What A Cartoon! - The April Schedule

Spring has sprung for the Talking Simpsons Network, and with five Mondays in April, we have plenty of podcast fun in store for you with What A Cartoon! (And with all these Mondays, it's a shame we did our Garfield episode back in October.) This month, our choices are varied as usual, as we start with a '90s WB classic, then jump back to the '80s to visit some of the lowest lows and highest highs of that decade. Following that, we'll give you a dose of not just anime, but NEW anime, and end the month with some feel-good '90s environmentalism.

And if you're not a subscriber, signing up at the $5 level will get you each episode a week ahead of time and ad-free, along with our past exclusive miniseries and dozens and dozens of bonus podcasts on top of that!

[April Fools! We're actually doing the live-action series Strangers with Candy first this month and pushing Captain Planet to next month. Check out the revised schedule below:]

Strangers with Candy - "Yes, you Can't" [Patreon Date: 4/1/19 - Free Feed Date 4/8/19]

To make you listeners feel like fools—April Fools, if you will—we're dropping a surprise episode into your laps on the first of the month with our first look at a live-action cartoon! April kicks off with Strangers with Candy, a brilliantly subversive after-school special satire of the late '90s that had a 30-episode run on Comedy Central. It's one of our favorite series of all time, so luckily we've found a flimsy excuse to gush about it on our podcast network!

All of Strangers with Candy is available on DVD, and you can also watch it on Comedy Central's website.

Pinky and the Brain - "It's Only a Paper World" [Patreon Date: 4/8/19 - Free Feed Date 4/15/19]

The breakout stars of 1993's Animaniacs weren't the Warner Brothers and their sister, Dot, but Pinky and the Brain: a rodent duo bent on taking over the world despite their status as captive lab mice. So when Warner moved all of its cartoons to The WB in 1995, it only made sense that Pinky and the Brain would get 66 glorious episodes of their own series. We cover the second season premiere and the show's surprisingly deep history on this first podcast of the month--you'll never think about where peas grow in July the same way again.

Currently, you can watch all of Pinky and the Brain on Hulu (if you live in America).

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends - "Videoman" [Patreon Date: 4/15/19 - Free Feed Date 4/22/19]

Spider-Man starred in more than his share of cartoons, but few were as unintentionally hilarious as this one. In this early work by Marvel Productions (makers of cash cows like Transformers and Muppet Babies), Spidey finds himself paired with titular Amazing Friends (Iceman and Firestar, a new creation) to have some extremely low-budget superhero adventures. Bad cartoon connoisseur Matt McMuscles joins us once again to discuss "Videoman," a blast from the past directly inspired by the golden age of arcade gaming.

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends isn't streaming anywhere, but you can buy individual episodes from plenty of different online sources.

DuckTales (1987) - "Back to the Klondike" [Patreon Date: 4/22/19 - Free Feed Date 4/29/19]

DuckTales stands as such a key show in the lead-up to the animation renaissance of the '90s (and one that we've mentioned a LOT so far), it's about time we got around to covering it in our podcast series about every animated series ever! DuckTales set a new standard for television animation with its well-told stories and glorious outsourced Japanese animation, causing a real arms race to escalate in the industry until everyone realized how cheap it was to localize existing anime. For our look at DuckTales, we'll be diving into "Back to the Klondike," an episode that (loosely) adapts an original Carl Barks story, and one that also dives into the surprisingly deep history of Scrooge McDuck. And duck expert Matthew Jay will be sitting in on this podcast to help us solve mysteries, but not rewrite history--we're above playing god on this network.

DuckTales isn't streaming anywhere, but you can buy individual episodes from plenty of different online sources. 

The Promised Neverland - "121045" (Episode 1) [Patreon Date: 4/29/19 - Free Feed Date 5/6/19]

The Promised Neverland rose through the ranks of weekly Japanese comics compilation Shonen Jump, and with good reason. While it isn't about burly men/boys locked in mortal combat--as the most popular Jump series tend to be--Neverland offers a compelling game of cat and mouse, the likes of which we haven't seen since Death Note. And thanks to a request from one of our very generous patrons, we'll be covering the first episode of the incredibly new anime adaptation this month on What A Cartoon!

Currently, you can watch The Promised Neverland on Crunchyroll and Hulu (if you live in America).

We've got quite a lineup of podcasts ahead of us, and this isn't even counting this month's episode of the What A Cartoon Movie for $10+ patrons. Stick with us, because there'll be more fun to come, and even more episodes of TalKing of the Hill!