Retro Thing

Classic Retro Thing: Vintage Pink

[ed. note: This post originally ran in June of 2010. I've enjoyed each and every one of these cartoons at least thrice since then.]

Newsflash to cartoon creators: Kids hate kids' cartoons.

I'm the father of a young child, which means I've suffered through dozens of episodes of Dora the Explorer, whose target demographic seems to be acid tripping bilingual preschoolers. I don't think children genuinely like this kind of show, they just accept it because they don't know any better and parents think it's safe.

The simple truth is that kids crave real cartoons. Grownup cartoons. Wickedly funny and sometimes horrifically violent cartoons. It's one reason that Disney Pixar movies have been such smash hits; kids realize that there's something supremely adult in some of the humor. They may not understand the subtext, but they understand it's cool. Grownup cool.

Learn Your Casio The VHS Way + Bonus Rap!

I have a strange love for Casio keyboards... the more pathetic sounding, the better. Years ago I found a VHS tutorial video put out by Casio in 1989. Since I make tutorial videos for a living, and am a bit of a sadist, I've watched this thing through several times. Since I took piano lessons from an ancient wispy grandma years ago, I can't really tell if a noob could really pick up how to play the instrument from this tape, but that's not going to stop Jay Levy from trying.

The tape opens up with Jay in a studio complementing the band, until - surprise! - the "band" turns out to be a single Casio keyboard. On screen graphics help first timers identify keys, and I imagine they could stab out a simple melody by following along the video. However the tape is much more entertaining that that - things I still quote to this day. There's Jay speaking directly to the urban youth with his take on rap [1:16], his unique pronunciation of "finger", and coining the phrase "don't touch your dial" [1:01]. Oh, and I guess everyone has loosely gripped an ostrich egg [0:51]

I've always wanted to edit together the best bits, but fortunately someone on YouTube has done it for me. In 2 minutes and 19 seconds, you get everything you need to know about what happens when you let Jay into your VCR and your heart. If you feel like busting our your Casio and learning a few of these hot hits, the full video is down below. We'll even send a free Invader T-shirt (I found just a few more) to the first person to do a cover of Jay's rap and put it up on YouTube (with shout outs to all your friends at Retro Thing, I would hope).

One additional revelation I'll share on how annoying an individual I really am. All that stuff Jay says at the top of the tape? I still say all of that stuff whenever I'm in a recording studio. "That's really a big hot smokin' band we're listening to..."

Science Fiction Thimbles - From The Future!

Even around this house, these things are weird.

Like every kind of object in the world, there are collectors for thimbles. Of course, that crowd is going to create new collectibles for their own delight. If you asked me, I would have denied it, but I guess it makes a kind of sense that someone would create sci fi thimbles.

There's no year on the Dalek thimble. My guess would be the late 70s when the show was seeing a tremendous surge of interest thanks to Tom Baker's portrayal. The thimble is genuine ceramic, with a little gold trim on it. I could see it being a cherished little thing for someone's collection back then. The Dalek is slightly misshapen, as they often were in merchandise. They're such a weird shape, especially if you're barely attention.

The other thimble is even odder. It's just cheap cream-colored plastic. There's a very cheap-looking stamp of Max on the front, with "COKE" listed four times on the obverse. In red. In an unimaginative typewriter font. Clearly not an official product, instead clearly a cheap and odd cashing in on the late 80s fad. Which makes it all the more lovable.

I do love these two thimbles at the front of a shelf in my office. To me, they represent the breadth of sci-fi thimble making technology (as far as I know - I've got a lot more research to do). Not only can you show off your science fiction allegiances in your sewing basket, but you can tell everyone that you have your very own Dalek that helps keep all the little pricks away.

"Monkey Grip Glue" 16mm Color Kinescope

Bill Wyman was the bassist for the Rolling Stones, but found time for a solo effort. Here's a rare 16mm kinescope that a friend of mine just transferred ro video. It's a "Live" (lip-synched) performance of his song "Monkey Grip Glue". I don't know anything more about the clips, except that it looks like it's from a "Top Of The Pops" style show. Not only is this a different version of the clip that has been around on YouTube, but the color is unusually good considering the age of the film, and that color kinescoping didn't usually work all that well.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour - Old Time Radio Lives On!

photos: Ladykiller: Elizabeth Sisson

I've been listening to "old time radio" since I was in the 5th grade. it may seem like a strange thing to have discovered as a youth in the 80s, but those old shows are just perfect for anyone who likes stories, or who likes a good laugh. I feel very fortunate to have discovered Jack Benny and Stan Freberg and Space Patrol in my formative years. If you can slow down your internal clock a little, those stories still hold up decades later.

Here at Retro Thing some of our favorite discoveries are when someone finds a new take on some cherished vintage thing that not only breathes new life into the old, but takes those old ideas in entirely new directions. The Thrilling Adventure Hour is such a discovery. TAH is a monthly live show where actors stand up on stage and perform new stories in the style of old time radio. I comment on this in the interview, but I'll say it again... the writing is so superlative, that I find it hard to believe that the two authors are able to create a fresh hour of brilliance every single month.

I had the chance to spend some time with co-writer/co-creator Ben Blacker (his is the first voice you'll hear in the podcast), and the voice of Croach the Tracker; Mark Gagliardi. We chatted about Old Time Radio and the excitement of bringing back those thrilling days of performing imaginative stories before a live audience. You can stream the interview below, or download the MP3 and take our interview with you.

Make sure to visit ThrillingAdventureHour.com to download free podcasts of their many different "shows" every week. Many of the programs carry an absurd nigh soap-opera level of continuity, but don't let that scare you. You can drop in pretty much anywhere and be as amazed as I am with every episode.

Thanks to Ben and Mark for taking the time to speak with us, and we hope to bring you more podcast fun like this in the future.

links:

Visit The Thrilling Adventure Hour to download free episodes
Shows are also hosted on Nerdist
All Things Considered interview

Help Finish Lost Ark Tribute 30 Years In The Making

A few years ago, we introduced you to an amazing fan-made film; a shot-by-shot recreation of Raiders of the Lost Ark. These boys spent every summer from '82-'88 slavishly recreating Raiders on their VHS camcorder. This is one of the most notorious and beloved fan films of all time. What they were able to pull off in their parent's basement with no budget is amazing enough to forget that our protagonists sure seem to bounce around in age as the film progresses.

They've even been fortunate enough to screen the film for Lucas & Speilberg, have a book written about them, and are even seeing themselves as the subjects of a documentary. Yet one thing still bothers our adventurers. There's still one scene they've never finished. The amazing fight sequence against the backdrop of the Flying Wing.

The boys (okay, to be fair... grown men) have turned to Kickstarter to raise the funds to shoot this final scene, and complete the adventure. They're close to their goal with only three days to go. I hate an unfinished project as much as the next guy, so maybe we can think about throwing them a few bones and finally calling "it's a wrap" on a project that was started back when we all had more hair.

Please tell me that they're not planning on recreating the sequels...

 

 

Retro Shanghai: Pac-Man With Freakishly Long Tongue

As I walked the streets of Shanghai, I didn't run into any crazy electronic delights. Unfortunate, but I did find the next best thing. A reminder of my 8 bit gaming heritage - a Pac-Man figure! Back in the 80s, I fell in love with the game. I wasn't any good at it (and I'm still not, despite having the full-size cabinet of Pac-man Plus), but I fell in love with the single-minded design of the game. A simple mouth in the pursuit of eating, and the bad guys are the same as have haunted stories for all time - ghosts! Back then, I remember buying some Pac-Man socks, Pac-Man silly putty, even Pac-Man scratcher games... but never a figure.
I was bemused and thrilled at the very existence of a Pac-Man figure I could put on my shelf. I assumed that like some of the other treasures I found in Shanghai, this was simply another attempt to shanghai (ha!) someone else's intellectual property to create another incomprehensible toy. Especially when I saw Pac's massive mechanical tongue.

I've forgotten a lot of things from the 80s, but I'd remember an aardvark berserker mode in Pac-Man that let you lick up all the ghost monsters. I assumed that this was one of the weird additions you find in bootleg toys, but as it turns out there's a new cartoon on TV that features some member of the proud Pac-Man lineage (Pac-Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed) with a superextended stamplicker. Though my toy doesn't exactly match the one on the box, so it still may be some weird bootleg.

I can't figure out the cartoon's storyline from the Wikipedia entry - possibly due to my advancing decrepitude. There's some basic thread of the yellow guy eating the ghost guys, but after that I'm lost. There are more Pac-Men; a bluish ice-spitting one, even a chrome Pac-Man who upchucks a magnet. You can get these figures in the US, as well as a special edition golden Pac-Man who's tongue has the original game's graphics tattooed (I assume) right on.

Guess what? Since the cartoon has been successful, they've already converted it into a video game. Hey, wait a minute...

Help out Retro Thing when you add a pink-tongued Pac-Man to your collection.

Special limited edition commemorative gold edition

Retro Shanghai: Two Feet Of Cheap Ultraman Figures

Even the Shanghai shopkeepers who didn't specialize in toys seemed to have a few of these on their walls. These carded instant toy collections are truly massive. This Ultraman themed set measures a massive 2 feet long!

We've written about Ultraman before. It's one of japan's earliest entries into the guy-turns-into-a-giant-robot-to-fight-monsters-while-Tokyo-crumbles genre. it was one of my favorites when I was a kid, so much so that I turned into a pile of kiddish thrills when the series came out on DVD just a few years ago.

The series was so successful that it spawned literally decades of sequels, all featuring members of the growing UltraFamily. This toy set is a loose collection of UltraSiblings of some sort, designed mostly for economy. The figures are of the cheap blow-molded variety, with just a spritz of paint and movement limited to some very stiff shoulders.

The proportions are more cutesy than lean and mean. This caricatured look is common in even the most serious Japanese manga and anime, referred to as "super deformed" or "chibi". You'll also notice that this is not a set of six unique Ultras - it's a set of three repeated figures. Cheap move, but at least you won't mind sharing your dupes with your stupid little brother.
The set includes a pair of monsters, five vehicles that may or may not be from the series, and a kid-sized gun (reminds me of a similar kiddie pistol with a rude name) for helping old UncleUltra dispense with the baddies. So cheap is the gun that the stickers are only applied on the side of the gun you can see through the packaging! There's a sheet of stickers you apply yourself. I suppose it's a labor-saving move. Kids like stickers, right? I'm sure in the time it take to put stickers on, they could make another dozen guns...

Clearly the gun is meant to be a battery powered noisy/flashy sidearm (the grip's sticker says "electro indicater (sic) system" which sounds deadly enough...), but from the looks of it, they forgot the electronic guts. The design ethos of these sets is bold packaging, a bewildering number of parts, all at a bargain price. Plus you can hang this attention-getter on the wall of any store, even one without a dedicated toy section.

The economy of this toy reminds me a lot of green army men, who's main attraction was their cheapness. This whole UltraArmada set me back some five bucks, and I must admit to being drawn to how low end the toy is. It'll likely stay in its package, not out of a misplaced sense of preserving its "collectibility", but because the art of it is in the whole package... the whole cheap package.

Buy the entire 60s series on DVD for under $10, and help Retro Thing

'66 Batman Finally Released To Our Home Bat-Screens?

We've written about our intense desire to see the amazing 1966 Batman TV series enjoy a home release. It's hard to believe that the landmark series, which has been in constant syndication for nearly 50 years (currently airing in the US on MeTV on Saturdays), has never been released on home video (except the uneven feature film). Somehow the copyright being split between DC Comics, Warner Brothers, and 20th Century Fox botched any attempt to do anything besides keep the show locked in reruns on TV forever.

This week there was a hint at a breakthrough. Warner Brothers tweeted out via @WBHomeEnt saying that the series will see a "home entertainment release" sometime in 2014. Good timing since Batman is celebrating 75 years as a pop icon, and there is currently a comic book series based on the campy approach of the 60s series.

I'll go further and hope that the series gets the deluxe restoration and scrubbing up that the original Star Trek did a few years ago. I've said it before... I really want to see the colors and pop art touches exploding off the screen in HD.

Need more reminders of why the series was cool?

• As obsessed as I am with the sleek & speedy Batmobile, in reality it couldn't go over 45 mph.

• That strident narrator you hear in every episode? That's William Dozier the executive producer.

• Latin love idol Cesar Romero played The Joker. Refusing to shave off his signature moustache, they simply painted his garish makeup over it.

• Her 1968 episode was Tallulah Bankhead's final performance. She died shortly after her on-screen performance as The Black Widow.

• Robin sputtered out "holy..." 357 times over the course of the series.

• The Bat Cave is littered with lots of tongue-in-cheek signs enumerating the technological wonders therein - 47 of them!

• Liberace played a dual role (and rather well, too!) in "The Devil's FIngers" and "The Dead Ringers", netting the show the highest ratings of its original run.

• After ABC cancelled the show, NBC was interseted in continuing the adventure. The deal never happened because the $800,000 Batcave set had already been destroyed. Good thing in a way, the show had really begun to run out of steam in its last year.

1986 - Computer Pioneer Grace Hopper On David Letterman

David Letterman:   "How did you know so much about computers then?"
"Amazing Grace" Hopper:  "I didn't. It was the first one."

Today is Rear Admiral Grace Hopper's 107th birthday, and I couldn't be more pleased to see her honored with a Google Doodle. You probably don't know the name, but without her the world would be a very different place. The fact that you're reading these words is thanks to the creativity and talent of this amazing individual way back in the 1950s.

I first learned of Grace Hopper through a guest appearance on the NBC iteration of the Dave Letterman show. Back then I was obsessively video recording Letterman, and then dubbing over choice bits to a compilation tape. Her interview was one of the few non-comedy pieces to make it to my poor battered VHS tape (recorded at the nasty looking 6 hour speed, no less...).

Fortunately I was able to find the same clip on YouTube and share it with you here. She does a much better job telling her own story than I would, so I'll let the clip speak for itself. I'll just say that anyone who uses a computer (i.e. everybody) should really spend 10 minutes watching this clip, and reflect on just how significant Hopper's contributions are to our modern world. Imagine conjuring up those first few words of computer langauge out of the ether (language that was later namechecked by The Firesign Theater in "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus"). She heled to popularize the term "debugging" after a dead moth gummed up the works of the Mark II computer at Harvard. So humble, so clever, and more than a match for Dave.

I'll close by adding that since seeing this clip 25 years ago, I still refer to packets of pepper as "picoseconds", and when something is delayed I use her "great number of nanoseconds" explanation all. the. time. Please watch this video - you'll be as astonished as I still am of the incredible accomplishments of this incredible person.

link:

Grace Hopper on David Leterman in 1986

The Floppy Disks Preferred By Cookie Elves Who Use PCs

Occasionally a TV ad will update the image of Santa's workshop. Santa pushes aside his inkwell and quill pen to make way for a snazzy new computer - but that's just to help him put together his big trip once a year. What about the other elves in this world faced with logistical challenges all year round?

Keebler has been baking for more than a century, and today is the largest manufacturer of cookies and crackers. In addition to their own signature snacks, back in the 30s they were the first official baker of Girl Scout Cookies (they continue to bake the much coveted cookies today). Before that, the scouts' moms handled it all. Moms really are amazing, aren't they?

The Keebler elves first appeared in 1968 in animated commercials, and went on to be one of the most recognized advertising mascots in the world. We see the elves in the commercials craft each snack by hand, but we never saw any computers or automation. So my question is, how do they explain these floppy disks?

These green (not in the current ecological sense of the word) floppies are double-sided double-density 3.5" disks. The more common 1.44 megabyte HD format of "microfloppy" would come later. These hold a mere 720k. I'm tempted to look at what's on these discs, but I'm certain that the files have elaborate passwords like "ch33z-its" or "elfudge123".

Here's a typical Keebler commercial from the 80s.For voiceover nerds like myself, that's Peter Leeds as the coach elf, Paul Winchell (voice of Tigger & Gargamel) as "Buckets" the rookie, and Walker Edmiston as Ernie the Elf.

Even without looking at the contents of these discs, we can learn one important thing. These floppies come pre-formatted for DOS, which means that those frisky elves resolved the whole PC vs. Mac issue. These days they may have moved on to using tablet computers - tablets whose screens I imagine are constantly covered with tiny fudgy fingerprints - but at least at one point in the 80s we had DOS to thank for our Chips Deluxe and Van'chos.

"The Blues Brothers" Done Proud - Lego Style

The team at Bricktease.com have just posted a painstaking all-Lego recreation of one of the most infamous scenes from 1980's "The Blues Brothers". As both a Chicagoan and a Lego fan, this story is a joyous collision of so many things I still cherish.

As a love letter to Chicago, The Blues Brothers has it all. James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and John Lee Hooker all in the same movie? At the time the film was one of the most expensive comedies ever made. Not coincidentally. the project held the record for the most cars wrecked during filming; 103. I like to think of it as almost a musical since the screen erupts with fantastic performances every few minutes (though there's no sign of typical movie-music saccharine). Seeing Cab Calloway's performance of Minnie the Moocher makes me want to leap out of my chair every single time.

There's an amazing car chase scene though a shopping mall where the boys wreak havoc on stores and shoppers while the cops are in pursuit. It's a great dynamic scene that's shot remarkably well. A Lego movie making group called Bricktease was clearly just as taken by this iconic scene as I was, and they set out to recreate it shot by shot with stop-motion animated Lego.

This is a painstaking task. When you've watched the all-Lego clip, check out this side-by-side comparison, and you'll see just how amazingly close the Lego version is to the original film. There's even a behind-the-scenes video so you can check out just how time intensive this project was. Congratulations to Duncan and the rest of the team! Did ya get mah Cheez Whiz, boy?

link:

Watch this video to see how Bricktease created this amazing project

This "Black Friday" Madness Is Not A New Thing...

Here in the US (and increasingly [and disturbingly] in other parts of the world), the last few years have given rise to this concept that the Friday after Thanksgiving is a feeding frenzy for Christmas deals. Stores opened earlier and earlier on Friday, offering more and more doorbuster deals. This year I daresay is the craziest yet with some stores opening up on Thursday evening, and a few of the more soulless outfits even posted hours  on Thanksgiving day.

I'm far from the first to observe that Thanksgiving is supposed to be a national holiday, a time to be with the family, and to give a thought to the good things around us. It's not supposed to be about getting into fistfights over a $99 flat screen (another thing I wish I were making up).

For a lot of us, this time on the calendar was when we did our wishing for all the cool stuff we hoped would appear under the tree - and for a lot of us that hasn't changed. Shopping for those toys and gadgets is part of the fun, and I guess for some people so is the round the clock shopping madness. Just to prove that this isn't a recent phenomenon, here is a commercial for Zayre (a chain of big box stores... sort of like a Kmart, but with no scruples) from November 25th 1982. The vaguely David Copperfield looking guy promises that Zayre will stay open for 60 hours straight to make your holiday easier (and to visit hell-on-earth on their employees - just like this year!).

Edie Adams Variety TV Series First Time On DVD

Ernie Kovacs was a comedy pioneer in the earliest days of TV. His singular humor, his experimentation with the TV medium, and his huge personality all came together into a figure larger than life. It's no wonder that until the time of his death, some might have said that his wife Edie Adams (a star in her own rite) was more-or-less "Mrs. Ernie Kovacs".

After Ernie's untimely death, Edie was faced with massive financial obligations. She put all of her entertainment and business acumen to the test with a return to the stage, the radio, and her own TV variety show (as both lead talent AND producer) that lasted from 1962-1964. Variety shows were hardly rare on the tube in those days, but Edie brought some of that Kovacs innovation to the airwaves.

You never know what to expect from these 21 black and white episodes. Lots of music and guest stars, of course, but you might also see some dramatic acting, comedy sketches, even some visual experimentation. Among my favorites are a monlogue given by Peter Falk as a New York cabbie. Amazingly, the segment is actually shot on a busy NY city street. Few TV producers of the era were ambitious enough to roll those refrigerator-sized cameras outside the studio. Another stunning segment is Edie in London walking among destroyed buildings, still ruined from WWII.

Behind the scenes, the show had staff from Kovacs' earlier shows as well as talent that would go on to create Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. No wonder that the show manages so much eclectic energy for most of its run. The reason you haven't heard of the show is that after those early broadcasts, the master tapes were stored away. In the early 70s Edie heard of these tapes being junked, along with her hushand's other work. She went to great trouble and financial strain to rescue the remaining material, and then she sealed it all away in her vault for decades.While Kovacs' comedy work has enjoyed a certain notoriety and been rebroadcast over the years, "Here's Edie" remained sealed away. No bootleg copies ever existed, no clips on YouTube. So here's your chance to enjoy all of the episodes (including Edie's famous commercials for Murial Cigars) of this hidden gem of a show, just released on DVD. All four discs come to you in a compact package, with a terrific booklet inside authored by her son. Now we can all see that the wife of one of TV's all-time geniuses, was a genius herself too.

link:

Help out Retro Thing when you pick up a copy of "Here's Edie" on Amazon

"Lost" 1970s Alien Action Figures - Now You Can Horrify Your Holidays

This holiday you can fulfill a nightmare that started way back in the late 70s, but never saw the light of day. Which is both fortunate and apropos. The late 70s proved that movie sci-fi was very much alive, tie-in merchandising even moreso. Star Wars was no fluke - "serious" science fiction films were on their way, and there was great potential to make serious buck at the box office, as well as at the toy counter.

The brooding (and breeding) horror of Ridley Scott's 1979 horror masterpiece "Alien" was as dramatic a move forward in cinema science fiction as Star Wars was two years before. Whereas Lucas' opus captured the spirit of family friendly swashbucklers of years past, Alien had far more in common with gory b movie fare and the stylish gothic Hammer horrors.

Despite the well-deserved R rating, toy maker Kenner had plans to put the brutal xenomorph Alien into the hands of children. Fun! Ignoring the fact that the toy buying populace had no business seeing this R rated movie (Robocop toys fall into the same weird category), Kenner reckoned that H.R. Giger's erotically charged monster designs were perfect for a new line of toys.

Some of the toys were ordinary enough - a board game, jigsaw puzzles, and the like. Kenner created a cartridge movie viewer (like the Star Wars one we've shared before) that condensed the terror of the entire feature into a 3 minute silent loop of film. I haven't seen it, but what kid-safe scenes might they have included? Ripley walking down a corridor?

To really banish sleep from your kids' lives forever, you could have tucked an 18" reproduction of the "Big Chap" alien under the tree. Imagine the marketing that could go into the packaging of just such a blood-curdling toy. How about some bright yellow labels on the packaging declaring "Exciting!" "Horrific!"  "Phallic!"

Not too many of these toys actually made it to market. To be fair, these products were in development before the film earned its R rating - but had anyone on the creative team even seen the movie? One of the casualties was a set of action figures. Inspired by their own smash hit Star Wars figures, Alien was a natural follow up. Kenner got them to the prototype stage before pulling the toy line. 

Until now. The geniuses at Super 7 - the same crew that produced the amazing Shogun Warrior inspired Stormtrooper - are introducing this long lost toy line to collectors for the first time. Using the original prototypes, the Alien figures are a real look at how these toys would have appeared had they made it to store shelves. Super 7 has created full packaging too, an astonishingly accurate picture of a 70s nostalgia that never was. Pre-orders for the set are long gone, but Super 7 has teamed up with Funko to produce another run of the figures. They've even created a set of drinking glasses for Alien like those that might have been given out at a fast food restaurant back in the 70s. These Super 7 folks really know what they're doing. When the second run of figures comes out, I may just have to take the plunge. Then the race is on to see who's the first to recreate scenes from Alien on YouTube.

link:

Super7 online store