Tag Archives: Throwback Thursday

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Throwback Thursday: Marvel Comics’ “The Infinity Gauntlet” (1991)

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My buddies and I have “Avengers” fever.  We can barely wait to see “Avengers: Infinity War,” which opens tonight, and answer some burning questions.  I myself want to know how the relatively humble Captain America can deflect a blow from Thanos’ omnipotence-granting Infinity Gauntlet (as depicted in the trailer).  Meanwhile, a pal of mine insists it’s possible that some iteration of the Venom alien symbiote will make an appearance — even though that character is owned separately by Sony Pictures.  (I’m inclined to think that this is wishful thinking.)

I was actually around for the 1991 debut of “The Infinity Gauntlet” — the six-issue 1991 crossover series upon which this movie is based.  (“The Infinity War” was actually a sequel comic crossover that Marvel released a year later.)  An upperclassman upstairs in my sophomore dorm lent it to me, and it pretty much blew my mind.  I had only recently discovered that the characters owned by the “big two” comic book companies inhabited shared universes.  (DC Comics has released its own universe-wide crossover series at about the same time — “Armageddon 2001,” a series I still love, despite other fans’ contempt for it.)  I had read a lot of comic books growing up, but they were usually war comics or horror comics; superheroes had always seemed lame to me when I was a kid.

“The Infinity Gauntlet” was thick stuff, as comics went.  The sheer number of characters involved (and an abundance of cosmic characters) made it a little hard to follow for a reader new to Marvel.  (DC’s major characters were fewer, more familiar and easier to understand.)

But it was still a load of fun.  I still think it’s messed up what Thanos did to poor goddam Wolverine, who’d skillfully gotten the drop on him at first.

 

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Throwback Thursday: 1980’s “Sgt. Rock!”

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DC Comics’ “Sgt. Rock” was far harder stuff than the “G.I Joe” comics and toys that are more often associated with the 1980’s.  They were the darkest and most violent comic books I read when I was a young kid, except maybe for the various “Conan” books.  Hasbro relaunched “G.I. Joe” in 1982 concurrently with its toy line, and it was a famously kid-safe (and lucrative) franchise.  “Sgt. Rock,” in contrast, consisted of brutal stories that focused on the horrors of war — it was really more of a cultural holdover from the comics of the prior two decades.  (The title began as “Our Army at War” in 1959.)

I loved these comics — especially the larger “annuals” with lengthier stories.  Nothing was better than “Sgt. Rock” and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  What occasionally puzzled me as a second-grader was that none of the other boys I knew seemed to be reading them — although a lot of other kids certainly hopped on the “G. I. Joe” bandwagon.

The last one pictured below, from 1981, was my favorite.  If memory serves, it was the first one I ever owned.

 

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Throwback Thursday: Frank Sinatra’s 1965 rendition of “It Was a Very Good Year”

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No, I wasn’t around in 1965, but I absolutely remember this song from when I was a tot in the late 1970’s.  My parents played it quite a bit; they had a few Frank Sinatra albums among their stacks of 8-track tapes in the living room entertainment center.  I wasn’t supposed to touch them, but I did.  (Hey, they were right at the bottom level, where I could fiddle with them.  And, as a kid,  would read anything — even album titles.)

Anyway, this Internet thingamajig tells me that the song was written in 1961 by Ervine Drake for the Kingston Trio.  Sinatra won a Grammy in 1966 for his rendition of it, as did Gordon Jenkins for his accompanying instrumental work.

 

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Throwback Thursday: “Rappin’ Rodney” (1983)!

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Rodney Dangerfield actually was pretty damn funny, even if I was too young to appreciate his humor when I was a kid.  Not everything he touched turned to gold … I seem to remember a cheesy movie or two.  But this 1983 single was great.  It’s catchy, and its humor still holds up today.

There are a couple of 80’s-tastic cameos in the video, too.  One is Pat Benatar as the leather-clad prison executioner.  (Totally not my thing.)  The other Saturday Night Live’s chain smoking priest, “Father Guido Sarducci” (Don Novello).

 

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Throwback Thursday: “Get your stinkin’ paws off me, you damned dirty ape!!!”

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“Planet of the Apes” (1968) is a half century old; today is the 50th anniversary of the film’s premiere at the Capitol Theater in Manhattan.  (Thanks to Blog Correspondent Pete Harrison for pointing out the date for us.)  The movie’s original trailer is below.  I actually learned something new looking for it — Rod Serling co-wrote the screenplay.  (I wasn’t aware of that, but it makes sense.)

I’ve already written at length about how the “Planet of the Apes” franchise was a part of my childhood.  (No, I wasn’t alive in 1968, but these films were broadcast periodically on television in the late 70’s and early 80’s.)  So I won’t blather on yet again about it.

But I will say that the iconic line of dialogue you see in the above headline made a pretty big impression on me as a kid.  (And Charlton Heston’s delivery of it was unforgettable.)  When I was in the second or third grade,  I once growled that line at a girl at recess who kept poking me and smacking me on the head.  She was really taken aback by it.

 

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Throwback Thursday: this theater poster for “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981)!

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I had this poster for “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) when I was 11 or so.  It was goddam gigantic.  It took up nearly an entire wall in my room.

It wasn’t store bought; it came from a theater.  My father used to do something that was pretty damned cool for any parent to do — he’d occasionally ask the manager of a movie theater to save their in-house advertising for my favorite movies.  (I don’t know how things are done nowadays, but back then they’d just throw them out after using them.)  Then my Dad would hand the guy $10 or $20 for one of these, or maybe the manager would just give it to him.

Sometimes that meant a truly industrial-size poster, like this one.  Sometimes it meant one of those huge cardboard stand-up advertisments.  (I could only have a couple of these at a time … I had a small room.)

I also had a cardboard stand-up for “Colors,” the 1988 film depicting Los Angeles gangs — but my older brother brought me that one.  It had nearly life-size cutouts of Sean Penn and Robert Duvall, the movie’s police protagonists.  I don’t know why the nerdiest kid in East Coast suburbia was so taken with a movie about inner-city West Coast gangs, but that movie meant a lot to me.

Come to think of it, a lot of people were talking about “Colors” back in the day.  It was a big deal.  It was considered pretty edgy at the time, the critics loved it, and I’m surprised I never heard about it again after the close of the decade.  Its soundtrack had a damned good title track by Ice-T, too.

The poster below was my favorite, though.  To this day, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is probably my favorite film of all time.

 

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Throwback Thursday: “Omni” magazine in the late 1980’s (and that weird Stephen King cover)

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Omni in the 1980’s was an absolutely unique magazine dedicated to science fiction and science fact — it was always weird and occasionally wonderful.  Its content was consistently a good deal trippier than anything you’d find in more mainstream contemporaries like Scientific American or Discover — futurism, the paranormal, and short stories that were pretty damned abstract.  (I remember Patricia Highsmith’s “The Legless A” being a real head-scratcher for me.)  And the covers to Omni were frequently awesome.

I had a subscription around 1989 or so — I believe I got a year’s subscription as either a Christmas or birthday present.  I still remember it arriving in the mailbox.  I think I had all of the issues you see below — except the third one.  That issue is from January 1983, and I never had it.  I’m including it here because it’s too interesting not to share.

Stephen King fans will recognize Don Brauitgam’s artwork for the cover of King’s classic 1978 short story collection, “Night Shift.”  Brautigam apparently sold it to the magazine later.  (Interesting, too, is the similarity of the artist’s name to a key character in King’s subsequent “Hearts in Atlantis” and his “The Dark Tower” series — the kindly psychic, Ted Brautigan.)

Anyway, if you were geeky enough to enjoy this back in the day, the entire run of Omni is currently available at Amazon for $3 a pop.  It was available online for free for a while, and I think you can still find all of the short stories uploaded in pdf if you google them — I found a bunch, including Highsmith’s story.  (I wonder if I’d get a better sense of it if I read it today.)

 

 

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Throwback Thursday: NBC’s “Knight Rider” (1982 – 1986)

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NBC’s “Knight Rider” might be the granddaddy of all 1980’s high-tech super-vehicle shows — if I had to guess which one was the most popular or most fondly remembered, this would be it.  (I suppose the other leading contender would be “Airwolf,” which we talked about a couple of months ago — but that was aimed at an older audience.)

“Knight Rider” was cheesy.  But most 80’s action shows were cheesy, and I still remember it as being decent enough.  Lord knows I and Mikey Wagner, the kid on the next block, were fascinated by it.

As anyone who remembers this show can attest, there is a key character that isn’t even hinted at in the intro below.  The car was sentient.  His name was K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Two Thousand), and he was an artificial intelligence who actually who had a hell of a lot of personality.  K.I.T.T. was a super-intelligent, talking, futuristic, sleek, black sportscar, and he was an incongruous damned hero to us kids.

The other star was Davis Hasselhoff as Michael Knight.  We looked up to him too.  Hasselhoff, of course, is now better known for his subsequent starring role as a moronic lifeguard on the categorically awful “Baywatch” (1989 – 2001).  I remember seeing snippets of “Baywatch” in the 1990’s — it was constantly playing in the newsroom at my first job as a cub reporter.  (The guys there loved it.)  I remember being disappointed that one of my childhood heroes had somehow morphed into a male bimbo on the most saccharine and brainless TV show I had ever seen.  Hey, “Knight Rider” was a show for kids … but it was goddam “Masterpiece Theater” when compared with “Baywatch.”

Weird trivia — the voice actor for K.I.T.T. was none other than William Daniels, who also gave a stellar performance as John Adams in 1972’s film adaptation of Broadway’s “1776.”  It’s so weird seeing that movie and hearing the voice of K.I.T.T. come out of Adams’ mouth.

 

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Throwback Thursday: “Rudolph’s Shiny New Year” (1976)

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This was one of the really weird holiday specials that Rankin/Bass Productions made after their success with 1964’s “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”  Yes, this is the one with dinosaurs.

And, whaddya know?  Frank Gorshin (The Riddler from the 1960’s “Batman”) was in this.

 

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Throwback Thursday: the Indiana Jones “Find Your Fate Adventure” books!

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Here’s another happy Christmas memory — the Find Your Fate Adventure  books featuring Indiana Jones.  I was happy indeed when Santa brought these.  They were first published by Ballantine Books in 1984 and 1985, and they were basically Choose Your Own Adventure books in which you teamed up with Indy in the same type of archeological adventure you saw in the movies or in his comic book series.

Like most series of this type, they were penned by different authors and tended to vary in quality.  The second book, “Indiana Jones and the Lost Treasure of Sheba,” was authored by Rose Estes, who wrote some terrific title in the Endless Quest series, TSR’s own excellent take on the format in the Dungeons & Dragons genre.  There also were several written by R.L. Stine, they were reprinted in the 90’s following his popularity with his Goosebumps series.

I had the first four that you see below.  I seem to remember one being kinda bad, but I’m not sure I remember which.  It might have been Andrew Helfer’s “Indiana Jones and the Cup of the Vampire.”  (It was whichever book portrayed the reader as Indiana Jones’ cousin, who he repeatedly addressed as “Cuz.”)  The other books were damned great fun, though.  I do remember Estes’ “Lost Treasure of Sheba” being quite good.

I never owned the fifth book you see below, and never read it.  I can’t resist including it here, though, simply because of its title — “Indiana Jones and the Ape Slaves of Howling Island.”  If that isn’t the most interesting title in the history of western literature, I don’t know what is.  I’m 45 years old, and I would snap that up right off the bookstore shelf if I saw it.  Somebody should have gotten a raise for that one.

 

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