Count Duckula: The Complete Collection is out today. And apparently, there's an alternative cover using a screenshot from an early episode [disregard that, it's the inside XD], which holds four limited edition art cards. Sounds really nice, but is it really worth swapping my series sets for this?
I'm still having serious trouble gaining full access to the FTP of the Duckyboos site. I've tried various ways of viewing the contents of the FTP, and adding and otherwise modifying the files, but I still had the same errors. This has gone too long enough, so we have no choice but to perhaps phone them, and really push it.
However, it hurts me to say, that once the server actually works for me again, I will have to shut down Duckyboos for a while. It was easy to use this at first, but now I think it's about time I broke free from NTLWorld/Virgin's webspace. We'll then have to find somewhere to host it, mostly likely at a [hopefully affordable] price, and then it'll be online again, hopefully without such problems. But then, we also have some financial problems as well [we being my family], in fact, from what I've overheard, my parents had to shut down their bank account. So we're quite fucked at that one.
The Guestbook, Forum and Gallery will still be online though, because they are hosted externally, but the main site will be dormant at that time. I'll be writing up new pages and sprucing up the existing ones as needed.
I'm really dissatisfied with NTL's webspace service as a whole. Never mind the fact that you only get 55MB space for a start, Virgin doesn't provide an online site builder which I pretty would much needed, but they only have that for BlueYonder customers, whereas Virgin customers have to settle with FTP, and we all know now how much they cocked that up. After all, it was originally a mirror for when the original Fateback host somehow started failing to be viewed in certain countries, not that is was any good anyway but still.
Be prepared.
Plugging an epic medley of over 40 kids' TV themes here, which includes a rather funky version of the Count Duckula ending theme.
Clumsy's TV Theme Medley
You can listen to the Duckula one by clicking on the Duckula drawing in the big picture, or you can download the entire thing if you're ever in the mood for some major nostalgia.
A small one that was released a month ago this time, and I'm pretty sure they're designing these for parents with kids under 10.
Count Duckula: The Vampire Strikes Back
By the looks of things, this 66-minute DVD probably has the Vampire Strikes Back as well as a few others around it, but the names of them are not listed anywhere. Is it me though, or are the covers getting really lame? The cover for the old VHS release looks better than this, and this one looks like one of those DVDs that come with collectable weekly magazines.
I'll have to track this down in the shops and pick up the episode titles at least.
Source: Play.com. 
As I've already stated in the Duckyboos forums, I've experienced a serious problem updating the main site via FTP, due to an error that is most likely caused by the webspace itself. I can log into the account and see everything just fine, but when I try to upload any file to it, I receive an error saying "550: permission denied", meaning that somehow I don't have permission to do so. The same thing occured on my old computer, and I tried several other FTP programs as well as FireFTP which I use most, so it's most likely Virgin Media's doing, probably since I got this laptop.
Virgin's customer service is terrible. Some time ago we had to phone them to ask why our connection stopped working, and it took my poor mother 11 minutes to get through. I definitely won't try to contact this was, and emailing them is out of the question as well, so my only choice is to snail mail them once I get hold of the account number.
This really pissed me off last night, as I needed to make some updates mainly in celebration of the 20th anniversary Count Duckula's first broadcast.
Someday I'll break away from the iron chain that is NTLworld. :(
Ever wondered what the Duckula theme tune would sound like if there was a video game based on the show for the Mega Drive/Genesis?
Now you can. X3
This was made for both fun, and to build up my skills in producing music with a number of applications that make it similar to that on the console, which I love dearly. If only there was a Count Duckula game for such, and the SNES, instead of the ghastly ones on the Commodores and the Speccies.
We all know full well that Wikipedia can be a pile of old shite when it comes to rumours about future things, but now there are rumours sprouting from there about Count Duckula becoming an animated feature film produced by Dreamworks, set to be released at least in the year 2009. A part of me wants to believe in it, but after the whole thing about the series being shown again on a kids' channel in the UK, another reckons it's completely false.
What if it were true... there would be so many possibilites.
The thought of Dreamworks making it quite bugs me. I honestly never found any of the Shrek movies as funny as claimed, though there are a number of other animated movies I've yet to see, the latest being Kung Fu Panda. One movie I did like by them was Chicken Run, which was co-produced with Aardman, who according to this rumour had been interested in co-producing this.
Then there is this problem. Several cartoon series had been made into poor films within the last few years, such as Garfield. I watched a small bit of the first one some time ago, and not only did Garfield look hideous, it also starred Jennifer Love Hewitt, who is one of many celebs that annoy me; and it tried too hard to be funny. Tee hee guinea pigs that talk like African-Americans, pull the other one.
Then you have Alvin and the Chipmunks, another example of how animated movies have sunk quite low these days. I saw the trailer on the net last year, and I don't think they were even trying to be funny there. Theodore practicing coprophagia - I know it's a natural thing some rodents do, especially rats, but did these writers honestly though it'd be funny to put that in a kids' movie? And don't get me started on Scooby-Doo, which was just fart jokes throughout.
Back to Duckula. If there really was going to be a theatrical movie based on the 80's cartoon series, I can predict fart jokes, overuse of pop culture, a range of sub par video games released a week before, and terrible songs sung by American pop stars for an OST. But most of all, I predict that it'd be in CGI.
Not all CGI films are as bad as traditional animation fans make them out to be, like Pixar's Cars. But with Duckula, I dread to think of what the model for him would look like - it'd be so detailed, with the indication of features, eye colour, fabrics of his clothes...I don't know, I'm so used to a 2D character with very limited detail, the thought of him being in 3D will scare me.
Now here's the one that would make my brain sizzle with anticipation - who would provide the voices? Would David Jason, Brian Truman and Jimmy Hibbert have the time, or would there be replacements? I know that there may well be some very talented voice actors that could imitate anything, but I would not like it if Duckula sounded more American than he did on the show despite his original actor being British. I know that the original show was a British, Spanish AND American co-production, but damn, this will be so American I'd crave some rain, tea and digestive biscuits in no time.
All of that said, I would go and see it.
But for the time being, we'll have to wait and see if this rumour is actually true.
