Philip Wylie wrote a controversial book on American politics with
the title "Generation of Vipers".

He also wrote "When Worlds Collide", which was adapted into a
spectacular movie.

Later on in his life, he shifted to writing novels about the consequences
of environmental neglect.

On YouTube, I encountered this recording of a Chicago telecast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCz9YoD0l08

of "LA 2017", a television movie, which was directed by *Steven
Spielberg* (apparently one of his earliest efforts) and for which the
script was written by Philip Wylie (claimed to be his last work).

Essentially, a man driving to Los Angeles for a conference somehow
happens to encounter a time vortex, and goes to the future of Los
Angeles in the year 2017, where it is nearly unlivable due to pollution
reaching terrible levels.

Presumably, he vortexes out, and goes to his conference with a heightened
awareness of how bad pollution is, thus changing the future. The plot, of
course, could be said to be taken from Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Story".

John Savard

In article <440aabac-af38-44fd-af0b-4d83bbab7d54n@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On YouTube, I encountered this recording of a Chicago telecast
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCz9YoD0l08
>
>of "LA 2017", a television movie, which was directed by *Steven
>Spielberg* (apparently one of his earliest efforts) and for which the
>script was written by Philip Wylie (claimed to be his last work).

I remember this! I used to watch "Name of the Game" semi-regularly.
Three (I think) rotating casts, working for Gene Barry's magazine.
I think I recall they used some SFnal communictions device.

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

On Sun, 26 Mar 2023 17:54:05 -0700, Quadibloc wrote:

> Philip Wylie wrote a controversial book on American politics with the
> title "Generation of Vipers".
>
> He also wrote "When Worlds Collide", which was adapted into a
> spectacular movie.
>
> Later on in his life, he shifted to writing novels about the
> consequences of environmental neglect.
>
> On YouTube, I encountered this recording of a Chicago telecast
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCz9YoD0l08
>
> of "LA 2017", a television movie, which was directed by *Steven
> Spielberg* (apparently one of his earliest efforts) and for which the
> script was written by Philip Wylie (claimed to be his last work).
>
> Essentially, a man driving to Los Angeles for a conference somehow
> happens to encounter a time vortex, and goes to the future of Los
> Angeles in the year 2017, where it is nearly unlivable due to pollution
> reaching terrible levels.
>
> Presumably, he vortexes out, and goes to his conference with a
> heightened awareness of how bad pollution is, thus changing the future.
> The plot, of course, could be said to be taken from Charles Dickens' "A
> Christmas Story".
>
> John Savard

I lived in Santa Monica 1969-70 and remember the smog stinging
my eyes as I rode around the LA area on my motorcycle.
I see that Wylie died in 1971, a year after the Clean Air Act
was signed into law by Nixon. That pollution has been gone these
many decades, a major environmental success story.

Charles Packer <mailbox@cpacker.org> wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Mar 2023 17:54:05 -0700, Quadibloc wrote:
>
>> Philip Wylie wrote a controversial book on American politics with the
>> title "Generation of Vipers".
>
> I lived in Santa Monica 1969-70 and remember the smog stinging
> my eyes as I rode around the LA area on my motorcycle.
> I see that Wylie died in 1971, a year after the Clean Air Act
> was signed into law by Nixon. That pollution has been gone these
> many decades, a major environmental success story.

His last novel _The End of the Dream_, has various plausible and less plausible
environmental disasters coming one after the other,