Amanda Mannen

6 days ago | cracked.com | Amanda Mannen

Race was a complicated issue on TV in the ‘70s. Not that it’s been simple, oh, any other time in the history of the medium, but it was an in-between time when they were trying to have it both ways. Individual series were still largely segregated, but they had to have the occasional very special episode before there were very special episodes to make sure the audience knew the white people on TV were the “good” white people.

1 week ago | cracked.com | Amanda Mannen

It’s a tale as old as recess: Who would win in a fight? Batman or Superman? Freddy Krueger or Jason Vorhees? My dad or your dad? Of course, it’s not always about winning. Sometimes, two characters are so hilariously mismatched — or so unexpectedly even — that the fight itself would be more interesting than the result. Whatever the case, we love to pit imaginary people against each other. Redditor Tigerking3000 certainly has plenty of ideas. “Superman vs.

1 week ago | cracked.com | Amanda Mannen

Mary Tyler Moore was never supposed to be a TV star. Okay, maybe in, like, a cosmic sense, that’s not true, but she wasn’t supposed to be a star on The Dick Van Dyke Show when it premiered in 1961. Initially, the series was supposed to revolve around Rob Petrie’s work as a TV comedy writer, but the real TV comedy writers had so much fun writing for Moore’s character as Petrie’s wife that they shifted focus to his home life.

1 week ago | cracked.com | Amanda Mannen

No one’s under the impression that Hollywood is a meritocracy. Right off the bat, it’s almost impossible to get your foot in the door if you don’t happen to have been flung into consciousness via the genitals of someone with industry roots going back to the days of Thomas Edison and tax breaks. The next consideration is how much the average viewer wants to have sex with you. After that, you’re competing with so many others that there would be no physically feasible way to fairly compare you.

1 week ago | cracked.com | Amanda Mannen

Look, we’re not exactly media illiterate. We know perfectly well that not every fictional character is meant to be a beacon of morality and charisma. Hey, not even every protagonist needs to be completely free of flaws. If they’re written well, you root for them despite their shortcomings, but it’s usually pretty clear that you’re not supposed to sympathize with a gritty antihero.