March 18, 2024 • 19 mins
Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener mail.
My name is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and it's Monday, the
day of each week that we read back messages from
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If you
have never gotten in touch with the show before, why
not give it a try. You can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. We
accept messages of all types, especially if you have feedback
(00:35):
to a recent episode, maybe something interesting to add on
a topic we've talked about, or especially this week, if
you got something about Dune. Hit us up.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah all right, well let's jump into it. This first
one comes to us from Matt and this one is
titled Cave Biology. Hey, Rob, Joe and JJ. I was
just a listening to your first episode about cave dwelling
life and was very pleased when you started talking about
(01:04):
subjects related to genetics. I thought i'd share some of
my thoughts on the subject. First, you asked for comment
about the sonic the hedgehog pathway. One of you I
can't remember who wondered aloud, which was discovered first hedgehog
or sonic hedgehog. It was hedgehog, and it was so
name because fruitflies without this gene would develop many spiky
protrusions all over their body, giving them a very hedgehog
(01:27):
like appearance. Sonic Hedgehog was simply named after the game character,
as it is in the hedgehog family of genes, and
after seeing the character on the cover of a magazine. Yeah,
I read some of the background about this as well.
This is a hedgehog first, and then I think some
other varieties, including sonic ketchhog. Anyways, another thing you brought
(01:49):
up is the idea of a single genetic trait that
affects multiple characteristics of an organism. I think you used
eyes and long arms as an example, but the one
my mind immediately went to is a gene that results
in both red hair and freckles. MC one R just
thought i'd share that this example exists. The last thing
is related to the fish that develop eyes but lose
(02:10):
them when in the dark environment of a cave. I
seem to remember from a developmental biology course that neural
cells often have this use it or lose its system
already in place during development, even in humans. Many more
neurons are formed early in development than are needed, but
only those able to create strong, useful connections will remain
while the others are destroyed or broken down. The difference
(02:32):
comes down to their ability to communicate across the connections
they make. It doesn't seem like a stretch for this
to extend to the eyes, as they are formed from
specialized neural tissue, and when the eyes aren't sending signals
to indicate they are useful, they get the acts with
the excessive neurons. Anyway, love the show. You guys are
masters of science communication.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Matt ah, thank you, Matt Yeah, thank you, especially for
bringing so the idea of a single genetic trait that
affects multiple characteristics and the phenotype in the body or
behavior of the organism. I did use the idea of
like smaller eyes but longer arms, just as hypothetical, but
I appreciate you adding a real life known example the
(03:14):
idea that a single genetic trait could affect having both
red hair and freckles. I think the real one we
talked about in those cavefish was the idea of a
pliotropy that would cause at the same time both regressed eyes,
but also more taste buds around the mouth.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yes, all right.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
This next message is in response to our series on
the illusion of control. It comes from Christopher. Christopher says, hello,
Joe and Robert. On the subject of the illusion of control,
and further to other listener's comments, a student of Stoicism
would say that we truly have no control over anything
(03:56):
besides our minds. We can only control our perception and
reactions to events and influences. Perhaps an episode on stoicism
Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, question mark kind regards Christopher. Oh, yeah, Christopher,
that's an interesting idea. I guess I did think a
bit about Stoic philosophers. I don't know a ton about Stoicism,
(04:19):
but I did think a bit about that when we
were recording the episodes, but it never came up in conversation.
So I know I've read before that some of the Stoics,
I think especially it was Epictetus placed a kind of
fundamental importance on discerning between that which is within our
power to change and that which is not within our
power to change, on being able to tell the difference
(04:41):
there in fact as well articulated in a famous prayer
I think used by people who are in recovery programs often,
but they're you know, and obviously like once the idea
is once you tell the difference between things you can
influence and things you can't. There are a number of
other spools that followed from that initial judgment.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah yeah. As to the possibility doing an episode on
say stoicism or something, yeah, yeah, I don't think we've
done a real philosophical episode of late in terms of
like getting into particular philosophers and schools of philosophy. We
have more in the past, but maybe we're due for another.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Yeah, I think we could definitely come back and talk
about stoicism at some point. I think more recently, we
actually ended up talking about cynicism because we were talking
about Diogenes the cynic because we were talking about beans
and he I think, was famous for eating beans that
were you know, not that we're kind of looked down
(05:45):
upon as food by the elite of Athens.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
All right, well, let's go ahead and transition into a
little weird house cinema. We have some weird house cinema
left over from last week. Some new stuff has come in.
This one comes to it from Louisa. Lisa says, Hi,
Robin Joe Dune. What can one say that hasn't been
(06:12):
said about it before? It was my first experience with
sci fi, although thirty years later I don't really know
if it fits in that particular genre. This new adaptation
is wonderful and it inspired me to make a quirky
mug I wanted to show you. And then we get
some images of this mug. They will, I guess describe
in a second. We'll give the author here a second
(06:33):
to continue the Litany against fear, a sandworm on the
side and the mouth of a chah alude on the inside.
I'm tempted to watch the Lynch version now. Thanks to you,
Thank you for your wonderful podcast. You're my weekly portal
into scientific considerations. Best wishes, Louisa from Guatemala.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Luisa, this mug is great. So yeah, it has the
Litany against fear on the opposed sides of the mug
on you know, one half on one side, the other
half on the other. As she says, the inside is
just a big, old, bristly spiky worm mouth. I prefer
this mug to the popcorn buckets.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, you know, the popcorn buckets have their own charm,
but this, this is something I would be more inclined
to put on my shelf. Yeah, I love the handle.
The handle of the mug is in fact a sandworm.
Beautiful job.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I love it totally. Five out of five kulwahds. Okay,
this next message is from Jeff. Jeff says, greeting science humans,
really enjoying the recent nostalgic weird house picks. Your episode
(07:50):
on Flash Gordon reminded me of being a kid and
encountering movies on cable television with no preconceived notions. I
distinctly remember the ex of seeing Flash Gordon on the
on screen channel guide. I'd never heard of the character
and thought it was going to be a movie about
the DC superhero, the Flash. I don't know my DC heroes.
(08:13):
Is that the one that runs really fast?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
He runs really fast, really really fast? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
All right, so Jeff says. Instead, I got something much
more fun and imaginative. Although I was pretty far into
the movie before I finally stopped wondering when he was
going to get super speed.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, I mean, if he wasn't going to get it
during the football scene, Yes, it probably wasn't gonna happen, Jeff.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Was it before or after the football combat that you
realized what you were actually watching? So, Jeff says, Obviously,
I loved the movie and the soundtrack, and would later
watch it, or at least parts of it, many times
as I encountered it channel surfing. The first time I
saw it, I immediately recognized the Hawkman Assault theme as
(08:57):
the song that played when you pick up the temporary
invincibility power up in the arcade game Vanguard.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Oh, Vanguard, I don't think I knew this one. I'm
looking it up now and seeing the like, I guess
what the cabinet art or poster art for it? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Interesting, Yeah, I looked up some gameplay. Vanguard is a
horizontal scrolling shoot him up. So the shoot him up
games are the ones where you're like some kind of
little spaceship and you're blasting a bunch of other space
ships that are scrolling either down the screen. They're like
vertical shoot them ups and horizontal ones. This is one
where you go from left to right across the screen
instead of bottom to top. And I don't think I've
(09:42):
ever played this one, but others in this genre. If
you want to picture it were games like R Type
or Defender. I was thinking maybe the Super Nintendo game
that had the guy with the banjo on the cover,
but I think that was actually a vertical scroller.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Vanguard Centuri's first talking game. I guess I had a voice.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Wait, I just remembered, yes, I did check this out.
At the start screen when you like press start to play,
it has a robotic computer voice that says bon voyage.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Ah oh man. Now I have to say I looked
it up on Moby Games that has a lot of
information on these old ones, and I was immediately captivated
by the art for the Atari twenty six hundred cartridge.
Really cool image that is, of course almost damning because
you look at that new No, no, there's no way
that this game backs up this awesome image in any way,
(10:33):
shape or form. And then I scrolled down who did
the cover art, Matt. It's Ralph McQuary, famous for his
concepts and sketches and his conceptual design for Star Wars
so and also I believe he did Boggy Creek too,
Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah, there's some sort of
(10:53):
weird connection between his concepts that would have become the Wookies,
and his concepts for the Bigfoot creature in the Body
Creek movie. So I think he did the poster art
for those as well. Okay, legendary Man.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Well, so I'm just comparing now the Atari twenty six
hundred graphics versus the Arcade graphics look markedly different. The
Arcade one looks a lot better. H Maybe I'm looking
at two different things. I can't tell anyway, And thus
concludes the extended sidebar on Vanguard. So going back to
(11:28):
Jeff's message about the oh, remember it was about the
power up music that was the exact same as the
Hawkman theme from Flash Gordon, Jeff says, I assumed it
was some old classical piece or other historical melody that
seemed to be hanging around in the culture forever, like
the music in Looney Tunes. It was much later that
I realized it was all the brilliance of queen and
(11:50):
video game designers simply didn't know enough to be afraid
of music licensing lawyers in those early days of the industry.
Of course, I knew of some blockbusters through pervasive advertising,
but a friend of mine experienced movies with an even
purer lack of expectation. He grew up in the Middle
East and would receive stacks of pirated VHS tapes, sometimes
(12:13):
with multiple movies on each, with nothing but the titles
scribbled on them. No Rotten Tomatoes, no Siskel or Ebert,
just the pure joy of discovery. It could be a
masterpiece like Ghostbusters or some Chuck Norris kickfest. There was
no indication of genre or quality. Wow, that does sound fun.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, I mean those old VHS types. If you didn't
care about quality, you could fit three movies on there.
And I distinctly remember having the VHS tapes with the
three different movie titles scribbled on there. You know, often
like taped off of HBO by my aunt, and it
would be a weird mix. It would be like a
kid's movie and then poulter Geist and it would like
(12:56):
just cut abruptly to poulter Geist in a way that
may do a raid as you reach the end of
the kids movie. That sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I would tape things off of TV, especially when I
saw like a commercial or promo for some TV movie
coming up soon that looked like it was really going
to be good and an example of what would be upcoming.
That I thought was really going to be good was
Forest Warriors starring Chuck Norris.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah. I mean it's it's a winning concept. It's him
in the forest fighting I don't know, big feet or something,
you know, the sasquatch battles, I don't.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Know, fighting poachers or something.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Well that sounds more likely.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Actually, No, I think it's like mean laggers. It's like
bad laggers who want to cut down the forest, and
he's like a martial arts ghost that must defend the forest.
All right, So that's your kickfest. Coming back to Jeff's message,
Jeff says, finally, I have a viewing recommendation called Delicious
(13:56):
in Dungeon on Netflix. Rob have you seen this?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I have not.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Okay, Jeff's gonna describe it, he says. It seems like
a perfect combination of subject matter for the two of you.
The premise is that a party of Dungeon adventurers have
no rations and must consume the monsters they kill to survive.
It works as a combination classic fantasy adventure plus cooking show.
They have such respect for both tabletop and video game
(14:23):
D and D themes that it feels as though you're
playing a game where someone invited two friends from culinary
school who are only slightly interested in the module, but
fascinated with the Monster Manual and what recipes they could
imagine on every page. It's light and funny, and so
far seems appropriate for viewing with kids. It's currently the
show I look most forward to every week. Thanks for
(14:46):
keeping the Heart of the Eighties Alive, Jeff.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
All right, Yeah, I mean I'm especially interested if I
can watch it with my son. Yeah, I'll have to
check it out. It was not on my radar.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Oh, I just took a peek. This is animated. You
may have said that, but I didn't realize that I
was picturing something live action.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
As for keeping the Heart of the Eighties Alive, yeah,
I mean, just considering Weird House cinema. I just did
a check up on this. We have, as of this
recording covered fifty three films from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Wow. I would not have thought it was that much.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, yeah, fifty three. I haven't done a full breakdown
on it. But for a while there it was like
eighties was in the lead, and then came like nineties
or seventies, I don't know, And then for a while
we got super into doing Films from the fifties and
the sixties are always up there, so you know, there's
a little bit of a push and pull there. And
this is all out of the total one hundred and
fifty three films that we've covered on the show.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Wow, it sounds like a solid third of them or
from the eighties though, right.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, okay, well we are you know, we are both
to differing degrees children of the eighties, so it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Remember Highlander your Home.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
All right, here's another one. This one comes to is
from Carrie. Carrie writes in and says, Rob and Joe,
I'm writing to suggest a pretty weird movie for weird House.
It's The five Thousand Fingers of Doctor t a nineteen
fifty three quote musical about a young boy who hates
(16:15):
his piano lessons and dreams of an evil piano teacher
who has built a piano so large that he has
imprisoned five hundred children in his dungeon to force them
to play it. I first saw this on TV in
the nineteen fifties and had vague recollections of it when
I saw it again in the student union while I
was in college in the nineteen seventies. I wouldn't say
it's good, but as I said before, it's weird. If
(16:35):
you aren't already familiar with it, check it out and
see what you think. Karen.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
You know, somehow I think this movie has come up before.
I've never seen it, but I've looked up screenshots from
the film. Apparently it was written by doctor Seuss, and
somehow the movie looks as if it were illustrated like
a Doctor Seuss book.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, yeah, I believe listeners have written in about this
one before. Yeah, I've never seen it, but I probably
need to lean in for a closer look. Yeah. It
the stills, and you included some stills in our shared
dock here. They look absurd. It does look very true too,
like like the production design is by Doctor SEUs in
(17:15):
the best way possible, not in not in like a
bad way, Yeah, which which can be possible.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Yeah, this looks like a noothbrush on my toothbrush that
I do indeed wish.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
To keep from the director of the nineteen fifty three
three D western, The Moonlighter.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Three D Western.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah. Yeah, you know we've talked before about this. Different
phases of the ups and downs and resurgences, of three
D cinema, and yeah, occasionally they'll put out a western.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
I'm just picturing a lot of three D like mule
kicking you in the face shots.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Anyway, the five thousand Fingers of Doctor t Yeah, we'll
put it. Make sure it's on the considerational list for
the future. All right, Well, on that note, I guess
we'll go ahead and close the mail bag for today.
But let's see normal housekeeping stuff here. Stuff to Blow
Your Mind is primarily a science podcast, with core episodes
on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays, listener
(18:13):
mail on Mondays, and on Fridays. We set aside most
serious concerns to just talk about a weird movie on
weird House cinema. Wherever you listen to the podcast, if
you have the ability to rate and review, do that
helps us out. Help make sure that we have some nice,
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want to follow us on any of the social media
(18:35):
accounts that you already use, you can probably find us there.
And likewise, let's see, we have a discord server. Email
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various links with other people who listen to the show.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hi,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener mail.
My name is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and it's Monday, the
day of each week that we read back messages from
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If you
have never gotten in touch with the show before, why
not give it a try. You can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. We
accept messages of all types, especially if you have feedback
(00:35):
to a recent episode, maybe something interesting to add on
a topic we've talked about, or especially this week, if
you got something about Dune. Hit us up.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah all right, well let's jump into it. This first
one comes to us from Matt and this one is
titled Cave Biology. Hey, Rob, Joe and JJ. I was
just a listening to your first episode about cave dwelling
life and was very pleased when you started talking about
(01:04):
subjects related to genetics. I thought i'd share some of
my thoughts on the subject. First, you asked for comment
about the sonic the hedgehog pathway. One of you I
can't remember who wondered aloud, which was discovered first hedgehog
or sonic hedgehog. It was hedgehog, and it was so
name because fruitflies without this gene would develop many spiky
protrusions all over their body, giving them a very hedgehog
(01:27):
like appearance. Sonic Hedgehog was simply named after the game character,
as it is in the hedgehog family of genes, and
after seeing the character on the cover of a magazine. Yeah,
I read some of the background about this as well.
This is a hedgehog first, and then I think some
other varieties, including sonic ketchhog. Anyways, another thing you brought
(01:49):
up is the idea of a single genetic trait that
affects multiple characteristics of an organism. I think you used
eyes and long arms as an example, but the one
my mind immediately went to is a gene that results
in both red hair and freckles. MC one R just
thought i'd share that this example exists. The last thing
is related to the fish that develop eyes but lose
(02:10):
them when in the dark environment of a cave. I
seem to remember from a developmental biology course that neural
cells often have this use it or lose its system
already in place during development, even in humans. Many more
neurons are formed early in development than are needed, but
only those able to create strong, useful connections will remain
while the others are destroyed or broken down. The difference
(02:32):
comes down to their ability to communicate across the connections
they make. It doesn't seem like a stretch for this
to extend to the eyes, as they are formed from
specialized neural tissue, and when the eyes aren't sending signals
to indicate they are useful, they get the acts with
the excessive neurons. Anyway, love the show. You guys are
masters of science communication.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Matt ah, thank you, Matt Yeah, thank you, especially for
bringing so the idea of a single genetic trait that
affects multiple characteristics and the phenotype in the body or
behavior of the organism. I did use the idea of
like smaller eyes but longer arms, just as hypothetical, but
I appreciate you adding a real life known example the
(03:14):
idea that a single genetic trait could affect having both
red hair and freckles. I think the real one we
talked about in those cavefish was the idea of a
pliotropy that would cause at the same time both regressed eyes,
but also more taste buds around the mouth.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yes, all right.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
This next message is in response to our series on
the illusion of control. It comes from Christopher. Christopher says, hello,
Joe and Robert. On the subject of the illusion of control,
and further to other listener's comments, a student of Stoicism
would say that we truly have no control over anything
(03:56):
besides our minds. We can only control our perception and
reactions to events and influences. Perhaps an episode on stoicism
Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, question mark kind regards Christopher. Oh, yeah, Christopher,
that's an interesting idea. I guess I did think a
bit about Stoic philosophers. I don't know a ton about Stoicism,
(04:19):
but I did think a bit about that when we
were recording the episodes, but it never came up in conversation.
So I know I've read before that some of the Stoics,
I think especially it was Epictetus placed a kind of
fundamental importance on discerning between that which is within our
power to change and that which is not within our
power to change, on being able to tell the difference
(04:41):
there in fact as well articulated in a famous prayer
I think used by people who are in recovery programs often,
but they're you know, and obviously like once the idea
is once you tell the difference between things you can
influence and things you can't. There are a number of
other spools that followed from that initial judgment.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah yeah. As to the possibility doing an episode on
say stoicism or something, yeah, yeah, I don't think we've
done a real philosophical episode of late in terms of
like getting into particular philosophers and schools of philosophy. We
have more in the past, but maybe we're due for another.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Yeah, I think we could definitely come back and talk
about stoicism at some point. I think more recently, we
actually ended up talking about cynicism because we were talking
about Diogenes the cynic because we were talking about beans
and he I think, was famous for eating beans that
were you know, not that we're kind of looked down
(05:45):
upon as food by the elite of Athens.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
All right, well, let's go ahead and transition into a
little weird house cinema. We have some weird house cinema
left over from last week. Some new stuff has come in.
This one comes to it from Louisa. Lisa says, Hi,
Robin Joe Dune. What can one say that hasn't been
(06:12):
said about it before? It was my first experience with
sci fi, although thirty years later I don't really know
if it fits in that particular genre. This new adaptation
is wonderful and it inspired me to make a quirky
mug I wanted to show you. And then we get
some images of this mug. They will, I guess describe
in a second. We'll give the author here a second
(06:33):
to continue the Litany against fear, a sandworm on the
side and the mouth of a chah alude on the inside.
I'm tempted to watch the Lynch version now. Thanks to you,
Thank you for your wonderful podcast. You're my weekly portal
into scientific considerations. Best wishes, Louisa from Guatemala.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Luisa, this mug is great. So yeah, it has the
Litany against fear on the opposed sides of the mug
on you know, one half on one side, the other
half on the other. As she says, the inside is
just a big, old, bristly spiky worm mouth. I prefer
this mug to the popcorn buckets.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, you know, the popcorn buckets have their own charm,
but this, this is something I would be more inclined
to put on my shelf. Yeah, I love the handle.
The handle of the mug is in fact a sandworm.
Beautiful job.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I love it totally. Five out of five kulwahds. Okay,
this next message is from Jeff. Jeff says, greeting science humans,
really enjoying the recent nostalgic weird house picks. Your episode
(07:50):
on Flash Gordon reminded me of being a kid and
encountering movies on cable television with no preconceived notions. I
distinctly remember the ex of seeing Flash Gordon on the
on screen channel guide. I'd never heard of the character
and thought it was going to be a movie about
the DC superhero, the Flash. I don't know my DC heroes.
(08:13):
Is that the one that runs really fast?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
He runs really fast, really really fast? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
All right, so Jeff says. Instead, I got something much
more fun and imaginative. Although I was pretty far into
the movie before I finally stopped wondering when he was
going to get super speed.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, I mean, if he wasn't going to get it
during the football scene, Yes, it probably wasn't gonna happen, Jeff.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Was it before or after the football combat that you
realized what you were actually watching? So, Jeff says, Obviously,
I loved the movie and the soundtrack, and would later
watch it, or at least parts of it, many times
as I encountered it channel surfing. The first time I
saw it, I immediately recognized the Hawkman Assault theme as
(08:57):
the song that played when you pick up the temporary
invincibility power up in the arcade game Vanguard.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Oh, Vanguard, I don't think I knew this one. I'm
looking it up now and seeing the like, I guess
what the cabinet art or poster art for it? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Interesting, Yeah, I looked up some gameplay. Vanguard is a
horizontal scrolling shoot him up. So the shoot him up
games are the ones where you're like some kind of
little spaceship and you're blasting a bunch of other space
ships that are scrolling either down the screen. They're like
vertical shoot them ups and horizontal ones. This is one
where you go from left to right across the screen
instead of bottom to top. And I don't think I've
(09:42):
ever played this one, but others in this genre. If
you want to picture it were games like R Type
or Defender. I was thinking maybe the Super Nintendo game
that had the guy with the banjo on the cover,
but I think that was actually a vertical scroller.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Vanguard Centuri's first talking game. I guess I had a voice.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Wait, I just remembered, yes, I did check this out.
At the start screen when you like press start to play,
it has a robotic computer voice that says bon voyage.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Ah oh man. Now I have to say I looked
it up on Moby Games that has a lot of
information on these old ones, and I was immediately captivated
by the art for the Atari twenty six hundred cartridge.
Really cool image that is, of course almost damning because
you look at that new No, no, there's no way
that this game backs up this awesome image in any way,
(10:33):
shape or form. And then I scrolled down who did
the cover art, Matt. It's Ralph McQuary, famous for his
concepts and sketches and his conceptual design for Star Wars
so and also I believe he did Boggy Creek too,
Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah, there's some sort of
(10:53):
weird connection between his concepts that would have become the Wookies,
and his concepts for the Bigfoot creature in the Body
Creek movie. So I think he did the poster art
for those as well. Okay, legendary Man.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Well, so I'm just comparing now the Atari twenty six
hundred graphics versus the Arcade graphics look markedly different. The
Arcade one looks a lot better. H Maybe I'm looking
at two different things. I can't tell anyway, And thus
concludes the extended sidebar on Vanguard. So going back to
(11:28):
Jeff's message about the oh, remember it was about the
power up music that was the exact same as the
Hawkman theme from Flash Gordon, Jeff says, I assumed it
was some old classical piece or other historical melody that
seemed to be hanging around in the culture forever, like
the music in Looney Tunes. It was much later that
I realized it was all the brilliance of queen and
(11:50):
video game designers simply didn't know enough to be afraid
of music licensing lawyers in those early days of the industry.
Of course, I knew of some blockbusters through pervasive advertising,
but a friend of mine experienced movies with an even
purer lack of expectation. He grew up in the Middle
East and would receive stacks of pirated VHS tapes, sometimes
(12:13):
with multiple movies on each, with nothing but the titles
scribbled on them. No Rotten Tomatoes, no Siskel or Ebert,
just the pure joy of discovery. It could be a
masterpiece like Ghostbusters or some Chuck Norris kickfest. There was
no indication of genre or quality. Wow, that does sound fun.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, I mean those old VHS types. If you didn't
care about quality, you could fit three movies on there.
And I distinctly remember having the VHS tapes with the
three different movie titles scribbled on there. You know, often
like taped off of HBO by my aunt, and it
would be a weird mix. It would be like a
kid's movie and then poulter Geist and it would like
(12:56):
just cut abruptly to poulter Geist in a way that
may do a raid as you reach the end of
the kids movie. That sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I would tape things off of TV, especially when I
saw like a commercial or promo for some TV movie
coming up soon that looked like it was really going
to be good and an example of what would be upcoming.
That I thought was really going to be good was
Forest Warriors starring Chuck Norris.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah. I mean it's it's a winning concept. It's him
in the forest fighting I don't know, big feet or something,
you know, the sasquatch battles, I don't.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Know, fighting poachers or something.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Well that sounds more likely.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Actually, No, I think it's like mean laggers. It's like
bad laggers who want to cut down the forest, and
he's like a martial arts ghost that must defend the forest.
All right, So that's your kickfest. Coming back to Jeff's message,
Jeff says, finally, I have a viewing recommendation called Delicious
(13:56):
in Dungeon on Netflix. Rob have you seen this?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I have not.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Okay, Jeff's gonna describe it, he says. It seems like
a perfect combination of subject matter for the two of you.
The premise is that a party of Dungeon adventurers have
no rations and must consume the monsters they kill to survive.
It works as a combination classic fantasy adventure plus cooking show.
They have such respect for both tabletop and video game
(14:23):
D and D themes that it feels as though you're
playing a game where someone invited two friends from culinary
school who are only slightly interested in the module, but
fascinated with the Monster Manual and what recipes they could
imagine on every page. It's light and funny, and so
far seems appropriate for viewing with kids. It's currently the
show I look most forward to every week. Thanks for
(14:46):
keeping the Heart of the Eighties Alive, Jeff.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
All right, Yeah, I mean I'm especially interested if I
can watch it with my son. Yeah, I'll have to
check it out. It was not on my radar.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Oh, I just took a peek. This is animated. You
may have said that, but I didn't realize that I
was picturing something live action.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
As for keeping the Heart of the Eighties Alive, yeah,
I mean, just considering Weird House cinema. I just did
a check up on this. We have, as of this
recording covered fifty three films from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Wow. I would not have thought it was that much.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, yeah, fifty three. I haven't done a full breakdown
on it. But for a while there it was like
eighties was in the lead, and then came like nineties
or seventies, I don't know, And then for a while
we got super into doing Films from the fifties and
the sixties are always up there, so you know, there's
a little bit of a push and pull there. And
this is all out of the total one hundred and
fifty three films that we've covered on the show.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Wow, it sounds like a solid third of them or
from the eighties though, right.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, okay, well we are you know, we are both
to differing degrees children of the eighties, so it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Remember Highlander your Home.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
All right, here's another one. This one comes to is
from Carrie. Carrie writes in and says, Rob and Joe,
I'm writing to suggest a pretty weird movie for weird House.
It's The five Thousand Fingers of Doctor t a nineteen
fifty three quote musical about a young boy who hates
(16:15):
his piano lessons and dreams of an evil piano teacher
who has built a piano so large that he has
imprisoned five hundred children in his dungeon to force them
to play it. I first saw this on TV in
the nineteen fifties and had vague recollections of it when
I saw it again in the student union while I
was in college in the nineteen seventies. I wouldn't say
it's good, but as I said before, it's weird. If
(16:35):
you aren't already familiar with it, check it out and
see what you think. Karen.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
You know, somehow I think this movie has come up before.
I've never seen it, but I've looked up screenshots from
the film. Apparently it was written by doctor Seuss, and
somehow the movie looks as if it were illustrated like
a Doctor Seuss book.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, yeah, I believe listeners have written in about this
one before. Yeah, I've never seen it, but I probably
need to lean in for a closer look. Yeah. It
the stills, and you included some stills in our shared
dock here. They look absurd. It does look very true too,
like like the production design is by Doctor SEUs in
(17:15):
the best way possible, not in not in like a
bad way, Yeah, which which can be possible.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Yeah, this looks like a noothbrush on my toothbrush that
I do indeed wish.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
To keep from the director of the nineteen fifty three
three D western, The Moonlighter.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Three D Western.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah. Yeah, you know we've talked before about this. Different
phases of the ups and downs and resurgences, of three
D cinema, and yeah, occasionally they'll put out a western.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
I'm just picturing a lot of three D like mule
kicking you in the face shots.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Anyway, the five thousand Fingers of Doctor t Yeah, we'll
put it. Make sure it's on the considerational list for
the future. All right, Well, on that note, I guess
we'll go ahead and close the mail bag for today.
But let's see normal housekeeping stuff here. Stuff to Blow
Your Mind is primarily a science podcast, with core episodes
on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays, listener
(18:13):
mail on Mondays, and on Fridays. We set aside most
serious concerns to just talk about a weird movie on
weird House cinema. Wherever you listen to the podcast, if
you have the ability to rate and review, do that
helps us out. Help make sure that we have some nice,
polished stars on the show. And let's see, if you
want to follow us on any of the social media
(18:35):
accounts that you already use, you can probably find us there.
And likewise, let's see, we have a discord server. Email
us and we'll send you the link for that. And
if you're on the Facebook, There is a group on there,
the Stuff to Blow Your Mind discussion module. You can
seek that out, join it, and you can then discuss
various links with other people who listen to the show.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hi,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
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