Stratovania

I'm always having dreams about going back to either high school or college, and last night was no exception. I was taking a whole bunch of college classes, and I was horribly disorganized. Mind you, this was the case when I really was in school, but it was even worse in the dream. I wasn't keeping track of my schedule, or of when assignments were due. The most interesting bit was that one of my classes, which was for theater or something (I never really took any theater classes) was taught by Amanda Palmer.

Speaking of unqualified teachers, here are the final two episodes of the Super Mario World cartoon:

A Little Learning - In this one, the Princess is working as a schoolteacher in Dome City, teaching kids including Yoshi and Oogtar. Was she doing this job and working as an operator at the same time? Do the kids get the day off when she's kidnapped by Bowser? And what's happening to her own kingdom while she's hanging out in Dinosaur Land? These questions aside, it's not a bad idea. When Oogtar arrives for school, he gives the Princess an apple that has a tiny Wiggler inside, which Peach calls a "worm." Let's hope she's not teaching zoology. Hip and Hop Koopa, seeing the opportunity to pull some pranks, decide they want to attend school. Their father forbids it, but they go behind his back and enter the classroom right when the Princess is leading her students in the Pledge of Allegiance "to the flag of the United Lands of Dinosaur World."

What IS the governmental system there, anyway? Oogtar does his best to get the new students into trouble, but it's not like they can't handle this task perfectly well themselves, as when they throw fireballs around at recess. They kept these in their backpacks, which makes me wonder what they're made of. An unspecified amount of time passes, and the Princess declares that there will be a science fair. Hip and Hop's exhibit appears to be one of those vinegar-and-baking-soda volcanoes, but it's actually hooked up to a magma pit in the Valley of Bowser. King Koopa discovers this and learns that his youngest sons had sneaked off to school. In the mayhem that follows, the volcano erupts and everyone runs away to a song that's sort of reminiscent of "Rock 'n' Roll High School." Mario reroutes the pipe to Bowser's bedroom, and that's the end of that episode.

It's interesting that Mario and Luigi had a fairly minor role in this one, and the latter didn't even have any lines. I wouldn't have minded seeing a little more of the Princess in her teacher role, but there's only one episode left, and it's mostly a flashback.

Mama Luigi - Finally, we get the story of how the Mario team arrived in Dinosaur Land in the first place, in the form of a bedtime story that Luigi tells Yoshi. The green-clad plumber says that they went there for a vacation after they'd banished Bowser from the Mushroom Kingdom. Yeah, don't show us how they managed to do that or anything. King Koopa apparently arrived in Dinosaur Land before the Marios did, and he has Chargin' Chucks capture the Princess. Luigi is confronted by a Sumo Brother who isn't on a platform, so his stomping just opens up the ground below him. In either a bizarre coincidence or a careful plan on the Sumo's part, there's a long vertical drop right below where the ground opens, and Luigi lands on a balloon that helps him descend. After a short ride on a skull raft, Luigi arrives on a platform, and hits the blocks above it. One of them contains Yoshi's egg, which for some reason has red spots even though Yoshi is green.

The baby dinosaur imprints onto his rescuer, and starts calling him "Mama Luigi," hence the episode title. Luigi runs into two dinosaurs, and initially thinks Yoshi is their baby (they're obviously of a totally different species, but I think we can cut the plumber some slack here), but runs away into a warp pipe when he learns they actually want to eat him.

They call the baby a "Yoshisaur," which is presumably how Luigi knows the newborn Yoshi's name. The Brooklynite ends up in a water world, where he dodges a Rip Van Fish and some Porcu-Puffers, and has the help of dolphins in escaping a Torpedo Ted. When they reach the shore, Luigi and Yoshi find themselves surrounded by Wigglers, which the dinosaur promptly eats.

It's at this point that Mario shows up, saying he's escaped from Bowser's "Coney Island Disco Palace," and that he wants to return with Luigi to rescue the Princess. Actually, before he can relay this information, he's eaten by Yoshi, but the dinosaur decides he doesn't like the taste. The three make it into the Neon Castle, and during the song, Luigi is crushed by a giant spike and flattened. Mario reinflates him with a balloon, which is really more the sort of physics you'd see in a Wario game, but I don't think those existed yet at this point. When they reach the throne room, Yoshi eats everything in sight, including the throne. Bowser shows up and sends Mechakoopas after the intruders, but Yoshi eats those as well. He then uses his tongue to take a key from King Koopa's hand, and spitting it into a keyhole results in him, Mario, Luigi, and the Princess all returning to Dome City. Boy, these magic keys sure are convenient! Note that Dome City was deserted when the Marios got there, and there's no indication as to what happened to the cave people or how they were restored. Yeah, I know the focus of this episode was the bond between Luigi and Yoshi, but it left a lot of unanswered questions. Also perhaps worth mentioning is that the baby Yoshi eats more than five enemies, but doesn't grow to full size.

One thing I never really got about the Mario cartoons is why they never really had proper season premieres or finalés. The Writers' Bible for the Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon reports that Bowser had been sent to a Banishment Zone but managed to escape, but we never see this. Why aren't Mouser and Triclyde working for him anymore, and why did he suddenly start involving his kids in his schemes? This could have made for an interesting transitional episode, but we didn't get anything of the sort. Yeah, I'm probably asking too much of a cheap cartoon cooked up to advertise Nintendo games, but it's not like that would have taken any more work than any other episode, right?

Anyway, since that's it for this show, here's a poll to see what I should cover next. I doubt anyone really cares, but if you have any opinion at all, you might as well voice it.

[Poll #1780630]

Ozlection - A comment from speciesof1 made me wonder if I should be cross-posting my Oz posts to thelostoz, and I thought I'd put it to a vote. I ended up rejecting the Woggle-Bug's idea of everyone voting with their right shoes as impractical, but the Scarecrow helped me set up this straw poll.

[Poll #1378523]

Just Visiting - I've finally finished reading The Visitors from Oz, a collection of the Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz newspaper columns. Written not long after the second Oz book, these stories feature the main cast of Land (except for Tip, for obvious reasons) visiting the United States. Despite being the work of L. Frank Baum himself, I don't consider these stories canonical, for two main reasons. One is that they show the Ozites working all sorts of magic that they don't have access to in the main series, but more important than this is that Baum himself didn't seem to think of the stories as canonical. There's no mention of these adventures in the main Oz series, and Dorothy never acknowledges that the Ozites visited her in Kansas before the events of Ozma. Some people have also objected to artificial constructs like the Scarecrow and Jack Pumpkinhead being fully alive in the Outside World, but I'm not sure this is a problem. After all, John Dough was fully alive in an American city, as were several non-flesh-and-blood people and creatures in Ruth Plumly Thompson's Oz books. On the other hand, all of these constructs did very quickly leave the United States for a magical land, usually under very suspicious circumstances. It's almost like the mundane world is rejecting them. That might be something to address in a future post. But getting back to Visitors, the stories are very inconsistent in quality. Some are adventure or morality tales, while others have the characters just observing something or hanging around and talking. I think I can see why these stories eventually just fizzled out, with no real conclusion. Also, I rarely see how anyone could possibly have figured out what the Woggle-Bug said at the end of the early stories. Speaking of the insect, the volume also includes The Woggle-Bug Book, a tie-in to the Queer Visitors stories with a plot involving the Woggle-Bug chasing after a plaid dress, and a cast of characters jam-packed with offensive stereotypes. No wonder these tales aren't especially popular nowadays. I have no complaints about the volume itself, though, which features plenty of new illustrations by Eric Shanower.

The City Is Always Greener - In an e-mail conversation with billiedoll, the subject of the green glasses that the Wizard of Oz made everyone wear back when he ruled the Emerald City came up. I'll admit that this is something in the books that's always confused me. In Wizard, the Wizard confesses to Dorothy that the Emerald City isn't any more green than any other city, but the glasses make it look that way. This is hinted at when Dorothy's green dress fades to white upon leaving the city and the spectacles. When viewed from afar without glasses, however, the city still looks green. So is it only the wall and the buildings higher than the wall that are actually green? Did the Wizard institute the glasses because the builders ran out of green marble? As per Land, the policy of wearing spectacles continues on into the Scarecrow's reign, and the Guardian of the Gates dutifully gives glasses to Jack and the Sawhorse. Other characters enter the capital without the glasses, however, and nobody makes a comment as to how things no longer look green. Ozma apparently discontinued the use of green glasses, but there's no indication that the city didn't still look primarily green. The description in Emerald City states, "There are other jewels used in the decorations inside the houses and palaces, such as rubies, diamonds, sapphires, amethysts and turquoises. But in the streets and upon the outside of the buildings only emeralds appear, from which circumstance the place is named the Emerald City of Oz." While the green glasses fit well into the Wizard's role as humbug magician, Baum seems to have more or less forgotten about them by the time of Ozma, although the Guardian does wear a pair in Road. Any thoughts on this matter?

Confidentially Speaking - I tried out the demo of the game Emerald City Confidential, and I must say I liked it. It's sort of a noir take on the Oz series, featuring lots of characters from the books, but altering them somewhat to make them fit the style. It's obvious that the creators were familiar with the books, though, and I might just have to pay for the full download at some point. My main worry is that I'm not sure it would have any real replay value. Anyway, be sure to check it out here.

The Best of Both Rainbows - According to the director of the Hannah Montana movie, Miley Cyrus is the new Judy Garland. According to him, "Ms. Garland wasn't a hit until she was 16 as Dorothy in the overrated film, 'The Wizard of Oz'. Cyrus has been popular since she was 12 and got a role in Tim Burton's 'Big Fish' at age 6. Honestly, I believe she has more potential then Garland or even Shirley Temple." While Wizard was Judy's first real starring role, though, she was definitely acting before that. Really, while I don't have any love for Destiny Hope Cyrus, I can't say I've ever been a particular fan of Frances Ethel Gumm, either. I mean, she was a good singer, but wasn't her famous performance as Dorothy a bit overly frantic? As a fan of the Oz books, I have kind of a love-hate relationship with the 1939 MGM film anyway. On the one hand, it's pretty much impossible not to like the movie, and it IS cool that something Oz-related is such a significant part of our culture. And hey, there's a good chance I never would have heard of the books if it hadn't been for the movie. On the other hand, I do have to resent how thoroughly the film has superseded the book. But really, is referring to a beloved classic as "overrated" the best way to generate publicity for your movie? Oh, well. Probably most of the kids that the Hannah Montana film is geared toward don't even know who Judy Garland and Shirley Temple are.

They Say It's Your Birthday - Finally, happy birthday to fellow Oz fan shadarko!

Last time I saw my mom, she brought a box of old games, including Advance to Boardwalk, Where in the USA Is Carmen Sandiego?, and some Trivial Pursuit sets from the eighties. I tend to doubt I'll ever play any of these again, but I hate getting rid of things, so I thought I would put it to a poll. (Apparently I can do that with a plus account, although I didn't realize it before.) And since I was doing a poll anyway, I decided to add some other questions as well. The convention referred to in the second question is the 2008 National IWOC Convention described here, and Fayetteville is about 300 miles away from where I live.

[Poll #1191197]

DISCLAIMER: The results of this poll are not guaranteed to affect the course of action I take. In fact, I might totally ignore the popular vote, and leave it up to the superdelegates.

I don't have a regular entry prepared for today, so here's another poll. yosef suggested cheese as a subject, so I expanded that into a general poll about food.

[Poll #1086208]

If you answered "other" to anything, please provide your answer in the comments.

I was thinking this would be my last poll, but I have an idea for another one, so it probably won't be. And no, it won't be about lemurs. While I'm intrigued by the idea, I'm not sure what questions I'd ask in such a poll, aside from why their skin reflects the sea.

As you probably know, some mysterious and anonymous benefactor gave me a paid account last year for my birthday. It expires in the middle of this month, and I don't think I can hope for a repeat performance, so I need to decide what to do about my account. Would it make sense for me to switch to a Plus account? There are ads, but they don't appear to be THAT intrusive. So what do you think?

[Poll #1081102]

I've now read 182 pages of Toto of Oz, which is twenty-two chapters out of thirty. I think I've also read most of John Swartzwelder's Double Wonderful, although I don't have the book here with me to check. They're both short books, so it's not like I'm a speed reader or something. But I am reminded of how bethje has told me that she enjoys being in the middle of reading a good book. I, on the other hand, tend to hurry through them. I guess I'm pretty much the same way with food. People say that you should savor foods you enjoy, but I want to eat things I like quickly, and then have more. Sometimes, however, there IS no more, and I guess that'll also be the way with Oz books after I'm done Toto. But I do like to have finished a book, because then I can mull it over and discuss it with other people (not that I know very many other people who have read Toto, but I can still write a review on my journal). I was wondering what other people's thoughts on the matter are, and since I think I'm now able to make polls, I might as well go ahead and try that.

[Poll #939117]

In other entertainment news, one of my Sims just died of old age, and it was pretty crazy. The Grim Reaper showed up with hula girls, and Hawaiian music played. As I suspected, it doesn't take that long for an elder Sim to end up in the grave. I guess there's always that Elixir of Life for Sims I want to keep around. How does that work, anyway?