‘Zombie Hotel’ (Backstory)
There’s quite a story behind the upcoming ‘Zombie Hotel’ review. Some months ago, the ZRC was tipped off to the existence of ‘Zombie Hotel’ by our resident Cultural Historian Andrew Leal, and I determined that this would make an excellent subject for review.
I did some research online and discovered that while the show had never had a US release of any sort, it was dubbed into English and put onto DVD by the BBC. I guess it’s actually been shown in a bunch of countries, albeit not the United States.
Sadly, as I was to learn later, only 5 non-sequential episodes of the one and only season of ‘Zombie Hotel’ seem to have made it to a BBC DVD release.
I hit the usual sites and eventually found a few copies of the Region 2 UK DVD from a seller willing to do international shipping on ebay. Using the magic of Paypal, I sent American dollars and they received dramatically fewer British pounds. Sufficient ones however; the disc was mailed relatively promptly over the Christmasy holiday season, and then…
Nothing. A week passed, and then a month, and then about two months, and I got concerned. I contacted the seller and they informed me that after the ‘ink cartridge bomber’ scare, small mail packages like this one were no longer allowed to piggyback on commercial flights, resulting in lengthy delays in getting anything from the UK to the US, at least, inexpensively.
Eventually however, it did arrive, and I felt a small amount of joy just seeing it in the ZRC mail box: the first product I had ever deliberately imported from another country for review for The Zombie Rights Campaign was in my hands.
I was all set to sit down and review this thing, but then, err, local events took over for a while. Between Capitol campouts, Zombie Walks, getting our mayoral candidates on record about Zombie Rights and making lots of picket signs, I sort of forgot that the first night I slept at the Capitol I had taken Zombie Hotel, thinking it would be a small group conducting a lonely vigil and I might have time for a quiet review session.
The DVD had been in my backpack ever since. Out of sight, out of mind, but that does mean it accompanied me overnight in the Capitol, traveled in picket lines and up and down State Street in protest marching.
On Wednesday I finally watched the series, somewhat reluctantly at first; I didn’t want to be disappointed, and frankly I have a low tolerance for children’s entertainment. Surprisingly, and delightfully, it wasn’t bad at all; the review will be mostly positive. I just have to grab a few more screenshots.
I’ve learned a few lessons from all this. One is that I should probably pay for expedited shipping on international orders. Another is that the War on Terror sadly can hamper the advancement of the Zombie Rights movement. But most importantly, I’ve learned that in order to find all the gems of Zombie Friendly entertainment out there the ZRC has to be willing to cast a wide net and be open to new opportunities, even, in this case, obscure kids’ cartoons from far-flung shores.
(The DVD in hand)
(Rather a lot of groups were involved in making this show)
About The Author
The the next occasion I just read a weblog, Hopefully that this doesnt disappoint me up to this. I am talking about, It was my method to read, but I truly thought youd have something interesting to express. All I hear can be a number of whining about something which you could fix ought to you werent too busy searching for attention.