Three Days to Pluto

When browsing Netflix movie listings, I ran across a movie I saw once when I was probably 10 years old. It stuck with me.

More about that in a minute. But the discovery got me thinking about how so many of our encounters are quickly forgotten, while others remain with us for life.

For example, I watched "My Mother the Car" as a kid, but can't tell you anything about it today. But Major Astro (pictured here) exerted a huge influence. He is responsible for kickstarting my lifelong love of outer space and high-tech stuff. Of course, it was Captain Kirk who eventually rooted himself at the center of my philosophical universe...but t'was the Major who prepared me to find so much delight in discovering the crew of the Enterprise and developing relationships with them.

The Major Astro TV show came on at 3:30 every afternoon, and consisted of a batch of (generally) crappy cartoons strung together with science(ish) filler dialog about space travel and the planets. In retrospect, it was brilliant solution to a tough daytime programming problem for the station: it grabbed virtually every Wichita schoolkid (with associated access to their Mom and her breakfast cereal purchasing power) and cost nothing more than the actor's salary, a small set piece, and a silver jumpsuit.

The actor was a fellow named Tom Leahy, who I have mentioned before. He had some talent--he played the sheriff in "King Kung Fu"--but even as kids we thought he was pretty cheesy. Though we watched his show religiously and attended any event where he might make a personal appearance, we still called him names, like "Major Spazmo", and worse.

Once in a while, he would blast off for other planets, and would spend a day or two broadcasting cartoons back to Kansas from within his space capsule. He never discussed why there was apparently earth-normal gravity wherever he went, nor how he was able to make a round-trip to Pluto in less time than it took Apollo to get to the moon. (And yes, I did think about things like that when I was watching the show.) But even though I was quite certain that his spacesuit and motorcycle helmet were not airtight, and that he wouldn't have a chance of passing a NASA physical, I cut him all the slack he needed, because he was our primary source for TV science info and animated entertainment.

Roger Ramjet was my favorite. His voice was done by Gary Owens, who had later fame as the emcee for Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, which featured Pat Paulsen, who was the first person to get me interested in politics. (I'd vote for him in the next Presidential election, even though he's been dead for almost 20 years.)

Anyway, I should probably write a few cartoon review blogs at some point, because I suspect that they had a larger influence on me than they did on normal kids. It would be fun to speculate about how "Clutch Cargo" influenced the nightmares of Stephen King, or how Underdog's propensity for rhyme led to my own excursions into poetry.

But I digress. All I really intended to talk about in this post was my re-discovery of the story of "Zotz!"

I only remembered two things about the movie "Zotz!", but those memories have always been quite strong. One was that it starred Tom Poston, who had a pretty good career playing genial (and slightly addled) character parts. You probably remember him from "Mork and Mindy", or either of the Bob Newhart shows. Funny guy.

The other thing I remember is that his character discovered an artifact that gave him various powers, which he then used to get himself out of trouble. I don't remember the details with any precision, but uttering the word "Zotz" would create one effect, pointing his finger would create another, and combining the two would be lethal for whoever was in line with the pointed finger. I seem to remember drama and tension as the main elements...but I suspect that with Poston in the lead, it may have been intended as comedy.

Netflix listed the film, but did not offer it for streaming. I don't have a DVD subscription anymore, so instead, I picked up a copy of the novel. I'm only a couple of chapters in at this point, but it's pretty entertaining.

And as you might expect, the movie is available (in parts) on YouTube. I will read the book first, and then watch the movie. After that, I shall return to these pages and report on whether my childhood memories were accurate.

So my question for you today is whether you have any such memories. Is there a movie you sometimes think about and say to yourself, "I vividly remember something about that, and would like to see it again?" And if you have done that, did the re-viewing reinforce your original memories, or contradict them entirely?

Give it some thought and let me know. Can you identify why that particular item stuck with you? I'd be interested. In the meantime, keep making new memories, and have a great day!