Voices From Krypton

THOUGHTS OF "ACTION"

The court ruling this week that the estate of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel is entitled to the domestic copyright of Superman as he appears in Action Comics #1 (and a portion of profits from domestic Superman merchandise from 1999 on), seems like a significant victory for the Siegel family, though what it all really means is something that will likely unfold in the weeks and months to come.
   What is interesting is the fact that based on a variety of forums, the response from fans has been pretty much split down the middle. While some are applauding the court ruling, feeling that the Jerry Siegel has posthumously gotten what he and co-creator Joe Shuster deeply deserved, others feel that the ruling is ridiculous; that Siegel and Shuster signed away their rights and neither they nor their families are entitled to anything.
   I just want to make a quick point here. Yes, while it's true that Siegel and Shuster signed a work for hire agreement and LEGALLY transferred their rights to DC, once the Superman character became a phenomenon (which pretty much happened from the moment it was introduced to the public), with DC and, subsequently, Warner Brothers making millions turned billions of dollars on the character, there should have been a MORAL obligation on the company's part to provide financial restitution to Siegel and Shuster.
   There are some who claim that DC/Warners HAS done what's right, beginning in the 1970s when they restored "created by" credit to the duo and started paying $20,000 (eventually $30,000) a year to each of them. While commendable, the important thing to not allow the passage of time to cloud is the fact that the ONLY reason Siegel and Shuster got anything was because Superman: The Movie was being released in 1978. Neal Adams had picked up the Siegel and Shuster cause and was embarassing Warners and DC by going public with the financial plight of Superman's creators, who were fairly destitute. This agreement was "shut up and go away" money, there's no doubt about that.
   To argue that Siegel and Shuster don't deserve anything financially is -- and there's just no way to escape this -- wrong. It's like TV stars from the 1950s and '60s who, for the most part, had terrible residual deals that entitled them to payments on up to, I believe, five reruns or so. Well if you're the cast of Star Trek, for example, and your show is run five to seven nights a week on television stations across the country and around the world for the past near-30 years (since it began in syndication), the studio (in this case Paramount) is raking in hundreds of millions of dollars, while if you're William Shatner you're doing nude scenes with Angie Dickinson in Big Bad Mama or if you're Gene Roddenberry, you're doing college lecture tours and conventions just to pull in a few extra bucks. The same is true for the cast and crew of virtually every other TV show made during that era.
   The bottom line is that at this point nothing can change the lives that Siegel and Shuster were forced to live, but on some level this legal ruling (which will no doubt be appealed by Warner Bros.) has got to be seen as a moral victory for all of the creators of the world who have sat by helplessly while others have reaped the benefits of their imagination. -- Edward Gross

THE HISTORY OF STAR TREK, PART 1: THE DESILU CONNECTION; AN INTERVIEW WITH OSCAR KATZ

With all eyes focused forward to the release of JJ Abrams' 2009 take on Star Trek, it seems like a good time to go back to the franchise's beginnings. Over the next several months, Voices From Krypton will offer a wide variety of audio interviews chronicling Star Trek's long history. We kick things off with an interview with the late Oscar Katz, the former Desilu executive who recognized the talent of Gene Roddenberry in general, and the potential of Star Trek in particular, and who played a significant role in convincing Lucille Ball and the Desilu board of directors to take a chance on the concept.

LOOK FOR THE HISTORY OF STAR TREK, PART II ON MONDAY MARCH 31ST

FROM THE WATCHTOWER

The big news about the Justice League movie -- actually, the only real news about the Justice League movie -- is that the production may be moving from Australia to either New Zealand or Canada due to Australia's Film Finance Corporation deciding that the production would not meet the standards of being issued a significant tax rebate because it's not Australian enough (which is likely the reason that the title was changed from Justice League of America to the dopey Justice League: Mortal).
   "Babe wasn't an Australian story, Happy Feet is not an Australian story, Moulin Rouge is not an Australian story," Miller told the media. "That kind of thinking dooms us to make very, very msall films that not even Australians want to see. You need the gravitational pull of these big blockbusters to sustain production, to build the talent pool. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Australian film industry is being frittered away because of very lazy thinking. If that's going to be the final decision, they're throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars of investment that the rest of the world is competing for and, much more significantly, highly skilled creative jobs. It feels to me like I'm not fighting for this film. I'm fighting for the Australian film industry."
   Australia's The Advertiser has its own theory: "He could be fighting for his own job with rumours he was hired partly because of his ability to deliver the rebate. If so, his head could be on the chopping block along with the rest of the B-list cast."

MEDIA GEEK: JLA BABIES

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BIG BANG THEORY: MEET JIM PARSONS & SHELDON COOPER

NOTE: The Big Bang Theory returns to CBS tonight at its new time, 8PM.

JIM PARSONS' television credits include a recurring role in the series "Judging Amy," on CBS and a guest starring appearance in "Ed."  His feature film credits include "Garden State," "Heights," "On the Road with Judas," "Gardener of Eden," "10 Items or Less" and "School for Scoundrels."
   Parsons graduated with a BA in theater from the University of Houston, during which time he helped create a not-for-profit theatre company. He acted in productions there including "Endgame," "Guys and Dolls" and "The Balcony."  Parsons loves to play the piano and also enjoys watching sports, especially tennis, baseball and basketball.  He was born and raised in Houston and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. His birth date is March 24.
   SHELDON COOPER, PhD:  Sheldon is Leonard's best friend, roommate, and colleague, who appears to have Autism spectrum disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. He's a physicist like Leonard and also keeps a whiteboard in the living room for scientific theories and has a Master's degree and 2 PhDs. Unlike Leonard, he embraces his genius fully and doesn't mind sharing details of his life that Leonard finds embarrassing, such as their main weekend activity being Klingon Boggle tournaments until 1 AM.
   It's insinuated that Sheldon's genius is concentrated fully on science and that his IQ is higher than Leonard's; he tends to question Leonard's theories and has a larger background full of behavior common to child prodigies. When he was a child, he conducted experiments involving the height of stairs and deduced that if a step on a staircase is 2 millimeters off or more, a person is always likely to trip (this resulted in his father breaking his clavicle).
   At age 14, he dabbled in lasers and this resulted in his being sent to boarding school; it is heavily implied in a CBS promotional clip that the government took Sheldon's laser away and hushed the college professor who witnessed the experiment. Sheldon graduated high school very early; he asks Penny, in complete disbelief, "It took you four years to get through high school?!" He told Penny he was eleven years old when he was going to college. Sheldon also has common qualities associated with being a prodigy, such as an inflated ego, social ineptness, and an inability to identify emotionally with others.
   He fails to understand not only the simplest sarcastic jokes made by Leonard, but also regards Penny's sadness over her break up with blatant disgust. That isn't to say Sheldon doesn't have a conscience; he's simply more likely to do what's scientifically ethical (not donate to a "high IQ sperm bank" because his sperm won't guarantee high IQ offspring) rather than morally and socially ethical (break into Penny's home to organize her things). Sheldon also remains unswayed by Penny's beauty. He sneaks in during the night and cleans it up because he can't stand being in the same hallway with something so disastrous. Also, he refuses to sit anywhere other than his designated spot on the couch. He is calculating and cynical, believing that Leonard is only setting himself up for disappointment as he continues to crush on Penny.

GEORGE LUCAS PREVIEWS "CLONE WARS"

BIG BANG THEORY: MEET JOHNNY GALECKI & LEONARD HOFSTADTER, P.H.D.

JOHNNY GALECKI (who plays Leonard Hofstadter  on The Big Bang Theory) is best known to television audiences for his role as David in the long-running comedy series "Roseanne," for which he won a Young Artist Award. His television series credits also include a recurring role in "My Boys" and guest appearances in "Hope and Faith" and "My Name is Earl."
   Galecki's feature film credits include  "Crystal," "Bookies," "Vanilla Sky," "Bounce," "Playing Mona Lisa," "The  Opposite of Sex," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," "Suicide Kings" and  "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation." He recently closed the Tony Award-nominated Broadway play "The Little Dog Laughed," for which he received a 2007 Theatre World Award for outstanding Broadway debut.  His other theater credits include "The Drawer Boy" and "Pot Mom," at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, "The Member of the Wedding," for which he was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award and "Galileo."
   Galecki was born in Belgium where his father was stationed while serving in the US Air Force.  He was raised in Chicago, Illinois, and currently lives in Los Angeles.  His birth date is April 30.
   LEONARD HFSTADTER, P.H.D. [according to Wikipedia] "is a physicist from Caltech who rooms with Sheldon in their apartment building, in which the elevator always seems to be out of order. He keeps a whiteboard in their living room on which he works on theoretical physics. While Sheldon's genius seems to be focused primarily in math and science, Leonard is insinuated to be proficient in literature and history as well as the sciences; he is able to solve a crossword puzzle in seconds, the answers being mostly literature based, e.g.Vladimir Nabokov.   It is also insinuated that Leonard's IQ is not as high as Sheldon's; Sheldon scoffs at Leonard's whiteboard theories as common enough to be "on the wall of any men's room at MIT."  Leonard feels at home with his genius colleagues, but wants more socially. He is reluctant to let Penny know about his recreational activities (such as Klingon Boggle) and is probably reluctant to even partake in such activities in the first place, because although he secretly likes them, he doesn't like to be seen as a nerd.
   He also dislikes his friends' habit of rattling off different trivial facts, something to which all the other geniuses enjoy both listening and participating. Sweet but sarcastic, Leonard also seems to be the most well-adjusted one of the group; he is quick to try new things apart from his nerd friends and, between Sheldon and him, is the only one who feels that he "should do something" when Penny begins to recount her recent breakup. Despite his attempts to reject his nerd status, he certainly is one, with his "Star Wars"  hygiene products and his ability to blurt out the wrong things in front of women, such as when he's trying to invite Penny to lunch and mentions that curry is a natural laxative. He falls head over heels for Penny within seconds of spotting her and while at first it seems like lust rather than love, by the end of the pilot episode he has already announced to Sheldon, "our babies will be smart and beautiful." Sheldon, however, is quick to add, "not to mention imaginary."

THE BIG BANG THEORY

Granted that it's not sci-fi or necessarily genre-related, but if there is any non-genre show on television that would appeal to fans it is undoubtedly CBS' The Big Bang Theory, which the network describes as follows:
   "Leonard and Sheldon are brilliant physicists, the kind of 'beautiful minds' that understand how the universe works. But none of that genius helps them interact with people, especially women. All this begins to change when a free-spirited beauty named Penny moves in next door. Sheldon, Leonard's roommate, is quite content spending his nights playing Klingon Boggle with their socially dysfunctional friends, fellow CalTech scientists Wolowitz and Koothrappali. However, Leonard sees in Penny a whole new universe of possibilities... including love."
   Considering where our interests lie, and the fact that our mascot is Media Geek, it seems entirely appropriate that we should start to cover The Big Bang Theory in depth. In the future, look for cast profiles, episode reviews, news updates, interviews and more. To kick things off properly, there's a clip in which Superman is the topic at hand.

EXCLUSIVE: THIS WEEK ON "SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN" WITH GREG WEISMAN

This Saturday's episode of Spectacular Spider-Man ("Natural Selection") introduces the Lizard as Spidey goes up against him for the first time. In this exclusive feature of Voices From Krypton, Greg Weisman previews the episode and also reveals plans for the DVD release of the episodes.

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THIS WEEK ON LEGION OF SUPERHEROES... WITH JAMES TUCKER

With only four more episodes of Legion of Superheroes to go, Voices From Krypton will offer weekly behind the scenes update on the show with producer James Tucker. In this week's episode, "Trials," the evil sorcerer Mordru has attacked the magical planet of Zarok, forcing the young and immature wizard Zyx to turn to the Legion for help.  While the Legion battles Mordru, Zyx must restore his own powers by passing a series of trials designed to prove his worth as a wizard. He'll have Kell-El along to assist. "Trials" was written by Steven Melching and directed by James Tucker.

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