Get Your Goon On

Platypus Farm posted:

A colleague and myself are in the process of preparing a Sociological study on the prevalence of drug or alcohol use/abuse that occurs while people are playing MMOs. The basic idea behind the paper is that both of us have experience playing MMOs, and so we know that quite a few people drink or do drugs while playing, so we figured it would be interesting to poll some people and find out REALLY how much of it goes on. The paper is to be presented at a conference in Las Vegas in sometime in the Spring (mid-March, I think).

What I need is for people who are willing to answer a few non-personal questions (essentially, do you drink/do drugs while playing MMOs, if so, how much and how often) to shoot an email to platypus (dot) study (at) gmail.com. If you are willing to do this, it would be a big help, since we're looking to get a pretty broad range for statistic significance. Also, when the research is done, I'll post it here if there is any interest. Additionally, if you want to just share an anecdote or something (please no LOL I got so drunk in molten core I aggrod magmadar crap, though), feel free to send it to the above email. I'll be checking it a few times throughout the day, so turn-around should be pretty quick.

Don't read this if you don't want angel spoilers...

So check it, back in like 17 something my boy Angel was just a motherfucking human. Even worse he was like, Irish. So of course all he did was get his drink on and his punch on. Motherfucker spent every night at the bar right, and after he beat up all them other drunk irish, then he fucked some bitches. Basically he lived the sweet life moochin off his pops and sleepin till motherfucking noon.

Anyway so one day angel be all up in the club and there is some hot white chick talkin to the waitress and she be all "hey who is that motherfucker?" and the waitress was like "oh thats liam, I totally did him and he was great" and the bitch is all like "Well I'm gonna fuck him too"

So she gets him out in the alley and OH SHIT bitch be a vampire so she bites all up on his neck and then pushes his face into her titties and now he be a vampire too.

Then angel's family be all sad and shit and they bury him but he ain't dead or anything and angelus comes up out of the grave and straight murders his whole family, moms and pops and his kid sister, for realz!

So check it, basically Angelus and this bitch Darla hang out for like, a hundred years just bitin' hoes and probably dudes and Angelus makes more vampires like Spike and Drusilla. Spike is all ignant and wants to be all "I gonna kill ALL them bitches" till he and Drusilla hook up and she is all "ooh spike I'm totally crazy" and they have a turbulant kind of deal for like, ever.

Anywayz sometime in like 18 something Angelus goes and kills some gypsy bitch. The gypsy hoe's family is all "ah fuck no" so they straight put a spell on my boy so that he ain't all evil anymore and angelus turns into angel unless angel has a moment of pure happiness. Angel is all "woe is me I am so totally sorry for all that bad shit I done did while I was evil" and he spends like ANOTHER hundred years in the sewers eatin' rats and fuck all else. Oh and somehow he loses his accent.

Then in like 1995 we had that movie with that sweet ass white bitch in it and most of that shit happens in the buffyverse except you pretty much gotta assume that they was all like, 14 and freshmen and not like, hot 18 year old ass. After that shit, buffy blew up her gym and her moms made'em move to sunnydale. Angel totally saw buffy and totally like fell in love with her so he decided to like, help her kill demons and vampires and other evil shit. He even kills his sire Darla.

Buffy meets a bunch of people in sunnydale and totally fucks their shit up with angels help. Eventually she finds out that this guy is a vampire and she is scared shitless cauz of course she is a vampire slayer right? and vampires be evil!

They fight a little but buffy finally figures out that angel is all reformed and what not and then they fuck. Angel then turns back into angelus because I guess that slayer pussy is totally sweet and then he and spike and drusilla cause all kinds of hell up in the city. Buffy finally figures out that she is gonna have to kill her boy to stop some kind of end of the world shit and so she stabs him and angel like, goes to hell for a while.

Then, sometime in motherfucking season THREE of buffy he finally shows back up again and buffy is all "oh angel I totally love you and I'm totally sorry" and angel is like "I'm cold bitch, get me a blanket" and then buffy keeps that motherfucker a secret from her lame ass scooby club till they totally find out and bitch about it until buffy is like "shut up you assholes" and they do. Then angel and buffy almost fuck again and angel goes "oh fuck I can't be all up in this town and not fuck that bitch, I gotta get outta here" and so he does.

Angel moves to LA and meets this irish half-demon guy who gets visions named doyle. Doyle and angel try to beat up some evil shit and they meet cordelia who was this smokin' hot ho from sunnydale. She is like their secretary or some shit and the three of them battle evil for a little while. No big deal, just monster of the week bullshit. Doyle totally keeps trying to fuck that hot ass cordelia but they never do.

After a few episodes doyle straight jumps on this like, demon bomb and dies but not before kissing cordelia and giving her the power to get visions. Motherfucker kills himself and only gets a kiss, fuck that shit!

Also, all coincidentally and shit, right after doyle jumps on the bomb then Wesley shows up. Wesley was this chick faith's watcher and it is a totally stupid buffy story. Wesley is all british and gay and shit but he gets all hardcore later, check it.

Anyway Angel and wesley and cordelia fight this bullshit evil lawyer place but right at the end of the first season wolfram and hart straight bring back DARLA yo! Angel is pretty upset and they fucking find out that darla isn't even a vampire anymore, she is just some human bitch. Angel goes a little crazy and they find out darla is gonna die of syphalis because she used to be a fucking whore. Anywayz darla gets turned into a vampire again by her "grandspawn" drusilla and the two of them eat most of wolfram and hart and angel totally closes the door on them like fucking michael corleone.

After that angel does some crazy shit and wesley takes over the detective agency and they get this kick ass brother named gunn to help them out. After a few episodes of that, then angel totally fucks darla and then he gets all the crazy out of his system. Luckilly that is just in time for them to have a field trip in this other dimension where vampires don't work right and cordelia is some kind of princess. Also they save some bony chick named fred which is a fucking stupid name for a girl. Fred is all kinds of smart and she got stuck in that dimension somehow.

So check this out, when season three finally fucking starts, it shows that Darla is FUCKING PREGNANT! how is that possible, two vampires can't have a baby right? fucking right! Anyway that goes on for like, ever until darla finally stakes herself so she can get the baby out. I guess she was like, fucking sharing the soul of her baby or some bullshit so she could do something that wasn't totally evil. Anyway now angel is out of his fuck buddy AND he has to care for a fucking baby.

So wesley starts getting suspicious and finding all this shit about how angel is going to wind up eating his own son. We know angel is good and wouldn't be all eating fucking babies and shit, but wesley isn't so sure. He steals the baby and runs away with it but before angel and his crew can stop this whacked out SOB, Holtz, this motherfucker that has been chasing angel since like, the evil days steals the baby and jumps into a demon dimension!

Angel is pretty fucking upset that his baby was all stolen and shit, but life goes on. Eventually though they learn that some huge beast is coming to straight ruin the world and shit, so they get all scared but when the thing shows up it is angels son who is all a teenager. His son hates him and runs away and other boring bullshit and they fight a bunch. Eventually holtz who is like connor's father now stabs himself to make it look like he was killed by angel and this other bitch whose name I can't remember helps connor bury angel at the bottom of the motherfucking ocean!

Also, all this time there has been all kinds of fucking sexual tension between angel and cordelia and right as she is coming to tell angel that she loves him she gets ascended up to a higher plane to be a divine being, and who could turn that down, love a vampire or be an angel right?

Anway wesley finds out where angel is and digs him up out of the ocean. Angel is pretty pissed about the whole thing but he gets over it right quick. Eventually cordelia gets really goddamn tired of being an angel because there isn't fucking ANYTHING to do on the higher plane, so she comes back but she can't remember who she is! oh shit, motherfucking amnesia! She fucks angel's son connor because she feels sorry for him and the beast who is this rock monster starts this rain of fire and blocks out the sun! Cordelia remembers who she is and they all move back in with angel in this sweet hotel.

The beast says he knows angel but angel can't remember him so the angel crew takes out angel's soul and he turns into angelus. Also, oh shit cordelia is pregnant! Angelus gets out and we find out that the beast has a master and that that master is cordelia! Oh shit no! Cordelia causes all kinds of problems and willow, this lesbian witch from buffy, shows up to put angel's soul back. She does and angel and the rest totally trick cordelia to find out she is the evil bitch behind this whole goddamn mess.

Cordelia and connor run the fuck away and the crew finds out that cordelia is giving birth to some awful evil thing that got inside her pussy when she was all ascended. Anyway angel gets there right as this fucking cunt is being born and some black chick shows up instead of a baby! Angel is all "Oh SHIT I didn't know!" and gets down on his knees to worship this bitch!

So this chick jasmine is like, a god and everyone who sees her totally loves her but she eats people to stay alive. Fred gets some of that chick's blood all up in her blood and can see jasmine as this sick corpse and so she gets the rest of the crew dispelled too and they all are totally inside of a fucking body snatchers movie and shit.

Angel goes to another dimension and fights some big fucking monster and gets it's head which will say jasmine's true name and totally take all her fucking powers. So he does and the head says it's word and that cunt looks like a corpse to everyone. Then the show punks out on special effects and instead of a corpse jasmine just has lepresy or some shit. Then she fights angel and connor totally kills his own baby girl.

When the angel crew gets back to their hotel there is some smokin hot lawyer from wolfram and hart who says that angel's crew is gonna fucking run the law firm. At first they are like "hell naw" but after a while the whole crew is like "yeah we are gonna fucking rock"

At first they suck because they dont' know what the fuck is goign on but Gunn totally gets turned into a lawyer by a machine and they tell him he has to let some package go through and he says okay. Then the angel crew busts up some evil shit, no big deal monster of the week bullshit and spike shows up but he is a ghost. Then after a while Lindsay, this lawyer from season two totally shows up and tries to kill angel but of course angel won't have none of THAT bullshit and totally spanks lindsay.

Then some other shit happens and fred gets this monster inside of her that kills her and uses her body. Wesley is pretty upset because although gunn used to tap that bony ass, he wanted her pussy himself. Some more boring shit happens and spike isn't a ghost anymore and angel is like, a fucking puppet literally for an episode and he totally fucks this warewolf but doesn't go evil because he doesn't love her and then the rest of the team thinks he is evil but check it, he is like "fuck no I ain't evil, I'm just fucking pretending so we can fuck up the senior partner's shit" and then they do and wesley gets fucking stabbed and dies and gunn is pretty much dead too but the evil powers that be send all kinds of skeletons and demons and shit to earth and angel and his pals are fucking standing in a alley looking ath this unwinnable bullshit and someone says "what are we gonna fucking do now" and like a pimp angel says "I'm gonna fucking kill that goddamn dragon".

tygerbug posted:

A lot of hate for certain Animaniacs characters here. I always liked Rita and Runt actually, just because Bernadette Peters is amazing in the role, doing a full musical performance of a very fleshed out and well developed character. They're not especially funny, but I never minded them, because ... I mean ... Bernadette Peters is love.

I would add The Hip Hippos to the list of weak supporting characters, but the thing is, all these characters had at least one good episode, usually more than one. The problem with it was that after that first episode the writers just did the same thing over and over and over again. I remember there being exactly two good Buttons and Mindy cartoons, which had a really classic Tex Avery feel to them. The first one, and one set on a building site I think it was. After that, it was just a gimmick - let's do the same thing, but underwater! Or in space! Really annoying.

Chicken Boo is the rare example where doing the same thing every time actually kind of worked. Because the character himself was so simple and one-note. It became like dada anti-art. An anti-cartoon. Maybe it was just funny to see him outed as a chicken every episode.

Katie Ka-Boom was just insulting to the show's audience, a lot of whom were teenagers themselves at the time (cough). I think she was bearable once.

The Hip Hippos were useless, but pretty much redeemed by the opera epic "La Behemoth," which basically outed itself as a watered down "What's Opera, Doc" with its last line about an opera with a happy ending ... That was a good episode.

None of the more minor supporting cast had the ability to really carry a lot of different episodes like the Warners or Pinky and the Brain. Every situation you put them in, the Warners or Pinky and the Brain managed to do something interesting and different, and entertaining. So they could support their own shows. Slappy Squirrel I would put in that category too, as she did a lot of great episodes. That makes it doubly sad that "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" is so bad, as if it wasn't, Slappy might have gotten her own series.

The Goodfeathers were neither as bad as the lesser supporting cast, or as good as the Warners/Pinky and the Brain/Slappy. They did the same thing every time, and it wasn't annoying, they did the same thing every time fairly well .... but it wasn't genius or anything. Just acceptable.

But the really bad Animaniacs shorts were the "moving, emotional" ones that Tom Ruegger (or Spielberg!) would throw in .... the one about the gold wrapping paper .... or The Flame. Dear lord, The Flame.

Also, when they cancelled Pinky and the Brain and forced them to make Pinky, The Brain and Elmyra. A terrible character no one wanted back, and such a bad idea for a show that the production team actually complain about it in the opening theme song! Lasted about two episodes or something. That show made no one happy, least of all those making it.

That's an early episode. We don't count those in the "worst episode" stakes, since the show was still finding its feet and was going more for developing the characters than delivering good comedy at this point.

Those early episodes I think helped make the show as good as it became (before turning to shit), since it let the characters be established more realistically, rather than as just one note jokes. If it had been all wackiness from the start, we'd have had The Critic, which nice as it was at the time, struggled to get good ratings, since they hadn't developed the characters as well before mocking them.

Eventually, enough years went by that wackiness just became the norm at The Simpsons and they forgot how to write episodes with a heart that treated the characters as real people. Matt Groening leaves to make Futurama, and although Matt isn't generally thought of as the (or even a) driving force behind the show, the show did turn completely to shit right at that time, so hmm.