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defrogFor those of you don’t know, Coop (a.k.a. the artist responsible for the icon for this post) has relocated his blog, Positive Ape Index. Which is worth mentioning in part because he’s been reposting some older material – like this reminiscence of two great things about the 70s: (1) funny-car drag races and (2) Evel Knievel.
This is true.
I was never a gearhead or mechanically inclined in any sense, but I knew a bad-ass car when I saw one. And funny-cars were epic gut-trembling monsters of insane power and speed compressed into the most cartoonishly sexiest design possible. Like Jessica Rabbit with wheels and a killer paint job.
Which explains why I know who Ed “Big Daddy” Roth is.
Then there was Evel Knievel, whose superstardom and role-model status is hard to explain to anyone who wasn’t actually there. In 2009, jumping motorcycles over things is at best niche programming on Fox Sports. In the 70s, it was prime-time gold for ABC Sports. (And for Happy Days, of course.)
Why? Coop explains it as well as anyone. My own theory is that Knievel’s secret was partly showmanship and partly the fact that no one else at the time was willing to go to such insane lengths to put his life on the line to thrill a crowd. Nowadays, we have Jackass for that.
The difference, of course, is that no one on Jackass ever got their own pinball game.
[Click for a bigger image to read the awesome fine print]
NOTE: Pinball is, of course, the OTHER great thing about the 70s. That is fact, not opinion. Coop has a great post about THAT too.
Go ahead and jump,
This is dF
This is true.
I was never a gearhead or mechanically inclined in any sense, but I knew a bad-ass car when I saw one. And funny-cars were epic gut-trembling monsters of insane power and speed compressed into the most cartoonishly sexiest design possible. Like Jessica Rabbit with wheels and a killer paint job.
Which explains why I know who Ed “Big Daddy” Roth is.
Then there was Evel Knievel, whose superstardom and role-model status is hard to explain to anyone who wasn’t actually there. In 2009, jumping motorcycles over things is at best niche programming on Fox Sports. In the 70s, it was prime-time gold for ABC Sports. (And for Happy Days, of course.)
Why? Coop explains it as well as anyone. My own theory is that Knievel’s secret was partly showmanship and partly the fact that no one else at the time was willing to go to such insane lengths to put his life on the line to thrill a crowd. Nowadays, we have Jackass for that.
The difference, of course, is that no one on Jackass ever got their own pinball game.
[Click for a bigger image to read the awesome fine print]
NOTE: Pinball is, of course, the OTHER great thing about the 70s. That is fact, not opinion. Coop has a great post about THAT too.
Go ahead and jump,
This is dF
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2009-10-09 12:08 pm (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-0Z9OAa2W8
no subject
on 2009-10-09 12:46 pm (UTC)The real question is, "Who the hell is Jim Rome?"
no subject
on 2009-10-09 10:39 pm (UTC)