The Stanely Cup Playoffs start this weekend. I’m a longtime hockey fan and I really can’t think of anything more exciting to watch than playoff hockey. And with the Rangers actually being good this year, I’m usually a bit more engaged. So I decided to celebrate this upcoming awesomeness by playing a game of Nintendo Ice Hockey.
That’s right, I said Ice Hockey.
To anyone who grew up playing the NES, Blades of Steel is the superior hockey game, and I’ll agree with that. But Ice Hockey, which came out in 1988, was one of the first games I ever got after I received my Nintendo for my eleventh birthday, and I think that it was probably one of the games I played the most. So as much as I did enjoy Konami’s entry into the hockey game category, I think my heart has always been with the original Nintendo game.
When Nintendo came out, it was a true cut above the Atari 2600 and while it had a number of iconic adventure and arcade-style games, the sports games were very solid even if they weren’t as popular as, say The Legend of Zelda or Metroid. Ten Yard Fight would be completely forgotten in the wake of Tecmo Bowl, but was still a good football game; Baseball earned the nickname “glitchball” among me and my friends, but we still played it endlessly; Pro Wrestling remains one of the best wrestling games for the NES; and when I was in college, my roommates and I played endless hours of Golf. Ice Hockey was as good, if not better than all of those.
Worlds lived. Worlds died. The universe was never the same. But it took a little while for that universe to never be the same, and in this episode, I take a look at the period between December 1985 and July 1986 where DC’s titles began their post-Crisis eras, wrapped up things leftover from before the Crisis, or ended their eras altogether. From the continuing adventures of the Titans to the Last Days of The Justice Society of America and finding out Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, it’s a curious bit of DC continuity.
A Return of the Jedi coloring book. Everyone had at least one of these. Image from eBay.
I have a very vivid memory of the time I was in the first grade and I colored in a phonics worksheet with a big dark green crayon that was from the Whitman company. When I got it back, my answers were correct but my teacher, Mrs. Hickman, had written “Messy! You can do better!” That night, ashamed, i sat at the top of the stairs crying until my parents noticed and came to comfort me.
I suppose I should go on a long rant about Mrs. Hickman and how things like this are scarring to young children and how she destroyed any chance I had toward learning and because of her I never liked school, but I’m not. The truth is, she was one of my favorite teachers and I have great memories of her class. But what I can say is that my tendency toward messiness coupled with being a high-achieving student is probably the reason I’m such an anxious mess all the time (and may be some undiagnosed ADHD, but I’m no expert and I have no idea if that’s true). And I never could color outside the lines. When I think of the coloring books I had as a kid, I think of how so many pages were just scribbled all over. I also think of the ways I’d try to “correct” things when I was older, coloring around the mistakes and filling things in to make them look like they weren’t drawn by a manic toddler.
This Steel Brigade giveaway appeared in a number of comic books in 1987. I scanned this one from an old issue of The ‘Nam.
The moment was intense. I broke the seal on the dossier with my decoder at my side, began to decipher the secret message in front of me. My mission was of utmost importance because if I wasn’t successful, I would jeopardize our national security. Sitting at my desk, I worked quickly. A dot and a dash was an “A”. Three dots was an “S”. A dot, two dashes, and another dot was a “P.” It was coming together easily and the further I got, the quicker the solution came. When I finished, I put the decoded message in the mail and waited for my reward.
Four to six weks later, I got it–a patch and a certificate.
While it wasn’t as crushing to my childhood innocence as Ralphie Parker decoding and Ovaltine commercial, the anticlimax of toy-related mai-ins and ocntests could be very real when i was a kid. Sure, many of my friends and I have glorious tales of saving up proofs of purchase for a special mail-away figure, but I also remember toy inserts or ads inc omic books that promised something really cool if you filled out an entry form.
Now, most of these were for contests or random merchandise, but Hasbro did the children of America a solid with their G.I. Joe toys back in the mid-1980s. I wasn’t there for the Sgt. Slaughter or William “The Refrigerator” Perry figures (although my friend had both), but in the summer of 1987, I did spot an ad in the back of a comic book for a G.I. Joe figure based on myself.
Though the individualistic teenagers I teach might be loathe to admit it, they all wear the same clothes. Oh sure, they all find ways to express themselves, but self-expression via nonconformity in clothing has been de rigueur for adolescents since they first gained a sense of purchasing power in the 1950s or 1960s. They may all say they aren’t one of the sheep-like masses, but look in their closets and you’ll find a hooded sweatshirt, a pair of stretch leggings, and a beat-up pair of jeans in the same way my generation had an array of flannel shirts, alternative band T-shirts, a beat-up pair of jeans, and the Lands’ End Squall Jacket.
First introduced by the Dodgeville, Wisconsin-based clothier in 1983, the Squall is a medium-weight nylon jacket with a fleeced lining that is suitable for the majority of autumn, winter, and early spring when the weather is cold but not the Ice Station Zebra conditions that make you bust out your Lands’ End parka. The company says that it “best exemplifies all of our know how. Popular for its classic style and versatility, it’s reliably warm, and made from durable windproof waterproof fabric.” That definitely appeals to the parent in me who wants to make any $50-100 jacket last as long as possible, and Lands’ End definitely knows I want dependability when it comes to my purchase at least according to their explanation of why the jacket is called “Squall”:
Reminiscent of our nautical past, the word ‘squall’ usually defines a sudden gust of wind bringing on storms of rain, snow, or sleet. Not the most comforting of images, is it? But at Lands’ End, Squall has come to define dependable warmth for generations … you might not be a captain sailing a ship through the choppy ocean but you certainly weather your fair share of storms throughout the day. Unlike a typical squall, our winter jacket may not be the cause of the storm will certainly be there to keep you cozy, dry, and protected from whatever is brewing on the horizon.
(source: Landsend.com)
I know that’s a lot to say about a jacket, or any article of clothing for that matter but the Squall jacket earned that pretense. My parents bought me my first Squall jacket sometime in the fourth or fifth grade; it was blue and I’m pretty sure that my sister got a red or pink colored one, and they were pretty much permanent fixtures during the transitional seasons all the way through high school, not just in my house but in my school and town as a whole. It was, in a sense, part of the suburban uniform of the 1980s and early 1990s. Those of a certain vintage and upbringing may remember going outside in the late winter and early spring, riding around on your bike in search of a friend to play with, and once you found them trying to figure out what to do because both of your moms kicked you off the Nintendo and out of the house. Sometimes, you got a bunch of other people together and played a rough game of touch football; other times, you just kept riding around while carrying on a conversation about whatever kid or teen topics came up. The specifics really didn’t matter, to be honest; you just remember that you were wearing the jacket.
It’s once again the Christmas season and as I’m writing this, I’ve already had one “Christmas” because my parents and sister came to visit last weekend and we opened gifts. There wasn’t anything unusual about the gift giving or anything, although I did find myself chuckling at how often someone opened a package and my mom said, “Well, it was on your wish list.”
When you think about it, it’s an odd thing to say to someone after they have opened a gift. Why explain to them that you bought something that they asked for? I have to think that this is a version of something my parents (and their generation, really) have been doing for decades, which is offering an explanation or detailed story as to the history of the gift or the rationale behind it, maybe so that you won’t make a face or seem ungrateful when you open it with an less than enthusaistic response. And I understand how you can have anxiety over someone opening something they bought for you–I’m in therapy for a reason, after all–and therefore preempt an unwanted response with some sort of explanation, self-deprecating talk, or even pointing out that the gift receipt is attached. But we’ve all been putting together wish lists for years, even before Amazon made it a feature. So why the worry?
I am sure the blame for this doesn’t rest squarely on the shoulders of Amazon, but I can say that having an online wishlist where you simply have to click a button in order to get something that someone wanted instead of planning a trip to Toys R Us like you’re in a heist movie has exascerbated the “greedy asshole” attitude that we all have each Christmas season when we don’t get what we want. And I say that we all have it because we do all have it; it’s just that we all express the attitude in different ways. Some of us thank a relative for the $50 gift card and mentally make a list of things that were on our wish lists that we didn’t get and will now buy; some of us make passive-aggressive comments; and yes, others of us throw temper tantrums.
And when those people get an off-list gift? Holy shit.
I can’t say if I had a good or bad attitude about opening gifts as a kid. I will claim that I was always grateful and polite, but I think that we all know that anyone who claims that is full of shit, so let’s just say that more often than not I had good manners. Then again, most of the time, I got what I wanted and if I didn’t, it was usually something that was either hard to find or a moonshot of a gift (the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier, for example). Usually when I got a gift that wasn’t on my list, it was clothes (which even as a teenager I rarely, if ever, actually asked for) or a small-sized toy or game to keep me busy while at my grandmother’s like travel-sized Hi-Q, some Matchbox cars, or yet another deck of cards. They came from my great aunts and uncles, my parents’ cousins, or friends of the family (whom I rarely, if ever, saw) and even as a kid, I knew that my parents probably didn’t mail them a photocopy of my Christmas list every year, so I just rolled with it. Besides, surprises were fun and every once in a while, an off-list gift would wind up becoming a personal favorite.
Like what? Well, I’m so glad you asked.
In the spirit of the season, and because I really have nothing better to write about right now, I’ve decided to do a rundown of some of the most random and most cherished “off-list” Christmas gifts that I received from the time I was a kid until the time I was a teenager.
A corporation is blasting and drilling for oil and if they don’t find it at Site A, they’re going to dynamite a Site B and that means killing Santa! Take a trip back with me to North Pole City in 1984 as I review the TV movie The Night They Saved Christmas starring Jacklyn Smith and Art Carney.
Set at the end of the 1980s, Déjà View is a coming of age novel with a supernatural elements, and joining me for this episode is its author, Michael Thomas Perone. We sit down to talk about his novels Déjà View and Danger Peak and the inspirations behind them.
My trilogy of nostalgia-fueled movies comes to an end with a look at The Big Chill, Lawrence Kasdan’s iconic 1983 film that was a touchstone for the Baby Boomer generation. Along for the ride with me is Michael Bailey, who talks about the film and its impact on us as children of those Boomers as well as the movie’s best-selling soundtrack.
One of the things you have to remember about Friends when it premiered is that the six members of the cast were made up of five “Hey, It’s That Guy!” actors and Courteney Cox, and wasn’t wholly unique in its presentation–Fox had been doing Living Single at the time and NBC had hits with thirty-something sitcoms like Seinfeld and Mad About You, so aging the main characters down but giving them the “adult sitcom” plots that had worked for the other shows made sense. I can’t remember if the show was a hit at first because I picked it up about halfway through its first season; I’d been watching My So-Called Life on ABC and returned to NBC after that show’s cancellation. Once I did, however, I recognized every one of the cast members from other shows: Jennifer Aniston had been on the short-lived Fox sketch show The Edge, David Schwimmer had been on The Wonder Years; Matt LeBlanc had played Kelly’s boyfriend Vinny on Married … With Children (and its spinoffs), and Lisa Kudrow had been and still was playing the ditzy waitress on Mad About You.
And then there was Matthew Perry, whom had shown up in a number of places over the past several years, especially on television. I’d seen him as a tragic, pressured rich kid on Beverly Hills, 90210; as Christina Applegate’s put-upon boyfriend in Dance ‘Til Dawn (which I reviewed in episode 136 of the podcast); as Ami Dolenz’ skeezy prom date in She’s Out of Control (a movie I should look at in the future); and Carol Seaver’s dead boyfriend on Growing Pains. But most importantly, I knew him as the guy from Boys Will Be Boys.
A retool of a sitcom called Second Chance, Boys Will Be Boys debuted on the Fox network on January 16, 1988 and starred Perry (then credited as “Matthew L. Perry”) as Chazz Russell, a typical suburban teen in California whose best friend is an Italian greaser named “Booch”. Chaz is the nice play-by-the-rules guy with a solid head on his shoulders while Booch is a borderline criminal. And if this sounds familiar to you, that’s becuase the creators were going with the Richie Cunningham/Fonzie dynamic. Rounding out the cast were Randee Heller (the mom from the Karate Kid movies) as Chazz’ mom, and Demian Slade (the paperboy from Better Off Dead) as Eugene, who I think was the slightly younger neighbor (it’s not defined in the episode I watched).
The intro is pretty much everything you’d expect from a generic sitcom on the Fox network in 1988: T&A shots, a synth and sax theme song, some “hijinks” taken from episodes, and … well, I don’t know how to describe the title card and camera effects for this montage, but it’s got 1988 written all over it:
A number of the show’s 11 episodes (it was cancelled after the end of its first season) are available on YouTube (because really, who is going to come for the copyright on this thing), so I watched the premiere, which is typically formulaic. As he’s cleaning up in the garage after mowing the lawn, Chazz is approached by his hot new neighbor, Debbie (who’s wearing as little clothing as any extra on a Fox show would wear back then), who wants to borrow his weed whacker. They wind up making a date for him to “show her the sights” around California. But then a problem arises: Chazz can’t get the car because mom needs it. So Booch steps in to help, and with Chazz’ $500 secures … a Corvette. That we know from the jump is stolen, and even Chazz thinks so. But then Debbie walks into his garage and drools over the car, so he decides to take it out for just one night.
Of course, the two of them get thrown in jail and are placed in a holding cell with a bunch of tough biker gang-looking guys (I swear that there was just a pool of these actors for sitcoms back in the 1980s) and one pleasant-enough looking guy in a suit. And if you’ve watched enough dumb sitcoms like I have, you know that the guy in the suit is the most dangerous, which he proves to be when he tells the boys that he’s been accused of killing seven people but it wasn’t him and was “Mr. Bunny” who did it. Mr. Bunny, by the way, is a hand puppet, so we’ve got the Fox sitcom version of the Batman villain The Ventriloquist and Scarface (even though I think this predates them). Anyway, mom bails them out and later on she and Chazz have a heart to heart talk and the episode ends.
When I was 10, my friend Tom told me about this show a few episodes into its run, and since it was on at 8:00 on Saturday night, I would be allowed to stay up and watch it (I had a pretty strict 8:00 bedtime back then). Of course, it was on against The Facts of Life, a show that I watched on the regular because of its daily reruns on the same channel. So I’m pretty sure that I didn’t pick up Boys Will Be Boys until later that spring when its timeslot changed to 8:30 after Fox’s 8:00 airing of Family Double Dare (oh, and that’s a whole other tangent and blog entry, let me tell you), and that meant I only watched about four or five episodes of the show after it went off the air that May. For some reason, I remember the two of us having arguments over whether Boys Will Be Boys was a better show than The Facts of Life, which are the kind of stupid arguments you have when you’re 10 years old. I’m sure our attention shifted to action movies or the Mets or something pretty quickly. I know I forgot about it and would only think of it when Perry showed up in something else I watched; in fact, I’m sure he was my very first “Hey, It’s That Guy!” actor.
Watching the show again, 35 years later, I obviously don’t see a “brilliant but canceled” or “hidden gem” of a television show. But I do see where we’d eventually get to Chandler Bing. From the very first scene, Perry gives his character the same neuroitc insecurity that his Friends character had, even if Chandler’s sarcasm isn’t there. Perry’s physical humor and his reactions to the situations and dialogue in the episode foreshadow his comedic acting skill; in other words, he stood out enough on a crappy show to be someone to remember.
Hearing of his passing this weekend was sad for a number of reasons. Having been a fan of Friends through pretty much its entire run, I was well aware of Perry’s struggles; moreover, it’s always sad whenever an actor from my generation passes on when they’re too young to do so. Perry had the familiarity that a lot of television actors (especially those from sitcoms) do, and while I can’t say that I considered him a “friend,” it definitely feels like a classmate or someone from the neighborhood is gone.
Pop Culture Affidavit 