Well, enough of that nasty politics stuff. Let’s get back to some hardcore geeking, shall we?
Courtesy of Michael May comes this interesting video clip, a mash-up of all the title sequences for the TV series Doctor Who. It’s fairly long, and probably only of interest to fans, but I find it pretty fascinating to see how the music and title effects have evolved over 45 years while still remaining instantly recognizable. The biggest difference, really, is one of pacing; the newer sequences are visually and aurally much, much faster. And that is probably a fine commentary on our times, when you think about it…
I have a dysfunctional relationship with the TV series Lost.
It’s like that girl you were crazy about back in high school, the one who had the wicked smile and knew exactly what effect those skin-tight designer jeans had on the young male of the species. The one who grooved on the power trip of getting you all hot and bothered under the bleachers and then saying “no” at the last second, not because she was afraid of the realness of it all or anything like that, but just because there was some nasty little part of her that liked screwing with your head. You remember her, right? And how you eventually got very bored and frustrated with her silly games, so you dropped her and found yourself a nice girl?
Well, that’s about where I am with Lost. I’ve gotten tired of the tease, you see, and I’m impatient for this series to start explaining what the hell is going on. The producers keep assuring the fans that they know what they’re doing, that it really is all leading up to something and this isn’t just a repeat of The X Files‘s endless “mythology,” but I’m still not sure I believe them, in spite of improvements toward the end of last season and in last night’s Season 4 opener.
Frustration aside, though, I just keep coming back to Lost (just as I kept going back to old what’s-her-name and her painted-on denim). Why do I torture myself this way? Why does my resolve crumble and I come walking back with my chin down and my hopes high that maybe this time I’ll get what I no longer merely want but really damn need?
It’s Friday, let’s watch some TV! And since I mentionedThe Incredible Hulk the other day, I’ll bet you can guess what today’s selection is, can’t you?
The first few seconds of this, with the flashing red light, big intimidating machine powering into place, and the urgent tinkle of a piano, still raise the hair on my arms, and the line “don’t make me angry… you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” is, of course, a classic catchphrase that still lives in the pop-cultural zeitgeist. But what I really notice watching this sequence now is how bloody long it is. Many TV shows these days don’t have any opening titles at all, of course, but even by the standards of the late ’70s and early ’80s — the heyday of cool opening title sequences, in my not-so-humble opinion — this one must be a contender for the longest. (The person who posted this clip on YouTube does note that this is the original version of the opening and that it was cut down somewhat for later episodes, but even losing 20 seconds, this thing still runs over a minute!) I also like how it explains through the voice-over exactly what the show is all about. That’s not so critical on a typical drama about cops or doctors, but genre series often fail because newcomers have a hard time getting up to speed if they don’t see the first episode or three. Would it have made a difference if the much-lamented, dead-before-it-had-a-chance series Firefly had had some kind of opening narration every week to explain why people in that show were riding horses and dressed like extras from Little House on the Prairie while spaceships thundered by overhead? Maybe, maybe not — Firefly had a lot of cards stacked against it — but it probably wouldn’t have hurt.
As I said in my previous Hulk entry, this show wasn’t one of my favorites — I’ll be honest, I don’t remember any specific storylines or scenes the way I do from other series, even ones I saw when I was very little — but I was a fairly regular viewer of it, and I did enjoy it. One aspect of the show that did make a huge impression on me was the typical episode ending, in which David Banner walked away from the camera along an (often) deserted road, occasionally putting his thumb out to try and hitch a ride, while an incredibly melancholy piano tune (appropriately called “The Lonely Man Theme”) played in the background. I was a sensitive kid, keenly aware of the suffering of others, and these endings always struck me as unbearably sad and horrible that poor David was all alone like that. I remember my eyes welling up on more than one occasion as I sat on our living room hearth with the fire hot on my back, the TV on the other side of the warm, bright room, and my parents in their chairs (no doubt wondering why the hell their weird son was crying over the friggin’ Hulk), and imagined what it must be like to have no friends or allies, no home, no destination, just the open road and a gathering thunderstorm up ahead. As lame as it sounds, that damn piano still makes my eyes burn a little:
Wow… how is it possible that even with my vast collection of ephemera and miscellaneous junk, not to mention my insatiable appetite for trivia and an unceasing affection for the decade I most closely consider my Formative Years — that would be the Awesome 80s, for those who haven’t been paying attention — how is it possible that I have only now discovered that our favorite imitation AI once recorded his very own smarmy Christmas tune? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “Merry Christmas, Santa Claus (You’re a Lovely Guy)” by Max Headroom:
An immortal classic for sure, right up there with “What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb).” For the record, I found this fascinating little piece of pop-cultural flotsam here. And I promise this will be the last time I mention M-M-Max Headroom for a while-while-while.
You probably all saw this coming after yesterday’s entry, right? Sometimes I am so predictable… Oh, well. You gotta be what you are, right? Just watch the clip:
I guess you can’t avoid the ravages of age even when you’re just a computerized simulacrum of a smart-alecky TV journalist from 20 minutes into a future that’s now only a few seconds away:
Incidentally, why isn’t the Max Headroom TV series on DVD yet? I know it was short-lived and firmly in the “cult classic” category, but surely a show as eerily prescient and ground-breaking as Max deserves its own shiny silver discs?
(And in case you’re wondering what I mean by “prescient,” the show predicted a lot of our current [then-future] society, including [just off the top of my head] “reality” TV, interactive programming, do-it-yourself video journalism, mindless consumption via credit cards and a form of online shopping, and even some of the stuff that guys like Ray Kurzweil believe is coming as part of “The Singularity“, most notably the idea of downloading a human personality into a computer. Wow… now I really want to see Max again! It’d probably make a lot more sense now that it did in ’85…)
John Kenneth Muir, notable expert on all things retro (at least when you define “retro” as the crap I grew up watching on TV in the ’70s and ’80s, and the toysI played with during the same period), today reminded me of a series I haven’t thought about in years, a short-lived horror anthology called Darkroom.
I’ll be honest, I don’t remember any of the stories from this show. Even the episode that Muir summarizes in the blog entry I linked above sounds only vaguely familiar, at best. But this opening… man, I remember this. It always gave me a good case of the willies:
Something about the way movies and TV shows were made in the ’70s and early ’80s was perfectly suited for the horror genre. Maybe it was the graininess of the film stock — since we’ve gone digital, everything looks too slick and polished, so modern horror films have to re-introduce grime through artificial means, and they always lay it on too thick (I hate the dank, sweaty, grungy look of modern horror films!). Whatever it was, I miss it. It could make even a show like Darkroom, which was probably pretty cheesy, look like something. The title card shot with the red light bulb above the logo is just perfect. You know, that’d look really good on a t-shirt…
Courtesy of John Rogers, a concise, easy-to-follow, and surprisingly entertaining explanation of why all your favorite shows are drifting into re-runs:
And in case you’re wondering, yes, I support the WGA wholeheartedly in this matter. Writers don’t typically get a lot of recognition or respect in the film and television industry, but they are, to my mind, the most important part of the process. If somebody doesn’t write the story to begin with, the guy in the jodhpurs and riding boots has nothing to direct, and the “talent” have nothing to say. It’s that simple. And in a business as flush as Hollywood, to say there isn’t enough money to go around is disingenuous at best. The vast majority of WGA members really don’t make much money for their efforts, and if they’re trying to survive purely on screenwriting, their income is likely to be pretty sporadic. In my book, they deserve their modest cut of the residuals pie a lot more than the suits deserve another Gulfstream…
Joss Whedon, the revered creator of the cult-fave TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, has been venting online about the way some in the press describe the ongoing writer’s strike out in Hollywood. His comments are worth reading in their entirety, but I like the way he describes the act and art of writing (something I am not entirely unfamiliar with myself…):
Writing is largely not considered work. Art in general is not considered work. Work is a thing you physically labor at, or at the very least, hate. Art is fun. (And Hollywood writers are overpaid, scarf-wearing dainties.) It’s an easy argument to make. And a hard one to dispute.
…Writing is enjoyable and ephemeral. And it’s hard work.
It’s always hard. Not just dealing with obtuse, intrusive studio execs, temperamental stars and family-prohibiting hours. Those are producer issues as much as anything else. Not just trying to get your first script sold, or seen, or finished, when nobody around believes you can/will/should… the ACT of writing is hard. When Buffy was flowing at its flowingest, David Greenwalt [Ed. note: Greenwalt was a writer and producer on Buffy] used to turn to me at some point during every torturous story-breaking session and say “Why is it still hard? When do we just get to be good at it?” I’ll only bore you with one theory: because every good story needs to be completely personal (so there are no guidelines) and completely universal (so it’s all been done). It’s just never simple.
It’s necessary, though. We’re talking about story-telling, the most basic human need. Food? That’s an animal need. Shelter? That’s a luxury item that leads to social grouping, which leads directly to fancy scarves. But human awareness is all about story-telling. The selective narrative of your memory. The story of why the Sky Bully throws lightning at you. From the first, stories, even unspoken, separated us from the other, cooler beasts. And now we’re talking about the stories that define our nation’s popular culture – a huge part of its identity. These are the people that think those up. Working writers.
“Human awareness is all about story-telling.” Nice.
I’ve been looking for some video from Salvage 1 to try and refresh my memory. I didn’t find very much, but there is this:
Honestly, more of my circuits fired in response to the ABC Sunday Night Movie graphics than the footage from Salvage, the TV movie that became the series Salvage 1. Remember TV movies, kids? Or the days when feature films ran on regular network TV about a year after they’d been in the theaters, back in the dark days before home video rentals, cable TV, or “on-demand” anything? Can you believe there was once a time when you could make a movie about a homespun junk dealer with a preposterous notion about flying to the Moon in a rocket made out of a cement mixer and a tanker-truck trailer, and it would actually garner enough viewers to justify a weekly TV series (admittedly a short-lived one, but still…)
Yes, we were all a lot more innocent then…
