This is Post 2 of 8.

5) THE TERRORS OF TOPANGA CANYON, PART I

The chronicle of unsung artist, sculptor, and Hollywood monster-maker and prop fabricator Paul Blaisdell is a bittersweet tale. Blaisdell’s career in motion pictures was brief and, in the end, disillusioning for the man, who walked away from the industry bitter for the experience. It was only after his untimely death of cancer at the age of 55 that he began to gain recognition and appreciation for his imaginative contributions to the then-nascent independent sci-fi/horror film scene.

For a mere half-decade during the 1950s, ably assisted by his devoted wife, Jackie, Blaisdell worked out of the garage of his Topanga Canyon home on the outskirts of Los Angeles creating a succession of memorable beasts, mutants, and aliens that have since become iconic science fiction B-movie monsters. This is the story of Paul Blaisdell and his Terrors of Topanga Canyon!

Born in Newport, Rhode Island, on July 21, 1927, Blaisdell grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. As a young boy, he often spent Saturday afternoons at the neighbourhood movie theatre, where he enjoyed the spooky cinematic offerings of the day, including Universal Pictures’ “classic horror” releases. He also saw many an aviation film in the company of his father, an airplane buff, who took young Paul to see just about every movie produced having to do with planes and pilots.

An imaginative youngster, Paul demonstrated an above-average faculty for drawing while in grade school. He sketched space monsters and, with an innate gift for visualizing objects in three dimensions, fashioned for himself homemade kites, marionettes, and other such playthings. He assembled model airplane kits and later, as a teenager, progressed to blueprinting and building from scratch his own designs.

As his artistic proficiencies developed, Paul’s simple toolkit of pencils and pens grew to include charcoal, pastels, and paints ranging from watercolours to acrylics to, eventually, oils.

After graduating high school, Blaisdell served in the military and upon his discharge, took advantage of the G.I. Bill to further his education, enrolling in Boston’s New England School of Art, today known as the New England School of Art and Design. Here, he honed his skills.

And here, too, did he meet fellow student Jacqueline “Jackie” Boyle. After graduating college in 1952, Paul and Jackie were married and moved west, to Los Angeles, California, where he took a job with the Douglas Aircraft Company as a technical illustrator. They settled into a house in Topanga Canyon.

During his lunch breaks, Blaisdell would commandeer an office typewriter and develop ideas for science fiction short stories. In the evenings after work, he relaxed by sketching and painting, and before too long, sold one of his works to Bill Crawford’s science fiction pulp magazine, Spaceway. Crawford subsequently bought more of Paul’s paintings and eventually hired him as the publication’s art editor.

At this time, Crawford was also purchasing articles penned by a local science fiction fan and collector covering the latest science fiction and horror movies. His name was Forrest J Ackerman.

Ackerman, credited with coining the term “sci-fi,” was one of the initiators of science fiction fandom and an originator of what is today called “cosplay.” He was a friend of both writer Ray Bradbury and filmmaker/stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, whose respective careers in the field had just begun in earnest. Ackerman later became a science fiction celebrity himself when he teamed with publisher James Warren to turn out Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine beginning in 1958.

Acting as an agent for many of the science fiction authors and artists with whom he was acquainted, Ackerman was suitably impressed with Blaisdell’s artwork, and took him on as a client, leading to book-jacket art commissions and cover illustrations for magazines like Other Worlds and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as overseas publications like the Swedish science fiction magazine Häpna! and the German digest Utopia.

But it was Ackerman’s recommendation of Blaisdell to film producer/director Roger Corman for a special assignment that offered the artist an unexpected opportunity.

Corman was working uncredited on a film for James R. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff’s American Releasing Corporation, soon to become American International Pictures, and found himself in need of a monster for the project. This picture, The Beast with a Million Eyes, was to be the fledgling company’s first foray into science fiction; it was typical, second-rate, drive-in fare aimed squarely at the lucrative teen market. Released in 1955 to generally poor reviews, the film nevertheless returned about $100,000 at the box office, roughly four times its cost of production.

Tom Filer’s script, written as The Unseen, featured an invisible monster, which perfectly suited the budget-conscious Corman, for here was a monster movie that could be shot without need of ever showing the monster on screen! He anticipated savings galore.

The story involved a metaphysical lifeform from outer space bent on conquering Earth, capable of observing our world through the eyes of lowly animals—hence, The Beast with a Million Eyes—and compelling animal assaults on people! In one scene, a flock of birds under thrall of the Beast attacks a man, predating by almost a decade Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

Nicholson, ARC’s marketing man, had come up with the film’s hyperbolic title and pre-sold the movie to exhibitors based on a publicity poster he’d commissioned depicting a fanged, tentacled, multi-eyed monstrosity. This was standard operating procedure for ARC: first produce a slick, promotional package to drum up interest in a film, then solicit a script and shoot the picture! But as was so often the case with such penny-pinching sci-fi productions, the monster or alien depicted in the film poster looked so very much better than the creature that ultimately appeared on screen.

In this case, however, there was no on-screen monster at all, only the disembodied voice of the titular Beast! The film had been shot in eight days and a special screening was set up for exhibitors, who were left perplexed: where was the monster promised by the sensationalistic poster art? Nicholson and Arkoff insisted that additional scenes be shot showing a monster. It was at this point that Corman turned to Forrest J Ackerman for help.

At first, Ackerman suggested his friend Ray Harryhausen as most able to craft a quality monster for Corman, adept as the talented animator was at bringing to life on screen fantastical creatures on a limited budget. But the exceedingly frugal Corman balked at Harryhausen’s fee, worrying, too, about the protracted timeframe associated with the stop-motion technique. Another of Ackerman’s film-industry friends, Jacque Fresco, who had executed the special effects for Project Moonbase (1953), was then proposed, but again, Corman balked at the price. He was looking for someone who would work cheap—really cheap—and fast! His budget was a piddling $200, a bemused Ackerman finally ascertained, an amount clearly preposterous. No self-respecting, professional special effects artist would ever entertain such a pittance!

Ackerman finally endorsed Blaisdell for the undertaking, knowing of the illustrator’s love of science fiction, fertile imagination, and boyhood talent for building aircraft models and homemade puppets. Blaisdell, who had no experience whatsoever with motion picture special effects, was game to try his hand. He read the script and telephoned Corman to discuss details, wanting to fully understand what was required before committing to the task. Corman explained that the monster need only appear for a few seconds, opening his spaceship’s airlock and pointing a ray-gun at the off-screen protagonists before slumping over when shot dead with a rifle! Blaisdell took the job and a quick negotiation saw Corman relent to an additional $200 for materials.

The being Blaisdell created for the film was a finely detailed, 18-inch-tall puppet with the visage of a devil, insect-like antennae protruding from its forehead. Leathery, bat-like wings extended from the creature’s back. A sparkling, high-collared garment and wrist shackles with attached chains completed the alien look. He nicknamed his miniature articulated doll “Little Hercules.”

Because the monster of the movie’s title had been established as some kind of invisible energy-thing, Blaisdell reasoned that such an entity would require a corporeal servant to do its bidding. His winged devil, then, was not the Beast, but the Beast’s slave, as suggested by its manacles and chains. That it was clothed in a uniform of sorts, was obviously familiar with the operation of the spaceship, and brandished a weapon inferred advanced intelligence. Blaisdell saw Little Hercules as unwillingly under the control of the Beast.

The sequence showcasing the novice monster-maker’s puppet was hastily filmed and, indeed, ran for but a few seconds. “Artistically” superimposed over the footage in the final print was a huge eyeball amid a hazy, swirling vortex, which obscured most of Blaisdell’s fine detail work and hardly satisfied the exhibitors’ want of a monster appearing in the movie.

Before Blaisdell could lament the disappointing end result of his labours, he was again called into service by Corman for another sci-fi flick, Day the World Ended, also released in 1955. Corman was now working with more than three times the budget of Beast and Blaisdell’s assignment, here, was to create a complete, head-to-toe monster suit.

The monster of the 1970-set story is a three-eyed mutant born of an apocalyptic atomic war. The creature stalks a group of survivors sheltered in a house situated within a valley protected from nuclear fallout by the surrounding mountains and prevailing winds.

Paul and Jackie spent a whole week just tearing up sheets of foam rubber into small, irregularly shaped pieces, these to form the mutant’s scales. All of these little bits of foam rubber were then glued to a pair of long-johns coated in a layer of latex rubber, and dyed with ink washes.

In the absence of an actor yet cast as the mutant, Blaisdell made the suit to fit his own five-foot-eight frame. He would end up stepping before the camera to portray the monster he had dubbed “Marty the Mutant.”

A large foam-rubber breast plate covered in “scales” wrapped around his torso and snapped firmly in the back. Tiny, stunted arms jutted out from each shoulder. First sculpted in clay, then coated in liquid latex rubber, once set, the little arms were gingerly peeled off of the clay master, stuffed with cotton, and glued into place on the suit. The hood-like headpiece was sculpted with plaster and resin over the liner of an army helmet. Painted up as eyes were plastic balls, with teeth and horns completing the detail work. Blaisdell’s line of sight when wearing the suit was through the open mouth; he wore dark sunglasses to mask his presence.

During the shoot, Blaisdell struggled to walk and maintain his balance while filming scenes in which the mutant recoils at, and is finally felled by a simple rain shower, a plot point being that fresh, pure water is lethal to a mutant adapted to survive in the toxic atmosphere of this irradiated, war-ravaged world. Because the foam rubber suit absorbed some of that practical-effects rain, the get-up became burdensomely heavy and uncomfortable!

The stout, conical Venusian creature from 1956’s It Conquered the World, a static prop built on a wooden platform and operated from within, is one of the era’s most recognized, and ridiculed, movie monsters. Corman’s thinking was that a creature from Venus would have evolved to withstand the tremendous atmospheric pressures of the Veiled Planet, and so physically, its body would be short, squat, and robust.

Blaisdell speculated that a being from Venus might be more vegetable- than animal-like and he designed something as far removed from any kind of animal as he could imagine—a heavy-set, pear-shaped brute with textured skin akin to a cucumber’s and long, branch-like arms. His original take on the creature had it smaller and of a more squat stature, in accordance with director Corman’s vision, but when star Beverly Garland first saw the prop, she quipped sarcastically, “That conquered the world?” Corman realized a larger monster would be more effective and Blaisdell beefed up the design.

Well versed in science fiction literature, Blaisdell spoke extensively with Canadian-born screenwriter Lou Rusoff before the script was written and contributed many of the most interesting ideas that Rusoff would incorporate into his screenplay, including the bat-like, biomechanical “control devices” Blaisdell called “Flying Fingers.” These were deployed by the Venusian to implant mind-control widgets in those key people it needed to influence in order to take over the Earth. When Rusoff left suddenly to attend a family funeral back in Canada, Corman brought in Charles Griffith to do a final polish of the script two days before filming was scheduled to begin. Griffith also appeared in the film as a scientist.

The Venusian creature, which Paul and Jackie called “Beulah,” was rigged with a pneumatic system of cables to manipulate the pincers at the end of the creature’s long, mobile arms. The creature’s fangs were carved of pine and its antennae made of latex rubber. Illuminated flashlights served as its glowing eyes. Blaisdell had designed and built Beulah in accordance with the demands of the script; the enigmatic monster was only meant to be glimpsed briefly, in part, in shadow, or surrounded by the billowing vapours of the hot springs within the dark cavern from which it launched its plans of conquest. An old horror-movie adage states that the less of a monster an audience sees, the greater an aura of mystery and dread is engendered in that audience.

On the first day of filming, an accident on set damaged the mechanism inside the Venusian’s arms. Because Corman did not want to waste time or money waiting for repairs to be effected, Beulah was wheeled into place and performed with inoperative pincers, which flopped back and forth randomly as the camera rolled, lending to the production an unfortunate shoddiness.

Another incident saw Blaisdell, operating his creation, escape serious injury only because Jackie insisted he wear an army helmet to protect his head during the shooting of a scene in which a soldier charges the Venusian and stabs at the creature with his bayonet-affixed rifle. Blaisdell emerged afterwards with a noticeable scratch across his protective helmet, the bayonet having penetrated Beulah’s flimsy foam-rubber hide!

But it was Corman’s reluctance to fall behind schedule when filming the climatic closing scenes that totally ruined for many an otherwise pretty decent sci-fi movie.

The scenes shot in L.A.’s Bronson Canyon were filmed in natural light, but as the day wore on and the light faded, it became too dark to film inside the cave location where was positioned Beulah. Portable electric lights were available but Corman didn’t want to take the time to fetch them and set up. He opted to simply have the creature move out of the cave into the brightness of day, where it would confront a squad of soldiers.

Beulah was not built to be ambulatory! And, revealing the Venusian fully in the stark light of day was in marked contrast to the script’s philosophy of keeping its monster in the shadows so as to maintain an unease.

Further, Corman decided the Venusian would fall over dying as it grappled with blow torch-wielding star Lee Van Cleef, dispatching him with its final breath. Such action was completely outside of Beulah’s design parameters, and the sequence ended up looking patently ridiculous, as confirmed by the premiere audience, who burst into laughter as the scene unfolded. Blaisdell walked out of that premiere certain that he would never work in motion pictures again.

Corman had veered off course by attempting that for which Beulah was not designed, and the film suffers as a result. The failure of that embarrassing finale was no fault of Blaisdell’s, who had produced what he was hired to produce, a memorable movie monster that, had the intended approach been followed, would have effectively delivered the goods.

It Conquered the World was released on a double-bill with Edward L. Cahn’s The She-Creature. Blaisdell’s She-Creature costume, dubbed “Cuddles,” rivals his It: The Terror from Beyond Space suit as his best work. Paul’s established method of making movie monsters was on exceptional display for this horror movie. The film explores the idea of hypnotic regression and was inspired by the best-selling book The Search for Bridey Murphy, about a woman who claimed to have lived a past life as a 19th-century Irishwoman.

Here, our heroine’s past life goes all the way back to prehistoric times, when she lived as the ancient aquatic humanoid creature of the film’s title.

While Corman did not suffer schedule or budget overruns gladly, and was wont to revamp on the fly, as he did on It Conquered the World, Cahn, who worked quickly and efficiently, pretty much stuck to the script. Blaisdell appreciated the time he and Jackie were allotted to construct the full-body She-Creature appliance—weeks rather than days! Blaisdell often commented, with regard to his monster suits, that he could have done better work with more time, not to mention money. As if to make that case, today, the She-Creature is regarded as amongst the best movie monsters of the 1950s.

At about this time, Blaisdell contributed to another hypnotic regression-themed project, Corman’s The Undead, released in early 1957. For this production, he modified a couple of his It Conquered the World Flying Fingers to double as bats, and also cameoed in the picture as a corpse! That same year, he appeared, as well, in AIP’s teen-oriented Hot Rod Girl, playing an accident victim.

Blaisdell was a busy man; his growing reputation for turning out good quality work on tight schedules, and even tighter budgets, had his services much in demand.

For Cahn’s supernatural magic/mad-scientist shocker Voodoo Woman, Paul stripped down his She-Creature outfit and wrapped himself in a sarong. The busy Blaisdell had agreed to take part in the production on the condition that someone else be found to design and fashion the headpiece. But when he saw what was presented—a simple, novelty skull mask topped with a blond wig—he couldn’t help but take the time to make a few quick improvements, building up the basic Halloween mask into something more respectable. But he was never entirely happy with this monster suit as it had been thrown together quickly, and wasn’t fully his own.

The best, and worst, was to yet come.

Join us again next month, on Saturday June 4, right here at www.MonSFFA.ca, for Part II of our look at the legacy of movie monster-maker Paul Blaisdell.

This is the first of eight related posts constituting our May 2022 MonSFFA e-meeting.

1) INTRODUCTION 

Welcome to our 26th virtual MonSFFA meeting.

As of today, Québec’s mask mandate is lifted. While the directive remains in effect aboard public transit and in hospitals, essentially, the government has withdrawn the requirement that citizens wear protective face masks in most public settings. We are the last jurisdiction in North America to drop this mandatory COVID-19 mitigation measure, which many disliked or actively opposed, but which most accepted as prudent and necessary in order to bring the spread of the constantly evolving virus under control.

Medical experts are warning that while the recent sixth wave has abated, COVID-19 is still extant and potentially dangerous should a fresh variant of the virus flare up in the weeks or months to come. Certainly, people especially vulnerable—the elderly, the immunocompromised, or those under-vaccinated or unvaccinated—should continue to mask, practice social distancing as much as possible, and avoid large indoor gatherings. In Ontario and other provinces, where mask mandates were dropped several weeks ago, some folk nevertheless continue to wear their masks in busy stores and other public venues.

Canada’s vaccination rates are among the highest in the world, with a fourth shot—the second booster—now available to most. Governments national and local have apparently concluded that society can no longer tolerate COVID-19 limitations, and so, Canadians have all been left to make their own, we hope informed choices, free to continue with or not now-familiar COVID-19 cautions.

Meanwhile, pandemic-related staffing shortages and supply-chain issues continue to plague our recovering economy and society in general, as does the still-raging war in Ukraine, local and national political machinations, and rising inflation, most glaringly apparent in unprecedented two-dollar-per-litre gasoline prices and the ballooning cost of groceries!

It all enough to compel one to seek an escape from reality for a while! Let’s try just that for the next few hours, shall we…

This MonSFFA e-Meeting will unfold both on ZOOM and right here on the club’s Web site over the course of the afternoon, beginning with this first post, and followed by subsequent posts at 1:30PM, 2:30PM, 2:45PM, 3:00PM, 3:15PM, and 4:15PM, with a final post at 4:45PM. All posts will be available concurrently on MonSFFA’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/MonSFFA), however, note that the interface best suited for taking in this meeting is this very Web site.

We cannot quite yet assemble in large numbers indoors. As such, this May 2022 virtual meeting has been prepared especially for you, MonSFFA’s membership. Sit back, check out each of the afternoon’s posts, scroll down leisurely through the proffered content, enjoy, and contribute your thoughts on what we’re presenting by way of each post’s “Leave a Comment” option.

At the end of the day, let us know of your opinion regarding specific topics, or the meeting overall. Your input helps us to tailor these virtual meetings for maximum interest and enjoyment.

And, of course, you can participate more robustly, as well, on ZOOM!

2) JOIN THIS AFTERNOON’S VIDEO-CHAT ON ZOOM!

To join our ZOOM video-chat, which will run throughout the course of the meeting in tandem with the Web site-based content presented, simply click here and follow the prompts: This Afternoon’s MonSFFA e-Meeting on ZOOM

If you’re not fully equipped to ZOOM, you can also join in by phone (voice only); in the Montreal area, the toll-free number to call is: 1-438-809-7799. If you’re from out of town, find your ZOOM call-in number here: Call-In Numbers

Also, have this information on hand as you may be asked to enter it:

Meeting ID: 863 4185 0434
Passcode: 683280

3) MEETING AGENDA 

In This Afternoon’s Virtual Meeting:

4) QUICKIE QUIZ!

We offer, for your amusement, this third and final installment of our series of Quickie Quizzes. How well do you remember the titles of old genre television productions or movies?

We all, on occasion, have trouble recalling the title of a classic SF/F TV show, or of a particular episode, or that of an old sci-fi movie we haven’t seen in many years! It’s on the tip of our tongue, and we recall certain particulars—a memorable alien or monster featured, a cast member or guest star, a specific scene, an unforgettable ending—details major or minor that, for whatever reason, have stuck with us all these years. But we can’t quite put our finger on the exact title!

We stammer, we sputter, we cluck our tongues, and we finally utter something like, “It starred what’s-his-name, that guy who was in that other movie!” Or, “You know, the episode where they…” Or, “the one with the…”

Below are a baker’s dozen such paltry descriptions of SF/F television series, episodes, or of films; can you extricate the exact title for each from the cobwebbed recesses of your mind?

Good luck and play fair; no resorting to Google for the answers! You can, of course, ask a friend for help, provided that friend’s name isn’t Siri or Alexa!

1) What’s the title of that recent television comedy series about two cops who investigate preternatural incidents, kind of like The X-Files but played entirely for laughs?

2) What was the name of that sci-fi series about the U.S. Air Force’s exploration and development of space? It was set in the not-too-distant future, and aired on CBS around about the dawn of the real Space Age!

3) What was the title of that Time Tunnel episode where hostile space aliens are first injected into the storyline?

4) What was the title of that old sci-fi sitcom starring Catwoman as a beautiful female robot?

5) What was the name of that low-budget, sci-fi/comedy movie about a voluptuous female android? You know the one… The film starred 1980’s Playmate of the Year, a young, novice centerfold model and actress from Canada!

6) What was the title of that original-series Star Trek episode, the one where the Enterprise first time-travels?

7) What was the name of that monster movie with a giant, stop-motion, dragon-like creature that nests in the art-deco spire of the Chrysler Building and preys on the citizens of New York City?

8) What was the title of that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode where Quark and company, en route to Earth, end up travelling back through time and crash-landing their shuttle near Roswell, New Mexico?

9) What was the name of that short-lived TV series about a pair of Air Force officers assigned to investigate UFO incidents? It aired on NBC not long after the theatrical release of Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

10) What was the name of that old sci-fi/horror TV movie about a construction crew who find themselves stalked by one of their earth-moving vehicles, which seems somehow “possessed” by a strange, malevolent, otherworldly force?

11) What was the title of the seaQuest episode that marked the final appearance of Roy Scheider’s Captain Nathan Bridger?

12) What was the name of that cool but convoluted sci-fi series? You know, the one with these pale-skinned, bald dudes in black suits called “Observers,” and a parallel universe, plus an alternate timeline, and this team of special investigators trying to figure out WTF was going on!

13) What was the name of that cult sci-fi/horror series about a teenaged boy who finds weirdness afoot in the small town to which his family has moved? There were inside-jokes and references to the horror genre in particular worked into each episode! 

The answers will be revealed later this afternoon in our 4:45PM post!

CLUB’S NEXT VIRTUAL MEETING IS TOMORROW!

 

 

 

This is our meeting-closing post.

12) THANK YOU!

We’d like to extend a big thank-you to our special guest this afternoon, Lonny Buinis, and tip our hats, as well, to Joe Aspler, Keith Braithwaite, and Cathy Palmer-Lister for their contributions to today’s programming. We also thank all supporting contributors to this, our April 2022 e-meeting.

And of course, to those who visited with us this afternoon, and took in our online get-together, thank you for your interest and attention, and don’t forget to comment on today’s confab.

13) WRAP-UP (SIGN-OFF) 

We sincerely hope you have enjoyed your time with us these past few hours, we again thank you for dropping in, and we ask that you pop in regularly here at www.MonSFFA.ca for additional content during this maddeningly persistent pandemic. Check, too, for any updates as to when the club expects a return to regular, face-to-face meetings.

Enjoy your chocolate eggs and bunnies next weekend, and keep well.

14) CLUB’S NEXT ONLINE MEETING DATE

We will again convene right here at www.MonSFFA.ca on Saturday, May 14, for another in our ongoing series of MonSFFA e-meetings!

This is Post 7 of 8.

10) SHOW-AND-TELL

For those participating on ZOOM, today, we open the floor to any club members who have “fancraft” projects to showcase—sci-fi scale models, SF/F woodworking or needle crafts, whatever genre-themed, hands-on project it may be that you are currently working on, or have recently completed.

Those not able to join our ZOOM chat for this show-and tell may, at this time, review the following:

11) ANSWERS TO QUICKIE QUIZ 

Here are the answers to the Quickie Quiz we posted at the outset of today’s meeting (see Post 1 of 8). How many titles did you remember correctly?

1) What was the title of that old science fiction anthology series produced back in the 1950s, I think it was? You know, the one that began each episode with the host demonstrating a simple science experiment which was related to that week’s episode!

Science Fiction Theatre (1955-1957) was an anthology series produced by science fiction movie director/screenwriter Ivan Tors and hosted by radio/television announcer and 1940s film actor Truman Bradley.

The show put an emphasis on the “science” in “science fiction,” offering “what if” extrapolations rooted in known scientific fact. Stories involved space flight, time-travel, robots, flying saucers and extraterrestrials, mental telepathy, and more. Each episode opened in a laboratory replete with a variety of scientific instruments where Bradley conducted a quick science experiment for the audience, one which related to the fictional story about to be presented.

The series came out of the ZIV company, an American producer of episodic television programs for first-run syndication in the 1950s. Science Fiction Theatre was a forerunner of later, better known shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, and was retitled Beyond the Limits for another syndicated run in the 1960s, airing, as well, on PBS and the Sci-Fi Channel in later decades.

2) What was the title of that classic Star Trek episode, the one where Captain Kirk delivers a stirring speech about risk?

“Return to Tomorrow” (1968), a second-season episode penned by John T. Dugan, writing as John Kingsbridge. Diana Muldaur guest-starred as crewmember Dr. Ann Mulhall; the actress would appear again as Dr. Miranda Jones in the show’s third-season episode “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” As well, she joined the season-two cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), playing chief medical officer Dr. Katherine “Kate” Pulaski, departing after the season concluded. Muldaur, it seems, has a penchant for playing doctors on Star Trek!

The Enterprise responds to a distress call and on an otherwise lifeless planet finds the incorporeal minds of “fantastically advanced” aliens Sargon, Henoch, and Thalassa housed within disco balls in a subterranean chamber. Leader Sargon requests of Kirk that the three beings be permitted to temporarily inhabit the bodies of the captain, Spock, and Dr. Mulhall so that they may construct android bodies for themselves, after which the borrowed bodies of the Enterprise personnel would be returned. Kirk feels that he can trust Sargon and despite the “enormous danger potential” involved, champions the idea, delivering in support of the proposal one of Star Trek’s finest inspirational orations—“Risk. Risk is our business. That’s what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her.”

But Henoch has an idea of his own!

James “Scotty” Doohan provided the voice of Sargon.

3) What was the title of that 1960s science fiction/horror movie featuring an exotic, green-skinned alien woman who turns out to be a vampire?

Queen of Blood (1966), also known as Planet of Blood, was said by the film’s writer/director, Curtis Harrington, to have inspired, to some degree, Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). “Ridley’s film is like a greatly enhanced, expensive and elaborate version of Queen of Blood,” he professed in an interview.

In the far-flung future of 1990, an alien race has contacted mankind and are sending an ambassador to Earth.

When a strange, green-skinned woman whose spaceship has apparently crashed on Mars is found unconscious, she is taken aboard a rescue ship dispatched from Earth. Regaining consciousness, she smiles tantalizingly at the Earthship’s three male crewmembers, but frowns at the only female astronaut aboard.

The strange woman soon entrances, attacks, and kills one of the men, then later another, draining them of their blood. Finally, the female crewmember interrupts her attempt to kill and feed upon the third crewman, grappling with the vampiric alien, who succumbs screaming to a mere scratch inflicted upon her during their struggle.

It is deduced that she was a hemophiliac. Further, her eggs are found hidden about the ship, leading to the conclusion that she was the bee-like queen of her people and had been sent to Earth not as an ambassador, but to secure fresh feeding grounds and breed.

Czech-born French film actress Florence Marly played the Queen of Blood, and the eclectic cast included John Saxon, Dennis Hopper, Judi Meredith, Basil Rathbone, and Forrest J Ackerman. Special effects footage was lifted from the Soviet SF films Mechte Navstrechu and Nebo Zovyot, respectively in English, A Dream Come True and Battle Beyond the Sun. The story was derived from Mechte Navstrechu’s screenplay. Roger Corman, though uncredited, was behind the project.

4) And then there was another science fiction/horror picture I remember seeing many years ago, with Hammer stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. You know, the one where a frozen, primeval monster discovered in a cave is being transported to Europe on the Trans-Siberian Express. The creature awakens and begins picking off passengers one by one! What was the name of that one, again?

Horror Express (1972), a Spanish/UK co-production featuring Lee and Cushing, in addition to Telly “Kojak” Savalas as a Cossack officer. Eugenio Martin conceived of the story and directed.

As was common practise at the time, Spanish- and Italian-made films were shot silent, with the cast’s voices and sound effects added in post-production. The English-speaking players provided their own voices, here, while other performers dubbed those of Argentinian actor Alberto de Mendoza and Spanish actress Silvia Tortosa.

Lee plays a renowned English anthropologist who is transporting to Europe by rail the frozen remains of a primitive humanoid creature he has discovered. He hopes his find will prove to be a missing link in the story of human evolution. But the creature thaws and escapes its crate, and the bodies soon begin to pile up aboard the train. Cushing is Lee’s friendly rival and the two soon determine that the humanoid creature had been taken over by an ancient, amorphous extraterrestrial entity that robs its victims of their memories and knowledge. When a police inspector shoots the creature, the alien entity jumps hosts, now inhabiting the inspector. And so begins the real threat to everyone aboard the train!

Horror Express is at the heart of a 2021 episode of Shudder’s revived Creepshow series, wherein an inventor creates a VR system that allows him to immerse himself within any movie he wishes. Horror Express happens to be his favourite film, and he visits the setting often, interacting with the Lee and Cushing characters, and romancing Silvia Tortosa’s beautiful Countess Irina, much to the chagrin of his actual wife!

5) What was the title of that Saturday-morning sci-fi show about young cadets attending a space school built on an asteroid? The old guy from Lost in Space was their commander!

Space Academy (1977) was a short-lived live-action children’s television program produced by Filmation, a studio better known for decades of Saturday-morning cartoon series like Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974) and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983-1985).

Lost in Space star Jonathan “Dr. Zachary Smith” Harris headlined the cast as Commander Gampu, head of Space Academy, a school built on an asteroid in the “star year” 3732. Here, young students from across the known worlds were trained to face the challenges of darkest space.

The show’s featured spacecraft were dubbed “Seekers,” and a catchphrase unique to the series was “ORACO,” shorthand for “Orders Received and Carried Out.”

Special effects, meanwhile, were quite serviceable for Saturday-morning fare and viewers were taught a moral lesson with each half-hour episode, of which there were a total of 15.

6) What was the name of that Thunderbirds episode where an attempt to jack up and move the Empire State Building goes catastrophically wrong, requiring the involvement of International Rescue?

“Terror in New York City” (1965), in which the incredible engineering feat of relocating the Empire State Building is underway so as to make way for the rejuvenation of Midtown Manhattan. When a subsidence causes the massive structure and its supporting scaffold to collapse, a television news reporter and his cameraman covering the event become trapped under the fallen building, the men having been thrown down a crevice as the building came down. They find themselves trapped in a cavern filling with water pouring in from the underground river that likely caused the subsidence. The submersible Thunderbird 4 will be required to effect a rescue. But transport Thunderbird 2 is out of commission and thus unable to airlift the little yellow submarine to the disaster site, and time is running out!

Series creator Gerry Anderson was prompted to suggest the story by a newspaper article he’d read about such an operation in Japan. Rather than tearing down an operative department store, the building was carefully moved to make way for a highway redevelopment.

The episode was praised by critics for its larger-than-life scenario and spectacular visuals.

7) What was the title of that old science fiction film about an advanced supercomputer that evolves at an exponential rate and soon exercises complete control over the entire world as a nuclear-armed, God-like guarantor of global peace?

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), based on the 1966 D. F. Jones novel Colossus, and the first feature film directed by Joseph Sargent, who had previously helmed television episodes for such genre series as The Invaders, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek.

The story involves the so-named “Colossus,” a forefather to cinematic supercomputers like WOPR and Skynet, featured in, respectively, WarGames (1983) and The Terminator (1984). Colossus is a secret defence project AI designed by a Dr. Charles A. Forbin. Once activated, Colossus quickly transcends its original design imperative as a U.S. and Allied automated nuclear defense system to join with its Soviet counterpart and impose a draconian global peace despite the reluctance of its human creators to cede to it such absolute power. But its control of the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals, and demonstrated willingness to exact cold, pitiless punishment on any who attempt to interfere with its function, leaves mankind with little choice.

Colossus addresses the peoples of the world: “This is the voice of World Control,” it intones in a synthesized timbre. “I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content, or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours. Obey me and live, or disobey and die.”

Forbin is now under constant surveillance, held prisoner by the machine he created, and as the film concludes, Colossus explains to him that freedom is an illusion, and that in time, “you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love.” Forbin’s reply is the film’s closing line: “Never.”

This is a smart science fiction film that holds up well, hobbled today not by obsolete ideas, but only by an obsolete depiction of advanced computer technology.

8) What was the title of that Night Gallery story? You know, the one where Count Baltar is rescued at sea by the Lusitania, distraught at his cowardly behaviour, that of having dressed as a woman in order to get into a lifeboat and escape certain death when the Titanic went down. Then later, he finds himself once again adrift in a lifeboat, one of the Lusitania’s, as the Andrea Doria maneuvers closer to rescue him!

“Lone Survivor” (1971), a segment of the fifth episode of Night Gallery (1969-1973), Rod Serling’s anthology of dark fantasy and supernatural horror, and the follow-up to his celebrated Twilight Zone series.

The framing device for the show was Serling’s introduction of each segment, of which there were usually two or three per episode, standing before a painting hanging in a dark and bizarre art gallery. Each canvas was a representation of the story about to unfold, capturing “in time and space,” to employ Serling’s words, “a frozen moment of a nightmare.”

Any maritime historian will recognize the three ocean liners featured in this tale as doomed vessels—the Titanic famously struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915, and the Andrea Doria collided with another ship and sank off Nantucket in 1956. This is a Flying Dutchman-like story which benefits greatly from a splendid performance by Canadian actor John Colicos as the distraught survivor haunted by his own cowardice and condemned to forever wander the seas as a harbinger of doom for ill-fated ships.

Colicos is also known to sci-fi fans as the first on-screen Klingon, Commander Kor, featured in “Errand of Mercy,” a first-season episode of Star Trek (1966-1969), and as the traitorous Count Baltar in the original Battlestar: Galactica (1978-1979). As well, he guest-starred in an episode of the Canadian-made sci-fi series The Starlost (1973-1974).

9) What was the name of that NBC sci-fi series about sea monsters that aired in the mid-2000s? There was a baby sea monster called “Nim.”

Surface (2005-2006), a science fiction series starring Lake Bell as a California-based oceanographer, one of many people around the world who have recently encountered an often dangerous species of heretofore unknown sea life. Another is a North Carolina teenager who comes across one of the creatures just offshore while wakeboarding with friends, later returning to the area to find numerous eggs floating on the waves. He brings one home and hides it in his parents’ aquarium, until it hatches. The infant sea monster is dubbed Nimrod, or Nim, for short.

A conspiracy plotline concerning the origin of the creatures begins to emerge as the series progresses, and we ultimately learn that they were the genetically engineered creations of a secretive biotechnology company eager to keep it all under wraps now that things have run amok.

Described as a “Speilberg-esque otherworldly drama” featuring “appealing characters and heart-pounding emotion and adventure,” the series boasted top-drawer special effects and developed a small but enthusiastic following. 15 episodes were aired in all, the run interrupted by a hiatus while the network covered the 2006 Winter Olympics, and the show was finally cancelled due to poor ratings, leaving the story unresolved.

10) What was the title of that movie, again? It was released not so long ago; you know, the one about a group of guys on a pub crawl who find themselves in the middle of an android take-over!

The World’s End (2013) is an over-the-top madcap, silly, ribald sci-fi comedy with a lot of heart from Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, and Nick Frost, who previously brought us Shaun of the Dead (2004).

The story revolves around a group of middle-aged Englishmen, old friends, who have reunited in their hometown to embark upon an epic pub crawl. Their route, the “Golden Mile,” will take them to all 12 of the watering holes in town, the last of these being The World’s End. As teenaged schoolboys, more than 20 years ago, they had attempted but were unable to complete the Golden Mile, and at the determined urging of Pegg’s best-days-behind-him, deadbeat character, set out to do so now.

But there’s something eerily strange about the townsfolk they encounter along the way, and by the time they’ve visited the fourth pub on their route, they are shocked to discover that all of the people in the hamlet have been replaced by android simulants!

Hilarity ensues.

11) What was the title of that mid-1970s made-for-television movie about an android in search of his creator? Two Star Trek actors were in it, and so was B. J. Hunnicutt from M*A*S*H!

The Questor Tapes (1974), scripted by Gene Roddenberry and his Star Trek colleague, Gene L. Coon, this movie was the pilot for a never-produced television series.

Robert Foxworth played Questor, an android whose programming is only partially intact and who, with just a snippet of data to guide him, is driven to seek out his brilliant designer, Dr. Emil Vaslovik, who has mysteriously disappeared. To aid in the search, the robot conscripts Jerry Robinson, one of the specialists on the team that assembled him. Robinson and his fellow experts had followed instructions and used components left by Vaslovik, but so advanced was the technology, here, that they did not fully understand that with which they were working.

As the story progresses, Questor gradually becomes more “human,” and eventually, he and Robinson make their way to Mount Ararat, where they find Vaslovik in a cave hidden within the mountain. We learn that Vaslovik is himself an android, and that Questor is the last of a series of automatons left on Earth by extraterrestrials. Each having a lifespan of several hundred years, the androids’ lineage dates back eons, with every individual tasked with fabricating its replacement before it expired.

Their purpose on Earth is to serve and safeguard mankind: “We protect, but we do not interfere. Man must make his own way. We guide him, but always without his knowledge.” And so, with Robinson as his advisor, Questor’s mission begins.

Star Trek’s Majel Barrett and Walter Koenig appeared in the film, she as Dr. Bradley, one of the Project Questor personnel, he, briefly, as an administrative assistant. Mike Farrell, who played Robinson, would soon join the cast of M*A*S*H as B. J. Hunnicutt.

12) What was the name of that animated series about this boy who can breathe underwater by way of a special kind of chewing gum?

Marine Boy (1967-1969), among the earliest colour animé series to air in North America, this program began in Japan, of course, in 1965 as a three-episode, black-and-white experimental show called Dorufin Ôji, or Dolphin Prince. A full-colour, slightly tweaked and expanded version of the concept called Ganbare! Marin Kiddo, or Hang On! Marine Kid followed in 1966, but was cancelled after 13 episodes.

American distributor Seven Arts Television then entered the picture, picking up the series for the English-language and international markets and negotiating a deal whereby additional episodes, including a colour reworking of the original three Dolphin Prince instalments, would be produced to arrive at a total of 78. The English-language dub of the show was retitled Marine Boy and was, in accordance with the deal agreed upon, syndicated in the U.S. before the series was permitted to air in Japan, where it was called Kaitei Shônen Marin, or Undersea Boy Marine.

Serving with the Ocean Patrol, a policing agency with jurisdiction over the Earth’s seven seas, the titular character is an intelligent, athletic, adolescent boy who has an affinity for sea life and can communicate with a sociable dolphin called Splasher. He is also friends with Neptina, a young Mermaid.

Marine Boy’s father, Dr. Mariner, along with a character named Professor Fumble, have invented a variety of accessories to equip the lad for dangerous duty. These include his red, virtually impenetrable wetsuit, sporting a radio communications system, retractable diving flippers, and hyper-powered propulsion units built into the suit’s boot-heels. A handy weapon is his special boomerang, made of a hardened metal alloy and capable of delivering a powerful electric shock. Finally, Marine Boy is able to breathe underwater for extended periods of time by virtue of an oxygen-supplying chewing gum dubbed “Oxy-gum.”

13) What was the name of that old macabre suspense series on NBC? You know the one; it was hosted by Boris Karloff!

Not to be confused with the similar 1970s British program of the same name, the American anthology series Thriller, also known as Boris Karloff’s Thriller and Boris Karloff Presents (1960-1962), was a gothic horror-flavoured murder mystery/crime drama. Iconic Frankenstein star Karloff hosted the series and also appeared in five of the show’s 67 episodes.

Other featured players included Leslie Nielsen, Robert Vaughn, William Shatner, Susan Oliver, Antoinette Bower, Richard Anderson, Richard Chamberlain, Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, Mary Tyler Moore, Cloris Leachman, Russell Johnson, Natalie Schafer, Donna Douglas, Marion Ross, George Kennedy, John Carradine, and Hazel Court. Many of these actors and actresses may be familiar to genre fans for past and subsequent roles in sci-fi film and television.

Alfred Hitchcock’s expanded version of his half-hour show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, spelled the end of Thriller as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour was introduced in September 1962; apparently, the famous director was opposed to a line-up that would have seen two analogous series airing on the same schedule.

This is our meeting’s Post 6 of 8.

9) WHAT ARE YOU READING/WATCHING?

On ZOOM right now, we’re asking “What are You Reading, or Watching?” Give us your quick book report, or your brief review of a film or TV show you’ve recently been enjoying!

For those not participating in our ZOOM chat, today, you may still contribute by submitting your concise book reports or movie and television-series reviews via this post’s “Leave a Comment” option. We welcome your input.

This is Post 5 of 8 today.

8) YOUR SF/F TOP-TEN LISTS 

We’ve asked folks to prepare a SF/F top-ten list on any science fiction, fantasy, or horror topic—for example, top ten classic Star Trek episodes, or top ten genre novelists, or top ten sci-fi film sequels; it’s your choice as to the specific topic.

While we’ve included a couple of lists below, this portion of the meeting will also take place on ZOOM, where each participant will have opportunity to present their list. We ask our list-makers to include, perhaps, a few illustrative photos which can be shared with the group as they impart their top ten. And, be prepared to field questions and/or, perhaps, defend your choices!

Those unable to join our video chat today can still submit in writing their own SF/F top-ten list via this post’s “Leave a Comment” option. So, again, we’re looking for your sci-fi, fantasy, or horror top-ten; could be, for instance, top ten space operas, top ten time-travel stories, Hugo-winning novels, classic sci-fi films, genre TV shows, spaceships, movie monsters, scariest horror movies, comic book superheroes, etc.

Include a quick description or outline of each of your entries and explain why you’ve included each, and why your fellow genre fans might also enjoy the selections you’ve listed.

My Top Ten Alliterative Comic-Book Character Names:

By Carl Phillips

Billy Batson, “Bucky” Barnes, Wally West, Rachel Roth, “Pepper” Potts, Archie Andrews, “Jughead” Jones, Sabrina Spellman, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Scott Summers, Matt Murdoch, Bruce Banner, J’onn J’onzz, also known as the Martian Manhunter, Blue Beetle, Cassandra Cain, Kathy Kane, Vicki Vale, and Hank Hall.

And then there’s Clark Kent, and those many Superman characters having the initials “L. L.”: Lara Lor-Val, Superman’s biological mother; Lois Lane and her sister, Lucy; Lana Lang and her mother Laura; Atlantean sisters Lori and Lenora Lemaris; Krytonian love interest Lyla Ler-Rol, or Lerrol; Superwoman Luma Lynai; 30th-century brothers Lightning Lad and Lightning Lord, associated with Superboy; and Lionel, Lillian, Lena, and Lex Luthor!

All of these comic book characters have been given alliterative names, meaning their first and last, and sometimes middle names begin with the same letter, or sound.

Alliterative character names date back to the earliest years of comic books and have become something of a distinguishing facet of, especially, superhero comics, epitomized by the 300 or so names dreamt up by celebrated Marvel writer Stan Lee over his lengthy career. Lee had such poor memory that the use of alliteration in naming his characters simply helped him to remember them. He reasoned that if he gave a character an alliterative name, and could call to mind either the first or last name, he’d better be able to remember the other because he’d know it begins with the same letter. Applying nicknames to his characters also helped. Such monikers do, indeed, roll rather more comfortably off the tongue and are a little easier to recall than, say, James Buchanan Barnes, Jr. or Virginia Potts.

As for Lois Lane and the many other “L-L” characters starring in Superman comics, their names are said to have been occasioned by the initials of Man of Steel co-creator Joe Shuster’s first girlfriend. As well, Adventures of Superman #646 (January 2006) sees Mr. Mxyztplk intimating that in the Kryptonian language, that “L-L” combo has significance.

All of that said, these are my favourite alliterative comic-book character names:

1) J. JONAH JAMESON, JR.—full name: John Jonah Jameson, Jr.—the perfect handle for this surly, barking, cigar-chomping editor of the Daily Bugle and detester of Spider-Man. The name just fits his character so well, and on top of that, this is double-barreled alliteration!

2) WONDER WOMAN, a formidable Amazonian warrior-princess and superheroine—one of the earliest and most enduring of female supers—she is a founding member of the Justice League of America. Her moniker says it all simply, smartly, and strongly.

3) DR. OTTO OCTAVIUS, another Spider-Man character whose unusual name is both memorable, and seems conceived to resonate well with his supervillain alias, Doctor Octopus, without seeming so overtly forced and clumsy as, for instance, the bad pun that is the Riddler’s alter ego, Edward Nigma (later, “Nygma”), or E. Nigma, as might read the label on his mailbox.

4) THE TEEN TITANS, invoking ancient Greek mythology, is a terrific alliterative name for a team of teenaged superheroes!

5) SILVER SABLE, a highly-skilled mercenary who hunts down war criminals, she is leader of the Wild Pack and Spider-Man’s occasional ally, and sometimes foe! She hails from a fictional Eastern-European country called Symkaria, and her real name is the exotically delicious Silvija Sablinova. That all adds up to a lot of “S” sounds and some awesomely adroit assonance! 

6) FELIX FAUST is a DC supervillain who first appeared in Justice League of America #10 (March 1962). Having lost much of his magical powers in battle with an adversary, this corrupt, ancient sorcerer was banished to another dimension, but made his way back, obsessed with regaining his mystical might. Motivated after reading the tale of Faust, he made his own deal with the devil—DC’s Demons Three—and thereafter called himself Felix Faust. He’s always in search of ever more cabalistic knowledge so as to employ maleficium, or injurious, harmful, dark magic, for his own wicked purposes. The name Felix Faust truly suits an evil sorcerer.

7) ROCKET RACCOON is a name that screams outlandish comic-book adventure, as one might expect from a story featuring an intelligent, space-faring, anthropomorphic raccoon who specializes in weapons and tactics. The character, originally intended as a one-off joke by creators Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen, was inspired by the title and, in part, lyrics of the 1968 Beatles song “Rocky Raccoon.”

8) GORILLA GRODD, primarily an enemy of DC superhero The Flash, was an ordinary, African gorilla just hanging out in the jungle minding his own business until he was made super-smart one day by extraterrestrial influence. He developed, as well, telepathic and telekinetic abilities. His plot to seize control of Gorilla City, which he and his fellow enhanced apes built, and further, pursue world domination are foiled by The Flash. Grodd, however, returns to trouble the Scarlet Speedster and his allies.

9) WADE WILSON—full name: Wade Winston Wilson—is the mouthy mercenary superhero Deadpool. This choice was, apparently, a deliberate spoof of the genre’s penchant for alliterative character names. Fair enough, and a nice nod to the convention.

10) FIN FANG FOOM, a giant creature from outer space resembling a dragon, was created by comics superstars Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and premiered in Strange Tales #89 (October 1961). This is a good example of comically wacky namecraft and sound repetition; the cadence of that triple-“F” is almost musical.

My Top Ten Cool Sci-Fi Cars and Trucks:

By Keith Braithwaite

“Summer’s here and the time is right for racin’ in the street,” sings Bruce Springsteen. High-performance, finely contoured cars and boss hot-rods have, for me, a captivating allure, which, when coupled with my interest in sci-fi, resulted in this, my top-ten list of cool sci-fi automobiles:

1) BATMOBILE: The Caped Crusader’s wheels top my list. I’m partial to the retro-future styling and bat-trim of the 1960s TV Batmobile, fully equipped as it was with an array of weapons and gadgets, but pretty much any of the subsequent Batmobiles designed for the movies should also get your motor runnin’!

That iconic 1966 Batmobile, built by Hollywood automobile customizer George Barris’ company, was based on Ford’s 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car.

2) POLICE SPINNER: This vehicle was designed by noted concept artist and “visual futurist” Syd Mead for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982). It’s not electric sheep but this ultra-cool police cruiser that any sci-fi fan dreams of when it comes to the genre’s long-promised but as-yet-unrealized flying car of tomorrow.

3) SPECTRUM PURSUIT VEHICLE (SPV): As seen in Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s Supermarionation sci-fi television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-1968), this is a metallic-blue, high-speed, multi-wheeled, all-terrain, amphibious tank-like vehicle designed for ground pursuit and attack. Global security organization Spectrum has hidden SPVs in secret locations all over the world so that they may be quickly available when needed.

Equipped with radar, rear-mounted caterpillar tracks that can be deployed to provide additional traction over rough landscapes, an array of cannons, and an ejector seat, the vehicle’s hydrogenic power unit is removable and can be hastily converted into a personal jet pack! Spectrum agents drive the windowless SPV by way of forward- and rear-positioned cameras feeding a video screen in the cockpit. The driver and passengers sit in rear-facing seats, all the better to minimize injury in the event of a crash—safety first!

The largest of the wooden SPV models built for production was about 24 inches in length so one would have to construct from sturdier materials any full-scale version for use on Quebec’s notoriously pothole-scarred streets and highways!

4) DeLOREAN TIME MACHINE: Eccentric inventor Emmett “Doc” Brown extensively retrofitted a 1981 DMC DeLorean sports car in Back to the Future (1985), his “flux capacitor” being the key component in that it allowed the car to time-travel! A subsequent upgrade included the capability of flight. Who among we SF fans wouldn’t want to be able to take a Sunday drive to the future, or to any year in history?

Introduced in 1981, the wedge-shaped DeLorean, with its brushed-aluminum body panels and gull-wing doors, sported a sleek, futuristic look, but as a production sports coupé, failed to pass muster. A V-6 mill left the car underpowered, and overall factory workmanship was sub-standard. The DeLorean Motor Company folded in late 1982, after producing a total of 9000 vehicles. The car has maintained a cult following, however, with interest in the DeLorean augmented by its starring role in the Back to the Future movies.

5) M577 ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIER (APC): Used by the Colonial Marines in Aliens (1986), this truck would easily satisfy any automotive buff’s desire to own a tank!

The vehicle was, in fact, a modified “pushback tractor,” which is a low-profile, heavy-duty tug used at commercial airports to move jumbo jets backwards on the apron, usually away from a gate, until the aircraft can proceed safely to the taxiway under their own power.

6) FAB 1: Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward’s elegant ride is tricked-out like something James Bond would drive. I’m a fan of the original version of the car as featured in the classic sci-fi puppet series Thunderbirds (1964-1966) and two associated feature films, Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) and Thunderbird 6 (1968), all from the aforementioned Andersons. But the updated designs seen in the more recent Jonathan Frakes-directed, live-action movie Thunderbirds (2004), and the computer-animated remake of the original series, Thunderbirds Are Go (2015-2020), are certainly no jalopies!

Fashioned as a futuristic Rolls-Royce, with the approval and cooperation of the distinguished British car-maker, the powerful, six-wheeled FAB 1, painted pink, as befits the lady, is usually driven by chauffeur Aloysius “Nosey” Parker. International Rescue’s resident genius, Brains, has equipped the vehicle with a bulletproof canopy, machine guns, grappling hooks, extendable tire studs for increased traction, and deployable hydrofoils and skis for travel over water or snow. The car can also put up a smoke-screen and dispense an oil-slick.

7) ECTO-1: When there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! And they’ll soon pull up in front of your house in this groovy chariot! Also called the Ectomobile, the car is an old, refitted ambulance used by the original Ghostbusters crew to transport personnel and equipment to scenes of spooky spectral shenanigans in New York City. The car became an icon of the film franchise which began with Ghostbusters (1984).

Ecto-1 was an overhauled limousine-style, end-loading ambulance/hearse combination car built on a 1959 commercial Cadillac chassis by the Miller-Meteor company, which, beginning in the mid-1950s, specialized in fabricating such professional vehicles. Miller-Meteor was a subdivision of parent corporation Divco-Wayne, principally, manufacturers of school buses. Later simply called the Wayne Corporation, the conglomerate is, today, defunct.

In the original film, Dr. Ray Stantz, portrayed by Dan Aykroyd, purchases and refurbishes the car, adding assorted ghostbusting paraphernalia to repurpose the old ambulance for use as the Ghostbusters’ vehicle.

8) KNIGHT INDUSTRIES TWO THOUSAND (K.I.T.T.): Featured in the sci-fi action/crime drama series Knight Rider (1982-1986), this is a powerful, advanced, talking supercomputer on wheels in the form of a modified 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. A self-aware, cybernetic logic module at its core, the high-tech A.I. can think for itself, learn, analyze evidence, and talk to and interact with humans, most often driver Michael Knight, a crime-fighting agent with the Foundation for Law and Government (FLAG).

The car itself sports a virtually impenetrable shell and an equipment package that seems an endless list of defensive mechanisms, weapons, analytical apparatus, and assorted other devices like a dashboard-mounted printer and an entertainment system that plays music and video, and can run electronic arcade games. I wonder if K.I.T.T.’s music library includes any of David Hasselhoff’s songs!

9) PURSUIT SPECIAL: Last of V-8 Interceptor’s, this is highway patrol officer Maxwell “Mad Max” Rockatansky’s police car, a specially modified, supercharged 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT. The Falcon was a production vehicle exclusive to Australia, where the original Mad Max (1979) was filmed.

Max’s muscle car sees him through the post-apocalyptic Outback in a gasoline-deprived future of scarcity, brutal roving gangs, and vehicular violence until it is finally wrecked in sequel, Mad Max 2 (1981), released in North America as The Road Warrior. If only Elon Musk had been born a little earlier, all of that could have been avoided!

10) LANDMASTER: If your converted VW microbus isn’t enough of a family camper for you, then this huge truck, bristling with weaponry, is surely right up your Damnation Alley! This is basically a Winnebago for the post-apocalyptic world.

Built for the sci-fi film Damnation Alley (1977) by Dean Jeffries, a custom car designer/builder who fabricated numerous vehicles for the television and motion picture industries, the Landmaster is an articulated, amphibious, all-terrain vehicle featuring a unique trinary wheel arrangement that allows it to drive over very rugged terrain.

 

Many of these automobiles, whether the lovingly restored originals or exactingly faithful replicas, can be viewed at car shows and sci-fi conventions across the country.

I could have added a few more to the list, like Black Beauty, the Green Hornet’s ride, circa mid-1960s, or the killer Corvette-like racer driven by Frankenstein in the 1975 car-carnage classic Death Race 2000, or the Batpod motorcycle seen in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight films of about a decade ago, or the haunted 1958 Plymouth Fury featured in John Carpenter’s 1983 film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, Christine! But alas, there was only room for 10 entries.

This is Post 2 of 8. 

5) VIRTUAL-REALITY PLANETS

We are thrilled to welcome a special guest, this afternoon, who will speak on applying virtual reality to the visualizing of planets like Mars and Jupiter!

Lonny Buinis saw the SF movie classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) during the film’s initial theatrical release, and wondered, “Do things in outer space really look like that?” He was set on a path which allowed him to combine his interest in both astronomy and art, and later, digital graphics, 3-D modelling and animation, and virtual reality.

Lonny earned degrees in physics and computer science from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and is one of the 200 space artists worldwide who hold membership in the International Association of Astronomical Artists. The United Astronomy Clubs of New Jersey has named one of its observatories after him in recognition of his decades of volunteer work there.

“Virtual-reality objects have been around on Web sites for a while,” says Lonny, “helping to market everything from jewelry to automobiles.” This afternoon, he will take us on a VR tour of our solar system, and beyond!

We’ll compare century-old and modern maps of Mercury, Mars, and Saturn by transforming them into 3-D globes, and we’ll superimpose modern space art onto a Hubble map of Jupiter, exoplanets, and more. Lonny will also demonstrate how you can use your fingers, or any pointing device, to hold a planet in your hands!

All of this will be taking place over the next 90 minutes as part of our ZOOM session. To join us on ZOOM, Click here: This Afternoon’s MonSFFA e-Meeting on ZOOM

To join by phone (voice only), in Montreal, call in toll-free: 1-438-809-7799. Find your out-of-town ZOOM call-in number here: Call-In Numbers

Have this information on hand; you may be asked to enter it:

Meeting ID: 881 5338 5883
Passcode: 486931

For those unable to participate on ZOOM, we invite you to surf over to Lonny’s Web site and have a look: Astronomy in Motion

Also, check out the International Association of Astronomical Artists here: IAAA

Lastly, you may want to visit online the United Astronomy Clubs of New Jersey, a networking group for the Garden State’s amateur astronomy clubs; Lonny was a co-founder of this group: UACNJ

Our MonSFFA e-meeting, meanwhile, will take a quick snack-break today at 3:00PM, and continue at 3:15PM with a look back at Expo 67, Montreal’s wonderful world’s fair, which opened in April, 55 years ago! Expo showcased the technological marvels of tomorrow, and some of that predicted future even came true! So be sure you get back here to enjoy that presentation!—Today’s MonSFFA e-Meeting