Retro Thing

Superman - Heroic Animation That Still Astonishes Today

In the early 40s, Superman was a big hit in the comics and on the radio. Paramount held the rights to bring the Man of Steel to the silver screen, but they knew it would be expensive and difficult to depict Superman's amazing abilities in live action. They turned instead to Fleischer Studios, the animation studio run by brothers Max & Dave Fleischer and home of Betty Boop and Popeye. The Fleischers were slowing production of Betty Boop cartoons, thanks to the Hayes Code (an early form of movie content censorship) which demanded that the Fleischers cool down what they viewed as Boop's salacious antics. Superman could be another hit for their studio, a technical showcase for amazing new animation effects work, and of course the chance to work in dazzling full Technicolor.

The Fleischers feared that a Superman cartoon might be TOO significant a challenge to bring to life. It wasn't impossible, of course, but the difficulty also stemmed from having a studio staff much more accustomed to drawing funny bouncy animal characters. Hoping to spook Paramount, the Fleischers budgeted the first Superman cartoon at an unheard of $100,000 - many times greater thant the cost of any theatrical short. Surprisingly Paramount didn't flinch. They so wanted to cash in on the Superman craze that they negotiated the Fleischers down to $50,000 for the pilot film, and $30,000 per monthly episode (nearly $450,000 in today's money, and twice what it cost to make a Popeye cartoon).

Superman's Black-And-White Flights On The Silver Screen

Many mere mortals think that the 2013 Superman movie is the character's sixth outing on the silver screen, but the Krytptonian hero has found his way onto the big (and small!) screen many times over the last 75 years.

1948 marks the first live-action movie appearance of Superman. This was in a 15 part black and white serialized adventure simply called "Superman". Serials were played at movie matinées, with each installment ending in a cliffhanger to goad audiences back the following week to see the resolution. Serials were churned out as cheapies to fill out the bill with feature films, and even a big name character like Superman was no exception. The character's flight was depicted through cost-effective cartoon animation.

One funny consequence of this hybrid animation approach is that it worked relatively well for depicting takeoffs, but not landings. The footage transitions between live-action Superman on the ground to animated Superman taking to the air fairly well. But landings were so difficult to animate that Superman lands behind cars and buildings an awful lot. Better yet, he seems to often overshoot where he's going, disappears out of camera range, just so he can run back into frame. Oh, and Superman flies past the same rocky hill in every installment.

It's An 8-Bit Bird... It's A Blocky Plane... It's... It's... Atari 2600 Superman!

In 1979, the Atari 2600 wasn't quite the mega-hit we all think of. That would came in 1980 with the release of Space Invaders for the console. In '79 the system was only two years old with about 30 available games (yes, I'm including Fun With Numbers and Basic Programming in that count). For the first time that year, there was other console competition in the form of Odyssey and Intellivision, so it was time for Atari to soup up their offerings with a touch of comic book superdom.

Atari "Superman" plays a bit like the classic Atari "Adventure", also released that year. There's a multi-screen "world" that you can sort of "explore". Duck into a phone booth to transform into Superman and fly around looking for the pieces to rebuild the Metropolis bridge. Get nailed by a Kryptonite satellite (anyone looking for a new band name?) and only Lois Lane will restore your powers.

The mechanics of the game are a little confusing (echoes of "Adventure" again), but you have to admire that Superman is so iconic, he can be meaningfully executed in very low res 8 bit graphics. It's interesting also to note that this may be the first video game that licenses something other than an existing arcade title (can any of you think of earlier examples?). The modern video game eco-system is lousy with movie tie-ins and licensed characters, and it all started with that little blocky Superman from some 35 years ago. It's also the first video game with a "pause" function built in.

I was going decry the challenge of Atari Superman as being a little too simple for today's tastes, but a friend of mine who never plays video games played it through for an hour at a party. I'd never seen her so happy (nor had I ever seen her punch the leg of anyone who walked between her and the TV, but that's another story).

If you don't feel like hunting down an original cartridge and the system, you can find the ROM easily enough to plug into your favorite Atari emulator. Or for the truly uninspired, you can get a glimpse of the game in action (objects flicker when there are too many of them on-screen) in this play-through video I found on YouTube.

Superman On The Radio Takes On Real-Life Klan

75 years ago, Superman started his humble pulpy life. Something about his story quickly outgrew the funny papers and he became an icon of "the American way" (to use his own words). Here in this anniversary year, there's yet another big-budget film that re-tells his origins. At this point, is there anyone left who doesn't know this modern fable? Escaping the fate of his doomed home planet Krypton, baby Superman ("Kal-El" to his friends) gained super-human strength when he was bitten by a radioactive spider. Everyone knows THAT story.

Superman isn't just a hero to comic book shop owners and movie studio impresarios. Superman is a 75 year old media giant that has made enough green to make Kryptonite jealous. There are still plenty of untold tales of how the Man Of Steel conquered the world outside of comic books. All this week, Retro Thing will unearth a few of Supe's lesser known media adventures - no X-ray vision required.

After Superman was a hit in comic books in 1938, the next move was to the funny papers where Superman's creators fleshed out the character's otherwordly origins. In 1940, Superman hit the airwaves in a daily 15 minute serialized show called The Adventures Of Superman. The radio show cemented even more elements of the Superman mythos; the hero's weakness to Kryptonite, and his co-workers Perry White and Jimmy Olsen. The show ran in various forms (mostly with the same cast) for more than 10 years and over 2000 episodes. Bud Collyer (a name familiar to game show fans) was the voice of both Superman & Clark Kent, and the narrator was Jackson Beck who later provided the voice of Bluto in the Famous Studios Popeye cartoons.

I happen to love "old time radio", though contemporary audiences will often criticize the pace of the shows - especially serialized adventure show for children. Those radio shows have an aesthetic of their own, and yes... we may have to slow down our internal clocks a little, but these adventures are enjoyable in their own right (especially on long car drives or cleaning the garage). You can find lots of episodes online, including the origin story. What will surprise you is that even in those early episodes, Superman comes off (and I usually don't talk this way on RT) as an exasperated dick. That alone might be worth the price of admission.

Turning away from Superman's fictional powers, the radio show flexed some genuine muscle when it took on a serious issue in the real world; racism. Stetson Kennedy was a noted human rights activist who infiltrated the KKK and other terrorist hate groups. Kennedy feared that the Klan might have people in positions of influence to act against him when he went public with his findings, so he attacked the group another way. He approached producers of the Superman radio show, and proposed a storyline where Superman battles against the Klan. Since the radio show was in constant search of new enemies (radio Superman often battled rather prosaic bad guys rather than later fantastical super villains), the producers agreed.

"The Clan Of The Fiery Cross" was a string of 16 episodes that took on the issue of racism head-on. For years, the story has been that Kennedy provided details of the real-world Klan's rituals and codewords, which found their way into the radio show. In reality there are no such secrets spilled, but that doesn't blunt the impact of this important story.

The hope was that by trivializing and demystifying Klan goings-on, there would be some impact on the hate group's recruitment and membership. Klan leaders reportedly denounced the show and called for a boycott of sponsor Kellogg's "Pep" cereal. As it turned out, the story returned spectacular ratings, and Kellogg's stood behind the producers of the show.

We've linked to MP3s of "The Clan Of The Feiry Cross" so that you can also enjoy this unique moment in radio history. Certainly there are those hokey plot contrivances that come with the territory in any serialized show that needs a cliffhanger ending every 15 minutes, but in this case there's much more than that at play. Superman ultimately saves the day, but the show gives its intended young listeners the tools to understand what's wrong with racial stereotypes and fear-mongering. It's amazing to hear how this decades-old radio show battles an important issue that still plagues us; a battle that still can make heroes out of regular people every day.

link:

Download all 16 chapters of "The Clan of the Feiry Cross"
More fun MP3s of Superman

REVIEW: Ice Phone - Converts Your Modern Cell Phone To A Retro Desk Phone

When cell phones hit hard, add-on novelty retro handsets hit the scene to remind folks of what phones used to look like; a friendly shape that cradles the face, rather than a slat of plastic that's like talking into a pack of cigarettes. Like all novelties, these handsets came in varying qualities, and all proclaimed "RETRO" in loud bold letters on the package. but now there's a retro phone handset with a desktop stand that's a handsome addition to any modern/retro-modern desk; the Ice Phone.

The first thing you'll notice is that the handset has a nice matte finish - a little bit grippy so it won't slip out of your hands. Plug the coily cord into your phone's heapdhone jack, and install the free app. Next time someone gives you a jingle, click a single button on the handset to answer. Not only can you pinch the handset against your shoulder to leave your hands free (an old habit that makes my chiropractor cringe...), but you can also access the screen of your phone while speaking. You can slip the whole cell phone/handset plugged into your pocket too - no additional batteries. Just fish into your inner pocket to get out a full-size retro handset and enjoy the stares on the bus.

The desktop stand completes the look. Slip in your phone (slots on the bottom let you snake through your recharger cable), run the app, and you've got a working animated rotary dial on your touchscreen. You phone can merrily charge up while waiting for the next call. In the past, I found that getting the handset alone left you with no good place to keep it, but the Ice Phone's base is both handy and completes the aesthetic nicely. Converting a cell phone into looking like an old bakelite jobber puts a smile on my face every time I lift the handset to my ear.

The Ice Phone comes in a number of bright colors as well as classic black. The back of the box lists other advantages including enhanced call clarity (that was true for me), the stand is at a good angle for video calls (I don't know about that... I avoid video calls because I always end up looking like a goon) and that using the headset eliminates almost 100% of the bozo rays going directly into your brain (okay, I'm paraphrasing a bit). It's also fairly agnostic. The stand can fit a number of different phones (I'm using my large-ish HTC phone in the photo), and the app is available for both iPhone and Android. The handset works with computers & tablets too which is handy for better-sounding Skype calls.

My Ice Phone came from Mobile Fun in the UK. I expected a cute novelty that I'd use for a little while, but it's turned out to be a cute novelty that I like a lot. In the summer months I move my "office" into my dining room, and it makes me smile to actually answer work calls on an official looking retro phone. I'll bet my cell phone gets a kick out of dressing up like its great great great great great grandfather.

link:

Mobile Fun - and it's on clearance!

Taking On Coke's Classic Curvy Glassware

The profile of a Coke bottle and the classic distinctly-shaped Coke glass are (seemingly) eternal icons of American nostalgia. Many retro pop-culture icons are tied to a specific time period; the Elvis mic, a disco ball, Rubik's cube... but the Coke glass represents a sort of American uber-nostalgia. Coke has spent millions protecting and propagating their iconography for decades, and small wonder. Few brands traffic in universally recognizable and perpetual nostalgia. Anyone who sees a Coke glass is transported to their first childhood sips of Coke, whenever that may have been.

Other beverages have tried taking a sip from Coke's marketing efforts, down to creating their own distinctive curvy glassware. Remember any of these?

In the 60s, 7 Up wasn't doing too well against cola drinks. Anything non-cola was unhip, uncool - the kind of thing your parents drank because it was less gassy than Coke. The slogan was an innocuous "you like it, it likes you". 7 Up went to change the game when they took on the very concept of cola directly, and Coke specifically. 7 Up manufactured inverted Coke glasses, and emblazoned them with "the Uncola".

Remember those ads from the 70s starring Geoffrey Holder explaining the difference between the cola nut and the uncola nut? The campaign didn't produce the market upset that 7 Up hoped for, though it is significant as being one of the first soft drink ads to cast a person of color. I remember the uncola glass appearing in those commercials, but I never knew that it was an honest-to-goodness object in the real world.  I've got one, and I'd love to use it (for drinking RC... I'm such a stinker!), but the shape makes it a bear to keep clean.

Just in case you think this style of marketing could never happen again, upside-down marketing returned in 2002 with 7-up introducing a drink called "dnL". Uh huh... if you look at the logo upside down, it looks like "7 Up". The market heaved a sigh of disinterest, with dnL lost among the already crowded shelf of cans of existing variants of 7 Up.

Tab also set out to be an uncola, but in the soft drink war, this is a case of friendly fire. Tab was a diet cola that hit the market in the early 60s created surprisingly by Coke themselves. Back then, they feared that a product called "Diet Coke" would dilute their main brand, so they introduced Tab as a whole new product. Tab was quite successful for decades (there was even Tab Root Beer, and Tab Orange), though no matter how much they marketed to men, the pink can was more likely clutched in the hands of a flight attendant or hairdresser.

In 1982 Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke, which was a massive hit. The new Diet Coke reduced Tab to more of a specialty brand, mostly in countries outside of the US. I remember TV commercials that featured a glass of Tab animated to cinch in like a shapely waste, but again I had no idea that such glassware existed in the real world. makes sense that Coke might know some glassblowers who could take on the  shapely challenge. To bring us down to earth again with a burp, the Tab glass is cool but it's too much trouble to keep clean.

I'm going to keep my eyes open for more drinking glasses that were basically a parody of the classic Coke glass, though as we've seen these sorts of glasses are way more trouble than they're worth in real life.

Let's close with a look at a simply awful 60s TV commercial for Tab. Later Tab would be marketed at the "beautiful people", but here we see Tab exhorting women to more desirable object to their husbands (all narrated by a creepy guy who clearly "likes to watch"). Forget Women's Lib, diet cola drinkers, be "a mindsticker".

"Mindsticker"?!?!

 

Forget The Cans & String - Get Stylish With These Toshiba Walkie-Talkies

I remember this distinctly... when I was a kid, I desperately wanted Walkie-Talkies. My neighbor somehow found out, and set me up doing chores around his place so I could earn some scratch and join the wireless communication revolution of the 70s (could a CB radio or shortwave be far behind?). It took forever, but I finally earned enough quarters to get a pair of cool Walkies. I could talk with my friends without having to go in and beg to use the phone! I remember the "serious gear" styling, and the many summer adventures I had, whether I was the Six Million Dollar Man (my value probably rung up around a buck sixty-eight), or Spider-Man. We were spacemen sometimes, but with these amazingly stylish Toshiba Walkies, I think we'd have been from space EVERY time.

Among the walkie-talkie cognoscenti, these are a desirable collectible. Made around 1965, these totally tubular transmitters (and receivers... I know, I know...) are all metal, and even have a battery meter to keep tabs on the wallet-draining six AA batts that power the beast. Initially I wondered whether these were intended for kids because they're so well built, but I'm pretty sure that the single channel nature confines these units to backyard adventuring. Though I suppose there could have been a more "advanced" model with more controls... that probably would have required even more batteries.

These rarely come up on Ebay, and when they do they command real bucks. A single unit (so you have to find a collector friend with another one) finished last month on Ebay for nearly $150. The accompanying video was part of the auction listing, and gives a great look at the details of this magnificent spaced-out communicator. Really nice voice on the narrator there... he's clearly into his walkie talkies. Though I suppose it would have been more authentic to deliver his lines over a scratchy walkie-talkie transmission, with a few inscrutable morse-code beeps added in for good measure.