the sugoi report

8pm Friday Ryan and I are in the Covington convention center ready for Hell. Anime Name That Tune is wrapping up and Ryan is not even trying and is naming all the tunes. The projector is there and on, and there's sound, but there aren't any VCRs or DVDs in the room, so I have a word with certain upper-level staffers. Turns out the tech staff was pretty much recruited a month ago, and they haven't been briefed on what Hell needs. After a few false starts and some equipment failures (well, it didn't work to start with, so you can't call it a failure) we're up and running. Tezuka's short film Jumping continues to please audiences, Afro-Ken mystifies, the Ned Flanders show gets applause. Two SCTV shorts - 5 Neat Guys and the Ken Ishimuni Show - go over really well. Futurama "Tales Of Interest" are well recieved, Godzilla trailers and a Japanese pen ad are both popular, and Flinstones smoking cigarettes and drinking beer are always popular. Cartoon All Stars To The Rescue continues to amaze and mystify. The Nensler GI JOE PSAs are very well recieved. Both the Lockheed caveman drugs film and the British Army LSD experiments get laughs, and the trailer for GREEN SLIME is greeted with shocked awe after I explain that the film is directed by Kinji "Battle Royale" Fukusaku. Some religious show clips lead into PERVERSION FOR PROFIT and from there the Live Versus Anime '04 segment, which is both educational and amusing and includes a singing duo dressed as the Dirty Pair and the computer-animated Macross. Gojo's Balls are disturbing and yet still get laughs. Clips from LIVE AND LEARN seque into the famous scene where some unknown guy tries to jump over a moving car. From there we move on to Klaus' Forklift Funnies, which gets the biggest applause of the evening. The combination of gross-out gore and deadpan German narration is a hit. The Fake Heino raps to the audience's delight and the real Heino does techno, and Domo-Kun rocks out. Monkey versus Robot is requested and shown, and I wrap up Hell with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog mocking Star Wars fans. As usual a lot of stuff was on the playlist and yet didn't get screened - I want Midnight Madness to start as close to Midnight as possible. There are some titles from this show that will be retired for a while. I think Monkey Versus Robot has been there and done that, and either I come up with a new Live Versus Anime or I just run clips of the Japanese Spiderman, because that gets a lot of applause.



Reports have it that an "old lady" was seen in the audience taking notes all throughout Hell. Apparently she was scribbling furiously and did not seem to be amused. Hopefully this is for some sort of alarmist, outraged piece of propaganda. If you see Hell mentioned anywhere, let us know.



Hell wrapped up only slightly after midnight, and from there the tapes and DVDs went back to the room to be dispersed later among Ryan and Neil Nadelman, to spread the pain far and wide.