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Nerd Lunch Episode 89: Saturday Morning Cartoons

Posted in cartoons, TV shows with tags cartoons, Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcasts on June 12, 2013 by Paxton

Welcome to episode 89. This week we are again joined by Claymation Werewolf. Last time with CW we talked about 80s sitcoms (Episode 63). This week we are talking about Saturday Morning Cartoons.

(Thanks, Shawn)

We talk about any Saturday morning rituals, we talk about some of our favorite shows and some of our least favorite shows. And yes, I bring up the Teen Wolf cartoon because I haven’t talked about it enough.

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner.

Or listen to it online right here.

Rebooting the Six Million Dollar Man to make it better, stronger, faster

Posted in Bionic Man, pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags Bionic Review, Bionic Woman, LEB, pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows on June 7, 2013 by Paxton

This week for The League Brian asks us what property would we like to see rebooted/return? And how do we imagine that it would be different?

Tough question. CT and Jeeg over at the Nerd Lunch blog enjoy doing Reboot Challenges that are similar to this. I like the idea of reimagining a favorite property. So my pick to have a new reboot will no doubt be no surprise to readers of this blog. I want to see a TV reboot of The Six Million Dollar Man. This reboot, of course, would also lead into a reboot of The Bionic Woman.

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There is a mostly successful reboot of the property going on right now in comic books. I’d like to bring that success to a TV show. However, I wouldn’t necessarily adapt what Dynamite is doing in their comic, but I like several aspects of what they’ve done so I might use them.

So let’s begin.

Premise: I’ll keep the origin roughly the same. Steve is a military pilot. Special Forces, I haven’t decided the branch; Navy Seals, Army Rangers, whatever. Steve is an excellent soldier and pilot and due to his proficiency will pilot experimental aircraft for the military from time to time. During one of these test flights, something goes wrong and Steve crashes in a horrific explosion and he barely survives. Like in the original novel and the show, the accident will damage Steve’s head, both legs and one of his arms. OSI, a clandestine military department, chooses Steve to receive prototype nanotech plus bionic implants to repair his body. The surgeries are done by OSI’s bionic specialist Dr Rudy Wells. During Steve’s multiple bionic surgeries Rudy decides that for better balance and performance he will need to replace both arms. The bionic limbs are controlled/regulated by microscopic nanobots that are implanted into his body. This allows for “software upgrades” on the fly for mission specific details, tech and intel. It also allows for better monitoring of Steve’s bionics and vitals from Rudy’s control center at OSI. After the surgeries and physical therapy, Steve joins OSI as an agent and is placed under the supervision of Audrey Goldman who doles out his assignments and briefs him on intel.

Steve Austin

Storylines: The first part of the first season will deal with the aftermath of the accident and Steve’s subsequent physical therapy and testing of his bionic limits. After he joins OSI, Steve is used as a black ops agent. He performs impossible missions that no one but Steve and his bionics could accomplish. For the most part, starting mid-season, the episodes of this series, like the original, will focus on Steve’s “missions” for OSI. Steve does infiltration, recon, sabotage and maybe even a little assassination. I also want some stories to delve a bit more into the OSI operations side. Maybe even a few “between missions” episodes where we see Steve get tune ups and upgrades from Dr Wells. This allows us to see that Steve gets damaged during his missions has to have a new arm or leg fitted. This will also show some testing of new “special missions” bionic gear like underwater legs with a built in oxygen respirator and a new arm with lasers in the fingers. Stuff that the 70s toys were built upon but never made it into the show. This time at OSI will also show the building of the working relationship with Audrey Goldman and Rudy Wells.

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Bionic Review: The Six Million Dollar Man Season 1 – Part 1

Posted in pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags Bionic Man, Bionic Review, pop culture, reviews, Six Million Dollar Man, SMDM Season 1, TV shows on May 23, 2013 by Paxton

Okay, it’s time to start reviewing regular season episodes of the show. I’ll group episodes in the same way they are presented on the DVDs. So here are the first four episodes of Season 1 from The Six Million Dollar Man.

Episode 1 – Population Zero

Special guests: Don Porter (Gidget)

Synopsis: In this episode Steve and Oscar investigate the seeming death of an entire town. After arriving Steve uses his actual moon walking space suit as a rudimentary Haz-Mat suit to investigate the town. A disgruntled scientist contacts Oscar to claim credit for the town and promises to strike again if not paid $10 million. Steve sets out to find out who the guy is and how to stop him.

Bionics: We see a lot of good bionic slow motion running in this episode, but no “bionic sound”. Not sure when that particular sound effect will start showing up. When Steve is running, the sound is silent except for the sound of a beating heart. In the episode conclusion, Steve rips a metal fence post out of the ground (including the cemented base, see pic above) and hurls it javelin-style through a truck killing all the bad guys. Probably one of the more bad ass things Austin has done and we are only in episode 1. We also learn in this episode that deep cold will hinder the performance of Steve’s bionics.

Notes: This is the first episode of the weekly series. We finally get the regular series opening with the famous tag line “Better, stronger, faster…”. The music has a very “X-Files” feel to it which is interesting because the entire opening feels like an episode of that show. It seems almost EVERYONE already knows about Steve’s bionics. Why do they bother keeping it a secret? Apparently Steve lived 20 miles from the afflicted town in this episode and knows everyone in the town by name.

Review: This was a very good episode. Steve and Oscar work well together, the story was good. The villain, played by Don Porter is fun. The perfect setup for a weekly series.

Episode 2 – Survival of the Fittest

Special guests: Joanne Worley (Rowen & Martin’s Laugh-In)

Synopsis: During important negotiations with Russian officials, Oscar’s life is threatened by individuals wanting to make sure those negotiations fail. When the plane that Steve and Oscar are flying in crashes, Steve must protect Oscar when it becomes clear that someone else on the flight is not who they appear to be.

Bionics: In the opening, Steve uses his bionics to remove lug nuts from a flat tire in one of the more “real world” applications of his abilities we’ve seen. Another instance, after the plane has crash landed, has Steve karate chopping a coconut in two. It’s not immediately clear whether he uses his bionics for this. Steve saves Oscar from getting bitten by a snake by bionically running up to the snake, grabbing it and hurling it into a rock wall, straight up murdering the snake. Without prejudice. Late in the episode we see Steve’s bionic “night vision” for the first time.

Notes: While on the plane, the in flight meal is delivered in really nice lunch boxes. Oh the golden age of commercial air flight. The plane’s engine catches on fire and the pilots immediately DROP IT OFF THE PLANE. Is that standard procedure? While crash landed on the island, someone jury rigs the CB radio and attempts communication. On what power source is that radio running? And why is no one taking off their uniforms, jackets or ties? It looks pretty hot on that island. Apparently this episode was remade as Fly Jaime for The Bionic Woman series.

Review: This is also a pretty good episode. Lee Majors is likable and fun. We get some pretty awesome bionic action and there’s a nice reveal at the end. I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. Except for Joanne Worley. I mean REALLY?

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Review of the TV movie The Dreamer of Oz (1990)

Posted in movies, pop culture, TV shows, Wizard of Oz with tags movies, Oz books readthru, pop culture, reviews, TV shows, Wizard of Oz on May 16, 2013 by Paxton

I’m going to continue with my reviews of all things Oz with a TV movie that NBC aired in 1990 called The Dreamer of Oz.

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The movie was a fictionalized biography of the adult life of L Frank Baum and how he was inspired to write The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I remember watching much of this when it originally aired. My family had no desire to watch it so I was vetoed during commercials and had to switch back and forth, sometimes missing chunks of the story. However, I remember it fondly and I wanted to revisit it for my Oz series.

In the movie, L Frank Baum was played by John Ritter.

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Baum’s wife, Maud, was played by Annette O’Toole. Maud’s mother, Mathilda Gage, was played by Rue McClanahan.

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Also of note, Ritter’s real life son, Jason, played one of his sons in the movie which I thought was a nice touch.

The movie is actually book ended by scenes at Grauman’s Chinese Theater (aka, TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood) in 1939 during the world premier of the MGM musical version of The Wizard of Oz. A reporter takes an elderly Maud Baum aside and asks her about her husband Frank and how he came to write the book.

The rest of the story is told in flashback and begins about the time Maud meets Frank during a party thrown by one of Frank’s sisters. We see the courtship of the couple and the many lean years in which Frank tries to do different jobs and make ends meet. We see him start to tell his children and the children of the neighborhood pieces of a larger story about what he calls “The Magical Land”. The ideas are developed over the years and we see some of the inspirations for characters along the way. Eventually Baum meets WW Denslow while writing the book Father Goose which would go on to be a big hit. Baum gambles the royalties of that book to sell what is now called “The Land of Oz” book. And, obviously, it hits. Big time.

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6 undeveloped movie scripts that were turned into comic books

Posted in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Batman, Bionic Man, comic books, Freddy Krueger, Friday the 13th, Jason Vorhees, movies, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags Batman, Bionic Man, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, Freddy Krueger, Friday the 13th, Jason Vorhees, LEB, movies, Nightmare on Elm Street, Six Million Dollar Man on May 2, 2013 by Paxton

This week the topic for The League is “comic books”. Yep, just “comic books”. I recently did an article about comic book covers that homage famous movie posters, so that idea was already burned. Fortunately, my draft articles are deep with ideas so I pulled this one out of the depths and fleshed it out a bit.

I love movies. I love comic books. I love comic book movies. We have tons of movies coming out BASED on comics books. But how about comic books based on movies? There are plenty of those as well. But what about comic books that are based on movies that never were made for whatever reason. Ahhh, that could be interesting.

Today, I’m going to talk about six undeveloped movie scripts that were turned into comic books.

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Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet – These first two entries are probably the most high profile examples of unused movie scripts becoming a comic book. In 2004, Smith wrote a screenplay for a new film version of The Green Hornet. Much like the next script in this list, it was a reboot of the characters and the concept. Smith even announced that he intended to direct the feature as well. The project, however, died after the poor box office of Smith’s Jersey Girl. Dynamite Comics purchased the unused script and had Kevin Smith adapt it into a new Green Hornet comic series.

Kevin Smith’s Bionic Man (2011) – I talked about this series in my Bionic Reviews feature a month or so ago. Kevin Smith wrote a screenplay for a new Bionic Man movie back in the 90s. It was a reboot of the characters and concept of the Six Million Dollar Man TV series. It ultimately went unused. However, after the success of Smith’s Green Hornet title they asked if he had any other unused scripts to adapt. Smith pulled out the Bionic Man script and Dynamite loved the idea. They tapped Phil Hester to adapt the screenplay into a 10 issue story arc to launch a new Bionic Man comic series that is still being published to this day. It has also spawned a Bionic Woman comic series.

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Frank Miller’s Robocop (2003) – During initial production of Robocop 2, there was a first draft script by one of the original Robocop screenwriters, Edward Neumeier. However, due to a writers strike he dropped out. One of the producers contacted Frank Miller to write the script as Miller was still riding the success of his Dark Knight Returns graphic novel. Miller wrote a draft that producers and studio executives labeled “unfilmable” and the studio had the script rewritten into what eventually became Robocop 2, the movie. In the early 2000s Avatar Press acquired the Robocop comic license and the publisher William Christensen, who owned a copy of Miller’s “lost” original screenplay, contacted Miller about adapting it into a comic story. Miller was enthusiastic and worked with Steven Grant to adapt his unused screenplay (which included notes for Robocop 3) into a story. Due to scheduling conflicts, Miller was only able to contribute some of the covers and not actually write or draw the interiors. The nine issue adaptation was published in late 2003.