And now for the cinematic/video portion of tonight’s program:
Feb162009
The Glass Teat
Dec222008
Christmas with the Doctors
If I was embarrassed by the level of my own geekery on display in the previous entry, than this one is going to be downright mortifying. Still, it made me laugh, so I figured it was worth passing on, although you’ll have to be something of a geek yourself to see the humor:
This is a clip from a BBC sketch comedy show called Dead Ringers. I’m not familiar with it, but they certainly live up to the name in this piece. The guy playing the Fourth Doctor especially amazes me; he doesn’t particularly look like Tom Baker, but the voice and, my god, the laugh are uncanny. Good stuff!
My thanks to SamuraiFrog, who is pretty uncanny himself in his ability to find stuff like this…
Dec092008
Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia!
Something occurred to me yesterday while I was watching a re-run of The Incredible Hulk on our local RTN affiliate. Well, actually it occurred to me during a commercial break: of all the “as seen on TV” crap products that used to fill the airwaves with their seductive flim-flammery during the ’70s and ’80s, how is it that the only one that seems to have followed us into the 21st century is the Chia Pet? Seriously, this is what turns out to be the timeless kitsch classic that endures? Whatever became of the Pocket Fisherman, Mister Microphone, and those el-cheapo plastic boxes that were supposed to let you mold snow bricks and build igloos but somehow never quite worked as advertised? I wonder about these things…
Incidentally, that episode of The Hulk was an unbelievable confluence of nostalgic awesomeness… first of all, it was The Incredible Hulk, a series I watched pretty faithfully as a kid (and yet oddly, I can’t really remember a single individual plotline; of course, they were all pretty much the same plot, weren’t they?). It was set in one of my favorite cities, San Francisco (even though it was obviously filmed on the Universal backlot in Burbank), and the story involved a young cop struggling to choose between the path of peace offered by his zen martial-arts instructor and the violent quest for revenge advocated by his older brother. The older brother was Gerald McRaney of Simon & Simon, another childhood fave series, while the young cop was played by none other than my main man Rick Springfield. The episode felt like it might have been intended as a stealth pilot for a vehicle for Rick, as by the end of it he’s become the new master of the dojo (following the death of the old master) and a private eye who promises to take only the clients he can really help. If it was a pilot, it’s too bad it wasn’t picked up… it might’ve been interesting. Kung Fu meets The Rockford Files, maybe…
Dec082008
Ghosts of TV Christmases Past
In case you haven’t noticed, I devote a lot of my energies around this place to memorializing, eulogizing, or otherwise trying to recapture, through whatever magic my words may posses, the recent past: the pre-digital, pre-Internet, pre-adult-responsibility (for me, anyhow) era of the 1970s and ’80s. But sometimes words just aren’t up to the task. Sometimes a little visual aid is helpful. So, for those whippersnappers in the audience who never knew The Way Things Used to Be and for you older folks who still pine for 1985 — you know you do, just admit it! — allow me to present BetaMaXmas.
This fun little website runs YouTube clips of old Christmas specials, holiday-themed episodes of ’80s-vintage sitcoms (watch for a mulleted George Clooney on The Facts of Life!), and appropriate vintage commercials and music videos, all of which would be entertaining enough on its own. But what makes BetaMaXmas a real treasure is the cleaver virtual environment, which you can see in the screengrab above. Yes, kids, that’s really what the world used to look like: tacky wood-veneer paneling, ugly upholstery, a TV screen smaller than the window on a modern microwave oven, and of course the rabbit-ear antennae that make a snowy picture, um, somewhat less snowy. (You can even manipulate the rabbit-ears, for the full old-tymey effect!) The Star Wars poster peeking out from behind the Christmas tree is an especially nice touch, I thought, and don’t neglect to click on the copy of TV Guide up in the corner.
And now if you’ll excuse me, a Very Special Episode of Alf is about to begin, so I’m going to pour myself some ‘nog and put my feet up…
(Via Boing Boing, of course.)
Oct222008
At the Stopping Point
So, I read in Variety last week that ABC and Warner Bros. are planning to remake V, the classic ’80s TV mini-series about extra-terrestrial Visitors who aren’t what they appear to be taking over the Earth in an allegorical retelling of the rise of the Nazism.
I’m sure my three loyal readers can guess what I think of that idea.
Sep262008
TV Title Sequences: The Muppet Show
It’s Friday morning and time for another wander down televisual memory lane. Given the subject matter of the only entry I’ve managed to write this week, I’ll bet you smart kids out there in the audience can guess which TV opening we’re about to see…
As I recall, the title sequence for The Muppet Show varied a little bit for each of the five years it was on the air, and there were also week-to-week variations consisting of a different “cold opening” — the little gag before the music starts, usually featuring that week’s guest star — for each episode, a fresh grumble from Statler and Waldorf (the two grouchy old guys in the balcony), and a unique closing gag involving Gonzo and his trumpet. YouTube has several different examples; naturally, I had to choose this one featuring Mark Hamill (who turned 57 yesterday; happy birthday, Mark!) and the droids from Star Wars. Well, Empire, judging from Luke’s outfit.
The Muppet Show ran on Sunday afternoons around these parts, which meant I was usually at my grandma’s house and competing with the grown-up menfolk for control of the TV. I rarely had much success at talking them into switching from the football game to a Ray Harryhausen movie, Star Trek, or — god forbid! — Space: 1999, but The Muppet Show was another matter. That was something pretty much everyone liked, even grandma, who frankly didn’t understand why we had to have the TV on at all when there was so much “visitin'” to be done. But she did like those “crazy puppets.” Didn’t we all?
Sep242008
Happy Birthday, Jim
SamuraiFrog reminds us that today is Jim Henson’s birthday… he would’ve been 72 if he were still here. Strange to think of him that old, even stranger to think he’s been gone for nearly 20 years (according to the wikipedia, he died on May 16, 1990).
Sep172008
TV Title Sequences: Battlestar Galactica
In light of the occasion, how could I not post this particular title sequence?
For you trivia hounds out there, this is not the title sequence from the premiere movie that aired thirty years ago tonight. “Saga of a Star World” had more cinematic titles, without the “mugshot” visuals of the cast, simply words receding into the distance, something like the titles for Superman: The Movie, which I believe had debuted earlier that summer.
These titles came with the show’s first regular episode; the sequence was later shortened somewhat, and the opening voiceover by Patrick Macnee was dropped. A pity… I always liked that voiceover. Yeah, I suppose the “life here began out there” angle sounds silly now, but back in the day this stuff raised the hair on our arms, kids… because we had these things called imaginations.
Sep172008
Thirty Yahrens Aboard That Ragtag Fugitive Fleet
A few months ago, I stumbled across a blogger called Darth Mojo, who is an Emmy award-winning VFX artist for the remake version of Battlestar Galactica. My loyal readers know that I’m not a fan of Ron Moore’s take on one of my favorite childhood TV shows — I tried to like it, I really did, but in the end, it just wasn’t for me. Nevertheless, Mojo is an engaging writer who loves all kind of sci-fi stuff and is rightfully proud of his work on several of the landmark SF series of the past couple of decades. I’m interested in visual effects and often find his behind-the-scenes perspective fascinating, especially when he’s telling stories from the earlier days of his career when he worked on Babylon 5, among other shows. But the thing that really endears this guy to me is that, even though he’s an integral part of the new Galactica, he unabashedly loves the old Galactica as well… so much so that he accepted his Emmy while wearing an original-series Colonial Warrior uniform. Now that’s my kind of nerd.
Anyway, today Mojo reminds us that this is a very special date for his fellow geeky kids of the 1970s: on this date thirty years ago, September 17, 1978, the original Battlestar Galactica premiered on ABC-TV as a three-hour telefilm called “Saga of a Star World.” (Don’t ask, I’m a fan and I don’t even know what that title means.) To celebrate, he’s posted a really nifty downloadable image of the classic establishing shot so often seen on the old show, as re-created by his colleague Lee Stringer. (Stringer worked on the Neo-Galactica miniseries and first season of the regular series, and is, according to Mojo, “the second biggest Battlestar fan on the planet.” I assume from the context that he’s talking about the old series.)
Mojo also invites his readers to share their memories of the old series in the comments on his blog entry. I quickly dashed off something over there, but I’d like to expand a bit on those remarks:
May132008
Salt Lake’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives
Like any other couple who have been together long enough to drop our camouflage shields and start showing our true, obnoxious selves, The Girlfriend and I tend to disagree pretty frequently on what constitutes good television. My picks tend toward PBS documentary series like Nova and The American Experience, old TV shows, and movies. Anne, on the other hand, is into all the do-it-yourself, makeover, and “slice of life” reality shows that clog up the basic cable channels. Which means that about nine times out of ten, when I show up at her apartment, the tube is set on TLC or The Food Network, and it’s all I can do to keep from groaning out loud. (To be fair, she has much the same reaction when I run across an old Godzilla flick and settle in for a blissful evening of daikaiju silliness…)
Anyway, there is one basic-cable show that manages to cross party lines, appealing to both of us more or less equally with its mixture of travel, nostalgia, and greasy-spoon cuisine and culture, a Food Network program called Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. The set-up is that the host — a boisterous Gen-Xer like ourselves called Guy Fieri — drives around the country in a classic Camaro, stopping into, well, diners, drive-ins, and dives to sample regional food favorites and give a little history about the featured establishments. It’s a fun show; a half-hour episode typically covers three quirky, mom-n-pop-style locations, and the eps are often themed in some way, like all family-owned diners, or places that are open 24/7.
The show’s website includes a feature called “Tell Guy Where To Go,” and not too long ago, The GF and I had some fun coming up with a list of our favorite Salt Lake-area places we thought the show ought to visit. We never got around to submitting our list, but it turns out we didn’t have to: Guy was here last week, filming segments for the new season, and as it turns out, the places he visited match our list almost exactly: