Tag Archives: blogging

May 16, 2021 · 3:52 pm

NJCAA COLLEGE FOOTBALL RESULTS

Like the NAIA, the NJCAA’s 2020 college football season extended into this year because of Covid delays.

NJCAA

Snow College Badgers helmetONE-POINT WONDER – The closest game for this time around pitted the SNOW COLLEGE BADGERS against the home-standing IOWA WESTERN COLLEGE REIVERS. The Reivers led their opponents by a score of 7-0 in the 1st Quarter, 13-8 at Halftime and 27-18 to end the 3rd Quarter. In the 4th the Badgers came roaring from behind for a 31-30 victory.

Navarro CollegeTEXAS TUSSLE – The NAVARRO COLLEGE BULLDOGS welcomed the TYLER COLLEGE APACHES. The opening Quarter ended with the Bulldogs on top 14-10, which became a 24-19 edge at the Half. In the 3rd Quarter Navarro College extended their lead to 38-29 before having to hold on against a furious Apaches rally in the 4th. The final count was Bulldogs 53  Tyler College 50. Continue reading →

7 Comments

Filed under college football

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

May 15, 2021 · 1:59 am

ALL TWENTY ALL-WINNERS ISSUES FROM THE 1940s

Mascot and guitar

Balladeer’s Blog

Last week’s look at over two dozen 1940s superheroes from Marvel Comics (called Timely Comics back then) was very popular. This time around here’s my breakdown on several issues of All Winners Comics, featuring a mixed bag of their biggest heroes of the time. The one and only STAN LEE, already a master of self-promotion in the 1940s, makes cameo appearances in a few issues.

For information on the superheroes in these adventures click HERE.

all winners 1ALL WINNERS COMICS #1 (June 1941)

Story 1: Carnival of Fiends

Heroes: Human Torch (original) and Toro

Villain: Mr Matzu

Synopsis: The Human Torch and Toro clash with the espionage network of Japanese Imperial Spy Matzu when he tries to sabotage Chinese-Americans who are holding a fundraiser for their native land’s military efforts against Japan’s occupation forces.

Comment: America had not yet entered the war, so this is an interesting piece. It’s set in New York City.

Story 2: The Order of the Hood

Hero: The Black Marvel

Villains: The Order of the Hood

Synopsis: In Los Angeles, a cloaked and hooded gang of bank robbers use machine guns and a solar death ray to rob banks and slaughter anyone in their way. The Black Marvel repeatedly clashes with them and defeats them in the end.

Comment: After the villains capture the Black Marvel they do a pirate television broadcast to show them executing the hero, but he turns the tables on them. There were indeed television broadcasts at the time, but going out to thousands instead of millions like today.

Story 3: The Case of the Hollow Men Continue reading →

15 Comments

Filed under Superheroes

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

May 14, 2021 · 2:21 am

BEYOND THE UNIVERSE (1981): MOVIE REVIEW

beyond the universeBEYOND THE UNIVERSE (1981) – Well, Balladeer’s Blog has come to the last film in the Anne Spielberg, Robert Emenegger and Allan Sandler batch. If you’re new to the Spielneggerdler oeuvre, various combinations of the trio churned out no less than TEN low-budget, mostly awful sci-fi films in 1980 and 1981. Yes, you read that right. Ten movies in just two years, with results about what you’d expect from that “quantity not quality” approach.

I reviewed eight of them in a movie marathon spirit HERE (Warp Speed, Escape From DS-3, The Killings At Outpost Zeta, Captive, PSI Factor, Laboratory, The Perfect Woman and Time Warp). I reviewed Lifepod, which I consider to be the best of the Spielneggerdler output, separately HERE and now I’m wrapping up with Beyond The Universe.

Going in, we know we’ll be getting reused actors and recycled special effects from the other nine films, assorted offspring of big-name talents of the past, and one or two “stars” in the embarrassing twilight of their careers. Usually a few members of the Cameron Mitchell clan, or even Cameron himself, tag along.

I’ve previously noted how a few of the movies set in E-Space (Emenegger Space) used the name Starfleet for their futuristic space travel organization. This time around we get a global government called the United Federation.

The year is 2081. We learn that in 1993 and 1996 nuclear wars broke out involving China, the Soviet Union and the United States. (Hey, we can look back and laugh at those wars now, but back THEN …) Those conflicts were followed in 1999 by a Five Year Civil War in which what was left of humanity fought each other until, ultimately, the United Federation was established. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

May 12, 2021 · 2:37 am

IN THE YEAR TEN THOUSAND (1890): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

edgar fawcett

Insert your own “Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?” joke here.

IN THE YEAR TEN THOUSAND (1890) – Written by Edgar Fawcett, this odd little work first appeared in the political and literary publication The Arena in February 1890. Fawcett authored some eccentric pieces like The New King Arthur: An Opera Without Music in 1885. In The Year Ten Thousand is written in verse and is in the form of dialogues. Some sources maintain the work was intended as a short play.   

The story opens in 10,000 AD in the sprawling megalopolis called Manattia, where New York City and most of the surrounding area used to be. A pair of citizens in that future location discuss assorted aspects of history and the scientific changes which led to the state of their almost ideal society.

Electric airboats fill the skies and in the year 10,000 a typical family outing would include a weekend flight over the North Pole and back. Massive libraries like the one in Manattia contain 12 million books or more. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under Ancient Science Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

May 11, 2021 · 2:50 am

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: NAIA CHAMPIONS CROWNED

The Covid-prolonged NAIA college football season at last came to a close with last night’s title tilt.

Lindsey_Wilson_KYNATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – Grambling Stadium was the site of the NAIA title game. The last two teams standing were the LINDSEY WILSON COLLEGE BLUE RAIDERS and the NORTHWESTERN (IA) COLLEGE RED RAIDERS. This all-Raiders affair saw Lindsey Wilson College go up 7-0 in the 1st Quarter. Continue reading →

13 Comments

Filed under college football

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

May 10, 2021 · 3:49 pm

AMERICAN TELEVISION: 1940

mascot chair and bottle picBalladeer’s Blog’s recurring feature Forgotten Television goes way back this time around with a look at the state of the new broadcasting technology in 1940. Great Britain and the Soviet Union had been making as many, if not more, milestone achievements in tv programming through 1939. However, World War Two brought an end to BBC television broadcasting at 12:35PM on September 1st of that year. The Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey’s Gala Premier was the last item broadcast via television in the U.K. until 1946, when the BBC resumed programming with that very same cartoon.

The United States, of course, did not enter the war until December of 1941, and with Great Britain and the Soviet Union preoccupied with the raging conflict, America took center stage in the future of television broadcasting.

*** 1940 ***

1940 television setJANUARY – The FCC holds hearings on potentially licensing television broadcasting. It will not finalize its actions until April 30th of 1941, but in the meantime stations around the country continue pioneering tv programming.

FEBRUARY 21st – A simulcast of NBC News With Lowell Thomas debuts, televising Thomas’ daily radio news program on Station W2XBS in New York. The tv side of the simulcast would only last until July 30th. 

FEBRUARY 25th – Station W2XBS-TV broadcasts the very first televised ice hockey game. The New York Rangers host the Montreal Canadiens at Madison Square Garden.

FEBRUARY 28th – Historic Madison Square Garden marks another milestone: the very first basketball game ever televised. The Fordham University Rams host the University of Pittsburgh Panthers.

MARCH 10th – The Rockefeller Center studio of NBC presents the very first television broadcast of the New York Metropolitan Opera. Excerpts from 5 operas are presented. Continue reading →

6 Comments

Filed under Forgotten Television, Neglected History

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

May 8, 2021 · 12:48 am

MARVEL COMICS’ 1940s SUPERHEROES

AwsBalladeer’s Blog takes a look at those often forgotten Marvel Comics characters from the Golden Age, when the company was known as Timely Comics. Unlike Captain America, Bucky, Sub-Mariner, etc these figures never became big hits in the Silver or Bronze Ages. But Marvel did try retconning some of them to fit in with the modern day.

blonde phantomBLONDE PHANTOM

Created By: Stan Lee, Charles Nicholas and Syd Shores

Secret Identity: Louise Grant

First Appearance: All-Select Comics #11 (September 1946) Her final Golden Age appearance came in 1949.

Origin: Wanting to fight crime and foreign spies without endangering the lives of people close to her, Louise Grant, secretary for private investigator and former OSS man Mark Mason, donned a costume and fought the forces of evil as the Blonde Phantom.

Powers: The Blonde Phantom was in peak human condition and was more agile than an Olympic gymnast. She was a master of unarmed combat and was also incredibly proficient with her .45 handgun. In addition, this heroine was an expert investigator.

Comment: One time, the Blonde Phantom was assigned to missions by a figure calling itself Father Time (no relation to the 1940s superhero of that name). That mysterious figure had Grim Reaper qualities and sicced the Blonde Phantom on evildoers whose deaths he had ordained.

Louise Grant’s boss Mark Mason had the hots for the Blonde Phantom but overlooked his secretary Louise, who downplayed her beauty in her secret identity.

blazing skullTHE BLAZING SKULL

Created By: Bob Davis

Secret Identity: Mark Todd

First Appearance: Mystic Comics #5 (March 1941) His final Golden Age appearance came in May of 1942.

Origin: Reporter Mark Todd was covering the war between China and the Imperial Japanese invasion forces before the U.S. entered World War Two. Taking shelter from a Japanese bombing, Todd entered a cave which was the entrance to the subterranean lair of the Skull Men, a mystic race of skull and flame-headed humanoids who kept their existence unknown to the world. The Skull-Men taught Mark Todd some of their secrets, which granted him superpowers with which he fought the forces of evil as the Blazing Skull.

Powers: The Blazing Skull was strong enough to lift 10 tons, could make his head appear to be nothing but a skull surrounded by flames and was immune to fire and heat. He could completely control flames and also possessed a healing factor which let him recover from almost any injury.

Comment: This figure was one of the Golden Age superheroes conjured up by a godlike Rick Jones to battle the Kree soldiers of Ronan the Accuser during the Kree-Skrull War in 1972. Continue reading →

15 Comments

Filed under Superheroes

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

May 5, 2021 · 5:20 am

FOOL KILLER FIFTY-SIX: MAY 1912

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT IN THE 1850s, CLICK HERE 

fool killer picPART 56 – Some of the Fool Killer’s targets in the May of 1912 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s version: 

*** Columnist Al Fairbrother, who wrote so many columns pandering to different groups of readers that he would often get caught having published hard-hitting editorials on both sides of a particular issue. The latest instance that irked Pearson and his Fool Killer was a pair of columns Fairbrother wrote, one bashing Theodore Roosevelt for thinking about running for president again and one praising him for it.

*** The Meat Trust, for, as usual “somehow” (wink) obtaining favorable court rulings okaying its dilution of beef products with unlabeled amounts of dog-meat and horse-meat.

*** The latest inane fashion fad: women’s hats with batteries in them to supply power to electric lights which decorated said hats. 

*** The Taft Administration and other federal bodies responsible for trying every trick in the book to harass The Appeal To Reason, a Girard, KS newspaper which courageously took on Big Business and Wall Street. The paper was always being dragged into court over the slightest pretext with even the post office being used to harass it and its subscribers (like the way the Biden Administration is trying to wipe out dissenting opinions by tagging them as “domestic terrorism”). Continue reading →

5 Comments

Filed under Mythology, Neglected History, opinion

Tagged as , , , , , ,

May 4, 2021 · 9:31 am

REMARKABLE EXPERIENCES IN ANOTHER WORLD (1899): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

pharaoh's brokerPHARAOH’S BROKER: BEING THE VERY REMARKABLE EXPERIENCES IN ANOTHER WORLD OF ISIDOR WERNER WRITTEN BY HIMSELF (1899) – Written by Elmer Dwiggins under the name Ellsworth Douglass. For obvious reasons I shortened the title for the blog post headline.

Isidor Werner is a successful wheeling and dealing speculator on the grain market in Chicago. His old teacher from Heidelberg, Professor Anderwelt, comes to him seeking financial backing for an antigravity device he is working on. In exchange for 90% of the profits from the device (seems reasonable), Werner agrees.

Anderwelt uses the funding not only on the antigravity technology but for the construction of a spaceship. The professor convinces his former student Isidor to ride along with him on a trip to Mars. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Filed under Ancient Science Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

May 2, 2021 · 2:27 pm

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: NAIA SEMIFINAL RESULTS

The Covid-delayed college football postseason in the NAIA continues.

Northwestern College Red RaidersFIRST SEMIFINAL – The NORTHWESTERN (IA) COLLEGE RED RAIDERS took down the two-time defending national champions, the MORNINGSIDE COLLEGE MUSTANGS. The Red Raiders visited the champs and spent most of the game chasing them. A 14-9 1st Quarter edge for the Mustangs became 27-23 by Halftime. The 3rd Quarter ended with Morningside College on top 34-29 but in the 4th Northwestern College roared back to win the game 44-41. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under college football

Tagged as , , , , , , ,