Aucbvax.1376 fa.sf-lovers utzoo!duke!mhtsa!ucbvax!JPM@MIT-AI Tue May 19 20:34:11 1981 SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #124 SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 17 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 124 Today's Topics: SF Books - "High Yield Bondage" & The Man Who Fell to Earth, Humor - Mushrooms, SF Topics - Star Trek Nude Shot & Childern's TV (8th Man and Captain Video and The Video Rangers and Tom Corbett,Space Cadet) & Childern's Books (Mushroom Planet and The Three Investigators and The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree and Here's the Plot What's the Title) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 May 1981 10:44-EDT From: Dale R. Worley Subject: The Man Who Fell to Earth Wasn't there a novel with this name? I seem to remember that the hero came to earth from some planet, with the plan of building a financial empire so that he could send a rescue mission to his home planet, which was about to get destroyed in some way. The empire was based on various inventions which they knew we did not have from watching our television transmissions. ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 1981 10:16:08-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: "High Yield Bondage" THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (film version starring David Bowie) is a reasonably faithful representation of the novel of the same title by Walter Tevis. Tevis is basically an outsider to SF; the only other SF of his that I know of is [the?] MOCKINGBIRD, a recent book which was praised in certain circles. In the book it is made clear early on that the ET came deliberately (i.e., is not trying to make enough money to get off) to warn the Earth of an impending catastrophe. ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 1981 10:55-EDT From: Dale R. Worley Subject: Hitchcock's juvenile detective stories Weren't these called "The Three Investigators"? As the title implies, there were three of them, and they were always running into incredible criminal enterprises. ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 1981 1157-PDT From: OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE Subject: magic animal robots, Alfred Hitchcock There is a flying talking couch and there are a bunch of other magically animated creatures in the Oz books. How about the Patchwork Girl of Oz? In the book by that title, she magically comes to life. I can get a more complete list from a relative if it is wanted. I think the detectives in Alfred Hitchcock's series were called the Investigators. Anyone remember The Case of the Stuttering Parrot? I remember soda pop coming out of the faucet, but don't remember the author. I'm pretty sure, though, that the author comes before "Eager" in the alphabet (by my memory of where the book was in the library). By the way, does anyone remember Half Magic, Knight's Castle, or Seven-Day Magic by Edward Eager? How about The Gammage Cup and The Whisper of Glocken by Carolyn Kendall? Homer Price and the Doughnut Machine! All among my favorites. I've read the Bellairs books Face in the Frost (very good) and The House with the Clock in its Walls (good), and also the other two books that follow it in the series. I can't remember the titles, but I do remember disliking them. Face in the Frost is very funny, though ... It starts out something like "Once upon a time in a place whose name doesn't really matter there was a wizard named Prospero, and not the one you're thinking of, either." good reading, --cat ------------------------------ From: ELLEN@MIT-MC Date: 05/15/81 22:21:50 Subject: Nostalgia jig... I am not on SF-Lovers, but read it occasionally. I have noticed a certain Nostalgia sort of thing about children's Sci-Fi of late, and thought (having a 13 year old in his first childhood) I might be able to help: The Alfred Hitchcock series is "The Three Investigators" A listing of titles (taken from book number 25, "The Mystery of the Dancing Devil", from my son's bookcase) goes: The Secret of Terror Castle The Mystery of The Stuttering Parrot The Mystery of the Whispering Mymmy The Mystery of the Green Ghost The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure The Secret of Skeleton Island The Mystery of the Fiery Eye The Mystery of the Silver Spider The Mystery of the Screaming Clock The Mystery of the Moaning Cave The Mystery of the Talking Skull The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow The Secret of the Crooked Cat The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon The Mystery of the Nervous Lion The Mystery of the Singing Serpent The Mystery of the Shrinking House The Secret of Phanatom Lake The Mystery of Monster Mountain The Secret of the Haunted Mirror The Mystery of the Dead Man's Riddle The Mystery of the Invisible Dog The Mystery of the Death Trap Mine The Mystery of the Dancing Devil The editor may wish to put that list somewhere, as it is long, and I fear not even complete. These books are really sort of a modern (gadgetry) version of the older Hardy Boys. The stories are not actually by Hitchcock, as someone has suggested ("why would he want to...") but feature him as narrator and are written by at least two authors, Hitchcock's association with the series is not clear to me from looking at the example I have in front of me, except that he obviously gave permission for his name to be used. They are primarily detective stories, however. But, they sparked my son to go on to more reading, including (does anyone remember reading this:) Louis Slobodkin, "The Three-Seated Space Ship", "The Space Ship in the Park", "The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree", and "The Space Ship Returns to the Apple Tree" ?? This series features a kid from another planet who contacts a kid here (in the three seated version I think we bring along a grandmother) and they have assorted fun time/space adventures, along with needing to magically learn new languages, new customs, and so on - not to mention explaining where they were last Monday.) My son tired of those quickly and went on to Ben Bova's Exile Trilogy and Asimov. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 1981 19:31:46-PDT From: eagle!mhtsa!duke!unc!bch at Berkeley Subject: Captain Video and the Video Rangers The first Captain Video helmet was of the standard diving bell variety used in "Destination Moon." The second was plastic with a hinged trans- parent face plate and was offered as a premium for sending in the appropriate number of "Powerhouse" candy bar wrappers (never could stand the taste of those things, but a true fan must sacrifice) and a nominal sum of money. I expect they would have been banned by the FTC these days as they were inadequately ventilated and definitely flammable. (I wonder if accidents due to those properties led to the final "force field" version of the helmet?) As I recall, however, the Video Rangers (save for the single character called "the Ranger") were rehashed Texas Ranger movies shown in 10 minute installments between 10 minute segments of Captain Video. As long as we're here, anybody remember "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet?" I remember the series, and that the characters wore ostentatiously studded uniforms, but anything beyond that escapes me. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 1981 1556-EDT From: SWG at MIT-XX Subject: Tom Corbett, Space Cadet >From /The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows/ by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh (Ballantine, 1979): Broadcast history: Oct-Dec 1950, CBS; Jan 1951 - Sep 1952 ABC; Jul-Sep 1951 NBC Characters: Tom Corbett, Capt. Strong, Astro the Venusian, Roger Manning, Dr. Joan Dale Technical Advisor: Willy Ley Writers: Frankie Thomas (who played Tom), Stu Brynes, Ray Morse /Tom Corbett/ was conceived by CBS in late 1950 to cash in on the enormous popularity of DuMont's /Captain Video/. The two programs were not directly competitive---in fact /Tom Corbett/ led into /Captain Video/ three nights a week---and they differed in substantial ways. /Tom Corbett/ had a much larger budget and thus more realistic special effects, such as blastoffs, weightlessness, etc., all done live through various techniques of video hocus-pocus. And the emphasis was less on futuristic hardware (though there was plenty) and more on the adventures of the young cast. Tom Corbett, curly-headed teenage cadet at the Space Academy, four centuries hence, was a figure with whom youngsters could identify. With him in training to become Solar Guards were wisecracking Cadet Roger Manning ("So what happens now, space heroes?," "Aw, go blow your jets!") and the quieter Astro, a Venusian (planetary boundaries were rather less important in the 24th century). Every week they blasted off in the spaceship /Polaris/ to new adventures somewhere in space, usually against natural forces rather than the space villains who populated /Captain Video/. Their exploits were instructive as well as exciting. Program advisor Willy Ley, a noted scientist and author, worked in legitimate concepts such as variable gravity forces, asteroid belts, and antimatter. . . . Late in 1952 the series moved to Saturday daytime, where it continued, off and on, until the summer of 1955. Based on the novel /Space Cadet/, by Robert A. Heinlein. ------------------------------ FIL@MIT-AI 05/08/81 22:30:51 Re: Mushroom Planet and Apple trees "The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree" was written by William Slobodkin, I think. He also wrote a series of non-sf children's books about a family named Moffat. I think there might have been a sequel to SsUtAT, but I'm not sure. As for the Mushroom Planet, I remember plenty. The name of the semi-mad (not really) scientist was Theo (for something longer) Bass. There were at least three books in that series: In the first one Mr. Bass tells the boys to take a mascot along. In their last minute rush to take off, all they can scrounge up is a chicken from the barnyard. Said chicken ends up saving the Mushroom Planet because of sulfur in her egg yolks, which the Mushroom People are short of. Also in the story was the fact that once on the MP you could only speak the native tongue and write the native script. And the fact that their take off window was very narrow because of a black hole of some kind orbiting between the Earth and the MP. In the second book, the boys meet Mr. Bass' cousin. They end up on a flight to the MP with the cuz and a Skeptical Scientist. After they get back, (leaving cuz behind on the MP) the SS tries to take the ship back because he can't read the notes he took while on the MP. He manages to get the ship off, but falls through the black hole and by some miracle is washed ashore the next day. Meanwhile, Mr. Bass, who has never been to the MP himself, is breathing air from a jar that the boys brought back, air from the MP. He sighs happily and it is implied that he somehow floats awy on the wind to the MP. The third book, which I never read (because I could never find it, dammit!), was called Mr. Bass' Planetoid. I'm not sure what it was about, but I think Mr. Bass need the boys help with some important matter. Now here's a plot without a title from me: Some kids (a boy and a girl) are building a play spaceship in the garage. The boy finds a strange piece of metal in a vacant lot. It is a big dish shaped thing, very light and malleable. The boy and girl shape it to the nose of their wooden ship. In the night (or sometime) some being comes and tries to take the ship by rubbing a piece of metal shaped like an old umbrella against the metal of the nose. To make a long story short, the being does get the ship moving (seems the metal on the nose is the other half of its flying saucer). The kids go with him because he is lost. They end up touring the solar system looking for they guy's home. He feeds them magic jelly been so they won't need air or water or warm temperatures. It turns out in the end that he's not from the solar system at all. Anyway it was a cute book. Any takers? philip ------------------------------ Date: 11 May 1981 1455-EDT From: SWG at MIT-XX Subject: Mushroom Planet books (SFL V3 #117) I'll never forget that wonderful substance tritetramethylbenzacarbonethylene -- a sure-fire remedy for antidisestablishmentarianism! ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 1981 2241-PDT From: First@SUMEX-AIM Subject: Star Trek Nude Shot/TOBOR the 8th Man memory The following offer appears in the April 1980 issue of Playboy (which if one is any kind of a Beatle fan is an absolute must--John Lennon comments on the meaning and circumstances around most of the Beatles songs--they are listed in alphabetical order with Lennon's comments about each one--it's a dream come true, made very shortly before his assassination): "Trekkies may remember an episode of \Star Trek/ called the "Gamesters of Triskelion" in which an Amazonian woman develops an interplanetary affection for Captain Kirk. Now Angelique Pettyjohn, a truly stellar attraction on the show, is selling two 19" by 24" posters depicting herself in--and out--of her Amazon costume. The clothed version is $7.50, the unclothed one is $17.50 or you can have both post-paid for only $22.50 sent to Angelique Pettyjohn, c/o Tri-Sun, INC., PO Box 42117, Las Vegas Nevada 80104. Angelique is full of enterprise." p. 240. Small reprints of the posters are printed with this little article. I guess I can't really fault her--Leonard Nimoy has been making a fortune off of his involvement. It is a bit incongruous seeing the picture--Star Trek was always kind of devoid of overt sexuality even though many of the costumes were as revealing as Roddenberry could get past the censors. I guess it was only a matter of time until someone decided to capitalize off of our fantasies... On the same Philadelphia UHF station which carried Astroboy, was a much better Japanese export: "TOBOR the Eighth Man", a precursor by several years of the bionic man concept (TOBOR is robot spelled backwards--clever, huh). Does anybody remember this one I can't quite remember the original concept. In my group of friends, it was considered much more fashionable to watch than Astroboy--I really hated that awful squeaking sound he made when he walked. --Michael [ TOBOR is briefly discussed in volume 3, issue 123. -- Jim ] ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest *********************** ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. 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