Just how wonderful is the wonderful world of Disney? The Substandard takes on Beauty and the Beast plus best and worst Disney movies. Plus board games! JVL breaks out the Axis & Allies, Vic plots his conquest of Europe, and Sonny hates Monopoly (but loves his Alf Pogs)—all on this week’s Substandard!
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Endnotes and digressions from the latest show:
* We started out this week talking about Kristen Soltis Anderson’s awesome Substandard Bingo card. Here it is. You should follow her on Twitter! And listen to her podcast! She’s great.
* How great is KSA? I went to the whiteboard (#microaggression) and did some math. This is what I came up with:
KSA > [(Layer Cake + Arrested Development) * Dark Knight Rises]Prana
* Following that, we had a long, long, long digression on board games. And while I will absolutely defend having spent 25 minutes talking Axis & Allies, I feel like we kind of missed an opportunity by not discussing Stratego. Fortunately, Sonny has provided us with a ranking of board games.
Though I would caution you that it’s a garbage list.
* Not garbage: Vic’s classic Weekly Standard cover story on Sid Meier’s monumental videogame series, Civilization. If you’ve never read it, then run—don’t walk—to “Civilization and Its Contents.”
* Which brings us to Beauty and the Beast.
Entertainment Weekly has an oral history of Disney’s 1991 original animated version. It’s pretty interesting.
And here’s a working list of the live-action remakes/spinoffs in the Disney pipeline. Yippee.
* At one point in the show, Sonny jokes that Beauty and the Beast is actually the story of a psychotic 1 percenter whose hostages are freed by a brave townsman who sacrifices himself for the love of his life.
I know what you’re thinking: “Please don’t go Gaston was good.” Well don’t worry. I won’t.
But Dana Schwartz did and the result is AMAZING.
Schwartz argues that by choosing the Beast, Belle is almost certainly condemning herself to death by guillotine, while Gaston is likely a war hero who would have been able to protect her—and their children!—during the French Revolution.
I find this argument completely convincing. But then, I would. Read it for yourself: “Belle Should Have Chosen Gaston.”
* On the question of ranking Disney animated films, you should absolutely refuse to give Buzzfeed a hate-click for their ridiculous listicle from a couple years back. (If you must engage, go straight to my rebuttal.)
When it comes to ranking Disney product, nothing is more definitive than my Sagarin ranking of the Disney princesses. Argue with it at your peril.
* Which brings us to ’80s Japanimation. Whoa Nelly.
Vic mentions Tranzor Z and the “Aphrodite missiles.” Well here they are. Hard to imagine they’d let these on kids television today. (And here’s some high-drama from another giant-mecha show.)
And here is the very first episode of Ultraman. Skip straight to the 19:00 minute mark to watch the fake-Godzilla grab the toy fighter jet from the sky and then battle the giant-size Ultraman. (Whose zipper is clearly visible down his back.) It’s no wonder Vic and I turned out the way we did.
* As always, you can download the episode
here and subscribe to the Substandard on iTunes or on Google Play.
