This index starts with links to important pages that explain important aspects of movies, television, and radio. Followed by less important, but entertaining pages that point out interesting connections between popular movies and television shows and their source materials, for example, comics, and other movies. Finally there are a collection pages on other topics.
Link to a page of links to Tarzan books, comics, TV & radio shows and movies.
Quick link to the superhero pages.
Americans and probably the rest of the world's population spend the majority of their time consuming media. Furthermore media has great influence on the rest of our lives, including politics. Here are several essays that will help you understand media and therefore our world better. For those in the industry this information can help you make better and more profitable decisions.
Why we watch episodic TV. Understanding why each genre is the length it is reveals why we watch episodic TV at all. Read this and I suspect you will understand a crucial aspect of narative film and TV that the professionals do not understand.
Want to make successful computer animated movies? Here are the rules, what works, what does not. Follow them or break them, but if you break them, know that you are breaking them. The merely curious are welcome to read the rules too.
The rules on making computer animated movies were very popular, so here are the rules for profitable live action superhero films.
Review the history of the four great commercial fictional universes, DC, Marvel, Star Trek, and Star Wars.
Almost all of Disney's big hits follow these five strategies:Marvel superheroes, Star Wars, Pixar, non-Pixar animation, and live action remakes of animated classics. Not creative perhaps, but it is working for them.
AM radio was and is the traditional media that carried the revolutionary message of rock and roll and the counter revolutionary message of conservative talk radio. Why? Learn why new media often supports the status quo and old media is often revolutionary, or counter revolutionary.
Both liberals and conservatives have so many media assets that it is difficult to determine who has the most and the best. But both sides can get their message across and call out the other sides alternative facts and fake news.
Blockbuster was taken out by video by mail (Netflix), video vending machines (Redbox), video streaming (Netflix, Amazon, etc.) and public libraries lending movies. In the old days a new technology replaced your industry, now many new technologies consume you in a feeding frenzy.
I am a fan of Amazon Prime and subscription services in general. There are so many services it is hard not to get your money's worth.
I noticed that Darth Vader and what used to be Marvel's number one villain, Doctor Victor Von Doom, have the same initials. This is but one of the many ways Jack "the King" Kirby influenced Star Wars.
Lucas seems to be using the initials of each Sith Lord to credit his sources. Or perhaps he was playing a game.
Once upon a time in California George Lucas wrote the script for a space fantasy, Star Wars. I suspect that Sergio Leone's relatively obscure movie, Once Upon a Time...The Revolution was a major source for the Star Wars plot. A lot has been written on the sources of Star Wars. This may be a major new source, that has remained undetected, in spite of the many clues that Lucas left.
George Lucas included many things from the Bible and Christianity in both the Indiana Jones series and Star Wars. In the Indiana Jones series they were explicit, in Star Wars the were implied. Lucas may have been pandering or paying homage, but either way the Bible was a source for many things in Star Wars.
Why the Introduction to Star Trek the Original Series said they were on a 5 year mission.
Many elements of Star Trek, The Next Generation's Deanna Troi seems to be based on Wonder Woman.
Dragons are the symbols of both the Targaryens and the Welsh. Are the Targaryens Welsh?
Wonder Woman's golden lasso of truth may come from the Oz books.
Why doesn't Batman kill the Joker and his other villains.
If there were no Batman would his rogues gallery still be rogues.
Why Sheldon wears DC, and not Marvel on The Big Bang Theory
Why smart people like superheroes.
There are lots of black superheroes in the movies but almost no Asians, who is doing better in real life? The liberal trickle down theory does not work any better than the conservative one.
Gal Gadot's slim figure is not a casting error, both the Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel films play down the cheese cake.
Stan Lee started a Universe that Disney paid 4 billion for using advice of English teachers to write well rounded characters. Another example of how quality beats cynicism in the entertainment industry.
On the Internet if you are not the best at what you are doing, what is the point? Sometimes you put a considerable effort into something and find someone else that did it better. Here is a web page on the largest fictional television universes and a link to someone who did it better.
Here is a list of the longest running half hour comedies.
We celebrate all year. In the colder months from Halloween, through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, Superbowl Sunday, Valentines, Mardi Gras, St. Patrick's, and Easter we have holidays based on religion, our nation, and Western Civilization. They are generally not local. In the warmer part of the year we have traditional county and state fairs, and generally newer community celebrations outdoors. But one way or the other the party never ends. Click here for essay on holidays and celebrations.
Some football fans around the world seem disappointed that we do not share their World Cup frenzy. You are better off without us.
I calculated the volume, and estimated the floor space of the first Death Star. There was so much they could have had thirty million small rooms for each of their men on the Death Star. A math professor and text book writer/editor has said he might use this. Perhaps you can use this for your math class.
In Jurassic Park and Jurassic World predatory dinosaurs eat people, but would they really do that? After all large mammal predators and sharks normally do not.
Sandra Bullock's split from Jessie James, we call them bad boys for a reason.
Chris Pratt has been accused of attending an anti-gay church This is guilt by association carried to an extreme.
Why was Gal Gadot, a woman with small breasts, cast as Wonder Woman.
City, Town, Village, Hamlet, where do these words come from and how big are they. This is a very popular page.
European titles of royalty and nobility explained. This is my most popular page.
Why is the American capital called Washington D.C..
Why are Yankees called Americans
King of Japan, not Emperor, Application of the web page linked to above to Japan.
Pants vs. Trousers in England and America
Where was the eastern border of the Wild West.
Here is a link to my contact information..
AM radio reception Tips Probably the most extensive collection of tips on the Internet and one of the most popular.
