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Disclaimer#1: All images, characters and material is (C) 1990/1991 Walt Disney Company and is being used without premission. The webmaster has made sure that no money was made in the creation of this webpage and that all material used here is used with the upmost affection and respect to the Walt Disney Company and the Tale Spin Team.


Disclaimer#2: The views expressed here are solely the views of the webmaster and no one else. The webmaster has no intentions to change anyone's minds about a particular subject and respects the views of the viewers. Comments about this and other editorials can be E-Mail at gweagle@eastlink.ca


Disney's Fox & Family Devalued!

And not just in the moral sense either:

"What is the one thing we are missing?" - Some fool from Made In Canada.
"TALENT!!"
- Rick Mercer, Made in Canada .

(2015 Gregory Weagle Says: Rick Mercer rules. Disney and Fox does not.)

Ahhhh! It's excellent to be back on my computer working on the Unofficial Kit Cloudkicker Homepage once again. As I was in my little fantasy paradise working on a couple of my fanfics. I did not have a good Christmas. I didn't get Dragon Warrior 7, or the new hard disk for my six year old system. (This was well before 2004 so I'm guessing it's around 2000.) I did get a Nintendo Gamecube with Super Smash Brothers Melee and it was worth every penny that I actually spent on so that more than made up for the problems of the past. Another tragic event happened a few days before Christmas when the bottom wooden panel of my waterbed separated from the trim of my water bed causing it to tip about six inches below where it originally should be. The good news is that the water bed mattress didn't leak and the problem was fixed quite easily. The bad news is that it took nearly six hours just to get the water bed mattress back into its original position. Believe me; that thing weights almost two tonnes when only a quarter-full (it had to be drained by hand and that took a huge effort into itself). In the end about a week later; my back suffered a huge sprain and I had to take back medication for three days. It was awful. (Word of advice: Water beds are awful! Cold spring beds aren't always bad. And to think: Now I suffer back sprains just by sitting now.) Sleeping in the rec room was good however. As I write this; I discovered that TaleSpin is on the French CBC New Burnswick station at 5 pm; so my life is back to pre-TaleSpin withdrawal that happened when Family Channel stopped airing the series. (That didn't last long and CBC French station will air anything, even dubbed anime that no self-respecting Canadian English station would air at this point.) At least that was what I first thought...

However; nothing surprised me more than the recent announcement that on March 2nd; Disney will run their recent bought channel FOX Family on their cable sets also known as ABC "Family". (Scare quotes intentional of course.) At first; I thought that this was another attempt to put Disney re-runs on another channel. (I also thought that ABC would be putting those shows on their actual main ABC network) Well; I have found out that this is not the case at all. The entire ABC "Family" channel will feature a number of animated "childrens'" programs such as (GASP!) Digimon and most notably the imfamous television series; The Power Rangers! What is going on here? (Disney's first attempt to aquire content for the boys; which failed. Say what you will about Marvel and LucasArts; but at least those properties were successful even if it would mean toning down those properties.) Disney being said in the same breath with the Power Rangers and Digimon?! Power Rangers: The same series that caused so much trouble with parents groups and was citied for excessive violence (multiple punches and kick in mere seconds) by children in the early 1990's and then there is Digimon: The ripoff of the used-to-be good Pokemon series; although season 3 is pretty decent and more towards the actual Digimon product. (Okay; Digimon is perfectly fine as a series. It's just crappy because the English dubs continue to treat kids like morons because moral guardians think that they are morons. If anyone should check their previlege, it's the moral guardians. Power Rangers is successful and while there was more violence.) How can the Walt Disney Company do this to us?! (They got a lot of money for no long term payoff.) Bastardization of films to make money like Peter Pan II, Jungle Book II (If Baloo's voice is anything like that voice on those TaleSpin commericals on Toon Disney; then there will be massive trouble! (No it didn't. John Goodman was less troublesome than whomever did those commercials. Besides; people should have been more offended at having a real kid there when Kit F'N Cloudkicker is in the damn show. How about changing the commercial so the real kid is on the airfoil with Kit? Is it any more dangerous than Baloo letting the kid fly the plane? Above all; Kit is a child character and child characters are supposed to be the main event anyway. Never underestimate the power of stupidity when it comes to marketing managers at Disney.)) and a number of other sequels coming out on video is one thing. At least Disney created them themselves; I can take that even if I don't like it most of the time. (Fair enough; the sequels did make some bank, but better writing and animation would have worked wonders.) But to come out and buy a channel just to make money is not only wrong in moral and in money sense; it is also insulting to Walt Disney himself. He didn't ask for help from his rivals like Warner Brothers and everyone respects him for that. (Ummm; no. Walt was at a time period when hostile takeovers were not even being considered from a business standpoint. I betcha Walt would have done hostile takeovers if the moment presented itself. Buying a channel is not morally wrong; nor is it a bad thing. Sometimes companies want to dump stuff that isn't making money and is willing to give them to the competition to cut their losses. It's standard protocol. Again; this is something Walt would have done if he were still alive because it's what he does, not what he says, which are contradictory. The reason the Fox Family Channel deal was a bad one was because outside of Digimon and Power Rangers; there wasn't much else that was monster over with the audience. And Disney had no reason to get those over. Plus; the LucasArts/Marvel deals were more important than this.) This is another example of Disney listening to Michael Esiner's money machine that has reduced Disney Television Animation to nothing but an extension to the Disney movies and a Powerpuff-ripoff show, (Although some of DTVA latest offerings were a bit better compared to Recess; Team Surpemo could join Recess very soon...) markets R-rated movies and even their greatest offerings have been weakened unless they are created by PIXAR. (The DTVA/DTFA problem is a real one and should have been fixed (and was fixed). Team Surpemo was godawful; but Disney marketing R-rated movies? If you want to complain about this; you can complain about them wearing a mask to market said R-rated programs and not being honest about it, even though it's the moral guardians who continue to cast Disney into a really stupid stereotype of itself.) How can I trust Disney anymore? Why did this happen? Read on.....

I was watching a program on CNBC (We do have that channel) I listened to the program called 'Disney In The Dumps' (That was at least the topic of the program) and there I heard the same buzz words: Aquire, Aquire Aquire. (Which is still Disney's MO today; although they have been getting much better at it.) In the proper context; I agree on the concept of aquirement. However; Since this was in fact a business show what they really said was to aquire compaines and other channels to raise revenue and become number one in the race. (Somehow I remember the show; and even a buzz word for the tempo of the show; but don't remember who or what was said.) This is completely different and in my opinion completely wrong from Nintendo's concept of aquirement. Sure; Nintendo could create more mature content; however, at least they are for the most part they are in no danger of losing money. (Until 2011 when they went three straight years of losses before pulling back together in 2015 due to a weak yen. Nintendo has been aquiring companies too; but at least Nintendo got it right by aquiring teams who have similar values to Nintendo itself.) They create original products and they make their product sequels better than the originals. When they aquire compaines; they create original products and games. Most of the time; I play their games and I have a smile on my face. I cannot say the same thing for Disney. (Until recently; now Disney has put a smile on my face and Nintendo only has done that half of the time.) They need to aquire all right: THEY NEED TO AQUIRE TALENT! (Great! And they do aquire talent through their buying out of stuff. It's just that they buy in bulk which many of us do on a regular basis.) They have continued lost such brilliant talent ever since Don Blunt left and that was because Disney treated him like dirt. Jymn Magon is now a freelancer; Mark Zaslove is out of animation all together and they created one of the best animated series of all time (as high as fourth place out of thousands of cartoons I might add!). They are getting plugs even ten years after the show was first created back in 1988. Why aren't they working for Disney? I have no idea; although Don could shed a little light on that. (Mark Zaslove has returned to animation a long time ago and still does it today. No wonder he thinks you are writing fiction about him. TaleSpin's ratings in syndication were #2 overall in animation; #4 in all of programming, so you underestimated there 2000 Me! And it's obvious why they left: Disney saw no value in them; or the talent pool felt that working at Disney made them unhappy.) Look; Disney, these people who created our TaleSpin could have easily make their works comply with FCC standards and still make a worthwhile project. They are that good. (Yeah; if Michael Eisner didn't have divine right and therefore no one spirits got crushed as a result.) Unlike many cynics; I like animated shows about school. Recess didn't have to happen the way it did with it's malevolent teachers who were supposed to be role models. Maybe I should've expected this aquirement from Disney after seeing how they at first treated shows about school? (Well; I blame the "justice" writers who thought giving the FCC the middle finger was a great idea. Once Doctor Slicer arrived, the show turned around and became respectable. Pepper Ann was fine. It was 101 Dalmatians that was bad with the concept.)

More importantly; why choose a channel from FOX? (Although I admit that it would be just as bad if they aquired CN from Warner Brothers) Fox is not exactly a quality boardcast programmer to begin with. (Yeah; but their ratings from Family Guy, The Simpsons and American Dogs are stuff of legends. FOX may make trainwreck television; but they know how to make amusing trainwreck television. Now if they can drop to Chargeman Ken levels of trainwreck; but they really got something worth watching.) Not to mention the fact that FOX Kids alone (which ironically 4Kids Entertainment has paid to lease the actual block; and also used to host the original Digimon and Power Rangers. (Oh lord; I just remembered: What's Inside The Foxbox? Answer: Smut.) is hardly a real family type of block. The Ripping Friends is the biggest example of how the product does not match the license. FOX would have you believe that this is a Powerpuff Girls type of show (TV-Y7 FV); however, just because I was interested in how Canada rates content compared to the US I checked Teletoon and I was completely stunned when I discovered the very same show was rated 14+. In America that would be equal to a TV-14 rating; the same rating given to WWF Raw without the D, L and V rating soup to follow. (Although V would be likely) There is even a graphic torture sence (it involves a hammer and feet and that's how far I'm going on this one) in the Canadian run version of the show that would send any moralist into a frenzy. (Mind you Teletoon does run 18+ shows after 11 pm local time. I don't know if it's similar to Adult Swim on Cartoon Network.) (I'm sorry; but after seeing The Wuzzles do a similar scene (wasn't a torture scene; but it did involve murdering a body part with a hammer, so it's similar enough.) in 1985; even with rating creep, it would be C in Canada and TV-Y in the USA and not cut by Toon Disney. Toon Disney hated matches and guns; but not hammers, which could be mimicked much more easily. Now do you see why I was happy when TaleSpin was released on DVD uncut?) Now before someone jumps up and sezs that 'I told you so' there is more than acting hypocritical; to be fair; religious shows such as Jack Van Impe Presents are rated TV-G is the US (And for their sake; I refuse to comment on the way these shows are done.) and rated PG in Canada and a number of Canadian shows rated C are in fact rated Y7 in the US. (Canadians disagree with Americans when it comes to rating television shows for children. That's a shocker and a half. Not.) I believe that the afterformentioned sence of the Ripping Friends was cut from the American version. (or worse; the episode will never run there.) While Disney currently has no plans to bring the Ripping Friends to ABC Family (They better not!); after bringing the Power Rangers it is not a far-fetched plan. All I know is that this is going to backfire right into Eisner's face again. (It sure did. Saban has Power Rangers and Digimon back and is still having not one clue in how to translate Digimon that doesn't treat children like morons. Disney actually treated Digimon Frontier and Digimon Data Squad better than Saban did in terms of dubbing. Not much more mind you; but it was enough to make the difference.) If Disney was creating ABC Family from the ground up with original programming; then I wouldn't complain; even if the content was terrible. (Yes you would complain about it. It's terrible about it. You cannot say "complain too much"?) At least they would not look like they were running out of ideas. Aquiring FOX Family is the same as admitting that you are running out of ideas; not to mention that it makes you look like a gobal zombie in the eyes of people who believed in Walt Disney's vision of beauty and grace on screen. (Aquiring FOX Family is the same as admitting that you have no idea how to aquire something that is similar to what your values are and thus are a waste of money which could have been for anything else. Heck; buying an extra studio would be cheaper than this.) It has reduced to nothing more than a illusion with our dollars being raped for all they are worth. (Never use the word rape in any other context other than someone being raped by someone else. This abuse of the word is how "Rape In The Wallet" got started by Mr. Hardcore, for goodness sakes.) Shame on you Disney and even more shame on you FOX. Stick to live action fare and the Simpsons; at least then you sound closer to your real self: DIRTY. (Well; they cannot say "Smut Box" without smut after all. And they are proud of it too.)

There's my rant on Disney for the year. (And then a few months later; you'll be talking about this again. And you accuse Disney of running out of ideas?! ) That's my opinion; I welcome yours. See you next time...


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