PODCAST · tv
How's It Hold Up?
by Danika Juarez
A podcast where a lesbian trans woman who's an animation enthusiast, her mother who's a teacher and has written a thesis on her love of videogames, and her Scooby-Doo-loving wife watch (mostly) animated movies and ask the eternal question: "how's it hold up?"
Episodes
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Jack and the Witch
(Spoiler Section Length: 2min 59sec) Starting off our 2026 Spookaboo, we have a fairly obscure movie that seems to be a Japanese take on a modern (for the 60s) fairytale. It's an odd little film with demon children, talking animals and lots of bone architecture. It's also from the 60s so expect a...
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Peace on Earth (MGM) & Peaceful Neighbors (Columbia)
The end of the 30s was, obviously, a stressful time for global politics, and this definitely had an effect on cartoons of the time, though this effect would become much more pronounced in the 40s. These two cartoons represent the American stance on the boiling tensions of the time, to varying...
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Coyote vs. Acme
(Spoiler Section Length: 8min 50sec) It's finally happened - the 2nd shelved Looney Tunes movie has been released, and we went and saw it in theaters! Besides The Day the Earth Blew Up, all Looney Tunes films have been live-action/animation hybrids, so that begs the question... how does this hold...
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Shorts! Merrie Melodies: Old Glory
The Looney Tunes (and Merrie Melodies) series are typically thought of as funny, or at the very least trying to be. But what happens when they try to step out of the comedy lane, into something more... prestigious? And very patriotic. Is the resulting cartoon worth watching? Let's find out!
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Song of the South
(Spoiler Section Length: 6min 36sec) In Disney's long history of filmmaking, there are some movies the company would prefer you forget. Of these, perhaps none is more infamous than Song of the South. Frequently derided for being racist and boring, today we finally tackle it to find out, is it...
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Shorts! Donald Duck: The Hockey Champ & Officer Duck
The end of the 30s marks the fall of Mickey Mouse and the rise of Donald Duck, who would be Disney's predominant cartoon star throughout the 40s and 50s. In these two shorts we see increasing refinement of the Donald vs. the Nephews formula, and the first instance of Mickey's villain Pete showing...
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Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame Stage Musical (feat. Ryan)
(Spoiler Section Length: 19min 16sec) So after a hit Disney movie has been made, and people are clamoring for more, what options are there to give them that? There's sequels, obviously, a very popular choice. There's remakes, a current trend that some people hope will die at some point. And…
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Shorts! Merrie Melodies: Bars and Stripes Forever & Porky's Breakdowns (feat. Ryan)
Among the various Warner Bros cartoon directors, many are well-remembered today even by casual fans, and even more are remembered by those obsessed with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series. But also some are rightfully forgotten. Generally speaking, Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton are among...
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (feat. Ryan)
(Spoiler Section Length: 6min 13sec) When it comes to Disney animated sequels, there's an accepted canon when it comes to which ones are half-decent and which are the bottom of the barrel. In that canon, Return of Jafar is often considered the latter, but this podcast doesn't exactly agree with...
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Shorts! MGM: Seal Skinners & Mad Maestro (feat. Ryan)
We've checked in once before with Friz Freleng while he's away from Warner Bros, with a Captain and the Kids short. Today we watched another short in that series and also another solo short. Is his output getting any better than his early Warner Bros days? Let's find out!!
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Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (feat. Ryan)
(Spoiler Section Length: 10min 18sec) Of all the many Disney adaptations over the years, one of the most divisive is Hunchback of Notre Dame. Lauded by many for its darker tone compared to most Disney works but derided by others for Disney-ifying the source material with additions like the...
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Shorts! Merrie Melodies: Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (feat. Ryan)
Chuck Jones is given a lot of the blame for Daffy Duck's personality shifting over the years, and I don't think it's entirely fair to lay that all upon his shoulders. That said, he is PART of the equation, and we see some signs of what Daffy would become even in this very first cartoon directed…
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Digimon Adventure 02: Hurricane Touchdown!!
(Spoiler Section Length 7min 20sec) Well we've watched the first two Digimon movies, we've watched the English Digimon Movie, so it only makes sense that we finally wrap around to watching the third Digimon film—which is actually the 3rd and 4th films, technically—so we can finish this whole...
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Shorts! Betty Boop: Musical Mountaineers
She's had a... well a sometimes-good run, but Betty Boop's time in the classic cartoon theatrical shorts era is coming to a close. In this episode we look at the final Boop cartoon that we'll be covering on the podcast, and talk a little about the remaining shorts in the series. And then we…
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Digimon: The Movie (2000)
When one thinks back on the era of anime localization that existed in the 90s and eary 2000s, several things come to mind: a desire to remove all Japanese cultural references. A need to never let the soundtrack be silent. A desire for extra jokes. Any and all edges sanded down, no matter how much...
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Shorts! Merrie Melodies: Prest-O Change-O & Hare-Um Scare-Um
At this point in our viewing of Warner Bros shorts, two classic Looney Tunes stars have fully appeared (Porky & Daffy), one is nearly arrived (Elmer Fudd) and another inches ever forward, but still eludes us. That upcoming star is of course the biggest of them all: Bugs Bunny. In these two shorts...
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Pokemon the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (Japanese Version)
When movies in one language are brought over to another, whether through subtitles or dubbing, something is always lost, to at least some extent, even when translated with the best of intentions. But sometimes things are translated with less than good intentions, with more of an eye toward making...
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Shorts! Silly Symphonies: The Ugly Duckling (1939)
Remakes are a tricky thing, especially nowadays. If the original was already good, what does remaking it offer? But when the original was already an adaptation of another work, there's always the possibility that a remake could be more faithful to that work, or even just interpret it differently....
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Animal Farm (1954)
With a recently-released new adaption of this classic novella stirring controversy, we decided to take a look at the original adaption, the one often used in classrooms. While it has its deviations, it overall sticks much closer to the source material, though it also has a notably small budget…
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Shorts! Popeye: It's the Natural Thing to Do
The Popeye cartoons tend to fall into something of a pattern: Popeye and Bluto are both interested in Olive Oyl, and they fight about it. But what if they... didn't? This self-aware cartoon comedically interrogates the violence at the heart of your typical Popeye cartoon, with the iconic trio…
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The Muppets Take Manhattan
(Spoiler Section Length - 6min 6sec) The final film in the original Muppets trilogy is one that is frustratingly difficult to find, compared to the two before it. It's not available on the same streaming services as the other two! It's in fact had weird distribution rights for a long time, and…
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Shorts! MGM: Goldilocks and the Three Bears / Terrytoons: The Three Bears
When it comes to classic fairytales, they're often used as fodder for cartoon shenanigans, so much so that you can compare multiple versions of the same fairytale from the same studio over the years. But in this case we're focused on two different studios making a cartoon based on the same source...
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The Great Muppet Caper (feat. Vaughn)
(Spoiler Section Length - 6min 50sec) One might expect the second Muppet Movie to follow in the tracks of its predecessor, another tale about the Muppets origins, perhaps them forming the Muppet Show or something like that. But instead Henson opted to create a genre film, a heist film combined…
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Shorts! Mickey Mouse: Society Dog Show
We start the year off with the final Mickey Mouse cartoon to feature him in his original design - after this one he'll start looking like he does in Fantasia! Unfortunately, though, this short is also part of the trend that would only get worse of making Mickey Mouse cartoons glorified Pluto...
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The Muppet Movie
(Spoiler Section Length - 4min 6sec) Way back in the first season of our podcast, we covered one Muppet movie, and the time has finally come to cover more! Now we're looking at the very first of the many Muppet films, made while the classic Muppet Show seasons were still being made. And...
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Shorts! Merrie Melodies: Fresh Fish & Dangerous Dan McFoo
We start 1939 off with a look at Tex Avery, whose output is starting to creep closer to the type of cartoons he's most known for making, but that he won't make until he leaves for another studio. And at the same time, we have a new voice actor joining the folds in one of these cartoons, whose...
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Who Framed Roger Rabbit
(Spoiler Section Length - 10min 1sec) Many films have combined live-action and 2D animation before, some of which we've even covered here, such as Bedknobs and Broomsticks. But most of those films have a scene or two where the combination happens, or maybe it happens throughout but with only one...
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Shorts! Looney Tunes: Porky in Wackyland
Our final short of 1938 is a cartoon that looks to the future, in that in many ways it feels more modern than most of the cartoons surrounding it that year, or even for several years after. Clearly the directors at Warner Bros thought so too, since they remade it beat-for-beat around a decade...
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Welcome to the Space Show
(Spoiler Section Length - 14min 50sec) What starts as a simple story about a group of schoolchildren learning to live together and communicate ends up being a galaxy-spanning adventure where those same kids go to the dark side of the moon, ride a lizard catbus, and stop a megalomaniacal villain...
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Shorts! Mickey Mouse: The Brave Little Tailor
When it comes to star characters for media creators, fame can be a tricky thing. It can often result in the dulling down of a once vibrant character, a sanding of the edges so the character can conform to the role of company mascot. Perhaps no character is more indicative of this than Mickey…
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The Secret of the Third Planet
(Spoiler Section Length - 4min 24sec) We've watched several Russian films on this podcast before, but most of them were fantasy in nature, rather than sci-fi. This is an off-beat sort of sci-fi, but nonetheless is full of aliens, spaceships, laser guns and robots! Debuting a few years after Star...
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Shorts! Merrie Melodies: The Night Watchman
Termite Terrace had a lot of directors come and go over the years, but perhaps its most well known has finally gotten to sit in the director's chair: Chuck Jones. While Jones' early work is often criticized for its Disney-esque sensibilities, do those criticisms apply to this first directorial...
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Fantasia 2000 (feat. Ryan)
Many decades after the original, Disney finally decided to make a sequel to the original Fantasia, and in so doing they found themselves repeating mistakes while also chasing new sensibilities, resulting in a film that is less lauded than its predecessor... but does that mean it's actually less...
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Shorts! Looney Tunes: Porky in Egypt
When you see the title 'Porky in Egypt' and you hear it's a cartoon from the 1930s, your hopes for that short being good might immediately dwindle, as you imagine just how racist it probably is. And certainly this cartoon is not exempt from such issues, but they take up a surprisingly small…
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The King and I (1999)
(Spoiler Section Length - 6min 4sec) Most animated musicals are original works, rather than adaptations of classic stage shows, but this one's an exception! Taking a classic Rogers and Hammerstein musical, this movie tries to bring it to an audience grown used to Disney Renaissance fare, and it...
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Shorts! Betty Boop: Buzzy Boop at the Concert & Sally Swing
Our time with Betty Boop is unfortunately coming to a close, as her theatrical shorts series would end in 1939. In her series later years, Boop's shorts have increasingly featured other characters as the focus instead of herself, and here we have two shorts that, frankly, aren't an exception in...
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Disney's Fantasia
All of Disney's early film output was experimental, but besides perhaps Snow White itself, none were more so than Fantasia. Designed as an experience unto itself, with a road show and everything, Fantasia was a huge passion project for Walt, one he intended to last for years with new versions and...
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Shorts! Mickey Mouse: Boat Builders & Mickey's Trailer
The late 1930s were the golden age of Mickey, Donald and Goofy cartoons, though 1938 was the last year we got several of them a year. Of them, these two have been picked for review, featuring the boys building what equates to an Ikea boat, and the boys living in a trailer, driven around by Goofy....
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My Neighbors the Yamadas
There's a movie by Studio Ghibli that came out between the two icons that are Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, and it's a movie that few people seem to talk about. It's another Isao Takahata feature, and another one of his that's based on a Japanese comic strip. Featuring a watercolor…
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Shorts! Looney Tunes: Porky's Party
It's Porky's birthday, and who's showing up to celebrate? Is it his friends Gabby and Petunia, or perhaps rising co-star Daffy Duck? No! It's... it's a penguin and goose we've never seen before. Oh, okay, well, this is also one of the last Bob Clampett cartoons that Chuck Jones did animation for,...
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Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer the 4D Attraction
To wrap up our Holliganza this year, we take a look at a non-Rankin/Bass Rudolph short film that does its best to harken back to that original special and the way it was animated. Intended to be experienced with 4D effects, we didn't get to experience quite everything this short was intended to...
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Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & the Island of Misfit Toys
(Spoiler Section Length - 2min 45sec) The last attempt at a non-Rankin/Bass Rudolph movie went over poorly, at least financially, so this time around the rights-holders are doing a direct sequel to Rankin/Bass' efforts. They're also not putting this thing in theatres, which was probably…
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Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie
Our first Rudolph film post-Rankin/Bass has virtually nothing to do with the Rudolph special we all know, and instead is a retelling of the story with a lot of added aspects like fairies, an ice witch and a sly arctic fox. It's also got a lot of well-known actors lending their voices to the...
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Frosty Returns
We've been through all of the Rankin/Bass adventures of Rudolph and Frosty, so why not check out their adventures as handled by their later rights-holders? First up is Frosty, who, well, Returns in this eco-focused special from the 90s starring John Goodman and various improv talents. It might be...
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Shorts! The Captain and the Kids: Poultry Pirates
In the late 1930s, Friz Freleng decided to leave Warner Bros to seek greener pastures, and ended up over at MGM, working on their new in-house series The Captain and the Kids. Unfortuantely for Freleng, his time at the studio would be short, and unfortunately for MGM, so would this particular...
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Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia
(Spoiler Section Length - 5min 58sec) The original Ernest & Celestine was a great movie that we watched way back in our first season, and when we heard a sequel had released, it was only a matter of time before we covered it. And that time is now! Does this sequel, which features the bear and…
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Shorts! Merrie Melodies: Cinderella Meets Fella
Early Elmer Fudd was a very different beast than the one we all know today, and last time we saw him on this podcast, he was a small part of a spin on a classic fairy tale. Well this time he's an ever bigger part of a spin on another classic fairy tale, but does the increased size of the role do...
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Disney's Home on the Range
(Spoiler Section Length - 2min 14sec) Many films from the 2000s are blamed for 'killing' 2D animation in the west (at least for movies), such as Disney's Treasure Planet or Dreamworks' Sinbad. But at least for a few years, only one film had the ignominious honor of being the final 2D Disney film:...
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Shorts! Popeye: Bulldozing the Bull & Disney: Ferdinand the Bull
Sometimes two cartoons with similar subject matter appear in the same year. In this case, we get two cartoons that are both focused on matador bull fighting, with both cartoons seemingly taking that stance that it's a bad thing. One does so directly, with its protagonist constantly talking about...
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Corpse Bride
(Spoiler Section Length - 20min 24sec) Last year for Spookaboo we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas film, often hailed as a Tim Burton-directed film, despite him being a producer. Corpse Bride shows us what an actual Burton-directed feature film looks like, for better and worse. It's got a…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
A podcast where a lesbian trans woman who's an animation enthusiast, her mother who's a teacher and has written a thesis on her love of videogames, and her Scooby-Doo-loving wife watch (mostly) animated movies and ask the eternal question: "how's it hold up?"
HOSTED BY
Danika Juarez
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does How's It Hold Up? have?
How's It Hold Up? currently has 345 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is How's It Hold Up? about?
A podcast where a lesbian trans woman who's an animation enthusiast, her mother who's a teacher and has written a thesis on her love of videogames, and her Scooby-Doo-loving wife watch (mostly) animated movies and ask the eternal question: "how's it hold up?"
How often does How's It Hold Up? release new episodes?
How's It Hold Up? publishes regularly with 345 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to How's It Hold Up??
You can listen to How's It Hold Up? on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts How's It Hold Up??
How's It Hold Up? is created and hosted by Danika Juarez.
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