Episode 81: Galaxina—The Next Conversation

My guest for this episode is Doom from The Nerd Blitz podcast! We take a look at the 1980 sci-fi potboiler Galaxina, which starred the late Dorothy R. Stratten.

As I mention in the episode, despite being a sci-fi dork, I’d never heard of this movie until I started researching into the history of Playboy magazine but it does have something of a cult reputation and is available to rent on Amazon if you’re curious. If you really love it, you can buy the Blu-ray!

This episode does get a bit spicier than usual in places, so if you are squeamish about sex, you may want to skip this one or at least have your fast forward button handy.

Here are Siskel and Ebert on the movie:

Some of the things discussed are:

• Yor, Hunter From The Future (1983)

• Gene Rodenberry’s original concept for Star Trek (1966) was something like the westernWagon Train in space.

• Doom is the one who originally pointed me to the MacKenzie Phillips guest star appearance on Hulk, which I mention in the episode I did on the Mamas & the Papas.

• I recommend two books in the episode—The Caves of Steel by Issac Asimov is the detective novel and Dirty Dirty Dirty by Mike Edison is about the rise and fall of the American girlie magazine. If you can find a copy of The Killing of a Unicorn, it’s a wild read. It’s hard to track down now though.

• As I mention in the episode, there are some truly nasty stories floating around (Mudshark, anyone?) about what wealthy men in the entertainment industry got up to in the 60s and 70s. Even something as mainstream as Almost Famous (2000) is pretty grim in depicting how women were thought of in those circles. Was Hef an outlier or in line with the social mores of his time and place?

• Dorothy R. Stratten’s Playmate of the Year issue was June 1980 for the curious. (For the articles, obviously!)

• “Video Nasties” were uncensored horror films available on home video in the early 1980s that caused a huge moral panic in the UK. The sound clip I play is from classic (and still very funny and relevant) British television comedy, The Young Ones.

• Archie comics were one of my favorite things as a kid! I was always a Veronica fan but I never turned down a “Double Digest” from the grocery store, even if it was a Jughead one. The Double Digests were great because they’d include older comics from the 1960s and 1970s, along with the newer stories. If you’re a complete Archie noob, I’d recommend the Archie Americana series that collects stories from past decades into nice compact volumes. Archie may now be associated with Riverdale for the younger generation but the comics were a mainstream cultural touchstone for many, many years. (“Duh, stay out of Riverdale.”)

• Star Trek: The Next Conversation started off as a normal podcast about Star Trek: The Next Generation and slowly grew into a continuing mission of madness featuring reoccurring songs, long digressions on topics like defunct New England based public television stars, and pizza. Also they still talk about Star Trek—even if their rating on beloved DS9 episode “Civil Defense” was way too low, I still give the podcast 5 stars.

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The songs played are:

1. “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?”

2. “Destination Moon” by the Ames Brothers [Alternate version by Shaggy]

3. “Rocket Number 9” by Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra

4. “Space Walk” by the Bel-Aires

5. “Venus” by Russ Garcia and His Orchestra

6. “What is a Shooting Star?” by Tom Glazer and Dottie Evans

7. “Startripper” by Larry Young’s Fuel

8. “Hong Kong Phooey” by Scatman Crothers [Theme to cartoon Hong Kong Phooey]

9. “The Mood I’m In” by Jem and the Holograms [voiced by Britta Phillips]

10. “Space Lady” by Lonnie Liston Smith

11. “Little Birdie” by Vince Guaraldi

12. “Playboy’s Theme” by Henry Mancini

13. “Overworld Theme” by the 8 Bit Big Band

14. “I believe in a thing called love” by The Darkness