Electronic Talk 'n Play (1984)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Welcome back to My Nostalgia Blog. I took last week off because we were having family visiting over the weekend and we were getting the house cleaned up for it. I was also having weird stomach issues all last week, and it kinda prevented me from wanting to work on anything blog related. I'm back today though for a post that I hadn't anticipated on making on this blog this early in its development. Because I hadn't actually thought about it this early on. But, I decided to write about a toy that I had when I was a kid that wasn't really a toy, but a tape recorder/tape player. Let's get into it.

 This is the Playskool Electronic Talk 'n Play. It was originally produced by CBS Toys in 1984, but two years later, Hasbro picked it up under the Playskool name. I'm pretty sure I had the Playskool version, being that that's what was coming out from 1986 until 1992. But, it's always possible that my grandparents found a 1984 version. So what was this device? It basically told stories through the cassette tape deck on the left, and you'd press one of the four colored buttons on the right when prompted and whichever button you pressed, made the story on the tape take a different path. Eventually you'd have to press all four of them to progress the story, but the order in which you pressed them in the prompt is what made it cool.

I only ever had two of the book and tape sets that went with the Talk 'n Play. Both of them were from Sesame Street. The first was Sesame Street: Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?, which was the book and tape set that came packaged with the player. The second was A Silly Sesame Street Story: The Three Little Pigs, which was the Sesame Street version of The Three Little Pigs, obviously. However, those weren't the only things I listened to on the Talk 'n Play.

I listened to other tapes on it too. Like my Teddy Ruxpin tapes, the Sharon, Lois, & Bram tape that I had, and other audiotapes. Including the one Rainbow Brite tape that came with Rainbow Brite and the Brook Meadow Deer, one of three Rainbow Brite books that I owned when I was a kid. 

I don't remember exactly when we finally got rid of my Talk 'n Play, but I think it was probably 1997 or 1998. I remember using it at the house we lived in from 1996 to 1997, but I don't remember using it after we moved in the summer of 1997. So we probably got rid of it in 1997, just before we moved that summer. I was 10 years old when we got rid of it. Again, I don't think my siblings and I used it after we moved in 1997, but it's very possible that we did and I just don't remember. 

That's all I've got for you today. I'll be back next week with some more nostalgia goodness. Until then have a great week and I will talk to you all later. Take care.  

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. No, you're not dreaming. I'm starting a brand new nostalgia based blog, focusing on movies, TV shows, music, and books that I grew up with, as well as things that came out while I was growing up that I've now seen or read as an adult. No, I'm not abandoning Josh's Geek Cave. I'm using that for modern stuff I want to talk about. Which means I won't be posting there as often. 

Unlike the nostalgic stuff I've done on Josh's Geek Cave, I will be watching, listening to, and reading most of what I talk about on here. If I have access to it, I'm going to watch it, read it, or listen to it. I'm also keeping things very simple. One image to represent the thing I'm talking about, and talking about several things about the movie, including when I first saw, read, or heard what I'm talking about. And if it is something I watched, read, or listened to growing up in the '90s and early 2000s, I'll talk about where I was when I experienced the thing I experienced, where I got it (or who I got it from) if I remember that, and what my life was like at that time. 

To start off this new venture, I'm going to be talking about Star Trek: First Contact, which I watched on VHS last night in preparation for this discussion. So please join me on this nostalgic journey and let's go back to 1996 and 1997 to talk about this movie.

Released to theaters on November 22nd, 1996, Star Trek: First Contact was directed by Jonathan Frakes, written by Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore, and stars Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, LeVar Burton, James Cromwell, Alfre Woodard, and Alice Krige. This was actually Frakes's feature film directorial debut. He'd previously directed episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but this was the first time he'd directed a feature film. 

First Contact is probably the most popular Star Trek movie besides Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Critics loved it, and it gained a huge box office return. Oddly enough, audiences loved it too. There were tons of heavy hitters in 1996, such as Twister, Independence Day, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mission: Impossible and Flipper. This was also the year that Scream came out, only a month after First Contact came out. What intrigues me about how popular this movie was at the time is that back then you had movies in theaters for months before they came out on home video. And with this movie coming out in November, it was less than two months before Star Wars: The Special Edition was released in January, 1997, and I have to imagine that it didn't last in theaters once Star Wars hit theaters again. Given that it was released to rental stores in May, 1997, and to retail stores in November of 1997, I expect that First Contact left theaters by March of that year. At the latest.

On stardate 50893.5, Starfleet informs Captain Picard that the Borg have returned to Federation space after six years, aside from some minor incidents as shown in the episodes, "I, Borg" and "Descent". Despite being ordered by Starfleet Command to not join the fleet in the defense of Earth, Picard takes the new Enterprise-E and they end up following a Borg Sphere into the past to prevent the Borg from altering history by killing Zefram Cochrane, thereby preventing first contact between Humans and the Vulcans. In the process, Picard must confront the trauma he got from when the Borg assimilated him, as seen in the episode, "The Best of Both Worlds".

I remember exactly where I was and when I was when I first saw this movie. It was July 19th, 1997. I was at my grandparents's place with my nurse looking after me while my parents were getting us moved to the house we lived in until 2016. I don't remember where my brother and sister were, I just know they weren't with me. My other grandparents may have taken them for the day or something like that. I just remember my parents had rented the movie for me (it had come out on VHS for rental at the time, but wasn't available for purchase yet), and I was so excited because not only were the crew from The Next Generation returning, but they had a brand new Enterprise after the Enterprise-D had been destroyed in the last movie. This was also the first Star Trek movie that didn't have members of the Original Series cast in it at all.

Anyway, we put on the movie, and the Borg scared the shit out of me, as these weren't the Borg we'd seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation since 1989. Because the movie actually had a budget (about $45 million), Michael Westmore was able to create a version of the Borg that was worthy of a movie. And as I was only 10 at the time (I wouldn't turn 11 until the end of the year), they were even more scary to me than they ever had been on the TV show. Not to mention seeing severed limbs and other parts of the assimilation process that never got shown on The Next Generation or Voyager. It was just too much for me.

It wasn't until a few years later after my dad got the movie on VHS, with the lenticular cover, that I actually watched it all the way through. It was a great movie, I just preferred the other TNG movies over it, just because of how dark the movie is compared to other Star Trek movies that were around at the time. 

I thought it was interesting how they contrived Worf's reason for being in the movie since Michael Dorn had already joined the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine by the time this movie got made. Like there was absolutely no reason for the Defiant to be that far away from Deep Space 9 with Worf in command, and nobody else from the show's cast being on the ship. They don't even try to explain it or even mention the ship's participation in the battle against the Borg Cube at the beginning of this movie in episodes of Deep Space Nine that came out after this movie was released.

My two favourite scenes in this movie actually come at the beginning of the movie. The first is when Picard informs his crew that they are disobeying orders and going to join the fleet at Earth, and Data says, "I believe I speak for everyone here sir when I say...To hell with our orders". Data had his emotion chip installed in the previous movie, and because it's functioning normally, this line works better than it might've if Data had just said it without the chip online. 

The second scene is a little while later when Worf has arrived on the bridge and has taken the tactical station. As he's taking it, Riker comes up to him and asks, "You do remember how to fire phasers?", Worf glares at him, and Riker just grins at him before going back to his chair. Riker is probably the only person on the Enterprise who can get away with teasing Worf like that, with Jadzia Dax and Chief O'Brien being the only other people in general who can get away with teasing him.

This movie has a bunch of cameo appearances in it. From Don Stark, who played Bob Pinciotti on That '70s Show, to Dwight Schultz, who reprises his role as Reginald Barclay from the TV shows. The two notable guest appearances in the movie however are Ethan Phillips, who plays Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager, as the Matre 'D of the club Picard and Lily go to in the Holodeck, and Robert Picardo, who plays the Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager, and who recently appeared as the character in the second season of Star Trek: Prodigy, and in both seasons of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (season 2 is forthcoming), as the Enterprise-E's Emergency Medical Hologram, a.k.a. that ship's version of the Doctor.

What makes them notable is the fact that this is the first time that Robert Picardo appeared in a Star Trek project outside of Voyager, essentially as his character from that show. It's also notable for Ethan Phillips because this was the only time he appeared in a Star Trek project without any makeup on. In other words, his first, and only, time playing a Human presenting character (he's a hologram).

I think part of what makes this movie so good, and why it holds up so well, almost 30 years after it was released, is because it wasn't produced during a turbulent time in the franchise's history. Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were in production and Star Trek: Voyager was in development while Star Trek Generations was in production, which not only spread the production crew thin between three TV shows, with one of them filming its series finale, and the movie, but also burned the cast of TNG out between filming the series finale and the movie simultaneously. 

While Deep Space Nine and Voyager were in production at the time, they were both on hiatus while the movie was filming, which of course freed up Michael Dorn to play Worf in the movie, and made the bridge set for the Defiant available for use in the movie. So the production crew wasn't stretched as thin as they'd been during production of Generations two years earlier. 

I think the real reason this movie holds up is it was treated as a movie, rather than as an extended episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Not only did Industrial Light & Magic work on the special effects for this movie, but the Borg got a visual upgrade, as I mentioned earlier, but because it was brand new sets used for the new Enterprise, and the lighting felt more cinematic, it didn't just feel like a two hour episode of the TV shows. It feels like a movie. 

I hadn't watched the movie in a very long time, probably about ten or twelve years, and, last night watching it on VHS for the first time in 20 years, I was reminded of how good the movie actually is. Again, it's never been my favourite Star Trek movie, and not even my favourite of the films starring the cast of The Next Generation. However, I think I have more appreciation for it now as an adult than I did when I was a kid, or even when I was watching it on DVD as a teenager and young adult in my early 20s. Not only do I get Picard's story, but I honestly understand Cochrane better too.

Throughout the movie, Cochrane is constantly told how much of an inspiration he is to the majority of the Enterprise's engineering staff (those who weren't assimilated by the Borg that is). Not to mention the hero worship heaped upon him by the crew, including Riker. I'm not an engineer, nor have I created warp drive for any reason. However, I have been told on numerous occasions, by many people that I'm an inspiration to them and that I am their hero. But, I don't feel inspiring or heroic. I just feel like a man who has challenges to overcome on a daily basis due to physical disabilities, and being on the Autism Spectrum, in a world that wasn't made for people like me. Just a man. A person. With flaws, and things to learn and grow from. That's it. So I can completely understand where Cochrane is coming from when he talks about this to Riker and Geordi at various points in the movie. 

I think that's gonna be it for today. I had so much fun watching Star Trek: First Contact last night, and then getting to talk about it today. I have my topics picked for the next two or three weeks. One topic a week. That's it. Very simple. I'll be back next week with another fun topic. Until then take care of yourselves. Bye.