Once you've had a cartoon frog dancing and singing "Dubba Dubba WB!" on people's television screens for years, it becomes pretty difficult to disassociate that from your network's corporate ID after the fact.

Yeah, unbranding must be quite the challenge after you've spent so much time... branding. In any case, I don't watch the WB anymore; I had no idea they'd killed the frog. Interesting.

I still respectfully disagree about this sort of characterization of Heinlein women. You have to not assume that any woman character is Heinlein's personification of all women everywhere.

But that's not what I said. I said that there is a typical Heinlein woman, and there is: she shows up in novel after novel, very much the same: sexual, assertive, kittenish, competent.

Writers fall into patterns: some of language, some of situation, some of characterization. One of Heinlein's was a particular female character. That doesn't mean that Heinlein never wrote a woman who didn't fit that template; that means that many of his women did. Heinlein's characterization was not his strong point; he was better at it than Asimov, not so good as Cordwainer Smith.

Spike is a fascinating character, and James is a versatile chap

I agree with the former. I'm personally not so sure about the latter. I used to think James was, like, perfection on a stick. And then, at some point, his presence on screen had me reaching for my remote. In fairness to Mr. Marsters, I don't know if that was the writing, the directing or his acting. I suspect it was a combination that led to my pain.

Fair enough, Betsy. My error. I guess I was just anticipating the eternal Heinlein battles and trying to preempt.

Ah. 'kay. Haven't read that one, then. Should I?

It's much better than the Lazarus Long books, especially the later ones. It's probably his best book, overall. I tend to think it is.

If you've read a LL book that involves his mother, you've seen the worst Heinlein has to offer in terms of his female characterization. In those books, even I got annoyed and sometimes offended, and I am both insensitive and have a long fuse, plus an unhealthy respect for Heinlein's writing. If you could handle those, at all, you should be fine with Wyoh in Moon.

If you're virulently anti-Libertarian, you may take issue with the overt political stance of the book, which is often grouped with Ayn Rand's stuff in the realm of Libertarian fiction.

Otherwise, though, it's a great work of the era, and totally worth the read. One of my all-time favorites.

Kat, what about Mann's "The Last Of The Mohicans"?

aka, "The Running Movie." It's pretty spiff in a Big Romantic way, which is Joss' not-so-secret vice, so I can see how he'd like it.

The director's cut on DVD is kind of wonderful. And, and here I'm probably going to shame myself, but Joss dug it too, when I turned him onto it -- the musical 1776? I adore it.

Heh. Howard Da Silva was a close family friend of my ex-wife so I had to hear a lot of Howard Da Silva stories. Coolest though, was the episode of St. Elsewhere where William Daniels hummed one of the tunes from 1776 while walking down the hall. In that movie alone, you've got major characters for White Shadow, St. Elsewhere and Northern Exposure.

I love "Are You Now..." - my favorite Angel standalone. A perfect short movie, dark and noir and human.

Howard da Silva was one of those actors who always guaranteed you a few moments of happy in the worst of movies. Another was Denholm Elliott.

My most beloved memories of Howard da Silva were from a thing in the, I guess 70's or 80's, called "The CBS Radio Mystery Theater." A throwback to old radio. And right up there with the best of the real thing. Hosted by E.G. Marshall. I listened every night as a kid. Made me want to be a radio drama writer.

Yeah, re: "Are You Now..." I don't get at all how exploring the McCarthy thing is "trite." Or how my approach was trite. The literal 50's paranoia thing was so in the background and the engine of the piece was all done with metaphor. Almost the most direct metaphor I ever did on the show. Why is that trite? I remember seeing some post when it first aired that called the period cars "cliche." Uh... I do not think that word means what you think it means... funny how I can remember almost every negative thing ever posted about my work.