Space: 1999 Premiere Article

Clipped from the TV Preview section of the Miami Herald on Sunday, August 17th, 1975, comes this big article on the upcoming series Space: 1999. Featuring the show's stars Martin Landau and wife/co-star Barbara Bain, the interview was conducted when they were in Miami on a tour to promote the show. As in every single article and interview about the new show,"Star Trek" is of course brought up, which is significant in that the series had been seen only in re-runs for seven years by that time. Landau, in drawing a distinction between the shows, goofs when he claims that Star Trek had been set "a thousand years later" than their series.

(Click on images to enlarge. You may have to click on it again once it loads to view it full-size.)

Bonus: Below, a clipping from one of the tabloids, possibly the Globe (I didn't include the paper name or date when clipping it) featuring Joan Collins in a role on Space:1999. Once again, "Trek" is brought up, but the writer completely misses the connection that Joan had a guest-starring role in that show as well. Claiming the shows to be "similar" also reveals how little the writer knew about either one.

"Go Ape!" Marathon Ads

(Note: This entry was originally posted over on my Newspaper Movie Ad blog titled "Held Over!" but since creating this blog I thought it might fit here also.)

Falling out of the Scrapbook this time are:

The "Go Ape" Marathon ads

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The ads asks, "Can you take it...will you really Go Ape," but the real question is "Can your butt take it?"

How well I remember the excitement I felt that summer in 1973 when these ads came out. At 15 years old, I was a little late getting into the Apes thing, it was only after "Battle" that I started becoming aware of them very much and was getting interested, even though I had never seen any of them. When they were all played back-t0-back in these Ape-o-thons, I was wishing I could go, but didn't bother to ask my parents. It gave my stepdad too much pleasure to say no, and I'd just get ridiculed for it.

That couldn't stop me from wishing, however, or clipping the newspaper ads, and soaking up everything I could about them through "The Monster Times." Finally, I was able to see the original when it showed on TV while I was at my Grandma's house, and I was in heaven. Yes, I was officially an Apes fan, and would always remain so. And beautiful Zira stirred a crush I have never gotten over! Then when the Apes TV series began in 1974 I really got into it, collecting with feverish thrill all of the Marvel POTA magazines that came out.

Below is a little article I clipped from the Macon Herald (GA), like all of the ads above, about the marathon showings. In some future posts I'll revisit the Apes from time to time, including the ads about the series from TV Guide.

And here is the Go Ape! poster in all it's colorful glory.

(Image source.)

1975 "Space:1999" Premiere Review

Below is an article I clipped from the September 11, 1975 edition of the Miami Herald. I lived in Ft. Lauderdale at the time, and although I was a fervent dyed-in-the-wool Trekkie, I enjoyed other good sci-fi series also. This is one of several articles I clipped about it, and I'll post more in the future. The author was withholding judgement on it until he saw more, and I'm sure he felt as I did that it was too dry and hard to follow. It's significant that it took bringing in the man that screwed up Trek's third season, Fred Frieberger, to bring it at least up to a level of action and characterization to improve the second season. Even then it never equalled or surpassed Trek as it's promoters bragged it would; at least in my opinion. Although the effects were superb, I enjoyed the earlier effort "U.F.O." more.

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Below is an earlier article, clipped from The Macon telegraph, about the upcoming show. It was this one article that, more than any other, predjudiced me against the new program. Replace "Star Trek"? Never! I would have been more open to it if every article about it didn't compare it to Trek. Here's an article from my other blog that does the exact same thing on a bigger scale.

Below are a couple of ads, one for an interview with the stars and another for the show itself, taken from the same publicity photo.

1978 Buck Rogers TV show clipping

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

1987 "Newsweek" Robocop article

July 20, 1987 Newsweek article that I clipped on the upcoming "Robocop," a clever and violent film populated by fun-to-watch actors. The back-stabbing world of corporate big business and greed give one a plethora of villains to cheer as each gets well-deserved punishment from the very entity they helped to create. This fresh take on "Frankenstein" turns the tables as the creature is good and the creator despicable.

A clipping from a Ft. Lauderdale, FL newspaper around 1992, as Robocop visits some kids to terrorize the tykes into not taking drugs.