Todd’s Serial Blog

Finally, us serial fans are in fashion these days.  Famed fashion designer Ralph Lauren took inspiration for his new fall line from the Indiana Jones movies.  He unveiled his new line in New York a couple of weeks ago, perplexing the privileged class with his line of super thin models prancing down the run way wearing fedoras, kaki pants, leather jackets and big leather satchels hanging off their waists.  Sure there were also business suits and classy looking dresses in the mix, all retro thirties styled, but the over all feeling from the crowd was sort of negative.  I say who cares, it’s just cool that someone thinks the fedora is coming back in style.  So I say wear your snap brim hat with pride, because the only person you have to impress with your sense of fashion is yourself.  The Fedora Chronicles has shots from the show on their site along with both pro and con articles on the new look.  Check it out at www.fedorachrinicles.com

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“I could have gotten away with it too if not for those pesky kids!”  Sure it is a line associated with Scooby Doo, but in the world of serials, it could have been uttered by any number of villains at the end of a Universal serial.  That studio had a real liking for the teenage hero.  When you look at the number of serials produced by the big three that feature non-adult characters as the lead, Republic had one The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) and Columbia had two, Terry and the Pirates (1940) and Jack Armstrong (1947).

But Universal really got into the idea of kids liking to see kids as the lead in serials, starting with The Lost Special (1932) they produced eleven of them over a thirteen year period.  They had Tailspin Tommy (1934), Tailspin Tommy in the Great Air Mystery (1935), The Adventures of Frank Merriwell (1935), Tim Tyler’s Luck (1937), Scouts To the Rescue (1938), Junior G-Men (1940), Sea Raiders (1941), Junior G-Men of the Air (1942), Adventures of the Flying Cadets (1943) and The Master Key (1945). You might question the inclusion of that last title as the main characters are adults, but once the street kids are introduced in Chapter Three they become more and more prominent as the serial progresses and even carry several episodes by them selves.

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It is tough getting old.  This is being demonstrated to me more and more everyday by my gray tabby Nyoka.  When I first got her as a six month old kitten she was a feisty and spookily smart animal that liked to dive bomb me from various high points around my house, looking very much like Kay Aldridge’s character in the serial of the same name and so I named her Nyoka.  I can still remember the time she dismantled our Christmas tree the first year we had her.  I put the tree up and the next morning found it scattered evenly all around the living room with a very pleased tabby laying in the middle of it.  The next year I bolted the tree to the wall.  Hearing noise coming from the tree in the middle of the night I went to investigate and found her hanging from the tree, holding her breath and pretending to be an ornament.  I can’t even begin to describe the number of cat nail trimmers that have disappeared.  I once found one that was taken apart.  How an animal that has no thumbs or the ability to use tools unscrewed the screws holding the blade in I don’t know, but there it was.

Sixteen years later and she is now old, crabby, and  not too quick on the uptake anymore.  This was sadly brought to my attention last night.  We lost power, as did most people in Ohio did  Breaking out the candles I had given up trying to read by candle light and was sitting in a chair, using my battery operated portable DVD player to watch Batman.  Nyoka gets up on the table to investigate the flame (I thought animals were supposed to have an instinctive fear of fire).  I shoo her off.  When she goes to to get down, her tail swishes through the candle flame and sets the fur on fire.  I grab her and put out her tail.  Apparently she has no feeling in the tail as she doesn’t cry out or run away, she just sits there perplexed and sniffing the air, trying to figure out where this strange burning hair smell is coming from.  And then to top it all off she gives me an accusing look as if I’m the source of the smell.

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