Looney

I went to the theater last night with Vani and some friends to see The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie. I hadn’t seen any previews and hadn’t heard about it at all until a few weeks ago, but I’ll support hand-drawn animation any way I can at the box office. It was a fun movie! I laughed out loud more than a few times and I’m an easy mark for slapstick humor. The plot felt heavily inspired by 50’s sci-fi and horror movies and moved along at a fast pace. The Daffy Duck portrayed in the movie is closer to his original personality than his later Chuck Jones incarnation. This means he’s goofier and less cynical, but still unreliable. Porky, on the other hand, is based on Bob Clampett’s version which is likely the most well known. The movie also re-introduces Petunia Pig as a flavor scientist at the local gum factory and I think it did a great job of making her a fun character instead of just a love interest. Overall, it was an easy-to-watch movie and a great way to tune out for a couple of hours. It was cool to see my friend’s name in the opening credits. I let out a little whoop.

On Sunday we played D&D with our group and I made oven-baked chicken fingers, as requested by one of our friends for their birthday. He lent me a WarCraft cookbook of his with one of the pages marked. Turns out, you make them basically the same as you would when you deep fry, but instead you simply bake them. This is what I had assumed, but the recipe taught me something I hadn’t considered - browning the breadcrumbs in a pan with a little oil before breading the fingers. I did half of the fingers coated in the browned crumbs and half in regular panko and the color is just so much nicer using the browned crumbs. While the other ones still tasted great, they didn’t have the same visual appeal. They don’t have enough time in the oven to brown before the chicken is cooked through.

This weekend is WonderCon up in Anaheim. I’ll be heading up with Vani on Sunday which is our usual tradition at this point. I always enjoy the smaller scale and how much easier it is to browse the booths and artist alley. I don’t have much I’m looking for currently, but it’s a nice way to spend the day with the gal.

-Ian