Culture Shock 03.25.10: Godzilla takes up poetry on 12 steps to recovery

Sure he crushes cities, irradiates the countryside and kills thousands, but could it be that Godzilla just wants to be understood?

One denizen of the Internet, who goes by the name Samurai Frog, seems to think so and has created a Web site to prove it.

Godzilla Haiku, online at godzillahaiku.tumblr.com, puts the thoughts of Godzilla and some of Japan's other giant, rubberized monsters into poetic form — haiku, to be exact.

Haiku are 17-syllable poems of three lines, the first line comprised of five syllables, the second of seven and the third of five. They are among the easiest poems to write, and the hardest to write well. Traditional haiku often have a seasonal reference. But Godzilla isn't much for tradition. Skyscrapers or Shinto shrines, they're all the same to the King of the Monsters. They make the same crunch beneath his feet.

But it's not easy being king. Recently, Godzilla lamented:

I am what I am
This body imprisons me
My soul aches for love

After he trampled Tokyo, menaced Mothra and roasted Rodan, who would've thought Godzilla had it in him. Is he a poet, only we didn't know it?

Despite his grumpiness and propensity for violence and property damage, there has always been something sad, even soulful about Godzilla.

In his closing narration in the U.S. version of "Godzilla: 1985," Raymond Burr's character, Steve Martin, sums it up best: "For now, Godzilla — that strangely innocent and tragic monster — has gone to earth. Whether he returns or not, or is never again seen by human eyes, the things he has taught us remain."

Ever since his first movie stomped Japanese theaters on Nov. 3, 1954, Godzilla — or Gojira, as he is known in Japan — has been a symbol.

He is the atomic bomb. He is a force of nature. He is punishment for "tampering in God's domain," which was a common occurrence in 1950s sci-fi movies.

Strangely, as the years went on, Godzilla also became Japan's and Earth's protector, fighting other monsters, extraterrestrials intent on conquering the planet and time travelers bent on changing history.

In 1991's "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah," Godzilla saves Japan from time travelers from the year 2204, who have come back in time to stop Japan from becoming an economic power. At least I think that's the plot. I've seen the movie half a dozen times, and it never really makes sense.

Godzilla prevailed, but then Japan went into a deep recession known as the "Lost Decade," which, as far as I know, had nothing to do with incoherent time-travel schemes. You win some, you lose some.

Maybe all of that symbolism is too much to ask of anyone, even a 30-story-tall mutant dinosaur with radioactive breath. All he wants to do is step on model cars and toy trains, yet we expect so much more of him.

Horror and fantasy writer Joe R. Lansdale explores Godzilla's ennui in a brilliant short story titled "Godzilla's Twelve-Step Program," found in Lansdale's latest collection, "The Best of Joe R. Lansdale."

Filled with humor and pathos, the story charts Godzilla's progress, or lack thereof, as he tries to kick his habit of pulverizing cities and squishing people between his toes. Godzilla gets a regular-guy job at a foundry. He watches TV. Some days, things seem like they might be OK. Other days, Godzilla gets that all-too-familiar itch.

If only people would just leave him alone. After all, all Godzilla wants is to appreciate the beauty of the world — and swat a few pesky airplanes from the sky.

Culture Shock 03.18.10: Remembering the wild days of cable TV

Once the backwater of the entertainment world, cable TV is now where the action is. But I can't help but think cable has lost something on its long journey toward respectability.

When it comes time for Hollywood to hand out awards, shows like "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad" and "Dexter" — not to mention HBO's late, lamented "The Sopranos" — are always in the running for Emmys and Golden Globes.

That's a big change from just 20 years ago, when cable shows weren't even eligible for Emmy nominations. Instead, cable had its own, separate award, the ACE. And winning one was no big deal.

Flash forward in time, and many of the best shows on television are cable originals, from "Battlestar Galactica" and "Anthony Bourdain" to "Penn & Teller" and "The Venture Bros." Yet when I look back at old video clips on YouTube, I'm struck by what cable has given up.

As creative as cable is now, it's a different kind of creativity than 30 years ago.

Early cable depended on inventiveness born of desperation. And if one crazy idea failed, who cared? No one was watching, anyway.

For instance, search YouTube and you'll find old footage from TBS back when it was still known as WTBS, Atlanta's "Superstation."

The early days of Ted Turner's flagship channel remind me a lot of the 1989 movie "UHF," in which a down-on-his-luck dreamer played by "Weird Al" Yankovic takes over a failing local TV station and programs it with whatever nutty shows he can imagine.

Yes, I just compared Ted Turner with "Weird Al." I bet you didn't see that coming. But it's no stretch, really.

Before it went national, WTBS (originally WTCG) was just another struggling, independent UHF station trying to make a buck.

In the early '80s, WTBS was awash with local Atlanta professional wrestling, 1940s Bugs Bunny cartoons and Three Stooges shorts, and whatever movies Turner could get his hands on. But Turner had in-house talent, too.

Bill Tush had mostly worked behind the scenes before Turner made him the face of WTBS — doing commercials, hosting movies and, most importantly, anchoring a 3 a.m. news broadcast. Tush turned that news program into a screwball mix of news and comedy, and he did it some 20 years before Jon Stewart made Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" a hit with college students.

Tush's newscast gained a cult following, and Turner gave him his own comedy/variety show, which lasted two years and helped give Jan Hooks ("Saturday Night Live") her start in showbiz. Afterward, Tush became CNN's go-to entertainment reporter, a position he held until 2003.

The '80s were wild days for cable TV. WTBS invited in local schoolchildren to read and report the news for a weekday afternoon segment called "Kids Beat," and it aired "Starcade," a game show in which contestants played arcade games like "Donkey Kong" and "Pac-Man."

TBS wasn't alone. Although it's now known for critical favorites like "Monk" and "Burn Notice," USA Network had similar beginnings.

Its early lineup included wrestling, game shows and B-grade horror movies hosted by "retired superhero" Commander USA (aka Jim Hendricks).

It was inexpensive, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants programming, and there was a kind of freedom to it that went beyond just being free of broadcast television's standards and practices.

It was the sort of freedom that comes, to paraphrase the song, with having nothing to lose.

Culture Shock 03.11.10: Scientists ask for better science at the movies

Science!

Getting good science from a typical Hollywood movie is a bit like hearing hoof beats and looking up to see a zebra instead of a horse. It happens, but not nearly as often.

To change that, the National Academy of Sciences founded the Science and Entertainment Exchange, which aims to improve the portrayal of science in movies and on television.

But while some members of Hollywood's creative community have proved receptive, it looks like the scientists still have a lot of work to do.

Exhibit A: "2012," directed by serial offender Roland Emmerich, whose credits also include "The Day After Tomorrow," "10,000 B.C.," "Godzilla" and "Independence Day." He also helmed the Mel Gibson vehicle "The Patriot," so history isn't his strong suit, either.

The bad news is bad science doesn't stand in the way of box-office success. "Armageddon" grossed more than half a billion dollars worldwide despite relying on some of the worst science ever committed to film. From a scientific standpoint, "Armageddon" is like spending $140 million to remake "Plan 9 from Outer Space."

The good news, however, is bad science doesn't always sell.

Exhibit B: "The Core," a box-office disaster so egregious in its scientific illiteracy it makes "Armageddon" look like it was written by Stephen Hawking.

Meanwhile, good science — or at least passable science — can make money. "District 9" made more than $200 million worldwide on a budget of $30 million.

But while there is nothing preventing filmmakers from being more scientifically literate, there is no guaranteed payoff for scientific accuracy, either.

Scientists can complain about scientific inaccuracies in movies, but audiences don't seem to care. And the reason audiences don't care is because they don't know much about science.

A Harris Interactive poll last year found that only 53 percent of adults in the U.S. know how long it takes for the Earth to orbit the sun. And only 59 percent know that humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time. A Gallup Poll last year found that only 39 percent of Americans believe in evolution.

Given statistics like that, it's no wonder hardly anyone complains about the aliens in "Avatar," no matter how unlikely it is that a species would evolve hair that plugs into trees and animals, just like a USB cable plugs into a computer.

By Hollywood standards, "Avatar" director James Cameron is usually careful with his science, but even he won't let science stand in the way of a metaphor. He has 2.6 billion reasons — and counting — not to care too much about the plausibility of USB hair. Besides, most scientists are giving the Na'vi a pass because they are Cameron's only real stretch of the imagination in "Avatar." Well, besides "unobtanium," that is.

Emory University physicist Sidney Perkowitz, for example, has suggested a rule allowing every film just one major suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, while the success of "Avatar" has every movie studio rushing to make 3-D movies, they don't seem as eager to follow Cameron's lead in getting the science right.

Scientific illiteracy isn't confined to the United States. Michigan State researcher Jon Miller found that while only 28 percent of Americans qualify as scientifically literate, that's still slightly better than in Europe and Japan.

So, while I wish the National Academy of Sciences well, I doubt it will make much headway in Hollywood until audiences, not just here but worldwide, demand more realistic science from their entertainment.

Culture Shock 03.04.10: Is there gold in Golden Age comic books?

Superman isn't letting a little thing like a recession keep him from going up, up and away. But can the rest of us take advantage?

A copy of Action Comics No. 1 set a record last week when it sold for $1 million, the highest price any comic book has ever commanded, and a sizable sum even for the book that introduced Superman. But that record didn't stand long. Three days later, Batman proved he has what it takes to take down the Man of Steel. A copy of Detective Comics No. 27, the Caped Crusader's debut issue, sold at auction for $1,075,500.

Both comics are in excellent condition, each rating an 8.0 out of 10 according to the Certified Guarantee Company. But the sale prices were staggering nonetheless. Before this year, no comic book had come close to the $1 million threshold. The top sale price I could find was $350,000 for a copy of Marvel Comics No. 1 purchased in 2001.

So, is this the start of a bull market for old comic books? And, if so, does it reflect real value, or is it a bubble waiting to pop?

The last time comics entered a boom period was the late 1980s and early '90s. And that boom continued even through the recession of 1990-91.

That boom, however, turned out to be the perfect set-up for a disastrous crash. The official history of the period tells of speculators — mostly people who had never seriously read or collected comic books before — entering the market and driving up the prices of newly published books. That fueled the growth of upstart publishers looking to cash in on the increased demand.

My own pet theory is that many of those speculators thought comic books were a safe haven in an otherwise sluggish economy. But whatever their motives, the speculators thought wrong.

In 1993, while the rest of the economy was recovering, the comics bubble burst. During the next four years, many of the publishers that had helped fuel the boom — Broadway Comics, Tekno Comics, Eclipse and Valiant — went under. Retailers and many of their customers were left holding boxes filled with near worthless books, some of which had fetched hundreds of dollars during the boom's peak.

But if history is repeating itself, it's not following the same script. The '90s comics bubble was limited to newly published comics with large print runs. When demand dropped, there were simply too many comics in circulation for prices not to fall to near nothing. This time around, we're looking at two books published in the late 1930s, the beginning of comics' "Golden Age." Publishers can't flood the market with 70-year-old comics.

Another difference this time is comics have not run counter to the rest of the economy.

According to Nostomania.com, virtually all of the top 100 most valuable comics have lost value during the past year. Two of the few exceptions, Showcase No. 22 (first appearance of the second Green Lantern) and Tales of Suspense No. 39 (debut of Iron Man), can be explained by Hollywood hype. A Green Lantern movie is in the works, and the Iron Man sequel hits theaters this spring.

Ultimately, the record sale prices of Action Comics No. 1 and Detective Comics No. 27 could be meaningless anomalies. Or they could drive speculation that might extend to other vintage comics and end up crashing down in a few years. Or, just maybe, all of this is a real reflection of the enduring value of old comic books.

But for now, I wouldn't bet a copy of Amazing Fantasy No. 15 on any of those possibilities if I were you.

Culture Shock 02.25.10: 'That guy' is no longer a mystery man

It's that guy!

How many times has this happened to you?

You're watching television and see an actor you've seen a million times before. But you can't remember his name and aren't even sure where you saw him. You can't look it up online because you wouldn't know where to begin. Slowly, it starts to drive you insane, and you can't stand it anymore. You phone a friend.

"Hey, turn your TV to channel 38," you say. "No, I don't care that you're watching 'Lost.' You don't understand 'Lost,' anyway. Change the #%&@ channel! Got it? OK, help me out. See that guy, the one with the hat? No, the other one. It's that guy!"

Yes, that's the eternal refrain: "It's that guy!" But who is that guy?

For as long as there have been hard-working character actors taking jobs just to pay the bills, with no hope of ever planting their footprints in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater, people have said, "It's that guy!" He's somebody. You know his face for a reason. But his name escapes you. For all his years of acting, the guy might as well be a face on a milk cartoon.

Now, at long last, there's help. There's "That Guy!"

That Guy! is a Web site devoted to the nameless faces that keep you up at night.

Lucky for you, the friendly folks at Neatorama.com found That Guy! And Neatorama is one of the nearly 200 Web sites I scan every day to bring you vital information like this, allowing you to get some sleep instead of obsessing over actors who may have been dead for 10 or 20 years for all you know.

Online at www.460xvr.com/tg/not.htm, That Guy! lets you scroll through photos of character actors — much like looking through a book of mug shots at the police station — in search of that guy. And like any good collection of mug shots, it contains many of the usual suspects.

Looking for that guy who always plays either the grubby campfire cook in old westerns or the redneck moonshiner? You're probably thinking of Dub Taylor. Or what about the guy who played something like a dozen different characters over the course of "M*A*S*H" and was the go-to guy for Asian roles throughout the 1970s? Yeah, that's James Hong.

If you're like me, and the parts of your brain that could otherwise be curing cancer or picking winning horses at the track are instead filled with a century's worth of useless cultural trivia, you may think you don't need That Guy!

You'd be wrong.

Even trained professionals get stumped sometimes. For example, I used to get Peter Mark Richman confused with Robert Lansing. In the 1960s, Richman guest starred in "The Outer Limits" and "The Twilight Zone," two shows known for "that guy" casting. Lansing, meanwhile, starred in the second-season "Star Trek" episode "Assignment: Earth" and went on to a recurring role in the 1980s CBS crime drama "The Equalizer."

Then I became addicted to buying packs of "Outer Limits" and "Twilight Zone" trading cards, hoping with each pack to obtain one of the rare cards autographed by William Shatner — or at least Jack Klugman. Instead, I got Richman's autograph. Twice. And I ended up paying $50 to get Shatner's card from eBay. Believe me, I never got Richman and Lansing confused again.

That Guy! is a work in progress. For example, while it does include Richman, Lansing is missing. And any listing of character actors that doesn't include Earl Holliman ("Police Woman") is by definition not comprehensive.

But the next time you blank out on Henry Silva or Michael Ansara — they both played Kane on "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," but only one of them was ever a Klingon — maybe That Guy! can help you out.

At the least, it could keep your next drunken argument about who played the lazy-eyed doctor in "The Cannonball Run" from turning violent. (Hint: It's Jack Elam. And I didn't have to look that up.)

Culture Shock 02.18.10: Admiral Ackbar knows a trap when he sees it

As the saying goes, "There are no small parts, only small actors."

Yet I suspect Tim Rose never thought his "small part" more than 25 years ago would amount to much in 2010.

Back in 1983, Rose portrayed Admiral Ackbar, the squid-headed commander of the Rebel Alliance fleet in "Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi."

As a character, Ackbar doesn't have a lot going for him. To be honest, he is a lousy battlefield commander, so it falls to Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) to hold the fleet together until it can finally launch its assault on the Death Star.

Ackbar does, however, have a keen grasp of the obvious. When the rebels arrive to find the Imperial fleet waiting in ambush and the Death Star's defense shield still up, Ackbar shouts, "It's a trap!"

And as strange as it may seem, that simple, three-word exclamation still echoes through American pop culture 27 years later.

Don't believe me? Search YouTube for "Ackbar" and you'll find more than 1,000 videos, most of them playing off that now-immortal phrase. The admiral may not know how his ships can repel firepower of the Death Star's magnitude, but he definitely knows a trap when he sees one.

My favorite of the videos I've seen is one titled "It's a Trap Volume 1," in which Ackbar repeatedly warns other movie characters — like Indiana Jones and Austin Powers — about various traps. But none of them listen.

Seriously, folks, if Admiral Ackbar tells you it's a trap, you better believe it's a trap.

Besides being a popular subject for amateur videos on YouTube, Ackbar has shown up in a Jerry Springer parody on CollegeHumor.com and, more than once, on Adult Swim's animated series "Robot Chicken."

But that's not surprising. The guys who produce "Robot Chicken" probably still have all of their original "Star Wars" action figures — some still in mint condition.

Then, last week, Ackbar made his most high-profile appearance yet.

After President Barack Obama invited Republican leaders to participate in a health-care summit, some Republicans and radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh branded the summit "a trap." So, when Jon Stewart played clips on "The Daily Show" of Limbaugh and company saying "It's a trap," guess who showed up at the end with his own "It's a trap."

Yes, it was Admiral Ackbar, breaking into the mainstream. Like Boba Fett before him, he has achieved a level of notoriety that defies all logic.

Actually, Ackbar's popularity may be easier to understand than Boba Fett's. All Boba Fett ever did was say five lines in "The Empire Strikes" back and get eaten alive by the Sarlacc in "Return of the Jedi."

But what about the actor who helped make all of this possible?

Apart from playing Ackbar, Rose is probably best known — to the extent he is known — for helping bring to life the title character of the 1986 George Lucas flop "Howard the Duck."

And the most interesting thing about that is Rose was just one of eight actors billed in the role. (Similarly, I'm just one of 8,000 writers to make that "billed" joke.)

He wasn't even the one who provided Howard's voice. According to the Internet Movie Database, that was a fellow by the name of Chip Zien, who went on to guest appearances in prime-time shows like "CSI" and "Ugly Betty."

But if there is any consolation, there aren't 1,000 "Chip Zien" videos on YouTube.

Culture Shock 02.11.10: Aqua Net fog can't hide awful '80s cartoons

So many fools. So much pity.

When it comes to nostalgia, I consider myself a child of the 1970s, but the '80s are finally making a play for my affections.

So, I was initially excited to learn Warner Bros. is producing a two-DVD set of "classic" '80s cartoons.

The studio will release "Saturday Morning Cartoons: The 1980s Vol. 1" on May 1, and while Warner Bros. hasn't announced the set's contents, the package art holds a few clues — which is why my excitement quickly turned into disappointment.

Apart from "Thundarr the Barbarian," which holds up surprisingly well, the DVDs will include "Monchichis," "The Flintstone Kids," "Dragon's Lair" and "Mr. T."

Ah, yes. Despite the Aqua Net haze of time, I remember it clearly: Saturday-morning cartoons during the '80s were, for the most part, awful. How did I forget?

The soft-focus lens of nostalgia obscures many of blemishes. By any reasonable standard, the cartoons I love from the '70s weren't particularly good, either. Still, they had something that most of the subsequent decade's Saturday-morning programs lacked. But whether that something was creativity or kitsch is probably a matter of taste.

Many of the most fondly remembered cartoons of the '80s — "Transformers," "Robotech," "Thundercats," "She-Ra," etc. — aired in weekday syndication. Saturday mornings, burdened by more stringent broadcast standards, were tame and lame in comparison.

There were three main types of Saturday-morning cartoons during the decade: cartoons based on real people or live-action TV characters, cartoons based on video games, and cartoons based on tiny, mythological creatures created by Belgians.

The A-Team's Mr. T., for example, told youngsters to stay in school and off drugs. Gary Coleman of "Diff'rent Strokes" fame lent his voice to a guardian angel who helped children in trouble. And Punky Brewster (aka Soleil Moon Frye) did pretty much the same stuff she did on her nighttime sitcom.

Nowadays, video games are incredibly sophisticated and inspire Hollywood movies. Back then, they were incredibly simple and inspired cartoons with plots that had nothing to do with the games because the games didn't have plots. Pac-Man, Q*bert, Frogger, Donkey Kong and Pitfall all inspired Saturday-morning adaptations, each more suspect than the last.

And then there were the Smurfs. Dreamed up by Belgian cartoonist Peyo, the Smurfs were a race of small blue men, each three apples tall. And by men, I mean they were all males, at least until Smurfette showed up, which begs lots of questions about Smurf procreation.

NBC had so much success with "The Smurfs" that it commissioned "The Snorks," created by yet another Belgian cartoonist. The Snorks were just like the Smurfs except they lived underwater and were less communist.

In retrospect, that's a pretty bleak television landscape, and one that never recovered, as the best cartoons moved to cable TV and Saturday mornings became, due in part to the Children's Television Act of 1990, a dumping ground for soulless "educational and informational" programming.

I might pick up "Saturday Morning Cartoons: The 1980s Vol. 1" just for "Thundarr," but if Warner Bros. releases a Vol. 2, I hate to think what it will contain. Saturday mornings only go downhill from here.

Culture Shock 02.04.10: Surviving the '70s with the 'Star Trek' cast

The last of three drive-in movies William Shatner starred in during the 1970s has finally made its way to DVD.

"Kingdom of the Spiders" finds the former "Star Trek" captain trying to save a rural Arizona town from being overrun by angry arachnids.

After farmers eradicate the spiders' natural food supply, the spiders turn to the only food sources left to them — livestock and people. It then falls to veterinarian Robert "Rack" Hansen (Shatner) and entomologist Diane Ashley (Tiffany Bolling) to try to stop the ravenous tarantulas before they cocoon the entire town.

Nature-strikes-back movies were a staple of 1970s creature features, and "Kingdom of the Spiders" is one of the better examples. (It certainly has "Frogs" beat.) Still, "Kingdom" owes its cult status mostly to Shatner, who is in full Shatner mode throughout.

Shout! Factory's "special edition" DVD includes behind-the-scenes footage, an audio commentary and interviews. Now that he has two Emmys on his mantelpiece, Shatner is a good sport when it comes to talking about some of his lesser projects. He gamely reminisces about his experiences on the set, including filming the iconic scene in which he crawls up a staircase while covered in live tarantulas.

Apart from "Kingdom of the Spiders," Shatner also appeared in the cult favorites "The Devil's Rain" and "Big Bad Mama," both previously released on DVD. "The Devil's Rain" (1975) also features John Travolta in one of his earliest roles, while "Big Bad Mama" (1974) is infamous for its sex scene between Shatner and Angie Dickinson.

While I'm sure Shatner would have preferred better roles in the 1970s — not that there is anything wrong with a sex scene with Angie Dickinson — he fared pretty well compared to most of his "Star Trek" co-stars.

Only Leonard Nimoy did as well as Shatner. He starred in two seasons of "Mission: Impossible," taking over the "master of disguise" role from Martin Landau.

Between 1969, when the last episode of "Star Trek" aired, and 1979, when "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" revived the franchise, DeForest Kelley's best-known part was in one of those nature-strikes-back movies, 1972's "Night of the Lepus." But instead of spiders or even frogs, Kelley had to worry about man-eating bunny rabbits the size of Volkswagens.

Nichelle Nichols had a supporting role in the Isaac Hayes action film "Truck Turner" (1974), and Hayes' title song is better known than the movie. Walter Koenig, meanwhile, appeared in two episodes of the Canadian sci-fi series "The Starlost" (1973), which had special effects that make the original "Star Trek" look like "Avatar."

James Doohan appeared in Roger Vadim's 1971 film "Pretty Maids All in a Row," for which "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry wrote the screenplay. Doohan then got a promotion of sorts, playing the commander on the CBS Saturday-morning sci-fi series "Jason of Star Command."

And lastly, George Takei starred in the 1972 hippie exploitation flick "Josie's Castle," which is available on DVD under the title "Teenage Divorcee," even though none of the characters are teens.

Looking back, it's a crime that the "Star Trek" cast had so much trouble landing decent roles during the '70s. But during those fallow years before "Star Trek" became a successful film franchise, the once and future crew of the Enterprise did give fans of B-movies and forgotten TV shows a lot of material for our late-night viewing pleasure.

Culture Shock 01.28.10: Who wants to be a paranormal investigator?

Night vision is scary.

If you have a pair of night-vision goggles and like stumbling around in the dark, maybe you can be a ghost hunter.

It's all the rage. At least three cable channels currently air shows devoted to "paranormal investigations." And ghost hunting doesn't take any special skills. The hosts of Syfy's "Ghost Hunters" are plumbers, which I guess can be useful if your toilet is haunted. And who hasn't seen something scary in a toilet?

Airing since 2004, "Ghost Hunters" — the granddaddy of the current crop of paranormal TV shows — has spawned two spin-offs, "Ghost Hunters Academy," where aspiring paranormal investigators learn the tricks of the trade, and "Ghost Hunters International."

Again, these are not difficult skills to master. Mainly, it amounts to wandering around creepy, abandoned, decrepit buildings and attributing every creaking floorboard and drafty room to a ghostly presence.

It's so easy, college students can do it, which they do on A&E's "Paranormal State." The show follows members of the Paranormal Research Society at Penn State University as they try to bust ghosts and cast out evil spirits.

I've seen about a half dozen episodes of "Paranormal State," and two of those led the Paranormal Research Society to Alabama. Make of that what you will, but I blame Kathryn Tucker Windham, whose "13 Alabama Ghosts" books used to have half of my elementary-school classmates believing their houses were haunted.

Earlier this month, A&E launched a new series, "Paranormal Cops," about four Chicago police officers who arrest the living by day and confront the dead by night. I hope they're better at catching crooks than they are at catching ghosts.

Not to be left out, Travel Channel airs my favorite show of the bunch, "Ghost Adventures."

As a Travel Channel show, "Ghost Adventures" goes to the some of best locations — places that are downright creepy whether or not they're haunted. But apart from that, "Ghost Adventures" has the most entertaining cast of ghost busters.

Zak Bagans is the team's leader. With his spiked hair and tight, Ed Hardy-like T-shirts, he is a stereotypical alpha male. His main investigative technique is to yell at any ghosts who may be present and dare them to attack him.

If any ghosts have ever taken Zak up on that offer, I missed that episode, unfortunately.

Next is Nick Groff, Zak's second in command. Nick tries to copy Zak's alpha-male routine, but he's nowhere near as good at it. He'll always be just a wingman.

And then there's Aaron Goodwin, the team's equipment technician.

Alas, poor Aaron. He's the one the ghosts supposedly always pick on, to the point that Zak and Nick often use him as bait to lure ill-tempered spirits into showing themselves.

Again, if this trick has ever worked, I've not seen convincing proof of it.

I'm not a scientist, but I'm amazed at what counts for evidence during these so-called investigations.

Motes of dust filmed on night vision are "spectral orbs," and low-frequency ambient noises caught on tape are voices from beyond.

I don't blame the average person for not knowing that our brains are wired to detect patterns, sometimes even where no pattern exists. That's cutting-edge neuroscience. But you'd think expert paranormal investigators would be familiar with the concept. Then they'd be more skeptical about what they see and hear.

Or maybe critical thinking is a special skill.