Articles from Dr. Squid

Why Escape From Witch Mountain Would Make A Cool X-Files Episode

I remember seeing the TV commercial for Escape To Witch Mountain when I was a kid and thinking it seemed like a really scary movie. I remember the shadowy images of barking dobermans - it looked really spooky and mysterious, like someting out of a nightmare. But I wanted to see it anyway. It was a strange sense of uneasy curiousity that for whatever reason, I can still recall all these years later. The movie came out in '75 so I was 7 or 8 years old, and I think we went to see it as part of my birthday party. Back in those days, my birthdays always included driving over to the Cherry Hill Mall to see the latest Disney kids flick, except for that time we saw Jason and the Argonauts. Man, that was awesome. Anyhow...

The film introduces us to two orphans, Tony and Tia, who have strange psychic powers. They can levitate objects and communicate telepathically. They don't know where they're from, but suffer flashbacks to what they think is a boating accident where their parents drowned. Tia has a little box/purse with a simple twin star design on it. They end up setting out on a quest to discover their true origins, hooking up with an old guy (played by Eddie Albert) in an RV. They are pursured by men in black suits and sunglasses. Towards the end, they realize that the design on the box represents the twin suns on their home planet and that the boating accident they recall was their spaceship crash landed. In the end, they are reunited with the remainder of their family and take off into the hills (if that was Witch Mountain, it seemed more like Witch Hill) in a flying saucer.

Now, wouldn't it be cool if Chris Carter and his writers twisted this story around into an X-Files episode? Mulder and Scully would be brought in to investigate at the orphanage where two kids escaped from after supossedly displaying some paranormal abilities. Despite eyewitness accounts from the other children, Scully would be skeptical, noting to Mulder that kids make up stories and are often infuenced by what they see on TV and in the movies. Later, the two agents would get the sense that others in the agency wanted these kids for sinister purposes. Perhaps an appearance by Cancer Man would be in order. The kids would be sighted with an old guy in an RV and Mulder and Scully would rush to the scene only to just have missed the trio. A pair of witnesses would describe the man and kids and the star-decorated purse the little girl was wearing. The ultimate in cool would be to get Ike Eisenmann and Kim Richards who played Tony and Tia in the Disney movie, to play the two witnesses who saw the kids! Mulder would take a sketch of the star pattern (perhaps drawn by a witness or by Mulder based on witness' desciptions) to the Lone Gunmen. The trio would be unable to identify the design, but would end up commenting on an organization known as ETWM, the ExtraTerrestrial World Monitor. The in-joke would be that these are the same initials as Escape To Witch Mountain.

At the end, it would be a fight between Mulder and the other agents to catch the kids as they made their way to Witch Mountain (an area in which, of course, there have been many UFO sightings, Mulder would mention). At the climax, Mulder would end up somehow delaying the other agent(s) and run up the side of the hill just in time to see the flying saucer zip off over the mountain, with the old guy waving goodbye. Scully would catch up to him, but only after the ship had disappeared.

The show would end with Mulder typing in a report with a monotoned voiceover. The ending shot would have the camera panning from Mulder's hands typing on the keyboard to the sketch of the two-star pattern that was on Tia's box, and then panning up past the computer screen to settle on a small Mickey Mouse figure standing atop Mulder's monitor. Fade to Black.

Wouldn't that be cool, nostalgic and obscure? Unfortunately, it's also basically impossible. I'm sure the writers of the X-Files have better storylines to tell than rehashing an old Disney children's film. But, hey, it was fun to think about it. On a side note, there was a sequel made called Return to Witch Mountain which concerned Tony and Tia's adventures on a day trip to the city. They are chased after by a cartoonish evil duo played by Christopher Lee and Bette Davis and team up with one of those annoying and racially-mixed rag-tag gang of kids (you know the drill, there's the hip black kid, the brainly kid with glasses, etc.). Anyhow, it wasn't as good as the original. There was also a TV-movie remake in the last couple of years of Escape To Witch Mountain, but I didn't see it.

UPDATE!! (7/29/97) Guess what? Ike Eisenmann himself was websurfing with a friend recently. They put Ike's name in a search engine and came upon this very page. According to the friend, Ike thinks this is all a really great idea, and sounds wild, but agrees that it probably would never be done.

Battle Beyond The Stars Forever

Battle Beyond the Stars is a product of Roger Corman's New World Pictures. It came out in 1980 in a flurry of sci-fi adventure films all trying to capitalize on the success of Star Wars.

Lots of today's talented folks in Hollywood got their early breaks in Corman pictures. You've heard the list before: Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppolla, etc. Even little Ronny Howard got his first gig behind the camera directing Eat My Dust for Corman. Well, Battle Beyond the Stars is no exception. The screenplay, which is a retelling of the Seven Samuri story (which was also retold as a western in The Magnificant Seven), was written by John Sayles, who followed it up with scripts for low-budget shockers Alligator and The Howling, but eventually gained critical acclaim for Brother From Another Planet, Matewan, Eight Men Out and The Secret of Roan Inish. It also featured starship miniatures and effects by a young whiz kid named James Cameron. That's right, the Terminator dude did the spaceship stuff for Battle Beyond the Stars. This was around the same time he did effects work in various capacities for genre features Android, Galaxy of Terror and Escape from New York.

This flick featured b-movie staples Sybil Danning and John Saxon, but the hero was played by Richard Thomas, who played John Boy on the Waltons. He was still playing a goody-two-shoes, but he was in a flick with Sybil Danning's breasts about to pop out of her top - quite a change from the backwoods family drama. Julia Duffy also appears, a few years before she played that airhead on Newheart. The story goes that Corman actually spent a million dollars on this movie, the most he had spent on a picture to date.

John Saxon plays Sador, a cookie-cutter bad guy who roams the galaxy with his crew of mishapen mutants, taking over planets. Those who resist are destroyed by his (weapon name). He comes to a planet inhabited by a bunch of toga-wearing, peace-loving farmers and gives them a few days to prepare to be taken over. Richard Thomas plays the Luke Skywalker-type role, a young guy whose father was some sort of warrior. He vows to go out and find some mercenaries to help fight off Sador, and heads out in an old spaceship that looks oddly like a woman's chest (perhaps not so odd for a Roger Corman b-movie, I guess). Anyhow, he hooks up with a beautiful blonde babe, an aging bounty hunter, a space trucker from Earth, a lizardlike alien, an amazonian warrior and a quintet of clones, who all for varying reasons join up to fight, thus setting the stage for the last 1/4 or so of the movie.

Here's an interesting tidbit - the movie poster features a montage of characters and spaceships including a tall, and rather cool-looking insect-lIke alien. Except the insect alien never appears in the movie! I don't know if it was intended to and they couldn't get the costume to work, or whether they just thought it looked cool on the poster and left it on regardless of what what in the movie. The other oddball thing about the poster is that is shows a weird two-headed character dressed in white. What actually appeared in the movie was "Nestor," a group of five clones who all shared the same consciousness. In fact, they implied that there were Nestors all over the universe, all sharing the same intelligence and consciousness and all wandering the stars in search of new experiences. Kind of like the Borg on Star Trek, eh? Anyhow, I guess the poster had to be drawn while the movie was being shot, hence the discrepancies.

Battle Beyond the Stars will live on forever, if only through the re-use of it's miniature effects scenes. I can't count the number of movies, both from Corman's studios and others, that use some or what seems like all of the spaceship footage from BBTS. The first one I remember seeing was Space Raiders - as I recall a so-so movie about a cute young kid who hooks up with a rag-tag band of space pirates or something. Anyhow, a ton of the BBTS spaceship footage is utilized here. It has since been used in low-budget sci-fi flicks like Deep Space, Cyberzone, Forbidden World, Caged Heat 3000 and I believe a movie I just saw on the Sci-Fi Channel called Star Quest. Here it is nearly 20 years later and folks are still rehashing that footage. In fact, the Sci-Fi channel has been airing this big montage of clips from their original movies as of late, and in the mix are a couple of shots from BBTS! No doubt about it, Roger Corman certainly got his money's worth out of that footage!

Actually, more than just the miniture shots have been recycled - the music has as well! Composed by James Horner (who has since gone on to A-list movies like Apollo 13, Braveheart, Legends of the Fall, Willow and Star Trek II & III), it has been used in b-movie gems such as Barbarian Queen (aka Queen of the Naked Steel), Wizards of the Lost Kingdom and Space Raiders.

I will never forget when I first started seeing commercials for Battle Beyond the Stars when it was to be aired as a prime time movie on NBC. It was so cool! Here was a movie that I had actually seen in the theater and now was going to shown on NBC - the network who had the balls to air Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park! OK, c'mon, I was only a kid, give me a break for being excited. Anyhow, the weirdest thing happened. This was probably the first non-G-rated movie that I had seen in the theater and then seen on TV, so I wasn't real aware of stuff being edited for television. Of course one of the high points in the film for an adolescent boy were the scenes of Sybil Danning just barely remaining in her skimpy outfits, so I was looking forward to seeing her displaying her talents on TV. Those censor boys at NBC cut out a few choice scenes, feeling that her cleavage was too much for America to handle. Not only that, for a couple of scenes where Sybil is reclining in the cockpit of her tiny ship (and her breasts sit up seeming to defy gravity), they overlayed something that was supossed to look like part of the ship's equipment (like the back of some viewscreen or something), completely covering up her chest! I couldn't believe it - I had been robbed! Since then TBS plays it every once in a while, but I can't recall how much cleavage they left in.

The Mormon/Battlestar Galactica Connection!

In the late 60's, Glen Larson pitched a TV show called Adam's Ark around the same time that Star Trek was ending. In it, Larson wanted to take biblical themes and set them out in space. While no one was interested in that particular project, Larson was a successful creator, writer or producer on such TV shows as It Takes a Thief, McCloud, The Six Million Dollar Man, Quincy, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, B.J. and the Bear, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Magnum PI, The Fall Guy, Knight Rider and Manimal.

Star Wars exploded into the world in 1977 and as everyone and his brother tried to capitalize on it's success, something like Larson's old pitch suddenly seemed like a great idea. ABC originally planned to have Battlestar Galactica as a series of two-hour movies, following a big, three-hour premiere, but they were impressed enough to order it up as a weekly hour-long series. It premiered on ABC in September of 1978, after being seen as a theatrical release in Canada and Europe in July of that year. The show was cancelled after just 24 episodes in April of '79. Due to fan pressure, it was revived as Galactica 1980 (in 1980...duh), but this only lasted for 10 episodes.

The opening prologue reads, "There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of human who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. They may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive far, far away, amongst the stars."

Glen Larson (creator and producer of Galactica) is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and many parallels between his church's and the show's mythologies can be found. The main characters in Galactica are the last remnants of the Twelve Colonies, which were founded by twelve tribes of humans who left their home planet of Kobol, which had become inhabitable because of either natural or man-made contamination. There was a "lost thirteenth tribe" who went a different direction than the rest and, as the story goes, ended up colonizing Earth. Commander Adama once delivered the following speech about their origins: "Our recorded history tells us we descended from a mother colony, a race that went out into space to establish colonies. Those of us assembled here now represent the only known surviving Colonists, save one. A sister world, far out in the universe, remembered to us only through ancient writings..." He goes on to assert that the "lost thirteenth tribe" colonized Earth. Something called "The Book of The Word" described the journey of the tribes of man away from Kobol.

In the Mormon church, The Book of Mormon describes the journey of a "thirteenth tribe" There were twelve tribes of Israel and the prophet Lehi took a remnant of the tribe of Joseph (creating a "lost thirteenth tribe") and somehow travelled from the middle east to North America around 600 BC. They ended up splitting into two tribes, one of whom flourished and according to the book are the descendants of the American Indians. Additionally, the name Kobol is made up of the rearranged letters making up the word Kolob, which is the star "nearest unto the throne of God," or the name of the planet where the Mormons' god, Elohim, is from.

In the TV show, the planet Kobol itself was considered destroyed or just a legend until it was found in the episode, "Lost Planet of the Gods." Adama thought there was a secret passage to Earth in the tomb of the Ninth Lord in the lost city of Eden on Kobol. He identified the tomb by the Ninth Lord's seal. In the episode "War of the Gods," there is a "Ship of Lights" commanded by mysterious beings. In one scene, Starbuck asks the them if they are angels. The "entity" responds with, "Oddly enough, there is some truth to your speculation." When he inquires, "But why are you bothering with us? We are from a simple handful of human survivors," Starbuck is told: "Because, as you are now, we once were. As we are now, you may become." This is interesting because the fifth LDS President Lorenzo Snow coined the expression, "As man is God once was, as God is, man may be" as stated in the Articles of Faith (pg. 430). The LDS believes that God was once a man on another planet (sometimes referred to as Kolob) who followed the Mormon teachings, died, rose to the third level of heaven and eventually became a God, just as they teach that if you follow the Mormon teachings here on Earth you may eventually become the God of your own world after death.

Commander Adama notes, "The ancient ones, the Lords who first settled our Kobol, spoke of visitations from what they in their primitive way referred to as angels. Think of them as custodians of the universe, advanced beings, very highly advanced, whose mandate it is to make certain that their powers are never abused by any one of their own." While the Book of Mormon may teach that there is only one true God (Alma 11:26-29), other Mormon documents say that there are many Gods (Mormon Doctrine, page 163), in fact the Journal of Discourses (vol 6, pg. 5) states that "In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted a plan to create the world and the people." Battlestar Galactica's "custodians of the universe" may allude to this council of Gods. It may be worth noting here that the majority of Mormon beliefs, church practices and ceremonies are not described in The Book of Mormon. If you happen to be given The Book of Mormon by an LDS member friend or by one of their door-to-door missionaries, you won't find much about some of this stuff and certainly nothing about their various temple ceremonies and beliefs.

In the "War of the Gods" episode, there is a character named Count Iblis, who is basically Satan for the show's purposes, whom the "entities" seem to be after. They note that, "He now uses his powers to corrupt and lead others away from the truth." Apollo figures out the Count's true identity, by thinking "back to the original records. The names Mephistopheles, Diabolis, the Prince of Darkness." According to the original script of the episode, "War of the Gods," Apollo and Starbuck enter a wreckage thought to have been Count Iblis' comrades' ship. There they discover a glove that seems to have been made for a cloven hoof. They lift up a metal panel and discover a devil or demon-like figure. The networks dropped the scene for fear it would be too scary for kids and for the "satanic" overtones.

In the LDS, God has a wife with whom he has children. These "spirit" children are eventually reborn on earth, where their "pre-existence" is "veiled" from them until they die and return to Heaven, at which time they remember their previous life in heaven. Satan is one of God's spirit children, birthed by God's wife in the Celestial Kingdom of Heaven. He is a spirit brother to Jesus. According to Mormon Doctrine, both Jesus and Satan offered plans for mankind's salvation to God, with Jesus' plan being accepted. Satan's plan sought to "deny men their agency," that is, their freedom of choice, something very important in Mormon theology.

In Battlestar Galactica, when the Entities are asked why they cannot stop Count Iblis, they reply, "Because we cannot interfere with freedom of choice. His, yours, anyone's."

Commander Adama performs a "sealing ceremony" between Apollo and Serina, saying, "A union between this man and this woman not only for now but for all the eternities." In the LDS, when couples have a temple wedding, they are sealed for "time and all eternity."

A Galactica 1980 episode contains the phrase "The glory of the universe is intelligence," very similar to a passage in the LDS Doctrines and Covenants #93: "The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth."

In both Battlestar Galactica and the LDS, the political structure consists of a Council (or Quorum) of the Twelve, and a President.

What's the point of all this? I guess this just seems interesting to me because the majority of the horror and science-fiction projects that mix in any sort of religion usually use Christian, or often Roman Catholic theology (The Day The Earth Stood Still, Star Trek V, the Exorcist, the Omen series, The Seventh Sign, etc.). Other than a recent film called Plan 10 From Outer Space (which I've only read about), I don't know of any other genre feature using Mormon doctrine as a major component to it's mythology.

Sources for information for this article include the Battlestar Galactica Frequently Asked Questions list maintained by John P. LaRocque; quotations and passages from the Journal of Discourses; quotations from the Teachings of Joseph Smith; quotations from Mormon Doctrine; quotations from the Articles of Faith; The Book of Mormon.

The KISS/David Letterman Connection

The story goes that back in '77 or '78, KISS lead guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss were frustrated with how many of the tracks they wrote would get on an album. With all four members wanting to get their stuff on there, each could only have a few, and most albums were heavier on tracks by bassist Gene Simmons and guitarist Paul Stanley. There was talk of wanting to do solo projects or actually quitting the band. As a solution, the idea of ALL four members taking time out to do solo albums was brought up. While the albums would have each band member performing with other musicians, some marketing geniuses proposed releasing them all at once, with matching covers. Fans hungry for new KISS material would be thrilled at having FOUR new KISS albums (and multiplying sales by four wouldn't hurt, either). So, while Gene went off and recorded his album with Cher, Donna Summer, Cheap Trick's Rick Neilsen, Bob Segar, Kate Segal (who later gained fame as Peg on Married With Children), and a ton of other guests and even recorded a Disney song (When You Wish Upon A Star), Paul Stanley put together a band featuring Bob Kulick on guitar (whose brother, Bruce, would later become KISS' lead guitarist, but that's another story...), and recorded an album of very KISS-like tunes. Meanwhile, Peter recorded an album of bluesey, even Motown-tinged tunes and several ballads. Elsewhere, Ace was cutting a rockin' album that would end up being the only one of the four to spawn a "hit;" New York Groove. Playing on Ace's solo album were Anton Fig on drums and Will Lee on bass. Lee would soon become the bass player for the World's Most Dangerous Band, the Late Night with David Letterman house band, lead by Paul Shaffer. A few years into the show, the band's drummer would be replaced by none other than Anton Fig.

After the release of the solo albums, KISS went back into the studio together to record the album, Dynasty. Internal problems continued, however, and Anton Fig was called in to play drums on four tracks on the album. The next album was Unmasked, and Peter Criss was all but gone. While he was listed on the album as still being in the band, Anton Fig actually played drums on every song.

Ace stayed around for the next album, The Elder, which featured Peter's replacement, Eric Carr on drums. After drug, drinking and car-crashing problems, Ace was basically gone for the recording of the next KISS album, Creatures of the Night. Shortly after its release, Ace officially left the band.

Ace had his own home studio, Ace in the Hole, and began recording a demo to shop around which, again, featured Anton Fig on drums. Somewhere in here, Ace recorded an album called We Got Your Rock, that was never released, also with Anton playing drums. Ace got a deal with Megaforce Records and released his new band's self-titled debut, Frehley's Comet, whose drummer was Anton Fig. Anton played on the band's Live+1 EP and on also on Ace's Trouble Walkin' CD.

Anton Fig and Will Lee are still playing with Paul Shaffer in the CBS Orchestra, the house band for Dave's Late Show.

Kid Chunder Meets Bruce Campbell!

Article by special guest Kid Chunder

Hey there kids. Well, it's time for a report of the evenings events, unglamorous as they were.

As referred to me by pal Joe Sherlock, one of our B-movie matinee idols, none other than Bruce Campbell, paid a visit to Barnes & Noble in Medford, Oregon to sign copies of his new book, "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor." Well, I showed up about 20 minutes late, and it looked like a lot of folks must have been there well ahead of time. BS aside, there were 200 or 300 people crowded around Bruce in what was thankfully, a pretty good sized store. Bruce was on the mic and answering questions from the audience when I got there. I was so far away from him I could barely see him through the crowd let alone field a question.

But what a nice guy. There was not a question that he didn't answer with zeal, although I'm sure he's heard most of 'em a thousand times. He pointed to copies of Evil Dead 1, 2 and 3 that folks in the audience had brought to sign. Just in case we didn't know who the hell he was.

He laughed about how his most recent TV show, Jack of all Trades, was what he politely calls a failure having been cancelled after just a season and a half. He said that even his hardcore fans were getting tired of Brisco County Jr ... "because we've seen all 26 episodes 26 times each!"

Some joker asked if there would be an Evil Dead 4. "Gee whiz, I haven't head that one before." he said. But then he proceeded to answer as he usually does, it depends on the market and such, and no studio will probably ever approve it. Because some 22 year old Hollywood executive is calling all the shots.

Someone asked him about some other random project he'd obviously never heard of, to which Bruce replied, "Ahhh, you must have read about that on the 'internet'. That's why I have an official site." (www.bruce-campbell.com)

Then he talked about Bubba Ho-Tep, which I think he said they finished shooting. Bruce basically nutshelled it like this:

"I play a 68 year old Elvis living in a retirement home. Ozzie Davis plays a guy who thinks he's Jack Kennedy and also lives at the home. In case you don't know, Ozzie Davis is like an 84 year old black man. And we team up to fight off a mummy that is sneaking into the home to suck the life out of the residents."

So that got a good round of applause.

More audience reaction came for a guy who asked Bruce what his favorite movie was. Bruce was like, "Uhhhhh ... you go first. What's yours?"

The guy proceeded to list about 4 movies, none of which were Bruce's. Bruce is like, "Y'know, Blockbuster is right down the street ..." as if to say, hit the bricks kid. Big applause.

Well Bruce held a good Qx but I don't remember all of it. He told us to wrap it up, and he'd sign autographs after that. I actually meant to buy a copy of his book and have him sign that but they were sold out. So was Waldenbooks from what I understand. So I was kind of outta luck. I did bring some Army of Darkness comic books though.

It was about 10 minutes into waiting in line when Tobey Maguire showed up. In case you don't know Tobey, he starred in Pleasantville and in Wonder Boys with Michael Douglas. He is also playing Peter Parker in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movie. He and Bruce shared a scene in the movie. So Bruce introduced him to the crowd as "Ladies and Gentlemen, Tobey Maguire, star of Spider-Man!" He just mingled through the crowd for about 5 minutes, took a few pictures, and left. Just a walk-on. Didn't want to take away from Bruce, I guess.

I couldn't believe how many people commented on him. "He's so SHORT! I can't believe he's that SHORT! I didn't think SPIDER-MAN would be so SHORT! Hell, I could play Spider-Man!" All within earshot of him, of course. Oh well, them's the breaks. In their defense, he appears to be about 5 foot nothin' ... but that's no reason to whisper and point.

I don't know what the hell he's doing in Medford. Maybe crashing at Bruce's house. Maybe he lives here. Oh yeah, Bruce pretty much confirmed that he lives in or around Medford. He said that he and his wife are doing a documentary on some local issue ... probably logging & environmental stuff. He said when you move out here you tend to get involved in local issues. So I guess that means he's out here.

So then I waited in line for about an hour and a half while the line slowly inched towards Bruce's desk. Talked some trash with other Bruce fans for a while. Then we got to the front and it was rush rush rush. He had some handlers, Barnes & Noble employees I think, trying to keep things moving.

I gave Bruce my comics to sign and we traded a comment or two about them. Didn't have a chance to ask any good questions about Phantasm 5 or anything else. He's like, okay buddy, thanks for coming (ie NEXT PLEASE!) so I said hey, can I get a picture? I also brought my camera, you dolts! Of course I did. Bruce had a chair set up next to him so the patron could plunk down in it, hand the camera to the Barnes & Noble stormtrooper, and strike a cheesy pose. Everyone who took a snapshot with Bruce, Bruce was like okay, let's laugh like I just told a joke. SNAP! Okay, let's do thumbs-up. SNAP! Okay, let's look confused. SNAP! So he was having fun, and it was fun for everyone. I got thumbs-up, so we'll see how that turns out when I get it developed.

And since his photo chair is off to the side, when you get up he's already got the next person in line standing in front of him with a book, or whatever, to sign. So that's that. All over pretty quick. No witty banter, no one on one. But c'mon, the guy has like 300 people all wanting to get 5 or 10 things signed and ask him questions.

No, I thought Bruce was great. Super friendly, good attitude, having lots of fun with the fans. There was no stupid question or anything he wouldn't talk about. He really worked the crowd for the opening Qx and you could tell, that even the people who got dragged along and didn't really know who he was, liked him. So I was glad I went. It's just that it was a long wait for not much Bruce. But such is life.

Later taters. - Kid Chunder