Episode 508 - Fan Service
Dec 6, 2020
The Mandalorian on Disney Plus is a very popular series, it's particularly known at the moment because of the “fanservice”, i.e. fan rewards in the second series. a couple of Clone Wars characters are in it now… but we won't spoil that. Tantz, Banes and I chat Fan Service! What IS Fan Service and why is it a thing? When did we first learn about it?
Topics and Show Notes
For me it was Neon Genesis Evangelion. At the end of each episode one of the characters would preview the NEXT episode and then finish by promising “more fan service”. It took me a wile to work out they meant shots of underpants and sideboobs and things… The meaning of fan service has come to be expanded a bit now though, bellow are the types we chat about. One thing they all have in common is that they're there to titillate, amuse, or excite fans but they're not essential to the story:
1. Things that have broad appeal; boobs, bums, bare chests etc. eg. Daniel Craig bare chested at the beach in Casino Royale. Could even be a cool shot of mecha or a car.
2. Things that are popular in the fandom being inserted into the story as fan rewards, e.g. John McClane from Die Hard saying his “Yipee-Ki-Yay…” catchphrase in every film.
3. Rewarding diligent fans with callbacks and Easter eggs later on in the work or at the end of it, e.g. the sitcom Community did this all the way through, especially at the end.
4. Memes and in-jokes peripheral to the fandom being added into the story. This is the weakest of all the types of fan service and does most harm to the story. Star Wars The Last Jedi is full of it, e.g. Luke's “laser-sword” line, him pole-vaulting over to milk the boob aliens on the cliffs etc.
The musical feature this week that Gunwallace has given us is theme to Heaven Hunters, Holy reverence in the sepulcher, voices soaring to the heavens, followed by a thunderblast of satanic guitar fire, burning hot with blue and orange flame running free in a cleansing chaos of rock!!
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Heaven Hunters - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2020/dec/01/featured-comic-heaven-hunters/
Featured Music:
Heaven Hunters - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Heaven_Hunters/ - by TedGravesArt, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
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Episode 506 - The fightcast
Nov 22, 2020
Today we chat about fight scenes! This was spurred by a post in our forums about how bad fight choreography can spoil a film. Our Patron vid was mainly about fights in our comics, while the Quackcast is more about fights in movies. One of the things about REAL fights is that they're usually very fast, ugly, stupid looking, and not very exciting. It's important to remember that boxers and UFC fighters are entertainers and sports people, those people are performing for an audience - their fights are real but they're designed to be showy and exciting, whereas true fighting on the street or in war etc is very different, it's more deadly and more stupid looking.
Episode 505 - Character Trajectory!
Nov 15, 2020
Character trajectories are really interesting- in terms of character alignment, like a good guy that slowly turns into a bad guy through a whole bunch of bad decisions and incidents. A great example from popular media is Walter White from Breaking Bad. He starts out as an ordinary guy, but soon sets out on a path that takes him down the road to becoming a super-villian. Characters can start out bad and go good or even good, go bad and then redeem themselves…
Episode 504 - Decompression
Nov 8, 2020
For our Patreon video I decided to dress as the WW2 Captain America (from the movie, Captain American the First Avenger). That and the very de-compressed nature of the US election led us to chat about what was going to happen! It wsn't till JUST after the video that we heard that the US offocially had a new president! So you can see me pictured bellow in my costume or become a Patreon and see the vid :)
Episode 503 - Changing attitudes
Nov 1, 2020
An old man tries to explain modern culture to an even older man… Attitudes change! Things don't stay the same, culture moves on and when we try to hang onto old ideas we can look like idiots, and even worse than that we can hold up cultural progress and hurt people. That's what we're trying to talk about…
Episode 501 - Horrorcast
Oct 19, 2020
We are the Pretty Things That Live in the House! We all dressed up for a Halloween themed cast today! You can see our weird looks in our Patreon video ($5 and up subscribers). Pitface was a yellowfaced corn vampire with amazing teeth (very midwest), Banes was an old, oooooold terrifying baldy vampire, Tantz was a beautiful, big eyed doctor vampire, and I was an 18th century Vamp (Lestat/Varny), with a face messy with the blood of my victims! And I had in rubber fangs held in by chewing gum, just like a REAL vampire, because the denture glue didn't hold in my good fangs… it just filled my mouth with disgusting glue that stuck all over my teeth XD
Episode 499 - Life's worth?!
Oct 5, 2020
What is the worth of human life in your stories? This isn't something people often consider, we just tend to have a fairly accurate guess based on our experience of the real world, but sometimes stories get it really wrong and that can harm suspension of disbelief.
Episode 497 - It's just kid's stuff
Sep 21, 2020
Today we're talking about the idea that entertainment aimed at kids can only be enjoyed by kids and the reason that adults often don't like kids things is because adults just don't “get” them. I contend that everyone, of all ages should be able to enjoy General or kid rated media and the true reason we don't is not because it “isn't meant for us”, it's because it's simply badly written - specifically, it's not the content that's annoying, it's the structure.
