Reverse-Engineering James Baxter the Horse

Imagine you have a coworker who did this weird thing this one time: you were out to lunch with a group from work, and this one particular guy started doing a horse voice.  It made everybody laugh.  A week or two later, you all go out to lunch again.  He ends up doing the horse voice again.  Everybody laughs again.

Now everybody demands it.  Every time you're out to lunch, you goad this guy into doing the horse voice.  He's reluctant, but he always caves in eventually.

Now it's not enough to wait for lunches. You make him do the horse voice when you pass his cubicle, when you see him in the break room, when everybody's in the parking lot at the end of the day.  It never gets old.

Now imagine you work on a cartoon show.


Weirdness is "Adventure Time"'s stock-in-trade.  The driving force of that show is to present bizarre, trippy concepts as just an ordinary day in the Land of Ooo.  Take, for example, an evil old king who can fly by making his beard hairs spin like rotors; or a dog that can expand in size and reshape himself any way he wants; or the fact that the dog's biological brother is a human.

So, to say "James Baxter the Horse is weird" is not to say he's weirder than anything else in the show.  It's to say that, in the bizarre universe the show has established, James Baxter the Horse is somehow different.

For those of you who didn't see the episode, James Baxter the Horse is nothing more (and nothing less) than a horse that travels around by rearing up on his hind legs and rolling himself along on a multi-colored beach ball, all while repeating his own name in the stutter-neigh style that most English-speaking people use to imply horse-speak.

Got all that?

In the story of the episode, James Baxter is sort of an enigmatic traveling entertainer.  He shows up unexpectedly, does his little routine, and, no matter what, brings absolute joy and delight to all who witness his schtick.

And that's it.  That's the entire character.  That's all he does in the episode.  And if he ever shows up in a future episode, that will most likely be all he does again.


So why was James Baxter "weird" in a show where it rains knives from the sky?

The first clue was probably the name James Baxter. In a show full of Lady Rainicorns and Marcelines, James Baxter sounded a little too real-world.

Second, in a way that's a little harder to explain, the actions of James Baxter felt like reality. It didn't feel like the writers were working from a place of: "What would happen if a horse on a beach ball rolled past Finn and Jake?" It felt like: "You know that guy who does that horse voice? We gotta put that in an episode."

Sure enough, watching the credits, James Baxter the Horse was voiced by someone named James Baxter. Watching the credits further, James Baxter the Horse was animated by... James Baxter!

A quick look at IMDb reveals that James Baxter is a top-tier animator, having worked on the highest profile animated features from Disney and DreamWorks, going all the way back to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?!

In other words, the real James Baxter is most likely friends with several of the people over at "Adventure Time." And at some point, he probably did a horse voice that they couldn't stop laughing at. And probably not long after that, the "Adventure Time" folks decided, "We're definitely putting that in an episode. James Baxter the Horse rolls through the scene and makes everybody happy. THAT'S the episode!"


Just to be clear, I'm not saying this scenario is true. I don't have any special knowledge or backstory on how the "Adventure Time" crew became affiliated with James Baxter, and how he came to be the voice and animator of a horse character named after himself. I'm just presenting a hypothetical scenario on how something like "James Baxter the Horse" comes to be.

The important thing is, that was an excellent piece of entertainment!

Read more on "James Baxter the Horse"

In Tribute...

The college radio station in my hometown would break from its usual alt rock format on the weekends.  It would turn the airwaves over to basically anybody who was willing to show up consistently and had anything resembling a cohesive programming sensibility.  One such weekend program was Festa Italiana.

I don't know exactly when Festa Italiana debuted.  Possibly before I was born.  It seemed like it had always been around.  It must have run for at least two decades; quite a commitment, considering it was just a few old guys lugging their personal record collections down to the studio every week.

Their biggest fan was my grandmother.

Grandma never missed the show.  It was the soundtrack to her Sunday mornings.  She knew at least one, but maybe all, of the guys who hosted the show.  She referred to it as "The Italian Hour," although I'm pretty sure it ran longer than an hour.

Grandma would call in requests every once in a while and make a dedication to a family member.  Then she'd call that family member to make sure they'd tune in to hear it.  When one of her grandkids had a birthday coming up, she made doubly sure to call in a request -- usually "Pepino, the Italian Mouse," a kind of "Alvin and the Chipmunks" meets the antics of Bugs Bunny.  It isn't a birthday song; but it's a kids song, and that was all that mattered.


As my birthday quickly approaches this year, I have "Pepino" on my mind.  It's taken on extra significance this year.

*****

Grandma was notorious for keeping a mental Shit List.  You could get your name removed from the list easily enough, but it was all the easier to get your name on it.  Skipped a family gathering to hang out with friends?  On.  Bent the rules during a card game?  On.  Mouthed off to your sister?  On.

It was how she kept us grandkids in check.  She wasn't much of a yeller.  She'd just look at you sideways, purse her lips, and maybe hold up a flat palm and twist it - "you're on your way to a slap."  That was all it took.  We knew it was time to straighten up and fly right.

I don't know what I did to end up so thoroughly on grandma's good side.  But I think I know how I stayed on her good side: by leaving town.  Like a great comedian, I went out on a high note.

My cousins would find themselves routinely on and off the list.  I avoided all that by leaving town.  As long as I called every once in a while, I was solid.

*****

Calling her was the easiest thing in the world.  She loved to get phone calls, but she didn't really keep phone calls.  Three minutes flat.  She'd answer the phone, recognize my voice immediately, tell me how much she loved me, and then go straight into end-of-call pleasantries.

If I didn't know better, I might be offended.  Why doesn't she want to talk to me?  But those quick calls were all she needed.  Just knowing that you were thinking of her.  It brightened up her entire week.

*****

If someone outside of the family ended up on the Shit List, that was pretty much it for them.  Grandma would be absolutely appalled to hear about one of her kids or grandkids being mistreated by a boss, coworker, teacher, or just anyone they had a negative encounter with.  Never mind the fact that, as the teller of the story, maybe you slanted the perspective slightly in your favor.  Didn't matter.  If you were hers, you were hers, all others be damned.  She was fiercely loyal.

Loyalty wasn't a value she taught; she simply lived it, and we learned by example.

So it was no surprise that, when she ended up in the hospital and things started looking bad, nobody hesitated - we all rushed to her bedside.  Three generations of family, from all over the country.

That situation's certainly not unique to my family.  But I found it almost comical, the number of people crowding up grandma's hospital room and the waiting room.  I didn't take an official count, but the number was probably approaching 40.

And that's her legacy.  That she could amass an army that would do everything to assure her peace and comfort.  This is what I hope she was most proud of.

Then again, it's funny to imagine she just took it for granted.  Of course she could summon 40 people to her side at the first sign of trouble.  What, you can't?

*****

I can't imagine how difficult it is to make the decision, when your mind is still so present and sharp, to let yourself die.  That's a strength and bravery I'm far from comprehending.

The only thing slowing her down in her final days was the pain medication she was on.  Between drug-induced naps, she was carrying on conversations with everyone, cracking jokes and singing songs.

In fact, toward the end, everything became a song.  Ask her a question, and the answer came with her eyes closed, her head swaying back-and-forth, and the words dancing out melodically.

*****

When she asked to listen to music, we scrambled to make that happen.  Did anybody have a small radio on them?  Her hospital room actually had an old Discman attached to the wall.  Did we have any CDs she'd like in our cars?  Do we really want to put headphones on her and cut her attention off from everything else?

Finally, one of my cousins took out her cell phone, opened the Pandora app, and searched for Italian music.  It was beautiful.  Like magic, Pandora seemed to be channeling Festa Italiana song-for-song.

Without missing a beat, grandma started mouthing along to each song, a big smile on her face.  She had her "Italian Hour" again, and everything was all right.

*****

In grandma's final moments, we all - nearly 40 of us - packed into her small hospital room.

Here's how my mom recounts it:

Around 8 PM we were all called into mom's room. We stood in perfect silence, keeping vigil as mom was crossing over. At one point she stopped breathing and we were sure she was gone. Everyone started crying. Then she took another breath. One of her sons said, "Okay mom, you're in charge. You're going on your terms." Through our tears, everyone started to laugh. It was while we were laughing that she took her final breath.

She went out on a high note.

*****

She was the last of my grandparents.  She was a guardian and a defender.  She was a guide.  She was a true matriarch.  She will always be remembered, and greatly missed.

2013 Oscar Wrap Up

Loose Thoughts

A year of surprises.  By the time Oscar night arrived, Argo, Anne Hathaway and Daniel Day-Lewis were sure things.  And for those who pay attention to some of the more obscure categories, Amour and Searching for Sugar Man were pretty certain.  Oh, and Adele.  Beyond that, there were many surprises.  Few guessed that Life of Pi would walk away with the most awards (with a rather paltry four).  And that Pi's Ang Lee would best Lincoln's Steven Spielberg!  (Oddsmakers had Lee and Spielberg neck-and-neck, but I didn't believe it.  How wrong I was.)

Seth MacFarlane was predictably good.  This hosting gig suits him well.  We've long known that he's a song-and-dance man and, sure enough, he had three song-and-dance sequences in his opening monologue alone.  The majority of the jokes were suitable for a conservative broadcast, with a few of them approaching, but I wouldn't say crossing, the line of good taste.  (Some people are trying to convince us that they were genuinely offended by a Lincoln-assassination joke.  I call b.s.)  MacFarlane seemed delighted to be hosting, and the feeling was contagious.

The persistence of Seth MacFarlane.  For quite a few years, Oscar hosts have had this bad habit of disappearing after the first hour, maybe hour-and-a-half.  Seth MacFarlane was there the whole time.  He was actually a host, a persistant presence we could rely on throughout the night.  That's something the Academy should keep.

Where's the orchestra?  So, instead of the live orchestra playing in the Dolby Theatre in front of the audience, they decided to house them a mile down the road?  Believe me, I understand how wonderfully connective technology is these days.  But removing the orchestra from the actual event location made the music feel disjointed.  This was especially true when they had to come in with the Jaws play-off music (which has to be the historically worst choice for play-off music).

Ted is real!  Interacting with "on-stage" computer animation has come a long way.  The Toy Story sketch back in 1996 could only sell the illusion with a clear stage (which Whoopi Goldberg slightly flubbed), and was still cartoony.  Ted was so convincing that a friend watching the show with me was sure it was a puppet.


They're allowed to have ties?  Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty tied for Best Sound Editing.  Not unprecedented, but certainly rare.  (The last time there was an Oscar tie, I was too young to care about the category - Live Action Short.)

Montages.  Sucked.  I suppose I'm one of the few people who actually loves a good Oscar montage.  Yes, there have been years when they've overdone it with the montages; but the Academy Awards are all about celebrating movies, and a well-made montage can bring me close to tears.  The only real montage this year was the one for Bond, and it was terrible.  (They would have been better off focusing on the best quotes rather than the biggest action set pieces.)

I cracked the Shorts code!  Last year, I pointed out that I have an oh-for-six record of predicting the Live-Action and Animated Shorts winners since I began attending screenings of them.  This year, I'm batting 1.000!  Okay, "Paperman" was kind of a gimme; that's the only short that a wide audience had actually seen, so of course it was going to win.  But everything in the Live-Action category was obscure.  If I can repeat this success next year, I'll know I've figured it out.

Spoiler-cast!  Have you seen all the Best Picture nominees?  Well if you haven't, too bad, because the Oscar telecast showed you the endings, as well as critical turning points, for just about every movie.  What were they thinking?

Upstaging Nicholson.  The Best Picture winner, Argo, was announced by Michelle Obama.  Okay, cool.  Why?

Best gag of the night: The introduction of Christopher Plummer turning into a full-on reenactment of the Von Trapp family's escape.

My Score Sheet

This year, I placed guesses in 23 categories.  Of those, I got 13 right.  That's a 57% accuracy.  Not too shabby, and a vast improvement over last year.  Regrettably, I wasn't the highest scorer in the room I was sitting in.  I'll need to do some work to improve my score next year.  Still, I'm really proud about this whole Shorts thing.  It's really been bugging me that I've never been able to guess them correctly.  Getting them right this year definitely helped up my percentage.

In Summary

Something felt a little off to me about the Oscars this year, and I think it comes down to indecision.  For better or for worse, Oscar races usually come down to one or two clear frontrunners.  This year, the top six awards (Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Picture) each went to a different movie.  But I suppose that speaks to the high volume of quality movies this year.

I think Seth MacFarlane did a good job hosting, and I hope he gets to do it again soon.  It was an enjoyable show this year.  My meaningless grade for the 85th Academy Awards broadcast is B+, dropped from an A- because it went on too long and lacked good montages.