Comments on: Lost: Wired's Guide to Pop Culture's Buried Treasure

Lost: Wired's Guide to Pop Culture's Buried Treasure

reenum — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:58:23 -0800

Wired takes a look at some pop culture legends that elude fans and collectors.

By: Specklet

Specklet — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:03:40 -0800

My brain just asploded with want.

By: never used baby shoes

never used baby shoes — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:05:43 -0800

The reason for its notoriety: It's about a clown who leads children into the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Just...speechless.

By: 2bucksplus

2bucksplus — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:07:35 -0800

There are some epic "lost" videogames I would add to the list: Resident Evil 3.5 The Legend Of Zelda BS The Legend Of Zelda: Ancient Stone

By: dobbs

dobbs — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:09:47 -0800

+1 for wanting an Ishtar soundtrack.

By: griphus

griphus — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:09:54 -0800

If someone came up to me and said "we're going to break into the vault where they keep The Day The Clown Cried, are you in?" I don't think I would have the ability to say 'no.' Every part of my being has yearned to see that film since I found out about it.

By: griphus

griphus — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:11:14 -0800

Also, there's an Animaniacs episode called "Hearts of Twilight" that simultaneously parodies The Day The Clown Cried and Apocalypse Now.

By: resurrexit

resurrexit — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:13:18 -0800

The layout of that article might work in print, but on a computer screen it's just sort of crazy.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:15:30 -0800

They didn't dig too far if they think Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story is lost. I think I even read about it in a comment on MetaFilter, or randomly browsing the Illegal Art website, where you can download a compressed version (43 minutes and only 131 mb). You can also watch it on Google Video.

By: MCMikeNamara

MCMikeNamara — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:18:04 -0800

I can't tell you how many times I've thought "If only I had a TARDIS, I could go back and see those missing Doctor Who episodes." Like seriously, I've thought this so many times in the last 25 years that it's become my stock answer if anybody asks what I'd do with a time machine. Yes, it's meant to be a joke -- that, with all of time and space at my fingertips, I'd use the ability to go watch a show about having all of time and space at your fingertips. But the (not so) secret truth -- I am 100% serious that that is what I would do first.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:19:24 -0800

Oh dear lord Dactyl Nightmare. The glory days of Dave & Busters.

By: MCMikeNamara

MCMikeNamara — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:19:32 -0800

And yeah, I have Superstar on my hard drive at home. (And now I can't stop thinking that somebody out there has all seven episodes of "Marco Polo" sitting on their PC and will read the article thinking the same thing I just did.)

By: smitt

smitt — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:21:04 -0800

filthy light thief: The article has a guide as to how rare or available each entry is. P - Partially Released. You can purchase bits and pieces of it legally. B - Bootleg - Not available in stores, but illicit copies can be found online. E - Extremely - The few surviving copies sell for ludicrous amounts. F - Forget It - It exists... in some form. Somewhere. But good luck finding it. U - Utterly Vanished - As far as we know, no copies exist. That Carpenter film is marked as 'B'.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:21:31 -0800

They didn't dig too far if they think Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story is lost. They don't; Wired labels it as available on bootlegs. Fun fact: my college film professor is friends with Haynes, so we got to see clips from it in class! That was the same class for which I did a presentaton on the films of Doris Wishman. I had to order a couple of Chesty Morgan movies and have them sent to the college, which led to one of my all-time favorite voicemails: my professor saying, "Uh, hi Greg. I have your pornos here, so if you want to pick them up, they'll be in my office. You can pick up those pornos whenever you get a chance."

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:31:09 -0800

Ah, thanks for pointing that out, smitt and Greg Nog.

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:37:08 -0800

They should have listed Turn-On, the variety TV series that was supposedly cancelled before the first episode finished airing. Apparently, the only way to see the two episodes that were made is to go to the Paley Center for Media and view it there. (MeFi post)

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:37:18 -0800

It's a cheat to call Kubrick's Napoleon as lost when he didn't even film it. I mean, it's too bad that he didn't, but it seems to me that it should have been at least completed and ready for the public to qualify for this list.

By: rusty

rusty — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:38:15 -0800

Greg Nog: I also saw it in film class, circa 1997. I was under the impression at the time that this is the sort of thing film students are always made to watch. That and Kenneth Anger. And that one where the guy eats a bowl of cereal (or blueberries?) for what seems like forever.

By: schmod

schmod — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:38:23 -0800

...more than a third of the episodes [of Doctor Who], 132 hours' worth, were thoughtlessly exterminated by BBC apparatchiks... I see what they did there....

By: griphus

griphus — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:40:01 -0800

And that one where the guy eats a bowl of cereal (or blueberries?) for what seems like forever. Look, I'll admit Stalker is somewhat plodding, but that's not fair.

By: charlie don't surf

charlie don't surf — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:43:10 -0800

I can't tell you how many times I've thought "If only I had a TARDIS, I could go back and see those missing Doctor Who episodes." And I have had similar thoughts, that if I only had a TARDIS, I could go back and prevent my psychoexgirlfriend from destroying my cache of VHS tapes that included some of the Lost Episodes. I had fairly high quality tapes from cable broadcasts by my local PBS station during their first run in the US, including quite a few Troughton episodes. Fortunately, some of the episodes have been recovered, but not everything that I had taped. Actually, come to think of it, if I had a TARDIS, I would go back and just make sure I never met her in the first place.

By: LogicalDash

LogicalDash — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:50:20 -0800

and then, when Big Brother records every second of your life through the screen, we'll say "at least I can watch my favorite TV shows forever"

By: hot_monster

hot_monster — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:52:28 -0800

I actually played Dactyl nightmare. A little VR boutique thingy opened up in my city. My friends went to play. It was something like 9+ bucks to play. I died three times in about 5 minutes. It was one of those games you have to play about 10 games to really try to get the hang of it. But at 9 bucks a pop. No way. Looking back on that... I know why VR never caught on.

By: rusty

rusty — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:10:34 -0800

If I only had a TARDIS, I could go back and ensure that Dr. Who never got made at all. And then all the Dr. Who fans would forever have a vague sense of dissatisfaction, like there was something that should be but isn't. Come to think of it. I wonder.

By: sleeping bear

sleeping bear — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:29:03 -0800

The wikipedia article about missing episodes of Doctor Who is incredibly detailed.

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:37:44 -0800

> Looking back on that... I know why VR never caught on. Those machines cost $60k a pop or so when they first came out. My friends father was some chronic Venture Capitalist guy who started a company around those. I don't think he ever actually did anything besides take a lot of hedgefund managers money to pay for his and his college friends business trips. But yeah, arcades, full of these systems! Going to be the biggest thing ever in 1995! As a result, my friend had two of the systems in his basement whenever they weren't being showed off to investors or for some private booking event. So we got to play a lot of rail shooter type games, and virtual boxing, for free! I still to this day have no idea how that guy made any money, but I'm guessing tied up with hedgefund managers and those sorts, a lot of it was just creative accounting (like dissolving the company after 11 months and then selling the equipment to a new company he owned, so the business was always in it's first year, which I guess allowed for tax breaks for the investors or something).

By: ShutterBun

ShutterBun — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:50:38 -0800

The reason for its notoriety: It's about a clown who leads children into the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Just...speechless. It worked much better when Roberto Benigni did it.

By: memebake

memebake — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:57:21 -0800

"Telling the truth can be dangerous business. / Honest and popular don't go hand in hand. / If you admit you can play the accordion / No one will hire you in a rock-and-roll band." That could literally be a They Might Be Giants track.

By: 2bucksplus

2bucksplus — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:14:15 -0800

That could literally be a They Might Be Giants track. More like Weird Al Yankovic. I swear I did not edit Wikipedia's picture.

By: MrVisible

MrVisible — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:21:43 -0800

My personal Grail, my fabled lost artifact, my unattainable goal would have to be the Marx Brothers' silent movie, Humor Risk. It was shown once, or maybe a few times; it was thrown out accidentally, or maybe torched by Groucho. It was a parody of a movie I've never seen, and probably will never see. It probably wasn't very good. Damn, what I wouldn't give to see it.

By: ersatz

ersatz — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:22:16 -0800

There are some epic "lost" videogames I would add to the list: Resident Evil 3.5 The Legend Of Zelda BS There is a rom of the latter floating around though it wasn't terribly interesting iirc. Anyway, the best attribute of lost art is that it's always great in your mind's eye. I'd love seeing Kubrick's Napoleon if only he had shot it.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:26:53 -0800

Man, I played Dactyl Nightmare too, and it was pretty crappy. I played it on Fisherman's Wharf in SF on a family vacation, and the toughest thing was that the bullets you shot didn't have much thrust and went on a ballistic arc, so it was REALLY hard to hit where you aimed.

By: dng

dng — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:55:01 -0800

There's a lost Godspeed You Black Emperor album that I'd love to hear.

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:56:28 -0800

When I played Dactyl Nightmare, the system crashed, and I got to see the guy take the Amiga system that ran it out of the base and reboot it. I said to my friends, "hey, that's an Amiga!" and they responded by not caring.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:07:51 -0800

Perhaps it's not a great thing to do on legal grounds, but I was a bit surprised that the web edition of the Wired article didn't link to commonly available bootleg video clips, like the Superstar movie, or the 1994 version of The Fantastic Four. Also online: 1978 Leigh Brackett draft of Empire Strikes Back (4.6mb PDF, summarized here; more Star Wars draft scripts available here) Star Wars Holiday Special (previously) My Best Friend's Birthday, 1987 Depressed Roomies, 1995 (Google Quickview of script PDF) Ice Cube's St. Ides commercial (one of MANY hip-hop artists to do commercials for St. Ides) Sergio Leone's Renault 18 Diesel commercial Ray Charles & Aretha Franklin sing a Coca-Cola commercial (audio w/still images) Rolling Stones' Rice Crispies commercial The Turtles' Pepsi jingle commercial Gary Numan's 7-Up jingles (audio w/still image) Ween's Pizza Hut jingles Chris Brown's Doublemint Gum commercial I'll leave the unreleased albums a Google search links for the albums (Johnny Mathis' I Love My Lady and Clipse's Exclusive Audio Footage)

By: ludwig_van

ludwig_van — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:22:26 -0800

Where'd the motherfuckin' cheese go at?

By: Red Loop

Red Loop — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:38:40 -0800

This is somewhat related: we had an exchange student from Japan living with us in the late eighties, and her family would mail her vhs tapes of Japanese television. I was idly watching one time out of curiosity, and a coffee commercial came on with David Byrne holding a steaming mug of coffee and taking a whiff, I swear to god. But try as I might, I can't find any evidence of it.

By: pokermonk

pokermonk — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:53:22 -0800

A few of the ones I've always been curious to witness... Ryan Adams covers The Strokes' Is This It - Intriguing given other Ryan Adams covers, including his takes on Vampire Weekend. There was rumor that it might get an official release, but Adams says it's no good. Jeffrey Brown's Wolverine comic - Oh wait. That one's around. Footage of The Blues Brothers' rendition of Gotta Sink the Bismarck - The song was cut from the movie and the film reportedly was too damaged to be salvaged. The audio.

By: Ber

Ber — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:55:04 -0800

Just give me Han Solo shooting first in Blu-ray and I'll be happy. I would be willing to accept Chewbacca eviscerating Jar-Jar Binks as a substitute.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:59:36 -0800

and there's also the lost original mix of the grateful dead's aoxomoxoa - the band wanted to put it out in their box set but couldn't find the master tapes - however, vinyl copies exist and one can find torrents of lossless audio some songs are better - "mountains of the moon" - some perhaps not as good - "china cat sunflower" - but if you thought "what's become of the baby" was trippy on the remix ... oh, boy ...

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:08:02 -0800

oh, i guess i wasn't hallucinating in the grand rapids fye - they found the master tapes and rereleased them on new vinyl

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:20:35 -0800

Ooh, lost and not-quite-lost stuff! I love it! DC's Elseworlds 80-Page Giant was released, recalled, pulped and mostly flushed down the memory hole, but it's not hard to find a torrent. My favorite story is "Rockumentary." You'll never be able to play Primal Rage II or, tragically, Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. Thrill Kill isn't hard to find, though, and frankly it sucks. But if Kubrick's Napoleon belongs on this list, then so does Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

By: pH Indicating Socks

pH Indicating Socks — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:25:11 -0800

Holy crap, I had the Neil Gaiman Duran Duran book! Shut up, I was 13 in 1983. If only I had kept it -- but obviously I did not, because I was 14 in 1984.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:36:02 -0800

Oh, and in case anybody's looking for that Ishtar soundtrack...

By: crush-onastick

crush-onastick — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:41:36 -0800

I wish I still had my modded PS2 so Guy and I could continue to play Thrill Kill. It really was an amazing videogame. Somewhere I still have videotapes of playing it. Youtubes of someone else playing it are just not the same.

By: octobersurprise

octobersurprise — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:57:57 -0800

I saw the Star Wars Holiday Special when it aired on TV. Expecting something more like the movie, I remember being awfully disappointed by it. Good to disappointed by Lucas early, I suppose. I also saw Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story at the local art house when it first came out. That was weird. Because it really is a serious, even angry, biopic, but the Barbies make it all feel like a Mr. Bill episode. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. there's an Animaniacs episode called "Hearts of Twilight" that simultaneously parodies The Day The Clown Cried and Apocalypse Now. ‹Dot›Oh Mr. Crazy Man! We just want to see the Director and give him a big sloppy kiss!‹/Dot› Offhand, some of my own lost treasures would include a full recording of Mary Garden singing Pelléas et Mélisande to Debussy's accompaniment, Richard Maxfield at the 1960-61 Fluxus-sponsored concerts at Yoko Ono's loft, La Monte Young's "Sunday Morning Blues," a complete run of Night Flight from 1981 through 1987 or so, and a run of early St. GIGA broadcasts.

By: pxe2000

pxe2000 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:29:30 -0800

I'm not surprised that Stop! [NSFW, boobies] was not mentioned in that article, since Bill Gunn is not exactly a cause celebre in geek circles. However, no love for Papa's Got a Brown New Robe, Harry Nilsson's final, still-unreleased album?

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:43:15 -0800

> I wish I still had my modded PS2 so Guy and I could continue to play Thrill Kill. It really was an amazing videogame. Somewhere I still have videotapes of playing it. Youtubes of someone else playing it are just not the same. A little googling just now, and I found what appears to be a partially seeded torrent in the bay of pirates. Add two dashes of PSX emulator, and well, there you go.

By: Monkeymoo

Monkeymoo — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:54:53 -0800

Great stuff! Thanks for posting. I read recently of a persistent rumour that there might, just might be some of the missing Doctor Whos in Zimbabwe (of all places), but the ban on the BBC means that no lines of communication exist. Presumably we'll find out one day, when ol' Mugabe kicks the bucket.

By: sigma7

sigma7 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:38:00 -0800

Oh gods, Dactyl Nightmare. I waited in line to play that at GenCon '91. Those were heady days.

By: Seekerofsplendor

Seekerofsplendor — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:07:05 -0800

I'm surprised that so far no one has mentioned the holy grail for Beatles fans, the fifteen-minute "Carnival of Light" free-for-all avant garde piece that was recorded the night they completed Penny Lane vocals in 1967. The Wiki article linked has quite a few fascinating tidbits and is recommended. Apparently, hardly anyone has ever heard it. McCartney last spoke of it in 2002.

By: Legomancer

Legomancer — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:09:40 -0800

Here's what I want: All the episodes of 'Project: UFO' in whatever format will play on my computer. I have found a torrent of only the first episode, plus another one that's never seeded.

By: This, of course, alludes to you

This, of course, alludes to you — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:22:25 -0800

I'd like the game Silent Hill 4 was supposed to be before it got turned into a Silent Hill game

By: pracowity

pracowity — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:37:37 -0800

BFI Most Wanted

By: Lazlo

Lazlo — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:08:57 -0800

What, no Heat Vision and Jack? (I didn't realize it was a Dan Harmon joint!)

By: Iteki

Iteki — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 07:40:00 -0800

I would put the tv show China Beach on there. Watching it now is like playing "spot the celebrity debut". It was briefly and partially released on vhs. I only got my hands on it through torrent about two years ago, despite searching fairly actively since the net was young.

By: box

box — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 08:53:51 -0800

Most of my yearnings for Thrill Kill disappeared after I played Wu Tang: Shaolin Style.

By: biscotti

biscotti — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:19:09 -0800

I have that Duran Duran book DON'T JUDGE ME!

By: crush-onastick

crush-onastick — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 14:22:16 -0800

hey box, do you know, does that play on the PS3? I had no idea they had ever released a game based on the Thrill Kill engine.

By: speedlime

speedlime — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 15:18:02 -0800

Oh god... my absolute holy grail has to be Jim Morrison's lost student film. The one they recreated a brief snippet of in the Oliver Stone movie. Because that girl walking around on top of the teevee in her underwear? Was my mom. I've done some journalistic digging into the UCLA archives, the Experience Music Project (when they had that big Doors retrospective), even called Ray Manzarek's publicity people, and no love-- one of Morrison's films does survive at UCLA, but it's not the one I want. As an aside, I showed that part of The Doors to my mom, and her only comment was, "I wore more clothes than that!"

By: villanelles at dawn

villanelles at dawn — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:06:16 -0800

Just saw this linked to on Marginal Revolution, Smithsonian Magazine's Top 10 Books Lost to Time.

By: zoinks

zoinks — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 22:40:16 -0800

I met a shuttle astronaut about a year ago who was almost more interested in talking about his blacklight-glowing copy of Sgt. Pepper than his trip to space. Pulled me and a friend into a closet with three copies of the record, showed us that the one he bought on the first day of release appeared to be made with glowing paint mixed in in a spin-art type of pattern. Did not look painted on after the fact, but actually in the vinyl itself. He has been trying to find out any information about this for years, and when I did some poking around online the only stuff I could find were a few people referring to "some guy claiming to be an astronaut and claiming to have a glow-in-the-dark Sgt. Pepper record". Maybe this is a question for Ask....

By: allpaws

allpaws — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 06:06:51 -0800

*raises hand* Yes, I found a copy of that Neil Gaiman book the other month in soe old things. I was a bit floored when I noticed the name, went straight to google. Sadly, it is not in great shape. But it was still a hilarious find.

By: mikepop

mikepop — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:39:37 -0800

I can't tell you how many times I've thought "If only I had a TARDIS, I could go back and see those missing Doctor Who episodes." This is a theme used in Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently, where the old Professor Reg uses his time machine to go back and watch TV because it is easier than figuring out how to program his VCR. Of course, a lot of that book was recycled from Shada, a lost episode of Doctor Who that Adams wrote but only partially filmed due to a strike at the BBC in 1980.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:13:50 -0800

the only stuff I could find were a few people referring to "some guy claiming to be an astronaut and claiming to have a glow-in-the-dark Sgt. Pepper record". Maybe this is a question for Ask.... Totally incorporating this album's existence into future Moon Landing Conspiracy Theories

By: Legomancer

Legomancer — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:47:17 -0800

Of course, a lot of that book was recycled from Shada, a lost episode of Doctor Who that Adams wrote but only partially filmed due to a strike at the BBC in 1980. And the rest of that book was recycled from City of Death, a quite-extant episode of Doctor Who that Adams wrote and figured he could collect a second paycheck for.

By: Theta States

Theta States — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:41:15 -0800

Duelin' Firemen, 1994 This title never appeared on the ill-fated 3DO console, but bizarre filmed interludes have leaked. They feature Timothy Leary, Rudy Ray Moore, Tony Hawk, and Japanese noise-rockers the Boredoms. WaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahHH? Oh me oh my, must have.

By: Theta States

Theta States — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:42:38 -0800

Dayyam, don't have this 7".