culturelux

my highly intellectual curation of the girlie cartoon cereal party

you guys! guess what i’m doing next saturday? GUESS GUESS oh man you’ll never guess!!! i’m joining forces with zack (programmer at the alamo) and together we’re hosting a girlie edition of the saturday morning cartoon cereal party! YAY!!!!! it feels like i already ate like ten boxes of fruity pebbles cos I’M SPAZZING OUT WITH EXCITEMENT!!!!!!

as the co-host, plus being the actual girl, i get to help curate the show, which is one of those fancy words i’ve always wanted to apply to myself cos it sounds so artsy and important. but hello, why did no one tell me that curating is actually super hard work?! do y’all REALIZE how many cartoons i have to choose from?!! and not just the cartoons themselves, but the actual episodes?!! who remembers that stuff? ok, well, maybe you do! and if so, smarty pants, perhaps you can help me!

let’s begin with a series that may not seem like an obvious choice: voltron! DUDE! VOLTRON! so good!

some may argue that it’s not v. girlie, but those people are obviously BLIND to the sizzling hot chemistry between keith and allura, as illustrated by this incredible fan video (feat. the emotionally compelling music of dido):

of course, that’s not the only source of sparks on the show! that’s right, i’m talking about the FORBIDDEN LOVE between allura and His Sexy Evilness, lotor!

y’all, i can admit that one of the main reasons i loved voltron as a little sarah pants was cos of the romance, and there’s no shame in that. fan fiction, however, is another story. you guys it is ALL OVER THE PLACE. thanks, but i would rather not tarnish my innocent childhood memories with stories like, “the night keith got allura pregnant with his child*” (*ACTUAL TITLE OF FANFIC STORY, NOT SOMETHING I MADE UP).

anyway! after perusing through the episodes on imdb, i’ve chosen two that i think little sarah pants probably enjoyed the most. in fact, i almost MAYBE actually remember the second one! i’m including the summaries because they are SO AWESOME.

Season 1, Episode 15: Give Me Your Princess
Princess Allura puts the whole team in jeopardy when she tries to pilot the Black Lion without permission. Seeing no way to make it up to her friends, she surrenders herself to Prince Lotor in exchange for the freedom of Planet Arus. Enchanted by her beauty, Lotor accepts. But Keith and the Voltron Force have a plan of their own.

Season 1, Episode 30: The Sleeping Princess
Zarkon decides to have Lotor wed Princess Koral of Demos to unite a similar empire to Doom and she is eager, but Lotor still wants only Allura. Given a sole chance to take what he wishes on his own, he turns to Haggar, who offers him a blade that will put anyone whom it grazes into a coma, mistaken by all others for death. Haggar’s cat scrapes Allura with it, and she instantly falls unconscious for hours before appearing to pass away before her friends’ eyes. Everyone grieves, but Keith realizes that Lotor would not kill Allura so all must not be as it seems. The remaining members of the Voltron Force, knowing that Haggar will be responsible for reawakening her after Allura’s people bid her goodbye, decide to keep this knowledge to themselves as a secret and go ahead with the planned funeral. They try to follow the hearse out, but Haggar causes an accident which makes the driver lose control of the horses. Only Pidge is able to reach it, but Lotor has too by the time the others fly out to help. Pidge is determined to sacrifice himself if he needs to, and that may be the only option left to him thanks to Haggar.

OMGGGGG!!! EPISODE 30 IS DYNAMITE!!!!! i mean, that description alone is, like, better than star wars ep 1-3.

moving on to my favorite cartoon heroine of all time… SHE-RA! PRINCESS OF POWER!

as a kid, i loved this show not for the romance (there really wasn’t much), but for the pure badassery of she-ra herself. FINALLY, i had my OWN action figure to play with when my neighbor cory invited me over to play he-man (he even had the castle grayskull, which was pretty sweet). i cannot tell you how tired i was of always having to play teela and/or random bad guys that were actually action figures from another series which was totally lame!

with that said, there are apparently lots of folks out there who quite enjoyed the romance between she-ra and her main squeeze, bow. check out this fan video (my favorite part is how the song lyrics are all about a girl being swept off of her feet, when, um, obviously she-ra wore the pants in this relationship!):

i also can’t post about she-ra without including this robot chicken spoof which is, yes, totally clichéd but also BRILLIANT:

after hours of intense research, i decided on these two episodes:

Season 1, Episode 21: The Stone in the Sword
When She-Ra breaks the stone in her sword, she must undergo a barrage of dangerous challenges to gain her powers back.

Season 1, Episode 29: The Price of Freedom
Hordak wages war on the villagers of one Etherian town, but He-Man and She-Ra are there to help. Unfortunately, even their might is not enough and the whole party must take refuge in an unstable mine.

yeah, the descriptions aren’t as good as the ones written for voltron, but “the price of freedom” is such an awesomely serious name for a cartoon that features a winged unicorn and goofy witch with eyes in her hat.

and now we come to the most glamorous cartoon ever conceived, with a heroine so glittery and so posh, i had to dress up like her for halloween… obvs i’m talking about JEM!!!

ah, jem, the soap opera of saturday mornings! jem, the doll i secretly pined for while playing with the misfits doll some TOTALLY IGNORANT friend gave me as a birthday present. jem, the show i wish gossip girl was!

y’all, this show lasted way longer than i thought! WOW! after reading through the amazing storylines from three whole seaons (i know!), i settled on these two high drama,

Season 1: The Beginning
Jerrica and Kimber’s father dies and leaves his business to his partner Eric Raymond and his daughter Jerrica. Eric Raymond wants to take over Starlight Music to promote the Misfits. Jerrica discovers Synergy, a high-tech computer made by her father that has the ability to generate holograms. Using Synergy, Jerrica becomes Jem and challenges Eric to a contest: In six months, the Misfits and Jem and the Holograms will compete in a battle of the bands. The winners get Starlight Music, a movie contract and a mansion.

Season 3: The Scandal
The Holograms, the Misfits, and Shawn Harrison (the British teen idol Kimber met in The World Hunger Shindig, and has asked her to write a song for him to perform) are all in Venice Beach. The Holograms are supposed to go on Harriet Horne’s show, which is a famous celebrity gossip show. While the Holograms think they are not much to gossip about, Jetta steals Kimber’s diary and publishes it. Tabloids twist the story, saying Kimber is in love with Shawn and he has no feelings for her. Kimber must be strong and stand up to the scandal to come out of it on top.

name me any other cartoon that features an event called THE WORLD HUNGER SHINDIG!!!! seriously, jem, you were way head of yr time, in fashion AND in global awareness.

now, you KNOW i wasn’t gonna forget about мека мебелmy little pony, right? right!

i’m hoping zack can dig up this episode:

Episode 11: The Impractical Joker
Melody, Bright Eyes and Starlight are told that they are dating with the rockstar Chain Link. It turns out Patch was imitating his voice on the phone and pulling their legs. For her next joke, Patch gets Bon Bon to do a cooking documentary in half an hour, resulting in her cake getting burned. Using this film with some additional tricks, Patch sabotages Bright Eyes’ school class project and turns it into a freak TV show. Bright Eyes is so frustrated that she feels she and friends need to take action against Patch. Their amateur trick doesn’t work on Patch and she continues to pull pranks on her friends. Suddenly Patch spots a flying saucer in the sky and finds some aliens where it lands. As the aliens declare that they want to remove her brain, she panics and backs away falling into a tub of water. This alien scene was set up by the girls with a little help from Teddy.

wait SAY WHAT?!!! IS THIS A REAL EPISODE?!!! my little pony, you so crazy!

this one would also be an excellent choice, cos i love seeing ponies hold microphones and instruments:

Episode 3: The Battle of the Bands
Melody with her Rockin’ Beats band ready themselves for “The Battle of the Bands” competition, but Melody has a big problem. She can’t get a babysitter to take care of her baby sisters Jing-a-Ling and Ting-a-Ling. She is forced to take them with her to the band competition. Melody does her best to keep the twins out of her trouble while the Rockin’ Beats band is struggling to do their job. Then Melody and the twins make an entrance to the stage and the Rockin’ Beats band wins the competition. The song in this episode is called “Sweet Music” and is sung by Melody and her band, The Rockin’ Beats.

and because i’m practically a PhD in this stuff now, here’s the video for “sweet music” so you can enjoy THE ROCKIN’ BEATS!!!!

you know, as an adult, i would look back at my younger self and laugh, remembering how i firmly believed i would ALWAYS want to get up on saturday morning and watch cartoons for four hours. um, suddenly, that doesn’t seem like such a silly idea anymore. which is why I CANNOT WAIT TIL NEXT SATURDAY!!!!!!!

so, pants world, when it comes to girlie cartoons, what did i miss? hopefully there’ll be some rainbow brite involved, i just didn’t have time to delve into it today (as it is, i’ve practically got a dissertation on my hands).

i’ll leave you with the actually incredible fan trailer for the thundercats movie, which I REALLY HOPE WILL HAPPEN SOME DAY. after the live action jem and she-ra remakes, of course.

© 2010 Poshdeluxe.