I actually thought I might finally give up the ghost and stop posting the Turner Classic Movies October schedule this year. I know linear TV is dying a slow death and most people don't even have access to this channel, but I just can't help myself. I make this list more for myself than anyone, but why not share it?
Here's what we have for the first two weeks of October on TCM:
Kicking things off are a few creepy crawler features with Them! and The Swarm just past midnight on October 1st.
What is probably the most notable block during the first two weeks is dedicated to Lon Chaney. Starting on October 2nd in primetime is the 2000 documentary about the man, Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces. This is followed by Man of a Thousand Faces, which stars James Cagney in the title role and tells the story of Chaney's life in film. From there we have four of Chaney's films, including He Who Gets Slapped, Laugh, Clown, Laugh, and The Blackbird. It's unsurprising to see The Phantom of the Opera in here, but I can't recall the last time I saw TCM play any of these other Chaney classics.
This all followed by a short "... of the Damned" block and a smattering of fun movies to watch this Halloween season, like The 'Burbs and The Howling.
I think the next thing of note would be a very cool Exorcist II night. I love this, because this sequel doesn't get enough love. There's a documentary about the making of the film, Boorman and the Devil at 8PM Eastern, 9PM Atlantic on October 9th followed the Exorcist II: The Heretic. I'll definitely be tuning into that! If I'm not mistaken Boorman and the Devil only just released in August and you have to pay to rent it, so it airing on TV is really cool.
That's it for the first two weeks of TCM's October schedule. Check back in a few weeks time when I drop the last two weeks leading up to Halloween. Things should really heat up by then!
I've already written up a log for another Secrets & Mysteries tape that featured episodes on "Bigfoot" and "Witches" and pretty much all of that info is applicable here. For the sake of being redundant, I'll just make a few individual notes about the episodes on this edition, which included "Tornadoes" and "UFOs".
Tornadoes seems like a weird topic for a paranormal magazine show, but they are a very mysterious phenomenon even today, let alone in the late-80s. The idea of "Storm Chasers" who risk their lives to learn more about tornadoes was also a very popular topic and there were plenty of dedicated documentary shows on TV during the 80s and 90s. It became so popular that the movie Twisters was made! So, it's not that strange to see it pop up on a show like Secrets & Mysteries. In Search Of... did an episode on the topic as well in '78.
Interestingly, the UFO episode may include one of the earliest interviews with Whitley Strieber, who would've published Communion in the same year... if the production date of 1987 is correct. The show also features Budd Hopkins as the author of Intruders, which was also published in '87.
This video is released with a lot of the same inconsistencies as the "Bigfoot" and "Witches" tape. The series was re-titled Secrets of the Unknown for its VHS run, but some of the episodes still bear the original title, Secrets & Mysteries, either in the introduction or the end credits.
Still, this is a fun series and I hope I come across some more of them on VHS in the future! These episodes were released under the Blockbuster Presents banner, but my understanding is that the entire series had individual releases on their own.
You can find out more information about the series on Wikipedia.org.
You can find video clips of the intro and outro segments on my video archival channel, VHYesterdayS.
I've also uploaded the full videos for both the "Tornadoes" and "UFOs" episodes on the Internet Archive for archival purposes
That doesn't mean I've dropped the ball completely, however! Since September of last year I have spent many, many hours working on trying to get this VCR working again.
One good thing is that the VCR itself powers on and even lights up just fine! It seems like the clock and features related to input are not an issue. The problem is around playing tapes, which is... kinda the whole reason to have one of these bad boys.
There is a tape stuck in it, but the tape itself hasn't been eaten or anything. I can't say it would work if I extracted it, considering its been sitting inside the VCR exposed for all these years, but it hasn't been destroyed. It's just stuck.
From what I can tell, the tape drive just isn't getting power. As someone that doesn't know that much about electronics - I've only repaired a few more "modern" consoles, like PS3 and Nintendo Switch - the first thing I thought of was bad capacitors.
Again, not knowing enough of what I'm talking about and being a true layman, I think the capacitors help to store and regulate the power supply going to different components within the device.
The thing about capacitors, especially in 40+ year old tech, is that they can leak and expose electrolyte onto the board and other components causing issues. From my research, that's commonly the headache with old video game consoles, TVs, you know name it.
When I dug into my VCR and took a look around I found quite a few capacitors that had leaked, some worse than others. So that's been my focus on trying to fix this thing. How can I remove these old caps and replace them with new ones?
And this is where I'm stuck.
Another issue with dealing with old vintage electronics is that removing the components becomes trickier for a multitude of reasons. The solder - the metal that is turned to liquid with heat and used to connect components on a board - can become really difficult to deal with. For so... many... reasons.
Every time I feel like I've got the thing figured out, my issue is that I just can't remove the solder from the board to replace the capacitors. It can be because the type of solder used back then isn't compatible with today's standards. It can be because of the electrolyte that's now coating the board, etc. etc.
And that's where I'm at. I've tried multiple methods to remove the solder, but nothing has worked so far. I have two last ditch efforts I'm going to attempt.
I'm going to try a proper de-soldering pump: a specialized device that heats up the solder on the board and can then simultaneously vacuum it up. If that doesn't work, my last option is to brute force it and cut the things off and try to clean up the board after.
I'm not super keen on that approach, but I'm really at my wits end trying to get this old solder to liquify so I can remove the capacitors. Over the past few months I've bought loads of equipment and I can't tell you how frustrating it is to end up in the same place each and every time I sit down to this device.
But I'm going to soldier on. Not only because it's a (kinda) fun challenge, but also because of another big surprise I'll reveal once I get the damned VCR working.
I'm about to take you a journey here, folks. Please, buckle up for safety!
You won't recall, but a long, long time ago I used to write these little bite-sized blog posts for my old site retrodef that I called Nostalgia Bombs. They were supposed to be a "blast from my past"; quickie posts that would be succinct and to the point!
Of course in true-to-me form, I ended up completely ruining the idea and writing a thousand words on everything from old cartoons to dead junk food brands. I'm pretty long-winded, so I guess Nostalgia Bombs were still kinda mini compared to the rest of my posts?
There were a few topics in that series that I always held out hope I'd one day get to enjoy again. One was Hostess Potato Chips and, as you might recall, that day kinda-sorta came back in 2024 when parent company Frito-Lay (or PepsiCo, I dunno) decided to revive the brand as Munchies. I made a post and a terrible video about it that you can enjoy here if you want to relive the excitement.
The other item that I've always secretly held out hope for was Snow White cream soda, which I wrote about way back in 2020 and was actually the final Nostalgia Bomb.
A short synopsis is that Snow White, my chosen cream soda and one of my favourite pops of all time, was available in Nova Scotia when I was kid and teen. At some point in the 90s it disappeared from the convenience stores near me. I did some research and found out the following:
Snow White was a soda brand owned by a company in Ontario called Technobev, which was just an English brand for market differentiation. The real owner was Breuvages Kiri, a Quebec-owned and operated company that had been around since the 1920s. Snow White was marketed in Ontario and the Maritimes, while the Kiri name was used in and around Quebec. While it seems Snow White was no longer offered in the Atlantic provinces at some point in the late-90s, it continued to exist in Ontario until some time between 2007 and 2011, at which point Breuvages Kiri filed for bankruptcy and went kaput.
What I have found out very recently, however, is that the Kiri brand of soft drinks is still around!
Enter Red Champagne...
While Breuvages Kiri was a Quebec staple for soda pop, one of their cherished and still very local brands is Red Champagne. Interesting fact: it's one of the few drinks - outside of the infamous alcohol beverages made in Champagne, France - that is allowed to use "champagne" in its name. It is described as an apple-flavoured soda, but from everything I've read, it's more like a mix of cherry and cream soda.
While I researched Red Champagne to see if I could order some to try I was almost knocked on my ass. They had Kiri soda available on their website!
I've reached out to the owners of Red Champagne, Philippe Simard et fils (and sons), for more direct information. As of writing this, they haven't responded with anything official, but digging up old newspaper articles and the information provided on the Red Champagne website, it would appear that at some point after Breuvages Kiri filed for bankruptcy, the Simards purchased the brand and their recipes and are continuing to honour the legacy of Kiri in Quebec!
This makes sense especially when you find out that Philippe Simard et fils purchased the Red Champagne brand in the early-2000s when it seemed to be facing a similar plight as Kiri.
Now that I'm finished taking the long way 'round, the short version: I found out that Snow White cream soda, also known in Quebec as Kiri cream soda, still exists in La Belle Province... SO I BOUGHT SOME.
It was bit tricky, honestly. They offer their products for sale on their website, which is amazing, but it's really only set up to ship within Quebec. At first I tried to reach out via email a few times and didn't receive a response. As a last ditch effort, I discovered that Red Champagne had a very underused Instagram account, so I DM'd them and lo-and-behold, they got back to me!
They come in these nice little "stubby" 500mL bottles that look like they'd be 355mL. I think they are traditionally sold in glass bottles if you stumble upon them in a Quebec magasin, but beggars can't be choosers and I'll happily take the plastic bottles.
The other night was a mix of highs and lows for me. My son's hockey team won the Gold championship in their division, but then I came home to find out that what I thought would be the season finale of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs would actually be the series finale, which had me in the dumps.
I decided to shrug off the blues, get myself a snack, and settle in to watch the last episode of The Last Drive-In with a bag of barbecue chips and a bottle of Snow White cream soda! A go-to snack from my childhood.
I wanted desperately to get some Munchies BBQ, so that teenage me could revel in all that retro nostalgia, but alas the only thing I could find was Old Dutch, so I made due.
Here's a sad truth about Munchies chips: as much as I love them and have made it a personal act of service to ensure I buy a bag every time I see them on store shelves, I can't say 100% that they taste like they did back in the 90s.
I've actually reached out to Frito-Lay for comment and they've never replied, but there's no information out there that indicates any of the flavours they released in the Munchies rebrand are actually the original recipes. In fact, the only two that could even be considered "original" are their ketchup and barbecue varieties and I feel it's an absolute fact that the Munchies Tangy Ketchup tastes nothing like Hostess Ketchup chips did, so why would barbecue?
If you watch the video I made back in 2024, I let the excitement take hold of me and said they tasted just as I remembered, but in the fullness of time I've reached the painful conclusion that Munchies Old School Barbecue likely shares nothing in common with Hostess Hot Barbecue chips.
Kiri cream soda, however, is a different story. As far as I can tell, this is the exact same product under a different name. This is Snow White cream soda just as it likely was back in the 90s. And I can tell you that to me, it tasted just as I remembered.
I let this settle for a few days before I wrote this. I tried to make sure I didn't make the same mistake I made with the Munchies chips. I really and truly believe that Kiri cream soda that is served in the year of our Lord 2026 is the same product you could get back in 1996.
The sweet vanilla flavour struck me immediately and it was very effervescent. When I say sweet, I mean much sweeter than most other cream sodas I've had, which is saying something because cream soda by default is known for its saccharine nature. I made sure to get it ice cold first and I was completely knocked out.
I also got to try out Red Champagne! It's funny, I started this saga looking for that pop specifically, but when it came down to ordering that or Kiri cream soda I just completely threw Red Champagne out the window. It was a pleasant surprise having the freebie included.
I can see why I've read it's more cherry and cream soda flavoured than apple, but I think the apple flavour is there, too. Regardless, it is an utterly unique type of soda. I don't think I've ever tried anything like it. It was excellent!
I know it's only pop, but like most things that folks my age have a deep wistfulness for, this is something I used to love getting and I had almost given up hope of ever trying again. The fact that I could order a case delivered to my house (in like two days I might add) just blows me away.
Now... if Coca-Cola could just go ahead and do a national re-release of New Coke, whoever owns the Hires brand could bring back Hires Root Beer, and McDonald's could roll out some more McPizza, I could die in peace!
If you read this far, thanks for indulging my madness! And if there's something you remember loving as a kid, don't give up hope on it. We're currently in an age where old is new again, like never before. There's a He-Man movie coming out this year, for crying out loud. And you never know, if you're crazy like me and you keep doing the research, you might find something you thought lost to time is still out there just waiting to be rediscovered.
I did a weird thing the other day. I have no idea why I did it, but I did and now I feel the unyielding urge to share the experience, so here we go!
I was chatting back-and-forth with my good friend Cole d'Arc about our earliest experiences with the Sony PlayStation. Cole was the first person I knew with a PSX (my preferred nickname for the original PlayStation, before there was "PS one") and we were reminiscing about some of the old games we played at his house when we were kids.
We got to the topic of demo discs and we were trying to remember what games were on his. In this case, I'm talking about the demo disc that came with his console. Sony had a habit of providing them. CD technology was very cheap and it was an easy way to give out what was effectively shareware, so PSX owners could get a taste of different software that was available. It was also very in vogue to include demos with lots of magazines back in the day.
While I was murky on the games that were included on Cole's demo disc, I could remember a few that were available on mine pretty clearly.
Here's what was on my disc, Interactive CD Sampler Disc Volume 4:
CART World Series
Croc
Raystorm
Steel Reign
Porsche Challenge
Treasures of the Deep
I.Q.: Intelligent Qube
Parappa the Rapper
Armored Core
Ace Combat 2
NHL FaceOff '98 (video)
NFL GameDay '98 (video)
A mere list won't do, though. You need to hear and see the 90s edginess that oozes from the main menu.
I didn't get my PSX until Christmas of 1997, so about two years after the system had launched in North America. As a result, I actually managed to score quite a few games with my system on the cheap, so I had no lack of titles to play. Even so, there were two games that I spent a lot of time with on my demo disc.
One of those was Parappa the Rapper. My little sister wasn't much of a gamer, but she would occasionally play some games with me, like the Donkey Kong Country series and maybe some Super Mario Bros. Parappa the Rapper was one she loved, though, so we would play it and sing along.
The other, was I.Q.: Intelligent Qube.
Although these days do I enjoy some puzzle games, mostly text- and math-based, back then it certainly wasn't something I was interested in. IQ, however, was an interesting blend of puzzle and 3D platformer. You had to navigate an avatar across a 3D plain while blocks "rolled" along. The objective was to blow a path through the rolling blocks and not get knocked off the plain.
I would throw on some music and just play this demo for hours. It's honestly a wonder that I never even tried to rent or buy it back then, considering the amount of time I spent on the demo.
After chatting with Cole I had a mad hankering to play some IQ and my memory (which, remember, is weird) was that I had picked it up on my PlayStation Portable (PSP) as a PSOne Classic back in the late-2000s.
If you don't recall PSOne Classics, Sony offered up some of their most popular titles digitally back on the PS3, PSP, and later PlayStation Vita at really decent prices. They eventually sold PS2 Classics on the PS3 and PS Vita, as well. These days, you can get some of these older games on the PS4 and PS5, but from what I understand it's not quite the same thing. Techno jargon, blah blah blah, they're emulated differently and don't work the same as they did on the prior devices.
So, I charged up my PSP, booted it up and... no I.Q.: Intelligent Qube. I thought that was weird. I'm sure I've played it in the last few years.
This is where things took a turn.
I suddenly decided that I just had to play this game on my PSP. I should say that I love that handheld. I got it late in its lifecycle, but I spent a lot of time with it. It's very comfortable in the hand, lightweight, had some great games and graphics and, thanks to PSOne Classics, was basically a handheld Sony PlayStation.
The problem was that Sony, unsurprisingly, removed the PlayStation Store from the PSP back in 2021. It's actually pretty incredible that Sony supported the store on the PSP for that long, honestly. I think that's like 17 years?
The thing is, even though you can't buy new games from the PlayStation Store, you can still download any games you've already purchased. Sony said they were going to remove this a few years back, but for some reason rescinded that. So all these years later, you're still able to access a server somewhere and download games to your PSP!
In preparation for this feature being removed, I actually picked up a bigger memory card and downloaded all my games to my PSP a few years back, but I still scrolled through the list and made sure I was right - IQ was not there. I guess I never played it on my PSP.
But now I really wanted to. How could I do that?
Well guess what? The PS3 can still access the PlayStation Store! Again, that's pretty remarkable. We're talking 20 years since the PS3 was released and it still has this level of support. There are some caveats, though. You can technically buy games on the PS3, but you can't put money into your account from there any longer. I guess it's because it lacks two-factor authentication and other modern security. All I had to do was load my account with moolah from my phone and voila! I can buy games on my PS3 again!
Now, I'll just search up IQ and... wait. IQ isn't available as a PSOne Classic!?
As I said before, memory is weird. And also wrong. Like a lot.
So now, I'm sitting here with cash loaded to my PlayStation account and no games to buy. That wouldn't do! So, I scanned the store and I saw they had Arc the Lad II and Arc the Lad III. If you're unfamiliar, these were popular strategy/tactical RPGs released on the PlayStation. They were sort of infamous, because even though the games were very popular in Japan and lots of companies wanted to localize them for English-speaking countries, Sony didn't allow it for many years. It wasn't until 2002, well into the PlayStation 2's lifecycle, that Arc the Lad Collection (including all three games) was released on the PSX. Since I already had Arc the Lad on my PSP, I picked up the other two to complete the series.
Thanks to Sony still supporting the PSP servers I was able to download those games I purchased on my PS3 onto my PSP! It's all very convoluted - I didn't even tell the half of it here - but the fact that this is technically possible 20 years since these systems were released is pretty remarkable.
After all that, though, I'm left with a mystery. I was so sure that I've played I.Q.: Intelligent Qube recently and on my PSP. But, it's not even available as a PSOne Classic! It is on the PS4/PS5, but I actually don't have either of those systems, so I didn't play it there.
After a great deal of searching and mulling, I realized where I got messed up. I did play IQ recently, but on a completely different machine.
Sony released the PlayStation Classic (I know, the names are getting confusing) back in 2018. It's an HDMI plug-and-play that looks like a mini PSX. These things were all the rage back then. I currently have a mini Nintendo Entertainment System, Super NES, PlayStation, Commodore 64, and Sega Genesis. These things were super fun when they first released, but through modern conveniences a lot of the games are easily available on newer devices, so I have all my minis packed away in their boxes.
Guess what game is on the PlayStation Classic? That's right, IQ.
So there you have it. I did play it recently (if you consider the last eight years recent), but not on the PSP at all.
Thanks to an random conversation with an old friend I was sent down a winding road. My wallet is $15 lighter, I've spent what is likely too many hours connecting 20 year old hardware to old Internet servers, and I've now written about 1200 words about the whole saga. But you know what? I had fun.
Sometimes it's about the trip, not the destination.
Anyway, here's some footage of me completely forgetting out to play IQ and getting my butt kicked in the demo.
The other day I was scrolling through old episodes of different paranormal TV shows, as I often do. I can't tell you how relaxing it is for me to throw one of these shows on in the background and play some Minecraft before bed.
I somehow ended up on an episode of In Search Of..., which is fine by me. It's one of my favourite shows. I typically have the DVD set of the Leonard Nimoy episodes sitting on my desk just in case I'm in the mood to throw one on while I'm working.
This particular show was centered on The Abominable Snowman and the opening moments took me aback.
When I tell you I've watched this series several times, I do mean it. So why I can't recall watching this particular episode, I can't say, but as I took in the cold open I was warped to my parents' basement in the late '80s, staring at the TV through slitted eyes and huddling under a blanket for safety.
Pretty well three years ago I actually wrote a thread on X/Twitter about it, which you can read here. I even went through the trouble of encoding some of DVD clips to include in the story.
The thing is, even though I went through all that trouble to grab scenes from the show and write the post, I was writing about the wrong episode.
As I watched the Abominable Snowman scene on my phone the other night, all the memories came flooding back to me. There's no question, this was the first episode I had seen of In Search Of... when I was like five years old.
I always had a memory of craggy snow-capped mountains and a Bigfoot running along the slope. I guess I just assumed that In Search Off... only had one episode about giant, hairy human-like creatures. It turns out they did separate features on Bigfoot and The Abominable Snowman! I just got mixed up.
I guess this is my final thought: memory is weird.
I read once that each time you recall a memory, you're not really remembering back to the initial event. You're remembering the last time you remembered it. Kind of a mindbender, but I think it makes sense. Each recollection might result in small losses of information and over time the whole thing can get pretty skewed.
When you're a person like me who is always trudging through nostalgia and days past, it certainly isn't hard to believe that things will get muddled up now and then.
Or maybe it's just senility? Please don't be senility...
Back in - *gasp* - TWENTY EIGHTEEN I completed The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which was then the latest in the Legend of Zelda franchise, dual released on the failing Wii U and the brand-spanking-new Nintendo Switch consoles.
I started playing it's sequel, Tears of the Kingdomright on launch day, May 12th, 2023 and thanks to life's many circumstances it was only today, nearly three years since its release, that I finally finished the game.
I took about a million screenshots of the final moments, but then realized they were all very spoiler-y and even though I'm likely one of the few people that took this long to beat the game, I decided to go with the simplest of proof:
Today was a very apt day to complete the game, no matter how long it took me to get here - as today is February 21, 2026, the 40th anniversary of the original game that started the series, The Legend of Zelda.
I'm sure that I've written about this in the varied posts I've made about the Zelda series over the years, but as much as I adore the games in my adulthood I didn't really care for them as a kid. Sometimes it strikes me as funny that I'm so invested in them now.
In my teens, however, I discovered The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64 and things just grew from there.
Even though I completed a Zelda game today (and beamed as I watched my 6 year old play for a long while this afternoon) I decided I just needed to boot up the OG and play for a bit tonight.
I've completed The Legend of Zelda NES many times over the years. I even practiced "speed running" it back in 2019 (I use the term lightly), but it's funny - every time I walk away from this game and start it up again... I have no idea what I'm doing.
There are Nintendo games that I played as a kid that if I started them up right now, I'd hit the ground running, remember every secret, and plow through every boss. LoZ, though - its like every memory of it just evaporates from my brain. I remember the basics - I grab the sword and muddle my way to Level 1 "The Eagle", but all of the secret bushes you need to burn or walls you need to explore for helpful items and hints... gone. The order I should play in? I got nothin'.
In one way, it makes for a semi-fresh experience every time I turn it on. On the other hand, my anxiety spikes about early senility.
Regardless of how I got here, I really do love the series now and I count both Breath of the Wild and Ocarina of Time as some of my favourite video games of all time, which I think says something; I've played a helluva lot of games.
So cheers to the 40th anniversary of one of gaming's greatest franchises! Whether you were one of the first to pop that beautiful gold cartridge into an NES as a kid, finally gave the games a shot as a teen like myself, or you're just now getting started (like my little guy), I do think there's something special here for everyone, which is why the series endures as it does.
Heck, we're only about a year away from getting a big budget, live action Legend of Zelda movie! Only took 'em 40+ years!
