Reading Offline: Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments
by Alex Boese
Really odd book about various "scientific" experiments, some gruesome, many just insane. Have't yet gotten to the elephants on acid part, but am definitely freaked out by the "let's decapitate an animal and try to keep just the head alive" chapter. Ugh.
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
by Nancy Milford
I never read much of Millay before, but Milford wrote a really interesting biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, so I was interested to see her next book. Still in the first chapter, but the prolog was amusing in itself. I always appreciate reading the background of how the author started on the book.
Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
by Anthony Bourdain
I gave this to Jon as a gift a while back and only just recently remembered I never did borrow and read it myself. Am very amused so far. Sadly it's not the updated edition I've linked to - preface in our copy's dated Nov. 2000. Wonder what's been added/changed/corrected.
The New Kings of Nonfiction
by Ira Glass
Collection of nonfiction articles previously published in various magazines. Bought a while back in an airport and there are still a few articles I haven't finished reading. I really liked the Bill Buford article that became Among the Thugs.
...About?...
Batgrl is a pop culture junky who loves to mess about with cameras and video games. And is constantly amused by Jon, who she did honest and truly did meet online. Though she's been blogging since the '90s, evil sp@m'rs managed to break the old blog, and thus there's only more recent stuff here. (No great loss, actually!)
Wandering around the net I somehow bumped into this post on Isis and found myself in a Nostalgia Fest. Because thanks to YouTube you can see bits of the Isis show:
Yes, that's just the opening of The Secrets of Isis. Which was indeed every bit as cheesey as it looks, and I was a huge fan when I was 9 or 10.
Here's a typical Isis transformation scene:
And although now it makes me snort with mirth, I used to dig that "oh zepher winds" line. Boy that rhyming thing must have gotten old for the poor writers. ...Randomly I remembered her boots as being knee high, and without such killer heels. No wonder she flew everywhere, she'd never manage to run in those things.
You didn't make it though that clip without laughing, right?! I had a lot of laughs over the "villian is attacked by lens flares/UFOs" moment. I think I enjoy these old shows even more now that I live in southern California and the backgrounds all seem even more familiar.
Anyway, in case you were curious for more there's finally a DVD of the series out. However, I admit, I'm avoiding it entirely, because it just can't be as good as my memory would have it.
After all, I loved the 1974 show Land of the Lost, but I saw some old episodes of it recently - and it's deadly dull. Though I can still sing that theme song along with the rest of the pop culture junkies:
Check out the heavy duty special effects on that intro!
The only thing I watched Land of the Lost for was the dinosaurs - and even more importantly - the Sleestaks. Who scared the hell out of me.
That long clip is all fan edited of course; it's not from any single episode. And there wasn't any dissonant jazz used as background music. But that glimpse manages to cover all the highlights of the weirdness in sets and costumes. I also remember having bad dreams about those Sleestaks. Although there never seemed to be more than three of them attacking at any one time. I didn't remember how freaky looking their feet were. Yeek.
Ok, let me leave you with a few more clips that allow you to understand what an incredibly warped amount of live action television made up my childhood. Note the numerous drug references and in your face psychedelia. Do read all the wikipedia links to get all the details - the plots of these shows were extremely weird. And most of these can be blamed on Sid and Marty Krofft, to whom I'll always be grateful. (But not for Pink Lady and Jeff, ugh.)
Lidsville Intro
1971-1973 Sid and Marty Krofft, with Charles Nelson Reilly as green skin'd guest villain. One of many of the Krofft's "let's shoot the show inside an amusement park." Great money saver, that idea - you can use the crowds that are there as free extras.
H.R. Pufnstuf Intro
1969-1971 Sid and Marty Krofft. Jack Wild was a child star that had been in the movie Oliver, and that Brit accent was a rarity on children's tv at the time. Well, American children's tv, that is. Pufnstuf's southern accent always freaked me out a bit. As did his pumpkin-shaped head.
And I hadn't known that Wild died in 2005 until just now. Sad. I had a huge crush on him back in the day.
Bugaloos Intro
1970-1972, more Krofft weirdness. And random villain guest star Martha Raye lived in a giant jukebox. Also random trivia - Phil Collins apparently auditioned for the band, which according to wikipedia was "touted as the British version of The Monkees." More crush material - some of us had yet to discover Tiger Beat type magazines, see, and had to find our pop idols where we could. (I'll take a dude with wings over the Jonas Brothers and their foam canons - [video, lots of squealing audio] - thanks, it's only slightly less weird.)
Banana Splits Show Intro
1968-1970, Hanna-Barbera/Krofft, format based on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. I can remember watching this religiously in the summers for some reason.
They always had little segments where the Bsplits would play and sing...yes, this was our version of music videos.
Doing the Banana Split
Shooting random crowd video at the amusement park was very sneaky - especially since you know no one was bothering to get signatures on release forms. If you must see another version - here's one with the Bplits and the Sour Grapes dancers.
And because the theme song always sticks in my head - I'll leave you with this, the best cover version:
