DVD Archives - PS

Pod Stallions Episode 55: Tarzan

Mantooth — Fri, 11 Aug 2017 04:00:00 +0000

Episode 55 is all about the Lord of the Jungle, Tarzan of the Apes

J&B (the hosts, not the crappy scotch) discuss their initial exposure to the Lord of the Jungle in his many television, film, print and comic adaptions over their life times culminating with last summer’s adaptation.

Some of the subjects we touch upon are Mego action figures, DC and Marvel, Filmation, Mike Henry, Doctor Who, Chimp Genitals, Dakin, Casper Van Diem, Ron Ely, Batman, Sheena, John Carter of Mars, Flash Gordon, At the Earth’s Core, toys, Big Jim and oodles more.

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Plenty more content on the PodStallions Facebook page!

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The 2011 Plaidstallions Retro Awards

Mantooth — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:01:00 +0000

It’s time once again for my fake awards show dedicated to what I feel is retro goodness of the past year. All in all, 2011 was a tremendous year for this kind of commerce, so there was lots to choose from.

I’ve also got some news on the book projects and changes to the site for 2012.

More After Jump

Best Films:

I went in with really low expectations but Rise of the Planet of the Apes surprised the heck out of me, mostly because it revitalized the concept so well. I saw it with an audience of 20 years olds and they were enthralled. It’s handling of the subject matter was rarely camp and Andy Serkis was phenomenal as Caesar. It made me crack out my box set once again.

Superhero movies were kind of hit or miss for me this year, I enjoyed Thor despite never having read a Thor comic. I found Green Lantern terribly misguided and passed on the latest X Men movie because of the past two sequels (something I later discovered was a mistake).

The one that made it for me was Captain America: The First Avenger. Comic fans can argue back and forth about costume design changes but the soul of any comic movie is embodiment of the character and I can’t remember when a movie got it so right (oh yeah, Iron Man).

It was also such a relief to take my son to this film and know that Cap wasn’t going to swear (take notes Hal Jordan) or have “Superman 3” type moments of nightmare fuel (Seriously Hector Hammond?). I loved this movie and view it with the same regard I do the first Superman.

Best Books and Magazines

I went back to school this year to study design in anticipation of the books I’m writing. So, most of the books I read were published by Adobe and really have nothing to do with this blog directly.

Some notable exceptions were:

Doctor Who Classics Omnibus I was gifted two of these by lovely wife and it reminded me of how much I loved Doctor Who comics growing up. I find it ironic that I’m wishy-washy on the Davison era and I abhor Colin Baker but their stories are actually my favourite in comic form.

I cannot recommend Shock Cinema magazine enough. A self described “essential guide for any fan of bizarre films and videos, and each issue is crammed with movie reviews, in-depth interviews and original poster art. Shock Cinema covers everything a self-respecting film-junkie could possibly desire — from Cult Movies and Arthouse Oddities, to old fashioned Grindhouse Swill and Underground Obscurities.”

This magazine is easily the best $5 I spend at any given time, it gives me hours of interesting reading and I wish it came out monthly. Seriously where else are you going to read about a movie which starred Mr. Brady as a pervert crank caller?

While i don’t read comics these days, I oddly can’t get enough comics history and that’s where Twomorrow’s “Back Issue!” comes in handy. Each month I get in depth interviews, articles in a beautifully laid out format.

Twomorrows publishing has a great catalog of books that would be right for any 70s kid as well, worth a visit.

Toys

Besides releasing my own action figure, a lot of cool toys made me weak in the knees this year, the two biggest for me however were these.

Bifbangpow Doctor Who

Talk about peanut butter and chocolate, my love for Doctor Who combined with my love for Mego action figures. I know most people want Star Wars or Marvel comics mego figures again but this was my number one want and I can’t wait to buy every single figure BBP knocks out. The Doctor and Styre were toys I HAD to rip off the card immediately and that is just fantastic.

The same thing can be said for EMCE Toys/Diamond Select’s wave two of the Universal Monsters. These figures are a joy, the Mummy is an amazing detailed likeness of Karloff while the Dracula is generic. Given that I’ve played with generic Dracula figures all my life (Lugosi’s likeness isn’t part of the Universal Monsters license) it seems wonderfully fitting. Well worth the $30, I assure you.

DVD

I didn’t get the time for DVDs like I normally do this year but two were unavoidable for me:

Shout Factory has done a spectacular job of releasing Mystery Science Theatre but the Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXII last box set with Sandy Frank “classics” like “Time of the Apes” and “Mighty Jack” really made my 2011 brighter.

Warner Archive is probably going to be on every Retro Awards show I do from now on. This year I adored the Man From Atlantis: Complete TV Movies Collection.

Man from Atlantis was one of the better done TV SF attempts in the 1970s, it starts out with great promise (although the television series gets progressively weirder until it looks like they just run out of juice) the TV movies however are inspired and fun, worthy of a look.

Some big changes this year on Plaidstallions.

I’m going to need more time to develop my book products, I haven’t found a publisher for “Rack Toys” or “Galaxy of Mego” but that only means I’m going to probably start my own publishing company in the coming months.

That means i can only do site updates every other week for the next few months, the blog will remain daily and I’ll still do Fashion Mockery, Toy Love and Rack Toy Tuesday posts but new gallery pages need to be bi weekly for me to retain my sanity.

And that’s it for another year, I’m looking forward to what 2012 brings us, as always thanks for reading!

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DVD Review: Planet Earth

Mantooth — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:49:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I did a DVD review, mostly because I’m lazy but also because I usually only get motivated to talk about obscure things people might miss. Planet Earth is one of those things. I saw this film on CFTO one Saturday afternoon in the 70s and it never quite left me. In fact, I went outside and pretended to be Dylan Hunt for several years after that.

How does the Warner Archive release hold up, check it out after the jump…

For those not in the know, PE is the second attempt by Gene Roddenberry to get a series going in the 1970s. The first being “Genesis 2” of which Planet Earth is a more stream lined sequel, like Star Trek, the second pilot has recast the lead, namely a fresh from “Enter the Dragon” John Saxon taking over for the original star Alex Cord.

The film is set on earth in the 23rd century, there has been a great many disasters fragmenting the country into cities, the American landscape is now frought with different tribes of men and mutants with adventure waiting around every corner. Trying to unit the Planet again are the people of PAX, who live in a secret city (which looks a lot like Studio City) and travel across the country in a high tech subway.

As TV Pilots go, Planet Earth is definitely the most accessible and “Series worthy” of what would eventually be three goes at the concept (The third “Strange New World” would be made without Roddenberry’s involvement), the origin of Dylan Hunt (he’s a Buck Rogers type) is not needed so the story falls quickly into the formula of the series.

That formula is Star Trek meets Planet of the Apes, instead of new worlds, the Pax team visits a new city each week, there is a parable to be told and everything gets solved in under an hour. The PAX team have an enemy in the warlike Mutant Kreeg (whose spiny heads predate the Klingons by five years) and if you look long enough at this you’ll wonder why it didn’t get picked up given Star Trek’s popularity at the time.

You’ll also notice that Roddenberry never threw anything out concept wise, a lot of what went into PE made it into Star Trek TNG (the Pax outfit design with the communicator on their chest being most obvious) and the concept was also recycled into space opera years after Roddenberry’s demise entitled “Andromeda” with Kevin Sorbo playing Dylan Hunt.

The Plot: Dylan’s mentor Pater Kimbridge has been fatally wounded by a Kreeg attack, the Pax crew must seek out a missing surgeon. The search leads them to a society where woman rule over the man (referred to as “Dinks’ tee-hee) thanks to a drug they put into the food.

Dylan, Isiah (Ted “Lurch” Cassidy) and ESPer Baylok are caught and made domestic thanks to the drug. Bad news is the mutant Kreegs plan to take over the city the next day, time is running out.

Planet Earth
Tags: Planet Earth

The Quality: It’s not been restored but Warner Archive has presented an incredibly clean copy of this film, the sound is exceptional and far better than the TV print I taped back in ’86. It’s also nice to see scenes like Isiah praying to his Gods in here, they’re missing from some TV prints. I was blown away by some of the details I could finally see.

Value: I paid $20 for my copy, not bad considering how many crap bootleg VHS tapes I own. Despite the completely bare bones treatment, I am glad I bought this. I am a little miffed that this disk doesn’t play on my computer or my DVDR machine, I understand it’s to prevent piracy but some of us don’t own strictly play machines.

Bottom Line: I’m a big dork for this movie, it had me as a child so I really am biased. Sure it’s a bit cheese and tame now but for the time, this was TV made with care.

If you’re a fan of the bell bottom era of Science Fiction like me, then this is something you need to grab along with Genesis 2. However, if you don’t dig on the whole “ARK 2 “ scene then it’s just not going to be for you.

Trek fans will notice two familiar faces in Majel Barret and Diana Muldar.

Where to get: Amazon has it of course but if you live in the US you can get it straight from the source at Warner Archive where you can just download it and watch it right now!

As an added bonus, I thought I’d share just HOW BIG a dork I am for this movie. This is my custom Dylan Hunt Mego action figure. Yup.

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Astro Blast Power Center Commercial

Mantooth — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 14:59:00 +0000

Uploaded this commercial from the 70s Toy Explosion DVD to our facebook page. So if it doesn’t come up head on over here.

I totally remember this commercial, especially the awkward “almost four stories” line from the window washer, it’s how I learned what a story was.

Next Sunday, I’ll be launching another contest so stay tuned.

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Nerdy DVD Day!

Mantooth — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:28:00 +0000

While I don’t regularly talk about DVDs here, there are just some things I cannot ignore and today there are three of them.

Firstly, the good folks at Cinematic Titanic (who used to be the good folks at Mystery Science Theatre 3000) have a new release in the form of “Danger On Tiki Island”.

Not only are the CT Live DVDs absolutely hilarious but the film itself is one of those Eddie Romero “Blood Island” movies retitled. I really enjoy those movies on their own, getting them riffed is like getting free french fries in your onion rings.

You can be environmentally friendly and download the whole affair for $9.99, it’s well worth it.

I really have to mention the “Sleazy Sci Fi of the 1970s” compliation DVD available today as well.

Not only does th set include “2069: A Sex Oddysey” (the infamous movie I got busted with as a young lad) but also the camp classic “Invasion of the Bee Girls” .

There is a third film included that I have not seen. It’s too bad this set didn’t include the (terrible) British sexy sci fi romp “Spaced Out” as it would truly be a trifecta of my puberty movie watching.

Finally, the 1980 cult classic Flash Gordon is out on Blue Ray today. I don’t own a player but if there was ever a film to watch in high definition, I’d imagine this would be the one.

The thing is such an explosion of colour and sound, it makes perfect sense. Plus, the bigger and louder the Brian Blessed, the better I say.

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The 2009 PlaidStallions Retro Awards

Mantooth — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 05:01:00 +0000

Yep, I’m doing an awards show, except without the musical numbers (this is a good thing if you’ve met me), stilted humour and most of all, Billy Crystal. Just thought that instead of talking vintage, I’d point out my favourite nerdy retro treats of the last year.

Movies

Star Trek: Oh hot damn did I love this movie, which says a lot because I normally loathe origin stories and the furnace that powers my love for all things Star Trek ran out of coal in the early 1990s.
I don’t agree with everything this movie did but it brought back elements of the classic series that I felt were missing in all of the spin offs. The scene of Spock transporting to Vulcan’s surface gave me chills, it was Star Trek again.
I’m not sure if this is my favourite Star Trek movie but it’s my favourite geeky movie of the year. The other runner up would be Watchmen but I think I’ll watch Star Trek more.
Books
Despite what my wife says, I do in fact, read things longer than a diner menu. While the majority of what i read is esoteric, here are two modern books I found captivating.
First is Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror by Michael Mallory. A beautiful coffee table book tribute to one of my favourite subjects, the Universal Monsters.
Lots of wonderful photographs and insight here, I was unable to put it down. If you’re a casual fan you’re learn a lot, even hardcore fans will enjoy the books crisp layout, strong writing and excellent imagery.

My second favourite book of the year was published in late 2008 but I didn’t discover it until 2009, so I say it counts. Wham-O Super-Book: Celebrating 60 Years Inside the Fun Factory is a fun and colourful look into a toy company that I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to before.
The effect Wham-o had on our popular culture is truly amazing, these were the people brought the Hula Hoop to America, not to mention super balls, the frisbee, slip n slide and the Super Elastic Plastic bubble. Whether you’re a boomer or Gen X this book will bring up happy memories.

Toys

I make it a point to not buy many new toys, concentrating on the vintage but this year was hard and it looks like 2010 will be even harder to keep that mantra. The biggest thing this year for me was the Mattel Retro Action line announcement. Which has been very carefully guided by Paul “Dr. Mego” Clarke of EMCE Toys.
They may not be exact Mego replicas but I’m getting eight inch action figures of Hall of freaking Doom members, that excites me so much I’d like to call my seven year old self and tell him the good news. I’m itching for a Plastic Man something fierce.

Arg! Character options just keeps beating me over the head with stuff that my “inner whovian” needs to own. This Cyberman wave pictured here was one of those things.

As a kid I dreamt of a Doctor Who toy line that would encompass all these strange and wonderful characters, so seeing these things makes it impossible to resist.Next year will see more Doctors (including Sylvester McCoy!), an Ice Warrior, the Master and some other assorted baddies that will be expensive for me.
Finally, the action figure I never thought I’d see also came out in 2009. I was excited and elated that BiffBangPow! chose to do action figures from the Flash Gordon movie in the first place, even happier when they chose to do characters such as Prince Barin and Dale but when they made a death scene variant Klytus, I knew these guys were hardcore.I was nine when I saw Flash Gordon, it overwhelmed me with it’s colour and score, I was instantly in love. One of the most memorable scenes in the film was Klytus’s gory death scene, I’m probably a little too happy to have this.DVDs
I bought a few DVDs this year but three really stand out for me, the first being Mystery Science Theater 3000: XVI which not only features a little Tom Servo figurine (yay!) but a great selection of movies with honest to goodness extras.The movie selection is great, the Italian Mad Max inspired “Warrior of the Lost World”, the Mexican holiday classic “Santa Claus” (I’ve been torturing the kids with that one every December), a Bela Lugosi cheapie called “The Corpse Vanishes” and a selection from my favourite season “Night of the Blood Beast” with two versions.
I also have nothing but kind words for the former MST 3K crew’s latest DVD “Cinematic Titanic Live: East meets Watts” which is a terrible 70s Kung Fu/Blacksplotation remake of the Defiant ones being riffed on by the masters.I’ll probably never get to see CT live unless they get to Canada (HA!) but I couldn’t get over how fun this DVD is, IMO it’s their best yet. Digital downloads are only $10 and it keeps them in business.
As I’ve mentioned earlier on the blog, the fun mid seventies Saturday morning series “The Monster Squad” got released on DVD this year as well.It’s a pretty bare bones edition with nothing by the way of extras. It wouldn’t have been that hard to track down some of the cast for interviews but I’m not complaining, it’s a dream come true just to have this.Now if I could only get the Six Million Dollar Man, Man From Atlantis and the Logan’s Run TV series on DVD….Model Kits

While I have to admit to being excited over the Aurora Monster reissues this summer and fall, the big get for me this year was AMT’s reissuing of their classic “Mr Spock” model kit from the late 1960s.I have wanted to put one of these together since I was five and it was a joy to find this just in time to put it under the tree for my son, who prefers Jedi to Vulcans but loves putting kits together with the old man.And that’s it, I hoped you’ve enjoyed the first annual retro awards, hopefully 2010 will bring new things to talk about. I’ll be doing some tastings for Liquor Pig this evening, so tomorrow’s Friday Feature may be late and grumpy…Happy New Year!

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DVD Review: Hilarious House Of Frightenstein

Mantooth — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:08:00 +0000

I’ve already talked about how Monster Squad was one of the big reasons I love Monsters so much as an adult, it seemed fitting in October to talk about another big influence, the Hillarious House of Frightenstein.

For those not in the know, Frightenstein is a Canadian series that mixes one part Universal Monsters, One Part Laugh in and a touch of Sesame Street to make an interesting and sometimes surreal cocktail.

Created in 1971 in Hamilton, Ontario. Frightenstein is a really charming and gorgeously made show, it revolves around the characters of Castle Frightenstein in Frankenstone. The centerpiece of making it work is the comedy genius of Billy Van who plays 8 of the 11 characters including The Count, The Wolfman, The Librarian, Grizelda the Ghastly Gourmet, Dr Pet Vet among others.

Also along for the ride are Vincent Price (yep!), Dr. Julius Sumner Miller (providing the educational segment) Guy Big as the Midget Count (Big was supposed to play the count but couldn’t maintain his voice).

I loved the show as a kid especially the fact that one guy did so much and thanks to Can Con laws (a rule that Canadian Content Television shows MUST be played for a certain amount of time each day) it was on for the majority of my life along with other Canadian favourites like Spider-Man, Rocket Robin Hood and The Forest Rangers. When it went away for a time in the 1990s, I sorely missed it and it became a regular discussion with friends at the pub.

Well, Critical Mass has brought this Canadian classic back not only to the airwaves but to DVD with this great release (actually there are several Frightenstein DVDs out there all thanks to CM) the picture is cleaned up, music rights secured (I’ve always been curious how the series managed the Stones “Jumping Jack Flash” but I always think of the Wolfman when I hear it) and it’s just a joy to see it again. Plus, free magnets! I needed these for my fridge badly.

Two things come to mind when I watch it now, one how much fun everyone seems to be having, especially Billy Van who is amazing at ad lib and two, how wonderfully psychadelic it all is. From Brucie’s peace sign necklace to the Maharishi to the wonderful Wolfman music sequences (check one out here) there is no doubt in anybody’s mind what era this came out of.

Overall Assessment: It’s fun to be back in Transylvania!
Frightenstein on Amazon.
Check out Frightenstein.com for much more.

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DVD Review: Monster Squad the Complete Series

Mantooth — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:32:00 +0000

Believe it or not, DVD reviews were originally a part of this site, I just stopped doing them mostly because of laziness (here is one I did almost three years ago) but I just needed to bring it back for the release of the Monster Squad TV series. Monster Squad was one of those shows I was convinced I’d never see again, it had a huge impact on me as a wee one, I’d take my Lincoln Monster dolls and shove them in the G.I. Joe Capture Copter and pretend they were on patrol. I think my love of monsters stems from this and Hilarious House of Frightenstein. Then it got cancelled and well, I spent the majority of the eighties and nineties looking for tapes and discovering that people had largely forgotten the show.So when this DVD got announced, it gave me joy and a kind of sick feeling, like a lot of things you like as a kid, what if it turns out to be total crap when you’re an adult?I’m happy to say after watching all 312 minutes, that I was pleasantly surprised at how good this show was. I’m not saying it’s for all tastes but if you’re a 70s kid who likes the Krofft shows, this is actually a cut above from say things like, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.

That’s probably because the show’s creator Stanley Ralph Ross was one of the headwriters on the 1966 Batman TV Series (another show that BEGS to be on DVD) and kind of passed on some of it’s goofy brilliance, in fact, Monster Squad could have been a prime time series in the late sixties. It knows it’s a stupid show and decides to make the best of it.

The Premise is simple, Walt, a night watchman at “Fred’s Wax Museum” (played by a pre Love Boat Fred Grandy) accidently brings the statues of three famous monsters to life with his “Crime Computer” (a big blinky box), Bruce W. Wolf, Frank N. Stein and Dracula want to do good to make up for their past mistakes so they become crime fighters.

So each week the squad battles a new villain played by a celebrity guest star, above is Mephisto played by Barry Dennen, he played Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar in case you were wondering. It drove me nuts until I IMDB’d it. Part of the fun is the guest, you get see the likes of Julie Newar, Geoffry Lewis, Alice Ghostly, even Sid Haig gets in on this!

The show has some witty writing and pokes a lot of fun at itself, especially the scenes with the monsters trying to “act casual” (it always fails), there are other moments that are downright surreal and look like “Mr Show” sketches. The entire series in done on film, so the cheap sets look almost on purpose. Some of the fight scenes suffer from early 70s non violence rules, especially the scene where the Skull (Geoffry Lewis) tries to kill Bruce with a silver bullet, no gun, he just throws the bullet at him!

The bottom line is, everybody looks like they’re having a lot of fun and it’s kind of infectious. Let’s talk about the DVD Fabulous Films has put out:
Film Quality: After years of watching 15th generation VHS, it’s a joy to see the Squad so clean again, the film transfers are better than I expected.Extras: I wasn’t expecting anything and that was a good thing, I got a stills gallery and graphics on the menu that were scanned from the board game!Value: I can’t tell you how many bootlegs I’ve spent $20 on, this is a bargain. Amazon has this for $21.Bottom Line: Not into Saturday Morning Cheese? Stay away in droves. However, if you’re a Monster Kid or you dug the old Shazam! series then this is a lot of fun to be had. my kids really dug it as well.

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Girl’s Toy Day!

Mantooth — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:14:00 +0000

Seeing as it’s my darlin’ daughter’s birthday today and her long (and much missed) afternoon naps are what inspired me to create this blog three years and five days ago (which I probably should have mentioned) I thought I’d dedicate the day to her favorite subject, dolls!

In this case Barbie’s with two classic commercials from our DVD, first is the Barbie Townhouse.

Most Mego collectors I know would liken this to the Wayne Foundation playset but did you also know it was released for Big Jim in Europe? It was a killer spy headquarters that makes you wish you born in Italy, You can see it here.

The second commercial is for the Fashion Face, which is one of those disembodied heads you put makeup on, they creep me out and my daughter wants one, in fact, she wants this one. Something tells me I won’t find this at Toys R Us.Now, if you’ll excuse me I have go buy some toys…

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Holy Tooth Decay Batman!

Mantooth — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:04:00 +0000

I’m abundantly aware of how hacky and shameful that blog title is but it’s unavoidable, I assure you. As much as I begged for a Batman and Steve Austin electric toothbrush as a child (because commercials told me I needed one) it was the one luxury my parents refused to provide me with. Somehow, I made it out of childhood OK despite this huge void.

Speaking of Batman: Here is another fine selection from Erick (of Wonderful Wonderblog) and he’s wearing the Ben Cooper Batman costume. I’ve always wondered why BC decided to put the Batman Logo on the mask itself and why they felt it important to give Superman a dominoe mask. I guess I’ll find out in the afterlife….DVD DAY:What better a time than October than to release the DVD of the Classic Tom Baker story”The Brain of Morbius“? It has all the classic horror movie elements, mad doctor, dead bodies, brain transplants, hunchback assistant, a (goofy) patchwork monster and of course, angry villagers in the form of an ancient cult. The BBC is pretty good at packing these DVDs with extras such as commentary from Tom Baker and Liz Sladen as well little behind the scenes documentarys. You’ll also get one of the bigger continuity goofs done on the series as the Doctor reveals he’s had more than four past lives!
Also this week is the complete box series set of Speed Racer, it’s over 1,200 minutes of the groundbreaking series that lead the charge of Japanese animation.This is the one good thing about big Hollywood remakes, you end up getting deluxe box sets of the original series. I can’t wait for Hollywood to remake “Logan’s Run” just so I can get the shot lived series on DVD, it could star Carrot Top and Larry the Cable Guy for all I care, just gimmee! gimmee! gimmee!

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