Rundown 09-09-07

Well, this has been a pretty slow news week, all things considered - at least in the entertainment industry. But even with the holiday, some rappers managed to pull down prison sentences, Anna Nicole managed to make headlines, and at least one teen idol managed to keep her clothes on.

This, then, is your Rundown for September 9^th, 2007. Remember to place all large objects on the outside of the Rundown, as they take longer to heat.

• Foxy Brown has been sentenced to one year in prison after a string of criminal incidents, including several assaults, several instances of breaking her probation (including illegally moving to another state!), and quitting court-ordered anger management classes. She broke down in court and the judge called it an "award-winning" act.
• In an interview with CNN, a reporter jokingly said of Nelly Furtado, "I guess we've all seen you with your panties on." The young pop star responded, "I know a lot of places to get some really nice panties, if anyone wants to give me a call."
• Spider-Man star, Tobey Maguire, married Jennifer Meyer, the mother of his daughter last week.
• Tobey Maguire is apparently in talks to produce a big-screen version of Robotech. Reports also indicate he may sign-on as the lead. Reports are not specific, but I'm guessing that would be Fokker and Maguire actually does slightly resemble Fokker, so it might not be such a bad fit.
• One of Anna Nicole Smith's former flings, Mark Hatten, has filed suit against Howard K. Stern, her former attorney, claiming (among other things) that the attorney used his legal "weight" to incarcerate the former boyfriend by falsely claiming he was stalking Smith (Hatten is serving time in prison for allegedly stalking the late prostit... er, model). But the real thrust of the suit is that Stern tried to murder him by, get this: injecting him with a "toxic blend" of drugs after he had already begun giving him antidepressants in March of 2000.
• Robot Chicken Season 2 is now available!
• Director Oliver Stone has signed Bruce Willis to the title role of his new movie, based on the events of 1968's My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
• According to reports from her camp, Disney is not considering firing actress Vanessa Hudgens for nude pictures of her which appeared on the internet.
• Make-up artist, Rick Baker, may do the effects for the new Wolf Man.
• John Goodman received an Emmy for his guest role on NBC's canceled Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
  

And that there's your Rundown for this rainy September weekend!

Robot Wars

So, [adult swim] has been bitching since Jumpstreet about how no one watches anime. Of course, as I've emphatically stated in the past, I'm 32 years old and [adult swim] is about 15 years too late; that ship has sailed. One can sit through Akira only so many times -- and trust me, I stretched the limits.

Of course, I grew up on manga, in a matter of speaking. I mean, it wasn't actual phonebook manga, but I was an avid reader of all the translated stuff I could get my hands on, most of which was from F1rst Comics (Lone Wolf & Cubs), Eclipse (Kamui, Airboy, Lum...), and other independents. To say nothing of Epic comics' full-color reprints of Akira itself!

And, aside from Frank Miller's overwhelming popularity back then (his own Japanese manga interests being almost single-handedly responsible for spawning the ninja trend of the 1980s), the other thing that spurned this great Japanese interest at the time was anime, which was sometimes called Japanimation.

With their TOO-wide eyes and weird hair-dos, they really changed the way we Americans, and I guess everyone, viewed cartoons. And they all had robots. Why, I'm still not sure, but even the shows set in Feudal times had robots. It just became a staple of the genre.

[as] has been pandering to that in the early mornings, with Gigantor  -- an older, black and white cartoon about a large robot built to protect humanity -- followed by the new Transformers series. Now, they've changed it to Voltron, another giant robot series many of us also grew up on. I never really got into Voltron -- I was a Thundercats kid -- but I've been checking it out here and there lately and it's not bad. But, I saw at least one bump the other night where someone was knocking Voltron, and I kind of agree.

I mean, Voltron was big in its day, but not BIG, and while it's pretty good, it certainly wasn't the best out there. And, since they'd asked what we'd like to see, I decided to just go on and throw it out there, just to do so:

Robotech.

The end.

Sabreriders might also be kinda cool for that timeslot (it's more kids' fare), but if [as] wants to get real and show some real anime, Go get that Fokker boy and give us what we got coming!