Category: Written Features

Bob “Super Dave” Einstein

So around the same time that news of Mean Gene’s passing broke, there was also news that Bob Einstein, old Super Dave Osbourne himself, has also passed away due to his battle with cancer and that’s a childhood passed away. Back when I was a kid and even a teen growing up, I’d be watching the family-friendly iterations of the Super Dave show where they bleep out all the swearing with funny duck quacks and things of that nature, which actually made it funny, but watching this alleged stuntman with this seemingly endless Super Dave Compound showing off all these gimmicks going wrong and performing all these stunts that turned out badly… man, you couldn’t help but feel for the poor guy, but first let me laugh at the compressor turning him into a little head with two feet.

I recently found a Youtube channel that had most of the old Super Dave clips uploaded, all uncensored with all the colorful metaphors intact and just the fact that I remember most of these like they happened yesterday just shows how much of an impact and an affect that Super Dave had on my cumulative years. And those clips still hold up. When I got news of his passing, I loaded that page and binged on all those clips. And it was all due to SD, his deadpan, straight-faced reaction to all the stupid going on around him.

Bob Einstein did other stuff; he did Officer Judy in the old Smothers Brothers show, he was a recurring character on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, and a few other things… but to me, he’ll always be Super Dave. And his being gone makes the world a less appealing place.

Godspeed, Super Dave Osbourne. May your stay in the ol’ Super Dave Compound in the sky be free of accident… or anything made from genuine Saskatchewan Seal Skin Bindings.

Mean Gene

Only a day or two in and we’ve already have our first deaths… legendary wrestling announcer and WWE Hall of Famer Mean Gene Okerlund passed away on January 2nd.

Mean Gene… everyone has said their words on the influence and the aura that this man projected with his segments better than I could properly put into words. Mean Gene, in his best days, whether it’d be in the seventies where his best stuff resided, or during his WWF and WCW stints, would conduct the best interviews because regardless of whether he was interviewing Hulk Hogan or any of the big stars, or if he was interviewing some lower tier guy, he was able to make those interviews seem important and made you pay attention. Hell, if you weren’t sold on a show, those Mean Gene segments would sell you those shows.

Gene Okerlund brought an air of legitimacy to his segments… not quite legitimacy, but rather importance. His presence, his quick wit, his tone, his timing, his deep voice, his professionalism made those interview segments that would be skippable fare if they were done by anyone else seem important and worth watching. Whether it was cutting interviews, hosting television segments such as WWE Confidential or the various retrospective specials… or whether it was being a character on something like the short-lived Legends House, Mean Gene brought the goods and that’s what made him great.

There will never be another Mean Gene Okerlund.

Godspeed, Mr. Okerlund. And thanks for the memories. You’ll be sorely missed.

Power Rangers Reflections #18 – The Power Rangers Holiday Special VHS Tape

Something a little special for today.

Even though Power Rangers Reflections is technically on hiatus until February, where I hope to maintain a few months of weekly uploads if nothing else, I thought that it’d be interesting to talk about a curious VHS tape that I had found while going through boxes of old stuff: the Power Rangers Holiday Special VHS release from 2000-ish.

This isn’t an original special created for tape, however. Rather, it’s a compilation of the three previously released Power Rangers holiday shows of the time, Zeo’s “A Season To Remember”, MMPR’s “I’m Dreaming Of A White Ranger”, and the VHS-exclusive “Alpha’s Magical Christmas.” I’ll touch on these shows briefly, but really, I just wanted to talk about the tape itself and what it meant to me because… it’s Power Rangers Reflections, not Power Rangers Reviews. I reflect on things and while there might be some critical points, it’s supposed to be me offering thoughts and reflections. And this certainly fits that bill.

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So I Spent Some Time Playing The Mega Man Evelenz

And I’ve been making this nasty habit of playing through the levels without making much use of the new Double Gear system that’s supposed to help out. Turns out that the levels are entirely playable without ever having to rely on the Double Gear system to help in a crutch. Note that entirely playable doesn’t necessarily mean easy peasy; some split-second timing and memorization of certain patterns, such as the laser traps of Fuse Man’s stage, are essential to conquering these challenges barebones.

About the only real use I’ve found for Double Gear is in offensive capabilities, as the gear can power up your master weapons much like Mega Man X’s arm upgrades… and speaking of which, a Gear-Powered Charge Shot lets you shoot two in a row much like in X2. There’s actually a few neat little touches here and there that are somewhat subtle callbacks to past Mega titles and those in the know will get a little more out of it, I think.

As I’m playing this newest Mega Man game in the wee hours of the night, learning and relearning some of the bits and bobs that makes this newest game tick, a sudden realization dawned on me… I’m eventually going to have to play that other game… you know, the “better than nothing” game.

Welp.

Power Rangers Reflections Redux #17 – Blue Ranger Gone Bad

So this is a bit of a historic point in this series, as we’ve not only (somehow) surpassed the old number of entries that I’ve done in relation to this format, but this entry is also the last of the reposts, which means the next two or three entries will be all-new written posts. That also means potentially slow updates, but I want at least THREE MORE before the year’s up.

Jumping to the tail end of the second season, today’s episode is Blue Ranger Gone Bad. Just guess who’s the central character in this episode. If you’ve guessed Billy, give yourself a cookie. Now guess what the episode is about. If you’ve guessed Billy overcoming his shyness to ask a girl out, give yourself another cookie. Now guess what Zedd’s plan revolves around… actually, don’t bother with that one. You’re probably out of cookies anyway.

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Power Rangers Reflections Redux #16 – A Bad Reflection On You

Originally posted on August 2nd, 2007. The final of three Retrospective commentaries released that day, following the re-posted Blue Ranger Gone Bad commentary and the Once A Ranger commentary. I might repost that one eventually, but not anytime soon.

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Power Rangers Reflections Redux #15 – Dimensions In Danger (Bite-Sized)

Yeah, so I wanted to have this up last Friday, but you know… shit happens. Here it is now… with your regularly scheduled bi-weekly offering going up in a couple days.

So, thanks to a short-lived upload onto the Youtubes, I was able to watch the Super Ninja Storm episode that doubled as a 25th Anniversary celebration of Power Rangers. Naturally, I have some minor thoughts on this episode and decided to make them into an entry into this Reflections episode.

Because I have no means of watching the episode until it possible lands on the Netflix next year, I opted to go with a “bite-sized edition” of PRRR, which means I’m going to forgo a long-form synopsis and just go with five points that came to mind when watching this episode. It’s entirely possible that I may be misremembering some points and if that’s the case, I’ll go back to this one somewhere down the line, but for now… this is what I got out of it.

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Power Rangers Reflections Redux #14 – Goldar’s Vice Versa

First time I bore witness to the replacement rangers was this episode; during the time when the local CBS station aired Season 2 episodes Sunday Mornings… of course, they would skip over loads of episodes that would take place between the ones they DID air. As a result, one minute, I was watching the White Ranger suddenly made leader of the team, and the next week, half the team has been replaced with characters that I ultimately did not care for because I only knew them for… one episode total. It was a detriment to not having Fox locally and not the show’s fault. Eventually, we got Fox, which meant I was able to catch some (but not all) of the episodes I messed.

Goldar’s Vice Versa was the first episode I saw that featured the replacement Rangers back in the Sunday runs. Despite the fact that I last saw them as allies who somehow knew the Rangers’ ID and missed out on the subsequent episodes that swapped the Rangers, I wasn’t really surprised by this. It was pretty clear that these three teens were groomed to be the new Rangers based on their wider presence and less emphasis placed on the other half of the Ranger team whose actors had already left by this point. That and my recollection of an interview I saw prior where Jason Frank mentioned a casting call for new Rangers sort of prepared me for the changeover.

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Power Rangers Reflections Redux #13 – The Fifth Crystal

Sad truth: this was done ages ago and I put it off for a short while with the intention of getting back to it and giving it a final polish before publication. Turns out to be months later. Oh well. Better late than never, I suppose.

So today’s episode in question is from Lightspeed Rescue and this is a somewhat random choice in episode, because I honestly don’t recall much of my initial impressions regarding this particular episode, so in terms of past reflections, I’m afraid I’ve got very little to offer in that regard. Still, at least there is some attempt at varying this on-and-off subseries of write-ups beyond the MMPR comfort zone.

Note: this episode is dedicated in memory of Bob Mahanan, the voice actor of Zordon who passed away around that time.

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