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Archive for the nostalgia Category

Learning BASIC with the Marvel Super Heroes

Posted in 80s, books, comic books, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews with tags Book Report, books, comic books, computers, Marvel Comics, pop culture, reviews, technology on August 17, 2011 by Paxton

Yesterday I looked at the Star Wars Q&A Book about Computers. It featured a history of the computer (through 1983) and some awesome art by Ken Barr. Today, I’m looking at another awesomely vintage computer book, it’s the Marvel Super Heroes Computer Fun Book Two from 1984.

This book is LOOOOOOOOONG and it features A LOT of programs. I’ll just be looking at some of the more notable programs and artwork. You can check out my Flickr set to see more.

Here’s the cover to the activity book and the intro page telling you what to expect inside.

And here’s the Fantastic Four to tell you how to use this book (in case you weren’t already aware that you used it to, you know, program your computer).

Here’s Capt America reminding you to code your 900 lines. He gives you 9 examples (there’s another page of code I’m not showing you) of 900 lines from different BASIC environments like the Commodore 64, IBM PC and Apple II.

Here’s a program featuring Cap called Menace of the Gray Gargoyle. It’s a “fence busting” program. See the code here. Man, that Gray Gargoyle looks lame.

This program is called Iron Man to the Rescue. It’s a game in which Iron Man has to stop a ship from shooting missiles at a school filled with children. Hope you get them all or the deaths of thousands of small schoolchildren on your head. Is it just me or does that seem like a needlessly violent scenario for a kid’s computing activity book?

There are two other Iron Man programs. The first is called Robot Retriever. It’s awesome because the title page features MODOK and ROM: Spaceknight. The other is Iron Man’s Lock Problem. I like the artwork on the title page. I didn’t realize Iron Man was popular enough in the 1980s to get three programs in this book.

The article continues below the break…

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The Cavalcade and Nerd Lunch assault the Tallahassee Auto Museum Part II

Posted in blogging, cars, nostalgia, pop culture, random with tags blogging, pop culture, random on July 20, 2011 by Paxton

A few weeks ago, I visited Carlin Trammel (of Nerd Lunch) in Tallahassee for an historic meeting of bloggy awesomeness. Together we witnessed the random awesomeness that is the Tallahasse Auto Museum, inhaled Double Downs at a local KFC and talked about all things nerdy (Star Trek, Star Wars, super hero movies, blogging, etc). Yes, a nerd connection was made.

Anyway, on Monday I discussed all the awesome cars Carlin and I peeped in the museum. On Tuesday, Carlin posted his recollections of our trip to the museum. I’m continuing the week long look at my sojourn over to the ‘hassee by revealing to you all the other randomly epic crap that was crammed into the “auto” museum that had nothing whatsoever to do with cars. You will be amazed.

Let’s start with…

Pianos. Yes, this place had a collection of about 10 pianos. This particular one looks like a Fisher Price toy made for a giant baby. I swear my 10 month old son has a piano very similar to this (only “normal” baby size).

Here Carlin is checking out the re-DONK-ulous gold piano that would be the perfect centerpiece to any room. And it is flanked by two tasteful life size gold lions. In my mind this is the piano that God is playing when you enter the Gates of Heaven. And he’s playing the theme to the movie Chariots of Fire. Or The Sting.

From pianos we move to…

Dolls. This place also had an entire section of collectible dolls. Amongst the Barbies and Skippers there were a few choice, geeky items. Here is a nearly full set of Mego’s 1976 Wizard of Oz figures. They are only missing a few Munchkins figures and the Witches Castle and Munchkinland playsets. I am in love with this set. It was this set that put Mego on the map and allowed them to get the Marvel and DC licenses to create their World’s Greatest Super Heroes line.

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12 of Superman’s Most Absurd Pre-Crisis Super Powers

Posted in 80s, comic books, nostalgia, pop culture, Superman with tags Cavalcade Comics, comic books, DC Comics, humor, nostalgia, pop culture, Superman, Superman Week on July 4, 2011 by Paxton

Everyone knows the many standard powers of Superman; fly, super-strength, super-speed, super-breath, invulnerable, heat-vision, etc. Not everyone knows, though, that he didn’t always have many of these abilities. Not only that, Superman has several other super powers that are less used, but still kept in his back pocket for just the right moment when he can whip it out and dazzle everyone.

As the years went on, and writers kept getting more…”creative”…Supes powers were quickly growing and getting more out of control. These little known powers had stacked up over the years until finally DC had to say, “Dammit, that’s enough” and launched the massive Crisis on Infinite Earths event to just level the playing field.

Let’s take a look at some of the lesser known, and therefore more humorous, of Superman’s Pre-Crisis abilities . I’ll include panels of Superman using the ridiculous powers when I can. If you have trouble reading the text, click the images to make them bigger.

Super-Ventriloquism and other voice “powers” – Not only Super-V, he had a whole bag full of voice powers that writers tended to wield at their hip like gunslingers. Superman could throw his voice over great distances and also possessed super-voice-mimicry, which means he could make his voice sound like anyone else. That power must come in handy at parties when you are stuck talking to the guy who won’t leave you alone and keeps asking you to come check out his “sweet van” out in the parking lot. The one painted all white with no windows (aka RAPE van). If you were Supes, you could throw your voice across the room as someone else calling your name and you can get the hell out of there. Nicely done, Superman. Or, you could just punch a hole in the rapist’s face because you are, you know, SUPERMAN.

Super-Mathematics – Super Mathematics? That looks a lot like regular mathematics to me. By the way, Super Douche, isn’t 20 x 16 x 10 = 3,200?

Super-Weaving – Yes, that actually happened. Super weaving. Not weaving at super speed. Super-weaving.

Super-Hypnosis – Apparently this is why no one recognizes Clark Kent is Superman. And it apparently works even when he isn’t concentrating on using it (I guess that’s what makes it super hypnosis?). However, I prefer to ignore this power and assume that everyone in Metropolis is just that dumb to notice they are the same person. Or they really just don’t care.

Super-Telepathic Will Control – In an early issue of Superman where he’s kidnapped by aliens, he whips out telepathic will control, which allows him to override someone’s mind and make their body do whatever Superman wants. If he can do this, then why would he ever need Super Hypnosis?

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Cannonball Run turns 30 years old

Posted in 80s, Cannonball Run, movies, nostalgia, pop culture with tags anniversary, Cannonball Run, movies, pop culture on June 19, 2011 by Paxton

Cannonball Run ad

The classic road race movie The Cannonball Run was released on Jun 19, 1981, 30 years ago today. It starred Burt Reynolds, Dom Deluise, Roger Moore, Jamie Farr and a host of other celebrities like Jackie Chan, Farrah Fawcett, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Terry Bradshaw and Adrienne Barbeau.

Watch the trailer:

Some interesting trivia about the film:

The film was originally going to be a straight up action flick starring Steve McQueen. After McQueen’s death, the lead was given to Burt Reynolds and the script was re-written as a comedy.

The race in the movie is based on an actual, real life race that took place over several years in the 70s. I discuss the origins of the real race; The Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash here.

Many of the vehicles, including the ambulance driven by Reynolds and Deluise, were actually entered and run in the real life Cannonball races in the late 70s.

Roger Moore plays Seymore Goldfarb, Jr, a spoof of James Bond, who he was portraying at the time. In the race, he drives an Aston Martin which is famously linked to the British secret agent. However, Moore never drives an Aston Martin in the seven movies he appeared as James Bond. This movie is the only on-screen pairing of Moore and the famous car.

This movie features one of Jackie Chan’s first US appearances. His character is Japanese, even though Chan himself is Chinese. Chan was inspired by director Hal Needham’s use of bloopers during the end credits and from this point on would do the same in all of his own movies.

Burt Reynolds and Dom Deluise appeared together in Smokey and the Bandit Part II the previous year. This movie makes several references to that earlier movie including Reynolds mentioning the black Trans-Am and Deluise referencing his doctor character.

Watch the end credit outtakes

The Cannonball Run had two sequels. The first was The Cannonball Run II in 1984. Part II reunited the majority of the cast from the first movie. The second sequel was Speed Zone in 1989. The only returning character in the third movie was Jamie Farr’s The Sheik. The two leads were John Candy and Eugene Levy, friends who appeared together on SCTV and in the movie Armed and Dangerous. Their casting was an attempt to recreate the chemistry of original leads, and friends, Burt Reynolds and Dom Deluise.

This movie still holds up today. Reynolds and Deluise are hilarious and it seemed the entire cast had a blast filming the movie. Part II also holds up very well and fans may actually remember more scenes from Part II than the original.

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My elementary school sticker collection Part II: More Mr T and bumper stickers

Posted in nostalgia, pop culture, stickers with tags collecting, nostalgia, pop culture, stickers, vintage on June 7, 2011 by Paxton

Back in March, I took a look at my elementary school sticker collection. It consisted of some scratch and sniff stickers, puffy Mr T stickers and a crap load of Michael Jackson stickers. It was pretty popular and I got several requests for more awesome 80s sticker goodness. So I’m delivering.

First off, I had a few requests for a better look at the Mr T puffy stickers on the front and back covers of my sticker album. To refresh your memory, here’s the cover to my sticker album.

So, I scanned the Mr T stickers again and tried to clean them up a bit with Photoshop. Here they are.

On the left we have cartoon, puffy Mr T bending a pipe with his bare, manly hands. The one on the right is probably my favorite, Mr T lifting a f’n semi over his head. It looks like the two truck tires are reaching down to hug the awesomeness that is cartoon, puffy Mr T.

Here are two stickers I didn’t actually share in the earlier article. They were on the inside cover of the sticker album. A full body shot of Mr T looking like he’s about to tackle some poor fool (left) and Mr T’s giant head (right).

So, those were the awesome Mr T puffy stickers. They are obviously based on the Mr T cartoon from 1983-1984 that featured Mr T traveling around the country with a group of young gymnasts (!?). Now, let’s take a look at another faction of this sticker collection, bumper stickers. I collected a few bumper stickers around the same time I kept the above sticker album. The majority of the bumper stickers I obtained as prizes/giveaways at my elementary school’s Fall Festival. They were an easy way to promote stuff to us kids.

Here are some of the better ones.

Here’s a Putt-Putt Golf & Games bumper sticker from the mid-80s. This particular Putt-Putt was located on Hwy 31 in Birmingham right in the middle of Hoover. It was there for me like a good friend all through elementary and high school. It later turned into a Krispy Kreme donuts and then something else which I can’t remember. I’m not sure what is there now.

These bumper stickers are great for the logos alone. This is a MADD sticker (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) that is sponsored by local TV station WBRC6 and Big B Drugs. Big B Drugs was owned by the local Bruno’s Supermarkets and was the precursor to stores like CVS and Walgreens. Big B was bought out by Revco then CVS in the mid-90s. I love that they passed out drunk driving bumper stickers to elementary school kids.

What would an 80s bumper sticker collection be without a “Just Say No” sticker? It would be dead inside. So here’s mine, and it has a great 80s Pepsi logo too.