The fish!
See here and here for other LOTR merchandise, and go here to check out the action figures.
Archive for September, 2015
The Lord of the Rings Vinyl Sculpture Banks: Gollum and Aragorn (Tolkien Enterprises, 1978)
Published September 23, 2015 Lord of the Rings, The 1 Comment`Hobbit T-Shirts’ and `Come to Middle Earth’ Ads in Rolling Stone (December, 1977)
Published September 22, 2015 Ads , Board Games/Tabletop Games , Counterculture (1960s) , Lord of the Rings, The 1 Comment
The Quest of the Magic Ring board game, seen below, was published in 1975 by Land of Legend, the placer of the ad on the right. You can see more photos at Board Game Geek. The first board game based on Tolkien’s work is probably Conquest of the Ring (Hobbit Toy and Games, 1970).
The ad image is via Butterfly Mind, where you can see more of the Rolling Stone issue. “Come to Middle Earth” and “Frodo Lives!” were slogans adopted by the counterculture starting in the late 1960s.
Middle Earth Discount Records and Tapes, Circa 1977
Published September 22, 2015 Counterculture (1960s) , Lord of the Rings, The , Record Stores , Records (LPs) and Cassettes 1 Comment
I found the photo at Michael Poulin’s Flickr and subsequently discovered the Middle Earth Records Memorial Page. The music store and head shop opened in 1969 and closed in 2007. Business card below.
Movie Theater Marquees: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Published September 21, 2015 Disney Movies , Movie Theaters/Marquees , Star Trek 1 Comment
The Capri Theater in Charlotte, North Carolina, December, 1979. Sleeping Beauty (1959) was re-released theatrically in 1970, 1979, 1986, and 1995.
(Image via Retro Charlotte)
Movie Theater Marquees: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Published September 21, 2015 Movie Theaters/Marquees , Star Wars (Original Trilogy) 2 Comments
Above: The lobby of an unnamed theater, probably the Avco Westwood. That helmet is part of the “Astro Explorer Play Set” seen here (worn by the kid in the catalog).
Below: Moviegoers line up at the Alabama Theatre in Houston, Texas, on May 21, 1980. Many engagements of the first run of Empire were shown in 70mm, as opposed to the more standard 35mm. There were minor changes in the two versions.
(Images via Pinterest and The Houston Chronicle)
From Peter Hartlaub’s column at the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s a camera store cleaning out its “video tape” inventory.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock VHS Ad (1985)
Published September 18, 2015 Home Video , Star Trek 3 Comments
Remember, this was considered “price-cutting” at the time. The Empire Strikes Back was released on home video in 1984 and sold a record 400,000 copies at $79.98.
The ad is from Starlog #93 (April, 1985).
Charles Band started Wizard Video in 1980, distributing a number of horror classics (and trash classics) as well as introducing the “big box” VHS format. The big boxes splashed graphic art and were a signal innovation that changed the market. You can see a whole bunch of awesome brochures here. Wizard Video also released two obscure, ultra-violent video games for the Atari 2600, Halloween (1983) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1982).
(Image via Monster Memories)
Darryl Solomon, the president of VideoRave in Westwood, California. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Great find by Camera Viscera, the photo accompanies a June 1986 Los Angeles Times article about the home video boom, specifically the struggles of “independent video specialty stores” against “video superstores” and non-specialty stores. Here are some choice quotes:
About 30% of the nation’s TV-watching households now own videocassette recorders…
The average wholesale value of a VCR is about $390, contrasted with about $830 in 1981…
The price breakthrough may have been the wildly successful release last Christmas of the “Beverly Hills Cop” videocassette at $29.95 by Paramount Home Video, the industry leader in price-cutting since 1982. In comparison, RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video released the “Ghostbusters” videotape at $79.95 at about the same time…
One of the marketing consultants quoted in the article says that the mom and pop video shops aren’t likely “to capsize like little sailboats in a storm,” but that’s exactly what happened. The one I worked at opened in 1984/1985 and closed in 1987/1988. The Wherehouse is cited as “the largest renter of video movies in the nation,” but that wouldn’t be the case for much longer. On August 25, 1986, the first Blockbuster franchise store opened in Marietta, Georgia.
Here are the videos I spot in the photo above (help if you can):
First row: Alien (thanks, David Augustyn), Android, Barbarella, The Beastmaster, The Black Hole (thanks, David Augustyn), The Blade Master (thanks, doerrhb), Bladerunner, A Boy and His Dog (thanks, Ricky Zhero), Brainstorm, Clash of the Titans, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Conan the Barbarian
Second row: D.A.R.Y.L., Defcon 4, Demon Seed, Dragonslayer, Dune, Explorers, Flash Gordon (thanks, Ricky Zhero), Iceman, Ice Pirates, Krull
Third row: The Neverending Story, Night of the Comet, The Philadelphia Experiment, Red Sonja, Runaway, Spacehunter, Star Trek II, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III (x2), Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back (x2)
Fourth row: THX 1138, Timerider, Tron, 2001: A Space Odyssey, ?, ?, ?, ?, Westworld (x2)
More video stores here.
Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, 1984
Published September 17, 2015 '80s Movies/TV , Record Stores , Records (LPs) and Cassettes Leave a Comment
Lovely. This was taken during the filming of The Breakfast Club, a movie that means more to me than most. Ringwald and Hall dated briefly after filming wrapped.
The photographer is Steve Kagan via Getty Images.
2 Warps to Neptune 