OMG BFF LOL

By artist Charlie White, from his Girl Studies project, whom I discovered at the Geffen in downtown LA this afternoon (it's free on thursday nights, and there's a really great show there right now, so go).

I spent three semesters in animation school with the intent of a lifetime career in children's television work, but changed majors when I saw it for the bland, consumerist detritus that it is. However, the format works perfectly here.

"You wear your anguish like a breakaway chastity belt"

A youtube member has generously edited the hilarious dialogue scenes between Anthony Hopkins and Kathleen Turner from 'Crimes of Passion', one of the craziest movies to be widely released in the 80's, into a 9-minute brain-scrambler. The acting, script and cinematography are garishly superb.

New Sculptures

The self-portrait has been done for awhile, but I just put its gallery up in the website. And in response to a couple of requests, I'm offering Cthulhu Bobbleheads in a green stone finish as well as the traditional bronze. Click the photos above to link to their respective pages.

Creature Feature Sunday: Reptilicus

This classic Danish monster movie has been edited down to just 10 minutes, so maybe you can find the time when you're not 'posting', 'texting', 'tweeting' or 'squonking' or whatever you do on that little electronic gadget of yours.

I saw this on a Sunday afternoon in the neighborhood theater in 1976. I didn't win anything in the raffle (top prize was a complete train set), but at least the movie's strangeness stuck with me, as with other childhood brain-melters like Attack of the Mushroom People or War of the Gargantuas.

Apex Electronics in 3D

Apex Electronics is a wondrous yet dangerous place. Boxes of dusty components stack to the ceiling and could bury you alive at any moment. But now you can explore from the safety of your own home.... in THREE DIMENSIONS.

A few spare shots of the similarly squalid Vintage Arcade Superstore (a warehouse and repair shop with hundreds of video game and pinball cabinets) are tacked on at the end. Click the above image to launch the automated slideshow.

Don't miss the virtual tour of Apex on their website.

The Notorious 'Sex Dwarf' Music Video

from Dangerous Minds,

Directed by Tim Pope, Soft Cell’s Sex Dwarf  video, released to promote their debut album, created quite a scandal in 1981. Claiming it was pornographic, British police actually confiscated copies of the video. It was banned from MTV at the time and is currently banned from Youtube.

Not safe for the workplace or the kids, obviously. But not as disturbing or offensive as you might think, either. It straddles a fine line between ridiculous and genuinely frightening, echoing the ouvre of Paul McCarthy or Hermann Nitsch (Soft Cell met in art school, where Dave Ball was composing avant-garde soundscapes and Mark Almond was a performance artist).

Bonus clip: Soft Cell tears through a sleazy cover of Suicide's "Ghost Rider" with Foetus on guest vocals:

70's Arcade Oddities

Computer Space

The first of all video games (predating "Pong" by a year), this beautiful cabinet was sculpted from clay in the designer's kitchen and molded in fiberglass. The gameplay was said to be confusing, and it flopped right away. But look, it was futuristic enough to star in the movie "Soylent Green", set in the year 2002:




Space Flight

This lunar landing game was modeled after the popular crane-and-target cabinets. It had a built-in 8-track tape player that changed channels accordingly when you would succeed or fail. Check out the oscilloscope effect on the control panel! And those models! Why aren't these sorts of things still around?



Haunted House

Lots of shooting galleries were made in the 70's, but the black-light diorama and mechanical targets on this one are fantastic, and like "Space Flight", there's an 8-track tape player that provides music and sound effects. Here's a long video, but he gets inside the cabinet and shows some of the mechanics.



Maneater

There were one of these at a Holiday Inn when I was vacationing with my family as a six-year old, and I remember it well: two players are scuba divers trying to repeatedly swim to the ocean floor and surface with treasure while sharks pursue them. Currently there are estimated to be somewhere between 5 and 25 left in the world.



Sexy Girl Pinball

This was manufactured in Germany and only distributed within Western Europe. It features a window on the table, which projects a selection of 200 (200! ) photos of models in increasing degrees of nuditude.


I actually have a 'virtual' re-creation of this game on my mame cabinet, but I never play it. For one thing, it's too hard to get the photos going. That requires you to pass through all four lanes in the top (they clear with every new ball) then hit difficult side targets to advance the pictures. It's also a slow design with few features. The best thing about it is the under-table projector. And the titties.

Dr. Mad's Monster Maker



I'm guessing it uses a two-way mirror and a Pepper's Ghost effect to turn your reflection into a monster. But did this actually exist? The only info I can find online is the above photo and a page from the sales flyer:


Maybe it never passed the prototyping stage, but wow. That's one of the coolest cabinets and coolest ideas I've ever seen for an arcade machine.

And now, 147 seconds of "The Impossible Kid"

Fried Furbies

I picked up a pair of first edition (1998) Furbies for $15 at the flea market yesterday. They were still new in the boxes. I got them home and put in the batteries.

One of them didn't work at all. But the other did. I stripped the fur and started playing around with the electronics. I got it to the point where I had a power switch, a reset button, and an 1/8 audio output all functioning.

But when I got to the actual bending stage, and wired up a couple of switches to the circuit board to glitch the sound and create a sample loop controller, it stopped operating. My soldering iron must have cooked its brain.

I had big plans for this as an interactive device. I was to add a couple more buttons which would have made all of his features remote-controlled, as well as LED lights in his eyeballs. All the buttons and switched were to be drilled into the aluminum project box, with the stripped and painted furby mounted on top. It was going to be so cool, and I'd already invested a few hours into it. But such are the travails of circuit bending.

I read that Furbies fry easily, but I have to give this another try. If anyone has or sees any working ones, let me know. Until I get mine going, revisit the Furbot Ensemble.

Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn in 3D

Glasses on (red lens over the left eye), blow it up to fullscreen, sit a few feet back from the monitor and follow the links in the youtube window to continue.

Viewer Mail

Webmaestro and former midget Pizzateen writes:

I have a request. Would you please cover Frank Mills' Music Box Dancer in the most fucked-up way you are capable? A loud, terrifying, electro-orgy version is sorely absent from the world.



You got it!

Zippy's Birthday

Trailer Trash: First Sequence

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Family Classics

It's Sunday afternoon, which means it's time for Family Classics, hosted by Frazier Thomas:



Today we have a family-friendly edit of the 1974 classic "Flesh Gordon"



And now for a short commercial break. Tonight is a night of programming that you won't want to miss:



And now, the exciting conclusion of "Flesh Gordon"

Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines

Opened three years ago, this small museum of playable machines recreates the arcades of the USSR from the 70's to the late 80's. From their website:

Arcade Games were a part of childhood and youth of Soviet people. They were made at secret military factories from the seventies up to the Perestroika. Forgotten and broken down Soviet-era arcade games are now being restored for Moscow’s newest museum and now it is possible to play and feel atmosphere of the passed epoch.
Around 20 of 37 different kinds of machines are now in working order. They operate with old Soviet 15 kopek coins, the hammer-and-sickle emblem of which itself conjures up a bygone time.

Here's one example, “Morskoi Boi” (Sea Battle):


This is the most popular of all the Russian games. It's a copy of Midway's Sea Raider as far as the interior is concerned, but the exterior is way cooler, with all the backlit knobs and dials.

A drawer at floor level pulls out to act as a step stool for children, midgets and amputees. The interior scene has lots of depth because it takes advantage of the cabinet's height; a parabolic mirror bounces your field of vision straight down (I'm currently designing an interactive diorama like this).


The player looks through the periscope, but there are also two windows up top for spectators to check out the action. The periscope swivels to aim, and a trigger releases torpedos. Scoring is simple enough: the numbers 1-10 on the right show how many torpedoes you've fired, and the numbers 1-10 on the left register your hits.

The enemy ships, which are filled with capitalist dogs, move across the diorama on a chain drive. A series of incandescent lamps chase in sequence and bounce off the glass water surface to simulate the torpedo's path. Strike! Another victory for the proletariate!


Ready to play a round? You don't have to travel to Russia to try this game. The museum's website has a flash version. Man your station and GO.

There's little else working on that website, but a blog of some kind has pictures and lots of descriptions of their visit here.

Night Tide

Our Movie of the Week is presented without interruption courtesy of archive.org, where you can also download the entire public domain feature.

This 1961 relic with a very young-looking Dennis Hopper (he was actually in his late 20's) and obscure singer Lana Clarkson is all about the location: Venice Beach when it was a happening bohemian mecca. It's also a moody little tone poem, perhaps better suited to something shorter, like an episode of 'Twilight Zone' rather than a full movie, but still worth your time.

Crazy Hep Smoking Beatnik, Man

This cat is, like, solid tinted urethane resin, man. He stands 1.5 inches tall, but is far outsized by his smoking capacity.

Four self-smoking cigarettes are included. Put one in his mouth, light it up and watch him blast like Coltrane at Birdland in '63. Dig those crazy rings. Like, wow.



You can extinguish his cig when you think he's had enough, and re-light it another day. Stock up on lots of extra smokes (currently available through the web, but they're vintage, so there may be a limited supply), and this beatnik will stay hep for many years to come.

Only $11.99? Have I flipped? Buy one HERE at my etsy store.

Pizza Planet

Mighty Thor

Thor Blow Up Water Bottle:



Thor Bend Steel with Teeth:



Thor Accept Challenge:

Viewer Mail

A Futurechimp reader commented on a jiggler post from a few months ago, and provided this fine photo (above).

These were among my favorite toys. I think we got them at Toys R Us. This had to be 1970, 1971... they immediately got names, and a back-story and had many adventures... they joined the German Army when we got into Hogan's Heroes, then when we got into Planet of the Apes, they became members of Mendez' Mutant Army. They were lost or discarded during my teen years.

I HAD to buy them again. Once they arrived, they were immediately freed from the plastic capsules, and they got GI Joe-styled hand-tailored uniforms in their size. Then, after trolling some dollar stores, I found some rifles and a motorcycle in their size. Here's a current picture of them in Vigilante-Wear (tm) to give you the general idea of them in military uniforms. After a hard day on vigilante patrol, they like to relax and order sushi at Kona's Tiki Bar.

Let this reader be an inspiration to us all. Keep flying your Freak Flag high, chimps.

Auction Pick: Smoking Monkeys

Got a variety of nicotene-addicted hominids for your consideration today, kids. Click on any of the following photos to be directed to the item's ebay page. As of this posting, all of them have 24 hours or more before closing.



Four Smoking Monkeys, Gently Used, Circa 1950's
These are made of some kind of composition material, not injection-molded plastic like the later ones. Sorry, no cigarettes included. Extremely cool, and no bids for them just yet.



Smoking Monkey in Package with Four Cigarettes
When in art school in the early 90's, I bought at least a dozen of these at American Science Surplus for about a dollar each, autographed and editioned each of them, and displayed them alongside a foot-tall sculpture of a smoking monkey I'd sculpted and cast in tinted latex rubber (I still have it, but the latex has decayed slightly).

These days, smoking monkeys are hard to come by. There's already a few bids for this one, and it's the only packaged monkey currently on ebay.



VIntage Postcard with Wobbly Eyeballs
Circa 1930's, I'm guessing. Huh.



Consul Peter Smoking, 1909
Again, I have no idea. But there it is. Buy this reprint of a vintage photograph, frame and hang it on your wall, and confound your friends.

Acid Symphony Orchestra

Finland's Acid Symphony Orchestra is composed of 10 Roland TB-303′s, one Roland TR-707 drum machine and one Roland TR-808 drum machine. All are synced using Roland's short-lived proprietary cables of the early 80's and mixed by a conductor. I'm guessing the show ends when they run out of vodka:



Magnificent. Here's a documentary. Follow the links to the other parts.