The Visitors first arrived in 1983 in “V,” a two-part mini-series that spawned a second mini-series and then one season of a regular series. Initially, these alien travelers seemed surprisingly like us, and we welcomed their overtures of peace and their gifts of technological advancement.
As it turned out, of course, their true intentions were far from peaceful. In fact, they were here for our water… and… for us! (Yes, Virginia, “To Serve Man” is a cookbook!)
Wait, hold on… we can suspend our disbelief long enough to accept that they want to eat us… but our water? Did they not pass three different gas giant planets on the way to Earth, each with enough water for three or four visiting alien races? What’s up with that?
Well, heck, if writer Kenneth Johnson had studied his planets too closely, we might not have had two mini-series and nineteen episodes of “V” to entertain us with its themes of fascism, identity and freedom, all dressed up with eighties big hair and Halloween lizard masks. For that, we’re willing to believe whatever you want. The Visitors are our friends!
Here’s a taste of the original series:
On November 3rd, 2009, the Visitors return for another shot at, well, taking a shot at us, we imagine. We’re setting our DVRs here in Retroland Central, for sure — preliminary reviews are very good! Here’s the first eight minutes of the pilot episode:
We just hope they’re not here for our water. Seriously.
Soupy Sales (born Milton Supman), the children’s television host, game show panelist and comedian, died Thursday at the age of 83. From 1953 to 1966 and then again in the late seventies, Sales presented a children’s show like no other. Full of slapstick, ad-libbed comedy often involving puppets and off-camera interaction but now and then attracting luminaries like Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Alice Cooper and Sammy Davis Junior, nearly every episode included someone — usually Soupy — getting a pie in the face.
Apart from a remarkable 25,000 pies in the face and establishing the (at the time) unheard-of practice of breaking the fourth wall and interacting with cameramen and crew on his show, Soupy Sales established a place in television history on New Year’s Day, 1965, when he jokingly suggested that the kids watching go into their sleeping parents’ bedroom, open their wallets and purses, find the green pieces of paper with the faces on them… and mail them to Soupy. Sales was suspended from broadcast for a week — let’s let Soupy tell you all about it:
In addition to his legendary career as a comedian and children’s television host, Sales appeared frequently on game shows like the the “$10,000 Pyramid” and “What’s My Line.” Folks too young to remember “The Soupy Sales Show” might remember the early eighties Saturday morning cartoon show “Saturday Supercade” — that was Soupy Sales as the voice of Donkey Kong!
Comedians from Andy Kaufman to Paul Reubens owe Soupy Sales a debit of gratitude for his free-wheeling, experimental and (for the time) daring but always human comedy. Rest easy, Soupy!
Today’s video games are marvels. Many of them are nearly cinematic in their appearance and gameplay, masterworks of technology and atmosphere.
There was a time, however, when you didn’t need ultra-realistic graphics or surround sound. Once upon a time, your imagination was more than enough to smooth out the blocky pixels so that yellow duck-seahorse-thing really was a dragon (for example.)
For those of us not lucky enough to still have our Atari 2600 or Intellivision consoles or an antique Pac-Man in their basement, the Internet provides. Satisfy your need for a pixelated, 8-bit challenge:
Arguably, Space Invaders and Pac-Man were the first video games to reach the status of cultural sensations. Who among us, gentle Retrolanders, didn’t lose hours of sleep to these simple and addictive gems… only to dream of the game music when we finally surrendered to exhaustion? It was a lot more fun than it sounds… refresh your memory, courtesy of Neave Games.
Space Invaders
Pac-Man
Street Fighter II
Playing at home was all well and good, but hanging out with your friends mastering combo moves at the local video arcade was a great way to spend an hour or twelve. If you were in the arcade in the early nineties, you played Street Fighter II. And now you can again, courtesy of Owen’s World.
If you were a child during the Cold War, you may remember the conflicting messages teachers and other authorities had about living in the Atomic Age.
A Is For Atom
On the one hand, despite the fact that “good sense demands that we prepare for any eventuality,” atomic power also brought mankind “a giant of limitless power” (one that looks a lot like Dr. Manhattan from “Watchmen”) ready to be harnessed.
In this video chock full of cutting edge 1953 science, we learn all about the structure of the atom, atom-smashing transmutation and the world-changing discovery of nuclear fission. Despite the dramatic music and cheerful cartoon style, we can hear the snoring students even now, down through the decades…
One has to wonder if that was the intent — make the specter of the atom so dull it’s just not scary any more!
Duck and Cover
On the other hand, “Duck and Cover” makes no bones about the danger of the atom — specifically, the atomic bomb. Fortunately, “there was a turtle by the name of Bert” who knew just what to do when danger threatened.
We remember following Bert’s example in elementary school: when the emergency drill sounded, all we had to do to protect ourselves from an atomic bomb was get under our desk, stick our butts in the air and wrap our hands across the back of our heads!
Unlike the boring science lessons of “A Is For Atom,” “Duck and Cover” had it all – buildings falling down, burns “worse than a terrible sunburn,” and the midnight-movie scare that “the flash of an atomic bomb can come at any time!”
Wow! It’s like living in a comic book! Danger is around every corner… threats could come from the sky at any moment… but all we have to do is duck and cover and we’ll be fine.
The dramatizations of kids ducking and covering are, in retrospect, pretty chilling because everyone — including the makers of the film and the teachers who had to show it to us — knew it was an incredibly hypocritical exercise. Watching now, we know the only thing ducking and covering will do for Paul, Patty, Tony and the rest of these kids is make them each into a neat shadow on the wall.
Your Atom Age Experience
We remember ducking and covering as very young children in elementary school, the near-meltdown of Three Mile Island, the “doomsday clock” and other yardsticks of the Cold War. Were you a kid in the in the last half of the twentieth century, and did you have to duck and cover or do other emergency drills? Tell us your memories of the Atom Age in the comments!
Continuing our little spontaneous vintage art trend this week, we’re musing on all the different ways school kids doodled on their Pee-Chee folders over the years. Probably that makes this more about vintage folk art. Sure!
Originally created by the Western Tablet and Stationery Company and produced by school supplies monster company Mead through the present day, these simple two-pocket folders have featured a consistent cast of characters since at least the mid-seventies:
We think it would be fascinating to compare and contrast how we, the bored students of the United States, defaced them with our trusty #2 pencils. We have a feeling that cartoon flatulence was a common theme. It’s just too easy to draw a nice puffy cloud under the flaring skirt of the Tennis Lady and the extended posterior of Football Player Number Four. Is that too scatological for you? Remember… fart jokes were the apex of grade school humor!
“Give her an afro, polka dots on her shorts, make her legs into fishnet stockings, tattoos on her arm, stripes on her dress, put a ball coming off the racket, and make her shoes into boots.”
“Put spiky red ink over the tennis player’s hair and a caption reading, ‘Help! My hair’s on fire!’”
The Football Players
“Start by putting team emblems on the helmets as well as facemasks, then make it look like the bottom guy is impaling himself on a spear, blood gushing out, the whole nine yards.”
The Relay Racers
“Draw fuses coming out of the batons and you have sticks of dynamite. This was considered sophisticated humor.”
“Make the runners legs real hairy, add tattoos to the bare arms, and then put DEVO hats on them all. Add captions like ‘We are DEVO,’ or ‘Beat it, the cops are coming!’”
The Ski Lady
“Go with either a DEVO hat or a crazy hair. Draw a cigarette in her mouth. Accentuate the sunglasses. Draw either a car around her as if she was sitting in it hanging out the window, or put a parachute on her like she was gliding down.”
“The ski lady looks like her legs were severed at the knee and are about to go down the hill without the rest of her.”
The Basketball Players
“Draw a knife handle in the hand of the guy on the right and it looks just like he’s stabbing the other player in the chest. The knife guy is also in the perfect position for a fart cloud – his butt is sticking out and he’s in the air.”
“Make a stake going into one guy’s chest, with the other guy holding a hammer so he can drive it in. You need blood spurting from his chest, of course. Put springs on the bottom of their feet and maybe a pair of Herman Munster-type shoes. The fart thing had to be there, with a caption for the ski lady complaining about how smelly it was since her face was so close.”
The Baseball Players
“The obvious thing is to add a baseball sailing in over home plate. Once you draw the baseball, you might as well draw a fuse coming out of it like one of those cartoon Boris and Natasha bombs.”
“Make the bat into a hatchet, then draw a screaming head coming at him. Put one of those Red Baron spikes on top of his helmet. Draw a mouse under the batter’s foot, and you can add a toilet for the catcher to sit on.”
The Whole Experience
“Defacing Pee-Chees went in three phases. First phase, I simply colored them in. Next, I gave each character elaborate ball gowns and such (even the boys). Finally, I colored in the entire folder, trying to get as much ink or pencil lead on it as was humanly possible. Inevitably, I would forget what side was facing in and carry it out of class with all of that fresh lead rubbing against my clothes.”
I would just add little immature thought bubbles!” (A must, we think.)
Now it’s your turn! Tell us how you used to defaceimprove your Pee-Chee folders in the comments… even better, if you still have your lovingly decorated Pee-Chees, take pictures and send ‘em to suggestions@retroland.com — we’ll add them to this post!
Today’s video games are marvels. Many of them are nearly cinematic in their appearance and gameplay, masterworks of technology and atmosphere.
