Year: 2003

A friend of mine wrote and asked me if I remember the ranks from the old Merry Marvel Marching Society, and how one attained them.

My recollection is patchy. I know there was Fearless Face Fronter and Permanent Marvelite Maximus. But there were about four others, and I don’t recall the order or what qualified you.

Anyone out there recall?

And before you post, make sure no one else already answered, so we don’t have twenty entries saying the same thing.

Thanks.

PAD

Off switches on their televisions.

Or channel changers.

Here’s a fact: All the people on this board currently discussing the yanked Ronald Reagan biopic? They haven’t seen it. Everyone’s depending upon what other people have said. Biopics, movies about real events…their accuracy is routinely challenged. People see it and then decide for themselves.

But not in the case of Ronald Reagan.

Don’t let yourself get buffaloed into thinking this incident is anything other than just another case of someone else deciding on your behalf what you should be allowed to see or not see. They’ve come to the conclusion the biopic is inaccurate. But they don’t trust *you* to come to that conclusion independently. They figure, y’know, you’re not as smart as they are, or clever, or knowledgeable.

So CBS, which just last Sunday was laughing over how silly it was that they dumped the Smothers Brothers because they jabbed at the establishment, did it again. They bowed to conservative pressure, just as Warner Bros. did when the Nixon White House insisted that the song “Cool Considerate Men” be excised from “1776” because it made conservatives look bad. The CBS eye blinked.

And this business that James Brolin shouldn’t have been cast because of his *political beliefs*? Oh my God. That is the single dumbest casting debate I’ve heard since the notion that the casting of Vanessa Redgrave as a concentration camp resident in “Playing For Time” was an insult to Jews because she harshly criticized Israel. I mean, are we *really* back to that now? Politicizing casting? Paging Joe McCarthy. Joe McCarthy, come to the Senate, please.

It’s not just that it’s about Reagan. I’d have just as much contempt for them if they bagged a Clinton/Lewinsky biopic because liberals squawked (which, by the way, we all know they wouldn’t.)

PAD

What do you regular readers want on this site? Pretty logos for Cowboy Pete’s TV Roundup? A forced migration to Movable Type so you can get trackbacks? More guest posts by me, to cover the lag times between Peter’s posts, or less comments from me all together? Any other particular suggestions for site improvements? What? Whaaat?

(Why no, this has nothing to do with learning Mark Evanier got over $1000 in tips over three days. Why do you ask?)

We were catching up with that CBS 75th anniversary special, and I was fascinated by when they discussed the Orson Welles “War of the Worlds.” At the time, law suits were filed that costs CBS milions of dollar.s I can’t help but think, though, that if it occurred in the modern era, then–inflation notwithstanding) the judgment might be well into the billions. It might even have drven CBS out of business altogether, because absolutely everybody and his brother who was distraught or willing to say they were would have been after CBS brass.

PAD

Just turned in the manuscript for the novelization of “Spider-Man 2: In Arm’s Way.” Which isn’t actually the title, but it kind of amuses me. Got delayed by last minute script changes. However, unlike previous occasions on other novelizations where 11th Hour alterations came in, these were all improvements. Several lengthy and frankly painful speeches went away, and the climactic Spidey/Doc Ock face-off plays far more smoothly. So although they took time to do, it’s the sort of changes I really don’t mind making.

By the way, for those of you who have seen the Spidey II teaser posters and either couldn’t tell or didn’t notice it, that’s Doc Ock reflected in the eyepiece of Spidey’s mask.

PAD

If anyone is interested in seeing how Caroline, the Cutest Baby in the World (TM) spent Halloween, swing by the new page on her mommy’s website at…

http://homepage.mac.com/kathodavid/PhotoAlbum6.html

Thrill to Caroline hanging in the pumpkin patch with her big sister, Ariel, and being carted away in a wheelbarrow (so that when she gets old enough to ask where she came from, we can say, “The pumpkin patch, and here’s the pictures to prove it.) “Awe” to Caroline in her Stitch costume, cavorting at Mommy and Me or just looking thoughtful as she contemplates a variety of vengeance schemes upon the people who dressed her up this way.

PAD