Vegeta Sucks

In the universe of Dragon Ball Z, a man’s value is not determined by how hard he can punch or how loudly he can yell, but instead by how loudly he can yell as he punches really hard. By the end of the original Dragon Ball series, protagonist Goku has yell-punched his way to the top of the Tenkaichi Budokai (roughly translated as “The Yellingist Puncher”) tournament ladder and has been formally recognized as the world’s foremost expert in yelling and punching, both separately and in conjunction.

When your protagonist has been officially recognized as the strongest person on the planet and your series is based on him fighting progressively more powerful foes, there’s really not much to do but bring in some space aliens. In steps Vegeta, the proud prince of a powerful galaxy conquering warrior race with his sights set on Earth. In his first appearance Vegeta handily wipes the floor with every character that isn’t Goku and even then only loses that fight due to bad luck and some assistance from Goku’s pussy friends. When the dust settles both men are battered and almost unable to move and Vegeta lies helpless, his fate in the hands of Krillin, perennial bitch of the Dragon Ball universe. Always one to recognize a pattern, Goku begs Krillin to allow Vegeta to live on the merit that given the nature of the series, they’d probably all end up friends anyway, something Krillin is incapable of forming an argument against.  Vegeta gets into his spaceship, flies off swearing vengeance on Goku and the audience collectively goes, “Oh, shit, this buster is gonna be trouble.”

I could write an entire entry on the characters in the Dragon Ball franchise who didn’t live up to their potential, but no one got it quite as bad as Vegeta. In the storyline immediately following the one in which he was the major threat to the heroes, he is surpassed in Punch-Yelling capacity by Goku and spends the rest of the series playing catch up. When he isn’t getting his face smashed into the geographically vague desert environment as an example of the power of whatever freaky-deaky space alien is lobbing fireballs at the earth this week, he’s relegated to the growing group of gaping losers that follow Goku around and offer insightful commentary like, “I’ve never felt this type of power!” Even his little victories are snatched away immediately, either by bad luck or his own hubris. When he appears to be able to go toe-to-toe with Frieza, Frieza simply transforms and bats him away like a fly while the ten-year old Gohan takes his place in the fight. Despite this bad history with transformation, in his battle against Cell where he clearly has the upper hand, Vegeta allows the monster to absorb the android it needs to complete its transformation and once again receives an all you can eat buffet of fireballs and fists. 

The Prince of all Saiyans

Vegeta receives arguably the most character development of anyone in the entire series, growing from brutal would-be world conqueror to over-bearing Tiger Mother. There is a case to be made that DBZ is more about him and his journey than that of its actual protagonist and for the entire run of the show he’s consistently one of the top three most powerful characters. Despite this, his crowning achievement after his first appearance is admitting that he is inferior to Goku and distracting the last bad guy by presenting his ass for a whooping long enough for Goku to save the day. 

-The Management

What's New Scooby-Doo?

Cartoon Network has decided to (once again) drag the Mystery Inc. gang out of homeostasis and though initially I was a little confused as to why they would even bother, I took a look at the first episode of Scooby-Doo: Mystery Inc and I must say, I was quite pleasantly surprised.

The first thing that must be acknowledged if this article is to continue (and by the looks of things, it is) is that the original Scooby-Doo series was lacking. To say the least. On top of the show itself being absurdly boring to look at and even worse in motion, the gang are the most one-dimensional group of characters I can be bothered to think of (unless we compare them to the other characters in the Hanna-Barbera stock). Seriously, think of two things about each member of the gang that make them unique characters.

Go ahead.

I'll wait.

So, here's what you probably came up with right off the bat:

Velma: She has glasses and is also smart.

Shaggy/Scooby: They are easily frightened and frequently hungry.

Fred: NOTHING

Daphne: NOTHING

These answers are all correct, unfortunately, you did forget to answer in the form of a question.

That's right, two members of the Mystery Inc. gang have no discernible character attributes, two of them are the same character and one of Velma's character traits is her glasses.

In a desperate bid to make these characters characters, we've been met recently with What's New Scooby-Doo which retained essentially the same formula as the classic Where Are you? shows but in a modern setting and as of 2006, we've received Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue.

It's not discernible from this intro, but in this show, Shaggy inherited a fourtune, whereupon he and Scooby became secret agents with a Bond-esque Arch-Nemesis name Dr. Phibes. Yes, really. Look it up.

Go ahead.

I'll wait.

Anyway, these shows failed to add anything new to the character's character and in one case (I'll let you guess which one) managed to be the worst thing that has ever happened.

Now we're looking at Mystery Inc. which manages to seriously blow my expectations for what a Scooby-Doo show can actually be. Here we've got Scooby, Shaggy and the rest of the gang living in a coastal town renowned for the sheer volume of unexplained super-natural activity that occurs within. Needless to say, the gang does what they do, solving mysteries and ruining everyone else's fun (and the town's profitable business as a tourist trap) in the process, such to the point that they apparently get arrested with some degree of frequency for cracking these craaaazy capers.

The characters depicted here are basically what we've come to expect, but the fact that the show viciously lampshades the one-dimensional characters of past incarnations (Fred is so obsessed with building traps and catching ghosts, that he is blind to the very... Eager Daphne's less than subtle advances) and the promise of an over-arching story linking every episode together have me legitimately interested in a Scooby-Doo show. Something I never thought would happen.

It doesn't hurt that Scooby's playing a smaller role, either. Christ, he's annoying.

Several Convincing Arguments to Support the Claim that Wife Swap is the Greatest Television Program Ever Conceived

There are a lot of television shows, but one stands high above the rest, asserting it's dominance above all others like a great king. All other shows pale in comparison in every possible way. From it's ability to make us laugh, to it's astounding tendency make us deny our connections to the human race, there is but one television series as far as we here at Meaningless Meandering are concerned, and that one is....



Yes, that's right, Wife Swap. For those unfamiliar with the premise of the show, please, allow us to explain: Two families from startlingly different backgrounds are brought together to change wives for two weeks. For the first week, the new wives must live by the rules of the new family, in the following week the wives get to change the rules to their liking, and the new family must abide by them. Generally, this means that a well-to-do liberal, but obscenely strict wife who would rather lock her children in a cellar than let them interact with the opposite sex trades places with a wife from a poor, conservative family that believes that woman should remain in the kitchen and who's children already have children of their own. At age 12. The two families follow the rules for two weeks and one of two possible outcomes is eventually reached, 1) they learn their lesson, and make changes to their lives accordingly, or 2) they learn nothing from the experience and openly insult the other family on national television.

Of course, this is just generally how it plays out. Sometimes it gets mixed up a bit. Here's a few of my favorite Special Cases

-a family of clowns

-a family of wizards

-a family of alien hunters

-a family that refuses to cook any of it's food

-a husband that would rather wake board and jet ski than spend time with his kids. So he does.

Please note that, in the episode with the clowns, one of the rules was that they go to a talent agency where they are told they are failures as clowns. Top scientists have been working 'round the clock here at the Meaningless Meandering Institute of Higher Knowledge (MMHK) to confirm the theory that, yes, this was in fact the only thing funny thing that has ever happened involving a clown.

Our favorite part of the show is how it (no doubt through COPIOUS editing) shows us both sides of a debate as ignorant, argumentative and stupid. Truthfully, there has never been a likable participant of the show. From the carnies who teach their children "physics" by taking them on the tilt-a-whirl rather than putting them in school, hyper-religious zealots who's daughters, at 19, pray for a husband rather than date, to the man who outright tells his step-daughter he doesn't love her on national television, it's truly and simply a parade of horrible and stupid individuals, and we hear at the Institute will be god-damned if that doesn't make for darn good television.

One must wonder, with the way EVERY. SINGLE. PARTICIPANT. Is portrayed so negatively how new ones are so constantly found, but I submit to you, dear reader, that we as America are not at a loss for stupid people who want to get on television. Not by a long shot. In fact, one could easily argue that the majority of America consists of stupid people who would embarrass themselves to be on television.

That's right, you heard (read?) correctly. If Wife Swap is nothing but stupid, horrible people, and American is nothing but stupid, horrible people then I submit to you, dear reader, that Wife Swap IS America.

If A=B and B=C, then once can assume that A=C.

Wife Swap the single most patriotic anything that has ever existed.

As our final argument for the show, we've decided to let it speak for itself.

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