Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 2, 2009 in Television
As a television series Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future was one of my favorite shows from the 80s. Of course the character of Max pre-dates that series — he got his start with a talk show in England in 1985 which in many ways inspired Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. When Coke launched their new formula they made the bold move of picking Max as their spokesperson using the tagline “Catch the Wave!” Folks loved Max but not the new Coke and the old Coke was bought back with the label “Classic Coke” (which was just recently dropped). Read more…
Update: We also had the trailers for Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen but the legal department at Paramount had the trailers yanked from our YouTube source. In our humble opinion this was a dumb marketing move as many fanboys (and fangurls) might not want to watch an annual jock ritual.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 31, 2009 in Japanese TV
I can’t place an exact date on this Japanese advert for Kirin Mets Grapefruit although judging by the quality of the animation I’d say that it was produced in the 80s. During the early days of computer animation the technique was so expensive that using it became a visual gimmick to get attention — even if it had no connection to the product that you were selling. You get the feeling that the marketing department at Kirin was a bit worried and added the young lady in the swimsuit “just in case”.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 23, 2009 in Japanese TV
My guess is that this spot os from the 80s judging by the wear-and-tear of the video tape and the colorful art direction. The commercial is for Chinese styled Yakisoba fried noodles but what sells the spot is the rambunctious children singing along with the music.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 19, 2009 in Television
Danger Will Robinson! Any fanboy who has loved the 60s sci fi drama Lost in Space knows that one of the more interesting characters in the show was the Robot. Sadly the the man behind the robot just passed away — his name was Bob May. It should be noted that Bob didn’t give the robot his voice — that privilege belonged to Dick Tufeld. Although silent you could say that May was the man pulling the strings of the puppet and bringing him to life.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 16, 2009 in Television
In 1962 Sean Connery stars in Dr. No and the spy genre takes over the world of entertainment. Within ten short years several more Bond films follows and a host of second rates clones follow — from TV shows like The Saint to comedy films like Matt Helm. In the swinging 60s the two things that make the spy genre special are guns and go go girls: Bond has a license to kill and the spy genre wouldn’t be what it was without the sex and violence.
During this era Patrick McGoohan was a successful actor as the star of Danger Man which ran as Secret Agent Man in the United States. But after a few years McGoohan grew tired of the show and was offered the chance to do something new by Lew Grade of ITC Entertainment. So McGoohan gave his pitch — and it was pure genius: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 12, 2009 in Japanese TV
This is latest sketch from one of my favorite Japanese comedians — Ken Shimura (志村けん)! What I love about his work is that even if you don’t speak Japanese his comedy is physical enough to get a sense of what’s going on while making you laugh in the process:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 10, 2009 in Japanese TV
This Pocari Sweat advert is clearly aimed at the fanboys! You’ve got a little of everything here: A sword welding lady in full battle armor, an exotic kitty cat, sphinx and some sort of 3D CGI alien creature mascot sidekick. What more could you ask for?
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 1, 2009 in Japanese TV
This 1997 advert stars Japanese actress Takako Tokiwa (常盤貴子) in the role of Cinderella! My favorite bit is the short bit of then cutting edge 3D animation of her magic horse drawn carriage.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 27, 2008 in Japanese TV
Shown above is a series of adverts from 2006 for the Japanese magazine B-ing which is aimed at recruiting professionals. The villains shown are the shocker soldiers from the live action Rider series (仮面ライダーシリーズ) from the 70s: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 22, 2008 in Japanese TV
The above cute clip of costumed cats is from the Japanese TV program Amazing Animals (どうぶつ奇想天外！) which runs on TBS. The segment features cats from an upcoming calendar including the well known chubby kitty Pia-kun.
Over the years I’ve kept running into the same group of 3D retro-styled characters in Japanese printed advertising and that at first reminded me of Rankin-Bass style stop motion characters but have their own original look. I was guessing they might be stop motion since they were photographed rather than drawn or rendered.
On doing some research I figured out they came from a mid 1960s series Hyokkori Hyoutan-jima (ひょっこりひょうたん島) which translates to something like “Unexpected Gourd Island” and the characters were puppets rather than animated. They have to be Japan’s most famous puppet TV show though of course the Muppets are seen all over and “Saku Saku” was trendy for a while.Read more…
Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy is a ten part online webisode series that has gone live today. Episode #1 The Face of the Enemy is currently playing, and new episode will appear every few days until January 10th.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 9, 2008 in Japanese TV
The 1972 Japanese TV show Artificial Humanoid Kikaider (人造人間キカイダ) was a tribute of sorts to Astro Boy. The humanoid robot was created by Shotaro Ishinomori who actually worked for Osamu Tezuka a few years earlier, who in turn was inspired by both Pinocchio and Frankenstein. In the show Kikaider is created by Dr. Komyoji to protect himself and his very cute kids (who you can see in the clip above) from the dark Android which was created by the nefarious Professor Gill (who must have been upset that he didn’t get his doctorate in android engineering). The live action show was so popular back in the day that it inspired a manga and years later an anime series. Read more…
If you’re a hardcore Galactica fanboy with $40k burning a hole in your pocket then here is your chance to bid a bit of the show:
Item # 348 – The Cylon Raider: “The Cylon Raider is a very large craft with a large wing span. The ship itself is made of metal, foam and wood. The ship breaks down into five pieces for easy transport. Measures 29′ long by 18’6″ wide by 4’8″ tall. Serious bidders should contact Propworx for more details or an inspection of the craft.” Read more…
The BBC has announced that it will remake two new films based upon the the 1951 science fiction novel The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. The best known adapatdation of the novel is the 1962 film directed by Steve Sekely, although the title is an old BBC favorite having inspired radio plays in 1953, 1957, 1968 and a TV series in 1981. The new version will be set in the year 2011 in a post-peak oil setting where mankind has turned to the biofuel Triffid to solve the world’s energy problems — and everything goes wrong when the plant creatures grow hungry for human flesh. You see I always knew that biofuels aren’t the way to go…Read more…
The SciFi Channel just started airing a new promo for the second half of the final season of Battlestar Galactica. The beginning of the end of the series will go on the air January 16th next year.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 24, 2008 in Japanese TV
Kamen Rider was a TV show from the early 70s in Japan, but there were in fact three low budget films also made at the same time. This is a silly clip from Kamen Rider versus Shocker which revolves around a plot dealing with the secret plans for a gravity machine that becomes stolen during a birthday party for Professor Daidōji’s daughter. The best part of this 1972 film is clearly the evil rubber suited character running about with the daughter’s teddy bear while engaging in combat action with Kamen Rider. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 23, 2008 in Japanese TV
This number is an oldie but a goldie: It’s the J-pop group Mini Moni (ミニモニ) performing their breakout song Minimoni Jankenpyon! (ミニモニ。ジャンケンぴょん!) from way back when in 2001. Mini Moni is a subgroup of the Morning Musume (モーニング娘) and was active until 2004 when the group disbanded.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 20, 2008 in Japanese TV
Berryz Kobo is a side project of the Hello! Project — this video is from a DVD magazine and features the members of the band saying “hello” in various languages. What makes the video for me the 60s game show music which nicely contrasts with the faux educational lesson, although it would have been just a tad cuter if each presenter had a matching outfit for each language.
If you’re a classic film or TV fanboy you have to check out the LIFE photo archive hosted by Google — it’s like having a personal time machine to view film history. After spending a few hours I found a few gems that are worth sharing, but these are just the tip of the iceberg. Shown above is a 1950 photo of Walt Disney, and below is a 1968 photo of Stanley Kubrick on set of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
How many times to you get to see a rehearsal for a scene in Citizen Kane? This photo is from 1940 and shows Orson Welles at the high point of his career. Read more…
