Your Most Niche Fandom

Oh, and I’m with you guys on Columbo too. :slight_smile: :upside_down_face: It’s how I bonded with my mom as a kid.

And based on TV ratings and attendance, I’m pretty sure baseball now counts as niche.

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@Fae
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The TICK. Spoooon!

Marx Bros.

Walt Kelly

Classic animation in general

Creating content from found video and ripping off MST3K

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This is surprisingly hard…! A lot of my fandom(s) aren’t niche per se, but they’re older properties, and the fanbases aren’t all so active/vocal, but they are not niche. Macross, Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon and The New Adventures of Flash Gordon animated series (the film that the series was pulled from is still the best media adaptation), and some others.

Maybe then the Flash Gordon animated series…? Though I don’t have any cels/materials or such from it, but I know it a bit.

As a fan of artist, creators, perhaps Sanjulian, one or two others.

Great Q , a bit to think about!

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Interesting to see the niches that are not niche here.

I am shocked I haven’t read any Doc Savage. My equivalent would be Tarzan, Conan, H. P. Lovecraft, the Lensmen (which I think I got mixed up with Doc Savage because it was written by “Doc” Smith), and a bunch of obscure horror.

I got back on the “Columbo” train a few years ago when my middle daughter discovered him. There’s some great YouTube “Columbo” parody.

My hat’s off to you. I was something of a Melody Anderson fan and I couldn’t sit through that.

I’m down. I like what he’s done since he dropped out of movies.

Hat’s off, again. I’ve seen all of those but never heard of Star Crystal!

OK, it’s hard to know what’s obscure, and sometimes you don’t know you’re obscure until you start talking about the subtleties of polychromatic counterpoint and how you prefer di Lasso to Palestrina and you realize people are staring…

Yeah, that’s one of mine. Another is pre-WWII “jazz” (which is not what we recognize as “jazz”) and early big band: Paul Whiteman, Rudy Vallee’s orchestra days, Bing Crosby and the Rhythm Boys. I love listening to the old radio shows.

I’ve trawled through both H. P. Lovecraft’s “Supernatural Horror in Literature” for material, which has led me to a wide variety of literature the least obscure of which is probably Mrs. Radcliffe, and for fun I’ve been trying to dig through mid-20th century horror literature the way HPL might have—copyright makes it inordinately challenging.

I’m not a TV guy. Does Police Squad! count as obscure? Oh, Duckman! And The Critic. Those mid-'90s-wanna-cash-in-on-The-Simpsons-craze I rather like.

There are no movies too obscure for this crowd, I assume, so I won’t even go there.

How about pinball? I’ve got some pinball machines. I’m trying to build one. That’s…niche-y.

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Pardon me while I pick up my jaw from the ground. I thought I was the only one! I unfortunately don’t have the resources or space to collect posters, but I am absolutely fascinated by the use of propaganda throughout history. I’m especially interested in World War II era cartoons (the book Dr Seuss Goes to War got me started) and the murals of Northern Ireland.

What’s the story behind your picture here? I take its focus to be Soviet Collectivism?

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In my humble opinion, you definitely should. :grin: The first story, The Man of Bronze, is required reading, as it lays so much of the groundwork for the rest. The original 181 “supersagas” are of varying quality, but at his best, Doc is rip-roaring fun. A more recent series, done by a super fan who is also an author, is pretty solid overall; they’re under the banner of The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage.

And funny you should mention EE Doc Smith; I haven’t read Lensman yet, but I got a hella kick out of the Skylark of Space books. I have a friend who’s such a big fan of his that he went on a road trip to Smith’s old house just to see it!

EDIT: And Police Squad! I love that show…most people don’t know that Naked Gun was Police Squad first, so it counts as obscure. But awesome. :wink:

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I met someone through a coworker who read Cyrillic, and it translates roughly as “praise the farmer, he supports science and industry.”

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@Johnnydoesntcare - Nice. My mother was a Russian translator stationed in Germany during the ‘70s, so I find Soviet-era relics interesting.

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Point and click adventure games from the '80s and '90s.

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A TV creature entirely created by MLB. It has to be the most anti-fan bias in sports-media history. What are they thinking?? Ted Turner had them defeated for a decade with TBS, but other than that, no TV baseball for fans. You can have radio and that’s it! Deep hurting

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YES! Rockford Files rocks. And no one could play the part better than James Garner, much like only Tom Selleck could play Thomas Magnum.

True story, they teach the Rockford Turn in Law Enforcement Academy. And yes that’s what they call it too.

Also true, the first 45 RPM record I remember buying was the theme song from Magnum PI. I still have it somewhere….

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Ditto on all three. Just got the Police Squad TV collection for Christmas. And if someone touches my The Critic box set? Not happening.

I forgot about Duckman! That was a great show as well.

Does anyone remember an animated show around the same time called God, the Devil and Bob? No way in hell (heh) it could even be pitched, much less made today. It’s the story of God and the devil deciding what to do with Earth, and the one person they decide to use as a litmus test … Bob. Just a regular Bob.

What made me grab the series on DVD was my favorite episode. The devil hires Martha Stewart to redecorate his office. She ends up taking over and kicking him out of hell.

Almost forgot. The voice of God? James Garner.

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Ah, kindred spirit. Safe to assume Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry are among those?

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Yes, it was on…what the hell channel was that? Warner Bros. attempt at making a TV channel. The thing that’s the CW now. Or was it UPN? I remember never being able to figure out when it was on.

If we’re going obscure, how about text adventure games, and programming languages like Inform? I’ve spent more than my fair share of time in those…

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Too many to list, but one of my main niche ones is Kamen Rider, a show which combines my love of motorcycles, superheroes, monsters, and superheroes kicking things so hard they explode.

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Space Quest! I haven’t played that game in years. We had Space Quest and King’s Quest 1-4 and Police Quest and I played them over and over again.

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Was anyone else obsessed with the Phantasmagoria games? Full motion video! I’m a hardcore Sierra On-Line fan in general though – the Space Quests are great but also the lesser known oddities like Freddy Pharkas, etc.

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Gerry Anderson’s UFO TV series
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Chou Jiku Yosai MACROSS (original series & movie)


to name a couple. :nerd_face:

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