Feel the memories come flooding back, and come along for the near-obsessive ramblings of a guy who, while happy to be an adult, will never forget how fun it was to be a kid.
Welcome, dear friends, to your pop culture time machine, covering everything from the iconic, to the ironic.
Welcome, dear friends, to your pop culture time machine, covering everything from the iconic, to the ironic.
Previous Posts
- Time isn't always kind
- Karate Kid Friday
- Wanna Hear The Retroplex?
- I've Seldom Been This Proud
- Material in the works...
- Ephemera
- TIME Magazine - August, 1985
- Oh, the humanity...
- Coming this weekend...
- The dangers of eBay...
Archives
Links
The Retroplex
Saturday, June 25, 2005
TIME Magazine - August, 1985
What a difference 20 years make.
I've been holding onto this particular issue for quite some time now. I'm a baseball fan, and a sometime follower of the Cincinnati Reds (my family's from the area), so - aside from the freakshow value of the cover article, which praises Rose to the roof - it's got some legitimate nostalgia value to me, as well.
Even more interesting, however, is the degree to which the ads (and even feature articles) reveal the degree to which we've changed as a society - both for the better, and for the worse.
I'll be posting this stuff a little at a time. As I've said before, The Retroplex is a work in progress, and I'm still sifting through the layout, and the content decisions I need to make. So, this particular issue will probably go up in several installments.
I've always believed that if one were to kidnap someone from, say, 1985, and bring them 20 years into the future, it wouldn't be the big things that would overwhelm them - it would be the little day-to-day differences.
After all, the pace of giant-scale advancement has slowed somewhat since the days of the Apollo program in the 60s, has it not? We don't have the long-predicted flying cars, or any of the other flashy accoutrements that were supposed to herald our arrival in the 21st century. We got ripped off.
Instead, we've got the same basic cars, in many cases, the exact same commercial aircraft, and, what's more, we don't even have anything as cool as the Concorde anymore. Geez...someone from 1985 could, in fact, travel over the Atlantic at mach 2+ when they wanted to. Not us, boyo...
Still, the little differences that stand out are interesting in their own light. Let's jump in to the magazine, shall we?
Here's the inside cover - an ad for the very first-gen Volkswagen Jetta. My ex-girlfriend drove one of these babies, and it was a pretty nifty little car.
Get a load of the circa-1985 slogan: It's not a car. It's a Volkswagen.
This issue features a load of ads for, about, and by banks of all kinds. I have no idea why, exactly, except for the fact that the S&L crisis hadn't yet hit, and, rather like the dot-com boom, folks were making money hand-over-fist. This particular issue is interesting as a historical snapshot, as it features references to, or articles about several then-brewing historical events that would come to full-kapow in the subsequent few years. For example, we see the first echoes of Iran-Contra, the S&L/junk bond disasters, SDI, and the beginning of the end of Apartheid in South Africa. I'll be highlighting these, as well as other pieces that cover the beginnings of some pop culture events (i.e., the beginning of Val Kilmer's film career).
Here's one of the bank ads, aimed at setting you straight regarding the differences between a real bank, and those many pretenders out there...
Random, eh?
Here, though, are my two highlights for this round. First up? This is an ad for "the most powerful personal computer IBM has ever made." Yep - the "IBM Personal Computer AT", with a thunderous 286 processor, DOS 3.0 OS (with XENIX support), and up to 3MB of RAM! Woo-hoo!!
I vaguely remember the whole Charlie Chaplin ad campaign, too. Click on the picture for a larger (and more legible) version.
And now, my favorite of the bunch. See, this magazine - like most in the era - featured several different cigarette ads - something that, in this day and age, is seen just slightly less than, say, ads for the American Friends of Jihad might be. While I detest the cigarette companies with a passion, there's something decidedly nostalgic about seeing evidence that these enormous conglomerates were unstoppable behemoths, with in-your-faceness to burn, and a willingness to basically flip off the entire non-smoking population of the country. They had moxie, they did. This ad - by R.J. Reynolds (now RJR Nabisco) Co. - fairly oozes with snark, managing to backhandedly brand non-smokers with sole responsibility for the Great Smoke Wars of 1985, which apparently raged at the time of publication.
Imagine. This is a full-page ad in a major magazine, defending smokers against the onslaught of discourteousness and invective hurled at them by the cretins of the blackless lung-set. The thought of something like this running in a magazine today only manages to conjure visions of executives being literally tarred and feathered, and thrown into stocks by Oprah, or the yammering screechbirds of The View. Once again, the enjoyment of this one is all in the reading, so, feel free to click on the image to view a larger, more readable version.
Until next time, 'Plexers, May your G.I. Joes be 3.75" tall, and your Swatch run smoothly. See you soon.
I've been holding onto this particular issue for quite some time now. I'm a baseball fan, and a sometime follower of the Cincinnati Reds (my family's from the area), so - aside from the freakshow value of the cover article, which praises Rose to the roof - it's got some legitimate nostalgia value to me, as well.
Even more interesting, however, is the degree to which the ads (and even feature articles) reveal the degree to which we've changed as a society - both for the better, and for the worse.
I'll be posting this stuff a little at a time. As I've said before, The Retroplex is a work in progress, and I'm still sifting through the layout, and the content decisions I need to make. So, this particular issue will probably go up in several installments.
I've always believed that if one were to kidnap someone from, say, 1985, and bring them 20 years into the future, it wouldn't be the big things that would overwhelm them - it would be the little day-to-day differences.
After all, the pace of giant-scale advancement has slowed somewhat since the days of the Apollo program in the 60s, has it not? We don't have the long-predicted flying cars, or any of the other flashy accoutrements that were supposed to herald our arrival in the 21st century. We got ripped off.
Instead, we've got the same basic cars, in many cases, the exact same commercial aircraft, and, what's more, we don't even have anything as cool as the Concorde anymore. Geez...someone from 1985 could, in fact, travel over the Atlantic at mach 2+ when they wanted to. Not us, boyo...
Still, the little differences that stand out are interesting in their own light. Let's jump in to the magazine, shall we?
Here's the inside cover - an ad for the very first-gen Volkswagen Jetta. My ex-girlfriend drove one of these babies, and it was a pretty nifty little car.
Get a load of the circa-1985 slogan: It's not a car. It's a Volkswagen.
This issue features a load of ads for, about, and by banks of all kinds. I have no idea why, exactly, except for the fact that the S&L crisis hadn't yet hit, and, rather like the dot-com boom, folks were making money hand-over-fist. This particular issue is interesting as a historical snapshot, as it features references to, or articles about several then-brewing historical events that would come to full-kapow in the subsequent few years. For example, we see the first echoes of Iran-Contra, the S&L/junk bond disasters, SDI, and the beginning of the end of Apartheid in South Africa. I'll be highlighting these, as well as other pieces that cover the beginnings of some pop culture events (i.e., the beginning of Val Kilmer's film career).
Here's one of the bank ads, aimed at setting you straight regarding the differences between a real bank, and those many pretenders out there...
Random, eh?
Here, though, are my two highlights for this round. First up? This is an ad for "the most powerful personal computer IBM has ever made." Yep - the "IBM Personal Computer AT", with a thunderous 286 processor, DOS 3.0 OS (with XENIX support), and up to 3MB of RAM! Woo-hoo!!
I vaguely remember the whole Charlie Chaplin ad campaign, too. Click on the picture for a larger (and more legible) version.
And now, my favorite of the bunch. See, this magazine - like most in the era - featured several different cigarette ads - something that, in this day and age, is seen just slightly less than, say, ads for the American Friends of Jihad might be. While I detest the cigarette companies with a passion, there's something decidedly nostalgic about seeing evidence that these enormous conglomerates were unstoppable behemoths, with in-your-faceness to burn, and a willingness to basically flip off the entire non-smoking population of the country. They had moxie, they did. This ad - by R.J. Reynolds (now RJR Nabisco) Co. - fairly oozes with snark, managing to backhandedly brand non-smokers with sole responsibility for the Great Smoke Wars of 1985, which apparently raged at the time of publication.
Imagine. This is a full-page ad in a major magazine, defending smokers against the onslaught of discourteousness and invective hurled at them by the cretins of the blackless lung-set. The thought of something like this running in a magazine today only manages to conjure visions of executives being literally tarred and feathered, and thrown into stocks by Oprah, or the yammering screechbirds of The View. Once again, the enjoyment of this one is all in the reading, so, feel free to click on the image to view a larger, more readable version.
Until next time, 'Plexers, May your G.I. Joes be 3.75" tall, and your Swatch run smoothly. See you soon.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Oh, the humanity...
Anyone who's spent more than, say, 30 or so seconds around me knows of my fondness for the 1984 film The Karate Kid. If you've not seen it...what's wrong with you? Anyway, if you haven't seen it, it's a standard underdog story with enough facets of terrificness provided by some great performances, and a collection of other nifty little bits to set it far above its peers.
The film was a huge hit in the summer of '84, and it made Columbia Pictures about a zillion bucks, for which they repaid us, the viewing audience, with a series of sequels. Here's the thing, see? I have to admit to liking the first sequel. It's not up to the level of the first, but still has some fun stuff to play with - even if one is horribly offended by the Peter Cetera song from the film; you know...the one that sticks in your head, and never, ever goes away?
The third and fourth? They are dead to me. The third was a moviegoing experience so bad that - even at the time of its release, when I was but a naive youth - I knew it was crap. Really, really bad crap, at that. The fourth film simply doesn't exist to me. I haven't seen it, and I never will, though I have it on DVD as part of the Special Edition boxed set.
As bad as those last two films were, though, they look like works of sheer genius in comparison to the fiery hellbeast of mediocrity unleashed by the soulless minions of LJN upon hordes of unsuspecting KK fans/NES players back in 1987.
I give you one of the worst video games ever created. I give you The Karate Kid - for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Oh, sure...it all starts innocently enough. Daniel-san, Miyagi, and so forth. Pretty soon, however, the hurting begins...and it just. Won't. Stop.
After a painfully easy tournament sequence, playing pitiful homage to the iconic final fight at the end of the first film (this version of the All-Valley Under-18 Karate Tournament would certainly leave doubt in the viewer's mind as to Daniel's status as "The Best...AROUND!"):
We're instantly catapulted to Okinawa: Miyagi's home, and the setting of the second film. There, we encounter every major set-piece from The Karate Kid II. Still sounds OK, right? Maybe it would be, were it not hellishly repetitive, and absolutely, utterly uncontrollable. Daniel-san pretty much does whatever the heck he wants to, and usually ends up in some kind of thug sandwich, getting the tar beaten out of him, while you try in vain to find some way to get everyone's favorite cinematic punching bag to defend himself.
Eventually, after no small amount of blind luck and manic flailing, you'll make it to several other remarkably similar levels; all of which feature hordes of identical bad guys, a complete lack of skill on Daniel-san's part, and just occasionally, a typhoon (remember the movie, where the typhoon just kind of sneaks up on Okinawa? Hate it when that happens!). Ah, yes...the typhoon. This is where the game's already-lousy control rockets right past "badly designed", and plunges deeply into sarcasm. See, there's this horrible hurricane-type wind, and yup...you guessed it; you have to walk INTO it, all the while, fighting off not only the standard bad guys, but also - rather inexplicably - flying ducks, and even wood clubs that, for some reason or another, come blasting randomly at your head.
Every once in awhile, there'll be a power-up, in the form of one of the film's secondary (or tertiary...) characters, mysteriously floating in the air, as seen here:
It's dang near impossible to get up there and grab them before they disappear, so I suggest that you abandon all hope of ever getting a power-up in this game.
One thing that actually IS kinda swell about the game is the selection of "mini-games" peppered throughout. If you jump into the doorways of the houses that you pass, you're taken to a bonus area, where you try and catch flies with chopsticks, break ice (from KK 2, in a scene with Clarence Gilyard, Jr.!), or dodge giant swinging implements of death. It's a nice distraction from a truly hell-spawned game.
Yeah...I own it. Come on...it's me, here, folks. Remember? The Karate Kid petition guy?
Back to the game, such as it is. Let's just wrap this mess up, right now.
Eventually, you make it here:
Where Col. Sanders pronounces you a master of the martial arts, and generally wreaks havoc on one of my favorite movies of all time. Sigh.
On a scale of one to five, with five marking the acheivments of some of the NES' classics like Mega Man, or Metroid, etc., I have to give this smoking crater a one. One Mario, that is - dumped unceremoniously on his head.
Curse you, LJN!!!
The film was a huge hit in the summer of '84, and it made Columbia Pictures about a zillion bucks, for which they repaid us, the viewing audience, with a series of sequels. Here's the thing, see? I have to admit to liking the first sequel. It's not up to the level of the first, but still has some fun stuff to play with - even if one is horribly offended by the Peter Cetera song from the film; you know...the one that sticks in your head, and never, ever goes away?
The third and fourth? They are dead to me. The third was a moviegoing experience so bad that - even at the time of its release, when I was but a naive youth - I knew it was crap. Really, really bad crap, at that. The fourth film simply doesn't exist to me. I haven't seen it, and I never will, though I have it on DVD as part of the Special Edition boxed set.
As bad as those last two films were, though, they look like works of sheer genius in comparison to the fiery hellbeast of mediocrity unleashed by the soulless minions of LJN upon hordes of unsuspecting KK fans/NES players back in 1987.
I give you one of the worst video games ever created. I give you The Karate Kid - for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Oh, sure...it all starts innocently enough. Daniel-san, Miyagi, and so forth. Pretty soon, however, the hurting begins...and it just. Won't. Stop.
After a painfully easy tournament sequence, playing pitiful homage to the iconic final fight at the end of the first film (this version of the All-Valley Under-18 Karate Tournament would certainly leave doubt in the viewer's mind as to Daniel's status as "The Best...AROUND!"):
We're instantly catapulted to Okinawa: Miyagi's home, and the setting of the second film. There, we encounter every major set-piece from The Karate Kid II. Still sounds OK, right? Maybe it would be, were it not hellishly repetitive, and absolutely, utterly uncontrollable. Daniel-san pretty much does whatever the heck he wants to, and usually ends up in some kind of thug sandwich, getting the tar beaten out of him, while you try in vain to find some way to get everyone's favorite cinematic punching bag to defend himself.
Eventually, after no small amount of blind luck and manic flailing, you'll make it to several other remarkably similar levels; all of which feature hordes of identical bad guys, a complete lack of skill on Daniel-san's part, and just occasionally, a typhoon (remember the movie, where the typhoon just kind of sneaks up on Okinawa? Hate it when that happens!). Ah, yes...the typhoon. This is where the game's already-lousy control rockets right past "badly designed", and plunges deeply into sarcasm. See, there's this horrible hurricane-type wind, and yup...you guessed it; you have to walk INTO it, all the while, fighting off not only the standard bad guys, but also - rather inexplicably - flying ducks, and even wood clubs that, for some reason or another, come blasting randomly at your head.
Every once in awhile, there'll be a power-up, in the form of one of the film's secondary (or tertiary...) characters, mysteriously floating in the air, as seen here:
It's dang near impossible to get up there and grab them before they disappear, so I suggest that you abandon all hope of ever getting a power-up in this game.
One thing that actually IS kinda swell about the game is the selection of "mini-games" peppered throughout. If you jump into the doorways of the houses that you pass, you're taken to a bonus area, where you try and catch flies with chopsticks, break ice (from KK 2, in a scene with Clarence Gilyard, Jr.!), or dodge giant swinging implements of death. It's a nice distraction from a truly hell-spawned game.
Yeah...I own it. Come on...it's me, here, folks. Remember? The Karate Kid petition guy?
Back to the game, such as it is. Let's just wrap this mess up, right now.
Eventually, you make it here:
Where Col. Sanders pronounces you a master of the martial arts, and generally wreaks havoc on one of my favorite movies of all time. Sigh.
On a scale of one to five, with five marking the acheivments of some of the NES' classics like Mega Man, or Metroid, etc., I have to give this smoking crater a one. One Mario, that is - dumped unceremoniously on his head.
Curse you, LJN!!!
Coming this weekend...
My TIME Magazine spectacular, with lots o' scans, and some pretty remarkable advertisements.
Stay tuned.
Stay tuned.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
The dangers of eBay...
While the fact that I still own many of the things that I treasured as a kid seems relatively acceptable to my lovely bride, I know that a single, very pig-Latin-sounding word can set her on edge almost instantly.
eBay.
Why this terror, you ask? Quite simply, were I left to my own devices, I could blow through every cent we have to our names within about thirty seconds, if given the chance.
Ooh! Buy It Now™! How convenient. I think I will, thank you very much...
Needless to say, The Wife™ puts up with a great deal of idiocy from me, and yet, she remains married to me. I figure it's probably best if I don't probe too deeply into the reasons for this; after all, I don't really want her to stop and think too hard about things...she might well change her mind.
ANYWAY, a couple of weeks back, I hopped on over to "the 'Bay", as we seasoned morons call it, and bought myself a pristine little NES Zapper, for the bargain price of $4. Of course, the shipping was roughly 150% the price of the item itself, but hey, we don't count shipping, right? Right?
Last week, I won an auction for MIB (that's "mint, in-the-box" for you non-nerds out there...) Worlds of Wonder Lazer Tag game set, circa 1986, and man...I'm pumped to get this thing. I owned one back in the day, and for awhile, it was my single most treasured possession. That phase passed, however, when I discovered that my neighborhood friends had purchased the rival "Photon" equipment, which wasn't compatible with my Lazer Tag stuff. Solo target practice and games of "cat and mouse" can only entertain you for so long...
Still, it will be fun to once more hold in my hands the device with which I likely performed the first-ever case of "Lasik-by-toy" in the history of mankind. Yup. I fired that sucker into my eyes so many times I'm lucky a have a single rod or cone left functioning in there. How on earth I've been able to avoid glasses for all these years is beyond me.
Pics to come.
eBay.
Why this terror, you ask? Quite simply, were I left to my own devices, I could blow through every cent we have to our names within about thirty seconds, if given the chance.
Ooh! Buy It Now™! How convenient. I think I will, thank you very much...
Needless to say, The Wife™ puts up with a great deal of idiocy from me, and yet, she remains married to me. I figure it's probably best if I don't probe too deeply into the reasons for this; after all, I don't really want her to stop and think too hard about things...she might well change her mind.
ANYWAY, a couple of weeks back, I hopped on over to "the 'Bay", as we seasoned morons call it, and bought myself a pristine little NES Zapper, for the bargain price of $4. Of course, the shipping was roughly 150% the price of the item itself, but hey, we don't count shipping, right? Right?
Last week, I won an auction for MIB (that's "mint, in-the-box" for you non-nerds out there...) Worlds of Wonder Lazer Tag game set, circa 1986, and man...I'm pumped to get this thing. I owned one back in the day, and for awhile, it was my single most treasured possession. That phase passed, however, when I discovered that my neighborhood friends had purchased the rival "Photon" equipment, which wasn't compatible with my Lazer Tag stuff. Solo target practice and games of "cat and mouse" can only entertain you for so long...
Still, it will be fun to once more hold in my hands the device with which I likely performed the first-ever case of "Lasik-by-toy" in the history of mankind. Yup. I fired that sucker into my eyes so many times I'm lucky a have a single rod or cone left functioning in there. How on earth I've been able to avoid glasses for all these years is beyond me.
Pics to come.
Welcome!
Glad you're here. Comfortable? Good. Lemonade? Sour Patch Kid? Peanut Butter Bopper? No? Maybe later, then.
This project has been a long time in coming, and is nowhere near complete. The look of the page will change bit-by-bit over the next, um...while, and I hope to polish it up a bit as a have the time.
It will eventually become pretty graphics-intensive, with product pictures, and all manner of other fun stuff.
This site is the less-serious companion to my existing blog, Exultate Justi, which, in fairness, isn't always serious, either. Here, however, you'll find none of the weighty stuff that occasionally surfaces over there.
This one's just for fun.
This project has been a long time in coming, and is nowhere near complete. The look of the page will change bit-by-bit over the next, um...while, and I hope to polish it up a bit as a have the time.
It will eventually become pretty graphics-intensive, with product pictures, and all manner of other fun stuff.
This site is the less-serious companion to my existing blog, Exultate Justi, which, in fairness, isn't always serious, either. Here, however, you'll find none of the weighty stuff that occasionally surfaces over there.
This one's just for fun.