I have played The Last Starfighter game and their version of Space Paranoids from the movie Tron. Both are great fun!! What’s even more cool – they have blueprints, etc of the actual Starfighter Cabinet! I am actually planning to build one of these for my home game room – awesome!!

Check it out when you can!!

The Last Starfighter Video Game [@] Rogue Synapse

Atari Computer Concept Art [@] ISO50

That is why I was very excited to see Batman: The Brave and the Bold – Season One, Part One was being released on DVD. A DVD had been released about a year ago that had a mere 4 episodes on it, sort of a “Best of”. But this Disc is the first 13 episodes of the series in chronological order, which is a relief to me, since I like to own both own all episodes and usually try to watch them in order. Hopefully this sets WB and CN on a path towards full volumes and eventually a boxset.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold – Season One, Part One [@] Amazon

Go Muttley!

[via] Flickr

Hong Kong Phooey, number one super guy.
Hong Kong Phooey, quicker than the human eye.
Hong Kong Phooey, he’s fan-riffic

50 of the most addicting games from Atari’s legendary vault will be compiled into the must-have Nintendo DS title of the holiday season as Atari, one of the world’s most recognized publishers and producers of interactive entertainment, launches Atari’s Greatest Hits: Volume 1. The ultimate DS title for casual gamers, Atari’s Greatest Hits: Volume 1 brings together dozens of the most popular Atari arcade and Atari 2600 titles of all-time, including such blockbusters as Asteroids®, Pong®, Centipede®, Missile Command®, Tempest®, Lunar Lander®, Space Duel, Battlezone® and Adventure. This true treasure trove of timeless gaming classics will hit retail stores in North America this Fall.

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Atari introduced a new era in interactive entertainment with its addictive arcade games and home gaming system. Now with Atari’s Greatest Hits: Volume 1, a retro gaming revolution will be ignited on the Nintendo DS. Each spotlighted game will feature the same pick-up and play control scheme as their original arcade and 2600 form, with modern updates to align with the Nintendo DS platform. Single card multi-player will be available for 20 titles including Space Duel and Pong with multi-card play available for head-to-head games.

Additionally, Atari’s Greatest Hits: Volume 1 will feature the original game manuals for each title, an Atari memorabilia showcase, and special bonus extras — including an Atari Trivia game where gamers can race against the clock to answer questions about Atari history and then post their scores to Atari.com.

“The 50 games featured in Atari’s Greatest Hits: Volume 1 have defined a generation of casual gamers” said Jim Wilson, President of Atari, Inc. “By adding a new single cartridge multiplayer mode to such games as Pong, Space Duel and Outlaw, we continue to find new ways to expand our brands to a new generation of gamers.”

The complete Atari’s Greatest Hits: Volume 1 line-up is as follows:

Atari Arcade Hits
Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Gravitar, Lunar Lander, Missile Command, Pong, Space Duel, Tempest.

Atari 2600 Favorites
3D Tic-Tac-Toe, Adventure, Air-Sea Battle, Asteroids, Atari Video Cube, Basketball, Battlezone, Bowling, Centipede, Championship Soccer, Dodge ’Em, Flag Capture, Football, Fun with Numbers, Gravitar, Hangman, Haunted House, Home Run, Human Cannonball, Math Gran Prix, Miniature Golf, Missile Command, Outlaw, Realsports Baseball, Realsports Boxing, Realsports Football, Realsports Tennis, Realsports Volleyball, Sky Diver, Slot Maching, Slot Racers, Sprintmasters, Starship, Stella Track, Submarine Commander, Surround, Swordquest Earthworld, Swordquest Fireworld, Swordquest Waterworld,Tempest and Video Checkers.

Developed by Atari in partnership with Code Mystics, Atari’s Greatest Hits: Vol. 1 is Rated “E” for Everyone and will be available exclusively on Nintendo DS for a suggested retail price of $29.99.

Harrison Ford on Letterman Promoting Blade Runner – Part 1 of 2

Harrison Ford on Letterman Promoting Blade Runner – Part 2 of 2

Twilight Zone Custom Rod Serling Action Figure [via]Boing Boing

See More of Len Peralta’s Banana Splits [@] Flickr

The Warner Archive strikes again. This time delivering the award winning Cary Grant drama, None but the Lonely Heart. In addition to Grant this Clifford Odets film has Ethel Barrymore, Barry Fitzgerald, June Duprez, Jane Wyatt, George Coulouris, and Dan Duryea. I went on a bit of Grant kick about 10 years ago and tried watching as many of his films as I could lay my hands on. Unfortunately, my local video store at the time could not lay their hands on None but the Lonely Heart and when I tried to order it on DVD I found that it was unavailable. I signed up for the Warner Newsletter (the archive updates specifically) and was happy to see this title was listed and I just watched it last night. What a film! It makes modern dramas seem overwrought and ham handed. I can say with a certain certainty that they “don’t make them like that anymore”. Just listen to this summary:

Down-and-out Londoner Ernie Mott makes the best of things – finding love here, dabbling in crime there. Still, there’s a core of decency in Ernie. But a world of poverty and despair has little use for decency. Cary Grant plays Ernie in a milestone work set just before World War II. Gone is the usual Grant elegance. Instead, wistful Cockney Ernie is closer to the star’s ’umble roots and Grant took great pride in his performance, which earned him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. He also helped lure Ethel Barrymore back to Hollywood, and she responded vibrantly with 1944’s Oscar -winning Best Supporting Actress portrayal of Ernie’s dying mother. Let the moods of this masterwork wash over you. In its ebb and flow you’ll find a moving eloquence close to the heart of the film’s leading man.

I know! Just like the plot of Piranha 3D.

The movie has been remastered and looks great, but remember this is an Archive release, so don’t fire it up looking for extras. Another great addition to the classic movies available, None but the Lonely Heart on DVD should be in your collection.

None but the Lonely Heart on DVD [@] The Warner Archive

[via] metafilter

Commodore USA to revive PC64 with Atom processor [@] ZdNet

Not a huge retro week, but we do get Thriller: The Complete Series and the mini-series Once an Eagle.

Once an Eagle

The Evil Dead (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray]

Thriller: The Complete Series

Apache Rifles

The Best of Soul Train

The Judy Garland Show: Volume 5

What I got to play instead was a collection of other role playing games. My friends and I did Shadowrun once, we did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles several times, and we did It Came From The Late, Late, Late (not sure how many lates go here) Show a few times, and we bought a whole host of other systems and books. Mostly, though, we played a game called G.U.R.P.S. G.U.R.P.S. stood for Generic Universal Role Playing System. It was a set of rules that was not limited to just one genre of game but that could be used to play any genre of game: fantasy, sci-fi, western, horror, superhero, and anything else you could think of. I first heard of this G.U.R.P.S. from a friend who had a little more experience with Dungeons & Dragons than I did, and the first think this friend told me about G.U.R.P.S. was that there were no such things as class limits; he told me that you could make a wizard who used a sword, which was apparently something you couldn’t do in Dungeons & Dragons (I guess; I was never really certain on that point) and something that obviously impressed him. In fact, there were no restrictions to G.U.R.P.S. at all; if you could dream it (and were willing to pay the character points for it), you could be it. I later found out that G.U.R.P.S. had first been released as a combat system and had later been expanded to include other rules, such as magic and movement; I actually acquired a copy of that early battle system. I even later found out that there were a host of supplementary books for G.U.R.P.S. that provided even more detailed rules for certain environments. There was G.U.R.P.S. Cyberpunk, G.U.R.P.S. Space, and, my favorite, G.U.R.P.S. Cliffhangers (Indiana Jones-style adventures). There were also several tie-ins with well-known book series, such as G.U.R.P.S. Discworld, G.U.R.P.S. Wild Cards (which I played at the Columbus gaming convention), and G.U.R.P.S. Conan. The G.U.R.P.S. books and the books supplements were wonderful, filled with great art and all sorts of really inventive scenarios. G.U.R.P.S. was just a great game

But we were unfortunately not great gamers. We bought all kinds of books but rarely used them. We never powered up any characters; we never got enough experience to power them up. And we never really played any campaigns. We mostly just goofed around and told jokes. Then we all started going to work and role playing just kind of faded away. I still think about G.U.R.P.S. now and then, particularly when I watch The Fellowship Of The Ring and see Gandalf carrying a sword. I always figure at that moment that Gandalf must be a G.U.R.P.S. player; he must be, because he couldn’t have a sword in D&D.

Lost Rod Serling Interview – Part 1 of 2

Lost Rod Serling Interview – Part 2 of 2

[via] SF Signal

[via] reddit

Your First Internet Memory
First, there were numerous BBS numbers I went through with the Winmodem, and I stuck around the inn at the Legend Of The Red Dragon for a while.

BTW, I still connect with dial-up once in a while with my laptop, and that sound is like crayolas and freshly-cut grass to me.
It belongs on a cellphone or my alarm clock. Or my doorbell, if I could find a programmable one that doesn’t have a bionic price tag.

Your Least Favorite Original Trilogy Star Wars Character
Hey, I got a little more vitriol left in me for ROTJ’s peripheral and overly-goofy characters and let me say (no joke, honestly) that when this Nien dude appeared next to Lando, it made me cringe because of his caricatural, race-baiting, features right out of Fat Albert’s crew.

I mean, seriously? Nobody else saw that?

Adam-12
I used to watch this weekdays as it aired around suppertime. It was a popular show in our french region (called “Auto-Patrouille” or Patrol Car) and I’m sure it inspired many folks to take the beat cop job seriously.

Watching it again makes me remember why I loved this show then, and why – after years of good (and bad) cop drama from the detective side of police-work – it’s great to get back to the street beat side of things.

Canceled Video Games You Wish Weren’t
@VicSage2005 I have no idea. Nintendo’s blue eyed plumber is taking centre stage yet again. So I guess everything will be on hold until they crap out another poor mario game. Then Link will come back into the light for a spell.

So based on this I would say that it will take a good few poor quality mario and zelda games before we see McCloud again.

Pizza and Video Games
The first time I ever played Joust was at our local pizza place. I can still remember the smell of pizza and beer from a few customers standing behind me and watching me play while they waited for their own pizzas.

@OffisaPups You are spot on about that conversion of Dynamite Deka, friend. I had to look it up over at the Wiki. :)

Jim Henson’s The Storyteller
Yeah, the Storyteller was top notch. A shame it didn’t have more seasons.

Fair warning, if you have young children, or nieces and nephews, they might be a little freaked out by the Greek Myths…those are pretty dark tales, friends. :)

According to Hake’s
4.5x7x2.25” deep box contains complete and unused parts for approximately 6” long free-wheeling vehicle for use with Mego’s Pocket Superheroes action figure line released in 1979. Produced by Mego Corp. but released through Lion Rock ©1980 Marvel Comics Group. Vehicle was intended for use and designed for Incredible Hulk Pocket Superhero figure and includes unused sticker sheet with “Hulk” specific images and text. Box shows lightest trace of wear, original cellophane tape strips have dried and shrunk with age. VF/Exc. with unused, N. mint contents. Old store stock. Rare and first we’ve offered.

Hulk Explorer Vehicle [@] Hake’s

To start off we went show some love for Piranha 3D with a review of the film, a list of the 5 best scenes in Piranha 3D (with spoilers)by metagirl and a nice little discussion in the forums about the movie. It is a fun film to see, so if you haven’t gone to check it out, please do.

Oh and since we are on the subject of movies — I am very excited for the Back to the Future 25th Anniversary Edition.

TV on the site got off on a good to a good start this week with a post by Douglas McCoy about one of the scariest made for TV movies Dark Night Of The Scarecrow. It is a great post filled with great firsthand memories. We also took a jaunt back to the late 1970s to discuss the maturing of this thing called Disco. If Retro TV is your thing remember to drop by TV(dot)Retroist. This week alone we have added entries about Starcade, Moonlighting, Mr. Merlin, You Can’t Do That on Television, Roomies and many more.

We do not post enough about books on the site, but I am starting to get excited by the new book by MST3K alum and Cinematic Titanic honcho, Trace Beaulieu, Silly Rhymes For Belligerent Children.

Food is always an important topic of conversation on the site. Although this Mario cake sure was distracting. — This week the food buzz was all about Cap’N Crunch’s Old and Improved Packaging.

Retro Video Games were the star of the site this week. We had two new Retro Game Reviews up one for Brain Games for the Atari 2600 and a truly epic one about Mission: Impossible for the NES. Later in the week a new Cart Art was published, this one was all about the Worst Dragons of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Then we ended the week with a brand new Retroist Podcast about the video arcade classic, Missile Command. Which you might want to listen to while drinking from your retro Atari coffee mug.

If you enjoy the cast please help spread the word, maybe review it iTunes or Zune and tell a friend?

Just a reminder, if you want to submit to any part of the website you can post submit your Blog Posts, Retro Game Reviews and TV Show online. Just make sure you are registered for the site first, so you can be properly credited.

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

Part 3 of 3

On today’s show we talk all about the Atari classic, Missile Command. A game that everyone knows, but somehow still comes across as underrated. I talk about the games creations and creator, we talk records and strat and we have some fun audio surprises in this episode, that I hope you enjoy. Just a reminder to drop by our official forums to discuss Missile Command. You can find the forums at http://www.retroist.com/forum/. If you want to read more about other Retro Video Games, stop by the Retro Video Game Reviews Section of The Retroist.

Listen to the Show

Love nostalgia? Want to give podcasting a shot? Just drop me an email with an audio sample at retroist@retroist.com. If you have any suggestions for topics you would like for me to cover in the future, email them to me at retroist@retroist.com. Want to chat? Contact me via AIM. My handle is retroist. You can also follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/retroist and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/retroist.

You can click the player below the opening paragraph to listen to the show directly from the site, you can use the subscription button below to add the show to your favorite news reader or subscribe to show directly through iTunes. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.

1961 Disneyland Character Ad [@] Patrick Owsley Cartoon Art

http://digg.com/retroist

Vintage Atari 1980 Olympic Sponser Coffee Mug [@] Etsy

All of Chewbacca’s Dialogue from Star Wars [@] Savage Chickens

5. Astyanax

I know this article is about the Dragons but really, we need to address the hero first. How terrible must it be for our scaly bad guy that this dumpy, skirt wearing, super tall back collar wearing slob of a chump has got a hold of the Dragon’s arm and is going to give him all sorts of heck with that sword. Not only does the dragon have a wicked case of warts (at least that is what I think those bumps are) and some sort of set of wavy hair/horn, he has to live surrounded by sulfur yellow clouds while butterfly faeries flutter about and princesses cage dance while encases in crystal balls. In case you were wondering, Astyanax is the name of Hector’s infant son from the Iliad who was killed by being hurled from the walls of Troy by the Greeks in order to end of royal line of Troy. After reviewing this cover I wish to hurl my eyes off a wall to end my suffering of terrible covers.

4. Castle of Dragon

Well let’s take a look at the winged beast in this one and. . . . .AHHHHHH, what happened to his neck and head? Apparently the Dragon from Castle of Dragon has Anorexia of Throat. It’s a shame really, that young dragons are assaulted by images of dragons with sleek and sexy neck lines which just causes them to have serious negative neck image issues. Looking at this cover, this Dragon really does not not inspire a sense of majestic fear in the heart of men. Due to the perceptive this beast only seems to be the size of a large dog. Seriously, the damsel in distress is larger (and more frightening) then the beast. This game seems less like a quest to save the girl from the monster and more like an evening of dragon house breaking at the Gold Knight house.

3. Ninja Gaiden 2

Hey Grandpa Dragon, what was it like when you were young? Well I will tell you all young wipper-snappers about my day. Back in my day, no one argued about who was better Ninja or Pirates. It was ninjas, always ninjas and nothing but ninjas. We only had three fingers on each hand and luscious face beards/white manes. A puff of smoke in front of every face and a crystal ball in every hand. It was a great time to be alive! Okay, enough of that. My favorite part of this cover is the text on the bottom that says this game is “Hard to beat!!” If you have ever played a classic Ninja Gaiden you will know this is an understatement of epic proportions. Its should same something like “Hair pulling, Controller hurling, Anger inducing, Rage causing, Mind Numbingly fustrating to beat.” Guess that wouldn’t all fit on the bottom though huh? In the end, the “Hard to Beat!!” is not an advertising feature, it’s warning printed so Tecmo couldn’t get sued for making such a brutal, death march of game and unleashing it on the public.

2. Dragon Warrior

My melty, seaweed wing dragon, what big teeth you have? Look at that mile wide tooth grin. I don’t think the dragon even has teeth, just some sort of long bone like pillars in it’s mouth. As for our hero, he apparently decided the best things to wear to slay an ultimate evil would be a blue spandex catsuit with red gloves and shin guards. In all honesty, I like this cover. It does a good job of making the dragon look fearsome, an overpowering presence looking down at our hero with an evil smile. However, after looking at this cover for a bit, I noticed something and it’s a little esoteric so bear with me. Look at the shield of our hero. Doesn’t it look like one of those roll over trigger lights in a pinball game. Yeah I know, I am grasping at straws at this point but once you look that the last cover coming up, you will know why I may be down a few IQ points.

1. Challenge of the Dragon

This one is a Color Dreams game so you know it is going to be a steaming pile of suck. What kind of dragon is that? What is going on with it’s legs? This beetle/frog/dragon has caused me to reach my limit of malformed magical beasts. I can’t take it any more. You know what, it’s time for a little reader feedback. This week, I charge you, the loyal Retroist fans to come up with your best one liner about this cover. Go ahead and post them in the comment section. I challenge you to do your best with one of the worst.

The book, will be available at Dragon*Con this September for the first time. If you cannot attend Dragon*Con this year, do not fret, the book will go one sale online shortly after the Con is over. Silly Rhymes For Belligerent Children has illustrations by Len Peralta and as you will see from these live readings is all kinds of awesome.

[via] Flickr

It was Dark Night Of The Scarecrow, a made-for-TV movie about some rural fellows who kill a mentally-handicapped man as he hides in the garb of a scarecrow and are later stalked and killed by that same scarecrow. I recently acquired a copy of this movie and got to see it in its entirety. It is a fairly serviceable film, not great but as good as if not slightly better than comparable fare, and it didn’t come anywhere close to terrifying me as fully as it had that Friday night long years ago, but it did have some elements that were legitimately creepy.

Good or bad, scary or not, living up to memories or failing miserably is not really the point, though. The point is that when the movie was shown that Friday night (8:00 PM on CBS, I think) it was an event. It had been hyped for days if not weeks. It had full page advertisements in the TV Guide and the newspaper. People stayed home to watch it. Nearly every TV in the greater Columbus area was tuned in to it (and most weren’t turned off when the all-too-eager kids lost their eagerness). And it wasn’t the only event of its kind; there were several other events like that. I distinctly remember when The Creature From The Black Lagoon had been such an event. It was being shown in 3-D, and so 3-D glasses had to be procured at the local 7-11, and then the TV color had to be adjusted according to the instructions given before the show (instructions relayed by a local horror host, if I remember correctly). And the real thing about these events, the thing that can’t be replicated in our current era of the VCR much less the video on demand and TIVO and all other media services, was the sense of urgency. There was an urgency to being in front of the TV and on that channel at that time. There was an urgency in getting to 7-11 to get the glasses (a daunting feat for an eight-year-old). There was an urgency because you couldn’t control when the event would occur and you wouldn’t be able to see the event if you missed it. There was an urgency to the waiting through the news and the games shows and dinner time. There was an urgency, an anticipation, an ambiance that no TV event (not even something like the Lost finale) can really match today.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love modern media technology; it was modern media technology, in fact, that let me recoup my childhood loss and finally see what I was too chicken to see back then. I would not want to go back to the days before modern media technology; I wouldn’t want to be without it. But I would like to have a few more events; I would like to enjoy an event again.

P.S. If you are more interested in the movie than my memories, it goes like this: Larry Drake (the creepy guy from Darkman) plays Bubba, a 36-year-old with the mind of a child. When a dog mauls a young girl who was last seen in Bubba’s company, history’s oldest and fattest lynch mob (which includes Lane Smith, the creepy guy from V, and Charles Durning, the creepy guy from When A Stranger Calls, and Claude Earl Jones, the creepy guy that you‘ll recognize when you see him) hunts Bubba down, finally finding him hiding in a scarecrow. Then they slowly shoot Bubba to death (which is when my sister and I begged Dad to turn off the TV). They are then acquitted of his murder. But soon a scarecrow appears on each of their property in turn, and when the scarecrow appears, the man whose property it appears on dies in a rather rural way (one man is chopped up in a wood chipper, another is crushed by corn in a corn silo; I actually saw that part on a commercial and have wondered about it for years). It has a lot of filler and is unnecessarily dramatic in parts, but it has a pretty good production value, good acting, and some genuinely spooky parts.

[via] BuzzFeed

Do Not Underestimate the Power of Fanart [@] What the Flux

5. Richard Dreyfuss meets Piranha

In tribute to the film from which Piranha borrowed much of its plotline, Piranha 3-D opens with Richard Dreyfuss in a boat singing, what else, “Show Me the Way to Go Home.” Did I mention Dreyfuss’ character’s name is Matt? A clear nod to his Matt Hooper character in Jaws. Dreyfuss is innocently fishing on Lake Victoria when a massive underwater earthquake opens up a mysterious chasm, releasing a swarm of psychotic, prehistoric fish. The piranhas make quick work of Dreyfuss in a gruesome manner that sets the tone for the entire movie. Reportedly Dreyfuss only took the role after much persuasion from producer Bob Weinstein and a much larger salary, but his contribution adds tremendously to the quality of the film and proves that Dreyfus has a great sense of humor, even if it comes with a steep price tag.

4. Piranhas love a good rump

This movie is all about T&A, but in at least one scene, the fish seem to prefer the “A.” A woman lounges in an inner tube, bum exposed to the water. As the piranha begin their invasion of the Spring Breakers’ party scene, they scout for a good place to start the carnage. That woman’s bum seems most tempting of all and the blood bath begins. However, not all piranhas are fixated on the rear; some clearly prefer white meat, such as those that go after the busty topless parasailor who lures the fish to the surface as her bosom skims the water during some aerial acrobatics. Sadly for her, a brief dip below the water’s surface leaves her with only half a torso.

3. Piranha as feminist crusaders

Jerry O’Connell plays internet smut merchant Derrick Jones, an obvious fictionalization of Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild fame. He convincingly exploits drunken college girls, the more innocent the better, in hopes of making a quick buck off of lascivious men and perhaps getting personal satisfaction as well. The piranhas display their taste for the ironic, and a taste for man meat, when literally emasculating O’Connell during a poorly-timed swim. One fish snaps up O’Connell’s severed manhood as it drifts to the bottom of the lake, only to cough it back up in disgust; apparently even ancient fish have standards. In a later scene, as O’Connell lies dying on the boat from shock and blood loss, he gurgles his final blood-drenched words, “Wet t-shirt…wet t-shirt.” A fitting end for a swarmy character.

2. The underwater ballet

This scene will surely be a favorite of teenage boys and grown men everywhere, but women may also appreciate the splendor of two beautiful naked women (Kelly Brook and Riley Steele) dancing playfully underwater in slow motion as “The Flower Duet” from Delibes’ opera Lakme accompanies the ballet. O’Connell’s sleazy character gleefully films the extended sequence, stating enthusiastically, “They’re like fish with boobies!” Now that’s good dialog.

1. Mad scientist turns fish scientist

Everyone’s favorite mad scientist from the ‘80s adds humor and much-needed back story to Piranha 3-D as he portrays handy fish scientist, Mr. Goodman. As the resident piranha expert, Lloyd carries on his tradition of playing over-the-top, hurricane-style, nutty-professor types. He lets you know that this film is not meant to be taken seriously. At the same time, he provides crucial information to the audience to help us understand the plot. As he almost loses his fingers by dangling them temptingly before the confined piranha specimen, he explains the mutant fish: “This particular piranha vanished off the face of the Earth more than two million years ago in the Pleistocene!” A brilliant, though brief, must-see performance from an old favorite.

Here is a little info from the projects Kickstarter page:
The game is called Skull Island. It’s a puzzle game with 40 levels ranging from beginner to expert. You can see a sample video I’ve attached here, but it’s had some updates since that video, mainly the title screen has changed.

No more will be produced after this, so this will be extremely collectible and I’m sure will go up in value. Each limited edition cartridge will include: a cartridge label, instruction manual, and box.

Skull Island – a puzzle game for the Atari 2600 [@] Kickstarter

Murray Gershenz, who is nearing 90 years old, has been on a bit of a tear lately as a character actor. He has appeared in I Love You Man, The Hangover and The Sarah Silverman Show. Murray is always great onscreen and wants to work harder at his acting career. To that end he has decided to sell his massive collection of LPs. A collection that has a staggering 400,000 pieces. Many of them rare works from the early history of Jazz and the Big Band era. The sad thing is, Murray can’t seem to sell the collection.

Read Collector doesn’t want these tracks in the trash [@] LA Times

However, remakes can draw attention to the original and give us new and better DVD releases.

Your Least Favorite Original Trilogy Star Wars Character
Ahh, Ewoks always get the hate. I remember loving them as a kid, as I was just a wee hopper when ROTJ came out. As i got older, I didn’t hate the ewoks, the ewoks made me hate the empire more. I mean, come on! An elite military force with space age weapons had trouble with a stonge age teddy bear! Also made we wonder, why do stormtrooper even wear armor when they seemed effected by the stone knives and rocks the ewoks brought to the battle. Yes I know the ewoks had help and many of them died but man, the empire must have gotten lazy after the whole take over.

Old Hollywood…?
I’d distinguish old Hollywood class as any actors or actresses who favor good performance over celebrity.
Most people mentioned here seem to hold to that standard.

Lots to think about on the subject.

Disney Animated Classics You Saw in a Theater or Thought You Saw in a Theatre
Disney still owns all the distribution rights to their own movies, as far as I know. I think more than a few are being restored and brought up to contemporary standards at this point – it’s an expensive and lengthy process, but Sleeping Beauty on Blue-Ray will look a heck of a lot better than Sleeping Beauty on VHS (I’m not sure if they are doing this, this is speculation or old news, depending on your point of view).

Your favorite Roller Coaster?
Space mountain at Disneyland was redone within the last 5 years or so – and it’s as smooth as silk.

I would have to say my favorite is California Screamin’ at DCA (Disney’s California Adventure) due to the mag-lev propulsion up the first hill. You sit on a flat length of track, and then it counts down, and then rockets you down the track (0-55 in about 1.5 seconds or something like that). It’s a long ride, with good features.

Piranha 3D Impressions (with Spoilers)
Saw the (red-band?) trailer the other day and it looks like my cup of tea, with an extra slice of lemon from the 3D.

According to Hake’s:
10.25×15.25×4″ deep box contains parts for set by Lakeside Toys © 1966 Glidrose Productions Ltd. Lid includes photo of Connery as Bond. Moderate scattered box wear and aging, some edge creases, small bit of crayoning on left side panel but all corners are tight and still Fine. The electric drawing desk w/lamp is working and includes “007″ logo sticker on top. This is Exc. Set comes w/9×11.5″ envelope featuring same art that appears on the lid. This contains a set of 12 different guide sheets in bw featuring different images of Bond, his enemies such as Odd Job, Goldfinger and Largo, “Adventure” sheets used to recreate scenes from movies, etc. The “Spy-O-Graph” sheets can be used to “Reconstruct Faces Of Enemy Agents.” One of these sheets has lightly tanned but all remain clean and VF to Exc. Comes w/20 blank sheets of drawing paper although missing the generic colored pencils, sharpener and eraser. The envelope has lt. edge wear w/1.5″ corner tear but Fine. Nicely designed set.

James Bond Electric Drawing Set [@] Hake’s

When I was planning on seeing Piranha 3D, I went with no intention of writing a review. Although it was a remake of a film I enjoy a great deal, I usually don’t write up current-run film reviews here on the site. But I enjoyed the film enough and I think it was interesting enough that I wanted write something up. As I think about it while I write this (I should maybe plan these out first), the reason I want to write about the film, is because unlike other remakes, this movie seems to me to actually catch a bit of that original magic that a good B movie should exhibit. So with that in mind, I will tell you a little bit about Piranha 3D — needless to say, there be spoilers ahead.

Piranha 3D is a remake or re-imagining of the original Corman produced Joe Dante classic, Piranha. This film has a much higher budget then the original, plus it has the advantage of having powerful computers to render the fish stars of the film. To Piranha 3D’s credit, usually when these films are being updated with the latest technology, they go overboard and the computer generated monsters look horrible. But the Piranha’s in Piranha 3D are “prehistoric” fish and therefore can look unusual without ruining suspension of disbelief. Couple that with some excellent makeup work + a millions gallons of fake blood and you got a film that is at least the equal on many levels to the original Piranha (which had the excellent talent of Rob Bottin and Phil Tippett.)

Piranha 3D takes a page out of the original and has some excellent actors that add legitimacy to the film. To me the standouts are Elizabeth Shue as town law, Julie Forester and Jerry O’Connell as a Girls Gone Wild-style movie maker, Derrick Jones. Shue is wonderfully serious in the face of a difficult to believe concept and does a fine job in an action role. I found her believable enough in the role that I think this is career direction she should explore in the future. O’Connell is equally good in an opposite role as a self absorbed sleezemeister. His comeuppance in the film is predictable and exceptionally well done. You see it coming from two movie theaters away, but when he finally gets “piranha’d” the movie theater I was in started applauding.

Rounding out the cast is a very underutilized Ving Rhames as Deputy Fallon and Adam Scott as science-type guy named Novak, who has a great Jet Ski scene and finished out the film with a bang. Now, before I go any further I am about to mention two big spoilers about the film’s cast that you might want to avoid before reading (they made me very happy). So last chance to stop reading…

The film has two unadvertised cameos (both of which are heavily discussed on blogs). The first, at the very start of the film, is Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper (THE Matt Hooper from Jaws). The second is Christopher Lloyd as a fish specialist who chews through the scenery and reveals the very satisfying Novak ending twist at the end of the film.

I know I have been saying all good things, but I did find a few things unsatisfying about the film. I liked the deeper and equally improbably backstory of the original Piranha, better then the idea of pre-historic fish being unleashed from an underwater lake.

I also did not care for the teen romance angle of the film. A big selling point for these type of films is the violence combined with nudity, but I am not sure I needed the main characters to be two 17 year olds. Not sure why they chose that for a film that is rated R..unless of course they are actually making a rated R film that they are hoping kids will go see! Oh Hollywood you are a crafty beast and you done good, because half the people in the theater I was in were under 16. I have to admit, having been a 16 year old at one point, I would have been all over this film.

Oh and another thing, I am also not sure the film needed the 3D. It wasn’t distracting, but it also didn’t really add enough to the end product to make me think it was anything but a cash grab. Admittedly I am not a huge fan of the modern use of 3D, but I think if you are going to do a crazy fish in 3D film, them fish better be crazy 3D from start to finish. Sure they jumped at me, but I wanted them jumping at me all the time or not at all. Only once in the film, did the 3D effect make the whole theater I was in react and it was more the 3D object on the screen rather then the 3D effect. You will know it when you see it.

Is Piranha serious cinema? No way, but it is wonderfully goofy and disarmingly consistent as a horror film. It is not going to win any Academy Awards this year, but it is nice to see the b-movie horror film alive and kicking outside of the on-the-cheap SyFy films and cheesy torture films (which they ran a 3D preview for before the film). If you like the type of movies you would see heavily edited on the USA network after midnight on the weekend in the 1980s, then Piranha 3D might be for you.

First of all this week we have a brand new Retroist Podcast. It is all about the classic police show, Adam-12. Oh an although I forgot to mention it in the summary of the show (very bad of me). Metagirl is back in this episode with a list of her Top 5 favorite episodes.

Some great video game reviews went up on the site this week. Vinvectrex posted a review of Starhawk for the Vectrex and Liontown posted a review about the Atari 2600 classic, H.E.R.O (a game that I have started playing again because of the review). As a followup to last week’s review of Halo 2600, arcadepuppy made a movie of the game being played on his arcade MAME machine. I think it is the only such video of the game being played in that manner and it makes me real jealous.

Did you catch the Comedy Central Roast of David Hasselhoff? It got me in a Hoff kinda mood and I dug up an old issue of Dynamite magazine with Hoff on the cover and posted the interview with him from the early 1980s. More content from Dynamite and a stack of other old magazines should start showing up.

Who owned a Swatch? Well Douglas McCoy did a great post on the his Swatch memories. It has me digging around for my old Swatch.

We had two posts about 8-bit music this week, both great albums: Evolution (8-Bit Girl) – A Collection of Love Songs for the 8-bit Generation by equinoxe and Kind of Bloop – An 8-Bit Tribute to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.

Need a Saturday night dinner suggestion? How about a Tab Cola and a Lunch Bucket?

Some great TV shows submitted this week to the TV section of the site. Before I get to that, remember that Max Headroom: The Complete Series is available on DVD now. Her are just some of the shows submitted this week: At Ease, Vegetable Soup, VR Troopers and Webster. The TV section is growing fast, but Plaidman and I could always use more TV fans, so if you have a moment, drop by and share your memories.

I had been meaning to do a week in review post for a while. What do you think of the concept? Should I keep it up?

Just a reminder, if you want to submit to any part of the website you can post submit your Blog Posts, Retro Game Reviews and TV Show online. Just make sure you are registered for the site first, so you can be properly credited.

Hulk hit the floor…

The mirrored ball hits the floor…