Cult-TV Theme Watch: Vans

Although such musings might be more appropriate for a "Memory Bank" post than a discussion of objects that repeat frequently in cult-TV history, I have to tell you, I love vans.

My family purchased a Ford van in 1978, and it was not retired from service until sometime in the mid-1990s.

I still miss it.  

That green van took me to and my friends to see Flash Gordon (1980) for my eleventh birthday, and transported my family on two cross-country trips from New Jersey to California and back again. = In 1979, we took the northern route, visiting the Great Lakes, Mount Rushmore, and Devil's Tower, among other locations.  Then, in 1982, we took the southern route.

Both trips were amazing experiences.  And I still remember the interior of the van vividly (and, of course, its wall-to-wall shag carpeting.)

A van might be described as a large, "box-like" automobile featuring a sliding side door and rear back-doors. The van (notice I didn't say "mini-van") was especially popular in the late seventies for not entirely wholesome reasons. 

Ever heard the term shaggin wagon?

In cult-TV history, vans have appeared so many times, and have become synonymous with specific characters and situations.  The Mystery Machine, for example, from Scooby Doo, may just be the most well-known van in the pop culture.

But The Hardy Boys also drove around the country, solving mysteries, in their GMC van, in The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (1977-1978).  

The heroes of the short-lived Saturday morning TV series, The Monster Squad (1976), similarly, had a van which they would use in their investigations of criminals.

The 1980s brought soldiers of fortune -- The A-Team (1983-1987) who also worked out of a GMC Van. 

On, V: The Series (1984-1985) at roughly the same time, the alien Visitors were often depicted driving white vans emblazoned with the alien insignia.

Even more recent series have featured vans. Early in the run of The Walking Dead (2010) in the first season, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and other survivors of the zombie apocalypse drove a church van to escape from Atlanta.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 - 2003), the Nerds of Doom -- also known as The Trio -- owned a van, and at one point, Andrew (Tom Lenk) painted some Star Wars illustrations on the side, including imagery of the Death Star.

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Cult-TV Theme Watch: Snow

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Snow is precipitation consisting of granular ice particles, and also the fondest hope (at least on school days) of every child.  

In winter-time in America, snow is a fact of life, yet it is not only a weather condition that can cancel class, but a beautiful thing too. My street, here in Mint Hill, N.C, looks gorgeous the morning after a night of snow.

Of course, shoveling my drive-way clear of snow is still a pain in the you-know-what.

Snow has been a major plot-point in cult-TV series throughout history.  

In The Twilight Zone (1959-1964), for instance, it was the punch-line of an unforgettable episode, "The Midnight Sun."  

There, the audience was led to believe that the Earth was plummeting towards its star, causing a heat wave. By episode's end, however, the truth was known: the Earth was headed the opposite way...into deep space and permanent winter. That winter was heralded, in part, by endless snow fall.

My favorite example of snow in cult-television, however, comes from another Rod Serling series: Night Gallery (1969-1973). 

An installment of that horror anthology, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," concerns a boy who can't escape his daydreams and perpetual visions of ice and snow. The episode relates these frozen visions or fantasies to a mental state not unlike autism. The child grows colder and colder, frozen in the snow, unmoved and unaffected by those around him.  Finally, the blizzard is so powerful, the boy can no longer communicate with the outside or real world.

The idea of an entire planet blanketed in slow is also a popular one in television history, well before Hoth was a central location in The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

In the original Star Trek (1966-1969), for instance, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) time-traveled with Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) to the ice age of Sarpeidon in the episode "All Our Yesterdays."

In Space:1999's (1975-1977) "Death's Other Dominion," the Alphans land on Ultima Thule in an Eagle and Dr. Russell (Barbara Bain), Victor Bergman (Barry Morse), and Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) are enveloped in a fierce snow blizzard almost instantly.

"Gun on Ice Planet Zero," similarly finds the Colonials of Battlestar Galactica (1979-1980) engulfed in unending snow, forced to traverse the treacherous landscape and weather patterns to stop a Cylon laser cannon.

In other cult-TV series, snow may represent a catharsis or "cleansing."  

For instance, in the third season Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 - 2003) episode "Amends," snow miraculously falls in Southern California, in Sunnydale, after Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) has helped Angel (David Boreanaz) deal with a life-time of guilt (and defeat an enemy called The First Evil.)

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Cult-TV Theme Watch: Christmas

‘Tis the season to be jolly…

Christmas is a spiritual holiday in the Christian faith, celebrating the birth of Jesus.

In modern American culture, Christmas is more than that broad religious description entails as well.

Christmas is a time of forgiveness, and a time of redemption. It is a season of second chances, unexplained grace, and fellowship with loved ones. 

Christmas is a time of the year represented by many symbols, including that great gift-giver, Santa Claus, the Nativity, Christmas trees, and even snow-fall.

The “Christmas episode” is a mainstay of cult television too. Throughout history, many series feature a holiday-themed story that can be rerun across the years.

One of the most famous Christmas stories is “Night of the Meek” on The Twilight Zone (1959 – 1964). In this tale, a drunk man, played by Art Carney, through a night of strife and redemption ascends to the positions of Santa Claus.  The story was remade for the 1980s version of The Twilight Zone as well.

On Millennium(1996 – 1999), the second season episode “Midnight of the Century” is also a tale for the season, and concerns, explicitly family, particularly Frank Black’s (Lance Henriksen) family. This episode introduces Darren McGavin as Frank’s father. While Frank plans a Christmas for his daughter, Jordan (Brittany Tiplady), he also remembers holidays from his childhood.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 – 2003), the episode “Amends” concerns the topic of forgiveness and redemption as it pertains to Angel (David Boreanaz), the vampire with a soul. The First Evil (a villain who would recur in the seventh season) taunts Angel with the presence of all the people he has killed over the years, including Jenny Calendar. Buffy helps Angel, and at the end of the episode, an unexpected snowfall in Sunnydale acts as a kind of cleansing or catharsis for him.

The X-Files (1993 – 2002) also features a Christmas episode, “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas,” in which Scully and Mulder enter a haunted house and meet two ghosts (Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner), who help them contextualize their own relationship in a new way.  The episode ends with Scully and Mulder exchanging presents in Mulder’s apartment.

Other series, such as The Six-Million Dollar Man (1973 – 1978), and even Doctor Who (2005 - ) have featured Christmas stories that explicitly reference Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Merry Christmas, 2015, and Happy Holidays to all!

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Cult-TV Theme Watch: Swords

A sword is a blade weapon used for feints, thrusts, cutting, and stabbing. 

And swords have been a near constant presence in cult-television across the decades.

In “The Challenge,” an episode of Lost in Space’s (1965-1968) first season, Professor Robinson (Guy Williams) battles an alien leader (Michael Ansara) with a sword.  The trick is that the sword carries an electrical charge.  Of course, this battle itself is an homage, of sorts, to Guy William’s most famous TV role: as sword-master Zorro.

In the Star Trek (1966 – 1969) third season episode, “The Day of the Dove,” Klingons and Kirk’s crew battle for possession of the U.S.S. Enterprise when a life-form that feeds on hate transforms all phaser weapons into old-fashioned swords.  Scotty finds a Scottish blade -- a claymore -- that he fancies.

The Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century (1979-1981) episode “Escape from Wedded Bliss” sees Buck (Gil Gerard) battle Tigerman in an arena,for the hand of Princess Ardala (Pamela Hensley).  One of the weapons used is, predictably, a sword.

The eighties brought several genre cartoon characters armed with swords, including He-Man and the robot Voltron.  Other fantasy TV series, such as Wizards and Warriors (1983) made frequent use of swords, and often featured sword battles.

The last episode of V: The Series (1985), sees Mike Donovan (Marc Singer) and Philip (Frank Ashmore) engage in a friendly sword duel with uncharged nuclear swords.  They are unaware that Diana (Jane Badler) has secretly had them charged, so that they will kill each other.

The 1990s brought another sword master, Xena: Warrior Princess (Lucy Lawless), and an episode of Star Trek: The NextGeneration in 1991, “Q-Pid”) saw Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) playing Robin Hood and defeating the Sheriff of Nottingham with a sword. The series Highlander features swords all the time, in virtually every episode.

In the year 2000 episode of The X-Files (1993 – 2002), “First Person Shooter,” a video game avatar, Maitreya, kills male players in a virtual reality game with a deadly blade.  She decapitates them with it. Later, she captures Mulder, and Scully must enter the game space to save him.

And in the Firefly (2002) episode “Shindig,” the hapless Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) challenges a deft swordsman to a duel, for the honor of Inara (Morena Baccarin).  He is badly wounded, but wins the duel only because he cheats.

Recently, of course, Game of Thrones (2011 - ) has featured swords on a regular basis. Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) has a sword – needle – with which she trains to become a warrior.  Later, she plans to use it for purposes of revenge against those who have wronged her family.  We have also learned that the wicked Lannisters prefer their swords be forged from Valyrian Steel.

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Cult-TV Theme Watch: Eyepatches

A few weeks ago, I liked at the cult-tv faces of trench coats, and concluded that these jackets make characters look positively bad ass.  The same, ultimately, is true of eyepatches.  An eyepatch covers one eye, and makes a character look absolutely tough, and possibly evil.

Characters on cult-TV shows have often worn eye patches…especially villains.

For example, in the Jon Pertwee Doctor Who (1963-1989) era, The Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicolas Courtney) wears an eyepatch in the serial “Inferno.”

In this story, the Doctor moves between parallel universes and encounters a fascist, evil version of the beloved military man.  So, eye-patches are to Doctor Who what a goatee was to Spock in Star Trek (1966-1969), you might conclude.

In 2011, the era of Matt Smith’s eleventh doctor, the eyepatch returned in “The Wedding of River Song,” worn by multiple characters, and intended as an homage to the recently passed-away Courtney.

Another popular British science fiction series, Terry Nation’s Blake’s 7 (1978-1981), also spotlighted a villain with an eye-patch.  In seasons one and two of the program, the one eyed Travis, played first by Stephen Greif, and later by Brian Croucher, pursued Blake and his rebels across the galaxy.

In an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993 – 1999) that parodied the James Bond films (and titled “Our Man Bashir), Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) wears an eyepatch as the holodeck character the Falcon.

The final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) witnessed the kindly, harmless Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendan) is wounded by a minion of The First Evil, Caleb (Nathan Fillion), and one eye is gouged out.  For the remainder of the series, Xander wears an eye-patch, which makes him Nick Fury-esque, in his own eyes (or rather, eye).

Recently, on The Walking Dead (2010 – present), The Governor (David Morrissey) proved super evil by wearing both a trench coat andan eye-patch, possibly making him the most evil character in cult-TV history.

And also, on Game of Thrones (2011 – present), Beric Dondarrian wears an eyepatch.

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Cult-TV Theme Watch: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2015 is nearly here! This national holiday serves the purpose of expressing thanks for your blessings --  a tradition which goes back to 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts

It is a time for family togetherness, counting one’s blessings, and -- yes -- for bad movies and Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Thanksgiving has also featured prominently in many television programs across the decades. 

Two classic“Thanksgiving” episodes first aired in the year 1978.

On Happy Days (1974 - 1984), the episode “The First Thanksgiving” concerned an historical flashback to an early Thanksgiving in Milwaukee, with the Fonz (Henry Winkler) and other characters playing crucial roles.  Ayyyyy!

And on WKRP in Cincinnati (1978 - 1982) the infamous “Turkeys Away” episode featured a radio station promotion for the holiday gone horribly wrong.  The promotion involved turkeys, a helicopter, and reporter-on-the-street, Les Nessman…

In more genre-oriented programming, Dexter Morgan has broken bread with another serial killer – played by John Lithgow -- for Thanksgiving on Dexter (2006 - 2013). 

And Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s fourth season featured an episode called “Pangs.” That episode saw the vampire Spike (James Marsters) sharing the holiday dinner with the Scooby Gang, and was gleefully incorrect in terms of its politics, as the holiday devolved into modern day Californians fighting ghosts of wronged Native Americans.

From 1991 through 1995, Mystery Science Theater 3000celebrated “Turkey Day” with marathons of bad movies.

In particular though, I remember the host segments of 1995, wherein Jack Perkins, Mr. B. Natural, Pitch (A devil…) and the Kitten with a Whip showed up to celebrate Thanksgiving with Dr. Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) and his mother, Pearl (Mary Jo Pehl).

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

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