Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Rolling. Rolling. Hey, this is. We're here.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: How come you didn't count down, like, on Wayne's World?
I can't count.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: That's an American thing. We don't do that here.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: It's an American thing.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Yeah. You know that, like, English is my second language, right?
[00:00:21] Speaker A: It's.
English is your second language?
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Since when? Always. Really? What is your first language?
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Money.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Okay. Well, welcome back to Funny Book Forensics. As you can see, I'm here with Travis. We have friend of the podcast Toby here set up this beautiful recording for us that, like, honestly, when you think about Funny Book Forensics and our high quality podcast and shoots, I'm not really sure what we did to deserve this, but it is fantastic.
You know, this is. This is great.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: It's my kitchen.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: Well, it is your kitchen. It is the background too. Yeah. We do have a backdrop.
Travis is back because, well recorded with Palmer last time and we promised that when I got to see Travis, we were going to watch The Power Pack 1991, apparently pilot for television. Now, Travis, Power Pack came out in like 1984, right?
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: So why was Marvel getting around to doing a show for power pack in 1991? It seems a little late.
We were going from glam rock to grunge. We were going from light comics to dark comics. We had gone from the era of the X Men and the Teen Titans in Power Pack to Frank Miller, your favorite.
Did I say it right by saying Frank Miller there?
[00:01:47] Speaker B: We do not need to go on a tangent.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Really. Why not? Because we clearly have gone on a tangent before about this. I mean, we went from light to dark, right? Like, the comics were light and fun.
And then we went to Dark Knight Returns, right? We went to Watchmen. We went to beautiful pouches and shoulder pads. Shoulder pads. Lots of pockets, lot of shoulder pads, A lot of shoulder pads going on. We went to all that.
So why did they wait so fucking long to do a pilot for one of their most popular comics in the 80s?
Like, I feel like Power Pack would have an amazing Saturday morning cartoon.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: I did not read the Wikipedia article on this before we started the podcast.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: Me neither.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: One moment, please.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Yeah, me neither. I mean, this is just speculation. Like, you've been in the industry a long time.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Failed at the industry for a long time.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I think the question is too. Maybe let's ask a broader question, right? Why would it take seven years for them to think that the property was valuable?
[00:02:53] Speaker B: I don't think that has anything to do with it. I Will say, I'm just going to catch you right here at this time. People don't remember this, but Fox was a relatively new station.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Yes. Right.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: And there was a lot of experimental TV going on with everybody.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Because there were shows like Small Wonder, My Stepdad, the Marshall.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Small Wonder was a syndicated show, but.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: No, it was syndicated for Fox.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: No, it was syndicated.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: The whole reason it got cut off is when Fox became an actual station, they dropped Small Wonder.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: No, I thought Small Wonder was straight up syndicated.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: It was syndicated through Fox. It was Fox Studios that was produced.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: I get what you're saying.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: And when they decided to have a TV show, they dumped it because they didn't want to be this. The channel that had a little robot girl on their thing. But there was another show. They had two that they didn't carry over. There was two shows they had in syndication. Yeah.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Totally blanking on the show.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And they dropped both of them when they started their network. And then they had things like.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Well, wasn't Charles in Charge, was it? Yeah, it was, wasn't it?
[00:03:51] Speaker B: I don't remember.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: But that was a Scott Baio nanny show.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: I do remember Charles in Charge, the show. But I don't remember the other show.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Well, I remember it always showed with Small Wonder.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: But there was a movie at the time that were my. My Stepdad's An Alien or whatever. Or with the song and the Burt Reynolds doing the voice that no one knew it was Burt Reynolds. But the other thing that was happening at that time, I will say, was there was a weird, real effort to make TV shows of Marvel Comics. And one of them was this weird X Men show that I used to watch that I thought was going to be good, but it was never good. And it had.
What's her name as the head of the X Men instead of Xavier. And she was like in lingerie all the time.
And White Queen. I was like 13 and was the White Queen. I forgot what I was talking about.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Emma Frost.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: It was Emma Frost.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Wow. Okay.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: And they had a bunch of X Men that no one knew, you know, so there was an effort to do these things. So I feel like there was something else that they tried to do at that time. Try to make a new mutant thing.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Well, this is also the time in Marvel when they had jettisoned, gotten rid of Stan Lee, right?
[00:04:51] Speaker B: I think so. And he went off and did his own weird things.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: It's around the time they fired Jim Shooter, right?
[00:04:56] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: 91 is around the time.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: You're literally the comic historian. I'M the failed writer.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I'm just thinking too like from a time perspective, you think about like Marvel in the 60s, right?
They put out the not great looking cartoons like the Fantastic Four cartoon, but they got that out pretty quickly after the comic got popular. Right.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Like they didn't wait around at this time.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: The Cartoon X Men 93.
Right.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: It was probably in pre production. It takes five years for anything.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So they're working on the cartoon. So they were scaling up their game.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: Well, there, like I said, there was the weird show with the X Men. There was a. There was another show that would came out and they only did like a episode. There was like these TV movies that were coming out back then. I can.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: Oh well, they had the, they were carrying the Hulk movies. Right. So they'd have like the Hulk and Thor.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: I'm talking specifically. They were trying to get into the more X Men, non Hulky Avengers.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Well, they had. Of course they had Spider man and amazing friends. Like that was 84 though. So that's like seven years before this, right?
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Yes, that's seven years before this.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Like 85, 86.
So I mean, and it does make sense to have Spider man on there, but yeah, I mean, okay, so Power Pack, super popular book, but definitely had waned in popularity by this time too. Like in the world of comics. Power Pack was not a relevant comic.
Sorry. In 91 it was to me.
I mean they had, but they had moved on. Right. Like X. X universe was, was the dominant force at that point, right?
[00:06:22] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: And we're moving into the relaunch. Spider Man 2 had taken back off. Right. Because we had Todd's art back on Spider Man.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: So Spider man is hot.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: X Men, that other cool covers out all the cool.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Somehow I remember Ghost Rider being hot.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: I think I did read something on this once that said that part of the reason the show didn't go off is Marvel started having success with the reboots of everything and this show was part of their past also. The show's not good. I'm sorry. To people that work. Before we start this, I just want to say.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: Well, you're telling me the show's not good before we watch this.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: And as you know, it didn't get picked up. That makes it obviously not good. Let's just be honest here.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: Well, fans of the podcast know they enjoy the show when I'm unhappy. So you're doing that.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: I just want to. I just want to say something really important to the camera.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: If you work, if you Worked on this show. I am very sorry. I know how hard it is to. To make a TV show or a movie or a music video. You put your heart into it. Your money, you get a paycheck. You're proud of your work. I am not saying you are not good at your job. When I trash talk this show here in a moment.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Well, I am.
So. I mean, that's how this podcast works.
Because we've had this discussion before, though. I think you can be really good a lot of times and not be good sometimes. And that's okay.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: That's why I writer.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: That's creativity, right.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: 90% of what I write.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Shit. Well, I think 90% of what everybody writes is right. Like, that's the point. Like you're. You know, that's the part of the creative process. So sometimes things get created. I've certainly created things in life that suck too, like this podcast. So, you know, we has. All good. And thank you. One listener. We may have picked up a listener today. Thank you. Yeah. Well, Toby's here, so we do have at least one person listening to this specific podcast. Hey, should we tell them what we're doing, though? I think we danced around the whole time, what we're actually doing.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: So we're going to watch the Power Package pilot.
Apparently it has been unleashed on the universe. Yeah. For years now, but we're gonna watch it for the first time. As we were reviewing the Power Pack comic book, Travis said, this was out there. And I said, oh, that's kind of cool. And Travis was like, no, not really. And so we thought, what else would we do for funny book forensics? But loop this in. After reading these great comic books with the beautiful art, with the beautiful paneling, with the great storytelling, where June Brigman is just going crazy. Louise Simonson is writing amazing stuff.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Stuff.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: We got this nostalgic kick. We're really. We're digging the comic left out, Roy.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: Just to make sure.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: I want to mix it.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: And now we're gonna watch the show.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: With flat lighting and soap opera level drama and stuff. I do want to go into the history of the show, though.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: Okay, well, tell us a little bit about the history.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: I didn't read the Wikipedia article before we started, but I have history with this show.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: You have history? Well, you have a lot of history.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So years ago, before this thing got. Before there was YouTube and I was working on another project with a really decently famous writer. They had a couple of big films.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: And of course, you can't tell us.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: I can't I really can't.
I was in the basement of this guy produce his house with this other writer who's a lot more famous than any of us.
And I was very young, and he was like, oh, you want to write comic books? I'm like, that's been my dream my whole life is just to write comic books. Like, I don't know how I end up in these movie situations in tv. I don't want to write tv. I don't want to write movies. I just want to write comics. He's like, well, what's your favorite comic? I'm like, ElfQuest, Robotech, Power Pack. All the stuff you never. Alpha Flight. Stuff you never heard of.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Right?
[00:09:52] Speaker B: And he's like, oh, no, Power Pack. I know that. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, oh, yeah, yeah. So he has a bunch of VHS pilots.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Just a ton of pilots. Right. And he had two pilots. He showed me that day. He showed me this pilot which I didn't even know existed.
Right. And who was somebody watching this might be like, I know true. Travis is talking about right now, and he had another one about these homeless kids in Seattle living in Pike's Place Market. And it was supposed to be a comic comedy show about homeless children living in Pike's Place Market in Seattle.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: What?
[00:10:28] Speaker B: And I saw both those pilots that night.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: That's a comedy.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah, they're like the Pike Kids or something like that.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah, that's how I felt.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: It didn't get picked up.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I can't imagine.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Neither did this.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: Well, I can't. I can't imagine why the second one didn't get picked up. I mean, it's so. Well, before we start, I do want to say one quick thing that has nothing to do with this.
My friend grabbed me a bunch of random dollar books, and I'm looking through the dollar books in the 80s, and lo and behold, the ad you talked about was there Spider man and Power Pack helping Nancy Reagan tell you to say no to drugs.
And the ad was right there. And you know, it's funny, too, because you mentioned that as that was a lot of people's introduction to Power Pack, too, because, like, there's Spider man, but Power Pack, and it matched the comic and there it was in the ad. So I thought. Anyway, thought that was funny that I opened an X Factor comic.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: I read X Factor.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: Well, I had my friend pick me up some old X Factor.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Everyone should read X Factor, especially from that era.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Well, this was before. This was the early era. This was when they were rebooting the original team, so it was still.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Everyone should just read X Factor.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: It's where they put the Beast and the weird X with the X instead of just letting you be.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: I thought that was cool too.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: I didn't think that was cool.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: I like X Factor. It's like where. It's where the X Men go to retire.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Well, anyway, it's like X Men retirement home. That would have been an interesting book. Like Cyclops walking around with a walker.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: No, I. When I was younger, that's how I felt about X Factor. I enjoyed it, but I always felt like it was a more mature book than X Men in my brain. My little teenage brain. And it was like, yeah, when the X Men don't. Can't cut it with the X Men anymore, they go to X Factor.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: X Factor. Well, I, you know, I kind of like that. I mean, they did cancel their book, so there's to go. And they tried to launch Beast career multiple times. I mean, they tried to make Beast into a solo comic. And. Was it Marvel? It wasn't Marvel.
I forget any one of those Marvel books where they tried to launch characters is the one where they launched Defenders. Is it Marvel? It wasn't a Marvel team up Marvel. Well, it doesn't matter. I can look it up later. But I don't want to get too distracted because we're not talking about X Factor today. We. Or Factor X or anything related to factors or X's. We're gonna watch Power Pack.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: I'm just gonna say I'm really glad this somehow landed on YouTube.
You know, that's one of the things I want to say right away.
But second, if somehow this ever gets back to the original producer guy whose basement I was in, hey, man, call me. I need a job.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: There you go.
Jobs are jobs.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: I'm older now, more mature. Just saying we can talk about.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Well, you are older now.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: We can talk about DJing. You're really into that. I remember you are.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Well, anyway, we're gonna get this started.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: All right, let's hit play.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: We have a Watch along going on and we've got a 26 minute show, so we're better roll this.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't have a lot of. A lot of video here. Run right out of tape.
[00:13:15] Speaker C: A wondrous creation of subtle beauty and awesome power.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: What is up with this narrator?
Oh, wait, I know who this guy is. This is Kofi's dad, isn't it?
Margo Finley, I'm sure. Bradley. Have we heard of all these People.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Bradley Macri, dinner theater actors.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: Probably Jocelyn Holmes.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: I came upon four young children who inspired me with their innocence, their honesty.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: Oh, children too. This is so sweet. This is Kofi's dad, right?
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Hey. They use the right logo.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Is good. The logo is good.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: We love the logo with the starfield and everything.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Like you should. Yeah, yeah. This is great.
By the way. I've never seen this. Travis would not let me watch it before we started.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: I'm gonna pause real quick.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: We have a school bus.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: I haven't watched it since I saw that weird VHS or Beta that I was showed. I'm thinking about it now. It might have been a Beta tape. That's how long ago it was. Okay, But a lot of trailers. Just to know. Back then, a lot of those pilots came on these Beta, but not like the normal Beta. It was really weird. It's like there's two kinds of Beta, guys. If anyone says, oh, Beta was used for all these professional things. Not home consumer Beta. It was the other Beta. I think you have to have a special machine for it. That guy had one. It was rich.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: Well, we've got a typical house in the Pacific Northwest here.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Or. Yeah, it does look like our up in Midwest.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: We've got little kids.
Jack.
I love Jack.
[00:14:56] Speaker C: Oh, I found your science.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: I feel like Alex should be taller than Jack by a lot. He's not.
Oh, my God. This is already annoying.
I don't remember Julie being a fashionista.
Is that new for the show here?
Or was this something I missed by not reading all the comics?
[00:15:24] Speaker B: I'm gonna point out that this came out of time when there were specific tropes that you had to have.
So, like, there has to be a wheelchair. Smart kid.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: It's that era of television, so girls have to be in the fashion and only want to go to the mall. You know, boys have.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: That's Jubilee.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, we're not.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: We didn't need that for this.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: You couldn't get a tv. This is. This is. This is no slam on the people who created this. But there was no way you're gonna get anything greenlit unless you follow those tricks.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Well, we can keep watching. I'm gonna ask you questions because I just. I didn't read all the power pack like you did, so I don't remember.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: I'm just gonna pause once in a while to just inform just because it's easier.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: I don't remember Julie being a fashionista. Right. So I would.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Fuck. He just take it out of his mouth. Oh, sorry.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: I Don't know.
Wow. Lightspeed. Yeah, that looks kind of cool.
I don't mind a little special effect there.
Jack just lost his retainer.
Yeah.
So that's how we're starting.
Alex is having some problems with fish tank here.
Why is this.
I mean, this isn't terrible so far.
Alex apparently has the gravity powers right now.
Oh, he's trying to balance the fish tank. Okay.
I mean, the parents are equally as annoying as they are in the comic so far.
[00:17:02] Speaker C: Julie, Alex.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Come on, guys.
[00:17:05] Speaker C: It's getting late.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: That's disgusting.
Wait, who is this?
[00:17:14] Speaker B: The dad?
[00:17:15] Speaker A: No.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: Hi, dad.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Why is Jack so small?
And why do the parents know about their powers?
Like, I'm so confused right now. That's the whole premise of Power Pack, is that the parents don't know about the powers.
So we've already destroyed. In the first three minutes and 19 seconds, we've destroyed one of the key concepts of the book.
Admittedly, sometimes could be a cheesy concept, but we've destroyed one of the key concepts of the book is that the kids did everything on their own, and the parents didn't know about it, and the kids went off and had these space adventures.
Is it because we couldn't do the Last Starfighter again? Like, why, why, why? Why shouldn't we do this?
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Another thing you remember from this era is comic books and comic book writers are. Aren't considered able to write very well.
So the.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: The. It wasn't. It wasn't just this hero. Because that in Heroes came out in the 2000s. Right, right, right. And the producers of that show said, oh, you'll love our show because we've never read comics.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: And like, I watched their throw and thought show and thought it was garbage.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Because, like, Heroes either.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: And they said, oh, we've never copied any comic book tropes. You copied all of the comic book tropes. Poorly. Literally all of them. Anyway, I'll stop.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: The point is, they bite the license. They like the concept, but they don't like the writing and they don't like the story, so they're gonna rehash it. That's what they always did back in this. Really, really bad. You know, so, like, things like Spider man is actually gonna be a spider. Like, mutated spider and stuff for Spider Man. I don't know if you know that. I only know that because I worked.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: I hope Luis got some sort of payoff for this. At least I hope so, too.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: All right, here we go.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: And why is Jack miniature?
[00:18:59] Speaker B: He has a shrinking power instead of A density. Yeah.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: Density is hard to explain on tv.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: It is. That's. That's probably. That's the easiest way to deal with it.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: I get that. Hey, your favorite.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: It's not my favorite. But why?
What is this?
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Sarah's here.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
But she's, like, sitting there, like a drawing of somebody trying to do something, like.
[00:19:27] Speaker C: I miss my sequel.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: What?
[00:19:31] Speaker C: So Louie, Kate.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Gad, she missed who?
[00:19:34] Speaker C: What? Maybe we can all go back to the beach and visit them again next summer. Oh, wouldn't that be fun?
[00:19:41] Speaker B: They did remember, they summer at the beaches. Yeah.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Katie, this is.
[00:19:47] Speaker C: We have to live here.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: I guess he just moved to Bremerton.
Yeah, well, I mean, Bainbridge.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: They listen to a lot of mxpx.
Well, Katie seems like she's gonna melt some things here.
What.
What is going on?
[00:20:12] Speaker B: All right, the parents are aware of their powers. They're all. Mom's kind of scared. Katie's powers are too powerful, and she's too young to have the powers. The other kids are all just kids with powers. And the dads and mom are dealing with children that have superpowers and trying to still balance that between work life, teenage life, and superpower life.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: So we. Some. So we can stop watching now, you said. No, we can't stop watching. All right, everybody.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: All right, so this is important.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Oh, we got a speech.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Discussed this before.
What's happened to you kids?
[00:20:45] Speaker A: These.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: These powers you've been given are.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: We're talking about a lecture on powers here for the folks listening, so you get some commentary here.
This is very exciting.
Dad is incompetent.
Oh, no. No, they didn't.
No, they didn't.
With power comes responsibility. Shut up.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Power comes great.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: But they didn't say great power. And that, of course, wasn't in the comic, as we're aware. Yeah, so they're trying, but with power comes responsibility.
All right, well, let it. Here, Keep watching his speech. Hit play. We got to find out what dad is going to say besides that they just moved to the Northwest, and I just. I just don't think that we should be doing anything to.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Confuse people or draw attention to ourselves.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: I mean, I just watched four seasons of Superman and Lois where they're constantly telling the boys not to use their powers.
That shot was crazy.
And Dad's wearing Clark Kent glasses, too, isn't he?
I mean, is it wrong? I know you didn't want to pick on the creators, but the music background for this is cheesy as hell.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: It's a pilot, so you'll use. They'll just use free at this era. I think There were these CDs that used to come out and they had a whole bunch of like, generic score music you could use. And so when you did pilots back then, you'd use one of the scores off those.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: Okay. Okay, that makes some sense.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Once you become a real thing, you'll get somebody to actually compose for you. You gotta keep the budget down.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: I don't know if the music was necessary either.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: She gonna be all right?
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Oh, sure.
[00:22:49] Speaker C: I need to take some time.
What's crossing the speech?
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Oh, Jack caught him getting small again.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: It's not funny, Maggie.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: I. I knew you rinsed him down the drain.
[00:23:06] Speaker C: Oh, I know, I know.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: It just.
[00:23:07] Speaker C: It still sounds strange to me.
You're right, though. I mean, it's hard enough being a kid. You feel awkward, self conscious.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: And this is so early 90s right here.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: Well, I just worry they're gonna feel.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: I think that's a denim shirt and a vest.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: Yeah, one. It's also vest. I was thinking about her speech. Like, it's just so hard being a kid these days.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
When she walks by, let's see if she's wearing mom jeans.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: We'll be treated like them. They flash that stuff around, it's gonna scare people. The. The other kids go back right away.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: What is he gonna sign them up for? Mutant registration. Jesus.
He works at a lab with suit. Interesting.
I suppose mom's a stay at home mom too.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: Because Newton's law of universal. That's not the high school in Bainbridge, by the way. No, we've all heard the legend of.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: Sir Isaac Newton sitting under. Well, you know, I mean, I've never been to Bainbridge island, believe it or not, so I would not know. What was it that he discovered?
[00:24:08] Speaker B: What's universal gravitation?
Alex.
[00:24:12] Speaker C: According to Newton's law of universal gravitation, the force between any two bodies is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Alex, what are you doing, buddy?
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Good.
Very good.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: All right, Alex. Alex is the smartest kid in the room.
There we go.
I don't remember that.
I just.
I just remember Alex being like the.
The kid that was always worried about everything. Is this typical of his character?
[00:24:43] Speaker B: I don't know, but.
Playa.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Oh, I remember those little drinks.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah, he's got a. Oh, yeah, those little orange and juice drinks. Yeah, they got a lot nicer lunches than I remember.
Mine just came on a tray and you got whatever they gave you and.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: You have the circle two squares. The thing for silverware, the bigger square and the rectangle.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: They got the full on junior high, I think, on here.
Lunch tickets. Lunch tickets. I remember those.
My parents are bringing me a string of lunch tickets. We go.
[00:25:22] Speaker C: Alex, who was this Dr. Morbius anyway? Some little circus guy turned his house into Dr. Morbius.
What's that like, really weird, freaky thoughts. So we're going to do this right after school today.
I don't know, guys. You don't whip belt on us. Harlem. Come on, lady. No one's been in.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: Wow, all the kids are beating each other up already.
[00:25:51] Speaker C: No problem.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: See, Jack's already gonna show off his powers.
[00:25:56] Speaker C: Right?
Okay. Yeah.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: God, these child actors are amazing.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Yeah, they're doing okay.
It's a pilot. They're young.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: They're. It's.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: They haven't dialed in yet.
So I just want to point out.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: I kind of like Jack. He's fine.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: All pilots have a bit of wood to them.
And so, like, kids especially are going to be wooden on a pilot because no one's dialed in yet.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: I'm saying they don't know where they are with the character.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: I know Jack's doing fine.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I think I actually. I think the actor who plays Jack is okay. I think the parents are actually decent. I think the dad's doing dad, like, you know, he's trying to play the dad that's like, dad, like, you know, dad jokes, trying to do speeches. Doesn't quite have all his emotions in check. Mom's doing the classic Mom. This. These are very classic characters.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: They're tropes. Arcs. They're tropes.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Arch types. Yeah.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: Not trope. Archetypes. Tropes. Yeah.
[00:26:52] Speaker C: You be whatever you way around.
So you must meet around a lot.
Thanks.
I like it in here. It's quiet. I'm Tina Calloway.
Hi. Alex Power.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Alex is getting on in the theater.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: She's an alien.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: Stop it. Stop ruining stuff.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: Well, it's nice to know you, Alex. Would it be okay to call you sometime? You know, like, if I ever have any science questions?
Yeah, sure. Let me give you our phone number.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: Wow, he's already giving away his number now. You said she's an alien.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: I don't know, man.
I kind of remember something.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Why are you giving stuff away? You're not there.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: I don't know if that's true or.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: If I remember now. Is she a trans dimensional spider wizard or a cat space pirate?
What? Why am I getting a look here like this is.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: That's a beautiful shot.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: It's a Mausoleum. Where are we going?
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Fake crane. Did you catch it?
[00:27:56] Speaker A: No, I didn't catch it.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: Oh, he stepped off something.
The cameraman tried to make it look like a crane, like a dollar shot, and he, like, came off. Steps off. You guys see him do this? He's trying to be really careful.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Okay, well, Alex is being little bro, and he's trying to sneak his friends into.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: You creep me out, Harlem. Let's go.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: What is up with Alex's friends, man?
[00:28:18] Speaker B: I don't know, but that was actually not bad for the writing right there.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the little short one is beating up the little taller one there.
Constantly smacking him.
That's. Well, here we're. We're okay.
That bowl cut is. Those bowl cuts are.
Jack is the only one with a good haircut. That's fair. So far.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: That's how you gotta shoot.
I've been to Bainbridge many times. I once got my sailboat stuck there and got drunk in the winery.
Anyways, and I will say that I've never seen that house on Bainbridge.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Well, I mean, this house has got to be somewhere.
It's probably AI.
[00:29:01] Speaker C: Okay, Pouchard, let's see if you think you.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: That little kid has some Napoleon complex right there.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: Is that dune?
[00:29:16] Speaker A: I don't know what's happening right now.
It is.
Yeah.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: It's like a generic version of the eighties Dune music.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: So they don't.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Oh, you could shrink his bag too.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: That's cool.
[00:29:30] Speaker C: Tyrannosaurus rat.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Oh, my God, that line. Did he say just say tyrannosaurus rat while he was tiny?
[00:29:38] Speaker B: They're not doing too bad because that does feel very power packed writing.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: What is this, Kitty?
Oh, man.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Snacks.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: Blue Jay. Stellar J food now.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Yeah, day is ruined.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: But we're.
The plot of this is very interesting. So it really has no plot, which is fine.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Well, no, they're going to a haunted mansion.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: Yeah, but like, so. So we start out the show and we find out they have powers, and then the mom and dad give a speech. Right? Dad gives a speech. Whatever. We go to school, they start meeting friends, but now Jack's just ending up in a haunted mansion. We don't really know why, but it's cool.
Julie and Katie are nowhere to be seen at all so far.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: That's because they're girls.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: And apparently that makes them unimportant in 1991.
Even though the only. The coolest power so far so far shown on screen is light speed. Yeah.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: I do want to say, I actually think the writers are doing okay right now.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: Here's why?
[00:30:49] Speaker B: First of all, they kind of sound like Power Pack. Other than like mom and dad knowing their power sets. That is a little freaking extra annoying. But they go to school. It was not uncommon when I was a kid to meet friends that day at school for the first time and go do something with them after school. That was stupid. It's not that I get arrested, so, you know, I.
I said out loud anyways, but you know what I'm saying? So in that sense. And they're going to a haunted house where there's a guy named Mobius or Morbius that does haunted things. So we're good. We're good.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: I'm okay with this.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: This feels like a Power Pack comic for me. It's a kids comic. Remember, we're looking at a story that's meant for kids, you know.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: All right.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: These lines are there when the kid's like, you know, blah, blah, blah. And the other kid's like, well, you're the blah, blah, blah.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: I was like, oh, yeah. But I can. Can I say one thing though about this? So far in the Power Pack comics I have read, the majority of the comic is Power Pack hanging out together.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a problem.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: And right now they are all separate.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: You know, I once worked on a movie where the word cyborg was in the title and you know, it was not in the entire freaking movie.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Cyborg.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: Yep. Well, so there you go.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: I'm just saying we're not. This doesn't seem like a power packed show right now. It also seems like you're introducing a lot of into a 26 minute pilot.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: I'll go back to explain pilots real quick. I'm explaining everybody how pilots work.
In a pilot, you're trying to get the gist of what the series will be.
So the reason why this is probably doing this is trying to show you the kind of adventures they'll have when they get serialized if they get green.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. So they're all going to be solo adventures. Okay, cool.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: That's probably actually thinking about it though. You say that. I'm like, oh. And then I'm like, actually, that's probably what they thought when they. When they watched the pilot. That's probably why I didn't get greenlit because they were like, oh, why do we have four kids if only two of them ever do anything.
[00:32:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep, that's what it seems like so far.
And Katie's been portrayed like the creepy, the boy that can make things disappear on the Twilight Zone. Yeah.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it was really creepy.
That was like, the creepiest thing ever.
[00:32:58] Speaker C: I don't know. What's the big deal? There's nothing scary here.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: It's the Power Pack meets the Goonies.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: I feel like it goes. Are you afraid of the dark Goosebumps? Yeah, it's very Goosebumps. Before goosebumps, you should look up to see if the producers or anything, like, have any carry over to Goosebumps.
The set design, everything.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: Yeah, there's R.L. stine Feely right here.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: Hey, everyone, if you know anything about this show and if there's any relationship to Goosebops, leave it in the comments below like, and subscribe.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: Jeez. Thanks, Travis.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Got you. Gotcha.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Or you could just enjoy the podcast and tell more people to listen.
We like that, too. We like having one or two listeners.
Just like this show wanted to have one or two viewers if it got picked up.
I mean, I kind of like this. I don't hate it.
[00:34:05] Speaker C: Circus of the macaw.
Who's that?
Dr. Mobius Butthead.
Wow.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Did he just say butthead?
[00:34:19] Speaker C: Yeah, he rubbed right across his eyes again.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: Why is that little kid such a jerk?
[00:34:25] Speaker C: It kind of looks like his eyes are moving.
Like he's looking right at us.
Yeah.
Did you guys just feel that?
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: Got like, real cold in here.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: It is.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: I hate when I have that kid's face.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: Did you watch the New Mutants movie that was so terrible where they made it into New Mutants horror?
[00:34:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't watch it, though.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: This is what this is like right now, except kid version.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: It's a shame, too, because casting what's her name as magic was, like, the perfect time to cast her everything and. Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: And they made a terrible movie.
And it wasn't New Mutants.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: It was literally the most best casting I've seen in a Marvel film in years. And was like, yeah, we're gonna ruin it.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Not so tough now, are you, little dude?
The little guy that hits people is the first one running out.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: Of course. That's how that works.
[00:35:36] Speaker C: Okay, I'll tell her. Bye, Mom.
Well, mom says she's coming home with a bunch of groceries. She wants you to get started on the kitchen.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: What the hell?
[00:35:47] Speaker B: They had pay phones back then?
[00:35:48] Speaker C: Got a cover for me? I can't.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: Oh, my God, that kitchen is trashed.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: Yeah, well, also, like, Alex just told Katie to or told Julie to do the housework.
[00:36:02] Speaker C: Please, Alex, I just, you know, want to make some new friends.
Okay, but I'm serious, Julie, you better be really quick about it because mom will be really upset. I know.
[00:36:12] Speaker B: I Know.
[00:36:13] Speaker C: I promise.
Alex, you're the greatest.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Where is she going?
[00:36:17] Speaker A: The mall. Yeah, she's going somewhere.
Let's go make new friends.
She's got to take her bike. The. Which we did do back in the day.
Alex is going to be all responsible and worried.
She got pink stretch pants.
[00:36:38] Speaker B: Rainbow. Rainbow.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: Wizard of speed and time levels there. Man.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: Why does she even need a bike?
[00:36:49] Speaker B: Because that's what. Oh, look at that.
It's like the Columbia.
[00:36:59] Speaker C: I see her covers book and it's.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: Looking all over for you guys.
[00:37:02] Speaker C: All right.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:37:06] Speaker B: Thanks for narrating what we're doing.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: Apparently the I am Agamotto is in Jack's drawer.
[00:37:17] Speaker C: It's not good.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: Now, Jack does cause a lot of problems in the comic.
Jack also solves a lot of problems in the comic. Comic?
This really is Power Pack horror.
So this is like a cheap version of Doctor Doctor Strange, right?
Or Dormoo. What's his villain's name? Dormu.
Dormammu. Or whatever.
Sorry, I just. All the Doctor Strange fans can hate me right now.
I wouldn't do that if I were you. Why don't invite them in.
[00:38:01] Speaker C: You know what mom and dad say about opening our strangers.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. You never invite them in.
[00:38:08] Speaker C: Why not?
[00:38:08] Speaker A: Jack?
[00:38:09] Speaker C: Sl problem. No big deal.
What's up there, Alex? Let's talk this over.
[00:38:18] Speaker A: This is.
[00:38:18] Speaker C: This is not a good idea.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: This is. This. This scene is awful.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: I actually think it's pretty creative.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: I didn't like the view on. On. Alex.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: That was a weird shot, but right when I was a kid.
[00:38:35] Speaker C: You better come upstairs and take a look at something.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: This is very goose bumpy, man.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it is.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: I'd forgotten what it was like to haven't actually watched it since that initial thing.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Honestly, this isn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. Based on your setup.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: Well, I seen it like 20 years ago, man.
[00:38:51] Speaker C: Sorry. You never should have taken it in the first place, Jack. You shouldn't have been in there.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: I mean, it is cheesy on this one.
[00:38:58] Speaker C: Alex, what are we gonna do?
[00:39:03] Speaker A: Why is Katie holding it like a bad idea?
[00:39:06] Speaker B: Gotta do something with the kid.
Is that shark in the background? Is that Jeff? The poor guy had to bit himself for days.
Oh, my God. Snowing.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Well, they're not in the northwest. Then.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: Station wagons.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: Station wagons are the best.
Is what goes up.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: Must come down.
[00:39:30] Speaker A: It was pretty funny, Jim.
[00:39:31] Speaker C: Look at this weather. You think the kids are okay?
[00:39:35] Speaker A: Is it snowing? Because they have the mystical item watching TV by now.
Well, we've got a lot going on here. Now we're back at the haunted house already.
It was a lot easier to get in there this time.
And no Julie.
So we've got Alex, Jack, and Katie going through the haunted.
[00:40:01] Speaker B: Look at that effect.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: We've got a giant bozzling going on.
It is dormammu. Is it dormammu?
[00:40:07] Speaker B: Did I get that right?
[00:40:08] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:40:10] Speaker B: Poll mirrors.
Heck, yeah.
[00:40:15] Speaker A: This is so it's trapdoor.
What the hell?
What in the hell just happened?
All of a sudden, we.
[00:40:27] Speaker B: All right, that's cool.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: We went into, like, the worst effects. Okay. The skeleton's okay.
I don't mind this.
So we've got a cheesy haunted house of horrors capturing all the power. Kids.
Julie went out friends with her friends.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: And she got one of those little camera snapshot things.
That's actually really adorable. The actress did a really good job looking like an excited kid.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: What's the note say?
They left a note.
Wow. Jack's getting eaten alive by skeletons.
Alex is floating.
Katie is wearing a Challengers of the Unknown outfit.
And she melts a ghost.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: Yeah. She just killed that guy.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: She killed something. That's crazy.
[00:41:21] Speaker C: Alex, Katie, Jack.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: I'm in a thing. I can just shrink.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: And Jack shrunk and got away.
Alex is using his powers, but we don't know what they are yet. Really?
He's flying. Okay.
I mean, we know their gravity powers because we read the.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: So he just moved gravity. So he fell out of the hole that he fell into.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: This is a weird. Just went through a black screen.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: I feel like all these effects were probably done with an Amiga.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the effects weren't that terrible for the time.
Katie is being domesticated now and cleaning the kitchen while everybody else has an adventure or. Sorry, Julie.
Why does Katie have, like, a Challenger of the unknown code on?
[00:42:14] Speaker C: No.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: That's weird. That's dc.
I'll have to show you the symbol after we're done.
It's.
They put it. Okay. They have Katie do the dirty work. Of course.
Now the guy's yelling, return the thing.
All right. Dr. Morbius Mobius.
[00:42:40] Speaker B: Oh, it goes in the painting.
[00:42:44] Speaker A: Got it.
I don't think it's a good idea to put this on the painting. I'm just saying it seems like a terrible idea.
It seems like a terrible idea.
Anytime a painting starts telling you to do things, I'm gonna probably say no.
Is this, like, Goosebumps? Doctor who?
[00:43:05] Speaker B: Step up closer to it.
Like, just take, like, a step forward, kid. Just one step forward.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: Or maybe, like, Alex could.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: Just reminds me of the ending of Monster Squad.
[00:43:18] Speaker A: Alex could just use his powers to put it up. Put her up there.
He does control gravity.
All right, so we've had like a minute of putting this little orb back onto to the painting here. It's like a.
The eye. It's like the eye of Agamotto. Right? Like in space.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: It looks like the prop from the original Doctor Strange tv. Nothing to it.
[00:43:43] Speaker A: Okay, so they've.
Now they've saved the town from the snowstorm.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: I was gonna say that was a very Jack thing to say.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Now Jack Black has returned.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: And I thought it was Orson Welles during his wine period.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: Well, it is. Lo. Jack Black would have not been very old.
[00:44:00] Speaker C: What are you. Sorry about that we weren't here to help with groceries?
Well, that's okay.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:44:12] Speaker C: So you guys did a super job on Kathy.
Thanks.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: What the.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: Julie's shirt. Sweater Looks like the. This sweater.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: So Julie saved their ass. Okay.
[00:44:27] Speaker C: Katie, would you like to go out play with the.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: Katie's making friends that she can kill. Okay.
I don't get this in the sense that.
[00:44:44] Speaker B: Just a minute, Tina.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: There's no resolution to the story at all.
[00:44:50] Speaker C: Hi, yeah, can you hold on for a second? Tina?
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Alex has a girlfriend.
[00:44:58] Speaker C: Do you guys whine?
[00:44:59] Speaker B: No, of course not.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Alrighty.
[00:45:04] Speaker C: Come on, Jack. What did I do?
I am sorry.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: Does Jack not look older than Alex? Do you.
[00:45:11] Speaker C: Could you hold on for just one more second?
[00:45:18] Speaker A: Okay.
I mean, yeah, I can totally see why this wasn't picked up. Like the story did. Nothing.
Like that thing happened at the house with Mobius and then they put the thing back on and he looks at them.
So is this the whole thing? You're just supposed to wonder for the next five shows, like what they're doing with Mobius. Is that what we've set up?
[00:45:44] Speaker B: Knowing how television worked back then, Mobius would never come back.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I guess like my first question watching the show.
I'm really. I'm really not trying to be critical here. 1. I didn't. I didn't think it was God awful, but I wouldn't watch the second episode. Right.
Which I guess why you wouldn't pick it up. Like there's no.
Unless you're just a Power Pack fan or you're a Marvel Comics fan. There's no hook to go to episode two, right? You're not picking up any.
[00:46:12] Speaker B: Well, no, you just make a new episode one. This is the pilot?
[00:46:16] Speaker A: Well, no, no, I just.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: You'd work out the bugs, probably change some cast, make a casting change. Like they'd probably switch Katie out because the little actress isn't. She's really just not experienced enough and not able to pull it off.
They probably would swap out a couple of other things, you know, and that would be that.
[00:46:34] Speaker A: No, I totally get what you're saying about that.
But, like, if what's in here to hook somebody to buy the show?
[00:46:44] Speaker B: That's the thing. There isn't.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: And there was a whole bunch of shows like this at that time already. Like I said, like, the story about the girl whose dad is an alien talks a little out of a jewelry box. You know, that. That existed.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: And there probably wasn't the tech to have them go on a giant space adventure in the place first. The first pilot. Right, right, right.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: So, like.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: But what if they just did a pilot with the origin story?
[00:47:07] Speaker B: Well, you know, back then, they didn't do that.
[00:47:13] Speaker A: It just wasn't a thing they did. But it would have been a much compelling.
It would have been a much more compelling, like, show.
[00:47:20] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the biggest problem the show has is it looks like all the other shows that existed at that time that were generically like this, you know.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: Well, they pick up on the other thing, too. It's like, oh, we've moved to a new city.
You know, you all are gonna have these problems, like, you can't use your powers. All that.
And it just. Yeah. I mean, the special effects, except for Alex with the floating heads, weren't terrible.
[00:47:49] Speaker B: This is very Amiga.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: It wasn't. It wasn't terrible. Like, it wasn't offensive in any way at that time. Like, I would have been watching it and, like, oh, okay, that's cool.
But, yeah, I guess. I mean, moral of the story here is it's not Power Pack.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: I'd say it was closer to Power Pack than I remember, but it's not.
[00:48:08] Speaker A: In the sense of, like, they don't have the moon boots.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: Yeah, there's no moon boots.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: They don't have the costumes.
[00:48:16] Speaker B: They have the costumes. They're not a superhero team.
[00:48:18] Speaker A: They're not a superhero team.
They are kids going on adventure, which is cool. I mean, I could see this working in some way, and it's a different universe. You know, a TV show doesn't have to be the comic like you to make it work. It doesn't have to do that, and that's fine.
But, yeah, I think the biggest issue, actually, I didn't even find it that offensive in any sense. I just don't see anything here that would, like, grab you and have you go, yeah, let's Keep this going.
[00:48:47] Speaker B: So watching it now, much older, a lot more experience than I have.
[00:48:52] Speaker A: Right.
[00:48:52] Speaker B: I can see why I didn't get picked up. Right. It just. It's just. It's just more mushed for that time period. Everything else looked like that. You're probably getting.
[00:48:58] Speaker A: Well, can we also say that Intro.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: Whatever.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: Here's the other thing, too.
If you're gonna not do the comic, then why did you have the intro with the guy saying, I came to Earth to find these kids?
[00:49:12] Speaker B: And again, this is a pilot. You're trying to show all the different things a show can do.
Right. So when they would do the first episode, they would more likely change some things. Like, that's one of the things. They either make the narrator appear finally, either by the end of the episode or something.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:29] Speaker B: As a character, they'd probably. Like I said, they probably switch out Katie. I just don't think that actress was doing very well for the character. They'd probably make a better decision.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: I think they'd switch out.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: You know, I think Alex might have got swapped. Jack was on point. Julie was on point.
I like Julie, actually, a lot. I thought they actually did a really good job because I felt an emotional beat and she smiled over the pictures of having friends.
[00:49:50] Speaker A: Yeah. You like. You like the dad? I didn't like the dad.
[00:49:53] Speaker B: I thought the dad was fine. I thought the mom was great, actually.
You know, So I feel like this show, if it did get picked up, right. With a team, it would be. It would have been fine. It would have been a fine show. I don't think it's bad. Some of the other pilots have been shown over the years.
[00:50:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it was.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: Especially comic book pilots.
[00:50:11] Speaker A: You know, it's not the worst. It's. No, it's not the. It's not the Justice League movie, but the. You know, it's.
It's not. It's.
Again. Yeah, there's just. I can see where, like, you're putting this together, and I get what you're saying about trying to sell everything, but the.
The narration at the start doesn't match the rest of the. What's there? The narration.
[00:50:32] Speaker B: More of that in there.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: Yeah, the narration at the start. I'm expecting to get, like, at the end.
[00:50:37] Speaker B: I. I would have. I would have liked to have seen him get the narration at the end again.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: And I think you need the costumes.
Yeah, I think. I think you need the costume when they go back. When they go back to. Because that is. That is something in the. That's a trope in the comic. Well, something happens, then they all get in costume and they go off and do the thing.
[00:50:54] Speaker B: Well, here's the other thing. This is a pilot. They got $25,000, probably in 1991.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't have money for costumes.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Where are you gonna get a costume? They got a house.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: We just need moon boots, you know.
[00:51:04] Speaker B: They got an Amiga computer, you know, and they got a couple of friends. It's a very small staff list here that I'm looking on the. On the.
[00:51:12] Speaker A: Well, they could have gone to. They could have gone to the surf store and got moon boots for everybody.
[00:51:17] Speaker B: 91. Those were getting kind of hard to find at the time.
[00:51:20] Speaker A: And unfortunately, the rest of our conversation is lost to the ether. I'd like to thank Toby, though, for setting up the video and getting everything ready for us. I thought the video and audio quality sounded great there, so really appreciative of that.
Travis and I had a great time discussing the Power Pack pilot. And if you want to see more of Travis's work, you can follow Albert Poon's nemesis, the Return of Alex Rein, on Kickstarter. It'll be coming out soon and we'll have links for you to get notified upon launch. In addition, you noticed Greg was back, and I'm very excited to be recording episode two, I guess, of the Booster Gold series. That'll be Booster Gold number two. So if you want to follow along, you can pick up Booster Gold Number 2 from 1999. 85. Read it, follow along with us and join us there. That'll be out next week. So very exciting times here at the podcast. And of course, you can find Greg at the Retro Emporium with Anne in Kent, Washington, on Meeker Street. And of course, we also have other supporters and we really appreciate our listeners. Thank you so much. Hope you had fun listening to this podcast. And we'll be back next week with Booster Gold number two from 1985, if you want to pick that up and read it before Greg and I review it with you.
