Teletoon’s Pilot Project takes flight

The search for some Canadian content on an Americanized channel

By Angela Espinoza

anadian animation has always been
‘ very unique. We’ ve provided the
world with many breakthroughs
in this form of entertainment, which has
also gone on to influence various video
games and film mediums. From Norman
McLaren’s 1952 short film Neighbours
to the founding of Nelvana Animation, in
1971, all the way to one of the first CGI
shows, Reboot, we’ve proven time and time
again that we’ve got the realm of animation
pretty much covered.

Up until the mid ‘90s, YTV was the
only major Canadian source for kids to get
their cartoon fix. However, as the years went
on, we all needed something a little edgier:
something that could keep us entertained as
our curfews got later and our excuses for not
doing homework were running slim. Thus,
one glorious October morning, in 1997,
Teletoon was born with animation making
up 90 per cent of its programming; and I can
feel my heart soaring as I write this.

Aside from providing younger
audiences with relatively older (yet still
entertaining) Canadian cartoons, Teletoon
was the main source for when we wanted to
“break the rules” by watching their nightly
programming blocks: the names have
changed over the years, but it’s currently
known as The Detour.

This programming block changed
my life—although I’m sure it’s had some
negative effects as well. After all, when
you’ re six years old and exposed to
programming like Duckman, The Head
and Spawn there are bound to be some side
effects. But I digress. This nightly block
of adult animation proved that cartoons
weren’t just for kids. Although the main
line-up was made in America, the all-
Canadian animated shorts that aired during
commercial breaks proved that Canadian
animators were far beyond the term “messed

”

up.

16

 

In recent years, however, The Detour
has depended more on America’s nightly
block Adult Swim by Cartoon Network, at
the expense of Canadian animations—those
surreal home-made shorts lasting well up to
fifteen minutes. Fortunately, Teletoon has
seemed to take notice of this fact, and has
thus concocted a way to get home-grown
Canadian programming back in its rightful
place.

The Pilot Project is a new experiment
Teletoon is running in hopes of giving one
lucky Canadian talent their own cartoon
show. From October 23 to December 25,
each week Teletoon will air one preview
episode of a potential cartoon series on the
Teletoon Detour website. Voting and viewer
opinions will be considered, and the preview
with the highest positive feedback wins.

I’ve been following this competition
so far. The first preview, Ninjamaica, is
about a stereotypical Jamaican ninja with a
marijuana lust...seriously. Another preview
I’ve caught is Angora Napkin, based on
a Canadian graphic novel. From what I
could grasp, the extremely basic premise
is about three hyper-sexualized (that’s an
understatement) women who are in a band.
It almost bought me off with extensive Evil
Dead references, but I feel the writing is
beyond bizarre and nonsensical —and not in
a good way. I like the ‘90s animation style
and the use of stock footage, but the entire
thing comes off looking like a bad college
project. Dunce Bucket is a collaboration
series, featuring many cartoon shorts within
a single episode; however, the shorts would
work better as individual clips on YouTube.
Nerdland is by far my favourite; it’s
basically a claymation version of the film
Fanboys.

All in all, not the greatest start, but
there are still several more weeks and
previews to go, and, hopefully, a new show
will break the rift we seem to have been
caught in when it comes to airing adult-
themed Canadian animation.

 

That’s right folks—the rock ‘n’ roll
master has done it again!

Dave Grohl’s new outfit appears seamless and perfect

By Jay Schreiber, Arts Editor

ow the hell does this guy do it?
HE: Grohl is without a doubt

the most prolific rock musician
since the mid 1990’s having played in
over a dozen bands and winning countless
awards. Put it like this: he is the rock and
roll Michael Jackson.

In his new band, The Crooked
Vultures, Dave Grohl has, in a way, put
together a trio of the “best of’ rock and
roll to date. So what has Dave Grohl done
in his time to end up in this new group
destined for fame?

After Nirvana was overly praised
for their contribution to the 1990s music
scene, Dave Grohl wanted nothing more
than to get as far away from that project as
possible. What’s shocking is that he did so
with songs that were intentionally written
for Nirvana.

On the first Foo Fighters album,
Dave recorded every track including
vocals to complete the mix. After putting
together a supporting group and going
on tour, one of the most impressive feats
by any popular musician was completed:
a drummer turned frontman, proof that
he wasn’t just bangin’ the skins behind
Cobain.

After Foo took off, Dave relocated
to L.A. and helped a lot of his friends in
the SoCal music scene. Drumming for his
friends in Tenacious D, their career started
rolling and have associated with the Grohl
ever since. Jack Black has made his way
into to Foo music videos, and the G-Man
himself can be seen as the shiny demon in
Tenacious video “Tribute.”

Dave’s other projects include
Probot, a heavy metal side show featuring
infamous heavy metal vocalists such as
Snake from Voivod, King Diamond and
Lemmy from Motorhead. This project
never went on tour, yet the tracks have
been circulated and the single “Shake
your Blood” filmed a music video with
the Suicide Girls

The stoner rock group Queens of
the Stone Age recruited Grohl for his
heavy-hitting drum sound on the album

Songs for the Deaf. Again, it was after this
album that the Queens reached a larger
audience with the hit singles “No One
Knows” and “Go with the Flow” both of
which had Grohl’s drums as a key factor.

Frontman and founder of QOTSA
Josh Homme has remained good friends
with Grohl and the two worked together
on other projects such as the California
Desert Sessions. Homme also recorded
guitar licks that were used on the last two
Foo Fighters albums.

Grohl is unique, however, in the
sense that he is one of the first musicians
to collaborate with his musical influences.
He performed a stellar version of Queen’s
“Tie your Mother Down” along with
Brian May on the six-string. Led Zeppelin
bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones
has lent his classic style to the Foo
Fighters on more occasions that one.

So with the Crooked Vultures,

Dave Grohl is returning to his roots and
climbing behind the drum set once more
to play in a trio, something that he hasn’t
done since his Seattle grunge days. The
other two members, Josh Homme and
John Paul Jones both bring their own style
to the group, giving it an almost orgasmic
sound.

It’s not Nirvana, It’s not Zeppelin,
and it’s not quite Queens of the Stone
Age. The sound is a result of three
musicians who flat out get it. The drums
are heavy and pumping, the guitar riffs
are entrancing and coincide with the lyrics
perfectly while the bass holds everything
together.

They’ve been nicknamed Queens of
the Zeppelin Fighters and their first album
comes out on November 17. What’s
shocking is that Grohl has managed to do
all of this while continuing to record with
the Foo Fighters, whose “‘best of” album
comes out later this year.

A video can be found online of Dave
Grohl drunkenly swigging from a bottle
of Crown Royal while he explains that
people can’t tell him what to do because
he was in Nirvana. I dare anyone to argue
otherwise.

 

Dave Grohl