spacemaster83 Reviews

Challenge of the GoBots (1984–1985)

Gobots were first, not Transformers

[7/10 · 18 September 2016]

The Challenge of the Gobots debuted before (Sept, 8th 1984) the Transformers series (Sept, 17th 1984). Transformers is great, but give credit where credit is due. The Gobots series was presented on American television first, plain and simple. Haters should check their facts before they claim copyright infringement and all the other petty charges that have been leveled at Hanna-Barbera for the Gobots series over the last 30 years.

Transformers was not even anything like the Gobots and vice versa. Who ever said you can't have two, or five, or eighty shows about transforming robots? The fact that people still argue over who did what first is so pointless. Things do not happen in a vacuum, ideas, innovations, and inventions happen spontaneously within the cultural zeitgeist, few if any are ever planned.

Besides, both American cartoon series were based on a mega-popular line of Japanese toys from the 1970's and several Japanese anime series from the early 1980's. Tonka and Hasbro were simply adapting Japanese toy design, animation, and stylizing to American audiences. Bottom line, one is not better than the other, however, in America Gobots came first and in large part paved the way for Transformers to take American children by storm.

The Goldbergs (2013–2023)

So Funny, SoTrue, and So Honest

[8/10 · 10 August 2014]

This is a show that gives us the experience of a family, warts and all. How many times do we see a show that informs us that the mother is one step from psycho (Wendi McLendon Covey does a superb job at portraying this aspect) and that the father is rather ineffectual in his parenting, if not down right neglectful of his children, though loving. Maybe even worse the Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) on Married... with Children, however, Murray (Jeff Garlin) is a much more accepting parent than Al on the whole. Even the Middle and Malcolm in the Middle did not go as far as to say that the mother is insanely determined to keep everyone in her family in line and that the father could more or less not care what is going on. I suspect that this definition of parent is much closer to what most of us have experienced in our own childhoods. The honesty and comic timing as pertains to the missteps the adults are always making reminds us that there are a million ways to parent. The fact that at the end of the day the Goldbergs all really do love each other, give all of us with dysfunctional families the power to not give up hope on this ideal outcome of familial harmony. Most important is that this unique format of plain straight forward story arcs and the wackiness of the characters(especially Beverly, Pops (George Segal), and Barry (Troy Gentile)) makes the whole package attractive and fun. We should keep in mind that the Goldbergs is not trying to be Modern Family or Mom, or any traditional sitcom format, it is more a free form yet very tightly written style that feels more real and genuine than some other modern sitcoms. Fun, mishaps and bad behavior abound and that makes for hilarious comedic situations. The Goldbergs has been called by some as the next big thing in comedy. Indeed its cast and writers have already been highly praised. George Segal, Wendi McLendon Covey and Jeff Garlin are spot on in their interpretations of these goofy bigger than life parental characters, not to mention the genius of the children in the cast who add the necessary ingredient of rebellion and simultaneous continuous maturity of the offspring. We can surely looked forward to this family giving us more laughs and memories of the past in the future.