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There is a very basic (and very dumb) question right at the heart of MTV's 1998 animated series "Celebrity Deathmatch": Who would win in a fight? It was a series based very directly on conversations held while extremely high while talking about one's favorite/least favorite celebrities, and who would best whom in hand-to-hand combat. "Celebrity Deathmatch" visualized such fights in a well-organized, animated pro-wrestling ring, where the celebrities in question could outwardly murder each other. For anyone who has ever taken a big bong rip and asked, "You think Marilyn Manson could take Charles Manson in a fight?", "Celebrity Deathmatch" was the series for you. 

The series was created by Eric Fogel, who had created the MTV animated series "The Head" (the one that aired with "The Maxx"), and the pairings he and his writers invented were often ingenious. The fight between Penn & Teller and Siegfried & Roy is a fun one.

Stephanie McMahon has been around the wrestling business since she was born. She has been part of the organization for almost three decades and was formally chosen as the successor to Vince’s legacy quite a while back. Like her father, she has also been mired in some controversy. Her tenure as the head of creative, especially, was poorly received. She was initially made the head writer in 2000 (replacing the acclaimed Chris Kreski), then became the director of creative in 2002, and was finally promoted to EVP of Creative in 2007.

These were all nominal positions, though, since every creative decision was taken by Vince himself. Stephanie McMahon was moved away from creative in 2013 and was put in charge of marketing and branding. Fans still are bitter about her time as head of creative, and it doesn’t help that there were rumors of her kicking out Paul Heyman from the SmackDown writing team.

"Star Trek: The Original Series" has three first episodes. Isn't this an irreconcilable contradiction? Let me explain.

There's the first produced "Star Trek" pilot, "The Cage," which starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike. When the Enterprise visits planet Talos IV, Pike is abducted by telepathic aliens the Talosians. NBC passed, feeling "The Cage" was a subpar effort, but let creator Gene Roddenberry take a second stab at it.

That resulted in "Where No Man Has Gone Before." When the Enterprise tries and fails to pass an energy field at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, crewman Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood) develops psychic powers and goes mad.

The only thing that carries over between the two pilots is Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is closer to the finished series (it does star William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk), but there are still noticeable differences.

William Shatner, in his memoir "Star Trek Memories," admits that the drink Tranya enjoyed by Captain Kirk in Star Trek: The Original Series was actually "disgusting." Shatner provides insights into the creation of Star Trek, filming the sci-fi series, and the decision to scrap the original pilot, "The Cage." In a specific episode, "The Corbomite Maneuver," Shatner recounts his experience filming alongside a young Clint Howard, and reveals the truth about Tranya, which was warm and food-colored apricot juice.

William Shatner debunks a classic drink that Captain James T. Kirk enjoyed in Star Trek: The Original Series, revealing it was actually "disgusting." In 1993, Shatner published his memoir "Star Trek Memories" (co-written by Chris Kreski) which looked back at his years playing the Captain of the USS Enterprise in the 1960s. "Star Trek Memories" also details how Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, what it was like filming the classic sci-fi series from the ground up,...

There was one story Star Trek franchise creator Gene Roddenberry always intended to tell - but he never quite got the chance. Roddenberry wanted the crew of the USS Enterprise to meet -- and in some cases kill -- God. It's a theme that recurs often in the various iterations of the franchise. Yet when Star Trek finally came face to face with the Almighty, Roddenberry hated the plot.

Surprisingly little of Star Trek was written by Roddenberry himself. He dreamed up the characters, the ships and maintained control on every aspect of the production -- yet the actual scripts usually fell to writers and producers on the staff. One idea he gave them repeatedly involved the characters meeting an alien who turned out to be what early humans mistook for God. Roddenberry was a devout atheist; in his view, religion's propensity to do harm outweighed the good it provided.

One of the biggest fan critiques during the launch of the new wave of Star Trek TV shows is how it treated the Federation. Famously, franchise creator Gene Roddenberry hated the idea of conflict within the ranks of his interplanetary governing body. However, as far back as Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, storytellers considered what would happen if Starfleet was the enemy. Or, at least, if it was the antagonist.

Both Star Trek: Discovery and the first season of Picard dealt with an imperfect Starfleet that seemed to fall short of its mission. Ultimately, those shows revealed that it was just bad people in a good institution. However, in The Search for Spock, Starfleet is to blame for every tragedy in the film. If the exploration and defense agency simply trusted its most venerated captain, it's possible no one would've died. All Captain Kirk wanted to do was correct his own mistake,...

WWE.com

A lot of Attitude Era fans tend to look back at that time through rose-tinted glasses. Yes, it gave us some great angles and storylines and plentiful helpings of shock TV, but there was a lot of dross, too. The wrestling was nowhere near the standard that it would be in coming years and PPVs were used to set-up the next episode of Raw (and not vice-versa).

That would change in 2000. A lot of it was down to writer Vince Russo leaving the company for WCW. His position was taken over by Chris Kreski, former writer of The Daily Show, who would greatly improve the quality of the shows writing. Kreski was the brains behind a lot of the best storylines and feuds from the era.

He had a lot of great talent to work with, of course. The Rock and Triple H were on top of their game,...

WWE.com

1999 was a magical time for the WWF. Steve Austin was the top star and his feud with Vince McMahon and his cronies sparked a boom period that helped the company rise to the top of its popularity.

With WCW faltering, WWF enjoyed the leg room of being alone at the top. With dynamic characters such as Austin, The Rock, Undertaker, Mankind plus the advent of competitive matches on free TV, it seemed like the company could do no wrong.

However, creatively the company was starting to falter under head writers Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara. With Vince inter-twined in the main story line, Russo and Ferrara were left to a heavy reliance on sex, swerves, lewd behavior and MTV-style television to reach viewers.

The strategy had worked in late 1997 and 1998, but as a result of burnout and growing pressure to deliver, creative suffered in 1999. From mid-card acts such...

The Sopranos was named the best-written show in television history by the Writers Guild of America, edging out an eclectic collection of some of the most beloved and admired series. Members of the Writers Guild of America, West (Wgaw) and the Writers Guild of America, East (Wgae) voted online for the 101 Best Written TV Series, with David Chase’s iconic “family” drama topping Seinfeld, The Twilight Zone, All in the Family, and M*A*S*H*.

“At their core, all of these wonderful series began with the words of the writers who created them and were sustained by the writers...