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by Moviefan
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney Howls at the Moon: Children of the Cornchip (Terrifying Tales of Recess)
October 12, 2022 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Recess was a staple show of Disney’s One Saturday Morning staple shows. I quite enjoyed it and have fond memories of it and a lot came rushing back when I went to watch this segment. This is the second time I am looking at a segment from an anthology episode. So again, things will not be as fully in-depth but it’s quite alright.  It’s still an interesting idea for a series even if rather short. With that out of the way, let’s begin.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney Howls at the Moon: Revenge of The Monsters (Buzz Lightyear of Star Command Episode Review)
October 11, 2022 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Today we continue our journey into space With Buzz Lightyear as we look at the second/last appearance of Ty Parsec and the Wirewolf. This episode even more than the previous one hinges on the tragedy of what happened to Ty.
The episode makes you think this is going to be a villain team up and that is partly true except Ty is an unwilling participant in all of this. As this is a follow-up episode, I will not be using the format I have been using for this series thus far.
Even how the episode opens makes you feel bad for Ty as it opens with a flashback montage of Wirewolf at a trial where it’s being determined because of Ty’s actions as the Wirewolf he needs to be discharged from Star Command.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney Howls at The Moon: Villains Profile: The Wolf (Peter and The Wolf/Lambert The Sheepish Lion)
October 10, 2022 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Today I continue my look at wolf villains from Disney. YouTuber Colinslookback has a wonderful Disney Villains retrospective series but he would ignore characters such as today’s entry as they are just predators acting upon their instincts. While I do see where he is coming from in a certain sense, characters such as The Wolf still put our heroes in danger and that is why I think it is fair to look at them. In many ways, this is similar to when I look at Man from Bambi years ago.
by Moviefan
On The Halloween Case: The House On Possessed Hill
October 9, 2022 in Blogs
Horror and mystery are two genres that mix quite well and quite often. If you stop and think for a moment, the Scream movies could be classified as whodunits. This is something that is often seen with my favorite teenage sleuths, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. The very first episode of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries is titled The Mystery of The Haunted House and not to mention, season two opens with a two-parter where the three detectives team up and “Meet Dracula”.
I have looked at these episodes in the past as part of my now long-defunct Hardy Boys TV show retrospective. I saw this episode pop up on a Halloween Wiki and was mentioned in other reviews as having mild horror themes. This is rather humorous as The CW Nancy Drew fully embraced the supernatural and ghosts are such a big part of that show.
by Moviefan
Holidays at The Loud House: Jeers For Fears
October 8, 2022 in Blogs
I went back and forth about doing another Loud House Halloween blog this year and I think I found an episode perfect for this time of year. One of the most popular forms of entertainment around the spooky season is haunted houses. Think stuff like Halloween Horror Nights or Knott’s Scary Farm.
These admittedly aren’t my type of thing but I do get the appeal and that’s what this episode deals with. And this episode does a good job of playing into this as it opens with Lincoln and Clyde hearing about a haunted house from Chandler and to not show that they’re scared, they act as though they can handle it. Even though the show has established many times that these two are scaredy cats.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney Howls at The Moon: Wirewolf (Buzz Lightyear of Star Command Episode Review)
October 7, 2022 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Earlier this year, we saw the big screen release of a movie that served as an origin for the true Buzz Lightyear.
Though as many Millennials might tell you, there was a whole series dedicated to Buzz’s time in Star Command long before this movie came out. Even if Disney/Pixar nowadays pretends it doesn’t exist. It’s not even on Disney+.
Nearly all mentions of this show have been scrubbed from the company. The most you can find are images of characters at the gift shop for the ride at the various Disney Parks.
I mean when a new Lightyear documentary was released to promote the 2022 movie, the cartoon was not mentioned at all. The best I can figure is John Lasseter hated this show but I don’t know why people are abiding by him.
A shame really as this episode brought in many interesting villains for Buzz to fight including a robot vampire that was a catalyst for the events in this episode, NOS-4-A2.
NOS-4-A2 (guess where his name comes from) is an energy vampire that instead of feeding on human blood feeds on the energy of robots. This makes what happens to our titular Wirewolf a little weird as I’ll discuss during that section.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney Howls at The Moon: A Wonderland Howl-oween (Adventures in Wonderland Episode Review)
October 6, 2022 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most 90’s shows to ever come from Disney Channel. And I say that lovingly, it was a fun show that simple moral lessons for kids while also tackling some heavier subjects usually with a modicum of tact. For the longest time though finding episodes of this show was rather hard as you’d have to scour the internet for good copies but then last year, Disney+ uploaded the entire series and at the beginning of the year, I binged the entire series save for the Christmas episode and what I am looking at today, the show’s second Halloween episode, An Adventureland Howl-oween.
Now I did watch this episode before my binge as I watched it last October. This episode presents an interesting case as not only this is a Halloween episode, but it is also the final episode of the series. Something to keep in mind with this episode and this series, in particular, is with it being a show meant for young kids, there isn’t continuity and no ongoing stories so these episodes could be watched at any time and played in any order. Now, yes some new characters are introduced later on into the show’s run such as The Walrus but my point still stands.
Even then, he didn’t appear in that many episodes. So, it’s not too big a deal. The other interesting aspect of this episode is that it is an anthology episode as the characters are telling scary stories around the campfire and I won’t be looking at all of them but rather just the one that pertains to the werewolf event. This particular segment is neat as it does what you see a lot with kids’ properties around Halloween, parodies of horror movies.  The segment presented in this episode seems to be a soft parody of what some people cite as the greatest werewolf ever made.
Yeah, I do like this movie but its director….oof. Now unlike The Little Mermaid episode, I looked at yesterday which was a beat-for-beat retelling of The Wolf Man, this segment is a soft parody that is primarily using broad strokes as we see the Mad Hatter and March Hare coming back from a backpacking/camping trip.
I apologize for the quality of the pictures as I captured these from YouTube. Now, with this being a kid’s show, they couldn’t do anything as grotesque as this.
Still, it’s a fun and silly little segment that’s a nice celebration of the season. Admittedly, the segment is short, only seven minutes long. This does come from the fact that this episode is an anthology-style episode as we have three stories that are all riffs on classic monsters, with The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Phantom of the Opera serving as the basis for the other stories.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney Howls at the Moon: The Beast Within (The Little Mermaid Episode Review)
October 5, 2022 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Today we dive under the sea as we continue our look at the various were-creatures from Disney media. The episode that we are looking at presents an interesting case as it is a beat-for-beat retelling of the classic Wolfman story but set in the ocean.
You have the angry villagers, a fortune teller the main characters go and a form of silver is used to not kill but rather cure in this case.
Using silverfish is a clever play on the idea of how a silver bullet. Now as I mentioned in yesterday’s review, I’m not going to be a plot breakdown but I will touch briefly upon how this episode deals with the group of friends arguing and that leads Flounder to become as the show calls them, a Howling Hairfish.
I like having Flounder in this role as having the meek and timid Flounder be the one that falls prey is a clever idea as it perfectly contrasts the normal personality Flounder is known for.
It’s also funny looking at an episode of a Disney Princess TV show featuring a were creature as I looked at a rather heavy Tangled episode about a werewolf last HalloweenÂ
That’s partially where I got the idea for this event.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney Howls at the Moon: A Wolf in Cheap Clothing (Chip ‘N’ Dale: Rescue Rangers Episode Review)
October 4, 2022 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Today I start the werewolf event proper. When looking at this event, it helps to understand there are different types of werewolves. Traditionally, werewolves are presented as someone that was a bite that causes them to turn. There also are other examples such as it being genetic and part of your family lineage. Think movies such as Teen Wolf or an example of something I’ll be looking at later on during this event with how  Once Upon a Time handled its werewolf mythos with the character of Red.
However, as we will see later on in this event, the usage of werewolves can be rather tone-deaf. They are looking at you Zombies 2 using them as an allegory for Native Americans.
That whole franchise is a big mess of yikes and no, it isn’t part of this event thankfully. Suffering through the first film was enough and there are enough Werewolf and Werewolf adjacent episodes to cover.  Today’s entry is unique as I’m technically not looking at a werewolf but rather a were-man. This episode of Rescue Rangers reverses the idea and asks what would happen if a wolf became a man at night.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney Howls at the Moon: Villains Profile: The Big Bad Wolf
October 3, 2022 in A Look at Disney
It’s been a while, but I am back this Halloween for something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while, and that is a dedicated wolf/were creature event. Now, the three wolf villains I will be looking at are not of the were variety but are still villains that fall under this category. We are starting with the most famous villain from the Silly Symphony shorts and I think the only one that you see at the parks. The Big Bad Wolf.
For clarity’s sake, Big Bad Wolf has had many later-day appearances including in House of Mouse and the new Mickey Mouse shorts, and Roger Rabbit. This also means he has had multiple voice actors, which comes with the territory of being a legacy character.
Some of his later-day voice actors in those roles include legendary voice actors such as Jim Cummings and Clancy Brown. Having said all this, I will only be focusing on his original appearances and his original voice actor, Billy Bletcher. At the same time, there is one short I will be leaving out the short The Thrifty Pig as that is nothing more than a reskin of the original short serving as an effort to promote wartime bonds.
by Moviefan
