Tales of The Rocketman!

Way back in September, I had a birthday. Ok, that's not particularly interesting, but I'm building to something here. You see whenever someone has a birthday at my work, a wonderful lady named Ms. Powell makes a big sign to go outside of their room or office (hey, it is an elementary school, after all). Here is mine:

You can see that the signs refer to interests of the "birthday person." In my case we have Disney, music and rockets. Fair enough. However, it was the rocket part that caught my eye. At first glance, I thought that "Rocketman" was a reference to "The Rocketeer" by Disney, but when I looked closer, I saw that it wasn't....at least not directly.

My interest piqued, I looked up this trashcan helmeted hero and found this:

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/122/

It seems THIS Rocketman came a few decades before the Disney version, although it actually inspired the later movie. Actually, it inspired a comic book that then inspired the movie, but its close enough. By the way, the three nobs  on his suit are for up, down, speed. Apparently NASA sure went out of their way to make spaceflight more complicated!

By the way, if you haven't seen "The Rocketeer," you should probably check it out. It's a great campy period piece that never got the audience it deserved.

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!