The What, When, and Why of Who? Part 1: The Classic American DOCTOR WHO Experience

I'm a longtime fan of that staple of the BBC, DOCTOR WHO.  I'm also kind of obsessive about another BBC product,  ARE YOU BEING SERVED? (1974-85)....and I don't know what being a fan of cheeky half hours filled with an impossible amount of rapid fire sexual innuendo has to do with Time Lords or Daleks...or what it says about my personal character, but I do know that there's one thing I can blame my interest in both on: the Public Broadcasting Service, or simply, PBS.

Now, if you are amongst the multitude of readers of my blog....of which I'm sure numbers in at least a dozen, and are somehow unfamiliar with the free American educational television broadcasting network known as the PBS (potentially you are foreigners,  like the savage yet noble Canadians or residents of the state of Kentucky....or, you belong to some Jesus cult that lives underground), here's the lowdown: some hippies in the late 1960s, who were probably broadcasting and theater majors, decided it'd be cool if there was a TV channel that was commercial free, funded by corporate and government grants, as well as by viewers....that presented educational programming.  This idea seemed to catch on with college broadcasting programs, because it appears that every PBS station I've ever encountered transmits out of a local  campus (or at least that's the case here in my native gateway to the Midwest state, Ohio).

The biggest and most recognizable success experienced by PBS is probably the foundation of the Children's Television Workshop and the various educational programs it's produced over it's nearly half century existence.   Two words:  SESAME STREET. Y'know....the one with the loveable Jim Henson puppets and 46 continuous seasons on air under it's belt.  The one with the big goofy yellow bird and his buddy, the (formerly) invisible wooly mammoth only he could see?   Yeah.  That one.

Giant talking birds and invisible fuzzy elephants.  Again,  I say:  Hippies.

Somewhere along the way, the brains behind PBS decided that foreign television, especially stuff produced in the UK, was somehow more cultured, classy and sophisticated than American programming.  That totally explains why they'd start running BENNY HILL and the aforementioned ARE YOU BEING SERVED?.

To be fair, PBS's predecessor NET (National Educational Television, 1954-1970) experimented with BBC programming,  and the syndicated packages of MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS, THE AVENGERS (Steed and Peel, not Cap and Iron Man) and UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS did break up the monotonous atmosphere generated by nature documentaries hosted by bearded dudes from Montana and Gram Parkeresque country rock concerts that seemed to define PBS of the 1970s.

Now, I've spoken to fellow Whovians from the U.K. and Canada in the past about how the perspective of "Classic" WHO differs amongst American fandom from those outside our borders,  and it all can be attributed to how and (more importantly) when we were introduced to it.

I tend to fall within the oldest demographic of fans here in the U.S., folks  who were primarily children when PBS began airing their initial acquisition of syndication packages of the show in 1978.  I've heard of an earlier attempt at syndication to independent TV stations that happened about a year prior that was only moderately successful,  at best.  I can't really comment on that, because in my headspace,  DOCTOR WHO was always a PBS thing creeping into my childhood memories.

Now, the significance of having been introduced to the property in this way tends to play out like this:

First off.....we ugly Americans love us some Tom Baker.  The Fourth Doctor continues to be the primary face of the franchise here, due a lot to the oddball timing and circumstances involved in his participation with the role.  You see, we were introduced to the The Doctor and his antics a full 15 years into the show 's history...and even then, we were still around 4 to 5 years behind in canon , due to the BBC 's insistence on pushing Baker's first few seasons (1974-76) as part of their initial syndication offerings to PBS. This caused us, especially in those early, uninformed years of American fandom, to formulate a few inaccurate assumptions.

I've theorized that those first American audiences, especially prior to witnessing our first Regeneration,  regarded Baker much like how those first, early British audiences who experienced William Hartnell firsthand did :  Baker was our first and only Doctor, what the hell is "Regeneration" , and "There were other Doctors prior to this one?"....

I mean,....I didn't see my first Regeneration  until about three years later....and it was confusing as hell because it was the wrong one.  Around the summer of 1982, during one of the local PBS affiliate's summer pledge drives (WOSU, Channel 41, Columbus,  Ohio...remember. .."funded by viewers...just like you"), they ran a Saturday night Doctor Who marathon that started with "Planet of the Spiders", the previous Doctor's final serial,  and then continued straight into Baker's first few serials.  My 8 year old mind being baffled, I can remember,  at first, thinking,  "These must be newer episodes...and Tom Baker's hair has gotten gray...or maybe his brain got switched into another body and I've missed the episode it happened in...."
It didn't help matters much that due to the shows we were watching were still about two years behind chronologically in canon, so we still had around a two year wait to get to Peter Davidson's Fifth Doctor.

As a matter of fact,  I wouldn't see The next Regeneration until about the summer of 1984, when during another pledge marathon Who marathon, WOSU aired the following in conjunction with WHO'S 20th anniversary:  The Third Doctor serial "The Three Doctors", followed by Baker's final serial, "Logopolis", then Davidson's introduction as the Fifth Doctor,  "Castrovalva", and wrapping up the night with "The Five Doctors", the twentieth anniversary special.

That night not only was I introduced to a new Doctor,  but it was also the first time I ever encountered any of the previous Doctors,  But there's also the fact that, practically,  I never saw any Fifth Doctor stuff until Davidson had left the role in the U.K., and Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor was the current incarnation.

Oh, Colin Baker.    How I disliked your Sixth Doctor.  How I disliked you, so much so that your manic exploits caused me to stop watching the show....but, was back in the fold in high school for Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor.

To compound our confusion,  during the weird lengthy hiatus between Colin Baker's adventures,  we started getting syndication packages of John Pertwee's Third Doctor, which we were finally seeing nearly 15 years after the fact.

So, to summarize: we Americans in early fandom think of Tom Baker as the penultimate Doctor,  Regeneration baffled and shocked the shit out of us, nobody took readily to the Sixth Doctor (which is a shame, because Colin Baker is actually a lovely human being), and nobody actually saw any of the first two Doctors' work outside of the anniversary specials until VHS and DVD releases about a decade and a half later.

What a delightfully wonderful mess....

HOWARD THE DUCK (1986) Blu-Ray

 HOWARD THE DUCK (1986, UNIVERSAL PICTURES, BLURAY)

Alien lifeform Howard T. Duck, who resembles an anthropomorphic Earth waterfowl, finds himself transported to and stranded on an strange new world, known by the natives as "Cleveland, Ohio".

While there, he makes the acquaintance of Beverly (Leah Thompson), an aspiring musician and her lab assistant friend (Tim Robbins), who both begin assisting Howard in making his stay here on Earth more tolerable while seeking for a means to transport him back home (to "Duckworld", naturally).

Things start going "afowl" ....ha! see what I did there?  It's called "deft wordplay".....or, possibly daft wordplay, because the level of humor I presented there pretty much matches the level on display in the film...

Holy shit, that looks painful.

 Anyways, things start getting nutty when the scientists who inadvertently brought Howard to Earth try to replicate the experiment, accidentally bringing something darker and evil to our plane of existence,  prompting Howard and his pals into heroism as they try and stop the sinister force from taking over the world.

Our heroes, folks.

 Oh....and there's a pretty bad-ass stop motion monster in the climax.

See?  Told ya.

Okay.....admittedly,  HOWARD THE DUCK is a trainwreck of a movie.  But it's one of those entertaining, watchable types of trainwreck that makes you kinda sit back in awe, astonished by the mere fact that it was made.  Had it been made using some of the original concepts bandied about during it's development phase....animated duck being one of the primary ideas they should have went with....it might be viewed as brilliant today.

But there's a charm to the 1986 film that's inescapable. It's one of those films that you either totally get....or you hate....and it's likely that whatever camp you fall into, it's ironically for the same reasons.

The first issue of the original 1970s series

Marvel Comics fanboys and Lucasfilm aficionados (like myself) tend to be more forgiving of the film.  Hey, it's not the best example of a comic book property being adapted,  nor is it the worst (ask me sometime on my opinions on that....ahem....1990's CAPTAIN AMERICA....ahem), and in the draught of the 1980s concerning superhero films between SUPERMAN 2 and 1989's BATMAN...we took what we could get and liked it.

Prior to seeing it theatrically in 1986, I was already a Howard supporter, being a fan of the character's 1970s comic book exploits. 

Howard's current comic book exploits

And, surprisingly,  the Duck ain't dead.  He's been starring in a few contemporary Marvel books dedicated to his misadventures (which are pretty hilarious) and if you stuck around for the end credits tease in 2013's GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, you'd have seen a recognizable feather there, so here's hoping we get further fowl influenced films coming in the future from Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe....

Howard's appearance in the end credits sting of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Pop Culture Nonsense: Random Obsessive Memories of ROM SPACEKNIGHT

If there's one bizarre, obscure toy from my youth that I've spent nearly 40 years obsessing over....it'd probably be the 1979 Parker Bros. electronic wonder....ROM: SPACEKNIGHT.

Now, I didn't own a ROM when he was a new product, though I begged for him for birthdays and Christmas for three years straight.  Little did I know in my youth that my begging beyond December 1979 was pretty much in vain, seeing as how the Spaceknight was kind of a dud sales-wise straight out of the gate and production pretty much stopped with the initial manufacturer's run.

But....what prompted such devotion to obtaining a product out of yours truly, faithful reader? 

Needless to say....I was a mark for advertising.

I didn't acquire a ROM of my own until about a decade later, when in high school I ran across a nearly complete loose example of the children's toy at a favorite haunt of mine during that period of my life: the local rummage shop owned by an elderly lady who totally reminded me of Large Marge from PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE.  Best buck and a quarter ever spent.

Hey,...... was a weird kid. 

About a month ago, I scored a really nice nearly mint in box vintage example of ROM, that only cost me an arm and a leg.

Hey,....I'm a weird 40 something adult.

Starting somewhere around the fall of '79, after reading the first few issues of the Marvel comic, I became fascinated with the adventures of the Dire Wraith slaying Defender of Galador.  I actually became quite a big fan, with Marvel's ROM SPACEKNIGHT title becoming an early example of a Marvel title I bought, collected, and read pretty religiously on a monthly basis, following (and eventually subscribing) to the book until the very end, in 1986, with issue #75.

So, to me, Rom's comic book exploits will always be the first thing that comes to mind.
I've had a theory for years why ROM, as a Marvel comic, sold and lasted as long as it did during the period it was being published...at least with diehard Marvel fanboys. 

During the period in which ROM was in publication,  it's rumored that Marvel creative and editorial was under an unwritten mandate that stated that nobody touched the Silver Surfer unless their name was " Stan Lee".   Lee, whenever questioned on the subject over the years, has stated that the Surfer, of all Marvel properties, is probably his favorite.  So, with the Surfer off the board, Marvel needed an alien "stranger in a strange land" type to tell grand cosmic stories with,  and Parker Bros. toy space soldier fit the bill. (I mean, literally. ...you can count the Surfer's comic book appearances throughout the 1970s and into mid 80s on both hands and a foot....about a dozen and a half issues of THE DEFENDERS and the excellent 1976 Lee and Kirby graphic novel being the most notable) .

ROM's making a comeback currently, in the form of a new on-going comic book series by IDW Publishing,  which reboots and reimagines the concept for a contemporary audience (without all that pesky Marvel continuity baggage) and as being part of the bigger fledgling "Hasbroverse"....yeah, that's right, ROM's current rightsholder,  Hasbro Toys, is creating a shared universe ala Disney/Marvel's cinematic efforts, featuring their big guns boy toy licenses: G.I. JOE, THE TRANSFORMERS, M.A.S.K., ACTION MAN (think "British G.I. JOE")....and, two former Marvel Comics mainstays from my youth, ROM and MICRONAUTS.

The print and digital media section of this marketing initiative, IDW's "REVOLUTION" event miniseries, looks fairly fun and interesting enough for me to throw some hard earned fanboy cash at....

And the new ROM book is actually pretty good, reading like an "Ultimate Marvel" take on the property, I.e., cherry picking all the best elements from the previous incarnation of the character and a slightly more streamlined new character design.

Things are looking up for Spaceknight fans such as myself....

Also.....if yer a ROM fanboy like myself,  take a minute to check out The Bill Mantlo Support Fund, and show some love to the guy who, if you're an old school 1980s Marvel reader, wrote a piece of your childhood.

Special thanks to PLAID STALLIONS for use of some of their wonderful examples of ROM marketing imagery.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR- Collectors Edition (2016)

 CAPTAIN AMERICA:CIVIL WAR (TWO DISC BLURAY EDITION, Disney 2016)

 

Following the events of CAPTAIN AMERICA:  THE WINTER SOLDIER and AVENGERS:  AGE OF ULTRON, Captain Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America finds himself at odds with both friends and foes after long thought deceased companion Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, is framed for the assassination of the leader of the African nation of Wakanda.

Charged to bring Cap and the Soldier to justice is fellow Avenger Tony Stark, the Invincible Iron Man,who assembles a new team of Avengers, including the new teenage hero Spider-Man.  But, Rogers is no slouch when it comes to recruiting, either...and this leads to a confrontation of epic proportions between superheroes on both sides of the battlelines. 

One guaranteed comic book purchase I would make when I was a kid was whenever I would run across whatever the latest issue of either DC Comics' JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA or Marvel's THE AVENGERS...usually from Blake's Pharmacy, located in West Union, Ohio (they're still around, have a working vintage lunch counter/soda fountain. ..and still off nickel Cokes.   Look them up and like them on Facebook) .  It was the fledgling bargain hunter in me: sure, I read and loved THE FLASH and GREEN LANTERN on a monthly basis in their respective solo titles, but in the pages of JLA, I got at least 7 or 8 heroes for the price of one comic.  Same thing with THE AVENGERS.  Even at age 8, I knew extra entertainment value when I saw it.

Unlike 2012's THE AVENGERS, which reminds this aging fanboy of the best issue ever of the aforementioned monthly team books published in the past, CIVIL WAR puts me more in mind of another favorite thing of mine from my youth, the classic Universal Monster "rallies" of the 1940s, like HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and such.  There's a level of excited anticipation that goes beyond the regular superhero team story (which CIVIL WAR is...for all intents and purposes,  this film is basically "THE AVENGERS PART 3").  You know you're getting a ton of familiar Marvel heroes,  but the pacing of the film is pleasantly relentless.  Cap is hanging out with the Falcon...then you get Ant-Man...AND the Black Panther....and then,....Holy shit!  There's Spider-Man!

Now, how this pacing differs from a very similar film from earlier this year, BATMAN V. SUPERMAN,  is a direct product of the script and seemingly better grasp on staging action sequences by the directing team of the Russo Brothers.   Whereas Zack Snyder's DC Comics themed movie has a disorienting quality, where one is constantly questioning what's going on and who the participants are, CIVIL WAR flows a lot more evenly in structure.

Plus,  there's an element of joy that the Marvel Studios films exhibit that seems to be missing  from the Warner Brothers' fledgling DC Cinematic Universe, whose films seem to exist in a very earnest darker universe, where oddly they take a very defensive stance on dealing with the consequences of it's heroes actions (I.e., SUICIDE SQUAD comes immediately to mind).

Tom Holland as the new Peter Parker/Spider-Man is a real stand out performance,  portraying the character as if he was ripped directly from the comic book pages.  This Webhead has just the right amount of quippy sense of humor and antsy teenage angst,  something missing from prior portrayals of the wallcrawler.   Another nice touch: the Queens accent.   Holland is the first screen Parker I actually believe is a New Yorker, which leads to a nice little exchange between him and Chris Evans' Cap that's just straight up welcome fan service.  Also, Spidey's reaction to seeing Giant Man is priceless and potentially the best line of the film.

Speaking of "antsy" and Giant Man, Paul Rudd continues to deliver a hilarious performance as the seemingly starstruck hero worshipping Scott Lang, which carries over from last year's ANT-MAN.

Chadwick Boseman's Prince T'Challa a.k.a. The Black Panther is another welcome addition to the film.  I'm a huge fan of the character's comic adventures  and am eager to see any upcoming film exploits.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR is a satisfactory bit of anticipated fan service that does it's multiple jobs well: It juggles an ensemble cast, yet at no time loses focus on the dilemmas of the central character.  It accomplished this while advancing the story and put emphasis on new elements of continuing saga, as well as spending time introducing new players that prove to just as interesting.  Probably the best of this summer's bloated crop of superhero films, IMO.