Eric Olsen
Editor, TMR
Covering Paranormal World
Career media professional and serial entrepreneur Eric Olsen has an enviable track record of quality, leadership, influence, and success. In 2002, Olsen founded online magazine Blogcritics.org, the multiple award‐winning "sinister cabal of superior bloggers," which he led to great heights and sold to Technorati in 2008. Olsen then conceived and supervised the creation of a vibrant original content organization for Technorati.com in 2009 and 2010 before co-founding The Morton Report in 2011. He has now flung himself into the paranormal world, is founder of the America's Most Haunted brand and co-author of the AMH book (Berkley/Penguin Sept, 2014). Over a 30‐year media career, the proud father of four and husband of legendary blogger Dawn Olsen, has written influentially on a vast array of topics for periodicals, books, TV, radio, and the Internet. Olsen is the principal author of Networking In the Music Industry (Rockpress, 1993), The Encyclopedia of Record Producers (Billboard Books, 1999), and co-author of America's Most Haunted (Berkley/Penguin, 2014). Olsen founded and operated Olsen Entertainment, one of the leading DJ companies in hyper‐competitive Southern California in the '80s, established the "Cool Tunes" radio and TV brand in the '90s. Olsen was named a Trendsetter on the AlwaysOn/Technorati Open Media 100 power list in 2005, and has been a featured speaker at numerous industry events including BlogWorld and the Future of Music Coalition Summit. Since 2012 he has returned to live music and has been guitarist and singer for popular and crazy Cleveland cover band The Props.
Tuesday Nov 8, 2011 10:00 PM ET
Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik's lavish new document of the Monterey International Pop Festival, A Perfect Haze, brings to life in word and image the most significant festival in rock 'n' roll history.Epitomizing the Summer of Love, Monterey brought together Grateful...
Wednesday Nov 2, 2011 25:00 PM ET
Good old reality just isn't what it used to be. Recall the Stephen Hawking story about the woman who insisted the earth was a flat plate that rested on the back of a giant turtle. When asked what supported the...
Friday Oct 7, 2011 00:00 PM ET
Survival shows are fascinating, if only from the knowledge and skills demonstrated that satisfy fundamental human needs like food, potable water, fire, and shelter against the elements and predators. When the Zombie Apocalypse erupts, Quetzalcoatl lays waste to the Americas...
Monday Oct 3, 2011 00:00 PM ET
Syfy's Fourth annual 31 Days of Halloween features over 600 hours of spooky programming - of course, most of their programming is spooky year round.Nonetheless, highlights include a four-hour Ghost Hunters Halloween Live, on, you know, Halloween, wherein the GH...
Monday Oct 3, 2011 10:00 PM ET
There is something different about Ghost Adventures. For all the quirky star power, the increasingly slick production bells and whistles, the rabid fans, there is an underlying sense of mission to this trio, these Musketeers — Zak Bagans, Nick Groff,...
Thursday Sep 29, 2011 05:00 AM ET
I have been a passionate baseball fan my whole life; my grandfather played in the minor leagues, and I was a pitcher through college. I grew up with the Dodgers then gradually shifted my allegiance over to the Indians after...
Wednesday Sep 28, 2011 35:00 PM ET
Recent Emmy winner Melissa McCarthy, star of Mike and Molly and Bridesmaids, hosts SNL this week, with musical guest Lady Antebellum. Will LA be more than a (massive) one-hit wonder? How will MM fare in a sketch comedy setting? Why...
Tuesday Sep 27, 2011 50:00 PM ET
How many times do I have to tell you this, people? ALWAYS research the history of creepy old mansions available at bargain prices before you sign the papers.
Tuesday Sep 27, 2011 55:00 PM ET
Band plays live on SNL and The Colbert Report
Monday Sep 26, 2011 20:00 PM ET
What the world needs today is a palate cleanser, a return to the verities, a return to Weird Al spanking contemporary stars polka-stylee (don't forget, his uncle was polka legend Frank Yankovic - okay, I'm wrong, just a rumor).And so...
Monday Sep 26, 2011 50:00 PM ET
Johnny Depp once again channels his inner Hunter S. Thompson for The Rum Diary, a film version of Thompson's first novel with Depp as an "increasingly unhinged itinerant journalist," also starring Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard, Michael Rispoli, Richard Jenkins, Giovanni...
Monday Sep 26, 2011 20:00 PM ET
They aren't just hobbits, they are also pugilists and master debaters.This weekend "Fantastic Debates presented by KNUCKLE" took place at Fantastic Fest 2011 in Austin, TX. At Fantastic Debates, press, filmmakers, and film professionals enter the arena for a formal...
Monday Sep 26, 2011 55:00 AM ET
New Fox sci-fi series Terra Nova premieres tonight at 8 with two-hour episode set 85 million years in the past - talk about "period piece"! Take a look at TMR's Steve Eramo's series preview and interview with star Jason O'Mara.Below...
Saturday Sep 24, 2011 25:00 AM ET
Though not technically a "Halloween show," you knew The Walking Dead, AMC's zombie apocalypse series, HAD to be back on the air for season two in October.Utterly eschewing the recent trend toward "nice" zombies, The Walking Dead vividly plays to...
Friday Sep 23, 2011 10:00 PM ET
Travel Channel already has some of the best paranormal reality programming around with wildly popular Ghost Adventures, launching its fifth season tonight, and Paranormal Challenge. But I am totally charged about a new show debuting tonight, right after Ghost Adventures,...
Thursday Sep 22, 2011 50:00 AM ET
Man vs Food Nation's Adam Richman take note.A 77 year-old dumpling eating contest winner keeled over and expired after gobbling up ten vareniki in a Tokmak, Ukraine speed competition. Making matters worse, Ivan Mendel never got to enjoy his prize,...
Wednesday Sep 21, 2011 35:00 PM ET
I am all about the holiday programming. I'll watch some cheesy formulaic tripe that I wouldn't normally watch with YOUR eyes, as long as it has a holiday theme. Speaking of which, poor old Thanksgiving is usually given short shrift...
Wednesday Sep 21, 2011 45:00 AM ET
Will we see the librarian from hell?
Monday Sep 19, 2011 35:00 PM ET
Be ye aware that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day? The band Lambchop is SO aware they wrote a song about it, performed below at Merge Records' 20th anniversary celebration in 2009....
Thursday Sep 15, 2011 05:00 AM ET
We are ever so faithful followers of the paranormal investigation shows, the stately granddaddy of which is Syfy's Ghost Hunters, now in the second half of its seventh season. There is comforting routine to these shows, especially Ghost Hunters, which...
Wednesday Sep 14, 2011 15:00 PM ET
Lil Wayne, the diminutive and tatted rapper whose finger on the musical pulse is not to be questioned -- his latest album Tha Carter IV sold almost a million copies in the first week of release -- is also a...
Wednesday Sep 14, 2011 40:00 PM ET
I wonder if the other boys in the survival show club are jealous that Mykel gets to bring his wife along with him on his adventures? Or maybe they tease him about it. There are certanly pluses and minuses, shall...
Wednesday Sep 14, 2011 05:00 PM ET
SNL's major domo Lorne Michaels seeks to expand his empire once again with Up All Night, previewing tonight on NBC at 10/9c with Christina Applegate as a hard-charging career woman and new mother, and Will Arnett (Mr. Amy Poehler) doing...
Tuesday Sep 13, 2011 10:00 PM ET
Digging on the video for Neon Indian's chill-pop "Polish Girl" (you know, the cute kind), directed by Tim Nackashi via The Creators Project.It's the future, dystopian of course, and automatons scan humanoid bodies and minds. One scanner breaks free and...
Tuesday Sep 13, 2011 20:00 PM ET
I'm very excited about the new Blondie album, Panic of Girls, out today exclusively via Amazon. Debbie Harry -- looking svelte and chipper -- Chris Stein, and Clem Burke are back with (considerably) younger bandmates and sporting a bright, burbly...
Tuesday Sep 13, 2011 35:00 PM ET
Among our favorite aspects of the Halloween season are all those goofy TV shows and Halloween-themed movies shown year after comforting year.You know you're getting close when the channels start announcing the lineups. ABC Family just released their "13 Nights...
Monday Sep 12, 2011 15:00 PM ET
It's a Hitchcockian bonanza.
Monday Sep 12, 2011 50:00 PM ET
People generally love Coldplay or find them insufferable.
Sunday Sep 11, 2011 25:00 PM ET
The ten years passed since September 11 seem paradoxically both a lifetime and the blink of an eye.Our typical field of “time vision” is a few days: the immediate future slips steadily through the present into the recent past creating...
Saturday Sep 10, 2011 20:00 PM ET
We are on the eve of the ten year anniverary of September 11, 2001, the day a series of coordinated attacks by Islamist extremists resulted in the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans. America is a different place than it was...
Friday Sep 9, 2011 25:00 PM ET
If you were sentient on 9/11/01 you undoubtedly remember the eerie clarity of the air that day across much of the eastern U.S., you remember where you were when you heard the news about the first plane (driving to my...
Friday Sep 9, 2011 50:00 AM ET
Jeepers creepers, where'd you get those eyes?
Thursday Sep 8, 2011 40:00 PM ET
Sometimes you have to eat that charbroiled armadillo.
Thursday Sep 8, 2011 05:00 PM ET
Five "lucky" guests will get to cruise through one of the many horrifying haunted houses onsite with Steve and Tango
Wednesday Sep 7, 2011 15:00 PM ET
It is a steamy Friday night in late July and we are watching Travel Channel's Paranormal Challenge -- naturally -- this time from the notorious Waverly Hills Sanatorium, near Louisville, Kentucky.The teams are announced: three women from Cleveland, EPIC (Erie...
Tuesday Sep 6, 2011 50:00 PM ET
I've been pondering lately what it means to be "ahead of your time."
Friday Sep 2, 2011 40:00 PM ET
The verdict is in: Michael Stipe looks a lot better with glasses and some facial hair. Check out the arty side of the R.E.M. frontman below.Sorry, the freaking player won't embed on our site - it's here....
Friday Sep 2, 2011 55:00 PM ET
Though I may not be the ultimate Beatles fanatic, I do love them dearly and think they are the best band in rock 'n' roll history; and rock 'n' roll history is something I have spent A LOT of time...
Thursday Sep 1, 2011 40:00 PM ET
I am theoretically quite interested in Apollo 18. The "found footage" approach to fictional film making can lend a powerful subtext of veracity, especially in a horror/suspense setting (Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity).In addition, it is super cool to see...
Thursday Sep 1, 2011 05:00 PM ET
If you watch HBO at all, you've been seeing the impressionistic, increasingly paranoid promos for season two of 18-times Emmy nomined Boardwalk Empire
Wednesday Aug 31, 2011 40:00 PM ET
For its 21st anniversary, Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights appears absolutely determined to irretrievably shock the cotton off your swabs.
Wednesday Aug 31, 2011 00:00 PM ET
It is one of the great paradoxes of recorded music that some of the very best songwriters have given their finest performances on songs not their own. Elvis Costello has never, ever sounded better than on Nick Lowe's "(What's So...
Wednesday Aug 31, 2011 35:00 AM ET
The surfboard shaped devices are ingeniously powered by the motion of waves.
Wednesday Aug 31, 2011 50:00 AM ET
Her wily feminine ways are no match for crack security team. Inner workings of fashion industry - strong thumbs required....
Wednesday Aug 31, 2011 30:00 AM ET
To me this seems a contradiction in terms, a veritable oxymoron, that the trailer for parody porn Spartacus XXX: The Beginning is proudly labeled Safe For Work.As you can see, among the brawn and swordplay, the production values are far...
Monday Aug 29, 2011 45:00 PM ET
Perhaps the near ubiquity of vampires and zombies in popular culture of late has to do with the grim state of the world economy, the seeming overabundance of natural disasters, and our proximity to 2012. EVERYTHING is aligned against us...
Friday Aug 26, 2011 15:00 PM ET
This dude, Christpher Redd of Clifton, Colorado, allegedly rocked some air guitar of highly questionable taste back in July, standing atop a casket in a freshly dug grave and using his shovel to pound out power chords.Now, this might have...
Friday Aug 26, 2011 15:00 PM ET
We can only hope that the storm does not live up to this level of preparation.
Friday Aug 26, 2011 40:00 PM ET
Several sports stars and rappers are already coveting the big-ass gem for possible use in jewelry
- Morton Report Insider Newsletter
- YouTube
- RSS
Recent Writers
- Jeff Burger, Music, film, popular culture
- Chaz Lipp, Music, Movies, Interviews
- Michael Simpson, Home Entertainment Tech
- Bill Bentley, Bentley's Bandstand