In the beginning, there was Sealab. 2021.

I've been think about the evolution in animation at Cartoon Network that led to the creation of The Venture Brothers, one of my favorite series. At times it seems like it's particularly aimed at a fan-collector-geek of my generation. 

So, Cartoon Network announced way back in the 90s they were going to start creating "Adult oriented" animation for their late night block. I was skeptical at the time, but quickly came to love it.

Sealab 2021 begat Harvey Birdman Attorney at law, both of which were important steps in the de-sanctification of the networks animated archive, but also the rebirth of it as an age-appropriate appreciation of baby boomer and GenX Saturday Morning Nostalgia.

One small but crucial element was "The Night of the Living Doo," this spin on the classic Scooby Doo Movies, with celebrities David Cross, Gary Coleman, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. How 90's!

I originally caught this only by literally changing the channel to Adult Swim just as it was starting to air, and franticly hitting my Tivo record button. I have a homemade DVD of this somewhere that's quite clear, but for online, this fuzzy Youtube video will have to suffice for the moment. Enjoy!

What Is... the "Best" Romance in Comics? New Comics Eve 2/9/16

The Curious Tale of Monkey Island

I was very sorry to hear "Dickie" Jones, best known as the voice of Pinocchio, passed away this week.  I really only ever met him once, but surprisingly, it had almost nothing to do with Disney.

A few years back when I was very into "Searching Ebay For Cool Old Stuff," I came across this matchbook cover for Monkey Island:

This looked fascinating to me.  "1000 Monkeys running loose!  No Bars - No Cages - No Danger."  Even better, the address put it pretty close to where I lived in Hollywood.  Cahuenga Boulevard now has the 101 freeway alongside it through "The Pass," and this address put the site of Monkey Island very close to my home, and right near what is now the Barham Blvd. exit from that freeway.

A little Googling led me to sites like this that gave the history of Monkey Island: basically, it was a concrete island surrounded by a concrete moat filled with water.  Here, as one account put it, "You paid a quarter to watch monkeys watch you watch them."  Apparently, it was also a popular place for divorced Hollywood dads to take their kids on weekends.   But most interesting to me it mentioned Dickie Jones as one of the celebrities who had visited.

Now, I happened to be reading on this on the day after one of the Disney Legend Ceremonies, where I had seen Dickie on the Studio lot, attending as a previous recipient.  My curiosity to hear an eyewitness account of the place led me to track down his phone number, and I placed a call a few days later.  I admittedly felt a little silly, and perhaps a little presumptive and rude, to be calling a stranger about something so obscure, so long ago. 

His answering machine picked up, and after his cheery, slightly familiar but much more mature voice greeting and the beep, I left my message:

"Hi Mr. Jones, I saw you at the Studio the other day, but I'm not calling about Pinocchio.  Uh, I saw an article that said you once visited 'Monkey Island' in Hollywood, and I was just wondering if you might remember anything about the place-"

I was cut off by a sudden clattering as if someone desperately grabbed for the phone.  Then, a gravelly voice, fraught with drama, grimly rasped five words I will never forget:

Dickie:  "They learned how to swim!"

Me:  (a pause): "What?"

Dickie:  "They learned how to swim!  There were monkeys all over Cahuenga Boulevard when you drove up there.  At night, they'd go back to the island to eat, but they were all over the place!" 

A few months later he was at the Studio to record an interview, and I introduced myself as the guy who called.  "Monkey man!" he happily named me, and shook my hand enthusiastically.  He was very happy to receive printouts of the matchbook and other images I'd found of Monkey Island online.  I was most curious about his reaction to this one. Another copy of it (which I can't find now, sorry) had the original caption attached which positively confirmed this is Dickie, "enjoying" an experience most visitors never had, of being on the island itself literally up to his knees in hungry monkeys:

This looks like a terrifying experience to me.  Perhaps it was, worthy of repressing, because to my surprise Dickie looked at this photo and said with a deadpan face:

"I have no recollection of this at all!"

That's the whole story.  Rest In Peace, Dickie.

Postscript:  Awhile after that, my friend Dave Kooi and I visited the site of Monkey Island today, following vintage and current aerial photos to find the exact spot.  It is now the El Paseo De Cahuenga Park, a tiny little square of green almost exactly the size of the original Island location.  There's one tree in between the park and the freeway that's old enough to have shaded some monkeys.

Nice to know

I like both George Takei and Penn Jillette very much, so I was quite glad to see Takei comment on meeting Penn on "The Celebrity Apprentice":

He especially enjoyed working with Penn Jillette, whom he found to be "an extremely well-read person, a walking encyclopedia. Where most of us forget or bury details in the back of our minds, he has the ability to recall dates and places and historic elements in conversation. When he's interested in something, he really digs in and explores it, and when he talks about a subject like that, you feel like you're getting a college lecture." Takei expects to catch a Penn & Teller show "the next time I'm in Vegas."

On the internet, nobody can hear you scream first.

I rarely try to be particularly timely in my posts here - to provide breaking news on geekdom happenings - but the look at the Prometheus trailer that premiered online today does make me want to jump into the pool of voices eagerly crying it's either a prequel or otherwise related film to the Alien movies - and particularly to the 1979 classic that started the series.

First, take a look at the trailer here.

Despite overall feeling like the Alien series - which could be simply dismissed as both being science fiction films from the same director - there are two dead giveaway elements from the first film.

1) The space jockey.

As he was called, the dead pilot of the alien ship found by the Nostromo in Alien. His seat, at least, is clearly seen in the trailer at 0:39.

2) The ship.

Several shots reveal the same horseshoe shaped spaceship that the Nostromo discovered crashed, and explored:

Here's another image from Prometheus, clearly showing the whole horseshoe shape:

This is all news to me, but if you search the internet, you'll find plenty of references to the upcoming film, and even a quote from Scott confirming it is about the space jockey from the original film. I don't know how many of these are true, but I know I'm looking forward to this one with almost the same anticipation I felt for the first when I went to see it in theaters back on my 13th birthday in 1979.

This also underlines how much movie making has changed since the first sequel Aliens was released in 1986. Then, returning to the ship depended on the existence of the model, which had been stored somewhat exposed to the elements in a driveway in Burbank CA for several years.

Damage to the model had lead to the idea that a lava flow had cut through the ship since Ripley had last visited, but now I can't recall if that appears in the film or just in the comic book / novel adaptations.

The space jockey couldn't have appeared again without CGI (hence adding to the need for a path into the ship that didnt pass him). I'm told the original giant space jockey, sculpted out of foam, was on display in the forecourt of the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood when the film premiered, until a stray cigarette caught it on fire and destroyed it in a matter of seconds.

Egyptian Theater photo swiped from here.

Next time: 'Tis the Season to Collect....

Apparently, we have a new theme.

It's "footage of 1970's TV spaceships that ends up in karaoke videos on new programs." Last week's episode of Community featured scenes of Joel McHale as Jeff Winger and Jim Rash as Dean Pelton (that's him on the left screaming) making karaoke videos in the mall. They break into a fight as another video starts rolling behind them, and there once again appears the Salvage 1 spaceship on network screens for the second time in thirty years. (See the last entry if you're confused at this point).

Is this a new trend in television? Or the last time it'll ever happen? How odd.

Quark flies again - sort of...

Just a few weeks ago I was watching Breaking Bad - easily one of the best dramas on TV today - when something very unusual but very familiar caught my eye.

Not to give away any spoilers, a side plot involved viewing a karaoke-style video one of the characters had made to the tune of Peter Schilling's Major Tom. Behind him ran mostly space themed stock footage.
And, unmistakably, footage of the space ship from Quark.
In fact, it was clearly from the episode "The Good, the Bad, and the Ficus," which is about the ship being pulled through a black hole and, with dazzling disco-y effect, splitting into two copies - one good one evil. (Ficus, being the emotionless Vegeton alien, is neither good or evil - hence the title). I recognized the ship right away not just because it's so distinctive -
but because I had recently commissioned this model of it online, and had sent the manufacturer every angle of the ship I could find on the show. They built it with the garbage collecting door open, and the trash bag collecting arms extended.

Once you're commissioning models, I think you have to admit to a certain obsession with a show - or at least, in this case, an obsession with collecting everything possible on the program. With this model, plus all the scripts (except one) and dozens of press stills and more, I think I can safely literally say what I once joked: I almost certainly have the largest collection of Quark stuff assembled.
The music video also included footage from a show even more obscure than Quark, if only because it was never released on DVD.
That odd 3-engined rocket is Salvage One, the ship from the Andy Griffith show by the same name. Griffith played an ex-astronaut who used NASA surplus to make his own rocket to go to the moon and salvage everything NASA had left behind, plus bring back his own moon rocks too. I don't remember much about the show, but I remember enjoying it.

A bit of trivia: Quark may be about the only science fiction show that never named it's spaceship - all the scripts only call it "Quark's ship."

More soon!