Tag Archives: television

In the future we will all have…robot dogs

Caught a bit of the Battlestar Gallactica marathon this morning (the 70s version). I’d forgotten about that creepy robot dog, Muffit. Wonder Woman had a robot dog, too. Battle of the Planets, although a cartoon, still had a robot pooch named 1-Rover-1. Buck Rogers was more progressive, instead of a robot dog they had gay humanoid robots, but that’s really the subject of a whole other post.

We didn’t have television in my house for part of the 70s so my memories of 70s TV shows are a bit dodgy. I was searching for more instances of robo-dogs of the 70s, and chasing rumors about Muffit being played by chimpanzees but I got distracted by a post at sciencefictionblog titled Dog of the Bride of the Reanimator?, which linked to an article about The University of Pittsburgh’s Safar Center for Resuscitation Research and their work re-animating dogs.

[The original link is dead, but I swear the project is real. This link added August 23, 2018. “Reanimated chickens and zombie dogs.”]

I consequently got distracted contemplating the ramifications of zombie dogs. Then I lost interest in the whole 70s robot dog thing altogether. Zombie dogs are way more interesting.

Ponch and John on the Planet of the Apes

If we don’t go to the movies tonight, maybe I’ll get out my pixelvision camera and make my own movie. We bought a lot of Chips action figures from a clearance bin so we can create a world of Ponch and John clones.

I think the Ponch and John might be fixing Georgetown University Barbie up on a blind date with the Charleton Heston/Planet of the Apes doll. Later, maybe the Cornelius and the Ozzie Osborn dolls can crucify her!

[there were two versions of this post in the archives. I think the one I’d previously restored was a draft, so I’m replacing it with this one].

The Ivory Tower

I just passed by a pair of colleagues deep in conversation. They weren’t discussing a dangerous and complex scientific experiment or a social research project that could change the face of welfare. Oh, heaven’s no! Their intense discussion amounted to one man trying to explain the concept of the TV show survivor to the other. This was all the more entertaining because neither one of them seemed to have the foggiest notion of what they were talking about. God bless academia!

While I’m on the topic of survivor…
I was deeply disappointed by the outcome of survivor 2. I mean, I wanted Tina to win, but I really didn’t find all of the shenanigans leading up to the big announcement compelling. Or even interesting.

Make a totem and throw it over a cliff as a gesture, as a way to give back to the land? They were right, they were giving back to the land. Littering is – technically – giving back to the land. But it’s still littering. Was I the only one deeply scarred by that Indian in the “Keep America Beautiful” commercials from the 70s? I didn’t expect a great environmental message from a show that allowed goofy Colby to pillage the Great Barrier Reef for coral souvenirs, but still….

And what was up with that walk past the torches where they remembered their fallen comrades in cheesy slow-mo video montages? It’s not like Mad Dog and company died or something – they just did Letterman and Good Morning America, for pete’s sake.

My big question is, if that final vote count was live, why was it dark as night in LA? According to my watch it was 6:40 p.m. and the sun has not set by then. Did this not strike anyone as odd?