Memory Bank: The Hindenburg (1975) "Hindelry Keepsake Medallions"

Now here is a weird film collectible from the disco decade.  In 1975, Universal Studios -- at the height of the disaster film craze that gave rise to The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and others -- released The Hindenburg. The film was directed by Robert Wise and starred George C. Scott.

The movie recreated the time-period leading up to the 1937 disaster, and, at first blush, wouldn't seem the ideal movie candidate for merchandising efforts.

Yet, the ironically named "Good Time Jewelry, Ltd.," out of Rochelle Park was licensed by Universal to create a series of "Hindelry keepsake medallions" based on the film and the tragic historical events it depicted.  

On the card for the Hindenburg medallion, it was written: "the sensation of a lifetime that turned into one of the century's most remembered incidents." Weirder yet is the transposition of the art with the company's name. There are images of people running in terror from the exploding dirigible, while underneath them is the name "Good Time."

Apparently -- and I would love to see this -- there was also "Jawelry" released by the same company, based on Universal's Jaws, from the same year.

Memory Bank: Caverns of Mars (1981; Atari)

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Near the top of the list of my most fondly remembered early-1980s games (right beside Realm of Impossibility, perhaps), would be Caverns of Mars (1981).

I had never heard of the game before my father -- the vice-principal of Mountain Lakes High School in N.J. -- brought it home one day on a floppy disk.  At the time, I believe the school was going whole hog into computers and Atari in particular, and he had a friend, Frank Pazel, who was constantly shipping us home new games in either cartridge, cassette, or floppy format.  

We had an Atari 800 as I’ve written about before, and many of these games were amazing.  I remember enjoying a lot of them, including Murder on the Zinderneuf, and Temple of Aphsai.

But Caverns of Mars was designed by a high school senior named Greg Christensen in 1981, and it quickly became a smash-hit for Atari. An 8-bit game, it positions the player aboard a small spaceship that travels down a vertical shaft, into the red planet’s rocky interior. 

Along the way, the ship must destroy other ships, fuel depots and the like. The longer you play, if memory serves, the faster your rate of descent, so that soon it becomes insanely difficult preventing your ship from getting pulped on the rock face.

It’s a basic game by today’s standards, I suppose, but as an eleven and twelve year old, I found it highly addictive. I would play the game for hours, and it really got the adrenaline going. 

I showed some images of the game to Joel at one point and he told me, with apologies, that it looks “derpy” by modern standards. 

In this case, I think he may be wrong. Some of the games with basic graphics today, like Undertale thrive on elements not directly related to visual definition, it seems to me.  

Caverns of Mars may not be in the same league, but it was a great game for its time, and a key memory from my first days with the Atari 800. 

Hard to believe it was more than thirty years ago that I first encountered it…

Memory Bank: The Atari 800

I was a lucky kid growing up in the 1970's. I was the first one in my neighborhood to own an Atari 2600.  But also, so far as I know, I was the first one to possess an Atari Computer.

I remembering seeing the Atari 400 in stores, the one with the “flat” or membrane keyboard, and wishing we could get it. The console was released in November of 1979, and was produced until the mid-1980s.

But instead of the 400, my parents sprung for the Atari 800 – which was marketed more as a home computer and less as a game system -- and over the years we had numerous accessories for it, including a light pen, joysticks, a cartridge drive (yes, that was a thing) and then later, a floppy disc drive. 

But the Atari 800 had games too, and we got upgraded versions (with better graphics) of Pac-Man, Missile Command, and -- my favorite -- Attank.  I would arrive home from school in the afternoons and wait for my Dad to pull up on his motorcycle after a hard day’s work.  He was vice-principal at a high school nearby, in Mountain Lakes.  Once he was home, it was on, and we’d go up against each other for three or four games of Attank on the Atari 800. It was awesome, and a good memory.

I also remember playing Star Raiders on the Atari 800 for hours.

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The Atari 800 was also the first word processing device I owned. And in high school, I wrote my papers on it, and also my short stories and movie scripts (The Intergalactic Police!).  I got to know that system, and that keyboard, really well.  I may owe my writing career to the fact that my parents purchased that machine for the family.

When I went away to college in 1988, my parents gave me the next generation of Atari computer: the much-more sleek Atari 1200XL.  That was a good machine too, but I missed the big-boxy, typewriter-like Atari 800.

Memory Bank: Star Fire (1979)

One of my earliest (and fondest) arcade memories involves a space-based combat game from the late seventies called Star Fire. 

As a youngster, I lived in New Jersey with my family, and in the summertime, we would often visit the Jersey Shore.. Because of this, there were many opportunities to visit a nearby boardwalk, and more importantly...an arcade.

And the game I wanted to play at that arcade was, simply, Star Fire.  

Today, the game is remembered and beloved by Generation X'ers because Star Fire is the first "cockpit"-style arcade game in history, and apparently, it was also the first game in which one could enter initials in a high-score table.  

But I loved sitting down in the fully-enclosed cockpit -- as though I was in my own fighter craft -- and getting ready for space combat.

The game play was awesome as I remember it...though it's been more than thirty years now.  

The enemy ships in Star Fire very closely resembled the TIE Fighters of Star Wars (1977) as you can see, and if I recall, there was also a Battlestar Galactica (1979 - 1980) Colonial Viper in the mix.

The game was a shoot 'em up, and an incredible one at that. I do remember occasionally feeling frustrated, as my ship was blown out of the stars.

I also remember running out of money and begging my Mom and Dad for just another handful of quarters.

Below,is a video that someone posted on YouTube of the original Star Fire game play.  Seeing this screen brings back a lot of good memories from my Star Wars-infused, misspent youth.

I dream of converting my garage into an old-fashioned arcade play-room for me and Joel one day. And it shouldn't surprise you that Star Fire would own prominent real-estate there...

Memory Bank: Spyhunter (1983)

In the early-to-mid 1980s -- when I was in middle school and high school -- my best friends and I would sometimes walk down Benson Street in Glen Ridge to a diner on Broad Street in Bloomfield.  

Now, if you don't know this area of New Jersey (namely Essex County), that diner is not far from Holsten's in Bloomfield, the ice cream shop that appeared occasionally in The Sopranos (1999 - 2007).

We're going back more than thirty-six years now, so some of my memories are fuzzy, and I hope I have it right.  I'm open to the fact that I may not. 

But I believe the diner opened in 1981 and was called the Nevada Dinner.  

We were kids, however, so we weren't going there to sit down and eat.

Instead, we were going to play the arcade game in the diner; Spy Hunter, by Bally-Midway. It was an arcade unit, but not the kind that was designed for sit-down play.  

You had to stand, but at that age, we didn't care.

We would play the game for a good long while, assuming we had enough quarters.

Spy Hunter was designed by George Gomez, and originally intended to be a James Bond video game. When the 007 license couldn't be acquired, however, the game was modified, and became Spy Hunter.

But heck, you could still pretend to be James Bond while you played, even if the soundtrack song was not Monty Norman's, but Henry Mancini's theme from Peter Gunn (1958-1961).

The field of play in the game, as you may remember, is a bird-s eye view. 

You are looking down at a snaking road, and a car speeding down (or rather, up...) that road.  

Your car is the G-6155 Interceptor, and it has been modified with such 007-ish "extras" such as an oil slick, a missile launcher, and a smoke screen. These instruments prove useful as you engage with many bad guy cars.

While driving, you can also visit your mobile headquarters, a weapon's van, or convert your car to aqua/boat function, by pulling into a boat house. If memory serves, there are also, sometimes, icy conditions to navigate.

I remember all of us buddies standing in a small alcove, in front of that arcade screen, trying to see how far we could get in the adventure.  I guess the joke was really on us.  

Not only because the Peter Gunn song is addictive, and it won't leave your thoughts no matter how hard you try, but because the game had no ending. 

It just kept on scrolling, forever. 

Spy Hunter...the endless James Bond-ish adventure.

Soon enough, Spy Hunter was available in a home video game format. I had a game version for the Atari 800 home computer, I'm pretty certain.  

But it wasn't the same, somehow, as the arcade version.

Somehow it was more fun hearing that music, driving that car, and playing that game with friends, after the walk to the restaurant.  

It was more fun knowing that you had a pocket full of quarters, and once they were gone, you were done...whether you liked it or not.

Of course, it was also very, very expensive to play the addictive Spy Hunter in a arcade setting, so I guess some memories seem more attractive with age and distance.

Memory Bank: Zombies (1983)

One of the greatest (and coolest) video games I ever played on my old Atari 800 in the 1980's was Mike Edwards' Zombies (BRAM Inc; 1983), later re-released by EA in 1984-1985 as Realm of Impossibility.

This game was available on both cassette (!) and floppy disk, but my memory is that I played the game on disk.  It was so long ago now, I'm not entirely certain about that detail, however.

Regardless, my father was vice principal at Mountain Lakes High School in New Jersey, and was close friends with a 1980's Atari guru, one who was outfitting the school with a number of computers as the PC era began in earnest.  One day, out of the blue, my Dad arrived home from school (on his motorcycle...) with a bundle of video games on disk and cassette.  I had never heard of any of these games, but it felt like Christmas morning.

They had titles like Blue Max, Trains, Murder on the Zinderneuf, Bruce Lee, Astro Chase, B.C.'s Quest for Tires, Caverns of Mars, and last -- and best -- Zombies!

In Zombies, the goal was to recover the "enchanted crowns of the middle kingdom" from an evil wizard named Wistrik.  The cleric had apparently stolen the crowns and stored them in a variety of hellish dungeons where they were protected by rampaging zombies, giant spiders and poisonous snakes.  The realms had ominous, mythological-based names such as "Cankaya Keep," "The Abyss," "The Stygian Crypts," "Tartarus" and "The Realm of Impossibility."

Designer Edwards was inspired in part by his love of TSR's Dungeons and Dragons, as he wrote in the marketing booklet for Zombies. But he also wanted to get away from simple shoot-em-up games of the era.  Thus he devised Zombies with a few diabolical and genius twists.  

Among these were the fact that as a player you were not awarded multiple lives.  When you died...you died, and had to begin the game again.  

Secondly, there was no "elimination" of the supernatural enemies and vermin.  Instead, you had to drop crucifixes around yourself (while you ran...) as supernatural barriers to the surrounding threats.  Additionally, the player could acquire scrolls with spells such as "Freeze," "Protect" and "Confuse."  Believe me, these came in handy...

And thirdly, the game was two-player compatible, but the two players did not compete against one another.  Rather, they had to work together, in unison, to avoid the zombies and retrieve the crowns.  This made the game perfect for when my friends came over after school, or on Saturday afternoons, for surviving Zombies was an exercise in team work.

Zombies also featured, according to the promotional material: "3-D graphics, on-line instructions,"..."74 different screens, high-score save to disk, full sound and color, zombies, poisonous snakes, giant spiders, evil orbs, scrolls, talismans, magic spells, lost crowns and spectacular underground scenery."

On that last front, Zombies showcased unbelievable, M.C. Escher-inspired screens that, despite the young age of the form, were authentically mind-blowing in terms of viewer perspective.  I've written here before how I'd like to see a consistent set of aesthetic criteria applied to video games because I do consider them an art form. When I think about it, Zombies is likely the game that began me thinking along those terms, even as a teenager. The game was beautiful to behold, and completely immersing.  For instance, I remember (I hope correctly...) that when the zombies touched you during the game, your life energy would bleed away quickly, but also that the game screen would pop and crackle, like you had been struck by electricity.  If you ask me, I can still "feel" that shock, though of course, no such physical shock was actually delivered.  

I can't even begin to estimate how many hours I spent during my teenage years navigating Tartarus, the Stygian Crypts, or the Realm of Impossibility.  But it was a lot, I'm certain.  I have wonderful memories of playing this game with my best friends in high school.

The graphics may look primitive today, but the game play was absolutely incredible.

Makes me miss my Atari 800...

Memory Bank: Gauntlet

During my freshman year at the University of Richmond in the fall of 1988, there wasn’t a whole lot to do, socially-speaking.  I was a skinny kid in big glasses who didn’t go out for sports and liked Star Trek.  

I had no interest in fraternities or the school’s religious clubs (though, truth-be-told, I did have an ever-so-brief flirtation with a Baptist Bible Study group, which helps to account for my knowledge of Scripture…)

Anyway, I met my beautiful wife, Kathryn, at the beginning of my sophomore year and my life changed for the (infinitely) better.

But before that ever happened,  I spent an inordinate (and probably unhealthy) amount of time in the Pier, the campus Student Building, playing a classic arcade game from Atari, called Gauntlet (1985).

As you may remember, Gauntlet was unique in that it was a four player arcade game.  Intrepid gamers could play as the Warrior, the Valkyrie, the Wizard and the Elf, at least originally.  The idea was to battle enemies such as ghosts and demons while traversing dungeon-like labyrinths and environs. 

I looked Gauntlet up on Wikipedia out of curiosity and it is apparently part of a genre called “hack and slash,” a phrase that pretty well describes the game’s content as remember it.

Among other things, Gauntlet is also apparently famous because it had a kind of computerized narrator who would voice warnings (“Your life is running out”) and reminders (such as “shots do not hurt other players…yet.”)   I can’t say as I remember much specifically about game play, only that we would play the bloody thing for hours, and lose a hell of a lot of quarters in the process.   It’s a good memory from a year that, in some respects, I’d rather forget.

In terms of characters, I always played as the Valkyrie -- the female warrior in the foursome -- in honor of my enduring love of the same-named character from Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). 

I can’t remember why we did so, but on one memorable night in 1988, my pals and I drove downtown instead of to the student building to play Gauntlet at a bustling city arcade in Richmond, one very close to the now-defunct Byrd Theater, if memory serves. 

I should have been studying for an upcoming computer science exam, but instead, I think we were out at the arcade from midnight to 2:00 am, and I blew twenty-five dollars on the infernal machine.

Ah, to be eighteen and dumb as shit again…

Anyway t I’m thinking I really need a restored Gauntlet arcade console in my rec room.

That…and an air hockey table, but that’s the subject of a different post.  I'll just close this one by saying I recently visited the University of Richmond campus for the first time in probably a decade, and was deeply disappointed, though not surprised, to see that Gauntlet was long gone.

Memory Bank: Newberry's Department Store

Today I want to remember another cherished location/store from my youth: Newberry's Department Store.

Founded by John Newberry in 1911 (1877-1954), Newberry's Department Store thrived in the 20th century.  In 1919, there were 17 stores in the nation; by 1954 there were 475 such stores in states including Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado, and North Dakota.

And of course, we had a Newberry's store in New Jersey, where I grew up.  

The store was colloquially known as a "Five and Dime" store, and the Newberry's I went to innumerable times was located in Cedar Grove, N.J. (near Verona), in the same shopping strip where I saw Star Wars (1977) at least once, at Cinema 23.

I can still see the layout of Newberry's in my mind's eye.  

Customers would enter through the glass doors to find themselves at the jewelry and perfume kiosks. 

At the back of the store was this huge area where fabric was cut to specifications, and sold to consumers.  

I often went to the store in the seventies so that my mother could buy fabric for our clothes. That's another sign of time's passage, I suppose. Back in the seventies, my mother sewed the clothes for everyone in our family.  I have many memories of standing next to this huge flat table in Newberry's, and watching a store employee cut cloth from bolts of fabric for several consumers, including my mother.

But I recall best what was on the left hand side of the store, at least from the entrance.  

First, there was a book kiosk that had young readers books for Scooby Doo and Valley of the Dinosaurs.  I loved reading those books. I had several of them.

Then, beyond the book kiosk, there was a long lunch and soda fountain, and I remember at least two occasions in which my Mom bought me and my sister ice cream sodas there.

Then, there was an opening to the garden center and my favorite spot: the toy department.  I will never forget, in 1975 or 1976, seeing a huge display -- right there at the entrance of the department -- for Star Trek and Space:1999 jigsaw puzzles.

The toy department itself was great, and I loved it. In fact, I remember being very happy, at age 6 or 7, when my Mom would let me peruse the toy department alone while she was buying fabric.  

It was there, I believe, that I first saw for sale the giant Mattel Eagle from Space:1999.

And it was there, as late as 1980, that I purchased several Mattel Flash Gordon figures for the ridiculous price of one dollar a piece.  I remember begging my Mom to go to Newberry's so I could get as many of those figures as possible. 

To this day, I still have my Newberry's Flash, Ming, Lizard Woman and Dr. Zarkov.  (If only they had sold Thun, the Lion Man there...).

Sadly, Newberry's filed for bankruptcy in 1997.  I'm sure I didn't visit the store much after I moved to Virginia to attend the University of Richmond in 1988.  

But to this day, I can see the entire layout of this particular Five and Dime when I close my eyes. I also remember the thrill of being a kid, going into the store those glass doors, and heading straight for the awesome toy department.

Memory Bank: Star Trek: Voyager: The Arcade Game (2002)

Imagine my delight and surprise, recently, when I was at a local bowling alley in Charlotte with my family, and strayed into a mini-arcade to find a deluxe cabinet version of this fifteen year old franchise game.  

Since the game was still playable, I knew I needed to snap some photos and feature them all here on the blog.

Star Trek: Voyager: The Arcade Game was released in 2002 (after the end of the actual TV series), by Monaco Entertainment and Team Play Inc. It's a first person shooter (FPS)-styled game, though re-modeled appropriately for Star Trek concepts.  The guns (presumably phasers) don't have to be reloaded but rather re-modulated instead (think: fighting the Borg.)

The enemies in the game hail straight from the series, but are not just the Collective, however, but also Species 8472, and the Hirogen.  There also some...imaginative new aliens.

Additionally, some game modules involve space combat with the Borg and feature the customized shuttle, the Delta Flyer. 

In short, if you are a fan of Voyager, this is a great game, in no small part because it recreates the settings (like Voyager's bridge) and characters (Borg, especially, down to their First Contact sphere) of the series.

I was glad to see this game still in service!

Memory Bank: The Blizzard of 1978

Here in Charlotte, N.C., we have spent the last week enduring the coldest winter in 22 years. My college canceled a work day last Wednesday, and schools throughout the area have had delayed openings and early releases, on and off, for days.

But the seasonal weather got me thinking about a winter storm from my own youth: the much storied Blizzard of 1978

Now, this blizzard was serious business, and I don't want to minimize that fact, or romanticize the damage caused by the storm. 

The blizzard struck the North East U.S. on February 6 and February 7th, 1978, and did more than 500 million dollars worth of property damage. There were over one hundred fatalities, too, and nearly 5,000 injuries. 

Make no mistake: the  Blizzard of  '78 was a big deal.  The headline at the top of this post describes "winter's fury."

In my neck of the woods -- Glen Ridge, NJ -- however, the blizzard was a cause for joy for eight year olds like me.

Our front yard, on Clinton Road, was covered in snow several feet high. I remember my father shoveling snow from the front walk, into our yard, so that the snow accumulation would be even higher.  

And then he dug out several holes and tunnels, so that my sister and I had a multi-room igloo right beyond our front porch.  

The igloo was big too. I remember that you could crawl from a main room to a network of tunnels with at least three other rooms. Our next door neighbor and friend, Jeannie, had a room to herself. My sister had a room. And I had a room. Our beloved family cat, Penny -- a long-haired calico -- would even spend time inside the igloo with us too.

As a kid, I was utterly oblivious to the fact that such weather could be destructive. For me, these snow days were merely a unique occasion to play. 

I saw some slides my father took of the Blizzard of '78 recently (alas, I don't have a photo to post at this point.) and the huge snow pile/igloo actually made our house's lower roof accessible to us. You could stand on the top of the snow hill, and jump, basically, onto the roof in front of my bedroom window.

I can't say for sure that I remember how many days of school we missed, but it seemed like a lot. 

I still recall the amazing routine of those snow days: We'd get kitted up in winter gear -- which took about an hour, it felt like -- and then head out, as early as possible, to get into our igloo.  

We'd stay there until we were frozen, or soaking, or both.

I've regaled Joel for years with stories about the Blizzard of 1978, and my childhood experience with my first really big snow.  It's the snowstorm, obviously, that I remember most, forty years later.

Happy Days.

Memory Bank: The Sears "Wish Book" Catalog (Circa 1979)

Recently, I tried explaining to my youg son, Joel, the idea of ordering items from a catalog.

I explained that it’s like ordering something from Amazon.com, only your choices are more limited, you can’t buy the items online, and you have to wait longer to receive your toy.

He didn’t see the appeal.

But when I was growing up, it was tremendously exciting to order from a catalog, or I should say from one catalog in particular. 

Every year, Sears sent out a mammoth Christmas catalog or “Wish Book,” a hugely fat inventory of everything it sold, from appliances and clothes to toys galore.  

One of the Wish Books that I’m remembering today -- from the year 1979 -- was illustrated with the tag-line “Where America Shops For Value.”

Forget value, I just wanted space toys.

The 1979 Sears Wishbook Catalog had ‘em too. 

From Page 613 thru 620 in that catalog, there was everything a 1970s space-kid could possibly desire: toys from Mego’s Micronauts, Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century, Star Wars, and Star Trek too.  There were models, play-sets, toy action figures…the works.

And the great thing about Sears was that it not only offered toys you could find elsewhere, it also offered exclusive toys, like the Star Wars knock-off playset called “The Star Fortress” (seen on page 617).  I’ve covered this toy before on the blog, but the giant fold-out space base has a position of honor in my home office to this day. 

Another Sears exclusive from the same era (although it may have been first sold in 1978…) was the Star Wars “The Cantina Adventure Set” (not to be confused with the Creature Cantina).  The legend in the catalog read “If you stop at this cantina, watch out for strangers.”

This diorama of the exterior of the Mos Eisely drinking hole came with four new Kenner action figures that were unavailable elsewhere: Greedo, Hammerhead, Walrus Man, and Blue Snaggletooth.  The Blue Snaggletooth has become a highly-prized collectible.

Without me knowing, my Mom ordered me the Cantina Adventure Set, and I loved it. 

I kept it intact until about two years ago when the diorama base finally ripped. But it’s the item I remember most from the catalog.  

After I received the toy in the mail, I would play adventures with Sheriff Snaggletooth and Deputy Hammerhead.  They’d drive the land speeder around Mos Eisely, catching the gangsters Greedo and Walrus Man.

Back in the 1970s I loved coming home from school and finding in the mail either the next week’s issue of TV Guide (so I could see if Star Trek or Space:1999 was playing…), but it was a day of absolute delight and toy nirvana when the Wish Book arrived.

I still remember the feel and scent of the Wish Book catalog's pages. I remember poring over those toy pages too, imagining adventures with Buck Rogers, the Micronauts, the Cantina, and that Space Fortress...

Memory Bank: Epi-Log Magazine (1990 - 1994)

When I was living away from home at college, at the University of Richmond in the late eighties and early nineties, I would often trek (on foot) from the campus to Dave's Comic's Comic-Book Shop in a nearby shopping center. 

There, I would catch-up on the latest issues of Cinefantastique, Starlog, and this magazine: Epi-Log.

You couldn't miss Epi-Log, because of its distinctive design. The covers always had a bright red logo, surrounded by bright yellow border.  The latest issue would, I recall, literally seem to pop off the shelves, beckoning to me.

I was obsessed, even at ages nineteen and twenty, with cult-television, and more importantly, the cataloging of cult-television history.

Today we have web sites, the IMDB, and other places where we can research episode titles, writers, and casts for TV programs, but in 1990 the best source for all that data was Epi-Log magazine. 

Each issue of the magazine featured several episode guides, and often grouped series together in a kind of specific theme. For example, I seem to recall an issue that compiled most of the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson series. There was another issue I loved, that gazed at horror series such as Dark Shadows, and Ghost Story.

Epi-Log was the brainchild of editor-and-chief William Anchor, and his Star Tech Publications. Each issue was sub-titled "The Magazine of Television Science Fiction, Fantasy and Adventure," and more than forty issues were published in all, from the years 1990-1994.

Epi-Log was, for me, nothing less than a miracle. It was generally very well-researched, and it covered obscure TV series with guides that featured air-dates, titles, writers, and plot synopses.  And corrections were often made in revised editions of the magazine.

It's true that I rarely agreed with the publisher's commentary on specific series (he loved Lost in Space, but hated Space:1999), yet each issue provided a wealth of hard-to-find, incredible information.

I found this information especially valuable while I was away at college, and not able to keep up with some TV series that I was fond of, including Beauty and the Beast (1987-1991), War of the Worlds (1987-1990), and Freddy's Nightmares (1988-1990).  With these issues, I could often see what I  had missed.

The last issue of Epi-Log I remember purchasing at Dave's Comics was one covering the first season of Deep Space Nine (1993-1999).

By the time of Star Trek: Voyager's (1995-2001) premiere, Epi-Log magazine was gone, but for me, never forgotten. I still have my collection of issues in my home office, right behind my desk.

Memory Bank: WWOR TV and Thanksgiving Monsters

When I was growing up in the New Jersey burbs during the seventies and early eighties there was a great Thanksgiving Day tradition that I’d like to share with you today, on the eve of the holiday in 2015. 

Every year, WOR Channel 9 would broadcast King Kong (1933), Son of Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (1949) on Turkey Day.

Then, on Friday, the same station would host a Godzilla marathon consisting of such films as King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster (1971) and many others. Some years, if memory serves, War of the Gargantuas (1968) also played.

I remember showering and dressing early on those Thanksgiving Days, so I could be lodged near the TV when the Kong movies started.  

Meanwhile, my Mom and Dad would be busy in the kitchen preparing a great meal of turkey, stuffing, baked carrots with cinnamon, and home-made biscuits. The house would fill with the delectable aromas of the feast, and even downstairs -- while glued to WOR-TV -- I could feel my appetite for dinner building.

Our guests, usually my grandparents and aunts and uncles, would arrive sometime in the early afternoon, around 1:00 pm and I would socialize with them, and then sneak back to the family room for more King Kong.  Sometimes my uncle Larry, a horror fan after a fashion, would join me.

Then the meal and dessert -- a chocolate cream pie and a pumpkin pie -- would be served, and we’d all enjoy each other’s company over the delicious food.  After an appropriate interval of visiting and socializing, I’d high-tail it once more back down the stairs to watch more of the movies.

I’m certain my description of Thanksgiving makes it sound weird and anti-social, but you must remember that in the seventies, there were no VCRs (let alone DVRs or movie streaming), which meant that if you wanted to see a movie like King Kong, you had to seize your moment, or else wait for another year.

I believe it took me the better part of four Thanksgivings to see all of King Kong, and then not even in chronological order.  I actually saw the entirety of Son of Kong first, perhaps because it was often scheduled between our early afternoon dinner and dessert course.

This tradition of King Kong Thanksgiving and Godzilla Black Friday continued over a long period at my house -- the better part of a decade -- so much so that I still irrevocably associate the Holiday season with WOR Channel 9 and its monster movie broadcasts.  

I still remember, a bit guiltily, forcing my parents to watch the seventies Godzilla movies on Fridays, while we ate Thanksgiving leftovers in the family room.  My folks liked the King Kong movies, but when it came to Japanese monster movies, they weren’t exactly big fans..

Anyway, if you decide to spend the holiday with giant monsters, make sure to bring the pumpkin pie...and Happy Thanksgiving.

Memory Bank: Trick or Treat (For UNICEF!)

Given my penchant for horror films, it won’t surprise you to learn that Halloween is a big holiday at the Muir house. 

I still dress up with Joel every October 31^st, and head out into the neighborhood collecting candy.  We have one amazing neighbor up the street who only gives out “movie”-style candy, giant, over-sized boxes of Raisinets and the like.  I pretty much have to muscle Joel out of the way to get to them.

Just kidding. I let Joel get the loot.

My love of Halloween goes back to my earliest memories in the seventies.  I grew up in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, a picturesque Essex County suburb, and the trick-or-treating there was pretty great.  Glen Ridge is a small town, so a kid could cover a lot of ground in one night, if he or she was willing to do a lot of walking.  

My sister and I would get started on Halloween at about 4:30 pm (in costume), trick-or-treat for an hour, eat dinner, and then go back out and trick-or-treat until nine o’clock at night.  

Then, we’d return home, dump our bags out on the kitchen table, and assess the sweet loot.  For many years, it seemed, we went trick-or-treating “for UNICEF” (United Nation’s Children’s Fund) as well, and I still remember carrying along those little orange boxes filled with change.

Part of the fun of Halloween in the 1970s involved those classic, if flimsy, Ben Cooper costumes, as my Pop Art post earlier today hopefully illustrates. One year, I went out trick-or-treating as Ben Cooper’s Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man.  As you can tell from the photograph, however, I look more like President Ronald Reagan than Colonel Austin.  

Another year, I went out as Ben Cooper’s Darth Vader, and the next year, as the same company’s Cylon from Battlestar Galactica.  If I’m being honest, these costumes weren’t really very good, and certainly not “show accurate” to any degree.  And after a long night of wearing those masks, they always smelled like sweat.

I still went trick-or-treating in high school, and one year dressed up as Freddy Krueger.  I had an Indiana Jones fedora, a red-and-white sweater, a Freddy glove and a pull-over mask.   

Instead of focusing on trick or treating, however, I focused on scaring my sister.  I remember that I waited until it was about 8:30 pm, and I found a great perch at the nearby railroad tracks where we had often played as children. The tracks were near -- I kid you not -- a graveyard. 

As my sister crossed the railroad tracks on her return journey, I jumped out from behind a tall signal post and scared the heck out of her.  And man, was it fun.

It’s Halloween.  Everyone is entitled to one good scare, right?

Actually, I had my own bad scare one year while trick-or-treating in Glen Ridge. 

I think I must have been nine or so at the time.  I’m pretty sure it was the year I went out as a Cylon.  There I was in my costume, collecting candy in Glen Ridge, when I approached a large suburban house from the side. 

I should have stayed in the light, and out on the front walk. Instead, I ran up the side yard trying to beat the other kids.  I ran by a large hedge, and then quite unexpectedly fell into a seven or eight foot hole, dug right out of the yard.  It was quite a shock.  I remember wondering what the hell happened, but fortunately I was rescued after about a minute or so “buried alive” in that ditch. 

One good scare indeed!

Just two weeks until Halloween now, and I’m super excited to go out trick-or-treating with Joel. I’m probably going as Mr. Spock, as I often do. 

I’ll make certain, however, we both stay on the path, and avoid any ditches…or dream demons.

Memory Bank: Star Fire (Exidy; 1979)

One of my earliest (and fondest) arcade memories involves a space-based combat game from the late seventies called Star Fire. 

As a youngster, I lived in New Jersey with my family, and in the summertime, we would often visit the Jersey Shore.. Because of this, there were many opportunities to visit a nearby boardwalk, and more importantly...an arcade.

And the game I wanted to play at that arcade was, simply, Star Fire.  

Today, the game is remembered and beloved by Generation X'ers because Star Fire is the first "cockpit"-style arcade game in history, and apparently, it was also the first game in which one could enter initials in a high-score table.  

But I loved sitting down in the fully-enclosed cockpit -- as though I was in my own fighter craft -- and getting ready for space combat.

The game play was awesome as I remember it...though it's been more than thirty years now.  

The enemy ships in Star Fire very closely resembled the TIE Fighters of Star Wars (1977) as you can see, and if I recall, there was also a Battlestar Galactica (1979 - 1980) Colonial Viper in the mix.
The game was a shoot 'em up, and an incredible one at that. I do remember occasionally feeling frustrated, as my ship was blown out of the stars.

I also remember running out of money and begging my Mom and Dad for just another handful of quarters.

Below,is a video that someone posted on YouTube of the original Star Fire game play.  Seeing this screen brings back a lot of good memories from my Star Wars-infused, misspent youth.

I dream of converting my garage into an old-fashioned arcade play-room for me and Joel one day. And it shouldn't surprise you that Star Fire would own prominent real-estate there...