1 – The Tex Murphy Series – Many of you have heard me wax poetic about my love for this interactive movie game series for the PC. This series chronicles the adventures of Tex Murphy, a PI in post WWIII apocalyptic San Francisco, as he solves crimes and saves the world. As Tex, the gamer would solve puzzles, interview possible suspects for information and in one particularly difficult challenge, navigate a maze made of motion sensor beams. I beat that one after a night of cursing and pounding the keyboard. My mom still remembers that night clearly, as her headboard was on the right other side of the wall. Although there were five games in the series, I only played the last three; Under a Killing Moon, The Pandora Directive and The Overseer (with Michael York!!!) Much to my chagrin, The Overseer ended on a cliff-hanger. After that Access Software was sold to Microsoft, who then sold it to Take-Two Interactive, who shut it down. The creators of the series have come out with a few radio programs to finish up the story and provide closure, but due to financial reasons, they were never finished. And so, the fate of my dear Tex Murphy is left hanging and I doubt that the games will ever be rereleased in any format.
2 – Angus – I hadn’t thought about this movie in ages, until it was included in a list of top 90’s movies on Jezebel.com. Angus is the story of an overweight, 14-year-old boy from Minnesota with a knack for science. Constantly bullied for not being “normal”, he longs to escape to a private school for smart kids, like him! A major theme of the movie is summed up in Angus’ grandfather’s catchphrase, “Screw’em”. Another pivotal scene features Angus turning on the school bully, played by Dawson of Dawson’s Creek fame, and yelling “I’m still here asshole!” I could quote this movie all day, albeit my quotes would be slightly off as I haven’t seen it in many years. And unless I can find a copy VHS, I most likely won’t see it again. New Line Cinema sold the rights, but no one seems to know to whom the rights were sold. It sucks to think of all the oddball kids that won’t get to see this movie and take comfort in its message. And a final word from Grandpa in regards to Superman, “You don’t understand. He’s smart, handsome, even decent. But he’s not brave. No, listen to me. Superman is indestructible, and you can’t be brave if you’re indestructible. It’s people like you and your mother. People who are different, and can be crushed and know it. Yet they keep going out there every time.”
3 – A Muppet Family Christmas – Perhaps the most holy and pure thing caught on video. The Muppets voyage to Fozzie’s grandmother’s farmhouse for a warm and fuzzy Christmas. There they are joined by their friends from Sesame Street and Robin even stumbles across the Fraggles hanging out in the basement. The last time I saw this was at the end of my first semester at Eugene Lang College. After our first round of proper college finals, Mackenzie and I were at our wit’s end, till this movie came along to save us. We laughed, we sang along and oh boy did we ball our eyes out during the Jim Henson cameo at the end. The version we watched was recorded directly from the original airing on TV. Now, you might find a DVD of this movie being sold on Amazon, but a caveat to all possible buyers, it is not the same version. In a fun legal twist, some of the songs were only cleared for television, so they can’t be reproduced on the DVD. Look out for some seriously terrible editing. And the company to blame? Disney! They currently own the rights to this movie, and technically could fix the situation. But will they? Most likely not.
And so dear readers, I hope you’ve enjoyed this bitter, angry, yet sentimental rant. Like old Rose says about Jack Dawson in Titanic, these things exist now only in memory. Ok, maybe not entirely in memory, but you get the jist of it.
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