Ah, the days of movie making when budgets were low and most “high tech” was represented by a bank of flashing lights or actual hardware purchased from the department store. Although the plots were in the clouds, having that personal connection with the technology almost made them believable… almost. 
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Last night we were watching a recording that I found of a 1985 T.V. movie I once had on VHS, “Murder In Space”, produced by the First Choice Superchannel pay T.V. company, based here in Canada. The movie isn’t all that great, but the “hook” with this movie is, the ending that reveals the murder (or murderers) was held back. You were supposed to use the ballot, contained in Prime Time Magazine (the guide that you got as a subscriber to the channel), and submit your guess as to who were the culprits. There were prizes available to those who guessed right.
Watching this movie is a real time capsule for me, not just because of the connections I have with the Commodore C64, which is seen in the movie, but also because of the actors you see on the screen. Many of them I watched on an almost weekly basis, because they appeared on the children’s programs produced by TVOntario.
Anyway, it’s not too far into the movie when our trusty old Commodore products start to show up. First, are consoles made up of 1702 video monitors and later, the star of the movie, the C64 breadbin.
Notice, the video cable is plugged in and looks like it’s properly connected to the monitor, but no power cable. And, it appears as though they have some odd looking cable coming out of the expansion port. A typical movie setup in which the C64 is just a prop, but still fun to see. Got to love those low budget Canadian made-for-TV movies.
As an extra, here’s the promo teaser that was published in the June issue of Prime Time Magazine for the event, which I happily found recently. As far as I remember, the event was a flop for First Choice Superchannel, but that was the beauty of early “wild west” pay for T.V.: no one really knew what to do or what could be done with this new form of home entertainment. It was just like the home computer market in many ways.
It was a golden age, for sure.
