Forgotten Innovators
Donald Brown, Novelist
Where would the literary world be without Encyclopedia Brown, the rambunctious child detective? The first three novels were undeniably thrilling, but Donald Brown truly mastered his style with the fourth novel in the series, Encyclopedia Brown Gets his Man. The world of prose would never be the same.
The literary flair exhibited by Brown inspired a generation of burgeoning novelists. Heavily-influenced were Don DeLillo, Norman Mailer, Cormac McCarthy, and Tom Wolfe (who should be accused of flat-out plagiarism for certain passages lifted from the novel Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Dead Eagles for use in his repulsive Bonfire of the Vanities).
Sadly, the literary would has not given Donald Brown credit for changing the American landscape of the painted word. It is feared that he might be now be relegated to the status of “pulp” writers such as Raymond Chandler, Philip K. Dick, and Ernest Hemingway.
Victor Petrusek, Inventor
The 1980’s proved to be a decade of intellectual, technological and philosophical enlightenment when it came to children’s entertainment. The first, and most major development was the invention of SkipIt by Victor Pretrusek of Tiger Electronics. A revolution quickly ensued — the antiquated game of hopscotch was lost to the sands of time as children began to use the new technology to measure their skipping aptitude.
The Nickelodeon television channel lost its non-profit status when it began airing advertisements prominently featuring Skip-It, which directly contributed to the development of Clarissa Explains it All.
The advertisements themselves caused enormous upheaval in field. Game-changing musical groups like New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet boys would be inspired by the popular jingle, the lyrics of which would also inspire literary figures such as Joan Didion: “skip it, skip it… the very best thing (of all) is that there’s a counter on the ball.”
