SDCC 2015!

My Wife and Me at the San Diego Convention Center

Greetings my fellow 80s-philes! 

For the next week, I'm in San Diego for that great geek Mecca known as the San Diego International Comic-Con (SDCC for short)! You'll catch some of my photos and musings on Twitter (@brainwise), but there might also be posts at the nerdy blog I now co-author with my wife, Dangrdafne: BookendedByCats.com. If you'd like to keep up on the comic booky (and other entertainment) goodness, go give our fledgling blog a try! 

Friday 80s Flashback for December 19, 2014

Rex and Herb, the Hosts of A Claymation Christmas Celebration 

[The One with the Doo-Wop Camels] -- The Winter Solstice is upon us and Christmas Eve is just a few days away. Oh! And our TVs are alive with holiday movies nearly 24/7. As I came of age during the 80s in Small Town, USA, Christmas TV specials were a huge part of my personal history. Now, most of the TV specials I recall from my youth were originally broadcast in the 70s. This is a fact that became only more apparent to me as I went digging for a show to blog about in this week's Flashback post. As much as I love Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, for example, it premiered in 1978. So I can't use it here ... unless I want to talk about its network TV debut in 1980 (I don't).

However, I do recall a fantastic Christmas Special from the 80s, one that had top-notch musical performances: A Claymation Christmas Celebration. Hosted by a pair of very Siskel and Ebert-esque dinosaurs, Rex and Herb, A Claymation Christmas Celebration featured an entire cast made out of clay! They jawed back and forth while they introduce videos of Christmas carols and standards. To date, it is still the only Christmas show starring dinosaurs. Let's look at a few performances from the show!

San Diego Comic-Con 2011!

I am attending my first Comic-Con. I've been reading comics books since ... well, for a very long time ... and I'm a big fan of sci-fi and pop-culture. But I just never got around to traveling from PA to CA for this pop-culture Mecca.

Until this week, that is.

Friday 80s Flashback for March 18, 2011

[Miami Sound Machine] -- Notice how often today's artists have their releases pushed in TV shows and commercials? How about the resources available to help you track down and purchase those songs (e.g., TuneFind, Shazam, AdTunes)? Given how prevalent pop music is in television, you might think that this marriage of entertainment genres has been in place since the beginning of broadcast TV.

But if you thought that, you would be wrong.

We can actually trace this practice to the 1980s. To be more specific, we can give credit to one groundbreaking show that debuted on September 28, 1984: Miami Vice. In addition to chronicling the exploits of Detectives Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs, Miami Vice was a huge influence in shaping and defining style in the 80s. (Exactly how many pastel shirts and white jackets were sold because of this show?) In fact, Vice was as much a contributor to 80s style as MTV -- not surprising considering how many MTV artists contributed tunes to the police procedural. 

Miami Vice originally ran five seasons, spanning 111 episodes from 1984 to 1990. The music was such a popular part of the shows that three soundtracks were released on MCA Records: Miami Vice I (1985), Miami Vice II (1986), and Miami Vice III (1988). Jan Hammer's score music was finally collected in 2002 on the two-CD set, Miami Vice: The Complete Collection. Those four releases combine for a total of 74 tracks. That's a fair number of options for Flashback selections. So, what three are featured this week? Read and hear more after the jump.

Doctor When?

 Originally posted at GraphJam