Welcome to another fun-ducational episode of the Nerd Lunch podcast. This week we are again Jeeg-less, but we are joined in the 4th chair by Tim Lybarger. Tim is the proprietor of The Neighborhood Archive, your one-stop shop for all things Mr Rogers. Check it out, the site is pretty awesome.
Tim joins us this week for our topic about live action children’s programming. We talk about PBS and Nickelodeon. We discuss shows like Sesame Street, Electric Company, Double Dare, Kids Incorporated and, of course, Mr Rogers. Come check it out, I guarantee you we talk about one of your favorites.
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For this episode of Nerd Lunch CT and I are still missing our comrade-in-arms Jeeg as he moves all of his junk North for a new job. To replace Jeeg, we brought back Rob Graham and we take this opportunity to talk about one of the more maligned Star Trek franchises, Voyager.
We start with a ground level reconstruction of the concept of the show and we talk about the things in the show that worked, and the many plethora of things that did not work. We recast many of the roles and play around with the concept of Star Trek: Lost in Space. I honestly think we made it better.
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So, this week’s topic for the League is “pirates”. Unfortunately, I’ve already extolled the virtues of one of my favorite pirate movies of all time, The Pirate Movie, during it’s 30 year anniversary last year. So, I can’t un-pop that cork. My next best option is to talk about Muppet Treasure Island. And more specifically, the soundtrack.
Muppet Treasure Island was released in 1996. It was the second of the Muppet movies, after Muppet Christmas Carol, to be made in partnership with Disney and after Jim Henson’s death. It starred Tim Curry as Long John Silver and Kevin Bishop as Jim Hawkins. The movie, financially, was a success earning a higher gross than the last three movies.
The movie itself is funny and clever. Curry is great as Silver. Bishop is, well, not awesome. His voice is really high, like a 6 year old girl. It’s really sort of annoying. Other than that I enjoy this movie as much as I enjoy Muppet Christmas Carol. In general, I see Muppet Christmas Carol as a better movie but Muppet Treasure Island has the better soundtrack.
Now, let’s take a look at that awesome soundtrack with a bunch of very catchy, totally Muppet-style songs that are all pirate themed.
This exists. And I own it.
Here are some of my favorite songs from the soundtrack.
Shiver My Timbers is the song that plays over the opening credits featuring pirates burying treasure on an island. Treasure Island. It’s very dark and is very chant-like. It’s probably my favorite song, and it’s totally pirate-y.
Cabin Fever is my second favorite song. It features the cast singing about having “cabin fever” while sailing out at sea. It’s absurd and over-the-top and completely bananas. That’s why I love it. It has a distinctly “islands” feel to it with the steel drums. My favorite lyric in the song:
“Cabin fever has grabbed us all aboard,
This once fine vessel has become a floating psycho ward.”
Welcome to Episode 70 of the Nerd Lunch podcast. This week we are joined by Michael May of Michael May’s Adventureblog and Robot 6. Michael joins us on this episode to talk about comics. Non super hero comics.
You know, the stuff without super heroes. Yes, there are comics without super heroes. We talk about stuff like Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth, Y: The Last Man, Groo, Conan, monster comics and a bunch of other sh*t I never read.
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After the original Six Million Dollar Man TV movie, there were two more produced and both of them aired in 1973. The first was called Wine, Women and War and aired on Oct 20, 1973. Here’s an ad from a 1973 newspaper featuring the TV listing for this movie. Lee Majors’ picture is on the right, the blub about the movie is in bold in the far left column.
Wine, Women and War doesn’t go directly to the action, it actually has an opening title sequence. And it’s an awesomely 70s opening sequence with an awesomely 70s theme song by Dusty Springfield. Check it out.
“Catch him if you can, feed him if you can, love if you CAAAAAAAAAAAN! He’s the Six Million Dollar MAAAAAAAN!” Amazing, isn’t it?
So, right off the bat we see a few things that are new. Richard Anderson debuts as Oscar Goldman and Alan Oppenheimer debuts as Rudy Wells taking the place of Martin Balsam. You also notice the absence of Darren McGavin as Oliver Spenser. This movie was sort of an overhaul of the Six Million Dollar Man as far as the cast goes. Only Lee majors would remain. The weekly television series would have been in production at this point as its debut was only months away in Jan 1974. I assume the player pieces were falling into place. The story concepts were still being worked out, though, as the story for this movie is essentially, “What if James Bond were bionic?”. This movie is a complete rip-off of the Bond franchise. Austin is treated as the debonair super-spy.
So the story begins with Austin on assignment in Egypt to steal an arms dealer’s catalog. In classic Bond fashion we see Austin pull off his wet suit to reveal a fully dry tux underneath. Later, during the action, Austin’s female companion is killed. Afterwards Steve is reluctant to go out on another assignment so Oscar arranges for a vacation. However Oscar doesn’t tell Steve that the vacation is actually his next assignment, just manipulated by OSI agents that are following along to look like a vacation. Oscar can be kind of a dick. Although we do get to see Steve mistake a lady who is flirting with him on his plane for a prostitute. That was pretty funny. And plenty of other Bond-like double entendres ensue throughout the movie.
So Steve discovers Oscar’s ruse and stumbles upon the trail of the previously mentioned arms dealer and Steve goes after him hoping to get revenge for his companion’s death. Like I said, all very Bond-like.
Honestly, on one level it totally works. It’s just so absurd and contrary to the Austin we come to know in the TV series that it’s almost fun to watch.
I can recommend this, but honestly, you can’t really watch it as a Six Million Dollar Man movie/episode. It’s a spy movie that just happens to have Steve Austin, the bionic man.
Cavalcade of Awesome 