I just had to share this video. It’s something a few of us have been searching for for some time. The theme song from the old 1950s/60s TV series, Tales of The Vikings.
A cheesy series? From all I can remember, yes (note the comment that says only three episodes may still exist. So we may never know for sure).
But let it be set down for the historical record—if anyone wonders what it was that first sparked author Lars Walker’s interest in Vikings, it was this series. I actually only caught it in re-runs, but it caught me good and hard in return. I realized, in a blaze of enlightenment, that nothing in this world was so cool and romantic as Vikings, and that Vikings were my birthright.
While we’re on the subject of rousing entertainment, I finally made it to the theater to see The Avengers this weekend. My reaction: Holy moly.
I didn’t love it as much as, say, The Lord of the Rings movies. But I don’t think I’ve ever had such a pure entertainment experience in a theater. It was way, way longer than I think any movie should be, but I didn’t care. I hit the light button on my watch at one point, and realized I’d been in my seat for a full two hours. I couldn’t believe it had been that long.
Highly recommended.
It occurs to me that the whole comic book thing, and the ancillary stuff (like movies; comic books don’t actually sell that big anymore) is almost a form of myth. Having cut ourselves loose from our cultural tethers, we’re reverting to simpler, more elemental kinds of literature. Instead of epic poems, we have epic movies.
This is not a good thing.
Unless I get a movie deal for my books, of course.
This may be a dumb question, but has anyone contacted Kirk Douglas or the Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research that has his collection/papers to ask if they know what happened to the episodes?
If you haven’t seen it, here’s the link to the WI Center’s webpage on Kirk Douglas and his work regarding the Tales of the Vikings:
http://www.wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu/collections/featured/kirkdouglas/tv/index.html
I hadn’t known there was such a series. It would have had to be pretty terrible for it not to win me over as a youngster.
When I was around 11 years old — this would be around 1966/7 — I had a Viking ship plastic toy, which memory says was about a foot long. I think it could be displayed on a plastic stand, but one could attach to the ship’s underside an orange plastic weight so that it could be floated — in my case, floated, as I recall, at Nesika State Park in Oregon. But I didn’t grow up to become a novelist of the Viking era.
Susan, I don’t know if anyone has. I certainly don’t have the nerve.
Richard Reynolds wrote a book about the mythological structure of superhero comics in the mid-90s. It’s worth a read (though pretty solidly academic).
Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology
Thanks, Lars.
P.S. It will be grand if/when you get a movie deal or TV deal for your books.