On June 11th 1982, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. was released to theaters and instantly became a global smash. It was such a ubiquitous force in popular culture in the 1980s that it inspired pop songs, ripoffs aplenty, endless merchandise — including an notoriously ill-fated Atari game that nearly ended the first wave of home video gaming, and, um, even porn spoofs. Yeah, E.T. was everywhere in the Reagan era, and in this talk Chris Cummins (Den of Geek, Sci-Fi Explosion, Music Video Book Club) will examine some of the reasons why he thinks E.T. captured the imagination of a generation as he looks at E.T. oddities that will make you want to phone home…or empty your fridge of beer.
Chris Cummins is a Philadelphia-based writer who has worked for Den of Geek, Uproxx, Geekadelphia, Topless Robot, and Archie Comics. He is one of the bosses of Nerd Nite Philadelphia, and is the producer/host of the multimedia comedy shows Sci-Fi Explosion and Music Video Book Club. You can follow him on Twitter at @bionicbigfoot and @scifiexplosion.
Chris did another awesome Nerd Nite talk – The Weirdo Marketing of the Movie Dune. See it here: https://youtu.be/HyqXy0pkyyU
This presentation is from Nerd Nite New York City.