Godzilla!

That is all.  Just a last minute reminder of how much we love Godzilla and all his friends.  These are all screen captures from GODZILLA VS MEGALON, one of my favorite movies.

Brave and the Bold redux

Watching the series again and I love it even more. It may even by my favorite over Batman: The Animated series.  It's at least tied, but it sure makes me smile a lot more.  Granted, the tones are very different shows, whereas the rest (The Batman, Batman Beyond and whatever computer animated show came after this one) all strive for a darker look and attitude.  This one has all the pluses, great fun stories, great casting, lots of respect for DC's older history and they still have a lot of more serious episodes (any time the Specter shows up, for example).

RIP Rhodes Reason

Rhodes passed away on December 26th, 2014. I didn't realize how often I'd seen him in TV shows like Time Tunnel and Star Trek. Mostly I knew him from seeing KING KONG ESCAPES in the theater several times as a kid. He was great as Commander Carl Nelson fighting against the evil machinations of Dr. Who.

Superman: The Animated Series

Finishing up this series now.  I really enjoy it, though there are a few episodes I don't care for (most anything with Livewire, she really bugs me).  The voice acting is great and they do some cool things with Superman's rogue's gallery.  They also have team ups.  We meet the Flash, Dr. Fate and Inza, one version of Green Lantern, Orion and many of the New Gods and there's a couple of meetings with the nut from Gotham.  I've probably forgotten a few as well.  This what really sets up things for the Justice League series, far more than anything they did with Batman.  Oh yeah, the Legion of Superheroes makes an appearance as well.  Damn time travel stories!

Demolition vs Powers of Pain SuperStars Feb 10th, 1990

Nope, neither of these teams are the Road Warriors, but they both sure owed their creations to the Legion of Doom. I really never cared for Demolition back the, but watching them now I can appreciate them a lot more. They weren't exactly clones, since Ax had been around a lot longer than the other teams.

Radar Men from the Moon (1952)

As mentioned earlier, this is my favorite Rocketman serial. I saw various chapters at around age 9 or so, dang Channel 2 for airing them at 10 PM on Sunday nights.  I last watched this about ten years ago, but am really enjoying it this time.  I had the Alpha public domain copies then, and this is the Roan Group's cleaned up and far superior version.  It's really astounding how much superior sound can help anything you watch.  I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to older movies, but some of the serials I've seen have had such muffled soundtracks- especially the voices- that they have been nigh impossible to watch.

Radar Men From The Moon trailer

Here's the trailer of the serial I'm currently watching. It was probably the first or second serial I ever saw, back on KWGN Channel 2's Command Performance Theater, which aired a chapter every Sunday night at 10 PM. Needless to say, I didn't see ALL the chapters.

MotW- Giant Octopus

Here's a monster that's not really a monster, since they actually exist.  The Giant Pacific Octopus has been measured at 20' tip to tip, though there are reports of larger ones out there.  This of course has never stopped the movies from imagining gigantic octopi from menacing various heroes.  Before CGI was over-prevalant, it took a lot of skill and cunning to make these monsters come to life on the silver screen.  In 1962's KING KONG VS GODZILLA Tsuburaya and co used three different methods for their portrayal of the beast- a real octopus (four, actually) a dead one and some stop-motion tentacles.  I'll have a sequel to this page sometime in the future featuring the octopi from Japan.

They do make good monsters, since they look so alien.  They are also really smart.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs - Intro

This claims to be in HD, but I really doubt that. Here's the opening to a fun show that should have a DVD release. I've written about the show before, sometime in the past, but here's the cool opening. I'd seen some of the comics, but didn't really know what the series was about.

the Xeno books

I visited Time Warp Comics today, and showed the owner (and long time friend) an issue of Xenorama.  He hadn't seen any and didn't even know about them.  He asked me if I had been promoting it.  Apparently I need to do that more often, especially since I have three issues of Xenorama and two side projects published.  I think they would do well in comic book stores, so I told him I'd do some more advertising and here we are.  I'm working on issue #18 as we speak which will feature all sorts of cool stuff, including Marvel's great Godzilla series from the 70s.

How's that for a teaser?

So much Batman

I have so many Batman DVDs. More than any other superhero. I find that surprising.  I know it's due to Batman being everywhere these days, and knowing everything, akin to the 60s Superman Supreme.  He's just a boring asshat now, except for maybe the 60s based comic book that is being published.  I hope to have more on that later.  Two of my top five posts here are about Batman.  It used to be three, but inexplicably the Sky Captain post seems to have more fans than I thought were possible.

Midnight Express vs Road Warriors July 1986

I have never seen this match. The most famous match between these teams is the scaffold match, and I also really like their match at the second (I think) Crockett Cup. This one has Dennis and Bobby as the Midnights, and of course, the great Jim Cornette. This had to happen before the Skywalkers match, so I'm happy to see it.

World's Finest

 It was pretty inevitable.  Once WB started the excellent Superman cartoon, having him meet Batman was just going to happen.  So they had a three part episode/movie.  The commentary doesn't remember quite if it was released in prime time as a movie, but it was released on DVD as one.  By the way, as always, the commentary on this episode is really fun.  I wish they could have done more commentaries, which is something I rarely say.  I usually want  a doc about the movie.  End digression.  Naturally Bruce Timm took the name of the three parter from the long running comic book (back when Clark and Bruce were best friends) and it does fit the scope of the movie.  It's odd, they act like they are the only heroes on the Earth, though by now we know there are plenty more.

Godzilla and King Shisa fight Mechagodzilla

This is just a quick clip from the best 70s Godzilla movie.

cool 70s Godzilla book (in Japanese)

August reported on this way cool looking book a while ago.  It covers all the 70s Godzilla movies (and it appears one 60s movie and Yog as well).  I'm sure it has loads of cool pictures from all the movies I grew up loving and seeing in the theaters.  I'd love to own this, but I really would love to see all of it translated into English.  Wouldn't that be great?  I mean, the cover alone is great. 

Bob and Doug Sing 12 Days of Christmas

Good day and welcome to the blog. Today's topic is Christmas and what is the best song. I believe this one is, eh. This is a very cute animated (sorta) version of the boys singing 12 Days from the album, eh. It was released almost 35 years ago- that's a long time for some hosers- but has been a classic since then. Right up there with Stairway to Heaven, eh.

Batman: Over the Edge

I just watched all four sets of Batman: The Animated Series and again, really enjoyed about 94% of the show.  The few clunkers are still pretty good, too.  Anyway, the final 24 "new look" episodes are some of the funnest, though this one certainly is dark and grim.  I guess I should say there are spoilers ahead, but mostly just some observations about the episode itself.  So you have now been warned, proceed at your own risk if you haven't seen this episode.  One more interesting note before I proceed- I have more Batman DVDs than any other superhero, which is odd, since I do love the Bat (since I was three) at this point he's so overdone that I don't care that much for his current incarnation.   Until they make a Tigra or Vision series, this will do.

Mission Magic Intro 1973

I finally watched the first five episodes of this series. I've had the DVD set for some time, but never got around to opening it. It features a very young Rick Springfield singing the songs and lots of magic. Plus an annoying laughtrack.

Ultraman 80 on crunchyroll

I'm not exactly sure when they started showing this great series, but boy am I glad they did.  Ultraman 80 is one of my favorite Ultra series, and getting to watch it all with decent subtitles is going to be a lot of fun.  80 is full of some great monsters and great fighting action.  The effects are top notch and still hold up well today.  80 also has a nice design, getting back to basics rather than the ornate headgear that Taro and Leo had.

Arrow vs Flash

In part 2, our heroes team up to catch Captain Boomerang.  This time, the Flash crew (secret IDs are known to at least five people in both shows now) travels to Starling City (ugh, what a name) to help Green Arrow capture the aforementioned Captain Boomerang.  Of course, he is on called this once at the end of the show, but we all knew that would happen.  There's also a lot of flashbacks to Ollie's past, why he is so Batman like.  You know, torture to get information from criminals and that sort of nonsense.

Flash vs Arrow

I've seen one episode of Arrow, and now this one of the new Flash show.  I'm no fan of realistic heroes, but danged if the Flash isn't one. They are sort of doing the realism thing, but at least he looks like the Flash.  Well, in costume.  In person, Barry looks a bit like Wally, so very young.  At least they keep the whole thing of him being late ALL the time in tact, a really nice touch.  I quite enjoyed the 90s version of the Flash, so it's nice to be able to say I like this one as well, which I kind of figured I wouldn't be able to say, since DC has such a lousy track record with their superhero movies these days.