Bluff's Castle Corner

  Cars on the Road is the latest addition to the Pixar Cars franchise since Cars 3. Despite being Pixar’s biggest money maker, no one expected this show to be a thing. Could Pixar be testing the waters for a Cars 4? We’ll have to see As you can guess by the title, this show takes Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater on a cross-country road trip to Mater’s sister’s wedding, with each episode taking them to a different stop where they get into strange situations.  We get to learn some more of the Cars universe lore, like that there were car dinosaurs and car cryptids. These outlandish scenarios enable the animators to go all out with the animation and special effects, to amazing success. It’s astounding what you can do on a TV budget. The colors in the circus episode were especially eye-popping. This show has a more comedic and surreal tone than the Cars movies, which is perfectly fine. After all that happened in Cars 3, we certainly need a breather. There are also some great pop cu...

  The Proud Family  was probably one of the best Disney shows of its time. It managed to tackle heavy topics while being funny and memorable. Now we have a revival/continuation of it. I decided to release this review once season 1 had concluded. This is apparently supposed to pick up from the original series, but the show acts as if Penny had just turned 14, even though she was 14 in the original show and was 16 in the movie. The continuity can get a little weird. The whole show is updated for the 2020s, pop-culture wise and socially. For example, the theme song is updated to have a trap beat instead of being R&B. As for the social part, there are more openly LGBTQ+ characters. Michael is now openly gay and gender non-conforming, and there's a new character, Maya, who has two fathers. Animation - 2/2. On the whole, the animation and art is much better than the original's. Although I liked the original show, I was never too keen on the minimalist backgrounds, I felt that th...

  (You get a cookie if you get the reference I put in the title) Smiling Friends is the latest [adult swim] series. It was originally a pilot, but proved so popular that [as] greenlit it. As expected, the full series received so much hype upon release, which surprisingly ran eight episodes at once. The show revolves about two Technicolor humanoids -- the ever-cheerful Australian Pim (pink) and the cynical Charlie (yellow) -- as they embark on a quest make people smile, hence the show title. Well, in every good show, you need conflict. Their attempts to bring happiness to the world prove to be rather difficult. Like with most [adult swim] cartoons, the animation is intentionally simplistic and choppy, yet it evokes a particular charm. It even mixes other mediums, such as CGI, claymation, and live-action, sort of like The Amazing World of Gumball.  Also, Zach Hadel, the co-creator of the series, is a Newgrounds user, which explains... a lot. There was a particular article b...

  El Deafo  is yet another awesome Apple TV production. It is based on the book of the same name by Cece Bell. It is semi-autobiographical about her being deaf, with cartoon rabbits. It is had now been made into a three-part miniseries.  Cece Bell narrates the series, while cartoon rabbit Cece is voiced by a real life deaf girl. The first episode demonstrates how a serious infection caused Cece to lose her hearing. It doesn’t hold back from showing all the new and scary thoughts little Cece head.  The sound design also muffles the characters’ speech, so you can really immerse yourself what it sounds like when you are hard of hearing. Bell’s narration also lampshades how back then, deaf kids didn’t use sign languages, so they use lip reading instead. And how TV shows didn’t have subtitles. Luckily, these have changed.  Speaking of TV, Cece witnesses a show where a deaf girl is bullied, and called "Deafo". While hurt by this at first, she reclaims this for her Sup...