So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[BlueTrain]

Well, I liked Wonder Woman more than Superman anyway. Still do.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Nobody ever messed with Wonder Woman's kishkes.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ The bullet deflecting bracelets were her best gadget. They were well dramatized in the pre-CGI age in her '70s TV show.

Plus, I was 11 in '75 when the show premiered. An adolescent boy - I had to be dead center in their audience target.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Kryptonite goes way back, it was introduced on the Superman radio series in 1943:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptonite

Supes hadn't yet reached planet-moving strength levels then, so it wasn't introduced because he was already too invulnerable to conventional methods. That didn't happen until the Silver Age, the fifties. And the concept that heroes needed a weakness - and/or personal problems - to be interesting was a Marvel innovation that came a bit later.

 

[2jakes]

Stupor Duck is my hero!

He doesn't need to wear underwear over the pants!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Kryptonite goes way back, it was introduced on the Superman radio series in 1943:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptonite

Supes hadn't yet reached planet-moving strength levels then, so it wasn't introduced because he was already too invulnerable to conventional methods. That didn't happen until the Silver Age, the fifties. And the concept that heroes needed a weakness - and/or personal problems - to be interesting was a Marvel innovation that came a bit later.

The definitive use of Kryptonite in the 1940s, in the "Superman Vs. Atom Man" storyline in the radio series during 1945 was genuinely epic. "Atom Man" was a Nazi soldier who had been transfused with Kryptonite, giving him the ability to radiate Kryptonite beams from his body and the ability, therefore, to destroy Superman. Their battle went on over several days worth of episodes, and was probably the single most violent extended scene ever depicted on a radio program targeting a juvenile audience. The highlight of the scene was the Atom Man screaming, repeatedly, "DIE SUPERMAN DIE!" as he pummelled the hero with radiation.

The Atom Man was played by Mason Adams, who boomers know best as the commercial voice of Smucker's jelly. "With a name like Kryptonite, it's gotta be good."

The extreme violence of this storyline led parents' groups to demand that juvenile radio be moderated -- and this push, in turn, led "The Adventure of Superman" down a very different road, along which Superman took on the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups. This was pretty much the last hurrah for the Siegel-Shuster social-conscience Superman.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^^
Was doing a follow-up on Superman radio.
I watched this show as a kid.

Never knew Bud was the voice of "Superman" on radio.

Wonder if Geritol was a cure for "kryptonite" headaches?

Or if this guy ever needed it! (wink-wink & hint-hint)

 

[Doctor Strange]

And of course, he was also the voice in the beloved Fleischer Superman cartoons. These were way more visible when I was a kid in the early sixties than the radio shows, as they were shown on many local kiddie TV shows. They were also some of the first films I acquired on Super 8 when I began collecting in the early seventies.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Collyer -- along with Joan Alexander as Lois Lane and Jackson Beck as the narrator -- were still doing their "Superman" roles as late as the 1960s in the Saturday morning "Adventures of Superman" series produced by Filmation Studios. These cartoons aren't much to look at, but the actors themselves hadn't lost a step.

A lot of Superman lore came out of the radio show, including the prominence of Jimmy Olsen, the "Superman-Batman Team," Inspector Henderson, and "Faster than a speeding bullet...," "It's a bird, it's a plane...", "Up, up and away!" and "Don't call me Chief!" It was produced by Robert Maxwell, who was also the producer of the first season of the George Reeves TV series, which accounts for that season's gritty atmosphere. Of all "juvenile adventure" radio serials, "Superman" is the only one that really bears up for listening today. The characterization of Clark Kent as a tough, two-fisted reporter originated in the radio show, and much of the time it's Kent's reportorial adventures that play a more important role in the storylines than the super-hero stuff.

 

[Stearmen]

Nobody ever messed with Wonder Woman's kishkes.

Hmm, hot pants, whips and chains, for the life of me, I can't figure out why teen age boys liked her?

 

[sheeplady]

This is beyond trivial... but I took a DNA ancestry test. While I am pretty sure I'm not adopted, I am about 30% genetically what I was told I am.

And I am utterly confused, as either my "German side" is significantly Swedish or my "Polish side" is German. Unfortunately I don't have any family of origin to help me out by taking a test to see what is what (or more accurately who is who). I am into genealogy, but I am stumped. I have a lot of blood that even by generous estimates I cannot account for.

 

[GHT]

This is beyond trivial... but I took a DNA ancestry test. While I am pretty sure I'm not adopted, I am about 30% genetically what I was told I am.

Did you ever read the story about the remains of King Richard the third being found under a parking lot in the city of Leicester? In order to be absolutely certain the team needed to find a blood line relative. They did it too, 17 generations later, they found a lady in Canada but before they could ask her for a DNA sample she died. Then they found that she had a son who had emigrated back to the UK. They took his DNA and it was a match.
If you click on the link you will find a couple of interesting videos, I hope you enjoy them, Your Majesty.

 

[Edward]

I remember most that insane woman who cried when they recovered thed body and disproved her conviction that his spinal irregularity was all Tudor propaganda!

Remember when people refused to wear seat belts because they wanted to be "thrown clear" of the accident? You don't hear that lame excuse anymore.

I remember people claiming they drove better without them. Nutcases, mostly.

I like to think that people would do the reasonable and prudent thing without a law compelling them to. Maybe most people, or at least some people, actually do, most, or at least some, of the time.

But I know that I rarely used seatbelts until the law told me I had to.

Course, the reality is that the law becomes necessary not for the vast majority, but for those who won't do the sensible thing in the first place. By the time motorcycle helmets became compulsory in the UK, only in 1973, 80% of riders already wore them. The argument was made in Parliament that it should be personal choice, but that was shot down. Partly owing to the implications when they had an accident for the Health Serivce, partly in the notion that people who would run such a risk needed to be protected from themselves. It seems also to me that it is a just lw on the basis of protecting the other drvier in an accident.... I know that, if I were invovled in an accident where a biker died for lack of a helmet, no court on the world could give me a judgment that would stop my own conscience bothering me. If that guy could have lived had he worn a helmet.... I'm only surprised that open faxce helmets are still legal in the UK, given that the spot most likely to be hit on the head area during a bike crash is the jaw.

New Mercedes now come with a red button which you press if you should break down. The button triggers a message to Mercedes in Germany via GPS, Mercedes then diagnose the fault through the diagnostic plug, via the tracker, they then contact the nearest dealer, who sends out a recovery with all the spares needed to get you going. All done quicker than I can type this. Helpful or scary?

Both!

The repetitive grinding and clatter of skateboards at midnight outside my bedroom window drives me nuts.

I have something of a fondness for that sound, but it is amazing how far it can carry on a still night. Much worse are the boy racers in our area who buy a small hatchback and then spend double the price on souping it up, double that again on a stereo system that rattles my sternum in my third floor flat as they pass outside (goodness knows what it does to their hearing), and then sit at night revving their engines at the crossroads. We should be like the Swiss, who must, by law, switch off their engines at stop lights.

I haven't researched it, but it seems likely that most accidents would happen where you do most of your driving, and, for most of us, that's within a fairly short distance from home.

Statistically, yes. It's also where people take more risks because they get overconfident and feel they know it so well. Same for motorcyclists - a lot of the worst injuries I've heard of there were in offs just five minutes from home, where they'd not bothered with a proper jacket or whatever because "sure, it's just five minutes from home."

 

[BlueTrain]

Do you suppose it's true that all Northern Europeans, which includes a few Northern Americans, are related to Charlemagne? Whether or not we do, somehow it's still very amazing we had any relatives who lived that long ago. I have my doubts about the usefulness of DNA testing, not because of any error or inaccuracy in the test itself but rather in what we conclude from it, especially for Americans.

Would it be too embarrassing to admit that I rather liked Mighty Mouse as a superhero? But for the artwork and animation, nothing comes close to a certain Batman series. Even the later Batman movies were wonderful for their dark, moody atmosphere, the setting always being in a big city at night. But for bizarre characters, if nothing else, I'd vote for Dick Tracy. The comic strip was good but eventually went off the cliff as far as the storyline went. There were several Dick Tracy movies and serials, all pretty good, but the serials were excellent, at least by my standards.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Tracy has made something of a comeback over the last few years in the comic strip, with a new writing and art team that, if anything, has perhaps too much respect for the original material. The stories are quite interesting and absorbing, but if they have a weakness it's that they're topheavy with continuity references to events that happened to Tracy sixty or seventy years ago. They also have a tendency to do crossovers with various defunct News-Tribune Syndicate properties -- the storyline going on now has featured characters from "Little Orphan Annie" and "Terry and the Pirates" (I don't know what they've got against Smilin' Jack, because he's never shown up), along with Will Eisner's "Spirit." If you love old newspaper strips, "Tracy" in its current form is very much worth reading.

It's not exactly Chester Gould's 'Tracy," but it hasn't been since he died. He was a strange man with a strange personality who really let the strangeness fly in his comic strip.

 

[BlueTrain]

If people aren't a little strange, they probably aren't very interesting.

Regarding the Dick Tracy movies and serials, the major appeal is to experience vicariously, of course, the big city, the waterfront, the police in action, the bad guys in action, and so on and so forth. That's true of virtually all movies, more or less. There have been movies that contain small town elements, meaning contemporary to my own experiences, that I could sometimes identify with but rarely did they "work" for me. Even if the main characters were teenage boys, which I was once upon a time, there's usually something that I can't quite put my finger on that makes me uncomfortable. To Kill a Mockingbird has a little of that and it's not a happy film. I don't think Gregory Peck was ever in a happy film, although once in a while he did smile.

I know that everyone will jump all over me for saying that "It's a Wonderful Life" gives me that same uneasy feeling. But maybe that is supposed to happen. I think some films are created to make people feel a little uncomfortable and shake them up a little. "Keeper of the Flame" was probably one of those movies.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Frank Capra was not the squeaky All-American flag-waving patriotic idealist everyone likes to pretend he was. He saw a deep dark side to the people in this country, and it features in most of his films. Watch "Meet John Doe" sometime, and you will squirm most uncomfortably in your seat. I've been trying for years to get the powers that be at the theatre to show it as our Christmas movie, but they're all afraid of it.

 

[BlueTrain]

Flag-waving is just that. It involves no sacrifice and costs nothing.

 

[2jakes]

If people aren't a little strange, they probably aren't very interesting.

Regarding the Dick Tracy movies and serials, the major appeal is to experience vicariously, of course, the big city, the waterfront, the police in action, the bad guys in action, and so on and so forth. That's true of virtually all movies, more or less. There have been movies that contain small town elements, meaning contemporary to my own experiences, that I could sometimes identify with but rarely did they "work" for me. Even if the main characters were teenage boys, which I was once upon a time, there's usually something that I can't quite put my finger on that makes me uncomfortable. To Kill a Mockingbird has a little of that and it's not a happy film. I don't think Gregory Peck was ever in a happy film, although once in a while he did smile.

I know that everyone will jump all over me for saying that "It's a Wonderful Life" gives me that same uneasy feeling. But maybe that is supposed to happen. I think some films are created to make people feel a little uncomfortable and shake them up a little. "Keeper of the Flame" was probably one of those movies.

Not everyone will jump on your BlueTrain.
If that is the track you choose to take.
I for one, hope you enjoy the ride.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Flag-waving is just that. It involves no sacrifice and costs nothing.

It also gets pretty ********* sickening. Especially when those doing so from within the safe confines of middle or old age did everything that they could when they were of military age to avoid the perils of combat. I could name names [ "*cough* *cough* *cough* Red Skelton *cough* *cough* "] , but I might be accused of invoking politics. (Since he's dead, I'd note that it's past tense- history- and not present- politics- but some may disagree.).