2018-19 TV Season Recap

Previous TV Season Recaps - (2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18)

9-13-2019 Update: 2019 Summer TV Season Recap now online! Click here for recaps of latest seasons of GLOW, Veronica Mars & Jessica Jones!

Greetings and welcome to my belated annual TV season recap! Got to this several weeks later than I wanted to, but glad to finally knock this out of the park! I will…attempt…to make this a little more concise than previous years so fingers crossed that I do not drone on forever! If you do have the time and want to check out my past year in TV breakdowns going back to 2013 please check out the links above! With that out of the way let us jump to the seasons of new TV I devoured from late summer/fall 2018 through spring 2019.

South Park – Like the past few seasons of South Park it features a season spanning arc, though it is not as prevalent as past seasons as the build up is for the town’s annual bike parade the kids are all stoked for. It was an interesting build up throughout to the payoff in the finale. A secondary, smaller season-spanning arc focusing on legalization of weed in South Park was a hokey plot thread to see touched on from time to time and had a payoff at the end I cracked up at. Other episodes were kind of a little lower fare than past seasons with the usual riffing on current events that South Park is known for with notable takes this season on the Roseanne Barr controversy conveyed through the return of Mr. Hankey and additionally ManBearPig making his deadly return and rampaging through South Park. Grade: B-

The Conners – Previously known as Roseanne, but because of some ill-worded tweets from her last year lead to her removal of the show and being rebranded as The Conners. I am fine with how they wrote Roseanne out of the show by touching on her pill-addiction issues that were a focus in the first season. That said, I dug it more than its return season, primarily because the cast is gelling together far better now. Sarah Gilbert and Lecy Goransen both stepped up to fill the void with Barr's exit from the show. Darlene is the front and center star now, and she is nailing it holding the chaos at home down. It is good see DJ finally receive a marginal, but noticeable bump up in screen time this season after being an afterthought in a handful of episodes in the return season. I was glad to see an episode emphasize Dan dealing with Roseanne's storyline passing of the show. Also was fun to see cameos from recurring characters from the first run of the show throughout this season. Darlene finally gets a new gig at a newspaper and her boss there has tremendous chemistry with her character. A part of me still seems like that show is just not right with Roseanne not on there, but I understand why that is how it is and the cast is making the best out of a bad situation and are all bringing it with a pretty damn good second return season. Grade:B+

Orville – So I mentioned in last year’s TV recap I dropped off this show towards the end of the season because McFarlane’s humor felt a little too forced in an otherwise fine and occasionally pretty good modern take on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Eventually I revisited it and finished off last few episodes of the first season and I was glad I did because Orville stepped it up and dialed back McFarlane’s jokes and while still noticeable are better paced and not as nonstop as most of the first season was.

The second season does a little cast swapping and position shifting around the Orville vessel much like the second season of TNG did. It leads to a better flowing second season with LaMarr now heading up engineering. I will miss Halston Sage’s kickass security character from the show, but Jessica Szohr proves to be a suitable replacement. Seeing the true nature of Isaac’s home planet was a two-part episode arc I will never forget that ranked near the top as my favorite TV all year and was highlighted by a huge CG-quality space dogfight of theatrical quality. As much as I loved this season there were still a couple head-scratcher episodes with one Bortus-themed episode that did not go over well with me, and another where Claire attempts to date Isaac in an intriguing arc, but eventually had a lackluster conclusion. Major props again to Seth McFarlane for restraining his humor which leads to the times when Seth does work in his jokes playing out far better and more memorable including a Twinkie joke ranking right up there with Twinkie references in UHF and Die Hard. Props also to Seth for portraying a pretty damn good captain too. Grade: A-

Castlevania - I cranked out both seasons of Netflix’s exclusive anime based on the hit videogame series at the beginning of this year. Both are really quick watches with the first season being four episodes and the second only eight episodes. I am not even going to attempt to elucidate the intricacies of the plot. Both seasons involve signature characters from the series such as Belmonts, Dracula and Alucard. Both seasons also have exquisite animation and all kinds of lusciously crafted gory medieval violence. I was not super huge into both seasons as the lore sometimes went right over my head, but both served as entertaining background noise to indulge. Grade: B

Arrested Development - The second half of season five hit Netflix earlier this year. I consider it more-or-less season six since it launched about roughly a year after season five first started. It puts a nice bow on most of the Netflix-era arcs such as George Michael’s FakeBlock business, whether Joeb’s controversial magic trick really spelled the end of Tony Wonder, Michael’s repeated failed attempts at trying to save the family and yes it all wraps up with the breaking-ground ceremony for the Mexico/America border wall. For the most part I was a fan of this season although it is a victim of past Netflix-era seasons where they could not film with the entire ensemble cast present which leads to many odd camera angles and noticeable stand-ins present. I do not know if a future season is announced, but I am guessing not as this season had a nice sense of closure to it, and by that I mean in only the most pure, awkward nature possible that proved to be a worthy sendoff to Arrested Development. Grade: B+

Gotham - This was the fifth and final season of Gotham. FOX announced a year ahead of time they would be running a shortened final season of the show to give an opportunity to the creators and cast to wrap up all the story threads. Only problem was Gotham had a ton of threads and a huge cast. Season four’s theme was all about the ‘rise of the villain’ with Batman’s trademark wide range of antagonists coming into their own by season four. With the shortened season, several of those villains like Mr. Freeze and the…flamethrower girl do not appear whatsoever in the final seasons and some of my favorites like Poison Ivy and Zsasz are limited to only one or two episodes. Rest assured fan favorites Penguin and Riddler are featured throughout and both are awesome to follow along with in their constant love/hate relationship.

This season-spanning arc features Gotham declared a DMZ and is ruled by gang warfare and Gordon is in charge of a resource-depleted Gotham PD constantly under siege throughout. Since the show presumably wrapped up three-to-five years early I understand the direction FOX went with having the final episode jump several years in the future so we can finally see Bruce Wayne’s destiny come to fruition and I loved the build to the memorable closing shot of the series. The final episode also has many other caps sealed to see how the rest of the fantastic cast evolved. While I could not help but get the feeling that this season was rushed, I felt the cast and crew did as best as they possibly could with the condensed season they were allotted to wrap it up. Grade: A-

DC/CW ARROW-VERSE

Arrow - The seventh season of Arrow gets the distinction of being the only one of the four CW shows I started at their season premiere that I made it to the season finale of. Ollie’s compromise to serve time in jail at the end of season six had real consequences where he spends the first half of the season in prison and his journey to get out of there was an enticing ride that sees him making unlikely enemies and allies and having to go through the prison’s twisted underground fight club to stay in the warden’s good graces while Team Arrow looks through every nook and cranny to get his sentence repealed.

I loved the flash forwards this season that focuses on the cast’s offspring coming together as future vigilantes to save Star City. The Arrow-verse crossover special this season, Elseworlds was another solid crossover and served as introducing the Batwoman character while CW primes up that show later this year. Seeing Barry and Oliver react to their introduction to Superman was priceless. The annual cameo of Tommy was the best yet this season, and I absolutely loved his final interaction with Oliver. The conclusion paved the way for what is announce to be Arrow’s final season debuting this fall. I was very saddened to hear one long-standing character will not be part of it, but loved the heartfelt way they were taken care of on the season finale.

Pen15 - This Hulu-exclusive show is a nostalgia trip for me. It focuses on two 13-year old girls in 1999 starting seventh grade. There is a lot of late-90s ‘extreme’ pop culture window dressing that I could not help but sink my teeth into since it is what I grew up with in high school. The episode dedicated to AOL Instant Messenger is spot-on and brought back so many memories. Pen15 focuses on all the craziness of middle school one could anticipate, including a few awkward pubescent encounters that got borderline uncomfortable to watch. For the most part though I am on board with following along with the adventures of Anna and Maya in future seasons. Grade: B+

Riverdale, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow - I dropped almost all of the CW shows I follow except for Arrow. Riverdale jumped the shark too many times this season and it seems like they are placing the Archie characters in some odd beast of a show that is a Warriors-Hunger Games-DnD hybrid that got progressively nuts-o by the week. I was initially on board with the new direction and twists on the Archie characters I grew up with, but as this seasons warred on it has gone off the deep end with a horrible intro thread that saw Archie in juvie and eventually on the run for the first half of the season and Veronica heading up a speakeasy underground at Pop’s. Without diving into too many spoilers I was not a fan of how Riverdale glorified certain things that rubbed me the wrong way and a few other characters overstayed their welcome who did not gel with the rest of the cast. The whole speakeasy scenes in the show never gelled, even with the new hard-edge drama this series has and finally when Cheryl ups and forms her Hunger Games tribute gang of archers was the line I finally went and threw my hands up and dropped Riverdale a few episodes after the winter break.

Flash was on a slow downward spiral of mediocrity past couple seasons and I could not take it anymore with new characters I could not get into and Flash looking like a buffoon every week. Chris Klein portrayed the season-long villain and I could not help but feel the producers had no idea how to implement him as he seemed like more of an afterthought. Legends of Tomorrow was my surprise favorite CW show last season, but this season gradually introduced a new character named Mona Wu that was a minor background annoyance at first, but grew into the major character to circle the season around and the character did not get any more affable and was still grating to endure and it also got to the point where I said no more! Like with Riverdale, I dropped both Flash and Legends of Tomorrow within a few episodes past their midseason break. Sorry CW, it is me, not you. Grade: Dropped


MARVEL NETFLIX SERIES

Punisher - People who know me, and if you have been following this blog long enough you know I am a huge Punisher fan, so obviously I am biased, but I still got to say I loved both seasons, and I will give the nudge slightly to season one. I loved the first setting the first few episodes of the second season takes place in to mix things up a bit from the other Marvel Netflix shows. The new love/hate sidekick, Amy took me awhile to warm up to, but I warmed up to her about halfway through and watching their relationship develop with Frank was a lot of fun and to see how some of their foreshadowing paid off later on in the season was pretty special. Curt's and Midani's interplay with Frank is still on the mark and they did not miss a beat in season two. The interplay with the therapist and Billy Russo could have been dialed back a little bit as I felt she was in one scene too many nearly every episode.

As with the first season, loved the action, loved the dialogue for nearly the entire cast and I thought they expertly handled the Punisher as a man of few words, but obviously they had to give him some dialogue to span an entire season, and Netflix got a ton out of his body language and cadence of the dialogue he does deliver throughout the season. I agree with many that John Berenthal is far and away the best actor to portray the Punisher, and I will forever remember all the little things he did to make him pop out and stand out among the rest as the way to play the Punisher. His final line of dialogue to close out the series is perfect! While I was saddened to see this get the inevitable cancellation announcement from Netflix along with the rest of its Marvel shows, I hope this one day gets picked up by Hulu or Disney+. Grade: A

Iron Fist – I had no intentions of watching the second season of Iron Fist, but then I heard it got canned and after being a little optimistic for how he was portrayed in the episode of season two of Luke Cage he guest appeared in I decided to give it a shot. It is better than season one, but it still has a far way to go from being must-see. Finn Jones is far more entertaining this season as Danny Rand and is nowhere near as insufferable this season, although he does he have his moments on occasion. His Kun-Lun background is explored much more this season with some intriguing flashbacks. There is a new split personality character introduced this season who I became a big fan of by the end of the season. Ward and Joy are both more tolerable this season and by the end I was kind of won over by Ward with his whole NA/recovery arc. Davos returns as the main villain and with his background with Danny he winds up a more viable villain than Bakuto and the Hand. Also, no Hand this season!!!

The season loses points with me this season because Joy's arc was initially promising, but kind of falls apart by the end. Same with Colleen who was another character I was not big on, but won over this season...until the last couple of episodes anyway. Finally, Luke Cage’s Misty Knight is on several episodes of this season and I was never a fan of her before and she is equally unpleasing to endure here. If you got the time to kill and want to keep up with everything in the Marvel Netflix universe than I would say it is kind of barely worth it and is enough of a step up from the disastrous first season to check out. Grade: D+ (But a good D+ if there ever was a thing considering how big of an improvement this is from the first season)

Daredevil - What a big step up from the disappointing previous season! Glad to see Kingpin as the forefront again as the antagonist this season and to see him go from prison to taking control of the reins of ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ again was a delight! Also a delight was the evolution of newcomer Dex to the show into a certain favorite Marvel character of mine. The way Daredevil handled Dex could not have been done any better. Coming out of the Defenders team up season, I loved the opening episodes focusing on Matt going into isolation as he recovered and gradually worked his way back into the fray. As with Punisher, all the action and fights here are masterfully choreographed and I was glued to the screen once a fight kicked off. I cannot think of a single person that is mis-casted since everyone delivers sublime performances. Karen and Foggy are awesome supporting characters and I loved their angles this season with more background into Foggy’s family struggles while trying to save the Nelson & Murdoch firm and Karen taking insane risks in her journalistic endeavors.

My highest praise is I think this is probably the sole Marvel Netflix season that could have went an extra episode or two because it felt like they kind of had to rush through a few scenes that felt a little condensed in the final episode. Another similarity Daredevil shared with Punisher is that it also unfortunately was cancelled by Netflix and I am super-bummed to see it go after this redemption season. Here is hoping it too gets picked up on another streaming service or maybe even by some stroke of luck both Daredevil and Punisher get incorporated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

FINISH!!!

That wraps up this past year’s worth of TV coverage. I tip my hat to you if you somehow managed to stick with me all this way through! I do not know if I will do my annual bonus summer TV viewing follow-up or not. I know Netflix still has to unload the last season of Jessica Jones, but I thought it would have dropped within the last few months so who knows when it will hit. I know season three of GLOW will hit Netflix this summer and that will jump instant viewing right away because of how much I enjoyed the last two seasons. I keep telling myself I need to do a one week trial of HBO Now to binge watch the final season of Game of Thrones and get caught up on Ballers so I might go down that well later this summer too. I am also tempted to do a trial of ESPN+ to watch that highly rated Love & Basketball docu-series and get caught on the last several 30 for 30s I am behind on. Got other suggestions for what I should watch this summer? Feel free to tweet them away to me @Gruel

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

Fast & Furious 6

Thanks for joining me once again as I march through the Fast and Furious films in anticipation of the next release in the franchise, Hobbes & Shaw. We are not here to talk about that film coming August 9th of this year, instead we are here to revisit 2013’s Fast & Furious 6 (trailer. I vividly remember seeing this in the theater with friends and taking in yet another ridiculously over-the-top action installment of the series that Fast Five steered the direction of the brand in. I will never forget friends instantly dismissing the outrageous nature of the stunts in disbelief coming out of the theater, but upon re-watching it this week I only learned to embrace its style of unbelievable.

FF6 kicks off a few months after Fast Five where Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) gets back home in Spain just in time for Mia (Jordana Brewster) to deliver their first child. Not all is sunshine and rainbows however as they soon receive a visit from Dom (Vin Diesel) who informs them of the news he just got from special forces agent Hobbes (The Rock) that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is still alive and now running with the equivalent of a doppelganger car heist crew that left a tornado of chaos in their dust in Russia. Hobbes wants Dom to reassemble their team to take them down. Why not bring in the feds one may ask? Because Hobbes wants ‘the best’ to take down this new car gang heist and the feds simply do not stack up to the Dom’s crew! Dom is more than willing to reunite his team in the spirit of FF clichés such as ‘family’ and ‘ride or die.’ A great scene then transpires where the rest of the crew is tracked down and brought back together with Roman (Tyrese), Gisele (Gal Gadot), Han (Sung Kan) and Tej (Ludacris) all more just as eager to suit up again with Dom & Brian.

Oh yeah, since Han is still riding with the crew, that means FF6 is set before the events of 2006’s Tokyo Drift. I will give director Justin Lin credit for doing his best to avoid all shots of smartphones since they were not around in 2006. I cannot vouch for any of the luxurious cars in the film not matching with the timeline since I am not a gearhead by any means. Although the villain car gang does make use of a car hacking device that seems several years ahead of its time and more fitting in a futuristic Watchdogs-esque setting, but who am I to know. Speaking of the villain gang, FF6 does a worthy job of establishing them as formidable foes for Dom’s crew. Other than each of the lesser goons getting a quick standout action scene or two (with an awesome one being Joe Taslim showing off his The Raid chops in a killer fight with Roman & Han), there is not a lot of time devoted to establish the entire antagonist gang. The exception to this is their leader Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) who FF6 clearly gets across is constantly one step ahead of Dom’s gang. One of my favorite scenes is when Dom & Owen have a calm before the storm face-to-face ala Heat before the final act of nonstop action gets underway and after their war of words I could not wait for them to tear each other’s gang apart in a way only this franchise is capable of.

As mentioned in the previous entry, by this point in the franchise it is all about a big heist and explosive action and no longer focusing on street races. There is one nice little street race between Dom & Letty that culminates in the two having their own Lethal Weapon 3 moment, but the final hour’s worth of action is what I will mostly remember FF6 for. The final hour has two huge action scenes with a brief breather in-between them. The first scene is Dom’s gang trying their best to prevent Shaw’s crew in heisting a military convoy that leads to YEAH RIGHT RIDICULOUS STUNTS transpiring on a civilian highway with countless cars getting taken out amidst the glorious mayhem the dueling crews unleash on each other. Re-watching them again six years later still lit me up and if you are on board with the craziness of the Fast and Furious brand at this point you will likely have a similar ‘hell yeah, keep it coming’ reaction, or if you are opposed to their over-the-top style brand of stunts you will shake your head in disbelief like some friends of mine at the theater did. I completely understand both sides of the fence on this one, but as you can tell I am in the former camp and absolutely love this. The second half features the infamous ‘infinite airline runway of doom’ where the two camps wage war on a mammoth Russian Fuselage with even more ridiculous stunts and fights. On the fuselage everyone makes their last stand including a surprisingly capable pasty goon and a four person brawl between the four biggest meatheads of the series that culminates in the best headbutt in cinematic history since The Garbage Picking, Field Goal Kicking, Philadelphia Phenomenon!

If you have been keeping up with the rest of my Fast and Furious entries so far, you will know I watched this with the commentary track from the staff of giantbomb.com. Like their previous commentaries, their staff consists of a FF newbie seeing the films for the first time, a diehard fan of the franchise, and an inbetween casual fan. They all combine for memorable reactions to the outrageous stunts, surprise cameos, the aforementioned four person meathead brawl that only enhanced my re-watch of the film. The commentary highlight is one Alex Navarro’s real time mile countdown of how long the runway is in the film. After I finished my Giant Bomb commentary track viewing, I re-watched the second half of FF6 with the BluRay’s commentary from director Justin Lin. Aside from a hair too many noticeable lulls, Lin provides his usual keen insight with some key takeaways for me being Lin addressing his ambitious stunts and fearing how they ‘jumped the shark’ with Dom’s leap stunt but having validation for it in test screenings and Lin breaking down the direction they went with the eye-opening post-credits scene.

Aside from the commentary there is additionally an hour and a half of bonus features. Most of them are well done and worth taking the time for. If I had to single out a few of the many features, Take Control is a nice over-arching 20 minute look on the film from most of the primary cast and crew. The Making of FF6 is a little more thorough near half hour take diving into the plot more and how they reunited the cast again. If you are into the stunts I highly recommend checking out the quick six minute Highway Heist feature where they reveal how the crew got exclusive first dibs to a newly finished highway in the Canary Islands before it was open to the public to film the highway action scene. Finally, Hand-to-Hand Fury is an in-depth nine minute take on the excellent fight choreography featured throughout.

I recall in the weeks succeeding the release of Fast and Furious 6 that a fair amount of fans and critics proclaimed the cast and crew somehow achieved the impossible and topped their efforts in the beloved Fast Five. For the longest time I would not hear it, as I still love Fast Five a ton (as you can tell by my entry right here), but upon revisiting Fast & Furious 6 all these years later I think I have to do a 180 and give the ever-so-tiny of a nudge in favor of the sixth film as my favorite in the series. It has more exhilarating stunts and action, the best overall cast, and higher-highs with some exclamation points that feel a smidge more punctuated than the fifth film. It all comes together as a terrific ending for director Justin Lin’s fourth and final film in the series as he ties it all together with a touching callback ending to the original film’s closing. I will close with if you have not seen FF6 yet, make sure to stay past the credits for the tag as it features a bonus scene that finally brings the franchise back to the present timeline with a killer surprise twist.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-6
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Angry Videogame Nerd: Ready 4 Revenge

Cinemassacre’s latest home video collection of Angry Videogame Nerd (AVGN) episodes has a perplexing title, Ready 4 Revenge. After nine DVD collections, Cinemassacre started re-releasing their entire AVGN library on BluRay. They were titled AVGN X1-X3. Since Ready 4 Revenge only has a BluRay release, I am puzzled why they did not simply title it X4, but they did feel compelled to include a four in the title and thus we have Ready 4 Revenge. I have covered several of the past AVGN home video collections you can check out by clicking right here.

As in past entries, I feel obligated to mention you can check out all the AVGN episodes for free on the Cinemassacre YouTube channel. I do not back any Patreons, but if an online artist/influencer/content creator/etc. I follow releases a physical media product I will almost always buy it to support them, and thus here I am reliving AVGN episodes from 2016 into early 2017. For those unaware, James Rolfe portrays the Angry Videogame Nerd character that goes on to pick apart and rage over the worst games, systems and accessories of gaming’s past. Going by the listing on the back of the case, Ready 4 Revenge appears to be the slimmest pickings of episodes available of all AVGN collections to date with only seven episodes and just over an hour of extra features.

Of the seven episodes, I only had a lot of experience with the awful 16-bit Beavis and Butthead games, and related with many of the Nerd’s many gripes with that dreadful platformer. I am well aware of the legacy of the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog, but never saw much of it in action before so to see it ripped apart in detail by Rolfe’s character was an eye opener. My two favorite episodes here are for GameBoy accessories and another covering Bernstain Bears games. After breaking down several of the ridiculous accessories to grace Nintendo’s handheld over the years, I went on to be shocked by several more outrageous obscurities that Rolfe unearthed from the depths of eBay. The Bernstain Bears games episode I dug not really because of the ho-hum games they cover, but more for the Nerd’s shocking revelation of learning the proper spelling of ‘Bernstain’ all these years later and going on to have a time travel sketch to re-write history.

The only episode I was not a fan of was the Sega Menacer and other odd Genesis accessories episodes. He has a special guest with him in one Keith Apicary. I only knew of him before as another character-type content creator specializing in goofball humor and running into things. This episode is mostly the Nerd and Apicary bumping into objects and colliding with each other while trying out the Menacer and other Genesis peripherals I had no idea about until this. It just felt too forced and out there and it did not gel with me compared to other AVGN episodes. James Rolfe did do a commentary track for this whole episode and for what it is worth I did find the commentary more entertaining than the episode itself where he details how it was the AVGN episode with the highest budget at that point and defended the episode by stating how he wanted to mix things up and go outside the box every once in awhile.

Other extras is a making of commentary track montage for the rest of the episodes that I am always a fan of where Rolfe breaks down other behind-the-scenes facts and insight into the production. There is a bonus mini AVGN episode that Rolfe contributes to Pat Contri each year for his annual NES marathon charity stream. This year it was dedicated to Gilligan’s Island on the NES. I really dug Rolfe ranking his 10 favorite AVGN episodes in another bonus feature. After that though, the rest of the extras are short film projects from Rolfe that were kind of hit and miss for me. Rolfe stated before his love for old school sci-fi and monster movies, and I understand a lot of other people who love that stuff who grew up with it, so if that is you, then you will probably dig the extra short films included. If not, well, you have been warned!

I know Rolfe does not produce as many AVGN episodes as he did in his earlier years with the franchise, but still releases several episodes a year which is why I was not too stunned to see a collection released with only seven episodes. There is a fair amount of extra features, but it is noticeable how overall the total content is a bit less compared to other releases. If Cinemassacre releases another AVGN collection, I got a feeling it will be bigger, because it has now been over two years since Ready 4 Revenge, and according to their YouTube channel, there has been 19 episodes since the last one featured on this disc. If you are pick and choosing which collections to get, you may be better holding off on this one for now, but there is still a fair amount of quality AVGN material to consume in Ready 4 Revenge…just less than before.

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

X-Men: Apocalypse

We are approaching the release date for the final FOX X-Men film hitting theaters when Dark Phoenix arrives next week. Thus it seemed like a perfect time to revisit FOX’s previous ensemble X-Men film, 2016’s Apocalypse (trailer). Minus a couple exceptions, I have largely enjoyed most of the X-Men movies so far, even if I have barely an idea of what is or is no longer canon anymore and the many contradictions that have surfaced with each proceeding film. The filmmakers stated in the bonus feature interviews here they are essentially making up the rules as they go along ever since they introduced time travel. Regardless, each X-film in and of itself I have mostly enjoyed on its own merits, and that continues with Apocalypse.

Apocalypse has greatly benefited with a second viewing a few years later. I recall nitpicking it in the theaters for its contradictions and other little details that did not match up with previous films and trying to come to terms with the unexpected costume and character design of Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) himself as it compared to the Apocalypse costume I grew up with in the comics and early 90s animated series. Now that I got those initial puzzled impressions out of my system I took in Apocalypse on its own and those nitpicks were not as much of a distraction on second viewing.

Apocalypse transpires 10 years after the events of Days of Future Past in 1983. I liked how they set up the origin for Apocalypse in the prologue and establish how he is this god-like force to be reckoned with all these years later. Watching him grow in power as he recruited Angel (Ben Hardy), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Psylocke (Olivia Munn) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) as his ‘four horsemen’ proved him to a formidable force. There is a lot of setup Apocalypse’s first half of its near two and a half hour runtime. It did not feel that long however because with its ensemble cast there were so many individual stories to tell to bring everyone together that Apocalypse breezed by.

Nearly all the main players from the previous two core X-Men films return like Professor Xavier (James McAvoy), Mystique (Jennifer Laurence) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult). Periphery players from before like Quicksilver (Evan Peters) and Havok (Lucas Till) also have bigger roles in this film. Young versions of Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and yes….even Jubilee (Lana Condor) make their debut in this past era of X-films. There are a few surprises I do not want to ruin, but rest assured there are plenty of interesting interactions among the huge cast knowing how these characters will interact in movies set after this. Fassbender and McAvoy easily have the best chemistry among the whole cast and the two steal the show with their handful of one-on-one emotional scenes.

Like the rest of the X-films, Apocalypse does not disappoint when it comes to special effects. There are countless CG showcases from the Apocalypse origin story prologue, to another Quicksilver slow-motion sizzle reel, a couple of impressive destruction sequences where Apocalypse unleashes his fury and the requisite Cerebro scene gone terribly wrong. These CG sequences go hand-in-hand with most of the action scenes, and they were smartly paced in with all the setup and build to the climatic final showdown which is highlighted with Apocalypse and Xavier engaging in a telepathic duel for the ages.

How those CG scenes were produced is tackled among the boatload of extra features. X-Men Unearthed is the standout extra. It is a five-part feature running a little over an hour combined and tackles how the cast and crew is handling the convoluted canon of the X-films, shows Patrick Stewart give his blessing and witness MacAvoy shave his head, breaks down the cast and goes into the nuts and bolts on how those awesome CG sequences came to be. Definitely worth a watch! There is nearly a half hour of deleted scenes with optional introductions from director Bryan Singer that includes a lot of material that seemed tragic to get cut like a feel-good 80s mall music montage set to Safety Dance that got me nostalgic for my teenage Mallrats years, and Fassbender nailing it with a emotional family scene that Singer stated was one of his all-time heartbreaking cuts to make in filmmaking. There is a killer eight minute gag reel that I would place in the top tier of superhero film gag reels, which is good company to be among.

Finally the commentary track with Singer and writer/producer Simon Kinberg is among one of my favorite commentaries I have heard in the five and a half years since I started this site. Singer is mostly nonstop with revealing facts and inspirations for the film like going into a engrossing story on the aforementioned Fassbender deleted scene, pointing out that Jubilee is in the film in one of her few lines or else I would have completely missed her, taking potshots at Marvel and FOX in the opening credits, a touching anecdote on filming the Stan Lee cameo and being grateful to Munn and Peters for knowing their Mortal Kombat references that resulted in saving a certain moment of the film. Those are just a few of the many highlights I got from the commentary so if you have time this is one of the good ones to check out. Also worth pointing out is FOX subtitled the commentary, THANK YOU!

As I alluded to earlier, I came out of X-Men: Apocalypse with a far better experience on my second viewing. I only marginally enjoyed it initially, but letting some time and perspective sink in helped immensely. I am now surprisingly stoked to see Dark Phoenix when it hits next week. I highly recommend revisiting Apocalypse for a refresher on the many little plot points I would have forgotten. I no doubt agree the canon across the nearly 20 years of FOX X-films is a head-scratcher and a half to keep track of and who knows maybe their new overlords at Disney will find a way to smoothly integrate them into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, I would be lying if there was not a part of me that would like to see Disney keep the X-films in their own separate canon that FOX has established, quirks and all. Time will tell.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-6
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

NXT: From Secret to Sensation

2017 saw WWE release their second home video release spotlighting their third brand/developmental league, NXT. Titled, NXT: From Secret to Sensation (trailer), the three-disc DVD (there was no BluRay release in America) contains a near hour and a half feature counting down the fan voted top 25 NXT stars and two additional discs that have 18 matches from the first five years of NXT.

Going by the title, one would be led to believe this would be a comprehensive documentary at how NXT came to be and how it exploded into popularity once it gained exposure with the launch of WWE Network that kicked off NXT’ debuting their popular TakeOver specials. While a WWE endorsed book of the same name simultaneously released featured that story, it is nowhere told in the feature as it merely gives abbreviated profiles and highlights of the 25 stars that made the list. That said, this release would have been better titled, The Top 25 Stars and Matches of the First Five Years of NXT or something to that effect.

Watching the countdown was both exciting and a bit of a buzzkill. It was exciting because it was a nice refresher of top matches and moments from the first five years of NXT. Relieving highlights of the first NXT live special, Arrival with standout matches like Bo Dallas/Neville and Cesaro/Zayn were great entry points for first-time NXT viewers like myself at the time. Also being reminded of Samoa Joe, Finn Balor, Bobby Roode, Bayley and Sasha reigning supreme brought back many fond moments too. Since this is ‘fan voted’ it is difficult to say how right or wrong it is. For my two cents however there were a few eye-brow raising rankings to say the least. Baron Corbin’s run in NXT was more of a developmental run to flesh out his in-ring work and he only really had a handful of memorable matches/rivalries that were nowhere near the top tier of NXT’s history yet he has a surprising ranking. Same with Alexa Bliss, while she has had an astounding run on the WWE main roster, her only standout NXT role as manager for Blake & Murphy for a few months before dumping them for the main roster hardly screams top half of the list material, let alone a ranking on the list altogether.

The list is a buzzkill at moments because some of the stars featured on here that had memorable runs in NXT have already flamed out of WWE like Neville, Sasha Banks and Tye Dillenger and others have never escaped undercard doom like Bobby Roode, Bayley and Bo Dallas. Also the tag teams of NXT were relegated to their own separate three minute montage while it seems WWE could have easily done a little more fleshed out top five or ten NXT tag team acts supplemental feature considering how big tag teams are in NXT with the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament dominating NXT airwaves each year.

For the two discs of content featuring bonus matches, a good chunk of them are from the pre-WWE Network era. This is both good and bad. It is positive to see how far the NXT Arena at Full Sail has evolved from a dingy looking soundstage into a sleek professional set. It is a negative because this era was before NXT was known for their epic matches with passionate crowds that took off once the first TakeOver live specials started off in 2014. Of the seven matches from that period, only three of them I notated as must-see. Unsurprisingly the first battle between Cesaro and Zayn from 2013 is on there, along with a surprisingly good clash of polarizing styles between Dolph Ziggler and Rusev and finally a good encounter between Tyler Breeze and Neville. Sadly, no matches from the ‘reality competition’ era of NXT on SyFy/wwe.com from 2010-2012 are included….which is admittedly for the better.

Once the matches shift over into the post-network period of NXT there are more matches from various TakeOvers included. Shinsuke Nakamura’s awesome NXT debut against Sami Zayn is included, along with one of my personal favorite NXT matches that saw Tye Dillenger and Bobby Roode tear the house down at the end of their rivalry. The previously unaired live event that saw Samoa Joe win the NXT Title from Finn Balor is included in its entirety for the first time to the best of my knowledge as I recall they only showed brief excerpts from it on NXT TV before. On the women’s side the two must-see bouts in this collection feature Sasha Banks against Becky Lynch and Charlotte when she was owning her ‘boss’ character that never saw its true form on WWE TV.

After finishing off NXT: From Secret to Sensation I came out of it with mixed feelings. On one hand the top 25 list is a nice quick snapshot of the main stars behind the early years of the promotion, but on the other they could have done so much more with a fully fleshed out documentary detailing how NXT evolved year-by-year. While about half of the 18 matches included in the collection are must-see I think unless you are craving those bite-sized character profiles, you will probably be alright skipping this collection, especially considering that WWE released best of 2017 and 2018 NXT home videos as of this writing that will likely have a far superior selection of matches.

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Clash of Champions
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
DDP: Positively Living
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unreleased: Vol 3
Eric Bishoff: Wrestlings Most Controversial Figure
Fight Owens Fight: The Kevin Owens Story
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
The Kliq Rules
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History
Owen: Hart of Gold
RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Scott Hall: Living on a Razors Edge
Sting: Into the Light
Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz
Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
TLC 2017
TNA Lockdown 2005-2016
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
True Giants
Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns
Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe
War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28-Present
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money
Wrestlings Greatest Factions
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017

30 Years of GamBoy: How I Persevered Through the 90s with Nintendo's Brick at my Side!

Over the past couple weeks social media has been buzzing with tributes and testimonials for the legacy of the GameBoy on its 30th anniversary of its Japan launch and fast approaching North American launch in 1989. There was also that pic a couple weeks ago of Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson playing linked two player Tetris that went viral that sent waves of nostalgia down my spine! Like countless other 90s kids I had a devout affection for the GameBoy’s (and its 1998 Color update) enduring legacy into 2001 when its true successor, the GameBoy Advance launched. So it is time to lay out my history with the little gray brick that could, but before I do I would be remiss if I were not to point you towards someone who has been doing phenomenal work chronicling the GameBoy’s history first. Retronauts host, Jeremy Parish has been painstakingly crafting videos detailing every GameBoy release for America and Japan in chronological order and currently is nearing the end of covering games released through 1990. So if you want to catch up and find out about the early hits and likely a plethora of titles you have never heard of before, then click here to dive in.

Unlike a lot of the excellent retrospectives I have been reading these past couple of weeks, minus a couple exceptions, I did not play that many of the AAA GameBoy titles from Nintendo. I was a sucker for licenses from my favorite sports leagues and watered down ports of the latest console games as you will later read about. It was not until I much later got the Official GameBoy Player’s Guide with my first Nintendo Power subscription a few years after I got a GameBoy that I realized what were the key titles for the system. However even after re-reading that bible of GameBoy knowledge multiple times I was adamant on avoiding the powerhouse first party titles like Super Mario Land, Metroid II, Link’s Awakening and Donkey Kong in favor for eye-blinking double take titles you will discover in a bit. My childhood preference of games went against the grain to say the least. With that out of the way, let us flashback to 1993….

I remember begging my parents for a GameBoy for Christmas in 1993 when I was 10. I cannot specifically remember why, but after ruminating about it I pinpointed it down to the fact in 1993 I still had a NES and my parents understandably did not want to budge on dropping $200 for the 16-bit upgrade. The GameBoy was at its height of its popularity at this time and advertisements for the green and black handheld dominated my Saturday morning cartoon lineup. The GameBoy launched at $90 in 1989 so by 1993 I think it was going for around $70 which seemed like a much more realistic sell to my folks at being my one-and-only ‘Santa’ gift for Christmas.

Also around this time I was going through serious pro-wrestling withdrawal. From about 1988 until early 1993 I was an avid WWF kiddo. Big Bossman and The Rockers were my favorites, and I have fond memories of braving the classrooms of Catholic school with my Big Bossman tennis shoes. However, growing up with three other siblings who detested the squared circle made it a battle for control of the household’s sole television. Eventually, the numbers game caught up and I got so use to being bullied out of getting my weekly then-WWF fix that I went nearly three years from early ’93 until late ’95 not watching my favorites on the airwaves. The only other way at that time for me to get my dose of wrestling at home was in the mostly mediocre-to-horrible wrestling games on NES. I played far too many hours of duds like Wrestlemania and Steel Cage Challenge than any kid should have, and double that for the decent at best grapplers on the system like Pro Wrestling and Tecmo World Wrestling.

Enter 1993 and Royal Rumble for the Super Nintendo and Genesis. I lost track at the number of times I would play that game setup on free play at store kiosks. I was dazzled by Royal Rumble’s superior 16-bit graphics and standout feature, the Royal Rumble match that saw up to six wrestlers in the ring at once trying to throw everyone out and subsequently replaced with a fresh combatant until the game went through its entire 12-man roster. It seemed as close as it was going to get at the time to the insanely awesome Rumble match in one of my all-time favorite arcade games, WWF WrestleFest. Being able to participate in the chaos of the Royal Rumble match with a controller after endless hours of only one-on-one and tag team matches on various NES games was mind-blowing to 10-year old Dale. All the gaming magazines at the time were echoed my sentiments and gushed with glowing reviews which only served to exacerbate my demand.

Again I pleaded for a SNES and a copy of Royal Rumble for Christmas and again I was denied courtesy of its tall asking price. It was then I went with the aforementioned plan b for the GameBoy. Also hitting NES and GameBoy in 1993 was WWF King of the Ring. King of the Ring sported inferior 8-bit graphics and had a smaller roster of wrestlers and no awesome Royal Rumble match to play, but it did have the not-so-great King of the Ring tournament to play which was only a series of one-on-one matches, but most importantly it would be portable and I could play it anywhere and not have to worry about battling for control of the TV with my siblings to play it. Looking back now those were the catalysts to relentlessly ask my parents for the GameBoy.

Growing up with divorced parents meant celebrating most holidays and birthdays twice. I got to celebrate Christmas first with my dad a few days before the actual date of Christmas and was elated to unwrap and discover my very own GameBoy with a copy of its killer-app, Tetris! Over the next couple of days I played an un-healthy amount of Tetris. ‘Gee, if this block-puzzle game I barely heard of before is this awesome, imagine how good the wrestling game would be’ naïve me daydreamed of at the time. However, before I could get to that moment, something unexpected and terrible transpired!

On Christmas Eve I was with my family that night going to church for its annual Christmas Eve dinner gathering. To get through the night of being with my family I brought my new electronic best friend with me and snuck in as much Tetris as I could between bites. After we wrapped up and my family got back into the car to go back home my GameBoy was not as snugly tucked into my pocket as I thought and as I shut the car door my GameBoy slid out of my pocket and collided with the blunt force of me shutting the door onto it. As you can see in the screenshot here, the incident caused about 95% of the screen to get cracked and impossible to see and I balled my eyes out that entire night. Kids, do not bring your GameBoy to church or God will strike down upon you when least expected!

To make matters worse on Christmas morning the next day I opened up a copy of WWF King of the Ring for GameBoy from Santa. I plugged it into my cracked GameBoy and was stunned to see it still worked and played the music and it would display the miniscule amount of graphics that were possible in the tiny corners of the GameBoy screen that were not damaged. I must have begged my parents for days to see if they could get the GameBoy replaced or returned or something. I feel horrible now for how irritating I must have been at that time. To my surprise, my mom came through a week or two later and got me a new GameBoy. Once again I was thrilled and beyond belief of how those past couple weeks played out, but from then on I was extra careful with my GameBoy and to this day I still own both my busted and replacement brick GameBoys.

For a few months all I had was Tetris and King of the Ring. I loved Tetris and even found a classmate to link up and play two player with a few times and it remains in my GameBoy library to this day! However, even with my childhood adoration for wrestling I could tell King of the Ring would be nothing more than a middling wrestling game and nothing compared to its 16-bit brethren (though it did have some rocking wrestler chiptune entrance themes). At this point a few months into 1994 our local videogame shop was a place called Tiger Play, which was essentially a modern day GameStop that bought, sold and traded new and used games. It was the same store where I persistently requested to put Royal Rumble for play in its kiosk to the chagrin of the employees. I have no idea how they tolerated me back then. I decided it was time to part ways with King of the Ring and trade it in for something else.

Not having a 16-bit console at the time I got my MK fix at home with the GB version and did what I could with its stripped down roster and limited gameplay. At least the GB version as pictured above was only version of original at the time where you could play as Goro!

In early 1994 Mortal Kombat fever was running wild with the sequel dominating arcades and the home release being super popular with all my classmates. Mortal Kombat did not come out for NES, but it did for GameBoy and the now much wiser 11-year old Dale thought the GameBoy version would be just as good as the SNES, but only not in color and was thrilled to hear Tiger Play would happily do a straight-up trade of King of the Ring for Mortal Kombat. Right away I could tell something was not right to discover it was missing Johnny Cage from its roster and it ran a significantly slower framerate. I still remember having to ever--so—slowly--like--this input the button sequences for the special moves in order to get them to work. Even worse, facing Shang Tsung on there was super cheap because he would automatically cast a projectile when one input away from pulling off a special move so I had to learn to beat him without special moves which took forever, but I eventually pulled it off. The GameBoy version of MK did have one thing going for it over the rest and that would be it was the only version of MK that let you play as Goro! Goro was unstoppable, but even with that trump card, the handheld MK was pretty lousy, but I forced myself to get some enjoyment out of it before marching back to Tiger Play a few months later and trading MK in for Bo Jackson: Baseball and Football. Turns out ‘Bo Knows…’ how to endorse subpar sports game, but the sports nut in me played that to death for a couple years because Tiger Play closed its doors around this time and it would be a few years until our town got another videogame store.

After that brief flirtation with trading games in I would only receive two games a year for GameBoy from 1994 through 1998 shortly before I got my first job and could afford my own games then. At that period in my life those two games a year meant everything to me. As hinted above, I was still drawn towards games based on my favorite licenses at that point and Bart vs. the Juggernauts was one of my early games I received as a present. The mini-game collection featured a lot of hair-pulling cheap controls, but I forced myself to stick with it and lit up when it became one of the first games I ever finished. A much better game I got as a present that I also finished was Donkey Kong Land. I have no idea how Rare was able to get graphics that seemed somewhat comparable to the SNES Donkey Kong Country, but I remember loving playing it, but being bummed at its lackluster ending of only ‘congratulations’ with no accompanying DK crew victory graphic. At least Bart vs. the Juggernauts had a wicked ending with Bart getting rewarded with his very own ‘Truck-a-Saurus.’

I learned my lesson from Bo Jackson and MK to do my research for better games on the GameBoy….actually no because I kept asking for more fighting and sports games for Christmas and birthdays, but at least getting varying degrees of better ones this time. The original NFL Quarterback Club on GameBoy I had a ton of fun with. It only featured the ‘Quarterback Club’ mini-games, but no actual game of football that was playable in its console versions. That was not a problem though as me and my siblings had a surprising amount of fun alternating back-and-forth with the various QB drill mini-games available and I could not help but crack up that my sister only played as Jim Kelley because of how close it sounded to ‘Jim Carrey’ who was wildly popular in the mid-90s. NFL Quarterback Club ‘96 was only actual football and no mini-games, but that was fine because it featured a far better handheld rendition of football compared to Bo Jackson and even a season mode with password save option! Yes, I still have my passwords saved inside the instruction manual

Ken Griffey Jr. Presents: MLB is an awesome port of the SNES original and blew away the baseball from Bo Jackson. It had a battery-save season mode along with the ability to trade players with no restrictions so I created my team of all-stars and rocked through an entire season throughout many family car rides. Mortal Kombat II is a huge upgrade from the first portable version, and while it also had a scaled back roster it did feature more precise gameplay, more friendly controls to pull off special moves and fatalities and a stable framerate resulting in me not trading this one away and playing it way too much.

That wraps up all the games I got as gifts and by the time I got my first job the GameBoy Color hit the market so I eagerly picked that up. There were a couple classmates over the years I met where we borrowed games to each other. I did not discover many new gems that way as most kids were also picking up the dreck of LJN licensed games and I could one can only tolerate so much out of WWF RAW, Fist of the North Star and Home Alone on GameBoy before getting out of the game borrowing market. I managed not to get swept up in PokeFever as I was just a couple years older than that targeted demographic. I did pick up Pokemon Blue shortly after its release after reading about the hype for it and got a little ways into it before my younger brother noticed me playing it and asked to borrow it around the time it was blowing up with younger kids so I did not mind letting him hold onto it until it for his GameBoy until he remembered to give it back to me about ten years later.

Since the GameBoy Color was only on the market for a few years I will not meander on as long about it. With that said, the GameBoy Color far surpassed the meek GameBoy in every way with the exception of not having a backlit screen. Other than that, it was smaller, fit more comfortably in my pocket, took two less batteries and well….the addition of color! Yes, I picked up a few too many sports and wrestling games on it again that were mediocre at best, but I did have a lot of fun with some enhanced NES re-releases on there with Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, the first three Dragon Warrior games and Micro Machines 1 & 2: Twin Turbo. For original titles my favorites were Mario Golf and Mario Tennis. For people familiar with the recent Golf Story on Switch Mario Golf is a lot like that where it is a sports-RPG hybrid where it has a fairly in-depth narrative at attending a golf/tennis academy to become the best player and being able to take lessons and play mini-games to level-up and prepare for the tournaments. Super Mario Bros. Deluxe had a lot of fun extras and even a two player competitive mode to see who can finish a stage first that I absolutely ate up.

A couple years ago some unearthly thing got me craving the basic, watered down platformers that dominated GameBoy and I hunted down the five Turok games released for GameBoy platforms and I played through the entirety of the first one on the original GameBoy and had a somewhat decent time with it. I did not play it on the actual GameBoy, mind you but instead on my TV courtesy of the Retron 5. I should mention I am a proud owner of the Super GameBoy, GameBoy Player and Retron 5 which made it convenient to bust out these portable games at a much friendlier resolution and not have to worry about the GameBoy’s non-backlit screen. In honor of the 30th anniversary last week I popped in the GameBoy Color version of Turok 2 and played a couple levels into it. For as weak and watered down most handheld versions of console games were, there was something about it that kept me coming back to them.

The GameBoy helped me through my childhood, too many family trip car rides to count and several summers on a farm. I probably had an unorthodox library of games for my GameBoy compared to the average owner who probably owned a majority of vastly superior games released by Nintendo, Capcom and Konami. What can I say, I was too young to realize what to ask my folks for. No matter how strong or weak each game wound up, I made sure to get the absolute most out of each game. Thank you Nintendo for releasing and supporting the GameBoy well after you should have throughout the 90s and enabling me to enjoy games anywhere! Thank you to everyone who got through this indulging my childhood memories of portable gaming with me! I hope you all have just as many great childhood handheld system gaming memories as I did whether it was on GameBoy, GameGear or later generations like GBA, PSP, DS, mobile, etc.