Charlie: Good morning! I'm Charlie.
Jimmy: Good morning, I'm Jimmy!
C: And today on the show it's time for the official countdown of the top ten Martians. Lots of research has gone into this. I promise it's very official.
J: Years. Years of research. It's Cereal Time.
(Intro)
C: (Speaks "Martian".
Welcome pitiful Earthlings to) Cereal Time. (
If you too believe Martians are superior to Earthlings get in touch) hello@cerealtimeshow.com. (
Sneeze)J: Yeah. Welcome to the show. That was, Charlie did the intro in Martian there.
C: Been learning it on DuoLingo.
J: Some of your pronunciation not quite there, but you gave it a good shout, I think. Welcome to the show. The reason Charlie was speaking Martian there is because it is Mars Week on the show. We're celebrating the discovery, the very exciting discovery, of flowing liquid water on Mars.
C: Oh yeah. One step closer to the possibility of there maybe being life on Mars, which is very exciting.
J: It doesn't sound that exciting when you say it like that, though. One step closer to the possibility of there maybe, but maybe not, being some life on Mars.
C: If you're a scientist, that's like "Whoa, that's crazy!" Everyone else is just like "Yeah, but we want little green men, please. Where are they?"
J: Yeah. Where do the aliens come in? Where are they?
J: But we thought today we would run through our top Martians. In at number 10 is Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. This is a movie, a movie from 1964 and it is regularly rated as one of the worst films of all time. It's got one star on IMDb. It's just terrible, apparently. I've not seen it.
C: Were there only, like, were there only, like, ten Martians, like, fictional Martians and we just had to start right at the bottom of the barrel?
J: Start with the worst? Well, do you know what though, the reason I picked this is 'cause I really like the look of the Martians. It's just some blokes with green faces wearing capes. They put absolutely no effort into it whatsoever. I really want to see it, actually.
C: Number nine is Tars Tarkas from John Carter of Mars, which was a Disney movie, relatively recently. Didn't do very well. I thought the movie was quite fun, actually. It sort of has like a nice B-movie vibe, really kind of like was a bit of a flop. But him as an alien, it's kind of awesome, I think. So he was invented in 1912, that's when the story first came out, so like, years and years ago before people knew much about Mars so the idea of people on Mars was still kind of like, a big deal. In the movie, Tars Tarkas is, like, this huge, like, ten foot alien played by Willem Defoe, who's actually quite a short man.
J: Is he a small man?
C: Yeah, I discovered this. I went to the premiere of this movie, which is maybe why I like it.
J: Name drop.
C: Sat just in front of Willem Defoe and, I don't know, the contrast between how little he is and how big that alien actually is, it was just quite fun. I feel like he was...
J: Perfect person to sit behind in the cinema.
C: Yes. Definitely.
J: See straight over, no blockage whatsoever.
C: I was sitting in front of him, though, so I don't know if he enjoyed the movie.
J: Mars Attacks! is at number eight. This is a Tim Burton film. Very popular film. Known for the aliens with their big, like, brainy, gross heads.
C: Did you ever see this movie?
J: I've seen it, yeah. I saw it when I was quite young, actually.
C: Yeah.
J: I just remember it being so, just finding it so weird. I didn't get it.
C: I really wanted to go and see this when I was a kid, 'cause I thought it was gonna be a kid's movie. Like these kind of, like, funny, like, CGI aliens. Isn't it quite, like, an adult film though?
J: Yeah, it was very adult.
C: Yeah. My mum wouldn't let me go.
J: I think it's quite gory in parts as well. Like heads exploding and stuff. Great film though.
C: Amy Wong from Futurama. I don't know if this is a controversial pick because she's not a native Martian. You've seen Futurama before.
J: Yeah.
C: Amy Wong is a character who's, like, from Mars, was brought up there, but like it was, like, a human colony of Mars. I want to give an honorable mention, a shout out as well, to the native Martians from Futurama. Don't know why you're not on this list, to be honest. I don't know. Maybe this is quite offensive to you, that I picked Amy Wong over you. But I love Amy, she's a great character.
J: Number six is the Mysterons from Captain Scarlet. Great show. If you've not seen Captain Scarlet, it's like Thunderbirds, it's all puppets, from the sixties. Very creepy. I used to watch it as a child. What is it? (Sings theme) "Captain Scarlet dun dun dun dun dun" Something like that.
C: Yeah. Tell you what I love about the Mysterons is how terrifying they are.
J: Yeah, really creepy.
C: Even though they are just two green circles, like, projected on walls.
J: Yeah, so rather than it being actual aliens, like "Hello, we're aliens," the Mysterons, it's just these green sort of lights just sort of floating around. Really, really creepy. But I didn't know this but apparently originally the creator of the show wanted to make the aliens seem just like more conventional, so I guess little green men, but was worried that the show would feel dated in a few years time if he went down that route so he decided to go for the, just for the lights instead. I think it really works. It's still kind of terrifying today.
C: Definitely. In at number five: the Yip Yips. Another controversial choice here in the Cereal Time studio. Some people might not even consider these Martians. They are the Yip Yips from Sesame Street. I promise you they are Martians but they are, they're not terrifying in the slightest. I just love them.
J: You can all relax though, they are Martians. We can confirm they are Martians. I thought they were just aliens.
C: Yeah.
J: But they are essentially just two little floaty things that are idiots. Just go around on Sesame Street causing havoc.
C: All of the notes I have here is that they say "Yip Yip". (Imitates Yip Yips) That's... There you go. Now you know.
J: Here's a classic. It's War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. This is a book that's been made into a movie many, many times, the most recent being in 2005. The basic story being that Martians try to take over the world.
C: Which sounds like a kind of, like, not very interesting idea now but it's because of this story, isn't it, this is kind of like...
J: This is like the first one.
C: Yeah. This would have been terrifying the idea of, like, hearing this. In fact, I feel like I remember, wasn't there like a radio play broadcast, or something.
J: Yes.
C: Where people, like, heard it and actually thought that Martians were invading.
J: Yeah, they thought it was a real thing. Yeah. Absolutely incredible. And yeah. So these, like, big, like, killing machines with long legs that try and attack Earth. But I think they eventually, they die, they die out because of infections on Earth. That's what happens.
C: Number three is Mark Watney from the movie The Martian. Recent favorite of mine. I don't know if you read the book at all or saw the movie
J: No, I've not seen it.
C: It's really really good, actually. Yeah, absolutely love it. It's one of those stories that just, like... It's science fiction but it's so grounded in reality that it does feel very real. This feels like an ad or something but I genuinely just like, I really love the book. I haven't seen the film yet.
J: Nonspon, #nonspon.
C: But it's great and I feel like he's, like, you know, he's not a Martian but the movie's called The Martian so I'm letting him off 'cause he's just, he's just a great character.
J: Well one thing we've learned today is that it's very difficult to make a good Martian movie. There have been some absolute stinkers. Marvin the Martian is at number two. "Why is Marvin the Martian at number two," I hear you cry. From Looney Tunes. Well, it's because this is the only character we've featured who is actually, physically on Mars at the moment. On the Spirit Rover...
C: 'Cause he's a real alien.
J: He's a real alien.
C: This is the new news from NASA. This is what Martians actually look like.
J: I don't know why the water thing was such a big deal 'cause he's been there for years. Looney Tunes is a documentary, right?
C: Yeah. I think so.
J: No, there's this little... On the Spirit Rover, there's a little, like a little patch, like a little sticker with a picture of Marvin the Martian on it, which I think is quite cool so that's why he's at number two.
C: Number one is the aliens from Toy Story because, well you know what, Jimmy?
J: Why are they at number one?
C: They're just, they're just my favorites.
J: Okay. They're Charlie's favorite Martian.
C: That's why they're at the top.
J: That's how you get the number one spot. But they're not even proper Martians are they? Aren't they're just aliens.
C: I mean, like, they're not even just aliens, they are alien toys. Even in the story, even in the fictional story, they are fictional.
J: There's a lot of layers, aren't there.
C: All Martians are fictional, ultimately, so who cares but in the Toy Story 2 video game, if you looked at the box art for the Martians, you could see that they are called Mr. Martian and that's how you know. So it's never in any of the movies.
J: That's how you know you're a massive nerd, if you know that.
C: It's not mentioned that they're Martians.
J: That's how you know.
C: That's the only link I could find to them actually being Martians, but I wanted to put them at the top 'cause they're just great. That's my decision. Deal with it.
C: "It's time for Radish Head-Lines. Radish Head-Lines, it's the head of a radish". Welcome to Radish Head-Lines. (Both laugh) I don't know. Sorry.
J: Dun dun dun dun dun dun, headlines.
C: God, I'm losing it.
J: Was that alright? That was fine, wasn't it. We're carrying on? Yeah, we're carrying on. It's time for the Radish Head-Lines. What the hell was that!? So we are turning Radish-head, Mrs Radish-head, into a comic.
C: Mhmm. We are indeed.
J: Potentially featuring Bagpipe Man, what was it? (Josh and Charlie laughs) Johnny Bagpipes. Maybe, Maybe not.
C: At this point, at this point if he's just Bagpipe Man he's gonna be just, like, an extra or something in this comic probably, isn't he?
J: Yeah, maybe he'll do a little cameo or something.
C: Poor Johnny Bagpipes. Just thrown to the side.
J: I think he is a great character just not as memorable as the Radish-head.
C: I agree. No, definitely. She's really taken the world by storm, taken our minds by storm.
J: Absolutely. Which is why we're turning it into a comic, an actual real comic.
C: We've got some bits a pieces from you guys related to Mrs Radish-head. This one's from emmsprite who showed us this card on a Swedish memory game who appears to be cosplaying as Mrs Radish-head which is kind of cool.
J: Oh, that is really cool.
C: We've already got our first cosplayer in the form of this strange R-card.
J: I love a radish head in the wild. Nothing makes me more excited than that. Thank you so much for sending that in emmsprite. I love that you saw that and immediately thought "Mrs Radish-head, that's obviously what that is".
C: That shows how the character really is infecting peoples' minds, isn't she? Yeah. There you go.
J: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Alyssa Duckworth has been on and we've got this amazing drawing of Mrs Radish-head. I absolutely love this.
C: It's really cool, isn't it. It kind of, like, puts me in mind of like a Tim Burton-esque like version of the character.
J: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
C: That would be a cool direction to take it.
J: It's really captured the sadness of Mrs Radish-head. You get a real idea of how annoyed and upset she is to be a radish which I like a lot. I think that's really great. Thank you for that Alyssa.
C: Yeah, definitely get that. We've got one here from Hannah. Now this is just awesome. This, like in my mind this is, like, the cover of the comic book, maybe.
J: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
C: She just looks so cool. You can see her powers. She does have those two nice eyes, don't know if we're going with eyes as a thing.
J: Hey, now I've seen it with eyes I'm thinking maybe that could work.
C: Yeah? Possibly.
J: I always imagined Radish-head as having no features, we all know that she can't speak, but she works with eyes.
C: She definitely does.
J: Powerful woman. Powerful radish-headed woman.
C: Yeah. So if you guys have any preference, I think, on what direction, like, art-wise maybe we want to take the character please do let us know. We've got lots of different options, lots of different directions we could go in, I'm just not sure which is the best one.
J: Yeah, let us know which is your favorite so far 'cause of course this is, you know, this is all of our, it's a shared comic, it's the world's comic. We've also had this interpretation by Ian. It's a sort of Radish-head in a dowdy, Victorian dress which I quite like because she is, of course, downtrodden by the evil Mr Radish-head, her husband.
C: I like the idea that maybe this is what she wears when she's kind of under the control of Mr Radish-head still and then maybe she goes into superhero mode once she breaks free from the clutches of the evil Mr Radish-head. Something along those lines anyway.
J: There's something there for sure, I love it. I absolutely love that. We've also recently something really, really cool.
C: Yes.
J: That we're gonna play for you now.
C: I feel like this doesn't need an introduction other than it's from Day Joe so thank you for this.
Voice: In a world where everybody eats cereal all the time, the Gnome of Lies has decided he would rather eat duck. He has kidnapped the Duck of Truth. Now only Mrs Radish-head and Johnny Bagpipes can save the world, save the Duck of Truth, and save the cereal. Coming summer 2016. It's Cereal Time.
J: Oh wow. I mean that is incredible. I've not heard that before.
C: Doesn't that just inspire you to make the movie?
J: Yeah, but it's sort of on the verge of being slightly terrifying.
C: (Laughs) Yeah. Definitely.
J: There's, like, a character from a horror movie. That was brilliant, thank you so much for sending that in. But guys, listen, we need some story ideas so if you've got any ideas for just a very basic plot line, you know, we don't need you spending hours writing the whole thing out, then please do leave a comment with that or you can send us an email, hello@cerealtimeshow.com.
