#chameleons 1989

[wuxiaphoenix]

Old TV Review: Chameleons (1989)

Chameleons (1989) is a TV pilot by Glen A. Larson (of Knight Rider and A-Team fame) that I’d been looking for off and on for years, and finally stumbled on again on YouTube thanks to a sharp-eyed TV fan on DeviantArt. It was made, shown, and yet turned down as an ongoing show by both American and international networks. Sometimes it’s interesting to check out things that didn’t work, and try to figure out why, so you don’t make the same mistakes. (As a writer and human being of course you’ll make entirely different ones, but hey.)

I personally found it hokey but amusing, 3.5 out of 5 stars. And it might have made a really interesting book series, but there were Serious Problems with this even as a first episode, when you’d expect things to not be working quite smoothly yet. I’m sure people can find more, but I’m going to focus on the two biggest ones.

First, the acting. I’m going to go ahead and facepalm here. There are two really good actors in here, the lady playing the (somewhat) crazy cousin, and the butler. They have moments of Large Ham, but those are appropriate to the story and seem in-character. Everyone else - wow. Just wow. There is so much scenery being chewed. So much. And not even by the mastiff, Brutus. (Who is a very Good Dog, yes.) Captain Chameleon and the superheroic grandfather are the worst offenders with Pulp Dialogue; so pulpy you’d think you were straining OJ with your teeth. “May the Paraclete of Justice relieve itself on your enemies!” Why. I mean, why. The Bad Guys are a bit less pulpy, a bit more stock Corrupt Cop/Government Officials/Etc. But there is a straight-from-the-pulp-mags Council of Evil going on, with voice changers and faceless thugs in uniform, right in the middle of a modern city. Oyyyy.

...Okay, there are three good actors. Because if you think you’ve spotted a younger version of Jim Ellison (The Sentinel) as an antagonist - yes, yes you have, that is the same actor. He was also a bad guy in a Viper episode.

Second - the special effects/practical effects in here had to be very expensive. Specially modified car, making it change color, computer screens, “automated defenses”, the “invisibility/color changing” superhero outfit tricks, and multiple uses of a helicopter. None of that would have been cheap, and all of it viewers would have expected to see in every episode. And the whole “Carmeleon automated defenses” were, as one character lampshaded, so slow to get through the activation sequence that “by the time you’ve answered you’re already dead”. That’s expensive bad writing!

So. Yeah. I can see why network execs decided to pass on this one. But it was fun to watch. And possibly to mull over, so we don’t make the same kinds of mistakes!

Chameleons 1989

[301-302]

Chameleon Street (Wendell B. Harris Jr. | 1989)

[nerds-yearbook]

Vol 3 of Legion of Super-Heroes concluded with issue 63#, cover date August, 1989. While vol 4# was issued only a couple of months later, cover date November, 1989, there was a five year story gap between the two series. ("Magic Wars pt 4: Where Has All the Magic Gone?" Legion of Super-Heroes 63#, Vol 3, DC Comic Event)

[rrrauschen]

Wendell B. Harris Jr., {1989} Chameleon Street

[vertigoartgore]

Actor/director Wendell B. Harris Jr. as William Douglas Street, the main star of his only movie as director that is Chameleon Street.

[illinoaventing]

Taylor is so Tiktok-y. She is a culture vulture yes, but she is... also in it.

See, whenever something is popular, especially in the culture of white women, she will release an album with similar aesthetic.

In 2014, Tumblr was major and we have photos with these kinds of faded filters and Polaroid pictures. 1989 follows that too, but it looks off yk not like a deliberated attempt to create an artistic statement for the album like other artists. But what do I expect from a goofy ahh album title wdym your special trait is being born in the year 1989? Are you Christ?

And then in late 2019 early 2020 the cottagecore aesthetic was trending and she released folklore... like she wore long flowery dress and touched grass and stuff.

Then the Fall/Downtown girl/Rory Gilmore aesthetic. Miss girl wore thick jacket standing among trees 😭.

Then the whole 80s era came back and people loved it hard. Of course the next album must copy what the most mainstream aesthetic is trending! The lighting must mimicks the dreamy, glowing vibe of 80s pictures, with lots of contrast to create a vintage air. Tabloid of course must be sitting in a room with vintage interior design she damn well never lives in and even with a bloody vintage keyboard piano to complete the look 😭!!

And here we have the rise of #booktok and literaturetok community where people quoted Dostoyevsky and Kafka and Jane Austen and stuff. Is it a coincidence that Swifties start to chant about Taylor's pen and compare her to Emily Dickinson just by accident? Idk. But there she is promoting a whole album which is essentially about making literature an aesthetic, and she did it in a very surface-level way, like what do we imagine when we think of literature? Books, typewriter, fountain pen, cursive writings right? She basically grabbed them all and display it everywhere in the blandest way possible. Like, there's nothing visually artistically stimulating and curious. Black and white filter, paper, typewriter? Ground breaking. This MV should be preserved as a cultural relic. Even when a movie or video game tried to take an aesthetic but wrong, they still intertwine some modern twist on it to look more interesting.

So my take is that Taylor has no artistic individuality. She hops from trend to trend like a chameleon. She thinks of herself as an aesthetic enough of its own. Of course nothing is wrong about wearing what everyone is wearing but as an artist? You know how important personal artistic style is, it's to establish your own image. I think her signature is her blond hair, that's all. So despite being very famous, the general public just don't recognize her much except for being a white blond woman who sometimes sings with guitar... and there are many white blond women singers with guitar, they're just not as famous or insufferable as.

[unexpectederawhilesubmitting]

I'm thinking about making video essays exploring the history of Doctor Who, especially the weird lore and queer storytelling of the wilderness years.

After my post about how *60TH ANNIVERSARY SPOILERS* biregeneration ties into pre-existing lore surrounding The Watcher from the classic series got over 6,000 notes (not bad for one of my first ever posts, lol), I've realized that lots of people don't know the wacky history of Doctor Who.

For instance, this is of interest to me as a queer person: did you know that in 1997, Russell T Davies wrote an official Doctor Who novel where the Doctor's male companion gets head from another man in the back of a taxicab (and, in doing so gives the guy the cure for HIV in the process because he's from the future and he's already been cured???)? And, to top it all off, it's wrapped in a story about a drug dealer who rose from the grave and is basically giving everybody alien cocaine, so it basically rules.

The thing is, this is far from the only story like this during that era. After the original series went off the air in 1989, we went into what's informally known as "the wilderness years". During this time, there were no new episodes of Doctor Who being broadcast on TV, and so the story continued across multiple different mediums, novels, audio dramas, etc. As it also was no longer a flagship BBC title anymore, the executive oversight got extremely lax, enabling creators to start exploring themes that would normally have been rejected for being "too dark" or "too gay" for a normal BBC production. In some cases, this led to some deeply messed up edgelord fanfic being published officially, but in other cases, it led to some of the coolest and most experimental years of Doctor Who's history.

It's also the time period where we start seeing more and more queer representation, as well as several instances of

(because for real there's one audio drama where the Eighth Doctor's companion gets transformed into an insect broodmother thing and it's very, uh...the writer of that one is certainly an interesting person)

(The Creed of the Kromon if you're interested)

(don't be interested, please)

BUT all that is to say, there are so many absurdly cool moments in the show's history pre-2005 that I feel most modern fans haven't had the opportunity to explore!!! That's not in a neckbeard "uh, you're not a true fan unless..." way, that's in a "oh my god you're so lucky you get to experience this stuff for the first time!!!!" way.

Going back and looking at those things also makes the modern show have sooooo much more depth, because many of the writers and behind the scenes folks of the revival series worked on the expanded universe projects during the Wilderness Years. As a result, they pulled a lot of their ideas from their old projects into the show! For instance, Human Nature and The Family of Blood, and the whole concept of Chameleon Arches?

That entire episode is LITERALLY an adaptation of a preexisting novel from the 90's, Human Nature:

The only difference is that they changed a few details to make it fit into the continuity of the 10th Doctor's storyline.

All that is to say, there's so many cool Doctor Who things out there, and so few people going in depth with them. I think I might start producing some video essays about some of these (like Faction Paradox, my beloved <3), if anyone's interested.

[mendelpalace]

The “Illustrated Fantasy Book Guide” is a magazine-format book (or mook) released in 1989 by the publisher of ファミコン必勝本 “Famicon Winning Book”, an NES gaming magazine. The mook lists 37 works of fantasy originally written in English except for “Ficciones” by Borges. The editors of “Famicon Winning Book” were fond of the Wizardry port to the NES, which is my explanation for their interest in this stuff. In any case, they created the best Appendix N so to speak of fantasy translated into Japanese that I have yet found. The Japanese titles are provided below to aid the online searches of would-be buyers.

Images/Text courtesy of Japanese Tabletop RPG

I wish I could find a complete set of scans for this book!

Full list of books featured under the cut.

The Lord of the Rings 指輪物語 Earthsea Trilogy ゲド戦記 Chronicles of Narnia ナルニア国ものがたり Conan コナン・シリーズ The Worm Ouroboros ウロボロス The Wood Beyond the World 世界のかなたの森 Lilith リリス Nine Princess in Amber アンバーの九王子 The King of Elfland’s Daughter エルフランドの王女 Gormenghast Trilogy ゴーメンガスト Magic Kingdom for Sale-Sold! 魔法の王国売ります! The Chronicles of Castle Brass ブラス城年代記 Night’s Master 闇の公子 A Voyage to Arcturus アルクトゥルスへの旅 The Princess Bride プリンセス・ブライド Witch World ウィッチ・ワールド A Spell for Chameleon カメレオンの呪文 The Last Unicorn 最後のユニコーン At the Mountains of Madness 狂気の山脈にて Swords and Deviltry ファファード＆グレイ・マウザー The White Hart アイルの書 She 洞窟の女王 Charmed Life 魔女集会通り26番地 Darkover Series ダーコーヴァ年代記 The Riddle-Master of Hed イルスの竪琴 The Sorcerer’s Ship 魔法つかいの船 Dragonlance Chronicles ラゴンランス戦記 Pawn of Prophecy ベルガリアード物語 Dragon Flight パーンの竜騎士 The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz ボアズ＝ヤキンのライオン Momo モモ The Magic Goes Away 魔法の国が消えていく Magician リフトウォー・サーガ The Ship of Ishtar イシュタルの船 Tea with the Black Dragon 黒龍とお茶を Ficciones 伝奇集 Dandelion Wine たんぽぽのお酒

[alt-al333x]

amina fakir as tatiana in chameleon street (1989) directed by wendell b. harris jr.

[pattie-remembers]

“They were boy-men – immature emotionally”: Pattie Boyd recalls famous guitar battle between love rivals George Harrison and Eric Clapton

Want more Guitar.com breaking news as it happens? Follow us on Telegram.

Last month, we wrote about the love triangle between model Pattie Boyd, Eric Clapton and George Harrison, when Boyd revealed a series of letters she’d received from both men. “What I wish to ask you is if you still love your husband?” Clapton wrote in 1970, for example, while Boyd was still married to Harrison.

But perhaps the best part of the story is that, according to Boyd, her two love rivals settled their differences in the most ridiculous and perfect way possible: with a guitar duel.

READ MORE: “That gift is so powerful and so strong he doesn’t know how to cope with it”: Jenny Boyd reveals why Eric Clapton became an alcoholic

In a new interview with The Times, Boyd says Harrison, her first husband was oddly passive in the face of Clapton’s attempts to pursue her, but that the rivalry between the two men reached a boiling point in 1973, when they faced off in the only real appropriate way.

“John Hurt, being an actor and seeing everything as theatre, wrote about it in his memoir,” Boyd says. “John was at the house one day when Eric turned up and said to George: ‘Try this one out.’ They were playing guitars and, as John said, it was a guitar duel.

“Musicians communicate through their instrument of choice and they understand each other through music – so any annoyance, anger and irritation from George only really came out when he was playing guitar with Eric.”

Boyd says the battle didn’t result in a winner, but recalls Harrison giving Clapton brandy while he drank tea, and played the superior guitar model, suggesting he did intend to decisively defeat Clapton.

Boyd also says she saw both men – who were in their 20s at the time – as “boy-men: immature emotionally”.

“George was shy, but Eric was a bit of a chameleon,” she says. “He was always changing his look, his clothes, his bands… He wanted to remain a mystery so he kept changing. And Derek and the Dominos isEric, so he used to have fun hiding.

Pattie Boyd and George Harrison divorced in 1977, and she married Eric Clapton two years later in 1979, with whom she stayed the next decade, before their marriage ended in 1989.

[saint-of-ossaville]

— Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Vol 1 #63 (Aug 1994; 1989, DC Comics) by Dennis “Denny” O’Neil (W), Barry Kitson (P, CA), Scott Hanna (I, CA), Digital Chameleon (C), and Willie Schubert (L).

[olipeaksforever]

get out my house: an in our angelhood web weaving.

Featuring:

Twin Peaks: Fire, Walk With Me (1992, dir. David Lynch)

Blue Velvet (1986, dir. David Lynch)

Get Out Of My House by Kate Bush (from The Dreaming, 1982)

Cry Wolf by Lisa Germano (from Geek the Girl, 1994)

A Person Isn't Safe Anywhere These Days by The Chameleons (from Script of The Bridge, 1982)

Lullaby by The Cure (from Disintegration, 1989)

[301-302]

Chameleon Street (Wendell B. Harris Jr. | 1989)

[dc-polls]

"That Really Happened?!" DC Comics Tournament Entry #20

So I Married a Protean and No One Told Me

[ID: A series of comic panels showing Garth and Ayla talking in the woods. Garth is walking with a group of proteans that look like small white bipedal blobs. One of them says, "Garth you are not. A protean you are. Human body. Without protean powers, yes... But with Proty-1 mind. Ever since resurrection..." From behind a bush Ayla exclaims, "What?!"

Garth says, "No! I've been living as Garth for twenty years! And I finally realize the... life I've built... my family... is the only thing that really matters. I can't risk losing them. Not even for Kid Quantum." The proteans ask, "Are sure? Won't come with us?" To which he responds, "I can't I'm sorry." /END ID]

What Happened?

In the Golden and Silver Age, the death of a hero was a big deal. The cycle of cynical events based around the death or return of a beloved character hadn't started yet. So it was rare and shocking when Garth "Lightning Lad" Ranzz, one of the founders of the 30th century Legion of Super-Heroes perished in battle with Zaryan the Conqueror. He stayed dead for about a year (in publishing time) until he was returned to life by the sacrifice of Chameleon Boy's pet, a shapechanging blob named Proty, by transfering its life energy to Lightning Lad's corpse by means of a lightning rod (it's 30th century science, you wouldn't get it). Chameleon Boy would later adopt another Protean pet (named Proty-II, natch) and Garth would return to active service, lose and regain an arm, and marry his sweetheart, Imra "Saturn Girl" Ardeen.

Following the very successful Paul Levitz/Keith Giffen run on the title, the DC launched volume 4 of The Legion of Super-Heroes in 1989, which would become known as the "Five Years Later" run, due to the in-universe time skip between volumes. This run was co-written by Giffen and husband and wife superfans Tom and Mary Bierbaum, who slowly started incorporating fan theories into the run. The series already had to deal with having to fix Legion continuity following Crisis on Infinite Earths, and while some of these retcons were successful (Mon-El replacing Superboy), many were controversial (Shvaughn Erin, who I will also be submitting).

Late in the run, it is revealed that the lightning rod ceremony did revive the body, but not the mind of Lightning Lad. Instead, it transferred Proty's mind into Garth's body, meaning every Lightning Lad story since 1963 had actually been a Proty story! This information is revealed to Garth's sister Ayla (Light/Lightning Lass) but, unless I am forgetting anything, not to his wife Saturn Girl! This, along with other controversial plot developments (like the destruction both the moon and the Earth) would eventually lead to DC rebooting the Legion during the Zero Hour crossover event in the mid-90s.

--

Tournament polls will be posted after all entries are up. As always you can find all posts related to the tournament using #dc-polls-trh

[jadeverse-asks]

Hey everyone! (read here for main blog rules!)

I have gained quite a collection of unusual/unpopular F/Os lately over the past few years, so I've decided it'd be a fun idea to open up this blog and have anyone send in x reader/headcanon asks if they happen to like them as well :)

Who I write for atm! (will be updated if a new F/O is gained!)

Telltale Batman (Telltale Bruce Wayne and John Doe/Telltale Joker, main husbands atm don't ask me :3)

MLP (Sunset Shimmer, Limestone/Marble Pie, Pipp Petals, Hitch Trailblazer and Autumn Blaze preferred!)

Sonic (Espio the Chameleon)

Mina and the Count (The Count)

Little Monsters 1989 (Maurice)

Goosebumps (Slappy, movie versions only)

The Guava Juice Show (Hart Spirit)

Teen Titans (Mad Mod)

Scooby Doo (Velma Dinkley, any version save for THAT version is okay!)

Tiny Toons (Fifi La Fume, aged up though and the reboot version of her is allowed too!)

Puss in Boots the Last Wish (Big Jack Horner)

Helluva Boss (Queen Bee and Vassago)

Eddsworld (Edd only)

Inside Job (Reagan Ridley)

The Simpsons (Sideshow Bob and Jacques)

Flint the Time Detective (Merlock Holmes aka Narugami Kyoichiro)

Gorillaz (2-D)

Danny Phantom (Vlad Masters/Plasmius)

Treasure Island (Dr. Livesey, 1988 film version)

Loonatics Unleashed (Rev Runner)

Dad'X (Striker/Foudror, this cartoon/fandom is kinda obscure btw but I still decided to include him!)

TF2 (Medic and Sniper)

Braindead13 (Vivi the Vampire)

Now for rules!

-I can write both SFW and NSFW, however fetish/abuse/death/anything else weird is not allowed

-Any gender/pronoun is allowed for asks!

-Reply times to asks may depend on how busy I am, and GIFs of your asked character may be included with my answers :)

-I don't really tend to chat and just take asks, so keep that in mind about me!

-And finally my inbox is always open, and have fun simping and asking! >3

[vertigoartgore]

Top 30 Movies that I discovered in 2023 (but not released in 2023) :

Pandora and The Flying Dutchman (Albert Lewin, UK, 1951)

Summertime (David Lean, USA/UK, 1955)

Tea and Sympathy (Vincente Minnelli, USA, 1956)

Murder by Contract (Irving Lerner, USA, 1958)

Nothing But a Man (Michael Roemer, USA, 1964)

Scattered Clouds (Mikio Naruse, Japan, 1967)

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (John D. Hancock, USA, 1971)

The Hired Hand (Peter Fonda, USA, 1971)

The effect of Gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds (Paul Newman, USA, 1972)

Chilly Scenes of Winter (Joan Micklin Silver, USA, 1979)

Being There (Hal Ashby, USA, 1979)

El Sur (Víctor Erice, Spain, 1983)

El Norte (Gregory Nava, UK/USA, 1983)

Vigil (Vincent Ward, New Zealand, 1984)

Choose Me (Alan Rudolph, USA, 1984)

Desert Hearts (Donna Deitch, USA, 1985)

Anguish (Bigas Luna, Espagne, 1987)

The Vanishing (George Sluizer, France/Netherlands,1988)

Chameleon Street (Wendell B. Harris Jr., USA, 1989)

Proof (Jocelyn Moorhouse, Australia, 1991) 

Ninja Scroll (Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Japan, 1993)

Suture (Scott McGehee & David Siegel, USA, 1993)

What Happened Was... (Tom Noonan, USA, 1994)

Leaving Las Vegas (Mike Figgis, USA, 1995)

August in the Water (Sogo Ishii, Japan, 1995)

Shall We Dance ? (Masayuki Suo, Japan, 1996)

Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan, Hong Kong, 1997)

Bullets Over Summer (Wilson Yip, Hong-Kong, 1999)

To the Left of the Father (Luiz Fernando Carvalho, Brazil, 2001)

Dead End (Jean-Baptiste Andrea & Fabrice Capepa, France/USA, 2003)