Wednesday, March 3, 2010

My Favorite Characters: Annoying but Alphanumeric

Thank the User for Teletoon Retro! I can watch the Jetsons now at almost any time of day or night! (Except I discovered I don't ever want to.)
But never mind that: I have access at last to the finest Canadian CGI program ever to off-line before it had a chance to fully compile: ReBoot. I hear what all you Sprites are saying out there... you've never heard of it! But seriously, back in the '90's I was exactly the target audience for this clever, parody-heavy adventure set in the world inside your computer:
1. I already had a deep, abiding, and unhealthy love for the movie TRON (similar premise, less jokes).
2. I likes me the green girls. (see... oh, any previous post) Dot was a welcome addition to the veridian pantheon.
3. Mike the TV.
Voiced by Michael Donovan, Mike the TV is a hyperkinetic, drivel-spewing machine. (Particularily as a teenager, let's just say I could relate.) Mike was the TV of Guardian Bob, the lead character, who rarely had much sucess with appliances. Mike was so annoying, his own remote control ran away. Mike took a succession of jobs: emcee, game warrior, underling to an insane virus, news correspondant, underling to a second, even crazier virus...
The thing is, even under the insidious, will-sapping indoctrination of the well-intentioned virus Daemon, I could still count on Mike to be the FUNNEST possible sort of zealot.
I think I like best that a one-joke guy can just plain grow on you until he seems like something more. In a reality CREATED by nerdlings, parody is so much a part of life that almost everything is a joke, and Mike knows it. There's plenty of great characters on ReBoot. Dour Matrix. Inscutable Phong. Tough-As-Nails AndrAIa. The slimiest-bug-in-the-web: Megabyte.
So, yes, I admit it. I like the funny. If the nice folks at Rainmaker intend to win me over with their proposed movie follow-up, please copy-and-paste that: I like the funny. ReBoot seasons 3 and 4 were a valiant attempt at a show with more depth, and I feel they suceeded brilliantly. But they never lost track of fun. Even if the movie never comes to pass, ReBoot was an excellent program.
And there's always TRON: Legacy!

1 comment:

Mike The Bold said...

Sorry, my good Sprite. Could you repeat that? In plain Dos?