Hola, Sneakers! It’s Episode 611 of the podcast that knows its place!
This week: solar shit show; plutonic relationship; rat on, rat on, rat on; giant problems; deep Disney; obscure tactics; the ride that inspired the movie that inspired the ride; merry mansion; the unbearable smallness of being; nostalgic travelogues; isn’t it a pita; Haligonia, here I come; shallow hell; children at plays; the Godzilla dilemma; concurrent sci-fi; mid-level crisis; TV versus movies; Good O-meh-ns; a movie with Shortcomings; stay young at heart; enjoy the cars; support the fat cats; what’s in store; the no-prize home; a P.N.E. for your thoughts; yard game night; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; a whole lotta Regis; daydream notion; virtual stimulation; fake news; star whack offs; celebrity nuts refuge; super coincidence; and, finally, cat call out.
Question of the Week: What’s your C.B. handle ?
Sub-question of the Week: What is a movie that you think is unfairly maligned?
Thanks for listening.
Departnemt of Corrections
The Disney film Dave was vaguely remembering is called America the Beautiful. It was filmed to be projected in the round using a system developed by longtime Disney employee Ub Iwerks (who also developed the multiplane camera systems for Disney). Dave could not have seen it when he visited the park in 2003 with his daughters as the display was closed at that point. He could have gone to see it his first three visits though (and probably did).
Here is that film that so fascinated a nostalgic at heart, young Dave Dedrick (unfortunately not in the original Circarama):
Also, here is the Sesame Street animated short mentioned by Ian during the show:
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interesting film. i remember seeing this short film in 1978. it was shown as part of the Wonderful World of Disney tv series on NBC channel 7 in Miami, FL.
The use of a steady cam did not exist till 1975 but filmmakers were creative in making steady shots using wheel chairs and dollies to achieve such shoots. It’s an innovative film for many reasons.
Oddly enough, the lack of people of color is interesting as well. But then it was the 1950s and mid america norms were “Happy Days” illusions that the mid 1960s children addressed directly.
thanks for sharing
My CS handle would be “Slow Lane Lou.”
Sorry, that should’ve been “CB” handle. I guess I my fingers were thinking of C.S. Lewis, in which case my handle would be “Fern Fumblebunny.”
I guess since I brought it up last week mine should be a good one! Something that plays up my talkative nature sounds about right, maybe like “The Jabbering Jedi” or “Chatty-Chatty Bang Bang”. Maybe more simple like “Jaws” with a license plate to match! Others could be “Tower of Babble”, “Yak Back” or the “Prattling Polack.”
Back when the C.B. craze first hit in the mid 70’s, I ordered a book from the Scholastic Book Club titled, “10-4 Sweathogs!”
https://www.amazon.com/10-4-Sweathogs-Welcome-Back-Kotter/dp/0448127067
The story was about those endearing Sweathogs getting their hands on a C.B. radio and of course bringing it to school. My fifth grade teacher Ms. Marley used to read to us while we relaxed after lunch every day and asked if anyone had a book they’d like to share, I grabbed my Sweathogs book immediately and Ms. Marley started to read it to us. I think she got barely five pages into the thing and stopped, held it out for me to come up and get it and said, “Eddie, I can’t read this…” It’s funny because she was right, it’s as horrible as it sounds.
I may be biased as a Star Wars Alpha Fan but when you mentioned unfairly maligned movies all I could think of was what “The Last Jedi” went through back in 2017 and is still going on today. My assessment of this entire story could be lengthy but I’ll get right to it. I think that because George’s prequels earlier were so polarizing that when “The Force Awakens” was made the directive was to do something nostalgic like the original trilogy. So J.J. Abrams made a film that was familiar and mirrored the original films and half the audience cried it was unoriginal and a pastiche. Enter Rian Johnson, who many hold responsible for the destruction of the Star Wars franchise. What Johnson did was take a huge swing by taking the saga into a completely different direction, so far that it alienated over half the audience. I heard Johnson say he really wanted to look deep into the Jedi mythos and what they would really do according to their teachings. He read everything about them and to this day I feel he faithfully represented the Jedi as well as George had by sticking to their ways. I think most are bitter over how Luke turned out, a hermit who had given up on The Force…(kinda sounds familiar, huh?) but look how he went out. Not only was Luke able to successfully face his Sith nephew all the way from another world, but he did it well enough to buy enough time for Leia and Company to escape. How powerful is that? It’s also a powerful callback to Obi-Wan doing the same for Luke, Han & Leia on the Death Star years earlier. I was floored by this and consider “The Last Jedi” a masterpiece for its boldness and honesty. I also think the polarization was due to years and years of expectation much of the audience had built up in their heads and when they didn’t get that onscreen, they rebelled. It’s Rian Johnson’s story to tell folks, nobody is writing these films based on your inspiration and expectations so you’re best to sit back and watch how this all plays out.
I’ll ship the soapbox back tomorrow, which one of you guys gets it? I know where both of you live..
Been sick this week, so I’m signing off for some much needed sleep.