This week, my brother and I are watching the 1987 Norwegian film, Ofelas (English title = Pathfinder) which we watched as kids. It is quite hard to find now, as it is not streaming anywhere and to my knowledge, is out of print, at least in the US. Of course, you can go flying the Jolly Roger route, but if you like looking for physical media, you are in for a hunt, at least in the US. You may be able to find an old VHS copy (we originally watched it on VHS; our local library had it) on eBay at very high prices, but unless you have a multiregion DVD player, it’s pretty hard to get on DVD as well. Just before recording the intro, however, I looked again and found a region 0 DVD (playable anywhere) version of the film in Europe and snagged it. When I went to see if there others out there to post here, there were now no more listings! So that means these versions are out there, just hard to find.
Here are some clips, however.
This is the only film I have seen that features the Sami language (the people indigenous to parts of Scandinavia). I got interested in their culture some years back when researching dwellings for Logan and Aurora for The Thirteenth Hour sequels. I originally wanted to given them a house made out of the side of a hill but thought that would be highly unrealistic for two people with hand tools and zero heavy machinery. So I started looking at how indeigenous people created their habitations, and for a snowy envionment (as I expected Logan and Aurora’s island to be, far down in the southern hemispshere of their realm), I figured that if something worked for the Sami, who dealt with snow and ice for much of the year, it would work for my protagonists, too.
The Sami traditionally lived in, among other dwellings, circular yurts called goathi(in Northern Sami) which were wooden framed huts covered with sticks and other natural available materials, like earth. They’re basically like tepees used by Plains Native Americans. Because of the conical design, snow would slide off, and it would be (I would think) a bit easier to pile material on top in a more seamless way due to the absence of sharp angles. Also, if the earth started to meld with the dirt, and vegetation started to grow from it, you’d have basically what I originally was thinking about – a dwelling in an above ground hole (maybe like a Hobbit hole). You can see many examples (covered with skins and snow) in the film. While I imagine you’d get cold in the winter quickly if the heating source went out, the small quarters probably would warm up quickly. There’s even a clip of some of the villagers in the film sitting in a goati converted to make a sauna.
In this clip from the sparse and quite brutal into of the film, you can see steam coming out of the snow covered dwelling where the main character’s family lives.
In this scene, the main character, Aigin, gets some wisdom dropped on him from the local shaman/mystic/bear killer/village pathfinder, Raste, who serves as a kind of mentor to the hero. You can see some details in how the inside of the structure was constructed and probably insulated (with skins).
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show!
Happy new year, and welcome to 2023! This first episode of the new year is all about time. Though time exists independent of all of us and will go on and on regardless of whether we exist in it or not, it is a finite resource for us living creatures. I think of an expression (which I might be paraphrasing) that my mother, who studied economics in college sometimes used (one I thought was humorous due to the extravagance of the words) – “diminishing returns of marginal utilities.” If I’m getting this correct, the “marginal utility” part describes the satisfaction that one experiences by consuming one unit of something. While economists are usually referring to “utility” in terms of as a product, I think the concept applies to some nonpurchasable items as well, including time. In some cases, the more time you have, the less you value it; yet when you have less, it becomes more and more precious. Gaining even a bit more would yield a net positive marginal utility. But none of us, regardless of our station in life, can get more of it. We all have however much time we are given, and none of us know how much.
There is a quote from the novel “The Sheltering Sky” by Paul Bowles that is inscribed on Brandon Lee’s tombstone (it came up in one of his last, if not the last interview he did prior to his death) that is particularly poignant and gets at this idea:
“Because we do not know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you cannot conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens echoed similar sentiments when it came to his own work in ways I think many artists will be able to relate to. In the podcast, I include a segment from one of Dave’s journals read by Billy Campbell from the documentary Dave Stevens: Drawn to Perfection.
When I was initially writing The Thirteenth Hour as a teenager, I think I was trying to put these idea into words in my own way. I suppose I had a different view of time since I was younger, but looking at it decades later, I think that is one of the underlying messages of the book – taking life by the reins and making the most of it, that the world can what you make of it if you believe in your dreams and don’t sit passively by, letting time pass you by.
Interestingly, the Buddhists have a slightly different take on this since they believe in do-overs. Life, from a Buddhist perspective, is about suffering, and escaping this cycle of birth and rebirth is to finally find peace (a.k.a. nirvana). But for those of us still in the world, there are some interesting insights in this drawing below of the samsara (wheel of life). There is a segment of the wheel below (the one with the animals in it) that is called, not surprisingly, the animal realm. The Buddhist view of non-human animals is that they are not as evolved, not as intelligent (human-centric, I know) and so creatures born into this part of the samsara earned their lot in life though past negative karmic action. I don’t know if I agree with that, but I think you can also use aspects of this as an analogy for parts of human existence. When we are in the animal realm, we are focused on survival – just getting through the day. But when we get a breather and have better resources, we can enter into the higher realms where we have increasing ability to reflect on our situation and focus on more than day to day needs. Times like the new year sometimes give us cause to stop, pause, and reflect on where we want to go. So in this episode, I not only reflect on some of the positives of the past year and some goals for the one to come.
This week, my brother and I are watching the 1985 film, Gremlins, as this year’s Christmas episode. It also will be the last episode of 2022 and a fun one to close out on. Oddly enough, this was our first time seeing the film, and we both got a kick out of the fact that the whole movie was essentially based around a furry creature obtained in one of the New York Chinatowns referred to as “mogwai.” I’m guessing this was supposed to be Cantonese, not a dialect I know, as it has quite a number of different sounds than Mandarin, which is more widely spoken. The characters are usually the same from one dialect to another, but there may be slight variations to try to get a closer sound to the original spoken language. After doing a little more digging, I found two possibilities for the characters – 魔鬼 (mo2 gui3 in Mandarin) or 魔怪 (mo2 guai4 in Mandarin), depending on who I talked to or where I looked – both general phrases that just generally mean “monster” or “demon.” It was interesting that Gizmo, as he would later be called, seemed to be referred to as “mogwai” as his given name also, kind of like referring to your pet dog as “dog.”
At any rate, neither here nor there; quite an enjoyable film in our opinion! A few notable scenes:
The kitchen scene where Mrs. Peltzer (Lorraine’s mom in Back to the Future!) goes medieval on a bunch of gremlins invading he kitchen.
There is a brief shot of a gremlin in pink legwarmers doing a backspin about 2.5 min into this clip where the delinquent gremlins are wreaking havoc on a local bar.
For a slightly different take on Gremlins, check out the episode from about 2 years ago on I Used to Like This One.
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show!
This week, my brother and I are watching the 1985 film, Young Sherlock Holmes, which we had both seen as kids but not recently. This is probably both our favorite of the ones we have watched for this series of 80s fantasy films. This one has many fine elements that make it an enjoyable adventure movie, even if (or perhaps especially if) you’re not that familiar with Sherlock Holmes from the original books.
Jeremy and I do a little DnD style interactive adventure ourselves in the latter part of the episode. You can follow along by using the rule set depicted below. This was an attempt to come up with a more nuanced combat system with health, stamina, and combinations using an 8 sided die, so picked since the number 8 figures into a lot of Thirteenth Hour imagery, and I wanted to pilot a more advanced combat system for the Thirteenth Hour Patreon DnD campaigns here.
The 3 playable characters
The bad guy
Based on some ideas from the martial arts Sherlock supposedly practiced, bartitsu
Just using an eight sided die …
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show!
This week, my brother and I are watching the 1985fantasy film, Ladyhawke, which we had both seen as kids but not since. I got the impression when rewatching it this time is that what they wanted to do is create a modern fairy tale.
They do have the elements. There’s a dark wolf …
…who transforms by day into a man in black who has a hawk …
… that transforms by night into a lady …
… and since they are never both wild animal or both human at the same time, they need some intervention in order to break the curse that keeps these star-crossed lovers apart. Their go-between comes in the form of an escaped convict / thief:
Don’t think too hard and enjoy it for what it is. There is a cool (probably impractical) double crossbow that the Rutger Hauer character uses that I have never seen elsewhere. That was one of the few things I remembered from the film.
Jeremy and I will be back next month to discuss the 80s fantasy film, this time in Victorian England – Young Sherlock Holmes!
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show!
This past summer, I recorded an interview with actress Catherine Mary Stewart (Night of the Comet, Weekend at Bernie’s, The Last Starfighter), who supported a little Lego project I did kind of on a whim – making Lego minifigures of Samantha and Regina Belmont from Night of the Comet, one of my favorite movies.
This is just a 10 or so minute preview of the full interview, as the original was meant as a surprise thank you to the auction winners of the figures.
But! You can unlock the rest of the conversation by answering the questions below. Your answers will be the password.
1.) In the 1984 film, Night of the Comet, Regina (Catherine Mary Stewart) is shown playing an arcade game. Which game?
a.) Pac Man
b.) Pong
c.) Tempest
d.) Mario Brothers
2.) In another 1984 film with Catherine Mary Stewart, roles are reversed, and she plays the girlfriend of an arcade game ace. That film was:
a.) Wargames
b.) Real Genius
c.) Sixteen Candles
d.) The Last Starfighter
3.) According to Catherine Mary Stewart, her previous training in which discipline helped prepare her for the physicality (e.g. fights, stunts) in Night of the Comet?
a.) dance
b.) dirt bike racing
c.) synchronized swimming
d.) falconry
4.) In this film, Reg and Sam face off against killer zombies. In 1986, Kelli Maroney, who was Sam in Night of the Comet, was in a film where she faces off against killer robots. Both films feature a key component of US 1980s culture. That was:
a.) Teddy Ruxpin
b.) the shopping mall
c.) trickle down economics
d.) video rental stores
Go to https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/749825591 and enter your answers as the password (no saces, all lowercase) to access the conversation. I annotated the audio with pictures and some video, so there are some additional tidbits on the vimeo version that provide a bit more context to the audio.
This week, my brother and I are watching the 1987 fantasy film, Lionheartstarring Eric Stoltz and Gabriel Bryne. Not one I’d seen as a kid but I have a feeling that if I had seen it, I would have liked it and watched it over and over despite it being kind of dark and understated in parts. It has some very cool, unrepresentative-of-the-film box art, but despite that, if you’re interested in something a bit different than the usual hack and slash, give it a go if you can find it.
This film has a really nice score done by Jerry Goldsmith:
Jeremy and I will be back next month to discuss the 80s medieval film, Ladyhawke!
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show!
Today, I’m joined by my friends Joseph Esch, Adam Crohn, and Obi as we talk about the 1980 film, Flash Gordon. This film was a blast, and it was a hoot to record as well. The show goes off the rails within the first few minutes, but I think that makes it all the better. I’m not sure I would have entirely gotten the humor had I seen this as a kid, but as a adult seeing it for the first time, I thought it was great fun. If you haven’t seen it before or even if you have, here are a few clips of scenes from the film:
This is a fun compilation set to the theme song by Queen (warning – the theme song may get stuck in your head!)
If you enjoyed this outing, just know the four of us will be back soon. In the meantime, you can find Adam, Joe, and Obi all together on Adam’s Star Wars podcast, I Have Spoken, episode 19 (thought on the Boba Fett series). You can find more Adam and Joe on our first joint collaboration on The Lost Boys parts 1 and 2 as well as on Rambo: First Blood Parts1 and 2 as well as their epic collaboration on Steakuums:
We will return on Patreon for more discussion on Flash Gordon cartoons, serials, comics, and toys!
Last but not least, if you’re in the US, happy 4th, and belated happy Canada Day to our Northern friends 🙂
This week, Jeremy and I are tackling the 1982 TV movie, Mazes and Monsters! This was a movie (based on a novel by Rona Jaffe) released in the midst of the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons as well as the public fear/backlash of the Satanic panic and all that. Not surprisingly, it’s a bit of a shlock fest, but we have a surprisingly nuanced discussion on a variety of topics related to the film, role playing games and adjacent activities, distant parents, 80s social panics, steam tunnels, and more. You can watch the film for free on Tubi (click on the VHS cover below to watch)
Ironically, the showing of this TV movie was sponsored by Proctor and Gamble, who acquired the stomach discomfort drug Pepto Bismo also in 1982!
The main cast of Mazes and Monsters with their characters and game paraphernalia. Below, the article about the book the film is based on from the 7/1983 issue of Dragon magazine is below.
There are a few things that are notably positive about the film that I think deserve some mention. I liked the scene where two of the characters are painting their miniatures. I liked the fact they had game notebooks. Then there’s the interesting subject of gender, which has an interesting history in DnD.
I think it was notable that the story actually included a female character at all, and she took a more active role in the story (the fact the book was written by a woman may have had something to do with it). Glacia (Kate Finch) was the party’s only fighter, which I think is notable since Dungeons and Dragons was still fairly overtly unbalanced in its gender roles. At the time of the filming of this game, DnD was still in its first edition, where female characters of different races had lower stats (e.g. lower strength) and the game was generally written using only male pronouns (e.g. “fighting men”). Although the female : male player ratio is more even today (about 60% male : 40 % female), it was apparently much more male dominated at the time (estimated around 10 % female in one source I found).
As we talk about in the episode, DnD drew heavily from earlier (more male dominated) historical wargames, so it’s interesting to hear what female players of the time thought of it (here’s a interview with RPG pioneer Jean Wells, the first woman hired by TSR). However, my main exposure to DnD as a kid in the 80s came not from the actual game but from TSR’s Endless Quest books, many of whom were written by a woman, Rose Estes, a TSR employee who, like many other women of the time, was frustrated at the male centric nature of the game and the play – centered around stats, dungeon crawls, and combat – which she felt took away from the telling of a cohesive story.
So I think it is admirable that this film gave the fighter class role to a woman, who, though she does feature in a requisite love triangle, is not passive in her involvement in the main story. She seems to be the only one for most of the film that actually owns a car, and the movie does not relegate her to passenger status in favor of having one of the male characters drive it. Again, perhaps the film was just staying true to the original source material, but in that case, good on them for not changing it.
Also, as mentioned in the episode, my interpretation of the film’s ending differed from most of thoughts found in the reviews I read at the time or since. As much as the game was depicted as an experience potentially blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, I thought they also seemed to be saying that this was a way, separate from the world of distant adults, where four lonely young adults could connect with each other. Such is the power of make believe (normally relegated to the word of children), even, in the end, cutting through psychosis. When I saw it, the ending seemed to be saying that while aspects of day to day adult reality can be drab, disconnected, and limiting, it doesn’t have to be that way as long as there is still a human connection that binds people together.
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show! We will be back with another look at another fine piece of cinema!
Today, I’m joined by my friends Joseph Esch and Adam Crohn to talk about the 1987 film, Masters of the Universe, which despite being a fan of the toys and the cartoon as a kid, I missed seeing at the time or since. I went in with no expectations, not having watched the cartoon in decades. I knew it was different from the source material, having read some reviews prior, though as an isolated 80s sword and sorcery movie, I think it works just fine. As a Masters of the Universe property, I’m not so sure, but Joe and Adam, who know much more about the franchise than I do, had a lot more to say about that I could offer, so I felt like we went into a fairly balanced discussion on the film, with both positives and negatives.
I want to thank one of the concept artists on MOTU, Edward Eyth (who also helped design the silver art deco version of the Cirrus X-3 on my favorite movie of all time, The Rocketeer), for helping to provide some insights into the design of the film. Hopefully we weren’t too harsh!
In the meantime, check out more Adam and Joe on our first joint collaboration on The Lost Boys parts 1 and 2 as well as on Rambo: First Blood Parts1 and 2 as well as their epic collaboration on Steakuums:
In addition, check out the links below for some of Adams original MOTU designs. We will return on Patreon for more discussion on the toys.
This week, my brother, Jeremy, rejoins the show to talk about the 80s movie, Highlander. You can listen to the first part of this episode here and, if you have not seen the film, you can actually watch the entire film for free on Tubi as well as some sequels, like the director’s cut version of the sequel, the animated series, and the TV show, which a kind soul also uploaded to Youtube). After the conversation with Jeremy is done, I pop back in for a bit to give a few thoughts on the sequel and the cartoon.
Like last week, I thought I’d post some period specific articles on Japanese swords since the movie cites their history and borrows from the mythos even though it’s superficial. This article comes from the June 1980 issue of Black Belt magazine and talks more about the swordmaker Masamune, who is cited in the film:
As much as folks rag on the sequel (and for good reason – just don’t take it too seriously), I have to say, I really like this quote, the bits with Sean Connery, and the bagpipes in the background. RIP, Sir Connery / Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez and Godspeed!
And check out the music in the intro of the animated series. Always loved the electric guitar lead mixed with the symphonic backing track. I think I only watched the show a few times as a kid and had no clue what was going on (since I hadn’t seen the movie yet, not that it matters; they’re only tangentially connected), but after poking around on Youtube, I found this clip of the ending theme. I don’t remember it at all, but it sounds a bit like The Thirteenth Hour theme in a different key, which is maybe why I like it). Love the guitar there. Possible unconscious reference?
It was really nice to be able to share this little slice of the 80s with my brother, since he not only did he remember a lot more than I did, but he’s one of the few people who knows the influence films like this, however obscure, had on the writing on The Thirteenth Hour books (more next week). Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show! For those on Patreon, stay tuned for a bit for you guys!
This week, my brother, Jeremy, rejoins the show to talk about the 80s movie, Highlander. This was a film I watched in high school I believe for a history class report on 1980s movies, and I recall watching the cartoon series probably a few years earlier. While there are quite a few sequels and associated properties (like a TV show), this is probably the best of them, highlighted by a great soundtrack done by Queen with a score by Michael Kamen. (You can actually watch the entire film for free on Tubi as well as some sequels, like the director’s cut version of the sequel, the animated series, and the TV show, which a kind soul also uploaded to Youtube).
The film starts in quite dramatic fashion:
It was interesting watching this film in over 20 years. This clip is one of the few parts I actually remember.
This week and next, I’ll post some period specific articles on Japanese swords since the movie cites their history and borrows from the mythos even though it’s superficial. This article comes from a 1982 martial arts magazine:
It was really nice to be able to share this little slice of the 80s with my brother, since he not only did he remember a lot more than I did, but he’s one of the few people who knows the influence films like this, however obscure, had on the writing on The Thirteenth Hour books (more next week). Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show! Look for more in part 2 next week!
This week, we have out last question and answer session!
My brother, Jeremy, who will be on soon to discuss the film Highlander, returns this month with these questions:
1) Do you have any preference between the fantasy and sci-fi genres, and if so, why do you think that’s the case? I’m asking because some people are strictly in favor of one versus the other, and then there are those who hate traditional “elves and orcs” fantasy but really love Star Wars, which is basically “wizards in space.
2) The villain of The Thirteenth Hour, Klax, underwent quite a few changes in all of the novel’s drafts, moving from a fairly 2D bad guy to somewhat sympathetic in the final product. What makes a memorable villain in your opinion and who are some of your favorite bad guys?
3) What are some of your favorite fantasy creatures? The Thirteenth Hour has dragons and unicorns but not too many other fantastical beasts – are there some creatures that you’re interested in featuring in later books?
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show!
These next five comes from frequent show guest Adam from @mom_gave_them_away, who was just on the show for episodes 340–341 on Rambo/First Blood.
4.) I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about your favorite superhero. Let hear one for Marvel, DC and an independent publisher.
5.) The movie that scared you the most as a kid?
6.) You have to live off of one food forever, what is it?
7.) Your clone, John Rambo, has to live off of one food forever. What is it?
8.) What’s your favorite fictional female character?
Find more of Adam’s work on the interwebs at ACtoydesign and his shop of original resin toys. He does a number of podcasts as well – I Have Spoken (a Star Wars podcast), Death by Podcast (a vintage horror podcast), and You like Toys (a Patreon exclusive podcast about toys and nostalgia).
Thanks, everyone, for your contributions! It was a good time these past three months as an experiment to how user generated questions would go. Patreon members – stay tuned for more of these for the Patreon exclusive episodes in the future or to ask questions for the main podcast.
This week, my brother, Jeremy, rejoins the show to talk about the 80s movie, Legend in the second of a two part series (part one is here). As mentioned, depending on which part of the world you were in, it had different release dates (1985 in Europe, 1986 in the US) and different soundtracks and cuts, making for different viewing experiences. In this podcast, we focused on the 1986 US theatrical release with a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream and the 2002 director’s cut (more similar to the original 1985 European release) with the soundtrack done by Jerry Goldsmith.
When I was a kid watching the US release, I wasn’t really a fan of the ending song (“Loved by the Sun”), since I just wanted to listen to the backing melody (which is mostly synth and is the “Unicorn Theme” refrain) but watching it this time, I was struck by how this ending scene really caps off the whole movie. It’s basically a music video inside a film that’s 70% music video already (speaking for the US release), and what was running through my head was, “Now that’s how you end a movie! (especially an 80s movie).” While the director’s cut version is probably cinematically the better ending and makes a bit more sense (well, sort of), I couldn’t help wishing for the emotional swells of the vocals, keyboards, and synthesizers of the Tangerine Dream / US version. Check it out:
Jeremy had much the same thought. It was really nice to be able to share this little slice of the 80s with my brother, since he was not really old enough to get into it when I was into the film. Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show! Look for more in part 2 next week!
This week, my brother, Jeremy, rejoins the show to talk about the 80s movie, Legend. Depending on which part of the world you were in , it had different release dates (1985 in Europe, 1986 in the US) and different soundtracks and cuts, making for different viewing experiences. In this podcast, we focused on the 1986 US theatrical release with a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream and the 2002 director’s cut (more similar to the original 1985 European release) with the soundtrack done by Jerry Goldsmith.
Watching this film again for the first time since I was a teenager, I was struck by how much I liked the Tangerine Dream score in the US release, something I really noticed when watching the director’s cut version of the film. Before I was able to find the soundtrack, I recall trying to tape record parts of the soundtrack off the TV as a kid. Unfortunately, as was often the case, not all parts of the score were included on the official release. For example, this scene has a variation of “The Unicorn Theme” that was on the official soundtrack, if I recall. Listening to those home-made recordings through the years helped provide inspiration for what would later become the sound behind The Thirteenth Hour soundtrack.
It was really nice to be able to share this little slice of the 80s with my brother, since he was not really old enough to get into it when I was into the film. Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show! Look for more in part 2 next week!
This week, I’ve got a few quick updates and will be digging into the second set of questions that came in. I really appreciate all the thoughtful questions!
Before we begin, I have finally finished the Lego Rocketeer including their boxes. Now just need to list them and get them ready for auction for two charity organizations in Dave Stevens’ name.
1) What was it about films like The Neverending Story that resonated with you as a child and served as fuel for the style of ’80s fantasy that The Thirteenth Hour represents? In your mind, what do you think is stylistically different about ’80s fantasy films as opposed to the stuff that came after? (like The Lord of the Rings movies or modern day shows like The Witcher).
2) The Thirteenth Hour straddles a lot of genres and defies classification – you could call it a fantasy/young adult book, but that doesn’t quite hit the mark. What are some of the restrictions and quirks of these genres that bothered you as a kid and still bother you as an adult? (i.e.: the tendency for fantasy series to be long multi-book affairs that get a little drunk on their own worldbuilding and politics; the fact that most YA books have to fit within the mold established by Harry Potter or The Hunger Games to survive)
3) Did you ever envision The Thirteenth Hour as a comic? In a perfect world, what would a comic adaptation of the story look like in your eyes? Would you go for a long running series that expands on the mythology that you wrote, or maybe a big one-shot a la Dave Steven’s Rocketeer work that’s self-contained?
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show!
These first five comes from frequent show guest Adam from @mom_gave_them_away, who was just on the show for episodes 340–341 on Rambo/First Blood.
4.) Favorite Gene Wilder role, not necessarily favorite movie?
5.) Favorite toy line as a kid?
6.) Within that favorite toy line, what’s your favorite figure?
7.) Can you nail down your favorite year of the 80s?
8.) Did you take piano lessons, and if so, do you remember your first lesson?
Find more of Adam’s work on the interwebs at ACtoydesign and his shop of original resin toys. He does a number of podcasts as well – I Have Spoken (a Star Wars podcast), Death by Podcast (a vintage horror podcast), and You like Toys (a Patreon exclusive podcast about toys and nostalgia).
Two of my favorite GI Joe figures – Lady Jaye and Snake Eyes from the GI Joe 80s cartoon.
I don’t a lot of the toys from my youth currently with me, but have found a few in later years. The little blue Prius from Japan is there representing Micro Machines and the Japanese import that was my first GoBot. The blue robot is a GoBot that was my favorite as a kid, and the Air Raider pilot (which was one of the ones I had as kid), represents all the smaller size figures I liked playing with as a child.
Thanks, everyone, for your contributions! It was a good time. We’ll do it again next month (for the episode to be released on 3/28/22). If you have questions, feel free to email me them at writejoshuablum@gmail.com.
Welcome to the 2nd part of the First Blood / Rambo miniseries. But before I forget, as mentioned in the show intro, check out Adam’s tutorial on grey scale painting:
And! A new podcast I recently found all about Howard the Duck – “Trapped in a World!”
Click on the picture below to find a copy of the film:
We actually start off taking about this collection of ads, of which the survival knife is just one fine offering, coming from Boys’ Life.
As an aside, if you look center bottom in the ad above, you’ll see one for a diver’s knife. Adam sent along some pictures of his:
Joe also sent along some pictures of the container he found to organize the contents of the knife handle in the Harbor Fright model we have. If you look around, you can find little metal waterproof containers just the right size to fit in the handle. This is the one Joe used.
We also talk a bit about the Rambo cartoon (odd choice for an R rated movie about a vet suffering from PTSD who gets bullied by smallminded cops and wreaks a path of wanton destruction on their small town as revenge) as well as the accompanying Coleco toyline, which I vaguely remember from the shelves of Kmart, as they were bigger and had more accessories than a lot of your typical action figures of the day.
I found the first episode of the cartoon here, and here’s the trailer:
The backdrops from these 80s commercials were sometimes even better than the toys themselves. Now, this, ladies, and gents, is a commercial …
For those of you on Patreon, there will be an accompanying exclusive episode later this week on favorite GI Joe figures, as the comic had many of the Joes originally as Vietnam vets trying to figure out what to do after the war, just like Rambo.
In the meantime, check out more Adam and Joe on our first joint collaboration on The Lost Boys parts 1 and 2 as well as on Adam’s show, I Have Spoken: A Star Wars Podcast, episodes 14, 15, and 19 talking about The Book of Boba Fett and Star Wars toys! Thanks for coming on the show, fellas!
Today, I’m joined by my friends Joseph Esch and Adam Crohn to talk about the first Rambo movie, First Blood (1982) and some 80s survival knife back-of-the-magazine ad goodness.
This ad comes from a 1985 issue of Black Belt magazine.
Here’s the knife in the ad. It’s different from the one Rambo uses in the film, of course, but has the same mostly hollow handle to hold a variety of survival bits, like fishing hooks, line, matches (which are clearly vintage – I found my knife on eBay).
Last year (when we first floated he idea of doing this pod!), Joe sent me a modern equivalent from Harbor Freight Tools. It’s a bit bigger than the original, and the compass is protectively nested on the inside of the handle, not the outside, which I thought was a good change.
Look for more details on the Patreon as well as next week with part 2!
In the meantime, check out more Adam and Joe on our first joint collaboration on The Lost Boys parts 1 and 2 as well as on Adam’s show, I Have Spoken: A Star Wars Podcast, episodes 14 and 15 talking about The Book of Boba Fett and Star Wars toys!
1.) What’s your favorite 80s toy line of all time?
2.) What’s your favorite contemporary toy line of all time?
3.) If you could change one thing about The Rocketeer movie, what would it be?
4.) If there was a new Rocketeer movie, who would you like to see in the cast? Excluding the obvious choice of The Rock for the lead role.
5.) How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
Find more of Adam’s work on the interwebs at ACtoydesign and his shop of original resin toys. He does a number of podcasts as well – I Have Spoken (a Star Wars podcast), Death by Podcast (a vintage horror podcast), and You like Toys (a Patreon exclusive podcast about toys and nostalgia).
6.) In a perfect world, if you had to pick just one, would you rather see The Thirteenth Hour visualized as a big budget movie akin to the 80s flicks that inspired you, a long-running cartoon series with one of those badass intros with dudes singing, or a retro video game like the one you tried to make way back in the day?
7.) I know that The Thirteenth Hour Book 2 has been on hiatus for a bit; has the general story changed at all due to side projects you’ve been engaged in? On that note, has the trajectory of characters like Logan, Aurora and the Wayfarer changed at all after everything that you’ve experienced the last two years as a dad raising kids in this crazy new Covid world we live in?
8.) Now that you’re a fully fledged custom toymaker, are there any other projects you want to embark upon with the characters from the book? Making Thirteenth Hour dioramas? The World of The Thirteenth Hour Guide Book? A new short story?
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show!
Wrapping us up for the first Thirteenth Hour podcast Q & A is one of my favorite people in the world, Doug Bernon:
9.) If Howard and Beverly had a child, what do you think their kid would look and be like?
10.) How do you think Logan and Aurora would have handled a pandemic?
11.) Cliff Secord’s helmet is already pretty magnificent. If you were designing one for yourself today, what would it look like?
12.) What role did the movie The Rocketeer play in your life as a kid? Is that the backstory for Logan and Aurora and The Thirteenth Hour?
Thanks, everyone, for your contributions! It was a blast. We’ll do it again next month (for the episode to be released on 2/28/22). If you have questions, feel free to email me them at writejoshuablum@gmail.com.
This week, my brother, Jeremy, rejoins the show to talk about the 1985 Disney film, The Black Cauldron. The film is loosely based on the first two books in the Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander, a series I was sort of introduced to as a kid when I bought The Black Cauldron book in a school book fair since it had the cover of the movie, like this one:
The film poster usage for the cover of the novel is a bit misleading since the majority of the plot to the film is actually from the first book in the series, The Book of Three, which I was unaware of at the time. So, it’s not surprising it didn’t make much sense. However, we did have this Scholastic comic adaptation of the film which we found at a yard sale and read many times in childhood:
You can find copies on eBay periodically (click on the picture above to search):
Here’s the theatrical trailer and some screencaps:
The film had to be cut for length and content. Here is the first in a series of videos that has deleted scenes from the film:
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley. Thanks, Jeremy, for coming on the show!
This week, my brother, Jeremy, rejoins the show to talk about movie we watched a fair amount as a kid, 1985’s Red Sonja. Neither of us had seen it in decades and we honestly weren’t expecting much, but I asked Jeremy if he’d want to join me in rewatching it given all the experience he’s had the last few years with tabletop role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. From what I had recalled, it seemed like an example of those games in live action, and I was curious to see what he thought. Suffice to say, Jeremy did a deep dive and more than delivered, which you can hear if you check out the episode. I had always operated under the assumption that 1986’s Howard the Duck was the first real Marvel comic book movie, but you could make a case for Red Sonja, which was under license by Marvel at the time, though there’s no mention of it in the credits from what I recall. Click on the picture below to watch:
If watching the whole film is not your bag, check out this 8 min compilation of some great lines plus the trailer. You’ll get the basic gist of the film and perhaps learn a thing or two, like why it’s important to not grip your hilt too tight (important life skill courtesy of Red Sonja that is generalizable beyond sword play, though I’m not exactly sure how).
Check out Jeremy‘s work over at Pixel Grotto, CBR.com, and Classic Batman Panels on IG. You can support his work on Ko-fi and get access to in-depth, exclusive Batman content here. If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley.
In toymaking news, I’ve been working on all these Beverlys! There is also a connection to our 1985 film above. A year after, we would, of course, see the film version of Beverly Switzler, another lead heroine, but one of a considerably less violent nature, the one depicted in the figurine above. Her costume in the film was equally impractical as Red Sonja’s but a lot less revealing than that of Red Sonja’s. There’s another connection, though. The very first issue of Howard the Duck featured a vaguely Red Sonja like character (it’s Beverly, though it’s presented kind of as a dream) in a parody of a Conan / DnD story. There’s even an appearance of everyone’s favorite friendly neighborhood webslinger for some off-the-wall reason (the original comics were pretty bonkers).
The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #317 and Like a Hood Ornament 37: Reading The Howard the Duck Movie Novelization Part 5, Rocketeer News, and Toymaking Updates
Some interesting news this week. The Rocketeer is supposedly getting a sequel! Now, I am not holding my breath, since there have been sequel rumors for years, and so far, they have all died on the vine. But it is exciting, nonetheless. Even if nothing comes of it, if it generates some interest in Dave Steven’s original comics and the 1991 film for a new generation, I view that as a win.
One thing that does seem more tangible, since it is slated for a release next month, is a beautiful Rockeeter board game. Now, I gotta be honest, board games have never really been my thing. Half the time, when I read the instructions, I go, “What? I don’t understand what the hell you are supposed to do. Who wrote these things?” Also, maybe once my kids are older and we can all play them together, it will be a different story, but most of the ones more complicated that Candy Landy require a level of concentration pretty much making them a no-go for the little ones. But … that is not to say that will always be the case! Plus, game or no game, I would buy this one for the little miniature Rocketeer figurines alone (which I was thinking of trying to make a few months ago – this saves me the trouble)! I will be looking forward to this one this fall for sure.
Speaking of The Rocketeer, I am using a Reaction Rocketeer figure as the base of the body for a 5 POA Kenner-style figure of Logan from The Thirteenth Hour. The head will be modified from a figure of the Charlie Sheen character from Red Dawn. Just need to do a few more touch ups and then make it all go together smoothly. More to come shortly.
Here are a few pictures of the Beverly minifigure I have been working on for the past few months: Just about done, I think. Just a few touch ups here and there.
And now, speaking of which, back to the duck!
This is the section in the story where Howard meets Phil (a young Tim Robbins). There are some really funny asides the author, Ellis Weiner, added for this segment:
Lastly, all proceeds to The Thirteenth Hour Studio on Etsy over Sept will be donated to the Red Cross (RedCross.org) for Hurricane Ida Relief. Check the link below to support those affected, still in the midst of the pandemic, with 80s retro art (music-books-toys).
This week, we’re again taking a short break from the 30th anniversary of The Rocketeer by celebrating the 35th anniversary of my another of my favorite films, Howard the Duck. The zaniness continues in the movie novelization of Howard the Duck by Ellis Weiner, based on the screenplay by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, though with a number of humorous and satirical additions that were unique to the novelization. Some of those are also found in the three part comic adaptation that came out about the same time as the film and novel. A few screenshots:
As mentioned in previous weeks, there is a Howard the Duck documentary, Howard the Doc, currently being created with interviews from some of the original writers / cast / crew. I do believe it is the only one that has ever been attempted for this first of all Marvel movies.
It is in the final stages of production. Their team needs some love / support / bucks to help complete the project, and you can support them on Indiegogo. Some crowdfunding platforms don’t result in any funding going to the creators if the final goal is not met, but in this case, the filmmakers will get it every penny that you contribute even if the final target is not met. If you have love for the 1986 film, comic, the original cast/crew, or 80s movies in general, please consider taking a look at the campaign, sharing on your social media, or contributing. Hopefully, then we can all see the final product!
Some screenshots of the production with Ed Gale (who was inside Howard), Jeffrey Jones (a.k.a. the principal who get booted in the face in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), and Lea Thompson.
The minifigure that I am making of Beverly, along with a portrait of Howard, is now a perk if you contribute at the $125 level. Check out the fundraiser above; I believe it is ending on 8/30, so spread the word!
This week, we’re again taking a short break from the 30th anniversary of The Rocketeer by celebrating the 35th anniversary of my another of my favorite films, Howard the Duck. The zaniness continues in the movie novelization of Howard the Duck by Ellis Weiner, based on the screenplay by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, though with a number of humorous and satirical additions that were unique to the novelization. So far, I’m liking the novel version of Howard more than the movie version (some screenshots below from the film of this segment).
In this part of the chapter, we learn a little more about Beverly Switzler, the frontswoman of Cherry Bomb, an all female band essentially created for the film. Howard, sleeping in a garbage can, meets Beverly, who has just played a disappointing gig and gets accosted by some overly intrusive “fans.” He fakes some “quack fu” and scares the things away, though as in the film, Bev hardly sits passively at the sidelines.
I found some drawings I believe done by Joe Tompkins, the costume designer for the film. There’s a collection of sketches he did that you can see from the film for Beverly and Howard (click below for more info):
Speaking of the film, there is a Howard the Duck documentary, Howard the Doc, currently being created with interviews from some of the original writers / cast / crew. I do believe it is the only one that has ever been attempted for this first of all Marvel movies.
It is in the final stages of production. Their team needs some love / support / bucks to help complete the project, and you can support them on Indiegogo. Some crowdfunding platforms don’t result in any funding going to the creators if the final goal is not met, but in this case, the filmmakers will get it every penny that you contribute even if the final target is not met. If you have love for the 1986 film, comic, the original cast/crew, or 80s movies in general, please consider taking a look at the campaign, sharing on your social media, or contributing. Hopefully, then we can all see the final product!
Some screenshots of the production with Ed Gale (who was inside Howard), Jeffrey Jones (a.k.a. the principal who get booted in the face in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), and Lea Thompson.
This week, we’re again taking a short break from the 30th anniversary of The Rocketeer by celebrating the 35th anniversary of my another of my favorite films, Howard the Duck. The zaniness continues in the movie novelization of Howard the Duck by Ellis Weiner, based on the screenplay by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, though with a number of humorous and satirical additions that were unique to the novelization. So far, I’m liking the novel version of Howard more than the movie version.
An example of some of the bits of humor thrown in by author Ellis Weiner that doesn’t make it onto the screen. Sometimes these movie novelizations were kind of phoned in, but so far, this one really goes above and beyond the call of duty.
Here is the section where we meet our heroine, Beverly. There is a little more detail about her and her band mates here than in the film, which is one of the nice things that these movie novelization did when done well.
Speaking of the film, there is a Howard the Duck documentary, Howard the Doc, currently being created with interviews from some of the original writers / cast / crew. I do believe it is the only one that has ever been attempted for this first of all Marvel movies.
It is in the final stages of production. Their team needs some love / support / bucks to help complete the project, and you can support them on Indiegogo. Some crowdfunding platforms don’t result in any funding going to the creators if the final goal is not met, but in this case, the filmmakers will get it every penny that you contribute even if the final target is not met. If you have love for the 1986 film, comic, the original cast/crew, or 80s movies in general, please consider taking a look at the campaign, sharing on your social media, or contributing. Hopefully, then we can all see the final product!
Some screenshots of the production with Ed Gale (who was inside Howard), Jeffrey Jones (a.k.a. the principal who get booted in the face in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), and Lea Thompson.
This week, we’re taking a short break from the 30th anniversary of The Rocketeer by celebrating the 35th anniversary of my another of my favorite films, Howard the Duck. When I was creating the Aurora character from The Thirteenth Hour, Beverly from the film was one of the influences I used in creating Aurora’s character. Awhile back, I found an old copy of the movie novelization so figured this would be the perfect time to read it on the podcast. It’s based on the screenplay by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, so I’m thinking it may give some background info that might help explain some parts of the film. And this intro section does not disappoint – it is totally bonkers!
If you’re a member of the Patreon, check out the exclusive podcast they dropped this past weekend for more on the making of a Beverly minifigure. Will be posting periodic updates as the initial clay sculpt gets finished and the molding / casting process gets underway.
As with last week, I’m joined by actor Lance Guest (The Last Starfighter, Jaws 4, Halloween 2) to talk more about his favorite project, the 1988 film, The Wizard of Loneliness. We wrap up talking about the film and also touch a bit on some other aspects of his life, including music and on a 2001 Disney Channel film Lance was in featuring a juvenile chimpanzee, The Jennie Project.
If you missed the first part of the interview, you can find it here as well as catch a video segment that gives you visuals for the video clips we’re watching and commenting on together:
Here’s a little clip from David Letterman where Lance (who is portraying Johnny Cash) performs with his bandmates in the show Million Dollar Quartet.
There isn’t much out there on The Jennie Project, but here’s a little promo clip that I vaguely remember playing on The Disney Channel. Interestingly enough, the movie itself is not on Disney+ last time I checked, though you can find it to buy on Youtube or as a part of Amazon Prime (again, like The Wizard of Loneliness, only if you have a subscription). I don’t think it was ever released on DVD, though someone uploaded it here (you may have to sort through the three links to the right to find one that works, though; beware of popups).
Speaking of not having much out there on Youtube, The Wizard of Loneliness has very little there. There is a nice trailer, though, as well as a snippet someone uploaded on a scene with Sybil Oler (Lea Thompson) and Duffy Kahler (Dylan Baker). The scene is very close to how it occurs in the novel of the same name by John Nichols, which was written in 1966.
Above is the cover of the novel, which, interestingly, features two different scenes from the film and merges them together in and outside the Oler house. Unless I’m wrong and this was a deleted scene, not sure why they did that and didn’t just use the movie poster/VHS coverart made for the film (a portion below), though it’s a nice image that works well enough.
Anyhow, thanks to the support of the fine folks on The Thirteenth Hour Arts Patreon, I reached out to Lea Thompson on Cameo to ask about her work on The Wizard of Loneliness and if the novel was helpful in portraying Sybil. I think she is a more complicated character in the film than she is in the book since they merged an additional character (that of the town librarian, Marty) into the on-screen version of Sybil.
In both book and film, Sybil had a short relationship with Duffy, bore their child out of wedlock, married, then lost her husband in WW2. But in the novel, the relationship with Duffy is portrayed as a not very serious adolescent fling, and Sybil’s husband’s death happens during a few brief paragraphs of exposition. We don’t really see it as actively as we do in the film.
In the book, the town librarian, Marty, is a lonely figure that finds a kind of awkward connection with Wendall over books and photography. It’s hinted that there is a kind of mutual attraction there, though I don’t think it was meant to be sexual in nature (more just two lonely souls finding solace in their mutual misery). However, I’m guessing the filmmakers probably felt it best to avoid material that would lead to questions about the age difference between Wendall and Marty, especially if the attraction – however platonic – was to someone of the same sex. In the movie, you kind of get the sense that Wendall has a crush on his aunt (which, to be fair, is also kind of weird), but maybe they felt that was preferable to the former.
In the book, it really is the whole community that helps Wendall come out of his shell, whereas in the film, though the family and community role is definitely there, it seemed like they were going for Sybil becoming kind of a surrogate mother figure for Wendall (even hinted at in the cover art below). In any event, both versions are good, and it was great to get Lea Thompson’s take on the film. Look for more on the novel in the last part of the podcast.
Thanks to Lance and Lea for providing the guest spots for this episode and for the Patrons and all the listeners for their support.
In the coming weeks, we’ll get back to more 30th anniversary Rocketeer celebrating. We still have a handful of Rocketeer cartoon episodes to discuss as well as a number of other guests and other fun activities in the works.
I know we didn’t talk much about The Last Starfighter here, but if you look for The Last Starfighter group on Facebook, you can find many more interviews and pictures from the film, including all those speculations about sequels and so forth. (Just with like The Rocketeer, I will believe it when I see it! 🙂
Speaking of those two properties, if you every wondered what might have happened just prior to The Last Starfighter, should our hapless hero Cliff Secord (a.k.a. the Rocketeer) live to 1983, check out the shenanigans and misadventures that follow in the fanfic short story, “The Last Rocketeer”!
What would happen if The Rocketeer collided with The Last Starfighter? What would happen if Cliff Secord, our hapless hero from the 1991 film and the Dave Stevens comic from the 80s really did live in the 80s? Say, 1983? He’d be about 71. What if Centauri, the fast-talking game creator from the 1984 film, recruited Cliff for a special mission? What if, knowing Cliff’s luck, it all went bad? Will he reluctantly don his antiquated rocketpack and helmet for one last flight? Will his jodhpurs even fit after all these years? Read on and find out as world collide! Cliff’s back may not take the strain, but at least you can do so from the comfort of your favorite chair!
Thanks for tuning in!
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Today, I’m joined by actor Lance Guest (who you may know as the lead character, Alex Rogan, of one of my favorite films, The Last Starfighter) to talk about his favorite project, the 1988 film, The Wizard of Loneliness. It was a pleasure and an honor to talk with him about this bittersweet, slice-of-life film that I saw once as a child but didn’t quite understand at the time. I wanted to see what it was like viewing it as an adult and am really glad I gave it a second chance! This first part of the podcast will focus mostly on the film, and next week, we’ll talk about some aspects of the film’s enchanting score and some of Lance’s other projects as well as the book The Wizard of Loneliness was based on (after our conversation, I figured I should go and track down a copy of the novel to see if it answered some questions I still had about the film – the movie and the novel are really quite similar in some ways, though there are some key differences that we’ll talk about next week).
A few screencaps from the film (I don’t think this movie was ever released on DVD; I ended up finding a copy on eBay and digitizing it). Here is Lance’s character – auto mechanic John T Oler.
John T lives with his elderly parents and older sister in a large, rural Vermont home. He takes the main character, Wendall (played by Lukas Haas), under his wing and tries to help him discover some aspects of his childhood, like playing baseball and lighting fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Speaking of which, there’s a really fun little scene that ties in with Independence Day, which is why I tried to time this episode to the US’ birthday this week. It was really interesting to learn that this part of the film was actually filmed in the late fall!
As a former New Englander, this was one of my favorite scenes in the film, a motorcycle ride through the country throwing the beautiful Vermont countryside.
There is a video segment to this podcast which can be found here that gives you visuals for the video clips we’re watching together:
If you’d like to watch the film in full, there are not that many places you can find it, unfortunately. But if you are a member of Amazon Prime, you can find it streaming there. Otherwise, you may want to look on eBay, as I did, to see if you can find an old VHS copy (though they tend to go for somewhat high prices). If you are lucky, you might be able to find one in your local Goodwill or Salvation Army for a fraction of the cost.
We’ll talk more about the characters in the novel next week, but in the book, John T was much more bitter and depressed. Lance played him in a less aggressive, angry way (in fact, he reminded me a little of what Alex Rogan might have been like a few years after The Last Starfighter).
If, by chance, you’re interested in what might have happened just prior to The Last Starfighter, should our hapless hero Cliff Secord (a.k.a. the Rocketeer) live to 1983, check out the shenanigans and misadventures that follow in the fanfic short story, “The Last Rocketeer”!
What would happen if The Rocketeer collided with The Last Starfighter? What would happen if Cliff Secord, our hapless hero from the 1991 film and the Dave Stevens comic from the 80s really did live in the 80s? Say, 1983? He’d be about 71. What if Centauri, the fast-talking game creator from the 1984 film, recruited Cliff for a special mission? What if, knowing Cliff’s luck, it all went bad? Will he reluctantly don his antiquated rocketpack and helmet for one last flight? Will his jodhpurs even fit after all these years? Read on and find out as world collide! Cliff’s back may not take the strain, but at least you can do so from the comfort of your favorite chair!
Stay tuned for more next week!
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m working on another accessory for the custom figure of Logan from The Thirteenth Hour that I started two weeks ago. Last week, I made a synthesizer, which is basically done, and today, I’m working on an acoustic guitar for Logan to sing with.
Here’s how the synth came out (from last week):
And here’s what the guitar looks like so far:
I also randomly made a little rectangle that will be one of the playing cards that Logan throws in the book. The #2 plastics in the background above, by the way, may be in a future project. I’ve always thought it would be fun to essentially recycle used plastics into useful things, like little toys. I just need to figure out how to do it safely.
These musical instruments will be for some upcoming (perhaps in 2021?) videos with Logan singing some songs, either accompanied by the synth or the guitar. Some will be his own songs, and a number will be essentially cover songs. I imagined that Logan would sound a bit like the singing rooster minstrel (voiced by folk singer Roger Miller) in the animated version of Robin Hood:
Lastly, a friend of the show and frequent guest / collaborator, AC of ACToyDesign needs some help this holiday season. Adam recently found out that his dog, Mooge, has lung cancer. (If you need further convincing that she is adorable, click on her pic above to go to her Instagram account). Her vets feel confident they caught the cancer early, and that she has a good prognosis. But … as anyone with a pet knows, surgery is expensive. That and follow up visits are estimated at around $7500 (!). This holiday season, please consider supporting or sharing Mooge’s gofundme to help raise funds for her treatment. Thank you!
If you still have a cassette player, take advantage of the following deal and be transported to another world! SALE! While supplies last, grab Long Ago Not So Far Away on cassette! Just $1/tape! https://ko-fi.com/s/5579db9b27
Look for the episode Shawn, Colin, and I did on Willow on I Used to Like This One or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Check them out on Patreon to help support their work!
There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m working on an accessory for the custom figure of Logan from The Thirteenth Hour that I started last week (that I am just about finished now). I’m making Logan his own synthesizer to play! He’ll use them for some upcoming videos. But today – we’re starting the sculpting process for the keyboard from Aves Apoxiesculpt, the hard drying clay I used to make the initial sculpts for all the minifigures I’ve done as well as the custom sculpt parts of the Logan figure that I wrapped up this past week.
Here is how Logan looks so far:
And here’s how the sculpt started:
The keys will all be from toothpicks. I’ve slid 21 keys (which will be the white ones) into the clay before it hardened. Here, I’ve added speakers and a central console. Once the clay hardens, I will further sand it and add a few more details that I want to show up on the final cast version. As you can see, I have yet to add the black keys. They’ll be smaller toothpicks glued on in between the keys. There will be 15 of those (3 total octaves).
“So I’m going to be playing this thing …?” Yup! And next week, a guitar!
If you still have a cassette player, take advantage of the following deal and be transported to another world! SALE! While supplies last, grab Long Ago Not So Far Away on cassette! Just $1/tape! https://ko-fi.com/s/5579db9b27
Look for the episode Shawn, Colin, and I did on Willow on I Used to Like This One or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Check them out on Patreon to help support their work!
There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m working on a custom figure of Logan from The Thirteenth Hour. In some ways, I’ve been planning this for years. It was the original reason why I got into clay sculpting, though I ended up going the direction of making minifigures entirely from scratch first. But I’ve been meaning to go back to try making customs. This isn’t the first custom I tried my hand at (the first custom figure was a mini of Aurora), but it is the first one I’m making where I’m actually using all these spare action figure parts I’ve been slowly collecting over the years from yard sales, flea markets, and the loose bins at comic con conventions where I attended as a vendor.
This first custom, detailed in episode 264, was only about 2″ tall and was part kit bash, and the rest was sculpted.
If you still have a cassette player, take advantage of the following deal and be transported to another world! SALE! While supplies last, grab Long Ago Not So Far Away on cassette! Just $1/tape! https://ko-fi.com/s/5579db9b27
Look for the episode Shawn, Colin, and I did on Willow on I Used to Like This One or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Check them out on Patreon to help support their work!
There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m joined by Shawn and Colin from the podcast I Used to Like This One. I’ve mentioned their show a few times here before – around Halloween for an episode they had me on for (The Monster Squad）and their own rewatch of The Lost Boys. Later this week, there’s a show I did with them for Willow. But first, Short Circuit. Well, to be precise, Short Circuit 2. (Shawn and Colin did their own episode on the first installment, so if you don’t recall the story, check that episode out).
Yes, Johnny 5 and Ben are back, this time in NYC.
Johnny 5 is enjoying life, liberty, and a whole city full of input.
Ben (Fisher Stevens), on the other hand, didn’t do so great after the last adventure. He’s peddling miniature Johhny 5s on the street for $20 each. Even in 1988, that seems like way to little! If the neighbor hustling watches to his left looks familiar, he’s Michael McKean from This is Spinal Tap.
And, yes, like in the first movie, Fisher Stevens (below) is in brown face playing an Indian guy. We get into it a whole lot on the episode, so I won’t go into all the issues here. It’s made somewhat better by the fact he’s such a good actor, clearly put a lot of time into researching the role, and the writers actually made him a real character this time, with a story arc, a love interest, and underlying motivations (as opposed to simply comedy relief).
The cast.
Thanks to Shawn and Colin for coming on the show! Look for the episode we did on Willow later this week on I Used to Like This One or wherever yu listen to your podcasts. Check them out on Patreon to help support their work!
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m joined by musician It’s the Dream Chaser, a classically trained pianist turned retro 80s melodic synthwave artist. We discuss his background, influences, his process of creating his sound, and advice for other musicians. He has an upcoming album called The Great Void Above, which releases on 11/11. We’ll be listening a few tracks from the album today, but before we do, let’s check out his first LP, Infinite Space since there is a narrative that ties the albums together. Here’s the story behind that album:
Inspired by the sound of 80’s synths, the “Dream Chaser” gave birth to “Infinite Space”. A melodic synthwave album that will take you to a journey to places you’ve never been.
In a Galaxy where planets are forced to fight for their freedom, a young time-traveler from the planet Earth will try to overcome and survive the overwhelming force of the “Galactic Federation of the United Systems” alongside a group of rebellious space riders. Where the mysterious presence of an A.I. called “The Unity” could change the way carbon based life beings live.
Here’s a preview of the upcoming album. Like its predecessor, there are a selection of some great melodic tracks here that, at least to me, set it apart from a lot of synthwave, which tends to be atmospheric and ambient in nature. I love the concept album feels of these albums given that there is an actual story behind the music, kind of like the soundtracks to movies or books.
Here’s a bit about the album:
With an 80’s heart, The Dream Chaser delivers a new album filled with melodic, chill and dark sinthwave that pushes the genre to new planets and systems.
Continuing the story of The Dream Chaser, Elara, the space riders and the mysterious “S”, “The Great Void Above” explores the consequences of fighting agains the system of the G.F.U.S. and The Unity.
“The Great Void Above” is the second album of the “4 Nights Saga”.
Many thanks to It’s the Dream Chaser for coming on the show! For Patreon members, look for another preview track with more behind the scenes analysis of the making of the song coming later this week!
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
To start, I invite you to take a culinary journey and experience Steakumms. I’d actually never heard of Steakumms prior to seeing the following video (featuring both guests today, I should add):
Check out last week’s episode for more details on the 80s foods we brought for show and, if you’re a Patreon member, the second exclusive podcast episode, which has a guest appearance by Tibetan medical practitioner Ezdean Fassassi (a guest on episode 214) doing a meal critique of a Steakumms meal (listen to a preview below).
Some great art here. There’s a whole Chinese food segment we do based on the scene below …
The whole noodle / worm idea has its issues (as I discuss in the intro), but it’s clearly made its impact. You can find all kinds of imagery around (again, for those of Asian descent who grew up in the US having people say their lunch smelled or looked like worms, it takes on different significance), but I think it was meant as an innocent enough scene.
The deleted scenes get referenced a few times in the podcast. Here are some I found on youtube:
If you look around youtube, you can find elements of the soundtrack and score of the film. Here’s a great example:
And thanks to Adam and Joe this two part episode! Look for an extended feature with both gentlemen in the third Patreon exclusive podcast coming this week.
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m joined by fellow 80s enthusiasts Joe Fangsrud von Esch and Adam Crohn to discuss 80s food as a precursor to a much longer discussion on the 1987 film, The Lost Boys.
To start, I invite you to take a culinary journey and experience Steakumms. I’d actually never heard of Steakumms prior to seeing the following video (featuring both guests today, I should add):
So, we decided to bring a few 80s food staples (as well as candy, of course, this being a Halloween special) to do a little show and tell with y’all prior to discussing the film. There are more details in the show itself, though if you want to see some of what we were eating and learn more about my own inaugural Steakumms experience, you can see more on Patreon. Later this week, there will be a Patreon exclusive podcast episode that goes into the creation of a Steakuums meal, a critique of the meal by Tibetan medical practitioner Ezdean Fassassi (a guest on episode 214), and more.
Alright! Now that we’re fed, let’s get on with the show!
The film … cue the most excellent soundtrack …
These guys are brothers in the film (Corey Haim and Jason Patric)
The vampires – seems like they could be in a glam band … (Fun fact – Laddie, the little guy here (actor Chance Michael Corbitt), was credited as “Newspaper Kid” in The Rocketeer – I guess he must have been the kid that shouts, “Extra, extra, read all about it! Man flies without plane!”)
I mean, check out their costumes – like this coat Star (Jami Gertz) is sporting …
Speaking of Halloween, later this week, join me and others at a virtual event that Corazon de Vida is throwing on 10/29/20 at 7 PM PST (see episode 268). If you are also interested in helping to support their mission, learn more at https://www.corazondevida.org/get-involved or by clicking on the picture below.
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
On this week’s show, I’m pleased to welcome Raphael Xavier, a breakdancer and emcee who got his start in 1983 and has been around to see these aspects of hip hop come, go, return, and evolve over the past 30+ years.
He is also a professor at Princeton University, where he teaches a history of hip hop class as well as one that provides an introduction to breaking. My co-host today is not only my friend but former roommate, training partner, and fellow breaker / Princeton alum, Justin Liang (last on the show on episodes 47 and 48). We were both blown away that not only is hip hop being taught at our former alma mater, there are actual classes on how to break. ABSOLUTELY MIND BLOWING.
We covered so many topics in this conversation, including a lot of things that, while not part of dance, are important life skills to keep in mind for creative people – transforming pain into insight and then power, not giving up, having a direction in life as well as daily practice, how the creative process changes over time and with age, the past and future of the dance, and – for all the high school and college graduates who didn’t get a keynote speaker at a formal ceremony speech this spring – there’s even one in this interview for you.
Thanks, Raph, for joining Justin and me for this interview!
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This film is probably John Hughes’ only real fantasy (sexually frustrated teenage boys create a woman a laFrankenstein or Pygmalion). So – basically, a pretty guy-centric film that has many things in it that would never get it made today. Still – despite all that, it has some great scenes that still hold up today. Check out these:
Look at how Lisa deals with Gary’s parents (who are your typical John Hughes parents, meaning that they are clueless).
A great scene with Vince Townsend Jr. (RIP)
“The Circle” by Max Carl is playing in the background with the boys wrap up the crazy party with their respective girls. The Weird Science soundtrack is another great soundtrack.
The scene “The Circle” is playing in always stuck with me. There was a little homage to it in this scene from The Thirteenth Hour. The main character, Logan, is trying to express similar sentiments to his best friend, Aurora, during a difficult point in their lives (they are both basically imprisoned):
The next day, a clanging sound woke me from my dream. I looked around, not quite aware what was real and what was still a dream.
“Chow time,” came the gruff voice of a guard, opening the door of my cell. Aurora stood behind him, carrying a basket. I noticed she was wearing a new dress. The guard put a meaty hand on the basket and pulled, but Aurora quietly but firmly held onto it. Then the guard let go, peeked inside, and grunted something that sounded like, “Huh. Alright. You can go in. But no funny business.”
“Hear that, Aurora? No funny business,” I said, yawning, wiping the sleepiness out of my eyes.
Aurora just shook her head and gave me one of her half smiles. “Always the joker.”
We sat against the wall, looking up at the sunlight coming through the small window by the ceiling as we ate the meal in the basket. When we had finished, we continued sitting there, and I guess a little smile crept over my face because after awhile Aurora asked, “What are you thinking?”
“I feel lucky.”
[POV change to Aurora temporarily] I laughed a little. “Lucky?” I asked, smiling at Logan.
“Well, you remember that first day we met?” Logan asked.
I nodded.
“What would’ve happened if it hadn’t been you who’d found me that day and taken me into the orphanage? What if it’d been someone else? We might not have gotten to know each other very well at all. Was it fate that we met? The Dreamweaver said he tries to just let things happen. So was it just chance?”
I shrugged, raising my eyebrows and smiling while cocking my head a little to the side to avoid the sun’s glare.
“You know, even if I could get to know all the women in the world, one by one, like in a giant, living catalog …” Logan started.
“Yeah,” I interrupted, “quote–unquote ‘get to know.’”
“Alright, whatever,” he continued, exasperated, “I suck at talking. But what I’m trying to say is that … if … if I were given the opportunity to create an ideal woman, like take some of this, mix it with some of that …”
“Oh, like a recipe.”
“Yes. I mean, no! Dammit, I knew what I wanted to say in my head, and it’s coming out all wrong.” He started again. “What I’m trying to say is … that if I could pick the perfect one … for me, she’d be … just like you. I think I always knew that. It’s just that … it took a long time for me to be able to tell you. So yes, in so many words, I feel lucky.”
I was actually a little stunned. Here’s a little something that took me a long time to figure out. If you complement someone soon after you meet him, you sound like a kiss–ass. But if you wait, get to know the person, and then complement him, your words carry so much more weight because then the person knows you’re sincere. In all the time I’d known Logan, this awkward, limping, borderline aphasic complement was probably the first, totally serious, non–joking one he’d ever given me. And it meant more to me than any flowing, articulate, greeting–card style prose could or ever would. My face grew hot, and I felt all warm inside. And now it was my turn to be tongue–tied.
“I … I feel lucky, too,” I said, finally, resting my head on his arm.
[Logan from here on out] Then the guard walked by and signalled that it was time for Aurora to go.
I thought of something. “New dress?”
“Oh, I found some old clothes lying around in my room. This one fits a little better.”
“Do you still have your grey dress? The one you got from the elves?”
“Sure, why?”
“Can I borrow it?”
She laughed loudly and asked, “Whatever would you want it for?”
“To use as a pillow. I don’t have one.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw Aurora blushing. “Sure, I mean … I … could just bring you a real pillow. I have an extra. But I’ll see,” Aurora started, looking down, “what I can put together, and I’ll get it to you next time I can slip away.” Then she looked back up at me and said, “To say that your cell needs furnishing is probably the understatement of the year. And we’ll have to see what we can do about your food service. Water with a side of algae just doesn’t cut it these days.”
The guard grunted something and led Aurora out. Through the bars, she looked back and whispered softly into my ear, “I love you, Logan.”
“I love you, too,” I said, reminding myself again of a debt I owed, a debt I wouldn’t mind paying for the rest of my life, to luck, to dreams and wishes, to Dragons’ Eyes and grey dresses, to love and other things.
I ended up writing a song to go with this particular scene for the soundtrack called “Love, Grey Dresses, and Other Things” that expresses similar sentiments:
Look for more John Hughes in the future!
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I finished one year ago, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
We’ll be focused on Pretty in Pink today. It’s the precursor to Some Kind of Wonderful (see episode 154; which reversed the roles), also directed by Howard Deutch. These movies, as do all the John Hughes films, do such a great job at getting into the mind of the adolescent. And while that world may not always make sense to the mind of adults, these films tap into the tumult of being caught between child and adult quite well. The parents pictured in the film are rarely present and often clueless. Even Andy’s father, in Pretty in Pink, in a warm-hearted role done so well by Harry Dean Stanton, is so caught up in the loss of his wife, who left the family, that he is living in a world all his own. It’s good to remember at time when, like the characters of this film, current, real-life high school seniors are preparing to enter the working world or go to whatever college will look like in the fall. Some of those students may have had parents who saw these films and were just as internally conflicted about what they wanted and disgusted by what they saw in the complacency and/or cluelessness of older generations as their children, like the characters in these films, do today.
One aspect of these John Hughes films that also unites them is such great music. It’s one of the main reasons why I knew that The Thirteenth Hour, which was influenced by the JOhn HUghes films, needed to have a soundtrack of its own that evoked similar new wave vibes of wistful longing. Pretty in Pink does not disappoint in the music department. In fact, OMD’s “If You Leave” plays in its entirely during the final scene! Check out the clips below from the music video from the time as well as an updated performance 30 years later:
Look for more John Hughes next week!
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I finished one year ago, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
For this week, I’m doing the rare in-person podcast with guest host Adam Crohn from AC Toy Design (a.k.a. @mom_gave_them_away on Instagram), who’s been on this show a number of times before (see episodes 144 and 145 plus episodes 159, 160, 161, and 162 on four Arnold Schwarzenegger 80s movies). I happened to be in Chicago for work, so Adam was gracious enough to take time out of his day to show us around the city and record a few shows. On this week’s show, we are discussing the process of our resin casting projects – both of us in the last year or so have created minifigures and spend much of the episode comparing and contrasting our experiences. Lots of great discussion on 80s throwbacks as well as toy design and creation.
See below for some pictures of the figures we made:
![Amazon.com: Lionheart [VHS] : Eric Stoltz, Gabriel Byrne, Nicola Cowper, Dexter Fletcher, Deborah Moore, Nicholas Clay, Bruce Purchase, Neil Dickson, Penny Downie, Nadim Sawalha, John Franklyn-Robbins, Chris Pitt, Alec Mills, Franklin J.](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51CCKJ9RPFL._AC_.jpg)
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