1. Inside Out – Here’s a gem of a 1970’s PBS kid’s show. Inside Out was produced in 1973 and featured 15 minute episodes about issues that kids would face like bullying, family, drugs, and death. Unlike most shows at the time, Inside Out featured cliffhanger endings that were intended to prompt discussion of the issue addressed. 30 episodes were produced, and they were re-aired on PBS at least through the 90s. Maybe somewhere some PBS station is still airing it. The presentation is a little bit (fantastically) dated, but the issues are still pretty relevant.
Here’s the episode on Bullying. The kid being bullied has some pretty fantastic striped pants on. And the bully looks like a young David Striepe.
2. Golden Girls – This week marks the 17th anniversary of the debut of The Golden Girls on NBC. To commemorate, here is a link to a set of Golden Girls nesting dolls, enjoying some cheesecake in the kitchen. You can buy them, and enjoy cheesecake with them in your own kitchen!
3. Megatraveller: The Zhodani Conspirary – One of the first serious role playing games I ever played, I picked Megatraveller up at Babbages in 1991 for 9 dollars. This was pre-easy-internet, so I spent a long time figuring out the ins and outs of the game, but I was hooked.
Megatraveller was a sci-fi RPG where you controlled a team of five characters, which you created. It was built using rules and details from its tabletop incarnation (which I did not know existed at the time), and was pretty intimidating. The conversation options you had were pretty robust, and a scenario could turn out either beneficial or end in a firefight that would get you kicked out of a town. I was intimidated and enthralled by the options in the game, and easily got my 9 bucks out of it and then some.
Pretty big stuff for 1991, if you ask me.
4. 30 Years of EPCOT – In honor of EPCOT’s upcoming 30th birthday celebreation, Imagineering Disney’s started a pictorial featuring shots of old EPCOT. The photos really bring back memories, and there are some great fashion moments caught there, too.
My favorite so far are the Communicore uniforms. Both the uniforms and the poses really get me.
And the hair.
5. Roald Dahl – Roald Dahl (would have) celebrated his 96th birthday last week. More than a few of his books really shaped my early reading experiences – when I finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a kid I felt that I had completed the childhood equivalent of War and Peace – and Quentin Blake’s artwork in his books stays with me as much as the writing. Here’s one of my favorite drawings, from the BFG.
Happy Birthday, you crazy old coot.
-ds
That pic from the BFG is one of my faves, too. What a crazy giant!
I am really missing out on the Dave-Striepe-esque bully. I think we got the wrong clip!
Whoops! Fixed!