The Adventures of Tee Bone Man: Tee Bone and Superdekes Vs. The Lego

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN
PHASE TWO: THE MULTIVERSE SAGA


Chapter Nineteen: Tee Bone and Superdekes Vs. The Lego

“Woah!  Look what I found!” exclaimed Deke from beneath a pile of boxes.

It was cleaning day at Deke’s Palace.  Time to make everything spic and span, for winter was coming and it was well overdue.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Tee Bone.  “Has it been sitting here all this time?”

Deke blew the dust off the box.  “We’ve been so busy, we just haven’t had time,” said Deke.  “Hey…I have an idea.  Let’s put cleaning duty on pause.  Let’s build this instead.”  Deke tossed the box over to Tee Bone, who caught it in one hand.

Tee Bone gazed with admiration at the box.  “A custom Lego version of Deke’s Motorcycle, a Christmas gift from the Braniac.  Sure.  Why not.  I haven’t built Lego since I was a kid!  Might be fun, right?”

Deke slowly got up from his crouching position on the floor.  “Absolutely should be a lot of fun!  Let’s get the Scotch and get building!”

The two were now seated across from each other at a large work table.  In his hands, Deke held the Lego box, while Tee Bone looked on.

“Ready?” asked Deke.  Tee nodded yes, and Deke ripped into the box with glee!  He dumped the contents out on the table.  Before them were a dozen clear plastic baggies, all numbered.

“Did Lego always come like this?” asked Deke.  “When I was a kid, I remember boxes with compartments in them.”

“Me too…” answered Tee Bone.  “But this looks easier.  Do we just start with bag one?”

Deke leafed through the instructions.  “Yeah…looks like it.  Ready to open it?”

“Go for it,” nodded Tee.

With a mighty rip, Deke dumped the contents of the baggie onto the table…and onto the floor.

“Oh, shit,” he moaned.

At that, both men got up out of their seats and began crawling on the ground, picking up little coloured bricks of plastic.

“Wow…this one’s pretty cool,” remarked Tee Bone upon spying a neat little brick with studs on all sides.  “We sure didn’t have this one as kids!” he said.

Deke removed his glasses to have a closer look.  “Wow…that’s cool for sure.  So now you can build sideways as well?”

“I guess!” said Tee as he resumed searching.  “In fact I don’t recognize any of these pieces.  Remember when Lego used to be square bricks?”

“That’s how it always used to be!” answered Deke.  “Square bricks, flat pieces, and some wheels.  That’s all I had?”

“Think this new Lego is too challenging for old guys like us?” asked Tee, somewhat serious.

Deke laughed.  “Nahhh!  We’re grown men who save the world on a regular basis!  We’re not going to be taken down by a Lego set for kids!”

“We won’t make it far if we don’t find all these damn parts!” chided Tee Bone.

The two men searched and searched, and after about 45 minutes, were finally satisfied that they had found every last brick, plate, tile, slope, pin, and wheel.  Tee Bone slowly got to his feet, but his legs were cramped and his eyes were strained.  Deke was in roughly the same condition.  He slowly took his seat, making sure not to twist his back in an uncomfortable (eg: painful) way.

“How come I feel like I’ve gone a round with Tyson, and we haven’t even put two bricks together yet?” asked Deke.  “Lego sure ain’t what it used to be!”

Tee Bone had taken his seat and was now leafing through the instruction booklet.  “I don’t even know what these pieces are!” he exclaimed.  “Look for a red thing with holes on the sides,” he asked.

“There’s a lot of red things with holes in the side,” said Deke as he sifted through a pile.  “In fact there’s a couple different shades of red.  Shoot man, when I was a kid, Lego was red, white, blue, black, green, and yellow.  That was it!  I can’t even tell the dark greys from the light greys…”  He squinted.  “Maybe we should go do something else?”

Tee Bone was startled at the suggestion.  “Deke, this says ‘Ages 18 and up’.  How old are we?”

“Well then you look for the red thing with holes, I’m going to put these two black pieces together, like it shows in the instructions,” responded Deke.

Tee Bone shook his head.  “Deke!  Step one, and we already got it wrong.  See, there’s two different black ones there…a left slope and a right slope.  You grabbed the left, but it’s supposed to be the right.  Right?”

Deke squinted again.  “Shit.  This Lego is hard, dude!”

“Don’t tell Brainiac!  Whatever you do, don’t tell Brainiac.  He puts this stuff together while writing articles and making videos at the same time!”  Tee Bone made it clear that he was serious.  His face spoke of severe consequences if Brainiac ever discovered they were having such a hard time.

“Put on a record,” answered Deke.  “Let’s make our pain less…painful.”

Tee Bone chuckled, selected a record, and set the needle on the last track.  “Hee hee,” he mock-chuckled as he tip-toed back to his chair.  Helix blasted through the speakers.

“Bangin’ off-a-the bricks!” belted out Brian Vollmer from the turntable.

Deke gave Tee Bone a deadpan look.  “Seriously?”

Tee Bone laughed.  “Too much?”

“Yeah, and don’t put on ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ next, wise guy!” answered Deke as Tee Bone went to go change the record.

Tee Bone selected something else instead, an album that would remind both of their younger days.  Kiss Alive rested on the platter, and the needle dropped.

“Perfect, the hottest band in the land!” shouted a re-invigorated Deke.  “Let’s kick this Lego’s ass!”  The two high fived each other and got to work.

Three Days Later…

Tee Bone was passed out on the couch.  Deke, in his favourite armchair.  On their work table in the middle of the room stood an impressive sight:  a perfectly built Lego Ultimate Collector’s Series custom Flying Motorcyle, just like the real thing in the garage at the Palace.  They did it.  It took three days, two bottles of Scotch, four pizzas, six Dekeburgers, twenty chicken wings, and the entire discographies of Kiss and Van Halen (1978-1996 only), but they did it.  Now, they slept like babies, exhausted from their work.

Deke’s computer suddenly rang, waking up the superhero from his well-deserved slumber.  He creaked upwards and stumbled towards his desk.  With a touch of the mouse, he answered a video call.

“Hello?” he asked, as his blurry eyes slowly focused.  “Brainiac?  What are you doing calling at…1:00 am??”

Brainiac was on the screen, smiling but puzzled.  “What?  1:00 am?  What are you…oh…Deke…you’ve got your watch on upside down.  It’s 7:00 pm.”

“Oh!  Yeah I knew that,” said Deke trying to cover for himself.  “What’s up?”

“I was just calling to check in, see if you found out anything about Moustachio’s whereabouts…oh hey!  There’s the Lego motorcycle!  Holy shit, it looks great Deke!  How much fun was that to make, eh?”

Deke stumbled over his words.  “Yeah it was really…awesome!  Tee Bone was saying, he…loved doing Lego…and, yeah!”

“…Great!” answered a puzzled Brainiac.  “Well I can see you guys have a lot going on, so I’ll let you get back to it.  So nothing on Moustachio yet?”

Deke was happy to change the subject.  “No, I’m sorry to say, we don’t know what happened to him.  My working theory is that he got sucked through a portal of some kind.  To where…and how…I couldn’t begin to fathom.  I can tell you this goes far beyond anything in our known physics.”  He took a deep breath.  “Sorry man.  We’re not quitting until we find him.”

“I know, you’re good guys.” sighed Brainiac.  “Alright, well, I gotta run, Leafs are losing and Jen’s not happy, so I better go get her some coffee.  You know how it is.  Say hi to Tee for me!”

Brainiac signed off, and Deke breathed a sigh of relief.  He turned in his chair to notice Tee Bone was also awake.

“Thanks for not blowing it to the Brainiac, Deke!  I thought for sure I was going to have to stun you,” smiled Tee Bone.

“Hah-hah,” deadpanned Deke.  Tee Bone then revealed a stun gun under his cape.  He was indeed serious.  The two exchanged looks.  There was an eerie silence as neither man knew how to react.  Finally, Tee Bone broke the silence and chuckled huge guffaws of laughter.

“Aww, crap!” he said.  “I was only going to stun you on the lowest setting, you know!  Payback for stunning me back when I had the cursed Iron Maiden socks, I guess!  But seriously…if the Brainiac ever finds out it took us three solid days to put that thing together, we will never hear the end of it.  You know it’s true!”

Deke pondered, laughed, and put his friend’s mind at ease.  “Don’t worry man, I’m just as embarrassed as you are.  Let’s get some shuteye and we’ll both feel better in the morning.  You know what’s funny?” asked Deke.

Tee Bone gave him the side-eye and answered, “No…”

“What’s funny is that to guys like Brainiac and Harrison, and children of all ages…Lego is fun!”

“Must be something wrong with all them!” shrugged Tee Bone.  “G’night Deke!”

“G’Night, Tee!”

With that, the two heroes went to their rooms, calling it an early night.  The motorcycle stood proudly in the center of the room, shining like a trophy.  An accomplishment.  Which it was.

Looking for a snack, Ripper the squirrel entered the room.  He spied the motorcycle.  Just his size, he reasoned.  No harm could possibly come from trying it out.  Just sitting on it.  Nobody will know.  Ripper forgot that he was hungry, and ran towards the table.  He gingerly climbed aboard.  Lego reminded him of Moustachio.

A mighty crashing sound, deafening to squirrels and chipmunks alike, didn’t even wake the two slumbering superheroes.  The remains of the motorcycle were strewn all over the floor.

“Squee, squee,” he muttered.  Squirrelese for “Aw, crap.”

And with that, Ripper gathered the pieces, opened the instructions, and began assembling the Lego one more time.

The end.

 

 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE – THE SQUIRREL SAGA 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE TWO – THE MULTIVERSE SAGA

  • Chapter Eighteen:  Shinzon – Origins (By LeBrain)
  • Chapter Nineteen:  Tee Bone Man and Superdekes vs. the Lego (By LeBrain)
  • Chapter Twenty:  The Death of… (By LeBrain) September
  • Chapter Twenty-One:  The Fate of… (By LeBrain) October

 

  • Noirison:  Chapter One (by Holen)
  • The Mole in Rock and Roll Heaven (by 80sMetalMan) TBA
  • Shinzon – Dread and the Fugitive Mind (By Harrison Kopp) TBA
  • Noirison:  Chapter Two (by Holen) TBA

 

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF EDIE VAN HEELIN’

THE WRITER’S ROOM

 

 

 

Grant’s Rock Warehaus: Helix – Part Two: Back for Another Taste w/Tim Durling & Mike Ladano

Here’s one of the super-secret tapings I’ve been talking about! Helix – Part One was the Capitol Years with Martin Popoff and Tim Durling.  I twisted Grant’s arm and talked him into covering the rest of the Helix story.  In Part Two, Tim and I joined Grant to discuss everything Helix from Over 60 Minutes With… to Live in Buffalo.  There’s a lot of story there, from Paul Hackman’s unfortunate death to the lineup changes that followed.  Some great music too:  Back For Another Taste, It’s A Business Doing Pleasure, Half-ALIVE and B-Sides being some of the highlights we discussed.

In Part Three we’ll finish the story, going from Rocking In My Outer Space to “Brother From Another Mother”.  We will also discuss the first two Helix albums in detail since some killer reissues fall in these years.

Gimme an R and check out Grant’s Rock Warehaus!

My Appreciation for the Mad Metal Man – a tribute to Harrison

Today, I salute Harrison Kopp, the Mad Metal Man…and why?  Because he deserves it.  This is for you Harrison.

I first met Harrison several years ago, when he began reading my Record Store Tales, Iron Maiden reviews, and other postings.  He wrote to me, I responded, and over the years we became friends.  He was a fan of my writing, and I was a fan of his staunch defense of Blaze Bayley, even over the protests of Aaron KMA.  No, Harrison likes what he likes and he sticks to his guns.

For the artists Harrison follows, he knows everything about their live setlists over the years, like a heavy metal encyclopedia.  I consider him an expert on the subject.  If you wanted to know if Iron Maiden or Alice Cooper ever played such and such a song, he’d know, and he’d be able to tell you if it’s on Youtube.

Now that I think about it, perhaps Harrison is a highly sophisticated robot?  Nahhh…robots don’t have moustaches, or glorious manes of genuine Australian locks.  He’s too talented to be a robot.  His clever wordplay has led to some of the most adventurous Tee Bone Man episodes.  And then we have his Lego art, improving by the month.  If you thought Noirison was amazing, wait until you see what is coming.  You should really follow him on Instagram to see what he’s doing Lego-wise.

In 2020, I met Harrison face to face for the first time via the LeBrain Train.  Today, he has become the reliable and faithful co-host I had been looking for all the while.  Thank you, Harrison.

And, he’s a friend.

Here’s some Blaze for ya.

 

Mike

#1079: How To Take the Weekend Off Guilt-Free

RECORD STORE TALES #1079: How To Take the Weekend Off Guilt-Free

Out of necessity, I’ve leaned back into live streaming hard this summer.  It was survival and I have to thank Jex Russell and Harrison Kopp for helping me make this happen.  Jex was there for me when all plans went out the window and along with Mr. Kopp and an array of awesome friends, we have managed to put out some of the best shows, and most popular to date.  The Canada Day show was a raging success.

I’ve also been busy recording projects behind the scenes some of which haven’t even been released yet.  I did a couple with Tim’s Vinyl Confessions, one with Grant’s Rock Warehaus. and one with Rock Daydream Nation, among other projects.  It’ll be cool for me to watch these as they finally drop, as we had good times talking controversial rock topics!

In order to enjoy what’s left of summer, and some earned time off, there will be no Grab A Stack of Rock tonight.  In fact, for the remainder of the season, if I’m at the cottage there won’t be a night show.  The sun is setting earlier, and there’s no wasting daylight around here.  And so, we’re taking this weekend off guilt-free.

It’s not easy, but sometimes in work, in life, and even in friendships, you have to prioritise yourself.   That’s OK; and you have to tell yourself that’s OK.  Get all your work stuff together so all your responsibilities are taken care of.  Make sure you’re good to go.  And then go!

There’s only so much time left before the leaves start changing, and this time, I’m going into autumn with a new attitude and new strategies.  No more making my plans around other people.  This time it’s about me – guilt free.

 

REVIEW: Journey – In The Beginning (1979 CBS cassette)

JOURNEY – In The Beginning (1979 CBS cassette)

Journey began scoring hits when they acquired powerhouse vocalist Steve Perry on Infinity (1978) and Evolution (1979).  Why not issue a compilation sourced from the band’s first three Perry-less records, with new cover art that ties into their present?  Seems like a no-brainer.  And so we have Journey’s first compilation album (and a double length at that) called In The Beginning.  Thank you Tim Durling for gifting this copy for the collection and for review.

In The Beginning contains five of the seven tracks from Journey’s self-titled debut.  It begins with three.  As on the original LP, “Of A Lifetime” opens.  The long organ and guitar-drenched opening gives way to a slow and passionate Gregg Rolie lead vocal.  Were Iron Maiden influenced by this song when they wrote “Strange World” for their own debut?  Probably just coincidence, but it can be heard.  The main hook in “Of A Lifetime” was the unmistakable guitar hook.  At this early stage, Journey boasted two guitar players:  Neal Schon and the late George Tickner.  They have to share the spotlight with an absolutely raging Aynsley Dunbar on drums and Rolie tearing it up on the synth.  Undervalued bassist Ross Valory also must be mentioned, playing concrete but melodic foundations under the feature players.

George Tickner’s instrumental “Topaz” goes second, starting slow and then taking on a jamming, progressive jazz rock fusion vibe.  This complex track is not to be taken lightly.  Just absorb every different section as they hit you.  Once again, Dunbar is a monster.  Third is “Kohoutek”, the memorable Schon/Rolie instrumental that was also track three on the debut album.  On vinyl, in both cases, it closed Side One.  It’s another challenging track with a cool galloping section.  (There’s a reason I’ve heard Dunbar referred to as an octopus – he sounds like he’s playing with eight arms!)

Rolie’s “On A Saturday Night” from album #2, Look Into the Future is a completely different style from the first three progressive sprawls.  Under four minutes with a bopping piano, this is just great rock and roll!  Tickner was out and the band was reduced to a quartet with Schon as the sole six-stringer.  Shades here of where the band would head once they figured out their future direction.  Schon’s solo is an example of melodic composition.  The Beatles cover “It’s All Too Much” from Look Into the Future follows.  It fits this new concise straightforward Journey sound, and it is quite excellent.  Rolie was the perfect guy to sing a George Harrison song, and the backwards ending is suitably trippy.  The blues “In My Lonely Feeling/Conversations” takes us back to the debut album.  This Rolie/Valory composition scorches with passionate fretwork.  Not surprisingly, the bass is the foundation.  Also from the debut, “Mystery Mountain” closes side one.  A short, but jamming track with subtle use of the wah-wah pedal.

Opening (cassette) Side Two, “Spaceman” from Next (album #3) was a melodic single.  Journey were honing in on that simple pop rock ballad.  “Spaceman” is one of their first.  As it did on album, “People” follows “Spaceman”, featuring synth and acoustics.  Very psychedelic for Journey.  The back to album #2, “Anyway” rocks hard and slow, like a monumental Whitesnake track from the 70s.  (Dunbar later joined Coverdale & Co. for 1987.)  From the same record, “You’re On Your Own” switches from slow and bluesy verses to a pounding chorus, enabled by Aynsley.  There’s a Beatles influence here in “I Want You (She’s So Heavy”).

We’re into the last tracks here, as vinyl listeners would have been flipping to side four for “Look Into the Future”, a brilliant ballad and one of the band’s early best.  “Nickel and Dime”, a legendary jam from Next feels like a throwback to the first album and for good reason:  it’s a leftover Tickner co-write!  And finally, In The Beginning closes with the epic “I’m Gonna Leave You”, the same song that closed the debut Journey.  Coupling some killer organ with with a heavy riff, this bluesy rocker also boasts some of Rolie’s best vocalizin’.  Legendary!

For those who only know Journey as a lovin’, touchin’, squeezin’ band of crooners and balladeers, this compilation would come as a shock to the system.  But a shock can be a good thing.  In The Beginning is a great way to get many of the key tracks from the first phase of Journey in one purchase.  This stuff doesn’t usually make it onto regular Journey compilations.  It’s a good set to own.

4/5 stars

VIDEO: Late July and Early August at the Cottage 2023

Lots of great music for you here to rock out to, as you see the sights of Lake Huron:

  • Washington Wives – “Memoirs, Etc.” (from Raw M.E.A.T 1)
  • Brent Doerner’s Decibel – “Takin’ the Color Outta the Blooze” (from Bd=I0log(P₁/P₂)=dB)
  • My Wicked Twin – Maybe Love (from Decibel Music)
  • and a few hits by Tee Bone Erickson you might recognize.

You’ll also see my visit with Aaron KMA, and all the goodies he gave me, including the Iron Sheik.  You’ll see a 400,000,000 year old rock.  You’ll witness a cheeky chipmunk, a laser light show, a bonfire, some slow-mo waves, and lots more.

Please enjoy.

Rock Daydream Nation: Rock Court: In defence of Vinnie Vincent Invasion

One of the “super-secret” tapings I was involved with is finally ready for your viewing pleasure!

In this courtroom drama, I played the role of the prosecution, with Peter Kerr as the defense.  Judging was the honourable Reed Little (The Contrarians), who had to choose whether or not he was going to buy Vinnie Vincent Invasion, based on our testimony.

I have not seen the final episode myself, but I look forward to watching how I did with a couple weeks distance!  This show was a lot of fun, and I’ll be back on Rock Daydream Nation again this fall, defending a band I love!  (Or at least, an era I love from a band I like!)

#1078: Content Lost

RECORD STORE TALES #1078: Content Lost

It is inevitable, even in this digital age, that things get lost!  I’ve been writing about music since the early 1990s, with my first music reviews posted in 1994.  All of that stuff is gone now.  My earliest reviews were unpublished, just saved onto a disc or printed out and given to friends.  Those discs are long gone now, 5 – 1/4″ floppy discs that went corrupt, and later on 3 – 1/2″ floppies that met the same fate.

The very first review I posted was of the first three songs from Motley Crue’s self-titled album in 1994.  It was posted March 15 1994, the day of release, with a full album review that followed.  These were posted on a local computer bulletin board called the Wanderer’s Rest, run by a guy named Sheldon Parkes.  Incredible that I still remember his name 30 years later, but there are minimal records left.  The Wanderer’s Rest had a problem with its users, who tended to be antisemetic.  I bailed out, and posted Black Sabbath reviews on another board, called Arrakis.  It was run was a local home-schooled kid name Doug Pretorius.  Naturally, all those reviews are lost now.  Amazing how I can remember these guys’ names.  I met Doug once or twice for a few minutes, and never met Sheldon at all.  It would have been interesting to see how bad those old reviews were!  I know my Motley review has not changed in praise or enthusiasm.  I liked it just as much upon release as I do now.  I followed it with a review of Quaternary.  I remember praising the industrial flavours of some of the tracks, and the aggressive lyrics.

In the early 2000s, I began posting my reviews, rants and lists on a website called IAM, under the name Purpendicular.  Unfortunately all those reviews were lost when I deleted my account in 2004.  I don’t remember much of what I posted, but I worked on the content and I know there was some good stuff that I would have re-posted here, if I still had it.

In early 2006, I met and interviewed ex-Helix guitarist Brent Doerner.  That interview is still intact, rescued from a Maxell XLII 110 cassette.  Another tape was not so lucky.  A year or so following this, I talked to Brent’s live band, including guitarist Shane Schedler, now-retired drummer Brian Doerner (then doing double duty in Saga), and the late Ralph “Chick” Schumilas on rhythm guitar.  I lost the tape, and the interview was never transcribed.  I felt like shit.  I remember I wore a suit to the interview, which Brian asked me to take off as it made him uncomfortable!

I can only remember one quote from the whole interview.

Me:  “So Brian, I heard that you were singing lead vocals on ‘Billy Oxygen’ on the last Helix tour, is that true?”

Brian:  “Yah, so??”

I then went on to praise the song, and told him how happy I was that Helix were playing it live again.  That is unfortunately all I can remember.  Maybe I’ll find that tape one day, though I have tried mightily.  I could swear it was on a red TDK.

Even in the digital age, things get lost if you don’t own control of your context.

I recently lost two great interviews that I did with some incredible rock stars, because they were not on my channel, and that channel doesn’t seem to exist anymore.  On September 23, 2021 I interviewed Greg Fraser of Brighton Rock and Storm Force.  Andy Curran and Sean Kelly both dropped by for an episode that you could have called “This Is Your Life Greg Fraser”.  The Storm Force guitarist dropped tons of knowledge and great stories.  What a loss!  If I had known it would disappear, I would have downloaded it for my own records.  The other lost interview was with Slik Toxik’s Nick Walsh, which I called a “bucket list” interview.  This one happened on November 17, 2021 and included great stories about Nick sending his audition tapes to Ratt and Jimmy Page.  All lost forever now.

If I ever do another interview for a channel that is not mine, I will download it, and re-upload it to my own YouTube channel as an unlisted video.  That way, it’ll always be available, even if it’s not publicly available.  I will still be able to watch it and use it for research.

So, as we mourn the loss of content both great and insignificant, we look to the future and saving these things properly.  Loss prevention tactics for the digital age.

 

 

 

GUEST FILM REVIEW: My History with Flash Gordon (1980) by Jex Russell

This guest post comes courtesy of Jex Russell, in conjunction with his new WordPress site.  Give him a follow!

 

FLASH GORDON (1980)

My introduction to Flash Gordon goes back to the Fall of 2005. November, I believe it was. At this point in time, I worked at a gas station, and to kill time when it was slow, I would browse through the magazine rack. I would go through the TV Guide week after week and look for any airings of 80s movies for me to tape. My VCR was still very active in 2005, and I would constantly tape movies off of TV and cut out all of the commercials.

On this particular week, I saw that Boston-based network UPN 38 (a.k.a. “WSBK”) was airing a 1980 film called Flash Gordon that upcoming Saturday afternoon. I was familiar with the character and the name Flash Gordon, I was even familiar with FLESH Gordon at this point, but I had never heard of this adaptation from 1980.

So, that night after work, I went online to find a trailer of it to watch. Keep in mind, in 2005 YouTube hadn’t completely taken off yet, so I relied on IMDb to find these old movie trailers.

I was immediately hypnotised by the visuals I was seeing: Conflict, lasers, explosions, a villain with crazy eyebrows, hawk-like men flying in a brightly colored sky, and of course, Flash Gordon cruising through space on this flying scooter-looking thing. All of this accompanied by a song that went like so: “FLASH!! AHH-AHH!”. Then, after showing the title and credits, the trailer ends with a title card that reads these three words: Music by QUEEN.

That was it. I was instantly sold. I knew I’d be taping this movie. So, that Saturday afternoon, I sat in front of the TV in my parents’ basement, recordable VHS tape loaded in the VCR, remote control in hand, and I experienced Flash Gordon for the very first time.

Now, one thing I should note is that this specific airing was cut down to fit a two-hour time slot. I had cut out the commercials, and the final runtime was around 90 minutes. The actual runtime of Flash Gordon is 110 minutes, which means this version I saw for the first time, and that I now had on tape, was missing approximately 20 minutes of footage. I haven’t seen this cut in almost two decades, but I’d be curious to watch it again and see exactly what portions were cut out.

All cuts aside, my initial reaction upon watching this movie was generally positive. I thought the movie was quite cheesy, especially in the acting department, but that’s right up my alley. I was also impressed by the visual presentation of the movie: The sets, costume design, the use of colors… Flash Gordon is a visually beautiful movie, and I still feel that way when I watch it now.

I still had the desire to see the full, UNCUT version of Flash Gordon, so off to Ebay I went, in hopes to find an official copy. Unfortunately for me, in 2005 Flash Gordon hadn’t reached the cult status it holds today. Copies were few and far between on Ebay. VHS copies were pricey, as was the case with the initial DVD release, distributed by Image Entertainment, that came in a cardboard “snapper case” rather than the traditional plastic DVD case.

So, I gave up on trying to find an official copy of Flash. Fast Forward to 2007, and Universal Pictures announces that they’ll be releasing a new DVD edition of Flash Gordon, dubbed the Saviour of the Universe Edition. Now, by this time, my interest in finding a copy of the film had died down, but I would eventually pick up a copy for $9.99 at Zellers in 2009, and I’m glad I did: The presentation on this DVD is glorious, and the film looks absolutely fantastic.

In my opinion, I think that the availability of this edition, plus all of the Flash Gordon references in Seth MacFarlane’s 2012 film Ted (where Sam J. Jones appears in a cameo as an exaggerated version of himself) have introduced the film to a new generation, a new audience and have propelled it to super cult status.

Having recently watched the film again for this review, I can safely say that, while the film is not without its flaws (the aforementioned acting, not to mention occasional humor that feels forced), it’s still a highly enjoyable film that keeps the viewer’s attention all the way through, mainly due to the wonderful cinematography.

I definitely felt an Italian-style of filmmaking here, and while doing research I found out why I got this impression: much of the crew for the film was Italian. But to get more specific, I got vibes of Federico Fellini while I was watching. Which is funny, because I’ve never actually watched any of his films, but I know enough about him and his style of filmmaking to be able to detect a similarity. Come to find out, Fellini was actually one of the first choices (if not THE first choice) to direct the film. They even make a reference to him early on in the film: When we first see Princess Aura (Ornella Muti), she is pulling a little person (Deep Roy) using a leash, and she says “Come, Fellini”.

An important part of the film which is also worth mentioning is the fantastic soundtrack by Queen, which acts like a character on its own. It really helps amp up the action sequences, and the film wouldn’t have been the same without it.

I would recommend this film to any fan of science-fiction, particularly fans of the original Star Wars, a big inspiration for Flash Gordon, which incidentally was released almost six months after the release of The Empire Strikes Back.

 

My rating: 3/5

 

FLASH GORDON (1980)

Directed by: Mike Hodges

Produced by: Dino De Laurentiis

Starring: Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max Von Sydow, Topol, Ornella Muti, Timothy Dalton, and Brian Blessed.

Tim’s Vinyl Confessions: Ep. 445: Flash Gordon (Movie and Soundtrack review)

FLASH! AH-AH, SAVIOUR OF THE UNIVERSE!

Today we wish Sam J. Jones a happy birthday, on a very special Tim’s Vinyl Confessions. Join Tim, Jex and I with Robert Daniels in his first-ever Tim’s Vinyl Confessions. Only this time we’re not confessing vinyl! Not really anyway. Yes, Queen did the soundtrack, but our focus was more on the celluloid.

Apologies in advance for any Flash Gordon fans who will automatically hate my perspective on this show.  At least it was funny…