Let's Watch Storylords

LouieW · 2011-07-07 17:34:59

According to the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board, "Storylords' captures students' imagination through fantasy interwoven with reading comprehension strategies. Students will identify with Norbert as he learns how to be a Storylord and saves the citizens of Mojuste from the evil Thorzuul."

Of course, the real story is that it is a low-budget live-action educational show developed in 1984 at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.

UW-Stout is in Menomonie, so I guess "Storylords" is probably set there too. Menomonie is pretty close to Minnesota so if you love the Vikings or the Mall of America you might like Menomonie. The Western half of Wisconsin really is dairy land though, so if you like authentic Wisconsin stuff, you will probably find it in Menomonie since I hear there are more cows than people there.

(I would recommend clicking watch on YouTube.)

The series starts out with the aforementioned Thorzuul menacingly motorcycling through some tree-lined road with his henchman Milkbreath. Lexor, who is probably the most obvious Obi Wan Kanobi expy I have ever seen, tries to avoid them by walking out of the woods, even though that is literally the only place Thorzuul can be if he is riding around. Lexor gives up of course, because he needs to choose some Wisconsin gradeschooler to take his place.

He gets to use some magic word to turn into glowing bits (which you will see a lot of in this show, actually) which makes one wonder why he was letting himself be chased by Thorzuul in the first place.

Thorzuul's strategy for becoming an all-powerful dictator is to make sure his entire population is illiterate by the way, somewhat feasible compared to other villainous plots when you think about it.

Now the opening theme song is starting. I think it is actually pretty neat if not fairly cheesy (especially the tune plated right when the Storylords logo appears).

Norbert, the great Wisconsin hero, does the whole "put a book inside another book cover" trick to avoid making it look like he is not paying attention in class. Given that no one else seems to be reading a book there, I think that strategy makes no sense whatsoever.

Lexor's glowy upper half appears in the window. "Holy Camole" is the response here, which according to Urban Dictionary is a cleaner and more appropriate way of saying "Holy Cow." I think "Holy Cow" is probably more fitting for a low-budget dairy state TV show, but whatever.

"You wear silver gloves?" Dude, your teacher was just saying your name because you were spacing out, you did not need to answer anything besides "yes" there. Also, of course the other kids laugh at him, of course. Typical pony elitist fanboy/girls, am I right?

"We're thinking about what we know about ponies. What can you tell us?" Uh...they are really popular on TV Tropes? Male fans of them are called "bronies" and are occasionally made fun of on Fox News shows.

I think Norbert's friend is actually pretty funny, partially because I rarely understand what he is really doing or saying. I guess Norby makes sense as a nickname for someone named Norbert. but I had never heard of it before watching this show. I am not sure what other nicknames you could even use for Norbert. Maybe something like Norb or Norbear (which reminds me of Norfair) or something like that. In any event, Norby sounds a bit like Narm which makes sense given this show.

Like I said before, Norby's friend can be weird at times. I mean, he does not seem one bit surprised about Norby randomly finding a ring on his bike. Our hero totally buys into it, if by buying into it, you mean picking up a ring and getting weirdly stared at by some cloaked man.

"Holy Camole, I'm in my own backyard!" Norby sure seems to possess a talent for image macro quality overreactions.

"I'm Norbert, boy of Wisconsin." Notice how he mentions the entire state in his introduction to Lexor. This shows that he identifies with Wisconsin more so than anything else, especially since he probably has figured out that Lexor is not from Earth, let alone the United States.

Norby's "why me" comment actually makes a lot of sense and despite being surprised before, he seems very rational and calm now that he is asking what he has to do.

All that logic is thrown out the window with this “bike-a-tron” stuff. Wait, Norby has to say an incantation, stare at a picture, and peddle as fast as he can? I thought it was pretty tough to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time, let alone do something like that. Again, Norby seems pretty genre savvy or cautious or something like that. It was smart to actually ask how to get home before following some random guy’s directions.

Clearly, Norby is a great hero with all of his qualifications and questions and “sure, I guess” responses. I actually think that makes him more rational, somewhat surprising given his age.

Well, I guess all Storylords have to wear those rather obnoxious (or cool depending on your point of view) gloves.

Do the Elephant Dance is written by someone with a doctorate. I guess he might have a PHD in performance art since I doubt Elephant Dancing would be approved as a topic for a dissertation. Actually, I suppose it might be, I really do not have much expertise in that kind of thing. The teacher’s guide for this episode incorrectly names the book as Do the Elephant Stomp by the way. It also says that the woman Norby talks to is named Melisande.

I am not really understanding Thorzuul’s motives here. Why does he want some random dancer to fail to read a book that he chooses to give her? He probably is just doing it for the lulz I guess.

Judging by the blackboard, the kids are still talking about ponies in Norby’s communication arts class. I am thinking they might be a bit overexposed at this point.

Despite all of the people who may complain about snow in Wisconsin, I think Norby is right here about playing in it. More importantly, the prior knowledge strategy that he talks about with his teacher actually does make some sense. “Royal Badness” as a title not so much.

Wait, if Thorzuul was punishing the other dancers who could not read by turning them into statues, he actually wants them to read, right? I thought his goal was to get rid of readers, not make new ones. If he can just turn people to stone at will, why did he not do that in the first place? Complicating that further is how Thorzuul is described as “the bad Storylord” in the teacher’s guide. So are Storylords supposed to help people to read, just do something related to reading, or not do anything at all? I am not sure. This chart might help explain things.

Questions for Discussion: “What if the wicked Storylord Thorzuul came to our school to take away some of our reading powers? What do you think he might steal from us?”

MadassAlex · 2011-07-07 23:13:10

I think Thorzuul would just take our reading powers. He doesn't seem like a big deal as a villain, insofar as destructive powers are concerned. He would probably allow us to destroy ourselves afterwards and clean up the scraps.

Although stealing everyone's reading powers seems like a pretty big task, and that doesn't even take languages and oral transmission into account.

LouieW · 2011-07-14 19:28:01

I think Thorzuul would just take our reading powers. He doesn't seem like a big deal as a villain, insofar as destructive powers are concerned. He would probably allow us to destroy ourselves afterwards and clean up the scraps. Although stealing everyone's reading powers seems like a pretty big task, and that doesn't even take languages and oral transmission into account.

I would guess that all he would really need to do to reach his goal would be to make sure nobody else could read. Given how low literacy rates used to be, I think that is not out of the realm of possibility. Of course, he could just turn everybody to stone and not take any risks, but I think he enjoys messing with people.

Still, according to this week's episode guide, he actually has "black magic" powers or something so maybe he is more destructive than he looks. According to the teacher's guide, "[t]he worst thing Thorzuul could take would be all the ideas we have and all our special powers to think about our ideas and remember them.” I am not sure that even makes sense though.

Episode 2 begins in an arcade and realistically, most of the people there are just playing games without much of any kind of emotion. Norby and his buddy are really expressive of course. Is showing people playing video games with a lot of enthusiasm a trope? I think it seems common enough to be one.

“I warned you about spaceships bro. I told you dog.” The name on top of the arcade cabinet changed in a Ghostwritery way. That does not matter though. What is important, is that Norby cannot go an arcade without being hassled about his Storylord duties.

So, if the “bike-a-tron” is in Norby’s garage, did Lexor move it there? It clearly is not made of Norby’s bike since he just dropped that out in his yard and the “bike-a-tron” was covered. I also wonder how that picture changes every time, but I doubt that is ever explained.

The throat-slitting motion Marko makes is actually banned in the NFL by the way. That is how hardcore Storylords is. Of course, that article has to mention that Favre had used that motion before so I guess that is your Wisconsin connection. Also, for some reason, a bunch of people were apparently arrested for throwing snowballs according to that article.

Sorry for the sports derail. I guess this mime routine is not very conducive to commentary. I always thought that charades was pretty tough, especially when people start getting into the syllables and “sounds like” stuff. Still, I cannot say I dislike mimes. Being able to communicate without talking seems admirable to me. I feel like talking is kind of overrated anyway.

Norby on the other hand, must be really good at charades. He has not missed a guess yet and that 24 hours one seemed pretty tough to me. Two circles on the clock is more like two hours, right?

Norby looks seriously depressed. I think having to deal with life and stone situations like this is a lot for a grade-schooler. I mean, look at what happened to Shinji and he was a middle school student. Actually, scratch that, this is a bit different. I am not sure that Norby could pilot a mecha.

Great use of foreshadowing with that kite book. I am not sure if that was sarcastic, but that “just like you connect two pieces of a puzzle” line seemed like a little much. I understand that these are just children who probably have little to no acting experience, but the script writers are probably adults, right? They might just be college students at UW-Stout, I guess so maybe they have some excuse (alcohol or ultimate frisbee I guess).

Again, how did Norby guess those actions were supposed to mean “airplane” and cloud” anyway?

“…Or should I say one and a half.” Ouch, Norby just got told like a bedtime story. Thorzuul might as well have said “call me the bus driver, ‘cause I just took you to school.”

Yep, it was easy. Marko just imitated Nyjer Morgan.

Questions For Discussion: Eric moved slowly toward the blue jay. He picked it up and gently placed it in a grass-lined basket. “What has happened to this pretty blue jay?” thought Eric, as he walked carefully toward the barn.

What is a blue jay? How did you know that a blue jay is a bird? Why didn’t the blue jay fly away? How did you come up with that idea? What kind of person do you think Eric might be? How do you know these things about him?

LouieW · 2011-07-21 17:42:40

What exactly is Norby doing there, playing catch with himself? If so, why not just throw the ball up in the air? Either way, I am not understanding why the camera is so zoomed out here.

On the topic of the Super Bowl, the Green Bay Packers are still the reigning Super Bowl Champions. When this series was produced, however, the team had not been good in a while. This was pre-Favre and obviously Pre-Rodge-Podge too. On a related note, I think the reasons for why the Packers should not retire Favre’s number are kind of silly, but that is a bit off topic.

I guess Mandy throwing the spiral is this show’s YouGoGirl moment. Mandy is a new character and I would say she is likable enough. If you want to use a silly trope to describe her, I suppose she is a LittleMissSnarker, but most of the time I feel like she is just the rational one.

Why would Norby think dinner is more important than saving other people? Are they trying to reinforce the “Wisconsinites are fat” stereotype?

I think that if most Americans read the letter Norby’s reading right now with the fudgeball terminology exchanged for cricket jargon it would make just as little sense. I understand that plenty of people outside of the U.S. feel the same way about baseball, but I have trouble decoding terms like “fine leg” and “silly point” and it seems like using more direct descriptions of positions would be nice.

That is just my opinion though.

“Stop, Think, Reread, Ask, and Read Over” sounds like a good strategy for addressing things particularly infuriating posts too. I think it is pretty easy to misinterpret stuff online or just let your emotions run wild. Stopping and taking a break seems like a good solution to those problems (as Abyss_Worm has suggested in the past) and asking either the person who made the post or a moderator seems reasonable to me too. Usually, I find taking some time to think things over is a good strategy anyway, whether it be a post, a Let’s Play or what have you.

I doubt Norby would have come up with STRARO by himself in real life, but whatever.

They have Marlboro in Mojuste? I guess that is quite the powerful brand.

How did the artist already know what page fudgeball was on if she had never heard of it before? More importantly, why do baseball players not do the big waddle? If you hit a home run, I feel like you deserve to run around the bases backwards.

“And not a minute too soon.” This is plainly false. Sure they did not have a lot of time, but clearly Thorzuul and Milkbreath had to drive all the way up that path, disembark the motorcycle, probably open the main door to whatever building the art room is in (probably one on UW-Stout’s campus), walk down the hall to the correct room and open the door. I would be surprised if those two guys could do that in a minute or less.

“How? It’s impossible.” You would think Thorzuul would know about Wizard World or whatever that magazine was called given that he rules over Mojuste and that his picture is on the cover. I think it is reasonable to wonder if Thorzuul is really a stealth mentor at this point.

“This program was funded, in part, by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.” I think this probably would have been a victim of Cut, Cap, and Balance if such a plan existed at the time.

Discussion Questions:
How would you illustrate the following ideas in a painting?

Tabby cat crouched under a low tuffet, ready to pounce. A silver bobbin had dropped from Mrs. Gray’s lap and was rolling across the floor. A tail of red dragged behind the bobbin and made a path right under Tabby’s nose.

glennmagusharvey · 2011-07-25 14:22:39

Moving thread to liveblogging category.

snowbull · 2011-07-25 18:09:47

I wish I could remember if they ever showed us something this awful in elementary school.

Thanks for showing this gem off, Louie.

LouieW · 2011-07-29 17:52:46

Snowbull,
I wish I could remember if they ever showed us something this awful in elementary school.

Thanks for showing this gem off, Louie.

I wanted to watch this anyway so I am glad that someone else might be interested in it too.

Okay, so since this episode is called “Knowing When You Don’t Know (on the page)” I guess this is the continuation of the last episode “Knowing When You Don’t Know (in your head).” I am not holding out hope for some continuity in this episode, but I thought that was worth noting or something.

Mandy’s squawking noise reminds me of how sometimes babies seem to make thoroughly unhuman noises as if they were pterodactyls or something. I think the worse of that business is when you are taking care of the baby and you have to apologize for its squawking. I would say It is a pretty rough deal since you are not actually responsible but have to take the embarrassment for it. Then again, I guess plenty of kids who are a bit older feel embarrassed by their parents too so I guess it is equal in a way.

So does no one else ever go in that garage/storage shed thing where Norby is hiding the bike-a-tron? I would think that at least his mother/father or whoever cleans most of the time would eventually wonder why there were such gaudy gloves set up there, let alone a bike.

That guy’s mustache would make Bernie Brewer proud.

I am thinking that munchkin is not the appropriate term to use there. Child seems to be the political correct term.

They have Encyclopedia Brown books in Mojuste? I think Chef Jeff’s acting or overacting is somewhat better than that of some of the other characters, but I am starting to wonder if there was even much of an effort made to distinguish Mojuste from Earth. Are there any differences besides the unusual names and that fudgeball game?

Why would a mother not tell her kids about someone who was moving in with them? I guess because it was a surprise because she is actually talking about a dog or something.

Oh, it looks like I was wrong, it was a cat. Speaking of which, why would you say “kitty cat” instead of just “cat” or “kitten” in the first place? Are there some cats that are “puppy cats” or “bear cats” or “catty cats” or do people say that just to sound cute or childish? I guess it might be sort of like how children tend to say “mommy” and “daddy” instead of “mother” and “father.” Sorry to go off on another tangent, but does anyone else think it is pretty weird when older teenagers or even adults call their parents “mommy” and “daddy” or is it just me?

Talking about an earlier episode, I wondered how Thorzuul did not know about an article published in a magazine called Wizard World given that it featured him on the front cover. Now, he somehow knows the exact contents of a chef’s refrigerator. I think his surveillance operation seems a bit uneven.

I would say that “Chef Jeff’s” sign was a pretty obvious photoshop, but I guess Photoshop was not around in those days so that would be inaccurate.

Why would Thorzuul be angry in this situation? He just received a free apple pie.

Application Activity:
Baby Kangaroos
A young kangaroo is called a joey. When it is born, a joey is very, very small. It crawls into its mother’s pouch right after birth. The joey does not leave the pouch for many months. It just stays in the pouch and grows larger.

What is a baby kangaroo called? Where does a joey live when it is very young? What does a joey eat while in its mother’s pouch?

DYRE · 2011-08-01 20:28:21

Posting to say that I am enjoying this so far.

Well... enjoying your liveblog. And I guess enjoying the fact that I never was forced to watch this show when I was younger.

LouieW · 2011-08-05 20:04:47

DYRE,
Posting to say that I am enjoying this so far.

Well... enjoying your liveblog. And I guess enjoying the fact that I never was forced to watch this show when I was younger.

Thanks, and yep, I might see why you would not want to have to watch this show. Still, compared to what you would normally be doing in reading class, I imagine that it would actually be pretty entertaining.

Norby is perfectly fine helping out random strangers on Mojuste, but is not so excited about doing what probably is relatively simple homework help for his sister. Then again, Mandy does basically just tell him to do the whole thing himself.

"Why can't you read it yourself?" "'cuz you're older." With that kind of attitude, you are not exactly going to go anywhere, but you could apply it to a bunch of things.

"Take the dandelions out of this garden for me."
"Why can't you weed it yourself?"
"'cuz you're older!"

"Make this bread for me."
"Why can't you knead it yourself?"
"'cuz you're older!"

"Sell this territory to Canada."
"Why can't you cede it yourself?" Alright, this is pretty dumb, sorry.

Wait, Thorzuul is an evil genius? I thought we already established that he was unable to keep tabs on who even published his picture in a widely available magazine and I think his genius "cred" has to have taken a hit by being beaten by an elementary school kid so many times.

"Shh, can't you read?" I thought that was the whole problem to begin with.

This episode again brings up the question of whether Thorzuul is trying to help people to learn to read or trying to keep them illiterate. On one hand, he has given people pretty tough tasks seemingly for the lulz (i.e. the elephant stomp book). On the other hand, he is giving children reading tests with rather harsh punishments so maybe he honestly wants people to learn to read or is just an elitist reader.

Why do these kids seem to want to one-up each other in this reading class. "I think before I read." "Yeah, well, I think the entire time, beat that." "Pretty sure I'm the best here. I've never stopped thinking once."

Flying Pillows From Outerspace is probably some alternate rock band that is too cool to dress as aliens wearing pillowcases.

Apparently, every single road in ~~Menomonie~~ Mojuste looks exactly the same.

Thorzuul is obviously not all bad. He respects the "be quiet in a library" rule at least. Yep, you can keep looking for good points, even for a guy who turns children to stone.

That Sultan does not look like much of a Sultan to me. I thought Sultans tended to live in the Middle East or Africa. In any event, I wonder if having a hard hat would even solve that many problems, I mean, you would still have to hunch over a lot in buildings and I doubt the giraffe would ever be able to drive a car. I guess giraffes are like many NBA players like that.

Norby is getting a bit more courageous now, openly dissing Thorzuul like that. I guess that counts as character development.

Unfortunately, there is no application activity this time since it is difficult to do online so this will be all for now.

LouieW · 2011-08-13 18:13:45

I would be just as confused is Mandy is about Norby's answer (non-answer) to that question. I mean, he does not actually respond to what the question asks, right? In any event, I am more concerned about Mandy's priorities right now. Last episode she saw children who had been turned into stone by Thorzuul and yet now she seems more concerned about Norby's homework than saving Mojuste.

Where did they get the extra set of fancy pants gloves from? I realize the correct answer is probably a ~~wizard~~ storylord did it, but even so, Mandy seems to be adjusting to being an apprentice storylord pretty well. I guess there might have been some offscreen explanations of all this stuff to her at some point. I might as well just assume that because I highly doubt the people responsible for Storylords thought about any of this.

I suppose that was a piece of Storylords fanon. Unfortunately, I could not find any actual Storylords fanfics to see if they were compatible with that. I did find the following example of Thorzuul cosplay though (apologies to the person wearing it).

Why do you have to go and diss Norby with a sarcastic comment? He is just trying to be the best storylord he can be. Plus, it is not like he has control over where he is sent in that bike-a-tron deal.

There is a way to answer that question. If you know what season it is then you could choose the cape color which fits that. I guess that solution would become problematic if it was actually Spring or Fall though. The letter Mandy reads seems to make the situation simpler, but just because it snowed does not automatically make it winter. Being from Wisconsin or the surrounding area, I imagine that most of the kids watching this would know that well. What does it even matter? Thorzuul just wears all black (plus gold chains) anyway.

Jason's logic about wearing mittens makes sense to me, but I feel like it ignores the fashion aspect of all of this. Sometimes people just wear stuff because they think it looks nice/is seemingly comfortable, not because it is actually particularly practical (i.e. wearing uggs during the summer or shorts during the winter). I guess part of that is showing off too. Maybe Meagan would just wear the mittens year-round because she felt like it or maybe her hands just happen to get cold a lot.

If you pay close attention when their teacher is saying "Very good, all of you," the girl in the bottom of the screen seems to have this "why are you letting them answer the questions" look of disapproval on her face.

The castle of Thorzuul has its very own letterhead, but yet Thorzuul only prints his name rather than sign his letters or add a bunch of titles to it like "his royal badness" and such. I think it gives his notes a rather personal touch.

Milkbreath mentioned Thorzuul as a storylord again, so I guess what the teacher's guide said about him being an evil one was right all along.

"It's impossible." How was it even remotely close to being impossible? You gave them the answer.

Norby is being snarky again with his scarf comment and I guess Milkbreath is not that bad after all.

Questions for discussion:
1. What does the sun look like?
2. What is the sun made of?
3. What might happen to Earth if the sun stopped glowing?

LouieW · 2011-08-21 16:48:21

Norby is into stamp collecting, so I wonder if he is a member of the American Philatelic Society. Even if I can certainly understand some of the appeal behind stamp collecting, it seems like an odd hobby to give the main character if kids watching this show are supposed to relate to him.

As long as we are on the subject of postal work, I feel like I should thank postal inspectors. They may not have the most glamorous job, but it is an incredibly important one, especially when you consider how they filter mail that is sent to Congress and stuff like that. Of course, the National Postal Museum tries to glamorize them anyway as you can see in the following image.

Yep, these people mostly just sort and protect mail, not exactly staking out or doing drug raids despite what it may look like.

I am guessing it has become pretty obvious by now that Norby pretty much always directly attributes his knowledge to his reading class. I suppose that is a bit of an indoctrination strategy on the part of the Storylords script writers (i.e. your teachers will help you). Now, I am not going to say that it is bad to tell kids to trust their teachers to help them, but I think it might give kids unreasonable expectations later on.

This stuff about short versus long vowel sounds kind of confuses me, but I guess I am not too bright. In any event, I think it seems kind of odd to see no one in the class know the word licorice, but yet they all seem to understand how to use and differentiate between vowel sounds.

Norby is showing some guts again by being willing to distract Thorzuul. By the way, I realize I am probably just weird, but Zandro kind of reminds of Knuckle Joe.
How did Thorzuul know Zandro had never seen the word "dandelions" anyway? Again, his intelligence gathering services seem rather odd. He knows what words people do and do not know and the specific layout of a chef's refrigerator and yet is unaware of magazines using his face on the covers.

I realize that Norby is just trying to sound smart, but seriously, why would Thorzuul ask for dandelions if he was allergic to them? How/why is he allergic to them yet he seemingly only reacts right when they are on his nose? On second thought, why would he ask for them in the first place aside from just wanting to torment Zandro?

As a bit of extra AllThereInTheManual trivia, the teacher's guide says that Zandro's father's name is Zetus and that he is a jeweler. I am honestly a bit surprised that Storylords even has extra canon stuff like that, but I guess it shows you that they definitely put in some effort.

LouieW · 2011-08-28 14:58:49

I know it is not exactly a masterpiece, but I still think the Storylords theme is mildly catchy. I guess props are due to David Roll, the guy you wrote and performed it according to the credits.

I guess this is the first appearance of Norby's mother, I have no idea how casting worked for this show, but it seems like a good fit. I guess those glasses (coke-bottle) are pretty eighties too so they look kind of weird now.

In any event, it really was nice of Norby's class to make him a "get well soon" card, especially for those in his reading class who are constantly ignored in favor of giving him more spotlight. I am glad that have not become incredibly jealous of him. I am not really sure why Norby is so impressed that his teacher signed a card though. At least, she did not add him on Facebook. I think that would have been awkward.

The way the reading class is set up seems pretty heavy on the acting. When reading a word one does not know, I doubt that most people just exclaim "I've never seen that word before" rather than trying to pronounce it or ask what the word is.

It looks like some other students are getting some attention now that Norby is not answering everything.

By the way, this is pretty dumb, but "thinking caps" remind me of some Mario power up. I am not sure when that would come in handy though. Maybe if there was a Professor Mario game or something. He does supposedly have a MD (see Dr. Mario), so he must have had to go through a lot of schooling and exams, not to mention residency requirements in a hospital. Would using a thinking cap be considered cheating? It probably does not matter if Dr. Mario is really an unlicensed doctor, but I wonder if he really is more like a pharmacist given how much he focuses on medication rather than surgery.

Yep, all of these new people are participating now that Norby is not there. I mean, I do not even think I had ever seen Lance before.

The petosky is Michigan's official state stone.

Norby and Mandy are not bad at making faces at each other (or I guess communicating). I am thinking it would be a better idea not to tell their mother that Mandy will be back for dinner though since it will inevitably lead to the question of where she went. Norby and Mandy might need to work on this alter ego/secret super hero cover story a bit.

Again, Mandy is a child, not a munchkin. Clearly there are children on Mojuste, right? Zandro is one of them. What is up with all of the munchkin talk then?

I wonder what percentage of the budget they spent on Caroma's paintings and I am not sure how she could really paint much of anything just using that big brush on that small canvas. Making paintings that move sounds like Adeleine to me, but I think Adeleine's are better because they actually come to life rather than use weird special effects. I am not really sure why Storylords keeps reminding me of Kirby. I guess it must be the target audience or something.

Thorzuul is so disgusted that he takes one look at the painting and jets off down the same exact road he always goes down. In this episode, he seemed pretty nonthreatening too and he did not even make one snide remark. He might be losing his touch.

Activity:
All right, Word Detectives, read this note from Thorzuul’s wife [yes, Thorzuul apparently is married].
Draw a picture of me in my garden. I want to be dressed in my best clothes. I should be wearing my red bolero over a yellow shirt. My bolero does not have any sleeves, so don’t make any. It doesn’t have any buttons, either. It is open in the front. I always wear it with a red and yellow skirt. But, be careful, it never touches my skirt.

Write the clues you think describe what a bolero must be.

LouieW · 2011-09-04 17:12:13

Okay, so what exactly does Jason do to Norby at the 00:31 mark? I get the whole high-five part, but what comes after that, some kind of shove? If so, I wonder why Norby reacts with a hiss. This is the one thing I understand the least about this show.

"You could've picked Superman or something." I guess that is kind of true, but if you think about it, that probably would have been much harder if not impossible. I mean, Superman is more than just one story and then you have all the retcons, new series, different adaptions, and extra-canonical information that would just serve to complicate things even more. So I think Norby and Jason might have some trouble story-mapping that out.

Yep, it is just a coincidence that Norby and Jason are talking about reading class all of the time.

"Excellent" seems to be Mandy's new catch phrase, but I think its meaning is a bit different from Holy Camole's even though she seems to be using it in the same way. I guess the difference is kind of similar to how saying something awes you now tends to be mostly positive even though it really just means that it is surprising or fills you with a sense of wonder or something.

Thorzuul's story sounds like a character bio for some overpowered Gary Stu RP character to me, but I wonder more about his motivation here. If the idea is that criticizing the story means that the apprentice storylords will be turned to stone then this exercise seems pointless. He could just do that anyway. Clearly, there needs to be a contrived way for Norby and Mandy to criticize the story using story-mapping, but why would Thorzuul care about that? He would only really care if he actually wanted them to learn reading skills, further supporting that hypothesis which may be pretty obvious.

Feel free to notice that Norby's story map page is printed on the exact same type of paper as Thorzuul's story.

I think it is pretty much established now that Thorzuul is fairly nonthreatening for someone willing to turn people to stone. If you want more evidence, consider that he is willing to listen to Norby go on and on about his reading class.

As usual, despite a bunch of other people in the class raising their hands, only Norby and a select few other students are called upon. A YouTube comment from mustangman6t9 echoes that sentiment: "the teacher picks on the same 3 kids everytime while the rest of the class puts there hands up too classic." I guess it is slightly better in this episode since Eve and Travis talk for once, but even then Eve is off target with her answer.

Alright, so Thorzuul does decide to try to turn them into stone anyway. His plan basically was pointless then I guess.

I guess I can just end this entry with the following photo of Thorzuul at the Book Cellar in Chippewa Falls, WI in January 2010. Credit for the photo is here.

Nova · 2011-09-04 17:17:34

You seem so earnest while writing this. It makes it even more amusing than it would otherwise.

LouieW · 2011-09-10 16:21:00

Cygan,
You seem so earnest while writing this. It makes it even more amusing than it would otherwise.

Thanks, I suppose I might be taking this a little too seriously though.

I guess that tan paper seen in both Norby's story-mapping sheet in the last episode and as Thorzuul's stationary in previous episodes is just what the Storylords cast and crew had on hand all the time. It appears again and this time Mandy's homework is printed on it.

I think a lot of this preparing to ride the "bike-a-tron" stuff could probably be cut out of the episode. I guess they needed to fill out the full 14 or so minutes for the episode, but is padding really necessary in a 12 episode educational series?

I guess the Thorzuul/Bowser connection should have seemed clear before, but now that Thorzuul Jr. is in the picture, it is even more obvious. I am not sure what that makes Milkbreath, but I wonder if this means that Thorzuul has seven Thorzuulings who had been neglected in favor of Junior.

Thorzuul is finally doing something threatening, even if the special effects might not capture it too well. Given that they at least do the glowing entrance and exit effect decently, I expected something a bit better than a few lines when Thorzuul is supposed to have paralyzed someone. Still, now Thorzuul is taking Norby hostage, a far cry from running away in disgust from dandelions.

Could Thorzuul's reaction to the name of Norby's English teacher be foreshadowing? If you watch the last two episodes you might find out.

This pronoun business can sometimes be tough, I agree. I think it can be even more difficult when you either do not know someone's gender (such as when you are online) and your only option is to say something somewhat inaccurate like the singular they or something weird like she/he or s/he. I guess some languages just use the masculine pronoun in such situations, but that seems pretty unequal to me.

Then you have times when people say "we" when they are really talking about themselves. It is probably cliche to say "speak for yourself," but yeah, I think things can get confusing if you do otherwise, even if you are royalty or whatever.

Mandy's English class is rather small. I think most schools would love to have that kind of personal attention for each student.

I wonder if it was Thorzuul Jr. who somehow summoned Norby and Mandy to Mojuste this time. If so, does that mean that there is some kind of Digimonesque digital connection between Earth and Mojuste? Considering that Thorzuul Jr. was at a computer when he said that his plan worked, I guess that is a possibility. Maybe the connection between the two worlds is akin to the one in the Matrix instead.

The teacher's guide suggests that Thorzuul has stopped trying to interfere with the lives of ordinary citizens and has shifted to directly challenging Norby and Mandy. There is some evidence of that in the past few episodes, but if it is true and the apprentice storylords figure it out, it seems like they no longer have a rational reason to go to Mojuste. They are a lot safer at home after all and they can always warp back and forth pretty easily.

This new development makes me wonder what they see on the picture attached to the "bike-a-tron" now. It has not appeared recently, but if it just looks like Thorzuul's castle, why not just leave? All of this makes their last challenge seem kind of strange to me considering they did not have much of a reason to talk to Thorzuul since no Mojuste citizen was in danger.

snowbull · 2011-09-10 19:35:30

Is there some reason these videos only have audio on the left side?

LouieW · 2011-09-11 15:21:42

Snowbull,

I have been listening to them with headphones so I did not notice that, but I cannot think of any reason for it either way.

LouieW · 2011-09-18 17:26:41

Well, this is the second to last episode. I found some rant about Storylords online that I thought might be worth talking about so that will serve as an epilogue. It is probably not worth looking forward to that to be honest.

While I am not quite understanding what Mandy wants to do with her dolls (her line "all the animals altogether, all the people altogether" has been confusing me), I like the mention of Care Bears. Still, who would just have one singular Care Bear? I thought they almost always were at least in pairs. If I remember correctly, the villains in the Care Bear series tended to be especially evil and scary compared to most, which seemed to create an eerie contrast with the Care-A-Lot inhabitants' cheeriness.

I feel like the idea that Thorzuul wanted to conquer both worlds is pretty new. I thought before he just wanted to turn the citizens of Mojuste into statues. I guess his motives have been changing.

I can understand being a bit freaked out by this whole evil laughter and smoke sequence if you are in the target audience for this show, but I find it a bit difficult to take Thorzuul seriously when he is the same guy who ran away from dandelions. Plus, a helpless looking Lexor holding the mouse doll seems like pure narm to me.The whole sequence is probably some kind of padding anyway.

All of that silly laughing and Thorzuul holds a mouse doll hostage. He does make Lexor tiny of course, but for some reason Mandy and Norby seem to stop caring about that pretty quickly. To quote a YouTube comment from ytumira: "an evil overlord with gigantic shoulder pads is going around stealing stuffed animals from children and forcing them to organize sentences!"

Norby's hogging the limelight again, getting called on even when at least three other kids are raising their hands. I guess the point of that is to make Norby out to be the hero, but it seems like they could let other kids talk more too. I think that anyone would has been in a situation where you were being left out despite raising your hand a bunch can relate to Norby's classmates right now.

Then again, it might be that the select few who do get to talk are the only ones considered to have the requisite acting skills for Storylords. Given the performances so far, I think that would be pretty silly.The only really legitimate reason I can think of is that having too many characters could make it harder for children to follow.

I have a feeling that Sow Joan would get along pretty well with Thorzuul.

I guess an evil overlord who can be defeated by organizing sentences and who is upset to lose a stuffed animal named "mousy" actually may need a minute of smoke, evil laughter, and shooting laser effects to establish that he is actually a threat. Speaking of Thorzuul, his office and castle do not exactly seem very evil. There do not seem to be spikes or chains anywhere or any sort of scary motif at all. It just looks like he is an ordinary guy who enjoy turnips and fudgeball.

The apprentice storylords were not wearing their fancy pants gloves this time for no discernible reason, yet the magic still apparently worked. Maybe this is an example of a Magic Feather plot (I doubt it was intentional).

As for what the teacher's guide tells us this time, Thorzuul Jr. apparently likes to hunt for poisonous spiders, but Thorzuul prefers that he do that with his cousin Kayzuul rather than with the Gwynn twins that appeared earlier. If you are going to have zuul at the end of every person's name in your family, why not just have that be your family name or at least a middle name. I am not a big fan of that kind of theme naming like that in real life, especially when you give your children names that all share the same first letter. I think that ventures into tacky territory.

LouieW · 2011-09-25 11:36:30

Well, this is the last episode and it starts like any thrilling finale with someone (in this case Norby) sleeping. It is probably pretty obvious what Lexor means by "it will come to you," but I think it is kind of unusual that Norby is making excuses. I thought part of his character development was that he was not afraid of Thorzuul and more willing to help out Mojuste.

If you look at the far back row of the class, one of the kids is apparently a resident of the Mushroom Kingdom.

I think they probably could live in a bus, though I guess that depends on your definition of bus. I mean there are tour buses and things like that. Stupid comments aside, I think it is bit weird that none of the students have ever seen the word "yacht" before. I guess there are not too many yachts on the western side of Wisconsin, but if I feel like people tend to talk about them a lot, especially to stereotype rich people. The whole "elitist east coast yacht sailing millionaires" idea comes to mind.

Their teacher may be proud of all of them, but she only ever seems to really call about a few of the students, so I am not quite sure how she can make that kind of comment. Still, it might be that Norby is just an unreliable narrator and since the story is focused on him, we only really see classtime that features him.

I think that the way they did Milkbreath's sudden introduction of Thorzuul and the foreshadowing before it was actually pretty good. It seems like there was just enough information to make someone in the target age range have an idea that Thorzuul was going to visit them at school, but I imagine that most people were still surprised. Plus, they did not have to use a bunch of fancy special effects, just pretty decent acting to accomplish it.

Though he explained it really briefly, it seems like I was right before about the storylord gloves being part of a Magic Feather plot. Why Mandy did not ask about them before, I do not know. Also, I am liking how Thorzuul actually seems somewhat threatening again.

On Milkbreath's suggestion of warm milk to Thorzuul, why would someone drink warm milk to begin with? I hear that it helps you sleep or something, but I feel like milk should be cold. Otherwise it just tastes weird. Same thing with root beer floats too. Drinking a warm (or hot) root beer float just seems plain wrong to me.

I feel pretty bad for Thorzuul. I mean, who will take care of Thorzuul Jr. and make sure that he fulfills the role of "royal badness" now that he is gone? I guess Thorzuul's wife could, but still you should remember that evil storylords are people too. Fudgeball playing, turnip eating, stuffed bunny loving people sure, but people nonetheless.

I guess this is the big twist, but the way the robes suddenly appear on Mrs. Framish seems a bit awkward. Plus, if Norby and Mandy can be storylords without those fancy robes, why do they even denote being one anyway?

There is not much left in the teacher's guide to really talk about, but it may be worth noting that it suggests that Norby and everyone else now have the goal of fighting illiteracy. That is obviously a bit tougher to do than beat some "evil overlord" who runs from dandelions, but it is probably more important.

While I could not find much information about the actors and actresses in Storylords, I did find some stuff. First, Dennis Fenichel (Milkbreath) may actually be a professor of Psychology at Minneapolis Community & Technical College. Karin Worthley (Mrs. Framish) could be a professor at UW-River Falls, but I am more skeptical of that. Larry Laird (Thorzuul) is pretty active in the community though and it looks like he still wears his costume from time to time. That last link is from the Storylords Appreciation Facebook group.

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