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Defending the Galaxy: Reviewing the video game bible of 1981 Part I

Posted in 80s, books, humor, pop culture, reviews, video games with tags Book Report, book review, Cavalcade Arcade, nostalgia, pop culture, video games on May 7, 2008 by Paxton

As some of you will recall, I went to the Jacksonville Book Fair a while ago and found a bunch of really cool books, all for about 50 cents each. One of these finds was my favorite. it was a video game book from the early ’80s called Defending the Galaxy: The Complete Handbook of VideoGaming.

This book, according to the cover, lets the readers in on how to “blend in” and “look like” an elite video gamer. Seriously, it’s written with the assumption that the reader is not currently in the video game crowd, but let’s them in on the secrets of looking and acting like a top tier gamer. Needless to say, the book is funny. Ridiculously so. The book’s assumption that non-gamer folk even want to be “in” with the gamer folk is very presumptuous, but it leads to some really funny “tips and tricks”. What is a non-gamer supposed to do once they’ve assimilated themselves amongst the video game crowd? Study them? Learn their habits? Is this a National Geographic special? What if, while posing as a gamer, the non-gamer is asked to play a 2 player game of Defender? How do they fake their way through that? The answer is, there’s no faking your way through a game of Defender as it’s widely considered one of the hardest games ever created. You’ll have your backside handed to you by the real gamer and then be ostracized by the gaming community. So teaching you to look like a gamer when you aren’t is also teaching you to be a poseur. But, if you follow the instructions in this book, the road to becoming a poseur is awesome.

I was 8 when this book was released. At that time I was a huge video gamer and loved to go to the arcade and play whenever my parents would let me. Any trip to the local mall meant I got to play at Aladdin’s Castle. I could play Donkey Kong or Asteroids at Dino’s Hot Dogs. There was a stand alone video arcade named Wizard’s Palace that I rarely got to visit. We’d go to Six Flags on a family vacation and I’d want to spend a few hours in the video arcade instead of going on rides. My dad kept saying that he didn’t spend 40 bucks to get me in the park to play games I can find in the mall at home. That’s how much I loved video games. In my defense, there were several games in that Six Flags video arcade that I never saw at my local arcade including Super Punch Out!, Return of the Jedi and Mad Dog McCree.

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Second Guessing the Academy: Worst. Oscar Wins. Ever.

Posted in 80s, Academy Awards, movies, Oscars, pop culture with tags Academy Awards, movies, Oscars, Oscars Wild, pop culture on February 20, 2008 by Paxton

One of my friends, Kathy, a regular reader of this blog, emailed me and asked me to write about what I think the worst Oscar wins of all time were. I thought it was a very good subject for me to tackle and since the Oscars are telecast live this Sunday at 8pm EST, there’s no time like the present to call the Academy out on the carpet (the RED carpet…so to speak). So I sat down to do the research.

I was originally just going to start in the mid-’80s but started moving backwards to my birth year, 1974. Then I moved even further back to 1970. Obviously, I didn’t start seriously watching the Oscars until the mid-’80s but 1970 is about where I start to recognize movies and have opinions on what happened that year. If you want to check out year by year results of the Oscars head on over to Oscars.com to their Academy Awards Database. You can search by year, award or actor. It helped me a lot in piecing this whole article together.

I started by looking back at the nominations and winners for the 8 main award categories (Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Picture, Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay). Like I said, I went back to the 1970 Awards and started my research there. I looked at the nominees and winners for the year and picked the times that I thought the Academy got it wrong. I tried to only pick out completely egregious errors. Ones that offended my delicate sensibilities. I mean, the oversight had to leap off the page at me screaming, “WTF WAS THE ACADEMY THINKING?!” If a movie I liked didn’t win, but I thought the movie that won was worthy, I didn’t bother mentioning it. Keep in mind, this is my own opinion, however right I am, it’s just an opinion.

Let’s begin.

1972 – This year, the Best Supporting Actor was filled with 3 actors from The Godfather; Al Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duvall. How do you choose? If you are the Academy, you pick Joel Grey for his work in Cabaret. Wait, wha-?! That’s right, neither Michael, Sonny nor Tom Hagen won an Oscar for their efforts. But looking back on it, we all can see Mr. Grey’s performance was one for the ages. To throw salt in the wound, Cabaret wins Best Director over Godfather. Tell me that is not a tragedy. At least Brando won Best Actor this year (but he refused the award because Indians were not being treated fairly or something. What a weirdo).

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Roadside Giants: Discovering the Muffler Men

Posted in Americana, Muffler Men, nostalgia, pop culture with tags Americana, Muffler Men, pop culture on February 7, 2008 by Paxton

As many of you know, I was born in Birmingham, AL. I lived there for 31 years until I moved to Jacksonville in 2005. Since I was a kid, I’ve ridden and/or driven interstate 65 North through downtown (then on to 20/59) towards the airport more times than I can remember. After graduating Auburn, when I became a software consultant, that route was passed almost every weekend for years. As a kid, when I would go interstate 65 into downtown, there were two things I always looked forward to seeing from the car window. The first being a tall rectangular building filled with windows called the AmSouth Center (now the Regions Center). Ever since I can remember, during Christmas time, the building will put up colored cells in its windows to create pictures on all four sides. Click here to see the side with the Christmas tree. The other sides include a stocking and a candy cane. The building was always cool and even during the non-holiday season was fun to gaze upon.

The second thing I fondly remember noticing on my ride downtown was the giant statue of a man on top of a building holding his arms out in front of him as if he was holding something, but he wasn’t (peep the picture to the right). He appeared to be dressed in a mechanic’s coveralls and he stood on the roof of what looked to be an auto repair shop. I just thought he looked cool standing there as it was a very neat looking statue. The guy was obviously very large, and I can’t recall the first time I noticed him, but he’s been there as long as I can remember that drive. I remember thinking “Where did he come from and what’s he supposed to be holding in his empty outstretched hands?” It was all so mysterious. I was fascinated. As I grew older, he was just always there and I really didn’t think anything more about it.

It wasn’t until years later I found out that my auto repair statue/mascot was just one of a large group of statues collectively called, “The Muffler Men”. My particular one was on top of GCR Tire Repair and his name was Stan. I couldn’t believe it, my dude had a name and there were more of these things? When I sat down and thought about it, I do remember seeing statues similar to my auto repair guy in pictures. I remember seeing a lot of differently dressed auto repair guys that looked suspiciously similar. I started researching their history and what I found surprised me. These statues are regarded as vintage Roadside Americana. They have a many varied and interesting history and have been around for many, many years. They sit in auto repair shops, miniature golf courses, carnivals, gas stations, antique stores, etc, etc. Some dressed as mechanics, Indians, lumberjacks or space men. The ones we see now have just been passed down for generations and most likely are not with their original owners. But how did they begin? What was their original purpose? Was it a standard mold made by many different companies or did one company crank these things out? Well, I finally found out the Secret Origin of the Muffler Men, so if you are not already bored to tears by this article then read on for the amazing history of the roadside “Muffler Men”.

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One Twisted Christmas: Random Christmas Crap

Posted in Christmas, holiday, movies, pop culture, TV shows with tags Christmas, movies, pop culture, TV shows on December 18, 2007 by Paxton

I was perusing the interweb and noticed some really crazy stuff people can buy as gifts. These crazy gifts also made me think of some other really weird Christmas movies and items. I thought I’d give you guys a humorous listing of some really surreal items having to do with Christmas (if even on a vague level). Enjoy!

Santa Claus (1960) – This is, hands-down, one of the wackiest, most insane movies ever put to film. Don’t let the cute, twinkle eyed Santa on the poster fool you. In this movie Santa lives in a castle that sits on the clouds (!) with Merlin. Yes, THAT Merlin. He uses a giant telescope to spy on the children of Earth. He also has hundreds of kids stashed away in this castle building him toys. It’s like a Nike sweatshop in the clouds. The kids are all from different countries, and their workstations are labeled as such with signs saying “America”, “Jamaica”, “China”, etc (so, actually, it’s more like United Colors of Benetton in a Nike sweatshop). It’s surreal. And the main conflict of this movie? Santa vs the Devil. Yes, THAT Devil. All for the soul of a poor little girl named Lupita. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of this maniacal map of insanity. You can actually buy this DVD here, or pray to whatever cosmic deity you believe in that the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that reviews this flick is either re-run on TV or released on DVD. That’s the way to watch it, with Mike and the ‘bots slamming every jam-packed minute of craziness. To whet your appetite, here’s the trailer

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Classic Advertising Characters Part III

Posted in advertising, pop culture, TV with tags advertising, pop culture, TV commercials on November 30, 2007 by Paxton

Well, here’s Part III of my list of classic advertising characters. Did you miss the first two parts? Well never fear, here they are:

Part I
Part II

I came up with a few more characters I could possibly add to this list but I will leave this article at an odd three parts for right now.

Let’s begin, shall we?

Herb – I remember Herb, or “Herb the Nerd”, being all over the place in the mid-’80s. Herb was created as a gimmick for Burger King in 1985. He was supposed to be a guy who had never eaten a Whopper. An actor portrayed him and would show up at random Burger Kings throughout the country. If someone recognized him, they would get a prize. The contest was called “Where’s Herb” and they ran the commercials incessantly in 1985. I thought it was a pretty popular ad, but looking up info on the interweb, I see that it is widely considered one of the biggest advertising flops of all time. He was subsequently retired in 1986. Click here for one of the Herb commercials.

Hostess Cake Characters – I love Hostess’ products. The Twinkie, Cup Cakes, Fruit Pies, Ding Dongs, etc, etc. They are delicious little treats I’ve enjoyed since I was a kid. For the longest time, Hostess had mascots for every single one of it’s products. Like McDonald’s characters, each mascot represented one of their pastries or cakes. Does it get any better than anthropomorphic pastries that can walk and talk? I didn’t think so. The ring leader of these sugary characters was Twinkie the Kid. Second from the left in the picture above, Twinkie the Kid was a regular twinkie dressed as a cowboy. Click here for an animated Twinkie the Kid commercial. The other characters you can see in the pic above are (left to right); Captain Cupcake, Twinkie the Kid, Happy Ho Ho and Fruit Pie the Magician. There are three other mascots not shown in the pic above. The first two are King Dong (Ding-Dongs) and Chauncey Choco-dile (Choco-diles). The final and least known is called Soul Bro and he was the chocolate version of Twinkie the Kid (yes, I’m serious). Click here to see a commercial for Ding-Dongs with King Dong. Click here for a commercial with Fruit Pie the Magician. Other than the picture in the link above, I could not find any commercials or other pictures of Soul Bro. I found the Hostess mascots fun, and I think my favorite was Fruit Pie the Magician because I have a soft spot for pastries that do illusions. I wonder why more companies don’t assign mascots for every product they release? Billy Budlight, anyone?

Mr. Whipple – Old school. One of the original gangstas of product endorsement. That’s pretty much all you can say about Mr. Whipple here. Oh, and maybe sick old man. He was an old guy who worked in a grocery store following ladies around telling them to stop “squeezing the Charmin”. The Whipple commercials started in 1964 and didn’t stop until 1984. Mr. Whipple did return in 1999 for a throwback commercial. That’s a lot of toilet paper commercials. Charmin lived off these commercials as they were very popular. In a 1970s survey, Mr. Whipple here bested then president Jimmy Carter as the most recognizable man in America. Click here for one of Mr. Whipple’s commercials.

Justin Wilson – I actually thought Mr. Wilson here was created by Ruffles to sell their Cajun Spice flavored chips (now retired). However, he is actually a famous TV chef. He has numerous cajun cooking books and a tv show. His signature made-up cajun word was “Wonder-mous!”. He also liked to say things were “Gooo-oooo-ooood!” I enjoyed his commercials, and I swear that Ruffles used him for a few of their other flavors after his Cajun Spice spots became popular, but I could be wrong. Click here for one of Justin’s Cajun Spice commercials.

Well, that concludes this trilogy of classic commercial characters. Hope you enjoyed the list. Like I said earlier, I have a few more I could possibly add, but I’ll save that for another time. Hope this was a pleasant trip down memory lane for some of you. I had fun doing the research.

Keep watching your TV as you may be watching tomorrow’s classic advertising characters today.

Technorati Tags – advertising commercials TV Pop Culture Burger King Mr Whipple Hostess Ruffles chips

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