One of our friends here in Jacksonville is a member of the 501st Star Wars costuming group. They were having a fund raiser at a Chik-fil-A here in town this past weekend so Steph and I took PJ down to see all the costumes. Here is PJ just after meeting his first Stormtrooper (or, technically, a Sandtrooper).
PJ was not too sure about the man in the scary costume at first. You can see he’s a little concerned in this picture. However, after about 10 minutes he became somewhat fascinated by all the costumes. Even going so far as to grab the Stormtrooper’s gloved finger and shake it. It was a lot of fun.
What made it even more fun was the fact that I got to see a Tusken Raider think it was a good idea to climb into a Jump Castle with like 15 kids. He came to regret that decision.
I love vintage kids books. I love vintage pop culture books. I also love vintage books looking at early computing technology. This week, I get all three wrapped into one. I’ll be looking at three early 80s activity books featuring awesomely retro computing technology. Being a tech guy and a pop culture guy sure pays off some days. The first book I’ll be looking at is the Star Wars Question and Answer Book about Computers from 1983. Yes, I know, mixing Star Wars and computer technology? Yes, please. And the book is filled with some of the most awesome artwork mixing R2-D2 and C3PO and computer machinery. The artwork in this book is by Ken Barr. Ken Barr is a comic artist. He’s done a lot of work for Marvel, especially back in the 70s and 80s with titles like Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Doc Savage, Savage Sword of Conan and Rampaging Hulk. Most of that work being for Marvel magazines that showcase the really nice painted look of Barr’s creations. You can see a lot of that here, too. This book is mainly an information dump about computers, how they began and what they can be used for. Much of the information is surrounded by Barr’s gorgeous paintings. However there are also pages without artwork but instead use photographs of actual computer machinery.
Here’s the intro to the book explaining about computers. Next to the intro is another information page featuring a picture of an Apple II. Click the images to make them BIGGER.
Here are some pages talking about computers and video games. You can see an adorable picture of R2-D2 playing chess against a computer and both Artoo and Threepio playing an upright arcade machine. I’m seriously in love with that arcade machine painting. See it much bigger here. Continue reading →
I’ve talked about fast food collector glasses before. But that article covered collector glasses made of actual GLASS. There are also a plethora of plastic collector cups. A few weeks ago Nerd Lunch talked about super hero cups. So, I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring and talk about a few of my favorite collector cups that have been given away at movie theaters and fast food chains.
I have each of these cups in my collection right now.
This is the Capt America The First Avenger Tri-Color Coolatta Cup. My boy CT from Nerd Lunch discussed this back in July. There are three sides/sections. Each section holds the red (cherry), white (vanilla) and blue (raspberry) flavors of Dunkin Donuts Coolattas. You can see the second side here and the third side is here. The cup is sitting next to the stars and stripes donut that also promoted the Capt America movie. They were both good, but I won’t lie, after consuming both for breakfast it felt like Cap and the Howling Commandos were fighting World War II in my colon.
This was the collector cup given out at movie theaters in 2000 to promote the first Singer X-Men movie. I like the tapered base of this cup so it fits in your cup holder. Many cups now don’t do that. And check out the web address of the movie with all of those dashes. http://www.x-men-the-movie.com. Hello late ’90s.
Everyone remembers the Star Wars cup toppers from 1999 during the whole Episode I merchandising frenzy. There were 12 cups and figure toppers you could collect from KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Well, those toppers were based on an earlier promotion for the Star Wars Special Edition in 1996-97. It was a set of 4 and featured C3PO, R2D2, Vader and a Stormtrooper. There were two versions of this set. Above left you can see the set that came from the Las Vegas FAO Schwartz store. They had setup their own version of the Mos Eisley Cantina including themed ICEE drinks (like Jabba Juice). I had visited Vegas in 1998 and was able to buy these at the store. Click the image to see it bigger and to see the commemortive FAO Cantina cup. The other version of this set on the right came from Pizza Hut and Taco Bell stores overseas (I don’t believe they were offered in the US). The toppers were exactly the same but instead of the FAO cup it had a blue cup with a picture of the character on it (see the Stormtrooper above). You can see how these influenced the Episode I cup toppers. For obvious reasons, only the R2D2 was reused in the 1999 Episode I promotion.
Two diametrically opposite movies began playing in theaters on August 1, 1986, 25 years ago today.
The first movie was the infamous Howard the Duck. Featuring a woman falling in love with a duck and an early appearance of Tim Robbins. This movie nearly ruined Lucasfilm.
The second movie was Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives. This installment is arguably one of the best movies in the Jason franchise. Jason had died in the last movie, so a lightning strike would revive him and begin the reign of “zombie Jason”. Plus it features the third actor to play the character of Tommy Jarvis.
Check out the trailer for both of these movies at Held Over.
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.
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.
Cavalcade of Awesome 