Time to get "Away From it All"

... as narrated by Nigel Farquhar-Bennett in 1979.
And, if you can sit it out, you shall understand all. (I've been looking for this for a loooong time.) This travelogue ran as a film short before Monty Python's "Life of Brian" in some cinemas and has not been seen since. (And it's not on the DVD, much to fans' frustrations.)

Australia continued the tradition of film shorts for much longer that the USA. I think the last genuine film shorts I can recall seeing with main features in cinemas were "Rocking Horse Winner", which accompanied all of our viewings of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", and the black and white short film "Frankenweenie", which accompanied Disney's "Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend" - much to the surprise of "Frankenweenie" director, Tim Burton, who only discovered that it had finally been given a release when my Sydney-based "Batman" fan club, "Battalion", was able to attend a Tim Burton press conference in 1989.

"Couchman" interviews science fiction fans!

Scroll down to click on four segments.
In 1990, ABC-TV, Australia's non-commercial network, aired an episode of Peter Couchman's popular interview show focusing on science fiction fans. It tied in very nicely with a hilarious stage revival/parody of the Supermarionation TV show of the 60s, "Thunderbirds", by actors Gavin Robertson and Andrew Dawson.

You'll see a plethora of Sydney science fiction media fandom identities of the 70s, 80s and 90s! Thanks to whoever uploaded the footage. (Gosh, I'd forgotten those amazing yellow shoes of mine... Well, they matched the Batman logos on my T-shirt.)

Peter Couchman kept returning to the escapism angle of science fiction but, if I recall, many of the fan participants were rather suspicious of Couchman's planted "experts", Dr Stephen Juan, anthropologist, and Professor Brent Waters, psychologist. However, these experts were surprisingly supportive of science fiction fandom, ie. we were adults who haven't forgotten how to "play", and who have found a sense of community and acceptance of each other.

We weren't supposed to draw attention to our dual membership of fan clubs, so I was representing Battalion, the Australian Legion of Batman Fans, while Karen Lewis was representing Sydney Star Trek fandom. Spotto also: Kerrie Dougherty, Dallas Jones, Nick Stathopolous, Lewis Morley, John Gaspar, "Garfield" Barnard, Brett Harrison, Mike McGann, Bodine Amerikah, Edwina Harvey, Robert Luxford, Adrian Broughton and Professor John Tulloch, among many others!


Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4
My beard was only rather new at the time, otherwise I'd have been dressed (at the station's request) as an Andorian or in my Robin the Boy Wonder outfit. Some of the fans in the episode are now working as professionals in their various fields (including writers, artists, actors, SPFX guys, museum curators, etc). An exciting find, because I haven't really watched it since it aired, and I haven't seen my VHS copy in about fifteen years.

"Reality is for people who can't deal with science-fiction."

Back shortly

I was reminiscing yesterday with some online folk about the days when cinemas included a full program of cartoon, advertisements, a film short and the main feature. i understand they were phased out in the USA in the early 60s?

We definitely had a short with "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" Down Under. I can't recall which one, though, though film shorts were still going strong. (Actually, it may have been a documentary about kayaking, if I recall correctly.) We had a 33 min. film short, "The Rocking Horse Winner" (1983), with "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". If I saw that bloody rocking-horse again, I was gonna scream!

I also remember we stunned director Tim Burton, in a Sydney press conference for "Batman" (1989) when lowly members of a newly-formed Batman fan club had probing questions about his supposedly unreleased b/w "Frankenweenie" short (1984) - which had received a cinema release in Australia. It ran before screenings of Disney's "Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend" (1985). (It was news to Tim, and we assume he went stomping back to Disney to investigate his royalties!)

So, yeah. We had shorts Down Under until at least 1985, then a break of only a few years... until that first new "Roger Rabbit" short, "Tummy Trouble", released theatrically worldwide with "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" (1989).

Pixar has also made the concept of film shorts remain in the public consciousness. Not to mention Tropfest and other short film festivals.

"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb..."

Remember that iconic scene from the feature film version of the 1960s "Batman" TV series? Yeah, the same film that had the unforgettable exploding rubber shark, four arch villains teaming up as the United Underworld, and those poor ol' dehydrated world leaders?

At a crucial stage of the film, Batman ends up with a huge, cartoony, spherical bomb, its wick fizzing noisily - and everywhere our stoic superhero runs to attempt to dispose of it, he comes across a crowded pub, a young couple necking, a marching band, a group of nuns, a mother duck paddling with her young...

Well, I felt like that today (er, * looks at the time *, yesterday). I took a parcel into work, to be sent via the internal mail/courier to State Office. I thought I was being really clever by recycling the padded envelope, and by peeling off the label to reveal the original address underneath. As I suspected, the addressee I needed was already mentioned on the envelope, since she had already recycled the envelope to me in the first place!

I had no packing tape handy, but the school's clerical assistant organised for her offsider to tape it up for me, then it was ready for the mail bag. Or so we both assumed. A few minutes later, the parcel was back in my classroom, albeit beautifully taped up.

Now, the package didn't have boomerangs in it, just children's picture books I'd been reviewing, but I had a strange sense of deja vu. I raced the package back to the mail bag, worried it had been collected by the courier during the parcel's unanticipated return sojourn in my room. (Actually, I'd already missed the mail bag collection before I'd arrived at work.)

But, Murphy's Law and all that, needless to say that when I went into the staffroom at morning tea break, and attempted to check my pigeon hole for incoming mail, the parcel was there, too! Now the boss had delivered it to me. The pigeon hole was crammed full... of that damned parcel!

Sure, my name was on the back of the package, but as the sender. This parcel seemed determined to plague me. That'll learn me, as Foghorn Leghorn (or someone) used to say, for not finishing the final draft of my reviews before the official deadline. As Batman (Adam West) once said, "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb..." I'm actually terrified to go to my pigeon hole before the weekend rolls around. I just know that parcel's not giving up yet.


The above Battalion Australia photograph (from 1990) features Brett Harrison as Batman, Ian McLean as Robin, Steve Simpson as The Riddler, Christopher Sequeira as The Joker (soon to be recast by Heath Ledger if the Hollywood rumour mill is running true) and Jonathan Sequeira as Two-Face. Photo by the very talented Andrew Rankin, wherever he is these days.