Actually, giving people what they need is a better approach.

shrug The marketplace is littered with the bodies of thoughtful merchants who "just knew" exactly what all of us out here "needed".

An astute seller can predict what's needed before the public knows they want it (or at least convince them that they need something they didn't know they wanted). There are pathfinders and path followers and the first one makes the most money. The follower just has an easier time convincing somebody else that it's worth taking that same road to get funding.

An astute seller just happens to be in the right place at the right time. That's how they earn the title of "astute". In reality, none of them "know" in advance that their product is going to be a sure-fire winner. They can only hope.

Once in a while, someone just happens to shoot with a golden B-B. For those that do: it can be a wonderful experience.

But for the 99.99% of people who have something that they would like to sell to the public -- the best plan is to go with what works. Because it works.

shrug On the other hand -- there's always the old argument of 'nothing ventured, nothing gained'.

But not even Bill Gates had the vaugest concept of what DOS would do for him down the road. After a certain point, the whole thing took on a life of its own -- a life which was largely out of his control.

One should keep in mind that for every Bill Gates success story, there are 100's of 1000's of "Bill Jones's" with an idea that never got off of the ground in the first place. They tried -- and they failed. Miserably in many cases. ONE GUY made it to the top.

You can always strive for the elusive brass ring. But watch out -- it can be an awfully hard blow when somebody else grabs it instead of you.

Using the movie analogy, "Star Wars" was by no means an easy sell. Watch the documentary that came with the original trilogy of films or check out one of the books on the making of the first movie. The most successful science fiction movie, prior to "Star Wars" was "2001" and that only made around $20 million from an initial $10 million cost (I'm too lazy to look up the exact figures right now, so feel free to correct them) at the time "Star Wars" was being planned. From any practical standpoint, nobody involved in "Star Wars" expected to top the most successful scifi movie up to that point in time. The only way "Star Wars" got its initial run was for theaters to take it with another movie that Fox expected to be the big film of the year. At that point in time, science fiction was a niche movie genre that wasn't a major moneymaking field unless it was very low budget. "Star Wars" by no means was something the mainstream public was craving to see. Nor was the public anxiously awaiting to see a movie based on old serials, but "Raiders of the Lost Ark" became another blockbuster. It wasn't an easy sell pushing a comedy about a bigot on TV, but Norman Lear succeeded with "All in the Family".

You seem to be implying that there weren't any successful sci-fi movies or TV shows prior to Star Wars. No 2001 A Space Odyssey, no Logan's Run, no Silent Running, no Forbidden Planet, no Star Trek/Lost in Space/Twilight Zone TV series......I could go on and on.

Sure, sci-fi wasn't a particularly respected genre at that time. And as far as the Oscars are concerned: it still isn't respected to this day (nor is the horror genre). But sci-fi was clearly capable of being a commercial success. After all, this had already been demonstrated repeatedly by the mid-1970's. So the success of Star Wars wasn't quite the total out-of-the-blue shot in the dark that you are making it out to be. It's just that -- like Bill Gate's DOS -- no one involved in the project at the time had any concept of just how HUGE the franchise would ultimately end up proving to be.

The general public wanted sci-fi movies. They'd already demonstrated that by the time that Star Wars appeared on the horizon.

As for adventure movies, et al -- hit movies of that genre had already popped up many times in the past, too. Not with the numbers of Raiders, but big hits nonetheless. So the public had previously demonstrated an appetite for that genre, too.

As for Archie Bunk(er) -- the character was a product of his times. I feel safe in submitting that All in the Family wouldn't fly very far today, were it to be offered up as a new show. CSI does. Lost does. And 24 does. But all of those shows are a very, very long way from Archie Bunk and the rest of his ilk that were so popular back in 1971.

Nope -- nowadays, actors like Rush Limbaugh are getting the lion's share of the attention. Not Norman Lear -- except within the body of individuals that happen to be of his ideological bent already.

The times, they have a'changed.

You can essentially take any trend and find the seminal moment when a creative talent put something out to the public that it wasn't expecting and did it well enough that the public craved more. There are a lot of less creative folks at the tail end of a trend that lose their shirts when the public finds something else they'd rather have and somebody new is giving it to them.

Chicken or the egg?

Once again -- the Golden BB effect can be a wonderful thing. But it's a crap shoot. Not a sure thing. Never a sure thing. No matter how "creative" the persons behind it happen to be. The creative artist is still at the mercy of the fickle public.

But speaking of fickle.......

Throughout all of human history, V3 has never once gone out of style yet -- if you know what I mean.

So, I'd say that V3 -- and others like her -- are a pretty safe bet.

Something To Do At 3:00AM