MORE COLLECTIBLES OF THE WEEK: Star Trek Oddities

All right, so I'm re-arranging my home office this morning. This old parlor (built in 1912) is filled with toys, models, and memorabilia, and my desk is a vast mess of sci-fi and horror clutter. I'm currently working on a book, fine tuning some articles, completing a short story, and editing The House Between. Surrounding me at the moment is Electroman (Ideal; 1977), whom I will get around to blogging about at some point, my cats Lila and Ezri, and a calendar, plus stacks of DVD screeners I haven't gotten to yet (Viva Laughlin, anybody?) and more.

So today, while I re-arrange and make some "sanity" space for myself, I'm going to gaze at some of the weirder Star Trek items in my office before I either re-display them or box 'em up and take them out of rotation. And you, lucky reader, get to learn all about them!!!

First, we've got Star Trek: First Contact "flavored lip balm" with a cap that is shaped in the form of the Enterprise E. "Protect and moisturize your lips with our Star Trek lip balm," reads the back of the box. For particularly dangerous away team missions, no doubt. "Its special formulation helps to smooth and protect lips from sun, wind and cold weather. Everyone will enjoy playing and collecting toppers from Star Trek: First Contact." I wonder...is this what the Borg Queen wears? Dr. Crusher?

Next, I'm looking at a Star Trek thirtieth anniversary "commemorative anniversary pen." The box here reads: "In conjunction with Paramount Pictures, to commemorate 30 years of Star Trek, Fisher Space Pen presents the 30th Anniversary Space Pen. This pen's unique cartridge allows you to write in zero-gravity." Ironically, this is how I sign all my Lulu Show LLC checks (in zero gravity), but hopefully not with zero-balance.

Next are - yuck - some collectibles I should have gotten rid of a long time ago, because they are getting increasingly disgusting by the day. I have procrastinated too long, and now Kathryn is giving me strange looks. These are Hollywood Star Trek First Contact chocolate bars. They are a "limited edition," with six different wrappers featuring images of the Next Generation crew. These are also from 1996, which means the candy bars are eleven years old now. I took one off the shelf today and it turned to toxic dust in my fingers. Now I'm breathing it in. I collected all six of these candy bars at the time of the film's release, and just couldn't get rid of them. As per Kathryn, they are going in the trash today. Some collectibles...well...you just have to let go.

Let's see, what's next in my array of oddities? Oh yes, The Star Trek The Next Generation "Phaser Universal Remote Control" from TeleMania. With authentic lights and sounds. It features "Star Trek sound effects on - Volume Up, Volume Down, Channel Up, Channel Down, Power on and Power off." This came out in 1999. I have a weird story to tell about this particular remote control, and I hope you'll forgive me for telling it. Okay, so I'm a spiritual person right, but not a religious one. I am an atheist who believes in quarks and quantum theory, but not conventional "God" imagery. I want to believe in God and the afterlife...but I can't. (Remind me to tell you my Jesus vs. Dracula dream some time....)

So anyway, this remote was a favorite toy of my beloved first cat, Lulu. I don't know why, but that cat used to love this thing. She would always activate it when it was sitting on the night stand or sofa. I always just thought she liked Star Trek. She died on April 17, 2003 of chronic renal failure, and - bear with me - I was heartbroken. But that very night, the first night Lulu was gone (I had buried her late on a very gray afternoon in my parents' backyard, near the house she loved), during the middle of the night while we slept - and far out of my reach - the phaser remote control began randomly firing (set on stun, I think). Not activating the TV, but making the Star Trek sounds. This was unusual in and of itself, since it was set on TV, not for sounds. But why would it activate by itself? As the wanna-be believer, I convinced myself this was my cat's message from beyond the grave. Live long and prosper...

Next up: It's a Star Trek: The Next Generation Dinnerware Set (From Zak Design). It has a cup, bowl and plate. I still have this one mint in box. One day, I'm going to open it and refuse to eat off of anything else. The next day, Kathryn will disown me.

Then, from 1992, I've got Enesco's Star Trek: The Next Generation Playing Cards in Tin Box. If you can't watch Star Trek, the next best thing is playing with a deck of cards, apparently, emblazoned with United Federations of Planets imagery.

Yes, my collection runs deep - and strange.

COLLECTIBLE OF THE WEEK: Star Trek Talking Alarm Clock (1994, Top Banana)

Now here's a beauty, as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott might say!

It's a Star Trek talking alarm clock from the early 1990s (and released by a company called Top Banana.) It features "voice alarm sound of communicator" followed by "landing party to Enterprise. Beam us up Scotty."

Then the "transporter beam sound is heard while a shaft of light beams down on the planet's surface."

There's also a "snooze feature," and a four event digital clock. I have two of these now, one in a box, and one loose.

Many years ago, on one of the first nights Kathryn and I had moved into our own home here in Monroe, this alarm clock scared the heck out of us by going haywire in the middle of the night. From the upstairs, it sounded like someone was talking (very loudly...) in our first floor foyer. But no...just the transporter chief.

Energize.

Four Reasons to Love Aurora

DVD REVIEW: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007)

One the most highly-anticipated new dramas of last season, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, from The West Wing (1999-2006) mastermind Aaron Sorkin, was considered, to coin a phrase – a “slam dunk” - to achieve critical acclaim and audience interest. Ultimately, that didn’t prove the case and the self-important series was quickly eclipsed in popularity and hosannas by other newcomers, including NBC’s own Heroes and Friday Night Lights. Now the "Complete Series" is available for your viewing pleasure (or derision...) on DVD.

Gazing back at the series, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip fared poorly for a couple of reasons. The first is that the drama is so relentlessly and dogmatically “liberal” that even the most dedicated progressives (including this author) would still find it maudlin, preachy and condescending. It comes off as hectoring and certainly preaches to the converted. One-sided drama, whether from the right or from the left, is rarely very engaging (unless produced by my hero - and a national treasure - documentarian Michael Moore).

Perhaps more problematic than even its political sermonizing, however, is the fact that the subject matter of the series itself - TV producers creating a Saturday Night Live-style “sketch” program – is treated as though it is literally life and death stuff. The characters are handled not just with incredible seriousness, but nearly religious reverence; their every decision scrutinized as heroic and meaningful and important, as though there could be no higher calling in this day and age than to educate dumb Red State Americans, to bring the glories of liberal sketch comedy to the unwashed masses of the middle United States.

That the sketches themselves when briefly presented on the series are staggeringly unfunny doesn’t exactly help matters either. This is one of those cases where the Emperor wears no clothes, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is more often than not self-important tripe. It’s elitist, and on occasions, insulting.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip follows neurotic TV producer and writer, Matt Albie, played by Matthew Perry, who feels gun-shy and diffident after he was called unpatriotic following the attacks of 9/11 (paging Bill Maher: someone stole your biography...). However, Matt now has the opportunity at network NBS to get his brand of liberal politics back on the air for this new sketch comedy series. On his side, but feeling pressure herself, is Amanda Peet’s newly appointed network programming chief, Jordan McDeere. She wants to do important work, create "meaningful" television (like a pet project about life behind-the-scenes at the United Nations), but her colorful past (including a drunk driving incident; which gets her unwanted attention on Access Hollywood) prevent her from being taken seriously in the industry. She is also stifled by her Machiavellian network boss, Jack Rudolph, played with diabolical glee by Steven Weber.

Meanwhile, Perry’s character, Matt, is paired with producer Whitley Bradford’s Danny, who has grappled with cocaine addiction, but is now older and wiser and serves as the guru of the bunch.

Among the other characters are a black comedian named Simon played by D.L. Hughley, who wonders why there aren’t more black writers on the comedy show; and a Christian “Red State” comedian played by Sarah Paulson, Perry’s on-again/off-again girlfriend, Harriet. She finds some of the liberal humor, like the skit “Science Schmience,” offensive to her religious beliefs, but her character is basically the "straw man" stand-in for conservative beliefs, easily buffeted and knocked down by The Wisdom of Liberals.

In one episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, intern Tom Jeter’s (Nathan Corddry) family arrives from Ohio and is treated by the drama as uninformed rubes. It’s as though they are from another planet and so the audience can feel smug and superior that they, in their liberal wisdom, are smarter than these backward folks. The episode actually attempts to create moral equivalency between one son, who is serving in the military in Iraq, and the other son who is a comedian working on TV. Frankly, this attempted comparison reveals that President Bush isn’t the only one living in an ideological bubble. I believe writers are incredibly important in a free society (and I wholeheartedly support the goals of the writers' currently on strike...), but writers are not putting their life on the line every day to defend a free country. Their mission in Iraq may be flawed, but the soldiers there have sacrificed a lot to serve this nation. The writers of sketch comedy? Not so much...

The same episode finds Simon complaining that there is not one black writer on the show, and so he and Perry’s character trek to a comedy club to meet a hot young comic who is a walking/talking stereotype of black humor (his stand-up material is all “bitches” and “hos”). They then decry how bad this humor is, and in self-important, grandiose language, discuss the issue of why so often African-American humor is based on bad and demeaning language. A more obviously "white friendly" African-American (one who bombs in the night club), is selected instead, apparently because he will stick to the agenda of bleeding heart liberal humor.

And that my friends, is your sermon for the week.

Another episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip finds Christine Lahti guest-starring as a hard-hitting journalist who is covering the show, and who reminds viewers that – nudge, nudge - “popular culture is important.” Sting guest stars in this episode as the show’s musical guest and performs a number that plays as background for Harriet and Perry to reconnect. Here's the thing: I totally agree with Lahti's comment. Pop culture is important. I've devoted my adult life and career (and this blog, and my books...) to popular culture. It tells us where we've been, where we are, and where we might be headed. Film and TV at their best are indeed artistic ventures, worthy of examination and analysis and functioning as valuable, nay indispensable, parts of our society. But Studio 60 is so self-satisfied, so smug in its "correctness" and "value" that even a guy like me - the biggest defender of horror movies you could find blogging today - winces at the self-righteousness of the enterprise.

Aaron Sorkin is known for his whip-smart dialogue, and while it is true that everyone on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip speaks with poise (and a great vocabulary...) at virtually warp speed, none of the character say anything worth listening to; especially for audiences outside of Los Angeles. Instead, every character sounds identical, like an attack of the Sorkin Clones, and everyone mouths inconsequential jargon about “focus groups,” “audience retention” and other behind-the-scenes industry lingo. It may be smart, it may be knowledgeable but it is monumentally uninteresting and ultimately irrelevant; lacking any immediacy or connection to the human experience.

It would be very tempting for me to write a book about the heroic, self-sacrificing efforts of a noble North Carolina writer as he brings his meaningful and artful movie and TV reviews to uninformed readers across middle America. But it would also be self-indulgent and that’s the problem here. Sorkin has succumbed to that very temptation. Again, I feel it important to re-establish that I am - check my reviews, please - a pretty progressive, dare I say "liberal" guy. But this show rubs even me the wrong way and strikes me as very, very misguided. Here's the deal in a nutshell: Borat (2006) makes all the same points about the evils of the Bush Administration ("I support your War on Terror!") but it does so with wit, with humor and without climbing on a soapbox. Studio 60 lectures and points fingers instead. I was once called a liberal of the "brain dead" variety by a crazy fan who didn't like my critique of a science fiction series. If I truly were, I guess I would like Studio 60 more...

Wow, that was hard to write. Let me do a gut check real quick: Yeah, I still despise President Bush and want him impeached. I still think the War on Iraq was wrong. I still believe the War on Terror a stupid frame for a legitimate attack on Afghanistan. I still support gay marriage. I am for the legalization of marijuana. And yes, I still support amending the Constitution to include universal health care as a guaranteed right for all citizens (after all, you can't pursue life, liberty and happiness if you're sick and can't afford the doctor bills).

Yep. Still liberal. But Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is so dogmatic and patronizing it almost converted even me.

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969)

Journey To The Far Side of the Sun (British title: Doppelganger) was a perennial on WABC Channel 7''s 4:30 pm movie in the mid-to-late 1970s, and as such, an early fascination both for me and my sister. To this day, you can ask my sister about that strange science fiction movie from her youth in which a man removes his eyeball in a red-lit darkroom, or pile-drives his wheelchair into a mirror, and get a visceral response out of her.

This film arises from the stable of British producers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who from 1968 to 1975 - a period which encompasses this film, the TV series UFO and the first season of Space:1999 - developed their own signature brand of creepy, speculative tech-horror. What does that brand entail, precisely? It's a simple equation, really: high-tech gadgetry galore (created with an eye towards scientific accuracy, and with elaborate, state-of-the-art costumes, props and miniatures...), a focus on the near future "space age" (which apparently was to occur soon after the 1960s...), and then a macabre, deeply disturbing "twist" that exposes the nature of the universe as being something much less than benevolent. Personally, it's one of my favorite types of drama, and Journey to the Far Side of the Sun is a potent mix of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the James Bond films of the Connery era, and even a little bit of Planet of the Apes (1968). In other words, the film has one foot in the future, one foot in the espionage film craze of the 1960s...and a third foot (!) on the surface of a distant planet where things are off-kilter.

Journey To The Far Side of the Sun dramatizes the story of EuroSec, a European space agency run by the hard-driving Jason Webb (Patrick Wymark), a man who is determined to launch a second Sun Probe to examine a new planet discovered in the solar system, one that we can't observe from Earth because it is constantly on the opposite side of the sun. The first Sun Probe snapped images of the alien world using its "cine camera" and brought back to Earth the "first photographic evidence" of the heretofore undetected planet. This discovery is vetted in a sequence that forecasts today's video-conferencing capability, with Webb making an address and visual presentation to EuroSec members across the globe.

It's here in the story that Gerry and Sylvia Anderson offer one of their trademark themes and motifs, which is one not often featured in science fiction movies, probably because it isn't fun. They present here the notion and plot point that space travel is damn expensive and that it requires a huge amount of funding. This also plays out in Space:1999 episodes such as "Dragon's Domain" and in several UFO episodes, which feature Commander Straker going before the unimpressed faces of bureaucracy to request more funds for SHADO. Again, I see this as a bow to reality and accuracy, and in Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, Webb is able to afford to build the Phoenix - the rocket bound for the alien world - only with the support of NASA;s representative (Ed Bishop!) and the American government. However, there are stipulations. EuroSec will get the money, but an American - Colonel Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes) - will have to command the mission. Poor Glenn Ross has Earthbound problems to contend with too; he's not able to conceive a child with his go-go booted, sexy wife, and she believes it is due to space radiation. "You went up there a man, but you came back less than a man," she tells him. Nice.

Ross is the "world's most experienced astronaut," and his partner on the six week trip to the new world is the Earth's "leading scientist," John Kane (Ian Hendry). Together, these men train for the mission, and the film follows every detail of the process. From there, we are treated to sweepings shots of rockets on launch pads (courtesy of special effects wizard Derek Medding), pans across vast mission control centers and intense close-ups of space-suited astronauts ready to commence the mission. Through it all, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun offers the aura of can-do, Apollo-Age optimism and futurism. This was a world where man had just landed on the moon and where space travel - despite bureaucratic kerfuffles and expense - was just around the corner...as are shattering discoveries about the nature of the universe itself.

Three weeks into the interplanetary mission (three weeks early...), and following a trippy "sleep" sequence of spinning colors (orange, blue and yellow) and electronic peaks and valleys seemingly inspiring by 2001's Stargate sequence, the film's plot takes a major turn. The astronauts arrive at the alien planet (via the crash of a landing vehicle...) only to discover that they have actually returned to Earth. In a splendid sequence that begins with miniature effects, pyrotechnics and impressive stunt work, the audience is tricked into believing that the astronauts are being captured by monstrous aliens. There's sound, light and strange helmeted figures. But it's just a rescue team from China; the rescuers adorned in state-of-the-art "sea and air" rescue suits.

But something doesn't sit right with Glenn Ross as he convalesces on what he believes to be his planet. For one thing, he has no memory of having turned back to Earth, and the three week flight period seems all wrong. Worse, he feels disoriented. His house's layout is completely reversed, clocks are running backwards, and words read from right to left, not left to right. Cars even appear to be driving on the wrong side of the street. Before long, Ross is aware of a physiological aberration too: medical tests reveal that he and Kane have hearts on the wrong sides of their chests!

What Glen Ross soon proposes to Jason Webb is staggering (and bizarre): "a complete duplication of matter...except that it's in reverse." In other words, the planet on the far side of the sun is Earth's exact reflection, with all the same people, all the same countries, all the same problems. There is a physical connection between the worlds in that "one is the mirror image of the other," but otherwise they are separated by thousands of miles. Now before anyone complains how scientifically inaccurate this concept sounds, I should pause to note that I read an article last May in which scientists posited that somewhere in this vast universe, it is indeed likely that each and every one of us has an identical twin. Weird, huh? Well, that's the idea of Journey to the Far Side of the Sun. Without being overbearing about the idea, the film is creepy because it subtly asks questions regarding this unusual premise. What if there were two of you? Of me? What if everyone here on Earth had an exact duplicate? Would that fact take away from our own sense of identity? From the uniqueness of the individual? Could we claim Earth is the center of the universe (and center of God's universe), if across the solar system was a second Earth, exact in every way save that the polarity of electricity isn't reversed? If you are on a different planet and see your wife, isn't true that you've never actually "met" her? Because this is your wife's reflection, not the being you know (even if you share the same memories). It's mind-boggling if you think about it.

The climax of the film involves Ross's desperate attempt to return to his "Earth" and it ends in ultimate disaster for everyone at EuroSec, paving the way for an epilogue in which an elderly Jason Webb - wheelchair bound and debilitated by heart disease - ponders the very questions I ask above. He spies his reflection, his double in a wall-sized mirror and reaches out for it. It is just out of reach, and he begins racing for it...an attempt to touch the unknown, to understand the self, to bring together two opposites. To say the end of the film is "shattering" is putting it mildly, and a bad pun. Sorry.

Certainly, there will be those among us who gaze at Journey at the Far Side of the Sun and decry the deliberate, methodical pace (a trait it shares in common with Kubrick's Space Odyssey). In our day and age, we've become accustomed to shock cutting, myriad close-ups, and the whiz-bang pace of films like The Matrix or Star Wars. By contrast, this film is perhaps a relic of an earlier, less adrenaline-addicted age. This movie literally wallows in the details and minutiae (but also the beauty...) of space travel. It attempts to methodically and prcisely capture the details of the endeavor, from its accurate depiction of weightlessness to the impact of G-forces on the fragile human body. I'm afraid this is the kind of thing that movies today just don't have the time for. CGI monstrosities and vistas have made us forget about the wonders of our age: rocket launches, weightlessness, the view of Earth from space. Just show me drooling monsters, please...

In fact, I'll go further. I believe that Journey to the Far Side of the Sun attempted, along with 2001: A Space Odyssey to craft a new cinematic lexicon, to depict - literally - the poetry of the space age; a future where machines were not only functional...but actually beautiful....masterpieces of the human imagination and spirit. The opening of Robert Wise's The Andromeda Strain (1971) accomplished the same thing a few years later, but there is a gorgeous montage at the opening of this film, an Information Age credits sequence which plays high-tech gadgetry and electronics to Barry Gray's lush, orchestral store. In swooning close-up we get a collage of spinning tape wheels, beeping indicator lights, rolling print-outs and computer punch-out cards. Outdated? Perhaps, but strangely lyrical, and this sequence reveals the pre-Microsoft mainstream meme on computers: that they are our creations and that they will make human life easier. Or as Jason Webb states late in the film: "never distrust a computer." Obviously, he's never seen the blue screen of death, which may be even more frightening than confronting one's doppelganger in the mirror.

Another beautiful image in the film: as the Phoenix arrives at the duplicate Earth, there's a gorgeous shot of the space capsule cruising from the darkness of interplanetary space into the golden illumination of sunlight in planetary orbit. It's convincing in a way that we are not accustomed to today, in the era of CGI. There's a sense of real bodies and machines in motion; not merely digital cartoons "animated" on the screen. There's an artistry here that is different from computer programming.

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun proved a dry run of sorts for UFO, which re-used props, vehicles and costumes from the film, and another reason to love it (if you are so inclined) is the manner in which ithe production fetishizes both space program and secret agent gadgetry. The film opens with a spy getting into the EuroSec vault. His glass eyeball is actually a miniature camera (!), and in a great, amusing sequence, we see the agent remove his eye, develop the photographs, and display them on a wall. In glorious, obsessive detail, the audience is treated to several views of the machine doing its work until we are left to conclude that the implausible has been made absolutely plausible. That's a trademark of the Andersons too, I would say.

Directed by Robert Parrish from a screenplay by the Andersons and Donald James, and lensed with an eye towards detail by John Read, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun is surely a tech's wet dream. We see that Webb wears a watch that monitors his heart and triggers an alarm if he has a cardiac irregularity. Dick Cheney could probably use one of those. Later, the film gives us great shots of rockets on launch pads, capsules in space, and most impressively of all, a botched docking maneuver that is absolutely convincing down to the most minute detail. Not fast-paced, mind you, just very...right. This is part and parcel of the Anderson mystique and magic, if you ask me (and present in spades in UFO and Space:1999). Though some viewers are easily (and understandably) bored with the focus on technology and what it does, this obsession with the details brings a reality and versimilitude to the world absent from a lot of televised and filmed sci-fi.

Believability; optimism, tech-poetry, and a shattering discovery about the universe: these are the hallmarks of Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, and one of the reasons I have admired the film since I was a youth. You may insert your own "wooden" joke here about the performances, since critics find it irresistible, apparently, to comment on the Andersons' history with puppets and supermarionation. Yet in my eyes, the performances here (as on Space:1999) are perfect. These are scientists and astronauts and engineers doing a job, facing crises with poise and skill and intelligence. Must they also showcase emotional histrionics and soap opera antics? Another part of the Anderson mystique - and the part most often criticized by critics, I should add - is this depiction of man as a balanced, intelligent and curious creature facing the mysteries of outer space with all his intellectual gifts intact and at the forefront. In its very British way, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun is both scary and subtle; both intelligent and poetic. It isn't a perfect film, and it isn't a classic, but it is a very good science fiction phantasm, and one with distinctive, unforgettable images and a great twist.

RETRO TOY FLASHBACK # 72: Choose Your Own Adventure/Find Your Fate/Plot-Your-Own Adventure Books of the 1980s

Early in the 1980s, Bantam Books published a series of childrens' action/fantasy/science fiction novels under the franchise title Choose Your Own Adventure. But these clever little books had a twist: they featured multiple endings, and multiple "paths" for the reader, and in essence told a variety of stories. "You're the star of the story!," crowed the book covers. "Choose from 40 possible endings!"

Choose Your Own Adventure books were perhaps as much a game as a legitimate literary experience, but titles like The Abominable Snowman (28 possible endings!) offered intrepid readers the chance to select at every story juncture a new quantum reality, so-to-speak, by deciding which "action" to take given a scenario. For instance, if you "chose" to go into a dark cave without a flashlight, you would turn to page 68...and promptly fall off the edge of a precipice. Or if you decided to "go back to camp" for your flashlight, you would end on an entirely different path. I remember reading these books during my middle school years and really enjoying them. To my adolescent mind, they were suspenseful in the sense that every action had an impact...sometimes deadly. Because I had a keenly developed sense of the macabre even at that tender age, I would often pick the wrong solution, just so I could experience a terrifying demise.

Not surprisingly, the popular movie/tv genre franchises of the day emulated the Choose Your Own Adventure format. Star Trek and Raiders of the Lost Ark jump to mind. To me, this was true nirvana: the chance to send Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock or Indiana Jones into adventures where I could determine the outcome. Why, that's almost as fun as...video games are today. (Remember, this was twenty-five years ago, okay?)

Simon & Schuster published Star Trek "Plot-Your-Own-Adventure" stories in 1982 under their Wanderer imprint (for $2.95 a pop). "You are in command of your favorite Star Trek II characters," the cover of Distress Call (by William Rotsler) informed us. The plot: "The U.S.S. Enterprise has just received a frantic call for help from the vicinity of the unknown planet of Varda III."

"This is an adventure with as many twist and turns as your imagination allows," suggested the book's rear cover, which was nicely illustrated with images from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Ballantine's "young adult line" offered several "Find Your Fate Adventures" for the character of Indiana Jones (at $1.95 a book) Among the titles were Indiana Jones and the Lost Treasure of Sheba (by Rose Estes), Indiana Jones and the Giants of Silver Tower (by R.L. Stine), Indiana Jones and the Legion of Death (by Richard Wenk), and Indiana Jones and the Cup of the Vampire (by Andrew Helfer). As these books put it: "Right from the start, you are in charge. Depending on the decisions you make, you could wander endlessly through catacombs, meet real-life werewolves, or fight to the death with bloodthirsty bandits. Every thrilling and dangerous step of the way the choices are up to you as...

...you find your fate."

Isn't that just irresistible? I imagine elitists probably scoff at the choose your own adventure-style books, but they left an indelible impact on me, in part because of the sheer ingenuity of their authors. As a wanna-be writer from the second grade on, I found it fascinating (in sixth grade, anyway...), that one story could spawn over a dozen plausible but different outcomes. To me, these books offered a glimpse behind-the-curtain, and I started to understand some of the mechanics of plot development. American literacy rates are in the toilet these days, but Kathryn and I read our one-year-old Joel several books every day (even if it's Jasper the Cat, or Guess How I Much I Love You), and I'm thrilled to see that even at his age, he goes to the book shelf without prompting and picks up books he wants to look at (and then staggers around from room to room, pointing at pictures...). I figure that the Choose Your Own Adventure Books will be perfect for him when he's a little older.

Anyone remember reading these?

Model Kit of the Day: Masters of the Universe Talon Fighter Flying Vehicle (Monogram; 1983)

From the legend on the box: "This sleek, bird-like craft transports MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE forces through the skies in their ceaseless quest for victory. The excitement of fantasy is captured in model kit form in this unique air-attack vehicle..."

The kit has a wingspan of 32.7 centiments, and is intricately detailed "from the thrusting eagle's head to the claw-like landing gear. It includes top-mounted gun turret, side-mounted laser cannons and a canopy that opens for easy access to the contoured cockpit."

RETRO TOY FLASHBACK # 71: MAXX FX Freddy (Matchbox; 1989)

During the height of the Freddy Krueger craze of the late 1980s, Matchbox released a unique toy that added Robert Englund's popular Dream Demon to the pantheon of classic movie monsters (including Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and the titular character of Alien [1979]). The toy was Matchbox's "MAXX FX Now Showing: Freddy Krueger."

The box legend implores the buyer to "assist MAXX in recreating the greatest horror heroes in the history of Hollywood." Well okay, if I have to...

"Recreate all your favorite movie monsters with these authentically detailed body parts," the box went on to describe. "Clothing and accessories help you quickly transform the mild-mannered MAXX into spine-chilling monsters. You can even mix'n'match characters on Maxx's fully articulated body to create your own unstoppable menace."

The other benefits of the toy? "Completely poseable," "authentically detailed," "easy on/off assembly." The box also promises that the toy "lets you in on the secret world of Special Effects" and implores the customer to "collect the whole world of MAXX FX."

So basically, you've got your average Ken doll here, garbed in a yellow short-sleeved short and plaid pants, and then a variety of clothing accessories that transform this smiling, mild-mannered gentlemen into the scourge of Elm Street. Among the accouterments: a gruesome Freddy head, a stylish (but ratty...) fedora, the famous Freddy glove with finger knives, and that gnarly green and red striped sweater. So dress up Ken (err, Maxx...), and "you...make...the..the change...happen!" Yes, Maxx is indeed the "Quick change artist and the master of special effects."

This is a fun toy, and for those Freddy fans out there who wanted to see kindly Ken transformed into a brutal serial killer and then go after Barbie...MAXX FX's Freddy is the toy for you. Intended for kids ages 6 and up (I barely qualify...), I still have this toy in the box (my grandparents found it for me at a flea market in the early nineties...). However, I have never - in any of my collecting travels - seen any of the other three figures in the set (Frankenstein Monster, Dracula - with bat wings - or, most interestingly, the alien). Somehow, I don't think that they were actually released; that perhaps Evil old Freddy here was the Maxx test balloon...that popped. I'd love to get my hands on the Alien one of these days (if only to spit molecular acid on Barbie...) but none are to be found even on E-Bay.

CULT TV FLASHBACK # 41: Circle of Fear (1973): "Death's Head"

Today, I continue my recent survey of TV horror anthologies of decades past with a look at the less-than-inspiring Circle of Fear, which aired on NBC in the early 1970s. It's actually a continuation/modification of the short-lived series Ghost Story, which debuted in fall of 1972, but with a new title sequence and the removal of the Ghost Story narrator - Sebastion Cabot as Winston Essex. Whereas Ghost Story (produced by William Castle and developed for television by Richard Matheson) featured wraparound segments involving Winston Essex in his mansion, "Essex House," Circle of Fear cuts right to the chase, or in this case, the lack-of-chase. After an opening sequence featuring a hypnotic orange whirlygig spinning around (like Motel Hell's hypno wheel...), we find ourselves directly in a dull as dishwater hour-long horror tale, usually one about cosmic justice being meted out.

Last night I watched the first Circle of Fear episode "Death's Head" by Rick Blum and directed by James Neilson. It stars a way-too-thin Janet Leigh as Carol, an unhappily married suburbanite whose neglectful spouse, Steve (Gene Nelson) is a collector of insects. Steve says he "preserves" and "beautifies" bugs for his collection, but Carol hates insects. After she kills a spider she finds roaming her bedroom one night, Steve decides to stuff and mount the arachnid next to the pride of his collection: a death's head moth.

Steve's buddy and law partner, Larry (Rory Calhoun) drops by and when Carol practically drops trou for him amidst a sea of come-hither looks, talks to Steve about the fact that he's neglecting his wife, who - after all - is still a very attractive woman. "We've just developed different interests," says Steve, who then suggests that Larry take Carol out for the afternoon.

Larry agrees and takes Carol to a boardwalk where they look at voodoo dolls. Then, Carol finds her way to an herb shop that sells "potions and elixirs" as well as "all things real and imagined." There, Carol purchases poison from a gypsy woman. All she needs to be free is the poison and "an ounce of courage" to off Steve, so she can be with hunky Larry.

So that night, over cups of instant sanka, Carol politely poisons and killer poor Steve. Almost immediately, however, Carol begins to experience nightmares about Steve's death's head moth. A very fake-looking flapping moth silhouette menaces her by black of night, and she dreams of the gypsy: now old and menacing and taunting her. Oopsy.

Blogger's interjection: At this point in the episode I noticed that my wife, Kathryn, was miraculously still awake, even though it was quite late. I had to question her about this. "You can't stay awake for great episodes of The Twilight Zone, but for this - for this - you're hanging on?" To which she replied. "I've got to stay up for this..this is a train wreck."

Back to the train wreck: At this point in "Death's Head," Janet Leigh returns to the gypsy herb shop and asks the gypsy what she knows about death's head moths. Oddly, the gypsy is a repository for just this very question, and goes into a lengthy and detailed exposition about how the death's head moth is "said to be an eternal cage for disembodied spirits...for spirits who find no peace in death."

So - you guessed it - Carol's husband gets revenge from beyond the grave and the last ten minutes of the episode involve Janet Leigh running madly around a dark house swatting at invisible bugs, turning over furniture. In the end, Larry comes over for a visit and finds that Carol - gasp - has switched places with Steve. Her skull is now implanted on the body of the death's head moth.

Oy.

First, before tearing this show apart, I'd like to establish that I am an advocate for releasing Ghost Story/Circle of Fear on DVD. I'm a completist, what can I say? And a historian of the genre too. Occasionally, like Kathryn, I'm in the mood for a train wreck, and if nothing else, the series deserves a fair hearing given the talent involved (Jimmy Sangster is on board as a writer for some installments; as is my hero, Dorothy Fontana).

But jeez. This should be called CIrcle of Sominex.

What "Death's Head" demonstrates most clearly is that the horror anthology format works best in short doses - not in hour-long installments. The Twilight Zone learned this lesson the hard way after a fourth season expansion to an hour. Darkroom and Night's Gallery both were an hour long, but featured multiple stories in that span. Other anthologies, from Tales from the Darkside to Monsters to Evil Touch are traditionally thirty minutes. This leaves no time for boredom: the stories get in, do their macabre jobs, and then finish up. No fuss, no muss. Indeed, this is my biggest beef with the usually very-entertaining but occasionally flaccid Masters of Horror. Some of the lesser tales feel padded out at an hour, and so suspense and tension just leak out. A notable exception to this trend: the 1960s Outer Limits (not the crappy 1990s one...), which even at an hour in duration was exquisite, dramatic and terrifying.

I also believe the changes from Ghost Story to Circle of Fear didn't do this anthology series much good. I prefer an anthology with a narrator or at least an understandable leitmotif or cosmic mechanism. Winston Essex might not have been perfect in Ghost Story, but he could provide exposition and comment on the tales. In The Twilight Zone we had a great narrator in Rod Serling, but also that wonderful umbrella of the unknown, "the fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man." Lesser - but interesting horror anthologies, such as Evil Touch at least attempted to craft this aura, even if it was as simple a catchphrase as "there is a touch of evil in all of us," or a simple mechanism like "the darkside" in Tales from the Darkside. Circle of Fear has what, precisely? Where's the Cryptkeeper when you need him?

"Death's Head" is also weakened by the fact that the special effects are atrocious, and that nothing scary ever really happens. Instead, there are just long passages of Janet Leigh roaming around a dark house, upset that (invisible...) bugs are fouling the swimming pool or impeding her bedtime. Snoozarama (except for Kathryn, apparently...).

I'd love to report that "Death's Head" is an anomaly and that other Circle of Fear episodes are superior. But categorically - they're not. This show is an object lesson in how not to do a horror anthology. Again, I think of that low-budget, high-achieving Australian import, Evil Touch. It failed as often as it succeeded, but it never bored me.

38

Today is my thirty-eighth birthday.

I was born on December 3rd, 1969, and so - in the mood for a little personal nostalgia - I decided this morning to present on the blog a little time capsule, a glimpse into the world of that day and era.

As usual, I have my parents to thank for being thoughtful and resourceful. Recently, I was at their home, and my Mom and Dad, without preamble, pulled out a yellowed edition of The New York Times from my birthday.

One they had kept for more than thirty-seven years. And one that I had never seen.

The newspaper on that day cost ten cents. And this edition is filled with advertisements for things like new cars (which cost a whopping $1,995 dollars), and tires (two tires for $25.00).

Headlines of the day involve an editorial by Al Gore (Senior), an arrest of "guru" Charles Manson, and the inaugural flight of the Boeing 747.

Also, being an admirer of film, I had to leaf to the movie listings and see what was playing. Among the fascinating titles: I am Curious (Yellow), The Arrangement (starring Kirk Douglas), Bob, Ted, Carol and Alice, and Midnight Cowboy.

CULT TV FLASHBACK #40: The Evil Touch (1974): "They"

Now here's another horror anthology curiosity from a bygone era, but unlike Darkroom (1981), this half-hour program aired in the early 1970s in syndication (1973-1974) and was made in Australia by American producer Mende Brown. The series featured a variety of American guest stars including Darren McGavin, Ray Walston, Vic Morrow and Leslie Nielson. The show was hosted by Anthony Quayle, who would walk out from a black background to address the audience during each installment (usually behind wisps of what appeared to be blue cigarette smoke...), and introduce and conclude each macabre story. His typical end note reminded audiences that "there is a touch of evil in all of us." Then, sardonically, he would add "Good night. Pleasant dreams."

Perhaps the weirdest entry of The Evil Touch (and that's quite an honor given some of the stories...) was "They", which aired in the New York market on June 2, 1974, and was written by Norman Thaddeus Vane and directed by Mende Brown. Harry Guardino stars as Dr. Fenton, a man who is on vacation in the English countryside with his young son, Peter...a boy who has dreamed of the remote landscape and even the old English village that is their destination. Just recently, a series of deaths have occurred there on the moors, on the rocks overlooking the ocean side. Narrator Quayle ponders "They say the sea can kill you," and then meditates on the nature of fate. "What makes people travel long distances?" He asks. "Is it destiny that leads them, or is the journey part of their destiny?"

Once you get your mind around that question, "They" descends into a world of barely linear storytelling that, despite this unconventional quirk, is actually quite compellingly surreal and horrifying; perhaps because it feels so dreamlike; or more accurately, nightmarish. What happens next in the story is that Peter gets lost on the moors and runs into a cult of malevolent children who wear rings of black make-up around their eyes...a sort of quasi punk affectation. They (the children) are led by a porcelain young beauty, a black-haired wraith called Lydia (Alexandra Hynes). She has already met Peter in his dreams. "I've come to show you my favorite game," she tells young Peter in one nocturnal visit to his bedroom. "It's called...touch."

Show me on the doll where the evil siren touched you...

Anyway, Lydia and her cult of evil children want to initiate Peter into their "new order" and so therefore play another game with him (which isn't as much fun as "touch"), this time "blind man's bluff," to see if he is worthy of membership. (And membership has its privileges). Blind-folded, Peter almost walks off the cliff where the other five corpses were found dead, but his father, Dr. Fenton, finds him and rescues him as he is about to take a giant step for child-kind.

The boy and his father flee to what they hope is safety in a nearby cottage and lighthouse, only to discover that it is the residence of Lydia and her minions. What follows is a confrontation between Fenton and Lydia for possession of Peter's soul. It plays like Village of the Damned meets Lord of the Flies meets The Wicker Man on acid at Marshall Applewhite's Heaven's Gate. And dammit if it isn't effectively unnerving.

Lydia tells Dr. Fenton - who is a renowned advocate and lecturer on the subject of birth control (because overpopulation leads to starvation and "the population bomb," he says, "is more dangerous than the atom bomb,") - that they are enemies. She is the leader of "the Children of the New Order," (no, not the British rock band...) a new cult with dozens of groups across England alone. The children of the new order have given up on the Old Ones (meaning grown-ups) and are converting children to their cause. They want a world of perfection...a world of children. One-upping the Hippie generation in their philosophy, they believe that they can't trust anyone over fifteen...that with age comes corruption. The age of twelve is considered middle-aged by these kids.

Dr. Fenton attempts to reason with Lydia, "where do you get the experience, the maturity to rule?" He asks. Experience is sorrow, the cult suggests, maturity unnecessary.

In the final battle, Peter breaks Lydia's spell over him, and he and Dr. Fenton escape to the moors. But suddenly Dr. Fenton is trampled by a local bookshop owner whom Lydia has maliciously transformed into a wild pony (don't ask...). And then...on the bluff overlooking his father's corpse, Peter dons the black eyeshadow and...joins "They."

In closing, Quayle - our host - says "They are probably still somewhere on the moors..."

In that case, I'm never visiting England.

Seriously, what the heck does this story mean? Naturally, it feels very 1970s in a lot of ways, and that's the era that the great Irish poet (and story editor on Space:1999), Johnny Byrne has often called "the wake-up from the hippie dream." The Evil Touch's "They" portrays a generational clash in a world of limited resources, and does so in the language of "cultism." The great civic leaders of the 1960s (JFK, Robert Kennedy, MLK), had been replaced by radical cult leaders like Charles Manson, Jim Jones and the like. It was an era of war (Vietnam), scandal (Watergate), and an Energy Crisis, and there was a feeling that things had to change in a drastic, revolutionary way, if the human race was to survive the next decade. That's how cult leaders became powerful, because people were seeking answers in unconventional places. Of course, we did survive that era...but "They" plays into a fear of the impending end of the world, of an insurgency from "within" and it does so in the unsettling language of dreamscapes and phantasms. Fenton's murder by the horse, for example, is cut as a lyrical montage, utilizing slow-motion photography, extreme close-ups of the horse braying, and a super-imposed close-up of Fenton's agonized face as he is crushed. There are jump-cuts, flashbacks and other "trippy" film techniques here that we associate from the disco decade era, and the film grain, naturalistic approach and isolated, picturesque setting all add-up to something strangely disturbing. The gaps in conventional narrative are filled in by the imagination, and the result is something that - no matter how weird (and it is very weird...) deserves to be considered artistic.

Not many people remember The Evil Touch (and it ain't available on DVD...), and that's shame because it often told very weird stories like "They," on a super-low budget. But with that super-low budget came a super zeal and energy that the most expensive series mysteriously find difficult to replicate. The Evil Touch's "Kadaitcha Country" pitted Leif Erickson (as a Christian missionary) against an aborigine God in the Australian outback; "The Trial" found a haughty tycoon (with a secret) Ray Walston trapped in a nighttime carnival and pursued by a discredited brain surgeon-turned-tattoo-artist who wanted to perform a lobotomy on him. Another good one, "A Game of Hearts" saw a surgeon, Darren McGavin, terrorized by a donor (jokingly named Skorzeny) whose heart he had transplanted to another patient. These synopses make the whole enterprise sound strange, I guess, but The Evil Touch is strange in its own gloriously individual way...and I love that.