World Watch OnLine: The UnOfficial Buckaroo Banzai Mailing List
# 137 (11 June 2000)
Submissions: WWatchOne@aol.com
Editor: WWatchOne@aol.com
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Official BB site: http://www.banzai-institute.com

Number of subscribers: 511
(NOTE: anyone who doesn't have an "@something" behind their name 
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Contents:
Greetings
Re: World Watch OnLine 136 - 5 June 2000
Foam Core Lobby Cards
At the Auction
Re: World Watch OnLine 136 - 5 June 2000
Re: World Watch OnLine 136 - 5 June 2000
At The Auctions
Dragon Tales

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Greetings,

Looks like my plans were altered a bit so I'm not
late after all. 

I'm still toying with the idea of switching this
digest over to eGroups so I won't have to fight
with AOL so much when sending it out. Testing the
waters a bit right now myself. Any thoughts pro
or con? I'd have to manually add all the email
addys to eGroups, which would then send a welcome
message. You could remove yourself simply by replying
to that message. All email would still go to the
'wwatchone@aol.com' address you use now, you'd just
see a different reply-to address each week.

This is a silly sounding question, but out of all
my BB pics, I have no simple, clear, straight-on
color head shot of PW. Anyone have one out there I
can get a copy of? Email me. 

Meanwhile, if you're in/near Atlanta, mule@wt.net
is looking for some fellow fans. 

Later...
ArcLight

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Subj:	Re: World Watch OnLine 136 - 5 June 2000
Date:	6/5/00 8:50:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:	BanzaiSGI

Autograph collectors....there is an excellent monthly magazine out called
Autograph Collector...available at book stores and it has in the past listed
some of the BB actors........

To Erik Kobayashi-Solomon...(if that really is your name....let's
see....W-h-o-r-f-i-n....Wait a minute!!!!)
Actually...Erik, I remember when my son was about six or so and he would
watch Michael Jackson's Thriller and the making of Thriller and Ghostbuster's
I...and I would put on BB (and also Pooh)...and he would sit there and
innocently say "Dad..watch...Bucapooh Panzai car go in mountain"...and take
one of my just finished model cars and ram it into the nearest wall.....then
as I slowly sank to the floor he would proudly take the pieces and throw them
into the air and yell "Yoyowine bad".....
We also speak some Japanese (my mother is Japanese) though at that time I
don't recall that it was proper dinner table language....lol..........

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Subj:	 Foam Core Lobby Cards
Date:	6/6/00 3:04:56 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From:	gross@aish.com

Regarding the Foam Core mounted Lobby Cards

I think I can clear up the mystery.

I personally was given a set of Foam Core mounted lobby cards by 
the manager of the theater that was showing BB in Westwood (LA 
for all the rest of you.)  They had been displayed in the windows of 
the theater.   I sold them many years ago (along with an original 
Lectroid mask worn by Christopher Lloyd and rescued from the 
garbage can ) to a couple in Oregon if my memory serves me well.  
They has some kind of fan letter going at the time and that's how I 
found them.

There is more to the story.  I was also promised the HUGE fabric 
BB banner that was hanging above the door to the theater, but the 
night before the movie was ending it's run, the banner was, uh.
Stolen.

So my consolation prize was those Lobby Cards.

Has anyone seen the banner at conventions?
I'm sure it's been sold several times

David
gross@aish.com

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Subj:	 At the Auction
Date:	6/6/00 11:31:55 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From:	lf@shell.cais.net (Apache)

This is probably too late to be of use for the original query, but --
Anyone who's selling foamcore mounted lobby cards either did it
themselves, or bought them from someone who did it.  The studio didn't
send them out that way, either in North America or Europe (both French and
German lobbycards have turned up for auction on eBay -- there's a French
set on offer as I write).

Apache

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Subj:	 Re: World Watch OnLine 136 - 5 June 2000
Date:	6/6/00 5:48:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:	winningh@usc.edu (winningh)

In regards to BBI Tonkatron's question (Is a Byronic hero like a Bionic
hero?), a Byronic or Romantic hero is defined by dialectics, unresolvable
struggle. She/he has an indominable individual will, and vast creative
power and appetite. She/he strives constantly to achieve the
impossible; to know all, to do all, to be all- basically to challenge God,
an enterprise always doomed to noble failure. She/he fights social
injustice and/or hypocrisy. Though she/he is capable of
great good, she/he is also capable of great evil, she/he is alone in the
universe, longs to be complete, can be redeemed only by the power of pure,
forgiving love. Examples: Byron's Don Juan, Goethe's Faust, Milton's
Lucifer, Blade Runner's Roy Batty. Someone else will have to tell us if a
Bionic hero fits these requirements :)

The Kid

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Subj:	Re: World Watch OnLine 136 - 5 June 2000
Date:	6/7/00 4:54:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:	Buckaroo88

i think we need to have a chicago party !!!

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Subj:	 At The Auctions
Date:	6/11/00 1:49:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:	alandsmith@uswest.net (BBI Dragon (Alan Smith))
Reply-to:	alandsmith@uswest.net
To:	wwatchone@aol.com (BBI ArcLight), cdcrsh@webtv.net (BBI Crazy Horse)

At The Auctions with BBI Dragon & Crazy Horse

This was another busy time at ebay for BB items. A lot of items that
were noteworthy and a reply from a high bidder and a seller.

This is what I (Dragon) got from a fan that won the Jet Car Illusion
Toy:

"I get a kick out of this item, but others (including you) might feel
differently. (Seller's user name removed) consistently has high quality
products, so I always feel confident when I make a purchase from them."

Dragon wrote back with:

Thank you for letting my know what you think about your purchase. On
this particular item I think it went for (and has been auctioning for)
much more then the item is worth. Especially since I can recall when
these things were going for about $3 each.  I still have a display box
of 12 that I bought for $20. But that was the late '80s after all. Times
have changed their value.
The most important issue here is that you, the person who was willing to
bid on the item and get it, is please. It sounds like you are, so that
is pleasing to me.
(referring to Crazy Horse & my At The Auctions article) Our opinions of
sellers over pricing BB items and all is really unimportant. What is
important is that the fans who do bid on and get these items are please
with the money spent and the merchandise. That is what is important, not
what we happen to think. I feel it is great that you are pleased with
spending $20+ for the Jet Car Illusion Toy since that gives you a smile
and amusement. This is what is important.

Thank you again and have fun,
BBI Dragon

And Crazy Horse contacted a seller:

Subject: Re: BB Belt Buckle
Greetings!
I saw your Buckaroo Banzai belt buckle for auction at ebay. This appears
to be the EXACT SAME belt buckle that STARLAND sells. Is it?

And the seller replied with:
Hi,
I am not sure if they are the same or not.
They should not be as I got this belt buckle from a non U.S. show.
However, I
cannot guarantee that they are dissimilar. Please feel free to e-mail me
with any further questions.

Crazy Horse: This answer is CLASSIC!!! I wonder if the seller is a
politician?

Dragon: A politician or an Illusionist, now you see me and now you
don't! I can't imagine that there is another person making BB belt
buckles. Let's watch this one and see what it sells for.

another email contacting a seller...

Crazy Horse wrote:
Who do you think you are fooling?
These patches are not "hard to find." Anyone can buy them at
STARLAND, for a MUCH LOWER PRICE!!!!! I have nothing against anyone
selling these on ebay, I only hate GREEDY EBAY SELLERS like you who are
telling people that you are selling a "rare" item. I will not call
this FRAUD, but maybe ebay will if I contact them. What do you think?

And the seller's reply was short and to the point:

Re: Buckaroo Banzai Patches

"**** off" (edited reply)

**** 'Buzz' perhaps? <G> - ArcLight ****

Dragon: LOL! CH, personally I think you crossed over into the harassment
side of things with this message.
We can't protect the fans from themselves, period. If a fan is willing
to pay for over priced items, it's their choice. Information and options
make for better choices though.
Food for thought.

Crazy Horse: BTW, I was NOT going to report him to ebay, I just wanted
to rattle his cage a little. Looks like it worked!!!!!!!! I got the
response from this seller that I expected, although I figured that the
message would be a bit longer!!  I know I crossed the line, but I just
HAD to say something, LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is something to laugh at, as far as I'm concerned!
I have e-mailed a few of his high bidders. Most did not reply back but
the few that have were thankful, such as the one I received earlier
today;

BBI-CrazyHorse@webtv.net wrote:
Greetings!!!
Did you know that you can get this patch, as well as all the others
that this seller has up for auction, at a MUCH LOWER price at
"www.starland.com"? I do not work for starland, or have any
affiliation with them. I just hate seeing Buckaroo Banzai fans being
ripped off by greedy ebay sellers who buy this stuff at Starland and
then sell it at ebay as a "RARE" item. Your fellow BB fan, Crazy Horse

The reply was:
Subject: Re: Buckaroo Banzai Patch

"Thanks for the tip :)"

Dragon: While we are harping on this issue...
If we were to make an issue of semi-false and misleading information we
could harass (seller name removed) about the way they describe the BB
patches currently at auction too. (we will not harass them BTW)

Description reads:
"The Banzai patches we are selling were produced many years ago under a
restricted fan license that only allowed them to be sold to the comic
book, fantasy shop convention dealer market. For this reason, their
distribution was not very good and so are not easy to find today."

First off, "produced many years ago" isn't true, they are still being
produced at Starland. Secondly, "distribution was not very good and so
are not easy to find" all you have to do is go to the Starland website
for them or hit any convention they are at...

Crazy Horse: Yes, I noticed (seller's name removed) doing the same thing
with the patches.
Another greedy seller in the bunch.

Now to the auctions:

BB Belt Buckle

Crazy Horse:  Yet another "hard piece to find" that was picked up "at a
science-fiction convention." Those 2 phrases are starting to make me
think that the seller really means "I just bought this at Starland, and
hope to make some money off of it."

Dragon: Yes CH... it's all marketing. Make the potential buyer
interested by saying an item is 'rare' or 'hard to find'. Just because
they found it easily at a sci fi convention doesn't make it any less
rare and hard to find if you don't go to conventions. This BB belt
buckle is available at Starland for $14.95 so potentially with a
starting bid of only $3.00 (plus $2.50 postage) you could save a few
bucks at auction. I wonder what this bidder bought it for at the
convention.

*******

Deja Vu ebay

BUCKAROO BANZAI -- EXTENDED VERSION!
This is the rare, extended version of "The Advs of Buckaroo Banzai!"
More than ten minutes of extra footage including the prologue with
Banzai's parents!
Tape is slightly letterboxed. Quality is good, not great.

And...

BUCKAROO BANZAI Rare LBX Director's Cut VHS!
This is vhs copy of the extremely rare rough cut for the film "The
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai" starring Peter Weller, John
Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd and Jeff Goldblum. This early
cut contains
approximately 15 minutes of raw footage never released before or seen
anywhere else.
Picture quality is very raw and untreated as is all working prints but
still watchable
and in good to very good quality.

Dragon: Interesting... a new seller user name, no feedback. Need a clue?
How about this from the item's page; Opening bid: "GBP 16.70 (approx.
$25.21)" ring any familiar bells?

With a quick search of completed auctions using these titles,"BUCKAROO
BANZAI Rare LBX Director's Cut VHS!!" & "BUCKAROO BANZAI -- EXTENDED
VERSION!" what and who do I find...

NOTHING!!! It's been just long enough that I can't find any completed
auctions using these titles. Maybe I did something wrong? Anyway, you
and I know these are either the same bootleggers making and selling a
copy every 3 to 4 weeks or new bootleggers taking 'turns'. After all,
what would happens if there were several of them auctioning at once,
there goes your 'extremely rare' status! LOL!
CH: let's not contact these sellers... what's the point. We know what
they are doing and we can let the fans know it. If those fanatical fans
of BB are willing to let this happen and condone it by buying into it,
we'd only be committing harassment to contact them, as tempting as it
is.

< Dragon shakes his head back and forth, disappointedly >

Fact is CH, I could be bootlegging this video myself, I have a copy that
was given to me many many years ago. I will not. Maybe I could justify
this by flooding the auctions with bootleg copies and that should change
the status of this item from 'rare' to 'everyday', LOL!

Crazy Horse:  L O L ! ! !
 I remember the nic (seller's name removed) from a lot of sellers!!!!
He's gotta have a bank of dual VCRs working 24/7/365!!! Damn, this is a
sad state of affairs. I guess RARE means he only sells one tape at a
time?
Time to go get my guns!!!! This seller has sold, and has attempted to
sell, SEVERAL copies of the work-print. He had one up for sale just over
a week ago. A mass produced "hard to find" item. If he keeps printing
these things out, he's gonna have to change his ad to "hard NOT to
find!"

*******

T-shirt Video Cover Image

Dragon: The 'home grown' video cover T-shirt is back again, any
surprise? This one's on a yellow shirt again too.

Crazy Horse:  That yellow shirt makes me laugh my butt off! It's so
obvious of a bootleg. I guess the guy who printed it up did not know
about the transfers being semi-transparent.

Dragon: However I do recall the last highest bidder being relatively
pleased with their purchase at just over $20 for it.

*******

TABB Videos

Crazy Horse: I see that there are a lot of TABB videos again this week.
Everyone should be able to have one soon if this trend keeps going.

Dragon: With a little quick checking and the use of a calculator I have
come up with the latest 'average' auction price for a copy of our
beloved film. The average for the last two weeks, while the market seems
to be flooded with copies, is up from $18 to $21!?! I don't understand!
In the last two weeks there have been 23 copies of the video for auction
with a selling range from as little as $5.50 to as high as $36. I can
only figure that the supply has not yet met the demand for this video
even with this many available.

*******

Crazy Horse: By the way, yesterday on one of the news channels (I forget
which one), there was a piece about fraudulent sellers on ebay. This may
come as a surprise (LOL!), but it seems that some sellers are bidding
against themselves (under different names) and/or having their friends
do the
same, just to drive up the price of an item. Ebay has started to
investigate this practice, but it is hard to tell when and if a seller
is doing this.

Dragon: Yes. The way I heard this about ebay was that this was being
done on high end items like art work and the like. I would hope that
this isn't being done with BB items, but you never know.
The thing is, if you as a bidder see the item you want just going up,
up, up, set yourself a limit and stick to it. Let someone else be the
highest bidder. Next time you may adjust your expectations upward but do
some checking around first. And be patient. Most BB items, dissipate the
seller's insistence that the item is "RARE" can be seen for auctions
frequently if you just watch and wait a week or two.

*******

Dragon: I'd like to make a closing statement here. As I eluded to above,
the opinions that Crazy Horse and I express are really unimportant. As
long as the buyers are happy with the price they paid for the items they
have gotten, that's GREAT! As for the so-called 'greedy' sellers who
inflate the prices, call them 'rare', misrepresent them and bootleg copy
after copy to sell, really it's the buyer's responsibility. If the fans
would not jump at the opportunity to buy this stuff the sellers would be
stuck with it. But the fans ARE willing to buy this stuff and are
willing to pay the prices. Of all the buyers CH and I have contacted
everyone who has replied has been satisfied with their purchase for the
most part. THAT is the important issue here.
So, I say to the sellers, if you can get away with this and sleep at
nights, fine. But don't expect CH & I to let off or back down from our
opinions. To the bidders, as long as you are willing and happy then we
are happy for you, believe it!

Catch you all next week :)

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Subj:	 Dragon Tales
Date:	6/11/00 2:44:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:	alandsmith@uswest.net (BBI Dragon (Alan Smith))

Greetings all!

I'm going to jump into the discussion on the archetypes/Buckaroo's
appeal thread and I'm taking a different (no surprise?) slant on this
issue.
My own take on this is not to focus on BB the man himself. Rather my
focus (and my BB web site's as well ) is on the fans, the support group
the BBIs. The 'archetype and appeal' of Team Banzai for me is summed up
in the quote: "Nobody is a nobody, everybody has something to offer."
Team Banzai expresses the archetype that an individual or a small group
can make a positive difference. This theme is prevalent in all 'super
hero' stories. Only, with Team Banzai it's not 'super heroes', but
rather everyday ordinary people, the BBIs who make the difference.
Granted, ideally the BBIs are well trained in a variety of skills so
that they can help the community. This does not really give the BBIs,
the Hong Kong Cavilers or BB, 'super hero' status. Personally I find the
appeal of Team Banzai is this ideal of being good citizens, personal
improvement, helping when we can, dedication to a cause, respect for
others and decorum.

In an era when these ideas are rare among the general public, in a way,
anyone who does embrace and express then is a 'hero'.

Rokit Files- This week we sat in on an obedience class that our Vets
recommended and were pleased enough with what we saw that Rokit has been
enrolled. Classes start in less than two weeks. Rokit is going to be
learning decorum now too, he'll make a fine BBI. Crate training started
this week as well. Rokit has been destructive when we were leaving him
alone in the house to be at work. Chewing things, getting up on tables
and going ballistic when a cat would have the nerve to be on it's own
porch across the street. Now we crate him. I come home for lunch
everyday to let him out and we play a while before I go back. It's his
little 'den' now. Eventually the plan is to have him free to be in the
house alone when we are gone, but there is a lot of work between now and
then. Eventually Rokit will be trustworthy enough to have access to the
back yard as well when we are gone. That may take a while though.

I have a week's vacation coming up soon. I have only a few things that
I'm going to focus on, most of which are BB related. Team-Banzai.net is
in need of an update and when I can I've been getting in some work on
it. BBcon has been sadly neglected. This will be the other project I
will work on. One way or another we will have our online event. There
maybe few 'name' guests, if any at all, but there will be fun
discussions for you the fans to join in on or just sit back and lurk
(watch). We'll see what develops in the coming weeks.

Thanks for reading, catch you next week.

Always True Blue,
BBI Dragon

Random novel quote: Reno talks about the first time he had met Buckaroo
Banzai in his office:
I confess to having taken a quick drop of whiskey to energize myself as
I arose unsteadily and went to open my door. I have always found it
remarkable how a confident and open person can make a strong lasting
impression in the space of a single moment, but that was just what I
found to be the case with B. Banzai. A ready smile and a firm handshake
attached to a body that seemed to be made entirely of sinew captivated
me immediately. I suggested that we walk outside, and he agreed.


The Humane Society of The United States: http://www.hsus.org/
Team Banzai Chat server: http://www.team-banzai.net/Chat/chat.shtml
Gabbs are scheduled twice weekly
Weds. & Suns. 6 PM PDT/9 PM EDT.
Team Banzai.net is at: http://www.team-banzai.net/
B. Banzai e-mail group: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/BuckarooBanzai

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