Five Classic TV 50th Anniversaries I Overlooked

You may recall that last year I spent a great deal of time discussing the 50th anniversary of Star Trek.

However as you’d imagine that’s not the only show to hit that big milestone in the last couple years. And so I thought it only fitting to mention five other shows I love which deserve to be recognized for being popular and loved fifty years after it first premiered!









Ok ok it’s not as if I’ve never talked about the campy Adam West series but I felt I had to mention it here. Especially since Adam West sadly passed away earlier this year. It premiered in 1966 and was a SMASH hit. Not even kidding, Batmania was everywhere which led to the theatrical release that summer. It was the show to be on and everyone tried to appear as a villain or a window cameo. It’s ironic because it came out the same year as Star Trek but this is the one kids loved more. Even though Trek gets more respect today. Yes it’s campy and silly but it fit the time perfectly, with Adam West being the perfect straight man It’s important to remember that if it hadn’t been for this silly show we may not have ever had the Burton movies, Nolan movies, or the great animated series. It deserves to respected for what it did for the character.

The Quintessential Songs of Christmas

Remember the other day when I talked about Burl Ives and how he owned Holly Jolly Christmas? I don’t care how many versions of the song are out there, this is the first and best one in my book!

Well he’s not the only artist identified with a Christmas classic. Anyone can record a Christmas song, and almost everyone has, but it takes something special for a song to be synonymous with the artist. So much so that no matter how many cover the tune, it’s this one artist who everyone thinks of first when the song pops up.Either because they released the song first, or because they just had such a perfect take on it that it’s become the beloved version.



Here are twelve more Christmas songs which have been covered to death, but these are the versions everyone thinks of first. In my opinion anyway.



Santa Claus is Coming To Town by Bruce Springsteen
Love it or hate it, we’ve all heard this version and we all think of it when the song gets mentioned. Yeah Frank Sinatra probably sang the best version, but not the most recognized one. And yes I know people are screaming “JACKSON 5!!!” at their screens but c’mon, is that one really that good the way Jackson keep screaming the title of the song?

Top 10 Favorite Rankin/Bass Songs

I’ve talked before about the classic Rankin/Bass specials, for better and for worst, but one of the reasons I love coming back to these every year is the music. These are either Christmas songs that have been recorded a million times by a million people, but these versions always stand out from them, or they are original songs that you can never forget.

This was a lot harder than I expected it to be, but here is my top 10.



#10.We Wanna Wake Up To A Big Surprise (Life and Adventures of Santa Claus)
I hate this special, based on the Frank Baum book, but this song is a highlight.

Five Things I Hated in “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Let’s talk about the Christmas classic, a story so familiar that it has been homaged and parodied to death!

 

As a kid I thought it was a little long, and boring, but when I got older I realized how important all that stuff is. It’s because the movie takes the time to get us to know and like the other characters that makes the angel stuff work so well. I also pointed out a long time ago that George Bailey is great character, beautifully played bu Jimmy Stewart. We feel what he feels and the acting is just superb.

But does that mean the movie is perfect? Well there are some things that bug me.





That swimming pool scene

I know lots of people find this charming but for me it’s just silly. I can’t go so far as o say it’s pointless, though it’s about as close as this movie comes, but what is the point of having George and Mary fall into that concealed pool? I just never got it and thankfully the scene is forgotten as if it never happened.

Ten “Christmas Carol” Sitcom Episodes

I talked the other day about sitcom characters dressing up as Santa. But that’s not the only trope that persists in these shows. How about Christmas Carol episodes? Course we all know Charles Dickens immortal classic, and it has been redone a million times on TV and in movies. The funny thing is that as hard as they try these episode never quite get the point of the book. That’s because the character getting the Christmas Carol treatment isn’t a miser who hates people like Scrooge was. He or she is usually someone who is usually kind and loving, but are having a bad day.

Doesn’t stop these shows though. Here are some examples :



Bewitched, “Humbug Not to Be Spoken Here”

Give this show credit, at least they thought outside the box. The Scrooge in this episode is a client of Darrin’s. The twist is rather than show the grumpy jerk is past, present, and future Samantha takes hin ot see Santa Claus. This was sort of a re-write of an earlier episode where she did the same thing to a disbelieving little boy.

Five Rare Christmas Specials I Watch Every Year

I talked a few weeks about how Christmas special’s have changed. So it only figures that in order to see specials the way I liked them, I gave to watch my own. Thank goodness for VHS!



Here are five Christmas specials which aren’t shown anymore but I still watch them every year.



Olive, the Other Reindeer

I talked about this one a couple years ago in my list of my favorite animated Christmas specials. This was the only one that wasn’t a classic or that I simply don’t watch every year. It’s amazing how much I love this considering when I first heard the premise I was afraid I would hate it. I thought it would be like the awful Robbie the Reindeer. But to my surprise, it was charming and I love it the story of how a dog saves Christmas.






He-Man/She-Ra Christmas Special

Ok I’ve talked about this before, and it’s a real guilty pleasure. It’s He-Man and She-Ra, what do you want? The plot is contrived, the dialogue is corny, and it barely connects to Christmas. But I don’t care I still watch it and love it. 80’s gave up tons of cool specials including The California Raisins, Alf, and Pee-Wee Herman, but this is the one that has stuck.

Ten Favorite Sitcom Characters Playing Santa

In my article the other day I had wanted to include a sitcom Santa. But there were two problems. One, I couldn’t think of one I hated. Even when the character is grumpy about playing Santa it still kind works. The other problem? There are to many to pick from! Have you ever noticed how many sitcom characters play Santa? It’s almost a cliche! From Norm on Cheers to Carl on Family Matters to Ray on ELR to Frasier on Frasier to Michael Scott on The Office, lots of people have donned the red flannel and white beard.

        





















Here today are my ten favorites, when the character actually went above just wearing a red suit and managed to actually capture some of the magic that makes Santa, well, Santa! I wanted to only include regular cast members who get to play Santa for an episode, if I include guest stars this list will never end! This is in no particular order.



Punky Brewster

Wow, talk about blowing it out of the water! I guess since he did this and Police Academy we forget George Gaynes could act. Forced to play Santa to make a skeptical Punky believe again, he knocks it out of the park. The performance is so good for once I can believe that the other characters can’t see through the beard. This episode is wonderful!

My Five Least Favorite Santa’s

A long time ago I did a list of my favorite Santa’s in movies and TV. About time I did the reverse. These are five Santa’s which just rubbed me the wrong way, and I never liked them. Santa Claus is a tricky character to get right. Do it wrong and it can come off as creepy or even worst. Some succeed. And others fail.



One rule, there will be lots of obvious choices not on here, including the bad Santa pictured on the top, but I wanted this to be Santa’s I have seen and hated over the years. Feel free to comment below on the one’s that you feel should also be here. This list may not make me popular, just remember this is all opinion and just for fun.





Elmo’s Christmas Countdown
I talked about this at length when I reviewed this special, but man there’s just no way I can do this list and not mention it here. If you didn’t see this, it was an awful special that aired a few years. In the end Kevin James comes in as the worst Santa ever! James plays it like it’s Doug Heffernan as Santa. And he sings a ridiculous song like he was Elvis!!. Santa has to be kind and nice, not to mention older, and James hits absolutely none of these things. Just painful.

Five Ways Christmas Specials Have Changed

It still makes me sad that we don’t have Christmas Specials like they had back in the old days. Some may be wondering, they still have Christmas specials! Well, yeah they do but the one’s they had when I was growing up were really special and unique. It’s kind of hard to explain how if you weren’t fortunate enough to be around all those years ago. But the specials we got in the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s weren’t the same as the stuff we get today. Some of these things were fading away when I was a kid, and I still miss them.

Here are some examples of things those specials did that you just don’t see today :


Talking About Jesus

I mean, why in the world would you want to bring religion into a Christmas special? Before everyone became so worried about being PC, these specials would in fact discuss what the holiday actually means. Going all the way back to Linus’s speech (to be fair even then the network didn’t like that). But yeah specials back in the day didn’t shy away from talking about WHY we celebrate the holiday and, heaven forbid, saying Merry Christmas at the end instead of Happy Holidays!! John Denver and The Muppets is a great example of this, with John Denver reciting passages from the bible.

Five Christmas Movies that Ignore Christmas Day

Last year I talked about how very often a TV episode will be set at Christmas, with decorations and all, but Christmas has almost nothing to do with the actual story. Now the natural follow up would be movies set at Christmas which have nothing to do with the holiday, but let’s be honest. We all know those films and you’ve probably already thought of five of them just reading this (Die Hard, Gremlins, Lethal Weapon, Batman Returns, Red, etc etc).

So instead I wanted to discuss something similar which I have noticed that kind of confuses me. Christmas movies which seem to forget that Christmas Day is a thing. The story ends on Christmas Eve as if that were the holiday, and we get almost no mention of the actual holiday! Now of course it only makes sense for some movies to centered on Christmas Eve, especially if it involves Santa Claus, but others are a little more head scratching.


Here are five examples, and like last year’s article this is all in good fun. There’s no set rule about what a Christmas movie has to contain and I’m  not saying that the fact it doesn’t take place on Christmas Day hurts the film or should hurt you’re enjoyment of it. Now then…..


One Magic Christmas

Why do I keep talking about this boring movie? Anyway, this is a movie about a depressed woman realizing what she really has. This is accomplished by an angel which shows her a version of Christmas Eve where all hell breaks loose. In the end, the angel restores time (in a manner which I still find very clever) allowing her to re-experience the same events but this time with a different attitude, warding off tragedy. It ends with her seeing Santa delivering presents, and that’s it. I would have liked to see an epilogue showing her happy on Christmas Day as way to say that this change would last. But nope, the movie ends on Christmas Eve and that’s that. And if you’re thinking Santa’s in it so it should be OK to end there, actually Santa’s role is pointless filler.

Five Reasons I love "It's A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie"

The Muppet movies tend to be easily categorized. The original three which are classics, though "Manhattan" is kind of the weakest. The horrible one's like Muppet's in Space and Muppet Wizard of Oz. The fan favorites like Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island. And of course the two recent installments which are pretty damn good. But this TV movie from NBC doesn't seem to fit any category. It never gets mentions or talked about, but I don't think anyone hates it per se. For me it's a guilty pleasure that I watch every year.


The Plot? Well if you know "It's a Wonderful Life" then you can probably guess the plot. The Muppets need money to save there theater, Despite getting it in time Fozzie proceeds to lose the money which causes Kermit to have an existential crisis. It's only the intervention of a kind angel that reminds him what's really important. So, let's take a closer look at the five reasons I love "A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie".

1.Nostalgia
This is one of the few Muppet movies that remembers that The Muppet Show existed. Why is that? Even "The Muppets" didn't do as good a detailed job recreating that ole studio the way this one recreated it. They got the stage right and auditorium but the backstage felt larger in scale and not quite right, the recreation in "Very Merry" is just beautifully done. It's just like it was on the show! The Moulin Rouge parody is one of the best things in the movie, it does feel like something out of the old show even if the number is a tad dated today. A lot of care was clearly put into those moments.

Five Christmas Commercials That Have Run Forever

What’s that? A week before Thanksgiving is to early to discuss Christmas commercials? Hey, if these stupid networks can begin playing Christmas commercials BEFORE HALLOWEEN EVEN ENDS, then I can discuss this today.


Now then….


It’s always amazing when something becomes so much part of a holiday that it’d hard to believe there was ever a time when it wasn’t. Yes Santa wasn’t around the way we love him today until the 1900’s. Rudolph came years later and became just as big a part of the holiday. Even It’s a Wonderful Life came out in 1946 so there was a time when people didn’t watch it every single year. But something that truly fascinates me are the commercials.


Christmas commercials are always a cut above the norm, especially back in my day when actual thought and effort was put into them. They were clever, they were cute, and they were memorable. But usually they aired during one Christmas season, ok maybe for another year or two, and then disappeared. Oh sure we remember them, but most ads come and go and are never seen again (aside from YouTube and old VHS’s of course). That is except for a few ads which are so memorable that they seem to air year after year and never go away.



Now I could do (and have done) a list of all the memorable ads out there but here are five Christmas ads that are so simple and yet so perfect that they’re more than just memorable. They have almost become synonymous with the holiday!




Norelco Razor
Oh sure this as has been updated, from black white to color to CGI. But these simple ads, Santa riding on a Norleco Razor, are pretty popular and well know. I’ve even seen sitcoms make references to the famous ad. To be fair these kind of come and go a little, I dont think they air every single year, but we all remember them.

800th Blog Special:Ten Archaic Technology That I Had Growing Up

On January 17th I published my 700th blog.This amazes since when I to 600 I wondered what else I had to talk about. However thanks to the Everybody Loves Raymond episode guide, I have hit 800 blogs before the end of the year. As you may or may not know I always celebrate the milestone of 100 blogs with something special. Either something a little bigger or something I’ve put off, but always something personal. So what am I discussing this time?



As I have approach another birthday and find myself getting even older, I can’t help but look back at awe at the way things have changed since I was a kid. The things we have today and the thing amazing technology from the era that we’ve discarded since. So I decided to list ten pieces of tech that is either nonexistent or just plain outdated today. Now of course, I am not THAT old. You could go back further than the 80’s, but since that is when I was a kid that is the time period I will be comparing to today.





Analog TV’s

Do I even need to get into this one? While I didn’t grow waaayyy back when households only had one TV, and no color, I did grow up in a time when not every TV was wired to cable. Ah, the endless hours desperately trying to pick up a station using antennae! Whatever happened to UHF anyway? When we did watch cable, the choices were a lot more limited than we have today. And of course we didn’t have flatscreen, HI-Def or 3-D Plasma. Remotes were primitive to, basically they changed the channel and that was all!

A Look at AT4W Storyline Segments

As you may know I have been a fan of AT4W for a long time now. I have discussed episodes I loved, and episodes I hated, and gone over jokes from that show I love. But a big part of the show that I haven’t discussed is the storyline segments. So, let’s go through them quickly. In my opinion the AT4W segments rise above the usual reviewer story lines, the effects are decent and the characters are realistic. Add to that Lewis’s Lovhaug’s wonderful writing and these storylines comes close to professional caliber. How do they fare broken down?

‘

HIS HEART IS STEEL

Ok I wont be offering long plot summaries, I’d be here all day and if you don't know the storylines than my giving you the plot breakdown wont mean much. The first storyline is the Terminator knockoff (er, homage) and the introduction of Mechakara. And compared to later stuff the storyline doesn’t hold off that well. The effects aren’t bad, aside from the makeup, but it feels a lot less professional and the seams show a lot more. There also isn’t as much plot, with very little real build up. I am biased since I didn’t experience this first run but compared to later arc’s this one isn’t bad but not the best.

Ten Theme Songs Which Transcend Pop Culture

I’ve talked about TV theme songs before, and how some of them are so good not only do they get you hyped for the show but they help you to remember and want to come back to the show. Sometimes though, a theme goes one step even beyond that. There is something about the lyrics or the way they are sung that makes a part of the theme, if not the entire theme, a part of pop culture itself.

For instance, whenever you move to a bigger place, get a better job, or have some sort of upgrade in your life what's the piece of music you always think of?

"Movin On Up" is such a part of pop culture we all think it. Here are ten more examples for what I mean, theme songs so well known that chances are you’ve heard it even if you’ve never seen the show. And only theme with lyrics or we’ll be here all day.  And it’s the lyrics we’re focusing on, so for instance Mary Tyler Moore isn’t on here because it’s more that image of her throwing the hat into the hair that people remember than the actual song. And while the doo doo notes from Twilight Zone are iconic, that’s not exactly lyrics.



Laverne and Shirley
GO ahead, I dare you. go ahead and count to ten an not want to shout Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated,” after you hit #8. I sure can’t. The silly, and to be fair pointless, start of this intro is so famous that it has been parodied all over the place. And in case you didn’t know, the chant is a Yiddish-Amercian hopscotch chant that was part of Penny Marshall’s childhood. And yes the song that comes after is pretty damn good too.

Five Most Forgettable Star Trek Episodes

So when I was talking about “Impulse” I noted that the episode wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t very memorable either. In fact I had to watch it again to even remember it. But that isn’t the only episode that doesn’t quite make the cut.

 

 

Even a bad episode of Trek can have something in it I remember. Spock’s Brain is goofy, Threshold is astoundingly dumb, Heart of Stone is just ridiculous. Even  Plato’s Stepchildren and Sub Rosa may be nauseating but I remember them. When an episode leaves you with nothing, it’s failed at a level that only a select few episodes can achieve. Here are my five most forgettable episodes of Trek.







Requiem for Methuselah (TOS)    

Picking a forgettable episode from TOS third season is not that easy. There were a few. But this one is especially bad. The plot involves Kirk, Spock, and McCoy meeting a man named Flint who has a female android. And the episode becomes a love triangle as she develops feelings for Kirk and Flint. Then they fight over her like two lovesick teenagers. What? The android is so torn up she dies, sure. Did I mention Flint was also Leonardo DeVinci and Brahms? Whatever. Except for a scene were the Enterprise is turned into a tabletop model (for ages I remembered that scene but couldn’t pinpoint the episode), there is nothing in this episode. Spock echoes my sentiment when in a gesture of friendship to the heartbroken Kirk, he does a mind meld and just says “forget”. No problem.

Special TV-Michael Jackson’s Halloween

Well I haven’t done one of these in a very long time. But my friends, we have to talk about this one. This aired last Friday (Oct 27) and I watched it last night. Normally I would feel bad I need Wikipedia’s help with some details, but this time I really did. So here are my gut reactions after only seeing this once…..

 

I’m rushing this a bit, I admit, so forgive the lack of details. And spoilers by the way

The Plot-OK, I am going to to try to make sense of this. A young and woman cross paths on Halloween night, and the woman loses her dog. They follow him into a haunted house, and after listening to a Monkey named Bubbles (of course he’s named Bubbles) the two end up on a magical journey where they meet a scarecrow, a spider security guard. and a cat mad scientist (all three who become Michael Jackson? I missed that part) and an evil witch they all have to stop. What’s her goal? Getting ti of music and dancing. Of course it is. The thriller dance saves the day and I wont even try to talk about how the villain is defeated.  Let’s just say it was the power of love. Of course.

 

Underrated Trek:Impulse (ENT)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek. So we’ve had Jack the Ripper, nightmares, a horror movie and ghost stories. What could be left? How does Vulcan Zombies sound?! This is….

 

Enterprise had very few scary episodes from what I could see. So it made sense to discuss the one episode that is sort of infamous for what they do. I didn’t remember this episode very much so I was interested in seeing just how good it is. Let’s take a look:

Underrated Trek:The Haunting of Deck Twelve (VOY)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek with a look at an episode of Voyager. If last time was a classic horror movie, what would an old fashioned campfire story on Star Trek look like? Let’s discuss :

 

Voyager has several contenders, like Twisted which was just lame and The Thaw which I already discussed. Darkling was another one but I hardly remember it, it’s sort of a Jekyl and Hyde story involving the Doctor. I decided this episode was better to discuss. This episode, much like the one last time, was another homage of horror tropes. This time an old fashioned ghost story. But since it’s Voyager, it’s not quite as good.

 

Underrated Trek-Empok Nor (DS9)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek with a look at an episode of DS9 that is scary. But unlike last time, it is a good episode too! This is:

There weren’t to many DS9 episodes to pick from. I covered Distant Voices already. And Whispers barely makes it as a scary episode. This episode is perfect, it’s basically a homage to classic horror movies. And being DS9, they do a fantastic job! Let’s take a look at it.

 

Underrated Trek-Night Terrors (TNG)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek with a look at an episode of Next Generation that is scary. Even if it’s also a far from perfect episode. This is:

I had a few choices from TNG, such as Conspiracy which was scary at the time but is more silly today. There was also Genesis and Identity Crisis, but I already covered them. Schisms and Frame of Mind are hard one’s to talk about, being closer to Twilight Zone than horror. Though you could argue Schisms is the idea in this episode realized a lot better, the ending is a bit more satisfying but not entirely. I finally decided that this is as close as TNG would come to a genuine scary episode…which makes it more tragic that the episode basically fails. Lets to a closer look at it.

 

Underrated Trek-Wolf in the Fold (TOS)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. I wanted to do something Halloween related, but I already did Catspaw. So what else can I check out? Looking at a list there are plenty of creepy Trek episodes which are perfect for the season.In fact each series has a handful. So for Halloween something a little different. Five Trek articles on scary episodes from each Trek series. I want to be clear, these are EPISODES that are creepy not just an episode that has a random creepy scene. Today we start with :

 

As I noted, I already did Catspaw. I also already covered The Man Trap, and no other Original Series episode come closer to being scary than this one. So what makes it scary? How about Jack the Ripper meets Star Trek!

 

Another Look at Retcons in Sitcoms (and Trek)

Four years ago I did a short list of some of my favorite sitcom retcons. You can see that article here:
http://nostalgiarush.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-look-at-retcons-in-sitcoms.html


Retcons of course is when established continuity is disregarded or even changed to further the current story line. They often piss people off, but I find them fascinating. The way a show will so blatantly disregard something that has been established in the past like we’re supposed to forget it. Sometimes they work, let’s be honest isn’t forgetting “The Brady Bunch Variety Show” ever happened a good thing?, and other times they can be aggravating like the Everybody Loves Raymond episode that brought up the fact Ray and Debra had a maid when they were first married, a fact which was never mentioned before and make no sense in context with the series.





Here are some more I just love. Some small and others a little more problematic:




Will & Grace

Gee, I wonder what brought this idea up? Yeah Will & Grace returned to network TV the other week but there was one little problem. The show had a firm final episode which closed the book on Will & Grace’s lives. How do you get around it? Make it a dream of course! Well a drug induced one that Karen had anyway. Final episode basically never happened in fact they also retconned Grace being pregnant so basically that whole final season never happened.


This wasn’t the only retcon for Will & Grace. Besides the others I mentioned in the other article we also had Karen’s mother. Karen commented a couple time she’d had her mother committed and when we finally met her she said “she was only joking” about that. Also Jack had said he made a vow to his mother when he came out that he would never deny who he really was. Which was a lie when we find out he never told his mother he was gay in one memorable episode.

Eight Favorite Fantasy World’s From TV and Movies

I talk a lot about sci fi and comedy, but one genre I hardly touch upon is fantasy. Fantasy is awesome when done right, giving us new worlds and characters that we could never see in the real world. Some of these movies and TV shows give us amazing world’s we never forget, like Wonderland. Or Neverland. These are amazing places that we find ourselves wishing that were real places we could visit and play in. In some cases, we can. Azeroth is the magic world that World of Warcraft takes place in and of course Dungeons and Dragons has several campaign settings including Greyhawk and Khorvaire.

Course not all movies get it right, even if the movie is good the world it creates does not stay with people. How about the bland “Eragon” that came out a few years ago? In the 80’s we had Ron Howard’s “Willow” which was decent but no one really remembers it. Did that world have a name? Dark Crystal was good but who remembers the world was “Thra”? Did the kingdom in Labyrinth have a name at all? The Jeremy Irons “Dungeons and Dragons” movie was ludicrous and do I even need to mention “The Last Airbender” again? And show of hands, where do the Time Lords in Dr.Who come from? If you said Gallifrey I’m impressed.

Now these have to be actual world’s apart from our normal world that requires effort to get to, for example people love King Arthur and Camelot, but Camelot was just a castle the setting was simply Great Britain. Hogwarts is freaking awesome but it’s also just a school in Scotland. Florin was an amazing place in Princess Bride, but wasn't that just a story? And in Bridge to Terabithia the world was 100% imagination in the kids heads.

Here are some fantasy world’s that I love, in no particular order.



Middle Earth

And I know people are going to go nuts but I never read JRR Tolkein’s books or seen the Lord of the Rings movies, so I don’t have much to say about Middle Earth. But I had to mention it because it set the standard, the novels and the movies, for how to do a fantasy setting right! I wasn’t sure if this counted and after getting a headache trying to research it, I just figured the heck with it. I really gotta see these movies. And from the pics I have seen it is an amazing place, I love The Shire.

Five Special Effects From 80’s Movies That Seem Dated Today

With the release of the new “IT” movie that came out recently, I thought about how back in the 80’s the Tim Curry version scared the hell out of all who watched it. But looking back that movie doesn’t seems as scary with goofy acting and noticeably bad special effects. A few weeks ago I talked about special effects from Star Trek TNG that seem outdated. Including that awful shuttle sequence from Star Trek V. But there are other 80’s effects which have not aged well. And it’s not the fault of anyone who made the movie, they were great at the time, and it sure doesn’t make the movie bad now. But it’s still fun to look at these today and say “Wait, that’s not real!”

 

A classic example is Jaws, which scared people in its day but most everyone things the shark looks damn fake now. Of course it makes sense-when we first see a movie we are engrossed and don’t stop to examine the effect. After years of re watching these movies, the seams show a bit in some of these scenes especially when held up to modern standards. Here are five effects, from make-up to green screens, that fooled me thirty years ago but today I look at and say “Yeah, I see how they did that now!”

Back to the Future

When I first saw this movie I had no idea that it was Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson under a ton of make up when we first meet George and Lorraine. But the more I see that movie…over and over…yeah it’s much more obvious now. The same goes for Biff, the make-up is a little to unrealistic. They did a better job in the final scene, where the makeup was toned down, and the old age makeup in the sequel still holds up.

Five Best/Worst Trek Holodeck Malfunctions

 

Awhile back I talked about some of the goofier transporter malfunctions on Star Trek. Writers love making that piece of technology fail in some spectacular way. But the transporter isn’t the only one. When we were first introduced to the holodeck in TNG, you just knew crazy malfunctions were on the way. And we sure got them!

 

To be fair holodecks were used for many things, like training exercises or just the crew killing some time. It duplicated the original Enterprise bridge in “Relics” and helped Seven of Nine explore her humanity in Voyager. But they are the most fun when things don’t go quite as planned!

 

So this list covers actual malfunctions so lots of episodes don’t count like the idiotic holo-novels we got also on Voyager (Seriously who thought tat was a good idea?) or the boring as all hell TNG “Cost of Living” episode. Also doesn’t include “Hollow Pursuits” which deserves its own underrated article or the series finale of Enterprise which I’d rather not discuss anyway.



Here are the five best and worst Holodeck malfunctions. Starting with the Best (in no specific order)



The Big Goodbye

Ok ok, this is not my favorite episode. It’s full of season one tropes that makes it hard for me to get into. The malfunction doesn’t even make sense, aliens scanning them cause the malfunction? what? and yet Picard, Crusher, and Data end up stuck in a Dixon Hill simulation where, of course, the safeties are off. Time is also of the essence due to aliens which really play no part in anything. There is some great dialogue here and it did set a standard that the rest of these episode, good or bad, will follow. The setting and mood is good, 40’s detective noir, and the Dixon Hill program would return again which cool.