This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Welcome to Red Panda Report.
Buckle up for two-fisted pulp action as I talk about the terrific Twosome of Toronto.
Red Panda Adventures, episode 35, The Rat Lord, was written and directed by Greg Taylor.
It was originally aired May 3rd, 2008, and here is the copy written by Greg Taylor, who also is the voice of the Red Panda.
A sudden rash of petty crime is spreading like wildfire, bleeding the city white a few dollars at a time.
Is it really possible that these robberies are being carried out by an army of children?
What elemental force could possibly have driven these innocents into a life of crime?
And will even the Red Panda be able to oppose the might of the Rat Lord?
So, this episode was a lot of fun. There are multiple things going on here that are kind of interesting.
I will avoid getting too far to spoilers, but this episode kind of lends itself to spoiler talk.
So if you listen to the episode and you don't know what's going on, but you have suspicions about what's going to happen in the future of the Red Panda series,
well, this episode might just confirm some of them for you.
So, anyway, that being said, the things that I liked were the black cap, the big hat, and, hmm, what else?
Oh, I guess the follow up. So, first of all, last episode, which was called The Empty Box, ended with Red Panda,
a promising kit that he would take her to the beach, and it sounded like they were going to go, but it was kind of open ended.
And then this episode begins with them at the beach, and I think that's a lot of fun.
So, while this is definitely, I think, a family friendly show 90% of the time, maybe 95% of the time,
there are little things in there that are interesting. They're a little spicy, I guess you could say.
And the flirtation between Kit and Red Panda got a little spicy this episode.
I got to say, as a married man, as a husband and a father, it was a lot of fun.
It reminds me of the youthfulness and like, I don't know, just kind of that first, that starting energy of a relationship and of a marriage.
And I don't just mean, you know, looking at each other. Well, I mean, like looking each other in the face and talking.
There's, you know, there's different ways to make eye contact. And this kind of alluded to that.
And that works on more levels than I thought. Anyway, so it was a lot of fun.
You know, it's a little much, but, you know, it's radio.
So you're just hearing it and you're not seeing it. But the word oogling, I think it's how Taylor pronounced it, which is hilarious,
because I always thought it was oggling, but oogling is a lot funnier read on that word, although maybe it's the Canadian way to say it.
I don't know. But, you know, that happened, which, you know, it's not so family friendly, but I think it would kind of go over a kid's head.
But the rest of it was really, you know, good and clean and wholesome.
But, yeah, there was a little bit of an edge there with the spiciness or with, you know, the two of them flirting with each other.
And, you know, it turned into something more than just passive interest in each other or, you know, will they won't they?
Now, it's not just suspected. It really is getting into.
Much more legitimate territory, there's much more terra firma here.
If you're given that Canadian pun, I guess, that it looks like something's kind of blossomed between red panda and flying squirrel.
So that's interesting. That's really that part was a lot of fun.
It's a lot of fun because I know what happens in the future and knowing what happens in the future.
Like, I know it's just very charming, very sweet, very, very cute, like almost like romcom level, meet cute kind of thing.
You know, they've obviously known each other for a long time, maybe two years now.
Could be going on the third year. I'm not sure exactly if the show paces a year.
You know, it's 12 episodes per season. Is that, you know, one a month?
Is that, you know, something, some other different cadence that still makes it so each season covers about a year?
I'm not exactly sure. But regardless, they've known each other for a while.
They're getting closer and closer. And speaking of getting closer and closer, red panda has even taught.
Flying squirrel, Kit Baxter, to how to do disguised makeup.
This is something definitely pulled from the shadow. Batman a little bit.
There's an episode from Batman the Animated Series where he goes and lives as like a hobo downtown and gets abducted.
And it's like a really weird, crazy episode anyway.
But he's a master of disguise, Batman and Red Panda and the shadow.
Actually, the way the shadow does disguised makeup is super interesting because in one particular shadow book that I listened to,
I couldn't tell throughout the book, like, which one of these guys is like, I'm pretty sure the shadow is one of these guys who were seeing his face and were hearing his name and he's doing these different things.
But between him and other agents, I can't tell which one of them is the shadow, which is really fun.
Anyway, not to get into right now, but just go read shadow books and listen to old radio dramas of the shadow because they're fantastic.
Anyway, moving on.
What happened was Kit was doing makeup on Harry Kelly, who comes back, and also Harry Kelly plays into things in a big way too here.
And like, yeah, anyway, it's very interesting.
He gets to be the lead man on an agent, lead Kit on an agent or on a mission.
And he is the black cap. He basically begs for a nickname and kind of makes fun of Robin or other boy sidekicks and says, oh, you'd have us call, you know, we won't make you a fellow with us, basically,
because you'd have us call you Panda Boy and you'd be getting kidnapped all the time and blah, blah, blah.
And very funny. But she's setting him up.
She does his makeup. So he looks like a completely ordinary kid, but another kid who isn't Harry Kelly. And then he's begging for, you know, something special.
So a code name or whatever. And Red Panda spots a hat, a black cap, like a newsboy cap.
And he puts it on and he says, if we put this at the right angle, you know, boom, there's you disguise.
Kids will know to look forward to you. Wear it just like this. And you tell them you're the black cap.
And he's thrilled at this at this at this Nick Davis code name. And he even does his own little, you know, this guy's going to see just as the hands of their black cap.
And then he runs his whole crew of kids. And basically, they ferret out this guy who's hanging out in the sewers, bossing kids around, threatening them, telling them that bad things are going to happen to their families.
And only he can protect them by them paying tribute to him. And what he's doing is he's coercing all these children into becoming an army of thieves for him, basically.
And they're going in there, you know, pickpocketing and they're boosting whatever they can, you know, boosting nickels from a phone machine.
They're doing whatever they can to steal stuff, which is awful. And he names a 115, he names a 231.
So he's got at least 231 of these, you know, little agents for him.
And it's interesting because it kind of serves as like a contrast to the Red Panda's agents, who he also calls by numbers, agent so and so.
I don't remember anybody's agent number at this point.
But it's really interesting because it parallels that.
And they even make it a point that the black cap, Harry Kelly, tells the rattler when he confronts him in the sewer along with all these other kids and red pandas and flying squirrels there as well.
But they're just hidden. He says like, these are all my agents now and I'm working for the Red Panda.
So like they co-op his agents into their organization. And it's just kind of interesting because I love the idea of that dichotomy that you can have something that can be there be used for good or for evil.
And it's how it's used that matters. It's what you do with it, you know.
A gun can be used to save people's lives and protect them or a gun can be used to murder people or, you know, flying squirrel and Red Panda, you know, they are brutal with their violence, but they enact violence on criminals.
In order to save people's lives and to protect them.
And, you know, it's ultimately for the greater good, which you have to be careful with.
But anyway, I'm just saying it's interesting that the Rat Lord has this group, this organization that he's running and the Red Panda has this organization and he even kind of coaches Harry Kelly and how to run it on his own.
There's just a lot of cute moments with Harry Kelly and like, I don't know, like I swelled with pride hearing this kid like,
do these heroic things and have this ambition and this drive to put himself on the line and put himself in danger for the sake of saving and helping these other kids and ultimately stopping this bad guy who's using children as this, as his weapons as his instruments.
And it was just like really moving and charming and warm and there's this line in there that Red Panda gives, or you don't know if you didn't listen to it, but if you didn't, you should.
Where he says something like, children are often vulnerable and hesitant to go to adults because they're afraid that they won't believe or that they'll get in trouble if something wrong is happening to them or with them or in and around them.
And that's very true and it almost feels like a very special episode or like a PSA type of episode, but it's really good and very entertaining.
And those things usually aren't.
So I don't know, it's like, it's interesting because it feels like it has a purpose outside of just being an entertaining show to give this moral, to give this lesson.
I don't know if that's for like the primarily adult readers or listeners of Red Panda that Taylor was trying to speak to them through the characters, through the show to say like, hey, listen to kids around you because, you know, they might be in trouble and they might need your help.
Or if it was just, I don't know, just something of the times or something of the era.
It's something that maybe happened in old radio shows and Taylor decided to put it in there because he could and he's emulating those old radio shows just like the commercials they would have sometimes.
And, yeah, I don't know. Anyway, it was a great episode. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was fantastic.
I am, that's, the review is over. The analysis is over. So thank you very much if you want to go now.
If you have a couple minutes to spare, I'll be brief, but I will tell you I have good, solid updates for my stuff.
First of all, if you go to the show notes for this episode wherever you're checking out YouTube or through the podcast feed.
You know the show, go to the webnet show notes which are on MJwindows.com, you will find links to this or links to Dakota Ring links to the shadow radio shows, and also links to read some of my stories like Midnight Angel, which is a noir superhero short story that I wrote.
And more than that, you'll also find links to Grubbugs.com where you can find out about my up and coming book.
I, as of right now, I'm three chapters in, I've written the entire outline. I have massaged it and seen that it's all cohesive.
And I am, I may tweak chapter four because as I was looking at my outline for it, I thought maybe I could make it a little bit better.
So, what I'm saying is, I am very rapidly moving through, moving through drafting from my outline so I have a complete outline of the story told beginning middle and then start to finish.
But it's in raw form, just the data just the information for me to know what to do and what the overall story is. And now I'm going through and I took the outline for chapter one I said okay let me write this out and I turned it into prose and I did it with chapter two, I did it with chapter three I'm going to do it with chapter four at some point, very soon.
But my point is, I am pushing myself steadily I'm trying to do an hour a chapter. We'll see if I can do that or not.
I started off the first chapter was two and a half hours. The next one was an hour and a half. The next one was an hour and a half. Third one was an hour and a half as well, but I got more a higher word countdown so hopefully as I get into a groove and I push myself to do an hour to two hours straight of writing, I can start knocking out these chapters really efficiently really well and get this book done.
So what is this book about it's called Axel's Arcade.
That's the broad title.
And it's about a kid who gets trapped in a video game, but he likes it, he's very happy his family owns an arcade, and in that arcade there's a new game cabinet and he gets pulled into that he gets pulled into it's like a sequel, or it's like a.
It's a sequel series but that's disconnected from other arcade games. One of his favorites and he loves the world.
He enjoys it he beats the game.
And then he keeps playing the game, and he doesn't want to get out of the game, which is great for him, except he doesn't know that the reason he was able to go into the game is because there's this evil force these this hive mind of these cybernetic bugs that want to dominate humanity that
want to wipe his brain, wipe his mind and turn him into a meat puppet that they can use for their evil purposes. He doesn't know that they constructed this whole game thing for him to be pulled in there, and he has to escape, he has to want to escape from that world
which he doesn't because he wants to run away and wants to escape in this thing, but he can't because if he runs from the reality, and he tries to live in fantasy and live in fantasy alone, it will destroy him, and it's an emotional journey, but it's a cool journey
there's fights, there's video game stuff going on there and there's a story with his family, and with him, and there's personal growth, and the stakes just get higher and higher and more and more interesting as you go through the story, and I'm having a lot of fun writing I'm really, I'm doing a really good job of making him have a loving family, but having him have conflict with that family and having him choose to turn away from them and put his energy into other things as opposed to putting his energy back into the game.
Putting his energy back into the family and having a relationship with them, and I think it makes a lot of sense I think it's a really good book I think it's going to be valuable for boys.
Girls aren't welcome to read it of course but I think it's gonna be a really valuable story for boys about facing and dealing with reality, and it's going to be done in a really cool way and there's a few is for sure there's two there might be a third super cool fight in the book, because they're in a video game world and anything can happen.
And I'm really excited to write those seeds, and I just wrote an epic air hockey scene, which sounds really stupid, but it works.
And it's been a lot of fun for me to write so far, and I'm, I'm, you know, I love the story overall and the as I'm writing and I'm.
I'm doing the pros and making the draft. I'm really falling in love with the story, because I think there's something really good there and there's something really strong and powerful there and I'm hoping you'll enjoy it as well.
So, you can find out more about that grow bugs.com you can sign up for a center to pre order, you sign up to find out about what's going to go on there's a newsletter, you'll get and I'm doing about every week, a new update that goes out through the newsletter on the blog.
Grobugs.com that's G R O B U G S. So, enjoy. Take care.
I hope you enjoyed that like share and subscribe. I invite you to comment, ask questions and share your thoughts with me. It's always more fun when you're part of the conversation.
Until next time be well and hold high the lamp of justice.
Thank you for joining us.