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Kevin Lauderdale is excited to see the release of the second volume of the Star Trek historical work, These are the Voyages.  This volume looks at the second season of the classic television series in great detail.

From the website:

• An Astounding Wealth of New Information About Star Trek
• Access to Gene Roddenberry's private letters, script notes, and other production details including set design, casting and editing.
• Hundreds of previously unpublished insights and recollections from actors, writers, directors, producers, and crew of the series.
• New interview material from creator Gene Roddenberry, privately recorded before his passing and made public here for the first time.
• Unique insight into genius Gene Roddenberry's creative process and instincts as he guided and shaped this ground-breaking television series.
• A first-ever interview with Gene Coon, Star Trek producer and writer whose extraordinary contributions helped to define the series.

Links of Interest

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Kevin Lauderdale is back with a look at a documentary on the Kenner Star Wars toys phenomenon. Plastic Galaxy.

From the Plastic Galaxy website:

When Star Wars landed in the theaters, it introduced audiences to a galaxy filled with heroes and villains, robots and space ships, and a dizzying variety of alien life. But when the lights came up, they all disappeared...

Unless you had all the toys. In which case, the adventure never had to end.

In backyards, playgrounds, basements, and bedrooms, Star Wars toys helped kids re-enact scenes from their favorite movies, and create entirely new dangers for Luke Skywalker and his friends to face. They were lusted after on holidays and birthdays, swapped with great cunning out on the school yard, and carefully collected like fine treasures. Like no toys before them, the action figures, space ships, play sets, and props were a phenomenon that swept the nation with as much force as the film that inspired them. Along the way they transformed both the toy and movie industries, earned those behind them vast amounts of wealth, and ultimately created a hobby that, 30 years later, still holds sway over not only the people who grew up with the toys, but also an entirely new generation of fans.

Plastic Galaxy is a documentary that explores the groundbreaking and breathtaking world of Star Wars toys. Through interviews with former Kenner employees, experts, authors, and collectors, it looks at the toys’ history, their influence, and the fond and fervent feelings they elicit today.

The film, which will be released on DVD, also includes tours of some of the top collections -- comprising prototypes, bootlegs, foreign toys, and all manner of surprises. DVD extras, including micro-documentaries and extended interviews, make Plastic Galaxy a prize for not only newer fans, but also long-time collectors.

The DVD will be Region 0, meaning it will be playable on any DVD player or computer in any country. Even in galaxies far, far away...

Plastic Galaxy will be released on DVD in January 14, 2014. To continue to receive updates and news, please subscribe to our mailing list, follow us on Twitter, and friend us on Facebook. For more information, feel free to write us at info(at)plasticgalaxymovie.com, or use the feedback form.

Links of Interest

Comment on the episode here or write john@chronicrift.com or call 888-866-9010.

The War of the Worlds is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1898).

The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a sustaining show (it ran without commercial breaks), adding to the program's realism. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated.

In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage and panic by certain listeners, who had believed the events described in the program were real. The program's news-bulletin format was described as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast. Despite these complaints--or perhaps in part because of them--the episode secured Welles' fame as a dramatist.

Kevin Lauderdale returns with an all new episode.  There have been many other productions of Welles' infamous broadcast since then and Kevin wants to bring a few of them, including the Jeff Wayne musical, to your attention.

Links of Interest

Comment on the episode here or write john@chronicrift.com or call 888-866-9010.

Barnaby was a comic strip which began 20 April 1942 in the newspaper PM. Created by Crockett Johnson, who is best known today for his children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon, the strip featured a cherubic-looking five-year-old and his far-from-cherubic fairy godfather, Jackeen J. O'Malley, a short, cigar-smoking man with four tiny wings. With a distinctive appearance because of its use of typography, the strip had numerous reprints and was adapted into a 1940s stage production.

Fantagraphics Publishing is releasing the first volume of collected strips and Kevin Lauderdale wants to bring this to your attention.  Kevin explains the strip and its distinctive style in this all new episode. 

You can find all this work by visiting our Amazon store.  In doing so, you not only get a great reference work, but you also support The Chronic Rift Network.  Thank you.

Comment on the episode here or write john@chronicrift.com or call 888-866-9010.  Take a moment to rate the episode by using our star system at the bottom of this entry.

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Are you a Monty Python fan?  Ever wonder if you're getting all the jokes based on some of the more obscure (for you) references?  Well, there's a new reference guide out that covers every single episode from the classic series and explains in detail just what the joke is and it's come to Kevin's attention.

You can find all this work by visiting our Amazon store.  In doing so, you not only get a great reference work, but you also support The Chronic Rift Network.  Thank you.

Comment on the episode here or write john@chronicrift.com or call 888-866-9010.  Take a moment to rate the episode by using our star system at the bottom of this entry.

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Kevin Lauderdale continues his holiday children's books suggestions with several Christmas themed works that you can share with your young ones.

You can find all the books Kevin talks about in this episode by visiting our Amazon store.  In doing so, you not only get some great works to read with your children, but you also support The Chronic Rift Network.  Thank you.

Comment on the episode here or write john@chronicrift.com or call 888-866-9010.  Take a moment to rate the episode by using our star system at the bottom of this entry.

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While technology has advanced in so many ways, including in the world of entertainment, there are still limits and these limits are sometimes imposed, not by the technology's limitations, but by business itself.  One example of this is the need to impose regional settings on DVDs and DVD players.  Kevin has gotten himself a multi-region player and wants to bring two Region 2-only DVD's to your attention in this episode.

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Kevin presents a special longer episode this month as he features his first interview.  John Brosio is an artist who has contributed to the Star Wars As You Wish Helmet Project, a charity event where artists create different renditions of Boba Fett's helmet.  You can learn more about John at his website and check out the As You Wish Project's Facebook page for more information there.  You can save the episode by right clicking the image on the left.  Please comment on this episode here or write john@chronicrift.com or call 888-866-9010.

LAT is Mohamed Nor Khalid, a Malasian graphic novelist and it has come to Kevin's attention that his works are more available than he realized.  Kevin tells you about the type of stories LAT writes and about his artisitic style.

Please comment on this episode here or by writing john@chronicrift.com or by calling 888-866-9010.

You can pick up a copies of LAT's graphic novels by visiting our Amazon store through our link.  In purchasing it there, you not only get a great movie, but you support the Chronic Rift network.  Thank you.

There have been many classic movies released to Blu-Ray, but Yellow Submarine has really impressed Kevin Lauderdale.  From the technical aspects to the print transfer to the extras included in the set, Kevin is very impressed with this release and feels it is a great addition to any Beatles fan's collection.

Please comment on this episode here or by writing john@chronicrift.com or by calling 888-866-9010.

You can pick up a copy of this movie by visiting our Amazon store through our link.  In purchasing it there, you not only get a great movie, but you support the Chronic Rift network.  Thank you.

It Has Come to My Attention
Yellow Submarine Blu-Ray
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