The Evolution of the Big Screen Batsuits

This is an interesting mashup of documentaries of the various Batman movies from Tim Burton's 1989 all the way to at least The Dark Knight. Interesting how the philosophy goes from "it's gotta be black without the underwear" to "we asked the defense department."

Oh yes, and there are Batnipples. Of course there are Batnipples.

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Sunday Morning Surprise - The Story of Superman

This documentary, released around the 50th Anniversary of Superman (some sources state 1990) and released on cheap VHS, covers many of the usual topics brought up in such documentaries, but focuses mainly on the Golden Age.  Most interestingly, it covers the contributions of the radio show (creation of kryptonite, etc), the Fleischer cartoons (but neglects to mention they brought the concept of Superman flying to the mythos), the serials, and most interestingly, a lot of the early merchandise.  All in all, it's a great watch!

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Winsor Mccay's Little Nemo (1911)

If you don't already know by now, I LOVE cartoons and films from the turn of the century. There is often an otherworldyquality about it, like we're peering at their world from a creepy grainy black and white teloscope.

Winsor Mccay. Comic strip pioneer. Creator of the Little Nemo series, an extremely popular strip for the time.

However, if you mention the name, "Little Nemo" to some dim bulb on the street today, they will tell you it's a movie about finding fish. Maybe you'll get lucky, and someone will remember the Capcom-produced NES game. Or even luckier if they remember the disjointed animated film.

However, the year in this case is 1911, and Little Nemo was at the height of it's popularity. And here comes none other than it's creator Mccay (no relation) to make one of the first animated films in history.

This film is not only cool for the above-stated facts, but also for how subtly CREEPY it all feels!

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Siskel and Ebert Vs UTTER KILLJOY About Star Wars

Here, we have the aforementioned killjoy in John Simon attempting to trash Return of the Jedi. In doing so, Ted Koppel brings up his attacks on Empire Strikes Back with the following:

"Mr. Simon, you describe The Empire Strikes Back, the second in this trilogy, as malodorous, awful...,"

He also, very ironically, uses Disney to criticize Star Wars. It is a must hear!

Mr. Simon here seems to have no concept of films for fun. It's all arthouse or its seemingly worthless to him.

In contrast, Siskel and Ebert's original entery on the Return of the Jedi can be found right here:

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A PBS Special... The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark!

What else can I say? It's an AWESOME making of documentary for Raiders of the Lost Ark!


From the uploader:

A PBS special from 1981, directed by Phillip David Schuman, featuring candid on set scenes featuring Steven Spielberg directing and other behind the scenes footage with stars Harrison Ford and Karen Allen and producer George Lucas.

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The Science of Spider-Man

From AsapSCIENCE, this is definitely an interesting little video on how MESSED UP it would be to be Spider-Man in all actuality.

Yikes.

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Return of the Jedi Storybook... using Vintage Kenner Action Figures!!!

These two videos from YouTuber Jay Hyfire combine two things I spent a lot of time with as a young child in the early eighties:  Book and Tape sets, and vintage Star Wars figures.

And, to be completely honest, it's pretty awesome!


Here it is!

Side 1:



Side 2:

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1966 Captain America Spouting Shakespeare in Marvelese

In this commercial/bumper for the 1966 Marvel Superheroes cartoon shows, we see a poorly dressed Captain America spouting Shakespearean Marvel lingo at its audience.  According to YouTuber TheHoldingCoat, "Shot off the TV with Super 8mm camera, audio recorded on a reel-to-reel by placing the microphone near the TV's speaker, this is Captain America (played by Arthur Pierce) on WNAC-TV, Ch. 7"

One commenter even goes further, noting, "According to the new book "Super Boys" by Brad Ricca, this wild rant by a poorly costumed Captain America -- a local TV preview to the Captain America cartoons -- was written by none other than Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman."

THAT... is wierd...

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Superman 75th Anniversary Short

This... this was cool. Sure, it leapfrogged over a TON of stuff, but they REALLY hit the most important milestones... plus it's cool to hear the John Williams theme sort of melt into the Hans Zimmer one!

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Batman and Captain America Save Cat From Burning Building???

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Old news is old. Three weeks old. But still. This is pretty f'n cool!

Apprently, not only did they save the cat, but its also being said that they REVIVED it as wll.

But umm... Cap needs to get back to hitting that pavement...

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J.J, Abrams APOLOGIZES for Overuse of Lens Flares???

JJ Abrams. Lens flares. We get it. It's been criticized so often its pop culture staple. But I don't need to tell you that. You knew that already.

... But apparently, so did JJ himself.

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Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ... TONIGHT!

To be completely honest, I DO NOT watch alot of TV these days. It takes ALOT to get me to watch something that I have to wade through commercials for. But, I have been super excited for this show since it's announcement, in no small part due to it's connection to THIS MOVIE (of course, there HAS ALREADY BEEN A DISSAPOINTMENT).

So, I'm going to try my first weekly TV show review. If it works out, OF COURSE I'll do more!

Keep your eyes on this site!

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The Untold Legend of the Batman

Now that Nolan's Dark Knight series has completely come and gone, and with the FANTASTIC news of a Superman vs. Batman movie coming out, I decided to take a look back at a real source of my knowledge of Batman around the time of the Tim Burton film.

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Man of Steel Trailer 3... by way of George Reeve's Adventures of Superman

As we are getting ever so much closer to the premiere of Man of Steel, I thought I'd focus on a bunch of Superman related items for the Phantom Screamer. And what better thing to include than a combination of the newest entry in the Superman franchise and something that even my father watched as a kid!

Of course this isn't my first entry about the mostly excellent Adventures of Superman (I made a previous post about the episode The Birthday Letter as well as the show's pro-wrestling connection on sister-sire PuroWAVE.

But what I like about this mashup is that it shows just how far we've come and really exemplifies how much has changed about Superman AND entertainment in general.

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Mattel's Secret Wars! ...Why are there only 2 commercials online?

Seriously! Why can i are there a million videos of Sonic fan-fiction, yet only 2 commercials for Mattel's 1984 Secret Wars toyline?

Anyways, SECRET WARS!

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The Riddler... with a moustache?

So yeah... APPARENTLY the Riddler's first appearance in the 1966 Batman TV show was portrayed by John Astin (AKA The Addams Family's Gomez). I had NO idea until someone at the Mego Forums mentioned it!

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Thor and the Avengers vs. Molto and the Lava Men!

In order to help us all wash away the bad taste left in our mouths from Iron Man 3 (which, incidently, a much better movie on second viewing, though more on that later), here is an episode of the infamously cheaply "animated" Marvel Super Heroes cartoon from 1966. This is an episode of Thor's segment, and here he teams up with the Avengers.

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