King Kong vs. Godzilla

[Jamie123]

As a kid I totally loved the old Godzilla movies. Men in rubber lizard costumes knocking over cardboard boxes, painted to look like skyscrapers. Japanese people with poorly-dubbed American accents running away "in terror". One of my bitterest childhood memories was of our TV exploding twenty minutes into "King Kong vs. Godzilla" so I never saw the ending of it. (And this was after a Napoleonic campaign on the part of my brother and me to persuade our dad to let us stay up late to see it!) Furthermore, I then had to endure the twisted knife of next-day schoolyard discussions of the movie.

But at last I've learned what happened!

Edited January 27, 2021 by Jamie123
typo

[JohnsonJones]

Your TV exploded!?

That seems rather dramatic.  How did that happen?

[Jamie123]

6 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

Your TV exploded!?

That seems rather dramatic.  How did that happen?

"Exploded" is a slight exaggeration. It started to emit smoke. My dad was worried the house was on fire, till he realized the source of the smoke and turned the TV off. He said "Don't worry, the house isn't on fire. It's just the TV" - which was cold comfort to me, who would gladly have seen the house burn to the ground if only I could have watched Godzilla.

This was in the days when TVs were always going wrong. You expected a visit from the TV repair man at least once a month, though sometimes my dad managed a successful "repair" himself by hammering the TV cabinet with his fist. (He had trained as a radar technician in the Royal Air Force.)

I liked it when the TV repair man came. I used to stand behind him and watch him working (which I'm sure he loved). The insides of the TV always fascinated me - especially the valves. I loved valves. The record player had valves in it too, and I sometimes used to get them out and play with them - pretend they were spaceships etc. (In case you don't know what a valve is, it's something a bit like a light bulb, that performs the same function as a transistor in modern electronics.)

 

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Jamie123

[JohnsonJones]

I have had many TV's, from the days of small Black and White Televisions, to the present with LCD screens, but I have to admit that thus far I've been blessed that none of them had those problems...yet.

That Black and White TV lasted two decades!  That's when the US made quality stuff (as opposed to everything being made in China today).

My wife on the otherhand relates a story where she burned down the house when she was young because of a faulty TV.  I suppose that could be a case of a malfunctioning TV.

Edited January 29, 2021 by JohnsonJones

[Jamie123]

1 hour ago, JohnsonJones said:

everything being made in China today

I'm very worried about China...as well as the decline of the US. One of these days, if we're not careful, China is going to break all Western security systems with their quantum computers. We seriously need to start teaching quantum technologies to our students, and stop saying "meh" about it just because "it's hard".

[askandanswer]

23 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

One of these days, if we're not careful, China is going to break all Western security systems with their quantum computers.

I figured out how to do this  ^^  the other day during morning tea, but for now I'm, keeping to me myself. I'm not sure what I'll do during tomorrow's tea break.  

Edited January 30, 2021 by askandanswer

[Jamie123]

11 hours ago, askandanswer said:

I figured out how to do this  ^^  the other day during morning tea, but for now I'm, keeping to me myself. I'm not what I'll do during tomorrow's tea break.  

I'm shaking in my shoes!

[mordorbund]

On 1/28/2021 at 12:03 PM, Jamie123 said:

 

 

 

[Jamie123]

On 1/30/2021 at 7:51 PM, mordorbund said:

I've been trying to work out what that is. Is it a gum ball machine that's run out of gum?

[Vort]

9 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

I've been trying to work out what that is. Is it a gum ball machine that's run out of gum?

Looks like a servo mechanism of some sort.

[dprh]

1 hour ago, Jamie123 said:

I've been trying to work out what that is. Is it a gum ball machine that's run out of gum?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Servo

[Jamie123]

16 hours ago, Vort said:

Looks like a servo mechanism of some sort.

 

15 hours ago, dprh said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Servo

Looks like I was partly right:

Quote

Tom Servo is a red puppet that has a gumball machine (Carousel Executive Snack Dispenser) for a head, a body composed of a toy "Money Lover Barrel" coin bank and a toy car engine block, and a bowl-shaped hovercraft skirt (a Halloween "Boo Bowl") instead of legs.

It puts me in mind of "Tinribs" - a comic strip that appears in a very unpleasant British magazine called Viz. Young Tommy Taylor has an "incredible robot companion" built for him by his "brilliant professor" father. No one ever notices that Tinribs (as the "robot" is called) is nothing but a cardboard box on a skateboard with a few baked bean cans and the voicebox of a talking Barbie doll. All Tinribs ever says is "I'm Barbie and I love you very much!"

Confession time: Once, many years ago, I was in my front room reading Viz, when I noticed two pristine-looking girls with black name badges heading up the garden path. I hid the magazine behind the couch before answering the door. I first of all thought was that they were Catholic nuns (in modern dress), but they told me they were Latter-day Saints. That was the first contact I ever had with any of you guys.

 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Jamie123

[Vort]

2 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

It's the hand that gives Tinribs the uncanny resemblance to Tom Servo.

[Carborendum]

On 2/2/2021 at 4:34 PM, Vort said:

Looks like a servo mechanism of some sort.

I had no idea you were an M ST3K fan.

<insert gif of two geeks high-fiving each other>

Edited February 4, 2021 by Carborendum

[Vort]

23 hours ago, Carborendum said:

I had no idea you were an M ST3K fan.

<insert gif of two geeks high-fiving each other>