Hey! Tell you what, lets create a board game based around Mexican drug running cartels! That'd a be a great game for all the family. Beat The Border was published by the appropriately named Border House Ltd., in 1971. A game for 2-4 players, where your job is to buy kilos of drugs from over the border and then sell them on back in the United States at profit. The aim of the game to make as much money as possible from your drug dealing. 

Think Breaking Bad the board game... Where you start with $1000 seed money to buy your drugs. Nip over the border, do a deal with Edwardo, Renaldo, Jose, etc... Then get back over the border without being detected, so you can sell them on in cites across the United States.

If you're carrying kilos you can be busted by various U.S. government agencies. But there are additional things you can buy throughout the game to help you get away with your new business venture, like dodgy lawyers and fake I.D.'s. You play the game until one player reaches the pre-set financial goal, usually around $25,000 to $100,000, as the suggested limit of the game rules. So get your big bad  Heisenberg on and see if you can Beat The Border!

After the failure to get his Dune project to the screen, and the minor blip that was Tusk in 1980, Alexandro Jodorowsky brought us Santa Sangre in 1989. Back to the form that viewers witnessed in the surreal classics El Topo (1970) and Holy Mountain (1973), the film has become a cult classic of surreal avant-garde horror cinema.

Santa Sangre (Holy Blood) was an Italian-Mexican production, co-written (other writers being Claudio Argento and Roberto Leoni) and directed by Jodorowsky. A film that is crammed full of allegorical imagery, it's a wild ride through the mind of a young man trapped in a mental hospital. As we travel through flash-backs and flash-forwards, into a world of bizarre circus, and a fanatical religious cult known as Santa Sangre.

Along with his earlier works, the film is considered to be one of Jodorowsky's greatest works. A trippy hallucinatory nightmare through the mind of one of the greatest cult film directors of all time. A true piece of psychological horror, that mixes uncomfortable images, with dark humour, violence and sexuality.

The tag-line to Santa Sangre was "Forget Everything You Have Seen". And in many ways that line still holds true. As the film stands-up to this day, as a surreal masterpiece, unrivalled by films that have attempted to follow in its footsteps. It's such a shame that Jodorowsky never got to make his version of Dune. Which could well be one of the greatest movies never made. Despite the fact that much of the ideas and images from it have found there way into many sci-fi and horror films since.

Most of us have had the misfortune to have the missionaries from the Mormon church turn up on our doorstep. Selling their particular brand of pseudo-Christian cultism. Figures of ridicule wherever they go, see in this banned animation how truly fruit-loop, racist and dangerous they really are. Apparently this animation was made by an ex-Mormon, for the 1982 documentary exposing the truth behind the church, called The God Makers.

Basket Case is a 1982 American horror comedy film written and directed by cult film-maker Frank Henenlotter. Henenlotter, who also made 2 sequels to Basket Case as well as the cult classics Brain Damage (1988) and Frankenhooker (1990), is quoted as saying,  "I never felt that I made ‘horror films’", he has said. "I always felt that I made exploitation films. Exploitation films have an attitude more than anything – an attitude that you don’t find with mainstream Hollywood productions. They’re a little ruder, a little raunchier, they deal with material people don’t usually touch on, whether it’s sex or drugs or rock and roll."


Basket Case is a classic piece of 80s schlock cinema, about Duane who arrives in New York City carrying a basket with him wherever he goes. The basket contains his deformed twin, who he was surgically separated from. Duane's twin Belial, wants to seek revenge on the surgeon who split them at an early age, against their will. Belial goes on an unstoppable murderous rampage, until Duane tries to stop his evil twin, for the murder and attempted rape of a nurse he befriends.

Basket Case was Henenlotter's first feature film, and was shot on grainy 16mm, for a budget of only $35,000. Creating a dark and disturbing atmosphere, that recreates the seedy side of 80s New York around Times Square and 42nd Street. The film became an instant cult classic, and spent a number of years on the midnight movie circuit. It didn't make the Video Nasty list on the UK, but was singled out among others as a film that many video stores refused to stock. 

Originally called Dr. Macaura's Pulsocon and later renamed Dr. Macaura's Blood Circulator, this early hand crank driven vibrator was produced some time around the late 1800s, and remained in production well into the 1920s. 

The device was held in one hand, pushed against the desired body part, and hand-cranked to caused the invigorating vibration required. Apparently the action that Dr. Macaura's invention created was a plunging motion, on the desired body part.

The plunging motion could be eventuated with the addition of applicators, that would screw into the end of the device for more focused sensations. Apparently turning the handle produced a surprisingly intense vibration over the affected area. It came with a full complement of paperwork (16 and 58 page booklets and a pamphlet). What more could a lady need from a blood circulation stimulating device. One assumes, despite the photo on the right, that a lady could self stimulate most required areas of her body herself, in the privacy of her own boudoir. 

You really have to wonder what they were thinking with Milky. Especially with Kenner, it's maker, pitching it as a pre-school toy for ages as young as 3. Why? Because Milky produced "milk", that the kids couldn't drink, under any conditions. Instead of Milky The Marvelous Milking Cow, she should have been called Milky The Child Poisoning Cow. To compound things Milky was made as a promotional tie-in with General Foods, to promote breakfast cereals.

The advertising blurb with Milky read: "Milky, The Marvelous Milking Cow. Milky drinks from trough, gives pretend milk. HOW IT WORKS: Fill see-through trough with water, place "milk" tablets in udder. Push Milky's head in trough, pump her tail, she drinks. When she's has enough, she raises her head and "moos". Then she's ready to be milked through her rubber udders. Comes with bucket, cow bell, vinyl pasture pad, non-toxic [still don't drink the milk!!!] tablets and booklet the tells the story of how milk gets from the cow to the home."

The true bizarre wonders of Milky can best be experienced by watching the TV commercial for her. Forget the dodgy milk that you had to warn kids not to drink! You were also teaching them that it is okay to ram an animals head into its feed bucket and force feed it, grab her tail and pull on it, until it wails out "STOP!!! No more!" Or "moos" in cow language. Milky the "Let's Pretend" toy of fun animal abuse for all the family. There's no wonder it has since become a cult toy.

In 1950 the genius independently filmed movie Destination Moon was released. It stood as the trail blazing sci-fi movie that genuinely tried to examine the dangers of man attempting to fly to the moon and return safely back to Earth. The movie was produced by the combined genius of producer George Pal and the prolific actor/director Irving Pichel. It was co-written by Robert A. Heinlein, based on his novel Rocket Ship Galileo.

To coincide with the movie a comic book was produced to tell the story, but also inject scientific facts about travel to the moon into the story. In addition Pal included the famous cartoon character Woody Woodpecker, as he was a friend of Woody creator Walter Lantz. Woody featured in a cartoon that was shown as a short alongside Destination Moon, as well as being cleverly inserted into the the movie itself. The itself comic book stands out as a classic and early movie tie-in.

Chuck's animated self seemed to spend a lot of time in what can only be described as classic 80s, homoerotic attire. (Check out that lovely side knotted scarf.) With tight white vests, or simply topless in tight pants. Being produced by Norris himself, I'm sure he missed the obvious in retrospect campness of the whole animated adventure that he entered into.

The rest of his crew, the "Karate Kommandos", would fight alongside Chuck against the evils of VULTURE, and their leader Claw. The Kommandos included brother and sister Reed and Pepper, Kimo a Samurai warrior, Tabe a sumo wrestler, and "Too Much" who was Chuck Norris's ward. (A bit of Batman and Robin about that.) In the opening credits, Chuck's name is mentioned 9 times, with actual footage of Chuck book-ending each episode. Ending with a moral lesson delivered by the great man himself.

Good old Chuck is the butt of many a joke on the Internet, and has been mentioned a few times on Weird Retro. From the 1983 video game Chuck Norris Superkicks, and his Kickin' Action Jeans. But the most popula Chuck Norris related Captain's blog posts have been the infamous Japanese Chuck Norris Action Sex Doll, from back in November 2014. And its sequel, the Chuck Norris Transgendered Action Sex Doll, from the beginning of April 2015. 

Released in 1977, during the Cold War, After The Holocaust is a strategy board game for 3-4 players. The game is set, some 20 years after a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The players control regions of the nuke ravaged United States and Canada, as they play out a economic, military and political simulation in ten turns. 

Each turn of the game consists of five rounds, which are; a production round; a trade round; a consumption round; a military/political round; and a finance round. The rounds contain distinct phases within them. Like the production round, contains a basic production phase, a second production phase and a mobilization phase... Bored yet? Yep, After The Holocaust is one of those games that is so long and involved, that you get it out, set it up. And decided it's better to go down the pub, than spend the 6 hours playing time on this thing.

But there are those that have bothered, and even gone further. With the Weird Wide Web full of forums dedicated to the game. People have designed economic strategies, flow-charts of play, expansions, and play variants. But that's not the strangest part of the game. Hidden with the complex rules, and explanations, is that despite the devastation of the country, and people being taken back to the Dark Ages. The Federal Reverse Bank still exists and is still a functioning entity. So it's not the ants or the cockroaches that'll survive Armageddon, it's the American dollar!