In browsing the Aurora bookmobile recently, Candace Fleming's 2009 biography for young readers, The Great and Only Barnum, caught my eye. I took it home. The legendary showman Phineas Taylor Barnum is an intriguing figure.

It's a pretty good read so far. But the very best page is the first one.


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After 86 years, the final Little Orphan Annie strip will appear on Sunday.

After 39 years, the final Doctor Demento Show will be broadcast this weekend.

Not a good weekend for American institutions.

You may know that I am fond of a performer I saw often in my childhood: The Banana Man.

He appeared from time to time on Captain Kangaroo, the long-running morning show. I have been frustrated to find that most of my contemporaries don't remember him. He had a very strange act that is hard to describe ( Read more... )

I see that animation emperor Joseph Barbera has died. Fans of animation history may be interested in extensive 1997 interview with Barbera on Google Video. (The link is to the first of seven installments, totaling hours of memories ( Read more... )

I had not heard of Famelab before, but I think a nationwide contest to find the best explainers of science is a cool idea. If they had it in my own nation, maybe I'd audition!

Podcasts here.(For that matter, there are a number of city "science festivals" in the UK-- the finals event was part of the Cheltenham Science Festival-- but none I'm aware ( Read more... )

Peculiar thing showed up on C-SPAN this weekend: cast and producers of the TV series 24 on stage at the Heritage Foundation. Three producer-writers, three actors, two tank-thinkers, moderated (I hope he won't be offended if I use that word) by Rush Limbaugh. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, gave an introductory talk and ( Read more... )

I have seen a cartoon called Baby Einstein in which a gang of kids regularly introduces viewers to culture in the form of music, art, and science. I gather there is a whole line of products for preschoolers under the Baby Einstein brand.

Wouldn't it have been better to call this "The Little Pascals?"

Remember when I posted about the 1923 Fleischer animated film explaining special relativity?

According to Richard Godwin, his ever-eclectic company Apogee Books is coming out with an edition of Garrett P. Serviss's The Einstein Theory of Relativity. It comes with a DVD that includes not only the animated relativity movie, but also the Fleischer ( Read more... )

I have only now learned of The Elvis Camera.

I wish I'd thought of this.


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Winsor McCay made an animated film of The Sinking of the Lusitania in 1918.

Max Fleischer and his studio made The Einstein Theory of Relativity (with Garrett P. Serviss!) and the controversial Darwin's Theory of Evolution in 1923.

Have you seen these? I am intrigued.