Owen Garrison sounds like Adam West, but his career has taken a worse trajectory.
Like Clayton Moore and his Lone Ranger character, Garrison faces studio
litigation targeting his in-character public appearances. The fact that Scooby
and Shaggy are fans is sort of meta, considering there were Scooby and Blue
Falcon crossover episodes in the late 1970s. Regardless, the constantly hungry
Great Dane suspects his formerly favorite actor has been framed in Michael
Goguen’s animated feature, Scooby-Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon, which
airs tomorrow morning on Adult Swim.
Frankly,
Moore is the reason you usually see former cast-members making cameos in big
budget remakes of old properties, like the ailing Jonathan Frid briefly
appearing in Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows. It is a way of signaling to fans
that the old guard was respected by the new production, unlike The Legend of
the Lone Ranger, which flopped hard, partly because the fanbase sided
with Moore. Producer Jennifer Severin never got that memo. Instead, she wants
to ban Garrison from all things Blue Falcon at the Mega Mondo Pop Comic ConApalooza,
where her new, darker Blue Falcon movie will premiere.
Naturally,
when a giant robot modeled on the Blue Falcon’s super-villain nemesis, Mr.
Hyde, starts terrorizing the ComicCon analogue, suspicion immediately falls on
Garrison. Disappointingly. Velma is reluctant to explore other possibilities,
because of her ironic resentment of geek comic culture. Scooby and Shaggy will
be the washed-up thesp’s best hope, but his self-destructive behavior won’t make
it easy for them to clear his name.
If you
know your Hanna-Barbera, Mask is quite clever, because it features many
H-B characters the Scooby gang previously met in crossover adventures, as fictional
subjects for cos play and collectibles at the con. Garrison’s
career-threatening indignities also parallel those of Moore and West (who
turned down offers from Burton’s Batman productions and was subsequently
frozen out of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy). It is also sufficiently hip
to portray the mayor of San De Pedro as grotesquely corrupt. Plus, for extra
added irony, James Becker, the chief of Con security, was transparently
inspired by Paul Lynde.
It wasn't just Sir Christopher Lee who appeared in both Star Wars and
Lord of the Rings films. Anthony Daniels was also present in both Middle
Earth and a galaxy far, far away—or at least his voice was. The man geeks love
as C-3PO provided the voice of Legolas in Ralph Bakshi’s animated adaptation.
While divisive at the time of release, many fans warmed to it over time (and it
looks like a true masterpiece compared to the streaming series). With Middle
Earth returning to animation (look for an upcoming Cinema Daily US review),
viewers can revisit the 1978 film, since Bakshi’s The Lordo of the Rings is
conveniently scheduled to air this Sunday on Adult Swim.
You
know how this goes—there was one ring to rule them all—and somehow in ended up
in the possession of Bilbo Baggins. Fortunately, his friend, Gandalf the
wizard, convinced the hobbit of the ring’s danger, so he relinquished it to the
care of his nephew Frodo. Unfortunately, the Dark Lord Sauron has been
searching for the all-powerful accessory, so Frodo embarks on a quest to safely
dispose of it, once and for all.
Of
course, a modest hobbit like the younger Baggins will need help. In fact, he will
need a fellowship, including Aragorn, a brave but down-on-his-luck ranger, who
also happens to be of noble blood. It is august company, considering Legolas is
also the son of the elf king and Boromir is the heir to the kingdom of Gondor.
However, hobbit tag-alongs Sam Gamgee, Pippin Took, and Merry Brandybuck are
arguably even less formidable than Baggins, but they mean well.
At
the time, Bakshi’s film took a lot of flak, because it was conceived as the
first installment of a duology, but not marketed accordingly—and unfortunately,
the second part was never produced. However, Bakshi and co-screenwriters Chris
Conkling and Peter S. Beagle did a nice job combining the first two books,
fittingly culminating with the Battle of Helm’s Deep.
Indeed,
it is clear Bakshi “got” Tolkien. He understood the huge archetypal
significance of events like Gandalf’s return from presumed death and clearly
appreciated the fantasy genre in general (having already helmed Wizards).
Bakshi’s
extensive use of rotoscope animation techniques was innovative at the time.
However, the photo-negative effect is more potent for shorter scenes fueled by
dark magic than the extended battle sequences. Regardless, his scenes of the
shadow riders stalking the hobbits have lost none of their intensity.
