Doctor Who Fun Day '88

1988...
The Doctor had only 25 series/seasons under his belt - a half a dozen lifetimes ago. Now (s)he's bigger than ever, and the 50th anniversary has already passed on by. Modern audiences on this side of the Atlantic may have only the barest familiarity with the 20th century incarnations of our favorite Time Lord, and the first 8 regenerations. For you folks, just assume anyone you can't place in these cartoons is The Doctor. He's not always so uptight about crossing one's own timeline.

But, our theme for yesterday & today's Fun & Games is The Doctor and The Daleks, with our puzzles coming from the Annuals for both. So let us pause and reflect upon the most famous Daleks of all time...

Now for a word from the opposition...

Yesterday's tease of The Deano* also came from today's playground - the 2nd** in a series of books from Tim Quinn and Dickie Howett, the creators of the Doctor Who? cartoon that ran in Doctor Who Magazine.

the works by Tim Quinn and Dicky Howett for It's Bigger On The Inside! (1988)

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*(The Deano is a play on the famous UK magazine, The Beano. The first strip presented on yesterday's feature, Doc The Menace is a take on the Brit incarnation of Dennis The Menace, which was referred to recently in the comments. (see what you miss if you don't read them?))

**(The first was The Doctor Who Fun Book. We'll get there, i'm just not very linear)

Solutions In Space & Time

I'm Awake!

Still a bit wiped out from the bug, and nodded off yesterday without posting your solutions for this morning.
Six hours late, but here at last..

The Deano - Evening Extra Edition

Following on our Friday Fun & Games theme today, here's a little extra fun from back in 1988 (when there were only 7 Doctors!), a few cartoons from The Deano-

too tired to think of what should be here

Tests And Recreational Dilemmas In Sequence

Too physically wiped out to participate in Friday Night Fights, even if i was mentally fit for it. But did manage to crawl out of bed to to post

We get a new Doctor in a few weeks. I'm curious to see how it plays out. Will they explore the question of why both the Master and the Doctor have regenerated in female form at the same time? Is there some over-arching reason for this within the Doctor Who universe? Or will they just leave it lie as an external political function of the story telling?
We'll find out soon enough.

In the meantime, we're here with some other puzzles, conundrums, and games from the Doctor and the Daleks. Let's open with a traditional Spaceword Puzzle to loosen up the ol' grey matter-

And, let's continue to give the brain some warm-up stretches with a couple short quizes-

There we are. Brain humming along now that we've primed it? Good. It's time to practice our cryptology. That'll come in handy if we're going to have to go underground to deal with the Daleks. (A friendly warning. I found number 3 to be a bit tricky on this first set)

If you've mastered the necessaries for communication, then it time to get the frell out of this world of Daleks. So grab a die and let's make our-

As usual, tune in tomorrow for the answers to our puzzles.  

...(and source credits)

The Other Guys

Still here, just a bit under the weather and more than a bit exhausted.
But, tomorrow's in the queue, and hopefully i'll be processing oxygen a tad more efficiently soon.

Meanwhile-
You did catch the Other Justice League movie this week, didn't you?

the above gathering from Crisis On Earth-X (with a little help)

Living The Live

I just finished re-watching Cutie Honey: The Live - the 2007 live-action TV series adaptation of Go Nagai's Cutie Honey. I mentioned the show on a previous Blue Monday installment, but as mentioned then it doesn't really qualify for Blue Monday. There is one bare breast in the show, a girl in a mob boss's bed - and they show it twice. (It's a 25 episode series, but they still managed a "clip show" featuring segments of past episodes. I believe it was after a mid-season break, used to draw in new viewers. That would also be why they inserted the bare breast shot again, repeating the lure from the first episode.)

As we saw in the comic, when she Flash!es, Honey's clothing disappears as it's reconfigured. On the TV show, they kinda/sorta hid that she was wearing a body suit in the beginning with the special effects, but along the way they just decided those details must be getting reconfigured, too, and stopped worrying about it. The crowds, of course, certainly appreciated it - as when Honey leads a group of homeless and unfortunates who have been assessed with an "Existence Tax" by Panther Claw...

One of the fun aspects of this incarnation of Cutie Honey (my favorite of the 3 live-action versions to date) is the way the embrace the spirit of cartoons at times. In that same scene, the crowd (including several of Honey's homeless friends) are unwilling to let Honey fight the battle alone. Gen-san steps up with the support of some of the gang...

And they even come together to give him some "powers" in the fight...

The 2004 Cutie Honey movie embraced the anime heritage more openly and deeply, but Cutie Honey: The Live embraced the spirit in a way i found most appealing. 2016's Cutie Honey: Tears... had some nice effects. I'll stand by the TV version.
How can i not love a hero who wraps up a fight like this:

But don't get the wrong idea. By the end of the series, half the cast (including heroes) is dead, some of them twice. Parts are light and bubbly, parts are silly, and parts are much more grim than anything in the dark & gritty reboot. But they always try to remember it's supposed to be fun. What a difference that makes.
This was one of those shows that i was watching 1 or 2 episodes a day as part of my viewing routine, but wound up watching the last 6-8 episodes in one sitting. We'll come back for a deeper look, as well as a peek at the movies after i re-watch the 2004 film. But, you know how it is at the end of a series..?
One often wants to milk the enjoyment a little longer, and so you wind up with this post.

stills from Cutie Honey: The Live (most from s01e20) (2007)

Moon Girl Bonus Qubit

It is Moon Girl, and yet - it isn't.

We saw this morning that with issue #9, Moon Girl Fights Crime changed once again to become this:

Now that A Moon, A Girl... Romance was the title, you might assume that Moon Girl was gone. Yes, and No. You see, they did this terrible thing to her - made her a background character who now fights heartbreak instead of alien invasions.

We learn of Mary Lou's tribulations in her generic romance tale with no sign of Moon Girl until the final two pages:

Better to have left her in publishing limbo than in this state.
And, yet...  I can still find more of Moon Girl in that comic than i can in the 2011 revival-

The only connection seems to be pirating the old names to new characters and relations. I wasn't able to wade through much, so no full analysis here.
No Moon Girl (nor The Prince), either.