tedJohnston's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Just Like A Video Game]

nice

hmm ... i never realized my little mix would make such a good credits theme, hahaha. i really enjoyed your flash, and your drawing style is very nice. keep it up.

Butzbo responds:

Thanks, and yeah, i needed something that clearly was representing the concept of "Videogame", so an oldschool nintendo remix was perfect!

[Blockhead: Episode 5]

Uh huh . . .

I'm responding to your over-reaction to my sarcastic review of Episode 6.

You can't take a little humor? After all, your cartoon is SUPPOSED to be humorous. A reviewer gets bored (and a little ticked off) when an author doesn't respond to his review, yet claims to have read it, and even further claims that it was a "helpful" review, but then submits a submission following right after that has the very same problems.

"Constructive criticism" is meant to show an author what he/she could have done differently to have made his/her submission a little better, so that the same mistakes will not be repeated. Likewise, when the same mistakes ARE repeated, reviews find no need to repeat themselves.

The reason my sarcasm was so biting was because I am a musical artist also. I remember when I first composed on MIDI back in the day, like you are doing now . . . but times have changed my man. 90% of your reviewers seem to like your series, and maybe MIDI works for their 13 year-old ears . . . but to the a-little-more-than-average observer, hearing MIDI truly gives the piece a rather unprofessional flair. Your viewers get the impression of you being cheap, uneducated, or worse, ignorant. I gurantee you, those few reviewers who didn't like your work were thinking the exact same thing. I know your intentions are good, but the medium you are using is terrible.

Look, I don't have anything personal against you . . . I just don't think this cartoon series measures up to most of the other 4+ rated stuff here on Newgrounds. I really don't understand where your huge fanbase comes from, but they must really not know their stuff.

You're not required to listen to anything I say. I just challenge you to stop trying to impress people with MIDI music and overbuffed humor. Like I said in my review of Time Squad, you try too hard. I'm not looking for anyone's respect when I review submissions. I'm entitled to my own opinion and so are you. My review of Episode 6 wasn't me being silly or stupid, it was sarcastic for a reason.

I mean think of it this way: you can't please everyone, but if even one person doesn't like your work, then you have places where you can improve, right? What do you have to lose?

Well that's all the writing I can muster up at this hour. You can hate me, or you can think about what I said and maybe try a few things (or you can do both). Good luck with whatever you do in the future . . . and maybe I'll reappear for a Blockhead 7 or Time Squad 2 review. I really don't want to write something negative again, 'cause I know you're capable of so much more.

Regards.

The-Swain responds:

I had a heftier response written, but I distractedly closed the window. Here's version 2.

I'm glad I got to hear back from you in the intellectual capacity that I know you're capable of. I wasn't offended that you didn't like BH Ep.6, but I was appalled that someone with a history of careful reviews could stoop to childish sarcasm. In fact, there wasn't even a message in your previous "review". It was a simple and belligerent attack, not what you call constructive criticism, and for what? Because I didn't heed your advice for Time Squad?

You had a problem with four things in TS: font, music, humor, and story. One of those four things, humor, was constant for Ep.6, but what was your suggested remedy? That I cut it down by half. Come on...do you really think Blockhead should be removed from his own series? Or this cartoon should become serious? Not once did I believe that you meant any of that about Ep.6 (as it was a Time Squad review), so how on earth was I repeating the same mistakes?

The only MIDI in the Blockhead series is the theme song, which is merely some chiming bell. If that's what got you to leave a sarcastic non-review for Ep.6, then heck, what could I possibly say here?

As for MIDI in general, I want all things Blockhead to belong to me. I will not use other people's work at any level because I want the series to be purely and wholly mine. For TS Part 2 I am going to be exploring a new form of music, one that operates like MIDI but with WAVS instead of internal sounds, but I wasn't going to sack appropriateness and switch to Fruity Loops techno or something just to avoid MIDI. If the age you listed for yourself is accurate, then "Back in the day" is different for you than it is for me. MIDI is the father of the world of all synth music, and I grew up loving this. It may be beyond its time, but I felt it worked well in concert with the cheesy, cliched movie themes I picked for the piece. The day I have a full orchestra to use instead of MIDI will be the day I switch.

Speaking of movie themes, I thought I should express that I didn't take cliches from Newgrounds movies. I took them from Hollywood movies. In fact, I took as many trite themes from as many '80s movies as I could stomach. What was digested and born was Time Squad, the epitome of every good and bad '80s film I have ever watched.

Writing this response twice has eaten away at my time and I really gotta fly. But I'm glad you wrote this review to rectify the previous, and while I'm alright with not being able to please everyone, I do insist that I am trying to please those people who want to be pleased. If you're interested in enjoying Time Squad or the Blockhead series, then I know I can take your suggestions seriously. But I should warn you that the brand of humor probably isn't going to change because *I* am not going to change. The things that happen here are the things that make me laugh, and Time Squad especially was always supposed to be a comedy centered around Blockhead. If you're afraid of committing 12-13 minutes to Part 2, you may want to hold off.

[Behind the Magic]

Interesting . . .

First off: Responding to every review? Impressive! That really shows dedication to your work as an animator . . . Sure, you may look like a complete loser who has nothing better to do with his time, but then again, this is the Internet. Who cares!? ^_-

I haven't been a part of the Newgrounds community long enough to know the whole roots of the Clock Crew, Lock Legion, Anti-Crew This, Anti-Crew That conflict, but I do know it exists. That being said, this is MUCH more productive than stupid 14 year olds posting "Kill Strawberry Clock" games or "Watch the King Strawberry Clock Give You A Seizure to Some Shitty Techno Music" that I could seriously draw up in MS Paint. Like someone said earlier, you are probably the smartest guy out of this whole bunch of Newgrounds fanatics.

Anywho, I'm going completely over my head about Newgrounds politics which I really have no authority to comment on in the first place, so I'll end. Good animation, smooth voice acting, and nice message. Looking forward to seeing more!

stoners-lunchbox responds:

Thanks! This is actually one of the smartest reviews i've heard in a while.

The funny thing is that most reviewers who comment without a right are not even that young. Some of them are 20 to 25 year olds who are talking the piss out of a 19 year old who just started his career as a flash artist. Funny, really. Most of them don't even make flash cartoons...

Anyway, thanks for the review and i hope to see more feedback from you next time i send in more work!

[The Ultimate Showdown]

You let the song do all the work.

I'd have to agree with the people who said you ruined the song.

I won't go so far as to say you RUINED it, but you did let the song down. You really shouldn't take someone else's hard work, and just slap some mediocre animation on it so you can get all the credit. I KNOW that this was a collaboration effort, and that the song was made JUST for this flash . . . but still, the animation doesn't live up to the song.

I don't mean the drawing. Your drawing style is really neat, and unique . . . but the animation just didn't cut it.

You always speak so lowly of eBaum for nabbing other people's work and just slapping his tag on it, but I think you've done something really similar here (even if it was a collaboration effort). I just don't approve so much of music videos on Newgrounds, for the same reasons you don't approve of eBaum; I think it's just animators getting lazy and trying to benefit from someone else's work.

You also say that eBaum deceives people into thinking that all the content in his site is so bitchin' while really he stole it all. You know what? Read these reviews! Everyone's like, "Oh, it's such an awesome song!", "The lyrics are so funny!". SONG, SONG, SONG, SONG, SONG. Basically, 70% of all the nimwits here think you wrote this song, and then the other 30% who know, well . . . just don't care. Even if all your intentions were good, you still took the biggest amount of credit. You're practically stealing almost ALL the credit from Lemon Demon, whether or not you think you are.

I'm sorry, but this just doesn't deserve first place . . . maybe SOMEWHERE in the Top 50 because it was an awesome collaboration effort, but not #1.

Basically put, I think you let the song do 70% of the work while you sat back and slapped together a 30% quality animation. Next time, at least make it 50 : 50.

Sorry if it was too harsh. Best of wishes.

altffour responds:

"70% of all the nimwits here think you wrote this song,"
one of us did, I don't think there isn't really a problem here.

That's like saying "everyone is saying your script is so great but u didn't even make the script the coauthor did!!"

They are complimenting lemon demon's song, not me, and I'm in no way claiming I wrote the song. By saying what you're saying, you're saying that lemon demon isn't a coauthor, and you're just talking to me rather than him, when the reviews are meant to be to both of us. I am in no way the sole author of this flash, and that is quite clear on the page the flash is on. I have no problem with people telling me what they didn't like, but I do have a problem with a comparison to eBaum, and here's why:

eBaum does absolutely nothing, I worked hard on this.
eBaum takes all credit, I am trying to keep it even.
eBaum steals things, not only do I have permission to use the song, it was made with the intention of a collaborative animation.

[ICHHLT - Star wars]

hilarious

I'M BEING EATEN!!!

MarkArandjus responds:

By crickey!
:P