Archive for December, 2015

The Blue Van

Wednesday, December 16th, 2015

So I bought Season One of the 1966 Batman TV series, and I’ve been gleefully reliving my childhood binge-watching a show I haven’t seen in a couple of decades. The first season was brilliant. I’ve read the producers or the network believed it was a bit too dark and lightened it up for Season Two which, I believe, cost them their adult audience by pandering to the kids and thereby killed the show.

Season Three was the flailing of a dying man, even sillier than Season Two, the network geniuses not understanding why Season One was such a hit: its pitch-perfect balance between the absurd and the (preadolescent) entertaining captured in perfect tone in the pilot, “Hey Riddle Diddle.” That show gave me nightmares as a kid when the Riddler set the Batmobile on fire and then threatened Robin with a scalpel and a head vise, while being laugh-out-loud funny when Batman enters a discotech, preferring to stand at the bar because, “I wouldn’t want to attract undue attention.”

I’m only now really appreciating how brilliant the show was, and how either the network or the studio killed their own golden goose by not truly understanding how delicate the formula was or how vitally important the balance was to maintain. Other things I’ve discovered:
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1999 the Roleplaying Game

Monday, December 7th, 2015

So, in a burst of inspiration over the last few days, I’ve written a fairly simple tabletop RPG set in the 1999 universe (or an alternate version of it).  I can’t really finish it until I’ve read Book 4, but it’s in good enough shape that a little independent playtesting (or at least “read-testing”) is in order.

Interested in giving it a try?  Send email to me at dvandom at gmail (not putting in a full email since I get enough spam due to robo-sifting as it is) and I’ll give you viewing privileges on the current Google Doc.

Just keep in mind, this is not meant to be a detailed game where it matters if you carry a Ruger or a Colt .45.  A gun is a gun, a fighter jet is a fighter jet, and a giant robot is…well, okay, those have some differences.