Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Scott Tracy Griffin

Edgar Rice Burroughs Deep Dive with Scott Tracy Griffin

Thank you so much to Scott Tracy Griffin for joining us in spreading the love for Edgar Rice Burroughs on last night’s Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. As a Burroughs fan since my teens, I had so been looking forward to this episode!

Enjoy the conversation, check out Griffin’s writings – he’s got two lavishly illustrated, carefully researched, and compellingly-written coffee table books, Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration and Tarzan on Film, with another project in the pipeline – and then consider giving Burroughs a whirl. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if you only know Tarzan from the movies, you don’t know Tarzan!

But there’s also the Mars (John Carter) books, the Pellucidar (hollow earth) novels, the Caspak trilogy (including “The Land That Time Forgot”), some highly-regarded westerns, and so much more. For imaginative world-building and flamboyant adventure, accept no substitutes!

As a product of the pulps, Burroughs had the luxury to revisit his creations again and again, lending fresh perspectives in his sequels to characters and settings indelibly established in the popular originals. As an artist, he may not have been Hemingway, Faulkner, or Fitzgerald (whose combined works he easily outsold), but at his best, his stories have a primal appeal, an adolescent exuberance, and an ennobling sense of romance that make them timelessly entertaining.

Watch the show here, and give it a thumbs-up, if you’re so inclined:

Roy and I will reconvene on Friday for a nostalgic trip back to 1977 and a reminiscence of the television series “The Incredible Hulk,” starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno (in tattered pants and a yak-haired wig). Sadly, at the moment, it is difficult to find the episodes available for streaming, but I’ve managed to locate the pilot on Dailymotion.

Part I

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x768k92?fbclid=IwAR0kxIQPYWPMJUH1NbFsgAgC6IMVHFPxtFHixMJHwqE7iUQrBMI8SVn65j8

Part II

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x768k91?fbclid=IwAR0Z-Aa9qqnNazKAVvqKnb3wRpZsC3s1BRaEbKk0caSIweizrvnnJ2bTlcE

Mr. McGee, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry! We’ll be burning through our wardrobe, as you flood the comments section with your gamma rays, when we livestream on Facebook, this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT! (PLEASE NOTE: there will be no show this Friday!)

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

August 23, 2021
Land That Time Forgot Burroughs Sci-Fi

It occurs to me, I never got around to sharing last week’s show. I suppose it’s only appropriate that I, Old Man Time, would have forgotten “The Land That Time Forgot” (1974). To be fair, I was awfully tired on Sunday night. But you know what? I just watched it, and it turned out to be a pretty entertaining conversation, if I do say so myself.

“The Land That Time Forgot” is based on yet another rip-roaring adventure by Edgar Rice Burroughs. We hope you’ll join us THIS Sunday for a visit with author and Burroughs authority Scott Tracy Griffin. Griffin has spent most of his life steeped in Burroughsiana and shares his wealth of knowledge through public speaking, interviews, film commentary, comics, and lavish coffee table books. He’s the author of “Tarzan: The Centennial Collection” and “Tarzan on Film.”

As a massive Burroughs fan myself, I’ve been looking forward to this show for a long time. But then, as you know, I was raised by apes. I hope you’ll join us for the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, with Scott Tracy Griffin. Bring your Burroughs questions to the comments section, as we livestream on Facebook, this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

August 21, 2021
Edgar Rice Burroughs Worlds with Scott Tracy Griffin

I set my foot upon the stack of Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks that have fueled my summer – 6 Tarzan books, 8 from the John Carter of Mars series, all 3 of the Caspak novels, and a Burroughs lark titled “The Cave Girl” – raise my eyes to the full moon, and give vent to the wild, uncanny challenge of the bull ape!

Collectively, these will supply so much pulp and grist for a conversation with Scott Tracy Griffin, on the next “Roy’s Tie Dye Sci Fi Corner.”

A veritable fount of Burroughsiana, Griffin is the author of two lavishly-illustrated, delightfully informative tomes, “Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration” and “Tarzan on Film.”

Of course, Burroughs’ imagination roamed far beyond the jungle habitat of Tarzan of the Apes – one of the most famous literary creations of all time – to explore lost continents, the hollow earth, neighboring planets, and beyond the farthest star. Nobody knew how to build fantastic worlds over the course of a series quite like Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Ray Bradbury, a lifelong fan, called him “probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world.” There’s no question he was one of the most popular writers in the first half of the 20th century.

He was also a pioneer of merchandizing, so that his creations came to dominate print, movies, radio, and related memorabilia. In fact, Burrough’s ape man became the first pop cultural icon to achieve global recognition. Not bad for a frustrated adventurer and failed businessman who didn’t publish his first story until the age of 35!

We hope that you’ll swing on by for a wild time with Scott Tracy Griffin, on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Don your loincloths in the comments section, as we livestream on Facebook, THIS SUNDAY NIGHT AT 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

Five-minute intro to Burroughs that does a good job of placing him in context of his world

Opera singer Lloyd Thomas Leech, one of those who claimed to have recorded the M-G-M Tarzan yell, singing Leoncavallo’s “Mattinata”

Animated demo of John Carter for a projected 1936 film

Tarzan at tax time

Carol Burnett on “The Jack Benny Program” (Tarzan parody begins about 11 minutes in)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqV9WAVJiAo

August 20, 2021
Burroughs’ Lost World & Sci-Fi Livestream!

It’s high adventure on a shoestring budget!

In anticipation of our upcoming interview with Edgar Rice Burroughs authority Scott Tracy Griffin (to be livestreamed on Facebook on Sunday, August 22, at 7 pm EDT), Roy and I will sink our teeth into Burroughs’ “lost continent” adventure, “The Land That Time Forgot” (Amicus Productions, 1975).

A commandeered submarine, crewed by World War I adversaries, arrives at an uncharted island somewhere off the coast of Peru. The island’s formation is such that conditions have not changed in millions of years! An uneasy alliance is formed as Germans, English, and Americans pull their resources to fight for their lives against prehistoric beasts.

Man-eating dinosaurs! Unwashed Neanderthals! Erupting volcanoes! Doug McClure!

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The U-boat departs this Sunday at 7 pm EDT!

Griffin, who’s written extensively on Burroughs, including two lavish quasi-coffee table books, “Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration” and “Tarzan on Film,” will join us next weekend. He’ll have a lot to tell us about the unlikely success of Burroughs, a failed businessman who didn’t publish his first story until the age of 35!

Burroughs’ imaginative works became sensations, hugely popular all around the world, from his heyday as King of the Pulps in the nineteen-tens, through his reign as King of All Media in the 1930s and ‘40s. Tarzan of the Apes remains one of the most recognizable of all fictional heroes.

Movies, television, and comics have kept the Burroughs legacy alive, from the remote jungle of Tarzan, to the inner Earth of Pellucidar, to the Mars of John Carter. Burroughs’ fiction is full of passion, wonder, romance, and blood-pumping action.

Remember “The Land That Time Forgot,” this Sunday! Then visit with Scott Tracy Griffin, August 22. Both programs are scheduled to commence at 7:00 EDT.

Burrow into Burroughs, in the thickets of the comments section, over the next two Sundays, as we livestream on Facebook, on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

August 12, 2021
Burroughs Interview Delayed New Date Set

Alas and alack! Internet issues have caused us to postpone our interview (previously scheduled for Sunday) with Edgar Rice Burroughs authority Scott Tracy Griffin. Griffin has now kindly agreed to join us on Sunday, August 22, at 7 PM.

The Burroughs delay only gives me more time to shovel in more Tarzan and John Carter! Among Griffin’s extensive writings on Burroughs are two lavishly illustrated books, “Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration” and “Tarzan on Film.”

In the meantime, Roy and I will continue, full steam ahead, with our planned discussion of the 1961 Irwin Allen film “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (with Roy leeching off the wi-fi of a certain area restaurant), tomorrow evening at 7:30 EDT.

NOTE THAT SPECIAL START TIME!

Whether rumbling in the jungle or sleeping with fishes, we hope you’ll join us in the comments section, as we livestream on Facebook, on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

August 5, 2021

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