NEW Web Site: Theater X-Net
Featuring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
Weather: Arctic blast -- it was 0 degrees (F) this morning, and the sunshine is bright, but COLD.
Charity Alert: Stay inside some more and let The Hunger Site do your charitable work out there.
Media Watch: I've been researching old television shows for a Web project about the 50's -- seen from a kid's-eye view. It's remarkable how advertising drove the popular media, and still does. What's more remarkable is how the extreme numbers of people who made up the TV audience turned a low-grade derivative medium into America's "King of Culture." Today's Pop Culture phenomenon began with Radio's success a generation before, which owed a lot to live "vaudville" theater and it's international inventory of experienced entertainers who sharpened their skills in front of thousands of paying customers a month. That's just the SHORT version of the story -- any big river has many feeding streams, and I didn't mention movies or literature -- yet.
changing to Clark Kent and back.
Superman was: Inspired by Philip Wylie's pulp Science Fiction novel Gladiator in 1930; Created by teenagers Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster in Ohio; Sold to National Periodical Publications in New York who had been re-packaging newspaper comics, but needed original material for their new "comic books." His success in 1938 was the backbone of this upstart medium; He was re-interpreted on radio, in the newspapers, and in a series of animated cartoons by Fleischer Studios; Cowboy actor Kirk Allyn played him in a black and white chapter-serial, with stunts by Fleischer-style cartoons; National's editor Whitney Ellsworth moved to Los Angeles, overseeing a full-length movie, plus the enduring TV series -- both starring George Reeves who died as the 50's ended.
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