England must have been home to some pretty nasty dogs because the country is riddled with legends of Baskervilles-type killer hounds. There's The Galleytrot, The Shug Monkey, The Evil Thing, The Churchyard Beast, The Hell Beast, The Swooning Shadow, Snarly Yow, and The Black Dog of Torrington, just to name a few. The worst of all of them, though, is Black Shuck who claims victims even today.
If you haven't heard of him it might be because the locals who live in the afflicted areas believe it's bad luck just to mention his name. A coastguardsman spotted the hound in 1972 and made the mistake of officially reporting the event. He died under mysterious circumstances within 10 weeks and his father died under equally mysterious circumstances only a few months later. Just to see the dog is to incur a death sentense.
The rector of the church described it this way (below):
The door of the church still stands. There they are (above), the scratch marks right where Black Shuck left them. But the hound didn't stop there. The next stop was Bungay, where two worshippers were killed at St. Mary's church. One was left shrivelled "like a drawn purse" as he prayed.
Hey Eddie. I know this is off-topic but it's been an issue that I've seen pop up in more and more public forums but how would you address the common misconception and mentality that animation and animated shows are solely just for children and that you should grow up if you still like decent "childrens" programming that happens to also appeal to adults too. How would you also remind people of animation's origins and really make it clear that this mindset didn't always exist? People have been using that excuse to justify mediocrity in the medium too.
ReplyDeleteRoberto: If it's done right, animation is innately interesting...it's like sex; you'd have to be dead not to like it. The problem is, it's not always done right and doesn't always fit the medium it's inserted into.
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing this up. I'll try to blog about it after Halloween. Right now I'm obsessed about the holiday.
As am I and thank you so much. I hope you have an amazing Halloween this year. I mean I understand that there might be certain people out there that look way too much into animation to the point where they might be overanalyzing certain things about cartoons and getting too worked up about them which is where I think some of the criticism is coming from. They can come across as taking cartoons way too seriously to some. These people have made whole YouTube careers out of making videos about cartoons (especially childrens shows) and reviewing, analyzing, and in some cases, even ranting about them and getting angry when a cartoon they don't like isn't up to their standards. There are even people who made these kinds of rant videos that are actually working on their own animation projects though they haven't necessarily worked in animation before and want to sell their show to a network.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time however, I really detest the other extreme saying that people shouldn't expect higher standards at all from modern cartoons even if they are just targeted at a younger demographic like 5-11 or something like that. Particularly the kinds of arguments like this that I keep seeing are in response to people who make YouTube videos reviewing cartoons and ranting about ones that they don't like. One side is saying that not every cartoon needs to be held to a higher artform at all and that people who spend a lot of time complaining about kids shows in general and trying to pass them off as something much more meaningful refuse to grow up and adopt other mature interests and the other side is saying that kids shows and cartoons need to be critiqued and criticized in order to enforce a much higher standard and that the fact that these cartoons are written by professional adults in the industry and that justifies that mentality. To them, if a story is told well enough, than anyone can enjoy a cartoon.
I actually really liked how animation was done before television because you didn't have as much of this emphasis on trying to appeal to a specific demographic. It was much more aimed at a general audience with none of that focus testing stuff either.
You are a GOD! I stumbled onto your posts a few days ago when I fell down a rabbit hole and 99.9% of them make me laugh or sob or think reeeeal hard. I'm going to have to get some sore of internet identity so I can comment without being anonymous. Thanks for all the good stuff!
ReplyDeleteAnon: Haw! Many thanks!
ReplyDelete