The Four Color Media Monitor

Some people who study the history of animation and its contributors may be familiar with the veteran actor Robbie Rist, who first began his career as a child in the early 1970s on various TV programs and occasional films (and is known for his not very fondly remembered role as cousin Oliver on the Brady Bunch in its last 6 episodes) and later took up voice acting for animation as well. The earliest such effort I know of was Kidd Video from the mid-1980s, a Saturday morning cartoon meant to cash in on the MTV fad of the times, where a teenage rock band was teleported into an animated world by a villain named Master Blaster, in hopes to make them his "musical slaves". A Tinkerbell-like fairy named Glitter foiled his plans and became the band's guide around "the Flipside". Rist also went on to provide voice acting for Batman's animated cartoons, Japanimation like Naruto, and even Michelangelo in the 3 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films from the early 1990s. And unfortunately, it turns out, rather unsurprisingly, that in a manner of speaking, Rist lives in the Flipside, and isn't well informed when it comes to the real world. As I discovered, Mr. Rist posted the following video of a CNN interview he did in 2021, and claimed it's "one of the channels smart people watch". Which is obviously a subtle slam to channels like Fox and Newsmax, as the following indicates. And then, when one of the commentors says:

I've got a high I.Q. and I wouldn't waste my time watching this channel!!

So what did Mr. Rist say in response?

Then apparently its not as high as you believe.

Smart people also listen to the BBC. And CBC. And even Al Jazheera.

I just meant dumbshit infotainment channels like Fox and Newsman.

That's what the stupid and the gullible and the afraid pay attention to.

Oh....how I long for the Fairness Doctrine.

And how I long for the days when most Hollywooders kept quiet about their divisive political outlook. Good grief, just like say, Tom Brevoort lives in a political bubble, Rist really does live on the Flipside, from a political perspective. This may not be surprising Mr. Rist could be that much of a leftist, but even so, it's more devastating he believes Al Jazeera's worth watching than even BBC and CBC, because Al Jazeera's one of the biggest sources of anti-Israelism in the Islamic world, and a Tel Aviv court investigation found chilling links between them and the Hamas terrorist organization. They were recently sued by October 7, 2023 survivors too. It's also been noted that Al Jazeera's propagated a lot of anti-American sentiment as well, which is just as dangerous. And Mr. Rist thinks they're literally worth watching and listening to? Sigh. If Master Blaster were a caricature of a leftist politician instead of a crooked showbusiness manager, Rist could make a great spokesperson for him. This discovery also reminds me of a time when Kurt Busiek slipped a reference to Al Jazeera into an Avengers vs. Thunderbolts miniseries he wrote, and now we've got Hollywood actors and cartoon contributors doing the same. Very sad as it's disturbing.

More recently, Rist also posted the following picture on Instagram, using a design drawing from the Ninja Turtles logo, and this is really head-shaking:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Robbie Rist (@grumprist)

Seriously, this is a terrible misuse of the Ninja Turtles designs. How can Mr. Rist claim to be a fan of Ninja Turtles, play the voice role of Michaelangelo in the films, and then sully the franchise with this kind of atrocious statement against Donald Trump's tax policies? Rist might want to consider that so far, the tariff policy is having some positive results, or not impacting prices much at all, and even some MSM sources are admitting it.

Anyway, a real shame Mr. Rist has to sully his career with this kind of divisive rhetoric that's long been unoriginal. If we were to speak in jest, why'd his animated role of Whiz in Kidd Video have to be depicted whining about hoping to find a way back to the real world if the guy voicing him in real life doesn't want to be a realist? I also wish he'd stop using anything related to the Ninja Turtles franchise to make his bizarre points if he's going to be that cavalier. It's disrespectful to creators Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, no matter their politics, and does nothing to improve a world that's falling apart.

Labels: animation, history, indie publishers, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, politics, terrorism