TV NOSTALGIA #3: DOCTOR WHO

“If they call us mutations ... what must they be like?”
‘The Daleks’, Doctor Who, Episode 2, Season 1 (1963)

At last it is here: the pop culture equivalent to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Imagine, if you will, two of the most enduring pop culture icons of our era joining together for the first time to celebrate that gloriously tacky institution, the Christmas Special. Come December, this miracle will be born in a manger near you.

Yes folks, hold on to your feathers, tassels and sequins, because Doctor Who and Kylie Minogue will be rocking the Tardis this yuletide. I am so excited I’m wriggling like a five-year-old on a road-trip, two hours away from the next toilet stop.

Kylie Minogue is the unchallenged queen of pop schmultz, and I say that with affection that overfloweth, being one of the devastated many who missed out on Ms Minogue’s Sydney concert when she was forced to cancel and face bigger personal challenges last year. And then there’s Doctor Who, the most enduring science-fiction television show on the planet, and the origin of probably one of the most over-used nerd lines in history, “we will exterminate,” (I confess to being guilty of committing this verbal crime).

The two of them together is almost too much pop culture saccharine to bear. Almost. Throw in the fact that this is for none other than a Christmas Special (in any program, almost guaranteed to be the worst – and therefore most fun – episode of the season), and we’ll all be very happy little pop-culture campers indeed.

The story goes that the latest Doctor (David Tennant) is dealing with a bit of a problem: the Titanic has crashed through the Tardis walls. It seems to me that this suggests some fairly crappy sailing even for the doomed Titanic crew, given how small that Tardis is on the outside – they’d only have to swerve a metre or two to miss it. Anyway, lucky for the Doctor, Kylie is on board as Astrid, a purty little waitress, alongside British comedians and actors Geoffrey Palmer, Clive Swift and Gray O’Brien.

But Kylie, sadly, is not a permanent fixture of Doctor Who. So if it’s not the pop princess, what is it about this little sci-fi program that has kept us watching (and humming “oo-OO-ooo” in our heads) for the past 40-plus years? Who is this man, and what is his appeal?

To refresh your memory, the Doctor is an alien Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He’s a fugitive from his home planet, traversing the universe in a stolen time machine that, due to a malfunction, is stuck in the form of a blue British police box. Being Gallifreyan (or whatever the term may be), the Doctor is able to return from death by ‘regenerating’ himself into a new body, complete with a new personality.

Since materialising on our screens in 1963, the Doctor has taken 10 different forms and enjoyed the company of more than 20 companions, most of them female (cheeky lad). In that time, he has also faced every imaginable (and unimaginable) enemy, from ancient philosophers to evil robots, blobs of slime, and cave men. I guess the combination of time travel, space travel, adventure, wisdom, babes and immortality is a pretty attractive mix.

I came late to the Doctor Who viewer club. My brother, on the other hand, practically emerged from the womb wearing a stripy multi-coloured scarf around his neck. But when I was 11 and my brother was six, I gave him two goldfish for his birthday, with the cutest names I could think of: Bib and Bub. My brother said ‘thanks sis,’ and promptly renamed the fish Buck Rogers and Doctor Who. (Incidentally, this was around the era that my brother also had a Castle Grayskull of his very own for He-Man and She-Ra to gallivant in, as well as a Man-At-Arms figurine, and evil Skeletor’s Snake Mountain, complete with a microphone that would distort your voice into a cross between Darth Vader and the Wicked Witch of the West when you spoke into it. And if you haven’t heard of Masters of the Universe and therefore don’t know what I’m talking about, crawl out from your cave and check them out. They rock!)

But I digress …

Because of the fish, I was inspired to watch Doctor Who. I wanted to see what had impacted my little brother so much that he would name a cute orange fish after an old man who didn’t even have a magic sword or wear speedos. At that time they were playing very early re-runs of Doctor Who, so the first episode I saw was ‘The Daleks’ from the first series. It frightened the hell out of me.

The Daleks, as I’m sure you are well aware, are these freakily-smart, evil, blobby brain-monsters that get around in R2-D2 style robotic machines. To write this story, I read a synopsis on that early episode, and apparently there was also a beautiful, peace-loving race of ‘Thals’ living on the Dalek’s planet. I have no memory of them. What I remember is the relentless evil robot-things rolling around with telescopic shooting arms and throat-cancer voices. Man they were scary. And man were those ‘special effects’ bad, bad, bad. It was like watching a high-school play.

But somehow, the bad effects and cheap sets didn’t matter. I was hooked, and I guess I wasn’t alone. According to the ABC, the Daleks virtually doubled the Doctor Who audience overnight. The scary little robot-aliens immediately spawned the BBC’s first merchandising boom, and today, have their own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. And here’s a fact you probably didn’t know: the Daleks were actually inspired by ballet, after writer Terry Nation saw a performance by the Georgian State dancers, and was captivated by the gliding motion of the long-skirted ballerinas.

That was back in the 60s, but the Doctor’s popularity has rarely let up since. In Britain last week, the final episode of Season Three (of the new Doctor Who series), ‘Last of the Time Lords’, was watched by 8.61 million British viewers, the 7th-most watched program on UK TV, in a week that included the Concert for Diana.

As for me, I just feel lucky, lucky lucky that Kylie and the Doctor will keep my schmultz-o-meter oiled and my jingle-bells a-ringing this Christmas.

TV NOSTALGIA #2: THE FAMOUS FIVE

“They may still be hidden somewhere under Kirrin Castle. George! George! Isn't it terribly, awfully exciting?”

My two cousins and I crouched in our tree-house, The Crow’s Nest, and plotted in whispers. Nadine, who was six, had been posted on lookout duty at the one window (which, incidentally, doubled as the door). Alex and I, both eight, went over the facts once again to be sure we had things straight.

There had been a burglary in our neighbourhood a few weeks back. The burglar had gotten away, but witnesses said the car was white or cream in colour, and the number-plate had been HLH, Something Something 5. This much, my father had told us, and we’d been on the case ever since. Throughout the summer holidays, we had posted a guard at the end of our cul-de-sac to watch the busy road for such a car. We were each armed with red berries to throw at the vehicle if we happened to see it, to slow the fleeing burglar down enough to give one of us the time to call the police.

And that morning, we’d found the burglar’s ride. Case closed. By us.

It had started like every other day. We woke at precisely 6am, got dressed, and rode our bikes to the end of the cul-de-sac in the dawn. There, we each performed exactly 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 100 jogs on the spot. On some days, Nadine would cry and say she didn’t want to, so we’d let her drop back on the numbers, slightly.

After that it was a quick breakfast, then back to the end of the cul-de-sac to look out for the on-the-run burglar in the cream car. And on this morning, there it was. Not driving past, not in any need of red berries, but parked in the driveway of the house directly across the street. We checked, we double-checked. Everything fit. This MUST be the car.

But what to do? The first thing was to prevent the burglar from getting away while we called the police. So, ingenious children that we were, we found some clay. There was a lot of clay in our area, it was that kind of soil, and we knew where to look. We dug up fistfuls of clay, quickly crossed the busy road, and crept on all fours to the burglar’s car. Silently, stealthily, we packed the criminal’s exhaust pipe with sticky clay. Really packed it in. Then in a flash we were back across the road, onto our bikes, and hidden in the tree-house, just in case we’d been seen and were being followed.

We were exultant. But we also had to figure out what to do next. In the end, we decided the best course of action would be to tell my parents, and have them call the police. Down went the rope ladder, down went three children, and we burst into the house with our news.

“Oops,” said Dad. “I just made that up to keep you quiet over the holidays. There never was a burglary.”

Now I could blame my father for the humiliating apologies that inevitably ensued, but I don’t. He was just a pawn in a bigger game. I blame The Famous Five. The Famous freaking Five. They were responsible for this mishap. In fact, they were responsible for many similar mishaps that peppered my childhood.

Those of us who grew up in Australia and the UK probably couldn’t have missed The Famous Five, even if we wanted to. And that jingle, “Julian, Dick and Anne … George and Timmy the do-o-og,” sticks in your head WAY longer than you want it to (as you are about to discover). The Five were all over our televisions in the 70s and 80s, and for those of us who were readers, they inundated our libraries and private bookshelves as well.

Now for my US readers, and any Aussie and UK friends who must have grown up under a rock, here’s a quick overview of The Famous Five. They were three siblings (Julian, Dick and Anne), their cousin George (who was actually Georgina, but wanted everyone to think she was a boy), and George’s dog Timmy. They solved mysteries.

Not only were these kids and their dog fabulous detectives who managed to foil all kinds of criminals, they also had the added benefit of ruined castles, secret passageways, caves, islands, cryptic messages and a famous inventor to make their adventures that much more exciting.

In the height of The Five’s fame, my cousins and I were too young to question a TV series that involved someone called Dick, someone called Aunt Fanny and a cross-dresser. That came later, when another series by the same author was banned during Australia’s homophobic heyday because the two male characters had regular sleepovers.

In fact, The Famous Five, their author Enid Blyton, and the many other stories she generated, have become somewhat of pop icons, not only because of the influence they had over several generations of children, but also precisely because of the racial and sexual controversy that attached itself to Blyton.

There were rumours that Blyton’s domestic life was less than the ideal she projected, and that she was annoyed by the sounds of her own children. There were the charges that certain characters were homosexual – in a time when homosexuality was rarely understood or tolerated. Then there were characters called ‘golliwogs’ who caused mischief for good friends Noddy and Big Ears. In the book Here comes Noddy Again, Golliwogs enticed Noddy into the woods under the premise of asking for help, then stole his car and clothes.

But Blyton famously said that criticism from people over the age of 12 didn’t matter. And despite (or perhaps because of) the criticism, Blyton remains popular enough for property company Trocadero to pay many millions of dollars for the intellectual property rights to the Blyton estate.

For me, my cousins and my friends, gloriously oblivious, Enid Blyton and The Famous Five inspired years of deliberately putting ourselves in the path of mischief, just in case it would lead to adventures in ruined castles. We placed sticky-tape traps in hallways, dusted furniture with talcum powder to detect fingerprints, scoured the local papers for crime (in my quiet suburb, any crime would have done), and learned to say “gosh” and “bother” when impressed and distressed.

And according to the BBC UK, “Despite best efforts of many well-meaning teachers, plenty of today’s children would rather read Enid Blyton than a worthy tale of parents divorcing on a council estate.” Of course, The Famous Five remains the best known, and best loved, of these adventure stories.

And if that’s not enough for The Famous Five to be entered in to the hall of pop culture fame, consider this: back in the 70s and 80s, punk rock band Windows from Finland made three different cover versions of the annoying Famous Five jingle. So there.


Next TV nostalgia post: Dr Who

TV NOSTALGIA #1: WONDER WOMAN

“In her satin tights / fighting for your rights / Wonder Woman!” Ms Woman, your title-track is gold. GOLD. They don’t write jingles like yours any more. And it’s gold because it’s also cheese. I love cheese, especially when melted all over my pseudo-feminist pop-culture nostalgia.

But Wonder Woman, what happened to the rest of your show?

Recently, a friend and I hired out Series 1 of Wonder Woman to relive our childhoods. It was a rainy Friday night. We had pizza (childhood), red wine (adulthood), blankies to keep warm (childhood), and apparently no social life calling us off the couch (sadly, adulthood). We clicked Play.

The jingle started, we cheered. The lovely Lynda Carter smiled seductively, we cheered again. Only one problem … I don’t remember my childhood being about fighting the Nazis.

Was Wonder Woman the show really about World War II? Not being a comic-book reader, I had no idea. Neither did I realise she was the Greek goddess Artemis (known as Diana to the Romans) of the Amazon tribes. Blimey! I just thought she was a chick with a great outfit, a lasso that stopped lies, some cool jewellery and an invisible aeroplane. How could I have missed all the serious stuff?

I mean, I know kids today miss some of the adult-intended jokes in movies like Shrek, and that’s kind of the point: it keeps all of us happy and Mike Myers in business, right? But seriously, I must have been a moron of a kid to not get Wonder Woman.

On that rainy Friday night, my friend and I didn’t even make it through the pilot episode of Wonder Woman before we turned it off, bored, and reverted to reruns of Angel.

The next day, I started my research, and to save you the same tragic disillusionment, here’s the drill:

Wonder Woman the character was the brain-child of a dude called William Marston who worked for DC Comics, his wife Sadie Marston, and apparently their threesome gal-pal Olive Byrne (ooh-er!). They developed her in 1940 as a female role model: an unconventional, liberated woman, the female counterpart to the heroes of the day, Superman, Batman and the Green Lantern.

So by the time Wonder Woman made it (successfully) to the small screen in 1975, faithful to the original comics, Diana, played by Carter, was not only an Amazon princess but also a “Yeoman First Class” for the allied war efforts, circa 1942. The pilot episode (the one we couldn’t finish) featured war hero Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner) crashing in the Bermuda Triangle on Paradise Island, home of the Amazons. Diana returned to the US with Steve and hung around to help fight the Nazis, uncovered sabotage, and managed to stop numerous catastrophes.

But a year later, Diana entered the 1970s (not having aged a bit, of course). Now an Inter-Agency Defense Command (IADC) agent, she was able to fight crime with mime, disco and physics. Yeah baby! It’s all starting to come back …

Diana went home to Paradise Island after WWII, but – and what are the odds? – 30 years later, Steve Trevor’s son Steve Trevor Jnr (also played by Lyle Waggoner) miraculously crashed in the Bermuda Triangle and onto Paradise Island, of all places. So, faithful to the Trevor family, back the eternally-young and statuesque princess went to the US of A. And disco.

“Fans of the fantastic female need not dismay,” sci-fi magazine Starlog reassured us in 1977, “CBS has taken great pains to give Wonder Woman a facelift that neatly fits into character … WW producer Charles Fitzsimons, when queried about the revamped storyline, beams: ‘We want the show to come into the era of science fiction, to encounter all of the things that are popular with people today … We want a faster pace.’”

Now we’re finally at the Wonder Woman I remember. Lots of guys driving around in fast cars wearing turtle-neck sweaters, and the really beautiful, really clever Diana leaping across buildings while being really moral. Oh and she was also really tall. Apparently, Carter once said, “I’m 5’9 but most people think I’m about 6 feet. It’s because I have very long legs.” So there.

During the next two years, Wonder Woman had many adventures. She took on a mad scientist, fought alien outlaws, rescued a teen heartthrob, found top-secret microfilm hidden inside a Rolls Royce, stopped football players from throwing important games (very important), and even rescued government engineers from a disco, where their minds were being robbed of national secrets. (This has happened to me too).

Ah. I feel better now, not so jaded in my childhood memories. Cheese is still well and truly alive and flavouring my pop culture. Carter says it best, of course: “There’s a strong romantic element in the show along with the fantasy-type characters; a war hero and an Amazon Princess,” she told Starlog in ’77. “Doesn’t every girl still want to be a princess and every boy a hero?”

Hell yeah!

EBAY LIVES!!!

Nothing has propelled the collectible market more than eBay. Originally focusing on Pez memorabilia, eBay has become the online auction house and has introduced an entire subculture of online auctions.






This week I attended the sixth annual eBay Live! convention in Boston and found it to be an interesting experience. In some ways, it is very reminiscent of a comic book or sci-fi convention. There are panels, signings, guest speakers and exhibitors. The main difference is that many of the attendees aren't casual shoppers, but rather sellers, whose main priority in such a show is both networking and putting a face to their business partner, eBay.


Among some of the exhibitors were The United States Post Office, UPS, PayPal, Yahoo, Avanquest Software, VistaPrint, and Wiley Publishing.

I have to say that my biggest surprise was the passion that people had toward eBay as a brand label as I watched customers shop in a packed eBay brand store. eBay has defined itself and is now synonymous with online auctions. It became pleasantly apparent while attending the show that eBay recognizes that it's community is truly it's greatest asset.

WHAT'S A DUCK? - CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF STAR WARS

I loved Star Wars so much when I first saw it in the theaters. I had to convince my Dad to bring me, and he only caved in and brought me and my two brothers because , Time Magazine called it the greatest movie of all time. I collected the Topps cards, read the less than stellar Marvel Comics adaptation, and listened to the soundtrack (on what we called a phonograph.)

When I read the novelization by "George Lucas" (which I figured out was written by Alan Dean Foster in a bit of literary deduction) I was thrown by Obi Wan telling Luke that "even a duck must be taught to swim." and Luke's response: "What's a duck?" The exchange, a simple example of character building through dialog, seemed to violate the sense of continuity. It made sense that Luke wouldn't know what a duck was, he lived on a desert planet, ducks wouldn't last two minutes there. It pissed me off that Obi Wan did know what a duck was. This was "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." why are ducks known out there, back then?

I enjoyed The Empire Strikes Back and about half of The Return of the Jedi, but the bloom was off the rose. I started to realize just how half-cocked Star Wars was. It wasn't new, just new to me. In building his universe Lucas borrowed from vastly superior sources: samurai films, movie serials, Marvel Comics, etc. Everything became grist for his mill. "What's a duck?" became symbolic to me for everything I perceived to be wrong with Star Wars. I realized that the premise just wasn't thought out that well. The three newest movies made matters worse. When we see ducks on Naboo, I thought, "Lucas is just covering his ass. There were no ducks on Naboo before."

STAR WARS--HUH!--WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? - CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF STAR WARS

Star Wars--it’s incredible now to think of how meaningless those two words were when I first heard them.

In 1977 I was fifteen years old, and not much of a science fiction fan. Most sci-fi movies and TV shows were just too boring--it was all either sterile psychodramas like Space: 1999, 2001, and Silent Running, or back-lot space operas like Star Trek and Lost in Space. I was a huge reader of science-fiction novels, because they were full of action, but onscreen sci-fi was nothing but talk. I preferred monster movies, disaster epics, James Bond. Jaws was a major event, but that had been way back in ‘75, and nothing had yet taken its place as my favorite movie.

The first time I saw the words Star Wars was when my best friend showed me the paperback novelization. He had just seen the movie on opening night, and was trying to get me to understand that it would change my life.

“You have to see it,” he said. “Just look.”

I flipped through the section of color stills from the film. There was a picture of a gold robot standing next to what appeared to be a dome-topped garbage can. “That’s Artoo-Detoo,” my friend explained unhelpfully. Another picture showed a sleek spaceship being chased by what appeared to be a cement-mixer with spindly wagon wheels. “That’s a TIE fighter.” Then there were two people in medieval clothing swinging across a metal chasm, as in an old-time action serial. I didn’t get it.

“It’s gonna be your favorite movie,” he said firmly.

“Okay…”

“You’ll see. We’ll go tomorrow. Just wait and see.”

The next day, my friend’s mom drove us to Mann’s Chinese Theater. There was a line, but nothing extraordinary. Few people had seen the movie yet, so there were no sense of collective anticipation--just a bunch of folks going to a matinee. Only my friend knew what we were in for.

There were no previews. As the lights went down, the only preamble was the 20th Century Fox logo and the nonsensical phrase, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

Suddenly we were hit by that blare of trumpets and that immense star field, with the words STAR WARS receding into space. That was pretty damn cool, but the three paragraphs of text that followed were impossible to digest. It didn’t matter; it looked good. Then the music let up, and the camera panned down past two little moons to an awesome orange planet--the most realistic planet effect I had ever seen, with a thin band of blue atmosphere over a hot-looking desert. It was great, I was already wowed, but then the unthinkable happened:

A small, multi-engine spaceship burst into view, spewing red laser-bolts, and before I could even process this a second ship swooped in, trading laser fire with the first.

That second ship was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.

It loomed overhead like an inverted planet, engulfing the entire top half of the wide-screen 70mm frame and yet still coming, longer and longer, until the front end of it was unimaginably far in the distance. There was a collective gasp from the audience, then cheering and applause. For me, the awesome scale and realism of that scene permanently blew my mind, changing forever my perception of what a movie could be.

And the incredible thing was, the best was yet to come:

Scary white-armored Stormtroopers and freaky black-helmeted Darth Vader; the densely-realized world of Tattooine; all the wonderful characters, human and otherwise; the light-saber duel and the astounding final battle over the Death Star. Every frame of film was packed with things I’d never seen before…and would have to see again. And again and again.

By the end of that summer, my friend and I had seen the movie at least thirty times and memorized every line of dialogue, including the various alien and robotic languages (“Oota-toota, Solo?”). There wasn’t much in the way of merchandising at the time, but we bought everything we could find, and attended what was probably the first-ever Star Wars convention at the Los Angeles Marriott. It all seemed like innocent, harmless fun…until we got arrested.

Oh yes, there was a dark side.

We got greedy. It was the action figures that did it. We were spending so much money going to the movie that we had nothing left for toys--it wasn’t fair! So one day at the Westminster Mall, we just started stealing them. Ripping them out of their packages and pocketing them. When our pockets were full, we stuffed them down our pants and in our socks. There were two employees chatting nearby, oblivious, and we played it cool as we walked out of the store and onto the escalator. A second later, two men came running up the escalator behind us. Damn, I thought. But they weren’t looking our way, and for a second I had the sweet, silly hope that they would run right on by.

Of course they didn’t.

As the men brushed past us, we simultaneously felt their claw-like grips on our upper arms, and one of them said, “Did you boys take something you shouldn’t have?”

“Yes,” we said sheepishly, and allowed ourselves to be handcuffed and led through the crowded mall to an office in the basement, where we were shackled to metal chairs. Other than giving our names and addresses, we didn’t speak, and no one spoke to us. Nor did they call our parents. They relieved us of our stolen goods and sealed them in a plastic bag as evidence. One of the security men said to the other, “Little shits should get a beating just for tearing open the packages.”

After a while, an officer from the county sheriff’s department showed up and took custody of us, loading us into the back of his cruiser and driving us down to the sheriff’s office. Looking at us through his rearview mirror, he said, “You know, anything over fifty dollars is a felony.”

Though outwardly calm, I was terrified, numb with shock, but still able to appreciate the novelty of riding in a police car. The squawking radio, the shotgun--it was all very interesting, very real. And uncomfortable as I was sitting on my cuffed wrists, the pain only added to the vivid intensity of the experience, the sense that anything could happen. I was a criminal!

We were taken and booked in, left to stand as a deputy filled out the paperwork. There was a pair of cute girls there as well, teenage runaways in tight corduroys and Farrah Fawcett waves.

“Hey,” they said.

“Hey,” we said.

The girls were obviously interested in us, another first, so we tried to look tough, a couple of real bad boys, but the deputy said, “Know what these guys are in for? Stealing a bunch of dolls!”

Finally my friend and I were given a phone and told to call our parents. We were both sons of single mothers, and my friend’s mom was the only one with a car. Unfortunately she wasn’t home, so I called my mother.

“Hi, Mom?”

“Oh, Walter, is something wrong?”

“Uh, well, it looks like me and Greg did something really dumb. We kind of got arrested for shoplifting.”

“Oh no!”

“Yeah. We’re at the Westminster Sheriff’s Department. Can you get someone to pick us up?”

“Oh my God…I guess I could ask Johnny to drive me.” Johnny was the elderly brother of my mom’s friend Rita.

“Sorry, Mom. It was for some stupid Star Wars toys.”

“Don’t worry about that--I just thank God you’re all right. I’ll come as fast as I can.”

“Thanks, Mom. Sorry.”

We were taken to the drunk tank to wait. We had the place to ourselves. Since there was nowhere to sit except the toilet or the dirty floor, we paced around or leaned against the graffiti-scrawled yellow walls--our very own Death Star. Where was Luke Skywalker when we needed him?

I said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if--”

“Just shut up,” Greg said.

GEORGE LUCAS STOLE MY BIRTHDAY CAKE AND ATE IT, TOO - CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF STAR WARS

My mother emailed this morning:

I just thought you might be interested in the fact that 30 years ago today Star Wars hit the movie theaters. Oh, by the way, happy birthday!

Love, Mom

Sounds harsh, but don't cry for me just yet, Argentina. There are worse fates than to share your birthday with the release of Star Wars. Raise your hand if your DOB happens to fall on April 20. December 18? July 6? Sorry, folks, my birthday is better than yours.

I can't claim (as so many do-- it's like the Gen-X Woodstock) to have seen Star Wars on its opening weekend. It had probably been out for months before I finally caught it in second run at the Cinerama. As Mr. Jackson pointed out in an earlier post, opening weekend wasn't as big a deal in 1977 as it is now. More importantly, Mom had seen Star Wars early on and decided that "the hairy monster guy that flies the spaceship" would probably scare the beejezus out of her first-grader. She was wrong, of course, but it took a lot of nagging on my part to bring her around.

It's hard to imagine in media saturated 2007 just how hard and how fast Star Wars permeated the zeitgeist. Even without the help of the Internet and with only seven or eight channels of snowy, black-and-white tv, I knew everything about Star Wars long before I saw it on the big screen. Biggs Darklighter, check. Jabba the Hutt, check. Star Wars was everywhere-- in print, on the radio, on the playground-- and every little detail got woven into a larger tapestry of experience. No matter how many sequels, spin-offs, revisions and media tie-ins have followed, the undiluted fun of 1977 is what I still love best about Star Wars.

I can't deny the influence that the film has had on me, from forming the core of my comic book fetish to fueling my love of Japanese culture. My experience isn't particularly unique in these regards. I attended Mr. Blitz's screening of the bootleg VHS copy of Star Wars lo those many years ago. It's safe to say that he and I are in agreement on most points when it come to the Long Ago, Far Away Galaxy.

The bottom line is that it's not so bad to share a birthday with Star Wars. It's practically a holiday and guaranteed to be 100% fun.

Also, Han shot first.

BANTHA FODDER - CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF STAR WARS

It was thirty years ago today...

Or more appropriately, a long time ago, that I saw the original Star Wars with my father on opening weekend at a local movie theater.

Prior to that screening, my obsessions were super-heroes (specifically Batman), Muppets and The Six Million Dollar Man.

There was no such thing as Star Wars.

And then there was.

And everything was different.

A long time ago, I remember arguing in the schoolyard who would be Luke and who would be Han at the start of recess.

A long time ago, I remember going to the opening of the first Toys R Us in the area, being able to choose one thing (passing up the now ridiculously rare Mego Teen Titans figures) and choosing a copy of the Star Wars Treasury Edition published by Marvel Comics.

A long time ago, specifically second grade, I made my own comic adaptation of Star Wars (which was basically a poor adaptation of Marvel's) and it was mimeographed and distributed in the class.

A long time ago, I remember getting a bootleg copy of Star Wars on VHS and having a half dozen friends over after school to watch it.

A long time ago, the Star Wars universe was finite. I knew a solid 85% of all there was to know about George's plans for the three trilogies (Yes, George, you did say there was going to be nine films). I knew the names of the pilots that flew Rebel ships against the Death Star (R.I.P. Jek Porkins), about the Khyber Crystal and The Journal of the Whills and how Solo freed an enslaved Chewbacca, granting him a life debt.

A long time ago, I remember walking into a movie theater and seeing the tail end of the trailer for The Empire Strikes Back, specifically Luke flying through the glass during his battle with Vader in Bespin.

A long time ago, I was playing at my friend Vincent Ho's house when my mother came to pick me up. forty five minutes later I was sitting at the Showcase Cinema in Seekonk, Massachusetts on the opening day of Empire watching AT-AT's destroy the Rebel Base on Hoth. When we left the movies, Darth Vader stood in the parking lot waving goodbye.

A long time ago, I spent a solid hour debating with my late older brother David who Yoda was talking about when he said that, "there was another."

A long time ago, I debated how a Jedi wouldn't show revenge, so the title Revenge of the Jedi made no sense.

A long time ago, I remember reading the comic adaptation of Return of the Jedi before it came out. And I saw it opening day and twice again that weekend.

A long time ago, I bought the first Timothy Zahn Star Wars novel and put it aside forever when they revealed Lando's fondness for an exotic drink called "hot chocolate."

A long time ago, I waited in line for two hours before seeing Star Wars The Special Edition. When it was over, I was disappointed at how bored I was and how it seemed to be missing all of the scenes that my memory had amalgamated from different sources (comics, radio adaptations, magazines, etc.) as being part of the film.

A long time ago, I got tickets hours before the midnight showing of The Phantom Menace. I was less excited to have to see it a second time the next day with the tickets that I secured weeks before (I actually brought a book).

A long time ago, I was excited to hear that Star Wars would be coming to dvd. I was happier to own it than I was to watch it.

A long time ago, I was even more excited that the original non-special edition trilogy was being released. This too is a purchase that I'm happier to own than watch.

Star Wars changed my generation in a number of ways. When I was younger a single shot of several bounty hunters fueled my imagination (Zuckuss? Dengar? IG-88? Bossk? Anyone?). With the new trilogy, every character seemed like an action figure. Yet, despite my cynicism (Thanks, George), my disappointment with the newer films (Thanks again, George) and with my overall lack of interest in Star Wars these days; I can't dispute the fact that Star War fueled my imagination for many years, created a common pop culture thread for my generation and overall, touched my life for the better.

Now, when a new film or animated series or special edition comes out, I see it or buy it. Partly out of a weird obligation and partly in an attempt to recapture a bit of the magic and innocence of my childhood.

Now, on it's thirtieth anniversary there is only one caveat that holds true.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away a great adventure took place.

IN LOVE WITH STAR WARS - CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF STAR WARS

C-3PO: Don't call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease! Now come out before somebody sees you.
(Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope)

My best friend Cara just turned 30. She is beautiful, smart, funny and generous, but no man she dates seems to last more than a couple of months. And I blame Star Wars. In particular, I blame Han Solo.

Cara was barely one month old when Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope brought the Force to our suburban theatres. She was seven when her parents first allowed the Corellian smuggler into her lounge room. And Cara has been in love ever since.

Han Solo is the template for the men Cara chases today. She wants the maverick, the bad guy with enough wit and charisma to make you forgive his overwhelming arrogance. Want to know what maturity has brought to Cara’s crush on Mr Solo? Not much, to be honest. “He is ruggedly gorgeous, a rogue, and a very naughty boy!” she told me this morning, with a grin.

Han Solo overcame his mercenary traits just in time to turn around and help the Rebels defeat Darth Vader. But unfortunately here in Sydney, Australia, the real bad boys in Cara’s life rarely look back.

There are some elements of popular culture, pop icons, if you will, that have such an extraordinary influence on our psyche that without realising it, we allow them to become guiding forces in our life choices.

And for just about anyone born between 1970 and 1985, Star Wars is one of those pop icons. In fact, it would have been pretty hard for any of us to have avoided being touched with the Star Wars stick. In a TIME magazine article of 2002, writer Richard Corliss attributed Star Wars to pretty much every movie-marketing spin-off practice we’re so familiar with today.

For kick-starting tie-in marketing campaigns, such as those with McDonalds, he thanks Star Wars. And for introducing episodic movie cloning (“there was no Gone With the Wind II,”), Corliss says we can also look to George Lucas. Computer-generated special effects were a Star Wars phenomenon, as was the introduction of THX loudspeakers, bringing stereo sound to theatres. Star Wars created a market for collectibles (“every kid has to have Star Wars action figures, lightsabers, key chains, books,”), video arcade space themes, and warp-speed theme park rides. Even one-time President of the United States, Ronald Regan, used “Regan’s Star Wars” as the alias for his Strategic Defence Initiative.

Against such an onslaught, what chance did us vulnerable kids have? George Lucas was using the Force, indeed.

My friend Dave, a graphic designer, told me today that when he was a kid, Star Wars was The One. There were plenty of other movies, TV shows, books and games that could and did capture his attention, but Star Wars was the big kahuna, the mother of all his boyhood influences.

After a quick poll, I’ve discovered that Star Wars imprinted the following (admittedly rather questionable) lessons on the impressionable minds of my friends:

1. Sword-play is much more interesting if the blade is made of fluorescent light
2. Appearances can be misleading (think Yoda flying around his swamp doing Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-esque martial arts)
3. Villains are scarier if lung cancer has affected their voices
4. Boys like girls who wear their hair as headphones
5. We will probably be flying in space-ships by the time we grow up

In his article An American Mythology: Why Star Wars Still Matters on the Decent Films Guide, Steven D Greydanus writes:

“… Lucas’s universe has had an impact on generations of moviegoers utterly out of all proportion to its formidable qualities as spectacle or excitement. The Force, the Jedi knights, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, Princess Leia, Yoda, lightsabers, and the Death Star hold a place in the collective imagination of countless Americans that can only be described as mythic.”

And if Aussie Cara’s story is anything to go by, the reach of Star Wars in popular culture extends well beyond America’s borders.

My own heart was not as easily touched as Cara’s, and I remained a more distant admirer of Mr Han Solo. However, I confess to wanting my own Wookie as a pet, and to trying – and failing – to wind my hair into balls over my ears.

And for about half a decade, I plotted my days under the careful guidance of Yoda. Appearing through mysterious and gloomy goop under his green feet, Yoda had the answer to any question I could put to him. So much more profound than an eight-ball, Yoda would bring his ancient wisdom to life’s many questions. To “Will mum and dad buy me a pony soon?” Yoda would sagely reply, “Probable it is.” And to “Will I be pretty when I grow up?” Yoda would advise, “Inside you the answer is.”

Which possibly explains why I have a thing for older men, and Cara is still chasing bad boys. May the Force be with both of us.

DO YOU WANT TO JOIN THE FORCESOFGOOD?

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I'm still looking for some additional talented writers who love pop culture. Unlike the majority of the web, forcesofgood is not a venue to bash and encourage negativity.

we love pop culture.

If you currently have a blog or any writing samples, drop me a line at editor at forcesofgood dot com. Please put the topic "POP CULTURE WRITER" in the subject line.


Best,

Stefan Blitz
editor-in-chief