Dic Geeks

Once rejected into the "Lost media" pile on our watchlist, only to be saved by the neither-here-nor-there land that is Disney+, it's Genius (1999)! The first and only DCOM produced by Dic whilst they were still under Disney's wing, this one follows the story of a child prodigy who just LOVES hockey. I mean damn, he's got a hyperfixation on science, but that hockey though!! Sure, he just made international history by isolating and consequently manipualting the graviton BUT HOCKEY THOUGH!!!! Get your pucks at the ready folks cos this one is a real doozy of an episode.

Okay admittedly that was more of a hibernation than a hiatus, but it is with great pleasure that we can announce that Dic Geeks is finally back once and for all! This here is a little bonus episode to test out our remote recording setup (needs work, as you might be able to tell) and to get the ball rolling again. Listen in as Mark tests Avery's piss poor memory of the show.....and that's actually about it. Yeah, it's a short one, but merely the starter before the main course! 

 In a very bizarre out of nowhere move in the late 80s, Dic made a kid's gameshow. Why? No one really knows, and for the most part, everyone's kind of forgotten about it. ...Mainly because, it's genuinely very forgettable, barring the celebrity specials. Taking the newlywed game and giving it a sibling-based twist, I'm Telling has two closely related children answer specific questions about each other, hoping that they'll both say the same thing in order to earn points and get access to the elusive Pick-A-Prize Arcade where they could win fantastic prizes. Sound familiar? Well yeah, it will do. It's a very generic concept for a show, much less one aimed at kids. As a direct result of this fact, we only spend half this episode actually talking about it, with the latter half dedicated to discussing far more interesting and unique gameshows from the UK. The most notable things we find about it are its creator and some of the young celebs that found their way onto the show back in the day...but who are they? Find out in this week's edition of Dic Geeks!

Child Stars! Y'know, those scrappy actors that start doing stuff from a young age and have prolonged popularity before inevitably fading into obscurity before suddenly coming back and doing interesting things. Take this trio today: Macauley Culkin, who now runs a satire site called Bunny Ears, and the Olsen Twins, who are now established (?) fashion designers; And indeed, most of their back catalogue of acting work can be looked back on as "Regrettable". So with that regret in mind, lets look back at two of their most forgettable appearances. First we have Culkin's "Wish Kid", wherein he plays a kid who owns a baseball glove that was struck by a shooting star and gained the ability to grant time-limited wishes. And secondly, we have Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action! which has the twins play a pair of really quite pathetic secret agent types with a snarky constantly quipping robot dog with a pseudo-scottish accent. You get the idea they were trying too hard with that second one a bit?

Released in 2005 to widespread disinterest and bemusement, the Zizzle Iz was the new music toy created by the bloke who made Furbies. For the most part, it just kind of existed for a while before quietly petering out into obscurity, though if you're in the UK, you may know of it thanks to a McDonalds Happy Meal promotion where they included a far cheaper and almost feature-free version of the toy. Somehow, it ended up with a near hour long cartoon special by Dic which manages to almost completely fail at properly selling the toy to you by way of obscuring its actual functionality. And yet...it isn't so bad? Tune in to DICG FM to find out our full thoughts today!Also yes, we finally fixed all of our audio problems with this episode. Turns out recording on an old "media PC" that's perpetually on a death knell isn't such a hot idea! Who knew?

Yes indeed, we're finally getting the other two Mario cartoons done and out of the way with this episode, as we take a look at two more Dic shows that were instrumental in the creation and perpetuation of the early Youtube Poop fad/movement of the mid to late 2000s. I uh....I don't exactly have much else to say other than that. It's more Mario shit! Yay...? As a sidenote, to echo this statement a third time already: there will not be an episode coming out at the usual time in 2 weeks time! This time next week we will be attending EGX Rezzed, a fun indie-focused video game convention in London and as a direct result of that, we aren't going to have much time to record and edit another podcast. About...3 or 4 days worth and thats also going to be whilst battling travel anxieties and then post-con exhaustion thereafter. So unfortunately there wont be a new episode of Dic Geeks until either the 17th or 24th, with that latter date seeming as if its the most likely one. Thanks a bunch for your patience and for listening!!

Okay, so "Fun" might be somewhat of an inaccurate title for this here special episode of Dic Geeks, but we definitely deliver on bringing you 4 mini reviews of trash garbage cartoons this week! For the Appetizer, we have the mundane and mildly racist Super Dave: Daredevil For Hire (1992)...Meanwhile overin the Entree we have the noise polluted Stunt Dawgs (1992) with a side order of the hideously bland Speed Racer X (2002)...and finally for Dessert we have the least garbage-y of them all: Pole Position (1984), a cartoon that merely lifts the name off the classic video game and then goes off to be a weird kind of almost but not quite spy show?? I have no bloody clue, honestly. Basically put, we tried to do an episode of the latter two toons, failed and popped them on the backburner. Fast forward a few months and we end up in the exact same situation with Super Dave and Stunt Dawgs. So we figured we may as well just get all four of these beasts out of the way and done with rather than vaguely flounder about and try to fill a half hours worth of time trying to talk about some of the most genuinely boring and dull shows we've come across whilst doing this show. None of these are explicitly awful so to speak more just...meh. They're not exactly watchable, they're not really very fun or enjoyable and overall they're all ripe for being tossed into the bargain bin of life. So, sod it, let's bundle them up and make a quick buck! After all, it's 4-in-1, so that means it's better value for money by default!

Another episode, another duo of dull boring Dic shows. What do we have this week? A laser tag tie-in and yet another Fairy Tale Theater knockoff? Bahh surely these can't be any good. ...Wait, for serious? These two are genuinely really good? Well, hot damn, look at that! Photon brings us a quality bit of 80s Cheese, ripe for riffing MST3K style (if you can comprehend its plot) and ALF Tales is a wonderful bit of Fractured Fairy Tales style show combined with the fun poking writing sensibilities last seen in high ranker "Jingle Bell Rock". But what of our full thoughts? Why, dear listener, just have a cheeky peek for yourself. Come in, we have free tea and biscuits, sit down and enjoy yourself for once. Cos this episode is all positivity, baby.*You may note the lack of a fucked audio warning! While we haven't fixed the problem, we were lucky enough for the issue to start occurring precisely as we started figuring out the ranking for these shows, thus allowing us to neatly cut and re-record that section albeit in a more brief manner. Enjoy the first smooth sailing episode in quite a while. You deserve it for sticking with us through these issues. <3

Another lightning round of mediocre Dic cartoons for you this week as we look at the excitable yet dull Pocket Dragon Adventures and the utter travesty that is Lady Lovely Locks. Mark's audio goes a bit funny as per usual at this point (to my dismay) but clears up not long after. So! The cartoons. One is inexplicably based off a series of ceramic knick knacks that were popular in the 90s so already the mere concept makes no sense since the thing it's based off isn't meant for young kids to play with. As for Lady Lovely Locks, she was, of course, based off a doll toy...and as per usual for a girls cartoon from the 80s, everything that happens is entirely nonconsequential and nothing bad ever truly happens to the cast, thus making the entire thing ultimately pointless. Hooray. Sigh. Yeah, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel today, folks. Let's hope for a better pull next episode.

Content Warning - Mention of a cop shooting early on in the episode; Mentioned as part of the discussion about World of Wonder's downfall starting at around 3:21 and ending at about 5:33.Oh, also Mark's microphone starts getting a case of the ol' crackles & distortion around 21 minutes in - it ends completely at 26:05 but note you'll miss the ranking by skipping to that timestamp. We apologise for this unexpected occurrence and, once again, are looking into the cause of this. We're reasonably sure its down to the aged media PC we use to record on, rather than the microphones themselves. Also Avery needs to start using a pop filter if theyre going to be sitting that close to the mic from now on.Regular episode synopsis is as follows: It's time for yet another product-placement special this week on Dic Geeks and today we're taking a looksee at World Of Wonder's last vaguely notable product: Julie. Julie was basically like an ultra Teddy Ruxpin in doll form; she could speak (sans audio tapes, this time) and move her mouth whilst doing so and had rudimentary forms of speech recognition to allow for further interactions between the child and the toy. Whilst it's this fascinating bit of 80s tech, it's also completely and utterly cursed. So, perfect material for an overly long special that's incredibly light on the plot, then. Great...

Dic Geeks returns for the third year running to tackle the still-pretty-bloody-large remainder of the dic catalogue! This week we cruise it easy with two half hour toons; a failed pilot for a superhero show loosely based off POGs and a McDonalds special based loosely off Treasure Island. Come, bask with us under the cool shade of cynical 90s garbage designed to sell worthless gubbins and fast food.

Christmas special time yaaay. A Christmas Carol (1997) is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the Dickens classic with awkwardly bodged musical numbers scattered throughout; meanwhile "Xmas Marks The Spot" being the ending to the first season of The Real Ghostbusters whilst doubling up as a Christmas special. But how do we fully feel about these things? Is this entire episode mostly mailed in because we wanted to get it out of the way and enjoy a nice break from watching this trash? Listen in and find out.

Mark and Avery finally tackle Dic's big movie McGuffin, Inspector Gadget (1999) starring Matthew Broderick. How does one describe Inspector Gadget the movie? Well, first take about 3 or 4 vague character traits from the cartoon along with their names, hire actors that have a vague passing resemblance to their cartoon counterparts and then consequently ignore everything else the source material has to offer. Then proceed to create an hour long movie that constantly throws cartoon antics at you in a vague attempt to keep you engaged to the film whilst it blasts bizarre product placement at you. That should just about do it. Put simply, it's bloody awful. And it's time to give it its just desserts.Now the eagle eyed of you might have noticed that this episode is an entire week late. We acknowledged this as being a possibility in the original recording itself due to the length of it nearly clocking in at 2 hours along with also getting a new computer (which theoretically means more efficient editing), but then new life issues suddenly reared its ugly head in right as things were seemingly starting to settle down. Oh, and the microphone gave us the gift of corrupted audio again. Yay. So, yeah, this episode is not only late but its not in the best of condition either. There's an audio warning before Avery's microphone gets REAL bad along with a timestamp so you can skip that part of the episode; you'll miss some of the discussion, but at the same time you'll also save your ears from quite the grating experience. The episode intended to come out this week will be coming out shortly after this one as compensation, and then we'll try to resume our regular schedule. Ta for putting up with us!Music at the end by ghostwerk: https://ghostwerk.bandcamp.com

What happens when you cobble together dusty old stereotypes, a second hand vhs of sailor moon and a half-arsed stab in the dark at pandering to kids? You get Groove Squad, DiC's only Sunday Movie Toon not to be based on either an existing property or public domain literature. And what a toon it is; this early 2000s relic attempts to mimic what Totally Spies and Kim Possible did so well and ultimately fails on so, so many counts. On a more positive note, we got a new microphone cable and (touch wood) so far, so good!

When Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolf Man are indicted by the monster council for not being scary enough, hijinks ensue. Which is basically another way of saying 'Generic Cartoon Antics'. In this slightly late Halloween Special we examine this forgotten Halloween classic, and then almost immediately forget it ourselves. It's all very forgettable. I think there was a version of Jason made out of spaghetti? Anyway, we counted about three genuinely decent jokes throughout this entire feature-length cartoon, and for one of those three, it trod on its own toes and ruined the joke. There's only two words that can perfectly sum up this special: Wasted. Potential. Well, as wasted as you can get for a cartoon whose entire base concept is "What if we turned the Monster Mash into a cartoon?"Note; This episode was 100% intended to be out before Halloween but due to awkward scheduling circumstances and general mental health issues, Avery has only just now been able to properly sit down to edit it. Apologies for the delay!

A show that is far too much to watch for more than 5 minutes and a show that has a fantastic theme song and immediately plunges downhill thereafter. Oh joy. Well, we've already covered Bump in the Night before on our Christmas special episode last year, with the dreaded 60 minute long "T'was the Night Before Bumpy" but now we're paying our dues and actually looking at the show as it should be and yeeeeah no it really isn't improved in its shorter form. Mummies Alive! fares a little better but not by much - apart from the kickass theme tune created by the same dude who composed the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers theme tune, it's a bit bland and has a lack of any real substance past tired cliche tropes and cartoon antics. This episode is a little bit on the naff side since Avery was falling asleep in real time and honestly couldn't put up with either of these shows for very long. Sorry about that. We'll be back next episode with Monster Mash.

As we were at a gaming con last week (which we probably should have mentioned beforehand, whoops) we decided that the only way to make up for last week's missing episode was with time travel. Sadly we don't have access to a Delorean, so instead we had to do with watching Time Kid. This clunker was one of DiC's series of Sunday Movie Toons, and was based on H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine', a novel we haven't read but are pretty sure has something to do with eugenics. Thanks to us coming down with con crud this one is a little shorter than usual, but quite frankly there's not much to say about 'DiC tries to make a Victorian novel cool and fails'.

History has always been a ripe subject for fiction, and so it was inevitable that in our dives through the DiC Archives we'd find ourselves a matching pair of shows with very different approaches to historical accuracy. THE MYSTERIOUS CITIES OF GOLD is a pseudo-historical romp through South America inspired by turn-of-the-century conspiratorial ramblings about lost continents and ancient technologically advanced empires, whilst LIBERTY'S KIDS is an extremely detailed look into the American War of Independence made in an effort to try and get children to learn something for once.But can slow-paced French anime from the early 80s keep Avery's attention? Will Mark gain an appreciation for American History? Should Aaron Carter be allowed to rap patriotically over scenes of a brutal 18th Century conflict? All these questions will be answered and more!

What? *Two* cartoons an episode?! Yeah, that's the new structure, get with the times my pal. We're trying out something new; not only are we reducing the overall workload by doing this but also it allows us to have a more relaxed and proper discussion-y feel to each cartoon instead of just droning on about plotlines and bad characters. This week we have the New Kids On The Block cartoon ("Everything wrong about celebrity toons" according to TVTropes) and Hammerman (Literally Mc Hammer's very own cartoon). One's a stinker and ones a corker, and I feel I may have ruined that already. But hey!Oh, right, yes, also here's a SPECIAL ALERT for this episode: You guessed it - fucked audio! This time round it was nothing to do with us directly; instead my microphone inexplicably started distorting audio every so often throughout the recording along with making a bunch of clicking noises. Now, the clicking noises I've managed to remove, but I wasn't able to keep the distorted audio in. Thus, A Totally Not Noticable At All replacement recording has been spliced in where this happened. Yeah, this episode is a bit of a mess but it should hopefully give you some idea of the structure and next time we're going to take more precautions to hopefully stop this from happening so we can give you a good quality episode for once. Thanks for your patience and we love you! <3

An interesting collection of jobbers, an entire plotline pulled out of literal thin air and a dog that was known mostly from being a brand of stationary. Against all odds The Poochie Special, a pilot from 1984, genuinely ends up being one of the more enjoyable Dic shows we've seen in a while. Barring the 80s mild racism, a fun loving attitude and an adorable talking dog that is part time adventurer and part time temporary CEO of a newspaper company, this cartoon is a little strange. A lot of it happens out of nowhere; it opens with a kid being inexplicably chased through the streets of Cairo with no explanation, only for the guys chasing the kid to completely disappear the moment Poochie and her robotic assistant Hermes get there. And then theres a bit where they somehow end up at the hands of the last remaining worshippers of Osiris (who is inexplicably female here)? It's...weird. Again, somehow despite all this bizarre and completely unexplained bullshit, The Poochie Special ends up being genuinely a pleasant watch. Whilst there's not much opening for more episodes after this one (which is probably why it failed as a pilot), it's definitely worth a look at for the sake of a random cartoon being made out of a popular-at-the-time series of plush toys and stationary.Once again, I must apologize for the audio in this one. It was all over the place once more and we ask of you to please be patient with us as we try and figure out a more solid recording method that allows us to have more decent and consistent levels. Next episode will be coming in a fortnight, now that we're finally back on the right schedule! Thank you for putting up with our constantly stumbling arses.