Ace of Spades HQ

August 10, 2010

Sorry, Another Awesome One: Firefly, Circa 1980
— Ace

If you watched TV in the 80s, you'll giggle at the credit sequence here.

Funny, right? Well they left Simon Tam out of the credits; so to apologize for that oversight, they created another credit sequence for Simon Tam, M.D. (second video).

Thanks to anonymous geek.

And now I'll get to the real shit.

Posted by: Ace at 06:33 AM | Comments (41)
Post contains 68 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Seen it. Still teh ossimness^TM. Makes a body pine for what should have been, no?

Posted by: DarkLordOfTheIntarWebs at August 10, 2010 06:38 AM (IkEhE)

Wow, that made firefly look really gay.

It was like Firefly meets Seaquest.

Although Seaquest wasn't that bad...

Posted by: Entropy at August 10, 2010 06:38 AM (IsLT6)

3 So Ace is still buzzed on speed and stayed up all night surfing youtube?

I don't get the love for this show, but that's prob'ly just me. Whedon just bugs me.

Posted by: nickless at August 10, 2010 06:40 AM (MMC8r)

4 Introducing Summer as River

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 10, 2010 06:42 AM (1Jaio)

Wow, that made firefly look really gay.

Liberace impressions tend to make him look like a huge flamer, too. What's up with that?

Posted by: oblig. at August 10, 2010 06:43 AM (x7Ao8)

6 "Summer Glau as River Tam?"

Suddenly, LaShondra, Shaquille and Tyhessia don't sound like such goofy names....

Posted by: J. Pinkerton Snoopington at August 10, 2010 06:43 AM (Ulu3i)

Whedon can bug you all day long, I'm not HUGE on anything else he's done.

In some ways, I think it may be for the best that Firefly got cancelled while it was still teh awesome and before he could turn it into River the Reaver Slayer and her lesbian sidekick.

But the show ROCKS. Best. Scifi. TV. Show. Ever.

Posted by: Entropy at August 10, 2010 06:44 AM (IsLT6)

8 Is it hot in here, or is it Summer?

Posted by: howard wolowitz at August 10, 2010 06:45 AM (rfHsm)

9 I have just lost my ever lovin' geek $#!T. That was soooooo amazing! Simon Tam M.D.!!!!!!

Posted by: Evan Pokroy at August 10, 2010 06:47 AM (FPO9K)

In fact on a scale of 1 to 10 think of me as an (horrible 80's acting pause) eleven.

http://bit.ly/caFmii

Posted by: Strategic Corporal USMC at August 10, 2010 06:48 AM (R2fpr)

11 It's crap-tacular!

Posted by: Summer Glau's thong at August 10, 2010 06:51 AM (zgZzy)

12 Never did understand all the hoopla over Firefly, despite all the laudatory fanboys. Besides, Whedon is a lefty douche.

Posted by: Groaty Dick at August 10, 2010 06:54 AM (gzjhZ)

13 Oh so THAT's how the name "Kaylee" burst onto the scene.

Posted by: kallisto at August 10, 2010 06:55 AM (+FkcS)

14 Wolowitz came up with the line, but I used it. Damm no-alcoholic beer...

Posted by: Raj Koothrappali at August 10, 2010 06:56 AM (ho4I5)

15 this is real shit!

Posted by: Tim Minear at August 10, 2010 06:57 AM (mmXRJ)

16 Not bad, but the music sucked. But I guess that's appropriate for the era.

Posted by: Bomber at August 10, 2010 06:57 AM (qzoN5)

17 It's no Galactica 1980.

Posted by: Dirk Benedict at August 10, 2010 06:58 AM (zgZzy)

18 Didnt Ron Glass play the really well-dressed detective in Barney Miller in the 1970s???

Posted by: Leigh T at August 10, 2010 07:01 AM (pm89J)

19 #18 YES! I couldnt remember if it was Barney Miller or Love Boaat LOL

Posted by: Schwalbe at August 10, 2010 07:13 AM (UU0OF)

Besides, Whedon is a lefty douche.

True dat!

Posted by: Josh Whedon at August 10, 2010 07:16 AM (zgZzy)

Never did understand all the hoopla over Firefly, despite all the laudatory fanboys.

Ever watch any episodes?

"Out of Gas", or "Our Mrs. Reynolds"? Great stuff.

Posted by: HH at August 10, 2010 07:22 AM (6oDXl)

22 I always liked Star Wars as Airwolf. . . .

Posted by: Holdfast at August 10, 2010 07:23 AM (Gzb30)

23 Didn't Ron Glass play the really well-dressed detective in Barney Miller in the 1970s?

He was always on the phone with finical adviser, book publisher, city offical, dry cleaner, movers, real estate .... whatever that always ende "...Hello...HELLO!"

Posted by: Raj Koothrappali at August 10, 2010 07:26 AM (a+kMW)

24 @18 Didnt Ron Glass play the really well-dressed detective in Barney Miller in the 1970s???

Yup -- Detective Harris. He rocked it.

Ron Glass also starred with Demond "Lamont Sanford" Wilson in a short-lived remake of The Odd Couple series in the '80's, called The New Odd Couple.

You're welcome, trivia geeks.

Posted by: Groaty Dick at August 10, 2010 07:27 AM (gzjhZ)

25 That intro was all of the 80's TV show intros distilled down into 90 seconds of awesome. The guys knew exactly what they were doing. Action cuts of the guys with guns, cheesecake cuts of the girls, cuts of the characters doing what they do in the show, teasers of the show scenes, and the obligatory full cast shot. Cheesy music, cheesy graphics, cheesy cuts; oh, yeah... Eighties, baybee!

Posted by: Smokey Behr at August 10, 2010 07:28 AM (QyeW7)

Posted by: Holdfast at August 10, 2010 11:23 AM (Gzb30)

Holy crap! That's terrific. About the only thing missing is Special Guest:

James Earl Jones.

Posted by: HH at August 10, 2010 07:28 AM (6oDXl)

27 @ 21 Ever watch any episodes?

Yes. Thus my original comment.

To each his own.

Posted by: Groaty Dick at August 10, 2010 07:29 AM (gzjhZ)

28 @ 28 I always confuse him with Tim Reid.

RACIST!!!

Posted by: Anonymous Lefty at August 10, 2010 07:32 AM (gzjhZ)

I always confuse him with Tim Reid.

heh...

Posted by: HH at August 10, 2010 07:34 AM (6oDXl)

30 Besides, Whedon is a lefty douche.

And Tim Minear, who co-created it, isn't. (He lurks on a ton of conservative blogs. Maybe even this one).

Regardless of the politics of the creators, the movie Serenity is pretty much the finest takedown of liberal government nanny state-ism and unintended consequences you'll ever see out of Hollywood.

Posted by: Ian S. at August 10, 2010 07:46 AM (p05LM)

31 "River the Reaver Slayer and her lesbian sidekick." Hey! That sound like a real cool idea!

Posted by: Moi at August 10, 2010 07:54 AM (Ez4Ql)

32 7

Whedon can bug you all day long, I'm not HUGE on anything else he's done.

In some ways, I think it may be for the best that Firefly got cancelled while it was still teh awesome and before he could turn it into River the Reaver Slayer and her lesbian sidekick.

But the show ROCKS. Best. Scifi. TV. Show. Ever.

Posted by: Entropy at August 10, 2010 10:44 AM (IsLT6)

Firefly's pretty much the best Whedon's done. Probably due to Adam Baldwin (and sure, the rest of the good cast). I'm actually glad it got canceled before it went into the usual runaway hell. Serenity almost ruined the show for me, too. Still regard the end as a big "f**k you."

The only other Whedon shows that I liked were Dollhouse (canceled) and Dr. Horrible.

These videos geeked me out. Say what you will, but 80s credits (and early 90s) were awesome. _{Covert Affairs could have benefitted from one done like this and not their current crap.}

Posted by: soulpile at August 10, 2010 07:56 AM (afWhQ)

33 This is still my favorite 80's intro remake:
http://tinyurl.com/dcxbnx
Who shot Adama?
I did hate the whole "Starbuck wakes up and finds Zac in the shower and realizes that the Cylon destruction of the colonies was just a dream" thing.

Posted by: Chris R at August 10, 2010 08:01 AM (AO4qz)

Man, I had no idea that those intro's were out there!

You fellow morons are the best.

Posted by: HH at August 10, 2010 08:05 AM (6oDXl)

35 That intro sucked.

Posted by: GhostShip at August 10, 2010 08:05 AM (4VxpQ)

36 Actually, forgetting a major cast member in the credits but still showing footage of them is *very* 80s.

I think of Whedon as more preeningly pretentious than actually "liberal" in any meaningful way. From interviews he seems to cast himself as an iconoclastic, hyper-individualist who loves to quote famous idiot philosophers, but he pretty much just goes along politically despite (or because of) that.

Good writer, though. Clever. Perhaps *too* clever, though Buffy showed his team had the "workmanlike" stuff down to keep it going for a lot of years.

I think Firefly would have worked out okay, maybe even for several seasons - who knows, it didn't happen.

Posted by: Merovign, Strong on His Mountain at August 10, 2010 12:41 PM (bxiXv)

37 They missed a cliche... in the eighties, the cuts would often feature the characters talking, which looked odd, since there was no sound. Later, in the 90s and 2000s, they would avoid the silently-talking character and just show wordless expressions, smiles, looks, etc. But in the 80s -- they should all be jibber-jabbing silently. These guys took the current fashion for the character shots, rather than the 80s one, which looks very dumb now, but was the rule at the time.

Posted by: ace at August 10, 2010 12:43 PM (QbA6l)

38 I think one of the reasons Firefly has such a following is that Sci Fi on TV sucks so horribly, generally speaking.

Even when it doesn't suck, it seems to "split the base," in that big chunks of the potential fan base always seem to hate a particular show. Firefly didn't really have time to do that. People follow the potential because the long-term never showed up.

B5 lost a lot of people because of the integrated plotlines, Farscape just weirded people out, Star Trek: Voyager had Captain Clueless and Enterprise dug a long series of plot holes (and had the worst theme song EVAR)...

Is there even any decent space Sci-Fi on TV now? I kind of gave up on TV.

Posted by: Merovign, Strong on His Mountain at August 10, 2010 12:48 PM (bxiXv)

39 Since Babylon 5 ended, there's been zip sci-fi that's worth watching.

Posted by: Arkay at August 10, 2010 02:03 PM (TnUAk)

The opening reminds me of this:

http://tinyurl.com/24lqfac

Posted by: Entropy at August 10, 2010 03:45 PM (eL+YD)

Babylong 5 was great. Farscape was awesome, I was pissed when they canned it.

But Firefly was better than either.

Posted by: Entropy at August 10, 2010 03:55 PM (eL+YD)

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