Spin dry.

Sorry readers, I gotta go with the flow. Just indulge me for a sec while I look at real shitty TV show spinoffs.

And just so I can get this out of the way, no matter what list I look up, what article I read or what pundit expounds what, Joanie Loves Chachi is ALWAYS top of every worst spinoff list. There.

But here's some stinkers that need raking:

The Woman From Uncle. No explanation needed.

Enos. Ok this needs a little bit of explaining: Dukes of Hazzard cop "Enos" moves to LA and is partnered with an African American.

Sabrina & the Groovy Ghoulies.

Gilligan's Planet. Mercifully a cartoon.

The Incredible Hulk: Married

The Oddball Couple. This is weird. A cartoon Odd Couple spinoff with animals.

Baggy Pants & The Nitwits. Yet another strange cartoon. It featured of all things, Gladys Ormphby & Tyrone, the Dirty Old Man from Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.

Peace off

So I was side tracked again and wound up reading about television. Most of whats written about the subject, at least about whats ON it, is like listening to a pro athelete talk about the "game". Yeesh. Anyway, the stuff I was reading was about real bad shows that are actually on tv, so . . . . . I had to go and find out some shows that didn't make a huge splash, or mercifully, never left the boardroom.

In no order, and I can't prove that these are really real ideas, after all the Internet is almost 100% correct, here are the winners:

Show Me The Salami, a Food Network show about the history of meat.

That’s Not Incredible,an ABC show about boring everyday life. The first show featured a guy who hadn't missed a day of work in 12 years.

Rango, an ABC western comedy starring Tim Conway and an American Indian called Pink Cloud.

Who can forget the Flying Nun? I can. In season 2 (it amazingly went 3 seasons) the show's star, the actual flying nun, Sally Field, was pregnant.

Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell. This is the show which begat Saturday Night Live, when it ended after a few months, and gave us the Not Ready for Prime Time Players because on Cosell's show they were called the Prime Time Players.

Homeboys in Outer Space, I'm not even going to say anything, look it up.

Cop Rock, a combination of music video/broadway show theatre and cop show.

My Mother the Car, the name says it all, literally.

Kling Klang

Just a small post tonight to launch a new obsession- famous and little known recluses. A perfect fit for a history blog as all current recluses may be hard to find. My starting off point isn't a person but a group of people, and if the title didn't give it away, it's Kraftwerk.

Hailing from Dusseldorf, the electro / industrial / techno band was formed in 1970. Founding members Florian Schneider-Esleben and Ralf Hutter played together as a duo during school at the Düsseldorf Conservatory and brought their original uniquely German sound to the world's stage. Highly electronic sounding and sparse compositions featuring early synthesizers,computers and crude electronic gadgetry were the mainstays of their repertoire.

They built a studio called Kling Klang and began to record and experiment more and more. It was then ironically, in the mid 70's, when they began to be known that their reclusive behaviour started to emerge. Few people had their phone numbers, including staff at their record label. They never answered the phone and created convoluted schemes to relay messages. Their studio has no staff, mail is left unopened and are rarely photographed, except during live performances.

Despite infrequent live shows, and long spells between hits, Kraftwerk has released over a dozen albums and nearly 30 singles. Have fun with their website . . . http://www.kraftwerk.com/

Pie

Sometimes little gifts come your way in life. Maybe its that accidentally perfect cake (when there is no bloody reason it should be great), or your suggestion is actually listened to. Few enough gifts pass our way that we occasionally turn them down. Not so today! For today is the day the Frisbee was first sold.

On this day in 1957, Wham-O (wish I had a company called that) rolled out the first Frisbee flying disc. The Frisbee name was actually a contortion of the name Frisbie, of the Frisbie Pie Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, William Frisbie Prop. His pies came in metal tins with the company's name stamped into the bottom. Local Teens would toss the tins in the air and eventually got good at tossing them and playing "Frisbie."

Sometimes around 1950 two entrepreneurs Walter Frederick Morrison and Warren Franscioni came up with a moulded plastic version with much better aerodynamics called the "Flying Saucer". I'm liking where this going. The partners split up and Walter Morrison modified it some more and sold the gizmo to Wham-O as the "Pluto Platter". Lord. Anyway, the rest, as they say, is history. Who better than to have the company that brought you the Hula-Hoop, Super Ball and the Water Wiggle. Hmmm. Better that Heinz anyway.

Boy oh boy.

I was going to come up with a doozie of a crappy game as the best of the worst but I got sidetracked. Truth is there were way too many bad games to pick a clear winner. What I did discover though was how many truly odd/unfortunate names for game systems there are out there. I give you my list, in no real order. They are-

APF "TV FUN" from the mid 70's. An odd little Pong type game console sold mainly in the UK. APF made a really cool home computerish gaming system called the Imagination Machine then too. That was a way better name.

Also out about the same time was Nintendo's Colour TV Game, Colour TV Game 6 and 15 and Colour TV Game Block Kizushi (what?)You think the marketing department might want to jump in right about now?

That's OK, because we have the era of the "Boy". Here goes. TV Boy, TV Boy 2, Super TV Boy,Cougar Boy (aka Mega Duck), Virtual Boy (not sure there), Wide Boy 64 (honest) and of course the actual Game Boy.

This fixation on naming handheld video game rigs boy is curious. Wide Boy 64 was actually an adaptor for their Game Boy to attach it to a TV, never sold to consumers.

Inflammable air, yeah right.

Henry Cavendish, British scientist,born in 1731, discovered hydrogen around 1766. He called it inflammable air. Wonder how he found that out? Anyway, he was not fond of people, particularly women and avoided contact as much as possible. He did attend one social function regularly, Royal Society Club meetings. But apparently he rarely talked to anyone. Fellow scientists eager to hear his latest discoveries were often met with a grunt. His aversion to publicity led to few of his discoveries actually being published. The famous Scottish scientist, James Clerk Maxwell, when looking through Cavendish's stuff after he died, found unpublished papers on subjects credited to other scientists, most notably Ohm's Law. One thing he did do and get credit for was an accurate analysis of air. Seems a safer oeuvre than fiddling with hydrogen.

Blah blah blah

The weekends are a time I head out to be with my family, recharge the batteries, catch up as much as possible on the US presidential campaign and dig up the messed up stuff I rant on about on these pages. I never knew that I would be finding so much stuff for the blog. I can't even keep up anymore.

I promised to show you my return to model building. Think that's easy to do? I've been mired in literally hundreds of choices; remember this is the first one, kinda special, virgin like. I can't choose wrong, even though I may disappoint ardent modellers in my execution, I have to find just the right kit. The pressure.

But whats got me madder than hell is sorting through the overwhelming pile of really wigged out recluses. There is just too much good stuff. This could be the rest of 2008 alone devoted to men and women who prefer their own company more than anything in the world.

And I'm gearing up to launch Wellboy, yes its evasive and it sounds slightly like a brand of shoe. But me patient, you'll know soon enough. As a kiss off to computer games, (just for now) I give you my "Oh Christ, what were they thinking" award winner for the screwiest early video game. Even odder than 8 man Tank. Honest. Check in tomorrow. I can't wait.

Way to go Willie

So, in my daily prowl through the good stuff I often get distracted (you see I usually have a well organized week or two ahead of me where I know whats on slate for the blog and roughly where the good info is). But I will get on another train of thought and just follow it like a dog smelling a good spot to pee. In reality I will use any excuse to see whats around the corner.


Today I'd like to introduce you to my excuse: Willie O'Ree. This amazing man has the distinction of being the first black hockey player in the NHL. Born in Fredericton, New Brunswick he played minor league hockey for the Quebec Aces until being called up by the Boston Bruins to play a game against the mighty Montreal Canadiens. The day was January 18, 1958. The Bruins beat the Habs 3-0. What a way to start your career! He played only 2 games that year but was called up again in 1961 where he stayed for another 43.

1961 was his year in the NHL. He scored 4 goals and had 10 assists. He was a smallish forward,5 foot 10, 175 lbs. Amazingly, when he entered the NHL, he had almost no vision in one eye, the result of stick in the face in 1956. He kept it a secret from his junior team on up to the NHL, and no one new the difference.

Some of these are too good.

I can't make this stuff up, that's what is so damnable about history, it has happened, we gotta live with it. Anyway, a LOT of wonderful and odd people were born today so I've ripped off a list of my faves:

Frederick Arthur Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby. Born this day in 1841. He's hockey's Stanley Cup guy and for whom Vancouver's Stanley Park is named. Seems he enjoyed being Canada's Governor General.

Sonya Krukovsky Kovalevsky, in 1850. Brilliant mind, a mathematician of the highest calibre and author. Shunned by her native academia because she was a woman. She had to marry a man to move OUT of Russia to go to university.

Ernest Frederic Graham Thesiger, in 1879. English born stage and film actor. He went from appearing in drag on the British stage to working alongside Boris Karloff and Raymond Massey in such cult hits as the original Ghoul and Bride of Frankenstein. Quite a range.

Goodman Aiskowitz, aka Goodman Ace, in 1899. Known for his dry wit and playful personality. Originally a writer, he moved to radio almost by accident and enjoyed a career that spanned decades as a performer (often with his wife Jane)and as a writer for the best of the Hollywood stars. Jack Benny was a fan of Goodman and in the early years used Goodmans jokes in his act. Notorious for his cheap "persona" Benny would quip how much he had to pay for them. Goodman fired back ""Your check got lots of laughs. If you have any more, send them along."

Born in 1909, Gene Krupa. Legendary drummer who brought the instrument to the front of the bandstand and pioneered many modern percussion applications.

Martin Luther King Jr, born in 1929. "A man can't ride your back unless it's bent."

The Odyssey odyssey

With the success of Atari and the arcade wars, Magnavox and its little Odyssey, the odd looking "brown box", piddled along and got forgotten, victims of poor marketing, clunky hardware, and a good dose of weird. Not to say that Atari / Kee games didn't have their fair share of oddities.

But Magnavox gave it a go and had a slew of Odysseys, no less than 10 different ones and a wacky Magnavox TV that came with a built in PONG game. The first Odyssey I've covered in earlier posts, the brown box, the one with the plastic overlays for the screen . . . .hmmmm. Their next machine, the 100 came out in 1975 and was a very basic machine that played 2 games: Tennis and Hockey. Controls were super simple and score was kept with plastic sliders on the console top. Wow. Cheap. Soon after came the 200 with one more game and partial on screen scoring ( so basic that you might be better to use chalk). But it one upped PONG with its 2 or 4 player option.

Models 300 and 400 came out in 1976 featuring single game chips and advanced onscreen scoring. Seems all the dough was going into displaying the scores. They had the same games as the 200. Each subsequent model was the same machine with one thing added. The 500 was a 400 with one more game, the 2000 the same as 300 and so on. I'm lost.

Only when the 3000 and 4000 came out did things get cool again. They had detachable paddles and true joysticks. Not bad for 1978. In the early 80's, one of the final versions came out: the Odyssey 2, or Videopac G7000 in Europe, a substantial system that verged on "home computer". It sold OK in North America, but took of in Europe and South America, then flamed in Japan. Maybe the cheap Japanese language stickers right over the English writing and photocopied manuals didn't help.

What were they thinking?

Couldn't resist telling you about who had birthdays today. January 9th was some strange time. The winners are . . . .

1901 Chic Young, Blondie creator. Yes.

1908 Simone de Beauvoir, existentialist feminist.

1913 Richard Nixon. I am not a crook.

and in 1940 Big Al Downing. Who can forget Bobby Poe and Poe Cats?

Tank you

So after reading about Tank and probing the early games I thought I'd see what else Kee Games got up to in the 70's. From 1974 to 78 they released over a dozen games, at least 3 of them being Tank sequels. It doesn't get any better than that. Since Kee was actually Atari, the idea was that they would release almost identical games to double the market penetration.

For example Spike came out in 1974 and was their version of Atari's Rebound, a, you guessed it, volleyball game.

Also in 1974 Kee released Elimination, a four player Pong. Good god.

1974 was a watershed year for them with the release of Formula K and Twin Racer, their version of Atari's Gran Trak 10 and 20, a racing car game, another early game to use ROM chips.

Tank 2 came out in 1975 as a Kee Game but with clear connection to the Atari brand. Then Tank 3 and so one. The final version in 1978 was called Tank 8 , in colour!!, where up to 8 players could go at it at once. Sounds like the last thing you need in a bar is eight guys crowded around a machine shooting dots on a screen. Check out the screen above. Just add beer and it makes sense. Unfortunately I haven't been able to locate a picture of what the cabinet actually looked like.

Boom

Back at video games for a bit. Not long after Pong made a splash in the arcades (shipping some 6000 units, astonishing for the time)rival companies came out with their version of the game to compete with the dwindling pinball machine market. Pinball machines were the dominant force in the arcades and saloons for nearly 40 years until Pong came along and everyone wanted a piece. Although there was a Pong for home use and the Odyssey could have been THE game console, Atari set its sites on more arcade conquests.

Atari started a new company called Kee Games to make more games. The arcade business was closely regulated by the game machine distributors then, with machines divvied up by territory. This resulted in a hit like Pong being suffocated because only so many could be in any one area. So Kee was started to simply get more Atari games out there. The cool thing was that Kee's first game was a good one: Tank. A true first of its kind, it brought strategy, tactics and lots of good fun loving death and destruction to the players fingertips.

Designed by Steve Bristow and Lyle Rains, Tank, like Pong, was simple yet satisfying. The player had two joysticks for movement, a la real tank, and a fire button. This was a fight against your buddy, who, like you, has to navigate a maze, avoid mines and enemy fire, and score as many hits as possible before time was up. Several versions of the arcade game were designed; a stand up model and a sit down table version. There is a third variant called a "cocktail cabinet" that is a waist high table version. Although the monitor was black and white, the tanks merely sprites that looked a bit like a tank, it was the first video game to store game data on ROM chips.

Tank was so popular that the arcade game distributors didn't care any more who had what rights to what game and where they went. All they knew was they needed as many as possible. Atari admitted that it was really Kee games and by 1975 Atari was releasing Tank too.

Hmmm, innovative leisure.

Blah, blah

Just a short one this time. My wife got me a real cool magnifier with articulated arms that can clamp small part and hold them for viewing. It's perfect for small fiddly modelling like airplane undercarriages or dragonfly kneecaps. Any model I build will at least have the smaller bits of it properly assembled and historically accurate.

As far as the choice goes I decided to start with some sort of model trainer, since in effect, I am getting back into it and I'm in training. I'm leaning towards something like a Curtis Jenny or one of the early Avro trainers. Anyone got any ideas? I have to go and buy some glue pretty soon.

Round up time.

Before I get at the second stage of my fun with video games I thought I'd do a quicky list of things that happened around the beginning of January from years past. Some notable, some laughable, some stupid.

Ok, here we go:

On January 1st, 404 AD, the last gladiator competition was held. Hmm, ran out of slaves, women and dwarfs?

On the same day in 1968 the Blue Velvets changed their name to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Thank God. And its way better than the Golliwogs.

Francesc d'Asís Xavier Cugat Mingall de Bru i Deulofeu (Xavier Cugat to you) was born in 1900. “I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve.”

On January 2, 1974, Richard Nixon brought in a law limiting the speed motorists could drive to 55mph. 55alive.

And on this day in 1904 Sally rand was born. Ne Harriet Beck she gave us the fan dance AND the bubble dance. What a girl.

On January 3, 1833, Britain seized control of the Falkland Islands. Argentina tried to get them back in 1984 but blew it.

And in 1888 the drinking straw was invented. Amazing it took that long.

Lucretia Coffin Mott was born January 3 1793. A very early, if not the first American feminist, and political thorn in the side for women's rights. What a girl.

On this day in 1970 Davey Jones left the Monkees. Sob.

There you have it. I'm off to find some Xavier Cugat MP3s.

Blah Blah

I'm finding it tougher to keep track of all the threads that this blog is starting to generate. Not that's it noticeable for you, the reader, but for me I've had a million real cool subjects that I just have to get to in 2008. Every time I look up something I see something else that I just HAVE to write about sometime soon.

I promised a few new series for 2008 and I am on the hunt for a small desk to use for model building. I changed my mind about building it on the kitchen table. In part because I just got it and have been revelling in eating my meals seated with beverage and napkin within easy reach, rather that balanced on my knee. And I have a series on toasters coming up and I don't want my toaster (prominently featured on my kitchen table)to accidentally appear in any model photos I take. It's not because of any toaster inferiority I suffer, it is a mighty toaster after all, but because I like to review the history of things in their proper order. When the time comes, I'll show you my toaster.

I have the perfect spot in my living room for a desk and an excellent magnifying lamp my wife got for me (she knows how to treat a guy well). I just have to figure out what model to build. I confess I'm a bit nervous. Tall ships or any boat models with rigging just scare the hell out of me. I love looking at them in museums and I marvel at the coiled ropes and how every line just seems to go in the right place, but for the love of Christ I don't know a windlass from a binnacle. I'm leaning towards an airplane, most likely from one of the world wars. At least I know front from back with those.

I plan to post a short list soon for readers to debate and vote on if they want. Once settled I'll see if I can find an actual model kit, do the research on paint and markings, and fill my evenings with the gentle sounds of muttered curses, paint fumes while sipping a brandy and soda. Makes you want to smoke cigars.