Category: Misc.

CANCELLED PODCAST CAVALCADE

The way we see here at TVWriter™, anybody who tries is a winner, which means that having the courage to put yourself in a position where y’all can be cancelled makes you, yep, you guessed, WINNERS.

from THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST NETWORK

The Fire and Water Podcast Network opens up its Archives and lets you listen to the shows that didn’t make it. We have stringent standards, you know, and not everything makes it out of committee. Sometimes, we pitch something that gets voted down. Sometimes a pilot is green-lit but not picked up. We might even be a few episodes in before we give up on the idea. Take a peek behind the curtain of the Network and hopefully get some insight into what makes us tick! read article

Gerry Conway on the Live Action ‘Dumbo’ – “Burton’s Revenge”

Live Action Dumbo Can Only Be Tim Burton’s Revenge
by Gerry Conway

After a miserable time at the movies last night, I’ve come to the conclusion that Tim Burton’s grim and joyless “Dumbo” is an auteur triumph.

SPOILERS AHEAD. (Though for this movie, “spoiler” is descriptive as well as a warning label.)

I don’t recommend “Dumbo,” but I admire it. Burton has accomplished something almost startling with this film: he’s made a movie that is about as unsubtle a “f**k you” to both his corporate sponsors and the audience as one could get without actually superimposing “F*CK YOU!” on every frame. Contempt for Disney and for the audience that gobble up the company’s live action remakes of classic animated films oozes from every shot, every scene, and in particular, from the entire second half of the movie. If some films are a love letter, this is hate mail. Tim Burton clearly hates how Disney is exploiting the animated films he cherished as a child, and “Dumbo” is his bitter revenge. read article

Audio Drama: Big Finish Is A Big Deal

by Bob Tinsley

If you’re a Doctor Who fan and you don’t know about Big Finish Productions you are missing out on one of the best things ever. They started with well-loved TV shows and extended their lives with audio fiction.

Big Finish is a British company that has been turning out exceptional quality Doctor Who (and others, more later) audio stories for twenty years. What makes them different is that they use the original actors whenever they can. Their current stable of original doctors includes Tom Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Peter Davison, and Colin Baker. Not only that, they have many of the original companions from the earlier Doctors as well as those above.

In addition they have other shows such as Dark Shadows, Unit, Jaco & Lightfoot (who appeared in The Talons of Weng Chiang, an episode of the Tom Baker/Louise Jameson run), The Prisoner, and Torchwood, among many others. read article

WGAW April 2019 Calendar

If ever there was a busy – and momentous – month at the Writers Guild of America West it’s this one. Here’s what going on, socially and professionally,  this month:

April 2019

Events listed are current at time of publication. Dates and details are subject to change during the month. To see the live calendar, click here. (Member Login required for that, sorry.)

Gerry Conway’s Shocking Feelings about Amazon Prime

by Gerry Conway

If you’re as ancient as I sometimes feel I am, you’ll remember the early days of VHS home video rentals– Mom and Pop local stores, pre-Blockbuster.

In that prehistoric era before the concept of “sell through” (meaning, “making VHS tapes affordable enough for families to purchase), local video rental shops like the one in “Clerks” would buy a handful of popular studio titles, which were ridiculously expensive at $99 a pop (in early 1980s dollars) and filled the rest of their shelf space with whatever cheap crap they could dig up. read article