The Space Adventures of Little Gay Longcat

Part 1: Beaucoup Mish

Doctor Who is fabulous

I have been watching Doctor Who again, a story called The Mutants with Jon Pertwee in it as the Doctor. Here is a picture of Ky when he becomes very fabulous:

This is Ky with Jo Grant and Sondergaard and Cotton:

At the end of the story he defeats the baddys with his fabulous powers.

At least I think that is what happens. I didn't understand all of it.

I like the monsters in the story, they are googly-eyed aliens called Mutts and it turns out they are not baddys really. It is a fun story and one of my favourites with Jon Pertwee in.

Monkey Challenge: Monkey Swallows the Universe

So with the initial three 'set-up' episodes out of the way, the rest of Monkey consists of a series of stand-alone stories. Monkey Swallows the Universe is about the demon couple Golden Horn and Silver Horn who want to eat Tripitaka to gain eternal youth.

Naturally Tripitaka gets captured by them, as do Pigsy and Sandy who prove to be as useless as ever - especially Pigsy, who doesn't even put up a fight when he is caught in a honey trap by the lady Silver Horn. So it's up to Monkey to rescue them.

Most of the action centres around the demons' magic gourd that can trap and kill people. Monkey, learning of its existence and properties, fakes up a magic gourd of his own that can supposedly 'swallow the universe' (hence the episode title) and swaps it for the genuine magic gourd with a pair of gullible henchmen.

There follows various shenanigans - Monkey is briefly caught in the gourd but gets out and pretends to be his own brother. He fights with the demons and eventually Golden Horn is caught in his own gourd and killed by it. His wife is distraught by this and so Monkey and the others get away.

This is a decent enough episode, well-realised (by Monkey's standards anyway - only a couple of really dodgy effects) and the simple plot is well padded, with Monkey being captured by Silver Horn three times: once with the gourd, once under a mountain (Monkey escapes easily; it's not the first mountain he's been trapped by), and once with a magic rope.

This last is the cause of the best line of the episode - the Narrator says: "When what is indestructible meets what is irresistible, the female all too often wins. Monkey has been roped by a lady."

150th post

I have been watching lots of Avengers recently, it is very good and I like Steed, he is a very cool manny - so cool he is almost a cat.

My best episode so far is The Hidden Tiger, when baddys turn cats into tigers!

I have also seen The New Avengers. It doesn't have Emma Peel in it, it has Mike Gambit and Purdey instead, though Steed is in it which is good because I like him. I think Mike Gambit is my favourite though, he is a very handsome manny and it is funny when he unsuccessfully flirts with Purdey. I think he likes Steed really.

My best episode of New Avengers so far is Cat Amongst the Pigeons. I don't want to give too much away, but cats save the day at the end!

I still like Star Trek, and I have been watching the Animated Series with Star Cat. It is different from normal Star Trek in that they are all cartoons and the stories are shorter (which leaves more time for sleeps so that is good in a way), but the characters are the same.

Here is a picture of cartoon Sulu:

Bye bye for now, I have more Avengers to watch!

Monkey Challenge: The Great Journey Begins

The last of the three 'set-up' episodes, in which Monkey and Tripitaka meet Sandy and Pigsy and so their party is complete. There is then time for a short adventure wherein Tripitaka is captured by a spirit that wants to eat him - the first of many throughout the series. This time it is the Tiger King, ruler of the Tiger Ghosts.

As with the previous episode, a lot happens here so the story goes by quickly. My favourite scene is where Monkey makes friends with Pigsy while fighting him, and there is a reference to Monkey being baked in Lao Tzu's crucible - an event not seen in the TV series but part of the original Monkey legend.

Also fun is Monkey's first meeting with Sandy and his exclamation "you cannibal!"

Little Gay Longcat

This is Little Gay Longcat. He is the mascat of the Rainbow Warriors.

He is only little but he is brave. And long.

Monkey Challenge: Monkey Turns Nursemaid

While the first episode Monkey Goes Wild About Heaven could be considered a prologue to the main story, dealing as it does with Monkey's backstory leading up to his imprisonment under a mountain by Buddha, it is here in part two that the main story gets underway.

The Boddhisattva Kuan-yin, a goddess - in "male aspect" and so played by a man - looks for a truly holy man to go on the great journey from China to India to fetch the Buddhist scriptures that will save souls. He (er, I mean "she") finds Hsuan Tsang, a boy priest, who is so innocent he even prays for the soul of his father's murderer.

The boy is given the name Tripitaka and sets out on the journey, and on the way comes to Monkey's mountain prison. He releases Monkey and they travel on together. But it is not long before they are attacked by bandits and Monkey - enjoying his first fight for 500 years - kills them.

Tripitaka punishes Monkey by putting a golden band around Monkey's head. This was given to Tripitaka by Buddha and it causes the wearer great pain when the words of a secret sutra are spoken. With this Tripitaka can control Monkey, and this - along with Monkey's distinctive cries of agony whenever it is used - is a feature of the rest of the series.

They meet a dragon who eats Tripitaka's horse, but this dragon was waiting to join the journey in return for being saved from execution by Kuan-yin. When he finds out it was Tripitaka's horse he ate, he joins them and takes the form of a white horse to atone.

The episode concludes with them meeting a Night-Demon, the first of many demons they will meet along the way. Monkey defeats the demon with one of his many magic tricks and then they continue the journey, with Pigsy and Sandy still waiting to be encountered in the next episode.

This episode has a lot happen in it - indeed I would say that the plot with the Night-Demon, here the most inconsequential part of the episode, is the kind of thing that could form the entirety of a later, more typical, episode of the series.

This is overshadowed by the backstory of Tripitaka, his meeting with (and taming of) Monkey, and their meeting with the dragon horse, because these are important for the shape of the series as a whole.

One thing I still can't get over, even having watched the entire series before, is how Tripitaka - a male character - is both played by and dubbed by a woman. It makes me think of the character as female unless I really think about it to remember.

Monkey Challenge: Monkey Goes Wild About Heaven

The first episode of Monkey was so utterly unlike anything I'd ever seen before that, the first time I saw it, I was instantly hooked on the series and spent the next few months staying up into the early hours of the morning to watch the Channel 4 repeats c.2002.

A Japanese series about a Chinese myth that was dubbed into English with such wit as to mix Buddhist philosophy with fourth-wall-breaking asides, by voice actors who stay just the right side of taking the piss.

Monkey Goes Wild About Heaven is atypical of the series as a whole, as it takes until the end of the third episode for the main characters to be united and begin their journey that is the main set-up of the series.

Most of this episode is set in Heaven and concerns the attempts of the Jade Emperor of the Western Heaven and his useless advisor, the spirit of the star Venus, to deal with the Stone Monkey King who has learned some magic tricks and who now styles himself "Great sage, Equal of Heaven."

I call Venus "useless" because his advice is always to appease the Monkey - first by offering him a position in Heaven in the hopes that this will keep him quiet, and then (when this fails utterly) by giving him a position with some actual responsibility.

Once Monkey has eaten of the Peaches of Immortality he is become such a nuisance that the Jade Emperor is forced to call in Buddha to deal with the troublesome ape, and Buddha responds by dropping a mountain onto Monkey for 500 years to teach him a lesson - literally; the lesson is "learn patience."

While causing trouble in Heaven, Monkey meets the "Commander of the Hosts of Heaven" and the "Marshal of the Heavenly Host" - both of whom end up being expelled from Heaven to become Sandy and Pigsy, Monkey's future companions.

Having read the Penguin Classics version of Monkey by Wu Cheng-En, translation by Arthur Waley, I can say the story told here is pretty faithful to the original, though cut down rather a lot, and further that reading the book helped me to understand a bit more of what is going on, as it is not always clearly spelled out for the uneducated viewer.

Still, the gist of the plot is easy to follow and Monkey is an immediately likable character, appealing to the rebel in all of us against the stuffy, eternal bureaucracy represented by Heaven.

The production of this episode is first-rate (for the time) and holds up well today. Where the sets or effects are sub-standard they make up for them by careful direction and the aforementioned wit.

I would definitely recommend watching the beginning of the series of Monkey because, while it loses its way later on and becomes somewhat repetitive, the initial storyline is a classic. Monkey Magic.

The Monkey Challenge: 52 episodes in 52 weeks

For the new year 2011 Duncan and the Monkeys With Badges are going to be watching through all of Monkey at one episode a week, just like the Prisoner Challenge or the I Claudius Challenge or the Blakes 7 Challenge.

I like Monkey too so I will be joining in when I am not having important sleeps.

Caturday Presents

Look what Duncan got for Caturday (or it may have been Christmas, that's what mannys have instead of Caturday).

It is series 4 and series 5 of The Avengers, with Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee. I look forward to watching them this year.

Happy New Caturday

Hello everyone. It is Caturday today.

I didn't get a Forever Active Mobility Vehicle for Caturday, but I did get a picture which is even better than that. I will share it with the Internets so you can see how good it is.

Who is that handsome cat in the picture? It is me.

I like things that remind me of me, so I am a happy cat today.