On the first day of Christmas...

 

This comes from the 1985 Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog. The ad itself reflects the second wave of figures in the Super Powers Collection, one of my all-time favorite toy sets.

What struck me as odd looking at it now is that not only is the Darkseid Destroyer (the spaceship in the top right) missing pieces, such as the flight pods that went on each wing, and the guns that are supposed to be on the front, but since Darkseid is standing on the rock below the ship's wing, who is it in the cockpit?

It's Hobgoblin, a villain from the Marvel Secret Wars Collection, not even part of the same toy line.

I picked up my own Darkseid Destroyer a few years back and finally broke down and assembled it in the early days of the blog here.

While the toy line was still going, anything my brother and I didn't have would surely be at the top of our Christmas wish lists. One particular figure from the line eluded us, and it remains on my own wish list out of principle: Cyborg.

Hope springs eternal, though.

Take a sniff. Pull it out.

The taste is gonna move you when you pop it in your mouth.

Oh, why aren't there lyrics like these any more?

Bah.

Today was kind of a crappy day, so instead of the usual meandering, here is a video of a kitten.

Oh God, make it go away...

I make fun of The Star Wars Holiday Special, but as bad as that is, it's not the only offender in the ill-conceived live-action genre program.

Let me tell you about a little thing called Legends of the Superheroes. Imagine the old Batman TV show combined with the inanity of Challenge of the Superfriends. And then take the result and get it drunk and maybe even hit it in the head with a hammer.

I'm warning you; this is pretty awful. But I think it's my duty to keep you from buying a bootleg videotape of this program at a comic convention.

My dad told me the computer was versatile, but...

In the early days of home computing, we picked some losers before some winners. We were the only family I knew of who had a Coleco Adam, and before that we had a Timex Sinclair.

But in our pre-PC days, we managed to settle on first the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A and then ultimately, our trusty Commodore 128, on which we played about a billion Commodore 64 games over and over.

So when I saw this video this morning, it tugged a little at my heartstrings. Some enterprising souls have created an ersatz Guitar Hero game that runs on the C-64. It's called Shredz64.

While I'm tempted to break out my old C-128 to try it out, I really don't have the room or an adapter for my guitar controller anyway. But check out this demo, in which the SID version of a popular 80s tune is played.

A movie that haunts me

Last night, I watched a movie that I don't think I'd seen since it was in the theaters: Deadly Friend. It's a typical love story: supergenius boy who creates a pet robot named BB falls in love with abused girl and reanimates her with his robot's brain after her dad accidentally kills her, only to find that she takes revenge on her tormentors.

I saw this in the theater with my dad, who I could usually con into taking me to see horror movies. But one scene in this flick haunts me, and not because it's scary. Here's a link to the video, all cued up: http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=1sZLlI4i2LM#t=5m39s.

Right when the main character, Paul, whips back the blanket, everyone in the theater gasped, which startled me a little. My dad thought it actually scared me, and to this day, should the film come up, will laugh and say "BB," in an approximation of the robot's voice.

The movie holds up fairly well for what it is, up until the ending. I'd post the video here, but it makes even less sense out of context than it does in context. I'm curious if the ending was tacked on after polling a test audience or something.

Anyhow, here's the trailer. I just sent it back to Netflix, so you may be the lucky person to get it next.

What's on TV?

Here is a cool way to waste some time and be festive all at the same time: BetaMaxmas. Relive the fun of staying home for winter break.