Six degrees of Dr. Blight and MAL.

Meg H. brought up the character of Dr. Blight in the comments section of my original Captain Planet post, which brought up some extra strange intertextual coincidences on this blog.



Dr. Blight looks like she could be Jem's mother--they both seem to share an affinity for pink clothing and bleach-blonde hair. Prior to my Captain Planet research, I had received a text message from a friend stating that "Meg Ryan's dog looks like her." Less than a week later, Wednesday's episode of Shear Genius involves the recreation of Sally Hershberger's famous "Sally Shag"--known to those of us who are not into hair so much as "the Meg Ryan." As if Miss Ryan could not be a larger part of my life in the past week then she already is, I discover this:

Meg Ryan was the voice of Dr. Blight for the first season of Captain Planet.

And here I thought the only voice work she did was in Anastasia. Man, I'm wrong about an awful lot of Captain Planet-related things, aren't I?

It actually gets to be even more like a multimedia game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon than three Meg Ryan mentions within a week. Also in my original Captain Planet post, I referenced Tim Curry as the voice of the evil toxic smog cloud in Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. And this will bring us back to Dr. Blight.

Dr. Blight, in her slinky pink catsuit, is a bio-terrorist with a partially burned face (like a sexy version of Two-Face from Batman . . . although the Harvey Dent part of Two-Face is pretty fine in most of his incarnations). She also has a super computer that, much like Synergy on Jem and HAL in 2001, is sentient. Dr. Blight's computer, called MAL, was voiced by Tim Curry for the last few seasons of Captain Planet. (Notably, not when Miss Ryan was lending her voice to Dr. Blight.)

I'm very interested in the idea that Jem and Dr. Blight could somehow be related across the cartoon universe. Especially since, in yet another weird coincidence in the world of voice talent, Kath Soucie, who lends her shady Russian accent to Linka on Captain Planet, was also the voice of Ingrid for about 7 episodes of Jem.

At some point, we all change how we look.

Welcome to my new look!

In the spirit of Halloween, my blog has dressed up. In that same spirit, I did as well. But apparently, its not considered cool to dress up when you are an Adult and live in Adult World (which is not as pornographic as it sounds).

I work downtown. In an office. At a newspaper. Most of us dressed up. But most of us also did not leave the office. When I left the office in the middle of the day, I received a number of odd looks from many people on the street. But then again, I was dressed like this:



That's right. I was Jem today. I fulfilled my little girl fantasy of being a music executive by day, rockstar by night. Oh, it was indeed showtime, Synergy.

In addition to the huge pink rocker wig, crazy makeup, pink dress and earrings that you can see in that photo, I was also wearing pink patent leather pumps.

There was a whole lot of pink going on in my general vicinity. So I suppose the looks of concern were somewhat justified. I guess those poor onlookers didn't grow up in the late 80s and early 90s.

Surprisingly, I think I received more disparaging looks from the hobos who drink outside the Borders on State St. than the business people I encountered during the day.

I'll have everyone know that I lost the costume contest we held at work to the Hamburgler. I feel like that was well deserved. I mean, I was every girl's fantasy character from the 80s, but Stephanie was the motherfucking Hamburgler.

So I dressed up for today, and tomorrow I return to Steviness, which is considerably less pink. But I fully intend to use that wig for years to come in a number of costumes: Debbie Harry from Blondie, rock singer Pink, Gwen Stefani during her "Return of Saturn" years, any number of anime characters including Haruhara Haruko from "FLCL" . . . the possibilities are endless.

The blog, on the other hand, will be dressed up for some time. I am also in search for a new name for it. Suggestions? I think some rebranding would be good overall.