Birthdays
Colin Trevorrow b. 1976 (Safety Not Guaranteed)
Clyde Kusatsu b. 1948 (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Godzilla)
Frank Marshall b. 1946 (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, Amazing Stories)
Richard Kiel b. 1939 (The Twilight Zone, Eegah)
Don Bluth b. 1937 (The Land Before Time, The Secret of Nimh)
Barbara Bain b. 1931 (Space: 1999)
Roald Dahl b. 1916 died 23 November 1990 (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
Daniel Defoe b.1660 died 24 April 1731 (Memoirs of Sundry Tranactions from the World of the Moon)
On today's birthday list, only one person is younger than I am and Trevorrow's Safety Not Guaranteed is the only film or TV show on the list produced this century. As for the Cute Girl = Picture Slot rule, Barbara Bain has no competition here, but while I was looking for photos on Google, I saw this picture of her action figure, mint in box no less, and I just had to use it.
Many happy returns of the day to the living mentioned here.
Predictor: First episode of Space: 1999, first aired 04/09/1975
Reality: Okay, multiple problems here.
1. Turning radioactive waste into a bomb doesn’t just magically happen.
2. If the storage is on the far side of the moon, any resulting force should push the moon closer to the earth, not farther away.
3. Moon = big. One big explosion could change its orbit, but knocking it out of both the earth’s and the sun’s gravitational pull would take some doing, because gravity is working 24/7.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
A new regular feature for Saturdays debuts tomorrow, with a whole mess of folks from 1893 predicting what life will look like in 1993.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
(Note: This post has been fixed. An earlier version said the first date is 13 September 2000, but it was instead 1999. I likely mistyped it in my notes, since a quick check of my usual sources for such a date all agree on the 1999 date. I also slandered Gerry and Sylvia Anderson for shoddiness when the fault was mine. While this does not improve my opinion of the show in retrospect, the error was completely mine and I apologize. I would also like to thank Tom Singleton for sending the comment that let me correct this error. I am so happy people are reading this blog and the folks who send comments have been first rate without exception.)
Ah, Barbara Bain. I couldn't stand Space:1999 because the science was so bad, the suspension of belief was just too much but Bain was great as Cinnamon (MI). I think Kusatsu is a great actor and more versatile than many. First saw him as an HPD detective in a number of Magnum, PI shows.
ReplyDeleteI also hate Space: 1999. One Saturday night I fell asleep early while watching only to awake a few hours later to the house being robbed. I'm not saying it's completely the fault of Landau, Bain and Barry Morse, but I lost a sweet denim jacket that my sister personally embroidered.
DeleteI wait to this day for compensation.
I remember waiting for the debut, hoping for a good science fiction series.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I remember going WTF for most of the show. An explosion sizable enough to move the moon would have obliterated it, even I could tell that.
And then the subsequent episodes, where they left the solar system in less than years, and were visiting a planet every week, and then started landing the Eagles - cool spacecraft, but obviously not designed for planetary landings OR maneuvering through atmospheres- on every stray planet they wandered by.
I love the irony of "action" figures for the series though.
The Eagles have always been kind of cool, however.
"I remember waiting for the debut, hoping for a good science fiction series."
DeleteImagine how many times this sentence has been said or written, by how many different fans, concerning how many different TV shows.
There is so much sci-fi and fantasy available because we are loyal as dogs, no matter how many times we have been beaten and neglected.
I write this confidently because you talk about "subsequent episodes", which I too sheepishly admit to watching.
I WANTED it to be good, and being young and unaware of how TV worked, kept thinking "Maybe THIS week..."
DeleteHow long did I watch Land of the Giants, The Starlost, Legend of the Seeker for pity's sake?
DeleteThe first two I blame on youth and stupidity, the last one on being a dirty old man.
The Starlost came back a few years ago (iirc, on one of the area PBS stations, in the insomniac time slot) and I really tried to watch it. Even after Bova;s The Starcrossed, I couldn't concentrate.
DeleteLand of the Giants is still fun, as only an Irwin Allen show can be. (Listen to the music, watch the talent waste its energy.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4-A__lZrEA
ReplyDeleteI do believe you are wrong. The series intro from Episode 1 "Breakaway" clearly shows the date September 13th, 1999.
You are right, I was wrong and I've fixed the post and added a post script of apology to my reader and thanks to you, Mr.Singleton.
Delete