Which 90s sci fi series with James Belushi was based on Bruce Wagner's comic strip of the same name?
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Jim Belushi Bruce Wagner Wild Palms
James Adam "Jim" Belushi (born June 15, 1954) is an American actor, comedian and musician. He is the younger brother of comic actor John Belushi and father of actor Robert Belushi, best known for playing the role of James "Jim" Orenthal on the long-running sitcom According to Jim (2001-2009).

Belushi has also been a prominent figure in cinema, performing in films such as Thief (1981), Little Shop of Horrors (1986)Trading Places (1983), Salvador (1986), Red Heat (1988), Who's Harry Crumb? (1989),   Mr. Destiny (1990), [Last Action Hero] (1993), Jingle All the Way (1996), Wag the Dog (1997), Return to Me (2000), Joe Somebody (2001), Hoodwinked! (2005), The Ghost Writer (2010), Home Sweet Hell (2014) and The Whole Truth (2016).

Early life
 
Belushi was born in Chicago. to Adam Anastos Belushi an Albanian from the city of Korçë  and Agnes Demetri Samaras Belushi.  He was raised in Wheaton, a Chicago suburb, along with his three siblings: older brother John, his sister, Marian, and a younger brother, Billy. After graduating from Wheaton Central High School, Jim Belushi attended the College of DuPage and graduated from Southern Illinois University Carbondale with a degree in Speech and Theater Arts.

Career

From 1977 to 1980, Belushi, like his older brother John Belushi, worked with the Chicago theater group The Second City. During this period, Belushi made his television debut in 1978's Who's Watching the Kids and also had a small part in Brian De Palma's The Fury. His first significant role was in Michael Mann's Thief (1981). After his elder brother John's death, from 1983 to 1985 he appeared on Saturday Night Live; he portrayed characters such as Hank Rippy from "Hello, Trudy!" and "That White Guy". Belushi also appeared in the film Trading Places as a drunk man in a gorilla suit during a New Year's Eve party. He made a guest appearance in Faerie Tale Theatre's third season episode Pinocchio, starring Paul Reubens as the titular puppet.

Belushi rose to greater prominence with his supporting roles in The Man with One Red Shoe (1985), About Last Night..., Salvador and Little Shop of Horrors (as Patrick Martin) (all 1986), which opened up opportunities for lead roles. He has starred in films including Real Men, The Principal, Red Heat, Homer and Eddie, K-9, Dimenticare Palermo, Taking Care of Business, Mr. Destiny, Only the Lonely, Curly Sue, Once Upon A Crime, Wild Palms, Royce, Race the Sun, Jingle All The Way, Separate Lives, Retroactive, Gang Related, Angel's Dance and Joe Somebody (2001).

His voice work includes The Mighty Ducks, The Pebble and the Penguin, Babes in Toyland, Gargoyles and Hey Arnold!, and the more recent Hoodwinked, Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King and The Wild. He also lent his vocal talents for 9: The Last Resort (a PC game released in 1995), in which he portrayed "Salty", a coarse yet helpful character. In 1997, he portrayed the "Masked Mutant" in the Goosebumps PC video game, alongside Adam West as "The Galloping Gazelle". On January 4, 2001, Belushi appeared on the ER episode "Piece of Mind". The episode focused on both Dr. Mark Greene's life-or-death brain surgery in New York and Belushi's character, who had been in a car accident with his son in Chicago. Belushi's performance contributed to his re-emergence in the public eye, and the following year he was cast as the title role in ABC's According to Jim. His first animation voice-over was as a pimple on Krum's head in Aaahh!!! Real Monsters on Nickelodeon. That performance led him to be cast in the continuing role as Simon the Monster Hunter in that series, where he ad-libbed much of his own dialogue.

In 2003, Belushi and Dan Aykroyd released the album Have Love, Will Travel, and participated in an accompanying tour. He also performs at various venues nationwide as Zee Blues in an updated version of The Blues Brothers. He released his first book, Real Men Don't Apologize, in May 2006. Recently, Belushi was a narrator of an NFL offensive linemen commercial. Belushi also introduced the starting lineups for the University of Illinois football team during ABC's telecast of the 2008 Rose Bowl.

Belushi started to take interest in his Albanian ancestry. During his visit to Tirana on November 11, 2008, he received the order Honor of the Nation from the President of Albania, H.E. Bamir Topi. On October 9, 2009, he received Albanian citizenship.   He appeared in MC Hammer's video "Too Legit to Quit" in 1991 (in the extended full-length version). He also hosted a celebration rally for the Chicago Cubs playoff series in Chicago prior to the 2008 World Series.
Steve Dahl has dubbed him "The Funniest Living Belushi."

In 2010, Belushi was cast in a pilot for CBS called The Defenders a series about defense lawyers. The one-hour series premiered on September 22, 2010.  In two episodes in 2011, Belushi was paired with Blues Brothers partner Dan Aykroyd.   On May 15, 2011, The Defenders was canceled by CBS.  In 2011, he was cast as corrupt businessman Harry Brock in Born Yesterday, which opened on Broadway in late April. 

Personal life

Belushi has been married three times and has three children. He married Sandra Davenport on May 17, 1980, and the couple had a son, Robert James (also an actor, born October 23, 1980). Belushi was married to actress Marjorie Bransfield from 1990 to 1992. He has been married to Jennifer Sloan since May 2, 1998. The couple has a daughter, Jamison Bess (born July 28, 1999), and a son, Jared James (born February 8, 2002). Belushi is closely linked to his Albanian heritage and received honorary Albanian citizenship from the President of Albania, Bamir Topi. Belushi is an avid fan of the Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bears, Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Fire Soccer Club.  

In 2011, Belushi announced that he suffered from gout, and became a spokesman for Savient Pharmaceuticals' educational campaign "Check Out Your Gout".   He has also appeared on the cover of and been interviewed by Cigar Aficionado magazine. 

Belushi endorsed the re-election campaign of Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012. On a Fox News interview, he explained, "When you talk to the President in private, he's a cool guy, that knows what he's doing. Besides, I'm from Chicago too." 

Filmography

Characters on Saturday Night Live

*Hank Rippy (Hello, Trudy!)
*Man on the Street Jesse Donnelly
*That White Guy, a stereotypical Caucasian man who can rap

Celebrity impersonations 

*Rosemary Clooney
*Joe Cocker
*Joan Collins
*Bob Guccione
*Hulk Hogan
*Pope John Paul II
*Bob Keeshan as Captain Kangaroo
*Josef Mengele
*Willie Nelson
*Thomas Noguchi
*Michael Reagan
*Babe Ruth
*Arnold Schwarzenegger Bruce Alan Wagner (born March 22, 1954) is an American novelist and screenwriter based in Los Angeles known for his apocalyptic yet ultimately spiritual view of humanity as seen through the lens of the Hollywood entertainment industry.

Early life

Wagner was born in Madison, Wisconsin, to Morton Wagner and Bernice Maletz. When he was four, his family moved to San Francisco, then to Los Angeles four years later. His father was a radio station executive who eventually moved into television, producing "The Les Crane Show," before becoming a stock broker. When his parents divorced, his mother worked at Saks Fifth Avenue, where she remained for 40 years. He attended Beverly Vista Elementary School in Beverly Hills, CA, until the 8th grade.  He attended Beverly Hills High School but dropped out in his junior year. He worked in bookstores, drove an ambulance for Schaefer Ambulance Service, and became a chauffeur at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He has two older sisters.

Career

In his twenties, Wagner began writing articles for magazines, and writing scripts. His first screenplay, Young Lust, was produced by Robert Stigwood but was never released. It was that experience that ultimately led him to write his modern take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Pat Hobby" short stories (about an alcoholic screenwriter who never gets ahead).

Wagner self-published (with Caldecott Chubb) Force Majeure: The Bud Wiggins Stories in an edition of 1,000, which sold out at West Hollywood's famed Book Soup. It was optioned by Oliver Stone to direct but the project never came to fruition. (Wagner has said that the script he wrote, based upon the stories' protagonist - a chauffeur named Bud Wiggins - later became "Maps To The Stars," the 2015 film directed by David Cronenberg.) The book was well reviewed and led to a publishing deal with Random House. He is currently published by Blue Rider Press, an imprint at Penguin Random House. 

He has written essays and op-ed pieces for a wide variety of publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Art Forum and Vanity Fair." His novel I'm Losing You, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and his novel The Chrysanthemum Palace was a PEN/Faulkner finalist in 2006. He has also written essays and prefaces for books by photographers William Eggleston and Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and painters Ed Ruscha and Richard Prince.

Wes Craven read an unproduced script of Wagner's ("They Sleep By Night"), which led Craven to ask Wagner to co-write "A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" (1987). Wagner and Craven wrote the story and share screenwriting credit with Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont. Wagner and Oliver Stone co-executive produced Wild Palms, the mini-series Wagner created, based on a comic strip that he wrote for Details magazine. Wild Palms aired on ABC in 1993. He was the executive producer and co-writer (with Ullman) of Tracey Ullman's State of the Union series (2008 - 2010) on Showtime. In 2014, David Cronenberg directed Wagner's script, "Maps To The Stars," a film that Cronenberg had been trying to make for a decade. For her role as Havana Segrand, Julianne Moore won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. Wagner accepted the award on her behalf.

Personal life

Wagner married actress Rebecca De Mornay on December 16, 1986 and the couple divorced the next year.   He married Laura Peterson in 2009.

Mysticism

After interviewing Carlos Castaneda for Details magazine in 1994,  Wagner became part of Castaneda's inner circle under the assumed name of Lorenzo Drake. He directed the first videos on Tensegrity for Cleargreen and married the mystic Carol Tiggs in 1995. Wagner continues to be close to the group since Castaneda's death in 1998. His first autobiographical piece about his experience with the shaman and author Castaneda appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Tricycle magazine. After Wagner's novel Memorial was favorably reviewed in that magazine by a Buddhist monk, Wagner wrote its editor, James Shaheen, a letter of thanks, and Shaheen invited him to contribute an essay about Castaneda. Wagner and two partners own the television and film rights to all of Castaneda's books. More recently, Wagner studied with Indian guru Ramesh Balsekar. 

Novels
    
* Force Majeure (1991)
* Wild Palms (1993) (graphic novel)
* I'm Losing You (1996)
* I'll Let You Go (2002)
* Still Holding (2003)
* The Chrysanthemum Palace (2005)
* Memorial (2006)
* Dead Stars (2012)
* The Empty Chair (2014)
* "I Met Someone" (2016)

Screenplays

* A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987),  "story by" credit, shared with Wes Craven
* Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989)
* Wild Palms (1993)
* White Dwarf (1995)
* I'm Losing You (1998), also director
* Women in Film (2001), also director
* Maps to the Stars (2014) Wild Palms is a five-hour mini-series which was produced by Greengrass Productions and first aired in May 1993 on the ABC network in the United States. The sci-fi drama, announced as an "event series", deals with the dangers of politically motivated abuse of mass media technology, virtual realities in particular. It was based on a comic strip written by Bruce Wagner and illustrated by Julian Allen first published in 1990 in Details magazine. Wagner, who also wrote the screenplay, served as executive producer together with Oliver Stone. The series stars James Belushi, Dana Delany, Robert Loggia, Kim Cattrall, David Warner, and Angie Dickinson. The episodes were directed by Kathryn Bigelow, Keith Gordon, Peter Hewitt and Phil Joanou.

Plot synopsis

In the United States in the year 2007, the right-wing "Fathers" dominate large sections in politics and in the media. A libertarian movement, the "Friends", opposes the government, often making use of underground guerilla tactics.

In California, the powerful representative of the "Fathers" is Senator Tony Kreutzer, who is also the leader of the religious sect "Church of Synthiotics" and owner of the "Wild Palms" media group. Kreutzer's TV station "Channel 3" is about to start a new television format, "Church Windows", which creates a virtual reality on the basis of popular shows like sitcoms, using a new technique called "Mimecom".

Harry Wyckoff is a successful patent attorney on the brink of becoming a partner in the agency where he works. He has two children with his wife Grace, a perfect housewife who also moonlights as a boutique owner: 11-year-old Coty, who has just been cast for the new "Channel 3" series, and the ever-silent 4-year-old Deirdre. His mother-in-law is the impossibly chic socialite and interior decorator Josie Ito, a woman of strong will and numerous connections. At night, Wyckoff is plagued by strange dreams of a rhinoceros and a faceless woman who has palm trees tattooed on her body.

One day, he is visited by a former lover of his college days, the alluring Paige Katz, who asks for his help in tracking down her son Peter, who disappeared five years earlier. As Paige is closely associated with Kreutzer's "Wild Palms Group", which Wyckoff's firm is going up against in court, their meetings raise suspicions and cost Wyckoff his promotion. After this, he gladly accepts when Kreutzer offers him a job at "Channel 3" with an even higher salary.

In the wake of his new career, Harry's wife Grace becomes alienated from him and attempts suicide. To his dismay, Harry learns that Coty is actually the son of Kreutzer and Paige, and that her search request was a plot to bring him and the Senator together. Meanwhile, Coty not only becomes a child TV star but also, due to his ruthlessness, a high-ranking member of the "Church of Synthiotics". Grace's mother  turns out to be the Senator's sister who disposes of possible rivals with the same violently brutal means as her brother. Her only weak point is her former marriage to Eli Levitt, leader of the "Friends" and Grace's father, with whom she is still in love.

Kreutzer tries to get hold of the "Go chip", which supposedly will enable him to become a living hologram with unlimited power; he does not even stop at murder. Disgusted by his methods, his fiancé Paige gives information to the "Friends". Harry discovers that Peter, a boy who has connections to the "Friends", is his real son who was taken away by the "Fathers" shortly after his birth. Kreutzer, who suspects Harry of collaborating with his opponents, has him tortured and kidnaps his daughter Deirdre, while Josie throttles her own daughter, Grace, to death.

Harry joins the "Friends" and works to broadcast a recording of Grace's murder. The broadcast causes a social uproar. "Synthiotics" facilities and the campaign offices of Kreutzer, who is running for president, are attacked. Even a transmission of a fake video that shows Harry as Grace's murderer, and the secret execution of Eli can't stop the upheaval. Josie is brutally killed by a former victim, Tully Woiwode. Kreutzer finally manages to get hold of the "Go chip" and has it implanted, but not before it is secretly altered by Harry and Peter. Kreutzer reveals to Harry that he is his biological father, just before he loses cohesion and dissolves into nothingness. As Coty, now the leader of the "Fathers", finds his followers dispersed, Harry, Paige, Peter and Dierdre escape the chaos, although Harry knows he must "go back" and lead the "Friends" against their enemies.

Episodes

ABC aired the mini-series over five consecutive nights:
* : Everything Must Go (approx. 90 minutes) - directed by Peter Hewitt
* : The Floating World (approx. 45 minutes) - directed by Keith Gordon
* : Rising Sons (approx. 45 minutes) - directed by Kathryn Bigelow
* : Hungry Ghosts (approx. 45 minutes) - directed by Keith Gordon
* : Hello, I Must Be Going (approx. 45 minutes) - directed by Phil Joanou

Cast

* James Belushi as Harry Wyckoff, a Beverly Hills based patent attorney and later, CEO of the Wild Palms group.
* Dana Delany as Grace Wyckoff, his wife, suburban housewife and owner of Hiroshima, a retro fashion boutique.
* Ben Savage as Coty Wyckoff, their 11-year-old son, a child actor on the verge of a breakthrough to stardom.
* Robert Loggia as Senator Tony Kreutzer, former sci-fi author, founder of the Wild Palms group, and of the Synthiotics cult.
* Angie Dickinson as Josie Ito, Grace's mother, a celebrated interior decorator with numerous connections and secrets.
* David Warner as Eli Levitt, Grace's father, former History professor imprisoned for terrorism. Founder of the "Friends".
* Kim Cattrall as Paige Katz, PR director of the Wild Palms group and Kreutzer's fiancée, she and Harry have past history together.
* Ernie Hudson as Tommy Laszlo, Harry Wyckoff's childhood friend, an eccentric entrepreneur who is also a closet homosexual.
* Nick Mancuso as Tully Woiwode, infamous and popular visual artist and toast-of-the-town, Tommy Laszlo's secret lover.
* Bebe Neuwirth as Tabba Schwartzkopf, Academy Award winning actress who befriends Grace, and is part of the Wild Palms group.
* Aaron Michael Metchik as Peter Katz, a street urchin with mysterious connections with Harry, Grace and the "Fathers".
* Brad Dourif as Chickie Levitt, Eli Levitt's son from another relationship. Virtual reality boy genius and technology wizard.
* Charles Hallahan as Gavin Whitehope, Harry's associate at the Wild Palms group. Reformed alcoholic an Synthiotics devotee.
* Robert Morse as Chap Starfall, erstwhile pop star reduced to lounge singer status until the Wild Palms group "revives" him.
* Beata Pozniak as Tambor, the Wyckoff's dutiful au-pair.
* Bob Gunton as Dr. Tobias Schenkl, Harry's psychiatrist upon whom he confides everything that is going on in his work and home lives.
* Rondi Reed as Eileen Whitehope, Gavin's wife, a "Lady-who-lunches" who also alerts Grace to a danger in her own home.
* Charles Rocket as Stitch Walken, a stand-up comedian who is also a surreptitious agent of the "Friends".
* Eugene Lee as Lt. Bob Grindrod, a corrupt detective of the LAPD under contract to the Wild Palms group.
* Fraçois Chau as Hiro, Grace's childhood sweetheart from her years spent in Japan, and an enemy of Kreutzer.
* Monica Mikala as Deirdre Wyckoff, Harry and Grace's silent four-year-old daughter, who gets kidnapped and used as a pawn later on.
* 

Cameos

* Cyberpunk author William Gibson has a cameo appearance as himself. When the author is introduced as the man who invented the term Cyberspace, he remarks, "and they won't let me forget it".
* Wild Palms producer and film director Oliver Stone also has a cameo. In a fictitious interview he appears as himself and comments on the release of files pertinent to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, revealing that the theories in his film JFK were right.
* Wild Palms director Kathryn Bigelow has an uncredited cameo. She plays the character Maisy Woiwode.

Production

Oliver Stone had originally planned to film Bruce Wagner's novel Force Majeure, but then decided to film Wagner's comic strip Wild Palms, published in Details magazine, instead: "It was so syncretic.  It was such a fractured view of the world. Everything and anything could happen. Maybe your wife isn't your wife, maybe your kids aren't your kids. It really appealed to me." Wagner referred to his creation as "a sort of surreal diary […] a tone poem", set in an "Orwellian Los Angeles". ABC agreed to finance the project on a budget of $11 Million, but, remembering the eventual decline of David Lynch's Twin Peaks, insisted that the series had "a complete story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end".  

Actor James Belushi compared the series (among others) to the British TV serial The Prisoner, and stated: "It's very tough, very challenging—a lot of viewers probably won't dig it." Dana Delany suggested that viewers should "let it wash over you, enjoy each scene, and by the end it'll make sense". Robert Loggia compared it to Elizabethan play The Duchess of Malfi and the ancient Greek tragedy Medea. ABC, bound to make sure that viewers wouldn't lose attention, had a supplemental book, The Wild Palms Reader, published and offered a telephone hotline with the show's initial run. These measures notwithstanding, Stone considered the atmosphere to be more important than the storyline. 

William Gibson later stated that "while the mini-series fell drastically short of the serial, it did produce one admirably peculiar literary artifact, The Wild Palms Reader" (to which he contributed). Both Stone and Gibson called Wagner the creative force behind the series. 

Production design

The United States of the year 2007 as depicted in the series shows a strong influence of Japanese culture, e. g., in dress and interior and exterior design. Holograms of Miss Alabama and girl group The Supremes even bear Japanese facial features.

Other interior details show the influence of Scottish designer and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928). Deliberately anachronistic elements include 1960s cars (like Studebaker police vehicles) and Edwardian fashion.

References in Wild Palms

Non-fictitious references

While the comic strip makes clear references with Senator Kreutzer to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, the series gives only allusions. Hubbard publicised a psychological technique, "Dianetics", which is practised in his "Church of Scientology". Kreutzer's technique is called "Synthiotics", and his religious organization "Church of Synthiotics". Kreutzer's organization has a naval subsidiary called "The Floating World", paralleling the "Church of Scientology"'s "Sea Org". In their reviews of the series, both The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly noted resemblances. 

Shortly after Harry joins the "Wild Palms Group", competing TV stations file a lawsuit against the senator's company, arguing that his new exclusive broadcasting technique "Mimecom" would create a technical monopoly. The lawsuit refers to the 1948 Paramount Consent Decree which forced major Hollywood studios to sell their movie theater chains to liquidate the existing oligopoly.

During a conversation, Kreutzer explains that his mother died as victim of Executive Order 9066 because she had Japanese ancestors. In 1942, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt had signed EO 9066 which led to the internment of Japanese Americans and Japanese living along the Pacific coast of the United States in so called "War Relocation Camps".

A manipulated video showing Harry killing his wife Grace (who was in fact murdered by her mother Josie) is announced to be broadcast on several TV channels. CNN alone is mentioned by name. After the broadcast, Harry contacts Josie one last time, sarcastically suggesting that she should start a weekly TV show featuring the murder of a surprise guest. As the first two attendants, he proposes ancient Roman dictator Caesar and controversial union leader Jimmy Hoffa who disappeared in 1975.

Artistic and other references

Literature

* The poem "Of Mere Being" by Wallace Stevens is repeatedly used as a mantra by Synthiotics members.
* "Running to Paradise" by W. B. Yeats is, among others, quoted by Senator Kreutzer in conversation with Harry Wyckoff: "The wind is old and still at play / While I must hurry upon my way, / For I am running to Paradise."
* Comedian Stitch Walken quotes a chapter title ("The Pool of Tears") from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: "Down, down, down through the pool of tears."
* Grace alludes to her life as the Diary of a Mad Housewife—a very popular 1960s novel by Sue Kaufman, which deals with the mental breakdown of the titular character.
* The hologram of Dex Wyckoff recites Shakespeare's Hamlet: "It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you."
* When given a precious dagger by Eli Levitt, Harry quotes The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
* "The Hollow Men" by T. S. Eliot features in Kreutzer's last words: "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper."
* "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman is repeatedly alluded to and recited by the "Friends".
Other books are referred to variously in dialogue, including Neuromancer, The Illustrated Man, The Day of the Locust, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Emperor's New Mind, and Grimms' Fairy Tales.

Music

* Kreutzer repeatedly sings "Hello, I Must Be Going" from the Marx Brothers film Animal Crackers. Animal Crackers can even be seen playing on a TV screen.
* "Synthiotics" entertainer Chap Starfall performs the Irving Berlin composition "Let's Face the Music and Dance", "In My Room" by The Beach Boys, Cole Porter's "All Of You", and Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower".
* While Josie visits Chickie Levitt, Kreutzer sings along to an interpretation of Victor Young's "Street of Dreams".
* When introducing herself to Grace, Tabba Schwartzkopf says "I'm a terrible person"; Grace answers: "But you break like a little girl".
* During a test screening of "Mimecom", Harry's colleague Gavin Whitehope sings passages from the Jimi Hendrix song "Purple Haze", asking, "Are you experienced, Harry?" ("Purple Haze" appeared on Hendrix's album Are You Experienced.)
* Eli Levitt alludes to the Christian hymn Amazing Grace, mocking Mimecom as "A Mimezine grace".
Other songs referred to are Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", and "19th Nervous Breakdown" (as "18th Nervous Breakdown") by The Rolling Stones.
* Gimme Shelter [The Rolling Stones] is used several times in the soundtrack

Film

* Reminiscences of Seconds and Marathon Man can be found in Harry's interrogation scene.
* Film star Tabba Schwartzkopf has recently headlined a 21st-century remake of Magnificent Obsession.
* Eli Levitt's death scene resembles the execution scene in Alphaville.
* Upon being released after her "fifty-seventh" facelift, Josie facetiously refers to her nurse as Cruella DeVille.
* Harry and Grace's kidnapped son, Peter, visits his mother in the rehabilitation centre, asking if she has been given the same treatment as Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit.
* Oliver Stone appears as himself as a guest at a late night show, discussing his film JFK.
* Rebel Without a Cause is playing while Harry and Peter meet in a cinema.
* Early on in the first episode, Tully Woiwode and his sister discuss One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Brad Dourif (Chickie Levitt) debuted in this film.
References in dialogue or images can also be found to From Here to Eternity, Bride of Frankenstein, The Eagle Has Landed, Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, Kwaidan, The Shining, Goldfinger and the TV shows Star Trek, The Mickey Mouse Club, and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

Visual arts

* While describing the random seizing of a man in a restaurant, Harry points out "[it] looked like one of those Robert Longo paintings".
* Tully Woiwode is claimed to have sold "deconstructed" Hockney paintings.
* After Kreutzer has supposedly died, his son Coty states that he saw his body floating over the roof "like a Chagall".

Religion

* While being visited by Josie, Chickie Levitt prays the Jewish Kaddish.
* As seen throughout the series, the cult of Synthiotics is a fictionalized variation on some of the themes of Scientology and its inception is quite similar, with Kreutzer being partially modelled after L. Ron Hubbard.
* When asked about the effect the "Go chip" implantation will have on Kreutzer, his sister Josie explains, "he'll be like Christ".
* Buddhism is referenced numerous ways throughout the series. Several characters mutter, "Everything must go," an allusion to detachment. Hungry Ghosts, another Buddhist concept, is referenced in dialogue and by an episode title.

Other

The recurring rhinoceros image is a symbol used by Keutzer's "Synthiotics" associates: Kreutzer's sister Josie tells his son Coty early on not to be afraid of the rhino. Later, Coty leaves one toy rhinoceros at the site of Gavin Whitehope's murder; another one is stuffed into the mouth of a murdered "Friends" collaborator. In Eugène Ionesco's play Rhinoceros, human individuals turn into rhinoceroses, symbolizing conformity and affirmation of a totalitarian mass movement. To character Paige Katz, the rhino also represents maternity.

Thematically related works

In David Cronenberg's film Videodrome (1983), lenses manufacturer "Spectacular Optical" plans to change the viewers' perception of reality with their "Videodrome" program and forces TV station owner Max Renn to hand over his "Channel 83" for broadcast. In Wild Palms, the "Wild Palms Group" uses the "Mimecom" technique on its own "Channel 3" to manipulate their audience. In Videodrome, the organisation behind "Spectacular Optical" wants to release the viewers' potential aggressive energies and reinstate a strong North America which is currently "rotting from the inside". In Wild Palms, televised virtual realities are used to draw the audience's attention away from the state's increasing totalitarianism. In Videodrome, "Channel 83" owner Renn finally turns against the conspirators, killing their chief executive and shouting, "Death to Videodrome! Long live the New Flesh!" In Wild Palms, a manipulated video shows Harry murdering his wife Grace, proclaiming "Long live the Friends! Death to New Realism!"

In Philip K. Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), consumers immerse themselves into an artificial soap opera world, which appears virtually real, by taking a drug called Can-D. In Wild Palms, the pseudo-realistic effect is enhanced by a drug called "Mimezine". In The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, a new drug appears on the market which enables its supplier, Palmer Eldritch, to affect the consumer's perception and personally appear in his altered reality. In Wild Palms, senator Kreutzer wants the "Go chip" implantated into his body, which as his sister Josie explains will turn him into a hologram and enable him to enter everyone's dreams.

In 2014, Cronenberg and Wagner collaborated on the film Maps to the Stars, starring Julianne Moore and John Cusack, which makes several references to the Wild Palms universe, including pieces of dialogue and certain situations and character traits.

Supplements

Soundtrack album

In addition to Ryuichi Sakamoto's music score, a number of 1960s rock and pop songs and classical compositions could be heard in the series. On the 1993 released soundtrack album, the following songs were included besides Sakamoto's music:
* The Zombies: She's Not There
* Don Gardner & Dee Dee Ford: I Need Your Lovin'
* Frankie Valli: Can't Take My Eyes Off You
* Lou Christie: Lightnin' Strikes
* Mason Williams: Classical Gas

The following songs and compositions can be heard in the series but are not featured on the album:
* The Animals: The House of the Rising Sun
* Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, Second Movement
* The 5th Dimension: Wedding Bell Blues
* The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter
* The Rolling Stones: No Expectations
* The Supremes: Love Child
* Richard Wagner: Parsifal, Prelude

Books

A book, The Wild Palms Reader, was published by St. Martin's Press before the series aired. It included time lines, secret letters, and character biographies. ABC, concerned that viewers might get "hopelessly lost in the tangled story line", arranged for the primer to be published. It also included writing supposedly from the "world of the series".  Contributors included:
* Norman Spinrad – sci-fi writer (Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream)
* Genesis P. Orridge (anonymous) – musician (Psychic TV, Throbbing Gristle)
* E. Howard Hunt – CIA officer involved in the Watergate Scandal, writer of spy/sci-fi novels
* William Gibson – sci-fi writer
* Brenda Laurel – virtual reality consultant on the mini-series
* Spain Rodriguez – 1960s underground comic artist (Trashman)
* Hans Moravec – scientist and writer in the artificial intelligence field
While the comic series was published in book form in Germany, the Wild Palms Reader was not. Instead, a novelization, written by German dime novel author Horst Friedrichs, was published under the title Wild Palms.

Reception

Reviews of the series were mixed. 

The New York Times critic John J. O'Connor called Wild Palms a "truly wild six-hour mini-series" resembling "nothing so much as an acid freak's fantasy, drenched in paranoia and more pop-culture allusions than a Dennis Miller monologue."  He described it as "rich and insinuating as a good theatrical film, albeit harder to follow" and concluded, "You wanted something different? Here it is. And Wild Palms also happens to be terrific."

Ken Tucker in Entertainment Weekly stated that "in its length, scope, sweeping visual tableaux, and over-the-top passion, Wild Palms is more like an opera than a TV show." Comparing it to David Lynch's Twin Peaks, he decided that "unlike Peaks, which started out brilliantly lucid and then rambled into incoherence, Palms sustains its length and adds layers of complexity to its characters. It also has something crucial that Peaks did not: a sense of humor about itself."

Mary Harron of the British Independent suggested that viewers "forget about the message, and about what the rhino means. Wild Palms should be watched like opera; for its gorgeous images, its emotional set-pieces and its high style."

Readers of the British trade weekly Broadcast were much more negative, calling it one of the worst television shows ever exported by the U.S. to the U.K.  It placed fourth on their list, exceeded only by Baywatch, The Anna Nicole Show and The Dukes of Hazzard.  TV Guide also blasted it, offering the interpretation that Oliver Stone was condemning television while covertly lauding cinematic films. 

Home media releases

Wild Palms was released on VHS cassette in the UK in 1993,  where it aired between 15 November and 7 December the same year. It was released on CLV laserdisc in the U.S. in March 1995  and on VHS in various countries.  It was released as a Region 4 DVD in Australia in 2004, a Region 1 DVD in the U.S. in 2005 and a Region 2 DVD in the UK in 2008.
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