A Brief (?) History of SF Productions--Part 12
SF finished 1982 with another political special (Confusion '82), and by this point we apparently decided that Reagan had won the 1980 race, since we spent some time either praising or bashing him. There were some small pre-written bits, which became painfully obvious as the production went on. We ended up spending half the tape doing commercial parodies--Eric, Bill, Steve, Lynda, Mike, Beth, and new member Brenda Bader (Badger) joined in the fun. Brenda lived just two blocks away from me, so I had known her since elementary school. She eventually became the SF Historian--in fact, for this blog, I have been referencing a book she put together for my wedding documenting SF's history. She was involved with SF for several years, but I haven't heard from her for awhile (if you read this Brenda, please e-mail me through the site or find me via FaceBook!).
1983 was known as the "Summer of SF"--we got back together after a year in college, and spent every minute of that summer together. There's enough for two entries here, so let's start with "Return of the Jedi Glasses". Lucas & Co. had the promotional machine going full blast by the time "Episode VI" came out, so we spent much of this production talking about the various tie-ins than the actual storyline. "Jedi Glasses", of course, referred to the Burger King promotional item. Eric, Steve, Mike, Saylor, Sharon, and Brenda came together for our 30th tape.
We also ventured into video for the first time, doing a parody of the sci-fi show "V" (which oddly enough just got a remake) called "Y". We taped it in my basement with zero production values (the ship looked cool, though, thanks Mike), using a rented camcorder, so we had to do it quickly. Eric managed to cut himself on the head by jumping into a ceiling beam, but we persevered and got it done. Unfortunately, this tape disappeared years ago (I do have a beta videotape labelled "Y", but I have no way to play it). Perhaps I'll pull a Jackie Gleason years from now and release it as the "lost production".
This was also the year we got official pictures taken (the pic on this site's homepage came from 1983). The blue golf shirts we're wearing had an SF logo which was laboriously added via a silkscreen device Mike had, and rapidly fell apart since they were really cheap.
Okay, there's more of 1983 to come, but for now, let's go to a galaxy far, far, away...