Children of the Eighties, Unite!

I have a cousin named "Teela."

Now, I can't prove it, but I suspect she was named after the female warrior action figure. After all, she was born at around the right time, and I can certainly confirm her parents are nuts enough to do something like that.

When I was five years old I remember I had a crush on He-Man, which is proof enough for me that a fascination with muscles and strength emerges extremely early in sexual development.

The animation for the actual series "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" was made with help of actual very limber and agile bodybuilders, both male and female, who were used to create a library of movements they could draw specific figures on later. This is why it seemed like every single person from that series, on that entire planet, was extremely built, from the major characters to the weird bird-beaked guards.

One of the interesting discoveries, according to a He-Man Fansite, are the mini-comics that came with the figures: they actually had He-Man as a massive, jungle-bred hero from a caveman tribe on their vaguely mesozoic planet. Have a look for yourself:


(You'd think that a sorceress would be more effective than having a jungle-man hero, but of course you'd be dead wrong. Interesting to know that the precedent of the Sorceress being totally useless and never doing anything interesting was already set from day one!)

Now, anyone that's ever read this blog knows about my thing for Tarzan, so this is actually an idea I can really get behind. It's much more original and far more "fantasy/science fiction" a concept than the cliche superhero idea that they ultimately used.

Still, I find it intriguing that the Masters of the Universe figures were so massively muscled, almost universally. It wasn't a statement on body image, because for one thing, you could always tell good from evil on the planet Eternia because if you were evil, you were hideous beyond reason, whereas if you were good, you were merely grotesque. Rather, I suspect the reason is because it's a body type that suggests heroic-style adventure. Anyway, everyone had to be hugely built, from a design point of view, because if you make this next figure slimmer, they'd look like a pansy next to his buddies. And how well would the toy sell then, eh?

Of course, it had to be looked at in the context of the times. This was the eighties, the Age of Arnold, when everything was pumped up.

For the record, I never owned any Masters figures (I had a few of the She-Ra dolls, including the peacock woman). I did collect the Jem dolls, mostly because they came with a cassette tape, and I remember occasionally using my brother's Man-E-Faces figure, which apparently every single kid in the United States owned (along with the two quick-changing Transformers).

One last thought: if you slip a Bon Jovi tape into a Teddy Ruxpin, the result is hilarious.

Guess the Mystery Guests!

Go ahead, try and guess! I did my best to make these as resistant to Google-Fu as possible.



I was the original choice to play Commander Riker on Star Trek: the Next Generation, but most people know me better for some little movie I did in the early 1990s.






I dated Ted Turner, Sylvester Stallone, and Henry Kissinger. My religion of choice is Zoroastrianism, and I was politically active enough that I got death threats from Sikh extremists, and my death was believed to have been foul play. You'd probably recognize me better with a different hairstyle.







Alan Arkin is my first cousin, but I'm best known as a writer of children's books, a lot of them derived on my experiences growing up in Brooklyn.






Che Guevara personally went to Europe to persuade me to return to Cuba. I was an exotic dancer that did my bit on the same stage as Josephine Baker, and I later did plenty of Sword n' Sandal movies, including one with Steve Reeves.






I'm a writer from science fiction's early days that learned to read and write on a farm, and I coined the terms "genetic engineering" and "terraforming." I died in my late nineties. My most famous work was about perfect robots that sought to improve everything for mankind, at the cost of all human dignity.





I'm the most prolifically published mathematician of the 20th Century to the point where I'm a downright joke among mathematicians. See if you can guess my relationship to Kevin Bacon.

Clint Walker, He-Man

Clint Walker, that roguish, solid frontier He-Man, personified hairy chested American virility and manhood, a big six-foot-six baritone voiced love god of the West. He was a clear-eyed Frontiersman, shy with women, with a big, shirtless frame. Like Shatner, he always found a way to get his shirt off, but unlike Shatner, it wasn't horrible beyond belief to have that happen!


The first thing I ever saw Clint Walker in was not his work with Westerns like the TV series Cheyenne, but a version of the Theodore Sturgeon story Killdozer! Or as I like to say it out loud, Killdozer Exclamation Point. The story of Killdozer Exclamation Point featured a mysterious alien object that possessed a bulldozer and turned it into a killing machine, using cunning to ambush and murder a construction crew. Believe or not, this was considered one of the best stories of science fiction's golden age. And in defense, I can say that it didn't feature the same wisecracking, cigar-chomping badass solving the problem with engineering.


Startlingly, Clint Walker actually did have a pretty good singing voice: he released an album, and to my great astonishment it wasn't terrible. He has a very deep singing voice that emerges from his big chest, turns his whole body into a wind instrument.

I was born into the first generation to grow up without the Western playing any role in our lives. An America in love with the West seems to me, almost like a totally alien planet.

Kennedy Flirts with Mike O'Hearn

And yet, somehow, this isn't even the most embarrassing moment for MTV veejay Kennedy. Remember when she admitted to having a crush on Dan Quayle? Yes, that Dan Quayle, the intellectual furnace of the American political system.

Was it a rule, or were every single MTV veejay required to have been totally annoying? Remember, Pauly Shore also got his start as a veejay. Not to mention "Downtown" Julie Brown, the high point of her career seemed to coincide with sleeping with Vanilla Ice.



In the vid, Kennedy clutches Mike's pecs and basically feels him up. It's actually kind of hilarious. Even Mike himself is a little confused and tells her to FOCUS!

I suppose part of the reason for my hostility to Kennedy is, women with dark hair and glasses are generally assumed to be smart, and I don't want Kennedy to wreck that idea for the rest of us!

The Surprise of the Century

I consider it beneath me to share the results of my quizzes, but this one gets the "no duh" prize.

If you're interested in vintage physique photography...

...visit V-M-P: Vintage Male Physiques right away.

Visiting his blog is like visiting an alternate universe where they invented the internet back in the fifties. I had no idea that physique and beefcake magazines were so salacious. Small wonder that Cyndi Lauper used one to bring herself off in "She-Bop."


The absolute standout from the entire page, at least to me, was Vic Seipke, who I didn't know existed. His physique has a chiseled, professional and developed quality. Maybe I just think that because his pompadour, over-the-top even by terrifyingly low fifties standards, reminds me of Luke Perry from 90210. With that hair, he should consider giving up bodybuilding and either be the front man for Bill Haley and the Comets, or play Buck Rogers on some live-TV serial on the DuMont Network.

Here's the really warped thing about the V-M-P blog: while looking it over, it occurred to me these guys were a little...well, small? Maybe the more outrageous physiques of the superfreaks of today have totally destroyed our ability to accurately judge size and mass in any realistic way, but still. It just makes you appreciate all the more someone like Steve Reeves, as massive as he was well-proportioned. It makes sense he'd be the standout of this particular generation.


Just flip through that blog, then after a while come back here and see some Reeves pics.

(It's alright, I can wait.)

Okay, back? Yeah, see what I mean?

Finally, the guy that runs the blog apparently is Hollywood comedian Bob Balaban. Who, by the way, is a dead ringer for Mr. Smithers. Which explains everything.

Norway's Arnold Schwarzenegger: Gunnar Rosbo

Bodybuilding is a worldwide sport, and it's interesting to see what countries are represented and over-represented. Gunnar Rosbo is the best product of Norway's bodybuilding culture. He has one of the most startling set of big cannons I've seen, and very impressive triceps. The biceps may get all the attention, but it is the tricep that gives the arm its mass. Gunnar has a very surprising look, like a Norwegian fairytale knight or something.

Unfortunately, Gunnar Rosbo's tale doesn't have a happy ending: last I heard he suffered a nerve injury that meant he couldn't train half of his body that heavily and he left the sport.

I hear politicians all the time say things like, "if we keep these reforms up, we'll turn the United States into Norway!"

Actually, in the case of Iowa and Minnesota, America pretty much IS Norway. If you ever wanted to visit Norway, let me save you a few grand right here: visit Minnesota and I guarantee you won't know the difference.


Despite it all, I respect the Norwegians and Norwegian culture. I like their unpretentiousness, non-showiness, and humility, their "you're not special" attitude. During World War II, King Olaf was known for riding the buses like any other ordinary citizen.

I had an "Iowegian" room-mate in my undergrad years, and I think she was from another planet. One thing she liked to do was have one of those fish oil capsule geltabs each morning. She actually liked to bite down on them and savor the fish juice inside. Being an adventurous type that'd do anything once, I tried doing that myself. It took days, despite my best efforts, to get rid of the taste from my tongue.

There was a great news article about the prevalence of gyms in the new Iraq, for two reasons: previously, only higher-level members of the regime had access to gyms, and disturbingly enough, because a built physique would let them get jobs in Iraq's sunniest and most up-and-coming industry, security and bodyguard work.

Likewise, my friends that are New Zealanders tell me that with Maori, everything is about sports and muscular development. Maori women find muscular Maori men the most attractive, and top athletes and rugby players often have freedom on their schools unbelievable to imagine. Supposedly, they can even enter and use the teacher's lounge at will. It's interesting to note that on "first contact" and e'er after, the British never failed to describe what big, strong bastards the Maori are; early illustrations had them as big, muscular and healthy.