Lend a hand

I've added a link to some Katrina-related charities that folks can make donations to in the links on the right.

With all of the misery going on down there, cracking wise about pop culture seemed a little lame. But updates will resume shortly.

In the meantime, here's where you can find tons of charities that could use your help.

Wow.

I just read that there are plans for a movie version of Battle of the Network Stars.

The movie's plot, the article says, will "revolve around a disgraced network exec who must claw his way back to respectability by winning the contest."

I'm excited about this movie for one reason: to promote it, it's a good chance that a DVD release of the old BotNS shows could hit the shelves.

I hope. I don't know if there'd be a lot of rights clearance issues to solve before putting it out on disc, but if they do, I'd be willing to pick it up.

I haven't watched The Battle of the Network Reality Stars yet, but I think I Tivo'd one of them.

I saw a handful of the original shows on Trio a year or two ago, and it surprised me exactly how much I'd remembered from watching them as a kid.

One of the most vivid memories I had of the show was seeing Dallas' Charlene Tilton in the dunking booth. I was only 4 or 5 when I saw it, so I thought I'd pretty much hallucinated the image, but after seeing the show again, I found that I was right.

And now I've got it on video. W00t!

And speaking of gratuitous, in another episode, there's a profile on Lynda Carter that shows her keeping in shape for her role on Wonder Woman by JUMPING ON A TRAMPOLINE.

Also, now in my video collection.

These kinds of things are undoubtedly what lead to Saturday Night Live's parody commercial for The Network Battle of the T's and A's.

The thing I think is really interesting is not so much seeing stars before they were really famous, although that's cool (David Letterman on Battle?). I like seeing the "Who is that?" actors and actresses. I have a good memory for TV shows of the 70s and 80s, but even I had no idea who some of these people were.

If this movie actually gets made, I have no idea. But if it does, can a big-screen version of Circus of the Stars be far behind?

(via TV Tattle)

This just occurred to me: There has been a Richard Hatch on both the original Stars and the Reality Stars. One from Battlestar Galactica (although he might've been on The Streets of San Francisco at the time) and one from Survivor. Eerie, huh?

You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older...

Started up the old laptop today and saw that the date was Jan. 1, 1601. It's old, but I had no idea...

Hail to the King, baby

I saw this morning at Dial B for Blog that Jack "The King" Kirby, legendary comic creator, was born on this day in 1917. His contributions to the world of comic books are immense.

One of the things that always blew me away about him was the machinery you'd see on the pages. Impossible-looking things that looked alien and futuristic.

He also designed Herbie the Robot for the 1978 Fantastic Four cartoon, which is one of the few nice things I can say about Herbie.

Out of all the things he did, the first comic I bought with my own money that had Jack Kirby artwork was Super Powers #4 (of a 5-part mini-series that tied in with the then-current line of Kenner action figures). And even then it was just the cover.

Wotta revolting development.