The Haunted Theatre

It's not Halloween, but it is the height of the summer tourist season at Mackinac Island. Mackinac Island is located between Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsula. You can't drive to it (take a ferry or other boat) and you can't drive once you are there (cars are banned).

Most of you have probably not heard of Mackinac Island, but you have probably seen it: it was prominently featured as the setting of the old Christopher Reeve/Jane Seymour/Don Melvoin movie "Somewhere in Time". And the pronunciation? It is pronounced like "Mackinaw" (think of the Mackinaw Peaches in the Seinfeld episode "The Doodle").

Mackinac Island is a place I mention to friends and relatives from the South as a cool place to see in Michigan that they would like. At least when it is open for the summer season.

One of the major attractions (at least to me) is the Haunted Theatre. Their web site describes it: "Not a theater of movies, But a Haunted House of three dimensional monsters. Within these halls you will encounter horrors of the past...Artist's conceptions of Monsters from Mackinac's History.I've been there a few times." The site gives this explanation for the macabre happenings: "Hundreds of years ago this area was part of an Indian burial ground, which probably explains why the theatre is so haunted. " I've been to the Haunted Theatre a few times, but not for several years.

I was reminded to do this post because I found an old brochure of the Haunted Theatre from the 1970s while going through my files. The current brochure is smaller and does not feature the back pictures, shown below. Click on it to see a larger scan, and to look at many of the monsters. I've enlarged the photo of one of their grandest monsters. the Ocryx, above. The old brochure says that the attraction closes for the winter in mid-October. Now, they are open through the end of October, which I think is a good idea in order to cash in on the ever-increasing interest in Halloween haunted houses.

The Haunted Theatre and the Haunted Mansion in Disneyworld are the standard by which I measure other "haunted house" attractions.

Below is a Youtube video of some of the spooky sights of the Haunted Theatre. One of the monsters bears a very strong resemblance to Marvel Comics' "Man Thing".

Orphan Car - Pontiac Solstice

I saw this in a parking lot today and snapped a couple of pictures. It's a Pontiac Solstice roadster. Not sure how good they are, but I think it is a nice looking car. And it sure stands out from the other bland final offerings from the axed Pontiac division, which have names borrowed from Apple Computer microprocessors.

I don't think there are many Solstices out there, and this is a rare sighting. Since they aren't making any more, they will get even more rare. I think this was one example where GM bungled things. There was a big interest in these long before they came out. They could have sold so many during that period, and interest probably peaked before the things finally came off the assembly line after a way too long wait.

The car in the background in the front view is a Pontiac Grand-Am, which I think has been the most successful Pontiac of the modern era.

MSN - 15 Roadside Destinations

I sometimes have http://www.msn.com/ as my home page when I start up my browser. It is jumbled with a lot of things that Microsoft thinks are important. Right now, the first "news" story that comes up is a feature in which they appear to recommend getting divorced after 20 years of marriage. After that is a feature on "15 roadside destinations". The headline photo for this is of Metropolis, Illinois, which I have been to, so I figured I would check out the article.

Click here for the whole MSN article.

The first attraction featured is in Bemidji, Minnesota. That is where you will find statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. I've seen these one or two times, but not since the 1970s. Below is an old postcard ("large letter") of Bemidji, featuring the statues. Bemidji also has a giant Indian statue.
The next attraction is the Dillinger Museum in Indiana. I used to live near it. I've never seen the big deal about John Dillinger. But I guess with the new Johnny Depp movie, there will be some more interest. Their web site looks to be rather well done.

The third attraction is the Pez Museum near San Fransciso. I may have one or two Pez dispensors, but I think I got them by accident. I'm not really into Pez, and am not sure I would cross the street for this one. Besides, I've not been to "Frisco", and am not likely go there for quite some time, if ever.

Fourth on the list is Ye Old Curiosity Shop, in Seattle. They proudly feature mummies. Reminds me a little of the Ripley's Believe or Not Museum in St. Augustine. No, I've not been to Ye Old Curiosity Shop.

The fifth entry is a giant laundry basket in Newark, Ohio. I've already seen a giant basket building in Germany, and I am not putting this one high on my list.

Sixth on the list is a row of giant president heads in Houston, Texas. I've not seen this either, but I have been to Houston.

Seventh on the list is Harvey the Giant Rabbit in Aloha, Oregon. I've not seen this one, but I have seen a rabbit statue in Lodi, Michigan.

Eightg on the list is Metropolis, Illinois. This tiny city bills itself as Superman's home town. Actually, it is not much a metropolis, and is much smaller than TV's "Smallville". I did visit this place not long after the museum opened, and I used to have some photos, but they are long gone. I was able to find this interesting photo everywhere on Google, however. No doubt Senator (or Candidate?) Barack Obama dropped by Metropolis at some point during his career as an Illinois politician, and had this photo taken.

Ninth on the list is the Cardiff Giant of Cooperstown, New York. Cooperstown is home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. I've not been to Cooperstown, but if I went, I'd probably be more interested in the giant than the baseball stuff. The Cardiff Giant is sort of an American answer to England's Piltdown Man.

Entry number 10 is the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas. I've seen several things in Las Vegas, but not this. If I went, I might make sure to take my geiger counter with me.

Number 11 is a giant shoe in Pennsylvania. Does not seem like a big deal to me. I've not seen it, but the idea reminds me of the giant doughnut in Los Angeles. It is near the airport, and I have seen it. It is named Kindle's Giant Donut, but I always referred to it as Lard Lad. Nothing to do with a shoe, but I have seen it, and I am sure others have too.

Number 12 is the coral castle in Florida. I've not seen this, but I've seen strange stone structures in western Wisconsin.

Thirteeen, fourteen, and fifteen are a jackalope statue, a giant peanut, and a giant ball of twine. I've never seen any of these.

How many of these have you seen, if any? Or what should have been on the list that was left off?

Gorn vs Sleestak, Michael Jackson vs Elvis Presley

For a while, I had a silly little poll to the right, "What Would You Rather Fight". The choices were Gorn or Sleestak. It only got nine votes, and the Gorn won 5 to 4. I suspect that the Gorn did not win due to something to do with its fighting ability, but because Star Trek (Gorn) is more popular than Land of the Lost (Sleestak). To the right you will see pictures of both. Above is an example of a relatively low priced detailed Sleestak costume that is being sold later this year. Below is a photo I snapped last week of a set of giant streetsign banners of the Gorn which are up in Detroit. I figured that an old picture I once saw of a Sleestak guarding the city of Detroit might be good to put here too, but when I google for pictures of Detroit Sleestaks, pretty much all I get is Bill Laimbeer, the most famous Detroit Sleestak of all.

But enough about the old poll. I have a new poll in the right-side sidebar: Michael Jackson or Elvis? I'm not a big fan of either. But I do like several songs by both of them. I vote for Elvis, because the worst of his vices were overuse of prescription drugs, and fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. Michael also had the prescription drug problem, but his other vices were far worse. I'd have been more likely to trust Elvis to come over to babysit the kids.

Gary, Indiana (Postcard Friendship Friday)

Well, this is yet another Michael Jackson-related post. Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana. I happen to have several postcards of the place. Not because of Jackson, but because I was born there, and lived near it the first four years of my life.

Gary was founded in 1906 as a USS (United States Steel) corporation company town. That makes it a lot newer than most US cities I am familiar with the history of.

Check the "Gary: America's Magic Industrial City" web site for a lot more information on old Gary.

The two postcards shown here are from the 1910s. The building from the left is the Gary State Bank, and it is also shown as one of the 8 places in the "Greetings" postcard below. I don't know if this old building still stands, but there was a later, larger Gary State Bank which can be seen in this Flikr picture. The steel industry in the United States has been on hard times for a long time now, and the economy in Gary has suffered a lot. There aren't many attractions there. An unknown Frank Lloyd Wright house was discovered there in recent years, and torched not long after. The last time I saw the AAA travel guide for Indiana, there was not much material at all on what to see in Gary. Trip Advisor lists the Majestic Star Casino.


This is a "Postcard Friendship Friday" entry. Please visit the CPAPhil blog to find out more details, and find the other participants.

Below is a Youtube video of young Ron Howard singing the "Gary, Indiana" song from the musical "The Music Man":

Michael Jackson Lives Again

From the "Michael Jackson Is Alive" Department.

I saw this actual BBC headline this morning: "Celebrities and fans pay tribute to Michael Jackson amid concerns over the singer's use of pain medication following his sudden death." Click here for a Google list of links to sites that refer to the headline and versions of the article.

Yes, the man taking pain medications after he dies is indeed a cause for for concern isn't it?. But this is perhaps the first evidence this King walks again, as Elvis before him did.

After all, it happened in 1988, when Elvis first re-appeared among the living at a Burger King in Kalamazoo. I didn't expect Jackson to come back to life so soon, and I would have expected him to make his re-appearance at a fast-food place instead of a pharmacy somewhere.

So, when you got to Burger King to get your Transformer or Star Trek toys, keep a watch out.

"Standby photon torpedoes"

I got to sit in Captain Kirk's actual command chair for a couple of minutes this morning. I got to press the buttons, too. No, I resisted the temptation to bark weapons-related commands at Sulu or grump at someone to get the tribbles off the bridge. Sulu was not on the bridge, and besides, the place was not under attack. The only tribble around was under glass in another room. And besides, I was not Captain Kirk. But I did get to sit in his chair.

Michael Jackson is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself

No, I'm feeling OK. But it is all over the news that Michael Jackson has died of a heart attack today in California. The title of this blog post is a take-off on the humorist Lewis Grizzard's book title Elvis is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself. Elvis was quite significant to Grizzard's generation. I suppose Michael Jackson was significant to mine.... the tail-end baby boomers for whom, unlike the main body of baby boomers, Vietnam (and Elvis for that matter) do not have much significance.

But I never was a big fan. I did like the song "Ben", but mainly because it was about the title character in a horror/science-fiction movie about a rampaging army of intelligent rats. I liked "Thriller", but mainly for the zombie effects, and Vincent Price's contribution. I liked the theme from "Free Willy". Jackson actually tried to sing in that one, as opposed what he did in many of his songs in recent decades, which was a vocal style that included too much hissing and hiccuping. I became much, much less of a fan after the child-molestation case. It also comes to mind as i write this that he inspired some great parodies by Weird Al. To Jackson's credit, he took Weird Al's satire (which parodied Jackson's image as well as his music) in good humor, and was a fan.

The picture to the above right is Jackson made up as the scarecrow from "The Wiz", which was a film adaptation of the hit musical which was a sort of urban adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz".And those are my thoughts on the late Michael Jackson, such as they are.

The Golden Beacon

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright aimed high. Such as the Mile High Illinois project, which was a skyscraper a mile tall. Never built.

Another grand project was St. Mark's of the Bowerie [Not PC Blog], a New York City development. It was designed in 1928, and fell victim to the Great Depression. But the idea for the skyscraper design that was part of the project lived on. It appeared during the 1930s as part of Wright's "Broadacre City" plan to change the country. This later version of the tower was now called the Golden Beacon.

Broadacre City and the Golden Beacon tower were near realized either, but the idea did not die. The tower was finally built in an altered and smaller form as the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in 1956. Click here to see my earlier blog entry about Price Tower.

But that wasn't the end of it. Tom Monaghan, co-founder of Domino's Pizza had a lot of grand plans in the 1980s. One of them was to build a 30-story version of the Golden Beacon tower as the office building for the pizza company. The plan was 30 stories tall because of the pizza company's 30-minute guarantee. There was an unsuccessful struggle to get the local government to accept this design. and Monaghan eventually went in another direction for his office plans. What ended up built was no tower at all.

At the time the Golden Beacon was a live project, the Huron Sign Company designed a 37 foot tall model of the proposed Domino's tower. I snapped these two photos of it today, where it stands as a piece of sculpture in the courtyard's surrounding Dominos' office building. A large model of another failed office tower idea stands on the grounds a little ways to the west . The Golden Beacon model is painted a fresh paint of gold, and it shone brightly in the setting sun as I snapped the photos.

It is located a little ways northeast of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Something for architecture afficionadoes to see if they want to see something like a Frank Lloyd Wright skyscraper, and aren't willing to go to Oklahoma.

Germs Are Alive

Saw this on a hospital wall. Enough to turn someone reading it into a Howard Hughes-style germophobe? Looks scary anyway. Better go wash my hands.

Pink Houses and Black Houses

Just a picture of a pink house I saw this morning. There are a few pink houses around, and at least one lavender one. I think there's a chartreuse one somewhere around too. But I can't recall seeing a black house anywhere, ever. Except in a few books, such as Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub, and Some Summer Lands
by Jane Gaskell. I don't think I'd ever paint a house any of these colors, myself.

"Oh but ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America somethin' to see baby
Ain't that America home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me"

From "Pink Houses"
by John Cougar/ John Cougar Mellencamp/John Mellencamp

"Quixotic" Saturday Scavenger Hunt Word

The Saturday Scavenger hunt word for today is Quixotic. It was chosen by NoRegrets. What can be more quixotic than a picture of a windmill? Well, a picture of a windmill with a guy on donkey tilting at it might be more quoxotic, but that did not happen this morning.

Actually, my first thought on the word "Quoxitic" was the similar name "Quixtar". Quixtar is/was a name that Amway called itself for a while. I am not sure why they changed the name. I snapped a picture of the Grand Rapids, Michigan skyline at the beginning of the year. The picture included the Amway tower, seen here. For a while it was the tallest building in Grand Rapids. It has a slanted top, which distinguishes it from the typical nondescript glass-box building.

No, I am not in Amway, and I shy away when someone is trying to sell it to me. I tend to think that if the product is actually any good, it will be sold in a retail fashion, not through MLM. And I've had bad run-ins with Amway sales people. But it must be acknowledged that DeVos family, associated with Amway, has pumped a lot of money into good works, including the children's hospital.

Don Quixote was a Spanish knight. I do happen to have a sort of tin knight, and I featured a picture of him a while ago in my Sir Knighty Knight post. This old knight was probably intended to be Don Quixote. Evil-E blogged about his tin knight a couple of years ago (the post is gone, otherwise I would link to it), and AlienCG features the Don Quixote statue that is part of his parents' home decor in his own "Quoxotic" post.

Below is a Youtube video of the biggest windmill around here. I "filmed" this this morning. It is run by the local electric company. The structure at the hub is something like a bus, or a section of an airliner. The music accompanying it is "On Interstate 15" by the band Wall of Voodoo. I'm not sure how well it fits the image, though.

To the right is a typical old farm windmill also on M-72. It is located near a barn. I've seen so many of these dotting the urban landscape, and I doubt many of them work anymore. Some companies still sell new ones, such as "American Windmills"

And below is a Youtube video for the song. "Don Quixote" by Nik Kershaw. I'd not seen this before last night when I was researching things to put in the post. It's not as good as his great songs "Wouldn't It Be Good" or "The Riddle",, but not bad, and you get to see Don Quixote running around in it.


Postcard of the Day

Below is a mid-20th century postcard of Windmill Park in Holland,Michigan. This type of windmill is what most of us think of when we think of windmills. This was published by the Kropp company for the Vanden Berge Cigar Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Pizza Hut to Change Name to "The Hut"

Yes, Pizza Hut is changing its name to The Hut, not Pizza Hutt.

Click here for today's "Postcard Friendship Friday" entry.


I just read of a business rumor that Pizza Hut is changing its name to "The Hut".

I'm not sure this is wise. Last time I knew, the pizza business was pretty cut-throat. And to drop the "pizza" from this big company's name would more or less cede the big national pizza market to Domino's, Little Caesars, and the other Papa Johns (not to be confused with the superior original Papa John's in Lansing that you've never heard of*).

I guess this is a decision of the Yum company, which owns the Pizza.... er No-Pizza Hut chain. They also own Kentucky Fried Chicken, and want us to call it KFC and not ask what the F stands for. The Yum company is a company no-one ever hears of except when they advertise once a year during the Kentucky Derby. Or perhaps they might start insisting that we call it the KD instead of Kentucky Derby.

It is because of the Yum company that you see those odd combined Kentucky Fried Taco Bell stands here and there.

No word yet if Jabba the Hutt will change his name to "The Original Hutt" to head off the confusion.

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* About the original Papa John's, Wikipedia says "Papa John's operated under the company name "Papiano's" in East Lansing, Michigan, because a pre-existing local chain of pizza restaurants in this area already laid claim to the name "Papa John's" before the major chain was formed.[9] The location closed in 2008 and reopened as another pizzeria.[10]"

German Airship (Postcard Friendship Friday)

Today's "Postcard Friendship Friday" postcard is a very old New Year's postcard that is from Germany or a nearby German-speaking country or region.

I got this postcard several years ago at a "stamp shop" in Munich. I discovered the place about 15 minutes before I had to leave the city, and it was one of the best postcard places I'd ever seen. I was like a kid in a candy shop... for a few minutes, anyway. "Airships" was one of the categories I thought to check during the brie time I was in the shop.

The front of this card shows a passing airship with complicated wing structure, and a group of snowmen on the ground. The Ein Frohes Neues Jahr phrase translates to A Happy New Year. The year is just not legible on the postmark, but I am guessing that this card is 90 or so years old. Perhaps the airship design might be a clue to a more accurate year guess. The snowmen remind me of the Michelin Man. The first snowman has a spyglass aimed at the passing "luftcshiffe" (airship), but it almost looks like a peashooter.

The card was published by Raphael Tuck & Sons. According to the A Postcard A Day blog, Tucks "were one of the larger producers of postcards, based in London but with printing houses in Paris and New York as well, but sadly their the history, records, original paintings and postcards were destroyed during air raids in World War II"

This postcard has what I can only describe as an unusual fragility. It is separating into three separate layers, as if glueing three very thin layers of card together was part of the printing process.

The back of the card has what I assume to be German writing. I can barely make it out, and don't want to bother trying to translate it. The last word might be something like "Instirol", which would refer possibly to the Tirolean Alps. Yet again, it could be something else entirely.

Click here to find out more about Postcard Friendship Friday.

How did the Today show get this bad?

This is not your father's "Today Show".

I remember watching the Today Show a lot around junior high. It was on about the time I ate breakfast before school. I never got into "Good Morning America", even though we've been on it. The CBS show (it seems to have no actual name) is a latecomer and seems like an interloper bumping out Captain Kangaroo. But I did like the Today Show with Tom Brokaw, Jane Pauley, Bryant Gumbel, and Willard Scott (with his ebulient proclamations about 103-year-olds). It started to go downhill when they brought trash-TV queen Debra Norville on board, and I lost track of it at that point.

Lately, when it has come to morning TV, I have watched the Regis show. Even though helium-voiced Kelly Ripa looks like she is made of plastic.... like Kira the Gelfling but not quite as lifelike. Nah, I shouldn't snipe at Kelly. I think the show, which has the official name "Live", can be pretty good sometimes.

But along comes DTV Doomsday, and the station that had "Regis and Kelly" no longer comes in at all. So, what else is on? I happen upon the current Today Show. Its nothing like the Today Show of yesteryear. In fact, it looked just like a session of the QVC shopping channel in which E-list television spokesmodels sit there and chat without bothering to hawk products. Well, most of the time. Their desk is covered with shampoo and perfume bottles, so I figure that it must go into full QVC mode sometimes. It's hosted by Kathie Lee Gifford and someone named Hoda. "Hoda" sounds like the name of one of those pseudo-medical substances sold via spam scams.

I know that Matt Lauer still does the show, thanks to the Land of the Lost movie. And that Al Roker is still involved somehow. I always thought that Roker was real good, and he would have fit in with the better Today Show if the 1970s. But I think these other two are on earlier when I don't see them. But these later hours of the Today Show look pretty awful. Does anyone else watch any of these morning shows, and have any favorites or hated shows?

I'm watching this as I write the post. Since I started typing it, Hoodia Gordoni and Kathie-Lee Gifford have started to sell swimsuits. In full QVC mode. They are also joking and snickering about wife-swapping parties. Now would be a good time for that baby Sleestak on the Today Show set in the "Land of the Lost" movie to come out and liven things up.

"This is Today on NBC".... but it is nothing like yesterday's "Today".

Another in the "Bad Spam" series

I got a spam with this title yesterday:

i have no hand.. i get laid.. you can too :)

Sex spam to appeal to those with missing hands. I suppose it might have some limited appeal. Such as to poor Luke Skywalker, already confused after realizing that his "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" love is really his sister. Or Mace Windu, in the seconds between when Emperor Palpatine chops his hands off and when he blows out the window of a 600 storey skyscraper.

Unclaimed Money for You?

I recently read elsewhere of an unclaimed money site run by the Texas state government:

https://txcpa.cpa.state.tx.us/up/Search.jsp

I decided to google the Michigan one just by searching for

lost money michigan

I quickly found a Michigan treasure site for lost/unclaimed property

http://www.michigan.gov/treasury/0,1607,7-121-44435-7924--,00.html

and found that I might have something that needs checking into.

These look legit, as long as they are found on actual government sites. You should be able to find the site to check your state by googling lost money, with your state name.

Has anyone ever had anything really come up on one of these, or knew anyone who had this happen?

Isn't this piling on?

Chrysler (including its Dodge and Jeep divisions) has been through a lot in just the past few months. From being ranked dead-last in quality for quality in Consumer Reports, to going bankrupt, to being taken over by the Italian company that gave us the Yugo, the company has been through a lot lately and is against the ropes.

But I guess that is not enough for this S-10 Chevy Truck owner, who kicks Dodge while it is down. Not that Chevy is doing that well right now either.

Isn't it too early for Halloween?

I saw this storefront at the mall the other day. Isn't it too early to worry about Halloween costumes? I suppose I should go in there and ask if they have Sleestak masks.

Jones Home Made Ice Cream in Baldwin,Michigan

Today we had a couple of "Jones Cones" at Jones Ice Cream in Baldwin, Michigan. The "postcard of the day" below is a modern card they sell at Jones Ice Cream.

The cones were Blue Moon and Vanilla. Jones Ice Cream has not changed much. Click here for a web page that has a postcard of it from 30 or 40 years ago. Another small blog entry can be found here.

Baldwin is in the middle of no-where in Western Michigan, along M-37. It is the county seat of Lake County, and I've read that it was a "Terminus" in the Underground Railroad. Ethnically, it is 2/3 white and 1/3 African-American. Nearby is Idlewild, the location of a lot of African-American resorts in the pre-civil rights era. A link to a history book about Idlewild is found to the right. There was also a recent film entitled Idlewild (2006) which was said to be very loosely inspired by the place, and starred rap artists.

Baldwin, Idlewild, and Lake County are quite rural. I can't recall hearing of other rural areas in the North with a lot of African-Americans. James Earl Jones grew up about an hour away in Brethren.

The Shrine of the Pines is another area attraction. Click here for a blog post of Shrine of the Pines postcards at "Life in a Postcard Mirror".

And yes, Jones has great ice cream cones. What is the best ice cream place you know of? You might be interested in my previous post about Moomers, which was selected last year as the best ice-cream place in America.

June 12, 2009 - DTV Doomsday

Well, today is the final deadline for conversion of United States broadcasters to Digital Television (DTV)

What should this mean?

1. No more of those crawls on the bottom of the TV screen all the time telling us of the changeover. Why did they run these on cable, when cable is supposed to be immune from the changeover? And want to bet some stations will still show these alerts after the changeover?
2. Finally forced to use them, many will discover that their cheapo DTV converter boxes are DOA, and angry consumers will head back to Walmart or Fred Meyer/Meijer.
3. A certain percentage of people will, despite #1, complain all over the place when their Guiding Light goes out, saying "how was I to know??? Waaaa!"
4. Incompatible TV's will be discarded, and line the streets.
5. People will scramble to hook up tangles of DVD's, VCR's, and converters, and be subjected to having to use one or two more remotes just to watch TV.
6. Some stations will still be caught flat-footed, and DTV equipment malfunctions will leave them off the air for a few days.
7. The chaos will force more people to watch TV on Hulu and Youtube. I know more and more people who do this already.
8. A few people, when this is all over, will be sitting in their easy chairs watching snow on the TV. And they will notice the improvement in programming quality.

I still think that this conversion should have been voluntary, and not forced. How are you weathering this today? I've not turned on the on-the-air TV yet.

UPDATE: Doomsday Evening.

Well, the CBS station is dead. They were supposed to have been back up 7 hours ago, but the web site says they are out indefinitely. The web site even says that the cable version of the CBS affiliate has been knocked out. So much for the DTV Doomsday Switchover not affecting cable TV. However, I do now get Fox over the air. I took a snapshot of the show Mental, seen to the right. That's the late David Carradine, in his final television appearance as a silent lightning-strike victim named Gideon Graham. Carradine also has 6 films yet to be released,still in post-production.

"Forget the Film, Watch the Credits"

Yes, this is another Land of the Lost related post. I noted in my earlier review that the end credits were the best part of the movie. I noticed in the credits that an outfit called Axiom was involved these credits, and that they looked like the Lemony Snicket end credits. I just now looked it up, and sure enough, Axiom made the end credits for both Land of the Lost and Lemony Snicket.

Here are the end credits for Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events , as found on Youtube:



The style of the Lemony Snicket end credits reminds me of famous macabre cartoonist Edward Gorey. A sample of Gorey's art can be seen to the right.

There is actually a web site "Forget the Film, Watch the Titles" that has a page about the Lemony Snicket end titles (higher quality than the Youtube page), along with more than a hundred other films.

I know I've seen other great movie title sequences, but can't remember them other than the 2nd Gone in 60 Seconds and The Fearless Vampire Killers (click on both of these to see them on Youtube). When I think of terrible movie credit sequences, the Speed Racer movie comes to mind. Do any of the film buffs who read this remember beginning or end title sequences that impressed them?

Review: Land of the Lost (2009)

I went to see the new "Land of the Lost" movie last night. It ws opening night for it, and there weren't that many of us in the theatre. I can't recall ever going to a movie I knew I would not like. Not even "Star Wars: The Attack of the Clones". This review does have a spoiler or two in it, so be warned.

Laughingattheslut has the right idea. In her recent blog post, entitled "Land of the Lost movie and other crap", she says "It is a sad thing. Some of us waited ten years for a Land of the Lost movie, only to have the project taken over and ruined by Will Ferrell". I think, so far, she has been able to resist tempation to see it. But I felt I had to go.

In short, It's a typical Will Ferrell buffoon-fest that doesn't reach too far either in the direction of a great comedy or a great action movie, and as a result it succeeds at neither. The characters are perversely unlike the original characters. The "Will" character, especially, is a waste of skin, and I don't see him as even needing to be there except to make sure there was a "Will" in Ferrell's "Marsball, Will and Holly". I did laugh here and there during the movie, as did the audience, but this was because I was in it for the two-hour duration, and was trying to make the best of the experience. Such as it was. However, I don't think that anything was funny enough to repeat as "this was really funny" in the movie.

In fact, if you are in the mood for laughing at Land of the Lost, there are better ways to do it than this movie. For example, there's the "Nicole Richie looks like a Sleestak" picture that's floating around (right). So, if you want to laugh at Land of the Lost, use this picture. It's funnier, less disgusting, and won't cost you $8 to look at it. Or if you want something to watch, check out the seven-second "Sleestak Library" video from Robot Chicken. Funny, fast, and Ferrell-free.

The best part of the movie? The end credits. The looked a lot like the end credits from director Brad Siberling's previous "Lemony Snicket" movie, and those were pretty good too. The music for the end credits was a rather Elfmanesque piece (think Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes) with banjo added to it. Complete with Planet of the Apes style credit letters with lines that grew. And, sure enough, there is a "surprise" in the credits. I was the only person in the theatre to see it. Everyone else had left. Again, this is a spoiler (but how can you spoil something that is already rotten to the core?), but if this "surprise" leads to a sequel, perhaps it will be about the Today show staff raising a baby Sleestak. Maybe it can grow up to eat Kathy Lee Gifford. If so, that can't happen too soon.

The characters are mostly unlikable, and you can't "get into" them.. Doofuses with motives that run the range from questionable to cartoonish. Except for Anna Friel as Holly. Never mind that she was nothing like the Holly from the TV show. She's the only thing that passes for a normal person in the movie, with anything close to normal reactions and behavior. Except for her admiration for the Will Ferrell character. She reminds me of Zoey Deschanel, so it is like Trillian from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is walking around in the Land of the Lost.

Fans of the old show will get "eye-candy" tossed at them on occasion. And it works sometimes:

• There's a Library of Skulls. Not bad, really. But the one in the 1974 TV series looked better.
• The new High Bluff cave home isn't bad at all.
• The pylons make an appearance, complete crystal-triggered doorways, "larger on the inside and outside", and a sort of crystal matrix table that appears to be borrowed from Superman's Fortress of Solitude. These aren't bad, but a better version of the old-style gold-painted plywood ones might have been better.
• Except for the teeth, the Sleestak are pretty good
• Extensive use of the Pakuni language is made. And yes, the "Chorizo Taco" joke is actually a little funny, being based off of something from the old show.
• There's a Lost City, but it is no where near as interesting as the one from the original show. The Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes comparison comes up again, as his Ape City was nothing compared to the one in the original movie.
• Enik did not work for me. He somehow reminded me of a chicken. The actor could not get his Altrusian accent right, whatever that is supposed to be, and had two different ways to pronounce "crystals". I wish they'd just not had his lips move. Moving CGI lips on a real rubber mask just does not cut it.

My ranking? 1.5 Eberts out of 4. Typically, that means "Pretty bad, but some things here and there might be good. Maybe you will be lucky and see only the good 10 minutes of it on cable. " Oddly enough, Roger Ebert is one of the very few reviewers to like this movie. He gave it a 3 out of 4 in his own review. Roger, how could you??? I don't think that many non-fans will like this, as a movie. Fans of the old Land of the Lost will only be so disappointed at the missed opportunities and trashed concepts.

The Lost River (Postcard Friendship Friday)

The postcard to the right is a mid 20th-century linen-type postcard of a waterfall on the Lost River in Niagara Cave near Harmony, Minnesota at the Iowa-Minnesota border. This is one of my favorite caves, and offers a lot of "bang for the buck". I've been there a few times, and recommend it for anyone passing through the area. I was looking to show a vintage postcard that was somehow related to Land of the Lost, and this one of a subterranean waterfall in a canyon fits the bill.

Does anyone remember the old theme song?

Marshall, Will, and Holly
On a routine expedition
Met the greatest earthquake ever known.
High on the rapids
It struck their tiny raft.
And plunged them down a thousand feet below.
To the Land of the Lost.
To the Land of the Lost.
To the Land of the Lost.

And you can click here to hear it. All you need to do is add a little yellow raft to the postcard view.

Review: "Land of the Lost" (1974)

I get more and more Land of the Lost related searches coming into my blog. Today, I got one for "how to make a sleestak costume". I've only ever seen two fan-made Sleestak costumes, and both happened to be of Enik. I've never made one myself, but imagine that someone might shorten the time on the effort making a sort of hooded-cloaked Sleestak (which really means just making front of the mask). That is where I'd start anyway, and I've thought of it over the years. All I know for sure is that it would probably take me a lot more time than I'd think.

So, if anyone comes here looking for how to make Sleestak costumes, here are a couple of pictures of non-commercial costumes people have made. The one on the left was found on a now-gone web site of New Years party photos. I wish I had been at that party. The one on the right was made by a friend. That was probably a good party too. You don't get too many opportunities to party with Altrusians.

That reminds me that I'd never quite reviewed Land of the Lost. The 1974 Land of the Lost TV show probably counts as my favorite TV show of all time. I have an affinity for TV shows with Lost in the name, such as Lost in Space and of course Lost. I know I'm preaching to the choir for some. I think at least a half-dozen of my readers are already Land of the Lost fans.

It's about a father and his two kids who go exploring in the Grand Canyon and fall down a waterfall into an alternate dimension pocket universe inhabited by dinosaurs, pro-human hominids, and slow-moving scary lizardlike Sleestak. The episodes are about this family, the Marshalls, trying to get ot, trying to survive, and trying to get along with the Land's unusual inhabitants.

It was made by Sid and Marty Krofft, who were also known for H. R. Pufnstuf. For someone who liked science-fiction and Star Trek, it was heaven. David Gerrold, who wrote the Tribbles episode in the original Star Trek, was the story editor, and manage to corral Star Trek writers to write Land of the Lost episodes.

The results aren't for everyone. Few adults I introduce it to who did not grow up with it "get it". The dinosaur effects are closer to Play-Doh than Jurassic Park, but back then they were state of the art.

I love soundtrack music. To me, it can make or break a movie or TV show. For "Land of the Lost", they did not mine the stock Saturday morning TV show music, but came up with something quite distinctive. It was an eerie mix of bluegrass and Kraftwerk. Banjos and synthesizers. I have a feeling that the choice of banjo in the soundtrack was influenced by the movie "Deliverance", which had come out only two years before. The two are wildly different, but both Land of the Lost and Deliverance were about a routine rafting expedition that went wrong. They had banjo music in the soundtrack, most famously "Dueling Banjos". Jimmy Haskell even went as far as having different dinosaurs and different places have their own little theme in the music.

If you are expecting something campy, this show was at worst unintentionally hokey. It was not one of those shows that lost all shame like Batman or Lost in Space. It took itself seriously, and did not talk down to its audience. The worst episodes are found in the third season, a point in which they had to deal with the sets and many props having burnt away, the loss of the top-billed actor, and other major changes. Even so, you can catch a glimpse of Richard Kiel ("Jaws" from James Bond) in a couple of episodes and Ron Harper was good as Uncle Jack.

If you are interested in Land of the Lost, the first season shows are easily found on Hulu. Downstream and The Stranger are two of my favorites in this season, but there are other good ones as well.

Here's some trivia about the show:

• Michael J. Fox was originally considered for the role of Will Marshall (the son).
• Walker Edmiston, who played Enik on the show, was also the voice of Ernie the Keebler Elf
• As featured in a recent post of mine. NBA great and WNBA coach Bill Laimbeer played one of the Sleestak.
• The others who menace the Marshalls in Land of the Lost have a leader who is played by an actor named Jon Locke. The Others on the modern ABC-TV show Lost have a leader whose name is John Locke. See Sleestak's Blog for more information. Related to this, the early working title for Land of the Lost was Lost.
• Michael Westmore, the makeup artist who created the Sleestak mask and costumes, also did the makeup for Eddie Munster and the makeup/masks for the Star Trek spinoff series (the Jem' Hadar, Cardassians, Ferengi, and the others).
• The Enik character was created by Walter Koenig (Star Trek's Chekov), and the character name was originally a tribute to Gene Roddenberry in the form of "Gene" backwards

My rating? Well, I have not had a ranking system for TV reviews before. I happen to remember a TV show called "The Critic". I liked it, but I think few others did. It was a cartoon about a critic named Jay Sherman, and it starred the voice of Jon Lovitz. So, on a ranking system of up to 4 "Jay Shermans", I give Land of the Lost a full 4.

Below is a tribute to the show, a Youtube video called "Sleestak are Scary"

GM Bankruptcy

I am sure everyone saw the big news Monday that General Motors officially filed for bankruptcy. It was hardly any surprise for anyone who had followed the industry for the past few weeks. It was probably not a surprise for anyone who had followed the industry for the past several years.... and it was probably not much of a surprise to some who saw the big decline start in the late 1970s: a decline that GM was never quite able to reverse.

Digging through my collections last year, I found a mint-condition copy of the "GM Annual Report - 1954". It is a glossy, proud publication of a company in its prime. It was probably the mightiest corporation in the world at the time. I figured it would be interesting to contrast the glowing statistics from 55 years ago to what is going on now.

Employees in 1954: 567,677. Employees now (2008): 243,000 (less than half). And soon to go down a lot more.

Cars Sold in 1954: 3,800,000. Cars sold in 2008: 8,350,000. Almost twice as much now, despite all the contraction of the company and the reports of compared-to-last-year sales loss.

Payment in Taxes in 1954: $1 billion. Payment now: I can't find how much they pay in taxes, but I can't imagine that it amounts to much compared to the tens of billions of dollars they have been getting recently in bailout money.

Divisions in 1954: GM was already set with Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and Chevrolet Truck, Oldsmobile, GMC, and Pontiac. These are the brands the company is famous for now, except that Saturn replaced Oldsmobile. In modern times, of course, there are other divisions that people think of after the fact, such as Hummer and Saab. But these divisions, along with Saturn, won't be around in GM for much longer at all.

Does anyone have a GM product now? I had one during the 1990s, but that was a while ago.

OFFER: Vintage bird foul hunting coat

I saw today someone offering a "Vintage bird foul hunting coat" on Freecycle. For another, is it really too much to ask them to wash it, even if they are giving it away? For another, perhaps they should not stand under telephone lines in the future when wearing their hunting coats: it might help avoid it being bird-fouled.