Worldwide Tributes

First published on Superman's Fiftieth Anniversary in 1988, Super Fan Michael Eury posits literary salutes to the big guy.

This feature is from Amazing Heroes #139, cover-dated April 15, 1988.  Take a few days to absorb these Kryptonian refractions of genius, and I'll see you back here on Monday!

  

Rootin' for Something

 I found this little medallion in a handful of change.

It really is about the size of a dime.

And made from some cardboardlike substance.

Do YOU know what the heck this means?  See you Thursday.

  

Jingle Dupes All the Way

Two commercials aired in the OKC area struck me because they have a closing musical fragment that not only contains the same notes, but might be sung by the same woman.

Here’s a TV ad for “Visiting Angels.”  Listen to their name sung at the end.

And see if the same four of five notes aren’t the same in this commercial for “Living Spaces.”

Do the purchasers of ad campaigns have a right to some sort of exclusivity?  On the other hand, if you can sell the same thing more than once, is it wrong?

See you Monday!

  

A Sandbox Insurrection?

When you read a lot of books or consume media in general, you begin to notice similarities sometimes.

This is a pretty good book, published in 2023, about a self-aware AI and the possibilities of havoc such a thing might create.  The face represents the AI escaping from, you guessed it, a sandbox -- the term for a self-enclosed, airgapped kind of environment where it couldn't mess with the outside world.  But, that cover image reminded me of ...

This here's the poster for the 1998 lesser TREK film Star Trek Insurrection.  The face here is one of the bad-guy, face-stretching aliens.  Don't you see the resemblance?

And BOTH of them remind me of Molasar, the rascal from the 1983 movie The Keep.

Coincidence?  Perhaps!  or ... ?

  

A Cheap Shot but True!

I don't know who's to blame, but the quality of on-the-fly proofing for Channel 9 in OKC has slipped precipitately in the past few years.

From December 12, 2001, we have some illegal "wee."

January 6, 2022:  Is "abrove" freezing higher or lower than freezing?

January 19, 2022.  Accept no "substitues"!

March 3, 2022.  Anybody in the OKC viewing area knows that one of Yukon's main streets is Cornwell Drive.

April 20, 2022. Don't breathe low-"qaultiy" air, it's bad for ya!

  

See you Monday.  Believe it or not, this is only the FIRST installment of my audition for proofreader for Channel 9!

 

So New! So Different! So Foolish!

Yep, that's the first post of this year's APRIL FOOLISHNESS. And a poke at my own high-falutin' self.

Because it turns out I waren't the fustest to have coined the phrase! That honor goes to the master of commentary on the unexplained, John Keel!

The Mothman Prophecies is a 1975 book which I've long owned in the paperback printing, having read at least a half-dozen times.  On a recent reread, I came across a chapter header which made me feel like a thief!

Yup, on page 104 is the term I hoped I'd originated!  (In the chapter title, in case you've got Headline Blindness.)

Well, I cannot promise you any purple lights, but there's plenty of silliness for the rest of this month.  Please join us!  See you Thursday!

  

STAR TREK III, Reviewed

This review is from the June 30, 1984 Oklahoma City Journal.

With this we draw to a close another installment of TREKKING WITH CLIPPINGS.  See you on Monday, April 1, for the beginning of 2024's APRIL FOOLISHNESS!

  

News of STAR TREK III

Yup, these three clippings all concern the second sequel. 

This one, from the September 24, 1982 OKC Times, doesn't count because it's a shortened version of the below clipping.  But you've got to give it credit for the headline emulating McCoy's mock excitement at such news.

This one is from the Tulsa World of the same date, presumably with the entire syndicated story.

This one is from the Dayton, OH Journal Herald.

This final look ahead is from the August 12, 1983 Tulsa World.

See you on Thursday for more scrapings from the scrapbook!

  

Three Angles on the Enterprise

All three of these articles came out in relation to STTMP.

This is from the November 31, 1979 OKC Journal.  Note in the middle of the center column, we go from a recounting of help from JPL to a first-person diary of sorts from Shatner.  This must be a second article pasted after the first, or we must have a missing descriptive transition here, or ...?

Vindicated! I say!  This one is from the December 4, 1979 Oklahoman.  Jimmy Doohan was right in saying that the characters are the cohesive force of Trek's appeal.

And from that storied day, December 7, 1979, another from the Oklahoman.  "No panic over the cost"?  RIGHT!

You tell me ... did the gamble pay off?  I should say!

  

Not that There's Anything Wrong ...

Sometimes you just know the editors of these scandal rags were laughing themselves sick over their self-perceived cleverness!

Like this selection from the September 3, 1991 Star.

Or this breathless tell-all about heavy breathing on the set of Star Trek VI, from a December 1991 handout Movies USA.

Here's one from the previous year, also about STVI, from the November 20, 1990 Star.

As Johnny Crawford sang, don't believe all the rumors you read (or hear)!  See you Thursday.

  

All I Want to Do Is Direct!

That's one of the stereotypical movie-star laments.  In the case of Trekdom, we've been fortunate that people who want to do it have actually pulled things off sometimes!

From the November 11, 1982 Oklahoma City Journal, we read about Nimoy directing an episode of The Powers of Matthew Starr.

The above is from the August 5, 1983 Oklahoma City Times.  It was my first knowledge that Nimoy had been trusted with the franchise, with Star Trek III.  That space opera came out as least as good as it should have.  (Although the Klingons were less sinister than I wish).

See you Monday!

  

Trekking Ahead!

Our joy at getting a Star Trek movie was separate from any opinions about what we got. And we wanted MORE!

This clipping from the Oklahoman of May 25, 1980, was one of the tantalizing tidbits we clung to.

This one, from the October 9, 1980 Oklahoman, gave us more to dream on.

And until then, we could buy the Motion Picture on video, finally, as this ad in the December 6, 1980 TV Guide informed us.

What a great time to be a fan!  See you Thursday.

  

Hooker Triumphant

This article is from the August 14, 1982 TV Guide.

Dig that crazy headband!  See you on Monday, fellow Trekkians.

  

Welcome Back to TREKKING WITH CLIPPINGS!

Yep, this month of March will feature more of the hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles I clipped from the 1960s into the 1990s.

The above squib is from the April 20, 1980 OKC Journal.

Mother dear clipped the above article from the same day's Tulsa World.  As you can tell, they're almost the same thing, except that the OKC article inserted the local plug of Trek reruns.  Also, the World article runs a few more paragraphs.  Funny how you could just cut off the tail end of an article and we poor kids didn't know any better?

This one's from January 18, 1981, in the "TV News" insert for The Oklahoman.  No, I haven't seen the Buck Rogers episode "Journey to Oasis" -- have you?

See you on Thursday!

  

Farewell to This Childish Heart!

Yes, this is the final post for this year's MY SIXTIES VALENTINE.

Don't miss the word "So" under the boy barber's chin.

You can tell by this one that we didn't care if we gave a boy-seeking-girl valentine to another boy.  The rules required you to give EVERYONE in your class a valentine.  Tough luck if a boyish one went to a girl, or the other way around.

No explanation as to how that cat's paw could handle a three-hole bowling ball.

Well, that's it for this year, fellow heartthrobs!  Come back on Monday for a month of TREKKING WITH CLIPPINGS!

 

Kindergarten Romance -- Not!

Here's the as-yet-unshared valentines I received in 1962 for Valentine's Day, in Mrs Pickell's kindergarten class. 

But first the pouch they came in.

Sad to say, I can't put a face or even a last name to David B.

Similarly, I don't remember playing with a Margaret.

I'm pretty sure that this Paula was Paula Bland.

Check back on Thursday, which due to the frabjous happenstance of this being a Leap Year, we'll have one more installment of MY SIXTIES VALENTINE.

It's a date (in a purely platonic way)!