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.
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!
Episode #162: Reflections on Rewatching Flight of the Navigator (1986)
Today, we’re talking about the 1986 film, Flight of the Navigator. I recently rewatched it start to finish for the first time in probably a few decades,a at least to me, the decades in between did not to diminish its enjoyment. The many scenes where David (the Navigator) and the ship he is controlling are flying above the clouds, the design of the spaceship, and the overall idea of a child, not an adult, holding the key to unlock a great mystery were all ideas that influenced the writing of The Thirteenth Hour as well as some of the illustrations contained within the book.
Click on the poster below to find a copy of the film:
The face of the alien ship, which the main character names Max. I was both delighted but not surprised to find that the voice of the ship was done none other then by Paul Rubens, a.k.a. PeeWee Herman!
A young Sarah Jessica Parker also has a small role in this film as a NASA intern that befriends our protagonist. There are a number of funny interchanges between them which highlight 80s culture.
• Carolyn: “All right, listen, um, I gotta go, um, is there anything else you want when I come back?”
• David: “How about a Big Mac, large fries, and a Coke? They’re still around, I hope.”
• Carolyn: “Well, now, that all depends, Do you want New Coke, Classic Coke, Cherry Coke, Diet Coke, or Caffeine-Free Coke?”
• David: “Huh?”
• Carolyn: “Nothing, forget it.”
During one of those scenes, David is introduced to music videos. They happened to pick one of the weirdest movie music videos that I’ve ever seen in my life to highlight MTV/new wave. It’s actually a really great song done by British synthpop duo, Blancmange, though the music video is something else. It rivals the video for “True Faith” by New Order.
Enjoy a little collection of animated gifs from the film:
This little guy loses his home planet to a comet, and David ends up (on purpose or accidentally) bringing him back to 1978 with him.
The podcast now has a page on Facebook, so head over there and to Instagram to check out some scenes from the film.
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hourplaylist 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 marks the fourth in a four-part summer Arnold Schwarzenegger 80s action fest where Adam from the Instagram page @mom_gave_them_away and I rewatch four classic Arnold movies we originally saw as kids and discuss our reflections (listen to episode 159, 160, and 161 here). Today, continue where we left off last week with Predator. Like The Terminator, it’s a film that fits multiple categories (sci fi, action, horror), and in some ways, it’s pretty hard to beat in any of those categories. Enjoy a little collection of animated gifs from the film:
The podcast now has a page on Facebook, so head over there and to Instagram to check out some scenes from the film. To end on a humorous note, despite the fact that these movies had a degree of badassery that no one could deny, the video games that came out in association with them with pretty horrendous. But I’ll let the AVGN do the honors:
Adam, you’re welcome to BE BACK anytime! In the meantime, check out all the excellent custom action figure work he does for a taste of some truly heroic work.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hourplaylist 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 marks the third in a four-part summer Arnold Schwarzenegger 80s action fest where Adam from the Instagram page @mom_gave_them_away and I rewatch four classic Arnold movies we originally saw as kids and discuss our reflections (listen to last week’s show here). Today, continue where we left off last week with Commando. Released only a year after The Terminator, this one is an entirely different kind of movie. There are even touches of comedy, and Arnold even says, “I’ll be back.” Enjoy a little collection of animated gifs from the film:
The podcast now has a page on Facebook, so head over there and to Instagram to check out some scenes from the film. And if you’re wondering what song is playing over the ending credits of the film (the one we used for Adams’s theme song), it’s this one:
One of my favorites I’ll link to here. To end on a humorous note, despite the fact that these movies had a degree of badassery that no one could deny, the video games that came out in association with them with pretty horrendous. But I’ll let the AVGN do the honors:
This arcade and NES game wasn’t related, but it was better than an of the official sanctioned products and was around at the same time:
Adam will BE BACK next week for Predator. In the meantime, check out all the excellent custom action figure work he does for a taste of some truly heroic work.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hourplaylist 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.
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