Fredflare’s Got your back
January 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Moving ? Got scads of heavy Vinyl records littering your space ? Save your friends the pain of stacking all those milk-crates by archiving your records with funky Fredflare’s Vinyl Archiver. This bit ‘o kit transfers LPs to MP3s ‘n more…. Never lose the love.
The Mushroom Connection
January 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Okay, is it just me, or has everyone’s mother, regardless of race, religion, or geographical location made some kind of meal, casserole, pasta sauce, or whatever with the help of Campbell’s Mushroom Soup…?
…It truly is the universal ingredient… Just add onions…
Essential Godzilla Movie List (1955-1995)
January 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Okay you crazy G-Tards (rubber monster movie addicts) !!! If you really want to join me in wrapping up in a blanket, drinking cherry soda with pop rocks and staring in abject wonderment at a Godzilla movie marathon ? Then we’re gonna need to plan ahead…
The best guy to help with this is my friend and employer Chef Hiro !!! Leader of the Spartan brigade of mercenaries and lunatics that prepare food down at Wasabiya Japanese Restaurant in good ‘ol CR. Hiro’s input was invaluable to my Look Out Tokyo !!! article, and he’ll be paying my medical bills when the cause of my Carpal Tunnel turns out to be the amount of extra typing I did.
I’ve chosen ten of my favourite Godzilla movies, and listed them in chronological order. I decided to keep my rubber-suited selections to just the 1st (Showa) and 2nd (Heisei) series’. Mainly because of my fondness for the earlier flicks, and also ’cause this is a nostalgia site… and it hard to get nostalgic about a movie that got released a couple of years ago.
So lets get on it ! And remember… Never dismiss a good ‘ol campy monster slug-fest for a more psychological, or special-effects filled film. You never know what you might find more entertaining. I think Goethe said it best : “Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.”
Gojira / Godzilla : King of the Monsters (1955) - The simmering, brooding first Godzilla film could just have easily been directed by Hitchcock for all of it’s brilliant use of soundtrack-as-atmosphere and dark chiaroscuro visuals. Even though the flicks centers around a giant lizard attack, it’s all the meticulously-arranged human storylines that drag you into the cataclysmic final moments. This movie is a bone fide classic ! Try to get the original (it’s been re-released as a Deluxe Edition from Sony, I think), but if you can’t, it’s worth it to nab the American release.
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) - Paying homage to the beast that may have originally inspired Godzilla, a much larger version of the titular American monster and ‘Zilla float around in giant balloon harnesses and slug it out over Mt. Fuji ! An all Japanese cast re-create their version of the Kong Islanders and have a luau dance party!!! Things are starting to get goofy…
Godzilla vs. Monster Zero (1965) - My personal fav Godzilla movie, this one is the perfect mix of almost-serious acting and completely irreverent monster-infused action. The citizens of earth swallow the proverbial hook dangled by the aliens from Planet X (we are SO gullible) and all hell breaks loose, ending in a three-way cage match between Godzilla, Rodan, and my main multi-headed mayhem merchant KING GHIDORAH !!!!
Destroy All Monsters (1968) - Basically this movie is …Monster Zero on crack!!! Cute Japanese female aliens named Kilaaks unleash a record-setting eleven giant beasts on various cities around the world. Once freed by human heroics, Godzilla leads the rubber -suited A-Team to Mt. Fuji (what is it about that place?) to fight Ghidorah again.
Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster (1971) -Grimmer than most of the flicks released during the Showa series, Hedorah the Smog Monster represented Japan’s fear that their industrial golden age had a darker side. The giant red-eyed pile of refuse battles the G-Man on land and in the air (it’s so funny, you just might need new pants). Watch for the creepy little Hedorah animations… Ewwwwww.
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) - Universally despised as the worst Godzilla movie ever made (apparently no-one saw Son of Godzilla [1967]), this one features ‘Zilla, Gigan, a superhero that a third grader created, and a bug with drill-bits for hands. The premise is ludicrous, the special effects are hilariously bad, and the dialouge is, well… pretty much as horrible as always. This is the flick to put on after everyone’s had too many jello shooters. You’ll laugh so hard you’ll wake up the next morning with a cracked rib as well as a hangover… but it’s sooooo worth it.
Terror Of Mecha-Godzilla (1975) - How many G-movies feature aliens as the villains…? I dunno, but here’s another flick featuring multi-monster maelstroms. Black hole-dwelling bad guys with spaceship-shaped helmets unleash Godzilla’s robotic twin and a giggling pre-historic sea monster named Titanosaurus on poor ‘ol earth. A great fight scene takes up the later half of the film. Watch for Godzilla’s flying tackle on Titanosaurus near the end, you’ll feel the pain.
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) - Suddenly an engaging script emerges like a rose among the brambles… of course in this case the rose is 200,000 tons and spits acid. A neat story, a terrifying villianous monster, and a great battle rounds out one of my favourite films, but the ending will leave you kinda wanting more.
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) - A slight re-imagining of the original Godzilla story, featuring an all out war with the King. Super-humans from our future (with the blatantly US/USSR names Wilson and Grethcinko) take it upon themselves to obliterate Japan by destroying Godzilla’s past, and replacing it with a timeline where Ghidorah reigns supreme! I’m a sucker for time travel stories. Anyway yeah, the action is intense, and the appearance of Mecha-King-Ghidorah in the final moments is worth the price of a rental. Some say it’s an anti-American movie because of some scene where a dinosaur eats some US marines…. but honestly think about it… How many Japanese characters have died under the giant rubber feet of Godzilla during the 28 film series ? No-one calls them anti-Japanese.
Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) - Godzilla comes full circle and battles the physical embodiment of the Oxygen Destroyer that supposedly almost killed him in the original Gojira (1955). Destoroya has got to be the coolest looking monster in the entire Godzilla movie series (sorry Ghidorah). The battle is a classic, encompassing a huge part of the movie. Godzilla eventually succumbs to the Nuclear energy boiling up inside him and dies, transferring his life-force to his lil baby Godzilla son. Ahhhhhh… sweet.
8 bit music
January 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment
8Bitpeoples.com is a collective of absolutely brilliant artists who live and die for old videogame tunes. Buy their 8BP050 compilation CD, join the 8-Bit Army, and don’t sit so freakin close to the TV screen !!!
A couple of videos…
January 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Remember Rockwell? Probably not - but check out this music video from 1984 and maybe you will recognize the tune.
Here is a video montage of retro animated logos - interesting for designers or just of nostalgic value.
Look Out Tokyo !!!
January 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment
“ATTENTION !!! ATTENTION !!! STRANGE RADIOACTIVE SIGNALS HAVE BEEN DETECTED OFF THE COAST OF YOKOHAMA !!!”
…But first, this breaking story from Belleville, Ontario :
Ever since I can remember, every house on the street that I grew up on would come to life early some Sunday morning in July to take part in that most joyous of communal events, the Glen Rd. annual yard sale day !!! Every house on the block would open their garage doors and empty their attics in an attempt to sell off ping-pong tables full of old clothes, toys, and paperback books to anyone who would haul it all away. Of course, once the sun began to golden and the last of the morning bargain hunters had left, there wasn’t much point in staying open for business. So every family on the block would get together in someone’s backyard and fire up the old BBQ… And here’s where we find our hero, or in this particular case… not find me.
I think I was twelve years old the summer that my buddie Matt and I blew off the annual Glen Road backyard BBQ bash to stay inside and watch a Godzilla movie marathon. Now attendance was mandatory for this kind of event (parents can be sooooo weird), so Matt and my risky, Mission Impossible-style escape had to have a HUGE payoff…. and we weren’t disappointed. We stared transfixed at my family’s downstairs TV as six back-to-back Godzilla movies stomped all over our impressionable little minds. SIX !!! Thank you public access TV !!!
Starting with the original N. American release of Godzilla : King of the Monsters and followed by the next five flicks in chronological order, the whole marathon took over eight hours ! Matt have to leave after the first three, but I stayed late into the night, surviving on stolen potato chips and hot dog buns supplied by my brother. He was the kind of guy who could be counted on to get things… no questions asked. The image of a twelve year old me wrapped in a beach towel in our darkened basement, staring amazed at grown men dressed in rubber monster suits leaps into my mind whenever I hear the piercing roar of Godzilla.
“ATTENTION !!! ATTENTION !!! OHTO ISLAND IS UNDER ATTACK !!! IT’S SOME KIND OF GIANT LIZARD !!!”
KING OF THE MONSTERS
Godzilla, the Lazarus-like Lord of Lizards was created by Japanese movie producer Tomoyuki Tanaka in 1955. Tanaka, working for the Toho Movie Company, along with writer Shingeru Kayama, special effects guru Eiji Tsuburaya and director Ishiro Honda came up with the idea of a giant nuclear monster movie. It would feature an actor in a rubber suit equipped with some minor special effects terrorizing tiny models of cities. Early “blue-screen” chroma key filming, would allow the monster to be added to the background of pre-filmed city skylines later in post-production, making it seem like the behemoth was actually hundreds of feet tall. The fire-breathing beast from the east was given an origin story as epic as the American equivalent King Kong (1933) and was suitably dubbed “Gojira” (a combination of the Japanese words for “Gorilla” and “Whale”).
For all of Gojira’s bells ‘n whistles, it wasn’t a movie just about special effects or rubber-footed city smashing, it was a dark, claustrophobic allegory for Japan’s post World War II fear of nuclear annihilation. Godzilla represented the United States and their atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the war. The fear that leftover radiation was slowly poisoning rural Japanese communities became the impetus for the Ohto Islander’s virgin-sacrificing sea-monster myths. This is some scary stuff…
All the actors really sell their fears, especially when the towering beast finally strides from the ocean to flatten Tokyo. The first full view of the soon-to-be icon is terrifying, a huge black shape with glowing eyes transposed on the night sky.
“Godzilla was the most masterful of all dinosaur movies because it made you believe it was really happening. “ - Steven Spielberg
The movie ate up mad money in Japan, and it wasn’t long before North American producers snapped up the footage for a slightly re-edited release in our cinemas. The creature was Re-dubbed “Godzilla” (which is American for : “We don’t pronounce Japanese names properly“), and the movie was given the subtitle : KING OF THE MONSTERS. The original Japanese version was cut into pieces and sandwiched in between clips of Raymond Burr (the orchid-crazy actor who did the Perry Mason TV show) as a reporter trying to figure out just what the heck is going on. The movie became a drive-in classic.
1955 to 1975 (The Original Series aka The Showa Series)
With Godzilla’s multi-cultural stardom, came the promise of more dollars and yen for everyone involved if there was a sequel to back it up. Godzilla Raids Again was released the next year, and though critically maligned by Japanese fans as more of the same city smashing with less of the cultural commentary, American fans ate it up with a monster-sized spoon !!! re-dubbed badly (as all American versions would be) the movie transformed the heroic main character Kobayashi into a Lennie Small-type character (from the novel Of Mice and Men ya know ?).
The movie featured Godzilla beating the bejeezus out of a second giant monster named Anguirus. The two titan’s climatic brawl over Osaka Castle became a model for the next film’s clash between the famous US monster King Kong and ‘Zilla over Mt. Fuji in the 1964 release of Godzilla vs. King Kong.
“ATTENTION !!! ATTENTION !!! GIANT UNIDENTIFIED CREATURES ARE BATTLING ATOP MOUNT FUJI !!!”
Mothra vs, Godzilla (1964) and it’s lightning fast follow-up flick Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster (1964) both featured a lot of monster-on-monster wrestling. The former movie introducing Godzilla’s equally famous, and human-loving co-star Mothra, the giant Moth. The latter movie introduced Rodan, a giant pterodactyl and Godzilla’s most powerful and popular nemesis King Ghidorah, the three headed golden dragon from space. It is interesting to note how closely the monster Ghidorah resembles a mythological Chinese dragon. Most Godzilla fans assume that the creature represented Japanese anxiety with the now communist-China’s growing Nuclear power and advanced satellite programs.
These movies sure did represent a lot of angst didn’t they…? With a earthly protector in place, and an evil threat from outer space looming, Godzilla’s original concept of a mindless, human-punishing force of nature began to change.
It was the 1960s now man, and Godzilla was now in colour !!! And as cool as being more colourful was, poor ‘Zilla had lost some of his mono-chromatic menace. With the sharper picture quality that technocolour provided you could plainly tell the beast was a guy dressed in a poorly spray-painted rubber suit. It was often unintentionally hilarious (especially in the poorly-dubbed N. American versions) to watch scores of Japanese fisherman run screaming from a huge, clumsy dude in a monster suit with sneakers protruding from beneath his feet. Ahhhh well…
Godzilla had become such an icon that he couldn’t stay evil for very much longer. Through a telepathic conversation with Mothra in Gidorah, The Three Headed Monster,Godzilla admits to smashing buildings only because humans shot at him first. Godzilla was now the neutral wild card in the giant monster movie world balancing the forces of good (Mothra) and evil (Ghidorah). He even got a comical sidekick in the form of Manilla, his offspring in Son of Godzilla (1967).
And the humans…? Since the menacing and emotional atmosphere of the first flick was all but gone, and people were really going to theaters just to see big rubber beasts fight it out…. well…. no-one really cared much what happened to humanity during all this chaos. By the release of Destroy All Monsters in 1968, it was clear what the public wanted, and the movie featured very little human storyline and an all-out world-wrecking Royal Rumble involving eleven different rubber monsters !
The 70s featured a constant stream of Godzilla releases including the darker, environmentally aware acid trip-gone-wrong flick Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster (1971), and the same-old multi-monster brawling in Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) and Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973). The era of the uber-goofy Godzilla film was almost at an end, but first another important giant monster had to take on the G-Man.
In the 1974 and ‘75 flims Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla and Terror of Mecha-Godzilla the titular cyborg clone of Godzilla was revealed ! the Godzilla-shaped metal monster cut his way through the giant monster roster armed with flashy special effects like rocket fingers, lazer eyes, and some kinda electro-tazer thingies… Mecha-Godzilla became known as Godzilla’s arch-enemy due to his similarity in strength and style of… well everything… He’s a clone, dig ?
Fans of the Godzilla movies dubbed the series of movies made between 1955 to 1975 the “Showa” series because they were all made during the tail end of Japanese Emperor Hirohito Showa’s reign.
1985 to 1995 ( The VS Series aka The Heisei Series)
Director Koji Hashimoto took the helm of the sixteenth Godzilla flick in 1985 just in time for the 30th anniversary of the movie franchise… and the transfer from Japanese Emperor Hirohito to Emperor Akihito (called Heisei). See the pattern here…?A little bit of Japanese history mixed in with all that monster mayhem… And you thought this post was just gonna be about dudes in rubber suits…
Godzilla had been dropping serious beats on evil rubber monsters as a cartoony anti-hero so far away from the original 1955 version of the creature that Hashimoto decided it was time to get back to basics. His re-imagining of the mythos in Godzilla 1985 was a direct sequel to the original Gojira flick, effectively negating ALL the stories from ALL the movies made during the original series. They even got a much-older Raymond Burr to come back and yell at pentagon officials about the dangers of nuclear weapons (a theme that would continue throuout the VS Series). Godzilla got a fiercer makeover and became the people-eating city trashing force of destruction he once was. Overall, the flick was darker and more pessimistic about mankind’s ability to deal with the horrors unleashed by out own technology.
The equally dark sequel in this new parallel storyline was Godzilla Vs. Biollante (1989), which featured a giant plant monster, James Bond-esque espionage, and plenty of anti-bio/chemical weapons speeches. Much like in Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster, the biological weapon gone wrong goes through a number of different stages of growth before it becomes the towering flower beast called “Biollante”. The usual Godzilla movie formula ensues : Showdown, Nuclear breath, lots of buildings bite the dust, and Godzilla wins the day… Same old plot transposed onto new stories, with new special effects. Toho even dusted off old Showa Series monsters for Godzilla to fight against (Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Mecha-Godzilla) in a stream of movies from 1991 to 1993.
Then in late 1994, after the release of Godzilla vs. Space-Godzilla (in which the G-Man takes on a clone from… you guessed it, SPACE !!!) a rumour circulated that Toho studios was finally putting the big green guy to rest. The beast to do the deed had to be big, REALLY BIG !!! It had to be more of a monster then any that had come before, and that’s covering 40 years worth of giant imaginary creatures.
In December 1995 Godzilla vs. Destroyah hit the big screens featuring the tag line : “Godzilla Dies!” and was true to it’s word. The movie centered around an enormous battle in downtown Tokyo with another multi-formed menace, this time called “Destroyah” (created from the weapon used to defeat Godzilla in the first movie). After administering beatings to his huge mutant insect-on-crack-like enemy, the beast from the east finally succumbed to the nuclear energy that had given it life for so long and went into giant rubber-suited meltdown. The big guy goes nuke and turns Tokyo into a radioactive graveyard for years to come.
The catch of course, like any good soap opera, is to always leave an opening for future stories. Remember baby Godzilla…? Well apparently he was hanging out in Tokyo and sucked up some of the radiation from the explosion, turning into the spitting image of dear ‘ol dad… The science doesn’t make much sense, but hey… I never was that great at science.
The Great American Ripoff, The Millenium Series, and The Legacy of Godzilla
In 1998 the Hollywood film company Tristar bought the rights to produce an American version of the Godzilla film. Passed gently from writer/producer Dean Devlin to director Roland Emmerich, the film had an enormous amount of hype to live up to thanks to it’s classic legacy and fanboy expectations. Hey, they had the latest in CGI technology to make Godzilla more badass then ever right…? And 40 years worth of great ideas to work with. How could it go wrong…?
All hopes of Emmerich creating an American homage to the beloved drive-in franchise were shattered as the collective Godzilla fans of the world stared in helpless abject horror at the flashy, brainless schlock that was Godzilla (1998). The creature bore no connection to the legendary Japanese version in any way, and the movie was… well… let me hand off this review to JoeBlo.com : 10 Reasons I HATE Godzilla ‘98, he’s got a passion for explaining how BAD this movie was (and can use naughty words I can’t on this site).
“THERE WERE REPORTS THAT A GODZILLA-LIKE CREATURE ATTACKED NEW YORK, BUT IT WASN’T GODZILLA, IT WAS IN FACT ANOTHER CREATURE OF IMMENSE SIZE !!!“
The boys ‘n girls over at Toho Studios could not stand by and let this American forgery spew iguana poop all over the Godzilla legacy. The decision was made to resurrect the big guy, or I should say, his son just in time for the millennium in Godzilla 2000 (2000). The movie roared loud and clear that the Toho Godzilla was the one and only Godzilla ! I remember going to see this one in theaters with four buddies… We were the only ones there…
Despite sagging ticket sales in N. America, five more movies were made during the new millennium, each creating their own continuity with the original flick back in 1955. In GMK : Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) Godzilla was given a whole new concept as an avenging demon fueled by the restless spirits of Japanese soldiers killed in WWII. Throwing another curve-ball into the Godzilla continuum, the movie also featured Mothra, Ghidoirah, and Baragon (sorta like a giant rhino-reptile monster) as ancient protectors of the earth, and enemies of the evil demon-Godzilla.
By the time Godzilla : Final Wars (2004) reached American audiences… there wasn’t much of an audience at all… Which was alright, because as the name implied, this was apparently gonna be the final flick for at least 5-10 years. The idea was to starve the fanboys ‘n girls for just long enough to generate some serious buzz for the film that would be released somewhere around 2014. To mark the occasion, the special effects boys spent more on flying battle ships and explosions in …Final Wars then in any other G-film, and slapped as many old rubber suits on stunt men as they could. Virtually every monster to make an appearance in past Godzilla films showed up to get blasted, kicked, tail-whipped, and incinerated by the main man. A fitting send-off for such an enormous part of both Japanese and North American pop culture.
Godzilla is one of the most recognized figures in cinema history, and has a legacy that expands far beyond the confines of just the big-screen. During the 50 year, 28 movie Godzilla odyssey, Toho has collaborated with many different companies to create mountains of ‘Zilla merchandise. Action figures, vinyl models, comic books (in association with Marvel Comics), stickers, novels, even an assortment of video games by just about every company for every system out there. I can remember playing Nintendo’s graphics-deficient NES game Godzilla : Monster of Monsters that came out back in 1988, and being entertained, yet confused all at once…
The big green guy’s journey has been a long one. Starting as a dark post-war metaphor, becoming a goofy rubber ‘rassler in the 60s and the thankless defender of mankind in the 70s, and finally as the big budget icon of vengeance vs technology in the 80s and beyond. The vastness of the Godzilla mythos, and it’s effect on all facets of media make it hard to truly condense it all into a single post. I can’t believe I’ve survived THIS LONG at my computer screen… So it’s probably best to link off to those who’s info is more comprehensive then mine:
- Toho Kingdom is THE source of information all Toho-released movies, and even has a “Monster Bios” section that will slake even the most devoted “Zilla nerd’s thirst for monster statistics.
- Stomp Tokyo.Com is one of my favourites sites for Godzilla, or any cult movie weirdness! The guys who put the time and effort into this labour of Nostalgic, nerdy love are an inspiration!
- Godzilla Monster Music is a site dedicated to exactly what it says… The music of the films!!!
And if you have any space left in your attention span to cram in My Essential Godzilla Movie List, you really do owe it to your inner child to do so… Enjoy !!!
I wonder if Matt still has that Godzilla figure he had when we were kids…?
Much Love…
Raiders of the Lost Cartridges
January 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment
So I was stumbling around the statistically-driven, yet somehow poignant StumbleUpon network and I fell into the warm embrace of a particularly nostalgic music video “When I Wake Up” by a brilliant band called Wintergreen. The video features the band (who look suspiciously like some guys I knew in Vancouver) hanging out , signing , and going on a Odysseus-esque journey to find a stash of buried Atari cartridges buried in the New Mexico desert. Yeah I’m serious !!!
Here’s the Youtube version of the Wintergreen video “When I Wake Up”
So, my interest was immediately peaked, but my inner-nerd (that highly critical bastard) was kinda skeptical about the whole story. So after work, I floated through the usual channels (ie. Wikipedia and beyond), and hold on to your high tops…. it’s apparently all true!!!
Back in 1982, the Atari company was up to their collective eyeballs in debt and failure. Their game programmers had jumped ship and leaked all their game secrets to the competition. Newer video game consoles were overtaking the old Atari VCS system like lions on the scent of a blind, deaf, legless fat kid. And, when they attempted to upgrade their chances at profit with the new Atari 5200, no-one bought it (little tip : nobody is gonna buy your system when you don’t release any games for it, and the games you do release can be played on the competition’s console). When Atari’s version of the beloved arcade classic Pacman failed to bring any gamers back into the fold (due to jerky controls and annoying sound effects), they bet the farm on the only horse they had left… The story of a young boy and his brightly-fingered, telephone-challenged alien friend.
It was almost Christmas, and Steven Speilburg’s blockbuster film E.T : The Extra-Terrestrial was set to blow audiences away. Steve Ross (Warner Communications Co. chairman) and the boys at Atari struck a deal with the legendary Hollywood director to produce a game based on the multi-million dollar script. They were under the impression that people would buy the game (hell, they might even buy the console) just to play something with Spielburg’s name on it.
…They were mistaken…
The game was rushed into production so fast that there was nothing “finished” about the finished product. The man who was given the scarlet letter for churning out this video game abortion was none other then Howie Warshaw (responsible for another famous Atari game Yar’s Revenge).
No-one in North America could figure out just what the heck this game was about, let alone how to progress from level 1 to the non-existent level 2. The character that everyone assumed was supposed to be E.T. vibrated around one of five screens and fell into holes while trying to find dots that do something… I think… I really don’t know. Wait… there is also a guy in a trenchcoat that can grab you and take away your dots. This was bad in some way… no that’s wrong too, it was all bad.
Almost all of the 5 million E.T. cartridges that were produced just in time for X-Mas were sent back to Atari in disgrace. Retailers had finally had enough of Atari’s lackluster product and refused to be left holding the proverbial bag. Atari, in a fever dream or maybe a fit of self-loathing, decided that the best way to deal with mountains of un-sellable merchandise was to bury it. In September 1983, fourteen truckloads of E.T and Pacman cartridges were dumped in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, never to see the light of day again…. At least until the guys from Wintergreen went and dug ‘em back up (unlikely, considering that the cartridges were supposed to have been pulverized with a steamroller before being buried).
For more info on this unfortunate affair, trip the light fantastic over to the Five Million E.T. Pieces article at the Urban Legends Reference Pages site. These guys know all there is to know, and have great writers to boot !
The loss of millions of dollars, coupled with the company’s dwindling popularity, crippled Atari, and spelled the end for home video game systems in general until the release of the NES in 1985. All together, it was a pretty bleak holiday season for the good people at Atari, and for the fans of the burgeoning video game culture at large. The moral, I suppose is never rely solely on hype without substance to back it up… or maybe to bury your skeletons in something a little more impervious then desert sand. You never know when some nostalgia-crazed musicians might go prowling for souvenirs.
Grab a shovel… There’s got to be some cartridges left out there !!!
Much love…
Sesame Street Earworms
January 3, 2008 | 2 Comments
Sometimes I still catch myself humming “The LadyBug’s Picnic”.
The tune from the classic Sesame Street clip is one of those earworms that I will probably suffer from (happily), for the rest of my life.
“The Ladybug’s Picnic” was written and animated by Bud Luckey, who later worked for PIXAR and created the character Woody in Toy Story.
Browsing around similar videos I found another one of my favorite clips. Not only is the tune catchy, but the animation is retro-riffic and mesmerizing; the Pinball Number Count.
Sing with me: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-Twel-el-el-el-el-el-elve!
Doo do do do doo - do do do - do do do do do doda do…
Pinball Number Count was originally produced in 1972 by Imagination, Inc and aired on Sesame Street in 1976. The music was composed by Walt Kraemer and arranged by Ed Bogas, with vocals provided by the Pointer Sisters.
I’m not the only one who ever got the Pinball Number Count tune stuck in my head. Their have been a variety of remixes and cover versions by the song:
It still makes an impression today: watch this baby busting a move while watching the classic.
My guess is that many of our readers can hum or sing along to both of these.
Where Have All The Real Men Gone?
January 2, 2008 | 4 Comments
Hang on tight, this is gonna get messy ! 
Crystal and I just finished watching the brand-spanking new Live Free or Die Hard, the latest installment of the legendary Bruce Willis blastfest movie franchise. It features Willis’ tough-guy alcoholic cop character taking on another team of highly trained terrorist-types bent on money and blowing stuff up. The movie was a blast, and despite relying heavily in some scenes on computer generated images (CGI), and using modern plot devices (Homeland Security, computer-driven apocalypse, hacker terrorists, etc.), the movie still totally put me in touch with bare-fisted 80s action flicks like the original Die Hard. The kind of slightly-cheesey, stunt-driven blockbusters that my dad, my brother and I would watch in the basement together on Sunday nights. I can still picture my dad leaping to the edge of his seat just as John McClane catches the edge of that slavic-speaking bad guy’s face with his fist. Hell yeah !
So this movie got me thinking about the differences between older and newer installments in the action and adventure genres. Modern action flicks may be visually more impressive then they’re decades-old counterparts, but they seem almost… I dunno, more like pop music compared to real rock ‘n roll!
What happened to all the super cool action heroes of my childhood? In the 70s and 80s, action movies were practically the backbone of Hollywood. Where are all the working-man’s heroes ? The Harrison Fords, Dolph Lundgrens, Wesley Snipes, the Stallones and the Schwarzeneggers ? Guys that prided themselves on appearing in as much of the movie as possible, reveling in doing they’re own fights and minor stunts. Guys that were effortlessly cool and tough even while splattered in dirt and shot fulla bullets.
Newer action stars like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (as much as I love the guy), and the zombie-voiced Vin Desiel seem like they try too hard to look good while they pound on bad guys. When was the last time you saw The Rock covered in blood lighting up a smoke like Harvey Keitel after a bank heist?
Special effects have progressed to the point that we can now make our wildest and most explosive on-screen visions a reality, but there was something special about the car chases, and pipe-bomb theatrics of the past. Characters can be digitally removed or added, or enhanced, or whatever in movies now, along with effects, props, and even whole sets ! It makes me wonder how it’s possible that National Treasure (2004) was such a disappointment, while Raiders of The Lost Ark (1981) rocked so hard without any of the computer-based bells ‘n whistles…. Needed Nazi’s I guess….
Just think, For every explosion and or fiery inferno that has been digitally added to a scene instead of lighting up some napalm, there’s a lonely stuntman in a gel-suit sitting at home thinking, “That could have been me burning alive… for real.”
I know I’m kinda ranting… I’m not completely anti-computer effects. I loved Transformers (2007), and it was 98% microchip. And Terminator 2 (1991), the movie that started this whole CGI thing is easily one of the best ‘n baddest action flicks ever! I guess I just get off the most watching movies where guys and gals fight the good fight without the help of computers, gravity-defying wires, or talking polar bears.
…Or maybe I just want all my action heroes to be like Dirty Harry…
I guess it’s back to the “Classic” section of my local movie store for my action needs… or maybe the “Foreign” section… Here’s what I was able to dig up, with no CGI, and a cheaper rental price to boot !
Shaft (1971) - He’s a bad mutha…
Magnum Force (1973) and The Gauntlet (1977) - Clint Eastwood is so tough he can catch bullets with his teeth, which is probably why he sneers his words out just one side of his mouth.
Death Wish (1974) - More like a thriller then an action movie, it still features plenty of throw downs and thug cappings (did I really just type that?) courtesy of Charles Bronson.
The Warriors (1979) - The movie that made it seem like you could rule the streets if you got eight friends together and dressed up in matching leather vests.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - Indiana Jones was always my hero… He made me want to travel, to have adventures, to dig up the backyard in hopes of finding the Arc of the Covenant, and beat up Nazis. All three (soon to be four) of the Indy movies are classics, and the greatest action/adventure movies ever made… Period.
First Blood (1982) - Sylvester Stallone is John Rambo, an ex-’Nam lunatic that takes on the corrupt small town sheriff who made the deadly mistake of making fun of Sly’s headband.
Red Dawn (1984) - This cult masterpiece of cold war-gone-wrong action and survivalist insanity stars Patrick Swazye before he traded in his faded jean jacket and sub-machine gun for a tight singlet and dance lessons. Eat bullets you commies !!!
Predator (1987) and Red Heat (1988) - Ahhhhnold is the king of 80s action, and proves it by filleting aliens and putting the hurt on crime in these two blockbusters. Predator has the added bonus of collecting two US Senators in the same helicopter scene to talk about sexual longevity and spit chewing tobacco…. yum…
Lethal Weapon (1987) - The big daddy of buddie movies stars a really young-looking Mel Gibson, and a still-old looking Danny Glover saving the city from uber-freak Gary Busey and his criminal henchmen.
Die Hard (1988) - The movie that brought Bruce Willis to the world’s collective attention is also responsible for showcasing what a perfect straight-ahead action film is all about. Guns, bombs, fistfights and stunts. One of the funniest, and most endearing qualities of Willis’ character is his ability to withstand enormous amounts of punishment during the course of the flick and still win the day. Start counting the cuts on John McClean’s head as a drinking game with friends… trust me, you’ll feel just as gooned as he does by the time the credits roll.
And if your continue treading into the future, hit up Die Hard with a Vengance (1995), my personal fav of the series, anything by Quentin Tarantino, and Tony Jaa’s Ong Bak (2003) and Tom Yum Goong (aka The Protector, 2005) to see how Martial Arts can, and should be done.
Anyway… I’m gonna go play with nunchucks !
Much Love…
