by admin | May 4, 2025 | TV & Beyond Articles
his idea for “Babylon 5” to Paramount, hoping the studio would produce it and turn it into a full-blown sci-fi show. He presented Paramount with a series bible, character bios, artwork, and even 22 brief story ideas that he intended to write for the show. The series was set in the mid-23rd century aboard a space station that was located in a neutral part of space. Many aliens would pass through, and the show’s main characters, part of a peacekeeping military-like organization, had to tackle all the natural intrigue of being in that position. Paramount turned down “Babylon 5,” but Straczynski ended up selling his pitch to Warner Bros. a few years later.
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In a suspicious piece of timing, though, Paramount announced — only two months after “Babylon 5” was announced — that it would be producing “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” a series that was also set aboard a numbered space station and that also saw many aliens visiting a beleaguered outpost overseen by a peacekeeping military-like organization. Straczynski has remarked (in a post on his website) that “Deep Space Nine” creators Rick Berman and Michael Piller likely didn’t see his “Babylon 5” materials, but he suspected that some of his ideas were, nonetheless, used to develop that “Star Trek” TV show. The tensions between Straczynski and Paramount remained palpable for years.
This context is important to know when talking about “Star Trek: Re-Boot the Universe,” a proposed 14-page “Star Trek” treatment that Straczynski once cobbled together with Bryce Zabel, the creator of the sci-fi series “Dark Skies.” In 2004, when “Star Trek: Enterprise” was on the air and the 2009 “Star Trek” reboot was just a glimmer in J.J.Abrams’ eye, Straczynski and Zabel idly hammered out their ideas.
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Weirdly, the eventual 2009 reboot also resembled Straczynski’s idea. Zabel talked about said reboot in “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J.J. Abrams,” edited by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross.
J. Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel thought up a young Kirk story before Abrams’ Star Trek hit theaters
Paramount
“Star Trek: Re-Boot the Universe” was actually the result of Straczynski and Zabel trying to distract themselves from brainstorming for a joint TV series they were making called “Cult.” It seems that the pair were idly discussing the “Star Trek” franchise and where it was in 2004. The “Star Trek” property, it should be recalled, was in a pretty sorry state at that time. It had only just experienced a huge bomb with “Star Trek: Nemesis” and was about to run out the clock on “Star Trek: Enterprise,” the only “Star Trek” series on the air. It looked like the franchise was done for, and Zabel and Straczynski knew it. Thus, they figured the only way forward for the property was a reboot. Familiar characters could be retained, but the story had to be started afresh. As Zabel recalled:
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“We started talking about the state of the ‘Trek’ universe. […] Before we could stop ourselves, we banged out a 14-page treatment […] I seem to recall having lunch at Art’s Deli and our conversation veering off into the ‘Trek’ situation. The take we came up with included using the original characters, but not as young officers at Starfleet Academy.”
(Art’s Deli is still standing in Studio City, California, if you want to go.)
But Zabel and Straczynski were on to something. They knew that the adventures of a young Captain Kirk, a young Spock, and a young Dr. McCoy would be the only way to grab audiences again. Yet another original series with all-new characters would only attract the attention of an already-dwindling audience of Trekkies. The mainstream needed to be re-introduced to the familiar.
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Which, of course, is what Abrams did.
Abrams’ Star Trek has a fair amount in common with the 2004 reboot pitch
Paramount
Zabel continued with his ideas, noting that the new “Star Trek” film would need to be a reboot — that is, a separate entity from the continuity that came before it. As he put it:
“We wanted to do what they would do in the world of comics: create a separate universe for all the past TV and film ‘Trek’ continuity in order to free ourselves creatively so we could embrace the good stuff, banish the bad, and try some new things. In our reboot we wanted to start over, use Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and others in a powerful new origin story about what it was that bonded them in such strong friendship and show them off as you’d never seen them before. It was, admittedly, pretty audacious.”
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It should be noted that Zabel and Straczynski never wrote a script, nor did they advance the project beyond their 14-page treatment. They did, however, feel it was good enough to pitch to Paramount. Sadly, they were turned away at the door, as Abrams had beaten them to the punch. It seems that Abrams was already developing his “Star Trek” reboot when Staczynski and Zabel were working on theirs. The fact that they were both about the young Kirk and the early days of his relationships with Spock and McCoy seemed to be a complete coincidence.
So, while it might sound like this is another case of Paramount potentially lifting some of J. Michael Straczynski’s ideas for a new “Star Trek” project, it seems unlikely. Thanks to the “Deep Space Nine” debacle, though, some “Babylon 5” fans may still be suspicious.
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More recently, “Star Trek” has revisited the “young Kirk” idea again thanks to his inclusion on “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” a series set only a few years before the original “Star Trek” TV show. Paul Wesley plays the new young Kirk, while Ethan Peck plays the new young Spock.
by admin | May 4, 2025 | TV & Beyond Articles
the long-running Adult Swim series “The Venture Bros.” The series, created by Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, started as a riff on old Hanna Barbera shows like “Johnny Quest,” following adult super-scientist Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture (James Urbaniak) as he tries to escape the shadow of his genius father and child stardom as a boy adventurer. Along with his bodyguard, the turbo-competent Brock Samson (Patrick Warburton), he’s also trying to raise his sons, Hank (Chris McCulloch) and Dean (Michael Sinterniklaas), who are hilariously earnest and sweet and disaster-prone. They faced off against Rusty’s nemesis, the Monarch (McCulloch), along with various other villains from the Guild of Calamitous Intent, for seven seasons before being pretty abruptly cancelled, leaving them with a pretty unsatisfying ending.
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In an interview with NPR, Hammer shared his feelings on the “ending” they were left with following the cancellation, which saw Hank leaving the family to go find himself out in the world. It was a perfect cliffhanger, but not the right kind of ending for a show with as much heart and focus on family as “The Venture Bros.” and Hammer explained why it felt so bitter.
Despite its acerbic humor, Venture Bros. had a huge heart
Cartoon Network
Hammer explained that the open ending was a bummer that didn’t vibe with the show’s themes, especially since Hank was often the heart of the Venture family:
“We would never end the show with one of our characters going away. We have a character walking away from the Venture family, which is not the way Jackson and I think of the Ventures. There is love and family at the core of all this, and yes [it’s] dysfunctional … but love and family is a deep part of our show. And to have somebody flip his gears and just go off in search for himself … that’s not the kind of ending we would ever write. That doesn’t feel good to me.”
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Thankfully, the Adult Swim teamed up with Max (they’re all owned by Warner Bros.) to stream some original movie follow-ups to beloved Adult Swim shows, including “The Venture Bros.,” so fans (and the show’s creators) got a much better ending than the one that we were originally stuck with following season 7. The movie, “The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart,” gives fans of the show as perfect an ending as a show can get, and with a show as wonderful as “The Venture Bros.,” that’s some seriously high praise. If you’ve never seen “The Venture Bros.,” get on that, because it’s an incredible ride with a perfect ending … even if fans had to wait a little bit.
by admin | May 4, 2025 | TV & Beyond Articles
as the biggest bomb of 2024, “Borderlands,” but in the wake of “Minecraft” claiming two of the biggest box office weekends of 2025 and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” becoming one of the 20 biggest films ever, video games look to be the next IP ripe for plundering.
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For a long time, of course, things mostly worked the other way: Hollywood would provide the IP and video game developers would do their best with the license. But for the most part, it seemed as though adapting successful films into video games was tough business. There have been so many awful games based on successful movies that fans mostly just accepted that such games were going to be awful.
But there is one game that remains truly infamous for being such an enormous blunder that you could make a decent argument for it constituting patient zero of the bad video game epidemic that followed. That game is “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” for the Atari 2600 console.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was a rushed adaptation
Atari
“E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” has become infamous since its 1982 debut, but is that reputation deserved? Well, it’s complicated. The game designer responsible for “E.T.,” Howard Scott Warshaw, spoke to NPR about his adaptation, explaining that a rushed development was partly to blame for the game’s ignominious reputation. Warshaw actually worked on the very first video game adaptation of a movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” which Spielberg evidently liked and, according to Warshaw, felt was “like watching a movie” itself. As such, it seems the director personally requested Warshaw make a video game adaptation of his next film, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.”
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The only problem was that it took some time for Atari and Spielberg to hammer out the legal side of things. “E.T.” the movie debuted in theaters on June 11, 1982, and was immediately embraced, becoming an instant Spielbergian classic that today maintains a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. But it took until the end of July that year for Spielberg and Atari to reach an agreement. After this, the Atari CEO contacted Warshaw and tasked him with making the game in just five weeks so that the company could release it in time for the Christmas holidays. For whatever reason, the ambitious young developer agreed. “I don’t know exactly what I was full of at the time,” Warshaw told NPR. “But whatever it was, I was overflowing with it, and I believed I could pull it off. I mean, the hubris of it!”
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Warshaw designed the game around a plot point in the movie wherein the titular alien gathered parts to build a communicator that would allow him to “phone home.” According to the developer, Spielberg appeared underwhelmed when he first saw a build of the game, reacting with a glib, “Couldn’t you just do something like Pac-Man?” While those words clearly wounded Warshaw, it turned out that Spielberg was right to suggest a different approach, as “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” turned out to be not just a flop but the gold standard of terrible movie video games.
E.T. is bad, but not as bad as its reputation suggests
Atari
Wonder is at the core of a good Steven Spielberg movie, and “E.T.” is a prime example, perfectly capturing the unrestrained wonder that we’re capable of feeling as children, and encapsulating it in a heartfelt story that is as technically impressive as it is touching. The video game, however, not only failed to match the wonder of the movie, it quickly became known as the worst video game ever made (a reputation it holds to this day) and is one of the biggest commercial failures in video game history. It didn’t help that Atari fell on hard times right around the time “E.T.” debuted, which means a narrative formed that the game single-handedly brought the video game industry to its knees. That is, of course, not accurate, but it’s far from the only spurious element at play in the game’s troubled legacy. Following its release, an urban legend sprang up that Atari buried all their unsold “E.T.” cartridges in a landfill. This turned out to be partly true, when in 2014 investigators found the buried cartridges, though only some of the almost 800,000 games were “E.T.” and it turned out that Atari was just burying unused stock after the closure of its Texas manufacturing plant.
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Still, there’s no doubt the “E.T.” game would have benefitted from following Spielberg’s “Pac Man” emulation idea. The adaptation is not remembered fondly, and it’s not too hard to see why. Part of the problem was the way in which the game used a “wraparound” level design that saw users, playing as the titular extra-terrestrial, start on one screen before traveling through several others only to wind up back where they began. The levels were also dotted with little pits into which E.T. could, and very often did, plummet. All of which is frustrating, but according to Warshaw, that was at least partly the plan. “There’s a difference between frustration and disorientation,” he told NPR. “Video games are all about frustration. It’s okay to frustrate a user. In fact, it’s important to frustrate a user. But you don’t want to disorient the user.”
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Sadly, that’s exactly what “E.T.” did. Critics weren’t too impressed, but as Gamehistory points out, the game’s notorious reputation isn’t entirely indicative of its actual quality or the tenor of the contemporaneous reviews. The site actually gathered several reviews from the time period and found that critics were lukewarm at worst, and neutral at best. Still, Softline readers voted the game the second-worst Atari program of 1983 and modern critics have been much harsher on the “E.T.” leading it to become known as the worst video game adaptation ever — though the legendarily bad “Demolition Man” video game or the mess that was the “Gilligan’s Island” video game surely have strong claims to that unenviable title.
by admin | May 4, 2025 | TV & Beyond Articles
borrowing (quite heavily and without permission) from Akira Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo.”
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The rest of the world immediately ran to imitate that film’s success, and already-profitable Italian Westerns, nicknamed Spaghetti Westerns, continued to proliferate. At the time, a young and upcoming actor name Burt Reynolds was following a similar career arc to Eastwood. He had small parts in mainstream Hollywood movies, and played one of the lead characters on a TV series called “Riverboat.” He, too, would have loved the acclaim of a stylized Italian Western under his belt, and even got advice to that effect from Eastwood himself. The two were friends. Eastwood advised Reynolds to look up a Western director named Sergio, knowing that he did good work.
There was, however, a bit of a mix-up. Reynolds did indeed find an Italian director named Sergio, and he did indeed learn that Sergio had a Western lined up, but it turns out it was the wrong Sergio. Reynolds talked to Sergio Corbucci, the director of “Django,” as well as several peplum films and crime movies. Reynolds agreed to make Corbucci’s Western, assuming that he was the one who made “A Fistful of Dollars.” Reynolds unwittingly agreed to make “Navajo Joe,” a racist Western that, afterwards, the actor long considered one of his worst films. The story is detailed in Howard Hughes’ book “Once Upon A Time in the Italian West: The Filmgoers’ Guide to Spaghetti Westerns.”
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Burt Reynolds plays a Navajo man in Navajo Joe
Dino De Laurtentiis Cinematografica
It seems there was also some chaos on Corbucci’s end of production as well. Reynolds was looking for Sergio Leone, while Corbucci was thinking he’d be able to secure the talents of American star Marlon Brando. Corbucci’s producer, the late (an inimitable) Dino De Laurentiis, gave him a script called “A Dollar a Head,” and promised his director that Brando was already attached. Either De Laurentiis was lying, or Brando dropped out, leaving Corbucci to find a new leading man. He said that Reynolds, hoping to star in a Western anyway, was a suitable replacement because he kind of looked a little bit like Brando.
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The resulting film was “Navajo Joe,” a violent picture about a Navajo man (Reynolds) fighting off a wicked criminal named Duncan (Aldo Sanbrell) and his army of goons in order to protect a small village and get revenge for his village being slaughtered. Navajo Joe wants a dollar a head for every bandit he kills. Yes, the not-at-all Navajo actor Reynolds played a Navajo character. This kind of white-actors-as-nonwhite-characters casting was sadly common in the world of Westerns.
Reynolds is on record in Hughes’ book saying that he hated his costumes in “Navajo Joe,” and that he was directed oddly. He was ordered to deepen his voice, which he felt he didn’t do well, and, weirdly, he was asked to shave his arms. Reynolds also hated his wig, feeling it made him look like Natalie Wood. He later would lambaste the movie, saying that it was “so awful it was only shown in prisons and airplanes because nobody could leave. I killed ten thousand guys, wore a Japanese slingshot and a fright wig.”
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Despite Reynolds’ opinion, some Spaghetti Western enthusiasts still speak highly of the violence and grit in “Navajo Joe.” It also boasts an excellent score from Ennio Morricone, the composer behind Leone’s Westerns.
And all this because Reynolds mixed up his Sergios.
by admin | May 4, 2025 | TV & Beyond Articles
the fun, nostalgic modern “Goosebumps” series) became a cultural phenomenon and shaped kids’ early understanding of horror, that was far from Stine’s only contribution to the genre overall.
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The writer pumped out a frankly unbelievable amount of books aimed at multiple demographics, to the extent that Stephen King himself would go as wild as Jack Torrance were he to compare bibliographies. PBS put the total number of Stine novels at more than 350 in 2024, but other tallies reveal more than 500 books bearing the author’s name. It’s tricky because, despite his protestations, Stine has been accused of using ghostwriters, most notably by publisher Scholastic in a 1999 lawsuit. Either way, the man was and is a writing machine, and in 2004, he churned out one of his more popular non-“Goosebumps” books in “Eye Candy.”
The novel was Stine’s third book aimed at adult audiences and follows Lindy Sampson, a 23-year-old New Yorker who notices that men seem to be intimidated by her beauty. Her roommate suggests she try internet dating and writes a personal ad (because this was very much a pre-dating app age) for her, which proves so successful that Lindy finds herself dating four men at the same time. Unfortunately, things take a turn when she receives a note that reads, “Don’t say no, Lindy. Keep going out with me. I’ll mess you up if you ever say no.” Not exactly a love letter, then, but that’s the kind of note you can expect to get if you happen to be an R. L. Stone protagonist. Of course, this leaves Lindy to figure out which of her suitors is dangerous, so she continues dating them. However, her paranoia quickly builds before a big twist upends the whole ordeal.
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All of that seemed like it might make for a good TV show to MTV, which commissioned a series loosely based on the novel in 2013. While there have been several R. L. Stine movies and TV shows, many of which have been solid, the “Eye Candy” adaptation would, lamentably, prove to be nowhere near as popular as the “Goosebumps” show or even the novel on which it was based. As a result, it was canceled after one season (much like MTV’s controversial “Skins” adaptation).
The Eye Candy pilot looked nothing like the actual show
MTV
TV pilots are often interesting to watch for the way in which they reveal a slightly different version of a show that we might have come to love. The unaired “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” pilot, for instance, is a fascinating glimpse at the now cult classic series before it had figured out all the details. Most interesting was the fact it featured an entirely different actor in the role of Willow Rosenberg, who in the show proper was played by Alyson Hannigan but in the pilot was portrayed by Riff Regan. But even the “Buffy” pilot and its alternate universe version of the final series pales in comparison to the way in which the “Eye Candy” pilot differed from the actual show.
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In 2013, MTV ordered the pilot based on R. L. Stine’s novel from a decade prior. It was produced with Victoria Justice in the lead role of Lindy Sampson and Harvey Guillén as her coworker George Reyes, with the supporting cast rounded out by the likes of Justin Martin, Lilan Bowden, Nico Tortorella, and Olesya Rulin. MTV ultimately ordered the pilot to series, with horror maestro Jason Blum producing, but not before completely overhauling the show. As a result, the debut episode was entirely reshot, with only Justice and Guillén remaining from the original cast. Writer Emmy Grinwis and director Catherine Hardwicke also remained onboard, however, with Blum telling the Television Critics Association in 2015 (via Deadline) that he and the series’ crew designed “Eye Candy” as a way to find “the horror in the mundane.”
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When “Eye Candy” finally premiered in January 2015, it not only looked a whole lot different from the original pilot, but it was also a dramatic departure from R. L. Stine’s source material, having clearly only been loosely based on the book.
Eye Candy was only a loose adaptation that lasted one season
MTV
When the “Eye Candy” TV show finally hit the airwaves after overhauling its original cast, it didn’t exactly prove to be a faithful adaptation of R. L. Stine’s original novel. In the show, Victoria Justice’s Lindy is a reformed hacker who’s just been paroled and celebrates by venturing into the world of online dating, signing up to the app “Flirtual” using the alias “Eye Candy.” Soon, however, she discovers a sinister lurker who has been watching her online profile. Lindy then tries to use her tech skills to track down this mysterious figure, but soon learns that they’re more formidable than she believed. In fact, her stalker turns out to be a serial killer, prompting Lindy and her friends to team up against them while also searching for Lindy’s missing sister, Sara.
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Alongside Justice and Guillén, the series co-starred Casey Deidrick, Kiersey Clemons, and John Garet Stoker, and it was shot on-location in New York City. Again, though, it didn’t fare too well, as MTV canceled “Eye Candy” after just one season. Justice herself confirmed the news via an April 2015 post on Twitter/X, where she wrote, “I wanted you guys to hear it from me first, that the cast and I received news that ‘Eye Candy’ will not be returning for season 2.” The actor went on to praise the show’s cast and crew, reserving a “very special thank you” for Jason Blum and the Blumhouse team. Meanwhile, TVLine reported that the cancellation was simply the result of low ratings.
At the time, MTV was gearing up to launch its “Scream” series, which would ultimately run for three seasons, and “Eye Candy,” with its mediocre ratings, seemingly just wasn’t required. As such, that original cast probably doesn’t feel too bad about being replaced. Would things have been different if the show had hewed closer to the original book or kept its original ensemble in place? It’s impossible to say, but in an age of early 2000s nostalgia (not to mention the fact we generally live in the age of newstalgia), perhaps a direct adaptation might fare better today. If not, there are roughly 500 other R. L. Stine books to choose from.
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by admin | May 4, 2025 | TV & Beyond Articles
recurring character on “The Simpsons” getting killed off for good, the status quo was ultimately restored when his replacement, the almost identically-nicknamed (but much slimmer) Fit Tony, gained so much weight that he looked exactly the same as his late cousin … and subsequently took on his moniker.
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In a 2024 interview with Cracked, Mantegna opened up about how he felt when he learned Fat Tony was going to die of a heart attack upon discovering that Homer (Dan Castellaneta), under the guise of mob crony Nicky Bluepants Altosaxophony (just go with it), is actually an FBI informant. “When I first read that script, I was devastated. I thought, ‘Oh f***, I’m done. Fat Tony’s over.” That was, however, before the actor got to the end of the “Donnie Fatso” script, which explains how Fit Tony takes over from his cousin. “Then he gained some weight and they called him Fit-Fat Tony, but now he’s just Fat Tony,” he continued. “So, I wound up doing the same guy all over again.”
Fat Tony was killed off a second time … well, sort of
Fox
Granted, Fat Tony is nowhere near Kenny McCormick from “South Park” as a character who repeatedly dies in an episode and comes back to life in their next appearance as if nothing happened. He doesn’t hold a candle either to Springfield’s very own Hans Moleman (Dan Castellaneta), who’s been “resurrected” multiple times on “The Simpsons.” But his death in “Donnie Fatso” wasn’t the last time the character in his various iterations got, how shall we say it, “whacked.” In season 33’s two-parter “A Serious Flanders,” Fat Tony and his henchmen are among several recurring characters killed by murderous debt collector Kostas Becker (Brian Cox). (Rich Texan, Disco Stu, and even the ancient and seemingly immortal Mr. Burns also bite the dust in the first part!) These deaths, however, are thankfully non-canonical, as “A Serious Flanders” is a parody of the FX crime drama “Fargo.”
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As a lifelong “Simpsons” fan who’s been more patient than most others with the post-classic era stuff, I didn’t see much sense in killing off the OG Fat Tony in “Donnie Fatso” when the plan all along was to replace him with his “fit” cousin, and for said cousin to stress-eat his way to becoming a doppelganger of the original. There were better ways to parody mob movies, and some of them played out in the episode, including the spot-on nod to the ending of “Goodfellas.” But hey, at least Joe Mantegna remained gracious despite the confusing path his “Simpsons” character took. And Fit Tony becoming Fit-Fat Tony and eventually good old Fat Tony will always be better than that whole Armin Tamzarian/Seymour Skinner business from season 9’s oh-so-polarizing “The Principal and the Pauper.”
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