Haunted Mansion Records Part 2

Posted on October 28, 2011 by bayoubabylon

To go ahead and confess, last night we went “out” so today I skipped the JFZ and ate Spanish omelettes instead. I doubt there will be any fitnessing this weekend, b/c tomorrow night is our party so all day tomorrow will be spent getting ready for it. I also doubt there will be a post tomorrow, due to this same reason. Aaaand I also doubt that I’ll get through all my Haunted Mansion records today because we have a couple friends coming into town tonight and soon we must leave to go have dinner with them.

the Story and Song from the Haunted Mansion (1969)

This could easily be my favorite record in my modest collection. I mean, just the cover art alone makes this one of the greatest albums of all time! But what really sets this record apart from other Haunted Mansion albums is that the album jacket is also an 11-page book, complete with amazing artwork.

And speaking of the cover art, check out who is front and center on the cover, at the gate to the Haunted Mansion… That’s right, none other than the infamous “HATBOX GHOST”. If you are at all familiar with Mansion lore and history, you already know about this guy. But if you already know about the Hatbox Ghost, then you already know about this record and thus should probably have moved on to another website by now.

The Hatbox Ghost was an illusion used in the ride for a very brief time when it opened. Basically, this guy was in the attic, holding a hatbox. His head would disappear from atop his shoulders, then reappear in the box! This effect was achieved through a lot of lighting effects and mirrors, but the doombuggies (the Haunted Mansion ride vehicles) passed so close to the Hatbox Ghost that the illusion was imperfect and guests could see the Hatbox Ghost’s head still on his shoulders, when it was appearing the box.

So the Hatbox Ghost was taken out, but he still lives on in the memories of Haunted Mansion enthusiasts such as myself. Not only does he live on, but I’ve heard that he will play a big role in the supposedly-being-made Haunted Mansion movie being made by Guillermo del Toro, which promises to be awesome, completely unlike watching Eddie “Sellout” Murphy ham it up in an extremely weak entry into the world of Haunted Mansion media.

Inside the book, the Hatbox Ghost also makes an appearance, since the book is basically a story of you going through the Haunted Mansion and it hitting all the highlights from the ride (unlike the record we discussed yesterday, this one was released after the ride was open).

When you open the book, you are greeted by the organ player from the dining room scene, an executioner, and a raven, who is the narrator of the story. As I mentioned yesterday, the raven was originally meant to be your guide through the Mansion, so now we have two lost things from Mansion lore: the raven narrator and the hatbox ghost. The raven is voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft (that’s his real name, I promise), who is the lead vocalist on “Grim, Grinning Ghosts” (the voice of the Ghost Host in the ride is veteran voice actor Paul Frees). Thurl was probably most famous for being the voice of Tony the Tiger in Frosted Flakes commercials, and for singing the song in the perennial holiday favorite, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (the voice of the narrator of said cartoon was none other than Boris freakin’ Karloff!!!).

Just like in Disney’s version of Sleepy Hollow, the color blue is used here to great effect. Blue and green, as we know, always means that something supernatural or evil is afoot, even though the ghosts in the Haunted Mansion are not evil. I love this two-page spread right here, with the caretaker and his dog on the right discovering the ghost band in the graveyard.

“Lemme outta here!”

The raven again. This is taken straight from the ride, with the raven perched there and everything. I love this artwork so much that I looked up who made it and apparently it is all done by a guy named Collin Campbell. I don’t know if he did the artwork in the highly-collectible Haunted Mansion board game by Lakeside, but it looks similar. See for yourself:

All of this Haunted Mansion artwork just kills me. I love it so much that if it could help me with the bills I might would really marry it. If people can marry pillows these days, I can marry a collection of artwork.

Either tomorrow or the next day, we’ll look at the 45rpm read-along record released in 1970, which also has great artwork and a fun story. Until then, hurry baaack…. hurry baaaack…

and be sure to bring your death certificate, mwa ha ha!

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Haunted Mansion Records Part 1

Posted on October 27, 2011 by bayoubabylon

308 Days Until Dragon*Con 2012…

I cannot believe that Halloween is so close and that I haven’t been posting like a madman. There’s just so much great stuff to talk about and do during Halloween.

I feel really guilty that I haven’t been posting much lately, but I also feel guilty because, even the posts that I have made haven’t had anything to do with getting fit for Dragon*Con. It’s really a problem because I don’t know anything about fitness, but I do have a lot of useless knowledge about stupid pop culture.

I guess I should talk about what I’ve been eating lately also. I still pretty much eat yogurt and granola for breakfast. Then lunch lately has been tons of rice, sometimes with beans. I have no clue how good rice is for me, but it’s not fried chicken so: good. Then dinner will oftentimes be at Subway, but lately I’ve been eating a FOOTLONG sandwich. This is not good. I make it as good for me as possible, but there’s no way that eating a foot of bread (not to mention the turkey or whatever on it) is a good idea when you’re trying to lose weight. Subway is close to work, and it’s so cheap that I feel like a sucker if I don’t take advantage of “$5 footlongs” and “free chips with drink purchase”. Subway, your cheap pricing causes me to buy more food than I need! But it’s not Subway’s fault. It’s my fault because, ultimately, I’m the one who buys the sandwich and wolfs the whole thing down in like a minute flat. I always think, “Well, it’s so cheap, I’ll go ahead and get this footlong and eat half now and the other half later, or maybe even take the other half home with me.” That goes out the window as my inner wolfhound takes over after the first half and before I even realize what I’m doing, inches 7 through 12 are in my belly.

I know you may be thinking, “Well, Subway isn’t too bad for you, at least it’s not pizza!” But it is precisely that kind of thinking that leads me to overeating. I think, “It’s better than pizza!” and that gives me mental license to eat 10 pounds of spicy rice with hot sauce.

The good news is that my workouts are progressing slowly but surely. I still do the same workout at the JFZ 4 days a week, but I am steadily upping the difficulty. Where once I had to work out with 50 and 70 pounds on the “simulate a pushup” machine, now I work out with 70 and 90. Where once I worked out with 90 pounds on the “taking something heavy out of the closet” machine, now it’s 110 and 130. You get the idea. Same amount of time spent, but increased intensity, just like someone recommended in the comments what seems like ages ago now. Thursdays are hit or miss. It really just depends on how much sleep I get the night/morning before. I was doing my other exercises every Thursday (sit ups, push ups, treadmill, kettlebell), but I hafta be honest (otherwise, this blog would be even more pointless than it already is), I’ve been taking Thursdays off for like 2 or 3 weeks now. I just don’t ever really get any sleep on Wednesday nights, so doing anything on Thursdays feels like a huge pain in the ass.

 

Anyway, now that I have that off my chest, it’s on to the fun Halloween stuff…

Haunted Mansion Records!!!

I don’t know how old I was the first time I heard the record “Chilling, Thrilling, Sounds of the Haunted House” but I know that I was in elementary school. I’m thinking it may have even been Kindergarten (does Kindergarten count as elementary school? no idea). However old I was, it made an impression. I know that there were several years when my elementary school teachers, right around Halloween times, would tell us to put our heads down and she would put this record on for us to picture in our mind what was going on.

I have mentioned before that, as a kid, my imagination was like a 400lb. gorilla and that, just like in the classic joke, it did whatever it wanted to, reigning supreme in my mind like Caligula over Rome.

There were a lot of records like “Chilling, Thrilling, Sounds of the Haunted House” when I was a kid. Records that were a story, but the story wasn’t just told to you like an audiobook, it was related through a series of sound effects and talking, more like a radio drama. In fact, a lot of these records were just the audio from either a cartoon or tv show that already existed (we’ll look at one example of this today).

The first one to discuss is, of course, the one and only, the classic, the one we all remember from our childhood…

Chilling, Thrilling, Sounds from the Haunted House

All of these records are from my personal collection, so I’m sure there are some that I have missed. One that I know, for a fact, that I do not have is the “orange” edition of this record. This white one came out first (1964, Disneyland Records) and it was such a hit that it went out of print! The second pressing of this hot wax was released with the same cover, but the white part was now orange, and it included some “spooky party hints”. Personally, I think this white cover is more iconic, but that may just be because I’m a bit bitter that I don’t have the orange one.

I obviously got this one offa ebay, because it has someone’s name scrawled across the top, to protect from thievery. Carole Scott, wherever you are, I gotcho rekkid. I wonder where Carole Scott is now, because I don’t think that is who sold me this gem on ebay. And why would she want to get rid of this wonderful record? She’s probably one of those people who thinks vinyl is worthless now.

The “A Side” of this record is of the “radio drama” ilk that we mentioned earlier. It is a story of you, going into a haunted house, narrated by a woman whose voice gives me chills to this day.

The “B Side” is just a series of weird, vaguely Halloween-y, sounds and sound effects. Screeching cats, howling wolves, rattling chains, moans, etc.

It’s really the “A Side” that you are after though, as that is the side that your teacher played for you during break and “imagination time”.

This was the first “haunted mansion” record that Disney put out, and it was put out as a promotion for their upcoming “Haunted House” ride (which may have been known then as the upcoming “Museum of the Weird” attraction. I’m not sure of when, exactly, that name change came about). The reason the house on the cover of the record looks nothing like the Haunted Mansion ride facade at Disneyland or WDW is because no one knew what the ride was going to look like, not even Disney! They actually put out a lot of collectibles like this, as promotion for the Haunted Mansion ride, that featured a house that looks nothing like the Haunted Mansion ended up actually looking like. These collectibles are highly valued today, but this record isn’t that valuable because they pressed like a gajillion of them.

I don’t know if this record was ever released on anything other than vinyl, but someone did upload both sides of it to youtube:

You are a bold and courageous person…

One thing of interest here is that a lot of these sound effects were taken from the Disney short “Lonesome Ghosts” which features Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy Dog as ghostbusters…

Also, some of the sound effects that were not in Lonesome Ghosts actually made it into the Haunted Mansion ride! You may recognize the cawing crow from the vignette in the Mansion where a skeleton is trying to get out of his coffin. The crow was originally intended to be a part of the story of the Haunted Mansion, but he never really materialized that way in the finished product, but we see him several times in the ride and in the early Mansion artwork and collectibles.

Tomorrow we will look at several other Haunted Mansion records, but I need to go get ready right now because Shonen Knife is playing here tonight and I must attend that or die trying. If you think you like Japanese culture (I know there are some self-proclaimed “otakus” out there amongst the D*C crowd) and don’t know who Shonen Knife is, you should be ashamed of yourself. Really.

Check this shit out:

 

See you tomorrow!

 

 

Posted in About Fitness, About Media, General dorky shit | 8 Comments

Harvestmath Festival in Lord of the Rings Online

Posted on October 25, 2011 by bayoubabylon

Most of you already know that I play a game called “Lord of the Rings Online”. If you didn’t, you do now.

In this game, there are seasonal festivals that you can attend. Attending these festivals means that you can receive special festival items (clothing, new mounts, home decor, etc.) by completing festival-specific quests. It is also a time for more in-game parties than you can shake a stick at, which is always fun for socializing with in-game pals, and also for some serious people-watching.

During Halloweentime, the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth gather (mostly) in the Shire, at the Party Tree, for a sho-nuff throwdown called the Harvestmath Festival. Players of all races, classes, and levels are encouraged to come gather around the Party Tree and engage in festivities that include eating and drinking contests, playing tricks on each other, exploring a haunted house for treasure, and other Halloween-y funtimes.

In today’s blogpost, I will show you some screenshots I took this morning of some of the festivities, mostly focusing on “the Haunted Burrow”.

“The Haunted Burrow” is the cellar of Bilbo Baggins’s home in the Shire, a gigantic hole dug into the side of “the Hill” above Hobbiton. Bilbo has departed for god-knows-where for god-knows-how-long and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins has taken up ownership and management of his estate in his absence.

During the Harvest time of year, someone has decorated the ENORMOUS cellar of Mr. Baggins’s home as a haunted house. Lobelia is scared to go down there, but there are treasures down there and, if you are brave enough to find them, you may have them.

This is a photo taken just outside the front door of Bilbo’s home. Standing outside is Lobelia and some other asshole… probably discussing how they’re going to divide up Bilbo’s belongings, the scoundrels. You can go into Bilbo’s hobbit-hole here, but you can’t access the cellar from inside the house proper. At least I don’t think you can. Inside Bilbo’s house is not that interesting, once you get past the excitement of actually being inside Bilbo’s house. There may be a couple chests in here to find and open, but for the most part you just get a nickel-tour of the inside of Bilbo’s abode.

This shot is from outside Bilbo’s front door, looking down at the Party Tree and the general festival area. It’s not very crowded in this shot because I took this picture very early in the morning so I wouldn’t have random players walking around in my shots or trying to make idle conversation. In the distance, you may be able to make out the small village of Hobbiton at the bottom of the Hill.

I couldn’t resist a self-portrait here. I like to think my little hobbit is on vacation here… all by himself. He has asked a stranger, “Pardon me sir, but will you take my picture in front of Bilbo’s house?” He has on his Harvestmath outfit; the “Autumn Nights” tunic and cloak and Pumpkin Festival mask. No shoes, of course.

Here’s a closer view of my hobbit and his Halloween outfit, still in front of Bilbo’s house. I like that the pumpkin mask looks like it was made out of a real pumpkin (like, it’s a hollowed-out gourd instead of a cloth mask) and what looks to be corn stalks sticking out of it.

This is me standing outside the door to the cellar, which is where the Haunted Burrow is located. This door is immediately under the front door to Bilbo’s house, at the bottom of the hill. At this moment, he’s feeling his heart start to beat faster because no mere mortal can resist the evil of the thriller. From the back, you also get a good look at his cloak, which features thorns or dead branches or something else autumn-y.

This is the inside of the Haunted Burrow. It all looks sorta like this, more or less. The Burrow is set up like a maze, so it’s really easy to get lost if it’s your first time in. That painting of a warg on the wall has eyes that move around, Scooby-Doo style. During the festival you can win a painting exactly like it for your home (your in-game home, not your irl home). The vials and glowing bottles and stuff are used for a particular quest, so they are there for a reason.

I took this shot because there’s a dead rat nailed to the wall with red glowing eyes. And also a crow with red glowing eyes, and a stuffed warg head with smoke/breath coming out of his nostrils.

The painting on the right is of a goblin. Its eyes move, too. And, once again, you can win this painting during the festival.

Occasionally, while exploring the Haunted Burrow, you will encounter all types of tricks to slow you down or scare you. These ghosts will sometimes pop up out of nowhere and scare you so bad that you can’t move for a few seconds. They don’t do any physical damage, but the mental damage is currently unknown. -5 Sanity.

There are tons of barrels lining the pathways of the Burrow, and sometimes one of these decorative goblins will pop out and attempt to startle you. Believe it or not, it actually works sometimes.

Another trick you will encounter in the Burrow are these ghosts. I like how they took the time to make them look homemade.

These ghosts hide in chests throughout the maze. You will think that you are about to discover a treasure, but right when you get real close, this ghost will jump out and make you jump so high that your knees hit your computer desk.

Inside the maze that is the Haunted Burrow, in the cellar of Bilbo Baggins’s home, there is a basement. The basement is the worst area of the Burrow because it is filled with this noxious smoke that can sometimes poison you into slowing down, and will definitely make you get lost more than once, since you can’t see where the blazes you are going. Round doorways. Ain’t that just like a hobbit?

Once you are done wasting time in the Haunted Burrow, you have probably worked up a mighty thirst! Now it is time for drinking games! There are numerous tables like this around the Shire, and in other festival areas in Middle-Earth, where you can engage in fun games like: “How Many Beers Can you Drink in 1 Minute?” or “Deliver this Beer to So-and-So” and “Drink Till You Pass Out and Wake Up in Moria Without Your Pants”. Fun times.

This is what the Party Tree looks like after a few swigs of Middle-Earth party liquors. This is actually after only one drink. Some drinks are stronger than others, so you do have to be careful. Plus, the effect is multiplied by how many drinks you take. There are several quests where you drink so much that there is no way you’re going to be able to see straight. Or really, at all. That’s when I usually take a coffee break and wait it out. Just like real life!  +200 Charisma!

This last picture is of me standing in the Ivy Bush pub in Hobbiton, mug in hand, ready to party like it’s 3,000,099. Look out, Shire! Minus a zillion “judgement” and “rational thought”.

Posted in About Media, General dorky shit | 4 Comments

Rock’n Halloween Light Displays and Bride of the Monster!!!

Posted on October 24, 2011 by bayoubabylon

Before I started writing anything on today’s blogpost, a friend shared this with me on facebox.

I love Black Sabbath. I’ve never thought about what my “top ten bands of all time” are, but Sabbath would definitely be in there. I’m not one of these guys who hates the post-Ozzy, Dio-version either, but I do tend to enjoy the Ozzy era more, but that may be because I’m just more familiar with those songs and consider them to be the quintessential Black Sabbath songs.

I also like the band “Ozzy Osbourne”, and not just because I like bands that are just the name of the honcho. I actually like “Bark at the Moon” as an album. I’m not kidding.

With that in mind, watch this shizzzz…

Someone has a ton of time on their hands and they have used it magnificently!!! If I was not as lazy as I am, and had a ton of time and money, I would probably not do something like this, but I am infinitely glad that someone else has done it.

I also like that it is called “Rock’n”. It’s like “Cap’n”. Cap’n Crunch should come out with some weird variant called “Rock’n Cap’n Crunch’n”. Or maybe there could be a snack called “Rock’n’Crunch’n’Munch’n”. The “rock’n” version of “Cap’n Crunch” would probably just be regular ol’ mouth-shreddin’ Cap’n Crunch with a bunch of oddly-hued crunchberries added for that certain “rock’n” not-so-special effects. However, I am frightened by the prospect of “Rock’n’Crunch’n’Munch’n”. Regular “Crunch’n Munch” is like eating rocks already, albeit sweet ones from the big rock candy mountain. To make “CnM” MO’ ROCK’N would no doubt involve adding some extra amounts of granite to the mixture, producing an effect not unlike dynamite on your dentures. “Is that ROCK’N enough for ya???” Maybe.

I was going to post today about how awesome my workout at the JFZ was today, and I still might get to that eventually, but once I watched this “Rock’n” Halloween light display, youtube, courteous motherfuckers that they are, suggested that I watch other Halloween yard-light-displays-synchronized-to-music. You mean to tell me that there are more than one person out there in this world who do this sort of thing? I mean, these guys are the antithesis of me. I have always identified with Clark Griswold, meaning that if I were to try something like this I would fail miserably (unlike Clark, I would not retain my holiday cheer through it all, I would flip my shit and burn my house down). These guys must identify with famous overachievers like ummm… Napolean.

These are the one-uppers. The guys who, when you tell the story about how your pecker flopped out at Thanksgiving one year, they have a story where their butt fell out and took a dump on the turkey.

But I tell ya, God bless the spirit of yard decoration competition. I have never felt any pressure to compete with my neighbors for best-look’n, or most-decorated lawn (much to their chagrin I can tell you), but I am glad that people do, because it leads to badass’n synchronized light displays. If Ayn Rand were alive, she would love this shit more than fold’n money. I guess I’m more of a populist when it comes to my lawncare.

I honestly doubt that we’ll find one that beats the display displayed above, but this one comes close, for me anyway, just because of the theme and the music it uses.

In case you don’t recognize the tune, it is “Grim, Grinning, Ghosts” which is the theme music from Disney’s Haunted Mansion dark ride, only the best thing ever. And unfortunately, I mean that with all my heart. The Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland and WDW is my most favoritest thing of all frackin times. I won’t get too far into my borderline-obsession with it, but just know that its total awesomeness nearly puts me into a coma every time I’ve ever ridden it. I haven’t been to WDW in over a year, and I hear they have updated it a bit, so I’m curious, anxious, nervous, and a bit nauseous to try it out with the new stuff.

Apparently, there is at least one other person in this world who likes the Mansion as much as I do and brother, whoever made this light display, I think we may be soulmates, or at least we could be blood brothers. Or penpals.

There is something kinda inherently “Disney-fied” about intricate light displays like this. If you’ve never been to Disneyland or WDW during Halloween-time or the Holidaze, I would highly recommend it. (By the way, I know I am blowing my cool here by admitting that I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every trip I have ever made to WDW or Disneyland, but so be it. If you are shallow enough to judge me on that, then what will you think when I finally reveal something even more dorky? Well, I am trying to think on what that may be, but I don’t think there is anything about me that is dork’n more than being obsessed with a ride at Disney World.)

If you think these displays are brightly lit and gaudy, you haven’t seen anything until you see the “Osborne Lights” at Disney~MGM Studios. I think the Osborne Lights are the grandpappy of all “synchronized light displays” and are probably the spark of inspiration for many amateur electricians to go home and try it out for themselves.

There are several on youtube that are synchronized with the Ghostbusters song, so here’s one of those. Once again, out of some weird sense of obligation to the Ghostbusters…

I probably should have mentioned that you shouldn’t watch that one if you suffer from epilepsy. I think it may be the most “busy” one I have ever seen. It’s like a hundred different things all doing their own thing until it’s time to yell “Ghostbusters!” It’s like getting a bunch of your drunk friends together to do karaoke, but no one knows any of the words to the song except for the chorus… which ends up loud as a mug.

There are also several “how-to” videos on youtube that can give you a basic understanding of how to do this yourself, but thanks to youtube, I don’t have to know, nor do I want to. I’d like to say that it’s because I don’t wanna “ruin the magic” of synchronized yardlight displays, but really it’s just because I am lazy and, as I get older, I feel like the unused real estate in my brain is running out, and I don’t want to risk substituting my OCD knowledge of “perfect squares” with “how to assemble a yardlight display”.

Bride of the Monster (1955)

In my opinion, Tim Burton’s best movie may be “Ed Wood”. You rarely see this flick mentioned that much anymore, especially when you’ve got everyone and their brother toking on Nightmare Before Christmas’s stop-motion schlong, but it is a genuinely good movie.

When it came out (1994), I was still in high school and had no clue about movies. I was into horror movies and stuff, but mostly the “big ones” like the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise or Friday the 13th. I knew who Tim Burton was, because this wasn’t long after Nightmare Before Christmas had come out and I loved that movie (even though he didn’t direct it, but you know that).

Ed Wood the movie exposed all of us know-nothings to the irl man Ed Wood, and to his movies and his methods of making movies.

By far, his most famous turkey is “Plan 9 from Outer Space”, which has been a top-contender for “worst movie of all time” since before people started purposefully contending for it. (As a side note, I hate movies that are purposefully bad)

But to me, his best is “Bride of the Monster” starring his usual troupe of jackanapes (Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, etc.).

Behind the glare is the dvd.

I got this movie in an Ed Wood boxset (this one, in fact). The box comes with his most famous and “best” movies, and also includes a documentary about Ed Wood called “the Haunted World of Ed Wood”, which points out that Ed Wood led a fairly tragic existence, which is sometimes contrary to the way that Tim Burton painted his life. I hate it that Ed didn’t have a good go during his time on this planet, but hopefully he’s somewhere where he knows that he is way more famous now than he ever was in his lifetime.

“Bride of the Monster” is a good old-fashioned Mad Scientist yarn. Lugosi plays mad scientist “Dr. Eric Vornoff” and Tor Johnson plays his Igor, “Lobo” (a better name for a henchman I have yet to hear).

Dr. Vornoff, like so many mad scientists before him who have failed miserably and spent the remainder of their lives either dead or in an Arkham Asylum franchise somewhere, is out to create a race of “Atomic Supermen”, whom he will use to bring him kleenex during the sad parts of “Beaches”.

Of course, this is a ruse. He is going to use them to take over the world.

An intrepid reporter, a good looking young gal played by Loretta King, is sent to go check out the weird goings-on in the woods, where she is captured by Lobo and brought before the good doctor.

I won’t go any further than that, since I know I have you on the edge of your computer chair. Just watch and find out what happens. There is also a sequel, “Night of the Ghouls”, but it is not as good.

Tim Burton shows Lugosi as being a crotchety old heroin addict with a mouth like a drunken sailor, but I would swear, from this picture alone, that he was a kindly old grandpa who loved making movies and probably dressed up as Santa Claus at Easter for his grandkids. That’s what I’m believing about Dracula, whether anyone tells me otherwise or not.

I’m not gonna do a full breakdown of this movie, because eventually I hafta go to work, but I did want to share a few shots with you, just to tempt you into buying that boxset, or at least giving “Bride of the Monster” a chance.

Obviously a model, which I love. Tim Burton has used this technique quite a bit in his films. I wonder if he got that from Ed Wood? There is no doubt he was influenced by Eddie in some way, otherwise, why would he go to the trouble of making a movie in tribute to him?

Doctor Vornoff with Lobo

Lugosi just plays the mad scientist with such glee, that it is hard to picture him as anything other than being a kindly old gentleman. Tor, as Lobo, just kinda lurks around. I get the feeling that he wasn’t much different than how Tim Burton portrayed him in his movie.

Bride of the Dracula

Lugosi is clearly channeling some Dracula here, as he uses his mind powers to control the captured reporter. I like to think this was Bela’s idea, and not Ed Wood’s.

the Dr.'s hideout

Bela’s hideout model gets hit by lightning while he’s out stalking around in the woods, carrying the captured girl.

Which means it’s immediately completely engulfed in flames. Since when did the Dr.’s hideout go from being a model haunted house to being a medium-size ranch-style home?

Is dat my hideout on fire???

“Oh, what to do, what to do!!! My life’s work!!! Ruined by an unfortuitous bolt of skytricity!!!”

"Aiiieeeee!!!! An octopus!!!!"

Posted in About Fitness, About Media, General dorky shit | 8 Comments

Ghostbusters in the Theatre: A Love Letter

Posted on October 21, 2011 by bayoubabylon

Before we get to Ghostbusters in the theatre, I wanted to point out that today’s “Google Doodle” (the design of how google is written on the popular search engine) is a tribute to artist Mary Blair, on the occasion of what would have been her 100th birthday! Mary Blair is one of my favorite artists of all time and is one of the sole reasons for my renewed interest in classic Disney art and animation in my adult years. Happy Birthday, Mary, your art has proved to truly be timeless and an inspiration to millions of people, whether they knew it or not. Even though you were not as appreciated during your lifetime as you should have been, I hope that things like today’s Google Doodle draw more people into your art and an appreciation of your contributions to the world of animation and pop design.

I don’t know what I had planned to post about today. I have completely forgotten. I don’t think it was another sardine taste test, but in the back of my mind I know I had something planned.

Whatever it was, it went out the window as soon as the library ghost scared poor Alice the Librarian and the song started up…

Alice Drummond

"When there's somethin' strange..."

Two words?

Now, judging from these pictures, you may think that you have found yourself right in the middle of another breakdown. But you would be wrong.

There are some movies that I take it as a given that, not only have the readers of fitfordragoncon seen them, but they are quite familiar with them… and thus they do not require any sort of breakdown because we have these movies so clearly imprinted in our brilliant minds that we don’t need someone showing us pictures of the film because we can just retrieve them from the “Ghostbusters” file in our brain whenever we need them.

I also have “Ghostbusters” on home video, of course. You might think it silly to go see a movie in the theatre when you could just pop the disc into your player and watch it at home, but it’s like my cousin said, when describing the event of Ghostbusters returning to theatres: It’s like an old friend coming to town; even though you may not feel like going to hang out with them, you feel like you should.”

I think I have mentioned this before, but when Ghostbusters came out, no one had VCRs yet, so it ran in the theatres for flippin’ forever. Then they would re-release it every now and then. Ghostbusters still holds my record for film I have seen the most times and my record for movie seen the most times in the theatre.

I mean, why would anyone watch church on tv, when they could go taste that tasty Eucharist for themselves??? It’s just not the same.

My love for Ghostbusters is boundless, honestly.

As a kid, there were about 5 movies that truly defined my kid identity:

In no order, they were:

1. Ghostbusters (duh)

2. Star Wars (this includes the whole trilogy)

3. the Goonies

4. Red Dawn

5. National Lampoon’s Vacation

Sure, there were others that moved me (“Russkies”, “Explorers”, “Over the Edge”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, etc.), but none really spoke to me in the same way that these did. These five movies held such sway over my kid brain, that they genuinely changed me for the rest of my life, and I give them some credit for making me who I am today, for better or for worse.

So yeah, this isn’t so much a breakdown of Ghostbusters, so much as it is a love letter of sorts, written to “Ghostbusters”. The movie. Not to the actors, or the writers, or any one thing, but to “Ghostbusters” in general, in kind of a vague “overall” way.

Going into the theatre (which itself was a hassle, since the sign on the marquee made it completely unclear what time the movie started. I was not surprised, given my luck lately. Did I tell you my XBOX quit? Well, it did. And that is bullshit. Not only because now I can’t play my vidya games, but also because Microsoft used to charge $75 for the repair, and they sent you a box and a shipping label! All you had to do was put the XBOX in the UPSBOX and put it in the mail. Nowadays, it’s $99 and you hafta pay for the shipping supplies, which are like $10. I hate you Microsoft.)

Right.

Going into the theatre, I figured there were several ways this could go:

(I don’t know what’s up with the lists today, but here’s another one….)

1. Me and the wife are the only ones in there. This is always awesome. I feel like I’m “Annie” or Michael Jackson or something. Plus, I fully intended to stand up and dance to every song if we were the only people in there. I make it a rule that I only dance twice a year: at our Halloween Party, and at Mardi Gras.

2. It was gonna be crowded with a crowd that sucks. This is nearly always the case at movie theatres. In the case of Ghostbusters, I expected a mix of regular joes like me who loved the movie as a kid and still do, hipsters who are into it because it’s such an integral fixture in 80’s culture, and kids who were brought there by parents my age.

3. There was gonna be a lot of talking back to the screen, a la Rocky Horror or something. This could have been fun, if everyone got into the spirit of it, but it’s no fun when there’s only 1 or 2 people doing it.

In the end, it was just a normal crowd. It wasn’t too crowded, but it wasn’t empty either. No one talked back at the screen (sure, there were a few times when people just couldn’t help themselves and blurted something out. I had to use every ounce of restraint in my being to keep from doing this myself. It was such a struggle that I was literally squirming in my seat). And the kids that were there were quiet, and they loved it, which made me feel good.

There were several moments in the movie where, I’ll admit, I almost got a little misty-eyed. I was honestly not prepared for how much it would hit me, seeing it up on the big screen and with the booming sound and stuff.

These are the scenes that did it for me:

(we already did the opening scene where we first hear the song)

Second, the part where Janine gets the first call. This is the “Slimer call” and is the first real job for our heroes. Just before this scene, they are eating their last bit of money in the form of chinese take out.

When this scene came up last night in the theatre, I was genuinely excited for the Ghostbusters to finally get a job. Plus, the major points in the story along the way, that you know are leading up to the final showdown with Gozer and the saving of the city, really get me going…

"Yes, of course they're serious..."

"Oh, they'll be totally discreet..."

"WE GOT OOOONE!!!!"

Of course this scene is humorous if you are familiar with the film because we already know that if the Ghostbusters are anything, it ain’t discreet.

The scene where they bust Slimer is good, and brings back a lot of fun memories, but it didn’t hit me last night in the way it should to make it into this love letter. I also love the montage where it shows the Ghostbusters being very successful and busting ghosts all over the place, but it just wasn’t enough to make it here.

I do, however, want to point out this guy, the real bad guy of the movie… Walter Peck.

"Exactly what are you a doctor of, Mr. Venkman?"

This Kenneth Branagh wanna-be is from the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s funny to me how, since this was made in the 80’s and Conservatism and Reaganomics were running roughshod over the country, a representative from the EPA is portrayed as a total dick and definitely a major antagonist throughout the film.

Anyway, just thought I’d point that out. He gets what’s coming to him: 3 million tons of shaving cream dropped from a crane at the end of the movie.

The next scene that got me was really just a quick shot that lasts about 10 seconds in the movie…

New York

It’s a shot of ECTO-1 driving across a bridge (help me out, New York people. I know this has got to be a famous bridge. Brooklyn Bridge maybe?).

Now, I don’t get down with people still acting all crazy about 9/11. I’ll admit that it was an emotional time for everyone, myself included, and still continues to greatly influence the way we live our lives today, but what I’m talking about here is people who get all emotional when they see the Twin Towers in a movie (like in this case) or in a picture somewhere.

However, the fact that Ghostbusters is such a “New York” movie, and the fact that it’s such a huge part of my childhood, really played a part in making me feel funny during this shot. I’ve always thought it was a great shot anyway, but seeing it on the big screen, and seeing New York there in all its grandeur with the Towers in the background, really made me feel weird. Not sad or anything, just weird.

Plus, this shot comes after a very apocalyptic chat between Ray and Winston, which is part of the suspense leading up to the final showdown with the Goz.

This immediately leads into the next scene, which is the real beginning of the end… of the world and of the movie.

"This is it! This is the sign!"

Pecker blows up the Ghostbusters’ Containment Unit, releasing all the ghosts contained therein to wreak havoc on the city. Louis Tully, aka the Keymaster (because he has a penis), escapes from the Ghostbusters during the chaos to go find Dana Barrett, aka the Gatekeeper (because she has the matching piece of that puzzle). This is not good at all. In fact, keeping in mind what Ray and Winston just said, and knowing that this is leading up to an ancient god descending on our world to take it over, this is truly the beginning of how the world ends, which made me feel all nervous and anxious, even though I knew the Ghostbusters would pull it out in the end.

One point that I have made in the past, and feel free to disagree below, is that, since the explosion of the Containment Unit was the sign that the Keymaster (Vinz Clortho) and the Gatekeeper (Zuul) were looking for, the Ghostbusters are kind of responsible for Gozer coming to earth. Without the Ghostbusters, there would be no Containment unit to explode, and thus no sign to trigger the end of the world. But you can’t blame the Ghostbusters; it was just fate that created them and used them to pave the way for the end of the world… which they prevented.

Check out the Stay-Puft ad on the building on the left.

"Oh honey, it's magic..."

There is no Dana, only Zuul.

25 years later and that “Oh honey, it’s Magic” song, coupled with those spirits all flying around New York, still fills me with dread. I remember listening to the Ghostbusters soundtrack and this awesome 30 seconds of the song is just a small part of a 5 minute song that sounds like if Hall & Oates did the soundtrack for the Neverending Story (it’s not as great as that makes it sound, trust me).

It’s really the dread and the suspense that this scene made me feel, all these years later, that make it to this love letter.

These last two parts are parts where you’re supposed to swell with pride for the Ghostbusters, and it still works on me. We’ve followed these guys from being practically homeless to being celebrities, and now the whole city of New York is cheering them on and counting on them to save them from a fate worse than death.

I guess as a kid, you just felt like this was justice. That the Ghostbusters deserved the cheers and deserved to have the whole city, including the mayor, behind them. And we, the audience, are behind them too. We’re in the audience, cheering them on. I’m the loud red-headed guy in the trenchcoat, but there’s plenty to choose from: quakers, some punk rockers, nuns. You name it, they love the Ghostbusters. How could you not?

"C'mon, let's run some red lights!"

"Hello, New York!!!"

"Ghostbusters! Ghostbusters! Ghostbusters!!!"

"Dr. Ray Stantz, the heart of the Ghostbusters!!!"

Everybody be lovin on the Ghostbusters.

Even though the whole city is behind them, in the end it’s just going to be them versus Gozer. And a 100-foot marshmallow man. This is a metaphor for fitnessing. Everyone wants you to keep going and get fit, but in the end you are like the Ghostbusters: it’s just you and the alarm clock or just you and the Whirly Bird.

Do the Ghostbusters win? Of course. And the victory celebration always makes me proud to be a wanna-be Ghostbuster…

"I love this tooown!!!"

Everybody still loves dem Ghostbusters

What a good shot of these two lovebirds. Dana is all smiles. They look so young. 25 years ago… le sigh…

Sealing the deal.

Ray just chills in the back and smokes.

Janine and Egon share a celebratory embrace

For some reason, Janine was Louis Tully’s girlfriend in Ghostbusters 2, not Egon’s, which was stupid. I think they did that to go along with the Real Ghostbusters cartoon show, which was insanely popular at the time. I would feel something was amiss if I didn’t mention the Filmation Ghostbusters cartoon where the teens ride around in a jalopy with an ape. There, I mentioned it.

"Anybody wanna interview me? I'm an eyewitness!"

Louis can’t win. He gets carted off in the ambulance while the other guys get to leave in the car. Maybe that’s why Janine was his girlfriend in the sequel: because everybody felt bad for him. I still think it’s stupid.

Winston puts his gear away, getting ready to leave

A job well done, Winston puts his tools up and prepares to leave the jobsite. I really like Winston, but feel he never gets enough credit. Without a fourth stream to cross in the end, would the Ghostbusters have been able to defeat Gozer? I doubt it.

ECTO-1 rolls out, through the throngs of well-wishers

I've always loved this Bull-from-Night-Court doppelganger

The Ghostbusters drive away into the setting sun, and Slimer flies at the screen because, remember, all the ghosts that were in the Containment Unit are now out roaming free.

So those are the scenes that really got me last night and, if you loved the Ghostbusters as much as we did, they’ll get you too, especially if you go see it in your local cinema.

Unlike others, *cough* Star Wars *cough* Lucas should die a horrible death *cough*, Ghostbusters is still totally fucking awesome.

Ghostbusters, I love you.

Posted in About Me, About Media, General dorky shit | 3 Comments