Today we’re headed to the public library where, after 1994, you could borrow a copy of both Forrest Gump the novel and Forrest Gump the movie.

Plenty of people, including my first guest, did not realize that the 1994 Robert Zemeckis film began life as a book by celebrated writer Winston Groom, published in 1986. That’s a tendency credited to the positive critical and popular response the Tom Hanks movie received. In fact, if the book was translated to film verbatim, there’s a good chance it would be considered one of the wackiest movies ever made, instead of the sweeping baby-boomer epic that we got.

I was so happy to collect the first part of this episode in Portsmouth, NH; it certainly provided great perspectives and new ideas. But who better to discuss a story which is very specific to Alabama society and culture than a trio of teachers from Alabama for the second part?

S3E32: "The Flowers are Still Standing!"

Today’s episode has us going back forty years to talk about one of the first–and one of the biggest—blockbuster movies of its era, 1984’s Ghostbusters.

I spoke with Michael, a native New Yorker who now lives and teaches in Minnesota, and we chatted about some of the analytical questions needed to define Ghostbusters as a document of its time and place—the early 1980s in New York City--but not all of the questions were covered. If you and / or your class would like to add to the talk, just visit the Classroom section over at everything-history.com and see what’s available.

S3E31: "At Large"

2004 fits into a rather brief era when documentary films were marketed on the same level as other theater-bound movies. It is also a time period where more and more people were becoming acutely aware of counting calories and organic choices at the grocery store. This was a perfect recipe for "Super Size Me," Morgan Spurlock's hands-on experiment with fast food and its ill health effects.

Find the entry on it at everything-history.com/classroom to see how you can add to the conversation.