People who don’t adequately research what they write about as pundits, experts or authorities spread their own biases, ignorance and misconceptions like a virus-infected audience member coughing in a crowded theater. Two annoying examples of the phenomenon have surfaced in the last week, but the phenomenon is widespread and frequent.

Here was a collaborative effort: “The World’s Fair beats the hell out of Disney…” is the link currently displayed on the conservative news aggregator Citizens Free Press. That link takes you to an essay by Randy Tatano called “Bring back the World’s Fair.”

“Sadly, time machines don’t exist, or I’d transport you back a few decades to a wonderful tradition this country has abandoned: the World’s Fair,” Tatano writes. “This piece of Americana sadly made its last appearance in New Orleans in 1984. The event moved every few years from one major city to another, and there was always something new to experience….I was fortunate enough to grow up a 30-minute drive from the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York. It ran from April to October both years, and we made plenty of visits. Combining entertaining rides with a time travel element, it blew away anything you could experience in Orlando…The fair was so big there was an actual cable car called the “Swiss Sky Ride” which took you airborne from one end of the fair to another…It’s been almost 40 years since the last World’s Fair. I find it sad that an entire generation never got to experience one and wonder if we’ll ever see such an amazing event again.”

Tatiano bashes Disney several times in his article, but I found myself wondering, “Has this guy been to Walt Disney World?” and “Did no one tell him that the 1964 World’s Fair was substantially a preview of Walt’s last great project?” About half the New York World’s Fair major attractions Tatiano nostalgically marvels at were designed by Disney engineers and transferred to the new theme park as soon as the New York World’s Fair closed. He doesn’t mention others Disney contributions, like the G.E. “Carousel of Progress” and the audio-animatronic Abe Lincoln, who starred at the Illinois state pavilion. The experience at Flushing Meadows in Queens in 1964-65 didn’t “blow away anything you could experience in Orlando,” it was exactly what Disney World visitors a couple of years later experienced in Orlando: I was at the ’64 World’s Fair, and the similarities were the first thing that struck me when I finally got to Disney’s mega-park ten years later.

That “actual cable car called the ‘Swiss Sky Ride’ which took you airborne from one end of the fair to another” performed the same task in Disney’s Orlando park; it was only taken down a few years ago for some reason. Tatiano marvels at the promising future technology that was previewed in New York in 1964 and 1965. The EPCOT section of Disney World does exactly the same thing: the first time I ever used a touch screen was there, years before in became a common phenomenon. My first view of hydroponics was also at EPCOT.

World Fairs died out because the giant theme parks, especially Disney World, made them superfluous and redundant. “Sure, these things generally lose money, but so do things like the Olympics and other major events. Since Congress loves wasting cash on useless stuff, why not blow a billion or 10 on something unique that Americans can actually enjoy for our tax dollars?” Tatiano writes. What? Have Congress spend billions to erect a short term “fair” that it will probably end up paying Disney to design anyway? In short, Tatiano doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and has just made lots of readers younger than him stupid.

Then there’s Tim Appelo, who recycled a longer article he wrote two years ago for the AARP Magazine to get “10 Shows That Changed Our Lives.” Appelo is the old folks’ association’s TV critic, which is strange, because he’s not near retirement age himself, and his perspective is rife with the biases and blind spots of a younger generation. “Tim Appelo shares his picks of those [TV shows] that have altered how we think, live and hope,” we are told.

Right.

Appelo says that “All in the Family” “put a mirror in front of America.” Sure—a fun house mirror. The show was the vision of Norman Lear, a far-left bigot steeped in the delusions of the Sixties, about how deplorable, dumb and racist middle America was. The show no more “put a mirror in front of America” than “Father Knows Best” or “I Love Lucy” did. “The Cosby Show,” however, did change the thinking of many, because it presented a non-stereotypical portrayal of a black family. But Appelo didn’t have the guts to give the Cos the credit he deserves.

I was glad my Dad wasn’t alive to see Appelo’s claim that “M*A*S*H” “revealed the true nature of war”: that statement might have made his head explode. Dad, who knew something about the subject, thought “McHale’s Navy” was a closer representation of war than “M*A*S*H”, which didn’t even reveal the true nature of the Korean War, since it lasted longer than the war itself. Worse, the “TV expert” claims that “Law and Order” “altered how we measure justice.” That’s baloney: Dick Wolf’s cash cow was recycling familiar themes and plots from dozens of earlier shows, some a lot better, like “The Defenders” and “Hill Street Blues.” “Before ‘Law and Order’ we had cop shows and shows about courtrooms…but never a show about the particulars of both catching suspects and then prosecuting them,” Appelo writes, misinforming his readers. In 1963, a 90 minute drama called “Arrest and Trial” ran for 30 episodes on ABC. The Wikipedia entry for the show even notes that “Law and Order” was a virtual re-boot of the show. But Appelo wasn’t around for that show, so it doesn’t count.

Meanwhile, as he misleads less popular culture-literate readers about what TV shows influenced America, Appelo manages to miss dozens of shows that genuinely changed how many Americans thought and acted, among them “The Twilight Zone,” “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Simpsons,” “Saturday Night Live,” Fulton Sheen’s “Life is Worth Living,” “Roots,” “The World at War,” and “60 Minutes.”