Forgotten 80's: Coleco table top games

First watch this commercial. Commentary to follow.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl44QIavtfw

I’m guessing this commercial was filmed in Canada. I just get a ‘You can’t do that on television’ vibe. It’s the way that one kid near the end says “The Oh-ficial table top version!”.


“Galaxian! It’s mine!” Wow, that kid is seriously creepy. He looks like Gollum when he sees the one ring. I’m guessing he went to the prom alone. I heard he drives the Zamboni at Toronto Maple Leaf games now. He lives in his parent's basement and spends his free time, you guessed it, playing Galaxian. It’s his after all. His own. His... preciousssssssssss.






Mr. Arcade. Good Lord. It’s like they grabbed some homeless dude and threw a Saturday Night Fever suit on him. And what’s with his reaction to the kid asking for Donkey Kong? It’s like “Donkey Kong? Are you out of your mind you hoser? It can’t be do... BAM!”

As you might imagine, Mr. Arcade was full of crap. These games may have looked like miniature versions of their arcade counterparts in so much as the cabinet art is concerned but the graphics were LED. Still the game play was fun and basically true to the spirit of the arcade version. I had Pac-Man [I was a Pac-Man nut as a kid].
Today these games go for solid money in eBay in any condition; more if the cabinet art is in good shape.





Post script – If anyone knows the whereabouts of the kids from the commercial or the actor who played “Mr. Arcade”, drop me a line. Seriously. I don’t know why, but I have a curiosity about what happened to the people who were featured in those great 80’s commercials.

Link of interest

http://www.vidgame.net/COLECO/TABLETOP.html

Forgotten 80's: Showbiz pizza place

Their pizza smelled like a dead bum’s crotch. Creepy animatronic animals warbled cornpone music. You could drop $10.00 on ski-ball and walk away with a comb as a prize. Why then did I [we?] love Showbiz Pizza? Because it’s where a kid could be a kid!

Lots of places in the 80’s had video games and most probably sold lousy [by the slice] pizza too. But only one had ‘Dick McGirt and the Hillbilly jug band’! Wait, that wasn’t it. What were they called? [Google] Ah, here we go. ‘Billy Bob and the Rock-afire explosion’. Awesome. Serenaded by an anaimatronic band of animal freaks that lip-synched worse than Ashlee Simpson [who is pregnant with the drummer's baby BTW] as you drank watered down pop and ate pizza that tasted like the inside of Ernest Borgnine’s colostomy bag... only in the 80’s! [Yes, I’m trying to see how many gross comparisons I can make between their pizza and the nether region’s of the homeless and elderly].

Billy Bob; Nah, not creppy at all

While the band probably distinguishes Showbiz from the rest of the pack, the real draw were the games. Obviously there were arcade games, but they also had a giant pit of plastic balls you could jump into. You didn’t get that at Wendy’s, folks! Dave Thomas’ folksy charm is no match for the opportunity to suffocate beneath a large sea of colorful balls and strange children [I believe Michael Jackson has stated that’s the way he wants to die].

I don’t think I ever went to Showbiz just for the heck of it. It was always a special occasion. Birthdays. Little league banquets. Anaimatronic bear appreciation day. Stuff like that. The closest one was about a 20 minute drive, and thus remained a treat of sorts throughout my youth.

As the 80’s drew to a close, my local Showbiz was bought out by that evil corporate raider, Chuck E. Cheese. Mr. Cheese continues to operate out of that building today and no doubt his pizza tastes like a bag of poo after three days in the glove compartment of an 1987 Honda Prelude, but he doesn’t have the ‘Roll-a-tire excursion’ or whoever they were.


Some links of interest

A fan site with more info than you could possibly imagine [sorry, channeled Obi-Wan Kenobi there for a sec]

http://rock_afire.tripod.com/

Okay, I was going to post some others but that’s all you’ll ever need!

Street Fighter: The movie, is Jean Claude Van Dumb

Back with another installment of project re-wind. This time I review the 1994 film adaptation of the video game ‘Street fighter’.

To confess right up front, I have seen Street Fighter before. It was Christmas day, 1994. In what is a Christmas tradition, me and a group of friends went to the movies. I’m told we saw Street Fighter, but I have no memory of the film itself. What remains is a two hour black hole.

Picking [up] a Fight[er]

You know how I roll. I got this El freebo at the library. VHS. Old school. Ya dig?

All right, enough of that. Like I said, got this one at the library, on VHS. It was the original release because the first five minutes of the tape were filled with Street Fighter propaganda that almost had me convinced this movie wasn’t actually a giant steaming pile of deuce. Almost.

Everybody was kung-poo fighting!

The first two minutes or so of ‘Street Fighter’ are actually pretty good. In retrospect I should’ve just rewound and watched that 40 or 50 times rather than the entire movie itself. There’s also a surprising amount of cussing [or is it cursing? I never know, damn it!] in that first two minutes, but to be fair I decided not to count Jean Claude’s use of the term “Deek head”.

With a title like ‘Street Fighter’ it’s probably not difficult to figure out what it’s about. A young Parisian school girl is sent to spend the Summer on her aunt and uncle’s farm nestled in the lush, French countryside. While there she meets Pepe, a mute stable boy. What follows is a torrid love affair that fills the screen with erotic passion!... Nah, it’s about fighting.

I could give you a regurgitation of the “plot” filled with my signature biting commentary or I could just save us all a lot of time and say “it stunk” and move on.

It stunk.

Okay, with that settled I’m going to use my saved time to go get a burger. Hmmm, maybe Burger King. I’ll be back.

15 minutes later...

Man, that was a tasty burger! Burger King indeed. Bravo, your highness. Bravo.

What I liked

Next. Move along. Nothing to see here

What I didn’t like

The endless parade of characters and stories is enough for two movies... thank God they only decided to make one, however

Basically ignores the premise of the video game it’s based on

It’s popular to ask “What did we learn?” so here goes

Americans have French accents

It’s not uncommon for news reporters to be Ninjas, and for their crews to be made up of Sumo wrestlers and boxers

Jean Claude kicks the “Sheet” out of “Deek heads!”

The M in M. Bison stands for Merle. Okay, I made that up

Random thoughts

Raul Julia’s IMDB page claims the actor died of a stroke shortly after completing Street Fighter. My guess he actually died of embarrassment

What is that giant bump on Van Damme’s forehead? Would somebody hand the brother a belt sander and some band-aids?

The “Allied Nations” wear a neon blue camouflage pattern with splashes of pink. Are these soldiers fighting most of their battles in San-Franciscostan?

The bottom line

Cheesy mess is watchable, but only if you’re not lactose intolerant.

Final score: 3.5/10

Forgotten 80's: Literally... I can't remember this stuff!

Faithful reader[s] [Thanks, Mom] I need your help. I’m sure you all can identify with fuzzy memory syndrome. That terrible affliction that only allows you to recall bits and pieces of things. Below are three that have vexed me and the web has proven to be of little help.

Monster Pops

“Just when you though it was safe to go back to the refrigerator!”

For years I thought I was alone on this one. Google searches turned up zilch and my friend’s had no memory of the monstrously good Popsicle called ‘Monster Pops’. But, it turns out I’m not alone! Finally, I got a decent hit during a search. It took me to the retro site called, appropriately enough, retroist.com.

Initial post here

http://www.retroist.com/2007/08/03/do-your-remember-monster-pops-popsicles/

“Fellowship of the Monster Pop” [coined by yours truly] created to track down more info

http://www.retroist.com/2008/04/14/the-sacred-fellowship-of-the-monster-pop/

I’m afraid that collectively we don’t recall much, other than the following.

- They came in a black box, with pictures of the various monsters on it

- There was a Dracula and Frankenstein ‘pop’ for sure and perhaps a Mummy or Skeleton and Wolfman.

That’s about it. We can’t recall the maker, nor can anyone dig up a single lousy picture of the box. Heck, we can’t even find any references to them anywhere on the web.

Do you have a scary good memory? Do ‘Monster Pops’ ring a bell? Then howl back at me.

Crocodile toothbrushes

This one hit me today out of the blue. Remember back in grade school when they’d have that ‘Oral hygiene’ day? Someone would come in and talk about the importance of brushing, then they would hand out these little kits with a toothbrush, some toothpaste and these little pink[?] tablets inside. The teacher would then send kids to the restroom to brush, followed a little later by chewing the tablets [which somehow revealed places where you didn’t brush properly]?

I seem to remember the handles of the toothbrushes being shaped like crocodiles, but that’s about it. Any help, corrections or further memories you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

London Bobbie’s

The internet hasn’t been of much help on this one either. When I was a kid, we’d go down to Virginia about once a year to visit relatives. On the way there and back we’d stop at a fast food place called ‘London Bobbie’s’ [sp?]. The theme was, as you might imagine, one of a stereotypical British policeman with the large hat and Billy club.

I think they may have had fish and chips [natch], but they also had standard fast food fare. I remember it being absolutely delicious and looked so forward to it whenever we’d go down. We didn’t have them in Ohio, so it was a rare treat.

I really can’t remember much, including where exactly it was [I just started writing this blog on a whim and it’s too late to call my Mom :p]. This may be the toughest of all, since it’s likely a regional thing.

Any info on this British themed burger joint?

Forgotten 80's: Part one - Grossville High

Something new about something old. In ‘Forgotten 80’s’ I take a look at stuff that has slipped through the cracks and into obscurity. This blog features the 1987 Fleer bubblegum card series ‘Grossville High’.

“I loined it at Grossville” – Grossville High slogan

Topps’ ‘Garbage Pail Kids’ phenomenon was already starting to die down by the time rival card manufacturer Fleer debuted their ‘Grossville High’ series. The premise; A High School filled with a variety of odd and disgusting characters. I could’ve saved Fleer a lot of time and money and just let them copy my yearbook.

Ultimately ‘Grossville High’ came and went without causing much of a stir. I was in middle school at the time, just past the age where a [normal] kid would be into such a thing yet I still enthusiastically collected this series. I’d show them to my friends who would just roll their eyes at me. Heck, I didn’t care. Let them have their girlfriends and their spooning sessions, I had a shoebox full of colorful stickers! [Ever try to spoon with a bubblegum card? My advice? Don’t, or else buy Band aids. Lots and lots of Band aids].

The actual stickers featured bright, colorful artwork that was a bit more amateurish than the ‘Garbage Pail Kids’ line but still very cool. The backs, like ‘GPK’, featured “wacky” stuff like yearbook entries and the Grossville High Bulletin board. Here’s a sample from the Grossville High Lunch Menu.

Monday: Slug salad, Sliced raw Meatloaf with Slime Gravy, French Flies, Puke Pudding, Sloth Milk.

Did my Mom write these things? Anyway, you get the gist of it. Subtle as a kick to the taters.

Grossville High closed it’s doors forever after only one year and, like algebra, it has been forgotten by nearly everybody... until now.

The Grossvile line-up [some of these names are bit more clever than you’d think] 1. Peter Picker, 2 . Napper John, 3. Pam Hocks, 4. Grody Jody, 5. Dick Thickbrick, [I kid you not], 6. Brad Breath, 7. B.O. Joe, 8. Billy Bob Slob, 9. Cheatsheet Charlie, 10. Pretty Boy Roy, 11. Jack The Zipper, 12. Blind Date Kate, 13. Dale Fail, 14. Norman Nerdwood, 15. Close Shave Dave, 16. Jackie Acne, 17. Tony Tattoo, 18. Guy Fly, 19. Debbie Desperate, 20. Aersol Flynn, 21. Dr. Zoolittle, 22. Prima Donna, 23. Vinnie The Vice, 24. Fanny Form, 25. Ty Tannic, 26. Lila Brarian, 27. Janitor Jim, 28. Telulah Ptomaine, 29. Ortho-Dennis, 30. Homeroom Rhonda, 31. Brian Brownie, 32. Bob Beaker, 33. Mao Tse Tongue, 34. Kris Kross, 35. George Gorge, 36. Dan Druff, 37. Joe Stereo, 38. Lou Libel, 39. Vic Vomit, 40. Judy Cooty, 41. Teri Two-Faced, 42. Walter Weird, 43. Bea Flat, 44. Coach Roachbomb, 45. Jim Nausia, 46. Jane Pain, 47. Clyde Cleat, 48. Foxanne, 49. Nurse Curse, 50. Sam Speed, 51 Static Ling, 52. Airhead Ned, 53. Driver Ed, 54. Lovesick Rick, 55. Bruce Screwloose, 56. Prof. Square Rootski, 57. Koo-Kooracha, 58. Miss Body English, 59. Bess Stress, 60. Betty Blooper, 61. Ray Spray, 62. Prof. Lyle Lobe, 63. Chucky Chews, 64. Prof. Sigmund Fraud, 65. Ty Rant, 66. Bullpen Glen

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