Hacker Cinema
Ghostwriter
1992 · TV series · 26 min episodes · 4 seasons
Created by Liz Nealon
MysteryKidsScience FictionFantasy
Ghostwriter is an American television program created by Liz Nealon and produced by the Children's Television Workshop and BBC One. It began airing on PBS on October 4, 1992, and the final episode aired on February 13, 1995. The series revolves around a close knit circle of friends from Brooklyn who solve neighborhood crimes and mysteries as a team of young detectives with the help of an invisible ghost named Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter can communicate with the kids only by manipulating whatever text and letters he can find and using them to form words and sentences. The series was filmed on location in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
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4 comments on Hacker News
12-year-old you would have resonated powerfully with that sort of thing. Adult you probably realizes that being smarter than everyone else really doesn't matter as much as you think it does. And even (especially!) the smartest people show their work if they want credit for it. Age is like that. It puts things in perspective.
The enduring bit of the Manifesto, I think, is the idea that we need to cultivate our curiosity even when society tells us we shouldn't. I mean that in the sense of both "we ought to" and it being a physical need, like an addiction.
The rest of it sounds a bit like Julia Stiles in Ghostwriter (PBS TV series): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLlj_GeKniA
I genuinely liked it even though I could read fine. It was an excuse to use the tv when I might not have a good reason to use it instead of someone else otherwise and I enjoyed the content well enough even if I was a couple years older than the intended audience. The public broadcasting shows of that era were weirdly good imo, with Mr Rogers and Shirley Lewis doing puppets, but wholesome too.
Ghost Writer was ahead of its time and deserves a post of its own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter_(1992_TV_series)
> The series revolves around a multiethnic group of friends from Brooklyn who solve neighborhood crimes and mysteries as a team of youth detectives with the help of a ghost named Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter can communicate with children only by manipulating whatever text and letters he can find and using them to form words and sentences.
> Ghostwriter producer and writer Kermit Frazier revealed in a 2010 interview that Ghostwriter was a runaway slave during the American Civil War. He taught other slaves how to read and write and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs. His spirit was kept in the book that Jamal discovers and opens in the pilot episode, freeing the ghost.
Wishbone has costumes and a dog for your dramatic re-enactments of books with a dog actor in the lead role. This is crazy town, and I’m here for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_(TV_series)
Thank YOU for posting about the documentary, I had no idea it existed! I love it! My story about the BBS was that I just happened to be paying attention at the right time, and the right moment, which for an ADHD kid in the 80s was pretty damn amazing.
On December 26, 1993, the PBS TV show Ghostwriter aired an episode entitled "Who is Max Mouse?" - which also starred Samuel L. Jackson.
In that episode, a kid explains that his computer can use a modem to connect to their school's bulletin board system. Max Mouse was a hacker that was suddenly causing trouble on their BBS!
Very shortly after that, as I was sitting in 7th grade literature, an announcement was made by our student news team via the in-classroom television; by the way, having a full time television in the classroom was still new at the time.
Students were invited to call the school's bulletin board system with their computer, and a phone number was provided. I scribbled it down on notepaper. Since I had just seen Ghostwriter on this very thing, I knew precisely what that meant. My father setup the monochrome 286 and we dialed in at a screaming 2400 bits per second.
It was all orange, it was slow, but it was absolute magic. I became obsessed with Usurper and other "Door Games." From there I used BBS's for many years until AOL, then Netcom, and the broader high speed web.
One more thing: If there's a guy in India named Anish Nanda who posted to FIDONET about visiting America in the 90s, and wanted recommendations... You were the very first international message I responded to and I have never forgotten it.
Thanks for the heads up on the movie. I didn't know it was out in theaters yet.
I grew up in the 90s watching PBS all the time. PBS was pure magic at that time with Ghostwriter, Carmen San Deigo, Sesame Street. Mr. Rogers was my favorite program overall. I always stopped to watch him. He just made you feel calm and collected.
I just recently watched an episode on YouTube and I ended up getting teary-eyed watching it. His simple little show was so impactful. So many great memories and morals I have learned from this show. So good.
I'm afraid to go to the movie. I feel I will be sobbing uncontrollably at the end.