For those of us who were teenagers in 1977, it was simply called Star Wars. I went with my buddy Jay and his little brother Lee. Jay’s mom driving the family Ford LTD station wagon, dropped us off at the General Cinema I & II at the Six Flags Mall in Arlington, Texas. We each paid two dollars for afternoon matinee…

As a former streetcar motorman in Dallas, I can testify that streetcars, both modern and antique, occupy a gray area between practicality and urban vanity. On weekday mornings and afternoons we averaged only a fraction of the ridership we had on weekends. The vast majority of riders did not ride to destinations,…

Battlestar Galactica premiered in the fall of 1978, not 1976. ABC television wanted to capitalize on the runaway success of Star Wars which came out in summer of 77 and they hired Glen Larson to develop a shoot-em-up-sci-fi romp of their own. They even went as far as hiring FX guru John Dykestra of Industrial Light…