The 1970s were a renaissance period of sorts for horror, fantasy, and sci-fi; elements of magic, the macabre, and a pervasive fear of the future and technology seeping out of virtually every pore of public consciousness. I may not have fully understood the trippy, awe-inspiring sounds and images emanating from the television at the time, or that they were often designed as conveyances for more meaningful meditations on society, but their impact was indelible.
In the era before home video and cable TV became common conveniences and massive cineplexes erupted from the asphalt to stamp out local theaters in municipalities across the country, my consumption of media was largely confined to printed works found around the house and whatever programming our standard “rabbit ears” could draw into the family television set. Due to a scarcity of outlets and relative dearth of contemporary productions, I basically absorbed 50 years of Hollywood output simultaneously in my first eight years of life. Between that exposure and the fact that I’ve been around long enough now to twice observe revivals of the pop culture phenomena from my childhood, I understand the cyclical nature of influence. Just as the post punk acts of the late ’70s (Talking Heads, Wire, Blondie, XTC, Elvis Costello) begat the ’90s-2000’s New Wave revivalists (No Doubt, Elastica, Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes, Killers) that today’s youngest music artists (Pale Waves, Starcrawler, The Regrettes) obviously heard as kids, it is clear that the “creatives” behind the horror/fantasy/sci-fi work of the ’70s were directly inspired by the media produced by the generations that preceded them. Items of influence may not sustain our interest in perpetuity, but they always leave a mark and they almost always come back around.
VAMPIRES & WEREWOLVES & BIG LIZARDS IN MY BACKYARD, OH MY!
Even now, I recall the influence Universal’s Classic black & white monster films (1925-1956) continued to exert on American culture in the 1970s. Universal’s legacy of definitive archetypes (Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf Man, etc.) was evident in the music I was hearing (Bobby Picket’s “Monster Mash,” Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein“), on TV (reruns of The Munsters, Monster Squad, Hilarious House of Frightenstein), in film (Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein), Mego toys, sugary kids cereals, etc. For crying out loud, Universal icon Boris Karloff (Frankenstein, The Mummy) even provided his instantly recognizable voice to the beloved 1966 cartoon adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Locally, the movies aired regularly on Sir Graves Ghastly‘s Saturday afternoon “creature feature” on Channel 2. In retrospect, each series began well, faithfully honoring the spirit of their source material and effectively making use of light and shadow to provoke scares from castle settings and charismatic leads, but faded to the point of self-parody after a succession of forced sequels. Really, though…who cares? Plot? What’s that? I was a little boy. As far as I was concerned, the more monsters they could shoehorn into a single movie the better (House of Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein). If they had dispensed altogether with the pretense of story and just presented 90 glorious, random, lightning-filled minutes of monsters cage fighting in a medieval abattoir-cum-laboratory, that’d been perfect.
At some point late in the decade, unbeknownst to Mom (who would not have approved), I discovered Hammer‘s (’50s-’70s) comparatively gruesome, cleavage-filled color updates of Universal’s monster paradigms (Horror of Dracula, Curse of Frankenstein) that often starred Christopher Lee & Peter Cushing – known to other nerddoms, respectively, as Sarumon the White and Grand Mof Tarkin. In parallel with the creative path of the Universal properties, each film series from “The Studio That Dripped Blood” started respectfully, often making use of classically trained actors and period-appropriate gothic settings, but sank quickly under the weight of overnumerous, ill-conceived, exploitative, low-budget sequels.
Peripherally, in the world of comic books, a relaxing of the Comics Code Authority – an arch-conservative concern that had been neutering content and imaginations since 1954 – spurred an explosion of horror comic books. Completely obsessed with costumed heroes from the gold and silver ages, I was only vaguely aware of this development, but all the publishers went all-in, none perhaps more so than Marvel – who dropped their “superheroes from the crypt” (Morbius, Werewolf By Night, Dracula, Ghost Rider, Frankenstein’s Monster, etc.) directly into their established superhero continuity. Predictably, when Marvel introduced Man-Thing (Savage Tales #1), DC answered with Swamp Thing (House of Secrets #92) a mere 2 months later (“WHAT?!!! They developed a SWAMP monster??? PREPOSTEROUS! RIDICULOUS! OUTRAGEOUS! We MUST have one!!!”).
Giant monsters were also very much in-style. In 1976, early ’30s holdover King Kong made a comeback in an (meh) update starring Jeff Bridges that traded the state-of-the-art stop-motion photography of the original for a green-screened dude in a laughably unconvincing gorilla costume. Fun ’60s & ’70s Japanese import giant super-monster slugfests (Ultraman, Godzilla movies, Johnny Socko and His Flying Robot) aired on TV regularly. For years, I couldn’t go near water without pretending to be the classic Marvel superhero Sub-Mariner (“IMPERIOUS REX!”) or imagining myself as Godzilla rising from the sea to smash buildings, stomp cars, and do mighty battle with other freaky, imaginary gigantors. Over the course of the decade, further updates of classic monster tropes continued to appear (Salem’s Lot, Frankenstein: A True Story, Blacula, Dracula), but appetites were changing; old models increasingly taking a back seat to disaster films (The Towering Inferno), gory demonic possessions (The Exorcist), damaged, telekinetic prom queens (Carrie), mutant-huge sharks (Jaws), slasher flicks (Halloween), zombies (Dawn of the Dead), and acid-bleeding bugs from outer space (Alien).
ROCK STARS ARE (NERDY) PEOPLE TOO
Although my personal exposure to swords, sorcery, and the occult was limited to the “fotonovel” for Ralph Bakshi‘s ’78 Lord of the Rings movie, my oldest sister’s (?) Brothers Hildebrandt book of paintings (collected mainly from Tolkien calendars issued ’76-’78), reruns of ’60s TV (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Addams Family, H.R. Pufnstuf) and Disney’s many kid-friendly fantasy films (Pete’s Dragon, Escape to Witch Mountain), interesting developments were afoot…
In 1970, Marvel comics began a long run of Roy Thomas penned Conan books (Conan the Barbarian, Savage Tales, Savage Sword of Conan, etc.) and comic strips – most popularly drawn by Barry Windsor Smith and “Big” John Buscema – that, along with the work of Frank Frazetta & Boris Vallejo, established the visual language for old-world fantasy illustration, and the swords & sorcery genre as a whole, going forward (Schwarzenegger’s ’82 film, Conan the Barbarian). The writings of J.R.R. Tolkien were finding wider audiences via mainstream animated adaptations of The Hobbit (Rankin/Bass) and The Lord of the Rings; and, in hard rock music, via explicit lyrical references in songs by artists such as Led Zeppelin (“Ramble On,” “Misty Mountain Hop“) and Rush (“Rivendell,” “The Necromancer“).
On the whole, a number of known and emerging rock acts were demonstrating the influence of decidedly non-pop music themes. Artists were composing songs steeped in fantasy (Led Zeppelin’s “The Battle of Evermore,” Black Sabbath’s “The Wizard,” Yes’ “The Gates of Delirium,” Queen’s “Ogre Battle“); horror (Misfits’ “Night of the Living Dead,” Blue Öyster Cult’s “Godzilla,” The Cramps’ “Human Fly“), Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead“); and science fiction (Rush’s “2112,” ELP’s “Karn Evil 9,” David Bowie’s “Starman,” B-52’s “Planet Claire“). Other acts, including Alice Cooper (“Dead Babies“), Talking Heads (“Psycho Killer“), XTC (“Into the Atom Age“), and Devo (“Mongoloid“), at times utilized the imagery provoked by these genres to disguise biting social commentary. …And then there were the glam-funk-prankster heroes Parliament (“Dr. Funkenstein“) and the surrealist pre-fame incarnation of Oingo Boingo (the Richard Elfman led Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo), whose elaborate presentations bore more resemblance to gothic musical theater than rock and roll. I don’t consciously recall anything of George Clinton’s Parliament/Funkadelic collective from that time, but there is a chance I may have seen the Mystic Knights when they appeared (and won) on The Gong Show.
CONCEPTUAL (YOU’RE SO)*
Looking back on the bulk of science fiction work produced in the 20th century, it’s clear that all was not well with the world (good to see some things never change, eh?). “Life imitates art” just as art imitates life. Even though most ’50 – ’70s science fiction films aberrated to varying degrees from their literary sources (Frankenstein, The Time Machine, Island of Doctor Moreau, I Am Legend, The Sentinel, etc.), the conflicted nature of humankind – it’s impressive, native adaptability verses a pervasive, self-destructive arrogance – remained central.
Observing how differently the entertainment world generally treated sci-fi following the conceptually light, fun early space explorer-adventurer serials of the ’30s & ’40s (Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon), it’s hard to miss the pattern of xenophobia that enveloped virtually all productions post World War II. The atomic age had dawned. Gone were virtually all signs of sanguine curiosity regarding science and what lay outside our little orb in space. The ruination of Hiroshima and Nagasaki laid bare for all to see the potentially calamitous power of nuclear energy, but few had any practical understanding of the systems behind it all…including the “creatives.” A benign example of this ignorance is the manner by which assorted forms of radiation (or “cosmic rays”) provided the foundation for Stan “The Man” Lee‘s Marvel Age of comics (est. 1962); used as a canned plot convenience to explain how numerous heroes gained their powers (Lee/Jack “King” Kirby’s Fantastic Four & Hulk; Lee /Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man, ). In film, however, radiation and the “unknown” as a whole were almost universally panned as something to be feared, period. By the ’50s, sci-fi had mostly degenerated into a joyless, funereal dirge of successive space-horror flicks (War of the Worlds, Forbidden Planet, The Thing, The Blob, This Island Earth), botched experiments (The Fly, Tarantula, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die), and irradiated giant monsters (Godzilla, Them!, Attack of the 50ft Woman). In 1968, the campy, exploitative, glorified B-grade space epic Barbarella arrived to at least restore an element of fun to the mix, but still, it was one of very few reprieves from an acetate wasteland of unpleasant futures that stretched into the late ’70s (THX1130, Silent Running, Logan’s Run, Westworld, Soylent Green, Zardoz) and beyond (Martian Chronicles, The Road Warrior, 1984, The Terminator).
Thanks to heavy rotation on the local weekday afternoon movie, the first example of this ’70s sci-fi phenomenon I engaged with may have been The Planet of the Apes. Blending themes of disillusionment toward authority and institutions (The Longest Yard, Outlaw Josey Wales, Three Days of the Condor) with dystopian tales that were common at the time (The Omega Man, Mad Max), the franchise spawned from the 1968 Planet of the Apes film (based on the ’63 French novel, La Planète des singes) starring Moses from The Ten Commandments. Four sequels followed in the early ’70s, chased by a TV show and Mego toy line in ’74 (and the Return to the Planet of the Apes cartoon in ’75). Each entry, convoluted continuity issues aside, depicted a future where lower-primates have evolved to supplant humanity as the alpha inhabitants of Earth. Mainly known to modern audiences through multiple cynical 21st century attempts by 20th Century Fox (since swallowed up by the Disney entertainment cabal) to again cash-in on once lucrative properties, the original Apes films were actually pretty effective parables in disguise. Science fiction was merely a vehicle to pose challenging questions about race, inequality, human rights, animal rights, fear, hubris, fascism, war, etc. At age 5-6 or whatever, it’s hardly likely that I was grasping any deeper message here. I’m pretty sure I just thought the space capsules and talking apes were pretty cool. …You know, like the Bionic Bigfoot on Six Million Dollar Man.
* Sorry (I’m not sorry) for the obscure references, folks. This is a play on the name of the Adam & The Ants song “Physical (You’re So).” A few years later they released a track called “Picasso Visita el Planeta de los Simios.” I couldn’t resist.
BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY!
To be fair, though, the state of sci-fi during that span of time wasn’t a complete bummer. Luckily, because of my young age, I was largely distracted from all that the doom and gloom by the allure of cool-looking ships, groovy spacesuits, robots, nasty beasties, mighty battle, high adventure, and thrill of the new. There was still fun to be had…
Over the their first 30 years or so of existence, the three TV networks that broadcast the bulk of first run programming periodically rolled the dice on playful fantasy programs (Mr. Ed, The Munsters, My Favorite Martian, Mork & Mindy), adventure (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Wild Wild West, Six Million Dollar Man), and the supernatural (Dark Shadows, Night Gallery, Fantasy Island), as well as more conceptually ambitious “hard” science fiction (The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits). The 1950s American small-screen revivals of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers appear to have stimulated a resurgence of the space explorer/adventurer category: in England, on the BBC, with Fireball XL5 (’62-63, filmed in “Supermarionation“), sci-fi institution Doctor Who (’63-’89), and Space 1999 (’75-’77); and in the U.S., with the ’65-’68 reinterpretation of The Swiss Family Robinson, Lost In Space (“Danger Will Robinson!“), and Gene Roddenberry‘s fantastically influential and enduring leap into the “final frontier,” Star Trek.
Who knew when Star Trek was cancelled in 1969 after just three seasons that it would prosper in syndication during the ’70s and go on in the following decades to sire (to date) nine further television series, thirteen (!) feature films, and endless parodies. Dad never liked it (“I have imagination…when it makes sense!), but the rest of us in the family faithfully tuned in virtually every Saturday and Sunday evening for two decades to watch the voyages of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise. The show appealed to my imagination with a combination of rich, vibrant colors; distinctive ship designs; cool gadgets; beautiful matte paintings depicting “strange new worlds”; fun sound effects; compelling stories that often challenged viewers to grow beyond binary notions of right/wrong and good/evil; and the stagey (over)acting of William Shatner (“I’M CAPTAIN KIRK!!!“), Leonard Nimoy (“PAIN! …PAIN! …PAIN!“), DeForest Kelly (“KILLERS! ASSASSINS!“), and company. Most of all, it taught me about the perks of being a space captain and the norms for responding to potential conflict in the context of male social identity (HA!). Wherever I was, whatever I was doing, inside the house or out, I usually found a way to be planted in front of the television set when it was on. While outside playing in sufficiently rugged-looking terrain (literally, any setting), the iconic Trek battle music played in my head, telling me it was time to engage in mortal combat with a Gorn warrior (“…He has me…in his grasp! Time…to hit…the sides…of his head…with dual…CUPPED HANDS!”). I coveted my brother’s AMT model kit Enterprise and younger cousin’s Mego Kirk and Spock dolls. Along with Batman and Bugs Bunny cartoons, it was surely my favorite show. And then…
FIRST STEP INTO A LARGER WORLD
It was a dark time for cinemagoers. The evil leaders of corporate media – cynical, conservative, prejudiced, and obtuse – caged movie audiences in a relentless, dispiriting cycle of oppressive dystopian futures. Fear had proven profitable. “Why mess with a bad thing – just give them more of that” was the motto of every studio head. …But all was not lost. Raised in the “INDIE” wilds, young rebel director George Lucas, fresh from the surprise success of American Graffiti, emerged to blindside the American film industry with his world-changing, canny homage to the pure, escapist space adventurer serials of yesterday – Star Wars. Not “Episode IV;” not “A New Hope.” Just… Star Wars.
On Wednesday, May 25, 1977, completely oblivious to the fact that they were sitting on, perhaps, the most influential pop culture phenomena of the late twentieth century and hoping to make some money back on their modest $10,000,000 investment before the official summer movie season began, a pessimistic 20th Century Fox opened Star Wars in limited release in a mere 32 theaters across the U.S. The movie caught fire immediately and by August was screening in over a thousand theaters domestically. With international release, by the end of ’78, global ticket sales exceeded an unprecedented $400 million (over 1.3 Billion in 2021 U.S. dollars). Tangentially, Steven Spielberg’s warm, refreshingly non-fatalistic tale of first contact with alien species, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, arrived in late ’77 welcomed by rave reviews and keen public reception ($$$$$). Looking back, did FOX and Lucas have sound reason for grossly miscalculating the connection Star Wars would make with audiences? Having casually examined much of the data they would have had available to them at the time, I believe their myopic view was more attributable to a general industry-wide distaste for the genre than anything else. Yes, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) initially failed to make back it’s production costs for MGM, but proved extremely profitable in re-releases beginning in ’71. Paramount’s Star Trek was extremely popular in televised syndication throughout the ’70s. FOX’s own Planet of the Apes property did well enough to justify continued exploitation well into the mid-’70s. Obviously, they should have known that there was an audience out there for epic space stories.
Now… Despite the profound influence Star Wars had on my kid brain, I turned 5 during the first few months of the original run and can’t recall the experience of seeing it in the theaters at that time. Did we see it as a family? Which theater? Nearly 45 years down the road, none of us can remember. It seems that there were some visuals and sounds that stuck: the striking flow of the 20th Century Fox fanfare into the main title music-title crawl-opening space battle; the Millennium Falcon immediately displaced the Enterprise as the coolest spacecraft ever to appear on any sized screen; memorable lines like “May the Force be with you,” “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” “Great kid. Don’t get cocky,” “I have a bad feeling about this,” and “R2-D2, where are you?”; Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber duel; the Cantina and trash compactor scenes; the innovative final space battle and the destruction of the Death Star… Are these memories genuine or illusory – the result of constant reinforcement courtesy of the Lucasfilm marketing-merchandising machine and innumerable repeat viewings? All that matters is that I was very excited and moved by the experience, which, at best guess, occurred some time before the summer of ’78 – around the time Star Wars stuff began infiltrating the home.
My full surrender to the ways of the Force wasn’t immediate. Superheroes had held a singular place in my young psyche practically since birth, so turning me was no small feat. It took unrelenting waves of media saturation, family/peer influence, and Star Wars product. Everyone involved in the production became overnight celebrities – Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill, in particular. Kids were talking about it in school and bringing items to class for “show & tell.” At home, I was reading the novelization (looking at pictures) while listening to the movie soundtrack (did they belong to my Mom or older…sister?). My brother, a promising illustrator/draftsman in his youth, produced many remarkably detailed pencil/pastel drawings of ships and selected scenes in addition to meticulously constructing model kits (Millennium Falcon, X-Wing, Darth Vader’s Tie-Fighter) that he amended by simulating scoring marks from laser blasts with graphite pencils. Stores were crammed with t-shirts, Topps trading cards, Marvel Comics, handheld electronic games… Kenner’s continuously expanding toy line commandeered large expanses of shelf space in department stores and drew longing looks from young fans. Disco adaptations of the theme music played on the radio. On TV, in addition to frequent movie and toy promos, cast and crew were making the talk show rounds, networks aired variety show tributes, and CBS broadcast the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special – notable for featuring the first appearance of Boba Fett but abominable enough to be immediately disowned by all at Lucasfilm and repressed in collective memory until YouTube came along.
Amazingly, Kenner lucked into the license to produce Star Wars toys. Many companies passed on the opportunity, failing to recognize the commercial potential of the movie. Initial rollout was rough, though. Due to the lateness of the agreement, failure to anticipate demand, and Lucas’ reluctance to offer reference images from the film ahead of release, no toys were available in time for Christmas ’77 (arriving in February ’78 – 9 months after the premier). Regardless, once products hit the market, sales soared – exceeding $100 million annually in ’78 and ’79. Inarguably, the greatest innovation contributing to their success was the popularization of the 3.75″ action figure. Prior to Star Wars, the only miniature figures I recall encountering accompanied Fisher Price (and Richard Scary) playsets and my brother’s Space: 1999 Eagle 1 Spaceship. More portable and affordable than the traditional 8″ (Mego) and 12″ (G.I. Joe) standards, the smaller figures also accommodated sets and vehicles that better matched their relative scale, making them more optimal for active play and ease of storage.
My personal interest in collecting Star Wars items started slowly but escalated precipitously as more items found their way into my possession. The very first Star Wars action figure to come home may have been the large-size Darth Vader, followed by a few stray items (Star Wars Storybook; Escape From Death Star board game; Play-Doh action set)… My full allegiance was officially captured, however, in late ’78, when I awoke Christmas morning to find the Kenner Millennium Falcon – filled with all the principal characters (about 3/4 of all the figures available at that time) – and the large Obi-Wan Kenobi under the tree. That was it. I was hooked. From that point forward, all I wanted for Christmas, birthdays, and everything in-between, was more Star Wars stuff. I was a card-carrying member of the official fan club and avid reader of the Bantha Tracks newsletter. Luke Skywalker supplanted Batman, Spider-Man and Captain Kirk as my favored live-action role-playing option. I practiced drawing by sketching freehand studies of the figures and trading cards. By the time Kenner phased out the original trilogy line in ’85, between toys, cards, patches, posters, books, and comics, I’d amassed an impressive collection. Sadly (hanging head), all these years later, only a few meager artifacts remain (many annoyed grunts). On the plus side, thanks to comic & toy shows (and the internet), I get to gaze longingly again – this time at the tragic remnants of many people’s broken Star Wars collections and Hasbro’s overpriced reproductions of Kenner’s classic line (that I can’t afford to buy and wouldn’t have space to display even if I could). Awesome.
Anyway… To say that Star Wars‘ cultural presence was constant leading into the 1980 release of The Empire Strikes Back, is not an exaggeration. Between a lengthy initial theatrical run, yearly re-releases, advertisements in newspapers and on TV, and the regular appearance of fresh “merch,” the property never had a chance to fade from public consciousness. Even as other studios, desperate to capitalize on Star Wars’ success, squeezed out their own (mostly schlocky) sci-fi adventure projects, it never faltered. Disney fell into The Black Hole; United Artists’ floated Moonraker (James Bond in space); B-movie impresario Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars ripped off The Magnificent Seven. The TV pilots for Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century were given theatrical release. Originally planned as a TV revival, Paramount’s beautiful-looking Star Trek: The Motion Picture earned points for excellent production values and getting the gang back together, but failed to recapture the excitement of the original show; plodding along at sub-impulse with a recycled story that gave the actors little more to do than pose for reaction shots. Mego toys, having passed on Star Wars when offered the license, bankrupted itself in a vain scramble to sell products based on most of these other properties. I think the words you’re looking for are (pointing derisively) “Ha Ha!” Ok, that’s not very nice of me. It was a shame to see Mego fold due to a string of unbelievably bad business decisions at the top. A lot of workers lost their livelihood and a lot of kids lost out on the joys of discovering the World’s Greatest Superheroes figures. It makes me sad.
To be continued in…
THE FORMATIVE YEARS, PART IV:
…I PLAYED WITH CHILDISH THINGS