Retro Thing

RoboCop Reboot - Can The Bubble Bath Be Far Behind?

I haven't been paying much attention to the many needless remakes of classic films over the last few years. I did give a couple reboots a chance (Star Trek 2009; fun. Star Trek 2013; out of ideas already?), but for the most part the originals are just that... original. You can make the argument that the reboots create a new audience for movies that could use more attention. Ehhhh, maybe. I don't think that film producers enter any of these projects with the desire to honor the past. They want to make a buck now, and it's way easier when you're trading on an idea that was already a proven success.

A movie who's central theme has stubbornly eluded the makers of sequels and upgrades is 1987's RoboCop. I love that movie, and I'm not alone. Fans recently raised over $60,000 on Kickstarter to erect a 10 foot statue of the cyborg in RoboCop's fictional home town of Detroit. I'm still proud of having sneaked myself and a date into the film when we weren't yet quite old enough to see it. The sequel from a few years later was okay, but by RoboCop 3 the concept had been watered down to what felt like Saturday kiddie matinee filler. Robo's third outing was saddled with a PG-13 rating, likely in deference to the youthful audience who had watched the RoboCop cartoons that had run on TV for a number of years. Yes, a cartoon based on an R rated film that no kid should have seen.

In 1994, a live action RoboCop hit first-run syndicated TV. The series actually did come close in later episodes to understanding what made the original film so great. When you strip away the violence and the tech, at its heart RoboCop is a black comedy, a satire on the excesses of the 80s, and a world where high-priced executives are no better than the street thugs they're determined to wipe out.

RoboCop3, the various cartoons, and the TV series meant more tie-in merch on shelves than ever. I can understand an action figure line, model kits, video games, comics. Those all make a kind of sense. But bubbles and bubble bath? An allegorical fantasy about the triumph of human spirit against encroaching technology in a world that had lost its soul... immortalized by bubbles.

The bubble bath is just that. Pry off Robo's head and wash behind your ears. "RoboCop The Series Bubble Buddies" includes scented bubbles (long since evaporated), a bubble wand built into the cap of the bottle, and a "removable pocket pal". That's right. You can pull Robo off (complete with his flamethrower arm) the top of the bottle and stuff it in your pocket. Fun. He's your pal.

There's certain to be another flurry of merchandise around the new RoboCop film set for release in 2014 (A February release too - never a good sign). The trailer doesn't exactly inspire confidence (several shots owe a great debt to Iron Man). I'm certain that we'll have a lot more to say as the release comes closer, and we'll see more and more crazy merchandise hit store shelves. Will the new film inspire gear as low as the original film's bubble bath? Bubble bath?!?!?!

Fifty Years of Cassette Tape & The Genius Of Ray Dolby

I don't like writing obituaries, simply because I see Retro Thing as a celebration of technology from decades past, not a stern-faced memorial chapel. So instead of mourning the death of Ray Dolby – the founder of Dolby Laboratories and inventory of Dolby noise reduction – let's mark the 50th anniversary of the compact cassette and thank Mr. Dolby for helping to make it a commercial hit.

Yes, it's been fifty years since the first portable cassette recorder hit the market. At the time, it was one of several competing cartridge-based formats designed to simplify tape recording. RCA had developed a magazine-style system in 1958, and several German companies began pushing to develop a standard.

Philips unveiled their compact cassette in 1963. They approached Sony after realizing that Japanese acceptance of the new format was essential. After some hardball negotiation, Philips agreed to license the system to Sony without royalties. In fact, by 1965 Philips had opened the format up to other manufacturers free of charge.

This is usually the part of the story where the knight rides off into the sunset after slaying the dragon and having his way with the princess. However, that almost didn't happen. 

It took electronic magic from Dolby Labs to make the cassette format a smash hit. 

Until the mid-1970s the compact cassette was bloody awful, with poor fidelity and lots of tape hiss. It was really only suitable for voice recording and dictation; golden eared hi-fi enthusiasts preferred proper reel-to-reel tape decks and carefully preserved vinyl.  

Things changed with the introduction of Dolby noise reduction, but it took almost a decade. The company's first tape noise reduction system – Dolby A – was introduced in 1966 and quickly became a standard in recording studios around the world. The quad-band system was too complex for consumer products, however.

Dolby B was the company's first system for the consumer market, developed in 1968. It offered only a single sliding band of noise reduction, but it was inexpensive and significantly improved the fidelity of cassette tapes. By the mid-1970s, Dolby B was used on nearly all pre-recorded tapes and the company's technology appeared in all but the cheapest playback decks. 

The exploding popularity of boomboxes in the late 1970s, followed shortly after by the runaway success of the Sony Walkman and car cassette decks made the cassette format incredibly popular throughout the 1980s. But let's not forget the role Ray Dolby played in shifting the compact cassette from a dictation format to something that was almost – but not quite – high fidelity. 

Ray Dolby passed away in San Fransisco, California on September 12, 2013, at the age of 80. He was the co-inventor of video tape recording while at Ampex and went on to found Dolby Laboratories, a company specializing in noise reduction and digital audio encoding. 

Cassette-Only Record Label From 1979

I hate to break it you bedroom record label impresario hipsters out there. You didn't invent releasing albums as cassette-only exclusives. Reach Out International Records was founded in 1979, the same year as the Sony Walkman. The New York centric label concentrated on local acts that have since become important milestones in hardcore punk, no wave, and ska.

I imagine that ROIR's choice to release on cassette (I love their broadsided attack on buying records in this ad) had to do more with supporting this new portable music platform and the DIY support (on a budget) of the bands that they loved, rather than some misguided statement on consumerist irony. Okay, okay... I'll lay off ranking the cassette-waving hipsters for a minute.

Astonishingly, the label still exists today. Many of the cassette-only releases like those listed in this 1982 ad have since been re-released on LP, CD & MP3. I'd love to hear their stories of late night dubbing sessions, ganging together multiple tape decks, but mostly I want to know who drew the gorgeous creature in the ad with the shoulder-slung Walkman, and a ciggy in a holder that fumes lightning bolts. I miss you, the 80s...

3D... No, Let's Be Honest... 2.5D Aquarium Backgrounds

When you add an aquarium to your space, you're creating a little world inside your own. I don't know what fish think about all day. I wonder what goes through their little waterlogged minds when The Great Flake Food God sprinkles dehydrated shrimp manna into the top of their universe. Such contemplations are why I always had an aquarium going through high school and college. Fish were very relaxing, but I was often concerned with how bored they might be.

Fortunately the aquarium shop had all manner of decor to spice up their world - or least placate the owner. I've often joked that having fish is like having moving wallpaper. Cluttering up their environment with plastic bubbling treasure chests (with permanently attached skin diver) and wrecked pirate ships seems like an unfair foisting of kitsch on expressionless creatures that really can't show their disdain.

Just like in a miniature movie, not only could you add kitschy props to your aquarium, but there were also many backgrounds to chose from to cover the back of the tank. Weird greenish-blue metallics, photos of sharks and other much more exotic fish than what's in your tank (make your own fish green around the gills with envy!), and my personal favorite - these quasi-3D dioramas.

Made of stiff plastic, there is some dimensionality molded into this aquarium backdrop. Vacuforming has never looked lovelier. The printed-on scene of an underwater Greek (Roman? Atlantean?) ruin is augmented by some details popping out of the 2D plane of the picture. On top of it all there are immobile fish hiding among the printed greenery. Makes you wonder why you should go through the trouble of putting together a whole aquarium, when the printed-on variety are nearly as relaxing as the real thing.

There's no brand name here, but my guess is Penn-Plax. I found reference to a remarkably similar backdrop, except this time with an Oriental theme. What were the instructions given to the artists who created these? "Imagine ancient conquering civilization, finally bested by the ancient and eternal oceans... oh yeah - and put some giant fish in there."

Penn Plax no longer has these pseudo 3D backdrops (I still use mine to cover up ugly-looking equipment in my office), though they do have a massive selection of in-tank plastic plants and sculptures. Before you ask - yes they still have the plastic treasure chest with bobbing diver. Sounds like I need to set up the tank again.

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Aquarium dealership that still sells these 3D backdrops

Pac-Man Headphones; Genuine Vintage, or Modern Retro Repro?

Given the 8-bit retro gaming vibe that is all around us, in can be a little embarrassing when you run across an object that you can't tell is actually a vintage gadget or a modern retro repro. I found these headphones at a thrift, the cord held together with ancient and sticky electrical tape. They are in the style of cheap 80s headphones, but you can still find this styled on discount shelves today.

These phones exhibit no appreciable wear to reveal age. They sound pretty crappy, but poor headphones are a curse of every portable music era. Oddly, the 1/8" plug is mono. The only other identifier is a sticker crediting Midway games for the image of Pac-Man.

For some reason, I feel like this sticker is the best evidence of the real age of these phones. I feel like today it would be more customary to print the credit permanently next to the character. Plus I think that on a modern branded novelty the copyright would be credited to Namco, not Midway.

What do you think of these retro Pac-Man headphones? Old or new?

The First Mobile Phone I Actually Liked

The news that Nokia's mobile device division is now part of Microsoft made me a tad sentimental this morning. Like hundreds of millions of others, my gateway into the futuristic world of mobile communication was a Nokia.

The Nokia 5110 embodied everything that my late 1990s self imagined a phone to be: sleek and compact, with solid call quality and great battery life. It was also one of the first phones to offer swappable faceplates (critically important when half of your friends owned identical handsets).

I'm embarrassed to admit that I splurged $40 or $50 on a leather phone cover with a belt clip and wore it around proudly, like a lost member of a Star Trek landing party. At least I had the good sense to change my ringtone from the ubiquitous default after only a handful of completely unnecessary calls while driving around town (yeah, I know; times have changed).

Even though it's been about a decade since a Nokia was my handset of choice, there are several basic Nokias lying around our house which we received as freebies for setting up prepaid accounts in recent years.

And therein lies the problem. I don't think of smartphones when someone mentions Nokia. Instead, I find myself amazed that the company has managed to produce hundreds of millions of impossibly cheap handsets for developing nations and cheapskates around the world; simple talk & text phones like the Nokia 100 can be purchased for a mere £9 at Tesco.I wonder if it comes preloaded with Snake?