Category: Chris Woods’ Growing Up Fanboy

For a horror fan October is the best month of the year. Horror films are playing on TV all month long for Halloween, stores are decorated for Halloween and selling tons of cool stuff that goes with that holiday, and ...

In the 1980’s there were a number of scream queens or horror heroines that lighted up the screen. Some were memorable, some were forgotten, and some became major Hollywood stars. The actress that I would like to discuss was very ...

 The summer of 1981 had many blockbuster films that became movie classics. One of course is Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I covered the 30th anniversary of the release of the film a few months ago. There was also ...

 July 3rd is a very sad day in music history because forty years ago in 1971 on that day Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Door died at the young age of 27. Morrison was found dead in his bathtub ...

 This month marks the 30th anniversary of one of the greatest adventure films of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark. That means archaeologist and risk taker Professor Indiana Jones turns the big 3-0! Growing up, next to Star Wars, ...

 May 20, 2011 was a sad day for wrestling fans and the wrestling world. Legendary wrestler and multi-time world heavyweight champion, Macho Man Randy Savage was killed in a car accident in Seminole, Florida in the Tampa Bay area. It ...

For metal fans Iron Maiden is one of the most influential bands of the metal and hard rock scene. Iron Maiden is a band that was a pioneer in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal era of the late ...

 12 Angry Men is a classic film and it has always appeared on best of list as one of the greatest films ever made. It is a great compelling story and a very simple film with one setting with twelve ...

Like myself, most of us who grew up in the 1970’s and 80’s and then there are those of you who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s and remember there being only three major channels, NBC, ABC, and CBS. ...

Zombie films have always been a favorite of mine. Nowadays there seems to be an overkill of zombie movies, some good and some bad. The zombie craze even started a television series called The Walking Dead on AMC, which is ...

 I have always been a fan of comic books. Since I was a toddler and before I could read I was huge fan and would often get comics of Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and The Hulk. I have covered my comic ...

During the holiday season there are tons of Christmas programming on television. Growing up, I would always watch the animated Christmas specials like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. ...

Before they were Amazon, eBay, Netflix, or other online stores, you had to hunt and peck for hard to find movies on VHS, especially horror ones. If you were looking for your favorite horror film back in the 80’s and ...

It has become an October tradition attending Spooky Empire’s Ultimate Horror Weekend in Orlando, Florida. This is an event that I look forward to going every year and for me the convention always delivers. For any fanboy or girl growing ...

Do you remember a time when MTV actual played music videos? I sure do. Most young kids probably don’t remember or don’t even realize that the channel called Music Television played music videos 24-7 back in the day. Now the ...

Growing up in Upstate New York was a fun time because of all the great theme parks and   other attractions that surround the area. I have written before about these places on this very web site, such as The Enchanted ...

Today we are going to go back in time. To a place that doesn’t really fit into the high-tech big attractions of today. This place is almost a sanctuary where you can forget about the problems of today and go ...

Genesis has been my favorite band since I was 13 years old. That’s when my journey started with collecting all their albums, reading up on the history of the band, buying videos of their concerts, and even catching them live ...

I can’t believe that The Empire Strikes Back is 30 years old and I still can’t believe that the start of the 80’s was 30 years ago. I still remember when I first saw the movie and the anticipation I ...

Wrestling. Call it a sport. Call it entertainment. Call it what you want. To me it’s a mix of both. It’s also part male soap opera, part comic book come to life, part live theater, and part action/adventure movie. Say ...

Back in the day, the USA Network was the one stop shop for classic and cult horror films. The network was much different in the 1980’s then it is now. Today, the channel is very mainstream and has tons of ...

Last month I wrote about my love of comics. I highlighted all the Marvel comics I collected when I was a kid. This month, I pick up where I left off and discuss other comic brands I collected such as ...

Comic books have always been a big part of my life. Even though I haven’t collected comics in 23 years, I still from time to time pick up an old back issue at the local comic book convention. For me, ...

Many of you Star Wars fans may remember or want to forget, The Star Wars Holiday Special that aired in the late 70’s. It has been talked about, laughed at, and disregarded for many years. Being a Star Wars fan ...

There have been many horror magazines throughout the years, going way back to 1958 with Famous Monsters of Filmland. As for me, the pinnacle days of collecting these horror mags was in the late 80’s, where a slew of these ...

It has now come an annual Halloween tradition to attend Orlando’s mega horror convention Spooky Empire. The full title of the event is Spooky Empire’s Ultimate Horror Weekend. For me the show always delivers, it is packed with tons of ...

So far in my life, two motion pictures had a major impact in my life, those two being, Star Wars and Night of the Living Dead. When seeing Star Wars at the age of 4 in 1977 it gave me ...

Some people remember Buck Rogers from short stories, comics, radio, or serials, but I remember him from the late 70’s and early 80’s television show, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. That’s how I was first introduced to the character ...

Baseball, America’s pastime, the great sport that throughout its many years has celebrated triumph, fought controversy, and made us believe. There are many legends that played the sport or took part in it. Many of them are honored in one ...

Last month, I wrote about the theme park, Enchanted Forest, this month I’ll be writing about the town that it is in, Old Forge, New York. Of course most of the time I was in Old Forge it was to ...

As a kid when school was over for the year and summer was about to begin, the one thing I looked forward to was going to Enchanted Forest amusement park. The place was an hour north of me in a ...

Every summer, the season is always jammed packed with big hit over hyped blockbuster movies coming out at a theater near you. Nowadays, there’s about at least 8 or 10 or more, big movies that get released from May to ...

Last month I talked about some of my old toys that I had as a kid. Most of them are up in my attic in New York. In the first part of Toys in the Attic, I wrote about different ...

When you’re a kid, the best thing in the world are toys. If it’s an action figure, toy truck, or even a board game, you cherish it. Growing up I had tons of cool toys from the 70’s and 80’s. ...

Over the years I collected many different books on the subject of horror films. Most of them were very good and provided excellent information on the genre, some were so-so that didn’t really deliver, but one that I consider the ...

Nowadays there’s about over 500 channels on every cable box or satellite TV. You would think with all those channels you would find a real great channel with everything you would want to see. For me, that one great channel ...

Growing up, Christmas was always an exciting time. Getting together with the whole family, vacation from school, cool toys for presents, and great TV during the month of December. There were lots of holiday specials and Christmas themed movies. One ...

Way before the VHS boom, DVDs, watching movies on demand or on line, the only place to see the latest and greatest motion pictures was to view them at your local theater. Growing up there was one main theater that ...

The month of October is great time of the year. Mainly because of the Halloween season and all the events that happen during the 31 days. Although, here in Florida, the Halloween season is awesome, with tons of events to ...

This is the first installment of a new monthly column called “Growing Up Fanboy”, where I’ll talk about my experiences growing up in a world of fandom in a small city in Upstate New York called Utica in the 70’s ...