Daniel85

I was just tooling around YouTube, and came across the old Disney Pictures logo:

I could watch that on repeat all freakin’ day. Takes me right back to the early 90s, sitting in a darkened movie theatre seeing some masterpiece like Beauty & The Beast, The Lion King, or Aladdin. It used to send chills up my spine.

That logo animation was introduced in that most magical of movie years, 1985 (Back to the Future, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, Teen Wolf, etc, etc) and ran through the 90s before being replaced earlier this year with the new CGI logo that ran with Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I do  like the new animation, because it preserves the salient elements of the old one (Sleeping Beauty castle, the opening of ‘When You Wish Upon A Star’), but it’s just a bit too busy for a production company logo. I prefer ‘em simple.

I’m actually unsure if that old logo was still in use up until the debut of the new one, cos it’s been so long since I’ve seen a Disney movie in a theatre. I remember there were a few variations of it for Disney/Pixar movies.

Anyway, enjoy that little piece of history from a time when the phrase ‘movie magic’ still meant something.

I’m too busy ripping my hair out and pacing up and down the house about an overdue cinema studies essay to write a proper entry at the moment, so here’s another out-of-context comic panel!

From The Amazing Spider-Man #223 (December 1981; J.M DeMatteis and John Romita, Jr.)

Okay, so I have a dirty mind. Petey’s actually doing research on the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, a group of super-villainous monkeys who got powers from being exposed to cosmic rays like the Fantastic Four. So not making that up. Seriously, go read the Wikipedia entry. It will change your life.

I always knew trampolines were fun, but I never realised they were HILARIOUS! 

(Disclaimer from the trampoline my sister got for her birthday a few weeks ago)

Crommo: you have been warned.

From Amazing Spider-Man #222 (November 1981. Bill Mantlo & Bob Hall.) 

Mmmyeah. I think Spidey is probably the last person who should be making fun of other peoples’ combat dialogue.

Here’s an example from his bout with “Ramrod” in the previous month’s issue:

From Amazing Spider-Man #221 (October 1981. Denny O’Neil and Alan Kupperberg)

At least that one’s somewhat funny, though. There are some real stinkers throughout Spidey’s history.

What? No. I don’t have any more. Go away.

Onomatopoeia fans take note: “BLONG. The sound of a tin drum bouncing off a crane arm.” 

Some argue that war is a necessary, natural process for the advancement of society. Some are idiots. But anyway, just like World War II gave us the microwave oven and synthetic rubber, so too has the Cola War given us all kinds of crazy shit. Pepsi Blue, anyone?

While Pepsi pretty much gave up on flavour innovation (flavovation?) after the failure of their blue brew (and the less disastrous but equally disgusting Pepsi Lemon Twist) Coke continued the madness with rollouts like Vanilla Coke, Lemon Coke, and Lime Coke (and bringing Cherry Coke to Australia for the first time).

All of those are mere seasoning, though, compared to Coke Zero: the first truly new cola (not reliant on its friends lime or vanilla to fight its battles) from the Big Two since Pepsi Max.      

Isn’t that sexy?

I love glass Coke bottles. Thinking back to my childhood, I remember them only being available in really obscure places like lawn bowls clubhouses or Mobil service stations in dusty country towns on the road to Adelaide. I think maybe my infatuation with glass Coke bottle comes from the sheer pleasure and OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO LIVE-ness of slaking one’s thirst at a roadhouse after several hours on the highway in the blistering heat of the Australian Christmas.

It’d be kinda nice if the bottle were bigger. 250mL is pretty much a gulp to those of us raised on 600mL bottles. 

No real reason for this picture, I just like the silver bottle cap. There is something cool and oh-so-50s about having to open a soft drink bottle with a bottle opener, though. Makes me think of the Cold War. And Happy Days!

Empty, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away! I think I’m gonna put it on my bedside table and talk to it before I go to sleep. Would that be weird?

I’ve got another article up at Retro Junk, this one focusing on Marvel heroes becoming corporate mouthpieces for ‘the Man’. And I don’t mean Stan Lee.

Go read!

… “dry retch” (cf. gag, vomit, puke, chuck, munt, mouth-borry) rhymes with “pie fetch”, not “high reach”.

Thank you.

I was having Deep Thoughts about comics history while sitting at Geelong Station for almost two hours this afternoon (long story*), and I started thinking about the ‘metal epithets’ applied to various times in the long history of this business we call comics.

We’ve had the Golden Age, the Silver Age, and the Bronze Age– but what of the succeeding eras?

I think the 90s definitely has to be the ‘Adamantium Age’, for reasons I don’t have to explain to anyone who’s had even one eye on popular culture in the last two decades.

As for the current era; that’s easy. The ‘Aluminum Age’. Recycling, get it?

Bah! It’s funny if you’re a comics fan. (Please don’t ask any comics fans, though, in case they tell you it isn’t.)

*I got there at probably the worst time of the day for travelling to Melbourne, right after the 12-oh-something had just left. The lady at the ticket counter told me the next train wouldn’t be until 1:53, and sold me my Off-Peak ticket. ($3.70, how’s that for cents-per-kilometre?!) Anyway, I settled in at a table to get a head start on a Lit assignment (although I don’t know if you can really call it a ‘head start’ when the essay questions were released 3 weeks ago…), and before I knew it the Station Master’s proper voice crackled over the comm. “The next train to Southern Cross Station will depart Platform 3 at 1:53. Passengers are advised that this is a Peak service…” Hold on! What le fuck? Peak?!

I went back to the ticket counter to ask if I’d heard correctly. I had. I then asked when the next Off-Peak service was… 2:33. Already feeling like a bit of an idiot for inquiring about something clearly announced over the comm mere seconds beforehand, I just went back to my table and waited for the Off-Peak service.

So many questions. Why did the stupid ticket lady make a point of informing me about the time of the next train, and then sell me a ticket I couldn’t use on it? Why didn’t I just pay the $1.50 extra for a Peak ticket? Why doesn’t Channel 7 do a prime-time, grown-up version of A*Mazing, with James Sherry as the host?

Took my little sister to see Monster House yesterday. Pretty good for a 2000s-era kids’ movie, and it was nice to see a computer animated film that doesn’t involve talking penguins or giraffes for once. 

I also caught the trailer for Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, which means that the Christmas season has officially begun. (Checks watch.) And a little earlier than usual.

Oh, and I’m never going to Village again. They have like 45 minutes of ads and trailers before the feature now.

Anyway, I got to thinking about scary moments in children’s movies. And that led to thinking about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; specifically the boat ride on the Wonkatania.

I first saw Willy Wonka in Grade 1, and was thoroughly disturbed by that scene. Gene Wilder’s performance is awesome, and his little spoken word jam on the boat is probably the high point of it.

So… what moments in the kids’ movies of yesteryear scared the Skittles out of all-o’-y’all?

(Jules, you can’t use Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters II…)

So the Australian launch date and price for the Nintendo Wii have been announced. It’s coming out on December 7, and will set you back $399.95. (That’s compared to the PS3 which is tentatively scheduled for March 2007, and will cost a ridiculous $829 for just the basic package… $1000 for the premium set-up). It doesn’t take a genius to see that Nintendo is in a very good position to gain some serious ground on Sony in this new generation of the console wars. 

I’ll admit that I’m an unabashed Nintendo fanboy, and it has pained me to see Nintendo slip so much in market share this decade. I’ve been trying to look beyond the fanboy haze, though, to examine just what it is that I like about Nintendo so much, and why I support the company so ardently.

I think that there is a certain simplicity and communality that Nintendo brings to video gaming that harks back to the Golden Age of kids flocking to arcades to play Space Invaders, or loungeroom Pong contests on Atari and Intellivision. Before gaming became a largely antisocial pasttime, that is.

I’ve never really been into Xbox, partly because of the Halo effect. I love violence in games as much as the next guy, but that’s all Microsoft has. No Halo, no Xbox.

The PS2, on the other hand, is a system I’ve had to grudgingly admit my love for. It’s the NES of this generation of consoles, and I don’t think I really have to explain the comparison. One of the things I’ve been most impressed with are the innovations in peripheral gaming in the final days of the PS2, with stuff like the EyeToy, Singstar, and Guitar Hero breathing new life into the system and providing for good old-fashioned communal fun.

I’ve always thought that Sony and Microsoft are more concerned with pushing the technological envelope (brute system power), while Nintendo is more interested in gameplay. It’s this philosophy that saw the simple Game Boy completely dominate the hand-held market for more than ten years, even in the face of vastly technologically superior competitors. 

Further, Sony and especially Microsoft seem to go for the hardcore gamers, while one of the major emphases of the Wii is its simplicity and accessibility to new gamers. This reminds me of the state that the comics industry is in at the moment, with its insulated in-crowd mentality having turned it into a fatal ourobouros with dismal prospects for the future. The simple message of this is that if you create an elite, closed-off customer base, you are doomed to failure.

Actually, that’s what could have happened to Nintendo– the GameCube was basically a system for fans of Nintendo’s first-party franchises, and that’s no way to market a console. It’s lucky that Nintendo is still around for another shot at hardware, cos if they went software-only like Sega, I think I’d die. Seeing a Mario game on PS3 or Xbox 360 would be too much for this fanboy to take.      

Anyway, I’ve ranted for too long. I better give it up now before I start frothing at the mouth.

Long live video games.

(Oh, and that lovely 80s image at the top is from the box of the NES Action Set. It pretty much sums up my sentimental, schmaltzy feelings about Nintendo. Look how fuckin’ happy Colonel Potter and his family are to be playing Mario!)