Owen might become huge in Japan if he plays his cards right, they've always loved technical gaijin over there. He won't become a crossover hit fueled by dank memes and weeaboo passion like Kenny Omega, he will be much more traditional than that, but at least it's a better fate than the one he had IRL.
When you Wish Upon a Frog (Book II of the Jim Henson at Disney saga)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
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Owen might become huge in Japan if he plays his cards right, they've always loved technical gaijin over there. He won't become a crossover hit fueled by dank memes and weeaboo passion like Kenny Omega, he will be much more traditional than that, but at least it's a better fate than the one he had IRL.
Not quite true, there's also the two Coreys: Corey Feldman and Corey Haim.
@Plateosaurus, I'm also cross-posting this in your wrestling guest post thread, so here goes:
Here's another idea for wrestling: have Bruiser Brody survive. In OTL, as we know, he was killed in Puerto Rico after being stabbed by fellow wrestler Jose Gonzalez. The butterflies here should be enough to ensure that he lives through his stab wounds--have him decide to just wrestle in Japan--he was huge there. Then, when the WWF collapses, have him take on a mentor role in one of these territorial regions...
Brody, unlike some, at least has no #MeToo stuff attached to him, just bad relations with promoters and some of his fellow wrestlers--he was, by all accounts, happily married and had a son...
Bobby Heenan is another one I hope continues on in TTL (he also doesn't appear to have a record of #MeToo behavior)...
OTOH, one person who should be exposed in TTL: Grizzly Smith, the father of wrestlers Rockin' Robin (who he sexually abused, along with another daughter who was murdered (look up The Dark Side of The Ring episode on him)), Jake Roberts, and Sam Houston.
Grizzly Smith makes Fritz Von Erich look like father of the year, and that isn't an exaggeration...
Here's another idea for wrestling: have Bruiser Brody survive. In OTL, as we know, he was killed in Puerto Rico after being stabbed by fellow wrestler Jose Gonzalez. The butterflies here should be enough to ensure that he lives through his stab wounds--have him decide to just wrestle in Japan--he was huge there. Then, when the WWF collapses, have him take on a mentor role in one of these territorial regions...
Brody, unlike some, at least has no #MeToo stuff attached to him, just bad relations with promoters and some of his fellow wrestlers--he was, by all accounts, happily married and had a son...
Bobby Heenan is another one I hope continues on in TTL (he also doesn't appear to have a record of #MeToo behavior)...
OTOH, one person who should be exposed in TTL: Grizzly Smith, the father of wrestlers Rockin' Robin (who he sexually abused, along with another daughter who was murdered (look up The Dark Side of The Ring episode on him)), Jake Roberts, and Sam Houston.
Grizzly Smith makes Fritz Von Erich look like father of the year, and that isn't an exaggeration...
Here's another event that, assuming it happens, will be different from OTL (in terms of prosecution): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spur_Posse
In TTL, with the earlier #MeToo, this will cause outrage, methinks...
In TTL, with the earlier #MeToo, this will cause outrage, methinks...
Ok this just makes me sick.
I hope there will be consequences.
Yes, but I meant more in a sense of someone dying by random happenstance like a car crash or food poisoning.
It's likely they will be prosecuted ITTL. There's no way they're gonna get away when the country has a heightened awareness about sexual assault thanks to #MeToo.
I'm hoping for that wrestling guest post tbh, since everyone on the thread keeps talking about this massive fallout of the WWE due to the current butterflies.
Disgusting people. I bet here they'll get life sentences in the hundred years, serving at best as a cautionary tale for men on how you're not owed anything, sex included.
As wild as that'd be, in a scenario like this, Smoky Mountain could act as a refuge promotion for those wanting to do more traditional wrestling. Cornette was very much a traditionalist, and that could pay off for him as much as it could bite him in the ass, though if Smoky Mountain gets more attention from WWF imploding, Jim Crockett, Jr. could jump on board after failing his own traditionalist endeavours, assuming he doesn't approach NWA instead and be part of the 3-person presidential committee along with All-Star Pro Wrestling's Steve Rickard and NWA New Jersey's Dennis Coralluzzo as per OTL, only to be replaced with NWA Florida's Howard Brody in '95 (and maybe Verne Gagne could join SMW too, post-AWA purchase by WCW, given his "old school" style? this is potentially assuming Crockett isn't involved, assuming they have any animosity).
However, one of the architects of ECW's hardcoreness is Paul Heyman, and it's possible he could stay at WCW with Eric Bischoff, where the two of them could shape the newly purged promotion, in ways that appeals to both greatly (though how deep WCW would go into hardcore is debatable). That does leave Eastern Championship Wrestling very mendable, as Tod Gordon would likely still have a falling-out with his booker Eddie Gilbert. Maybe Jim Ross, after leaving WCW due to Bischoff, goes there? Though if Jesse Ventura made his own promotion, Ross could head there too. Maybe Gordon, traveling through New York towards New Jersey to speak (read: argue) with Dennis Coralluzzo, listens to a local wrestling radio station headed by one Vince Russo? An idea like that though is rather cursed.
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Meta: Big Brass Butterflies
Meta-Discussion: Big Brass Butterflies
Or: “The End [of Predictable Change] is Nigh”
As I’ve mentioned in earlier Meta-Discussions, any alternate history has three “zones” as I identify them: the “Immediate After-Effects” zone where the immediate consequences of the Point of Departure (POD) are felt, the “Plausible Butterflies” zone, where the predictable cascade of changes due to the POD occurs even as the general trends of our timeline can be seen and felt, with increasingly large changes as the timeline continues, and the “Fiction Zone” where the changes are so different that you’re essentially making everything up. These are not hard, fast lines, but zones that blend and fade into one another like a spectrum.
As I’ve also said in these discussions, Pop Culture is as volatile as the weather, and thus would most plausibly be in the Fiction Zone in less than a decade after the POD. I’ve also described how I’ve cheated a bit to keep things far more parallel to our timeline than is strictly plausible just to push back this Fiction Zone lest you get a stream of “Captain Chair Lamp” or whatever.
Shown: Emerging Butterflies in this Timeline
So, as we work our way through the second decade of this timeline, we increasingly approach the Fiction Event Horizon even as I work to artificially keep things echoing our timeline. As such, the days where you see The Movie from Our Timeline and The Movie We Know, but Slightly Different are increasingly past and increasingly we will see The Movie That Never Was playing alongside or increasingly instead of these more familiar films. Some of these will parallel movies or TV series from our timeline, reflecting similar currents in the prevailing zeitgeist, but increasingly we will see something that was considered but abandoned or something entirely new that spun up from similar circumstances and we will increasingly not see what happened in our timeline. Analogs will increase, e.g. Film Somewhat Similar to a Famous One from Our Timeline will debut as a summer blockbuster, as will Film Unlike Anything we Had in Our Timeline. There may also be a few surprise second-order butterflies, but only where the events of the TL justify them.
Strictly plausible? No. We’d be pure Fiction Zone by now if we were going by Orthodox Butterfly Theory.
What this means with regards to the timeline is that where the 1980s in this timeline were a mix of the familiar and the fictional, the 1990s will increasingly be a blend of the “reminiscent of something familiar” and the completely fictional. We will see where ideas that began remarkably like they did in our world instead go in completely new directions, so your favorite films of 1996 may increasingly be ones quite similar to them but still unique, or something completely different.
This will include nearly all of your beloved 1990s and 2000s classics, including the Disney Animated Canon.
You have been warned.
Outside events are likewise starting to change. We already have new governments in numerous countries, including the US and former USSR, and resulting changes because of that. This will also influence pop culture, such that an idea that would never have come to anyone’s mind in the 1990s in our timeline will appear here, driven by outside events. A Gore Presidency will mean new priorities in the 1990s compared to Clinton, even though there will be overlap. And even in areas where political priorities align, they will be executed in different ways since the two have such different leadership styles.
We’ve already got plenty of tastes of this. For example, Gary Hart’s “Monkey Business” stayed hidden long enough to get him the Democratic nomination in 1988, which led to down-ballot changes in the Congress that surprised even me, which led to Clarence Thomas getting “Borked”, which led to an earlier reckoning on Sexual Harassment and Assault, which led to changes in company management (e.g. John Lasseter getting suspended and Harvey Weinstein getting removed), which have led to changes in active productions and new leadership opportunities in the companies. These changes will continue to proliferate, particularly in places like Disney’s “3D” (our timeline’s Pixar) where the more amicable, gender-equitable, and self-controlled Joe Ranft is at the creative helm rather than Lasseter, who is instead working his way back into the good graces of Disney management.
Things will also start to evolve in new ways. How will 1990s tentpole staples like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series fare in a world where you had 1989’s Final Girl instead?
What will happen to the Disney Animated Canon in a world with different leadership with different priorities?
How will Marvel and DC movies continue to evolve?
How will CBS and Columbia continue to fare under Ted Turner?
How will theme parks continue to evolve in a world with Disneytowns and DisneySea, Warner Movie World parks in the US, and even Columbia Peach Grove Studios?
And what will happen to beloved television animated classics like The Animaniacs in a world where Steven Spielberg is tied to Disney rather than Warner Brothers?
Well, I can answer that last one…next time!
Or: “The End [of Predictable Change] is Nigh”
As I’ve mentioned in earlier Meta-Discussions, any alternate history has three “zones” as I identify them: the “Immediate After-Effects” zone where the immediate consequences of the Point of Departure (POD) are felt, the “Plausible Butterflies” zone, where the predictable cascade of changes due to the POD occurs even as the general trends of our timeline can be seen and felt, with increasingly large changes as the timeline continues, and the “Fiction Zone” where the changes are so different that you’re essentially making everything up. These are not hard, fast lines, but zones that blend and fade into one another like a spectrum.
As I’ve also said in these discussions, Pop Culture is as volatile as the weather, and thus would most plausibly be in the Fiction Zone in less than a decade after the POD. I’ve also described how I’ve cheated a bit to keep things far more parallel to our timeline than is strictly plausible just to push back this Fiction Zone lest you get a stream of “Captain Chair Lamp” or whatever.
Shown: Emerging Butterflies in this Timeline
So, as we work our way through the second decade of this timeline, we increasingly approach the Fiction Event Horizon even as I work to artificially keep things echoing our timeline. As such, the days where you see The Movie from Our Timeline and The Movie We Know, but Slightly Different are increasingly past and increasingly we will see The Movie That Never Was playing alongside or increasingly instead of these more familiar films. Some of these will parallel movies or TV series from our timeline, reflecting similar currents in the prevailing zeitgeist, but increasingly we will see something that was considered but abandoned or something entirely new that spun up from similar circumstances and we will increasingly not see what happened in our timeline. Analogs will increase, e.g. Film Somewhat Similar to a Famous One from Our Timeline will debut as a summer blockbuster, as will Film Unlike Anything we Had in Our Timeline. There may also be a few surprise second-order butterflies, but only where the events of the TL justify them.
Strictly plausible? No. We’d be pure Fiction Zone by now if we were going by Orthodox Butterfly Theory.
What this means with regards to the timeline is that where the 1980s in this timeline were a mix of the familiar and the fictional, the 1990s will increasingly be a blend of the “reminiscent of something familiar” and the completely fictional. We will see where ideas that began remarkably like they did in our world instead go in completely new directions, so your favorite films of 1996 may increasingly be ones quite similar to them but still unique, or something completely different.
This will include nearly all of your beloved 1990s and 2000s classics, including the Disney Animated Canon.
You have been warned.
Outside events are likewise starting to change. We already have new governments in numerous countries, including the US and former USSR, and resulting changes because of that. This will also influence pop culture, such that an idea that would never have come to anyone’s mind in the 1990s in our timeline will appear here, driven by outside events. A Gore Presidency will mean new priorities in the 1990s compared to Clinton, even though there will be overlap. And even in areas where political priorities align, they will be executed in different ways since the two have such different leadership styles.
We’ve already got plenty of tastes of this. For example, Gary Hart’s “Monkey Business” stayed hidden long enough to get him the Democratic nomination in 1988, which led to down-ballot changes in the Congress that surprised even me, which led to Clarence Thomas getting “Borked”, which led to an earlier reckoning on Sexual Harassment and Assault, which led to changes in company management (e.g. John Lasseter getting suspended and Harvey Weinstein getting removed), which have led to changes in active productions and new leadership opportunities in the companies. These changes will continue to proliferate, particularly in places like Disney’s “3D” (our timeline’s Pixar) where the more amicable, gender-equitable, and self-controlled Joe Ranft is at the creative helm rather than Lasseter, who is instead working his way back into the good graces of Disney management.
Things will also start to evolve in new ways. How will 1990s tentpole staples like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series fare in a world where you had 1989’s Final Girl instead?
What will happen to the Disney Animated Canon in a world with different leadership with different priorities?
How will Marvel and DC movies continue to evolve?
How will CBS and Columbia continue to fare under Ted Turner?
How will theme parks continue to evolve in a world with Disneytowns and DisneySea, Warner Movie World parks in the US, and even Columbia Peach Grove Studios?
And what will happen to beloved television animated classics like The Animaniacs in a world where Steven Spielberg is tied to Disney rather than Warner Brothers?
Well, I can answer that last one…next time!
Who's the alternate Russian President here, and a 1989 final girl? Mind explaining?
And now what do I have stuck in my head???
IT'S TIME FOR ANIMANIACS!
Please let the theme at least be similar to original, it is so iconic.
So Jean MacCurdy will get more credit, since Spielberg's presence isn't inadvertently overshadowing her?
Well, obviously it wouldn't have that same kind of ''Charming Cynicism'' that WB toons became known for having. Secondly, no Warner brothers, so the premise is up in the air.
I can live with that, it's not like they will disappear in OTL. You can burn it all down in this Timeline if you like @Geekhis Khan !
I can't say anything about the Russian president, but Final Girl is the name of the original Buffy concept: basically an inverse of the than current trends of horror cliches. So instead of the dumb blond being the final victim she's the hunter of the evil forces. However unlike in Buffy here the protagonist is a goddess who moonlights as a waitress.
Btw Seth Green will probably not be there given that he's wall crawling around the big screen.
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