Research Documentaries --- (Think ‘the works of Ken Burns’.)
Espionage in the Cold War.
The Kennedy Family.
Urban legends in Classic Hollywood.
Really interesting people. (ex: Nikola Tesla, Huey Long)
(and any of my biopic ideas)
Philo Farnsworth & David Sarnoff.
The men behind the Declaration of Independence.
The people we don't acknowledge despite being behind really big events (like Robert McNamara and Võ Nguyên Giáp in the Vietnam War, or WFNX for launching the careers of many popular musicians).
What each president was really like. Also, the best and worst of each U.S. president—which ones came out on top, which ones deserve more or less praise, and which ones were truly great.
Series called America's Dirty Laundry: things American history books don't want to talk about... like, the Sinking of the Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Bay of Pigs, the Trail of Tears, losing the Vietnam War, the Japanese concentration camps, Agent Orange, the Salem Witch Trials, the Korean War, the West Virginia Coal Wars, Aaron Burr’s treason, stealing Hawaii, the Veteran Siege in Tennessee, Nixon’s plan to assassinate a journalist, etcetera…
People who were given the death penalty but were later found innocent.
10-part series on the 20th century: each decade gets ~10 minutes of rapid explanation.
The world's most popular ideologies (both politics and religion).
10 greatest cities in history.
10 worst things to befall [specific, unlucky] cities throughout history (siege, hurricane, famine, plague, repression, war, bombings, fire, etc.).
10 greatest people from history.
The Late 1990s: When the Goo-Goo Dolls, Matchbox Twenty, and the Barenaked Ladies ruled the world (pop culture and society in late 1990s America).
The history of the atom bomb.
Roger Avery: the Other Side of the Tarantino Coin.
Taft's Pursuit of Happiness (biopic: yearning for black robes but handed the presidency).
Series that covers WWII in a vast and intricate entirety, chronologically rather than "chronological-piecemeal based on an area," like my WWII textbook did: chronological despite jumping erratically to all corners of the globe—Poland, France, Africa, Italy, Norway, Japan, Russia, America, Mongolia, islands in the Pacific, the Atlantic Ocean, the sky, England, ETCETERA.
The Nuremberg Trials (full coverage, from the fall of Third Reich to the last hanging, while exploring the fear of a national redoubt and the Nazis who fled).
Albert Abrams and his box of lies (the Oscilloclast).
Giorgio A. Tsoukalos’s dance with madness.
World War I: Sieges of Antwerp and Przemysl, Ypres, trench warfare, chemical warfare, the Battle of Hill 60, flyboys and dogfights, machine guns, tanks, surrender, and legacy.
The 1964 New York World’s Fair. And the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
The 27 Amendments: what each one is, why it was ratified, and why it’s important.
The first female director, Alice Guy-Blache, who is never mentioned.
A sp.doc about how the Cold War began with its two parties fearfully trying to purge-out anyone who might be subversive against them: the USSR engaged in its third Stalinist purges and the U.S. had HUAC and the Red Scare; they were terrified that agents of the enemy were in their midst and hidden in plain sight—but, really, they weren’t.
The WWII Allied plan to build an airship out of pykrete and ice: Project Habakkuk.
The Bonus Army of WWI veterans, who petitioned and fought the gov’t for payment during the Great Depression (since their repayments for war would take effect much later, but they needed it now).
Reality Documentaries ---
Where Leah and I go on different vacations (cities, towns, resorts, hotels, amusement parks, campsites, cruise ships, etc.) and we experience, detail, and rate the aspects of the vacation (food, lodging, activities, events, sights, atmosphere, romantic moments, thrills, nightlife, fun opportunities, etcetera). (Ex: Rockport MA, White Mountains, Disney World, Bahamas, London, Rome, Acapulco, Princess Cruise.)
It would be cool to have a cannonball run race across the country. One car versus another, or even three or more cars! And we could each have an in-facing dash-cam and a handheld, to document our perspectives, and then I can edit them together into a legit documentary.
Original document created 11/19/2014.
Note: Topics under “Research Documentaries” are being recycled into episodes of my history/comedy podcast, “Long Story Short”, as a spiritual successor to the above-mentioned series idea “America’s Dirty Laundry”.