The Old Fan’s Commentary on Star Trek – The Motion Picture
Sunday on Tales From SYL Ranch: part one of the Old Fan’s Commentary on Star Trek – The Motion Picture (the Director’s Edition).
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net.
This week, we’ll be talking about what it was like as a teenaged Star Trek fan to see the film for the first time in 1979. We’ll also talk about fandom of that period and what it was like to live through it.
We’ll also have the usual episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and a smattering of amusing bits throughout.
After all, you can’t listen to Bill talk for an hour without wanting to slit your wrists.
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.
Listen to Bill discuss the first Star Trek movie (the one people usually like to forget).
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net.
Sorry there was no show on 3/24/17. My trusty 2 month old laptop had a problem with the USB port, and since it was under warranty still I went ahead and let the manufacturer handle the repairs. It might take a while though, although it was set by UPS Air over night and arrived on the 24th. MSI won’t open it for 3 business days, and the estimate for laptops is 10-25 days, I’m hoping for 10 or less. You know how companies give way out there estimates so it looks like they actually did it in less time? That’s what I am hoping is true this time, but there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to stream on the 31st either. If that is the case I will send a notice to the aNONradio list again and also post something here.
This week the show was expanded to two hours, I will edit this post later with links.
The RiffTones – Plans One Thru Nine Insane Ian featuring The Stacey – Hard Corps (Green Lantern’s Light)
MC Lars – It’s Not Easy (Being Green) [feat. Pierre Bouvier of Simple Plan] Simon Mathewson – Bottle of Beer
Bill Shipper – Only Do My Taxes When I Drink
Steve Goodie – I Drink Well With Others Simon Mathewson– Drunk on a Train
Patrick Rennick and Stephen Whaley – Death Star Prison Blues the great Luke Ski– When You Wish Upon A Death Star
Power Salad – Leia (And Other Assorted Star Wars Parodies)
Random (Mega Ran), Mega Ran & K-Murdock – Drop the Load Devo Spice, featuring the great Luke Ski – Lotta Bodies
Dino-Mike – Zombie Girl Insane Ian – Some Zombie by George Romero MC Frontalot – I’ll Form the Head
Mega Ran – Space Defense Team (feat. Kool Keith & Wordburglar)
Mikey Mason – (Big Damn) Hero
Harve Mann – Can’t Get A Human On The Phone
Consortium of Genius – Middle Earth Needs Me
Steve Goodie – Everything You Know Is Wrong
Nuclear Bubble Wrap – Black Holes Suck Devo Spice – Ozzman (2013) Cirque du So What – Stupid Cowboy Thing (Reprise?)
Worm Quartet – A Song for Worm Quartet to Sing with TV’s Kyle Cirque du So What – How To Speak ShoEboX
Ookla The Mok – The Other Side Kobi LaCroix – Look Directly at the Floating Polystyrene Head
MEGATHRUSTER – Super Duper Con
Lauren Mayer – Dear Internet Trolls
Marc Gunn – Doctor of Gallifrey
Carrie Dahlby – Titanic Monday
Smashy Claw – Deja Vu (Deja Vu)
Bonecage – You’re the Man (In Black)
Background and closing music was Furious Freak by Kevin Macleod of Incompetech.com.
Kevin Mcleod’s music is released under the Creative Commons 3.0: By Attribution license.
Most of Jonathan Coulton’s music is Licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0: Attribution-NonCommercial Unported license.
Some songs on today’s show were courtesy of The Funny Music Project.
All other songs on today’s show, played with permission of the artist or band.
It’s all-comedy all-the-time on this Sunday’s Tales From SYL Ranch.
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00 – 22:00 UTC at // aNONrado.net //
(If you’re not in UTC, either do the math or ask Siri/Google.)
About three-fourths of the show is my informal “best of” “Weird Al” Yankovic. His career stretches back to the early 1980s. The task became narrowing it down to about an hour-and-a-half.
They’re all gems. In fact, I had to cut some I liked for time, so it’s really the best of Al’s best.
Update: “Weird Al” dropped a new collection, Medium Rarities, this week. The timing was entirely unintentional. However, I’ve changed the playlist accordingly.
“It’s Still Billy Joel” has been downgraded from “rare” to “medium rare.” “Chicken Pot Pie” is still “very rare” and is from my personal collection.
The Holy Grail of “Weird Al” fans, “Belvedere Cruising,” has downgraded all the way to “medium rare.” It’s the song that got Al his break on the Doctor Demento show; which in turn propelled him to stardom.
Younger listeners may not be aware of the Hitchhiker’s Guide strange history. It began as a BBC Radio series, then a couple of books, then more radio, then TV, then more books, then a movie, and then more radio.
I’ll be playing all five radio series, starting with series one, episode one on Sunday. I’ll be running them for about four years.
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00 – 22:00 UTC at // aNONrado.net //
And the following two weeks , you’ll hear my voice for the first time — and you will ultimately be grateful for the respite of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy.
I’m going to do a two-part “Old Fan’s Commentary” of Star Trek – The Motion Picture.
I’m doing this not because I have any great backstage knowledge. I’ll talk about what I know, but that’s not the point. This is a fan commentary. I’m going to talk about Star Trek fandom in the 1970s, and how it was for a teen-aged Trekkkie to see the film for the first time.
I’ll be commenting on the Director’s Edition, so if you want to follow along, get out your DVDs, stream from your favorite service, or … well, you know.
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00 – 22:00 UTC at // aNONrado.net //
For reference, here’s the full playlist. With the exception of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, they’re all “Weird Al” Yankovic songs.
Don’t Download This Song
Belvedere Cruising
Another One Rides The Bus
I Love Rocky Road
Ricky
Eat It
Nature Trail To Hell
Chicken Pot Pie
Like A Surgeon
The Brady Bunch
It’s Still Billy Joel To Me
Theme From Rocky XIII: The Rye Or the Kaiser
Amish Paradise
I Lost On Jeopardy
Gump
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 1: Primary Phase – Fit the First
While researching episodes, I uncovered a real X-Minus One treat!
OTR sound quality varies wildly. Sometimes a studio master survived long enough to be transferred to vinyl more-or-less intact. Sometimes the only thing that survived was a wire recording whose microphone was placed at the radio’s speaker — and then transferred to vinyl decades later.
They’re never in stereo. The concept didn’t exist when these shows were made.
However, when I decided on the episodes to use, I made sure to do a thorough Google search. Previously-lost episodes (or better quality ones) appear from time to time.
Then I was stunned. Someone released a number of episodes that have been lovingly (and probably manually) …
Stereo processed!
That’s right, both X-Minus One episodes are in glorious stereo for the first time, and it will knock your frakking space-boots off!
I had to include some Dragnet. Jack Webb was a straight-up radiophonic genius. He employed five foley artists, an unheard-of number at the time.
Where other shows might resort to narration to describe a fight, Dragnet rarely does. If it happens, it will be a line like, “Watch it, Joe!” followed by the unmistakable sound of an oil drum being pushed-down down a flight of stairs.
Webb’s foley artists could carry you through a fistfight without a line being uttered. You knew when Friday threw a punch. You knew when the antagonist threw a bottle at Friday or his partner. There’s never the slightest doubt in your mind what’s happening.
That’s true genius.
There is also Webb’s well-known obsession for technical accuracy. He had two Los Angeles detectives for technical advice, and of course the scripts were culled from real LAPD cases.
Jack Webb invented the police procedural in 1948 with his film, He Walked By Night.
Webb made the mold and every cop show since has been using it.
Just listen to the introduction:
Tell me you’re not hearing Law & Order, CSI, or any other cop show for the last 69 years.
That’s right: they’ve all been ripping-off Jack Webb for 69 years. Law and Order is shameless.
Moreover, these are great episodes. The sound quality isn’t up to the X-Minus Ones, but it hardly matters. Webb’s genius shines from the first minute when Friday steps into a phone booth.
The story is a two-parter. In Part 1 of “The Big Man,” Friday goes undercover for seven months as part of a narcotics investigation. Part 2 is another few months working the same case from a different angle.
Webb loved radio so much that he concurrently produced a Dragnet TV and radio show, with different weekly episodes on each.
“The Big Man” was ultimately adapted for television, but only the last minute or two survives. That’s because at the conclusion of the TV episode, Friday was promoted from Sergeant to Lieutenant.
That’s how good this episode is.
Did you know that Dragnet was a franchise? Concurrent with the TV and radio series, a 1954 Dragnet film was released in theaters. A novel, The Case Of the Courteous Killer, was published.
The book is very meta, inasmuch as the LAPD detectives Webb used for technical advice (Vance Brasher and Marty Wynn) are characters in the novel.
Years later, Webb remounted Dragnet for TV. He very shortly began spinning off other shows in the “Dragnet-verse.”
Adam-12 is probably the best-known, with Emergency! close on its heels. There was also The D.A., which starred Robert Conrad as district attorney Paul Ryan.
All four shows occasionally crossed-over. In one episode of Dragnet, Adam-12‘s Reed and Malloy are questioned by Friday and Gannon regarding a police brutality incident. In an episode of Adam-12, Paul Ryan is called to a crime scene to offer legal advice about possibly tainting evidence.
In one particularly noteworthy episode of Emergency! characters from that show, Adam-12, and The D.A. all pass each other in a hallway, each working a different aspect of the same case.
(And of course Malloy, the well-known ladies’ man of Adam-12, hits on Dixie McCall, the knockout head nurse of Emergency!)
All that began with what you’ll hear tomorrow in, “The Big Man.”
Listen to Tales From SYL Ranch Sunday from 20:00-22:00 UTC on// aNONradio.net //
(I don’t know what time that’s going to be wherever you are. Google it.)
Background and closing music was Furious Freak by Kevin Macleod of Incompetech.com.
Kevin Mcleod’s music is released under the Creative Commons 3.0: By Attribution license.
Most of Jonathan Coulton’s music is Licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0: Attribution-NonCommercial Unported license.
Some songs on today’s show were courtesy of The Funny Music Project.
All other songs on today’s show, played with permission of the artist or band.
Hello there, I’m TheGiant, but you can call me Giant if you prefer, or anything else really, just don’t call me late for dinner.
On my show, you will hear, nerdy, funny, and weird tunes, but also sometimes indie tunes from bands and artists I like. Sometimes I might throw in something from my Old Time Radio collection.
Tune in Fridays at 23:00 UTC
Also, if you like what you hear, be sure to support the artists and bands I play, or the sites where I discovered them. Here’s a list (which I will update as I find them)
In most cases I either have written (by email) permission from the artist or band, or they give blanket permission on their website.
I may sometimes have instrumentals playing behind me when I talk these are courtesy of Kevin McLeod of Incompech.com or zero-project
Most of Jonathan Coulton’s music is Licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0: Attribution-NonCommercial Unported license
Kevin McLeod’s music is Licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0: By Attribution license.
zero-project is Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0/4.0 Unported license
On Sunday’s Tales From SYL Ranch, we bring you a generous collection of filk songs.
Wikipedia defines filk music as a musical culture, genre, and community tied to science fiction/fantasy fandom and a type of fan labor. The genre has been active since the early 1950s, and played primarily since the mid-1970s.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy says that filk music is the greatest achievement in the history of lifekind. It is creative, often amusing, and a balm for the soul.
I’ve filled the entire two hours, such that there isn’t any room for even introductions.
The tracklist is:
“Banned From Argo” by Leslie Fish and the Dehorn Crew. This is from my private collection, from a 1977 LP. The sound quality leaves everything to be desired.
“The Saga Begins Live” by “Weird Al” Yankovic
“PanGalactic Gargle Blaster Blues” by Diana Gallagher
“The Hero Of Canton” by Bandit Jack Potty
“The Chef They Call Jayne” by Tom Smith
“I’m On Firefly” by Tom Smith
“The Engineer’s Hymn” by Bill Boyd
“Where, Oh Where, Has C’Thulhu Gone” by Leslie Fish
“Bones’ Song” by Bill Mills
“Luke, Don’t Kiss Your Sister” by Captain Bran
“He’s Dead, Jim” by Julia Ecklar
“Waking Up Jedi” by Tom Smith
X-Minus One: “The Green Hills Of Earth”
“Highly Illogical” by Leonard Nimoy
“The Tribble Is a Fuzzy Beast” by Leslie Fish
“The U.S.S. Make Shit Up” by Voltaire
“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” by William Shatner
“Dragoncon” by Leslie Fish
“Mister Anderson” – Tony Fabris
“The Ballad of Apollo 13” by Julia Ecklar
“What’s Up Spock?” by Luke Ski
“The Ballad Of Bilbo Baggins” by Leonard Nimoy
“Theme From Star Trek” by Nichelle Nichols
“Black Powder & Alcohol” by Leslie Fish
“Yoda Live” by “Weird Al” Yankovic
Be aware that due to the massive volume of filk songs, I’m only presenting a tiny fraction. I’ve come so close to filling two hours that I don’t even have time for introductions.
In 1933—34, a “round robin” novel, with each successive chapter by a different author, was published in the fanzines Science Fiction Digest & Fantasy Magazine. I first encountered the chapters by A. Merritt and Doc Smith in anthologies of their respective works. It so happens that Doc’s chapter is a direct sequel to Merritt’s, which made it obvious to see what was going on, & led me to suspect the existence of more stories. Continue reading “Cosmos”
