Does anyone remember The Facts of Life? The show ran from 1979 to 1988, but then there was syndication and some reunion movies. So it had a long life and was consistently popular for its predominantly female cast. Where are they now? Blair (Lisa Whelchel) did very well on the 2012 season of Survivor, for one. They were all very young when the show started but were beginning to consider college and apartments in the final years, leaving behind the safe confines that Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae) had provided. But over the years various cast members came and went. There is a young wise guy in this season who later became a big star. No, it wasn't Leonardo DiCaprio, because that was the series Growing Pains for the 1991 and 1992 seasons. It wasn't Molly Ringwald, because that was the first two seasons of The Facts of Life. The Facts of Life Season Seven is when a young George Burnett (George Clooney) was introduced in 1985. It was one of Clooney's first regular gigs. He also a semi-regular on Rosanne a couple of years later. Tootie (Kim Fields) was another cast member who was in all 201 episodes. Kim Fields went on to star with Queen Latifah in 118 episodes of Living Single. Natalie (Mindy Cohn) was also in all the episodes. Mindy went on to voice Velma in numerous Scooby-Do cartoons. Charlotte Rae (155 episodes) and Nancy McKeon (188 episodes) were the two other main cast members and worked erratically after the show concluded.

The show started with Edna heading a boarding school for girls, but as the years passed she started a shop called Edna's Edibles with the girls helping out. Season Seven starts right after Edna's Edibles burned down, and after dealing with that very special episode, they started a gift shop full of crazy collectibles. George is the contractor they finally hire to do the renovations. George had lived in the Middle East and frequently made light-hearted jokes about his stay there. That is a sign that it took place in the 1980's. Things were different then. Everybody had big hair and strange pastel-colored clothes. The music was full of synthesizers. That makes reissues like this like time capsules. It's not just nostalgia, but an examination of our shared past. Clooney is barely recognizable with his poofy, goofy black mullet and skinny frame. Clooney's future business partner years later, Grant Heslov (Good Night and Good Luck), makes an appearance in an episode as one of Blair's dates.

Walt Disney was a dreamer. Some of his dreams were realized. Some were not. Disney built a kingdom. He built more than one, in fact. One of Walt's dreams that was not realized was the experimental prototype community of tomorrow (EPCOT). He did incorporate some of the ideas of EPCOT into the Disney World theme park, but it was a mere shadow of the original dream. One of the essential elements of EPCOT was, and is, Tomorrowland.  Disney was widely admired in the 1960's by urban planners for his visionary views about the possibilities of the future.
Unfortunately, Disney died in 1966, and the board of directors severely cut back Walt's original vision. Of course, Disney World wound up on 27,258 acres that is a short drive from NASA's main launch site, Cape Canaveral.

In the film Tomorrowland, Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) is the daughter of Eddie (Tim McGraw), who is an engineer at NASA. Unfortunately, NASA is not what it used to be, and Eddie is being phased out. In a separate storyline, years earlier in 1964, a young inventor shows up at the New York World's Fair (the time and place that Disney introduced many innovations) with a flying jet pack. That inventor grows up and is central to the story. That young inventor grows up to be grouchy malcontent, Frank Walker (George Clooney). David Nix (Hugh Laurie) is also important to the story, because he is the inventor of Tomorrowland, and Nix first meets Walker at the 1964 World's Fair. A magical young girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy) is the final essential ingredient, because she is the catalyst for change throughout the story.