The Crystal Maze And The Magic Of Richard O’Brien

By Paul Casey

The Crystal Maze was a game show which aired on British television in the 1990s; for four of its six series it was presented by Richard O’Brien, who as you may know, wrote that grand love letter to Sci Fi and B-movies, The Rocky Horror Show, as well as its film adaptation.

As host Reckless Rick, O’Brien guided a group of frustrated working stiffs through themed “zones”; the goal was to capture the titular crystals in order to win a trip to a B&B 30 minutes up the road (or something equally miserable). Each zone came with its share of mental, physical, skill, and mystery challenges. Reckless Rick ain’t here, I’m afraid, so I’m your guide. And if you’re smart, or very, very lucky, you will discover wonderful televisual prizes. GOGOGO!
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From True To False And Back Again: Go Ask Alice

By Less Lee Moore

“This motion picture is based on the authentic diary of a 15-year-old American girl. The only alterations have been those necessitated by considerations of length and acceptability for family viewing.”
—Opening credits of Go Ask Alice

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Just For Fun: Memories Of SCTV

By Emily Carney

Growing up in the early 1980s, television comedy was all about Saturday Night Live on NBC. Television sketch comedy was still in its infancy. SNL underwent sort of a strange period between 1981 and 1982 with the addition of entertainers like Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo, who elevated the show from being utterly boring and routine after the departure of the “Original Prime Time Players.” However, another television comedy show entered the canon in 1981, imported from Canada. Second City Television (or more commonly known as SCTV) became the “cult” antithesis of SNL, featuring mainly Canadian performers. In many ways, SCTV was “smarter” and more hilarious than its American counterpart, and here’s why.
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The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: Sleep It Off and Doll In The Box by Cristina

By Chelsea Spear

Picture it: the Lower East Side, early 1980s. ZE Records had become the hot indie label, renowned for their tweaking of the nascent disco and no wave genres. The label incubated up-and-coming talent like James Chance and Kid Creole and the Coconuts, and helped spur the Waitresses on to trivia-question status with both of their hits.

While all of these artists have remained in the spotlight, one of the most interesting and peculiar talents got lost in the shuffle: Cristina. This one-named wunderkind of Brechtian disco pastiches, Lieber and Stoller covers and later, an album worthy of comparison with Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English, all but disappeared after her second album, Sleep It Off, barely got released in the States. A few years ago, the reformed ZE reissued Cristina’s discography. How does it stand up, after thirty years?
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Jim Sullivan, UFO Reissue

By Chelsea Spear

As with so many other albums, the reissue of Jim Sullivan’s UFO came complete with a compelling back-story.

Sullivan, a purveyor of folk-inflected pop, spent the 1960s playing in LA nightclubs, making time with outlaw movie stars like Harry Dean Stanton and Dennis Hopper, and appearing on The Jose Feliciano Hour and in the movie Easy Rider. In early 1970, he recorded the album UFO with the Wrecking Crew, which his friend Al Dobbs released as a private pressing on his Monnie Records label. When the album failed to gain traction with those in the industry, Sullivan attempted a move to Nashville to work as a professional songwriter. He mysteriously disappeared at a stop in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.
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My Heart Belongs to Jackie: Smokey and the Bandit II

By Eric Weber

As a connoisseur of horror and cult films, one might think that I would have absolutely zero interest in the action/comedy series Smokey and the Bandit. For one, the movies are all about trucks and cars, which does not appeal to me at all; and secondly, the smart-alecky, “good ol’ boy” humor can quickly become annoying.

Luckily, the movies are graced with a great cast of actors that make all of these macho hijinks watchable. I am definitely a fan of Burt Reynolds; I think he has a really good sense of humor about his image and is a legitimately funny guy. Sally Field is, of course, cute and perky. Yet the adorable Jerry Reed seems to be the unsung hero of the series with his infectious smile and charming personality. These performers enhance the second movie in the series, Smokey and the Bandit II, by taking what could have easily become a plodding and simple car chase movie and making it one of my favorites

Then we have Jackie Gleason.

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Don’t Give Up: Go Stir Crazy

By Jemiah Jefferson

“I only have one speed: balls out.”

One of the essential films of my childhood was released in 1980, and I am almost completely certain that I saw it in the theater, being an avid fan of both Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder by the age of eight. Besides hearing Pryor’s comedy albums, I had also been lucky enough to catch Silver Streak on late-night TV as a wee one, and I most absolutely had seen The Wiz in the theater, and loved the hell out of it. And I am fairly certain I came out of the womb as a fan of Gene Wilder; no one can prove otherwise.

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It Runs Like A Dream: Used Cars

By Cait Brennan

It’s hard to believe that once upon a time, at least in mainstream studio movies, gross-out comedy pretty much didn’t exist. The Motion Picture Production Code dutifully garroted impure creative expression from the early ’30s through most of the 1960s, and when the Code was finally broken, New Hollywood spent ten years making mirthless character studies about sexually dysfunctional bank robbers, suicidal Vietnam casualties, and internecine crime syndicates. There were hints of what was to come in movies like Michael Ritchie’s The Bad News Bears, but for the most part, auteur baby-boomer navel-gazing was the order of the day.

All that changed in July of 1978, when a no-budget frat comedy called Animal House belched its way into theatres with no real stars and zero expectations. It grossed over a million dollars a week and ran for a year and a half. Like a flatulent Trinity explosion, Animal House set off a raunchy-comedy arms race, with every studio in Hollywood frantically green-lighting anything with a dick joke. 1979′s Meatballs struck more box office gold, and by 1980 the marketplace was near-flooded with “adult comedies” from Airplane! and Caddyshack to the Tony Danza/Fran Drescher classic The Hollywood Knights. Even Mad magazine tried to copy their effete Ivy-League “betters” with the nakedly imitative Up The Academy (directed, almost beyond the limits of human credulity, by Robert Downey, Sr.)

In a year like that, it’s not surprising that a great movie might have gotten lost in the crowd. One did, and it might be the best of the bunch: director Robert Zemeckis’ 1980 comedy Used Cars. Zemeckis’ second feature (after his inventive and joyous Beatles tribute I Want To Hold Your Hand), Used Cars stars Kurt Russell and Jack Warden in a merciless send up of American corruption in the pre-Reagan era, with a razor-sharp script penned by Zemeckis and Bob Gale.
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Billy Joel, Glass Houses

By Less Lee Moore

My first “grown up” album was Barry Manilow Live, which I received as a Christmas present when I was five. My sister Summer’s interest in rock and roll started at an earlier age; she was so obsessed with Billy Joel’s Glass Houses album that she received it for a present when she was two.
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Pylon, Gyrate

By Jimmy Ether

Rock punditry tends to beg for “who’s better” comparisons between bands. Either because they were rivals, peers, or part of the same scene. Beatles or the Stones? Nirvana or Pearl Jam? The Brian Jonestown Massacre or The Dandy Warhols? But if asked who from the 1980s Athens, Georgia music scene should battle it out for that trophy, you’re more likely to be asked “REM or The B-52s?” than you are to ever hear mention of the band Pylon.
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