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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: Coney Island’s Dante’s Inferno and a few other dark rides

Posted in Frankenstein, Halloween, movies with tags amusement parks, AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, dark rides, Frankenstein, Halloween, haunted houses, holiday, monsters on October 9, 2009 by Paxton

Today, I finish talking about haunted dark rides. I’m going to start with a former Coney Island attraction but I’ll also talk about a few others as a bonus.

Let’s begin…

Dante’s Inferno (Coney Island, NY) — Constructed and originally located in Europe, this two story portable dark ride was brought to New York’s Coney Island Astroland in 1971. It was originally run as an independent carnival concession until the owners of Astroland bought it outright a few years later. In the ’90s ride designer Lou Nasti completely redesigned the inside. Despite the name, the ride isn’t based on Dante’s poem nor is it a “ride into Hell”. A “bumper” type car would ferry you through several unconnected scenes of horror including monsters and human torture. As of 2008, this ride as well as the entirety of Astroland has been closed. Check out an in-depth article including pictures about this ride here.

The Haunted House (Ocean City, MD) — Located in Trimper’s Amusement Park, this ride was originally built in 1964 by Bill Tracy, a legend amongst dark ride enthusiasts. In 1988, the ride was expanded with new and updated scares. However, at least 20 of Bill’s original stunts are still intact throughout the ride making it the most complete Bill Tracy ride still in existence. Check out Surfing Pizza’s nostalgic rememberances of this ride as well as the unofficial website.

Castle Frankenstein (near Darmstadt, Germany) – I couldn’t pass on mentioning this when my theme this year is Frankenstein!! Built sometime in the 13th century by Konrad Reiz von Breuberg (who took the name Frankenstein) it is said that this castle was the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s novel. However there is a lot of controversy about this and there is nothing historically to prove it. For instance, in the actual Shelley novel, there was no Frankenstein castle. It would be James Whale’s 1931 movie that would popularize the idea of a Frankenstein castle. This “real life” Frankenstein castle, however, is now mostly in ruins as there are only two towers and a chapel left standing. If you ever go to Germany and want to see it, tours are available.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: Early Halloween finds at the local supermarket

Posted in breakfast cereal, Cap'n Crunch, food, Halloween, holiday, retail, Supermarket with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, breakfast cereal, Cap'n Crunch, Halloween, holiday, retail, Supermarket on September 30, 2009 by Paxton

October 1st is tomorrow. However, I’m pumped and excited to kick off AWESOME-tober-fest so I’m doing something unprecedented. I’m going to post this little entry a WHOLE DAY EARLY. WHAT-WHAT?! That’s right, AWESOME-tober-fest is starting a day earlier this year. Have I completely blown your mind? Don’t worry, you can thank me by sending envelopes of cash and/or blank checks from your checkbook. I’ll accept either.

So, this year, AWESOME-tober-fest has a theme. What is that theme? Well, if you look at the new blog header above you can see the theme of this year is Frankenstein. It’s a loose theme, mind you, as I’ll be looking at a other stuff besides just Frankenstein, but I have a lot of Frankenstein themed articles coming. So prepare yourself.

Anyway, like I said, Week 1 of this little yearly dance known as AWESOME-tober-fest is now officially under way. What am I looking at today? Well, even though the overall theme this year is Frankenstein, the mini-theme of this week will be “Supermarket Goodies”. I’ll be looking at cool Halloween items you can find at your local grocer. I did an early scouring of my Targets, Wal-Marts, Walgreen’s, etc in order to find out what Halloween related items are out there already. Most stores have their Halloween sections up and ready, so let’s see some of the cooler items I found.

Halloween Crunch — I found it this year! Wa-Hoo-HA!! If you remember, I couldn’t find this little slice of Heaven last Halloween OR the year before. And I wanted it. BAD. It had become my personal Moby Dick. I had to find this cereal, if only to prove it existed. I could find Christmas Crunch every year but this one kept eluding me. It was like trying to nail Jello to the wall. However, this year, the God of all things spooky and Halloween-y decided to grace my local Wal-Mart with Cap’n Crunch’s annual scary monster cereal. And all was right with the world. The only thing I wish was that the Cap’n himself was dressed as Frankenstein’s monster instead of the mummy, but mostly because my general theme this year is Frankenstein. Not to take anything away from the awesome Mummy Cap’n artwork on the box. I’m just sayin’.

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Hilariously Inappropriate Star Wars items

Posted in humor, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags movies, pop culture, Star Wars on September 23, 2009 by Paxton

Star Wars is iconic. Almost all kids love it. Floppy haired ’70s kids. Neon wearing ’80s kids. Baseball cap tilted 20 degrees to the right ’90s kids. All of them. They have heard and love Star Wars (well, they’ve at least heard of it). It’s ubiquitous. With the metric tons of crap that is produced within the Star Wars brand, there is going to be a few missteps. Maybe quality control got drunk and fell asleep on the job, maybe someone just got a little greedy, maybe the Lucasfilm execs are nothing but perverts. For whatever reason, questionable products are released all the time. Here are 5 of the most inappropriate Star Wars toys meant for children.

Topps Star Wars movie card #207 — This is probably the most well known of the “vaguely obscene” Star Wars items. Take a look at this image of C3PO. Take a goooooood look. Right around the “bathing suit area”. Hmmmm, what’s that? I can’t quite………holy crap. I guess this gives new meaning to the term “fully functional”. Am I right? Goldenrod, indeed! You can click the image to make it bigger, if you are into that sort of thing (and are gross).

C3PO tape dispenser — C3PO, dude, WTF?! Was the card above not inappropriate enough? Now kids are supposed to grab your “wheel” to get some tape? For once in your life, Threepio, show some dignity. I don’t think I can “unsee” any C3PO suppositories or “body massagers” that come about because you are a media whore.

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Countdown to AWESOME-tober-fest 2009

Posted in Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, monsters with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, Halloween on September 17, 2009 by Paxton

Two weeks until October 1st. That means 14 days until this blog starts celebrating AWESOME-tober-fest!!! For those that don’t know what that is, it’s AWESOME, it’s October and it’s fest….wait, that’s not right….

Anyway, I have lots of things planned. The loose “theme” of this year’s celebration will be Frankenstein. I’ll be discussing books, movies, costumes, etc for the titular monster as well as some other AWESOME goodies. Be sure to mark your calendars and prepare for the bloody celebration of AWESOME-tober-fest!!!

Also this year, I’ll again be participating in the HUGE Countdown to Halloween Blog Tour.

Click the image to go to the blog site of Countdown to Halloween. All the participating blogs are there and it’s run by Shawn Robare of Branded in the ’80s as well as John Rozum of JohnRozum.com. Should be a lot of spooky, good fun.

To check out the archives for previous AWESOME-tober-fest articles click here.
Or try these favorites:
1. A look back at the Crestwood Monster books
2. I review gallons of Halloween sodas
3. Some of my awesome, awesome Halloween costumes

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Star Trek 43rd Birthday: Watching Season 1 on DVD Part I

Posted in movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek, TV shows with tags James T Kirk, movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek, TV shows on September 11, 2009 by Paxton

Okay, today we are continuing our Star Trek 43rd Anniversary celebration by revisiting the original TV series episodes. On Wednesday I did a movie retrospective of the first six Star Trek movies, but today I’m reviewing Season 1 of the TV series. Growing up in the ’80s, I was a big fan of the movie version of Star Trek. Treks II and VI were my favorite movies with the original cast. I had seen some of the episodes of the original TV show in syndication, but I didn’t remember them. I said before, that the only episode I’ve watched in its entirety more than once was Squire of Gothos because it contained the character of Trelane, the precursor to Star Trek: The Next Generations’ Q character.

Looking at the Season 1 set being offered from Netflix, I noticed something odd. The original unaired pilot, The Cage, is not offered on the first season set. I was disappointed because I really wanted to see this episode. However, after digging around on the internet I found out that The Cage was offered on the very last disc of Season 3 as a bonus. So I had to get the last disc of season 3 mailed to me from Netflix to see the unaired pilot. I just thought that was weird.

So, anyway, this is what I’m watching, the Blu-Ray set of Star Trek The Original Series, Season 1.

Going into this I was very worried that the original show was going to be a little dated and boring. That I wasn’t going to enjoy it as much as the movies. That’s one of the reasons I decided to re-watch the shows, to see the whole phenomenon how it originally aired.

Overview of Season 1 as a Whole

So, how does the series hold up? Very well, actually. Like I said, I was prepared to be a bit bored by the cheap special effects and low caliber story telling, but the series really surprised me. Yes, there are episodes that plod along and bore you, but for the most part it is fascinating to watch the crew at work. Predictably, Shatner is UNBELIEVABLE as James Kirk. All the reasons I love him in every Star Trek movie is presented in this first season. He is supremely bad ass, as macho as the offspring of a T-Rex and a Great White Shark and totally in charge at all times. He seeks out new life, then when the new life starts acting like bitches, he throws photon torpedoes at it until the problem goes away. Kirk doesn’t care. And Spock. OMFG, Nimoy is a treasure. He is the king of the subtle insults. Whenever some crew member is freaking out about the near death adventures Kirk keeps getting them into, Spock always comes at them completely deadpan with something similar to “emotions are illogical” or “emotions make you weak”. Then he gives them that penetrating Vulcan stare with the raised eyebrow that informs the crew member that they have just been OWNED. The crew of the Enterprise have got to think Spock is a douche. I love it.

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