Pop Culture Timelines Go-To Thread

Nivek

The Warholian Boom have been amazing, this one make us wonder how history is truly write and help to expand our horizont...besides being cool :cool:

Thanks for the Timelines... I Loved it
 

vultan

Not sure if it counts, but I added some more stuff to my most recent update of "The Power and the Glitter!"- link in the sig, as always.
 
Brainbin

Brainbin

I thought it would be fun to do a quick "tale of the tape" of the five regularly updated pop culture timelines we've got going so far...

That Wacky Redhead

Author: Brainbin
Agent of POD: Lucille Ball, actress and studio chief
Time of POD: 1966
Current Date: 1972
Pop Culture Focus: Network television in general, and Star Trek in particular
Changes to Star Trek: Longer run for the original series, including a proper send-off; no animated series; other changes pending

The Power and the Glitter!

Author: vultan
Agent of POD: Edwin Edwards, politician
Time of POD: 1991
Current Date: 1994
Pop Culture Focus: Eclectic, but primarily follows the development of an alternate Watchmen film at present
Changes to Star Trek: Brent Spiner misses several episodes of TNG, replaced by a substitute played by an actor who would achieve considerable fame IOTL; the TNG films are subsequently changed as a result; other changes pending

An Alternate Rise of the Blockbuster

Author: ColeMercury
Agent of POD: George Lucas, filmmaker
Time of POD: 1974
Current Date: Early 1980s (thematic, rather than chronological, flow)
Pop Culture Focus: Blockbuster Movies
Changes to Star Trek: The TOS films follow a remarkably different trajectory, and reach a very different conclusion

Earthquake Weather: Pop Culture & Tech Goes Weirder

Author: Electric Monk
Agent of POD: Act of God
Time of POD: 1986
Current Date: Late 1980s (thematic, rather than chronological, flow)
Pop Culture Focus: Eclectic, though with a particular focus on video games
Changes to Star Trek: The development of TNG is radically altered

A Different Path Home

Author: statichaos
Agent of POD: Genevieve Bujold, actress
Time of POD: 1994
Current Date: 1995
Pop Culture Focus: Primarily television, for the time being
Changes to Star Trek: The POD concerns an upheaval in the casting of Star Trek: Voyager; other changes pending

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Fellow authors, feel free to correct me if you feel I'm misrepresenting your work, or if you have something to add.

Readers and aspiring authors, this is something to think about in creating pop culture timelines of your own. The era, the focus, and how you're going to change the course of Star Trek :p You can follow our examples, or develop your own and cover other topics!
 
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Electric Monk

Electric Monk

That is a fun idea you only did because you wanted to talk about changes to Star Trek. I'm onto you :D.

Brainbin said:
Author: Electric Monk
Agent of POD: Act of God
Time of POD: 1986
Current Date: Late 1980s (thematic, rather than chronological, flow)
Pop Culture Focus: Eclectic, but primarily video games
Changes to Star Trek: The development of TNG is radically altered
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For the sake of not being moved to ASB it is technically a chain of butterflies that begins when someone has the bright idea to start a British tech magazine in the vein of Rolling Stone. But yeah, act of god is close enough. Y'all go with subtle PODs, me on the other hand… "need hammer to smash things!".

I've done Bond, Trek, and Max Headroom versus two tech & videogame posts so I wouldn't say primarily….
 
Brainbin

Brainbin

Electric Monk said:
That is a fun idea you only did because you wanted to talk about changes to Star Trek. I'm onto you :D.
Click to expand...
Now that I won't confirm or deny ;)

Electric Monk said:
I've done Bond, Trek, and Max Headroom versus two tech & videogame posts so I wouldn't say primarily….
Click to expand...
I was just going by what you said, in your timeline, about video game updates being "the spine", but I'll change it to "in particular" :)
 
Andrew T

Andrew T

I've started off Dirty Laundry, which begins with an alternate Don Henley failing as a solo artist in 1982.

Fun fact: in 1987, Don Henley threw a New Year's Eve party at his ranch in Aspen, Colorado. Among the attendees was then-Democratic Presidential front-runner Gary Hart.

Henley's date for his party? A willowy, 28-year-old blonde model from Miami named Donna Rice, who was awfully excited when Henley introduced her to "the Next President of the United States."
 
Electric Monk

Electric Monk

The following piece of Polonian advice pretty much encapsulates his whole arcade ethos: “PacMan player, be not proud, nor too macho, and you will prosper on the dotted screen.” I’m no expert, I’ll admit, but I’ll go out on a critical limb here and suggest that this might be the sole instance of the use of the mock-heroic tone in a video game player’s guide.
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The Arcades Project: Martin Amis’ Guide to Classic Video Games

I don't know if there's something to be done with that, although I certainly love the idea of Martin Amis (of all people) being this crazy game reviewer. The problem I suppose is that his writing is pretty hard to duplicate.

Andrew T said:
Henley's date for his party? A willowy, 28-year-old blonde model from Miami named Donna Rice, who was awfully excited when Henley introduced her to "the Next President of the United States."
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Oops. Did you read Jeff Greenfield's book Then Everything Changed? It does a nice alternate take on that scene.
 
Andrew T

Andrew T

Electric Monk said:
Oops. Did you read Jeff Greenfield's book Then Everything Changed? It does a nice alternate take on that scene.
Click to expand...

I did! I thought his Hart-Bumpers ticket was surprisingly plausible.

The argument for a "rubberband" hypothesis (Greenfield's view that Hart is going to be caught with someone) is strongest, IMO, when you look at the relationship between Hart and Warren Beatty. Even if you strip away the Monkey Business, it's going to be difficult for a 1980s politician to think he can live like a movie star.

The counter-argument is the one Richard Ben Cramer makes in What it Takes; Hart's entire "womanizing" reptuation stems from a single (misguided) interview he gave to Sally Quinn back in the 1970s in which he quipped, flirtatiously, that he was a believer in "reform marriage." It was the sort of thing that good-looking male politicians tended to say back in the 1970s, and it was the sort of thing that journalists tended to chalk up as "colorful" and not print.

That quip was resurrected in '87 in an otherwise mostly-fawning, long piece in Time (that declared Hart the "obvious front-runner").

In other words: there doesn't seem to be much evidence that Gary Hart is any more of a womanizer than any other male politician of his era. Take away a couple of weird coincidences and the issue goes away.

Time will tell which view wins out!
 
Electric Monk

Electric Monk

Sup, yo. Dude don't kirk out on me but:

The Raging 1988-1989 Continuous Blowout of Tech & Videogames

Andrew T said:
In other words: there doesn't seem to be much evidence that Gary Hart is any more of a womanizer than any other male politician of his era. Take away a couple of weird coincidences and the issue goes away.
Click to expand...

I think he was pretty average for the time but both more public and a lot more successful in getting hot girls :). Donna Rice is way hotter than anything Clinton ever did and although he should have divorced his wife, other than that I don't see much of a problem. Jimmy Carter was a good family man and Clinton wasn't, I wonder whose Presidency was better :).
 
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Brainbin

Brainbin

One of the potential PODs I was considering prior to developing That Wacky Redhead was a no-Simpsons timeline. It's a pretty easy situation to arrange - the solution I liked the best was Matt Groening not developing these characters as a (very) last-minute substitute for his Life in Hell strip at a pitch meeting with James L. Brooks (which he did in order to protect his ownership rights to said strip - a smart move, considering how little control he has over The Simpsons IOTL). Instead, we go ahead with Life in Hell (along with the little-remembered Dr. N!godatu) bumpers on "The Tracey Ullman Show", which bomb, or at the very least, don't come to take over the show entirely before being spun off into a half-hour series. The Simpsons, as a series, as a genre trailblazer, as a touchstone of popular culture, is probably one of the most influential programs to have ever aired, and the cumulative effect of that influence is inestimable.

One of the presuppositions I had was a longer-lasting "Tracey Ullman Show", which would certainly make her happy, her star vehicle being remembered for something other than being the otherwise-forgotten launching pad for a cartoon show she came to bitterly resent. Julie Kavner would be primarily remembered for this show, along with Rhoda; and Dan Castellaneta might not get into professional voice acting at all, which would rob the field of one of its major talents (he and Nancy Cartwright are the only two Simpsons voice actors to do extensive voice work outside of the show). In fact, this presupposition led me to my title, which is perhaps the thing I like best about the whole idea: You're Thinking Right, which is the name of the theme from "The Tracey Ullman Show".

Anyway, just thought I'd share one of my half-baked ideas. I'm not sure where I would have gone with it beyond what I've described above, but if ever anyone wanted to tackle a no-Simpsons timeline, that might be a good place to start.

And if you're thinking that you may or you might, then you're thinking right!
 
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