The HBO Guide Challenge 1982...everybody's doing it...? Or not so much?!

So here is the deal: I just received 7 HBO guides from both 1980 and 1982 (1 from ’80 and 6 from ’82 to be exact) and given my autistic spectrum mess of a mind I wanted to create some scheme to get more fully invested in these guides. First, let me explain my fascination. The period between 1975 and 1985, give or take a few years in either direction, is my golden nostalgia era. For me, this is the span of time wherein I find all my extant memories are good – or feel good after a healthy dose of all-healing time.

Time. Sugar-coats the memory doesn’t it? 

Regardless, everything from this period (ages 4 to 14 roughly) from the music to the television commercials to the movies to my sacred Consumer Reports and Wacky Packages, is magical for me now. I get goose bumply both inside and out, and make no apologies for it (though it can certainly drive my girlfriend mad from time to time).

So. HBO guides arrive. I smell them. I fondle them with the kind of holy regard one might normally save for a relic. When these guides first came in the mail back in the day, I would salivate over all the cool features and movies that would be available that month; this was the period where the’ sneak preview’ was almost as much fun as the features themselves (remember those Saturday morning cartoon network preview shows?) and the HBO guide was like a colorful, shiny little square packed full of the coming month’s awesomeness.

Browsing the contents now brings back the same sense of excitement and anticipation. These are ‘old’ movies now, many of them all but lost to obscurity, but they were hand-picked at the time by the folks at HBO.

So, how can I further immerse myself in this glowing and warm nostalgia? One of my autistic-y lists of course! Let’s make it a game in fact: let’s watch the movies thru in the precise order they appear in the guide.

At this point I must confess I was a bit irritated by the fact that I felt some obligation to stick somehow to the current date, in other words, get the August issue and find today’s programming (30 years ago of course) and watch those specific movies. But, alas, this is simply too impractical (I think anyhow) so I will simply start, admittedly arbitrarily, with the January 1982 guide, attempting to watch everything in the guide, using the first appearances in the schedule to dictate the order. Clearly, I won’t be watching the same feature more than once, so in theory this will mean fewer and fewer new programs/movies as the month progresses. Ideally, I will review each movie or special and provide any additional commentary I feel relevant (as if I could have stifled this even if I wanted to lol).

This is one of those things that will only demonstrate it’s practicality (or *wince* impracticality) through doing. So, without further a-don’t, let’s get the proverbial ball rolling. In this case, pun being on ball…as in Telly Savalas’ bald head and the flop “Blood Barrier” from 1979, opening the month of January, 1982, at – oh bother. It’s actually the SECOND presentation of the month, at 8:00 am, with Snowball Express ringing in the new year at 6:30 am. See? The hiccups are already rearing their ugly heads. I will simply watch Snowball second. 

Interestingly, the film is no longer known by this title but as the more mundane “Border Cop”; when first I saw the Blood Barrier title I thought ‘medical drama/thriller’…so perhaps this spurred the change…we may never know. On to the viewing!