By Benjamin Law

Because of my 12-year-old man-child proportions, it’s not often I get to buy clothes straight off the rack. So, when recently visiting my local vintage clothing shop, I was thrilled to find a bone-fide, authentic, mid-90s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers t-shirt — and in my size, no less! It was the real deal, not one of those purposely weathered Jay-Jay’s imitations that make my soul cry out in despair.

No, this was a genuinely weathered combination of cotton and polyester that yielded to the touch. It was incredibly soft, as though it had been beaten by rocks in a river of Pantene conditioner, or the tears of baby lambs. In short, it was perfect. The best thing was that it only contained the five original power rangers: black (mastadon); pink (pterodactyl); blue (triceratops), yellow (sabre-toothed tiger) and red (tyrannosaurus). All this perfection for only thirty dollars.

“Thirty dollars for this beat up piece of shit?” my boyfriend Scott said. “What are you, insane? It’s even got a stain on it.” This conversation went on for a few weeks, and even extended into a dinner party with friends. “And guess how much he paid?” Scott asked, swilling his wine around. “For this — the retro-ironic piece of shit he currently wears before you — Benjamin here paid fifty dollars!”

Like I said, it was actually thirty dollars — but whatever. It didn’t matter. Because that day, it was not simply a second-hand soiled garment for which I paid, but what it represented. It was a relic of when the Rangers concept was genius in its simplicity. It went like this: Rita Repulsa, a hideous space witch, is released after 10,000 years of lunar house-arrest, when bungling Earth astronauts inadvertently set her free. Alarmed, Zordon — a holographic shaman-thing that lives in a glass tube — sets out to find five “teenagers with attitude” to become the defenders of Earth, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Each episode, the five would do battle with a space monster that Rita had sent down. As the Rangers were nearing victory, Rita would inevitably shoot beams towards Earth, making her monster grow to skyscraper heights. At this point, zords were called upon — our heroes’ super-vehicles — which came in the shape of the respective Ranger’s totem. There would always be a terrible moment where it seemed the zords were losing, and dark victory was imminent. But then the zords would join up to create the amazing Megazord. It even had its own sword. There was something satisfying in have those five elements to form a unified whole. It spelled teamwork.

Of course, the concept was soon wrecked. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers morphed into the only series that changed its set-up on an annual basis. Hence the existence of Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers, Power Rangers: Zeo and Power Rangers: Turbo franchises. The list goes on: Power Rangers: In Space, Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force, Wild Force, Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder, S.P.D, Mystic Force and Operation Overdrive. It upset me immensely.

We can trace all this fucked-uppedness back to one episode, or at least a five-part special: “Green With Evil”. Admittedly, it was riveting programming at the time, and introduced a new (and, obviously, evil) Ranger, in the form of Green Ranger Tommy (played by chisel-jawed Canadian martial arts wünderkid Jason David Frank). After being brain-washed by Rita, the Green Ranger wreaked some serious damage, almost destroying the Power Rangers and their mentor Zordon. He even had his own zord — the spectacular, water-dwelling DragonZord, which emerged hypnotically from the sea with a drill-like tail.

Needless to say, Tommy became good, and joined the team. Which was all pleasant enough, but totally ruined coherency. Why did the Green Ranger have his own theme song? Why did he get to have lame, gold shoulder-pads, while the others didn’t? Why did the other Rangers bother with their own zords, when it was clear the DragonZord could destroy the villains all by itself? It was the beginning of a steep downhill slide.

They say children are adaptive creatures, and can cope with change remarkably well. But this doesn’t mean they should be subjected to epic and volatile change annually, just for the sake of it. Do you remember the dismay you felt when Pippa from Home & Away was replaced by another actor? Can you imagine riding that rollercoaster of emotions every year? What the fuck is Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue? Why does it exist and why does it suck? The answer is simple, and all kids — even the fat ones — are smart enough to know when things smell a little too merchandisey. Keep things simple, and the merchandise will age well. Just look at my shirt.

This article can be found snugly tucked away in issue 2.1.

By Nathanael Jeanneret

I, being a stranger in your town, and originating from over the seas, knew that someday I would feel the pull of my homeland. To wit, I have recently moved home to Tasmania.

I was offered a job down here, and I wanted to have a chance to try a bit of a change of pace and lifestyle. Why is this relevant to you? In my enthusiasm, I packed up my worldly belongings, and the day I moved out, I rang up my ISP and had my internet disconnected.

Severed, it seems, would have been a more appropriate choice of words. Almost immediately I felt the need to log on and check the weather, get shoddy street directions and look at amusing pictures of cats.

I steeled myself, remembering at that moment that I no longer had a dialup modem in my nerd box-o-tricks. I had thrown it out shortly after first getting broadband. As I recall, it was while chuckling to myself that I’d never need that again, along with my floppy drive and my autographed picture of John Romero. Subsequently I realized that it would be some time before I was to once again gain internet access.

I have, in this difficult time, gained hard-won knowledge beyond the ken of the we privileged few who have net access that is mighty and torrential in its nature. Consider this my formal report on life without decent internet access.

Firstly. It sucks. Sucks so much arse it’s hard to believe. When we can have wireless broadband chips implanted in our heads I will be first in line. Possibly even volunteering for beta.

Learning 1: The impulse to Google something doesn’t go away long after you jack out. Don’t get offline if at all possible.

People who don’t spend way too much time on the internet spend way too much time watching TV. I can say that in the four weeks I stayed with family, while itinerant and homeless, I saw more Home & Away and Neighbours than I care to mention in public. I even know who Susan and Karl are. They’re fucking idiots, that’s who they are.

There’s an awful lot to be said for dogs on skateboards on YouTube when compared to the finest drama before dinnertime available on free-to-air.

Learning 2: TV is so unbearably shit that without TV downloads I considered physical exercise (I even did — consider just how desperate I was for entertainment).

If you don’t have regular internet access, you are reduced to getting online however you can. Much like your garden variety IT consultant chewing on a deal baggy that many months ago contained meth, you make do with what you can get. With that in mind, all internet kiosks are poxy pieces of shit. If it’s made of plastic and intended to be as “user friendly” as possible, you can just forget it. You may as well punch yourself in the face and throw a couple of dollar coins into the sea because you’d be better off.

So forget about internet kiosks — what about internet cafés? Once again, utter crap. Even if you can find one that genuinely has an actual “high speed broadband connection” as promoted, instead of just a couple of dialup modems in a pile, you still have to deal with fucked-up computers that work only in the sense that they consume electricity.

For someone whose sole responsibility in life is to take the money and keep the computers functioning, the nerd at internet cafe doesn’t actually seem to achieve much more than eating chips and being condescending. Yes I fucking know how to use a computer, don’t waste my time “trouble-shooting” your piece of shit computer, just give some of those Cheezles.

Learning 3: You should always distrust computers where you can’t run Firefox or get access to a command prompt.

I’m actually pretty sure that having regular internet access helps nerds deal with life issues in a constructive and fairly harmless way. Grieving in online games, for example, allows you to work out those deep-seated issues. You can blow off steam by trolling on fora, looking at amusing articles and otherwise enjoy the depths of our collective culture and history of our world.

But say what happens when, for example, you can’t watch “The Skeletor Show” when you want to? You get cranky and you have stupid arguments with people in real life. You develop (and I shit you not here folks) some sort of bizarre stress related tension problem that makes your head feel like it’s going to fall off because your neck is so goddamned sore. You lose your hard earned access to invite only bit-torrent trackers because of account inactivity.

Learning 4: Not having internet access makes an otherwise happy-go-lucky nerd very angry.

Funnily enough after having the internet reconnected, you start to feel okay again. Equilibrium returns and you can get access to the crap you love and can’t live without; the walls stop closing in. I’m mystified how a person can become so addicted to the internet, but I’m not too stressed about it, I have torrents to download, PhotoShop parodies to upload, teabagging in Counter Strike to perpetrate and emails to answer. Life is good. Go away.

This article can be found snugly tucked away in issue 2.1.

By Mia Timpano

Because Star Trek: TNG is the greatest franchise, not just of Star Trek, but of anything whatsoever of all time, it’s easy to forget just how many episodes of this series actually blow.

Let’s take a random example: the episode “Lonely Among Us”. It’s a typical day on the Enterprise when they pass through some gas and pick up a sentient being, which becomes trapped in the ship’s circuitry, and somehow breaks down the ship’s helm. When the sentient being leaves the helm’s console, the helm completely recovers power, leaving Wesley to ask LaForge, “Hey, what gives with the helm recovering power for no reason whatsoever?” To which LaForge says, “Yeah, whatever.” Hmm, thank you Chief Engineer Brain Squad, remind me to ask you nothing ever again.

The sentient being then enters Picard, so Picard is possessed (hmm, that old nugget, when is he not), so he redirects the ship back to the gaseous cloud, because the sentient being wants to return to its gas home. When the crew starts to complain, Picard electrocutes them so they’re all temporarily dead, convenient, then Picard beams himself into the cloud, somehow turning himself into a gas on the way. Then the crew regains consciousness, and Deanna says, “Oh, yeah, Picard is fine, he separated from the sentient being.” He separated? Wow, that was convenient.

So Frakes shrugs and says, “Well, let’s go home,” when someone else says, “Hang about, check out this big P being spelt out in LEDs on the helm’s console.” “P?” Frakes says. “P for Picard?” No, P for Poo. Yes, of course, P for Picard, you idiot! Good to know you’re in command of a vehicle that can destroy worlds.

So now everyone wonders how they can release Picard’s gas, when Deanna says, “Hey, maybe he remembers that the transporter stored his DNA and he’ll go and meet us back there?” I don’t know, Deanna. Would Gas Picard remember a thing like that? On the one hand, he’s able to spell out his name in annoying places, but on the other, what’s the memory span of gas?

So they run to the transporter room and hit the button that says “reconstruct Picard into a human being now”, and the process is instantly successful. Then Tasha Yar comes in and says the aliens from the B-plot are still fighting. Then Picard says to Frakes, “Actually, I think I will have that rest now!” What? Okay, you just resolved nothing, other than “Picard has naptime”, which satisfies no narrative requirements of this episode whatsoever.

The thing that probably struck me most about that episode was how little I cared whether Picard lived, died or lived on as a gas in space. “Lonely Among Us” is obviously not the worst episode of Next Gen, but it comes pretty fucking close. No. That particular fetid egg would come six seasons later in the form of a Beverly-heavy episode known as “Sub Rosa” (Latin, trans: “under the rose”).

The episode opens with Beverly Crusher’s grandmother’s funeral, taking place on a random M-class planet, which happens to be a reconstruction of Scotland, circa ye olde. At the funeral, Beverly notices a bad actor lurking around the coffin; he throws a rose on Old Lady Crusher’s death box and walks away.

Meanwhile Picard is doing what he usually does — ineffectual bullshit. This time he is chatting with an old man alien who explains why the planet is a reconstruction of Scotland. “People wanted it to be the real Scotland, so we transported whatever shit we could find from the actual Scotland and dumped it here.” If people wanted the “real Scotland”, why wouldn’t they, I don’t know, go to Scotland? But no, I forget, you destroyed it in order to create this theme-planet, congratulations.

So Beverly wanders around the old lady’s home when generic Scottish idiot blasts through the door and screams, “Bah bah! You have to destroy the candle!” Beverly, apparently taking no interest in ways to save her life, runs away, taking the old lady’s diary back to the Enterprise. Then Beverly runs into Picard and tells him that, according to the diary, Old Lady Crusher had a “lover”. Picard, his attention apparently piqued by the old woman’s sex life, discusses Old Lady Crusher’s “libido” until Beverly leaves him to stand alone in the corridor musing about old lady sex. News flash, Picard, you are in command of a war vessel, this isn’t the time to daydream about sex with the elderly and make everybody sick, you are so useless, I preferred you as a gas.

Back to the episode: we watch Beverly sleep while a voice says “Beverlyyyyyyy!” Beverly then tells Deanna that she had an explicit sex dream. Wow, that’s interesting, I thought you ran the surgery, apparently that can wait for bullshit like this. When Deanna pushes for details, Beverly says, “Well, I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic entry in my grandmother’s journal!” Really? I assumed a mental image like that would make you throw up, Beverly, but no, apparently you actually enjoy conjuring mental pictures of your own family nude and mating, interesting, thank you, that’s knowledge I really want to bank.

So Beverly, now obsessed with the voice, discovers that it belongs to a ghost called “Ronin”. When Ronin takes corporeal form, we discover that yes, he is indeed the same bad actor from the funeral, and that not only did he plough the old lady’s meat tray, but he has in fact been ploughing all the Crusher women for the last thousand years. “I live in the flame,” Ronin says. Yes, I see. And the puffy shirt you wear, does that live in the flame too? Tell me this, Ronin, how have you been laundering a puffy shirt for the past thousand years? “In the flame”? In the little washer and dryer “in the flame”?

So anyway, Beverly is so in love with Ronin at this point, she resigns her post as ship’s surgeon (hmm, big loss) so that she can move in with Ronin on Scotland The Planet, at which point Picard comes after her and says, “So show me this guy, since he’s so awesome.” Ronin gets extremely pissed by this, so turns into a bolt of lightning and electrocutes Picard. Picard plays dead for a while (wow, I take it back, he does have a skill), then some other stuff happens that I forget, but no doubt contained the same level of bullshit as the rest of this episode, and then we somehow reach the point where the only way to solve the “Ronin” mystery is by exhuming Old Lady Crusher’s corpse. Do they have permission to do so? They check with the old man alien, he tells them to go for it!

So LaForge and someone else are whistling away, digging up the rotting corpse, when Ronin, still in his bolt of lightning form, blasts himself into the old lady’s fetid remains and makes her arms fly out, shooting bolts of electricity into LaForge and the other guy, leaving them temporarily dead. BTW: since when is LaForge in charge of digging up corpses, seriously? Surely the Chief Engineer is needed, oh, I don’t know, somewhere on the vessel, maybe near, I don’t know, the engine — but no, sorry, I forgot, when you need someone to exhume a corpse in a hurry, you can always lose the Chief Engineer. Hey, LaForge, can you scrub my toilet?

So anyway, then the old lady’s head swivels on its axis and says, “Beverlyyyy! It’s me, your grandma!” Then Beverly suddenly gets a clue and says, “No, you’re Ronin, and you’re a parasite alien who requires a plasma conduit, i.e. this candle, in order to stay alive!” Okay, that fundamental information was delivered extremely quickly and came out of nowhere whatsoever. Then Ronin resumes his corporeal form, and tries to fly off (oh, he can fly now, why fucking not) so Beverly phasers the candle (i.e. his conduit), he dies, the end.

Why does this episode even exist? Apart from the fact that it features Star Trek cast members, it bears no actual resemblance to Star Trek. Star Trek is a big show. It asks big questions: what it is to be human, what it is to be moral, what is reality, what is the universe, what is an alien, who am I, who are you — not what happens when stupid Scottish ghosts nail old women. Obviously someone needs to carry the blame for this episode, and before you go wagging your fingers at Frakes (who receives this episode’s directorial credit), I would counsel you to consider who is credited as the episode’s “source material” author. That’s right, Jeanna F. Gallo AKA Anne Rice, who I don’t actually hate, but does serve to explain why this episode of Star Trek plays out nothing like an episode of Star Trek.

This article can be found snugly tucked away in issue 2.1.

By Clementine Ford

Speed-cubing — the “sport” in which nerds solve Rubik’s cubes as fast as humanly possible — has become so elite that serious competitions are now regularly held around the world. And when I say “competitions” I don’t just mean some fatboys who meet on the internet to compare times.

2006 alone saw competitors flock to the Spanish Open, the German Open, Japan Open, Canadian Open, Idaho Open, Florida Open, the Osaka Rubik’s Cube Contest, the French National Championship, the US Open, the Swedish Open, the Italian Open, the Wroclaw Open and then the mother of them all: The World Rubik’s Cube Championship (WRCC).

Marking the 25th anniversary of the first WRCC held in 1982, WRCC 2007 revisited Budapest, Hungary — home of the cube and its erstwhile creator Ernö Rubik. The difference is that in 1982 only nineteen cubists took part, with the world record clocked at 22.95 seconds. WRCC 2007 registered competitors from more than 30 countries. The Spanish Open 2007 established a world record of 9.86 seconds set by France’s Thibaut Jacquinot.

9.86 seconds, people. That’s less time than it takes me to pick my jaw up off the floor after watching one of these feats of improbability. Ironically, it’s about the same length of time it took me to do my year twelve maths exam — but then, I did fail utterly and completely.

Of course, the phenomenon of speed-cubing would be but a flutter in a matethematician’s eye, were it not for Tyson Mao and Ron van Bruchem. In 2004, Mao and van Bruchem founded the World Cube Association, the organisation behind all the international championship events. Despite being a world record holder himself, Mao prides himself more on his role in developing the sport into a regulated competitive event than being an elite cubist.

“The Rubik’s Cube was just a toy before the World Cube Association. Now people fly all over the world for competitions. So many good ideas are already taken in this world. It’s difficult to find something unique that catches on with a large population.”

With 43 quintillion (that’s 43 with 18 zeroes) possibilities of cube arrangements, the idea of solving what has become ubiquitously considered impossible, even by those who have contradictory proof, is rather astounding. And not only is Mao’s fastest time in official competition registered as 12.89 seconds, this veritable Tony Manero of the cubing world works best without lights. That’s right, Mao does this shit blindfolded.

“My fastest time solving the cube blindfolded in an official competition is one minute, 29 seconds. That includes the time it takes to memorise the cube, and then solve it without looking at it again.”

Competitors are allowed 60 seconds to look at the cube, identify and then memorise the complicated algorithm (sequence of moves) required to solve it, and then away they go.

It wasn’t always so easy for Mao though. “The first time I picked up a cube, I was far from solving it at lightening speed. My father came home one day in 1988 with a Rubik’s Cube. I was four years-old, and liked how it looked. I would make two turns, and then reverse them because I didn’t want to destroy the solid colours on each face. My father decided this wasn’t enough. He took the cube, scrambled it, and that was the end of my interest in the Rubik’s Cube for about eight years.

“On and off, when I was in middle school, the thought of the Rubik’s Cube would cross my mind, but I never really got around to figuring out how to solve it. It wasn’t until 2003, when I was nineteen-years-old, and my younger brother, fourteen at that time, showed me how to solve the cube.

“I see my progress with the Cube as an evolving beauty, just as Rachmaninoff weaves interlacing themes to create a conversation between the cellist and the pianist [in the fourth movement of Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata]. In my life, the conversation is between me and my aspirations.”

But there’s one thing that every nerd is wondering: what are the chances of romance emerging between two competitors? Does love spring eternal in the belly of the cubing community? Could cubing be the one mating game where speed really IS everything?
“Sadly, there are very few female speed-cubers in the top ranks”, Mao says. “It’s simply a social phenomenon that I believe will gradually balance itself. I must say, however, that I would probably prefer to be in a relationship with someone who didn’t speed-cube. I don’t need to date myself.”

Well, quite.

Personally, if I was some insanely amazing speed-cube-solving evil genius, I’d be using my powers to hustle bar-room bullies and trick my way out of paying video fines. Mao disagrees.

“I’ve considered it, and I’ve decided not to. I don’t want to abuse my ability to solve the Rubik’s Cube. Furthermore, I feel there is a lot more to me than my ability to solve the Rubik’s Cube. The Rubik’s Cube is something I do, and I’m moderately good at it, but at the same time, I enjoy many other things in this world, and I don’t want to misrepresent myself.”

I’d say that being able to solve the cube in less than thirteen seconds moves you slightly further towards the “recognised bad boy of cubing” category, but that’s just me.

What about other ladies though? Because I would totally go out with someone who was even moderately good at the solve. Mind you, my last boyfriend just got arrested for stealing kitchen knives so my standards are pretty low.

“I have a very strict rule with myself not to use the Rubik’s Cube as a tool to pick up girls. The Cube is simply an aspect about me which she can discover if she so chooses, and she can be a part of is she chooses, but by no means would I force that part of my life onto anyone else.”

Mao is clearly more principled than myself, which is probably why he’s been blessed with extremely dextrous fingers and an enormous brain. With absolute power and all that jive. Live by the cube, die by the cube.

Which leads me to wonder — are people like Mao the cube’s master or its slave? After all, cubers dedicate (at least part of) their lives to the pursuit of shaving time off their personal bests. But given that the cube exists as a physical object requiring physical manipulation to solve, there is only so far one can go. What does a cuber do when he has literally gone where no man has gone before?

“The cube and I have an understanding for each other. We are in a state of mutual respect. I take care of the cube and the cube treats me well. We get along. Last week we had an argument over what colour the drapes should be, but I realised that sometimes I need to consider its feelings over mine.”

I think we can all take away a little something from that.

As for solving the cube, it’s still got me stumped. Obviously it can be done, and even learnt. The most popular method was pioneered by Jessica Fridrich, currently a research professor at the State University of New York. Considered one of the pioneers of speed-cubing, Fridrich placed tenth in the first WRCC in 1982. Nearly all of the fastest recognised speed-cubers in the world have based their methods on the Fridrich CFOP algorithm (cross, first two layers, orient layers, permute last layer). Her method involves solving the cube in a layer-by-layer fashion, starting with a cross on the bottom face. From this, a particular sequence must be followed to realign the cube to its solved position.

But herein lies the difficulty. See, it’s not enough to just solve a face and then go on to complete the bottom two layers. The colours have to be aligned in such a way that makes orienting and permuting the layers at the end possible without messing up the whole thing. It’s this added knowledge that makes speed-cubing so amazing to watch. To be able to study a cube without making any moves on it, identifying all of these different variables, is pretty astounding.

Like I said, it IS possible to learn the method. After all, Daniel Hop has just become the youngest recorded person to solve a 5×5x5 cube. After practising with the method for a week, his first solve took him 35 minutes. He’s five.

This article can be found snugly tucked away in issue 2.1.

By Gowron Van Helsing

I never knew there was a NES game of Willow, and you probably didn’t either. Don’t pretend you do, nobody thinks your cool for it. It’s one of those Pokémon / Zelda style top-down view RPG-adventure games where everybody looks like tree stumps, walks like penguins on crack, and you can walk into stranger’s houses, and the inhabitants, instead of contacting the authorities, inform you of facts such as how to get to some magical forest or how to equip items.

Seriously, if I broke into your house (wielding a longsword and magical rocks, or some similar shit BTW I’m also a midget) would you tell me how to equip the magic acorns? I thought as much. Maybe you shitheads wouldn’t need me to save you all from peril if you used some fucking sense and lock your doors, and stop handing out weapons and armour to random dwarves who enter your residence. Now that I think of it, why would regular sized people carry armour that fits midgets?

If you remember the film, Bavmorda was struck by lightning after Willow performed the old “disappearing pig trick”. I believe this game is a sequel of sorts, and Bavmorda is alive (which is never really explained) and she’s back to her usual shenanigans.

You play as the previously mentioned Willow Ufgood, who was played by Warwick Davis (The Holy Grail of midget actors, soon to be the protagonist in his own film, Agent One-Half), which fucking rules, but I must admit it occasionally feels crap when you see your character so pathetically short that a frail old man easily doubles his size, but you get used to it, and it’s a great sense of achievement defeating regular-sized enemies as a dwarf, kind of like girl power, except short power. Remember that this game is in the Pokémon style view where everybody looks like obese toddlers, and thus Willow looks depressingly short. The size of his hair is about equal to his torso, which makes him look like some kind of 80s midget Glam-rocker, though on that count I must say I’m not complaining.

The first of the foes you will encounter are bubbles. Ohhhhhh, shit no. I didn’t even know if they were enemies or power-ups until they killed me. Now I see why they gave this pathetic job to a midget during an era of knights and rogues, etc. Soon afterwards you’ll come across floating skulls, then complete skeletons, the enemies gradually becoming less shit.

Other characters like Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), apparently don’t really feel like helping this time around and Willow doesn’t really get a lot of help of them. Thanks a lot Val, no really, thanks.

But once your enemies are no longer bubbles and when you stop comparing it to the film, it’s actually a really good NES RPG. The music is great, and definitely one of the best 8-bit game soundtracks I’ve heard, right up there with Zelda. Speaking of which, it is indeed comparable in quality to Zelda, perhaps not quite as puzzling, but Willow is more fun in my opinion. If you’re into old-school RPGs, then Willow is definitely worth a play.

Available ten years ago. Try either finding the original cartridge on eBay or downloading it from an illegal ROM site, which is illegal, so don’t.

This article can be found snugly tucked away in issue 2.1.

By Noonien Goldeneye O’Brien

The opening moments of Vanilla Ice’s biopic make sound, funky sense — “sense” inasmuch as an early-90s dance-off needs to take place in a clean, random, disused warehouse in the middle of nowhere.

V, as he is known by his friends, breaks out dance moves in a simultaneous fit of Cerebral Palsy meltdown and fly-swatting. Naomi Campbell inexplicably camps out under a spot, providing background vocals. Everybody is instructed to “get loose”. Indeed, a powerful meeting of the minds — of rhythm! And with that, V and his posse saddle up on their neon road bikes and hit the open road.

What follows makes even more sense (“more” in this case meaning “none whatsoever”). On a whim, V threatens the life of a horse rider by deliberately firing his bike into her oncoming path. He then proceeds to steal her diary, shacks up in a nearby town for bike repairs, and, upon discovering that the horse rider lives across the road, proceeds to court her by harassment.

Never mind that she a) has a boyfriend and b) is totally ignorant of the Vanilla Ice back catalogue. V is persistent through a subtle combination of stalking and pouting. Cool as Ice finally showcases the sensitive side that V’s name instills — including such sure-fire courting rituals as shirtless bike-rides, building site peek-a-boo and breaking into her bedroom in the wee hours to leer over her as she wakes.

V’s passive-aggressive behaviour and perpetual wardrobe changes aren’t the most confusing aspects in Cool as Ice. There is a sinister side to Cool as Ice that is nowhere, repeat, NOWHERE to be found in the film’s blurb. Unbeknownst to V, the family of the girl he is stalking (headed by Family Ties’ pops, Michael Gross) is under witness protection, and hey presto, within the last ten minutes, two threatening goons show up to kidnap their youngest child. Suddenly, V turns vigilante hero, his bike starts blasting through walls and we realise this is not a comedy — it never was.

Available on import (VHS or Laser Disk only).

This article can be found snugly tucked away in issue 2.1.