We all have things we learned from our parents, but one of the most important lessons my father taught me is that there isn't necessarily any correlation between popularity and quality.

In fact, it's often just the opposite. For something to gain an incredible level of popularity, it has to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Otherwise, audiences are limited. The best-selling book of the 21st century is Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code," which has sold about 80 million copies. That certainly doesn't make Brown the greatest author of the century, even though his "Angels and Demons" is second on the list with 39 million copies sold.

Then there are films. James Cameron has the top two spots on the list, with his "Avatar" grossing more than $2.7 billion worldwide and his "Titantic" at more than $1.8 billion. Is Cameron the greatest filmmaker of all time? Is "Avatar" the best movie ever?

Not hardly, pilgrim.

[caption id="attachment_1461" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Book of the century?"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/200px-DaVinciCode.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1461" title="200px-DaVinciCode" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/200px-DaVinciCode.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="299" /></a>[/caption]

It's the same thing with television. Most folks would agree that the quality of shows on PBS is better than network sitcoms or reality shows, but it's those shows that draw much larger audiences than public broadcasting does.

Does McDonald's make the best food of any restaurant? More people eat there than eat at restaurants with higher quality.

I love reading books by Stephen King and Dean Koontz, but that doesn't make me think they're the best writers of our time. I can tell the difference between a good story and a great novel, and I can tell the difference between an entertaining movie and a great film.

Look at the Internet Movie Database, which allows members to vote for what they consider <a title="IMDB Top 250" href="http://www.imdb.com/chart/top">the best movies of all time</a>. Frank Darabont's "Shawshank Redemption" is a fine film that I like a lot, but for it to be considered the greatest movie of all time is just silly. In fact, five of the top 10 movies on the list have been made since 1990, a period of film history hardly considered a Golden Age.

My three favorite movies are "Love Actually," "Animal House" and "Bull Durham," but I wouldn't try to convince anyone that they're much more than really entertaining films.

The highest-rated pre-1950 film is "Casablanca," which is No. 19 on the list. "Citizen Kane," which many critics call the best movie ever made, is No. 38, and two of the most beloved movies of all time -- "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind" -- are 133 and 158, below such classics as "Full Metal Jacket," "Inglorious Basterds" and "Die Hard."

<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/diehard2.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1462" title="diehard2" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/diehard2-222x300.jpg" alt="" width="222" height="300" /></a>It isn't as if it's only modern audiences that have lost their sense of good taste. Back in the Golden Age of movies, folks flocked to movies and Ma and Pa Kettle, or Francis the Talking Mule or Andy Hardy.

It wasn't all "Citizen Kane."

So it's fine if you like "Dancing With the Stars" or "American Idol," but don't tell me their popularity means they're the highest-quality shows on TV.

It's fine if Rush Limbaugh has the highest ratings on talk radio, but that doesn't mean his show is any good.

Quality and popularity rarely walk hand in hand, and they rarely have.

There is one interesting anomaly in all that. I looked on Wikipedia for the best-selling books of all time, and the list published excluded religious and political books because of the difficulty in coming up with accurate figures.

The top two books listed were Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" and Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" are both credited with selling 200 million copies, edging out "Trailer Park Cheerleaders" for the top spot.

<em>Not really.</em>

Not really, although the 200 million figure is correct. The fascinating thing about "The Little Prince" is that it has been published in 190 different languages.

Those are two pretty good books, so the rule doesn't always hold.

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