Our Favorite Comics from Sunday Jan. 18th Washington Post: Maybe Michelle and the Kids Like Foxtrot Too

Greetings to our blog readers in Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.....

In the Outlook section of the Sunday, Jan. 18th edition of "The Washington Post," journalist Michael Booth made the bold proclamation that Scandinavia was over-rated. This made me rethink my foreign country travel bucket list in which Iceland and Norway are ranked second and third respectively after Liberia..........(perhaps, stand-up comic Gilbert Gottfried applauds us for making fun of Ebla, he might be the only one!).............

The images above are of: 1) Charlie Brown, but "Peanuts" is not our top-ranked comic strip, in fact, since the strip is in permanent rerun status, we disqualify the strip from our surveys, but Charlie Brown was the butt of a great gag in "The Argyle Sweater;" 2) A snowball fight in reference to "Foxtrot," which perhaps First Lady Michelle Obama and her daughters found amusing; and 3) the old Flash Gordon serials with the late Buster Crabbe which is actually being used for "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy" (there is also a "Flash Gordon" weekly comic strip still in circulation)....

Here is our top ten, which also includes "WUMO," a Danish import that this week illustrated what it would be life if children said inappropriate things about fat people who eat too much fast food (Gottfried probably loves "WUMO" too):

1) The Argyle Sweater

2) Foxtrot

3) Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

4) WUMO

5) Lio

6) Speed Bump

7) Sherman's Lagoon

8) Knight Life

9) Prickly City

10) Pearls Before Swine

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

The Rabbit Ears Quiz (12 of 12)_ Battle of the Planets

Today, we conclude our long-running series dedicated to television shows which first ran from the late '60s to the early '80s with an homage to "Battle of the Planets," one of the first Japanese anime cartoons to be aired in the United States.

The original Japanese series, which was called "Science Ninja Team Gatchman," ran from 1972-74; the American version, which ran in syndication, was on the air from 1978-85.

The "Battle of the Planets" cast of winged superheroes, known as the G-Force, included Mark, Jason, Princess, Keyop and Troy. Interestingly enough, Mark was voiced by none other than Casey Kasem, now age 80, who also voiced Scooby Doo. Kasem also hosted a popular radio show featuring the top 40 hits from the Billboard charts, which aired during the '70s and '80s.

G-Force often clashed with the demented villain Zoltar, pictured here, who was arguably as deviant and as sinister as Flash Gordon's foe Ming the Merciless. "The New Adventures of Flash Gordon," an American science fiction cartoon ran from 1979-82 on NBC; it was based on a 1940s era comic strip called "Flash Gordon," which is still active in circulation.

The main ship for the G-Force was called The Phoenix.

So, today, we asking what is the difference in terms of number of episodes between the original Japanese version of the anime series and its American counterpart. Though the Japanese version lasted for a shorter time span, it actually produced more episodes.

Is the answer?:

A) 10

B) 15

C) 20

D) 25

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com

http://www.funimation.com

UPDATE (July 5, 2012): The answer is C)20