Author: dtm666

I ramble about things.

The Handshake That Froze Hell

Hear that, kids? It’s the sound of Hell freezing over.

Now, you see that picture above? That’s the thing that froze Hell.

From WWE.com:

It was a sight many fans never thought they would see again, until now. Bret Hart and Vince McMahon met face to face today before shooting began for the upcoming DVD chronicling the Hit Man’s career.

During shooting, McMahon and Hart both talked about Bret’s beginnings, SummerSlam 1992, the historic Owen Hart-Bret Hart rivalry, Stone Cold Steve Austin, the infamous Montreal incident, Bret’s jump to WCW and much more.

Afterwards, the Hit Man said he was “happy with how everything went today,” regarding the Bret Hart-WWE joint production.

Should be interesting going forward.

The Death of McWrestling (Or Is It?)

(2019 Note: You know, this was the 105th post on the original DTM Blog and yet it has graced this new unified site as the overall 100th post. In all honesty, I could not think of a better “landmark” posting to mark the occasion. For the record, I’m using the expanded version that was later posted on the Webstation and not the blog original, which is shorter.)

Sometime in March 2001, World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc. (now known as World Wrestling Entertainment) had purchased all related assets of World Championship Wrestling from AOL-Time Warner after the company had lost close to $60 million in the previous year.

I’m not going to tell the story of how the company, who had reinvigorated the wrestling industry with the creation of the New World Order angle, went from top of the world to the bottom of the comode, since that story is well documented in the book entitled The Death of WCW by RD Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez. However, let’s go on with the fallout of that purchase… based on various internet sources, said book, and my own (vague) recollections. Some of this might be inconsistent, but I’m not in possession of a time machine.

Continue reading “The Death of McWrestling (Or Is It?)”

Summer Clean-Up At McWrestling

WWE has decided not to proceed with any renegotiations with Bubba and D-Von Dudley. We wish both Bubba and D-Von the best in all future endeavors.

Also, World Wrestling Entertainment has come to agreements on the release of the following Superstars. WWE would like to wish them the best in their future endeavors.

* Joy Giovanni
* Kenzo Suzuki
* Matt Morgan
* Charlie Haas
* Jackie Gayda
* Marty Jannetty
* Dawn Marie
* Mark Jindrak
* Maven
* Shannon Moore
* James Yun (Akio)
* David Heath (Gangrel)
* Billy Kidman
* Spike Dudley
* Kevin Fertig

Man, I haven’t seen this many wrestlers laid off since last year… seriously, though, this is just sad… especially since some of these guys are more talented than those getting actual pushes at the moment. In any case, good luck to all these guys in their future… well, you know.

On the bright side, WWE has hired Matt Striker, the guy who had the best chance of beating Kurt Angle to win his gold medal until a quick submission hold forced him to tap as fast as he got out of being a teacher… because only a teacher who uses sick days to wrestle and gets fired for it can get a job at World Wrestling Entertainment. This, when over a dozen guys were dropped just a couple weeks ago. Just so they could hire a disgraced teacher.

Eh, who cares?

Later.

Old SMB and LOZ Cartoons Get New DVD Sets

According to a site called DVDToons.com:

Sony Music announces a 4-disc set for the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. Once again, not many details for any of their announcements today, but the dvd is scheduled for release on October 25, 2005, with a retail tag of $29.95, according to DVDplanet.

Sony Music prepares the complete series of The Legend of Zelda. Sony has scheduled the set for this October 11, 2005, with a retail tag of only $29.95. The Legend of Zelda will be a 3-disc set, according to DVDplanet.

What? No Captain N? Damn those DICs.

I’m rather split on the whole deal. You see, on the one hand, it’ll be really good to see these things on a regular TV again… although the Zelda is the only set I’m really looking forward to; I don’t need anymore horrible recollections of the Lou Albano-portrayed Mario in either live or animated form.

On the other hand, you can watch these for free on Yahoo’s service thingy… eh, who cares? I forgot the point I wanted to make.

Later.

Living The Movie After Having Seen It

Sunday, June 12, 2005 was the day that Extreme Championship Wrestling rose from the ashes in the form of a reunion show dubbed ECW One Night Stand. It was a show that I had been looking forward to watching since it was first announced. Now, I don’t consider myself an ECW hardcore – we didn’t get ECW anything in Canada until late-99 when Viewer’s Choice Canada started airing their PPVs – but I eventually picked up a couple old VHS Best Of tapes as well as the more recent DVD compilations and I enjoyed some of this stuff they put out.

So I was really looking forward to getting this PPV show – not only for the novelty of the ECW reunion special, but also for the novelty of seeing whether WWE (who owns all the copyrights) would actually

Unfortunately, a couple issues came up.

First, there was a roadtrip to Niagara that I was going on with a few folks this past weekend. I don’t recall whether this was planned ahead of time and I forgot about it or whether it was a last-minute spur. Either way, I was upset that I wasn’t going to see the PPV. I had post reflect my displeasure, but it was eventually taken down.

By the way, the roadtrip was great. Left for Niagara on Friday, came back home on Saturday night, and Sunday was spent in Ottawa for a quick run before making it back home. Which meant that I was going to catch the ECW show after all.

Alas, that wasn’t to be.

Due to technical difficulties, I was unable to catch the ECW One Night Stand PPV, which sucks ass because it was the one show that I was looking forward to. Said technical difficulties was due to the satellite receiver having stopped working. Unable to receive channels for some reason. Tried to do basic maintenance, but nothing. Funny thing was that a couple other receivers were working fine and one might wonder why we didn’t pick up the PPV from there (no available phone connection or long-ass wires to hook up – please don’t ask).

So while the issue was eventually resolved, I missed my chance to watch ECW One Night Stand. That made me sad because from the various internet recaps of the show, it seemed to have gone over well. So I guess I’ll be waiting for the DVD to hit shelves… since nighttime classes won’t allow me to catch the replay.

So the time that would have been spent watching Sandman come down to generic music (oh wait, I’m sorry – that was the 2006 version) was spent playing the then-new Revenge of the Sith video game for Xbox, which I didn’t actually touch until after having seen the movie

In all honesty, the game is nothing more than a glorified Final Fight 3D with lightsabers and Force powers. Some people will like this, others will despise it. I’m just fine with it. Sure, it’s mostly a button masher, but that’s all I expected from the game to begin with, so I’m not entirely disappointed whatsoever.

Graphically speaking, it looks fine. Some people say there’s less detail than the usual crop of X-Box games, but graphics were always dressing in my eyes and as long as everything looked like what they should, I have no problem. Sounds are just about right, but my biggest qualm is the apparent lack of a Sith soundtrack. Most of the music tends to be from the original trilogy and the two prequel movies; which weren’t too bad either, but the Sith soundtrack was much suited for this.

As far as extras goes, you have two sets of bonus missions (either single player or co-op missions that have to be unlocked) that are independent of the main game. You have a few minutes of Sith footage which is blended with game footage to fit the altered storyline of the game. You have a Versus mode; a one-on-one mini-game pitting two Jedi against each other. Heck, you even get to relive the “climatic” Death Star duel between Darth Vader and Old Ben Kenobi in Episode IV: A New Hope… although both Vader and Ben seem much more agile than in the movie, but it’s still a nice inclusion. Now you get to play as Vader and beat the shit out of all the stale prequel Jedi as well as two additional ones made for the game (including one who looks like Nick Gillard, the stunt co-ordinator for the prequels or something).

More comments later…

DTM Gallery – Rejected Moon Montage

Some random clips of the “lost” Toonmakers’ Sailor Moon pilot make up the background while sad Moon from the 2003-2004 live drama sheds a tear. I don’t recall the actual date, but I’d imagine this was made during PGSM’s initial run, shortly after the debut of cat-turned-plush toy Luna in kid sailor fuku mode…

It’s safe to say that I wasn’t a fan of these kid characters because they’re generally done poorly, although in hindsight, calling Sailor Luna ugly when she was a kinda, sorta cute little kid may have been a bit much. It is what it is.

In hindsight, Sailor Luna was kinda cute and not ugly… so I don’t know where that came from.

The Adventures Of Captain Wesley Crusher (PILOT Episode)

2025 Notes:
A one-shot “pilot episode” of a series that was never intended to be. The general idea was to take the first season version of Wesley Crusher – the version that was obnoxious and was made to be smarter than all the professionals on the ship – and make him captain of the Enterprise. This was based on readings of Wil Wheaton’s TNG reviews that were eventually compiled into a book called Memories Of The Future.

Shortly after posting, I got a couple comments accusing me of being a Wesley hater – “obviously” because of the overexaggerated nature of his caricature. People seemed to have overlooked that it was intended to be overexaggerated. It says so in the disclaimer as stated below. This was harmless comedy that took something from an actor’s rummaging of his older work and took it to eleventy billion. Also, a Wesley hater would have seen Wesley die at the end of this story; mine ended with Wesley’s daydream interrupted by Captain Picard demanding he get off his chair.

No ill-will towards the character… though I sadly can’t say the same for the actor who portrayed him these days.

Continue reading “The Adventures Of Captain Wesley Crusher (PILOT Episode)”

A Trekkie Wants To Boycott You-Pee-Inn.

From a Trekweb posting:

Well, now that’s all said in done. Let’s let our final voices be HEARD!

I, for one, resent UPN for NOW finally promoting ENT now that it’s ending.

Star Trek has been it’s flagship show for as long as it’s been in existance.

BOYCOTT them even it if hurts. Let them feel the loss of our total viewership!!

EFFECTIVE MAY 14th..join me…in NO MORE UPN.

Gee, man. I would absolutely LOVE to boycott UPN, but I haven’t seen UPN since I found out Smackdown aired an hour earlier on another Canadian sports channel years ago. And besides that, Enterprise aired on other channels besides UPN too.

So yeah, I’d love to Boycott UPN, but I never touched the network to begin with…