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Television: Getting a fix of retro..
Wed, 10 Aug 2005

For a long time my retro-pervision was limited to classic arcade machines and the requisite 80's music (though retro-night never plays what I listened to as a kid - in the 80s it would've been wank metal and later the early industrial stuff - really, does retro-night at the bar really play what anyones childhood was about? Or has it grown into its own thing especially with new-retro-style music like that of The Killers?) - though eventually I started to get intro retro-game-consoles (the SNES being first to try, even though I didn't have one as a kid) and more recently the retro-comics phase (all these graphic novels and Red Sonja's lieing around :) So this new found fetish was both a way to re-live (and hide in ;) childhood memories, as well as experience things I didn't have access to or couldn't afford back in the day.

Theres at least one other category of the retro fetish I've not mentioned - retro television. For a long time now I've been a fan of keeping my old VHS tapes around (didn't we all record stuff from TV to VHS?) - old Doctor Who episodes, some Robotech and Transformers cartoons, the never re-aired 4 hour Dune movie, etc. Cool stuff.. but two years back my man Aphyd pointed me to Gold Monkey where the guy was accepting tapes of the most unwatched show in the 80s (that I loved) - Tales of the Gold Monkey, and then selling cheap DVDs of the episodes. By gum, if this treasure of childhood has been 20 years forgotten by the studio who made it (and never republished), I might as well nab a copy right?

One day a few months back I stumbled across the site again, and well.. lo and behold, they've branched out into other 80s and 90s completely forgotten (some rightfully so) television show duplication. I'm betting this is pirated and unlicensed stuff, and I'm really against that sort of thing since I'm a software guy who believes that sticking on the straight and narrow high ethical road is the way to live. But perhaps in the same way we all walk across the road without going to a light ("jaywalk") its okay to nab a copy of something for old times sake. I'd pay good money for these if I could, and I'll be first in line to lay a wad of dough to a shop carrying copies of Max Headroom..

So there you go, the retro fad, fetish and perversion has finally reduced me to a quivering mass of Blue Thunder and Automan fandom.

What can I say? Brisco County Jr. seriously rocked back in 1993 when it started, and it rocked when it was cancelled in that first season. While I doubt in ten years I'll feel the need to seek out copies of Cleopatra 2525, watching Brisco County Jr now (featuring Bruce Campbell no less) brings it all back - and its _still_ an excellent show. And this is the only way to see it :( (If you're curious, its rather like a more modern remake of Wild Wild West perhaps..)

What all did I pick up? Hmm.. do I really need to broadcast my shameful television nerdness to the world?

I might as well add that while off dealing with the lightning damage I picked up Xena (season 4) and Married... With Children (season 2) for resting the brain. Great stuff.

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