The Rabbit Ears Quiz- Space 1999 (2 of 12)

It just dawned on me that two future Academy Award-winners for Best Supporting Actor came to prominence thanks to two science-fiction oriented tv show. The two actors I'm thinking of are Robin Williams ("Mork and Mindy" is one of the few sci-fi sitcoms one can think of) and Martin Landau, who starred in the British tv cult classic "Space 1999," who won an Oscar for playing Bela Lugosi in "Ed Wood."

I first came across "Space 1999," which ran for two seasons from 1975 until 1978, in a very unusual way. When I saw the show, it was actually called "Uzay 1999" and it aired on the TRT, Turkish Radio and Television. When I saw the show in the fall of 1977, there was only one channel of tv in Turkey and it only came on at certain hours of the day. Plus, virtually all of the tvs were in black and white. Of course, now one can watch hundreds of channels of tv in Turkey, which I would presume has posed challenged for the TRT, which was a state-run media monopoly at the time.

For its time, "Space 1999" was the most expensive television ever made. It drew inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's cinematic masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey"
(1968). In addition to Landau, the show featured his then-wife Barabara Bain.

So, for today's quiz, since it's a safe assumption that most science fiction fans are good at math (well, I'm certainly not!), we are going to ask what is mathematical difference between the number of episodes for "Space 1999" and "Star Trek," which was called "Uzay Yolu" in Turkey.

Is the answer:

A) 28
B) 29
C) 31
D) 33

SIDEBAR: While researching this piece, we learned that German television will air a 1968 episode of the original "Star Trek" series entitled "The Patterns of Force" for the very first time. The reason why the episode is being aired in Germany only now is fairly obvious: Captain Kirk and Mister Spock dress like Nazis to breech the third reich.

SIDEBAR TWO: Ironically, we found out today that this blog is apparently more popular in Greece as of late than Turkey (I happen to be a Turkish-American). Hmmmmm.....In all seriousness, we wish our followers in Greece good luck during this trying economic time. Of course, this doesn't mean that we recognize Kardak as being 'your island.'*

*- Kardak, which is called Imia in Greek, is an uninhabited goat island which actually caused a foreign relations fiasco between Turkey and Greece some years ago. It does in fact belong to Greece, and I hope this is ok with the goats!

Quote of the Day- Tarkan

We conclude our month-long series on quotes from famous Turkish people past and present with a quip from Tarkan, the pop mega-star, who has sold millions of records not only in Turkey, but also in Argentina, Germany, France, Greece and just about every place else except the United States. He is best-known for songs like "Simarik," "Dudu" and "Kuzu Kuzu."

The fact that he usually sings in Turkish has a lot to do with this, though on the advice of the late, great Turkish-American record producer Ahmet Ertegun, Tarkan did try to sing some songs in English. And, alas, it did sound like William Shatner's ("Star Trek"'s original Captain Kirk, for those of you born after Bush 41 was president) version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhadsopy," which is in record stores now (we are actually not making that up!).



Here is Tarkan's quote:

"Dancing and singing are always like games to me. I sang constantly."

Things We Learned on Twitter Tonight- Principal Skinner Mentions Roanoke, Va.

Harry Shearer, who has done many things besides voicing characters on "The Simpsons," mentioned Roanoke, Va., my hometown in a tweet tonight.

The tweet was regarding the fact that my friend Jason Garnett was screening Shearer's documentary "The Big Uneasy" about the Hurricane Katrina fiasco at The Shadowbox Cinema tonight. The film, which Shearer produced and directed, also shows at the same venue tomorrow night (Saturday night) at 8:00 p.m.

Here was the tweet from Shearer:

"Big Uneasy opens tonight in Roanoke, Va., and Encinitas, Ca., I'll be skyping the
Q & A at the latter, Palorma Theatre."

The film is also screening in Savannah, Georgia, this weekend.

I saw the screening at the Shadowbox and the documentary turned out to be a fairly well-done film, which features a number of funny cameos by John Goodman, that helps balance the depressing subject matter. The film's focus on how it affected New Orleans, where Shearer is a part-time resident, is quite moving.

As for Principal Seymour Skinner, I had found out a while back through Wikipedia that he was actually an Armenian-American?! This humored me because I am a Turkish-American, and for reasons why I won't go into (we only have so much time to dedicate to blog entries) our two groups have 'some political friction.'

Skinner's real name as revealed in a 1997 episode (it is easy to forget that the show has been on since 1990 and if Bart Simpson aged in real time he would have probably retired from skateboarding) is Armin Tamzarian.

In the episode in which the name of Skinner was revealed there is a real man named Seymour Skinner who confronts him for being an impostor. According to Wikiepdia, Shearer himself said that he intensely disliked the episode which many Simpsons fans apparently consider to be the equivalent of the infamous "Spock's Brain" episode of the original "Star Trek."

SIDEBAR: For my friends and followers back in my adopted city of Greensboro, NC, I also want to highly recommend "Talking Pictures," a new musical comedy by Tommy Trull and Chris Tilley who are (full disclosure) friends of mine. The two-act play is a farscial look at the early days of Hollywood when Harold LLoyd was the king of comedy. "Talking Pictures" is being staged at the historic Broach Theatre in downtown Greensboro. There will be a production tommorow night at 8:00 p.m.