Thursday, October 15, 2009

Thursday Odds & Ends: Greatest American Hero, vampires, Monty Python, Latin phrases and your brain on books

+ More good news for Douglas Adams' fans: it sounds like the BBC is creating a TV dramedy based on the author's Dirk Gently detective novels. I'm still catching up on the whole "Hitchhiker's Guide" thing, so I've no idea if this is a "wahoo!" moment or an "eh" moment, but here it is nonetheless!

+ Apparently, Nathan Fillion would like to revive the 1980s classic TV series, "The Greatest American Hero." Which, for all my bitching and moaning about the lack of original ideas out there, is one thing I would absolutely love to see someday. I adored that show as a kid and I adore looking at Nathan Fillion as an adult, so it's a win-win, right?

+ Would you like to participate in the democratic process today? Then why not vote on vampires? The Paley Center is running a poll on favorite TV vampires. So far, Spike is running away with it but it looks like those "True Blood" boys could make up some (unhallowed) ground.

+ I kind of love this list on "10 Latin Phrases You Pretend to Understand" because I pretend to understand words I don't understand all the time. (What?)

+ The New York Times has an interesting debate on how the brain responds to e-books, with scientists and academics chiming in with their opinions.

+ Tonight marks the beginning of festivities celebrating the 40th anniversary of Monty Python. All of the remaining Pythons will be gathering in New York's Ziegfeld Theatre this evening for a restrospective, which you can watch live online here. And then on Sunday, ICF launches part one of its six-part documentary, "Monty Python: Almost the Truth," beginning at 9 p.m. EST.

5 comments:

Red said...

On Heroes this week, there was a children's choir at Peter and Emma's hospital singing the theme to "Greatest American Hero." I nearly died laughing.

Roscoe said...

Brandon Tartikoff attempted to revive "Greatest American Hero" on NBC in the late 80s, but the pilot was considered to be a dismal failure.

If you're interested, I believe the revival pilot is part of the DVD set.

The local fishwrapper did an interview with William Katt for their 80s podcast just a couple of months ago. You can listen to the audio here:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/rc4td7

The subject of the revival attempt comes up as well as the cult classic "House" (no, not the Fox series), the "Greatest American Hero" comic books, and Katt's audition for "Star Wars".

Michelle said...

I actually commit the geeky sacrilege of preferring the Dirk Gently books to the Hitchhiker's books, so for me this gets a "woohoo!"

There was a fantastic redition of the Greatest American Hero Theme on and episode of Gilmore Girls. It involved Sebastian Bach.

DropEdge said...

I would TOTALLY watch a remake/revival of The Greatest American Hero whether NF endorsed/revived it or not. My daddy and I used to watch that show together every Saturday afternoon in the 1980s after a couple of hours of local MidSouth wrestling programming. It was campy, corny, and a boatload of awesome. I recently caught about half a season in syndication, and I have to say that William Katt (Whom I was conditioned to accept because he was "Della Street's son" and could therefore do no wrong, according to my crazy-ass mother.) and Connie Sellecca sucked all the balls you remembered them sucking, but Robert Culp was (and will always be) fan-f*ckin'-tastic. If my Pretend Husband Number One (Nathan Fillion) wants to bring back TGAH, then I'm on board. (Hell, who am I kidding? I'm on board if Aaron Spelling's ghost wants to bring back TGAH.)

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