Like so many of us, I grew up on Disney cartoons. You know: Goofy, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse. I never would have expected that Disney itself would feel the need to mutilate these artworks to make them more commercial -- as if they weren't already fantastically appealing to kids.
That's exactly what the Disney Channel has done with a series called BLAM!, which I just found out about on Metafilter. The show follows the same formula for every segment: (1) take a classic Disney cartoon; (2) heavily edit it down to focus on the most violent, fast-paced gags; (3) have a narrator explain what's happening, with frequent plays on the show's title (example: "the United States of A-BLAM!-ica!"); (4) after each gag, provide a slow-motion replay with further explanations.
At every moment, the narrator violates the well-known rule of comedy that to explain a joke is to kill the joke. A Metafilter commenter calls it "slapstick for the hard of thinking."
Almost all the Metafilter comments mercilessly denounce the show. (A lone dissenter claims to like it unironically.) The show is being panned across the internet.
Here's one of the episodes -- and I warn you that it's a sad commentary on how our culture has been cheapened to a point you might not have thought possible:
One of the worst things about this particular segment is that it isn't providing narration where there was none. The original cartoon already had a perfectly dignified and subtle "straight man" narrator, but BLAM! replaces him with the opposite.
You can see more episodes -- if you can stand them -- at the top of the Metafilter post.
To show how far BLAM! deviates from the original work of art, here it is: "The Art of Skiing," 1941:
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