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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

March 12, 1894


Welcome to another exciting trip back through time.  The Tuesday Timeline has always been one of my favourite entries to write, but lately I seem to be turning them into information dumps.  So, for this week, I wanted to focus more on the date, and less on the extraneous information that I present at the beginning of these weekly entries.

I guess one of the reasons why I have done that was because I didn’t want to leave anything out.  To me, all historical events have some significance, and I think that at some point, they should all be remembered.  But, when they take over the feature and make the intended subject that I wanted to talk about nothing more than a footnote, that wasn’t the effect that I wanted to have happen.

So, at the risk of leaving certain things out, I’ll continue doing the historical events/celebrity birthdays...but I think I’ll narrow them down to just fifteen events, and fifteen celebrity birthdays, just so we can get into the real meat of the Tuesday Timeline entry.

So, let’s begin with a selection of the famous people who happen to have a March 12 birthday.  Celebrating a birthday today are Al Jarreau, Liza Minnelli, Frank Welker, Mitt Romney, James Taylor, Ron Jeremy, Steve Harris (Iron Maiden), Marlon Jackson (Jackson 5), Jerry Levine, Julia Campbell, Darryl Strawberry, Aaron Eckhart, Casey Mears, Pete Doherty (Babyshambles), John-Paul Lavoisier, Jaimie Alexander, and Elly Jackson (La Roux).

(Well, okay, that’s 17, not fifteen.  Ah well, such is life.)

And, here are just fifteen of many historical events that took place on this date.

1881 – Andrew Watson makes history in the world of soccer, being the first black international player/captain

1912 – The Girl Guides (renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded

1913 – The future capital of Australia is given the name of Canberra

1928 – The St. Francis Dam fails, killing six hundred people in California

1947 – The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stop the spread of Communism

1950 – The world’s deadliest air disaster (the Llandow Air Disaster) takes place in Wales, in which eighty lose their lives in an airplane crash

1955 – American jazz saxophonist/composer Charlie “Yardbird” Parker dies in New York City of a heart attack at just 34 years of age

1993 – Parts of Canada and the United States are affected by the “Blizzard of ‘93”, in which it snowed continuously for thirty hours straight in some areas (I know...I lived through it!)

2001 – Controversial talk show host Morton Downey Jr. dies of lung cancer at the age of 68

2003 – American actress Lynne Thigpen passes away of a cerebral hemmorage in Marina del Ray, California at the age of 54

2004 – The President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, is impeached by its National Assembly

2009 – Bernie Madoff pleads guilty to charges that he embezzled $18 billion from investors

2011 – A day after a devastating earthquake strikes Japan, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant experiences a meltdown, sending radiation into the air

So, what do you think?  Do you like the new set up of the Tuesday Timeline opening?  I’m interested in hearing from you!

And, since we’re experimenting with some new techniques in the Tuesday Timeline, I thought that for this edition, we’d take a look at a decade that we have not done a feature on before.  In fact, we’re looking at a CENTURY that we have never done in this feature before!  This Tuesday Timeline is the oldest date that we have ever featured on this blog, so I hope you’re ready for a true blue history lesson.  As well, I’ll share a few of my own memories of today’s subject.


We are going back in time one hundred and nineteen years to March 12, 1894! 

That’s right.  We’re going back to the 1800s with this blog entry.  Although none of you living remembers experiencing this particular date, it was a very important one in the world of food and beverage (with particular emphasis on the beverage part).


All right, so here’s my question for all of you.  How many of you in this world have tried a Coca-Cola?  I’m sure that almost all of you are raising your hands.  It’s not shocking, really.  Coca-Cola (or Coke, as some people like to call it) is probably one of the most recognizable brands in the entire world.  It is heavily featured in Times Square, after all...as you can see below!




Well, on March 12, 1894, Coca-Cola first became available in bottled form for public consumption!  It was bottled by Vicksburg, Mississippi soda fountain owner Joseph Biedenharm, and since 1894, Coca-Cola is now sold in almost every single country in the world (except for Cuba and North Korea). 


Of course, Coca-Cola existed before 1894...it was just the first time that Coca-Cola became available for consumption in its iconic bottle.  Coca-Cola was actually founded eight years prior, in 1886.  It was first invented and manufactured by John Pemberton, who at the time worked at the Eagle Drug and Chemical Company.  The drink was essentially a non-alcoholic version of a coca wine that he invented which was called “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca”.  But with the state of Georgia passing prohibition legislation in 1886, Pemberton had to improvise.  He came up with the original formula for Coca-Cola and first sold it in May 1886 at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia.  And, Coca-Cola was not marketed as a soft drink, it was marketed as a medication.  For the price of a nickel, customers could purchase a glass of Coca-Cola in hopes of curing what ailed them.  After all, people believed that carbonated water had many healing properties.

(Who knew that in recent years, that belief would flip considerably...but we’ll get to that a little later!)

Pemberton made all sorts of claims that Coca-Cola could cure many diseases including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, and even impotence!  Of course, we all know that there is no such drink as Coke Viagra, but hey, it’s amazing to know that people believed that a soft drink could be marketed as a miracle cure!

NOTE:  Then again, when you consider that Coca-Cola was once manufactured with coca leaves (which can be used to make the highly addictive drug cocaine), I suppose that the after effects could fool people into thinking that a placebo could be a miracle cure.  The beverage is now made with the less harmful stimulant of caffeine.


Coca-Cola was eventually bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler, and through his aggressive marketing, helped transform Coca-Cola from a small company into a global conglomerate.  Of course, one of these ways was to bottle it as a soft drink, and certainly Biedenharm helped out by bottling and selling the product one March day in 1894.  But, how else did Coca-Cola become one of the biggest companies in the world?

Well, certainly its advertisements helped get people’s attention.  I don’t think that I can remember seeing a Coca-Cola ad that I didn’t enjoy.  Coca-Cola came up with some commercials that people still remember ten, twenty, even forty years later.  Consider this classic ad from 1971, where people wished that they could buy the world a Coke...


...or how about this 1980 commercial featuring “Mean” Joe Greene?


...or how about these wonderful series of holiday ads that began airing in the early 1990s?


Really, all of these commercials have made a huge impact on the world of pop culture, and they are part of the reason why Coke has grown into such a huge company.

TRIVIA:  And those ads don’t include the number of celebrity promoters that have appeared in Coke ads.  If you click on the names, you can see Whitney Houston, George Michael, and Kylie Minogue taking their turns as Coca-Cola spokespeople.

Of course, that’s not to say that the company hasn’t made huge blunders over the years. 

Anybody who was around in April 1985 might remember the complete disaster that happened when Coke executives decided to mess with a good thing.


Roberto Goizueta became the CEO of Coca-Cola in 1980, after being in charge of the company’s Bahamian subsidiary.  After he increased sales in that country by slightly changing the formula of the original recipe, one of his key plans was to change the original formula of Coca-Cola, and market it under the name “New Coke”.  The new drink hit the marketplace on April 23, 1985, and within weeks, it was getting a really negative reaction from consumers.  Though, it didn’t really help that Goizueta wasn’t exactly...well...passionate about describing the new flavour in press conferences.  I don’t exactly know if harmonious would be an adjective that I would have used to describe the taste of New Coke, but it did do one thing.  It taught the world to drink Pepsi in perfect harmony!


At the peak of the New Coke scandal, the company logged as many as 400,000 complaints from consumers, outraged at the sub-standard new formula and demanded that the company reinstate the classic taste they grew up with.  By the end of 1985, Coke brought back the old formula, marketing it under the name “Coca-Cola Classic”, and New Coke was phased out completely in favour of the classic recipe.

And, of course, Coca-Cola has been in the spotlight in recent years for promoting an unhealthy lifestyle, being one of the main culprits in the recent rise in childhood obesity rates.  With Coca-Cola being sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, which doctors believe is more dangerous to a person’s health than regular cane sugar, it’s not hard to understand why people would be concerned about it.  But, you know, my take is, people should be informed enough to make their own decisions on what foods and beverages that they want to consume.  Clearly Coca-Cola will never be as healthy as a glass of water, or a container of milk.  That said, if people want to have a Coca-Cola every once in a while, I won’t fault them for it.

Besides, if it wasn’t for Coca-Cola, I wouldn’t have a topic to discuss today!


Hmmm...I’m actually wondering just how much money an original 1894 Coke bottle would go for in auction these days now that I think of it...

Monday, March 11, 2013

Monday Bat-inee: Batman Returns


It’s Week #2 of the monthly Monday Bat-inee feature, and in case you haven’t guessed, this month will be a retrospective of the many Batman films that have been made over the last few years.  Since March 2013 has four Mondays, we’re going to be looking at four different Batman films.

Last week, we looked at the 1989 film, “Batman”.  And this week, we’re going to be looking at the sequel that was released three years later.



You know, I still remember the buzz that surrounded the release of “Batman Returns”, which hit theatres on June 19, 1992.  At the time, I was just about to graduate from the fifth grade, and I think that almost every kid in my class at the time had made plans to go to the movies as soon as school let out for the summer. 

Well...every kid except myself.  I didn’t really go to the movie theatre much when I was younger, so I missed the original run.  I did watch it on VHS (albeit several years after its original release) and thought that it was a fantastic film.  And, I actually have a personal story to tell in regards to this movie, courtesy of my sister.



In 1992, my sister was dating what could be considered her high school sweetheart of sorts.  As it turned out, his brother worked at a comic book store here in town years ago known as the “Comic Cave” (which has since changed its name).  One of the perks to having a boyfriend whose brother worked at a comic shop was the fact that my sister was allowed to bring home discarded window displays after the store was finished with them.  Naturally, when “Batman Returns” was released, the store featured a slew of Batman comic books and accessories...as well as a life-size cardboard cutout of Michael Keaton as “Batman”.  And, of course, my sister grabbed the cardboard cutout and had it in her possession for five years.  When she got married (to a different man) in 1997, the “Batman” cutout found a new home in my bedroom.  Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened to the Batman cutout since I moved to my current place of residence.  I wish I still had it.  Not only did it give my bland bedroom a little bit of character, but it was a great reminder of “Batman Returns”.

Michael Keaton once again reprised his role as Batman/Bruce Wayne.  Other actors who decided to play the same roles as they played in 1989’s “Batman” were Michael Gough as Alfred, and Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon.

The rest of the cast was completely different, which made sense.  No Batman villain ever appeared in more than one Batman film (at least until the Christian Bale reboots began being filmed), so Jack Nicholson was out.  And, Kim Basinger was busy with her relationship with Alec Baldwin and trying to explain the reason behind her impulsive purchase of an entire Georgia town to come back as Vicki Vale.

New faces to the cast were Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Christopher Walken...and all three appeared as antagonists for Batman (though in the case of one, they found themselves in constant conflict over which side to fight on). 


The film begins once more in Gotham City, thirty-three years in the past, where a wealthy couple decide that the best way to deal with having a song that was physically deformed was to abandon him in a sewer system.  Then again, nobody ever made the claim that the Cobblepots were the sanest family in Gotham City.  I mean, when you consider that Paul “Pee-Wee Herman” Reubens played the father, I mean that sets the stage right there!

Anyway, Oswald Cobblepot grew up after being discovered by a flock of penguins, and resurfaces in Gotham City under the guise of “The Penguin” (DeVito).  At the time, we’re not exactly sure what his main goal is in the film, but one thing we do know...he’s not exactly a person that you want to really have on your bad side.


The Penguin begins his evil plot against Gotham City by kidnapping wealthy industrialist Max Shreck (Walken), and confronting him with the various crimes he has committed within corporate America.  He actually goes as far as blackmailing Shreck into helping him infiltrate Gotham City high society, arranges for the mayor’s child to be kidnapped, and “rescues” him to set himself up as a hero within Gotham City, setting the stage for his master plan.


Somehow, timid, lonely, cat-loving Selina Kyle (Pfeiffer) gets caught up in the drama when she accidentally comes across a shocking piece of information regarding a power plant that Shreck’s name is attached to.  She discovers that if the plant is built, it will completely drain all power out of Gotham City.  And, since she has a scheduled meeting with Bruce Wayne, it would be very easy for her to spill her guts about what she knows.

Well, that is until Max shoves Selina through a window to the pavement below, in an attempt to silence her forever.

But Selina doesn't exactly...die.  After a bunch of alley cats revive her, she manages to make her way back to her apartment where her mind completely snaps, and this happens...



NOTE:  Love the symbolism present in the neon sign at Selina's apartment!



Anyway, Selina (along with her sassy little leather outfit) assumes her new role of Catwoman.  And, Catwoman is a bit of an enigma character in that she frequently flip-flops her allegiances.  She initially wants revenge on Shreck for trying to kill her, but eventually teams up with The Penguin to rid Gotham City of Batman forever.  To complicate things even further, Catwoman (under the guise of Selina) ends up developing feelings for Bruce Wayne!  It's a regular little soap opera, Gotham City style!

Now, that's all that I want to say about the plot.  I've already briefly spoiled it a bit in saying that until the reboot of the Batman franchise began, no Batman villain has ever appeared in more than one film.  But what you don't know is what happens to them in the end.  All I'll say is that there's one plot that involves the first born sons of Gotham City, and that the fate of one Batman villain is somewhat ambiguous in this movie.  

Besides, I'm sure you're more interested in the behind the scenes action that took place on the set of Batman Returns, right?  Okay, here we go.



01 - Initially, Tim Burton did not want to direct "Batman Returns", due to mixed emotions about the first film.  The script by Daniel Waters helped ease Burton's doubts.

02 - Harvey Dent and Robin were supposed to be included in the original script of this film, but were written out in an uncredited rewrite by Wesley Strick.




03 - It took approximately two hours each day to apply the make-up that Danny DeVito had to wear to play The Penguin.  He was actually forbidden to even describe what the make-up looked like to anybody else.

04 - Remember how Sean Young had been cast as Vicki Vale in the original Batman, but had to drop out due to a horseback riding injury?  Well, Sean Young tried to get onto Batman Returns in the role of Catwoman.  Believe it or not, she made herself a Catwoman costume and with the aid of walkie-talkies, she managed to track down the producers of the film!  Needless to say, she did not get the role...and in an amusing side story, Tim Burton reportedly hid underneath his desk to avoid having to deal with her!

05 - Annette Bening was reportedly cast as Catwoman, but because she had become pregnant, she was forced to drop out of the production.  Michelle Pfeiffer was brought in...at three times the salary that Bening had been promised!

06 - The inspiration for the human tooth cufflinks that Christopher Walken wears in the film?  The film adaptation of "The Great Gatsby".

07 - Batman Returns was the very first film made in Dolby Digital.

08 - Michael Keaton must have been exhausted at the end of each day of filming.  The Batman costume weighed fifty-five pounds!

09 - Initially, Sam Hamm's idea for Batman Returns involved The Penguin and Catwoman teaming up to search for hidden treasure.  Feeling that a movie about a gothic scavenger hunt wouldn't quite work, Waters was brought in to rewrite the script, and came up with the idea of the corrupt business mogul teaming up with The Penguin to get him elected as Mayor of Gotham City.

10 - At the time of filming, half of the Warner Brothers were taken over by Batman sets.  Because the sets were mobile, they were frequently relocated, causing Michelle Pfeiffer to constantly get lost on her way to filming!

11 - There's a scene where a monkey is delivering a letter to The Penguin from Batman.  It was reportedly the hardest scene to film, as the monkey kept getting frightened by DeVito's make-up!

12 - During the six month shooting schedule, sixty Catwoman costumes were used!  

13 - Because of parental concerns regarding the film, and how some parents believed the film was inappropriate for children, McDonald's was forced to cancel their plan to have Batman themed Happy Meals.

14 - The penguins that were used in the film were treated VERY well.  They had their own refrigerated trailer, their own swimming pool that was filled with fresh ice each day, and were given fresh fish each day.  They even had their own personal bodyguard!

15 - During the film's opening weekend, it made $47.7 million dollars!

16 - Tuna was used on a dummy version of Selina in order to get the scene where the cats revive her after she is pushed out of the window by Shreck.

17 - Danny DeVito was offered a stand-in during the scene in which The Penguin was pelted with rotten food by a mob of angry people, but he refused, and shot that scene himself.

18 - Interestingly enough, Susan Sarandon expressed interest in the Catwoman role, but producers deemed her too old to pull it off.  Sarandon's age at the time of filming?  46.

19 - Michelle Pfeiffer had great difficulty with the costume she had to wear.  The costume was so tight, she would only have a limited amount of time to wear it before she became light-headed and passed out!  In addition, she found it hard to hear her own voice, and initially shouted all of her lines before Burton encouraged her to lower her voice an octave.

20 - Nicole Kidman was also offered the role of Catwoman, but she turned it down.  But she didn't stay away from the Batman franchise for long...

21 - Burgess Meredith (who played The Penguin on the original 1960s television series) was asked to play a cameo role in Batman Returns as the father of The Penguin, but health issues prevented him from being able to make the commitment.

22 - For whatever reason, Tim Burton was apprehensive about having Christopher Walken in the film.  Walken apparently gave Burton the heebie-jeebies!

23 - As mentioned above, Paul Reubens played The Penguin's father.  The mother was played by Diane Salinger.  Reubens and Salinger worked together once before...in the 1985 film, "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure".

24 - Believe it or not, the script once had The Penguin and Max Shreck as brothers!  I'm not sure how that would have worked in the final script, but I think that it could have worked.

And, that's our look back at "Batman Returns".



Coming up next week, the third installment of the Monday Bat-inee...and for a clue as to what film we'll look at next week...take a look at behind the scenes fact #20, as well as the image up above...

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Stompin' Tom Connors - A Canadian Gentleman


In “The Pop Culture Addict's Guide To Life”, there have been very few instances in which I have had to change the topic of discussion at the very last minute. For today's edition of the Sunday Jukebox, I initially had a topic chosen for today, and prior to Wednesday, March 6, 2013, I was in the planning stages of doing any necessary research needed to supplement the chosen topic.

But then came the news that shocked Canadians coast to coast from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland and Labrador.



On March 6, 2013, Canadian music legend “Stompin'” Tom Connors passed away at his home. He was 77 years old.

So, in tribute to Stompin' Tom, I decided to dedicate today's post on his life, career, and some of the reasons why he has been declared as Canadian as the beaver tail, the poutine, and maple syrup.

Born Thomas John Connors in Saint John, New Brunswick on February 9, 1936, Connors grew up under tremendous hardships. He grew up poor, with a mostly absentee father, a mother who resorted to stealing from restaurants in order to support them both, and a step-father who spent almost all the family income on alcohol. Not exactly the greatest way for a child to grow up.

Tom was eventually taken from his mother's care after she found herself inside a low security women's penitentiary and was adopted by Cora and Russell Aylward from Prince Edward Island. At fifteen, Tom set out on his own, spending the next thirteen years hitchhiking across Canada. He took on odd jobs throughout his journey, hitched rides on boxcars, played on his guitar in order to make enough money for food, and sometimes even got himself arrested on charges of vagrancy on purpose so that he could have a warm place to sleep that night. Whatever it took to survive one more day, he did it.

I'm not exactly sure whether it was fate, or a lack of money that saw Tom end his journey across Canada in Timmins, Ontario. Maybe it was a combination of both. Whatever the case, when Tom arrived in Timmins, he was craving a beer. The problem was that he was five cents short of being able to pay for it at Timmins' Maple Leaf Hotel. The bartender on duty at the time decided that if Tom played his guitar for the patrons, he would give him a beer on the house. Tom obliged, the crowd went wild, and long story short, he ended up getting an exclusive gig at the hotel for the next year!



TRIVIA: Have you ever wondered why Tom ended up with the nickname of “Stompin' Tom Connors”? The origin dates back to the date in which Canada celebrated its 100th birthday. On the first of July, 1967, when Connors was playing a gig in Peterborough, Ontario at the King George Tavern, waiter Boyd MacDonald announced him as “Stompin' Tom” before he took to the stage. The audience reacted with such enthusiasm towards the name that he decided to get the name officially registered in Ontario within the week! The reason why the word “Stompin'” was used? During his performances, Tom would always stomp his left foot along with the beat of the song so that he could keep the rhythm going smoothly. He also began using a piece of plywood as a “stomping board” after club and bar owners complained that his constant stomping was damaging their floors!

Over the next forty-five years, Tom would amass a number of albums, singles, and accolades. He released twenty-seven albums in Canada between 1967 and 2012, and had twenty-two singles charting on the Canadian Country Charts between 1969 and 1997. Three of those singles, (“Big Joe Mufferaw”, “Ketchup Song”, and “Moon-Man Newfie”) hit the top spot on the Canadian Country Charts. In 1993, he received an honourary Doctor of Laws degree from St. Thomas University, made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1996, earned a Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for Popular Music from the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards in 2000, and in 2009 was given two distinct honours. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement SOCAN award...



...and he was honoured with his very own postage stamp on July 2, 2009! What I wouldn't do to have my image on a postage stamp someday!



TRIVIA: Of course, not all of his accolades were well-received. He was supposed to have been inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993, but he declined the offer. And, although he ended up winning eight Juno Awards for his music in the early 1970s, he actually returned every single one in 1978, as he disagreed with the idea of Canadian-born artists who recorded and promoted their singles and albums in the United States being nominated for and winning Juno Awards. The letter he sent to the Juno Award board of directors is available to read online, and I will state that he does not mince words. However, I do admire him for standing up for Canadian artists, and making sure that Canadians who chose to promote themselves on Canadian soil had a voice. You can't fault him for standing up for what he believed in.

And, of course, we can't not have a blog entry on Stompin' Tom Connors without presenting some of his music that helped cement his status as a Canadian icon. Many of his songs were written about Canadian hobbies, and there were several compositions that were about historical Canadian events. In the case of one of his songs, it was turned into a children's picture book!

So, sit back, and we'll take a listen at some of Stompin' Tom Connors' finest. For Canadian readers, it'll feel like home. For those readers in America and overseas...consider this your introduction!



BUD THE SPUD” (1969)

This single was the first one to chart for Stompin' Tom, and it peaked at #26 on the Canadian Country Charts the week beginning February 28, 1970. The song is basically about a trucker who is carrying a load of fresh Prince Edward Island potatoes across the country. This song ended up being turned into a children's book of the same name twenty-five years after it was released apparently! I myself have not read the book version of the song, but I almost want to seek it out so that I can have the chance to read it!



SUDBURY SATURDAY NIGHT” (1967)

This song appeared on Stompin' Tom's debut album, and although the song never charted, many fans of Stompin' Tom will immediately recognize the song based on its rather catchy chorus. The song is all about the social lives of the hard rock miners who lived and worked around Sudbury, Ontario (where Connors visited during his thirteen year tour across Canada). As you can tell from the lyrics of the song, the miners certainly knew how to party!



THE HOCKEY SONG” (1973)

I don't even think that there is a Canadian alive who doesn't know at least part of this classic Stompin' Tom Connors song, if not the whole thing. What was unique about this single is the fact that it took nineteen years for the song to become a Canadian pop culture treasure. It was initially released in 1973, but much like “Sudbury Saturday Night” failed to chart. It wasn't until the Ottawa Senators began playing the song during the hockey games they played during the 1992/1993 season that the song began to take off. The same year that the song was being played at Ottawa Senators games, the then-coach of rival hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs insisted that they be allowed to play the song at their games as well. By the time the 1990s wrapped up, the song was frequently played at both Canadian and American hockey games, making this song one of the very few Stompin' Tom songs to be heard stateside.

And, as I mentioned before, Stompin' Tom released songs that were all about Canadian history, as well as songs that were linked to personal experiences he had throughout his life. I won't post the videos here, but if you click some of the song titles below, you can have a listen to the songs as you read a brief description of what the song is about.

REESOR CROSSING TRAGEDY (1969) – Written about the murders of a trio of union workers during the Reesor Siding Strike of 1963.



TILLSONBURG (1971) – Tillsonburg is a small town located in the province of Ontario, which happens to be the setting of this song. It's based off of Connors' own experiences there working in the tobacco fields.

THE BRIDGE CAME TUMBLIN' DOWN (1972) – Certainly not all of the subjects of Stompin' Tom's compositions were happy ones, as in the case of this song. It was written in tribute to the nineteen men who were killed in the collapse of the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing in 1958.

BIG JOE MUFFERAW (1970) – The first of three #1 hits for Stompin' Tom in Canada, this song was more or less a musical autobiography of French-Canadian logging legend Joseph Montferrand.

FIRE IN THE MINE (1972) – Since Timmins, Ontario was such an important place in the life and times of Stompin' Tom, it's only natural that he would choose to write a song about an event that happened there. Unfortunately, that event was one of sorrow, as the song was written about a real life fire at a mine in Timmins that killed several men.

Stompin' Tom Connors was a real Canadian legend. I don't think that there's too many Canadians who don't know who he is. I remember at an early age my parents would always be playing his albums and singing along to his music, and when I was a kid, I would be so embarrassed by it that I would grab my own boom box and try to drown out their radio with my Dance Mix compilations! As I grew older, I learned to appreciate Stompin' Tom Connors a lot more. He truly was the very embodiment of what I would call a true Canadian. He never let hardships stand in his way of doing what he wanted to do. He was incredibly patriotic and loved his country from the very beginning all the way down to his final breath. And, he also didn't flaunt his stardom in anybody's face either. He was incredibly humble about his success, and as long as he was recording music, I believe that he was content with that. I think that there are some current recording artists out there who could definitely take lessons from Stompin' Tom...particularly one Canadian-born artist in general who just turned the age of legality here in Canada...

...not naming names, of course.

At any rate, Stompin' Tom Connors was one of the greatest representations of what true Canadian spirit was...and his death on Wednesday affected a lot of people.

I think that a little part of every Canadian died that day...



Stompin' Tom Connors
1936-2013

Saturday, March 09, 2013

Captain N: The Game Master


Saturdays were always a lot of fun growing up.

In many ways, Saturday mornings during my childhood was the best time to be a kid. I didn't have to go to school at all, which given how horrible some of the kids and teachers could be was a reward in itself. More importantly, it allowed me to watch however many cartoons I desired. Because I grew up during the 1980s and early 1990s, there was no shortage of cartoons to choose from.

Now as time passed, and I grew a bit older, my taste for cartoons began to weaken. The mere fact that it happened at a time in which many networks were replacing their cartoon programs with live-action comedies and morning news was merely coincidental.



You see, right around the time I turned nine years old, I had developed a bit of an obsession towards video gaming. I loved playing video games as a kid (and I'll still admit to playing them as an adult, although I'm not nearly as much of a gamer as I used to be). In fact, I'll be the first to admit that as I aged, I would have rather played video games than watched cartoons.

It started off quite slowly at first. Knowing that most cartoon seasons contained thirteen episodes, I knew that around Christmas, we would start seeing reruns. Sometimes I would watch the repeat airing of the cartoon if it was a particularly great episode...but if it wasn't, I'd power up my Nintendo and play some Super Mario Brothers to pass the time. By the time I had gotten my Super Nintendo, I skipped cartoons entirely to play video games.

(Wow...you know, looking back on it, I suppose its entirely possible that a lot of kids my age thought the same way. And, if it really was the case, where kids would stop watching cartoons to play video games, no wonder networks stopped airing cartoons!)

It's really hard to say what fueled my obsession for Saturday Morning gaming marathons, but if I had to wager a guess, it had to do with a particular Saturday morning cartoon I used to watch as a kid.

In many ways, this cartoon could be considered the ultimate act of product placement. The main characters, the settings, even some of the plot lines were heavily influenced by the dozens of games released by one of the largest video game companies in the world. But when you're a nine year old kid, you don't care about things like that. As long as the show is great, has a lot of action, and characters you can relate to, that's all that mattered. It wasn't my fault that the characters were stars of their own video games.



I imagine some of us have wondered what it might have been like to be a part of a video game. Would we have thrived as the ruler of a world composed of pixels, or would we have had a “GAME OVER” message upon taking just a few steps inside? Well, the premise of this show deals with the adventures of everyday American teenager Kevin Keene, who along with his dog Duke gets zapped into a magical world known as Videoland. How they got there was via the “Ultimate Warp Zone”. You may have heard the term Warp Zone used in Super Mario games where walking on the ceiling or having a magical warp whistle could allow one the power to bypass entire levels. In Kevin's case, he bypassed reality and ended up in a land of complete fiction to become...



CAPTAIN N: THE GAME MASTER!



And, again, Captain N was basically a walking advertisement for Nintendo. When you consider that his belt buckle was shaped like an NES controller, and that his weapon of choice was something that resembled the Zapper plug-in one would use to play the 1985 game “Duck Hunt”, what else could he be?

In fact, the majority of the main characters, main antagonists, and recurring roles were all based from several video games released within the Nintendo library. The games that were represented were “Castlevania”, “Kid Icarus”, “Mega Man”, “Punch-Out”, “The Legend Of Zelda”, “Donkey Kong”, “Dragon Warrior”, “Wizards and Warriors”, “The Adventures of Bayou Billy”, and even “BurgerTime” if you can believe it!



TRIVIA: If you're wondering why the television series didn't incorporate what seemed to be the star of the Nintendo franchise into the show, there's a very sound reason for it. Beginning with season two of the series, the show was often paired with the animated series “The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3”. If I remember correctly, the two shows were presented as a one-hour program, with two episodes of the Mario cartoon acting as bookends for the full-length Captain N episode. I could be remembering wrong though.

But there's more to the show than being a cash cow for Nintendo of America. It was a brilliantly written cartoon series. It was a classic struggle of good versus evil as Kevin Keene is forced to assume the role of Captain N to save Videoland from the evil clutches of Mother Brain.

TRIVIA: In another interesting case of product placement within a television series, the fortress in which Mother Brain resides is named “Metroid”.

When Kevin arrives in Videoland, he comes at a rather critical time, as Mother Brain has taken over the majority of Videoland, and has almost succeeded in completely capturing the Palace of Power. When he and Duke come face to face with the N-Team, the team wastes no time in recruiting him to their team to fight the battle against evil in order to save Videoland from complete destruction.



And just who makes up the N-Team?

Well, there's Princess Lana, who is the current ruler of Videoland and oversees everything from the Palace of Power. She's kind-hearted and loving, but don't let those qualities trick you into thinking that you can imprison her in a castle...she can kick serious butt if forced to. She's also the only character in the series who doesn't appear to be a walking commercial for Nintendo products.

Her friends, on the other hand? Let's see...there's Simon Belmont from Castlevania, Pit from Kid Icarus, Mega Man from...well...Mega Man, and from the second season onward, the team is joined by a supercomputer known as Game Boy that looks like...well...one of these.

Ah, Nintendo, how subtle you are...

The cartoon managed to squeak out a three season run on NBC and it was popular enough to spawn a semi-successful comic book series under the “Nintendo Comics Series” banner. However, by the time the third season kicked off, major budget cuts by NBC greatly affected the quality of the animation of the series, and by 1992, the series (as well as the majority of NBC's cartoon lineup) was pulled.

The show did find new life in syndication for one additional year, and between 1992 and 1993, the show was repackaged under the title “Captain N and the Video Game Masters”. In a standard episode, we'd see Captain N episodes airing alongside episodes of “Legend of Zelda”, “The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3”, and “Super Mario World”. And, the entire series is available on DVD. Of course, there are slight differences between the DVD and syndication presentations and the original-run episodes. In the first few episodes of Captain N, you'd hear snippits of actual songs (it was similar to “Kidd Video”), but in the re-releases, the songs were replaced with generic instrumental scores.

And, that's our look back on Captain N: The Game Master. It may have been nothing more than an hour long advertisement for Nintendo...but for kids twelve and under, it was a great show.

Although, I'll also be the first to admit that I am more or less brand loyal to Nintendo video games and that Captain N likely weaned me off of cartoons and helped further fuel my gaming addiction.  

Friday, March 08, 2013

Sunset Beach


Well, that was quite the admission that I made yesterday, wasn’t it?  In case you missed it, you can either click HERE, or just scroll down the page to the next following entry.  You know, something tells me that if I can find a way to stick things out for another half of a year, I could potentially make great things happen.  The idea of paying off the last of my debts in my early thirties is a great feeling to have, and I for one am really looking forward to that September day in which I can finally square away my debt once and for all.

(Mind you, I’ll likely be racking up MORE debt as I proceed through my life, but at the very least, I’m wise enough to know not to throw my money away.  I’ll be using it as an investment for my future, whatever it decides to bring me.)

With the promise of a brighter future ahead in my horizon, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what could be possible as time passes on.  Assuming that I will still be in relatively good health as I proceed through my thirties, and that I don’t have to have any more organs surgically removed from my body, there are quite a lot of things that I still have yet to achieve in my life, and I’m cautiously optimistic that I will eventually be able to experience the many facets of life that many people take for granted.


Here’s a little bit of a confession for you all.  Would you believe that in the near thirty-two years that I’ve been alive, I’ve never once taken what one would consider a “real vacation”? 

I’ve never been on an airplane to visit a country overseas.  I’ve never been away from “home” for more than three days at a time.  I’ve never been to London, New York, Paris, or Munich, but I definitely do a lot of talkin’ ‘bout Pop Musik...


(Ahem...)

The point is that I’d love to pack up some belongings, hop on an airplane (even though I have never flown before in my life and would likely need to be sedated), and just take off somewhere that I’ve never been.  I’d love to get a view of New York City from the Empire State Building.  I’d love to try a slot machine in a Las Vegas casino once (and more than likely only once).  I have a friend in Florida who is very insistent that I come down for a visit, and maybe come September when I get everything settled on a financial basis, I’ll begin planning that trip.  The point is that I don’t want to sit here wondering what the rest of the world is like.  I want to be a part of that world too.  I’m long overdue for a relaxing vacation.

Of course, I have limits as to where I would want to go.  Any country that’s currently at war is definitely out.  With the latest news about cruise ships tipping over and getting stranded, I’m a little hesitant to book the next cruise to the Caribbean unless I do a LOT of research prior to launching.  And, as much as I would find it exciting to take advantage of that man’s offer to send civilians into outer space, not even I would be able to afford something like that in this lifetime.

And, then there’s the setting of a now-cancelled daytime drama which is the subject of today’s blog.  On the surface, the setting of this soap is calm, peaceful, serene, and beautiful.  I can’t imagine too many people turning their backs on a quiet, little beachfront town.  Of course, if the beachfront town had tidal waves, shipwrecks, earthquakes, ghosts, and supernatural curses, one might reconsider booking a hotel suite there.  I know I certainly would.


And, yet, that’s what one could find in the fictional community of “Sunset Beach”, which coincidentally happens to be the name of the soap opera we’ll be discussing today!

Now, before I continue on with this look back on this short-lived soap opera, I have to make a confession.  I’ve never watched one episode of this program, and am going into this with a very blank slate.  So, this blog entry won’t be as informative as others that I’ve done.  However, I will definitely give credit to Michael G. for giving this blogger the idea!  I just hope that I do you proud!


“Sunset Beach” was created for NBC’s daytime drama schedule in hopes of attracting a younger crowd.  And who better to create a show to attract youth than “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place” producer, Aaron Spelling?

For Spelling, this was no easy task.  He was a master at producing prime-time dramas such as “Dynasty” and “Charlie’s Angels”, but daytime was a whole new world for him.  After all, daytime dramas had their loyal fans, and many would not just blow off twenty plus years of viewing their favourite soaps to check out a brand new series.  Hence the reasoning that by creating a soap opera for youth, they would be more open and flexible to watch a fresh new show, rather than one that had been on the air for decades.




Certainly when “Sunset Beach” debuted on January 6, 1997, it became apparent that the show was targeting teenagers and twentysomethings from the very beginning.  After all, one of the first (and longest-running) storylines of the series began with an online relationship between Kansas farm girl Meg Cummings (Susan Ward) and the mysterious man with the handle “SB”.  Meg began chatting with “SB” after discovering her fiancé, Tim Truman (Dax Griffin) had cheated on her the morning before they were to get married.  The more that Meg chatted with “SB”, the more she felt the need to meet him.  Impulsively, she fled Kansas and arrived in the coastal town of Sunset Beach, California, knowing that Sunset Beach was the place in which “SB” lived. 


At first, it seemed to be a standard soap opera cliché when it was revealed that “SB” was really the incredibly wealthy and handsome Ben Evans (Clive Robertson).  And during the first year of the show, Ben and Meg’s relationship seemed to fall victim to several other exhausted soap clichés, which included the following...


-         A crazed woman, Annie Douglas (Sarah Buxton) who will stop at nothing to steal Ben away from Meg.

-         Meg’s ex-fiance, Tim coming to town to win back Meg from Ben.

-         Ben having an evil twin brother, Derek (Clive Robertson), who did everything to destroy Ben’s life.

-         Ben’s presumed dead wife, Maria (Christina Chambers) really being alive, and suffering from the classic soap malady, amnesia.

You’d think that these ingredients (which have been used in almost every single soap opera that has aired since the 1940s) would create a recipe for boredom.  Of course, you’d think wrong.

You see, “Sunset Beach” was different from a lot of the other soap operas that were on the air at the time.  Unlike most shows which relied on rich storytelling, cleverly plotted cliffhangers, and trying to make the storylines as believable as possible, “Sunset Beach” didn’t take itself as seriously.  As a result, some of the storylines that surfaced were...well...whacked out.

I won’t go into too much detail here, but here’s just a sampling of some of the weirder than normal plots that “Sunset Beach” was known for.

“Terror Island” – several people on a boat cruise ended up stranded on a deserted island where one by one, they were slaughtered by a masked serial killer.  It turned out that the killer was Ben’s twin brother, and the storyline introduced him to the community of Sunset Beach, where he wreaked havoc on Ben and Meg.


“Shockwave” – “Sunset Beach” often did natural disaster storylines very well, and during this storyline which aired during the summer of 1998, it was very well-received by viewers.  It was bad enough that an earthquake shook, rattled, and rolled the community of Sunset Beach, but the force of the earthquake caused a tidal wave which tipped a cruise liner upside down (which sounds strangely like the plot of the 1972 film, “The Poseidon Adventure”).  I’ll admit though that watching clips of that storyline (such as the one below), the show did a fairly decent job with the special effects.  Or, maybe I’m just easily entertained.  




Then there was the storyline in which precious jewels were stolen from a religious icon and those who had touched the gems were destined to die.  Luckily, the storyline resolved itself around the holiday season, and everyone who had laid a hand on the jewels was spared.


Oh yeah...one of the main villainesses tried to impregnate somebody else using stolen sperm and a turkey baster.  Don’t even begin to ask me how that would even be possible because I’m not entirely sure.

At any rate, despite the producers and writers best efforts to keep "Sunset Beach" fresh with unusual plots and tangled relationships, it was not enough to save the show from cancellation, and the series aired its final episode on December 31, 1999 in an ending that can be best summarized as a cross between "Newhart" and the infamous dream season of "Dallas".  But you have to give them credit for pulling off stories that many other soap operas wouldn't have tackled, and they managed to keep viewers entertained for three years.  And, until "Passions" came around in 1999, "Sunset Beach" was unique in that regard.  

TRIVIA:  Although Sunset Beach wasn't that popular in the United States (it always ranked last in the ratings in the three years the show was on the air), it was wildly popular in the United Kingdom.  When word of the show's cancellation got out, many in the UK attempted to raise money to send to NBC to keep the show on the air!

Oh, and one more final bit of trivia before I close the chapter on "Sunset Beach".  Because Aaron Spelling produced the program, it wasn't uncommon to see alumni of his former creations taking on roles in the series.  Look out for "Beverly Hills 90210"'s Carol Potter, "Dynasty"'s Gordon Thomson, "The Love Boat"'s Bernie Kopell, and Aaron Spelling's own son Randy playing parts in the series.  And, a couple of stars went on to bigger and better things after the conclusion of "Sunset Beach", including Eddie Cibrian (who played Cole Deschanel), and Laura Harring (who played Paula Stevens).

So, that's a wrap on our look back on "Sunset Beach".  A nice place to see, but not exactly one I'd want to live in or vacation in any time soon!