Star Trek: Topps Trading Cards tribute book!

Sherman! Set the Wayback Machine for 1976!

Young Dayton is but nine years old, running around his neighborhood playing with his friends. Every so often, between this all-important activity and other, mundane pursuits like school, Dayton finds time to catch reruns of the original Star Trek every afternoon on his local UHF television station (WTOG-44 - Tampa/St. Petersburg FTW, baby!). His parents have thoughtfully provided him with the odd Trek-related toys like Mego action figures, AMT models, utility belts and “exploration sets,” and so on.

Whenever he scrounges together some odd dollars and cents here and there, he journeys to the local convenience store to avail himself of their rather sizable candy and soda selection. Oh, and he’s also started buying football cards, as Tampa has recently acquired a football team of its own, and Dayton does not yet know just how sucky the team will be in its first year. But, that is another story.

Then, one day, he happens across something interesting shelved alongside the baseball and football cards….

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Released in 1976, this series from Topps consisted of 88 cards and 22 stickers. Each pack contained six cards and a sticker and…of course…a stick of that wondrous bubble gum. I’m pretty sure some of that gum is still being used to hold fenders and other accessories onto cars somewhere in Thailand. As for the cards, they feature scenes from across all three seasons of the show, with the stickers highlighting the main cast as well as prominent alien characters.

(Trivia: Sulu appears on none of the cards or stickers. There’s even a card with the cast listed on the back, and George Takei doesn’t even make that cut. Weird, that.)

I have no idea how many packs of these things I bought, but at 10 cents a throw, I’m sure I was channeling whatever loose change I could find into the endeavor. Thinking back on it, I don’t remember ever acquiring a complete set, and the cards I did amass are long gone. I’ve considered buying a set whenever I happen across them at conventions, but in those instances the dealers are asking for more money than I’m willing to pay.

Thankfully, the good folks at Abrams Books have seen fit to do something pretty snazzy. Behold, yo:

Abrams Books – Star Trek: The Original Topps Trading Card Series

As they did last year with their book celebrating the classic 1960s Mars Attacks trading cards, Abrams has created a book showcasing the entire 1976 series of cards. As with that tome, the Star Trek card set will be presented here in book form. Each card will get its own dose of love, showing both the front and back art and text along with anecdotes detailing some bit of trivia about the cards or Star Trek in general. The book also will feature “bonus cards,” designed as add-ons to the original set, and the dust jacket will have the look and feel of one of the wax-paper card wrappers. All that’ll be missing is the gum.

Shut up and take my money.

At the helm this time are friends and fellow word-slingers Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann, veteran fans with a very long and distinguished Trek-related resume. They’ve written several books focusing on various behind-the-scenes aspects of Star Trek in its different incarnations, including one of my favorites from recent years, Star Trek 365. Paula and Terry are good people, and they know their Trek, so anything with their name on it is a sure thing.

For those fans who never got a chance to collect the cards, or whose collections have gone the way of the dodo, this book promises to be a perfect way to revisit a fun piece of old-school Trek fandom. It’s listed as being published on September 10th with a price is $19.99, but it’s also up for pre-order at Amazon at 40% off:

Amazon.com - Star Trek: The Original Topps Trading Card Series

That, my friends, is a frappin’ steal.

Here’s hoping this book does well enough that Abrams will consider similar efforts for other card sets, such as the Topps series for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But for now? My copy of this book is pre-ordered. That’s right: I shut up, and they took my money.

Best of Classic Dave Barry 2013, May 11-17.

Buy Dave Barry’s Stuff!
Visit Dave on the Web!

This. So very much THIS.

May 11th/12th
When I was born, during the presidency of James K. Polk, baby showers were pretty basic. There was no registering. A group of women would get together and watch as the mother-to-be opened the gifts and commented on them. (“A blanket! Thank you! Look! Another blanket! That’ll come in handy! Look! ANOTHER…”) In twenty minutes, the shower was over and everybody went back to pounding clothes with different rocks. Equipping your modern baby is a whole different kettle of fish. You’ve seen newsreels of the Normandy invasion, with thousands of supply ships stretching across the English Channel as far as the eye can see? That will give you an idea of the minimum amount of things that you need to adequately support a single modern baby, in the view of today’s baby industry.

Your moment of TrekZen*.

A long time ago, in a comic far, far away…this happened:

 

Writer of Stuff Peter David, with the able assistance of artists Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran, conspired to bring us what arguably is the one of the greatest sequences ever to grace the page of any comic EVAH.

(That’s right: Hyperbole is free here at The Fog of Ward.)

This comes from issue #51 of DC’s first run of Star Trek in June 1988. A member of the crew who possesses telepathic powers if afflicted with a disease that results him start to project hallucinations into other people’s minds. Hilarity ensues.

Star Trek was frequently referenced throughout the run of Berkeley Breathed’s classic 1980s comic strip, Bloom County, so a hat tip going the other way seemed appropriate, right?

Dang. Now I want to reread Bloom County.

(* = with acknowledgments–and apologies–to The Daily Show)

Novel Spaces – “Tips for living with a writer? A list, deconstructed.”

My scheduled “day” in the rotation of writers who post to the Novel Spaces blog has been shifted from the 17th to the 15th, and….BAM! Look what day it is?

This month, I decide to examine one of those “Top 10″ lists of writerly advice nuggets we see popping up here and there, be it on another blog or a picture on Facebook or whatever. In this case it was just such a graphic on FB that prompted this little exercise. Of the ten “tips” the list offers, I agree with some, disagree with others, and scratch my head over the rest.

You can read the new column here: Novel Spaces – Tips for living with a writer? A list, deconstructed.

Anyone have their own unique tips for successfully cohabitating with a writer?

My Novel Spaces archive can be found by clicking here.

Jack Bauer will “Live Another Day.”

Oh Hell.

To the Yeah.

With the cancellation of Kiefer Sutherland’s current TV series, Touch, Fox has decided to go back to something that was working well enough for them, and have signed on for another adventure with everybody’s favorite counter-terrorist agent, Jack Bauer. 24: Live Another Day will be tick-tocking across our TV screens this time next year:

The Hollywood Reporter: It’s Official: ’24′ Returning to Fox as Event Series

Rumors of an off-again/on-again/off-again feature film vehicle for Jack Bauer have circulated since well before the series ended after eight seasons in 2010. There even was talk (almost all unsubstantiated, so far as I can tell) about teaming Bauer up with other venerable screen heroes, like equally grizzled bad-ass John McClane, he of the Die Hard movies. However it seems that the consensus is that cramming the 24-hour story conceit into a 2-hour film would remove much of what gave the series its unique identity. 24, it seems, is best served on television.

Sort of.

According to the reports, 24: Live Another Day will be a 12-hour “limited series” set for next summer, and will take compress the show’s well-worn format so that 24 hours play out in half air time. Some hours will be skipped, and so on. I think this can work, as there was more than a little material in various episodes over each of the seasons that sometimes came off as filler, and this approach might help to keep the plot train on the tracks. If nothing else, this trick should help reduce the instances of implausibility with respect to travel, since the show’s latter seasons seemed to play fast and loose with the notion that–for example–everything in Los Angeles, Washington or NYC is 10-15 minutes away from everything else. Sure it is…if you’re traveling inter-dimensionally.

If Live Another Day is successful, it might open the door to follow-up events, and more bad days for Jack. I’m down with that. As a fan of the show from Day 1–ever-maddening plot twists and increasingly tired tropes and other warts and all–I’ve missed Bauer and his on-screen antics these past three seasons. And hey, if a revival of the show means a renewed interest in tie-in licensing, maybe I’ll still get a shot at writing a 24 novel, one of these days.

(Irrelevant Shameless Whoring Moment Concluded.)

One thing that kind of bugs me is one report that says this might not be a continuation from the series, but some kind of “standalone” adventure that doesn’t take into account where all the pieces were at the end of Day 8. Jack was in pretty dire straights–on the run, disavowed by the president, and so on–and I’m hoping that plot thread is resolved. Also, the producers took Bauer down a very dark path toward the end of the final season, and had him cross some lines where I thought they went too far, and I hope that’s addressed, one way or another. Finally, after all the turmoil he’s endured over the years, I think it’s way past time that Bauer just catches a damned break, already.

I don’t know about anybody else, but I plan to be there when the clock starts ticking.

“The Bionic Woman, Part One” on Cyborgs: A Bionic Podcast!

I let this slip past me on Sunday, but hey! It’s been two weeks, and that means it’s time for another exciting episode of Cyborgs: A Bionic Podcast!

Hosts John S. Drew and Paul K. Bisson continue their bi-weekly retrospective of The Six Million Dollar Man‘s second season, and for this latest installment, they enlist the assistance of not one but TWO guest hosts: James Sherrard, creator of The Bionic Woman Files, and Betsy Dodd from The Bionic Blonde. Together, this fearsome foursome the season’s milestone nineteenth episode, “The Bionic Woman, Part One.”

From John’s write-up:

“Steve returns to his hometown of Ojai, California in order to settle down. He purchases a ranch that he loved as a kid and is reunited with his parents who help him with setting up house. He learns that his high school love, Jaime Sommers, fifth ranked tennis pro, is visiting Ojai as well. The two rekindle their friendship and romance. Things are looking good until Jaime is horribly maimed in a skydiving accident.  Steve convinces Oscar to rebuild her using the same cybernetic technology that saved his life. It all looks great for the world’s first bionic woman, except that the shadow of Joseph Wrona, the Onassis of Crime, looms over them and their pending nuptials.”

Obviously this episode is a landmark installment of the series, introducing audiences to Jaime Sommers, who eventually would feature in her own series, The Bionic Woman, which would launch during The Six Million Dollar Man‘s third season. The gang came away giving this one their highest rating, but you need to hear the podcast to see how they got there: Cyborgs: A Bionic Podcast – “The Bionic Woman, Part One.”

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for some harmless bionic fun, check out what uber fan and frequent Cyborgs guest host Alex Green over on his site, The 6 Million Dollar Blog: He’s recreated The Six Million Dollar Man board game from the 1970s into an online version:

The Six Million Dollar Man Digital Board Game

So, you know…get spinnin’.

Happy 30th Anniversary, Blue Thunder!

“This ship is equipped with a forward-mounted, twenty-millimeter electric cannon. Its six barrels are capable of firing four thousand rounds of ammunition per minute. And that, gentlemen, is one hell of a shit-storm in anybody’s language!”

Frank Murphy, helicopter pilot for the LAPD and former Army chopper pilot during the Vietnam War (and whom we see suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of his service during that conflict), is selected as a test pilot for a brand new helicopter packed to the gills with state of the art armaments and quasi-futuristic stealth and surveillance technology. It’s supposedly intended for use during large scale civil disobedience operations, but that doesn’t ring right with Murphy, particularly after the helicopter, nicknamed “Blue Thunder,” blows the shit out of a simulated city street setting with mocked-up vehicles and human-sized targets. That a former rival of his from the war, Colonel “Catch ya later” Cochrane, is in on the whole thing doesn’t sit well with him, either.

Murphy, along with his rookie partner, Richard Lymangood (aka “JAFO,” or “Just Another Fucking Observer”), uses Blue Thunder’s sooper seekrit peeping tech to follow Cochrane to a clandestine meeting, and collects evidence that the colonel and a group of government douche nozzles are behind the death of a prominent city councilwoman. Her murder is part of a larger conspiracy put into motion by this wannabe cabal, who plan to use the helicopter to assassinate political enemies. After Lymangood is killed, Murphy steals Blue Thunder and it’s a race for him to get the evidence to someone who can expose the conspiracy before the bad guys get to him, culminating in a helicopter chase between Murphy and Cochrane in the skies above Los Angeles.

Released on May 13th, 1983, Blue Thunder made a point of letting potential audiences know that all of the surveillance and weapons technology stuffed into the helicopter was real, if not used in this particular configuration. Of course, we look at it today and think, “Pffft. That’s all he’s got? Drones, dude. Drones.” Thirty years ago, however, Blue Thunder was bad-ass.

Personally, I still think the helicopter looks pretty slick.

The plot of Blue Thunder is so thin that it makes Smokey and the Bandit seem like The Prestige, but a lot of what makes the movie work can be credited to actor Roy Scheider, who offers up yet another of his “every man” performances which served him so well throughout his career. Malcolm McDowell chews every scene with relish as the dick antagonist, Cochrane, and a young Daniel Stern provides much of the film’s early humor (both as instigator and target) as Lymangood the JAFO. Obviously, the hardware and the flying stunts take center stage, especially in the movie’s latter half, but Scheider is there to anchor things and keep them from going too far into the realm of absurdity.

Don’t get me wrong: I dig this film. It’s one that’s an easy candidate for a rewatch on a rainy day, and it’s interesting to see how some of the ideas it proposes stack up against our pervasive “conspiracy theory culture” and our ”surveillance society” with cameras everywhere, expanded police powers, and even those drones we mentioned earlier.  How much of the stuff that seemed “far out” in 1983 is now at the disposal of law enforcement, or even has been surpassed by current technology?

Things that make you go, “Hmmm….”

The movie was successful, both critically and financially. A spin-off series aired on ABC the following year, which wasn’t a sequel but rather a reworking of the premise, in which the helicopter is used by a special unit to hunt down the baddest of bad guys, and so on and so forth. The show was cancelled after eleven episodes, ceding the helicopter action show bragging rights to the other 80s AwesomeChopper, Airwolf, which premiered that same year.

(So far as the helicopters go, I’ve always preferred Blue Thunder to Airwolf, even though I think Airwolf would win in a head-to-head contest. Yes, I’m a geek, and I put some thought into that particular battle royale.)

Blue Thunder seems like the perfect choice for a remake, doesn’t it? I’m sure someone’s thought about it, or is thinking about it, and they’ll eventually get on with dicking it up. Meanwhile, we still have the original. I may have to spin it up tonight.

“Catch ya later.”