Gil Gerard PSA (1981)

Buck Rogers himself, Gil Gerard, encourages young people to embrace technology and pursue high-tech careers in this Public Service spot from 1981. I love these sort of pop culture artifacts!

STAR TREK (1983) Arcade Game Flyer

Here's the flyer for Sega's cockpit model of their Star Trek "Strategic Operations Simulator" game, which appeared in arcades and bowling alleys a few months after Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan surprised everyone by becoming a huge box office hit and demonstrated that the Trek franchise still had plenty of exploitation potential left in it.

I honestly don't remember playing this game; does anyone know if it was the first authorized Star Trek electronic video game? I know there had been a couple of pinball machines, but I'm wondering whether there was a Trek video game before this one?

THE BLACK HOLE (1979) by Jack Kirby

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Back in 1979, the Disney folks hired legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby to adapt their new sci-fi epic, The Black Hole, into comic strip form for newspaper syndication. Like the Star Trek newspaper strip that appeared around the same time, it was intended to promote the expensive film. Apparently, it did get picked up by a few papers, but didn't last long - no doubt because the movie was a box-office disappointment.

In 2007, Disney published at least some of the strips - with new, digital colors - in their Disney Zone digest magazine.

LOGAN'S RUN (1977) TV Guide Preview

From the September, 1977 "Fall Preview" issue of TV Guide, here's the magazine's write-up for the Logan's Run television series. Based on the Michael Anderson MGM feature film of the year before, which was based, in turn, upon the novel by George Clayton Johnson & William F. Nolan, the Logan's Run television show only ran for 14 episodes. It was produced by the guys who had run The Fantastic Journey the year before, and starred Gregory Harrison, Heather Menzies and Donald Moffat.

I was - and remain - a big fan of the show. I've been told that the Warner Archive manufacture-on-demand DVD label has a complete series set in the works, but no release date has been announced as yet. In the meantime, the series is apparently available for online viewing and download from iTunes and at Amazon.

Behind -The-Scenes Pix #9: STAR TREK

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, on location (at Vasquez Rocks, I'm guessing - doesn't quite look like Bronson Canyon to me, but I may be wrong) perusing some high-brow literary magazine between takes on the original Star Trek television series.

October's Space Babe: Sigourney Weaver

October 2011's Space Babe is Sigourney Weaver as Warrant Officer Ripley in director Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi Gothic, Alien. As portrayed by the then-relative newcomer, the strong-willed Ripley proved to be the ultimate survivor, not only escaping from the clutches of the titular extraterrestrial xenomorph, but going on to thwart its toothy brethren in three sequels. Of course, most of us here at Space: 1970 remember her primarily for her scanty panties at the original film's conclusion. Shame on us.

Born as Susan Weaver, the tall, striking brunette has appeared in a number of genre films, but has also garnered considerable acclaim as a serious dramatic actress. Among her sci-fi/fantasy credits are the aforementioned Alien franchise sequels, the Ghostbusters films, James Cameron's Avatar, Paul, and the delightful spoof, Galaxy Quest, which poked good natured fun at the kinds of TV shows we celebrate here at Space: 1970.

Captain's bLog: Supplemental

Been suffering from a stubborn head cold, but I'm starting to get back on track. I plan to have some new posts up here throughout the week, including this month's "Space Babe." Stay tuned.