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Tonight on Hardscrabble & Fist!

11 Apr

April 11, 2012

If you follow me on Twitter @bmj2k  you’ve seen me tweeting about my favorite TV show, Hardscrabble & Fist.

Hardscrabble & Fist was the best of the 1980’s detective/action genre. Everyone from Simon and Simon to Magnum PI owes this show a debt of gratitude.

Lee Horsley played Hardscrabble, a Vietnam vet turned detective. Using his FBI contacts, Hardscrabble never turned down a case or an attractive woman. His partner, Fist, was the tough guy of the duo. All-business, no-nonsense, Fist said little but made up for his silence with action. Together, Hardscrabble and Fist  could be counted on to rescue a kidnapped heiress, track down a counterfeiting ring, or defuse a Soviet nuclear bomb. And of course, after every case closed they retired to Hardscrabble’s houseboat where Uncle Joe Rascal always kept the beer cold and the women hot.

If you missed an episode of the show, check out my Twitter feed to get in on all the action.

Here are some classic clips of Hardscrabble & Fist in action:

The Saturday Comics: Superman and the Tandy Computer Whiz Kids (Classic Repost)

7 Apr

April 7, 2012

I like this one. It features Superman, a guy in an eye patch, and a computer with as much as 512 KB of memory. What’s not to like?

From August 3, 2010

The answer is so obvious, I’m shocked no one else has seen it.

We have oil spilling into the gulf.
We have the threat of terrorism.
We have severe economic troubles.

Has no one ever read this comic?

Al Gore would love this comic. It combines two things he invented, the internet and climate change.

Back in the ’80’s, Radio Shack, perhaps hoping to create the next X-Men, put out a series of comics featuring “The Tandy Computer Whiz Kids.” Alec and Shanna, the “Whiz Kids,” were you’re typical Archie and Betty-type kids (very bland) that somehow found themselves in Scooby Doo situations every week.

You know he's evil because he wears an eye patch!

They foiled kidnappers, stopped drug dealers, and even averted World War Three by stopping a rogue soviet nuclear submarine.

How did they do it? By using their Tandy Computer TRS-80, which they plugged every chance they got.

Behold the TRS-80!

BEHOLD!

Type: Home computer
Release date: 1980
Discontinued: 1991
Operating system: Color BASIC 1.0 / 2.0 / OS-9
CPU: Motorola 6809E @ 0.895 MHz / 1.79 MHz
Memory: 4 KB / 16 KB / 32 KB/ 64 KB / 128 KB / 512 KB

Imagine- they stopped World War Three with less computing power than your average cell phone!

Eventually Alec and Shanna managed to clean up their own city and were soon invited into the Justice League, where they teamed with Superman to save Metropolis.

The Brave and The Bold

Alec and Shanna retired from heroics in the early nineties. They could no longer keep up with villains who used the internet or texted. (There were also rumors of an affair between Shanna and Robin.)

However, their influence is still felt today, as one of their community organizers has gone on to greater fame.