Well, it's the first day of the Boris Karloff blog-a-thon, and I am totally unprepared (thanks goofy day job.)  I was working on a theme for this week's worth of Karloff tomfoolery, but the sudden unavailability of the Rankin/Bass film the Daydreamer, kicked that theme right in the short pants.  Basically, I wanted to take a look at Karloff's work in animation, both via his own personal credits (Mad Monster Party, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the Daydreamer) as well as the various homages I've noticed. I’m still going to try and stick to that theme, so we'll see how that goes.

For today though, I wanted to kick things off by saying that I'm one of those kids that has been deeply influenced by the man's performances without really knowing all that much about the man himself.  My first contact with a Karloff was through his narration for Chuck Jones' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, though I never made the connection that this was the same great performer that also brought Frankenstein's monster to life with the 1931 Universal classic.  Actually I don't recall ever thinking about who the man was behind Jack Pierce's wonderful makeup until I was a teenager.  I know I read about Karloff in the Crestwood House Frankenstein book in elementary school, but must not have made an impression (even though that series of books made up a huge portion of my early reading…)



Even though I count myself among the legion of Universal Horror fans, I still feel that I don't know all that much about the great Karloff, and that's one of the main reasons I wanted to take part in this blogging event.  If nothing else, I'm mighty curious about what the other 100 or so people participating have to say, or what insights into his amazing career I might uncover. 

To find the list of participating sites you should sprint on over to the Frankensteinia, Pierre Fournier's exhaustive and very well written site that covers all aspects of the monster Karloff helped to cement into the popular culture.

With that I'll leave you with an ink drawing of Karloff as the monster I did almost a decade ago…

Wow, two double-stuffed episodes in a row.  Weird.  At first I was struggling a little to get these up to 10 minutes, now I'm trying my best to keep them below 20 minutes.   Micropodcasting indeed.  Anyway, in episode 20 I spend some time discussing the 1993 action TV series Cobra…



I also talk about the show's prolific creator Stephen J. Cannell, the new FCC rules regarding "payments" for reviewing, the budget Millcreek DVD release of this series, and the soft-spoken, face-kicking Michael Dudikoff!

As promised in yesterday's Peel Here column, today's microcast is a double stuffed conversation/rant about Superman III.  From the madcap romp of an opening…



…to the uncomfortably underachieving comedy of the usually much better Richard Pryor…



There are still a couple of good moments though, including my favorite Superman movie moment, dark Supes versus Clark Kent (even if it doesn't make any logical sense)…



…and the seriously creepy Braniaic-like robot villain lady…

Peel Here is back after the Halloween hiatus, and I've had some fun with the research for this installment.  The wife and I recently decided it was past time for a culling of our DVD collection as we amassed an insane amount of movies and TV box-sets.  Mind you they were all purchased on the cheap as one of my hobbies is shopping around for bargain DVDs, but after awhile these things start to take up too much space and you find yourself wondering if you really need to own every comic book film ever produced, or those pesky Star Wars prequels.  Well, one of the things that I'd hoped to do was to get rid of any movies in those annoying cardboard snapper cases that Warner Brothers used to be so fond of because they stick out like a sore thumb in the collection and if the plastic spindle that holds the DVD breaks, the whole case is ruined.  I noticed that a lot of stores started carrying a 2-Disc slimcase that has all four Superman movies for $10, so I figured I could upgrade out old snapper case editions of Superman I & II.   Plus I hadn't seen Superman III or IV since the 80s and I kind of wanted to watch those again.

Well, I picked up the DVD this past weekend and Carrie and I sat down over breakfast to watch the train-wreck that is Superman III.  Holy molie was this flick schizophrenic.   I knew there was a bit of light comedy in the Superman movies, but I didn't remember that part three was, for all intents and purposes, a straight up madcap romp!  Anyway, I've recorded an episode of the newly formatted Branded Microcast talking about some of my feelings on the flick, and in conjunction I decided this would also be a great time to share my collection of Superman III Topps sticker cards from 1983…



These have to be, hands down, the ugliest Topps sticker cards ever.  It's the insanity of the patriotic border the designers decided to go with.  Those red and white stripes are enough to make you go blind, especially when you look at a handful of cards all at once like this (apologies to your retinas.)  At least all the main characters are accounted for (though we could have done without the Margot Kidder as Lois Lane sticker seeing as she's only in 5 minutes of the movie after throwing a tantrum over Richard Donner being dismissed during the filming of Superman II.)  Maybe she could have been replaced by Brad the jackass drunk who is horrible at his post-high school security job.  Can I say though how excited it makes me that I now have a Richard Pryor sticker in my collection?  Why didn't the Toy get a Topps card and sticker set?!?



As far as the rest of the set is concerned, I was a little bummed that there were no "dark" Superman stickers included, as that sequence is still a favorite of mine no matter how silly it is in the film.  The designers did pick a nice range of screen captures that encompass most of Superman's powers (heat vision, check, flying, check, super strength, check, super breath, check), though it would have been neat if they'd of used one where he picked up the frozen lake to extinguish the fire in the chemical plant.  We even get a Superman weakened by kryptonite which is nice.



I'm also glad we got at least one sticker of the Vera Webster character turning into the creepy Brainiac-like robot woman, though it would have been super-cool if they'd picked a scene just a few seconds later that had her looking like this…



Of course, like most Topps sticker card sets there were some included puzzle-back posters…



Personally I think the Superman-trapped-in-the-force-field-bubble was a slightly odd choice (I'd of gone with evil Superman and Clark Kent facing off…)  I do like the second one featuring Supes giving Richard Pryor's Gus a lift home at the end of the film…



All in all this was one heck of a bad movie on all sorts of levels.   It wasn't all that funny as a comedy, it was pretty boring as an action film, it was weirdly confusing as a romance, and it was a flat out terrible super hero/comic book movie.  We did get to see Christopher Reeve crush a piece of coal into a perfectly cut diamond to make one of the gaudiest rings known to mankind though.  Hmm.  Eh.

Anyway, come back tomorrow for a microcast where you can listen to me bitching about the movie for twenty minutes…

                                
In this episode of the microcast I'm reminded of my tenure in the YMCA sponsored Indian guides program.  Fake bearskin ponchos, gaudy feathered necklaces, goofy yellow headbands, and some great memories of my Dad.  Here's another interesting recollection of the Guides as well…



That's me in the middle with the tacky plaid shorts…



Again, me on the back of the fire truck and my dad marching alongside with the walking stick...

Oh my god, three microcasts in a row?   I suppose in this post Halloween afterglow it's sort of nice to just talk about some of the stuff that's on my mind rather than try and jump right back into writing columns.  I do have a Peel Here that I want to get to this week though, so look for that later on.  Anyway, in this episode of the Branded Microcast I ramble on about the Pryde of the X-Men cartoon for a bit…



If you're interested in watching this beauty of a one-shot cartoon, it's up on youtube in nice bite-sized chunks (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.)  I also talk about the X-Men arcade game that was sort of based on the cartoon..

Chugging along with another microcast.  Today features a rambling discussion of odd books including Choose Your Own Adventure style, sitcom adaptations, photonovels, the Pryde of the X-Men graphic novel adaptation of the cartoon pilot, fumetti, and Sadistik (Satanik/Killing) pulps.