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AWESOME-tober-fest 2017: The Six Million Dollar Man – The Secret of Bigfoot (1976)

Posted in cartoons, pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, Awesome-tober-fest 2017, Bigfoot, Bionic Review, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, TV show on October 25, 2017 by Paxton

I’ve always been fascinated by cryptozoology and the idea of monsters roaming the Earth. I’ve listened to a few cryptid podcasts and I’ve followed a few blogs. It’s fascinating stuff. I’ve wanted to do an entire month of urban legends and mythical monsters for AWESOME-tober-fest for many years now. I’d planned articles on Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, the Jersey Devil, and Mothman. There’s an abundance of Sasquatch, Nessie, and UFO material, but the other stuff is a bit thin pop culture wise aside from a movie or TV program here and there. So, I’d sort of sat on it.

Well, now I get to do one. Today, I want to talk about Bigfoot. Specifically, I want to talk about the Bionic Bigfoot from The Six Million Dollar Man. Bigfoot appeared a couple times but I’m going to talk about Season 3, episodes 16-17. The Secret of Bigfoot. His first bionic appearance.

OSI is escorting a couple of scientists to a remote mountain forest to study seismic activity. The scientists are attacked and taken by a beast who turns out to possibly be the Sasquatch of legend. Steve Austin, while looking for the missing scientists, is also taken hostage and gets to meet his strange captors. Meanwhile Oscar is back at base camp facing a level 7 earthquake strike in seven hours to the entire California coast and is planning to detonate a nuclear bomb under the mountain to relive the geologic pressure and prevent the massive quake. Can he find Steve in time?

There really is a lot going on in this one. But it’s a fun episode.

SMDM title card Bigfoot title card
These episodes first aired in 1976. The story is a two parter.

In these two episodes Bigfoot is played by Andre the Giant. Bigfoot would return in season 4 for another two episode story, but that time he’d be played by Lurch himself, Ted Cassidy.

Steve and Oscar escort these scientists into the mountains. The scientists have experimental OSI sensing equipment. While setting up they are attacked by the creature.

Steve finds this footprint and goes after the scientists. He uses his bionics to run and jump all over the forest looking for the missing people. It has been established in previous episodes that Steve is the worst secret keeper when it comes to his bionics.

While Steve is galavanting around the forest showing off his bionics there is a shady group watching his every move. Marveling at his abilities.

Steve encounters Bigfoot and has a pretty epic battle against him. The “trees are picked up and used as baseball bats” kind of epic.

Steve tracks Bigfoot to a cave where it disappears. But Steve TEARS DOWN PART OF THE MOUNTAIN to find a hidden door. How’d he know to look there? Then he has to walk through this amazing gizmo. I’m not even sure what that is. A revolving ice tunnel? As soon as Steve walks in he collapses to the floor. All I know is it looks exactly like the ice tunnel from the Misfits of Science pilot. However, they show that tunnel in this episode several times. You get several LOOOONG looks. I totally get that, they should be proud. It’s an amazing set piece.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2017: Goober and the Ghost Chasers (1973)

Posted in cartoons, ghosts, monsters, pop culture, TV shows, Uncategorized with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, Awesome-tober-fest 2017, cartoons, ghosts, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, TV show on October 17, 2017 by Paxton

Today I’m going to talk about the cartoon series Goober and the Ghost Chasers. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera and aired in late 1973. It was created to capitalize on the popularity of Scooby-Doo.

Much like Scooby-Doo, the show involved a group of teenagers and their dog driving around solving mysteries.

Goober, obviously, was the dog. He had similar mannerisms to Scooby. Sort of a coward. Very goofy and jokey. He talked. But it’s interesting, it’s not directly acknowledged in the cartoon if the teens can understand Goober when he talks. They talk to Goober, but when Goober talks, it’s usually directly to camera and the teens never give any indication that he talked or that they heard he talked. It’s weird. The teens were Ted, Tina and Gilly. The teens worked for a supernatural investigation magazine called Ghost Chasers. Obviously Ted = Fred. Tina is very much a cross between Daphne and Velma. And Gilly is sort of his own thing. He’s Goober’s closest human companion. He’s not a stoner or a coward. He doesn’t love to eat. He’s the photographer for the magazine. In some ways like Shaggy but in most ways he’s different. Gilly is probably the most annoying. I like everyone else.

The mysteries this crew investigate usually wind up having a real supernatural aspect to them. As in real ghosts and real monsters as opposed to Scooby in which the mysteries had a basis in reality. Plus, for some reason, Goober can turn invisible. He can’t control it, and it usually happens when he gets scared, but it happens.

Like Scooby, many episodes would have “special guests” show up to help solve crimes. For at least half of the one and only season the Ghost Chasers crew were joined by the Partridge Kids (Danny, Laurie, Tracy, Chris, seen below in the middle).

The Partridge kids were voiced by the actual actors; Danny Bonaduce, Susan Dey, Suzanne Crough and Brian Forster. For some reason, around episode 11, the Partridge Kids disappear and never make another appearance. However, don’t feel bad for them, about a year later they would get their own cartoon series.

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Cavalcade Comics #14 – Kamandi and Thundarr the Barbarian

Posted in cartoons, comic books, nostalgia, pop culture, TV shows with tags cartoons, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, comic covers, Photoshop, TV show, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on August 14, 2017 by Paxton

I’m in full on prep mode for AWESOME-tober-fest 2017 right now. It’ll be my 10th year doing it and I’ll be talking about Ghosts!

I have a full slate of stuff lined up; books, movies, comics, and cartoons. It should be a lot of fun. I also have, as usual, a monster/Halloween themed Cavalcade Comics cover ready to go. But before we get there, my friends, I have a completely different Cavalcade Comics cover for you.

My good friend and Hellbent for Letterbox co-host Michael May started up a Thundarr the Barbarian podcast called Thundarr Road where they are following the journeys of our favorite barbarian as he traverses his way through the apocalyptic wasteland of future Earth. However, they aren’t doing it in episode order, they are following his journey geographically as if he actually made the journey from future Manhat all the way across the country west. It’s an interesting journey and it’s been fun so far. In the very first episode they had mentioned the similarities to an old 70s Jack Kirby comic called Kamandi and I thought that was a great comparison and it would have been awesome to see these two characters together. And it’s kismet as Jack Kirby actually did early character designs on the Thundarr cartoon.

So, without further ado, here is the team up between the Jack Kirby Thundarr and Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth.

These guys would totally be post-apocalyptic besties. You could almost imagine that they would have met except Kamandi’s post-apocalyptic world was ruled by hyper intelligent animals and Thundarr’s world is ruled by wizards.

For the Thundarr, Ookla and Princess Ariel in the cover I used one of Kirby’s Thundarr drawings.

Kirby Thundarr

As I said, Kirby was brought on in like 1979-1980 to do character designs for the show. There are several of these drawings out there. As you see I had to find an appropriate Sun Sword and add it to Thundarr’s hand.

Kamandi actually comes from Kamandi – The Last Boy on Earth #2 (1973).

Kamandi 02

If you look in the background of my cover, some of that stuff comes from Kamandi #1 (1972) as well as Kamandi #2 (1973).

So I hope you enjoyed this cover as much as I enjoyed making it. And go check out Michael May’s Thundarr Road podcast. It’s a lot of fun. And stay tuned for the 10th annual AWESOME-tober-fest Halloween celebration in like a month!

Nerd Lunch Episode 91: GI Joe: A Real American Hero action figures

Posted in 80s, cartoons, pop culture, toys, TV shows with tags GI Joe, Nerd Lunch Podcast, nostalgia, podcasts, pop culture, toys, TV show on June 25, 2013 by Paxton

Our long, slow crawl to episode 100 continues. While Jeeg is off searching for the third constituent element in his Weather Dominator this week, we are joined by our good friend Shawn Robare and first time guest Howie Decker of the Under Scoop Fire Blog and Podcast. And in this very special episode, CT, the guests and I are discussing the GI Joe A Real American Hero toys.

(Via herocomplex.latimes.com)

We talk about the ones we had, we talk about the ones we wanted. We talk about some of our favorites and least favorites. We also talk about our current relationship with the property. It’s a fun, nostalgia filled discussion, join us won’t you?

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