Amazing Stories

Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories"--a ratings flop on NBC (it ranked 62nd out of 104 network series for the season) and no longer a prime timer--is making its way around the world as a motion-picture anthology. And the "movie"--comprising three TV episodes--is attracting audiences. Said Marvin Levy, marketing consultant to Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, "It's performing very good to excellent in the Far East and just fair in the European territories where it's just opened."

In June 2010, the NCAA hit USC with sanctions that included a two-year bowl ban and the loss of 30 scholarships. Two Junes later, one of the "Flying Wallendas" crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Two great balancing acts. USC, metaphorically, is only halfway across Sanctions Gorge. The wind is still whipping the "Flying Kiffins," but they can see the other side. The fact USC football hasn't toppled is remarkable. The NCAA didn't sideswipe USC with the idea the Trojans might win the national title three seasons later — but it could happen.

There is a new television show called "Amazing Stories." I haven't seen it yet, but I assume it is a show dealing with true-life sports stories, because those are the most amazing stories of all. Here are some amazing examples of amazing stories the TV show will probably be featuring, if Steven Spielberg has any sense at all: It's amazing that a Japanese baseball team is considering hiring Billy Martin as its manager. His first week on the job, Billy will get into a scuffle in a sushi bar.

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson don't hear "no" very often. But after they submitted a final budget of $130 million for their 3-D animated movie "Tintin," based on the Belgian comic strip, to Universal Pictures, the studio balked. The decision has left the two powerful filmmakers scrambling to find another financial partner.

The publicity machine behind the television series "Amazing Stories" tries to portray Phil Joanou's career as an amazing story in itself. After all, the press releases ask, how many times does the showing of a student movie lead almost immediately to an offer from Steven Spielberg to direct the Christmas segment of his first television series?

The publicity machine behind the television series "Amazing Stories" tries to portray Phil Joanou's career as an amazing story in itself. After all, the press releases ask, how many times does the showing of a student movie led almost immediately to a offer from Steven Spielberg to direct the Christmas segment of his first television series?

They've lived in the 21st century most of their lives. No wonder there was such little nostalgia Wednesday as founders of the world's oldest science fantasy club said goodbye to the 20th century in Los Angeles. Visions of atomic power, Earth-circling satellites, Martian exploration, genetic cloning and hydroponic food production began dancing in fertile imaginations at the Los Angeles Science Fiction League in 1934--long before scientists followed with the real thing.

I commend CBS and NBC for renewing "The Twilight Zone" and "Amazing Stories," respectively. Joey Abeleda, Hacienda Heights

The only thing amazing about "Amazing Stories" is that its creators seriously thought anyone would enjoy watching such a piece of junk. The show has no drama, no suspense, no clever scripts and even the acting is only passable. I guess that the producers tried hard to make it a family show, but "Amazing Stories" is so wimpy that it makes "Sesame Street" look like James Bond. Matthew Okada, Pasadena

Regarding Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories' story checklist" (Outtakes, by Pat H. Broeske, Nov. 30), didn't she leave out the most important item? THE BOTTOM LINE--Is the final produced episode so bland, so predictable, so unimaginative, so bombastic, and so much of a waste of time that audiences will begin turning off the TV and going out to spend lots of money at Steven's features in theaters again. THOMAS J. GLEBE Los Angeles

SHMIEL JAGER was a prosperous businessman, a macher, in "a small town of a few thousand people, located halfway around the world in a landscape that belonged first to Austria and then to Poland and then to many others." The town was called Bolechow. It's now in Ukraine. You've probably never heard of it. After reading Daniel Mendelsohn's "The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million," you'll never forget it.

"Back Seat Dodge '38," 1964 sculpture by Edward Kienholz, at LACMA When L.A. County supervisors laid eyes on Kienholz's sculpture of a drunken couple making out in a car -- a week before the opening of a 1966 exhibition at LACMA -- they labeled the artwork "revolting" and "blasphemous," urged museum officials to remove it and threatened to cut their salaries when they refused. The show opened on time, with a long line of viewers and the door of the car closed.

IT has become fashionable for television news journalists to write memoirs: notably, Ted Koppel, Tom Brokaw, Judy Woodruff, Dan Rather, Linda Ellerbee, Lesley Stahl and Sam Donaldson. Now comes "Talking Back" from Andrea Mitchell, who has been a correspondent for NBC's "Nightly News" for three decades. "Talking Back" should satisfy the curiosity of most news junkies, aspiring journalists and those who follow politics with the avidity of sports fans.

They've lived in the 21st century most of their lives. No wonder there was such little nostalgia Wednesday as founders of the world's oldest science fantasy club said goodbye to the 20th century in Los Angeles. Visions of atomic power, Earth-circling satellites, Martian exploration, genetic cloning and hydroponic food production began dancing in fertile imaginations at the Los Angeles Science Fiction League in 1934--long before scientists followed with the real thing.

Television executive Dean Valentine always looked forward to evenings with writer-producer Danny Arnold. "I loved going out with Danny," says UPN President Valentine, "and hearing all these amazing stories about his time with Martin and Lewis, or how they fixed 'Bewitched,' or the early days of 'Barney Miller.' " Encouraged by Arnold, Valentine started thinking about ways to document television's past.

Large engineering projects are invariably multidimensional, and their planning and execution can stretch more than decades, even centuries. Not infrequently, the greatest challenges to overcome before the engineering begins are the political, ecological and economic obstacles. The Panama Canal, among the great projects heralding the enormous technological achievements of the 20th century, is one example.

I was lucky enough to catch an animated "Amazing Stories" episode about a dog and his family on Sept. 11. Very rarely does a network TV show make me want to do anything but run right out and order cable. This one had me laughing aloud and wishing I had some blank videotapes handy. Thanks for brightening my day! Monica Silvers, Glendale

Once upon a time, I had the luck to open a piece of junk mail that changed the world. Not your world, maybe, but mine, though even I didn't know it at the time. At the time, all I knew was that I was about to become a $27.95 sucker, thanks to an irredeemably cheesy appeal that began: Dear Friend, As you may already know, we have been doing some work relating to people who have the same last name as you do.

A remarkable comeback of Alaska's sea otters may revive an international trade in the otter's dark-brown fur pelts not seen since the animals were hunted to near extinction a century ago. Alaska Natives, the only people allowed to hunt otters under federal law, have been harvesting growing numbers in southeast Alaska. They are trying to develop worldwide markets for otter products, from "dance blankets" to sex organs as aphrodisiacs.