This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
In this video, I share some of the photos and clips I took from my trip to New York Comic Con 2025. Enjoy!
Tag Archives: TV Shows
The First (But Not Last) AI Actress Is A Thing
Have you heard of Tilly Norwood? She’s a beautiful young actress who is just starting to make her presence felt in Hollywood. She hasn’t been in much, but she’s already negotiating with talent agents to get bigger roles.
There’s just one major issue. Tilly Norwood isn’t a real person. She’s an entirely AI-generated persona.
Naturally, that doesn’t sit well with real life actors and unions. There is already a concerted effort to prevent Tilly Norwood from being cast in anything beyond your typical AI slop content. I completely understand this sentiment. I don’t blame anyone who works in Hollywood for being concerned about this. However, having covered the rise in AI for years, I’m comfortable making this prediction.
Tilly Norwood will eventually be cast in major movies and TV shows.
Other AI actors like her will be cast, as well.
Traditional actors and actresses will hate it. A sizable chunk of the audience will hate it as well. But this is going to happen. It was always going to happen the moment generative AI reached a certain level of refinement. A big reason for that involves money, as tends to be the case in Hollywood and most other industries. But there’s another reason that’s worth highlighting.
Dollar for dollar, movies and TV shows are getting more expensive to produce. This isn’t just due to inflation, unions, and the “personalities” that tend to comes with Hollywood. The logistics involved with making media has become bloated and inefficient. We’re no longer in an era in which media can only go through certain channels, be it TV and movie theaters. Thanks to streaming media, as well as online content like YouTube and Tiktok, the competition for eyeballs has never been greater.
Unless you’re a big budget blockbuster with a massive distribution network, such as Disney or Warner Bros., it’s harder to make content that turns a profit. The scale, resources, and personnel required to produce a movie or show is such that it’s limiting. Add to that the general enshitification of streaming media and the current model for producing content just isn’t sustainable.
Generative AI, as much as it is derided, offers a significant cost advantage. On top of that, an AI actor or actress is less likely to get accused of harassment, arrested for public intoxication, or go on some anti-sematic rant during a routine traffic stop. And for certain Hollywood agents, you can’t put a price on that kind of assurance.
But the question remains. Will audiences accept AI actors? Will the content they produce actually be worth watching?
A lot of people will probably refuse to watch anything with Tilly Norwood or anything like her out of principle. But what happens when AI gets to a point where it’s hard to tell if a person is AI generated? There are already AI tools like SORA and Veo3 that make extremely realistic videos of people who look and sound real. This is one element of AI that is not in the distant future. It’s here and it’s evolving fast.
It’s not yet clear what kind of career Tilly Norwood will have. She may never show up in anything mainstream. But like it or not, she marks the first step in a new trend with AI. We don’t know where it will lead. Hollywood is already undergoing significant change. Technology like this is only going to accelerate that change in ways we can’t imagine.
Filed under Artificial Intelligence, movies, technology, television
The Critic Revival: Could It Really Work?
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
This video entertains the possibility of a revival of The Critic, a remarkable, yet forgotten show from the 90s. After my previous video, both Jon Lovitz and Al Jean came out in support of a revival. And while I’d love to see Jay Sherman return, I think it’s worth asking whether such a revival could work.
Filed under Jack's World, television, YouTube
Common Side Effects: A Bold Show With Bolder Ideas
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
In this video, I highlight a remarkable new show called Common Side Effects. It’s rare for a show to come along and really impress me after just one season. But this show, which debuted on Adult Swim, really raised the bar for just how great adult animation can be. And I highly encourage everyone to check it out for themselves. Enjoy!
Filed under health, Jack's World, television, YouTube
The Critic: A Forgotten (But Relevant) 90s Animated Gem
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
This video revisits and celebrates The Critic, one of my favorite shows from the 90s. This brief, but memorable animated series was unique in so many ways. It was even ahead of its time in how it approached modern movies. Even though it ended too soon, it left quite a mark that’s worth exploring.
Filed under Jack's World, television, YouTube
My Trip To New York Comic Con 2024
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
These are various clips and images from my trip to New York Comic Con 2024!
Filed under Jack's World, New York Comic Con, YouTube
Ode To “Airplane!” For Always Making Me Laugh
These days, it’s easy to look back on old movies and TV shows you once found funny and cringe. Sometimes, it’s just part of changing trends. Sometimes, it’s just part of getting older. What you found hilarious when you were 10-years-old isn’t going to be as funny when you’re 40. It’s just a sad fact of life.
But then, there’s a movie like “Airplane!” And I submit that, in terms of comedies that have aged like the finest of wines, this movie is the gold standard.
I certainly understand that comedy and tastes are objective. I also don’t doubt that some people will watch a movie like this, not get the jokes, or take offense to it. But I would also argue that, while you can levy those kinds of criticisms about many comedies from that era, you can’t reasonably apply it to “Airplane!“
This movie isn’t just a classic comedy gem from the early 1980s. It’s one of those rare movies that takes a simple, but effective approach at being funny. It doesn’t try to be too smart for its own good. It doesn’t try to be too crude, so as only to appeal to a specific demographic and/or stoners. It just uses the basics of what makes good, endearing comedy and runs with it.
The story itself is not really that complicated. A traumatized ex-fighter pilot, Ted Striker, tries to win back his stewardess girlfriend, Elaine Dickinson, before she moves away and leaves him for good. He follows her to the airport, ends up on a plane with her to Chicago, and just happens to be there when disaster strikes and the flight crew falls ill. Along the way, some truly remarkable comedy gold ensues.
In essence, this movie is largely a parody of common tropes from that era regarding romance, war, and disaster movies. It also used the premise of a far more serious, less funny movie from 1957 called “Zero Hour!” But you don’t have to have seen that movie to appreciate plot, jokes, and comedy of “Airplane!” You just have to have the smallest semblance of a sense of humor.
It does get crude at times, but not so crude as to be juvenile.
It does get quirky with recurring gags, but it never overuses them.
It also gets more than a little suggestive at times, but not to the point where it needs to be rated R.
This movie came out before I was born. However, it was a movie my parents loved. Every time my mother watched it, she would keel over and laugh. I was only around nine-years-old when I first saw it. And even though some of the jokes flew over my head, I still found it funny.
Years later, when I rewatched it, I laughed even harder once I actually got the jokes. To this day, I can re-watch the movie any time of year and still find it hilarious. I still crack up at the scenes that involve speaking Jive. I still laugh every time Leslie Nielson says “And don’t call me Shirley!” And the autopilot steals the show every time.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to call “Airplane!” my favorite movie or even my favorite comedy, I can’t recall a single movie or TV show that has consistently made me laugh over the years. And at a time when so many other TV shows and movies are aging poorly, it just makes me appreciate “Airplane!” that much more.
So, for that, I thank David and Jerry Zucker, and all those involved in making this movie, for giving the world this timeless comedy gem. And if you haven’t seen it yet and are in the mood for some quality comedy, give “Airplane!” a watch. If laughter truly is good for the soul, this movie should give you plenty of nourishment.
Filed under movies
Why Married…With Children Still Matters
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
This video is a celebration and a retrospective of one of my favorite shows of all time, Married…With Children.
This show was groundbreaking in so many ways. At a time when every other sitcom was about likable, feel-good families, Married…With Children aspired to be precisely not that with the ever-dysfunctional Bundy family. It really broke the mold for what a sitcom could be.
But it’s also one of those shows that gets lumped with others that couldn’t be made today. I respectfully disagree with that. In fact, I argue that Married…With Children is more relevant now than it was when it first aired. Enjoy!
Filed under Jack's World, television, YouTube
A Brief Message/Warning To The Writers And Actors On Strike
Firstly, let me go on record saying that I fully support the WGA and SAG’s strike. I’ve said before that we should support them as they fight the very powerful, very well-funded Hollywood studios who profit from all their hard work.
The fact that both the actors and writers stand united in this strike for the first time since 1960 is promising. As I write this, pretty much every major movie production has shut down. The studios could only do so much without their writers, but they literally can’t do anything without their actors. That likely means highly-anticipated movies will be delayed, but it also means the people actually making those movies might actually enjoy some of the profits.
That shouldn’t be such a radical concept, but that’s where we are right now. You need only look at many of the recent testimonies to attest how poorly compensated some people are compensated.
However, this brings me to the second reason I’m making this. Because I’d like to offer what I feel is an important message to both the writers and the actors on strike right now. It happens to involve artificial intelligence, something I’ve written about before and something that happens to be a major concern for this strike.
There’s a lengthy list of issues associated with AI and how it may impact the entertainment industry at large. I’m not qualified to go over all the particulars. So, here’s a video I found that should help break it down.
With that out of the way, the first part of that message goes to the actors. Their concerns about AI might not be as significant as the writers, but I strongly believe they’re not showing enough concern. And even if they don’t understand the true impact of AI, I hope they at least heed this critical message.
Do NOT under any circumstances sign away your likeness, voice, and persona to any studio without retaining some measure of control and an appropriate structure for long-term compensation.
Seriously, I don’t care how big a star you are or how well-off you might be. Do not give any studio, large or small, the right to use your voice and likeness at the moment. The current laws are not at all equipped to protect against the never-ending efforts by studios to exploit the hell out of any star, franchise, or intellectual property.
This is not a popular novel, character, or fairy tale for which copyright laws were intended to protect. This is your name, identity, voice, and brand. Giving any studio complete or even partial control over that right now is akin to giving every hacker on the Dark Web your tax returns and credit reports for free.
I don’t know when or if the law will ever catch up to this. Right now, your best bet is to make sure your next union contract addresses this issue and ensures at least some level of control. Because I promise the technology to fully render someone in a way that’s indistinguishable from reality is coming within our lifetime. You need only look at the current state of deep-fakes to appreciate why this is the time to act.
The second part of my warning is to the writers. They are definitely more aware of how AI technology could affect their livelihood. They’ve all seen how products like ChatGPT can write a movie script in seconds. That’s not to say it writes those scripts particularly well. Most reasonable people can still tell when a piece of writing is generated by AI. And no skilled writer or studio executive will mistake an AI written script for the real deal at the moment.
But therein lies the issue that I’d like to highlight. So, to the WGA writers striking right now, please heed my words when I offer this important message.
Plan for the long term with respect to AI. Because it will get better over time. And at some point, it’ll be better than you at almost every writing task.
This is not a dire prediction. I’m not trying to be overly fatalistic, either. When I say plan for the long-term, I don’t just mean get a binding contract that gets everyone back to work for another decade or two. I’m saying the writers striking right now need to think much furthe ahead.
Right now, AI products like ChatGPT are a long way from replacing skilled writers, but not as long as most people think. I’ve heard a number of writers and influencers scoff at AI, saying it’s nothing more than autocorrect on steroids. Some even call it a script blender, which just takes a bunch of data from other writers and scrambles it like a blender until it produces something that just seems original.
If that’s what you’re thinking, then I strongly encourage you to find a better source of information on emerging technology. Because writing off the ability of ChatGPT to write scripts is like writing off the first iPhone because it just looks like an iPod with a call feature. You’re not seeing the forest from the trees.
The current AI programs we have right now are limited, clunky, and crude. They’re very much akin to the early models of the iPhone in that they are in the early stages of refinement. You could definitely make the case that early versions of ChatGPT were basically fancier versions of autocorrect blended with your standard virtual assistant.
However, the latest version of ChatGPT is much more capable in terms of scale and ability. To simply call it a more advanced version of autocorrect is like calling a motorcycle a more advanced version of a kids’ tricycle. And it will continue to improve. That is the only certainty we have at this point with AI technology.
That’s not to say it’ll become sentient and go full-blown Skynet on the human race. In fact, AI doesn’t even need to achieve human-level intelligence to be just as capable as any writer or producer. It just needs to be refined, capable, and developed to a point where it can “think” about entertainment on a level that’s better than any human being ever has or ever will.
That kind of AI might not be feasible now. It might not even be feasible this decade. But make no mistake, it will likely happen in your lifetime. And the studio executives you’re up against now would love nothing more than to see this technology perfected so that the process of creating hit shows and movies is as automated as a modern assembly line.
It doesn’t matter to them if it means putting you, the actors, or the many crews on movie sets out of work. It just matters that it turns a profit in the short and long term.
That means that when negotiating with the studios, it’s not enough to just think 10 years ahead. It’s not even enough to think 20 or 30 years ahead. This may very well be your first and only chance to get something in writing that ensures writers will have some stake in the creative process moving forward. And if you fail to achieve that now, then rest assure the studios will screw you over the nanosecond an AI can write scripts as good as you.
Don’t let that happen.
Don’t let the studios screw you like that.
Get something in writing that ensures or at least complicates those efforts as technology continues to change entertainment.
But if I have one final message to the actors and writers alike, It’s this.
You cannot stop AI from affecting your industry.
We’re past the point of no return on this. The genie is out of the bottle. Like smartphones and electricity, the technology can’t be uninvented. You’re not going to convince the studios to just ignore AI moving forward. That’s like trying to convince horse-and-buggy manufacturers to ignore cars.
One way or another, you’ll have to find a way to co-exist with AI. I don’t claim to know how this will manifest in terms of a contract or some sort of legal protection. I just know that in the history of any industry, fighting new technology is a losing battle.
We’re still with you.
We still want you to succeed.
Just don’t assume that the AI you’re concerned about now is anywhere near as disruptive as it’s going to be.
Filed under AI Art, Artificial Intelligence, Current Events, movies, technology, television
Five Terrible Life Lessons That I Learned From Sitcoms
This video is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. And in this video, I going over some of the terrible life lessons I picked up from watching sitcoms. Enjoy!
Filed under Aliens, Jack's World, television, YouTube
Jack Fisher's Official Publishing Blog 