into reruns already

[davemerrill]

Too busy and my scanner is in a box, so the Let's Anime this week is a column about parody dubbing that I ran last March over at Anime Hell, and earlier it appeared at the Athenstown newspaper, I believe. Newly updated with anecdotes from Pinesalad Production's Alan!

http://letsanime.blogspot.com/

By the way, you know what's awesome? Those new Puffs tissues that are impregnated with the menthol smell of Vicks. They are awesome. You get a box of those and that's a weekend right there, man, the Puffs is a four-way trip baby! They'll probably find out it causes brain damage soon, so stock up now.

Comments

Re: Hey Dave - It's been 11 years but...

[(Anonymous)]

Matt Murray-Corn Pone Flicks

First of all, I'm amused that someone has managed to get so far through life without realizing that there is no "e" in the word "corn." On to the actual point:

At no point in that panel-and I WAS on it-did we ever tell you "this is our panel," because we had always shared the parody panel with other groups since A-Kon had started. I remember it as the panel where you guys never said very much and didn't seem very enthusiastic about talking about your own work. Hence, we did a great deal of the talking.

In regards to any "ceast and desist" orders, I can clarify this quite succinctly: it never happened. I did get up and say quite loudly to the people who were filming the panel that we had no problems with sending out our stuff, and anyone who had a problem with that could come and sue us. 11 years later, no one has sued us. No one from Voyager (the company owning Yamato) ever contacted us for any reason, and we have never denied to anyone making Star Dipwads. It's still up on our website, big as life. What DID happen was that one guy sent in a request on legal letterhead because he just happened to work at a law firm and wrote his letter on company stationary. We wrote back asking if this was a legal matter, he said no, and that was that. A few years afterwards, we did get emailed by a lawyer working for ADV regarding a non-parody sub of Queen Emeraldas we'd done, asking for "sales accounts" and such nonsense. We pointed out to him that the website was quite clear on the whole "free" issue, our translation come first and was not based on theirs, we weren't selling the videos, it was fair use, and please go away. He responded saying he needed to go "check some stuff," basically, and that was the last we ever heard from him.

There's plenty of people out there who don't like our stuff, either-even I don't like much of it anymore-but I don't feel the need to spend my time tracking them down to tell them how wrong they are.

By the way, the word is actually spelled "sherbet."

Sherbert and Sherbet are both correct

[corellianjones.livejournal.com]

I draw to your attention to the following explanation which can be found at the link below:
http://www.bartleby.com/68/37/5437.html

*************************
Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.

sherbet, sherbert, sorbet (nn.)


Now the name of a frozen dessert, the word sherbet appeared in English in the seventeenth century, meaning “a cold fruit drink,” and developed two spellings reflecting its two pronunciations, sherbet (SHUHR-bit) and sherbert (SHUHR-buhrt). Today both spellings and both pronunciations are regularly encountered in both British and American use, to the discomfort of some purists, who argue that only sherbet is acceptable. Meantime, food fanciers have reborrowed this word in its French form, sorbet, pronounced both in the French way (sor-BAI) and an anglicized (SOR-bet). Standard English now uses all three forms, although Edited English usually clings to sherbet and continues to italicize the French sorbet as foreign. Australian English now uses sherbert, both alone and in compounds, as another name for beer.
*****************

Now for the sake of argument, let’s just say for a fraction of the moment we had made a misspelling with our namesake. What right do you or anyone else for that matter have to try to make us spell it the way you want us to? Have your ever seen “theater” and “theatre” when someone writes? Which is the correct spelling? Both are. BTW I was the one who spelled it "Sherbert" so it tends to be a issue with me when people try to bring this sort of thing up. Nothing personal mind you.

Re: Sherbert and Sherbet are both correct

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

So who exactly is trying to "make" you do anything? Jesus, call it whatever you want! Throw some Z's in there if it makes you feel better.

The naming of names

[corellianjones.livejournal.com]

I do believe you guys are somewhat sensitive when it comes to the proper spelling of your name. You state the following on your own website:


10. Be accurate. Don't call us "Corn Porn Flicks" because that's not our name. Don't ask if we have anything besides what's listed on this site. We don't.

In case you forgot your own link where to find this then I suggest clicking on the link below

http://www.cornponeflicks.org/cpfcontact.html

Have a nice day now. I have to do some editing with Sherbert’s latest.

Re: The naming of names

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

Matt put that up on the CPF website because referring to Corn Pone Flicks as "Corn Porn Flicks" is actually pretty common. I've seen it myself on several occasions, and not only does it add a sleazy and mis-representative angle to our work, it's a dead giveaway that whoever uses it can't be bothered to listen to anything else we say, either. Which isn't that big of a deal, but when you tell people to send 3 blank tapes at a time and they send 12, you kind of want to weed out those who can't read for comprehension.

Spelling "corn" with an "e" on the end.... that, however, is a new one you've managed to come up with.

By all means, please get back to work editing your latest fan parody video. The world is waiting!

Re: The naming of names

[corellianjones.livejournal.com]

Let’s be honest here Dave, Matt put that on the website because it pisses him (and probably you) off when someone refers to the wrong name. Believe me when I say I’d be just as pissed off if I were you. Here you spent all this time working on your stuff and providing your little service to people who want copies of what you have, and they can’t even get your name right when all is said and done. A pox on them I say! How dare they malign your name while placing demands for your work.

In regards to the extra “e” that Phillip added to corn, well that was his error. I can certainly see you and or Matt being upset about that. I wouldn’t have responded to Matt at all if he simply complained about that, and had not insisted on adding, what I can only assume, was one last parting jab saying Sherbert was a misspelling. I felt it was necessary to correct him on that one point

And thanks bunches! Knowing that the world is waiting for Sherbert’s latest is a great comfort to me. Can I quote you on that when I make the trailer? ^^

Re: Sherbert and Sherbet are both correct

[(Anonymous)]

Matt Murray

I checked, and you are correct. I defer the point on the spelling, which I would likely have never mentioned had not your friend misspelled our name repeatedly, "corne" not being a word at all. I note that as you have chosen the most minor, throwaway comment in my message to pick at, you are tacitly conceding that the rest of it was correct, and that there are no resource websites out there espousing separate but equally accurate versions of history regarding whether or not we ever received a Cease and Desist notice, and have wisely concluded that the accurate version is the one emanating from the individual to whom the event actually occurred.

Either way, however, your repeated assertion that criticism reduces to an attempt to control your output or enforce our views upon you borders on ludicrous. "Rights" have nothing to do with it. If I express annoyance at the preponderance of crappy pop-punk bands who feel the need to stick an arbitrary number in their name, is that really to be taken as a concerted effort to strongarm said bands into actually changing those names, particularly, as in the original posts here, the comments were not even directed at the party in question, but at a friend or friends of the speaker? You obviously went looking for comments referring to yourselves, and then, upon finding some negative ones, accused the writers of said comments of trying to tell you what you should do with your group, when they weren't speaking to you in the first place.

I fail to see what our dislike of being called "Corn Porn Flicks" has to do with anything at all being discussed here. If someone was writing of you and kept referring to you as Fetid Swamp Rat Productions, you'd be quite right to correct them. I simply don't want to be falsely connected with porn, and particularly when lived with my parents, didn't want videotape packages with the words "porn flicks" on them showing up. I didn't write to those people and say, "what right do you have to tell us to change our name?" because that's obviously not what they were doing in the first place. Incidentally, I don't need you to help me find material on my own website, which I'm quite familiar with and regularly maintain, instead of leaving it sitting for ages until it turns into an old folk's home for ten trillion spam emails.

I personally never really cared for Pinesalad's parodies, either, but Pam and Alan were fun to hang out with and I enjoyed seeing them. They didn't seem to care for our stuff, either, but they didn't come off as having a chip the size of Nebraska on their shoulders to anyone who criticized them. I can level criticism against anyone I want, anytime I want, and it violates nobody's "rights," whatever you imagine those to be. Why should you care what people think of you, anyway? I don't like Michael Bay, but that doesn't mean I think he's a wretched failure as a human being.

Incidentally, Seishun Shitemasu's website says you're lame. You might need to go bust their chops.

If it helps, I'll offer this: Our film, "The Making of Star Dipwads," was a poorly-written, badly-assembled, irredeemably unfunny pile of crap. Anyone else who says so is 100% in the right to do so.

Re: Sherbert and Sherbet are both correct

[(Anonymous)]

Phillip Sral again.

Criticisms are one thing, but for Dave infer that we're:

"Four Doughy Fanboys with huge egos'; and that we were all wearing satin jackets with Ranma on the head of a dinosaur..."

And to be clear again, two of the Sherbert members were female (and not at all 'doughy' or obese) - goes a bit beyond actual criticism and honestly seems more personal than critical. You want to criticize what we've done? Great. But don't sit there on some high horse and try to say we must have some huge chip on our shoulder because we can't take criticism. But cheap shots based on a faulty memory can hardly be called criticism in my book. Please go take a look at "Ranma 1/2 Vacation" on Veoh and criticize away. I have no problem with actual criticism; and over the years, audience criticism has help us refine and improve what we do.

As for a large ego, do I and other members of Sherbert have them; and are they "larger" than most? Probably as many people wouldn't want to get in front of a microphone or spend hours editing a production for no compensation other than seeing an audience react. In fact, I'd say the relative egos of Sherbert Productions cast and crew's members are probably as big and swelled as those of CPF's cast and crew's members; as we do this for similar reasons.

As for Pam Buck, I have to say that I think in her case she was jealous of our technical ability and hated that if we were at the same convention; she felt we stole a lot of her thunder, and got upset at that; but again, what really bothered her is that she could never match our technical ability. But, that said, she definitely had a chip on her shoulder as far as we were concerned; and on a few occasions did get rather personal; so I responded by putting her in our "Dirty Pair II: Dirty Pair Does Disneyland" as a character; and had her bailing Adam Warren and Torren Smith (the guys who created the American version Dirt Pair comic of the 1990ies) out of jail. Also, things between Sherbert and Pinesalad mellowed and back in 1990; she even invited 4 of us to her Birthday party (and I still feel bad because when she invited us, she didn't tell us it was her birthday she was celebrating as I would have even brought a card). Still, if there's any 'bad feelings remaining, they're on her end. The only thing I will say is that it was interesting to see her over-react; or try to 'call us out' when we were at the same conventions. I actually documented some of that stuff on the Sherbert website; which has been down for about a year (believe me, I thought my Sherbert days were over - but that's another story in itself), but which I'll probably be putting back up on it's own domain within a month or so.

As for the Sheishun folks, they actually have a valid gripe because of a situation at Anime America 1991 that I to this day think was orchestrated by some members of Pinesalad Productions; but that's water under the bridge. Again, (and imo) it all stems from the fact that they couldn't match our technical ability back in the day of analog editing; and while I can say that I've never cared for their stuff either, I can acknowledge why they might still hold a grudge or something.

Still, I don't care for out and out personal attacks or gross mis-representations of our motives; and that's what compelled myself (and CorellianJones) to post replies here.

As for "Corne" not being a word per se; you are indeed correct; and I do apologize. But "Corne Pone" is a corn dish *(see this link):

http://www.rainbowgardensbookshop.com/cookbook.html

and I actually and mistakenly thought that's how you spelled it - but I was wrong in that and I do apologize.

Bottom line: Criticize our policies and our works all you like; but when someone makes some out and out unjustified and rather personal comments regarding the people that have worked for Sherbert Productions; you damn well better believe I'm going to say something in response as (imo) that crosses the line. I'm still glad to see some of the "old guard" from the late 1980 -1990ies of anime fandom still talking about the 'good old days".

A correction if I may

[corellianjones.livejournal.com]

Actually Phillip, I’ve just looked at the comment that Dave made about our logo. It says the following:

**************************
They made up their own satin baseball jackets with the logo of one of their parodies - a Jurassic Park logo with a Ranma silhouette instead of the dinosaur.
**************************

I don’t really read it that Dave meant that we put Ranma on the head of a dinosaur. Just trying to be fair about this.

Re: A correction if I may

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

You know, I already apologized for my faulty memory and the insulting tone of my 11-year old impressions. If you guys want to continue to beat this dead horse, fine, but please realize that at this point you're complaining about something that's already been resolved, as far as I'm concerned.

Re: A correction if I may

[corellianjones.livejournal.com]

Dave, the only reason I’m in this part of the thread was to correct Phillip on what he thought you said. That’s it, nothing more, nothing less.

Re: Sherbert and Sherbet are both correct

[corellianjones.livejournal.com]

I thank you for acknowledging my point about the spelling of Sherbert. As for the panel, AWA, and the rest of that? I’m staying out of it because the panel didn’t mean much to me. It was a waste of time in my opinion. I’d have liked to have done a bit of a workshop program in which each group talked about the best ways to go about making fan parodies. The cease and desist isn’t something I can prove or disprove, so it is a moot point for me at least.

In terms of people posting about Sherbert, well they can do so, but I will comment on it if it suits me. I am part of that group, and if need be, I’ll debate topics concerning it.

You can criticize anyone you like, anytime you like Matt, but just be prepared for someone who can and will fight back. Just because I don’t usually debate people all that much doesn’t mean I won’t step into the verbal ring. Apparently you think criticism shouldn’t be challenged from time to time. You are right about your point about your website. You should know it well; it was a cheap shot on my part.

I cannot comment on “The Making of Star Dipwads” because I have not seen it to make make an honest evaluation. I can make remarks on Pinesalad and Shitemasu . And since you mentioned the later, I did visit their website and left Peter a review of their Ranma parody. It was the fourth comment down.

Link
http://www.seishun.org/2005/03/ranma-13-notes-from-closet.html

Sad to hear you have such a negative opinion about your own work. Not joking on that, seriously.