Castle Magus

"Lani, Jesse, and Stephan remember the days when five teenagers(?) with attitude were all we needed to solve the world's problems."

---

Lani says: "I know I'm a little older than you kids... I was a fresh-faced elementary schooler at the height, at the peak, of Power Rangers popularity."

I would have just finished my sophomore year in high school when this movie came out, and I would have just entered or been about to enter high school as a freshman when the show itself first came out in August 1993. It was a pretty damn huge deal at the time. That said, I only vaguely remember seeing the movie at some point, likely even in a theater, but I remember next to nothing about it now. (And I saw the 2017 one that Jesse mentioned, most definitely not in a theater, but I remember even less about that one.)

I did not go to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers live show. I was unaware until now that there even was a Power Rangers live show. (I did, however, go to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out of Their Shells Live Tour thing, when it hit Carowinds in 1990 or 1991 or whenever. And I had a cassette tape of the album, too, which I'm pretty sure I got at Pizza Hut. Yes, that was a real thing that exists.)

Anyway, as for the movie itself... yeah, this movie came after Austin St. John, Walter Jones, and (RIP) Thuy Trang had already left the show, after which I lost most of my interest for the whole thing. I never really got into even Zeo or Turbo (and I had no idea that Alien Rangers was even a thing that existed or if I did I had successfully blotted it from my memory until today), and I didn't watch anything of In Space and all the stuff that came after that.

"Good things ... come in big POUCHES (like kangaroos you know, like kangaroo pouches,) but there are no pouches here, only scary friends. The gang checks out someone's idea of 'we have kung fu movies at home.'"

---

(Ugh... so this was yet another post that just happened to have the phrase "Hidden " in the headline, which fucked up the subject line, for whatever super dumb, still existing reasons, until I "fixed" it.)

Not only have I never seen this movie, I'd never even heard of it prior to watching this. I kind of want to see it now.

From what I've seen of it here, I'd have to agree with their assessment of it, though. The kangaroos look horrifying, and the villain seems great in an over the top way. He looks kind of like what Tommy Wiseau would probably look like, if Tommy Wiseau were an actual human being and not a freakish alien. What little I saw of the villain in this video here, I think I'd like him the same way I liked that Gridlock guy from that Operation Blue Line thing. Oh, and hey, then even mention TMNT later.

The reason why "the Twin Peaks guy" wasn't cast in more stuff is probably because Michael J. Anderson is kind of a nutjob.

Learn the real story behind the mysterious "Martin." Who is he REALLY?

Featuring:
Jacob Quinn as Alex Tremont
Stephan Krosecz as Everybody Else

---

This is the last of the "session 0" vids for Tales Unwritten. Martin/Alexander's story. It's... probably the least interesting of the three "session 0" things, at least to me. Also, huge spoilers for the end of episode 4 and all of episode 5 of the actual campaign and all that.

Also, because somehow I managed to entirely miss the actual "session 0" vid when it was first released four days ago and only found out about it today, when the Tales Unraveled discussion showed up in my Feedly, here's that, too. (I had to go back and check to see if it was a Feedly fuck up or something, but it wasn't. It was there in Feedly, I just missed it somehow.)

The legend of Karnacus Freehorn begins! This is the first of three "Session 0s" we made, playing out the backstories of each character! Expect Maud's Story next Thursday, then the final one the week after that!

Content Warning: Descriptions of hanging - 57:40 - 1:06:00

Featuring:
Nick Landis as Karna
Stephan Krosecz as Everybody Else

---

Yeah, this is Nick's "session 0" as Karna. I hope the other two are at least as good as this one was.

(EDIT) And here is the Tales Unraveled discussion video for Karna's episode zero. (/EDIT)

If you or anyone you know has been affected by Pop-Tart madness, know that you're not alone.

Scott, Nick, and Jesse find out the hard way how many cursed pastry rectangles it takes to break the human spirit.

---

Hey, cool, Scott's here for this one.

So about... ...I want to say... a year ago, maybe two, I had a week or three where I wanted to eat some Pop Tarts generic, Food Lion store brand, toaster pastries. That period passed. I was done. I don't need them anymore. I don't foresee ever needing them again. It's nowhere near the level of Chicken McNuggets on the "never want to eat this ever again" scale, mind you, but it's up there.

Anyway, looking forward to that protein bar episode that they teased/promised in this one.

"Lani and Jesse compare the various kinds of chicken a person could get around our neighborhood. Which chicken do you think should come out on top?!"

---

It's to the point now where a Team Four Star food video is basically an insta-watch for me. I mean, what other food comparison video is going to have multiple random references to the The Blair Witch Project, for example (which itself was due to a semi-unrelated tangent from Nick about Denny's and IHOP)? This is another video that Scott/Kaiser probably wisely decided to avoid.

So, yeah, anyway, this is my own experience with chicken nuggets/tenders. The last time I personally bought fast food chicken nuggets, which I'm pretty sure I've mentioned in this blog before but I don't feel like looking it up now, was when I bought a 30-piece McNugget thing from McDonald's in something like 2010 or so (let's go with 2010, sure), and that was my entire lunch for that day. It took me pretty much the rest of the day to finish that shit. And I have never again wanted to eat McDonald's Chicken McNuggets after that.

Beyond that, and only slightly more recently (i.e. these were pretty much the last meals I ever ate in my old condo back in Redmond, WA, prior to moving out and returning to NC for good in like Feb 2014 or whenever), the only nuggets/tenders I've had were some microwave meal shit, like Banquet shit. Banquet chicken nuggets are probably better than McDonald's McNuggets, but only just barely. Banquet nuggets are way better than Banquet chicken fingers, though. (Banquet fish sticks are fucking god-tier compared to their chicken nuggets/fingers, though that... isn't saying much, really, but still.)

As for the rest of the stuff they sampled, I don't have an opinion on it because I've never tried any of it.

Only thing I ever got from Jack in the Box (and I got it a lot considering that I used to live almost directly across the street from a Jack in the Box, back when I lived in Redmond, WA, circa 2004-2013) was the Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger. Basically Jack's equivalent to the Wendy's Baconator. I think the BUC was a bit better than the Baconator, though. Closest Jack in the Box to me now is apparently in Concord, NC, about 80 miles away. I'm not driving 80 miles for a Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger when I can go about 10 miles to Wendy's for a Baconator (which even that is a bit far, unless I'm already going to Food Lion or something anyway, since the Wendy's is only 3 miles farther than the Food Lion is). As for actual chicken stuff, the Wendy's Classic Chicken Sandwich is actually pretty good. It's no Chick-fil-A or anything (but then, what is?), but I'd still say it's fairly high-tier for fast food shit.

Never heard of Raising Cane's prior to this video. Closest one to me is around 75 miles away, down in Chapel Hill, so that's pretty much out, too, same as Jack now.

Same with Whataburger, though I think I had vaguely heard of that before now, at least, maybe? In any case, the closest one to me is apparently 170 miles away, in Boiling Springs, SC, so yeah, shit on that.

I've had KFC and Popeye's and Burger King chicken sandwiches, but not their nuggets/tenders. They were all passable, I guess. Though I stopped going to KFC altogether when they got rid of their Doublicious and replaced it with the Zinger or whatever the fuck. I'd have to drive like 30-40 miles to Greensboro or to Eden to get to the closest Popeye's and it's really not worth it. And Burger King's Original Chicken Sandwich is about the most basic-ass chicken sandwich you can get at a fast food place. That said, of the three, I'd probably choose the BK OCS over the other two.

In conclusion, I think they need to do something like this again, but with french fries instead of chicken nuggets/tenders.

"The boys(Scott, Nick, & Jesse) try some Oreo flavors both familiar and new, and rank them all just for you!"

---

If Lani can survive The End, I think he can survive this.

"Let's celebrate June with some silly juice and chat about queerness, content creation, joke writing, compassion, scrambled eggs, and accidental representation."

---

I might edit this later with more than nothing at all here, but for right now I'll just note that this is the first (and, for the time being, only) post with the new "team four star" tag that I just made, which I'll go back and add to as many of the previous posts as appropriate that I manage to catch (but not tonight).

Anyway, that was a good video there that I watched and then embedded into this post here.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! We've teamed up with LonelyChaser Fansubs to bring you a fully subtitled, 4K 16mm scan of the Dracula movie from Marvel and Toei Animation!

In the very first animated movie ever based on a Marvel comic, Count Dracula, lord of vampires and the sovereign of the damned, steals away a bride intended for Lucifer. Not only does this anger his dark creator but also a satanic cult and his fellow vampires. He finds that the sins of his past will not allow him to live a normal, mortal life. Events become complicated when he comes under attack from all sides, including his vampire hunting great-grandson and the children of others he murdered long ago.

This 16mm film was acquired by MartyMcFlies of LonelyChaser, and was scanned in 4K. It was also color corrected and touched up by us. The first reel unfortunately ended up being very moldy, reproduced as a blue-ish pattern over the film, and this could not be fixed, along with some heavy scratches running down the film in the first reel. Software is not capable of digitally restoring these issues without massive time-consuming frame by frame work, which we do not have the time, manpower, or budget for. The audio was sourced from the optical sound track on the film itself. This is likely the best this film will ever look, as neither Marvel nor Toei have seemingly any interest in acknowledging its existence.

---

This thing... of all the Dracula things I've seen, and I've seen a fair few in my time, that... was certainly one of them. It is, apparently, based on The Tomb of Dracula comic books, in which Blade made his first appearance. Blade was not in the above movie, though, sadly.

I downloaded the torrent version found in the pinned comment under the above embedded Youtube video, which has both the Japanese and English dub versions. I watched the English dub. Might also watch the Japanese version later, at some point.

I first learned of this movie when I saw a couple of parody dubs of it the other day (which I found via Team Four Star's Dragon Ball Z Abridged Creator Commentary, where they happened to mention the "Piccolo Lays A Beating" parody, made by the same guy [who was, apparently, also the second voice of Kami in DBZA itself, among several other voices]).