Feature Category: Article

THE TELEPHEMERA YEARS: 1968 – PART 1

Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause. They hit the schedules alongside established shows, hoping for a long run, but it’s not always to be, and for every Street Hawk there’s two Manimals. But here at STARBURST we celebrate their existence and mourn their departure, drilling down into the new season’s entertainment with equal opportunities square eyes… these are The Telephemera Years!

1968-69

To twenty-first-century eyes, the off-the-wall humour of Rowan and Martin may seem an acquired taste but the TV viewers of 1968 couldn’t get enough of their Laugh-In on NBC, outrating every other show on the list. Underneath, the final season of Gomer Pyle presented more of the incompetent side of the US military, which must have been a comfort to mothers of those poor unfortunates being drafted to fight in Vietnam, but there was succour to be found in warm blanket shows like Bonanza and Andy Griffith spin-off, Mayberry RFD, and Lucille Ball returned with a brand new show, Here’s Lucy.

Genre fans were well-catered for, even with The Avengers, I Spy, The Saint, and Star Trek all entering their final seasons, with Mission Impossible, Bewitched, and new hit The Mod Squad all doing well for ABC, while I Dream of Jeannie was a top thirty show for the peacock network, where Columbo made its bow. Other new shows of interest to those of a more fantastic bent were Irwin Allen’s Land of the Giants and spies meet cowboys actioner The Wild Wild West, but what of those shows that didn’t make an impact on the 1968 Nielsen ratings? This is the story of four of the new season’s biggest misses…

The Ghost & Mrs Muir (NBC): She’s a modern career woman, a single mum looking to start again in a fishing village in Maine; he’s a chauvinist, seemingly stuck in the nineteenth century. Because he is. He’s dead. And a ghost. That’s the kerrrazy set-up for The Ghost & Mrs Muir, a 1968 sitcom based on the hit 1945 novel by RA Dick.

In Dick’s novel – which was made into a 1947 film starring Rex Harrison – Mrs Muir rents a cottage in Dorset, England, a setting which was kept for the movie but transferred to the fictional settlement of Schooner bay for the TV series. Hope Lange starred as the titular widow, taking the property from Charles Nelson Reilly’s wacky local, the great-grandson of Captain Daniel Gregg, a seaman who died in 1869.

Upon discovering that her new house is haunted, you’d forgive Mrs Muir for turning tail but she instead falls for the deceased sailor, despite their cultural differences. Unlike the more dramatic tone of the film, this is played very much for laughs and Lange’s warm performance won her an Emmy in 1969, by which point the show had been cancelled. ABC, though, picked it up for the 1969-70 season and Lange again won the Emmy for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series; the end result was the same, however, and the last of its fifty episodes aired in March 1970.

Lange moved on to play Dick van Dyke’s wife in the first three seasons of The Dick van Dyke Show, performing the same role – with very a different outcome – for Charles Bronson in Death Wish, and later turned up in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Her award-winning turn, seemingly forgotten by all but the most hardcore sitcom fans, was released on DVD in 2018.

Blondie (CBS): Chic Young’s newspaper comic strip Blondie transcended the medium to become a series of popular films in the late 1930s through to 1950, with Penny Singleton in the title role and Arthur Lake as her scatterbrained husband Dagwood. An attempt to bring the strip to TV was made in 1957, with Lake reprising his role, but it lasted for just one season on NBC.

Time heals all wounds and by 1968 it was time to try again, this time on CBS. Broadway dancer Patricia Harty, who had appeared in comedy sketches with Carol Burnett, was cast as Blondie, with former Sugarfoot lead Will Hutchins as Dagwood, and Neil Simon’s brother Danny provided the scripts, a mix of the usual domestic and workplace drama.

Pamelyn Ferdin and Peter Robbins played the Bumsteads’ precocious children Cookie and Alexander, and would again team as Lucy and Charlie in 1969’s A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Programmed against NBC’s Daniel Boone on Thursday evenings as a lead-in to fellow debutant Hawaii Five-O, just thirteen episodes were aired before it was cancelled in January 1969; Ferdin recalled on Facebook that it was such a sudden decision that the cast were having lunch during the filming of an episode when they heard the news.

The series has never received a DVD release and YouTube has just a single show – episode ten’s “Marriage Menders”. Young died in 1973, with control of the strip passing to his son Dean. It still runs today, as a pleasing anachronism, but there have no been further live-action TV shows or films. There were a pair of animated specials in 1987 and 1989 – with Loni Anderson and Frank Welker on voice duty – but these, too, proved unsuccessful, despite the massed talents of Marvel Studios behind them.

The Ugliest Girl in Town (ABC): Peter Kastner was a jobbing actor from Canada whose first leading role came as an alienated teen in Nobody Waved Goodbye, a semi-improvised 1964 film about middle-class youth that would today be regarded as a mockumentary. His big break came two years later, as Bernard “Big Boy” Chanticleer in Francis Ford Coppola’s You’re a Big Boy Now, for which he received a Bafta nomination in 1968.

That led to another title role, this time on TV; the catch was that he was the title character in The Ugliest Girl in Town. Kastner played Timothy Blair, a Hollywood talent agent who falls in love with Patricia Brake’s Julie Renfield, a British actress who is in the US to make a movie. She returns to England after the movie is finished and, in a stroke of magnificent (and some would say totally unbelievable) luck, Timothy gets an offer to join her.

It turns out that, to help his photographer brother, Timothy dressed as a hippie for a photoshoot and those photos have made their way to the UK where a modelling agency think they’ve discovered a stunning new talent, mistaking “Timmie” for a woman. This gives Timothy two weeks in England with Julie but with the complication that he occasionally has to make Timmie’s engagements, and that’s the sit for your com.

Unlike the fictional British agency, US TV audiences weren’t prepared to swallow this guff for much longer than seventeen weeks, and the final three episodes filmed went unaired; ITV bought the series to show in the UK but left it in the can rather than subject British audiences to such progressive/transgressive stuff. The full run is available on YouTube if you’re interested, and Patricia Brake is good value as Julie, but Kastner’s career never recovered and he retired in 1985.

The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (NBC): The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn dug up one of America’s favourite literary sons for yet another outing. Michael Shea became the ninth actor to play the role, fifty years after Robert Gordon appeared in 1917’s Tom Sawyer, but the first to act alongside animated characters in the first TV show to mix live-action and cartoon footage.

Hanna-Barbera took some time to convince NBC that the concept would work but the network greenlit the series for the Fall of 1968, eager to sap some of CBS’s audience for Lassie on Sunday nights. The show’s premise had Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Becky Thatcher on the run from Injun Joe, escaping into a cave which acts as a gateway to another world, with each episode seeing them travel to a different animated fantasy land.

Twenty-first-century eyes will recoil in horror at the cornucopia of stereotypes on show, with episode one giving Romanies and the Irish a good kicking before subsequent episodes do the same for Spain, the Indian subcontinent, and Arabia, as well as adventures involving intelligent apes, giant white whales, the king of Atlantis, and some understandably judgmental animals.

Although it did better ratings than it would have done on Saturday mornings, and made teen idols of its three principals, it couldn’t compete with the collie dog or ABC’s Land of the Giants, despite some genuinely entertaining stuff from H-B’s usual cast of voice actors. The complete series was released on DVD in 2016 but the full run is on YouTube if you fancy a trip to another world, one from which the three young heroes perhaps never returned home…

Next on The Telephemera Years: More damp squibs, including a journey to the unknown!

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1975 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1977 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1980 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1982 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1984 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1986 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1987 (part 1, 2 , 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1990 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1992 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1995 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1997 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2000 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2003 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2005 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2008 (part 1, 2, 3 , 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Irwin Allen

Titans of Telephemera: Stephen J Cannell (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Hanna-Barbera (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Titans of Telephemera: Kenneth Johnson

Titans of Telephemera: Glen A Larson (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Quinn Martin (part 1, 2)

Bryce Papenbrook, Trina Nishimura, Josh Grelle | ATTACK ON TITAN: THE FINAL SEASON

To celebrate the upcoming finale to Attack on Titan: The Final Season, we were invited by Crunchyroll and FUNimation to speak with the incredibly talented English voice cast behind series leads Eren Jaeger (Bryce Papenbrook), Mikasa Ackerman (Trina Nishimura) and Armin Arlert (Josh Grelle).

Note: There are some spoilers for the first three seasons of Attack on Titan in the following interview.

STARBURST: Congratulations on the show. So after NINE years, Attack on Titan is coming to a close with arguably the most explosive season yet with twists and turns at every corner. This show has been a global phenomenon since it first came out in 2013 and is a huge part of people’s lives. As the three of you have been involved since the start, how much has this journey meant to you on a personal level?

ALL: Thank you so much!

TRINA NISHIMURA: For me personally, it has been an amazing journey. I say this over and over, and I only say it because I mean it – Attack on Titan has changed my life in so many ways. It’s been an incredibly special journey. Not only was I able to work on a show portraying an amazing female character that I adore and love, but I also got to meet and become very close with Bryce and Josh along with many other people (I know that sounds cheesy but it’s true). I think that’s been the most special part about Attack on Titan to me alongside meeting passionate fans too! I’m so grateful.

BRYCE PAPENBROOK: I definitely agree. Attack on Titan was my first audition for FUNimation – I live in Los Angeles, FUNimation is based in Dallas, Texas and I was just so lucky to even be able to audition for the show. I was a fan going into it – I fell in love with the show very early on and would’ve been happy playing anyone on the show – even “Guy who gets stepped on by Titan” (laughs) but getting to play Eren was just incredible. Like Trina said, I’ve been able to meet so many amazing people both cast and crew and develop lifelong friendships because of it. It’s hard to find another word to describe it besides incredible (laughs).

JOSH GRELLE: I echo everything these two have said. Immensely grateful – this is something that has changed my life in so many ways, not only from the rewarding and fulfilling friendships but also from the people that I’ve got to work with and the ways that I’ve grown as a person. I’m a very different person now than when I started on this show. There are a lot of memories that go along with all of this including all of the places we’ve got to travel together to conventions and hear how this show has impacted them too. This is one of the greatest gifts that I’ve ever received.

Did you ever expect it to be this big when you signed on?

JOSH: Nope! (laughs) Even when I’m hearing those numbers I’m still in shock and awe. It just seems so mad. To be a part of it – you can’t put that feeling into words really. I think we all knew going into the show that it was going to be something special and that a lot of people would connect to it – but to imagine that it would become what it has become is mind-blowing.

The fact that you have been involved since the start of these characters’ journeys, you’ve been able to truly craft the role into your own. Would you say that this has benefitted you as an actor and allowed yourself to grow?

BRYCE: Yeah, I think when you have more time with a character you do build that different relationship with them. And the interesting thing for me going into this final season is – that the character is TOTALLY different to what he was in the first season. So I had lived with Eren and really understood him and his anger – I knew what to tap into personally to get as angry as Eren because in real life I’m not as angry as he is (laughs) so I have to think of things that make me pissed like traffic in LA (laughs). In this final season, this anger is buried, it’s there under this layer of ice. The director and I had to reinvent the character and find a new place to come from to portray these lines – new motivation. It was so interesting to live with the character for so long and then have to find them again after all those years.

TRINA: It’s been a journey, right? Being able to be with a character for almost a decade has been one of the great privileges of my life – being able to grow with her. In season one to now, being able to grow with her from a child to young adulthood and all of the things she’s gone through has been really fun and challenging. In fact, in Season 4, Part 1 – Bryce recorded an episode and then called me and said “Oh my gosh! I know what happens, can I tell you all about it!” and I was like “I can’t wait to see it!”. Watching Bryce’s portrayal of Eren and Josh’s portrayal of Armin and how they’ve both changed has been amazing. Being able to play Mikasa in all of her brokenness is awesome – it’s unlike anything I’ve done before.

JOSH: Grown as a performer? Absolutely. I’ve grown as a person since we started working on this show. I’ve changed a lot – my worldview has changed as much as Armin’s has. It’s a unique experience as a voice actor to get to live with a character as long as we have. We are some of the lucky few to have gotten to be a part of shows that run for so long, that tell such a story as, like Trina said, watching these people go from children to young adults and experience their journey that I believe we go through it too. We have become very close to these characters. I’ve never had an opportunity as an actor before AoT came along to really explore that. It’s been unforgettable.

Across the four seasons, there have been many stand out moments. Which moment is your favourite and which was the most challenging and rewarding to perform?

JOSH: That’s way too tall an order, man! And I’m the colossal titan! (laughs) I guess in Season 4, Part 1 – one of the most awful things that a person can go through, Armin goes through to save Eren’s ass. He kills more people in one instant than he had killed titans in his lifetime, just from transforming. He himself becomes this weapon of mass destruction and he is not okay with it. It gives him nightmares. I can’t imagine having to be Armin in that situation. He’s been through so many moments like this – but this was THE moment. I don’t think at that point, the Armin that we’ve known and loved is there anymore. He loses a part of himself. As a performer – that is another pivotal moment when I grew as a performer and person.

TRINA: Mikasa goes through a lot of challenging moments – she has a lot of really awful things happen to her. I think her bond with Eren and Armin is very strong, she went through terrible things as a child watching her parents die and being kidnapped – and then finding this adopted family with Eren and Armin is so important to her that every time one of them is threatened it’s heartbreaking for her – as an actor, you and your character go through so much and you pull things from your real life to relate to that. Being so close with Josh and Bryce – whenever their characters die (which happens more often than I like) (all laugh) in my mind my friends are dying in front of me. That’s always really messy and hard! There’s a particular scene in Season 4, Part 1 on the rooftop when I sobbed for almost an hour straight recording that one scene. It’s traumatic sometimes. But I’ve definitely grown.

BRYCE: It is so hard to narrow it down to just one moment! I’ll give you a couple. Being able to be so raw and ferocious and bring this veracity to the show is something really unique. Sometimes as voice actors when we get into the booth we want our sound to be clean – you rinse your mouth out with water and try to make it not spitty or disgusting but Mike, the director, had the correct way of approaching this and that was to make it dirty, gritty and disgusting sounding. I was able to bring physicality to a lot of the moments in the show. There’s a part in Season One where Eren is biting his hand so I bit my hand just like him – so hard that I left bruises. In Season Two, Eren is fighting and he’s so unhinged so I literally unhinged my jaw during those scenes and brought real pain to those moments. And I hope that that pain actually comes through in my performance. I was willing to bring that intensity at every moment – and still going into this final season. It’s very exciting to be able to do that and you don’t often get the chance to approach it like this. I enjoy every moment.

Can a little red box boost your bankroll?

Did you ever watch the iconic TV show Deal or No Deal and wonder if you could hold your nerve and reject any offer given to you by the Banker, hoping your box contained the highest money value left on the board? Well, with the advancement in technology and more people hoping to take on the Banker, the chance to do just that is only a spin of the reels away.

Thanks to game developers, the iconic show has now found a new home online, where anyone up for the challenge can easily access a game or two on an online casino website, by simply signing into their account and pressing play!

If you think you have what it takes to beat the Banker, read on.

Deal or No Deal: Banker’s Bonanza

To make your dreams of taking on the Banker come true, you firstly need to set up how much each spin of the reels will cost you – anywhere from 0.10 – 50 credits is all you’ll need to make your dream come true – with a top prize worth 50,000x your stake thrown into the mix!

Now you may notice something isn’t quite right when you enter the game – the soundtrack isn’t that of the show’s iconic theme tune. However, this is the only thing from the show that doesn’t feature in this game, so it’s not all bad – you’ll even hear a familiar voice from time to time!

Symbols:

Before we talk about the game’s bonus features, let’s first discuss the symbols you’ll find within gameplay. Like many slots, there are high and low-value symbols, the lowest paying 2x your bet and the highest, 100x. to create a winning combination you need to match at least eight symbols. The more matching symbols you land, the higher the combination is worth. With this in mind, let’s explore all the symbols featured and their value;

Cherry – up to 2x stake
Lemon – up to 3x stake
Plum – up to 4x stake
Watermelon – up to 6x stake
Bell – up to 8x stake
Mug – up to 10x stake
Envelope – up to 15x stake
Wax Seal – up to 20x stake
Read Deal or No Deal Box – up to 25x stake
Mystery symbol (?) – reveals a mystery symbol at random
Phone – offers Banker’s Bonus Spins during a feature game
Golden Deal or No Deal Box – multiplies final cascade win by up to 100x stake

The red Deal or No Deal Box symbol is the highest paying symbol within the standard game with values differing by the number of symbols making up that all-important winning match;

8-9 symbols – 5x stake
10-11 symbols – 10x stake
12+ symbols – 25x stake

As mentioned above, the Mystery symbol (?) can reveal a new symbol. The Mystery symbol can appear on any row, in any position, and replace itself with another symbol at random. This provides you with the chance to create even more winning combinations.

Bonus Features:

There are some additional exciting bonus features in this game, including Scatter Pays and The Banker’s Trail.

Scatter Pays

When a winning combination is created with eight or more symbols, the winning symbols will disappear and be replaced by symbols from a cascading reel. This helps to create more winning opportunities.

The Banker’s Trail

This bonus feature can help lead you to even more; if six or more cascading matches are made consecutively, players could see themselves being awarded the Deal or No Deal feature or the Super or Mega bonus features. Within the bonus feature games, you’ll be transported to a set-up familiar to those who watched the show. You’ll be asked to choose a box at random and open the remaining ones. From time to time, the Banker may call you. But what do the different features mean?

Deal or No Deal – provides you with additional cash and free spin prizes
Super Deal or No Deal – offers fewer cash prizes but more free spins
Mega Deal or No deal – no cash prizes but free spins galore!

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So, now do you think you can take on the Banker? And will your little red box boost your bankroll? There’s only one way to find out…

The last three European winners of the Masters

With the Masters, the first major of the 2021-22 golf season, just a matter of days away, fans of the sport will be rubbing their hands in anticipation — especially with a full allocation of spectators set to grace the iconic Augusta National’s hallowed turf for the first time since Tiger Woods stunningly won his fifth Green Jacket in April 2019.

Records have been sent tumbling in the time since, with Dustin Johnson setting a new record score (-20), while Hideki Matsuyama became the first Japanese player to win one of golf’s four major championships. That begs the question, what will be the headline from this year’s Masters?

Well, according to the US Masters 2022 odds, it is Jon Rahm who will be slipping on the Green Jacket on Sunday evening — which would take Spain’s overall wins up to six, pulling one clear of South Africa as they are both currently in second on five, and see the 27-year-old join two-time winners José María Olazábal, Seve Ballesteros and Sergio García.

So, with World No.2 Rahm on the hunt for his second major title after winning the US Open at Torrey Pines in California last June, let’s take a look at the last four European winners of Masters. Read on to find out more!

2017: Sergio García

A maiden major title felt like a long-time coming for García by the time he finally got his hands on a Green Jacket at Augusta in 2017. The Spaniard was consistent over the course of the week, carding 71-69-70 to go into the final round tied for the lead on six-under with England’s Justin Rose.

There was nothing to separate the Ryder Cup teammates during the final 18 holes either, both scoring 69 to finish nine-under and force a play-off. Replaying the final hole, Rose could fare no better than a bogey after finding the tree with his drive. García, with two putts for the win, rolled in from 12 feet to rubber-stamp his victory.

2016: Danny Willett

One of the biggest priced winners of the Masters, winning the Green Jacket from pre-tournament odds of 125/1, Danny Willett became just the second English winner at Augusta in 2016 — following in the footsteps of three-time champion Sir Nick Faldo.

While you can take nothing away from Willett’s success, the capitulation of defending Green Jacket holder Jordan Spieth certainly helped out the Sheffield man.

After a meltdown at Amen Corner, scoring bogeys on the 10^th and 11^th and a quadruple on the 13^th, Willett was right back in it and three birdies in the last six holes was enough to see him win by two shots clear of Spieth and Westwood, who tied for second.

1999: José María Olazábal

The 1980s and 1990s were a fantastic time for European golf, especially at the Masters — with the likes of Faldo, Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer contributing towards 11 Augusta triumphs over the course of the two decades.

Of course, Olazábal played his part as well — winning the Green Jacket twice in 1994 and 1999. Two-under after the opening round in the latter, the Spaniard shot an impressive 66 on the second day to take his score to -8. He dropped a shot in the penultimate round, but keep the overnight lead, and one-under on Sunday was enough to secure a second victory in Georgia.

Five Films to Check Out on Horror Channel This Week – 040422

April is here already, and we have some more great picks from what’s on this week on Horror Channel….

Monday, April 4th, 6pm – Farscape

Get set for a frelling good time as the cult series hits the Sci-Fi Zone each weeknight (with an omnibus marathon on Saturday). To get in the mood for the show, check out our primer here.

Wednesday, April 6th, 9pm The Unspoken (2015)

Jodelle Ferland (Silent Hill) babysits Sunny Sulijic (The Killing of a Sacred Deer), but 17 years previously a family disappeared from his house and some strange occurrences are taking place. Written and directed by Sheldon Wilson and also features genre regular Neal McDonough.

Friday, April 7th, 9pm – Shut In (2016)

After a car accident that killed his father, Stephen (Charlie Heaton, Stranger Things) is left in an unresponsive vegetative state. His stepmother (Naomi Watts, King Kong) is trying her best to look after him as well as continuing her work as a psychologist, but things might not be as they seem.

Saturday, April 8th, 10.55pm – The House of the Devil (2009)

With his latest film X doing well at the cinema, it’s a good time to catch up with an earlier excellent film from director Ti West. This ‘80s-set shocker pulls the viewer in gradually before delivering a killer blow.

Sunday, April 9th, 9pm – 12.55pm – David Cronenberg Double Bill

A whole night of body horror with two classic films from the Canadian master. First up is the telekinetic shocker Scanners (1979), which is truly mind-blowing, followed by The Brood (1980), a movie that might put you off having children.

Tune into Horror Channel on Sky 317, Virgin 149, Freeview 69, Freesat 138.

THE TELEPHEMERA YEARS: 1977 – PART 4

1977-78

Garry Marshall ruled the roost in 1977, with Happy Days and its spin-off Laverne & Shirley occupying the top two slots in the Nielsen ratings for ABC. The Alphabet Network also had the number three and four shows as Three’s Company and the top ten’s sole action-adventure series Charlie’s Angels completed a good year for Fred Silverman’s company. It got even better when it came to new shows – Soap, The Love Boat, and Fantasy Island were all massive hits for the group, whose only real competition came from CBS.

The Eye’s perennial ratings juggernaut 60 Minutes was still doing blockbuster business and they unveiled a new Texas oil drama named Dallas in their new season line-up, joining Marvel Comics inspired shows The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing Spider-Man. NBC could only offer CHiPs in return, continuing a dark run for the Peacock. In addition to the Marvel shows, there was no shortage of new telefantasy on the screen, even if The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman were entering their final seasons, but little of it stuck around. But that’s what the grown-ups were watching – on kid’s TV it was a different story…

Space Sentinels (NBC): After bringing Superman, Batman, and Aquaman (!) to life in the 1960s, and with a new Batman show hitting the air in the Fall of 1977, Filmation had become the go-to studio for Saturday morning superheroics, their formulaic yet entertaining twenty-two-minute slices of telefantasy perfect for sugar-high kids seeking a cape thrill.

Space Sentinels was an original premise developed by Hal Sutherland, who had brought the DC Comics shows to air and had a firm grasp of the fundamentals needed for such a concept. Three young people – the show was initially titled Young Sentinels and was changed after several episodes had aired to cash in on Star Wars fever – patterned after the heroes of Greek legends, keeping the far future of 1985 safe from threats such as disgruntled former Sentinels, time travellers, and invasive alien species.

Much was made of the show’s inclusive cast, with rare black and Asian heroes among the titular threesome, and of the villains of the week being merely misunderstood rather than purely evil. Thirteen episodes aired between September and December 1977 but there was no second season; instead, the young Sentinels were absorbed into The Freedom Force, a team led by fellow Filmation hero Isis in segments broadcast as part of Tarzan and the Super 7 in the Fall of 1978. The complete series – including the Freedom Force shorts – were released on DVD in 2006 but it’s now out of print.

Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics (ABC): Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics was a two-hour block that aired on Saturday mornings on ABC from September 1977 to October 1978. Also featuring newly-produced episodes of Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, The Scooby Doo Show, The Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, and re-runs of Scooby Doo, Where Are You!, the crux of the block was the all-new Laff-A-Lympics show.

A spoof of the Battle of the Network Stars, Laff-A-Lympics took forty-five Hanna-Barbera characters and split them into three teams: the Scooby Doobies, the Yogi Yahooeys, and the Really Rottens. Under the leadership of Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear, and Muttley, the sides competed in a series of ridiculous contests, with the Scoobies winning the lion’s share of the spoils, usually after the Rottens’ cheating had backfired.

A spin-off comic book was produced by Marvel Comics, which eventually revealed the relationship between the very similar-looking Dick Dastardly and the Dread Baron from the show, that they are twin brothers (although why they couldn’t just use Dastardly is anyone’s guess!). A DVD was released in 2010, which included a never-before-seen episode entitled Spooky Games, and it’s a great place to start your journey into the wider Hanna-Barbera Television Universe.

Space Academy (CBS): Filmation didn’t just do cartoons – they were, of course, responsible for the live-action The Ghost Busters show in 1975 – and neither did they restrict their Star Wars cash-ins to just Space Sentinels. Space Academy was a strange beast, giving Lost in Space’s Jonathan Harris a chance to return to the stars, this time as the headmaster of an orbiting school in the year 3732.

Alongside a tiny robot named Peepo and a cast of young hopefuls as his super-powered charges, Harris was joined by a weekly parade of guest “stars”, including margarine slinger Dena Dietrich, Andy Griffith Show regular Howard Morris, and Lawrence Dobkin, who was the man whose voice told us of the eight million stories in The Naked City each week. A typical episode featured a teaching moment, for those of us at home as well as the kids in the academy.

Fifteen episodes aired between September and December 1977 but it was a retooled Jason of Star Command that returned for the Fall 1978 season, a spin-off show featuring a more adventurous arm of the Space Academy, airing as part of Tarzan and the Super 7. Space Academy did, however, get a range of eight-inch action figures, released by Aviva through Woolworths, and given their age they’re surprisingly affordable, emphasising the forgotten nature of this curious show.

The Red Hand Gang (NBC): If you remember The Red Hand Gang at all, you remember three things: trampolines, that theme song, and the fact that one of the actors was called James Bond III. Although just twelve episodes of the show were made, airing between September and November 1977, constant repeats well into the 1980s made it seem like an almost permanent presence on TV screens on both sides of the Atlantic.

The titular gang were five young people – and their dog, Boomer – who solved sometimes very major crimes, including a kidnapping and a jewel heist, always marking their territory with a hand mark in red paint (signifying that they were Bloods?). Unlike most other Saturday morning shows, The Red Hand Gang had a series on ongoing storylines, with three arcs of five, four, and three episodes making up the full season’s story.

Of the cast, only Matthew Labyorteaux went on to have anything resembling a future career, appearing as Albert Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie and later becoming an in-demand voice actor. The show’s biggest success story – other than that theme song by Score Productions Inc – was the dog, who received his own show in 1980, Here’s Boomer, where he ditched the kids and solved problems on his own.

The Robonic Stooges (CBS): In their purest form, The Three Stooges – Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Howard – were only active for thirteen years, yet produced almost a hundred short films that delighted audiences with their mix of bumbling mischief and outright violence. After Curly suffered a stroke in 1946, the act continued with a succession of replacements, their final TV outing coming in 1965 when Moe was sixty-eight and Larry had turned sixty-three-years old.

Moe and Larry died in 1975 (Curly had passed on in 1952) and somehow that became a catalyst for a Stooges revival, only this time their adventures would be animated and they were CYBORGS. The Robonic Stooges saw the trio work for the Superhero Employment Agency under the direction of an increasingly exasperated Agent 000 (pronounced Oh!-Oh!-Oh!). Their trademark physical humour somehow led to them solving their cases, although the absence of a laugh track sometimes made it hard to tell what was supposed to be funny and what was just Stooge on Stooge viciousness.

The cartoons originally aired as a segment on Hanna-Barbera’s live-action The Skatebirds but when it was cancelled (you’ll read about that show in a Hanna-Barbera special in a few weeks!) The Robonic Stooges graduated to their own feature for a few weeks while the rest of the thirty-two-episode run was finished. You can, if you’re of that bent, check out the show on YouTube but I’m sure you can imagine how it goes…

I Am the Greatest: The Adventures of Muhammad Ali (NBC): I mean, you can imagine the pitch meeting, right? The world’s greatest boxer enlists the help of his fictional nephew and niece (although he had five of his own kids by that point) and embarks on a series of worldwide adventures, facing down werewolves, volcanoes, and all manner of threats that would have even the most ardent boxing fan calling child services.

Created by Janis Diamond, and produced by former Jay Ward Productions director Fred Calvert’s Farmhouse Films, Ali voiced his own character on the animated show, with real-life brother and sister Casey and Patrice Carmichael as his niblings in their first (and only) acting roles. It was clear, though, that Farmhouse didn’t possess the budget or skills to deliver such a high profile project and it was shredded by critics, ignored by viewers, and was cancelled after just thirteen episodes.

The concept was spoofed in 2014 by Adult Swim’s The Mike Tyson Mysteries, which featured the titular pugilist solving crimes alongside his adopted Chinese daughter, an alcoholic pigeon, and the ghost of the Marquess of Queensbury. Unlike its source material, The Mike Tyson Mysteries was actually good and lasted for seventy episodes but if you’d rather watch the original, it’s all on YouTube because no-one has so far been bothered to release it on DVD, or even claim ownership of this terrible show.

Next on The Telephemera Years: It’s a very groovy 1968 that awaits us… outcasts, outsiders, ugly girls, and all!

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1975 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1977 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1980 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1982 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1984 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1986 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1987 (part 1, 2 , 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1990 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1992 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1995 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1997 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2000 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2003 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2005 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2008 (part 1, 2, 3 , 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Irwin Allen

Titans of Telephemera: Stephen J Cannell (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Hanna-Barbera (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Titans of Telephemera: Kenneth Johnson

Titans of Telephemera: Glen A Larson (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Quinn Martin (part 1, 2)

Beyond the Wormhole – A FARSCAPE Primer

The full run of the seminal ‘90s space opera Farscape is soon to begin on Horror Channel, and we at Moonbase Alpha are more than a little excited. So, whether you’re returning to it to relive and revive fading memories or are diving into its weird and colourful insanity for the first time, here’s a brief primer of what you can expect.

The plot centres on John Crichton, an astronaut from Earth who during an orbital flight finds himself sucked through a wormhole and expelled in a distant part of the universe. He ends up aboard Moya, a sentient biomechanical starship that can undertake FTL travel by opening a tear in space-time called a starburst (yes, really!!), and initially encounters Aryn, a rejected former soldier, D’Argo, a belligerent member of a warrior race, Rygel, the imperious and froglike deposed ruler of an interstellar empire, Zhaan, a blue-skinned ethereal priestess, and Moya’s multi-limbed Pilot who acts as the ship’s helmsman and navigator, and intermediary between the ship and her passengers. Unlike other ‘90s sci-fi stalwarts like Star Trek or Stargate that are largely driven by exploration, the central ensemble of Farscape are fugitives (the series’ pitch title was Space Chase), each having escaped imprisonment by the Peacekeepers, the ruthless military of the human-like Sebaceans, with Moya used as a prisoner transport.

The series continually expands in scope across its four seasons and miniseries conclusion, its themes taking in the likes of morality, loyalty, trust, friendship, romance, regret, and redemption as Moya and her crew blaze a trail of chaos across the galaxy while they frantically try to remain one step ahead of those pursuing them. There are very few truly standalone episodes; each is instead its own story that also contributes to the developing arc of the series, largely driven by Crichton’s attempts to recreate the wormhole and return home, and an escalating arms race over the technology to weaponise such gateways, principally between the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans, a sadistic race of megalomaniacal Nazi lizardmen.

The series is notable for not only featuring humanoid aliens of varying designs typical of any space-based sci-fi but also multiple creatures operated by puppetry and animatronics, most notably Rygel and Pilot, whose physical sizes and movements make it apparent they aren’t actors in suits. The special effects are produced by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop – the company that was also responsible for the critters of classic ‘80s fantasy movies Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal – and despite knowing they’re artificial creations they nevertheless feel like living, breathing creatures.

However, what truly makes the show stand out from others of its ilk, amidst bouts of deadpan snarking and extreme horniness, are multiple concepts of unbridled lunacy that allowed the imaginations of the creatives to run rampant. Only a few include the likes of endless pop culture references invoked for maximum surreality, an alternate reality with actors playing each other’s characters, a Road Runner-style animation that continues in live-action with similar violent slapstick, a nightmarish computer game world driven by haunting memories, Rashomon-style retellings where everyone’s character traits are variably dialled up depending on the narrator, S&M hallucinations, myriad alien drugs periodically driving everyone to different kinds of insanity, and regular vomit and fart jokes. You certainly wouldn’t expect to see an episode of The Next Generation where Troi gets distracted by lying in a desert having multiple orgasms induced by bright sunlight.

When creator Rockne S. O’Bannon originally sold the series to Syfy (then still The Sci-Fi Channel), the network president told him in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want a kids’ show and to “make it as weird as you can.” When you experience Farscape’s surreal assortment of diverse aliens, creative swearing, interplanetary shenanigans and demented humour, along with the boundless depths of creativity by which each is realised, you’ll soon agree that everyone involved more than succeeded.

Farscape debuts on Horror Channel on April 4th at 6pm as part of the weekday Sci-Fi Zone.

For more information, head over to http://www.horrorchannel.co.uk

Tune in on Sky 317, Virgin 149, Freeview 69, Freesat 138.

Five Films to Check Out on Horror Channel This Week – 280322

We have some more great picks from what’s on this week on Horror Channel….

Wednesday March 30th, 9pm – The Midnight Man (2016)

Lin Shaye and Robert Englund feature in this creepypasta-like movie in which a creature appears when a group of friends play a game they found. Their most terrible fears are used against them… Directed by Travis Zariwny.

Thursday March 31st, 11pm Tales That Witness Madness (1973)

A glorious portmanteau with an all-star cast including Donald Pleasence, Kim Novak, and Joan Collins. The director was renowned cinematographer Freddie Francis, and although it might look like it, it’s not from Amicus, the masters of the anthology.

Friday April 1st, 12.40pm – Radius (2017)

With an intriguing premise – anyone who gets within 50 feet of the protagonist dies – this mystery-horror is well worth staying up for.

Saturday April 2nd, 9pm – The Butterfly Room (2012)

Superb indie film with horror legend Barbara Steele (Black Sunday) in which she plays a woman whose obsession with butterfly collecting gets into dark areas. Also starring genre favourites Heather Langenkamp, Ray Wise, Camille Keaton, P.J. Soles, Adrienne King, and James Karen.

Sunday April 3rd, 3pm – 8.30pm – Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune (2003)

Based on the hit novel, this miniseries might not have the budget of the recent blockbuster but Alec Newman, James McAvoy, and Alice Krige make it more than worth your time.

Tune into Horror Channel on Sky 317, Virgin 149, Freeview 69, Freesat 138.

Leroy Kincaide | THE LAST RITE

Ahead of the world premiere of The Last Rite at this year’s Arrow Video FrightFest, we caught up with writer/director Leroy Kincaide to find out more about the film and being in the First Blood strand of the festival…

STARBURST: How did you go from WWE wrestler to filmmaker?

Leroy Kincaide: I guess you could say that everything I do now did stem from my career as a professional wrestler. Wrestling was one of my biggest passions back in the day and a part of me still misses lacing up my boots and going out there to put on a show.

In my days as a pro-wrestler, I was very fortunate to meet some of the world’s top wrestlers and at one point I was in talks with WWE about joining the company, I even had a singles match on WWE Smackdown and a backstage skit with one of the main roster as a result.

After some years in the wrestling industry, my curiosity for the big screen would eventually see me do some featured extra work among the odd TV Show appearance. I then found myself moving onto acting in independent films here and there, but out of frustration for my continual typecasting of playing a thug or kid off the street sort of vibe, I began to create my own short films. This was where my passion for filmmaking was ultimately born.

After making a small host of short films over the years, my love for telling stories and the art of directing just kept on growing and growing. Fast forward to today’s point in time and it feels amazing to have my first feature film debut ready to rock and roll.

There was no real direct path to what I did over the years, I just ultimately never gave up on believing that I was destined to do more with my life than just work a 9-5, so it started with wrestling and has ended up in filmmaking and it feels bloody awesome!

What was the inspiration for The Last Rite?

My inspirations for The Last Rite came from a few places, some of my biggest draws on the story was my own personal life experiences with sleep paralysis and paranormal happenings. Not only were my personal experiences relevant, but I am very heavily influenced by real-life cases of the supernatural also.

Many hours of research and digging around led me down a very interesting and dark path, and one that I firmly believe as much as we live in this world there are forces that we do not understand, and sometimes when we look into the void of darkness, the darkness looks back at us.

With such a heavy life experience on things, it just absolutely made sense to direct ‘an inspired by true events’ story in an area that I not only love but also have some experience with… and thus, The Last Rite was born.

Did you do much research into shadow people and demons?

Absolutely, I made it my personal mission to look into a variety of areas like as you mentioned shadow people, The Hatman phenomena as well as the three stages of demonic possession. The research conducted on demonic possession was really fascinating, especially when you look beneath the surface of what most films usually portray.

Before my research began, I was very familiar with aspects of such supernatural and paranormal phenomena, but I wanted to dig a little deeper and keep as authentic as possible when it comes to the writing of the story, especially the three stages of demonic possession.

One of the trickier areas I stumbled upon when doing my research, was looking into the priest and the methodology behind the process of what actually goes into conducting an exorcism. As this is a very grey area in some religious practices, so the research here took a lot more work than pretty much any other area of the film surprisingly. But out of all my research as a whole, working on being as accurate as possible when it comes to representing a priest and the process was very important to me.

Overall though, with my own experiences with sleep paralysis, there wasn’t an awful lot of research required for this as I had first-hand experience, which served greatly with the story.

How long did the film take to make?

The script for The Last Rite began in August 2018 and was then finally cut in June 2020. As we lost pretty much all of 2020, I spent some extra time making additional cuts and was finally finished in Jan 2021.

What was the hardest part of making the film for you?

There was many aspects of the production that have been tough, especially when you’re doing things with next to no budget, you literally can’t pay your way through the process, so you have to muck in and do it yourself. But I would say the toughest part of the entire production has been staying on track and on top of everything during the time. The grind of wearing multiple hats comes with an enormous amount of pressure to perform at a level that you want to showcase your work at. I am my toughest critic and hold myself both to an obsessively high standard.

So the additional learning that I had to do to in order achieve my vision required me to fully adopt a cinematographer/director of photography’s mind-set. This not only meant I had to think and see my vision as a director, I had to also look at the scene with a very technical eye and create the right tone, light and dark that I wanted to see in my picture.

I literally had to give over three-plus years of my life to arrive at this point in time. It’s been a huge undertaking with many lessons learned, but it has been absolutely worth every moment. I would do it all again in a heartbeat and I am so incredibly thankful to have had such a great cast, crew, and kick-ass producer helping me bring this highly ambitious journey to life.

Your cinematography in the film is great – is that a part of the production you enjoy?

Thank you kindly! The cinematography and, most importantly, lighting were one of my proudest achievements on the production, aside from having a dynamite cast to help bring my vision to life of course, they were just incredible. The overall lighting and camera work required a completely different side of my creative essence, as I was the writer, director, camera operator, gaffer, and director of photography all wrapped into one.

The task of all lighting, camera work, editing, and colour grading was all undertaken by myself singlehandedly, as there just wasn’t the budget to get a fully kitted-out crew of people. So my approach to the movie had to be streamlined, but also hold up to a standard that gives my vision the production value that I wanted. However, doing things this way allowed so much creative freedom as I was able to try interesting things and discover shots that otherwise might have been missed.

There were multiple factors that I had to understand before I even thought about picking up the camera and shooting our first frame. So I made it my personal mission to study cinematography, colour theory, colour contrast, lens language among many, many other things to allow me to find the film’s tone. It’s safe to say one hell of a lot of studying was needed before I even said the words ‘action!’ [Laughs]

The film debuts at Arrow Video FrightFest – how does it feel to be part of the First Blood strand?

To have The Last Rite in FrightFest’s First Blood feels amazing! It’s crazy to think that an idea that one day popped into my head is going to be watched by people at the festival. It’s a true honour to be a part of such a prestigious festival, plus furthermore, Greg, Ian, and the entire FrightFest team are just incredible. I have to say that I am simply blown away by the love and respect they have for filmmakers and the horror community as a whole. They really do care about what they do so having my film selected is just bloody amazing.

Is horror a genre you’re attracted to?

Horror for me is one of the main genres I resonate with, I grew up watching old school classics such as The Thing, Aliens, Amityville II: The Possession among many others, I can’t put my finger on it but I just love horror movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s. I guess also because of my somewhat macabre outlook on things, which is equally juxtaposed with love and light, my darker curiosity lends itself to being a huge influence that is expressed through my creativity. A lot of the darkness I see in the world can and usually always does find its way into my work somewhere, this is most likely why horror has become my genre of choice overall. I do often wonder if I made a happy film it would most likely have a very dark undertone somewhere, I guess it would be rude not to!

Do you have plans for your next film yet?

Strangely, I actually had another feature film already written titled Facility 7 before I even began writing The Last Rite. The only thing was that the type of movie Facility 7 is, it would require a much larger budget, so I wanted to do a smaller film first to cut my teeth a bit and show potential investors and industry heads that I have what it takes to tell a story.

I have also just completed another feature film script entitled Hollow Ones, now this film is going to be my self-styled ‘angry movie’, here I will be pulling no punches, hell will be raised and I will be letting the darkness right out of the bag. It feels very exciting to have gone from no feature scripts a couple of years ago to now having one movie shot and another two developed in a relatively short period of time, it really feels exciting and I can’t wait for what the future holds.

The Last Rite is available on digital outlets from April 4th. You can follow the film on Instagram.

Fun Online Entertainment Ideas

We all need a persistent break from the everyday grind. Sometimes, we just need to relax and have some fun. Here are some ideas for fun online entertainment that you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home. Whether you’re looking for something to take your mind off of things or simply want to have some harmless fun, these activities are sure to please. So put on your favorite movie, fire up the computer, and get ready to have some laughs!

Play some video games

Who does not love to sit back, relax, and play some video games? Whether you’re looking for classic arcade action or an immersive first-person shooter like Call of Duty, there are plenty of options out there. Then again, if you’d rather exercise your mind than test your reflexes, there are also puzzle games and word games galore! So, what are you waiting for? Get your game on!

Scroll on social media

Social media is a goldmine of online entertainment. Whether you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed, watching videos on YouTube or Vine, or checking out pictures and updates on Instagram, there are plenty of ways to entertain yourself for hours. Of course, be sure not to get too caught up in social media!

Play at an online casino

Feel free to enjoy some safe and secure casino games at an online casino. The best part? You can find real money online pokies really easily nowadays. Just do a quick Google search and you can find out just how easy it is to play.

Check out some funny cat videos

How could you not love watching all of those amusing cat clips? Watching them never gets old. However, if you’re looking for something with a bit more substance, there are also plenty of full-length movies featuring these furry felines. So, get your fix today!

Enjoy some streaming media

Are you a fan of TV and movies? Well, good news: there are plenty of streaming options available these days. TV shows, movies, and videos are available for streaming right now. Why not take advantage of it? After all, when you subscribe to services like Netflix, the entertainment possibilities are practically endless!

Sites like Hulu and Netflix allow subscribers to watch past episodes and/or full seasons of your favourite shows on popular networks such as ABC, NBC, and more! You can also rent or purchase new releases.

Get active on Quora

Quora is a great place to visit if you want fresh perspectives on just about anything. It’s especially good for those people who are curious about a wide array of topics, from food and sports to religion and politics. So, if you’ve got a burning question or two, feel free to ask other users on Quora!

Read the news

If you’re looking for some news to read, the internet is a great place to start. Many different outlets on the web provide more than enough information about current events and more in-depth stories. Just do a quick search on Google or Bing and you can find plenty of written content on any topic imaginable.