I have a t-shirt that was given to me as a gift, depicting the “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” scene from Family Guy. For those who have never caught this scene, here ya go:
When I first saw that scene, I laughed because I understood the joke. But every time I wear the t-shirt, it’s felt like a curse because of how many people who comment on it truly didn’t.
The joke is a reference to a classic viral flash cartoon on the web, which you can still find here. It’s not even that old–it was made in 2002. However, to everyone who’s complimented me on my shirt, I’ve asked if they’ve seen the original flash and they have no idea what I’m talking about.
Most people know by now that Family Guy‘s humor is mostly derived of referential jokes. It’s what they’re famous for; it’s what they do best. Even if you don’t catch the reference, each time they make one, it rings of something related to pop culture. While Family Guy conjures plenty of it’s own original humor, something as wild as a banana dancing to a rap song about peanut butter and jelly isn’t exactly something that can be written. Yet when I mention it, people usually respond with, “Wait… That’s from something?”
This is driving me nuts.
I’ve always had a passion for understanding comedy, but one thing I may never fully understand is how different people’s sense of humor can be. If you don’t understand the reference, why is that scene funny to you? When I attempt to pick at people’s brains, I’ve been able to come up with two theories:
“Oh, this is a joke! I should laugh at it!”
People can usually recognize when a joke is in front of them, whether they get it or not. But there’s an insecurity inside them that doesn’t want to appear stupid to the people who do get the joke, so they laugh anyway. In a way, they think it’s funny because they are told that it’s funny, whether they genuinely find it humorous or not.
“Ha ha! Silly doggy sing and dancing crazy!”
I believe that most people don’t really mature much beyond their toddler years. Much of this can be reflected in their sense of humor. I love a good fart joke every now and then, but have grown to appreciate other concepts. Those whose tastes haven’t expanded beyond farts (ironically) will laugh at damn near anything.
I also think there’s a correlation depending on whether or not the person has children. There’s a phenomenon that I’ve noticed akin to Bill Cosby’s “My wife and I used to be intellectuals…” routine (found on the “Himself” album), where people who have children revert to being children themselves. It makes a certain amount of sense in that you have to regress yourself a bit in order to relate and communicate with the child, especially when humor is involved. Unfortunately, most adults tend to get stuck in this mode; maintaining the sense of humor of a 9-year-old while the child eventually grows and surpasses the parent in maturity. At least, until they have children of their own.
Maybe I’m being cynical about human behavior. Maybe I’m being a comedy snob. But maybe I’m on to something. In either case, I will do my part mend the ignorance. Here’s some knowledge:
My interview with Lindze Merritt went up last Friday and as far as I can tell, it’s been well-received. It’s since undergone some editing, in case anyone has not yet given it a read.
Before publishing my final draft, I sent a copy of the text to Lindze for approval. I always like to give my subject the final say over my copy in case something didn’t translate well during the initial editing process. By the time it was scheduled to go live, I hadn’t gotten a response, so I assumed no news was good news.
Unfortunately, the reason why I hadn’t heard from Lindze is because she doesn’t often check the email address that she’d given me to contact her. As a result, I got an email just yesterday from her thanking me for the great article, but with regret in some parts of our conversation that she didn’t intend to be made public. Specifically, details about her past relationship with comic book artist Jason Pearson.
I apologized for the slip and offered to revise it; omitting any details she was uncomfortable with. She sent me her notes and I made the changes immediately. This way–at the very least–future readers that discover the article won’t get that nose-deep into Lindze’s personal business.
To some, this may lose me some journalistic integrity, but I see it differently. My attitude toward every interview that I conduct is that the purpose of the piece is to make my subject look good, not me. The whole reason why I pitch these interviews is because I want to share with my readers how fascinating I think these people are. It also does me no good to exploit my subjects in the long run, since (God willing) I’d like to work with them again in the future.
On a humorous note, I do like to joke that I doubt my interviews ever do as well as I hope since I don’t exactly cater to GotGame’s core audience. I like to ask heady, humanizing questions like, “How do you maneuver yourself so you can wear that costume and breathe?” instead of what the readers would like to ask, “Ain’t you got some sweeeeet titties?” The interview would be over before it began and bridges would be forever burned.
I’m going to take a little bit of a break from cosplay interviews, just because I bit off more than I could chew with the last two. When I do jump back into the ring, I plan to work on my editing skills. Even if every line is gold, I need to learn what content to cut in order to keep the article from overwhelming the reader.
Another one of the most circulated cosplay photos found on the web is the above shot of Lindze Merritt as Morrigan from DarkStalkers. In fact, whenever I see a cosplay thread in any message board, the first picture to either be posted or requested is “the Morrigan pic”, displayed above. This photo was taken at Animazement 2006, which I attended, but alas I never had the pleasure of seeing her in the flesh.
I did however get to interview her for a recent article up on GotGame.com, found here. Lindze runs an online business, Genki Hats, where she sells all sorts of cute otaku hats.
There’s been an internet meme floating around for a while that has me tickled. It’s called “What I Watched, What I Expected, What I Got“. Basically, it’s a 3-panel comic strip where you post an anime (or game, or whatever) in the first panel. Then the second panel gives a visual of what you expected the experience to be going in, followed by a more accurate illustration of the experience in the third.
Many of these strips I’ve found to be dead-on with how I interpreted these shows myself after having seen them. Below I’ve posted a few of my favorites. How do they stack against your encounters with these shows?
As I’ve been interviewing various popular cosplay models, I’ve been joyed by each experience interacting and getting to know these fine ladies. Every one of them has been a delight–I find them sharp, approachable, and quite professional.
My current subject, Lindze Merritt, has been no exception.
I’ve tried something a little different with this interview in that I wanted to create as much of an organic experience as possible for the reader. I wanted to create content that was more engaging to read, instead of something that comes off like a simple FAQ. So rather than simply sending out a questionnaire and waiting for the responses, I asked Lindze to join me in an online chat. That way I could derive the material for my article from that conversation. This turned out to be the best idea I’ve ever had.
The one challenge I had with interviewing Lindze was doing my homework in order to prepare. Since Lindze started a family not too long ago, she’s kinda withdrawn her online presence. Thankfully, she was very open with me on providing some bio information beforehand, though there was still plenty to expand upon and discover during the live interview. This allowed for very genuine responses on both our ends.
One of the biggest surprises to me was that she has strong connections with Cartoon Network. When she’d told me in her bio info prior to the interview that she’d worked on some on-air Adult Swim promos, I assumed she meant working on the make-up, costumes, or other visual designs behind the camera. It turns out that (along with those things) she’s appeared in several of these spots, including a few I’d seen myself.
Here’s an example; one for Aqua Teen Hunger Force (that’s her in the background):
There are other promos that feature Lindze more visibly, but I’m saving those for when the interview is published.
We’ve had to split our interview session into two parts, since the first round went into unexpected overtime. We’ll be meeting again on Wednesday and then the interview should be up on GotGame.com by July 24th.
Of course, just before we parted after the first meeting, she dropped a heavy bomb on me that I then needed to be scraped off the floor with a paint stripper. You’ll get no spoilers of that here… You’ll just have to tune in this upcoming Friday for those details.
This is proof that you don’t need big, bouncy bikini boobs to give a faithful portrayal of Yoko Littner from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. After the big halfway point in Gurren Lagann, Yoko became a school teacher, wearing the outfit seen above.
If I have to nitpick this cosplayer, it’s that she forgot that Yoko has very yellow eyes. That’s okay, since Kumo has big, beautiful eyes, as necessary for bringing an animated character to life. Though perhaps she uses Eye Talk.
Here’s where I may need a little help with this, folks… I know nothing about the model featured above. All I know is that she’s been called Kumo and the photo was taken by a dude who goes by FULMTL. If anyone can provide more info, I’d love to hear it!
Filed under “Well THAT didn’t take long,” there is already a mod to make Cammy nude, just days after Street Fighter IV‘s release on PC.
I do appreciate that it was Cammy that was chosen for this mod, being a Cammy fan myself. Though there isn’t much to brag about, since Cammy’s costume is a form-fitting leotard. This mod just replaces the leotard texture with skin tones, nipples, and pubes. Alas, her breasts still look compressed against her torso, rather than swaying freely in liberation.
Had they stripped C. Viper down to her birthday suit, I might be more impressed. Though I suppose I should thank my lucky stars that it wasn’t Sakura. Instead, Sakura was given an ape face with Zangief’s moves.
I was hoping to play some of Vanguard Princess and post an article with my thoughts, but I’m having trouble getting it to run on my aged desktop. It probably has to do with a language setting, but once I get it figured out, I’ll sink my teeth into it and share my two cents.
Here’s really all you need to know for now: It’s free.
Vanguard Princess is a doujin 2D fighting game made in part by a guy who used to work at Capcom. It has some gorgeous graphics with your typical anime girl art style. If you’d like to download it yourself, you can easily acquire it here.
In the meantime, I’ll post a fairly clean video that demonstrates the game so that you can at least get a sense of it. Just by visuals alone, that’s damn good showmanship for freeware.
This week’s X-Button column over at Anime News Network also has a cool piece on hot doujin fighters, including Vanguard Princess and my personal favorite, Melty Blood.
Okay, so I finally got around to seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I haven’t been that interested since I didn’t like the first movie, but everyone I know wants to talk about it and insisted I see it ASAP. So here goes…
