All That Glittered

This episode is very, very late! Clearly. By, like, a month. We're sorry, and we've been trying to get back on schedule for a long time now. Unfortunately, it isn't working. A variety of personal things have gotten in the way and made it very difficult to have a regular release schedule. So, rather than make promises that are absolutely going to be broken, we're going to take an indefinite hiatus. We intend to return to this dumb project eventually, because we have a lot of fun doing it. And we certainly have yet to run out of children's media that we had hoped to  cover. At the very least, for the sake of one increasingly long document in the Notes app of planned future episodes, we hope to come back and do more.  Anyway! This time: Sonic the Hedgehog. Again! But a different one. Okay, so, in the '90s there was all sorts of Sonic the Hedgehog stuff, including at least 3 shows, games of rapidly decreasing quality, multiple series of junior novels, a line of Sonic-branded canned pastas (google it!) a

Listen. This one is very late. The next one SHOULD be on time, and so should be the one after that. There will probably be more late episodes in the future, and for that we are very sorry. We'll always do our best, but sometimes our best won't be quite as good as we want it to be. In our defense, there are like A MILLION BETTER PODCASTS that you could listen to instead. We'll still be here when you run out of those. Patiently waiting. With a new episode about The Rocketeer (1990), which may or may not have been Dan's first-ever movie in theaters. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

The Lion King came out in 1994 and made over $400 million at the box office. Numbers like that earn a sequel, which Disney so obligingly provided in 1998 in the form of The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Somehow, this movie has also gone on to make over $400 million entirely in the home video market, making it the best-selling direct-to-VHS film ever. Did it earn that simply because it's the sequel to Disney's most-successful animated feature until Frozen, or is it a legitimately good film in its own right? Well. Well. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

Super late episode means super short description! Azure Dreams. Type: Video game. Year: 1998. Genre: Roguelike, kind of. Platform: Playstation. Crime: Emulation. Mood: (overly???) optimistic. Dan and Carolyn play not quite enough of a roguelike game. Video games without much in the way of plot are harder to talk about for a while, but don't worry, this meandering conversation still goes on exactly as TOO LONG as you've come to expect. Tangents include: video game myths and legends, girls in neighboring homes, game development pretensions. Tangents fail to include: facts, useful information. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

Little Giants (1994) is one of many underdog sports movies from the '90s. Perhaps the only thing setting this one in particular apart is that it stars Rick Moranis and Ed O'Neil. But here's the thing: neither Dan nor Carolyn know a single dang thing about sports. Do you like sports? I'm sorry. This episode might become a little frustrating. If we had a twitter account for the podcast, this episode would get a lot of disappointed tweets. Or no tweets at all! I don't know, I stay away from twitter. After all, I'm just an episode description. So I think we're creating a fiction here where the episode description writes itself, rather than being written by someone else? Hi! I'm your friendly episode description. This, of course, is in no way related to the episode, and will almost certainly be abandoned by the time the next episode comes out. But for one brief shining moment, here we were. This really got away from me. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork: 

This one is late because Monday was a holiday! But you're still getting this episode! And hopefully the next one won't be delayed at all! We'll see. Hopefully we haven't lost you, bec--what's that? You're already gone? Oh, because you saw the title of this episode? Yeah, okay. For whatever reason, Carolyn was really into the movie League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) when she was a young teen. I don't know what to tell you. Kids have the worst taste. This movie, oh man. This movie. You're gonna hear a lot of disappointed or disgusted sighs. Because that's mostly what this movie inspired. So many additional sighs were edited out in the process of putting this episode together, you don't even know. Just... yeah. We're sorry. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

A quick description, because this episode is already 24 hours late as of the time of writing! Dan and Carolyn watch one of Carolyn's favorites, Rescuers Down Under (1990). It's an odd duck among the Disney Renaissance, being the lowest-grossing at the box office and the only one to not be a musical. Also, it's the only one to be a sequel! And relevant to this episode, Dan has never seen the first and Carolyn does not profess to remember anything from it. In this second paragraph, there's usually some low-key corrections about dumb stuff that Dan and Carolyn end up saying during the episode. Well, this time, they didn't say anything wrong at all! Okay, it turns out that the character Joanna, referred to as either a gila monster or a komodo dragon, is actually a goanna. Joanna the Goanna. Neither Dan nor Carolyn even understood that there was a pun occurring. For shame. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescu

Okay, so, this episode has a pretty good amount of discussion of defunct Star Wars canon. Be prepared for that. In this episode, Dan and Carolyn talk about a series of Star Wars books for kids that Dan read when he was young! Dan gets a handful of details wrong about Star Wars that he really, definitely, 100% absolutely knew. Then they go read the first book in the series! This one is a little unusual in that they talk a lot about the whole series of books, but only read the first one. So a lot of these details? Still half-remembered from years and years ago. Probably very wrong. But what can you do? Besides, I guess, actually read those books. Because that's not what they did. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

Happy 2018! We're coming in now with our first episode of the new year, and you can bet it's... something. Does Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within live up to Dan's hazy memories? Well, he doesn't remember a single thing from the plot before rewatching it. So, uh, make of that what you will. Also, this episode is sort-of-late because of all the holidays; we expect to get back on a normal schedule now that they're over. Who thought it was a good idea to put so many next to each other like that? I'll tell you what: the stress of the holidays would have been a good episode of All That Glittered, and we would not have reviewed our memories kindly. Dang, that's actually a pretty good idea. Dang. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

Dan and Carolyn invite a friend again! Largely because both really wanted to watch this episode's movie (The Last Unicorn, 1982) but neither had seen it so it didn't fit the format of the podcast. They are joined by their friend Julia, who is both extremely talented and also very accomplished! You should go look at her amazing artwork at http://juliagriffinart.com and marvel at everything there. Also, find a link to her print store. Because, seriously. Dang. During the recording of this episode, all of the hosts kind of walked a line in terms of swearing! The movie, which was rated G, did have a "damn" or two in there, so I think we decided that saying "damn" was okay. It also had a few bare breasts on mythical figures, so we figured that talking about that was okay? Then there were a few saltier moments. Editing around them was a little difficult, but I think I got them all? There may be one left behind. Sorry about that! If there's a swear that was left behind, you should signal that information by lea

This one is a week late! For that, we are sorry. There were two problems: first, Thanksgiving. Lots of traveling made it difficult to record and edit. Second, this recording happened in a different location and with some different equipment. That ended up having some major consequences, audio-wise. Basically, the audio is not good. Again, a warning: the audio in this episode is all over the place, and not very good. That's the second problem: this required a lot of extra work to make it anything even approaching listenable. There was a point during editing where it turned out that a fourth host had snuck into the mix, and that host was R2-D2. Turns out, if you layer two dozen audio effects (multiple compression attempts, several differently-sampled noise reduction effects, a low-pass filter and a high-pass filter, etc.), the mix turns into garbage and robots start to appear in the background making weird beeping and whistling noises. That mix got scrapped, and another tack was taken: basically, accept that th

We're pretty sure that this is a really good one, you guys. I mean, we make the content so we're not very good judges of its actual quality, but we hope that this one hits you just right. The episode, that is. Not Digimon. For a very wide variety of reasons. Dan and Carolyn watched 1999's Digimon: Digital Monsters (Digimon Adventure in Japan), the first television incarnation of the now far-reaching franchise. It concerns a surprisingly large cast of children, transported to a digital dimension where they encounter digital monsters and find themselves the subject of a digital prophecy to save the digital world by helping their digital partners to digitally evolve using digital devices. Only some of that sentence was sarcastic. And if you're anything like me, the word "digital" no longer has any meaning. Digital digital digital. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)  

Boo! It's Halloween, and so Dan and Carolyn decided it would be fun do something REALLY spooky: Dan got sick. Not the good (?) kind, either. This is why the episode is coming in the evening, for those of you playing along at home. Dan and Carolyn also watched 1993 holiday (??) classic (???) Hocus Pocus, which stars three great actresses who decided that their best move for this film was to completely abandon everything they know about acting. And in all honesty, that was the best decision that they could have made. Oh, and Carolyn learned for the first time during the recording that this had a theatrical release, and wasn't just a Disney Channel Original Movie. This at first sounds ridiculous, but actually makes a lot of sense when you really consider the film. Think about it. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

It's Halloween month! The time for wall-to-wall spooky media, no matter what age you are. So Dan and Carolyn go back to a perennial classic from Carolyn's childhood. Apparently what passes for "classic" in her childhood is a 1988 made-for-TV adaptation from the Scooby Doo franchise in which Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy are hired to be gym coaches for a prep school populated exclusively by the daughters of Hammer Horror monsters. If we're being honest, the spookiest thing about this whole endeavor is probably the reused animations.  Also, this episode contains a clip of Scrappy Doo rapping. It seems like a warning is appropriate; no one should go into this experience unprepared for that. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

Sean Connery is a dragon! It doesn't matter if you were personally a fan of this film, that should be enough to sell it. If that doesn't do it, I don't know what will. Dragonheart was a 1996 film about Sean Connery being a dragon. Some humans were there too, I guess. In this episode, Dan and Carolyn both reveal that they know very little about the science behind either dragons or chameleons. How do chameleons change color? Also, this dragon has four legs, plus two wings--that's six appendages, which is not seen outside of insects. It doesn't come up during the episode, more evidence that our hosts know nothing about dragons. Oh, you can also hear early on the precise moment where Dan realizes to his shame that he missed a pun fully three hours after that pun was deployed. It's really something. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

In this, the 25th episode, Dan and Carolyn read the novelization of the 1997 kung-fu kangaroo movie Warriors of Virtue. Dan loved this book for reasons that are now unclear. He has not seen the movie. Neither are quite sure what to make of this book, and neither can quite imagine what the movie must be like. Insane, surely. In this episode, Carolyn briefly loses sight of what real books must be like. Dan feels like he is taken prisoner by the novel, and by the end seems to have fallen in love with his jailer. It's a lot like some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome, and their captor is inexplicably named Barbarocious. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

How is it that Dan hasn't seen A Goofy Movie? Or its presumably-goofier sequel, An Extremely Goofy Movie? Well, he didn't watch much Disney Channel as a kid. Primarily because he never knew which channel number it was on. Anyway, he has now rectified that! In this episode, Carolyn appreciates the portrayal of teen girls. Dan then turns around and straight-up gaslights her; you will hear him insist, about 54 minutes into the episode, that they saw a particular movie together. He later checked, and the timeline doesn't actually add up. Don't tell Carolyn! Memory is weird, and that's kind of what the podcast is about. Memory and gaslighting. Theme music:  Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork:  Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)

Okay, so, Dan and Carolyn have been digging into some real garbage from their past in recent episodes. Will Balto (1995) pull us all out of that slump? Maybe! Balto is based on the true story of the sled dog team which brought much-needed antitoxin to Nome, Alaska to end the 1925 diphtheria outbreak there. But like, loosely based on that story. This one has a talking goose and seems to make the claim that you can just huck a dog off a cliff with no consequences. Okay, VERY loosely based. There's a lot about the story that apparently is pretty controversial to this day! Balto was only one of about 150 sled dogs involved, and his musher didn't run the longest or even the hardest leg of the marathon that got the serum to Nome. Some people even claim he wasn't on the team at all!  Neither Dan nor Carolyn are in any way equipped to evaluate those claims. Heck, they're barely equipped to evaluate the quality of this film. But that's not to say that they won't try. Theme music: Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot

This episode is a just a little bit shorter than usual, mostly because Dan and Carolyn ended up running out of ways to say "why is this thing the way that it is?" This thing, one of Dan's childhood favorites, being Cardcaptor Sakura, an anime broadcast on Kids' WB in 2000. Or rather, the chopped-and-screwed version of Cardcaptor Sakura, which was titled Cardcaptors. They took the girl's name out of the title because they were doing everything they could to convince the (presumed male) viewer that the show is in fact about one of the antagonists, who is a boy.  It doesn't work and is exactly as offensive as it sounds. In this episode, Dan gets mad. Like, really mad. A little too mad. Carolyn gloats a little bit about how her childhood favorites generally haven't been this bad. Which seems a little bit like kicking Dan while he's down! Fun fact: there's a German word for the feeling of secondhand embarrassment, "fremdschämen." This episode is full of that. Theme music: Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Frea

The sequel to An American Tail! A Don Bluth classic! That neither Don Bluth nor his animation studio worked on. Oh well, I'm sure it holds up just as well as everyone remembers. I'm sure it definitely has a plot, and isn't just a loosely strung-together series of often boring and occasionally racist sequences without any semblance of structure or purpose. Uh-oh. In this one, Carolyn generally refrains from making any gross factual errors; Dan, however, identifies the Goliath Bird Eating Spider as being Australian. No, friends, if you want to be killed by that particular piece of evidence for a malevolent deity, you'll have to travel to South America. You're off the hook this time, Australia. Theme music: Her Smile in Every Summer by Hot Freaks (http://ocremix.org) Artwork: Midge Scully (https://www.instagram.com/midgescully)