Tron in 3-2-1 Contact Magazine (1982)

Did you sing the show theme when you read the post title? Then you remember the PBS science show 3-2-1 Contact. It's kind of funny how you can trace my growth as a human through the PBS shows I watched growing up. Contact was an instant favorite as they explored science principles in fun ways and also introduced The Bloodhound Gang, a group of teen detectives that solved crimes using science.

 

 

I could probably go on about the show but, as the title says, I'm talking about the accompanying magazine. I recently discovered there's about 90 issues uploaded to the Internet Archive. Being a fan of the show, I did get the occasional magazine and it's crazy how many covers I recognize. Me being me, I keyed in on the cover of the October 1982 issue which mashes up two of my favorite things: computers and Halloween. I was thrilled to see this "Special Computer Issue" has a story about Tron. 

 

  

 

Tron had just come out in July, which was probably bad news for any kid just finding out about the movie in October! The article spends time with Larry Elin, one of the computer graphic artists that worked on the movie. He worked at MAGI (Mathematical Applications Group, Inc) one of the first 3D computer animation companies.

 

Not only was he an animator, but also the VP in charge of hiring some of the other folks that worked on the movie. He worked on the iconic vehicle sequences in the movie including the Lightcycles, Tanks, and Recognizers. 

 

MAGI was located in NY and this page mentions how Disney execs in CA wanted to see how the effects scenes were progressing every day. They had a "computer link" to share the scenes coast to coast. I'm curious what that involved in the early 80s!

 

 The last page of the article shows someone programming a Grid Tank into the computer. Another article in this issue features a young girl named Cori Grimm that makes computer graphics for some educational games. If you want to browse the full magazine, you can find it here.

 

I'll leave you off with the theme here but there's also plenty of full episodes up on YouTube if you want to dive down a nostalgia rabbit hole.

 

 

Haul-iday Highlights 2025

 This used to be an annual tradition but it looks like I haven't done one since 2022. At any rate, here's a look at some of the goodies left under my holiday tree by various supernatural beings.

 

 We'll start off with these awesome gift tags that Mrs Dex found. Perfect for me!

 

 Sadly, this art print from Spooky Cat Press isn't a full comic magazine!

 

 Speaking of Krampus, here's a weird plush from the Pinhead Monsters line.

 

 Throwing this in here because it's on theme. This was a gift to myself after we saw the author, Jeff Belanger, do his "The Fright Before Christmas" show. It's just him and some slides talking about the origin of Christmas as a holiday in addition to all the weird dark folklore from different countries. Can't recommend this enough if you want to dive into the darker side of winter traditions.

 

 A great set of figures from Disney's Haunted Mansion. All the most popular characters are here and I found it interesting that they picked the mummy to round out the set.

 

 And to go with them, a Disney Racers Haunted Mansion Hot Rod! Love the details on this: Mdme. Leota's headstone on the front and the pipe organ in the back.

 

 The Indy Temple Trekker is sporting the famous hat and whip. The vehicle is based on the design used for the ride vehicle from the Disneyland attraction.

 

 While we're talking Disney, Mrs Dex got me this very cool Tron: Ares light up popcorn...bucket? container? It's pretty sizeable at just over a foot tall!

 

I was very excited to unwrap this Funko of one of my favorite Muppets: Pepe the King Prawn. There's not enough Pepe merch out there! And he's flocked!

 

 Rounding things out with a pair of Star Wars card games. This Solo Solitaire game comes in a tin that looks like Han in carbonite. It's basic "Patience" solitaire with a themed deck of cards. There's a Jedi Master mode where you add two additional cards: Carbon Freeze which "freezes" the lane when it reveals, preventing you from playing or moving cards there, until you play Save Solo on it to remove it.

 

 Finally is the Stay on Target card game, which I really wanted because it comes in that cool Death Star! Each player takes a squadron color and battles their way through Imperial defenses to take a shot at that exhaust port to score victory points.

Monthly Media Recap - October 2025

Here we are, HALLOWEEN! 

 

Earlier in the week it was looking like I was going to get rained out today but things are looking good for a dry, blustery autumn night! In case you're looking for something to watch (or not watch), here's what I took in this month. 

Linked titles will take you to trailers. 

 

  

Gatchaman Progress

Episodes watched this month: 0, had to cram in as much spooky as possible! 

Currently up to: 62

  

Streaming 

 

Over the Garden Wall (Hulu)

I started watching this when it originally aired and for some reason, never finished it. It's such a weird and wonderful show. It's fun and cozy but there's also an almost ever-present dread lurking. Perfect for Halloween time viewing. Rock facts! 

 

Movies

 

Weapons (2025, HBO Max)

So, so, so good! It's a modern movie but was giving very 70s witchcraft vibes. Love the way they told it by jumping around to different characters perspectives. I need a sequel that shows the community reaction/news coverage after the movie ends. Totally did not recognize young Han Solo as the porn stache cop.

 

Rating: 8/10 

 

  

V/H/S Halloween (2025, Shudder)

This is my favorite VHS yet! It's Halloween-centric, fun, creepy, and a bit more gory than I remember previous installments being. It may be stretching the found footage premise but I don't really mind because I was thoroughly entertained. I didn't feel there was one bad segment but there were definitely two that were better for me ("Fun Size" & "Home Haunt").

 

Rating: 8/10 

 

Grid Assassin - Battletribes Glyos Figure

 This started out as a DCon Exclusive figure but some were made available later to the public. It actually dropped the same weekend as the Armored Orphan figure but there was no way I was passing on one over the other! Plus, this will fit in nicely with my other Tron inspired figures.

Like any good assassin, he's got lots of gear to get the job done.

He comes with:

3 heads - 2 torsos
belted front skirt thingy
2 pairs of hands - 2 pairs of boots
2 swords - sword "sheath"
staff  - sai - nunchucks

The only thing his missing is an identity disc.

This is what I call the Grid head, very scifi/Daft Punk looking, with the pair of swords. The front skirt thingy (I'm sure there's an actual name for it!) has a loop in the back to hold a weapon. It, along with the weapons and hands is slightly translucent which kinda adds to the whole sneaky assassin vibe.

The back on this torso has a cool disc-like image.

Here's the Ninja head with the alternate torso, hands, and boots.

Lastly, the "Bruce Lee" head with staff. I know it doesn't look much like him here but with that haircut, he's the first thing to come to mind. You can see the sword "sheath" on his back. It's just a little peg with two slots. Simple but effective.

Tron Legacy Boots into Fortnite

It seems like the folks at Epic Games are out to get me. Get me to play Fortnite that is. I had somehow held back when previous Star Wars and Marvel events invaded the game. This past December, they brought in the Mandalorian (and Grogu!) so I decided to finally check it out. I've been enjoying the game a lot. I'm not great at it by any means (building still confuses me) but I'm okay.

Even with the Predator, Sarah Connor, and T-800 Terminator recently released, I thought the Mandalorian would be the end all of collaborations. Then they go and drop this on me last week.

SDCC 2020 Exclusive Tron Figure

Greetings, programs!

If there is one good thing to come out of SDCC being cancelled this year, it's that it made this exclusive super easy to obtain. I jumped on the Entertainment Earth pre-order as soon as it was available. Thanks to anyone that's used my affiliate link on the right, I was able to get it for almost 50% off.

The figure comes in a great VHS clam shell style box, complete with silver foil sticker on the side. The old collector in me had a moment's hesitation on seeing the sticker and thought about not opening it. A split second later, the new collector in me slapped him down.

Book Report - The Art of Tron (1982)

Many, many, many years ago, I joined the website PaperbackSwap.com. As you might guess from the name, it's a site where you can swap books with other people. You can even wish list things so that you're notified as soon as someone posts something you're after. While searching for anything Tron related, I found an entry for The Art of Tron, something I wasn't even aware existed. On my wish list it went and years passed.

A few weeks ago I got an email letting me know a book I had wish listed was available.

It was The Art of Tron!

I clicked buttons faster than I ever had in my life and it finally arrived yesterday.

Now, the general rule at PaperbackSwap is that you post books in a condition that you would be fine receiving them in. This book is definitely showing its age on the front and back covers but I am just happy to have it! Copies on Ebay have recently sold between $46-$80 depending on condition. I paid about $4 to cover the cost of shipping and a 'book credit' from a previous trade where I sent someone a book they wanted. If I could scan the book without destroying it, I'd love to share it with other fans.

Anyway, let's get digitized into the world of Tron!

Battle Tribes - Grid Wave

A couple weeks ago Spy Monkey Creations let loose their most recent wave of Battle Tribes figures and this time they're going back to the game grid!

Credit: @Battle Tribes

As you can see, this latest wave of figures is an homage to the original 1982 Tron figures by Tomy. To say I was thrilled about the announcement would be an understatement. Luckily, I was able to grab the whole wave as they sold out pretty quick! Let's get a closer look at the programs.

First is the Grid Avatar in the role of Flynn. If you're familiar with the Battle Tribes figures, you know that each figure comes with multiple heads and weapons. Since we're looking at four figures, I didn't take a ton of pics of the different combos you can make with each figure. If you want to see all the parts, head over to Spy Monkey Creations.

I don't know what the official names of each type of figure are but I call this one the barbarian. Mainly because it comes with a Conan-style head and a furry vest. The shield is the closest thing any of the figures have to an identity disc and I'm a little disappointed no one else has one but I understand when they do the figures, each "style" has its own accessories.

Here's the Avatar with barbarian head and vest, although you can't really see it. They did an outstanding job with the digital markings on all the figures, especially the tiny back of the hand ones. I used a blue light here to give him a more electric look.

I got the colored lights I used at a Dollar Tree of all places! They're little plastic things that are meant to be worn on your fingers but they work great for shooting action figures.

This is the Grid Enforcer, taking the part of the Warrior. With this goblin/imp head I think it looks like a nasty virus that could infect your system. I used the Dollar Tree lights again here. They really light up the translucent plastic.

Here we have the Grid Overlord, standing in for Sark. In addition to more "normal" accessories, he's got a claw hand and a big mech fist. I usually call this one sci-fi guard because of the heads and chest armor piece.

Each of the figures has a couple of  glow in the dark accessories and one GITD head. The glowy bits are a natural way to go with Tron inspired figures but in my opinion, the heads don't work that well because they have no details colored in like the regular heads.

Fighting for the User is the Grid Champion. This guy is a wrestler style figure, which means he gets a little sidekick and a bunch of food heads, similar to the Spicy Pumpkin figure I talked about a couple months ago. Not my personal favorite style of figure because it's got a variety of heads instead of weapons.

Tron himself stopped by to show the Champion how to sling a disc.

Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture - Sci Fi

We've delved into the depths of Horror and taken a trip through Fantasy, now it's time to blast off into the worlds of Science Fiction! And again, there's a lot of glass displays and lights so please forgive my photos.

Starting off with a piece of classic TV history, a screen used Mork from Ork costume worn by Robin Williams. One of the really cool things about the Sci-Fi section is that there is a good mix of movies and TV here.

LEGO 21314 - Tron Legacy

When I started seeing pics of a Tron Legacy LEGO set a couple weeks ago, I just presumed it was another great looking fan creation. Thanks to LEGO Ideas and 10,000 other awesome people, the set is now a reality!

Here's a Making Of video for the set.

The set comes with two lightcycles, three minifigs, and a cool piece of the grid.

Here are our minifigs: Quorra, Rinzler, and Sam Flynn.

Quorra and Sam both have two facial expressions you can choose to display, one happy and one a little more serious. Rinzler has a neutral human face under his helmet which gives you another option for Sam. They did an outstanding job on capturing the costume details.

They also did something pretty neat for the identity discs.

They come with clear plastic 'backpacks" that the discs attach to so they can actually wear them on their backs. Quorra also has a katana accessory.

Here she is next to the blue lightcycle with her serious/grumpy face.

The lightcycles builds are exactly the same, just with different coloring. As they mentioned in the video, the wheels do actually move on them which is a great feature for play.

Each lightcycle has a translucent light trail piece that clips to the back of it as well! All in all, I'm thrilled with this set. The only thing I think it's missing is a Kevin Flynn minifig but I bet I can customize one fairly easy, maybe from some Ninjago minifigs. I know they have robes and beards. Now if they could just get me a classic Tron LEGO set!

Meet Wreck-It Ralph!

I thought with the recent announcement of Wreck-It Ralph 2, this would be a good time to share these photos from three years ago. Timely, right?

Starting around November 2012 you could meet Wreck-It Ralph and Vanellope Von Schweetz in person at DisneyWorld's Hollywood Studios park. I was lucky enough to visit during this time frame. They were in the Art of Animation building, which has since been converted to the Star Wars Launch Bay. In 2014, they left (presumably to start working on the sequel?) to make way for Baymax and Hiro. Will they return to the parks with the new movie? We'll have to wait and see.

The sign above greets you as you enter the queue area, which is indeed themed to make it feel like you're in Game Central Station. Along the queue are a few video screens made to look like you're inside different games looking out.

The queue isn't a very big area compared to the ones you'd be in for big time characters like the Princesses or Mice but it is a fun area to hang out in. My favorite thing there was a status board that showed if games were on time or delayed.

What really surprised me is the people that put this together did their homework. Well, I guess it shouldn't be that surprising because it is Disney after all. Aside from some of the big names in video games there were also some in there that I'm guessing most people haven't heard of like Zookeeper.

Of course, there are a few mentions of Tron. Disney, all I'm asking for in the next movie is some kind of Tron cameo: lightcycle, recognizer, heck I'll take an identity disc in the background somewhere!

Eventually, the wait is over!

I enjoy meeting the characters and I don't usually geek out too much about it but I was pretty excited to meet Ralph and Vanellope. I thought it was a nice touch after going through the game themed waiting area that the meeting area looks like you stepped into Vanellope's game, Sugar Rush.

Here's a brief video I found to show you what the area is like.