Posts

1. Legacy and Longevity Starting with the most obvious point: the US version ofThe Officewent on fornine seasons (188 episodes)while the UK version hadtwo seasons (12 episodes + two-part Christmas special). Why was the UK version so short? Because creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant had a specific story in mind to tell, and they felt the time was right to close that story after two seasons. The US version had much more time to evolve and flesh out its style, originally starting as a near-copycat of the UK version with a Michael Scott who was far less likable than the one we know by show’s end....

The TMNT Movie, Inspired by the Comics Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesdidn’t start out as a TV phenomenon. Originally, it was a comic book made by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird that heavily satirized theDaredevilcomics of the time. TheTMNTcomics were intended to be a one-shot (with the Shredder being killed in the first issue), but its sudden popularity spawned a toy line and the animated series that became popular the world over....

Origin of the Pokemon Nuzlocke Challenge The PokemonNuzlocke Challenge started on 4chan in 2010. One user named “Nuzlocke” posted a comic that proposed a set of self-imposed rules for playingPokemongames: Nuzlocke’s rules served one purpose: to pretend that every Pokemon that faints has truly died. It’s basically Hardcore Mode for truePokemonfans, making the game much harder by forcing you to use Pokemon that you would never normally use in battle (like Kakuna)....

The Fall and Return of Westerns There isn’t one single reason as to why audiences lost their appetites for Western movies. The overall mood of the era was shifting, and that brought changes in many areas—including cinema. The 1960s and 1970s brought about radical shifts in culture and counter-culture in the United States, punctuated with the rise of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and new filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola. Some say it’s all rooted in the Vietnam War, which taught people that straight-cut morality wasn’t the way of the real world—and straight-cut morality is what Westerns of the era were defined by....