- Russ Meyer, 1967
During the early 1990's we had a good run on Discovery Channel with supernatural, or "paranormal" themes, eventually building a regular program block and airing occasional Sunday night showcase Specials. The success of Shark Week (all hail the maestro, Steve Cheskin) begat Aliens Invasion Week. Paranormal show ratings were abnormally solid, and the advertisers loved the block. A big reason for this was the audience that "spontaneously generated" upon the premiere of Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World in 1990.
As I was then directing the production management department and would also oversee selling the videotapes to viewers, I participated in the meet&greet telephone call to convince Sir Arthur to dust off his 1980 British (Yorkshire/ITV) series and allow Discovery to re-cut it for cable TV. Arthur had ex-patriated to Sri Lanka, so that's where we tracked him down.
It was a weird call: at ACC's request we scheduled the call at 6:30am his time - 9:00pm ours (yes, he was nine and-a-half hours ahead). My hilarious boss (Clark, no "e") gathered us in a dreary interior Landover, MD conference room, turned on the Polycom, and turned out the lights. He produced a spooky flashlight and we clowned around with it during the call, like runny-nosed kids around a campfire - Clarke's dis-embodied voice floating in from Sri Lanka, his pronouncements all pretty ... inscrutable. We made the deal though. It was my only contact with the spirit world.
A.C. Clarke's brilliant science fiction stories opened minds to possibilities beyond reality, beyond imagination. They are still changing perception today. Mysterious World was one of the Discovery Channel shows that I actually watched, and loved!
Scientist/futurist before becoming a fiction writer, Clarke envisioned for the first time ever a system of orbiting, geostationary communications satellites. The vision was realized decades later and is the basis for Discovery Channel's (and HBO's, and Fox News', and everyone else's respective) multi-billion-$$ businesses. Clarke himself never made a ha'penny on the idea - but he published it first here in 1945, in Wireless World.
"It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible. When this happens, the most well-informed men become blinded by their prejudices and are unable to see what lies directly ahead of them."
- Arthur C. Clarke, 1963
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