Batman week continues with The Bigfoot of Superhero Movies

The Bigfoot of Live Action Superhero Movies, originally uploaded by PinthGarnell.

I swore I saw it when I was a kid but was never completely sure if such a thing existed. I remembered being 5, sitting on the floor of the apartment watching the Justice League, live action all gather onstage, EVERYBODY was in it, Hawkman, Green Lantern, The Flash. Later in life I had a flashback to this show, I asked everyone I knew, nobody had ever heard of such a thing. It's a tv movie that starred the entire Justice League, live action, how could it exist and nobody remembered it. Finally I moved to a city that had sense enough to hold the second biggest comic convention in the US. I went to my first con and asked the bootleg video booth guys, they knew it, and pointed me right to it. It was called Legend of the Superheroes, and yes it starred the entire Justice League, live action. I was so happy when I finally held it in my hands, with the picture you see all dot-matrix printed and slipped into a plastic video case. Not only did it exist, but I was going to watch it for the first time in 20 years. When I did I was back in Ohio, 5 years old again, and enjoying every moment of this complete piece of shit, but a piece of shit that really warmed my heart, plus, again, there was no X-Men 2 in 1978, most Superhero things were very innocent and very shitty, but compared to nothing, were superhero movies nonetheless.

I also found something else that day at the con, something else the NOBODY knew anything about. A Star Wars movie that came out in between Star Wars and Empire and only aired on tv once. Sound like a bigfoot? Sound like a lie? Again, I remembered seeing this Star Wars thing on tv and being as excited as any kid in 1978 would be about anything Star Wars related, but you must understand my frustration when nobody had heard of it, then I really did think I was crazy, IT WAS STAR WARS for fucks sake! How was I the only one who had heard of this? Well that exists too, and it has Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and an animated Boba Fett. So I wasn't crazy, though CBS was, because they made a piece of shit.

Both the Star Wars Holiday Special and Legends of the Superheroes give really good insight to what the REST OF THE WORLD was thinking while visionaries like George Lucas and Richard Donner were making Star Wars and Superman. If the EXACT SAME IDEA (even after Lucas and Donner had done their version) were given to almost anyone else in the industry at the time, they would have Princess Leia singing with Jefferson Starship (I did not make that up).