Captain America is going to top the news and most likely the box office this weekend.  Fan boys and girls all over have been anticipating his arrival at their local cinema and news from Comic-Con will likely flood the internet, Facebook and Twitter.  SyFy, being the geniuses that they are, anticipated the need for all things Cap and scheduled a movie marathon to air on Friday.

They’ve taken a trip in the way-back machine that’s for sure.  The movies they’re going to show are the old Captain America movies.  AKA the bad ones.  But first, it all starts with a Greatest American Hero marathon.  From 5am to 10am, you can get your William Katt in spandex fix.  For you young’uns who don’t remember it, here’s the show’s opening.

Kicking off the actual Captain America marathon is the 1979 version starring Reb Brown in the iconic blue suit.  Here’s the synopsis as described by IMDB.

A recipient of an experimental body enhancement chemical retaliates against his would be killers as a star spangled superhero.

After doing some digging around, I found a clip of a scene from the film and it’s magnificent.  And by magnificent, I mean dreadful.  Pay special attention to the sound effects used when he opens the valve to spill the oil.  Classic!  Oh and also keep an eye out for his stance when he may have to move quickly.

Following the 1979 version, is the 1979 sequel (yes, they moved rather quickly back then) Captain America II: Electric Boogaloo.  Just kidding….it’s actually called Death Too Soon.  The synopsis for this one is even better.

The star spangled hero must battle a villain’s plan to poison America with a chemical that horrifically accelerates the aging processing.

You have to love YouTube just for the mere fact that you can actually find trailers for stuff like this.  Check it out.

Look closely at that trailer and you’ll see a younger Christopher Lee along with Connie Sellecca (who was also in Greatest American Hero…just FYI)

Capping (tee-hee) off the Captain America fest is the 1990 version starring Matt Salinger.  Why don’t I remember this?  I never saw it but it came out when I was working in a music/video store.  Although after having watched the trailer, I just answered my own question.  And the synopsis is:

Frozen in the ice for decades, Captain America is freed to battle against arch-criminal, The Red Skull.

Short, sweet, to the point.  What’s even more puzzling to me than the fact that I have no recollection of this movie is the fact that Ned Beatty and Gavin McGraw are in it.  Crazy.  Here’s the trailer:

So are you going to hunker down and watch all of these before you make the trip to the theater to see the new and improved Captain America?  At least set your DVR so you can skip commercials!

About the author

Tracy Ladd has written 534 articles on this blog.

Tracy has been writing about film since her days on the her high school newspaper. Even though she took a decade or two off to explore other things, she's back to doing what she loves. She also bakes, can knit a pretty nifty scarf and makes lightsaber sounds with her knitting needles. Or chopsticks. Especially with the lightsaber chopsticks. Follow her on Twitter: @ReelGoddess

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 21st, 2011 at 9:00 am and is filed under Comic Book Movies, Film, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.