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Monday, October 24, 2011

Monday Matinee: Ghostbusters

Nineteen-eighty-four was a fantastic year in the world of film. Well, at least it was in my humble opinion.

If I could list some of my favourite movies from the entire decade known as the 1980s, I reckon that quite a few of them would come from 1984. The Terminator, for instance. Yep, that was '84. So was Sixteen Candles and Gremlins. That's three examples right there.

Therefore, you're probably going to assume that this week's edition of our Monday Matinee will involves a film that was released in the year 1984. Well, you're absolutely correct on that one.

And seeing as how Halloween is just one week away from today, I reckon that I should try to come up with an appropriate movie to discuss. And I believe that I have found one.

And what better way to kick off the discussion by throwing in a few leftovers from the Sunday Jukebox? Yesterday, I talked about Halloween songs, and how there just wasn't enough airplay for them when the Halloween season did come around. I also talked about DTV, the Disney version of MTV. If memory serves me, I believe that the following song was featured in the 1987 DTV Halloween special. I can't be sure though. At any rate, here it is in all its glory.



ARTIST: Ray Parker Jr.
SONG: Ghostbusters
ALBUM: Ghostbusters Official Soundtrack Album
DATE RELEASED: June 7, 1984
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 3 weeks

How odd that the few Halloween songs that were released on the charts have made it to number one? Well, at least the two examples I found anyway.

At any rate, the song became one of Ray Parker Jr's biggest hits (even netting him an Academy Award nomination for best original song), and the film that it appeared in is the subject of today's blog.



As it happens, I think the first time that I attempted (key word attempted) to watch Ghostbusters was on television. I want to say that this was around 1987, as it usually takes about two to three years for movies to debut on network television. I really wanted to see this movie, as both my sisters were old enough to see it at the old Capitol Theater in town, and both of them had the Ghostbusters movie posters and T-shirts. I mean, they were 18 and 12 at the time the film was released, so I guess it was only natural.

Me being only three at the time of the film's release, I obviously had to wait to see it.

When the listings for the Friday night movie showed Ghostbusters playing on television, I was excited and couldn't wait to see it. I even made a little party for one surrounding it. Had gotten Mom to pop me some popcorn, and then we went to the store to buy a huge bottle of A&W Root Beer, and I waited to sit down and watch the movie.

And, I made it about five minutes before getting scared and running away.



All it took was the opening scene of the library card catalogs spitting cards all over the place and the librarian screeching that oh so blood-curdling scream that did it to me. There was no way that I was going to watch THAT movie!

But, then again, I was six. A balloon popping would have scared me. Hell, at 30, a balloon popping STILL scares me. But that was many entries ago...

The point is that while the first attempt at watching the movie didn't go so well, there was still a part of me that wanted to tune in so I could see what happened after the first five minutes of the movie. So, the very next year, the movie aired again...this time on a different network. And the second time around, it didn't seem so scary. I actually kind of liked it (even though some of the grown-up humour I didn't really get).

So, I guess that's our life lesson...don't let fear control what you do. You may miss out on a rather exciting and rewarding experience.

Or, in my case, a classic film.



And what a film Ghostbusters was too. The film opened up nationwide just one day after Ray Parker Jr. released the song Ghostbusters, on June 8, 1984. It starred Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Eddie Hudson, Rick Moranis, and Annie Potts. The film ended up making almost $230 million dollars at the box office during the summer of 1984, making it the 32nd highest grossing film of all time (if you converted the amount of money it made into 2011 dollars, it would surpass $500 million dollars in profits!)

The film was so successful that a sequel was made in 1989 with all of the original cast members. It is also rumoured that a third sequel is supposed to be coming in 2012, though details of that news are sketchy at this time. I imagine as we get closer to the date, more info will be leaked out, if of course this project gets off the ground.



The original film though was something very special. Most of you who have seen the movie know what it's about. Three parapsychologists named Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) have lost their positions teaching at Columbia University in New York City. As a way to earn a living, they rent out an abandoned fire house and open up a paranormal exterminator service designed to exterminate ghosts from the places they are haunting. They dub themselves the Ghostbusters.



After a rocky start, the trio are summoned to the Sedgewick Hotel to investigate a report that a ghost is haunting. 



After capturing the first ghost (a blobbish green ghost by the name of Slimer) and dropping him off at a containment unit located in the basement of the office, more paranormal activity seems to take place in various areas of New York City. While the Ghostbusters become celebrities because of their efforts to try and contain the paranormal activity, they find themselves become more and more burdened. With assistance from their secretary Janine (Annie Potts), a fourth Ghostbuster, Winston Zeddemore (Eddie Hudson) is hired.

The Ghostbusters are soon requested for a job by a woman named Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver), who lives in the apartment building located at 55 Central Park West. The building is being haunted by a demonic spirit called Zuul. Zuul is a demigod, worshipped as a servant to Gozer the Gozerian, a Sumerian shape-changer.

Try saying that tongue twister three times fast!

Anyway, Peter Venkman is interested in taking on this case, if for no other reason being that he became quite smitten with Dana. Of course, Venkman also had to deal with some competition for her affections courtesy of the bookish looking Louis Tully (Rick Moranis). While the team of Ghostbusters investigate the building, both Dana and Louis are possessed by a duo of demons (Zuul and Vinz 'The Keymaster' Clortho respectively), speaking of the coming of Gozer, whose mission is to destroy everything in his path. The Ghostbusters attempt to come up with a plan to stop this from happening, by doing their best to keep Louis and Dana separated so the two demons do not join forces.

However, when fate brings a visit by EPA worker Walter Peck (William Atherton), it spells doom for the Ghostbusters plan. Peck immediately arrests the Ghostbusters on the charge of keeping dangerous chemicals stashed away in Ghostbuster headquarters, and then does something really stupid. He orders the ghost containment chambers to be decontaminated, sending Slimer and all the other ghosts the group had captured back out onto the streets of New York City to cause mischief. Even worse, with the Ghostbusters being held in custody, there was nobody stopping the possessed Dana and Louis from joining together to summon Gozer.

Somehow, the Ghostbusters manage to secure the blueprints of 55 Central Park West, and learn that the building was designed by a mad scientist named Ivo Shandor. He designed the building in such a way that it would make it easy for Gozer to be summoned back to the land of the living. His reasoning was that it would bring about the end of the world, as he had deemed humanity too sick to go on living.



A rather bizarre claim, but still serious enough for the Ghostbusters to want to stop Gozer from coming back to cause massive destruction. Of course, they also had to deal with recapturing all of the ghosts that Peck and his team released back out onto the scared citizens of New York.

And when Gozer does make an appearance towards the end of the movie, it is in the form of a beautiful woman. The team briefly manages to subdue Gozer, but Gozer warns that the destructor will follow, taking on the form that is chosen by the team. Peter immediately tells everyone to clear their minds and not think of anything, but somehow Ray ends up not hearing this, and as a result, the destructor takes on this form.



A gigantic marshmallow man by the name of Stay-Puft. And, yes, I did have a Stay-Puft marshmallow man action figure. And yes, I wish I still had it.



So, can our heroes defeat Gozer and turn the Stay-Puft marshmallow man into one gigantic S'more? Will Dana and Louis ever be freed from possession? Will Slimer finally find a home? Will Janine become a designing woman in the near future?

Well, what, you expect me to tell you the ending? Watch it yourself!

What I can tell you is a few pieces of trivia about the movie Ghostbusters, and also talk about some possible actors who could have gotten parts on the movie, and how very different the movie could have been.



Did you know that the movie spun-off an animated series on ABC? It's true. And Slimer was actually a good guy in this series. You may also recognize Maurice LaMarche and the late Lorenzo Music as voice actors in this series.

Did you know that the movie Ghostbusters was initially supposed to have John Belushi as one of its stars? As we all know, it was never meant to be, as Belushi died in 1982. But, it is rumoured that the character of Slimer was loosely designed after Belushi.

Did you know that the original title for the movie was supposed to be Ghostsmashers? And that the original concept was supposed to have been the team travelling through time and space to fight ghosts? That would have made for a different kind of movie!

Did you know that the screenplay was written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis? The original screenplay had to be rewritten after director Ivan Reitman loved the concept but simply didn't have the budget to pull off such a film.

Did you know that John Candy was the first choice to play Louis Tully? It's true. John Candy was unable to commit to the role, so Rick Moranis got the part.

Did you know that Eddie Murphy was the first choice to play Winston Zeddemore? Had Murphy gotten the part, Winston Zeddemore would have accompanied the group to the hotel scenes instead of Peter Venkman, thus Winston would have gotten slimed instead. The reason why Murphy didn't take the role? He had agreed to star in another movie project. The movie? Beverly Hills Cop.

Did you know that Harold Ramis didn't want to act in the film? Ramis was content just to co-write the screenplay. However, the casting directors couldn't find a suitable actor to play Egon Spengler, so Ramis decided to play Egon, as he had created the character himself.

Did you know that John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, Michael Keaton, Chevy Chase, and Christopher Lloyd were all at one time considered for the role of Egon Spengler before Ramis got the part?

Did you know that when the film was test screened, half of the ghostly effects were not yet ready at the time? Despite this, the audience was very enthusiastic over the film anyway, and by the June 8 release, the special effects had been completed.

Did you know that a theater in California had the first screening of Ghostbusters one day before the film was officially released to the public on June 7, 1984?

Did you know that when the movie was released on laserdisc format that director Ivan Reitman HATED it? He said that the light levels on the disc was so bright, you could see all the matte lines. Thankfully by the time the DVD was released, these problems had been fixed.

Did you know that the movie Ghostbusters was the first film to be ever released on a USB flashdrive?

Did you know that beginning October 13, 2011, select theaters will be showing Ghostbusters back on the big screen for about two weeks? As of this writing, if you are one of the lucky cities that is taking advantage of this screening, you still have time to see it!

Did you know that legal problems almost caused the film to have to change the name of the title? Back in 1975, a Filmation cartoon series called Ghostbusters starring Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker was produced (I have seen it, and it has nothing to do with the movie, as one of the characters is a giant ape) with the title Ghostbusters, and the studio was forced to come up with alternate names should a lawsuit be launched. But when the extras involved with filming the final scenes kept chanting 'Ghostbusters!', the studio was forced to buy the rights for the name.

So, that's Ghostbusters. One of my favourite films of the 1980s, and a film that taught me that fears should be confronted. Otherwise you may miss out on a great experience down the road.

I ain't afraid of no ghosts!


Sunday, October 23, 2011

Sunday Jukebox - The Monster Mash

There certainly are a lot of songs out there for almost every holiday on the calendar. Certainly, there is no shortage of Christmas favourites (and yes, in a couple of months from now, you will likely be seeing some of them in the blog). There are dozens of love songs out there for lovers to dance to on Valentine's Day. There's a few for New Years Day, a few for the 4th of July, and heck, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some for St. Patrick's Day.



For Halloween, there's really not a lot of choice to pick from for the Sunday Jukebox. I certainly have found some picks. Some you've seen already, while others you will see in either the near future or even next year.

Still though, it seems as though finding a radio station that will play Halloween music on Halloween night is a bit of an impossibility. I have actually been hearing reports that some radio stations are already playing Christmas music. To me, this is absolutely ridiculous, as Christmas isn't for another few weeks yet.

And, yes, I realize that I have posted Christmas songs in both July and September entries for the blog, but that was merely for supplemental purposes. I mean, who knew that a Christmas version of the Macarena existed?

The thing is that a lot of the Halloween themed songs that have been recorded over the years seem to get lost in the shuffle when it comes to the tens of thousands of songs on the various playlists of radio stations all over the world. It's hard to say why this is the case though. One theory could be that the songs are too scary for young children (which I find ridiculous as the whole point of Halloween is to celebrate the spooky and scary). Another theory is that the radio stations just don't have very many songs to play. But if one were to really look at various sources, they may find that there are more Halloween songs than they think.



How many of you remember something called 'DTV'?



DTV was Disney's answer to the phenomenon known as MTV, the music video station that premiered in 1981. During the 1980s, several DTV specials were produced and aired. The program was designed as such that clips from classic Disney cartoons, movies, and television specials would be set to a song that had charted on the Billboard Top 40. It was a neat idea, I have to admit, and certainly it was an idea that I supported more than the carbon copy shows the company is churning out these days.

And sometimes these DTV specials were holiday themed. I know there was one for the Christmas season. A Valentine's Day special was also produced. And in 1987, a Halloween DTV special was produced, where one of the songs put in the special is today's blog feature!



ARTIST: Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers
SONG: The Monster Mash
ALBUM: The Original Monster Mash
DATE RELEASED: August 25, 1962
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 2 weeks

In 1962, the song 'The Monster Mash' was released on radio by a man named Bobby “Boris” Pickett and his band the Crypt-Kickers. Its chart history is a very interesting one.

In North America, when the song was first released in the summer of 1962, it peaked at the top of the charts the week of October 20 (appropriately enough for Halloween) and stayed at the top until November 3 when 'He's A Rebel' by the Crystals unseated the Monster Mash. But that wasn't the only time that the song found its way to the Billboard Charts. It entered the Billboard charts a total of three times. The first time was in 1962, but it also made reappearances in 1970 and 1973.

1973 was a fairly important year for the song in Great Britain. That was the year that the ban on the song was lifted (the BBC had banned the song from airplay the same year of its release as it was declared 'too morbid'). It managed to reach the number three position on the British music charts in October 1973. It managed to make a second appearance on the British charts in November 2008, where it hit #60.

For a song to chart five separate times on two different music charts over its nearly five decade history, you know it had to be a popular song.

The song has also been covered by several artists over the past few decades. The Beach Boys released a version in 1964, and veteran horror film actor Vincent Price recorded a version of the song in 1977. Horror punk band The Misfits recorded a cover in 1997. Alvin and the Chipmunks put out their own version in 1994, while Mannheim Steamroller put out a version of their own during 2006. Even in 2011, three cast members from the Disney television show 'Shake It Up' remixed their own cut of the track for a younger generation (though admittedly, it's not my own personal favourite mix).

Still though, for new versions to be churned out every few years or so, it had to have a great impact on the world of music, specifically Halloween music.

But how did the Monster Mash first come into fruition? Not in the way you might think.



Before Bobby Pickett took on the stage name of 'Boris', he was looking at breaking into the world of acting. During the day, he would attend various auditions, while performing in a band known as The Cordials at night. During one of these performances, when the band was performing their cover of The Diamonds' Little Darlin', Pickett did an impression of Boris Karloff. That impression left the audience wanting more, and band member Lenny Capizzi encouraged Pickett to do more with the impression.

Which explains why Pickett adopted the 'Boris' handle.

This lead to Pickett and Capizzi working together to pen the lyrics and compose the music for 'Monster Mash'. With help from a group of musicians who dubbed themselves the Crypt-Kickers, the song was recorded during May 1962. An instrumental version of the track was released as the B-side, which included an additional musician, pianist Leon Russell, who had arrived late to the recording session.

The song was reportedly influenced by a couple of other songs that were popular at the time. Gary S. Paxton's novelty hit, Alley Oop, as well as the dance craze known as the Mashed Potato.

Because the song was recorded on a budget, a lot of the sounds heard in the song were created by simple household objects. The sound of a coffin opening up was replicated by a rusty nail being pulled out of a board. The sounds of chains dragging were made by dropping a set of chains on bathroom tiles. The sound of a bubbling cauldron was made by people sticking a drinking straw in a cup of water and blowing bubbles. Simple tricks that made for effective sound effects.

On top of all that, Pickett seemed to have a lot of fun perfecting his mad scientist voice for the recording of the song. He even managed to slip a reference to actor Bela Lugosi by reciting the line 'Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?' in a Lugosi like accent.

The Monster Mash proved to be Bobby 'Boris' Pickett's only number one hit, but it certainly wasn't the last time he would have success on the music charts. In 1962, he released a Christmas themed follow-up of the song called 'Monster's Holiday', and peaked at #30 on the charts that December. This prompted the release of the album 'The Original Monster Mash', with other horror themed songs including 'The Monster Swim' and 'Werewolf Watusi'. Another single, 'Graduation Day' would peak at #80 in June 1963.

Years later, Pickett would record a novelty spoof with Peter Ferrara based on the television series 'Star Trek', entitled Star Drek, in 1975. The song was played on the Dr. Demento radio show for years. A year later, Ferrara and Pickett would collaborate again with the song 'King Kong (Your Song)'. Over the years, he would record three more songs based on his biggest hit. In the mid-1980s, a version called 'Monster Rap' was released, capitalizing on the growing popularity of rap music at the time. It didn't do as well as the original version, but it was on a regular rotation on the Dr. Demento show. Another loose sequel of the song was recorded and released in 1993 entitled 'It's Alive', but it didn't chart. One of Pickett's final recordings was in 2005, which was meant to serve as a protest song against the inaction of the United States government towards global warming, in a song called 'The Climate Mash', a reworking of his hit single. That same year, he released his autobiography called 'Monster Mash: Half-Dead In Hollywood'.

On April 25, 2007, Bobby “Boris” Pickett died at the age of 69, after a battle with leukemia. The May 13, 2007 edition of Dr. Demento was dedicated to his memory, and aired a documentary retrospective of all of his work.

Which would not have been possible had he not recorded the Monster Mash.


Saturday, October 22, 2011

Saturday Morning: Are You Afraid Of The Dark?

I have a lot fun trying to come up with interesting and thought-provoking topics to talk about each day, and for the most part, I can come up with ideas that are quite easy to discuss. After all, with the way that fashion trends, television programs, and movies constantly change, talking about pop culture never gets old.


There are some instances though where I admit to coming up with a thought drought, and coming up with ideas can be a struggle. So, sometimes, I ask people if they have some ideas for me. Ideas for topics that they would like to see and read about. And sometimes, people will send me ideas as well.

I do encourage this. Part of the reason for this blog is to cover a wide range of subjects and topics, and occasionally someone might bring up a subject that never would have come across my mind.

Today's blog entry is based on one of these requests, so thank you, Bailey, for the really great idea. And, for anyone else who has an idea for a topic for this blog, you can always leave those ideas in the comments page on this blog, or join the official fan page for the blog on Facebook to leave me your suggestions!

But now here was the problem with taking this suggestion. The idea I was given was for a television show that I had never seen one episode of. Ever.

But that was nothing that I couldn't overcome. I hadn't seen episodes of Jem and The Holograms, The Addams Family, or Alice for many, many years, and managed to do a blog entry for each of these.

And besides, every episode of this television series happens to be on YouTube, so if anything, I got to have a little bit of fun researching this television program that frightened children and teenagers for nearly an entire decade.



The show that I will be discussing in today's blog entry is the joint Canadian-American production 'Are You Afraid Of The Dark?'



A Cinar/Nickelodeon production, the program aired on both Nickelodeon in the United States and YTV in Canada. The actual premiere date for the show varies, depending on what region you happened to be living in. In Canada, for instance, the premiere of the show was the episode entitled 'The Tale Of The Twisted Claw', which was filmed in 1989. That episode aired in Canada on October 31, 1990. It wasn't until October 1991 that the same episode debuted in the United States.

The actual series run for both countries began on August 15, 1992. And what was interesting about Are You Afraid Of The Dark was that it actually aired in two separate stints. The first stint originally aired between 1992-1996. The show then took a hiatus for a couple of years before returning in 1999 for two more seasons. The show ran a total of seven seasons, and 91 episodes were produced. In 2006, the show was placed on DVD, and several books based on the series were published at the height of the show's popularity.



As a result of this long break, the show's main cast of characters rotated frequently, much like the trend was for other Canadian television programs such as You Can't Do That On Television, or Degrassi. During the first few seasons, the cast only lost a few members each season, and a few more would be brought back on in their place. By the 1999 revamp, only one cast member, Daniel DeSanto, would stay on (although original cast member Ross Hull made a reappearance in 2000).

What surprises me about Are You Afraid Of The Dark is just how many people seemed to have gotten their acting careers started in this show. Elisha Cuthbert (24) and Rachel Blanchard (Clueless: The Television Series) both had roles in the program as members of the 'Midnight Society' (and yes, I will be getting to what the Midnight Society is a little later in this entry), and some of the guest stars of the program had (or would have) star power back in the day.

Among some of these stars?

Ryan Gosling, Charles S. Dutton, Bobcat Goldthwait, Neve Campbell, Melissa Joan Hart, Hayden Christensen, Tatyana Ali, Tia and Tamera Mowry, Gilbert Gottfried, Tara Lipinski, and Jay Baruchel, just to name a few. Not bad for a children's program, eh?

Now let's get to what the show was all about.



I imagine that almost all of us can remember sitting around a campfire, telling ghost stories to the other people around them. I know I would take part in such activities while stuffing my face with S'mores and roasted hot dogs, each person trying to outdo the other person in trying to come up with the scariest stories. I relished activities like this, being the creative sort of person that I am.



That's basically what the show was about. You had a group of kids who would meet at a campfire each night to tell scary ghost stories. The group called themselves 'The Midnight Society', and each episode centered on one of the members of the group telling a story to the others.

How they went about doing this was by opening up each story with the statement “Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story...”.

At this point, the person would take out a handful of 'midnight dust' (which was basically nothing more than ordinary sugar) and tossed it in the fire to cause the flames to raise and to produce an eerie white smoke. The title of the story would then be superimposed over the campfire for the viewing audience as the storyteller says the title out loud.

That story would be shown as a live-action scene for the bulk of the episode. Consider it an episode within an episode so to speak. At the episode's conclusion, for most of the episodes, it would show a member of the Midnight Society throwing a red bucket of water over the campfire while declaring the meeting of the Midnight Society to be over. Occasionally, the ending would involve a sub-plot involving two or more of the members of the Midnight Society, but for the most part, the endings followed this formula. And most of the endings in Are You Afraid Of The Dark were happy endings, although there were some endings that weren't the case.

One of the things that I noticed about the show by watching various episodes is that depending on the person telling the story, the stories would each have their distinct theme, or have a recurring enemy appearing throughout the tales.

Let's take Gary, for instance, played by Ross Hull. As the founder of the Midnight Society, he has a keen interest in all things magic. Having a fascination with the magician Harry Houdini, many of his stories involve the subject of magic, including possession of objects, supernatural forces, and enchantment.

Tucker (Daniel DeSanto), Gary's younger brother, tends to tell stories that involve family members with a strained relationship, and having those relationships strengthen as the story goes on. Which could mirror the same relationship that Gary and Tucker share as brothers. His stories also seem to have the theme of people unknowingly unleashing evil into the world.

Even some of the more minor members of the society have their own distinct themes and methods of storytelling.

Betty Anne (Raine Pare-Coull) has a passion for stories involving the bizarre and twisted, and most of her stories are like a juvenile retelling of Twilight Zone episodes. Kiki (Jodie Resther) is sort of a tomboy type girl who picks on the other members of the group. Her stories usually involve the dangers of carelessness or deceitfulness, and the danger of having history repeating itself.

There's Sam (Joanna Garcia), who must be taking her obvious crush on Gary and peppering her stories with that crush, as most of her stories involve lost loves, and how love can survive anything, even death. You have Kristen (Rachel Blanchard) who likes to dress in costume for her stories, and her stories deal with spirits who have unfinished business with the living. And there's Frank (Jason Alisharan), a punkish-looking kid who never really had any sort of theme for his stories, except that in almost every single one he told, he would always have an appearance by the antagonistic Dr. Vink.

So you have a basic idea now of what kind of story one could be expected to hear based on who was telling the tale. It certainly made it easier for viewers to find their favourite stories, as all they really needed to know was who the storyteller was.

And, just what sorts of stories did these kids tell? Lots of them.

In the concluding paragraphs, I'll be posting links to four stories that really grabbed my attention when watching them, and I think these stories are probably considered to be four of the best.

As I said, while most of the endings of the series come to mostly happy resolutions, in some, the fate of the main character of the program is left unresolved, and sometimes the characters don't survive the story. Case in point, The Tale Of Vampire Town, where our vampire wannabe ends up experiencing a rather ironic fate.

Sometimes, the happenings of the members of the Midnight Society would influence the telling of the stories themselves. When Tucker was trying to blackmail his older brother after finding a love poem he wrote to Sam, it inspired Gary to come up with The Tale Of The Crimson Clown in response. Warning...this video is not for those who have a fear of clowns...it will only serve to aggravate it more.

Most of the stories have at least one antagonist trying to play mind games with other people, or who have a hidden agenda. Most do. In The Tale Of The Prom Queen, however, there is no such antagonist. In fact, the ghostly spirit happens to reveal themselves in a way than nobody ever thought possible.

And sometimes, the stories have a little bit of a heartwarming nature to them that sometimes leaves the viewer choked up. I dare you to watch The Tale Of The Lonely Ghost without feeling a little bit of emotion. (I had to split the link in three parts, so watch where you click in the title, as they are listed in order...)

Those are just four of the ninety-one episodes though. Go on. Seek out the other eighty-seven if you dare. After watching them all, maybe you'll see that there's no reason to be afraid.

The dark isn't THAT scary...or is it?


Friday, October 21, 2011

TGIF: It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!



I always wanted a great excuse to feature the Peanuts gang in one of these blog entries, and I think today is a perfect day to do exactly that.

Why?

Well, because Halloween is fast approaching, and one of my all-time favourite Halloween television specials happens to star the Peanuts gang.

It's one of the many Peanuts specials filled with excitement, anticipation, humour, and disappointment all rolled into one twenty-five minute long cartoon. It was one of those Halloween specials where if you missed it, it just didn't feel like Halloween.

The topic for today is...”It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!”



Can you believe that it's been almost 45 years since the special first aired on network television? “It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” premiered on October 27, 1966 on CBS, and for the next thirty-four years, the special would air on CBS every October. In 2001, ABC picked up the rights to all of the Peanuts specials, and since 2001, “It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” has aired on ABC.

It was the second holiday special for the Peanuts gang (the first one was A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965), and was written by creator Charles M. Schulz and produced and animated by Bill Melendez. The series proved to become one of the most memorable Peanuts specials of all-time, and is still enjoyed by generations of children today.



The series was so successful that for its 40th anniversary in 2006, a retrospective book was published entitled “It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making Of A Television Classic”. The book contained the full script of the episode, never before seen photographs, storyboard excerpts, and exclusive interviews with the voice actors of the television special. On September 2, 2008, the television special was remastered and released on DVD, along with the 1981 special “It's Magic, Charlie Brown”. Ironically, the DVD release happened on the same day that Bill Melendez passed away.

The television special was one that asked just one simple question. “Does the Great Pumpkin really exist?”



For Linus Van Pelt, the answer was yes. He did. And he was going to prove it once and for all.

Certainly as children, we all may have wanted to stay up late to catch a glimpse of say, Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny. We may have snuck downstairs to the living rooms of our homes, just so we could see Santa Claus leaving the presents underneath the tree. That's just what kids did. So, I can understand Linus' need to want to wait outside in a pumpkin patch in hopes of meeting the Great Pumpkin.

The whole Great Pumpkin storyline originated in the Peanuts comic strip, drawn by Schulz. As early as the late 1950s, Linus had made the claim that the Great Pumpkin did in fact exist, even though he himself had no proof that this was the case.

Linus mails the Great Pumpkin letters, takes care of a nearby pumpkin patch, and does everything short of installing a tracking device to monitor the Great Pumpkin just for the chance to meet him. For Linus believes that the Great Pumpkin rewards good boys and girls with enough sweets and candy to give a child cavities for the next twenty years.

Just one problem. Nobody believes him. Charlie Brown cannot believe Linus as he himself has never seen the Great Pumpkin. Lucy, Linus' sister, is more annoyed at Linus' Great Pumpkin theory than anything, and refuses to support Linus in any way. Peppermint Patty tries to convince Linus that the Great Pumpkin is a fake. As for Snoopy, he just laughs hysterically.

Nevertheless, Linus has made it a mission to wait in the pumpkin patch all night long on Halloween to see the pumpkin. This is despite the fact that the Peanuts gang was going to go trick-or-treating, and then head off to a Halloween party at Violet's house. Both activities sounded way more entertaining than sitting around a pumpkin patch waiting for someone who may or may not be real.

Of course, Linus' impulsiveness won out, and to the pumpkin patch he stayed. Of course, Linus wasn't completely alone. In a moment of weakness, Charlie Brown's sister, Sally, decides to sit in the pumpkin patch with Linus while the rest of the Peanuts gang go on with their Halloween fun.



After watching the gang go trick-or-treating, and a little clip involving Snoopy in his Red Baron costume re-enacting a scene from World War II, Snoopy decides to take a walk through the pumpkin patch where Linus and Sally are. When Linus sees a shadowy figure approaching the patch, Linus is immediately excited over the revelation, and he and Sally anxiously await the arrival of the Great Pumpkin.



Unfortunately, when Snoopy revealed himself as the shadowy figure, Sally immediately blew up at Linus with a mixture of anger and disappointment. After all, she gave up trick-or-treating and a Halloween party to sit with Linus all Halloween night for the Great Pumpkin, only to have no Great Pumpkin show up. Sally storms away from Linus and joins the rest of the gang who are finishing up the party, while Linus in all of his stubbornness waits for the Great Pumpkin to arrive.



By four in the morning, Lucy strolls over to the pumpkin patch, and brings Linus home, and when Linus recalls how disappointed he is about having missed the Great Pumpkin again, Charlie Brown remarks that in his lifetime, he'd done some pretty stupid things too. This sets Linus off, shouting at Charlie Brown that the Great Pumpkin would come and visit him next year.

So, what we learned is that Linus has to learn lessons the hard way. But, I guess we can also take into consideration that having a belief is not necessarily a bad thing. Linus believed with all his heart that a Great Pumpkin did exist and would come and visit him. Although this never happened to Linus, at least we can give him credit for attempting to put that theory to the test. But Linus never really did understand that the Great Pumpkin just wasn't real. Before Charles M. Schulz passed away on February 12, 2000, the cartoonist had Linus waiting in the patch for the Great Pumpkin in the comic strip for years. Even in Schulz's final Halloween cartoon in October 1999, he had Linus and Sally (who apparently didn't learn her lesson the first time either) waiting for the Great Pumpkin and thinking it did come when they saw a bright light passing by. Instead, it turned out to be Snoopy driving a Zamboni machine.



Of course, they say that nothing is more precious and innocent than the imagination of a child, and certainly Linus had quite the vivid imagination as a child. It's really hard to fault him for it.

But that was just the main plot of the special. There was so much more to it than that. Here's a few points to ponder.
The iconic 'Charlie Brown tries to kick a football only for Lucy to yank it away at the last moment' scene is featured in this special (well, unless you watch it on ABC, which for some reason decided to edit out the scene).  And you know, I always felt sorry for Charlie Brown. Lucy was just a big bully.  Which is why this spoof of that scene from Family Guy sort of made me chuckle.  Not that I actually advocate kicking girls with the 'Roadhouse' kick, because that would be mean and cruel...but at least this way Charlie Brown kicked the ball...with a little help from Seth MacFarlane.



Speaking of Charlie Brown, remember how he went trick-or-treating with the Peanuts gang in his...um...swiss cheese ghost costume? And how all he managed to get on his trick-or-treating excursions was rocks?



First off, is Charlie Brown really that hated in his neighbourhood? What did he do to make his neighbours give him rocks? Did he spray paint graffiti on the street? Push the mailman down an open manhole? Burn down the corner store?

Secondly, was it commonplace for candy stores to sell bags of rocks on the shelves along with the lollipops, gummy bears, and licorice twists? It just seemed a bit odd that Charlie Brown would get rocks from EVERY house. But, then again, the other children got popcorn balls, apples, and other goodies that are now considered 'bad treats' in a modern-day Halloween, so maybe Charlie Brown got off easy.



The point is that Charles M. Schulz had admitted that the scene of Charlie Brown exclaiming that he had gotten a rock for Halloween when everyone else got great things really resonated with the viewing public. For years after the special first aired, dozens of boxes and bags filled with candy and chocolate treats were sent to Schulz with notes attached saying that the goodies were for Charlie Brown! I guess they felt so bad over Charlie Brown getting nothing but rocks for Halloween that they felt a need to do something nice for the kid everyone called 'Blockhead'.

And people say charity and goodwill doesn't exist!





Thursday, October 20, 2011

Thursday Night At The Arcade: A Boy And His Blob



I suppose you may be wondering why I have a picture of a purple jellybean at the beginning of this blog entry. On that note, I'm guessing that you're wondering why I have chosen to write this entry almost entirely in purple font. There is a reason for this, which I will get into right now.

Today (October 20) is a day that is known as 'Spirit Day'. It was created last year by a Canadian teenager as a tribute and a memorial to teenagers who have killed themselves as a result of constant emotional and physical abuse by their classmates and peers. Specifically, it is dedicated to those who sustained such bullying because of their sexual orientations, but really, anyone who has suffered from being bullied can take part in this day as well. For today's blog post, I am turning this entry purple as a way to show my support for all of the victims who have endured such bullying. In fact, I'd like to take this time to offer my support to every family member of a person who ended up taking their lives to escape the bullying they had to endure almost on a daily basis. Nobody should have to go through constant abuse for being who they are. Nobody.

To me it doesn't matter what your skin colour is, what your sexual orientation is, what your body size is, what colour eyes you have, what kind of home you live in, etc. None of that matters. What matters is what is inside.

It is also encouraged that people wear something purple if you wish to support 'Spirit Day', in memory of those who took their own lives as a result of being bullied.

Now, onto the topic of today's post. And, yes, the jellybean is a part of that post.

Oddly enough, purple jellybeans aren't really my favourite flavour of jellybean. I'm more partial to green ones myself. But in the case of the video game that I will be featuring in this blog entry, this character seems to have a very voracious appetite for jellybeans. He'll eat any size, any colour, any flavour. As if this wasn't whimsical enough, every time this creature swallows a jellybean, he'll change into some sort of object, such as a ladder, a bridge, or even a bubble!



The only creature that is capable of doing such a thing is a creature known as a 'blob'. Blobert is a fictional blob-like creature from the planet Blobolonia. Blobolonia is in danger of being taken over by an evil emperor who has decided to punish his subjects by forcing them on a diet that only allows them lollipops, chocolate cake, and marshmallows.

Granted, to a seven-year-old boy or girl, this sounds like heaven. Of course, it only takes a few months for everyone on Blobolonia to become lethargic and sluggish as a result of this new regime. Blobert soon realizes that if he doesn't do something to stop the rule of the emperor, the future of the planet and its populace will be anything but sweet.

Somehow, Blobert ends up fleeing Blobolonia and makes a landing in the middle of a large American city (my guess is that it is New York City), where he befriends a young boy. After Blobert manages to convince the boy to help him save Blobolonia, the two set off on an adventure to defeat the emperor once and for all.



And, so we have our game. 'A Boy And His Blob: Trouble On Blobolonia'.

Released in North America in January 1990 by Absolute Entertainment (a spinoff of ActiVision), A Boy And His Blob is a platform/puzzle game that takes the unnamed boy and Blobert from the city streets to hundreds of feet below ground to find ways to get the ammunition needed to defeat the emperor and make their way through Blobolonia.

The first stages of the game's development began in 1989. Game designers David Crane and Garry Kitchen were given only six weeks to complete the game with their development team. It involved a lot of 16-20 hour work days, and the team had to deal with fixing bugs within the game while promoting the game to trade shows, but in the end, the hard work was worth it.



The idea for the characters in the game were inspired by the Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Herculoids, specifically after the characters Gloop and Gleep.

By the summer of 1989, the game was officially licensed by Nintendo, and by the beginning of 1990, the game was released by Nintendo where critical reception was mixed. While they praised the graphics and originality of the game's plot, the lack of enemies and vast empty spaces in each of the levels lead some to believe that the game had failed to maximize its full potential. Some even said that the game was hard to control.



(Just on a personal note, when I first played this game, I was ten years old, and I honestly didn't know what I was supposed to do half the time. I knew that I could collect treasures, but I didn't know what they could be used for (you actually use them to buy vitamins to kill the enemies in Blobolonia), and mostly, I spent the whole game feeding the blob jellybeans just to see what they did.)

At any rate, looking back on the game now, it was actually a lot more challenging than I thought. You actually had to make use of your jellybeans in creative ways to get through the game, and you really had to ration them, because in some cases, you only had a limited supply. One false move, or feeding them the wrong jellybean, and you could end up losing a life.



There are fourteen different flavours of jellybean that you have, and each one makes our blob turn into a different object, or allows him to perform a different task. Below are the different flavours of jellybeans...

Licorice – turns the blob into a ladder to climb up and down
Strawberry – turns the blob into a bridge, perfect for walking across pits
Coconut – turns the blob into a rolling coconut, used to see screens ahead of you
Cola – turns the blob into a bubble, which allows the boy to breathe underwater
Cinnamon – turns the blob into a blowtorch to burn up deadly spider webs
Apple – turns the blob into a jack to move objects directly above the blob
Lime – turns the blob into a key which can be used to unlock doors
Vanilla – turns blob into umbrella which protects boy from falling objects
Tangerine – turns blob into trampoline which can make the boy jump real high
Root Beer – turns blob into rocket, which can act as transportation to Blobolonia
Honey – turns blob into hummingbird which can make blob fly up to you
Ketchup – the blob will appear wherever the jellybean is thrown
Punch – the blob turns into a hole so the boy can fall through floors
Orange – the blob turns into the Vitablaster, your weapon in Blobolonia

In addition, the treasures you pick up on Earth can be used to buy vitamins needed to arm the Vitablaster.

There's also bags of jellybeans scattered around which will give you more jellybeans to use, as well as peppermint candies that will give the player an extra life.

And, on a funny note, at least the usage of mnemonic devices helps the player figure out what flavours correspond with what object. Whether it be through rhyming (Vanilla-Umbrella, Tangerine-Trampoline), or through word association (Cola Bubble, Apple Jack, Key Lime, etc), it's a neat little in joke.

And, while the original game didn't exactly wow the crowd, it did earn the title of 'Best In Show' at the 1989 Consumer Electronics Show, and won a Parents Choice Award in 1990. And in October 2009, the video game was remade for the Nintendo Wii, bringing a new generation of gamers together to play this game filled with whimsy and creativity.



So, who knows? Maybe everything old can be new again, if the idea is worth it.