(Images via EMDKAY, Pinball Rebel, Dragon’s Lair Fans, The Arcade Flyer Archive)
Archive for May, 2012
Arcade Cabinets: Pleiades/Pleiads (1981)
Published May 31, 2012 Arcade Cabinets/Coin-Ops , Video Games 2 Comments
Okay, people. Courtesy of Dean Stevens, here’s a crossword from Dragon Magazine #89 (1984). “WKRP Newsman”? “Succubus at hub of outer plane”? Damn, I love the ’80s.
If anybody has any old mags with crosswords like this, do let me know.
Quick Movie Reviews: Thrashin’ (1986)
Published May 29, 2012 '80s Movies/TV , Movie Reviews , Skateboarding 1 Comment
By the time I started my freshman year of high school in 1986, I was a skater. I liked lots of other stuff too, and I’m not sure I fit the part all that well, but being a skater is what defined me in the territorial adolescent hierarchy. Thrashin’ was released the summer before school started. I must have seen it. It was the first feature film about skateboarding, many of the best skaters of the day made an appearance, and it starred Josh Brolin (Brand) from The Goonies. So why don’t I remember it?
Probably because it was a great big pile of shit. And as rotten as I thought it was this time around, I would have found it much more offensive in ’86. The movie is a Karate Kid clone in terms of plot, but lacks completely the heart and competent performances of the earlier film. Brolin’s character, Cory, moves to Dogtown to stay with his (white) skater friends and train for the big downhill event. He falls for the pretty blonde girl, whose brother, Tommy, is the leader of The Daggers, a nasty skate gang (made up mostly of minorities). Cory gets it on with the slutty blonde and incurs the wrath of Tommy. A skateboarding “joust” is arranged in which Cory and Tommy swing fluffy balls at each other while moving at speeds approaching 5 mph. Eventually the two face off in the big downhill race, etc., etc.
I concede the importance of Thrashin’ historically, and it’s fun to see the skaters of the day pulling off the tricks of the day, but the movie is clearly a cynical Hollywood exploitation of what it saw as a passing fad. We had a word for the kind of people who pulled shit like this: posers.
The scene below marks the first appearance of The Daggers. It’s all you need to see.
1981 Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalog: Strawberry Shortcake
Published May 29, 2012 Catalogs Leave a Comment
Apparently Strawberry Land stirs more than the imagination! Happy adventures, indeed.
All Denim, All the Time: Jordache Ad (1987)
Published May 23, 2012 '80s Decor/Design/Fashion , Ads 3 Comments
I wore plenty of embarrassing shit in the ’80s, but I never owned a jean jacket, not even after Mikey sported one in The Goonies. They were lame then. They’re lame now.
In the hierarchy of lame in the denim world, there are only three things higher (i.e. lamer) than jean jackets on men. First, acid wash of any kind. Second, anything Jordache. And third, acid wash Jordache on top and bottom combined with an unbuttoned Jordache shirt and faux dogtags. I’m sorry if you wore any or all of these things and thought you looked cool. You were lame.
Yes, I know, the current skinny jeans fad is also lame. All of these kids are going to be mortified in 15 or 20 years when they see how stupid they looked. And they take something like 800 pictures of themselves a day, so it’ll be even worse.
My point is that nothing denim-related today is as lame as the jackasses who walked around decked out like the guy in this photo. And they were everywhere, my friends. They listened to KIIS-FM. They ran over our skateboards with their red sportscars. They voted for Reagan.
(Image via SlantedEnchanted’s Flickr)
1981 Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalog: The Empire Strikes Back and… Ventriloquist Dolls?
Published May 22, 2012 Catalogs , Evil Toys , Kenner Toys , Star Wars (Original Trilogy) Leave a Comment
“Team up with a ventriloquist doll and stage your own talk show with these famous funnymen!” I’ll pass, thanks. I realize this catalog came out before we were all scarred for life by that goddamn clown scene in Poltergeist (1982), but still, what boy is going to ask for a Mortimer Snerd dummy when he can get a Slave I or Snow Speeder for the same price, or the Dagobah Action Playset and a Tauntaun? If there’s one thing we learned in the ’80s, it’s that all dolls are alive and will turn on you, usually with knives. Action figures are also alive, of course, but if you scatter them under the sheets and prop them up on the nightstand, they will protect you while you sleep.
(All images from the kidtastic Wishbook Web. Click images to enlarge.)
Rights reserved by ladlerz
Circa 1984, care of Lars Adlerz. Ah, yes. The “sadistic” Dungeonmaster plots behind his impenetrable, makeshift fortress. What’s he doing back there? Why does he keep rolling those damn dice? Oh my God he’s going to kill us all!
Movie Theater Marquees
Published May 21, 2012 '70s Movies/TV , '80s Movies/TV , Movie Theaters/Marquees , Star Trek 1 Comment
Rights reserved by JoyTheater
The Joy Theater, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1986. Remember in Star Trek IV when Spock and Kirk were on the bus and that obnoxious punk rocker had his boombox blasting really loud and Kirk asked him to turn it down but he wouldn’t so Spock gave him the Vulcan nerve pinch and everyone in the bus cheered? Yeah. That was awesome.
Rights reserved by patricia_poland
Village Cinema 4, Monroe, North Carolina, 1986. Back to School (1986) is an ’80s comedy staple starring Rodney Dangerfield and Robert Downey Jr., but I had to look up the others. In Thunder Warrior (1983, a.k.a. Thunder), a Native American wreaks vengeance on the law when his tribe’s ancestral burial grounds are destroyed by developers. The Patriot (1986): the poster speaks for itself. Toxic Zombies (1980, a.k.a. Bloodeaters) is about hippies who turn into zombies after their pot crop gets dusted by an experimental pesticide. There’s no way it’s going to be as bad-ass as the poster, but I’m going to watch it anyway.
Via listal
Via listal
Rights reserved by joelgllespie1957
Clemson Movie Theater, Clemson, South Carolina, Fall, 1977.
Rights reserved by David Lee Guss
42nd Street Film Theaters, New York City, 1977. According to the photographer, David Lee Guss, “This shot was taken from the Hotel Carter (formerly the Dixie) a year after Taxi Driver was made.” I can almost taste the grime. Tentacles (1977) and Squirm (1976) are classics of the trashy creature feature/”nature run amok” explosion of the ’70s, which included Night of the Lepus (1972), Frogs (1972), Empire of the Ants (1977), The Swarm (1978), Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), The Food of the Gods (1976), Piranha (1978), Chosen Survivors (1974), etc. I remember watching many of these flicks on Saturday mornings/matinees, and a couple of times I even convinced my dad to pick me up early from school so I could catch them on weekdays.
Cybernetic Lifeform Seeks Human Representation
Published May 20, 2012 Battlestar Galactica , Robots Leave a Comment
David B. Mattingly: The Art of Heroes in Hell
Published May 19, 2012 David B. Mattingly Leave a CommentHeroes in Hell is a series of fantasy books published from 1986 to 1989 featuring stories by some of the top sci-fi/fantasy writers of the day. I’ve never read any of them, but vividly remember seeing them in the bookstores around the time, thanks to David Mattingly‘s luridly enthralling cover art.
In the stories, according to Wikipedia, “Hell becomes an arena in which all the interesting people in history can come together to continue the relentless pursuit of their various ends.” It sounds pretty cool, but the general consensus is that the substance doesn’t quite measure up to the inspired idea. The books are out of print, but I think I’ll have a look for a used copy of the first volume and give it a shot.
Mattingly did all the covers (images via the Internet Speculative Fiction Database) with the exception of volume eleven, Prophets in Hell (not pictured). My favorite has got to be War in Hell, what with the American G.I. beating up the undead Roman centurion, and what appears to be the Hindenburg bursting into flames! And is that Genghis Khan in the background?
2 Warps to Neptune 