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Here’s a clip from a cartoon I’ve never seen before: Dodo-The Kid From Outer Space. Produced in 1964 and originally broadcast in the L.A. area, Dodo was an alien child with a half-bird, half-computer friend named Compy (in this clip, he’s the one complaining about cake while everybody else wants to hear the story of Dodo’s arrival on earth). His earthling friends included a scientist named Dr. Fingers (whose lab coat had “inter-dimensional pockets which enabled him to fit objects of any size” into them), and a pair of twins, Why and How. I absolutely love the visual style of this type of mid-twentieth-century animation—though for some reason Dodo reminds me a little bit of Reddy Kilowatt. You can watch the whole cartoon here—but be forewarned that the synchronization only gets worse. More »
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Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch—I think we all agree that Hanna-Barbera takes a distant third in the great Chuck Jones/Tex Avery smackdown. But seriously, an interracial all-girl rock band flies through outer space in a giant magic wand, accompanied by their nemesis, her shit-stirring cat, and a cuddly alien creature named Bleep—how cool is that? And just what was I doing in 1972-74 that I missed out on this show? I loved the original Josie & the Pussycats, which aired from 1970-72, but somehow I never encountered the outer-space version. (By the way, I also just learned that two episodes of the original version were based on stories by H.G. Wells. More on that later—it certainly sounds like a deductible an excellent reason to buy the Josie & the Pussycats DVD box set.) More »
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Pardon me while I have a MARF (momentary age-related freakout): I saw Star Wars in the theater when it first came out—and that was thirty-one frakkin’ years ago. Holy time warp! Anyway, here’s a commercial for the first round of Star Wars toys, in which C3PO speaks (and R2D2 whistles, gleeps, and trills) at parents, reminding them how much they and their kids loved the movie, and how those kids (i.e., boys) will love these toys . . . probably all collector’s items now (if you didn’t take them out of the box, that this). More »
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I love the visual and audio reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey in this early 1970s commercial for the new G.I. Joe Talking Astronaut. I’m not sure how many kids watching Saturday morning TV picked up on them, though their parents (who held the purse strings) probably did. Also gotta love the constant reference to "lifelike hair!" More »
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Imagine the scene: it’s 1962 and the space race is all the rage. You, on the other hand, are a venerable manufacturer of toy trains and your product line is beginning to look a little staid and boring next to all the brand new outer-space doodads and gizmos on the market. Luckily, you are unafraid to tweak your product line to appeal to new audiences. Sometimes this strategy fails miserably: Back in 1957, it turned out little girls did not want a pink toy train. Grafting the exciting new space technology on to an old-fashioned flat car is a more successful gambit, especially because your consumers can’t really have fun with the Mercury Capsule Launching Flat Car unless they also have the new Cherry Picker Car—and the Heliport, too. Ka-ching! More »
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We’ve written about elfin outer-space glam band Zolar X before, but just discovered what appears to have been a short-lived video podcast. Here, most recent member Qazar Quantor discusses his intergalactic origins and the first time he saw Zolar X, who dazzled L.A.’s 1970s glitter rock scene dressed in spacesuits, pixie haircuts, and prosthetic ears, and reformed in 2005. Starmen on Sunset, a documentary about the band, is scheduled to be completed this year. I can hardly wait! More »
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“This is the Atomic Pulse Rocket, a pot-bellied ship nearly the size of the Empire State Building, propelled by a series of atomic blasts.” Sure, it sounds like a bad idea now but back then it was on the cutting edge: it only needed “a thousand atomic blasts—each equal to 1,000 tons of TNT” to push the 75,000 ton behemoth out of Earth’s atmosphere. Once transit speed was reached, things went green: power was then provided by “solar batteries plating the wing and body surfaces.” More »
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Janet Christine Dietrich has died. In 1961, along with her twin sister, Marion, and eleven other women, Dietrich passed the same battery of physical tests as the men chosen by NASA to become America’s first astronauts. But Dietrich, and the rest of the so-called “Mercury 13” never flew in space—indeed, they were never allowed to complete their training. More »
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Earlier this week we showed you the wonderful “cosmic soap opera” from Disney’s “Mars and Beyond” television show from 1957. This much more serious clip shows what a future expedition to Mars might look like. The spaceships (conceptualized by Ernst Stuhlinger and Werner von Braun) were 500 feet in diameter and powered by electricity generated by the atomic reactor carried in the tail. This meant they could operate continuously over a period of years. Each carried a small landing craft for descent to the Martian surface, and had quarters for 20 men (in 1957, there was no mention of female astronauts). P.S. The sound is a little faint, crank it up or use your headphones. More »
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On December 4, 1957, the Disneyland TV show broadcast “Mars and Beyond,” a 53-minute exploration of the Red Planet’s history and future, as well as its impact on pop culture. A nerdy scientist, a hot secretary with a secret, and a Martian robot in tennis shoes (a la Warner Brother’s Marvin the Martian), plus awesome animation, and a surprising twist at the end make the show’s parody of pulp science fiction well worth a look. More »
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In the 1960s, Fortune magazine was filled with ads from corporations eager to capitalize on the fact that produced one astro-widget or another for the space program. Usually these are somewhat familiar looking - Apollo capsules or LEMs - but here's one that doesn't seem to have made it off the adman's drawing board. Boldly eschewing the familiar phallic rocket shape, it's smoother, rounder, altogether more like a space-age vibrator. Get a closer look after the jump. More »
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In December 1957, only two months after the Soviets launched Sputnik, Look magazine presented a timetable predicting the future of American space travel. "If you have a life expectancy covering the remainder of the 20th century, you will live to see man land on the moon," it stated confidently. At the time, the U.S. space program had yet to successfully launch a satellite of its own. Perhaps as a result, Look's timeline was surprisingly cautious. More »
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Snack your way through the universe with this drive-in movie intermission film from 1959. No wonder they call it the Milky Way—it's filled with nougat and other delicious treats. More »
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I love the industrial animation used in this newsreel introducing Americans to Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviets on October 4, 1957. Despite fears of red space supremacy, Americans immediately started eating sputnikburgers and talking about pupniks (Sputnik II carried a dog into space), whatniks, beatniks, and spoofniks ... but I digress. More »
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Since 1960 we've been attempting to explore the red planet, and along the way there have been countless failures and lost spacecraft that attest to just how hard it is to fly those 35 million miles from here to there. However, there have also been success stories, like the twin rovers Opportunity and Spirit, who have both overcome mechanical problems, braved dust storms, and sent back enormous amounts of data. Today, after being threatened with a shutdown due to budget cuts, the Martian rovers got a reprieve. They'll be rolling along for many months to come. To celebrate, check out our list of Martian robots and landers who have already served their robotic duty as our slaves, erm we mean allies, on the red planet. More »
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One of the best parts of video-game classic Mass Effect was the ability to take your ship to different planets throughout the galaxy, and actually touch down, get out and explore the places. A new game, The Tomorrow War, takes that concept and expands on it exponentially, giving you a virtual sandbox of systems and worlds to explore. Of course, if you have to dole out some Soviet-style ass-kicking in the process, then so be it. At least you'll be tooling around in this cruiser that looks a lot like the U.S.S. Sulaco from Aliens. Check out a full gallery of new images from this game below. More »
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Movies about the red planet may be currently on the wane, but back in 1952, Mars still fascinated the general public. In August of that year, Major Alexander P. de Seversky imagined "Your Trip to Mars" for readers of Pageant magazine. "The date, while still somewhat hypothetical, is certainly well before the year 2000 A.D.," opined Seversky. He envisioned a "cigar-shaped vessel" powered by the "direct thrust" of an atomic-powered engine, traveling at a cruising speed of 1,660,000 miles an hour that would whisk sightseers to Mars in just 41 hours—and getting there was half the fun. Take a luxury cruise to outer space after the jump. More »
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Stephen Chow's E.T.-inspired CJ7 opens this weekend, and although it's been critically kicked around like the lowest dog on Earth, we loved the cute little thing. It's not your typical science fiction movie, and it's not even a typical Stephen Chow movie, who is best known for comedies like Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer. But this tale of a boy and his cute alien friend was the most fun we've had going to the theater in a long time. Spoilers and clips below. More »
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Dead Space, a new game from Electronic Arts, brings parasitic "we want to kill you, kill you, kill you" aliens back into fashion just in time for next Halloween. In the far future, humans have depleted all of the natural resources on Earth, so private corporations begin sending out enormous ships called "Planetcrackers" that carve off enormous chunks of planets, and then mine them down to their bare essentials. Of course, as often happens in these games, this pisses off an "ancient and malevolent force" who decides to start unleashing hell. In space. More »
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The addictive fantasy puzzle game Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords has just made the leap into science fiction. Game-maker Infinite Interctive recently announced Galactrix, which mixes portions of Hexic, Tetris and Bejeweled with outer space battles between all kinds of spaceships. Plus you can challenge other players to puzzle duels, and there will be extremely cool aliens. Find out more and check out the gallery inside. More »
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Russian translation circuits: inoperable. We may not know what this band from the motherland is singing about in this science fiction-themed music video, but we do know that a band of crazy space pirates are invading a fleet of women clad in silver jumpsuits. Everybody parades around and sings the chorus of the song while their ship rolls back and forth. Oh, and their ship looks like the interior was designed by whoever did the interior of the old TARDIS from Doctor Who. More »
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Here's another scifi song to take to that barren asteroid with you: Brigitte Bardot singing Serge Gainsbourg's "Contact." "A meteorite has pierced my heart," chants Brigitte in this tale of wounded interplanetary love, "I need a transfusion of mercury. ... Remove my spacesuit ..." More »
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In what must be the most unappetizing breakfast combination since soylent green and cream soda, two junior spacemen (no girls allowed!) chase their Cheerios with V-8 juice in this commercial from 1960. Why? Because they needed a box top and can label to get a "moon rocket" game. More »
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The year is 2199, and you've just entered the long phase of your thirty-year journey to the outer reaches of the galaxy. You're about to enter suspended animation when, oops, something goes wrong. You end up stranded an a decent-sized chunk of asteroid, and thanks to the technology of the future, you have a self-replenishing oxygen supply, and a foodgizmo that will keep you flush with nutrient cubes for decades. However, your implanted music device has shorted out during the crash, and you only have one playlist available to you: Great Science Fiction Songs From Back In The Day. What's on that playlist? Click through to find out. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=343613&view=rss&microfeed=true As this commercial from 1986 conclusively proves, Barbie can do anything! Especially if she's wearing hot pink kinky disco space boots. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=343822&view=rss&microfeed=true Sweden, 1961. Entertainment history is made when, in tribute to the satellite launched by the USSR four years earlier, an obscure rock 'n' roll group changes its name to The Spotnicks and starts wearing spacesuits onstage. Fame, fortune, and number one hits in Australia and Japan soon follow. Here, in 1962, the group performs "The Rocket Man" (definitely NOT the Elton John hit from a decade later, though Sir Elton would probably appreciate their suggestively shaped helmets). More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=339420&view=rss&microfeed=true With their spacesuits, antennae, pixie haircuts, and prosthetic ears, nobody in L.A.'s 1970s glitter rock scene looked anything like Zolar X. Band members allegedly wore the getups offstage as well as on, spoke their own language, and, when forced to communicate in English, insisted they were from outer space. Now they're coming down to Earth for a documentary. More »
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