#12: Phil Tippett’s Mad God

In this holiest of seasons it is only right to give thanks for those most devout adherents to the creation of totally sick visual spectacles that will shadow our subconscious for the long nights to come. Monster-making-maestro Phil Tippett spills forth with a passion project three decades in the making that pushed him past the brink of sanity, though is the world ready to accept his divine message? The Bible is recited; dreams are interpreted; a video game is shamelessly referenced and swiftly apologised for; and even through all the layers of muck we have the stomach for a Podcast Repaste. We’re not mad, we’re emotionally interesting!

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#10: Cat’s Don’t Dance and The Recurring Recalcitrance Of Corporate Animation

Warner Brothers mergers with dire consequences for the animation wing of the company have been making the headlines lately. Making the headlines AGAIN you mean, as this saga has repeated itself in one form or another since at least 1997 when Cats Don’t Dance was on the receiving end of such shabby treatment. Even the combined efforts of cartoon project Mr Fixer Mark Dindal, the wisdom of dancing sage Gene Kelly and an Old Hollywood aesthetic sure to please the broken down old bastards on the board weren’t enough to stop these cats getting tossed out into the street. It’s been taken into the warm homes of a dedicated contingent over the years, though will notorious musical holdout Niall be swayed by its charms? As is often the case with these yokes the answer is obvious: LET’S PUT ON A SHOW!

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#8: We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story and The Fading Dinosaur Renaissance

The cultural phenomenon they called the Dinosaur Renaissance found many modes of expression for making ancient giant lizards cool again. The trouble lay in precisely -who- was deciding what made them cool to begin with; Steven Spielberg certainly contributed his fair share to the craze with Jurassic Park and The Land Before Time preceding it, though tapping the screenwriter of Moonstruck to adapt a twenty page picture storybook for a cinema feature was perhaps a touch hubristic. Four directors; an expensive voice cast; the baffling resurgence of Bing Crosby impressions in the early 90s; they were so caught up in thinking whether they COULD they didn’t stop to think about whether they SHOULD!

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#6: Genndy Tartakovsky’s PRIMAL and The Tragic Heart Of A Warrior

There’s nothing like a bit of violent release to get the creative juices flowing again, not to to mention the torrent of blood, guts and sorrowful tears brought forth by SOTSM patron saint Genndy Tartakovsky’s foray into a wild & fantastic prehistory. Besides ceaseless Conan allusions and running a body count on exploded ape men it gets us thinking about a few other cartoons whose violent reputations belie a heart of gold, the catharsis we sorely yearn for in our actual savage world. So actually it IS big and it IS clever, saying so much while barely needing intelligible language itself.

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#5: Cadillacs & Dinosaurs (& Environmentalism & The Narrow Purview of Dinosaur Fiction)

An ancient beast from podcasts past reawakens to a savage new age, but has this world evolved to match? Cadillacs & Dinosaurs is just as much pulpy fun as when we last looked at it a decade ago; less fun is the real ecological catastrophe that has only intensified since then (STILL without giant lizards) and the ever-tightening chokehold the Jurassic Park franchise seems to have on what can be done with dinosaurs in popular media. How can we learn from these past mistakes and avoid our cruel fate? Would the message of environmentalism be better received in the form of two-fisted pulp adventure? And what is a “quahoon” anyway? This show ain’t prehistoric! It’s classic~.

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#2: The House, And The New Accommodations Of Stop-Motion Animation

Who would live in a house like this? An international team of talented stop-motion animators of course, bringing their skills to bear in a macabre anthology piece about the home renovation from hell. Laborious, time-consuming and requiring considerable skill & patience, this naturally prompts a discussion about the surprisingly healthy state of stop-motion animation in a modern industry where shortcuts are relentlessly sought out. It’s busted; it’s dangerous; but it’s ours! Come on in, take off your shoes, put your feet up and let your soul reside here forever!

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#1: Soothsaying With The Simpsons

The world’s most well-known cartoon comedy family have borne witness to much in their seemingly everlasting tenure on television, and within those annals are writ many a gag that then eerily manifested into our own reality some years later. From murder hornets to presidential elections to scientific wonders, could The Simpsons be a codex that predicts the fortunes of our civilisation? Or do such respected major publications as Time Magazine, Gentleman’s Quarterly and that one dude you know off Twitter really gotta drum up some traffic? We’ll sort the cromulent truths from the entertaining lies and peer within the Springfield scrying glass to make a few prophecies of our own as The Secret Of The Sailor Madness is preached unto the world anew!

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