Vintage Photos: L.A. Decked Out For Christmas, 1925-1964

Vintage Photos: L.A. Decked Out For Christmas, 1925-1964

It's beginning to look a lot like the holidays all over Los Angeles County. Giant trees seem to scrape the sky at outdoor malls, neighborhoods are twinkling with dazzling light displays, and windows are dressed to suit the season. We thought we'd take a photographic stroll down the decked halls of Christmases past, and see what L.A. and other cities and neighborhoods in the county looked like all decorated years ago. [ more › ]

            

The Big McThink! How TED Became a Consumer Franchise

The Big McThink! How TED Became a Consumer Franchise

TED was one of the world's most elite gatherings. Then they franchised it to everyone, for free. How TEDx is flooding the globe with big ideas.

Invader Zim creator Jhonen Vasquez on the PlayStation Vita and gaming snobbery

Games: The Gameological Society: Invader Zim creator Jhonen Vasquez on the PlayStation Vita and gaming snobbery



In What Are You Playing This Weekend?, we discuss gaming and such with prominent figures in the pop-culture arena. We always start with the same question.
Jhonen Vasquez made a name in the early 2000s as a purveyor of dark comedy thanks to comics like Johnny The Homicidal Maniac and his anarchistic cartoon about the universe’s most incompetent conqueror, Invader Zim. The Gameological Society got Vasquez on the phone to talk about games, the post-smartphone world, and the joys of designing characters.

The Gameological Society: What are you playing this weekend?

Jhonen Vasquez: This weekend, my friend and I are getting through some of the [downloadable expansions] for Borderlands 2. I just finished Dishonored. I still do the Black Ops 2 multiplayer stuff. What else am I playing? I just got that Uncharted for the Vita. I get a weird feeling playing on a lot of the handhelds. It ...

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Tracy Morgan and Jimmy Fallon Read 'Twas The Night Before Christmas'

Tracy Morgan and Jimmy Fallon Read 'Twas The Night Before Christmas'



Tracy Morgan and Jimmy Fallon got in the Christmas spirit on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" last night, sitting down for a cozy read-through of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." Fallon played the straight man, reading the lines as they're written and OF COURSE not able to contain his laughter when Morgan does something funny.

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Give the Gift of Awesome: 13 Things We Totally Love

Give the Gift of Awesome: 13 Things We Totally Love

December is lousy with impersonal gift guides, but this one's different: Wired staffers have spent quality time with all the items in this gallery and found them to be indispensable.

Crumbling Hollywood Sign in 1978

Photo: A Crumbling Hollywood Sign in 1978, Before It Was Torn Down and Replaced

Though a big refurbishment like the iconic sign just underwent is born of necessity thanks to years of beating by the elements, once upon a time not so very long ago in Hollywood history the sign was so badly damaged it needed to be completely torn down and resurrected. 

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Pope Tweets Picture Of Self With God

Pope Tweets Picture Of Self With God

MIAMI—In his first post since joining social networking site Twitter early this week, Pope Benedict XVI has tweeted a picture of himself spending time with the Lord Our God, Divine Creator of the Universe.

Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol comes this close to screwing it up but somehow still works

TV: Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol comes this close to screwing it up but somehow still works



New feature: You already know the 12 Days Of Christmas, with its drummers drumming and partridges and gold rings, but we here at The A.V. Club like to take everything one step further, for your reading pleasure. Hence, 13 Days Of Christmas, a collection of essays on a handful of beloved holiday classics and a few that have sadly fallen through the cracks. Up today, the very first animated TV Christmas special, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.
What do people think when they watch Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol on TV nowadays? It rarely turns up—though this year, NBC has decided to give the special its first broadcast network showing since the ’80s—and when it does, it’s been cut down from its original running time of 52 minutes, by up to 10 minutes, to better fit into modern timeslots. This is usually accomplished by taking out ...


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The Roots provide a cure for the bah-humbugs with “All I Want For Christmas Is You”

The Roots and their toy instruments provide a cure for the bah-humbugs with “All I Want For Christmas Is You”



Back in June, The Roots and Jimmy Fallon taught us all that we actually love “Call Me Maybe,” especially if it’s played on classroom instruments. Well, they return today to teach us a valuable holiday lesson: It is in fact possible to improve upon what is arguably the best original Christmas pop song of the last 20 years, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” given the right performance. (Sorry, kid from Love, Actually, this wins.) Christmas-sweater-clad ?uestlove and Co. bust out the xylophone, melodica, and shakers, a choir of adorable moppets pop up to provide the holiday-mandated choral accompaniment, and Miss Mariah herself arrives (spectacularly overdressed, of course) to contribute her signature dog whistle to the mix. It’s a perfect cure for a case of the bah-humbugs, and a reaffirmation that—like mega-popular bubblegum pop singles—not all holiday music has to be awful ...

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How DreamWorks Animation Became One of Hollywood's Most Female-Driven Studios

How DreamWorks Animation Became One of Hollywood's Most Female-Driven Studios



Jeffrey Katzenberg now employs far more women producers than men: "You can have a life and still work here."

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Sperm Trajectories, Evolving Humans and a Tomato Tapestry: The Best Scientific Figures of 2012

Sperm Trajectories, Evolving Humans and a Tomato Tapestry: The Best Scientific Figures of 2012

Figures contained in scientific reports are a neglected area of the design world. Typically intended for display to academic audiences in the cramped confines of a journal, they tend to be utilitarian and esoteric -- yet while looking through hundreds of articles in the course of 2012, certain figures transcended the technical. From tomato taste to accelerating human evolution to a goose that flies over the Himalayas, here are our favorite scientific figures of the year.

How Fraggle Rock taught kids about society and community in 10 episodes

TV: TV Club 10: How Fraggle Rock taught kids about society and community in 10 episodes

With so many new series popping up on streaming services and DVD every day, it gets harder and harder to keep up with new shows, much less the all-time classics. With TV Club 10, we point you toward the 10 episodes that best represent a TV series, classic or modern. If you watch those 10, you'll have a better idea of what that series was about, without having to watch the whole thing. These are not meant to be the 10 best episodes, but rather the 10 most representative episodes.

One of the toughest lessons to learn as a child is how to fit into the construction called "society." Getting children to think about their social responsibility requires them to understand how the world works, and where their existence factors into the imagined community of local, national, or even global society.

Fraggle Rock isn't immediately obvious as a ...

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Disney/Pixar Lead Annie Award Best Picture Nominations

Disney/Pixar Lead Annie Award Best Picture Nominations

With "Brave," "Wreck-It Ralph" and "Frankenweenie" up for the top prize, it was a big year for the House of Mouse.

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