Whether you’re in the mood for equine aliens with twelve fingers, testing bionic gadgets on dogs before fitting them with humans, or just want to hear the news and bad Dad science jokes, this episode of TechnoRetro Dads is bound to hit the spot…er…tickle your fancy…um…maybe…scratch your itch. Packed with 77 minutes of “Space Junk”, SETI signals, hydrogen highlights, and feedback from our EarBuds, you’ll be sorry when it’s over.  

In the NEWS…

Friendly reminder: Close Encounters of the Third Kind is coming back to theaters for a 40th anniversary special on the first weekend of September.  Also on September 1st — Force Friday returns to stores, spawning a question from collectors across the galaxy: “Will there be any actual toys?”  Disney keeps themselves in the news by announcing they will be pulling their content from Netflix and showing on their own streaming service…in 2019.  As Jeff Bridges promotes his new movie, he reveals his hopes for TR3N becoming the first movie presented in virtual reality.

Spoil Me or Spoiler Free? and other rants

JediShua goes off on a tangent (ok, that’s not really news — we do that every week).  But this departure is brought about by his agitation from cyberscoops who prefer criticizing what they don’t understand to actually investing themselves in comprehending what all the hype is about.  The writer is Alex Nichols and the subject is Ready Player One (both the book and the upcoming film).  Nichols writes from the perspective of an outsider looking into a factory where the workers are all involved in activities he doesn’t recognize and complains that they don’t do things the way he thinks they should.  Final analysis: he just doesn’t get it.  But what really pulls Shua’s strings is the growing number of complaints about spoilers — specifically regarding The Last Jedi.  EarBuds are aware that JediShua doesn’t mind spoilers, even stating previously that if a “spoiler” ruins the movie for you, it probably isn’t a very good movie, anyway.  Still, he invites EarBuds to get involved in the discussion via voicemail at (209) 878-7323.  

Aftershocks of 1977

Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the “Wow!” signal recorded by SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) on the “Big Ear” radio telescope.  Jerry Ehman spotted the alphanumeric representation of the signal on a computer printout and circled “6EQUSJ5” in red ink with an excited notation of “Wow!”  He believed that the signal had come from the vicinity of the constellation Sagittarius and researchers have been trying to decipher the recording and listening for other iterations of the same broadcast unsuccessfully for decades.  However, just before the forty-year anniversary of this event, shazbazzar has derived the source and meaning of this transmission with a strong likelihood that his hypothesis is correct, since it has not been disproven.  Tune in to find out more! 

Saturday Mornings

Quick!  Answer this trivia question: Which superhero lost the name of his show to his canine sidekick?  Can’t remember?  He wore a blue supersuit with a bird beak above the brow.  Still don’t remember?  How about this: What was his sidekick’s name?  Of course you know it — it’s Dynomutt.  The bionic/robotic dog stole the show from Blue Falcon in the heyday of Hanna-Barbera Saturday Mornings with the eponymous cartoon Dynomutt.  The Dog Wonder (or Blunder) is evidently a prototypical version of what would eventually become Inspector Gadget after clinical trials with animal testing had been completed.  He’s the Go-Go Dog Person we loved to watch in 1977.  

Feedback

Chris from Arvada eats Lucky Charms from a frozen bowl (#chillyourbowl) and remembers making his own mini-movies through stop-motion animation of Star Wars figures.  Sadly, he doesn’t know where the reels are.  @MikeTarkin plays “Hangman” on his Aunt’s ancient PC.  @DJKver2 includes the Nebulon frigate from The Empire Strikes Back on the list of Ships We Can’t Figure Out Which Way Is Forward.”  @JediFisch sends in an article about the ever-increasing popularity of ‘80s culture thirty years later.  And the @sandcrawlercast brings back treasured memories of filmstrips in elementary school with a video of the Star Wars filmstrip on YouTube.

Don’t forget to rate and review TechnoRetro Dads on iTunes, share us and with us on social media, or lend your voice to our discussion about Dynomutt, TR3N, Star Wars, Ready Player One, or spoilers by giving the ‘Dads your feedback on voice mail at (209) 878-7323 or sending us a message or mp3 via electronic-M to [email protected]. 

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