A Brief History of Carmen Sandiego:

Broderbund software founders Gary and Doug Carlston turned their love of geography into a cops and robbers computer game with 1985′s Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?.  The first several games (including Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?, Where in Time is Sandiego?, Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego?, Where in America’s Past is Carmen Sandiego?, and Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego?) revolved around the user starting out as a entry level ACME detective hunting down international thief Carmen Sandiego’s henchmen.  The user has to use clues to determine the suspects next location.  As he/she arrests more suspects, the user is promoted and the cases become more difficult.  The final suspect is always Carmen Sandiego.  Subsequent games (Carmen Sandiego Word Detective, Carmen Sandiego Math Detective, and Carmen Sandiego’s Chase Through Time) varied in format.

The games were a huge success and PBS developed two Q&A game shows, “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” (1991-1995) and “Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego” (1996-1997), hosted by the late Lynne Thigpen, playing “the Chief”.  DiC Entertainment, famous for producing cartoon favorites like “Jem & the Holograms” and “The Transformers”, created an animated series in 1994 called “Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?” The show focused on two teenage sibling ACME agents who tracked Carmen Sandiego (voiced by Rita Moreno) and her henchmen around the globe.

 The Carmen Sandiego franchise also included books, comics, board games, and card games.

 In the late 90s, Walt Disney Pictures attempted to produce a feature film starring Sandra Bullock as the title character.

 Walden Media and Jennifer Lopez are currently in talks to develop a film produced and starring Lopez.

 The franchise has won over 70 awards, including Best Early Education Program and Best CD-ROM for children.

Want more Carmen Sandiego?
Follow the links to emulators on the official site!

My love of graphic T-shirts started in 8th or 9th grade.  I lived in Nebraska, but took yearly summer trips to visit my grandparents in Denver.  My grandmother often took my cousins and me to the mall and on one such trip, I saw my first Hot Topic.  For a sheltered girl from a smallish Midwest town, Hot Topic was the epitome of cool.  I was delighted to discover that they had a plethora of music merchandise, including a Ramones logo T-shirt!  I had just been introduced to the band and, since my dad had given me some money for the shopping trip, I was determined to add it to my wardrobe.  I also spotted a T-shirt emblazoned with a cartoon drawing of a dark-haired girl.

My first Emily tee

By this time, I was well on my way to developing a decidedly sarcastic sense of humor, influenced heavily by repeated viewings of “Daria”, and this chick was right up my alley.  Luckily, I had enough for both T-shirts and happily took them home to show my dad.  He was less than pleased with the sentiment of the Emily tee, but not wanting to stifle my quest for individuality, allowed me to keep it.  Emily became my hero during those early years of high school.  I had several shirts and Emily merch made frequent appearances on birthday and Christmas wish lists.  I literally wore that first T-shirt from the Denver Hot Topic until the design cracked and began to peel off.

A Brief History of Emily the Strange:

Created by Nathan Carrico, Emily the Strange became the face of the Cosmic Debris clothing and skateboard line.  Cosmic Debris was the brainchild of skateboarder/artist Rob Reger and he saw instant potential in the sullen, gothy girl.  Emily, along with her herd of black cats (Sabbath, Miles, Ne Chee, and Mystery), quickly caught on, particularly with pre-teen and teenage girls.  T-shirts and stickers began showing up in Hot Topics around the country and Emily the Strange merchandise was a popular purchase for young female customers.  Mainstream popularity eventually waned, but Emily merch continues to be carried in specialty stores and on the official website and Emily seems to be making a resurgence.

Things You Should Know:

 Emily is the subject of several graphic novel compendiums and a series of novels.

 A video game, Strangerous, was developed for Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi in 2011.

 Epiphone created an Emily the Strange guitar, inspired by 1970s concert posters and emblazoned with the words “People are strange” (an allusion to the Doors song of the same name).

 At one point, an Emily movie was in development with Chloë Grace Moretz (Hit Girl, Kick-Ass) attached to play the title character.

Want more Emily the Strange?

The official website is still fully operational and has a large selection of online games, interactive webcomics, and social networking icons and badges.

You can still buy Emily merch,  including many of the original designs!

One of the original “One Saturday Morning” cartoons on Disney/ABC’s Saturday morning lineup, “Pepper Ann” featured the titular character, an imaginative, spirited twelve year old who marched to the beat of her own drummer and got herself (and her friends) into plenty of missteps and adventures.  Pepper Ann was voiced by character actress Kathleen Wilhoite and was an unusual female protagonist.  She was tall and lanky, with a shock of red hair and glasses – definitely not the prototypical heroine aimed at young women.  Her friends were equally unusual – the highstrung overachiever Nicky Little (voiced by Clea Lewis, best known as Audrey on “Ellen”) and the laid back artist Milo Kamalani (voiced by Danny Cooksey, best known as Budnick on “Salute Your Shorts”).  The show ran from 1997 to 2001 and was frequently praised for its frank humorous discussions about issues facing young teens (particularly teenage girls), including bullying, puberty, and divorced parents.

I was 14 when this show started and I remember wholeheartedly identifying with the awkward, gravelly-voiced Pepper Ann, despite being slightly too old for cartoons.  It was awesome, as a geek girl, to see a geek girl being portrayed in a positive and realistic way.  Pepper Ann was cool because she stayed true to herself and the series showed the women in Pepper Ann’s life (her mom, her Aunt Lydia, her sister Moose, and Nicky) were strong, independent  and quirky, just like she was.  I loved that she wore glasses and Chuck Taylor-style sneakers, just like I did and I watched the entire series, even when I was in high school and definitely too old for cartoons.  It also had a kick ass theme song!

Disney has not released the series on DVD and, by all accounts, has no plans to, which is pretty disappointing.  If you’re jonesing for your “Pepper Ann” fix, you can watch a selection of episodes on YouTube.

“ReBoot” began in 1994 and was the first fully computer animated television series.  Production started in the early 80s, but the technology wasn’t good enough to develop the kind of show the creators wanted, so they postponed development until 1991, when 3D computer technology took a giant leap forward.  Although by today’s standards “ReBoot” looks fairly primitive, it was a very ambitious and groundbreaking series when it first aired.

The series originally aired in Canada and centered on the inhabitants of a computer system called Mainframe, which was broken up into 6 sectors.  Mainframe was mostly populated by binomes, the background characters in games, and Sprites, humanoids who were able to perform more complex roles.  The main characters were Sprite siblings, Dot and Enzo Matrix, who encountered a Guardian charged with protecting Mainframe from the nefarious viruses Hexadecimal and Megabyte.

In the first season, the Guardian, Bob, was mostly battling with the unseen User to save sectors of Mainframe from being destroyed.  Later seasons focused more on the internal struggle between the citizens of Mainframe and the two main “virus” villains.  After the last episode in the initial run aired, two television movies were produced, Daemon Rising and My Two Bobs.  In America, these movies were shown as an eight episode season on Cartoon Network’s Toonami schedule.

In 2006, Rainmaker Entertainment purchased the original production company and announced plans to create three additional  ”ReBoot” films and a fan-driven webcomic.   The creative team went through several changes over the years and while two installments of a comic, Code of Honor, were produced, the films never came to fruition.  In 2011, Rainmaker announced that they still planned to make a ReBoot film, but nothing has been heard about the project since.

Want more “ReBoot”?

The first two seasons of “ReBoot” are available on Netflix Instant and you can buy the entire series on Amazon for $46.99.

“Jem” centered on Jerrica Benton, the heiress of Starlight Music, a successful production company started by her late father.  She struggles for control over the company with her father’s partner, the corrupt Eric Raymond.  In addition to the production company, Jerrica has also inherited control of Starlight House (a group home for troubled girls) and the holographic computer Synergy.  With Synergy’s help, Jerrica is able to transform into Jem, the lead singer of the popular rock band Jem and the Holograms.  Their rivals are the bad girl band The Misfits and, later, three piece synth band The Stingers, both managed by Eric Raymond.

Like many of the cartoons of the 80s and 90s, “Jem” started out as a vehicle for a toy line, in this case, a collection of Barbie-like dolls created by Hasbro.  Hasbro hired the Toei Doga animation studio to animate the series, along with writer Christy Marx, who had previously help develop the company’s two most popular cartoons/toy lines – “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe”.

The series began in 1985 and ended in 1988.  Capitalizing on the recent success of Mtv, each episode incorporated music video-like montages which coordinated with the bands’ performances.  Much of the conflict centered on Jerrica trying to protect her father’s company while maintaining the secrecy of her alter ego, even from her longtime boyfriend Rio.  (Even as a kid, it bothered me that Jerrica continued to date Rio even when she knew he was dating Jem and thought they were two different people.  As far as he knew, he was cheating!)

Want more “Jem”?

You can watch “Jem and the Holograms” on Netflix Instant or buy the box set for $56!

Nearly every child of the 80s and 90s looked forward to Saturday morning cartoons as the start of their weekend, and one of the most universally loved cartoons was “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”.  The original comics were created in 1984 and spawned three animated series versions, several video games, four feature films (five if you count the in-production Michael Bay endeavor), and an expansive line of toys.

A Brief History of “TMNT”:  

The Turtles began as anthropomorphic amphibian vigilantes who fought crime and lived in the sewers of New York City in a comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.  The first issue was published with money from a tax refund and a loan from Eastman’s uncle, and was intended to parody the four most popular comic books of the 1980s – Daredevil, New Mutants, Cerebus (Dave Sim), and Ronin (Frank Miller).  A cult fanbase developed and the two creators formed Mirage Studios.

As the comic’s popularity grew, Eastman and Laird were approached by a licensing agent who saw hidden potential in the unusual story line and characters.  Playmates Toys took an interest in creating a line of toys, but wanted to establish popularity of the characters with children through an animated series to drum up demand.  A five part miniseries created a large enough buzz to greenlight a 13 episode syndicated cartoon, the first incarnation of the animated “TMNT”.  The miniseries and syndicated series focused more on humor than the gritty comics, and the Turtles were depicted as fun-loving, pizza-obsessed jokesters with color-coded eye masks to make them more approachable to children.  The initial series ran for 8 years and included 193 episodes.

The second incarnation of the series was co-produced by Mirage Studios and ran from 2003-2009.  More recently, Nickelodeon acquired the rights to the animated series and cast well-known actors Jason Biggs, Sean Astin, and Mae Whitman as key voice roles.

Things You Should Know:

Each of the Turtles are named for Renaissance artists – Leonardo (Leonardo Da Vinci), Michelangelo (Michelangelo Buonarroti), Donatello, and Raphael.

At the series height, merchandising included toys, multiple video games, and several food tie-ins, including Chef Boyardee pasta, cereal, pudding, ice cream, and corn snacks.

In the original comics, all of the Turtles wore red bandanna eye masks.

Michael Bay announced that the latest feature film will feature the Turtles as alien beings rather than mutants, and the new title will be simply Ninja Turtles

The animated series is credited with popularizing “surfer” lingo during the 1990s, particularly  ”bummer,” “dude,” “bogus,” “radical,” “far-out,” “tubuloso,” “bodacious,” and “cowabunga”.

Want more TMNT?

All 193 original episodes are available in this box set available on Amazon for $79.96.

LEGO has several Turtle-themed sets available in LEGO and Toys R Us stores!

Nickelodeon’s Saturday night block of programming, SNICK, was a staple of the 90s childhood.  Shows like “Ren & Stimpy”, “All That”, and “Clarissa Explains it All” catered to Nickelodeon’s growing pre-teen and teen audience.  While the focus was on comedy, sci-fi and horror was also represented by shows like “The Secret Life of Alex Mack” and my personal favorite, “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”  Taking inspiration from adult horror anthology shows like “Tales From the Crypt” and “Tales From the Dark Side”, “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” put an age-appropriate twist on horror and ghost stories.

A Brief History of “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”:

The show first aired in Canada in 1990 on YTV, and joined the SNICK schedule in 1992.  In Canada, the show ran from October 1990 – June 2000.  The show began as a pilot/special on October 31st, 1991 and aired as a regular series from August 1992 – April 1996.  A second run of the series, produced by Nickelodeon with a new cast, aired from 1999-2000.

The framework for each episode involved a group of teenagers, The Midnight Society, who gathered over a campfire in the woods to share ghost stories.  The members of The Midnight Society took turns telling the stories, which usually reflected the interests or personality of the teller.  The story would begin as the storyteller said, “Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story …” and he or she would toss a handful of powder from a leather pouch into the fire, which caused the flames to jump and an eerie white smoke to appear.  The title would be announced (usually starting with “The Tale of …”) and the episode’s title would appear on the screen.  Each episode ended with the group’s leader dumping a bucket of water on the fire and saying, “I declare this meeting of the Midnight Society closed.”

The cast of the show went on to do various things after they left the show.  Ross Hull (Gary) became a weather man for The Weather Network and has since appeared as a weather anchor on several Canadian networks.  Jodie Resther (Kiki) has done voice work in several animated series, including Francine Frensky in “Arthur”.  Jacob Tierney (Eric) is an independent film director.  Several of the cast went on to have successful acting careers, including Rachel Blanchard (“Clueless”), Elisha Cuthbert (“24″, “Happy Endings”), and Joanna Garcia (“Reba”).  Many of the “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” episodes featured now well-known guest stars, including Bobcat Goldthwait, Jewel Staite (“Firefly”), Hayden Christensen (Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, Jay Baruchel (Tropic Thunder), Colin Ferguson (“Eureka”), and Emily VanCamp (“Revenge”).

Things You Should Know:

 Creator DJ McHale is the author of the popular YA book series Pendragon.

“Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society” was inspired by McHale’s love of “The Twilight Zone”, in which Rod Serling says “Submitted for your approval” before each episode.

The “midnight dust” thrown onto the fire before each episode was actually non-dairy creamer.

The campfire scenes were shot in a studio in Quebec and were filmed all at once.  This meant that the entire season had to be written before filming started.

The show is available in six volumes (seven episodes each) on iTunes for $7.99 a piece!

My favorite school events were all book related.  The annual Book It reading competitions, Scholastic Book Fairs, and especially the arrival of a new Scholastic Book Club flyer all filled my bibliophile heart with glee.  My parents always ordered a few books for me, and my choices were usually a little odd.  I got a lot of ghost stories and, for some reason, a book about Abraham Lincoln’s assassination (which I still have).  My most beloved Book Club purchases were the Scary Stories books.  The tales themselves, written and compiled by Alvin Schwartz, were age-appropriate scary, but the eerie illustrations by Stephen Gammell were food for nightmares.

Nearly everyone I knew had these books or at least checked them out of the library.  They were a staple of a 90s childhood and, for me, they were high on the list of things that made me love horror and the supernatural.

“Harold” (Scary Stories 3)

“Oh Susannah!” (More Scary Stories)

“The Dream” (Scary Stories 3)

“Is Something Wrong?” (Scary Stories 3)

Things You Should Know:

The series is listed among the most challenged books of 1990-1999.  Many considered them too violent and the illustrations too weird for the books’ age group.

Scholastic released a 30th anniversary edition of the series with new illustrations, drawn by Brett Helquist (best known for his artwork in the A Series of Unfortunate Events books).

Gammell was awarded Caldecott Medals for his artwork in Song and Dance Man and Where the Buffaloes Begin.  He has illustrated dozens of non-scary children’s books, but also has many scary and supernatural-themed books among his bibliography.

In addition to the printed books, the series was also available in audiobook format, read by actor George S. Irving, best known as the voice of the Heat Miser in the classic Rankin-Bass special “The Year Without a Santa Claus”.

If you’re not lucky enough to have your original copies of the book, you can often find the series with Gammell’s illustrations on Amazon through third party sellers.  I recommend the treasury sold by Salt Creek First Editions.  As of January 12th, they had 19 copies in “New” condition for $37.40 – an excellent price for the condition, particularly since these versions have become difficult to find.  I purchased one for my book collection (my copies were a bit worse for wear); it came promptly and was in BEAUTIFUL condition!

Like every other kid out there, I woke up on Saturday mornings and watched cartoons, but my all-time favorite show was “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ (abbreviated by dedicated fans -or MSTies- as “MST3K”).  By the time the show ended in 1999, I had seen every episode except for the KTMA-TV run.  It was my introduction to the wonderful world of B-movies and had a significant influence on my sense of humor.  To the utter confusion of my young peers, I ran around at 10 years old repeating lines like “Eat my photons, smallheads!” and “We like it very much.”

A Brief History of “MST3K”:

“MST3K” originally aired on the local Minneapolis UHF station KTMA-TV.  Influenced by the 1972 sci-fi film Silent Running and horror hosts like Vampira and Svengoolie, Joel Hodgson developed the series and designed his robot counterparts.  Hodgson starred as Joel Robinson, the Gizmonic janitor sent into space by mad scientists Dr. Clayton Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) and Dr. Laurence Erhardt (Josh Weinstein).  Once aboard the Satellite of Love, Joel created robot companions to keep him company – Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, and Gypsy.  The “Mads” experimented on Joel and the bots by sending them awful movies, hoping to eventually drive them insane.  The captives kept their sanity by making snarky comments as they watched the films.

The show moved to Comedy Central in its second season and the sets and theater doors got a face lift.  After a year at Comedy Central, Weinstein left the show.  Kevin Murphy replaced him as the voice of Tom Servo and his on-screen character was replaced by TV’s Frank (Frank Conniff).  Hodgson left the show in the fifth season and was replaced by the show’s head writer, Michael J. Nelson, playing the affable Mike Nelson, and The Mads were banished to the Deep 13 sub-basement of Gizmonic Institute. In 1997, the show moved to the Sci-Fi Channel.  Beaulieu left after the last Comedy Central era episode.  Bill Corbett replaced him as the voice of Crow, while his onscreen character was replaced by Pearl Forrester (Mary Jo Pehl), who had appeared in previous seasons as Dr. Forrester’s domineering mother.  Pehl was joined by Corbett and Murphy, who played her henchmen Observer/Brain Guy and Professor Bobo respectively.

Things You Should Know:

There are a total of 197 episodes, including the KTMA-TV run, and a theatrically released film that featured the 1955 Universal classic This Island Earth.

The show featured 6 different versions of the theme song:

The sets were built from toys bought at Goodwill, including a Millennium Falcon.

Most of the characters are stylized after popular sci-fi characters:

• TV’s Frank’s hairstyle is modeled after Marlon Brando’s as Jor-El in Superman.
• Dr. Forrester is named for the hero in the 1953 film War of the Worlds.
• Joel’s last name comes from the Robinson family in the classic sci-fi series “Lost in Space”
• Professor Bobo is from the Planet of the Apes and much of his idioms come from that series of films, including Pearl’s title of “Lawgiver”.
• Brain Guy’s race of Observers was inspired by the albino mutants in Omega Man and the Providers in the “Star Trek” episode “The Gamesters of Triskelion”.

MSTK-isms:

“Movie Sign!” – The call to arms when the Mads send the SOL crew their movie.  It (or its longer version “We’ve got movie sign!”) is said before each movie.

“Push the button, Frank.” – TV’s Frank’s cue to end communication with the SOL, usually the final line of the episode.

“Poopie!” – Dr. Forrester’s swear word of choice.

“Deep hurting!” – A phrase reserved for particularly a painful movie experiment.

“Keep circulating the tapes!” – The BBI encouragement of fans to trade taped episodes to increase and strengthen the fanbase.

“Turn down your lights (where applicable)” – Episodes 1-405 201-405 (Thanks, @MSampo!) bore this text at the bottom of the screen just before the episode began.  In subsequent episodes, it was replaced with a still from the featured movie and basic technical information.

Find More MST3K:

Sattellite News, the official MST3K fan site is still in operation.  It’s a comprehensive archive of all things MST3K!

The official site is run by former producer Jim Mallon and features a daily riff and the MSTie Mall, the official merch shop.

Shout! distributes the DVD collections and often offers sale prices.

Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy developed RiffTrax, riff-filled commentaries available for purchase in MP3 format for popular films.  They also do live events broadcast in theaters around the country.

Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Mary Jo Pehl, Frank Conniff, and Josh Weinstein created Cinematic Titanic.  They continue to riff on B-movies both in DVD features and during live events.

Many users on YouTube have uploaded episodes not commercially available in the “Keep circulating the tapes” spirit.