Okay, so this kind of feels more like a social media post or update than a real blog post, but I just felt like I needed to put this out there--even if it's not the standard kind of fare I would prefer to be writing and posting.
Anyway, I seem to keep intending to write more often and more consistently. And then the posts just seem to grind to a halt. About a year ago I really thought I was committing myself to write more. And the second half of 2018 was indeed the most "successful" era of Monster Dad in about five or six years. 2019 started off the right way. I was still putting out a couple posts per month (not the four or so I'd LIKE to be putting out there, but still kinda-sorta okay). And the ideas and intention are still there. I think about writing nearly every day. Old ideas keep bubbling up from the past and new ones still pop into my head on a regular basis. I just don't seem to be able to find the time to sit down and make them real.
A big part of the reason for this is the same old story about how I'm "suffering" from the success of my YouTube channel (gschultz9) where I mostly review military rations. It's a VERY different format than what is featured on this blog, but the simple fact that there are a lot more viewers and subscribers on that channel, there is a lot more opportunity to interact with the subscribers and, well, that channel actually generates a little bit of income by making a modest amount of money via the ads that run on the videos causes that "creative outlet" to demand more of my time and energy.
I get caught up with all that's involved with keeping the YouTube channel current and relevant. Next thing I know I look at Monster Dad and realize that a WHOLE MONTH has passed since my last post! Despite the amount of time, energy and work that goes into filming, editing, posting and tracking the performance of a new video on the YouTube channel, I actually seem to find it easier to do all of that than it is to simply sit down at the keyboard and pound out a new blog post. Last year I mentioned that I was going to try to put out more content here by (even if only occasionally) posting quick and short posts that would look more like social media posts than full blog posts. There's nothing saying I CAN'T do that (a lot of others do, and it's certainly the flavor of the day in this short-attention-span-theater world we're living in). But when it got right down to it, I simply couldn't seem to get myself to throw quick and short posts up here (stuff like a photo I saw online with just a caption or something to that effect). I'm certainly not a professional writer, but whether it shows or not I've always put a lot of thought into my posts here. I always want to tell a story while hopefully being coherent and making some sense. That leads to some lengthy posts that I could certainly get away with making a LOT shorter and possibly still getting the point across, but it's just not my style. And in the end this IS my blog, right?
In addition to the envious "problem" of having to deal with a somewhat successful YouTube channel I'm also still having to deal with some other "life stuff" that also ends up taking precedence over blog writing. I don't want to bore the reader with all the details of all of this "life stuff", but a lot of it has to do with my continuing search for a new job after my extended time spent raising our Little Monsters for the past number of years. It's actually something that I think might be worth writing about itself--even if some aspects of it are kind of on the depressing side.
Obviously I'm writing this because this continuing difficulty I'm finding in getting more posts out there is bothering me. But I do want to ensure anyone who might happen to be a faithful reader (a pretty endangered species here as I've lost most of my Google cache over the past five or six years due to my lack of regular writing) that I'm STILL here and I STILL have a lot of ideas for posts that (I feel) are good and worth writing. And, yes, I'm STILL planning on writing more often...eventually. If you've stuck around this long, please continue to be patient with me. I truly do see myself as a regular blog writer (even if being a blog writer isn't as much of a "thing" as it used to be when I started doing this). I'm realizing that even just writing this little update feels like a positive thing. It still feels good to write and post something. I want to have that feeling with more worthy posts on a more regular basis. We shall see what the second half of 2019 brings to the Monster Dad world...
I do know what the actual meaning of Memorial Day is supposed to be. As a veteran of the military myself I definitely take that meaning (remembering all those that made the ultimate sacrifice for our country) seriously. At the same time I realize that changing Memorial Day from May 30th to the last Monday in May back in 1971 changed the perception and observation of the holiday. It went from being a day of somber remembrance to being the basis of a three-day weekend. The timing of that three-day weekend right at the end of May caused Memorial Day weekend to become looked at as the unofficial start of summer.
I mentioned my awareness of the true meaning of Memorial Day because now I'm going to share some of my memories of Memorial Day weekends from my youth--and those memories have little to do with the true meaning of the holiday and a lot more to do with enjoying a three-day weekend. I kind of feel bad about some of these memories and the fact that I wasn't really honoring the memory of fallen soldiers as much as I should have been. But at the same time I WAS a kid. And I WAS growing up in a time when it was still a relatively new thing to experience Memorial Day as a three-day weekend rather than a single day of remembrance.
It's worth mentioning that I wasn't a huge fan of school back in those days. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I "hated" it, but at the same time I never really WANTED to go to school. Like so many other kids throughout the years, I knew that I was supposed to go to school and didn't really have any choice or say in the matter. So I went. As a pre-schooler I'm sure each of the seven days of the week seemed pretty similar. But once I started attending school it didn't take me long to realize the importance of the weekend! The best way to put this is to mention that my absolute favorite moment of the week was usually when the bell rang at the end of the school day on Friday. Why? Well, it was because that moment marked the longest possible time before I had to go back to school! It's certainly true that Friday night and pretty much all of Saturday offered a lot of opportunities to take advantage of while NOT being in school, but that moment school got out on Friday was the most full of potential. Many (most?) weekends never actually lived up to that potential, but it always felt possible as I was heading out of the school on Friday afternoon.
So, as was the case with most people, I really liked weekends. A few more factors went into Memorial Day weekend to make it that much more special to me. First off, and most obviously, it was a THREE-DAY WEEKEND! I was guilty of not really enjoying most Sundays because I saw them as "church day" and as the day before Monday (the most hated day of the week). Now I look back and can't believe that I would sacrifice a complete day of my precious weekend by faulting it for being the day before Monday. But that wasn't the case on a three-day weekend. Sunday became kind of like a second Saturday on those weekends. And then Monday lost its sting as the worst day of the week because there was no school. All of that set up one more interesting bonus of the three-day weekend--the fact that there were only FOUR more school days until the next Friday instead of the usual five. That's a lot of good reasons to really appreciate getting a three-day weekend.
But there's still more! That whole "unofficial start of summer" thing meant a lot to me too. The weather was generally getting REALLY nice by the end of May. New England has pretty long, and sometimes pretty tough winters. It can take a while for spring to really take hold. But by Memorial Day you can definitely tell that you're getting quite close to summer and all that it has to offer a student who can't wait for it to start. At school the windows would frequently be open on very warm days. You could see, feel, smell and hear summer right outside the classroom. It became harder and harder to remain studious and pay attention as the weather got nicer and nicer. By the time Memorial Day rolled around you knew that the end was near. It would be the last scheduled day off from school and you knew that there were only a couple (or at most a few) more weeks before it would officially be the end of the school year and the beginning of summer vacation.
We now have the parameters of what made Memorial Day so special for me: it was a weekend, it was a three-day weekend, it was generally a summer-like three-day weekend. But the true reason for me to be writing about my Memorial Day memories, and why they remain so special to me all these years later comes in some of the specific details that filled in the framework of the three-day weekend. Let's go over some of these details (some large and some on the small side) that really made Memorial day so special and memorable.
First off was something that happened at school on Friday. Before that awesome feeling triggered by the ringing of the bell on Friday afternoon we would have the annual Memorial Day assembly. While I might not have gotten quite as much of the true meaning of the holiday as maybe I should have, there were two parts of the weekend (one at the beginning and one at the end) that did remind me of the true meaning. The first was that assembly. It was actually special for two reasons: it helped give me at least SOME appreciation for the real meaning of the holiday, AND it meant that I didn't have to go to the final class or two at the end of the last day of the week before the three-day weekend. In a way this seemed to extend the weekend just a little bit longer! Sure, I was still in the school building until the normal time of release. But during that time I was sitting in the auditorium being meaningfully entertained instead of sitting in a classroom wishing the clock would move faster and the final bell would ring.
Once I finally was free from school I do have to admit to not really having too many memories of the Fridays and Saturdays of most of the Memorial Days of my youth. I'm sure I enjoyed them just as much as any other Fridays and Saturdays (maybe even a bit more than usual because of the knowledge that the weekend wouldn't end after Sunday). But the most special memories of that weekend come from Sunday and Monday. I've written before about the strange phenomenon of having my family do something possibly only once or twice, but feeling like it was a long-standing "tradition" that we'd ALWAYS do (like New Year's Eve parties and vacations on Cape Cod that it seemed like we would do every year, but they may only have happened a couple of times in reality). Well, one of those things that to me felt like a long-standing tradition was a Memorial Day weekend cookout at the home of my sister and brother-in-law. There probably isn't a more stereotypical way to NOT honor the memory of the fallen on Memorial Day weekend than a nice cookout with family and friends. But at the same time it certainly is a great way to welcome summer.
The cookout was always great, but there was another thing that beckoned on those Sundays before Memorial Day. I was never a big sports fan as a kid (which I'm sure would come to a pretty big surprise to people that have only known me as an adult). I was not very interested in cars either. But that didn't stop me from really enjoying another traditional part of Memorial Day weekend--The Indianapolis 500! My sister's house was close enough to ours that once I was old enough I could walk or ride my bike between the two. I recall leaving the cookout a little early to get home in time to watch the Indy 500 (or at least a chunk of it). As I mentioned, I wasn't really into sports or cars. So why was the Indy 500 so important to me? Well, it's time for another confession. Just as I didn't really celebrate the true meaning of Memorial Day as a kid, I also didn't really watch the Indy 500 for the race itself. As wrong as it might sound, I was more interested in seeing the crashes. The reason I can admit that is the fact that I know that I wasn't the only one who watched for that reason. I mean, unless you're a REAL racing fan, watching cars zoom around a track for a few hours (and 500 miles) can get a bit boring. The start of the race, the end of the race and a couple moments of drama in the middle as leaders pass each other and jockey for position are really the most interesting parts. But the sometimes spectacular crashes made it REALLY interesting! Of course I didn't hope for any of the drivers to get maimed or killed or anything like that. I knew there were drivers inside the vehicles, but I suppose I kind of tried to think of it as just machines careening into each other.
Anyway, watching the Indy 500 introduces another element of my youth that I probably should mention here. It would be easy enough for me to deny this, but let's be honest...TV was kind of an important part of my life as a kid. The fact that Memorial Day weekend generally coincided with really nice weather did mean that I was likely to be spending a lot of my free time outside--riding my bike, going to the Town Park, hanging out in the woods behind my house... But there's no doubt that I'd also find the time to watch TV at some point during the weekend. The most obvious time to be watching would be Sunday night. At the time when I'd normally be getting ready to go to bed so I could get up for school Monday morning I would be likely to be checking out one of the big networks' (ABC, NBC, CBS) Sunday Night Movie. Since it was Memorial Day weekend, that movie would probably be worth watching. It was a nice option to switch to if the latter part of the Indy 500 was getting kind of boring. While I can't say I have too many specific memories of watching a Sunday Night Movie on a Memorial Day weekend, there is definitely one. It's tough to know what year it was, but I do recall watching the Chevy Chase/Goldie Hawn film "Foul Play" (1978) in the early 1980s. The memory of the cookout in the afternoon and then watching the Indy 500 and "Foul Play" is kind of etched into my memory.
The final special thing about my childhood Memorial Day weekend memories was on Memorial Day itself. And, like the assembly at school that started off the weekend three days before, this was one of the few examples of me actually observing the real reason for Memorial Day. Of course, simply not having to be at school on a Monday was pretty exciting in itself. But since it was finally Memorial Day that meant I could walk down to our town Common to watch the Memorial Day parade! Man, that sounds so 1950s small town, doesn't it? But it was reality. That was something I really looked forward to. And it's kind of nice to think that the long weekend would end with something that actually had to do with the real reason we were having a three-day weekend in the first place. At the end of the parade, which featured the high school band and a number of veterans (including a few World War I veterans in my earliest memories), there would be a ceremony on the Common that included some speeches, some patriotic music and a firing squad shooting off a salute with their rifles followed by the playing of Taps. It was a great way to finish up the weekend the right way, in the true spirit of Memorial Day. I remember at least one year when I was able to grab one of the empty blank shells after the salute as a souvenir.
That's pretty much what I wanted to share as far as my childhood memories of Memorial Day, but there is still one more thing that I always enjoyed about that weekend. You could kind of call this the "soundtrack" of the holiday. Back in the early 1980s (possibly earlier as well, but I mostly remember it from the 80s) radio stations would mark the weekend by playing what they dubbed "The Memorial Day 500" (a la the Indianapolis 500). Starting on Friday they would play what they decided were the top 500 Rock and or Pop songs of all time. The list was very subjective of course, and would vary greatly depending on which channel you chose to listen to. I remember hearing it on channels like 92 Pro-FM out of Providence and 103.3 WHTT out of Boston. There was a part of me that kind of wanted to hear the whole 500 song countdown (and I believe some of the channels that played it would send you a list if you sent thm a SASE). Obviously I never heard the entire countdown (it ran 24 hours a day during the long weekend) and I don't even know if they were actually able to play ALL 500 of the songs. Either way, during our family cookout and throughout the rest of my adventures during those Memorial Day weekends I always enjoyed hearing the countdown whenever I could and tried to keep track of it as best I could. While I consider the Memorial Day 500 to be a part of the past, a little research online seems to show that there are STILL channels around the country that have continued the traditional countdown of the 500 greatest songs of all time every year!
Memorial Day is indeed an important holiday. It carries a much heavier message than many others that we celebrate. But it also does act as a great way to welcome the beginning of summer (even if that's not SUPPOSED to be the reason for it). It really did mean a lot to me as a kid for a lot of reasons. Heck, just look at how long this post ended up being. Seems like I could have said what I wanted to say in a few paragraphs, but there were just too many details that went together to make up the whole experience. I could have probably written at least a few more paragraphs, but for the sake of (relative) brevity let's end it here. I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend and that you were able to take a moment to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that you have the right to enjoy the weekend however you want!
May 4th has become known as Star Wars Day in recent years. The date seems to be a bit arbitrary, especially considering that Star Wars premiered on May 25, 1977. But there is a very entertaining reason for it to be on May 4. Basically it allows one to say "May the fourth be with you" (as in a play on "May the Force be with you").
I've written about the day once before, in 2017, and as embarrassing as it might be to admit it, at the time I actually thought that it WAS the date of the anniversary. After writing the post May the 4th be With You I realized my mistake and now I'm fully onboard with the celebration.
There are all kinds of nods and references to Star Wars Day both online and offline. Many stores, companies and websites celebrate it in all sorts of clever ways--from promotions and big sales to tie-ins and parodies. I generally get quite a few Star Wars Day-related items in my email inbox around this time of year. In 2017 I took advantage of 80s Tees' (80stees.com) "May The One-Fourth Be With You" sale--where nearly all of their Star Wars shirts and other items were 75% off (one-fourth of regular price)! That sale was simply too good miss, and I DID make a few purchases that day.
This year, my favorite example of a non-Star Wars site hopping on the Star Wars Day bandwagon would probably have to be Kellyco Metal Detectors (I used to be kind of into metal detectors, and despite the fact that I had to sell mine a number of years ago when we moved I still get emails from Kellyco). One of the manufacturers of metal detectors they sell is Nokta/Makro, and that company has a line of detectors called FORS. So, yes, Kellyco is having a "May the FORS be with You" sale! Might be tough to beat that one this year!
I've decided to write about Star Wars Day again this year for a couple of reasons (not that you really NEED a reason to celebrate Star Wars any day of the year, of course!). The first reason is a rather somber one. This Star Wars Day is kind of overshadowed by the recent death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who portrayed Chewbacca in all of the Star Wars movies between the original ("A Hew Hope") in 1977 right through "The Force Awakens" in 2015. And that also includes most of the peripheral Star Wars-related productions and appearances from that period--including the infamous "The Star Wars Holiday Special" in 1978. He only recently retired and handed the reins of Chewie over to Joonas Suotamo for the past few Disney-produced Star Wars films.
There's no denying that, despite the fact that we never really saw Peter Mayhew himself, he was indeed a very important and integral part of the Star Wars legend, and will be greatly missed. Here are some quotes from StarWars.com about Peter:
My second major reason for writing about Star Wars Day once again is a happier one, and actually doesn't really even have anything to do with Star Wars itself. May 4th falls on a Saturday this year. It's the first Saturday in May, and the the first Saturday of May also just happens to be the date of Free Comic Book Day!
The two days are pretty much unrelated, but either one of them on their own is a good reason for a grown-up Monster Kid like myself to celebrate. Having them both occur on the same day makes it just that much more special. I took the Little Monsters to our local comic book store for the occasion, and one of the free comics I was able to pick up seemed very apropos of the day (Free Comic Book Day, Star Wars AND Chewie all in one image!):
***Note: some photos in this post are shared without permission from the Mahoning's website and Facebook page (but hopefully they won't mind!)***
The Mahoning Drive-In Theater in Lehighton, PA opens for the 2019 season on Friday, April 26. There are many reasons that this fact is a good thing, an amazing thing and even kind of an historical thing. Please allow me to explain.
The Mahoning was built in 1948. That would seem to indicate that LAST year was a year to celebrate (being the 70th anniversary and all). And, in fact, I DID write a post about the theater last year for that precise reason (The Mahoning Drive-In Theater), but then was subsequently schooled about the fact that, while the drive-in was BUILT in 1948, it actually OPENED for its first season in 1949. So NOW we can finally celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Mahoning as an operating drive-in! It's also worth mentioning that it has been in CONTINUOUS operation for that entire time (and still uses the same 35mm projectors that were installed when it opened)! Of course, the fact that it opened in 1949 means that 2019 marks it's 71st season in operation, but we'll stick with focusing on the 70th anniversary for this post...
In a time when drive-ins have become an endangered species this survival story is very impressive. In the 1950s there were over 4,000 drive-in theaters in the United States. Today there are only about 300 left. Keeping the remaining theaters alive is really a labor of love. A number of years back Hollywood announced that all theaters (including drive-ins) would have to convert from 35mm projectors to digital projectors if they wanted to continue getting the latest films--which would no longer be produced on film and only be available in a digital format. The decline of drive-ins really sped up with this ultimatum. Many drive-ins are seasonal and are only open for six months a year at most. Very few were in a position to suddenly shovel out the $50,000-$70,000 or so that it would take to convert them to digital projection (which includes not only new, expensive projectors, but also costly upgrades to the projection booth). For many theaters this was the final nail in the coffin and the excuse for the owners to finally throw in the towel.
The Mahoning was in the exact same position as hundreds of other drive-ins. There was no realistic way for them to raise the funds necessary to stay in business. That could have easily been the end of the story. The drive-in could have closed and the land could have been sold off to make another strip mall or housing development--both of which would undoubtedly be much more profitable options for the land. But the people behind the Mahoning made a bold and daring decision. They passed on buying the digital projectors and instead switched to an all-retro format featuring older 35mm prints of movies rather than the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Instead of projecting digital images onto the screen the Mahoning would continue to project 35mm film images from the same projectors that have been in the projection booth since it was built in 1948! This was a very exciting prospect for old movie fans (by "old movie fans" I'm referring to fans of old movies, but I suppose it also applies to old people, like myself, who happen to be fans of movies too). But it's also something that might be just a bit tough to sell to the average drive-in customer who is used to seeing the latest releases up on the screen rather than old movies that they could throw on the DVD player and watch at home.
I'm not going to say that this process was easy, or that it was an overnight success. While they didn't have to hand over all that money for the digital projectors, they did lose the opportunity to get all the new movies that would allow for a steady, predictable cash flow. They also lost the relatively automatic pipeline that those movies would come through. The old 35mm movies might seem like a cheaper option, but they still need to be tracked down, found, rented and acquired before a show could go on. This is NOT an easy process by any means. But the Mahoning was all in. Starting with the 2015 season they began screening retro shows. It wasn't just random films from the old days though. They put a lot of work and thought into producing themed shows that made the experience something special. They started a new tradition that year by opening the season with a double feature of "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) and "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971). This Friday those same beloved classics will open up the 2019 season as well.
Business wasn't "great" for the first couple of seasons and the operators actually didn't even pay themselves. All of the money generated was put right back into the drive-in and the movies. But they began to develop a following of fans who spread the word. Now people come from all over the country to attend the great themed shows and see films they may love but have never had the opportunity to see on a giant screen. And that screen IS huge. It's actually the largest one in Pennsylvania and one of the largest remaining in the whole country!
Some of the themes from over the past few years have included the Vampyrty (vampire movies), Zombiefest (zombies, duh!), Bite Night ("Jaws" and "Jurassic Park"), Drive-In VHS Fest (which features, yes, old VHS tapes projected onto the screen rather than 35mm films!) and retrospectives of the works of some great directors and actors like John Carpenter, Martin Scorsese and Bill Murray. There are also double-, triple- and sometimes quadruple-features of films from series like "Ghostbusters", "Indiana Jones" and "Harry Potter".
This is really just the tip of the iceberg. The theme weekends also include special custom posters featuring great artwork specific to that show, special menu items, special displays of memorabilia and props from many of the films being shown, vendors, special guests, director Q&As, contests, promotions and giveaways. It all makes for a great experience for the film fan!
As if all this weren't enough (a drive-in celebrating its 70th anniversary AND a great story of a successful rebranding and rebirth as an all-retro theater) there's one more thing to celebrate as the Mahoning opens up for another season. A few years ago a team of filmmakers was looking to create a documentary on drive-ins. Once they found the Mahoning they decided to focus on it and its story for the film. The final product is the documentary "At The Drive-In", and after some wait and a number of premieres around the country it has finally been released and is available for purchase on DVD and in digital format (rental or purchase)! You can get it at Amazon, Amazon Prime and iTunes.
Here's the trailer for the film:
I can't finish this story without sharing yet another hardship that the Mahoning has had to face in its journey recently. I mentioned earlier that all of the money from the first few seasons went directly back into the drive-in rather than paying the people who run it. That's a difficult way to run a business, but it's just what they had to do in order to keep the Mahoning alive. If that weren't hard enough, the past couple seasons have given them even MORE opportunities to spend money they really don't have. In the winter of 2018 a storm heavily damaged the theater's marquee sign. It had to be repaired and restored in time for last season. And then this past winter brought another expensive repair challenge to the Mahoning. A wind storm heavily damaged another of the property's few structural features. And this time it was THE most important one--the screen! A GoFundMe page has been set up to help pay for the repairs.
I've only been able to attend a few of the Mahoning's shows, but consider myself very lucky to have been able to go whenever possible. I live in Massachusetts, so it's a bit of a long ride to go all the way to Pennsylvania to go to a drive-in. Luckily I have a friend who lives even further away (New Hampshire) who goes nearly every weekend and has become part of the Mahoning's extended family. He has brought me along when time and circumstance has allowed me to attend. I've seen three shows over the course of the first four seasons of the Mahoning's new format: an Indiana Jones double feature in 2015, an awesome show called Bigfoot Weekend that featured SIX old Bigfoot films mostly from the 1970s in 2017 (which I wrote about in this post and this post) and VHS Fest II in 2018. I would LOVE to get to a couple more shows this year (Godzilla-Palooza is VERY high on the wish list), but time will tell. The good news is that the Mahoning has continuously increased its audience and reach. As far as I know it's THE all-retro drive-in theater at this point. Other places put on occasional shows and special events, but mostly still feature the latest Hollywood releases (not that there's anything wrong with that!).
Thirty-eight years ago tonight the television show "The Greatest American Hero" premiered on ABC. Interestingly enough, just one night earlier I had purchased my first cassette tape recorder (an event covered in this recent blog post). That might not sound like anything all that amazing, but you have to remember that in 1981 I was an eleven year old boy, and there were no such things as the Internet and smart phones. Heck, my household wouldn't even get our first VCR (video cassette recorder for you young folks) for another four years and it would be about the same amount of time before cable TV finally came to my little hometown. So March 17th and 18th of 1981 were a real one-two punch of entertainment value for me.
From TV Guide
The cover of the TV Week section of the Worcester Telegram from Sunday, March 15, 1981 featuring William Katt and Connie Sellecca
I can't say that I really knew much (if anything) about the show before it aired. It's not like I had read all about it online and was eagerly awaiting the premiere. But at the same time, with a name like "The Greatest American Hero" I was bound to tune in--and I did. It certainly didn't disappoint. And while the show is now readily available on DVD and streaming sources, I'm very happy that I have a couple little snippits from the pilot episode on an ancient cassette tape which I recorded that very night with my brand-new tape recorder!
The same model of GE tape recorder that I had just purchased
The actual first-ever tape that I used on March 18, 1981!
"The Greatest American Hero" quickly became one of my favorite shows of that time (along with stuff like "The Dukes of Hazzard", "The Incredible Hulk", "The Fall Guy" (which would premiere later in 1981) and the Tom Baker era of "Doctor Who" (which PBS was airing at the time). It couldn't really have come out at a better time for me. If I had been much younger or older than eleven I don't know if it would have really hit the sweet spot for me. But it did, and I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Ralph Hinkley (William Katt), FBI agent Bill Maxwell (Robert Culp) and "Councilor" Pam Davidson (Connie Sellecca).
And what wasn't there to love about the show? Along with the silly but engaging concept of a curly-haired, regular-guy high school teacher being chosen by aliens to wear a suit that granted him superpowers (which he could never completely master because he lost the instruction manual) who was compelled to work alongside a brash FBI agent, the show is also memorable for its theme song. "Believe it or Not" (written by Mike Post and sung by Joey Scarbury) was not only a great 1980s TV show theme, it ended up becoming a major hit on the radio (reaching number 2 in the Billboard Hot 100) and still remains a very familiar and recognizable all-time song from the 80s.
Unfortunately the show only lasted for three seasons. And to be honest I think I actually stopped watching before it even ended. It's not really clear why I seem to have lost interest, or what show(s) might have become a replacement for me, but I can't say that even remember when it went off the air. Nevertheless, along with seemingly countless other shows from my youth, "The Greatest American Hero" remains an all-time favorite in my heart. I was able to introduce The Little Monsters to the show on DVD a number of years back and was thrilled to see that they really liked it (again, what's not to like?). We watched quite a few episodes together and I had a very proud moment when we were at Disney World a few years ago and one morning when we were just waking up in our resort room the girls started singing. But despite being in the land of Disney, with all of its catchy tunes that have been drilled into kids brains for generations (including the songs from "Frozen"--which was still a huge hit at the time), The Monsters were singing "Believe it or Not"! Appropriately enough they had also sung the song earlier, on the plane as we were flying to Florida (walking on air indeed!).
There's been talk about a remake or reboot of "The Greatest American Hero" for a number of years, but as of now (March 2019) nothing has really come together. Apparently in 2017-18 there were plans for an Indian-American woman to don the super suit in a new version of the show, but ABC declined to pick it up. We will have to see if anything materializes on that front. I'm not really sure how I'd feel about a new and different take on the show, but it would certainly be interesting to see! You can read a whole lot more about "The Greatest American Hero" at its Wikipedia page.
On a final note, and to show just how much the show meant/means to me, back in 2010 I attended the annual Rock and Shock show in Worcester, Massachusetts. One of the guests that year was none other than William Katt! I don't know where the autograph that I got from him that day is (lost in deep storage somewhere), but I was also able to get a photograph with the man himself. It was a highlight of the day, and remains a very cool memory for me.
Believe it or not, that's me with William Katt!
After The Little Monsters had developed an interest in "The Greatest American Hero" I remembered this photo and decided to impress them with it. "Check out who your papa met a few years ago!" Well, I do think that they were somewhat impressed, but at the same time they also seemed to have a little bit of trouble with the concept that the show had originally aired around thirty years earlier. The Little Monster's reaction was something to the effect of "He looks kind of...old." Well, after thirty-eight years, don't we all?
From William Katt's Facebook Page
HAPPY 38th BIRTHDAY TO THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO!
Where were you on March 17, 1981? Considering we're talking about a date that was thirty-eight years ago it's likely that many people who might see this were not even born yet. But Monster Dad WAS around way back then (though still just an eleven year old Monster Kid at the time). Tuesday, March 17, 1981 seems to have been a pretty quiet news day, historically speaking. Of course it was Saint Patrick's Day. That's something. But the holiday had nothing to do with why that seemingly random date was/is so important to me personally.
March 17, 1981 was the day that I got my first tape cassette recorder! Does that NOT sound very important? Does that NOT sound very interesting? Does it seem that I'm making some sort of joke rather than relating a story about an actual "Important Date in History"? Well, it WAS an extremely important and influential thing for my eleven year old self. Please allow me to explain why.
In 1981 there was no such thing as the Internet (at least not what we think of today as the Internet). There was no such thing as streaming video. There weren't even DVDs and Blu-ray discs (two relatively recent technologies that are already looking like endangered species). Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) were around, but they were still a relatively new (and extremely expensive) consumer product. We didn't get our first VCR until four years later in 1985. But something that WAS available--and relatively affordable--was the humble cassette recorder.
One of my older sisters (I was the youngest of nine kids in my family) had a tape recorder and I remember thinking that it was so cool that you could record your own voice, songs off the radio or anything else that you wanted to, as long as it made an audible sound. My sister would allow my nephews and I use her tape recorder to make little newscasts and other such things. The only topic I remember "reporting" on was the 1980 Summer Olympics and the fact that the U.S. was going to boycott them. While I don't recall many details of what we recorded on her machine, I do recall that the experience made me REALLY want to have my very own tape recorder! It was like a way to capture something that would normally simply happen and then recede into the depths of the past, never to be heard from again. Recording "stuff" on a cassette tape had an almost magical element to it. To me it seemed kind of like the idea of explorers finding a primitive tribe in the jungle and having the natives think that there were tiny people in the explorers' radios, or that their cameras would steal the souls of the tribe members if their pictures were taken. Am I building this up too much? Maybe so, but hopefully you can get an idea of why it seemed so important to me to acquire a cassette recorder of my very own--especially in this age of ubiquitous smart phones that can do seemingly anything and have more computing power than the entire space program that put man on the moon (or so I've heard).
There were a few times when my parents took me on special trips to purchase pretty important and special things. My first bicycle was one of those times. In addition to going to the store where the item could be purchased we would usually have dinner out and/or see a movie to really make it an event. The purchase of my first tape recorder was one of those events. I'm not sure why it was done on a Tuesday night (a school night!), but in doing some research on microfilm some years back I was able to find the ad from the Sunday newspaper that featured the tape recorder I wanted to purchase (a General Electric Model 3-5091)--and it was on sale too! I suppose that if I saw that ad on Sunday and made my pleas to my parents they might have agreed to make our little shopping trip on Tuesday (even if only to quiet my incessant and annoying pleading).
I remember going to the store to look for and buy the tape recorder, but there does seem to be some discrepancy between my memory and the physical evidence. The newspaper ad I found was for a sale at Caldor's, but I recall going to a Kmart. It doesn't really matter all that much, except for the fact that the two stores were a similar distance from our town--but in opposite directions. Either way, I did indeed spend my saved up allowance money on the treasured piece of technology, as well as a pack of three cassettes (the recorder would be pretty useless without some tapes, right?). I don't recall what restaurant (if any) we went to that night, but I do remember going to the movies to see "The Incredible Shrinking Woman". And that memory seems to be correct because the film was released on January 30, so it was very likely to have still been in theaters on March 17.
We returned home at what I'm guessing must have been a relatively decent hour (as mentioned earlier, it WAS a school night). That would more or less seem to end the story of this "Important Date in History", except for the fact that I just HAD to try out my new toy when I got home! It would be unreasonable to think that I'd simply be able to go to sleep while the tape recorder sat around waiting for me sleep peacefully through the night, go to school the next morning and come home after school to open it up. No, I took it out of the box and put the batteries and a cassette into it and... This is probably the most interesting part of the story because it's the first thing to really go wrong in this adventure. I knew exactly how to use the machine. It is a pretty simple, self-explanatory thing to operate, and I imagine that it was quite similar to the one my sister had. But the one thing I wasn't prepared for was the leader tape--which is about five seconds worth of non-recordable tape at the beginning and end of each cassette.
My very first cassette tape!
That seems like such a natural thing now, though quite possibly a completely foreign concept to all the millennials and other young folks out there who might never have seen or used a cassette tape. But these were the very first cassette tapes I had ever owned myself, so it was a pretty new concept to me. Anyway, to test it out I very excitedly pressed the Record and Play buttons to start recording and said something into the microphone (maybe "Testing, testing, one, two, three"?). Then I pressed Stop, Rewind and Play to hear my first-ever recording on my brand new tape recorder. But all that played was a bunch of silence. I must have done something wrong! So I tried it again and got the same result. Okay, let's check the volume control. Yup, that's turned up about halfway, should be fine. Let's make sure I'm pressing the right buttons. Yup, according to the owners manual that should be fine too. I made a third attempt and...nothing. The machine was getting power, the tape was moving, but I was still hearing NOTHING! And the hour was getting late. It was starting to look like maybe I got a defective tape recorder. Would I have to make my parents bring me all the way back to the store to get a replacement or refund? Would I need to send it away by mail to be repaired and then have to wait 6 to 8 weeks to be able to make my first recording? Why couldn't anything be easy?
I went to bed frustrated and confused. Somehow I managed to get some sleep, and at some point the next day I was able to figure out what I was doing wrong (basically not waiting about five seconds for the leader tape to pass through the recording head before talking) and I was FINALLY able to start recording to my heart's content. So that's pretty much the story of Tuesday, March 17, 1981--the day I bought (but wasn't able to use) my very first tape recorder. The actual recording part had to wait until after school on March 18th, and the recording part is REALLY what makes getting the device on the 17th such a defining moment for me. My tape recorder pretty much became the most important thing in my life for quite some time. There was the "new toy" novelty of the first few days and weeks. But that novelty never seemed to wear off. I didn't really have a plan for exactly HOW I wanted to use my tape recorder, or exactly WHAT I wanted to record. So I basically started to record EVERYTHING that I could! I would talk into the microphone (basically using it like a journal to either talk about something that had happened, or to recap what had just been recorded on the tape). I would record songs off the radio. I would take it outside and record the sound of me playing outside (an audio version of "Reality TV" in a way). My nephew (who got a tape recorder of his own soon after) and I would record shows--including our favorite one which we called "The Burp Show" (can you guess what that was about?). I would attempt to make various "sound effects" through experimentation. And I would tape audio from the TV. That may seem like kind of a pointless exercise since you couldn't SEE what was going on, but it ended up being probably the most important part of my recording activities for the next few years. I spent many, many hours sitting in front of the TV with my tape recorder propped up against the little speaker and my fingers on the Record, Play and Stop buttons. March 17th of 1981 was like any other day for the most part, with the exception of having one of those special nights with my parents and the purchase of a new tape recorder. But that purchase had such an effect on me for the next several years that I do feel the date is a very important one in history (even if it's only MY own personal history).
My tape recorder remained one of my favorite (maybe my MOST favorite) possessions for a long time. It was in almost constant use for about four years (the recording of TV audio came to an abrupt stop once we got our first VCR in 1985). Four years may not seem like all that long of a period of time, but to a ten-year-old four years is an eternity! I really used the heck out of that little tape recorder and eventually had to buy another one once it showed serious signs of decline. I attempted to replace it with a cheap, made-in-China knockoff unit I bought at a flea market and was so disappointed in its performance that my old GE was taken out of retirement and pressed back into service once again. But eventually it really did start to fail. To the best of my knowledge it was still working when I finally pressed Stop on it for the very last time.
But the old machine was never actually thrown away, and I was able to find it at my parents' house about nine or ten years ago. It was in remarkably bad condition--the battery cover was missing, the tape compartment cover was broken and it was dingy and covered with dust. But I had hope that it might still work. I had also managed to find the vast majority of my old tapes that had been recorded over those four or so years and wanted to listen to them on the same machine that had been used to record them. Unfortunately time and neglect really hadn't been kind to my old friend, and while it still seemed to get power with a fresh set of batteries, it simply was no longer capable of playing any tapes (much less recording on them). Because it had meant so much to me for so long I still wasn't able to throw it out. Showing it here would probably be the best way to end this post (even if I couldn't say that I was able to repair it), but after moving and selling our house in recent years the tape recorder is now somewhere among stacks of stuff in a storage unit that I don't access very often. But there IS still one more chapter to this story, and it will have to wait a little longer to be told...
Okay, so I suppose it's time for a little confession. This is one of those things that I could have never mentioned here and nobody would have been any the wiser. But lately I've been writing some things that are ever so slightly on the more personal side. I've talked about a couple embarrassing moments that I had never shared before (Reliving an Embarrassing Moment from My Youth, That New Year's Eve When I Washed My Own Mouth Out With Soap). In that new spirit of openness and sharing I suppose it's time to risk any credibility I may have had within certain circles by admitting that, yes, I watched "Beverly Hills 90210". Actually, if we're being completely honest here, I didn't just watch it. For a time I might even go so far as to say that I loved the show. There, it's out. Now we can get on with other things. For instance, why am I writing this sudden "confession"? Well, Luke Perry, one of the stars of "Hills" (as my friends and I called the show) died today at the age of 52 after suffering what was described as a "massive stroke" last week.
When "Beverly Hills 90210" premiered in October of 1990 I was a little bit older than what I'd expect the target demographic probably was. I graduated from high school three years earlier and was a "young adult". I don't think I was even aware of the show until a few weeks or months later when it really exploded as a mega-hit among the teeny-bopper crowd. At the time my little group of friends used to hang out pretty much every day after work or school or whatever we had to do during the day. We sometimes got out and did stuff (going to a movie, restaurant, music store...), but a lot of the time we'd just all hang out together and have a good time. I remember the topic of "Beverly Hills 90210" coming up and we would routinely put the show down and make fun of it. None of us watched it, and I don't think any of us had any interest in it (despite what I said in my confession above). But then something strange happened over the next year or so. We actually started watching the show a few times. At first we thought we'd simply tune in to make fun of it and see what all the fuss was about. But then, without realizing it, we started to find ourselves getting into the characters, storylines and all the drama. Suddenly we needed to see what was going to happen next (I suppose this is how people get sucked in to soap operas, and this very much WAS a soap opera for a younger crowd). Before we knew it, we were hooked. Even when we started seeing each other less because of different commitments and general life changes over time we would make a point of getting together every Wednesday for "Hills Night". We may not have had anything in common with the characters of the show, but we did kind of feel like they were "friends" of ours anyway, and it seemed like we were all growing together and sharing our life experiences together. Granted the life experiences of good-looking, fictional young adults growing up in Beverly Hills were quite a bit different and more exciting than the life experiences my real friends and I were going through (which I suppose is part of the reason we wanted to be "friends" with the Beverly Hills kids in the first place), but we were still drawn to them week after week. Through all the cast changes and twists and turns we remained loyal to our pals from 90210 and then felt a sense of loss when the show finally ended.
Now that I've explained my own personal relationship with "Beverly Hills 90210" it's time to get back to the untimely passing of Luke Perry. It's the kind of celebrity death that I wouldn't have expect to hear--and also wouldn't have expected to hit me very hard. I suppose it's kind of a two-fold thing though. First off, it was very much unexpected and seemingly came out of nowhere. While I wasn't exactly keeping tabs on him, Mr. Perry was apparently doing pretty well for himself recently. I didn't realize that he was currently starring on the show "Riverdale". So the news of his massive stroke was pretty shocking. You never know who the "Fickle Finger of Fate" will choose to point at, but Luke Perry is someone I wouldn't have had in my Death Pool, if I had one. Wondering if and how he was going to recover from his stroke was already on my mind when I heard this morning that he had passed away.
The second part of the shock was the fact that he was only 52. I remember the ridicule that "Beverly Hills 90210" endured when it first came on because of the advanced age of some of its "teenaged" stars, who were in fact very much adults at the time. As I mentioned, I was also a bit older than the main target audience of the show. And as it turns out Luke Perry, who was in his early 20s when the show started, was only about three years older than me. Which means that this is not only another completely random, gone-too-soon celebrity death, but the celebrity that died in this case suffered a "massive stroke" and was only three years older than me! THAT really makes this story hit home, regardless of what roles Luke was known for in his acting career and what I may or may not have thought of him.
All of this brings us to another really strange thing about the timing of Luke's death. The news of his stroke broke at almost the exact time as the announcement of a new show starring most of the original cast of "Beverly Hills 90210". The show had already been rebooted a number of years ago. That version of the show had a new cast of youthful actors (kind of like "Beverly Hills: The Next Generation"), with a couple members of the original cast reprising their old roles in a few episodes. But this new show is going to feature the original cast. And instead of being a straight-up reboot or continuation it sounds like it's going to be kind of a mockumentary-type show where the actors actually play "exaggerated versions" of themselves looking to pull off some sort of reboot of the show.
Most of the cast has apparently signed on to the project. The only notable exceptions being Luke Perry and Shannen Doherty. Luke was busy with "Riverdale" and Shannen is, well, Shannen. Apparently the door was left open for them to join in on the fun if they wanted to and if their schedules allowed. Obviously all that has changed now, and Luke will not be a part of the show. I feel kind of bad about the fact that there's really no way for his death to not have some sort of effect on the new show. Even though he wasn't slated to be a part of it, it seems like his death casts a shadow over the whole project. And now I'm wondering if they might even find a way to write it into the show. What would be a better reason for the "exaggerated versions" of the original cast to want to get together to do a reboot than the passing of one of their own? Time will tell...
