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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 27, 2000)
Love, Brak Style THE SPACE GHOST SIDEKICK’S FAVORITE DATE FLICKS In my opinion, a date movie should be a movie that you can ^o to with a date. And hopefully afterward, there's food involved. Did you know you can ^et fried cheese at the movies now? Once 1 had a date and ordered five plates of fried cheese and ate them all by myself, because 1 figured, "She paid for 'em, 1 mi^ht as well eat 'em." But where was 1? Oh. yeah, date movies. Here are my top five. -Brak. as relayed through really painfvl mind control to Scott Brown O The Delicate Delinquent [1956, Paramount, unrat ed] For such a jerk, Jerry Lewis sure can make a funny movie. And speak ing of jerks... Q The Jerk (1979. Univer sal, R] The scene where Steve Martin has his pants pulled down is one of the best pants-pulled-down scenes in movie history. © Plan 9 From Outer Space {1958, Phino. unrated] This is the most realistic por trayal of alien zombie in vasion I've seen—and I've seen 'em all. And inciden tally, you people of Earth are idiots. O KISS Meets the Phan tom of the Park (1978, GoodTimes. unrated] 1 tip my hat to Hanna-Barbera for the use of the band Kiss in such an original fashion. Where were the Golden Globes that year, 1 ask you? © Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer (1985. Warn er, G] 1 thought it would be a harmless animated feature, but this whole planet ?ets stolen and, well, 1 just couldn’t watch any more. My date, Marla Hibbs. said that Rainbow Brite eventually comes in and saves the day. but once 1 ^ot scared by the bi^. bad, evil Princess. 1 ran as far from that the ater as 1 could. Marla also said she had to hitchhike home. Soon after, she stopped returning my calls. 1 still ride my bike past her house, though. Space Ghost dreams the impossible dream Thus, the Powerpuff jet streaking across America’s skies (the girls ap pear on the rear end of a kid-friendly Delta Express 737), the Powerpuff album, featuring Devo and Frank Black, and the Powerpuff the atrical movie, slated for release in 2002. A pretty impressive yield from McCracken, an ani mator who envisioned an audi ence of “stoned college kids.” Which, come to think of it, gives a whole new meaning to that mysterious Chemical X. IF THE REACTION TO THE Powerpuff Girls has been chemical, the success of Car toon Network’s other pint-size -1 protagonist hit, Dexter’s Lab oratory, has been explosive. Dexter was born of a California Institute of the Arts student film by Genndy Tarta kovsky—a classmate of McCracken's— called Changes, about a carefree, per petually pirouetting young girl: the proto-Dee Dee. Tartakovsky realized she needed a foil, so he gave her a broth er, “a grumpy little boy scientist. And I thought he should have a big lab in his room.” He also decided Dexter should have an untraceable Eastern European accent. Later, while working on 2 Stu pid Dogs at Hanna-Barbera in the early ’90s, Tartakovsky’s film made its way to the nascent Cartoon Network’s brain trust, and Dextet'’s Labcrratory became the channel’s first original series to bring in more than a million viewers. Tartakovsky, 30, attributes this success to a deep and abiding desire to please not network executives, but himself: “Otherwise, I have to think, well, what will a 6-year-old find funny? Well, throwing up and failing is funny
