Charisma82 writes...

Saturday, June 23, 2007: Day Two of Gathering of the Gargoyles

After I was done typing up my journal for yesterday around 1:30am in the morning, I ended up staying up until about 4:30am watching stuff on You Tube. I also did some reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I've read all the books before, but since the 7th and final Harry Potter book is coming out in a few weeks, I thought I'd better refresh my mind by reading all the books over again. I also want to remember what happened in the 5th book because the 5th movie is coming out soon too. I don't want to sound like I'm a big Harry Potter fan, because I'm not the biggest Harry Potter fan out there, I just like the story. Have you read any of them? Anyways, I went to bed around 4:30am and didn't wake up until 11:00am, which I'm shocked I got away with. My mom usually makes sure my sister and I are awake by 10:00am at the latest. After I woke up, my sister and I got ready to go back down to the church building to help decorate the high school room with a couple other people. Since it's the summer time and people are doing a lot of stuff, only 2 other people showed up to help. So all together it was my sister (Kay), D.C., Fizz, (all nicknames in case they have a problem with me putting their names on here) and me. First, we played a couple rounds of ping-pong (play before work… it's out of order, I know…) to get ready for ping-pong at camp next week and then we went to work on the high school room. I'm not in the high school class, and neither is D.C., so we didn't really know what needed to be done in there. First we had to take down all the old stuff in the room. Then we called up a guy that teaches in there to get some ideas, and since they weren't solid ideas and just some thrown out there suggestions, I decided to go with the theme of going down the path of righteousness or going down the path that rocks (the path that rocks, being the one that shouldn't be chosen… I'll explain). We used Kronk from the Disney movie The Emperor's New Groove (Kronk is my favorite good guy Disney character ever) and used his shoulder angel and devil's line "He wants to lead you down the path of righteousness… I want to lead you down the path that rocks…" We had to enlarge a picture of Kronk on a light projector on a wall, which took forever, and then we had to outline him again in marker. Then we had to make speaking bubbles for them to talk. It took up a lot of time, and we still didn't get it all finished. Half of it is done, but we'll have to finish the rest next week.

Everyone was hungry and since I hadn't eaten anything all day, I was ready to choose a place and go there… except that no one could agree on anything. Around 4:30pm we finally left in my car, me driving of course, and headed to Subway in the mall. I will say that I advertised the Gathering of the Gargoyles while at Subway by telling my group that it was going on this weekend. D.C. has seen gargoyles and knew what I was talking about, and Kay, being my sister, knew about it too, but Fizz needed some informing about it. After eating (I had a BLT… I think it's funny when you ask for a BLT and they still want to know if you want lettuce and tomato on the thing…) we went into Borders, which is part of the mall, and I ended up running into someone I went to high school with. She was really nice and told me we should get together and do something next week, yet the problem is that I don't know where I put her phone number… Kay, D.C., and Fizz took off into the mall while I was talking with the girl and I had to call Kay to find out where they went. They ended up wasting money on a claw machine, gave up, and used the rest of their change buying candy. Fizz had to go home, so we left the mall and I dropped her off. Kay, D.C., and I didn't want to go home just yet so I spoke up and said we should go to Cold Stone (It's funny how that's the name of that gargoyle in Gargoyles) because I love their ice cream. We went there and I bought a Peanut Butter Cup Perfection… oh, that's living (I LOVE peanut butter). I couldn't finish it and had to throw half of it away. After that we went to Best Buy, which is right behind the Cold Stone. We played some video games and browsed the DVD isles. After that, we went to Game Stop, which is across the street from Best Buy. The same video game we'd been playing at Best Buy was also at Game Stop, so we played it again just for kicks. We left there and D.C. got the call from home that he had to go home. We drove to the other side of town to drop him off and were invited to see either Dream Girls or Epic Movie with him and his sister, but Kay called our house and our dad said we needed to get back home to get packed for Disneyland (we're leaving Sunday to go down there).

We left D.C. and Peaches (his sister) and got home around 7:00pm. Mom and Dad weren't around so we started watching the movie the Pacifier (which wasn't that great). Our parents finally got home after being at Walmart buying stuff for our trip to Disneyland and California Adventure. My dad sat down to watch the end of the movie with us while my mom printed out pictures from Kay's 16th birthday party 3 weeks ago. My mom needed to clear her camera of pictures so she can take some when we go to Disneyland. My mom gave up on the picture printing thing and told my sister to continue it, but Kay ended up getting me to do it while she took her shower. I ate an apple and listened to music on the Cinemagic channel. They were playing music from the soundtrack of Braveheart. Once Kay was done in the shower, she took over printing pictures and I went to my room to check up on my e-mails online. I wrote back to my cousin who lives in Colorado and then checked up on stuff in ASKGREG. After that, I wrote this. So now that I'm caught up, I'm going to sign off. I probably won't get any more journals in until the middle of the week, seeing as we're leaving for Disneyland today (it's just past midnight) and won't get back home until either Tuesday or Wednesday. Now, I'm going to blow dry my hair and then get to bed so I'll be good and awake for church in the morning.

Thank you for your time and all that you do.

-Charisma82

Charisma82 writes...

Hey! Wow, has it already been a year since the last Gathering? It feels like just a while ago. Sadly, just like last year, I was not able to make it to the Gathering of the Gargoyles. I'm not as crushed over it as I was last year, or the year before that, or the year before that… but still, I figure that I will get to one of them one of these days, so keep having them, and I'll hopefully turn up some day. I didn't do a pre-gathering journal yesterday because nothing really happened yesterday. So here it goes for the first day of the Gathering of the Gargoyles (from the point of view of someone not being there)…

Friday, June 22, 2007: The First Day of Gathering of the Gargoyles

Today started way too early for me. All of my days for the past 4 weeks have started too early for me. I signed up for a summer class and was fool enough to sign up for a class that started at 7:00am. I've been waking up a little bit before 6:00am every morning because the school is in a different town and I have to drive a while to get there. I am definitely not a morning person. I'm used to going to sleep late and waking up late. I've been forcing myself to go to bed at midnight so I can be awake enough for the class every morning. But fortunately for me, today was my last day, so I no longer have to wake up so early. Actually, besides waking up early, I really liked the class. It was an English class that dealt with a lot of literature, which I enjoyed. We read a lot of short stories, poems, and a few plays in the class. The teacher even showed us the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on video that was made back in the 30's. I really liked it and was able to keep up with the names, mainly because of watching Gargoyles for as long as I have been. Since today was the last day, we had a final. We had to write a paper in class about 1, 2, or 3 different pieces of literature we'd read in class and connect them together to make a common point. I chose the poem entitled "The Ruined Maid" by Thomas Hardy and the play entitled "Overtones" by Alice Gerstenberg and talked about how moving up in social class isn't what makes a person happy, which I proved with the two pieces of literature that I chose. There was more to it, but I'm not going to get into all of that here. We were supposed to write out the paper by hand in MLA format in ink. I decided to write it out in pencil first so I wouldn't make mistakes on my final copy. Because I did this, I took up the entire 2 hours, continuously writing. My hand felt like it was going to fall off once I was done. Though it took me a lot longer to write the paper twice, I was glad I did. I didn't have any mess ups on the final draft. I was very fortunate that my paper was only 6 pages long, because that's all the paper I had on me. I couldn't afford to make mistakes.

After I finished there, I headed home (and got to hear Fuel's song "Hemorrhage" which I rocked out to). I got home just as my mom and sister went off to work. I got on the computer to do my usual rounds of checking up on e-mail and looking at my usual websites (including, of course, ASK GREG). After that, I sat around the house for a while before I became tired and knew I had to get a nap in if I wanted to last the rest of the day. I slept for about 3 hours and got up around 4:30pm to 5:00pm.

Around 6:00pm, my family (my parents and younger sister) and I took off for Family Fun Night at our church. Before we got there, we stopped by Carl's Jr. for some dinner. I didn't eat much since I wasn't feeling that great. We got to the church building a bit before 7:00pm and were the first ones there. After waiting for about 20 minutes, we had more people show up. We played cards and ping-pong. I've decided that I need to start playing ping-pong every day until next week when I go up to camp. I say this because one of the main sports up at camp is ping-pong and I found out how much practice I need when playing it tonight. I think the most fun game with ping-pong is Around the World in which a bunch of people line up around the table and take turns hitting the ball back and forth. It's not as easy as it sounds or looks. After ping-pong, about six of us decided to play hide-and-seek walky-talkies (which is basically hide-and-seek with a set of walky-talkies in the mix). That was fun. It's not so easy when the entire building is pitch black dark and you can't turn lights on. I have the best hiding spot in a closet under a set of stairs that no one ever wants to look in because there is so much junk in there and it is very dark. I was really mad when one of the younger girls decided to hide with me then decided not to because she was afraid of the dark, and then told everyone where I was once she herself was found. Now that my hiding spot has been blown, I have to find some other great hiding spot. Anyways, we ended up leaving there around 9:45pm.

When we got home, Dad really wanted to watch the baseball game that had the Colorado Rockies in it because he grew up in Colorado. He was sad when they lost at the very end of the game (sorry if I ruined that for anyone… I hope I didn't). My mom and I played Mancala (a game played with flattened marbles and a wooden board…I don't know how else to describe it) while we watched some show on the top 10 funniest women ever. It wasn't that great of a show, but there was nothing else on that the family could agree upon to watch (my mom, sister, and I wanted to watch Pirate Master, a show we got hooked on at the beginning of summer break, but my dad put his foot down and said no). My parents went to bed around 11:30pm and my sister and I stayed up to watch the AFI's top 100 movies in the past 100 years that we'd recorded on Tivo earlier in the week. It was good. We didn't know about half the movies in the countdown, but were excited to see the ones we did know. It finally ended around 1:30am. My sister went to bed, and now I'm in my room typing this.

So all in all, this was actually a busy day compared to the past couple of weeks around here. I wish I could say that I watched Gargoyles so it would seem that I'm keeping the spirit of Gargoyles alive during the Gathering of the Gargoyles (since I'm not there), but I'm too tired to start watching one of them. I'd probably fall asleep while my eyes burned trying to keep awake. Maybe tomorrow I'll do some Gargoyle watching…

Thank you for your time and all that you do.

-Charisma82

Justin writes...

Dear Greg,
I have been meaning to write you this comment for a very long time. It seems that the longer things go on, the more my life parallels things you presented on Gargoyles. Not everything mind you, haha, but somethings certainly strike a new chord than when I watched the show at 13.

To start this off, on Sept. 28th, 2005 my mother passed away. It was hard but my sisters and I got through it. Eventually around the holidays, both my sisters left for verying educational pursuits while I was tasked with taking care of our home. This officially happened in January 2006. I thought I could handle it but all of a sudden the sheer realization that I was all alone in my childhood home ( save our 2 cats and a dog) became too much to bare.

Eventually I started feeling like I was losing myself. Well this went on for a few weeks then a month or so like this and then early february, our heat went out. I had no job then and I couldn't afford the bill. It just so happened this was the coldest time of the winter that this occured.

Anyway, my little sister was attending Indiana University at the time, got wind of the situation and arranged to get me out of there, to stay the night with a family friend. I had known this family for years and I didn't want to burden them. Nor did I want to abandon my pets to the cold. So in an insane headspace I told my sister no. That I was not leaving.

Long story short I left my house that night and stayed a few days with the friends mentioned above. Here is the kicker... this is the only Gargoyles reference I have made so far but I hope if I illustrated the story well enough you see the similarities already..

When I got to my friend's home they set me up on the couch and gave me free reign over the TV. I turned to Toon Disney knowing Gargoyles would be on soon, and you know what episode was running that night? HAHA, you guessed it, Enter Macbeth.

My little sister convinced me it was suicide to stay at my home, and I ended staying with family friends that were truly more like extended family. Hudson's line struck a deep chord.. "Where we can be together and safe" It wasn't my house I was protecting, althought I thought so.. I was protecting what I felt was all I had left. Eerily similar.

In any event, I felt I would pass that along. I won't be able to attend Pigeon Forge but now I live in Chicago, so I hope to see you next year!

Peace, Love, and Empathy,

Justin M. Lindley

Cedric Calles writes...

Hello Greg. I read the last post and this indeed is my real name if curious " Cedric franklin kaili Calles " Proud Scott/Irish man. When I was younen I enjoyed watching your "Gargoyles" very much. I was fasinated of medievil times. Where times of honor, glory, and magic lived in those mystical ages. Atlass when I saw the last episode and the unfortunate fate awaited for Goliath and his clan. I was bloody mad at the end and later cried. Hours passed and I began to think, the cartoon era was changing and were losing their ways. A New Era of twisted cartoons that contained stories of no moral, ideas, or reasoning to the common sense and violence to the extreme beyond of comprehision, strange ideas of doing wrong was right, and the idea of its ok to be stupid or do stupid things as a normal daily life, was born. Which comes to my question...

Do you believe it was the right call for " Gargoyles " to end as it was to be saved from the New Era of Corruption, keeping its Orgin?

My final question, why did you not make a book out of it? To open a world of their world to ours.

Kaylle writes...

Way back in October 2005, the day they released the cover art for the second DVD set, I watched a bunch of episodes instead of doing my homework and typed up my musings on them (mostly on Hunter's Moon and the Goliath/Elisa relationship) in my livejournal. Today I'm *still* trying to avoid my homework, and the queue is open again, so I thought I'd dig up those old musings and get your opinion on them (I may have posted something like this in the CR once as well; my apologies if you happened to catch it there). So here they are. I wrote:

"At the end of HM3, Elisa and Goliath finally get some "resolution" to their relationship. The infamous kiss it took us (and them) 65 episodes to get to. I hate to call it resolution at all because it doesn't really resolve anything; their relationship is still in a pretty uncertain place and kissing hardly changes that. But it's the first time they both admit what's going on between them and do something, however small, about it. And it provided some small measure of satisfaction for the fans, who were just beginning to realize that was all we were going to get. I remember being so hopeful, so excited, 13 years old, watching in awe as finally, *finally* the two of them "got together." I hadn't realized it was the season finale, although really it was pretty obvious (I didn't know cartoon shows *had* season finales). And I certainly hadn't realized it was, for all intents and purposes, the end." [Of course, I know now what I didn't know in October 2005-- it wasn't the end! We have a comic book!]

"But I digress. Anyway, I noticed two things today. First, in HM1, during the scene on the subway: after he dispatches the muggers, Elisa goes to Goliath, lays her head down on his chest, and says, "Nobody messes with my best friend." I always thought that was kind of a dangerous thing to say in public, although sweet. But I noticed today the way that Goliath reacts to it. Maybe I never noticed before, or maybe I just don't remember, but he reaches to touch her hair and then stops himself, grimaces, and pulls away. It happens so quickly it's easy to miss it. But something about that aborted gesture of affection really intrigues me.

"Did he stop because he thought she wouldn't appreciate the sentiment? Haven't we seen him touch her that way before? It's hard to remember because the two of them get so very few explicitly affectionate moments. There aren't a lot of episodes that deal with them. (The most obvious is The Mirror, but that was so long before this that it's hard to use it as an indication of their relationship now. Although there is that moment, while Demona and Puck are spying on them via the mirror, when Elisa sort of nuzzles her face into Goliath's shoulder. I'd love to know what the conversation was that led her to do *that*...) Their relationship is very clear to the viewer, but it's also very understated. Any romantic moments like that are part of some larger scene, some larger conversation, etc. (I was half-convinced, when I was a kid, that it was because Disney didn't want to deal with the xenophilia aspect. Now I can see that it's in character for them to act that way; both of them know what's going on but they can't admit it, can't act on it because they're certain there's no future in it. But when you're 12-13 years old you miss some of the subtler points <g>.) So, while I can think of romantic moments between Goliath and Demona, MacBeth and Gruoch, etc, Goliath and Elisa are much more subtle than that.

"So then I went picking through episodes looking for Goliath/Elisa moments. (Aren't they cute in Eye of the Beholder, dancing in their Halloween 'costumes'? Even the trio notices. "They should have Halloween more often.") As early as Awakenings 5, we see Elisa take his face in her hands. The closest embrace I can find is in Heritage, after Elisa's disappearance. They both look pretty happy to see each other there, and she doesn't show any reluctance to touch him or be held by him.

"So anyway, it could be because he thinks she won't appreciate the gesture. She has shied away from discussing their relationship in the past. Or it could be because they're in a train full of people (although, again, she's pretty much given them away to everyone on the train already).

"Or it could be because he doesn't want to let himself touch her? Because letting himself caress her hair (the gargoyle equivalent of a kiss, even if Elisa doesn't necessarily know that) means pretending, if only for a moment, that they have a relationship? And because he can't stand doing that to himself over and over again? Something to think about, anyway.

"The other thing that I noticed was that, although Goliath saw Elisa kiss Jason and heard what she said about her feelings, she doesn't know that. As far as she knows, nothing between them has changed since HM1. Obviously they're both happy to see each other after Jason rescues her (although Goliath is probably "happier" than Elisa is; at least, she didn't think he was dead). But nothing has happened, to her knowledge, to bring things between them to a head. So why does she finally decide to admit her feelings to him? Her dialogue doesn't really tell us anything, either. He says, "So... Things have come full circle," and Elisa replies, "Somehow, they always do. You know how I feel about you, right?" She brings it up apropos of nothing. (He doesn't seem startled by it, either. Why is that? I sure as heck was!)

"Is it her relationship with Jason? The realization that, even when presented with someone human who seems to be everything she's looking for (at least at first), she still wants Goliath? When offered the normal life she thinks she wants, she still chooses Goliath and the clan, and all the uncertainty and upheaval they imply. Is that it? Of course, they've had a traumatic couple of days, and that could be a reason all by itself."

At that point I decided that I'd spent way too much time analyzing things and that I really ought to be doing work, so I stopped. But I'm still intrigued by it all. I guess if I had to distill it down into a few questions, they would be:

1) Is there a reason for Goliath's gesture (or lack thereof) on the train, or am I thinking too hard/paying too much attention to tiny details?

2) Does Elisa know that touching hair is the gargoyle equivalent of a kiss? (Maybe not in so many words, since I doubt the gargoyles think of it in terms of how their gestures of affection are equivalent to human gestures, but does she realize the sort of underlying meaning of a touch like that?) And if so, how does she know? Just from observation and intuition? Did someone tell her?

3) Why does Elisa finally speak up at the end of HM3? What changes her mind about keeping quiet?

Thanks for listening to me ramble on a bit, and for taking the time to answer our questions. It's only out of love that we analyze every aspect of things :)

Antiyonder writes...

Most of us have been talking about the yet to be released Volume of Gargoyles, whether it's in the comment room or submitting in the Ask A Question. I do agree that that the Disney blaming has gone overboard at times (I'm guilty of it as well). I can't speak for everyone of course, but I'm going to do my best to describe why we tend to blame the company so to speak (I know you don't mean any offense). Since, you have more business experience than some of us, your POV would be helpful.

1. Again part of the reason why we aren't seeing anymore DVDs are lack of purchases from the previous sets. Yes part of it is due to lack of sales, but also lack of advertising. It's not just DVDs, but with say network television (Not just with Disney). Aside from quality there are many reasons a show would turn up with low ratings, like:

- Lack of commericals, hence the viewer doesn't know it exist.
- The show is aired so much that the viewer gets tired of it, or so little they don't have a chance to draw in fans. Odd thing about that is that a particular program is aired constantly when it only has 13/26 episodes, yet when/if it has 65-78 episode, then it's not aired so often. Should be the other way around.
- The show is aired in a timeslot that most people don't watch.

It just seems like the higher ups don't really understand their audience, or they do but don't want to take responsibility. After all, admiting to a mistake is viewed by some to be a sign of shame and humiliation rather than being responsible.

1a. Also, with the comics, I heard sales lowered for #3. That's due of course to lack of a consistant release. My question is if Disney will acknowledge that lower sales are due to delaying approval, or will they assume that the comic itself is the problem. You can count on us hardcore (in my case semi-hardcore) fans to stick with it to the end, but as has been said in the comment room newcomers or casual buyers are going to be put off by the delays if it keeps up. Regardless, I'm trusting that the situation should improve.

2. Then there's the concept of money. It seems like the higher ups in the business never heard of the saying "You have to spend money to make money". It just seems like with any product (DVD, Comics, etc) they expect to make a fortune by investing a few cents (not literaly mind you).

2a. I know that companies like Disney are in the business to make money and I repsect that. The problem is it seems their ambition is more of an obsession. For instance, I know that you're sure as heck not doing all of this work for free, but for you the money isn't a one-tracked mind thing. Same could be said of folks like Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Tom Defalco, Peter David, Steve Loter, Mark McCorkie, Bob Schooley.

I really hope this came across as a constructive complaint, rather than a mindless hatefilled rant. After all, I'm not always good at using the right words, to voice my opinion.

Gerin writes...

Hi again Greg,

not a question really, but I recently read an older post of yours where you explain your negative opinion about "Return of the Jedi" and the confrontation between Luke and the emperor in particular. Since you sometimes ask your fans to ramble too, here's why I think this is one of the best standoffs in the history of movies:

THE EMPEROR:
High class villain. Fragile, feeble, understated. Gives definition to "sinister", implies awesome aura.
And witty! Usually, when Good Guy (James Bond, Superman, Elisa) is at the mercy of Bad Guy (Blofeld, Lex Luthor, Demona), isn't Bad Guy all outspoken and arrogant, but alas, Good Guy always has wittier deliveries, better puns etc.?
Whatever Luke throws at him, Palpatine's got the retorts. "Your arrogance is your weakness", says Luke. Any other villain would now start throwing around threats, acting all superior, unwillingly confirming the statement. Not Palpatine. He's even kind of agreeing by saying "The trust in your friends is yours." And Luke is speechless.

THE DARK SIDE EXPLAINED:
For two and a half movies, we've been lectured constantly on how fear and anger lead to the dark side. Morale, good and evil, yadda-yadda. Always play nice. Yeah, as if it matters. Power is power, right?
Suddenly, it does matters and the concept becomes tangible: Vader threatens Luke's sister, and boy does Luke get mad. And powerful! No finesse anymore, just sheer rage. It's filmmaking at its best! Listen to the choir. Watch how this outlashing is not strung out to minutes. It's a matter of seconds, the point is made.

FORCE LIGHTNING:
Eventually, Luke spares Vader. Luke states: "I'm a jedi.", again no threats from the emperor, just acknowledges the fact: "As you wish, jedi." And then, he tells Luke how puny he is. And shows him.
Unfortunately, the climax that these force lightings represent don't come across anymore because they have become common through the videogames, not to say Ep. II and III where they are used without abandon.

No intent to argue. Just my ramble, really. :-)

Chip Coffin writes...

I figured I'd better separate this into two posts. I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate your comments to Vaevictus Asmadi about the creation of Gargoyles. I personally am a Creationist (Intelligent Design Theorist to be PC *Chuckles*) And I find that very few people actually respect my beliefs and I am very surprised and grateful that you are. I of course know that I'm vastly outnumbered in the fandom, and I know that you are not a creationist, but it means a lot to me that there is someone in Hollywood who acknowledges that there are creationists in their fandoms and haven't writen any "Travel to the Time of The Dinosaurs" stories (Mind you I believe in Dinosaurs, I just don't buy the 65 million years, We creationists call them Dragons)

Gargoyles have wings, and thus were made on day 5, (Putting them before humans on day 6, and thus they are still the first race even to us creationists) Once again, I thank you for respecting my beliefs.

Rock On-Chip

Shadow Wing writes...

Hi Greg, I'm back again.

I've been doing my best to spread the word about Gargoyles - I've told people about the comics, the DVDs, and the Gathering - I've even managed to bring a couple more people into the fandom by loaning them the DVDs - they were hooked from Awakenings.

Since December, I've managed to get the first two issues of the comic - would have gotten the third today, but I couldn't make it to my comic store. Hoping to get it Friday.

I loved the first two issues - and the fact that I already knew the story in them did absolutely nothing to reduce the pleasure I derived from them. I may or may not go into a more detailed review after I get the third ish.

Anyhow, I've spent the past three months watching my DVDs (the Toon Disney airing keeps moving to less and less convenient time slots, and on some level, I wonder if they're TRYING to get bad ratings for it), and have come up with a few questions/comments - but I don't want anything to be dropped from Ask Greg, so they won't be submitted now.

I'm trying like mad to make it to The Gathering this year - Pigeon Forge is the closest it's ever been, and I don't know how long before it comes close enough for me to attend again (limited budget, can't afford air fare). If I can make it, I hope to see you there.

Quandra "Dusk Rider Q" writes...

Hello Again Greg,

I am trying 110% to keep this post friendly, and I will. More in light of a post some ways below mine, I'd like to thank and congratulate you and the rest of the producers for putting in so many "non-white" people, particularly black people. As a young black girl growing up with this series, it was exciting to see characters who looked like me and that wasn't token or there just to be the stooge to a lead white male (Power Rangers come to mind). In fact in retrospect I remember being surprised to find that Elisa was black! It seemed so odd and now I realize that it because we as children of color are conditioned to feel that inferiority when there are not any heroes or led characters for us to look to. Despite seeing Elisa's mother in the episode "Deadly Forces" later I almost couldn't still fathom that she was black. It's hard to articulate.

Having grown up in the Bay Area, just about the most diverse place in America aside from New York, I am more than used to seeing so many people of color in important positions, hearing so many different languages, and meeting so many people from other backgrounds. However, going away to college I realized that much of the world was not so fortunate as I to have known many lawyers and doctors of color. Therefore, you have no idea how I commend you for being to only show to this day I can think of that put a bi-racial or black female in a lead role without trying to cater to the black demographic. If only through Gargoyles, some kids could be introduced this possibility and not have their only concept of black people being through stats like "You have to ackknowlege that American Blacks have an IQ of 85 compared to a white IQ of 100, Blacks commit over half of the crimes in the USA," however true or untrue that is. It's saddens me when I meet white people who are either scared of me or have to prove to me that their not racist by rattling off the Black history they do know. I wish the media had more of us portrayed like Elisa who doesn't have to roll her neck to show that she is very aware of her blackness but more specifically her Nigerian Ancestry. She's assertive without being "ghetto" or loud. She's beautiful and sexy without being easy. Sadly, as a young black woman I find it's what people expect of me-that if I get angry I will smack my lips or snap my fingers, or they really want to know what I'm like at second base but they won't ask in front their friends- because they think of some Ying Yang Twin videos over Heather Headley videos, and they've never met black people outside of TV while growing up in white suburbia. If only there were more Elisas…

Also, I loved that Elisa looked different from the typical black person on TV. I find that we are actually the most diverse looking group of people on this planet, but actresses in Hollywood are always made to look darker if they are light-skinned like Elisa, or else they just aren't cast. Terrence Howard is the only light-skinned man in the business I can think of who has made it, but no women. And just for the record light-skinned people are not as few and far between as other races think. I had this discussion in one of my high school classes. My classmates tended to think you had to be mixed like Elisa to be light-skinned which is not the case. (I can trace my lineage back six generations on my mothers side to the slave ships, but the only person of another race was one of my great-great grandmothers, and Indian woman. Yet, Two of my dad's sisters, My mom's one sister, is lighter, and three of my grandma's sisters are light skinned like Elisa. It just happens.) I'm glad Elisa just didn't have to have big lips, a broad nose, an afro, and dark brown skin. Even though that's fine because it's kind of how I look, the media has this one image of how we all look in every cartoon, but she's a contrast for my auntie, and two of my best friends.

Finally, I'm glad black men get good treatment. Derek was a righteous, and good cop, a man looking to define himself outside of his parents. He reminded me of my cousins. Hudson's blind friend was intelligent and believable. Thank you for showing that not all black men wind up in prison. And though Glasses did go to prison, as the other poster pointed out he was the right hand man. In my studies as a Psychology major it may be several reasons for the fact so many of us go to prison rather than college, but it shouldn't be assumed blacks are inherently more dumb or evil. Could it be that more people of low socio-economic situation can't afford the best lawyers therefore if caught won't be aquitted as easily as whites? Yes. There are several reason in fact.

I don't feel that putting people of color has made this show somehow prejudice against white. Matt is very competent; I love him! Macbeth, despite his wicked schemes, is very honor-bound, and several of the World Tour episodes highlighted whites of Europe playing the hero. Likewise having Captain Chavez be a woman no more demeans men of strong positions on some fallacy of man-bashing feminism.

All that said it isn't likely that a ninja would be black. I had more problems with the fact that every time we see an Asian on TV they tend to know Karate or else can't speak proper English. But as a whole, Bushido and all the other episodes that visited other nations I felt treated the cultures with respect and beauty. The show found the magic in these culture reminding us that Medieval Europe is not the only place with magic and fantasy stories of interest. Can't say it enough-- Thank You, Greg.