Whoever came up with the slogan for Independent Health clearly didn’t watch any classic Star Trek, because the ways they retired “red shirts” on that show were horrifying…
By the way, if you haven’t yet read John Scalzi’s Redshirts, or better yet, listened to the audiobook version read by Wil Wheaton, do it!
The video below has been making the internet rounds, but I wanted to make sure you saw it — two of the 1970s’ greatest cultural creations: AC/DC and Star Wars, with scenes from the attack on the Death Star from Episode IV and Thunderstruck from AC/DC’s 1990 album, The Razor’s Edge!
This video is only the latest of a long series of classic rock/Star Wars mash-ups…
But wow, Thunderstruck’s a favorite…
I’ll close with one of my favorites, Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans, a parody of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band:
“A wizard never bails, nor does he wipe out. He shreds precisely as he means to.”
The Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse has moved into the public domain, so why not the philosophical domain as well?
The panel above is from 1979, and more specifically, issue 79 of the comic book Marvel Team-Up, a regular series that featured Spider-Man teaming up with another Marvel character. This issue featured Spidey collaborating with Red Sonja, who’s from the world of Conan the Barbarian.
But what’s of more interest to me is the ten-dollar Christmas bonus J. Jonah Jameson gave to Peter Parker. Is it as measly as it sounds? How much would a $10 Christmas bonus in 1979 be worth today?
Fortunately, we live in an era where finding out is pretty easy. There’s no shortage of inflation calculators online, and the one provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis says that $10 in 1979 is equivalent to $41.47 in 2023 dollars.