MISC. MANGA, *Record Of Lodoss War: The Crown Of The Covenant

After making her return in the Castlevania-esque video game Wonder Labyrinth, everyone favorite anime elf Deedlit comes back in the latest in the Lodoss series, Record Of Lodoss War: The Crown Of The Covenant. Ryo Mizuno wrote a new light novel in 2019 taking place in the Lodoss universe over a century after the previous installment, making it the first one actually set in the genuine Lodoss timeline in a few decades, even though Mizuno has only written a single volume so far of this sequel. The manga adaptation is 3-volumes long written and drawn by Atsushi Suzumi which covers the entire light novel, meaning we won't get further chapters of the manga until Mizuno finally gets around to doing it despite the fact he had been plotting this for a whole decade. Lodoss fans are probably now feeling what Game Of Thrones fans having to frustrate with. Udon Entertainment has released the entire manga so far but beware that their lettering can get condensed in many of the narration boxes making it difficult to read in print.

A hundred years of prosperity have come to the cursed island of Lodoss with all six of its kingdoms conceding to a pact called the Covenant thought up by the wizard Slayn binding the six kings to peace treaty which was supposed to last a millennium. The once monster-infested smaller island of Marmo was settled by the previous heroes Spark and Neese as they became that nation's king and queen. Marmo currently has a royal family made of four brothers, the oldest of which left to become a priest. Word gets out that Diaz, the new king of the desert land of Flaim, has taken up his family's old crown and plans on separating Flaim from the Covenant. The three remaining princes of Marmo decide to take the initiative and secure their kingdom's future by planning a conspiracy where the second in line Alucia assumes the throne while the younger brother Zayd takes their brave sister Bino pretend to be outcasts and ally themselves with Diaz. The fourth prince Lyle embarks on his own quest with his thief friend Nola and former wetnurse-turned sorceress Helide go to search for the missing high elf Deedlit. Lyle gets some help from former Lodoss hero Leaf who is still alive because she's a half-elf and gives them griffins to speed them on their way. Lyle spends a few weeks in the Forest Of No Return where time moves differently than on the outside because its where Deedlit is supposed to be, and he eventually finds her after passing her personal test. Deedlit refuses to help as she doesn't want to tarnish the legend of the Knight of Lodoss that her mortal lover Parn left behind. Lyle then resolves to become the new Knight of Lodoss if Deedlit agrees to back him up. After returning to Marmo with his new title, Lyle plans to lead his new party to rescue the king of Kanon whose nobles have overthrown and taken prisoner while allying with Flaim. The saga continues from here with the Marmo princes' plot growing to fruition, even though Lyle is the main focus of the story.

The Crown Of The Covenant does suffer from what The Phantom Menace did as it focuses more on politics than being a genuine epic quest, like if the scene from Lord Of The Rings where the Fellowship was formed took up half of the first movie. Since Lodoss is largely based on Ryo Mizuno's old Dungeons And Dragons gaming campaigns, you would expect there to be a greater emphasis on high fantasy instead of royal protocol. Atushi Suzumi does a great job with his adaptation, meaning that the flaws are mainly Mizuno's fault. As there is currently no continuation until the next light novel comes out, Lodoss fans will be hungering for more.

ANI-MOVIES, *Locke The Superman

Yuki Hijiri started out as a manga artist with an interstellar epic titled Locke The Superman way back in 1967. This was one of the first manga to focus on psychic powers or "espers" as its users are normally referred to possessing Extrasensory perception, making them the anime equivalent of the X-Men. The manga is about a never aging esper named Locke normally referred to as a superman who has helped the collected Galactic Federation on anti-terrorist cases for centuries. Locke has an insane assortment of powers including telepathy, telekenisis, teleportation, and the ability to turn himself into a woman who at one point. The animated movie acts as a follow-up to a briefly mentioned encounter between Locke and a former opponent that returns like a tacky movie monster. Locke The Superman's first anime outlet was released in 1984 by Studio Nippon in their theatrical debut which was directed by Hiroshi Fukutomi who also directed the Lensman anime. The movie highlighted amazing battle scenes that became the inspiration for numerous anime and manga of people with superpowers like Dragonball and Psychic Force.

The motion picture opens up with the psychic super-agent in retirement as a farmer on a distant planet. A Federation soldier named Yamaki is sent to recruit Locke in an investigation of his old nemesis Lady Khan who has resurfaced from a previous case and is assembling an army of espers to act as assassins to overthrow Federation control. Khan has set up a school for up-and-coming esper baddies that she's brainwashed into believing will be part of a utopian society branded as Millenium, thus taking a big page out of Hitler's stragety book. Locke goes on his own investigation while a large portion of the movie deals with Yamaki falling in love with Khan's sleeper agent Jessica who has been hypnotized into having amnesia that will awaken once she encounters Locke. This does inevitably happen, but only after Locke has run into Millenium's equivalent of the Ginyu Force. Locke defeats all these assassins and discovers that Lady Khan is in her own personal artificial planetoid where she plans on conquering the galaxy. Khan is revealed to be a living corpse in a fish tank hooked up to a supercomputer that controls all her espers through telepathy who gets taken down quickly by Locke. The last 20 minutes of the film has Locke trying to rally the remaining psychics to stop the space base from burning up in a gas giant.

Locke The Superman is an animated adaptation of an arc from a sci-fi shojo manga, so you can see how this film could have been carried out as a TV series. It has some outstanding fighting scenes and sweeping camera sequences that make for a stellar visual experience. There have been numerous English releases of this movie, one with a British dub that had a bunch of mature content edited out, so you're better off getting the more recent release by Sentai Filmworks which is in Japanese with English subtitles. If you wanted to find out what made Super-Saiyans so "super", then you need to give this space opera a spin.

ANI-MOVIES, *Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs

While we've seen dozens of retakes of various fairy tales mashed together from properties like Hoodwinked, Once Upon A Time, and Kingdom Hearts, but this mixed drink of kiddy stories is much better than the last few Shrek sequels. It's an American production fully animated by South Korean studio Locus Corporation titled Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs which is a crossover of storybook fantasy and pop culture. It was distributed by Next World Entertainment which mainly dealt in releasing movies directly from Korea, so when it came to having it come out in America there was no theatrical release and a limited DVD/Blu-Ray campaign. Even though the majority of the movie was done by Locus, there are some former Disney workers behind its production. The film came out in 2019, but didn't see an American release until sometime later even though it was initially made for an English-language audience. This isn't a release like A Wizard's Tale that got a totally different script for the English version since this film was produced specifically for American viewers. Red Shoes features an all-star cast like Chloe Grace Moretz, Patrick Warburton, and Gina Gershon, but what kept it from getting a wider release was the mistake of the original marketing suffering major backlash that made it appear as if the movie was fat shaming. This set back production about an extra year or so to clean up the movie's reputation. It is now available on several streaming services, some of which are free so you can make your mind up.

The movie takes place in a land which is a patchwork world of different story characters living in several different kingdoms. There was a group of heroes called the Fearless Seven who were the Justice League of this world made up of young versions of King Arthur, Merlin, Hans(Gretel's brother), Jack(don't know which "Jack"), plus a set of triplets named Pino, Noki and Kio who are specialists at making steampunk tech usually comprised of trees. After rescuing a fairy princess from a dragon, they reject her because of her green skin mistaking her for a witch, so the princess curses them by turning them all into small green dwarfs which can only be lifted if they get kissed by the most beautiful woman in the world. Sometime later, Snow White is a strong but chunky princess whose father got remarried to a woman named Regina who in reality is a witch who turns people into wooden creatures and gets help from her living magic mirror. After the king goes missing, Snow investigates her stepmother's chamber where she keeps a magic tree that sprouts red shoes that makes the wearer appear beautiful. Snow takes the shoes and now looks much thinner but weaker. She comes across the dwarfs and they plan to defend her in the hopes she'll kiss them all and break their curse. Regina cons the unpopular Prince Average to using his goons to fetch Snow White now going by the name of Red Shoes. The dwarfs appear to everyone else as short green men, but if there's no one else around they shift back to their human form, and Merlin is the most voracious to get his old body back because his magic is more potent when he's not a dwarf. After sweeping Average and his men under the rug thanks to the triplet's construction of a giant wooden robot, the dwarfs concentrate their efforts on getting Miss Red Shoes to kissing them. Snow White is haunted with keeping up the appearance of her new slimmer body as Red Shoes which she believes is the only reason she believes the dwarfs are helping her as she tries to find her missing father. Merlin has his own paradox of trying to return to his handsome self again while trying to woo Red Shoes into kissing him, but totally missing the fact that Snow genuinely loves him as a dwarf. This all culminates in Disney-esque ending somewhat mocking Beauty And The Beast, even though they end up the going over the fates of the remaining dwarfs in a quick montage during the closing credits.

Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs(and they do make a point about whether the term is "dwarves")does maintain some dazzling animation and great voice acting. Some of the pop songs that were incorporated into the soundtrack don't fit well in certain scenes. The film has engaging CGI making the characters more lifelike while keeping their cartoonish designs. As far as the past fat shaming controversy, you'll discover upon watching this that it was just bad advertisement as the film handles body positivity with considerable care. It's a fine feature for the whole family despite the fact that it goes over some overly familiar source material.

ANI-MOVIES, *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Seth Rogen totally fumbled the ball with his last theatrical adaptation of a comic book series, so he worked out a deal with Nickelodeon and Paramount to do a new take on the TMNT just after their TV series and movie of Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reached a finale. Mutant Mayhem is the second all CGI-animated film of the Turtles franchise as well as the second animated theatrical release, and became the overall pilot for the new Tales Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series. Including Rogen, there were a total of five writers behind the screenplay, including some from the Prime version of The Tick, so after watching the movie you can see how the story got a little muddled as it went along. This new incarnation of the Turtles employed the more graffiti style of animation that the Spider-Verse movies have taken in making the half-shell heroes look like a cross between claymation and 3D effects.

The story starts out as yet another retelling of the Turtles origin., Rogue scientist Baxter Stockman breaks away from the shadowy TCRI organization to secretly concoct an ooze that mutates animals into intelligent humanoids. Stockman gets captured by TCRI goons and we never see him again for the rest of the movie. A sample of the ooze drops down the sewers of New York City which mutates a common rat and a quartet of baby turtles. Fifteen years later, the rat named Splinter calls his new sons Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael, and tries to protect them away from the inviting human world by teaching them the art of ninjitsu from how-to videos and martial arts movies. The turtle brothers want to be accepted by humans, so they figure the best way to do that is to use their fighting skills to bring the city's biggest criminal to justice, who happens to go by the handle Superfly. The turtles help out teenage girl April O'Neil after her scooter is stolen by some crooks who have a connection to Superfly, and they take the gang's place when they're supposed to handing over some heisted tech. Turns out that Superfly and his crew are all mutants also made from the same ooze, and they're planning on using the stolen tech to create a device which will mutate all the animals in the world to take over the planet while killing off mankind. The Turtles pretend to be into Superfly's scheme, but they get caught by TCRI who want to bleed them dry. April gets Splinter to rescue them, and the ninjas confront Superfly while talking the other mutants into going against him. All the mutants destroy the mutant-making machine as Superfly falls into an exploding pool of ooze which mutates him into a kaiju-sized monster made up of other animals. The Turtles use an anti-mutagen weapon they got from TCRI to reduce Superfly back to normal and are recognized by the citizens of New York as being heroes. The other mutants move in to the Turtles' underground lair as the boys themselves start their first day of high school. TCRI is still waiting in the wings to unleash their commrade Shredder on the Turtles.

Mutant Mayhem is an adequate new take on the hit 80s underground comic book, but seriously misses the mark at trying to capture the nostalgia of its previous incarnations. The Turtles here are just walking dispensers of pop culture references, and it could have used a slightly more serious enemy to fight instead of a mutant fly gangsta rapper that is overplayed by Ice-T. The extended cast of mutants who eventually become the Mutanimals don't add much either with non-actors like John Cena as one of the voice overs, and even Paul Rudd's appearance isn't helpful. The fact that the movie gender-flips some of the secondary characters isn't a dealbreaker but it didn't add anything to the movie either. Hardcore Shellheads will deem this worthy, but newbies might be a little turned off by the contrasting art style. Donatello with glasses? Who needs that?

ANI-MOVIES, *Beavis And Butt-Head Do The Universe

After doing America, Beavis And Butt-Head Do The Universe. Mike Judge began the third incarnation for his satirical teenage animated comedy as a full-length movie, but wheraes Do America seems like an actual motion picture, Do The Universe is more like a collection of multiple episodes with a loose storyline tying them all together. The animation was handled this time by Titmouse who had also picked up the production for The Venture Bros., so they're familiar with taking on an existing adult animation franchise.

Starting off in 1998(which might completely skip over Season 8 from 2011), Beavis and Butt-Head destroy their school's science fair which by proxy of their dumb luck gets them a spot in space camp. Thinking that the boys' constant fondling of a docking simulator is a leap ahead for human genius, the NASA idiots decide to bring the two of them along on a mission in the space shuttle. Beavis and Butt-Head cause the shuttle to get wrecked and are tossed off into space by the female captain Serena, even though they thought it was all a plan for them to get laid with her. The boys go through a black hole and wind up in the year 2022 several miles from their home. They are then visited by alternative universe versions of themselves dressed like Marvel's The Watcher called Smart Beavis and Smart Butt-Head that tell them they have to go through a portal back to their own time or both universes will be destroyed. Regular Beavis and Butt-Head totally forget about this as they make their way back home where they think Serena is waiting for them to score. Serena is now the governor of Texas and seeks to kill the boys to cover up her botched murder of them, while at the same time the Pentagon has agents looking for them believing them to be aliens. The dumb duo journey through a college where they think they can get away with anything because of "white privilege", they end up in jail, stuck in a port-a-potty, and go on a nacho shopping spree after getting a smartphone from naive tourists. Everything of course works out in the end with our boys having their house rebuilt and no one in Highland to have aged at all in the last 24 years, or at least according to Season 9 on up of the TV series as its currently playing on Paramount+.

Do The Universe helps breathe new life into an old sitcom premise of two dolts watching music videos and stumbling through life merely on their own stupidity. The current run on Paramount+ is a step up from 2011 revival, even though they don't explain how no time seems to have passed in Highland over the years Beavis and Butt-Head were gone. We do finally find out that the house they've been squatting in the last few years was Beavis' mother who is the only one of the cast to have disappeared during the time skip. Another bonus is the obligatory appearance of Cornholio. If you've never seen any of the 90s episodes or the original movie, you will probably be lost on the subtle but sensless comedy that Beavis And Butt-Head fed to an entire generation.

R.I.P. James Earl Jones

 

From Here To Eternia: A Look Back At He-Man & She-Ra In Animation

He-Man and She-Ra have had ongoing franchises since the early 80s. The entre Masters Of The Universe toy line was a giant melting pot of concepts and ideas that each incarnation would add on to its legacy. Whether it was animated, live action, in comics, or storybooks, the ongoing saga of the worlds of Eternia and Etheria helped this sci-fi/fantasy/superhero/adventure epic create its own mythology over the last four decades.

Masters Of The Universe was conceived because Mattel president Ray Wagner turned down Star Wars toy line. Former Mattel employee Bernie Loomis bought the rights to Star Wars. Mattel has instead licensed movie tie-ins like Flash Gordon, and Clash Of The Titans, both of which bombed. They got the rights to Conan The Barbarian in 1982, but it was a Rated-R movie, so they couldn't make it, unlike various other toy lines like Rambo, Robocop, and Toxic Avenger that eventually did get their own kid's merchandise. 

MOTU came out of the need to create an original toy line not based on an existing franchise. Roger Sweet designed made first concept art for He-Man. Mark Taylor created initial MOTU designs, including Skeletor based on a carnival ride. Castle Grayskull was a collector set as MOTU’s “Capture the flag" where whoever currently ruled the castle would raise their own flag on Grayskull. Battle Cat was originally modeled from a tiger in the Big Jim toy line. MOTU was originally called Lords Of Power when it started in 1982, but was changed when they thought it was too religious themed. Power Lords was however used by Revell in their own toy line in 1983.

Action figures first came with mini comics that established the initial lore. He-Man here was a solo savage warrior with the Power Sword split in two. Teela and The Sorceress were the same person, sometimes with green skin. DC Comics created a mini-series that altered He-Man's origin to secretly be Prince Adam. This also included a crossover of He-Man fighting Superman.

Mattel got Lou Schiemer and Filmation to handle the original animated series. Filmation also created Blackstar, another sci-fi series about a hero with magic sword split in two. Filmation’s past experience with the character of Shazam played a part in Adam’s transformations. They also made Queen Marlena coming from Earth, like in Blackstar. Orko was added to the show to help teach children lessons based slightly on an annoying dragon that Filmation used in the second season of Flash Gordon.

MOTU set up 80s original TV toy boom where a whole TV series would be based on a toy line. Hasbro made an entire empire on this with their franchises like G.I. Joe, Transformers, Jem, and My Little Pony.

Ironically, there was a Filipino live-action knock off movie titled Hee-Man: Master Of None that was a barbarian parody with a scrawny main character.

With the He-Man show gaining as many girl watchers as there were boys, Mattel’s Barbie department first set up the idea for She-Ra. Adora was He-Man's twin sister who initially wore a mask made from her headdress. In the original mini-comics She-Ra originally had her whole team fighting only Catra and Entrapta. Catra was the one who got powers from her mask and had a pink lioness named Clawdeen. She-Ra was another parallel of He-Man to Shazam as he also had a missing twin sister who shared the same power as him.

Hordak and The Horde began the “third faction” in toy lines similar to The Stingers from Jem, or the Lunatacs in Thundercats. The Horde became She-Ra's enemy as she led the Great Rebellion against them to free the planet Etheria.

Oversaturation of extra characters on both MOTU and She-Ra lead to slowing Mattel’s expansion. The He-Man/She-Ra Christmas Special was the last production of Filmation’s He-Man franchise while the She-Ra show went on for another two years.

King Hiss and the Snake Men were brought in as a fourth faction in the MOTU action figures. This was going to lead into a new lineup lead by a different character named He-Ro, but it was cancelled due the 80s generation growing out of the collecting action figures.

In 1987, a live-action also motion picture based on MOTU crashed entire line. The film also began the “fantasy characters coming to Earth” trope also used in Beastmaster and The Smurfs. She-Ra was supposed to be in the film too. 

Mattel tried a comeback in 1989 with The New Adventures Of He-Man that gave into “putting the characters into space” trope, similar to Gilligan's Island and Josie And The Pussycats. Jetlag Productions did the animation, which later produced Conan The Adventurer. New Adventures also first introduced the character of Mara as He-Man's love interest.

In 2002, Mattel started a total reboot toy line and TV series which was animated by Mike Young Productions and ran on Cartoon Network. It was developed by Michael Halperin who worked on the original series. This new lore was introduced including King Grayskull becoming the original He-Man. Skeletor’s origin of Keldor is also revealed. 

Shortly after the 2002 MOTU series ended, nostalgic toys for kids were suddenly rebranded as adult collectibles. DC Comics did three series of MOTU comics with Skeletor being Adam’s uncle. Adora worked for the Horde as Despara. They later did a crossover with Thundercats, as well as one with Injustice.

Dreamwork’s She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power came out in 2018 developed by N.D. Stevenson. He went on to work on the Lumberjanes comic, and creating the Nimona graphic novel that Netflix picked up the movie rights from Blue Sky Studios after it was bought up by Disney. This show didn’t have any connection to MOTU. Adora and Catra were friends. Clawdeen was replaced with Melog. Melog went from a golem to a space cat. Double Trouble was added as a shapeshifter. Mara was brought back as the original She-Ra. There was a ton of fan backlash over giving She-Ra battle shorts instead of a skimpy mini-skirt.

Masters Of The Universe: Revelation came out in 2021 for Netflix by Kevin Smith through Powerhouse Animation Studios. It was a pseudo-sequel to the 80s show which ran for 10 episodes. The first part was well played as a quest, but the second half got bogged down trying to focus too much on Teela and Evil-Lyn trying to find their place in a world run by musclebound men.

Netflix created a new He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe which also premiered in 2021 meant to sell toys. It took inspiration from video games like Final Fantasy and Overwatch. Skeletor is confirmed to be He-Man's uncle Keldor, and Ram-Man was gender-swapped into the original character of Ram-Ma'am. It finished up after 24 episodes, even though there were plans to have He-Man and his friends fight Hordak on modern day Earth in future seasons.

Masters Of The Universe: Revolution was released for Netflix in 2024 as a follow-up to Revelation where Skeletor remembers his true origins as Keldor. This season only had five episodes with a slightly rushed plot, but was satisfying with the characters evolving and accepting new responsibilities, as well as a star-studded cast.

MISC. MANGA, *The Dragon Prince: Puzzle House

The second prequel graphic novel of The Dragon Prince is the third book to be released through Graphix. Peter Wartman returns from Through The Moon to write this book with art by Felia Hanakata who drew the previous prequel of Bloodmoon Huntress. Instead of focusing on some the more heroic characters, this story instead draws on the children of the TV series secondary antagonist, Viren. Puzzle House shows Claudia and Soren as they are first learning their place in The Dragon Prince storyline. This book came out a few weeks after Season 6 of the TV series premiered which goes over how Viren started down his dark path, so it would be helpful to read this sometime after watching that season.

A younger version of Claudia is training in dark magic being taught by her father, even though her experimenting causes a small explosion in the castle of Katolis. She is brought before King Atticus along with his son Harrow after he married Sarai and he convinces her to keep the spellcasting to a secluded area to stop any further accidents. Claudia listens in on a conversation between Atticus and Viren about how his mentor Kpp'Ar went missing. Claudia thinks that the old mage might have left some hinters on being a better magic user in his abode called the Puzzle House which is one huge puzzle like something out of an old Nintendo game. Our "heroine" convinces her brother Soren who is training to be a knight to go along with her to spec out the Puzzle House. Once there, they find that Kpp'Ar was keeping a stone giant imprisoned there. Claudia returns on her own later on and frees the giant named Kruha who seems like a kind character out of The Neverending Story. She returns to Katolis with a blank scroll which is secretly an enchanted map.

Puzzle House is a fun peak into Soren and Claudia's earlier days that hopefully sets up some plot points for use in future books or the remaining Season 7. The art is up to the same level it did in Bloodmoon Huntress, even though the author's work syncs good enough with a different artist. For followers of The Dragon Prince, they will find the graphic novel beneficial, although it isn't totally essential.

ANI-MOVIES, *I Go Pogo

Pogo was one of the most groundbreaking comic strips of all time that inspired numerous comic franchises afterwards such as Bloom County, Bone, Calvin And Hobbes, Shoe, and Doonesbury. Former Disney animator Walt Kelly created the anthropomorphic politically-themed comic strip from 1948 all the way til his death in 1973, with some other cartoonists filling in the absence of the creator up until it's cancellation in 1975. With comics strips seeing a resurgence outside their own audience in the late-70s thanks to Peanuts specials and the Annie musical, Stowmar Enterprises formed a partnership with Possum Productions who owned the Pogo license to create a feature-length animated movie. Not only that, but it would be stop motion in a new filming technique called flexiform. The movie was to come out in 1980 prior to the conclusion of that year's presidential elections, but the film distributor jipped them on the deal and instead released in Fotomat's new video rental service, making it one of the first ever direct-to-video animated flicks. There are two different versions of this project, the original one didn't have narration. Ironically, Walt Disney Home Video bought the rights to distribute the movie on VHS nearly a decade later under a new title. Aside from a few screenings on early cable networks like Showtime, I Go Pogo didn't see much light unless your local Mom and Pop video shop had a wide selection.

The actual movie is a series of vignettes taking place in the Okefenokee Swamp with a possum named Pogo being the unwilling candidate for president because of the machinations of the scheming duo, Molester(Yes, that's his real name!)Mole and Deacon Mushrat who hope to rake in the power while controlling both candidates. They rope in Pogo's pals Albert, Howland, and Churchy, while leaving Pogo's true best friend Porky Pine always being ignored and cross about being left out of the mayhem everyone gets entangled with. Pogo is a titular character who gets regulated to the supporting cast in his movie as it is a swirling pot of political rhetoric thinly pasted together with an ongoing plot. This wasn't made to be appease children, unless they just like anything animated playing on TV.

I Go Pogo was animated by Marc Chinoy whose previous works included commercials and segments on Sesame Street which this film's stop motion shows off splendidly. It might not be on the same level of future animators like Will Vinton or Henry Selick, but it was exceptional for its time. There were prior attempts to animate the Pogo strip including a TV special by Chuck Jones that Walt Kelly didn't like, so he went on to make his own short to coincide with the first Earth Day. The main draw of the movie is the unique cast with the legendary Vincent Price, Johnathon Winters, and Ruth Buzzi providing some of the voices along with the cartoon regulars like Arnold Stang and Bob McFadden, plus oddly enough former Electric Company alumni Skip Hinnant as Pogo who is unfortunately overshadowed by the shenanigans of the other characters. Your chances of finding a physical copy of this on video are pretty slim, and it's not currently available on streaming, but I Go Pogo is a time capsule of comic strip humor and family friendly satire.