Aucbvax.1570 fa.sf-lovers utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!JPM@MIT-AI Tue Jun 9 02:19:36 1981 SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #145 SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 9 Jun 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 145 Today's Topics: SF Fandom - APAs, SF Books - Fantasticats & Tin-Tin, SF Movies - Raiders of the Lost Ark, SF Topics - Compu-fiction & Children's TV (Warner Brothers and The Thunderbirds and Merry Marvel Marching Society's and F.A.B. query and Courageous Cat and Colonel Bleep and Larriat Sam and Rocky and Bullwinkle) & Children's stories (Spaceship Under the Apple Tree) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Jun 1981 11:44:33-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: apa description is a bit inaccurate; I don't know anyone to whom you can send a true original (as opposed to a cut stencil or typed ditto master) without money for xeroxing and expect to produce a finished zine. With no exceptions that I know of, each member of an apa is responsible for assuring that a sufficient number of copies of hir contribution is produced. There's also an unclarity in the remarks about editorial comments; I don't know anyone who has gotten away with putting such remarks on people's contributions. [ The editorial comment reference in the original description of APAs was made in a context that implied that the comments were upon the issue as a whole (and mainly administrative), not individual contributions. Also, the description separately discussed duplication of contributions and possible costs of belonging to the APA. Many APAs will accept simple originals (although then there is usually a charge for xeroxing, as chip points out), while some will demand X number of copies. Sending ditto masters is frequently the cheapest thing to do all around (if the APA in question is set up to handle then of course). The best strategy to follow if you wish to join an APA is to first find out all their requirements and discover whether membership is open at this time (some APAs are so popular that contributing membership is restricted, although you can usually purchase copies of the APA). -- Jim ] ------------------------------ Date: 8 June 1981 21:35-EDT From: Brian J. Kreen Subject: Cats and SF Another book dealing with such beasties (lovable though!) is Decision at Doona, where humans meet 8' tall walking and talking feline "people." Decision at Doona Anne McCaffrey Ballantine Books, 1969 ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 1981 at 0100-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ MISCELLANY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ RE-- cats: Thanks to all who sent suggestions. Cordwainer Smith's works were the overwhelming majority of the nominees. The kitten-story recalled by BCH at Berkeley is Leiber's "Spacetime for Springers". It couldn't help but make a cat lover puddley around the eyeballs. As for cat-lovers in the \other/ sense, I would recommend the Catteni spaceman in McCaffrey's short story, "The Thorns of Barevi". (SF-Lers familiar with "...Barevi" will surely forgive the pun, as the story itself is almost one in narrative form.) RE-- SILVERLOCK: The author's (middle AND) last name is Myers. Saw a note in LOCUS a while back to the effect that some 30 years after the original, he's done a sequel. Hoo-raaaaaaaaay! RE-- Compu-fiction: Aha! Reality is catching up with SF. We've come across a couple fiction-writing machines in the CYBER-SF project. Off hand I recall the "wordmills" in Leiber's THE SILVER EGGHEADS, and the heroine in Compton's THE UNSLEEPING EYE worked at Computabook. ------------------------------ From: RP@MIT-MC Date: 06/08/81 08:19:13 Subject: Raiders of the Lost Ark I agree with Zellich, ROLAids is a super winner. We (+kids) found this to be the most entertaining film since TESB. Superman II will have serious competition. ------------------------------ Date: Sunday, 7 Jun 1981 20:18-PDT Subject: Review: Raiders of the Lost Ark From: mike at RAND-UNIX Screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saturday, June 6th. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Lucasfilm, Ltd production. This is a non-spoiler review. Don't let anyone spoil this movie for you: don't read the book, leaf through the magazine, color in the coloring book or any of the other ways you could spoil the movie. JUST GO SEE THE MOVIE, and be surprised. Don't be a fool! Go see this movie as soon as it opens! Go see it twice. Seeing this movie the first time was as fun as seeing Star Wars the first time. And I don't say that lightly. Raiders of the Lost Ark is an adventure film of the old cinematic school: the romantic setting is not outer space but a far-away jungle or desert, the villains are not Storm Troopers from the Empire, but Nazi's from Germany. Our heroes don't use the force, just good ol' American pluck and spirit. They drink their whiskey straight, too. So does Lauren Bacall, er, whatever the name of the heroine is. Supposedly the inspiration for the film comes out of the Saturday morning serials that used to run in the theatres for a nickle. Does anyone know what these might be? I suppose the original Flash Gordon fits into this mold. The Action is continuous! The Danger immense! How can our Hero Survive? Will Paramount's stock Double? NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH: Warning to parents of very small children: many of the images in the movie are strong. Maybe strong isn't the right word. Maybe TERRIFYING is the right word. The woman next to me in the theatre cringed continuously. As Indiana Jones said peering into a sacred crypt where-man-was-not-meant-to-be, "Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?" Michael Wahrman ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 1981 1617-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds from III via Rand Subject: do it yourself movie editing Forgive me if this has recently been mentioned, but the discussion of movies with audience decision branch-points brings to mind the "Aspen Project" of the Architecture Machine Group. This was (is) a "movie map" of the town of Aspen Colorado. It is based on optical video disk and midi-computer networks. The user sits in front of a color video monitor which is touch-sensitive (Lauren's favorite) on it you see a view down a street in Aspen, you press the GO button and your point-of-view starts to move down the street (images coming sequentually from the disk). When you come to an intersection, you can continue straight through or turn to the right or left. Usually any of these choices involve hopping to some other part of the disk to fetch the pictures for the street you are turning onto. By using two disk drives (with two copies of the same disk) the idle one can be prefetching the "most likely" branch for the next intersection. In this manner the user can "drive" all over the city, without any real restrictions. One way to look at this is a movie which is always edited on the fly by each viewer, this leads to any number of possible "drives" (or plotlines, if you prefer). Craig ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 1981 1448-PDT From: CSD.BOTHNER at SU-SCORE Subject: Tin-Tin comic books and films The creator of Tin-Tin was Herge, not the abomination Lauren called him. @digression [I think there is an accent aigu over the final e - aigu means sharp or accute which is the angle it makes with the direction of reading. The other one is an accent grave - someone mixed them up in a recent message. ] Tin-Tin is primarily a comic book, and Herge is part of the French- Belgian comic book culture. Tin-Tin has starred in at least a dozen of the big glossy comic book which are so typical in Europe. Tin-Tin's adventures weren't really all that exciting, but the books' big win is the supporting cast of eccentric friends and helpers. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jun 1981 1958-PDT From: First at SUMEX-AIM Subject: WB Cartoons The best cartoons ever produced (both technically and plot/clever-idea-wise) were the WB cartoons produced in the 40's and early 50's under the names "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies". These cartoon lasted 8 (9??) minutes and took about 9 months per cartoon to create. The artwork and detail in a typical Bugs Bunny cartoon of this era rivals the best work from Disney-- each frame was drawn separately, and complete orchestral scores were written and recorded for each cartoon. With the escalating costs of production and the advent of computer-controlled animation (SIGH!!--maybe the vast improvement in computer-graphics in recent years will reverse this--I hear Lucasfilm is experimenting with full-screen animation which is totally generated by a computer), this type of meticulous animation is only a thing of the past. Besides the technical superiority, the story-lines of these cartoons were nothing less than brilliant. The main reason for this was that the audience for these cartoons was in fact adult--they originally appeared before feature films in the 40's (now all we get is Woody Woodpecker--does anybody really LIKE those damned things?) and were therefore targetted for adult tastes (unlike Jay Ward which targetted for adults but still had to deal with the reality that these cartoons were being screened for kids). Besides Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck/Elmer Fudd/Tweety and Sylvester/ Foghorn Leghorn/Tasmanian Devil/Yosemite Sam/Wile E. Coyote, etc, there were also some excellent cartoons of mice appearing as Abbott and Costello, Jack Benny, the Honeymooners, and other film characters of the day, often with the real actor's voices (Like Laugh-in, Sat. Night Live, etc., it was hip to appear in a WB cartoon satire). Those Bugs Bunny cartoons on Saturday are often repackaged/re-edited cartoons from the 40's. When they use newer animation, it really pales in comparison. I saw Mel Blanc give a talk recently (after the talk, which is interspersed with WB cartoons, there is a Q&A session where he "takes requests", i.e. "Mel, could you do Bugs saying "What a moroon!"") He did say that they (WB) are considering doing those 8 minute pre-feature-film cartoons again!! Although I don't think they will ever be able to be done with the same care that went into those gems... --Michael P.S. For a reasonably good anthology of these cartoons, "Bugs Bunny Superstar" and "The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie" are good, but they only contain the standard WB characters. The weirdest thing of all to see are certain Bugs Bunny cartoons done in the early forties which were meant to support the war (i.e. Bugs in the army, Bugs encouraging the audience to enlist, etc). These are not seen too often although the local UHF station would consistently screen these for the kiddie afternoon shows! ------------------------------ From: KARIM@MIT-MC Date: 06/08/81 09:25:47 Subject: Lauren's zero-zero island, thunderbirds, etc. Hmm. I thought "ZERO ZERO ISLAND" was the turf of "Dodo, the Kid from Outer Space". Anybody remember this? Lauren? In case you don't know, Zero-zero Island was supposed to be the one place on the globe where there was zero latitude and zero longitude. Is this place really on water, and is there an island there (or did they expect the kids to be that stupid...evidently I am)? Another bit: someone mentioned a few days ago, or hours (or is seconds the unit of time I'm looking for? How's a sentient tin can supposed to know, anyway?) something they used to say on "Captain Scarlet" -- S.I.G., I think it was. The used to say F.A.B. on that wonderful show, "The Thunderbirds". Now that is really driving me up a wall. Meanings, anybody? In case you don't know, Home Box Office (for those of you with cable of satellite dishes) has been and is showing, that Gerry and Sylvia Anderson Classic (yes, "U.F.O.", "Space: 1999") "Thunderbirds to the Rescue". For a few laughs, don't miss it. I would say more, but I was supposed to be at work sixty days ago (or minutes, or seconds...sigh). -Karim ------------------------------ From: TRB@MIT-MC Date: 06/08/81 11:17:14 Ah, do I remember Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. They had a real hep theme song with a standing bass. The catmobile comes out of the cat cave on the edge of town trailing smoke. The story was always called something like "The Case of the Missing Jewels." Courageous was courageous, and Minute was a wimp, always getting in trouble, like Robin in Batman. Their archenemy was the Frog (see?) and Courageous had the gun which did outrageous things. My favorite recollection of Colonel Bleep was an enemy of his called "The Black Knight of Pluto." I thought that was clever, right up there with "Vassa, Queen of the Sea," who was the Submariner's enemy on the Merry Marvel Marching Society's tv show. MMMS was neat, they showed Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Spiderman too, if I rightly recall. Please, please, does anybody remember, on Captain Kangaroo, there was a cartoon called Larriat Sam. His sidekick/horse was Tippy Toes. His archenemy was Bad Lands Meany. What was Bad Lands Meany's sidekick's name? I can't for the life of me remember, and I've never met anyone who has. I've been asking people for years and years, I haven't yet sunk so low as to write to Bob Keeshan. I know this isn't SF, so sorry. [ Please respond diretly to TRB@MIT-MC on this query, not SF-LOVERS. -- Jim ] ------------------------------ Date: 7 June 1981 0228-EDT (Sunday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: Natasha's last name I still claim her name is Nogoodnick. It is the same sort of alliteration as Boris Badenoff. (spelling doesn't count) (also a pun on a certain Russian Czar...) Any debate? Lee Moore ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 1981 2131-PDT From: Friedland at SUMEX-AIM Subject: trivia and SF books I noticed that the two common answers "Fatale" and "Nogoodnick" were given for Natasha's last name on R&B. The former is actually correct, although the confusion arises because Boris often used the latter to refer to her affectionately. Peter ------------------------------ Date: 21 May 1981 06:05:07-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley Subject: The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree I remember it well! It was about an alien visitor, age 11 Earth years (they allegedly measure age in light years -- *sigh* -- but I guess that's no worse than the Millenium Falcon being able to make the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs) and his new-found human companion, also 11. The alien had a spool of wire that powered his space ship, his gadgets, and his shoes, but this spool had somehow gotten lost. And when it was found, it was found at the bottom of a pond -- ruined. Fortunately, his friend's grandmother had snipped off a piece to mend a screen door, so he had just enough. One classic scene was where the alien and his friend (I don't remember either name) went fishing. The alien, with his quick reflexes, was able to reach in and grab fish. The human complained that he was supposed to catch fish on a hook. So, after he grabbed another fish, he stuck the hook through its tail. "Me catch fish on hook." Hiking with him wasn't any fun either: he'd just set off in a straight line towards the destination, walking over obstacles such as houses and haystacks, and walking under ponds. Obviously, a major part of the action was an attempt by the human to teach him Earth customs without letting on to his grandmother just what was going on. ------------------------------ 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. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.