Category: Sci-Friday

If you love scifi, you love Futurama – it’s that simple. Matt Groenig’s love letter to pop culture and science fiction included some of the top voice actors in Hollywood including a guy named Billy West. Billy, if you didn’t already know, had already built a successful voice career doing Ren and Stimpy. He went full ‘Mel Blanc’ in Futurama, providing many of the beloved, bizarre characters you came to know and love. It’s always fun to watch a gag reel, so sit back and enjoy these Futurama voice actor bloopers:

Don’t stop here, though. Billy West has a channel on Youtube talking about some of his experiences as a pro voice actor. Definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in that side of the business.

Part of the benefit of watching Billy West and the Futurama voice actor bloopers is that it de-mystifies the entire process of making scifi. At the end of the day, it comes down to regular people coming together to make something awesome. Always has, always will. If you like Sci-Friday, you can go down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Happy Friday and enjoy your weekend!

Drum roll, please … Hooray, we did it! We made it to Sci-Friday’s hundredth post – huzzah! I’ve been doing this for one hundred blog posts now, and it’s been a fun, fascinating challenge to find something every week to highlight the fun side of science fiction.

In this week’s Sci-Friday, we have a breakdown of the VFX going into an upcoming game. Thanks to Blender, all we need to make a rich, beautiful scifi universe is a great artist, actors, and green-screens. Watch!

Did you know the Jawa’s like Van Halen? Neither did I. And yet, this stop-motion animation provides undeniable proof of the galactic popularity of EVH. The beauty of scifi, as I’ve said, is how it lets us leverage our weaknesses into strengths. The creator himself candidly pointed out: “A Jawa Plays Eruption: A Tribute to Edward Van Halen is exactly that! This was an extremely FUN way to pay respects to a musical Legend and to also challenge myself to recreate Eddie’s amazing solo, frame by frame via stop motion animation. Is it perfect? Of course not, that’s impossible and nothing ever is :-)”

Now, kick back and watch a Jawa shred on Eddie Van Halen’s eponymous work, ‘Eruption.’

Hope you enjoyed ‘Jawa Van Halen, ‘ and if you like Sci-Friday, you can go down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Happy Friday and enjoy your weekend!

For your daily dose of ‘aww,’ I present this video of Robert Rodriguez jamming with Baby Yoda / Grogu on the set of the Mandalorian. Watch him close to see how organic and life-like the puppetry feels:

Now, here’s an important question: is it okay to still call him ‘Baby Yoda?’ I think the answer is yes, and here’s why.

‘Baby Yoda’ is a gesture of affection. We’re not making fun of him. After all, we call Chewbacca ‘Chewie, C3-PO ‘Threepio,’ and R2-D2 ‘Artoo,’ right? Just like the nicknames kids get from their older siblings, it’s Baby Yoda. Hopefully, Grogu can live with that.

I hope this discussion, along with the video jamming with Baby Yoda / Grogu, can hold you over until Season 3 and The Book of Boba Fett come out on Disney+. Have a great weekend!