Dreamland Podcast

On this special Halloween show, Tom Berges from www.igrewupstarwars.com joins us to revel in the spookiness of the scary urban legends we grew up with in Generation X! Everything from poisoned candy to LSD tattoos to Bloody Mary is fair game as we get ready for tricks and treats.

We talk about the first 2 Superman movies (1978 and 1980), and in particular the craziness that was going on behind the scenes with Alexander and Ilya Salkind and Richard Donner, just to get these movies made! What was the original story arc supposed to look like? Why is it that when you watch the Donner cuts of Superman I and II they essentially have the same ending, with Superman turning the earth backward? We explain all this and more, including the cutthroat methods of the Salkinds, the removal of Richard Donner as director before Superman II and the subsequent rewrites and reshoots of much of his work on Superman II, the addition of Richard Lester, and the eventual creation of the Donner Cut of each film.

Inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Night Terrors," Melinda and Aaron reflect on "REM," and its influence in all our lives. REM can mean so many things, the possibilities are almost endless. The discussion moves from R.E.M. the band, Freud and Jung dream theories, Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics, Flatliners, Dreamscape, A Nightmare on Elm Street (Parts 1 and 3), and The X-Files episode, "Sleepless." More information at: http://www.retroblasting.com/dreamland

Melinda and Aaron get into the Halloween spirit and talk about their favorite (spooky) Star Trek television episodes, including entries from everything through Enterprise. Grab some candy corn and Swedish Fish and reminisce along with them!

Tonight we welcome special guests Michael French from RetroBlasting and Tom Berges from www.igrewupstarwars.com. Tom talks about how he got into becoming a Droid Builder, and how far he has come with building his R2-D2, the robot that led to the interest in all the robots made in the 70s and 80s. We talk about some of the more interesting robots, including the Tomy robots, Lego robotics, Starroid Radio Robot, HERO 1 and TOPO, and Sico.

We go through the sordid and contentious history of Showbiz and Chuck E. Cheese, and the entrepreneurs who fought it out to be 80s Pizza King: Nolan Bushnell and Aaron Fechter.

This week we head into the zone – Spiral Zone. Melinda and Aaron each watched an episode (Holographic Zone Battle) of this twisted 80s cartoon and go through it, step by step.

We kick this off with a journey into the world of Cabbage Patch Kids. From their early origins with creator Martha Nelson Thomas and her Doll Babies, to Xavier Roberts and Babyland General, to the Coleco years, and beyond, we give you the low-down on these wildly successful, iconic 80s toys. We honestly had no idea where this was going, and the roots went in crazy directions.