Monthly Archives: September 2011

And Justice (Leagues) for all

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As a comic book reader from way back, I’m loving the big-screen adaptations of some of the Marvel comics favorites from my childhood. “Iron Man,” “Thor” and “Captain America” were all top-notch.

Marvel’s longtime competitor, DC, has had a lot less success in movie versions. While the “Dark Knight” films are pretty good — although somewhat self-consciously non-comic-booky — “Superman Returns” was glum and very nearly boring and this summer’s “Green Lantern” was meh.

Honestly, the most consistently successful adaptations of comic books can be found, to no one’s surprise, in animated series and movies.

If you haven’t watched a superhero cartoon since “Super Friends,” you’re missing well-written shows that offer plenty of action for kids and characters and continuity for grown-ups.

The “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” show on Disney XD has the complex plots and myriad characters of modern-day Marvel comics and Cartoon Network’s “Young Justice” has engaging characters and an over-arching mythology that, several episodes into the series, is just beginning to build.

The premise of the series is that Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad and other proteges of adult heroes like Batman and Flash team up in a training exercise of sorts to prepare them for eventual entry into the Justice League. There’s intrigue in a shadowy group that appears to be manipulating the young heroes and there’s rivalry and clashing emotions among the members, who include a young Superboy who is, in a plot faithful to recent comics, a weeks-old clone of Superman.

“Young Justice” is surprisingly somber in its overall tone, maybe befitting a modern-day fantasy series.

It’s conspiracy-laden mythology reminds me in some ways of “Justice League” and “Justice League Unlimited,” two Cartoon Network series that ran for four seasons, more or less, in the mid-2000s. From the makers of the “Batman” and “Superman” animated series of the 1990s and early 2000s, the “Justice League” series was full of superheroics and enough characters to bewilder any fanboy. But it was marked by a surprisingly dark undertone of a government — and sometimes a public — suspicious of superheroes who often came across as aloof and frighteningly powerful.

“Young Justice” may very well grow into the equal of “Justice League.” It’s convincing blend of action and thoughtful character drama show a lot of promise.

Thingmaker memories

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When I was a kid, a lot of girls I knew had Easy-Bake Ovens. For boys, the opportunity to give yourself second-degree burns and burn your house down came via the Thingmaker.

News that Hasbro is eliminating the Easy-Bake Oven’s light bulb and replacing it with an actual heating element stirred memories of the Thingmaker.

While the Easy-Bake’s light bulb didn’t really pose much of a hazard, the Thingmaker was a genuinely dangerous toy. And we loved it.

As part of the monster craze of the 1960s — sparked by the TV reissue of the old Universal monster movies, which also precipitated Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine — Mattel released the Thingmaker Fright Factory in 1966.

For those of you who don’t know or don’t remember, the Thingmaker in its various incarnations was basically a hotplate — not unlike a traveling salesman might put on top of a chest of drawers in a run-down hotel to warm up a can of beans — with metal molds that could be used to make soft plastic toys not unlike what you might find in a box of Cracker Jack if the Cracker Jack factory was operated by the Addams family.

Really. With the Thingmaker, boys could make realistic scars, fangs, eyeballs, miniature skeletons and, oddest of all, shrunken heads. Yes, the Thingmaker probably represented the high point of kids collecting and playing with representations of shriveled, shrunken human heads.

All you had to do was plug in the hotplate — er, Thingmaker — and wait for it to warm up. Then you simply placed one of the molds on the scorching hot surface and — ow, dammit that hurt — you simply placed one of the molds in the Thingmaker and squirted some colorful plastic goop into it from handy bottles included in the Thingmaker kit.

The Thingmaker baked the plastic pieces in the molds until they were ready to extract. Using a pair of tongs that were provided, you simply removed the molds from the Thingmaker — ow dammit — and let them cool before removing your ghoulish new toys.

The scars and eyeballs could be applied — hopefully after they cooled — directly to your skin to excite and alarm your parents. The skeleton could be assembled. The shrunken heads … well, I’m not sure what you could do with them other than freak out squeamish girls who had been waiting several hours for a light bulb to bake a cake.

I loved my Thingmaker but remain to this day surprised that it was allowed to come to the market. My mom, a smart woman, wouldn’t let me use it in the house. No doubt remembering the Silly Putty Incident of 1967 — which left a stiff, permanent stain on our carpet — she banished me and my Thingmaker to our front porch.

Like my Captain Actions, Johnny Wests and Major Matt Masons, my Thingmaker disappeared over the years. I like to think that it found a second life, warming up coffee for some poor soul living over a big-city bus station.

My moment with Vincent Price

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It was the spring of 1982 and I was in an unexpectedly quiet spot in Chicago’s O’Hare airport, waiting for a plane. And, just as unexpectedly, there in front of me was horror movie icon Vincent Price.

I had been in Chicago on a press junket for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Conan the Barbarian,” which was due to come out in just a few weeks. I’ve previously recounted my brief meeting with Schwarzenegger, who was far from a household name at this point.

Likewise, Vincent Price wasn’t a household name anymore. Except in my household, and those of other old horror movie fans around the world.

Price was about 71 by this point and his career had, in some ways, peaked a couple of decades earlier. His series of classic 1960s horror films, many adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe movies, were followed by a series of 1970s films that, by virtue of being offbeat, had given his later career a boost. Price had won critical acclaim and made fans with the “Dr. Phibes” movies and “Theater of Blood,” in which he played a washed-up horror movie actor plagued by a series of murders … or was he the murderer?

I loved the Poe movies and looooved the “Phibes” films, which were modern and old-fashioned at the same time.

But by 1982, the type of horror movies in which Price had starred had fallen out of fashion. This was the period in which every hack filmmaker was imitating John Carpenter’s great 1978 “Halloween” with cheap and tawdry slasher films.

Maybe I was emboldened by having just talked to Schwarzenegger and the “Conan” crew, but I knew I had to talk to Price.

He was, improbably, alone. No entourage. Not even a traveling companion.

I crossed from the bank of seats where I had been about to sit and approached him slowly. He looked up and smiled and seemed to encourage me to come closer.

I introduced myself, told him what I was doing in Chicago and asked if I could sit with him for a moment.

Even though by this point in his career he must have been approached by strangers thousands of times, he welcomed me graciously and gestured for me to sit down.

We made small talk — at least when I wasn’t telling him how much I loved his work — although I don’t recall if he said why he was traveling.

I remember thinking how jealous Jim, Brian, Derek and my other movie fan friends would be about my opportunity to meet one of our favorite stars so I asked if he would mind if I got out my tape recorder and recorded our conversation.

Price, so friendly in our few minutes together, balked at this.

“I think it would attract too much attention,” he told me.

By this point, a few other people had arrived at the gate for their flights and had noticed Price. He was right, and I nodded.

We spoke for a few more minutes, although by this point Price was distracted by the other people around us. Before long, a woman came up to where we sat and asked if she could take his picture. (This was in the days before cell phones, of course, and the woman had a camera, which was certain to attract even more attention.) Price smiled a little tightly and gave his permission.

Feeling almost guilty that I had started this snowball of recognition, I thanked Price for spending some time in conversation with me and headed back to the seats closest to my gate. He smiled and thanked me for my time.

Price spoke to a few of the people near him but before long excused himself, probably to go to a nearby airport restaurant. I didn’t see him again before my flight left.

Although Price seemed almost a curiosity to the crowd in the airport that day, he achieved yet another level of pop culture fame just a few months later. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album and music video, featuring Price’s spoken word “rap,” was released in November of that year. Although he wasn’t seen in the insanely popular video, his distinctive voice was heard, and anyone who wondered whatever happened to Vincent Price had their question answered.

I was lucky enough to have found out, a few months earlier, whatever happened to Vincent Price. And in the process, found that he was a gracious and generous man.

I didn’t get a chance to meet Price, who died in 1993, again. But he’ll live on in my memory from our airport meeting that day in 1982.

iPhoneography: Halloween stuff part two

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As promised (warned?) another installment of my visual tour of Halloween stores.

In each of these entries, I’ll touch on some of the most eye-catching masks and decor.

And a belated warning: Some of this stuff is gory. The bloody body parts and the like aren’t my favorite type of Halloween decorations — my tastes lean toward cardboard pumpkin window cut-outs and tissue-paper ghosts — but I’ll include some of the more unusual examples of the yucky stuff.

To start things off on a ghoulish note, here’s an example of the gory stuff. Spirit Halloween stores offer Zombie Babies. They’ve got a million different kinds, all of them slightly queasy-making. This one is apparently called “Giggles.”

 

Here are some cool gargoyles from Target. I think these would look good on a bookcase year round, don’t you?

Of course, the sexy Halloween costumes for women are the big deal these days. This one is kind of odd, though. I definitely don’t remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles looking like this.

Here’s a suit that any of us with a big, cluttered closet could put together free of charge: The leisure suit.

Now is the portion of the blog in which we present the mask that’s most likely to give us nightmares. Can you imagine waking up and seeing this at the foot of your bed?

That’s it for now. As the old “Tonight Show” bumpers used to say, “More to come.”

Please Mr. Postman …

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Outside of Christmas and birthdays, there are few moments of genuine joyful anticipation for most kids that can top waiting on the mailman to deliver a package.

Whether the package in question is a gift from a grandparent, an eagerly awaited toy or even a favorite magazine or comic book, there’s nothing like the excitement of checking the mail, sometimes for days or weeks, and finally — finally — receiving what you’ve been waiting for.

As a matter of fact, sometimes the anticipation tops the actual item that’s delivered. Remember that classic “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip series about the propeller beanie?

That’s why I love the U.S. Postal Service, better known as the post office, and its mailmen — more accurately known as letter carriers and postmasters and other postal workers.

And that’s why it makes me sad that the Postal Service is struggling right now.

There’s a good Associated Press story that sums up the problems facing USPS right now, including declining use of what some derisively call “snail mail” as well as $5.5 billion a year that the organization must set aside for retiree medical costs.

If the Postal Service doesn’t somehow make enough money to cover that expense, it could shut down.

So USPS is considering cutting staffing, closing some post offices and eliminating Saturday delivery. Workforce cutbacks take their toll on any company or organization, without a doubt. Closing post offices not only pose inconveniences for customers but take away a sense of identity for many small towns. Saturday delivery is great but seems the most expendable.

Whatever happens, I hope they work it out. With email and online transactions, we do a lot less mailing than we used to. But our household still gets a steady stream of print magazines, packages and important mail that we can’t live without.

Maybe none of it can match, in pure joy, the mailings and packages I received in my youth: Items purchased from Captain Company ads in Famous Monsters magazine, X-Ray Specs from comic book ads and my Merry Marvel Marching Society membership package.

But the mail is still welcome in our household. More than welcome. Necessary.

Ten years later

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I still have the dream.

I’m standing outside at night. I hear the whine of a jet far overhead. I look up and see the airliner, darker than the night sky around it. The shape of its body and wings eclipse stars, then clouds, then trees as it falls to earth.

Sometimes I wake up at that moment. Sometimes the dream involves ushering a child or a dog to comparative safety behind an elaborate fountain like the kind you’d find in a town square. Mercifully, I never dream long enough to see the fire or hear the noise.

I’ve had the dream for the better part of 10 years now. Like my other recurring dreams — being lost, losing teeth and the classic being back in high school with no idea what I was doing or where I should be going — I’m not certain what prompted it, other than general anxiety.

Ten years ago this week, we all felt horror and shock and sorrow as we watched the events of Sept. 11 unfold. I doubt there are many of us who don’t still think about that day. Or dream about it.

Almost as vivid in my memory, however, is the memory of my relief when, a few days after the attacks, I first noticed a vapor trail in the sky. It was a sign that we were recovering, that things were moving back toward normal.

That recovery has seemed very slow at times and the nightmares linger. But we’re recovering, nonetheless.

(Photo above by Dallas commercial photographer Sean Gallagher.)

 

iPhoneography: Halloween stuff part one

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I love Halloween. And I love Halloween stores.

It’s a little more than a week into September, but yes, the first Halloween stores are open and Halloween stuff is popping up around town.

Expect to read a lot more about Halloween in this blog between now and the night itself, but here are a few iPhone shots I took tonight.

What says Halloween more than some bloody, severed fingers? Actually, I’m not that crazy about the dismembered body parts element to Halloween decorating. But here’s an acknowledgement of that interest.

Now this is more like it: Your good old fashioned spooky ghost type dude, hanging in mid-air. When you show up at somebody’s house in September and they have one of these babies up, you know they’re serious Halloween people.

One of my favorite things about Halloween is the creative costumes. Good homemade ones are the best, but sometimes professional costume makers come up with some funny ideas. Of course, I’m not sure most of us need help with an oversized belly costume, but in case you do, they have you covered.

Now this is a creepy mask. If I walked into someone in a dark room wearing a ventriloquist’s dummy mask, I would leave one of those Wile E. Coyote-style hole in the nearest door.

More soon!

Voice mail: So over?

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Is it just me, or has anyone else fallen out of love with voice mail?

Don’t get me wrong. As a tool, voice mail is still useful. I can be away from my desk or away from home and people who are trying to reach me can still do so, more or less.

But I find myself dreading seeing that little red light that indicates I’ve got voice mail. I hate the “beep-beep-beep”  indicator when I hold the receiver up to my ear.

Maybe my disenchantment with voice mail stems from the messages that people leave for me. My heart just sinks when the voice mail program tells me the message is two minutes long. I slap my forehead when I realize someone has left a message for me when they really want someone else (I can picture them getting frustrated when they ultimately find out I’ve had to pass them along to yet another person. Sorry about that.).

I really hate voice mail, though, when someone leaves a long, deliberately paced message and then rushesthroughtheirphonenumberattheveryend. I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve had to listen to messages repeatedly to decipher the blast of numerals at the end.

There’s no doubt voice mail is a good thing, and we should thank Robin Elkins, who most likely created it. Like the fax and e-mail, it’s useful. And the technology isn’t to blame for unwanted faxes, spam e-mail and meandering messages for who knows who.

It’s the uncertainty of voice mail that puts me off, I think. Who tried to contact me who doesn’t know me well enough to know my cell phone number? And can anything good come out of that lack of familiarity short of a call from an attorney telling me I’ve been named in the will of a wealthy, previously unknown relative?

Maybe it’s just that I need an attitude adjustment. Maybe I can greet that little red voice mail indicator light with as much enthusiasm as the Christmas lights of my youth, cheerful heralds of delightful surprises to come.

Nah.