Football Players Turned Actors

My article on football players turned actors is in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram. You can check out the online version HERE.

He-Man Turns 30

Reprinted from AntiqueWeek, here's my article on He-Man's 30th anniversary:

Filmation’s animated sword-and-sorcery series, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, debuted on television in the fall of 1983, begging the question: Why is 2012 considered to be the 30^th anniversary of the popular franchise? As He-Man fans well know, it’s because the Mattel action figure line hit store shelves in 1982.

One can argue the artistic merits of basing a cartoon on a toy, but one thing is indisputable: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was a massive commercial success, especially with young males.

According to an article published in the Jan. 7, 1985 issue of Time magazine, He-Man had “proved puissant enough to capture the attention of more little boys than any other television show in America,” helping move more than $500 million of Masters of the Universe action figures and $500 million more in miscellaneous merchandise. The latter included such items as pins, buttons, glassware, clothing, video games, TV trays, flashlights, coin banks, and school supplies.

Most consumers who bought He-Man figures during the TV show’s heyday opened the toys, threw away the packaging, and waged numerous wars between good and evil. As in the cartoon, the blonde, buff, Power Sword-wielding He-Man and his pals would inevitably battle the evil Skeletor and his minions, who wanted nothing less than to conquer Castle Grayskull and learn of its ancient and powerful secrets.

Many of those kids who played with He-Man and company are feeling especially nostalgic these days, driving the prices skyward on original Masters of the Universe toys. Packaged figures, such as Battle Armor He-Man, Beast Man, and Fisto, and accessories, such as the Castle of Eternia play set and the Bashasaurus vehicle, routinely sell for hundreds and in some cases more than a thousand dollars each.

The success of He-Man spawned a 1987 feature film (Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella), an assortment of spin-off cartoons (including She-Ra: Princess of Power in 1985 and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe in 2002), and, of course, additional action figure lines, most notably the Masters of the Universe Classics series, which began in 2009 and is still in production today.

To help celebrate He-Man’s 30^th anniversary, DC Comics is producing an all-new He-Man and the Masters of the Universe comic book, which is scheduled for release in July. Written by James Robinson (Justice League of America), with pencils by Phillip Tan and inks by Ruy Jose, the six-issue series finds Skeletor ruling (and rewriting the history of) Eternia from his lair in Castle Grayskull.

In an interview with MTV Geek (www.mtv.com/geek/), Robinson said, “I agree to some people Masters of the Universe is considered a cheesy cartoon. However, I know for a fact that a certain generation of people, who grew up at the right time, hold genuine affection for Masters of the Universe. The challenge is to write something that raises the standard for the series, with a cool, modern story that nevertheless honors the fans of the animated series and toy line.” 

Said fans of the animated series will get a treat this fall in the form of a 30th anniversary edition DVD boxed set, which will include special bonus features as well as content aimed at collectors.

Ray Bradbury Tribute

My article on the late, great Ray Bradbury was in a recent issue of AntiqueWeek. Here's that article reprinted:

Ray Bradbury died June 5 at the age of 91, leaving behind a body of work that is unparalleled in the fields of dark fantasy and science fiction. His dystopian SF novel, Fahrenheit 451 (adapted for film in 1966), is still widely read and studied in schools across the country while his famously themed short story collections, published as The Martian Chronicles (adapted for television in 1979) and The Illustrated Man (adapted for film in 1969), continue to fascinate readers with a taste for the strange, the unusual, and, most all, the imaginative.

Writing in a lyrical, beautifully evocative style, in which the reader can almost see and hear the things being described (autumn leaves blowing in the cool wind, exotic Martian landscapes, grimacing pumpkins on The Halloween Tree), Bradbury is also known for the novel Something Wicked this Way Comes (adapted for film in 1983), as well as such celebrated short stories as “The Small Assassin,” “The Fog Horn” (adapted for film as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms in 1953), and "I Sing the Body Electric!" (adapted for the 100^th episode of The Twilight Zone).

A master of the make believe, Bradbury wrote all 65 episodes of The Ray Bradbury Theater, which ran on HBO from 1985 to 1986 and USA Network from 1988 to 1992. Similar to Alfred Hitchcock (Alfred Hitchcock Presents), Rod Serling (Twilight Zone), and Boris Karloff (Thriller), Bradbury appeared in the intro sequence for the episodes, looking both avuncular and eccentric (in the non-pejorative sense of the word).

Bradbury wrote the screenplays for John Huston’s Moby Dick (1956) and Disney’s Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), but his work was more often seen on television, including story adaptations for such programs as Tales of Tomorrow, Lights Out, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Bradbury’s stories were also adapted for comic books and even a computer game: 1995’s Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles Adventure Game.

Bradbury was a huge influence on fantasists far and wide, and his death ignited a firestorm of remembrances and praise around the Internet. Here’s a short sampling:

*"Ray Bradbury wrote three great novels and three hundred great stories. One of the latter was called 'A Sound of Thunder.' The sound I hear today is the thunder of a giant's footsteps fading away. But the novels and stories remain, in all their resonance and strange beauty."—Stephen King

*”He was kind, and gentle, and always filled with enthusiasm, and the landscape of the world we live in would have been diminished if we had not had him in our world. I am so glad that I knew him.”—Neil Gaiman

*"He was my muse for the better part of my sci-fi career. He lives on through his legion of fans. In the world of science fiction and fantasy and imagination he is immortal."—Steven Spielberg

Even President Obama remarked on the passing of Bradbury, saying that his "gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world." A spokesman for Bradbury’s publisher, Harper Collins, chimed in as well: “In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury has inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create."

Bradbury was born in 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. A voracious reader, he spent much of his childhood in the Carnegie library in Waukegan, spellbound by the works of such fantasists as H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, L. Frank Baum, and, especially, Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan and John Carter, Warlord of Mars fame). He was also heavily influenced by films, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923 Lon Chaney), which his mother took him to see when he was just three years old.

The primary factor in Bradbury’s career choice was a magician named Mr. Electrico. “He sat in his electric chair every night and was electrocuted in front of all the people, young and old,” Bradbury said on his website in 2001. “When the electricity surged through his body he raised a sword and knighted all the kids sitting in the front row below his platform. When he reached me, he pointed his sword at my head and touched my brow. The electricity rushed down the sword, inside my skull, made my hair stand up and sparks fly out of my ears. He then shouted at me, ‘Live forever!’”

Somehow, these and other words spoken by Mr. Electrico (including some nonsense about knowing Bradbury previously in the great war in France in 1918) convinced a 12-year-old Bradbury to sit down and write, which he ended up doing almost every day of his life. In total, Bradbury wrote more than 600 short stories, nearly a dozen novels, and numerous plays, poems, screenplays, teleplays, and children’s books. He’s written hundreds of essays as well, some of which were collected in Bradbury Speaks: Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars (2005, William Morrow).

Bradbury began his professional career during the 1930s, writing stories for the pulps. As his legacy and body of work grew, and such works as The Martian Chronicles (1950) and Fahrenheit 451 (1953) gained critical acclaim around the world, he earned the reputation of a writer who brought a sense of class and literary accomplishment to the much-maligned (especially at the time) fields of science fiction and fantasy.

During his long, productive life, Bradbury was given numerous awards and commendations, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, an Emmy for his screenplay for the animated movie The Halloween Tree (1993, based on his 1972 novel), a Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award from the National Book Foundation, a French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal, and a special citation from The Pulitzer Board for his "distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."

Bradbury was also the recipient of the National Medal of Arts, presented by President George W. Bush and Laura Bush in 2004.

As with most well-known writers, first editions and special printings of Bradbury’s more popular books command big bucks in the collector’s market. AbeBooks.com, one of the biggest online retailers of rare and used books, recently published a list of the most expensive items ever sold on their website:

*Fahrenheit 451 hardcover first edition: $4,500

*World Science Fiction Convention booklet from 1946: $3,500

*Small press chapbook called Sun and Shadow, of which only 90 copies were printed: $2,850

*Signed first edition hardcover of Something Wicked This Way Comes: $2,772

*Complete 71-issue run of Planet Stories, one of the short story magazines Bradbury frequently contributed to: $2,250

*Association copy of The Golden Apples of the Sun, inscribed by Bradbury to A. E. Van Vogt: $2,250

*Full leather lettered edition of The Illustrated Man, of which only 52 copies were printed: $2,000

*Pair of World Science Fiction Convention souvenir booklets from 1939, one of which contains Bradbury’s autograph: $1,750

*Dark Carnival first edition: $1,750

*First edition, first state copy of The Martian Chronicles: $1,400

*First edition copy of The Silver Locusts, which was a British publisher’s renaming of The Martian Chronicles: $1,294

*The October Country first edition: $1,250

* “Ylla,” which is a unique, 16-page manuscript for what later became a short story, and then a chapter in The Martian Chronicles: $1,000

* How Not to Burn a Book—or 1984 Will Not Arrive, which is a limited edition 2002 reprinting of a 1975 lecture Bradbury gave at the University of California at Santa Barbara: $750

*The Vintage Bradbury hardbound cloth edition: $750.

Fahrenheit 451, which is named for the temperature at which paper spontaneously catches fire and burns, is easily Bradbury’s most famous, most influential work. A novel that noted SF author Brian Aldiss once called “a hymn against anti-intellectualism,” it tells the tale of Guy Montag, a fireman of the future whose government-sponsored job it is to burn books, which are illegal to read. He enjoys his occupation until he meets his new neighbor, 17-year-old Clarisse McClellan, who “told him of a past when people were not afraid,” and a professor, who “told him of a future in which people could think.”

Often read as an anti-censorship polemic, Fahrenheit 451 is also a cautionary tale about living in a world in which watching television subverts the desire to read literature and people with short attention spans gather information in bite-sized chunks devoid of context. The book is highly prophetic in nature, predicting such modern day devices as automated banking machines, wall-sized flat screen TVs, and ear buds and Bluetooth headsets (in the form of characters wearing “seashells” and “thimble radios”).

In a 2005 interview with Dana Gioia, former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Bradbury provided some behind-the-scenes info on the creation of Fahrenheit 451:

Dana Gioia: How did you come to write Fahrenheit 451?

Ray Bradbury: In 1950, our [Bradbury and his wife, Marguerite McClure] first baby was born, and in 1951, our second, so our house was getting full of children. It was very loud, it was very wonderful, but I had no money to rent an office. I was wandering around the UCLA library and discovered there was a typing room where you could rent a typewriter for ten cents a half-hour. So I went and got a bag of dimes. The novel began that day, and nine days later it was finished. But my God, what a place to write that book! I ran up and down stairs and grabbed books off the shelf to find any kind of quote and ran back down and put it in the novel. The book wrote itself in nine days, because the library told me to do it.

DG: What was the origin of the idea of books being burned in the novel?

RB: Well, Hitler of course. When I was fifteen, he burnt the books in the streets of Berlin. Then along the way I learned about the libraries in Alexandria burning five thousand years ago. That grieved my soul. Since I'm self-educated, that means my educators—the libraries—are in danger. And if it could happen in Alexandria, if it could happen in Berlin, maybe it could happen somewhere up ahead, and my heroes would be killed.

Published by Ballantine, Fahrenheit 451 was originally released in paperback in 1953. This first edition is worth around $400. More desirable with most collectors is the hardcover first edition (referenced in the list above), which was released around six weeks after the softcover edition. Even more prized is the signed, limited, asbestos bound edition, which sells for a whopping $20,000—only 200 copies were printed. Still rarer is a special cloth and gilt presentation copy that Bradbury had specially bound; only 50 copies were printed, and it’s worth at least as much as the asbestos edition.

In November of last year, Bradbury, a romantic nostalgia buff who despised the notion of virtual books (he said they "smelled like burned fuel"), relented to having Fahrenheit 451 published as an e-book. It was simply impossible to get a new contract for the book without electronic rights.

It’s always sad when a man of Bradbury’s stature and cultural impact dies, but he lived a good, long life, and, by all accounts, he was a jovial, joyful man, gaining immeasurable pleasure from friends, family, books, movies, and, of course, writing.

I’ll leave you with this passage from Fahrenheit 451:

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

Clearly, Bradbury left behind many, many “somethings.”

Classic Gaming Expo 2012

I sold 40 books at the Classic Gaming Expo, which was in Las Vegas Aug. 11 and 12. Several people who bought my new book said they had the other books in the series and enjoyed them. That's always nice to hear.

 The always incredible Atari2600.com booth. I've done some work for owner Joe Cody's website. He's a great guy who always has rare and unusual stuff to sell. His mom and wife are awesome as well and always very friendly.

                        Classic arcade games set up on free play.

        Me and my buddy and colleague Leonard Herman (ABC to the VCS, Phoenix), who wrote the  foreword to my new book.

 Disney was at CGE with one of only two Fix Felix Jr. arcade games in the world, promoting the forthcoming Wreck It Ralph film.

 Me and legendary video game scorekeeper and industry proponent Walter Day, star of Chasing Ghosts and The King of Kong.

Fall 2012 Video Game Guide

My fall video game guide for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is now online. You can read it HERE.

Classic Gaming in Plano (near Dallas) Aug. 25

(click on the flier for a closer look--PRINT OUT FLIER TO SAVE 20% on store merchanise)

Classic Gaming Expo 2012

My Classic Gaming Expo preview is in the latest online issue of Nevada Magazine (what I didn't mention in the article is that I'll have a table at CGE for the first time, signing copies of my books). You can also read it here:

Gaming in Las Vegas usually translates to blackjack, poker and roulette, not pixelated space invaders, cosmic mutants and a mustachioed plumber out to save the princess from a giant ape. However, for two days this summer, gaming in Sin City translates to video games, thanks to the Classic Gaming Expo.

Now in its 13^th year, the Classic Gaming Expo is the world’s largest and oldest convention of its type, catering to the glory days of yesteryear, when the Atari 2600 was the centerpiece of living rooms across the country, when Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man were king and queen of the arcades and when households equipped with an Apple II or a Commodore 64 were the envy of the neighborhood.

Spawning such imitators as the Midwest Gaming Classic and the Oklahoma Video Game Exhibition, the Classic Gaming Expo remains the most popular convention of its type, entertaining attendees with dozens of coin-op machines set to free play, a large showroom floor featuring vendors selling classic cartridges and consoles, live music, a swap meet, a live auction (always a highlight of the show) and much more.

One of the more impressive aspects of the Classic Gaming Expo is the traveling museum, which boasts more than 5,000 square feet of rare and unusual artifacts, including store displays, prototypes, memorabilia, design documentation and boxed game systems. CGE organizer Joe Santulli has initiated a campaign to raise funds for a permanent home for the massive collection, with plans of calling it The Video Game History Museum.

“The video game industry is double the size of the music industry, and while there are several music halls of fame and museums, there isn’t a single dedicated video game museum,” Santulli said. “It’s time!”

A gamer since the original Odyssey system appeared under the family Christmas tree in 1972, Santulli has one of the largest video game collections in the world. He’s also the editor in chief of Digital Press, a quarterly fanzine (fan-made magazine) devoted to video games.

“I’ve always been a pack rat, and I’ve never grown tired of collecting video game cartridges,” Santulli said. “You see, there’s more to a video game than just looks and fancy packaging. In each cartridge there’s a challenge that’s waiting to be met. A history waiting to be studied, and all of the greatest electronic artists, musicians and engineers had their hands in the development, and you, in turn, have them in your hands.”

At the Classic Gaming Expo, the men (and, in some cases, women) who designed games for the Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Intellivision and other systems of the late 1970s and early ’80s are considered to be much more than mere programmers. They are, in fact, celebrities who meet and greet fans, autograph game boxes, systems and cartridges and give presentations about their days in the industry.

Numerous such “celebrities” are scheduled to appear at CGE 2012, including David Crane (Pitfall!), Don Daglow (Utopia), Warren Davis (Q*bert), Bob Polaro (the Atari 2600 version of Defender), Warren Robinett (Adventure), Robert Smith (Dragonfire) and Steve Woita (Sonic the Hedgehog 2). Composer Tommy Tallarico, co-creator of the concert series, “Video Games Live,” and Leonard Herman, author of ABC To The VCS and Phoenix: The Fall And Rise Of Videogames, will be in attendance as well.

Casual gamers may be surprised to learn that new games are still being produced for older systems that were abandoned by their manufacturers years ago, a notion that CGE enthusiastically supports. Designed by fans and amateur programmers, these so-called “homebrew” titles are often sophisticated in nature and frequently come with a box, a manual and a labeled cartridge. Better yet, many of them are fun to play.

Several homebrew publishers will offer their products for sale at this year’s Classic Gaming Expo, including Elektronite, a Canadian company specializing in Intellivision games (such as the newly released D2K Arcade), and Good Deal Games’ Homebrew Heaven, which offers more than 400 different homebrew titles in their online store (www.gooddealgames.com).

One question remains: why would someone want to play (much less purchase) an old, outdated game for an old, outdated system when there are so many shiny new titles for such current-generation systems as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360?

Santulli sums it up best.

“There’s a certain simplicity that defies the standards we put on graphics and sound today,” he said. “Audiovisuals are but a small part of the experience of playing a game like Parker Bros.’ Reactor for the Atari 2600. It’s the way they draw you in. No tricks or special effects to distract you from the challenge at hand.”

Albert Yarusso, co-founder of AtariAge.com and frequent CGE exhibitor, agrees.

“Even though modern game systems have amazing graphics and sound, the most important aspect of any video game is that it actually be fun to play,” he said. “Because classic game systems, like the Atari 2600, had very simple graphics, game designers had to focus on the game-play. It is this simple pick-up-and-play philosophy that makes for quick gaming without the need to invest in large amounts of time as many of today's games require.”

What: Classic Gaming Expo

When: Aug. 11-12

Where: Plaza Hotel & Casino

More info: www.cgexpo.com