Nat Geo's Two Takes on Disney Animation

Here's a post that's pretty frivolous, but hardcore Disney fans (and I know you're out there) might dig it.

In August 1963 National Geographic Magazine ran a lengthy article titled "The Magic Worlds of Walt Disney." It's become a true collectors issue among Disneyphiles, and you can checkout the entire article online over on Modern Mechanix if you so wish.

Four pages of the article illustrate how animated films are made with Micky Mouse giving Mr. G.O. Graphic a guided tour of the studio as other Disney characters work on The Sword in the Stone (1963)...

Fourteen years later in November 1977 National Geographic basically dusted off the 1963 illustrations for reuse in their children's World magazine...

... although it's been completely redrawn, and this time Mr. G.O. Graphic is just simply a "human visitor" who gets a peek at the production of The Rescuers (1977)...

I think I prefer the 1963 version of the illustrations, and I thought the name of Mr. G.O. Graphic was pretty clever.  I also like how Micky Mouse was dressed in 1963...

There's a lot of differences between the illustrations.  Print this next image out, and hand it to a child who you'd like to keep busy for a while...

I wonder if National Geographic ever considered using these illustrations again.  I doubt it, but I like to specualate what a 1980's, 1990's or 2000's version would have looked like.

 

Movies at the Mall

A movie theater located in the local shopping mall just seems sooo last century to me.  I think their popularity probably peaked sometime back in the early 1980's.  In fact the mall that's closest to me, Twelve Oaks, converted its movie theater space into a food court about 10 years ago (food courts seem sooo last century also).

The Movies at Twelve Oaks in Novi MI, are now just a memory, but we can relive its opening in 1977 with their informative flier...

Wow, I saw a lot of movies here, but surprisingly, I'm not very nostalgic for the place (I am nostalgic for that $1.25 admission). Even as a little kid I wasn't impressed by the shoebox-size theaters.  Although the flier points out that the theater's small size means the projected image is sharper - a small screen is now a selling point. Congratulations to those copywriters who spun a negative into a positive.

I did see George Romero's Dawn of the Dead at a Saturday midnight showing when I was a teen at Twelve Oaks, and a shopping mall cinema is probably the ideal location for this particular film.

New Year's Resolution

Hey it's 2013, and this is my first post of the new year.

You know, with the new year ending in the number 13 I thought I'd hear news reports of people stricken with a serious case of triskaidekaphobia, but I guess the entire media was preoccupied with the whole “fiscal cliff” thing.

Anyways I digress, a lot of people make New Year's resolutions around fitness.  "I'm going to loose weight" or "I'm going to exercise more" are resolutions made with the best of intentions that are mostly forgotten by February.  So to kick of the new year I thought I look back at a once very popular, but now basically kaput fitness system.

Personal confession time, I tried the Cybergenics system back in the 1990's...

My Cybergenics system didn't come with the entire array of supplements shown in the 1992 ad above (I wonder what's in the bottle with the eyedropper top on the very end).   There's some high prices on that ad, and lucky I didn't pay that much for my system.  I truly didn't expect to look like Franco Santoriello (the bodybuilder flexing in the upper right corner), but I figured even if it helps a little bit it was worth it.

Cybergenics was heavily advertized on TV.   Maybe you remember this sexy commercial...



If you didn't like that romance cover model-like spot, how about a "humorous" one with a former SNL funnyman...



Where have you gone, Joe Piscopo ?  A nation turns its lonely eyes to you (Woo, woo, woo).

Did it work?  Well I didn't find any magic in those supplements that came with the system. The real key to the Cybergenics program was in the small 5 X 4 inch "Phase 1 Manual."

And more specifically the "Zero-Effort Principle" training regime that was covered on 15 pages of the aproxamatly 55 page manual...

What was the "Zero-Effort Principle?"   It sounds easy, "zero-effort," but in reality it should be called "maximum-effort."  This training principle is basically to go heavy as possible.  You would first determine what is the maximum weight you could lift in one rep for a given exercise, and then work with 90% or 80% of that weight until failure. For the next set go with 70% or 50% to failure, followed with 40% to failure.  In order to correctly archive this you'll need a spotter/workout partner, and a proper gym.  Sorry if you were thinking you could do this all alone in your basement with a set of free weights.

Anyways the Cybergenics people were at one time making a lot of money off the system, and branched out with a number of different products like a "mega-fat loss system" called Cybertrim...

Wait a minute, the same model that was featured in the Cybergenics print ad is used in this ad too. So what is it?  Did he use Cybergenics or Cybertrim?  Hmm, something doesn't seem right.

The original Cybergenics manufacturer is no longer in business, but after a little Googling it appears someone has obtained the Cybergenics name, and it's back in some kind of fashion.  I don't know anything about this "new" Cybergenics system, but as Mike Brady once told his son Greg, "Caveat emptor."