Zarok writes...

Hey Greg, quick question…
Has either of Oberon's and Titania's biological children appeared in any of Shakespeare's plays? (Why didn't I think of this years ago?)

P.S. I mean the children they had together.

Zarok writes...

I was reading through the archives and I found posts on the subject of Odin's horned helmet versus the more historically accurate hornless helmets of Hakon and your comments that perhaps the stereotypical vision of Vikings being clad in horned helmets was inspired by the Norse gods rather than Norse mortals and I remembered this bit of trivia you might find interesting, While Vikings never wore horned helmets into battle they were sometimes used in religious ceremonies. At any rate, I loved the design you guys gave to Odin. It's just as I always imagined the big guy. I would have been disappointed if you had given Odin a more earthly Viking look just as much as I would have been Hakon had had horns like Marvel's Loki (how can he stand up with those things?). It just seems pointless to me to debate historical accuracy in relation to supernatural beings, I mean if you say Odin shouldn't have a horned helmet because real Vikings didn't have them you might as well say Anubis shouldn't have a jackal-head because real Egyptians didn't have jackal-heads.

Blaise writes...

DOUBLE JEOPARDY
The (currently) new ramble! Here's my own (which I also posted in the Comment Room).

After watching the "Previously..." recap and hearing Sevarius' mention about cloning, and then seeing the title, I pretty much figured out what the episode was going to be about. Consequently, I kind of knew that the gargoyle on the battlements at Xanatos' place wasn't really Goliath. Still, I was not quite prepared for Thailog, but we'll get to him later on.
The prologue is well written, and does fit in well with the established continuity...except for the date it's given in the computer files. Even allowing that Xanatos did not get released from prison until after Oct. 31, when did Elisa get shot, and how long before she was able to walk on crutches? Still, I'm willing to let it slide. Besides, it was cool how Goliath smashed the robot's head (you can see the red eye-bulb pop out).
The coloring error you saw, Greg, concerning Thailog's arm in the attack on Lex and Broadway, seems to have been corrected in later airings (at least it's black on my tape).
That was one thing that surprised me--seeing the flash in Elisa's windshield NOT being a copy of Goliath, but something with black skin, red eyes, and a white something (hair of course, but I only saw a glimpse).
I was curious as to what Sevarius was doing with the mercenaries, and why he seemed to be stealing from his employer. I think I may have decided to wait until the end to draw any conclusions.
When Owen mentioned the Emir, I remembered THE EDGE. I didn't expect the dude to actually show up in the series (I was still a bit naive (sp?)), and instead thought more along the lines that this would be a running gag in the series. A sort of background business thing that Xanatos would always be dealing with.
It is interesting to see Xanatos in a semi-vengeful attitude. It's just something you're not used to seeing from this guy. I liked hearing the list of his "enemies" for some strange reason. Just nice to know that Xanatos isn't so untouchable.
And Owen even gets to make a couple of digs at Xanatos--not just the one at the end, but the "plan you've neglected to mention" and cryptically referring to Xanatos Enterprises as "a certain large consortium" (sp?).
Even though Goliath laughed maniacally well-enough in ENTER MACBETH, I still got a kick out of Hudson's line. A little nod to the fact that Goliath has a tendency to be...stoic, perhaps.
And then we get another glimpse at Thailog. And he actually managed to look scarier than Goliath, IMHO. Not a bad trick. I hadn't thought until reading the memo that something...unpleasant may have happend to the mercenaries here. This new thought rather intrigues me (in a morbid sort of way).
The Gen-U-Tech traking bracelet makes a reappearance. Gotta love continuity.
Seeing the electronic log of Thailog's creation proved to be quite fascinating for me. Mostly because of the mention of "accelerating (sp?) the normally slow gargoyle growth process." I liked the added explanation here and the nod towards the coloring change. On the whole, it made everything easier to except, and allowed me to sit back and have fun watching the episode develop.
Like many folks, I loved the whole Xanatos-Sevarius confrontation. Neither is really aware of what the other is thinking, but believes they are. And when Sevarius started to cut loose (and then undercut it with the whispered question of his quality of performance) I laughed out loud. That and the look on Xanatos' face are still amusing (vengeful, confused...you see a lot of sides to Xanatos that you normally don't in this episode).
When Goliath finally meets Thailog...I did not expect Thailog to turn out quite the villain he was, despite knowing that he learned everything from Xanatos. Consequently, I was not expecting him to jump Goliath like that. But this made him a lot of fun. And I love the way Thailog sort of hisses out the "s" at the end of "All the old blocks."
When Thailog is talking to Xanatos and Sevarius in the hold of the oil rig, there is a loop of repeated animation that is very noticeable. The odd thing is, the lips actually remain more-or-less in sync with the dialogue.
I love Thailog's lines here. "And waste my life playing 'guardian angel' night after night to a decrepit city, infested with inferior humans?" Just his choice of words says a lot about this guy's outlook on the world. And to this day I keep playing his other line to Goliath in my head from time to time: "I considered caring about you. It took some effort, but I arranged for you to join this party because I planned to share the money with you. But our little...'family reunion' disappointed me, *father*! So I've decided to *hate* you, too." I just love how that throws some of the blame for what happens on Goliath. Man, with this and OUTFOXED, Goliath's been faced with a lot of his shortcomings.
I had no problem with Elisa slipping out of the manacles. I mean, those things weren't like police cuffs that could close in diameter to conform to a prisoner's wrists. Besides, Xanatos' comment was rather fun.
Actually, there were a lot of fun lines in this sequence, and the episode as a whole (of course, they've already been pointed out, so...).
I get a strange kick out of the fact that it's Sevarius who picks up on the idea that could save them all. It's always fun when the villains and heroes wind up on the same side for some reason.
Something I find very interesting whenever I watch this episode: when Elisa and Xanatos think Goliath might be dead, Xanatos actually moves to comfort Elisa! It's just endlessly fascinating to me that in a potential moment of loss, the proferred shoulder to cry on comes from the antagonist. That's one great thing about this series, character was never subverted for the sake of conforming to traditional "roles."
I actually did think that Thailog had died in the fire. I of course would have regretted it--he was a great character, and Keith David's mannerisms were so distinct from Goliath's that I half-wondered if maybe Thailog was voiced by someone else (a thought I had also had concerning Jim Cummings' differnt sound as Darkwing and Negaduck). However, it wasn't until the "reverse-Xanatos tag" that Thailog took an even greater leap upward in my estimation. Learning that Thailog probably survived and was (in Owen's words) "still out there, has the money, is as powerful as Goliath...and smarter than [Xanatos]." That was one of those "shock" moments, and immediately followed up by "Owen, I think I've created a monster." It felt to me like not only had a new villain been unleashed upon the world, but one greater than any that had come before. I actually like seeing the image of Thailog laughing (although recently, I've wondered what the effect would be if his transparent-face suffused the whole screen).
Rambling on Thailog for a moment--it was great how he moved beyond the stereotypical "evil twin" bit. Although his contrast with Goliath is a very compelling aspect of him, he is not confined to that one dimension. He has the tics that are very much his own, and he manages to assert his independence even more when he takes to wearing the armor.
I know, Greg, that you feel every villain should seem, in "that particular encounter" the hero's unltimate enemy. Still, I can't help but feel that the true rank of "archfiend" seems made for the likes of Thailog.

This is another one of those episodes I really enjoy!

Anonymous writes...

what approximate ages are Gargoyles voice actors like Jeff Bennett, Tress MacNeille, Kath Soucie and Jim Cummings? I can't even find a rough guess at their age on the net.

Anonymous writes...

I don't know if you've heard of this show, but you've worked with some of its staff members on shows like "Men In Black" and "Max Steel- The shows called "Extreme Ghostbusters." It was 1997 spin-off of "The Real Ghostbusters" cartoon. If somehow you were able to bring back "Gargoyles" in the same way, how would you do it? Do you think you'd be able to work around it considering TGC, or would you have someone help you or take the torch? If this possibility did happen, what would your concept of villains be?

Anonymous writes...

I know that it's impossible, but in your opinion, what would happen if there was a cross-over between your two creations Gargoyles and Max Steel? How would the characters react towards each other?

Anonymous writes...

You know how in most comic books that super-villains end up in mental hospitals for the criminally insane instead of prison? Two examples are Arkham Asylum in the DC comics and Ravencroft in Marvel Comics. Out of all of the Gargoyles' enemies, who would most likely end up in an insane asylum? Fans have to admit that villains like Demona, Dr. Sevarious, Castaway, Thailog, Hyena, Jackal, Proteus and Coldsteel are all nuts! Plus, Wolf and Fang seem to have some issues.

Todd Jensen writes...

Yay! A new episode ramble! Thanks, Greg!

Here are some of my own thoughts about "Double Jeopardy".

The opening one is a rather odd little memory. In the summer of 1995, I spotted an article on "Gargoyles" in a sci-fi magazine (whose name I can no longer remember) discussing what would be done in Season Two; among other things, it included a mention that Goliath's daughter would be introduced into the series. I was quite curious about that, and wondered what she'd be like and how it would be done. And then, when "Double Jeopardy" first aired, and Thailog was treated as Goliath's son in it, I wondered if the article had erred and gotten the gender of Goliath's offspring wrong. (Of course, I know now that it was Angela that the article meant, not Thailog, so that there was no mistake there except on my part.)

In light of the opening flashback, Xanatos must have already started building a whole new set of Steel Clan robots even while he was still in prison, before "The Edge" (especially given that I spotted a whole bunch of those robots in storage, alongside the one that was activated to attack Goliath).

I also liked Owen's "Is this a plan that you've neglected to mention?" line. He really sounded hurt there.

I was interested to notice Renard on Xanatos's suspects list for Thailog's kidnapping, alongside Demona and Macbeth. While I can easily imagine Demona or Macbeth being willing to engage in such a maneuver against Xanatos, I doubt, in light of his rigid code of integrity, that Renard would have done the same (although there is "Golem" to consider, coming up later in the season). Maybe Xanatos believed that the temptation of kidnapping his new gargoyle would have been too much for even his father-in-law to resist.

Sevarius's hamming it up with Xanatos ("Yes! You robbed me of my creation!") was one of the funniest moments in "Gargoyles" for me; certainly the funniest in the episode. (Don't quit your day job, Anton.) And I agree with you about the Dr. Antinori business, by the way. (Also on the subject of Sevarius's overacting, I couldn't help but think that some of his narration in the "clone files" that Lex and Broadway discovered felt almost like a parody of that in a nature documentary, such as the "time for it to leave the nest" line, though I don't know if it was intended that way.)

You no doubt recall how I'd earlier pointed out the similarities between Thailog and Edmund (which I first began to notice after you mentioned Edmund being your favorite Shakespeare character); it occurred to me recently that Thailog also does have a certain similarity to Mordred, especially in many modern-day versions of the Arthurian legend, such as T. H. White. He's Goliath's "illegitimate son", just as Mordred was Arthur's, and his training by his other two fathers, Xanatos and Sevarius, does have (if you're out looking for the parallels) a certain echo of how Mordred, in White's "The Once and Future King", similarly gets trained by his mother Morgause. And the dynamics between Goliath and Thailog, with Goliath initially rejecting his son but then learning that he was wrong to do so, and now reaching out to him - but too late - do remind me of how in White, Arthur similarly initially moves against his son (trying to drown him at birth), but then understands that he was wrong to do so, also makes the attempt to reach out to him, but is coldly rejected by Mordred when he does so. (Come to think of it, Thailog also clearly lusts after both of Goliath's loves, Demona and Elisa, even to the point of combining them in Delilah, just as Mordred lusts after his stepmother Guinevere and attempts to wed her after he usurps his father's throne.)

I've mentioned before the element that I believe makes Thailog an especially great antagonist (the incongruous pairing of Goliath's physical appearance and voice with a thoroughly Xanatosian amorality - though I think that Thailog comes across as more malevolent than Xanatos does, which is also a good touch), so I won't go into that again. It's a bit of a pity that he only turned up twice more in the original series after that ("Sanctuary" and "The Reckoning"), although I suppose that if you'd gotten to do more episodes past "The Journey" that we'd have gotten a lot more of the guy.

The ending definitely surprised me; I was expecting Xanatos to reveal that he'd seen to it that he didn't lose the ransom money after all, but instead we got the revelation that Thailog had escaped with it and is out there, happily scheming away, to Xanatos's own alarm. (As I mentioned before, it's particularly of interest to note that this is the last time in the series that Xanatos attempts to make his own gargoyles - and after the way that Thailog backfired on him, who can blame him?)

It's great to have the rambles going again, and I'm looking forward to the ones to come.

jp12@mail.csuchico.edu writes...

How can I get a hold of those scripts that were written for Team Atlantis? All the interviews make it sound like good stuff. I also admit I'll get excited about the straight-to-video release only when I see it on a shelf (not that Disney changes plans once they're announced, right?). If there is any way to get copies (digital or otherwise) please respond with the information. You guys worked too long on it for the stuff to vanish (I read you even did the voice recordings for a dozen and a half episodes). It's a real shame. Thanks for your time. It is appreciated.

Sean writes...

In the episode Golem why did you use a Rabbi to summon the Golem?
Most of the episodes have some mythology behind them. I've heard about golems before, but I've never heard of any myths associating Jewish people with the use of magic. I'm certain that it goes against their religion.

P.S. I looked to see if this question was asked, but I didn't find it in the achieves. If I've missed it could you email me at the_nameless@2d.com
If you post my question, please remove the "P.S." text.