The Sketch Newtonian: This should not upset me so much...

but why does Jason Lee feel the need to ruin the icons of my childhood?

I used to love Jason Lee. He was great in all of those Kevin Smith movies, and was even funny when he succumbed to the temptations of doing chick-flick-type romantic comedies. Even if he weren't funny in those movies, though, at least he would not be wading in such dangerous waters.

If you haven't heard, Jason Lee is the voice of Underdog in an upcoming Disney movie, and I have never been more livid after a movie preview. Quite honestly, a five minute preview of a skinhead killing kittens with a pair of steel-toed boots and throwing the tiny feline corpses into the playpen of a daycare center for underpriveleged toddlers would be less offensive to me than this movie preview. I simply cannot understand the point of making a movie based on a TV show if the only thing that is based on the TV show is the name of three characters.

Underdog gets his powers from a pill he keeps in his ring not from a science experiment gone awry. His secret identity is a shoe shine boy (incidentally named Shoeshine Boy) not a housepet. There are so many other discontinuities involving not only Underdog, but Polly Purebread and Riff Raff as well that I choose not to discuss. It's enough to know that Hollywood is such a whore for a movie title that awakens nostalgia in the people inundated with its entertainment propaganda that it doesn't even feel shame at turning a B rated cartoon show I grew up loving into a movie with a huge budget and a bad plot concept.

It doesn't stop at Underdog, though, as the rumor is that he is starring as Dave in an upcoming Chipmunks movie. I know nothing about this movie. It may be incredible, but, in light of recent events, I have every reason to be skeptical. I'm not even that tied to the Chipmunks (unlike Underdog) but who didn't think that "the Witchdoctor" was the coolest song at least for a while when they were really young. And everyone sings along with Alvin when he delivers the line about wanting a hulahoop for Christmas.

In the end, the wheels are already turning. There is no stopping this train. The movies are coming out and there is nothing we can do about it. All I ask for is a little shame on Jason Lee's part and maybe a formal apology. It's something to at least consider.

The Sketch Newtonian

Rockin Steady

This should not upset me so much...

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