SPOCK FEAT

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Leonard Nimoy. In his honor, Your Humble Narrator wrote this short “fan fiction” parody/tribute to Mr. Spock for New Times blogs.

This weekend I also crossed a long-coveted title off of my sci-fi bucket list: Courtesy of the one-of-kind Friday movie nights of a film historian pal, I got to see, projected from an actual celluloid print no less, the 1930 sci-fi musical comedy Just Imagine.

Set in the far-off date of 1980, when people have numbers instead of names and commute in little airplanes instead of cars, this lavish tale of romance and a trip to Mars is probably best known for supplying futuristic stock footage to sci-fi serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. It’s pretty corny and not exactly crisply paced, but it looks great, has some slightly risqué or otherwise topical pre-Code gags, and a likable cast led by El Brendel as a funny Swede who’s been revived from fifty years earlier. It also has some good songs, the best being “The Drinking Song” and “Never Swat a Fly.”

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In memory of Leonard Nimoy…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week’s honoree is the giant three-headed snake that Mr. Spock, with oddly un-Vulcan-like aggression, zaps with his phaser in the 1972 Aurora model—the very first Star Trek “character” kit. The box art was exceedingly cool...

…but the paint job I gave this kit back in the ‘70s ruined it, as my abject manual skills ruined most of my beloved models back in those days.

The Spock kit has been reissued recently, and my pal Stan kindly sent it to me for Christmas, but I’m afraid to attempt it—I doubt my painting skills have significantly improved since I was 11.