1978 SCHOOL CARNIVAL W/ STAR WARS CHARACTERS

My old college buddy Mike Middleton shared these kooky photos from his third grade yearbook! These second rate Star Wars characters just crack me up! I love seeing homemade Star Wars costumes from the late 70's and these aren’t half bad, especially R2. I love that the Jawa is as tall as Darth Vader.  My favorite is the werewolf masked dummy trying to look like a Tusken Raider playing electric guitar!  Thanks for sharing these, Mike!!

INDY WEEK IS OVER

Thanks to everyone who stopped by during Indy Week. It was fun revisiting one of my favorite film heroes, Indiana Jones.

I added some more links to the SOME COOL INDY LINKS post.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK ATARI 2600

During Christmas vacation, my brother and I pretty much ignored our family as we set upon an 8-bit adventure that lasted a week or two. Pat (my older brother) found a Raiders of the Lost Ark Atari 2600 cartridge under the Christmas tree back in 1982. At the time, this was the Holy Grail of Atari cartridges. It was usually brother vs. brother in my household, but to the disbelief of my parents we actually worked as a team in search of the Ark of the Covenant. Instead of a bullwhip our trusty weapon of choice was a joystick.

Feverishly we worked guiding Indiana Jones thru the many levels looking for clues and trying our best to stay away from danger. We were too stubborn to use the clues inside the instruction manual and kept on playing until we finally found the lost Ark. When we found the Ark it was a monumental moment and we found out we could actually work together making maps and taking turns to accomplish a goal.


Since the Ark was found, it didn’t take long to revert back to extreme competition. The new goal was an individual one. We were like Indy and Belloq. Instead of outwitting one another for artifacts, we tried for high score. Just like we did with all of our other Atari cartridges, fight for high score.

Check out Kirk's Raiders Atari map at his Secret Fun Blog.

From the second volume of How to Beat Home Video Games is this video on the Raiders Atari game uploaded by tr0d.

THE COMPLETE MAKING OF INDIANA JONES: THE DEFINITIVE STORY BEHIND ALL FOUR FILMS

The Complete Making of Indiana Jones: The definitive Story Behind All Four Films by J.W. Rinzler and Laurent Bouzereau is a must buy for any Indy or film fan! Just like Rinzler's Making of Star Wars from last year, this one is chock-full of amazing facts, photos and tidbits about the making of all the Indiana Jones films. The focus is Raiders with five chapters of Raiders goodness. Did you know Toht was almost a cyborg type of villain!

Anyway buy this book or at least look for it at your local library.

1981 TV SPECIAL - THE MAKING OF THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

I’ve always been fascinated about how films are made and back when I was kid I always tuned in for these "making of" specials on TV. You kids today have it easy with your YouTubes, Tivos and DVD recordering machines! Back in my day if you wanted to copy a show...well...the only option was the family audio tape player.

Here’s my tape of The Making of the Raiders of the Lost Ark that I recorded off TV back on November 28, 1981. I remember watching the whole show about two feet away from our Zenith. For one hour my finger was always ready to push the pause button before the commercial breaks.



Instead of making you listen to my crummy tape copy, here’s all six parts of the Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark. ----Update----- The YouTube videos have been taken down. I'm sure it will pop up again eventually so keep searching if you you want to watch the special.

TOPPS RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK TRADING CARDS

I was such a trading card junkie as a kid and spent a good share of my allowance on Raiders cards. Here's my top ten favorite cards from the 1981 series.

SOME COOL INDY LINKS

The Raider.net - This is probably the best Indy related website.
Indiana Jones.com - The official site.
Prop Replicas by Indiana Magnoli - This guy has made some cool looking replica props. I dig the old faux snapshots.
Melting Toht by Jeff Victor - I love this painting of a melting Toht. (Thanks Steve for letting me know about this one)
Mad's Suggested Titles for new Indy movies - I would see some of these!
Giant Indy Lego Boulder YouTube video - This is funny.
Indiana and the Song of Theme - Indy dude puts words to the Indy theme.
agent5,s Flicker Raiders set - He has some cool Raiders photos.
Indiana Jones Meets Star Wars John Rozum shows us the Star Wars references in the Indiana Jones movies

PREMIUM CHANNELS MOVIE GUIDE NOV. 1984