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Tonight's Episode:
@tonightsepisode.bsky.social
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Subsequent framegrab from the aforementioned RENEGADE episode, "Samurai". Overlaid now in the same titling treatment, "Guest stars Cary-Hirioyuki Tagawa". Cary-Hirioyuki Tagawa passed away yesterday, 75 years old. Firmly in the pantheon of "that guy"s from the waning years of the late 20th century, and a performer you've definitely seen dozens of times without being aware of his name. Known primarily for his roles in action entertainment fuelled by martial arts, he also popped up in dozens of minor and supporting roles in scores of television episodes over about four decades. But in this RENEGADE instalment, he's the first-billed guest of the week. Which makes him the star of a story where he's featured in virtually every scene, something he was rarely given the opportunity to do elsewhere. He appears as "Hirotaka," the former Yakuza who is now the head of security for the wealthy figurehead of a Japanese bank, whose young daughter has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. And while it's decidedly "mysteries of the Orient"-coded in a manner so prevalent in media of a certain vintage, it's not derisively or offputtingly so (no matter how much clumsy exposition tumbles out of Lion-maned Lorenzo Lamas's angular jaw). And this does allow Tagawa to show more of his skill as a performer beyond his usual combat abilities. It also means that the cast is packed with *other* recognisable Asian character actors. James Shigeta is here, as is Robert Ito, and an almost impossibly young pre-GILMORE GIRLS Keiko Agena. Also, the leader of the villain's henchmen is played by the equally great Al Leong, with whom Tagawa spars in a climactic warehouse throwdown (before Lamas's bullshit injection of wonky barechested charisma "saves the day." Uh... spoilers. I guess. I mean... he's the titular Renegade. That's how these things usually end.). Colour image of Cary-Hirioyuki Tagawa from the RENEGADE episode "Samurai." Here, Tagawa himself, an Asian man with short, almost spiky black hair atop a high forehead etched with lines over arched thick eyebrows, is seen head and shoulders in medium closeup, his lips pursed and eyes narrowed as he looks suspiciously at or derisively to his extreme left at something or someone out of frame on the right. Uh-oh. He's wearing a white polo shirt, completely buttoned up. Behind him and out of focus, a grey tree trunk rises along the frame's left edge; a green and brown thatch of its branches filling the image's remainder. So long, Cary-Hirioyuki Tagawa. Thanks for the wealth of real good stuff.
December 6, 2025 at 2:00 AM
tonightsepisode.bsky.social
Closing credit card from the aforementioned SCOOBY-DOO! MYSTERY INCORPORATED episode. Stylistically similar to the treatment of the titlecard, the following text is written over a splotchy blue-green background which features the stylised image of a golden key with a question mark decorating its head on a thin string or chain: STARRING THE VOICES OF Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo, Fred Mindy Cohn as Velma Grey Delisle as Daphne, Tourist Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Dee Bradley Baker as Officer Johnson, Tourist Tony Cervone as Gary, French Nerd Frances Conroy as Angie Dinkley Udo Kier as Professor Pericles Daryl Sabara as Jason, British Nerd Fred Tatasciore as Demon Dog, Guard #2 Jessica Walter as Jason's Mom Patrick Warburton as Sheriff Stone Mitch Watson as Ethan, Japanese Nerd, Guard #3 Colour image from the same episode. An animated anthropomorphic mutant parrot in a straightjacket. Its giant head and prominent angular purplish brow (split vertically by a jagged scar which trails down through and below a cataracted left eye) are bathed in a hot and glowing white light. Behind it, a bluish-grey background wall upon which are traced light-coloured geometric shapes suggesting circuit diagrams, which themselves bear occasional greenish highlights. This is Professor Pericles who, in the continuity of this program, served much the same role for the "original" Mystery, Incorporated of Crystal Cove as Scooby-Doo does for its contemporary and more better known configuration. The OG CC MI MK.I SD, if you will**. He could inarguably be described as The Villain or Big Bad of this particular strain of The Dooniverse***. This episode is his first proper onscreen appearance beyond one or two fleeting glimpses in photographs in previous instalments. All of which is immaterial; Pericles was voiced -- here for the first time and then in about fifteen or twenty subsequent episodes, with the same palpably enormous dedication and prickly skill he brought to hundreds of other performances -- by the late and singularly great Udo Kier, who passed away this weekend. May he rest in peace.) **(It's okay if you won't, I wouldn't dream of holding it against you.) ***(listen, you can't be as disappointed in me as I am in myself.)
November 25, 2025 at 2:00 AM