Aucbvax.1470
fa.sf-lovers
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!JPM@MIT-ML
Mon Jun 1 07:07:18 1981
SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #136
SF-LOVERS PM Digest Sunday, 31 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 136
Today's Topics:
SF Movies - Outland & Barbarella query,
SF TV - Here's the Plot,What's the Title,
SF Radio - HitchHiker Guide Guide,
SF Topics - Children's stories & Children's TV (Roger Ramjet and
Rocky and Bullwinkle and Jay Ward Productions and
Super Chicken and Speed Racer and Captain Scarlet)
Digest Correction - Duplicate message
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 26 May 1981 1753-CDT
From: Bob Amsler <CS.AMSLER AT UTEXAS-20>
Subject: Outland, genre "future shock"
I have read through the Outland mail messages and feel it is still
worth making one point that was only touched upon. The fact that A.
Ladd's own film company produced this is significant, as is the
continuity with "Alien" in terms of what "Outland" is all about. I
suggest that a new "formula" has been discovered, and for my part it
DOES work. The "formula" is to take a used-up genre film, for "Alien"
this was the horror film, for "Outland" it is the Western, and to
remake it in the science-fiction setting with lush space scenery.
"Outland" is magnificently "atmospheric". George Lukas established
the validity of beat-up equipment giving a science-fiction movie more
character and that lesson has been followed in "Outland" to an extreme
I found almost over-done. Nearly everywhere in the Con-Am mining
facility one sees grubbyness. Apart from the "white" of the medical
quarters, the corridors are grimy, with streaked walls where something
leaked through. O'Neil's wife mentions she's leaving in part because
she is tired of air that smells like the inside of a machine-room (or
some such). The living quarters remind one of cramped submarine bunks.
Informal dress is grubby sweat-shirt modern.
Anyway, the point of this message is that there is a new "pattern" for
science-fiction movie-making and I think "Outland" will spawn a series
of imitations as well as foster a new effort to extend the "genre
transplants" into other non-SF genres. Clearly we could see a
Science-Fiction Mystery akin to Asimov's Robot novels; a Spy movie set
in the future; not to mention the War Movie (if TESB didn't already
achieve that).
The results are pleasing enough, but the fun of "Outland" clearly
involves making the comparisons with "High Noon". There are many.
O'Neil's one-line utterances (to which attention is drawn by his wife
in the film); the reactions of those on the mining facility to helping
O'Neil in the show-down; the "bottom of the heap" marshall job as the
last chance for O'Neil to show he's not the broken-down lawman
everyone expects him to be; the "why don't you leave town" query; the
"countdown" for the show-down with it's psychological stress.... Pure
camp.
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1981 22:10 edt
From: JSLove at MIT-Multics (J. Spencer Love)
Subject: Movie Cast Query
Sender: JSLove.PDO at MIT-Multics
I have been asked by a friend who played the Great Tyrant in
Barbarella. In particular, was she played by more than one person, as
Darth Vader was: one for the body and another for the voice. A bet
hinges on this although I am unable to obtain a percentage for whoever
can answer this. Reply to JSL at MIT-Multics and I will send just one
copy of the answer to the digest.
[ Yes, please reply directly, NOT to the digest. -- Jim ]
------------------------------
Date: 1981-5-22-11:31:21.76
Sender: YOUNG at DEC-MARLBORO
From: NIGEL CONLIFFE at VAXWRK at ORION at METOO
Subject: Old, Bad TV Shows of beloved memory (sic)
On the subject of old, bad TV shows, there was an old TV show called
Phoenix - 5 which used to be shown on Saturday mornings. It was a sort
of "Space Patrol" concept, where our three heros (actually two heros,
one heroine and a robot) travelled through space protecting Earth
against whatever the current nastiness from outer space was. Their
principal enemy was a space pirate (whose name I forget, fortunately)
who had a beard, and an artificial limb and all the usual cliches.
The show was memorable for only two reasons -
(1) They must have spent all of $7.32 on special effects - the
"master computer" was a collection of christmas tree
lights and some actual household light switches!
(2) They landed on some strange planet, which was all snow
and ice. The pilot asked the robot what the outside
temperature was, to which our mechanical friend replied
"It's -12 degrees Kelvin", to which the pilot replied
"That's cold!" They then donned parkas and down vests
and went outside.
Does anyone else remember this series (I think it was originally
produced in Australia) or is my memory generating parity errors again?
Nigel A Conliffe
------------------------------
Date: 30 May 1981 1642-EDT (Saturday)
From: Roy.Taylor at CMU-10A
Subject: HitchHiker Guide Guide
Could someone provide a list of episodes in the HitchHiker's Guide
currently running on NPR Playhouse? They don't seem to be numbered
nor can I tell how many there are.
-- Roy
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1981 06:06:20-PDT
From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley
Subject: Children's Science Fiction
While wandering in a local bookstore, I saw a rack labelled "Teenage
Favorites", which contained about 14 different Danny Dunn books, plus
"Miss Pickerell Goes to the Moon." Guess they're still around, though
I had trouble reconciling the copyright dates with the order of books
in the series and my own recollection of when I read them.
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 1981 20:32:17-EDT
From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: Rocky and Bullwinkle
It has been confirmed by various sources that R&B will be back in
distribution for the fall season of Saturday morning shows; I'm told
that in NYC they'll be broadcast right after DR. WHO.
I have warm memories of that show (and of seeing a complete serial,
complete with all the other self-contained episodes they included, at
last year's Minicon), although I would have said it actually began in
the late 50's rather than the 60's. But as for it being pioneering, a
somewhat older acquaintance (born 1946) maintains that the first
intelligent cartoon show, from which most of the rest took varieties
of inspiration, was "Crusader Rabbit" (with Rags the tiger), which
I've never seen. Comments?
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 1981 (Tuesday) 0044-EDT
From: PLATTS at WHARTON-10 (Steve Platt)
Subject: Bullwinkle
Ah, at last a topic I still enjoy! I still remember skipping many a
class as an undergraduate to watch the morning editions of Johnny
Quest, followed by Bullwinkle.
I add to Lauren's list some more bad puns found in B:
An entire series devoted to a gemstone boat, the "Ruby Yacht of
Omar Khayam"... one of the opponents was a high leader of the
mid-east, the "Grand Brassiere"... (some things I really didn't
catch when I was 5 or 6 years old...)
--- whatever became of Jay Ward and JW Productions, anyway?
-Steve
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 1981 (Tuesday) 0026-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: Animated Kiddy SF
Mr. Peabody (the dog) and his pet boy, Sherman, used to use a
"wayback" machine to visit the past. This was one of the more
instructive shows around but all of the history lessons ended in bad
"shaggy dog" punch lines.
Remeber Tennessee Tuxedo (a pseudo-penguin) and his friend waldo
walrus? They had a friend who was a professor (name forgotten). This
character used to explain things by way of a device known as the 3DBB
(Three Dimensional Black Board). The things would come out pocket
sized and then expand into a rather large (but still only two
dimensional!) blackboard.
There was some Hanna-Barbara animation called, I think, "Secret
Squirrel". He had a gadget ridden car that did everything from fly to
play submarine.
Along the same line... "Tom, the man from T.H.U.M.B." [Tiny Human ?U?
?M? ?B?]. He had his office in a file drawer and was sent off on
secret assignments of an FBI-like flavor.
-- Jeff
------------------------------
Date: 30 May 1981 1559-EDT
From: MD at MIT-XX
Subject: Rocky and Bullwinkle
I dug up a lot of information on Jay Ward cartoons from the
LSC (MIT Lecture Series Committee - the campus film group) files. It
would have been appropriate for the Film-Buffs mailing list, but I'm
not sure I should tie up SF-Lovers. I can give you the titles of all
28 Rocky and His Friends series (326 total episodes), the 39
Bullwinkle's Corner episodes, the 60 Mr. Know It All's, the 91
Peabody's Improbable History's, and 91 Fractured Fairy Tales [it's not
clear from the sheets I'm looking at whether Aesop and Son was also
Jay Ward]. I can also tell you how to go about renting them. If
people are really interested, I'll type in the lists (but there's
quite a bit of typing involved). It might make sense to set up as a
separate file which people could look at or FTP. Send reactions
directly to me, MD@MIT-XX.
Mike Dornbrook
[ Please send your reactions directly to Mike. If enought people
are interested then the information will be distributed via the
digest's FTP procedures. -- Jim ]
------------------------------
Date: 31 May 1981 1228-EDT (Sunday)
Sender: David.Ackley at CMU-10A
From: Dave Ackley <DAVID.ACKLEY AT CMU-10A>
Subject: Tom SLICK and more theme songs
The race car driver was Tom Slick, not Tom Swift, in the show
featuring him, George of the Jungle, and Super Chicken.
Fragments of theme songs:
Super Chicken: ... and it looks like you will take a lickin'.
There is one thing you should learn,
When there is no where else to turn,
To ca-all for Super Chicken!
... he will drink his Super Sauce
And throw the bad guys for a loss,
So ca-all for Super Chicken.
Pluck pluck pluck pluck
Ca-all for Super Chicken!
Pluck GAWK!
Speed Racer: Here he comes! Here comes Speed Racer!
He's a demon on wheels.
He's a demon and he's gonna be chasin' after someone.
... [he will catch them in his powerful?] Mach Five!
[At the junior high school age that my buddies and me used to
watch this show after school, we got much amusement out of the
Mach Five. It had buttons in the center of the steering wheel
which could make the car do some impressive things, like sprout
wings, go under water, and put out two large sawmill blades in
front of the car so Speed Racer could drive pell-mell through
dense forest. Classicly Awful! His comic relief characters
were his little brother (phonetically) Spridle and his monkey
Chim-Chim.]
Captain Scarlet: [I remember the music distinctly but can't get words
beyond:]
Captain Scarlet! [and maybe repeat?]
In-De-Structible CAPTAIN SCARLET!
[Another classic Japanese Super Marionation import. He was a
member of the Spectrum organization, HQed in a thing called
Cloud Base, which had no visible means of support. The CO
was Colonel White, of course, and the heavy was Captain Black,
of course, who had been on the original Mars mission and was
taken over by the Mysterons of Mars. The show always opened
with some random getting killed and taken over by the
Mysterons, with the following voice-over:
This is Captain Black, relaying instructions from the
Mysterons. [then "plot"-specific details of what evil
this guy was to do.]
Captain Scarlet suffered a near-miss with the Mysterons which
left him "indestructible" and not a candidate for take over.
Understandably, the Mysterons didn't like him very much. The
equivalent of "Aye aye, sir", on the show was "S.I.G.", which
we eventually discovered meant: "Spectrum Is Green". Now
THAT makes sense.]
Well, enough of this. If anyone is interested, a friend of mine and I
recently managed to come up with a complete set of lyrics to "The
Patty Duke Show" too!
-Dave
------------------------------
Date: 27 May 1981 00:44:13-PDT
From: CSVAX.wildbill at Berkeley
Subject: Errata and R.R.
When Noodles Romanoff threatens to play some music on his "violins"
(i.e., not e.g. machine guns), he pronounces it "wye'-o-lince". There
is another verse to the Roger Ramjet theme song, and the refrain as
originally sent is incorrect. The corrected version is:
Roger Ramjet Theme Song
Roger Ramjet and his Eagles,
Fighting for our freedom.
Fly to win in outer space
Not to join 'em, but to beat 'em.
REFRAIN: Roger Ramjet, he's our man
Hero of our nation.
For his adventures just be sure
And stay tuned to this station!
So come and join us all you kids
For lots of fun and laughter
As Roger Ramjet and his men
Get all the crooks they're after.
(refrain)
Roger Ramjet Closing Theme
When Ramjet takes a proton pill,
The crooks begin to worry.
They can't escape their awful fate
From proton's mighty fury.
(refrain)
So come and join us ...
------------------------------
Date: 31 May 1980 8:40 PST
From: The Moderator <JPM AT MIT-AI>
Subject: Digest Correction - duplicate message
In the Friday digest (volume 3, issue 134), a message by Bruce
Hamilton (Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC) appeared twice. The second
occurance of this message should be replaced by the following
message.
Jim
Date: 26 May 1981 1431-PDT (Tuesday)
From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein)
Subject: Re: new mailing lists
I am glad, but I am also sorry. It would have been fun. Someday, on
another network!
--Lauren--
------------------------------
End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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