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Post by berkley on Feb 18, 2020 15:39:24 GMT -5
I remember the Avengers issue quite well (though from one of the reprint titles) but I've never read that Hulk so thank you for that link! I get to finish the story decades after I read part one... talk about a time shift! Still seems weird that Ellison (like Stevens) is gone; such a presence! He did guest lectures all around the place at one time if that might count as the general public. I know at least one person who only knows who he is because he spoke at his school in the early '80s and provoked the minds of the assemblage very memorably. Definitely one of the best Hulk stories of all time - one of the few I still remember fondly as a story apart from the great artwork by Trimpe, as my attitude towards the character has soured over the decades.
I remember seeing Ellison on Canadian talk show 90 Minutes Live in the late 70s: hilariously, he got mad at host Peter Gzowski for calling him "the angry young man of science fiction" in his intro!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,627
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Post by Confessor on Feb 18, 2020 15:49:18 GMT -5
The idea that the majority of the general public know who Gene Roddenberry or Harlan Ellison are -- let alone know the title of a 50+ year old Star Trek episode -- is utterly laughable. All the general public likely know about the original Star Trek is the name of the show, the characters Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock (and most would probably call him Dr. Spock anyway), and the catchphrase "Beam me up, Scotty!"
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Post by impulse on Feb 18, 2020 16:39:00 GMT -5
Today I learned Ellison wrote a Star Trek script. Though to be fair, I am familiar with virtually zero of Ellison's work or OG Star Trek episodes. As a fan of both classic sci fi and various Star Trek incarnations, though, sounds like I found two egregious omissions to remedy shortly. You are clearly not a member of the general public. I would think not. I've been posting on comic book forums for 20 years. The idea that the majority of the general public know who Gene Roddenberry or Harlan Ellison are -- let alone know the title of a 50+ year old Star Trek episode -- is utterly laughable. All the general public likely know about the original Star Trek is the name of the show, the characters Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock (and most would probably call him Dr. Spock anyway), and the catchphrase "Beam me up, Scotty!" I bet a good number of them could also name drop the Enterprise. That's about it.
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 18, 2020 16:47:59 GMT -5
You are clearly not a member of the general public. I would think not. I've been posting on comic book forums for 20 years. The idea that the majority of the general public know who Gene Roddenberry or Harlan Ellison are -- let alone know the title of a 50+ year old Star Trek episode -- is utterly laughable. All the general public likely know about the original Star Trek is the name of the show, the characters Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock (and most would probably call him Dr. Spock anyway), and the catchphrase "Beam me up, Scotty!" I bet a good number of them could also name drop the Enterprise. That's about it. Not "He's dead, Jim."? Or "I'm a doctor, not a ________________."?
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Post by rberman on Feb 18, 2020 16:49:30 GMT -5
I would think not. I've been posting on comic book forums for 20 years. I bet a good number of them could also name drop the Enterprise. That's about it. Not "He's dead, Jim."? Or "I'm a doctor, not a ________________."? In 1990, yes. In 2020, no.
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Post by impulse on Feb 18, 2020 17:08:22 GMT -5
Not "He's dead, Jim."? Or "I'm a doctor, not a ________________."? In 1990, yes. In 2020, no. I was going to say. Jim Carrey riffed on that in the first Ace Ventura movie which was...more years ago than I want to admit.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 18, 2020 17:09:30 GMT -5
But your central point, that "with his greatest claim to fame being a script ". Is still bullshit, as everyone here has pointed out. One, there is no "everyone" here. Two, if anyone ever argues that Ellison is known to the general public, it will only be for his Star Trek script. Try finding one career article or even his obituary that does not mention Star Trek, or as a "footnote" as someone put it. You won't, so the only thing that is bullshit around here is the isolationist behavior of those who think one of the most famous TV series in history--and an episode that has been rated among TV's finest moments is somehow not a claim to fame. Ridiculous in the extreme. One gains recognition to the general public with work that transcends the bounds of a format or medium, and Star Trek certainly did that. In addition to those facts, Ellison's own book on the subject is the icing on the cake that his Star Trek script was defining--and to the general public, his greatest claim to fame, otherwise there would no market for such a book at all. Decades after that job, he had to go into great detail about all that went into a 52 minute episode of television. If it was as insignificant as a couple of you are trying to claim, he would not have wasted his time on a book going into that experience. You can be a fan of Ellison until the end of time, but it is the height of denial-soaked, defensive nonsense to argue that an acclaimed hour from a legendary series could not be his claim to fame to the general public who are undoubtedly more familiar with Star Trek--and its most famous episode--than any of Ellison's printed work. Its as utterly laughable as trying to claim James Whale is not best known to the world for Frankenstein (or Bride of Frankenstein & The Invisible Man) --no, its The Impatient Maiden that's his signature work to the public. His claim to fame.
Yeah, no one is buying that.
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Post by berkley on Feb 18, 2020 17:16:45 GMT -5
Maybe "footnote" was a bit of a rhetorical exaggeration on my part but I stand by the basic point. We should keep in mind that Star Trek itself was more of a cult success at the time than a huge hit with the general public. I don't think the average non-SF fan, granting that they'd heard of Star Trek, would know that Harlan Ellison had written an episode of the show and probably wouldn't know Roddenbery's name either.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 18, 2020 17:37:32 GMT -5
Maybe "footnote" was a bit of a rhetorical exaggeration on my part but I stand by the basic point. We should keep in mind that Star Trek itself was more of a cult success at the time than a huge hit with the general public. I don't think the average non-SF fan, granting that they'd heard of Star Trek, would know that Harlan Ellison had written an episode of the show and probably wouldn't know Roddenbery's name either. A few things, berkley: the most prestigious news show in 1970s America-- 60 Minutes--ran a feature on ST conventions because they were but a sample of a cultural phenomenon sparked by its equally phenomenal success in syndication. News programs of that type rarely paid attention to anything outside of hard news, unless it was culturally relevant to the masses. Further, networks were not in the business of wanting to revive shows that the public did not know or care about (or stood to make profits for the network). NBC--the network which had cancelled ST in 1969, turned around and expressed serious interest in reviving the series once they saw the astounding numbers and profits it was making in syndication for Paramount. They eventually greenlit the animated version in 1973, and a few years later were going to use the planned live action revival ( Phase II) as the flagship program for a proposed Paramount network. That does not happen to TV properties that are failures or lack a significant fan base in the general public, as no network (and the millions that go into launching such a venture) was going to use as its pillar and run on a property only known to a few, for example. This means that ST was a major fixture in popular culture. There would be no multi-billion dollar ST franchise without the cultural power of the original series and the episodes which are among the best known of any TV series in history.
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Post by kirby101 on Feb 18, 2020 17:37:52 GMT -5
And that is where your argument fails. Best known for is debatable at best. The general public you speak of might know that episode, but i wouldn't know it it is the best known, there are others, like Arena that are as well known. And I doubt they know Frederic Brown wrote the original story. But "claim to fame" carries with it the idea that this is his sole or main achievement and he would be little known without it. That is a laughable idea. He changed the shape of modern Science Fiction.
As for James Whale, most people would not know who directed Frankenstein, but as far as films he directed that are well known, I would say Showboat is also very well known.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 18, 2020 17:42:58 GMT -5
Walk down the street of Anytown, U.S.A. and mention the name "Harlan Ellison." I would bet all the money Bloomberg is spending on his presidential campaign that 10 times out of 10, if anyone recognizes who Ellison was, it will be for Star Trek--alone.
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Post by rberman on Feb 18, 2020 17:58:00 GMT -5
Let's keep in mind that the streets of America are populated by people who literally cannot name a single book.
It wasn't that way forty years ago, though. I suspect that in 1980, a lot of people had some notion of who Harlan Ellison and Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein and Frank Herbert were. When the original Star Trek TV series was canceled after a meager three seasons, it was a ratings failure. Its popularity rose over the following twenty years through relentless weekday syndication, including a renewed interest in fun sci-fi spurred by Star Wars which allowed Trek to put out some pretty good movies in the subsequent 15 years (after Star Wars). But at no time could the average person on the street tell you the title of a single Star Trek episode, let alone its author. The sort of person who knew that detail was likely to know Harlan Ellison's other work as well.
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Post by kirby101 on Feb 18, 2020 18:40:23 GMT -5
Walk down the street of Anytown, U.S.A. and mention the name "Harlan Ellison." I would bet all the money Bloomberg is spending on his presidential campaign that 10 times out of 10, if anyone recognizes who Ellison was, it will be for Star Trek--alone.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 18, 2020 18:45:38 GMT -5
All the general public likely know about the original Star Trek is the name of the show, the characters Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock (and most would probably call him Dr. Spock anyway)... When he’s not just “the ear dude”!
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 18, 2020 18:53:11 GMT -5
The average person of the 1970s and early 80s had a far better chance of knowing Harlan Ellison, as he was a regular fixture on talk shows, back when they actually used to talk to people who write books, aside from from celebrities and kinky Twilight fan fiction-turned erotic trash for moms and grandmas. He could be seen on The Today Show and the Tomorrow Show and any number of venues, with his latest work, not to mention such scenes as his window writing stunts...
Readers of Starlog, which were hardly great in number, compared to Time or Sports Illustrated, new him as a writer of sci-fi and agent provocateur in promoting "good" science fiction orver flashy effects-driven films with little depth, which got Star wars fans bent out of shape. he was hardly alone in that, as "hard" sci-fi authors were also quick to dismiss Star wars as "just space opera," as if that was necessarily a bad thing.
In the 90s, Babylon 5 fans were likely to know him from his screen credit as an advisor on the series, if they read the credits. Twilight Zone fans might recognize his name from the series revival, in the mid-80s.
Most of those groups, though, would represent a microcosm of society, rather than society at large. The Today and Tomorrow shows would reach far greater audiences than Starlog or Babylon 5. He was a regular fixture on the Sci-Fi Channel, for a time; but, its reach was hardly as great as even the WWF, on USA Network.
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