Tag Archives: 1985

When The Turkeys Get You Down

For those who don’t know; drawing these delicious strutting meatball monsters is kind of a pain in the ass unless you simplify all the feathers.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! Come on in and grab a plate and a chair, there’s plenty of food and room at the table for all of you. Just chuck your mask in the bushes by the curb, with all the discarded latex gloves, empty sanitizer bottles and other accepted detritus of 2020. I care about coronavirus even less than my neighbors care about litter or landscape pollution.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Eatable Things, Nostalgic Obsessions, Site Stuff

Voltron

Imagine you are a child in the year 1984, seeing and hearing this for the first time:

https://youtu.be/1uS5b8aQ6z8

That opening theme is every bit as iconic as those of Star Wars, Indiana 
Jones and Buckaroo Banzai. It isn’t just triumphant; it’s Christmas, your birthday and post-orgasm in half a minute.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned

The Doors

The origins of the line “It’s better to burn out than fade away” are somewhat muddy. It’s another version of “Play it again, Sam”; the words we’re most familiar with are actually a variation, and not a quote verbatim.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club

Name Your Rock Band

A long, long time ago, on a website far away, there was a thing that pulled in page-views like a drunken champion. It was about 50% my creation. The rest was appropriately and totally ripped off.

It was called “Name Your Rock Band”.

For the first handful of years of the 21st century, it was the most popular page on my site, Mike The Pod. In truth, it goes back even farther than that.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Site Stuff

3-D’s Nuts

3-D movies employ greatly improved technology today. Previously, they used the same glasses as 3-D comic books did; cardboard with acetate lenses in red and blue.

My personal pair, since 1991’s Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. (As much as would fit on my scanner.)

3-D comics were unreadable without these glasses. I still have two issues: Gumby 3-D and Transformers in 3-D #3, both from Blackthorne Publishing.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Magazine Rack, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee

Moonlighting

Oh, you say there’s an ’80s revival on the way again? Are you ready for some chills of the douche variety?

Many things on television in the 1980s were, in hindsight, cringe-inducingly awful. Indefensible, from any logical standpoint. Cast into the dustbin of time by fading stars trying to build a better legacy. Continue reading

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Worst Of All

Before It Was Choked On

Look, choking sucks. I don’t have to point that out, do I? And truthfully, most toys have small parts these days, and there’s a warning about them on the package. But those clickers are long gone. They blocked a toddler’s airway better than a spoonful of shellac.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Eatable Things, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee

Comic Relief 1985 Part II: Electric Marmaduke

I’ve never been introduced to your family, but I can tell you one thing about them for certain; they’ll be hungry this Thanksgiving. Not for turkey. For conversation that won’t end in bloodshed.

comicrelief1

What better topic could you suggest, than heavy-handed comic strips from over thirty years ago? Join the table, for a big helping of nostalgia, extra cringes, and unintentional laughs! Continue reading

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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Eatable Things, Nostalgic Obsessions

(Every Day Is) Halloween

Let’s say you’ve decided to become a “Goth”. These are some things you can expect:

  1. No friends, aside from other Goths.
  2. No attention, aside from that of other Goths.
  3. No respect from anyone, aside from other Goths.

Goths have made a full-time commitment to a bad mood. It’s like a lifestyle built entirely around PMS. If a Goth is older than 25, you’re looking at severely damaged goods. Elvira is literally the only person who can pull the look off successfully.

Damaged goods she is not.

Damaged goods she is not.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club

A Wronging Endorsement

In the latter half of the 1980s, just about every teenage guy wanted to be Michael J. Fox.

fox

Kari Michaelson AND Nancy McKeon- ROWR!

He had indomitable charisma. He had charm. He even made voice-cracking kind of cool. He was likable yuppie Alex P. Keaton on NBC’s sitcom Family Ties, and spastic teen time-traveler Marty McFly in the Back To The Future trilogy of movies.

Then in 1991, after Brian DePalma’s Casualties Of War, Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s Disease.  Continue reading

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Filed under Bad Influences, Eatable Things, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Worst Of All