Rudolph before Rudolph – Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, 1959-1960
Every year millions gather around their televisions, tune into CBS and watch the most venerable of Christmas classics. It’s a tad mind-boggling, but Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer this year celebrates its 50th year delighting children of all ages. Five-Oh, people. In an age when network viewerships have fractured and scattered to the four winds, it’s a genuine Christmas miracle that a hokey, old-timey stop-motion special can still draw solid ratings. This is surely a testament to its irrepressible Rankin/Bass charm, and, to an extent, the potency of the age-old story of a misfit underdog (or deer) made good.
But, lest we forget, Rudolph didn’t have his advent in 1964. He was around a number of years before he teamed with Hermie the Elf and Yukon Cornelius to battle the Abominable Snow Monster. And yes, a part of that legacy was a slew of yearly DC comic books. Read more…
Sons of Anarchy, considered
Sons of Anarchy drops its final curtain tomorrow night, and not before its time. While Boardwalk Empire and its final truncated season left those who had enjoyed the Roaring Twenties exploits of Nucky Thompson asking for more, SAMCRO and its assorted satellites — lawmen and women of varying probity, prostitutes, rival gangs and the occasional transsexual — have perhaps overstayed their welcome. A show that was once fresh and rocketing forward like a chopper cruising down an open road has in its final season lost its way somewhat — has been left spinning its wheels in the mud, as it were. Seldom have thirteen episodes felt so long, or taken so long to get to the damn point. And many a viewer will die happy if they never again have to watch a sex montage featuring a man getting ass-raped in prison by Marilyn Manson, set to the tune of a crappy cover of a classic song. Enough already.
But Sons had its day. Can’t take that away — to put it in the show’s vernacular, at least not before bringing it to the table. Read more…
Sunday Stupid: Leonard Nimoy sings about Bilbo Baggins, signalling the end of days!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF5ROpjRAU
The still nascent Sunday Stupid feature has seen its share of crooning celebrities already: Carl Lewis humiliated himself in a music video featuring bubbles and horny old ladies in oversized sunglasses, while Telly Savalas and his rich baritone and goofy outfits made hearts melt — maybe? — with the spoken word “If.” But they have nothing on Leonard Nimoy and the most bizarre turn in his ill-advised singing career. “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” is pure 1960s camp, and Spock is about as out of place in it as Nixon would be in an Annette Funicello beach movie. Read more…
Marvel Age, Marvel’s “coming soon” book of the 1980s, had a bit of a running cover tradition around Christmas time: placing Sergio Aragones’ classic character Groo the Wanderer in some holiday predicament. Read more…
Trading Card Set of the Week – Star Wars Galaxy (1993, Topps)
Hot upon the heels of last week’s teaser for the year-out Star Wars: The Force Awakens, here comes a relic from a more halcyon, peaceful era of Star Wars fandom. Remember the good old days, before the Expanded Universe and turgid prequels relentlessly watered down the galaxy far, far away? When the Emperor was just the Emperor, and only the most ardent Star Wars nerds called him Palpatine (which has always rung in these ears like a generic name for heart medication)? When the Force was a mystical glue binding all life in the universe, and not a condition decided by a midi-chlorian count, which turned it into something about as charming as space-AIDS? And when, yes, Han shot first, like anyone with half a brain would when confronted with a blaster pointed right at their mush?
Today’s Trading Card Set of the Week is a time capsule of that simpler time, before George Lucas got so insulated in his unfathomable wealth (not to mention a corporate hierarchy with no guts to respectfully dissent) that he lost his creative way, and committed unpardonable sins like “updating” classics with special effects that now look more dated than the analog wizardry they were meant to improve. Star Wars Galaxy: in 1993 it came, it saw, and it dazzled. Read more…
The Terminator: Genisys trailer has traveled back in time to whack you over the head with suck!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62E4FJTwSuc
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was a pleasant surprise. Audiences went into theaters a dozen years ago with their eyes preemptively covered, fully prepared for a celluloid abomination, one bereft of James Cameron’s guiding hand. Instead we got an okay movie that had that rarest of Hollywood’s endings: one with guts. The good guys lost, and human civilization was consumed in the much-foretold Skynet nuclear holocaust. There were many problems in that movie, but this bleak conclusion spackled in a lot of them.
That said, Terminator: Genisys appears to be the worst, dumbest Terminator film we could ever imagine. Read more…
A ripped Sam the Snowman battles a pie-wielding Human Torch?
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is the most beloved of Christmas specials, and by extension Sam the Snowman is one of the more beloved of Christmas special characters. Voiced by the late, great Burl Ives, the North Pole’s narrator/balladier/raconteur has firmly ensconced himself in the holiday season and in the hearts and minds of countless children.
Up above is what you’d get if this rather rotund figure with a Van Dyke went on the Hugh Jackman workout regimen: weights, chicken breasts and scads of human growth hormone. Read more…
Donald Duck and friends have some comics for you for Christmas! Or at least they did 70 years ago!
You know, it’s good to have Donald as the leader of the pack for once. That’s the real Christmas present. Read more…
I don’t know — the Suicide Squad movie just isn’t speaking to me. Maybe it’s the general underwhelmingness of the broader DC movie scene up to this point, but the new reveal of the bulk of the cast leaves one a bit cold, big names or no. Read more…
Linda Ronstadt, Doctor Strange, Captain America and C-3PO were the supergroup of the 1970s? – Pizzazz #5
Marvel’s variety magazine didn’t break a great deal of ground. Combining the fluffy soft journalism of People with the fanzine-type blurbs of its in-house FOOM, it never really tried to. But that didn’t stop Pizzazz from being a fairly enjoyable little read back in the day. And really, with a cover like the one above, how could you resist picking it up? Linda Ronstadt belting out a tune, with Doctor Strange laying down some sweet guitar licks with his magic fingers, Captain America slapping out a funky one on the bass, and C-3PO slamming the skins. It’s not “Coonskin Cap Apes” or “Punisher Dangles from Helicopter and Stabs Amidst Flurry of Cash,” but Bob Larkin certainly grabbed your attention with the above image — if this isn’t the very definition of pizzazz, then good luck figuring out what the hell is. Read more…
Howard the Duck and Red Sonja were the Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts of Marvel t-shirt marketing!
“Odd couple” indeed. Read more…
Sunday Stupid: Norm Macdonald savages a starlet!
Norm Macdonald is somewhat of a hero to both comedians and lovers of comedy, not as much for his routines (which are hilarious) or his stint on SNL (which was great) or his movies (Dirty Work is highly underappreciated — really) as for his fearlessness. Norm simply doesn’t care. He’s not afraid to bomb, and in fact might just revel in the level of discomfort the sound of crickets would cause for audience members embarrassed for him.
It also means he’s not afraid to cut the knees out from under an actress on a late night talk show, so long as it gets a laugh. Or lots of laughs. Read more…
Fix people’s vinyl furniture (and maybe descend into homicidal madness)!
Not to make fun of the vinyl repair industry — work is work, after all, and there’s nothing shady about patching up people’s dumpy furniture. It’s the van-detailing of interior design. But what’s the percentage of vinyl repairmen who have Ed Gein-like parlors at home, complete with chairs made from human bones and skin, not to mention lampshades of tanned and stretched human faces? Has to be pretty high, right? Read more…
Trading Card Set of the Week – X-Men (1992, Impel)
In the 1990s Impel brought class and quality to comic book trading cards, a subgenre that until their arrival had often felt more than a tad slapdash. Both the 1990 and 1991 iterations of their Marvel Universe cards were spectacular, joys to have and behold for any comics-loving kid with a little extra spending money. But by 1992 that horseman of the apocalypse that heralds the end of every boom — Glut — was starting to take hold. Not only would that year see the third edition of the Marvel cards — one that, as we’ll see at some point in the not too distant future, suffered a mild decline in quality — but also a specialized set for one corner of that overall universe. Jim Lee, at the absolute apex of his X-Men fame, provided the pillar to post art for a set focused on those same mutants. If there was ever a gottahaveit thingamajig for Marvel zombie kids of the early 1990s, especially those with every variant copy of X-Men #1, this was it. X-celsior! Read more…
Jared
blog into mystery 