Underdogs

With Prince Oberyn Martell facing off against the Mountain in the next episode of Game of Thrones, it marks another in a long line of underdog fights in TV and movie history. And why not? Everybody loves a good underdog fight, except maybe for Barney Stinson.



But underdog fights are great. It's good vs evil, small vs big, right vs wrong. In many cases, good prevails because that's what the audience likes. In some cases, the good guy loses but has some kind of moral victory. In the movies, the bad guy rarely wins. George R.R. Martin isn't one to follow convention so the Oberyn/Mountain fight may have a quick and painful end for us, but who knows. Actually, book readers know so no spoilers! So Barney not withstanding, let's take a look at some of the more entertaining underdog fights in pop culture history.

30th Anniversary Of Everything Nerdy

Well maybe not everything nerdy, but 1984 was a banner year for nerdy stuff coming out. So prepare yourself to see a plethora of 30th Anniversary paraphernalia released throughout the year. Here's a look at the things I'm excited for.

Can you believe Transformers is 30 years old? The cartoon was essentially an animated advertisement to sell toys that Hasbro bought & rebranded from the Japanese company Takara. And boy did those commercials work because the original toy line surged in popularity, and is still sought after today as collectors items. The brand has continued over the years with various animated series, the latest of which featured the return of Peter Cullen & Frank Welker as the voices of Optimus Prime and Megatron, a recently relaunched comic book series, three live-action movies with diminishing returns in quality and a 4th one releasing in June, and way more toys than you can shake a stick at with the officially released Masterpiece line which features extremely detailed versions of the G1 line, and 3rd party releases which in many cases are superior to any Transformers I've ever seen. On the radar this year, look for Masterpiece releases of Wheeljack, Ultra Magnus, Bumblebee, and a special edition Year of the Horse Optimus Prime. Also, BotCon was announced for June 19th-22nd in Pasadena, CA and I'm sure there will plenty of 30th Anniversary celebrations there.