Blu-ray: Home for Christmas (Black Zero)

In October I posted a piece about Black Zero, a Toronto-based multimedia publisher — founded by filmmaker, scholar, and archivist Stephen Broomer — specializing in the archiving and restoration of Canadian experimental cinema from the 1960s to the present. This former patron of Toronto's experimental film group The Funnel considers  such work to be vital, especially so given the fragile nature, and condition, of many films produced decades ago. Broomer's dedication to preserving Canadian underground cinema, especially those titles all but forgotten, is something I very much appreciate given my strong interest in that film form.

Last week I grabbed another Black Zero title, Home for Christmas,, from Bay Street Video here in the great metropolis of Toronto. I give a double recommendation.

Postscript: I've been going through the Blu-ray set, Josephine Massarella — Green Dreams, and have found the content — films and supplemental material — to be impressive. "Film at eleven!"

Malcolm S. Forbes on Education

"The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one."

We're open for business!

Picturing: Filming Aliens in their Limbo Lair

Yours truly, behind the Arriflex BL III 35 mm camera, shoots a scene of aliens doing their evil thing. Hyper-Reality is the name of the uncompleted film. I co-wrote (with the talented Tim A. Cook and Michelle Berry), directed, and designed the short ― of a planned 22-minute duration.

We shot these sequences in Studio 1 at the then 23FPS Studios here in Toronto. At the time I was working as an "optical camera/printer operator" (film compositor) at Film Opticals of Canada Ltd.

My initial designs for the "Alien Lair" had a rocky wall background, as in a cave. This approach would have been yet another expense, and it forced me to rethink the idea:

Go "Full Irwin Allen"!

Redesigning the abode with a black limbo background was the cost-saving key, and one method of many that the always frugal Mr Allen impressed upon his crew during production of the (horrible) television series Lost in Space (1965 - 1968).

Abraham Lincoln on Reading

“I feel the need of reading. It is a loss to a man not to have grown up among books.”

It's a loss too common, unfortunately.

The Great Orson Welles Narrates a Movie's TV Trailer

Those thirty-second television adverts promoting an upcoming major motion picture are rarely narrated by a cinema great. But, when that particular great has a longtime connection with Robert Wise, the man who recently helmed a particular greatly anticipated major motion picture, it would make sense to reteam for its theatrical and television trailers.

Orson Welles, with his distinctive voice, really made the upcoming release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture seem like an important movie event — that major motion picture. The telly-verts started in November of 1979, rolling through to the picture's release on Friday, December 7th.

* * *

Had a feature film adaptation been made of Gilligan's Island, hiring Mr Welles to do the same for those seven stranded castaways would have been the correct and vital choice.

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale. A tale of a fateful trip. That started from this tropic port. Aboard this tiny ship. A tour boat called... Minnow. The mate was a mighty sailing man, the skipper... brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day for a three-hour tour... a three-hour tour. The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost... the Minnow would be lost. The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle. With Gilligan... the skipper, too. The millionaire, and his wife. The movie star. The professor and...  Mary Ann. Here on... Gilligan's Isle."

Star Trek: The Motion Picture — 46 Years Later

This morning I learned that it was forty-six years ago today that the first Star Trek movie was released. In March of 1978 I was listening to Toronto radio station CKFM when a news bit announced: "Paramount Pictures will spend fifteen million dollars on a Star Trek movie . . . It will be released in December of next year."

On Friday, December 7, 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture finally hit movie theatres after much anticipation and fanfare, and on that very day I stood in line with friends for some movie that ended up disappointing many people ― even though it went on to make a lot of money ― but became the favourite film 'in the series' for some.

Picture a dozen teenagers meeting at the big picture house to see one of the most anticipated pictures ever. Try and imagine our disappointment when the end credits rolled: not that we wanted the show to go on, but more a case of "that was it?"; or as friend Mike said after he turned to me from the seat to my left: "I thought it would be better than that."

(The next morning I shuffled to the living room, where siblings were watching the Star Trek episode "Wink of an Eye". Is this some sort of joke? An editorial on what I saw last night? You thought this episode was bad? Last night's event flick made "Wink of an Eye" look like a masterpiece?)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was, and still is, a polarizing strip of celluloid. "We get it, you hate this movie." (The dirty little secret is a lot of Trekkies do not like ST: TMP for the simple reason that there are virtually no "starship battles". Boo. Hoo. Trekkies!)

One thing's for sure, it is still the biggest budget Trek of the bunch, the only one given "A-picture" status by Paramount Pictures ― not that it means anything outside of trivia circles. However, the studio was not entirely happy with the box office results; even though the film brought in the bucks it was not highly "profitable", which is proportion of money made compared to money put in. While touted as soaking up 42 million production dollars, its real cost was about 28 million. (In its zeal to promote TMP as being epic in cash outlays, Paramount included the costs of the aborted Treks: the motion picture of a planned 1976 release, and a return to television scheduled for 1977.)

More importantly, that great cast was back, even if their magical chemistry was seemingly put on hold for 132 minutes. One hundred and thirty-two minutes.

What do I think of the picture now? Well, I watched it over the Christmas holidays last year, as it had been many years since I last saw its pictorial shimmerings... if somewhat static standings. My brother mentioned to me a couple of years ago that he had recently watched it: "It actually has some pretty solid science fiction concepts."

After my rewatch: "I agree! It's a better movie than what our own reviews indicated in nineteen seventy-nine." And that score! That element has always been great: one of cinema's greatest.

* * *

On December 7th of last year, I took a look-back at Star Trek: The Motion Picture. If you, dear reader, have been mercifully spared the Blushings of Geekdom, you might not want to bother.

The fun started here: Star Trek Motion Picture Day: AMT Klingon Cruiser 

Star Trek Motion Picture Into Box Office Orbit

The above is a little and archival newspaper clipping from the Toronto Sun regarding the week following the December 7th, 1979, opening of the very first Star Trek movie; titled, simply enough, Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

I remember reading at the time — in another newspaper piece — that the film took the classic dip after its opening week but regained some of its traction with the movie-going public immediately afterward. It ended its run having made a lot of money, but not as much as Paramount had hoped for considering the substantial investment.

In December of last year I rewatched the featured film for the first time in years: I liked it.

Did I see Star Trek Into Darkness, or any of the "Next Gen" features? No. No interest whatsoever.

Humour: Forty-One To What?!....

This afternoon I was talking with someone and I mentioned an episode of TVO's public affairs program The Agenda from May of 2019. I had gotten home a little later than normal that night and popped on my appointment television program already in progress....

Host Steve Paikin had a few guests at the table. The subject seemed to be about children in sports. Paikin turned to the lady sitting to his right and said something like this:

"There was a case last October where a Cambridge hockey team made up of a bunch of eight-year-olds played a team from another town and won the game by a score of forty-one to nothing."

A look of concern passed back and forth between the woman and the host.

I thought: "What? How is that possible? Were they playing the Leafs?"

* * *

After I originally posted the above on May 8, 2019, Mr Paikin saw the piece and responded with a simple: "That's not funny!"

Leafs fans.

Hey, I'll cut him some slack. He's also a Hamilton Tiger-Cats fan.

Jim Rohn on Reading

“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.”

Don't stay ordinary, certainly not deliberately.

Story: Of Bunkers and the Rounds

I arrived in (then) West Germany in October of 1966 when the war, WW2, was just two decades in the past. Because of this handy fact there were lots of 'residual matter' left lying around from that great conflict. Bunkers were common in the area I lived ― just two kilometres from the French border and the dividing, and all-important bulkhead, Rhine River ― for they were part of the defence of Nazi Germany. Courtesy of many years of warm and cold weather back-and-forth action, expended shell casings and unfired rounds of ammunition would constantly pop to the surface ready for us little ones to collect. These weapons of war were great and much desired collectibles. ("Hockey cards? Ha!") However, as part of our education at home and at school our superiors made it clear that we were never to touch, never mind collect, those potent pieces of history.

One could still find reminding-bits of warfare in the local bunkers, of which an example sat in a field very close to where I lived in Iffezheim. I admit that I did at least once go right up to the bunker but did not try to climb around inside as it was by then a collapsed structure. (One of my most vivid memories is of something I saw while travelling on an RCAF bus in the early 1970s; out my window, as the trees parted, was a sight to behold: a field of anti-tank traps. The scene of light-grey-toned pyramids spread orderly over the green grass was almost beautiful.)

One day on the CFB Baden-Soellingen Elementary School grounds a fellow schoolmate pulled out a clear plastic bag to show off to our small gathered circle. In this conveniently-transparent bag, one which could have been used to contain a few ounces of water and a small-calibre goldfish, was a large assortment of small and medium-calibre ammunition. There was a mix of fully-intact rounds and empty shell casings. A veritable grab-bag of violence.

That's all!....

Iffezheim, Germany, and immediate surrounding area.

(CFB Baden-Soellingen was just a few kilometres south-west from here.)

Ray Bradbury on Reading

"You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

Too many people today have no interest in reading, unfortunately.

Athot for the Day: There Are Exceptions, Eh? Aye!

A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) video is already becoming tiresome, and almost fully relegated to gimmickry. Having said that, I would love to see a new "Carry On" movie starring Sidney James.

Pics: TTC Subway Train Enters Downsview Park Stn

The above sequence I captured with my smart phone's crappy camera in December of 2017, right after Downsview Park station opened as part of the Spadina Line extension... a much needed extension. Continuing north from Downsview Park are the stations: Finch West, (the much needed) York University, Pioneer Village, Highway 407, and Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.

The Humming Starts! Hooray for Santa Claus!

On Tuesday I posted a piece revealing my affections for "Hooray for Santa Claus" a song written by Milton DeLugg for the 1964 kiddie flick Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

Don't ask.

And no, I'm not reproducing the lyrics here. They're easy to search online, of course. Also, I'd like to keep this piece as a simple "hum".

"Milton DeLugg and The Little Eskimos" performs the catchy little ditty.

By the way, Joseph E. Levine produced Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. He had a storied career as a film producer and executive producer. When I was a preteen and big teen, hearing "Joseph E. Levine Presents" and/or "A Joseph E. Levine Production" told me and other members of the moviegoing public: "This must be an important movie."

("A Bridge Too Far!")

Watch Santa Claus Conquers the Martians if you have time to spare.

Enjoy!

Postscript: I've long found it odd that a major motion picture's title would give away the plot's punchline. There's always a chance that The Martians would conquer, or at least succeed in repelling, Santa Claus... right?

Post Postscript: Okay, I have a few things to do today. Thoughts of Sugar Plum Fairies and a man "fat and round", jumpin' jiminy!, will have to be put on hold....

Violinist Serenades TTC Travellers at Spadina Station

The above photograph was snapped by me one year ago today. I haven't seen this gent since, which is a shame, as his playing was dynamically terrific. Vivaldi?

Athot for the Day: 'Tis the Season's Song

I'll know I'm ready for the season when I start humming Milton DeLugg's fabulous Christmas pop standard, "Hooray for Santa Claus". I just love that trombone part.

Athot for the Day: In the Know

Cats know shit.

(You, dear reader, especially those of you who are cat lovers, know exactly what I mean.)

Experimental Filmmaker John Whitney Jr on Today

"(In the not too distant future) It will be possible to create the likeness of a human being, to generate speech electronically, and the result will evoke an emotional response. We may be able to recreate stars of the past, cast them in new roles, bring them forward into new setting if stills and old films can be used to make the likeness, the database."

We know all too well.

Newspaper Clipping: Go Leafs Go 1970

Earlier this week I was doing some online research when I stumbled upon something that I wasn't looking for, but something that might be of interest to NHL (National Hockey League) fans, especially Toronto Maple Leafs fans, including those who may not want that shot of history.

Courtesy of Toronto (Daily) Star articles accessed through the wonderful Toronto Public Library website, below is a snipping/clipping from November 21, 1970. It contains much valuable statistical and trending data for those Leafs fans who don't quite have a handle on their babe's history. Even a quick observation will note something not so cryptic, but realistic....

... and blowed up real good....

Toronto was at the very bottom of the NHL's then Eastern Division, and held that standing, holding, nurturing, caressing, just 8 points after 17 games played. (My then beloved Habs were at the top of the division with 23 points. As some readers here might know, the Montreal Canadiens would go on to win the Stanley Cup that season.)

Yes, my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. (Those folk who know me will know.)

In my best William Dozier voice....

"Oh, my. It doesn't look good for our special team!

Are they really... on ice?

Are all their plans and dreams to get... frozen?

For the answer to these and other ice-cold questions, stay tuned!

Same Leafs-time! Same Leafs-channel!"

***

Postscript: Gone are the days when I'd spend uncounted hours at the Toronto Public Library system's magnificent Reference Library cranking through hundreds of linear feet of microfilm in the name of research, hanging over the viewing machine in nausea. To the passerby on the ground floor's west-facing wall, I must have bore a resemblance to Sylvester the Cat when he stood slumping, with arms thrown over a ship's upper deck railing, looking mighty green. Through the large library windows I could see that Yonge Street tea shop. After reaching my breaking point, I would stop, cross the street, and take in a cup of tea. The world had stopped moving. My stomach, and sweat glands, took a break. (Go Leafs!)

It's Grimm, Folks ― Really Grimm

Yes, I love the Brothers Grimm. They feed something in me... if you'll pardon the expression. The collective, and collected, writings of brothers Jacob Ludwig Karl und Wilhelm Carl have long intoxicated my unique "dark" perspective on life. (I jest, for I'm hardly alone in that regard.) My excuse may come from the fact that I did live for a few years in Germany's luscious der Schwarzwald. From those rich green forests sprouted some dark tales. And seeds for me.

In October of 2020, U.S. President Donald J. Trump experienced a Covid health scare. He recovered and went on to lose the 2020 election and win the 2024 election. Some folk pegged the 2020 election loss as an attempt to garner sympathy from the voting public.

After the brush with Covid, and knowing Trump was okay, I was inspired to have a little fun.

If this was a Brothers Grimm story, how might it end? Most of us would not wish something like this on Mr Trump, but, given his mean nature toward his fellow man and woman, one can have fun with a fanciful tale....

"King Trump, while dining late one night on food fit for kings, felt a great disturbance in his belly and breast, a rumbling of which he recalled from days and nights before. He sweated all over, and he gasped for life. His minions rushed him to the town's physicians, who, with armour and tools, battled for him through the night, only to lose the king of kings in the darkness.

His faithful villagers did not fret for long at the sight of their immobile once-proud King. They ate him all up."

Postscript: I understand this tale is even darker in the original German.

(No, I did not write the above in German, then translate it to English. My written German is about as good as a Toronto Maple Leafs powerplay.)

Did my parents read stories from the Brothers Grimm to me when I was a child? No! They did not! And I had to make up for lost time.

Time?

It's time I enjoy a more satirical form of Germanic folktales and read Johann Karl August Musäus' Volksmärchen der Deutschen....

Sunday Fun: Abandoned Close Encounters Book

While discussing abandoned books with a friend in July of 2018, I presented a very small list, but a certain title was perhaps a surprise: the Close Encounters of the Third Kind tie-in novelization.

I started digging in in late 1979, and in November of that year I packed it in.

The real part of this story is the fact that for almost thirty-nine years the bookmark was exactly where I left it: Chapter 10.

The book was unremarkable, like most of that kind, and added nothing to what to me was an unremarkable movie ― with the exception a few impressive show pieces.

The bookmark: "Half Back - The Ontario Rebate Program that turns old Wintario tickets into discounts", valid from May 1 - September 30, 1979.

Postscript: Steven Spielberg did not write the novel, no surprise. Though the director long claimed that he was its scribe, in fact it had been ghost-written by Leslie Waller.

ReBook: Filmed in Supermarionation (La Rivière)

When the feature film Thunderbird 6 hit The Astra's big screen at CFB Baden-Soellingen (West Germany), I was there with friends... and sister. We really enjoyed the flick, so much so that my sister and I raved about it afterwards to our parents ― we were the right ages! After eventually returning to Canada, I watched the earlier Thunderbirds television series when it ran in repeat on Saturdays at noon. (Thank you, CFTO. "Channel Nine, Toronto.")

The book: It is absorbing reading for any fan of the Supermarionation process and its creators, Gerry & Sylvia Anderson and their talented team. It's not all about their most famous creation, however. There is fascinating coverage of all their puppet shows: The Adventures of Twizzle, Torchy the Battery Boy, Four Feather Falls, Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray ("Stingray!"), Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90, and The Secret Service. The years covered are 1957 to 1969. Not only was that a good run in production and longevity terms, but it was a marked increase in puppet show technology and techniques.

Author Stephen La Rivière does a commendable job of telling an entertaining and informative story... it could very well have been too dry; even for old and new Supermarionation fans.

Postscript: In 2004 a DVD titled The Best of Thunderbirds hit store shelves ― it was a top-ten seller at my local "Sam's" here in Toronto ― and I picked it up with the intention of revisiting part of my childhood. I just now realized that I haven't watched it at all; not one of the "six best episodes as voted by fans". Terrible. Perhaps I should pop an episode on....

Filmed in Supermarionation

- The Story of the Pioneering Team that Launched Thunderbirds -

by

Stephen La Rivière

Century 22

2015

Picturing: Lining Up the Mitchell II ― and Directing

I loved that camera, and its "Mitchell movement".

Remembrance Day 2025: Last Post

A few years ago I watched a fine feature-length documentary on WWII. Produced by the National Geographic Channel, "Inside WWII" overviews, in the hyper-speed mode so typical of info-dump docs made these days, the 20th century's largest conflict.

Some of the interview subjects explain why they joined the war. I remember a certain day in the summer of 1984. As we sat in the front yard I decided to start asking my father more-probing questions regarding his war story. What at first seemed to me to be a futile exercise after his first answer was "I don't remember much, Simon, that was years ago" became hopeful after I pushed further. Responses containing details I had never known before only encouraged me. Eventually I got around to asking the most obvious question: What made him decide to enlist?

"I was pissed off. I was doing poorly in school and my mind was on the war overseas."

His rationale for joining the bomber force as a gunner was expedient:

"You got overseas quickly that way . . . It was an eight-week air gunners' course in Montreal."

He knew that flying as "aircrew" in Bomber Command was dangerous work. Many young men, men too young, got "The Chop".

As was the norm at the time in this neck of the woods my dad was sent to the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) grounds for dispersal. From that famous Canadian site began the process of getting "shipped overseas", but as this was wartime it wasn't quite that easy. German U-boats prowled the North Atlantic in search of prey, and a steamer loaded with fresh faces off to war was a prime and highly-prized target.

I'd be nervous having to cross a canal to pick up a loaf of bread.

As readers here have already surmised, my father survived the war, including a raid on the SS barracks at Obersalzberg during the last few days of the war in the European theatre. He was demobbed shortly after two flights to Rotterdam as part of "Operation Manna", a humanitarian effort which involved food drops to starving Dutch civilians.

After enjoying a few years of civilian life after the war, he reenlisted with the RCAF and enjoyed a long career with Canada's finest service.

I left the best for last; the big "and" part of my dad's explanation for wanting to see action overseas:

"... And I wanted to get the Germans."

(A childhood friend did not come home; he died when his bomber was shot down over France. Kinda sobering, ain't it?)

Passions of the time, those were.

My father loved Germany and the Germans. We moved to West Germany in October of 1966, just twenty-one years after he flew in a Lancaster bomber doing a job he felt he must do.

Royal Air Force No. 626 Squadron ― May 1945

Remembrance Day 2025: The Poppy's Power

Wear it!

A Remembrance Day to Be Remembered

With Remembrance Day upon us, I'm reminded of a story of my own regarding that special day; and its special and important symbol: The poppy.

In early November in the late 1980s (I'm thinking 1989), I hopped onto a TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) subway train car. With the seats being all but fully occupied I took the famous door position as the doors closed behind me. Sitting on the other side of the car, with his poppy box resting on his lap, and looking sharp in his uniform, was a veteran.

Immediately I remembered that a few minutes earlier I had shoved a two dollar bill (remember those?) into my shirt pocket. I approached the vet as I drew out the money. He got up from his seat and carefully pinned the poppy to my coat's lapel. I thanked him and went back to my first position. Then, all of a sudden, and in the style of an over-directed film, several other riders popped open their purses and pulled out their wallets.

This Time of Remembrance

Yesterday I took a trip on the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission), the subway portion. I saw just three people wearing a poppy. The good news is there were four of us.

Today is Remembrance Day. Let's watch....

I could easily go into an essay here, long or short, about how the lack of poppy-wearing is an indicator of how seriously people respect the men and women who have fought, and continue to stand, for this great nation called Canada.

Hey!

Don't miss that text message!

That TicTok video cannot be missed!

Put that goddamn fucking phone down and pay attention!

The Edmund Fitzgerald Sank 50 Years Ago Today

I started high school in September of 1975. My strongest memory of those earliest months of, what would turn out to be, my laboured secondary school education, was not of something scholastic, but learning of a grand ship's sinking with all hands.

Even at that young age I had "long" been into shipping. Hearing the news of one of the Great Lakes' finest ore freighters succumbing to a sudden and horrible storm saddened me but also fascinated me. Youth protects one somewhat from the realities of tragedy. Some of the Edmund Fitzgerald's sailors were not a lot older than I was at the time: a few were in their early twenties, a couple were barely out of high school.

During much of the 1970s, my family and I were living at Canadian Forces Base Borden, here in Ontario. Like many folk who live in that region, the Great Lakes will draw one to Wasaga Beach, a small town which sits on the "world's longest freshwater beach", which itself cups the lower end of Georgian Bay, and therefore Lake Huron. I knew what a huge lake looked like, even if it wasn't Lake Superior, the tumultuous body of water where the Edmund Fitzgerald and her twenty-nine souls met their end. How it all happened exactly is still open to much conjecture and speculation. My own feeling is that she "bottomed out". However, perhaps some secrets are best kept to the lake.

***

Dr. Joseph MacInnis' book Fitzgerald's Storm - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is excellent. "Doctor Joe" was a client of a video company I worked at here in Toronto. My own copy is autographed by the author, no surprise. By the way, the last chapter of the book covers the creation and resulting fame of Gordon Lightfoot's classic song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". The songwriter was living in Toronto's "Yorkville" neighbourhood at the time.

Picturing: Railway to Nowhere and Somewhere

Having lived for years in Nova Scotia (Canada) and Germany gave me a love of railways. Better still are railway tracks that have long been abandoned or are used so infrequently that their signatures are threatened by encroaching flora.

The picture above I took looking north from Horner Avenue here in Toronto.

"I am your passport to adventure!"

Picturing: Swans Cruise by Toronto's Harbourfront

Beautiful.

Book: Fantastic Television (Gerani with Schulman)

Copy Number 2.

I bought Fantastic Television when it came hot off the presses in 1977. Unfortunately I left it under a school desk during a class, and, no surprise, when I rotated to my next class, I failed to... you guessed it.

(A polyester-clad geek running down the hall in a flurry of panic would be disappointed.)

A wave of nostalgia forced me to Amazon.ca to seek a replacement copy of one carelessly discarded book.

(It came from Texas.)

Written by Gary Gerani, with some assistance from Paul H. Schulman, Fantastic Television ― A Pictorial History of Sci-fi, The Unusual and the Fantastic ― From Captain Video to the Star Trek Phenomenon and Beyond, the book's full title, is an intelligent look at old series of note, some of which were then barely 'old'.

When FT fell into my local bookstore I was already aware of the overall subject of SF television in cursory terms. I had not yet seen Thriller and One Step Beyond, though I had heard of them. The title of "The Outer Limits" was unknown to me, but two years later I would get my introduction, courtesy of CKVR's late-night framework programme, "Summer Cine". The Outer Limits would earn a well-deserved "Wow!" from me.

I understand that the authors took some heat for their 'brazen' opinions, I certainly don't agree with everything they write, but subjectivity is just that. And their perspectives are always well-considered, and never flippant. For those of us who discarded our teen years a long time ago, Fantastic Television is now a nostalgic document, albeit a classy one.

The series given chapter treatment, complete with an episode guide:

The Adventures of Superman (1953 - 1957)

One Step Beyond (1959)

The Twilight Zone (1959 - 1964)

Thriller (1960 - 1962)

The Outer Limits (1963 - 1965)

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964 - 1968)

Lost in Space (1965 - 1968)

Batman (1966 - 1968)

Star Trek (1966 - 1969)

The Time Tunnel (1966 - 1967)

The Invaders (1967 - 1968)

The Prisoner (1967 - 1968)

Land of the Giants (1968 - 1970)

Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1970 - 1972)

Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974 - 1975)

Space: 1999 (1975 - 1977)

Further chapters:

"American Telefantasy"

"British Telefantasy"

"Kid Stuff"

"Made-for-TV Movies"

FANTASTIC TELEVISION

- A Pictorial History of Sci-fi, The Unusual and the Fantastic -

From Captain Video to the Star Trek Phenomenon and Beyond

by

Gary Gerani

with

Paul H. Schulman

Harmony Books

1977

Picturing: Building a Set for Graveyard Shift

Last month I posted two pieces (Picturing: Me at the Graveyard Shift Workshop and Picturing: Reopened Graveyard Shift Contact Sheet) on a set design job I had very early in my career... so early that I had only just started my second year of film school. Actually, I had been hired during the summer break. It all happened so fast, which is not exactly atypical in film production, certainly not low budget feature film production. "Toronto" was just beginning to hum at that time — mid 1980s. It would soon explode with feature film and television production.

Here below are a few photographs taken during the mausoleum construction phase, and its setting up in the film studio. The set build happened at the old and long-abandoned Massey Fergusson plant on King Street. The studio itself, located on lower George Street, was small, with a too-low ceiling ("That is not sixteen feet!"), but somehow we made it all work. As is typical of the form, we had no choice. Kudos to that great crew, many of whom worked for little or no money. But it was valuable and great experience — and a great experience.

Set builder Dave Fiacconi takes a break for the camera.

I check to see if Dave is level headed.

I hang on for dear life while the crew works to prep the set in the studio.

Chris Leger paints after building some pyro charges into a tombstone.

Set builder Rae Crombie paints some details into the mausoleum set.

The set build crew works their magic. (The shoot starts in hours.)

Sunday Fun: It's the Monster Mask!

Click on image for "more scarier".

On Friday, Halloween, in keeping with the spirit of ghosts and goblins, I posted a picture of a monster designed and built by me for a (as of yet unfinished) short-form motion picture. After the monster entered the filming stage, the fight choreographer, a young woman, told me as she looked off toward the special guest star: "I find that really disturbing."

(I should rent it out for Halloween... the costume, that is. A human being needs to populate it.)

This monster-build started on my office's work table. I bought a theatrical mask from Malibar, here in Toronto, and used that as my starting point. From a hardware store I grabbed a tube of urethane foam and, with a few squeezes of the caulking gun's trigger, a star was born.

Postscript: Yes, that is the National Post underneath my work of art. I had a subscription for a couple of years. (Not any more.)

Happy Halloween 2025

"Trick or Treat!"

Someone's trick or treating in the wrong neighbourhood! Be careful out there, kids!

'Archie Bunker' on That Important Difference

"Respect is for the dead. The livin' need dough!"

"LOL" is my only response.

ReDVD: Magical Mystery Tour (The Beatles)

A few years ago I found out that my Beatles-fan brother had not yet seen a certain 1967 television opus. I asked why he hadn't sought out that essential slice of Fab Four 'merchandise'.

"I'm afraid I'll be disappointed."

This Beatles fan, if not quite "fanatical", enjoyed the group's first foray into "personal filmmaking". While this Magical Mystery Tour might not exactly be magical, it has its appeal for some of us.

"They're coming to take me away!"

Willingly I went along for the bus ride, sharing the "coach", as they call tour buses in the UK, with an assortment of interesting and odd characters. Through the frequent stops in various towns, villages, and fields, the crowd's buffoonery becomes the scenery. The production involved a lot of made-up shenanigans, and at times it shows. There is that unscripted "let's just have fun" vibe to most of the 53-minute running time. And there are those great Beatles songs to give the picture some solid ground, even if a lyric mentions a walrus and we see a "walrus", and a line speaks of a "fool on the hill" and what we get is Paul McCartney playing not so much a fool, but a bored-looking bloke standing still — on a hill.

Though critics at the time of MMT's original television showing in December of 1967 complained of being bored stiff, today's rearview mirror of some 50-plus years rates the flick as an interesting, if not exactly absorbing, artifact. Unique among the telly tableau of the mid-sixties, the Beatles-authored experimental film certainly plays better today... though many fans now still list this particular, and perhaps peculiar, creative tour as a rare Fab Four trip.

The DVD contains a few extra features: I'm interested to hear what Magical Mystery Tour booking agent and organizer Paul McCartney has to say....

Postscript: In the mid-sixties, the vast majority of British households had monochromatic (black-and-white) television sets. As the flick was shot in colour, and done so with little or no regard for that spectral fact, a lot of visual tricks, like picture "posterization", were lost, and appeared to viewers as shades-of-gray mush instead of the intended creative splash of chromatics. This unfortunate anomaly did not cast any magic spell on the BBC1 audience, that Boxing Day evening of 1967.

Magical Mystery Tour

Made by

The Beatles

EMI Records Limited

2012

A Forever Question: Ahead Warp Factor Nine

“Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question."

Sir. Why is the concept of time travel dismissed as an impossibility given that we're always travelling forward in time most efficiently?

Picturing: On the Road Is On the Table

A friend of mine is a bit of a Jack Kerouac fan. After I told him I was reading On the Road, he said he preferred the author's next book, The Subterraneans. As I had to resort to speed reading On the Road, due to the fact that my copy was borrowed from the Toronto Public Library, and could not be renewed as someone had put a reservation on it, I couldn't quite "get into it".

Now that I have my own copy of Kerouac's 1957 classic American novel, I can take my time and enjoy the travels of 'Sal Paradise' — I think I knew that guy — then graduate to the highly recommended The Subterraneans (1958).

Postscript: My copy was drawn from one of the many discount tables at BMV Books here in Toronto, specifically the location on Bloor Street, just a few minutes walk west from Spadina Avenue. This store chain is highly recommended to those readers visiting this great city.