Did you know that Ed Wood wrote a short story about Thor, the God of Thunder?
This week, I am once again joined on The Ed Wood Summit Podcastby blogger Joe Blevins. He's here to discuss two extraordinary Ed Wood pieces from the May/June 1973 issue of Goddess from Gallery Press: a short story called "Thor and His Magic Hammer" and a nonfiction article called "Girls Who Have to Watch Their Periods as Well as Their Commas." Ed proudly penned the first under his own name and the second under his commonly-used "Dick Trent" pseudonym. Under any name, these are real finds!
Thanks to Rob Huffman for supplying these great articles. He has an Indiegogo campaign for a video podcast you can check out right here.
Captain America: Civil War wants you to know a few things.
Hello, America.
I'm Captain America: Civil War. I'm a major motion picture from Marvel Studios and Walt Disney coming to a theater near you on May 6, 2016. That's just around the corner. Maybe you've seen an advertisement for me at a movie theater. Or on television. Or on the Internet. Or in the back of a cab. Or on one of those little screens they have at gas pumps now. So you have heard of me? That's nice.
So...
'Sup? Let's get to know each other. Mind if I put on some music?
There. Isn't that better? I thought so, too. Why don't you lie down while I pour you a glass of Amaretto and give you a nice, relaxing foot massage?
That's more like it. Can't you just feel all the stress leaving your body? Oh, yeah.
Now, baby -- do you mind if I call you baby?
Baby, I know that you've been hurt by big budget, major studio superhero films in the past. And I mean the very recent past. Not to be too forward, but I heard through the grapevine that you just suffered a bad breakup with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Someone told me that you came out of the theater depressed and disoriented. You even said you were "done" with superhero movies forever. Is that right? Don't be shy, America. Captain America: Civil War is here to listen to you. Speak from the heart.
Okay. That's what I thought.
Well, baby, I'm here to tell you that the bad times are over and the good times are just beginning. I know you've been down some tough roads, and, believe me, I feel your pain. Dawn of Justice may have broken your heart, but that's just because he's a chump who doesn't respect and cherish you like I do. That ain't gonna happen with Captain America: Civil War. I know it's difficult, but I'm asking you to trust again. Captain America: Civil War is here to make everything all right.
Don't forget: I'm just a $250 million franchise film standing in front of a nation of ticket buyers, asking them to love him.
Yeah, I took that line from Notting Hill. I'm genuinely sorry about that. But my screenplay is all new, baby, I swear. Take my hand, America. You won't regret it.
Did I mention that I have Spider-Man? And no origin story this time? Oh, you like that, don't you? Yeah, you do, you saucy little minx.
So, what do you say? Do we have a date on May 6? In 3D and IMAX in selected locations? Oh, yeah.
That crudely-rendered monster is Foo Ti Fum. The city he's terrorizing is Portland, Oregon.
My cousin's favorite gum
When I was growing up in Michigan,my uncle and his family lived right down the street from us, so my cousins were regular visitors to our home, especially during the summers. My uncle's youngest son, Derrick, was practically a brother to me in those days. He was one of those kids who, like the tykes in Family Circus, was always mispronouncing words in a way which grownups found cute. Derrick had a genuine love for Fruit Stripe gum back then, which I could never understand because, even at that age, I knew that Fruit Stripe was a total ripoff. A few seconds of flavor, then nothing.
Well, anyway, Derrick could never manage to say "Fruit Stripe gum" correctly, and it always came out sounding like "Foo Ti Fum." And that particular turn of phrase lodged itself into my mind and stayed there, long after I moved away from Michigan and my relatives. When I learned of a Marvel Comics character called Fin Fang Foom, I began to think of "Foo Ti Fum" as a similar character, a huge, snarling monster with the exact color scheme of the Fruit Stripe gum packaging.
This thought became so deeply rooted in my mind that, in moments of extreme boredom, I would actually Google "Foo Ti Fum" hoping to see pictures of this totally nonexistent character. Of course, nothing came up. Well, I finally decided to fix that. Here is a genuine article about Foo Ti Fum with a picture to go with it. If I ever Google the beast's name again, this will appear. That's good enough for me.
