My video doesn't want to upload, so here's a link to my YouTube project.

One my favorite things about YouTube is all the clips/episodes people put up from my favorite childhood TV shows. This collection of videos features clips from some of those shows, starting with (to the best of my memory) the earliest shows I watched and ending with shows I liked in late elementary school. In case you're interested, the shows are (in order): Sesame Street ("Healthy Food," "The Word is 'No'," and "Yip Yip Monsters and a Telephone"), Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, Popples, TailSpin, Duck Tales, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs (and Pinky and the Brain), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Where on Earth Is Carmen San Diego?, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?

Sorry about the weird opening, iMovie keeps doing that to me.

Allison

The Sad, Lonely Life of Jon Arbuckle

I was browsing through BoingBoing (a sweet site full of tasty internet miscellany) a while ago and I came across a posting about Garfield Minus Garfield. This is a daily comic created by removing any traces of the orange feline from classic Garfield strips. The result is a sad, hilarious, and usually creepy look into the mind of a guy who has chosen to spend most of his day talking to his cat. The creator himself considers it a meditation on "schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life." All interesting themes, to be sure, and the strip certainly does make you think. By removing the personable furball from the strip, the relationship between pet and owner is stripped away, and we are forced to consider Jon as a real individual. How would we react to him if he wasn't accompanied by a cartoon cat who talks and, what's more, makes witty quips? I like this little piece of alternative media, because it creates an entirely new perspective on a well-established cartoon personality by simply removing a key piece of context. I loved Garfield growing up, and I always loved Jon's outbursts and nerdy episodes; this is just icing on the cake.