Comic book short story~The Golden Eagle

From Contact Comics #4, Jan 1945

Great cover by L. B. Cole

Cartoon~Bimbo's Initiation (1931)

This 1931 cartoon features one of the first appearances by Betty Boop...before she starred in her own series for the Fleischer Studios. She was originally designed as a sexy dog character, and she still has dog-ears in this cartoon. Eventually the dog ears were replaced by the earrings she still wears to this day.

At The Movies~ Flight To Mars (1951)

Today's matinee feature stars Cameron Mitchell (The High Chapparal TV show)  and is in color.

 "Five astronauts successfully fly to Mars where they encounter seemingly friendly and advanced inhabitants who harbor covert plans to use their ship to invade Earth."


Classic 50s space suits first used in Destination Moon the year before.

 The film has some similarities to the Russian silent film Aelita, including a woman named Aelita.


Click below to watch the whole movie.

Aston Martin Lagonda

Recently one of the automotive fan forums I frequent posted a WHAT IS THIS picture and so few people could identify it I knew it was a candidate for Smeghead's Garage.

1982 model

The Lagonda was luxury four door car produced by Aston Martin beginning with the 1974 model. That, and the 75 offering, were fairly conservative looking. It was a sedan version of the DBS.  The 5.3 L V8 engine supplied with a 5-speed manual or automatic transmission and  only seven were sold.

James May with a 1979 example

Things took off with the 1976 model designed by William Thomas. Production problems delayed actual delivery of the cars until 1979.

  The cars were originally fitted with digital LED dashboards and touch pad controls, but the innovative steering wheel controls and gas plasma display were abandoned in 1980.

One-off 1987 station wagon.

 Specification
Engine: 5.3 L 5,340 cc (326 cu in) DOHC V8, producing 280 bhp (209 kW; 284 PS) @ 5000 rpm and torque 302 lb·ft (409 N·m) @ 3000 rpm

Top speed: 143 mph (230 km/h) and acceleration to 60 mph in 8.8 seconds
Length: 5,281 mm (207.9 in)
Wheelbase: 2,916 mm (114.8 in)
Width: 1,791 mm (70.5 in)
Height: 1,302 mm (51.3 in)
Weight: 2,023 kg (4,460 lb)

The 1986 and 87 models were fuel injected. Only 75 were made.

1989 model

1984 interior

 The Lagonda retailed at £49,933 in 1980, significantly more than a Ferrari 400 or Maserati Kyalami but less than a Rolls-Royce Corniche. 

Series 4

The Series 4 was launched at the Geneva Motor Show in  1987 and received a significant exterior facelift by the car's original designer William Towns. The car's sharp edges rounded off and the pop-up headlights eliminated, with a new arrangement of triple headlights each side of the grille being the most obvious alteration.

The last Lagonda was produced in 1990.

TV Time~Collector's Item

Collector's Item was a 1958 pilot for a television series to star Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, with Whitney Blake as their assistant.
. Only the one episode was made. Produced by the same Production Company that did Perry Mason.

At The Movies~ Robinson Crusoe On Mars (1964)

Saturday Matinee Time.....



Robinson Crusoe on Mars is a 1964 Techniscope science fiction film retelling of the classic novel by Daniel Defoe. It was directed by Byron Haskin, produced by Aubrey Schenck and starred Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin and Adam West. Many of the Mars scenes were filmed in Death Valley National Park, California.

Trivia:
    In Ib Melchior's original screenplay, Friday was from a planet called Yargor in the Alpha Centuri star system. Much of Friday's Yargorian dialogue was fully scripted in his "native tongue". For the film, however, Victor Lundin altered the lines to a dialect mirroring Mayan phrases and terminology.
  When the aliens are seen directing the mining operations from which Friday escapes, they are wearing the spacesuits   worn by the astronauts in George Pal's 1950 film Destination Moon. Those suits were used in numerous films and  TV shows, as late as 1966 in an episode of THE TIME TUNNEL.
   The alien mining ships are very similar in design to the Martian war machines in the 1953 version of The War of the Worlds, which was also directed by Haskin and produced by Pal.
 Female simian astronaut Mona was played by a male Woolly Monkey named "Barney", who wore fur trunks to conceal that fact.
   The "air pills" were stock M&Ms, while the "poi sausages" harvested from the Martian plants were pepperonis.


 






Lundin wrote the song "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" to perform during his highly popular science fiction convention appearances.....

You can just tell they are looking for it......

Invasion From Mars

Here's an interesting anthology from paperback pioneer Dell. Published in 1949, it's 191 pages of some of the best SF to date;

 Invasion from Mars • Howard Koch

The Green Hills of Earth • Robert A. Heinlein

 Zero Hour • Ray Bradbury

Expedition • Anthony Boucher

Incident on Calypso • Murray Leinster

The Star Mouse [Mitkey] • Fredric Brown

The Castaway [as by George Danzell] • Nelson S. Bond

Victory Unintentional • Isaac Asimov

 Farewell to Eden • Theodore Sturgeon

 The Million-Year Picnic • Ray Bradbury

Strange as it seems, Bradbury was considered the heavyweight talent in 1949.

Have Space Suit—Will Travel

1958 original edition

Have Space Suit—Will Travel is a science fiction novel for young readers by Robert A. Heinlein published    in 1958 as the last of the Heinlein juveniles. It was my first exposure to RAH,circa 1965, and I've been hooked ever since.
It first was serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

 for a time during World War II, Heinlein  was a civilian aeronautics engineer working at a laboratory where pressure suits were being developed for use at high altitudes, so he brought lots of realistic detail to this otherwise fantastic flight of fancy.

from the Wikipedia entry:
Like Heinlein's other juveniles, Have Space Suit—Will Travel is a well-constructed adventure story, but compared to many of them, it takes a more philosophical approach, examining what is noble and ignoble about the human race through a varied cast of characters that includes humans, aliens, and even a cave-man. The "What is man?" theme is also explored in another of his juveniles, The Star Beast, but there the tone is more comic and ironic, whereas Have Space Suit—Will Travel is heroic, and sometimes even tragic.

1971 paperback edition

1983 Paperback

At The Movies~ The Conquest of Space (1955)

A team of American astronauts leave their space station on the first mission to Mars, but the captain's religious beliefs may get in the way.

great color film by George Pal.

At The Movies~The Time Travelers (1964)

Today we introduce a new feature ...complete movies (via Youtube). So get your popcorn ready and turn off the cell phones.



The Time Travelers was released in 1964,written and directed by Ib Melchior.

The plot involves a group of scientists who find their time-viewing screen allows them to travel through time.



Cast

Preston Foster as Dr. Erik von Steiner
Philip Carey as Dr. Steve Connors
Merry Anders as Carol White
John Hoyt as Dr. Varno
Dennis Patrick as Councilman Willard
Joan Woodbury as Gadra
Delores Wells as Reena
Steve Franken as Danny McKee, the Electrician
Berry Kroeger as Preston
Gloria Leslie as Councilwoman
Mollie Glessing as Android
Peter Strudwick as The Mutant
J. Edward McKinley as Raymond
Margaret Seldeen as Miss Hollister



 


Melchoir was born about 100 years ago in Denmark, and wrote or directed SF favorites "Death Race 2000", "Planet of  the Vampires","Robinson Crusoe on Mars", "The Angry Red Planet", and "Reptilicus". For his involvment in the TV series "Lost In Space", read Ed Shifres's  book on the subject.


About midway through the movie, Forrest J Ackerman appears briefly in a scene depicting several technicians. Ackerman's only line in the movie is "I'm keeping all my Spacemen happy", a line utterly irrelevant to the surrounding dialogue. 
  Comedian Steve Franken is funny, then annoying .

Fans of old Sci Fi will also see John Hoyt (from the first STAR TREK pilot) and Dennis Patrick (Dark Shadows, Lost In Space)

I'll have an Egg Phosphate please

click twice to read

Drug stores used to be more than places you'd go to get prescription meds and overpriced crapola as seen on TV. As late as 50 years ago drug stores had amenities such as lunch counters and a magazine rack that would put modern bookstores to shame .This menu of drinks and ice cream comes from the soda fountain of a drug store in Milwaukee sometime between 1916-1920. I've had orange phosphate and raspberry phosphate , but EGG PHOSPHATE???? I can only wonder...... They also have "Lime Rickey" on the drinks menu...that usually is made with gin...this was a swingin' speak easy type of place!!!

Closer Than We Think!

Arthur Radebaugh is best known for his art involving florescent paint under black light.

 From 1958 to 1962 he produced the syndicated Sunday comic strip "Closer Than We Think!". 

Stuff You Can't Get Any More

You know you're getting old when things you are used to buying simply disappear without fanfare. I don't mean big things like Pontiacs and Plymouths, I mean those everyday staples like.... Ah, with these you could pretend to be dad with a hangover..they looked just like Alka Seltzer. Plop Plop Fizz Fizz. There is an expensive re-crration of this product available on the net...I haven't felt the need to spend that much for something that wasn't all that great to begin with. It was more fun to put one in your mouth and emit colorful foam.  Those jello mousse cups have about the same consistancy,, but they are way too sweet. This stuff was almost as good as Whip N Chill.

  tasted a hell of a lot better than decaf coffee Kids today are afraid of a little foot impalement.


  Someone marketed a product with the same name a few years ago (maybe they're still around) but they lacked the look, texture, or taste of the original. In short, they were putrid. Not that the originals were all THAT great.


  Still the most popular beer in the UK, this hasn't been available in the US since 2002.


  They bring Quisp cereal back for special promotions every so often (it's just Captn Crunch in a different package), but long forgotten is Quisp's buddy, Quake. A mining disaster took him no doubt:(

  Swason - International - Polynesian Style TV Dinner Sweet and Sour Chicken and Pork, Vegetable Chow Mein, Roasted Rice in a Seasoned Sauce, Orange Tea Cake. These were delicious. There were other offerings in the series: The English dinner was fish & chips, the Italian had lasgana & spinach. This is the Swanson International dinner I could do with out--the german edition: Prunes..cabbage... my stomach rumbles at the thought


  More of a biscuit, really. Not salty. My uncle used to feed me these as a baby. Reportedly you can still get these in Canada.

 
This stuff would unsmear anything, and didn't leave a greasy "amorall" residue. This stuff smelled great!!

discontinued Jan 5, 2009. R.I.P.


 If you can think of anymore, please leave a comment.