Doctor Who

Doctor Who has been a favorite of mine since pre-school for me.  I remember when I was a little kid, Doctor Who was shown during the day on PBS, and my first experience with the show was the episode "The Robot" first of the Tom Baker episodes.  I was too young to really pick up on the nuances and really science fiction aspects to the program but I knew I liked it.  I remember the first time I heard that theme music I thought it was scary and mysterious, it gave the show that much more appeal.

Over the years I grew to really love the show and around 7th or 8th grade I considered myself a Wholigan (I know it's Whovian but it sounds better).  It was around this time that I discovered the other actors who played The Doctor, and have grown to really like all of the actors who played him.   To this day Jon Pertwee is my absolute favorite!  I've always liked his cool and collected approach to solving problems.  He was kind of the James Bond of the Doctors with his Venusian Aikido, his ties to U.N.I.T. (spy organization) and the various gadgets and vehicles that he had at his disposal.

I found my love for the show wasn't really shared with a lot of American kids my age, most of my peers hadn't heard of it and when I would lend them a VHS tape they just didn't get it or thought the special effects were too terrible.  It was very much a niche market back then rather than being the hipster icon that the character is today.

I've gone to a few of the conventions and have met quite a few of the classic actors like Peter Davidson (5th Doctor) and Sylvester McCoy (7th Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Deborah Watling (Victoria), Nicola Bryant (Peri), and Gabriel Woolf (Sutekh from "The Pyramids Of Mars").    My brother even directed and produced a fan made film "Time And Again", which I helped a bit with and also had a bit part (I'm not an actor and never really had aspirations to).  It was fun and we had some good feedback on it over the years.

I've watched the newer program and feel that it's lost a lot of the feel of the original show.  In a lot of ways I think it's been dumbed down a bit (Doctor Who was never really serious minded sci-fi in the first place).  Every once in a while I'll come across an episode that hits the mark but mostly it's a miss in my opinion.  I still enjoy the original show and will remain a fan of the series.

Shogun Warriors

Back in the Christmas of 1977  I went with my parents to the mall to ask Santa Claus what I wanted for Christmas.  I sat in his lap and told him exactly what I wanted,  A Shogun Warrior!  I distincly remember telling him I wanted "Gaiking" but would've been happy with any of them.  I was sure to tell my parents just what I told Santa, mainly because I was already hip to the Santa gig.

Later that Christmas I notice an oblong christmas package with my name on it and knew exactly what it was.  I tore it open only to find "Raideen" (aka Reideen and Raydeen) Shogun Warrior on the cover.  I wasn't disappointed, in fact I had mixed up the names and thought Raideen was Gaiking.  No matter, I ripped open the package and put all of the sticker decals on him and he was ready to play with!

If you're not familiar with The Shogun Warriors, they are giant robots with human pilots who fight monsters and save humanity.  Based on various animated series (mostly by Go Nagai) that were collected and presented in the U.S. as "Force Five".  It had a very short run here but Marvel Comics picked up the series and ran it for 19 issues.

The toys were really cool, many of them had spring action missiles and spring action fits to knock down the bad guys.  It also knocks down baby brothers which I found out gets you in trouble.  The only bad guy that Mattel got around to making was Godzilla, I eventually got him for my birthday the following year.

Over the years I've seemed to have lost them somehow, I'm not sure how you can lose two 2 ft. high robots but I did.  At one time I had a Raideen coloring book, and I've since bought "Mazinga" and "Gaiking" and other memorabilia like Shogun Warrior Colorforms, Comics, Models and some Raideen Children's Board Books (in Japanese).  It's a series that still captures my imagination today.

Airwolf

This was a great action series! I remember watching this show with my family and then acting out scenes from the show with my brothers. This is definitely a product of the cold-war and it captures that era perfectly.

Here's a synopsis from Wikipedia.

The series' protagonist is Stringfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent), a loner who lives in a cabin outside of Los Angeles, CA in a mountain resort area called Big Bear, accompanied only by his Bluetick Coonhound, "Tet", and the surrounding wildlife. Hawke is a recluse, spending most of his time alone with his priceless collection of paintings which he inherited from his grandfather (the art was a gift for his grandmother), and serenading eagles with his equally priceless Stradivarius cello. His only real friend and mentor is the older, eternally cheerful Dominic Santini (Ernest Borgnine) who raised Stringfellow and his brother Saint John (pronounced "sin-jin") after their parents died. Stringfellow's father and Dominic flew in World War II together.

Bell 222 as Airwolf.

Earlier, Hawke was a test pilot for Airwolf, an advanced supersonic helicopter with stealth capabilities and a formidable arsenal. Airwolf was built by the FIRM, a division of the CIA (a play on the term "the Company", a nickname for the CIA). Airwolf was stolen by its twisted creator, Dr. Charles Henry Moffet (David Hemmings). Michael Coldsmith Briggs III (Alex Cord), the FIRM's deputy director (codename Archangel), then asks Hawke to go to Libya to retrieve the helicopter. Archangel has a blind left eye and walks with a limp as a result of having been caught in the carnage Moffet unleashed when he stole Airwolf.

Fearing that Hawke would refuse the mission to recover Airwolf, the FIRM confiscates his art collection, leaving Gabrielle (Hawke's pilot-episode love-interest, played by Belinda Bauer) behind to brief him for his mission. A week later, after an undercover operative is killed in the line of duty, Gabrielle is sent in undercover with Hawke being sent in sooner than originally planned. With Santini's assistance, Hawke finds and recovers Airwolf but chooses not to return it. Instead, he and Santini hide Airwolf, booby trapped, in an extinct volcano Hawke calls "the Lair," located in the remote "Valley of the Gods," which is visually modeled on Monument Valley. Hawke refuses to return Airwolf until the FIRM can recover his brother, St. John, who has been missing in action since Vietnam. To get access to Airwolf, Archangel offers Hawke protection from other government agencies who will try to recover Airwolf in exchange for flying missions of national importance for the FIRM.

In the second season, to satisfy CBS executives who wanted to appeal to a wider female audience, the show introduced Caitlin O'Shannessy, played by Jean Bruce Scott. Caitlin is a feisty former Texas Highway Patrol helicopter pilot who eventually joins Airwolf's crew. In "Fallen Angel" Hawke confirms Caitlin's suspicions that he and Santini possess and operate a super helicopter as the three fly Airwolf into East Germany to recover Archangel.

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