Rocketship Weird Retro Captain's Blog - Weird Retro

Weird Retro's Random Robots Season

10/2/2015

Surely everyone loves a robot?! Whether it be Wall-E or D.A.R.Y.L, 3PO or R2D2, we all have our favourites. Maybe it's the original Robocop! (Let's not mention the remake.) I bet for many it's those three cuties Huey, Dewey, and Louie from Silent Running. Whatever of whoever they are, like I say, everyone loves a robot. Especially Rocketship Weird Retro's co-pilot Xav. He's going through a big robot phase at the moment. Various robot based movies are on constant repeat on our TV. We've played the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots we got off eBay to death, since it arrived 2 days ago. We built a robot out of toilet rolls, yoghurt pots and other boxes. It's robot central on the rocketship at the moment. So feeding off the obsessions of our 3 year old co-pilot, Weird Retro will be running a robot themed season during the month. And to get things kicked off, I've posted some links to robot related posts we've run so far.

Those Toys You Wanted, And The Ones You Got!!! - Childhood dreams shattered by poor parental purchases.

From The Archives: God Jesus Robot (1985) - A battery operated romantic fortune-telling robot produced by Bandai. Think a Magic 8-Ball with hearts and flowers.

Toys: Guile & Ryu Street Fighter II Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots (1993) - Capcom licensed a lot of products for the Street Fighter series of arcade and console games. This is by far the best.

Love It Or hate It? Heartbeeps (1981) - A bizarre Andy Kaufman romantic robot comedy. Well known for Kaufman offering to refund anyone that had seen it, it was considered so bad.

Xav, Weird Retro's co-pilot, loves his new robot friend.

Weird Retro Christmas Countdowns

18/12/2014

Christmas is only a week away, and it's time to settle down in front of the TV and watch some good old Christmas movies. So far we've offered you the delights of the Top Ten: Christmas Slasher Movies and The Best Of The Worst Weird Christmas Movies lists. So if reading isn't your thing, and you'd rather sit back relax and watch a video... Weird Retro presents it Christmas Countdown from December 2012.

All the movies featured have appeared in one of our other lists this year. But just to summarize here's the top ten list from the video.

10) The Christmas That Almost Wasn't (1966)
9) Santa Claus (1959)
8) Silent Night, Evil Night (A.K.A. Black Christmas) (1974)
7) Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
6) Evil Christmas (A.K.A. You Better Watch Out & Terror In Toyland) (1980)
5) Don't Open Till Christmas (1984)
4) Elves (1989)
3) Jack Frost (1996)
2) Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1964)
1) The Magic Christmas Tree (1964)

Xmas Xtra Bonus Movie: The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978).

Cult Film Friday: Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1964)

5/12/2014

Probably the absolute classic of weird Christmas based cinema. If not one of the absolute classics of weird cinema anyway. Often listed as one of the worst movies of all time, for me Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a must see midnight movie for Christmas Eve. It's become a tradition in my house, whether anyone likes it or not.

Made famous to the masses as an MST3K movie, the movie is a work of unabashed surreal genius by director Nicholas Webster. That has become a major cult Christmas classic, spawning a comic book by Dell Comics, a novel and theatre productions based on it. The movie fell into public domain, and so has become a movie that has been shown time and time again on cable horror host shows, and online, as well as being shown on cult cinema nights across the planet as their cult Christmas movie of choice.

Making Santa Claus Conquers The Martians one of the greatest Christmas movies ever, in my opinion.

What's it about? Who cares! Martians (who are robotic and unfeeling in their treatment of their children) kidnapped Santa from the North Pole, transporting him to Mars to dole out presents to the emotionally retarded Martian kids. You know, it doesn't really matter, the movie is a brilliant gaudy coloured piece of irreverent fantasy. If it makes no sense, that's okay. If the sets and acting are equally as wooden and one-dimensional as each other, good! For me personally, this is one of the best Christmas movies of all time.

Weird Retro Fact: You can read the whole of the comic book version of Santa Claus Conquers The Martians on our Weird Retro facebook archives.

Toys: Bronze Bombers & Olmec Toys

30/11/2014

The Bronze Bombers were created in 1988 by Olmec, an African-American owned toy company. Olmec was a toy company created by an African-American mother called Yla Eason, who "couldn't find a black super hero for her son." She noted that most action figures that were available were white, and so she decided to create a line of figures that her son could identify with.The result was a G.I. Joe with soul. Taking G.I. Joe and making him G.I. Bro!

The toys were even given historical context, as the text on the cards read, "Fearlessly, the mighty U.S. 369th Infantry led the nation's greatest Black Army into battle. They fought in WWI and WWII and they never lost. There have been no warriors their equal until today! Today, we have the Bronze Bombers™! Today they defend the country against P.S.B. enemy squad. These highly skilled combatants stand for justice and they never lose!"

In 1994, Olmec obtained the rights to produce figures using actual Hasbro moulds, and released a box set of twelve figures, sold exclusively at Toys R Us in 1997. Eight of the hero figures (called The Bronze Bombers) were made up of Hasbo bodies with new heads. The four villains (named the Pyros) were entirely Hasbro moulds.

Pretty much Olmec's whole range of toy were cheap and shody rip-off versions of other toy manufacturers ideas. Somewhat undermining the "positive-image toy" that Olmec were rightly attempting to create. The range of toys that they produced were obvious copies of the He-Man range, called Sun-Man, were the first Olmec released. Aside from African-American figure, they also manufactured Hispanic and Asian action figures, as well as dolls for girls to compete with the dominance of Barbie. Although there had already existed an African-American doll in the Barbie range since the 1960s.

All the "politically correct" toys were manufactured in China, at a time when China were becoming well known for their unethical treatment of workers.

The Sun-Man range of action figure.

However in China they openly floated intellectual property rights. Something that was likely necessary for Olmec, who were not producing original products to inspire children from minority backgrounds, but through side-stepping ethical trading regulations, flooded the toy market with their less than ethical toys. Some would say that Olmec were doing no more than cynically exploiting an untapped market, through their toys, masked as a cultural crusade for ethnic equality in the choice of toys available to children. I guess the tester is that Olmec ceased as a company in 1998, with massive debts, and a number of law suits filed against Yla Eason for non-payment of salaries and returns to her investors from which she had run-away to Detroit from Olmec's base in Richmond, Virginia. Leaving some 1600 Malcolm X dolls unsold, in storage at the factory. I'm sure there's an irony in there somewhere.

Weird Retro Fact: View the Bronze Bombers Album on the Weird Retro facebook page.

Weird Ramen Noodle Flavours

22/10/2014

After the article For The Love Of Ramen there was something nagging at me. After eulogizing about the glories of the instant noodle snack, the dark-side of them was hanging over me. Personally unimaginative and quite frankly weird British noodles, are what turned me off the snack originally. I mean for example the Bacon flavoured ones from Batchelor's for example. Now we Brits do love our bacon. But that's just it, we love "bacon"! Thick rashers of the stuff, slammed between crappy white bread. Bacon flavoured Super Noodles are by no way a replacement for a good bacon buttie. What were they thinking?

Other odd, bizarre and down-right weird flavours I came across in writing the article about my purist views on ramen, boggled the mind. How about the "soupless" teriyaki flavoured ones from the United States, by a brand called Mexi-Ramen?! Soupless?!

Just to reiterate, and Japanese flavoured ramen by a US company with a Mexican based brand-name selling instant noodle missing half of the whole point of ramen, the soup! The global brand Knorr, decided that releasing a Pizza flavoured ramen in Pakistan was a good marketing move. Now obviously some brands are trying to cater to the tastes of the country they are selling into, and that flavour doesn't translate over into other culinary cultures. For example Batchoy, a dish from the Philippines, may only appeal to them. Seeing how Batchoy is mostly made of pig internal organs! Then there's "foreign" flavours sold internally in some countries, in the hopes of giving an international flavour to your choice of ramen. If you live in Japan, the rivals to Cup Noodle called Maruchan produced a New Orlean's Gumbo flavoured ramen, only available in Japan. To be fair over the years pretty much every flavour combination has been rolled off some production line in the world. The one that seems to weird people out though, is any ramen that has cheese involved. Something I would too have recoiled at, until I moved to South Korea. There it is normal practice to add a slice or processed (American cheese) to your ramen. As odd as that sounds, it really does work. And hey, it's extra protein in a pretty mush wholly carb based snack food. And after all ticking off those food groups is just as important to us late-night fast-food snackers.

Read the In-Flight Magazine article For The Love Of Ramen.

From The Archives: Drive-In Horror Show

21/10/2014

Back in October 2010, the first Weird Retro Mix-Movie was released for the Halloween period. The Weird Retro Drive-In Horror Show is a compilation of various hacked and slashed trailers from obscure horror movies all spliced together with inserts from drive-in movie segments. I've never listed the movies used, and wasn't even sure I could remember them all for years on.

Going back through the movie, I managed to spot at least 12 movies used in the 6 minute piece. So here is a list of the strange, obscure and often very weird movies featured. Black Sabbath (1963), an Italian/American horror movie directed by the legendary Mario Bava. A movie of three stories, introduced and concluded by Boris Karloff. One of the bands that invented Heavy Metal music Black Sabbath took their name from the movie. The Plague of the Zombies (1966) is a classic British Hammer Horror film. Filmed at the famous Bray Studios, the movie was shot back-to-back with The Reptile using the same sets to save time and money on production.

Doctor Butcher MD (also known as Zombie Holocaust) was a 1979 Italian Zombie movie. The original movie was re-edited, new footage added and the musical score changed, for its US release as Doctor Butcher MD. The Diabolical Dr. Z (1955) a French/Spanish horror film, directed by Jesús Franco who was later famous for the cult classic Vampyros Lesbos (1971).

The Sinister Urge (1960), an Ed Wood movie. In typical Wood style a rehash of previous footage, with new footage added to roll with the sexploitation genre of "roughies" that was popular at the time. Another Wood movie featured in the mix is Bride of the Monster (1955), a sci-fi horror movie that starred Bela Lugosi and wrestler Tor Johnson, both of who would make an appearance in the infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959).

See Captain's Blog post: Bizarre Profiles: Ed Wood (1924 - 1978)

Anthropophagous: The Beast (1980) as it was released in the UK, and in the USA as The Grim Reaper (also known as Zombie 7), is an Italian horror. It reached infamy in the UK for being one of the movies to be banned and put on the Video Nasty list in the early 80s. I Drink Your Blood (1970) and I Eat Your Skin (1964), feature in a double-billed trailer, as they were often shown together. The former loosely based on the exploits of The Manson Family, I Drink Your Blood was one the first movies to get the new X-Rating when it came out. The latter, was made under the name Zombies, but wasn't released until 6 years after it was made, and renamed I Eat Your Skin so it could be double-billed with I Drink Your Blood.

Invasion Of The Bee Girls (1973), was released on video in the UK as Graveyard Tramps. An all out sci-fi sexploitation flick, involving a mad scientist and her seductive man killing creations. Werewolves On Wheels (1971), a road accident of an exploitation movie. Slamming together the two sub-genres of biker movies and horror, to produce the horrifically bad movie. Drive-In Massacre (1977), a low-budget flick designed and aimed not surprisingly at drive-in movie audiences.

There you go the 12 (that I could remember), plus a few more references thrown in for good measure. Now grab the popcorn, and settle in for a whole 6 minutes of horror film fun. Enjoy!

From the Archives: Japanese Fart Battle

13/10/2014

He-gassen as it's known in Japan, literally means Fart Battle, and is represented on a famous Edo Period scroll. The scroll created by artists unknown, around 200 to 400 years ago, depicts a battle of epic proportions. Believed to have been created during a period of political unheavel, it's likely that the scroll is a satirical comment on society at the time. Showing toilet humour isn't a modern thing.

On various panels of the huge scroll are scenes of both men and women, many totally naked, bending over and letting rip at their enemies. Some try to deflect to attack of wind with fans or barricades, but to no avail, as the power of the fart can even blow down buildings. (Wonder if this was the inspiration for the Big Bad Wolf in the Three Little Pigs story?!) Sometimes scrolls like this would show the Japanese fending off Western invaders with enormous bouts of flatulence. The farting is thought to be a metaphor for much of the xenophobia that existed within the upper elements of Japanese society. So the He-gassen were very much to be seen as political cartoons of the period.

This was the era in Japan of the Tokugawa shogunate, which was known for its deep-rooted suspicion of foreigners and mistrust of Christians. Japan was pretty much a closed country and culture. During the 17th century the only people allowed into the country were the Chinese, traders from the Dutch East India Company and a few English traders. Even they were restricted as to were in the country they could travel.

Weird Retro Fact: View the whole scroll and panels from it at the Weird Retro facebook page archive.

From The Archives: Major Matt Mason And That Moon Suit!

5/10/2014

Major Matt Mason was an action figure produced by Mattel in 1966, supposedly based on "real" science information and facts published in a number of popular magazines of the time. Including a Life Magazine article from April 1962, that featured a concept and prototype design for a Moon Suit, which Mattel copied for the Major Matt Mason line of accessories. On August 6th 1961 Post-Standard Sunday magazine ran a short piece about an Experimental Engineering class at UCLA that was working on a "moon man's suit" designed by Allyn B. Hazard, an engineer at JPL in Pasadena. It was known as Grumman Moon Suit!

Also known as the Lunar Exploration Suit, Model MK 1, it was heavily tested in the Mojave desert by its inventor. (as pictured on the front cover of Life magazine.) Major Matt Mason and his copy of the Moon Suit were Mattel's biggest selling toy line for years, until they suddenly ceased production in 1971. At the very height of the Apollo missions to the Moon. A year later, Apollo 17 went to the Moon for the last time.

The Major Matt Mason range was a major step-forward in toy manufacturing (Pardon the pun there!) As Mattel employed some of the best designers in the country to make as near accurate as they could equipment and accessories for the Major. Knowing that kids all over America were 100% sold on the idea planted by President Kennedy, that they were going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The space race was one, and every kid wanted a piece of the plastic action.

Cover of Life magazine from April 1962

Weird Retro Fact: Major Matt Mason and that Moon Suit were featured on our facebook page back in December 2010. Link to the album of images here.

Weird Retro's Horrifically Hip Halloween Howler

3/10/2014

Well it's October folks, and that can only mean one thing, Halloween is less than a month away. Weird Retro has always celebrated this horrific holiday, and this year is no different. Expect special Halloween themed blog posts, looking at fiendishly festive films, mawkish music and all kinds of howling Halloween hilarity. Follow our regular posts on our facebook page, and Twitter @WeirdRetro.

New Halloween themed article for today is Plastic Fantastic: Ben Cooper Halloween Costumes, available in our new in-flight magazine section Cracked Culture. Also our new Weird Retro Top Ten Creepy Halloween Costumes list on Buzzfeed.

Coming soon... A special Halloween themed Mix-Tape Monday and of course freakishly festive Cult Film Fridays. As well as in depth articles, news and reviews. Look out for the ultimate Top Ten list of quirky, offbeat, creepy and downright freaky cult horror films for Halloween. And the choicest cuts in from the slice-n-dice 'em world of slasher cinema. We'll be bringing the sickest soundtrack to play at your putrid party. All this and more on Weird Retro's Horrifically Hip Halloween Howler this month.

Pimpin' It Up, Superfly Style

2/10/2014

Weird Retro's facebook page has an album of Pimpin' It Up fashion adverts from the 70s and 80s. As well as other mind boggling fashion disasters of the past.

If you were a dude who was going to hit the streets and strut your funky stuff in the United States in the 1970s, then you would couldn't go far wrong by flicking through a copy of Ebony magazine or ordering a catalogue from one one of the gentlemen's outfitters that specialized in some truly superfly threads. Bill the Hatter based in Chicago was established as a gentlemen's outfitters in 1949. Specializing in (obvious by the name) hats, the necessary finishing peacock flourish for any man about town. But also sold those big collared, wide-flared gaudy outfits that are synonymous with the pimped-up street style fashions of the 70s.

Things happen when you wear Eleganza was the advertising a tag-line for the well known outfitters who based there mail-order business out of Brockton, Massachusetts. Their adverts featured some of the most outrageous fashions, even for the time. This was the go to place for the players and the hustlers, who had the cash to splash on dog-ear collars that reached half-way down to your waist. Lapels so wide, you would be in fear of taking off in a strong wind, and of course the platform shoes to match.

For those who couldn't stretch to the bold styling of Eleganza, there was Flagg Bros. The superfly super-saver, for brothers on a budget. Eleganza may have been the mack-daddy of mail-order pimped-out out-fits, Flagg Bros., supplied "rise on fashions", who said they had "more ways to put you out front without setting you back".

Coming soon... More freaky than funky fashion failures.