In 1968, his documentary about chemical warfare, A Plague on Your Children, "earned him applause from the peace movement, but the undying suspicion of conventional authority".
He was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania in history of science, and supported Walter Annenberg's idea for the 'center of the visual arts', where documentaries could be produced.
As proof of concept for the overall design, Malone identified an existing BBC drama, Life Story, about the race to discover the structure of DNA, and partnered with the Apple Multimedia Lab and Lucasfilm to build interactivity around the film, later joined by Discovery Communications.
The resulting videodisc introduced many compelling innovations, some of which still have not yet been duplicated or realized at scale, won numerous awards, was covered in Science and Scientific American, presented at the National Academies of Science, featured in Douglas Adams's documentary Hyperland, and became one of the first, if not the first, commercially viable multimedia offerings, licensed for sale in schools for nearly a decade.
[5] In a retrospective seven years later, WIRED magazine identified it as a "landmark product" that "broke new ground with interface design and the merging of son et lumière," and many members of the collaborating teams went on play prominent roles in the development of the medium.
It was described by the Los Angeles Times as "complex, perplexing, fascinating, occasionally infuriating and eerily beautiful, its subject matter as vast as the universe.
Following his retirement, he "devoted his leisure to meticulous woodwork, making racks for his wine, and toy villages and doll's houses for his grandchildren".