Bad Made Large

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 11, 2004

I was over at iDRMRSR's haunted condo, watching movies the other night
with him on his Giant Drive-In Size TV. He had just gotten a DVD
collection of Space 1999 TV show episodes and after we watched the
great "The Man Who Wasn't There," we mocked and ridiculed our way
through one of those Space 1999 episodes.

Were those shows really an hour long? Sure seemed like it.

Space 1999 was so bad that even I, a scifi fan, didn't watch it when it
was new, in the late 60s. Even though I had a MAJOR BONER for Barbara
Bain -- a BIG Bainer for Babs Bain -- that silver hair -- the hot
grandma who would blow you to sleep at night -- EVEN SO, I did not
watch that show after the first episode.

I was reminded why, while watching that DVD at iDRMRSRs, but I was also
struck with HOW MUCH WORSE it seemed, blown up to this incredible
resolution on DVD and a big screen.

I'm used to seeing these shows broadcast through the airwaves and
displayed as a fuzzy black and white image made of a few hundred lines,
not as full color projections of what might as well be the original
film stock.

Seeing these shitty sci fi shows as if on a theater screen allows a
painful level of detail. Those spaceship interiors were just a mass of
flashing lights, on TV. You didn't look at the flashing lights, you
looked at Barbara Bain. But now, with shows made for shitty display
being given sharp and clear display, the flashing control panels are
all too obviously decorated with the BIG BLOCKY PLASTIC BUTTONS from
1968 audio mixing consoles and TV effects switchers. The knobs and
dials are ALL TOO PLAINLY a bunch of cast-off gizmos off out-dated film
editing machines and reel-to-reel tape recorders.

We knew all that... we knew the sets were flimsy pieces of shit. It
just wasn't THIS GLARINGLY PLAIN.

The acting and scripts must always have been this terrible, but when
the cardboard nature of the sets is so clear, the similar nature of the
acting is somehow rendered even more clearly, too.

The painted "desolate planet" backdrops never looked THIS hurriedly
painted. Yet they were. We just didn't have DVDs of them. That
intelligent life form made of rock? Was it SO obviously a big chunk of
styrofoam, carved up and given warpy bumps with a blowtorch,
spray-painted gold and with EXTRA-BRIGHT LIGHTS shining up at it from
below -- to make a "glow"? Well, it probably was. But on TV, your eye
could choose not to see it that way.

In these new-fangled high-tech releases of old-fangled, low-tech
entertainment, the eye doesn't have as much choice. What you got is
what you now see.

Last night, instead of watching old movies, or making new movies, I put
boxes of my old movie ARISE together, with labels and sleeves, etc. You
might think it would make an old, not very successful filmmaker a
little bitter to reflect upon the fact that his equally cheesy, but
actually more intelligent and entertaining film, is in so little demand
that he makes copies one at a time by hand, while somewhere there is a
factory mass-producing thousands of copies of the stupidest, pinkest,
least imaginative, dullest TV shows of the 60s, and that they are being
bought up by hobbyists and collectors, and all the money is going, not
to Barbara Bain and Martin Landau, or the dumbass who created Space
1999, but to some executive fuck who studied contracts instead of
literature or film making.

But, that would only make one bitter if one was POOR and MISERABLE.

From what I can tell, so far, JUST AS I HAD SUSPECTED during all those
slackless years might become the case, I HAVE MORE SLACK sitting here
selling my hand-made goods, like a hippie on The Drag with his sidewalk
shop, vending bead necklaces he makes when he feels like making stuff,
than ever I did when I was running around putting music videos together
and taking phone calls from glad-handing guys in suits.

At least with our movie, ARISE, I don't have to worry that some day it
will look shittier than it does now, just because it's being projected
in some new fangled way. EVERY SHOT in "Arise" PERMANENTLY looks fuzzzy
and cheezy since almost every shot was taken from VHS or Betamax copies
of something. AND YET -- what's CONTAINED in those hundreds of short
clips transcends the grainy delivery system, for, fuzzy or not, the
shots AND THE CONTEXT IN WHICH THEYRE USED are generally the PUREST
DISTILLATIONS of SOMETHING BULLDADA.

Speaking of bitter old filmmakers, I saw "GODS AND MONSTERS" last
night, finally. (I lied; I DID watch a movie, but only after boxing and
labeling my own.) "Gods and Monsters" is a sort of bio-pic about James
Whale, the director of "The Bride of Frankenstein" and "The Invisible
Man," among others, and one of my heroes. Gandalf/Magneto plays the
cantankerous old poofter Whale, who appears to have been a classic
proto-SubGenius. Born to a poor family, barely surviving the trenches
in World War 1, somehow his talents and cantankerousness got him to the
top in Hollywood -- whence bad luck, his own stubbornness and personal
conflicts with studio bigwigs put him into early retirement.

James Whale, queer, artist and soldier, WAS Jack Griffin, The Invisible
Man, and WAS Frankenstein's monster, and I guess I must have realized
that when I saw those movies as a kid. James Whale went through life
feeling that he belonged dead, that he was permanently on the outside,
and was living it up in Hollywood on borrowed time -- time maybe
borrowed from the guys who died in the trenches. No one ever did make
him a bride. But he knew one thing for sure:

"FRAND GOOD."

It's a wonderful movie, very touching, and a must-see for monster fans
who are themselves artificially created monsters or monster-creating
mad scientists.

--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
PRABOB

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com>

nu-monet v6.0 <nothing@succeeds.com> wrote:
> Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
> >
> > ...Space 1999 was so bad that even I, a scifi
> > fan, didn't watch it when it was new, in the
> > late 60s...
>
> Mid 1970s. However, you had to have seen it in
> context to really appreciate it. Factors that
> mattered:

That certainly makes more sense. I could swear Mister Sister said it
was late sixties (he might not have, I might have memory-edited that)
and I kept thinking, now wait, Mission Impossible was when I was 15 or
so... 1968 or thereabouts... didn't seem like Space 1999 was so soon
after Mission Impossible.

And yeah, those outfits and sets are PURE 70s. All that orange and
blue. Cripes. Somebody gave us the complete "I Love the 70s" or
whatever, on VHS, a special collection for each year, and I must admit
I keep watching them, unable to tear my eyes away from the horror. The
horror of the shittiness of THAT show, the '70s TV shows and pop music,
sure, but more than that the horror of MY OWN MEMORIES that a clip of
Land of the Lost can evoke. BUMSTACIOUS, TEED! MOST BUMSTACIOUS!

Like seeing the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre recently and being
more scared by the music they had playing on their van radio than by
the monster rednecks. It made me remember what *I* was doing when that
music was playing on MY van radio.

I'll tell you what I was doing.

A JOB FOR SOMEBODY.

Hey there's a guy writing a book about the badfilm director I worked
for then, S.F. "Brownie" Brownrigg! Not so much about Brownrigg but
about the whole zoo of Texas badfilm characters who worked in the 60s
and 70s doing schlock, from Larry Buchanan (MARS NEEDS WOMEN, DOWN ON
US) to yours truly. This author ended up putting me back in touch with
an old film-job buddy of mine from HIGH SCHOOL, M___ H____ (He's in my
oldest 16mm films). Hundahl appears to have as many books worth of
bizarre adventures to tell as I do, or more -- after he moved to
Hollywood he became involved, not in movies, but in the HOLLYWOOD ORGY
SCENE. Apparently that stuff in "Eyes Wide Shut" is a pale
kid's-storybook version of the real thing, orgies of over a thousand
taking place in hotel ballrooms. Damn. Funny little monkeys.

Anyway, this book about the early Dallas film business might actually
be funny as all get-out, which is I think what the guy is shooting for
now that he's immersed in the legends. I once wrote an extended article
for D magazine, or Texas Monthly, one of those, about the Day before my
Day, the weird events surrounding Larry Buchanan's film career, and I
know it to be fertile soil for true tales of terror. In fact I've been
trying to find a copy of that fucking article on disk. It's probably on
SubSITE somewhere but the file name is oddly labeled or something.
SubSITE is almost 10 years old now.

--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
PRABOB

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: polar bear <bear@pole.com>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com> wrote:
snip
> And yeah, those outfits and sets are PURE 70s. All that orange and
> blue. Cripes. Somebody gave us the complete "I Love the 70s" or
> whatever, on VHS, a special collection for each year, and I must admit
> I keep watching them, unable to tear my eyes away from the horror. The
> horror of the shittiness of THAT show, the '70s TV shows and pop music,
> sure, but more than that the horror of MY OWN MEMORIES that a clip of
> Land of the Lost can evoke. BUMSTACIOUS, TEED! MOST BUMSTACIOUS!

A guy in one of those honking great pickup trucks pulled up beside me
in traffic yesterday. He had Rod Stuarts' Maggie May going full blast.

Like I said.... get used to it.

pb

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "iDRMRSR" <idrmrsr@subgenius.com>

>>Gerry Anderson productions

Heh heh. I've actually stopped wanking long enough to have watched all six
episodes of 1999 by now. Stang, it's a pity we watched that one crummy
episode. If I had picked the next one, or the one after that, the shows got
better.

Like the next one was about some Space Trader with (honest) a Jump Drive
into Hyperspace. This fellow was about my size, wore yellow brocade and
rhinestone full-length capes, and had a lavender beard. He could appear and
disappear at will using his advanced technology.

He sold his Jump Drive to Landau for a copy of Maya which they brewed up in
the android lab. I'm jealous, a guy that size in the first place making
such a stunning fashion statement, and secondly that he could travel from
here to there simply by twiddling an invisible dial in mid air. That's damn
handy.

Actually, he was about 100 lbs or so more than me. I had to ask myself if
he had a Hyperspace asswiper, too, because it was clearly evident that the
way he was built, that chore would be physically impossible, unless he could
stretch his arms down to his knees. Or maybe that's why he wore the capes.
You could drop a stool and walk away without anybody noticing, then cozy up
in one of those tulip red plastic scoop chairs and wiggle butt to clean off.
Helps if you have a Hyperspace Dry Cleaner, too.

BUT...just the day after you came over, my PRIZE came in the mail. YES, I
now have all 20 some episodes of the UFO series! Now this series WAS made
in the 60's (just barely, 1969 I believe) and was set in the future, that
is, 1980.

So, like you are seeing a twenty four year old "guess" at what the 1980's
would look like. Everybody is dressed in a champagne colored jumpsuit with
an orange, cranberry, or baby blue turtle neck. The Connietites on the Moon
Base for some reason have PURPLE WIGS.

Now, these are SIXTIES BABES! Not the "two olives tied to a pencil" look
favored by the anorexics of TODAY! They have BOOBS and ASSES galore, and
curves and things I had almost forgotten about from my youth. The skin
tight aluminum and champagne jumpsuits don't take anything away, either.

Excellent miniatures, too. The only problem is, the producers keep
repeating the same BOB DAMNED stock shots clipped from the first episode,
and reassembling them into a new story each time. One time the UFO goes
down in a spiral of red smoke clockwise. Next week, it goes down counter
clockwise. No expense was encountered for special effects after the first
episode.

This series also exhibits another phenomenon that I just noticed. See, it
is a TV show from about 35 years ago. Not only technology has changed in
ways the series creators could not have imagined, the whole fucking world
has changed in their attitudes and so on!

In every episode, the characters smoke and drink whiskey! Also, there is at
least one person shot/burned ON CAMERA and covered with kroovy, in every
episode. Even in the episode where the one alien saves a human's life, they
KILL THE FUCKER anyhow.

Oh, the HORROR! Seems so terribly BRUTAL. Shows how well the post
Communist propaganda machine has done its job over the last three or four
decades, though. If it was made TODAY, they'd have filmed twenty seven
hours of peace negotiations instead.

Heh, we've come a LONG WAY BABY.

[*]
-----

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "ghost" <ghost@ghost.net>

"nu-monet v6.0" <nothing@succeeds.com> wrote:
(SNIP)
> Bluescreen productions, most notoriously "The
> Starlost", a fascinating premise that burned
> out after like THREE episodes.

Wonderful Ellison recounting of the "Starlost" abortion in "Ellison
Wonderland".

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: polar bear <bear@pole.com>

"nu-monet v6.0" <nothing@succeeds.com> wrote:
snip
>
> Bluescreen productions, most notoriously "The
> Starlost", a fascinating premise that burned
> out after like THREE episodes.

24 episodes actually, but only 16 were completed. A friend of mine,
who later became a producer at CBC, designed and built the model. (an
entire panzer division of 1/35 scale tanks went into that thing...lol)

Rachel: "Are those our worlds?"
Devon: "Yes, and somehow the three of us have to save them."

http://users.snowcrest.net/fox/star.html
http://users.snowcrest.net/fox/star2.html

A interesting account of how a brilliant concept ran afoul of every
obstacle you can imagine, including that rat-fuck Harlan Ellison.

Ah.... but what a brilliant metaphor! Amish in Space!

"Do you harbour secret spite against your Elders?"

I mean, where do you get dialog like that in 1973?
That's straight out of Arise!

> Movie influences: "Silent Running", which
> influenced EVERYTHING for at least a decade.

More excellent space-dada.
I'm sure this is where R2D2 came from.

> 1970s fashions: hilariously, it looks like
> they hired the same designer for "Star Trek,
> The Motion Abortion" or whatever the hell they
> called the first Star Trek movie. Don'tcha
> just LUV stretch fabrics and plastic accessories?

Get used to it. You're going to see a lot more of that in the years
ahead. We are about to re-visit the 70's, including it's most defining
feature: STAGFLATION. Which only proves that if you hang around long
enough, everything repeats. Even Disco.

> A gay negro computer programmer.

Ray Bradbury wrote the definitive Negros In Space story: "Way in the
Middle of the Air," part of The Martian Chronicles, in 1950.

1950!!! Bradbury was so far ahead of his time you needed warp drive
just to keep up. We read that stuff in 1965, 15 years later, and it
still blew us away. While other kids were beating themselves senseless
in after school "sports" we went down to Jaffys' used books and bought
old sci-fi novels from the 40's and 50's. To really understand the
60's, you have to read what guys like Bradbury were writing a decade
earlier.

pb

PS: Two films that were never made but should have been:
Larry Niven - Ring World, and Arthur C Clark - City and the Stars

---

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "nikolai kingsley" <nikolai@broadway.net.au>

> BUT...just the day after you came over, my PRIZE came in the mail. YES, I
> now have all 20 some episodes of the UFO series!

i could never figure their flying saucers out. they spun around while
flying.. or did the outsides spin while the insides stayed put? or did the
little circular flang-ey details around the edge spin while the rest of it -
aaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

and i gather there were plans to do a modern re-make of that series. some
informed Google-ing should find it.

nikolai
---
i wonder when Straker ever found the time
to actually make FILMS.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: hellpopehuey@subgenius.com (HellPopeHuey)

"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com> wrote:
> I was over at iDRMRSR's haunted condo, watching movies the other night
> with him on his Giant Drive-In Size TV. He had just gotten a DVD
> collection of Space 1999 TV show episodes and after we watched the
> great "The Man Who Wasn't There," we mocked and ridiculed our way
> through one of those Space 1999 episodes.
> > Were those shows really an hour long? Sure seemed like it.
..........
> Seeing these shitty sci fi shows as if on a theater screen allows a
> painful level of detail. Those spaceship interiors were just a mass of
> flashing lights, on TV. You didn't look at the flashing lights, you
> looked at Barbara Bain. But now, with shows made for shitty display
> being given sharp and clear display, the flashing control panels are
> all too obviously decorated with the BIG BLOCKY PLASTIC BUTTONS from
> 1968 audio mixing consoles and TV effects switchers. The knobs and
> dials are ALL TOO PLAINLY a bunch of cast-off gizmos off out-dated film
> editing machines and reel-to-reel tape recorders.
.................
> We knew all that... we knew the sets were flimsy pieces of shit. It
> just wasn't THIS GLARINGLY PLAIN.

"Oh, Oz is WAY TOO GREEN! Goddamnit, I wanna kick Frank L. Baum inna
NUTS!"

Heh, hard to believe you're the same guy who just a coupla days ago
droolingly posted a URL for a site that sells generally very SMALL
resin models from classic sci-fi flicks for $100-200 bucks! Right,
like even NOW, I do not have a "Futurama" Planet Express ship on top
of my TV.

Also semi-difficult for me to believe a pal sold a 4-foot-long
"Space: 1999" Eagle on ebay for $400. However, aside from actually
enjoying the first season when Barry Morse was in the cast, "Space:
1999" WAS pretty dismal. When they brought that shape-changing gal
Maya onboard, I began to develop odd bouts of fungii. It wasn't even
good BadFilm. Just goes to show you: Never get too close to the knobs
unless you were already cool with the zipper down the monster's back.

--

HellPope Huey
Larks Panties In Aspic


"Chinese bras are killing us."
- "The West Wing"

"The most erotic experience I have had in 6 months
was last week's trouser fitting."
- "Frasier"

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "NeuroManson" <dogegoops@comcast.net>

Or as some have called it, "Sparse: 1999". I did love the show as a kid, but
in later years... Of course, as far as TV sci-fi was concerned, pretty much
EVERY show sucked ass, shy of Serling's Night Gallery.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "nu-monet v6.0" <nothing@succeeds.com>

iDRMRSR wrote:
> >>Gerry Anderson productions
>
> BUT...just the day after you came over, my PRIZE
> came in the mail. YES, I now have all 20 some
> episodes of the UFO series!

What I really, truly liked about the UFO series:

1) Homicidal English. Not British, though they
were ethnically mixed. They were all English,
really. And murderous. And for once, even though
they whined about it incessently, SOMETHING the
English did was fully funded and worked reasonably
well. I guess drinking whiskey rather than beer
is what did it.

2) Damn, by trying to be "Mod", weren't their
fashions like a GAZILLION times better than what
actually happened, the "tough" look? Styled hair,
even those erotic purple wigs, beveled sideburns,
Nehru jackets, pastel polyesters, metallic fabric,
Beatle and go-go boots, MINI SKIRTS, and cars that
were WAY ahead of DeLoreans. And dingle-fob jewelry
around their necks. When was the last time you saw
a MAN wearing a gaudy necklace?
Don't you WISH that SOMEBODY IN REAL LIFE have worn
this stuff? So you could really be nostalgic about
it, and buy it in stores and still look "Mod" at
parties, and people could sneer at you but you could
smirk right back and go, "Well, yeah, but they were
KILLING FUCKING ALIENS when they dressed like this,
so they had a RIGHT to look cool."

3) Why are they trying to kill those aliens? SIMPLE.
BECAUSE THEY ARE TRYING TO KILL, EXPERIMENT ON, AND
OTHERWISE FUCK WITH US. That's good enough for me,
and all you really need to know. Fuck diplomacy.
If they could have figured out where there damn planet
was, they would have nuked it and adios, motherfuckers.

4) NOT A SINGLE GODDAMN MENTION IN THE WHOLE FUCKING
SERIES OF THE AMERICANS, RUSSIANS, OR CHINESE. The
English were going to fight an ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET
and they didn't even ask the US first! Kind of like
fighting Argentina, I guess.

5) Did the submarine girls actually have nipples,
or were they airbrushed out?

--
Trust No One.
Always Look To The Skies.
The Truth Is Not There.
-- nu-monet

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Doktor DynaSoar <targeting@OMCL.mil>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com> wrote:
} I was over at iDRMRSR's haunted condo, watching movies the other night
} with him on his Giant Drive-In Size TV. He had just gotten a DVD
} collection of Space 1999 TV show episodes and after we watched the
} great "The Man Who Wasn't There," we mocked and ridiculed our way
} through one of those Space 1999 episodes.
}
} Were those shows really an hour long? Sure seemed like it.

Back then there were 4 two minute commercial breaks. An hour show was
52 minutes. Now days they're between 42 and 44 minutes.

10 years before "Space 1999" it was common for a show to state "We'll
be back in 60 seconds".

Back then we had 3 networks plus NET (pre-PBS) and hard a hard time
deciding which one to watch, and they were all free to for taking over
the air. Now we pay $50 a month for 100 channels, our favorite is 80%
crap at best, re-running the same thing several times a day and week,
and it's damn near one third advertising.

Oh, sure you can get good programming. Watch the old black and white
shows on Nick at Night. They show the original old commercials
("Where's the beef?") , and damn few of them. Some of the best stuff
on TV today is 40 years old.

Next step? The FCC is prepared to authorize the "no copy" flag,
meaning every broadcaster can keep you from taping something on your
VCR to watch later. After that, they just expand the equipment that
they've been testing for the last couple years, by providing things on
demand, and from then on you'll pay for every single individual show
you watch, each time you watch it. And if the last 40 years is any
indication, it'll all suck worse and worse as time goes on.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "nu-monet v6.0" <nothing@succeeds.com>

Cardinal Vertigo wrote:
> nu-monet v6.0 wrote:
> > When was the last time you saw
> > a MAN wearing a gaudy necklace?
>
> You don't pay much attention to hip-hop, do you?

NOT THE SAME! That's like comparing nouvelle
quisine to a Big Mac.

Gaudy, not grotesque.

--
"Furthermore, we resent being put in a
position of having to deny something
that is blatantly untrue."
-- ABC News spokesman

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: hellpopehuey@subgenius.com (HellPopeHuey)

"NeuroManson" <dogegoops@comcast.net> wrote:
> Or as some have called it, "Sparse: 1999". I did love the show as a kid, but
> in later years... Of course, as far as TV sci-fi was concerned, pretty much
> EVERY show sucked ass, shy of Serling's Night Gallery.

Say, did anything ever suck more than "Land of the Giants?" Aside
from Elvis movies, which, strictly speaking, were not sci-fi?

--

HellPope Huey
Gimme the stuff that squeezes the key nerve bundles
like a drunken Irishman playing
"Whole Lotta Love" on a musette.

The truth is never pure and rarely simple.
- Oscar Wilde

"Life is an endless series of opportunities
to make a fool of yourself."
- "Judging Amy"

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "nu-monet v6.0" <nothing@succeeds.com>

HellPopeHuey wrote:
> Say, did anything ever suck more than "Land of
> the Giants?" Aside from Elvis movies, which,
> strictly speaking, were not sci-fi?

Incredibly hard call:

Space Academy and Jason of Star Command
http://www.70slivekidvid.com/jason.htm

Wonderbug
http://www.70slivekidvid.com/wbug.htm

Electra Woman and Dyna Girl (severe lesbeen alert)
http://www.70slivekidvid.com/ewadg.htm

(Pardon me, I had to stop and throw up at this
point. For further information: )

http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/tv.html

--
"I'd just like to say I'm sailing with the Rock
and I'll be back like Independence Day with Jesus,
June 6, like the movie, big mothership and all.
I'll be back."
--Executed Serial killer Aileen Wuornos

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
> Space 1999

I thought, at the time, they were altogether TOO STUPID to even watch.
Moon careening through space, my freaking arse. But last year I got
some tapes from the library and really liked the whole total disconnect
from anything like believability. It's like seeing a crazy play, not
looking through a window into another "real world." The episode where
Koenig achieves Universal Consciousness by passing through a black hole
is totally cool. Of course if you go watch TV with a total dumbass you
pretty much have to act like a dumbass to make it enjoyable. You should
try watching a Space 1999 with a smart person, or even alone if you
can't find a smart person. If you lie down with dogs you get up with
fleas. By definition, anybody who has a giant TV like that IS a
dumbass. Too dumb to do anything but suck down somebody else's pap. I
just hope he's got one of those La-Z-Boy couches with the beer cooler in
the arm, the bloated freak. Yeah, I hate that dumb fucker.

> Seeing these shitty sci fi shows as if on a theater screen allows a
> painful level of detail. Those spaceship interiors were just a mass of
> flashing lights, on TV. You didn't look at the flashing lights, you
> looked at Barbara Bain. But now, with shows made for shitty display
> being given sharp and clear display, the flashing control panels are
> all too obviously decorated with the BIG BLOCKY PLASTIC BUTTONS from
> 1968 audio mixing consoles and TV effects switchers. The knobs and
> dials are ALL TOO PLAINLY a bunch of cast-off gizmos off out-dated film
> editing machines and reel-to-reel tape recorders.

That is what's so cool about it. What happened to you man? YOU USED TO
"GET IT"!

> "GODS AND MONSTERS"

Mrs. N and I saw that with Dr. Howl and permitted him to explain to us
afterward every single detail that they didn't get quite right.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com>

nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com>wrote:
> "Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
> > Space 1999
>
> I thought, at the time, they were altogether TOO STUPID to even watch.
> Moon careening through space, my freaking arse. But last year I got
> some tapes from the library and really liked the whole total disconnect
> from anything like believability. It's like seeing a crazy play, not
> looking through a window into another "real world." The episode where
> Koenig achieves Universal Consciousness by passing through a black hole
> is totally cool.

"Totally cool" you say.

> Of course if you go watch TV with a total dumbass you
> pretty much have to act like a dumbass to make it enjoyable. You should
> try watching a Space 1999 with a smart person, or even alone if you
> can't find a smart person. If you lie down with dogs you get up with
> fleas.

Yeah? And? Why the hell else do you think I hang out in alt.slack in
the first place? Bow wow, Animal Control Officer Nenslo!

> By definition, anybody who has a giant TV like that IS a
> dumbass. Too dumb to do anything but suck down somebody else's pap. I
> just hope he's got one of those La-Z-Boy couches with the beer cooler in
> the arm, the bloated freak. Yeah, I hate that dumb fucker.

Trying to rile me up. Not this time, Sergeant Janor!

Just this morning I was thinking to myself, that Assassinated Nenmaster
Nenslo, he's a great artist and really smart about some things.

And I left it at that.

((Section about Nenslo's friend "Binnie" removed))

Mister Sister might be dumb, like me, and he might be a fucker, like
you, and I suppose you COULD uncharitably call him somewhat bloated,
and he himself would agree that he is a freak, and he does in fact have
one of those very Laz-E Boys you mention, but, nonetheless, in real
life, he's a swell gent, on the square, and a corkin' good TV-watchin'
pal. A man of honor. I think your problem is, you've been watching
shitty movies from the library so much that you now let some good old
fashioned blunt Midwestern fun-pokin' get your goat. Or else you're
just jealous as hell of his TV. I know I am. I'm gonna get me one of
those just as soon as they start showing up in garage sales. So I can
see my JPEG-Y-LOOKING DOWNLOADED, LOW-RESOLUTION BOOTLEG MOVIES shot
off a theater screen with a handycam, BLOWN UP TO WALL-SIZED!

"Too dumb to do anything but suck down somebody else's pap." You know
as well as I do that nobody's too dumb to do anything, period. The
dumbest idiots in the world can make movies, and write books, and they
do it all the time. And YOU AND ME BOTH BOUGHT, WATCHED AND READ THEM!!
So who's the dumb ones, Mister Smarty-Pants.

> > Seeing these shitty sci fi shows as if on a theater screen allows a
> > painful level of detail. Those spaceship interiors were just a mass of
> > flashing lights, on TV. You didn't look at the flashing lights, you
> > looked at Barbara Bain. But now, with shows made for shitty display
> > being given sharp and clear display, the flashing control panels are
> > all too obviously decorated with the BIG BLOCKY PLASTIC BUTTONS from
> > 1968 audio mixing consoles and TV effects switchers. The knobs and
> > dials are ALL TOO PLAINLY a bunch of cast-off gizmos off out-dated film
> > editing machines and reel-to-reel tape recorders.
>
> That is what's so cool about it. What happened to you man? YOU USED TO
> "GET IT"!

Nice try, Nenslo, but you won't get me off THAT easily.

> > "GODS AND MONSTERS"
>
> Mrs. N and I saw that with Dr. Howl and permitted him to explain to us
> afterward every single detail that they didn't get quite right.

Now see, I'd probably have enjoyed that, because I share Dr. Howll's
persnickety fascination with the Universal horror pictures of that
period and especially James Whale's work. Yet I get the impression
that you found it tedious.

Why, I guess it "takes all kinds," in this wacky world! That's my
philosophical way of looking at it.

If only some really diplomatic person could make Nenslo see that he and
Mister Sister are really "on the same page," especially in their
mindless devotion to Dobbs and equally mindless appreciation of the
insipid Space 1999. Hey, I know just the person! MAGDALEN!

Man, I should become a diplomat MYSELF! Then a matchmaker.

--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
PRABOB

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "iDRMRSR" <idrmrsr@subgenius.com>

Nenslo:
>>I
just hope he's got one of those La-Z-Boy couches with the beer cooler in
the arm, the bloated freak. Yeah, I hate that dumb fucker.

Now you are inspiring me. Gee, I LOVE YOU!

And for the record, I am not DUMB and at the present time, not a fucker
either. The bloated freak charge, however, still sticks. Pretty good
batting average, 1 out of 3.

Incidentally, my couch is a RECLINER. One of those where you just push a
button to get into primary Slack Position. Really, I have to look into the
cooler option. But my condo is so small, I can actually walk to the other
end when I need to take a whiz and resupply the num nums. That's REALLY
small considering my bloated freakiness, but I SO detest sleeping in the wet
spot that I move often enough to keep the bladder down.

Think of me more as a Yankee HellPope Huey, and you won't be too far from
wrong.

I do think I have more Slack than you. I can eat as much of anything that I
want, and do, and have been for prolly longer than you. Long as I take that
insulin.

[*]
-----

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Joe Cosby <joecosby@SPAMBLOCKmindspring.com>

"iDRMRSR" <idrmrsr@subgenius.com> wrote:
>I do think I have more Slack than you. I can eat as much of anything that I
>want, and do, and have been for prolly longer than you. Long as I take that
>insulin.

you have more slack than him in that you do not, like him, spend half
your time running around trying to find somebody to feel superior to.

that IMO is as slackless as it gets.

--
Joe Cosby
http://joecosby.home.mindspring.com

I've had this hammer 20 years.
I've replaced the handle three times and the head twice.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: ridetheory <ridetheory@notmail.com>

Rev. Ivan Stang at stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com wrote:
> We knew all that... we knew the sets were flimsy pieces of shit. It
> just wasn't THIS GLARINGLY PLAIN.

These shows were set in the same fictional universe as the excellent puppet
show "Thunderbirds". In which the sets were better because they were 1/6
scale, or something, except when someone had to grab a handle or push a
button -- they would build just that one little part of a set in full scale
and cut to a shot of a real hand reaching in. Man, even as a kid who loved
the show, I thought that was funny.

Also, "Space: 1999" (never trust sci-fi with a colon in the title) is set in
the same fictional universe as "UFO", which I remember fondly for its future
Mod fashions.

The laser guns in "Space: 1999" looked just like staple guns. Maybe they
were.

> It's a wonderful movie, very touching, and a must-see for monster fans
> who are themselves artificially created monsters...

The Cramps.

> ...or monster-creating mad scientists.

Devo.

Plus, Brendan Fraser acts AND takes his shirt off. Usually he just does
picks his roles in such a way that he won't have to do both.

iggy topo


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