Hotel cable check, Phuket
Jun. 24th, 2006 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsAs mentioned in this earlier post, I was on vacation in Phuket for a couple days this week. Well, I'm back.
So, during my trip to Phuket, I stayed at a hotel (of course!), and one of the things I tend to do when staying at a hotel is checking out the "exotic" channels I don't get at home (yeah, my mom doesn't like me for doing this). Among the channels were Nick, Disney and Playhouse Disney. Of course, I'm an avid toon fan, so I checked these channels out mostly. Notes on what I monitored. And there are a few surprises.
Day 1:
Around 10:15: We check in, and reading the hotel cable guide, I find that Nick is on (with the two Disney channels). It's the NickSplat service for the east Asia region, and right now, it's Hey Arnold! in "Egg Story". Uninterested.
10:30 or something: We unpack, and before heading out, I see a bit of an ep of SBSP ("Today's open cashier register day!"), and a latter season JN, where Jimmy and co are making a movie. Funny scene: Jimmy's dad tries to get a part in the movie. I head out to the CAD '06 conference, which is the whole reason I was on vacation in the first place. Meanwhile on Disney, I see bits and pieces, one of an ad for "High School Musical" (yes, the big American hit is now reaching Asian shores), and I saw a brief part of a promo showing Jake Long breathing fire on Phil (of the Future) and Raven's burgers. Really. There's also this show that has the club owner from House of Mouse and Goofy's kid, but it's definitely not HoM.
17:00: The only thing I remember is that Disney's showing that classic, Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I don't remember if I was watching Nick, and according to the NickSplat scheds, around this time they're showing their Nick Kicks special (more on that later), so they're no help. Dinner time!
General obs from watching at night:
Every bleepin' break on Nick, it seems, has a promo for their Nick Kicks special. The clips I notice most are from All Grown Up!'s "Big Score" and what I suspect is Fairly OddParents. There's also an MLaaTR clip with football (the American kind).
It seems that this version also has an interesting ID set. They show random clips from Nicktoons all themed around one thing (I saw a space-themed ID several times, and I saw an ID based on characters hugging each other) before supering the Nick logo on the last clip.
I also saw two IDs themed around a kid trying to fly a bike. One ad shows the kid using soda cans, and ending up crashing into the fence right in front of him, while the other shows him using a plugged in fan, and although he flies this time, he has to bail out with a Nick parachute after the fan becomes unplugged.
Between every single show there's stuff like Aardman's The Presentators and something called Doodlez from Canada.
Meanwhile on Disney, they keep airing promos for Suite Life, starring the Sprouser brothers. As well as MVs from High School Musical.
19:00: Naturally Sadie on TeeNick. Huh? Some kid saves his lizard wrapped in foil from an incoming car.
19:30: Romeo on TeeNick. Live-action. Uninterested! (Though it did have an amusing teaser where some kid farts on top of Romeo's head to get him to wake up in the morning :D) Playhouse Disney is showing Roly Poly Olie, but there's no sound.
20:30: SBSP in "Squid on Strike" and "Sandy, Spongebob and the Worm". Nah. Flipping over to Disney, there's a show called "The Buzz on Maggie" and I flip over to see a Cree Summer soundalike and her friend do candy-stripping (only, it's "honey-stripping"). It feels kind of weird that they're following The Weekenders' lead and not IDing a story title. I also flip over to World Cup soccer often. One of the channels is carrying a group D match (either Portugal-Mexico or Angola-Iran, I don't remember) in English.
21:00: "Maggie" ends, Cree Summer was indeed one of the regulars, and KP begins. Only, it's dubbed. Apparently, there are enough viewers in Thailand to justify not only putting Thailand times at the end of their promos but also dubbing. Anyhow, KP kicks a few ninjas in a parade to save some geezer and his daughter. About 10 minutes are spent at the parade, and later, KP tells Wade that it would be cheating to ask a genius like him to help with her homework. Not that I was interested in KP anyways. I was watching As Told By Ginger. The title sequence is great, and so is Macy Gray's rendition of the theme song. Today's show is Fast Reputation, and while Ginger's plot is out of Daria, Carl's lunch cart plot is right out of The Simpsons. French Flies and Mac and Sneeze :D In the ep, Dodie mentions the fact that Ginger was once accused of robbery (referring well back to the first eppy), so she doesn't really have a "good girl" image. Nice continuity there.
21:30: KP ends, Totally Spies begins on Disney. Totally Spies??? Dubbed of course, but even if it wasn't, I wasn't watching anyway. New instrumental rock theme, with the word Undercover added to the title. Over on Nick it's "My Dad The Rock Star", by Gene Simmons. No sir, World Cup soccer for me!
22:00: Ah, it's Rugrats. We open with "Driving Miss Angelica". It's a story that would be so much better done on Hey Arnold! as "Arnold Saves Sid"... so I don't watch. 15 minutes later it's "Susie vs. Angelica".... My first Susie episode ever. So basically, Angelica challenges Susie to tons of things. Playing Chutes and Ladders (I imagine Angelica repeatedly yelling "Shoot, shoot, shoot!" on losing to Susie), holding breath, eating chocolate pudding, and the piece de resistance, a race between Susie's trike and Angelica's fire engine. Susie keeps managing to keep up with the fire engine, but she's eventually driven off the road. Ouch. Except that Angelica also crashes after hitting the ball she kicked at the start of the episode. Angelica can't catch a break at all, can't she? And after they go about talking about how everyone's good at something, they then start trying to pull each other's hair (ouch). Closing creds use different music than the norm. Hmm... Next is TWT. No Eliza for me! I turn off and go to sleep
23:00: I can't sleep, so I check what's on Nick. Hey Arnold!, "Big Gino". Football's over, and Disney is showing where to find a hidden Mickey in "Bambi" (three stones on a waterfall, arrange to look like the Disney logo... "We always get our mouse!") so back to sleep.
Day 2:
Morning: NickSplat is Nick Jr. programming. Boredom sets in. There's Art Attack on Disney, and it's not dubbed. I watch Neil Buchanan make a koala painting using dried up pens and broken rulers, and lots of paint. Off to CAD '06!
18:00: I'm back, just in time for FOP, "Boys in the Band". Well, parts of it anyway. I also check out Disney, and they're showing Raven, with big subtitles. One of the characters brags to a guy that she can bring the SF Giants to her party, but the guy hates baseball and decides to go to Raven's party. Snap, hairspray. "That wasn't a hairspray snap." Hairsprayer gets replaced. Dinner time!
19:30: News. I check Playhouse, and Olie is airing dubbed.
20:00: All That is on Nick, but my mom is watching the news, so I bathe.
20:30: Nick. SBSP. "Sponge on Duty" is one of the episodes. Meanwhile on Disney, Tutenstein ends (Tutenstein? Discovery Kids?), and I'm watching Lizzie MacGuire's Christmas show, with big subtitles. Hmm...
21:00: Ginger meets a girl named Hope, but no time for that. I'm watching a local channel's dub of the German show "Clever!" (Last night, while watching Fast Reputation, when Gordon came on I mumbled, "RIP Kathleen Freeman, RIP Ms. Gordon"... and then today they show the ep where she kicks the bucket.)
21:30: The Totally Spies are Undercover, in space suits, and dubbed. Nice spacesuits, but no dice.
22:00: Bed time, so no Rugrats for me.
Day 3:
Morning before breakfast: NickSplat is Nick Jr. programming again. The Lilo and Stitch series is dubbed on Disney, and so's whatever is on Playhouse. Breakfast!
Morning after breakfast: NickSplat is still Nick Jr. programming, this time with Lazy Town in Crystal Caper. Yawn. The animated version of Mr. Bean is dubbed on Disney. In a Playhouse Disney promo, Little Einsteins teach us about "forte". I go swimming.
9:30: Dil-era Rugrats, with Wrestling Grandpa and Chuckie Collects. The funniest moment of either ep is Dil repeatedly hitting the bell with his rattle. This must have been one of the better episodes of the era, as I can't see any problems with it. Then again, I haven't seen any eps of Rugrats on TV in like a decade. Meanwhile on Disney, Teacher's Pet is dubbed.
10:00: Arnold, in Career Day and Hey Harold!. I skip most of Career Day, only watching when Jolly Olly's back at the school. I watch a bit of Ducktales, which is _not_ dubbed. The guy who dresses into Gizmoduck is with his mom, telling him that her TV's been fixed, but she's not ready to leave the mansion she's using as her temporary pad. Meanwhile, the Beagle Boys are watching... but I'm not. I'm watching Hey Harold! instead. And as soon as Harold says: "If you've got a problem with that, I'll beat you up", I turn off the telly, because it's time to check out.
12:00: Airport lounge. I read Bangkok Post, and there is an article on IPTV, which mentions the Disney channels. To quote:
True Digital Entertainment yesterday entered a partnership with Walt Disney to offer two new animated cartoon channels: Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney.
And at NationMultimedia.com I find:
Walt Disney plans to broadcast its two channels - Walt Disney and Playhouse Disney channels - through the IPTV channel after it launched the channels on another Thai cable network in February last year.
Raymund T Miranda, managing director of Walt Disney International (Southeast Asia), said yesterday that the company expected to join UBC's cable television line-up soon. He said the company was also mulling providing its shows via an Internet broadband arrangement, but declined to be more specific. - The Nation.
Other promos I saw:
Disney:
* A plug for their original movies.
* High School Musical's having its Asian TV premiere!
* A few short sting promos for Lilo and Stitch.
* An ident based around kung fu.
* A Maggie promo on her brothers.
* A promo for July framed around pizza delivery. Jake Dragon greets pizza guy. Live action guys take pizza in, and some girl with a bell has ordered pepperoni and caviar. Stitch chomps down a box. "Just for you" is their station slogan.
Nick:
* The usual shows you'd expect to see on Nick, but I single out a Rocket Power promo consisting mostly of clips from the few stories that run longer than 11 minutes. I recognize the Grand Canyon they're biking through, biking around a black mountain, there are a few clips of the gang trying a skateboard trick on a school bannister, Otto practicing tricks near a Shaffika poster (Beach Break, yes?), and a shot of Otto doing a trick as we see the crowd in the reflection in his helmet (Beach Break again, yes?).
* There are few non-Nick shows on NickSplat as well. Something called "Dark Oracle" (Hmm?), and Trollz. Yeah, that syndicated (soon to be on CBS) show in the US gets a Nick slot here.
Playhouse:
* They air Clifford's Puppy Days on Playhouse. Didn't watch much, because Playhouse is for very young kids.
Photos from the vacation coming soon, hopefully.
Also, since I haven't finished the 2x06 recap yet, I may end up having to post the 2x07 recap first (I've taped all the eps so far, but they're airing at such a rate I don't have much time to review the eps I've taped. Sanfea's got me covered for many eps, but somehow not after 2x07.)
So, during my trip to Phuket, I stayed at a hotel (of course!), and one of the things I tend to do when staying at a hotel is checking out the "exotic" channels I don't get at home (yeah, my mom doesn't like me for doing this). Among the channels were Nick, Disney and Playhouse Disney. Of course, I'm an avid toon fan, so I checked these channels out mostly. Notes on what I monitored. And there are a few surprises.
Day 1:
Around 10:15: We check in, and reading the hotel cable guide, I find that Nick is on (with the two Disney channels). It's the NickSplat service for the east Asia region, and right now, it's Hey Arnold! in "Egg Story". Uninterested.
10:30 or something: We unpack, and before heading out, I see a bit of an ep of SBSP ("Today's open cashier register day!"), and a latter season JN, where Jimmy and co are making a movie. Funny scene: Jimmy's dad tries to get a part in the movie. I head out to the CAD '06 conference, which is the whole reason I was on vacation in the first place. Meanwhile on Disney, I see bits and pieces, one of an ad for "High School Musical" (yes, the big American hit is now reaching Asian shores), and I saw a brief part of a promo showing Jake Long breathing fire on Phil (of the Future) and Raven's burgers. Really. There's also this show that has the club owner from House of Mouse and Goofy's kid, but it's definitely not HoM.
17:00: The only thing I remember is that Disney's showing that classic, Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I don't remember if I was watching Nick, and according to the NickSplat scheds, around this time they're showing their Nick Kicks special (more on that later), so they're no help. Dinner time!
General obs from watching at night:
Every bleepin' break on Nick, it seems, has a promo for their Nick Kicks special. The clips I notice most are from All Grown Up!'s "Big Score" and what I suspect is Fairly OddParents. There's also an MLaaTR clip with football (the American kind).
It seems that this version also has an interesting ID set. They show random clips from Nicktoons all themed around one thing (I saw a space-themed ID several times, and I saw an ID based on characters hugging each other) before supering the Nick logo on the last clip.
I also saw two IDs themed around a kid trying to fly a bike. One ad shows the kid using soda cans, and ending up crashing into the fence right in front of him, while the other shows him using a plugged in fan, and although he flies this time, he has to bail out with a Nick parachute after the fan becomes unplugged.
Between every single show there's stuff like Aardman's The Presentators and something called Doodlez from Canada.
Meanwhile on Disney, they keep airing promos for Suite Life, starring the Sprouser brothers. As well as MVs from High School Musical.
19:00: Naturally Sadie on TeeNick. Huh? Some kid saves his lizard wrapped in foil from an incoming car.
19:30: Romeo on TeeNick. Live-action. Uninterested! (Though it did have an amusing teaser where some kid farts on top of Romeo's head to get him to wake up in the morning :D) Playhouse Disney is showing Roly Poly Olie, but there's no sound.
20:30: SBSP in "Squid on Strike" and "Sandy, Spongebob and the Worm". Nah. Flipping over to Disney, there's a show called "The Buzz on Maggie" and I flip over to see a Cree Summer soundalike and her friend do candy-stripping (only, it's "honey-stripping"). It feels kind of weird that they're following The Weekenders' lead and not IDing a story title. I also flip over to World Cup soccer often. One of the channels is carrying a group D match (either Portugal-Mexico or Angola-Iran, I don't remember) in English.
21:00: "Maggie" ends, Cree Summer was indeed one of the regulars, and KP begins. Only, it's dubbed. Apparently, there are enough viewers in Thailand to justify not only putting Thailand times at the end of their promos but also dubbing. Anyhow, KP kicks a few ninjas in a parade to save some geezer and his daughter. About 10 minutes are spent at the parade, and later, KP tells Wade that it would be cheating to ask a genius like him to help with her homework. Not that I was interested in KP anyways. I was watching As Told By Ginger. The title sequence is great, and so is Macy Gray's rendition of the theme song. Today's show is Fast Reputation, and while Ginger's plot is out of Daria, Carl's lunch cart plot is right out of The Simpsons. French Flies and Mac and Sneeze :D In the ep, Dodie mentions the fact that Ginger was once accused of robbery (referring well back to the first eppy), so she doesn't really have a "good girl" image. Nice continuity there.
21:30: KP ends, Totally Spies begins on Disney. Totally Spies??? Dubbed of course, but even if it wasn't, I wasn't watching anyway. New instrumental rock theme, with the word Undercover added to the title. Over on Nick it's "My Dad The Rock Star", by Gene Simmons. No sir, World Cup soccer for me!
22:00: Ah, it's Rugrats. We open with "Driving Miss Angelica". It's a story that would be so much better done on Hey Arnold! as "Arnold Saves Sid"... so I don't watch. 15 minutes later it's "Susie vs. Angelica".... My first Susie episode ever. So basically, Angelica challenges Susie to tons of things. Playing Chutes and Ladders (I imagine Angelica repeatedly yelling "Shoot, shoot, shoot!" on losing to Susie), holding breath, eating chocolate pudding, and the piece de resistance, a race between Susie's trike and Angelica's fire engine. Susie keeps managing to keep up with the fire engine, but she's eventually driven off the road. Ouch. Except that Angelica also crashes after hitting the ball she kicked at the start of the episode. Angelica can't catch a break at all, can't she? And after they go about talking about how everyone's good at something, they then start trying to pull each other's hair (ouch). Closing creds use different music than the norm. Hmm... Next is TWT. No Eliza for me! I turn off and go to sleep
23:00: I can't sleep, so I check what's on Nick. Hey Arnold!, "Big Gino". Football's over, and Disney is showing where to find a hidden Mickey in "Bambi" (three stones on a waterfall, arrange to look like the Disney logo... "We always get our mouse!") so back to sleep.
Day 2:
Morning: NickSplat is Nick Jr. programming. Boredom sets in. There's Art Attack on Disney, and it's not dubbed. I watch Neil Buchanan make a koala painting using dried up pens and broken rulers, and lots of paint. Off to CAD '06!
18:00: I'm back, just in time for FOP, "Boys in the Band". Well, parts of it anyway. I also check out Disney, and they're showing Raven, with big subtitles. One of the characters brags to a guy that she can bring the SF Giants to her party, but the guy hates baseball and decides to go to Raven's party. Snap, hairspray. "That wasn't a hairspray snap." Hairsprayer gets replaced. Dinner time!
19:30: News. I check Playhouse, and Olie is airing dubbed.
20:00: All That is on Nick, but my mom is watching the news, so I bathe.
20:30: Nick. SBSP. "Sponge on Duty" is one of the episodes. Meanwhile on Disney, Tutenstein ends (Tutenstein? Discovery Kids?), and I'm watching Lizzie MacGuire's Christmas show, with big subtitles. Hmm...
21:00: Ginger meets a girl named Hope, but no time for that. I'm watching a local channel's dub of the German show "Clever!" (Last night, while watching Fast Reputation, when Gordon came on I mumbled, "RIP Kathleen Freeman, RIP Ms. Gordon"... and then today they show the ep where she kicks the bucket.)
21:30: The Totally Spies are Undercover, in space suits, and dubbed. Nice spacesuits, but no dice.
22:00: Bed time, so no Rugrats for me.
Day 3:
Morning before breakfast: NickSplat is Nick Jr. programming again. The Lilo and Stitch series is dubbed on Disney, and so's whatever is on Playhouse. Breakfast!
Morning after breakfast: NickSplat is still Nick Jr. programming, this time with Lazy Town in Crystal Caper. Yawn. The animated version of Mr. Bean is dubbed on Disney. In a Playhouse Disney promo, Little Einsteins teach us about "forte". I go swimming.
9:30: Dil-era Rugrats, with Wrestling Grandpa and Chuckie Collects. The funniest moment of either ep is Dil repeatedly hitting the bell with his rattle. This must have been one of the better episodes of the era, as I can't see any problems with it. Then again, I haven't seen any eps of Rugrats on TV in like a decade. Meanwhile on Disney, Teacher's Pet is dubbed.
10:00: Arnold, in Career Day and Hey Harold!. I skip most of Career Day, only watching when Jolly Olly's back at the school. I watch a bit of Ducktales, which is _not_ dubbed. The guy who dresses into Gizmoduck is with his mom, telling him that her TV's been fixed, but she's not ready to leave the mansion she's using as her temporary pad. Meanwhile, the Beagle Boys are watching... but I'm not. I'm watching Hey Harold! instead. And as soon as Harold says: "If you've got a problem with that, I'll beat you up", I turn off the telly, because it's time to check out.
12:00: Airport lounge. I read Bangkok Post, and there is an article on IPTV, which mentions the Disney channels. To quote:
True Digital Entertainment yesterday entered a partnership with Walt Disney to offer two new animated cartoon channels: Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney.
And at NationMultimedia.com I find:
Walt Disney plans to broadcast its two channels - Walt Disney and Playhouse Disney channels - through the IPTV channel after it launched the channels on another Thai cable network in February last year.
Raymund T Miranda, managing director of Walt Disney International (Southeast Asia), said yesterday that the company expected to join UBC's cable television line-up soon. He said the company was also mulling providing its shows via an Internet broadband arrangement, but declined to be more specific. - The Nation.
Other promos I saw:
Disney:
* A plug for their original movies.
* High School Musical's having its Asian TV premiere!
* A few short sting promos for Lilo and Stitch.
* An ident based around kung fu.
* A Maggie promo on her brothers.
* A promo for July framed around pizza delivery. Jake Dragon greets pizza guy. Live action guys take pizza in, and some girl with a bell has ordered pepperoni and caviar. Stitch chomps down a box. "Just for you" is their station slogan.
Nick:
* The usual shows you'd expect to see on Nick, but I single out a Rocket Power promo consisting mostly of clips from the few stories that run longer than 11 minutes. I recognize the Grand Canyon they're biking through, biking around a black mountain, there are a few clips of the gang trying a skateboard trick on a school bannister, Otto practicing tricks near a Shaffika poster (Beach Break, yes?), and a shot of Otto doing a trick as we see the crowd in the reflection in his helmet (Beach Break again, yes?).
* There are few non-Nick shows on NickSplat as well. Something called "Dark Oracle" (Hmm?), and Trollz. Yeah, that syndicated (soon to be on CBS) show in the US gets a Nick slot here.
Playhouse:
* They air Clifford's Puppy Days on Playhouse. Didn't watch much, because Playhouse is for very young kids.
Photos from the vacation coming soon, hopefully.
Also, since I haven't finished the 2x06 recap yet, I may end up having to post the 2x07 recap first (I've taped all the eps so far, but they're airing at such a rate I don't have much time to review the eps I've taped. Sanfea's got me covered for many eps, but somehow not after 2x07.)
No Audio With Program- Technological Trouble Maybe?
Date: 2007-01-09 06:03 am (UTC)Well, I am going to guess (I am probably making the same mistake that Techna made on The Winx Club when she made some premature assumptions) that during the setup process, someone probably forgot to put the audio cord in.