Anybody Remember Captain America?

When I was a little kind -- I must have been 8 years old -- I remember watching this TV movie about Captain America... He drove a motorcycle and the white rings on his mighty shield were transparent, and a permanent part of his costume was a blue motorcycle helmet with white wings painted onto the sides.

VERY silly stuff!

This was 1979, before Marvel Comics realized that they didn't have the first clue about how to make movies. They'd just license their material to TV networks and pray for the best.

...and they usually got the worst, lol.

I mean, they had one RESOUNDING success with the show THE INCREDIBLE HULK, but only because the writer/director who made the pilot movie -- Kenneth Johnson -- knew what he was doing, and knew how to adapt from one medium to another.

There were also attempts at SPIDER-MAN (and considering the recent success of the film franchise, one has to wonder how a production company could foul THAT particular franchise up) and DR. STRANGE that I know of.

CAPTAIN AMERICA was clearly intended to be a pilot movie for the anticipated series, but it was just pretty damned BAD.

Still... I was a kid, and my tastes were admittedly "less discerning," to put it nicely, hee-hee.

I had a black & white TV in my room and I remember watching this train-wreck with my little brother, just enjoying the fact that one of my favorite super heroes was on the screen in flesh-and-blood... and spandex!

Then later that same year (I was maybe 9 by then) the network (and I don't remember which network at this point released A SEQUEL!!! CAPTAIN AMERICA II: DEATH TOO SOON!!!

You've got the very groovy -- '70s style! -- Steve Rodgers bombin' around in the Mystery Machine, and every half hour or so he pops out the back on his shiny bike, eagle-winged blue helmet ablazin' in the sun!


I think a part of me suspected that I was watching rubbish even back then, but I could stomach it. I simply zoned through all the melodramatic dialogue and waited eagerly for the all-too-short action scenes.


And, I'm not proud to say, I was disappointed when Captain America didn't become a weekly series. (I was a kid, cut me a break. I still had fond memories of KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK, wondering why they didn't launch a KISS Saturday morning cartoon show already.)

Just over a decade passes and I'm living in L. A. and I hear the greatest news EVER... They're doing Captain America again! This time for the Big Screen!!!

Well all right!

Burton's BATMAN was good! (Though, compared to Nolan's BATMAN BEGINS Burton's attempt was woefully lacking... But at the time that was the most serious adaptation of Comic Book Superhero to the Big Screen.) (Also, this is forgetting -- as I did at the time -- Richard Donner's SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE which, looking back, was really the best superhero movie until Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN probably.) I think I may have even spied a picture or two of this new Big Screen Cap' in a geek-zine or somewhere. HE WASN'T WEARING A MOTORCYCLE HELMET THIS TIME!!!

But I do my time in L. A. and make my way back to Texas, and the movie just never is released!!!

WTF?!!

I think it isn't until the mid-90s when HBO gets ahold of the rights to air it that I FINALLY see the flick.

I remember wanting to like it a bit more than I did.

But it stayed true to his 1940's Nazi-era orgins... A life-of-death battle with the Red Skull finds him riding a rocket and plummeting into Arctic waters... He awakened generations later (in 1990 rather than in the 1960s, as in the comics, but that's completely understandable)...

It was a great effort, really. The filmmakers and actors took the project seriously -- no Burton-esque hamming-it-up here.

It just didn't quite have the emotional UMPH! I like out my of adventure flicks.

But would ya believe it? They NEVER made a sequel! I was waiting for Part 2 to make it all good. But nope.

Anyway, recently Marvel got the very clever idea to make 2-D animation Marvel heroes movies and release them straight to dvd, and ULTIMATE AVENGERS: THE MOVIE came out last year and re-whetted my appetite for Cap'. It was good. I felt something when I watched it. And the hero has never been COOLER!

ULTIMATE AVENGERS II was good, too... though not quite AS food. And the more recent THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN is the weakest yet. (Not Reb-Brown-in-a-blue-helmet-with-eagle-wings-painted-on-the-sides bad, mind you... Just not as strong as the first ULTIMATE AVENGERS dvd.)


So anyway, why am I going on about Captain America?

Because... um...

Last week I tracked down copies of the 2 TV movies on vhs and a German release of the 1990 film on dvd...

And they came in the mail today, lol.

Well, not the first TV movie. I'm still waiting for that to arrive.

But I have CAPTAIN AMERICA (1990) and CAPTAIN AMERICA II: DEATH TOO SOON now, lol.

Hey, my brother listens to '80s music and watches G.I. JOE and HE-MAN AND THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE to revisit his youth, I watch bad Captain America flicks.

And Gnomey, honey... Please tell me you love me anyway, lol. (I can almost PROMISE you that I won't ever ask you to watch them with me, hehe. Probably.)

Speaking of my Goddess, I should probably get to bed.

OH!!!

For any John Cleese fans out there, iTunes has the complete series of FAWLTY TOWERS in audio form!!! The sight-gags that are integral to the story are described by for us by Manuel!!! It's really a laugh, and each episodes begins with an interview with John Cleese talking about how he and then-wife Connie Booth came up with the ideas for the episode! VERY COOL!!!

PEACE-OUT, Y'ALL!!!

:D