“The Last Unicorn” (1982) is an 80’s film that you don’t hear quite as much about in nostalgia circles. My sister took me to see it in the theater when I was in second or third grade. It probably wasn’t the first choice of a movie for a kid whose heroes were Sgt. Rock, Conan the Barbarian, and Ka-Zar the Savage. (Seriously, I read a looooot of comics as a little boy.) But my sister was the one with the car keys.
Come to think of it, there might have been a dearth of options. If memory serves (the 80’s were a very long time ago), there were generally fewer films at the local multiplex for the younger set. “The Last Unicorn” might have been the only children’s movie that happened to be playing. (I think the market has expanded quite a bit since then.) I really liked it, though.
“The Last Unicorn” had a hell of a voice cast — including Alan Arkin, Christopher Lee and Mia Farrow. The animation (to my eyes, at least) looks like strictly average stuff — except for the title unicorn and the monster antagonist. Those look quite good; they look fluid and natural. The backdrops are pretty good too.
The monster’s name here is “The Red Bull,” which is probably funny now, given the eponymous modern energy drink.
We need to call it something else to make it seem cooler. Tactical Urban Street Transporter?
If we call it a Tactical REMOVABLE Urban Street Transporter we can go with the acronym T.R.U.S.T., but I’m not sure how cool that sounds — I’ve never been an expert on what’s cool. T.R.U.S.T. sounds like a credit-building plan suggested by a patient, sympathetic banker.
Update: a pal of mine just suggested “Otter Pocket.” Hold up. That’s actually brilliant, because it compels me to adopt a corresponding otter occupant. And I have always wanted an excuse to enlist an otter.
My Dad took me to see “The Dark Crystal” when it came out in 1982. I remember looking it up in the newspaper’s movie listings — and deciding on it even without knowing much about it. (That was just how we did it in those days — we used “the phone book” and TV Guide as well.)
Hot damn, did I love this movie. If you’re familiar with the 1980’s at all, then you know that “The Dark Crystal” was a surprisingly dark tour de force for Jim Henson, showcasing his ability to create a detailed and truly immersive alternate world. (Modern CGI just wasn’t a thing yet — it arguably made its first appearance in 1989’s “The Abyss.”) And you can’t really grasp the sheer spectacle of Henson’s world designs without seeing this movie on the big screen.
These are just a couple of more old Roanoke, Virginia snow pics I found chilling in my hard drive. Look at the size of those flakes. There are times when the snow falls out of the sky here in clumps.
Anyway, we can safely mock the name because the Peerless Candy Company here in Roanoke is long gone. The Internet informs me that it was established in 1916 and lasted for about 35 years.
I remember being pretty excited as a tot about “The Last Dinosaur.” I was probably too young to enjoy it when it debuted on ABC on February 11, 1977 — I’m betting it picked me up as a fan a few years later, when I would have been around the age of a first- or second-grader. Here are a few quick, weird facts:
“The Last Dinosaur” was originally intended as a theatrical release. It hit television after it failed to find a distributor (though it was later successfully marketed to theaters overseas).
As you can tell from the clips below, the special effects are strictly man-in-a-suit, with no stop-motion photography. (Hey, if you’re feeling charitable, you could say the split-screen works pretty well.)
The character played by Richard Boone is named the unintentionally porntastic “Maston Thrust, Jr.,” because apparently the screenwriters decided they needed a heroic, masculine-sounding name, but only had a couple of seconds to think of one. (Or maybe … they were unconsciously conflating the name for the prehistoric mastodon?)
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 