TV-Ontario Pop Culture Connections

[pyat]

commanderteddog and I went out over lunch hour to scope out the Esselte Building on Front and Yonge, to determine if it served as "NoviCorp" in the 1983 SF film, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. I think we have a match! I have some screen shots that I'll upload and compare when I get home tonight. Next, to determine the filming site for the Doppler Transfer Station!

Some random coincidences:

1. My father worked in the Esselte Building in the early 80s, though I think he started there a year or two after the movie was filmed. The lobby was one of the grandest places I'd ever seen, at least when I was 8.

2. Programmer Apollonia was played by Linda Griffiths, who went to success in the small but vital world of Canadian theatre. The portal page for her website features a photo taken from a hidden online directory of "typewriter pornography" images I stumbled across while researching keyboards at the Canadian Office Product Association.

This film was one of my favorites when I was in grade school, though it was only aired on rare occasions on the Buffalo PBS station and TV-Ontario. I thought it was terribly sleek and futuristic, and the switches between the real world and reality inside a computer were, to me, really quite innovative and strange. I'd seen Tron (and read the novelization) by age 8, but assumed that, somehow, the "programs" in that movie were really tiny people moving amongst the circuity. Watching Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, I realized that, no, they were actually projecting their consciousness into the computer, while physically remaining outside.

Curiously, this movie also introduced me to a lot of film noir tropes, via the Casablanca-themed fantasies Fingal creates for himself inside the computer network.

The fact I can say things like "I think that's the pillar Apollonia ducked behind before transforming into Fingal's mother," to commanderteddog and have her understand what I'm talking about is a source of constant wonderment to me. That, and the fact that she was actually excited to read my old copies of Omnia, the student paper we both wrote for at different times.

Comments

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Many congratulations on your tentative discovery, sir. That is truly an awesome building. If you like that sort of polygonal, too-late Modernist tosh, you should really visit the Place du Portage next time you're in Ottawa. It's a government complex, but it's still mostly open to the public, largely because they can't imagine anyone coming there without good reason. You'll be the third person to ever visit it with touristic intent; Circuit_4 and I were the first two. :)

[pyat.livejournal.com]

You'll be the third person to ever visit it with touristic intent; Circuit_4 and I were the first two.

Ah, Trudeau-era architecture. It feels like home.

[(Anonymous)]

*sniffle* I know, I miss it so...

[nottheterritory.livejournal.com]

You must post photos of this building - I'm pretty familiar with the examples of brutalism in downtown Toronto and I want to know which one you're referring to!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I have posted some interior shots. It's not really brutalitarian in the sense of concrete and steel - more like an "ultramodern" mall from 1980.

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Fascinating! I'm familiar with the movie via the MST3K version, which is hilarious. Have you read the short story it's based on? It's... completely different in almost every respect, and quite decent (but then I'm very fond of John Varley in general).

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I've not read it, no! And didn't realize there was one till reading the Wiki entry. The version I currently have is a borrowed copy of the MST3K version, so my screen shots have the bots in the way.

[curtana.livejournal.com]

For starters, in the story there's nothing about Casablanca :o

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Brazil? It has bits where the dreamy programmer hero is illicitly watching Casablanca on his computer monitor. I always wondered if Terry Gilliam was inspired, in some way, by OaTMB.

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Yes, we have Brazil, great film :) I do think there's some similarity there - but if there was, it was definitely via the movie, not the story.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

God, I remember seeing this when it first aired and loved it.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I've just posted the screen caps and photos!

[mar2nee.livejournal.com]

I have ... no idea what any of you are talking about! And I think I'm well read/movied.
I'm just going to have a beer and go watch a John Hughes movie, I guess.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a really, really obscure Canadian/American PBS movie that's mostly remembered now because Mystery Science Theatre 3000 made fun of it. But it used to be on TV a fair bit when I was a kid, because it was local.

[mar2nee.livejournal.com]

OK, that's my excuse, then, not being local. I'll have to think if there is anything local to southern Alberta from my early TV years.
I really don't think so, I didn't get PBS, just the 3 local channels. By antenna.
Though, there was this spelling bee that local Grade 5s were on...

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

Man, takes me right back to the good old days when CityTV showed Overdrawn and Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang at the drop of a hat. n.n

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow... Jacob Two-Two! With the terrifying people in garbage bags!

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Overdrawn, never saw the MST3K version, though the Sci-Fi channel has shown it in a few of their movie marathons over the years. Raul Julia was what sold me on it, after seeing him in the Addams Family movies.