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And how can a list of fictional ducks be complete without Dirty Duck?

I didn't knew, until I read the article below, that there was a later version by Ralph Bakshi, of "Fritz the Cat" and Wizards (!) fame. Now to see if I can find that on DVD somewhere.

Mighty Mouse History link " In the late '80s, Ralph Bakshi, a former Terrytoons director who had gone on to produce such well-received animated features as Fritz the Cat and Wizards, came out with yet another Saturday morning Mighty Mouse show. This one fleshed out his personality, gave him a secret identity and a supporting cast, and let imagination and good writing compensate for low TV budgets. It was this series that was adapted into the most recent Marvel Comics version. "

http://www.toonopedia.com/renstimp.htm

The creators sold it, it wasn't stolen.

Actually, there is humor in Knuth. If you look up "Infinite recursion" in the index, you'll get a cross reference, to "Recursion, Infinite". Needless to say, that second entry is also a cross-reference.

Despite my sober attitude, I've been known to sneak in a bit of sly humor into my technical writing. In my last book (OK, my only book that wasn't an anonymous manual), I managed to work a reference to Alphonse and Gaston into a discussion of deadlock. There's also a reference to Dragon Ball that so far nobody seems to have spotted.

But to do that sort of thing professionally, you have to be sly so it comes in under the radar and doesn't distract. Which only makes the joke that much funnier!

So now the other penguins are copiny Chille Willie?

http://lantz.goldenagecartoons.com/profiles/chilly /

http://www.chillywillyfan.com/

http://www.toonopedia.com/chilly.htm

Clearly a rip-off of the XMen idea

Wait, X-Men invented the idea of a super-hero team? I'm not so sure about that one...

Mabe the ACs out there don't know that Bugs Bunny wasn't the first to step foot on the moon. Someone else was....

How about a giant mouse?

Eh, there's plenty of Superman and Batman clones around. Marvel's got the the Squadron Supreme, a JLA clone invented in the 1970s for an unofficial JLA/Avengers crossover (the same year, DC created an Avengers clone to meet the JLA). Hyperion and Nighthwak are the Superman and Batman characters. Image introduced Supreme (no connection) in the 1990s, a Superman-like character who accumulated many elements of Superman's mythos that DC discarded in the mid-1980s. The Authority's Apollo and Midnighter are very much like Superman and Batman (except for being a couple). Big Bang Comics is all about taking classic comics characters and trying to duplicate the feel of the 1950s stories -- their Superman/Batman clones are Ultiman and the Knight Watchman.

And so on.

Of course, lawsuits over clones go back decades. Consider the twisted case of Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel. He was introduced just two years after Superman, and by 1941 DC Comics had filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against them. It took years, but Fawcett lost and ended up cancelling all their superhero books. Oddly, DC ended up buying Captain Marvel from them, but the trademark lapsed, and Marvel Comics introduced their own Captain Marvel, leading to another legal battle... which is why both DC and Marvel now have characters named Captain Marvel, but DC has to use the name Shazam on the covers.

Looks like Isadore Klein beat them to the punch. He created a fearless mouse in 1942. http://www.toonopedia.com/mightym.htm

We'll be able to see that mirror-image planet over there!

fish police

hehehehe messed up the link above, that's what you get when you don't preview...

I guess that makes Peabody's Improbable History also sci fi.

I don't see the need to remake Cloak & Dagger. It is one of Dabney Coleman's greatest roles aside from Hot To Trot. Ok. Bad Joke, but I'm not apologizing, and yes, I do know the comic book http://www.toonopedia.com/cloakdag.htm.

Clearly that janitor is secretly a superhero with super-strength which Google will use to eliminate all crime on earth!

You mean this janitor! As we all know though, the cat was the real hero...

Actually, Apple might be sued soon. Afterall, "Mighty Mouse" is the trademarked name of a little rodent super-hero!

Doesn't anyone at Apple watch classic cartoons?

-Z

The mouse body must still physically be depressed to actuate the sensor.

I think my mouse body might be physically depressed. It hasn't been getting any work done lately, lies around, clicks on pr0n and slashdot a lot, drinks too much.

http://www.toonopedia.com/mightym.htm

I think TerryToons should sue Apple's ass off

And don't forget the famed science fiction philosophers William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

Bravo! I admit, it is one of the shows that I enjoy - along with Fullmetal Alchemist, Samurai Jack, and One Piece (The Fansubbed version, not the abomination on "4Kids TV" - blecch!) among others.

So I have eclectic tastes - so sue me. I also like "Hey! Spring Of Trivia" (SpikeTV - a Japanese Gameshow), Survivor, The Entertainer (just ended), Nova, Antiques Roadshow, and have a morbid fascination with Carpocalypse.

In any case, the best thing about true anime shows, IMO, is that they are *not* designed for *American* kids. Ever since Johnny Quest went off the air, American Cartoons have been watered down dreck. If CN can actually capture some of the story depth and maturity of real Japanese Anime (even the lightest Anime is deeper than any Network cartood that I can think of), then I will do nothing but cheer them on. If they stick it with an 'american' depth and maturity, I'll turn it off.

There's some truth to the idea of a hidden message in comic strips.

During the 50's and 60's the air force used a particular comic strip ("smokey stover" i think. http://www.toonopedia.com/smokey.htm, also the origin of "foo" and "foo fighter") to train recon. photo interpreters. The artist would hide his wife's name somewhere in every strip, and the new recruits would have to find it.

I'm an Australian, and I'm deeply ashamed that another would post such ignorant bullshit. Every phrase involving the word "yellow" isn't a jibe at Asians. See The Yellow Kid for the meaning and origin of that phrase. And "yellow = cowardly" isn't about you either. Actually, living in Hong Kong I've never understood why "yellow" is used to describe skin colour -- everyone is just some lighter or darker tan. Yellow's main connotation here is the imperial colour, and gold; so it's all good.

To my mind, this would not have been as good if [Rogue] was a Canadian accented oriental dwarf (not that there is anything wrong with such a person - but that person is not ROGUE).

Well, that's just it. Most of X-Men's popular characters have well defined backgrounds. To be portrayed convincingly, you'd need an actor that can plausibly appear to have the same background: Nightcrawler would have to look like someone from central Europe (probably white; Storm would have to pass for Egyptian (probably black or Arab), Rogue would have to look like someone from southern Louisiana (probably white, maybe black), and Logan would have to look like someone from northern Canada (probably white, maybe native American).

Other characters don't have as well defined back stories, and could be played by anyone who can get the personality right. None of the original characters -- Jean Grey, Professor X, Scott Summers, and Hank McCoy -- really has a clearly defined background in the same way that the later ones did. While they were all drawn as white people, any of these early characters could be played by a non-white actor.

Note also that casting happens in a broader context: the director is always going to have a limited pool of actors available, and not all of them are going to be perfect fits for characters that the audience is already familiar with (unless you're talking about Harry Potter, in which case pretty much every British actor in the world seems to be willing to take a part). In some cases, the best actor for a part doesn't fit the audience expectations, but can do a good job anyway. For example, in 1990, one of the main parts in Miss Saigon was given to Jonathan Pryce, a white actor, because, in the opinion of the director, he was the best fit for the role. And maybe he was -- he's a fine actor -- but it generated a lot of protests at the time. Whether or not those objections are fair is a subjective matter, depending in part on how much that character's identity depends on ethnicity. If memory serves -- I can't find a URL backing this up, so I may have it wrong, but I'm pretty sure -- a court agreed that it didn't matter, and the show went on.

So it was, a decade later, with X-Men, and now, with Fantastic Four...

Don't know who the Fantastic Four are?!?!
I can only guess that you live in a country/region where for some odd reason Marvel didn't ship as many F.F. comics as thier other lines.
Kinda wierd idea though considering it was a pretty important title. It was the FF the got Marvel back into the Super Hero bussiness in the early 60's, they had gone to monster/horror type stuff when the superhero comics became on of the 'satan worshiping/mind controll/reason teenagers behave like teenagers' things of thier time (much (A)D&D of the 80's or rock and roll, etc.)
To give you a clue to the FF's influence I suggest you look at both Darth Vaders outfit and Dr. Victor Dooms outfit, then consider Dr. Doom predates Darth Vader by over a decade.
Here's an interesting page google turned up: http://www.toonopedia.com/fant4.htm.

Mycroft

Turok 1990s: http://www.psychosaurus.com/turok/turokdh1.htm
Turok prior art (1950s): http://www.toonopedia.com/turok.htm

Remember Little Nemo?

Thank God somebody associates "Nemo" with the character from Winsor McCay's comic strip (and Capcom's mediocre NES game based thereon) rather than with that idiotic clownfish owned by Disney.

Obviously a child of the computer age. Convergence has been around for ages. Look at the classic corkscrew/bottle opener gadgets. Heck, look at all the tasks ancient man used sharpened rocks for! I think our old freind Dick Tracy was the leader in Personal Convergence Electronics (PCE's) which he introduced in 1946 with his two-way wrist radio.

But then, I'd would not call the PC a converged device. Its hardly the same thing to compare the fact your computer can run two different software programs at the same time with a Cell Phone with a built in camera. But if you want, I have the solution to your problem. Its called the "shoebox open standard", or SOS. You purchase any number of a number of brands of shoeboxes, that come in a variety of sizes. You buy the cell phone that appeals to you best, and "install" it into the SOS. Then select other gadgets that provide you the functionality etc. that you need, and install them in the SOS, digital Cameras, MP3 and CD players, etc. You are all set now!

As for me, I like the fact that I can play games on my cell phone, because I'm happy I don't have to carry around a GBA, or an SOS if I want to burn a bit of down time in the waiting room. When they are cheap enough, I wont mind a embeded digital camera in my cell phone (because I already have to carry the damned thing) to quickly document something when I didn't expect I'd need my digital camera, such as an auto accident, or my co-worker wearing different colored socks to work, so long as it doesn't complicate the phone dialing functionality of the phone. Is it as good a game device as a GBA? Is it as good a camera as a $300 Digital Camera? Obviously no. But its good enough that I don't need to drag those items around every day.

actually rotoscoping is *much* older than that...

max fleisher developed the technique for koko the clown (out of the inkwell) in 1916.

From Toonopedia:

The name "Barney Google" is familiar to anyone who ever watched a TV retrospective of comic strips -- he's the guy with the "goo-goo-googly eyes" in the 1923 Billy Rose song they always play in such retrospectives. Many newspapers use his name in the title of one of their comic strips. And in 1995, he was honored by the U.S. Postal Service in its "Comic Strip Classics" series of commemorative stamps.

I think Billy DeBeck, creator of the strip, has a better claim to prior art than the nephew.

Who's Billy DeBeck, you ask? Why, just the guy who created the comic strip character Barney Google (you know, the guy with the "goo-goo-googly eyes"?!) and King Features Syndicate for distributing the cartoon for the past EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS (which, by the way, doesn't predate Mr. Kastner but which DOES predate the coining of the word "googol" by at least a decade.)

It's this kind of frivolous abuse of the courts that keeps real and legitimate cases that might bring about real reforms and improvements from being effective (or even successful.)

If anyone had prior art on this, it is the guys who created Barney Google in 1919.

It's bad enough that this idiot keeps complaining about the view of Venus being obscured, now he has our crap up there to contend with. We DON'T NEED to give him another reason to blow us up and chase our cartoon characters around!

It's magic!

Pointy hair is all you need in a team leader.

"I haven't the heart to tell him that his new shake-to-reset laptop is really an etch-o-sketch.

The primary enemy of Linux at this point is not SCO.

It is cartoon characters.

Hey, you know, now that I think about it, Elmer Fudd did always wear a red hat...

Who the hell is Mandrake?

Not the Moon. All the WMDs are on Mars, being hoarded by none other than that terrorist mastermind Marvin! It's only a matter of time before Powell shows up at the UN with another powerpoint presentation to plead his case for immediate mobilization to Mars so we can stop this madman before his capability results in the smoking gun of an Illudium Pu-36 Explosive Space Modulator mushroom cloud in one of our cities.

We will fight the Martians on Mars so that the average citizen can be safe here at home!

Head... about... to... EXPLODE!!!

No, Mandrake the Magician is a comic strip hero: http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/mandra ke/about.htm or http://www.toonopedia.com/mandrake.htm

except that Harry Potter is not what Mandrake is named for, though the insiration is magical... http://www.toonopedia.com/mandrake.htm

Having a copy of a video on your hard drive is (arguably) fair use. If your next door neighbor makes a copy of it, then that was and will still be copyright infringement. Under the new law, however, merely having the file up on an open FTP server or Samba share will count as copyright infringement EVEN IF IT CANNOT BE PROVED THAT YOUR NEIGHBOR MADE A COPY-- or for that matter, even if he DIDN'T make a copy. Because it's possible, you're guilty of copyright infringement

Huzzah for the senator from the MPAA....

The basic design is very similar.

Then again, we should have a superhero called GoldMan (Gold Man)! That would kick ass! Why didn't Stan Lee think of that?

It was done. Just not by Marvel.

but how many of THOSE countries have a 'justice league'? Ah? Aaaah? [waggles eyes]

Here's an interesting tidbit from the article (emphasis mine):

The hydrodemolition robot is still considered relatively new technology, having first been used in 1984.

That's like saying that my TRS-80 Model 100 (with home-built speech synthesizer connected to the parallel port) is cutting edge.

I guess if the construction industry advanced at the rate Slashdot readers are accustomed, demolition would look like the final scene in One Froggy Evening, where the construction worker of the future is clearing debris with a ray gun (and finds the singing frog cached away by his 1950s counterpart).

Who would run an LCD that big at 1024?

The 1919 King Features comic "Take Barney Google, Fr'instance", and the 1923 Billy Rose song, both feature a character named Barney Google, with "goo-goo-googly eyes". Prior art? See a reference at http://www.toonopedia.com/google.htm

Behold, young herd of nerds:

Barney Google

There's no such thing as a new concept. WCRR was 1988. Thunder Agents' Noman first appeared in 1965. I always thought Noman was a great idea, and was reminded of it when I recently picked up the Brin book.

Everyone always forgets about this guy.