Happy Star Trek Day

This is only one of the reasons that my brother and sister-in-law are fantastic. They gave me this cool record for my birthday. I never would have picked it up when it came out as I was too much of a snooty teenager to buy Peter Pan records. Heck, now I'd pick up any Peter Pan tv/movie oriented record I saw.
Here's the back of the sleeve which I must confess, is disappointing. I think it's the incredibly bland color of their outfits and the horribly stiff posing, which make them seem like something out of a wax museum. While the shirts of the 60s were bright colors, now the cast is clad in the soothing non-color of insane asylum walls.

Oh boy, the voices on the record are a treat. The planet's ambassadors inflections reminded me of Roddy McDowell in Planet of the Apes. Scotty had a brogue that only seemed to appear when he rolled his R's. Sulu sounded Asian. Checkov appeared to had marbles in his mouth, Spock's voice was completely generic, and Bones sounded like he was in a Southern Rock band.

And what of Captain Kirk, you ask? Let me put it this way. When I first put the needle on the record, I thought my turntable was messed up because Kirk sounded like an elf. After adjusting it's speed and hearing the other characters talk, I came to the conclusion that whoever is playing Kirk has a higher pitched voice than Shatner. This Peter Pan Kirk sounds a little like Casey Kasem...if he were an elf. (Insert your own joke here).

Oh, I also got this for my birthday - a salesmens promo photo on thick cardboard of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Try opening up a birthday present and not bursting into laugher when you see this staring back at you.

Take a Hike, Nancy Drew!

When I was a kid, I was given some Nancy Drew mysteries. I stared at the well groomed girl on the cover, and decided any girl who looked that neat couldn't be very exciting. She didn't even seem to get dirty. From that day on, I demanded Hardy Boys books.

The Hardy's had better mysteries to solve. While prissy little Nancy was out getting her nails done, or complaining about the speck of dirt on her new dress, the Hardy's were crawling through mud, hiding in a hayloft, and outwitting the bad guys.

Yup those Hardy's always had the best mysteries: The Ghost at Skeleton Rock; The Secret of Skull Mountain; Danger on Vampire Trail; The Mystery at Devils Paw; The Sinister Sign Post..... what the hell?!?!? The Sinister Signpost???? Why that doesn't inspire anything but confusion. "Good god, that signpost... it's evil! Aaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!!" (sound of body landing at the bottom of the cliff)

Honestly, from the cover it appears that the car might be the sinister one since it is running the Hardys off the road, and looks like it's shooting a laser beam into the Danger sign. But perhaps, just perhaps, the sign is shooting a laser into the car. And just maybe the sign reads, "Danger - this sign destroys cars with its white light laser killing beam."

It's the Incredible Hulk...except he's underwater and sort of a fish

When the promtional writeup for the show starts off, "Mark Harris has an expressionless face and speaks in stilted phrases," you know you're in for a long ride. I think I only knew one kid who watched this show, which probably explains why it was cancelled the first season.

Mark is supposedly a survivor from the lost city of Atlantis. I know what you're thinking. But how could a waterlogged, ancient fishman make a living in todays modern world? Well they've thought of everything because Mark "..is employed by a national-security foundation that plunges him into perilous missions to foil mad scientists' diabolical schemes."

Damn! Why do the national security guys always get first dibs on the superhuman plankton eating fishmen? Do we really need a blank faced frogboy with an awkward monotone to fight mad scientists and their diabolical schemes? I think not!

Cool or Embarrassing - You Make the Call

Yes, it's true. Shaun Cassidy did tour to support his albums and he actually played Civic Centers. This is the ad from my local paper, vintage 1979. They used the cover of his Born Late album, and the promo sticker for the "Hey Deanie" single can be seen.

What the hell kind of a name is Deanie anyway? I was always a bit put off by it. But isn't Shaun cute? His hairs a bit too long, but thats okay. Because we all know that cuteness always overrides an odd girl name, like strange old four legged mutant creature Deanie.

Yeah, that's right. I went to the show. How could I miss it? I can't believe my ticket cost $8.50, because the seat wasn't all that great. I was on the left side of the venue a couple of sections from the back. Geez, the $8.00 seats must have been terrible. Maybe you had to sit behind an aggressive outcast with a huge afro and a sharp knife.
I don't remember much about the performance, except that Shaun was a small blob in a spotlight and his satiny spandex pants were really tight. Oh yeah...and the little so and so came onto the stage pretending to be an old man, complete with long flasher-type raincoat, feet shuffling, back hunched over, possibly a cane, and I believe wearing a rubber old man mask.

As the band played, the old man stood there and the teenage girls yelled for Shaun and told the old man to get off the stage. But then the crowd went wild as the old man threw off his mask and creepy raincoat, to reveal he was Shaun. Girls screamed with delight, while at the same time, I couldn't believe he was so lame. So basically what I'm saying is that Shaun passed for a creepy old flasher.

Here's the souvenier program I bought. I also bought a poster, but I don't have a picture of it at this time. I'll dig it out at some point because you really have to experience it. Shaun looks a bit sleepy eyed in this exciting, real, not posed, in concert cover shot. Love the ribbony pink belt, iiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!

Just three more things to mention to make the concert going complete

1. My cousin brought sticks of incense to the concert, which we lit and waved around - for about ten seconds. Then an usher practically flew up the stairs to demand we extinguish them. Geez Dude, it's incense. There's not even a flame, just a smoldering mass of smelly stuff on a stick. Oddly enough he didn't say anything to the girls smoking, even though there were no smoking signs posted everywhere. Oh how I loathed him, the stupid little powermad usher.
   
   
2. The girl behind us taped the concert. This was the 70s before little walkmen, so she had a full sized portable tape recorder in her lap. I wondered how she got it past security and was often tempted to turn around and smack her due to her constant, high pitched screeching.
   
   
3. I would guess that the girl's tape recording was mostly screaming teenage girls with just a hint of Shaun Cassidy. Most of crowd of 8,000 girls (thats right, I said 8,000) were screeching, squeeling, and screaming. I never did get into that whole teenybopper girl going nutzo thing. I had crushes on teen idols, but I never squeeled with delight or cried due to an emotional overload just because someone walked on stage or I caught a glimpse of them. (I must confess my ex once screamed like a teenage girl at a Ramones concert when he saw the band looking through a second floor window overlooking the stage.)