A (tongue-in-cheek) creative challenge, and going behind-the-scenes

I recently learned that the following domains are available. I challenge (dare, really!) any of you creative people who see this to create something inspired by the following names…

PiratesOfDarkWaterHeater.*
PiratesOfDarkWaterSports.*
PiratesOfDarkWaterDamage.*
PiratesOfDarkWaterFilter.*

.* = .com, .net, .org, and so on.

😉

No prize or anything–but if you do actually create something, email it to me and I’ll happily post it here!

(It turns out piratesofdarkwater.com is available and going up for auction, but the minimum bidding price is close to $200! Sheesh…let’s just save that for whoever creates a kickass reboot of the show, shall we?)

– – – – –

Also, I may as well note here…I recently heard from Lane Raichert, one of the writers on PoDW episodes 1-5 (not much besides just letting me know that he was redoing his website and the PoDW section was coming down for a while). And that got me thinking…something I have never thought much about doing was to reach out to the people who worked on the show. I’ve always been far more interested in the creativity of this universe, the worldbuilding aspects, and so forth, but it never even occurred to me to actively reach out and contact the behind-the-scenes crew. (Other fans have, though! Mr. Raichert said that he’s frequently contacted about PoDW, which is awesome. Also, conceptual artist Floro Dery is probably the one exception, as far as my contact with the PoDW production team–he has reached out several times with gorgeous examples of his brilliant work from the show.)

This is something I want to do more of, going forward. The show’s over 20 years old now, and some of the creative team were at least halfway into their careers when they worked on it–and some have, sadly enough, already passed away. It’s time to really get moving, to get stories about how it all came to be!

PoDW on Twitter and elsewhere online

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has had one somewhat amusing side effect: a number of Pirates of Dark Water references are showing up on Twitter.

@callingshotgun Was early 90s cartoon “Pirates of Dark Water” environmental propoganda like “Captain Planet”, but more subtle? BP fiasco makes me wonder.

@OddKnowledge if only solving the BP oil spill was simple as finding 13 treasures like on Pirates of Dark Water http://bit.ly/cRlXL2
FYI, the link is safe; it goes to the opening of the show on YouTube.

KeatonThomas The cartoon The Pirates of Dark Water was actually a misinterpreted political warning about off shore drilling…. #thedarkwaterisreal
Love the hashtag.

MagnusApollo “the Pirates of Dark water” who knew that that old cartoon would have been so prophetic. Find those crystals people.
More prophetic than we realized, since they DID try using a gem to cap the leak, in the form of a diamond saw…yeah, kind of stretching, I know.

greekgodspeed BP + Oil Spill = The Pirates of Dark Water.

theconq19 Who would’ve thought Pirates of Dark Water would turn out to be a documentary?

And so on.

(This is not meant in any way to trivialize this devastating tragedy. BP’s attempts and failures and pathetic excuses make me sad and furious all at once–sad for the loss of both human and animal/marine life and the horrible devastation of the local ecosystems (there’s a real ripple effect in play, too, affecting much more than just that), and furious with BP for letting this happen to begin with.)

Anyway, moving on.

Something else posted to Twitter: there’s a section for PoDW at Behind the Voice Actors. It’s a breakdown, with photos, of the voice actors for the main and recurring characters.

Also, in response to a request I’ve gotten several times, I pulled together a video clip of the ending credits of episodes 1-5. They’re from the Japanese VHS releases, so they have the Dark Water opening and the HB “swirl” has been replaced with a couple of screens of Japanese credits.

Next up: more RPG character page scans. I SWEAR.

Fanart, and affirming my idiocy

So my goal of completing a site update before school started did not pan out, obviously, and as predicted, it’s been keeping me quite busy. (I also have broken my “post an update on my birthday” tradition, but oh well–that was more of a vanity thing anyway.)

Anyway, to add insult to injury, being the COMPLETE GENIUS that I am, last week I managed to completely delete the long, detailed sticky-note (through the Stickies application) that I’d compiled of all the updates, content, links, and other content I need to put on the site. Naturally, I had not backed it up. I had spent bits of time over the course of…I don’t even know how long, but it was a fairly long period of time I spent compiling this thing, and with one click of the mouse, it was gone, just like that.

(AAAARGH.)

However, I did put a few updates up around the site. Any page I updated has a time stamp at the top indicating that the last update was in August 2009–my brain is fried enough right now that I honestly can’t remember what I did update.

I also may as well take a quick minute to link to a collection of Pirates of Dark Water fanart on deviantART I’ve been compiling. This is pretty much every PoDW piece on dA, and I search every so often for new images to add. They aren’t arranged in any particular order, and there are some real gems there. Check it out when you get a chance!

Mystery blob devouring Alaska coastline

Haha, OMG.

“It’s thick and dark and ‘gooey’ and is drifting for miles in the cold Arctic waters.”

“‘It’s certainly biological…It’s definitely not an oil product of any kind….It’s pitch black when it hits ice and it kind of discolors the ice and hangs off of it.'”

I have to say, I’m a little disappointed that of all the science fiction references made in the comments, there’s not a single mention of Dark Water. Come on, people. 😉

Scurvy dogs sea slugs

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day (me mateys)! I’m guilty of only getting in one good “arrr” this morning.

Did any of you get in a few PoDW-isms in for good measure? I actually did not this year. (Admittedly, it’s more fun to make a reference to something that most people would get. I don’t think many of my coworkers would have picked up on “chongo-longo.”) Arrr, there be next year.

Food for thought

…does Ren have a mullet?

(I don’t think so–I think his hair’s just long and shaggy. Some of my friends big to differ, though. I’m trying to fight, but I’m secretly glad I’ve managed to spread the PoDW gospel among my friends here in Japan, too. I’ve gotten one hooked, and when she suggested we play the episodes last night another one had a huge nostalgia trip, whereas the third hadn’t seen them yet, but I think he was impressed.)

Wow

The premise: a handful of mystical treasures are scattered across a land from their original post, bringing darkness everywhere. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy journeys with a girl in touch with nature and her pet bird, and a strong, broadsword-wielding older man, to recover these treasures.

And guess what? I’m not describing PoDW!

There’s this anime I’ve caught on TV a few times–I’d never really paid attention past seeing that the art’s pretty. It’s called Deltra Quest or something along those lines. Instead of Ren’s pouch and the secret niche on the Wraith, there’s a magic belt that the main character wears that the seven scattered jewels are fit into. They’ve found the first two as of today’s episode.

I simultaneously am amused and annoyed by shows that completely rip off the PoDW premise, most likely inadvertently, and then get a lot more attention than PoDW ever did.