Year: 1985

Categories
1980s Season 1 Twilight Zone

Shatterday / A Little Piece And Quiet

The Twilight ZoneShatterday: Peter Jay Novins, a businessman who is disgruntled with his lot in life, accidentally dials his own home phone number from a bar, and is stunned when he hears his own voice answering the phone. The man on the other end claims to be Peter Jay Novins – a man who is content with his lot in life. Stunned to his core, Peter leaves the bar, determined to take steps to starve his alter ego out of his life. But the harder Peter tries to force the “other” Peter away, the more he traps himself.

written by Alan Brennert
based on the short story by Harlan Ellison
directed by Wes Craven
music by Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir & Mickey Hart

Twilight ZoneCast: Bruce Willis (Peter), Dan Gilvezan (Bartender), Murukh (Woman at bank), John Carlyle (Clerk), Seth Isler (Alter Ego), Anthony Grumbach (Bellboy)

A Little Peace And Quiet: A harried suburban housewife working in her garden digs up a buried box containing a sundial-like pendant. Later, as her temper reaches a boiling point, she screams “Shut up!” – and time stops. The flow of time is resumed only when she says “start talking,” and only she can move or speak in the interim. Before long, she learns to use this talisman’s supernatural ability to her advantage, but when her world comes crashing down around her, she finds it necessary to stop the clock… and never start it again.

Twilight Zonewritten by James Crocker
directed by Wes Craven
music by Merl Saunders and The Grateful Dead

Cast: Melinda Dillon (Penny), Greg Mullavey (Russell), Virginia Keehne (Susan), Brittany Wilson (Janet), Joshua Harris (Russ Jr.), Judith Barsi (Bertie), Claire Nono (Newscaster), Elma Veronda Jackson (1st Shopper), Pamela Gordon (2nd Shopper), Laura Waterbury (3rd Shopper), Todd Allen (Preppy Man), Isabelle Walker (Preppy Woman)

Notes: Bruce Willis was already hot property at this point early in his career, with Moonlighting having premiered six months earlier; his breakout movie role in Die Hard was only three years away. Melinda Dillon’s other genre credits include the lead female role in 1977’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and the 1985 miniseries Space, a dramatized account of the American space program; she was also Ralphie’s mom in A Christmas Story (1983). Greg Mullavey had a regular role in the 1970s soap spoof Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. The marquee above the movie theater at the end of A Little Peace And Quiet name-checks two Cold War classics, Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Droids Star Wars

A Race To The Finish

DroidsThall and Jord, with Kea Moll and the droids in tow, are well on their way to the Boonta Speeder Race when their ship is attacked. The ship pursuing them, however, has limited speed and weapons – the best that Sise Fromm and the remnants of his crime gang can afford after the costly loss of the Trigon. Thall and Jord escape, so Sise Fromm calls in a favor from a bounty hunter: he wants the speeder racers and their friends captured and brought to him. The bounty hunter who owes him a favor is Boba Fett.

written by Richard Beban and Peter Sauder
directed by Ken Stephenson
music by Patricia Cullen, David Greene and David W. Shaw
theme song by Stewart Copeland

Voice Cast: Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Dan Hennessey (Jord Dusat), Rob DroidsCowan (Thall Joban), Lesleh Donaldson (Kea Moll), Don Francks (Boba Fett), Graeme Campbell (Proto One) John Stocker (Vlix), Winston Rekert (Sise Fromm)

Notes: Droids is divided up into three serialized stories showing Artoo and Threepio working for different masters, and this episode concludes what is essentially a four-part story detailing their service to Thall Joben and friends. Boba Fett is the first original series character other than the droids to appear in the series, and it’s a bit of a homecoming for the bounty hunter: his first appearance was in an animated segment of the Star Wars Holiday Special, and that segment – like the Droids series – was produced by Canadian animation studio Nelvana. Threepio claims that he and BL-17 “graduated from the same production facility,” though it may be a fabrication on the part of BL-17 (a droid taking orders from Boba Fett) to gain Threepio’s trust. If one is trying to work Droids into the continuity of the years between the prequel and original trilogies, Threepio has already had his mind wiped at Bail Organa’s instruction, and whatever “production facility” he might be remembering may be a fabrication planted during that memory wipe to prevent Threepio from remembering that he was constructed by Anakin Skywalker.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Amazing Stories Season 1

Ghost Train

Amazing StoriesThe Globe family has moved from Chicago to the family’s original farmland, a move that doesn’t excite young Brian, who has only known city life. The one bright side of the move is that Brian’s grandfather, Ompa, is moving in with them. But he too is less than thrilled about his new surroundings: on the farmland are reminders of a railroad line that once ran through here, where a train derailed because of his foolishness as a young boy. Ompa insists that the same train will be coming for him soon – and warns that the house is in its way.

Get this season on DVDteleplay by Frank Deese
story by Steven Spielberg
directed by Steven Spielberg
music by John Williams

Amazing StoriesCast: Roberts Blossom (Ompa), Scott Paulin (Fenton), Gail Edwards (Jolene), Lukas Haas (Brian Globe), Renny Roker (Dr. Steele), Hugh Gillin (Conductor), Sandy Ward (Engineer)

Notes: Lukas Haas and Roberts Blossom both went on to appear in episodes of the late ’80s revival of The Twilight Zone. In fact, Haas then went on to appear in the third revival of that series in the early 2000s. Executive producer Steven Spielberg would only go on to direct one more episode of Amazing Stories, The Mission, also during the show’s first season.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
1980s Season 1 Twilight Zone

Wordplay / Dreams For Sale / Chameleon

The Twilight ZoneWordplay: Words are just part of a salesman’s trade, but when those words begin getting switched with other words, resulting in a seemingly nonsensical new version of the English language, Bill Lowery finds himself unable to communicate with anyone at all and must start learning the language all over.

written by Rockne S. O’Bannon
directed by Wes Craven
music by Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir & Mickey Hart

Twilight ZoneCast: Robert Klein (Bill Lowery), Annie Potts (Cathy Lowery), Adam Raber (Donnie), Robert J. Downey (Mr. Miller), Brian Bradley (Hotshot), Bernard Behrens (Older Salesman), Anne Betancourt (Admitting Nurse), William Peugh (Man #1), Helene Udy (Woman #1), Mimi Neyer-Craven (Receptionist), Brynja Willis (Secretary), Russ Marin (Doctor), Alexandra Morgan (Nurse #1), Lee Arnone (Nurse #2), Raye Birk (Bearded Man), Joseph Whipp (Doug Seaver), Dwier Brown (Robbie)

Dreams For Sale: A woman’s idyllic dream of the perfect domestic lifestyle – a husband, two children, picnics in the park – is interrupted by the realization that she is not the person in her dreams…and she doesn’t want to be who she is in reality.

Twilight Zonewritten by Joe Cannon
directed by Tommy Lee Wallace
music by Merl Saunders and The Grateful Dead

Cast: Meg Foster (Jenny), David Hayward (Paul), Vincent Guastaferro (Dream Technician), Lee Anthony (Rescue Technician One), Kristi Purdy (Twin), Deanna Purdy (Twin)

Chameleon: A piece of equipment aboard a space shuttle mission exhibits a momentary blue glow in space, and then does so again when it is returned to Earth. The first NASA technician who picks it up vanishes in a flash of blue light, reappearing later while the equipment is studied in isolation. The crew chief who last handled it appears in the isolation chamber and demands to be set free, before changing his shape, repeating the plea for freedom and revealing that it is not of this world. When the scientists it perceives as captors refuse to release it, the being proves that it is capable of more forceful negotiations.

Twilight Zonewritten by James Crocker
directed by Wes Craven
music by Merl Saunders and The Grateful Dead

Cast: Terrance O’Quinn (Dr. Lockridge), Ben Piazza (Dr. Heilman), John Ashton (Brady Simmons), Steve Howell Bassett (Gerald Tyson), Iona Morris (Annie), Alma Martinez (Teresa Rojas), Chad Hayes (Peter Iverson), Lin Shaye (Woman in Tank)

Notes: Terrance O’Quinn is better known as Terry O’Quinn, future star of Lost and future guest star on Tales From The Crypt, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The X-Files, Earth 2, and Alias. If Bernard Behrens doesn’t look familiar, maybe he sounds familiar: he was the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi in NPR’s 1980s radio adaptations of the Star Wars saga. Chameleon saw The Twilight Zone Twilight Zoneusing a special effects resource that simply didn’t exist during the first season of the original Twilight Zone: NASA footage of astronauts working in space. Since the footage includes flights of the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), this narrows down the real missions in question to STS-41B, STS-41C, and STS-51A, all flown in 1984, the previous year. That’s the same year that Wes Craven’s horror megahit A Nightmare On Elm Street landed in theaters, making the director a superstar, and a major coup for the new Twilight Zone.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Droids Star Wars

The Lost Prince

DroidsThreepio and Artoo find work at a diner, though they’re not ideally suited to work as servers and find themselves unemployed again in record time, though not before they overhear word that bounty hunter IG-88 is on the trail of someone nearby. Threepio and Artoo are auctioned off, with another dilapidated droid, to a new master, Jann Tosh, to help with his Uncle Gundy’s mining operation. But the third droid isn’t a droid – it’s a living being incapable of speech, but, after eating a king-sized breakfast, is more than capable of working in the mines. But who is this new worker, and why are other parties dangerously interested in him?

Droidswritten by Richard Beban and Peter Sauder
directed by Ken Stephenson
music by Patricia Cullen, David Greene and David W. Shaw
theme song by Stewart Copeland

Voice Cast: Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Don Francks (Jann Tosh), Dan Hennessey (Uncle Gundy / Yorpa / Vinga / Jyn Obah), Taborah Johnson (Jessica Meade), Michel LeFebvre (Mon Julpa), John Stocker (Sollag)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Amazing Stories Season 1

The Main Attraction

Amazing StoriesHigh school football star Brad Bender has it made. The All-State all-star barely even has to try, and fully expects to be named the King of the Prom at school. He’s not quite prepared for a rule change that means he has to sell the most raffle tickets, but his popularity among the student body won’t make it too hard to sell more raffle tickets than anyone else…well, almost anyone else. He makes it a point to avoid any and all contact with Shirley, who he considers geeky and unattractive. His science teacher reminds the class of a historic meteor shower that night, and he’s not quite prepared for the meteorite that crashes into his bedroom window, which somehow magnetizes his whole body. Anything made of metal – staples, sports equipment, locker doors, bicycles, other students’ braces – sticks to Brad now. And so does another student, whose home was also hit by a meteorite, and whose body is also now magnetic.

Get this season on DVDteleplay by Brad Bird and Mick Garris
story by Steven Spielberg
directed by Matthew Robbins
music by Craig Safan

Amazing StoriesCast: John Scott Clough (Brad Bender), Lisa Jane Persky (Shirley), Richard Bull (Mr. Hiller), Barbara Sharma (Mrs. Bender), Tom Napier (wylie), Bill Allen (Cliff Rath), Nicholas Mele (Scientist #1), Joan Foley (Scientist #2), Brad Bird (Scientist #3), Dominick Brascia (Billy Johnson – Fat Kid), Isabelle Walker (Francine), Eric Bruskotter (Stan), Michael Joshua Cramer (Kid), Megan Wyss (Girl #1 Blonde), Piper cochrane (Girl #2 Darcy Cook), Larry Spinak (Geek)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Droids Star Wars

The New King

DroidsJann Tosh and the droids flee the mining planet, trying to return Mon Julpa to high rightful place on the throne of the planet Tamuzan; they discover that their pilot is none other than Jessica Meade, making this the second time she has saved their skins. But they’re being followed by a bounty hunter: IG-88 is in pursuit. On Tamuzan itself, they’re no safer – in Mon Julpa’s absence, a struggle for power has broken out, with rivals vying for the throne. Artoo and Threepio may have to stage a coup of their own to ensure that Mon Julpa is crowned as Tamuzan’s king.

Droidswritten by Richard Beban and Peter Sauder
directed by Ken Stephenson
music by Patricia Cullen, David Greene and David W. Shaw
theme song by Stewart Copeland

Voice Cast: Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Don Francks (Jann Tosh), Dan Hennessey (Uncle Gundy / Yorpa / Vinga / Jyn Obah), Taborah Johnson (Jessica Meade), Michel LeFebvre (Mon Julpa), John Stocker (Sollag)

Notes: Mon Julpa’s rival for the throne is given a voice performance that sounds uncannily like the voice of Saw Gererra.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Amazing Stories Season 1

Alamo Jobe

Amazing StoriesThe Alamo, 1836: Jobe is a young volunteer, part of the besieged force attempting to hold the Mexican army at bay at the Alamo. One by one, Jobe watches as his leaders and heroes are felled by enemy fire. The Alamo is about to fall, and yet Jobe swears he sees unarmed civilians in strange clothes wandering through the fort as if nothing is happening. Jobe is sent on a last-ditch mission to deliver a handwritten note begging for reinforcements, but is stunned when he darts out of the fort into…

San Antonio: 1985: …where nothing is familiar, no one seems concerned about the fate of the great free state of Texas, and everyone is oblivious to the fighting. To them, Jobe is a wild-eyed youth running through the center of town, armed with a deadly weapon, still living a battle whose grim conclusion is burned into the pages of history.

Get this season on DVDteleplay by Joshua Brand & John Falsey
story by Steven Spielberg
directed by Michael Moore
music by James Horner

Amazing StoriesCast: Kelly Reno (Jobe), William Boyett (Colonel Travis), Lurene Tuttle (Harriet Wendse), Richard Young (Davy Crockett), Robert V. Barron (Curator), Michael Cavanaugh (Storekeeper), Benjie Gregory (Sam), Dick Yarmy (VCR / Man #2), Pattie Pierce (Tour Guide), Chip Lucia (Dad)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Amazing Stories Season 1

Mummy Daddy

Amazing StoriesFilming nears completion on a movie called The Mummy’s Kiss, until a single phone call disrupts the last overnight filming: the actor in the mummy suit is about to become a father. Without thinking, he leaves the set and races off in a car that’s nearly out of gas. It stalls in a small town, where he proceeds to spook everyone with whom he comes into contact. The town is full of old legends of a real mummy, one which the townsfolk are sure has come back to haunt them. Harold isn’t the real mummy, of course…but that doesn’t mean that a whole backwoods town of suspicious simpletons isn’t suddenly out to kill him.

Get this season on DVDteleplay by Earl Pomerantz
story by Steven Spielberg
directed by William Dear
music by Danny Elfman & Steve Bartek

Amazing StoriesCast: Tom Harrison (Harold), Bronson Pinchot (Dean), Brion James (Willie Joe), Tracey Walter (Ezra), Larry Hankin (Jubal), Lucy Lee Flippin (Librarian), William Frankfather (Mayor), Arnold Johnson (Town Sage), Michael Zand (Ra Amin Ka), Len Lesser (Old Grave Robber), Billy Beck (Old Blind Man), Brian Bradley (Actor), Joann Willette (Ruta Mae), Pamela Seamon (Assistant Director), Edlen Ratliff (Freckle-Faced Boy), Dalton Cathey (Doctor), Oliver Dear (Young Grave Robber), Susan Dear (Harold’s Wife), Bill Martin (Guard)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Amazing Stories Season 1

The Mission

Amazing StoriesAn American B-17 Flying Fortress takes off from an Allied airstrip in Europe, patrolling the skies during World War II. It’s the last flight for her Captain and crew, who have flown 23 successful sorties over Europe; after their 24th, most of them are going home. But a mid-air dogfight puts their future plans in doubt. The Nazi plane is shot down, but not before its debris slams into the American plane, trapping Jonathan, a young dreamer who hopes to return to the States and become a cartoonist for Disney, in the belly gunner position. Worse yet, the attack destroyed the plane’s landing gear. The Captain is capable of landing the plane on its belly, but Jonathan will almost certainly be killed. His comrades in arms pray, argue about whether to end his suffering early, and bid their farewells as the plane prepares for its fateful landing…but ultimately, Jonathan is left to draw his own conclusions as to how that landing will unfold.

Get this season on DVDteleplay by Menno Meyjes
story by Steven Spielberg
directed by Steven Spielberg
music by John Williams

Amazing StoriesCast: Kevin Costner (Captain Spark), Casey Siemaszko (Jonathan), Kiefer Sutherland (Static), Jeffrey Jay Cohen (Jake), John Philbin (Bullseye), Gary Mauro (Sam), Glen Mauro (Dave), Terry Beaver (Officer), David Grant Hayward (Mechanic #1), Peter Jason (Commander), Karen Hopkins (Liz), Anthony Lapaglia (Mechanic #2), Gary Riley (Tail Gunner), Ken Stovitz (Lamar), Nelson Welch (Father McKay)

Notes: Though the typical format of an Amazing Stories episode was a half-hour timeslot, NBC and showrunner Steven Spielberg agreed that he would direct at least one episode with an extended running time. Kevin Costner, Kiefer Sutherland and Jonathan Lapaglia all went on to greater fame after this episode. Amazing StoriesCasey Siemaszko had already been seen on the big screen (as Biff’s 3-D-glasses-wearing cohort in Back To The Future), and went on to recurring roles in NYPD Blue and Damages. Perhaps even more surprising than Steven Spielberg directing an hour of television at the height of his fame was that he got composer John Williams, one of his most frequent collaborators throughout his career, to score an hour of television. (Williams had already done the series’ theme music.) One of the orchestrators helping Williams arrange the score for this episode was Alexander Courage, better known for writing the theme tune from Star Trek. Spielberg was nominated for best director in the 1986 Emmy Awards for this episode, but lost to Georg Stanford Brown, director of the last episode of Cagney & Lacey’s fifth season. This episode’s cinematographer, John McPherson, did win an Emmy for the show’s lighting and camera work.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Star Wars TV Specials

Ewoks: The Battle For Endor

Star WarsThe Towani family is preparing to leave the third moon of Endor. But as Jeremitt is making final repairs to the spacecraft, a band of armed marauders attacks the Ewok village. The Ewoks are either herded into primitive vehicles or killed. Mace puts up a valiant fight, but he and his mother are both killed in the attack. Cindel runs back to find her father being held prisoner by more marauders and a witch named Charal who appears to be human. Jeremitt buys enough time for Cindel to escape, but he too is killed. Cindel and Wicket are captured and thrown into a wagon with the surviving Ewoks. They both manage to escape, but they must outrun marauders and brave some indigenous predators as well. They finally befriend a strange, fast-moving creature called Teek, who leads them to an isolated house deep in the woods. The house belongs to an old man named Noa, whose two-man exploration ship crash-landed on the Ewoks’ moon back in the heyday of the Empire, stranding him ever since. Cindel and Wicket stay with Noa and Teek for a few days, but Cindel is kidnapped by Charal. Charal’s master, the marauder king Terak, has stolen a power cell from the Towanis’ ship. He can’t figure out how to use the object’s “magic,” and has instructed the witch to capture the one remaining person who knows anything about it. If Cindel can’t give Terak the answers he wants to hear, she, Charal and all of the captured Ewoks will die. Noa, Wicket and Teek set out to rescue her…but even once all of the Ewoks are set free, they’re hardly any match for Terak’s army. When it is revealed that Noa’s ship is still intact, and lacks only the power cell from the Towanis’ ship to escape, the already high stakes are raised even further.

Order the DVDsscreenplay by Ken Wheat and Jim Wheat
story by George Lucas
directed by Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat
music by Peter Bernstein

Cast: Wilford Brimley (Noa), Warwick Davis (Wicket), Aubree Miller (Cindel Towani), Sian Phillips (Charal), Carel Struycken (Terak), Niki Botelho (Teek), Paul Gleason (Jeremitt Towani), Eric Walker (Mace Towani), Marianne Horne (Young witch), Daniel Frishman (Deej), Tony Cox (Willy), Pam Grizz (Shodu), Roger Johnson (Lieutenant), Michael Pritchard (Card player #2), Johnny Weissmuller Jr. (Card player #2), Malumba Anderson Ewoks: Battle For Endor(Marauder), Tom Calabrese (Marauder), Scott Cooper (Marauder), Scott Cowan (Marauder), Dan Cunningham (Marauder), Charles Davis (Marauder), Mike Dito (Marauder), Scott Ferry (Marauder), Michael Franti (Marauder), Andre Keys (Marauder), Jerry Keys (Marauder), Jerry Martin (Marauder), Brendan Reitz (Marauder), Marques Strane (Marauder), Peter Thiebeaux (Marauder), Bill Tilman (Marauder), Dawn Abbey (Ewok), Anthony Bagnarol (Ewok), Mary Henning (Ewok), Bethany Jewett (Ewok), Michael Lipsky (Ewok), Steve Morgan (Ewok), Matthew Roloff (Ewok), Irving Scible Jr. (Ewok), Judi Weaver (Ewok), Darryl Henriques, Sydney Walker, Kevin Pollack, Ken Grantham, Mark Dodson, Rick Cimino (Ewok and Marauder voices)

Notes: Blurrgs, a beast of burden featured more prominently in The Mandalorian, are first seen here in stop-motion form.

LogBook entry by Earl Green