Holy crap, a Tuesday strip posted on Tuesday! I echo your collective gasps of astonishment!
This one’s inspired by all the crappy-ass superheroes that used to – and still do – show up on educational kids’ shows. The examples I can immediately think of from my childhood are Letterman and the cheesy “Spidey” on The (original) Electric Company, as well as the various Sesame Street superheroes who could solve any crisis using the letter M or whatever. The biggest offender in recent years is Super Why, in which various modernized fairy tale characters along with a weenie named Wyatt are given superpowers, and team up to alter classic children’s stories so that they conform to the “No Child Left Behind” act. My wife used to IM me while watching this with our son, making observations such as “God, they must just take on crises on a first-come first-serve basis. ’Sorry, we can’t save your family from that burning building – our princess needs to learn how to dance!’” only with far more profanity.
On the flip side, though, I’ve gotta mention Word Girl, which despite its goofy name is a surprisingly witty show, and has had appearances by Peter Graves, Brian Posehn, Maria Bamford, and even Patton Friggin’ Oswalt. My favorite character on this show is a villainess with the power to make duplicates of herself, named “Lady Redundant Woman.”
My son, being five, will happily watch either as if it’s the most brilliant thing he’s ever seen.
MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP: “*Snort.* Cute.”
-=ShoEboX=-
Clearly a candidate for an Alan Moore re-imagining.
Nice.
And on a TUESDAY!
Now what about the criminals that spend all day spouting off their plans instead of just putting a bullet in the ‘hero’?
Hey, not ALL educational superheroes suck. It’s been years since I’ve seen it but I seem to remember Captain Planet being pretty badass. The only downside to the show was that really useless Hawaiian kid. And would Miss Frizzle from The Magic Schoolbus count as a superhero? She totally had powers.
Check out the IMDB page for Captain Planet:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098763/fullcredits#cast
I guess you make a show bout super heroes protecting the environment and every celebrity in Hollywood wants to be in it.
Wow. You aint kidding.
Wordgirl is awesome. Can’t deny.
Wordgirl rocks. Short list after that, though. My kids will chuck all of them if it means they get to see an Invader Zim re-run.
“Better than a life without intestines!” Bwahaha, I just snorted raspberry tea up my nose.
Wordgirl is six kinds of awesome.
And the Captain Planet theme song still gets stuck in my head even now. In fact, thanks to its mention in these comments, it’s there now. Yippee.
nobody wants us gun totin’ rednecks around till they are being torn apart by wolves. stupid superheros…
I don’t usually comment on here, but wordgirl is amazing. it also helps that she really has legit superpowers.
I just watched Super Why to see exactly how bad it was…BIG mistake!
…And Wordgirl just restored my will to live!
Wordgirl is completely awesome.
They really should do an episode that makes fun of usual educational superheroes.. as you’ve done so well here.. hehehehe..
** HAKK-KOFF** DUDE!!! I snarfed my freakin coffee!! ROFFL!!
I am addicted to crosswords. I would say “life without intestines” is “disemboweled” or “death” depending on the number of letters..
BONES
Now will you save my innards?
Oh great. This must be the Elseworlds (TM) issue where Riddler became the new Batman.