GLO Friends Save Christmas

GLO Friends Save Christmas

United States - 1986

Children's Video Library, 1985, VHS

Run Time - 30 minutes

Dinosaurs!

Dinosaurs!

United States - 1994

Diamond Entertainment, 1994, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 38 minutes

Last Chance Detectives

Last Chance Detectives: Mystery Lights of Navajo Mesa

United States -  1994

Director - Steven Styles

Leucadia Family Films, 1994, VHS

Run Time - 50 minutes

Great cover art by "Rodriguez". It looks like s/he did the art for several of the other videos or books though I can't confirm it with any of the images I found.

McGee and Me!: Skate Expectations

McGee and Me!: Skate Expectations

United States - 1990

Director - Chuck Bowman

Focus on the Family, 1990, VHS

Run Time - 30 minutes

Mary Kate & Ashley's Sleepover Party

You're Invited to Mary Kate and Ashley's Sleepover Party

United States - 1995

Dualstar Video (Warner), 1995, VHS

Run Time - 30 minutes

To those who have not experienced it, the 90's had a flavor the protected will never know.

G.I. Joe: The Movie

G.I. Joe The Movie

United States - 1987

Director - Don Jurwich

Celebrity Home Entertainment, 1995, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 33 minutes

Learn Gun Safety

Learn Gun Safety with Eddie Eagle

United States - 1998

NRA, 1998, VHS

Run Time - 7 minutes

Bad Medicine

Bad Medicine: 

Natives Helping White Folks Clean up their

Spiritual Dirty Laundry since 1492

There is no shortage of films in which white folks play at being The Other. Playing at being Japanese or Chinese is certainly not limited to Mickey Rooney, nor Latino/Mexican to Marlon Brando and Telly Savalas. Still, it is not often that we think of white folks breaking out the Red-Face and play at being 'Injuns.' But it wasn't uncommon. The assumption that 'Others' cannot sufficiently portray themselves (or more accurately cannot act the way white folks need them to be in order to justify various forms of racism) is not a distinction meted out to any group exclusively.

If the examples of Blackface are many, replaced only by stereotypes sufficiently disguised to maintain the illusion of superiority, then Redface is hardly any different. From the stony-faced war-chiefs of the 30's an 40's, Redface gradually gave way by the 1960's to more acceptably romantic notions of a people somehow closer to the Earth and like, in tune with the spirits man.

And that's a power that us white people need to expropriate. In the world of cinema, there is nothing worse than helplessness in the face of sheer supernatural terror, or aimlessness in the wake of cultural banality. Fortunately Indigenous peoples have provided us with a convenient release valve for all our Anglo-Saxon spiritual hangups. Whether helping us find meaning in our privileged but ultimately hollow lives or defeating wacky demons of our own creation comes the White Man's spiritual savior: The Medicine Man.

Roughly paralleling the 'Magic Negro,' the movie Medicine Man imparts some kind of Earthy spiritual knowledge or healing upon the bereft white man. Like the Magic Negro who uses soul, rhythm or a clever ruse, the Medicine Man uses sacred smoke, animals or a fetishized notion of extra-natural powers, something mysterious and beyond the comprehension of urbane whites. In most cases, like his black analogue, the Medicine Man is mysterious, arriving physically from nowhere, i.e. a spirit, or historically from nowhere. In either case this 'pastlessness' makes stereotypes easy to swallow because it dissociates them from any historical subjectivity but the immediate-white-present. After imparting his knowledge the Medicine Man inevitably moves on (literally and/or just from the script), disappearing as "mysteriously" as he came. All he asks in payment for his services some symbolic and often trivial token and the satisfaction of having helped. This reiterates the infamous and oft repeated assumption that Native peoples don't understand "true" (acquisitive) value and is quite fortunate because a deeper relationship might require that we white folks actually change ourselves (and our racist assumptions) rather than our (temporary) circumstances and gosh, that's really hard. Our need to fetishize and objectify Indigenous peoples (and other Others) says far more about us than it does them.

Here is an ongoing list of fortuitous Medicine Men (and Women I suspect we shall discover) who have helped us white folks clean up our dirty laundry, without having to clean up much else, throughout the years:

The Manitou
Director - William Girdler 
Syrian born actor Michael Ansara portrays John Singing Rock, a member of an unnamed Plains tribe who helps Tony Curtis defeat an evil Medicine Man that emerges from Curtis' girlfriend's neck in this woman-hating horror film from 1978.

Medicine: Prayers and 'charms'
Token Payment:Tobacco

Poltergeist II
Director - Brian Gibson
Creek actor Will Sampson played Taylor, the Medicine Man whose butterfly summoning power helps the Freeling's defeat spooks a second time around in 1986. Sampson, who died the following year, had played Native Americans in a number of famous roles including those in Outlaw Josey Wales and One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Medicine: Sacred Smoke
Token Payment: A beat up station wagon

Forest Warrior

Director - Aaron Norris

A tired looking Chuck Norris played McKenna in the 1996 film Forest Warrior. The character is actually a Scotsman who "went native" and whose spirit now protects Mt. Hood, Oregon. When a group of kids go up the mountain to play in their tree-house, spirit-McKenna transforms into various animals and helps them defeat a group of nefarious loggers. While not technically a Medicine Man with magic spells, the use of assumed native atributes to help white folks is clear. The noble savage and super warrior being venerable tropes of USAmerican frontier literature and cinema. McKenna's round-housing spirit-power helps the kids to become stand up for themselves and become mature.

Medicine: Warrior spirit

Token Payment: Satisfaction in having helped

Free Willy
Director - Simon Wincer
In the 1993 film Free Willy and its two sequels, August Schellenberg plays Randolphe Johnson, a Haida Indian who teaches the hero Jesse a tribal song that helps the troubled product of multiple foster homes to communicate with the titular whale, teach it tricks and learn to love someone other than himself.
Medicine: A Haida prayer-song
Token Payment: Satisfaction in having helped

Windrunner

Director - William Clark

This little gem from 1995 features the iconic Russel Means as the ghost of Jim Thorpe helping young Craig overcome his parental hangups in order to achieve high-school football stardom. The film itself is something of a Karate Kid clone with the familiar training sequences and nasty rival sports star, in this case played by Jake Busey. Although the relationship is nominaly reciprocal, Means' Wa Tho Huck character is definitely a 'mysterious Native American elder' whose primary role is to help Greg before vanishing. Despite his historical foundations, the film character remains a wandering spirit.
An emerging trend in these films appears to be the white-boy's missing father figure whom the Medicine Man temporarily replaces until the boy can become a man on his own or, as in Windrunner, forgive/reunite with his own (or new, see Free Willy) father.

Medicine: Warrior spirit/confidence

Token Payment: A Superbowl ring (which he gives back of course) 

Band of the Hand
Director - Paul Michael Glaser
From the maker of Miami Vice comes this gorgeous time-capsule of mid 80's television and raw stereotype. Stephen Lang plays Joe Tegra, a Vietnam Veteran and member of the Miccosukee tribe of north Florida. When a group of young delinquents is dumped in his care in the Everglades, he trains them in survival and guerilla warfare before returning to Miami to confront the drug cartel. Joe himself doesn't appear mysteriously though he has zero back-story, but he is the recipient/teacher/savior of the five punks. Nor are the punk kids, recipients of his Medicine, exclusively white but they are all introduced via back-story.

Nevertheless, Joe still disappears from our narrative with nary a reward.

This begs the question, what if the Medicine Man doesn't use "Medicine" (i.e. indigenous 'magic' or 'sprituality') Joe for example, and McKenna and Wa Tho Huck all impart a warrior knowledge more in keeping with the legendary tracker/hunter icon of legend. Actually, Joe really epitomizes this with his 'Nam Vet guerilla stylings, demonstrating that regardless of the metaphysical quality of the gift, the Medicine man imparts secret knowledge in service of the protagonist. That the latter is not on the surface literally white is largely moot, Band of the Hand being a case in point. Our vigilante heroes fight (ethnic) criminal drug users in the service of (white) law and order, feeding a mythology of racist stereotypes in abject denial of real life drug use statistics. No matter, the Medicine Man can help save white culture writ-large from it's own cognitive dissonance. 

Medicine: Warrior spirit/confidence

Token Payment: Satisfaction in having "saved" the boys

And that, until the next update, is Bad Medicine. We'll post more as they hit the radar screens...

I highly recommend the excellent documentaries Imagining Indians and Reel Injun, both films by indigenous filmmakers about the cinematic portrayal of Indigenous Americans. The latter is presently streaming at Nitflex.
There is also a fantastic article on the total erasure of Indigenous peoples from Hollywood cinema (and USAmerican "history") at Tequila Sovereign.
By all means if you dear reader know of any film in which a Native medicine man or woman helps white people get over themselves, let me know, I want, no, NEED to catalogue it here. And finally, in case I haven't been clear enough; This project, whatever it amounts to, is not meant to disrespect or insult indigenous peoples. Its purpose is to point out white use of stereotypes and appropriation of native cultures in furthering our own agenda, that is as a project of expropriation and colonialism. This is intended as an anti-racist project.

The Magic of Martial Arts

The Magic of Martial Arts

United States - 1995

Director Marsha Scabrough

Rainbow Tribe Productions, 1995, VHS

Run Time - 30 minutes

Mortal Kombat Animated Video

Mortal Kombat: The Animated Video: The Journey Begins

United States - 1996

Director - Kevin Droney

New Line Home Video, 1997, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour

Had I not staggered across this shortly after reveling in the glory that is Expect No Mercy, I wouldn't have remembered the referrent. So, no thanks to Billy Blanks for reawakening memories of high-school, and thanks to my brain for stiffling them.

Alyssa Milano's Teen Steam

Teen Steam

United States - 1988

Director - Rick Elgood, Howard Woffinden

J2 Communications, 1988, VHS

Run Time -45 minutes

About a month ago as I was crudely pounding out the Preliminary Taxonomy of Exercise VHS a creepy memory came back to me. Who's The Boss was prime-time television at about the time that my parents got rid of the TV, so my only awareness of that show and its cultural significance came in retrospect. Nor did I have much awareness of Alyssa Milano who starred primarily in relationship drama shows as an adult. Yet somehow I knew that this existed. As I was compiling a list of oddball exercise videos with some friends this thing popped into my head and it took us almost two days to remember which 80's teen star was the host, and thence track down the tape.

That's when all those creepy recollections washed over me. To tell the truth though, by the time it finally arrived I had already sit through six other exercise videos and lost a great deal of my initial enthusiasm for the whole project. In the end though Teen Steam, if not a personal favorite, definitely anchors the genre at one end. Consisting of about 30 minutes of Alyssa and a couple of other girls doing some aerobics followed by a music video, there's not much to get excited about, unless you really try. The whole thing was after all attended closely by her parents (they appear several times in the credits) and I find it somewhat difficult to believe that they would intentionally capitalize on the pedophilia market.

Fortunately, even if they had, they did a pretty bad job. Judging by the reviews over at Amazon one would expect some sleaze, but it is not so. It may be an amusing time capsule (which needs to be reburied for a good 20 years to fully ferment) Teen Steam is pretty boring fare.

Check out the Taxonomy of Exercise VHS at Paracinema

Psalty's Funtastic Praise Party

Psalty's Funtastic Praise Party

United States - 1983

Director - Gerald Cain

Word Incorporated, 1998, VHS

Run Time -58 minutes

Psalty's Funtastic Praise Party is a variety show for Christian children, or rather it's a Christian singalong for children who are too young to know any better. That's the best time to get 'em!

The best part are the three giant boxes on the stage in the first segment. They're supposed to be "praise boxes" into which the children are admonished to pour their praise or some such nonsense, but their physical dimensions and hinged lids make them look remarkably like dumpsters. When all the multicolored confetti and pom-poms pop out and shake around like wind-blown litter, it really reinforces the concept.

But the kicker, the real coup-de-grace is when all the puppets pop out and start dancing around and singing. Even if they didn't look exactly like muppets, the Oscar the Grouch/homeless scavenger effect would be unmistakable. They even have shaggy hair and one is wearing a lampshade.

I can't help but think that what we're getting here is a rehash of the happy-pauper Oliver Twist concept.

 The love of Christ and the promise of a better afterlife has long been a traditional salve to the oppressed and Christianity has always paid lip service to charity, so it should come as no surprise that part of childhood indoctrination is the notion that poor people like it that way, they're happy. It's as necessary to making oneself feel superior as it is to 'doing good works.' The very notion of charity as a practice requires that the giver has while the recipient has not. It necessitates, requires, even feeds on inequality and hierarchy which it subsequently becomes necessary to maintain.

To make equal, to really end deprivation and need would rob the benefactor of their sense of righteousness, deprive them of the psychological bandage that enables us to avoid more difficult questions. Therefore poverty (i.e. economic injustice) in this adulterated sense is a good thing.

Bibleman Jr.: Thankful for Jesus

Bibleman Jr: Thankful for Jesus

United States -

Director - 

Pamplin Entertainment, VHS

Run Time - 30 minutes

Explorers

Explorers

United States - 1985

Director - Joe Dante

Paramount Home Video, 1985, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 47 minutes

An underrated classic from my childhood, Explorers is probably largely unknown to anyone under the age of 25 or so.

Dino Riders

Dino Riders

The Dino Riders Adventure

United States - 1987

Tyco, 1987, VHS

Run Time - 27 minutes including Tyco commercials!

Thus begins VHS animation week!

A Gumby Summer

A Gumby Summer
United States

F.H.E., 1987, VHS

Volume 8

Run Time - 1 hour

I bet you thought I had forgotten about my mission to track down all the Gumby VHS tapes I could find. Not so lucky. Here I give you another in F.H.E.'s multi-volume series. This tape has a volume number on the label, but higher catalog numbers do not.

• Gumby League
• Motor Mania
• The Blue Goo
• A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
• The Missile-Bird
• Pokey Express
• Rain Spirits
• Mason Hornet
• Shady Lemonade
• Making Squares

Bibleman: Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Bibleman: Lead Us Not Into Temptation

United States - 1998

Director - Willie Aames

Pamplin Entertainment, 2001, VHS

Run Time: ?

The Dirtbike Kid

The Dirtbike Kid

United States - 1985

Director - Hoice C. Caston

Charter Entertainment, 1986, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 31 minutes

I did not have high expectations for The Dirtbike Kid, and bought it merely out of morbid curiosity. Peter Billingsley who you may be more familiar with as Ralphie in A Christmas Story plays Jack, a kid who basically rehashes Herbie the Lovebug with a dirtbike. I shall present the argument however that just under the surface, The Dirtbike Kid is a not-so complex analogy for puberty, masturbation and freshly minted Oedipal masculinity.

Jack is at first a typical little kid watching cartoons and eating potato chips. His mother Janet (Anne Bloom), a frazzled woman barely able to keep the house from burning down sends Jack to the store with 50 bucks to buy groceries. On the way Jack stops at a dirtbike rally where he admires the noisy and flamboyant machines of the confident and cocky older boys as they leap into the air and spray mud. At that moment a kid with a bike that doesn’t work well stalls it out right in front of him and frustrated, offers to sell it to Jack for 50 bucks. Suddenly a strange old man appears and tells Jack that the bike has magic powers if it has the right rider…

The problem is, Jack’s single mom is unemployed and that was their last 50 dollars. She sends Jack to bed with a promise to sell the bike and recover their money in the morning. That night Jack sneaks out to the garage and lovingly cleans and polishes his bike, which literally becomes erect, and together they go on a wild midnight ride, only barely escaping detection by mom.

Notice Jack's pose in the top set.

Soon Jack has been transformed into a confident and proactive young man, he and his new Bike do things together, go on adventures and even fly through the air in several wet-dream scenes reminiscent of the finest wrinkly E.T. sequence. Jack and his crotch-rocket’s biggest challenge is yet to come however when local bank mogul Mr. Hodgkins (Stuart Pankin) selects the location for his new branch building. It happens to be the exact site of that community institution, Mike’s Dog House, Jack’s favorite hot-dog stand and sponsor of his little league team. At the very same time, Mom is trying desperately to land a job at Mr. Hodgkin’s bank, an application he would be happy to consider with her at his mansion over a glass of wine…
!!But there’s Jack, blasting in on all 300cc’s of his manhood to save the wiener stand and his first love’s purity from the slimy grasp of one totally unmasculine slob. In fact, Jack goes so far as to publicly humiliate Mr. Hodgkins and make him dress up in a giant hotdog costume. Alas, just at their moment of triumph, the magic suddenly fades from Jack’s Bike.

“No! Don’t go, this is what we’ve worked for!” Jack exclaims, but the bike is suddenly lifeless, the glow gone from its headlights.
“Jack honey, what’s wrong?” says Janet, climbing the sand dune toward her son.
“It’s my bike mom, all the magic’s gone.”
“Well Jack I know this bike is really special to you.”


“It sure is. But y’know mom, I was just thinkin’, maybe the magic is gone because I have my own magic that’s working for me now.”
“Your father used to say, we all have a little magic hidden inside us, sometimes it just takes someone special to bring it out.”
“That’s what my bike did for me right?”
“And that’s what you do for me.”

Bam! Jack has his own magic, reserving his mother and their home for his sole male dominance. Mike's wiener hut is intact and bigger than ever (and his girlfriend is suddenly pregnant!), and finally the obese, cowardly and child-hating Mr. Hodgkins, thoroughly desexualized, is thus defanged and relegated to the status of walking joke. Jack has discovered his penis.
Thank you.
I rest my case.

Moments after Jack abandons the bike, another small child climbs onto it and proclaims his desire to possess such a magnificent machine. Then suddenly that same strange old man from the beginning of the film steps from behind a column and says “This is a very special bike you know…. well, provided it has the right rider…”
That's exactly who you want to teach you about your penis.

The World According to Gumby

The World According to Gumby

United States
F.H.E., 1987, VHS

Run Time – 30 minutes

• The Big Eye

• Outcast Marbles

• Tail Tale

• Haunted Hot Dog

• Indian Challenge

This is a short one. When I rented these as a kid I didn't understand the concept of running times and I was always profoundly disappointed when they were over after only five episodes. As a result I often ended up watching the same tape four or five times before returning it. Maybe that's why I feel compelled to gather them all together in the archive now; so I can play a constant loop of Gumby as my mind degenerates into psychosis.

Gumby For President

Gumby for President

F.H.E., 1987, VHS
Volume 9

Run Time – 1 hour

• Candidate for President

• Yard Work Made Easy

• Toy Joy

• Mysterious Fires

• Siege of Boonesborough

• Little Post Pony

• Point of Honor

• Do-It-Yourself Gumby

• Gold Rush Gumby

• Wishful Thinking

I'd vote for that wholesome son of a little green ball of clay.