Ex Libris

[seekingferret]

Password: exlibris

I do not know how to explain this vid. I just don't. I had never seen Storylords before ghost_lingering requested it, and having watched it I couldn't say that I'm a fan. Yet I accidentally a vid for it. Storylords is a series of fifteen minute videos designed for reading techniques to... fifth graders? fourth graders? third graders? Something in that range. It does this by recruiting the young protagonists, Norbert and Mandy, as apprentice Storylords who patrol the land of Mojuste aiding a series of grownups with laughably terrible reading comprehension skills who are being tormented by the evil Thorzuul.

It is not a good show. The scripts, the special effects, and the cinematography are all laughably bad. The educational principles are pretty solid, though. The heart of the show is not really Norbert and Mandy, but their teacher, who is revealed in the show's final scene to secretly be a Storylord herself. As I watched the show, I found myself valuing some of the discussion of reading technique- a lot of the fairly advanced reading techniques one uses to make headway in Kant or Joyce are really just more complicated variations on the techniques the show discusses. Keeping information you don't understand in your head until later information allows you to make sense of it is, as I've written before, the fundamental key to making sense of Ulysses. Storylords presents this on a paragraph level basis, whereas Joyce demands you do it on a five hundred page basis, but it's the same idea.

So I made a vid to the Muppets "Movin' Right Along", because ghost_lingering asked for it and the combination amused me. I don't think there's anything deep here, just me having visual fun with the silly costumes and sillier special effects.

And then I was hanging out with ghost_lingering at the opera and she explained to me that she'd requested Storylords as her safety because she wanted to use a safety fandom that nobody would actually vid, to create incentive for someone to vid one of her more ambitious and ridiculous fandoms. And a big part of me was snickering very loudly inside at the time.

Comments

[ghost_lingering]

I am pretty sure I watched this in multiple grades in elementary school, so, yes, 3-5th is about right. Tended to be either at the beginning/end of a unit or as a special treat because it was a Friday or just before vacation or whatever.

And, you know, the audience is kids and, for me at least, kids who were ~9 in the early 90s -- the effects were bad then, but less bad than they look now that we're in 2016. And the bad acting, no idea what you are talking about. The actor who plays Thorzuul deserves an Oscar.

I can't believe that my perfect safety fandom that no one ever has heard of got a vid. I mean I have a year to find something just as obscure but still easily accessible that I also legit would like a vid for, but the fact that this got a vid is so preposterous, I love it. Cursing your name for making me have to come up with a new safety fandom since I'm running seriously low, but I still love it.

[seekingferret]

And, you know, the audience is kids and, for me at least, kids who were ~9 in the early 90s

Ha, I mean, I'm sure my feelings of eternal loyalty to the Voyage of the Mimi are equally misguided.