"Things That Aren't There Anymore"

This page was inspired by the WHYY production 'Things that Aren't There Anymore', a series about the things in old Philadelphia which only exist now in memory. This is my own personal list of some things that aren't around anymore, but wish they were.

• Arcade Games
  * Killer Shark / Sea Devil(Sega)
  Had a harpoon-like gun on the front of the game, which you used to shoot manta rays and/or sharks (depending on the game, there were two variations). Timed. One of the earliest video games (1976), featured a moving spindle rather than electronics to create the images of the game. Had a cameo in the movie "Jaws".
  Click here for a side photo of the game

  * Barrier (Vectorbeam/Cinematronics)
  

  * Pigskin 621 A.D. (1990, Bally/Midway)
  Medieval football without rules : punches, kicks, even hanging someone with a noose : it's all legal. Made by the same company that made the 2x2 basketball game w/blind referee.
  

  * The National Coin-Op and Video Game Museum in St. Louis, Missouri - wish I'd had a chance to visit it before it closed. Also check out the Classic Arcade Games Locations list

• Radio programs  

  *Celebrity Sports Talk: Sports talk show in the 1980s on WIP-AM in Philadelphia, hosted by Merrill Reese and then-Eagles QB Ron Jaworski. Many different guests, with lots of interesting conversations not limited to sports. I still have two tapes of recordings from when Gene Hart, the late great Flyers play-by-play man, was the guest, and they remain some of the best radio I've ever heard.

  *Soundscapes: A Sunday evening radio program on WGTE in Toledo, hosted by Allen Mazurek, featuring lots of "New Age", atmospheric, and electric music. Was a must-listen for me every week while I was doing my M.A. at Bowling Green. I eventually had to move on to Hearts of Space and Echoes once I moved out of the area. Mazurek continued the program for a couple years after he moved to Michigan, but I believe it finally stopped around 2000. As far as I know, Mazurek is still affiliated with WDET in Michigan.

  *Saturday at the Movies: Program of selections from movie soundtracks, hosted by Linda Ebright on WOSU-FM in Columbus. I still can't hear the end title theme from "Out of Africa" without thinking of this program, since it was the opening and closing music for the show. I think it finally ended around 2004 when Ebright left the station.

• Sasquatch the movie: is it a search for Bigfoot, or a nature film? Even the movie itself can't seem to decide. In any case, this was an influential movie on me when I was young. Good menacing music, below average acting, and LOTS of nature film-type shots shot in Oregon; who could ask for more? This one is a definite cult-classic type of movie. Available on the "Sasquatch Horror Collection" DVD.
  

• Brigantine Castle

  This was a fairly popular "haunted mansion"-style attraction in Brigantine, New Jersey in the early '80s; it was built, I believe, in 1978. Its TV commercials were very distinctive, with an intro from the "Toccata and Fugue in Dm", lightning illuminating the 5-story Castle, a hunchback hanging from one of the windows, etc. The Castle itself wasn't all that different from your usual 'haunted house,' with actors playing ghouls, skeletons, and vampires reaching out for you from the darkness, making spooky noises, and so on. Pretty scary.
  Unfortunately, the Castle itself didn't have the best luck. Being located on a pier jutting into the Atlantic, the structure was vulnerable to storms coming along the coast, and it was damaged severely enough in '83 to close the place down permanently. The structure remained standing until September 25, 1987, when arsonists burned down what was left of the place.
  Hal Rappaport's Brigantine Castle page
  Bill Cherkasky's Brigantine Castle page

• Horseshoe crabs on Long Beach Island

• Jim O'Brien

  Jim was the weatherman for Channel 6 in Philadelphia during the late '70s and early '80s, and brought a distinctively zany style to the broadcasts, including the use of "good guy" smiley clouds and "bad guy" frowny clouds to represent high and low pressure systems, a system that remains in use on Channel 6 to this day. He died on September 25th, 1983, in a skydiving accident (it was his 814th jump), and was at the time the most beloved personality on Philadelphia television. Picture 1 Picture 2
  Eulogy of Jim O'Brien by Clark DeLeon
  Video clip of Jim O'Brien from TVParty.com

• Gino's Home Style Hamburgers.

  Gino's was a hamburger fast-food chain founded by former Baltimore Colt Gino Marchetti in the 1960s. It was pretty similar to a McDonalds, with a trademark burger (the "Gino Giant") and also fried chicken (Gino's also included the KFC chain, at that time). Gino's was pretty widespread in the Northeast, with 313 "Gino's" in '81, but then the chain was bought by the Marriott corporation & gradually faded away. The last Gino's closed up in '91, in Glen Burnie, Maryland.
  Gino's Hamburgers

  2012: Gino's has returned and currently is franchised in 6 locations in MD and PA: http://www.ginosgiant.com/

• The early days of alt.callahans

• Abandoned Places: The Old Pennsylvania Turnpike 1 and 2; Centralia 1 and 2

• Disney: Forgotten Disney and YesterLand; Horizons at EPCOT

E-Mail: tagryn@hotmail.com