My PROJECT TIC-TOC book arrived today, and after a quick perusal, I have to say I'm disappointed. It is essentially a somewhat updated version of William Anchors' IRWIN ALLEN SCRAPBOOK VOLUME 1: THE TIME TUNNEL. The great bulk of the text in this new book is an exact reprinting from the earlier work: the set-up, the episode guide, the guest cast's credits - all exact reprints from what I can tell - obviously I have not actually read the whole thing - it just arrived today. But it seemed that every page I looked at had familiar text about it - the episode descriptions, the notes at the end of each of those description - all are word-for-word from the earlier volume. And that makes up the great bulk of the book.
Now, there are loads of new pictures scattered throughout, obviously made possible by doing DVD screen captures - but as the pictures throughout the text are black & white, they are not exactly the highest of quality. In the back of the book, there two glossy pages printed on both sides with some color photos. These look much nicer, but also look "thrown in" as an afterthought to spruce up the book.
New items include a new forward and afterword by Flint Mitchell; a blueprints section that looks well-done; a new six-page biography with filmography of Irwin Allen by Jet Georgala; the cast biographies look new to me; there's a Crew and Writers section with brief synopses about the creative team that put the show together sprinkled with some photos; which brings us to the Guest Cast biographies.
The text here looks familiar, but the section is sprinkled with photos. The problem is that these are not always who or where they're supposed to be. For example, there's an entry for Tristram Coffin but above his entry is a picture of Jan Merlin in his "Visitors..." getup. Another error dealing with a guest star of the same episode has the entry for Gary Haynes with a photo of Byron Folger above it. Barry Kelley's entry has a photo of Larry Ward above it - and so on.
There are even some spelling errors here that carried over from the previous book: John Doucette continues to be misspelled as "Douchette". One other annoying fact about the photos - they look lifted from screen grabs from the DVD - but whoever did it had the picture stretched horizontally, so everyone looks "fatter". Ugh. People just can't get the hang of proper aspect ratios, can they? Now the phenomenon has spilled over into the print world!
The concept of including the pictures in the guest cast section is a noble idea - I just wish it had been executed a little better.
The interviews with Robert Colbert and Lee Meriwether are straight reprints from the prior Anchors book. These interviews have to be nearly twenty years old by now.
New are two sections on modern phenomena related to the series: a pictorial listing of collectables that's up to date enough to include the DVD sets, soundtrack CDs and all of the Argentinian cereal box toys that are frequently found on eBay. There's also a new section on websites devoted to the series - something one can get in a fraction of a second on Google.
All in all, I'm, as I say, disappointed. I had a sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that we'd be seeing the same William Anchors text all over again. But hey - it's in a larger font now - good for aging eyes!
Harry
