Quark and Project U.F.O.

I am posting this article because of  the "Quark" material, the Star Trek/SF spoof by Buck Henry, but it also includes info about the program "Project U.F.O." I caught the second show only once, the pilot episode, and found its dull "Dragnet" pseudo-documentary style unappealing. But the article mainly focuses on "Quark," which was a really fun show that did a good job of spoofing Trek. The writeup comes from the August 1978 issue of the lower-shelf "Space Wars" magazine. The bottom color photo is from the back cover. Nice!

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1978 Ralph McQuarrie Article

From issue #17 of Starlog, published October 1978, comes this article on artist/designer Ralph McQuarrie. McQuarrie passed away recently, so I am posting this article in remembrance of this extraordinary talent.

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Bonus: from the same issue, this back cover ad for the Don Post Star Wars masks. Did you own one of these?

Bonus: From the same issue is this look back at Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose writing influenced so much of modern science fiction, especially on film. Since the first filmed version of his Mars stories, "John Carter," is still in theaters as of this post, I thought it might be interesting to read this. I saw the film in Imax 3D, and it was awesome! Of course, being Disney, we didn't get to see as many naked people as in the Frazetta paintings, but it was still good.

1978 TV Sci-Fi Schedule

From the collection cabinet comes an article from the first issue of the low-class magazine "Space Trek," one of many genre exploitation rags ground out by publishing mogul Myron Fass. It's significant that this magazine, along with all the other generically-named versions (which cropped up overnight and expired just as quickly) all occupy the bottom shelf of my cabinet. The paper was the lowest-grade pulp, one step below the toilet paper at the corner service station, and the photos were washed out and spotty. But, sometimes these mags, too, offer up interesting articles, like this one with serves as a snapshot of the sci-fi/fantasy programs coming up that fall and winter of 1978. If you were a kid or teen during that time, reading about all these shows when they were new will bring back some (hopefully fond) memories. The article concentrates on the biggest, "Battlestar Galactica," but features info on many others you will remember, and some you might have missed. Nanu, nanu!

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1978 Mark Hamill interview

From Rona Barrett's Hollywood Super Special: Winter 1978, comes a one-page interview with Mark Hamill, who was about to begin work on "The Empire Strikes Back." I have featured this magazine in an earlier post about "Battlestar Galactica."

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It's interesting to go back and read stuff like this, from before we had ever seen the movie!

1978 "The Time Machine" TV remake

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Clipped from the November 4-10 1978 TV Guide. I was always a fan of George Pal's "The Time Machine," so it was with a skeptical eye that I watched this new made-for-tv version that Sunday. I even taped the audio, which I still have in a drawer somewhere with hundreds of old cassettes I can't bring myself to throw away. I shouldn't have bothered taping it, though, because it lived down to my low expectations and more.

These clippings still made it into my scrapbook, however, and they exist as proof that this telefilm did indeed exist. Did you ever see it, and if so, what memories do you have of it? My love for the Pal version probably colored my perception of this movie. For those that saw it when young, not influenced by the earlier film, it could have been something they really liked, I'm sure.

Wiki entry on the 1978 TV movie:
A low-quality TV version was made in 1978, with very unconvincing time-lapse images of building walls being de-constructed, and inexplicable geographic shifting from Los Angeles to Plymouth, Mass., and inland California. John Beck starred as Neil Perry, with Whit Bissell (from the original 1960 movie and also one of the stars of the 1966 television series The Time Tunnel) appearing as one of Perry's superiors. Though only going a few thousand years into the future, Perry finds the world of the Eloi and Morlocks, and learns the world he left will be destroyed by another of his own inventions. The character Weena was played by Priscilla Barnes of Three's Company fame.

Fantastic Films article on Outer Limits

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Scanned from my copy of the 5th issue of "Fantastic Films," published in December of 1978, is an indepth look at one of the most memorable science fiction series to come out of the 60's... which isn't Star Trek. The Outer Limits had a different monster every week, and at my tender age of six, when it first came out, it was too scary for me. Even the commercials would almost make me wet my pants, they were so terrifying! It was a few years later, when it was in rereuns, that I began to appreciate the show, and the delicious chills it brought to my spine. Even today when watching it, it takes me back to when I was 10 years old, watching it at my Grandma's house late at night. It had the best monsters anywhere, even counting the movies. I hope you enjoy this 30-year-old retrospective on this awesome 44-year-old series!

1978 Buck Rogers TV show clipping

Clipped from the Miami Herald on Oct. 15th, 1978.

1978 This Island Earth article

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The article this time comes from the June 1978 issue of Science Fantasy Film Classics, the cover to which you can view here. I have just posted several articles from it over on one of my other blogs, "My Star Trek Scrapbook."

Admittedly a somewhat minor classic, "Island" still rightfully deserves classic status, and occupies a place close to the heart of many kids that grew up in the 50's, and those that knew of it from "Famous Monsters" and such magazines, like me. Chock full of aliens, space ships (the saucer resembles the main hull of the later U.S.S. Enterprise, no coincidence I'm sure), bug-eyed, exposed-brain mutants, battles in space and more, it is quintessential 50's sci-fi.

One thing that always struck me as odd about the "Mu-tant" costume was... "why pants?" I mean, really... would a bipedal insectoid/crusteacean creature need trousers? Why not just design more of the crab-like armor over his loins and thighs? But what's worse is, the pants don't just come down and end with a hem at the ankle, it seems to run into his bug suit and to plainly become part of the carapace again! So, is he wearing the pants, or are they part of his own body?

If the Creature From the Black Lagoon had come out of the water wearing swimming trunks it wouldn't have been more ridiculous... unless the trunks also had scales and blended with his body, yet had a belt in it! This seems to have just been laziness or perhaps they ran out of money when building the suit. "Can't afford monster legs? Just stick him in some baggy pants, then! The kids will never notice!"

If I had one major criticism of the movie, it would be the short amount of time devoted to the actual visit to Metaluna. The film is mostly taken up with the mystery of who these high-foreheaded people are and what they are doing, but the trip to their planet, brief adventure and trip back seems rushed and inconsequential. "Well, we're here! Oops, too late, we've lost the war... let's get you back home." Devoting more of the film to their time on the alien planet, and contributing to the solution to (or winning of) the space war would have been more fulfilling... as opposed to getting there just in time to see it destroyed. The entire setting of the Earth-bound think-tank could have been jettisoned in favor of starting the trip to space at that point in the film.

But, all in all, the movie is fun and full of effects, and certainly not bad enough to be chosen to spoof in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie." Although I admit I was amused by the passing resemblence and mannerisms of the main alien Exeter (Jeff Morrow) to Robin Williams, and I was half-way expecting him to break out with "Nanu-nanu!" any time.

1978 Battlestar Galactica set design article

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This article from the Miami Herald TV listing insert was published on August 5th, 1978, before the series had premiered. It wasn't very often that a designer of a sci-fi series was interviewed, it was almost always one of the stars or the show's creator. So this early look at the set design and the interview with the person that created them was a welcome look behind the scenes.

1978 article on Battlestar Galactica SFX

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Scanned from Rona Barrett's Hollywood Super Special: Winter 1978. Considering the magazine, you know going into that you're not going to actually learn anything about how the effects are done. No, true to her audience, the type to read typical "Hollywood Gossip" rags, the article is basically all about the fact that there are effects, not how they are done. Wow, Rona, we thought they were really in outer space.