Posted on 05/10/2014 7:41:53 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Brainiac hopped in the time machine this week, set the dial for this week in April 1974 and traveled back 40 years to see what was happening in our fair towns back in the days of high inflation, the oil crisis and ’70s sitcoms both classic and cheesy.
Our time machine, of course, is the microfilm – it’s like Google before Google existed, kids! – of the Orange County Register, and what we found was a whole lot of ordinary. The big news of the day was pretty big indeed, we must acknowledge. “Patty Calls Dad, Boyfriend ‘Pigs,’” read the headline on just one of many stories about Patty Hearst, the kidnapped heiress-turned-terrorist Tania. “Impeach Agenda To Start May 7” declared the latest in a series of stories on the tumbling disgrace of the Richard Nixon presidency.
In the world of pop culture, a benchmark by which Brainiac has always tracked the passing of time, comedian Bud Abbott of Abbott and Costello fame died, as did Cordelia Knott – Mrs. Walter Knott, as the Register identified her in a front-page obituary.
“Serpico” was playing at the Hi-way 39 Drive-In in Westminster, while “American Graffiti” was at the Edwards Westbrook at Westminster Avenue and Brookhurst Street. One Garden Grove church advertised a special service themed around the horror film “The Exorcist,” promising to answer questions such as “Is there actually such a thing as demon possession today?” and “Is it safe to see the film?”
But the local news was very much just that.
Frederick Walter, a 14-year-old Garden Grove boy, got his Eagle Scout badge at a ceremony at First Presbyterian Church of Garden Grove, and you just know that a yellowed clipping of Fred in his Boy Scout uniform is glued into a scrapbook somewhere still today.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Brainiac’s debut had him coming to Earth and shrinking down cities (including Metropolis) in the same manner that the Kryptonian capital city (”Kandor”) was shrunken down. The character’s original intent for the cities was to use them somehow in restoring his home planet, of which he was ruler/despot.
Funny enough, Superman didn’t fly originally in the comics; he leaped great distances, similar to what the Hulk does. The original explanation for the leaping ability was due to Earth having a lower gravitational pull than Krypton; the principle kind of foreshadowed how astronauts were able to jump over eight feet on the moon even while encumbered with a spacesuit.
Microfilm. A real pain to research with.
Oh, they were better than good, they had a dynamic that really couldn't be defined. Which makes now so sad, sigh.
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