Dr. Strangeglove

My wife got me the "Raiders of the Lost Archives" box set of Greg Stump ski films for Christmas. Actually, I saw it in the ski shop at Okemo and said "I want."

The "classic ski four disc-set" it features Dr. Strangeglove, Siberia, The Skiers Guide to the Galaxy, and Fistful of Moguls. I think these all came out during my college years, and despite being on the ski team I somehow missed seeing these. No time like the present to get caught up.

So I just finished watching Dr. Strangeglove for the first time. Wow! First of all the colors. Second of all the music. It really took me back. I don't know if Stumpy was driving ski fashion, or just showing things as they were.

But for sure the format is mind-blowing. Set around the ficticious Ski TV show produced by Greg Stump, which Dr. Strangeglove and his chain smoking "board of directors" rule over. it's definitely a different formula than today's ski porn. Both story line and locale kind of wander for the first half the film. Stump is chasing Glen Plake around the western U.S. and Canada before Dr. Strangleglove intervenes and arranges a shoot at Mono Lake (they pronounce it wrong in the movie, it rhymes with "Bono" of Sony Bono fame, not Bono of U2 fame -- in other words NOT like the kissing sickness). The monoski segment is both disturbing and entertaining at the same time (cover your eyes, kids).

The final segments at Mammoth were great. Having worked at Mammoth for two years, the Dave McCoy interview where he rants about the impact of insurance on the ski industry is very insightful. Remember Mammoth went on to pioneer park building. The riding gets a little more progressive and enjoyable to watch. You see possibly the first alley-oop caught on film. There's a line near the end that I'm positive is Junior's in the Top of the World chutes. And the footage from the "proposed San Joaquin Ridge expansion" is amazing. Too bad it never happened. They have a hard time getting June Mtn open nowadays.

It looked very good on our new 56-inch HDTV. Lack of an HD DVD player didn't matter since the disks aren't Blue Ray or HD-DVD. But VAS did a good job digitally remastering these movies.

Oh, gotta mention the Ice-T "Hit the Deck" track during the Mammoth scene. Have the CD, had absolutely no friggin' (how's that for an 80s/90s phrase?) idea Ice-T was in a Stump movie. No friggin' idea!

Most shoking of all, I can't find any footage online. Zip, zilch, nada. A friend of mine knows someone that knows Greg Stump. In the meantime, guess you'll just have to hop (turn) on down to your local ski shop and pony up.