Thursday, October 23, 2008

Darth who?!

Click image to enlarge.

With Halloween a week away I thought it'd be a good time to dig up, from the October 30th, 1977 edition of the Nanaimo (British Columbia) Daily Free Press (my old hometown paper don'tcha know), this phantastic photographic pairing of classic characters new and old.

Apparently as it had only been five months since the release of "that space movie" 11 year old Darcy felt the need to add Darth Vader's name and cinematic affiliation to the dome of his shiny black helmet just in case any out-of-the-loop grandmothers or non-movie-goers mistook him for a generic gas-masked ghoul or oddly angular vampire. Little Bo Peep's portrayer felt no such need.

Oh, how the world has changed... (heavy sigh... wistful tear, pensive gaze off into the distance as if attempting to recapture lost innocence and all those collectible toy packages that got thrown away with the wrapping paper they came with, and... fade to black.)

More vintage Star Wars Halloweeness at the certainly-swell-if-I-do-say-so-myself "Growing Up Star Wars : 1977-1985" group at flickr.

4 comments:

Todd Franklin said...

This is so funny! I can't stop laughing. I love Darth's name on the helmet!

Glen Mullaly said...

Thanks!
Too bad the photo's such poor quality. The microfilm viewer's printer version was even worse (although I used the text from it) so the photo portion I took with my digital camera directly from the view screen.

Anonymous said...

That girl lived at the bottom of my street. I assume she'd be proud to know her Halloween costume can still be appreciated by people 30 years later.

Interesting how community newspapers used to cite the street photographic subjects lived on. Is that for the same reason serial killers are cited with their middle names, or is it to put some excitement into readers' drab lives: "Oh my god! That's MY street! I rock!"

Glen Mullaly said...

I was going to ask you if you knew her.
Yeah, I think the street connects the subject with the reader. An since that was your street, and you do rock, I guess it worked.