50 YEARS AGO

[Murfreesboro]

Oh, I hadn't heard that. It makes sense. The initial trips were more like pure science, science for the sake of knowledge. But the real push for exploration always happens when people believe they can make $$ from it.

[Andybev01]

Columbus wouldn't have (almost) discovered America but for the sake of commerce.

[Murfreesboro]

True that.

[MauEvig]

Wow, it's got to be amazing to have seen the Apollo 11 moon landing. I bet that was an exciting year indeed!
I myself am fascinated by space and what could possibly be out there. I'm always interested in hearing news about "earth like exoplanets" and the like. The new James Webb Telescope has made it possible for us to learn even more about the universe and what's out there, and some of the things we knew back then are changing now as new perceptions and observations are made.
But the moon landing was definitely a huge step forward. I just wonder what the hold up is, but I agree it's probably conflicts between governments that do so. The VW with flat tires is a good analogy.
I hope we don't go into WW III...I'd like to see a landing on Mars by humans at some point in my life time. But I'm not holding onto hope.
I saw a video where there'd be a lot of obstacles to overcome first, like low gravity and exposure to radiation and UV rays from the sun that the Earth protects us from with its magnetic field. Astronauts often have to be rehabilitated after spending a significant amount of time in space. Mars is lower gravity. One possible way to overcome that hurdle is AI but I don't know how well that can be trusted. I suppose I've seen too many Sci Fi movies on the subject.
I agree that stepping into the unknown is scary in it's own right. New technology can be too. I often find that science fiction and horror make a nice blend though under the right circumstances. What sort of monsters could be lurking in space? Or maybe space itself.
Also, Nasa usually does a little thing for Halloween by talking about "ghost planets" and such. Check out "Galaxy of Horrors" if you all are interested:

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-world ... f-horrors/

[Murfreesboro]

1969, an exciting year? It was an insane year. The moon landing. Woodstock. Charles Manson. Chappaquiddick.

As a college prof, I often taught young people who romanticized the 60s, but it wasn't so romantic to live them. It's kind of like people looking back to WW2 or the Civil War and thinking how exciting it would have been to be alive then. That Chinese curse about "interesting times" comes to mind.

For the most part I had a happy childhood. Not perfect, but pretty good. However, as I entered adolescence, I became acutely aware of the stressors of the world around me, and it was a very stressful time to be that age. In the deep South, Civil Rights was at a fever pitch and dramatically affected my school days. In the rest of the country, people were rioting about Viet Nam. And on the political scene, people were being assassinated right and left. I recall Medgar Evers, JFK, MLK, RFK, and, in the very early 70s, the attempted assassination of George Wallace, who was left in a wheelchair for life. It didn't matter who you were or which side you were on. If you were a political leader, you were fair game. And JFK's assassination had a weird repercussion in my own family connection, when my uncle, who knew him well and was closely associated with him, died ten days later, officially a suicide. I have little affection for my memories of the 60s. I have almost an allergic reaction when I see clothing or accessories brandishing the peace signs that were so common in that era.

[MauEvig]

1969, an exciting year? It was an insane year. The moon landing. Woodstock. Charles Manson. Chappaquiddick.

As a college prof, I often taught young people who romanticized the 60s, but it wasn't so romantic to live them. It's kind of like people looking back to WW2 or the Civil War and thinking how exciting it would have been to be alive then. That Chinese curse about "interesting times" comes to mind.

For the most part I had a happy childhood. Not perfect, but pretty good. However, as I entered adolescence, I became acutely aware of the stressors of the world around me, and it was a very stressful time to be that age. In the deep South, Civil Rights was at a fever pitch and dramatically affected my school days. In the rest of the country, people were rioting about Viet Nam. And on the political scene, people were being assassinated right and left. I recall Medgar Evers, JFK, MLK, RFK, and, in the very early 70s, the attempted assassination of George Wallace, who was left in a wheelchair for life. It didn't matter who you were or which side you were on. If you were a political leader, you were fair game. And JFK's assassination had a weird repercussion in my own family connection, when my uncle, who knew him well and was closely associated with him, died ten days later, officially a suicide. I have little affection for my memories of the 60s. I have almost an allergic reaction when I see clothing or accessories brandishing the peace signs that were so common in that era.

Well I guess when you put it that way, it would be pretty insane. Not to mention terrifying. To think a member of your family was THAT close to JFK? Suicide? I call bunk. The cold war era was certainly a time of distrust and paranoia, but for good reason.
I was just referring more or less to the moon landings. Woodstock? Sure, but people were getting into things they shouldn't.
Each decade of the 20th century had a lasting effect on the next.
To be fair, the only decades I truly find happiest were the 80's and 90's. My grandma would certainly glorify the 50's and I can see why, but the 50's were when the cold war was just picking up steam. My parents grew up in the 70's. At least the 70's had good music, AC DC, Ozzy, the birth of hard rock and heavy metal. Of course, I grew up with more modern metal bands like Disturbed. But the band members were heavily inspired by older rock veterans.
But then 9/11 happened, the Great Recession happened and Covid happened. For my generation it was a wakeup call, the world wasn't as safe as we were led to believe. But even then, we grew up with stranger danger and a lot of the distrust, especially revolving around Halloween happened. "Don't trust strangers" echoed from every parent of the time period. Missing children were always on the news it seemed, and my parents were terrified.
I can't imagine growing up during the cold war and the civil rights eras. And I hate to dive into politics but...I fear history may be repeating itself. I shan't get into the details, but I'm sure you already have an idea.
I'm glad I grew up in the time period that I did. The 90's weren't perfect, but we had a lot of good times.
I'm glad you had a happy childhood for the most part at least. Things always seem happier when we are blissfully unaware of adult struggles. I'm sorry you had to go through the loss of your uncle among other things. I don't blame you for flinching at the mention of clothing or accessories from that time period. Perhaps it's a bit of PTSD?

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

I'm sorry to hear that the 60s bring up bad memories for you Murf. I know that from what my mother and other people have told me about the decade, that it had some of the most important moments in our history. My mother told me what it was like to live through those events, such as the assassinations and other events that you mentioned, as well as things like the Cuban Missile Crisis that had the whole country on the edge of destruction, and people were living in constant fear of annihilation, but thankfully it was resolved right before Halloween that year, and things got back to normal.

Of course, there were some great things that came out of the 60s such as The Beatles, and the rest of the music scene in general, the Charlie Brown holiday specials, Star Trek, and Lava lamps just to name a few things. 1969 also gave us Scooby Doo, and the birth of Christian Slater, which was made even more awesome in 2019 when they both turned 50 and teamed up for a episode of the show.

I think that you can tell from some of my previous posts that the subject of history is something that I am very fascinated by, and I have always enjoyed hearing people tell their stories about where they were when important events happened. I do agree with you that there are people that romanticize the past as something glorious, and don't get me wrong, some of it was, as things just seemed more innocent and reliable, when we compare it to the world today. But I'll be honest when I say that I wouldn't have wanted to live through some of the wars that happened in the past, and I'm glad that I grew up when I did.

I'm also thankful that my generation hasn't really had to live through many of those types of bad events, there have been a few in our time, most of them being natural disasters, but there are other moments like 9/11 and the pandemic that MauEvig mentioned that stand out as some of the major events that my generation has witnessed. I know that when I talk to someone under the age of 20 about 9/11 they will be interested to hear about it, but they can't grasp the reality of what it was like to live through it, no matter how many stories they hear and documentaries they watch.

My youngest is 6 now, and she was 3 during the height of the pandemic, when it was happening she was scared and confused about the changes going on, so we had to constantly tell her that things would get better. At the time my wife and I were worried about what this situation would do to her, but the funny thing is that today she barely remembers anything about the pandemic because she was so young when it happened. I'm sure that the kids that were old enough to remember it will have stories to tell for years to come, but I'm glad that most of the kids today are resilient and were able to get past it.

I grew up with more modern metal bands like Disturbed.

So you're a fan of Disturbed and Sonic as well, it sounds like we would get along just fine.

I know that you're Down with the Sickness, but the real question is, how do you feel about Ugly Sonic?

By the way, if you don't get the reference, go watch the Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers movie from last year, if you're a 90s kid you will love it.

[Murfreesboro]

In my experience, the 80s were the best decade, societally, I mean. The 90s less so, though my son who was born in '93 believes it was the best decade to be a child, and I'm glad he feels that way. Nobody much talks about it, but there was a massive baby boom at that time. Back in '95, I think it was, I heard on tv that the first grade class that year was the largest in US history. It registered with me because my older boy started first grade that fall. And it's true that pop culture really seemed to be catering to children and families, more so than at any other time in my adult life. The Disney Renaissance was in full swing.

I do have some fond pop culture memories from the 60s. Christmas specials like Charlie Brown and Rudolph premiered then. I was a devotee of The Avengers (Emma Peel era), which I recently acquired on DVD and have been enjoying. Such a blast from the past. And I was an ardent fan of Dark Shadows and Barnabas Collins. That show premiered in the late 60s. So it wasn't all bad. Just much of it was.

The 70s was a good decade for me personally. I spent almost all of it in college and grad school. But it was kind of a sleazy decade, honestly. Drugs were everywhere, and the sexual revolution was in full swing, especially on college campuses. Nobody was afraid of STDs because no one had heard of AIDS yet. Drugs were considered a cute joke until some major celebrities started dying from them.

[Murfreesboro]

My daughter (born 97) says her era has been a downer so far. She doesn't recall 9/11 clearly, but she does recall the 2008 recession and was surprisingly affected by it. I say surprisingly, because it didn't really affect our family much. But she was picking up on societal vibes, I guess.

Then her first presidential election was 2016, and I apologized to her for the terrible choices she had. I think she ended up writing somebody in. At that time she remarked that she was afraid there would be an assassination. I said, Well, this is the way society feels when there are assassinations. (I don't think we're out of the woods on that issue yet. Everybody seems to hate everybody else, which sure feels like the political side of the 60s.)

Then the pandemic happened, which was terrible in many different ways. Not just the disease, which was bad enough, but the draconian response to it. No wonder my daughter feels depressed about the society into which she has matured.

One thing she points out about the 60s is that there was still a wholesome strain in that decade, as evidenced by some of the children's entertainment it produced. She's right about that. I fear that is mostly missing in our world.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

I know that the 2008 recession hit some people really hard, but it didn't have any impact on us personally, so I guess that I don't have the same view on it that other people do.

I think that older shows sent a good message to their young viewers, and had a positive influence on them, and while that has slowly changed with each decade since tv was created, I think it was still good until the mid 90s when we still had shows like Family Matters and Full House, then it really started to change by the end of the 90s when shows started to go in a different direction and they shifted away from family values.

I know that when we sit and watch shows with our kids now that we have to be careful with what we let them watch, every show out there now has some kind of agenda to push their views and messages on kids, and they start indoctrinating them while they are still young so that they can grow up and be a bunch of drones. Don't get me wrong, I believe in equality for everybody, but I think that parents should choose when they feel is the right time to teach their kids about certain types of people, and that they shouldn't be learning about it from Sesame Street. There are some shows today that are clean, and still teach good values, but even I admit that they are overly preachy and somewhat arrogant.

On a lighter note, it's nice to meet another fan of The Avengers. I really liked that show when I was younger. Did you ever watch the movie from 1998 starring Uma Thurman? I wasn't a fan of it.

Then her first presidential election was 2016, and I apologized to her for the terrible choices she had.

[Murfreesboro]

Never saw the late 90s Avengers movie. I heard nothing good about it, and that made me sad, since I really loved the old TV show so much.

Did you know there was a connection between The Avengers and Dr Who? The same guy invented them both, and the writers went back and forth between the two. While I was watching my Emma Peel episodes recently, my daughter commented that she hadn't realized the plots would be so surreal, and that they were giving her Dr Who vibes. So I investigated, and she was right.

When I was 11 I probably didn't even know the word "surreal." I used to say it was "tongue in cheek." I totally shipped John Steed and Emma Peel. Was heartbroken when Diana Rigg left the series, and could never bear to watch Patrick Macnee with another actress.

To my knowledge, Dr Who wasn't broadcast in the States until the 70s, and then I didn't watch it. My kids got into it with the David Tennant/Matt Smith reboot, and they insisted I watch, too. At first I didn't get it, and then the penny dropped, and I was totally into it.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

I'm going to be honest with you Murf, you and I have so much in common that it's starting to scare me.

The other day when I was typing out the great things that came out of the 60s, I swear that I was going to mention Doctor Who but I know that not many people over here are really into the show so I didn't bother to mention it. But to my surprise, you're actually a fan of the show, even if you just like the modern series.

I started watching the show when I was about 3, the original show was still running at the time, and even though I was too young to really understand it, I was hooked on it. At that point Peter Davison was the current Doctor, but they were also showing reruns on another channel that had Tom Baker as the Doctor, so I was very confused about it. My mother had been a fan of the show when she was younger, so she explained things to me and I followed along as best I could during those early years.

I continued to watch the show until it ended in 1989, by then I was old enough to understand the show better and follow it, and that's one of the reasons why Sylvester McCoy is one of my favorite Doctors, because I could actually appreciate his performance by that point. I still watched reruns during my teens, but the episodes were not in order so I only watched occasionally. It was around that time the tv movie came out, but after that there wasn't anything until they brought back the show in 2005.

When the show came back I didn't like it right away, the story was fine but I wasn't a fan of Eccleston. I had previously seen him in the movie 28 Days Later and he was a jerk in that so I just didn't like him as the Doctor. It wasn't until Tennant stepped into the role that the show got good, and he is still my favorite Doctor from the modern show. I would say that Capaldi is my second favorite Doctor, as I thought he brought something special to his performance that made him stand out. Capaldi and Michelle Gomez as Missy were just amazing when they were on screen together. I also liked both Smith and Whittaker in their own way.

The original show ran from 1963-1989, but unfortunately there are 97 episodes that are lost, and only the audio and still photos exist for those episodes, as the BBC recorded over the original tapes because they didn't think that anyone would ever want to watch them again. Thankfully there were fans out there that tried to restore the missing episodes, some of them used the audio and still photos, and some used the audio with animation to stand in for the missing episodes.

In 2009, with the rise of digital media on the internet, the episodes were now available online, and I decided that I was going to watch the whole series from the beginning. For the first time in my life I watched the episodes with the 1st Doctor, William Hartnell, and I was immediately a fan of his, there was just something about the way he played the character that made you understand why people loved this show from the start. As the show went on, and they transitioned to the 2nd Doctor, Patrick Troughton, I also found myself impressed with his work. But after watching the whole series, I would have to say that my favorite Doctor from the original series is Tom Baker. I liked him when I was a kid, but now I could truly appreciate what he brought to the show.

The 60th anniversary of the show is this year, and it's a shame that they aren't doing more to honor the occasion, as we are only getting 3 specials later this year, though it will be nice to have Tennant back until they come back next season with the new Doctor. Between the original, and the modern series, I can legitimately say that I have watched every single episode of Doctor Who, which is currently at 871 episodes in total. I have also watched every episode of the other shows associated with the franchise, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Class, and K9.

By the way, I did watch a video on youtube awhile ago about the behind the scenes of the show, and they talked about the DW/Avengers connection you mentioned, they would change the actors to keep the show fresh, that's why both shows always got new companions for the main character. Also, my wife and I have dressed as The Doctor and female lead for Halloween on 2 different years, and I also have a large collection of Doctor Who items, including a 2 foot tall remote control Dalek that lights up and yells lines from the show.

[Murfreesboro]

Well, you are certainly far more knowledgeable about the Who-verse than I am, but, yes, I really loved the newer series. Capaldi is perhaps my second son's favorite Dr. I don't think I've watched his whole run. But I loved Tennant, and was impressed that Smith was able to follow him as well as he did. I haven't seen the woman (Jody Whittaker?) My kids say her run is disappointing, primarily because the writing got preachy.

I kind of think that Emma Peel's departure (when she leaves with her long-lost husband, who turns out to be John Steed's doppelganger) is maybe echoed in Tennant's Who. He leaves Rose with a clone of himself.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

I wouldn't have even thought to make a comparison between the 2 scenes until you mentioned it, but you're right about the similarities. Also, your kids are right about the writing going bad after Whittaker joined the show. I know that some people didn't like that a woman took over the role of the Doctor, and they blame her for the direction of the show, but I disagree, I thought that she played the part well, considering the awful writing she had to work with. I also had no issue with a woman in the role because it was previously established in the franchise that the species of the main character can change gender, so I don't know why so many people were upset about it.

Here is a interesting historical fact about the show, it premiered the day after the assassination of JFK but hardly anybody watched it because everybody was watching the news coverage of the assassination, so they showed the episode again a week later, and people loved it.

[Murfreesboro]

How interesting about the premiere! I guess even the English were interested in the Presidential assassination.

Yes, my kids totally blamed the writing. My daughter, who aspires to be an actress herself, actually felt really bad for Whittaker. She'd read that the woman was a big fan of the show, so she thought it was especially sad that she got stuck with bad writers. And as you say, the character of the Dr is fluid anyway. That's a built-in feature, so it's silly to get upset about the gender-swap.

My kids said there was a big problem with the way they used the companions in the Whittaker era. Apparently there were several of them at once, and they just trailed along after her and had little personality or spunk of their own. Since the relationship between the Dr and the companions is vital to the show, I'm guessing that much of its unpopularity with fans can be traced to that.