Good lord. Saying that Trump was “speaking plainly” and that he “tells it like it is” doesn’t excuse him, it further indicts him — and Pence along with him. It’s a confession that Trump’s misogynistic statements represent who he truly is, and that Pence doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Trump and Pence…

We did see plenty of alien-built cars in “A Piece of the Action.” They were based on 1930s Earth automobiles, but they were built by the Iotians along with the rest of their Capone-era culture. Kirk’s infamous attempt to drive a “flivver” was an iconic moment in the episode. We also saw Ekosian-built replicas of ‘40s…

Makes sense. “Telephone” is Greek for “distant voice” or “distant sound.” That can apply to a one-way transmission of sound as well as to a two-way — compare to “television,” which is usually one-way even today.

I think you mean “death toll” (i.e. death count), not “death knell” (i.e. a bell rung to announce a death or funeral). “Toll” can be a synonym for “knell” (as in “for whom the bell tolls”), but the version used in “death toll” is from a different root meaning a tax or levy, as in a toll road or bridge.

The ‘66 Futura Batmobile may not have had a roof... or wipers... or side mirrors... but it did have a portable Bat-Lab and remote Batcomputer terminal in the trunk, not to mention a car Batphone. It actually made a pretty decent mobile Batcave, as long as it didn’t rain.

Bigger corporations = bigger problems, as is abundantly clear these days. At least government is answerable to all the voters, not just the shareholders. As I said, what’s needed are checks and balances. Government and the private sector need to balance each other, just as different branches of government need to…

Is that Fred Tatasciore doing the Hulk’s growls?

The real answer is that the original effect was devised in 1977 and every subsequent movie has been overly faithful to it. It would’ve been easy enough to assume R2-D2 just had an inadequate projector, but that’s not the way they went.

It’s odd... I don’t think the figures of Capaldi and Coleman look anything like them, but the Smith figure is instantly recognizable to me. Maybe that’s because he’s got a more rectangular face to begin with.

I used to like Elmo before he let fame go to his head.

Sounds interesting; I like the idea of a more adult take on Digimon. Except I feel we already kinda had that with Digimon Tamers, which is the incarnation I’d really like to see more of.

When I read the book after seeing the movie, I was convinced that it was the same kind of winking satire of fascism, because I could see what I thought was the obvious flaw in the characters’ explanations for why fascism worked: Namely, that they asserted that the system worked without offering any proof that it…

If by “Imperial dress code” you mean “armor so flimsy that it can be easily penetrated by dinky little Ewok arrows that could probably be blocked by a good silk shirt.”

In Japan, comics are entirely mainstream literature, read by people of all ages and equal in prestige to any other storytelling medium. The Japanese have never had the American stigma that comics or animation were just for children.

Also, the side panels make no sense as either solar panels or heat radiators. In order to function, solar panels need to be face-on to a star so they can absorb its light and heat, while heat radiators need to be oriented perpendicularly to the star so they don’t absorb its light and heat. If they’re fixed in a single…

Right — even at its best, the show was always blatantly a commercial for the games. The whole storyline of Tamers revolved around kids playing the collectible card game and video game, and there were product placements galore, like the episode where Renamon and Impmon had a long conversation while standing in front a…

You missed out on Digimon season 3 (Digimon Tamers). It’s the best, smartest incarnation of the franchise. It’s by the same writer as the brilliant Serial Experiments Lain and goes to some startlingly adult and dark places, while also being very funny.

Did “The Player on the Other Side” establish Zorro as the movie they saw that night? I thought Frank Miller introduced that idea.

Holy Gidney and Cloyd, I played that game as a kid! I’d completely forgotten it, but I definitely remember the star, heart, and dollar symbols. I don’t know whether it was the pre- or post-1971 edition. 1971 is about when my earliest memories fall, but I don’t know if the game we had was new or a leftover from before…

About that debut strip, I always figured that the reason Shermy says he hates Charlie Brown is because C.B. walks by without noticing or acknolwedging him, which comes off as antisocial or dismissive. Maybe C.B. wasn’t originally intended to be the butt of the jokes. Although, speaking from my own experience, it could…