#catdog analysis
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i think that one of the reasons skwisgaar and toki have trouble understanding each other (besides the rivalry/ego issues ofc) is that they have fundamentally different ways of expressing themselves
toki is like a dog, earnest and direct. if he’s excited about something it shows, if he’s angry about something it shows. he’s openly loving as he can be openly vindictive. he feels everything very intensely and is unable to hide it, often taking things literally. he can feel dejected very fast if he doesn’t feel like his affection is reciprocated.
skwisgaar is like a cat, can come off as mean and is not very honest. he exaggerates a lot in his speech, often passive aggressive remarks. the way he shows affection is by paying a greater degree of attention, to the point it comes off as nagging if the person isn’t aware of his nature. he’s deeply caring, however, but his quiet nature masks it.
and thus, you have a recipe for disaster. you have a person that does genuine gestures to show affection and a person that likes teasing as a way to show the same thing. a person that vents in the form of backhanded comments and a person that takes those as immovable declarations of hatred. a person that’s scared of being vulnerable and a person that doesn’t know how to not be so. a person that gets stuck on the words, and a person whose love is shown through his actions everyday.
they speak different languages and it’s why they can’t understand each other. instead of trying to meet halfway, they both expect the other to speak their language. it’s tragic because they really do love each other, they just don’t know how much the other loves them too.
#metalocalypse#toki wartooth#skwisgaar skwigelf#skwistok#can be seem as shippy or not#the skwistok catdog dichotomy fascinates me so#i think with aotd there might be a chance tho#toki is waay way more open to skwisgaar#but ironically skwisgaar seems to have closed up in general#he could very well see tokis clingy behavior as disingenuous and convenient#aughhhh *getting skwistok cramps*#analysis#ig#basu post
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Voiceplay Visuals: This Is Halloween
So obviously I'm not the only one who loves talking about Voiceplay and analysing their content, but I wanted to do something a bit different from the kinds of analyses/reactions that other people do, both on here and on Youtube (and music theory isn't really my forte anyway). So I'm planning on making some posts just focusing on the videos (and Geoff's as well, eventually), rather than the music arrangement or vocals or anything like that. My credentials are being a Drama Kid during my high school years, and experience with this sort of analysis from my time in other fandoms. I'm not planning on doing every single video, and though I'm gonna go chronologically from mid-2017 onwards (why not earlier? Because Reasons). However, since I yesterday finished a fanfic based on Voiceplay's cover of This Is Halloween, (which I studied a fair bit to get details right), I might as well start there!
Oogie Boogie pumpkin just outside the front door! (And a Jack Skellington one on the other side I believe?) These pumpkin also shows up in the spooky Halloween realm the group are transported to after eating the candy.
Credit to one of the comments which said that Earl is wearing a cow onesie and Eli is wearing a rooster onesie, which more likely than not is a callback to their (extremely hilarious) Chicken Song performance. (J is wearing a CatDog onesie, I think Geoff is wearing a giraffe onesie? And I'm not sure what Layne's onesie is meant to be)
Again credit to a commenter (different one), pointing out that Eli deadpan elbows Layne in the back, pushing him down after he eats the candy (likely a not-so-subtle acting cue or something like that, but still very funny once you notice it)
The return of the Jack and Oogie Boogie pumpkins, along with some other creatively-designed Jack-O-Lanterns! Peep the one on the far right, a little more towards the back; its 'eyes' say VP, and its mouth is the Voiceplay logo!
Also a little bit of foreshadowing, whether intentional or not: when Layne wakes up, one of the first things in his line of sight is the axe resting on the hay bales...
First of all, how many pumpkins were carved just for this video? Because a lot of effort went into making all those different designs for sure (and no, I'm not part of Voiceplay's Patreon, as the tier that lets you see behind-the-scenes stuff is like $8.50 AUD per month, rip). And second of all, this is a decent shot of how the group starts out upon waking up. J None is wearing a yellow plaid flannel quite similar to The Wolfman in Nightmare Before Christmas, and Earl is wearing denim overalls, like the behemoth character. Eli's outfit is of course representative of the Mayor of Halloweentown, but no spider bowtie or "Mayor" rosette (would've loved to see it, but eh no biggie). Layne I will get to in a moment, and Geoff a little bit after that.
I can't be bothered getting a better picture of it but Eli's half-concerned half-weirded-out face after J's helium-like vocal line is very amusing to me
On the "eyes glowing red" line, Earl's eyes (which are white at this point) flash red for a very brief moment, basically blink-and-you-miss-it.
The colour-change on Eli's left eye is so subtle that at first I didn't notice it at all, and then I only noticed it later on in the video, and only now, doing this analysis and taking a dozen screencaps, do I realize that it happens way earlier than I first thought (which explains why he takes his glasses off at this point I guess) (so uh, that's a minor inconsistency in my fanfic but it's fine)
Shoutout to the makeup/SFX people who helped with this video honestly, they did a super good job, genuinely!
(In which the frame-by-frame scrubbing technique comes in real handy)
An interesting choice to have Layne go through a sort of "half-transformation" stage, where he has a horn and red eye on one side of the face, while the other side of the face is normal. I like it though!
People have said that Layne is meant to be the devil (who is in fact another Halloweentown resident, but honestly I think he's meant to be Lock, or at least a combination of the two, because this what the two characters look like:
See how Layne resembles Lock more? In the outfit choice if nothing else (Also he's kinda sorta got the right face shape for Lock imo). Also, Lock wears a red trick-or-treating mask with horns on top!
Earl is really distressed about his hair falling out (not that I can blame him, really)
This shot/moment is probably one of the ones that stands out to me the most (other than Certain Other Ones for Other Reasons that I will get to in a moment), because J comes across as pretty mournful here, like he knows what's happening but he's feeling really sad/regretful about it? (Also I only just noticed Eli's face in the background and I'm not sure what to make of it 😅)
"pog" is not a word in my vocabulary 95% of the time, but this is basically just Pog faces right? (Geoff and Layne probably have the most fun of the group in this video ngl)
(Also I haven't yet touched on Geoff's transformations but I love the contouring work on his face!)
My god this video is comedy gold when it comes to pausing/taking screenshots
I daresay Eli ends up one of the least recognizable of the group by the end of it (other than J), and I wanna know how long that took to do
Geoff is the only one in the video who gets an outfit upgrade (Good For Him)
They didn't bother being movie-accurate with Geoff's vampire appearance, and honestly I'm definitely not complaining. (they made him hotter)
Layne did the music arrangement, but Geoff was in charge of the video production. How much say did he have over his own costume/appearance I wonder?
Visually speaking at least, nobody is even paying attention to him, they're just like "yeah that's just Geoff, normal behaviour, nothing new" 😆
I can't get a decent picture of it but shoutout to Layne doing a silly little run around the pumpkin stack, love that for him
Another small moment that a screencap wouldn't do justice: even as a vampire, Geoff still does his little self-conducting hand motions, which you might notice as he walks around the pumpkin stack, in the shot right after his "filling your dreams to the brim with fright" line
Also love Geoff's little almost-Elvis-like moves in the background for a brief scene. I know multiple commenters have mentioned it, but I'm yet to see a reactor notice it
Suddenly Layne is Concerned(tm) about Geoff's vampireness it seems?
Also for someone who very much adores this guy, it took me an embarassingly long time to realise that Geoff's face at this point had become paler and his hairline had changed (and actually now that I type it up here, I think that might even be a wig? Oh dear)
I don't really have anything to say about J's full transformation, but it would be unfair of me to not include him as well, and it's definitely a *very* impressive costume. Almost like one of those rubbery fully-covering-the-head costume mask things, but like it's his actual face?
Is that tattoo real or fake, because I literally have never noticed it in any other Voiceplay video, but it's very realistic! (For that matter, what aobut Earl's upper-arm tattoo that kind of looks like a ring of barbed wire?)
I basically watch the This Is Halloween opening scene from The Nightmare Before Christmas every October, and same with the What's This scene in December, but I had never actually watched the movie in full until December last year. So basically when they had the axe-in-the-head moment in the movie I was like ohhhhhhh so that wasn't just a random moment that Voiceplay dreamed up for the video! (I had a similar moment with the Mr Hyde character and his Mini Mr Hydes in his hat in the movie, but in relation to Voiceplay's Kidnap The Sandy Claws video)
When Elizabeth Zharoff/The Charismatic Voice reacted to this video, she said that the kid at the end (Layne's nephew, apparently), was "adorable". Meanwhile Mortius' reaction to the end scene was "oh I didn't like that! It makes me feel like I'm next!" 😂
Also suddenly just realized that the "real world" scenes are in a different aspect ratio to the "spooky dream realm" scenes? Possibly intentional, but also possibly just due to them using two different types of cameras for the shots.
And that's a wrap! I was hoping to get this done and posted last night but it took longer than expected. Hope you enjoyed it, as I'm thinking of writing up at least one or two more now, and scheduling them for daily releases. See ya!
#Voiceplay#Acapella#geoff castellucci#layne stein#eli jacobson#j none#earl elkins#earl elkins jr#this is halloween#nightmare before christmas#the nightmare before christmas#acaplaya analysis#voiceplay visuals
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Psycho Analysis: Denzel Crocker
(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)
Nickelodeon has produced some of the most iconic animated villains you could ever hope to find. Plankton, Vlad Masters, Zim, Princess Azula, Queen Vexus… The channel had way more hits than misses. But one of the most famous and iconic villains to come out of the channel was the fairy-obsessed teacher from Hell, Denzel Crocker.
The chief antagonist on The Fairly OddParents aside from the babysitter Vicky, Crocker was a cartoonish caricature of the sort of horrible figures a kid would need fairies to deal with in their life, making him something of the male counterpart to the aforementioned Vicky. Obsessed with slinging out Fs and capturing Timmy’s fairies to harness their powers, Crocker was a fun and hilarious enemy who brought the show all sorts of hilarious scenarios…
...Until he didn’t. Crocker is unique among Nickelodeon villains in that he underwent some of the most severe character decay you could ever see from a villain in a long-running franchise. But does it detract from his iconic status and make him a worse villain, or is it just a particularly ugly footnote on a truly fun antagonist?
Motivation/Goals: Mr. Crocker has one single mission in life, and that mission is to once and for all show everyone he isn’t a delusional madman by proving the existence of
His main target right from his first appearance is Timmy Turner, which leads to some really interesting situations. Crocker knows Timmy has fairies, but he can’t exactly prove it definitively, and so we get no end of zany schemes as he tries to prove fairies are real. And as weird and insane as he is, he actually comes fairly close quite a few times.
He also really loves to fail his students. Aside from the fairy obsession, this is his main character trait. Essentially, he is the worst teacher imaginable.
Performance: Crocker is performed by Carlos Alazraqui, one of the MVPS of voice acting; my man was Rocko (whose Modern Life you may be familiar with), the titular Lazlo of Camp Lazlo, Spyro in the original PS1 game, and even the Taco Bell chihuahua. His Crocker voice is honestly similar to his Rocko voice, albeit a lot more nerdy and conniving, and it certainly suits the put-upon scheming teacher. He really is one lucky son of a bitch, getting to voice two of the most iconic characters in Nickelodeon history… and also Winslow on CatDog.
Best Episodes: Crocker’s proudest moment is undoubtedly Abra-Catastrophe, where for a little while he actually manages to conquer the Earth after harnessing the power of Cosmo and Wanda. His epic duel with Timmy across time and space is about as cool as a villain could possibly get on this show.
Another contender is definitely “The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker,” which features Timmy going back in time and witnessing the events that molded his teacher into the man he is today. It turns out the reason he’s such a weirdo is because Timmy fucked everything up and caused him to lose his fairies, which just so happened to be Cosmo and Wanda. Not only is this a pretty great and hilarious example of a character creating their own enemy, it also somehow predicted a major plot point in Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox six years early. I’m not kidding, the book involves time travel and Artemis ends up having to mind wipe his younger self, and said mind wipe leaves a lingering trace of an idea to kidnap fairies. Eoin Colfer, you’ve got some explaining to do.
Best Quote: You’re really going to ask that? Seriously? It’s obviously
There is at least one other notable Crocker quote, one that became a meme because Mr. Crocker sounds like he’s saying something he… uh… doesn’t really have a pass to say:
youtube
Final Thoughts & Score: Mr. Crocker presents to me an interesting problem. You see, if we are going by the earlier seasons, Mr. Crocker is probably one of the best villains on Nickelodeon. He’s funny, he’s zany, he can be a threat when it’s called for, and he has one of the best episodes of the series as his focus as well as an awesome movie where he gets to be the big bad. By all accounts, he should get to sit up with some of the truly great villains in animation history!
But Crocker is also the subject of some of the most intense flanderization imaginable. TVTropes defines flanderization as “The act of taking a single (often minor) action or trait of a character within a work and exaggerating it more and more over time until it completely consumes the character. Most always, the trait/action becomes completely outlandish and it becomes their defining characteristic, turning them into a caricature of their former selves.” It’s pretty undeniable Crocker got hit with this hard compared to a lot of the other characters, which is saying something because everyone on the show ended up flanderizaed. The big issue is in the later seasons Crocker ended up overexposed and put in ridiculous situations that didn’t play well to his strengths as a character. What was once a beloved villain became a character that half the fans can’t stand and the other half love, and both answers are honestly valid considering what we’re presented with.
For comparison, Vlad Masters is another Butch Hartman villain who underwent flanderization, mainly because Hartman is incapable of not running character traits into the ground for the sake of “humor.” The difference there, and why I’d still say Vlad is a great villain while Crocker is something of a fallen titan is because of consistency. It’s hard to deny Crocker peaked pretty early in the show’s run with Abra-Catastrophe and “The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker,” while Vlad managed to stay consistently a threat up until “Phantom Planet” despite suffering from Butch Hartman’s trademark bad character decisions. You don’t ever really feel like Vlad’s fucking around, but Crocker? This dude became nothing but fucking around in the twilight years of the show. It also helps that Danny Phantom is a more serialized show with stronger continuity than The Fairly OddParents, which means Vlad developing in any direction is a lot more palatable than in a show where the episodes tend to be pretty standalone and negative continuity is used when needed.
I think the villain I’d most compare Crocker to is Sideshow Bob of The Simpsons. Both are great, iconic villains with fun vocal performances and all sorts of crazy schemes… But both also underwent serious flanderization that led to them being stretched pretty thin and their roles in their respective shows starting to make less and less sense as they appeared more and more. But while Bob is still one of TV’s greatest villains despite his motives decaying thanks to plenty of strong episodes and the sheer power of Kelsey Grammer, The Simpsons knows to use him sparingly, unlike poor Mr. Crocker.
All of this being said… does it really hold him back from greatness? Does how bad he became reflect on how great and fun he was originally? This was actually really hard, and I went back and forth for a long time. I considered having him as low as a six for his poor later appearances and as high as a nine for his early ones, but I think we need to meet in the middle somewhere. So for the first time ever, I’m giving out a fractional score, awarding Mr. Crocker a 7.5/10, leaning a little closer to an 8. The later years of the show certainly handled him badly, but they handled everyone badly, so it’s hard to single him out as the biggest problem. It definitely doesn’t help him score higher, but nothing can take Abra-Catastrophe away from him.
Oh, and I suppose should mention the live action Crocker played by David James Lewis in those dumb Drake Bell TV specials. To keep it brief, he is legitimately one of the best parts of those specials, nails Crocker’s mannerisms, and he can share that score up there.
#psycho analysis#Denzel Crocker#Mr. Crocker#The Fairly OddParents#Nickelodeon#Butch Hartman#carlos alazraqui
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old topic but i’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what makes dream look meow meow meow meow and i want to write a manifesto on it just 2 put it out there
starting with 1) his eyes, they’re a really light green, in contrast sapnap has stormy emerald color eyes but dream can look really pale green in bright light. they have a bit of a downturned shape which we call puppy dog eyes but cats especially kittens can also have that pitiful little gaze so paired with his eye color he does give off that “wet cat” look
2) his profile shape, he has a flatter profile w his smaller nose and big round chin but when you take the classic dog snout shape they have more nose than chin, while the cat look is having smaller nose+muzzle and round chubby cheeks+chin
3) his hair is so ginger colored i think most people were debating between light brown or dark golden but it turns out he’s very orange, like he really is a big orange cat :( thats all my thoughts at least
i love this breakdown so much ... catboy analysis
i was SOOO wedded to dogboy dream before we saw him but now i waffle daily s2g. he is my cat. he is also a golden retriever. he contains multitudes. he's catdog ?
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A Few Things About CatDog You Will Not Hear/See From Nearly Anyone Else!
1. The idea of two characters with opposite personalities sharing the same body is a very weird yet universal and potentially intriguing idea.
2. The show's titular characters have conflicting personalities that make it difficult for them to having to have things go there way, but learn to deal with one another, keeping up with its relatable universal theme of friendship/brotherhood. While they may take advantage of one another, they remember that they are best friends or best siblings.
3. The harshness and constant social abuse the two characters face emphasizes on the fact that they are the only two-headed creatures on Earth, and naturally are labeled as "freaks" or in rare cases, "ugly" by everyone in town, seems to reflect on how certain people are mocked and ridiculed due to not meeting up to society's acceptance of looks and appearance. People can't help the way they're born and it's something most people can't understand. It's also natural that characters such as Mervis and Dunglap, both depicted as geeks, are also friends with CatDog, making them stand out as side characters. Cat often suffers more and is often an easy target for The Greaser Dogs, and other dogs, because he is a feline, making it a perfect allegory to racism and bigotry, saying no one should be picked on just because of there race, sex or skin color. Again, staying true to the universal issue of one being picked on for being different on any level.
4. Winslow enjoys seeing CatDog suffer and likes to tangle their minds to cause drama, just anyone (relative or not) who gets pleasure off of seeing others be unhappy with each other. We've all known people like this, and if they're related to you, they will unfortunately be with you forever. Also note that, it has been implied a couple of times in the show that Winslow is just jealous of CatDog and there brotherly love, loving nothing more than to see them unhappy.
5. Rancid Rabbit, AKA the rabbit of many jobs. Seems to represent/parody authority figures and/or the money grubbing greed of the government, holding the power over anyone he can fool (especially CatDog), would most likely be poking fun at capitalism and consumerism. He basically looks like the type of character you would see in The Simpsons.
6. Lastly, everyone deals with hardship in their lives and people they don't like. CatDog's brotherly love is the one thing that keeps there happiness and tramples all the bad stuff (yes even Dog chasing after a garbage truck) that keeps on happening to them, sending somewhat of a positive message to viewers of all ages.
Overall, no more hating on the show. CatDog deserves more love and deeper insight.
#catdog#cat#dog#winslow#rancid rabbit#the greaser dogs#the greasers#mervis pantry#dunglap#analysis#insight
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