Surveying the Gen X landscape and the origins of geek
1981 (photo source unknown)
What a line-up. That’s Asteroids Deluxe on the right. (Click to enlarge.)
January 27, 1982. (Ann E. Yow/Seattle Times)
That’s a lot of hair! And what’s with the guy wearing a jacket but no shirt?
(Photos via Vintage Photos 2012 and Seattle Washington Archive)
My wife is always telling me about the major crush she had on Andre Gower, so much so that I now get really irritated and jealous when she talks about the crush she had (has, let’s be honest) on the guy. Gower was in the ’80s classic The Monster Squad (1987), for those of you who don’t know. You might remember the scene in which the longstanding metaphysical debate over whether or not Wolfman has nards is settled once and for all.
Gower was also in Circus of the Stars, a surprisingly long-running show in which the stars of the day dressed up in embarrassing outfits and performed—you guessed it—circus stunts.
Anyway, I sprung the top photo on my wife one night as she was going on about “Andre” and said, triumphantly, “This is the guy you have a crush on?”
She spluttered something about Circus of the Stars not counting, then calmly pulled up the current-ish picture below and said, smugly, “Yeah, this is the guy I have a crush on.”
Andre Gower: one.
2 Warps to Neptune: zero.
(Images via Totally Awesome Teen Pinups and Magazines and IMDb)
This should be a caption contest.
(Via the 1982 book The Kids’ Whole Future Catalog via Paleofuture)
Who wrote this stuff? Check out the description of R5-D4 in the second to last ad:
One of the incredible number of droids human inginuity devised. R5D4 was a highly sophisticated, semi-sentient, pro-grammable droid capable of independent action & limited decision making capability.
And how about Snaggletooth, who “stands at a deadly 2¾” high!”?
Not that I cared at the time. I just wanted them all.
(Images via Kenyatabks/eBay)
The first four images are from the 1969 set. All others are from the 1975 set that came out with the release of the Planet of the Apes TV series—actually, the cards debuted after the short-lived show was cancelled (in December of 1974). Both sets were released by Topps.
My strongest memory of the Planet of the Apes movies is watching them in after-school daycare. All the kids (and a teacher or two) would huddle around the tiny TV, totally mesmerized. I would keep looking for my mom out of the corner of my eye so that when she showed up I could beg her to let me stay. The movies would play in the same slot, consecutively, throughout the week.
I’m not sure there was a greater influence on a kid’s world than syndication and having to choose between 13 channels.
Loew’s Capitol Theater, New York City, 1968
Hoyts Regent Theatre, Sydney, Australia, 1968
Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, 1973
(Photos via William Burge via Cinema Retro)
2 Warps to Neptune 