100 Greatest TV Shows

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Tomorrow, number 32-29. Here are the hints:

What is a game show?, a valley girl demon killer, 1 hour, it's got the bibbidy-bobbidy and the hippity-hoppity and the Jello pudding and Kodak and Coca-Cola and the Hey, Hey, Hey!

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Sorry for the delay, again. I had a lot on my plate today. Anyway, here's number 32:

32. Buffy The Vampire Slayer



Genre: Supernatural, Fantasy, Horror, Action, Comedy, Drama.
Created by: Joss Whedon.
Executive Producer(s): Joss Whedon, Gail Berman, Sandy Gallin, Fran Rubel Kuzui, Kaz Kuzui, David Greenwalt, Marti Noxon, Jane Espenson, and David Fury.
Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers), Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris), Alyson Hannigan (Willow Rosenberg), Anthony Stewart Head (Rupert Giles), David Boreanaz (Angel 1997-1999), Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia Chase 1997-1999), James Marsters (Spike 1997-2003), Seth Green (Daniel “Oz” Osbourne 1997-2000), Emma Caulfield (Anya “Anyanka” Jenkins 1998-2003), Amber Benson (Tara Maclay 1999-2002), Marc Blucas (Riley Finn 1999-2000), and Michelle Trachtenberg (2000-2003).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 7.
Number of Episodes: 144.
Running Time: 42-45 minutes.
Original Channel: The WB (1997–2001) and UPN (2001–2003).
Original Run: March 3 1997 – May 20 2003.
Spinoffs: The show itself is based on the 1992 movie “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer,” which was written by Whedon. In 2000, Angel, a show about Buffy’s vampire boyfriend with a soul Angel, premiered on the WB. There is also a comic book that is chronologically the show’s eighth season. There were also several planned spinoffs: Buffy: The Animated Series; Ripper, which would have focused on Giles; Slayer School, which would have featured Willow; a spinoff featuring Faith; a spinoff featuring Spike; and possible movie based on the TV show.

Writer Joss Whedon says that "Rhonda the Immortal Waitress was really the first incarnation of [the Buffy concept], just the idea of some woman who seems to be completely insignificant who turns out to be extraordinary." This early, unproduced idea evolved into Buffy, which Whedon developed to invert the Hollywood formula of "the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie." Whedon wanted "to subvert that idea and create someone who was a hero." He explained: "The very first mission statement of the show was the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it." The concept was first visited through Whedon's script for the 1992 movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which featured Kristy Swanson in the title role. The director, Fran Rubel Kuzui, saw it as a "pop culture comedy about what people think about vampires." Whedon disagreed: "I had written this scary film about an empowered woman, and they turned it into a broad comedy. It was crushing." The script was praised within the industry, but the movie was not. Several years later, Gail Berman, a Sandollar Productions executive, approached Whedon to develop his Buffy concept into a television series. Whedon explained that "They said, 'Do you want to do a show?' And I thought, 'High school as a horror movie.' And so the metaphor became the central concept behind Buffy, and that's how I sold it." The supernatural elements in the series stood as metaphors for personal anxieties associated with adolescence and young adulthood. Whedon went on to write and partly fund a twenty five minute non-broadcast pilot that was shown to networks and eventually sold to the WB Network. The latter promoted the premiere with a series of History of the Slayer clips, and the first episode aired on March 10, 1997. Joss Whedon was credited as executive producer throughout the run of the series, and for the first five seasons (1997–2001) he was also the show runner, a role that involves serving as head writer and being responsible for every aspect of production. Marti Noxon took on the role for seasons six and seven (2001–2003), but Whedon continued to be involved with writing and directing Buffy alongside projects such as Angel, Fray, and Firefly. Fran Rubel Kuzui and her husband, Kaz Kuzui, were credited as executive producers but were not involved in the show. Their credit, rights, and royalties over the franchise relate to their funding, producing, and directing of the original movie version of Buffy. Script-writing was done by Mutant Enemy, a production company created by Whedon in 1997. The writers with the most writing credits include: Steven S. DeKnight, Jane Espenson, David Fury, Drew Goddard, Drew Greenberg, Rebecca Rand Kirshner, Marti Noxon and Doug Petrie. Howard Gordon, David Greenwalt, Joss Whedon, Matt Kiene, Joe Reinkemeyer, Ty King, Tracey Forbes, Thomas A. Swyden, Rob Des Hotel, Dana Reston, Dan Vebber, Carl Ellsworth, Ashley Gable, Elin Hampton and Dean Batali all hold credits as well. Jane Espenson has explained how scripts came together. First, the writers talked about the emotional issues facing Buffy Summers and how she would confront them through her battle against evil supernatural forces. Then the episode's story was "broken" into acts and scenes. Act breaks were designed as key moments to intrigue viewers so that they would stay with the episode following advertisements. The writers collectively filled in scenes surrounding these act breaks for a more fleshed-out story. A whiteboard marked their progress by mapping brief descriptions of each scene. Once "breaking" was done, the credited author wrote an outline for the episode, which was checked by Whedon or Noxon. The writer then wrote a full script, which went through a series of drafts, and finally a quick rewrite from the show runner. The final article was used as the shooting script. The title role went to Sarah Michelle Gellar, who had appeared as Sydney Rutledge on Swans Crossing and Kendall Hart on All My Children. At age eighteen in 1995, Gellar had already won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Leading Actress in a Drama Series. In 1996, she was initially cast as Cordelia Chase during a week of auditioning. Anthony Stewart Head had already led a prolific acting and singing career but remained best known in the United States for a series of twelve coffee commercials with Sharon Maughan for Taster's Choice. He accepted the role of Rupert Giles. Unlike other Buffy regulars, Nicholas Brendon had little acting experience, instead working various jobs, including production assistant, plumber's assistant, veterinary janitor, food delivery, script delivery, day care counselor and waiter, before deciding to break into acting to help him overcome a stutter. He landed his Xander Harris role following only four days of auditioning. Alyson Hannigan was the last of the original four to be cast. Following her role in My Stepmother Is an Alien, she appeared in commercials and supporting roles on television shows throughout the early 1990s. In 1996 the role of Willow Rosenberg was initially given to Riff Regan for the unaired Buffy pilot, but Hannigan auditioned when the role was recast for the series proper. She described her approach to auditions in an interview through her treatment of a particular moment: Willow tells Buffy that her Barbie doll was taken from her as a child, and Buffy asks if she ever got the Barbie back. "Willow's line was 'Most of it.' And so I thought I'm gonna make that a really happy thing. I was so proud that she got most of it back. That clued in on how I was going to play the rest of the scene. It defines the character." Her approach subsequently helped her win the role. The show was about Buffy Anne Summers (Gellar). She is "the Slayer", one in a long line of young women chosen by fate to battle evil forces. This mystic calling endows her with dramatically increased physical strength, as well as endurance, agility, accelerated healing, intuition, and a limited degree of clairvoyance, usually in the form of prophetic dreams. Buffy receives guidance from her Watcher, Rupert Giles (Head). Giles, rarely referred to by his first name, is a member of the Watchers' Council, whose job is to train and assist the Slayers. Giles researches the supernatural creatures that Buffy must face, offering insights into their origins and advice on how to kill them. Buffy is also helped by friends she meets at Sunnydale High: Willow Rosenberg (Hannigan) and Xander Harris (Brendon). Willow is originally a bookish wallflower; she provides a contrast to Buffy's outgoing personality, but shares the social isolation Buffy suffers after becoming a Slayer. As the series progresses, Willow becomes a more assertive character, a powerful witch, and comes out as a lesbian. In contrast, Xander, with no supernatural skills, provides comic relief and a grounded perspective. It is Xander who often provides the heart to the series, and in Season Six becomes the hero in place of Buffy who defeats the "Big Bad". Buffy and Willow are the only characters who appear in all 144 episodes; Xander is missing in only one. The cast of characters grew over the course of the series. Buffy first arrives in Sunnydale with her mother, Joyce Summers (portrayed by Kristine Sutherland), who functions as an anchor of normality in the Scoobies' lives even after she learns of Buffy's role in the supernatural world ("Becoming, Part Two"). Buffy's teenage sister Dawn Summers (Michelle Trachtenberg) does not appear until the fifth season. The vampire with a soul, Angel (David Boreanaz), is Buffy's love interest throughout the first three seasons. He leaves Buffy to make amends for his sins and search for redemption in his own spin-off, Angel. At Sunnydale High, Buffy meets several other students willing to join her fight for good (alongside her friends Willow and Xander). Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), the archetypal shallow cheerleader, reluctantly becomes involved, and Daniel "Oz" Osbourne (Seth Green), a fellow student, rock guitarist and werewolf, joins the Scooby Gang through his relationship with Willow. Anya (Emma Caulfield), a former vengeance demon (Anyanka) who specialized in avenging scorned women, becomes Xander's lover after losing her powers, and joins the Scooby Gang in the fourth season. In Buffy's senior year at school, she meets Faith (Eliza Dushku), the second current-Slayer who was brought forth when Slayer Kendra Young was killed by Drusilla, a vampire, in the second season. Although she initially fights on the side of good with Buffy and the rest of the Scooby Gang, she comes to stand against them (and along the side of The Mayor Richard Wilkins) after accidentally killing a human in the third season. She reappears briefly in the fourth season, looking for vengeance, and moves to Angel where she goes to jail for her murders. Faith reappears in season seven of Buffy, having helped Angel and crew, and fights with Buffy against the First evil. Buffy gathers other allies: Spike (James Marsters), a vampire, is an old companion of Angelus and one of Buffy's major enemies in early seasons, although they later become allies and lovers. Later Spike, like Angel, regains his soul. Spike is known for his Billy Idol-style platinum blond hair and his black leather duster, stolen from a previous Slayer, Nikki Wood; her son, Robin Wood, joined the Scoobies in the final season. Tara Maclay (Amber Benson) is a fellow member of Willow's Wicca group during the fourth season, and their friendship eventually turns into a romantic relationship. Buffy became involved personally and professionally with Riley Finn (Marc Blucas), a military operative in "the Initiative", which hunts demons using science and technology. Buffy featured dozens of recurring characters, both major and minor. For example the "Big Bad" (villain) characters were featured for at least one season (e.g. Glorificus was a character that appeared in 13 episodes, spanning much of Season 5). Similarly, characters that allied themselves to the Scooby Gang and characters which attended the same institutions were sometimes featured in multiple episodes. Most of Buffy was shot on location in Los Angeles, California. The main exterior set of the town of Sunnydale, including the infamous "sun sign", was located in Santa Monica, California in a lot on Olympic Boulevard. The show is set in the fictional California town of Sunnydale, whose suburban Sunnydale High School sits on top of a "Hellmouth", a gateway to demon realms. The Hellmouth serves as a nexus for a wide variety of evil creatures and supernatural phenomena, and lies beneath the school library. In addition to being an open-ended plot device, Joss Whedon has cited the Hellmouth and "High school as Hell" as one of the primary metaphors in creating the series. The high school used in the first three seasons is actually Torrance High School, in Torrance, California. This school was used until the residents of Torrance complained about loud sounds at night. The school exterior has been used in other television shows and movies, most notably Beverly Hills 90210, Bring It On, She's All That and the spoof Not Another Teen Movie. In addition to the high school and its library, scenes take place in the town's cemeteries, a local nightclub (The Bronze), and Buffy's home, where many of the characters live at various points in the series. Some of the exterior shots of the college Buffy attends, UC Sunnydale, were filmed at UCLA. Buffy is told in a serialized format, with each episode involving a self-contained story while contributing to a larger storyline, which is broken down into season-long narratives marked by the rise and defeat of a powerful antagonist, commonly referred to as the "Big Bad". The show blends different genres, including horror, martial arts, romance, melodrama, farce, comedy, and even, in one episode, musical comedy. The series' narrative revolves around Buffy and her friends, collectively dubbed the "Scooby Gang", who struggle to balance the fight against supernatural evils with their complex social lives. A typical episode contains one or more villains, or supernatural phenomena that are thwarted or defeated. Though elements and relationships are explored and ongoing subplots are included, the show focuses primarily on Buffy and her role as an archetypal heroine. In the first seasons, the most prominent monsters in the Buffy bestiary are vampires, which are based on traditional myths, lore, and literary conventions. As the series continues, Buffy and her companions fight an increasing variety of demons, as well as ghosts, werewolves, zombies, and unscrupulous humans. They frequently save the world from annihilation by a combination of physical combat, magic, and detective-style investigation, and are guided by an extensive collection of ancient and mystical reference books. Hand-to-hand combat is chiefly undertaken by Buffy and Angel, later by Spike, and to a far lesser degree by Giles and Xander. Willow eventually becomes an adept witch, while Giles contributes his extensive knowledge of demonology and supernatural lore. During the first year of the series, Whedon described the show as "My So-Called Life meets The X-Files." My So-Called Life gave a sympathetic portrayal of teen anxieties; in contrast, The X-Files delivered a supernatural "monster of the week" storyline. Alongside these series, Whedon has cited cult film Night of the Comet as a "big influence", and credited the X-Men character Kitty Pryde as a significant influence on the character of Buffy. The authors of the unofficial guidebook Dusted point out that the series was often a pastiche, borrowing elements from previous horror novels, movies, and short stories and from such common literary stock as folklore and mythology. Nevitt and Smith describe Buffy's use of pastiche as "post modern Gothic". For example, the Adam character parallels the Frankenstein monster, the episode "Bad Eggs" parallels Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and so on. Buffy episodes often include a deeper meaning or metaphor as well. Whedon explained, "We think very carefully about what we're trying to say emotionally, politically, and even philosophically while we're writing it… it really is, apart from being a pop-culture phenomenon, something that is deeply layered textually episode by episode." Academics Wilcox and Lavery provide examples of how a few episodes deal with real life issues turned into supernatural metaphors:

“ In the world of Buffy the problems that teenagers face become literal monsters. A mother can take over her daughter's life ("Witch"); a strict stepfather-to-be really is a heartless machine ("Ted"); a young lesbian fears that her nature is demonic ("Goodbye Iowa" and "Family"); a girl who has sex with even the nicest-seeming guy may discover that he afterwards becomes a monster ("Innocence"). ”

The love affair between the vampire Angel and Buffy was fraught with metaphors. For example, their night of passion cost the vampire his soul. Sarah Michelle Gellar said: "That's the ultimate metaphor. You sleep with a guy and he turns bad on you." The feminist issue comes out especially when facing misogynist characters; the most misogynistic characters, Warren and Caleb, both die in gruesome ways, both killed by heroines of the series. The first season exemplifies the "high school as hell" concept. Buffy Summers has just moved to Sunnydale after burning her old school's gym and hopes to escape her Slayer duties. Her plans are complicated by Rupert Giles, her new Watcher, who reminds her of the inescapable presence of evil. Sunnydale High is built atop a Hellmouth, a portal to demon dimensions that attracts supernatural phenomena to the area. Buffy meets two schoolmates, Xander and Willow, who will help fight evil through the series, but they must first prevent an ancient and especially threatening vampire from opening the Hellmouth and unleashing Hell on Earth. The emotional stakes are raised in the second season. New vampires, Spike and a weakened Drusilla, come to town along with the new Slayer, who was activated as a result of Buffy's brief death in the first season finale. Xander becomes involved with Cordelia, while Willow becomes involved with witchcraft and a young werewolf named Oz, both of which make her more confident. Buffy sleeps with her vampire lover Angel. Consequentially, she unwittingly removes his cursed soul as a result. He once more becomes Angelus, a sadistic killer. Buffy is forced to kill him, and leaves Sunnydale, emotionally shattered. After attempting to start a new life in Los Angeles, Buffy returns to town in the third season. Angel is resurrected, but leaves Sunnydale (at the end of the season) so Buffy will have a normal life. She is soon confronted with an unstable Slayer, and an often affable but definitely evil mayor's plans for Graduation Day. The fourth season sees Buffy and Willow enroll at UC Sunnydale while Xander joins the workforce and begins dating Anya, a former vengeance demon. Spike returns as a series regular and is abducted by a covert military force; they implant a microchip in his head which prevents him from harming humans. Oz leaves town after deciding he's too dangerous and Willow falls in love with Tara Maclay, another witch, while Buffy begins dating a grad student who is a member of The Initiative, a top-secret military installation based beneath the UC Sunnydale campus. It appears to be a well-meaning anti-demon operation, but its secret project goes horribly wrong. The season also marked the first year in which Joss Whedon oversaw other TV series. During the fifth season, a younger sister suddenly yet seamlessly appears in Buffy's life and an exiled Hell-God searches for a "key" that will allow her to return to her home dimension. The "key" has been turned into human form as Buffy's younger sister Dawn. The Hell-God eventually discovers the truth and kidnaps Dawn; Buffy sacrifices herself to save Dawn and prevent Hell from spreading on Earth. During the season, Xander and Anya become engaged, and Spike realizes he is in love with Buffy. Buffy's friends resurrect her through a powerful spell in the sixth season. Buffy returns from Heaven deeply depressed and finds a job at a fast food restaurant while conducting a secret, mutually abusive affair with Spike that later leads to him attempting to rape her. Plagued with remorse, he undergoes a series of trials and is awarded with a soul so he can "give her what she deserves". Her friends are unaware of her inner turmoils as they face their own troubles: Xander leaves Anya at the altar, and Willow becomes addicted to magic. When Tara is killed by an unhinged Warren Mears, Willow descends into darkness and begins a rampage that nearly causes the end of the world. In the end it is Xander who reaches through her pain and stops her from destroying the world. The instability caused by Buffy's revival enables the First Evil and a sinister preacher to amass an army of powerful vampires against humankind during the seventh season, while simultaneously seeking out and killing every currently-unactivated Potential Slayer. Willow invokes a spell that activates all the "Potentials" in the world. After an epic battle, an amulet worn by Spike channels solar energy through the battlefield, killing all of the vampires and apparently incinerating Spike. As the Scoobies flee Sunnydale, the town collapses into a crater, its Hellmouth destroyed. Buffy the Vampire Slayer first aired on March 10, 1997 on the WB network, and played a key role in the growth of the Warner Bros. television network in its early years. After five seasons, it transferred to the United Paramount Network (UPN) for its final two seasons. The show went into syndication in the United States on FX. In the United Kingdom, the entire series aired on Sky One and BBC2. The BBC gave the show two time slots: the early-evening slot for a family-friendly version with violence, objectionable language and other stronger material cut out, and a late-night uncut version. Sky One had a similar method, in which the show would be edited for an after-noon encore presentation besides the uncut prime-time slot. From the fourth season onwards, the BBC aired the show in anamorphic 16:9 widescreen format, but Whedon later said that Buffy was never intended to be viewed this way. Despite his claims, Sky One and FX (UK) now air repeat showings in the widescreen format. While the seventh season was still being broadcast, Sarah Michelle Gellar told Entertainment Weekly she was not going to sign on for an eighth year, "[When] we started to have such a strong year this year, I thought: 'This is how I want to go out, on top, at our best." Whedon and UPN gave some considerations to production of a spin-off series that would not require Gellar, including a rumored Faith series, but nothing became of those plans. The Buffy canon is continuing outside the television medium in the Dark Horse Comics series, Buffy Season Eight. This is produced since March 2007 by Whedon, who has also written the first story arc, "The Long Way Home". As of July 15, 2008, Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes are available to download for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable video game consoles via the PlayStation Network. Buffy has inspired a range of official and unofficial works, including television shows, books, comics and games. This expansion of the series encouraged use of the term "Buffyverse" to describe the fictional universe in which Buffy and related stories take place. The franchise has inspired Buffy action figures and merchandise such as official Buffy/Angel magazines and Buffy companion books. Eden Studios has published a Buffy role-playing game, while Score Entertainment has released a Buffy Collectible Card Game. The spin-off Angel was introduced in October 1999, at the start of Buffy's fourth season. The series was created by Buffy's creator Joss Whedon in collaboration with David Greenwalt. Like Buffy, it was produced by the production company Mutant Enemy. At times, it performed better in the Nielsen Ratings than its parent series did. The series was given a darker tone focusing on the ongoing trials of Angel in Los Angeles. His character is tormented by guilt following the return of his soul, punishment for more than a century of murder and torture. During the first four seasons of the show, he works as a private detective in a fictionalized version of Los Angeles, California, where he and his associates work to "help the helpless" and to restore the faith and "save the souls" of those who have lost their way. Typically, this mission involves doing battle with evil demons or demonically-allied humans (primarily the law firm Wolfram & Hart), while Angel must also contend with his own violent nature. In the fifth season, the senior partners of Wolfram and Hart take a bold gamble in their campaign to corrupt Angel, giving him control of their Los Angeles office. Angel accepts the deal as an opportunity to fight evil from the inside. In addition to Boreanaz, Angel inherited Buffy regular Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia Chase). When Glenn Quinn (Allen Francis Doyle) left the series during its first season, Alexis Denisof (Wesley Wyndam-Pryce), who had been a recurring character in the last nine episodes of season three of Buffy, took his place. Carpenter and Denisof were followed later by Mercedes McNab (Harmony Kendall) and James Marsters (Spike). Several actors who played Buffy characters made guest appearances on Angel, including Seth Green (Oz), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), Eliza Dushku (Faith Lehane), Tom Lenk (Andrew Wells), and Alyson Hannigan (Willow Rosenberg). Angel also continued to appear occasionally on Buffy. Outside of the TV series, the Buffyverse has been officially expanded and elaborated on by authors and artists in the so-called "Buffyverse Expanded Universe". The creators of these works may or may not keep to established continuity. Similarly, writers for the TV series were under no obligation to use information which had been established by the Expanded Universe, and sometimes contradicted such continuity. Dark Horse, has published the Buffy comics since 1998. In 2003, Whedon wrote an eight-issue miniseries for Dark Horse Comics entitled Fray, about a Slayer in the future. Following the publication of Tales of the Vampires in 2004, Dark Horse Comics halted publication on Buffyverse-related comics and graphic novels. The company is currently producing Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer season eight with forty issues beginning in March 2007, to pick up where the television show left off — taking the place of an eighth canonical season. The first story arc is also written by Whedon, and is called "The Long Way Home" which has been widely well-received, with circulation rivaling industry leaders DC and Marvel's top-selling titles. Also after "The Long Way Home" came other story arcs like Faith's return in "No Future for You." Pocket Books hold the license to produce Buffy novels, of which they have published more than sixty since 1998. These sometimes flesh out background information on characters; for example, Go Ask Malice provides lots of information about Faith Lehane. The most recent novels include Carnival of Souls, Blackout, Portal Through Time, Bad Bargain and The Deathless. Five official Buffy video games have been released on portable and home consoles. The most recent, Chaos Bleeds, was released in 2003 for Gamecube, Xbox and PlayStation 2. On July 11, 2008, 505 Games announced that they were working on a Buffy game for the Nintendo DS, entitled Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Sacrifice. The popularity of Buffy and Angel has led to attempts to develop more on-screen ventures in the fictional 'Buffyverse'. These projects remain undeveloped and may never be greenlighted. In 2002, two potential spinoffs were in discussion: Buffy the Animated Series and Ripper. Buffy the Animated Series was a proposed animated TV show based on Buffy; Whedon and Jeph Loeb were to be executive producers for the show, and most of the cast from Buffy were to return to voice their characters. 20th Century Fox showed an interest in developing and selling the show to another network. A three-minute pilot was completed in 2004, but was never picked up. Whedon revealed to The Hollywood Reporter: "We just couldn't find a home for [it]. We had six or seven hilarious scripts from our own staff — and nobody wanted it." Neither the pilot nor the scripts have been seen outside of the entertainment industry, though writer Jane Espenson has teasingly revealed small extracts from some of her scripts for the show. Ripper was originally a proposed television show based upon the character of Rupert Giles portrayed by Anthony Stewart Head. More recent information has suggested that if Ripper were ever made, it would be a TV movie or a DVD movie. There was little heard about the series until 2007 when Joss Whedon confirmed that talks were almost completed for a 90 minute Ripper special on the BBC with both Head and the BBC completely on board. In 2003, a year after the first public discussions on Buffy the Animated Series and Ripper, Buffy was nearing its end. Espenson has said that during this time spin-offs were discussed, "I think Marti talked with Joss about Slayer School and Tim Minear talked with him about Faith on a motorcycle. I assume there was some back-and-forth pitching." Espenson has revealed that Slayer School might have used new slayers and potentially included Willow Rosenberg, but Whedon did not think that such a spinoff felt right. Dushku declined the pitch for a Buffyverse TV series based on Faith and instead agreed to a deal to produce Tru Calling. Dushku explained to IGN: "It would have been a really hard thing to do, and not that I wouldn't have been up for a challenge, but with it coming on immediately following [Buffy], I think that those would have been really big boots to fill." Tim Minear explained some of the ideas behind the aborted series: "The show was basically going to be Faith meets Kung Fu. It would have been Faith, probably on a motorcycle, crossing the earth, trying to find her place in the world." Finally, during the summer of 2004 after the end of Angel, a movie about Spike was proposed. The movie would have been directed by Tim Minear and starred Marsters and Amy Acker and featured Alyson Hannigan. Outside the 2006 Saturn Awards, Whedon announced that he had pitched the concept to various bodies but had yet to receive any feedback. While it has merely been entertained, at the 2008 Paley Festival Joss Whedon remarked that he would be enthusiastic to reunite the cast to continue the story in the form of a movie or another show. The festival featured a reunion of the major cast and contributors to the show, who all seemed excited at the idea:

"On that note Joss said that Oz will definitely appear in future issues and while the comic stories are currently "canon" he would gladly throw that out the window if the cast were to reunite in one form or another to make another show or movie. As to the possibility of that, the cast all seemed to dance around that throughout the evening, even when asked the question by the panel moderator."

Prior to this, Sarah Michelle Gellar has said that she personally did not feel a Buffy movie would work but that she would be willing to do a film depending on the script. New sparks to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie have been lit by an interview Sarah Michelle Gellar gave to Sci-Fi Wire in which she says she would not rule out returning to her most iconic role: "Never say never," she said. "One of the reasons [the original Buffy movie] didn't really work on the big screen--and people blamed Kristy, but that's not what it was--is the story was better told over a long arc," Gellar said. "And I worry about Buffy as a 'beginning, middle and end' so quickly. ... You show me a script; you show me that it works, and you show me that [the] audience can accept that, [and] I'd probably be there. Those are what my hesitations are." Buffy helped put The WB on the ratings map, but by the time the series landed at UPN in 2001, viewing figures had fallen. Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a series high during the third season with 5.4 million viewers, and a series low with 3.7 million during the first season. During season 7, the show rarely reached 4.5 million viewers. The show's series final Chosen pulled in 4.9 million viewers on UPN. Buffy did not compete with shows on the big four networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, and FOX), but The WB were impressed with the young audience that the show was bringing in. Because of this, The WB ordered a full season of 22 episodes for the series' second season. After the episode "Surprise", Buffy was moved from Monday at 9pm to launch The WB's new night of programming on Tuesday. The first episode aired "Innocence" became the highest rated episode of the entire series, attracting over 8.2 million viewers. Due to its large success in that time slot, it remained on Tuesdays at 8pm for the remainder of its original run. With its new timeslot on The WB, the show quickly climbed to the top of The WB ratings and became one of their highest-rated shows for the remainder of its time on the network. The show always placed in the top 3, usually only coming in behind 7th Heaven. Between seasons 3 and 5, Buffy flip-flopped with Dawson's Creek and Charmed as the network's second highest-rated show. In the 2001-2002 season the show had moved to the UPN Network after a negotiation dispute with The WB. While it was still one of their highest rated shows on their network, the WB felt that the show had already peaked and was not worth giving a salary increase to the cast and crew. UPN on the other hand, had strong faith in the series and quickly grabbed it along with "Roswell". The UPN Network dedicated a 2 hour premiere to the series to help re-launch it. The premiere episode on UPN, "Bargaining", attracted over 7.7 million viewers, making it the 2nd highest rated ratings of the entire series run. The remainder of the series run on the network saw the show actually outperform its old sister shows Dawson's Creek and Charmed, which were still on the WB. Commentators of the entertainment industry including All Movie Guide, The Hollywood Reporter and The Washington Post have cited Buffy as "influential". Autumn 2003 saw several new shows going into production in the U.S. that featured strong females who are forced to come to terms with supernatural power or destiny while trying to maintain a normal life. These post-Buffy shows include Dead Like Me and Joan of Arcadia. Bryan Fuller, the creator of Dead Like Me, said that "[Buffy] showed that young women could be in situations that were both fantastic and relatable, and instead of shunting women off to the side, it put them at the center." Buffy, while itself taking certain elements from the classic series of Doctor Who (1963–1989) (even referencing it in one episode), became a blueprint for the revived series (2005-), and executive producer Russell T. Davies has said:

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer showed the whole world, and an entire sprawling industry, that writing monsters and demons and end-of-the world isn't hack-work, it can challenge the best. Joss Whedon raised the bar for every writer—not just genre/niche writers, but every single one of us.”

As well as influencing Doctor Who, Buffy influenced its spinoff series Torchwood, and more generally, BBC itself, who still refer to the 7pm slot on BBC Two as "the Buffy slot". In addition, Buffy alumni have gone on to write for or create other shows, some of which bear a notable resemblance to the style and concepts of Buffy. Such endeavors include Tru Calling (Douglas Petrie, Jane Espenson and even lead actress Eliza Dushku), Wonderfalls (Tim Minear), Point Pleasant (Marti Noxon), Jake 2.0 (David Greenwalt), The Inside (Tim Minear), Smallville (Steven S. DeKnight) and Lost (Drew Goddard, David Fury). Meanwhile, the Parents Television Council complained of efforts to "deluge their young viewing audiences with adult themes." The FCC, however, rejected the Council's indecency complaint concerning the violent sex scene between Buffy and Spike in Smashed (Buffy episode). The BBC, however, chose to censor some of the more controversial sexual content.

Who says there are no second chances in Hollywood? In 1992, Joss Whedon had a wonderful script to a movie: “Buffy The Vampire Slayer.” However, due to bad directing and bad improvising, Whedon saw his script get made into a one-joke travesty of a teen comedy. Five years later, like a mystic being resurrected within a pentagram, it came back to life as a magical dramedy, a ripping thriller and the smartest work of girls-kick-ass feminism ever crafted by a pudgy guy who's into comic books. And, few would have guess that such a toothless, one-joke movie would inspire such a brilliantly layered show. But it did. For one, Whedon had control over this Buffy project and was able to write and direct his vision for blonde valley girl who has been chosen to slay vampires and demons for the rest of her life. The show did well thanks to a stellar cast. Sarah Michelle Gellar nimbly handled the show's undead allegories for coming-of-age conflicts (her stunt double nimbly handled the rest). And, Gellar had some top notch actors to support her: Anthony Stewart Head, Alyson Hannigan, and Nicolas Brendan to name a few. The show also had some of the best characters in TV history. Beside the sweet yet tough Buffy, there was Willow, the shy nerd who become a powerful witch and a lesbian; the funny but grounded Xander; Giles, the brains and father figure for Buffy; the demon-out-of-water Anya; the precocious and emotional Dawn; that bad girl slayer and ball of fun Faith; and, of course, the perennial scene stealer Spike (such a great character was Spike that he was brought onto Angel after Buffy went off the air). There were also some great episodes: from “Hush,” in which demons steal all the voices in Sunnydale and “Once More With Feeling,” the best Sondheimian musical episode ever written for hour long television. And the show unspooled a rich mythology, realistic family, and relationship stories. But, all in all, Buffy was a metaphor for high school and growing up, with allegories galore (Buffy has sex with the vampire with a soul Angel, which causes him to lose his soul; the ultimate metaphor for having sex with a nice guy who then turns bad immediately afterwards). And, it was ironically the realism that made Buffy so great. It felt like real life if demons and vampires just happened to exist. The demons and ghouls were comically rubber-faced, but Buffy's spirit was achingly real.

[rrm15]

Nice to see The Shield so high up.

[Beav]

Jeopardy, What's Happening?!?, and Cosby

[Hulk With A Mustache]

31. 60 Minutes



Genre: News magazine.
Created by: Don Hewitt.
Executive Producer(s): Don Hewitt (1968-2004) and Jeff Fager (2004-2007).
Starring: Correspondents: Mike Wallace (Correspondent Emeritus 1968–2006), Walter Cronkite (1968-1981), Charles Kuralt (1968–1979), Harry Reasoner (1968-1970), Martin Agronsky (1968–1969), George Herman (1969–1981), Morley Safer (1970–present), Dan Rather (1970-1981, 2005-2006), Bob Schieffer (1973-1996), Morton Dean (1975-1979), Ed Bradley (1976-2006), Charles Osgood (1981-1994), Charlie Rose (1981-1991), Diane Sawyer (1981-1989), Meredith Vieira (1982-1991), Bill Plante (1983-1995), Steve Kroft (1989–present), Connie Chung (1990-1993), Paula Zahn (1990-1996), Lesley Stahl (1991–present), Russ Mitchell (1995-1996), Bob Simon (1996–present), Christiane Amanpour (1996-2005), Bryant Gumbel (1998-2002), Scott Pelley (2003–present), Lara Logan (2005–present), Katie Couric (2006-present), Anderson Cooper (2006-present).
Commentators: James J. Kilpatrick (Conservative debater, 1971–1979), Nicholas Von Hoffman (Liberal debater, 1971–1974), Shana Alexander (Liberal debater, 1975–1979), Andy Rooney (1978-present), Stanley Crouch (Commentator, 1996), Molly Ivins (Liberal commentator, 1996), P. J. O'Rourke (Conservative commentator, 1996), Bill Clinton (Liberal debater, 2003), and Bob Dole (Conservative debater, 2003).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 40.
Number of Episodes: Unknown.
Running Time: Do I seriously have to tell you what the running time for 60 minutes is!?
Original Channel: CBS.
Original Run: September 24, 1968 – Present.
Spinoffs: 60 Minutes II (now called 60 Minutes Wednesday), which is basically the same program but on Wednesday. There are also several versions of 60 Minutes in a few countries around the world: Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand, and Portugal.

The inspiration of the show came from the controversial Canadian news program This Hour Has Seven Days, which ran from 1964 to 1966. Initially, 60 Minutes aired as a bi-weekly show hosted by Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace, debuting on September 24, 1968 and alternating weeks with other CBS News productions on Tuesday evenings. Don Hewitt, who had been a producer of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, sought out Wallace as a stylistic contrast to Reasoner. According to one historian of the show, the idea of the format was to make the hosts the reporters, to always feature stories that were of national importance but focused upon individuals involved with, or in conflict with, those issues, and to limit the reports' airtime to around thirteen minutes. However, the initial season was troubled by lack of network confidence. Morley Safer joined the team in 1970, and he took over the task of reporting less aggressive stories. However, when Richard Nixon began targeting press access and reporting, even Safer began to do "hard" investigative reports, and that year alone 60 Minutes reported on cluster bombs, the South Vietnamese Army, Canada's amnesty for American draft dodgers, Nigeria, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland. In 1983, Safer's report, "Lenell Geter's in Jail," single-handedly freed from prison the Texan who was wrongly convicted of armed robbery, and is, to this day, one of the program's crowning achievements. In 1971, the "Point/Counterpoint" segment was introduced, featuring James J. Kilpatrick and Nicholas von Hoffman (later Shana Alexander), a three-minute debate between spokespeople for the political right and left, respectively. This segment pioneered a format that would later be adapted by CNN for its Crossfire show. This ran until 1979, when Andy Rooney, whose commentaries were already alternating with the debate segment since the fall of 1978, replaced it; Rooney remains with the program today. By 1971, the FCC introduced the Prime Time Access Rule, which freed local network affiliates in the top 50 markets (in practice, the entire network) to take a half hour of prime time from the networks on Mondays through Saturdays and one full hour on Sundays. Because nearly all affiliates found production costs for the FCC's intended goal of increased public affairs programming very high and the ratings (thus advertising revenues) low, making it mostly unprofitable, the FCC created an exception for network-authored news and public affairs. After a six-month hiatus in late 1971, CBS thus found a prime place for 60 Minutes in a portion of that displaced time, 6-7 p.m. (Eastern time) on Sundays, in January 1972. This proved somewhat less than satisfactory, however, as, especially during the fall when CBS broadcast late National Football League games, 60 Minutes got preempted fairly frequently; football telecasts were protected contractually from interruptions in the wake of the infamous "Heidi Game" incident on NBC in November 1968. Other sporting events such as golf tournaments occasionally caused this problem also. Nonetheless, the program's hard-hitting reports attracted a steadily growing audience, particularly during the waning days of the Vietnam War and the gripping events of the Watergate scandal; at that time, few if any other major-network news shows did in-depth investigative reporting to the degree carried out by 60 Minutes. Eventually, during the summers of 1973 through 1975, CBS did allow the show back onto the prime time schedule proper, on Fridays in 1973 and Sundays the two years thereafter. It was only when the FCC returned an hour to the networks on Sundays (for children's/family or news programming), taken away from them four years earlier, in a 1975 amendment to the Access Rule that CBS finally found a viable permanent timeslot for 60 Minutes. When a family-oriented drama, Three for the Road, ended after a 13-week run in the fall, the newsmagazine took its place at 7/6 p.m. in December. It has aired at that time since, for over 32 years, making 60 Minutes not only the longest-running prime time program currently in production, but also the television program (excluding daily programs such as evening newscasts or breakfast shows) broadcasting for the longest length of time at a single time period each week in U.S. television history. This move made the program into a strong ratings hit and, eventually, a general cultural phenomenon. Within the first season, 60 Minutes became the top-rated show on Sunday nights in the U.S. By 1979, it had achieved the number-one Nielsen rating for all television programs. This success translated into great profits for CBS; advertising rates went from $17,000 per thirty seconds in 1975 to $175,000 in 1982. In 1979, Channel 9 in Australia licensed a spin-off of 60 Minutes, complete with ticking clock and format, and, later, New Zealand followed suit with its own 60 Minutes. At 89 years old, Mike Wallace is not only the oldest television personality today (being four months older than Helen Wagner), but one who has lasted the longest with one news show continuously, having been a part of 60 Minutes since its inception in 1968. On March 14, 2006, Wallace announced his retirement from 60 Minutes after 37 years with the program. He continues to work for CBS News as a "Correspondent Emeritus." As of 2008, 60 Minutes is the only regularly scheduled television program in American television history not to have used any type of theme music. The only theme sound is from the signature Aristo stopwatch in the opening title credits, before each commercial break, and at the tail-end of the closing credits. 60 Minutes is also aired via CBS Radio on several of their radio stations at the same time as the television broadcast, such as WCBS-AM, KNX, WBBM-AM, WWJ, and several other stations across the country owned by CBS. An audio version of the full show is also distributed via podcast and the iTunes Store, beginning with the September 23, 2007 program. The format of 60 Minutes consists of three long-form news stories, without superimposed graphics. The stories are introduced from a set which has a backdrop resembling a magazine story on the same topic. The show undertakes its own investigations and follows up on investigations instigated by national newspapers and other sources. Many topics center on allegations of wrongdoing and corruption on the part of corporations, politicians, and other public officials. Said figures are commonly either subjected to an interview, or evade contact with the 60 Minutes crew altogether, either by written notice or by simply fleeing from the approaching journalist and his camera crew. Instead of summarizing an interview or providing direct commentary on an issue, 60 Minutes prefers to air the interview itself. When the subject is hiding a secret, the viewers witness the evasion directly. The show also features profiles. The profiles are occasionally of celebrities and offer up a biography of the figure, focusing upon the celebrity's early life story, obstacles, and choices, rather than offering a simple publicity platform. Non-celebrity profiles usually feature a person who has accomplished an heroic action or striven to improve the world. In tone, 60 Minutes blends the probing journalism of the seminal 1950s CBS series See It Now with Edward R. Murrow (a show for which Hewitt was the director its first few years) and the personality profiles of another Murrow program, Person to Person. In Hewitt's own words, 60 Minutes blends "higher Murrow" and "lower Murrow." For most of the 1970s, the program included the Point/Counterpoint segment in which a liberal and a conservative commentator would debate a particular issue. This originally featured James J. Kilpatrick representing the conservative side and Nicholas von Hoffman for the liberal, with Shana Alexander taking over for von Hoffman after he departed in 1974. Although discontinued in 1979, when Andy Rooney, who had previously left the show with Harry Reasoner, returned to offer commentary, the segment was an innovation that caught the public imagination as a live version of competing editorials. Point/Counterpoint was also lampooned by the NBC comedy series Saturday Night Live, which featured Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd as debaters, with Aykroyd typically beginning his remarks with, "Jane, you ignorant slut", and in the motion picture Airplane!, in which the faux Kilpatrick argues in favor of the plane crashing. A similar concept was revived briefly in March 2003, this time featuring Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, former opponents in the 1996 presidential election. The pair agreed to do ten segments, which were called "Clinton/Dole" and "Dole/Clinton" in alternating weeks, but did not continue into the fall television season. Reports indicated that the segments were considered too gentlemanly, in the style of the earlier Point/Counterpoint, and lacked the feistiness of Crossfire. Since 1979, the show has usually ended with a (usually light-hearted or humorous) commentary by Andy Rooney expounding on topics of wildly varying import, ranging from international politics, to economics, and to personal philosophy on every-day life. One recurring topic has been measuring the amount of coffee in coffee cans. Rooney's pieces, particularly one in which he referred to actor Mel Gibson as a "wacko," have on occasion led to complaints from viewers. On Sunday, October 29, 2006, the opening sequence changed from a black background to white. The black background had been used for over a decade. Based on ratings, 60 Minutes is the most successful broadcast in U.S. television history. For five of its seasons it has been that year's top program, a feat only matched by the sitcoms All in the Family and The Cosby Show. It was a top ten show for 23 seasons in a row (1977-2000), an unsurpassed record. 60 Minutes first broke into the Ratings Top 20 during the 1976-77 season. The following season it was the fourth-most-watched show, and by 1979-80, it was the number one show. During the 21st century it remains among the top 20 programs in the Nielsen Ratings, and the highest-rated news magazine. CBS has been the recipient of numerous awards, including Peabody Awards for the segments "All in the Family", an investigation into abuses by government and military contractors; "The CIA's Cocaine", which uncovered CIA involvement in drug smuggling; "Friendly Fire", a report on incidents of friendly fire in the Gulf War; and "Duke Rape Suspects Speak Out", the first interviews with the suspects in the 2006 Duke University lacrosse team scandal. They received an Investigative Reporter and Editor medal for their segment "The Osprey", documenting a Marine cover up of deadly flaws in the V-22 Osprey aircraft. In 2007, 60 Minutes received twelve Emmy Awards nominations. The show has been praised for landmark journalism and received many awards. However, it has also become embroiled in some controversy, including:

William Westmoreland: In the 1982 "The Uncounted Enemy, a Vietnam Deception," which Mike Wallace narrated for CBS Reports, the news division's documentary program, it was reported that William Westmoreland, former commander of American military operations in the Vietnam War, withheld information from decision-makers in Washington for political reasons. Westmoreland held a press conference a few days later, calling it a 'preposterous hoax,' and eventually sued for libel. TV Guide issued a report called 'Anatomy of a Smear,' detailing problems with the report, including the ignoring of contrary evidence, and video editing to change the questions Westmoreland is asked. Westmoreland withdrew the suit a few days before the protracted case was given to the jury. He and CBS News issued a joint statement in which CBS said it "does not believe that General Westmoreland was unpatriotic or disloyal in performing his duties as he saw them." Westmoreland claimed a victory; CBS, in a separate statement, said nothing in the trial changed its stance that the report was "fair and accurate."

Unintended Acceleration: On November 23, 1986, 60 Minutes aired a segment greenlit by Don Hewitt, concerning the Audi 5000 automobile, a popular German luxury car. The story concerned a number of incidents where the car purportedly accelerated without warning while parked, injuring or killing people. 60 Minutes was unable to duplicate this behavior, and so hired an outside consultant to modify the transmission to behave in this manner, and aired a story about it. The incident devastated Audi sales in the United States, which did not reach the same level for another fifteen years. The initial incidents which prompted the report were found by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Transport Canada to have been attributable to operator error, where car owners had depressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. CBS issued a partial retraction, without acknowledging the test results of involved government agencies. A rival to 60 Minutes, Dateline NBC, would be found guilty of similar tactics years later regarding fuel tank integrity on General Motors pickup trucks.

Alar: In February, 1989 60 Minutes aired a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council claiming health problems with Alar, a chemical sprayed on apples. Apple sales dropped and CBS was sued by apple growers.

Werner Erhard: A 60 Minutes broadcast of March 3, 1991 dealt with controversies involving Werner Erhard's personal and business life. One year after the 60 Minutes piece aired, Erhard filed a lawsuit against CBS and a variety of other defendants, claiming that the broadcast contained several "false, misleading and defamatory" statements about Erhard. Erhard dropped the lawsuit a few months before any court decision had been reached on its claims. The 60 Minutes segment was made unavailable with the disclaimer: "This segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or copyright reasons."

Brown and Williamson: In 1995, former Brown and Williamson (B&W) Vice President for Research and Development Jeffrey Wigand provided information to 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman that B&W had systematically hidden the health risks of their cigarettes. (See transcription.) Furthermore, it was alleged that B&W had introduced foreign agents (fiberglass, ammonia, etc.) with the intent of enhancing the effect of nicotine. Bergman began to produce a piece based upon the information, but ran into opposition from Don Hewitt who, along with CBS lawyers, feared a billion dollar lawsuit from Brown and Williamson. Interestingly, a number of people in CBS would benefit from a sale of CBS to Westinghouse Electric Corporation, including the head of CBS lawyers and CBS News. Also, because of the interview, the son of the President of CBS Laurence Tisch, was among the people from the big tobacco companies in the risk of being caught having committed perjury. Because of the hesitation from Hewitt, The Wall Street Journal instead broke Wigand's story. The 60 Minutes piece was eventually aired with substantially altered content, and was missing some of the most damning evidence against B&W. The exposé of the incident was published in an article in Vanity Fair by Marie Brenner, entitled The Man Who Knew Too Much. The New York Times wrote that 60 Minutes and CBS had "betrayed the legacy of Edward R. Murrow." The incident was turned into a seven-times Oscar-nominated feature film entitled “The Insider,” directed by Michael Mann and starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino.

U.S. Customs Service: 60 Minutes alleged in 1997 that agents of the U.S. Customs Service ignored drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border at San Diego. The only evidence was a memorandum apparently written by Rudy Camacho, who was the head of the San Diego branch office. Based on this memo, CBS alleged that Camacho had allowed trucks belonging to a particular firm to cross the border unimpeded. Mike Horner, a former Customs Service employee, had passed the memos on to 60 Minutes, and even provided a copy with an official stamp. Camacho was not consulted about the article, and his career was devastated in the immediate term as his own department placed suspicion on him. In the end, it turned out that Horner had forged the documents as an act of revenge for his treatment within the Customs Service. Camacho successfully sued CBS for an unknown settlement, and Don Hewitt was forced to issue an on-air retraction.

Kennewick Man: A legal battle between archaeologists and the Umatilla tribe over the remains of a skeleton, nicknamed Kennewick man, was reported on by 60 Minutes (October 25, 1998), to which the Umatilla tribe reacted very negatively. The tribe considered the segment heavily biased in favor of the scientists, cutting out important arguments, such as explanations of Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The report focused heavily on the racial politics of the controversy and also added inflammatory arguments, such as questioning the legitimacy of Native American sovereignty; much of the racial focus of the segment was later reported to be unfounded or misinterpreted.

Viacom Cross-Promotion: In recent years the show has been accused of promoting books, films, and interviews with celebrities who are published or promoted by sister businesses in the Viacom media conglomerate (2000-2005), without disclosing the journalistic conflict-of-interest to viewers. However, due to media consolidation, this has become standard practice on many television news broadcasts.

In 1999, a second edition of 60 Minutes was started in the U.S., called 60 Minutes II. This edition was later renamed 60 Minutes by CBS for the fall of 2004 in an effort to sell it as a high-quality program, since some had sarcastically referred to it as 60 Minutes, Jr. CBS News president Andrew Heyward said, "The Roman numeral II created some confusion on the part of the viewers and suggested a watered-down version". However, a widely-known controversy which came to be known as "Rathergate," regarding a report that aired September 8, 2004, caused another name change. The show was renamed 60 Minutes Wednesday both to differentiate itself and to avoid tarnishing the Sunday edition, as the editions were editorially independent from one another. The show reverted to its original title with Roman numerals on July 8, 2005, when the show moved to a Friday night 8pm ET timeslot to finish its run. Its last broadcast was on September 2, 2005. The Australian 60 Minutes premiered on 11 February 1979. It airs Sunday nights on the Nine Network. Reporter Richard Carleton suffered a heart attack on 7 May 2006. He asked a question at a news conference for the Beaconsfield mine collapse, then walked out and suffered cardiac arrest. Paramedics tried to revive him for 20 minutes until an ambulance arrived, but was pronounced dead on arrival. Although they have the rights to the format, as of 2007 they do not have rights to the US stories. Nevertheless, they often air them by subleasing them from Network Ten. In 1980 60 Minutes won a Logie Award for their investigation of lethal abuses at Chelmsford psychiatric hospital in Sydney. On 16 September 2007, the Australian 60 Minutes did a segment on French sport Parkour, which showcased famous traceurs Rhys James and Shaun Woods. The French version of 60 Minutes is titled 66 Minutes and airs on M6. In the mid-1980s, an edited version (approx. 30 minutes in length) of the U.S. broadcast edition of 60 Minutes was shown for a time on West German television. This version retained the English-language soundtrack of the original, but also featured German subtitles. This version may have been known as 30 Minuten. The New Zealand version of 60 Minutes has aired on national television since 1989, when it was shown on TV3. In 1992 the rights were acquired by TVNZ, who began broadcasting it in 1993. The network aired the program for nine years before dropping it in 2002 for its own program, entitled Sunday. Sunday is currently the highest rating current affairs show broadcast on New Zealand television, followed by 20/20. 60 Minutes is now broadcast by rival network TV3. The Portuguese version of 60 Minutes airs on SIC Notícias and is hosted by Mário Crespo. A briefly-lived Mexican version appeared in the late 1970s. A Peruvian version aired in the early 1980s, called 60 Minutos. However, in the late 1980s also existed a similarly named series, but unrelated to the series produced by CBS News. In 2004, Brazil's Rede Bandeirantes planned a licensed localized version, but the plan was canceled. CBS Paramount Television is rumoured to be planning licensed localized versions for several Latin American countries.

Tick-tick-tick-tick. That sound has set countless scam artists, sleazy defense lawyers, and crooked politicians and businessmen to trembling out of fear. For the rest of us, however, the famous stopwatch signals that we’re in for an hour of hardest-hitting, smartest news magazine around. For nearly 40 years, 60 Minutes has been simultaneously confrontational and as comforting as a mug of warm milk. The brainchild of abrasive but astute producer Don Hewitt, 60 Minutes arrived on the air in 1968. “This is 60 Minutes,” intoned co-host Harry Reasoner. “It’s kind of a magazine for television.” That episode, featuring a report on the Richard Nixon campaigned and a story on tensions with big city cops, tanked in the ratings. However, in less than a decade, the show became a Sunday institution to rival football and church ("You know I hate to miss 60 Minutes," Elaine says in the "Puerto Rican Day" episode of Seinfeld. "It's part of my Sunday weekend wind-down."). It has stayed in the Top 10 for more much of its run. The show has been much imitated (from 20/20 on ABC to Dateline on NBC to your local-news' Shame On You segment), has been lampooned on shows from Saturday Night Live to MADtv, has had its embarrassments (the tobacco back-down chronicled in the movie “The Insider”; a good number of Andy Rooney segments), aired thousands of stories, and made CBS more than a billion dollars. What’s the secret to its success? “Tell me a story” was Hewitt’s mantra. Or, as he once said, the ratings could double “if we package reality as well as Hollywood packages fiction.” Like a good move, the show has had clear-cut stars and the pace zips along. But most important, 60 Minutes brims with conflict. Even after all these years, the aging journalists remain bulldog inquisitors, detectives, and ambush artists. Mike Wallace has exposed dozens of frauds, from a crooked cancer clinic to a jailhouse credit-card sham. A black-wigged Lesley Stahl nailed a story on Romanian babies for sale. Steve Kroft asked the hard questions of accused adulterer Bill Clinton in 1992. Sometimes, the conflicts have been too dicey, like the aforementioned tobacco back-down (Wallace’s interview of tobacco whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand was heavily censored). Still, there’s no question 60 Minutes is best when it sticks to tough pieces. When it ventures into celebrity profiles or when Andy Rooney offers his rambling ruminations on waiters or safety tops, the results can be strangely unsatisfactory. But, these flaws are forgivable because 60 Minutes sticks to the ideal that a camera could be a crowbar to pry out truths. In a medium that depends on millions sitting and watching, it reminds us that TV can be most effective (or scary) when watching you.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

30. Jeopardy!



Genre: Game show.
Created by: Merv Griffin.
Executive Producer(s): Harry Friedman.
Starring: Hosts: Art Fleming (1964–1975; 1978–1979) and Alex Trebek (1984–present).
Announcers: Don Pardo (1964–1975), John Harlan (1978–1979), and Johnny Gilbert (1984–present).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 11 (first run), 1 (second run), 24 (current run).
Number of Episodes: 2,753 (Fleming daytime), 39 (Fleming syndicated), 113 (Fleming revival), 5,250 (Trebek syndicated as of October 22, 2007).
Running Time: 22 minutes.
Original Channel: NBC (1964–1975, 1978–1979) (daytime), Syndication (1974–1975, 1984–present).
Original Run: March 30, 1964 – Present.
Spinoffs: All New Jeopardy! (1978-1979, which featured different rules from the regular Jeopardy! game), Rock & Roll Jeopardy! (music-theme Jeopardy! game that aired on VH1 from 1998 to 2001), and Jep! (a kids version of Jeopardy! that aired from 1998 to 2004).

Three contestants, one of whom is typically a defending champion, play the game in three rounds: the Jeopardy! Round, the Double Jeopardy! Round, and the Final Jeopardy! Round. In the special case of a tie in tournament play, a fourth round, the Tiebreaker Round, is added. The three contestants stand behind podiums which display their scores (updated as the game proceeds) and their names:

Jeopardy! Round: Six categories are announced, each with a column of five trivia clues (phrased in answer form), each one valued, in dollars, incrementally more than the previous, ostensibly by difficulty. Each category is a topical category, and the categories change on each show; the category names are frequently puns or collectively build upon a theme. Upon the show's 1964 premiere, dollar values were $10, $20, $30, $40, and $50. These values were increased to $25, $50, $75, $100, $125 with the revival of the show in 1978, and successively doubled with the second pilot for the Alex Trebek version in 1984, with the premiere of the Trebek-hosted version in 1984, and during its 18th season in 2001 for present values of $200, $400, $600, $800, and $1,000. (The 1990 Super Jeopardy! tournament used a point value scale that incremented from 200 to 1,000.) The returning champion or the newcomer in the first (leftmost to the home viewer) position begins the game by selecting a category and monetary value (e.g. "PRESIDENTS for $200"). Contestants are free to choose any unselected clue, although contestants usually select lower-valued clues before higher-valued clues in any given category. The host then reads the clue ("He was the father of our country; he didn't really chop down a cherry tree"), after which any of the three contestants may ring in using a hand-held signaling device. The first contestant to successfully ring in following the host's reading of the clue must then respond generally in the form of a question ("Who was/Who is/Who's George Washington?"). The answer board (Season 19-22 Jeopardy! set).A correct response earns the dollar value of the clue and the opportunity to select the next clue from the board. An incorrect response or a failure to respond within a 5-second time limit deducts the dollar value of the clue from the player's score and gives any remaining opponents the opportunity to ring in and respond. If none of the contestants give a correct response, the correct response is read, and the player who has most recently given a correct response to a clue chooses the next clue. One clue hidden on the Jeopardy! Round game board is designated a "Daily Double" (a name taken from horse racing). Only the contestant who selects a Daily Double may respond to its clue. The player may wager as much as the maximum amount of a clue on the board (currently $1,000 in the Jeopardy! Round and $2,000 in the Double Jeopardy! Round) or as much as he or she has accumulated, whichever is greater, but must wager at least $5. Players may also indicate that they wish to make it a "True Daily Double", meaning that they are risking all the money that they have accumulated up to that point. Daily Doubles are sometimes designated with special tags, such as "Audio Daily Double" (in which a sound clip is played as part of the clue), "Video Daily Double" (in which a video clip is played as part of the clue), "Celebrity Daily Double" (in which a celebrity delivers the clue), etc. Such a tag is displayed as soon as the Daily Double has been selected. Before the 1985–86 season, contestants could ring in any time after the clue was revealed. Since that season, players are required to wait until the host finishes reading the clue before they may ring in. Lights surrounding the game board, invisible to the television audience, illuminate to indicate that contestants may ring in. Pressing the signaling button prior to the lights' illumination locks the player out for approximately one quarter of a second. In the Jeopardy! Round, players are not penalized for forgetting to phrase a response in the form of a question; the host will give a reminder to contestants who do not correct themselves before their time runs out. In the Double Jeopardy! Round, adherence to the phrasing rule is followed more strictly, but players are still permitted to correct themselves before their time runs out if they are not immediately ruled against. On occasion, players have couched their phrasing in creative ways or in languages other than standard English without penalty.

Double Jeopardy! Round: The second round, Double Jeopardy!, works like the first round, with the following exceptions: Six new categories are used. There are two Daily Doubles in this round. The value of each clue is double what it was in the first round (except in the case of the 1990 Super Jeopardy! tournament, where values were 500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000, and 2,500 points). The contestant with the lowest amount of money at the end of the Jeopardy! Round makes the first selection in Double Jeopardy! If there is a tie for the trailing position, the player to the host's left selects first. From 1985 to 1997, the set would change from blue to red starting with this round. In the 1978–1979 version, only the two highest-scoring players at the end of Round 1 played Double Jeopardy!; the third-place player was eliminated before the start of the round. The response must be phrased in question form. Contestants who finish Double Jeopardy! with a $0 or negative score are automatically eliminated from the game and not allowed to participate in the game's final round, Final Jeopardy! In this case, the contestants still receive consolation prizes, which (beginning with Show #4089, aired May 16, 2002) are $1,000 for third place and $2,000 for second place. In the original Art Fleming version, no money was awarded if a contestant finished with $0 or in the red (with a negative score), but he/she did receive parting gifts. If a returning champion finished in the red, it did not count against their previously accumulated winnings; any cash they had previously won was theirs to keep. In Celebrity Jeopardy!, which is played for charity, contestants are allowed to participate in Final Jeopardy! under all circumstances, and such contestants are granted nominal scores with which to wager for Final Jeopardy! On rare occasions, two contestants have been in the red, leaving the first-place player to play the Final Jeopardy! Round alone. During the Fleming era, at least once have all three contestants finished Double Jeopardy! with $0 or less, thereby disqualifying everyone from Final Jeopardy! The time normally used for the final round was filled with chitchat between Fleming and the contestants. For the following telecast, three new contestants were featured.

Final Jeopardy! Round: In the Final Jeopardy! Round, the host first announces the category, then the show goes into a commercial break (during which the staff comes on stage and advises the contestants while barriers are placed between the players to discourage cheating). The contestants then risk as little as $0 or as much money as they have accumulated, by writing it on a card (in the 1964-1975 version) or electronic tablet (since 1984). After the final commercial break, the Final Jeopardy! clue is revealed and read by the host, following which contestants have 30 seconds to write a response on a card/electronic drawing board, again phrased in the form of a question. The light pen is automatically cut off at the end of the 30 seconds. With rare exception, the "Think!" music is played during this 30-second period. Other Final Jeopardy! response methods are occasionally used: Blind contestants (including 5-time champion Eddie Timanus and 2005 Teen Tournament quarterfinalist Kerri Regan) utilize a keyboard with Braille keys. Entered text will be displayed in a typed font rather than the contestant's handwriting.
In the event of a malfunction of the handwriting input, contestants respond using a marker and paper card.

The top money-winner at the end of Final Jeopardy! is the day's champion and returns to the next show. During the 1964 and 1978 NBC and 1974 syndicated versions, all three contestants kept whatever cash they won. On the 1974 syndicated version, the winner also received a bonus prize or cash. Starting with the 1984 revival, rather than receiving their scores in cash, runners-up were awarded consolation prizes; typically, a vacation package for the second-place player and merchandise for the third-place player. This changed on May 16, 2002; thereafter, the second-place finisher was awarded $2,000 and the third place finisher was awarded $1,000. Since the show did not provide airfare or lodging for most contestants (airfare was provided for returning champions' subsequent flights to L.A.), these cash consolation prizes alleviated the financial burden of appearing on the show. The greatest amount won by an individual in a day was $75,000, by Ken Jennings, on July 23, 2004. If no contestant finishes Final Jeopardy! with a positive total (i.e., at least $1), then nobody wins and three new contestants appear on the following show; in such cases the three players will participate in a backstage draw to determine player position. The three-way loss has happened three times since 1984, the first occasion being on the second episode; the number of times this occurred during the 1964 NBC version is undetermined. If two or more contestants tie for first place, they each win the money and come back, assuming that they each have at least $1. Three players have held the co-champ title twice. Ties in non-regular-play games are broken via a special Tiebreaker Round; this has only known to have happened on five occasions, most recently on November 13, 2007 during the second semifinal game of the Tournament of Champions. An additional tiebreaker category with a single clue is given after the Final Jeopardy! Round, and the first player to ring in with the correct response wins. In case of a three-way loss in a tournament, none of the three players advance, and an additional wildcard is added in the tournament. Scores coming to Double Jeopardy! break ties for a wildcard position. A three-way tie for first place has only occurred once during the Alex Trebek era of Jeopardy!, and only one contestant in the Trebek era has won a game with only $1. The 1974-75 weekly syndicated version was essentially the same as the NBC version, but with several changes. Host Art Fleming always wore a tuxedo with a check-patterned jacket and a number of flashing light bulbs were added to the set. Most contestants were previous winners from the daytime show. As well, any player who correctly answered all five questions in a category received a bonus prize, originally a Chevrolet Vega, later a trip to London (as opposed to a cash bonus on the daytime edition). Originally, the winning contestant picked a number from 1-30 off the Jeopardy Jackpot Board; possible prizes included a new car, a luxury vacation, or bonus money, with the grand prize being $25,000 (though the latter took up two spaces, each corresponding one half, and could only be won if the contestant found the second half on an additional pick). Later in the show's one-season run, the Jackpot Board was dropped, and the champion's bonus prize or cash was based on his or her final score (it was also at this point that the aforementioned "main game category sweep" prize was changed from the car to the London holiday, since the Chevy Vega was now one of the bonus prizes). However, this version failed to catch on in the ratings or garner enough stations, mainly due to a glut of other weekly versions of network daytime games that stations ran in their Prime Time Access early-evening timeslots, such as Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal. The show was cancelled after only one season. During the previous season, packagers of Dating Game and Sale of the Century had tried to keep their shows alive in syndication as well; neither of those games were successful either. The All-New Jeopardy! was a short-lived 1978–1979 series with significantly different rules than the 1964-75 versions. The lowest-scoring contestant was eliminated after the Jeopardy! Round; whoever was ahead at the end of the Double Jeopardy! Round became the champion. Instead of Final Jeopardy!, the winner then got to play a bonus round called Super Jeopardy! (no relation to the special summer 1990 tournament of all-time champions as aired on ABC). This round featured a new board of five categories with five clues in each, numbered 1–5 (and unlike the main game, not necessarily increasing in difficulty down the column). The object was for the contestant to provide any five correct responses in a straight line in a Bingo-like fashion (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally). Giving an incorrect response, or a pass, earned the player a "strike," and blocked off that space on the board; three strikes ended the round. Super Jeopardy! was worth $5,000 to a first-day champion, with the jackpot increasing by $2,500 each day that champion successfully defended his/her title; with the five-day limit in place, that meant a potential total of $50,000 in just Super Jeopardy! earnings ($5,000 + $7,500 + $10,000 + $12,500 + $15,000). If a player struck out, he/she still received $100 for each correct response given. In the pilot, the player had a time limit of 90 seconds to get five in a row. This bonus game proved rather unpopular among long-time fans of the show, and some critics allege that its inclusion, and the gameplay's elimination structure, doomed the revival to failure. Two sound effects from this version carried over to Sale of the Century in the 1980s: the correct response bell in Super Jeopardy! (a high-pitched e-note ding) and the Daily Double bell, a Family Feud-esque series of dings. Rock & Roll Jeopardy! was a music-intensive version of Jeopardy! that aired on VH1 from 1998 to 2001. Hosted by future Survivor host Jeff Probst, clues on this version of the show highlighted post-1950s popular music trivia. Though the host was somewhat looser with the "phrase in the form of a question" requirement, the gameplay was basically identical to Jeopardy! The first two seasons used points, with $5,000 to the winner; subsequent seasons were played for cash with a $5,000 house minimum. Jep! was the children's version of Jeopardy!, hosted by cartoon voice artist Bob Bergen. The show aired in 1998 on Game Show Network (now GSN), and up to late 2004 on Discovery Kids. It did not fare well with either critics or viewers and the show was cancelled after one season. Starting in 1999, just after Jep!'s cancellation, Jeopardy! began a "Back-to-School Week", which has easier clues and more accessible material for the younger contestants, but is otherwise identical to the adult version. For the first six seasons, winning contestants kept all winnings, with a cap of $75,000. Anything won above $75,000 went to the champion's favorite charity. The cap was increased to $100,000 starting in Season 7 after Bob Blake ($82,501) and Frank Spangenberg ($102,597) exceeded the $75,000 cap. In Seasons 14-19 the cap was raised to $200,000. The cap was eliminated altogether at the beginning of Season 20. Until Season 20 of the Trebek version of the show, a contestant who won five days in a row would be retired undefeated, with a guaranteed spot in the next Tournament of Champions. From Season 14 to Season 17, an undefeated champion would also be awarded a choice of Chevrolet cars or trucks (Corvette, Tahoe, or two Camaros). From Season 18 to Season 19, the winner won a Jaguar X-Type. Similarly, as part of the deal with Ford Motor Company for the 2001–02 season, Ford also added a Volvo to the Teen Tournament prize package. To mark the start of the current version's 20th season, in September 2003, the show changed its rules so there is no winnings limit, and champions' reigns became indefinite; a champion keeps coming back as long as (s)he keeps winning (although automobiles were no longer awarded for five wins). This rule change led to the remarkable winning streak of Ken Jennings, who currently holds most of the winning records on the show, including greatest number of appearances and regular season highest total dollar amounts won (excluding tournaments). Beginning with the 2nd season of the Alex Trebek syndicated version, a Tournament of Champions (ToC) has been held more or less annually, featuring five-time undefeated champions and other biggest winners to have appeared on the show since the last ToC. The ToC format was devised by Alex Trebek, and was as follows: Fifteen players—five-time champions, and, if there are fewer than 15 five-time champions who have not yet played in a ToC, the highest scorers among the other game winners are invited to participate. The ToC lasts two weeks (10 shows), in the following manner:

Shows 1–5: The quarterfinals, with three new contestants participating each day. The five winners advance to the semi-finals. Four wild card spots are available to the highest-scoring non-winners, with ties broken by the scores after the Double Jeopardy! Round.

Shows 6–8: The semifinals. At this point, the game becomes a single-elimination affair, with each winner advancing to the finals. If at any point in the quarterfinals or semifinals there is a tie for first place, one or more successive Tiebreaker Rounds are played, with the first player to answer correctly advancing to the next round. (Tiebreaker Rounds have appeared on the show only five times, four times in tournaments. In the event of more than one Tiebreaker Round being played in a game, only the deciding Tiebreaker Round is aired as part of the show broadcast; the others are edited out.)

Shows 9–10: The two-day finals. Players begin the second final game with their scores reset to $0, and contestants' totals from both days are added together to determine their final scores. The contestant with the highest cumulative score wins the grand prize ($100,000 from 1985-2001; $250,000 since 2002). All other players, including the second- and third-place players in the finals, receive a guaranteed amount based on their finishing positions. In addition, the runners-up in the finals receive additional cash equal to their score if it exceeds the guaranteed amount.

First aired in 1987, the Teen Tournament features high school students, with the winner receiving a cash prize ($75,000 in the most recent years), and, in some years, a new car. Until 2001, the winner was also invited to participate in the Tournament of Champions. One of the most notable Teen Tournament champions was Eric Newhouse, who advanced to the finals of the 1989 Tournament of Champions, was a finalist in the Million Dollar Masters tournament, and participated in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions. Beginning in 1989 the College Championship uses college students as contestants. The College Championship pits 15 full-time undergraduate students from colleges and universities in the US against each other in a two-week tournament, identical to the ToC in format. Beginning in 1997, the College Championship has been taped at host college campus using the show's traveling set. The winner earns $100,000, a trophy, and a spot in the next Tournament of Champions. (Tom Cubbage, the very first Jeopardy! college champion, also won his Tournament of Champions the following season.) Between 1987 and 1995, ten Seniors Tournaments were held for contestants over the age of 50. This tournament was discontinued after December 1995, purportedly due to advertisers wanting to pull in younger demographics. Usually once a year, Celebrity Jeopardy! weeks are held with celebrity contestants. Each celebrity chooses a charity (or two) to sponsor, and that charity is the recipient of the particular celebrity's winnings. Typically, each charity is guaranteed a certain amount (e.g., $20,000), with the winner's charity receiving a larger amount (e.g., $50,000). Contestants ending the Double Jeopardy! Round with a zero or negative score, who in regular play games would be disqualified from playing Final Jeopardy!, are given a nominal score with which to wager (e.g. $100). At least once per season since 1999, the show holds a special week of shows collectively known as Kids Week, Holiday Kids Week, or Back to School Week, featuring children ages 10 through 12 as contestants. These games are usually recorded at the show's main studio in Culver City. These weeks comprise five independent shows, with three new contestants in each. Unlike the regular Jeopardy! format, the winner of each game does not return to play another game. The third place winner receives $1,000, second place receives $2,000, and first place wins the amount of his or her score, with some minimum guarantee (typically $10,000). Additional prizes for all players, such as computers, gift certificates, and trips to local theme parks have been awarded in the past. There have been a number of special tournaments featuring the greatest players during the history of Jeopardy! These are listed below:

Super Jeopardy!: The first of these "all-time best" tournaments, Super Jeopardy! aired in Summer 1990 on ABC. It featured top players during the first six years of the 1984 syndicated run, plus a notable champion from the original Fleming era. The tournament was similar to the Million Dollar Masters and Ultimate Tournament of Champions (see below), although it was on a much smaller scale than that tournament. The Super Jeopardy! tournament also featured 4 contestants per game (in the first round of the tournament) as opposed to the standard three, and the games were played for points instead of dollars. Bruce Seymour won the tournament and $250,000.

Tenth Anniversary Tournament: The Tenth Anniversary Tournament was a five-day tournament aired in 1993 following the conclusion of the regular Tournament of Champions. The winner of that tournament, Tom Nosek, received a bye into the Tenth Anniversary Tournament; the other eight spots were awarded by lottery from among Tournament of Champions finalists and semifinalists of the previous decade (one chosen from each of the eight years the tournament was played). Frank Spangenberg won the tournament with a two-game score of $16,800 plus a $25,000 bonus for a total of $41,800.

Teen Reunion Tournament: In November 1998, players from the 1987, 1988, and 1989 Teen Tournaments (including the champions) were invited to Boston to play in a special Teen Reunion Tournament. 1989 Teen Tournament winner Eric Newhouse won the tournament.

Million Dollar Masters: In May 2002, to commemorate the Trebek version's 4,000th episode, the show invited fifteen champions to play for a $1 million bonus, under the standard 2-week tournament format. Tapings took place at Radio City Music Hall. The tournament was won by Brad Rutter.

Ultimate Tournament of Champions: Jeopardy! televised the Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005. This tournament, which was the largest (and longest) in Jeopardy!'s history, pitted 144 former Jeopardy! champions against each other, with two winners moving on to face Ken Jennings in a 3-game final. The final winner was Brad Rutter ($62,000 for the tournament final), winning $2 million, the second-largest single-game prize in game show history. Jennings placed second (with $34,599) and took home $500,000. Jerome Vered finished third ($20,600), collecting $250,000. As a result, Rutter is the all-time highest winner of any game show with $3,270,102 (plus two Camaros), with Jennings a close second with $3,022,700.

It is believed that only a small number of the 2,753 episodes from the original NBC Daytime version of Jeopardy! survive, mostly as black-and-white kinescopes of the original color videotapes. In all likelihood, the original tapes were wiped as they were recorded over by NBC with new programming in an era when videotape was an expensive commodity. A demonstration episode dated March 5, 1964 survives as a black-and-white kinescope. The first game for broadcast was taped on March 18, 1964 and was aired March 30, 1964. From the beginning, the show was recorded and broadcast in color. The Museum of Television & Radio in New York City has the 2,000th episode from 1972, an all-time champions match featuring Mel Brooks in character as the 2000 Year Old Man. GSN has aired this episode in its entirety.
A clip from an early 1960s episode aired in 2004 during an ABC News Nightline special on Jeopardy! on the night Ken Jennings lost. Two regular play 1974 episodes and the 1975 finale exist among private collectors. The UCLA Film and Television Archive has 14 episodes from this era in their collection: black and white kinescopes of episodes from May 1, 3 and 4 1967 (from the Jeopardy! National College Scholarship Contest featuring high school seniors), color tapes of episodes from March 8, 16, 24, and April 1 and 9, 1971; March 12, 20, 28, and April 5 and 13, 1973; and April 24, 1974. Incomplete paper records of the NBC-era games exist on microfilm at the Library of Congress. The status of the 1978 version is unknown. The first and last episodes of this series are known to exist in broadcast quality; GSN holds the broadcast rights to these two episodes (and presumably any in between, although only the two mentioned have been rebroadcast on the channel). The Trebek version is completely intact. GSN, which like Jeopardy! is an affiliate of Sony Pictures Television, has rerun approximately 8 seasons to date, although they continuously aired the 1997–98 season (14th season) from June 2001 until June 13, 2005. Since then, GSN has been rerunning episodes from the 2001–02 season (Season 18), including a series of 2001 episodes that aired only on about 50 syndicated stations due to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Beginning July 28, 2008, GSN will start airing the 2003-2004 season. There is a 66 game disparity between the show numbers assigned new Jeopardy! episodes and the actual number of Trebek-era games played. To assist subscribing affiliate stations in airing episodes in the correct order, a show number is read by announcer Johnny Gilbert just prior to the taping of each game; this number is audible on the episodes as received by the affiliates, and visible on the slate attached to them, but the slate is trimmed from the show prior to broadcast. Each new episode receives an integer show number 1 greater than the previous episode. However, all 65 reruns in Season 1 (1984-1985) were given new show numbers despite not being new games, and a retrospective clip show that aired May 15, 2002 was also given a show number (#4088). As such, the game with show number #5000 aired on May 12, 2006, but the 5,000th game hosted by Alex Trebek did not air until September 25, 2006.

The category is great game shows. Created by Merv Griffin, it has been featured in such flicks as “White Men Can’t Jump,” and it actually requires some gray matter. What is…well, you know. Since its 1964 debut, Jeopardy! has become America’s brainteaser of choice, as addictive as a potent potable. First hosted by the genial Art Fleming and now by stern headmaster Alex Trebek, the daily quiz show is a twist on the usual game show format: instead of asking you a question, it gives you the answer; and you have to figure out what the question is. And, it must be in the form of a question or else it won’t count. The premise is quite simple, but you have to really smart in order to compete on the show (well, being quick on the buzzer wouldn’t hurt either). But, what makes Jeopardy! amazing is that the show has lasted for so long. There a few reasons for this. One is its ability to adapt with the times. After Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? upped the game show ante, Jeopardy! began giving out more money for getting the questions correct; and they changed the length the champion could stay on the show from 5-days to whenever he was defeated. This gave Jeopardy! one of its most exciting periods when Ken Jennings became champion for 74 games and was defeated on a simple question (the answer was about a company that only works 4 months of the year, and he said it was Fed-Ex; “What is H&R Block?” was the correct question). Another reason could be that it requires intelligence. Sure, your average person probably would do well on the show. However, in a way, the show taps into that part of everyone that wishes we were super smart. It is like the ultimate hope for people who gave to be the most intelligent. Another reason could be those funny SNL “Celebrity Jeopardy!” (Sean Connery: I’ll take Jap Anus Relations for $400, Alex. Alex Trebek: That’s Japan U.S. Relations!); I don’t know how, but it could. But, nevertheless, Jeopardy! has permeated our popular culture, and it will continue to do so long after the show has the way of an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. Correct question: What is the dodo?

[kretchpoof]

I know this is your list, but man, MST3K is about 30 spots too low.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

29. The Cosby Show



Genre: Sitcom.
Created by: Ed. Weinberger, Michael J. Leeson, and William Cosby Jr., Ed.D.
Executive Producer(s): Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner, John Markus, Bernie Kukoff, Janet Leahy, and Earl Pomerantz.
Starring: Bill Cosby (Dr. Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable), Phylicia Rashâd (Clair Olivia Hanks Huxtable), Sabrina LeBeauf (Sondra Huxtable Tibideaux 1985-1992, recurring previously), Geoffrey Owens (Elvin Tibideaux 1987-1992, recurring previously), Lisa Bonet (Denise Huxtable Kendall 1984-1987, 1989-1991), Joseph C. Phillips (Martin Kendall 1989-1991), Malcolm-Jamal Warner (Theodore Aloysius "Theo" Huxtable), Tempestt Bledsoe (Vanessa Huxtable), Keshia Knight Pulliam (Rudith Lillian "Rudy" Huxtable), Raven-Symoné (Olivia Kendall 1989-1992), and Erika Alexander (Pam Tucker 1990-1992).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 8.
Number of Episodes: 201.
Running Time: 24 minutes.
Original Channel: NBC.
Original Run: September 20, 1984 – April 30, 1992.
Spinoffs: A Different World, which followed daughter Denise Huxtable at Hillman College and lasted for six season even though Lisa Bonet left the show after the first season. Several other characters from The Cosby Show later appeared on some episodes of A Different World.

The Cosby Show was created by Ed. Weinberger, Michael J. Leeson, and Bill Cosby. The show focused on the Huxtable family, a likable upper-middle class African-American family living in a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, New York, at 10 Stigwood Avenue. The patriarch was the very playful Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable, an obstetrician. The matriarch was his very eloquent wife, attorney Clair (Hanks) Huxtable. The show involved comfortably usual difficulties of children growing up, such as son Theo's experiences of dealing with dyslexia, which was based on Cosby's real-life child Ennis, who was dyslexic. Cosby had an unusually high level of creative control over the show. He wanted the program to be educational, reflecting Cosby's own background in education. He also insisted that the program be taped in New York City rather than Los Angeles, where most television programs were taped. The series was videotaped at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in the New York City borough of Queens. Although the cast and characters were predominantly African-American, the program is unusual in that issues of race were rarely mentioned when compared to other situation comedies of the time, such as The Jeffersons. However, The Cosby Show had African-American themes, such as civil rights marches, and it frequently promoted African-American and African culture represented by artists and musicians such as Jacob Lawrence, Miles Davis, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Lena Horne, Duke Ellington and Miriam Makeba. The Cosby Show pilot episode uses the same title sequence as the rest of the first season, and is widely regarded as the 'first episode'. However, it is notable for a number of differences from the remainder of the series. In the pilot, the Huxtables have only four children. Following the pilot, the Huxtables have five children, with the addition of their eldest daughter, Sondra (Sabrina Le Beauf). Sondra was created when Bill Cosby wanted the show to express the accomplishment of successfully raising a child (e.g.- a college graduate). Whitney Houston was considered for the role of Sondra Huxtable. Sabrina LeBeauf almost missed out on the role because she is only 10 years younger (b. 1958) than Phylicia Rashad (b. 1948), who played her mother, Clair Huxtable, on the show. Bill Cosby's character is called "Clifford" in the pilot (as also evidenced by his name plate on the exterior of the Huxtable home). His name was later switched to "Heathcliff". Additionally, Vanessa refers to Theo as "Teddy" twice in the dining room scene. The interior of the Huxtables' home features an entirely different living room from subsequent episodes, and different color schemes in the dining room and the master bedroom. Throughout the remainder of the series, the dining room is reserved for more formal occasions. Furthermore, it is implied that Cosby's screen wife Clair is more of a housewife in the pilot, rather than the lawyer she came to be known as. The show's theme music, "Kiss Me", was composed by Stu Gardner and Bill Cosby. Seven versions of this theme were used during the run of the series, making it one of the few television series to use multiple versions of the same theme song over the course of a series. Season seven's opening credits were originally those that were ultimately used in season eight. Due to legal complications regarding the background mural, season seven's opening was changed to the previous season's opening. The original season seven opening, with modifications, was used in the eighth and final season. The Cosby Show is one of two television shows (All in the Family being the other) that has been #1 in the Nielsen Ratings for 5 consecutive seasons. According to TV Guide, the show "was TV's biggest hit in the 1980s, and almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC's ratings fortunes". Originally, the show had been pitched to ABC, which rejected it. Entertainment Weekly stated that The Cosby Show helped to make possible a larger variety of shows based on African Americans, from In Living Color to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The Cosby Show was also one of the first successful sitcoms based on the subject matter of a standup comedian’s act, blazing a trail for other such successful programs as Roseanne, Home Improvement, The Drew Carey Show, Seinfeld, and Everybody Loves Raymond. In a 1992 book, authors Sut Jhally and Justin Lewis use the results of an audience study to argue that The Cosby Show obscured the issues of class and race and reinforced the belief that African-Americans have only themselves to blame if they don't succeed in society and ignoring that racism still exists and can be a factor in society. Seasons 1 and 2 were released on DVD in Region 1 by UrbanWorks which was subsequently acquired by First Look Studios in early 2006. First Look Studios has since released seasons 3-8 on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. Magna Pacific has released seasons one through four of The Cosby Show on DVD in Australia and New Zealand, with similar artwork to the North American copies, although season two is red rather than blue. Each Australasian cover also features the tagline "In a house full of love, there is always room for more." The Season 1 DVD only contains the edited versions of the episodes aired in syndication. However, all subsequent DVD releases contain the original, uncut broadcast versions. The Cosby Show's producers created a spin-off series called A Different World that was centered around the "Denise" character (portrayed by actress Lisa Bonet), the second of the Huxtables' four daughters. Initially, the new program dealt with Denise's life at Hillman College, the fictional historically black college from which her father, mother, and paternal grandfather had graduated. Denise was written out of A Different World after its inaugural season, due to Bonet's pregnancy, and the following season was revamped, with the addition of director Debbie Allen and new characters. Denise later became a recurring character on The Cosby Show for Seasons 4-5, and a regular again in Seasons 6-7.

It’s amazing how one show can come along and have a huge and lasting impact on TV, and The Cosby Show was one such show. Just look at the first episode. In that episode, son Theo gets his ear pierced. When his father Heathcliff finds out, he chews his son out. However, Theo makes a passionate speech to his father about how he should accept him for who he is. And, Heathcliff looks at his son and says “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in my life!” Then, he chews Theo out some more. From that moment on, we knew this was a family show in which the parents would be smarter than the kids and that this show was going to be different. Just for the record, we owe Thursday night as we know it to William H. Cosby Jr. Ed.D. Before The Cosby Show, a sweet-hearted look at the earnestly upper-middle class Huxtable clan, NBC was in third place in the ratings and the fifths night of the week was simply the day before Friday. But The Cosby Show’s ascension made for must-see TV years before that overused promo line began assaulting the national psyche. At a time when television was dominated by car chases, gunplay, and miniskirts, and sitcoms were considered passé, The Cosby Show was something of a return to grace. Created by Cosby, Ed. Weinberger, and Michael Leeson, the show centered on Heathcliff and Clair Huxtable (Rashad), a blessedly sane doctor-and-lawyer married couple, and their five precocious children. And that was that. Just life with the Huxtables. Period. “You have to remember how different a show we were proposing,” executive producer Tom Werner told Time Magazine in 1987. “Instead of getting laughs from arguments and conflicts…we were going for subtler humor.” Life lessons like the death of a gold fish, bad grades, and the borrowing of Dad’s car all served as the bedrock for Cosby’s particular brand of smirking, my-way-or-the-subway merriment. And, that subtler approach worked. For five consecutive seasons, Cosby was rated No. 1, a record only equaled by All In The Family. Wisely, NBC built on the Cosby foundation, and, with shows like Cheers, L.A. Law, and Miami Vice, became America’s No. 1 network. But, there were other reasons The Cosby Show was such a great show besides turning NBC’s fortunes around and assuring today’s viewers that The Office and My Name Is Earl would have the perfect night to become hits. The obvious one is the fact that The Huxtables were an African American family. When the show premiered, viewers saw on TV an upper-middle class black family just being, doing what families do, and free of the street drama and ghetto stereotypes that burdened programs like Good Times and Sanford and Son (don’t get me wrong; this didn’t hurt the shows, but it was nice that a show with African Americans free from the ghetto was made). For the first time, people were invited into the lives of Americans who just happened to be African. Another would be the fact it launched numerous shows based on the routines of stand-up comics, like Ray Romano, Tim Allen, Drew Carey, and Jerry Seinfeld. But, what really made The Cosby Show so great was it united a nation with genuinely relatable comedy. It had no irony, no cruelty, and not zippy cultural references; and it was all the better for it. Since Seinfeld, "hugging and learning" have come to stand for a certain kind of namby-pamby network comedy. But while there was hugging on The Cosby Show, Dr. Huxtable's love for his kids was filtered through the wry, no-guff sensibility that Bill Cosby developed on his comedy records. And the learning was literal, as the throughline of the series was son Theo Huxtable's struggles with dyslexia. (The plot became poignant with the 1997 murder of Cosby's son Ennis, on whom Theo was based.) And, what is really amazing and ironic is how The Cosby Show gave birth to the dysfunctional family sitcom. In just a few years it would be the standard that The Simpsons and Married…With Children rebelled against; Married…With Children was even going to be called Not The Cosby Show. TV owes a lot to William H. Cosby Jr., Ed.D. By introducing TV to upper-middle class African Americans, the show gave us a realistic sitcom family that America actually could learn from, saved a network, made Thursday must-see, gave stand-up comics more work, and gave birth to a genre that rebelled against it. Like I said, it’s amazing how one show can change TV and have a huge and lasting impact on it.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Tomorrow, numbers 28 and 27. Here are the hints:

What the judicial system is, and Leno's competitor.

[Beav]

Law and Order and Letterman.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Countdown time, countdown time! Here's number 28:

28. Law & Order



Genre: Police Procedural and Legal Drama.
Created by: Dick Wolf
Executive Producer(s): Dick Wolf (1990-present), Joseph Stern (1990-1993), Walon Green (1992-2006), Edwin Sherin (1993-2000), Rene Balcer (1994-present), Arthur W. Forney (1994-present), Ed Zuckerman (1994-present), Michael S. Chernuchin (1994-2004), Jeffrey L. Hayes (1994-2004), Lewis Gould (1994-2003), Kathy McCormick (1997-2001), William N. Fordes (1999-present), Richard Sweren (1999-present), Barry Schindel (1999-2002), William M. Finkelstein (2000-2001), Arthur Penn (2000-2001), Peter Jankowski (2001-present), Wendy Battles (2001-2006), Roz Weinman (2001-2005), Eric Overmyer (2002-2005), Matthew Penn (2003-2007), Peter Guiliano (2004-2006), Nicholas Wootton (2005-2007), Chris Levinson (2005-2007), Rick Eid (2005-2007), David Wilcox (2006-present), Lukas Reiter (2006-2007), Robert Nathan (2006-2007), Fred Berner (2008), and Stephanie Sengupta (2008).
Starring: George Dzundza (Sgt. Max Greevey, 1990), Chris Noth (Det. Mike Logan 1990-1995), Dann Florek (Capt. Don Cragen 1990-1993), Michael Moriarty (Exec. ADA Ben Stone 1990-1994), Richard Brooks (ADA Paul Robinette 1990-1993), Steven Hill (DA Adam Schiff 1990-2000), Paul Sorvino (Sgt. Phil Cerreta 1991-1992), Carolyn McCormick (Dr. Elizabeth Olivet 1991-1997, 2002-present), Jerry Orbach (Det. Lennie Briscoe 1992-2004), S. Epatha Merkerson (Lt. Anita Van Buren 1993-present), Jill Hennessy (ADA Claire Kincaid 1993-1996), Sam Waterston (Exec. ADA, later DA, Jack McCoy 1994-present), Benjamin Bratt (Det. Rey Curtis 1995-1999), Carey Lowell (ADA Jamie Ross 1996-1998), Angie Harmon (ADA Abbie Carmichael 1998-2001), Jesse L. Martin (Det. Ed Green 1999-2008), Dianne Wiest (DA Nora Lewin 2000-2002), Elisabeth Röhm (Serena Southerlyn 2001-2005), Fred Dalton Thompson (DA Arthur Branch 2002-2007), Dennis Farina (Det. Joe Fontana 2004-2006), Annie Parisse (ADA Alexandra Borgia 2005-2006), Milena Govich (Det. Nina Cassady 2006-2007), Alana de la Garza (ADA Connie Rubirosa 2006-present), Jeremy Sisto (Det. Cyrus Lupo 2008-present), Linus Roache (Exec. ADA Michael Cutter 2008-present), and Anthony Anderson (Det. Kevin Bernard 2008-present).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 18.
Number of Episodes: 410.
Running Time: 60 minutes.
Original Channel: NBC.
Original Run: September 13, 1990 – present
Spinoffs: “Exiled: A Law & Order Movie” (1998), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), Law & Order: Trial By Jury (2005), and a UK version, Law & Order: London.

Law & Order was created by Dick Wolf. Set in New York City, the series mainly follows the professional lives of several police officers and prosecutors who represent the public interest in the criminal justice system. The characters frequently encounter dilemmas and frustrations as cases go through the stages of investigation, arrest, negotiation and trial. Matters are rarely resolved easily or satisfactorily for the people involved. The pilot episode was produced to be sold to CBS in 1988, but was rejected by that network. When NBC picked up the series in 1990, the pilot aired as episode six. The show is produced by Universal Media Studios, formerly known as NBC Universal Television Studio, Universal Television, and Studios USA. It has been syndicated on other United States networks since 1994, as well as worldwide. According to news reports in 2005, the Law & Order franchise (including all the different series) generates around $1 billion in annual revenues for NBC Universal and its cable partners (a February 2005 NBC financial presentation states that NBC's share of this revenue (including syndication and advertising) is more than $550 million). Law & Order has been shot on film in widescreen format since its inception, as evidenced by syndication on TNT-HD. This also presents the unique oddity that since reruns of older seasons began broadcasting in HD in 2005; they have provided more (previously cropped) material than when the episodes were first run broadcast in 4:3. Since 2002, first run episodes have also aired in HD. Since May 9, 2008, TNT has broadcast Law and Order episodes in widescreen. The series is broadcast in Canada on CTV and Sister Station A-Channel. Reruns can be seen regularly each weeknight and weekday afternoons on TNT (U.S.) and weekdays at 1:00 p.m. and weeknights at 11 p.m. on Bravo! (Canada). It can be seen in the UK with new episodes first showing on the cable and satellite channel Sky One and later on Sky Two with a terrestrial airing on Five and repeats of the early seasons are being shown on the Hallmark Channel. It was recently announced that the Law & Order franchise would be screened on Five US. In late March 2006, a shift of time slot resulted in a significant drop in ratings, but a return to the original time slot on April 5, 2006, triggered an improvement of ratings. For the 2006-2007 season, both Law & Order and Criminal Intent were placed in new time slots. In this season's time slot, Fridays at 10pm, Law & Order averaged 9.3 million viewers, down again from 11.6 million in the previous season. By comparison, Criminal Intent averaged 9.7 million viewers on Tuesdays at 9pm and SVU averaged 12.9 million viewers during its time slot. On May 14, 2007, the network announced plans for an eighteenth season with the series moving to Sundays at 8pm. Under NBC's agreement, Law & Order premiered its 18th season on NBC in January 2008 while new episodes of Criminal Intent now premiere on NBC Universal's USA network with reruns slated to appear on NBC. This is an unusual role reversal in NBC and USA's shared or second window syndication arrangement. When the future of the Law & Order staple was in doubt, TNT, which airs re-runs of the show, emerged as a contender to become the new home either of Law & Order or Law & Order Criminal Intent. The series was to return mid-season on Sundays at 8pm but on December 3, after the writers' strike had begun, NBC announced that it would begin airing the already-filmed eighteenth-season episodes starting on January 2, 2008, thus returning the series to Wednesday evenings. Despite its recent ratings troubles, producer Dick Wolf expressed optimism about the show's future, also saying that his "ultimate dream" is for the series to continue long enough to surpass Gunsmoke (1955–1975) as the longest-running network drama series on American television. Recently, NBC released its 2008-09 lineup, and Law & Order is included in the January - May schedule, indicating the show will be back for a 19th season. According to Digitalspy, ITV1 is in negotiations for the rights to create a UK version of Law and Order, to be titled Law & Order: London. It remains to be announced if the new series will go ahead. The program generally follows a two-tiered format, with the first portion of each episode devoted to the investigation of a crime and the second portion depicting its prosecution. The format is almost identical to a 1960s series titled Arrest and Trial, although the similarities are considered to be coincidental (though both shows are currently owned by NBC Universal). Law & Order creator Dick Wolf was reportedly unaware of them when he created his series. Most Law & Order episodes are self-contained, with only a few exceptions over the many years of production. The following statement, narrated by Steven Zirnkilton, is spoken at the beginning of nearly every episode (but not those shown on Five in Britain):

“In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.”

The cold open, lead-in of the show usually is a slice of life in New York (walking a dog in Manhattan, jogging in Central Park, etc.) unrelated to the main story until the character(s) in the scene suddenly discover, witness, or become victims of a crime (mostly murder). The scene cuts to the police's preliminary crime scene examination wherein the featured detectives make their first observations and proffer theories followed by a witticism, or two, before the title sequence begins. The police are represented in the show by the police lieutenant of Manhattan's fictional 27th Precinct and two homicide detectives, a senior partner and a junior partner. The detectives investigate the crime, collect evidence and interview witnesses, and then regularly report to the lieutenant. The evidence leads to the arrest of one or more suspects. The matter then is taken over by the prosecutors of the Manhattan District Attorney's office, comprising the district attorney, the executive assistant district attorney, and an assistant prosecutor. They discuss deals, prepare the witnesses and evidence, and conduct the people's case in the trial. Both the detectives and prosecutors work with the medical examiner's office, the crime laboratory, and psychiatrists from the police and district attorney offices. Unlike most legal dramas (e.g. Perry Mason), the proceedings are from the prosecution's point of view and indicate that it can be as difficult to convict the guilty as it is to clear the innocent. The prosecution portion also is unusual in that it shows more legal proceedings than just the trial. The second half mostly opens with an arraignment and proceeds to trial preparation; however, the show does, on occasion, deviate from format and centers either on indictment proceedings before a grand jury, a motion hearing, jury selection, or an allocution upon entering a plea of guilty, usually as a part of a plea bargain. It is very uncommon for legal dramas to show grand jury proceedings; this usually is seen once or twice per season, with a trial being the norm. Grand jury episodes focus on the difficulty of obtaining an indictment for a particular accused person and often end with a guilty plea and allocution to quickly conclude the show. Often the plot of an initial portion of an episode resembles a recognizable aspect of an actual case, such as the 1998 episode "Tabloid", wherein a woman is killed in a car crash after being chased by a gossip reporter, similarly to Princess Diana's death in August 1997. This "ripped from the headlines" theme is reflected in the opening credits sequence that evolves from newspaper halftones to high-resolution photos. The rest of the plot, however, usually diverges significantly from the actual events that may have inspired the episode. Promotional advertisements of episodes with close real-life case parallels often use the "ripped from the headlines" phrase, although a textual disclaimer, within the actual episode, emphasizes that the story and characters are fictional. This format lends itself to exploring different outcomes or motives that similar events could have had under other circumstances. Because of the format's nature, the detectives rarely encounter a simple murder where the murderer does little to hide his or her guilt (actually very common). Instead, the detectives often have few or no good clues (they might not know the victim's identity) and must chase several dead ends before finding a likely suspect. Towards the middle of a show, the police begin working with the prosecutors to make the arrest, and an arraignment scene follows. The police may reappear to testify in court or to arrest another suspect, but most investigation in the second segment is done by the assistant DAs, who always consult with the district attorney for advice on the case. Virtually all episodes employ motions to suppress evidence as a plot device, and most of these end with evidence or statements being suppressed, often on a technicality, that provide a dramatic obstacle to continued prosecution. This formulaic device begins with the service of the motion to the ADAs, often by the defense attorney, follows with argument and case citations of precedent before a judge in some setting, and concludes with visual reaction of the losing attorney, usually Jack McCoy. Another dramatic staple occurs either during a confession to police, or at trial, or a rationalization of the defendant's actions at trial, guilt notwithstanding. Whether it is given as an account of the crime, by a witness, or a trial confession, by the defendant, it emphasizes the raw humanity of the event, sometimes eliciting sympathy for the defendant. Another dramatic tradition is when the prosecutors order a particular suspect arrested and the scene immediately cuts to the detectives barging into whatever activity the suspect is engaged to make the arrest. The series has a number of distinctive stylistic touches. The show is shot on location in New York and is known for its extensive use of local color. In recent seasons, New York City mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, attorney William Kunstler and Bronx Congressman Jose E. Serrano all have appeared on the show as themselves, adding a realistic dimension to the program. While most of the locations are real, there are two notable exceptions. The fictional Stuyvesant College (which resembles New York University), Gramercy College, and Hudson University (which resembles Columbia University) are often used for college settings and The New York Ledger is typically the tabloid newspaper mentioned and is heavily based on the real-life New York Post. In one episode The Sentinel was used as a competing paper similar to The New York Times. All are amalgams of actual New York institutions. The real-life New York Daily News has also appeared in the series. Local personalities also have had recurring cameos as fictional characters, such as Donna Hanover and Fran Lebowitz as judges. On September 14, 2004, in New York City, a road leading to Pier 62 at Chelsea Piers (where the series is mostly shot) was renamed "Law & Order Way" in tribute to the series. Because both the interior and exterior filming all occur in New York City, the series has access to a wide variety of regular and guest actors who perform in the legitimate theater. Many times these actors are available for shooting during the day while performing on Broadway in the evening or between engagements. Jerry Orbach (Detective Lennie Briscoe) had a long career on the Broadway stage, as has his series partner Jesse L. Martin (Detective Ed Green). Other stage talent with recurring roles include Tovah Feldshuh and Philip Bosco. Linus Roache also joined the cast last season and has done considerable work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Most scene changes are preceded with a black screen with white text at the bottom. This title card indicates the location and date and time of the events to be portrayed. Occasionally the card shows the time advancing by seconds, most often used when the episode's plot makes time a concern (such as a kidnapping). This is accompanied by a tone, which has been described as a "chung chung" sound. It was originally developed to sound like a barred door in a jail cell slamming shut. In promos for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit reruns on the USA Network, actor Dann Florek refers to the sound as the "doink doink," while Richard Belzer refers to it as the sound of a judge's gavel. According to IMDb.com, it "was created by combining close to a dozen sounds, including that of a group of monks stamping on a floor." The show's cast of police and lawyers are portrayed as basically honest professionals who rarely stray from the boundaries of accepted procedure and usually solve crimes by the book, although occasional cases hit home and the detectives and/or ADAs become somewhat personally invested in the case. With the exception of the Season 6 finale and several episodes at the end of Season 8, the show does not employ subplots, and the private lives of the characters are only mentioned in passing. Law & Order is thus known as a plot-driven, as opposed to character-driven, police procedural. Law & Order is noted for its revolving cast; in fact, none of the original six cast members are currently on the program, although Chris Noth, who played Detective Mike Logan, currently appears on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Dann Florek, who played Capt. Don Cragen, appears on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, both reprising their characters from the original cast. Though many cast members stay for only a few seasons, the continual replacement of actors has not appeared to harm the program's popularity. Until its seventeenth season, when ratings dropped sharply, it could be suggested that the transforming cast has contributed to the longevity of the series because the regular appearance of new faces has constantly changed the show's dynamic, allowing it to repeatedly reinvent itself. Five long-serving exceptions are Steven Hill as D.A. Adam Schiff (1990-2000), Jerry Orbach as Detective Lennie Briscoe (1992-2004), S. Epatha Merkerson as Lt. Anita Van Buren (1993-present), Sam Waterston as A.D.A./D.A. Jack McCoy (1994-present), and Jesse L. Martin as Detective Ed Green (1999-2008). Steven Hill was the last member of the first season cast to leave the show, though even he did not appear in the series' pilot episode. It is widely believed that the Adam Schiff character was based on real life New York County District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau who still serves in the post at age 88. Notable guest stars over the years include Julia Roberts, James Earl Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Chevy Chase, Tom Berenger, Laura Linney, Eric Bogosian, Alan King, Gary Busey, Nancy Marchand, Claire Danes, Harry Hamlin, Chris Cooper, William H. Macy, Jennifer Beals, Werner Klemperer, Candice Bergen, Ellen Pompeo, Edie Falco, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cynthia Nixon, Mandy Patinkin, Patrick Stump, Mercedes Ruehl, Michael Rooker, Kevin Smith, Michael Imperioli, Vincent Pastore and most recently, Tom Everett Scott. The show's popularity has resulted in a Law & Order franchise with the creation of three other television dramas under the same brand: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), and Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001). These two shows focus more on the police side of a case. A short-lived spinoff, Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005), which lasted only 12 episodes, focused almost entirely on courtroom drama, but was pulled off due to low ratings, becoming the first series of the franchise to be canceled. Every spinoff uses the same theme music as the original series, albeit with differing arrangements (harder guitars for the original Criminal Intent theme, for instance). Law & Order shown on Five in the UK uses Rob Dougan's "I'm Not Driving Any More [Instrumental]" as the theme music; Law & Order: Crimnal Intent uses Rob Dougan's "It's Only Me [Instrumental]" as the theme music. The latest and now canceled spinoff, Conviction, was only loosely related to the original. While Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March) from SVU was one of the lead characters, and a cameo by Fred Thompson tied it into the same continuity, it did not bear the "Law & Order" title, nor did it use the Law & Order theme music and scene transitions. In addition, Conviction had no coverage of the police investigations and followed the prosecutors' entire lives, rather than just the cases they argue in court. UK broadcaster ITV has secured the rights to a 13-episode series entitled Law & Order: London, to be based on the scripts for this series. The series is to be produced by Kudos in association with Wolf Films and NBC. Law & Order crossed over six times with other NBC shows:

"Charm City" (L&O ep 6–13), continued in "For God and Country" (Homicide: Life on the Street ep 4–12)
"Baby, It's You – Part I" (L&O ep 8–6), continued in "Baby, It's You – Part II" (Homicide: Life on the Street ep 6–5)
"Sideshow – Part I" (L&O ep 9–14), continued in "Sideshow – Part II" (Homicide: Life on the Street ep 7–15)
"Entitled – Part I" (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit ep 1–15), continued in "Entitled – Part II" (L&O ep 10–14)
"Tombstone" (L&O ep 15–20), continued in "Skeleton" (Law & Order: Trial by Jury ep 1–8)
"Design" (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit ep 7–2), continued in "Flaw" (L&O ep 16–2)

While not considered a cross over episode, Chris Noth appears in the before-the-credits sequence of the Homicide episode "Law and Disorder" (H:LotS ep 3–15). Taking place entirely in a Baltimore train station, Logan hands off a prisoner (John Waters) to Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher). The two detectives engage in some friendly banter about which city is better: New York City or Baltimore. They argue over topics such as Babe Ruth and Dorothy Parker. There was also a TV movie called “Exiled: A Law & Order Movie” (1998), which featured the fate of Mike Logan (played by Chris Noth), one of the popular characters who departed the series. Noth has since returned to the role of Detective Mike Logan starting in the 2005–2006 season of Criminal Intent. The producers crafted a reality television series, Crime & Punishment (also sometimes called Law & Order: Crime & Punishment) (2002), which focused on actual trials. In addition, there are three computer games of Law & Order in which the player investigates crimes and then prosecutes the resulting cases: There is also a computer game based on the "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" franchise. A few books have been written based on the show:

Law and Order: Dead Line When a woman's body is found at the bottom of a hotel air shaft in Times Square, it looks like a routine suicide. Enter Detectives. Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green. Something about the woman seems out of place in the tourist trap. Her clothing suggests wealth. No socialite would be caught dead in a place like this. The trail leads to an about-to-be published tell-all novel destined to be a best-seller. Now Briscoe and Green have to find out what's in it that's worth murder.

Law & Order: The Unofficial Companion (published 11/99 by) The Unofficial Companion was written with the cooperation of the show's creator and executive producer, Dick Wolf, and features interviews with the stars, producers, and writers. It is the first-ever guide to this popular, Emmy award-winning police drama. You'll get the inside scoop on: the past and current stars of the show-including Paul Sorvino, Jerry Orbach, Jesse L. Martin, Chris Noth, S. Epatha Merkerson, Sam Waterston, Carey Lowell, Angie Harmon, and Michael Moriarty; and find out who was fired, who left willingly, and who remains; the show's continued problems with censorship issues and advertiser fallout; the behind-the-scenes anecdotes about cast regulars, including the fights, both verbal and physical, that have peppered the production; how Wolf was forced to increase the estrogen and decrease the testosterone on the show; the detailed history behind the creation and development of the show; and season-by-season critiques of each episode through the entire 1999 season.

Law & Order: Crime Scenes (published 12/03 by Sterling) written by Dick Wolf describing the setup, and the thoughts that goes into producing the crime scenes.

True Stories of Law & Order (published 11/06 by Berkley/Penguin) chronicles 25 real cases that inspired some of the most popular "ripped from the headlines" episodes of the show. Authors Kevin Dwyer and Juré Fiorillo discuss famous cases including the Bernie Goetz subway shootings, the murder of Jennifer Levin in Central Park, and the San Francisco dog mauling of Diane Whipple, as well as lesser-known crimes such as the death by exorcism of Torrance Cantrell and the tragic murder of Anthony Riggs, a soldier who returned from the Gulf War only to be ambushed by a hitman hired by his wife. The book also includes facts about police and legal procedure.

One of the marks of a good TV show is longevity. Another is the fact that a show has built such an audience that people will continue to watch even though many or all the original cast have left the show. Law & Order is a testimony to the power of a great concept in that the show has gone on for 19 seasons and survived after its entire original cast has left. With its ingeniously simple structure (in the first half hour, police book ‘em; in the second half hour, prosecutors cook ‘em), new characters could be replaced: George Dzunda was replaced by Paul Sorvino, who was replaced by Jerry Orbach, who was also replaced by Denis Farina. Chris Noth’s role as the junior detective got taken over by Benjamin Bratt, which got taken over by Jesse L. Martin, and then by Milena Govich, and then by Jeremy Sisto, and then by Anthony Anderson. Also Martin and Sisto became the senior detectives. And, there is the revolving door that is the ADA role: Richard Brooks, Jill Hennessy, Carey Lowell, Angie Harmon, Elisabeth Röhm, Annie Parisse, and Alana de la Garza. In fact, only two people on the show today have been on the show for more than a decade: Sam Waterson and S. Epatha Merkerson. But from the 1990 pilot, only one character has remained constant (and it is neither Waterson nor Merkerson): New York City. Shot on location, Law & Order has always captured the Big Apple’s unmistakably bitter flavor, its story lines often ripped from the newspapers and local tabloids (one episode was very similar to the Unabomber case; another had Chevy Chase as a drunken celebrity who made some anti-Semitic remarks, right after Mel Gibson got arrested for drunk driving and did the same). Initially, NBC’s Law & Order seemed downright monkish with its all-male cast and ascetic aversion to delving into its characters’ private lives (a characteristic perhaps best personified by Michael Moriarty as all-work-and-no-play ADA Ben Stone). But things loosened up as women joined the cast in 1993 and the showier Sam Waterson took over for Moriarty in 1994. Slowly, we began to learn more about the characters (for example, Lowell’s ADA Jamie Ross fought for custody of her kid). However, the focus is still on the cases and not the characters personal lives (we did learn that Röhm’s Serena Southerlyn was a lesbian until she got fired). Despite the cast changes, as the years passed, Law & Order became more successful, with two successful spinoffs: Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent, and respected; it finally won an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 1997. It was a long-overdue reward for one of TV’s most captivating pleasures.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

27. The Late Show With David Letterman



Genre: Talk Show, Variety Show.
Created by: Unknown.
Executive Producer(s): Robert Morton (1993-1996), Rob Burnett (1996-Present), Barbara Gaines (2000-Present), Maria Pope (2000-Present), and Jude Brennan (2003-Present).
Starring: David Letterman, Paul Shaffer, the CBS Orchestra, Bill Wendell (Announcer 1993-1995), and Alan Kalter (Announcer 1995-Present).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 15.
Number of Episodes: 2,950 (as of June 27, 2008).
Running Time: 62 and 30 seconds.
Original Channel: CBS.
Original Run: August 30, 1993 – present.
Spinoffs: None, but David Letterman hosted Late Night with David Letterman from 1982 to 1993.

From 1982 to 1993, David Letterman hosted Late Night, the talk show that followed The Tonight Show, on NBC. In 1993, he left NBC to host a late night talk show on CBS, The Late Show. Letterman's decision to leave NBC was largely provoked by the network's decision in 1992 to have comedian Jay Leno succeed Johnny Carson as host of The Tonight Show. Letterman, Carson, and many others had long assumed that Letterman's years of service to NBC would be sufficient to result in him becoming the new host, but NBC ultimately chose Leno, likely due to Letterman's consistent public mockery of NBC executives in the past, as well as a belief that Leno would have more mainstream appeal. Letterman was reportedly angry and disappointed at NBC for not giving him the job on The Tonight Show, and at Johnny Carson's advice, Letterman left the NBC network after 11 years on Late Night. NBC later explained that Dave's high ratings were the reason the network kept him where he was. Conan O'Brien later replaced Letterman on Late Night. Many erroneously still refer to Letterman's current show as Late Night, often resulting in Letterman or fans pointing out that while Late Night still exists, it airs on NBC and is hosted in its current incarnation by Conan O'Brien, whom Letterman has often publicly supported as his successor (Late Night is now co-produced by Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video and O'Brien's Conaco). When Letterman moved to CBS and began the Late Show, several of Late Night's long-running comedy bits made the move with him. Letterman renamed a few of his regular bits to avoid legal problems over trademark infringement (NBC cited that what he did on Late Night was "intellectual property" of the network.). "Viewer Mail" on NBC became the "CBS Mailbag", and Larry "Bud" Melman began to use his real name, Calvert DeForest. Paul Shaffer's "World's Most Dangerous Band" became "The CBS Orchestra," a not-so-subtle jab at NBC regarding the show's new home, and a play on the NBC Orchestra of the long running The Tonight Show. Letterman's signature bit, the Top Ten List, was perfunctorily renamed the "Late Show Top Ten List" (over time it was simply referred to again by its original name). After Letterman was introduced on the Late Show's very first episode, NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw accompanied him on stage and wished him luck "within reason." As part of a pre-arranged act, Brokaw then proceeded to retrieve a pair of cue cards while stating that "These last two jokes are the intellectual property of NBC!" After he carried them off stage, Letterman then responded, "Who would of thought you would ever hear the words 'intellectual property' and 'NBC' at the same time?" Ratings-wise, Letterman's Late Show would enjoy a consistent domination over Leno's Tonight Show in its first few years. Leno won the audience back on July 10, 1995, starting with a Hugh Grant interview, after Grant's much-publicized arrest for picking up an LA prostitute. At times Letterman would even come in third in the late night timeslot behind Nightline (most recent occurrence happened in August of 2006), prompting him at one point to arrange for a Manhattan billboard proudly declaring himself and his show to be "#3 in Late Night," aping an older, nearby billboard which promoted Leno and The Tonight Show as #1. Despite ratings, the Late Show remains one of CBS's most profitable programs. In recent years, Letterman and the Late Show have openly made jokes in reference to Leno, although it is often done in a self-deprecating manner. Such jokes usually refer to The Tonight Show's consistent (and perhaps frustrating) lead in the ratings, a common example being where a guest presenter of the Top Ten List will use one of the entries to declare his or her preference for Leno, resulting in Letterman feigning humiliation or surprise. In a "What Things Cost" sketch in 2000, Letterman explained that it cost $10,000 to keep an open phone line with actor Leonard Nimoy. Upon thanking Nimoy for his help, Nimoy tersely admitted that he was unable to talk because "I'm watching Leno." From November 11, 2002 to February 14, 2003, the show was simulcast on several CBS-owned radio stations. The show's Top Ten List continues to be syndicated as a short-form feature. The episodes are structured in the following structure:

Act 1/Introduction: Early shows included a cold open, which featured Letterman in a baseball cap interacting with a celebrity. This practice was revived, albeit irregularly, in the summer of 2006. It often features Letterman in the green room, without a jacket on, talking to a Late Show staffer, usually former writer Gerard Mulligan or executive producer Jude Brennan, with Letterman being the butt of a joke. The show's opening credits feature a series of shots of New York City (which have changed over the years) as the CBS Orchestra performs the Late Show theme (a livelier variation of the more jazzy Late Night theme). Announcer Alan Kalter proclaims "From New York: the greatest city in the world! It's the Late Show with David Letterman!" He announces the names of that night's guests, as well as Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra. Kalter finally introduces Letterman with a humorous modification, such as "And now, the one-stop shop for all your bridal needs: David Letterman!" Letterman then walks out on the show stage to perform his monologue, which often begins with an inside reference to something an audience member said to him during the pre-show Q&A; the scripted monologue jokes are usually based on pop culture, current events, and politics. The monologue is followed by Letterman's introduction of Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra, who then perform briefly. On most nights, Letterman will walk to his desk where he then chats with the audience and Shaffer, relating an unscripted personal story, discussing his anticipation of a particular upcoming guest, or continuing a running gag. He then explains who the scheduled guests are. The show usually then transitions to a series of brief sketch comedy bits, which often consist of humorous commercials, disclaimers, video clips, or props. As of the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike hiatus, common skits include "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" that display FDR and Kennedy making speeches, then George W. Bush making a mistake in his speech. They are then followed by a more elaborate live or pre-taped skit, although the skit (such as "Small Town News" and "Fun Facts") has been preceded by a commercial break.

Act 2: After returning from a commercial break, Letterman often reads the Top Ten List at this point before turning to guest interviews with a celebrity, politician, or public figure. On some nights Act 2 is instead dedicated to another comedy segment involving guest participants, such as Stupid Pet Tricks or Kid Scientists.

Act 3: On most nights, the first guest stays on through the commercial break and continues the interview, especially if he or she is a more well-known figure. In other instances, a second guest is brought out at this point.

Act 4: This segment is sometimes dedicated to a second scheduled guest. Occasionally, this guest is actually carried over from Act 3 and given two segments, with the first guest only being given one. On other nights, Act 4 will instead be dedicated to Letterman presenting either a Top Ten List or comedy bit involving a crew member.

Act 5: This segment often consists of an "audience sweep," where a camera pans across the applauding audience from side to side. A brief comedy bit or announcement, usually involving Kalter, is then superimposed over the sweep. In earlier episodes, Letterman would return to his running gag during this break, or retry a failed stunt from earlier in the show.

Act 6: The final guest of the show is usually featured here. In most instances, this consists of a live musical performance, although it may instead be dedicated to another interview, or a guest comedian performing a stand-up routine on the stage. The CBS Orchestra frequently assists musical guests in performing their songs.

Act 7: The episode concludes with Letterman at his desk, who then will often comment to Shaffer on the final guest, or that night's episode in general. He will then thank all the guests who appeared before announcing the next night's guests. Letterman then ends the show, usually saying "Good night everybody!" As the CBS Orchestra is seen performing the Late Show theme, a truncated closing credit sequence consisting of only copyright and ticket information is presented. On rare occasions when time allows, a full credit sequence listing the show's entire crew is shown. After the closing, a Worldwide Pants production logo is displayed with an authoritative but non-sequitur voice-over, such as "Mmm... waffles."

The Late Show has various repeated absurdist segments, including those involving cast members' and audience participation. The show will also take a camera crew into the Hello Deli to show games such as "What's on the iPod?" and "Beat the Clock," or onto 53rd Street or the roof to record various stunts there. While Letterman himself often participated in many of the show's non-"desk comedy" routines in its earlier years (as well as on Late Night), over time he has increasingly preferred to have others star in them instead. Letterman is now rarely featured in any of the show's frequent pre-taped bits. Kalter, bandleader and sidekick Paul Shaffer, and Hello Deli proprietor Rupert Jee are often utilized instead in comedy routines, as are stage manager Biff Henderson, stagehands Pat Farmer and Kenny Sheehan, handyman George Clarke, "cue card boy" Tony Mendez, head carpenter Harold Larkin, cameraman Dave Dorsett, assistant Stephanie Birkitt, former writers Gerard Mulligan and Chris Elliott (who almost always appear together), and Johnny Dark (a personal comedy friend of Letterman's). Letterman's mother, Dorothy, also makes appearances (via satellite from Indianapolis) from time to time, including each Thanksgiving. She perhaps rose to fame mostly as a result of her nightly reporting from the 1994 Winter Olympics. Former recurring players from the show include Sirajul Islam and Mujibur Rahman (employees of a nearby gift store which has since relocated), Calvert DeForest, and scenic designer Kathleen Ankers (reprising her Late Night role of "Peggy, the Foulmouthed Chambermaid"; on CBS, she was the equally censored "Helen, the Ill-tempered Ticket Lady"). Countless random cameo appearances had been made during the span of the show, most notably in the earlier years by the late Tony Randall, with Regis Philbin filling that void in recent years. For a while, Letterman took great delight in making fun of his employer, continuing a tradition established at NBC, with senior CBS Corporation executive Les Moonves often serving as the target of his abuse. In time, Letterman's relationship with Moonves has improved; a segment titled "More with Les" features jocular phone calls between Letterman and Moonves. Letterman also has a knack for consuming food products and drinks that appear on his show. Among the items that he has consumed are: wine from a bottle used for a cooking demonstration; various kinds of liquor (while quipping "We're gonna lose our liquor license"); Popeye's "Full Flavor Green Beans;" "motor oil" (actually chocolate syrup) from a bottle that bore a "Quaker State" label; Red Bull; liquid from a bottle that supposedly contained Wite-Out; pills from boxes labeled "Lipitor" and "Cialis" (obviously not really the drugs); and even cosmetic products. On one occasion, Dave took a healthy swig of "low-carb suntan lotion" and immediately spit it out, having discovered that it actually was suntan lotion. When Letterman left NBC and moved to CBS to begin the Late Show in the summer of 1993, several of Late Night's long-running comedy bits made the move with him, including perhaps his best known, the Top Ten List. Letterman renamed a few of his regular bits to avoid legal problems over trademark infringement (NBC cited that what he did on Late Night was "intellectual property" of the network). For example, "Viewer Mail" on NBC became the "CBS Mailbag", and Larry "Bud" Melman began to use his real name, Calvert DeForest. One recurring sketch on both the NBC and CBS shows has been the destruction of household items by various methods including explosives, steamrollers, and - most often - throwing them off the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater. While popular with fans, Letterman has gradually lessened the frequency of such segments in recent years. The Late Show is well known for its repeated absurdist segments, often taking the form of competitions or audience participation. The charm of such segments is often that they are completely pointless, yet are taken seriously by Letterman and all involved. These are those sketches:

The Introduction: Announcer Alan Kalter's introduction of Letterman, while technically not a skit, assigns a bizarre modification to Letterman's name and appears at the beginning of every show. ("And now: Microscopic Sea Creature, David Letterman!") Letterman's title changes every night and often makes reference to a current event. ("And now: Disenfranchised French Youth, David Letterman!") Prior to September 11, 2001, the first line of Kalter's introductions contained humorous descriptions of New York City ("From New York! Where the rats hate the subways, too!"). Once the Late Show returned to air on September 17, 2001, the introduction changed simply to, "From New York! The greatest city in the world!" It has not changed since; however, "The greatest city in the world!" is omitted from episodes with guest hosts, as is the host 'title'.

Alan Kalter: Announcer Alan Kalter is frequently used in comedy bits, often with Kalter as the butt of the joke:

Kalter the Pervert: In some skits, Kalter is portrayed as a deluded sexual deviant, often referring to himself as "Big Red." Letterman will frequently follow them up by jokingly commenting to Shaffer on Kalter's disturbing, sickening nature, while Kalter grins mischievously. Often such skits begin with Letterman informing the audience that Kalter had approached Letterman prior to the show (about which Letterman often adds, "I've asked him not to do that"), and explaining that Kalter had asked to comment on a current news or pop cultural event. Kalter then begins a monologue where he speaks directly to the camera, setting up the nature of the topic (often the separation of a public couple) in a serious manner. He then addresses a separate, closer camera in a sexually provocative manner as amorous music plays in the background. The material is often a series of double entendre, with Kalter offering to romantically console the woman that is the center of the issue, and ends with him making passionate moans. A disturbed Letterman then interrupts Kalter and chides him for behaving inappropriately. Kalter often ends the bit by making a provocative quip to Letterman.

Kalterworld: Occasionally, Kalter will use his segments to promote "Kalterworld," a supposed web site selling "the finest in adult toys, games, and novelties." The Kalterworld.com URL leads to the official Late Show web site.

Alan Kalter Makes Your Product Sound Sexy: Kalter promotes an actual commercial product (such as Ajax) in a provocative, suggestive manner. He then pours the product on his head and smears it on his body, often moaning as he does so. A bland voice-over then encourages companies to participate in the segment by submitting their own product to a particular address.

Kalter the Singer: Kalter is introduced with the implication that he will provide a serious commentary on current events, but instead exuberantly sings a contemporary pop song filled with sexual innuendos (often from the female perspective). Songs thus far have included "My Humps" on "Alan Kalter's Political Roundup", "Don't Cha" on "Alan Kalter's Mideast Update" and "London Bridge." As he performs, Kalter struts across the stage with a disturbed and annoyed Letterman visible at his desk, and ultimately exits at the other side.

Kalter Gets Maimed: The show will often employ bits where severe bodily harm is supposedly inflicted on Kalter (such as when a cocktail waitress walks across the stage in Kalter's direction and then tosses the drink into his face). He then writhes on the ground groaning and acting as if in serious pain. A wry Letterman will sometimes advise an inattentive Kalter to use a medication normally used for more mild injuries, such as Neosporin or Ibuprofen.

The Guy Who Beats Up Alan: In one recurring gag, Kalter will make a statement on a particular topic, only to have a large man appear from nowhere and object to Kalter's comments. He then proceeds to pummel him, which results in Kalter rolling on the ground in agony, and storms off backstage. Letterman will often amusedly ridicule the obviously fake nature of the violence, as the man's blows never come anywhere near Kalter, despite Kalter's best efforts to sell his pain. ("That last punch came at least within a foot.") More recently, the beatings have been followed up by pre-taped pieces, in which the relationship between Alan and the man who beats him (identified as "Brian") is shown to be more complicated. One sketch involved Kalter catching Brian being "unfaithful" by beating up another man on the street, and the two being heartbroken by the event. Another followed Brian punching Kalter in the face despite his "Not the face!" pleas. After Brian storms off backstage, a video shows Brian expressing guilt to his wife or girlfriend about his abuse towards Kalter, fearing it was "pushing him away." The two later make up at the end with Brian meeting Kalter and punching him in the stomach instead of the face, much to Kalter's happiness. The videos are presented in a mock romance-drama style, with a soundtrack of emotional pop songs.

TV's Uncle Jerry: In 2006, Alan began to introduce himself by saying "I'm Alan Kalter, TV's Uncle Jerry", much to Letterman's delight at first, but over time Letterman would regard the moniker with faux-irritation, which appeared to be part of the joke. In August of that year, several weeks after the bit started, the Late Show aired a clip from a new, fake CBS domestic sitcom entitled "Oh, Brother!" where Kalter played the aforementioned "Uncle Jerry" character. In the clip, Jerry abandons babysitting his brother's children on his wedding anniversary to instead join a friend at a bar who had met two flight attendants. He then uses a would-be catch-phrase: "Hey, Uncle Jerry's gonna get busy!" Despite introducing the clip with some enthusiasm, Letterman quickly dismissed it afterwards, saying "That sucked! That just sucked!" Recently, Kalter has taken to introducing himself as other beloved television characters such as TV's Professor Withers, TV's Johnny Mambo and TV's Uptown Ricky Brown. He has also introduced himself as "TV's Howie Mandel," to which Dave said that made no sense at all.

Alan Kalter's Campaign Roundup: A near-daily running gag presented late in the 2000 presidential election season began with Letterman introducing Kalter, who would ostensibly give a summary of the latest campaign news. Instead, Kalter would perform an energetic rendition of the chorus to "Who Let the Dogs Out?" which was a popular and ubiquitous song at the time, and walk across the stage. In the skit's later occurrences, Kalter would sometimes rip off his shirt as he sang (revealing a pale and flabby physique), while adding a manic and deranged tone to his performance. Kalter has demonstrated a compulsion to disrobe in many of his other segments before and since.

Alan Punches Someone Out: In another long-running gag, Kalter would take issue with something said at his expense, such as a Top Ten List entry, or a letter read during the "CBS Mailbag" segment. Kalter would press Letterman about the statement, asking "Did he really say that?" and Letterman would confirm its accuracy. Kalter would then leave the stage to hunt down the person who said it, usually up in the Late Show offices. During his transit, an individual would often greet Kalter with "Hi, Alan!" only to be ignored. Upon finding the guilty party, Kalter would then punch him out and walk away with a look of satisfaction. In one instance, the person on the receiving end was Regis Philbin, who had just been shown in a "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" clip where a question described Kalter as "creepy."

Alan Kalter's Celebrity Interview: Occasionally after the first or second guest, Letterman will turn over the show to Kalter, who's supposed to conduct an interview of his own with a celebrity. Invariably, it turns out the guest booked for "Celebrity Interview," who is seated next to Kalter, has already appeared on the show as the first or second guest earlier that night. An angry Kalter accuses Letterman of deliberately booking the same person as a regular guest on the show in an attempt to sabotage Kalter's segment and steal the limelight. The sketch typically ends with Kalter storming off the stage after hurling insults at Letterman, as well as the celebrity interviewee, who usually deadpans confusion or mortification.

Top Ten List: The Top Ten List appears daily on the Late Show, and remains one of the few regular segments carried over from Late Night. It is often the last comedic segment presented prior to the show's first guest. List topics are often inspired by current news and pop cultural events, with typical lists bearing titles such as "Top Ten Signs..." and "Top Ten Reasons..." The Top Ten List is compiled by the show's writing staff, and is usually read by Letterman, although the show occasionally uses guest presenters. For a long time, the Top Ten Lists were said to have been written in a so-called "Home Office". There were various Home Offices before the part was dropped, but the list included Sioux City, Iowa; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Wahoo, Nebraska - all actual, extant towns. (Late Show staffer Mike McIntee's nightly online recap of the show, the "Wahoo Gazette" is named after the Nebraska town.) Recently, the Top Ten List has often become a casualty of time constraints, often being pulled from the show at the last minute. Dave will often announce that the Top Ten List is coming up, when, in fact, it is not delivered on that night's show.

Great Moments in Presidential Speeches: The near-daily segment presents a series of three video excerpts, the first two of which come from actual famous moments such as Franklin Roosevelt's inaugural speech ("The only thing we have to fear is fear itself") and John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech ("Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country"). The third excerpt features George W. Bush in an unintentionally comical moment, often during press conferences or townhouse gatherings. These moments frequently focus on the vacuous Bush stuttering, finding himself at a loss for words, or uttering a nonsensical Bushism. The excerpts are also often taken out of context for humorous effect, such as when Bush declares, "My kids can't read!" Lately, the "Great Moments" presentation have also featured Dwight Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and even President Bush's father, followed by Bush himself. One adaptation is President Kennedy's Berlin speech, with the words "Ich bin ein Berliner," followed by President Reagan's Berlin speech ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall") in 1987 (Reagan was also featured in another Letterman skit "The Reagan Diaries"), and as always, an excerpt from President Bush's recent speeches. An Abraham Lincoln impostor has also given the "Tear down this wall" speech. President Lyndon Johnson made his debut on "Great Moments" with his declaration not to seek reelection in 1968. George Washington's and Abraham Lincoln's portraits are shown at the beginning and end of "Great Moments." After a few months into the segment's inception, the Kennedy inauguration clip began to include a Late Show staffer (often dressed in formal period garb) superimposed over the empty seat to Kennedy's right. The staffers include announcer Alan Kalter, "cue card boy" Tony "Inky" Mendez (who shows cue cards to President Kennedy), costume designer Susan Hum (whose actions include taking his picture with a disposable camera, removing lint from his shoulder, stealing his wallet, and eating a jumbo pretzel), associate producer Nancy Agostini, and stage manager Biff Henderson. All "cameos" end with the staffers clapping along in real-time response to Kennedy's speech. Beginning in June 2008, GMIPS began splitting time with "Cool/Not Cool", which also exploits President Bush's clumsiness, although in a more physical manner.

Cool/Not Cool: Debuting in June 2008, "Cool/Not Cool" is a sketch designed to juxtapose Presidential candidate Barack Obama with President George W. Bush. First, a clip of Obama engaging in an activity will be shown, followed by an on screen graphic reading "COOL" and the sound of a bell. That will immediately be followed by a clip of Bush engaging unsuccessfully in a similar activity, and then a graphic reading "NOT COOL" with the sound of a buzzer.

Will It Float?: An item is dropped into a tank of water by two models, often referred to by Letterman as "The Hi-Ho Girls." The segment starts out with Kalter identifying a household item that will be tested, and a faux prize that is supposedly at stake. A picture of that prize is flashed on screen for a split second. Letterman and Shaffer debate the buoyant properties of the item before they each decide on whether it will sink or float (a frequent deciding factor is the nature of the item's container). Two models then drop the item into the tank while the Late Show "Hula Hoop Girl" (Anna Jack) and "Grinder Girl" (Kiva Kahl) perform on either side of the tank. Depending upon the outcome, large flashing words appear reading, "It Floats!" (accompanied by a ringing bell) or "It Sinks!" (accompanied by a buzzer). Letterman often espouses the educational merit of the game in jest, citing positive feedback from parents, educators, and clergymen. He has acknowledged that while the segment is not popular with the Late Show staff, he insists on continuing it for his own amusement. According to Letterman, the skit was adapted from a similar BBC program entitled "Is It Buoyant?" He also often advertises the (fictional) "Will It Float" home game, which "has everything you need in a box to play the game for only $19.99." The game consists only of a list of suggested household items and a bottle of water. Recently, Dave has also been advertising the Playstation 3 version of the "Will It Float?" home game, and in the past would highlight the Xbox 360 version. At one point, he issued viewers a warning to stay away from the knockoff version, "Does it Sink?," which could be found being hawked by street vendors on Canal Street. After the game is over, Letterman often addresses the women by saying he will see them at "the big 'Will It Float?' party" after the show.

Is This Anything?: In the increasingly rare segment, the stage curtain is raised to reveal an individual or team performing an unusual stunt, often accompanied by music from the CBS Orchestra. Flanking the performer, who varies, are two previous performers who became regulars for the segment: The "Hula Hoop Girl" (Anna Jack), who spins numerous hula hoops around different parts of her body, and The "Grinder Girl" (Kiva Kahl), who operates a hand-held grinder against metal parts of her costume, producing sparks. After about thirty seconds the curtain is lowered and Letterman discusses with Shaffer whether the act was "something" or "nothing." As the segment continued over the course of time, Letterman would increasingly express disinterest in the featured performer, opting instead to admire the Grinder Girl. Shaffer in turn would often admit to having been too distracted with his performance of the music. On an episode in June 2003, the curtain rose to reveal members of the Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils. Martin Brodeur hoisted the trophy, leading the crowd in a chant of "Devils! Devils!" Letterman and Shaffer ruled it as definitely "something." Is This Anything? lay dormant for almost a year before it was resurrected on the March 22, 2006 episode. A man balanced himself on a ladder and juggled: Paul voted a clear "nothing", and Dave was going to vote "something" before he noticed a safety mat. Dave then concurred with Paul. In an uncharacteristic move, Dave invited Sharon Osbourne to assist in officiating Is This Anything? on the July 26, 2007 episode, due to her involvement with America's Got Talent. The act consisted of a man balancing an aluminum ladder on his chin while riding a unicycle, and all three agreed that it was nothing.

Small Town News: Often presented on Mondays, Letterman presents a series of actual news items, advertisements, and police blotter excerpts which are shown to be unintentionally humorous. In earlier incarnations, Letterman would precede the segment by asking the audience to "please wait for the humorous comment," which consisted of him reciting a scripted follow-up to each news item. While this ostensibly differentiated the segment from Jay Leno's similar sketch, "Headlines," the current revival of "Small Town News" only includes an occasional impromptu remark from Letterman.

Audience Participation Games: Thursday episodes usually include one of three rotating variations of audience participation segments. Each game starts with Letterman making small talk with each of the featured audience members, asking about their background and occupations, often with humorous results. When the individual has completed their portion, they are given a gift certificate to a local restaurant as well as random gift items. Occasionally, the participant is a ringer from the show staff:

Know Your Current Events: In what is described by Letterman as "America's Fastest Growing Quiz Sensation", a "contestant" is chosen at random to play a quiz game. He or she first chooses a category. Besides the title category, there are often a total of "six big ways to win big," with other categories being topical and often esoteric, and rarely reappearing. Some of these have included "Know Your Home Depot Locations in Delaware", "Know Your Late Show Production Accountant Joe DeGeorge", "Know Your Department Store Return Policies", and "Know Your Shocking Facts about Peter Jennings." A regular category is "Know Your Cuts of Meat," which itself consists of five categories: beef, lamb, veal, pork, and "variety meats." After playing, the individual is also rewarded with a box of assorted meat cuts from "Lobel's: pound for pound, the finest butcher shop in the world." Throughout the course of the segment's history on the show, Dave has varied back and forth between discreetly feeding the contestants the answers, and making them guess.

Stump the Band: This is a variation of the segment from Johnny Carson's tenure on the Tonight Show. A pre-selected audience member requests an obscure song from the CBS Orchestra, which then performs a humorous pre-scripted song based only on the title of the requested song. The band will then jokingly insist that they've correctly played the correct song, only to be told otherwise by the individual, who then performs the actual song. These segments often feature a segment with Paul Shaffer in character as Carnac the Magnificent, another Tonight Show carryover.

Audience Show and Tell: This revolves around a pre-selected audience member relating an anecdote, presenting a personal item of note, or demonstrating a hidden talent.

Fun Facts: Usually presented on Fridays, the segment consists of Letterman reading a series of random trivia, records, and statistics. Letterman explains that they are submitted to the show each week by "Gary Sherman," an acquaintance at the Federal Bureau of Miscellaneous Information, a supposed subsection of the United States Census Bureau. The segment often begins with Letterman presenting a few actual facts to set up the premise (although they are often of a humorous nature in their own right and are mistaken by some audience members as made-up). He then presents several humorous, fictional "facts." Most of these are of an absurdist nature, such as "The first pair of binoculars had a 1x magnification," or "For a short amount of time, the rock band The Who broke up, and formed two new bands called The When and The What." An irrelevant promotional announcement of some kind is mixed in on occasion, much to Letterman's confusion. The segment was initially presented on the show sporadically before being made a regular weekly feature.

Hello Deli Games: A camera crew is sent to Rupert Jee in the neighboring Hello Deli, where Jee is asked to invite a potential player from the crowd outside. The player introduces his or herself, relates his or her background, and is told what prize is to be won. Regardless of the outcome, the player is also awarded a "Hello Deli Platter" by the Hi-Ho Girls. Recurring games include "Beat the Clock" (where the confused player helplessly attempts to stop a clock from counting down to zero) and "What's on the iPod?" (where Rupert sings along to a song on his iPod and the contestant has to guess what song he is singing). Other random games involve a player searching for a hidden item in the deli, and guessing the nature of an item obscured under an item of clothing worn by Jee (such as a Hillary Clinton-esque pantsuit). Occasionally, the "player" is a plant and the segment ends when the "player" appears to be severely injured. Biff Henderson has hosted similar games on the street.

Stupid Pet Tricks/Stupid Human Tricks: These segments were carried over from Late Night, and consist of three pre-selected participants (or in the case of "Pet Tricks," pets and their owners), who each demonstrate an unusual talent or stunt on the stage. Letterman will often precede the segment with the tongue-in-cheek warning: "Remember, this is not a competition, it is only an exhibition — please, no wagering." While still a trademark feature of the Late Show, the segment has been featured on a more sporadic basis in recent years. The show's regular "Audience Show and Tell" bit will often include an audience member performing a "Stupid Human Trick"-type act.

Explod-O-Pop: Explod-O-Pop is a brand of popping corn, and is usually given as a prize to the participants of the audience participation games. Letterman often describes the product using various slogans such as "America's Only Atomic Popping Corn," "It's Carbolicious," and "It's Contaminated with Flavor!" It can also be purchased online at CBS' online store, with the proceeds benefiting the American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming, a charity of Letterman's which contributes its proceeds to a wide variety of foundations, most of which are of a health, youth, or educational nature.

Audience Sweep: Late in the show, a short segment will consist of a camera panning across the audience as it applauds during the break. A comedy piece will usually be superimposed above this video; in most cases this is either a graphic presenting a game or announcement narrated by Kalter, or a comedy piece featuring Kalter himself. Since returning from the hiatus caused by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, however, these segments now usually feature a Kalter voice-over promoting future guests, concluded by a phrase such as "Get your VCRs ready!"

Games: Games often consist of parodies of simple time-killers such as word jumbles or quizzes. One example consists of the viewer being shown a short jumble where the letters are barely mixed up, seemingly making for an obvious answer. When the letters are supposedly shuffled into their "correct" order, the answer will actually consist of a completely different, longer set of letters.

Announcements: Some examples of announcements include "Late Show Reminders" (advising viewers to set their VCR for an "upcoming" episode featuring guests that have already appeared earlier that very night), "contest winners" (such as a supposed "My Pet Looks Like Dave" contest), and promotions for "all-new" episodes of old CBS shows, such as Jake and the Fatman.

Bored Kalter: A common example of Kalter's audience sweep comedy bits consists only of a silent and apathetic Kalter engaging in some mundane activity, such as eating or shaving.

Non-regular sketches:

7-Eleven Giveaways: Letterman introduces a man claiming to be James Keyes, President and CEO of 7-Eleven, who then announces to the audience and viewers of the convenience store's latest promotional tie-in with the Late Show. The announcements first began with a commemoration of the date of July 11, 2006 ("7-11"), when all 7-Eleven stores would supposedly give away free Slurpees, hot dogs, and muffins to anyone who said "Dave sent me!" (all items were said to be paid for by Letterman). Since then, the man portraying Keyes has sporadically appeared, enthusiastically announcing other food item giveaways and lavish prize drawings. After the man walks off stage, Shaffer then asks Letterman if the man really is president and CEO of 7-Eleven, only to have Letterman reluctantly admit that he isn't.

Action News: Letterman will occasionally interrupt a bit for "Action News", a bit that mocks "teaser" promos for local newscasts. Dave will look to the camera to his left and read a fake news headline with an ostensibly disingenuous smile and cheery demeanor. On the screen, in the style of a newscast, appears a news graphic next to Dave's face and the legend "Dave Letterman, Action News" at the bottom of the screen. After delivering the headline, Dave will then turn to the camera to his right and deliver another fake headline. He'll then "promote" Action News ("That's all coming up tonight on 'Action News.'"), and then return to the original bit as if nothing had happened. Occasionally, a weather reporter from an actual CBS affiliate will also deliver a pre-recorded fake weather tease. "Action News" most frequently interrupts "Fun Facts", although it occasionally interrupts other bits, including the Top Ten List. "Action News" began appearing in early 2008.

Cameraman Dave Dorsett Leaves the Theatre: During the segment of the show following the monologue, Letterman will be setting up a comedy bit when the camera trained on him begins to drift downward and stops with Letterman's head out of frame. Letterman will continue for several seconds before noticing the camera's new position, when he stops his bit and asks the cameraman, Dave Dorsett, what is happening. Dorsett explains that he has to leave the theatre for one reason or another (normally tied to a hyped event such as a new movie or video game release), and speaks of his disdain for the show as he exits through the guest entrance. The camera remains in its resting position for the remainder of the segment, causing Letterman to have to lean down and turn his head sideways to get into the shot. In another variation, Dorsett will not leave the studio, but will be preoccupied with something else, such as reading. When the show returns from commercial, the camera shot is back to normal.

Campaign 2000: Throughout the summer and fall of 2000, Dave and the cast (featuring producer Maria Pope) would ostensibly recap the latest on the presidential campaign between Al Gore and George W. Bush. An opening animation would roll accompanied by the orchestra, after which Alan Kalter would read a series of "sponsors," which included party ice (available in clear, semi-clear and opaque), the "ComposTumbler", onetime infomercial sensation Hairagami and the then-new "Liquid Plumber Foaming Pipe Snake". One of the most notable (and well-worn) bits from this segment was a video clip of then-candidate Bush whispering (despite an open lavalier microphone) to Dick Cheney that a reporter was a "major league asshole, to which Cheney chuckled back. Outside this, however, it was common for Campaign 2000 to include no campaign-related content whatsoever. Coincidentally, that was the same summer in which Survivor achieved its initial meteoric success. Campaign 2000 segments on days following new Survivor episodes (usually Monday, but occasionally other days) soon included that week's eliminated castaway. Dave often feigned disinterest with the castoffs, forcing them to stand next to Pope at the producer's podium; in fact, only one contestant, Survivor: The Australian Outback's Elisabeth Hasselbeck was ever invited to sit in a guest chair. Generally Dave would ask the contestants irrelevant, nonsensical questions; over time, he began to work Stephanie Birkitt into the segment, initially calling her upstairs in the office and later having her appear on stage in costume. She would routinely ask the castaways, "Did you see or touch any monkeys?" to which Dave would scold her. As time passed, she would promise, increasingly vehemently, not to ask the question and then ask it anyway. For reasons unknown, the Campaign 2000 segment would appear at first regularly and then sporadically into 2001 (retaining the name "Campaign 2000"); Dave would feign exasperation at discovering its inclusion in the show, open the segment, and immediately close it without any of the "sponsors" or jokes.

CBS Mailbag: A Late Show staple on Fridays until it was phased out in recent years (the last time it aired was December 3, 2004), the CBS Mailbag carried on the Late Night tradition of taking actual viewer letters (usually four at a time), and responding to each of them with a pre-written comedy routine.

Charts and Graphs: Letterman displays poster boards with various charts and graphs, usually with the last element on each being the absurd one. (Pie Chart: What will be the top priority of the next president? 43%: Stabilizing Iraq. 31%: Stabilizing climate change. 26% Stabilizing The View.)

A Day in the Life of... (such as "A Day in the Life of George W. Bush"): A slide show with the time of day indicated on each slide, accompanied by a humorous caption, such as "4:30 p.m. Receives FTD's 'Good Luck Bouquet' from Osama bin Laden," "5:30 p.m. Yoo-Hoo break," "6:00 p.m. Nap."

Fun with Rupert: One of the most popular pre-taped pieces during the show's earlier years was a Candid Camera-style bit which featured the normally mild-mannered Rupert Jee interacting with ordinary, unsuspecting people around the city. Letterman - usually hidden in a van - would covertly observe the action and provide a disguised Jee (wearing a cap, glasses, backpack, and headphones) with ad-libbed instructions via two-way communication. This resulted in Jee performing humorous and unusual antics while amusing, confusing, and in some cases irritating, various victims. The segment was ceased after an unaired incident in which Letterman would only explain that a man had pulled a knife on Jee. It was unofficially revived in a few live bits in 2006 where Jee (not in disguise) would visit a neighboring restaurant and perform similar antics.

George Clarke's "It's a Fact": Handyman Clarke is seen backstage, bloodied and severely injured from an earlier incident. He addresses the camera, indirectly explaining the incident by imparting advice such as ”Women on the street don't like to be called 'Candy Pants.'" He will then point to the camera and say, "It's a fact!”

The Guy Who Swears at Dave: A man, often portraying a Late Show staffer, calls out Letterman, expressing his irritation with him. He then addresses Kalter and Shaffer in turn, flipping off and shouting "F*** you!" to each of them. He then repeats this with Letterman, using both hands and repeating the same phrase with extra emphasis. He then storms away, much to the shock of the three men. One time, after Dave and Paul decided that an "Is This Anything" act was nothing, the performer turned out to be the Guy, who then went into that routine. After a Stupid Pet Trick, in which a dog barked at someone giving it the finger, Dave said that he hoped the dog would not not run into the Guy backstage, but in the segue before the next commercial, they were together.

How Many Guys in... Suits Can Get into a ...?: Examples include "How Many Guys in Spider-Man Suits Can Get Into a Jamba Juice?" and "How Many Guys in Pirate Costumes Can Fit Into A Sandwich Shop?" As the title indicates, the camera is focused on a local establishment, and Dave counts the number of persons wearing the costumes entering the store (first one at a time, then "send in 5 more") until the store is crowded. The bit usually ends with persons in other random costumes being sent in, like a horse, tooth fairy, panda bear or wizard.

Late Show Equations: Similar in concept to "Charts and Graphs," except there is a slide covering the comic answer to the equation. ("A rollercoaster + the smell of goat = New York City cab ride.")

NBC 4 News Update: A portion of a news report from WNBC in New York City is aired and then at the very end of the clip is punctuated by Sue Simmons's infamous "What the (censored) are you doing?" outburst.

On 53rd Street: A daredevil demonstrates his or her skills outside the theater (such as Tony Hawk performing skateboarding jumps), a half-ton pumpkin is exploded on the street, or dogs compete in the Diving Dog Competition (in which the dogs long jump into a pool). The remainder of one show was canceled when a snowboarder was injured while performing a stunt.

Osama bin Laden Tapes: Usually on the heels of recent news reports of actual propaganda video announcements released by bin Laden or Al-Qaeda, the Late Show will present their own satires of such videos. Often this consists of a stock clip of bin Laden speaking into a microphone, with the audio being overdubbed. The new dialogue will range from bin Laden partaking in distinctly American pastimes (such as giving personal football predictions) to providing Al-Qaeda members with mundane advisements (such as staying home during periods of extreme weather).
A common conclusion to the bin Laden parodies depicts him putting down his microphone, only to pick it back up and declare in a blasé manner: "Oh, and death to America."

Pat and Kenny Read Oprah Transcripts: Stagehands Pat Farmer and Kenny Sheehan read an actual transcript of an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, usually involving a female celebrity guest, with Farmer taking the part of Winfrey and Sheehan the guest. Each read their lines in a distinctly monotone fashion, in humorous contrast to the enthusiastic nature of the original interview (which often includes Winfrey utterances such as "Woo hoo!" to Letterman's amusement). During the reading, Sheehan sports a cigarette consisting mostly of ash which rarely breaks off. On some occasions the absurd nature of the bit will cause the two to break character (more often just Sheehan). The segment starts with Farmer and Sheehan performing a brief re-enactment of Winfrey’s opening sequence ("Run on with Oprah"). At the end of the routine, Kalter gives an address for where to write to obtain a transcript of Pat and Kenny Read Oprah Transcripts.

Pat Farmer's "Surprise, You're on TV!": Presented as a supposed clip from Farmer’s own reality prank show, Farmer is seen standing next to an unsuspecting male victim in an ordinary setting, such as an elevator. Farmer is then shown to be holding a baseball bat, which he uses to strike the man in the pelvic area. As the man doubles over in pain, Farmer will address him and point to the camera, saying "Surprise, you’re on TV!" Ostensibly this is a blunt satire of reality shows which utilize lowbrow physical humor, such as Jackass, as well as slapstick shows such as America's Funniest Home Videos.

"...Quiz" (such as the "Auto Show Quiz," "Boat Show Quiz," and "Toy Show Quiz"): Letterman presents video clips of people at a current event, on which is superimposed a multiple choice question, with the last choice being the punchline.

Rejected by the FDA: A desk segment in which Letterman displays samples of bad food concepts, such as "NyQuil Dessert Topping," and eats some of them.

Sorry, Tom: Letterman will explain that while not a scheduled guest, actor Tom Hanks is waiting backstage to make a surprise appearance. Hanks is then shown in the green room, smiling and waving to the delight of the audience. Letterman then informs Hanks that the show doesn’t have enough time for him, causing Hanks to yell at an individual off-screen (ostensibly including obscenities). In reality, the footage of Hanks is a recycled clip from his visit on a much older episode, recorded specifically for later use in this bit. A notable use of this bit occurred during an interview with Hanks' own actor son, Colin. (Hanks also does many other comedy bits for the show whenever he's a guest, from making a glass-breaking noise, to a memorable "Audience Q & A" where he posed as a seat-filler for a member of the audience and was told "Wanna get outta my seat now, Fathead" by the angry woman.)

Susan Hum: As Letterman presents a comedy bit or converses with Shaffer, costume designer Hum will approach his desk carrying a food or drink item. Only after some time will Letterman acknowledge Hum, who will then inform him of the item she has with her. She then stands silently as Letterman attempts to proceed with the show. After noticing that she is still there, he will politely inform her that he is not interested in the item, provoking Hum to angrily insult Letterman (and sometimes throw the item to the floor) and walk off stage.

Ticket Scalper: Letterman will be setting up a bit when a man wearing a ski cap and jacket walks onto the set behind Dave and nervously and quietly gets Dave's attention and offers to sell him scalped tickets to a high-profile sporting event or concert that has already taken place. Dave points out that the man is obviously holding tickets to the past year's Super Bowl (which is when the bits began), and that the current event for which he's trying to sell tickets has already taken place. The man will then quickly change his story, announcing another event which grab's Dave's attention. Dave pulls out his wallet and approaches the man, when the nervous broker thinks he hears the police and both he and Dave quickly scatter. Dave then returns to his original bit.

The following is a partial list of recurring comedy bits that now appear on the show on a sporadic basis, as well as other notable bits from the show's past:

Alan Kalter's "Are You f***ing Kidding Me?" segment: the segment questions the sanity behind major news stories (for example, after the Michael Jackson verdict, Kalter's response: "Are You f***ing Kidding Me?!!")

Alan Kalter's "Oh No You Didn't!": Kalter mentions a recent news story (such as a 5-week working vacation George W. Bush had once announced) and then says "Oh No You Di-int!", which is immediately followed by a mention of a celebrity who has recently done something which Alan finds sexy, and a "Oh, yes you did."

Alex Trebek Came Back Too Soon: starting with a premise such as that Alex Trebek is losing it, or just suffered a heart attack and came back to work too soon, an edited piece of Jeopardy! is shown where the question does not match the answer and Alex says "correct," such as "The J in J.D. stands for this kind of doctor," the contestant says "What are jujubes?", and Alex says "correct."

Ape Or Artist?: A game in which an abstract painting is shown to Letterman and Shaffer, who then discuss whether it was an ape or an artist who painted it. After the first couple of instances, Letterman based his guesses more on psychology than the painting itself (saying things along the lines of "They want me to think it's an artist this time, so I'm going with ape"). After a while, the game became "Ape or Artist or Elephant?"

"Ask ...": Dave says that a celebrity, such as Hillary Clinton or Paris Hilton, will appear to answer questions the audience has submitted in advance. However, it is always Gerard Mulligan. There is usually one question about the celebrity being egotistical, which Mulligan does not initially answer, and then says to Dave, "Oh, sorry. I thought that one was for you."

Bruce Willis's Mystery Word: Bruce Willis says a random word from a pre-recorded video.
"Can A ... Hail A Cab?" Usually someone in an animal (Can a Guy in a Turkey Suit ...") or superhero ("Can Spider-Man...") suit stands on Broadway and hails a cab, seeing if a taxi driver will stop and give the person a ride. This has also been tried by a person wearing a surgical mask portraying the traveler with drug resistant tuberculosis.

“... Cards.”: Before Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, Dave displays a series of mock greeting cards, with messages such as "I'm sorry I called you a dirty whore on Maury."

Chris and Gerry: Dave introduces former writers Chris Elliot and Gerry Mulligan, who are there to promote their latest television program, which end up being parodies of existing shows (eg., "Skink the Bounty Hunter"). Often they explain that the development of their new shows are due to the failure of their previous efforts. After the interview, a short clip of the contrived show is played. The interview segments usually involve the two wearing the outlandish costumes they don in the clip. Another recent version consists of clips from "John Adams on HBO," where Elliot plays President Adams, and Mulligan plays a portrait artist or some other part. In one of these, Adams and companion did a Mac vs. PC commercial.

Crystal Clear Party Ice: In 2000, Kalter presented a running gag in which he promoted this fake sponsor of the show. The lengthy pitch was recited daily with little variation: "It's not a party without party ice, and isn't party ice unless it's crystal clear! Have you ever been to a party where the ice was cloudy? How did that make you feel? Like a loser! Crystal Clear Party Ice is really, really clear! And, it comes in a bag! Hey, the weekend is right around the corner, so why not pick up a couple of bags of party ice? You'll be glad you did!" As the bit wore on, Letterman would respond to Kalter's pitch, such as pointing out that the "weekend" was still several days away. Eventually a "Semi-Clear" variation was added to the bit.

Hose cam: On a hot day, a hose shoots water on pedestrians near the Ed Sullivan Theater. Inside, Dave uses a toggle switch to turn the water on and off, and a microphone (similar to one used with a taxicab radio) to make comments to the people on the street.

Immigration Success Stories: A segment running since immigration reform was brought to the United States Congress in 2006. The segment profiles various well-known immigrants, before switching to archival footage of actor and Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger shown doing suggestive things with females.

Johnny Twain Tonight: Johnny Dark dressed as Mark Twain sits in a rocking chair and recites Rodney Dangerfield jokes. Dark has also appeared in a similar segment called "Johnny Lincoln Tonight," with the only modification being Dark dressed as Abraham Lincoln.

Lance Armstrong: An overweight man pretending to be a prominent athlete of the day, usually Lance Armstrong, but also (among other examples) a recently victorious NASCAR driver, golfer, or jockey, but always dressed in Armstrong's yellow Discovery Team jersey. He is introduced with, "Ladies and gentleman, name of athlete" while riding a bicycle through the aisles of the theatre and exiting through a door in the back. This segment is always accompanied by the CBS Orchestra playing the Ike and Tina Turner version of Rollin' On The River On the August 21, 2006 show, the segment was mixed up even further, with an introduction of golfer Tiger Woods, and a caption of cyclist Floyd Landis.

Let's Talk About the Candidates: A faux audience participation bit where Letterman initially chats with actual audience members about the 2008 presidential campaign. After Letterman comments on a recent candidate's departure from the race, a plant in the audience, always played by the same show staffer, reacts with disbelief and outrage. He then storms out of the theater and pummels pages along the way. In one segment, the plant reacts in this manner to the news that John Edwards was ending his campaign. Afterwards, the first audience member, himself a staffer, reacts in the same violent manner upon learning that Rudy Giuliani was also dropping out, and beats the same pages as he leaves. Letterman often closes the segment by lamenting that they no longer have any time due to the outbursts.

Live Crash Footage: Letterman will point to his ear, as if taking instructions from the director, and announce that he is being told that they have "live" footage of various celebrities and public figures driving to a particular destination, and ultimately crashing (actually stock news footage of actual, spectacular crashes). Subjects have included Patrick Kennedy, Billy Joel, Nicole Richie, and NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (on a motorcycle). Letterman will then assure the audiences that he is being told that the celebrity is "all right."

Lt. Len Easton: Barbara Gaines asks Letterman to pick up his phone, on which he gets a radio call from a fictitious Lt. Len Easton (voiced by Jeff Altman) of the California Highway Patrol driving on a California freeway on police business, requesting backup. The majority of these calls begin by sounding seemingly normal but will end with an absurd, humorous statement or request. In recent sketches, Letterman says that he is not the only one who is getting Easton's calls, and then shows a clip from a popular call-in show showing its host, such as Larry King, Suze Orman, or Mike and the Mad Dog, receiving a call with the audio of Easton being overdubbed, and occasionally a caption such as "Len from California" superimposed.

Lyle the Intern: A supposed Late Show intern (played by actor Jimmi Simpson) who appears out of nowhere to interrupt a befuddled Letterman for a casual chat. He is portrayed as a smooth, laid-back slacker-type who often uses hipster slang and fancies himself a ladies man. In his first appearance, he encouraged Letterman to act as his "wingman" at a bar after the show.

Mac vs. PC: A parody of Apple's Get a Mac series of commercials, with former writers Chris Elliott and Gerard Mulligan portraying the roles of Mac and PC, respectively. The bits often end with Mulligan inflicting bodily harm on Elliott.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

The Man on Fire: A stuntman wildly runs across the stage back and forth while screaming with his clothes on fire before being extinguished backstage. A variation of this was performed in which the man was not on fire but acted as if he were.

Millionaire or Kenny?: A man is shown while Dave and Paul debate whether the man is a millionaire or a man named Kenny.

News Bulletin: Suddenly, an old ABC Radio News theme is played, Dave confusedly looks through his papers, and then tells Barbara Gaines that he thought he had to read a bulletin.

Portrait of Biff Henderson: Various artists create a portrait, using ketchup, Legos, post-it notes, and other "art media."

Psychic Sandwich: In the Hello Deli, Deborah Lynn - a self-described "intuitive" - attempts to guess the sandwich being made by Jee, which are all named after various Late Show staffers. Lynn, who is blindfolded, had never successfully named a sandwich. In 2005, a variation of the game involving chocolates was played, in which Lynn picked up a piece at random before guessing its content. On her second try, Lynn successfully guessed "nougat." On another episode later that year, a variation was played involving Jee’s Slurpee-like drinks, and Lynn correctly guessed "cherry" on her first try. In these segments, Lynn is often asked by Letterman to explain the difference between a psychic and intuitive. On a recent episode, Lynn was asked to guess the price of a gallon of gas that Rupert provided her in a gasoline can. She guessed $4.40, however the gas was actually $4.30. Dave made note of the fact that Lynn admitted she had heard something on the news that morning about gas prices in New York by saying she had integrity in disclosing that information up front.

Putting Away the Late Show Bear: A man in a bear suit is pushed and locked into a closet. The last time this sketch was played, a young intern lost control of the bear and it went on a rampage before finally calling for a taxi.

Quarterback Challenge: Letterman challenges an NFL quarterback on the show to throw as many footballs at some target, such as into the open back window of a moving cab, as possible. A version of this challenge gave rise to the annual throwing of the football at the ornament at the top of the Christmas tree, when Vinny Testaverde could not hit the target, but Jay Thomas did.
"Telemundo Highlight of the Night." Usually a short clip from a Telemundo show, such as Laura en América, showing something similar to a Jerry Springer Show fight, but, of course, in Spanish. A similar concept is "Spanish Television is Better."

Trump or Monkey?: Played in the Hello Deli, the game involves a contestant being presented by Jee with two photos of monkeys, and a photo of celebrity businessman Donald Trump. Only the tops of the heads are visible, with the rest covered by a card. The contestant then attempts to guess which of the photos is Trump's. Around the release of the film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in 2005, a variation of the game called "Trump or Wookiee?" was played.

What the Hell is it?: In the style of "Is this Anything" and "Will it Float," this game had Letterman guess the name of a mystery object. The game was played only a handful of times. A running gag was that when Alan Kalter would announce the object's name to the audience, Letterman would unintentionally hear it clearly, thus leading to greater and greater amounts of soundproofing each time the game was played.

What's the Deal with Old Guys and Giant Glasses?: Letterman simply presents a series of photographs of celebrity men (and occasionally, women). The photos are often dated with the subjects sporting large, old-fashioned style glasses.

Who Asked for It?: A staple of late-night television, audience members approach a microphone and ask a question, resulting in a prearranged sketch in response (such as a person asking if Regis Philbin will run into the theater, and a staffer does instead).

Women in Prison: Dave offers to conduct a remote interview of Martha Stewart or Paris Hilton in jail, but the show then runs stock footage of women in prison having a food fight or rioting.

Writers' Guild Strike: Some other routine (usually a fake promotional announcement) is interrupted by Head Writer Bill Scheft, who announces that the Writers Guild is currently in negotiations for a new contract, and at this time we have chosen not to reveal the punchline to this hilarious joke until the big media companies show they're ready to play fair with the writers. The routine continued after Worldwide Pants settled with the WGA and the Late Show returned, to show solidarity with the other writers still on strike, and Scheft has interrupted other routines, such as one dealing with Hillary Clinton's pantsuit, to protest having to write those jokes after she should have left the race.

Several other sketches have included: Biff Henderson's "Fun with a Bullhorn"’ Biff Henderson's "Fun with a Stopwatch"; Biff Henderson's "Wanna Hang Out?"; Celebrity X-Ray Challenge; Dave's Record Collection; Dick Assman, who made several appearances in 1995; Dr. Phil's Words of Wisdom, out of context clips from the Dr. Phil Show, this bit was similar to the "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" sketch; Dumb Ads; George W. Bush Joke That's Not Really a Joke; Harold Larkin's "Sidewalk Idol"; Late Show Checklist; Late Show Pay Phone Trifecta; Late Show Unfair Edit, later Late Show Fun with Editing, later Late Show Editing Fun; May We See Your Photos Please?/May We See Your Digital Photos Please?; Pat Farmer's "Gaffe-Busters"; Pat Farmer's "Long Story Short"; Pat Farmer's "Anything Can Be a Musical Instrument"; Paul Shaffer's James Brown cape routine (with various celebrities, including James Brown himself on one occasion, caping Shaffer); Pedestrian Theme Songs, a sketch in which various clips of pedestrians walking around New York City were accompanied by a humorous short song clip performed by The CBS Orchestra; Week in Review, used to be a regular Friday feature, using a variation of the "Laugh-In Looks at the News" theme; and Who Said It?

Announcer Bill Wendell retired and left the show in 1995. He was replaced by Alan Kalter on the show's next episode which came after a two-week hiatus. In 1996, Letterman reluctantly fired long-time producer Robert Morton as the result of various professional disputes, including an apparent botched attempt to move the show to ABC in place of Nightline. Head writer Rob Burnett was promoted to executive producer. Director Hal Gurnee and producer Peter Lassally left the show soon after to pursue other interests. Gurnee was replaced by Jerry Foley. Burnett was absent from the day-to-day operations from 2000 to 2004, and was replaced by Barbara Gaines and Maria Pope, both of whom continue to serve as executive producers, with Gaines currently acting as on-air producer. In 2003, producer Jude Brennan was added to the team of executive producers. Lassally, who had served as an executive producer for Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, was invited back to the Late Show in January 2005 as a guest to discuss the recent death of Carson. Lassally currently serves as executive producer for Worldwide Pants' The Late Late Show (dating back to its years under original host Tom Snyder) as well as the Tony Mendez Show, an online webcast featuring the Late Show's "cue card boy." The show began broadcasting in high definition on August 29, 2005. About two weeks later, Tim Kennedy, the show's Technical Director, commented on the transition in the show's official newsletter:

The biggest challenge in the HD conversion was to renovate and upgrade our old control room, audio room, videotape room, and edit room while still doing five shows a week... This entailed pulling a remote production truck on 53rd Street running somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 feet of video and audio cable just to tie the truck to the existing technical plant...

The coolest piece of equipment is our new control room Virtual Wall. We have done away with the conventional monitor for every video source and replaced it with four 70-inch rear projection screens and within those screens we can "virtually" place as many video images as we want, anywhere we want them, and when we want it.

Kennedy and his crew won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video for a Series" during the nearly-four-month-long transition to HDTV. David Letterman is known for his on-air quirks. Letterman himself is known for his quirky physical comedy, which he has used in varied degrees throughout the years. Examples are throwing his blue note cards through the prop window behind him or throwing pencils at the camera (always followed with a sound effect of shattering glass), slapping the camera, pausing to take a long drink of his coffee, exaggeratedly loud coughing and clearing his throat, showing the inside lining of his suit, showing his receding hairline, long awkward moments to organize his note cards on his desk, flipping pencils upward and trying to catch them one-handed (à la Johnny Carson), wiggling his tie, adjusting the height of his chair, stirring his guests' coffee with a pencil before they arrive, and pausing to clean his glasses. In earlier episodes he would often throw objects into the audience. Though Letterman is typically well-attired and neat, a common 'Dave gag' is pretending to eat or drink excessive amounts of both edible and non-edible items, for instance, eating mayonnaise straight from the jar, allowing it to slop onto his face and onto the front of his suit.[citation needed] During a cooking segment with Martha Stewart there was a table set up with ingredients to demonstrate how to prepare some sort of meal. Letterman feigned clumsy disinterest, measuring the wrong amounts, throwing raw eggs at the band, gulping down bottles of wine, eating half a stick of butter, and generally wreaking havoc in an attempt to fluster his guest. Stewart tried to nonchalantly continue her cooking presentation, until finally, in an apparent "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" moment, succumbed to the fun, taking a big bite of butter herself. A similar situation occurred during a cooking segment featuring British chef Jamie Oliver, beginning with Letterman eating raw onions and resulting in he, Oliver and the episode's first guest Tom Cruise, and later Paul Shaffer all drinking from a bottle of olive oil. Another Letterman trademark is his penchant for odd, non-sequitur one-liners. Often they come from obscure sources with little to no explanation and appear to be mostly used for Letterman's own amusement.[citation needed] Some of the one-liners seem to derive from experiences in Letterman's personal life, random lines he heard on TV, or favorite lines used by his comedian friends. Others are exaggerations of typical talk-show patter, in keeping with Letterman's ironic take on his own television genre. Shaffer will often laugh at the jokes, although this is usually due to the repetition and familiarity of them, rather than the nature of the jokes themselves. Letterman will often poke fun at himself in a wide variety of ways, ranging from the content of his show (such as admitting when a joke is not particularly funny), his personal life (portraying himself as a reclusive loner), his physical appearance (his hair or "advanced age"), and his staff's supposed frustration with him (being forced to work on holidays). Such jokes will be made through impromptu remarks made by Letterman, or even in scripted material presented by Letterman or various staff members. In one episode, foreigners would appear on stage one by one, hurling a flurry of insults at Letterman in their native languages. Another more common gag consists of audience members finding ways to leave the show to Letterman's embarrassment. Many frequently invited guests have gone on to become favorites of the show, displaying an on-air friendship with Letterman that sets them apart from the more typical interview subjects. Perhaps most prominent among these are Charles Grodin and Regis Philbin, who will often bicker with Letterman about their respective personal relationships. Philbin has made more appearances on the Late Show than any other guest in the show's history. Other notable guests include Bonnie Hunt (with whom Letterman co-produced two short-lived sitcoms), Bill Murray (who has the distinction of appearing on the first episodes of both Late Night and the Late Show), Marv Albert (who had the most Late Night appearances), musical group Foo Fighters (whom Letterman had personally requested to perform during his first show after heart bypass surgery in 2000), and Warren Zevon (who was featured as the only guest in his final appearance prior to his death in 2003). Some guests, particularly Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, and Bruce Willis, will often take the effort to accompany their appearances on the show with a pre-arranged routine or bit (such as when Willis put dots on his face to satirize Dick Cheney's recent hunting incident and Hanks' wearing one of Letterman's sport jackets and a pair of his loafers, claiming his wife was to blame for the accidental clash of fashions), or will appear elsewhere in the show in a skit. Martin Short will often conclude his interviews with a comedic musical number on stage. Other favorite guests who have frequently appeared include Drew Barrymore, Ricky Gervais, Matthew Broderick, Tom Brokaw, Richard Simmons, Frank Caliendo (sometimes in character as John Madden or George W. Bush), Harry Connick, Jr., Penn & Teller, Johnny Depp, Elvis Costello, Billy Crystal, Jack Hanna, Jennifer Lopez, Paul Newman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tony Randall, Julia Roberts, Ray Romano, Isabella Rossellini, Amy Sedaris, Jerry Seinfeld, Martha Stewart, Howard Stern and Robin Williams. Some of Letterman's personal comedian friends who have often appeared on the show include Jeff Altman, Tom Dreesen, George Miller, Bob Sarlatte, Jimmie Walker and John Witherspoon. R.E.M., who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2007, made their international television debut on Late Night on October 6, 1983, just three years into their career. To date, they have appeared on Letterman's show six times. The Late Show has been know for some yearly traditions:

Halloween: For Halloween, Letterman stands in a house-like set on stage, where he answers a door and greets a series of trick-or-treaters dressed in elaborate, humorous costumes (a recent example being a giant Bluetooth headset). The children are then given "treats" which have consisted of unusual items such as Lipitor, useless Yankees World Series tickets, and a tote bag from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Thanksgiving: Every Thanksgiving, Letterman visits his mother (Dorothy Mengering) at her Indiana home via satellite, and tries to guess the two pies she has baked for her family dinner. Letterman will also show footage of that year's company Thanksgiving party, which often includes a particular clip from a previous party in which Letterman serves food while dressed in a pilgrim costume. There was no show in 2007 due to the WGA Strike.

Christmas: With the exception of 2007 as a result of the Writers Guild of America strike, many "Christmas traditions" have been part of the show's annual tradition with some even being carried over from the Late Night incarnation. Since 1986, Letterman has invited musician Darlene Love to perform "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" on the final new episode of the Late Show with David Letterman before Christmas. The song is always performed with Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra, with the band being augmented by additional strings and other instruments, as well as a full choir. Love first performed the song on Late Night with David Letterman in 1986. Letterman has stated that the annual performance is his favorite part of Christmas, and that Love's rendition is "the only Christmas song anyone needs." Letterman will often dedicate a segment to toy expert Shannon Eis, who demonstrates many of the newer toys that will be available during the upcoming season. The main appeal of the segment is Letterman's tendency to engage in horseplay with the various toys on display. Paul Shaffer will often perform a brief rendition of Cher singing "O Holy Night" from an episode of her 1970s variety show. Shaffer sets up the bit with a straight-faced introduction before breaking into a humorous impersonation. This has been performed on-and-off since the Late Night years. Letterman will also have local pizza-maker Joe G, gift shop proprietors Mujibur & Sirajul, and Hello Deli proprietor Rupert Jee top the Late Show Christmas tree with a pizza, Statue of Liberty miniature, and meatball, respectively. Each Christmas, Letterman and comedian Jay Thomas will then throw footballs at the tree from across the stage, attempting to knock the meatball off the top. This tradition began in 1998 when Letterman and NFL quarterback Vinny Testaverde threw footballs at a pastrami sandwich from the top of a tree but failed repeatedly. This prompted Thomas - who had been a guest earlier - to run out and take a shot, succeeding on his first try. The tradition of Thomas and Letterman throwing footballs at the tree (along with Thomas' retelling of his encounter with The Lone Ranger) has continued every year since then.

Over the years there have been a few notable episodes:

March 31, 1994: On March 31, 1994, pop star Madonna appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman. The unofficial 'Queen of Pop', who is known for controversy, infamously swore thirteen times throughout the interview and refused to leave at the end. Letterman, who asked her questions on various topics including her nose ring, music and love life was soon branded a 'sick f***', after he suggested Madonna kiss a member of the audience. Madonna went on to ask if Letterman was wearing a 'rug', whether he wanted to smell a pair of underwear she brought on the show, or whether he thought the microphone was sexually big. In between this, Madonna often swore and referred to sexual themes including her vagina, saying: 'Did you know it's good to pee in the shower?' Eventually, she swore so much that the producers went to commercials and showed comedic monologues of Madonna. At the end of the interview, when Madonna refused to leave, Letterman cut to a break, and when they returned, Madonna was gone. Letterman has since stated, in USA Today: 'I'm not pleased with the way I handled it. I should have said, "You say that word one more time and you're gone. That's it. Adios." And I didn't.' Madonna appeared days later on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Although she appeared briefly at the stroke of midnight on Valentine's Day, 1995 to present Dave with a bouquet of roses, her return to the show as a guest was not until 2000, while promoting her album Music. During that interview, and other subsequent interviews on the show, Dave joked that he still had the panties that she gave him. During the September 1994 MTV Video Music Awards, Madonna was a presenter and was escorted onstage by Letterman who kissed her hand and stated, "I'll be in the car. Just... watch your language.", and walked off stage to applause.

September 20, 1996: In early September of 1996, it was announced that The Late Show would experiment with a commercial-free format. The September 20 broadcast of the show did not contain traditional commercials, although there were breaks (within the show) to acknowledge sponsors.

February 21, 2000: On January 14, Letterman made on The Late Show the announcement that he was undergoing an angiogram the following day, after doctors had recently been concerned about his high cholesterol and family history (his father died of a heart attack at 52). Soon it was discovered that he had blocked arteries and had to undergo a quintuple bypass. During his hiatus, the show had been off the air for a few weeks after which, while he was still recovering the show was being hosted by guests for the following weeks. On his first show after recovering, Dave brought out all the doctors and nurses on the show who had helped him during his surgery and recovery. Despite nearly breaking out in tears during the show, Dave seemed to find humor in his situation; while referring to one of his nurses, Dave said: "This woman saw me naked!". He continued to joke about the event for weeks after his return.

September 17, 2001: On September 17, 2001, David Letterman was the first major American comedy performer to return to the television airwaves after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In his opening monologue, absent the usual musical opening credits and cheering audience, an uncharacteristically serious and very emotional Letterman struggled with the reality of the attacks and the role of comedy in a post-9/11 world, saying:

“The reason we were attacked, the reason these people are dead, these people are missing and dead … They weren't doing anything wrong, they were living their lives, they were going to work, they were traveling, they were doing what they normally do. Uh, as I understand it—and my understanding of this is vague, at best—another smaller group of people stole some airplanes and crashed them into buildings. And we're told that they were zealots fueled by religious fervor, religious fervor. And if you live to be a thousand years old, will that make any sense to you? Will that make any goddamned sense?”

His first guest that night was then-CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, who was also very emotional and spoke with feeling about the courage of firefighters as well as reading verses from the song, America the Beautiful. Dave got his first laugh when, at the end of his monologue, he said, "And thank God Regis is here so we have something to make fun of." His musical guest that night was Tori Amos, who performed a cover of Tom Waits' "Time." She was one of the few major artists willing to perform in such a public venue so soon after 9/11. Letterman was visibly affected by her performance after he went over to greet her when she finished. Before September 11, various mocking and self important descriptions were affixed to New York City at the beginning of the show, but starting with the September 17, 2001 show and continuing to the present announcer Alan Kalter introduces the show as being "From New York, The Greatest City in the World, it's The Late Show with David Letterman!" (Whenever there is a guest host, Alan Kalter omits "The Greatest City in the World.") Also, the opening shot of the credits, a view of Battery Park and the World Trade Center, was changed to an aerial shot of the Empire State Building.

January 31, 2005: Letterman's first show after long-time friend and mentor Johnny Carson had died. The show had been on a one-week hiatus since his death. As a tribute, Letterman's opening monologue included jokes written by Carson (news reports in the weeks leading to Carson's death revealed that he had been regularly writing and sending Letterman some jokes) as well as clips shown from The Tonight Show. Other tributes to Carson in this episode included the band playing "Johnny's Theme" at the conclusion of Letterman's monologue, and use of title cards with the phrase, "More to Come" around commercial breaks (a standard feature of The Tonight Show during most of Carson's years there that has continued under Jay Leno's tenure). While describing how he felt about the news, Letterman stated: "There are so many things you miss about Johnny Carson... I was nearly this sad when the guy retired... Johnny Carson was like a public utility. At the end of the day, that's who you wanted to be there. The way that you know that Johnny was such a tremendous part of your life was when there was a guest host. You would be waiting all day to see Johnny and you'd tune in and there would be a guest host. And it would make you angry. And you'd be steaming mad, [though] not at Johnny, you would always take out your anger on the guest host."

January 2, 2008: During the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike, the show went into reruns for two months. In late December 2007, Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated, reached a contract agreement with the striking writers. This put Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson back on the air with their full staff of writers. The show opened with Hillary Clinton making a cameo appearance saying, "It has been two long months but Dave's back. Oh, well, all good things must come to an end." Letterman returned sporting a full beard which he grew during his hiatus and opened the show by declaring that "It's been two months but I'm finally out of rehab." The Top 10 List consisted of demands by striking writers. Robin Williams was the first guest for the show's return. The next episode (one night later) is likely more noted for Ellen Page's appearance in which she promoted the film Juno.

There is something I should note about how I chose this list: there was some bias, i.e. a lot of shows I really like got on the list. I tried really hard to not completely fill the list with just shows I enjoy. Tor example, I’m not a big fan of The Cosby Show, General Hospital, The Dick Van Dyke Show, or St. Elsewhere; but I couldn’t ignore their importance to television history. And, a lot of shows really like didn’t make the list: Newhart, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Colbert Report, Late Night With Conan O’Brien. But, yes, my enjoyment of the show was a big factor in it getting on the list, notable examples: Cowboy Bebop, Futurama, The Venture Bros., Magnum P.I., Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Arrested Development, and Battlestar Galactica. And, that is one of the reason you haven’t seen a talk show until now. I’m not a big fan of the talk show. Sometimes they come off as fluffy shows that just stroke celebrities egos (Oprah, any show on E! except for The Soup) or featuring people who have no business being on TV (Maury; Jerry Springer). But, like with the game show, the soap opera, and the miniseries, talk shows are a part of TV. People enjoy them, and they’ve provided memorable moments. They can’t be ignored. And, one such show is The Late Show With David Letterman. And, why not CBS's Late Show? Lower stakes = greater comedy, something Letterman proved in his early days as a local weatherman, predicting hailstones "the size of canned hams." The man is practically in love with Johnny Carson and set his sights on a talk show early in his career. After he hosted a short-lived daytime talker in 1980 that allowed him to forge his trademark irreverent style, NBC gave Letterman a new show in 1982 at the 12:30 AM EST slot, right after Carson. Late Night With David Letterman quickly developed a strong following among the young and the hip with such stunts as Stupid Pet Tricks, Top 10 lists, and the Monkey-cam, as well as such personalities as laid-back bandleader Paul Shaffer and the unnerving Larry “Bud” Melman. Letterman’s ultimate goal was to replace Carson. However, NBC went with Jay Leno, fearing Letterman was too edgy for the 11:30 slot. A pissed off Letterman hightailed it off NBC and accepted CBS’s offer for to host a show. In his new home, The Late Show With David Letterman, he continued his Top 10 lists and Stupid Pet Tricks and dropped watermelons off the tops of buildings, donned an Alka-Seltzer suit (in homage to Steve Allen), and had unsettling run-ins with Harvey Pekar. Like Ernie Kovacs, Letterman at his best gives you the feeling of being lucky enough to watch him play with this awesome toy he's been given. And, I know what you’re thinking, “If you’re not a big fan of the talk show, why put one so high?” Because of the impact his show has had. For one, he gave late night some variety. Most people didn’t mind that Carson was the only game in town for 30 years. But, when Leno took over, many cried foul. Letterman gave those Leno haters an option. And then, we got Late Night With Conan O’Brien, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and more. But, most importantly, with The Late Show, Letterman continued to bridge the gap between old-fashioned talk shows and his ironic, smart-alecky style. He sharpened the ironic sense of humor that, far from being easy nihilism, is rooted in a good old-fashioned Midwestern distaste for phonies. David Letterman can be a ham, but he's never canned.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Tomorrow, the countdown will be three-fouths of the way over with 26 and 25. Here are the hints:

Both shows have doctors on them: on one, they heal you physically; on the other, they heal you mentally.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

It is the time for counting down. Here is number 26:

26. ER



Genre: Medical Drama.
Created by: Michael Crichton.
Executive Producer(s): Michael Crichton (1994-present), John Wells (1994-present), Christopher Chulack (1994-present), Jack Orman (1999-2003), Joe Sachs (2000-2008), Lydia Woodward (1994-2005), R. Scott Gemmill (1999-2007), David Zabel (2003-2008), Janine Sherman (2005-2008), Jonathan Kaplan (1999-2005), Robert Nathan (1994-1995), Carol Flint (1996-1999), Dee Johnson (2000-2005), Walon Green (1997-1998), Neal Baer (1996-2000), and Steven Spielberg (1994).
Starring: Noah Wyle (Dr. John Carter 1994-2006), Anthony Edwards (Dr. Mark Greene 1994-2002), Eriq La Salle (Dr. Peter Benton 1994-2002), Julianna Margulies (Nurse Carol Hathaway 1994-2000), George Clooney (Dr. Doug Ross 1994-1999), Sherry Stringfield (Dr. Susan Lewis 1994-1996, 2001-2005), Laura Innes (Dr. Kerry Weaver 1995-2007), Ming-Na (Dr. Jing-Mei Chen 1995-2000), Alex Kingston (Dr. Elizabeth Corday 1997-2004), Paul McCrane (Dr. Robert "Rocket" Romano 1997-2003), Maria Bello (Dr. Anna Del Amico 1997-1998), Kellie Martin (Lucy Knight 1998-2000), Goran Visnjic (Dr. Luka Kovač 1999-present), Maura Tierney (Dr. Abby Lockhart 1999-present), Gloria Reuben (Jeanie Boulet, P.A. 1999-2008), Michael Michele (Dr. Cleo Finch 1999-2002), Erik Palladino (Dr. Dave Malucci 1999-2001), Sharif Atkins (Dr. Michael Gallant 2001-2006), Mekhi Phifer (Dr. Gregory Pratt 2002-present), Parminder Nagra (Dr. Neela Rasgotra 2003-present), Linda Cardellini (Nurse Samantha Taggart 2003-present), Scott Grimes (Dr. Archie Morris 2003-present), Shane West (Dr. Ray Barnett 2004-2007), and John Stamos (Dr. Tony Gates 2005-present).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 14.
Number of Episodes: 309.
Running Time: 60 minutes.
Original Channel: NBC.
Original Run: September 19, 1994 – present.
Spinoffs: None.

Created by Michael Crichton, ER is NBC's second longest-running drama (after Law & Order), and, at 14 seasons, the longest-running American primetime medical drama of all time. It premiered on September 19 1994 and has been aired on Thursday nights at 10:00 for its entire run. On April 2, 2008, NBC announced that the series will return for its 15th and final season, which will run for 19 episodes before the show retires at the end of the February 2009 sweeps. The novel ER was originally slated to be a movie, directed by Steven Spielberg. However, during the early stages of pre-production, Spielberg asked Michael Crichton what his current project was. Crichton said he was working on a novel about dinosaurs and DNA. Spielberg subsequently dropped what he was doing to film this project, which became Jurassic Park. Afterwards, he returned to ER and helped develop the show, serving as a producer on season one and offering advice (he insisted on Julianna Margulies becoming a regular, for example). It was also through Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment that John Wells was contacted to be the show's executive producer. Due to a lack of time and money to build a set, the pilot episode of ER was filmed in the former Linda Vista Community Hospital in Los Angeles, an old facility that ceased operating as a medical center in 1990. A set modeled after Los Angeles County General Hospital's emergency room was built soon after at the Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, California, although the show makes extensive use of location shoots in Chicago, most notably the city's famous "L" train platforms. Michael Crichton wrote the script that became the pilot episode of the show in the early 1970s. It was based on some of his experiences working in an ER. By the time the pilot episode was shot and aired in 1994, it had been 20 years since it was written. On his commentary track, included on the first season DVD set, Crichton says that the script used to shoot the pilot was virtually unchanged from what he had written 20 years earlier. Dr. Lewis was written as a male character, and though producers decided Lewis should be a woman, that change didn't require an adjustment of her dialogue. The producers also decided Dr. Benton would be African-American, though he wasn't written that way. The original script had to be shortened by about 20 minutes in order to air in a two-hour block on network TV. ER is unique in that the series was filmed in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen from the start, even though it did not air in widescreen until the seventh season when it began appearing in the 1080i HD format where NBC was being broadcast digitally. Since the beginning of the seventh season, it has appeared in letterbox format when in standard definition. As a result, every DVD box set shows the widescreen versions of the episodes, even the first six seasons that were not originally broadcast in widescreen. The episodes also appear in 1080i widescreen when rerun on TNT HD, though the first six seasons still show in fullscreen on the normal TNT network. Only the live episode "Ambush" at the beginning of the fourth season, and the opening credits for the first six seasons, are in standard 4:3 aspect. ER has had many memorable episodes, and is particularly notable for broadcasting a live episode, "Ambush," in 1997, with the NBC camera crew disguised as a PBS crew making a documentary film in the hospital. The actors performed the show again three hours later so that the West Coast airing would be live as well. This episode received Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Lighting Direction (Electronic), and won the Emmy for Outstanding Technical Direction/Camera/Video for a Series. Most episodes center on the ER, with almost all scenes at the hospital. There is, however, often at least one scene showing the goings-on of the ER staff outside the hospital. Also, there is a tradition to feature storylines each season completely outside of the ER. One early such instance involved a road trip near Las Vegas, Nevada (Drs. Ross and Greene). Season Eight included a storyline in Hawaii (Drs. Greene and Corday). More recently, the series has included storylines in Democratic Republic of Congo (Drs. Kovac and Carter) and Darfur, Sudan (Drs. Pratt and Carter, with Noah Wyle appearing as a guest in the season following his departure from the show). The original cast of relatively unknown actors consisted of Anthony Edwards, George Clooney, Sherry Stringfield, Noah Wyle, and Eriq La Salle. Julianna Margulies guest starred in the pilot as Nurse Carol Hathaway and then became part of the regular cast. Since the first season, Goran Visnjic, Maura Tierney, Mekhi Phifer, Parminder Nagra, Linda Cardellini, Scott Grimes, John Stamos, Shane West, Laura Innes, Ming-Na, Alex Kingston, Sharif Atkins, Paul McCrane, Michael Michele, Erik Palladino, Kellie Martin, Gloria Reuben, and Maria Bello have been cast members on the show. Many actors, including the entire original cast, have left the show over the years. Some came back or reappeared in guest roles. Sherry Stringfield's first departure on the show was in 1996, when her character, Susan Lewis, moved to Phoenix, Arizona, in the Season 3 episode "Union Station." In 2001, Stringfield returned to the series, reprising her role of Dr. Lewis, in the Season 8 episode "Never Say Never." She departed again in the Season 12 premiere, "Canon City." This second departure was not depicted, but rather mentioned by character Kerry Weaver four episodes later in "Wake Up," when she explains that Susan had accepted a tenure-track position at a hospital in Iowa City, Iowa, after having been denied tenure at County. After playing Anna Del Amico for one season, Maria Bello was simply not a part of the ensemble cast when Season 5 began. Like Susan Lewis's second exit, her character's departure was mentioned but not depicted; in the season premiere, "Day for Knight," Carter explains to new medical student Lucy Knight that the locker she is inheriting used to belong to Anna Del Amico, who is working in a pediatric ER back in Philadelphia, where she has family and a boyfriend. George Clooney left the show in 1999, in the Season 5 episode "The Storm, Part 2," when his character, Doug Ross, quit before being fired by County for his involvement in a patient's death. Clooney made a brief reappearance in the Season 6 episode "Such Sweet Sorrow" when his character reunited with Carol Hathaway. Gloria Reuben departed early in Season 6, in the episode "The Peace of Wild Things," when her character, Jeanie Boulet, decided to become a stay-at-home mom and care for her newly adopted HIV-positive baby. She returned in season 14 for one episode with her HIV positive child. Kellie Martin, who played medical student Lucy Knight, left the series midway through Season 6 in the episode "All In The Family," when her character was killed by a patient suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia; his psychotic break occurred before a backed-up psychiatry department could arrive in the ER for a consult. Julianna Margulies left the show at the end of Season 6, in the episode "Such Sweet Sorrow," when her character, Carol Hathaway, decided on the spur of the moment to go to Seattle, Washington, and reunite with Doug Ross, her true love and the father of her twin daughters. Erik Palladino departed early in Season 8, in the same episode that Sherry Stringfield returned ("Never Say Never") after his character, Dave Malucci, was fired for a mis-diagnosis resulting in avoidable death. Eriq La Salle's character, Peter Benton, departed in the Season 8 episode "I'll Be Home For Christmas". He took a job with a set schedule at another hospital in order to spend more time with his son, Reese, and his girlfriend, former fellow ER doctor Cleo Finch. His character returned two more times that season in episodes "It's All In Your Head" and "On The Beach." Michael Michele's character, Cleo Finch, departed in the Season 8 episode "I'll Be Home For Christmas" with her boyfriend, and fellow doctor, Peter Benton, after having previously taken a job at the same hospital with set schedules (in fact it was she who arranged the interview which resulted in Benton's job offer). Her character returned one more time that season in the episode "On The Beach." Anthony Edwards's character, Mark Greene, died of a brain tumor in Season 8's penultimate episode, "On the Beach." Unusually, Anthony Edwards was credited in the following episode "Lockdown." Paul McCrane's character, Robert Romano, whose arm had been severed just above the elbow by a helicopter's tail rotor in the Season 9 premiere "Chaos Theory," was killed in the Season 10 episode "Freefall" when a helicopter that was taking off from the hospital roof was buffeted by strong winds, causing it to crash on the roof and plummet over the side of the building; it fell into a crowded ambulance bay and landed squarely on Romano. Sharif Atkins left the series twice. The first time was in the Season 10 episode "Where There's Smoke," when his character, Michael Gallant, revealed that the Army was sending him to Iraq. He returned for two episodes in Season 11 and for four episodes in Season 12, where in the episode "The Gallant Hero and The Tragic Victor," he was killed by an improvised explosive device while serving a second tour in Iraq. Alex Kingston's character, Elizabeth Corday, left the series in the Season 11 episode "Fear" after getting in trouble for performing an illegal organ donation procedure; rather than being summarily fired, County offered her a demotion to a non-tenured position, but she turned it down and opted to return to England instead. In an interview with Britain's Radio Times magazine, Kingston spoke of being written off the show due to her age, a statement that sparked some controversy. She later withdrew that claim. Ming-Na left in Season 11 as an attending physician when her character, Jing-Mei Chen, quit the ER in the episode "Twas the Night" in order to take care of her ailing father, whom she later euthanized. This was the second time her character left County General; in Season 1, medical student "Deb" Chen recurred in an eight episode story arc which concluded (apparently not permanently) with her quitting medical school after deciding she was better suited to research than to applied medicine. Noah Wyle left in the Season 11 finale, "The Show Must Go On." His character, John Carter, after having been offered a tenured attending position at County, decided to reunite with his girlfriend Kem Likasu (portrayed by Thandie Newton). During Season 12, Wyle returned as Carter and made guest appearances in four episodes: "Quintessence of Dust," "Darfur," "No Place to Hide," and "There Are No Angels Here." He is reported to make further guest appearances in season 15. Laura Innes left midway through Season 13, in the episode "A House Divided," when a reluctant Luka Kovač was forced by budget cuts to fire her character, Kerry Weaver. After bracing for a battle to keep her position, and in spite of the fact that Kovač realized he must find a way to keep her on staff, Weaver ultimately decided to resign from County and accept a job offer from a television station in Miami, Florida. Shane West left at the end of the 13th season after his character, Ray Barnett lost both his legs and returned to Baton Rouge with his mother to recuperate. West's final appearance as a main cast member was in "The Honeymoon is Over." Goran Visnjic is expected to leave the main cast early in the 15th season. As the 14th season opened, his character, Luka Kovač was in his native Croatia to be with his father, who required surgery for cancer followed by an extended recuperation. His character remained active through dialogue and discussion of the status of his stay in Croatia, including a brief appearance in episode 5. When Kovac returned to the US, Visnjic appeared in episodes 8-10 before his character returned to Croatia for his now-deceased father's funeral. He returned again in episodes 14, 16 and 19 to complete his medical storyline, and is expected to make his final appearances early in Season 15 to wrap up the Kovac/Lockhart story. Maura Tierney will depart early in the 15th season, along with her TV husband Goran Visnjic. It is unclear if the two will depart in the same episode, or which will be her final episode. The show has had many noble guest appearances on the show over the years. These have included have included: Bradley Whitford in 1995, as the husband of a woman who dies at the hands of Dr. Mark Greene in a complicated emergency delivery and files a malpractice suit; Lucy Liu in 1995, as an Asian Immigrant whose son suffers from AIDS; (credited as "Lucy Alexis Liu"); Jorja Fox in 1996-1999, as Dr. Maggie Doyle, a gay resident who eventually tried to bring a sexual harassment lawsuit against Dr. Robert Romano; Sanford Meisner in 1995, as Joseph Klein, a terminally ill patient inadvertently given a reprieve by Dr. John Carter; Marg Helgenberger in 1996, as one of Dr. Doug Ross's many flings; George Eads in 1996, as a paramedic; Kirsten Dunst in 1996-1997, as a troubled teenager; Omar Epps in 1996-1997, as an intern who jumps in front of a train; Ewan McGregor in 1997, as a convenience store gunman; Mariska Hargitay in 1997, as Cynthia Hooper, a desk clerk that Dr. Mark Greene dates; John Cullum in 1997 and 2000, as Dr. Mark Greene's father; Rebecca De Mornay in 1999, as a breast cancer survivor; Emile Hirsch in 1999, as a teenage alcoholic; David Krumholtz in 2000 and 2002, as a schizophrenic who stabs Dr. Lucy Knight and Dr. John Carter, with Liza Weil playing his wife; Shia LaBeouf in 2000, as Darnel Smith, a child with muscular dystrophy; Lea Salonga in 2001, as Amparo, a lymphoma-stricken mother of a young boy who fell while putting up Christmas lights; Jared Padalecki in 2001, as Paul Harris, a car crash survivor; Conchata Ferrell in 2001, as Mrs. Jenkins, the mother of a girl injured in a talkshow brawl; Michael Gross in 2001-2004, as Dr. John Carter's father, John "Jack" Carter, Jr.; Zac Efron in 2002, as Bobby Neville, an injured teen; Ed Asner in 2003, as a thieving clinician; Thandie Newton in 2004, as Kem, Dr. John Carter's love interest from Africa and mother of his stillborn son; Cynthia Nixon in 2005, as a stroke victim; Kristen Johnston in 2005, as Eve Peyton, a zealous nurse manager; John Leguizamo in 2005, as Dr. Victor Clemente, a zealous but troubled attending physician; James Woods in 2006, as an ALS-stricken biochemistry professor; Stanley Tucci in 2007-2008, as Dr. Kevin Moretti, a brilliant ICU doctor turned troubled ER Chief; Reiko Aylesworth in 2007-2008, as Julia Dupree, the hospital chaplin; Kari Matchett in 2007-2008, as Skye Wexler, the Acting Chief of Emergency Medicine; Hal Holbrook in 2008, as Walter Perkins, a hospice patient who inspires Luka to make a difficult life decision; and Steve Buscemi in 2008, as Mr. Masterson, a patient who was secretly in witness protection. A few guest stars have won Emmys for their performances, such as Sally Field in 2001, as Maggie Wyczenski, Abby Lockhart's mother; and Ray Liotta in 2005, as Charlie Metcalf, a regret-ridden, dying alcoholic. And, some guest stars earned Emmy nominations for their performances. These include: Rosemary Clooney in 1995, as "Madame X", an Alzheimer's patient; Alan Alda in 2000, as Dr. Gabriel Lawrence, an Alzheimer's-stricken doctor and one-time teacher of Dr. Kerry Weaver; James Cromwell in 2001, as an ailing Roman Catholic Bishop who coaxes a confession from Dr. Luka Kovač, before dying; Mary McDonnell in 2002, as Eleanor Carter, the mother of Dr. John Carter; Don Cheadle in 2003, as Paul Nathan, a medical student with Parkinson's Disease; Bob Newhart in 2004, as Ben Hollander, an architecture model maker losing his sight; and Forest Whitaker in 2007, as Curtis Ames, a patient filing a lawsuit against Dr. Luka Kovač. ER won the George Foster Peabody Award in 1995. In addition, the series has earned 123 Emmy Award nominations, making it the most Emmy-nominated show in history, as well as 22 Emmy Awards (at least one every year up to and including 2005, except for 2004). It also won the People's Choice Award for "Favorite Television Dramatic Series" every year from 1995 to 2002. Over the years, it has been nominated for and/or won numerous other awards, including Screen Actors Guild Awards, Image Awards, GLAAD Media Awards, and Golden Globe Awards, among others. The show has been released on DVD. The first six DVD box sets of ER are unusual in the fact that they are all in anamorphic widescreen even though these episodes were broadcast in a standard 4:3 format. Only the live episode "Ambush" is not in the widescreen format. All "Previously on ER" segments are removed from each episode. The DVD's are boxes containing 4 discs (either 4 (seasons 1 and 2), with episodes on both sides of the disc, the fourth disc containing all special features) or 6 discs ((seasons 3-up), special features and episodes on one side of each disc only). The first six seasons of the series have also been released in Hong Kong and other markets. Other Region 2 markets have different release dates. In Germany, Season 9 was released on September 7, 2007. Similarly, Season 10 was released to the German market on December 7, 2007.

Like I said, a true mark of a show’s greatness is its ability to last long after much of the original cast has left. Much like Law & Order from yesterday, ER has remain an NBC staple even though the entire original cast has left, with one of them going on to be a big movie star. You know who I’m talking about! The one and only Anthony Edwards! (Seriously, it’s George Clooney.) And, that is one of the reasons the show has lasted so long. After 14 seasons, a round of applause should go to the ever-changing cast and the person in charge of casting (who would have thought Uncle Jesse would fit in perfectly in the show) who have kept this medical juggernaut going. It has struck gold with practically every actor it has chosen to star on the show. For a long while, the soul of the series was Anthony Edwards’s Dr. Mark Greene. Though beset by numerous travail (his wife left him, he was beaten by a thug), Greene retained an inner decency that pervaded the show until one travail finally got him (he died of a brain tumor). George Clooney showed he had big-screen charm and charisma as smooth-operating pediatrician Doug Ross. Julianna Margulies has skillfully evoked Nurse Carol Hathaway’s slow emotional recovery after a suicide attempt. Eriq LaSalle resisted the temptation to turn prickly surgeon Peter Benton into a cuddly curmudgeon. Noah Wyle subtly transformed Dr. John Carter from a naïve medical student into a confident doctor. Gloria Rueben refused to allow HIV-positive P.A. Jeanie Boulet to be portrayed as a pitiful victim. Paul McCrane wonderfully played Dr. Robert Romano as such an asshole he became very popular with fans as the doctor they love to hate. Maura Tierney pretty much gives weekly acting seminars as Dr. Abby Lockhart. You know, I could go on forever; but I’m sure you get the idea. The show has elevated ensemble work to a science. However, it wasn’t just good acting that made ER great. ER took the medical drama and gave it a shot of adrenaline. Not for nothing did one of its resident directors, Mimi Leder, become an action filmmaker (“The Peacemaker,” “Deep Impact”). With stretchers crashing through doorways, blood spurting from wounds, and life-and-death crises from shootings to stabbings and everything in between unfolding, ER usually packs all the excitement of a summer-movie blockbuster. Yet, those aren’t the reasons fans have stayed with the show for so long. That would be because it has so much compassion and intelligence, the two most important qualities of a good doctor.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

25. Frasier



Genre: Sitcom.
Created by: David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee.
Executive Producer(s): Kelsey Grammer, Peter Casey, David Lee, Christopher Lloyd, David Angell, Dan O'Shannon, Linda Morris, Vic Rauseo, Heide Perlman, Bob Daily, Sam Johnson, Lori Kirkland, Chris Marcil, Jon Sherman, Joe Keenan, Jeffrey Richman, Eric Zicklin, Rob Hanning, Jay Kogen, Steven Levitan, and Mark Reisman.
Starring: Kelsey Grammer (Dr. Frasier Crane), David Hyde Pierce (Dr. Niles Crane), John Mahoney (Martin Crane), Jane Leeves (Daphne Moon), Peri Gilpin (Roz Doyle), Moose (Eddie 1993-2003), and Enzo (2003-2004).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 11.
Number of Episodes: 264.
Running Time: 24 minutes.
Original Channel: NBC.
Original Run: September 16, 1993 – May 13, 2004.
Spinoffs: Frasier is a spinoff of Cheers; the character Dr. Frasier Crane appeared on Cheers from 1984 to the end of the series in 1993 and then got his own show that lasted until 2004.

The show was created by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee. It was based on the Cheers character Dr. Frasier Crane (Grammer). Dr. Crane returns to his hometown of Seattle, Washington, following the break up of his marriage and his life in Boston (which was covered in the series Cheers). His plans for his new life as a bachelor are complicated when he is obliged to take in his father, ex-police officer Martin Crane (Mahoney), who had to retire and is unable to live by himself owing to an injury caused by being shot in the line of duty. Frasier and Martin are joined by Daphne Moon (Leeves), Martin's eccentric, British, live-in physical therapist and caretaker, and Martin's dog Eddie (Moose). A frequent visitor to their apartment is Frasier's younger brother Niles (Pierce), a fellow psychiatrist who, like Frasier, is pompous, snobbish, and overly intellectual. Niles' infatuation with and eventual love for Daphne, feelings which he does not confess to her openly until the final episode of the seventh season, form a complex story arc that span the entire series. Frasier hosts a popular radio talk show on KACL 780AM (named to honor the show's creators, Angell, Casey, and Lee). His producer is Roz Doyle (Gilpin), a woman with an active romantic life who, while decidedly different from Frasier in taste and temperament, nevertheless becomes a very close friend over the course of the series. Numerous running jokes and themes develop throughout the series. Chief among them are the class and familial conflicts between Frasier, Niles and Martin. The two sons, who possess "fine" tastes, "intellectual" interests and rather high opinions of themselves, frequently clash with their more blue-collar, down-to-earth father. A running theme, particularly in the early seasons, is Frasier's and Martin's difficulty in reaching an accommodation with each other and in sharing an apartment. Despite being similar in personality, interests and sensibilities, the relationship between Frasier and Niles is no less turbulent. They have an intense sibling rivalry and their jealousy of each other and petty attempts at one-upmanship (which frequently result in chaos) drive many of the plots. Other storylines include Niles' growing love for Daphne (of which she remains unaware in the early seasons, despite its increasingly obvious nature) and the breakdown of his marriage to the never-seen Maris (a take-off from its parent series, Cheers, in which Norm's wife Vera was often talked about, and even heard, but never seen), Frasier's search for love in his own life, and the various attempts of the two brothers to gain acceptance into Seattle's cultural elite. Structurally, many episodes center around misunderstandings or elaborate lies which multiple characters are forced to "play along" with in order to conceal the truth. Frasier also featured many "once-a-year" plot devices, such as an appearance by Frederick, Lilith, or Bebe. Season finales sometimes took the form of a "two part" special that was concluded as the series premiere the following season. The regular cast members include:

Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Frasier Crane. Grammer sang the song heard during the closing credits, "Tossed salad and scrambled eggs", by Bruce Miller and Daryl Phinessee. In the episode "Are You Being Served" it is revealed that Frasier and his brother Niles were named after two lab rats their mother was using in an experiment.

David Hyde Pierce as Dr. Niles Crane. In Season 2's "The Show Where Sam Shows Up", one of the first things Sam Malone says when he first meets Niles is how he looks exactly like Frasier when he first knew him back in Boston. In his previous series, The Powers That Be, Hyde Pierce played a very similar character, a stuffy milquetoast with a mad passion for the maid. In an interview, Hyde Pierce explained that the original concept for the show did not include a brother for Frasier. A casting director for the show saw a photo of him and commented how much he resembled Kelsey Grammer.

John Mahoney as Martin Crane. In a final-season interview, Mahoney said the first offer he received to play Martin Crane consisted of a phone call from Grammer in which he asked, "Will you be my Dad?" However, according to Peter Casey, Mahoney was first approached by Kerry McCluggage, then President of Paramount Television, who knew him from the time they both worked at Universal Studios.

Jane Leeves as Daphne Moon. Leeves used a mixture of different Northern English accents to portray a stereotypical working class Briton. However, this contrasts with her natural accent which is south-eastern English, as Leeves hails from Essex.

Peri Gilpin as Roz Doyle (named in honor of a producer of Wings, which shares show creators with Frasier). The choice of actress was narrowed down to Gilpin and Lisa Kudrow. Kudrow got the role, but was replaced before production began because her characterization was viewed as not being forceful enough to stand up to Frasier.

"Moose" and Moose's son "Enzo" as Eddie, the Jack Russell Terrier. Eddie received more fan mail than any other cast member in Frasier.

Recurring guest stars included:

Dan Butler as Bob 'Bulldog' Briscoe, the obnoxious host of a radio sports show. Butler was made a series regular for seasons 4 and 5, and served as a recurring guest star in other seasons.
Edward Hibbert as Gil Chesterton, food critic at the radio station.

Bebe Neuwirth as Lilith Sternin, Frasier's ex-wife (also on Cheers).

Trevor Einhorn as Frederick Crane, Frasier's son. The character was first played in Season 3 by child actor Luke Tarsitano. The following season, Einhorn took over for the rest of the series. The writers had Frasier say that he missed Frederick in the pilot episode so that the audience wouldn't view him as deserting his son.

Tom McGowan as Kenny Daley, the station manager.

Patrick Kerr as Noel Shempsky, a geeky station employee.

Harriet Sansom Harris as Bebe Glazer, Frasier's amoral agent.

Marsha Mason as Sherry Dempsey, Martin's lady friend.

Saul Rubinek as Donny Douglas, Daphne's fiancé.

Jane Adams as Mel Karnofsky, Niles' girlfriend and (for a few days) wife.

Millicent Martin as Gertrude Moon, Daphne's mother.

Brian Cox as Harry Moon, Daphne's barfly father.

Anthony LaPaglia as Simon Moon, one of Daphne's brothers. Although not noticed by the average American viewer, aside from her mother, none of Daphne’s relatives nor her ex-boyfriend have Manchester accents, despite supposedly being from there. They mostly have Southern English (i.e. London) accents, while her brother Nigel's is Cockney. While three of Daphne's brothers appear in the series finale, none of the actors playing them are English. LaPaglia is from Australia, Richard E. Grant from Swaziland and Robbie Coltrane from Scotland.

Brian Stokes Mitchell as Cam Winston, Frasier's upstairs neighbor and nemesis.

Wendie Malick as Ronee Lawrence, Martin's girlfriend and eventual wife

The series won 37 prime-time Emmys during its 11-year run, breaking the record long held by The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Grammer and Pierce each won four, including one each for the final season. The series holds the record for the most consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series, winning five from 1994 to 1998. Grammer played Frasier for 20 years (1984-2004), tying the James Arness portrayal of Marshall Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke in terms of character longevity in prime-time American television. The record for all of television is held by Helen Wagner, for her portrayal of matriarch Nancy Hughes on the soap opera As the World Turns. Wagner has been playing the role since the show's first episode in 1956. Grammer was briefly the highest-paid television star in history, reaching a salary of $1.6 million per episode for the last two seasons; his record was surpassed by Ray Romano within a year. Grammer has been Emmy-nominated for playing Frasier Crane on Cheers and Frasier, as well as a 1992 crossover appearance on Wings, making him the only performer to be nominated for playing the same role on three different series. 2003 was the first year that Grammer didn't receive an Emmy nomination for this series. David Hyde Pierce's streak remains unbroken. In a retrospective review in The Radio Times Guide to Television Comedy, Mark Lewisohn called the show a "comedy masterpiece", saying that the writing was adult and sophisticated. Frasier was voted as the greatest sitcom of all time in the Channel 4 show The Ultimate Sitcom, broadcast on January 2, 2006. The season 4 episode "Head Game" only featured Frasier for the first few minutes, with the rest of the episode revolving around Niles. This role was written for Frasier, but Grammer was being treated for his addiction problems, so it was re-written for Niles instead. This is also the reason why Niles fills in for Frasier on his radio show, because the show is integral to the plot. During season 8, Jane Leeves' pregnancy was disguised by a storyline involving a severe over-eating disorder; later, her pregnancy leave was accounted for by having Daphne go to a health spa to cope with her weight problem. Daphne lost 9 lbs 12 oz (4.4 kg) at the spa, an inside joke referencing the birth weight of Leeves' daughter, Isabella. In conjunction with the final double bill of Frasier in Season 11, an extra special episode/program entitled "Analyzing the Laughter" was aired. The plotline was that Frasier meets with an analyst for a review of his life (effectively the past 11 seasons of Frasier plus brief look at Frasier in Cheers). He discusses his background, his relationships with his family and friends and the major events that have transpired in his life over the past year. The show is simply a collection of flashbacks of past classic scenes from the history of the series, and so is more a thinly disguised walk down memory lane for avid fans' nostalgia. This special was shown two days in advance in the US to the airing of the double-bill finale, but on the same night in the UK for the same respective double-bill finale. The show is set in Seattle, Washington, but only one episode, "The 1000th Show", was filmed there. The remainder was filmed on Stage 25 (location), Paramount Studios, and at various locations in and around Los Angeles. No building or apartment in Seattle really has the view from Frasier's residence. It was created so the Space Needle would appear more prominently. According to the Season 1 DVD bonus features, the photograph used on the set was taken from atop a cliff, possibly the ledge at Kerry Park, a frequent photography location. Only once was there an exterior shot facing Frasier's apartment building, in Season 4 episode "The Impossible Dream." The radio station callers' lines were spoken by anonymous voice-over actors while filming the show in front of a live audience. This gave the cast something to which they could react. During post-production, the lines were replaced by celebrities, who literally phoned in their parts without having to come into the studio. The end credits of season finales would show headshots of all the celebrities who had "called in" that season. Because it is a spinoff of Cheers, there have been many connections between both shows:

Every regular cast member of Cheers appeared in at least one episode, except for Kirstie Alley (Rebecca Howe) and Nicholas Colasanto (Coach). Alley refused to appear in a show which showed psychiatry in a positive light, while Colasanto died in 1985.

Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) was the lone character of Cheers, other than Grammer, to become a consistent recurring character on Frasier.

Kelsey Grammer has said that "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" is one of his favorite episodes. On Cheers, Shelley Long did not like the Frasier character and lobbied hard to get Grammer removed from the show. The producers disagreed, noting that the audience liked him. When Long's character, Diane Chambers, appeared on this show, Grammer said it was an opportunity for them to make peace. Apart from this episode, Long played Diane Chambers in two other episodes. The first was a brief surprise cameo in a 1994 episode, and once again in the 2001 season premiere, both times as figments of Frasier's imagination.

John Mahoney appeared in an episode of Cheers, as Si Phlembeck, an over-the-hill advertising executive hired by Rebecca to write a jingle for the bar. Grammer and Mahoney shared a few lines. The plot of an episode of Frasier is somewhat similar to the Cheers episode.

In the eighth season Cheers episode "Two Girls for Every Boyd", Frasier tells Sam Malone (Ted Danson) that his father, a research scientist, had died. In the Season 2 episode "The One Where Sam Shows Up", when Sam meets Martin, he brings up the discrepancies. Frasier explains it away by saying he had just had a fight with his father on the phone and he was very angry with him at the time. In "The One Where Woody Shows Up", Woody Boyd upon meeting Martin says he remembers hearing about him - probably from Sam talking about his experiences in Seattle when he returned to Boston.

Robert Prosky played the father of Cheers regular Rebecca. He appeared in Season 4 as a J.D. Salinger-like writer who strikes up a friendship with Martin.

Peri Gilpin was in a Cheers episode titled "Woody Gets an Election", playing a reporter who interviews Woody when he runs for office.

Niles' wife Maris is never seen (at least her face) or heard from. The same device was used for Vera, Norm Petersen's wife in Cheers. This method is used again when Martin meets the woman he has been watching from across the street via his telescope, and for Senator Adler when he arrived at Frasier's apartment.

After Cheers had finished filming, the bar was taken down and the sets for this show were built over it. The producers made certain there were no stools in the coffee shop to distance it visually from the Cheers bar.

Frasier's mother, who in Frasier is always remembered as a sensitive, intelligent woman and a wonderful mother, appears in an episode of "Cheers" (played by Nancy Marchand) when she threatens to kill Diane Chambers with a gun she has with her if the relationship with Frasier is not ended immediately. She was portrayed in a 2001 episode (on Martin's old cine movies) by Rita Wilson, who reprised the role during Frasier's imaginary experiences with the important women in his life. In this case, she was once again portrayed as threatening toward Diane (and Lilith), citing her reasons as concern for Frasier's happiness.

In the eighth season The Simpsons episode "Brother from Another Series", David Hyde Pierce guest stars as Cecil Terwilliger, brother of Sideshow Bob, a recurring over-cultured villain voiced by Kelsey Grammer. The episode also alludes to Niles' wife, Maris Crane (when Bart jumps on Cecil's back and shouts "Guess who!", Cecil guesses "Maris?") and makes use of subtitle slides Frasier employs. Sideshow Bob and his brother Cecil Terwilliger reappeared in an episode of The Simpsons, entitled "Funeral For A Fiend", with Grammer and Hyde Pierce reprising their respective roles and John Mahoney as their father. The cast (minus Kelsey Grammer) performed a "mock-audition" of Star Trek: Voyager during the Star Trek 30 Years and Beyond primetime special on October 6, 1996, alongside Kate Mulgrew as Voyager character Captain Janeway. Grammer had previously played Captain Morgan Bateson in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect", but had to bow out after being admitted to rehabilitation in 1996. (Grammer was originally to play the role of the ship's captain.) The primetime special was hosted by Ted Danson, who played Sam Malone on Cheers. Mulgrew also has a connection to Cheers, having played Sam's love interest in three episodes. Though not appearing in the skit, fellow Frasier semi-regulars Bebe Neuwirth, Patrick Kerr (Noel Shempsky), and Dan Butler (Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe) have also guested on various Star Trek series over the years. In addition, multiple noteworthy Star Trek alumni, including Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, have made guest appearances during the series' eleven-year run. Many Frasier episodes also include references to Star Trek. The character of Frasier appears in an episode of Wings (which is set in Nantucket, and has had other Cheers regulars as guest stars). CBS Home Entertainment has released seasons 1-11 on Region 1 DVD. A 44-disc package containing the entire 11 seasons has also been released. The first four seasons have been released on VHS along with a series of 'Best Of' tapes. These tapes consist of four episodes taken from seasons 1-4. No more video releases have been announced. One Frasier CD has been released featuring a number of songs taken from the show: Tossed Salads & Scrambled Eggs.

No matter that The George Wendt Show, The Tortellis, and Ink all tanked. Never mind that psychiatrist Frasier Crane had told his beloved Cheers chums that his parents were both research scientists, that his father was dead, and that he was an only child. When Frasier debuted on NBC in 1993, all was forgiven. Critics and viewers immediately accepted the show’s premise and characters as if they were old friends. And, the show’s creators made a brilliant move to assure its success: instead of doing the usual “two total opposites fighting between each other” foil that had been done to death for decades before Frasier, the show’s creators gave the prissy Frasier an even prissier foil in the person of younger brother and Jungian to Frasier’s Freudian Dr. Niles Crane. They were very similar yet still didn’t get a long and had a fraternal rivalry that echoed the interplay between Frasier and his two main loves on Cheers: Diane and Lilith. It worked because, in all three cases, an overeducated, pompous bore became startlingly human by comparison; and there is that old scientific rule: opposites attract; similars repel. And, lets be honest, whenever two people who are very much alike get together, there can be a lot of friction between the two. That said, actors Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce took brotherly love to heights never seen before in sitcom land. With every muttered bon mot and withering glare, you can see these guys as adolescents, trying to top each other at the science fair. And, their attempts to outdo each other as they rise in Seattle’s social elite were quite hilarious. The show was also unique for being so smart, with its scripts being the medium’s most literate. And the rest of the cast was a glory: from John Mahoney’s gruff dad Martin, to Peri Gilpin’s seen-it-all Roz, and Jane Leeves’s properly sultry Daphne. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Niles’s long hidden infatuation of the woman (he once said of her to Frasier, “Oh, why couldn’t you have just hired some beefy, Eastern European scrubwoman who reeked of ammonia instead of Venus herself!?”) that eventually led to a wonderful romance between the two. And, there was that dog Eddie, who was such a natural that he ended up becoming the most popular character on the show, receiving more fan mail than the human cast members. But, in the end, it was Grammer and Pierce who made Frasier one for the ages, reminding us that elitism has its roots in insecurity and that wine lists are useless unless you can browbeat somebody, preferably family, with them.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Tomorrow, numbers 24 and 23. Here are the hints:

I am not a number — I am a free man!, and what billows out of a fired weapon.

[spmkillie]

Good to see 6 feet under and frasier so high...

not sure wether to be worried or hopeful at the fact red dwarf aint been up yet

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Countdown time, people. Here's number 24:

24. The Prisoner



Genre: Science fiction, Allegory
Created by: Patrick McGoohan and George Markstein.
Executive Producer(s): Patrick McGoohan.
Starring: Patrick McGoohan (Number Six), George Markstein (Man behind desk in title sequence), John Castle (Number Twelve), Hilary Dwyer (Number Seventy-Three), John Maxim (Number Eighty Six), Mark Eden (Number 100), Annette Andre (Camilla Wells), Angelo Muscat (The Butler), Peter Swanwick (Supervisor), Earl Cameron (Supervisor), Christopher Benjamin (Labour Exchange Manager), Michael Miller (Man in Buggy), Alexis Kanner (Chief's voice), Fenella Fielding (Loud Speaker Announcer), Kenneth Griffith (Schnipps), Georgina Cookson (Blonde Lady), Harold Berens (Boxing M.C.), John Cazabon (Man in Cave), Bee Duffell (2nd Psychiatrist), Larry Taylor (Gypsy Man), Grace Arnold (Maid), Denis Shaw (Shopkeeper), Max Faulkner (First Horseman), Gerry Crampton (1st Guardian 2 episodes), Peter Brace (1st Guardian 2 episodes), Jack Cooper (1st Guardian 2 episodes), Michael Danvers-Walker (First New Man), Patsy Smart (Night Maid), Bill Cummings (Henchman), Lucy Griffiths (Lady in Corridor), George Leech (4th Guardian), Frederick Piper (Ex-Admiral), Sheila Allen (Number Fourteen), Michael Bilton (M.C. Councillor), Peter Bowles (A), James Bree (Villiers), Dennis Chinnery (Gunther), George Coulouris (Man With The Stick), Paul Eddington (Cobb), Jon Laurimore (Ernst), Charles Lloyd Pack (Artist), Justine Lord (Sonia), Victor Maddern (Bandmaster), Aubrey Morris (Town Crier), George Pravda (Doctor), Keith Pyott (Waiter), Donald Sinden (The Colonel), Nigel Stock (The Colonel, Number Six, Seltzman), Kevin Stoney (Colonel J.), Wanda Ventham (Computer Attendant), and George Baker, David Bauer, Patrick Cargill, Georgina Cookson, Guy Doleman, Clifford Evans, Colin Gordon, Kenneth Griffith, Leo McKern, Mary Morris, Derren Nesbitt, Eric Portman, Robert Rietty (voice), Anton Rodgers, John Sharpe, and Peter Wyngarde all played the character Number Two in at least one episode.
Country of Origin: United Kingdom.
Number of Seasons: 1.
Number of Episodes: 17.
Running Time: 50 minutes.
Original Channel: ITV (U.K.), CBS (U.S.A.).
Original Run: October 1, 1967 ¨C February 4, 1968
Spinoffs: None on TV, but the show has inspired several novels and comic books.

The show was, in part, inspired by Patrick McGoohan's reaction to the surreal appearance of the Welsh resort Hotel Portmeirion, where location filming for three episodes of the first Danger Man TV series had taken place. In a 1977 interview, McGoohan stated that "I thought it was an extraordinary place, architecturally and atmosphere-wise, and should be used for something and that was two years before the concept came to me." Another factor behind the series was the response of George Markstein to McGoohan's complaining that the revival of Danger Man, on which Markstein was script editor, was becoming stale and uninteresting to him. Markstein remembered that during World War II some people were incarcerated in a resort-like prison. He suggested that the hero of Danger Man, John Drake, could suddenly resign, and find himself kidnapped and sent to such a location. Drake would have to identify his captors, without giving them any information, and escape.

McGoohan: "It was a place that is trying to destroy the individual by every means possible; trying to break his spirit, so that he accepts that he is ¡í6 and will live there happily as ¡í6 for ever after. And this is the one rebel that they can't break."

Many critics and TV historians agree that another inspiration was an episode of Danger Man, entitled "Colony Three," first aired in 1964. In this episode, McGoohan's character, John Drake, infiltrates a spy school in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The place is based in the middle of nowhere and is made up of many British nationals who, by will or by force, are made to help train potential spies. The instructors themselves are virtual prisoners who have little or no hope of ever leaving, and some have settled in quite willingly. Drake manages to leave eventually (having made arrangements for extraction before entering). McGoohan grafted this onto the material he had developed in the intervening years and pitched it to Lew Grade of ITC Entertainment. (McGoohan invariably denies The Prisoner and John Drake are the same character. Producer Ralph Smart who created and owned the John Drake character has never received credit or payment.):

I'd made 54 of those [sic¡ªthere were thirty-nine half-hour episodes and forty-seven hour long segments of Danger Man] and I thought that was an adequate amount. So I went to the gentleman, Lew Grade, who was the financier, and said that I'd like to cease making Secret Agent and do something else. So he didn't like that idea. He'd prefer that I'd gone on forever doing it. But anyway, I said I was going to quit.
So I prepared it and went in to see Lew Grade. I had photographs of the Village¡­ So I talked for ten minutes and he stopped me and said, 'I don't understand one word you're talking about, but how much is it going to be?'¡­ I told him how much and he says, 'When can you start?' I said 'Monday, on scripts.' And he says, 'The money'll be in your company's account on Monday morning.'

Grade bought the show and it was produced for broadcast on ITV and overseas. For the script writers McGoohan wrote a forty-page document on the setting, a "¡­history of the Village, the sort of telephones they used, the sewerage system, what they ate, the transport, the boundaries, a description of the Village, every aspect of it¡­" He also wrote and directed several episodes, often under various pseudonyms. Specifically, he wrote "Free for All" as Paddy Fitz (Paddy being the Irish diminutive for Patrick and Fitzgerald being his mother's maiden name) and directed "Many Happy Returns" and "A Change of Mind" as Joseph Serf. He wrote and directed the last two episodes, "Once Upon a Time" and "Fall Out," and directed the aforementioned "Free for All" under his own name, though he had considered putting "Archibald Schwartz" on the script of "Once Upon a Time." The premise of the show follows Number Six. Number Six, played by McGoohan, is apparently a former secret agent of the British government during the Cold War. He is never identified by name and the exact nature of his job is never explicitly indicated, though numerous episodes provide clues. After resigning his position, he is kidnapped and held prisoner in a small, isolated, eccentric seaside resort town known only as the Village. The authorities (whose identity and allegiance are never made clear) in control of the Village call him Number Six and attempt to find out, "by hook or by crook," why he resigned. In "Arrival", Number Two states that he believes Number Six's resignation was a matter of principle, but that he was charged with performing "a double check." Throughout the series, Number Six attempts to escape while defying all attempts to break his will. He also tries to discover for which "side" his captors work and the identity of the mysterious "Number One," who presumably runs the Village. Number Six typically wears a black jacket with white piping trim, a dark blue mock-turtleneck shirt, tan slacks, dark blue boating shoes with white soles, and forsakes his "6" ID badge. There were at least two dark jackets, with slight differences in the white piping. Little is known about Number Six's background other than that he fought in a war and was born on March 19, 1928 (which is also McGoohan's birthday). The flashback setup in "Once Upon a Time" suggests that Number Six was a bomber crewman, most likely with RAF Bomber Command. His seated position relative to the pilot (portrayed in illusion by Number Two) indicates that he was a bombardier/navigator. In the episode Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling the prisoner, in another man's body, reveals that he was at one point engaged to the daughter of one of his superiors. It is not known whether the proposed marriage ever took place but fans have speculated that it did not due to the lack of "The Lover" in the Seven Ages Of Man sequence in ¡°Once Upon a Time.¡± He refuses to cooperate, despite constant efforts by Number Two to get information from him. Number Six initially spends his energy seeking ways to escape, and later in the series turns his attention to finding out more about the Village and its unseen rulers. His attempts are easily rebuffed; however, their efforts to extract information necessitate increasingly drastic measures through the course of the series. The later episodes feature fewer escape bids and more psychological themes such as the nature of power and authority, and their relationship with liberty. His cunning and defiance only increase while in captivity: in "Hammer Into Anvil" he reduces Number Two to a mad, paranoid wreck through deception. As the Number Twos become more coercive and desperate, Number Six's behaviour becomes progressively sharp, uncompromising, and eccentric. Patrick McGoohan has been quoted as saying he chose '6' because it is the only number that becomes another number when turned upside down. Number Six always assumed that someone designated "Number One" was in charge of the Village, but only twice do any of the Village's visible authorities directly acknowledge the existence of such a person. In the final scene of "Once Upon a Time", Number Six, having trounced Number Two, is asked by the Supervisor, "What do you desire?" When Six answers, "Number One," the Supervisor responds, "I'll take you." At the end of "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling," the character of the Colonel implores of Number Two, "You must contact Number One and tell him I did my duty." It is unclear if the Colonel is simply assuming that Number Two's superior is Number One or if he has actually met Number One. The Colonel is certainly not part of the Village's usual operating staff and does not have a number himself. Perhaps significantly, Number Six does not appear to hear his statement. In the final episode, Number One initially appears as a hooded figure. When confronted by The Prisoner, he is wearing a mask of an ape, but when this mask is removed, the face of Number Six himself is revealed. Number One then climbs up a ladder and seals a hatch behind him, laughing madly all the while. A clear, direct statement regarding Number One is never forthcoming even when it is the subject of discussion in the series, with Number Two in "The Chimes of Big Ben" declaring, "It doesn't matter who Number One is." In "Free For All", when The Prisoner and Number Two are discussing the consequences of being elected Number Two, the older man states, "Number One will no longer be a mystery to you, if you know what I mean." Both statements may be conceding the existence of an actual Number One, or may simply refer to Number Six's desire to meet Number One. It is also possible that Number One is, like The General, not a human being. In their official functions, Number Two and the Village operations staff even avoid referring to Number One by title. Some have interpreted this as indicating that there actually is no "Number One" in the personal sense, much like the non-existent Big Brother in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is evident, however, that there is someone who certainly seems to give direct orders to Number Two, because in several episodes, Number Two appears intimidated by telephone calls from a person addressed only as "Sir." According to co-creator George Markstein, "Number One is the villain in charge." In a 1970s television interview with British television presenter Mike Smith, Patrick McGoohan stated: "The reason that it was confusing, and that [the viewers] were disappointed, I think, was that they expected the ending to be similar to a 'Bond' thing, with this mystery man, the head man or whatever they call him in Bond; and of course it wasn't about that at all. It was about the most evil human "being", human "essence"; and that is ourselves, because within each of us, that is the most dangerous thing on Earth, is what is within us. And so therefore that's what I made No. 1: One's 'self', an image of himself that he was trying to beat." McGoohan planted clues to this throughout the series, including the Prisoner's residence in London bearing the numeral "1" on the door, and that the phrasing of No. 2's response to the Prisoner's question, "Who is No. 1?" can be taken either as a non-response - "You are No. 6." - or as an answer - "You are, No. 6." The Village is openly administered by an official designated as "Number Two". The person assigned to the position is changed on a regular basis. There are two Number Twos with repeat appearances: Leo McKern appeared in three episodes, and Colin Gordon in two. With the exception of "Fall Out", this was the result of the actors performing their roles in two consecutive episodes filmed back to back. Colin Gordon was filmed in "The General" followed immediately with "A. B. and C." McKern was featured in the series' second transmitted episode, "The Chimes of Big Ben," and then featured in the next production episode to be filmed "Once Upon a Time." Three actors who portray Number Twos also appear in other episodes, possibly as different characters, Georgina Cookson (A. B. and C. as party guest and Many Happy Returns as Mrs Butterworth/No. 2), Kenneth Griffith (The Girl Who Was Death as Schnipps/No. 2 and Fall Out as The Judge) and Patrick Cargill (Many Happy Returns as Thorpe, and Hammer Into Anvil as No. 2), although this is ambiguous, particularly in the case of Kenneth Griffith's character. The various Number Twos seem to make use of several symbols of their authority. One of the most striking is the Seal, a large golden medallion, somewhat in the style of a mayoral chain, with the penny-farthing logo and the official title "Chief Administrator". This is only seen in one episode, "It's Your Funeral". The two more visible signs are a multicolored scarf and a colorful umbrella stick (used as a cane). Most, though not all, of the Number Twos seem to use these symbolic objects. Throughout the series, the various Number Twos try to break Number Six with their will. A variety of interrogation, intimidation, drugs, and mind control techniques are used by sequential Number Twos. Number Six's importance usually prevents the use of brutal methods, routinely employed on other prisoners, against him (this policy was ignored by the female Number Two at the end of "Free For All"). The first episode, "Arrival", established that the people holding the position of Number Two were rotated on a regular basis. Some fans have interpreted the removal of a Number Two exclusively as a punishment for failure, but there were only two individuals who actually fit this categorization. The episode "Free for All" initially suggests that Number Twos are "democratically elected by the people." However, this was ultimately revealed to have been part of the attempt used by the Number Two(s) of that episode to break Number Six. One of these Number Twos was recalled to the Village as the final Number Two (as played by McKern). This Number Two appears to be known at the highest levels of government, since in the final episode, "Fall Out", McKern's character arrives at the Palace of Westminster and is immediately admitted; presumably this is intended to signify his entry (or return) into the administrative or political 'mainstream'. It has also been noted that the character uses the Peers' Entrance, and thus might be a Member of House of Lords, with a title either inherited through birth or received from the Crown. An alternative interpretation is that the Palace of Westminster is a symbol of openness and democracy, in contrast to the themes of secrecy, totalitarianism and the suppression of the individual. The series features striking and often surreal storylines, and themes include hypnosis, hallucinogenic drug experiences, identity theft, mind control, dream manipulation, and various forms of social indoctrination. In a 1977 interview McGoohan said: "I thought the concept of the thing would sustain for only seven, but then Lew Grade wanted to make his sale to CBS, I believe (first ran it in the States) and he said he couldn't make a deal unless he had more, and he wanted 26, and I couldn't conceive of 26 stories, because it would be spreading it very thin, but we did manage, over a week-end, with my writers, to cook up ten more outlines, and eventually we did 17, but it should be seven¡­" There is debate as to whether the series ended by mutual agreement or cancellation. According to The Prisoner: The Official Companion to the Classic TV Series by Robert Fairclough, the series was indeed cancelled, forcing McGoohan to write the concluding episode "Fall Out" in only a few days. In the 1977 interview McGoohan contradicts this: "¡­it got very close to the last episode and I hadn't written it yet. And I had to sit down this terrible day and write the last episode¡­" The opening main series title sequence (seen in all but two episodes, but it has several extra shots scattered throughout in the opening installment, "Arrival") begins with a visual of a clouded sky and the sound of thunder, the latter becoming that of a jet plane engine. As the theme music begins, the view pans down to reveal an angry man, the future Number Six , driving in his Lotus Seven, registration number KAR 120C, past the Houses of Parliament in London, into an underground car park. He is then seen striding forcefully down a corridor which seems to end in the office of a superior. The man mounts a fierce (but inaudible) argument before this superior, delivers an envelope marked "Private ¡ª Personal ¡ª By Hand" (presumably his resignation), and smashes his fist onto the desk, knocking a teacup out of its saucer and spilling its contents (coffee or tea) onto the desk. He then drives home. A hearse follows him, registration number TLH 858. Returning to his flat at No. 1 Buckingham Place, London, SW1E, he quickly packs his possessions, including photographs of a tropical white sand beach (possibly a clue to his intended destination). The hearse pulls up and a tall pallbearer approaches the front door. A white gas then floods the room through the keyhole, which renders our hero unconscious. He awakens in what appears to be his apartment, but is in fact a recreation of his home in the Village, where the decor and the residents' clothes are of brightly colored and peculiarly nautical style. The following dialogue exchange runs over the opening titles (that is, the title of the episode, guest star lists, and credits for line producer, writer, and director) of most episodes. It is not heard in "Arrival", as it is a condensation of much of what that first episode establishes, "Living In Harmony" or "Fall Out" as none of the standard opening is present, or "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling", for no known reason. The questioner is Number Six and the respondent is Number Two, the Village chairperson, a role occupied by a different man or woman in almost every episode (as indicated by the reference to the "new Number Two"):

"Where am I?"
"In the Village."
"What do you want?"
"Information."
"Whose side are you on?"
"That would be telling¡­. We want information. Information! INFORMATION!"
"You won't get it."
"By hook or by crook, we will."
"Who are you?"
"The new Number Two." (This occasionally varies ¡ª see below.)
"Who is Number One?"
"You are Number Six."
"I am not a number ¡ª I am a free man!"
(Laughter from Number Two.)

In most cases, the voice of Number Two in the above exchange is provided by the actor playing the character in that particular episode. In a few episodes, Number Two is not shown at all in order to not spoil the surprise as to the true identity of the character (such as the episodes "Many Happy Returns" and "The Girl Who Was Death") -- in these episodes a different voice (specifically that of Robert Rietty) is used without the image of the actor playing the role being shown. In "Checkmate", while Peter Wyngarde plays Number Two and is seen here, his first several lines of this are actually spoken by Colin Gordon, presumably lifted from one of his two episodes in the role. In a couple of intros, Number Two says simply, "I am Number Two". This was used on "A. B. and C.", originally intended to be screened after "The General", which featured Colin Gordon as the character for the second time ¡ª therefore, he was not the new Number Two. It is worth noting that in one episode, the opening response from Number Two has an odd pause in his delivery. Number Six questions, "Who is Number One?" Number Two replies with an inset pause, "You are¡­Number Six." At the close of each episode (except, arguably significantly, for the finale), the face of The Prisoner rises up from a bird's-eye view of the Village (both clearly still photographs), advancing toward the camera until it all but fills the screen, but is stopped at the last second by clanging bars that slam shut, serving as the episode's tag, just before the closing credits. (According to The Prisoner: The Complete Scripts Volume 1, this sequence is all that remains of a rejected, early realization of the series' opening credits.) The closing credits appear over a slowly assembling drawing of the penny-farthing bicycle, the logo of the Village. After the bicycle is fully assembled, footage of Rover, the large white balloon-like device that chases and pacifies or kills would-be escapees (see below), rising through water and bursting above the surface is shown, and Rover then bounces into the distance. In the originally planned version of the closing credits, seen in the alternate version of "The Chimes of Big Ben," Rover is not shown. Instead, the image of the bicycle frame fades out to leave only the wheels. The wheels then begin to spin faster and faster transforming into the Earth (little wheel) and the Universe (big wheel). The camera then zooms in towards the Earth which explodes into the word "POP". (This is an acronym for "Protect Other People" which is referenced in the episode "Once Upon a Time," and also in the show's occasional use of the song "Pop Goes the Weasel" in the soundtrack.) In the transmission prints, there is no consistency as to when the cut to replace these graphics with the clip of Rover occurs. In a couple of episodes, the last piece of the bicycle has yet to appear, and in another, its entire framework has faded away from the wheels. The finale, "Fall Out", presents a further variation, i.e., the complete bicycle maintains its visual presence during the closing strains of the theme, instead of being replaced by either the cosmic animation or the live-action footage of the balloon. The prisoner Number Six is imprisoned on is an island known as The Village. The location of The Village is unknown. In "Many Happy Returns", its location is estimated to be somewhere near the "coast of Morocco, southwest of Portugal and Spain." Number Six (after a brief escape) works out the locus with old colleagues using navigation notes and maps and, upon searching this area from an airplane, finds it ¡ª which suggests this estimate may be correct. On the other hand, definite subterfuge by his captors, including substitution of the airplane pilot, strains credibility of anything beyond placement of the Village on a small island within the craft's range from Gibraltar. Then, again, given the demonstrated capabilities of Number Six's adversaries, even this locus may not necessarily be accurate (e.g., arguably the Prisoner might have been placed in enforced sleep and carried to an exact duplicate location). In another episode, "The Chimes of Big Ben," Lithuania, on the Baltic coast "30 miles from the Polish border," is stated although again the denouement leaves this a deception. In the unbroadcast version of the episode "The Chimes of Big Ben", Number Six constructs a device that allows him to work out the Village's location; this scene was cut presumably to remove the reference to navigation by stars which would have allowed an estimation of the Village's region, at the least. This episode is not considered part of the series canon. The final episode, "Fall Out", while it never reveals the Village's exact location, strongly suggests that it is within a single tank of fuel's driving distance of London, and shows a sign for a road which is in Kent. Neither does the finale give a suggestion of ferry travel, not to mention the Channel Tunnel from France was still decades away from completion. The Village has a logo in the form of a canopied penny-farthing bicycle which appears on almost everything, including the daily newspaper called the Tally Ho. The place is under the control of Number Two (see below). "Work units" or "credits" serve as currency in its shops, and are kept track of with a hole-punched credit card. Throughout the Village, music plays in the background, nearly all of it alternating between rousing marching band music and lullabies, periodically interrupted by public announcements. The media and signage consistently incorporate sailing and resort themes. The exact size of the environs of the Village is never established on screen. Besides the townsite, which is known to include a hospital building, there are forested, mountainous and coastal areas. The Village is large enough that one episode ("Living in Harmony") established that an entire Old West town was built somewhere in the vicinity. In "Arrival" (and other episodes) Number Six views the Village from the air, yet is apparently unable to spot any surrounding towns or cities. In other episodes (depending upon the camera angle), buildings can clearly be seen on the far side of the bay. Nevertheless, all maps of the Village seen in the series display little beyond the central townsite. Scenes of the Village were filmed in the grounds of Clough Williams-Ellis' Italianate Hotel Portmeirion, a resort near Penrhyndeudraeth in North Wales. Principal location shooting took place over four weeks in September 1966, with a return visit for additional, second unit-style shots for later episodes in March 1967. Sections of the resort (such as Number 6's residence interior with exterior) were replicated at MGM Borehamwood Studios in England. Later episodes were shot almost entirely on the sets on MGM's sound stages and backlot and locations within easy reach of the studio at Borehamwood, (e.g., in "It's Your Funeral", "A Change of Mind", "Living in Harmony", and "The Girl Who Was Death"), and by reusing Portmeirion footage from earlier episodes the production company was able to save a great deal of money that further principal photography at Portmeirion would have cost. An underground control centre monitors closed-circuit television cameras located throughout the Village. Regular observers continually spy on Villagers and foil Number Six's escape attempts with the aid of Rover, a large white balloon-like device that chases and pacifies or kills (suffocates) would-be escapees. Rover was originally intended to be a robotic machine, resembling a Dalek from Doctor Who, but when the prototype was found to be unusable during the first few days of location shooting, the crew (this is usually attributed to Patrick McGoohan himself) noticed a weather balloon in the sky and used this out of inspiration. One book on the series, The Official Prisoner Companion by Matthew White and Jaffer Ali (Warner Books, 1988), reported that research had cast some doubt on this story. It had been proven, they wrote, that there had never been an appropriate installation located anywhere that could have launched weather balloons to be seen over Portmeirion (official production history having filming beginning with the big location shoot there, although some London-based scenes for the opening credit sequence had been filmed the week before). The authors further stated that at the time of their writing, twenty years after the event (1966), no direct evidence proving that the original Rover had ever been built was known to exist. However, in the mid 1990s, TV historian Steven Ricks located home-movie footage taken in 1966 which showed that the original version of Rover had existed, and had been taken to Portmeirion; the device seen there did broadly fit the descriptions, being a domed shell (with a flashing blue light on top) fitted over a go-kart chassis and completely hiding the driver. This footage has been included as an extra in the 2001 Australian DVD release of the series by Umbrella Entertainment. This original Rover is shown in front of the Portmeirion Hotel, apparently being prepared for use in the scenes following Number Six and Number Two's Alouette helicopter (registration F-RMKZ) ride in "Arrival", which were originally scripted to be filmed in this part of the Village. Its failure, a combination of the driver being unable to see, fumes from the engine, and the inability of the small-diameter wheels to cope with the rough terrain of Portmeirion's steep cobbled streets, led to the filming of this scene being re-scheduled for a later date, by which time Guy Doleman had left Portmeirion and his part as Number Two (in the scene as finally shot in Portmeirion's Piazza) was played by an extra, his face concealed by a megaphone, with close-ups of Doleman filmed in the studios at Borehamwood. Despite White and Ali's claims, at the time of filming RAF Llanbedr, about six miles south west of Portmeirion, was still active and used weather balloons for meteorological monitoring. Said McGoohan in 1977:

¡­the first day of shooting, Rover was supposed to go down off the beach into the water, do a couple of signals and a couple of wheelspins and come back up. But it went down into the water and stayed down, permanently. And then we had to shoot. We had Rover in every scene that day. So we had no Rover and Rover didn't look as though he was going to be resurrected at all. So we're standing there. My Production Manager, Bernard Williams (wonderful fellow), standing beside me, and he says, 'What're we gonna do?' And he went like that and he looked up and there was this balloon in the sky. And he says, 'What's that?' And I said, 'I dunno. What is it?' He says, 'I think it's a meteorological balloon.' And he looked at me. And I said, 'How many can ya get within two hours?', ya see. So he says, 'I'll see.' And he went off and he called the meteorological station nearby. And I did some other shots to cover while he was away and he came back with a hundred of 'em. He took an ambulance so that he could get there and back fast because it was quite a ways to the nearest big town. And he came back with them and there were these funny balloons, all sizes, and that's how Rover came to be. And sometimes we filled it with a little water, sometimes with oxygen, sometimes with helium, depending on what we wanted him to do. And in the end, we could make him do anything: lie down, beg, anything¡­ Really. We used about six thousand of them¡­

Rover is last seen in Fall Out. Whilst the rocket is being launched, Rover drops down a hole to an underground 'cave' like area, where it shrinks to a small size and becomes still as if it is deactivating itself now that it is no longer needed in the village. However, this scene was not in the script and was inserted to give Rover its finale. Citizens use the phrase "Be seeing you" as a farewell, accompanied by a waving gesture consisting of thumb and forefinger forming a circle over the eye, then tipped forward in a salute. This may be a reminder that in the Village you are under constant surveillance; anyone may be a Warder, a stooge working for Number Two, although a simpler theory of the salute could be that the fingers are formed into the shape of a number six. Moreover, the hand gesture resembles the show's revolving penny-farthing bicycle logo. In Danger Man and Secret Agent, John Drake uses that expression often. Most (but not all) guards wear the same style of resort clothing and numbered badges as the prisoners, and mingle seamlessly among the general population. Thus, it is nearly impossible for prisoners to determine which Villagers can be trusted and which ones cannot. After the show ended, McGoohan said of the show:

I think progress is the biggest enemy on earth, apart from oneself¡­ I think we're gonna take good care of this planet shortly¡­ there's never been a weapon created yet on the face of the Earth that hadn't been used¡­

¡­We're run by the Pentagon, we're run by Madison Avenue, we're run by television, and as long as we accept those things and don't revolt we'll have to go along with the stream to the eventual avalanche¡­ As long as we go out and buy stuff, we're at their mercy. We're at the mercy of the advertiser and of course there are certain things that we need, but a lot of the stuff that is bought is not needed¡­

¡­We all live in a little Village¡­ Your village may be different from other people's villages but we are all prisoners."

¡ª 1977 interview.

A number of other actors played Number Two in one-off appearances, while several actors including Alexis Kanner, Christopher Benjamin, Georgina Cookson, Kenneth Griffith and Patrick Cargill, and appeared in more than one episode, playing different characters each time. McGoohan was the only actor credited in the opening sequence, with Muscat the only actor considered a "co-star" of the series. Kenneth Griffith appeared in "The Girl Who Was Death" and "Fall Out." While Griffith played Number Two in "The Girl Who Was Death," his character in "Fall Out" may be the same character after the assignment of Number Two was passed to someone else (or, given events here, abandoned). There is also the theory that Cargill played the same character in his two episodes; the Number Two that Cargill plays in "Hammer Into Anvil" may or may not be the same character of Thorpe, the aide to Number Six's superior, from "Many Happy Returns." Stuntman Frank Maher also appears in every episode as McGoohan's stunt double. In particular he can been seen at the start of almost every episode in part of the running across the beach scene and he also appears extensively in the episode "The Schizoid Man," as that story required the appearance a doppelganger to the Number Six character. He also appears in "Living In Harmony" in the role of 'Third Gunman.' Unproduced storylines and scripts for the series are known to exist, several of which were published in a two-volume collection of Prisoner scripts edited by Robert Fairclough and published by Reynolds and Hearn in 2005 and 2006.

"The Outsider" by Moris Farhi (complete script included in Volume 1)
"Ticket to Eternity" by Eric Mival (synopsis included in Volume 1)
"Friend or Foe" by Mival (synopsis included in Volume 1)
"Don't Get Yourself Killed" by Gerald Kelsey (complete script included in Volume 2)

According to author James Follett, a prot¨¦g¨¦ of Prisoner co-creator George Markstein, Markstein had mapped out an explanation for the Village. In George Markstein's mind, a young Number Six had once submitted a proposal for how to deal with retired secret agents who posed a security risk. Six's idea was to create a comfortable retirement centre where former agents could live out their final years, enduring firm but unobtrusive surveillance. Years later, Six discovered that his idea had been put into practice, and not as a benign means of retirement, but as an interrogation centre and a prison camp. Outraged, Six staged his own resignation, knowing he would be brought to the Village, hoping he could learn everything he could of how his idea had been implemented and expanded upon and find a way to destroy it. However, due to the range of nationalities and agents present in the Village, Six realized he was not sure whose Village he was in ¨C the one brought about by his own people, or by the other side. Presumably, Markstein intended this revelation to follow Once Upon A Time. However, Markstein's falling out with McGoohan resulted in Markstein's departure, and his original intent was discarded. According to Markstein: "The Prisoner was going to leave the Village and he was going to have adventures in many parts of the world, but ultimately he would always be a prisoner. By that I don't mean he would always go back to the Village. He would always be a prisoner of his circumstances; his situation, his secret, his background¡­ and 'they' would always be there to ensure that his captivity continues." At the conclusion of its repeat presentation of the series in 1984, Channel 4 presented a 45 minute documentary entitled Six into One: The Prisoner File. Although its central premise was to establish a reason why Number 6 resigned, the presentation anchored around a new Number 2 communicating with staff (and Number 1), reviewing scenes from Danger Man, particularly the episodes incorporating a location shoot in Portmeirion (deputizing for an Italian location) and 'Colony Three' (a finishing school for foreign spies ready to adopt their new identities within the West). The premise of Colony Three was that John Drake, in being substituted for a Public Servant who expected to be transferred to the 'Village', was a key support worker for the spy network. Other volunteer workers were employed in other contexts, including electricians, librarians etc. John Drake traveled with two others, Randall Glyn Owen and Janet Catherine Woodville. Janet, we discover, intended to find out about her brother, who had previously volunteered to work in the Village but who had since disappeared. Within a social gathering, we discover noted British Defector Lord Denby (Edward Underdown) accompanied by Lady Denby (Cicely Paget-Bowman) who ostensibly defected to the USSR. Although viewers learned that the Village serviced different competing Spy Agencies (including the CIA, KGB, MI5), and whereas employees working in the Village entered the Village, their only departure was to the graveyard. Shortly after entering the facility, Janet discovers her brother's grave in the Village Graveyard. John Drake, working in the Citizens Advice Office, acquired a dossier in agents passing through the Office, was subjected to interrogation by Peter Arne (a co director of the facility), and in fear of being discovered, managed to generate a message to his emergency handlers. By this time, Randall (who volunteered on the basis of helping the Communist brothers ¡ª and who was disappointed at working as an electrician) had made one attempt to escape the facility into a desolate mountainous terrain, was located by John Drake just as a helicopter gunship was ready to kill the escaping Randall, and upon returning home, had discovered John Drake's secret radio transmitter and reported this to Colony Three Senior Managers Donovan Niall MacGinnis and Richardson Peter Arne. Novel interrogation techniques were applied within the facility, Richardson being the key interrogator. Subsequently, Donovan and Richardson receive transfer orders for John Drake's immediate transfer out of the facility (they assumed he was sent in to spy on the facility), and was recalled to report to his handler. Rather than raise the risk that he would report the operation to other spy agencies (either the CIA, KGB, MI6, or Mossad), Richardson was ordered to accompany John Drake out of the facility with orders to kill him. Upon his departure, Janet passed a note to John Drake asking for his help in escaping from the facility, was noted by Richardson. Drake passed the note onto Richardson, and this was destroyed. John Drake survived the assassination attempt, returned home, and passed on his dossier on agents which had been sent to the West using legitimate identities. However, John Drake was vehement that the identity of Janet, who entered the Colony to locate her brother, could not be located and that no action could be taken to rescue her. The docudrama also reviewed scenes from the series, incorporated interviews with cast members (including McGoohan), addressed the political environment giving rise to the series, and McGoohan's heavy workload. Whilst fitting in a commitment to Ice Station Zebra, McGoohan returned to continue with The Prisoner, and, according to this program, discovered key production staff had left. It is further claimed here that he then learned that ITC had reduced its commitment to 17 episodes (Lew Grade demanding an early conclusion), and continued with the show unabated. Another documentary was the American production, The Prisoner Video Companion. This was a 48-minute collection of clips, including a few from both versions of Danger Man, with voice-over narration discussing the origins of this series, but mostly possible interpretations, meaning, symbolism, etc., with a format clearly modeled on the 1988 book, The Official Prisoner Companion by Matthew White and Jaffer Ali, Warner Books. It was released in 1990 by MPI Home Video, then the licensed label for both/all three series in the USA. The copyright notice (the only credit) is ascribed to Maljack Productions, apparently the real company behind the name MPI. The documentary was subsequently released to DVD in the early 2000s as a bonus feature with A&E's release of the Prisoner series. MPI also issued a "best of" video (The Best of The Prisoner) containing excerpts from the series. Although not technically a documentary, American public television station KTEH, located in San Jose, California, re-ran the series in the early 1990s accompanied by insightful commentary from television critic Scott Apel. Apel gave several minutes of analysis both before and after each episode. He also re-ordered the sequence from the original airing order to make the storyline more coherent. Clips of some of Apel's commentaries may be found on YouTube. In 2007 as part of its official 40th Anniversary DVD set, Network produced "Don't knock yourself out", a feature length documentary featuring interviews with around 25 cast and crew members. The documentary received its own separate DVD release in November 2007 accompanied by a featurette called "Make sure it fits" regarding Eric Mival's music editing for the series. The 40th anniversary DVD set also included several crew commentaries. Ace Books in the United States published three original novels based upon the television series. The first of these, titled initially The Prisoner by Thomas M. Disch (later republished as I Am Not a Number!), was issued in 1969 (some editions carry a 1967 copyright date but this refers to the series, not the book). Considered non-canonical, it details the recapture of the Prisoner after he had been brainwashed to forget his original experience in the Village, and his struggles to remember what was taken from him and to escape again from the Village (or another Village). Disch is often erroneously credited as the creator of the TV series, as he is the writer of the first novel based upon the show. Also in 1969-70 Ace published two additional original novels based upon the series. These books, believed by some to be set after the events of "Fall Out," are notable for stating explicitly that Number Six is John Drake from Danger Man. The two books are also not considered canonical: The Prisoner: Number Two by David McDaniel (also published as Who is Number Two?) and The Prisoner: A Day in the Life by Hank Stine. All three novels have been reprinted numerous times over the years; most recently the Disch and Stine books were republished in 2002. Additionally, all three books were republished in omnibus form. The reference work The Whole Story: 3000 Years of Sequels & Sequences 2nd edition by John E. Simkin erroneously lists an additional volume by McDaniel entitled Prisoner 3 being released in 1981, but no such book was ever published. In the 1980s, Roger Langley of the Prisoner Appreciation Society wrote three novellas based upon the series: Charmed Life, Think Tank, and When in Rome. These books were made available through the fan club, and at the Prisoner Shop in Portmeirion and are long out of print. In 2004, Powys Media announced plans for a new series of novels based upon the series. In March 2005, the first volume, The Prisoner's Dilemma, was released. The second novel in the series, Miss Freedom, by Andrew Cartmel, was released on February 15, 2008 as a special, signed and numbered, limited advance edition. The list of released and forthcoming novels includes: The Prisoner's Dilemma by Jonathan Blum and Rupert Booth; introduction by J. Michael Straczynski, Miss Freedom by Andrew Cartmel, The Other by Lance Parkin, The Last Waltz by John Kenneth Muir, Number Two Is Missing by Ben Aaronovitch, and Endgame by William Latham. The premise of the television series fascinated comic book artist Jack Kirby, who created a four-issue homage in 1969 in Fantastic Four #84-87, in which the superhero team finds itself in Doctor Doom's Latveria, a city like the Village in many respects. In the early 1970s, Marvel Comics considered launching a comic book based on The Prisoner, to be written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Gil Kane. When Jack Kirby returned to Marvel in the mid-70s after a run at DC Comics, the property was transferred to him. A test issue was put together but never completed (all 17 pages were scripted and penciled by Kirby, but only parts were lettered and inked, by Mike Royer). Original artwork from this comic still exists and occasionally turns up for auction. Some of it has been published in the comic book fanzine Jack Kirby Collector. The surviving artwork suggests that the first issue, at least, would have been an adaptation of "Arrival." Shattered Visage is a four-issue comic book mini-series based on The Prisoner. Illustrated by Mister X creator Dean Motter and co-written with Mark Askwith, this sequel series was later collected as a 208 page graphic novel in trade paperback format, with the addition of a new prologue. The trade paperback remains in print and available. In the early 1980s, Edu-Ware produced two computer games based upon the series for the Apple II computer. The first, titled simply, The Prisoner, was released in 1980, followed by a remake, Prisoner 2 in 1982. The first game in Cyan's "Myst" series featured a location called "Stoneship," that resembles the Stone Boat at Portmeirion. Steve Jackson Games' popular role-playing game system GURPS released a (now out of print) world book for The Prisoner. It included maps, episode synopses, details of the Village and its inhabitants, and much other material. For instance, it has suggestions for game scenarios with the premise interpretation for outer space, heroic fantasy, horror and even complete inversion into something akin to Hogan's Heroes. A movie version of The Prisoner has been in development hell for many years at Universal Pictures. At one point Simon West was attached as director with Patrick McGoohan on board as an executive producer, script consultant, and possible cameo appearance. Many A-list actors have been rumoured to play Number Six, with Russell Crowe believed to be the favourite. Patrick McGoohan also mentioned in a 1997 interview with French TV that he would like to see Mel Gibson play the lead role. It was announced in late 2005 that Granada would revive the series for Sky One in 2007. Christopher Eccleston has been linked with the role, but these rumours were strongly denied by Eccleston's agent in the May 30, 2006 issue of Radio Times, and Eccleston subsequently joined the cast of NBC Drama Heroes, although not as a regular. According to the June 3 ¨C June 9 issue of the magazine, the new series re-make will be titled Number Six and not The Prisoner. American cable network AMC is co-producing. As of August 2006, Universal Pictures is near a deal for Christopher Nolan to direct a feature version of TV series. Janet and David Peoples are set to write the script. Scott Stuber, Mary Parent, Barry Mendel and Emma Thomas will produce. In December 2006, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the American cable TV channel AMC is co-producing The Prisoner with Sky One, and that it will run at least six to eight episodes, beginning in January 2008 (both in the UK and USA). AMC plans to re-air the original series at about the same time. In May 2007 it was reported that Sky One had pulled out of the re-make due to a disagreement with their co-producer AMC. Granada want the production to continue, with a new broadcaster to co-finance the production with AMC. Until a new broadcaster is found it can be assumed that production cannot continue, therefore the project is presumed to be at least temporarily shelved. In August 2007, Richard Woolfe, head of Sky One, stated:

"The Prisoner is not happening. It's a very quintessentially British drama and there were too many creative differences trying to share it with an American partner. I didn't want to be responsible for taking something that is quintessentially British and adapting it in a way that I didn't feel was reflective of the way people would remember it and the way people would want it to be. So we called time on that."

In October 2007, British broadcaster ITV stepped in to replace Sky One as co-producer with AMC. In a report, the network was in the final stages of securing production rights and hoped to begin casting soon after. The remake will be a six-part series, and will be "a pacy, radical reinvention of the original show." On 25 April 2008, ITV announced that a new series of The Prisoner will go into production. American actor James Caviezel has been linked to the part of Number Six but a spokesperson dismissed this as "pure speculation", however it was confirmed in June 2008 that Caviezel will play Number 6 and Sir Ian McKellen will be Number 2 in all six episodes. Also set to star are Ruth Wilson as Number 313, Lennie James as Number 147 and Jamie Campbell Bower as Number11-12. Hayley Atwell is also cast. The final episode, "Fall Out", received a Hugo Award nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1969, but lost out to 2001: A Space Odyssey. In 2002, the series won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award.

Lost, The X-Files, 24, and pretty much every other paranoid show-puzzle in the last few decades all wouldn¡¯t exist if it wasn¡¯t for The Prisoner. The show told the enigmatic story of Number Six (McGoohan) and his attempt to escape a charming little gulag by the seaside. The British series (seen first by Americans on CBS) imagined a deceptively beautiful totalitarian community, "The Village," in which people's memories were erased, no one could be trusted and the premises were patrolled by the most sinister big white balloons you ever saw. It sounds a little silly, but you have to remember, this show aired in the late 1960s, when practically everyone was on drugs and The Cold War was going on. Paranoia ran rampant as hallucinogenic drugs, which didn¡¯t help with the paranoia. So, pretty much any innocuous object, like big white balloons, could be seen as menacing, especially if you used them properly. Besides, the balloons worked, one of the reasons The Prisoner was so great (seriously, if you can make balloons scary, then you¡¯ve done your job as a talent TV maker). Another reason would be how it really captured its time. Like I said, it was made during the late 1960s, and the show was filled psychedelic imagery and was resonant with cold-war suspicions. It was infused with the drug-induced ¡°Don¡¯t Trust The Man¡± paranoia of the 1960s as Number Six constantly question his prisoners. And, it brilliantly never revealed whom Number Six¡¯s prisoners were. Hell, his prisoners could have been his own government. The 17-episode series offered closure of a sort, though fans argue over its details and its resolution to this day. Whatever your theory, this most Kafkaesque of TV series was, well, captivating.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

23. Gunsmoke



Genre: Western.
Created by: John Meston.
Executive Producer(s): Philip Leacock, John Mantley, and James Arness.
Starring: James Arness (Marshall Matt Dillon), Milburn Stone (Dr. Galen “Doc” Adams),
Amanda Blake (Kitty Russell 1955-1974), Dennis Weaver (Chester Goode 1955-1964), Ken Curtis (Festus Haggen 1964-1975), Burt Reynolds (Quint Asper 1962-1965), Buck Taylor (Newly O’Brien 1967-1975), and Glenn Strange (Sam Noonan 1961-1973).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 20.
Number of Episodes: 635.
Running Time: 30 minutes (1955–1961), 60 minutes (1961–1975).
Original Channel: CBS.
Original Run: September 10, 1955 – March 31, 1975.
Spinoffs: The show was a televised adaptation of the Gunsmoke radio program, and there were a few TV movies made: “Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge” (1987), “Gunsmoke: The Last Apache” (1990), “Gunsmoke: To the Last Man” (1992), “Gunsmoke: The Long Ride” (1993), and “Gunsmoke: One Man's Justice” (1994).

In the late 1940s, CBS chairman William S. Paley, a big fan of The Adventures of Philip Marlowe radio serial, asked his programming chief, Hubell Robinson, to develop a hardboiled Western series. Robinson contacted his West Coast CBS Vice-President, Harry Ackerman, who had created the Philip Marlowe series, to take on the task. Ackerman and his scriptwriters, Mort Fine and David Friedkin, created an audition script called "Mark Dillon Goes to Gouge Eye". Two auditions were created in 1949. The first was very much like a hardboiled detective series and starred Rye Billsbury as Dillon; the second starred Straight Arrow actor Howard Culver in a more Western, lighter version of the same script. CBS liked the Culver version better, and Ackerman was given the green light to proceed. But there was a complication. Culver's contract as the star of Straight Arrow would not allow him to do another Western series. So the project was shelved until three years later, when Norman MacDonnell and John Meston discovered it while looking to create an adult Western series of their own. MacDonnell and Meston wanted to create a radio Western for adults, in contrast to the prevailing juvenile fare such as The Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid. Gunsmoke was set in Dodge City, Kansas during the thriving cattle days of the 1870s. The radio series first aired on April 26, 1952 ("Billy the Kid," written by Walter Newman) and ran until June 18, 1961 on CBS. It starred William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon; Howard McNear as the ghoulish, brittle and then, as the series progressed, kind-hearted Doc Charles Adams; Georgia Ellis as Kitty Russell; and Parley Baer as Dillon's assistant (but not officially his deputy, even though he introduced Chester as such in the December 13, 1952 episode "Post Martin"), Chester Proudfoot. (On the television series, Doc's first name was changed to Galen, and Chester's last name was changed to Goode.) Chester's character had no surname until "Proudfoot" was ad libbed by Baer during an early rehearsal, while Doc Adams was named after cartoonist Charles Addams. In a 1953 interview with Time, MacDonnell declared: "Kitty is just someone Matt has to visit every once in a while. We never say it, but Kitty is a prostitute, plain and simple." William Conrad was actually one of the last actors who auditioned for the role of Marshal Dillon. He was already one of radio's busiest actors and had a powerful and distinctive baritone voice. Though Meston championed him, MacDonnell thought that Conrad might be overexposed. During his audition, however, Conrad won over MacDonnell after reading just a few lines. "Miss Kitty" did not appear on the radio series until the May 10, 1952 episode "Jaliscoe", but Georgia Ellis appeared in the very first episode "Billy the Kid" (April 26, 1952) as "Francie Richards", the wife of a killed outlaw and a former girlfriend of Matt Dillon. In the January 31, 1953 episode "Cavalcade", Doc Adams' backstory is revealed: his real name is Calvin Moore, educated in Boston, and he practiced as a doctor for a year in Richmond, Virginia where he fell in love with a beautiful young woman who was also being courted by a wealthy young man named Roger Beauregard. Beauregard forced Doc into fighting a duel with him, resulting in Beauregard's being shot and killed, but even though it was a fair duel, because Doc was a Yankee and an outsider he was forced to flee. The young girl fled after him and they were married in St. Louis, but two months later she died of typhus. Doc wandered throughout the territories until he settled in Dodge City seventeen years later under the name of "Charles Adams." The show was distinct from other radio westerns, as the dialogue was often slow and halting, and due to the outstanding sound effects, listeners had a nearly palpable sense of the prairie terrain where the show was set. The effects were subtle but multilayered, giving the show a spacious feel. The listener heard extraneous dialogue in the background, just above the muted shouts of kids playing in an alley. He heard noises from the next block, too, where the inevitable dog was barking. Dillon as portrayed by Conrad was a lonely, isolated man, toughened by a hard life. Meston relished the upending of cherished Western fiction clichés and thought that few Westerns gave any inkling of how brutal was the Old West. Dunning writes that Meston was especially disgusted by the archetypal Western hero and set out "to destroy" that type of "character he loathed." In Meston's view, "Dillon was almost as scarred as the homicidal psychopaths who drifted into Dodge from all directions." Dillon played his hand and often lost. He arrived too late to prevent a lynching. He amputated a dying man's leg and lost the patient anyway. He saved a girl from brutal rapists then found himself unable to offer her what she needed to stop her from moving into... life as a prostitute. Some listeners, such as vintage radio authority Dunning, have argued that the radio version of Gunsmoke was far more realistic than the TV series. Episodes were aimed at adults and featured some of the most explicit content of their time, including violent crimes, scalpings, massacres, and opium addicts. Many episodes ended on a somber note, and villains often got away with their crimes. Nonetheless, thanks to the subtle scripts and outstanding ensemble cast, over the years the program evolved into a warm, often humorous celebration of human nature. Not long after the show began, there was talk of adapting it to television. Privately, MacDonnell had a guarded interest in taking the show to television, but publicly, he declared that "our show is perfect for radio," and he feared that, Gunsmoke confined by a picture could not possibly be as authentic or attentive to detail. In the end, CBS simply took it away from MacDonnell and began preparing for the television version of Gunsmoke. Conrad and the others were given auditions, but they were little more than token efforts, especially in Conrad's case, due to his obesity. However, Meston was kept on as the main writer. In the early years, a majority of the TV episodes were adapted from the radio scripts, often using identical scenes and dialogue. That radio fans considered the TV show a sham and its players impostors should surprise no one. That the TV show was not a sham is due in no small part to the continued strength of Meston's scripts. MacDonnell and Meston continued the radio version of Gunsmoke until 1961, making it one of the most enduring vintage radio dramas. The Gunsmoke radio theme song and later TV theme was titled "Old Trails", also known as "Boothill." The theme was written by Rex Koury & Glenn Spencer. The original radio version was conducted by Rex Koury. The TV version was thought to have been first conducted by CBS West Coast Music Director, Lud Gluskin. The television series ran from September 10, 1955 to March 31, 1975 on CBS for 635 episodes. Until 2005, it was the longest run of any scripted series with continuing characters in American primetime television. Conrad was the first choice to play Marshal Dillon on TV, having established the role, but his increasing obesity led to more photogenic actors being considered. Losing the role embittered Conrad for years, though he later starred in another CBS television series, Cannon (1971–1975). Denver Pyle was also considered for the role, as was Raymond Burr who was ultimately seen as too heavyset for the part. According to a James Arness interview, John Wayne was offered the role, but wouldn't do it; Wayne was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, and at that time, working in television was seen as a huge step down in prestige for a star actor. In the end, the primary roles were all recast, with James Arness taking on the lead role of Marshal Matt Dillon upon the recommendation of John Wayne, who also introduced the first episode of the series; Dennis Weaver playing Chester Goode; Milburn Stone being cast as Dr. Galen "Doc" Adams; and Amanda Blake taking on the role of Miss Kitty Russell, owner of the Long Branch Saloon. MacDonnell became the associate producer of the TV show and later the producer. Meston was named head writer. Arness, in his role on Gunsmoke, achieved what no other actor at the time had ever matched: he played the same character on the same scripted series for 20 years - at the time the longest uninterrupted period a primetime actor had played the same role in the same show. In 1963, singer/character actor Ken Curtis did a guest role as a shady ladies' man. After Weaver left the series to venture out as the lead in his own TV series, Kentucky Jones, Curtis was added to the show's lineup. He played the stubbornly illiterate Festus Haggen, a character who came to town (in an episode titled "Us Haggens") to avenge the death of his twin brother, Fergus Haggen, and another brother, Jeff Haggen, and who decided to stay in Dodge when the deed was done. Initially existing on the fringes of Dodge society, Festus Haggen was slowly phased in as a reliable sidekick to Matt Dillon and was eventually made a deputy. Interestingly, his twin was never again mentioned on the show. In the episode "Alias Festus Haggen," he is mistaken for a robber and killer whom he has to expose to free himself (both parts played by Curtis). In a comic relief episode ("Mad Dog"), another case of mistaken identity forces Festus to fight three sons of a man killed by his cousin. Other actors who played Dillon's deputies for two and a half to three-year stints included Roger Ewing (1966–1968) as Thad Greenwood and Burt Reynolds (1962–1965) as Indian/white Quint Asper. Buck Taylor, who played gunsmith Newly O'Brien from 1967–1975, also served as one of Dillon's deputies. While Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty clearly had a close personal relationship, the two never married. In a July 2, 2002 Associated Press interview with Bob Thomas, Arness explained, "If they were man and wife, it would make a lot of difference. The people upstairs decided it was better to leave the show as it was, which I totally agreed with." The nearest that Matt and Kitty had to a romantic encounter was in a comic episode ("Quiet Day in Dodge"), where Matt, tired from a long day of settling disputes, was about to have dinner with Miss Kitty. However, she was distracted and found poor Matt sound asleep. Kitty ended up storming out of the room, furious. In another episode ("Hostage!", Season 18, Episode 13, December 11, 1972) Kitty was gravely injured. Matt spent hours at Kitty's side in Doc's office, holding her hand before she stirred and he knew he would not lose her. The Marshal took off his badge to pursue the bad guy as a personal vendetta. When Kitty awoke and Doc told her of Matt's mission she feared for his safety. As Doc reassured her, "The sun hasn't come up on the day that Matt can't take care of himself," Kitty answered, "I couldn't live without him." In an episode featuring Johnny Whitaker as a boy with a prostitute mother, her madam questions Dillon as to why the law overlooks Miss Kitty's enterprise. It appears that bordellos could exist "at the law's discretion" (meaning the Marshal's). There were differences between the characters on the radio and TV versions of Gunsmoke. The radio series Doc was acerbic, somewhat mercenary and borderline alcoholic, at least in the program's early years. The television Doc, though still crusty, was in many ways softer and warmer. Miss Kitty, who in the radio series likely engaged in prostitution, was viewed more as "the proprietor of a saloon" on the television series, and except for a few early scripts taken from the radio series, viewers only saw Miss Kitty as a kindhearted businesswoman. From 1955 to 1961, Gunsmoke was a half-hour show (re-titled Marshal Dillon in syndication). It then went to an hour-long format. The series was entitled "GUN LAW" in the UK. Gunsmoke was TV's No. 1 ranked show from 1957 to 1961 before slipping into a decline after expanding to an hour. In 1967, the show's 12th season, CBS planned to cancel the series, but widespread viewer reaction (including a mention in Congress and pressure from the wife of the head of programming at CBS) prevented its demise. The show continued on in a different time slot: early evening on Mondays instead of Saturday nights, canceling the popular Gilligan's Island in the process. This seemingly minor change led to a spike in ratings that saw the series once again reach the top 10 in the Nielsen ratings until the 1973–1974 television season. In 1975, the show was finally canceled after a long twenty-year run. Gunsmoke was the show that ushered in the age of the adult Western, and although over 30 Westerns came and went during its 20-year tenure, Gunsmoke outlasted all of its imitators and was the only Western still airing when it was canceled. Arness and Stone had remained with the show for its entire run (although Stone missed seven episodes in 1971 due to illness and was temporarily replaced by Pat Hingle, who played "Doctor Chapman" while Doc Adams ostensibly left Dodge to further his medical studies on the East Coast). The entire cast was stunned by the cancellation, as they were unaware CBS had been considering it. According to Arness, "We didn't do a final, wrap-up show. We finished the 20th year, we all expected to go on for another season, or two or three. The (network) never told anybody they were thinking of canceling." The cast and crew heard the news in typical Hollywood fashion: they read it in the trade papers. In 1987, many of the original cast reunited for the TV movie, “Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge,” filmed in Alberta, Canada. Ken Curtis declined returning, citing a contract dispute, saying, "As Dillon's right hand man, I felt the offer should approximate Miss Blake's." Instead, Buck Taylor became Dodge's new marshal, though the retired Matt Dillon was the hero. A huge ratings success, it led to four more TV films being made in the U.S. After Amanda Blake's death, the writers built on the 1973 two-part episodic romance of "Matt's Love Story", (which was noted for the marshal's first overnight visit to a female's lodgings). In the episode, Matt loses his memory and his heart during a brief liaison with "Mike" Michael Learned of The Waltons. In preserving the ethics of the era and the heretofore flawless hero's character, the healed Dillon returns to Dodge City. Movie number two, “Gunsmoke: The Last Apache” (1990), had Learned reprising the role of "Mike Yardley" to divulge that Matt and "Mike" conceived a daughter who is now a young woman named Beth. Other films (which all featured daughter Beth) included “Gunsmoke: To the Last Man” (1992), “Gunsmoke: The Long Ride” (1993), and “Gunsmoke: One Man's Justice” (1994). As of April 2008, two American series that have been poised to beat Gunsmoke's 20-year record are the animated sitcom The Simpsons, now in its 19th season, and the police procedural/courtroom drama Law & Order, now in its 18th year. The half hour Simpsons has been renewed for 2008-2009 and will in fact tie Gunsmoke for 20 seasons in September 2008. Gunsmoke, which ran a full hour through most of its run, still beats the comedy's total air time; Law & Order is also expected to be a possible 20-year survivor that could surpass Gunsmoke as the longest running American drama on television. Internationally, a number of British primetime dramas and comedies have beaten Gunsmoke, and Law & Order, including Last of the Summer Wine (34 years), Taggart (23 years), Casualty (21 years) and the longest running primetime scripted show, Doctor Who (30 seasons over 45 years). In syndication, the entire 20-year run of Gunsmoke is separated into three packages by CBS Paramount Television:

1955–1961 half-hour episodes: These episodes are sometimes seen in their original format and sometimes in the Marshal Dillon format. General syndication ended in the 1980s, but they do air occasionally on cable TV. Local stations (and, later, TV Land) would show the re-titled Marshal Dillon version of the series, while the series under the original Gunsmoke title was seen in the 1980s and early 1990s on CBN Cable and The Family Channel.

1961–1966 one-hour black-and-white episodes: These episodes have not been widely seen in regular syndication since the 1980s, although they did air on the Encore Westerns Channel on a three-year contract that ended circa 2006.

1966–1975 one-hour color episodes: These are the most widely syndicated episodes of the entire series' run and are still aired on many stations, including a popular run on TV Land.

Certain episodes are available on DVD in two volumes. Twelve episodes from 1955 to 1964 were selected for the Gunsmoke: Volume I box set, and another twelve episodes from 1964 to 1975 were selected for the Gunsmoke: Volume II box set. Both are available on Region 1 DVD. Paramount Home Entertainment released Season 1 on DVD in Region 1 on July 17, 2007. Season 2: Volume 1, which features the first 20 episodes of season 2 was released on January 8, 2008. Season 2: Volume 2, which features the last 19 episodes of season 2 is to be released May 27, 2008.

First, I should point out: yes, the radio show was better than the TV show as it had more realism and humanity to it. But, that isn’t to say that the televised version wasn’t good. For 20 years (1955-1975), Gunsmoke towered above other TV westerns in much the same way that its star, the 6 foot 7 inch James Arness, dwarfed everyone around him. And, Gunsmoke’s legend still stands tall. The show, which had begun as a radio program, holds the longevity record for prime time TV shows at 20 seasons (though either The Simpsons and/or Law And Order is poised to take that record from it). Much of the appeal of Gunsmoke was due to the chemistry that existed among the cast members. Arness' Marshal Matt Dillon was a man’s man to rival John Wayne (who, in fact, had originally been offered and turned down the role of Dillon) and was the glue that held Dodge City, Kansas circa 1873, together. After him came the venerable, irascible physician Doc Adams (Stone); bighearted, limp-along deputy Chester Goode (Weaver); and, following Weaver’s departure in 1964, his perpetually unshaven replacement, Festus Haggen (Curtis). A young Burt Reynolds was also around for three seasons as the half-Indian blacksmith Quint Asper. And, to offset all that testosterone was Amanda Blake as keeper of the Long Branch Saloon Miss Kitty. In fact, Kitty was the show’s most intriguing character. She was a strong, capable businesswoman, a pre-feminist role model who seemed to have more common sense than most of the men around her. She also carried a whiff of sin. Although her on-screen behavior was almost always as proper as a schoolmarm’s, many viewers suspected that this tough redhead, who resembled nothing so much as a well-heeled madam, knew a thing or two about the world’s oldest profession. It didn’t help matters that in the earlier radio version of the show, Kitty was implicitly a prostitute. And, she coyly danced with Dillon in a platonic two-step for the length of the show’s run. But, above all, Gunsmoke was a highly moral, but not naïve, show, on that dealt with timeless issues (love, greed, violence, power, inequity) in a primitive, Old West setting. Crisply directed, Gunsmoke showed a showdown between good and evil (sometimes fought with guns, sometimes not) pitting Dillon or some other Dodge City resident against criminals, scoundrels, or low-life connivers. And, each week good winning out over greed and brutality, but, like Dillon in the opening shootout, good was always only a split-second ahead on the draw. And, the cowboy archetypes the show depicted somehow transcended cliché, the legacy of what was perhaps the quintessential TV western still resonates like the echo of a pistol shot on a quiet, dusty street.