RETRO HOT PICKS! | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

Sep18

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1977!

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Sep 18, 2024

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1977!

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 47 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Sept. 18, 1977. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Sept. 11, 1988. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are technically the comics that went on sale between Sept. 15 and Sept. 21.) So, let’s set the scene: This is it. This is the pop-culture moment that defined a show, an era and a generation for decades to come. On Sept. 20, in the second episode broadcast for the fifth season of the hit show Happy Days, Arthur Fonzarelli — aka Fonzie, aka the Fonz — dons a pair of tight blue swimming trunks to go with his iconic brown leather jacket, settles into a pair of water skis and with the aid of his pal Richie Cunningham, who is driving the attached motor boat, zooms up a ramp at Paradise Cove in Malibu, California, and soars over a deadly Carcharodon carcharias penned in under the water. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Fonzie — and Happy Days — jumped the shark. Actually, to be fair, the show remained a big hit for years to come and wasn’t even halfway through its run. But still, it was absolutely bonkers. Years later, Henry Winkler, who embraces the whole “jumping the shark” schtick, recalled in an NPR interview that his father pushed him to tell producer Garry Marshall that he water skiied. “Dad, I don’t think I’m going to do that. No, no. ‘Tell him you water ski. It’s very important.’ I finally tell Garry, ‘My father wants you to know I water ski.'” And the rest is television history. Winkler did do the water skiing for the scene but the jump was performed by a pro, Ricky McCormick. Sorry to burst the illusion! Nobody seems to mention that the episode was trading on Jawsmania, which was already more than two years old by that point. But I’ve also long thought of the stunt as a spiritual sequel to the Season 3 storyline where Fonzie gets into a white-and-blue leather suit and jumps a motorcycle over 14 garbage cans — a clear riff on the popularity of Evel Knievel....

Sep11

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1988!

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Sep 11, 2024

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1988!

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 36 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Sept. 11, 1988. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Sept. 4, 1971. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are technically the comics that went on sale between Sept. 8 and Sept. 14.) So, let’s set the scene: The 1988 presidential election was in its post-Labor Day stretch and it wasn’t looking good for Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee. “The Duke” had an enormous polling lead earlier in the year but Republican Vice President George Bush’s campaign had gotten off the mat and began a series of attacks that painted the Democrat as a week-kneed liberal who was soft on crime. The tactic was proving successful and, as the fall went on, Dukakis foundered in the debates and Bush went in for the kill with infamous, racially charged negative ads. (Dukakis was smoked in November and his campaign is remembered as one of the most ineffectual in modern political history.) The top movie at the box office was the generally forgettable Moon Over Parador, starring Richard Dreyfuss, which knocked off A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, after a four-week run at the top. But really, it was a very strong time for cinema: In theaters were the classic comedies A Fish Called Wanda and Midnight Run, which remains one of the funniest, laugh-out-loud, highly quotable movies I’ve ever seen. There was also Martin Scorsese’s controversial The Last Temptation of Christ, Jonathan Demme’s marvelously subversive Married to the Mob and Errol Morris’ riveting documentary The Thin Blue Line. Summer crowd-pleasers that still had legs included Cocktail and the Brat Pack-infused Young Guns, while Die Hard, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Coming to America were also floating around. Newly released was one of the greatest baseball movies of all time — John Sayles’ Eight Men Out, based on Eliot Asinof’s superb book that chronicled the infamous 1919 Chicago Black Sox betting scandal. There was also a fair-to-middling drama that had come out in August: Clean and Sober, starring Michael Keaton in a dramatic departure from his well-known comedic roles. It was this...

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