Deborah Ratcliff Blog

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Cartoons have long been a staple of television programming, making the jump from their theatrical movie warm-up act to the small screen in the 1950s. During the 1950s, major film studios had all of the popular cartoon characters in their pockets, and since these studios regarded the new entertainment format of television as a deadly enemy, they refused to supply animated programming to TV. This situation was highlighted by the success of Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater. When Uncle Miltie's comedy-variety show was on, movie theaters were almost empty.

It was up to a talented group of newcomers to develop animated fare to keep the kiddies occupied on early morning weekdays and of course Saturday morning. The rising popularity of children's programming led to television being dubbed an “electronic babysitter”, even more so today when kids under twelve watch more TV than at any other time in history.

The following list is a good cross-section of the changes in this industry, from simple cartoons that were little more than individual pictures with narration to action adventures with science fiction themes encompassing outer space and cyborgs. Some of these will be familiar, and others will probably leave you scratching your head because you won't remember them.

Crusader Rabbit (NBC 1950-51) This was the first animated series made for television, and the brainchild of Alex Anderson and Jay Ward, who went on to do Rocky and Bullwinkle. They teamed up in 1948 and began producing stories about a white rabbit in knight's armor and his sidekick Ragland T. Tiger (or Rags for short). Despite being called crusades, there was nothing religious about the stories. The original 195 episodes led off with Crusader going to Texas to fight against rabbit hunting in that state. Lucille Bliss was the rabbit's voice, and she also did voices for 101 Dalmatians, The Smurfs, Walt Disney's Cinderella, and the recent film Robots.

Beany and Cecil (ABC 1962-67) Originally a prime time show, this classic moved to Saturday mornings after its initial run. Beany, a young boy, roamed the oceans in a ship called Leakin' Lena, captained by his uncle Horatio Huffenpuff. His constant companion was Cecil, a sea serpent with delusions of being a super hero. Cecil looked like a puppet because he started life as one on an earlier TV show. The propeller hat worn by Beany allowed him to fly. You could always expect recurring villain Dishonest John (with his trademark “Nya-ha-ha” laugh) to capture the boy, who would then scream for Cecil to help him. The serpent always obliged with his catch phrase “I'm comin' Beany-boy”.

Marine Boy (Syndicated, September 12, 1968-August 1, 1969) Marine Boy was the show that popularized Japanese Anime in the United States, the first such show to have a wide American fan base. We never found out his real name, but he was the son of Dr. Mariner, the scientist in charge of Ocean Patrol, a defense organization. Marine Boy used a suit with built-in jets to zip around under water, and employed something called Oxygum so he could survive without diving equipment. He would use a device called a sonic boomerang, which was clipped to his arm, against his enemies. He was helped out by a dolphin named Splasher and Neptina, a young mermaid whose long hair always managed to hide her upper body so no one would be offended.

Herge's Adventures of Tintin (Syndicated, 1963-1971) This show was mainly relegated to stations in larger metropolitan areas of America, and was usually on around 9 AM. Although he's been around since the mid 1920s, Tintin is a relative unknown in the United States. In Europe and Canada, he is a legendary comic book figure created by a Belgian artist and writer. He was a young reporter for 20th Century Magazine, although he was rarely seen at his writing desk, instead being involved in globe trotting adventures with Snowy (in the French language known as Milou), his white dog of questionable breed, and human friends Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, and detectives the Thompson Twins, after whom the popular 1980s musical group named themselves.

8th Man (Syndicated, 1966) A murdered detective's body is claimed by a professor who uses it in an experiment to create a cyborg, transferring the policeman's life force into the android body. This being his eighth attempt at the process, which is successful this time, gives the title character his name. The cyborg continues to fight crime, now with tremendous new powers, including super speed, tremendous strength, and the ability to electronically change his appearance, and eventually brings his killers to justice. One of the things that may have killed off this Anime series was the fact that when he needed extra power, 8th Man would get it from something resembling cigarettes which he got out of a belt compartment.

The Adventures of Jonny Quest (ABC, premiered September 18, 1964) Jonny is the son of widower Dr. Benton Quest, a brilliant scientist often found working on government projects. He travels all over the world in an action packed series of adventures, accompanied by his bodyguard Race Bannon, his best friend Hadji, an orphan from India, and a small white bulldog named Bandit because of the black mask marking around his eyes. A live action version of this show has been in the works for several years, yet the production keeps getting shut down by on-set accidents and weather problems.

Space Ghost (CBS, premiered September 10, 1966) Radio legend Gary Owens provided the voice of Space Ghost, a super hero of dubious origin dressed in a white costume and black mask. He can fly and uses wrist mounted power bands to harness various types of energy beams. His galactic adventures were often complicated by his friends Jan and Jace, who along with their pet monkey Blip always managed to get into trouble. Also supplying voice talent were Keye Luke, Ted Cassidy, and Tim Matheson. The TNT Network brought him out of retirement decades later to host the mock talk show Space Ghost Coast To Coast.

The Herculoids (CBS, September 9, 1967-September 6, 1969) Set on the far away world Quasar, this program followed the adventures of Zandor, his wife Tarra, and their son Dorno. They were helped in the defense of their planet by a group of highly exotic creatures. They were Igoo, a huge rock ape with incredible strength; Zok, a dragon capable of emitting energy beams from his eyes and tail; Tundro, a ten-legged armored pseudo-rhinoceros that fired explosive rocks via a cannon-like horn; and two globs of animated protoplasm with size changing and body-splitting abilities named Gloop and Gleep.

Atom Ant (NBC, premiered September 12, 1965) Possibly the world's tiniest superhero (with the exception of Fearless Fly), he lived in an ant hill on the outskirts of town and used his great strength, speed, and flying abilities to fight crime. The local police department seemed to be composed of only two officers and an unreliable patrol car, so Atom's help was always needed. He wore a costume consisting of a long sleeved turtleneck orange sweater emblazoned with a blue “A”, purple tights, and a white helmet adorned with holes which permitted his antennas to stick out.

Courageous Cat (Syndicated, 1960) Bob Kane, the creator of Batman, brought us this parody of his own bread-and-butter super hero who fought crime in Empire City with his companion Minute Mouse. Everything in this show was a spoof of the original Caped Crusader, such as the Catmobile and the Cat Cave. The main villain was The Frog, who went around speaking suspiciously like Edward G. Robinson. Courageous Cat always produced a gun with whatever capabilities he needed to solve a problem, a lampoon of Batman's utility belt. Courageous' voice was supplied by Dallas McKennon, who was also the voice of Gumby and later on Archie in that CBS cartoon.

As we look back at these cartoons, we see a pattern emerging. Most of these were, as many cartoons still are, male-oriented action series. Research shows that the largest audience for animated shows is male, perhaps because the male brain needs rapid, sometimes violent action to get its attention, whereas girls are more drawn to shows that involve detailed story telling and depth. There is no need to wonder why boys are more violent than girls when you consider this early training they get via television.

Above is a random extract from Associated Content, visit Associated Content for the actual writer for this article.

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Lately, Valve has been working its way into what could be described as a niché market. It has been taking what it does best, and applying it to extremely tightly packaged multi-player releases. Its first debut with next-gen , tight multi-player systems came with the Orange Box. Team Fortress 2 was a heavily awaited title with its stylized graphics and exceptionally balanced game play. The next strong, heavily awaited title, Left 4 Dead, actually beat out pre-orders for the Orange Box by 95% – that ought to tell you something.

There have been a myriad of zombie mods for Valve games and non-Valve games alike: from the zombie mod in Halo to the highly refined Zombie Panick and Zombie Survival mods for Half-Life 2 multi-player and Garry's Mod. Noting the trend, you can see that there is a high demand for a game that features tight teamwork, intense game play, and of course a never ending onslaught of zombies and mutated humans that will tear apart anything to get to you. Valve moved on this demand, and moved very well – buying TurtleRock Studios ( the company that made the counter-strike mod as well as a few others ) and turning them into a branch of their company to get the job done.

Through all this, now we have the demo that has been so eagerly awaited as a strong taste of what's to come in this highly demanded series. Out on November 6th, 2008, people were immediately joining up to see what the craze was all about. Let's go into the first few hours upon release, what issues where patched and where things are going from here.

Upon loading up the Left 4 Dead demo, you'll notice that Valve has gone for a lobby system on both the Xbox 360 and PC versions. While Xbox 360 users may find this a usual way of doing things, PC users are not so happy about this choice. No doubt there will be more options for starting and hosting games once the full version comes out, but as it is currently, running your own private servers and joining games with friends can be rather complicated. There are no options when you initiate a “Friends Only Game” to run your own passworded server and when you start the game, a list of dedicated servers will be polled. Then the game will start, and there is a good chance that you will have joined a passworded, broken or otherwise unusable server. When this happens, you do not go back to the lobby, you go back to the state the game was when you opened it. This can be very frustrating for both finding friends-only severs, or when you join a public game and get to know people in the lobby only to have it kick you out and never see any of them again.

But, these are matching options which can be rectified far more easily than game play mechanics themselves, so I will summarize with the most common phrase I saw in lobbies in the early-on hours of the demo, “this game is awesome when you can play it”. That sums the demo up perfectly, but let's get into the different sub-systems of the game.

First we'll go with actual game play. In the demo you get to go through 2 maps in the No Mercy campaign, which is the city oriented campaign wherein you try to reach the Mercy Hospital. As you get plopped into the game, a helicopter is flying by your rooftop alerting everyone who can hear their message to head to mercy hospital. As the helicopter's passing blows off the temporary tarp on your shelter, your survivors start talking amongst themselves about how to get there. Now, personally ,if I were in this situation, the rooftops where most uncoordinated zombies couldn't navigate, would be my choice, but I suppose that's not that interesting.

Instead you head down into the zombie filled apartment building, heading for the subway tunnels of all things. It's worth noting that the atmospherics in this game are excellent, and the map design is reminiscent of the urban areas in Half-Life 2 except more detailed and refined.

As you head down into the apartment, you'll find many zombies just lying dormant and when they are not in a hive attack mode, then you can easily pick them off, or let them be if you really desire to leave them as a liability. Many of the zombies act like confused, hurting humans when left to their own devices, and hold their heads or vomit repeatedly – overall very nice detailing on the part of making them appear infect by a real virus, instead of a magical voodoo curse.

The weapons in the game boil down to whether or not you want precise, powerful shots, semi-powerful scatter shots or moderately powerful, rapid fire shots. Your weapon choice will be up to you, but with friendly fire enabled on all servers, make sure you have a weapon that suits your abilities and team play tactics. If you want to lead, then a scatter shot is definitely for you, as you can duck at the head of the group and blow back mobs for people to pick off, this is also good for the tailing man, but if you're going to stay in the middle and pick off zombies, you will probably want a more precise weapon unless you like the idea of constantly knocking down your leading team mate with gunfire.

Really this game shines in how it balances the friendly-fire mechanic. In cramped spaces, you have to observe your fellow team members and spread out if you want to be efficient with your gunfire. Otherwise some of you will wind up not firing at all, lest you hit your own team members. In the tighter areas of the game, your sense of finding a good angle to shoot from, as well as your teams ability to spread out and shoot around one another, really count more than accuracy itself at times.

You also have a handy melee attack on all of your firearms, which can knock regular zombies back and open up your field of view a bit. I did a bit of initial testing with a friend, and it seems like you can get quite far with this attack, so it shouldn't be underestimated. You can completely clear the “Normal” levels by doing just that and considering when to get out of the line of fire of your team mates. On the harder difficulties, it is mostly invaluable for saving ammo, being silent around a witch, or delaying the onslaught just enough for your team mates to reload.

The healing systems are also handy ,as you have health kits, which can be applied to yourself or others. Health kits are well-rationed throughout the level and you never really feel like you have enough. Then there are pain medications which give you temporary health for fighting a big battle -this may not sound helpful but due to Left 4 Dead's messy and rambunctious nature, temporary health is almost as good as regular health.

You'll also find one other type of weapon in your arsenal, but you have to seek them out in the levels: explosives. Explosives come in two variates, the first being inventory items. You can carry one explosive at a time, and you will usually find Molotov Cocktails littered about. Occasionally you will find zombie attracting pipe-bombs which are hands down the best crowd control measure you will find in the game. The second type of explosive occupies your hands while you are carrying it, and that is the explosive container. You will find propane, oxygen and gasoline tanks all over the levels – shooting them will either cause an explosion or a bed of flames. Either way, explosives are entirely for controlling crowds of zombies quickly.

As you progress through the stages, especially on harder difficulties, you will run into boss zombies, though they are more like mutants, which can usually put your plans completely on hiatus while you struggle to fend them off. The three common boss zombies are the Boomer, the Hunter and the Smoker.

The Boomer is very audible when he shows up, as he gurgles and makes a considerable amount of noise, but he can still surprise you and he's capable of throwing up on you, obscuring your vision as well as exploding and doing a considerable amount of damage and blinding you further. The director can sense when your team has been blinded and will often send a rush of zombies your way. It is especially difficult to tell the difference between a friend and a zombie when you are blinded.

The smoker is a normal looking zombie with a smoker appearance, though its primary attack is a tongue lashing attack which can grab and pull survivors away from their friends, then strangle them. This can be incredibly disruptive if the smoker has chosen a good vantage point. Otherwise the smoker is fairly weak, and when killed it emits a cloud of smoke that makes it rather difficult to see.

The hunter is the least disruptive of the group, though potential the most damaging. It can pounce on survivors from a great distance and pins them down, then starts tearing them apart quickly and it's up to the other survivors to shoot the hunter off before it kills the pinned survivor. Usually the hunter is dispatched very quickly so they are only mildly disruptive most of the time.

Then, you have the super bosses: These guys will ruin your day, or maybe all of your days. The most disruptive is easily the Tank, especially on the harder difficulties. The tank has an immense amount of health, he can move pretty fast, and he can put survivors on the floor with one good hit then pound them to death. An effective tank is capable of killing all four survivors with little trouble on the harder difficulties. Thankfully the Tank does not spawn as often as the other bosses, making him somewhat manageable.

The only non-human playable zombie boss is the witch. The Witch is a scrawny looking female zombie that can be heard from far away because of her moaning and crying. She can be bypassed completely if she's in a convenient spot, or dispatched during a lull in action if you have enough weaponry. The witch's HP isn't ridiculously high so if you have the second-tier weapons and the time and organization, you can likely drop her without losing a single team member. But if you accidentally alert her in the middle of a fight, she will usually kill the offender and then run off somewhere. She usually doesn't cause team wide destruction, just a lot of panic.

As time has gone on with the demo, several patches for fixing the matching system have been released and the experience of match finding has gotten better. People have also discovered how to do various interesting things with their dedicated servers, like use custom maps. Counter-Strike fans will know the map de_dust – the AI director actually works perfectly within it, though it's not the most enjoyable play through. Players have also unlocked the versus mode to some degree, though it is rather broken. I have been in servers where the admins have constantly spawned tanks; it was completely impossible, but fun nonetheless.

Overall, the game itself is excellent and as Valve tightens up the matching system and play experience, we will have a perfect co-op FPS that's chock full of intense action. Happy hunting!

Above is a random extract from Associated Content, visit Associated Content for the actual writer for this article.