Yeah, Bugs Meany sounds familiar. I think whoopee caps had a reputation as being something worn by tough or disreputable kids. I think Jughead was originally meant to be sort of a street punk, or whatever the 1940s equivalent was, but got softened later on.

“Cardboard?” Where did that come from? Jughead’s whoopee cap was a common type of children’s headgear in the ‘40s and ‘50s, usually made from an old fedora turned inside out and with its brim cut into a crown shape. It’s the same kind of hat Goober Pyle wore on The Andy Griffith Show (since they were also popular with…

So it’s a tribble with a tail.

Interesting to note that there’s nothing but bare ground underneath the doghouse. I always kind of figured the stuff inside like the pool table and the rec room and so forth was in some underground levels, that the surface doghouse was just the tip of the iceberg — but there’s nothing under it but dirt. Which proves…

The episode was written by Gretchen Berg & Aaron Harberts & Craig Sweeny, from a story by Bryan Fuller, Berg, & Harberts. Meyer has no writing credit on the episode. He apparently wrote a draft of the second episode, but the aired version didn’t credit him. Meyer isn’t running the show; his credit is “Consulting…

This season is a single 15-chapter novel for television. Maybe wait until you’ve finished the story before you decide whether the first two chapters were necessary.

I was joking.

Aha, you’ve solved it! That must be why Spock never mentioned her! He never forgave her for swiping his book!

On the contrary, the events of the prologue set everything in motion — the war, Burnham’s guilt, the other characters’ mistrust of her, Lorca’s interest in recruiting her. And two of Burnham’s Shenzhou crewmates, Saru and Kayla Detmer, are with her on Discovery.

Even better, Burnham reciting Alice is a deep Trek continuity nod. The fact that Amanda was fond of Lewis Carroll and read the Alice books to her offspring was established in The Animated Series: “Once Upon a Planet” by Len Janson & Chuck Menville, when Kirk expressed surprise that Spock was familiar with the…

I can tolerate poor science in movies that aren’t making any pretense of being scientific. But this was supposedly a movie specifically about people doing scientific experimentation, but their methodology was so profoundly in opposition to everything that defines the scientific method that it was a blatant…

Sounds like it’s a variant on the premise FOX’s A.P.B. used last season, with a Tony Stark-esque billionaire using a crowdsourcing app and other high-tech inventions to revolutionize police work. I thought that show was kind of fun, but it didn’t delve too deeply into the ethical questions either.

Sounds like the remake has the same conceptual problem that bugged me about the original: namely, the fact that this “experiment” in no way constitutes valid science. Science relies on repeatability and external verification. The experimental method is specifically about taking subjective perception out of the…

John Carradine did guest star as a recurring character, the Reverend Serenity Johnson, in three episodes of Kung Fu. Also David Carradine’s half-brothers Bruce, Robert, and Keith all guest-starred too, with Keith playing the teenage Caine in flashbacks.

He lost it to David Carradine. John Carradine was David’s father (as well as Keith and Robert Carradine’s father) and was 66 years old when Kung Fu began.

Hasn’t Godzilla trashed Shinjuku at least three times? (The Return of Godzilla, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, and Godzilla 2000: Millennium.)

Where did I say “good?” My whole point is that he has the worst imaginable sense of humor, the kind that only finds amusement in cruelty. I’m trying to say that he’s even worse than you said he was, so please stop reacting as if I’m somehow defending him.

Trump has the values of Monty Burns combined with the intellect and social skills of Homer Simpson. He’s like that Halloween episode where Burns’s head was grafted onto Homer’s body.

That was exactly my point. Taking pleasure in others’ pain is sadism. I thought that was implicit.

Trump isn’t utterly humorless. We’ve seen consistently that there’s exactly one thing he finds amusing: the misfortune and suffering of others. He’s humorless about himself, but he revels in seeing others hurt and demeaned.