Agent Palmer

There was a time, not that long ago, where aiming an animated movie at an older audience was quite the gamble. This time also overlaps with the period where Disney was still the king of animation for feature length cartoons and everyone else was lucky to even be mentioned…

Not everything is destined to be a hit or even lucky enough to get “cult classic” status. Ralph Bakshi, who I’ve written a lot about, has made a career of smaller independent cartoons targeted at older audiences that all have gained cult status.

Despite the fact that Console Wars by Blake J. Harris is about Sega rising to the top to dethrone Nintendo before slowly, painfully, and publicly falling out of consoles all together, this book is mainly about marketing, big ideas, and Tom Kalinske.

Now, I don’t mean that as a slight. Kalinske is a fascinating individual; the man came up with He-Man when he was at Mattel, after all. But the book does generally paint Nintendo as the bad guy despite the fact that Nintendo ultimately wins or at least won the 1990s.

Is this how it works now? Am I doomed to watch television and say, “I’ve seen this before?”

Riverdale is the CW’s newest incarnation of comic books come to live action and through all the episodes I seen so far, I see plotlines and characters and even hints at dialogue that I’ve seen or heard before. Yes, it’s target market is younger than I am, and as such, is that the issue?

Is it that I’ve seen Dawson’s Creek, Veronica Mars, Cruel Intentions, and countless others that this show recycles?