Recycled Trek

Spike TV runs 3 hours of Star Trek: The Next Generation every weekday, providing background noise for my afternoon shifts at Paper Heroes. I have no idea how many times they've cycled through the entire series over the past few months, but I've learned to dread the arrival of the (excellent) series finale "All Good Things...", the harbinger that signals the imminent return of season one.

Case in point: Yesterday I was subjected to episode 4, "The Last Outpost," an inferior remake of the Classic Trek episode "Arena." Not only is this "update" of the first contact scenario a muddled mess of a story, especially in contrast to the starkly elemental nature of the original, but let's compare the 2 episodes' legacies. Because simply evaluating their individual contributions to the Trek mythos demonstrates that they are on opposite ends of the quality spectrum:

"Arena" introduced the Gorn, the most awesome alien in the Star Trek universe, while "The Last Outpost" was our introduction to the Ferengi, by far the most irritating.

Worse yet, while the Gorn made their point in one episode and then were never seen again (not counting their appearance on the non-canonical Star Trek: The Animated Series, or that CGI monstrosity on Star Trek: Enterprise), the Ferengi would never stay away, instead returning for countless appearances throughout Next Generation's run, each more grating than the one before, and collectively having a negative impact on the quality (and my enjoyment) of the series as a whole.

Coincidentally, I fulfilled a childhood dream on Saturday when I stumbled upon an action figure clearance sale at Suncoast, and purchased the Gorn figure by Art Asylum... for a dollar. Sure, when I was a kid in the '70s I had the Mego Star Trek dolls, but was never able to locate the elusive Gorn (which apparently was a Frankensteinian creation combining the head of Marvel Comics' The Lizard, a Planet of the Apes body, and a Klingon costume). Of course this was back in the Dark Ages when you actually had to go store-to-store and search the shelves. You kids today with your eBay -- where's the challenge? The frustration? The heartbreak?

Anyway, check out this kickass Gorn action figure. Is there any doubt it could beat the snot out of an entire starship full of Ferengi action figures, using nothing but its bare hands, a medium-sized boulder, or a makeshift dagger? And all he'd be wearing is that flimsy tunic, because the Gorn is like the Star Trek Universe version of the Sub-Mariner, who you always just knew was a badass because he'd routinely fight giant monsters, robots, and aliens wearing nothing but swim trunks.

Final note: Your "Arena" or Mine is an interesting blog post by John Kenneth Muir about the history of Frederic Brown's short story "Arena," first published in Astounding Science Fiction Magazine in 1944, and since adapted into episodes of, not only Star Trek and The Next Generation, but also The Outer Limits, Space: 1999, Blake's 7, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. It's a classic story (I wish I could remember where I read it so that I could find it again), and it's interesting to see how the basic concept evolved over time.

Tupperware Parties for Sports Jocks

So the other day I'm watching G4 TV at work and I happen to catch an episode of The Loop called "Fantasy Football -- D&D For Jocks?" (you can watch it here) that compared Fantasy Football to the classic fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons.

The high point for me was when David Dorey (the guy on the far right) of thehuddle.com, in an attempt to defend Fantasy Football from its critics, described the fantasy football draft party as a guy version of women's tupperware parties. Good job, dude, that sounds WAY cooler than D&D.

I would say that Fantasy Football is one more phenomenon that blurs the line between jocks and geeks, but I don't think that line has existed for a long time. This historic rivalry has been a false paradigm for years now.

Sure, when I was a kid being a comics geek/sci-fi nerd occassionally made me a target for Neanderthals, but by the I started college, the overwhelming majority of my friends were comic book readers and obsessive sports fans. I seem to be part of a dying breed of purists, but I try to make up for our dwindling numbers by despising professional sports with all my heart and soul.

Televised sports -- the original Reality TV -- have been the bane of my existence since childhood. Football especially. Not only is it responsible for decades of screwed-up television schedules, but even more egregiously, it caused the cancellation of Futurama by pre-empting it every freaking Sunday until its ratings were down in the sewer with the mutants. For that alone I expect a few Fox network executives to burn in hell.

So realistically, nothing is going to get me interested in watching pro football short of the NFL implementing the rules of Blood Bowl or the suggestions of George Carlin. Yet that doesn't stop the people around me from engaging in excruciating sports conversations and inviting me to fantasy football drafts... which, as I understand it, are like tupperware parties for guys.

I find it amusing that fantasy football players take offense at being compared to D&D gamers, as if they aren't already consummate geeks themselves. Sports geeks are no different from roleplaying gamers, comics fans, or costumed Trekkies. They just have different memorabilia collections, and different tedious conversations that put everyone else in the general vicinity to sleep.

If fantasy football isn't enough proof for you, consider this: When I was a kid, my Mego Super-Heroes and Star Wars action figures were disparagingly referred to as "dolls" by adult males and jocks of all ages. Now, a generation or so later, the comics shop where I work has an entire wall covered in sports action figures -- football, baseball, basketball, and hockey players, even NASCAR drivers -- simply because Todd McFarlane was able to anticipate (and exploit) the geekification of the American sports fan.

Sports fans in denial just need to relax and embrace their inner geek. After all, it's not like anyone is implying that you're gay simply because you play with dolls and play fantasy games. The trading cards are still problematic, though. Because as Bill Maher pointed out, when you're a kid, baseball cards are keepsakes of your idols, but once you're a grown man, they're pictures of other men. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Unrealized Star Trek Merchandising Potential

Today's the 40th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise, and you know what I want? A Captain Christopher Pike action figure. No, not the healthy one. I want the version that was horribly disfigured by delta radiation and confined to the chair with the flashing lights.

The chair should be radio-controlled, so that I can make it roll around the room. And as an added bonus, the remote control should have an extra button on it marked "Ask Question" that causes the chair lights to randomly flash and beep either once or twice when you press it, so that you can use Captain Pike like a Magic 8-Ball that only answers "yes" or "no." Because, obviously, "Reply hazy... ask again later" would require way too many flashes and beeps.

Seriously, this has to be the only character from the original series that's never been immortalized as an action figure, and you know every Trekkie on the planet would have to own one. Nevertheless, I'm sure if I were to calculate the odds of Art Asylum actually producing such a toy, the answer would be "Outlook not so good."

Bubba Sasquatch

When Bruce Campbell asked the audience at the Houston premiere of his Man With The Screaming Brain which Bubba Ho-Tep sequel they would prefer -- Bubba Nosferatu or Bubba Sasquatch -- I seemed to be one of the few in attendance rooting for the latter.

Personally I think we already have an overabundance of vampire films, and besides, Elvis and Bigfoot are a match made in Weekly World News heaven.

So I was a little annoyed last week when Yahoo! Movies ran the poll below.

Bubba Nosferatu received the most votes -- no surprise there -- but whoever created the poll left Bubba Sasquatch completely off their truly uninspired list. (Seriously, Bubba Lucifer? Bubba Shambler? Lame.) Don't they even read their own movie listings? Bubba Sasquatch is mentioned in the Yahoo! Movie descriptions of both Bubba Ho-Tep and Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires.

The good news is that writer/director Don Coscarelli has suggested that Bubba Sasquatch will be the third movie in the Elvis-fighting-monsters trilogy. Even better is the news that the first Bubba Ho-Tep sequel seems to have moved from the "cool idea" phase to the "actually getting made" phase, based on Paul Giamatti's confirmation of the rumor that he'll be co-starring with Bruce in Curse of the She-Vampires early next year. Giamatti (Lady in the Water, The Illusionist) is set to play Elvis' eccentric manager Colonel Tom Parker.