Steven Helmer Publications

Synopsis: Scooby ( Don Messick ) and Shaggy ( Casey Kasem ) come across a truck with a suit of armor in the driver's seat. They, along with the rest of the Mystery Gang, deliver it to the local museum and after learning the armor has a strange legend and the "Black Knight" comes alive when the moon is full. My Thoughts: I am a bit confused about where Scooby and his friends are supposed to live. The delivery label on the suit of armor's crate says London, England. Yet, at least as far as I know, they live somewhere in the United States. And yes, there was another shipping label, but I would think any shipper would be extremely confused. I never realized how much I hate laugh tracks until watching this episode. Not everything is as funny as the episode makes it seem, which sort of minimizes the actual funny scenes. I also never realized just how much of a bad example this series set. The gang not only breaks into a museum, but they also destroy a ton of priceless a...

Synopsis: After spending most of her life living in and exploring the Peruvian jungle with her parents, Dora stumbles upon a clue that reveals the location of the lost city of Parapata, which is believed to have more gold than the rest of the world combined. However, because she nearly injured herself in the process, her parents decide to continue the exploration without her and, instead, send her to live with her cousin, Diego's, family in Los Angeles. Having never been around other teenagers, she immediately struggles to fit in and even Diego is embarrassed to be seen with her. Things take a turn for the worse when her, Diego and two of their classmates are kidnapped while on a field trip and transported back to Peru. They escape their captors with the help of a family friend but must find the lost city and her parents before the mercenaries do. Who's in it? The movie stars Isabela Merced , Jeff Wahlberg , Eva Longoria , Madeleine Madden , Eugenio Derbez and Nicholas Coombe...

Synopsis: Max absolutely adores Kate's new son, Liam and would do anything to protect him. But, when his overprotective nature results in anxiety, he must find a way to overcome it while visiting a farm. Meanwhile, Snowball attempts to rescue a baby tiger from a circus and Gidget pretends to be a cat in an effort to retrieve a lost toy. Who's in it? The animated movie uses voices from Patton Oswalt , Kevin Hart , Harrison Ford , Eric Stonestreet and Jenny Slate . Review: After a hectic few weeks, we finally had time to have a family movie night this past weekend and, since we all enjoyed the first film, this was my pick. Unfortunately, while I fully expected this movie to not be as good as the original, I wasn't expecting it to worse to a point none of us enjoyed it very much. There were quite a few things I didn't like about this movie. The first was the fact there was just too much going on at once. It felt as though the writers originally intended this t...

I'm making sure to record A Charlie Brown Christmas when it is on TV tonight, though we probably won't get a chance to watch it until this weekend. It's something I try to do every year (I really should just get it on DVD or something) because it is still one of the few movies that, even as an adult, puts me in the Christmas spirit. My personal favorite from this cartoon is Linus reciting Luke 2:8-14. This has become even more so the past couple of years after having something very subtle but also very clever pointed out to me. Throughout the cartoon, a big deal is made about Linus and his security blanket and how he refuses to let go of it. Yet, when he recites his monologue he casually drops it on the ground as he says "fear not," as though saying he doesn't need his blanket to protect him because Christ is. It's an awesome moment and one that I make sure to remind my kids about every time we watch this now.

I was washing silverware a couple nights ago and, for some weird reason, I had a classic cartoon scene pop in my head. It was the one with Mickey and Donald eating corn like a typewriter. As I thought about this scene (and laughed to myself a bit), I began to wonder about something. How long until this cartoon loses all meaning? With computers, smart phones, etc. being the new norm, it's not as though kids are exposed to typewriters all that often (if at all). Fortunately, my daughters still get the joke. But, I can't help but wonder if my grandchildren will. We could legitimately be a generation away from this cartoon making no sense.