NRA Gun Control Arguments Predicted by 'All in the Family'

NRA Gun Control Arguments Predicted by 'All in the Family' (Video)

TV icon Norman Lear sent along the four-decade-old Archie Bunker clip to THR.

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I Love Being a Christmas Baby

I Love Being a Christmas Baby

I've come to expect a certain kind of response when I tell someone my birthday: a sympathetic frown, a pat on the shoulder, a few lighthearted words of support. That's because I was born on Dec. 24, and everyone knows—or thinks they know—what a bummer having a birthday on or near Christmas must be. This view was articulated emphatically on this week's episode of the ABC comedy Happy Endings, in which we learned that Jane's real birthday is on Christmas Day. Jane (Eliza Coupe) has been pretending her birthday is on Jul. 16 for decades—she even carries around a fake ID bearing the summer date—because "when your birthday is on Christmas, you get completely forgotten about."

Walking Dead to Westeros: The Best TV of 2012

<em>Walking Dead</em> to Westeros: The Best TV of 2012

Here they are: the best geeky shows of 2012.

Remembering Joe Woodland, the Man Who Invented the Bar Code

Remembering Joe Woodland, the Man Who Invented the Bar Code

Joe Woodland -- who died last week at the age of 91 -- is the man who dreamt up what became the Universal Product Code, the ubiquitous bar code used to ring up your groceries every time you visit the supermarket.

Does Home Alone stand the test of time?

Does the kid-vs.-adults sadism of the Home Alone movies stand the test of time?



The Internet is choked with nostalgia for the youth-oriented entertainments of the not-too-distant past: Tumblr blogs regurgitating images of half-forgotten toys. YouTube compilations of long-lost TV-show intros. Countless blogs playing “Remember when?” with movies and videogames whose rose-colored recollections aren’t always properly earned. With Memory Wipe, The A.V. Club takes a look back at some of our formative favorites with clearer eyes and asks that all-important question: Were they really that great to begin with?

The Home Alone house is real. It’s not an elaborate example of set design sitting somewhere on the 20th Century Fox backlot—it’s an actual 1920s Georgian, located at 671 Lincoln Ave. in the tiny Chicago suburb of Winnetka. You can check it out on Google Street View (that white van next door looks awfully suspicious), and up until this past March, you could also purchase the place, as someone recently ...

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All About Eves

All About Eves

This Monday, many Americans will head to church for Christmas Eve services, and next Monday, even more Americans will carouse, clink glasses, and count down to midnight on New Year’s Eve. Yet there are no similar rituals associated with the day before Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, or Easter, for instance. Why do we celebrate Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve but not other holidays’ eves?

Oscar's Dirty Tricks: Inside the Whisper Campaign Machine

Oscar's Dirty Tricks: Inside the Whisper Campaign Machine



As balloting gets underway, negative talk is escalating ("Zero Dark Thirty" justifies torture, "Lincoln" distorts history) as rivals look for a way to undermine the competition.

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Festive Woman Ticketed for Noisy, 65,558-Light Christmas Display

Festive Woman Ticketed for Noisy, 65,558-Light Christmas Display



A festive Fountain Valley woman's blinding, deafening outdoor Christmas display has been the center of attention and controversy as of late. Summoning her best Clark Griswold for the second time, Jan Stewart covered her home with 65,558 Christmas lights this holiday season.

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'A Christmas Story' Bully Fights for His Image in Court

'A Christmas Story' Bully Fights for His Image in Court

Zack Ward, who played the film's bully, is fighting over merchandise that he says illicitly used his face.

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Nebraska Would Bustle Under Updated Bergamot Plan

Nebraska Would Bustle Under Updated Bergamot Plan

Planners are paying a lot of attention to side-street Nebraska Avenue in updated plans to regulate future development in the industrial Bergamot Area.

Along with busier Olympic Boulevard, Nebraska would be transformed into one of the area's two corridors, possibly boasting wider sidewalks, shared bike lanes, shops and small parks between Centinela Avenue and 26th Street.

"We're creating a unifying corridor, a pedestrian-oriented spine," city consultant Woodie Tescher told the Planning Commission last week, "a place where people walk and gather."

In an updated version of the Bergamot Area Plan, it's called the "Nebraska Spine."

In the "mixed-use creative district," retail would be encouraged along Nebraska Avenue, particularly in the heart of district at Berkeley Avenue, and within the mixed-use projects planned on Colorado Avenue.

The street would be extended from its current terminus at Stewart Street to connect a "transit village" across from a Metro station at Olympic and 26th at the Bergamot area's western boundary to residential and commercial development planned to the east.

Planners said to ensure the shops serve residents and don't become a regional draw, concentrated retail hubs should crop up in a few select areas along Nebraska, instead of running the entire stretch. It's proposed they'll be kept under 2,000 linear feet, the size of the Third Street Promenade.

The 140-acre Bergamot area will undergo major changes with the arrival of the Expo light rail in 2016.

In as soon as five years, the future Bergamot area could include a made-over Bergamot Arts Station. There's also a proposal for a 766,094-square-foot "transit village" of residences, office space, shops and restaurants at the former PaperMate site directly across from the station (those plans, however, are reportedly being held up by about six months). Just east of the "village," an even bigger project is planned consisting of more homes and spaces for creative offices and cultural art outlets.

The Bergamot Area Plan calls for retail in the transit village to be at the Expo station, on a new street through the former Papermate site, and possibly at the intersection of Olympic a...

10 hot retro toys of 2012

10 hot retro toys of 2012

Cabbage Patch, Big Wheels, Spirographs: See why throwback faves -- with modern twists -- are back in play

How Much Does It Cost to Power Your Christmas Lights?

How Much Does It Cost to Power Your Christmas Lights?

How much money do Christmas lights cost to run over the holiday season? Wired Science blogger Rhett Allain calculates the cost of powering your holiday displays.

David Sedaris mixes the grotesque and the genuine in Holidays On Ice

13 Days Of Christmas: David Sedaris mixes the grotesque and the genuine in Holidays On Ice

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 David Sedaris holiday story collection Holidays On Ice.

"I am a 33-year-old man applying for a job as an elf."

It gets worse: He wants to be a full-time elf at Macy's SantaLand, not an "evening and weekend" elf. The latter has more dignity; it's just a means of picking up some extra money during the holidays. The former marks a person who has nothing else to save him from such a humiliating state. But in the early '90s, before he became one ...

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Apple Maps & Epic Hacks: The Year's Top Tech Fails

From Apple Maps to Epic Hacks: The Year's Top Tech Fails

2012 saw the launch of a hundred dazzling new products and services ... and more than a few stinky duds. Here are the winners for the year's biggest tech fails.

Who sent that package to Indiana Jones?

The University Of Chicago figured out who sent that package to Indiana Jones

Last week, the admissions office at the University Of Chicago received a package addressed to Indiana Jones himself, containing an almost perfect replica of Abner Ravenwood's journal from Raiders Of The Lost Ark. After much media attention and efforts to track down the source of the journal, the university's hunt is over.

The package containing the journal was actually part of a larger package of replica Indiana Jones props, sold by an eBay vendor in Guam to a buyer in Italy. That smaller package, which had been addressed to "Dr. Henry Walton Jones" as part of the replica, fell out of the larger delivery and was mistakenly sent to "Dr. Jones" at UChicago's Rosenwald Hall by the U.S. Postal Service.

The University has been told it can keep the journal, and several on-campus groups have reportedly offered to display or archive its contests. The outpouring of ...

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The FDA Is Holding Back Data on Farm Antibiotics Use ? And Plans to Keep Doing So

The FDA Is Holding Back Data on Farm Antibiotics Use ? And Plans to Keep Doing So

The FDA is forgoing opportunities to compel companies to disclose data regarding the use of antibiotics in agriculture -- data that some say is in the public's interest to know. Wired Science blogger Maryn McKenna describes the situation.

Check Out the Best “Decked” House in Culver City

Check Out the Best "Decked" House in Culver City

Who has the best "decked" house in Culver City?

According to users who voted in our annual Deck the House contest, the Herman Family's Hanukkah Lights Gangnam Style thas the best holiday lights in Culver City.

We had tons of national entries in this year's Deck the House contest and in our quest to find the most over-the-top holiday decorations in the country, we've seen everything from a life-size Santa to holiday lights so bright they could blind the neighbors.

We loved showcasing everyone's holiday spirit, but Deck the House isn't over yet. We're still looking for the one home so spectacularly decorated that it could be the national grand prize winner of our contest.

We will choose 24 finalists from all our entries across the country. From Dec. 18- Dec. 27, vote for your favorite and that person could win $100,000 for his or her local school district.

All you have to do is visit this page to browse a gallery of the finalists and cast your vote beginning Dec. 18. On Dec. 28, we'll announce the grand prize winner of our Deck the House contest.

So, now's your chance to tell us who has the best "decked" house in the country. Let us know by voting for your favorite beginning Dec. 18.

The California Report: ‘Venice Becomes Silicon Beach’

The California Report: 'Venice Becomes Silicon Beach'

KQED's The California Report has an article (and audio) up called "Venice Becomes Silicon Beach". The "Venice of tomorrow" is discussed.

From the The California Report:

"If you want to come to Venice, why would you want to change it?" counters Linda Lucks. "You must come here because you like it."

Lucks heads the Venice Neighborhood Council. Venice is technically part of Los Angeles, so this is the closest thing the neighborhood has to its own government.

"There's a danger of losing the soul of Venice, a lot of us feel," Lucks explains, "which is the diversity, the multiculturalism, which is the tolerance for people who aren't just like you."

In elections in October, ZEFR's Oren Katzeff won a seat on the Neighborhood Council — one sign, perhaps, that tech is here to stay. He says Venice is going to have to get used to the changes.

"Change at times is inevitable," Katzeff says. "You can take the position of, it's going to happen, but how can I influence it in a way that's positive for change and for myself?"

Click here to read the full article or listen to it below!

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Black List Screenwriting Honors Announced

Black List Screenwriting Honors Announced

The year's recipients were revealed Monday morning via Twitter.

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How Hollywood Gets Bloggers Wrong

How Hollywood Gets Bloggers Wrong

When Gossip Girl ends its six-season run tonight, it will bring down the curtain on the relationship drama of socialites Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) and Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), while also raising the curtain at last on one of the longest-running blogger characters anywhere in pop culture. The finale's promised to reveal the identity of the titular cyber-mudslinger, long voiced by Kristen Bell. But while knowing who Gossip Girl is, and how she's been in a position to gather all of that Upper East Side dish, may solve the show's final, if least-baroque, mystery, it spotlights a bigger problem.

Swiss Team Plans Solar-Powered Flight From California to New York

Swiss Team Plans Solar-Powered Flight From California to New York

The Solar Impulse team has had a busy week in the U.S., but that hasn't included the 'round-the-world flight they'd hoped for by now.

You and Your Precious 24 fps

You and Your Precious 24 fps

Way, way back in April 2011, before the critics started spewing insults in their snooty, elvish way, director Peter Jackson posted a note to his Facebook page under the heading "48 Frames Per Second." He wanted us to know why he’d used a special format in the filming of The Hobbit. It was a way of "future-proofing" the production, he explained. The 24 fps standard was selected somewhat arbitrarily in the 1920s, so that everybody’s films could accommodate a soundtrack. But with digital production and projection, it’s gotten very easy to shoot more frames and show more frames, and thus eliminate the strobe and blur that have been a part of film for almost a century. That’s the way that film is going, he advised. Sure, some "film purists" might complain, as purists like to do. But simple, moviegoing Shire-folk will adapt to it without a fuss. Don’t worry, hobbit friends, "it will look terrific!"