Analog Style: Re\Visioned Activision Cartoons

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This is “Analog Agent Benjamin” coming at you this week with…. Re\Visioned: Activision

We all know that there were a lot of cool cartoons based on video games back in the 80’s and 90’s, but have you ever wondered what some of the classic Activision Games for the Atari 2600 would look like if they made cartoons based on them? Well, the guys at GameTap.com did, and back in 2007 they made their own.

Re\Visioned: Activision was a 6 episode online series made by GameTap.com a few years ago to promote their web page, and I must say that I would have love to see an animated series based on H.E.R.O and Pressure Cooker back in the 80’s.

What video games did you wanted to see be made into cartoons when you were a kid?

Sounds of the Analog Age: Achy Breaky Heart

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Slide that album from the sleeve, place it on the dusty turntable for another installment of Sounds of the Analog Age!

This is Analog Agent Benjamin coming at you this week with…. Achy Breaky Heart

If you were a kid back in the 80’s and your parents were country music fans, then you might remember this very popular song.

The thing is, me and my Dad were not very big fans of this song. In fact, my Dad hated it because it was almost the only song that was ever played on the Country Music TV and Radio stations. My Mom just loved it. She even had a cassette tape made that only played that song over and over again. It was the only music she ever wanted to listen to when my family took long car trips, and it drove my Dad and me nuts. It got so bad, that the night before we took a car trip, my Dad or I would make an excuse to go out at night, (like take out the dog or the trash) so we could change the tape in the car. That way we wouldn’t have to listen to that song for a few minutes. I think we got away with it about 10 times before my Mom found out what we were doing, and got rid of all the other tapes in the car!

To this day, my Dad still hates that song, the only time he bear it is when he listens to the Weird Al Yankovic version of it. To him it just about sums up how he feels about the song.

Now me, I didn’t hate the song as much as my Dad did, (I thought it was O.K) but I did hate the line dancing that came with it. It was the only dance anyone ever did when that song was on, and my Mom loved to line dance and she wanted/forced me to line dance as well. Now when I was a kid, I was not very good at dancing and line dancing had so many steps in it that I kept tripping over my own feet every time I tried. I could only remember about 25% of the dance movies before I started to mess up. My Mom even went so far as to buy some “line dancing for kids” videos and had me go to line dancing classes just before she lost interest in it because her friends stopped line dancing as well.

What about you guys, what were your memories of that song? Did your parents make you line dance as well? Do you still hate this song?!

Analog Arcade: Hologram Time Traveler

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Beg your Mom for some quarters, jump on your bike, ride down to that dark, smokey, noisy and slightly dangerous home for one of your video games– the Arcade!

This is “Analog Agent Benjamin” coming at you this week with…. Hologram Time Traveler

Hologram Time Traveler (or Hologram for short), was another great arcade game that you would have to wait in line for an hour just to play it (just like Dragon’s Lair).

While the game had the very same game play as Dragon’s Lair, it used a hologram rear projection screen that made everything just pop out right at you. It was also the only arcade game that I knew of that cost you $1.00 to play per game. While this was a great arcade game, it came out just about the same time that the arcades were dying out thanks in no small part to home video game systems like the NES.

So, did you ever get to play this game when it was out in the arcades? And were you also blown-away by the “holograms” as much as I was?

Saturday Morning Cartoon: He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special

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You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This is Analog Agent Benjamin coming at you this week with…. He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special

Every knows about the classic Christmas Specials cartoons like A Charlie Brown Christmas & Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, but back in the 80’s the one you would remember was the He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special.

I think that it was also one of the few specials at the time that tried to give some info on the religious background of Christmas (even if it was only for one minute), if any show on TV today tried to do that, it would land the makers of that show in hot water.

Does anyone else think that it was odd that Aliens from another world would celebrate Christmas?
 

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Nutcracker Fantasy

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You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This is Analog Agent Benjamin coming at you this week with…. Nutcracker Fantasy

When you are a kid, you remember seeing an odd animated Christmas special or movie on TV that you never knew the name of, but you would always remember it because it was so weird. For me, that movie was the Nutcracker Fantasy.

The real weird thing about this movie is that while it does look like a Rankin-Bass special (like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” & “The Year without a Santa Claus”), it is not, it was made by a Japanese movie company called Sanrio. But its director, Takeo Nakamura, did worked as an animator on the Rankin-Bass special, “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town”.

From what I know, this movie has not come out on DVD here in the U.S. yet, and you can only find it on old VHS videos for sell on eBay. But because it’s so rare, the price for it can go anywhere from $60.00 up to $200.00.

Did you ever see or hear of this movie as a kid? Did you think it was too scary to be a Christmas cartoon? What do Nutcrackers have to do with Christmas anyway?

Saturday Morning Cartoon: The Hobbit

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You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This is Analog Agent Benjamin coming at you this week with…. The Hobbit

Since the new live action movie is coming out, I thought it would be cool to do a topic about the classic animated version of it that came out back in 1977.

I remember seeing this movie on VHS Video back in the 80’s, and ever since then I have been a big fan of fantasy movies like The Lord of the Rings, The Last Unicorn, The Flight of Dragons, The Black Cauldron, & The Dark Crystal.

What version of The Hobbit do you prefer, the cartoon version, or the live-action version?

Artifacts of the Analog Age: Clear Pepsi

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This is “Analog Agent Benjamin” coming at you this week with…. Clear Pepsi

While I was too young to remember New Coke, I was not as lucky to miss Clear Pepsi when it came out.

Clear Pepsi (also known as Crystal Pepsi) was made at a time when everyone thought that clear soda was better for you then soda that had color in it. My Dad was a big fan of Pepsi, and my Mom thought it would taste better without color. I for one thought it was going to taste like a mix up of 7up and Pepsi. When it came out, we ended up getting a 12 pack of it, and after all 3 of us tried it, the remaining 9 cans of it sat in the back of the refrigerator for weeks! Yes, it tasted that bad. We did have one friend that did like it, so we gave the rest of it to him.

Did you ever try Clear Pepsi when it came out? And if so, what did you think of it? Do you think color=taste?

Artifacts of the Analog Age: Visionaries

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This is “Analog Agent Benjamin” coming at you this week with… Visionaries

Visionaries was a Great toys line and cartoon series that just ever got the same fan far as G.I. Joe & Transformers did.

The figures were made in the same style of the old G.I. Joe figures from the 80’s, but they were a little bigger in size. Each one had a small Hologram in their chest and weapon. They also had some of the coolest looking vehicles I have ever seen.

The real said thing was that they were working on a second set of figures for this line, but they never got made.

So, did anyone else here have any of the Visionaries figures or see the cartoon series? How come hologram technology hasn’t really advanced since then?

Analog Arcade: X-Men the Arcade Game

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Beg your Mom for some quarters, jump on your bike, ride down to that dark, smokey, noisy and slightly dangerous home for one of your video games– the Arcade!

This is “Analog Agent Benjamin” coming at you this week with…. X-Men the Arcade Game

I remember seeing this game at my local arcade and how shocked I was at how cool it was. The game was about the size of 3 normal arcade games put together, it had a wide screen so you can see everything, and you and up-to 5 other friends could play it at the same time.

And the best part, you can now buy and download this game on your Xbox 360 & Playstation 3 game system for $10.00.

I am Magneto! Master of Magnet! (Man, that line of Bad English never gets old).

Did you or your friends ever get play this game when it was in the arcades? How much money did you spend on it? Was it worth 3 screens?

Analog Arcade: Bible NES Games

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Beg your Mom for some quarters, jump on your bike, ride down to that dark, smokey, noisy and slightly dangerous home for one of your video games– the Arcade!

This is “Analog Agent Benjamin” coming at you this week with…. Bible NES Games

If you had a Nintendo NES system as a kid and you also had some very religious relatives, then you must have gotten a Bible NES Game like this one for your Birthday or Christmas.

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From what I remember, all the Bible games I ever had for the NES were made by a game company called Wisdom Tree (once also know as Color Dreams), and the cartridges for the games came in either Black, Light Gray, or Baby Blue colors. At the time, many game companies had a very strict no religious icons or items in games policy (Nintendo being one of them), and Wisdom Tree was the only company that made any religious video games for the Nintendo NES, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, and Sega Genesis. But just like the games that were made by Tengen, Wisdom Tree’s games were unlicensed games that could not be sold in Toy Stores, so they were only sold at Bible Book Stores.

The games were not bad, but they were not that good either. They were what my Mom called “The Thought That Counts” type gifts. They were something that you got as a gift from your Grandma or any other relative and you had to pretend that it was the game that you wanted (even though it wasn’t). You just knew that their heart was in the right place when they got it for you and thought that it would be something that you would love to play.

Did you ever get a Bible game as a kid? Were you disappointed that you got a Bible game instead of the game you wanted the most for your Birthday or Christmas? Why make Bible games?