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Post by I AM the Way on Dec 19, 2012 16:05:53 GMT -6
Like some in my age group, I grew up on some weirdly awesome television programming. A lot of 70's and early 80's scifi/horror/supernatural shows which, considering today's standards, weren't really for kids. This kind of TV required a modicum of maturity, curiosity, and a taste for that which lies beyond the darkness. Many children, like myself, ate it up.
There are just so many rich veins of occultism... opened up and left ajar for young minds to explore. The Tomorrow People, Land of the Lost, Doctor Who! For me, that's what 70's and 80's scifi was about - the thin line separating fantasy from reality. In fact, and not surprisingly, it's a cornerstone of Lovecraftianism. Scientific discoveries and technologies converging, consciously or not, upon "primitive" new age concepts. We can read the advanced geometry and folklore sigils on the wall.
My exploration started with Thundarr the Barbarian. I re-watched the episodes with Briella now that she's 21 months old. That one line in the opening credits: "Earth is reborn in a world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery." It called to me... Again, after so many years. Something in me decided to search out those other half-remembered gems from childhood. Programs like Under the Mountain and Into the Labyrinth. So, that's what I did.
www.blackgate.com/2010/07/27/even-nickelodeon-can-scare-you-the-third-eye/
That blog post sums it up better than I could. If your distant child-memory was forever tainted by slimy monstrosities, mystical standing stones, or magic-users who were beyond good and evil, then we're in the same boat. Join in the discussion! Tell us about what you remember, first impressions, or (like me) watch it all again on youtube to see those nostalgic images once more...
By His loathsome tentacles,
VS
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Post by shawnhartnell on Dec 19, 2012 16:53:17 GMT -6
Like some in my age group, I grew up on some weirdly awesome television programming. A lot of 70's and early 80's scifi/horror/supernatural shows which, considering today's standards, weren't really for kids. Indeed, I saw the post of the Third Eye. I was tempted to reply "Man, no wonder you're so weird, you've been warping your brain since 1983! " That intro is seriously creepy. It's got that psychological horror of "losing cabin pressure". Thanks for posting it. I understand that about the ORIGINAL Land of the Lost. The crystals in those golden pyramids were buzzing with some kind of "real something." It was if those pyramids actually went somewhere.I've found alot of what is considered to be the 'cult paradigm' is backed up by hard science. I'm not for sure if I'm supposed to keep this to myself or not.I remember that Thundarr was cool. The splitting of the moon in the intro seemed alot more significant in the 80's. Other than that, I don't remember why it was cool.Poltergeist, obvious reasons.
Return of the Living Dead, there was a REAL zombie on my screen moving it's spine like it was wagging it's tail while talking about easing the pain of rotting by eating brains.
There was this Amazing Stories episode where a group of friends sent food down a hole and brought back alien gold. I don't know the episode name but you'll immediately recognize it if you saw it.
There was a movie where these things came out of the television screen and though they were actors in makeup, they still had this creepy 'television energy' effect around them. I don't remember the name.
Scanners. Obvious reasons.
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Post by shawnhartnell on Dec 19, 2012 17:34:14 GMT -6
I just watched the Thundarr intro. Now I get it.
Additions: The earworm from Wrath of Khan.
The bat people from Beast Master.
Cylon and Kitt's LED eyes. As a kid there was something mystical about them.
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Post by I AM the Way on Dec 20, 2012 6:54:02 GMT -6
Indeed, no wonder I'm so weird. Hahaha. I agree, but then I'm curious as to how many impressionable youngsters watched the same things that I did and still grew up normal? I mean, how many became Lovecraftian cultists and such?
But there is something about that phenomenon - we are shaped by what we enjoyed or gravitated to as children. I was listening to some talk radio recently (the Stephanie Miller show) and a couple older (than me) adults were going on and on about some other Sid and Marty Krofft shows, aside from Land of the Lost, like Lidsville and H.R. Puffnstuff. Those weird, fantastical drug-culture tv shows really spoke to them and still had an effect on them because they went on a nostalgic rant.
I think the whole Wrath of Khan film qualifies. It's still my favorite Star Trek movie.
Yeah, the cylons from Battlestar Galactica were awesome. That red light seemed to be everywhere. Laser tag, anyone? I was kind of obsessed with robots as a young boy. Anything like that was preferable to ordinary humanity. If there was a choice between some regular looking dude action figure and an evil robot, then it was the robot every time. And if I could pretend to be a deadly cyborg rather than a man with a laser gun, then I'd be the former. I can still remember happening upon the first few He-Man toys at K-Bee one day. I believe my parents let me get 2 of them. Skeletor was a must... come on, he was a hooded skull with a purple ram's head staff. And then I think I either got Mer-Man or Beastmaster. He-Man and Man-at-arms were available, but I passed on those guys.
Speaking of Beastmaster, that film rocks. I watched it a lot growing up. I think there's something in Cthulhu Cult about that, too. The great thing about Beastmaster was that it was just scary enough to make me frightened without being so terrifying that I couldn't watch it (hello, The Thing and Thriller). Yeah, that bird race, the leaches with made those spiky armored guys so crazy, and those three hideous witches - even though they were distinctively ugly, a part of me was mildly turned on by their presence.
I still think all the zombie films from Night of the Living Dead to Return of the Living Dead 3 are amazing.
Yeah, there's at least 1 other Land of the Lost thread on here. The golden pylons, the secrets of time and space, technology to manipulate reality, ancient civilizations, glowing/humming crystals, the mageti... great stuff!
There are still a few shows, tv movies, and the like which we could talk about and still others I have vague pictures of in my head but can't really describe. One is a lot of conversation between a character or being living in a tv screen and some kid watching him. I assume the being in the tv is trying to find a way into our world, but I don't have any more to go on than that. There was a lot of talking, and something about that built slowly until I was a bit creeped out.
Hey, how about the 1985 show Otherworld with that guy from Head of the Class, Tony O'Dell? When is that coming to DVD? From imdb: Other worlds lie outside our seeing. Beyond the beyond. At the edge... of within. The Great Pyramid: erected by the ancient ones as a barricade. At the portal between two dimensions, two separate realities. This is the story of one family, drawn through a mysterious vortex into the other world -- and of their perilous trek homeward. I was 11 when that came out and it was right up my alley.
I'm down for reading about hard science backing up our emerald paradigm. Let it rain green, brother!
All in all, pretty neat thread so far...
Awake!
VS
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2012 3:40:05 GMT -6
I enjoyed the TV series "the 4th dimension" !
I don't know how it was translated, but in French it often ended with "welcome in the 4th dimension..."
Remember yourself, for the emerald kingdom is at hand !
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Post by jtellio on Mar 4, 2013 2:07:46 GMT -6
As Venger said, many 70's programmes were very innovative with their sci-fi ideas/scripts, even if production values now seem dated to a modern viewer. Dr Who often provided explanations for Earthbound mysteries; ancient symbols in Peru, for example, were attributed to the space travel of the Exillons. The over- riding concept seemed to be that time was not linear, but could be traversed at any point. Fantasy can be stimulating for young minds, and for all those who complained about the effects of horror on young children there were those who loved such shows.
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Post by Kai'zen on Mar 5, 2013 21:09:11 GMT -6
[teal]I guess I grew up a little more recently than you guys. The only title I recognised there was Under the Mountain. I didn't really get into television when I was young, I grew up a flower child and was taught to shun them as brainwashing devices.
I used to watch bootlegged Anime with my Dad a lot, but for the most part I grew up reading Philip Pullman, Frank Herbert and Philip K. Dick. My parents were a lot more open to the written word. I remember reading the Dune novels when I was six, and that left quite an impression on me to be sure.
Maybe I should go back and read some of those books again...[/teal]
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Post by shawnhartnell on Sept 8, 2013 16:32:08 GMT -6
I have to add a few shows to my list: MAX HEADROOM The MAXX Aeon Flux What struck me with the strange stick during various stages of my more malleable years wasn't so much TV as it was movies and (a few) comic books. I grew up watching horror movies because my mom was fan. Other kids were "protected". My list of movies is endless. There probably needs to be a "movies that changed me." A few more: Dark City, Night Breed (though pretentious in retrospect), anything from Dark Moon Ent. Comics: The Sandman, Shade the Changing Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Tales From The Crypt, Vault of Horror, The DC Alien Invasion, and some random one part of a 4 part story in random comic Marvel Comics Presents 4-4. And of course, Transformers. Also a few books.
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