Flashback Friday: The New Adventures of Beans Baxter

Let's be clear: Spy Kids was a great movie. The idea of little kids becoming super-cool super-spies tapped into the wish-fulfillment of every kid who saw James Bond, and even those who didn't. But in all the accolades that Spy Kids received, it's forgotten that there was a show that plumbed the underage secret agent fantasy long before it. I had almost forgotten this show, too, so much so that I couldn't even remember the name of it. I had to go to a list of every TV show that aired in the eighties and literally go through every title, one by one, until I found it: The New Adventures of Beans Baxter.

The premise of the show is similar to Spy Kids, where a kid's parent disappears and the kid discovers his parent was really a secret agent. In this case, Beans Baxter's father disappears, and Beans discovers that his father isn't a mailman as he claimed, but really a secret agent. Beans becomes an agent in order to locate his missing father. I remember watching this show faithfully, but don't remember much about it.

TRIVIA
* Beans' real name was Benjamin Baxter, Jr.
* The creator and director of Beans Baxter was "Savage" Steve Holland, who also created the awesome animated series, Eek the Cat.
* Beans was one of the early shows aired by the newly-created Fox Network.
* The Network (the secret agency that Beans' works for) was intended to be the descendant of UNCLE, the secret agency from the TV show "The Man From UNCLE."
* Beans' nemesis was the evil Mister Sue, played by Kurtwood Smith. Smith later went on to fame playing "Red" Forman on That 70's Show.
* Mister Sue worked for U.G.L.I. (Underground Government Liberation Intergroup), the prototypical evil organization

LINKS
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Adventures_of_Beans_Baxter
TV.com summary http://www.tv.com/show/5497/summary.html

Related Posts:
Flashback Friday: BAT
Flashback Friday: Caveman Ugh-lympics
Flashback Friday: Life and Death

Flashback Friday: Six Million Dollar Man Action Figure

I loved the Six Million Dollar Man. I couldn't count how many times I ran around my house in slow motion, going "na-na-na-na-na." I remember the day I went to class and there was a kid with the Six Million Dollar Man action figure. That kid was the proverbial Man that day. The one thing I remember most is how the figure had a hole in the back of the head that you could look through, and see through Steve Austin’s eye. Other kids were lined up, and I remember waiting my turn and looking through the hole and seeing the little crosshairs. That feature alone made me think this figure was one of the coolest toys ever. In researching this flashback, I discovered that the action figure was even more awesome than I realized. The Six Million Dollar Man action figure was packed with features. I want one even more.

Trivia

• Arms and legs could be removed and replaced with new ones called "Critical Mission" limbs. The limbs had special features like karate chop action or blinking “laser” light. Steve Austin never replaced his limbs in the TV show, but he did in the original novel the series was based on.
• One version of the action figure came with a “bionic grip” in its right hand. The right arm could raise objects weighing up to two pounds.
• One version came with a fake steel girder for him to pick up, another had a plastic engine block…just in case he needed to fix his car.
• An elastic flesh-colored cloth covered the arms, so you could roll back the "skin" and expose his bionic components. In the original figure, the bionic parts could be removed, but complaints from parents' groups about choking concerns made later versions non-removable. Parents…they ruin everything.
• The action figure also had a Bionic Transport and Repair Station. Essentially combination vehicle and playset, on the outside it was a rocket ship for him to pretend to fly around in. Open it up and you get a bed to lie the figure down in and attach wires so you can "test and repair" his bionic parts. How cool is that?
• If that’s not enough for you, the cool kids could get a Mission Control Center, an inflatable dome that included a repair station, as well as a communications desk with interchangeable pictures of Steve, Oscar, and other characters, and an emergency escape hatch for him to bust out of.
• The Six Million Dollar Man action figure was the Tickle-Me Elmo of the seventies – demanded by every child, and hard to find.
• The action figure’s fragile nature (the arms and legs came off, the bionic components get lost, the fabric covering the arms tore) makes complete and intact figures hard to find.
  

Links:
Hands down, the best link on the Net about this figure is Plaid Stallions, which features photos and scans of the boxes for all the Six Million Dollar Man toys. Feeling Retro has a forum where people post their memories of the figure. There’s also an ebay guide for the completist which describes the different versions in frightening detail…so you know it’s authentic. You can watch the original 70’s commercial for the Bionic Grip action figure on YouTube.

Related Posts:
Flashback Friday: BAT
Flashback Friday: Caveman Ugh-lympics
Flashback Friday: Life and Death

Flashback Friday: B.A.T.

When I think back to some really cool games I've played, I often go back to "B.A.T." That's short for "Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters." It was an adventure game with a huge scope of things to see and do, set in a gritty, futuristic world. What I remember most is the movie-like opening with a great theme song and the title spinning into place, something that's commonplace for today but very ambitious for a time that often just featured a static opening screen.

I didn't even remember the plot, so I had to look it up. You played a member of an agency called the Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters on his first assignment for the Confederation of the Galaxies. A master criminal scientist named Vrangor has escaped from prison, along with a small-time crook name Merigo. The two of them have hatched a scheme to blackmail the galaxy. Vrangor has hidden nucturobiogenic bombs in Terrapolis, the largest city on the planet Selenia. Vrangor has given the government ten days to transfer ownership of the city to him or evacuate the city. The player's mission is to find Vrangor and stop the bombs from exploding before the ten days is up.

Trivia
* The game is set in the 22nd century.
* The game was originally released in 1990 in France, where it won "Game of the Year." The game was translated into English.
* The game boasted over 1100 different locations and characters from seven different species.
* The virtual city of Terrapolis had a wide range of services, such as a disco, restaurants, and a strip club. There was even an arcade with a playable mini-game called Bizzy.
* The player was required to eat and drink. Going hungry or thirsty for too long would cause death.
* The game was pure cyberpunk, heavily influenced by Blade Runner.
* The game featured a 3D flight simulator called DRAG to travel from place to place.
* The coolest feature in the game was a programmable computer embedded inside the player's wrist called B.O.B. The screen for B.O.B. actually showed the control panel in the arm with the surrounding flesh visible (Wish I could've found a screenshot for that). The computer could be programmed with a language similar to BASIC to do things like monitor the player's health or translate alien languages.

Flashback Friday: Caveman Ugh-Lympics

In honor of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, let's talk about a glorious old game, Caveman Ugh-lympics. The title is pretty much self-explanatory - it's the Olympics set in the caveman era, Summer Olympics meets the Flintstones. That being said, it was very clever. Like instead of just running, you have to run from a saber-toothed tiger. And instead of just doing a pole vault, you have to vault over the head of a carnivorous dinosaur that eats the losers.

One thing I find amazing about this game is that the humor still holds up. The term politically incorrect didn't exist back then, but if it had, features of this game like the mate-toss would be called politically incorrect.

Trivia
* The game was released in 1989 by Electronic Arts.
* The movie parodies the popular Olympics-themed games by EPYX of the time.
* The game has six events - the matetoss, the dino vault, the dino race, the saber race, firemaking, and clubbing.
* Some of the events allow you to cheat. Like with firemaking, you can hit your opponent to slow him down.

Links
*You can download the game and see screenshots at abandonia.com.
*Wikipedia has an extremely brief article with I intend to correct.
* You can also read about and download the game at houseofgames.net

Flashback Friday: Life and Death

Back in the day, I played a game called Life and Death. It was, without a doubt, one of the hardest games ever made. I had a friend who was an actual surgeon, and he said real surgery is easier than this game. If people in the real world died with the frequency with which patients die in Life and Death, the population would be cut in half. In this game, patients can die just from the initial incision, not to mention during the actual operation.

The game is now available for free online as abandonware. Amazingly, I still got it to run with no problems. When someone can explain why a twenty-year old DOS-based game works fine while my ten-year old Windows-based Command and Conquer game from 1995 wouldn't run without patches, I'll understand computers.

* Life and Death was released in 1988 by The Software Toolworks.
* The game apparently had a cult following among medical students.
* The original game came with a surgical mask and latex gloves. I don't remember getting those.
* There haven't been many other surgical simulations since L&D's release. One exception is Trauma Center: Under the Knife (Cadeuceus in the original Japanese version) for the Nintendo DS. Also Adult Swim has a parody game called Amateur Surgeon.
* Though the game claims to be based on actual surgical techniques, it included a warning that it was not a substitute for medical care and should not be used for medical advice. I can just imagine what brought that on - "Honey, my belly hurts. Boot up that 'Life and Death,' see what it says." "Well, according to the game, you got appendicitis. Lie down, I've done this surgery a thousand times in the game. Can't be that hard in real life."
* There was a sequel called Life & Death: The Brain. If abdominal surgery is this hard, I can only imagine what a nightmare brain surgery is like.

Links:
* Of course, the go-to on the game is Wikipedia. You can download the game for free at Thehouseofgames.net. Free-game-downloads has the game and a manual, but you have to pay for them. The walkthrough at GameFAQs is a must-have. Reading what steps are required to pull off a successful operation explains why my patients never lasted long.

Related Posts:
* Flashback Friday: J.J. and Jeff
* Flashback Friday: Robotman
* Flashback Friday: Out of This World

Flashback Friday: J.J. & Jeff

Back in the day, when everybody and their brother had a Nintendo, I had a Turbografx-16. Why did I have a Turbografx-16? Because it was supposed to be better than the Nintendo. And it was cheaper. More the latter. Unfortunately, the one thing the Turbografx-16 didn't have was good games. Perfect example: Nintendo had Super Mario Bros, the ultimate platform game. The Turbografx-16 had its answer for Super Mario Bros, and that answer was J.J. and Jeff. Which kind of explains why the Turbografx-16 no longer exists.

Whereas Mario Bros put you in the shoes of a plumber named Mario, J.J. and Jeff gave you two detectives named (wait for it) J.J. and Jeff. They were supposed to look cool, if your idea of cool is sunglasses and toothy smiles. I never really figured out what the game was about, to be honest, because I never played it past the first level. I thought the game was boring, frustrating, and odd, particularly the enemies like birds that would eject large droppings (seriously, like half its size) onto you. Turns out the Japanese version was heavy on toilet humor that was taken out in the American version. Those wacky Japanese.

Trivia:
* As I always suspected, the game is actually a Westernized version of a Japanese game, Kato-Chan and Ken-Chan. That game was based on a popular Japanese comedy show, Fun with Kato-Chan and Ken-Chan. The show had a segment where they would air funny homemade videos. That segment was the inspiration for America's Funniest Home Videos.
* Even though the game was J.J. and Jeff, you could only choose one of them to play. And there was no difference between the two characters at all, other than their appearance. The unplayed character would pop up throughout the game.
* J.J. and Jeff had a spray can they would use on enemies. In the Japanese version, Kato and Ken used their own flatulence. The original game also featured the unplayed character urinating and defecating in the background. That was also cut out. Thankfully.
* The game was recently re-released for the Wii, for some unknown reason. I guess the rights were cheap.
* The game was really hard to play, especially since the characters would build up speed and then glide to a stop, so it was hard to keep from sliding right off of platforms, etc.
* J.J. and Jeff was part of a genre of games that started with Adventure Island. Never heard of it, never played it, but apparently it was quite popular.

Links:
MobyGames goes into some of the censored bits of the game. Wikipedia, of course, weighs in on the game, but it needs to be fleshed out. I'll work on that. IGN.com has a fairly spot-on review of the game. So does CNET. Nintendo Wii Fanboy actually liked this game...no accounting for taste.

BONUS: Check out this video of the original Kato-Chan and Ken-Chan game on YouTube.

Related Posts:
Flashback Friday: The Black Hole
Flashback Friday: Platypus Man
Flashback Friday: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

Flashback Friday: Robotman

I remember watching the Robotman animated special years before I read the Robotman cartoons. It was called Robotman and Friends and portrayed Robotman as a loveable little robot with a heart on his chest, flying through the clouds with his little propeller on his head. Sort of like R2-D2 meets the Care Bears. Looking back, I imagined that must have been the creator of the comic strip's worst nightmare - his edgy, funny comic strip being transformed into a sappy, silly, cutesy special. But it turns out it wasn't. When I did the research for this flashback, I discovered it was the other way around. The character of Robotman was created for the toys and the animated special, and the comic strip was just supposed to be a part of the media blitz. That explains where the heart on his chest came from. It turned out that the comic strip survived while the stuffed doll vanished into obscurity.

Trivia
* The original special was called Robotman and Friends, aired in October of 1984.
* Robotman had sidekicks - Stellar, Oops, and Lint. They fought an evil robot Toberon who tried to eliminate all the love in the world.
* After one other TV special, the Robotman character lived only in the comic strip.
* In the comic strip, Robotman lived with a family in suburbia for several years. He never fought an evil robot or tried to spread love in the world.
* Several years later, Robotman switched to living with a nerd named Monty.
* In 1999, Jim Meddick permanently phased out Robotman from the comic strip, changing it into Monty.

Links
The best website, hands-down, for Robotman is the Robotman Library. There's a good interview that explains the origin of the comic strip, as well as info on the related Robotman paraphenalia. That's about it.

Related
Flashback Friday: Out of This World
Flashback Friday: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
Flashback Friday: Herb

Flashback Friday: Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

One of my favorite books when I was a kid was Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. The book has a simple but engaging premise - what if food rained down from the sky? Who wouldn't love that? I loved the book because of the way the author worked it out, and how life would be adapted to it. For instance, weather reports would become menus where you plan your meals based on what's predicted to come in. Restaurants would have no roofs so the food would just fall into your plate. Of course, like any good children's book, this fanciful tale turns dark and scary. It becomes a sort of careful-what-you-wish-for tale where the town gets crushed by gigantic hamburgers and floods of jelly-and-cream-cheese sandwiches. In the end, the people evacuate the town and build new homes out of stale bread. I found this book in a bookstore recently and realized how fun and creepy it really was, but also brought back a flood of memories. I especially liked the illustrations with little touches like sharks taking bites of peanut butter sandwiches.

Fun Facts:
* The town was called Chewandswallow. The book never described what country it was in, but it looked a lot like America.
* The book was written in 1978 by Judi Barrett and illustrated by Ron Barrett
* The author has written a sequel, Pickles To Pittsburgh which chronicles what's been happening in the town since it was abandoned. In the sequel, the people came back and started a company shipping free food to needy countries.
* Neither book explained why food would rain down from the sky.
* The book has been optioned for an animated movie, which I think would be awesome. A special effects extravaganza.

Links:
Not much besides Amazon.com. You can read an interview with her husband/illustrator Ron Barrett. Whatever.

Flashback Friday: Herb

Back in the 80's, there was a Burger King contest where you had to try to spot Herb in a BK restaurant and win $5,000. Herb was supposedly the one guy in America who had never tried a Whopper. I used to dream of walking into a BK and finding Herb. Of course, they didn't tell you what he looked like, so it was kind of difficult to achieve that dream. When they finally did, I got excited about finding him all over again. But of course, I never did. I always wondered whatever happened to Herb. Turns out Herb was one of the biggest blunders of advertising in U.S. history. Now I'm glad I didn't find Herb.

Trivia

• The campaign began with a series of mysterious ads and billboards that said "Who's Herb?"


• Herb was finally unveiled in a Super Bowl XX commercial in 1986.


• The reason why Herb, a man who doesn't eat Whoppers, would be in Burger King restaurants was never explained.


• The fact that Herb turned out to be a nerdy-looking guy in a loud suit was supposed to send the message that only losers don't eat Whoppers. Instead, the public took away the message that only losers eat at Burger King.


• In hip-hop or street lingo, a "Herb" is a nerd or loser. The term comes directly from these commercials.


• Instead of boosting sales, sales at Burger King actually dropped during this campaign.


• The Herb unveiling came at the same time McDonald's launched the McD.L.T.


• Advertising Age called the "Where's Herb" campaign the "most elaborate advertising flop of the decade."


• Herb was played by an actor named John Merrick. John Merrick was also the name of the Elephant Man, a hideously deformed circus freak.

Links
Surprisingly enough, Wikipedia is not the first place to go for info on Herb. I need to work on that. The best article is in E2. There's also an article in TV Acres about him. RetroCRUSH named the Herb campaign its biggest Fast Food Fiasco. Through the power of the Internet, you can even read an article from TIME Magazine circa 1986 about the unveiling. And for more retro flava, you can read a transcript of the infamous SNL sketch making fun of the Herb campaign.

Flashback Friday: Out of This World

There once was a TV show about a little kid whose father was an alien. No, it wasn't Roswell. No, it wasn't Starman. No, it wasn't V. Nothing so sophisticated. We're talking about Out of This World. This show was sort of like a kid's version of I Dream of Jeannie. The main character Evie had the power to stop time. You know this was a kid's show because she didn't try to take over the world. I mean, she could freakin' stop time. And all she did was get revenge on bullies and win basketball games.

While we're on the topic, why is it that alien races always have superpowers? I mean, E.T., Starman, Roswell, all the aliens or alien-derived beings have powers. I always wondered if we're supposed to believe the aliens evolved their powers or were genetically-engineered to have those powers or what.

Trivia:
* Scott Baio was one of the directors for the series. Is there anything he can't do?
* The old song "Swinging on a Star" was the theme song for the show.
* Evie's other powers included being able to teleport by snapping her fingers and being able to tie her shoelaces perfectly.
* Evie also had the power to "gleep," which apparently meant she could make simple objects appear just by willing it. See what I mean about being too powerful?
* Evie's father was named Troy. Yeah, there's imagination for you.
* Evie's father never appeared in person on the show, but talked to her through a blue crystal cube in her bedside cabinet.
* Burt Reynolds was the voice of Evie's father
* In the series finale, Evie's mother accidentally switches places with Evie's father, leaving the mother transported to Antares while Evie's father is in her bedroom. Talk about a cliffhanger.
* Unlike most child actors, the actress who played Evie (Maureen Flannigan) is still working. She did a 22-episode stint on 7th Heaven. And she still looks hot.

Links:
IMDB is the old standard, and Wikipedia is on top of the show, of course, but doesn't have much to say on it. TV.com does some episode breakdowns that chronicle Evie's wacky adventures. BBC gives a much broader description of the show, as well as why it was created.

Flashback Friday: Shanghai McNuggets

Once upon a time, in a McDonald's boardroom, a group of executives said "Hey, let's sell Chinese food." And someone else said, "Hey, good idea. Chinese food is popular. But it'll be expensive to develop a new product." And the other one said, "Nah, just sell Chinese-flavored sauces for the Chicken McNuggets." Thus, Shanghai McNuggets were born. Essentially, they were Chicken McNuggets sold with sweet and sour sauce, hot mustard, and teriyaki sauce. I remember liking these, but then I was a kid. It was actually okay, but then, you can't mess up Chicken McNuggets too much. Unless you ask where they came from.

Looking back, what strikes me most about this campaign was the incredible racism. I mean, it's barely Chinese food to begin with, but then they had the asian music and Ronald McDonald doing a karate chop. If they sold McNuggets with salsa, would they call it the Tijuana McNuggets? And having Ronald McDonald running across the border or riding in the back of a pickup truck? Actually, I can see that. I better not give McDonald's any ideas.

Links:
I couldn't find much information on these at all. I almost started to think I made it up until I found an entry at Wikipedia. And even that didn't have much. But there was much informal discussion on them on a thread at X-Entertainment. There was also a thread on rec.games.trivia about them.

Fun Facts:
* Shanghai McNuggets came in Chinese take-out boxes and came with a fortune cookie and chopsticks.
* The box included instructions on how to use chopsticks.
* McDonald's employees had to wear a bamboo Coolie hat to promote the Shanghai McNuggets.
* The Shanghai McNuggets were discontinued pretty quickly, but I don't know the exact year.
* In China, McDonald's sells Shrimp McNuggets.

Flashback Friday: Square Pegs

Before Sarah Jessica Parker had sex in the city, there was Square Pegs. This was a short-lived series about a couple of nerds in high school, but I remember it capturing a sense of teen angst that I'd never seen before. It also introduced me to a lot of '80's concepts that I didn't get going to my school (I wasn't even in high school then), like New Wave music, valley girls, the term "nerds," and leg-warmers. I also have had the theme song stuck in my head for twenty years. This show is also notable as one of SJP's first acting gigs. Who knew it would lead to fame and fortune? I still think she's ugly, but whatever. Maybe that's why I find her so unattractive, because I always see her with those glasses and nerdy look. Nice body, though.

Fun Facts:
* The title of the show was a reference to the characters trying to fit in, but not being able to - square pegs trying to fit into round holes.
* The theme song was performed by a group called The Waitresses, who apparently never did anything else ever again. Paul Shaffer did additional music. Figure that one out.
* The high school they went to was Weemawee High School. They didn't even try to make it realistic.
* Bill Murray did a guest shot as a substitute teacher.
* The show only lasted for one season from 1982 to 1983.
* The cancellation of the show was blamed, in part, on drug use on the set. If that was the case today, we'd never keep shows on the air.
* In China, they adapted the show into a hit series called Life Made Simple about a mentally-retarded man in his mid-thirties who goes to high school. I don't know how that worked. Do they have valley girls in China?
* There are calls for this show to be released on DVD. Something tells me it's going to be a little dated.

Links: There's a good overview at TV.com. By far, the best Square Pegs website I could find was the Square Pegs Shrine. And of course, there's the old standard, IMDB. Wikipedia, of course, does it up right. There are some sound files at Tim's TV showcase, including the theme song.

Related:
Flashback Friday: Photon
Flashback: Madballs
Flashback Friday: Electric Dreams

Never Prosper: Cheaters

I watched a whole episode of Cheaters this morning for the first time.Usually only come in at the end. That is a great show. And cheap. All they have to do is get proof of cheating, bring all the people together at the same time, and let the cameras roll. This morning, it was some old guy who had this hot chick living with him who of course was cheating on him with a younger guy. The old guy was obviously being used, her spending his money and using his house as a place to keep her clothes and stuff...loser. She was claiming she was over at a girlfriend's for three days straight! Andthe young guy was a complete idiot. When they confronted him, he kept yelling "How do you know her name? How do you know her name?" And then theywould say "He's her boyfriend" or "She's been living with him for two years". And he'd yell "Whadda you mean he's her boyfriend?" or "Whadda you mean she's been living with him for two years?" And then he would yell "How do you know her name?" again. That went on way too long. I said "Dude, they can't make it any clearer than that." And of course, she had no explanation, as always. I've noticed that - most of the cheaters never give an explanation, they just try to walk away. I guess they want time to think of an excuse. Anyway, the best part this morning was when the young guy tried to drive off, and the girl literally threw herself on the hood of his car to stop him. Awesome. And of course, the old guy dumped her, but the young guy "found a way to forgive her." I wanted to say "and I know exactly what that way was", if you know what I mean. But I take comfort in the knowledge that soon she will cheat and start the cycle all over again.

CSI: A Stripper's Paradise

I bought a CSI board game and it has character profiles for the cast. I never even knew the cast of CSI had characters. They all seem pretty interchangeable. They just have to walk onto a scene, make some sarcastic comments, and operate advanced equipment that no crime lab in the world could afford with expert skill at the drop of a hat. Anyway, I read in the manual that Catherine Willows worked her way through college through exotic dancing. To me, that seems like an ad for Las Vegas strippers. I mean, isn't the stereotype that all strippers are only stripping to pay their way through college? Well, Willows is living proof. "See?" the show says, "she did it and you can, too." Conspiracy theory? Possibly. But I defy anyone to tell me CSI isn't a commercial for Las Vegas. I mean, is the country's greatest forensics team really in Las Vegas?

As for the board game...eh, it's okay. I prefer Clue.

Flashback Friday: Photon

It's hard to believe, but there was once a time when laser tag was a bold and futuristic idea. In the eighties, there were two competing systems - Photon and Laser Tag. The fact that the game of shooting your friends with lasers is now known universally as Laser Tag shows who won. Both of them made TV shows, and just like the games, one was better than the other.

Photon was about a modern-day (well, eighties, anyway) teenager Bhodi Lee who was secretly a member of an intergalactic police force. When he was summoned, he would go off on adventures to faraway planets to do battle with an elite team of aliens. They filmed some segments in blue-screen with alien planets projected onto the backgrounds. This idea was horrible. It gave the show a look that screamed "fake."

Fun Facts:
* The show was Japanese dubbed into English. Amazingly enough, I never noticed this when I was a kid. Shows how long ago it was.
* Every episode, the good and evil teams would race to charge a crystal with good energy or evil energy.
* The aliens were truly freaky. No bumpy foreheads on this show. One of Bhodi's partners wore a miner's helmet.

Links
X-Entertainment Episode Review
Vikki's Photon Page
Internet Movie Database
Chilandra's Photon Links

Flashback: Madballs

Gross for one, gross for all. That was the slogan for the Madballs. They were just rubber balls decorated to look gross, but I always wanted one. Specifically, the eyeball one, Oculus Orbus. That looked cool. Man, hard to believe that was once considered controversial. Nowadays, those things would be considered suitable for preschoolers.

Fun Facts:
* Madballs had an animated movie and a comic book series.
* The company also released Head Popping Madballs, action figures with heads that would pop off.

Links:
* An overview of the Madballs
* This Japanese site has a list of all the Madballs and pictures of them.

Related:
Flashback: Electric Dreams
Flashback: Bionic Six
Flashback Friday and Son

Flashback Friday: Electric Dreams

This week, we pay tribute to the classic love triangle between a man, a woman, and a sentient computer - Electric Dreams. It was actually a clever idea well-executed, but the real reason to look back at this movie is how dated its portrayal of computers are. This was back in the early days when computers were mysterious boxes of awe-inspiring power.

The computer in Electric Dreams is made super-intelligent when its owner spills soda on the keyboard. I'm sure the millions of programmers struggling to create artificial intelligence would be glad to know it's that easy. Right now, Bill Gates is emptying a Mountain Dew onto a Cray hoping to duplicate the effect. Unfortunately, the soda-on-keyboard experiment has been done thousands of times over the last two decades, and the only result has been sticky keyboards that no longer work. Then there's the obvious fact that the keyboard is not attached to the processing part of the computer in any way. That part is about as realistic as lightning making a robot sentient. Or lightning making a stealth fighter superintelligent. And who would ever make a silly movie like that?

Fun Facts:
* Electric Dreams came out in 1984. The IBM PC was introduced in 1981. Windows was released in 1985.
* The computer was named Edgar.
* Electric Dreams is a cult classic, most famous for its theme song by Culture Club.
* Much of the movie is made up of musical montages, which leaves about thirty minutes of actual plot.
* The plot, about the computer composing love songs to the girlfriend and its owner passing them off as his own, is at least partly based on the story of Cyrano DeBergerac.
* The computer did not have a big nose. In fact, it had no nose at all.
* The creepiest part was when the computer's owner plugged out the computer, and the computer just chuckled and said, "You think I need that?"
* At no point in this movie was it suggested the computer wanted to plug itself into the hero's girlfriend. That was only implied.

Flashback Friday: Bionic Six

Bionic Six was a pretty good show in the eighties about a family of six (four kids and a father and mother) who get into a plane crash and are revived by "bionics" to become superheroes. Here's the summary from the Big Cartoon Database:

"Jack Bennet, a secret agent for the CIA, had taken his family on a trip to the Himalayas. During this trip, Jack is called to duty to investigate unusual magnetic readings. He encounters aliens who are trying to obtain Bertomium, a mineral that can increase bionic abilities and give eternal life to its posessor. In a battle, Jack's family becomes trapped under radioactive snow and they slip into a coma. Not seeing another way to save their lives, Jack permits Professor Sharp to operate on his family. Professor Sharp implants bionics in human beings, and the Bionic Six are born. Doctor Scarab creates his own bionic group from misfits taken from penitentiaries and asylums."

I could see the pitch now - "It's the Brady Bunch meets Six Million Dollar Man!" They fought the evil Doctor Scarab who also had a group of bionic minions. Doctor Scarab was a pretty good villain, although his obsession with his last name got old. Why is it supervillains are always obsessed about one thing like gold or spiders or scarabs? And what do scarabs have to do with bionics? And why is it that super-teams on cartoons only fight one villain? Aren't there other problems in the world? Didn't G.I. Joe have other organizations to fight besides COBRA? And what happens if the Bionic Six runs across some other criminal? "Sorry, not our jurisdiction. We strictly fight Doctor Scarab. You need to call the Transformers or something."

Fun Facts:
* The show aired in 1987 for two seasons
* Originally the show aired weekly, then went daily. I only remember the daily version.
* The Bionic Six were as follows - Jack Bennet codenamed Bionic-1 (super-vision and super-hearing), Helen codenamed Mother-1 (psychic powers), Eric codenamed Sport-1 (magnetic powers and a super-powered baseball bat, no kidding), J.D. codenamed I.Q. (super-intelligent), Meg codenamed Rock-1 (sonic blasters, super-speed), and Bunji codenamed Karate-1 (martial arts).
* Mother-1 was hot in a June Cleaver sort of way.
* All of the Bionic Six were super-strong.
* The kids were multi-racial; white, black, and Asian. While that sounds good, it means the Bennets went to the adoption agency and said, "Okay, we need a black kid, a white kid, and an Asian kid. No, we can't have two black kids! We already have a black kid! It's gotta be even! No doubles!"
* There were two white kids. No Mexican kids.
* The Asian character was a martial-arts expert. That's about as subtle as making the black character a basketball player. But at least he didn't wear a coolie hat.
* The Bionic Six were supposed to be infused with a radiation called "bions" that gave them super-powers, but their transformation showed cross-sections of them with mechanical parts. The writers couldn't seem to decide if they were cyborgs or just super-powered. I think they wanted to make them mechanical, but came up with the "bion" thing because they didn't want to get sued.
* In Germany, the legal problems were probably even worse - in Germany, the show was called The Six Million Dollar Family. I guess they figured the copyright lawyers couldn't get them there.
* The Bionic Six had nothing to do with The Six Million Dollar Man.
* The Bionic Six had a giant robot gorilla named F.L.U.F.F.I. Besides adding comedy relief and another toy, I can't see any reason for this.

Links:
Episode Guide
Bionic Six Memorial
Fan Fiction
Big Cartoon Database

Flashback Friday: ...and Son

Children's cartoons are like every other show on TV, they tend to go in cycles. Like how everybody's trying to make a Lost clone this year? And every children's cartoon these days is trying to copy Pokemon? It's like Japan took over American television.

Anyway, back in the eighties, there was a bizarre trend of making shows about popular cartoon characters and their sons. Like Popeye and Son, Pink Panther and Sons, Captain Caveman and Son, etc. I'm not sure which show started it - maybe it was an offshoot of the rush to create a clone of Muppet Babies. There were many strange things about this trend. First of all, they had to figure out how to give the character a son. Oddly enough, I only remember Popeye having a family. The rest of them just got a son out of nowhere. Second, there was no daughter. Like I don't remember Barbie and Daughter. I guess that didn't have the same ring to it.

Fun Facts
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* Even though Pink Panther's son talked, his father didn't. In the old cartoons, this was explained by the fact that no one talked, but I guess the new show confirmed that the Pink Panther is a mute.
* Popeye's son was named Popeye Junior. Real original.
* Popeye Junior didn't look like Popeye. And he hated spinach. He would only eat spinach to get out of a jam, and when he did, his forearms and jaw bulged up, and his eye got squinty. No wonder he didn't like spinach.
* Captain Caveman and Son appeared on the Flintstone Kids cartoon show.
* Captain Caveman's son was named Cavey Junior. And he was useless.
* Bluto's son wasn't named Bluto Junior. It was Tank, confirming that Bluto was the last name. So what's Bluto's first name?
* The Pink Panther's sons were named Pinky and Panky. Wonder how long it took them to come up with those? Imagine going through life with the name "Panky."
* Given the rumors about the Pink Panther, I'm not surprised he didn't have a wife. Maybe he used a surrogate mother like Michael Jackson. Or he adopted.
* Pink Panther's life partner never appeared on the show.
* I thought there were more "and son" shows, but can't find or remember them. Maybe it just felt like more.

Flashback Friday: BJ and the Bear

Once upon a time, chimps ruled entertainment. Seriously. Sure, chimps have been a part of American cinema and television ever since the camera was invented. Usually on roller-skates. The comedy that can be derived from watching a chimp pretend to smile while wearing a pair of pants is apparently endless. But in the 1970's, the man/chimp connection was forged.

Clint Eastwood personified this relationship in his classic movie, Every Which Way But Loose that proved not only that man and chimp can live together in harmony, but that primates can be trained to give the finger. It truly showcased the centuries-old bond between trucker and chimpanzee. This movie was so successful that it inspired a TV series that hangs in the galleries of classic television, BJ and the Bear. I remember this show well, mainly for the chimpanzee, which is not a monkey. It's a chimpanzee. Common mistake.

Links:
* TV.Com has the best website for BJ and the Bear
* There's also an MSN group called The BJ and The Bear FanClub.
* Extensive photos and the theme song can be downloaded at Tim's TV Showcase.

Fun Facts:
* BJ was way too good-looking for a trucker. Every trucker I've ever seen in real-life looked like a homeless guy in a plaid shirt.
* In the third season, BJ stopped driving and started his own trucking company with seven beautiful drivers. Just what Charlie's Angels needed - trucks.
* Real female truckers look like men with wigs.
* No female truckers read my blog.
* I always thought this show flopped, but it aired for three seasons.
* The show was so successful that it spun off a TV show about BJ's nemesis, Sheriff Lobo.
* Sheriff Lobo was immortalized in a song on The Simpsons, parodying the theme song of All in the Family with the line: "We could use a man like Sheriff Lobo again."
* I used to like chimpanzees until I found out what they are - filthy, disgusting, ugly creatures that humans love because they remind us of ourselves, but have as much to do with humans as butterflies. And don't get me started on dolphins.
* Dolphins communicate by urinating into their water.