Time to prep you:

• What follows are the Top 10 Most Impactful Moments in Animation, as picked by yours truly. That seemed the easiest way to do it, since I was also writing the thing. I also picked "impactful" as the word to use, because it's delightfully pretentious, and much more noble-sounding than "breast-filled."
• They aren't arranged in any particular order.
• The death of Bambi's mom is not on the list, nor will it ever be, because deer are evil.
• The death of Optimus Prime is on the list, because robots are good, because they kill deer.

Bah! Already I have become bored with my own setup! Let's get on with it!

The most counter-effective PSA ever: Tiny Toons "One Beer"

Summary: For the sake of demonstrating the "evils of alcohol," Buster, Plucky and Hamton get hammered, steal a cop car, drive it off a cliff, die, and float off to heaven. One assumes they got in on a mental defect plea.

Okay, I'm not exactly sure what the animators were going for here. At the start of the episode, Buster rationalizes out-of-character behavior by saying out loud, in a fourth wall-breaky kind of way, that they're "showing the evils of alcohol."

That makes the whole thing seem sort of tongue-in-cheek as opposed to being an actual PSA, and this is further evidenced by pretty much the whole rest of the episode, save for the very last scene.

Granted, alcohol is vaguely demonized early on by the way the boys treat the beer bottle as though it were a cursed artifact, nervously daring each other to take the first slug. Also, while the beer magically gets them all blind stinking drunk with just one sip, and does so instantaneously, it doesn't have any effect until all three of them have partaken, which gives the whole thing the feel of some sort of fell ritual.

But, the discouragement pretty much ends there, as once they are sufficiently flugered, funky music starts playing, and they burp to it. I love both of those things! How is this supposed to be a deterrent?

In the next scene, the boys have been wondrously transfigured into unshaven hobos, who stinkily repulse their lady friends in a lame attempt to illustrate the long-lost alleged-premise of the entire episode. But that's hardly a deterrent either, as Tiny Toons' core demographic would've still been at the age of finding girls stupid anyway. Ask an eight year-old whether they'd rather have a girlfriend or be a stinky whino, and nine times out of nine, they be all like, "Whar's me fedora?" Because in my mind, all eight year-olds are Irish, apparently.

Finally, Buster and Co. steal a cop car-which is totally discouraging and not secretly everyone's fantasy-and tool around a bit, ultimately driving it off of a cliff. This results in the episode's sole dark moment, as the car comes screaming off of the big weird mountain they're on, falling a ridiculously long way before impacting spectacularly in a conspicuously convenient random graveyard.

Having unsurprisingly died as a result, the boys ascend to the hereafter. Hamton's robe is disquietingly short, and his posture disquietingly... splayed.

Did you catch the moral, kids? Alcohol is the key to immortality. And theologically-endorsed pantslessness!

The last scene shows the boys ditching their angel garb backstage, as Buster remarks that he "hopes the kids got the message."

Yes. And that message is that alcohol is the greatest thing that exists on the material plane. It facilitates belch-fests, makes you delightfully repulsive, and allows you to engage in cool skulduggery while somehow still getting into Heaven. The only way it could be better is if it also caused hot college girls to make out with each other, but I guess you can't have... whoops... hold on... Barry's handing me a memo...

...

Okay, it appears that alcohol really is the greatest thing ever, and the fact that I can count on no hands the number of positive experiences I've had with soused idiots is beside the point. Truly, this has been a day for revelations.

Wolverine vs. Jesus: X-Men Animated Series "Nightcrawler"

"Judges ROCKS!"

Summary: The X-men's visually-ironic Bible-bamfer* uses persistence and happy smiley goodness to convert the curmudgeonly Canuck.

For those uninitiated, one of the primary functions of Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler, within the continuing X-Men narrative is to act as a walking (or sometimes teleporting) pile of obtrusive contrast. Put another way, you are meant to look at him and be like, "It's funny, because he looks like a demon and yet he loves Jesus! So he's kind of like Hellboy, except blue and nothing at all like Hellboy!"

Portrayed as a devout Catholic, Kurt stands out as one of the only X-critters to actually have defined beliefs. (To my knowledge, at least. Drew, if you don't correct me on this, I shall be most disappointed.) However, vaguely agnostic assumption regarding the remainder of the cast notwithstanding, if there were one character I would expect to be a die-hard atheist and stay that way, it would be Wolverine.

And the episode in question agrees, more or less. The first 95% of its run consists largely of Kurt saying, "God loves you and your weird hair," and Wolverine replying with something like, "Grrr! I'm surly and you're dumb!"

But, Kurt's sticktoitiveness pays off, and in the final scene we see Wolverine in a church in Paris, contritely graveling out a conspicuously eloquent prayer.

Now, those of you not nerdy enough to catch that this* was not a spelling error, but in actual fact, merely horrible wordplay, probably also can't appreciate how huge of a thing this was for a wee X-fan. Wolverine! In a church! Praying! With a Bible and everything! I know! Me too!!

Kaori: The unluckiest girl in anime "Akira"

Paint a bullseye on her forehead, and the look will be complete.

Summary: The quiet, timid girl has a horrible life, followed directly by a horrible death.

Okay, for any of you reading this who may be considering Mousey Anime Girl as a career - and I know there are some of you out there - I have four words of advice: Pack lots of heat. I'm talking, like, Punisher-style gun-ladening. You need to have a firearm hanging off of every bone in your body.

The reason for the preceding PSA is that the anime archetype in question will almost invariably meet a horrific demise, of the sort which a hail of bullets might have forestalled.

Such is the case with the regrettably-unarmed Kaori, the very personification of that old anime beatitude, "The meek shall inherit all manner of bad crap." Her first major scene has her as the guest of honor at an attempted rape, which, thanks to the timely intervention of Kaneda and his goodly biker thug pals, is kiboshed shortly after she has her shirt ripped off and nose broken.

Read that last part and keep in mind that it somehow represents a lucky break.

Unfortunately, she has little time to revel in her incredibly sucky good fortune, as her boyfriend Tetsuo's crazy head powers go out of control toward the end of the show, causing him to go all giant and foamy and gross, and resulting in Kaori being rather graphically crushed to death in his churning gooeyness.

I believe my verbatim response was, "Oh! Ooh! Not cool!" It actually turned me off of anime for like, a day. No mean feat, that.

Interestingly enough, Kaori's death sort of figures in to an article I read once about how the reason that female characters in anime often fare so poorly has a lot to do with the fact that, among developed countries, Japan is one of the slow students in the class of egalitarian affairs. That is, women's equality is still comparatively novel and infant as a concept, and that the predominately-dude animators, having been rendered grumpy by the fact that the ladies are getting to sit in chairs and sleep lying down and stuff, retaliate through pathetic passive-aggression (the nerd's best friend!) by portraying women being eviscerated by demons and running afoul of tentacle monsters and whatnot.

The only flaw I see with this theory is that the women who get grislily-demised are almost always the reserved, longsuffering type one would expect these guys to be missing. Dunno. The Japanese are a strange lot. I would probably renounce their weirdness altogether, were they not responsible, directly or indirectly, for about half of my entertainment media.

The Puma Twins' software exhibition: Dominion Tank Police

The nurse outfit doesn't really do anything for me, but other than that; yeah, somebody has obviously been in my head.

Summary: Cornered by a SWAT team, Anna and Uni Puma opt to strip their way to freedom. Hey, it's what I would do.

I mentioned at the start that my impactful moments aren't arranged in order of impactfulness, but if they were, one would probably expect Optimus' dramatic exit to hold the top spot, right?

Objectively? Sure. Personally? Nope. For me, it doesn't get any more influential than a near-glimpse of celluloid sexdroid booby.

Please allow me to qualify that last statement for the sake of maybe making it a little less creepy: The reason this scene makes the list despite likely meaning jack-all to anyone but me is twofold. Firstly, I'm incredibly self-absorbed. Secondly and relatedly, I couldn't leave it off with it having served as a kickstart for so many different things in my life; puberty, for example.

And yes, I realize your day is complete now; that you woke up this morning hoping and praying that you would get to read something intensely disquieting and heebie-jeebiful, because you just felt like that was what was missing. You're welcome.

But aside from that, there are a number of other geneses (word?) to be found here. I credit the larger anime that this scene is a part of as being responsible for sparking my interest in anime (pronounced "uh-n-eye-m" by me at the time) as a whole; the scene itself for piquing interest in the technical aspects of animation-the high detail, frame saturation, and lighting effects during the close-up are so impressive that they almost make me forget boobs are nearby; and the Twins themselves, for embodying all of the anime tropes that I didn't yet realize I was a fanboy for. And as a bonus, they have British accents, which is something I find sexy on a woman to the same degree that I find it annoying on a dude. Bordering on astronomical, in other words.

So compatible am I with this scene in fact, that I can't help but think that I'm eventually going to engage in some sort of paradoxical Kyle Reese-y weirdness, wherein I travel back to 1989 and actually direct it.

Cheetatas: Thundercats "Exodus"

Upon closer inspection, they're actually massive pecks.

Summary: There are naked cat-people. One of them has boobs. I demonstrate a childhood talent for hallucination.

If my understanding of the tail-end-of-Gen-X-nerd-greater-consciousness is accurate, then Thundercats is remembered primarily for two things:

1. An intro sequence with a higher budget than any ten of its episodes, and...

2. The pilot episode, wherein the cast prances about in the nude, brazenly showing off their disturbing lack of genitalia.

Now, you wouldn't think that this would be a big deal, since they're all moderately fuzzy, and therefore you can't see anything you ought not, right? Actually, yes, you are absolutely correct. Mannequin Nudity - or as it is sometimes more morbidly referred to as Burn Victim Nudity - abounds, and is in fact taken well beyond its normal state of detail-free smoothness, to the point that the Thundercats literally look like unpainted action figures, with visible seams where their legs plug in and sealed buttcracks and everything. It's actually quite terrifying.

However, as a wee and prematurely boob-interested tyke, I distinctly remember Cheetara - the group's sole female - as having upper body assets that were, shall we say, fully accoutremented? Many were the times that I would plead with the folks to rent this episode from the local Pop n' Go, and then watch it with everyone in the room and wonder how I was getting away with it and why there was no freaking out happening.

Closer-to-present-day research* has revealed that I was indeed just seeing things, but the interesting question is, why? As a six year-old, where would I even get a frame of reference for such a visual delusion?

Fortunately, I think I have the answer. See, a common theme of my formative years was that, although my parents were not only concerned about me but also incredibly difficult to outwit, my friends' parents were, almost without exception, either apathetic or clueless, and sometimes both. My best friend at the time was in possession not only of a set of the aforementioned parent-type, but also of an odd animated short, which I think must have been a derivative of the Heavy Metal franchise. I assume this partly because it had that same bleary, washed-out style to it, but more because it featured teats a-plenty.

I distinctly remember him asking his parents for permission to watch the same, so I guess maybe they were hippies or something; perhaps honestly believing that perusal of naked yams was integral to proper development during the single-digit years.

Anyway, my theory is that viewing the areolous featurette caused some sort of cognitive contamination, which I then carried over to the Thundercats episode, and/or a memory-splice of sorts exists between the two, and then I totally forget where I was going with this.

Yeah, so there's some doubt that any part of my childhood actually happened, but none of that changes the fact that nipple hallucination is a real and treatable condition. If you're exhibiting the symptoms, don't wait 'til it's too late.

*I actually dropped fifty bones on the first season of Thundercats on DVD a couple of years back, solely for the sake of putting this long-percolating mystery to rest. Possibly the dumbest, saddest thing I've ever done.

The Death of Optimus Prime: Transformers: The Movie

Goodbye, hopes of a healthy childhood!

Summary: Hasbro sets a Guinness record for most lives ruined in one go.

First, a confession: Despite this arguably being the defining childhood moment for most dudes (and exceptionally cool girls) at or near my age, I didn't actually see the movie back when it originally came out. Oh, I heard plenty about it via neighborhood buzz, but hearing is a poor substitute for seeing, especially when word-of-mouth allows me to pretend that it didn't happen.

"Optimus dies?" says I, secretly wondering if it might be true, "Yeah right. Next you're going to tell me that Spike says the s-word."

So, thanks to my denial and lack of participation, I didn't get to be a part of the assault squad that set off for Hasbro headquarters, with the stated intention of not resting so long as any therein still drew breath.

But, it isn't all bad news. See, once I finally got around to seeing TF:TM, I was a Sophomore in college. And, judging by what a gut-punch it was even then - with me being a big person and all, and with some (although not as much as you would think) of the potential sting removed by the fact that OP was ultimately brought back through the life-giving power of fan outrage (after being resurrected and re-killed a couple more times) - it's probably best I missed it the first go-round. Notice how I didn't grow up to be a serial killer? Yeah.

Duke's life-saving coma: GI Joe: The Movie

He should have absorbed the spear into his giant chin-dimple.

Summary: Not wishing to spend any more time picking poisonous crossbow bolts out of their collective ass, the thoroughly demographically-detached folks at Hasbro plead the Joe's field commander out to a lesser ailment.

You know, as shaky as revivifying retcons can be even when they follow the traditional after-the-fact architecture, they can't begin to approach the awkwardness of trying to un-kill a killed character while they're being killed.

Such is the case with the event in question. After much permission-begging, the writers behind GI Joe: The Movie were given the go-ahead to kill off Duke. And, as we all know, nothing is more chubby-inducing for a fiction monkey than getting to whack a beloved lead.

I've never quite understood why this is - some sort of god-complex thing, I suppose - but I have encountered it firsthand. See, I have my own little stable of fictional characters which I unfortunately don't do a whole heck of a lot with anymore. But, way back when, a buddy of mine suggested that I should kill one of them, without really explaining why that would be a good move. The assumed implication is that it would lend gritty realism, and give me "cred," which I could then use to put myself irrevocably in debt.

The second part happened anyway, but I didn't kill anybody, instead explaining to Pal that, as I was working with an all-female cast ('cause I don't take the whole pathetic nerd bit just partway) bumping one of them off would mean that in later years, after my standards had decayed under the cumulative withering effect of several small compromises, any lesbian orgies then orchestrated would be inherently lessened. That seemed to placate him.

But listen to me, getting all tangential! Back to the matter at hand: The writers had just killed Duke, and everyone was having a rocking good time. Unfortunately, they failed to consider that Optimus Prime's death had just happened, and right as they were about to send the stuff off to the place that it goes, one of them happened to look out a window. There, stretching from horizon to horizon, they saw an innumerable mass of enraged five-year olds, clad in black feathers and spiky football gear, and riding desert-weathered Big Wheels.

Fifteen minutes of unspeakable slaughter later, the decision was made to put Duke in a coma instead, by splicing an altered audio track over the completed animation sequence. The funny thing is, at the time, I was totally willing to accept that a coma was the logical result of taking a spear directly to the heart.

The only disappointing part of the whole thing is that when Scarlett says, "He's gone into a coma." - because she's the world's greatest medical professional, and can tell the difference between that and dying just by looking - she does so as the result of a single continuous dub (or a very well done splice), and has her face out of the shot.

Why is this disappointing, you ask? Because it would've been so much better if the original line had been simply, "He's gone." and the editors had fixed it by tagging on "INTO A COMA!" with completely the wrong voice, and superimposed moving lips. That would've been great. Let's take a scene that's already had most of the sobriety weirded out of it, and just waste it the rest of the way.

Other stuff: Duke's wound jumps from one man-boob to the other through the course of the scene. Also, his shirt heals instantly.

Hell Clown: The Brave Little Toaster

Summary: Toaster has an appropriately toaster-themed nightmare, featuring water, forks, and the most evil animated character ever created.

I actually have an aunt - who shall remain nameless just in case she doesn't care to have broadcast what I'm about to broadcast - who is coulrophobic. She revealed such at a family reunion many moons ago - in the perhaps ill-advised setting of a county fair - and her children, acting with all maturity and sensitivity, found the nearest available clown and sicced him on her.

Now, I can pretend to be all righteous just because I didn't have any part in putting out the contract - choosing instead to stand on the sidelines and laugh until I felt like puking - but the fact is, my reaction to Aunt Nameless' phobic revelation was, and to a lesser degree, still is as incredulous as that of her tormentors.

"Aunt Nameless is scared of clowns? Really?" says I. And then someone points to my own plethora of irrational fears, and I'm like, "Yeah, but clowns?"

Bataphobia, now there's one worth having. Because tall buildings can totally fall on you. What's the worst that can come of a clown falling on you? Vexing sexual feelings? Please.

Anyway, I said all that to say that never have I been better able to relate to Aunt Nameless than during Toaster's freaky nightmare. Toaster isn't even the real star of the same, having the scene stolen from her* by Hell Clown; a flame-heralded cackling bastard in joker makeup and fireman's gear, whose abominable existence I would gladly trek to the nether realm to end, were I not still so afraid of him.

Yea, many were the times my older sister tormented me with an eerily-accurate impersonation of Hell Clown's hissed "Run." In my family, we express our love through psychological abuse.

*She is a she, isn't she? Do toasters have gender? The Spanish word for toaster is feminine, so I guess so.

Genesis nipple-slip: Animaniacs "Guardin' the Garden"

Summary: Cleverly-obscured nudity abounds. I catch what I assume is a deliberate error, and in so doing, debatably demonstrate a continued propensity for highly specialized hallucination.

I'm going to go out on a limb (pun?), and say that Slappy is probably the best character in the entire Animaniacs stable. My identifying with a bitter, sarcastic misanthrope at such a young age probably means something, but I try not to dwell on it.

In this episode, we see Slappy hanging around near the dawn of creation - at which time she was apparently still old - as steward of the Garden of Eden; having been hired by the "big guy" to look out for the well-being of the dim-witted and very naked Adam and Eve.

She and the serpent face off, there is a possible Q-Bert reference, and things explode. But none of that is important. What's important is that I had video evidence that could've brought Warner Brothers to its knees, were I not marooned in the Oklahoma panhandle at the time, and, like, twelve years old.

In the halcyon days of my youth, I had something of a fascination with recording things for later playback. That way, I could revisit beloved episodes whenever the fancy struck. I also liked to pause on frames that I liked, and attempt to draw them. This episode was no exception, but was rather special, in that, upon the initial re-watching - during which I was no doubt doing a lot of sideways leering at all of the almost-nudity - I uncovered the most shocking attempt at youth mind-poisoning the world has ever known in the entirety of recorded history, ever.

You see, at one point during this episode, Eve is holding an exotic bird, which is rather conveniently obscuring her upper torso region. She moves around with it, and always the angle is such that nothing taboo can be seen. However, I, through judicious use of the slow motion button, became convinced - and still am convinced today - that she has an extremely brief avian wardrobe malfunction; evident for not more than a single frame, and very difficult to pick up, unless you have special boob-trained eyes.

Which I'm not saying that I do. I mean, I'm far too mature for such prurience; I just stumbled upon the nipple, is all. And it totally wasn't exactly what I was hoping to see, with my face pressed up against the TV screen. I didn't have my face pressed against the TV screen! Stop making these wild accusations! Get out, all of you!

Ahem.

Anyway, despite a total lack of corroborating evidence, and a less than stellar track record in regard to nipple-seeing issues, I stand firm in my belief that Warner Brothers was attempting to keep pace with rival Disney in the arena of erotic subversion-the latter having already set the industry standard with its sculpted phalli, inappropriate tiger propositions, and meerkat/razorback same-sex unions - and I will take them down someday. And it doesn't matter that it will be the most hypocritical takedown ever. So long as whistles are blown and lids fly off of things, that's what counts.

And yes, you can be forgiven for thinking that this one was going to be about the Phil Collins-fronted progressive rock band, although I can't imagine what you would've been expecting in such a case.

Deceptidrunks: Transformers "Microbots"

Summary: Megatron and friends get "over-energized", and hilarity ensues.

One of my lesser hypocrisies - that is, the kind that I don't actually feel that bad about or have any interest in changing - is that, while I acknowledge that drugs and alcohol are bad, I can't help but notice that scenes utilizing drugs and alcohol for comedic effect often pack as much hilarious-juice as anything on this plane of existence can. And maybe the others too.

So, keeping in mind that chemical alteration equals unparalleled funniness, consider that one of the other things that nothing is funnier than is when characters act flagrantly out-of-character in a believable context, and then add to that the 4X hilarity bonus granted by the fact that it's robots that are drunk. Robots don't get drunk! That's silly!

Additional props for not trying to make an ineffective and confusing PSA ala Buster and the gang. Nope, just Megs and his boys kicking back with some fine energon, and reminiscing about the good ol' days. And then, in a super-secret lost scene, Rumble pees his name on a boulder. Rather more impessively, Thundercracker follows suit.

It was the perfect storm of comedy gold contained in this scene that almost, almost made me include Nuku Nuku getting high on catnip as a Moment. Then I considered that, while said scene is quite funny, the Drunk Robot bonus only applies to characters who are obviously robotic in appearance. Also, its inclusion would mean double-entries in the Catgirl and Sexy Android and Thing That No One Who Will Read This Has Actually Seen But Me categories, in addition to bringing the inebration count up to a rather excessive three. Remember; moderation in all things.

Whew! The end at last! After scaling that insurmountable wall of text, you probably aren't interested in reading a lengthy conclusion, which is convenient, because I suck at making them. So instead I'll just say that I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoy hot androids. Until next time; keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for nipples that don't exist.