Tag: Pop Culture

1975 – A good year for creepy children and Corduroy.

As you may already know, I like to look through old catalogs on wishbookweb.com. I genuinely like doing it, so please don’t comfort yourself by thinking that I look at them so I can make fun of them later. That’s just a bonus.

This weekend, my catalog of choice was the 1975 Sears Catalog. It was a good year for catalogs. The plaids, mustard yellows, burnt oranges, and avocado greens were plentiful and the bottoms were belled. Here’s what I found:

Have you ever seen a more depressing image in a catalog? These two clearly did NOT want Winnie the Pooh jogging suits for Christmas.
I find this picture frightening. I feel like these children are threatening me with the way Pooh's head is on the floor and they are eating his innards. And the look on their faces doesn't help, either.
What is this? Some kind of messed up training for future Eyes Wide Shut parties? These are pajamas, not costumes. Children who wear creepy masks to bed should not be marketed to in Sears catalogs. And, if they are the spawn of Satan, you can't even fight them off with fire because the pajamas are flame resistant.

Finally, I was really surprised when I fake turned the page and saw world-famous 1970’s-early 80s supermodel Corduroy featured on the pages.

What he was doing in the Sears catalog, and how they could have afforded him is a mystery. As we all know, he quickly shot to fame and was on the cover of dozens of high-profile magazines.

Until, of course his untimely death – brought down by the excesses of being a famous one-name 1970s supermodel.

R.I.P. Corduroy.

Saturday Morning Ridiculousness: Super Friends S1 Ep16

Season 1 – Episode 16: “The Watermen”

Air date was December 22, 1973

Short Synopsis: Two aliens, Zara and Horo, from a water planet, are extracting silicon from sea water, “turning it from blue to grey.” Those bastards! Their people use silicon for fuel. And this is somehow causing red tide to show up in the places that they are…..arghphflllllarrrb.

This was another painful episode. You know it’s not working and is going to be bad when it’s narrator-heavy: “Wonder Woman takes the toast from the toaster, puts the toast on the center of a plate, opens the utensils drawer and grabs a butter knife. Sensing her toast needs butter because that will make it taste better, Wonder Woman rushes to the refrigerator and grabs the butter. Carefully, and with precise skill, she dips the knife into the butter and spreads the butter on her knife across the toast.” That is a more interesting version of what a narrator-heavy episode is like.

Here’s what the water people look like. Notice Zara can turn her head all the way around like an owl:

Their alien race is technically superior to ours, except for the designing and wearing of pants.

YESSSSS!
Aquaman points.

WTF Screenshots:
Uh, who’s arm and hand is this?

“Put it on full thrutle!”

“Wait, sorry, I meant throttle.”

“Nope, thrutle. Thrutle.”

Wendy sits too close in addition to being a close-talker. And, she’s a giant.

This is Superman using a “Hollywood wind machine” (yes, he went to a movie studio to get it) to remove a ton of starfish from a the corral reef.

Darth Vader chopped off Wendy’s hand.

This is the Super Friends version of how different alien lifeforms will be from humans.
This is real dialog:

Horo: Maybe it’s time for the motorboat and me to play another game of chicken.
Zara: Chicken!?
Horo: I mean “duck.” THEY call it “chicken!”

You almost did me in, Super Friends.
This episode had me rolling my eyes and shaking my head 80% of the time. It was horrible. Horrible. The episode ended with the Super Friends finally catching up to, and finding the water people, easily solving their silicon problem, then wrapping everything up with a game of water polo – because that’s what you do when your alien race had, up to that point, been desperate to get back home. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.

This was the last episode of season 1. Did you know there was almost four years between the first season of Super Friends and the second, which was re-named “The All-New Super Friends Hour?” You didn’t? And you didn’t need to? Oh, shut up.

I have yet to invest in the second season DVDs, so I’ll be taking a break before I dive in again. That break may be a while, so if you feel your heart will be broken if I wait too long, leave a comment and guilt trip me. Example: “Oh, that’s ok, Carrie, you can take all the time you need. The doctor says I only have three weeks to live, but you do what you think is best.” Or, send out a TroubAlert. Nobody will do anything about it, but it may make you feel better.

Goodbye, season one of Super Friends, I’ll always love you best.

If you would like to see these shenanigans for yourself, the first season is available on DVD.

Saturday Morning Ridiculousness – Season 1 Episode 15

Season 1 – Episode 15: “The Planet-Splitter”

Airdate was December 15th, 1973

Short Synopsis – Jewels is disappearin’! It’s only diamonds over 100 karats, and they’ve narrowed the list down to 4 other jewels in danger of being stolen. A guy named Dr. LaBond and his assistant Wilbur need the diamonds to “derive” their “special powers” to make his planet-splitter work.

The Super Friends decide to track the last three diamonds with a “micro dot.”

This was a pretty awful episode. Most of it was driving and flying around, the (very poorly told) story of Superman’s origins, and Wendy and Marvin arguing with the villain to just please drop them off in any American city after they get stuck on his space ship.

WTF Screenshots
This is a gorilla winning a kewpie doll at a circus carnival.

Here’s the County Museum of Art – lots of priceless shit here.

Here’s a lady who forgot to wear her pants to the County Museum of Art.

I think this is a perfect summation of everything about Super Friends.

Wendy and Marvin’s Parents are Idiots    
Superman flies away and abandons Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog at the circus (they went there to protect a giant diamond, which if you know anything about Super Friends, you know it was still stolen anyway). Robin finally mentions that he hasn’t seen them around in a while, and Superman assures him that he totally left them to fend for themselves and he’s sure they’re having a wonderful time.

They end up in fucking space.

Wendy and Marvin become the grandpa from The Princess Bride
While on the space ship with Dr. Labond and Wilbur, Wilbur asks Wendy and Marvin to tell him the story of Superman. Dr. LaBond says it will be a long ride home, so go ahead. We then spend about a third of the damn episode in a flashback, watching Superman’s dad argue with a bunch of bureaucrats about what to do to save the people of their planet.

Then, we see baby Superman scaring earthly bureaucrats, making them pawn him off on the Kents because they don’t want to be responsible for him. Which, when you think about it, is pretty terrible.

Superman makes sure no one is left out and also that that the villain almost ruins two planets.
Superman, Batman, and Robin all arrive at the hidden lair after tracking one of the “microdotted” diamonds. Robin ask if they should go in, you know, because it’s an emergency, and Superman says, “Wonder Woman and Aquaman are just arriving, we’ll wait for them.”

“If Superman’s your idol, then you better not break up a planet. He won’t like it.” – Wendy

If you would like to see these shenanigans for yourself, the first season is available on DVD.