#Erika Eleniak imagine

[docrotten]

THE BLOB (1988) – Episode 270 – Decades of Horror 1980s

“All I saw was an old man with a funky hand, … that’s all I saw.” Well, there’s a lot more to see than a funky hand! Join your faithful Grue Crew – Crystal Cleveland, Bill Mulligan, and Jeff Mohr, along with special guests Jeff Farley and Ralph Miller – as they get down and dirty and gloppy with The Blob (1988) and its special effects. [NOTE: Technical issues forced Jeff Farley to drop out early in the recording. Bill and Jeff rescheduled a later discussion with Jeff, which was spliced near the end of the original recording.]

Decades of Horror 1980s Episode 270 – The Blob (1988)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! Click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

Gruesome Magazine is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of Decades of Horror 1980s and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.

Synopsis: A deadly entity from space crash-lands near a small town and begins consuming everyone in its path. Panic ensues as shady government scientists try to contain the horrific creature.

Directed by: Chuck Russell

Writing Credits:Chuck Russell & Frank Darabont (screenplay)

1958 Version: Theodore Simonson and Kay Linaker (as Kate Phillips) (screenplay); Irvine H. Millgate (story)

Produced by: Jack H. Harris & Elliott Kastner

Cinematography by: Mark Irwin

Make up effects designed and created by: Tony Gardner

Creature effects designed and created by:Lyle Conway

Selected crew members:

Jeffrey S. Farley (creature effects crew)

Ralph Miller III (blob mechanic: blob effects crew)

Special visual effects by: Dream Quest Images

Visual effects supervisor: Hoyt Yeatman

Selected Cast:

Kevin Dillon as Brian Flagg

Shawnee Smith as Meg Penny

Donovan Leitch Jr. as Paul Taylor (as Donovan Leitch)

Jeffrey DeMunn as Sheriff Herb Geller

Candy Clark as Fran Hewitt

Joe Seneca as Dr. Meddows

Del Close as Reverend Meeker

Paul McCrane as Deputy Bill Briggs

Sharon Spelman as Mrs. Penny

Beau Billingslea as Moss Woodley

Art LaFleur as Pharmacist / Mr. Penny

Ricky Paull Goldin as Scott Jeske

Robert Axelrod as Jennings

Bill Moseley as Soldier #2 (in sewer)

Frank Collison as Hobbe

Michael Kenworthy as Kevin Penny

Jack Rader as Col. Hargis

Billy Beck as Can Man

Jack Nance as Doctor

Erika Eleniak as Vicki De Soto

Jacquelyn Masche as White Suit #2

Julie McCullough as Susie

Daryl Sandy Marsh as Lance (as Daryl Marsh)

Richard Anthony Crenna as Soldier Outside Town Hall (as Richard Crenna Jr.)

Pons Maar as Theatre Manager

Portia Griffin as Gospel Singer

First, there was the original The Blob (1958), covered by Decades of Horror: The Classic Era #123. After that, there was the sequel, Beware! The Blob (1972), braved by the Grue Crew in Decades of Horror 1970s #63. Then came The Blob (1988), an updated retelling of the original as imagined by Frank Darabont and Chuck Russell and discussed by a previous 80s Grue Crew in Decades of Horror 1980s #126. 

Finally, the current 80s Grue Crew, having some contacts in the effects community, decided to do a deeper dive into The Blob (1988) with a focus on the film’s effects work and enlisted the aid of effects artists Jeffrey S. Farley and Ralph Miller III who worked on Lyle Conway’s blob crew. Ralph shares several mechanical devices used for blob manipulation and stories of the hard work put into the film. Jeff focuses on his work on The Blob, occasionally wandering to other aspects of his career, including Abruptio, his current release.

At the time of this writing, The Blob (1988) is available to stream from Peacock, Paramount+, PlutoTV, and multiple PPV sources. It is also available on physical media as a Limited Edition Steelbook 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray and as a Collector’s Edition [4K UHD] from Scream Factory. 

Every two weeks, Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s podcast will cover another horror film from the 1980s. The next episode’s film, chosen by Bill, will be Cannibal Ferox (1981), directed by Umberto Lenzi with special effects by Gino De Rossi. Yup. It must be time for a film initially banned in 31 countries.

Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans – so leave them a message or comment on the Gruesome Magazine Youtube channel, on the Gruesome Magazine website, or email the Decades of Horror 1980s podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com.

Check out this episode!

[tawneybel]

Imagine Lilith trying to get you nak/ed after disposing of your weapons. You’re a vampire hunter, so she’s unsurprised by your feistiness. But you won’t even give her your name. She wants to know what to moan before transforming you. Good thing you brought your wallet. 

“Ooh, you come prepared,” Lilith drawls, fishing out two ribbed condoms. You glare at her. “Prepare to c/u/m.”

A quick peek into your mind gives her enough to manipulate you onto your back and out of your clothes. Lilith’ll gloat about that later. Just as she’s about to impale herself on you, someone gasps. 

Katherine’s hands are covering her mouth. Your girlfriend isn’t just upset. She’s horrorstruck. You look back at your “mistress” and blankly note her fangs. 

Lilith picks up the other condom. “You’re going to have to wait your turn, but be free to watch in the mean time.”

[samanthasroberts]

6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

You would think that every pop culture creation would come about one of two ways: as the result either of sudden inspiration from a creative genius, or of a laborious corporate process involving dozens of designs and focus groups. But in reality, famous creators have ideas the same way the rest of us do: via random thoughts, laziness, or last-minute desperation. For example …

#6. G.I. Joe‘s Snake Eyes Was Created To Save Paint

Snake Eyes, the silent ninja commando from the G.I. Joe series, has been a fan favorite ever since his debut, because children love characters who wear cool helmets and never say anything. And hell, look at him!

Eat your parentless heart out, Batman.

But Snake Eyes’ popularity is made all the more remarkable by the fact he only exists because a toy company was too cheap and lazy to paint a damn action figure.

And somewhere, a young Quentin Tarantino gets the idea for The Gimp …

G.I. Joe started as a comic, but it wasn’t long before toy company Hasbro’s profit senses started tingling, and they began to belch out action figures in a stream of screaming plastic vomit. But soon, the toys would come first, then were inserted into the comic as characters — they were simply a bunch of generic soldier designs painted different colors and hastily given names and backstories, because children don’t give a shit.

The most impressive thing about Hasbro’s G.I. Joe line was their dedication to maximizing their profit margins, and nowhere is this more evident than the design for Snake Eyes. To save money, they didn’t even paint the toy. It was churned out entirely in the same shade of black as the plastic that came out of the vat. Their explanation? Oh, he’s a ninja or something.

Because all ninjas carry MAC-11s and wear mini-satchels.

Amazingly, in spite of the fact his creation took less effort and imagination than putting a cape on a potato, Snake Eyes went on to become one of the most beloved characters in the Joe franchise. “He’s so dark and mysterious!” Sure, kids. Oh, and look, here’s his “invisible motorcycle”! Vroom!

#5. Batman’s Harley Quinn Was Created For A Throwaway Joke That Was Never Used

Most fans know that Harley Quinn, one of the most popular characters in the Batman universe, did not originate in the comics. Her first appearance was in Batman: The Animated Series, in one of the rare examples of an adaptation that donates a character to the source material, sort of like how Norman Reedus was created for The Walking Dead TV show and gradually began to appear in other movies.

But in case you think that Harley Quinn was brought about by some stroke of creative genius, think again. Her creators never had anything significant in mind for her. She was made solely because the show’s writers needed the Joker to have a female henchman in order to make one gag in a single episode make sense. And then they didn’t even wind up using the joke.

Or her original design, thankfully.

Quinn’s first appearance in the series came in the 1992 episode “Joker’s Favor.” The idea was that the Joker would make an attempt on Commissioner Gordon’s life at his birthday party by having a girl with a gun jump out of a giant cake, effectively ruining the Commissioner’s big day. Harley Quinn was created to be the person in the cake. You may recognize this as the same role Erika Eleniak played in Under Siege.

’92 was a big year for faux-pastry eroticism.

But while the episode was already in production, the writers decided that it would be funnier to have the Joker himself pop out of the cake rather than some ditzy dame, so they changed the script to make that happen. Rather than go to the trouble of removing Harley Quinn completely, since they’d already written her into the script and everything, they diminished her role to that of a background member of Joker’s gang, fully intending to never use the character again.

To everyone’s surprise, viewers loved Harley Quinn, so the writers brought her back for future episodes, and her popularity grew to the point that DC comics made her part of the official Batman canon. Granted, the official Batman canon also includes Batman turning into a weretiger and the Joker becoming an Iranian diplomat, but still.

#4. Shredder From Ninja Turtles Was Inspired By A Cheese Grater

The Shredder, the eternal nemesis of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is a scowling Japanese man dressed in spiked metal armor like Road Warrior Hawk and/or Animal. As best we can tell, he never takes this armor off, even when he’s just hanging around the Technodrome in between battles. When you think about it, there’s nothing about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that doesn’t sound like it was inspired by a late night of pizza and beer. Every aspect of the original comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird can be boiled down to a conversation that begins with “Hey man, wouldn’t it be funny if …”

Lots of beer.

The Shredder is no exception. According to Eastman, the inspiration for the character came to him one night when he was washing the dishes. There’s no word on how astronomically high he probably was at the time, but while washing one of those flat cheese graters with a handle, he gripped it like a wrist guard and remarked to Laird about how cool it would be for a character to wear them as part of a costume.

Considering how much pizza cheese that suit could generate, it’s a better design for an ally of the turtles.

“We could call him the Grater,” Eastman suggested. Luckily, Laird was either less stoned or generally more level-headed, and came up with “the Shredder” instead, which sounds more like a villainous ninja and less like an irritating shift supervisor. The two then went ahead and wrote a villain into their comic who wore cheese graters all over his body, and a pop culture legend / impossible-to-find action figure was born.

#3. Pac Man’s Inspiration Came From A Pizza

Back when video games were first invented, brainstorming meetings resembled an insane game of Mescaline Libs — which is like Mad Libs, only played with 100 percent more mescaline. “A plumber who gains strength from mushrooms and dodges barrels thrown at him by a gorilla at a construction site? Sure, why not? Kids’ll buy any goddamn thing we tell them to.” Any random object that a programmer saw in their day-to-day life could become the central component of a video game pitch, and Pac Man started in that exact way.

Back in the ’80s, Namco employee Toru Iwatani sat down to eat a delicious pizza. Upon removing the first slice, Iwatani remarked on how much the rest of the pizza now looked like a face with an open mouth. Anyone else would brush off this casual thought with the realization that sometimes stuff kind of looks like other stuff, but Iwatani’s mind started racing about the potential for a video game in which a pizza runs around a maze eating dots (see “mescaline,” above).

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that all life’s problems can’t be solved with pizza.

Quickly, this spark of inspiration ran through the usual hamster wheel of increasing absurdity until it became the story of a sentient pizza man eating his way through a maze while being pursued by vengeful ghosts. Iwatani pitched the idea as “Pakkuman” — “Pakku” being the Japanese onomatopoeia sound for eating. When the game was brought to the west, it became “Puck Man” (because “Chomp Man” would’ve sounded ridiculous and we are a nation of sober adults) and eventually “Pac Man.” And so, one of the most iconic characters in video game history was born — insofar as Pac Man can be called a “character.”

#2. Teen Titans‘ Wonder Girl Came About Because The Writer Never Bothered To Read Wonder Woman

Back in the 1960s, DC writer Bob Haney noticed that basically every major superhero on the company’s roster had a teenage sidekick, and thought it would be interesting to have them all team up. The idea became Teen Titans, and it initially starred Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, who somehow had neither drowned nor been swallowed by a whale at this point. However, Haney eventually decided to rope in the rest of the Justice League’s abandoned plus-ones, including Wonder Woman’s lesser-known sidekick Wonder Girl.

It’s in Robin’s contract that he always gets to be the most scantily-dressed team member.

But Haney apparently didn’t actually read the comics that featured Wonder Girl. Otherwise, he would have realized that she wasn’t a sidekick at all. Wonder Girl was Wonder Woman back when she was a teenager. This would be like drafting a team of Back To The Future characters and treating old Marty and young Marty as two separate people. See, in the ’50s, DC put Wonder Woman in a bunch of bizarre paradoxical time-travel adventures in which she teamed up with two younger versions of herself (one as a teenager and one as a baby) and her mother, and they fought dragons and swordfish, because these are comic books and not gold-leafed tomes of literature.

Remember what we said about the early video game industry? Double that for Silver Age comics.

Haney evidently only glanced the covers of these issues, because he couldn’t be expected to read a comic about a bunch of women. Consequently, he wrote Wonder Girl into the Teen Titans as a completely separate character. Infant Wonder Woman (named Wonder Tot, because comic books excel at being comic books) missed out on a Teen Titans membership card for some reason.

Well, maybe if Wonder Tot had stuck the goddamn landing …

However, fans of Wonder Woman quickly pointed out this bizarre blunder, and DC was forced to hastily retcon Wonder Girl’s backstory. It turns out that this Wonder Girl is a different person after all — a girl named Donna Troy who developed Amazonian powers and decided to take on the mantle. Because in comics, there’s no corner out of which you cannot write yourself.

#1. Where The Wild Things Are Was Created Because The Author Had Trouble Drawing Horses

Ordinarily, if you pitch a children’s book about a little boy getting stranded on an island filled with gigantic, grotesque monsters, international law requires you to phone Roald Dahl and ask for his permission first. Also, your mind’s eye will probably conjure up an image that is more H.P. Lovecraft than Richard Scarry. Author Maurice Sendak turned this concept into the beloved children’s book Where The Wild Things Are — which, incidentally, is full of illustrations that look like H.P. Lovecraft and Richard Scarry got into a fierce doodling war on the same cocktail napkin.

Lovecraft won.

But in Sendak’s original vision for the book, the titular “wild things” weren’t monsters at all; they were horses. He originally pitched the idea to his editor as Where The Wild Horses Are, and was given the green light to write and illustrate it. Unfortunately, several months into the project, it became increasingly obvious that Sendak couldn’t draw a fucking horse if it were the ransom of the Universe.

Eventually, his editor stopped tearing her hair out and asked “Maurice, what can you draw?” The answer was, obviously, horrific inhuman monstrosities. They decided that was going to have to do, considering the amount of money they had already pumped into the project, and Sendak was given the go-ahead to draw whatever the hell popped into his mind, changing the title to Where The Wild Things Are, because “things” could be anything.

Including repressed family trauma.

The idea of trying to endear a platoon of nightmare creatures to children could have been a disaster, but it became one of the most enduring classics of children’s literature, and one of the most successful last-minute audibles in history.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/26/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/

[spryfilm]

“Baywatch” (2017)

Action/Comedy

Running Time: 116 minutes

Written by: Mark Swift & Damian Shannon

Directed by: Seth Gordon

Featuring:  Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Priyanka Chopra, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Jon Bass and Ilfenesh Hadera

Mitch Buchannon: “Welcome to Baywatch. Our team is the elite of the elite. We’re the heart and soul of this very beach. We protect when other people don’t want to protect, and we go above and beyond.”

The assault on the idea concept of comedy in movies continues with the release of the remake or reboot or whatever you want call this comedy abomination that is “Baywatch” (2017) out this week on DVD & Blu-ray.

Now I wouldn’t have said this movie was doomed from its announcement, especially with the early word that Dwayne Johnson was involved, someone who is not afraid to laugh at himself as well as carry a movie that needs some very big shoulders to support it. Its unfortunate then that the studio that released this, Paramount, decided to stick Johnson with a director as well as screenwriters that seem to have no clue to what they are working on. They also seem to have no idea on how to use their secret weapon, who is normally a charmer as well as someone who can deliver almost any kind of dialogue all while inviting the audience to come with him on some kind of journey – here however none of that works, so we have what must be one of the worst movies of the year so far, along with many other comedies that have missed the mark by a mile.

The movie starts out in Emerald Bay, Florida, Lt. Mitch Buchannon and his team of lifeguards, including second-in-commmand Stephanie Holden and veteran C. J. Parker, protect the beaches and the bay as part of an elite division known as Baywatch. Having made over 500 rescues in his career, Mitch is beloved by the community, to the annoyance of local beat cop Garner Ellerbee and Mitch’s superior, Captain Thorpe.

At the upcoming tryouts for new lifeguards, three people stand out: surfer Summer Quinn, an old friend of Holden’s, Ronnie, a chubby nerd with a crush on C. J. (that is gradually returned), and Matt Brody, a former Olympic swimmer who fell from grace after vomiting during a race and now has to perform community service as part of an unspecified plea deal. Quinn and Ronnie both pass the trials, but Brody refuses to do so and insists that his celebrity status alone entitles him to a place on the team. Despite Brody demonstrating his abilities by assisting in the rescue of a drowning woman and her son, Mitch complains to Thorpe that he is unfit. Thorpe, in turn, insists that rehabilitating his image is necessary to convince the city not to further cut Baywatch’s funding.

From here the plot if you could call it that becomes needlessly complicated as well as extremely crass, as it stands for no really good reason.

I have complained about the lack of good comedies that have been released this year, and “Baywatch” has to top the list of not only being humourless, but it even manages to mishandle the action elements that may have saved this from being extremely tiresome to watch – I watched this at home and found myself hoping for the end to come, it meandered from one tireless set up to the next without seeming to go anywhere at all. My feeling was that no-one really committed to a genre so each aspect of this movie is underwhelming.

Normally any movie, especially one that relies on personality or has to because the plot is absent, that has at its center Dwayne Johnson, is already ahead because he is just so charismatic as well as being able to make fun of himself means that he can be on the audiences side as well as being in on the joke. One need only look at the “Fast and Furious” franchise to see he is one of the only actors actually hamming it up, making those dreadful movies bearable for those of us that like the over the top nature that is inherent within those movies. “Baywatch” the movie, has not earned that so we are just looking at Johnson as part of this film not apart from it. The supporting cast is made up of both experienced as well as newish actors that all come off as one note and not appealing at all. So we have Alexandra Daddario, Zac Efron and Priyanka Chopra struggling with a plot as well as trope filled exposition while appearing alongside newbies Kelly Rohrbach, Jon Bass and Ilfenesh Hadera really not coming to terms with the kind of movie they are in as well as having very little actual screen presence.

The argument could be made that there was a similar situation with the original television show with some experienced actors as well as some very average novice actors. My argument against that, as well as illustrating the superiority of the television version is that it was a different time, 1989 to 1999, the show knew exactly what it was and the talent in front of the camera was vastly superior to the people we have now. Here is some of the talent involved in the series and its an easy argument with time on our side that these actors have at least more talent as well as huge screen presence than that of this poorly attempted translation, we have of course David Hasselhoff, Parker Stevenson, Billy Warlock, David Chavert, Alexandra Paul, Erika Eleniak, Pamela Stevenson and many many others. If there was a small percentage of their presence in this movie it would have been a far better watch.

Its not only in front of the camera where mistakes have been made, the writers (which is a generous title), Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, have only had two somewhat other successes, if they could be called that, which were the middling horror re-imagining (I am being kind) “Friday the 13th” (2009) and “Freddy vs. Jason” (2003). Both of these movies are genre pieces and are just updating other people’s work, which may have been the appeal here, but sadly there is nothing they have added to “Baywatch” to even make it remotely interesting. So it is here where the director should make some decisions to enhance what is a lackluster script, but this is where the inexperience of Seth Gordon shows. Sure he had a hit with “Horrible Bosses” (2011) but misfired with “Identity Thief” (2013) then in between has directed a lot of comedy televison which means he was trying to learn how to direct narrative on the fly, which again shows here in this movie, where he was probably stuck between his script his producers as well as his actors – I am not envious because what we have been left with is a mess of a film both narratively as well as plot wise with an inconsistent tone as well as a R-rating slapped on to make it seem edgy – which it is not.

The filmmakers needed to pick a tone and style then follow through on that, I can see why they chose some kind of action/comedy route, which worked well with the redo and big screen adaptation of the hit “Starsky and Hutch” (2009) but there you had writers, a director and most importantly stars who could handle the material and knew not only what they were doing but also what they were doing. This is yet another misfire from the studio Paramount who have not been able to buy a hit this year and the slate for the rest of the year looks dire as well.

This is definitely not worth a purchase and to be honest even if you could watch this free it is unlikely you would enjoy it; in fact if you watched it on a plane you would not be forgiven for walking out.

“Baywatch” is out on DVD & blu-ray now.

Blu-ray & DVD review: “Baywatch” (2017) “Baywatch” (2017) Action/Comedy Running Time: 116 minutes Written by: Mark Swift & Damian Shannon Directed by: Seth Gordon…

[adambstingus]

6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

You would think that every pop culture creation would come about one of two ways: as the result either of sudden inspiration from a creative genius, or of a laborious corporate process involving dozens of designs and focus groups. But in reality, famous creators have ideas the same way the rest of us do: via random thoughts, laziness, or last-minute desperation. For example …

#6. G.I. Joe‘s Snake Eyes Was Created To Save Paint

Snake Eyes, the silent ninja commando from the G.I. Joe series, has been a fan favorite ever since his debut, because children love characters who wear cool helmets and never say anything. And hell, look at him!

Eat your parentless heart out, Batman.

But Snake Eyes’ popularity is made all the more remarkable by the fact he only exists because a toy company was too cheap and lazy to paint a damn action figure.

And somewhere, a young Quentin Tarantino gets the idea for The Gimp …

G.I. Joe started as a comic, but it wasn’t long before toy company Hasbro’s profit senses started tingling, and they began to belch out action figures in a stream of screaming plastic vomit. But soon, the toys would come first, then were inserted into the comic as characters — they were simply a bunch of generic soldier designs painted different colors and hastily given names and backstories, because children don’t give a shit.

The most impressive thing about Hasbro’s G.I. Joe line was their dedication to maximizing their profit margins, and nowhere is this more evident than the design for Snake Eyes. To save money, they didn’t even paint the toy. It was churned out entirely in the same shade of black as the plastic that came out of the vat. Their explanation? Oh, he’s a ninja or something.

Because all ninjas carry MAC-11s and wear mini-satchels.

Amazingly, in spite of the fact his creation took less effort and imagination than putting a cape on a potato, Snake Eyes went on to become one of the most beloved characters in the Joe franchise. “He’s so dark and mysterious!” Sure, kids. Oh, and look, here’s his “invisible motorcycle”! Vroom!

#5. Batman’s Harley Quinn Was Created For A Throwaway Joke That Was Never Used

Most fans know that Harley Quinn, one of the most popular characters in the Batman universe, did not originate in the comics. Her first appearance was in Batman: The Animated Series, in one of the rare examples of an adaptation that donates a character to the source material, sort of like how Norman Reedus was created for The Walking Dead TV show and gradually began to appear in other movies.

But in case you think that Harley Quinn was brought about by some stroke of creative genius, think again. Her creators never had anything significant in mind for her. She was made solely because the show’s writers needed the Joker to have a female henchman in order to make one gag in a single episode make sense. And then they didn’t even wind up using the joke.

Or her original design, thankfully.

Quinn’s first appearance in the series came in the 1992 episode “Joker’s Favor.” The idea was that the Joker would make an attempt on Commissioner Gordon’s life at his birthday party by having a girl with a gun jump out of a giant cake, effectively ruining the Commissioner’s big day. Harley Quinn was created to be the person in the cake. You may recognize this as the same role Erika Eleniak played in Under Siege.

’92 was a big year for faux-pastry eroticism.

But while the episode was already in production, the writers decided that it would be funnier to have the Joker himself pop out of the cake rather than some ditzy dame, so they changed the script to make that happen. Rather than go to the trouble of removing Harley Quinn completely, since they’d already written her into the script and everything, they diminished her role to that of a background member of Joker’s gang, fully intending to never use the character again.

To everyone’s surprise, viewers loved Harley Quinn, so the writers brought her back for future episodes, and her popularity grew to the point that DC comics made her part of the official Batman canon. Granted, the official Batman canon also includes Batman turning into a weretiger and the Joker becoming an Iranian diplomat, but still.

#4. Shredder From Ninja Turtles Was Inspired By A Cheese Grater

The Shredder, the eternal nemesis of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is a scowling Japanese man dressed in spiked metal armor like Road Warrior Hawk and/or Animal. As best we can tell, he never takes this armor off, even when he’s just hanging around the Technodrome in between battles. When you think about it, there’s nothing about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that doesn’t sound like it was inspired by a late night of pizza and beer. Every aspect of the original comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird can be boiled down to a conversation that begins with “Hey man, wouldn’t it be funny if …”

Lots of beer.

The Shredder is no exception. According to Eastman, the inspiration for the character came to him one night when he was washing the dishes. There’s no word on how astronomically high he probably was at the time, but while washing one of those flat cheese graters with a handle, he gripped it like a wrist guard and remarked to Laird about how cool it would be for a character to wear them as part of a costume.

Considering how much pizza cheese that suit could generate, it’s a better design for an ally of the turtles.

“We could call him the Grater,” Eastman suggested. Luckily, Laird was either less stoned or generally more level-headed, and came up with “the Shredder” instead, which sounds more like a villainous ninja and less like an irritating shift supervisor. The two then went ahead and wrote a villain into their comic who wore cheese graters all over his body, and a pop culture legend / impossible-to-find action figure was born.

#3. Pac Man’s Inspiration Came From A Pizza

Back when video games were first invented, brainstorming meetings resembled an insane game of Mescaline Libs — which is like Mad Libs, only played with 100 percent more mescaline. “A plumber who gains strength from mushrooms and dodges barrels thrown at him by a gorilla at a construction site? Sure, why not? Kids’ll buy any goddamn thing we tell them to.” Any random object that a programmer saw in their day-to-day life could become the central component of a video game pitch, and Pac Man started in that exact way.

Back in the ’80s, Namco employee Toru Iwatani sat down to eat a delicious pizza. Upon removing the first slice, Iwatani remarked on how much the rest of the pizza now looked like a face with an open mouth. Anyone else would brush off this casual thought with the realization that sometimes stuff kind of looks like other stuff, but Iwatani’s mind started racing about the potential for a video game in which a pizza runs around a maze eating dots (see “mescaline,” above).

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that all life’s problems can’t be solved with pizza.

Quickly, this spark of inspiration ran through the usual hamster wheel of increasing absurdity until it became the story of a sentient pizza man eating his way through a maze while being pursued by vengeful ghosts. Iwatani pitched the idea as “Pakkuman” — “Pakku” being the Japanese onomatopoeia sound for eating. When the game was brought to the west, it became “Puck Man” (because “Chomp Man” would’ve sounded ridiculous and we are a nation of sober adults) and eventually “Pac Man.” And so, one of the most iconic characters in video game history was born — insofar as Pac Man can be called a “character.”

#2. Teen Titans‘ Wonder Girl Came About Because The Writer Never Bothered To Read Wonder Woman

Back in the 1960s, DC writer Bob Haney noticed that basically every major superhero on the company’s roster had a teenage sidekick, and thought it would be interesting to have them all team up. The idea became Teen Titans, and it initially starred Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, who somehow had neither drowned nor been swallowed by a whale at this point. However, Haney eventually decided to rope in the rest of the Justice League’s abandoned plus-ones, including Wonder Woman’s lesser-known sidekick Wonder Girl.

It’s in Robin’s contract that he always gets to be the most scantily-dressed team member.

But Haney apparently didn’t actually read the comics that featured Wonder Girl. Otherwise, he would have realized that she wasn’t a sidekick at all. Wonder Girl was Wonder Woman back when she was a teenager. This would be like drafting a team of Back To The Future characters and treating old Marty and young Marty as two separate people. See, in the ’50s, DC put Wonder Woman in a bunch of bizarre paradoxical time-travel adventures in which she teamed up with two younger versions of herself (one as a teenager and one as a baby) and her mother, and they fought dragons and swordfish, because these are comic books and not gold-leafed tomes of literature.

Remember what we said about the early video game industry? Double that for Silver Age comics.

Haney evidently only glanced the covers of these issues, because he couldn’t be expected to read a comic about a bunch of women. Consequently, he wrote Wonder Girl into the Teen Titans as a completely separate character. Infant Wonder Woman (named Wonder Tot, because comic books excel at being comic books) missed out on a Teen Titans membership card for some reason.

Well, maybe if Wonder Tot had stuck the goddamn landing …

However, fans of Wonder Woman quickly pointed out this bizarre blunder, and DC was forced to hastily retcon Wonder Girl’s backstory. It turns out that this Wonder Girl is a different person after all — a girl named Donna Troy who developed Amazonian powers and decided to take on the mantle. Because in comics, there’s no corner out of which you cannot write yourself.

#1. Where The Wild Things Are Was Created Because The Author Had Trouble Drawing Horses

Ordinarily, if you pitch a children’s book about a little boy getting stranded on an island filled with gigantic, grotesque monsters, international law requires you to phone Roald Dahl and ask for his permission first. Also, your mind’s eye will probably conjure up an image that is more H.P. Lovecraft than Richard Scarry. Author Maurice Sendak turned this concept into the beloved children’s book Where The Wild Things Are — which, incidentally, is full of illustrations that look like H.P. Lovecraft and Richard Scarry got into a fierce doodling war on the same cocktail napkin.

Lovecraft won.

But in Sendak’s original vision for the book, the titular “wild things” weren’t monsters at all; they were horses. He originally pitched the idea to his editor as Where The Wild Horses Are, and was given the green light to write and illustrate it. Unfortunately, several months into the project, it became increasingly obvious that Sendak couldn’t draw a fucking horse if it were the ransom of the Universe.

Eventually, his editor stopped tearing her hair out and asked “Maurice, what can you draw?” The answer was, obviously, horrific inhuman monstrosities. They decided that was going to have to do, considering the amount of money they had already pumped into the project, and Sendak was given the go-ahead to draw whatever the hell popped into his mind, changing the title to Where The Wild Things Are, because “things” could be anything.

Including repressed family trauma.

The idea of trying to endear a platoon of nightmare creatures to children could have been a disaster, but it became one of the most enduring classics of children’s literature, and one of the most successful last-minute audibles in history.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/173336373617

[allofbeercom]

6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

You would think that every pop culture creation would come about one of two ways: as the result either of sudden inspiration from a creative genius, or of a laborious corporate process involving dozens of designs and focus groups. But in reality, famous creators have ideas the same way the rest of us do: via random thoughts, laziness, or last-minute desperation. For example …

#6. G.I. Joe‘s Snake Eyes Was Created To Save Paint

Snake Eyes, the silent ninja commando from the G.I. Joe series, has been a fan favorite ever since his debut, because children love characters who wear cool helmets and never say anything. And hell, look at him!

Eat your parentless heart out, Batman.

But Snake Eyes’ popularity is made all the more remarkable by the fact he only exists because a toy company was too cheap and lazy to paint a damn action figure.

And somewhere, a young Quentin Tarantino gets the idea for The Gimp …

G.I. Joe started as a comic, but it wasn’t long before toy company Hasbro’s profit senses started tingling, and they began to belch out action figures in a stream of screaming plastic vomit. But soon, the toys would come first, then were inserted into the comic as characters — they were simply a bunch of generic soldier designs painted different colors and hastily given names and backstories, because children don’t give a shit.

The most impressive thing about Hasbro’s G.I. Joe line was their dedication to maximizing their profit margins, and nowhere is this more evident than the design for Snake Eyes. To save money, they didn’t even paint the toy. It was churned out entirely in the same shade of black as the plastic that came out of the vat. Their explanation? Oh, he’s a ninja or something.

Because all ninjas carry MAC-11s and wear mini-satchels.

Amazingly, in spite of the fact his creation took less effort and imagination than putting a cape on a potato, Snake Eyes went on to become one of the most beloved characters in the Joe franchise. “He’s so dark and mysterious!” Sure, kids. Oh, and look, here’s his “invisible motorcycle”! Vroom!

#5. Batman’s Harley Quinn Was Created For A Throwaway Joke That Was Never Used

Most fans know that Harley Quinn, one of the most popular characters in the Batman universe, did not originate in the comics. Her first appearance was in Batman: The Animated Series, in one of the rare examples of an adaptation that donates a character to the source material, sort of like how Norman Reedus was created for The Walking Dead TV show and gradually began to appear in other movies.

But in case you think that Harley Quinn was brought about by some stroke of creative genius, think again. Her creators never had anything significant in mind for her. She was made solely because the show’s writers needed the Joker to have a female henchman in order to make one gag in a single episode make sense. And then they didn’t even wind up using the joke.

Or her original design, thankfully.

Quinn’s first appearance in the series came in the 1992 episode “Joker’s Favor.” The idea was that the Joker would make an attempt on Commissioner Gordon’s life at his birthday party by having a girl with a gun jump out of a giant cake, effectively ruining the Commissioner’s big day. Harley Quinn was created to be the person in the cake. You may recognize this as the same role Erika Eleniak played in Under Siege.

’92 was a big year for faux-pastry eroticism.

But while the episode was already in production, the writers decided that it would be funnier to have the Joker himself pop out of the cake rather than some ditzy dame, so they changed the script to make that happen. Rather than go to the trouble of removing Harley Quinn completely, since they’d already written her into the script and everything, they diminished her role to that of a background member of Joker’s gang, fully intending to never use the character again.

To everyone’s surprise, viewers loved Harley Quinn, so the writers brought her back for future episodes, and her popularity grew to the point that DC comics made her part of the official Batman canon. Granted, the official Batman canon also includes Batman turning into a weretiger and the Joker becoming an Iranian diplomat, but still.

#4. Shredder From Ninja Turtles Was Inspired By A Cheese Grater

The Shredder, the eternal nemesis of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is a scowling Japanese man dressed in spiked metal armor like Road Warrior Hawk and/or Animal. As best we can tell, he never takes this armor off, even when he’s just hanging around the Technodrome in between battles. When you think about it, there’s nothing about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that doesn’t sound like it was inspired by a late night of pizza and beer. Every aspect of the original comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird can be boiled down to a conversation that begins with “Hey man, wouldn’t it be funny if …”

Lots of beer.

The Shredder is no exception. According to Eastman, the inspiration for the character came to him one night when he was washing the dishes. There’s no word on how astronomically high he probably was at the time, but while washing one of those flat cheese graters with a handle, he gripped it like a wrist guard and remarked to Laird about how cool it would be for a character to wear them as part of a costume.

Considering how much pizza cheese that suit could generate, it’s a better design for an ally of the turtles.

“We could call him the Grater,” Eastman suggested. Luckily, Laird was either less stoned or generally more level-headed, and came up with “the Shredder” instead, which sounds more like a villainous ninja and less like an irritating shift supervisor. The two then went ahead and wrote a villain into their comic who wore cheese graters all over his body, and a pop culture legend / impossible-to-find action figure was born.

#3. Pac Man’s Inspiration Came From A Pizza

Back when video games were first invented, brainstorming meetings resembled an insane game of Mescaline Libs — which is like Mad Libs, only played with 100 percent more mescaline. “A plumber who gains strength from mushrooms and dodges barrels thrown at him by a gorilla at a construction site? Sure, why not? Kids’ll buy any goddamn thing we tell them to.” Any random object that a programmer saw in their day-to-day life could become the central component of a video game pitch, and Pac Man started in that exact way.

Back in the ’80s, Namco employee Toru Iwatani sat down to eat a delicious pizza. Upon removing the first slice, Iwatani remarked on how much the rest of the pizza now looked like a face with an open mouth. Anyone else would brush off this casual thought with the realization that sometimes stuff kind of looks like other stuff, but Iwatani’s mind started racing about the potential for a video game in which a pizza runs around a maze eating dots (see “mescaline,” above).

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that all life’s problems can’t be solved with pizza.

Quickly, this spark of inspiration ran through the usual hamster wheel of increasing absurdity until it became the story of a sentient pizza man eating his way through a maze while being pursued by vengeful ghosts. Iwatani pitched the idea as “Pakkuman” — “Pakku” being the Japanese onomatopoeia sound for eating. When the game was brought to the west, it became “Puck Man” (because “Chomp Man” would’ve sounded ridiculous and we are a nation of sober adults) and eventually “Pac Man.” And so, one of the most iconic characters in video game history was born — insofar as Pac Man can be called a “character.”

#2. Teen Titans‘ Wonder Girl Came About Because The Writer Never Bothered To Read Wonder Woman

Back in the 1960s, DC writer Bob Haney noticed that basically every major superhero on the company’s roster had a teenage sidekick, and thought it would be interesting to have them all team up. The idea became Teen Titans, and it initially starred Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, who somehow had neither drowned nor been swallowed by a whale at this point. However, Haney eventually decided to rope in the rest of the Justice League’s abandoned plus-ones, including Wonder Woman’s lesser-known sidekick Wonder Girl.

It’s in Robin’s contract that he always gets to be the most scantily-dressed team member.

But Haney apparently didn’t actually read the comics that featured Wonder Girl. Otherwise, he would have realized that she wasn’t a sidekick at all. Wonder Girl was Wonder Woman back when she was a teenager. This would be like drafting a team of Back To The Future characters and treating old Marty and young Marty as two separate people. See, in the ’50s, DC put Wonder Woman in a bunch of bizarre paradoxical time-travel adventures in which she teamed up with two younger versions of herself (one as a teenager and one as a baby) and her mother, and they fought dragons and swordfish, because these are comic books and not gold-leafed tomes of literature.

Remember what we said about the early video game industry? Double that for Silver Age comics.

Haney evidently only glanced the covers of these issues, because he couldn’t be expected to read a comic about a bunch of women. Consequently, he wrote Wonder Girl into the Teen Titans as a completely separate character. Infant Wonder Woman (named Wonder Tot, because comic books excel at being comic books) missed out on a Teen Titans membership card for some reason.

Well, maybe if Wonder Tot had stuck the goddamn landing …

However, fans of Wonder Woman quickly pointed out this bizarre blunder, and DC was forced to hastily retcon Wonder Girl’s backstory. It turns out that this Wonder Girl is a different person after all — a girl named Donna Troy who developed Amazonian powers and decided to take on the mantle. Because in comics, there’s no corner out of which you cannot write yourself.

#1. Where The Wild Things Are Was Created Because The Author Had Trouble Drawing Horses

Ordinarily, if you pitch a children’s book about a little boy getting stranded on an island filled with gigantic, grotesque monsters, international law requires you to phone Roald Dahl and ask for his permission first. Also, your mind’s eye will probably conjure up an image that is more H.P. Lovecraft than Richard Scarry. Author Maurice Sendak turned this concept into the beloved children’s book Where The Wild Things Are — which, incidentally, is full of illustrations that look like H.P. Lovecraft and Richard Scarry got into a fierce doodling war on the same cocktail napkin.

Lovecraft won.

But in Sendak’s original vision for the book, the titular “wild things” weren’t monsters at all; they were horses. He originally pitched the idea to his editor as Where The Wild Horses Are, and was given the green light to write and illustrate it. Unfortunately, several months into the project, it became increasingly obvious that Sendak couldn’t draw a fucking horse if it were the ransom of the Universe.

Eventually, his editor stopped tearing her hair out and asked “Maurice, what can you draw?” The answer was, obviously, horrific inhuman monstrosities. They decided that was going to have to do, considering the amount of money they had already pumped into the project, and Sendak was given the go-ahead to draw whatever the hell popped into his mind, changing the title to Where The Wild Things Are, because “things” could be anything.

Including repressed family trauma.

The idea of trying to endear a platoon of nightmare creatures to children could have been a disaster, but it became one of the most enduring classics of children’s literature, and one of the most successful last-minute audibles in history.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/6-shockingly-dumb-reasons-people-invented-famous-characters/

[gorereviews]

Review: The Blob (1988)

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I decided to change things up a bit this week. I’ll be reviewing the 1988 remake of the horror classic The Blob this week and will also review the 1958 version next week. I’ll try to keep in mind the era each was made in and how well they hold up, as I do with each review.

The 1988 remake of The Blob is beautiful in its simplicity. Its special effects never overreach and its clichés are delivered with a wink and nod. It holds up quite well.

As the movie opens we’re introduced to three high schoolers: standard issue jock Paul Taylor (Donovan Leitch), cheerleader Meg Penny (Shawnee Smith) and cliched bad boy Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon). The focus of movie stays with these characters but shifts to other minor characters like the small town sheriff, a waitress at the local diner and a priest.

One night a meteor flashes through the sky, carrying the amorphous blob creature. The creature makes short work of the townspeople, growing larger with each victim.

The Blob, as you can imagine, envelops people until they’re part of the being. Each death is strange and gruesome. Many scenes remind me of the special effects of The Thing in the best possible way. It’s incredible how much the filmmakers were able to get out of a creature with zero personality and no clear motivations, especially a second time around.

The acting isn’t terrible, but the writing is almost self-consciously cliched. It seems like every box is checked for small town USA. This is especially apparent with Brian, a leather jacket wearing renegade who rides a motorcycle and hates authority. But with a movie like The Blob, cliché isn’t so much of a detriment. In fact, it plays into the B-movie remake that it is.

The film has its share of individual great scenes. One of the funnier moments involves Paul and his friend Scott buying condoms in front of a priest. Another shows a timid romance between a sheriff and a waitress at the local diner. The small moments like this make the movie more than just jumping from one death to the next.

Deaths are extremely random. They impact loveable and terrible characters, even ones who seem central to the plot. However, one death is more welcome than the rest. Creepy jock Scott (Ricky Paull Goldin) is attacked by the blob as he tries to take advantage of his passed out girlfriend Vicki (Erika Eleniak). It maybe wasn’t intentional, but it still makes a fairly good statement.

The movie flirts with conspiracy theory a bit in the way the government manages the blob problem. It works out well within the context of the movie and furthers the important idea of skepticism. Thankfully, it does this tastefully and doesn’t play into anything too insane or damaging.

The Blob is an essential 80s horror movie. It has odd gore-y scenes, funny moments and some satisfying plot twists. It’s by no means the most original movie you’re likely to see from the era, but The Blob executes these horror tropes with a finesse like few other films in the genre. Especially remakes.

[tawneybel]

Imagine Lilith disguising herself as Katherine in order to have sex with you. Knowing what you’re into will make seducing you away from your girlfriend easier, later on.