Wolf Gnards

Kobayashi who? Joey Chestnut what? The best eaters have always and will always come from cartoons. Great eaters aren’t made, they’re drawn. Cartoon characters can eat massive amounts of food, often in one bite, with little to no ill after effects. Cartoon eaters came in two sizes: ultra fat and model skinny. Most are super strong, but all of them are supernatural eaters.

Great cartoon eaters come from all corners of the world, and represent different things to different cultures. In Japan, huge eaters are heroic… often lumped together as the good natured, slow witted strong man. Innocent, invincible, and with insatiable appetites. Large meals apparently fuel their punching power and fireballs. American and western animation often depict the big eater as the total opposite. Fat, slovenly, and cowardly, often clumsy and almost always comic relief. When bad guys attack, nine times out of ten they’re cowering in closet clutching a hoagie.

Top 12 Cartoon Eaters

12. Wayne Gretzky (ProStars) – Not much is known about the mythical Wayne Gretzky. We know he skates, on what or for what purpose anthropologists still have no clue. We know he’s blond and possibly Canadian. And that’s it, that’s all the data available. So, when they made ProStars (a cartoon about athletes who for some reason have to save the children) the producers had to make up all kinds of Gretzky tidbits like some fictional sport named “hockey” and his incredible appetite. I presume they made Gretzky such a big eater because of his vague resemblance to Shaggy.

11. Winnie the Pooh (Winnie the Pooh) – Winnie got his honey filled butt stuck in a tree trunk trying to eat more honey. That pretty much sums it all up. The view of most Winnie the Pooh fans is that heart disease is ok because it’s just plain adorable. Pooh bear (as they call him in the hood) ate so much honey, I assume that real bears must love honey. If a bear attacked me in the woods, I would throw honey at it and assume I’d be just fine as it gets its head stuck in the pot. Winnie the Pooh’s stomach has ruined my chances for wilderness survival.

10. Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece) – Luffy is perhaps the dumbest and hungriest fighters in anime. Perhaps the dumber an anime character is the more he has to eat to make up for said dumbness. Luffy has a rubber body and stomach that makes it easy to stuff in vast quantities of food (powers he got by… yes, eating. A magic fruit in Luffy’s case). Rubbery arms also makes it easier to steal from other’s plates. Luffy even eats when he’s sleeping.

9. Nibbler (Futurama) – Nibbler is actually not much of a nibbler. He’s more of a swallower. A swallower wholer… of mostly living animals. With skinny eaters, the joke, of course, is that no matter how much they eat—2x, 8x their body weight—they stay razor thin. Nibbler isn’t merely skinny, Nibbler is tiny. He makes a great pet though since you don’t need to cook his food (a whole zebra will do), his stool is dark matter, and he’s sentient. Let the The Feast of a Thousand Beasts begin!

8. Naruto (Naruto) – Naruto is a ninja and a ramen eating machine. Naruto is another simple minded, yet powerful Japanese character. And as eaters go, he’s just a couple of steps beyond what a real person eats, but he has a demon fox sealed in his stomach, so that has to count for something. The reason Naruto is so high is because he’s so indelibly linked to his food of choice. As ninja turtles are to pizza, Naruto is to ramen. His favorite ramen dish involves hard boiled eggs… that sounds like a great fat kid bet (as in, I dare you to eat this, fat kid). Remember that ramen is super high in calories, so it’s extra impressive he manages to stay so thin.

7. Monterey Jack (Rescue Rangers) – Monterey Jack has a fever and the only cure is more cheese. Monty actually has a pretty bad cheese addiction, a Chip N’ Dale intervention is probably in order. His severe cheese withdraws cause sweats, hallucinations, and the shakes. Not to mention, the mere scent of cheese makes Monty float, a quality of all good fat cartoon characters… that and sucking the meat off of chicken bones.

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Great parody by Jeff Loveness and Prussian Sunset. I love Wes Anderson and I love Spider-Man, so I would have no problem if this movie actually existed.

I’m a Sam Raimi fan, but the project has to move on, and Sony and Marvel could actually do worse than Anderson. Rushmore is one of my favorite movies, and Spider-Man 2 is my favorite comic book flick, so let’s make this happen. I’m serious. He did a fun job with Mr. Fox, I’m sure he could handle Spidey. Maybe, the big face off is a bit of a let down, but the entire Spider-Man 3 was a let down, so who cares?

I felt after Spider-Man 3, Raimi seemed kind of done, his webshooters were dry as they say. I don’t think it was his fault it was awful though. The person I would love to see banned from a new Spider-Man franchise is Avi Arad, chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment. He’s the one who pushed Venom into Spider-Man 3. If he’s involved it will just be about making toys and selling merch.

Of course, the other problem with Spider-Man 3 is the lack of respect for the source material. One problem with all comic book movies is that the screen writers think they’re better than comic book writers, so they feel confident that whatever trash they put together will be inherently better than a comic book simply because they themselves are better than comic book hacks. It’s this hubris that is ultimately the undoing of most comic book films.

Comic books have a vast mythology and legend associated with them, and whether or not it’s intentional or by accident is irrelevant. To ignore this mythology is giving a middle finger to every comic book fan that ever lived. And, of course, Spider-Man 3 is just one gigantic middle finger. The essential problem though is that Venom is a promotional character created for the sole purpose of dollars and cents. There is no myth worth telling. Here’s the comic book back-story on the symbiote in case you didn’t know. During the Secret Wars (A mega Marvel cross-over pitting every superhero vs. every supervillain created by marketing douchebag, Jim Shooter), Spider-Man tore his costume up and needed to use a costume making machine, but went through the wrong door and found an evil symbiote machine instead. No lie, that’s the story. There is lots of substance to the Eddie Brock character and Venom, but still at the end of the day he’s just a wrong door.

But anyway, no matter who they tab to revive the Spider-Man franchise, whether it’s Marc Webb or whoever, let’s hope it’s someone with the right balance of goofiness and reverence, and with the gnards to say, “Avi Arad, you’re kind of an idiot.” My vote’s for Anderson

Another no show for Hiro, and since it’s the second week in a row, that’s an automatic negative two. Pat Morita was on Happy Days more than Masi Oka has been on Heroes. I guess the only alternative to work him on the show would be to pop his head up and say, “Me so horny.” Because they can’t work him into the show through clever writing or anything like that.

What’s more though than his absence is that there’s no hope for more appearances. No Masi previews, no integral Masi story line. I hope Hiro’s story line this season didn’t end with that terrible dream sequence. However, all seasons of Heroes basically end the same way.

The Scooby Doo Ending

Although, he bears a striking resemblance to Scrappy Doo, Hiro actually plays the Shaggy of Heroes. See in every season, Hiro plays some small, mostly wacky yet vitally important part to the seasons climax. The gang has set up the trap, Fred/Peter Petrelli tries to lure in the Monster/Sylar, the net doesn’t spring, and Daphne/Claire does something girly in the corner. This is when Shaggy/Hiro slips on a banana peel and collides into the Creature/Sylar thus foiling his plans. And, of course, we reveal the twist that monster is really Linderman or Peter’s dad or whoever in a cheap Sylar rubber mask.

Hiro never has a big role in saving the world, but give him his god damn banana peel, NBC. It’s all he has.

Since Wolf Gnards seems to be forever intertwined with February 2nd, I thought I’d take a moment to wish everyone a very happy Bill Murray. As we now know Bill Murray Day bears resemblance to old Pagan holidays based on Stripes and Caddyshack. However, the origin of Bill Murray Day actually comes much later when the first Bill Murrays came to America. A tradition dating as far back as Brian Doyle-Murray and his ilk.

The myth states that on February 2nd every year, Bill Murray crawls out of his hole, or Murray cave. If he sees his shadow, the Bill Murray burrows back into the earth and we’re do for six more weeks of Bill Murray articles. The phenomenon is caused by Bill Murray’s winter hibernation, as he is still groggy on winter sustenance of Twinkies and whiskey, he is not quite ready for the bright lights of paparazzi. The many articles are used to slowly coax the actor out and ease Bill Murray back into the spot light.

Bill Murray article topics can include:
How Far did Bill Murray run in Meatballs?
How Long did the Ghosts visit Murray in Scrooged?
How Many Baby Steps did he take in What About Bob?
How Long Will the Average Proton Pack Last?
How Many Strikes did Big Ernie McCracken Bowl in Kingpins?
What’s the Genealogy that Makes Bill Murray and Bernie Mac brothers in the Charlie’s Angels films?
What does the Japanese Director tell Murray in the film Lost in Translation?

And, of course, the ever classic Bill Murray Day article:
How Long Does Bill Murray Spend Trapped in Groundhog Day?

And remember when Chekhov saw the long Murray, he saw a Bill Murray bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that Bill Murray is just another step in the cycle of life. But blogging here among the people of Wolf Gnards and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous Bill Murray.

According to legend, The Masters of None Morning Show was discovered in a abandoned radio station in Punxsutawney, PA. These are the wacky morning men that Bill Murray listened to every day for 8 years, 8 months, and 16 days… and, of course, it drove him crazy. I would have killed myself too if this is what I woke up to every day for a lifetime. Is it real? I don’t know. Take a listen to the special Groundhog Day radio show and decide for yourself.

It’s a goof, but it’s a hell of a goof. Masters of None did a great job putting this together this fake broadcast. The sound effects and the effort just blew me away. And they got the Groundhog Day All-Stars to participate, which I guess includes me now. More than me though, they got Needle Nose Ned Ryerson (Mr. Stephen Toblowsky)… bing. That’s star power (and I mean that without a hint of sarcasm, too). Wolf Gnards is actually negative star power (or as my Mom says, “If you’re so famous, why haven’t you been interviewed by Matt Lauer?”), so Ned Ryerson is a pretty big get. I can’t even get Data from the Goonies to give me a call back. Everyday I call him up and every day he tells me hold on to my potatoes, whatever that means.

But listen as I butcher their poor podcast. I play a clueless phone caller, who happens to be actually be clueless in real life. I had no idea what was going on, and it really comes through in my performance. I didn’t even get the six more weeks of winter question right. This is why I do the typing and not the talking so much. It was a lot of fun to call though, and Masters of None is a fun bunch. Check it out.

It appears Teen Wolf has raised more questions than simply can a werewolf can dunk (which… duh… we’ve all seen the movie, yes, werewolves dunk), namely would you rather get with Scott or the Wolf. Are you a Boof? Or are you a Pamela? Do you like the safe, comfortable much walked path? Or something dark… and furry. This is the age old debate of the the nice guy or the bad boy, and a werewolf is just a very bad boy. It the realm of monster love the werewolf is one of the worst. In terms of acceptable monster dating it goes vampire, Frankenstein monster, zombie or mummy, werewolf, and Creature from the Black Lagoon (fish breath).

What makes the a werewolf such a bad cub? The problem doesn’t have to do with a degree of evil, but the outwardly appearance of evil. The big teeth, claws, hair, eyes, nose, are all designed to terrify. Even if a vampire isn’t handsome or seductive, they’re designed to hide and to resemble a human, so that they can strike when you least expect it. A werewolf is just a vicious head on assault. A night with a vampire is almost hypnotic, even relaxing. Whereas a werewolf is violet act no matter which way you slice it.

There’s bad and then there’s creature of the night. The lure of the bad boy isn’t that he’s bad, it’s that he’s attractive and he’s bad. And the fact that he’s bad presents an opportunity for change. Either a) you can change him through your love or b) he loves you enough to resist his natural evil impulses. So, when the sparkly teen vampire doesn’t suck your blood, you can say, “Wow, you must really care about me with me all not being dead and all.” The werewolf on the hand is ugly, so who cares about his personality anyway. Surprisingly what you’re really after is Mick McAllister… good on the outside, bad on the in, and for some reason a 21-year-old still in high school.

To be into the wolf, you’re not just looking for bad, but an experience. Something to tell your grandchildren (if you’re the kind of granny who tells their grandchildren they had sex with werewolf). The crowd wasn’t cheering “wolf, wolf, wolf” at the prom because they loved that wild and crazy wolf, but because they wanted to see something truly disturbing. Sex with a werewolf is the horror movie equivalent of a Tijuana donkey show.

So, what does it for you? Nice guy Scott (and remember Scott only has eyes for a typical bimbo)? Or the Wolf?

Teen Wolf Poll: Scott or the Wolf

So, far we’ve had a write in vote for Scott Wolf, Harvey Keitel’s wolf, and a Scott Howard/Werewolf double team (which is only possible on a cloudy night).