Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 195: Eddie and the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide (1996)

Ed Wood was one of the filmmakers lampooned in The MST3K Colossal Episode Guide.

God, I loved mall bookstores. 

My idea of a perfect Sunday.

Look, I know there are still malls, and many of those malls still have bookstores. But I think it's safe to say that the heyday of the mall bookstore is long over, one of many casualties of the internet. There was a time (think: 1990s and early 2000s) when my idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon involved whiling away a few carefree hours at B. Dalton's and Waldenbooks, mostly browsing but purchasing occasionally, too. I'd always make a beeline for one of two departments, Humor and Entertainment, before wandering over to the magazine rack to see if Cinefantastique or Fangoria had something of interest for me.

In retrospect, mall bookstores played a fairly significant role in my life. Some of the last real quality time I had with my father was spent at a large shopping center in northeastern Indiana. While visiting my sister, who lives with her family in a small town near Fort Wayne, my dad and I would always find a few hours to sneak off to the local mall and see what it had to offer. Our first stop would always be Barnes & Noble, which sold a wide variety of books and magazines, plus music, movies, and various tchotchkes. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I came to love the smell of the coffee brewing at the in-store café. And I loved the light classical music playing on the overhead speakers, too. To this day, hearing Beethoven's "Rondo a Capriccio" transports me back to those very pleasant times.

I'm convinced there are a great many books that owe their entire existence to mall bookstores, particularly those books with humorous gimmicks or pop culture connections as their main selling points. A perfect example is The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide (1996) from Bantam Books. It was typical of the TV-based books of the era: detailed descriptions of the MST3K episodes that had aired up to that time, augmented by reminiscences of the actors, writers, and crew members who worked on the show. Though not exactly essential, the ACEG is a fun souvenir for fans of the long-running comedy series, which at the time was just ending its seven-season run on Comedy Central before moving to the Sci-Fi Channel. 

When this book came out, I remember eagerly thumbing through its pages a few times at the mall before finally spending $16.95 (a not-inconsiderable amount) on my own copy. Just my luck, the binding proved extremely fragile, forcing me to transfer the pages of the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide to a Trapper Keeper. At the time, I was just becoming a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan and there were many episodes I had not yet seen. It blew my mind to think that they'd covered both Kitten with a Whip (1964) and Monster a Go-Go (1965), two obscure cult films whose titles I only knew from the writings of John Waters. I realized from reading the ACEG that I had many hours of entertainment ahead of me.

Podcast Tuesday: "Hardware Wars"

Tom Bosley and Marion Ross on Happy Days.

I've written about this before, but my family owned a small business in the late 1970s and early '80s. It was a children's clothing store called the See Saw, and it was located in the (still-existent!) Carman Plaza shopping center on Corunna Road in Flint, Michigan. This was a somewhat seedy strip mall anchored by a Kroger, you understand, not one of those fancy enclosed malls that were all the rage back then. I remember my parents being very upset when a video arcade moved into the Plaza just a few doors down from us. They claimed it attracted an undesirable element. (Read: teenage potheads.)

Even with the undesirables, the See Saw managed to turn a tidy profit, and my parents had biggish dreams for the place. We talked about moving the See Saw into the indoor Genesee Valley mall a few miles away and ditching the poorly-maintained Carman Plaza, but these plans were scuttled by my strong-willed grandmother, who ran the clothing store alongside my mother. Grandma wanted to retire in the mid-1980s, so that was the end of the See Saw. My mom happily went back to teaching.

I have fond memories of the clothing store, but I have even fonder memories of the Genesee Valley mall on Linden Road in Flint. Oh, the hours I spent at that place. We just called it "the Valley," and it was pretty much the center of our lives back then.

As a kid, my favorite place at the Valley was the toy store Circus World, even though I was a little intimidated by the clown-headed helium tanks in front that were always overinflating balloons and causing them to POP loudly. I also dearly loved Woolworth, which had a very decent toy section of its own and was my source for Garbage Pail Kids cards, too. Not to mention it was attached to a restaurant called Harvest House, which served the best chocolate milkshakes I have ever had. As I grew older, I started frequenting Record Town and Tape World. Those places truly shaped my musical tastes, probably for the rest of my life.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're talking about the Season 10 episode "There's No Business Like No Business," whose plot revolves around both small businesses and malls. Specifically, Howard (Tom Bosley) is worried that the local mall is going to put his store, Cunningham Hardware, out of business forever. Is he right? Is this the end of one of Happy Days' iconic locations? Listen to our latest episode and find out!

Helping Kristen Stewart be more eloquent

So have you heard? Kristen Stewart can't go to the mall.

I know, right? That is totes depressing, K-Stew.

Here's what the damsel in distress had to say on the matter:

There’s no way to eloquently put this. I just can’t go to the mall. It bothers me that I can’t be outside very often.

Now, I can't solve Kristen's privacy problems, but I do dispute her claim that there is no way to "eloquently" phrase her dilemma. How about this?

Oh, cruel fate! It would seem that my nascent renown carries with it the heftiest of penalties. Verily, I have attained eminence as a thespian, but at what cost? My notoriety has isolated me to the point that even a casual sojourn to the local shopping plaza has become impractical. I dare not partake of the joys afforded to humanity by Mrs. Fields or even Nine West. Were I to do so, I would all but assuredly be overwhelmed by admirers and well-wishers. If this is to be my fate, then I shall cloister myself away, as much as it pains me. Why must you torment me in this fashion, capricious Fortuna?

So that's something to try in the next interview, Kristen.

P.S. - If you're wondering what makes Kristen Stewart an appropriate subject for this blog, then you obviously didn't examine that photograph at the beginning of the article.