I had a classmate in college (and the college radio station) who had contracted polio as an infant literally weeks before the vaccination became available. Ouch. But he was one of the most positive people I ever knew, even with a partially withered leg that made walking difficult and ungainly and a totally useless arm... well, almost useless. He did play disc jockey at the college radio station where the music was still on discs and was incredibly skillful at "slipcuing" by resting his bad arm's hand on the record while the turntable underneath it came up to speed, then, at the exact instant he wanted to start it, smoothly withdrawing his hand while with his good hand turning the volume on the new record up and the previous record down and off. It sounded seamless. I couldn't get nearly the perfect effect. He didn't become a pro DJ upon graduation; he didn't need to - his family had a packaged-food company and his older brother had just introduced a product line that has made his family name a supermarket staple. (Without his permission, I'm not going to mention it, but he also spoke about how proud he was of his big bro. Again, an incredibly positive guy.)

The best (not from an insider) explanation I've seen is that if they were all the same shape it would be too obvious that the nuggets were chopped and formed and not made from naturally occurring pieces. But the more different shapes they made the more trouble, so they settled on four, and these specific four, to obscure their makeup just enough for more people to be less conscious of their not-naturalness. It's a good theory, even if a kind of a 'conspiracy theory'.

Well, I try to keep an 'oh, pun' mind about jokes like these, but some of them have groan quite old.

The '90s was also the decade when "The Tick" was animated and put on Saturday Mornings for three glorious seasons, raising expectations SO HIGH for a live-action version a few years later that not even Patrick (Puddy/Kronk/BrockSamson) Warburton could make it good enough.

Meanwhile, Stephen Speilberg's cartoon group, after the success of Animaniacs, tried its hand at a funny superhero toon with "Freakazoid", which would've been more notable if The Tick wasn't upstaging it every Saturday. (But if you want to see something that really should've been on this list, find "Normadeus", the episode featuring the voice of This Old House's Norm Abram as Himself)

Well, they're not the first (or in my opinion the Best) to work that trope. About a dozen years ago, 'underground' comic artist Jason Yungbluth (who has since gone 'aboveground' enough to be featured in MAD Magazine) published the first adventure of "Weapon Brown", a post-apocalyptic Charlie B. all growed up, very bulked-up, and with a bionic arm, as well as the rest of the Peanuts cast, including Dr. Lucy, the Red Haired Girl and Linus and his Great Pumpkin (the stuff of Halloween nightmares). Very NSFKids for violence, sex and language. Then he expanded the universe into re-defined versions of much of the comics page, from Popeye, Orphan Annie and a Beetle Bailey who's a real Military Beetle, to his ultimate adversary, a bio-engineered supersoldier code-named "CAL-v.1N" (But then, if any two comic strip characters are going to be archenemies, it would have to be Calvin and Chuck). Insane, profane and way too much fun. So excuse me if I do not give too much respect to some other halfway-decent depiction of Post-Apocalyptic Charlie Brown.

In addition, it must be noted that the name "Spider-Man" contains that dash in the middle; "Superman" doesn't. So good way to dodge the lawyers in both directions.
Also a little (probably intentionally) off-model... look at the nose on that SuperSpiderGuy!

SERIOUS students of heroic small animals know that Rocket Raccoon was originally a rip-off of Rocket J. Squirrel (which makes his closest ally a kind of a Bullwinkle Groot). Is it really coincidental that the Rocket Raccoon comic series started at the same time as The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl?

In my day Jif hadn't been bought out by those jelly-making Smuckers and they weren't trying to pass it off as a Graphics Interchange Format.

BI's already one of my regular reads - it's also available on gocomics.com so I can catch it with Lio, Frazz and Pearls Before Swine. I think Meyer is contractually obligated to give them 3 comics a week but is only doing 2; of course, this and most of the other reruns predate the gocomics contract, so "it's new to them". (Has he done a "How to Deal With a Syndicator" yet?)

Also ,another blog was doing a survey of Superhero Parodies and somebody suggested BI's occasional "Adventures of Rocket Hat" as one of the best. Can't argue with that.

Not all that surprising after we've already seen the debut of Tabasco Sriracha.
http://countrystore.tabasco.com/TABASCOsupreg_sup-Sriracha-Sauce/productinfo/03829/

I was a fan of the Original Secret Squirrel and I just don't think it's the same if they're not wearing "a bullet-proof coat and a cannon hat". But Marvel's Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is making squirrels as popular as the good old days of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, and I support anything squirrel-positive.

One more thing... the casting of Daniel Craig was controversial... "James Bond can't be played a guy with blond hair!"
And the personality change from Piers Brosnan to Craig was as big a change as the Doctor Who change from Matt Smith to Peter Capaldi (which has led some people to speculate that 007 is a Time Lord).
Or there's the theory considering the 50 year stretch of his adventures (so far) that "James Bond" is just the code name/alias of whoever the current operative to earn the 007 designation is. It does make a binge-watching of the movies a little less jarring.

When "the powers that be" change the race of a character, it is ALMOST ALWAYS changed to be WHITE. The Pharaoh in Exodus, Tonto in The Lone Ranger, all the heroes in The Last Airbender (but villains remained ethnic); even Katniss in The Hunger Games books was described as several shades darker than Jennifer Lawrence. But when the producers of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie picked Michael B. Jordan to play the Human Torch, comic book nerds went ballistic! For Hollywood, today just as much as for the last century, the "politically correct" thing to do is "whitewash".
But then, if I were to suggest a Black Brit to play James Bond, my first pick would be Richard Ayoade (but lose the hair, keep the glasses). :)