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With Further Ado #415: To Boldly Go

With Further Ado #415: To Boldly Go

Posted on by Ed Catto

I admit it; I tried to play it cool. I tried not to go all fanboy. But after about, oh, one-and-half minutes I was as a giddy as a seven-year-old feasting on birthday cake and ice cream.

But, like I told my wife,  it was a work thing. And yeah, she just rolled her eyes too.

As a part of my day job as an Assistant Professor at Ithaca College, I teach the Practicum Class for the MBA candidates. It’s a unique program focusing on entertainment, media and live events.  So for this program, unlike, say, Wharton’s or even Cornell’s, we graduate fewer Investment Bankers and more brilliant/innovative creatives who work for entertainment or sports companies.  I wish this type of MBA program existed for me back in the day.

And one of the annual trips in this program is a trip to the Adirondacks, where the students meet a plethora of entrepreneurial start-ups and volunteer at a live event. It’s a fantastic way to get some hands on learning, a hallmark of the Ithaca College School of Business.

This year, while in Ticonderoga, NY we participated in The Star Trek Original Series Set Tour.  It was arranged by our friends at ANCA (the Adirondack North Country Alliance) and TACC (The Ticonderoga Area Chamber of Commerce). Continue reading “With Further Ado #415: To Boldly Go” →

With Further Ado #367: Kung Fu Fighting

With Further Ado #367: Kung Fu Fighting

Posted on by Ed Catto

WHEN I WAS a kid at camp, there came that inevitable night when every group (I think we were divided up by tents) had to put on a short skit. My group suffered a creativity deficit and was unable to think of anything witty or creative or clever. Every other team did.

Instead, we had the bright idea that we would just play the (now classic) song, “Kung Fu Fighting”, as performed by Carl Douglas, and jump about with our pretend Kung Fu fighting moves.

We all felt awesome and confident with our stylistic combat poses. While we didn’t study for years in a Shaolin monastery, we did thrill to the weekly adventures of Caine in ABC’s Kung Fu series. So, … sixty minutes of TV, multiplied by twenty-four weeks was kind of the same as years of studying the martial arts in a monastery, wasn’t it? We were convinced it was.

As you might expect, our skit bombed. The song is only three minutes long, but I can still sense the prolonged onstage embarrassment.

Still… this just reinforces how important the show the show Kung Fu was to us. In those days of TV heroes with excessive testosterone Caine, this show’s hero, was a humble, understated breath of fresh air. We empathized with his weekly drubbing and humiliation, and then we were jubilant when, inevitably, he’d had enough and give the bad guys a thorough stomping. Continue reading “With Further Ado #367: Kung Fu Fighting” →

With Further Ado #362: Shaking Hands with Batman

With Further Ado #362: Shaking Hands with Batman

Posted on by Ed Catto

We’ve been emptying out my parents’ home, and while it is both daunting and exhausting, we’re finding quite a few lost treasures.

I smiled when I realized my dad kept his copy of an article I wrote for an issue of The Panel, the monthly newsletter for the Comic Book Club of Ithaca. That’s the group, led by folks like Bill Turner and Carmela Turner, that puts on ITHACON, the nation’s second longest running comic convention. I had the honor of helping with that way back then as well in the here-and-now. This particular article was all about how, way back in 1985, I met Batman. I was finishing up college. Here’s the article just as it appeared all those years ago.

Shaking Hands with Batman

(Originally published in The Panel, The Comic Book Club of Ithaca’s Newsletter in 1985)

It was something I had wanted to do for almost 20 years. I had dreams about doing it. I had written stories about doing it. Oh, I knew the risks involved with doing it. First, it was nearly impossible. Secondly, the probability of extreme disappointment was high. Mostly, no one would take me seriously. But last Saturday, I shook hands with my hero. I met Batman.

It wasn’t in Gotham City. I was in Buffalo to surprise my girlfriend Kathe with a visit. Fortunately, that same weekend there was a big Auto-rama car show starring none other than Adam West, television’s Batman. Well, Kathe and I thought it might be fun to visit the Caped Crusader. Who says I’m not a fun date? Continue reading “With Further Ado #362: Shaking Hands with Batman” →

With Further Ado #317: The Saturday Morning That Never Ended

With Further Ado #317: The Saturday Morning That Never Ended

Posted on by Ed Catto

Wouldn’t it be nice if every major problem, even those really big problems, could be solved in seven minutes? When I was growing up, that’s exactly what happened… every Saturday morning.

Space Ghost, in his spaceship The Phantom Cruiser, would roar out of his secret space cave, confront an insidious bad guy. It always seemed hopeless for a minute or two there, and then, (whew!) prevail. Space Ghost would do this twice in a half an hour. With commercials.

Oh, I’d soon learn, along with millions of other spoiled brats, that life is a little more complicated than that. But at the time, who cared? Continue reading “With Further Ado #317: The Saturday Morning That Never Ended” →