Retroblog

Happy Birthday M. Mouse

By Matt

Posted Nov 18, 2009 – 2:07 pm | 5 Comments »

Today is the observed birthday of Mickey Mouse! Eighty one years ago on November 18, 1928, “Steamboat Willie” premiered at the 79th Street Theater in New York, New York as a short feature in advance of “Gang War,” a mostly forgotten film starring Mary Pickford’s brother Jack.

While Mickey Mouse had appeared in two previous shorts, this was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon to feature synchronized sound… however it was not the first cartoon to do so. That honor goes to 1924’s “Oh Mabel,” part of Max and Dave Fleischer’s Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes series.

“Steamboat Willie,” a parody of the Buster Keaton silent film “Steamboat Bill, Jr.,” proved to be a bigger hit than the “talkie” cartoons that had come before it… and helped establish the rubber-bodied Mickey Mouse as an animated star. From such humble beginnings, empires are born. It’s great to know Mickey is still humble enough to take the time to shake your hand if you meet him at one of his Imperial capitals… but no flash photography, please!

Leave your birthday wishes and memories for Mickey in the comments!

Two Farewells

By Matt

Posted Nov 17, 2009 – 1:36 pm | 1 Comment »

Part and parcel with celebrating retro pop culture comes the occasional unhappy necessity of saying goodbye. Not long ago, we observed the passing of Soupy Sales. Today, we pay our respects to two personalities from the eighties.

Edward Woodward

British actor Edward Woodward died on Monday, November 16, 2009. American audiences are most likely to remember him for his Golden Globe-winning turn in the eighties vigilante justice drama, “The Equalizer,” but we also want to recognize his roles in the original, chilling cult classic “The Wicker Man” and the world-wide hit “Breaker Morant.”

Woodward was an accomplished vocalist, voice and stage actor, and an avid wargamer. He was 79.

Ken Ober

For folks who remember the early days of MTV, the sudden passing of Ken Ober on November 15 — brings to mind “Remote Control,” the game show Ober hosted for three seasons, from 1987 until 1989. “Remote Control,” along with proto-reality show “The Real World,” marked a transition for the network away from music video and toward a more traditional original programming model. The show was also notable for helping launch the careers of Colin Quinn and Adam Sandler.

After “Remote Control” and a run on the television series adaptation of “Parentood,” Ober moved to the production side the camera. He was a producer on the popular shows “Mind of Mencia” and “The New Adventures of Old Christine.” Interestingly, he also appeared on an episode of Edward Woodward’s “The Equalizer” in the role of a DJ in 1988!

Perhaps somewhere, their unlikely collaboration continues.

A Conversation With the Founders of Retroland.com

By Matt

Posted Nov 14, 2009 – 11:50 am | 4 Comments »

At the beginning of October, 2009, Retroland.com founders Russell Scott and Patrick Young sat down to talk about the origins of Retroland.com, the shared passions that inspire them both, the appeal and unifying power of pop culture and how to build a time machine!

Check it out!

Your Veterans Day Stories

By Matt

Posted Nov 11, 2009 – 2:10 pm | 4 Comments »

Retroland.com is all about celebrating the formative experiences that made us into the people we became. Today, in particular, we celebrate the formative experiences of veterans, and we do so through the story of one particular World War I veteran… told to us by Tiki Lounge Conversations’ own Christopher Pinto:

“My Grandfather, Charles Pinto Sr. was born in Italy in 1898. He came to America as a young boy, and a few years later found his new beloved country entangled in a war with, among others, his homeland. And so in April, 1918, he was shipped over to Europe as a GI in the 52nd Pioneer Infantry.

“During one of (the) night raids (my grandfather) found himself alone in a stretch of trench on the front lines of France. A second later there was someone with him in the trench, not knowing he was there. He readied his bayonet, and called out to the guy….”

What happens next speaks to the fact that most impossible situations are in the hands of people who simply want to come out of them in one piece. Check out Christopher’s blog post for the rest of the story!

We bet you have some veterans in your family tree. What’s the best story that’s been passed to you from grandparents, parents, aunts or uncles? Honor the deeds of your loved ones who served by sharing their retro Veterans Day stories in the comments!

Happy Birthday Carl Sagan!

By Matt

Posted Nov 9, 2009 – 1:14 pm | 1 Comment »

Today would have been astronomer and astrochemist Carl Sagan’s seventy fifth birthday. Sagan was perhaps the most influential popularizer of science since Einstein. We’re going to take this opportunity to celebrate his life by recognizing the pure retro awesomeness that was his landmark public television series, “Cosmos.”

“Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” was a thirteen part documentary series first broadcast on public television beginning in September of 1980. To date, the series is the most popular in the history of PBS, having been seen in sixty countries by over 500 million people.

If, like us, you were a kid with a taste for science and a love of wonder, Cosmos was mindblowingly unlike anything else seen on public television! From the nifty computer graphics to the spacey synthesizer music from techno / new age music pioneer Vangelis, we couldn’t take our eyes away. Sagan’s narration, rich with imagination and poetry and firmly grounded in awareness of humanity’s own frailty (the show was created at the height of the Cold War), filled us with an awareness of potential unlike anything else.

Take a look:

Watching “Cosmos” today delivers a strong dose of retro-juice. It takes us back to the days after the deliberate naiveté of “duck and cover” but almost a decade before the fall of the Berlin Wall (twenty years ago today.) Then, we didn’t fear the end of the world through a misinterpreted Mayan prophesy or invasion by aliens… we knew all too well we could do that all by ourselves. “Cosmos” reminded many of us — especially, we hazard to guess, the generation with the most to lose — that there was reason and cause to work for the future.

Happy birthday, Carl. We’re still here!