Greetings, Penguin Blackbelts!!

My schedule from this past weekend all the way to this coming weekend leaves me with little time to do much, so this week’s installment of the summer nostalgia series will be short and sweet, which is apropos considering that it’s about a candy product that I have vast amounts of love for.   And if the title of this week’s “Remembers” hasn’t already given it away, I’m talking about that glorious confection that put Reeses’s Peanut Butter Cups to shame – PB Max.

Created in 1990, PB Max took the whole “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter” to a whole new level.  Instead of a processed-looking filler of brown paste, this candy bar seemed to include the same stuff you would knife or spoon out of a jar.  Slap that on a whole-grain cookie, combine it with peanuts and oats, and then wrap it all up in chocolate seduction and you found yourself with a square-shaped slice of euphoria.  And these things weren’t small, either.  Despite being less rectangular than their competition, PB Max bars didn’t suffer for it in the size department.  As you can tell from the picture above, those things were quite big.  Now imagine that packed with the ingredients I mentioned above.  Now salivate.

I loved the hell out of these things when they were still available.  They were the reason that Snickers bars and I didn’t speak for a long time (don’t worry – we reconciled some time later).  I simply could not resist these little buggers.  If I was ever in a grocery or convenience store and my eyes caught sight of a PB Max, I would usually mow down whoever was in my way to grab a couple.

Unfortunately, this incredible concoction obviously created by a wizard saw a short shelf life.  Halfway into the nineties, PB Max bars disappeared forever.  The reason?  According to the book The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars, the Mars family hated peanut butter.

Seriously.

So, thanks to communism (because honestly, communism has to be at the root of every evil – right?), the Mars company succeeded in their nefarious scheme of halting production of a candy bar that would have made Gandhi give up his crusade just so he could sit and ponder the wonders of the universe that were obviously contained within its chocolate coating.  At the very least, it prevented us mere mortals the chance to enjoy a delicious treat that gives Reese’s a run for its money.

And I cry.  Every night.

Still, all hope is not lost.  If you have a friend – like I do – and he is ambitious enough to look at the commercial, as well as check Wikipedia for the ingredients – like mine did – then you just may find yourself living in a shotgun shack gifted with the blessing of homemade PB Maxes, which are literally the next best thing.

And to help you get started, here’s the commercial so you can bask in the warm love of the PB Max:

However, getting a friend is up to you.

The Don is a portly ballerina.

If you guessed “your friendly neighbourhood Marlink”, then applaud yourself! You just earned 500 XP!

Guys, what with San Diego Comic-Con going on last weekend, all the geeky announcements coming from said con, StarCraft II dropping this week, and the webcomic Dreamless ending yesterday (Monday, July 26th), I actually was so flooded with topics that I honestly didn’t know what to write about this week. Luckily, two tickets to a free pre-release showing of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World saved me from hours of pointless self-debate. My boyfriend has awesome connections, man. (Despite popular misconception on the blogging sites that link to me, I am, in fact, a chick. *Cheepcheep*)

Don’t worry, North American moviegoers. The film won’t be released here till August 13th, and I won’t be spoiling your experience with a plotariffic review here and now. This is just a gush post. I’m going to predict right now that this is the best movie I will see all year (sorry, Tony Stark). It is, in fact, the best movie I have seen, not just this year, but in many years. We just saw it for free, but my little household is already planning to go see it again, with pocketbooks wide open, as soon as it opens in theaters. And quite possibly see it again, and again, and again.

Okay, so, I’m a Scott Pilgrim newbie. I’d never even heard of the series until I went to see Iron Man 2 this spring, and my friends were geeking out over a poster for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. From the snatches of conversation I could decipher (I was also playing Zelda on my DS at the time, which may have affected my comprehension), Scott Pilgrim was the Best Comic Evar, and this movie was going to be the Best Movie Evar. I filed it away as “interesting; may have to check out this Scott thing” and then promptly forgot it in the wake of Tony Stark Being Awesome. Let’s face it, that’s far too easy to do. Then I continued to forget about the existence of Scott Pilgrim until yesterday, when I received a text from my significant other about those famous free tickets to the advance showing. So, yeah. That’s me, going into the movie blinder than a hundred thousand blind cave fish with severe astigmatism and broken glasses. I didn’t know what to expect.

When the movie began–began!–with the opening sound of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (the electronic harp heard at the beginning of the below video), I knew that this Scott Pilgrim and I were going to get along just fine.

In fact, there is one character who is frequently playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past during the movie, and I have to admit–I didn’t hear a single word of dialogue while those sounds were playing in the background. I think I could watch that movie a hundred times–and I plan to–and I’ll never be able to tell you what’s being discussed when Zelda 3 is in the movie’s hizzouse. Talk about tunnel vision, man.

Okay, I’m trying to drag myself away from Zelda now. Really, I am. I understand that the greatest video game series of all time making a cameo isn’t enough to draw some people into the theater. Picky, picky. But all joking aside, as much as I fangasmed at the Zelda-ness, that wasn’t what made me love the movie. If there had been no Hyrulean presence whatsoever (and it was also referenced aside from the music, by the way), I would still have declared this The Best Movie I Have Seen In Years. I read up…a LOT…on the original comic series today and even got to read a little bit of the work itself. From what I can tell in my incredibly limited experience, the movie seems to hold true to the geek parody-loving, metahumour style that seems to be the comic’s standard. I can already point out places where the movie cut and squished things together a bit to make it all work in two hours, but I see that as giving me something new to look forward to when I read the full series. There are super-fast visual cuts from character to character and scene to scene near the beginning of the movie that you might find a little unsettling or confusing, but the film very quickly calms down and remembers it’s a movie, not a comic book, and that panel-to-panel behaviour doesn’t work so well in most live-action. Still, though, the movie does a terrific job of sticking with its graphic novel roots. Sound effects are written out on the screen as they happen, for example, and two people can literally throw each other around the room without taking damage. Batman would approve! You know, if he wasn’t too busy angsting over his parents being dead and all.

And, dear elder gods, but this movie is FUNNY! The theater was less than half full (very few tickets given away for this particular screening), but, frequently, the audience was laughing and cheering so loudly that the movie would be completely drowned out for a few seconds. Did I mention the movie was funny? I actually got a stitch in my side from laughing so hard, and my boyfriend seemed to be having trouble breathing at times.

Now, I went into the movie blind, but you don’t have to. (Stop reading now if you want the comic/movie to be a total blank slate for you.) Here’s a belated Wikipedia blurb on what Scott Pilgrim and his ilk are on about in the comic and movie:

The series is about 23-year-old Canadian Scott Pilgrim, a slacker, hero, and part-time bassist who is living in Toronto and plays bass guitar in the band “Sex Bob-Omb.” He falls in love with American delivery girl Ramona V. Flowers, but must defeat her seven “evil [exes]” in order to date her. (Read the rest of the article for more on the story.)

But if you think this is just a romance story, you’d better re-examine that theory. Scott Pilgrim is all about adventure, a “real-life” video game where ninja attacks are to be expected, Bollywood song-and-dance fights are considered a viable way to settle your differences, no one bats an eye at a vegan going Super-Saiyan and punching holes in the moon, people explode into coins when they’re defeated (but it’s not “real” money, being Canadian and all–I kid, I KID!), and sometimes, you find out the worst enemy you have to face to win the princess is Dark Link yourself.

If parody and metahumour and a little touch of love are your bag, baby, then you want to see this movie. If you’re not a fan of geek humour…then I don’t know what the hell you’re doing on this website. Go watch your American football games and try to convince me that it’s not gay when the guys slap their teammates’ asses. You’re only fooling yourself. Actually, because I’m all about love and peace and sharing and all that crap, I’m also going to recommend Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to you, ’cause expanding your horizons “ain’t never hurt nobody”. Trust me, you’ll enjoy the film! Here, have a little trailer to prove it:

And now, if you’ll pardon me for this week, I’ve got to go add six new comic books to my Amazon.cacom wishlist….

Greetings, Anawanna Campers!!

The fun and colorful eighties had already bore witness to several unique and awesome innovations by the time the decade started to wind down in preparation for the drab and angsty nineties.  By the time we reached the twilight years of the era famous for hair bands, half-hour long, animated commercials for toys, and the conclusion of the original Star Wars trilogy, another fantastic invention came into being – one that fit in perfectly with the polychromatic decade – thermal color changing!  And when it comes to cool, color changing items, there are two that immediately spring to mind:

Hypercolor T-shirts and Color Changer Hot Wheels!

Both creations came about during the mid to late eighties and functioned based on a simple, yet complex concept – when the item was at room temperature or cooler, it was one color.  But, when you applied heat or in some way increased the temperature of the item, it would change colors!

I seem to recall that the Hot Wheels vehicles were the first color changing products I owned growing up.  By that time I was in my early teens, and my Matchbox and Hot Wheels collecting had significantly waned and been replaced by my action figure collecting.  But these things were different.  After seeing the commercial for a toy car that changed its hue under cold or hot water, I knew I had to have one.  Once acquired, I spent quite a bit of time… not playing with them.  No, instead I got way too mesmerized by the pure sorcery on display as continuously ran them under an alternating warm and cold tap – an act that, out of context, may appear as though I was trying to pry spy secrets from their die-cast lips.  Of course, it wouldn’t be long before I either “broke” them, got bored with the fact that there actually wasn’t a little wizard in the paint schemes making the greens turn yellow and the purples turn red, or discovered something els– ooh, Real Ghostbusters action figures!!

Hypercolor T’s on the other hand… those things mattered for a little while longer.  See, as is the case with any new fashion trend based out of pop culture – you weren’t cool unless you owned one.  Of course, in my case I wasn’t even cool when I owned one.  Que sera sera, I guess.  All the way into the locker.  Sadly, I couldn’t see the color change while I was stuffed in there.

Aside from a revisit to the emotional scars of my youth, Hypercolor shirts were frikkin’ awesome!  Not as reliant on that life fluid that pours out of faucets, all you had to do was put your hand or another warm object on the fabric – and the outline of that object would remain for seconds in a different color on the shirt.  Of course, after the initial wave of awe over this mystical garment wore off, there was only one way teenaged owners of said shirts could put this innovation to any use.

If you said “Probably something obscene”, you would be correct.

It would not be out of the realm of possibility to see sixteen and seventeen year old girls running down the halls with light blue hand prints over their budding buxoms on their purple Hypercolor T-shirts.  Nor, would it be inconceivable to imagine some young dude getting on the school bus with an intentionally oversized Hypercolor top – just so that he could plant a couple of yellow hands on his otherwise green-clad derriere.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen – teen creativity at work.  And just think – those folks have become us, and we are now running the country.

Or writing silly nostalgic pieces for geek culture web sites.

The Don can change colors as well.  Just make him laugh while he’s scarfing down a bag of Doritos.

Greetings, Warriors!!

There are two things that immediately spring to mind when I think about the Fester’s Quest game that came out for the NES back in the late eighties:

“Man, that was a great game!”

and

“$#*&@%#!!”

Released in 1989 by Sunsoft, Fester’s Quest was this little hidden gem of a game amongst the rest of the NES titles that came out that year.  Featuring an overhead layout (with a few scattered, first-person, dungeon crawl-like areas) and utilizing gameplay mechanics similar to the game Blaster Master, you controlled Uncle Fester as he ran around town trying to save it from and alien invasion.

While the gameplay was fun and the environment was visually stimulating, the game itself was quite – to put it mildly – challenging.

Between clunky movement and shooting mechanics, frequent and sometimes hard to avoid weapon degrade drops mixed in with the upgrade drops, and enemies that would pop up almost everywhere way too often, this game would frequently get very frustrating.  Yet, for some reason, I couldn’t stop playing it.  Thrown controllers aside (pun intended), I still enjoyed every minute of this game.  For me, at that young age, Fester’s Quest was different and inventive.  Plus, the fact that it was based on what was then a twenty-five year old, black and white television show impressed me.

Though I never actually owned Fester’s Quest, this cartridge has the distinction of being one of the few titles I rented repeatedly (well, as long as my parents had no problems paying for the rental and driving me to and from the rental place).  The first time I rented it, I remember picking up this title and the first Ducktales game.  I found myself enjoying both so much that I had a hard time choosing between the two to play.  I think the quirkiness and eccentricities of Fester’s Quest is what made it stand out for me, though, as well as what made it a constant on my video game rental list.

Before finishing this article, I decided to play it again just to see how it holds up.  It’s not as difficult as I remember, but it still can get frustrating as hell.  Part of the problem is the damn gun upgrades.  Until you upgrade to the best gun in the game, your projectiles tend to do some kind of wonky zig-zag or loop-de-loops as they head towards their target.  This can prove to be somewhat anger-inducing when you are in close quarters with some nasty alien varmints and your gun blasts keep getting stopped by the local shrubbery.  But you know what?  I still enjoyed the hell out of the game.  In fact, it took me at least an hour to get back to this article, I was having so much fun.

So, is Fester’s Quest as good as I remember?  Yup.  In fact, I’m going back to play it some more.

“$#*&@%#!!”

There goes another controller.

The Don is creepy and he’s kooky, he’s hairy like a wookiee, he’ll make you wanna pukee…

It isn’t very often that the stars align and a series of unfortunate events occur in tandem and in perfect sync with the Spwug article that I happen to be writing for the week.

This isn’t one of those times.

Still, it’s a pretty fortunate coincidence that the new Predators movie is opening this weekend and the original Predator came out last week on Blu and that I watched it over the weekend and I had planned on writing about the film this week as a part of my “Don Remembers” series.

Wow.  That’s a lot of ands.

But, with the ever-growing excitement I’m feeling over the possibility that a new Predator film written and produced by Robert Rodriguez might actually be good (or at the very least wash the horrible taste of A v P films out of cinegoers mouths), I felt it was only fitting that this week I remember the classic Schwarzenegger flick that started it all.

First, I will go on record and say that I think Predator is hands down the best action film on Arnold’s resume (and holy cow does it look beautiful on Blu – so clean that it looks like a recently-released film).  Don’t get me wrong – I love me some Terminator and T2, and Commando is just way too much fun – but Predator is a nice, intimate sci-fi/action flick that seems to work perfectly on every level.  You’ve got your well-cast, well-balanced team dynamic, with each character played brilliantly by his respective actor and getting a decent amount of development – so when each one dies, you don’t just shrug it off.  Each death carries weight.  You’ve got your humorous one-liners.  You’ve got your straight-up, military mission plot line that about half-way through gets a serious injection of sci-fi/slasher juice in the form of a bad-ass alien who has no qualms with how messy he makes his kills.  That leads me to the fact that film is also loaded up with a decent amount of gore.  Top that all off with the requisite staple of a Schwarzenegger film – Arnie in a one-on-one showdown with the big bad – and you have the final product that should be on regular rotation in every household.

This film actually holds a special significance for me, as it was the very first R-rated flick I got to see in theaters.  It was summer of 1987.  I was twelve and had just finished seventh grade the month before.  One of my best friends, Jeff, and I had already been stoked to see this film for months after all the articles we had read in magazines like Starlog and Fangoria (ah, the days before the internet when all of your cool movie scoops came from sci-fi and horror magazines).  We talked about this movie constantly, in between watching episodes of Thundercats, playing D&D, and our numerous and consistent attempts to catch any glimpse of T&A that we could on MTV or in whatever flick we could catch on a pay channel.

When the film was finally released in June, Jeff got permission from his mom to stay over at my family’s house that weekend.  Convincing my dad to take us wasn’t a difficult task, as he loved a good action flick as much as anyone.  With our tickets in hand, we went into the small theater at our tiny mall in our miniscule town and took our seats – minds ablaze with excitement over what we were about to see unfold across the screen.

An hour and forty minutes later…

Holy crap!  Jeff and I exited that theater, our young minds blown by the spectacle we had just been privy to.  For the next few months, every minute of our lives was infused with Arnie-speak from the film.  Quotes were flying out of our mouths (and in most cases, away from adult ears) faster than Blaine getting eviscerated by a plasma blast.  Every time we went out to play “guns”, we were commandoes up against some alien hunter.  Even our combined G.I. Joe saw an upgrade in adversaries – from hooded used car salesmen to dreadlocked killers with mandibles and active camouflage.  We would be eating, sleeping, and breathing the awesomeness of Predator well for quite awhile…

Then the hormones kicked in, and we noticed girls.  But that’s another memory… and one probably best not shared.

The Don ain’t got time to bleed.  He’s too busy screaming like a girl from the paper cut.

Greetings, Mads!!

Those of you who grew up during the eighties may remember a little book series put out by a company called Crestwood House that focused on classic monsters from the fifties, sixties, and seventies.  These orange and black little treasures were part of the “Monster Series”, and were some of the most heavily sought-after tomes of my third grade class.

A delightful anthology series, each Monster Series book would focus on a particular movie monster type, be it Frankenstein’s Monster, Godzilla, or Mad Scientists.  And it wouldn’t just cover one iteration of the subject, either – each volume would include every classic appearance of the character, be it silent film, Universal version, Hammer version, or even sequels.  And for a deceptively thin book, each hardcover seemed to overflow with a fountain of information on the monsters we all loved as kids.

My fondest memories of this were again back in third grade.  I remember that my third grade teacher, Mrs. Hopper, was a very kind but very strict Christian woman.  As such, she didn’t like us bringing in anything that seemed evil or un-Christianlike.  So, that meant that the Crestwood House books were verboten in our class.  We could check them out, but they had to remain in our back packs or we couldn’t check them out at all.

That just made them all the more desirable to get ahold of.  We used to sneak them into the back of the room or out by the tree during recess and just go over them cover to cover.  Repeatedly.  There were only six different volumes in our library, but I must have checked each one out at least a hundred times over the course of that school year.

Then, there was the time in fourth grade that I went on a field trip with my gifted class.  The library we went to had new Crestwoods that I had never seen before!  With the new additions added to the growing series list on the back, I was mesmerized by the chance to explore new monsterscapes.  I tried repeatedly to look through them while we were in this foreign elementary library, but I was repeatedly foiled by the fact that we were there for other educational purposes.  But there was only one education I wanted at that point – I wanted to learn more about monsters.

Sadly, I never got to read those other installments.  But, those Monster series books continue to be a part of what makes me the geek I am today – especially my love of monster movies.

The Don is doing the Mash.  The Monster Mash.

So, I had several article topics planned for this week. Then Nintendo had to go and hold their press conference the same day my column here goes live, and, well, I can’t hear anything over the sound of how awesome the new Zelda Wii game, tentatively-titled The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, is. Nope, can’t hear ya, buddy. So we’re just gonna haveta talk Hylian heroes.

Wanna see still art and screenshots? Make with the clickin’ here!

Wanna see a promo video? You got it!

Wanna see more video? Here ya go!

Because about all fans in any fandom like to do is complain, there’s some griping about the cel-shading. That’ll pass once we learn more about game mechanics and story and innovations to the Zelda universe; remember how much flack Wind Waker took for its graphics before it was released? Yet now it’s a much-loved title in the series, with even the haters admitting that it was a fun game. Which, of course, is the most important thing. (For accuracy’s sake, I was one of the people who didn’t like the Wind Waker style, but my enjoyment of a game has nothing to do with graphics, beyond being able to tell where I’m going and what I’m looking at.)

My initial thoughts on the new Zelda title are best expressed in the way I wrote them on a Zelda forum when the news from Nintendo’s E3 press conference poured out:

“I LOVE the cel-shaded tones! I’m so sick of all video games being dark and gritty-looking, with virtually no colour. It’s getting to where it’s hard to tell one game from another if the characters aren’t in the shot, because everyone’s using the same dark and neutral lack-of-colours. Like someone bled all the life and vibrancy from the universe. The cel-shaded use of colour in Borderlands was one of my favourite things about the non-gameplay aspects. It was so nice to see colour even in the game’s darker and more adult moments–and it made it easier to distinguish one object from another, too. The cel-shading was also a refreshing new visual style.

“I’m still not happy about all the right-handed art and sword swings (instead of cel-shading, that’ll be MY whiner nitpick! ;D) But I noticed in the video that Link was doing some things left-handed and some things right-handed, so I’m hoping we have a better explanation for the righty tendencies than “Nintendo’s catering to the righties so they don’t whine about maybe having to think left-handed for a few minutes, even though the world’s lefties often have to do things right-handed.” I played Twilight Princess on the Wii both left-handed and right-handed, switching the Wiimote from hand to hand. I honestly didn’t notice a damn bit of difference in how the game controls, so it irked me that Nintendo felt they had to literally mirror the game’s graphics for the Wii release (Wiilease?) I would LOVE it if we at least had the option to make Link either a lefty or a righty.”

And if all that’s not exciting enough, Nintendo is also said to be remaking Ocarina of Time and StarFox for the upcoming 3DS. Check out these screen shots of the visually-improved Zelda 3DS titles!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ll be rabidly refreshing the Nintendo E3 site for the rest of the evening! Whilst simultaneously poking fun at Sony’s and Microsoft’s still-lackluster attempts to swipe Nintendo’s gamers with their rip-off proposed motion controls. You know, after slamming Nintendo’s use of them for so long. It’s not that I’m biased (though I totally am). It’s that I despise hypocrisy.

Greetings, Ghost Monsters!!

The 80s were an impressive decade as far as animation was concerned.  Television viewers were literally flooded with a wealth of animated programs of all shapes and sizes.  And practically anything that was on the pop culture radar got its own cartoon, from video games to sitcoms to musicians.  If you were a hot commodity, you would soon find yourself in two-dimensional, cel-shaded glory.

Animation was becoming more prominent in movie theaters as well.  Though the 70s showed that an occasional non-Disney cartoon could dip its toe in the theatrical realm, it wasn’t until the 80s that we would see it start to become much more mainstream.  From rock prodigy on display with Heavy Metal to after school favorites getting the feature film treatment like Transformers and G.I. Joe, cartoons were starting to gain a wider audience.

Speaking of theatrical releases, there is one animated movie that still stands out and resonates with me to this day – one that I am proud to own on DVD.  It’s not one of the more well-known titles to come out of the 80s, but I think it’s one of the best.  And with the recent news of a certain famous author’s memoirs finally being available to publish this year, I think remembering this film is more than apropos – The Adventures of Mark Twain.

This film opened in January 1986 to a very limited release (seven cities, to be exact).  It was directed by Will Vinton, who was best known for being the creator of Claymation (and within that art, The California Raisins).  Using the techniques he harnessed from honing his clay-playing craft, Vinton crafted an incredible clay-animated film that chronicled the final days of Mark Twain as he rides an airship to the stars in order to go out with the same comet he came in with.  Along the way, he acquires three stowaways – Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and Huck Finn.  As they make to their way to Twain’s final destination, the ex-Clemens regales the children with stories taken from his own writings, as well as imparting lessons to the three before he leaves the world for good.

What stands out most about this putty-crafted spectacle is how mature it is for an animated feature.  With a combination of humor and dark subject matter (dark enough to be widely banned), Mark Twain presents itself honestly, showing both sides of the author’s conflicted psyche.  Through a series of vignettes framed by an overarching storyline, we get to see the humor that Twain saw in things, as well as the demons he bore witness to during his depression.  Mark Twain is a very deep film, exploring and celebrating one of America’s best authors by offering a fresh and creative manner for sharing his works, as well as offering a glimpse into his soul.

Despite the controversy the movie sports, I was fortunate enough to be able to see this in theaters.  Already in the process of learning about Twain in our sixth grade Gifted class, our instructor was able to take us on a field trip to our local theater to see this wonderful film.  How our little town was able to procure a print of the movie when it was very limited in its release, I haven’t a clue.  All I do remember is that some deal was worked out and a representative for the film actually came out as well to answer any questions we had.  I remember watching the movie afterwards and enjoying every minute of it.

It would be a long time before I would even get to see this film again, but it never fully left my mind.  The imagery and substance on display continued to resonate with me long after.  Then, in January of 2006 (just in time for its twentieth anniversary!), the movie was finally released to DVD.  I snatched it up immediately and watched it in the hopes that it still held up in comparison to what I remembered.

Sure enough, The Adventures of Mark Twain is every bit as moving and profound as I remember.  I still find myself laughing during the truly funny moments, and I still find myself deeply affected by the dark and creepy moments.  A shining tribute to a great author as well as a highlight in the art of Claymation, this movie still succeeds at resonating with me.

And now, I leave you with the truly disturbing scene that caused its ban, yet still manages to communicate an incredible wealth of intellectual depth:

The Don is but a thought.

Greetings, Pyleans!!

Of all the bits of nostalgia that have been running through my head for consideration as my first “Don Remembers” article, one stood out immediately among all others:

Colorforms.

These little, mono-colored pieces of pliable plastic were like a gateway to endless hours of creativity when I was a kid.  Created in the mid-fifties, Colorforms are pre-cut vinyl shapes that would stick to a flat sheet of cardboard that was coated with a slick sheen.  Each shape would usually have some sort of design, like a person or a car, and could stick to the illustrated background through static cling.  Children could create any scene they wanted by placing the Colorforms on the background, peel them off, and reuse them later by setting up a completely new scene.  Originally, they started out simple, but over the years they began to include licensed characters from different television, movie and comic properties.  By the time the 80s rolled in, almost everything from the band KISS to Marvel Superheroes to Jem had truly outrageous Colorforms.

This is where my childhood comes in.  I remember my first set – Battlestar Galactica. I was a huge fan of the Olmos-less original series.  I would spend hours setting up different battle scenes.  Sometimes Starbuck would get ambushed by Cylons.  Sometimes Boxey and his daggit Moffit would have their own solo adventure.  The best part is that while some of the Colorforms depicted single figures, others would be body parts that you could piece together to make poseable characters.  See kids?  This is what we did before home video game consoles were in every household.  Well, this and Atari.

Eventually I would get other sets like Star Wars or Mork and Mindy, and that’s where the fun would really begin.  Wanna know what would happen if Mork from Ork had to take on Vader while Han Solo and Starbuck were caught in a crossfire between Cylons and Imperial Stormtroopers?

Simple – K.I.T.T. would show up with Pac-Man and rescue everybody.  Duh.

The Don once crossed Batman with a Gremlin.  He doesn’t like to talk about it.

Greetings, Mynocks!!

Starting next week and running through summer, I will be bringing you a brand new series called “The Don Remembers…”  A nostalgic series, I will be focusing on toys, movies, television, cereals, and other pop culture fixtures that have been a part of our lives for the past thirty years, adding my own anecdotes and observations to give each entry that unique flavor that you love to read from me every week.  I think it will a fun way to spend the summer, and hopefully you’ll all come indoors every so often to partake in said having of the fun.

In anticipation of this weekly summer feature, this week’s “Office” will be a sneak preview of sorts, to give you a taste of what’s to come.  And since the magic number here is thirty, what better way to kick it off then by delivering you a one-two punch to the reader-plexus with two franchises that just turned thirty this past weekend – The Empire Strikes Back and Pac-Man!

The Empire Strikes Back

Arguably the best film in the entire Star Wars saga (no matter whether you count all six installments or just the original Holy Trilogy), Empire is a prime example of how Lucas should have handled all of his films after the first one became such a surprising success – hire a better director to helm your film while you hire better writers to polish your script.  Because that’s what he did with Empire, and somehow managed to hit it pretty close to the mark to get us all riled up like that (in a good way).  What came out of that masterful stroke of good decision-making was a darker, yet fun and thrilling film that gave its predecessor a run for its money, while at the same time causing everyone to wet themselves in excitement as their jaws dropped into their collective laps.

I know that’s how my five-year-old self felt.  I remember my parents taking me to see this when it first came out.  Already a huge fan by the time I hit five, I remember the excitement as we waited in line for the next showing at our local theater.  I could hear the thrum and drum of the film as it played on to the movie-goers already held by its thrall.  My anxious anticipation building to almost unbearable levels, I tore away for a second and peeked in at what was being played on the screen.  I was greeted instantly with the sight of Luke’s X-Wing as it zoomed across the stars.  But not even that image could prepare me for what awaited my young senses when it was our turn to take our seats.

Interestingly enough, everything that makes this movie great is exactly what made this one my least favorite when I was a kid.  I remember bawling my eyes out when Han got taken away in carbonite, and I simply couldn’t wait another three years to find out of Luke and his friends could save him.  In the meantime, my actions figures made very sure that he was rescued and back on smuggler detail immediately.

It took awhile, but as my movie-going mind matured my tastes matured, and The Empire Strikes Back eventually became my favorite movie of all time, and it remains so to this day.

Pac-Man

There isn’t a soul on the face of civilized earth that doesn’t recognize this tiny, round, phasmophobe with a severe pill addiction.  Originally called “Puck Man”, this classic arcade game came out during the birth of the video game age, at a time when the big draws all involved spaceships shooting at hostile invaders of one sort or another.  Though it wasn’t initially a big hit in its country of inception (Japan), it became almost an instant success the minute it hit American shores.  After that, everyone had “Pac-Man Fever”.

Merchandise for the pizza-inspired character went into overdrive – candy, board games, cereal, plushies, t-shirts.  TV shows at the time were known to air episodes that at least mentioned the game, and in some instances would have an episode’s plot center around someone playing it incessantly.  Pac-Man’s American distributor Midway got so cocky after the game’s success that they quickly cranked out several spin-offs over the next couple of years, much to the irritation of the game’s creator – Namco.  Despite the faux pas that forced Namco and Midway to eventually part ways, Pac-Man continued to grow in popularity, eventually becoming the world-recognized pop culture phenomenon it is today.

Where I grew up, pizza places seemed to be the venues that would generally have a video game console or two before arcades became widespread, making them almost like Disneyland to my young mind.  When our local Pizza Hut got its first Pac-Man machine, I remember staring at it in wonder.  Steering a little yellow guy through mazes while trying to avoid ghosts was something that was very relevant to my interests.  Already a video game addict by the time I was five, it didn’t take much to bug my parents for quarters.  And Pac-Man was no exception.

Didn’t take long for me to realize that I was terrible at the game.  Certainly didn’t stop me from cleaning out my parents’ pockets for small, silver Washingtons.  And I would continue to waste my parents’ change on that maze navigator for quite some time… at least, until another pill-popper with a bow came along and proved to be a better and more fun game to play.  And don’t even get me started on apes throwing barrels.

So that was your first taste of what’s to come for the summer.  Starting next week, be prepared to take that proverbial trip down memory lane.  Watch out for traffic.

The Don isn’t a system, he’s a man.  Though, that’s stretching it a bit.