Question of the Day 4.11.12

Name the movie!

Answer to yesterday’s QOTD: Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me”. Congrats to Jeffrey Scott, Amanda, @buttercup081474, and Vanessa for guessing correctly.

Working for the Weekend

“Everyone’s watching, to see what you will do. Everyone’s looking at you, oh…”

How many among us, as we were growing up in the 80s, wondered why Loverboy was singing a song about how great life is when you’re working during the weekend? Seriously… weren’t the weekends a time to PARTY??

We know life in Canada’s a little odd, but c’mon boys–– what gives?

Oops.

Turns out they were working all week so they’d have enough money FOR the weekend. Duh.

Anywho… even though we may not have ‘gotten’ it, we certainly knew enough to recognize a killer turn when we heard it. And 1981’s “Working for the Weekend” was just about as ‘killer’ as they come. From Mike’s raging vocals to Matt’s driving drums, the song was a sure-fire, get-off-your-ass-and-dance, hard rock 80s classic.

Interestingly enough, “Working for the Weekend” didn’t do anything on the charts. Despite spending 20 weeks in the Hot 100, it peaked at the rather pathetic #29. Loverboy had the last laugh, though, as the song has gone on to become their most famous. Not only was it the soundtrack for one of Saturday Night Live’s most famous (and funniest) skits, it’s constantly used the world over as a weekend-ready party anthem.

…’cause, you know, weekends are a time to PARTY!!

We get it now.

We ♥ Working for the Weekend.

Question of the Day 4.10.12

Name the music video!

Answer to yesterday’s QOTD: Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. Congrats to @MrZab and Todd for guessing correctly. (Half credit to Jeff Fisher and @E80sLV.)

Fashion Star Fillies

…because when you buy a toy horsey to play with, it had better damn well be shiny, sparkly, AND anatomically-correct.

My Little Pony? You can suck it. (Just kidding. We, of course, LOVE Minty, Galaxy, and the gang…)

When Kenner’s Fashion Star Fillies arrived on the scene in the 1987, we finally had a true, honest-to-goodness horse for our amusement. The days of cartoonish horseys were gone, replaced with the toy that looked like a real horse (well, except for the shimmery silver skin, the star on its face, the neon legwarmers, and the mane that reached down to its pastern (that’s a little bit o’ horse lingo for you).

In all, there were a whole ton of different FSF lines to hit toy shelves in the late 80s, including the Sassy Sixteens and the popular Feelin’ Fancy Horses (you all remember Chantilly and Devan, right?)

Alas, the spangly fillies were not long for this world, and by the turn of the decade, they’d been put out to pasture. But for those coupla happy years when Fashion Star Fillies were all the rage, well… was there anything better than this?

We ♥ Fashion Star Fillies.

Question of the Day 4.9.12

Name the movie!

Answer to Friday’s QOTD: Greg Kihn’s “Jeopardy”. Congrats to @RICANROLL, Bababooey, and Todd for guessing correctly.

The Watcher In The Woods

When someone says the words “Walt Disney” you think of fun, family-friendly films and characters, right? So did we, when our parents unknowingly slipped the VHS of The Watcher in the Woods into our VCRs sometime around 1980. Little did we know, our young selves were about to get settled in for a horrifying film involving seances, aliens, and a creepy Bette Davis.

DISNEY, what the hell, bro?

But that’s exactly what happened. They pulled a fast one on us, and we fell for it. Lesson learned: Just because something is produced by Walt Disney doesn’t mean it’s kid-friendly.

The story, based on a novel by Florence Engell Randal, involved an American family moving into a British manor maintained by old Mrs. Aylwood (Davis), whose daughter Karen  had mysteriously disappeared thirty years prior. Jan, the daughter of the American family, bears a striking resemblance to Karen so, of course, Mrs. Aylwood gets all up in her business and constantly spies on her. Long story short (too late!): the kids from thirty years ago got their kicks out of performing seances in abandoned bell towers… and well, wouldn’t you know, one of them actually summoned an alien known as The Watcher to come and take Karen away to another dimension. (Sucks to be you, Karen.)

Luckily, Jan and her sister Ellie (played by Kyle Richards, now of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills fame) figure out that since it happened during a solar eclipse they just need to recreate the ceremony again during another solar eclipse, and there you go, Karen’s back in the arms of her now 80 year old mother… (Honestly, if it was us, we would have just moved back home to the states. Screw all that “let’s save a moron from an alien who could probably destroy us all” nonsense.) But, clearly, Ellie and Jan are better people and they stay and save the day and everyone is happy.

The movie had some editing issues when it was first released and was actually pulled from theaters and then re-released. We’re just glad it got made at all. How else would we know to avoid performing seances during solar eclipses?

We ♥ The Watcher In the Woods.

Question of the Day 4.6.12

Name the music video!

Answer to yesterday’s QOTD: The Littles. Congrats to Howlin’ Mad Heater, Serenity, Jeffrey Scott, Vanessa, and Tiffany for guessing correctly.

Columbia House

It was too good to be true.

ANY 12 ALBUMS FOR A PENNY.

And, heck, in the days when new albums ran in the $8.99 range, well… you can imagine our glee when we saw THAT offer.

All your favorite albums were right there for the picking, courtesy of the Columbia Record and Tape Club–– Madonna, Loverboy, Foreigner, Michael Jackson. The only thing you had to do was sit down with your pencil and circle the ones you wanted, send in the form, and then… well, then, in the next three years you only had to buy four more at ‘regular club price’.

Sign. Me. Up.

Within a few weeks, that most-excellent cardboard box showed up in your mail, jammed full of so many new tapes (with that trademark red lettering on the side) that you didn’t know where to begin. AWESOME!

And every month thereafter, you got the new catalog (and order form) in the mail. If you didn’t do anything, (those sneaky bastards) the ‘selection of the month’ was automatically mailed to you… so you’d better be damn sure to fill out that little card saying, ‘Send no selection at this time’. Otherwise, you might just get that random package a few weeks later with Air Supply’s Greatest Hits in it. Gag!

“Um, Mom? How do you spell R-E-T-U-R-N T-O S-E-N-D-E-R?”

…and can we all universally agree how quickly those three years flew by?

Eh–– we suppose, looking back, that all the headaches were worth it in the long run. Sure, the postage and handling jacked up the ‘regular club price’ up to 12 or 13 bucks, but when all was said and done, you gotta love all that music you got… for just one penny.

We ♥ Columbia House.

Question of the Day 4.5.12

Name the TV show!

Answer to yesterday’s QOTD: Saga’s “On the Loose”. Congrats to absolutely no one for guessing correctly.

Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince

“At last, your highness… Planet Earth!”

We all know how much Saturday morning cartoons ruled our lives in the 80s, but there was plenty of live-action Saturday morning fun, too (and not only of the Pee Wee Herman variety).

Take, for instance, 1983’s Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince, a short-lived show that aired at 11am on CBS, beginning in September.

Starring everyone’s (at the time) favorite mutt Benji, the show centered around young Prince Yubi from the distant (waaaaay distant) planet of Antars, which had been recently overrun by the evil Zanu.

Yubi fortunately escaped, along with his trusty robot sidekick Zax, to Earth where (natch) the first creature they meet is the lovable Benji.

Of course young Yubi couldn’t just escape and spend his days chilling by the pool with a bag of Bugles and a Pepsi–– no… he had to be constantly on the lookout for those dastardly Antarian bounty hunters Khyber and Darah, who also had their own droid Zord and spent their days tracking his highness in their creepy black van.

And just how, do you ask, did young Yubi survive on Earth? Well, it’s because he had his trusty cipher (bracelet), which endowed him with the magical power to breath Earth air.

Alas, Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince wasn’t long for this world; it was canned after only 13 episodes, but for those of us who made it appointment viewing every Saturday, well… was there anything better?

Seriously–– it’s Benji and it’s aliens! And that’s a win-win in our book, any day of the week.

We ♥ Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince.