Being a good person is worthless. That’s all – no notes, caveats or exceptions. Everything we need to know is in those 6 words. Unfortunately, it’s not a lesson you can just be told – luckily The Dark Crystal (1982) drops some hints on how we can learn it. Right from the very beginning it’s … Read more
We think of decades as starting when the calendar says they do, but pop culture doesn’t work that way. If you ask someone to picture the 1960s, they’re not imagining 1961. They’re imagining 1967, maybe 1969, flower children and Woodstock and the Summer of Love. The early 60s still looked and sounded like the 50s … Read more
There’s this perfect moment in an old McDonald’s Christmas commercial that’s stayed with me for 40 years. A group of kids are skating on a frozen lake when Ronald McDonald shows up and joins in. One of the kids falls behind and ends up alone on the ice. Ronald notices, breaks away from the group, … Read more
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan boldly arrived on Home Video this week back in 1982, after a June 4th theatrical release. And the VHS would only cost you 39.95 in federation credits. That’s right, several years before it was adopted as THE default home video business model, Paramount aimed some new releases squarely … Read more
Ah, the summer of ’82. I was nine years old and my entire world revolved around a short, wrinkled alien with a glowing finger. Every conversation led back to E.T., and if you asked me about anything – favourite candy, dream bike, whatever – the answer would somehow involve Reese’s Pieces or a Kuwahara BMX … Read more
By 1982, the heyday of the ’60s and ’70s Amicus horror anthologies was long past, and even mainstream horror comic books (thriving at Marvel and DC since the early ’70s) were winding down. Ghost Rider was flaming out, and The House of Mystery was up for sale. Many of these concepts would later get revamped, … Read more
It was never meant to be the odd one out. John Carpenter and Debra Hill had a plan – turn Halloween into an anthology series, telling a different kind of horror story with each new film. But audiences at the time weren’t having it. They wanted “The Shape” coming home yet again to stalk the … Read more
Back in the early 80’s, a handful of raunchy movies (this side of the beaded curtain) managed to achieve legendary status amongst impressionable pre-pubescent youths. Very few of us had easy access to the sort of material that was often relegated to the bottom of dad’s sock drawer, so the promise of accessible teen smut … Read more
“The good guys always win, even in the eighties.” That’s right, Megaforce was released in theaters this week in 1982. This movie gives us a sense of what a live action G.I. Joe movie might have looked like in ‘82… and the fact that it was co-produced as a way of launching a toy franchise … Read more
The McDonald’s Ad That Feels Like a Warm Hug Apropos of nothing, this is still the single greatest moment in advertising history. The original cut of the commercial was filmed in ’82 with new closeups of Ronald added in ’86 and ’91 for each new actor. The commercial didn’t air in ’87 and ’88, but … Read more