Authenticity Show

21/10/2025

The night Walt Disney lost everything, a quiet man with ink-stained hands stayed behind — and drew a mouse that saved the world.
It was 1928. The studio was collapsing. Universal had stolen Oswald the Lucky Rabbit — Walt’s first hit — along with nearly every animator on his payroll. The contracts, the characters, the rights — gone. Walt came back from New York broke, humiliated, and ready to quit.
But one man didn’t leave. Ub Iwerks.
Ub wasn’t a showman. He didn’t give speeches or dream in slogans. He was the kind of artist who spoke through graphite and movement — a perfectionist who could turn blank paper into life. That night, in the middle of despair, Walt told him, “We need a new character. Something simple. Something we own.”
Ub didn’t argue. He sat down and began to draw. A cat, a dog, a horse — then, almost carelessly, a mouse. Round ears. Short nose. Friendly eyes. He simplified the shape, made it easy to animate, made it something that could move like joy itself. When Walt saw it, he smiled for the first time in weeks.
“What do we call him?” Walt asked.
“Mortimer,” he said.
“Mickey,” Walt corrected.
While Walt pitched dreams, Ub built them — frame by frame, hundreds a day, until Steamboat Willie was born. He worked so fast that his wrist bled from the friction. The sound synchronization had never been done before. Everyone said it wouldn’t work. But when the cartoon premiered in November 1928, audiences screamed, laughed, and clapped. It was magic.
Walt became a household name. Ub stayed invisible. But he didn’t mind — not at first. “I just like making things move,” he said. Yet, as fame swelled around Walt, something between them broke. The friendship that built an empire became a shadow war of pride and silence. A few years later, Ub left the studio.
He failed on his own, quietly, painfully — but he never stopped inventing. Years later, Walt called him back. This time, Ub didn’t draw characters. He built machines — cameras, effects, illusions. The multi-plane camera that gave Snow White its depth? Ub’s. The blend of live action and animation in Mary Poppins? Ub’s. The magic of Disneyland’s rides? Ub’s fingerprints, everywhere.
He never demanded credit. He never chased fame. But Walt knew. When people called him the father of animation, he said softly, “If I’m the father, Ub is the godfather.”
Ub Iwerks didn’t save Disney with a drawing.
He saved it with loyalty, brilliance, and silence —
a man who built magic, and then stepped back to let it shine.
History remembers the mouse.
But the mouse remembers the hand that drew it.

16/10/2025

The Final Death of "Music" on Television: MTV Turns Off Its Signal

December 31, 2025, will mark the end of a 44-year cycle that redefined global youth culture. Paramount Global has confirmed the cessation of broadcasts for its themed music channels (MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV, and MTV Live), a farewell that is more than a simple corporate adjustment; it is the symbolic demise of "Music Television" as we knew it.

The announcement, framed within the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media, has a cold and compelling motive: lack of profitability and the need to cut hundreds of millions of dollars. Music videos, once kings of the screen, have lost the battle to reality TV shows in the war for prime-time attention.

⁃ 44 Years of a Visual Revolution

Born on August 1, 1981, MTV didn't just broadcast music; it created it, dressed it, and turned it into a global phenomenon. With the promise that "Video Killed the Radio Star" (the first video ever aired), the channel put a face to the music, ushering in the era of the music video as essential marketing art.

The network was not just a mirror of youth, but a cultural laboratory. It dictated trends in fashion, language, and, above all, was the catalyst that propelled the careers of icons from Michael Jackson and Madonna to Nirvana and Britney Spears. Its influence does not stop at pop music.

⁃ The Deafening Impact on Rock and Metal

For the harder genres, MTV was a double-edged sword, yet immensely powerful platform. In an era when Rock and Metal were marginalized by mainstream radio, the channel offered them a freeway into millions of homes. Hair Metal bands in the 80s, Grunge and Alternative Metal in the 90s, and the rise of Nu Metal later that decade, owe much of their mass appeal to the small screen.

MTV legitimized the aesthetic and visual aggression of the genre. The very act of seeing Metallica, Iron Maiden, or Tool on cable television was a declaration that the Metal subculture had a place in the mainstream.

⁃ Flagship Programs for Heavy Music:

• Headbangers Ball: This was the sacred temple of Metal. Launched in 1987, the show was exclusively dedicated to thrash, speed, and heavy metal videos during late-night hours, providing exposure to essential bands and building a global community. In Latin America, the Headbangers Ball (Latinoamérica) and later Metalhead programs continued this mission.

• MTV Unplugged: While not exclusive to Rock, this acoustic format cemented the status of many great bands, presenting them in a rawer, more intimate setting. The sessions by Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Eric Clapton became iconic albums, demonstrating the genre's artistic versatility and depth.

• Total Request Live (TRL) / Los 10+ Pedidos Rock/Metal: Although TRL had a broader focus, these countdown shows, including their dedicated Rock/Metal variants in international markets, gave the audience a voice to vote for their favorite videos, keeping the pulse of the local and international scene alive.

⁃ When the Algorithm Killed the VJ

Why is MTV closing? The answer lies in the palm of our hands. The arrival of YouTube, Spotify, and TikTok completely dismantled the original business model. Today, the audience doesn't wait for a Video Jockey (VJ) to program their favorite song; they choose it, play it, and share it instantly. The streaming giants and on-demand content have made the fixed-schedule cable television channel economically unsustainable.

The main MTV channel will survive, yes, but transformed into a hub for low-cost reality TV shows like Teen Mom and Geordie Shore, definitively burying its original music concept.

The MTV blackout is not just the end of a network; it is the closing of an era where music was seen, felt, and shared collectively in front of a screen. Rock and roll on television is dead. Long live music, wherever it may be.

15/10/2025

10/10/2025

Last night’s Supermoon lighting up the UK sky 🌕🇬🇧

Captured perfectly as it aligned behind a leafless winter tree, creating this incredible silhouette. The warm orange glow comes from the Moon rising through Earth’s thicker atmosphere, scattering shorter wavelengths and giving it that fiery hue.

06/10/2025

05/10/2025

In California, rescuers found a small Western screech owl that was blind and unable to survive in the wild. But when they looked into his eyes, they saw something extraordinary. His pupils shimmered with speckles of light, like stars scattered across the night sky. They named him Zeus, after the god of the heavens. 🌌🦉

Though he cannot see, Zeus has become a symbol of wonder. Visitors to his rescue center often gasp when they notice the galaxies reflected in his eyes. He cannot hunt or fly far, but he has touched thousands of people with a reminder that beauty exists even in limitation.

Zeus shows us that even in blindness there can be brilliance, and even in darkness there can be light.

02/10/2025

29/09/2025

The good old days, weren’t. They were full of bigotry far worse than today. Yet exceptions exist. One was Jack LaLanne. In more modern times, there was the fat-shaming train wreck gameshow The Biggest Loser, but in those occasionally good old days we had The Jack LaLanne Show.

--On This Day in History S**t Went Down: September 28, 1951--

I spent a decade as a fitness writer, authoring columns for the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. Believe when I say that The Biggest Loser was a prime example of how NOT to get healthy. It was sick, twisted, unsustainable, and it’s amazing no one died. Conversely, Jack LaLanne was a fitness innovator. He came on the scene as technology was allowing Americans to become more sedentary and convinced people of the benefits of regular exercise. He opened one of the first weightlifting gyms in the U.S. in Oakland in 1936. Many medical experts of the time scoffed. They alleged that lifting weights would cause hemorrhoids and erectile dysfunction, and that women would look like men and athletes would become muscle-bound.

Jack inspired people with amazing physical feats to show what a body could do. When he was 42, he did 1,033 push-ups in only 23 minutes. On his 70th birthday he swam a mile through the strong currents of Long Beach Harbor while towing 70 rowboats carrying 70 people. While handcuffed. Holy s**t.

Jack broke new ground in fitness, and people paid attention to him because of it. He completed these feats seemingly as a challenge to the rest of the world that said, “Let’s see you do that!” And he really did want us to do that. His TV show began broadcasting locally in San Francisco on September 28, 1951, and was nationally syndicated in 1959, running until 1985. It was enthusiastic and inclusive, encouraging people to do what they could, to seek enjoyment in movement and healthier eating. LaLanne often spoke of how exercise was supposed to be enjoyable, not some endless drudgery of ah I f**kin’ hate this make it stop. His ever-present smile spoke volumes, and his exuberance for fitness inspired many. Jack taught us that if you didn’t use it, you were going to lose it. But he also worked to convince many older people that if they had lost it, it was never too late to get it back.

Jack was motivated to help others because he had experience with being both physically and mentally unhealthy. As a teen he described himself as a “junk food junkie” who suffered from bulimia. He lacked direction, dropped out of school at 14, and was prone to episodes of violence. “I was a miserable goddamn kid,” Jack said. “It was hell.” Jack’s father died at the age of 50 from heart disease, but the young man was inspired by a lecture on diet and exercise and it changed his life, then he changed the lives of many others.

Jack LaLanne lived for 96 years and was active, spry and almost superhuman right up to the end.

Those who cannot remember the past … need a history teacher who says “f**k” a lot. Get both volumes of “On This Day in History S**t Went Down” at JamesFell.com/books.