I am in San Diego for a Comic-Con! I am probably at Booth… let’s say 1330. That sounds about right. Sure, why not. Just find Joel Watson and look to your left or right.
During my absence, I have prepared for you some comics and arts I have recently published to Tumblr but not yet here. In direct tonal dissonance with Wednesday’s heartwarming update, here’s a Tumblr comic I drew in which I brutally destroyed my own childhood, corrupting its memory with horrible acts of depravity. For those of you who didn’t do most of your cartoonwatching from the church library, here’s a context-providing YouTube link.
For a godfearing 10-year-old cartoonist like myself, McGee and Me was some compelling stuff. It was no Superbook, but what is, really.
Things I never expected to see on the internet: A reference to McGee and Me
Followed shortly by it being destroyed, though that part I expected. Being the internet and all.
Until you notice the zipper at the bottom this comic seemed almost innocent.
I’m not sure if I should thank you, Captain Not-So-Obvious
OH MY GOD.
Somebody around here is evil. I’m not sure who. It could be multiple persons.
Well on the one hand, thank you for clearing up my confusion.
On the other… EW!!!
Yeeeah I don’t actually get this one. Who is Nicholas Martin?
McGee & Me was a series (about 10-20 total) of kid-to-junior-high age Christians “books” (they were barely 100 pages each, so maybe bound short stories?). Each one had a specific moral crisis, and was told from two perspectives – Nicholas’s real life, and McGee, the little cartoon character he drew who had a life and world of his own. It wasn’t that bad, but I’d forgotten completely about it. The best thign about them was usually McGee’s completely batshit insane adventures that had nothing to do with the main story. IIRC, in one of them he fell into a box of stale cereal and had to fight off monsters. That kind of thing.
They had a few direct-to-video releases, too, though I have no idea how those turned out.
More accurately, it was a TV series (most often seen on video) made in association with (by?) Focus on the Family. The books you mention were basically novelizations. The hook was the Roger Rabbit “animation alongside live action actors” thing, along with the “family friendly” (read: conservative Christian) values presented in each episode.
Probably closer to “Dot and the Kangaroo” than Roger Rabbit, from the look of it all..
My sister and I received a video of an episode years ago from some more devoutly religious friends. We never watched it so I never knew what it was about until now.
I had the one where the hurricane came and a tree branch broke a window, but it was ok because Nicholas prayed before going to patch up the window, and also there was a creepy American Indian dude who kept coming out of no where and staring at him.
I bet my mom still has that tape somewhere in her house.
… Okay, would context actually help at all here, or was it really as bizarre as it sounds if you were watching it?
Holy crap, other people in the world who remember McGee & Me.
I too am shocked. Nostalgia is something people apparently share.
Apparently Nicholas Martin didn’t listen hard enough to the moral of the Very Special ‘Leviticus and Corinthians’ episode.
Or maybe if you created them yourself, it’s okay?
THIS HAS OPENED UP A VERY DANGEROUS CAN OF WORMS.
No, it’s fine. This time, he’s imagined McGee as an of-age female (who just happens to be very tomboyish) whilst drawing hi… er, her…
My thoughts exactly. I loved the series as a child/tween.
Dude, I thought that we all forgot about McGee & Me?
You HAD, and now you’re gonna have to do it ALL OVER AGAIN.
It’s the 80s christian cartoon version of THE GAME
(ahem.)
“Presented by Focus on the Family”… *wibble*
There was an episode of McGee and Me where Nicolas and his friend snuck into a R-rated movie. Their parents warned them that ‘you can’t unsee things.’ Now, every time I visit /b/ on 4chan, I say that to myself. :O
According to the Wiki page for McGee & Me, the plot for the episode you’re talking about was reused in “The Secret World of Alex Mack.” Uh??
…
I…yurgh…I grew up as a very, very Christian kid in the 80′s. In the Deep South and everything. Boy…this is NOT the kinda McGee and Me! video the youth group leaders would’ve shown on Wednesday nights.
But kept for themselves, for friday night.
…
Okay, so I think my imagination has protectively shut itself down at this point…
Jesus Christ, that’s dark.
I see what you did there.
Huh, I’d forgotten about McGee and Me. It wasn’t terribly significant to me growing up. Hell, I never even knew it was a Christian show.
Then again, I wasn’t particularly perceptive as a child.
Well, whatever. I live and grew up in the UK. I’d never even heard of it as of a few minutes ago.
I can’t stop thinking about how dumb of a brand name Ol’ Beero is for beer. Who named that? Is that some sort of reference to an episode of the cartoon about drinking, or a pun based on something in it? Does it have nothing to do with the cartoon and I’m missing some other reference? Or is it just a random really horrible name that Willis came up with on the spot because he couldn’t think of a pun? Is it like a geyser that shoots up beer-flavored cereal instead of steam? Is it an alcoholic dog that shot at Han first, then had to be shot itself at the end of the movie?
Oh, also apparently this is a comic about McGee giving blowjobs. That’s horrible, I guess. Whatever. Look at that stupid can of beer!
It just makes me think of Dexy’s Midnight Runners…
I’d forgotten all about McGee and Me!
And I wish I’d stayed forgetful.
“McGee is not supposed to be real.
Nicholas is supposed to be insane.”
I thought I was the only one who ever saw that! I’d blocked it from my memory too…
I guess watching a horror film with his non-christian black friend really DID permanently damage Nicholas…
That’s what happens when you let your head get full of garbage.
Oh my god, I actually saw half an episode of this show (but WHERE?) and THAT was the one.
And I thought “hang on, this was an episode of Brand Spanking New Doug”.
Yeah I definitely had “The Big Lie” on VHS as a kid, as well as a few more of them – maybe the Christmas one? And possibly the one about tornadoes? My mom would just go and buy everything she could from Christian Book Distributors. We even had a bunch of those Wisdom Tree NES games.
Yes! The tornado with the creepy Indian who was always holding a rabbit. Mid-80′s Christian surrealism at its finest.
Emphasis on the hard right?
/flees
So this guy never got anything better to come to life than a psuedo-leprachaun? I would think that when he turned 13 he would have started trying to draw more interesting subjects.
When he was thirteen he drew babes and catgirls. Now his interests have changed.
Whatever floats his boat I guess.
Well, I didn’t know it, but there is a line, and it’s been crossed. I barely remember McGee and Me from when I was 8 or something, but I’m deeply disturbed by this.
So I talked to my mom today, and asked her if she remembered a show “McGee and Me” that I watched as a kid. She said she was surprising that I remembered it, and when I asked her why, she said that it was so strange that as a kid I would say “I’m gonna go watch McGee and Me now” and then tune the tv to static for half an hour.
Creepypasta, sir… creepypasta… *shudder*
- a_o_t_8.
Oh god, THIS show.
I had a “friend” when I was little who had these. I say friend, the truth was his mom was friends with my mom, so they declared us to be friends so that they could drink coffee and chat for hours while making us hang out.
This dude’s house was VERY religious. He had no video games except those shitty Wisdom Tree ones and some educational ones starring characters from Sesame Street, all of his books were Christian themed, and no movie on his shelf was rated higher than G. He had never even seen E.T. because apparently E.T. was some sort of Christ metaphor, and calling Jesus an alien is blasphemy.
The only thing even vaguely entertaining was that he had tons of episodes of McGee and Me, Superbook, and some other one where people on an archeological dig fell through a hole to biblical times like a Christian Land of the Lost. That stuff was awful, but kinda hilarious.
Hanna-Barbera’s The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Adventure:_Stories_from_the_Bible
That’s the one, good catch.
I grew up with them, that’s why I knew it.
Looking it up on IMDB. I just found out that Tim Curry played the voice of the Serpent in The Creation. That blew my mind. They somehow got the guy who played Dr. Frank N Furter to be the devil in a christian cartoon series.
Wait. HANNA-BARBERA?!
Do you realize how much that blows my mind? That the same guys that created Yogi Bear and Tom and Jerry made this?
OK, *these* I still like!
McGee and Me, Superbook, and The Greatest Adventures were all in our library at church. And my parents and grandparents had bought us the Greatest Adventures on VHS. Honestly, I loved them all as a child. McGee made me laugh and I loved their parody of The Wizard of Oz. And honestly the cartoons did what they were set out to do: teach me values.
Joseph Dammann, who played Nicholas, later played in a low budget Gamers-ripoff called “Fellowship of the Dice”. I’m very tempted to buy it.
I wonder if I should contact Focus on the Family and thank them for the memories and the good values the show taught me. Then maybe mention I’m gay.
David: I’m curious, had you ever played with the McGee and Me board game called “Sticky Situations”?
….
That game.
My family must not have been that Christian of a family, since they never really had us watch so much Christian-related stuff. They did send us to Catholic school, though, where we watched stuff like the Greatest Adventure and Superbook every once in a while. Stuff like this thing, though, never seemed to make the radar.
A boy sits in a room full of strange, whirring contraptions and brings to life something he drew? Witchcraft!
My favorite episode of McGee and Me. I loved that robot, and remember spending a lot of time drawing him at the time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npV1GRbNiVE
So, David, was McGee and Me the inspiration for you to grow up and become a cartoonist? ‘Cause that would be hillarious. And also would not surprise me, as it caused me to have similar aspirations for a time.
I was a cartoonist way before then!
So you started before age eight?! I knew you started early and all, but I guess I didn’t realize you started that early. Most impressive is probably that you’re still drawing Ultra Car after all these years. And that he still works as a character. Give your seven year old self a raise!
He drew Joe and Danny at that time too. They’re his longest running characters.
Part 3 actually has the robot and McGee in it, though for only about one minute.
I totally had one of these movies when I was younger! Thanks for bringing back the memories…even if you did destroy them.