and was a very nice guy, overall. Nowadays, he has been casted as voicing Oskar Kokoshka in Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie. It would be nice to have him as a guest for Casual Chats for a followup interview, but for now, our interview with him was a good one.
Originally posted on November 2, 2012, I had just finished reviewing Taina and had gotten a hold of the actress who played as the main character of the overlooked 2001 live action Nickelodeon show. She talked about her years acting in movies and TV shows, being a singer, an acting coach, and her experiences working on Taina. Taina was one of my favorite shows around the early 2000's, so it was an honor to get a hold of her talking to her about the program. Since our interview, Christina has been in other TV shows such as Code Black, The Night Shift, and Blue Bloods. It's nice that she's continuing to appear in more programs, but I'll always know her as Taina.
Originally posted on July 6, 2012, Noel MacNeal is a puppeteer who has worked on Sesame Street before working on the Nick Jr. program Eureeka's Castle as the lovable dragon Magellan. He talked about his experience working on Sesame Street, the movie Follow That Bird, Eureeka's Castle, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3, and Bear in the Big Blue House. He said some really cool stories on each of those shows and movies and some puppet techniques. Nowadays, he's working on an upcoming online puppet program called The Show Me Show to help and teach lessons for autistic children. It's nice to see Noel continuing as a puppeteer for a brand new generation of kids and hopefully will inspire them as much as he inspired Kevin and myself over 25 years ago.
Originally posted on August 16, 2012, after I reviewed All That, I interviewed 3 of the show's cast members. Out of the 3, Alisa's was my favorite. She talked about her years in acting in both All That and The Proud Family as well as her experience in being a DJ for Playboy Radio on SiriusXM. She has been very supportive for Old School Lane throughout the years and even had a cameo in Should We Say Goodbye to Halcyon Days? Regardless, she continues to pursue in many forms of media from TV, singing, writing, and online content.
Originally posted on January 23, 2013, it was part of a week dedicating to ChalkZone. I had first reviewed the show, interview Candi Milo, the voice of one of the main characters Snap, and then interviewed Bill Burnett, the co-creator of ChalkZone. He also wrote a few episodes and even wrote every single song on the series. He talked about his musical influences, working on various shows like Cow and Chicken, dispelling the rumors that Simon and the Land of Chalk Drawings was NOT an influence of ChalkZone, and what were his favorite songs that he wrote in the series. It was nice to hear from the man behind another overlooked Nickelodeon show that most people probably didn't know about. Afterwards, I did my top 10 ChalkZone songs list because I had loved the songs that Bill wrote in the show. It's one of my favorite Nickelodeon soundtracks. About two years later, I purchased an unreleased ChalkZone CD from Bill's website and even did an unboxing video on it if you're interested in checking it out.
Originally posted on July 12, 2012, this was after the Are You Afraid of the Dark? review and the interview with Ross Hull who played as the leader of the Midnight Society Gary. After that, we interviewed the creator of the classic SNICK show himself. We talked about his influences, his favorite episodes of the series, his favorite characters, and his book series Pendragon. One of the statements that made the interview stand out was when he said that the live action shows of Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel were so similar that if you put the two of them side by side, you wouldn't know the difference. Even years after we interviewed him, that statement is still true. I have since wrote to D.J. a few months ago to get some information about the canceled Are You Afraid of the Dark? movie to discuss about for Nicksmissal III so we occasionally still keep in touch.
Originally posted on July 6, 2012, it was posted on the same day as the interview with Noel MacNeal. It made sense since Cheryl is also a puppeteer who previously worked on Sesame Street before being playing as the main character Eureeka from Eureeka's Castle. She talked to us about some behind the scene stories on the show and the experiences with working on Sesame Street and Muppets Take Manhattan. Since then, we kept in touch with her a year later when he met her in person at Columbus Circle in NYC talking for almost an hour about more information on Eureeka's Castle and The Muppets. It was an amazing experience, especially since Eureeka's Castle was a show that we grew up with. She also made a cameo appearance in Should We Say Goodbye to Halcyon Days? which was just incredible.
Originally posted on September 25, 2012, we posted it on the same day as the Oh Yeah! Cartoons review. Kevin and I asked him so many questions from working on advertisement for Nickelodeon and MTV, where the splat logo came from, being the last president of Hanna Barbera, and so much more. He was very nice and took time from his very busy schedule for us to interview him. It's still shocking that almost 5 years later, we would be partnering with his YouTube channel. It's so surreal thinking about that now.
Originally posted on June 28, 2012, it was our very first blog interview and it's still my favorite. It's the only one on this list that didn't involve with Kevin and I sending our questions via email. It was instead a phone interview and I had actually recorded the conversation on Windows Sound Recorder. I wrote down my questions and Marc's answers on the blog and saved it the audio until I could find a way to post it. But then the computer tower died and I had lost the phone call forever. While I was saddened that I had lost it, it kind of was made up with Kevin and I met Marc at the Slimed! book event at 92Y a year later. We were beyond excited when he remembered us. Then two years later, I did a video about Marc Summers for the On Your Marc YouTube channel, which was an honor to do.
That's all for now. Tune in next time as I countdown my top 10 favorite podcast episodes. Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Thanks for reading.
It's December, which means that the holidays are approaching whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Winter Solstice. But here at Old School Lane is another celebration, our 5th year anniversary. On December 21, 2011, Old School Lane first started on Tumblr before moving into Blogger and started off posting their content. Before posting our podcasts Casual Chats and way before doing our videos, Old School Lane's main content were blog articles. Looking back at all of them recently, most of them don't hold up. Especially since in our early years, it was very experimental on what kind of content we wanted to post. Also, doing simple reviews when doing the Nickelodeon Tribute wasn't what I wanted to do on the first place, but instead a full blown video retrospective on Nickelodeon's history. However, back then I had an old computer that was limited on pretty much on everything and I had little to no knowledge on video or audio editing like I do today. So, at a time in which I was unemployed, my spare time was posting multiple articles every month since I was planning on covering all the Nickelodeon shows that one summer in 2012 after marathoning through the shows and movies for 6 months. That was a mistake and I should have wrote my opinions on the shows and movies while they were fresh on my mind. I have since learned my lesson.
So with that said, I will dedicate this month to talk about my favorite blog articles, blog interviews, podcast episodes, podcast interviews, and videos. Let's start with the blog articles and talk about the ones I'm still proud of.
Originally posted on June 20, 2015, this was a response to all the negative critiques of the Metroid fans when they found out that Blast Ball, which was a game featured in the Nintendo World Championship 2015 tournament event, was actually a minigame featured in the newest game in the franchise. It wasn't a followup to Metroid Fusion or Metroid Prime 3 like everyone wanted. It was a spinoff title that focused on the Galatic Federation. Not only that, it was a multiplayer game. This was a game that had gotten immediate hate when the trailer was posted on YouTube which had the most dislikes to a game I've seen yet. I posted my thoughts saying that the Metroid franchise has experimented with spinoff titles in the past such as Metroid Prime Pinball and Metroid Prime Hunters. Whether you cared for those games or not, at least Nintendo was trying to branch out the Metroid franchise with other genres. It worked for Mario and Kirby. But many wanted a great Metroid game to wash out the bad experience that Metroid: Other M left behind and Metroid Prime: Federation Force wasn't it. From what I heard from the reviews, it's an okay game. But this game was pretty overshadowed when Milton "DoctorM64" Gausti posted Another Metroid 2 Remake online a few weeks prior.
I'm very proud of the article I posted based on a pretty controversial topic, especially one on my favorite video game franchise. I don't really like to talk about controversial topics, but seeing the piles of hate that Metroid Prime Federation Force was getting, I felt like I needed to say something.
I know that this is cheating, but I couldn't decide between these 3. Lindsey "Z" Briggs, Derek Alexander, and Keith "Gexup" Weber were some of my major influences in posting contents online. So, let's take a look at each of them one at a time.
Originally posted on January 29, 2014, I wrote this list a day after I posted my interview with Lindsey on Casual Chats. It was also International Women's Day so it was perfect to post it. Back in 2007, there were a group of people who posted various skits and videos about video games on a website called PBC Productions. One of the videos that was showcased was Little Miss Gamer were Lindsey would talk about video games in a more positive note. In a time where people wanted to be the next James Rolfe and talk about bad NES games, Lindsey or "Z" was the complete opposite. However, she had released her last video in 2010 where she was depressed that her favorite Xbox 360 game 1 vs. 100 was removed on the Xbox Live Arcade room. Since then, no one knew what happened to her. That's what I wanted to find out. So, it took me a few months to get a hold of her, but I eventually did and we talked for 30 minutes about her years at PBC Productions and what she was doing now. As of the writing of this article, I was the last person who interview Lindsey about Little Miss Gamer. Since then, she and her husband PBC Productions member Chad Williams have started a puppet company called Wonderspark Puppets and they have two kids. So it makes a lot of sense that she no longer posts videos online anymore. Regardless, I still miss her work. Even still to this day, her style of video game reviews are still unique and charming. Now, to the top 10 list. I'm still proud of my choices and wouldn't change it. Moving on.
Originally posted on January 12, 2015, I wrote this list shortly after Derek announced that he was dropping the Happy Video Game Nerd and rebranded himself as Stop Skeletons From Fighting, but a few months after interviewing him on Casual Chats. Going back 10 years ago when everyone was trying so hard to be the next James Rolfe and failing, we have another video game reviewer who talked about games in a positive way. In Derek's case, he talks about underrated or overlooked games that he felt needed more attention. When learning that he was going to no longer be reviewing games under the Happy Video Game Nerd name, I decided to look back at 7 years of his content and choose which ones were my favorites. There were a lot of videos that I wanted to put on the list, but the ones I had chosen were the ones I had watched the most. I'm sure down the line when Derek celebrates his 10 year anniversary of posting video game reviews, I'll probably do a list on his best Stop Skeletons From Fighting videos, but for now, I'm content with my choices.
Originally posted on April 27, 2015, I wrote this list shortly after Gexup announced that he was going to make a huge comeback with new videos and podcasts. For a while, he did with doing a wrestling/video podcast, but as time went on, he quit posting content again. He even deleted his YouTube channel and making his final video about why. Since then, he pretty much disappeared from the online world.
So, similar to Lindsey, I was the last person who ever interviewed him as a guest for a podcast right before he stopped doing video game reviews. It's a shame that he doesn't do it anymore since the world of video games, especially platforming games, has expanded so much since then with the advent of indie titles. I would have loved for him to talk about Rayman Legends, the Ratchet & Clank movie, Super Mario 3D World, Sly 4, Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze, Shovel Knight, and Yooka-Laylee. But at this point in time, it'll never happen. I have yet to find someone who had a love of platforming games and various video game genres like Gexup did. The list I did are great examples on some of his best videos. Sure, some of them are not about video games. But they're still great and one of the many reasons why he was one of my major inspirations. Luckily, there's one person who's archived most of his videos on YouTube for you to check out.
Originally posted on July 11, 2013, I have done blog articles celebrating anniversaries on movies, TV shows, and video games from Contra, Double Dare, Castlevania, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. But the Weinerville article is my favorite. This is one of my favorite Nickelodeon shows of the 90's and pretty much no one was going to do a 20th anniversary celebration of it because it has nowhere near the impact that other programs like Double Dare and the 3 original Nicktoons did. So, after Kevin and I interviewed Marc, I did a quick recap on the show, wanting to see the show remade, and why it was overlooked when it first aired in 1993. So because I knew that no one was going to do a tribute to Weinerville, I decided to take this opportunity to my full advantage. While it's a shame that Weinerville is pretty much obscure by practically everyone, the few people who love it really love it including myself and Kevin. Speaking of obscure.
Originally posted on January 5, 2013, I posted a list on my all time favorite Nickelodeon shows that don't get the recognition they deserve. Whether they were considered too odd for a general audience, overshadowed by more popular shows, overhated by the fans for the wrong reasons, or were too ahead of their time, I discussed about these programs that need to be more acknowledged and even still to this day, they're still overlooked. I think with the exception of As Told by Ginger and The Angry Beavers in which that's gotten a slightly bigger following due to reruns airing on The Splat as well as KaBlam!, Catscratch, and ChalkZone having a cult following online, and The Mysterious Cities of Gold having a continuation series in France, no one really talks in depth about these Nickelodeon shows. While I respect Nick News, I shouldn't have had it as my #1 choice. I do agree that it's underrated and very overhated, it should have been lower on the list. I would have had Caitlin's Way as #1 because it's almost 17 years old and no one knows that it exists. Trust me, that'll change in the beginning of next year.
First of all, holy crap! I'm so sorry for the long title. I didn't know what to call it at the time, but man that title is a tongue twister. Anyway, continuing on.
Originally posted on May 12, 2015, during the time when Nickelodeon's ratings were at an all time low, I wrote a hypothetical article about what would happen if the people who worked at Nickelodeon during the 80's and 90's decided to group up together and create their own original programs on a new network or online. I stated that the people who created those shows had so much freedom that they made timeless programs that both kids and adults love even still to this day and ever since they left, the corporate minds at Nickelodeon took away the low budget, unpolished, yet realistic charm and replaced it with a refined, safe, and uninspired cash-ins as their major programming. This was during the time where indie games blew up the video game industry and since Mitchell Kriegman was doing Things I Can't Explain and John K. did a Kickstarter on Cans Without Labels, I wanted to see the other creators do that. But nowadays, Chris Viscardi is the vice president of content development and he's been leading the charge of doing TV movies based on classic shows with Legends of the Hidden Temple, Hey Arnold, Rocko's Modern Life, and possibly Rugrats and Invader Zim. Not to mention that Marc Summers, Harvey, and Robin did the Double Dare reunion special. So it looks like Nickelodeon are starting to care about their past as oppose to completely ignore it. I would still like to see the former Nickelodeon creators to do new projects, but for now, this is a happy medium. Overall, while this article is a huge stretch that it'll ever happen, but I still had fun writing it.
Originally posted on April 2, 2013, I decided to come clean with my struggles and accomplishments with having Asperger's Syndrome and with it being Autism Awareness Month, I thought it was appropriate. I basically spilled my guts on screen and told my story on how I was teased as a kid, how I wanted to be like a normal person, and how I felt that I was a big loser who hasn't really done anything. I said that even further in my milestone birthday video, Should We Say Goodbye to Halcyon Days? Since then, I have had a few people telling me that they have either autism or Asperger's Syndrome and that it was cool to know that I had it. That's awesome to hear.
Again, long title, past me. Anyway, originally posted on October 4, 2014, I talked about the 5 adult programs that features puppets that I liked, but doesn't get a lot of praise. Sure, a lot of people would bring up Avenue Q or Crank Yankers, but these are just as good. Actually, they're way better than Crank Yankers because that show sucks. I really want to do a remake on this topic in the form of a video because when I wrote this article, I hadn't seen Silf and Olly or Greg the Bunny in years. I really need to rewatch them to see how well they hold up. As for the online content with puppets, the only one that's still continuing is Glove and Boots. Neil's Puppet Dreams and Sockpuppet Theatre pretty much stopped due to the creators being incredibly busy. This was something they did on their spare time and it's too bad they didn't continue with it. Oh well, regardless, they're still amazing.
Originally posted on December 31, 2011 on Tumblr (yes, Old School Lane first had a Tumblr page to post content), it was the very first article I ever posted online back when Old School Lane was only less than a week old. I had just finished watching The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway on HBO and had loved it. I remembered that there was an article online that talked about his best moments of 2010, but I felt that he did amazing things in 2011 so I wrote it. Little did I know that the next day on New Years Day 2012, I had received an email from tumblr saying that Pee-wee tweeted my Tumblr article. I couldn't believe it and was so excited that he really like my article so much that he shared it on his Twitter and Facebook page where his fans would see. It gave me a spark of confidence that I can post articles and people would like it. During a time in which I was unemployed, doing Old School Lane was a blessing for me and I have Paul Reubens to partially thank.
Originally posted on July 31, 2016, this is the most recent article I posted that will be on this list. Around this time, I had gone through some up and downs with my content. I had my life threatened by a troll and became scared and took a hiatus for two weeks, but I had gotten more subscribers and viewers on the Old School Lane YouTube channel. After things calmed down, I then wrote an article about my experiences on the pros and cons on posting content online about movies, TV shows, and video games. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback, but I've also had some disagreements and even arguments on my opinions. While it has been a hassle dealing with the trolls, it makes it all the worth while where a person takes the time to say a heartwarming and uplifting message when you put all your time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears into your content. I'm still very proud of this article even though it's a recent article. But #1 is one of my oldest articles.
Originally posted on October 5, 2012, this was my first analysis article I ever posted which would lead up to other articles and later on my analysis videos. This was considered to be a controversial article since it's, oh my God, it's an article talking about whether Nickelodeon shows from the 90's were still good or not. I had mentioned that while there are a lot of great Nickelodeon shows from the 90's, there are a lot of them that aren't really that good because they haven't aged very well or they were terrible to begin with. This was also when people were deep in 90's nostalgia and people were dismissing the Nickelodeon shows from the 2000's saying that they all sucked. I defended that there are some Nickelodeon shows from the 2000's that are good and not all Nickelodeon shows from the 90's were masterpieces. Instead of getting hate, I had gotten a lot of positive feedback. This article has won Outstanding Blog of the Week and Outstanding Blog of the Year on Manic Expression. It was also where I learned that doing deep analysis on topics was more my style than doing a standard review. Not that I don't have respect for people who do reviews, but I have neither the humor or charisma to pull it off. This article was the stepping stone to other similar content I would post over the next few years.
That's all for now. Tune in tomorrow as we continue my lookback of 5 years of Old School Lane with a countdown on my favorite blog interviews. Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Thanks for reading.
A few days ago, I went over to Paradise City Comic Con over at the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center. It was once known as Magic City Comic Con which was at the Miami Convention Center, but the Miami center is currently being renovated and the remaining South Florida anime/video game/comic book conventions will be held at Ft. Lauderdale. With it being a newly named convention, it was smaller than Florida Supercon, but there were still plenty of fun activities to do and lots of awesome guests to meet.
Michael Maronna and Danny Tamberelli
Mike and Danny were both in The Adventures of Pete & Pete as the Pete brothers. I had already met Mike a few years ago at the Slimed! book event at NYC, but this was the first time I met Danny. They were really awesome guys as we briefly talked about Pete & Pete, the book event, and them even talking about a possible reunion next year. I even wore my Polaris t-shirt proudly as I got my picture with them. Danny autographed my Slimed! book next to Mike's autograph.
Later that day, I went to the Pete & Pete panel where Danny and Mike answered questions from the fans about things from the show, Home Alone 2, The Mighty Ducks, and All That. They told a lot of stories that made everyone in the audience laugh. It was even better when an unexpected guest showed up. Joey Fatone from NSYNC appeared asking a bunch of questions that the fans had already asked making the audience laugh even harder. He even called himself Frank saying that he wasn't Joey Fatone, but we all knew he was. It was, hands down, the best convention panel I've been to yet.
After the Pete & Pete panel, I walked over to Joey's desk and got a picture with him.
Lori Alan
Lori Alan is a voice actress known for characters such as Pearl from SpongeBob SquarePants, Diane Simmons from Family Guy, and even voiced Chairry on The Pee-wee Herman Show in LA. She was very nice and next to her was Rodger Bumpass, the voice of Squidward from SpongeBob. I had already met him at Florida Supercon two years ago and it was nice to see him again. I even went to their panel where a lot of kids showed up asking a ton of questions about SpongeBob. I was the only one who didn't ask questions on SpongeBob asking Lori about her experience with Paul Reubens at The Pee-wee Herman Show and Rodger about his experience working as the Chief in Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? It was a lot of fun, especially when seeing the kids smile whenever Lori and Rodger quoted lines as their characters.
Afterwards, I went over to meet up with Melissa Fahn, a voice actress well known for characters such as Edward from Cowboy Bebop and Gaz from Invader Zim. I asked her to autograph my Invader Zim DVDs adding her signature to my collection alongside Richard Horvitz, Rikki Simons, and Rodger Bumpass.
Next, I went to a few more panels such as Dante Basco's panel, an actor known for his roles as Rufio from Hook and Prince Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was pretty awesome that a group of people remembered that the day he was doing the panel was the 25th anniversary of Hook and surprised him with a cake. There were questions about Hook, Avatar, working with The Nostalgia Critic, working with Mako, and representing Filipino actors. I met him afterwards and he was a pretty cool guy.
I later went to the Disney trivia panel and paired up with two Disney fans who were cosplayed as Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Cooking Mama. We worked together to answer various questions from animated Disney movies, Star Wars, Marvel movies, and the Disney theme park attractions. We won 3rd place and had gotten Disney tattoos and an Ariel pin. I gave it to my sister as a gift since The Little Mermaid is one of her favorite Disney movies and Ariel is her favorite Disney princess.
I stayed until almost closing time and walked around to enjoy the last round of activities. I walked towards Tad Stones' table and asked him for a picture with him. Tad Stones is known for being the creator of Darkwing Duck. He even gave me a sketch of Darkwing Duck that he was drawing for free and autographed it.
I then went over to the video game room and played some Super Smash Bros. Melee with some people until it was closing time. I came home tired and starving, but it was the happiest I've been in months after going through a lot of personal issues and depression. It was just the thing I needed.
That's all for now. Tune in next time as I countdown my top 20 Hey Arnold episodes, do an analysis video on the Hey Arnold Christmas special, and release the last podcast of 2016. Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Thanks for reading.
On November 23, 2015, an article on Variety was posted saying that Nickelodeon was planning on doing TV movies based on the shows from the 90's with the first one being Hey Arnold! It had gotten even more exciting when it was revealed that the plot of the TV movie was going to be about Arnold searching for his missing parents. While for the younger audience, they have to wait until next November, the fans who grew up with the show had to wait almost 15 years for this movie which would've been in the form of a theatrical film called The Jungle Movie which was planned to be released in 2002.
However, it was canceled from being shown and afterwards, there was a long fight from the dedicated Hey Arnold! fans to get the movie greenlit. But how did this happen? Why did Nickelodeon cancel the project in the first place? What was creator Craig Bartlett doing after Hey Arnold! was finished? How did we get up to this point where The Jungle Movie will be coming out? Well sit back and relax and we go over the long history of Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie.
Special thanks to Operation Ruthless and the Hey Arnold! Save the Jungle Movie Facebook page for your non-stop determination to get The Jungle Movie greenlit.
Special thanks to Arun Mehta for letting me borrow a clip from your podcast interview with Craig Bartlett and for your wonderful support. http://arunmehta.co.uk
