Pop Culture

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by Jared Bahir Browsh “¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!” Meaning “hurry up, let’s go,” the trademark slogan of Speedy Gonzales was, for generations of children, the first Spanish words they learned. But by the 1980s, ABC had pulled his cartoons due to concerns that his dress, accent and characters like his cousin, Slowpoke Rodriguez, were insensitive toward Mexicans and Mexican Americans. The Cartoon Network followed suit in 1999. I’ve studied and written about the history of animation, including how characters have been received around the world. Though rooted in a well-intentioned effort at cultural sensitivity, taking Speedy Gonzales off the air was a step too far f…

Weekends as a kid were the best in the '80s. Kids today will never know the thrill of grabbing a bowl of your favorite cereal and gearing up for the cartoon marathon Saturday mornings brought. Were most of the cartoons just long-form advertisements for toys at the time? Sure, but they also had some episodes that would stay with us for years to come. Quite a few of our favorite '80s cartoons have gotten modern remakes or live-action adaptations. But they will never match the pure nostalgia of the originals. Here are seven of the cartoons that made our Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons magical. Smurfs (1981-1989 )Smurfs was based on the Belgian comics, written by Pe…

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Remember back in 2013, 2014, thereabouts? You'd be at a party, and someone would mention Game of Thrones, and the conversation would bubble along for a bit, but you'd already stopped paying attention because you were girding your loins, knowing what was about to happen, because it always happened? Like clockwork? Namely: Someone in the group would snort with outsized, performative derision. "Uch, dragons," they would say, rolling their eyes. "I don't see how anyone could care about like, dragons and magic and all that made-up fantasy nonsense." (They didn't say "nonsense," of course; they used another word.) There have always been people who wear their disdain for the mos…

After more than 13 years at the helm of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down from the “Star Wars” factory founded by George Lucas. The Walt Disney Co. announced Thursday that it will now turn to Dave Filoni to steer “Star Wars,” as president and chief creative officer, into its sixth decade and beyond. Filoni, who served as the chief commercial officer of Lucasfilm, will inherit the mantle of one of the movies marquee franchises, alongside Lynwen Brennan, president and general manager of Lucasfilm’s businesses, who will serve as co-president. “When George Lucas asked me to take over Lucasfilm upon his retirement, I couldn’t have imagined what lay ahead,” said Kenn…

A rare copy of the comic book that introduced the world to Superman and also was once stolen from the home of actor Nicolas Cage has been sold for a record $15 million. The private deal for “Action Comics No. 1” was announced Friday. It eclipses the previous record price for a comic book, set last November when a copy of “Superman No. 1″ was at sold at auction for $9.12 million. The Action Comics sale was negotiated by Manhattan-based Metropolis Collectibles/Comic Connect, which said the comic book’s owner and the buyer wished to remain anonymous. The comic — which sold for 10 cents when it came out in 1938 — was an anthology of tales about mostly now little-known charac…

Kevin Smith is now confirming that the threequel, Jay and Silent Bob: Store Wars, is happening. Smith confirmed it while talking with Collider, saying, “Believe it or not, man, we still find financing for Jay and Silent Bob pictures, so we’re making a movie called Jay and Silent Bob: Store Wars.” The title of the film already indicates a lot. Jay and Silent Bob have been dynamic characters with a big arc in Smith’s films. They’ve also often served as symbolic or metaphorical figures, reflecting changing times in the world, or phases in the director’s life, most often illustrated by “Silent” Bob’s standalone moments giving sage-like monologues. Clerks III (2022) was Smith…

It’s hard to overstate the impact of the first 24-hour music video channel on the world’s teens. But after four decades, and with the advent of Instagram’s direct fan connections, the endless variety of clips on YouTube and now the Pandora’s Box of AI video, the world’s flagship music channel has arguably become a victim of its own success. As such, MTV today stopped showing a 24-hour feed of music videos in the UK after 38 years in rotation. MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live have all stopped broadcasting in the UK as well as Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Australia and Brazil. They went out just as the original American 24/7 music v…

Continuing to provide a place to say goodbye to the people who have entertained us.

Though it has been 25 years since a new daily “Peanuts” comic strip was drawn, it remains a force in popular culture, and the museum holds a great variety of artifacts showing the work of its creator, Charles M. Schulz, and revealing how the strip and its characters have won a prominent place in entertainment history. Schulz announced his retirement in December 1999 after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer. His last newly drawn daily, Monday through Saturday, strip appeared on January 3, 2000, and, in a shocking coincidence, his final full-color Sunday strip ran on February 13 of that year, just one day after he died. Among the National Museum of American History’s tr…

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On any given weeknight, promptly at 7 p.m., hundreds of thousands of Americans sit down in front of the television set to watch the goings-on at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Uijeongbu, South Korea. The show, “M*A*S*H,” hasn’t produced a single new episode since 1983 — the same year its finale was viewed by more than 105 million people in the United States. But the program still draws a strong amount of interest from Americans who have rediscovered Hawkeye and the gang as viewers incorporate more free broadcast TV into their media diets. During a single week in October, rebroadcasts of M*A*S*H at 7 p.m. attracted 764,000 viewers over the age of two and its d…

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A rare copy of Superman #1 comic book was found and recently sold for $9 million. See more about it here:

Here are your 2025 inductees acording to a report from AP News: Outkast: American rap duo that began in the 1990s. Key songs: “Hey Ya,” “Ms. Jackson” and “Roses” Salt-N-Pepa: American rap group formed in the 1980s. Key songs: “Push It,” “Let’s Talk About Sex” and “Shoop” Bad Company: English rock band formed in the 1970s. Key songs: “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Can’t Get Enough,” “Bad Company” Chubby Checker: American singer who began releasing records in the 1950s. Key songs: “The Twist,” “Limbo Rock,” “Let’s Twist Again” Joe Cocker: English singer who began releasing records in the 1960s and died in 2014. Key songs: “You Are So Beautiful,” “Up Where We Belong,” “With a Lit…

Funko has warned investors that it may not survive another year after reporting a sharp decline in sales and issuing a formal notice about its financial stability. The collectibles giant behind the Pop Vinyl brand posted net sales of $250.9 million for the third quarter of 2025, down 14% from the same period last year, and recorded a net loss of roughly $1 million, according to its latest financial filing. The company cited falling demand, higher tariffs, and tighter retailer inventories as major challenges in what it described as a “difficult retail environment. “ Funko’s troubles follow years of explosive growth fueled by its vinyl collectibles, which once dominated sh…

I don’t follow this kind of stuff closely but when it pops up everywhere I go online, I figure “Okay, let’s see what this is about.” I found a video of this interaction and man, the lady doing the interview couldn’t have been any more slimy and smarmy if she tried. And try as she might, she wasn’t getting that “gotcha” moment she was looking for. Here’s the gist of the interaction: That look isn’t a vapid, blank stare LOL. She saw through that crap and shut it down.

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With the anticipated release of the new Master of the Universe movie scheduled for release in 2026, this might be a good time for a primer on the backstory and mythology of the beloved toy line and cartoon.