Tag: 80s

Remember Your First Answering Machine?

Remember your first answering machine?

I do.

In the days when I was still watching new episodes of Thundercats, if someone called and no one was home, or if someone was home but was in the shower and did not hear the phone ring, or if they did hear it ring but were afraid of getting electrocuted by picking up the phone with a wet hand, then the phone just rang and rang until the caller got tired of hearing the phone ring and went off to do something more productive with his or her life.

Close your eyes for a moment and try to imagine what it was like not being able to record a message with your voice on it. Imagine the inconvenience. Imagine the missed opportunities. Imagine the bliss.

Answering machines were marketed upon the assumption that you wanted to receive telephone calls. But not all calls are wanted. If you don’t pick up your phone and the caller leaves a message, you have no recourse. When you don’t return the call or do what was asked, the caller can say, “Well, what you mean you didn’t return the 500 fake birds and tree branches we ordered for my baby shower? I left you a message.”  You can run, but you can’t hide.

Before answering machines, however, you could let the phone ring, and ring and ring and ring, and with each ring sense that the caller was getting tired, like a boxer hanging against the ropes in the tenth round, and would eventually go away. And when the phone stopped ringing, that was it. You could continue watching the Flintstones Meet the Jetsons or whatever, safely insulated from any constructive knowledge that you were supposed to call someone back or perhaps even do something for someone.

And then one day it all ended. They invented these machines upon which you would record a message.  I remember my band director’s answering machine played a steel drum band version of the theme from “Peanuts” that I heard about fifteen times when I tried to tell him that I was going to miss the Memorial Day parade because my cat was stuck behind the dryer.

My father’s greeting was robot-style. “I can’t come to the phone right now, but please leave your name, tel-e-phone number, and brief mes-sage after the tone. Here is the tone.” And true to his word there would be a tone.

My grandparents called leaving messages “talking into the machine” and they would shout into it as if the answering machine was hard of hearing, just like all of their neighbors at Westwood 21 in Ft. Lauderdale.

People today are so used to leaving messages that they speak onto the digital medium just as if they were talking to me in person. That is why I have no trouble ignoring them.

Thanks to Maria for the topic. She does a great treatment of it here.

Posted on by Mark Kaplowitz 0

Remember Audio Cassette Tapes?

Remember when people listened to music on cassette tapes?

I do.

The first cassette tape I ever bought was the album Appetite For Destruction by Guns ‘N’ Roses. I had never heard their music. But my friend said the band was cool and I did whatever my friends told me. After a few weeks of saving my allowance, the plastic Hess truck finally had the eight dollars I needed to buy the album in that innocent time when recorded profanity had to be bought in person.

I barely had the tape out of the cellophane when I realized that my family’s sole cassette player belonged to my father, and that this cassette player was in his car. Driving myself was not an option, as I had poor motor skills and was in the fifth grade. Listening to tunes like “Nightrain” (Wake up late/Honey put on your clothes/And take your credit card/To the liquor store), “My Michelle” (Your Daddy works in porno/Now that Mommy’s not around/She used to love her heroin/But now she’s underground), and “It’s So Easy” (Cars are crashin’ every night/I drink and drive/Everything in sight) with my father in the car next to me was a little uncomfortable at first, but soon he was whistling along just like he did to Roy Orbison.

One of the things I remember most about cassettes was making mix tapes. A mix tape was a recording of assorted songs on a blank tape, usually of different artists, and frequently made for a member of the opposite sex, or, if you were me, made just for yourself. The main character in the film High Fidelity lists a number of rules for making mix tapes. I, however, had only one rule: Arrange the songs so that I would not have to flip over the tape in the middle of a song.

With only this one rule to obey, the mood of my mix tapes was a little erratic. For example, one of my mixes started out with “Dead Souls” by Nine Inch Nails, then “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, then Metallica’s “Blackened,” and then “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper. Another one of my mix tapes opened with “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees, then the main theme from “The Marriage of Figaro” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then jumped to “Hammer Smashed Face” by Cannibal Corpse, and finally “V’Shomru” by Cantor Joseph Kanefsky. That mix was for my grandmother.

The other thing that stands out in my memory about cassettes was how they would get caught in the spokes of the tape player. I’d be pacing back and forth across the campus green, listening to The White Album over and over again instead of doing my Spanish homework, when all of a sudden Paul McCartney’s vocals on “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road” would be replaced by a loud crunching sound, and then there would be no sound but my own profanity.

Oh the humanity! I felt as if it were my arm that had been caught in the spokes, although because of the size difference only the end of my sleeve would get wound up. Try as I might to unwind the tangled tape and restore my beloved music, it almost never worked again, and even when it did the tape never sounded right. On some of the tracks it sounded like Paul was just screaming.

I no longer use cassette tapes, and even my compact discs are being featured on Antiques Roadshow. I now carry thousands of songs on my telephone. It takes seconds to arrange them in a mix, and I don’t have to flip over the phone unless I feel like drawing attention to myself. The only thing missing is the sound of cassette tape getting mauled by tape player spokes.

But I’m sure they’ve got an app for that.

Thanks to Jessica Buttram and Maria for the topic.

Posted on by Mark Kaplowitz 0

Remember Choose Your Own Adventure Books?

Remember the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series of books?

I do.

Choose Your Own Adventure was a novel series geared towards children and young adolescents.  These books were not like regular books.  First, the reader was the main character, which fancy people call the “second-person.”  An opening sentence would be something like:

“You are a world famous scientist”

“You find a satchel filled with a million dollars”

“You are born to a family of complainers”

A Choose Your Own Adventure book would begin just like a regular novel, but when at the end of the first scene, “you” would be faced with a choice between two options, or between three options if you happened to read the super deluxe version before I took it out of the library and then left it on the table at Fuddruckers.

“Go to the left (turn to page 28)” versus “Go to the right (turn to page 1,139)”

“Follow the strange man” versus “Tell the strange man you’re not allowed to drink soda during the week”

The reader was always a different character. I remember one where I got to be a monster, and another where I was a gunslinger in the Old West. I also recall one where the reader was that furry creature from the Punky Brewster cartoon, but I could just be making that up.

The first choice would lead to another scene with another choice, and on and on, such that each book had numerous endings. Some of the endings were good endings. Others were not so good. There were endings that ended in death. These were a little disturbing. There were also endings that ended ambiguously and open-ended.

“You follow Boink to the planet Cereal, and spend the rest of your harvesting Rice Krispies.”

“You commence a lawsuit in state court.”

They should have “Choose Your Own Adventure” books for adults. The characters would be appropriate for adults:

“You are always cold.”

“You are a tier-three pensioner.”

“You are one of those people who winks at everyone.”

And the choices would be adult choices:

“Arrange to get your tax refund by direct deposit” versus “Wait for the check in the mail!”

“Pay the full balance on your credit card” versus “Ignore the letter and get another credit card!”

“Go gluten-free” versus “Step in front of oncoming traffic.”

I do not think the Choose Your Own Adventure series for adults would sell very well. No adult would want to read them. The characters would be too real, the scenes too close to home, the choices too much a reminder of the difficult choices that all adults must make in life, but without the ability to turn back a single page.

That, and the fact that it would be a series of books.

Posted on by Mark Kaplowitz 0

Remember Voltron?

Remember the 1980s cartoon Voltron?

I do.

Voltron was a cartoon about five robot lions that combined to form a giant robot humanoid warrior named Voltron. The lions were not self-animating but were each piloted by a human being. I did not really care about the human beings. I don’t profess to know the history of Voltron, the story of Voltron, or even the names of the characters. In this pillar of geek culture I am, at best, a dabbler. Doctoral dissertations have likely been written on this subject and I am humbly aware that there is nothing that I can say that will contribute anything new to the analysis of 1970s anime that evolved into this show and its progeny.

All I can contribute is what Voltron meant to me. And what it meant was five robot lions forming a giant humanoid robot warrior with lion-heads for hands and feet, all to very awesome music.

My entire reason for watching Voltron was to watch them form Voltron. I watched He-Man for the moment when [spoiler alert] Adam turned into He-Man, and I watched Voltron for the moment when the five robot lions formed Voltron. These lions would be fighting some evil force in the universe – a giant alien monster, a giant alien robot, Grendel – and things would not be going well, and all of a sudden one of the lion pilots would suggest forming Voltron.

I never understood why they did not form Voltron the minute they saw the evil-doers coming over the Throgs Neck Bridge. But I will try to describe the experience. The pilot of the leader lion would press some controls, the key to his lion would shift around in the ignition and glow, there would be a collage of all five pilots of the robot lions saying “Voltron Force,” and then the music would start.

Oh that music. All great cartoon moments involve music. Voltron formed to electronic trumpets, guitars, and drums, and my image of the battle between good and evil formed to Voltron forming. The pilots of the robot lions would talk the audience through the formation.

[Trumpets, trumpets]

“Form feet and legs!”

[Guitars, drums]

“Form arms and torso!”

[Trumpets, guitars, drums]

“And I’ll form the head!”

I remember that Voltron was formed in exactly this manner in every single episode. I don’t recall any “express” formation of Voltron where certain steps were truncated. I don’t recall ever seeing Voltron show up to the party already formed, smoking a cigarette and sipping a giant robot martini.

The moment Voltron formed was the most exciting moment of my life for that day. There was nothing more satisfying to my pre-adolescent mind than the combination of electronic fight music and robot lions interlocking to form a giant humanoid robot warrior. But as happened with so many shows for me, the plot of Voltron became too complicated to follow. Something about a love story and zoning regulations. Perhaps I sustained brain damage from eating bowls of Count Chocula. Whatever the reason, I did not care about the story. I just wanted them to play the music and form Voltron, again and again. But alas, my family did not have a VCR at the time, and thus I had no means of recording the show. The forming of Voltron would be just another childhood gem that would live only in my fading memory.

And then along came this thing called YouTube, where an adult can be a kid when he’s supposed to be working. It did not matter that there was a pile of dirty dishes in the sink and a pile of dirty snow in the driveway. I had returned home, at last, rocking back and forth in my chair, heart racing along with the music, watching them form Voltron again and again, and remembering the days when, in between commercials, good battled evil.

Posted on by Mark Kaplowitz 0

Remember Garbage Pail Kids?

Remember Garbage Pail Kids?

I do.

In the beginning there were the Cabbage Patch Kids. Cabbage Patch Kids were dolls made to resemble human babies with fat faces and small eyes that stared straight out into the void. The dolls were immensely popular. Parents lined up for miles in an often vain attempt to secure one of these wonderful dolls for their wonderful child. I would not have been caught dead playing with them and I secretly wished for a way to explode the commercial hypocrisy that these dolls represented.

One day in elementary school a group of classmates were huddled and making noise. I did not like to be disturbed when I was coloring and went over to give them a lesson in decorum. And then I saw what they were so excited about. They were looking at cards, kind of like baseball cards but with artwork on the face instead of photographs. The cards were called “Garbage Pail Kids” and the artwork was of a character that looked very similar to a Cabbage Patch Kid, but in a compromising situation.

For example, the first card i saw was of a character that was dressed as Uncle Sam and sticking a finger in his nose. At the bottom was the character’s name: Snooty Sam. Another Garbage Pail Kid was Babbling Brooke, who appeared to be a young lady, speaking on the telephone while eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and getting most of the peanut butter and jelly on the receiver with a lot of what I presumed to be saliva.  Various membranes, bodily refuse and physical violence were the prevailing themes to these cards.

Every Garbage Pail Kid had an identical twin. Snooty Sam’s identical twin was U.S. Arnie. Finding the twin to a Garbage Pail Kid was like glimpsing an alternate universe. But this was nothing compared to seeing a Garbage Pail Kid character drawing for the first time. Even now when I search on Google images, I get a trace of that magical feeling when I see those cards.

Like snap bracelets and Beavis and Butthead,  the Garbage Pail Kids eventually found themselves at odds with parents and educators.  I imagine it was because of the cards’ heavy emphasis on scatological humor and flippant attitude towards death. But the cards were not completely bad. You have to remember that there were hundreds of these cards, each with a clever name. To accomplish this, the creators harnessed the lyricism of the English language and in so doing introduced us to words and concepts we would not have encountered while coloring and singing Bingo Was His Name-O. These were some of the names: Glandular Angela. Marty Gras. Adam Bomb. Frigid Bridget (who was a girl encased in an ice cube – such was the cleverness of these cards aimed at pre-adolescents).

The cards were released as a series. When I came under their spell, they were up to the second or third series. I was positively rabid during the fifth, sixth, and seventh series. As soon as each new series came out I could think of little else until I had every card of the series in my possession. At last I could show the world how the Cabbage Patch Kids were nothing more than a gimmick to get children to beg their parents to spend precious dollars or pounds or yen on these fat faced dolls with adoption papers. I was so dedicated to this message that I begged my parents to buy me more Garbage Pail Kids.

But at some point after I became disillusioned and figured it was time to focus on a career.

Years later, I followed up on the Garbage Pail Kids to see what had befallen them. Evidently the Cabbage Patch Kids – or a parent or guardian on their behalf – sued the Garbage Pail Kids for trademark infringement. The deposition testimony makes for interesting reading.

Attorney for plaintiffs: So were you aware of the Cabbage Patch Kids when you began marketing your own cards?
The witness: I do not recall.
Attorney:  Did you do any research as to whether there was something called the Cabbage Patch Kids?
Witness: I do not recall.
Attorney: You do not recall whether or not you researched whether there were Cabbage Patch Kids or not?
Defendants’ attorney: Objection. Asked and answered. Don’t answer that.
Plaintiffs’ attorney:  You can’t direct him not to answer that.
Defendants’ attorney:  I think I just did.
(The witness picks his nose.)
Plaintiffs’ attorney:  The court reporter is taking down everything you do. So you may want to refrain from doing that. Now I just have a few more questions – wait, are you going to throw up – no…not the exhibits!
(Whereupon a short recess was taken.)

The parties reached an out of court settlement which was sealed to the public. I noticed, however, that the appearance of the “new” Garbage Pail Kids was markedly different from the ones I knew and loved and negligently let my mother throw away. The eyes are much bigger, and so the characters have lost the fat face look of the Cabbage Patch Kids. They are in the same compromising situations – expectoration, regurgitation, excretion, death – but when it was just ordinary kids in those situations instead of kids that bore a startling resemblance to the Cabbage Patch Kids the magic was no longer there for me. Lawyers ruin everything.

Posted on by Mark Kaplowitz 0