Blogs Against Humanity - Adventures in Sympathetic Misanthropy

  So, the reaper has struck another celebrity, and what a shitty week-plus of deaths too: Hayden Panettiere, Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and now Peter Cullen , a decades-long voice-actor whom most people know as none other than Optimus Prime . All of these were sad, particularly the death of Panettiere, who died far too young as was essentially yet another victim of the Hollywood machine that chews up child stars. We failed to save the cheerleader, it would seem, but I digress.  When I think of fictional heroes from my youth, my small list is pretty crystalized in my mind. I think of Captain James T Kirk, Spider-Man, Superman, the Fourth Doctor, and I think of Optimus Prime.   Peter Cullen gave a toy a soul, and did such a good job that Hasbro didn't even realize that the fans cared. Killing off Optimus Prime in Transformers: The Movie was an easy business decision for them because of that ignorance, but a sea of subsequent parental complaints revealed it to have b...

"Look, we've only just met. I'm not really ready for the sort of commitment that holding-hands entails!"   Want to know something that I find just a touch odd? I can't really remember which horror-film I saw first as a child. I find it strange because I can recall snippets of going to the movies with my mom and dad, and seeing 1973's THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD, and THE TOWERING INFERNO in 1974, something which inspired four-year-old me to draw a hi-rise fire the very next day, and to briefly dream of becoming a firefighter when I grew up.  But my initial dabbling in what ended up becoming my favorite film genre? I 'm really not sure which film that was. It was definitely on television, because my first trip to see a fright-flick in the theater wouldn't happen until 1979 (more on that later), and by that point I was already a minor horror veteran.  What I do recall very well is that the very first horror-character to make a lasting impression on me as ...

Photo © WWE W ell, here I go again. I've been a fan of professional wrestling since I was a kid. One of the things I liked to do with my dad before he and mom split up was watch wrestling with him, usually in the form of Georgia Championship Wrestling . At that time in the mid-70's, I became familiar with the likes of Mr. Wrestling Number 2, Tony Atlas, and Tommy "Wildfire" Rich. I learned it was all "fake" (These days I don't use that term, since wrestling is a dangerous sport. I say "scripted") but it still held sway over my emotions at times. After Dad left, I really stopped paying attention. By that point I was more into the likes of Godzilla films, old Horror movies, and Doctor Who, and wrestling was far from my mind. Then, as the early 80's rolled around, I ended up paying attention again, thanks to the mainstream rise of the WWE (then known as the WWF ) and "Hulkamania". That was a fun time, marking out for the ...