This amazing deal from McDonalds in 1992 is something to behold! BATMAN RETURNS.. and a 39 cent collector cup with any extra value meal purchase.. Amazing.
Remember it like it was just yesterday..
And if SOMEONE out there still has the container with the fries in, I bet they are oddly and creepily still edible……
Today was a special day.. after finding some old parts and some connections, we were able to fire up the ole colortini and watch the pictures as they flew through the air–20th century Tom Snyder style. What we mean by this old reference is this: We dug out an OLD computer from the closet and .. boom.. have it set up like the good ole days again.
Now keep in mind, there are historic roots with this old Packard Bell. My mom and dad, now deceased, made sure this was the mighty Christmas gift for me back in 1997–I was online with Dial Up before several other friends.. I used this computer to create an Angelfire site.. eventually a Geocities site.. and then finally got the .Com and the Horror Report was born.
But also on this old handy dandy piece heirloom: AOL instant message.. as though it never got deleted by the AOL .. it exists, with an internet connection, just attempting to sign on. No one told this old beast that AIM is long dead. Sadly.. We didn’t know how good we had it.
But I also found my old email.. just bits and pieces of history .. snippets of times gone by and photos, dumb forwards, and an email chain including the “All your bases are belong to us” pre-social media meme.
And reviewing these previous emails answered a very important question as to how memes spread, and how the word was exchanged: EMAIL!
Email was where it was at.. you got contacts by seeing who others forwarded things to. You got jokes and strange memes before there were memes. There were few GIFs but there were sure links to them. Until DSL came around, 4 second clips took up too much room so we just told each other what website to go to in order to find them..
I have a lot of emails from people I quite frankly do not even remember really.
Mostly people who emailed me through my website back then. Let me tell you the most amazing thing of all .. people wrote in complete paragraphs. I did, too. Not just completely paragraphs, but well thought out versions of them. With punctuation and grammar that was impressively accurate.
We cared about how we sounded and we wanted to express ourselves in funny ways .. this is just 20 years ago. Two decades.
But in that much time we basically became one sentence of one word people. Or just memes and gifs are used. Is it really true that we don’t have time anymore?
Or do we just not have the ability to focus anymore?
Anyway.. I encourage you, if you have a similar old device, fire it up and either be proud or, at times, cringe at your youthful indiscretion. Actually come to think of it, I dare you!! Triple dog style. You will possibly not even recognize the person you were two sets of tens ago.
Either way it is a part of who you are.. and maybe at this point simply who you were..
Just about every year, we collectively watch the movie PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES. Steve Martin and John Candy star in a raucous and zany film about two men just trying to get home for Thanksgiving.
And just for the record, the new 4K version has about an hour of unseen footage!
As we travel with them on their silly hijinks, we are introduced to strange and bizarre characters, we peer through the veil of some distinctly grim and entirely dirty hotels. And, in the end, Steve Martin’s character Neal Page is able to get home to his family just in time to enjoy a beautifully prepared dinner, and a perfectly groomed, family running down the stairs to greet him.
But what about John Candy’s role, Del Griffith.
That situation is a bit different.
Throughout the movie, Del Griffith provides the comic relief necessary to make this a timeless hit comedy. What is deeper and darker, more sinister and grim, is the person we really meet in Del by the end.
You are left looking at a man at his darkest hour. Someone who is alone around Thanksgiving and Christmas season.
Someone who has lost his wife and is forced to spend the holidays only with himself, just himself.
No one else, and no family.
This is a tale all too familiar to many people around this time of year. There’s something very magical and beautiful in the air when businesses and homes begin putting up Christmas decor. Lights and music greet us at every store entrance, friends and family stop by for traditional festivities.
But so often, we are forever changed as friends and families die away.
During the film PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES, it takes a bit of time for Neal Page to figure out the obvious. Until a few scenes in, we are led to believe that Del is also trying to get home in time for Thanksgiving. It’s not until the final scene that movie viewers realize he has no one to go home to, and no reason to even go home.
Del is a drifter. We are not permitted to learn much about why his wife died or when, we just know she is gone. And with her went a story–Del’s contribution to her story died with her.
That is grim. It feels overwhelming and it’s nature and beyond depressing and it’s reality. That is why some lively scenes can make you forget the heartache:
So as the nationwide rampage of Del and Neal end, it ends with a heartfelt moment of love when Page arrives back home to smell of turkey scent roasting in the house.
What happens to Del Griffith after this movie ends. Sure, Neal invited Del back to stay for dinner. As the song plays the film out, we see Del, standing there at the front door, humble and meek, accepting of this new friendship.
But let’s play it out. Does Del continue to be Neal’s friend? Does he move in? We highly doubt it. As a matter fact, we are led to believe that Neal is somewhat of a pretentious person of wealth that is beyond reproach. Del is the exact opposite, selling shower curtain rings for money. He does not inhabit the wealthy yuppieism of the Reagan years that Neal emits.
So it’s hard to believe a friendship will continue once Thanksgiving dinner plates get cleaned up. But even if it did, Del will enter the Christmas season alone and void of nurture and love.
So many people this holiday season will be in that same place. That is what makes this movie magical, not just a film that is filled with the most vibrantly spectacular comedic scenes of all time, but also a movie that showcases and dramatizes just how deeply lonely some people can be when that cold and dark air begins to approach around Thanksgiving..
Mall Cop inhabits the same fate. Paul Blart is seemingly fun, adventurous.. but in the end even he was consumed by a desire to be loved in a moment of holiday fraud.
The tragedy of PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES is that, seven years after the movie was released, on March 4, 1994, Del Griffith himself, John Candy suffered a heart attack in his sleep and died at age 43.. Just imagine how many other roles we could have seen him in were it not for this tragically early demise.
PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES lives to this day in infamy each holiday season. It has become a staple for many families to continue watching this movie around Thanksgiving. Lately each year it seems to get even more popular.
As with all John Hughes movies, there is a message lurking deep beneath the laughter and frivolity of his films.
Give thanks for what you have, but remember those who don’t have what you do, or what they once did.
Happy Thanksgiving to all. And if you see Del Griffith at your local bus station, do him a favor and invite him for dinner. He needs that human connection..
Was it the BEST Batman movie of them all? Debates rage..
June 16, 2022 will commemorate the 30th anniversary of Tim Burton’s sequel to his original 1989 hit.
The 1992 film had a Christmas setting, with evil billionaire Max Schreck being an evil that led Gotham to see the creation of a cat woman.. And a horrid slobbering raw fish eating penguin living under the sewers for years long enough to create an army of little penguins ready to blow up the city.
The movie was as macabre as Tim Burton could get. Danny Devito and Michelle Pfieffer joined Michael Keaton in the film.
While not as off the grid super large as the original, it was still super large.
CONTROVERSY!!!
Parents upset!!
Marketing for younger children and it is too violent!
This was the media coverage in 1992 when a number of TV talk shows and news outlets went rogue against Tim Burton’s hit.. One clip as a talk show interviewing a child who said “everything that kids love was being used against them” like clowns and a ducky boat..
(would love to know what this kid thought of Pennywise that aired two years earlier??)
Going back in time to what then highly acclaimed and respected movie reviews Siskel and Ebert thought of BATMAN RETURNS: (and they did not love it)
The final conclusion: Tim Burton makes “great looking pictures” but there is “no need” for Christopher Walken as Max Schreck in the movie..
original url http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Woods/2663/
last modified 2005-02-26 17:51:45
We have been following oneterabyteofkilobyteage for several years–amazing old content.. It’s less nostalgia and more a document of the life and times of Geocities sites that once were (kids these days probably would never understand how weird and wonderful Geocities was when it existed) ..
Nonetheless, this one struck us.. A screen shot of a old site for a kid named Justin, or J.T., who apparently died.. It’s difficult to know what the story of this human being was by a simple screen shot..
So we dug a little deeper ..
His name was Justin Tandan Schumacher, and he died when he was 16.
He was born on February 25, 1980 and died on July 25, 1996 when a drunk driver struck him..
A visit to the site on the Wayback Machine appears to show that Justin’s parent created the Geocities site at that time..
On the page, someone writes the details of the crash and also includes photographs of the car that was involved.. from the text:
Have you ever thought, in your wildest dreams, that while on your way to pick up a pizza, you could end up in a mess like this? This is what happened to my two boys and two of their friends.
After a long day of working on Justin’s pick up these 4 boys, ages 16 & 14, decided that they were hungry. It was only 9:30 at night, so they called and ordered a pizza and were on their way to pick it up. It’s only 5 or so miles from where they were. What can happen in that short of time, on a week night, that early? Well, plenty, when you encounter some person, who has decided to take a handful of pills and DRINK and DRIVE!!!
You see this man was on a back road, going east and had come to a T in the road, where there was a stop sign. Apparently, because of the .32 Blood Alcohol Level in his system and the unconfirmed report of narcotics, it prevented him from seeing the stop sign. The boys’, heading south, couldn’t see him, because of a corn field.
In a matter of seconds, they were hit broadside and pushed into a tree. My oldest son, Justin was dead. Killed on impact. Jim, my 14 year old, was taken to the nearest hospital, along with the other 2 boys and the Drunk Driver. Jim was stabilized enough to be transported via helicopter to the nearest trauma center. Jim coded, quit breathing, on the way there and they had to bag him, breath for him until they could put him on a respirator. He also had a broken cheek bone, broken 1st rib, broken collar bone, broken jaw and soft tissue damage to his neck, along with lung and brain contusions. The 16 year old in the back driver’s seat broke his neck and the driver of the car, also 16, (Josh) suffered extreme trauma to his head, that eventually lead to him going into a comma for approx. 2 months. He now has TBI (traumatic brain injury), and is partially parilized on his right side.
Upon investigation, it was found that the Drunk Driver, a Drug and Alcohol Councilor, from California had a cooler of ice in the front seat. They also found an open bottle of vodka, 100’s of prescription narcotics, a television set and a shot gun in the trunk of his car.
Of course, as is standards, Blood Alcohol tests were run on the boys’ as well. None of them had, had anything in their systems.
After spending 3 days in the hospital, the Drunk Driver was turned over to the Authorities and held in the County Jail under $100,000.00 bond. After, approximately, 1 week he posted $11,000.00 cash bond and was released, with the stipulations that he had to check in at the jail 3 days a week and have random drug and alcohol testing done. He was let out of jail on a Wednesday. He reported to the Authorities on Thursday and on Friday, when he didn’t report, they found him dead, in his motel room, of a drug and alcohol overdose.
It goes without saying that oneterabyteofkilobyteage is often fun and humorous, showcasing old website with terrible moving GIFs and awful graphics.. but sometimes the deeper you go on some of these sites, the more you realize the quality and reality of the early web. There were no fancy selfies .. So many people originally saw the internet as their little place to share intimate details in writing… use Xanga or other sites to create a diary for friends, but mostly strangers, to read.. To connect in some form, to use this new weird technology to find a voice and a place.
Now it has been taken over by socials… by the anti-socials.. and by corporations.
But when you visit old Geocities sites as featured by oneterabyteofkilobyteage, especially this one, you get a glance into a time and place of a family.. a parent agonizing over the loss of her child.. and you realize that despite what everyone says, things on the internet actually DO disappear over time. That is tragic for voices that needed to be heard loud and clear..
For those in the Chicago area or willing to travel.. #Blockbuster pop up bar in the Windy City!! This looks amazing, doesn’t it?
You can find more information on the Replay Lincoln Park Facebook page.. https://www.facebook.com/replaylincolnpark/posts/5308352575852647
It was the decade of the Satanic Panic!! And movies, we were told, were going to destroy children!
Or at least that is what the main stream media was telling us..
ABC News’ 2020 took an in depth 1987 style look at VHS horror movies for rent–and how children across America were falling prey to their relentless atrocities..
Boy oh boy.. if only Barbara Walters was able to see what the future held when she introduced this segment on that fateful Friday night..
For some reason I feel that I, as a young child, watched this 20/20 special.. and then afterwards turned on Rhonda Shear’s UP all Night on USA NETWORK as she segwayed into a Friday the 13th or other horror movie…
We have been having some fun as of late finding some old gems related to BATMAN .. as THE Batman romps the box office in 2022..
This one comes from tabloids in 1994 when Michael Keaton hung up his bat tights..
Friends lamented it was because all the villains got the best lines.
The story reported that Val Kilmer was coming next..
And we all know how perfectly awful that went..
Well, maybe not everyone, as Waters admits a moment later. “I remember getting a hard time from comic book fans. ‘But you don’t understand, she’s a cat-burglar.’ Like, I don’t care. I made my break early that ‘This is not gonna be your daddy’s Catwoman. This is not gonna be the comics’ Catwoman.’ Tim Burton and I, we played in the field long before the internet, long before comic book tribunals told you what a comic book movie had to be. [laughs] I served at the pleasure of Tim Burton. We were making a Tim Burton fairytale movie. Oh, that happened to have Batman and Catwoman and the Penguin in it. So we had no rules.”
Nevertheless, the box office and fan reaction saw to it that the duo would not be at the helm of the next Batman film. “I think it’s like a divorce,” Waters says. “They divorced Tim Burton and gave him Catwoman in the settlement. They didn’t want us near the Batman franchise. ‘Get away from the Batman, get away.’ But they said, ‘A Catwoman movie? Everyone loved Catwoman! Everyone loved what you did with Catwoman. Michelle Pfeiffer’s game, so go off and make a Catwoman movie. If something happens out of that, great. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.’
“Which, to me, seemed like a lot of fun. I mean, I think the project was a little doomed from the start, because I think Tim Burton and I had different visions of what a Catwoman movie should be. And I don’t know if he was really game for the whole enterprise to begin with, but Dan Waters [was like], ‘Oh my God, I get to make a Batman movie without Batman! This is a dream come true.’
x x x
In the mean time, here is a fun nostalgia view of what at least one child thought of BATMAN RETURNS in 1992, stating it was very violent, and being shellshocked by Catwoman playing TIC TAC TOE on a man’s face..
I guess he would have gone to see the spinoff..
