BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment, Outright Games and Cartoon Network have released the first trailer for Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion – a brand-new hilarious Adventure Time stor, that sees gamers play as Finn, Jake, BMO and Marceline to explore fan-favourite kingdoms and meet the well-loved characters from Cartoon Network’s popular TV animation series. The game […]
Maximum Games with GameMill Entertainment and Cartoon Network have partnered to launch Cartoon Network: Battle Crashers on Nintendo Switch. The side-scrolling action brawler, which originally debuted on PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo3DS, smashes together many of Cartoon Network’s biggest characters in an outrageous beat ‘em up adventure that’s fun for all ages. When Uncle Grandpa […]
“If I can just keep this up for the rest of my life, no one will suspect a thing.” Steven Universe is not made for me. This is good and correct, as it is made for children and the alternate Earth where it’s packed full of references to Hellraiser and soundtracked with deep cuts from Godspeed You! Black Emperor‘s discography is […]
“There’s still time!” “That is a nice thought, but no.” Love is a key component of the fabric of Steven Universe, a force the show treats as both weapon and comfort. It’s also a subject the show has displayed immense maturity in dealing with, but there’s very little to get into when it comes to ‘The […]
“Oh hi Morty! I’m Krombopulos Michael, I’m an assassin. I buy guns from your grandpa.” Part of Rick And Morty‘s strength as a show is its willingness to grow without changing, to texture what’s already there rather than shake up its characters’ motivations and personalities. Case in point, Rick gives Morty the time-honored experience of learning […]
“If I die in a cage I lose a bet.” Hearing Justin Roiland’s grotesquely burp-punctuated line delivery after a year of Rick And Morty‘s absence from the air feels like being rebaptized in slime at the world’s worst and most exciting revival church. ‘A Rickle in Time,’ no relation to the beloved series of children’s books by […]
“I’m just a Pearl. I’m useless on my own.” ‘Friend Ship’ isn’t a spotless episode. The animation feels choppy, the pacing is cluttered, and Peridot’s villain routine wore thin a while back, but that sequence between Pearl and Garnet in the Temple of Doom chamber is what Steven Universe is all about. Using the bulk of this […]
“What can you do? Kids gotta express themselves.” Steven Universe, like many fantasy shows, is centered around a mystery. Over the course of two seasons that mystery has come to define the show, permeating its balletic action and complex character dynamics with a gnarled, inscrutable flavor of dread and uncertainty. I’m talking, of course, about the […]
“Not now.” ‘Keystone Motel’ is a small episode concerned with big things. It feels overfilled and sometimes unfocused, but if its look at a long-lasting queer relationship is uneven, it’s impressive that it’s happening at all. Garnet, looking for space in the wake of her fight with Pearl, rides along with Greg and Steven to […]
“I’m just so excited to be here. You see, I haven’t exactly been myself lately.” ‘Cry For Help’ is a compact, emotional quarter-hour of television showcasing each of the Gems and how tentative their connections to one another remain even after a season of growth and change. Ameythst is the show’s eternal troublemaker, but in […]
“It’s easy. You just lie down, get nice and comfy, don’t move, and don’t think about anything…” Oops. The last time Steven Universe went this weird it was for the paranoia-driven ‘Rose’s Room,’ an episode built around the impossibility of wish fulfillment. ‘Chille Tid,’ by contrast, is as placeless and strange as its name. The Norwegian phrase “chille […]
“Get open, get honest. That’s fusion.” Most shows with fantasy conceits similar to fusion use it as part of an ongoing game of power creep, ratcheting up the stakes by combining existing characters into newer, shoutier, more powerful versions of themselves. Leave it to Steven Universe to make it an expression of connection and love, a sort-of-but-not-quite […]
“I wish you hadn’t seen that.” This is a dang kids’ show, y’all. ‘Keeping It Together’ takes a long, unnerving look at something Steven Universe has had on its radar since ‘Frybo,’ season 1’s early gross-out fest: voluntary and involuntary dynamics. The show has bumped up against the idea softly and repeatedly in its portrayals of imperfect people trying […]
“Why won’t you just let me do this for you, Rose?” After an uneven front end and a lengthy break, season 2’s first week-long Steven Bomb of new episodes starts with ‘Sworn to the Sword,’ a heartfelt success that touches on selflessness, friendship, and the relationship between “special” and “normal” people in science fiction and fantasy. […]
“It’s just fun to see yourself as a cartoon character.” Steven Universe has often and with mixed results made hash out of exaggerating the Gems’ defining traits, but in ‘Reformed’ the show digs with honesty and compassion into how Amethyst uses that exaggeration to combat her insecurities. Things get rolling when Steven’s attempt to get Amethyst to take a clickbait […]
Garnet: “Start with the letter N.” Connie: “Huh, okay. What next?” Garnet: “The letter O.” Steven Universe giving love at first sight the brushoff feels kind of shaky just a few weeks after the show waxed rhapsodical about it in ‘Story for Steven.’ Granted, Jaime the Mailman cuts an especially dismissable figure with his overblown confessions of […]
“Vote For My Dad.” The stakes have never been lower, but Steven Universe thrives on the small stage. The episode’s plot is simple: Steven and Buck Dewey make T-shirts together, then disagree about what said T-shirts are for. It’s a light, sit-com-esque premise that leads into an earnest look at what growing up can take from […]
“You’re awfully cute, and I really want to play with you…but your life is short, and you have dreams.” Rose Quartz is the structuring absence of Steven Universe. She’s the ducks flying north from Tony Soprano’s pool, the vacated desk of Laura Palmer, the hole around which the themes and characters of the series revolve and against […]
“Don’t worry, bro. None of this is canon.” That’s how Uncle Grandpa, star of a show so tonally divorced from Steven Universe that absolutely none of this should work at all, pops into Beach City. What follows is a bizarre adventure that’s equal parts Terry Gilliam cartoon, bad anime, and Fourth Wall demolition session. Steven, frustrated by his inability […]
“Come on, aren’t you your own mom? You can do whatever you want.” Living up to a parent’s legacy can feel impossible. Steven lives in the void his mother left, a hole in the lives of every one of his parents, biological or otherwise. It’s easy to see the tension between his desire to step […]
Stars: J.G Quintel, William Salyers, Sam Marin, Mark Hamill, Roger Craig Smith, Janie Haddad Tompkins | Created by J.G Quintel In my review of The Amazing World of Gumball: Season 1 I spoke about how, as a kid I adored two cartoons in particular – Beavis and Butthead and Ren & Stimpy. I also said […]
What time is it? It’s Adventure Time! The cult show from creator Pendleton Ward and the Cartoon Network – which balances a mix of surreal humour and thrilling adventure and features guest appearances from Mark Hamill, Brian Posehn, Lou Ferrigno and Kerri Kenney-Silver – is coming to DVD in December. Set in the fantastical land of […]
