FedEx - Moon Office Advert (2007)

These are images from the FedEx Moon Office advert first seen during Super Bowl 2007.  That probably means that it cost a small fortune to make because it certainly will have cost a small fortune to place.

It's entertaining enough though and still viewable online in the usual places.  The space suits are a little 2001, I think although the humour maybe a little older!

Still, I like the fact that the future looks fantastical and far off rather than an extension of now.

Steve

Beech-Nut Chewing Gum (1958)

Advert for Beech-Nut Chewing Gum from 1958. 

I would love to go into details but I just don't have them.  Its a fantastic picture though and wouldn't look out of place used in an ad today.... although what looks like nostalgia now was the future back then.


Steve

The Angry Red Planet (1959)

Shot in only 10 days, The Angry Red Planet is one of those films that is probably not all that good but if you watched it at the right age then you’ll probably have a soft spot for it.  It’s quite infamous for its use of the cinemagic technique which in simplistic terms lays a distracting pink hue over the ropey effects shots so that you don’t notice how poor they really are!

Story-wise it concerns the return to earth of Rocket Ship MR-1 from its manned mission to Mars.  There are only two survivors left and they recount their adventures upon the red planet where they were attacked by various alien creatures including the spectacular forty foot bat-rat-spider thing!  Anyway they eventually escape the power of the alien force field that’s holding them there and return to earth to impart their cautionary tale.

To add some further weight to the argument that Mars is a deadly place to visit, the scientist discover a message telling them that humanity has been judged too dangerous to be allowed to ever return to Mars and that the Earth will be destroyed should the warning ever be disregarded. A little bit contradictory I always thought but then like most of the sci-fi films of the time, its all about The Bomb, really


Steve

The Three Stooges in Have Rocket will Travel (1959)

The Stooges are working as janitors at the Space Center but following an inevitable mix up they end up blasting off into space and heading for Venus.  There they encounter a talking unicorn, a giant fire breathing spider and an alien computer that creates evil duplicates of our comedy heroes.

It’s all harmless fun.... if not just a little bit like a load of other Stooges material.  Same gags, different backgrounds!  Can't help feeling these suits have been round the block one too many times as well.

Steve

Abbot and Costello Go to Mars (1953)

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars....only they don’t actually but then this is a comedy so why would they.  Everybody knows the big laughs are on Venus!

So it goes like this; Orville (Costello) winds up stuck inside a truck sent to a top secret laboratory where he meets Lester (Abbott).  The pair get tasked with loading supplies onto a rocket ship and guess what happens next.  That’s right; the rocket is accidentally launched and flies off to ...New Orleans!

But its Mardi Gras and the duo mistake the costumed celebrants for aliens, erroneously concluding they must be on Mars.
Meanwhile two escaped convicts join the action and after a bit of confusion and mistaken identity, the four end up back in the rocket and heading off to....yes that’s right; Venus, a planet run and inhabited solely by women who.....

Nope, it’s no good!  I’ve lost interest.... which usually happens about two thirds of the way through an Abbot and Costello movie

Anyway, we’re here to look at the space suits aren’t we?  And now we have and they look like almost about every other space suit around in the 50’s.  The longevity of this design is quite impressive actually and if it hadn’t have been for the markedly different development of the real world space suits in the 60’s, then I can’t help feeling we would have been admiring these tubular padded suits for ever.

Steve

Captain Video and the Video Rangers (1949)

Captain Video and the Video Rangers was first broadcast on the 27^th of June 1949 and lasted until April of 1955.  The show went out live several times a week and was a hit with all ages.  This was the first of this type of show garnering almost immediate imitators with similar sci-fi copies as Space Patrol and Tom Corbett.

The shows set-up was pretty simple with Captain Video and his Video Rangers policing the far future from such evils as Dr Pauli, Nargola, Mook, Kul and Clysmok.   And then for about  ten minutes of every half hour show the sci-fi stopped so that one of the rangers could introduce the audience to some undercover ranger adventures in the form of old cowboy films!  No really....  but then these were the early days of TV so there were no rules to be broken yet.

And while we're on the subject of the shows groundbreaking nature.....is that a square space helmet under that Video Ranger's arm?

Steve

Something for the Weekend 4

Sigourney Weaver as Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979)

I've posted this today by way of a thank you to whoever it was that must have placed a link to this blog from HeaveyGearGirls.... My stats went mental and I've had weeks worth of traffic in just a few hours.

Cheers Chaps.  I hope you all enjoy what you find over here

Steve