Film, TV

Adam West

by generationxrewind

Two years ago today, Adam West passed away at the age of 88. For Gen X, we are too young to remember or were not even born yet when the BATMAN series starring West aired on ABC from 1966 to 1968.

Our generation grew up watching Batman reruns after school on one of our local channels. For many of us, Adam West was our first TV hero. We also watched The New Adventures of Batman on Saturday mornings on CBS in the mid-seventies. This short-lived cartoon featured the voices of West and Burt Ward. They also teamed up for two live-action specials on NBC called Legends of the Superheroes in 1979.

When the feature film Batman came out in 1989, we may have liked Michael Keaton’s performance of the Caped Crusader, but West was still our Batman. Some of us met him and got an autograph at some car show, or Sci-Fi convention in the seventies and eighties.

When the Batman show aired in the nineties on FX and The Family Channel, young Gen X parents introduced the show to their kids. In this current decade, some of us who had kids later in life, and or who have grandchildren introduced the show to our little ones via ME-TV and the IFC Channel or on DVD.

He became a true Pop Culture Icon as we became adults in the nineties. He worked steadily in the last three decades in films and TV, frequently doing voice-overs, most notably as the Mayor on Family Guy.

Since that 1989 film came out there have been four other actors besides Keaton who have put the cowl and cape on. There were also two other actors who played Batman in serials back in the forties. The West version of Batman, the way he looked, his mannerisms, his voice, is still the Iconic image of the Caped Crusader.

William West Anderson (September 19, 1928 – June 9, 2017), known to the world as Adam West left this world two years ago today. He is stilled missed and will never be forgotten.


Music, TV

Der Kommissar

by generationxrewind

Gen X Flashback Friday Music Video.

Every Friday, we will spotlight a forgotten, or obscure music video from the Gen X era.

Today’s Music video is Der Kommissar from After the Fire. The song went to #5 on the singles chart in 1983. After the Fire was an English progressive rock band who went New Wave. This was their only hit in America. Austrian singer Falco, had an international hit with Der Kommissar in 1982.

Click the link to download Der Kommissar via Amazon.

Film, Music, TV

Rocky III

by generationxrewind

Six years after the debut of the first Rocky movie, Rocky III was released during Memorial Day weekend in 1982. The film was hugely successful earning nearly 270 million at the box office. It was the fourth highest grossing movie of 1982.

Even more impressive than the financial success was the several ways that the film contributed to the pop culture of the eighties and to the Gen X era.

Mr. T.

Before Rocky III, Mr. T was a bodyguard and bouncer in Chicago. He appeared on NBC’s Games People Play as a contestant for the “America’s Toughest Bouncer” competition. He won that event and this is also where he was first noticed by Sylvester Stallone. This lead to him being cast as “Clubber Lang”, Stallone’s opponent in the film. Mr. T.’s famous catchphrase “I pity the fool” also came from Rocky III. The following year, he was part of the cast of The A Team on NBC and he went on to become a true 80s icon.

Hulk Hogan

Before Hulk Hogan became the biggest fan favorite during the pro wrestling boom of the mid-eighties, he was a bad guy in the World Wrestling Federation. The WWF then was only a northeastern regional territory and not yet the national brand that it was soon to become. This is also where Stallone first saw him perform and this lead him to be cast as Thuderlips, the grappler Rocky fought in a charity wrestler vs boxer match. After the movie was completed, Hogan left the WWF and started wrestling for The American Wrestling Association, which covered the upper midwest and parts of the west coast. Thanks in part to the success of the film, this is where he became a good guy, and Hulkamania started to run wild! In December of 1983, he went back to the WWF, and a month later beats the Iron Shiek to become WWF champion. Also in 84, the WWF went nationwide and Pro Wrestling becomes a true 80s cultural phenomenon with Hogan as its biggest star.

Eye of the Tiger

Stallone had originally wanted to use Another One Bites the Dust by Queen as the theme song for the movie. When Queen said no, Stallone requested the band Survivor create a theme song. That song, Eye of the Tiger became one of the most iconic songs ever made for a movie, and one of the signature songs of the eighties and the Gen X era. It hit number 1 on the singles charts and stayed there for six weeks. When you combine the sales for the original vinyl and the later digital downloads, nine million copies have been sold. Eye of the Tiger was also the title of an action movie from 1986 starring Gary Busey. The song was used in that film as well.

Click the link below to watch Rocky III via Amazon.
Rocky III

Film, TV

Tim Conway

by generationxrewind

The comedy world lost one of its funniest people ever recently when Tim Conway passed away at the age of 85. Conway had the world laughing for over fifty years with a career that started out in local TV in Cleveland. He then went national when he moved to New York City and landed a job as a regular on The Steve Allen Show on ABC.

He had even bigger success as one of the stars of the 1960’s World War Two sitcom, McHale’s Navy. After that show left the airways, he had his own short-lived sitcom and variety show. What the world will always know him best for is The Carol Burnett Show, which aired on CBS from 1967 to 1978.

From the first season on, Conway was a popular and frequent guest. When Lyle Waggoner left the show in 1975, he became a full-time cast member and stayed on with the show till the end. Along with great characters like The Oldest Man and Mr. Tudball, his time on the show is noted for his ability to crack up his castmates during a sketch.

There are several reasons why Tim Conway matters to Generation X. The Carol Burnett Show was something that families watched together. When Conway passed away on May 14, 2019, there were many comments on social media from first wave Gen Xers about how they grew up watching the show with their families. The show aired on Saturday in a time when that was still a big night for TV viewing. Along with Burnett, for much of the seventies, the powerhouse CBS Saturday night lineup included The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family and The Bob Newhart Show. Can you think of a show that presently airs on Saturday nights on a broadcast network?

He was not just a TV celebrity, he was also a movie star. Conway teamed with another comedy great, Don Knotts and made four successful family-friendly movies starting in 1975 with The Apple Dumpling Gang. A sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, came out in 79 as did The Prize Fighter. Their final movie as a starring duo, Private Eyes, was released in 1980. Both Conway and Knotts appeared in Disney’s Gus in 1976, however, they did not have any scenes together. They made a cameo as Highway Patrol Officers in Cannonball Run 2 in 1984. This was the last time they appeared together on screen.

Conway appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1986 in a skit where he portrayed a very short Scandinavian horse jockey named Dorf. This lead to eight direct to video “how to” films featuring the Dorf character. He also played Peggy Bundy’s father in four episodes of Married with Children.

Perhaps his most famous skit on The Carol Burnett Show was The Dentist with Harvey Korman. Neither one of them could make it through the entire skit without laughing. Take a look at the clip below.

R.I.P. Tim Conway and thanks for the memories.

TV

THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL February 2, 1973 – May 1, 1981.

by generationxrewind

The late night music program, The Midnight Special aired its last show on NBC on May 1st, 1981. The show first appeared as a special in 1972 and then became a regular Friday night program in 1973. The original time slot was 1:00 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. and followed The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. When Carson’s show went from 90 minutes to one hour The Midnight Special was moved up to 12:30 a.m.–2:00 a.m.

The success of the show proved that Late Night TV could be successful. NBC expanded the time slot to the rest of the week when it premiered The Tomorrow Show later in 1973.

The Midnight Special featured acts from different musical genres, but like another last night music show, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, the program was known to showcase acts that you normally would not see on TV. Hard Rock, New Wave, and Album Rock Radio artists like Black Oak Arkansas, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Journey, The New York Dolls, Reo Speedwagon, Heart, Blondie, The Cars and Thin Lizzy appeared on the show.

The show left the airwaves a few months before the premiere of MTV. For many Gen X kids who lived in places where you only had R&B, Top 40, and Country stations, or had no concert venues, The late night music shows of the seventies and early eighties were the only way to see or hear a performance from the Rock bands that you only read about in magazines.

Click the image to read about a DVD box set of The Midnight Special via Amazon.

Film, TV

THE KARATE KID and the sequels.

by generationxrewind

The Karate Kid is THE martial arts movie of the Generation X era. That is a fact and not even up for discussion. The 1984 film is one of the signature films of the era. The movie was so big, that to this day, it seems like half of the suburban strip malls in America have a Karate or Tae Kwon Do school. Yes, there were plenty of martial art schools before the movie came out, but that particular business went into overdrive after 1984.

The movie was also so big that it spawned 3 sequels: The Karate Kid Part 2 in 1986, The Karate Kid Part 3 in 1989, and The Next Karate Kid in 1994. Pat Morita appeared in all four movies. Ralph Macchio was in the first three films and Hilary Swank was The Next Karate Kid.

There was a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon on NBC in 1989. YouTube Premium has continued the legacy with its show, Cobra Kai. Of the three film sequels, which one is your favorite and why?

Click the image to get all four Karate Kid Movies via Amazon.

TV

Growing up with Baby Boomer TV Shows.

by generationxrewind

For Gen X kids, afternoon TV was not Courtroom or talk shows. There also wasn’t two or three hours of news in the afternoon. Gen X kids came home from school to two hours worth of Baby Boomer TV.

Soap Operas went off the air at 4 pm. The News came on at 6 pm. Between that time, the airwaves were filled with shows from the fifties and the sixties. Batman, Superman, The Lone Ranger, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, The Monkees, Leave it to Beaver, The Andy Giffith Show, Gilligan’s Island, Dark Shadows, Bewitched, I dream of Jeanie and the list goes on.

What was your favorite afternoon TV show? Did watching boomer TV shows help us relate to people outside of our age group better than younger generations that had their own cable channels to watch?

TV

Happy Birthday Lee Majors

by generationxrewind

Happy Birthday to Lee Majors, who played two of the greatest TV characters in the Gen X era. Lee was born on April 23, 1939 in Wyandotte, MI.

Long before there was a Stone Cold Steve Austin, Majors portrayed Col. Steve Austin on The Six Million Dollar Man in the seventies on ABC. Austin was an Astronaut who was severely injured during a crash and was rebuilt with bionic implants that gave him super speed, super strength in his right arm, and an eye with a zoom lens and infrared vision.

He came back in the ’80s as a Stuntman who also did some part-time work as a bounty hunter on The Fall Guy which also aired on ABC. Let’s also not forget that he was married to Farrah Fawcett during her time on Charlie’s Angels when she was a cultural phenom in the mid-seventies.

Click the image to watch the first episode of The Fall Guy via Amazon Prime.

TV

WKRP in Cincinnati 78-82

by generationxrewind

WKRP in Cincinnati aired its last episode this week back in 1982. The show aired for four seasons starting in Sept 1978.

The show was created by Hugh Wilson and was based on his experience working at top forty radio station, WQKI in Atlanta. Originally airing on Monday nights at 8 pm, the show had to go up against Welcome Back Kotter and Little House on the Praire. Ratings were not good and the show actually went on hiatus for eight weeks. When it returned, the ratings went up thanks to being in a great time slot right after M*A*S*H. CBS moved the show back to Monday at 8 pm during the second season. The show continued to move around and each time, it lost viewers.

The final show aired on April 21, 1982, and was actually ranked at #7 in the weekly ratings. In the years following the cancellation, the show became a hit in syndication. Due to this success, a spinoff, The New WKRP in Cincinnati was created for syndication in 1991 and aired for two seasons.

Click the image to watch the 1st episode of WKRP in Cincinnati via Amazon Prime.

TV

The Space Giants

by generationxrewind

If you were a kid in the late seventies and your family had cable, you might remember a Japanese sci-fi show called The Space Giants that aired in the afternoons after school on WTCG Channel 17 Atlanta, which later became WTBS.

The show featured a robot family that battled the evil Rodak who was always unleashing some kind of giant monster to destroy civilization. The robot family could turn into rockets and the dad would also become a giant who would fight the creatures.

The Space Giants was the first Tokusatsu show filmed in Color in Japan.
Tokusatsu is a term used to describe Japanese live-action shows that use a good bit of special effects. Similar shows include Ultraman and Spectreman.

Click image to watch
The Space Giants – Mightier than Godzilla or Ultraman Now!
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