Sometimes I just stand there, staring at myself in the mirror and wondering how I keep getting myself into these things...

This past Monday night I was here at the office, scouring the digital landscape in search of a possible topic or two for my column in this week’s issue of the newspaper, when I stumbled upon an online debate over the merits - or, in the minds of some, the perceived lack thereof - of the television sitcom The Big Bang Theory.

Full disclosure before going any further: I w...

Back in 1971, while awaiting the fate of his first feature film - the dystopian science fiction parable THX-1138 - and before being inspired to begin work on what eventually became Star Wars, writer-director George Lucas was challenged by his friend and mentor, Francis Ford Coppola, to write a script that would appeal to the larger, mainstream moviegoing public.

Though reluctant at first, Lucas eventually embraced the idea (no doubt in part an “I’ll show him” response to Coppola) and go...

People have been going on for years about how Alec Guinness hated Star Wars. 

He didn’t, not really. What he hated was that so many filmgoers who loved his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi seemed to know him only for that role and were unfamiliar with the long, lengthy career he had enjoyed prior to the 1977 classic.

While Guinness noted in several interviews that he did not really understand the film when it was in production (in a letter to a friend after getting the role, he described the s...

As a lifelong fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs (I began reading my father's copies of the Ballantine and Ace ERB editions as a third grader in the early 1970s), I have spent much of that life feeling mixed emotions whenever I encounter new adventures of Burroughs' heroes written by authors other than the master himself. Certainly these return voyages into the ERB realm have been uneven at best. On the one hand we have seen the heights of Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Swords Against the Moon Men a...

Not long ago I was fortunate enough to receive a free advance copy of a new book that has just been released, and which I feel is worth your attention.

12 New Testament Passages That Changed the World by Joseph Bentz may well be the best book of its kind since Joseph Campbell’s The Power Of Myth. While writing from a deliberately Christian point of view, Bentz - like Campbell - delves into the deeper meaning behind these stories so many of us learned in Sunday school, and ably demonstrates...

In spite of the fact that I was a mere 3 years old when it debuted in 1966, Star Trek is one of a small handful of TV shows that I can actually remember watching while on my daddy’s knee back during their original airings. (The others I remember from that era include Batman, The Green Hornet, Ron Ely’s Tarzan, Get Smart and, believe it or not, Mission: Impossible.) For that reason, I feel I am justified in considering myself to be a first-generation Trek fan; I may not have understood mos...

One of the unexpected gifts that has come my way as a result of my chosen profession as a journalist and author has been the occasional opportunity to meet one of my childhood heroes.

Over the years I have written in this column about some of those one-on-one encounters with such luminaries as country music legend Johnny Cash; actor Adam “Batman” West; and two who actually became perso...

Something occurred to me the other day, as I was trying to wash the bad residue of the day’s national news cycle from my psyche by going back to the stuff I loved as a kid…

George Lucas (or maybe it was Alan Dean Foster) predicted the rise of Donald Trump.

Way back in December of 1976, roughly six months before the movie actually debuted in theaters, Ballantine/Del Rey Books released the novelization of the film Star Wars. The book carried the byline of the film’s writer-director, Geo...

(NOTE: The following is a longer version of one of my recent newspaper columns.)


Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to become reacquainted with an old friend. A fellow I first met when I was a young boy and who became one of my most faithful companions as I was growing up. A gentleman who taught me about the importance of being observant, and of not allowing emotions to overpower logic - a skill I readily admit I have yet to master, though I continue to strive in that direction...

Dear Kraft Foods:

I was ALREADY angry with you. I have been ever since you made the bone-headed decision a few years back to discontinue sales of your classic Chicken Noodle Dinner - a move which I still consider to be a personal insult to me and my family. 

That delicious dinner in the little brown box had been an important staple of mealtime in the Small Household for as far back as I could remember. More than merely an easy-to-make side dish that went with almost everything, it was an im...

The U.S. Congressman who represents my district, Markwayne Mullin (whom I did NOT vote for, nor would I ever), today decided to weigh in on this silly Duck Dynasty "controversy." His statement began thusly:

“America is currently witnessing a contradiction in its core principles. The fundamentals that founded our great nation included the freedom of speech and religion. Unfortunately a man who simply voiced his religious belief, which is protected by our constitution, is now being punished....

Seventy-five years ago today America got its first taste of the true power of electronic media, courtesy of what is still considered by many to be the single most famous radio broadcast in the history of the medium. 

The date was Oct. 30, 1938. Fans of the pulp hero Doc Savage were thrilling to his latest adventure in the novel Fortress of Solitude. My father was just a month old. And by the end of the night millions of Americans would be tricked into believing that it was the end of the wor...

I've heard a lot of people spouting off in recent years about things they as individuals think are “un-American.” As if they as individuals – individuals who, as it happens, weren’t even there in Philadelphia when the Founding Fathers were bickering back and forth putting together the plan that got this country up and running in the first place – are somehow qualified to make a determination for the rest of us as to what is and is not “American.”

Well, a recent incident at home...

(Christopher Reeve... now THAT'S Superman!)


For much of this week I have been watching and participating in an going debate on Variety's website regarding the validity of Chief Film Critic Scott Foundas' review of the new Superman movie Man Of Steel. For those of you who haven't read it Scott didn't give Man Of Steel the most glowing of reviews, stating that its "humorless tone and relentless noisy aesthetics drag down this heavily hyped, brilliantly marketed tentpole attraction."

You could t...

Lancelot had his Holy Grail; Indiana Jones, his Lost Ark. And, for many years,  I had The Record.

Not just any record, you understand. The object of my quest was an album entitled Somethin’ Else, recorded by The Kingston Trio and released by Decca Records in November of 1965. 

I’ve been a fan of the Kingston Trio since I was a small boy. Between the two of us, my father and I had managed to collect every album that the Kingston Trio ever recorded… except this one. So I spent close to ...

Apologies in advance if today's entry comes across sounding cranky or surly or curmudgeonly. That’s not an impression that I particularly like leaving with others. I much prefer to think of myself as being a cheerful, optimistic, “glass half full” kind of guy, and have spent a lifetime desparately striving to portray myself in such a manner. Not always with success, I’ll grant you, but give me credit for trying. It’s more than some people I’ve met have ever bothered to do.

On the...

A Poem By John Allen Small

With simple words on paper

He drew a map that led me

On a pathway to adventure:

From Africa and Hell's ...

(NOTE: The following tale was originally published as a newspaper column, and later appeared in my 2011 collection "Something In The Air" [available on Amazon.com]. It is being shared here in honor of Lego's 80th Anniversary.)

A buddy of mine stopped by the house a few years back and seemed rather surprised to find me sprawled out on the living room floor playing with my son’s Lego blocks.

Perhaps he might not have been quite as mystified had my three-year-old son been there, playing and ...

There was a graphic floating around on Facebook the day after the horrific theatre shooting in Aurora, Colo., that read as follows: "84,999,989 firearm owners killed no one yesterday." 

To be fair, the observation was true enough. But my response is one firearm owner DID kill 12 and wounded 57 others that terrible day, and that was one too many as far as I'm concerned...

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Of all the responses to the Aurora incident I've encountered on the Internet these past few days,...

One of my favorite people in the known universe is my former college journalism professor (and still good friend) Joe Bentz – that’s Dr. Joseph Bentz, thank you very much, noted Christian author and currently a teacher of writing and American literature at Azusa Pacific University in Southern California, if you ever want to look him up on the Internet. (You really should; he's an interesting and talented fellow, and as my Uncle Bean used to say a good egg into the bargain.) 

While it wa...

Somebody – it may have been one of my high school English teachers, but I can’t remember at the moment – once told me that a person can’t learn anything valuable from reading science fiction, or from watching it on television or at the movies.

Who says? 

If, indeed, my old college professor Dr. Bill Finger was correct in observing that there are lessons to be learned at every stop we may make along the way in this life, then it stands to reason that popular fiction in general – a...

Recently – and with as little fanfare as possible, thank you very much – I observed the 49th anniversary of my arrival in this world. I say “observed” rather than “celebrate” because... well, because I’ve reached a point in my life in which the latter term seems ever so slightly less appropriate. At least it does to me. At the moment. If I make it another 10 to 20 years I suspect I’ll go back to celebrating because, let’s face it, making it that far is something a little mor...

As difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, it was 35 years ago this week that a trip to one of the local movie houses where I lived had an unexpectedly profound impact upon my imagination – and, indeed, upon my life.

The movie in question had actually opened in other cities a couple of weeks earlier; between that time and the day it finally arrived at the old Town Cinema theatre in Kankakee. Illinois, I had seen a number of news rep...

Every now and then I find myself in the unusual (and not always desirable) position of championing some cause that seems to fly in the face of mass public opinion. I guess it is not altogether unfair to blame my parents for this tendency; after all, they are the ones who drummed into my mind as a child the importance of standing up for what you believe, and the notion that what is popular is not always what is right.

Sometimes those battles place me on what some would consider to be the wron...

“It is said that wise men are not affected by women.”

“Then there ain’t no wise men in this ‘appy world!”

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Every February 15th, the ancient Romans used to take part in a fertility ritual known as the Lupercalia, so named in honor of some obscure rustic diety known as Lupercus.

Much later - som...

Hitler burned books, and we here in America were outraged. Such behavior flew in the face of the spirit of freedom which we have always claimed to hold dear. “Thank God such things can't happen here in America,” we said.

But guess what? It HAS happened here – and would no doubt more often, if certain people were to have their way. They claim their motives are different, of course – but what else would you expect from folks who have dedicated their lives to telling us what we can or c...

The latest example occurred just after Christmas, when I became the target of ridicule hurled in my direction by  someone I could only assume is too young to remember a time when personal computers were...

There are those moments in every man’s life which are destined to live forever in his memory, no matter how hard he may try to forget. For me, the day after Thanksgiving 1995 certainly proved to be such a memory…

I was sitting at my desk th...

Ran across a thread on www.moviefanfare.com yesterday where guest blogger Peter Eramo, Jr shared his own personal top five celebrity crushes - stars who, to use his own words, "are simply hot, hot, hot!"

It was an interesting list to say the least. Not surprisingly it included three current celebrities - Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel and Christina Hendricks - two of which I have to admit have never done much for me. (I'll leave it to others to figure out which two.) I was impressed t find...

Flipping through the television channels some years back, I stumbled upon a television news program which had devoted its entire hour to examining what has apparently one of the most popular religions in modern America.

One segment of the program which particularly fascinated me followed four members of this faith as they travelled about their own personal version of Mecca, pausing at various shrines to pay tribute to the object of their earnest devotion: a statue bearing his likeness, the p...

You know, at the outset it really didn’t seem like all that difficult a task to undertake. After all, all we were trying to do was find our way to a restaurant.

Well, okay, not just any restaurant. We were on the hunt for Tony Packo’s Cafe – renowned throughout the land as the favorite eatery of that legendary American veteran of the Korean War, Maxwell Q. Klinger.

Maybe I’d better start at the be...

Once upon a time - and yet not really all that long ago, if you stop to think about it - all it really took for the boys in the neighborhood to have a good time was an empty lot, the proper equipment, enough fellows to make up two full teams, and one captain willing to let Little Brother Tag-Along p...

When I was a little boy, there were two heroes that I really looked up to.

The first was my father. Well, I suppose that’s typical enough…every little boy I ever knew wanted to grow up and be just like his old man, and all the little girls wanted to be like their mommies. That is, until all those little boys and girls grew into teenagers, and suddenly Mommy and Daddy were somehow transformed (if only for a brief time) into Mother and Father. The Dreaded Enemies.

The other great hero of ...

As long as we're on the subject of "Star Trek," let me begin by stating that there's a story behind the above illustration...

Back in 2000, as much for my own amusement as anything else, I wrote an essay entitled "The Eugenics War Declassified," in which I attempted to explain how the Eugenic Wars first mentioned in a 1966 "Star Trek" episode could have still occurred given what had actually transpired historically during the intervening years. As a fan of Philip José Farmer and his Wold Ne...

“I didn’t know you were a Trekkie, Small.”

The comment was made by my boss one day a number of years ago as he happened to overhear a conversation I was having with a co-worker. We were talking about the film “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” which I found (and still find) to...

(Note: The following was my entry in a contest Time magazine held in the late 1990s - I forget the exact year right off - in which the publication asked its readers to submit ideas for an episode of a television series in which characters from another series make an appearance. The winner was some dummy that had Homer SImpson turning up on an episode of "E.R." I still like MY idea better....)

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Dear Time:

My name is John Small. I live in Ravia, Oklahoma, and the following is ...

By John Allen Small

On occasion in various regions of the planet Earth during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, there we...

“Mythology  n. The collective myths and legends of a particular people, usually describing the exploits of gods and heroes…”

Every era of Mankind’s existence has produced its own unique set of heroes, and the past century has ce...

I have often been accused of not being in step with the rest of the world when it comes to my preferences, beliefs and outlooks on life. Personally I’ve never much cared about such things, and typically when the accusation has been thrown my way my response is that I’m fine and it’s the rest of the world that is out of synch. 

This test was created to determine if I’m really that far off into my own little world, or if there are more of us out there than the masses would care to beli...

I was digging through some old files the other night and ran across something I wrote that suddenly seemed noteworthy again in light of our most recent celebrity controversy... 

It was written in response to a lengthy discussion amongst members of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society concerning an article in the July 7, 1999 edition of Variety in which it had been announced that former actor, former governor and philandering husband Arnold Schwarzenegger was planning to star as Doc Savage i...

Somebody once told me that I didn’t have any culture.

It happened way back during my college days, but I remember the incident as vividly as if it were yesterday. Some classmates and I took a trip up to Chicago one weekend (apparently it was one of those all-too-rare weekends when none of us had any term papers to write), and while we were there one of our number suggested that we pay a visit to one of the city’s famed art galleries.

I didn’t really want to go. To be honest, I don’t...