If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you’re away who Jay and Silent Bob are. Then you know this man: Jay Mewes.
When he unknowingly meets God(Portrayed by Alanis Morisette) he asks: “What the fuck is this, the Piano? Why the fuck ain’t this broad talking?”
It just delights me that apparently as some point in his life, Jay Mewes was like I’m going to watch this thoughtful period piece. Probably while high and it made such a lasting impression on him.
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/animorphs-tv-series-disney-plus-ryan-coogler-1236678435/
In the above link, you can find a story that Ryan Coogler’s production company is in possible works to make an Animorphs TV show. They did it before and it was not that great. The andalites just shoved each other around instead of fighting with their tails. They barely morphed throughout the series because it took too much money to handle the animals. Let’s take some time and I’ll talk to you about what I want in the series.
I like real animals as much as the next guy but c’mon, it would be very expensive and dangerous to have the Animorphs’ battle morphs on set at the same time. They are in no particular order tiger, bear, gorilla, wolf and red tailed hawk. Along with whatever nonsense they’re going to do for the andalites. That’s going to be no small task in live action, I mean look at these things:
The solution, I think is turning it into animation. We’ve had some great serious animation like with Invincible and Primal and I think that this would make it easier to do some of the major sci-fi things and animal violence without involving real animals.
I’m not sure what kind of style I would do it in, maybe a more realistic one. Considering the anti-war messages, I think having some starkness to it would be better. People have mentioned Invincible and I think that’s the best option. Realistic but then body horror during the morphing. I would love to see everyone’s reactions to the things that we had to see in our mind’s eyes when we were kids reading these books. Behold that time Jake’s tiger morph nearly got eaten by fire ants. Behold that time Marco’s gorilla morph had skin ripped off from the ice that he landed on in the arctic in book 25. Those are just the ones off the top of my head.
2. Make every book a two part episode
I’m not talking two hour long episodes but instead the way they split up the original Justice League cartoon episodes. We’re sticking with that this is in animation and hopefully less to produce. Plus, it would make sure that there’s enough time for the entire book to get covered. Such as with book 6 where Jake gets a yeerk in his ear after a mission. There’s a part in the book, where Ax realizes what’s going on before anyone else and whips his tail up against Jake’s throat screaming <YEERK!>. Boom, episode end.
The next episode starts with Jake being locked in the shed that he would spend the rest of the book in. There’s not much in these books but you do need to give them room to breath. Which brings me to my next point…
3. Make room for more characterization
There’s not much downtime in an Animorphs book. You know enough about the kids that I can give you their personality traits. They would also always have a little adventure in the beginning as in one of the books they go to the circus and free the animals because Cassie hated the circus.
It would be great to get some little best friend moments between the two friendships, Jake and Marco and Rachel and Cassie respectively. Have some moments where we see Tobias going about his day as a hawk and maybe when he can get the chance to morph again, showing him getting used to being a human. Going on little adventures with Ax possibly. Hanging at the mall, which brings me into another point…
4. Place in its time period of the mid to late 90s
It’s going to be difficult to keep the secret of the Animorphs in the modern age. Sure, you could explain away kids morphing by saying it’s AI but that’s only going to last for so long. Plus, if they don’t have access to a whole bunch of other things like Uber and cell phones, it can help hype up the tension. Plus, there aren’t many good things that came out of the late nineties or early aughts. Give them something.
5. Keep the enemies mysterious
On Battlestar Galactica, we got three and a half seasons of the Cylons being an overarching and mysterious threat to the colonists. Then we started getting plot lines on the basestar, which were okay but for me never had the same impact as the human storylines. It did however showcase their eventual change throughout the series into what they would become in the end. A completely different entity. I don’t need to know what Visser Three gets up to in his spare time. The Yeerks should not get the same characterization as the children. Let them just be a threat.
In conclusion, I’m excited by the idea but it’s going to take a lot to make me think this is viable. Animorphs is a tough nut to crack off of the page. I wouldn’t be surprised if this didn’t make it past the planning stages.
(I wrote this because I was listening to the Mom Can’t Cook episode about Lemonade Mouth where the bad guy is a rap rocker. I listened to Break Stuff and it is a really good song for what it is. This idea just popped into my head. I actually have a great deal of respect for the man. Him showing up in I Saw the TV Glow, a deeply trans film and Y2K where he good-naturedly made fun of himself. I think that he might be an alright dude.)
He didn’t have to look around to find his trusted red baseball cap. It was always within arms’ reach and of course, he could easily summon it to his hand through the deep magic of nu metal. He could not show people that though, lest he be stripped of his powers by the nu metal mages that taught him his dark craft. But now was the time to write. Now was the time to express himself.
He sat down at his desk. He tapped his pencil against the desk, it’s point ready to be dulled through his art. He looked at his notebook. What would he bring into the being? What would he draw from the fabric of creation?
He decided that he had to speak to the people. To the everyman. What was one of the most universal things to say to somebody else? He thought for a few moments and nodded to himself.
“Did you ever have one of those days?”
There it was. A cordial phrase. One that you would say to a friend. Someone you loved. They would know that you’re going to talk about a shared experience. What else did people not want? Sometimes you…
“Did you ever have one of those days? Where you didn’t want to wake up.”
Yes, yes, YES. He was describing a bad day. Everyone had had bad days. Of course, he was far richer so his bad days were much better than others. Much easier. But he could still relate to the people. He needed to describe the people that you encountered.
“Everything is fucked. Everybody sucks.”
Beautiful. He was a wordsmith. He had to keep going.
“You don’t really know why.”
Excellent. Time to express the anger. Truly express it.
“But you really want to justify ripping someone’s off.”
What if he was an assassin? One that you didn’t want to make angry?
“No human contact. And if you interact, your life is on contract.”
His pencil was nearly on fire. He kept writing. When he was done, the eraser remained untouched because why would you need to erase any of it? He had had his pencil wore near down to the nub. But he looked upon his song, “Break Stuff”. This certainly wouldn’t come back to bite him in the year 1999.
A bit of a primer for this scene is that Petyr Baelish is trying to play the Lannisters, here represented by Cersei. He mentions the fact that Cersei is sleeping with her twin brother, Jaime and that he can use that knowledge to harm them. Thus, him telling her that knowledge is power. What follows is Cersei demonstrating that it’s hard to tell people what you know when a guard cuts your throat.
My God, the writing was strong back in the early seasons. But of course those are just words on a page. You need talent to bring them to life. Aiden Gillan brings slimy heat to Petyr but of course, it’s Lena Headey that’s the MVP of this scene. She moves from overwhelmingly powerful to flippantly violent. The way she laughs as she says “I’ve changed my mind”. She then instructs her guards to close their eyes.
Maybe it’s the tone of her voice or just everything we’ve just seen, but we know that they’ve closed those eyes without having to take away from them being random faceless guards. I don’t remember if this scene is in the books but if it was, I would have something in there about Petyr knowing that the guards had obeyed her without having to see their faces.
It’s not just the absolute loyalty that the guards have whether through fear or pay, but the pettiness. Her playing these guards like they’re her toys. And the fact that she turned on a dime from a normal conversation to getting ready to spill someone’s blood in the middle of the palace. Because she knows no one will say a god damn thing.
In the later seasons as she made mistake after mistake and then more mistakes trying to fix those first mistakes, it’s hard to remember this Cersei. The one that seemed to be confident and capable. But that’s generally what I think makes villains interesting as they realize that their plans were always stupid and doomed to fail. Kind of like Randall Flagg from Stephen King’s novels. At the end of the Stand, he wasn’t that much. Same as Cersei who couldn’t stop what was coming. Of course that ending sucked but… you have to take what you get.
Lorelei had been driving around with the bumper sticker from WeRateDogs on the back of her car for the last two years. She wasn’t a dog owner but she was a fan of dogs. She would go to the parks and watch people walking their dogs. Wishing she had the room or time for one. Not right now. Not until she got her promotion and had more control over her time. Soon. Soon.
She pulled up to the light and sat there. She knew this light and that she was going to be there for a long time. At least it was a nice day. Bright and clear. There weren’t too many folks on the road.
With a rev of an enormous engine, a pick up truck pulled behind her. It then revved again and pulled up next to her. She heard the sonorous sound of the horn and glanced over.
The man sitting in the car next to her was white, bald and wearing wraparound sunglasses. He was smiling a wide smile. She didn’t know what to make of the man. She wondered if he was about to say something to her whether sexual or racist. He kept smiling though.
“Say hi to your dog for me?” he called. “How about you do it yourself.”
He lifted up his hand and Lorelei nearly died. He held a chihuahua in his hand that was small and black and brown. The eyes were bugging out. It was shaking in the hand of its owner. She couldn’t tell if he was scared or just shaking like most chihuahuas do.
“Oh my God, look at that sweet angel,” Lorelei cooed. “What’s their name?”
“Apple pie!” the man called back friendly.
The light finally turned green.
“You two have a wonderful day,” Lorelei called after him as the man lowered Apple Pie back to their seat.
He gave her a friendly wave and drove through the light. Lorelei continued with her day as well, feeling a little bit happier. A little bit brighter having seen such a beautiful little one. Such is the power of the dog.
This might be esoteric to the point that I’m exaggerating but I do feel like this is in our collective public consciousness. Especially because the movie that I’m going to talk about is at this point over 32 years old. The thing is that I feel like this is a rule that actual people followed throughout my years of going to concerts.
In this movie, Jeremy Piven’s character tells someone that they can’t go to a concert wearing a t-shirt of the band that you’re going to go see. And a lot of people took that rule to be the god’s honest truth.
Also, if you haven’t seen this movie, it’s strange prescient as it’s people complaining about wokeness before it was called that and was instead called being politically correct or PC. Otherwise known as not being focused on the feelings of straight, white males.
I’m still seeing posts on reddit about it though they’re written by people in the same age range as me. I had only heard the rule from the movie, maybe it was in the public show consciousness and the writer just threw it into the movie. I don’t know.
I’ve heard some people say though that they have a good reason not to do it. They want to wear other shirts to see if they can spark a conversation with people about other bands that they like. That makes sense to me.
The way I feel about it, is that I love people who are in love with bands. I especially love how excited everyone gets now when they go to shows. I think that if you love a band and want to show that by wearing their shirt, you should. I think that if you don’t and want to wear something else, that’s valid too. It’s all the same to me. Just let people have fun.
I didn’t post all week. Let me explain that.
Before I’ve said that I really didn’t want this blog to be only about my cats, which is something that is going to be really hard. They are so cute. I love them so much.
Frequent readers of this blog, might say “But Frank, you’ve only ever talked about one cat, the wonderful Pierre. Who is this mysterious second cat?”
Well, his name is Rambler. He’s about five years old and as of last Friday, he’s a former feral. He’s been living in my bathroom for the last week and I’ve been doing what I did with Pierre, going in every morning and sitting with him for about an hour a day. We’ve moved from hissing at me every time I enter the room to just quietly hiding from me. Progress! I know it’s going to be a long road but I don’t really care. He’s mine and I’m not going to give him up. Here’s a picture of the little man.
Look at him! He ate his first Churu yesterday and I think that he could become a little buddy. I feel the same way that I did about Pierre the first time I saw him. That I immediately loved him. I’m going to start introducing their scent to each other over the next week. I think that he’ll feel better when he’s out of the bathroom and then hopefully he’ll see how Pierre and I interact and he would be more trusting of me. They do know each other, they were friends when they were both ferals. My landlord told me when he was trying to trap them that they would spend their time playing instead of going into the trap.
As for Pierre, he has become a nut over the last few months. He is super cuddly and will hang out with me whenever I’m on the bed. He is so high energy that I’m thinking about buying a cat wheel. Yesterday he knocked over one of my TV trays by wall-running across the front of the couch. We seemed to bond over every blizzard. He would become cuddlier and sweeter. I love him so much. I think that he’ll be excited to have a playmate. I hope that Rambler can keep up and won’t be aggressive towards him.
Here’s the most recent pic of Pierre when I was watching Weapons.
Because it’s life, things change. My best friend has moved away from me and we don’t get to see each other that often anymore. I was thinking about friendship today while I was running some errands. At first, I thought it was going to be the best way to be a friend but that would be stupid. There’s no best way to be a friend. Every friendship is unique in what it requires to sustain and continue. However, I think there’s a healthy way to go about friendship no matter what the requirements for your personal friendships.
I think it comes down to want vs. need. I’ll illustrate this with my own life. My friend is down south and I will probably only see him once a month from now on. Do I miss him? Of course. He’s my best bro. I love him.
But beyond that, my life hasn’t changed that much. Mostly because of the way I feel towards him. I want him in my life, I don’t need him in my life. Okay, that sentence worked better in my head. It makes him seem less important when he’s exceptionally important to me. What I’m getting at is not being needy.
If I was a different person I would be angry that he was leaving our treehouse. Instead, I’m happy that he’s moving on. And that works for everyone.
Being needy on the other hand is a surefire way to make sure that people kind of don’t want to be around you. But of course, you don’t want to play it too far the other way and be the cool person that doesn’t need anyone. Everyone thinks that guy’s a dick. It comes down to balance such as with all things. You have to have enough things in your life that you don’t need to rely on people all the time for your entertainment. You just need to also want to have them in your life. It makes when you hang out with people all the better because it’s just a cherry on top of the sundae of your life.
Once you life a fulfilling life on your own, you can enrich the lives of people around you. It’s like putting on your oxygen mask before taking care of the person next to you. Plus once you have hobbies you can find people with the same hobbies. I love it when a plan comes together.
I don’t know if it’s just me but I’ve been seeing many more gambling ads. During the Super Bowl we were counting and I think we stopped after about a dozen or so. Plus, I just see them constantly that you can make so much money from sports drafts or whatever.
While I know that for years the alcohol industry has been doing the same thing. Packaging addiction in the form of fun and merriment, these ones seem to be just more insidious than the others. And I think that I know why, excuse me if this is already known to people who indulge in these hobbies.
With alcohol and cigarettes, they offer for you to calm down and relax. Enjoying a smooth smoke after a hard day’s work or partying with your bros. You will consume and then you will move on with your day. It’s simple.
Gambling on the other hand, has a far different siren song. Gambling not offers you the same kind of fun but you might be able to profit from it. You might be able to become a millionaire as long as you gamble more. They do this by offering streamers to gamble with fake money to make it look like it can really happen to you.
Of course, it won’t. The odds are stacked against you at every corner. I can’t prove anything and I’m not naming names but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some kind of algorithm to change when someone starts winning too much. There’s still the promise that right around the corner you’re going to win.
You might ask why I pointed this out more so than any other vices. Well, that’s because of all of them, this is one of the few that can draw me towards it. I never wanted to drink or smoke(I always thought smoking was gross) but one time I did sit at a penny slot machine in Atlantic City during Anime Next(yeah, I’m cool). I spent 80 dollars in like an hour. After that, never again.
If I ever feel the need to warn myself off of it, I just watch this video:
Franklin Cota, an author and podcaster 