Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts

Friday, January 30, 2015

THE ODD FOREIGN SUPERHERO BOWL

As you know from reading this blog, I love just about anything having to do with superheroes, which has never set will with folks here in the Ozarks. I've been told I should like "real heroes" (Is there such a thing?).

Since we are coming up on Super Sunday and the Super Bowl, I thought it would be cool to give a shout out to those odd foreign superheroes of the movies.They turned up on Saturday matinees and Saturday afternoon movies from the late 60s until the advent of home video, where they would soon make their home.

From Japan:
ULTRAMAN
STARMAN


SPACE CHIEF

PLANT PRINCE or PRINCE OF SPACE

Mexico:

SANTO or SAMPSON

BLUE DEMON

BATWOMAN

Italy:

FANTASTIC ARGOMAN

SUPERARGO (No relation to Fantastic Argoman)

3 FANTASTIC SUPERMEN
FLASHMAN

Look for these superheroes on YouTube and enjoy the unique way foreign countries create superhero movies. Especially the Italians. The incidental music in both Flashman and The Fantastic Argoman sounds very much like the incidental music from The Beverly Hillbillies.  The Fantastic Argoman's super power is he induces suicide!



Now if we only had action figures of these guys (actually I bought a Ultraman action figure. My five year old great-nephew plays with it, but calls him Silver Man).

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

THE FART HEARD AROUND THE WORLD ON TV

It may be hard to believe, but even in the late 70s and early 80s, there were things that were considered taboo on commercial TV. Many taboos were broken by All In the Family and Saturday Night Live. Flatulence was not a subject dealt with on TV in those days.

What broke that taboo could be considered the first "viral" video or "meme." On the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson liked to show Cleo Award winner from all over the world. One got a big response. It was for Shiseido Olive Bath Soap. It featured several small naked boys bathing together, accompanied by military marching music. The commercial ends with one of the boys passing gas in the bath water and the other boys moving way from him.

It was shown several times during the mid 70s on the Tonight Show. Then in the early 80s, it was shown in prime time on both a Tonight Show anniversary special and a Steve Martin TV special. Then it was shown on a commercial retrospective TV special hosted by Ed McMahon. For a brief period in the late 70s and early 80s, this Japanese soap commercial was everywhere you turned on TV. Then it was gone. Surprisingly it was hard too find on You Tube until now.


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