Author: Loryn Stone

The only thing more incredible than the cartoons we love are getting a chance to talk to the people who create them. Today, I asked my good friend Bryan Jordan Newton for an interview and he was happy to oblige. You’re probably familiar with his work without even knowing it, and more recently, he’s become a director on that little-known show called Rick and Morty. Somehow, I think you might have heard of it. Hey Bryan! Thank you for giving Nerdbot this interview. We seriously appreciate it. All right, let’s start from the beginning. Where did you grow up? What…

The Hollywood Reporter says it without a shadow of a doubt: Billy Dee Williams is in fact reprising his role as Lando Calrissian for the still-unnamed Star Wars Episode IX film. Rumors about Billy Dee William’s return really began to heat up as production on the sequel neared. Director J.J. Abrams will begin directing the project later this summer. It became too hard to keep Billy Dee Williams’ casting a secret over the past couple of days. The actor had to drop out of an upcoming sci-fi and pop culture convention. The reason for his cancellation was marked as ‘conflict with a movie…

Variety reports that Idris Elba is in final negotiations to play the main villain in “Hobbs and Shaw,” the “Fast and Furious” spinoff starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. While the initial report was that Idris Elba was in “final negotiations” to play the villain in the upcoming spinoff, it would seem that Dwayne Johnson is confirming the role by using Instagram to welcome Idris Elba to the film. Johnson says he’s ready to “dance” with Elba. The film will see the often-at-odds pair teaming up. Sources say Elba’s character is the antagonist the duo will go up against. Elba’s no stranger to playing the baddie in…

Welcome to Pop Culture Infiltration, where we zero in on a particular pop culture aspect and expose it for the repetitive nonsense it is. Today, our conversation leads us to anime. But this time, we’re heading back to the past. The not-too-distant past. To those 1990s. Now, I consider myself an Oldtaku (think about it, it’ll click) and my interest in anime peaked with late-90s shows. And back then, there was a certain genre that I just kept seeing over and over again. I call it “Everyone Wants to Do Me” anime. There are a few variations within the genre,…

Deadline reports that Netflix has set an August 24th release date for Ghoul, its first venture into the horror genre in India. Ghoul is a reteam for Netflix and Anurag Kashyap’s Phantom Films along with Ivanhoe and Jason Blum’s Blumhouse. Phantom is also behind crime drama Sacred Games which released on July 6 to strongly positive response. Hot on the heels of its first Indian original, Sacred Games, the three-episode Ghoul focuses on a prisoner who arrives at a remote military interrogation center and turns the tables on his interrogators, exposing their most shameful secrets with a supernatural twist. It is directed and written by Patrick Graham, while Radhika Apte (Sacred Games) and Manav Kaul star in the production.…

Disney is seeing Ant-Man and the Wasp landing near the lower end of its tracking with an estimated $76M which is $500K shy of where rivals see it after a $23.6M Saturday that’s 31% down from Friday, a sharper decline than many were expecting which was around -15%. According to Entertainment Weekly, Ant-Man and the Wasp marks the 20th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and each installment has opened at No. 1. While fellow MCU movies Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War both scored historic openings earlier this year, Ant-Man and the Wasp is a smaller-scaled affair that should still keep the mega-franchise’s momentum going. The opening is in line with industry estimates,…

When the opening sequence of Disney’s new Muppet Babies 2018 reboot dropped on YouTube this year, it got my brain churning. As a kid, I watched more Muppet Babies than I need to admit. To this day, the legendary Piggy Dough-Girl is not only one of my heroes, but an all-powerful figure I admittedly wanted to be. She’s beautiful. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what Disney does with Muppet Babies. Because that’s exactly who it’s for; babies. But what about the other show out there? You know…the ones that were resurrected…as total garbage.   5) Doug / Disney’s Doug Opinions…

There are certain fictional characters in pop culture media that are, for a lack of better words, reliable. Whether we’re seeing a design version of Mickey Mouse from the 1920s or seeing him kick some tush next to Sora in Kingdom Hearts, we’re aware that it’s the same mouse. But not every character is  subject to the same treatment. Some have their traits stripped and rebuilt so often, you wonder if this is even the same entity on screen, such as… 6) Tom Servo  Before Mystery Science Theater 3000 became a Comedy Channel staple, it had humble beginnings on…

According to Deadline, Steve Ditko, a comic-book artist who co-created the Marvel characters Spider-Man and Doctor Strange with Stan Lee, has died in New York. He was 90. The NYPD public information officer told Deadline that he was found in his apartment on June 29 and likely had been dead for a couple of days. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Ditko and Lee created Spider-Man in 1961. Lee, the editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, gave Ditko the assignment after he wasn’t satisfied with Jack Kirby’s take on the idea of a teen superhero with spider powers. The look of Spider-Man — the costume, the web-shooters, the red…

Inspector Gadget was a thirty-minute cartoon show from the 1980s produced by DIC Entertainment. The premise was simple: a cyborg man loaded up with spy gear was given a “Mission of the Day” from his boss. Some characters like to play a game at an casino online a day, but that’s not how Gadget was written. His goal? To solve the mystery and put a stop to the scheming Dr. Claw, his awesome spiked bracelet, his sneering cat, and his cronies of the day. However, the show wasn’t quite as simple as it appears. Because we have a theory. And our…