Wet Watchcat Wednesday

Our blog posts are starting to get some real attention. We've also got a few viewers from France and the Bahamas who clicked on our blog ads to show their support. 
We are only $20.19 away from our $100 goal. Clicking on the ads won't cost you a thing, but each click gets us to our goal. Once we go over the $100 goal, Google will send us that first check so we can donate it to a good cause.

But back before there were animal shelters, cats were herded from the east to the west. Back then, mice and rodents were ruining the crops and farms in the West and so, Cat Herders were needed to bring the big city cats to help the western towns and farmers.

Here's a fun video you might not have seen...

And here's one for hot dog lovers everywhere...

 

Its a rainy Burbank day and we appreciate all the views and ad clicks. We are working on our next blogcast and will share it with you soon.

Last week on the Watchcat Files...

Watchcat Wakanda Wednesday

Greg and Jim talk more about "Black Panther"...

We are trying out a new format for Watchcat Wednesday and would like to know what you think about it. Please let us know with a comment below.

And we got more ad clicks this week too, bringing our total up to $79.49 or only $20.51 more clicks away from our $100 goal. The money will be given to an Animal Shelter, Thanks again for your support and click the ads below or on right side of your screen. Every little click helps...

Last Week on the Watchcat Files...

Watchcat Needs your Help.

Help us raise some money for a local Animal Shelter in the name of Watchcat. Clicking on the ads on this blog will not cost you a thing, only about less than a second of your time. We are only $30 in ad clicks away from reaching our $100 goal and asking you to click on an ad everytime you visit us.

December and January we got a lot of clicks pushing us to $70.34 and this month, we've only received 0.05 cents. We are hoping to get more ad clicks, so we can stop posting this request all the time since we are only very close to the goal.

Google promises to send us a check when we reach the $100 goal. We plan to hand over the check to our local Burbank Animal Shelter and let you know when this happens.

We would love to donate to more shelters and programs throughout the year, but right now, we need your help on this one.

Please leave a comment if you clicked on an ad. We might have turned something off if clicks are not being recorded. Other comments and suggestions about what you like or would like to see in future blog posts are also welcomed.

Thank You!

Watchcat Review: Batman, Gotham by GasLight

An Evening at Gotham By Gaslight!

By Gregory Bradley

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the premiere of Batman: Gotham By Gaslight by my good friend, Michael Hatch. The film is based off the first D.C. Elseworld comic by the same name from 1989 by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola with inks by P.Craig Russell. "Elseworld" is a term used in comics for the regular superheroes storylines as "What if Batman met Jack the Ripper" as an alternative storyline. It allows writers to come up with a different, sometimes outrageous stories that's not considered canon for their main heroes.

Interestingly enough the word "Elseworld" hadn't been invented when "Gotham By Gaslight" was published in 1989. The comic was actually called "Tales Of The Batman."
 
Two of my favorite characters in comic books & literature are Batman and Sherlock Holmes, I've always been fascinated with Victorian England, especially with the case of Jack the Ripper. This animated film has Batman hunting down Jack the Ripper in Victorian Gotham in the 19 century. Great concept!

The comic book was very successful and now they just made an animated movie based on it. I will talk about the movie itself later, but first, the premiere night.

It was a nice small gathering of Batman fans at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills. And on the screen, you can see the title of the film. It look very cool. After watching the film, they brought out the cast to talk about the making of the animated film.

The movie stars Bruce Greenwood as Batman and Jennifer Carpenter as Selina Kyle.  The movie was directed by Warner Bros Animation's very own Sam Lu.

One of the breakouts of the film for me was Jennifer Carpenter as Selina Kyle.  I was familiar with her work on "Dexter" as Debra, Dexter's sister, but I never would've known she was the voice of Selina. Awesome job! I liked hearing her talk about what it felt like to get the role. 

As for Batman, it was good to hear Bruce Greenwood voice the main character again. I thought he was excellent in "Under The Red Hood!" He was very funny when he told us that as a kid he couldn't watch the 1960s Batman show because his parents thought it was too violent. Can you imagine that. 

I thought it was also interesting hearing him talk about playing Batman for the first time in "Batman: Under The Red Hood." 

I also enjoyed learning what it's like for a voice actor to do a performance to still images that haven't been animated yet.

And finally, we got a chance to hear from director Sam Lu talking about the difference between doing a live action film and an animation one. 

All in all, it was a really good night. And I was glad to have been able to see my first Batman animated movie on the big screen.

I thought the film was OK. It was entertaining, but I felt like there were too many missed opportunities and I was disappointed in some of the choices that the filmmakers made.

As I mentioned before, I'm a big Batman fan. As a matter fact, Watchcat is a big inspiration from Batman.  And I've always been fascinated with the Victorian era, particularly, the Jack the Ripper murders. So when I heard that they were going to combine both mythologies into one film, I couldn't wait to see it.

I was really hoping to get an all out rated R horror- thriller-detective story, I only got half of that. In my opinion, I felt that the movie focused more on the action set pieces and hand to hand combat, but less on the detective side of it. One of my biggest problems with a lot of Batman movies, live action and some of the animated ones, is the fact that he supposedly the world's greatest detective, but hardly ever detects outside of the comics.

I really felt that the "Batman animated series" did it the best. Particularly "Mask of the Phantasm " and strangely enough, the 60's "Batman"TV show did a lot of that as well. Batman is supposedly inspired by Sherlock Holmes. He's supposed to be as smart as Holmes, so putting Batman in the Victoria era where Holmes was created, it felt like a slam-dunk. But outside of "one meet cute scene" with Selina Kyle, he really doesn't detect that much until near the third act which was so obvious, that anyone could have figured it out and it felt a bit of a cheat when you found out the Ripper's identity. 

I thought the movie should've been longer, with a little bit more red herrings and clues, so that the audience could piece together the mystery of who the Ripper is, just like Batman. They also could have added more Batman characters into the mix and used more of the Jack the Ripper lore.

I found the animation wasn't that impressive and needed to be more stylized. Both Batman and the Ripper should've been in the shadows for most of the movie. Both characters work best in the shadows that would have given the film a more gothic atmosphere. However, both characters fight each other thru out the film in light works against the tension and suspence it started with. Overall, this should have been as much a Jack the Ripper story as a Batman one.

(Three hours later)

OMG! I just read the comic! It's brilliant. What a great story. They should've just stuck to the comic. It gave me everything I was asking for that the film didn't. I got a chance to see Batman or should I say, Bruce Wayne as a detective. The comic really does focus on the Jack the Ripper lore that I was asking for.

I thought that the comic gave you better "Easter eggs" then the film. It was very inventive the way they used the newspapers of that time to depict both Batman and the Ripper as well as implying that the Batman might be the Ripper.

If I have one criticism about the comic, it's the same criticism that I have about the film. It should've been longer and just like what I said about the film, you needed more red herrings as well as more suspects.

I knew who the Ripper was by page 2 of the comics. But, it was such a tight and interesting read that I didn't mind it and this particular story really tied in nicely into Batman's Origin.

I would advise anyone who's interested in Batman or Elseworld stories to find and read the comic version first.

I have to admit, after reading the comic, it made me more disappointed with the film. I truly feel they sacrificed a really good solid Gothic horror story for an lame action adventure film. Most people are not interested in period storylines, but a good story is a good story. You have to give it a chance.

So that's my two cents. I enjoyed my time at the Batman premiere, but I prefer the comic than the film.

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Case of the Forgotten Hard drive. 1/24

This Day in Animation History 1/24.

1961- Warner Bros. cartoon voice actor Mel Blanc had a terrible auto crash. He lingered in a coma for several weeks. The way the doctor brought him around was to say: “Hey Bugs Bunny! How are we today?” Blanc replied in character:” Ehhh…fine, doc!” To hear this amazing story click the link below!

Listen to this Radio Lab podcast.

2006- The Walt Disney Company acquired CG animation studio Pixar. Apple and Pixar head Steve Jobs got a seat on Disney Board, Ed Catmull was named head of the studio, 1 and director John Lasseter became it’s creative head.

What follows is something that really happened to me last week. I thought I would retell it in a more entertaining way. Let me know if I succeeded.

And now,  
The Case of the Forgotten Hard drive.

It was a cool and cloudy Friday afternoon, a threat of rain hung in the air, but nothing was falling yet. I was interrupted by a Facebook plea of help and the comment peaked my interest.

The Facebook friend told of loosing 18 years of his animated work, family photos and other valuable files he used to teach his craft. A common fear these days of suddenly waking up to find your identity has been stolen and then that you are in the wrong house, with the wrong family. Where did the real YOU go?

I contact the poor sap immediately to find out what had happened.

It turned out that his portable hard drive was missing and had disappeared somewhere between taking it to his animation class and returning that same day to his home. He said he could not find it at home and returned to the classroom, but it wasn't there. He searched the classroom, ask students if they had seen the missing black WD hard drive in its original green cardboard box, but he could not find it anywhere.

The first week of any job is always stressful, even when you haven't suddenly lost your entire digital life. The next day, I arrived at precisely at 12pm on a quite sunny, but still very cool Saturday afternoon. The front door opened to reveal a man of worry. He's eyes where puffy from lack of sleep, his brow furrowed from internal stress. Glancing to the left, outside on the lawn, near small bush sat a black cat. Looking back to my client, I suddenly sneezed. "Bless you," said the man as a smile of relief blossomed on his face in my presence. "You have cats," I replied," Deathly allergic to them, sorry."

My client drove us back to University as he recalled what happened during the day in question. When we arrived, I had him park his car in the same parking spot as he did the day before. I instructed him to repeat every action he could remember, even so slight, as he retraced his day for me.

" I remember putting the hard drive on the floor of the passenger's side of the car." he continued," I thought I might need something from it for class. I also thought I would keep it there, so if I really needed it I could come back for it." "Are you sure you took it with you at this point." I inquired. "Yes, I think I remember taking it with me," he recalled, " Because I had my backpack in one hand and I was holding something in the other." "Perhaps, the hard drive?" I added.

We continued up the front steps to the Design Center's front doors. "Stop." I exclaimed,"Which hand did you use to open the door with?" "Why, my right of course." said the man," I'm right handed." "Yes," I explained," however if you were carrying the hard drive in your right hand at the time." "Then," the man continued," I would have had to have to put it in... Yes, I do remember, I did do that." We continued inside.

The first thing I noticed was a shiny wooden floor made of long, strips of wood. As we walked up a flight of stairs, the man told me that the building use to be an indoor basketball court years ago. The first set of stairs lead up to a turnway and a railing, where we overlooked the rest of the basketball floor below. 

We continued up the second set of stairs to the second floor. "My classroom is over here." said the man as we continued down a small walkway to room 203. The classroom inside, had been cleaned and the desks arranged from the previous day. A slight scent of bleach hung in the air.

"I put everything on this table," the man pointed," I remember now, that I didn't use the hard drive after all, but it was right there during the class." The man's words quickly turned to gravy and disappeared as I entered my mind palace.

Time and space frozen as I examined the possibilities of the case so far.  Various formulas of glowing text revealed information and orbited my head. An outline of a cleaning crew swirled into view. A pair of hands picking up the hard drive, a possibility. Quickly, I swiped my arms causing the text concepts and images to fly together and rearrange themselves.

"Are you, ok?" asked the man staring at me with concern. Suddenly, I was back in the real world, my arms still in motion, until I stopped. "Fine!" I jolted back, slightly embarrassed, "So... how did you leave class?"


The man pointed and we went out a second door at the back of the classroom. We walked along the walkway as the florescent lighting shown down onto the glossy floor below. We made our way to another set of stairs to leave. The man was muttering on about something, but I was too busy putting the facts together.

We rounded the corner to go down these stairs when I spotted it. The tattered green cardboard box sitting perched precariously on the railing, next to the wall to the left. One good push would literally send the hard drive crashing onto the floor below.

I counted the seconds it took for the hard drive's owner to realize it was there sitting only an arm's length from him. " I remember, I think I walked down here to answer my cel phone," the man recalled," Yes, I did get a call and had to put everything down." 

His words faded as I re-entered my mind palace and noticed a stack of mail that had been piling up at the front door. Looking through it only to find an assortment of boring adverts and junk mail.

Its been a while since I visited the other rooms in my mind palace only to discover piles of mnemonic devices and clutter throughout.  I decided to do a load of laundry and ended up mopping the kitchen floor from left over facts and figures from a previous case. Looking out the kitchen window to the backyard, the lawn was really overgrown as well and needed a good mowing.

The key to my mind garage broke in the lock. Lucky, my neighbor and retired locksmith, Randy was home to help. After a replacement key was made and I mowed the yard, I decided to return back to see if the man had noticed the hard drive sitting on the railing to his left. 

And then, finally. "Why, there it is!" he exclaimed in delight. The man turned to his left and saw the box that I had seen only 17 and a half seconds earlier. 

Before I could end this case by giving my brilliant line which I had conceived while mowing the backyard, I sneezed abruptly. " Bless you, Mr. Holmes," the man smiled. I looked around for that black cat that I could not see, but felt sure it was there.  

The missing hard drive was now back in the hands of its proper owner and once again, I had solved, yet another case. 

A common fear of most people today is that they're identity may be stolen or worse, their cel phone. Mine is finding a cat lurking in my mind palace.

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