Seen
Last month I posted about popular culture items I remembered but for which I had forgotten the names. Here I will describe some of my past successes in putting names to recollections.
Twoclops
A very old TV memory involves seeing some climbers accosted by a giant. A while back I came across images of a cyclops from Lost In Space (1965) and assumed it must be that. But very recently I stumbled upon a two-headed cyclops from The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962) of all things. It could have been either but I'm inclined to say it was the latter and older item. It would have been a rerun sometime in the late 70s. If you look for images of these critters you will see they were both ridiculous but possibly ominous for a small child.
I cannot say I was ever a fan of either of these franchises. Lost In Space is simply the best of a boring bunch of science fiction shows produced in the 60s by Irwin Allen (along with Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Time Tunnel and Land Of The Giants) that was improved only by having its tongue firmly placed in its cheek. And the Three Stooges were far less funny than Abbott And Costello or even Lewis And Martin.
Basement And Junkyard Robots
Naturally I was drawn to robots as a small child and have a vague memory of two in particular. One was made in a basement by a smart kid but was just a remote-control automaton. The other was a discarded military experiment that was re-activated by the operators of a salvaging company and was very much artificial intelligence.
The first robot featured in a Wonderful World Of Disney telemovie called The Whizkid And The Carnival Caper (1976). In it some kids help to capture some bank robbers who are posing as entertainers at the local carnival. They use the robot to help in this adventure but do most of the work themselves. Very mundane things stuck in my mind from this show. One was that the basements of many American houses are accessed externally via a sloping timber doorway and this just seemed cool to me. Another was the scene of a kid crawling into a stormwater drain to get back a toy rocket - it was terribly exciting to see adventure like this depicted in a suburban street. This was also one of those shows that reminds me of how my childhood was kind of unisex in the way both brothers and sisters played together and wore the same clothes (a topic I touched on here).
The next robot came from a TV show called Salvage 1 (1979) starring Andy Griffith as a junk yard operator who makes a spaceship from spare parts so he and his crew can go salvage space junk. In the episode Mermadon they find and fix a robot that the military somehow lost and want back. The poor robot has forgotten what its purpose is and so develops its own identity in the friendly company of those who found it. Later its true purpose is discovered and this includes a compulsion to kill. In the end the robot saves its friends by destroying itself - a melancholy lesson for a young kid to learn from an otherwise light-hearted show.
Eggs And Balls
The Children's Film Foundation was a non-profit organisation which made films for children in the UK from the 50s to the 80s (and apparently since then has funded similar projects under a different name). Chances are I saw a few of them but two stayed with me. In Kadoyng (1972) a human-seeming alien comes to Earth in an egg-shaped spaceship and is befriended by some kids. His alien origin becomes apparent once he removes his helmet to expose one fleshy antena (the name of the show is descriptive of the sound it makes as it springs forth). The other is Glitterball (1977) and this time the friendly alien visitor is a small metallic ball (possibly robotic) that can roll itself around. In this one a lot of the special effects involved simply reversing or changing the speed of footage but it worked and the story climaxes with a whole host of balls helping thwart the plans of some petty criminals.
A Better Bug
Everyone knows the magically alive white VW Beetle named Herbie. But who remembers Dudu the yellow VW Beetle that seems alive due to computerization? This 'Superbug' starred in a number of West German movies from 1971 to 1978 and I must have seen one of them on SBS. A robotic car makes more sense than a vaguely enchanted one and it is also possibly because of this that Bumblebee made sense to me once Transformers came along. Dudu never transforms but does have a bunch of moving parts and gimmicks akin to the cars driven by secret agents like James Bond. Dudu was amphibious but then apparently normal VWs can be modified to do that too.
The Planets Music Video
In 1983 the eccentric British director Ken Russell, who made both movies and music videos, produced a film accompanyment for The Planets suite by Holst that was played on ABC. Stock footage of various kinds were matched to the various gods and goddesses for which the planets are named. There was everything from war for Mars and stark nudity for Venus and it was something of a surprise for me. Maybe it partly inspired my trick of turning nude sketches into landscapes, although I usually blame Allegro Non Troppo (1976), an Italian spoof of Walt Disney's Fantasia, for that.
The Other World Made My Day
This is a very specific memory and a unique example of how sense data can get entangled. I was standing in a toy department admiring a new toy line called The Other World (1982-1984) which depicted some kind of sword and sorcery adventure with small rubbery figures wielding phosphorescent plastic weapons. The line was blatently cheap but also very nifty, and some work had gone into developing its original back-story. I devoured what information I could from the packaging and possibly even got a few that day. What matters in this story, however, is that a pop song was playing while I did this, and it somehow became associated in my mind with the toy line. The cheerful up-tempo number, combined with the whimsy of the toys themselves, may have contributed to Lukas and I playing with them as if they were depicting a fusion of fantasy and situation comedy. But what was that song?
I only remembered the chorus line of 'day by day' and somehow the Internet could never tell me what that song was. Nothing seemed to fit but then one afternoon I heard it again while at the Blood Bank in Pinewood. As soon as I got a chance, I rang the radio station and asked what had been playing at that hour and minute. the answer was Made My Day (1983) by Tim Finn. I was never one for understanding lyrics. I purchased the song - a rather good one - and it has since developed its own identity in my mind, distinct from bendy warriors.
* * * * *
Well that is it for now. I'm sure there are more names to find for old recollections but I'm now far closer to identifying the most enticing and intriguing of them.
Twoclops
A very old TV memory involves seeing some climbers accosted by a giant. A while back I came across images of a cyclops from Lost In Space (1965) and assumed it must be that. But very recently I stumbled upon a two-headed cyclops from The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962) of all things. It could have been either but I'm inclined to say it was the latter and older item. It would have been a rerun sometime in the late 70s. If you look for images of these critters you will see they were both ridiculous but possibly ominous for a small child.
I cannot say I was ever a fan of either of these franchises. Lost In Space is simply the best of a boring bunch of science fiction shows produced in the 60s by Irwin Allen (along with Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Time Tunnel and Land Of The Giants) that was improved only by having its tongue firmly placed in its cheek. And the Three Stooges were far less funny than Abbott And Costello or even Lewis And Martin.
Basement And Junkyard Robots
Naturally I was drawn to robots as a small child and have a vague memory of two in particular. One was made in a basement by a smart kid but was just a remote-control automaton. The other was a discarded military experiment that was re-activated by the operators of a salvaging company and was very much artificial intelligence.
The first robot featured in a Wonderful World Of Disney telemovie called The Whizkid And The Carnival Caper (1976). In it some kids help to capture some bank robbers who are posing as entertainers at the local carnival. They use the robot to help in this adventure but do most of the work themselves. Very mundane things stuck in my mind from this show. One was that the basements of many American houses are accessed externally via a sloping timber doorway and this just seemed cool to me. Another was the scene of a kid crawling into a stormwater drain to get back a toy rocket - it was terribly exciting to see adventure like this depicted in a suburban street. This was also one of those shows that reminds me of how my childhood was kind of unisex in the way both brothers and sisters played together and wore the same clothes (a topic I touched on here).
The next robot came from a TV show called Salvage 1 (1979) starring Andy Griffith as a junk yard operator who makes a spaceship from spare parts so he and his crew can go salvage space junk. In the episode Mermadon they find and fix a robot that the military somehow lost and want back. The poor robot has forgotten what its purpose is and so develops its own identity in the friendly company of those who found it. Later its true purpose is discovered and this includes a compulsion to kill. In the end the robot saves its friends by destroying itself - a melancholy lesson for a young kid to learn from an otherwise light-hearted show.
Eggs And Balls
The Children's Film Foundation was a non-profit organisation which made films for children in the UK from the 50s to the 80s (and apparently since then has funded similar projects under a different name). Chances are I saw a few of them but two stayed with me. In Kadoyng (1972) a human-seeming alien comes to Earth in an egg-shaped spaceship and is befriended by some kids. His alien origin becomes apparent once he removes his helmet to expose one fleshy antena (the name of the show is descriptive of the sound it makes as it springs forth). The other is Glitterball (1977) and this time the friendly alien visitor is a small metallic ball (possibly robotic) that can roll itself around. In this one a lot of the special effects involved simply reversing or changing the speed of footage but it worked and the story climaxes with a whole host of balls helping thwart the plans of some petty criminals.
A Better Bug
Everyone knows the magically alive white VW Beetle named Herbie. But who remembers Dudu the yellow VW Beetle that seems alive due to computerization? This 'Superbug' starred in a number of West German movies from 1971 to 1978 and I must have seen one of them on SBS. A robotic car makes more sense than a vaguely enchanted one and it is also possibly because of this that Bumblebee made sense to me once Transformers came along. Dudu never transforms but does have a bunch of moving parts and gimmicks akin to the cars driven by secret agents like James Bond. Dudu was amphibious but then apparently normal VWs can be modified to do that too.
The Planets Music Video
In 1983 the eccentric British director Ken Russell, who made both movies and music videos, produced a film accompanyment for The Planets suite by Holst that was played on ABC. Stock footage of various kinds were matched to the various gods and goddesses for which the planets are named. There was everything from war for Mars and stark nudity for Venus and it was something of a surprise for me. Maybe it partly inspired my trick of turning nude sketches into landscapes, although I usually blame Allegro Non Troppo (1976), an Italian spoof of Walt Disney's Fantasia, for that.
The Other World Made My Day
This is a very specific memory and a unique example of how sense data can get entangled. I was standing in a toy department admiring a new toy line called The Other World (1982-1984) which depicted some kind of sword and sorcery adventure with small rubbery figures wielding phosphorescent plastic weapons. The line was blatently cheap but also very nifty, and some work had gone into developing its original back-story. I devoured what information I could from the packaging and possibly even got a few that day. What matters in this story, however, is that a pop song was playing while I did this, and it somehow became associated in my mind with the toy line. The cheerful up-tempo number, combined with the whimsy of the toys themselves, may have contributed to Lukas and I playing with them as if they were depicting a fusion of fantasy and situation comedy. But what was that song?
I only remembered the chorus line of 'day by day' and somehow the Internet could never tell me what that song was. Nothing seemed to fit but then one afternoon I heard it again while at the Blood Bank in Pinewood. As soon as I got a chance, I rang the radio station and asked what had been playing at that hour and minute. the answer was Made My Day (1983) by Tim Finn. I was never one for understanding lyrics. I purchased the song - a rather good one - and it has since developed its own identity in my mind, distinct from bendy warriors.
* * * * *
Well that is it for now. I'm sure there are more names to find for old recollections but I'm now far closer to identifying the most enticing and intriguing of them.
posted by Dan at
27.11.21
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