100 Greatest TV Shows

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Tomorrow, numbers 22 and 21, plus a recap of the previous shows from 100-21. Here are the hints:

It's your show (in name only), and a show about a blue collar mom with a loud mouth.

[Beav]

Roseanne and... not sure...

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Okay, people, gather around. It's countdown time. Here's number 22:

22. Your Show Of Shows



Genre: Sketch Comedy, Variety Show.
Created by: Sylvester L. Weaver Jr.
Executive Producer(s): Max Liebman.
Starring: Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Howard Morris, Carl Reiner, James Starbuck, Tom Avera, Nanette Fabray, Bill Hayes, Judy Johnson (vocalist), Nellie Fisher (dancer), Dick DeFreitas, Aariana Knowles, Jerry Ross (dancer), Earl Redding (vocalist), Mata and Hari (dancer), Charles Sanford (orchestra leader), The Bob Hamilton Trio (dancers), Jack Russell (vocalist), Bambi Linn (dancer), Rod Alexander (dancer), The Billy Williams Quartet (vocalists), and Marguerite Piazza (vocalist).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 4.
Number of Episodes: 139.
Running Time: 90 minutes.
Original Channel: NBC.
Original Run: February 25, 1993 – June 5, 2004.
Spinoffs: None.

Your Show of Shows was a live 90-minute sketch comedy television series appearing weekly in the United States on NBC, from 1950 until June 5, 1954, featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Other featured performers were Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Nanette Fabray, Bill Hayes, Judy Johnson, The Hamilton Trio and the soprano Marguerite Piazza. José Ferrer made several guest appearances on the show. Writers for the show included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, Larry Gelbart, Mel Tolkin, and Carl Reiner who, though a cast member, always sat in with the writers. A common misconception is that Woody Allen wrote for Your Show of Shows; he in fact wrote for its successor program, Caesar's Hour, which ran from 1954 to 1957. Carl Reiner has stated that the time he spent on Your Show of Shows was the inspiration for The Dick Van Dyke Show; Your Show of Shows also inspired the 1982 film “My Favorite Year,” produced by Mel Brooks, and the play Laughter on the 23rd Floor written by Neil Simon. Most of the kinescopes of the show were discarded by NBC, and so few copies of the show survive. A 1973 theatrical film titled Ten from Your Show of Shows featured ten sketches from the show edited together. Reruns of surviving kinescopes aired on Comedy Central in the early 1990s. Sketches from the show which are from Sid Caesar's personal collection are available on The Sid Caesar Collection DVD set.

Neil Simon. Mel Brooks. Woody Allen. Carl Reiner. Larry Gelbart. All writing on a show that starred Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. It was the greatest collection of talent on TV until the first years of Saturday Night Live. Well, that’s it for this entry! Let’s move on! What!? You want MORE!? Fine!? Well, the name Caesar was an appropriate one. As de facto emperor of the early 1950s NBC variety series Your Show Of Shows, Sid Caesar presided over what is arguably the most influential early comedy on TV. He was backed by a writing team that was the comedy equivalent of the 1927 New York Yankees that worked at a grueling pace and was fueled, Caesar once said, by “a diet of electricity and hate” and by their desire to impress the notoriously demanding star (when Caesar didn’t like an idea, he’d pretend to machine-gun it in midair, complete with sound effects; and he was scarily strong, once knocked out a horse with one punch (that’s where Brooks got the idea for that scene in “Blazing Saddles”) and usually punched holes in the walls when the strain became too much). Nevertheless, all that hard work paid off as the variety show indirectly launched a generation of movie (Allen and Brooks went on to make some of the funniest movies ever made), TV (Reiner went on to create The Dick Van Dyke Show based on his time at Your Show Of Shows, and Gelbart is famously known for his work on M*A*S*H), and theater (Simon went on to become one of the most famous playwrights of the late 20th century) comedy brilliance. But, the main attractions here were Caesar and costar Imogene Coca, who paired up on outstanding live skits and parodies. Coca was a versatile rubber-faced performer, who could play aristocrats as well as hoboes. And, Caesar was fast-talking, dynamic, and amazing at improvising; whether forgetting the names of guests, wearing the wrong costume, or rewriting a skit mid-performance, the master of live TV seamlessly translated gaffes into guffaws. It was a tremendous weekly output for a relative handful of performers, but they amazingly did it and achieved immortality by giving birth to sketch comedy as we know it. Twenty-five years before Saturday Night Live, Your Show Of Shows was doing it first: presenting a fast-paced, 90-minute mishmash of live skits (the husband-and-wife Hickenloopers, storyteller Somerset Winterset), film parodies (From Here To Obscurity), and guest star routines. However, as another Caesar learned, all fame is fleeting. The three principals (Caesar, Coca, and producer Max Liebman) wanted to work independently. In 1954, Your Show Of Shows left the air. The emperor’s reign was at an end, but it was a glorious empire while it lasted. There! Are you happy, now!?

[Hulk With A Mustache]

21. Roseanne



Genre: Sitcom.
Created by: Matt Williams.
Executive Producer(s): Matt Williams (1988-1989), Marcy Carsey (1988-1997), Tom Werner (1988-1997), Allan Katz (1989-1990), Roseanne (1990-1997), Tom Arnold (1990-1994), Jay Daniel (1990-1994), Eric Gilliland (1992-1996), Rob Ulin (1992-1995), Bob Myer (1990-1996), Chuck Lorre (1990-1992), Daniel Palladino (1995-1997), Jeff Harris (1989-1990), Bruce Helford (1992-1993), Stacie Lipp (1996-1997), Nancy Steen (1996-1997), and Allan Stephan (1996-1997).
Starring: Roseanne Barr (Roseanne Conner), John Goodman (Dan Conner), Laurie Metcalf (Jackie Harris), Sara Gilbert (Darlene Conner), Lecy Goranson (Becky Conner 1988-1992, 1995-1996), Sarah Chalke (1993-1995, 1996-1997), Michael Fishman (D.J. Conner), and Natalie West (Crystal Anderson 1988-1992).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 9.
Number of Episodes: 222.
Running Time: 22 minutes.
Original Channel: ABC.
Original Run: October 18, 1988 – May 20, 1997.
Spinoffs: None.

Created by Matt Williams, the show portrayed a working-class family struggling to get by on a limited income in the fictional town of Lanford, Illinois. Many critics considered the show notable as one of the first sitcoms to portray an American family in which economics necessitated two parents working jobs outside the home. For many years, Roseanne tackled taboo subjects or joked about issues that most other popular shows at the time avoided, such as poverty, alcoholism, drug use, sex, menstruation, pregnancy, masturbation, obesity, race, class identity, domestic violence and homosexuality. The show was also significant for its portrayal of feminist ideals including a female-dominated household, an overweight female lead whose likeability didn't rely on her appearance, relationships between female characters that were cooperative rather than competitive, and females openly expressing themselves without negative consequences. Roseanne was hugely successful from its beginning, spending its first six seasons among the Nielsen Ratings' top five highest-rated shows. The show's success inspired television networks to offer a rash of sitcom deals to stand-up comedians, a practice that continued for years afterwards. During its seventh season, the show's ratings dropped, but it still managed to remain among the Nielsen Ratings' top ten highest-rated shows. It was only during the show's ninth and final season, when the show's storyline drifted away from its original premise, that Roseanne dropped below the Nielsen Ratings' top thirty highest-rated shows. The main characters on the show included:

Roseanne Conner (Roseanne Barr): Modeled after Barr's stand-up comic (and presumed real-life) persona, she is a loud, caustic, and dominant woman with a wry sense of humor. She frequently meddles and tries to control the lives of her husband, daughters, son, sister, and friends. The series features a running joke where Roseanne is constantly hungry. Despite her dominating nature, Roseanne's love for her family and friends is plainly evident. Roseanne is absent from only one of the 222 episodes in the series.

Dan Conner (John Goodman): Roseanne's genial, easygoing "teddy-bear" husband. He holds a variety of blue-collar jobs throughout the series. Though he appears to be dominated by Roseanne, Dan asserts his will in the matters that concern him most, particularly his daughters' romantic lives. He is openly admired by many of the show's characters for his devotion to his wife and children. Among his children, Dan bonds most strongly with his tomboy daughter Darlene. His relationship with Roseanne's sister Jackie is outwardly contentious but secretly close.

Jackie Harris (Laurie Metcalf): Roseanne's somewhat wacky younger sister. Jackie has a lackluster social life and her romantic relationships are frequently unstable, as is her career. She is fairly dependent on Roseanne, spending most of her time in the Conner household. Roseanne often asserts control over Jackie's life, a frequent cause of conflict between the two. As an auxiliary member of the nuclear Conner family, however, Jackie is often in a position to serve as confidant for individual family members, making her a catalyst for major change or resolution within the series. Jackie has a contentious relationship with her parents, particularly her mother, Beverly.

Becky Conner (Lecy Goranson and Sarah Chalke): Roseanne and Dan's eldest child. She does well academically and socially in school. The high value she places on her feminine appearance and social acceptance puts her in stark contrast with her sister Darlene, with whom she frequently fights. In the first four seasons of the series, Becky appears to be on a path toward high lifetime achievement. This path is drastically diverted when she skips college to elope with Mark and later ends up living with him in a trailer park. During the show's fifth season actress Lecy Goranson left to attend Vassar College. At first, her character Becky was merely absent from the show, explained in the story when she marries and moves away to live with her husband Mark. During the sixth season, however, the show's producers recast Becky with actress Sarah Chalke. This change is addressed in the show which becomes a running gag for the remainder of the series as both Goranson and Chalke continue to alternate in the role of Becky, depending on Goranson's availability. Examples of this gag include:

At the end of Chalke's first episode, the Conner family watches the television show Bewitched and several characters complain about the recasting of the show's main character Darrin Stevens, with Chalke asserting that she prefers the second actor to play Darrin.

In the season six episode "Suck Up or Shut Up," when Luke and Laura from General Hospital are with Roseanne in the diner, they are explaining all the mishaps they have had (as the result of being in a soap). Roseanne responds with "Well our daughter Becky was gone for a year and when she came back we barely recognized her!!"

When Goranson returns to the role in the eighth season premiere, Roseanne and Darlene ask Becky, "Where the hell have you been?" and comment that "it feels like you've been gone for three years." Becky responds, "Why does everyone keep saying that?"

The eighth season premiere concludes with Goranson and Chalke dancing as if they were each other's reflection in a black-and-white parody of the closing credits from the television series The Patty Duke Show, a series in which actress Patty Duke plays two identical cousins. The song to which the two Beckys dance, "Nearly Identical Beckys", is set to the tune of the theme music from The Patty Duke Show'. At the end of the segment, William Schallert, who plays Patty's father on the series, appears with Dan. This parody was excised from the eighth season DVD box set.

Beginning with the eighth season, the show's opening credits sequence, which displays morphing images of the main characters over the years, features images of both Goranson and Chalke in the role of Becky.

When Roseanne announces that the Conner family is planning a vacation to Walt Disney World, Becky (played that week by Chalke) tells Roseanne how excited she is to be going to Disney World. Roseanne responds, "Aren't you glad you were here this week?"

In an episode that pretends to glimpse into the future, John Goodman portrays an adult version of D.J. who has suffered a mental breakdown. He repeatedly mutters "They say she's the same, but she isn't the same." At the end of the episode, a montage sequence of the two actresses playing Becky reveals the meaning of D.J.'s mantra.

Because cast and crew believed that the eighth season of Roseanne would be its last, Goranson had signed back on only for that season. When the show was renewed for a ninth season, Chalke replaced Goranson full-time.

Darlene Conner: Roseanne and Dan's wily and sarcastic middle child. Among the Connor children, she is the most similar to Roseanne, dishing out clever one-liners and displaying a knack for manipulating those around her. The similarity also means that, unlike the other characters on the show, Darlene does not readily submit to Roseanne's will. Darlene starts the series as a tomboy character who loves to play basketball, but during the show's third and fourth seasons starts dress in the grunge fashion. She dates, eventually marries, and has a daughter with David, the younger brother of Becky's husband, Mark.

D.J. Conner: Roseanne and Dan's youngest child (until the birth of Jerry in the eighth season). D.J. is treated by the others as the "baby" of the family, and as such his concerns and opinions are often discounted or ignored. Thus left to his own devices, D.J. develops some unusual behaviors, such as building a cache of dismembered dolls. These behaviors are singled out for ridicule by his older sisters, particularly Darlene who inflicts a playful degree of violence upon him. D.J. has an especially close relationship with Roseanne. The initials D.J. stand for David Jacob (rather than the presumed Dan Jr.), a fact which is only mentioned in two episodes of the series.

Roseanne featured a large cast of recurring characters. The following appeared in 10 or more episodes of the series, ordered below by number of appearances:

David Healy (played by Johnny Galecki in 91 episodes) - Darlene's boyfriend and eventual husband.

Crystal Anderson (played by Natalie West in 84 episodes) - Roseanne and Jackie's old high-school friend, later marries Dan's father.

Mark Healy (played by Glenn Quinn in 75 episodes) - Becky's boyfriend and eventual husband, David's older brother.

Bev Harris (played by Estelle Parsons in 58 episodes) - Roseanne and Jackie's mother.

Leon Carp (played by Martin Mull in 46 episodes) - Roseanne's manager at Rodbell's, later co-owner of Lanford Lunch Box.

Fred (played by Michael O'Keefe in 35 episodes) - Jackie's husband, Dan's employee at Lanford City Garage.

Nancy Bartlett (played by Sandra Bernhard in 33 episodes) - Roseanne's friend, Arnie's wife, co-owner of Lanford Lunch Box.

Arnie Thomas (played by Tom Arnold in 22 episodes) - Dan's friend, Nancy's husband.

Chuck Mitchell (played by James Pickens Jr. in 19 episodes) - Dan's friend, Anne-Marie's husband.

Bonnie Watkins (played by Bonnie Bramlett in 18 episodes) - Roseanne's co-worker at Rodbell's.

Anne-Marie Mitchell (played by Adilah Barnes in 15 episodes) - Roseanne's friend, Chuck's wife.

Booker Brooks (played by George Clooney in 11 episodes) - Roseanne's foreman at Wellman Plastics, briefly dates Jackie.

Bob (played by John McConnell in 11 episodes) - Dan's employee at Lanford City Garage.

Nana Mary (played by Shelley Winters in 10 episodes) - Roseanne and Jackie's grandmother, Bev's mother.

Roseanne was a half-hour program that aired weekly between September and May of each year from 1988 to 1997. Each September to May run is regarded as a separate season comprising of 23 to 26 weekly episodes. Though the storylines of most episodes were self-contained, story arcs occasionally spanned several episodes or an entire season:

Season 1: As the season (and series) opens, Roseanne is a line-worker at Wellman Plastics along with her sister Jackie and friend Crystal. Jackie has a brief relationship with Booker, the foreman at Wellman. Dan finds sporadic work as a construction contractor and faces a strained relationship with his irresponsible father Ed (played by Ned Beatty). Roseanne's parents, Bev and Al, consider moving to Lanford, but eventually decide against it. Tomboy Darlene struggles with her femininity as she enters puberty and gets her first period. Becky faces dating problems with her first boyfriend Chip. In the season finale, Roseanne stands up to a new foreman (played by Fred Thompson), when she leads Jackie, Crystal, and other co-workers as they quit Wellman Plastics.

Season 2: Now that they've quit Wellman Plastics, Roseanne and Jackie must find new jobs. Jackie decides to become a police officer. Roseanne cycles through a variety of menial jobs including telemarketer, secretary for Dan's boss, bartender, cashier at a fast food restaurant, and finally, sweeping floors at a beauty parlor. At home, Dan's poker buddy Arnie makes a startling debut when he plants a passionate kiss on Roseanne. The Conners celebrate an outrageous Halloween that becomes an annual feature of the series. Later, at Thanksgiving dinner, Dan takes wary notice of a growing romance between his father and Crystal. Jackie gets serious with new boyfriend Gary (Brian Kerwin). Becky repeatedly rebels against Roseanne and Dan's parental authority. Old biker buddy Ziggy (Jay O. Sanders) appears to remind Roseanne and Dan of their own rebellious past. Darlene first proves her talent for writing when she wins recognition for her poetry. Roseanne's own writing talents are given a boost when her family fixes up a basement room to serve as a writer's den. Other notable guest stars during the season include Stephen Dorff (as Becky's boyfriend Jimmy), Stephen Root (as Roseanne's lawyer Peter), and Bert Parks (as a judge).

Season 3: The season opens with the Conner women confronting the issue of pregnancy: Roseanne takes a pregnancy test that turns up negative. Roseanne takes on a job as waitress in the restaurant at Rodbell's Department Store where we first meet both Leon and Bonnie. Jackie gets injured while on the job as a cop, which results in a breakup with her boyfriend Gary. Becky begins dating Mark, a boy her parents later forbid her to see, prompting Becky to temporarily move in with Jackie. Dan is floored to learn that his father Ed and Crystal plan to marry, and that Crystal is pregnant with Ed's baby. Roseanne locks horns with snooty new neighbor Kathy (played by Meagen Fay). Nana Mary makes her first appearance at a family barbecue. In the season finale, Ziggy reappears with a proposition to open a motorcycle repair shop with Dan and Roseanne, which they do, after which Ziggy decides to leave because he doesn't want to feel responsible if the business fails. Other notable guest stars during the season include Leonardo DiCaprio (as Darlene's classmate), Brad Garrett (as Doug), Judy Gold (as Amy), Alyson Hannigan (as Becky's friend Jan), and Tobey Maguire (as Jeff).

Season 4: The season starts with Becky surprising Roseanne by asking for birth control. Dan and Roseanne get started with their new motorcycle repair shop business, Lanford Custom Cycles, while Roseanne continues to work at Rodbell's Department Store. Jackie, after a brief stint working at a perfume counter, decides to become a truck driver. Nancy is first introduced as Arnie's fiancée, but not before Jackie discovers that after a night of heavy drinking, she's slept with the newly engaged Arnie. Darlene undergoes a personality shift into a sullen gothic teen. Booker makes a surprise appearance at a Halloween costume party. Roseanne's neighbor Kathy moves away. Roseanne gets breast reduction surgery. Roseanne and Dan accompany Arnie and Nancy to their wedding in Las Vegas. At the end of the season, Lanford Custom Cycles fails, Rodbell's Luncheonette closes, and Nancy is left alone after Arnie is "abducted by extraterrestrials." Notable guest stars during the season include Bob Hope (as himself), Wayne Newton (as himself), David Crosby (as Duke), Neil Patrick Harris (as Dr. Doogie Howser), and Rick Dees (as Ken).

Season 5: After the bike shop closes, Mark decides to move to Minnesota. Becky decides to go with him, and they elope. Jackie and Roseanne each get a check for $10,000 from Bev. They, along with Nancy, decide to open a diner, but can only get the money they need after Bev agrees to become a partner as well. Nancy comes out as a lesbian. The Tildens, a single father and his two daughters around Becky and Darlene's ages move in next door. Jackie dates Fisher, who is much younger than she is, until Roseanne discovers he is physically abusive. Dan confronts him, beats him up, and is arrested. Roseanne and Jackie's father dies. Roseanne's rich cousin Ronnie visits and convinces Darlene to get her GED and apply to art school. David applies as well. Darlene asks her parents if David can move in, because his mother is moving away and they want to stay together. Roseanne and Dan initially refuse, but when Roseanne sees David's mother being verbally abusive, she decides to let him stay. Dan is offered a deal to rehab and sell a house by Roger, who runs off before the deal is complete; but Jackie decides to buy the house, saving Dan from financial ruin. Darlene gets an acceptance letter from art school, David gets a rejection. At the end of the season, Roseanne is scared Darlene will run away to school although Darlene has already decided not to go. Realizing she was wrong, Roseanne convinces Darlene to not give up on her goals just to stay with David. Notable guest stars during the season include Wings Hauser (as Ty Tilden), Danielle Harris (as Molly Tilden), Loretta Lynn (as herself), Morgan Fairchild (as Nancy's girlfriend Marla), Bill Maher (as Bob), Ed Begley, Jr. (as Principal Alexander), Blake Clark (as Vic), Red Buttons (as Bev's lover Jake), Sally Kirkland (as Mark and David's mother Barbara), Tim Curry (as Nancy's lover Roger), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as D.J.'s friend George), Joan Collins (as Roseanne's cousin Ronnie), Matt Roth (as Jackie's boyfriend Fisher), and Steve Jones (as a threatening diner patron).

Season 6: Under pressure from Roseanne to leave the Lanford Lunch Box, Bev sells her share in the restaurant to Leon. David proposes marriage to Darlene, but she refuses. Dan and Roseanne discover and smoke an old stash of marijuana. Roseanne's past as a victim of abuse arises when she reacts violently to DJ after he steals and wrecks her car. Becky returns home and moves into a trailer park. Mark goes to trade school only to later drop out. Jackie gets pregnant as a result of a one-night stand. Jackie later develops a relationship with her baby's father, Fred. Roseanne and Dan discover that David has secretly moved in with Darlene at school. Roseanne visits a gay bar with Nancy where she receives a surprise kiss from Nancy's girlfriend. Jackie gives birth to a boy, which she names Andy. Dan confronts his mother's history of mental illness. The season concludes with Fred and Jackie's marriage. Notable guest stars during the season include Mariel Hemingway (as Nancy's girlfriend Sharon), Vicki Lawrence (as Dan's old flame Phyllis), Florence Henderson (as neighbor Flo), Ahmet Zappa (as Mark's roommate Roy), and Fabio (as himself).

Season 7: Season seven began with Roseanne's unexpected pregnancy and went on to tackle such issues as abortion, alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual dysfunction and racial prejudice. "The Sitcom Mom's Welcome Wagon" also aired this season. Notable guest stars during the season include Sharon Stone (as a trailer park resident), Ellen DeGeneres (as Jackie and Fred's psychologist Dr. Whitman), Danny Masterson (as Darlene's boyfriend Jimmy), and Traci Lords (as Landford Lunch Box waitress Stacy).

Season 8: Season eight addressed Roseanne's baby shower (and the subsequent arrival of her son Jerry Garcia Conner), DJ's Thanksgiving pageant, Darlene's wedding, and Dan's heart attack. As ratings had begun to drop at the end of the seventh season, the show's producers wanted to end the series after the eighth season. The show was, however, again renewed for one final season. One of the final episodes of the eighth season (in which Dan had the heart attack) was originally intended to be the series finale, but after the show was picked up for one last season, writers introduced a plot revolving around Dan not following the hospital's orders after the heart attack. This led to Roseanne and Dan having their worst fight in the show's history, with a second part to the heart attack episode being the first episode of the ninth season. Notable guest stars during the season include Fred Willard (as Leon's husband Scott), Ed McMahon (as himself), Pat Harrington, Jr. (as himself), Jenna Elfman (as hitchhiker Garland), Shecky Greene (as Bar Mitzvah guest Uncle Sol), Norm Crosby (as minister at Leon and Scott's wedding Reverend Crosley), June Lockhart (as TV mom Ruth Martin), the cast of Stomp (as Lanford Lunch Box patrons), Eric Dane (as a Disney World bellhop), and Tony Curtis (as ballroom-dance instructor Hal).

Season 9: The ninth and final season of the show marks a complete departure from the rest of the series as it takes on a more surreal tone. The Conners win the state lottery jackpot of $108 million, Roseanne battles terrorists, Dan ponders the meaning of life, Jackie meets her prince, D.J. finds love, and Darlene gives birth. Most surreal of all is the season's final episode, in which Roseanne reveals an alternative scenario for the series in which many of its events never actually take place and are instead part of a book she is writing. In this scenario, Dan's heart attack has killed him, the Conner family has not won the lottery, Becky has married David instead of Mark, Darlene has married Mark instead of David, and Jackie has come out as a lesbian instead of Roseanne's mother. Notable guest stars during the season include Ed Asner (as Lou Grant), Robin Leach (as himself), Hugh Hefner (as himself), Jerry Springer (as himself), Jim Varney (as Jackie's boyfriend Prince Carlos), Tammy Faye Bakker (as Roseanne's make-up consultant), Todd Oldham (as himself), Dina Merrill (as Doris), Joanna Lumley (as Patsy Stone), Jennifer Saunders (as Edina Monsoon), Steven Seagal (as himself), Arianna Huffington (as Estree), Marlo Thomas (as Tina), Tony Robbins (as himself), James Brolin (as Roseanne's business partner/love interest Edgar Wellman, Jr.), Bob Hope (as himself), and Debbie Reynolds (as Dan's mother Audrey).

Roseanne consistently ranked in the Nielsen top shows listing for eight of its nine seasons. It reached its pinnacle in its second season with a #1 ranking (tying with The Cosby Show), and only fell out of the top 20 in its final season. The entire Roseanne series is available on DVD in the Region 1 (North America) NTSC format from Anchor Bay Entertainment (briefly named Starz Home Entertainment resulting in some DVD packaging bearing this name). The first season was issued with shorter, syndicated versions of the episodes because Anchor Bay was unable to attain permission to release the original broadcasts. In the company's eighth and ninth season DVDs, some scenes have been altered to avoid disputes over music rights, including substituting some closing credit scenes with a black screen. Anchor Bay also released a special "Halloween Edition" DVD in August 2006, featuring uncut Halloween-themed episodes, with commentary by Roseanne Barr. Anchor Bay has been releasing the Region 2 (Europe) PAL format DVDs of the show at a slower pace. So far, Anchor Bay has released Region 2 DVDs only for the show's first four seasons. Anchor Bay announced that season 5 will be released in Autumn/Winter of 2008. In June 2006, Magna Pacific began to release the show on DVD in Region 4 (Australia, Central America, and South America) PAL format. Similar to the Anchor Bay releases, Magna Pacific has only released the show's first five seasons. Release dates for the subsequent seasons have not been announced. Unlike the Anchor Bay releases, Magna Pacific's first season DVDs include the full-length original broadcast episodes.

Commencing her career as Roseanne Cherrie, then Barr, then Arnold, then just Roseanne, and then back to Barr, a stand-up comic with a sardonic attitude and a mocking reference to her true-life housewifely self as a “domestic goddess,” the nightclub performer went the way of many comedians and was offered her own show. However, pretty quickly, it became that this Roseanne wasn’t going to be shaped and molded by network suits and veteran comedy writers; and you could definitely tell that by the show’s premise. The concept behind Roseanne was so simple it was radical: a sitcom about a blue-collar family in the Midwest, with money troubles and unvarnished family issues, headed by a strong-willed woman who said what was on her mind. Roseanne and her TV family turned the show into a kitchen-sink sitcom whose grunginess hadn’t been seen on television since The Honeymooners and imbued it with a nascent feminism that grew stronger with each season. The show dealt with subjects that were rarely handled in family comedies: domestic abuse, mental illness, alcoholism, homosexuality, and plain old-fashioned money dramas. Barr benefited from great supporting actors, including John Goodman as her long-suffering, job-hopping husband Dan; Laurie Metcalf as her mooncalf sister Jackie; and one of TV's most believable casts of kids, Sara Gilbert, Michael Fishman, and Lecy Goranson and Sarah Chalke, who each swapped the role of Becky back and forth. Viewers responded to her lower-middle class manifestos of pride because they were enlivened by a tough, blunt humor. And, since the star ran through writers and producers the way Cher does wigs, she must ultimately be given credit for the show’s unique combination of realism and idealism. But, she must also shoulder the blame when the show often got as much attention for its problems as its successes (the star's backstage temper, her butchering of the National Anthem, and the lottery-winning storyline of the last season that threw reality out of the window and degenerated the show into self-indulgent foolishness). But that's fine: like many ambitious works, and its star, Roseanne never offered a dull moment.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Okay, here are the shows from 100 to 21:

100. Saved By The Bell
99. The Real World
98. Rowan And Martin’s Laugh-In
97. The Beverly Hillbillies
96. The Venture Bros.
95. The Brady Bunch
94. Dynasty
93. Hollywood Squares
92. Bonanza
91. Batman
90. Happy Days
89. Taxi
88. Family Ties
87. The Office (U.S.)
86. Bewitched
85. WKRP In Cincinnati
84. Oz
83. The Odd Couple
82. Survivor
81. Gilligan’s Island
80. Freaks And Geeks
79. The Abbott And Costello Show
78. Beverly Hills 90210
77. My So-Called Life
76. Pee-Wee’s Playhouse
75. Everybody Loves Raymond
74. Deadwood
73. Lost
72. The Gong Show
71. The Rocky And Bullwinkle Show
70. The Office (U.K.)
69. The Incredible Hulk
68. King Of The Hill
67. General Hospital
66. Friends
65. Angel
64. Arrested Development
63. Battlestar Galactica
62. Mystery Science Theater 3000
61. Homicide: Life On The Street
60. Batman: The Animated Series
59. Good Times
58. Wiseguy
57. The Jeffersons
56. Twin Peaks
55. SCTV
54. ABC’s Wide World Of Sports
53. The Wonder Years
52. NYPD Blue
51. The Sopranos
50. The Price Is Right
49. Star Trek: The Next Generation
48. St. Elsewhere
47. Sanford And Son
46. Moonlighting
45. Magnum, P.I.
44. The Dick Van Dyke Show
43. Cowboy Bebop
42. Futurama
41. V
40. The Carol Burnett Show
39. The Bob Newhart Show
38. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
37. Married…With Children
36. Six Feet Under
35. South Park
34. Miami Vice
33. The Shield
32. Buffy The Vampire Slayer
31. 60 Minutes
30. Jeopardy!
29. The Cosby Show
28. Law & Order
27. The Late Show With David Letterman
26. ER
25. Frasier
24. The Prisoner
23. Gunsmoke
22. Your Show Of Shows
21. Roseanne

Tomorrow, numbers 20 and 19. The Top Twenty Begins!!!! Here are the hints:

it's been on for three decades and practically every year people say that it's not funny anymore, and it shares its name with a Southern city.

[rrm15]

Saturday Night Live and Dallas

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Sorry for the delay. I wasn't busy doing something else; it took me this long write up this entry!!!! SO, YOU BETTER smurfING LIKE IT, GODDAMMIT!!!! Anyway, here's number 20:

20. Saturday Night Live



Genre: Sketch comedy, Variety show.
Created by: Lorne Michaels, Dick Ebersol, and Herb Schlosser.
Executive Producer(s): Lorne Michaels (1975-1980, 1985-present), Jean Doumanian (1976-1981), Dick Ebersol (1975-1985), Alton Christensen (1998), David Tecson (1998), and Kelli Bixler (2005-2006).
Starring: Dan Aykroyd (1975–1979), John Belushi (1975–1979), Chevy Chase (1975–1976), George Coe (October 11, 1975–October 25, 1975, thereafter, through the first season, Coe was an occasional uncredited featured player), Jane Curtin (1975–1980), Garrett Morris (1975–1980), Laraine Newman (1975–1980), Michael O'Donoghue (October 11, 1975–October 25, 1975, thereafter and through 1978, O'Donoghue was a frequent featured player, usually credited. He also made uncredited appearances in 1981), Gilda Radner (1975–1980), Tom Davis (1975–1980 featured player), Al Franken (1975–1980; 1987–1995 featured player), Bill Murray (1977–1980), Don Novello (1978–1980; 1985–1986 featured player), Peter Aykroyd (1979–1980 featured player), Jim Downey (1979–1980 featured player), Paul Shaffer (1979–1980 featured player), Tom Schiller (1979–1980 featured player), Alan Zweibel (1979–1980 featured player), Brian Doyle-Murray (1979–1980; 1981–1982 featured player), Harry Shearer (1979–1980; 1984–1985), Denny Dillon (1980–1981), Gilbert Gottfried (1980–1981), Yvonne Hudson (1980–1981 featured player), Matthew Laurance (1980–1981 featured player), Gail Matthius (1980–1981), Laurie Metcalf (1980–1981 featured player), Emily Prager (1980–1981 featured player), Ann Risley (1980–1981), Charles Rocket (1980–1981), Patrick Weathers (1980–1981 featured player), Tony Rosato (1980–1982), Robin Duke (1980–1984), Tim Kazurinsky (1980–1984), Eddie Murphy (1980–1984), Joe Piscopo (1980–1984), Christine Ebersole (1981–1982), Mary Gross (1981–1985), Brad Hall (1982–1984), Gary Kroeger (1982–1985), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (1982–1985), Jim Belushi (1983–1985), Billy Crystal (1984–1985), Christopher Guest (1984–1985), Rich Hall (1984–1985), Martin Short (1984–1985), Pamela Stephenson (1984–1985), Joan Cusack (1985–1986), Robert Downey Jr. (1985-1986), Anthony Michael Hall (1985–1986), Randy Quaid (1985–1986), Terry Sweeney (1985–1986), Danitra Vance (1985–1986), Dan Vitale (1985–1986 featured player), Damon Wayans (1985–1986 featured player), Nora Dunn (1985–1990), Jon Lovitz (1985–1990), A. Whitney Brown (1985–1991 featured player), Dennis Miller (1985–1991), Jan Hooks (1986–1991), Victoria Jackson (1986–1992), Dana Carvey (1986–1993), Phil Hartman (1986–1994), Kevin Nealon (1986–1995), Ben Stiller (1988–1989 featured player), Mike Myers (1988–1995), Chris Rock (1990–1993), Rob Schneider (1990–1994), Julia Sweeney (1990–1994), Chris Farley (1990–1995), Adam Sandler (1990–1995), David Spade (1990–1996), Tim Meadows (1991–2000), Beth Cahill (1991–1992 featured player), Siobhan Fallon (1991–1992), Robert Smigel (1991–1993 featured player), Melanie Hutsell (1991–1994), Ellen Cleghorne (1991–1995), Sarah Silverman (1993–1994 featured player), Michael McKean (1993–1995), Jay Mohr (1993–1995 featured player), Norm Macdonald (1993–1998), Morwenna Banks (1994–1995), Chris Elliott (1994–1995), Janeane Garofalo (1994–1995), Laura Kightlinger (1994–1995), Mark McKinney (1994–1997), Molly Shannon (1994–2001), David Koechner (1995–1996), Nancy Walls (1995–1996), Fred Wolf (1995–1997 featured player), Jim Breuer (1995–1998), Cheri Oteri (1995–2000), Colin Quinn (1995–2000), Will Ferrell (1995–2002), Darrell Hammond (1995–present), Chris Kattan (1996–2003), Ana Gasteyer (1996–2002), Tracy Morgan (1996–2003), Jimmy Fallon (1998–2004), Chris Parnell (1998–2006), Horatio Sanz (1998–2006), Rachel Dratch (1999–2006), Maya Rudolph (1999–2007), Jerry Minor (2000–2001 featured player), Tina Fey (2000–2006), Dean Edwards (2001–2003 featured player), Jeff Richards (2001–2004), Seth Meyers (2001–present), Amy Poehler (2001–present), Fred Armisen (2002–present), Will Forte (2002–present), Finesse Mitchell (2003–2006), Kenan Thompson (2003–present), Rob Riggle (2004–2005 featured player), Jason Sudeikis (2004–present), Bill Hader (2005–present), Andy Samberg (2005–present), Kristen Wiig (2005–present), and Casey Wilson (2007–present featured player).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 34.
Number of Episodes: 636 as of May 17, 2008.
Running Time: 90 minutes.
Original Channel: NBC.
Original Run: October 11, 1975 – present
Spinoffs: Several films have been based on characters from the show: “The Blues Brothers” (1980), “Wayne’s World” (1992), “Wayne’s World 2” (1993), “Coneheads” (1993), “It’s Pat” (1994), “Stuart Saves His Family” (1995), “A Night At The Roxbury” (1998), “Blues Brothers 2000” (1998), “Superstar” (1999), and “The Ladies Man” (2000). However, it has had only one TV spinoff: TV Funhouse, based on the Robert Smigel cartoons of the same name, that aired on Comedy Central for one season (2000-2001).

Since SNL has a long history, I will break it down into the respective eras it is usually broken down in:

The Early Years, 1975-1980: In 1974, NBC Tonight Show host Johnny Carson requested that the weekend broadcasts of "Best of Carson" come to an end (back then The Tonight Show was a 90-minute program), so that Carson could take two weeknights off and NBC would thus air those repeats on those nights rather than feed them to affiliates for broadcast on either Saturdays or Sundays. Given Carson's undisputed status as the dean of late-night television, NBC heard his request as an ultimatum, fearing he might use the issue as grounds to defect to either ABC or CBS. To fill the gap, the network drew up some ideas and brought in Dick Ebersol, a protégé of legendary ABC Sports president Roone Arledge, to develop a 90-minute late-night variety show. Ebersol's first order of business was hiring a young Canadian producer named Lorne Michaels to be the show-runner. Television production in New York was already in decline in the mid-1970s (The Tonight Show had departed for Los Angeles two years prior), so NBC decided to base the show at their studios in Rockefeller Center to offset the overhead of maintaining those facilities. Michaels was given studio 8H, a converted radio studio that prior to that point was most famous for having hosted Arturo Toscanini and his orchestra in the 1950s, but was being used largely for network election coverage by the mid-1970s. When the first show aired on October 11, 1975, with George Carlin as its host, it was called NBC's Saturday Night, because ABC featured a program at the same time titled Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. After ABC cancelled the Cosell program in 1976, the NBC program changed its name to Saturday Night Live on March 26, 1977 (and subsequently picked up Bill Murray from Cosell's show in 1977, as well). The lead in announcement for the first show introduced the cast as the "Not for ready, prime time players" instead of their actual name as "Not ready for prime time players." The original concept was for a comedy-variety show featuring young comedians, live musical performances, short films by Albert Brooks, and segments by Jim Henson featuring atypically adult and abstract characters from the Muppets world. Rather than have one permanent host Michaels elected to have a different guest host each week (Albert Brooks was originally booked to be a permanent host, and claims it was his idea to have a different host each week). The first episode featured two musical guests (Billy Preston and Janis Ian), and the second episode, hosted by Paul Simon on October 18, was almost entirely a musical variety show with various different acts. The Not Ready For Prime-Time Players did not appear in this episode at all, other than as the bees with Simon telling them they were cancelled and Chase in the opening and "Weekend Update." Over the course of the first season, sketch comedy would begin to dominate the show and SNL would more closely resemble its current format. The original (1975–1980) repertory company was called the “Not Ready for Prime-Time Players.” The first cast members were Second City alumni Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, and Gilda Radner and National Lampoon "Lemmings" alumnus Chevy Chase (whose trademark became his usual falls and opening spiel that cued the show's opening), Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, and Garrett Morris. The original head writer was Michael O'Donoghue, a writer at National Lampoon who had worked alongside several cast members while directing The National Lampoon Radio Hour. The original theme music was written by future Academy Award–winning composer Howard Shore, who, along with his "All Nurse Band," was the original band leader on the show. Paul Shaffer who would go on to lead David Letterman's band on Late Night and then The Late Show, was also band leader in the early years. Michaels fought and cajoled network executives to accept his vision for the show, which was far removed from standard variety-show conventions (one executive, visiting a dress rehearsal, noticed that the band was in blue jeans and asked when their tuxedos would arrive). Before the show began Michaels had remarked that he knew what the “ingredients [of SNL] would be, but not the proportions,” and that the show would have to “find itself” on-air. Indeed, the Not Ready for Primetime Players were hardly featured in the premiere, but quickly became the focus of the show, with the guest host and musical act playing a secondary role. Albert Brooks and the Muppets were also dropped after the first season and the beginning of the second season, respectively, but short films by writer Tom Schiller continued to be shown under the title “Schiller's Reel,” as well as Walter Williams' popular budget claymation segment "Mr. Bill." Perhaps due to his recurring news parody sketch "Weekend Update" (which survives to this day, albeit with new anchors), Chevy Chase was the first breakout star of SNL, garnering magazine covers, in-depth interviews, and even some speculation that he would succeed Johnny Carson if Carson ever left The Tonight Show (eventually, Chase did host his own talk show, but it failed miserably and was cancelled after less than two months). Though Chase had never been friendly with most of the cast (a rivalry with John Belushi went all the way back to their work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour, and by the time he left for greener pastures early in the second season he couldn't even get along with Lorne Michaels), Chase returned to host the show several times over the next two decades, and relations were often strained, with the cast (whatever their own personal conflicts) usually uniting in opposition or disgust towards him, even hiding en masse so that they would not have to share an elevator with him. Perhaps the low points were 1978, when he got into a brawl with Bill Murray mere moments before broadcast, and 1985, when he horrified many of the cast by suggesting a sketch where openly gay performer Terry Sweeney develops AIDS and then show the audience how much weight he loses each week. In 1997, he was banned from ever hosting again. Despite this, Chase would occasionally make cameos following his ban from the show, most recently in the October 6, 2007 show hosted by Seth Rogen in which he returned to the old Weekend Update desk. Bill Murray's first appearance on Saturday Night Live was on January 15, 1977, after Chase left to pursue a movie career. Murray had a shaky start, forgetting his lines and seeming awkward on camera. Many fans of Chevy Chase saw him as a replacement for him, and had been sending hate mail as well. By the end of his first season, he began to develop a following with a sleazy, know-it-all persona. Many of his characterizations, such as Nick the Lounge Singer and Todd DiLamuca (originally Todd DiLabounta but the real DiLabounta threatened to sue), were instant classics. By its second season, SNL developed into something of a television phenomenon. It was, in many ways, the first show of its kind to appeal to a younger audience, making it very attractive to advertisers. Recurring characters and catch-phrases (see below) soon entered the popular vernacular. It was also one of America's only mainstream national TV shows that consistently featured topical political satire. In 1976, Ron Nessen, press secretary for President Gerald Ford, hosted the show. Ford himself appeared in a pretaped opening sequence. The show had been very critical of Ford and promised to give him a break that night. On October 30, 1976, Weekend Update played the 1974 broadcast of Ford pardoning President Richard Nixon—many backstage felt that decision was instrumental in helping Jimmy Carter win the '76 election, especially among younger voters. Two notable “featured players” on the show included writer Al Franken and (for the 1979–80 season) Harry Shearer, who later acted in several films (including This is Spinal Tap) and television series, including The Simpsons. The show also featured frequent guest appearances by comedians Steve Martin and Andy Kaufman. Aykroyd and Belushi departed after the 1978–1979 season and subsequently found worldwide fame in the movie version of the Blues Brothers sketch. Belushi famously died of drug-related causes in 1982. Aykroyd had major roles in several hit comedies and even earned an Academy Award nomination. The final season with the remnants of the "Not Ready" crew was underwhelming by most standards. Drugs were a major problem backstage by the last season. According to Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, by Doug Hill & Jeff Weingrad, various members of the cast and crew were using cocaine, and this affected the program in myriad ways. A burly bodyguard was stationed directly outside the studio gates to warn Michaels if the cops were on the way. Laraine Newman had developed serious eating disorders as well as a cocaine addiction—she spent so much time in her dressing room playing Solitaire that for Christmas that year Gilda gave her a deck of playing cards with a picture of Laraine on the face of the card. Garrett Morris, who felt degraded from years of small roles and what he saw as racist sketches (at one point the writers were going to have him do a fake ad for "Tar Baby" toothpaste, which would make blacks' teeth stop glowing in the dark; only when black crew members walked off the set in protest did Michaels drop the idea), began free-basing cocaine and became unreliable. During rehearsals for the Kirk Douglas show, Morris ran screaming onto the set, saying that someone had put an "invisible robot" on his shoulder who watched him everywhere he went. He pleaded with them to get the robot off him. Radner, meanwhile, was resented by many because she and Michaels had spent much of the year working on a Broadway play, and album, Gilda Live. She had recently broken off a relationship with Bill Murray, and they could barely speak to one another. Murray resented that the other male cast members had left him stranded and essentially forced him to play every male lead on the show. Exhausted, Gilda had few starring roles in the 1979–80 season. Indeed, the most energetic and diverse performer in that last year was Jane Curtin, who was thrilled to see the "Bully Boys" as she called them (Aykroyd and Belushi) depart and who debuted a number of hilarious new characters and impressions while she had the chance. Other major contributors included Harry Shearer as well as writers Al Franken and Tom Davis (longtime writing partners who had given themselves meatier roles as the heavyweights departed) and Don Novello, a writer whose "Father Guido Sarducci" character was especially popular and appeared repeatedly during the fifth season. By May 1980 the show was finishing up its fifth season, and Lorne Michaels was ready for a break. Knowing that most of the cast and many of the writers would be departing, he attempted to persuade the network to put the show on hiatus for six months to re-cast. Unfortunately NBC refused this attempt to let the show survive in reruns for half a year (a decision that would come back to haunt them the next season). Michaels' contract was up for renewal, and he felt somewhat slighted by NBC in negotiations. Michaels had always had a tense relationship with NBC President Fred Silverman, and it was not helped by SNL's numerous on-air taunts about NBC's abysmal prime time performance during Silverman's tenure. In fact, SNL was one of the few truly popular shows on the network during this period, but Michaels and his representatives felt renewing his contract was a secondary priority to NBC executives behind Johnny Carson's, which was also up for renewal. Michaels subsequently took his name off the show and left at the end of the fifth season along with the rest of the original cast and the writing staff, most of whom followed suit due to loyalty towards Michaels. (Among these was Franken, whom Michaels had originally hand-picked as his successor; however, Franken had earlier in the season written and delivered a monologue on the show called "Limo for a Lame-O" that directly insulted Silverman, who had not been warned about the sketch and thereafter despised Franken.) Harry Shearer, who had zero allegiance to Michaels, informed the incoming Executive Producer, Jean Doumanian, he would stay as long as she let him completely overhaul the program. Doumanian refused, so Shearer also bid farewell (he would return briefly in 1984–1985). The remaining "Not Ready For Primetime Players" appeared together for the last time on May 24, 1980 for the final episode of the fifth season. The episode, hosted by long-time loyal host Buck Henry, gave a heartfelt goodbye from all the members of the cast, and Henry himself who, after hosting 10 times in five years, has yet to return to the show again, except for an appearance in the September 24, 1989 15th Anniversary special. At the end of the episode, the entire cast, writers, and Henry stood onstage for the goodnights. After a short farewell speech, Buck Henry signed off saying, "Goodnight...and goodbye..." The band began playing the traditional closing music as Henry led the cast and crew off the stage, and through the studio exit. The camera panned upward above the door to reveal the flashing "On-Air" light shut off for the final time that season, signaling what was indeed the end of an era.

Years Of Uneasy Transition, 1980-1985: For much of the decade SNL was in turmoil and many critics wrote the show off as a pale imitation of its former glory. Jean Doumanian took over the show for the 1980 season, hiring a completely new cast and new writers, but it was plagued by problems from the start, and was deemed "disastrously unfunny" by both critics and much of the viewing audience. Lorne Michaels had originally wanted to make Al Franken his successor as executive producer after he left, and all was in place to do such until the May 10, 1980 broadcast. During a "Weekend Update" segment, Franken delivered a harsh criticism of then-NBC President Fred Silverman. The commentary angered Silverman so much that any chance of Franken becoming an executive under Silverman's watch were all but gone. Jean Doumanian was a talent scout for SNL in the early days and was one of the few members of the staff who remained after the 1979 season. In the summer of 1980, Doumanian accepted the job as the new executive producer, against the advice of close friends. Many were convinced that the show could no longer succeed without the original cast and writers. They warned Doumanian to be prepared for harsh treatment from the network. It wasn't long before their cynical predictions became a reality. NBC started by cutting Doumanian's budget from $1,000,000 per episode (Lorne's budget during his last season) to about $350,000 per episode. Further, Doumanian had only two months to discover and prepare a new cast and crew; she claims she received virtually none of the support that was promised to her by either the network or her staff. Writers from that season recall that petitions were already being passed around by other writers and crew members to get Doumanian off the show. Doumanian herself would later discover that many members of the NBC staff, people she assumed devoted to her, were not on her side. Doumanian would not let writers work together if they had not been hired as a team, which resulted in the shoddy and unfinished sketches that permeated that year. From the start, the inner politics of the network were heated, so the season was off to a rocky start before it had ever really begun. Doumanian focused on keeping the NBC brass out of the creative process instead of worrying about the writers and performers who were in it. On an autumn morning in 1980, talent coordinator Neil Levy received a telephone call from 19-year old Eddie Murphy, who had begged the producer to "give him a shot" on the show, but was rejected since the show had a full cast. Murphy pleaded with Levy that he had several siblings banking on him getting a spot on the show. Levy finally auditioned him, and recommended him to Doumanian. She refused, citing that actor Robert Townsend had been selected as the cast's "token black guy," and that the budget would not support more actors. Doumanian changed her mind after seeing Murphy's audition, and advocated for Murphy with the network. NBC agreed only because Townsend had not yet signed a contract, and Murphy was cast as a featured player. Other talent that Doumanian overlooked while forming the new cast were Richard Karn, Dana Carvey, Dom Irrera, Cassandra Peterson, and future hosts Jim Carrey, John Goodman, and Paul Reubens. The first episode, renamed Saturday Night Live '80 in the opening credits, appeared on November 15, 1980, featuring an all-new cast: Charles Rocket (who was groomed to be the new break-out star), Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, Joe Piscopo, and Ann Risley rounded out the new "Not Ready For Prime Time Players." Woody Allen (who reportedly hated SNL) suggested to Jean Doumanian that she hire one of his friends, Ann Risley. Some observers believed that while Ann Risley was a fine serious actress, she was not inherently funny (perhaps as a demonstration of Woody Allen's hatred for the show). Elliott Gould had agreed to host the first episode, assuming he would be working with the old cast. He was astonished when he reported to the studio and discovered that it was a different group of performers. Contributing to the (later) sense that the season was doomed, in the first sketch, the cast shared a bed with Gould and introduced themselves: Charles Rocket proclaimed himself to be cross between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, and Gilbert Gottfried (pre-signature high pitched "squeaky" voice) referred to himself as a cross between John Belushi, "...and that guy from last year who did Rod Serling, and no one can remember his name..." (referring to Harry Shearer). This self-serving comparison to the original cast alienated much of the audience. The rest of the show remained very inconsistent in terms of acting and writing. At the end of the show, Gould stood on stage and quickly introduced himself to the cast one more time by first name and declared "We're gonna be around forever, so we might as well..." However, Elliott Gould has not hosted the show since. The next episode, hosted by Malcolm McDowell, is considered by some[who?] to be the worst in the show's history. Skits during Doumanian's tenure seemed half-finished and improvised on-air. Examples from the McDowell episode included "Leather Weather," featuring Rocket in S&M gear sprawled across a weather map, and "Jack the Stripper," an overlong and disorganized sketch about Prince Charles supposedly being a flasher. Before this episode aired Jean Doumanian had nearly lost her job by insisting on the inclusion of a sketch portraying a nun who was not a virgin. Before Doumanian backed down, NBC head Fred Silverman told the standards department to repeat one of Lorne Michaels' shows, if necessary. The McDowell episode was also notable in that Eddie Murphy made his non-speaking network television debut in a sketch called "In Search of the Negro Republican". An outside actor was hired to play the black lead, and Murphy was supposedly so embarrassed by this that he vowed to take a more active role on the show. Murphy had his first speaking role two weeks later as Raheem Abdul Muhummad on "Weekend Update". He made such a positive impression that he would be called on for more in later episodes, and was made a full cast member by the season's seventh episode. The critical high point of the 1980─1981 season probably came with the Karen Black episode on January 17. It displayed the most consistent writing and performing of the season. Murphy was soon raised to the status of full cast member, and Piscopo had established himself as a reliable performer with such bits as the eccentric New Jersey-an "Paulie Herman," and his well-regarded Frank Sinatra impression. On February 21, 1981, the show featured a parody of the "Who Shot J.R. Ewing" craze from the hit TV show Dallas. In a cliffhanger titled "Who Shot C.R.?" cast member Charles Rocket was "shot" in the last sketch of the episode, after a running gag in which other members of the cast shared their grievances about Rocket with one another. Onstage for the goodnights, Dallas star and that week's host, Charlene Tilton, asked Rocket (who was still in character and sitting in a wheelchair) his thoughts on being shot. "Oh man, it's the first time I've been shot in my life," he replied. "I'd like to know who the smurf did it." The cast, along with some of the audience, reacted with laughter and applause. This was not the first nor the last time the expletive would be uttered live on SNL, but given the circumstances of the season as a whole, it was the last straw. Rocket's epithet, unbeknownst to him, would cost him his job. Almost the entire cast and crew lost their jobs on the show. At the time, Rocket reportedly justified his action, pointing out that musical guest Prince had performed "Partyup" earlier on that very same broadcast; the song featured the line "Fightin' war is such a smurfin' bore." Despite his release, Rocket appeared in the next episode anyway, his performance clearly affected. Bill Murray hosted the next week (it is thought Doumanian and Rocket were retained for the week to ensure Murray wouldn't bolt). Murray's show marked the very first time a former cast member hosted alongside new cast members. Although an uneven show at best, it was one the closest it ever came to resembling the energy of the original show. As a consequence of the season so far, and Rocket's behavior the week before, NBC fired Jean Doumanian after this episode, closing the book on what is now widely regarded as the worst period in the show's history. Many nights NBC aired the sketch comedy show SCTV in place of SNL, and it had been overtaken in the ratings by ABC's derivative Fridays, which at the time was garnering more critical acclaim as well. These factors gave the impression that NBC might cancel the show. SNL was given one more chance when Dick Ebersol was hired to replace Doumanian. He was the young apprentice the network hired away from ABC to develop SNL in late 1974; he was responsible for hiring Lorne Michaels that year, and now was given the task of saving the once-acclaimed show from cancellation. In his first week, Ebersol fired Gottfried, Risley, and Rocket, replacing them with Robin Duke, Tim Kazurinsky, and Tony Rosato. He would eventually eliminate the rest of the 1980 cast (except for Murphy and Piscopo) at the end of the season (he had wanted to fire Dillon as soon as he took over, but could not afford a replacement for her). Ebersol originally wanted to bring in John Candy and Catherine O'Hara from SCTV; Candy turned down the offer and Rosato joined instead. O'Hara initially accepted, but she changed her mind after Michael O'Donoghue, SNL's original head writer, who had been brought in to rejuvenate the show, screamed at the cast about the season's poor writing and performances. Robin Duke was added to the cast when O'Hara suggested her instead. Emily Prager and Laurie Metcalf joined as featured players, but they were not retained after their first appearance. Ebersol’s first show aired April 11, with host Chevy Chase and an appearance by Al Franken asking viewers to "put SNL to sleep." Ebersol, wanting to establish a connection to the original cast, allowed Franken's mock-serious routine on the air. Ebersol had promised Franken and Tom Davis that in addition to appearing on the April 11 show, they could host the next week, with musical guest The Grateful Dead. During the following week, with a writer's strike looming, Franken and Davis wrote material and mailed it to themselves so that their postmark could be used to prove they did not violate the strike. After seeing copies of the material, Ebersol (never a fan of Franken & Davis') caved to the writer's strike and called off the rest of the season, promising the duo they could host the season premiere that fall. As the summer ended, Ebersol, confident in his new cast, decided he no longer needed a link to the original cast. Franken claims Ebersol never returned his calls, and Franken and Davis never hosted SNL. By the fall of 1981, Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy were the only performers from Doumanian's cast to appear on SNL for the 1981-1982 season. Murphy was rarely featured previously, but became a break-out star under Ebersol, and his soaring popularity helped restore the show's ratings. He created memorable characters, including the empty-headed former child movie star Buckwheat and an irascible, life-size version of the Gumby toy character, complete with life-size star ego. Murphy also performed an uncanny impression of Stevie Wonder (Wonder sportingly hosted in 1983 and appeared in a fake ad for the "Kannon AE-1" camera, which is "so simple, even Stevie Wonder can use it.") Piscopo was also popular, renowned for his Frank Sinatra impersonation, as well as his characters Paulie Herman and (with Robin Duke) Doug & Wendy Whiner. Other new cast members for the 1981 season included Christine Ebersole, Mary Gross, and 1979 featured player Brian Doyle-Murray, who ran the Weekend Update desk for one season. Also returning were Second City veterans Robin Duke, Tim Kazurinsky and Tony Rosato, who had debuted April 11. In the spring of 1982, Ebersol traveled to The Second City in Chicago to scout for more talent. Tired of recently losing key players to NBC (such as Cheers George Wendt and Hill Street Blues' Betty Thomas), the Second City top brass directed Ebersol around the corner to the Practical Theatre Company, where he hired Gary Kroeger, Brad Hall, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who later married Hall) to join in the fall. Second City alum Jim Belushi arrived three shows into the 1983-84 season due to stage commitments in Chicago. Ebersol ran a very different show than Michaels had in the 1970s. Many of the sketches were built less on "smart" and "revolutionary" comedy that was abundant in the early days and followed a much more "straightforward" approach. This shift alienated some fans and even some writers and cast members. Ebersol was eager to attract the younger viewers that advertisers craved. He dictated that no sketch should run longer than five minutes, so as not to lose the attention of teenagers. Many writers felt that Ebersol was simplifying the humor of the show by demanding more appearances of recurring characters for cheap laughs, among other things, leading to somewhat inconsistent writing. Unlike Michaels, Ebersol never had been a writer, and unlike Doumanian, he never claimed to be. He determined which sketches made it to air, and often made his decisions based not on creative content but budget or ease of production. Cast and writers often wondered if "Dick" (as nearly all of them called him) actually knew which sketches were funny and which were not. Despite these oppositions, there was little argument that Ebersol possessed a keen sense of business politics, which eventually helped revive a show that would have otherwise died at the hands of an inexperienced producer. Having come from the ranks of the "the suits" himself, Ebersol was adept at dealing with the network. Later in his tenure, Ebersol was generally handling much of the business aspects and day-to-day production affairs, leaving producer Bob Tischler in charge of most of the creative facets of the show. Unlike Lorne Michaels, Dick Ebersol had no difficulty firing people. Among the first casualties after the 1981 season were Rosato (who later said that the firing was the best thing to ever happen to him, because the SNL environment helped encourage his drug addiction) and Ebersole, who got the axe because of her frequent complaints that the women on the show had little airtime and what they did receive cast them in sexist and humiliating light. Michael O'Donoghue was fired in the middle of the 1981-1982 season after repeated arguments with Ebersol over the creative direction of the show, and because of his abusive treatment of the cast. On air, SNL was mostly a two-man show from 1981-1984, with Murphy and Piscopo playing a bulk of the lead characters. This was not unprecedented--Chevy Chase had become the breakout star of the first season, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi became the dominant forces upon Chase's departure, and Bill Murray would play nearly every male lead during the 1979-1980 season. But Ebersol made it clear from the beginning that his strategy was to showcase Murphy and Piscopo as much as possible. All other cast members played mainly supporting roles and were treated with very little patience by the producers. Writers often noticed that Ebersol would criticize their scripts for not featuring enough of Murphy and Piscopo, even though they were already the leads in most of the sketches. With the release of the film “48 Hours,” Murphy's star began to eclipse that of Piscopo. Murphy's co-star in the film, Nick Nolte, was scheduled to host the show, but canceled at the last minute due to a hangover after a night of partying at Studio 54. Ebersol offered Murphy the chance to host, a move that Piscopo would perceive as a major slight (by now the rest of the cast were so used to playing Murphy's supporting company they hardly complained). Piscopo would later claim Ebersol used Murphy's success to divide the two erstwhile friends and play them against one another. Others countered that Piscopo was simply being a prima dona; said one writer, "Eddie Murphy's fame went to Joe Piscopo's head." In February 1984, Eddie Murphy left the show. His appearances for the remainder of the season consisted of sketches he had pre-taped in September 1983. Duke, Piscopo, Hall and Kazurinsky were not invited to return after the 1983-1984 season. Piscopo was offered a chance to guest host during 1984-1985, but declined. Upon the departures of Murphy and Piscopo, Ebersol, having lost his key players, began rebuilding the cast for the 1984 season, enlisting what is in retrospect known as the "All-Star" cast. Along with veteran players Jim Belushi, Gross, Kroeger, and Louis-Dreyfus, Ebersol added somewhat, for the first time in the show's history, well-known names to the repertory. This new cast included Soap star Billy Crystal; Martin Short, who had made a name for himself as Ed Grimley (a character he would bring to SNL that year) on Canada's SCTV; Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer (who was also a cast member in 1979) from The Credibility Gap and This Is Spinal Tap; Not the Nine O'Clock News and “Superman III”'s Pamela Stephenson; and Rich Hall from HBO's Not Necessarily The News. The newcomers helped put together a memorable year of hit sketches and widely accepted recurring characters. As Louis-Dreyfus noted in a November 2005 retrospective, the newcomers, particularly Crystal, Short, and Guest, all but took over the show, relegating her and most of the rest of the cast to supporting roles. Short has noted that his one year at SNL brought him more fame than his entire stint on SCTV, but it was Crystal who became the show's break-out star. Crystal had been scheduled to appear in the first SNL in 1975, but walked when his airtime was whittled away during rehearsal. Already known to some for his stand-up comedy and his role as Jodie Dallas in Soap, Crystal became the show's latest sensation, bringing the catch-phrases "It is better to look good than to feel good" and "You look mahvelous!" (both uttered by his "Fernando" character) into popular culture. Harry Shearer would depart after the January 12, 1985 broadcast, citing "creative differences." Shearer would later remark, "I was creative...and they were different..." Shearer would go on to greater fame as a cast member of The Simpsons in which he voiced several characters including Mr. Burns and Principal Skinner. At the end of the season, Ebersol requested to completely revamp the show to include mostly prerecorded segments. Short, Guest, and Hall had tired of the show's demanding production schedule and showed little interest in returning for another season, leaving Crystal the only "A-cast" member available for 1985-86. Like Michaels at the end of the 1980 season, Ebersol made taking the show off the air for several months to re-cast and rebuild a condition of his return. Another idea was to institute a permanent rotation of hosts (Billy Crystal, Joe Piscopo and David Letterman) for "a hip Ed Sullivan Show." After briefly canceling the show, NBC decided to continue production only if they could get Lorne Michaels to produce again. Ebersol and Tischler, along with their writing staff and most of the cast, left the show after this season (those who wished to stay-such as Billy Crystal were eventually not re-hired for 1985), which closed the book on an inconsistent, yet memorable era in SNL history. Dick Ebersol left the show after the 1984-85 season, when the network refused his request to shut the program down entirely for six months and shift much of the material onto tape, not live broadcast. Once again, NBC briefly considered cancelling the show, but programming head Brandon Tartikoff (who was something of an SNL fan) decided to continue the show and re-hire erstwhile producer Lorne Michaels.

The Prodigal Son Returns, 1985-1990: In some ways the job Michaels returned to was more challenging than the one he took on in 1975. For starters, Michaels' "golden boy" reputation was somewhat tarnished. His most recent effort, the previous season's The New Show confused critics and was ignored by audiences. Also, the 1984-1985 season had been a critical and ratings hit, generating memorable characters and stand-out performers. However, Michaels would not be the only member of the old guard to return: original writers Al Franken and Tom Davis would return as producers, and Jim Downey would be head writer. Fans and critics welcomed Michaels and many of the original producers and writers back, calling it a return to the show's roots. Michaels opted to follow Ebersol's lead from the previous season, hiring a mixture of established and younger actors for his ensemble. He hired Academy Award nominee Randy Quaid, best known for his work in The Last Detail and National Lampoon's Vacation, as well as Joan Cusack and Robert Downey Jr. Milestones included the first black female regular, Danitra Vance (a young woman named Yvonne Hudson had been a featured player in 1980 and appeared in uncredited bit parts from 1978 to 1980), Terry Sweeney, the first openly gay cast member, and Anthony Michael Hall, yet another fresh face from Hollywood, who appeared with Quaid in Vacation and starred in The Breakfast Club earlier that year. At 17, he was the youngest cast member ever. Rounding out the cast were unknowns: stand-up comedians Dennis Miller and Damon Wayans and improv comedians Nora Dunn and Jon Lovitz. Don Novello, another member of the old guard, would also return as his popular Father Guido Sarducci character. Miller, who performed in relatively few sketches (and even fewer as the years went by), became known for bringing his stand-up wit to "Weekend Update," becoming the most memorable anchor since Chevy Chase back in 1975. With the exceptions of Miller, Lovitz, and Dunn, the new cast failed to connect with audiences. Michaels' gamble on a young, "brat pack" approach may have made the show seem more hip, but many of the regulars were better actors than comedians. Michaels angered most of his cast by ending the season with a sketch in which the cast (playing themselves) get caught in a fire, and Michaels chooses to rescue only Lovitz (who had connected with audiences due in part to his popular characters the Master Thespian and the Pathological Liar with the catchphrase "that's the ticket!"). The writing staff, composed of newcomers and veterans from the first five seasons had failed to collaborate with the new talent as they had during Michaels' first tenure. At the end of the 1985-1986 season NBC briefly canceled SNL, but eventually opted to give Michaels six episodes in the fall to turn things around. Of the entire cast, only Dunn, Lovitz, and Miller returned when the 1986-1987 season rolled around. For his next crop of regulars, Michaels returned to his original tactic of assembling a strong ensemble of relative unknowns, led by Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, and Kevin Nealon. Although the new lineup contained some of the best actresses since the show's early seasons, there were reportedly some dramatic behind-the-scenes ego battles, and tensions eventually forced out Nora Dunn. Victoria Jackson has been highly critical of Hooks and especially Dunn, who was romantically involved with Michaels at the time. The first show of the 1986-1987 season opened with Madonna, host of the previous season opener, telling the audience that the entire 1985-1986 season had been a "horrible dream," just as Dallas had done a few weeks earlier (marking the second time J.R. Ewing and company were parodied during a tumultuous time on SNL). Audiences were thrilled, NBC gave SNL only thirteen shows to turn it around, but the show rebounded almost immediately. Michaels pulled out all the stops that season, producing some of the best shows ever (in particular, shows 4-6 with Sam Kinison / Lou Reed; Robin Williams / Paul Simon; Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Martin Short/ Randy Newman). With the new cast, SNL began to revive and gain renewed popularity thanks to Michaels' inspired casting decisions, vastly improved writing and increasingly on-target political satire and pop culture parodies. Sadly, one of the best seasons, 1987-1988, was cut short by a writers' strike. Gilda Radner had been penciled in to host the season finale that spring, but by 1989 her cancer had returned and she died within the year. The urbane, smooth-voiced Phil Hartman became one of the show's longest-serving cast members. Hartman had originally worked as a graphic designer; among his credits is the band logo for Poco and the cover of the hit 1975 album America's Greatest Hits. Turning to theatre, he became a member of The Groundlings, where he met Paul Reubens, which led to him co-writing Reubens' cult 1985 film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and appearing on his popular Saturday morning show Pee-Wee's Playhouse. When he left SNL in 1994, he and Kevin Nealon were the longest-serving cast members in the show's history (eight seasons), surpassed only by Tim Meadows and Darrell Hammond (in his thirteenth season). The shows throughout the 1986-1990 period featured some of the best-loved recurring sketches and characters in SNL history, including pathological liar Tommy Flanagan (Lovitz), the Sweeney Sisters (Dunn and Hooks as a low-rent vocal duo), and the speech-impaired trio of Frankenstein (Hartman), Tonto (Lovitz), and Tarzan (Nealon), as well as Toonces the Driving Cat (a sketch featuring a Victoria Jackson character who owns a cat that can drive a car), Lovitz's otherworldly Mephistopheles (complete with Halloween devil costume and plastic trident) and the Schwarzenegger-like Austrian body-builders Hans and Franz (Carvey and Nealon). Carvey also gained renown for his scowling, ultra-conservative "Church Lady" character, and even more so for his brilliant impersonation of U.S. Vice-President and eventual President George H. W. Bush. Bolstered by strong scripts penned by the writing team, Carvey's Bush impression was a notable advance on earlier ventures in this vein, and helped set a new benchmark for this aspect of the show's political satire. SNL's strongest period of political parody before this was the 1976-1979 era, when Dan Aykroyd appeared frequently as both former U.S. President Richard Nixon (alongside John Belushi as Henry Kissinger), and then current President Jimmy Carter. While Aykroyd's impersonations marked successful efforts to bring well-known political figures to life on the show, the only other well-remembered political impersonation from SNL's 1970s period (or any other period before the 1986-1987 season) was Chevy Chase's slapstick parody of President Gerald Ford. Chase's impersonation of Ford was popular with audiences, but made no attempt to create an accurate impression of Ford's character or essay any in-depth political satire; his sketches simply lampooned Ford's renowned clumsiness and consisted of Chase falling down a lot. Carvey's Bush impersonation was SNL's most sophisticated yet, and together with Hartman's hilarious send-up of President Ronald Reagan, they allowed for the most fruitful and successful period of political parody on SNL. Aykroyd himself often returned in guest appearances on the show throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s to impersonate Republican primary candidate Bob Dole, while Jon Lovitz appeared frequently in late '80s episodes as Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. Carvey's appearances as President Bush grew so popular that the former President himself made a cameo appearance in 1994 when Carvey hosted the show, lightheartedly taking Dana to task. A major cast development came in 1988-1989, with the mid-season recruitment of young Canadian comic Mike Myers, who, like many cast members ever since 1975, had been recruited from the Second City stage show. A versatile and inventive comedian with a gift for accents and a lifelong love of Monty Python and British comedy, he introduced several classic characters during this era, including "Lothar of the Hill People" and ultra-pretentious German arts show host "Dieter". He also formed a strong partnership with Carvey, which revisited the magic of the classic Aykroyd-Belushi pairing. Beginning almost upon his arrival on the show, Myers, together with Carvey, created and performed one of SNL's most popular and successful recurring sketches ever, Wayne's World. The sketch would go on to inspire two successful spin-off movies in 1992 and 1993, which in turn led to a plethora of screen comedies inspired by or based on SNL sketches throughout the 1990s. In Spring, 1990 proved to be a rocky finale for one of the show's most underrated cast members. Nora Dunn boycotted a show hosted by extremely controversial comedian Andrew Dice Clay. NBC fired her and a series of ugly charges and counter-charges were lobbied between Lorne Michaels and Dunn. Many felt that Dunn cared more about garnering publicity than standing up for women's rights, but others took her side and viewed Clay's appearance as an all-time low. After the 1989-1990 season, Jon Lovitz left the show with the intent of focusing on a film career. These departures marked the first incidents of turnover on the show in nearly half a decade. While Lovitz's departure happened relatively quietly and without controversy, the Dunn/Clay incident seemed to be a sad harbinger for the turmoil which would mark much of the 1990s.

Good Times And Bad Times, 1990-1995: The 1990-1991 season introduced a number of players who quickly became stars on the show: Chris Farley, Tim Meadows, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Julia Sweeney. Noted stand-up comedian Chris Rock also appeared on the show for 3 seasons. Memorable characters and sketches introduced by the new cast members from this period included Sweeney's “Pat”, Sandler's “Opera Man” and “Canteen Boy”, Farley's "Matt Foley", Schneider's annoying office geek “The Richmeister”, Rock's black perspective talk show host “Nat X”, and Spade's caustic commentary piece “Hollywood Minute”. The popularity of these new cast members helped to offset the departure of several popular long-time players over the first two seasons of this era, including Jan Hooks and Weekend Update anchor Dennis Miller after the 1990-1991 season, and Victoria Jackson after the 1991-1992 season. The remaining cast members of the 1986-1990 heyday (Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, and Kevin Nealon), maintained a strong presence on the show and remained immensely popular with audiences well into this era. Nealon succeeded Miller as the Weekend Update anchor after the latter's departure. For the remainder of his tenure, Nealon found himself playing the straight man during Update and other sketches, particularly against the newer castmates' characters, such as Adam Sandler's "Operaman" and "Cajun Man" and Chris Farley's "Bennett Brauer". (Nealon even co-hosted Weekend Update on an episode with the original anchorman, Chevy Chase). His participation in that role increased after Carvey, Hartman, and Myers left the show. Myers introduced many popular new characters during this period, including Coffee Talk's Linda Richman, the British bathtub-dwelling pre-adolescent Simon (somewhat inspired by Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings), and British theatre critic Kenneth Reese-Evans. Meanwhile, Hartman, who had impersonated President Ronald Reagan on the show throughout the latter half of the 1980s and into the 1990s, began appearing regularly with his impression of Democratic candidate and soon-to-be U.S. President Bill Clinton. Carvey's impersonations of U.S. President George H.W. Bush remained an audience favorite, and Carvey also developed a popular impression of independent presidential candidate Ross Perot. In the period leading up to the 1992 U.S. Presidential Election, Hartman and Carvey dominated the show with these impressions, creating mock debates. Most importantly, the Myers and Carvey characters Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar from the Wayne's World sketch would become household names during the early '90s following the release of the successful spin off film. Of the new cast members of the show, Chris Farley and Adam Sandler became the most popular of the group. Farley's high-energy performances and surprising grace belied his large build (Farley was inspired by John Belushi, who also did cartwheels and other acrobatics for a big man), but he was also not afraid to trade on his size for laughs; in one sketch he played, shirtless, opposite the trim and muscular Dirty Dancing star Patrick Swayze, as they auditioned for a position with the Chippendales male dance troupe. Another favorite Farley character was the manic, thrice-divorced motivational speaker Matt Foley, whose schtick consisted mainly of yelling at and whining to his clients about having to live “in a van down by the river” and hurling himself around the room, demolishing everything in sight. Sandler was a talented self-taught musician and a former stage comic whose stand-up career had started after he accepted a dare from his brother to do an open mike spot at a local comedy club. He won many fans with the humorous self-penned songs he performed on "Weekend Update" (e.g. “Red-Hooded Sweatshirt” and “Sex-Phone Lady”), as well as his popular “Opera Man” and Canteen Boy characters. Sandler and Farley also did a song called "Lunch Lady Land", with Farley dancing while dressed up as a lunch lady. After the 1993-1994 season, there was a very noticeable change in tone. While many of the show's longtime writers continue to be very defensive in their remarks about the 1993-1994 season (as evidenced in their comments on the primetime special (Saturday Night Live in the '90s: Pop Culture Nation), critics and longtime fans have been less generous. Having already lost star cast member Dana Carvey, who left midway through the previous season, SNL's 1993-1994 post-season saw more departures. Julia Sweeney left due to frustration and burnout. Perhaps the most devastating blow to the show would be the loss of Phil Hartman, who left on friendly terms but later described his departure as "jumping off of a sinking ship." Hartman's final moment on the show was at the end of a musical number with the entire cast singing a parody of the "So Long, Farewell" song from The Sound of Music. After all of the cast left the stage, Farley, in his Matt Foley character, was left sitting on the stage, with Phil walking on stage and codling next to Farley sing goodbye and waving at the audience. In the eyes of many viewers, the quality of the series began to deteriorate noticeably. The 1994-1995 season quickly became the worst-received season since 1980-1981 (or to a lesser extent, 1985-1986) and had cast turnover and dissension which bordered on self-parody. Ratings declined precipitously, as sharp turnaround from the beginning of the decade when the show was attracting some of its highest ratings since the vaunted 1970s cast. The vicious attacks of the critics stunned Lorne Michaels, who many saw as having gone from challenging the network establishment to becoming an entrenched member of it. To recover from all the major losses the show was facing, Michaels hired a number of new cast members, beginning midway through the 1993-1994 season. Similar to his decision in the mid-'80s to bring in established actors Randy Quaid, Joan Cusack and Robert Downey, Jr., Michaels added Michael McKean, and later Chris Elliott, to the cast. Unsurprisingly, neither McKean nor Elliott ever appeared to be comfortable on the show, and left at the end of the 1994-1995 season. Later acquisitions were sketch veteran Mark McKinney of the recently-wrapped, Michaels-produced Canadian sketch comedy show Kids in the Hall, and stand-up comic Janeane Garofalo, the latter of whom joined at the beginning of the 1994-1995 season, and the former joining in January, shortly before the departure of Mike Myers. However, the day that Garofalo arrived on the set, Adam Sandler started yelling at her because of remarks she'd made against him in her standup routine. Fellow female cast members (Ellen Cleghorne and Laura Kightlinger) banded against her immediately. Friends remark that Garofalo sank into a deep depression, and she continued her criticism of the show in the press, a tactic that did not improve her relationships at SNL. Shut out by all sides and uncomfortable with the writing, Garofalo left in mid-season, replaced by Molly Shannon. Myers also left in mid-season, and Nealon would do the same after season's end. Farley and Sandler were reportedly difficult to deal with backstage, and when their on-screen performances began to be hammy and inconsistent, NBC fired them at the end of the season. Longtime featured player Jay Mohr left after NBC refused to upgrade him to contract player. Al Franken, who had worked on the show as a writer and featured player on and off since 1977 quit at season's end as well, reportedly still unhappy about the decision at the beginning of the season to replace Nealon as anchor on Weekend Update with Norm Macdonald, and not himself. British actress Morwenna Banks joined the cast for the last 4 episodes of the season as a full cast member, but did not return the next season. From the beginning of the 1994-1995 season, MacDonald earned mild controversy in the role of Weekend Update anchor. While he alienated many of the segment's fans by frequently flubbing his lines and abandoning all attempts to seem like an actual news anchor (a tradition which had been consistent since the sketch's birth in 1975), MacDonald's weekly appearances did often provide the only laughs in an otherwise dismal time period for the show. The sketches at the time were considered sophomoric, shrill, and bitterly unfunny. The end of the 1994-1995 season on SNL saw the show in a state of flux. Falling ratings and skeptical critics sent a wakeup call to Lorne Michaels, and the show had the highest turnover rate going into the next season. The 1994-1995 season had a total of 14 cast members; only five remained for the 1995-1996 season: Molly Shannon, Mark McKinney, Norm Macdonald, David Spade (who agreed to stay only for a year so that he could be a bridge between the old and new casts) and Tim Meadows.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Things Turnaround, Again, 1995-2000: The 1995-1996 season is a milestone for SNL, marking the last season for David Spade, but also the debuts of a strong batch of new recruits: Jim Breuer, Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, David Koechner, Cheri Oteri, Nancy Walls, Chris Kattan and Colin Quinn. Ferrell, Hammond, Oteri, Kattan and Molly Shannon, who had been a feature player since midway through the preceding season, become mainstays of the show for the rest of the decade and beyond. Ex-Groundling Ana Gasteyer joined in 1996-1997, bringing an excellent singing voice and considerable musical skills to the cast, as well as creating some memorable characters was Margeret Jo McCullen, co-host of tedious public radio cooking show “The Delicious Dish”, ultra-square middle school music teacher “Bobbi Moughan-Culp”, her hatchet-faced impersonation of home-economics guru Martha Stewart; and, in one of the most popular segments of the late 1990s, her often-scathing impression of Céline Dion hosting a talk show. Darrell Hammond proved to be a great find, being the most gifted impressionist in the show's history. He built up a repertoire of popular impersonations, including Bill Clinton and Tim Russert, taking the show's political satire to new heights. Will Ferrell was undoubtedly the keystone of this new cast. He performed superbly in all his partnerships, with Oteri, Shannon, Gasteyer and Kattan, as well as creating some devastatingly funny solo characters. One of his most popular impressions was his bellowing, belligerent parody of former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. Like Carvey's Bush, Macdonald's Bob Dole, and later, Amy Poehler's Hillary Clinton, Ferrell's Reno continued the tradition of having the real-life target of the satire appear on the show to confront their satirist. Ferrell stepped out as the star of the cast during the last show of the 1995-1996 season, where he appeared alongside guest Jim Carrey in nearly every sketch. This period featured many classic recurring sketches and characters, with radio and TV parodies featured prominently. They included the NPR parody “The Delicious Dish” (Shannon and Gasteyer), “The Ladies Man” (Tim Meadows), the geeky Spartan Cheerleaders (Ferrell and Oteri), Ferrell and Gasteyer's starchy, husband-and-wife music teacher duo Marty Culp and Bobbi Mohan-Culp, Kattan's campy “Mango”, the brain-dead, disco-loving “Roxbury Guys” (Ferrell and Kattan), Shannon and Kattan's delightful “Goth Talk”, Celebrity Jeopardy! (Ferrell, Macdonald and Hammond), and Molly Shannon's star-struck, accident-prone Catholic schoolgirl, Mary Katherine Gallagher. This ensemble remained substantially unchanged for the 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 seasons, although the later series introduced new cast members: Jimmy Fallon, Chris Parnell, and Horatio Sanz. The only surprise departure was Norm Macdonald who left the series in March 1998 and was replaced by Colin Quinn as Update anchor. It was reported that Macdonald was fired on the order of Don Ohlmeyer, who claimed the actor was “unpopular and unfunny” but it was widely thought that Macdonald had been fired because the executive, a close friend of O.J. Simpson, a regular Weekend Update target, had taken offense at Macdonald's persistent attacks on Simpson. The 1999-2000 season was preceded by a live primetime broadcast commemorating the show's 25-year history. Over three hours in length, the Emmy-winning special included appearances by not only current and former cast members, but also from a wide variety of past guest hosts and musical acts. Pre-recorded segments were interspliced into the live broadcast; some of these did not make it to air and were shown on later 1999-2000 season episodes. Chris Rock performed the monologue. The featured musical acts were Elvis Costello featuring the Beastie Boys, Al Green and the Eurythmics. Former SNL band leader G.E. Smith played with the current house band during the special. According to the IMDb, each and every living host and musical guest was invited to the show, except for O.J. Simpson. 1999-2000 was the last season for Colin Quinn, Cheri Oteri, and Tim Meadows, but it also marked the arrival of two strong new female cast members, Rachel Dratch and Maya Rudolph (daughter of the late singer Minnie Riperton).

The Revolving Door Era, 2000-2005: The 2000-2001 season of Saturday Night Live began yet another transitional phase. Old faces like Colin Quinn, Tim Meadows and Cheri Oteri were gone. Molly Shannon left mid-season (she stayed as long as she did-six and a half years, to ensure that she would leave as the longest-running female cast member on SNL[citation needed], although her record still comes very close to Victoria Jackson's and would be topped by Rachel Dratch and later Maya Rudolph). Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell still dominated the show, but more and more time was given to newer cast members such as Horatio Sanz (who was groomed to be a new Chris Farley or John Belushi) and Jimmy Fallon. Fallon was the latest example in the marked difference in modern SNL compared to the early years, in that he was marketed as a personality, and his gift at impressions was slowly but surely sidelined so that he could play variations of Jimmy Fallon in most of his sketches. Although Fallon was quite popular, many believed that he and Sanz were far too derivative of Farley and Sandler, from Sanz's constant bumbling right down to Fallon playing the guitar and singing during Weekend Update. Both men were also criticized for their "breaking up" during many sketches-laughing through their lines and needling other cast members into doing the same. This became more and more common, in spite of the fact that Lorne Michaels swore his show would never become so insular or amateurish (one of the things he despised about The Carol Burnett Show). In 1999, Tina Fey became the show's first female head writer. SNL had always had female writers but they often had little to no voice over the pacing of the show, sometimes not even their own sketches. With Colin Quinn's highly uneven "Weekend Update" tenure over, Lorne Michaels scrambled to find a different sort of format for the aging concept. He gambled on having Fey co-anchor with Jimmy Fallon, the first co-anchorship since Christine Ebersole and Brian Doyle-Murray in the early 1980s. Fallon's frat boy antics and Tina's droll, knowing smirks were warmly welcomed by fans. Tina quickly moved from writer to featured player and within a year was a contract player. The 2000 season was also noted for its well-received spoofing of that year's presidential campaign, with adroit critiques of all the primary nominees, but especially Al Gore and George W. Bush. The two candidates even appeared (separately) on a prime time special with the cast in fall 2000. Darrell Hammond's portrayal of Gore parodied the candidate's varying personas at the three presidential debates so well that Gore and his advisers watched the sketches to get a grip on his public perception. Ferrell's Bush impression-full of smirks, tics, and aw-shucks contempt-rocketed him to superstardom and in the process coined the term "strategery" in a sketch mocking Bush's propensity for mispronunciations. The first season premiere after the September 11, 2001 attacks opened with then New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and police officers, signifying that the New York-based series was both deeply affected by the terrorist attack and also reluctant to harshly criticize the president. As a result, the political commentary was scaled back. As time passed, the show gave more attention to political humor, but earlier attempts were seen by critics as tame, evidence that the show had over the decades gone from counterculture to safe and mainstream. Robert Smigel's cartoons, however, retained their bite and became heavily featured on the show. In 2001, supporting player Chris Parnell was fired. Less than six months later, he was rehired, marking the first time since Jim Belushi's dismissal in 1983 that SNL had ever fired and then rehired any cast member. The 2001-2002 season also marked the arrival of improvisational mastermind Amy Poehler, who was well-liked by fans due to her wide range and impressions and high spirits in spite of a lack of strong material. Tracy Morgan left in 2003 to become one of many SNL alumni to have a flop sitcom (The Tracy Morgan Show). More changes occurred when Ferrell left in 2002 and Kattan in 2003, followed by Jimmy Fallon in 2004. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler co-anchored Weekend Update, the first time that two women were given the job. During 2000-2005, the show began a frequent process of cast turnover. In the past, the show had been known for large amount of cast members being added at the same time, but in the early 2000s, the show tended to add and subtract a couple of cast members each season. Some criticize this method, arguing that it results in a lack of chemistry, as you have cast members at various points in their SNL careers acting together, as compared to a group of new cast members growing up together. On the other hand, adding new cast members each season ensured that there was always someone new to see. An embarrassing event in the career of pop singer Ashlee Simpson occurred live on October 23, 2004. Simpson's second performance of the evening opened with the sound of her pre-recorded voice heard singing the song she had already performed earlier. Despite a quick fadeout, it was obvious that what was heard was not the live voice of the singer. A flustered Simpson did an improvised dance and then left the stage. The New York Times summarized the incident in the words, "Ailing Singer Needed Lip-Sync, Father Says," and said that it "exposed the pop singer Ashlee Simpson's use of prerecorded vocals on live television." Simpson's father said that her use of a prerecorded track was necessitated that evening by hoarseness caused by acid reflux disease. The incident subsequently inspired several SNL skits. When questioned by reporters, Lorne Michaels initially denied, then acknowledged, that this was not the first time so-called "backing tracks" had ever been used on SNL. In October, 2005, Simpson returned as a musical guest, performing without incident.

The Show Today, 2005-present: Saturday Night Live promised changes for the 2005-2006 season, one of which was broadcasting in high-definition. Lorne Michaels added three new featured players: Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, and Kristen Wiig, plus Jason Sudeikis, who was added for the last three episodes of the previous season. Hader became popular for his impersonation of Vincent Price in various Variety Vault sketches. Samberg gained notoriety for creating multiple SNL Digital Shorts, the most popular being "Lazy Sunday". Wiig, who first appeared when Jason Lee hosted, gained popularity with impersonations of Felicity Huffman and Megan Mullally, and creating memorable characters such as the Female A-Hole and Target Lady. Highlights from this season included: Lazy Sunday; a cameo from SNL alum Chris Kattan during Antonio Banderas' episode (Kattan lampooned Banderas during his tenure); and the long-awaited hosting gigs of frequent SNL return hosts Tom Hanks and Steve Martin. Leaving after the 2006 season were Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey, who had committed to working on her new sitcom 30 Rock, as well as Horatio Sanz, Finesse Mitchell, and Chris Parnell.

Cast: The current cast of SNL is Fred Armisen (2002–present), Will Forte (2002–present), Bill Hader (2005–present), Darrell Hammond (1995–present), Seth Meyers (2001–present), Amy Poehler (2001-present), Andy Samberg (2005–present), Jason Sudeikis (2005–present), Kenan Thompson (2003–present), Kristen Wiig (2005–present), and Casey Wilson (2008–present; featured player). Amy Poehler confirmed that she'll return for the succeeding season, but leave by November. Although Saturday Night Live has a rapid turnover of supporting players, some performers have had long tenures with the show: Darrell Hammond (14 seasons), Al Franken (11½ seasons), Tim Meadows (9½ seasons), Kevin Nealon (9 seasons), Phil Hartman (8 seasons), Seth Meyers (8 seasons), Horatio Sanz (8 seasons), Chris Kattan (7½ seasons), Chris Parnell (7½ seasons), Amy Poehler (7½ seasons), Maya Rudolph (7½ seasons), Fred Armisen (7 seasons), Rachel Dratch (7 seasons), Will Ferrell (7 seasons), Will Forte (7 seasons), and Tracy Morgan (7 seasons). All cast members on Saturday Night Live are expected to write as well as perform. Those who do not write tend to receive fewer parts and less camera time. Three groups serve as “farm clubs” for the cast and writing staff: The improvisational comedy troupes The Groundlings and The Second City, and the publication Harvard Lampoon. Recently the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre has become a noted "club" as well. Each of the three brings a different perspective: performers from the Groundlings often end up creating the vivid recurring characters which are one hallmark of the show; writer-performers from Second City are known for “aesthetic perfectionism”; they tinker obsessively with the wording and inflections of a punch line or the behavioral details of a character; and writers from the Lampoon emphasize the conceptual premise of a sketch, taking a boyhood fantasy to an extreme, for example. Some cast members are related to former staff of the show. The most prominent example is Jim Belushi, younger brother of cast member John Belushi. Before that, Bill Murray's older brother Brian Doyle-Murray was a writer and cast member. When Dan Aykroyd left the show in 1979, he was replaced by a series of short-lived featured players, one of whom was his brother Peter Aykroyd. Long-time writer and sometime performer Jim Downey is former cast member Robert Downey, Jr.'s uncle. Other family connections exist that do not share the same name. For instance, cast member Gilda Radner was briefly married to G.E. Smith, who later became the show's bandleader. Michael O'Donoghue was married to SNL band pianist Cheryl Hardwick. Cast members Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall were an item during their tenure, and were married in 1987. Cast member and writer Tina Fey is married to musical director Jeff Richmond. Although cast members Brad Hall, Rich Hall and Anthony Michael Hall share the same last name, they are not related. Although SNL is well-known as the launchpad for many successful careers, a few cast members (and active crew members) have died prematurely. This has given rise to a superstition known as the "Saturday Night Live Curse". Two cast members have died due to drug overdoses, in parallel situations. Both Chris Farley, deceased December 18, 1997, and John Belushi, deceased March 5, 1982, overdosed from a "speedball," an injection of cocaine and heroin. Farley's death occurred nearly two months after he came back to host SNL, which turned out to be his last television appearance. Belushi's death lead to the conviction of "friend" Cathy Smith for administering the fatal injection. Nearly four years prior to Belushi's death, SNL aired a short sketch titled Don't Look Back In Anger featuring an elderly John Belushi as the last living of the "not ready for prime time" cast members. Cast member Gilda Radner, deceased May 20, 1989, succumbed to ovarian cancer after a long struggle. Radner was scheduled to host the last episode of season 13 (1987-1988), a first for a female former cast member, but the show was cancelled due to a writer's strike. Her condition worsened until a year later, when Steve Martin hosted the last episode of the 1988-1989 season (Season 14). Shortly before the episode, news came of Radner's death, and Martin's visibly shaken monologue now introduced a sketch called "Dancing in the Dark" that he performed with Radner on an episode he hosted in 1978, followed by a musical tribute to Radner performed by her former husband G.E. Smith and the SNL Band. Repertory player Danitra Vance, deceased August 21, 1994, died due to breast cancer. Michael O'Donoghue, deceased November 8, 1994, died of a cerebral hemorrhage; the cast member and writer long suffered from severe chronic migraine headaches. Bill Murray honored his memory in an appearance on the season 20 (1994-1995) episode (hosted by Sarah Jessica Parker with musical guest R.E.M.) by replaying O'Donoghue's sketch, "Mr. Mike's Least Loved Bedtime Stories: The Soiled Kimono" from December 1977. Long-time performer Phil Hartman, deceased May 28, 1998, was shot and killed while sleeping by his wife, Brynn. Before committing the act, she consumed a combination of alcohol, cocaine and the prescription drug Zoloft. She later shot herself. Doumanian-era performer Charles Rocket was found dead by local police in his Canterbury, Connecticut backyard on October 7, 2005. The death was ruled a suicide; Rocket had allegedly taken his own life by cutting his neck with a pair of box-cutters. Julia Sweeney was diagnosed with cervical cancer in the mid-1990s, but has survived and transformed her experiences into a one-woman show, God Said, Ha!, developed at L.A.'s alternative comedy show, "Un-Cabaret". Miramax released the film version of the show in 1998, produced by Quentin Tarantino. The film version of the play earned the Golden Space Needle Award, while Sweeney's recording earned her a Grammy nomination for best comedy album. It was released on DVD in 2003. SNL received some negative publicity in 1999 when it was leaked that, henceforth, actors joining the show would have to agree in their five-to-six year contract that, upon request, they would act in up to three movies by SNL Films, for fees of US$75,000, US$150,000, and then US$300,000; and also that, upon request, they would leave SNL and act in an NBC sitcom for up to an additional six years. This appeared to be a reaction to former cast members such as Adam Sandler and Mike Myers going on to movie stardom. Some agents and managers characterized these long-term contracts as involuntary servitude, saying that almost any young, undiscovered comic would immediately agree to any given set of exploitative contractual restrictions for the opportunity to launch a career via the show. NBC publicly defended the new contracts, saying that SNL was doing a service to young comics by launching so many careers. Jay Mohr reported in Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live (ISBN 1-4013-0006-5), that his starting salary of his 5 year deal was US$5,500 per episode (in 1994) plus $1,500 for his writing credit. The following year's salary was $6,500 per episode, up to $12,500 for a 5th year tenured player. Don Pardo has served as the announcer for the series since it began (except for season 7, when Mel Brandt and Bill Hanrahan filled that role). Pardo, who was 57 when the show debuted and who retired from NBC in 2004 at age 86, still flies in from his home in Tucson, Arizona, to introduce the show as of 2008. The Saturday Night Live Band (most often referred to as The Live Band) is the house band of Saturday Night Live (SNL). It has consistently featured some of the finest studio musicians available in New York, including Paul Shaffer, G.E. Smith, Lou Marini (1975-1983), David Sanborn (1975), Michael Brecker, Ray Chew (1980-1983), Alan Rubin (1975-1983), Georg Wadenius (1979-1985), Steve Ferrone (1985), David Johansen (performing as Buster Poindexter) and Tom Malone, who served as leader of the band from 1981 to 1985. The band is currently under the leadership of Tower of Power alum Lenny Pickett and keyboardists Leon Pendarvis and Katreese Barnes.


Hosts and Musical Guests: George Carlin was first to host the show; Candice Bergen was the first female to host the show a few weeks later and again hosted only six weeks after that. There have been several notable hosts who have hosted on numerous occasions. These include: Steve Martin (14 episodes), Alec Baldwin (13 episodes), John Goodman (12 episodes), Buck Henry (10 episodes), Chevy Chase (9 episodes), Tom Hanks (8 episodes), Christopher Walken (7 episodes), Elliott Gould (6 episodes), Danny DeVito (6 episodes), Candice Bergen (5 episodes), Bill Murray (5 episodes), and Drew Barrymore (5 episodes). There have also been several notable musical guests who have been musical guests on SNL five times or more. These include: Paul Simon (9 episodes also hosted or co-hosted four shows; co-hosted with Catherine Oxenberg on May 10, 1986, during the 11th season; solely hosted the second show on October 18, 1975 where he performed with Art Garfunkel and Phoebe Snow, on November 20, 1976, where he was one of two musical guests and on December 19, 1987.), Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (7 episodes), Randy Newman (6 episodes), Beck (6 episodes), Sting (5 episodes), Foo Fighters (5 episodes, lead singer Dave Grohl has actually appeared nine times; he was the drummer for Nirvana in their two performances, as well as for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Tenacious D for one performance each.) And, several people have pulled a double duty as both musical guests and host during the same SNL episode. These include: Lily Tomlin (She is actually the first to host and be in the musical act, but the show was listed without a musical act. So she is not given musical act credit. She is also the first to host and appear in the musical act twice, first on November 22, 1975 and then on January 22, 1983. Though again the show was listed without a musical guest so she was not given credit.), Desi Arnaz (the first performer to appear simultaneously as host and musical guest), Paul Simon, Ricky Nelson, Ray Charles, The Rolling Stones (the only band to host and be musical guests on SNL (even though Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood were the only band members to appear in sketches - Bill Wyman did not), Frank Zappa, Olivia Newton-John, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Quincy Jones (Jones's hosting stint had ten musical guests on one night, an SNL record.), Sting (Sting also hosted in early 1997. He was not the credited musical guest but he did perform a few numbers), MC Hammer, Garth Brooks (He is one of only three performers to simultaneously act as host and musical guest more than once. Garth appeared in the second such episode as himself as host, and his alter ego Chris Gaines as musical guest.), Deion Sanders (Bon Jovi was the credited musical guest, but Deion Sanders performed "It's On" and "Must be the Money"), Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears (At 18, she was the youngest person in SNL History to act as a host and musical guest the same time on May 13, 2000.), Justin Timberlake (the third to be host and musical guest more than once), Janet Jackson, Queen Latifah, Ludacris, Jon Bon Jovi (Jon Bon Jovi hosted, with Bon Jovi performing twice, and Foo Fighters performing once. It should be noted that although Bon Jovi performed it was the Foo Fighters not Bon Jovi that was the credited musical guest.) In addition, Christina Aguilera, who had previously appeared as a musical guest twice on April 8, 2000 and March 15, 2003, hosted on February 21, 2004, singing early in that broadcast. Maroon 5 was the musical guest for the episode, with two song performances. Also, several cast members have hosted the show. These include: Chevy Chase (First former cast member to host and first to host more than five times. He is the first Weekend Update anchor to come back to host. As of 1997, he is banned from ever hosting again due to his harsh treatment of cast members.), Bill Murray (Second former cast member to host five or more time times. He is the second former Weekend Update anchor to come back to host SNL. Only cast member to host during Jean Doumanian's tenure as producer.), Eddie Murphy (the only performer to host while still a cast member. Also, he was the first of only four hosts who joined the cast when Lorne Michaels was not producing SNL.), Don Novello (Hosted both times as his character Father Guido Sarducci.), Billy Crystal (the first performer to join the cast after he had hosted. He co-hosted with Ed Koch, Don Novello, Betty Thomas and Edwin Newman on May 12, 1984. Also, he is one of only four hosts who joined the cast when Lorne Michaels was not producing SNL.), Michael McKean (the second performer to join the cast after hosting a show, and also the oldest individual to join the cast), Martin Short (co-hosted with Chevy Chase and Steve Martin on December 6, 1986. He is one of only four cast members hosts who joined the cast when Lorne Michaels was not producing SNL), Paul Shaffer (the only former leader of the SNL Band to host), Dana Carvey, Damon Wayans (the first cast member to come back to host SNL after being fired from the show, and the first cast member from In Living Color to host), Phil Hartman, Chris Rock, Robert Downey, Jr., Mike Myers, Chris Farley (Made his last appearance on TV with the episode he hosted.), Jon Lovitz, Ben Stiller, David Spade, Norm MacDonald (the third former Weekend Update anchor to come back to host SNL and the only WU anchor to host after being fired from being an anchor on WU (he wasn't fired from the cast), Dan Aykroyd (was the fourth former Weekend Update anchor to come back to host SNL), Will Ferrell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (First female cast member to host and first woman cast member from the Ebersol era), Molly Shannon (Second female cast member to host, but first from the Michaels era), and Tina Fey (Fifth former Weekend Update anchor to come back to host SNL, third female cast member overall to host, second female cast member from Lorne Michaels era to host, first female anchor to host.

Films based on SNL sketches: The early days of SNL spawned several movies, including the successful “The Blues Brothers.” However it was the success of “Wayne's World,” that encouraged Lorne Michaels to produce more film spinoffs, based on several popular sketch characters. Michaels revived 1970s characters for “Coneheads” (1993), followed by “It's Pat” (1994); “Stuart Saves His Family” (1995, with the Stuart Smalley character); “A Night at the Roxbury” (1998, with the Butabi Brothers characters); “Superstar” (1999, with the Mary Katherine Gallagher character); and “The Ladies Man” (2000). Some did moderately well, though others did not, notably “It's Pat!”, which did so badly at the box office the studio which made the film, Touchstone, pulled it only one week after releasing it, and Stuart Saves His Family, with the latter losing US$15 million despite good reviews. In addition, “Office Space” (1999) originated from a series of Mike Judge animated short films that aired on SNL after appearing on several other programs.

The Studio: Since the show's inception, SNL has aired from Studio 8H, located on floors 8 and 9 of GE Building (30 Rockefeller Plaza, or "30 Rock"). Due to the studio originally being a radio soundstage for Arturo Toscanini and his NBC Symphony Orchestra, the layout of the studio floor and the audience positioning causes some audience members to have an obstructed view of many of the sketches. According to NBC, the 8H studio has an almost perfect sound acoustic. The offices of SNL writers, producers, and other staff can be found on the 17th floor of "30 Rock." During the summer 2005 shooting hiatus, crews began renovations on Studio 8H. With its thirty-first season premiere in October 2005, the show began broadcasting in high definition, appearing letterboxed on conventional television screens. Three of the first four shows of the 1976-77 season were shot at the former NBC Studios in Brooklyn, due to NBC News using Studio 8H for Presidential election coverage.

Production Process
The following is a summary of the process used to produce the show. It is based in part on interviews with former SNL head writer and performer Tina Fey in 2000 and 2004:

Monday: The day begins with a topical meeting, identifying the biggest story for the show's opening. This is followed by a free-form pitch meeting with Lorne Michaels and the show's host for the week. The official name is "The Host Meeting" but all the writers and cast members call it "The Pitch Meeting." Throughout the week the host has a lot of influence on which sketches get aired. Following the meeting, writers begin to draft the two scripts each must produce.

Tuesday: Starting in the afternoon, anywhere from 30 to 45 scripts are written, most of which will not be broadcast. Once a writer's scripts are complete, he or she will often help other writers on their scripts.

Wednesday: All scripts get a read-through. After the read-through, the head writer(s) and the producers meet with the host to decide which sketches to work on for the rest of the week, with Lorne Michaels and the host having the final say.

Thursday: The surviving sketches are reviewed, word-by-word, by the writing staff as a whole or in two groups in the case of co-head writers. Some sketches which survived the cut because of their premise, but are in need of work, are rewritten completely. Others are changed in smaller ways. The Weekend Update crew starts coming together, starting with the news items written by writers dedicated all week to the segment. The crew comes in for rehearsal, and the music act is rehearsed as well as some of the larger, more important sketches. The host and musical guest and usually some cast members shoot two to four promos to play for NBC.

Friday: The show is blocked. The writer of each sketch acts as producer, working with the show's set designers and costumers.

Saturday: With the show still far from finalized, the day begins with a run-through, with props, in front of Lorne Michaels. After the run-through, the cast and crew find out which of the sketches are in the dress rehearsal, and which are cut. The writer/producer deals with any changes. This is followed by a dress rehearsal performed in front of the studio audience, which lasts from 8 p.m. - 10 p.m. (or sometimes later) and contains approximately twenty minutes of material which will be deleted from the final broadcast. Lorne Michaels uses firsthand observation of the audience reaction during the dress rehearsal and input from the host and head writer to determine the final round of changes, re-ordering sketches as necessary. The live show then begins at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time, but some markets will delay airing. The status of the show during the week is maintained on a bulletin board. Sketches and other segments are given labels which are put on index cards and put on the board in the order of their performance. The order is based on content as well as production limitations such as camera placement and performer availability. Segments which have been cut are kept to the side of the board. As the broadcast approaches, often the writer/producer discovers the fate of his or her segment only by consulting the bulletin board. A 60 Minutes report taped in October 2004 depicted the intense writing frenzy that goes on during the week leading up to a show, with crowded meetings and long hours. The report particularly noted the involvement of the guest hosts in developing and selecting the sketches in which they will appear. Similarly, there has been an A&E episode of Biography which covered the production process, as well as an episode of "TV Tales" in 2002 on E! Entertainment Television.

When It's Not Live:

Reruns: SNL reruns are aired out of its original broadcast sequence, usually determined by which episodes have not yet been repeated, but had high ratings or acclaim for its live broadcast. Shows usually air twice during a particular season, but often the highest rated shows of the season have a second encore show towards the end of the off-season, or episodes will be repeated a second or third time to coincide with a new event connected with the person who hosted. For example, the Natalie Portman episode aired in March 2006 to promote V for Vendetta was repeated August 5, 2006, prior to the film's DVD release August 8. Similarly, Jeff Gordon's episode reran following NBC's coverage of the Pepsi 400. Encore showings are not always identical to the original broadcast. Successful sketches aired later in the show during the original broadcast may be reedited to appear earlier, and segments that did not work well during the live broadcast may be replaced by the dress rehearsal version, or entirely new sketches. A Peter Sarsgaard sketch from his January 21, 2006 appearance, involving Rachel Dratch's fake newscast, met with technical difficulties during the live broadcast when the in-sketch TV stopped working and a stagehand was seen fixing it. It was replaced with a dress rehearsal version in rerun. This has happened many times over the years, including Kathleen Turner's monologue in 1989. A sketch involving "butt pregnancy" during the first broadcast of the November 12, 2005, Jason Lee episode was replaced with a musical sketch about cafeteria food during the repeat. In the earlier years of the show's history, reruns occasionally replaced weaker sketches with segments from other episodes, usually from episodes that did not have an encore showing at all. Perhaps one of the most notable substitutions was the replacement of Sinéad O'Connor's October 3, 1992 live performance during which she destroyed a photograph of Pope John Paul II, with the dress rehearsal performance from earlier that evening. The show is never live in the western half of the USA. There was a short experiment in which it did air live on the west coast in 2001 after live XFL football games. NBC airs a recording of the live show for the Mountain and Pacific time zones. NBC and Broadway Video share the copyright to every episode of the show made thus far. From 1990 until 2004, Comedy Central and its predecessor Ha! re-aired reruns of the series, after which E! Entertainment Television signed a deal to reruns. Abbreviated thirty and sixty minute versions of the first five seasons aired as The Best of Saturday Night Live in syndication beginning in the 1980s and later on Nick at Nite in 1988, VH1, Comedy Central and E! Entertainment Television.

Compilations: From time-to-time, SNL airs compilation shows. Such shows will feature hand-selected best sketches from the previous season; of a particular cast member or multiple-time host; or centered on a particular theme (eg. Halloween, Christmas). Political sketches are typically culled for a special in presidential election years; the 2000 special was notable for having self-deprecating (though separate) appearances by candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Delays: The show was forced by the network to run on a seven-second delay when Andrew Dice Clay and Richard Pryor hosted. The episode scheduled for October 25, 1986, hosted by Rosanna Arquette, was not aired until November 8 due to NBC broadcasting Game 6 of the 1986 World Series; the game entered extra innings, causing that night's broadcast of SNL to be canceled. The show was recorded for the studio audience starting at 1:30 a.m. Eastern Time, and broadcast two weeks later with an "apology" by New York Mets pitcher Ron Darling. The episode scheduled for February 10, 2001, hosted by Jennifer Lopez, aired 45 minutes late due to an XFL game. Lopez and the cast were not told they were airing on a delay. During Eddie Murphy's last season, he negotiated to record a number of extra sketches in September 1983 that featured him and were broadcast in episodes for which he was not available. His last live show was with host Edwin Newman on February 25, 1984. When Sam Kinison delivered a comic monologue in 1986, NBC removed his plea for the legalization of marijuana from the West Coast broadcast and all subsequent airings. A portion of Martin Lawrence's 1994 monologue concerning feminine hygiene has been removed from all repeats, replaced with a voice-over and intertitles stating that the excised portion "...was a frank and lively presentation, and nearly cost us all our jobs." In a November 21, 1992 Wayne's World sketch, the characters Wayne and Garth (respectively portrayed by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) made fun of Chelsea Clinton (the then 13-year old daughter of President-Elect Bill Clinton), implying that Chelsea was incapable of causing males to "Schwing!" (essentially meaning she was unattractive). This joke was subsequently edited out of all repeats and syndication rebroadcasts of this sketch.

On DVD: Saturday Night Live: The Complete First Season was released on DVD by Universal Studios on December 5, 2006. Upon the set’s release, some criticism of its authenticity as complete and uncut arose from reviewers and fans. This was due to the existence of original live copies, which in comparison to the "complete" episodes reveal edits and omissions which are common among the rerun versions of the shows in the set. The complete second season was released in the US on DVD on December 4, 2007, and the third season on May 13, 2008. In addition to the full season releases, there have been multiple releases both on VHS and DVD of former cast members, guest hosts, documentaries, musical performances and themed compilations of sketches as well as a release of the show's 25 year anniversary.

There was a time when no one under 25 would have been caught dead in front of the TV set come 11: 30 EST Saturday night. Wouldn’t any self-respecting party animal be out carousing!? That all changed in 1975, when NBC asked a 30-year-old producer named Lorne Michaels to create a show for the sex, drugs, and rock and roll generation. Suddenly, the living-room couch became the place to be. For its first couple of years, Saturday Night Live was a genuine comedic rebellion. Slamming late-night programming from snooze to alarm setting, Michaels pulled together a rogues gallery of comics (mostly from Chicago’s Second City and L.A.’s Groundlings groups) and lined up weekly rock acts and celebrity hosts. Soon, the Not Ready For Primetime Players were off and running. Nothing was sacred: Chevy Chase as a stumbling, bumbling President Ford; Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin as coneheaded aliens that “came from France,” Gilda Radner as sweet but a little ditzy Weekend Update pundit Emily Litella (“What’s all this fuss about violins on TV?” she once asked when she was suppose to be talking about VIOLENCE on TV), Bill Murray as Nick the Lounge Singer (“Star Wars/Nothing but Star Wars/If they should bar wars/Please let these Star Wars…STAY!!!!”); Garret Morris as the Weekend Update "News For the Hard of Hearing" translator, who simply repeated each line while shouting (and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the hilarious skit in which he played a prisoner auditioning for a prison musical by singing “I’m gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whiteys I see!”) and John Belushi as…well, take your pick: Joe Cocker, a journeyman samurai, or a cranky bee. After those first five years, Michaels left the show (but later returned five years later). However, Saturday Night Live has continued to go strong, even though it had many highs and lows. With success, SNL went from playing CBGB to stadiums. And, over the years, the names have changed: Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, and Tina Fey. And, as mentioned, it has had some highs (the first five years, 1980-1984, the late 1980s, 1990-1993, the late 1990s) and some lows (1980-1981, 1985-1986, 1994-1995). But, SNL is an important part of TV. Today, it isn’t really a TV show anymore so much as a graduate school of American comedy, and it's been as significant for the kind of artists it didn't know what to do with (Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, Sarah Silverman) as for the stars it effortlessly launched (Ferrell and Sandler). And, yes, I know some people today would say it sucks. But, there are some who wouldn’t. I mean, people are gonna disagree about how good the show is as it has had to adapt with the times in order to assure its longevity. And every now and then it proves it can still matter, as when Rudolph Giuliani joined producer Lorne Michaels for the show's pitch-perfect return after 9/11. (Michaels: "Can we be funny?" Giuliani: "Why start now?") Though its wild youth is long gone, it is still Saturday Night Live, and you’re not!

[Hulk With A Mustache]

19. Dallas



Genre: Soap Opera.
Created by: David Jacobs.
Executive Producer(s): Leonard Katzman (1978-1991), Philip Capice (1978-1982), Lee Rich (1978-1980), Larry Hagman (1988-1991), Ken Horton (1990), and Joel J. Feigenbaum (1981).
Starring: Larry Hagman (John Ross “J.R.” Ewing, Jr.), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Shepard Ewing 1978-1989), Barbara Bel Geddes (Eleanor “Miss Ellie” Southworth Ewing Farlow 1978-1984, 1985-1990), Donna Reed (Eleanor “Miss Ellie” Southworth Ewing Farlow 1984-1985), Jim Davis (John Ross “Jock” Ewing Sr. 1978-1981), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing 1978-1985, 1986-1991), Victoria Principal (Pamela Barnes Ewing 1978-1988), Steve Kanaly (Raymond “Ray” Krebbs 1978-1988), Susan Howard (Donna Culver Krebbs 1979-1987), Howard Keel (Clayton Farlow 1981-1991), George Kennedy (Caster McKay (1988-1991), Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), Cathy Podewell (Cally Harper Ewing 1988-1991), Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (Jenna Wade 1983-1988), Morgan Fairchild (Jenna Wade 1978), Francine Tacker (Jenna Wade 1980), Dack Rambo (Jack Ewing 1985-1987), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ann Ewing Cooper 1978-1985, 1988-1990), and Sheree J. Wilson (April Stevens Ewing 1986-1991).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 14.
Number of Episodes: 357.
Running Time: 45 minutes.
Original Channel: CBS.
Original Run: April 2–30, 1978, as miniseries; September 23, 1978–May 3, 1991 as weekly program
Spinoffs: Knots Landing (1979-1993), which followed the life of middle child Gary Ewing, his family, and the people who live in an L.A. suburb called Knots Landing. Creator David Jacobs actually came up with the idea for Knots Landing before Dallas and later remolded Knots Landing into a spinoff.

The show was created by David Jacobs. The series was a hybrid of Romeo and Juliet (Bobby Ewing and Pamela Barnes as star-crossed lovers whose families were sworn enemies) and Bonanza (an affluent western patriarch with three sons). However, this premise would end up taking a back seat to the show's central character: John Ross "J.R." Ewing Jr., a greedy, scheming oil baron played by Fort Worth native Larry Hagman throughout the show's entire run. Produced by Leonard Katzman, the "Dallas" television series was one of the first to be distributed globally. "Dallas" was eventually translated and dubbed into 67 languages in over 90 countries, a record that to this day still stands for an American television series. Dallas originally aired on Saturday nights when it debuted as a regular series. Within a month, the show was moved to Sunday nights, where it would stay until halfway through the season, when it took a Friday-night slot. Dallas remained on Fridays until the show ended in 1991, alternating between 10 p.m. and 9 p.m. airings. The "Who Done It?" episode of "Dallas" that revealed "Who shot J.R.?", the famous 1980 cliffhanger, received the highest domestic ratings at that point with over 90 million American viewers tuning in for the answer. The last episode of M*A*S*H in 1983 finally beat the ratings; however, internationally "Dallas" still holds the record for the highest rated episode with nearly 360 million viewers tuning in to see who shot J.R. A spin-off series, Knots Landing, ran from 1979 to 1993. Jacobs originally created and came up with an idea for the series Knots Landing, but CBS wanted a glitzy "saga-like" show. Jacobs therefore created Dallas, a series about a wealthy family in the oil business. When Dallas proved to be a hit, CBS reconsidered Jacobs' original idea and turned Knots Landing into a spin-off of Dallas in late 1979. The Dallas miniseries that started in April 1978 was shot entirely on location in Dallas, Texas. Later, most interiors for the show were shot at the MGM studios in Hollywood. Exteriors were shot at the Southfork Ranch in Parker, Texas, and other parts of Dallas, until 1989, when rising production costs led to all production being located in California. The show was known for its wealth, sex, intrigue, and power struggles. When the series began, the founder of Ewing Oil and patriarch of the Ewing family was Jock (veteran movie actor Jim Davis), an oil tycoon who had allegedly schemed his one-time partner, Digger Barnes (David Wayne, later replaced by Keenan Wynn) out of his share of the company and also his only love, Miss Eleanor "Ellie" Southworth (veteran stage/movie actress Barbara Bel Geddes). As the series advanced, the Jock-Digger story grew to encompass Jock's brother, as a nephew and niece sought their claim to the Ewing riches. Together, Jock and Miss Ellie raised three sons, J.R. (played by I Dream of Jeannie star Larry Hagman), Gary (David Ackroyd/Ted Shackelford) and Bobby (Patrick Duffy). J.R., the eldest Ewing son, who was totally unscrupulous and unhappily married to a former Miss Texas, Sue Ellen Shepard Ewing (Linda Gray), was frequently at-odds with his youngest brother, Bobby, who had the morals and integrity that his eldest brother lacked. After the Ewing family's illegitimate son and ranch foreman, Ray Krebbs (Steve Kanaly) had a short fling with an attractive young woman, Pamela Barnes (Victoria Principal), who was Digger Barnes' daughter and Cliff's (Ken Kercheval) sister, Bobby married her; Ray was dejected by this. After the new marriage, J.R. continued to jeopardize the new family's relationship to his advantage as president of Ewing Oil. The series capitalized on ending each season with ratings-grabbing cliffhangers. Some notable cliffhangers included the landmark "who shot J R?" episode, a floating female corpse in the pool, a blazing mansion fire, Bobby mistakenly being shot while sitting in J.R.'s office, and the kidnapping of Miss Ellie by her half-crazed sister-in-law. Usually, no long lasting damage was done to any essential cast member, unless they wanted to leave the series. Bobby was killed off in a season-long dream sequence. The concluding Dallas episodes in 1991 leading up to "Conundrum" (the finale) saw J.R. seemingly being undone by a combination of his enemies and liquor. By the time the series ended, most of the family had either died or departed: John Ross "Jock" Ewing Sr. (Jim Davis) was the first to go, with the actor's passing in 1981. Both of Bobby Ewing’s loves, Pam and April, left the show. Pam Ewing was severely injured in a car accident in the 1986-1987 season finale and left Bobby and Christopher due to her apparent inability to let them see her in such a physically disfigured fashion. Nevertheless, while Victoria Principal never returned again to the series as Pam during its final four years before cancellation, Margaret Michaels, a Principal look-alike, played the character in the season premiere of 1988-1989. Donna and Ray divorced in 1987, the former moving to Washington, D.C. Ray then subsequently left Dallas with his new wife, Jenna, bound for Europe by the fall of 1988.
Lucy Ewing returned to Southfork in spring 1988, but then left again two years later for Europe as well. Sue Ellen Ewing left Dallas in 1989 to move to London with her new film-director boyfriend and then-husband. Dallas was notable for its cliffhangers. Throughout the series' run, every season ended with some sort of cliffhanging ending designed to drive ratings up for the season premiere the following year.

Miniseries cliffhanger: Although this really wasn't a cliffhanger, the end of the fifth episode of this pilot miniseries saw J.R. go up to the loft of the barn to talk to Pam, who had gone up there to escape the wild time at the barbecue that was going on during the episode. J.R., intoxicated, tries to convince her to tell Bobby not to leave the ranch. However, she doesn't want to be bothered, and, in trying to escape J.R., she falls from the loft, landing square on her stomach.

Resolution: Pam, who was pregnant with Bobby's child at the time, lost the baby and was told that she would never be able to carry a baby to full term.

Season One cliffhanger: Sue Ellen's drinking problem has landed her in a sanitarium, where she is pregnant with a child she believes is Cliff Barnes' (although this would later be proven false). She escapes from the sanitarium, gets drunk, and then gets into a severe car accident, putting her life and the baby's life in danger. The doctors deliver the baby, named John Ross Ewing III (after his father and grandfather), but he is very small on delivery and isn't out of the woods yet. Neither is his mother, who, as the episode ends, is clinging to life. A very distraught J.R. is watching his wife at the end of the episode in tears, saying that she's "just gotta live."

Resolution: After a two-part season premiere in which the child was kidnapped, John Ross is returned to the hospital and Sue Ellen recovers, although the doubt surrounding her newborn son's paternity lingers for a while afterward (Lab tests finally put the paternity question to rest).

Season Two cliffhanger: To cap off a season where J.R. has angered nearly everyone in the state of Texas, someone comes into his office late at night and shoots him twice.

Resolution: As a result of the shooting, J.R. is temporarily paralyzed from the waist down and faces a long recovery. An investigation into the crime is conducted, and eventually Sue Ellen (who was the prime suspect) confronts Kristin, her sister, about the shooting...and the mystery is solved. Sue Ellen realized that that night she stormed into Kristin's apartment with gun in hand and very drunk. Kristin calmly gives her another drink knowing full well that she could barely stand. After putting her unconscious in her car she takes the gun and shoots J.R. with it, later planting it in the house to frame Sue Ellen. However, Kristin is pregnant with J.R.'s baby, so he refuses to have her prosecuted, fearing another scandal. It is later revealed that after leaving Dallas, Kristin almost immediately miscarries J.R.'s child. Wishing to be able to blackmail J.R. at a later date, Kristin quickly becomes pregnant again with boyfriend Jeff Farraday (Art Hindle), and later gives birth to a boy, Christopher, who she claims is J.R.'s child.

Season Three cliffhanger: On his way to a late night business meeting with Bobby, Cliff notices a female body in the pool. He goes into the pool to see who it is (we are never told in this part who it is, although the viewer is led to believe it's Pam), then looks up to find J.R. standing on the balcony over the pool, right near a broken area where the person fell. Cliff, thinking J.R. did it, said, "She's dead. You bastard."

Resolution: The body was revealed to be that of Kristin Shepard, who earlier that year was revealed to have shot J.R. Her cause of death was ruled to be a combination of drowning and a PCP overdose. In the months that follow, Kristin's boyfriend Jeff Farraday, desperate for money to repay various drug dealers and other lowlifes, "sells" the infant Christopher Shepard to Bobby and Pam, and he is raised as Christopher Ewing.

Season Four cliffhanger: Cliff Barnes had been having a rotten year. His relationship with Sue Ellen (which had been rekindled that year) came to an end when Sue Ellen and J.R. decided to remarry after divorcing the previous season. To top it off, thanks to J.R., Cliff nearly drove his mother's tool company into bankruptcy, causing him to lose his job. He ends up attempting suicide, and while he lays in a hospital bed, comatose, Sue Ellen tells J.R. that if Cliff dies they will not remarry.

Resolution: Cliff emerges from his coma in the second episode of the season, and Sue Ellen and J.R. remarry later on, with Cliff humiliating himself during the ceremony.

Season Five cliffhanger: A drunk Sue Ellen and Ray Krebbs' cousin Mickey Trotter are involved in a car accident just outside Southfork. Sue Ellen emerges unhurt, but Mickey is paralyzed and in a coma. After finding out that the driver of the other car was J.R.'s rival Walt Driscoll, out to kill J.R., Ray comes over to Southfork to confront J.R., blaming him for what happened. J.R. asks, "Are you drunk?" Ray replies, "No, I'm stone cold sober, and now I'm going to kill you." J.R., trying to stop Ray, throws a candle holder at him but misses him completely. In the process, another candle holder with lit candles falls and ignites a fire while Ray and J.R. brawl. J.R. knocks Ray out and tries to get upstairs to Sue Ellen and John Ross, who are asleep-or, in Sue Ellen's case, passed out drunk- and unaware of the fire creeping up to the second floor. Unfortunately, a falling beam knocks him down as Southfork burns around him.

Resolution: J.R. was able to get to John Ross and they jumped out of his bedroom window together into the pool. Bobby saved Sue Ellen. Mickey Trotter awoke, but was despondent over his paralysis and relapsed into another coma, during which Ray pulled the plug on him. Ray was found guilty of manslaughter, but was given a suspended sentence by a compassionate judge.

Season Six cliffhanger: Just like in season three, J.R. was crossing people left and right. And just like in season three, one night someone broke into his office at Ewing Oil and shot the man in J.R.'s office (who was sitting with his back to the assassin) three times. However, Bobby, sitting in the chair, takes the bullets and falls to the floor.

Resolution: After rumours that the target was J.R., Bobby was revealed to be the target. It turned out that the obsessive Katherine decided if she couldn't have him no one will. Bobby survives, and she is eventually caught.

Season Seven cliffhanger: Bobby reveals that he wants to remarry Pam (by this time the couple had been divorced for some time) and they agree to do so. After spending the night at Pam's house, Bobby is about to leave for Southfork to relay the news to his fiancée Jenna Wade, but is hit by a car trying to save Pam from being struck (by an escaped Katherine, who apparently died in the accident) and immediately goes into convulsions. He is rushed to the hospital, where after saying his final goodbyes to everyone, sheds one tear and dies.

Resolution: Katherine, rumoured dead, returned at the beginning of season ten.

Season Eight cliffhanger: As stated before, Pam wakes up to find someone in her shower. She opens the door to find Bobby, alive and well.

Resolution: It was all just a dream.

Season Nine cliffhanger: Pam, on her way home from the doctor's office after finding out she can conceive a baby, crashes into the fuel tank of a semi-truck, engulfing her car in a fiery explosion.

Resolution: Pam survives and later leaves Bobby.

Season Ten cliffhanger: After a long year which ended in a messy breakup between J.R. and Sue Ellen, the two and Sue Ellen's beau Nicholas Pearce have a confrontation in J.R.'s high rise hotel suite. J.R. and Nick fight, and during the course of the fight Pearce goes over the balcony, and falls to his death. J.R. turns and is shot three times by Sue Ellen, who believes J.R. has murdered Nick.

Resolution: J.R. recovers (in true Dallas fashion, he had been shot three times in chest, but not seriously wounded), and they mutually agree not to press charges against each other.
Season Eleven cliffhanger: Sue Ellen, tired of being mentally beaten down by J.R., gives him a preview of what could happen if she got her revenge on him, showing him her biographical movie that would make him "the laughing stock of Texas", and threatening to release it if he ever displeases her again. She then, triumphantly, walks out his life forever (or until the reunion movie, at least).

Resolution: J.R tried to find and destroy the movie in the beginning of the 13th season, but after that no mention was made of the movie ever again.

Season Twelve cliffhanger: After committing himself to a sanitarium in order to get a voting majority in Weststar Oil, J.R.'s plan backfires when Cally Harper, his latest scorned woman, and his illegitimate son James Beaumont coerce him into signing a property waiver, and ends with James tearing up J.R.'s release papers, forcing him to stay in the asylum.

Resolution: After being placed in solitary confinement in the sanitarium and being diagnosed with paranoia, J.R. ends up leaving the sanitarium after bargaining with Cally.

Season Thirteen cliffhanger: After being shown what life would be like without him and being egged on by the devil to kill himself, J.R. fires a gun in his room. Bobby enters looks down, exclaims "Oh my God!", and we are led to believe that J.R. Ewing has committed suicide.

Resolution: This was not resolved (as this was the series finale), but it was later revealed in the first reunion movie that J.R. shot the mirror (where the devil was appearing to him) and left Southfork that night for a stay in Europe, where he remained for five years.

Dallas is also known for a number of famous episodes:

"A House Divided" and "Who Done It?" — The 1979-1980 season ended with the show's anti-hero, J.R. Ewing, being shot (in the episode A House Divided). Viewers had to wait all summer (and most of the fall due to a Hollywood actors' strike) to learn J.R. would survive, and which of his many enemies was responsible. "Who Done It?" aired on November 21, 1980, with the revelation that Sue Ellen's sister Kristin shot him in a fit of anger. It was one of the highest-rated episodes of a TV show ever aired. A session of the Turkish parliament was even suspended to allow legislators a chance to get home in time to view the episode. The great success of this stunt helped usher in the practice of ending a television season with a big cliffhanger.

"The Fourth Son" — Steve Kanaly, who played the role of ranch foreman Ray Krebbs, was growing frustrated with the direction of his character and was heavily considering leaving Dallas altogether. In 1980, while playing racquetball with Larry Hagman, Kanaly was convinced in a conversation that if any of the actors on the set resembled a son of Jock Ewing it would be him. Hagman dreamt up a storyline that Ray Krebbs would be the illegitimate son of Jock. With some convincing, Hagman then persuaded Leonard Katzman that the idea would work. However, previous episodes portrayed Kanaly having an affair with Jock's granddaughter, Lucy Ewing, so Katzman let the on-screen affair die-off and be forgotten before they utilized the storyline. It was originally slated to develop in the episode, "Dove Hunt", with Jock revealing the surprise in confidence to J.R., but this idea was nixed. Instead, the storyline unfolded on December 12, 1980. Ray's supposed father, Amos Krebbs (William Windom), who left him as a small boy, would show up on Ray's doorstep (with Ray wanting nothing to do with him). Amos Krebbs would later meet Jock and produce a diary belonging to his wife, Margaret Krebbs, Ray's mother, in which she admitted having an affair with Jock during the end of World War II. Margaret writes of Ray's first birthday and wishing his father (Jock) could be there. This was a landmark episode because it elevated Ray's status with the entire Ewing clan and also served as a basis for future storylines where Ray, J.R., and Bobby would unite as brothers and fight as Ewings.

"Swan Song" — In the 1984-85 season ending cliffhanger, Jenna Wade, Bobby Ewing's fiancee is released from prison. (She was in it earlier in the season for a false accusation of murder against her ex-husband.) J.R.'s wife Sue Ellen has started drinking again, and thinks that she has seen her ex-lover Dusty Farlow. Bobby Ewing is unsure if he wants to marry Jenna, because he has started to have feelings for his ex-wife Pam. Lucy Ewing decides to marry her ex-husband Mitch Cooper, and the wedding is held at Southfork. Jenna can see at the wedding that Bobby is acting different, and she figures out that he is in love with Pam. After the wedding Bobby goes and proposes to Pam. She accepts. The next day, when Bobby is leaving to go tell Jenna that it's over, he gets hit by a car driven by his ex-sister-in-law Katherine Wentworth. He is then taken to the hospital and dies.

"Blast From The Past" — One of the show's stars, Patrick Duffy, left the program in the spring of 1985. His character, Bobby, was plowed down by a car and died, on camera, on May 17, 1985. With ratings falling, and Duffy's career at a standstill, he agreed to return to the show for the 86-87 season. With Duffy in tow, the producers ended the 1985-1986 season (on May 16, 1986) with an episode in which a series of spectacular events take place (including an explosion in J.R.'s office), culminating in a scene where Pam wakes up in bed, to be greeted by Duffy emerging from a shower. In the closing credits for that episode, there was the bizarre credit of "Starring Patrick Duffy as ? ", leaving doubt as to exactly whom Duffy was portraying. Fans had to wait until September 26 to learn how the writers would explain his return. Most were disappointed with the solution, a pure deus ex machina: Pam had dreamt the entire previous season (1985-1986), including Bobby's death (an example of retroactive continuity, or a retcon). This caused previous plot lines to be severed: Ray and Donna had adopted a deaf boy in Spring 1986, but had become estranged when the Fall season opened. In Spring 1985, Pam's half sister Katherine had died while knocking-off Bobby with her car. In the Fall, she was presumably still alive but forgotten. Bobby's replacement, cousin Jack Ewing, was now redundant and had to be discarded. Pam's new beau, Mark Graison, vanished. Continuity conflicts arose elsewhere, as references to Bobby's death were made in the spin-off TV show, Knots Landing. After this, Dallas and Knots Landing effectively cut ties as they then took place in different universes.

"Fall of The House of Ewing" — This cliffhanger marked the end of a contract player, as Victoria Principal had decided to leave the show after 10 seasons, and after having to be seen in almost every episode of the series, from her first in 1978 until 1987. The storyline had Pam returning to Southfork after phoning Bobby telling him after all their struggles to conceive a baby, she could finally be pregnant. Suddenly, an oil truck comes out of nowhere and a distracted Pam crashes into it, igniting a huge fireball. Pam survives the accident but is left with third degree burns. While in the hospital, she is suddenly whisked away, leaving no trace. Later in the season, she divorces (by mail) Bobby, giving him custody of their adopted son, Christopher. In subsequent seasons it is revealed that Pam was dying and chose to let her family believe that she had left, thus sparing them the trauma of watching her deteriorate.
While the actual cliffhanger in this season is the car accident involving Pamela Ewing (and Principal's subsequent departure from the show), there is a fantastic scene prior to the accident where J.R. and son John Ross are ousted from the former Ewing building by Jeremy Wendell, who was instrumental in the government crackdown on Ewing Oil, and now owns the building. When Jeremy reaches for the painting of Jock on the wall and says, "You'll leave now, and take this eyesore with you,", an incredibly aggressive J.R. shouts, "Wendell! You touch that painting and I'll kill you where you stand." J.R. takes the painting off the wall himself, holds it up in front of John Ross and says, "John Ross, THIS is Ewing Oil." This scene is often listed among the favorites by 'Dallas' fans.

Final episode: In this episode, titled "Conundrum" (originally aired on CBS, May 3, 1991), J.R. is contemplating committing suicide. Southfork was taken out of his control and given to Bobby by Miss Ellie, while Cliff Barnes now had control of Ewing Oil. Clayton had given J.R. voting rights at Weststar, but J.R. was tricked into believing he would become Chairman of Weststar by Carter McKay. J.R. had sold his half of Ewing Oil to Cliff to take over Weststar, but old foe Dusty Farlow revealed that he had sold his Weststar shares to McKay, thus making McKay the majority stockholder. McKay fired J.R. from Weststar after revealing that he had set him up (McKay had sent two Weststar directors to J.R. and convinced him to sell Ewing Oil to pave the way for a Weststar takeover that would never happen). John Ross, his own son, disowned him and moved to London to be with his mother. Now, drunk and despondent, J.R. walks around the pool with a bourbon bottle and a loaded gun, when suddenly another person comes into view...a spirit named Adam (portrayed by Joel Grey), whose "boss" has been watching J.R. and likes him. Adam proceeds to take him on a journey to show him what life would've been like for other people if he hadn't been born. Among what he shows him:

Without J.R., Gary became the oldest Ewing son, and the youngest was Jason (who would have been born had J.R. never been around; Jason never appeared in the TV series as he didn't really exist).

With Gary in charge of Ewing Oil upon Jock's retirement, the company went bankrupt. Stress from it killed Jock, and Miss Ellie died of a broken heart two years later, she never meets Clayton Farlow.

Jason, a shady real estate developer swindled Gary and Bobby out of their shares in the company and Southfork, and proceeded to tear the compound down and build tract houses on it called Southfork Estates.

Having never met Pam, Bobby continued his wild ways from before and ended up as a down-on-his-luck hustler who was behind on alimony payments to his wife Annie and kids J.R., Bobby, and Ellie. He also ends up behind on his gambling debts to Carter McKay, who owns casinos in Las Vegas. (McKay was fired by Jeremy Wendell at Westar.)

Gary became a successful divorce lawyer who never married, and thus never had Lucy Ewing, J.R.'s niece. (He does eventually meet Valene Ewing, his wife in the real world, but nothing ever comes of it other than a date whose outcome was never discussed).

Without having met J.R., Cally Harper never left her poor roots, and ends up as a battered wife who lives with her husband in a shack, where she kills him and (according to Adam) will be convicted and sentenced to life.

Without J.R. in the way and forcing him to be a part of the Ewing/Barnes rivalry, Cliff Barnes was able to earn a law degree and enter politics, becoming Vice President of the United States and later Acting President due to a stroke suffered by the President.

Since J.R. was never born (and thus, never shot), Kristin Shepard never met him (and, thus, never died), and became a successful con artist in Los Angeles. She poses as a hooker initially and then a police officer, which sees her accept a bribe from an embarrassed customer.

Having never met J.R., Sue Ellen has become a successful soap opera star, with Nicholas Pearce (who was never killed off) as her loving husband.

With J.R. out of the picture and Jock dying before he could find out, Ray Krebbs never knew of his Ewing blood ties. After an injury he suffered in a Ewing Oil-sponsored rodeo, Ray became a down on his luck ranchhand, forcing to work two or three jobs to support his family, who are loving and very supportive of him. He does have a son called Jock.

After one final scene where Bobby settles his gambling debts with McKay, Adam eggs J.R. on to kill himself. J.R. won't do it, as he doesn't want Adam to be sent back to heaven with his job incomplete. It's at this point where Adam reveals that he's not an angel, but a minion of Satan.

A startled J.R. wakes up, gun and bourbon still in hands, and the scene appears to be a dream...only Adam returns, appearing to J.R. in his mirror and continuing to egg him on. J.R. slowly raises the loaded gun to his head, unaware that Bobby has returned home. The gun goes off while Bobby is in the hallway, and he rushes to J.R.'s room. He looks at what has gone down, gasps, "Oh, my God," and the series ends on that note with the fate of J.R. never settled (although it eventually would be five years later, in the reunion movie, Dallas: J.R. Returns.). It was believed J.R. killed himself, although in later years it was revealed he had shot the mirror (although no glass was heard). The episode was watched by 33.3 million viewers (38% of all viewers in that time slot). The show has been released on DVD. Season 1 on DVD is the original mini-series. When the show went to formal production as regular weekly series, what is on DVD referred to as Season 2 was Season 1 of the weekly series. As of 2008, Warner Home Video will have released the first nine seasons of Dallas on DVD. The TV movies Dallas: The Early Years 1986, JR Returns 1996 and The War Of The Ewings 1998 are expected to either receive individual releases or be included as extras on future DVD releases, most likely Season 14. In 2007, British comedian Justin Lee Collins went about searching for all the stars of Dallas to bring them back together for a special reunion party. The show was broadcast at 9 p.m. Sunday, May 27, 2007, on UK television network Channel 4 as part of the Bring Back... series. After hunting down most of the main cast by any means necessary (e.g., climbing over security fences and ambushing hotels), Collins managed to interview them and gain more knowledge about some of the decisions made throughout the show's seasons. He held his own Oil Baron's Ball, where unfortunately none of the cast turned up. However, in a surprise move, the actor that played baby Christopher (Eric Farlow) turned up. A feature-length motion picture based on the Dallas story has been in development for a number of years, with Legally Blonde director Robert Luketic manning the attempt to get it made. Although stars as varied as John Travolta, Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Simpson have been mentioned as possible stars (in the roles of J.R. Ewing, Pamela Ewing and Lucy Ewing respectively), the film has never been greenlighted and is considered by many in the Hollywood establishment as a potential disaster, and it is currently viewed as unlikely that the film will be made, particularly given the current gas crisis (one that does not bode well for a "comedy" about the oil industry). The declining careers of all of the stars at one point attached to it would also seem indicative of its lack of commercial potential, along with the view of many in the entertainment industry that no actor besides Larry Hagman would realistically be accepted by mainstream audiences as the character of J.R. Ewing, even in a comedy or farce.

Throughout the years, there have been a lot of guilty pleasures on TV. You know, they’re shows that look stupid and/or very over the top, but you still can’t help but love them, like Dynasty, Gilligan’s Island, Desperate Housewives, pretty much any reality show, etc. But of all the guilty pleasures, Dallas was the guiltiest, and the best. It helped that is had the perfect main character: the sleazy, conniving, womanizing oilman J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman). J.R. took America from the 1970s to the 1980s. Int 1978, when Dallas appeared, was in the midst of the Iran crisis, on the heels of gas crunches, energy crises and Jimmy Carter in a cardigan telling us to dial back our thermostats: an oil baron as a primetime villain made perfect sense. Then, in the summer of 1980, J.R. got shot. Millions had been plunged into one of the greatest national guessing games of all time by the cliffhanger season ender to the addictively popular prime time soap as the last thing the viewers saw was a freeze frame of J.R. lying unconscious in his Ewing Oil corporate office, shot by an unseen assailant (in case you’re wondering, it was J.R.’s sister-in-law Kristin Shepard (Mary Crosby) who pulled the trigger). During the summer of 1980, the country caught Who Shot J.R.? fever. Hell, people started wearing novelty campaign buttons that read “J.R. For President” over the devilishly grinning, cowboy-hatted face of J.R. But, at the same time Ronald Reagan was running for office, and America was about to begin its 1980s love affair with business and money, assuring that J.R. would still be a relevant villain. He was the ideal cultural touchstone fro that era: rich as hell, impervious to any kind of “national malaise,” and tirelessly lying, scheming, and philandering. And, he enjoyed his own evil, as much as his naked lust for money and power. He was the face of greed in the 1980s (well, at least until Gordon Gekko took that icon status from him). But current-events relevance and J.R. were just the icing on Dallas' petroleum-soaked cake: it was the perfect primetime soap because of its timeless mix of sex (Linda Gray, Victoria Principal, and Charlene Tilton, three of the sexiest women to grace the TV screen and all in one show!), money (obviously), intrigue (the show became known for its cliffhangers), family (the Ewings, one of TV’s first dysfunctional families), and lies (I would add something here, but it is too hard to pick one; and putting them all would take up too much of my time. And, yes, there were bad moments (the infamous cliffhanger in which Patrick Duffy’s Bobby Ewing seemingly came back from the dead but didn’t because the previous season without Bobby was just a dream Pam had). But, that shouldn’t ruin such a great show. Besides, how can you hate that smile Larry Hagman flashes?



I can’t stay mad at that!

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Tomorrow, numbers 18 to 15. Here are the hints:

Another word for string or cord, To boldly go where no man has gone before, newlyweds (not the game show), and this show is brought to you by the letters J, C, and the number 8.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

18. The Wire



Genre: Crime Drama.
Created by: David Simon.
Executive Producer(s): David Simon and Nina Kostroff Noble.
Starring: Dominic West (Det. Jimmy McNulty), John Doman (Major, later Colonel and Commissioner, William Rawls), Idris Elba (Russell “Stringer” Bell 2002-2004), Frankie Faison (Deputy Commissioner, later Commissioner, Ervin Burrell), Larry Gilliard, Jr. (D’Angelo Barksdale 2002-2003), Wood Harris (Avon Barksdale), Deirdre Lovejoy (Rhonda Pearlman), Wendell Pierce (Det. Buck Moreland), Lance Reddick (Lt., later Major, Colonel, CID Commander, and Deputy Commissioner, Cedric Daniels), Andre Royo (Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins), Sonja Sohn (Det. Kima Greggs), Chris Bauer (Frank Sobotka 2003), Paul Ben Victor (Spiros “Vondas” Vondopoulos 2003, 2006-2008), Clarke Peters (Det. Lester Freamon), Amy Ryan (Officer Beatrice “Beadie” Russell 2003-2008), Aidan Gillen (Councilman, later Mayor, Tommy Carcetti 2004-2008), Jim True-Frost (Det. Roland “Prez” Pryzbylewski), Robert Wisdom (Major Howard “Bunny” Colvin 2003-2008), Reg E. Cathey (Norman Wilson 2006-2008), Clark Johnson (Augustus Haynes 2008), Tom McCarthy (Scott Templeton), Seth Gilliam (Sgt., later Lt., Ellis Carver), Domenick Lombardozzi (Sgt., later Defense Investigator, Thomas “Herc” Hauk), J. D. Williams (Preston “Bodie” Broadus 2002-2006), Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar Little), Corey Parker Robinson (Det. Leander Syndor), Chad L. Coleman (Dennis “Cutty” Wise 2004-2008), Jamie Hector (Marlo Stanfield 2004-2008), Glynn Turman (Mayor Clarence Royce), Gbenga Akinnagbe (Chris Partlow 2004-2008), Neal Huff (Michael Steintorf 2006-2008), Jermaine Crawford (Duquan “Dukie” Weems 2006-2008), Tristan Wilds (Michael Lee 2006-2008), Michael Kostroff (Maurice “Maury” Levy), Michelle Paress (Alma Gutierrez 2008), and Isiah Whitlock, Jr. (Sen. R. Clayton “Clay” Davis).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 5.
Number of Episodes: 60.
Running Time: 55 minutes.
Original Channel: HBO.
Original Run: June 2, 2002 – March 9, 2008.
Spinoffs: None.

The Wire was created by David Simon. Simon has stated that he originally set out to create a police drama loosely based on the experiences of his writing partner Ed Burns, a former homicide detective. Burns, when working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology, had often faced frustration with the bureaucracy of the police department, which Simon equated with his own ordeals as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun. Writing against the background of current events, including institutionalized corporate crime at Enron and institutional dysfunction in the Catholic Church, the show became "more of a treatise about institutions and individuals than a straight cop show." Simon chose to set the show in Baltimore because of his familiarity with the city. He approached the mayor to get approval to portray it bleakly and was welcomed to work there again. During his time as a writer and producer for the NBC program Homicide: Life on the Street, which was based on his non-fiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, Simon had come into conflict with network executives over the show's pessimism, and wanted to avoid a repeat of these arguments. He chose to take The Wire to HBO because of their existing working relationship from the 2000 miniseries The Corner. Owing to its reputation for exploring new areas, HBO was initially dubious about including a cop drama in its lineup, but eventually agreed to produce the pilot episode. Simon hoped that the show would change the opinions of some viewers but said that it was unlikely to have an impact on the issues it portrays. The casting of the show has been praised for avoiding big-name stars and providing character actors who appear natural in their roles. The looks of the cast as a whole have been described as defying TV expectations by presenting a true range of humanity on screen. The initial cast was put together through a process of auditions and readings. Lance Reddick received the role of Cedric Daniels after auditioning for several other parts. Michael K. Williams got the part of Omar Little after only a single audition. Several prominent real-life Baltimore figures, including former Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., Rev. Frank M. Reid III, former police chief Ed Norris, and former mayor Kurt Schmoke have appeared in minor roles despite not being professional actors. "Little Melvin" Williams, a Baltimore drug lord arrested in the 1980s by an investigation that Ed Burns had been part of, has had a recurring role as a deacon since the third season. Jay Landsman, a longtime police officer who inspired the character of the same name, played Lieutenant Dennis Mello. Baltimore police commander Gary D'Addario served as the series technical advisor for the first two seasons and has a recurring role as prosecutor Gary DiPasquale. Simon shadowed D'Addario's shift when researching his book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and both D'Addario and Landsman are subjects of the book. The Wire employs a broad ensemble cast, supplemented by many recurring guest stars who populate the institutions featured in the show. The majority of the cast is African American, which accurately reflects the demographics of Baltimore. However, this is a rarity in American television drama. On February 3, 2008, with the airing of its 55th episode, The Wire became the second-longest running drama with a predominantly African American cast in the history of American prime-time television. Only Soul Food has aired more episodes. The show's creators are also willing to kill off major characters, so that viewers cannot assume that a given character will survive simply because of a starring role or popularity among fans. In response to a question on why a certain character had to die, David Simon said, "[W]e are not selling hope, or audience gratification, or cheap victories with this show. The Wire is making an argument about what institutions—bureaucracies, criminal enterprises, the cultures of addiction, raw capitalism even—do to individuals. It is not designed purely as an entertainment. It is, I'm afraid, a somewhat angry show." The major characters of the first season were divided between those on the side of the law and those involved in drug-related crime. The investigating detail was launched by the actions of Detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), whose insubordinate tendencies and personal problems played counterpoint to his ability. The detail was led by Lieutenant Cedric Daniels (Lance Reddick) who faced challenges balancing his career aspirations with his desire to produce a good case. Kima Greggs (Sonja Sohn) was a capable lead detective who faced jealousy from colleagues and worry about the dangers of her job from her domestic partner. Her investigative work was greatly helped by her confidential informant, a drug addict known as Bubbles (Andre Royo). Like Greggs, partners Thomas "Herc" Hauk (Domenick Lombardozzi) and Ellis Carver (Seth Gilliam) were reassigned to the detail from the narcotics unit. The duo's initially violent nature was eventually subdued as they proved useful in grunt work, and sometimes served as comic relief for the audience. Rounding out the temporary unit were detectives Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters) and Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski (Jim True-Frost). Though not initially important players in the operation, Freamon proved a quietly capable investigator with a knack for noticing tiny but important details, and Prez turned out to be a natural at following paper trails. These investigators were overseen by two commanding officers more concerned with politics and their own careers than the case, Major William Rawls (John Doman) and Deputy Commissioner Ervin Burrell (Frankie Faison). Assistant state's attorney Rhonda Pearlman (Deirdre Lovejoy) acted as the legal liaison between the detail and the courthouse and also had a casual relationship with McNulty. In the homicide division, Bunk Moreland (Wendell Pierce) was a gifted, dry-witted detective partnered with McNulty under Sergeant Jay Landsman (Delaney Williams), the jovial squad commander. Peter Gerety had a recurring role as Judge Phelan, the official who started the case moving. On the other side of the investigation was Avon Barksdale's drug empire. The driven, ruthless Barksdale (Wood Harris) was aided by business-minded Stringer Bell (Idris Elba). Avon's nephew D'Angelo Barksdale (Larry Gilliard Jr.) ran some of his uncle's territory, but also possessed a guilty conscience, while loyal Wee-Bey Brice (Hassan Johnson) was responsible for multiple homicides carried out on Avon's orders. Working under D'Angelo were Poot (Tray Chaney), Bodie (J.D. Williams), and Wallace (Michael B. Jordan), all street-level drug dealers. Wallace was an intelligent but naïve youth trapped in the drug trade, and Poot a randy young man happy to follow rather than lead. Omar Little (Michael K. Williams), a renowned Baltimore stick-up man robbing drug dealers for a living, was a frequent thorn in the side of the Barksdale clan. The second season introduced a new group of characters working in the Baltimore port area, including Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos (Paul Ben-Victor), Beadie Russell (Amy Ryan), and Frank Sobotka (Chris Bauer). Vondas was the underboss of a global smuggling operation, Russell an inexperienced Port Authority officer and single mother thrown in at the deep end of a multiple homicide investigation, and Sobotka a union leader who turned to crime in order to raise funds to save his union. Also joining the show in season 2 were Nick Sobotka (Pablo Schreiber), Frank's nephew; Ziggy Sobotka (James Ransone), Frank's troubled son; and "The Greek" (Bill Raymond), Vondas's mysterious boss. As the second season ended, the focus shifted away from the ports, leaving the new characters behind. The third season saw several previously recurring characters assuming larger starring roles, including Detective Leander Sydnor (Corey Parker Robinson), Bodie (J.D. Williams), Omar (Michael K. Williams), Proposition Joe (Robert F. Chew), and Major Howard "Bunny" Colvin (Robert Wisdom). Colvin commanded the Western district where the Barksdale organization operated, and nearing retirement, he came up with a radical new method of dealing with the drug problem. Proposition Joe, the East Side's cautious drug kingpin, became more cooperative with the Barksdale Organization. Sydnor, a rising young star in the police department in season 1, returned to the cast as part of the major crimes unit. Bodie had been seen gradually rising in the Barksdale organization since the first episode; he was born to their trade and showed a fierce aptitude for it. Omar had a vendetta against the Barksdale organization and gave them all of his lethal attention. New additions in the third season included Tommy Carcetti (Aidan Gillen), an ambitious city councilman; Mayor Clarence Royce (Glynn Turman), the incumbent whom Carcetti planned to unseat; Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector), leader of an upstart gang seeking to challenge Avon's dominance; and Dennis "Cutty" Wise (Chad Coleman), a newly released convict uncertain of his future. In the fourth season, four young actors joined the cast: Jermaine Crawford as Duquan "Dukie" Weems; Maestro Harrell as Randy Wagstaff; Julito McCullum as Namond Brice; and Tristan Wilds as Michael Lee. The characters are friends from a West Baltimore middle school. Another newcomer was Norman Wilson (Reg E. Cathey), Carcetti's deputy campaign manager. The fifth season saw several actors join the starring cast. Gbenga Akinnagbe returns as the previously recurring Chris Partlow, chief enforcer of the now dominant Stanfield Organization. Neal Huff reprises his role as Mayoral chief of staff Michael Steintorf having previously appeared as a guest star at the end of the fourth season. Two other actors also join the starring cast having previously portrayed their corrupt characters as guest stars - Michael Kostroff as defense attorney Maurice Levy and Isiah Whitlock, Jr. as Senator Clay Davis. Crew member Clark Johnson appeared in front of the camera for the first time to play Augustus Haynes, the principled editor of the city desk of The Baltimore Sun. He is joined in the newsroom by two other new stars; Michelle Paress and Tom McCarthy play young reporters Alma Gutierrez and Scott Templeton. Alongside creator, head writer, show runner and executive producer David Simon, much of the creative team behind The Wire are alumni of Homicide and Emmy-winning miniseries The Corner. The Corner veteran, Robert F. Colesberry, was executive producer for the first two seasons and directed the season 2 finale before passing away due to complications from heart surgery in 2004. He is credited by the rest of the creative team as having a large creative role for a producer, and Simon credits him for achieving the show's realistic visual feel. He also had a small recurring role as Detective Ray Cole. Colesberry's wife Karen L. Thorson joined him on the production staff. A third producer on The Corner Nina Kostroff Noble also stayed with the production staff for The Wire rounding out the initial four-person team. Following Colesberry's death she became the show's second executive producer alongside Simon. Stories for the show are often co-written by Ed Burns, a former Baltimore homicide detective and public school teacher who has worked with Simon on other projects including The Corner. Burns also became a producer on The Wire in the show's fourth season. Other writers for The Wire include three acclaimed crime fiction writers from outside of Baltimore: George P. Pelecanos from Washington, Richard Price from the Bronx and Dennis Lehane from Boston. Reviewers drew comparisons between Price's works (particularly Clockers) and The Wire even before he joined. In addition to writing, Pelecanos served as a producer for the third season. Pelecanos has commented that he was attracted to the project because of the opportunity to work with Simon. Staff writer Rafael Alvarez penned several episodes' scripts, as well as the series guidebook The Wire: Truth Be Told. Alvarez is a colleague of Simon's from The Sun and a Baltimore native with working experience in the port area. Another city native and independent filmmaker, Joy Lusco Kecken, has also written for the show in each of its first three seasons. Baltimore Sun writer and political journalist William F. Zorzi joined the writing staff in the third season and brought a wealth of experience to the show's examination of Baltimore politics. Playwright and television writer/producer Eric Overmyer joined the crew of The Wire in the show's fourth season as a consulting producer and writer. He had also previously worked on Homicide. Overmyer was brought into the full-time production staff to replace Pelecanos who scaled back his involvement to concentrate on his next book and worked on the fourth season solely as a writer. Emmy-award winner, Homicide and The Corner writer and college friend of Simon David Mills also joined the writing staff in the fourth season. Directors include Homicide alumnus Clark Johnson, who directed several acclaimed episodes of The Shield; and Tim Van Patten, an Emmy winner who has worked on every season of The Sopranos. The directing has been praised for its uncomplicated and subtle style. Following the death of Colesberry director Joe Chappelle joined the production staff as a co-executive producer and continued to regularly direct episodes. When broadcast on HBO and on some international networks, the episodes are preceded by a recap of events that have a bearing upon the upcoming narrative, using clips from previous episodes. Each episode begins with a cold open that seldom contains a dramatic juncture. The screen then fades to black while the intro music fades in. The show's opening title sequence then plays; a series of shots, mainly close-ups, concerning the show's subject matter that changes from season to season, separated by fast jump cuts (a technique rarely used in the show itself). The opening credits are superimposed on the sequence, and consist only of actors' names without identifying which actors play which roles. At the end of the sequence, a quotation that will be spoken by a character during the episode is shown on-screen. Progressive story arcs often unfold in different locations at the same time. Episodes rarely end with a cliffhanger, and normally close with a fade to black and the closing music fading in. There were several themes that ran throughout the series. There included:

Realism: The writers strive to create a realistic vision of an American city based on their own experiences. Central to this aim is the creation of truthful characters. Simon has stated that most of them are composites of real-life Baltimore figures. The show often casts non-professional actors in minor roles, distinguishing itself from other television series by showing the "faces and voices of the real city" it depicts. The writing also uses a lot of contemporary slang to enhance the immersive viewing experience. In distinguishing the police characters from other television detectives, Simon makes the point that even the best police of The Wire are motivated not by a desire to protect and serve, but by the intellectual vanity of believing they are smarter than the criminals they are chasing. Many officers portrayed on the show are incompetent, brutal, self-aggrandizing, or hamstrung by bureaucracy and politics. The criminals are not always motivated by profit or a desire to harm others; many are trapped in their existence and all have human qualities. Even so, The Wire does not minimize or gloss over the horrific effects of their actions. The show is realistic in depicting the processes of both police work and criminal activity. Many of the plot points were based on the experiences of Simon and Burns. There have even been reports of real-life criminals watching the show to learn how to counter police investigation techniques. The fifth season portrays a working newsroom and has been hailed as the most realistic portrayal of the media in film and television. In December 2006, The Washington Post carried an article with local African-American students saying that the show had "hit a nerve" with the African-American community, and that they themselves knew real-life counterparts of many of the characters. The article expressed great sadness at the toll drugs and violence are taking on the African-American community.

Institutional dysfunction: Simon has identified the organizations featured in the show, the Baltimore Police Department, City Hall, the Baltimore Public School System, the Avon Barksdale drug trafficking operation, and the stevedores' union, as comparable institutions. All are dysfunctional in some way, and the characters are typically betrayed by the institutions that they accept in their lives. Simon described the show as "cynical about [its] institutions" while taking a humanistic approach toward its characters. A central theme developed throughout the show is the struggle between individual desires and subordination to the group's goals. Whether it is Officer Jimmy McNulty using all his cards to pursue a high-profile case despite resistance from his own department, or gang member D'Angelo Barksdale accepting 20 years in prison contrary to his strong desire to turn in his uncle Avon and take a plea, this type of conflict is pervasive in all aspects of the show.

Surveillance: Central to the structure and plot of the show is the use of electronic surveillance and wiretap technologies by the police, hence the title The Wire. Salon.com described the title as a metaphor for the viewer's experience: the wiretaps provide the police with access to a secret world, just as the show does for the viewer. Simon has discussed the use of camera shots of surveillance equipment, or shots that appear to be taken from the equipment itself, to emphasize the volume of surveillance in modern life and the characters' need to sift through this information.

Visual novel: Many important events occur off-camera and there is no artificial exposition in the form of voice-over or flashbacks, with the sole exception of one flashback at the end of the pilot episode. Thus, the viewer needs to follow every conversation closely in order to understand who's who and what's going on. Salon.com has described the show as novelistic in structure, with a greater depth of writing and plotting than other crime shows. Each season of The Wire consists of 10-13 full-hour episodes, which form a single narrative. Simon chose this structure with an eye towards long story arcs that draw a viewer in and then result in a more satisfying payoff. He uses the metaphor of a visual novel in several interviews, describing each episode as a chapter, and has also commented that this allows a fuller exploration of the show's themes in time not spent on plot development.

Social commentary: Simon described the second season as "a meditation on the death of work and the betrayal of the American working class.…t is a deliberate argument that unencumbered capitalism is not a substitute for social policy; that on its own, without a social compact, raw capitalism is destined to serve the few at the expense of the many." He added that season 3 "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." The third season is also an allegory that draws explicit parallels between the War in Iraq and the national drug prohibition, which in Simon's view has failed in its aims and become a war against America's underclass. Writer Ed Burns, who worked as a public school teacher after retiring from the Baltimore police force, has called education the theme of the fourth season. Rather than focusing solely on the school system, the fourth season looks at schools as a porous part of the community that are affected by problems outside of their boundaries. Burns states that education comes from many sources other than schools and that children can be educated by other means, including contact with the drug dealers they work for. Burns and Simon see the theme as an opportunity to explore how individuals end up like the show's criminal characters, and to dramatize the theory that hard work is not always justly rewarded.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Each season also followed a theme ran throughout its episodes. Here are the synopsis of each season:

Season 1: The first season, which began airing on June 2, 2002, introduces two major groups of characters: the Baltimore police department and a drug dealing organization run by the Barksdale family. The season follows the investigation of the latter over its 13 episodes. The investigation is triggered when detective Jimmy McNulty meets privately with judge Daniel Phelan following the acquittal of D'Angelo Barksdale for murder after a key witness changes her story. McNulty tells Phelan that she has probably been intimidated by members of a drug trafficking empire run by D'Angelo's uncle, Avon Barksdale, having recognized several faces at the trial, notably Avon's second-in-command, Stringer Bell. He also tells Phelan that nobody is investigating Barksdale's criminal activity, which includes a significant portion of the city's drug trade and several unsolved homicides. Phelan takes issue with this and complains to senior Police Department figures, embarrassing them into creating a detail dedicated to investigating Barksdale. However, owing to the department's dysfunctionality, the investigation is intended as a façade to appease the judge. An interdepartmental struggle between the more motivated officers on the detail and their superiors spans the whole season, with interference by the higher-ups often threatening to ruin the investigation. The detail's commander, Cedric Daniels, acts as mediator between the two opposing groups of police. Meanwhile, the organized and cautious Barksdale gang is explored through characters at various levels within it. The organization is antagonized by a stick-up crew led by Omar Little, and the feud leads to several deaths, bringing further police attention. Throughout, D'Angelo struggles with his conscience over his life of crime and the people it affects. The police have little success with street-level arrests or with securing informants beyond Wallace, a young low-level dealer and friend of D'Angelo. Eventually the investigation takes the direction of electronic surveillance, with wiretaps and pager clones to infiltrate the security measures taken by the Barksdale organization. This leads the investigation to areas the commanding officers had hoped to avoid, including political contributions. When an associate of Barksdale's is arrested by another team and offers to cooperate, the commanding officers order a sting operation to wrap up the case. Detective Kima Greggs is seriously hurt in the operation, triggering an overzealous response from the rest of the department. This causes the detail's targets to suspect that they are under investigation. Wallace is killed by his childhood friends Bodie and Poot, on orders from Stringer Bell, after leaving his "secure" placement with relatives and returning to Baltimore. D'Angelo Barksdale is eventually arrested with a large quantity of drugs, and learning of Wallace's murder, is ready to turn in his uncle and Stringer. However, D'Angelo's mother convinces him to rescind the deal and take the charges for his family. The detail manages to arrest Avon on a minor charge and gets one of his soldiers, Wee-Bey, to confess to most of the murders, some of which he did not commit. Stringer escapes prosecution and is left running the Barksdale empire. For the officers, the consequences of antagonizing their superiors are severe, with Daniels and McNulty both assigned to undesirable jobs.

Season 2: The second season, along with its ongoing examination of the drug problem and its effect on the urban poor, examines the plight of the blue-collar urban working class as exemplified by stevedores (longshoremen) in the city port, as some of them get caught up in smuggling drugs and other contraband inside the containers that their port ships.[8] In a season-long subplot, the Barksdale organization continues its drug trafficking despite Avon's imprisonment, with Stringer Bell assuming greater power. McNulty harbors a vendetta against his former commanders for reassigning him to the marine unit. When fourteen young unidentified women are found dead in the port area, he makes a point of proving that they were murdered in his commanders' jurisdiction. Meanwhile, police Major Stan Valchek gets into a feud with stevedore union leader Frank Sobotka over competing donations to their old neighborhood church. Valchek demands a detail to investigate Sobotka. Cedric Daniels, having impressed the major with his work on the Barksdale case, is assigned to lead the detail. As with the previous season, the targets of the investigations are explored and fully realized as characters. Life for the blue-collar men of the port is increasingly hard and work is scarce. As union leader, Sobotka has taken it on himself to reinvigorate the port by convincing politicians to support much-needed initiatives. Lacking the funds needed for this kind of influence, Sobotka has become involved with a smuggling ring. Around him, his son and nephew also turn to crime, as they have few other opportunities to earn money. It becomes clear to the Sobotka detail that the dead girls are related to their investigation, as they were in a container that was supposed to be smuggled through the port. They again use wiretaps to infiltrate the crime ring and slowly work their way up the chain towards The Greek, the mysterious man in charge. But Valchek, upset that their focus has moved beyond Sobotka, gets the FBI involved. The Greek has contacts inside the FBI and starts severing his ties to Baltimore when he learns about the investigation. After a dispute over stolen goods turns violent, Sobotka's son, Ziggy is charged with the murder of one of the Greek's underlings. Sobotka himself is arrested for smuggling; he agrees to work with the detail to help his son, finally seeing his actions as a mistake. However, the Greek learns about this through the FBI and scuppers the case against himself by having Sobotka killed. The investigation ends with the fourteen homicides solved but the perpetrator already dead. Several drug dealers and mid-level smuggling figures tied to the Greek are arrested, but he and his second-in-command escape uncharged and unidentified. The Major is pleased that Sobotka was arrested; the case is seen as a success by the commanding officers, but is viewed as a failure by the detail. Across town, the Barksdale organization continues its business under Stringer while Avon and D'Angelo Barksdale serve prison time. D'Angelo decides to cut ties to his family after his uncle organizes the deaths of several inmates and blames it on a corrupt guard to shave time from his sentence. Eventually Stringer covertly orders D'Angelo killed, faking it as a suicide. Avon is unaware of Stringer's duplicity and mourns the loss of his nephew. Stringer also struggles with the loss of his drug suppliers and bad quality product. He again goes behind Avon's back, giving up half of Avon's most prized territory to a rival named Proposition Joe in exchange for a share of his supply. Avon, unaware of the arrangement, assumes that Joe and other dealers are moving into his territory simply because the Barksdale organization has too few enforcers. He contracts a feared assassin named Brother Mouzone. Stringer deals with this by tricking his old adversary Omar into believing that Mouzone was responsible for the vicious killing of his partner in their feud in season one. Seeking revenge, Omar shoots Mouzone, but realizes Stringer had lied and calls 9-1-1. Mouzone recovers and leaves Baltimore, and Stringer is free to continue his business with Proposition Joe.

Season 3: In the third season, the action focused back on the street and the Barksdale organization but expanded the scope to include the political scene. In addition, a new subplot was introduced to examine the potential positive effects of legalizing the drug trade within the limited boundaries of three uninhabited city blocks, referred to as Hamsterdam. These were continuations of storylines hinted at earlier. The demolition of the towers that had served as the Barksdale organization's prime territory pushes their dealers back out onto the streets of Baltimore. Avon Barksdale is released from prison early, as promised for his role in unveiling the cause of the inmate deaths. Stringer Bell continues his reform of the organization by cooperating with other drug lords, sharing with one another territory, product, and profits. Stringer's proposal is met with a curt refusal from Marlo Stanfield, leader of a new, growing crew. Against Stringer's advice, Avon decides to take Marlo's territory by force, and the two gangs become embroiled in a bitter turf war with multiple deaths. Omar Little continues to rob the Barksdale organization wherever possible. Working with his new boyfriend and two women, he is once more a serious problem. In a heist gone wrong, one of Omar's crew is shot and a Barksdale enforcer is killed. The violence related to the drug trade makes it an obvious choice of investigation for Cedric Daniels' now-permanent Major Case Unit. Councilman Tommy Carcetti begins to prepare himself for a mayoral race. He manipulates a colleague into running against the mayor to split the black vote, secures a capable campaign manager, and starts making headlines for himself. Coming to the end of his career, Major Howard "Bunny" Colvin decides to achieve some real change in the neighborhoods he has long been responsible for. Seeing the spread of drug dealing into previously unscathed areas following the destruction of the towers, he assumes the task of containing the problem. Without the knowledge of central command, he sets up areas where drug trade would go unpunished and cracks down on any traffic elsewhere. His scheme achieves his aims and reduces crime in his district, but is eventually exposed to his superiors and city politicians, including Carcetti, who uses the scandal to make a grandstanding speech. With top brass outraged, Colvin is forced to cease his actions, accept a demotion, and retire from the department on a lower-grade pension. Dennis "Cutty" Wise, once a drug dealer's enforcer, is released from prison alongside Avon. His struggles to adapt to life as a free man show an attempt at personal reform. Cutty tries to work as a manual laborer and then flirts with his former life, going to work for Avon. Finding he no longer has the heart for murder, he eventually uses funding from Avon to set up a boxing gym for neighborhood youths. The Major Case Unit learns that Stringer has been buying real estate and developing it in order to fulfill his dream of being a successful legitimate businessman. However, his lack of experience in the field leads to failure, so he reluctantly refocuses on the drug trade. Believing that the bloody turf war with Marlo is poised to destroy everything the Barksdale crew had worked for, Stringer gives Major Colvin information on Avon's weapons stash. But Stringer is himself being betrayed by Avon: Brother Mouzone had returned to Baltimore and tracked down Omar to join forces. Mouzone tells Avon that his shooting must be avenged. Avon, remembering how Stringer disregarded his order which resulted in Stringer attempting to have Brother Mouzone killed, possibly still furious over D'Angelo's murder (Stringer having finally confessed the truth), and fearing Mouzone's wrath, informs Mouzone of Bell's upcoming visit to his construction site. There, Mouzone and Omar corner him and shoot him to death. Colvin tells McNulty about Avon's hideout, and armed with the information gleaned from selling the Barksdale crew pre-wiretapped disposable cell phones, the detail stages a raid, arresting Avon and most of his underlings. Barksdale's criminal empire lies in ruins, and Marlo's young crew simply moves into their territory. Thus the drug trade in West Baltimore continues with little change.

Season 4: On September 10, 2006, The Wire returned for a fourth season, expanding its scope again to include an examination of the school system. Other major plots include the mayoral race that continues the political storyline begun in season three, and a closer look at Marlo Stanfield's drug gang, which has grown to control most of western Baltimore's trafficking. The show introduces Dukie, Randy, Michael, and Namond, four boys from West Baltimore, as they enter the eighth grade. At the same school, Prez has begun a new career as a math teacher. Despite mentorship from the more seasoned faculty, Prez has difficulties maintaining order and keeping his students focused in the chaotic and sometimes violent classroom. Namond, and later Michael, work as drugrunners for Bodie, who has had middling success selling Proposition Joe's product independently. The cold-blooded Marlo has come to dominate the streets of the west side, using murder and intimidation to make up for his weak-quality drugs and lack of business acumen. His enforcers Chris Partlow and Snoop conceal their numerous victims in boarded-up row houses where the bodies will not be readily discovered. The disappearances of so many known criminals come to mystify both the major crimes unit investigating Marlo and the homicide unit assigned to solve the presumed murders. Marlo coerces Bodie into working under him, and attempts to bring Michael into the organization as well. McNulty has found peace working as a patrolman and living with Beadie Russell, and refuses promotions from Daniels, now a major commanding the Western District. Detectives Kima Greggs and Lester Freamon, as part of the major crimes unit, investigate Avon Barksdale's political donations and serve several key figures with subpoenas. Their work is shut down by Commissioner Ervin Burrell at Mayor Clarence Royce's request, and after being placed under stricter supervision within their unit, both Greggs and Freamon request and receive transfer to the homicide division. Meanwhile, the city's mayoral primary race enters its closing weeks. Royce initially has a seemingly insurmountable lead over challengers Tommy Carcetti and Tony Gray, with a big war chest and major endorsements. Royce's lead begins to fray, however, as his own political machinations turn against him and Carcetti starts to highlight the city's crime problem. This propels Carcetti to victory in the primary, and he easily wins the general election to become Baltimore's new mayor. Carcetti's desire to reduce crime leads him to restrict Burrell's duties and promote the more competent Daniels, whom he is considering later appointing Commissioner. Other familiar characters become involved in the same middle school where Prez works. Howard "Bunny" Colvin joins a research group attempting to study potential future criminals while they are still young. Dennis "Cutty" Wise continues to work with boys in his boxing gym, and accepts a job at the school rounding up truants. Bubbles takes a homeless teenager named Sherrod under his wing. He encourages the boy to attend class, which he fails to do. The two of them later find themselves assaulted and robbed constantly by a persistent drug addict. Prez has a few successes with his students, but some of them start to slip away. Disruptive Namond is removed from class and placed in the research group, where he gradually develops affection and respect for Colvin. Randy reveals to the assistant principal knowledge of a murder in a moment of desperation, leading to his being interrogated by police and thereafter labeled a "snitch" by his classmates. Michael is unresponsive to the adults around him, including Prez, Cutty, and Bodie, who all see promise in him. When Michael feels he must make his hated stepfather leave home in order to protect his little brother, he calls on Chris, the only authority figure whom he thinks he can trust. Dukie, who had been nurtured by Prez, is transferred to high school through social promotion, and thus will have to leave their relationship behind. Proposition Joe engineers a conflict between Omar Little and Marlo in order to convince Marlo to join the New Day Co-Op. After Omar robs Marlo, Marlo frames Omar for a murder and attempts to have him murdered in jail, but Omar manages to beat the charge with the help of Bunk. Omar learns Marlo set him up, and gets revenge on him and Proposition Joe by robbing the entire shipment of the Co-Op. Meanwhile, the co-op members, including Marlo, are furious at Joe for allowing the shipment to be stolen. Marlo demands satisfaction, and as a result, Joe sets up a meet between him and Spiros Vondas, who assuages Marlo's concerns. Having gotten a lead on Joe's connection to the Greeks, Marlo begins investigating them to learn more about their role in bringing narcotics into Baltimore. Freamon discovers the bodies Chris and Snoop had hidden. Bodie offers McNulty testimony against Marlo and his crew, but is shot dead on his corner by a young Stanfield soldier named O-Dog. Sherrod dies after ingesting a poisoned vial of heroin that, unbeknownst to him, Bubbles had prepared for their tormentor. Bubbles turns himself in to the police and tries to hang himself, but he survives and is taken to a detox facility. Michael has now joined the ranks of Marlo's killers and runs one of his corners, with Dukie leaving high school to work there. Randy's house is firebombed by school bullies for his cooperation with the police, leaving his caring foster mother hospitalized and sending him back to a group home. Namond is taken in by Colvin, who recognized the good in him. The major crimes unit from earlier seasons is largely reunited, and they resume their investigation of Marlo Stanfield.

Season 5: HBO announced on September 12, 2006 that it commissioned a fifth and final season consisting of 13 episodes, which was later reduced to ten. Season 5 focuses on the media and media consumption. The show depicts the newspaper The Baltimore Sun, and in fact elements of the plot are taken from accounts of real-life events (such as the Jayson Blair NY Times scandal) and people at the Sun. The theme, according to another interview with Simon, deals with "what stories get told and what don't and why it is that things stay the same." Issues such as the quest for profit, the decrease in the number of reporters, and the end of aspiration for news quality would all be addressed, alongside the theme of homelessness. In the same interview, Simon indicated that no other theme seemed substantial enough to warrant a sixth season, except possibly the large influx of Latinos into Baltimore. He noted, however, that since no writer on the show spoke Spanish or had any intimate knowledge of the city's Latino population, the field work would be too cumbersome. On April 30, 2007, production for season five officially began. Filming wrapped early in the morning of September 1, 2007 and the first episode aired on January 6, 2008. The series finale aired March 9, 2008. 15 months after the fourth season concludes, Mayor Carcetti’s cuts in the police budget to redress the education deficit force the investigation of Marlo Stanfield to shut down. Cedric Daniels secures a detail to refocus on the prosecution of Senator Davis for corruption. Detective McNulty returns to the Homicide unit and to drinking heavily and womanizing out of frustration. McNulty decides to divert resources back to the police department by faking evidence to make it appear that a serial killer is murdering homeless men. The Baltimore Sun newspaper also faces budget cuts and the underfunded newsroom struggles to adequately cover the city, omitting many important stories. Ambitious reporter Scott Templeton is secretly fabricating details of stories. Commissioner Burrell continues to falsify crime statistics until Deputy Commissioner Valchek leaks unmodified figures to Carcetti. Carcetti fires Burrell and positions Daniels to replace him. Templeton falsely implicates Daniels in Burrell's departure and Burrell passes the file on Daniels' history of unexplained assets to politician Nerese Campbell. Free from investigation, Stanfield plots to accumulate more power. He learns from Proposition Joe how to launder money and evade investigation. Once Joe is no longer useful to him, Stanfield has Joe killed and usurps his position with the Greeks and the New Day Co-Op. Stanfield lures his enemy Omar Little out of retirement by having Snoop and Chris Partlow murder Omar's mentor Butchie. Michael Lee continues working as a Stanfield enforcer despite openly questioning orders. Michael uses his earning to provide a home for his friend Dukie and younger brother Bug. Dukie tries to distance himself from the drug trade and take his life on a different path. Omar returns to Baltimore for revenge against Stanfield but is ambushed and is forced to leap from a window to escape. He injures his leg but continues to kill Stanfield organization members, steal and destroy their money and drugs, and spread the word that Stanfield is too cowardly to face him directly. Omar's mission has just begun when he is shot and killed by Kenard, a young boy who deals drugs on a Stanfield corner. Templeton claims to have been contacted by McNulty's fake serial killer. City Editor Gus Haynes becomes suspicious, but his superiors are enamored of Templeton. The story gains momentum and Carcetti spins the resulting attention on homelessness into a key issue in his imminent campaign for Governor and restores funding to the police department. Bubbles is recovering from his drug addiction while living in his sister's basement. He works selling the Sun newspaper and also volunteers at a food kitchen. Bubbles finds it hard to bear his grief over Sherrod's death, but after befriending Sun reporter Mike Fletcher, ultimately opens up to his Narcotics Anonymous group about the boy's death. Fletcher writes a profile of Bubbles. Disgraced police officer Thomas "Herc" Hauk now works as an investigator for Stanfield's attorney Maurice Levy. Herc leaks Stanfield's phone number to the police department. Bunk is disgusted with McNulty's serial killer scheme and tries to have Lester Freamon reason with McNulty. Freamon helps McNulty to perpetuate the lie and uses the funds for an illegal wiretap on Stanfield. Bunk distances himself from them and resumes working the vacant house murders. Bunk's efforts lead to a murder warrant against Partlow for killing Michael's stepfather. Freamon and Leander Sydnor gather enough evidence to arrest Stanfield and most of his top lieutenants, seizing a large quantity of drugs. Stanfield suspects that Michael is an informant, and orders Snoop to murder him. Michael realizes he is being set up and kills Snoop instead. Michael separates from his makeshift family for their protection. He persuades an Aunt in Howard County to take in Bug with money and a promise of more to come. With his support system gone Dukie lives with drug addicts. Michael begins a career as a stick-up man. McNulty is unable to end his elaborate lie and cannot enjoy Freamon's success. McNulty feels guilty about interfering with crime scenes and the wasted manpower expended on the fictitious homeless murders and tells Kima Greggs about his fabrications to prevent her wasting time on the case. Greggs tells Daniels about the scheme. Daniels and Rhonda Pearlman take this news to Carcetti, who orders a cover-up because of the issue's importance to his campaign. Davis is acquitted, but Freamon uses the threat of federal prosecution to blackmail him for information. Freamon learns that Levy is involved in selling copies of sealed indictments to drug lords and tells Pearlman. Levy is thrilled when Herc intimates that the source listed in the Stanfield arrest warrants could be an illegal wiretap. Pearlman approaches Levy to negotiate a deal and he manages to reduce his own corruption to a bargaining chip because of the wiretap. Levy ensures Stanfield's conditional release while his subordinates will have to accept long sentences. Pearlman insists that Stanfield must retire from drug trafficking and Stanfield sells the connection to The Greeks back to the Co-Op. Stanfield plans to become a businessman with his profits but cannot resist the lure of the corner. As the cover-up begins a copy cat killing occurs and McNulty is aghast at the consequences of his actions, but quickly identifies and arrests the culprit in a final act of police work. Pearlman tells McNulty and Freamon that they can no longer be allowed to do investigative work and warns of criminal charges if the scandal becomes public; both detectives opt to retire. Haynes exposes Templeton but the managing editors ignore the fabrications and demote anyone critical of their star reporter. Carcetti pressures Daniels to falsify crime statistics to aid his campaign. Daniels refuses and Campbell intervenes, threatening to expose his history. Daniels decides to step down quietly and promotes Ellis Carver to lieutenant before his departure. As McNulty faces the future without his career he gazes over the city and scenes from the past and the future flash by: Freamon enjoys retirement; Templeton wins a Pulitzer; Carcetti becomes Governor; Haynes is sidelined to the copy desk and replaced by Fletcher; Campbell appoints Valchek as commissioner; Dukie injects heroin; Michael becomes a stickup boy; Pearlman becomes a judge and Daniels a defense attorney; Bubbles is allowed upstairs where he enjoys a family dinner; Chris serves his life sentence alongside Wee-Bey; the drug trade continues; and the people of Baltimore go on with their lives.

The Wire is unusual in using primarily diegetic music; that is, all music must emanate from a source within the scene. For example, police bars play Irish music (in particular the song "Body of an American" by the Pogues is usually played when showing police wakes in the show), while the street gangs play rap in their cars. This rule is occasionally breached, notably for the season-ending montages and occasionally with a brief overlap of the closing theme and the final shot. The opening theme is "Way Down in the Hole", a gospel- and blues-inspired song originally written by Tom Waits for his 1987 album Franks Wild Years. Each season uses a different recording of it against a different opening sequence, with the theme being performed, in order, by The Blind Boys of Alabama, Waits himself, The Neville Brothers, "DoMaJe" and Steve Earle. Season four's version of "Way Down in the Hole" was arranged and recorded specifically for the show, and is performed by five Baltimore teenagers: Ivan Ashford, Markel Steele, Cameron Brown, Tariq Al-Sabir, and Avery Bargasse. Earle, who performed the fifth season's version, is also a member of the cast, playing the recovering drug addict Walon. The closing theme is "The Fall", composed by Blake Leyh, who is also the show's music supervisor. During season finales, a song is played before the closing scene in a montage showing the major characters' lives continuing in the aftermath of the narrative. The first season montage is played over "Step by Step" by Jesse Winchester, the second "Feel Alright" by Steve Earle, the third "Fast Train" written by Van Morrison and performed by Solomon Burke, the fourth "I Walk on Gilded Splinters" written by Dr. John and performed by Paul Weller, and the fifth uses an extended version of "Way Down In The Hole" by The Blind Boys of Alabama, the same version of the song used as the opening theme for the first season. While the songs reflect the mood of the sequence, their lyrics are usually only loosely tied to the visual shots. In the commentary track to episode 37, "Mission Accomplished", executive producer David Simon says: "I hate it when somebody purposely tries to have the lyrics match the visual. It brutalizes the visual in a way to have the lyrics dead on point. ... Yet at the same time it can’t be totally off point. It has to glance at what you're trying to say." Two soundtrack albums, called The Wire: "...and all the pieces matter" and Beyond Hamsterdam, were released on January 8, 2008 on Nonesuch Records. The former features music from all five seasons of the series and the latter includes local Baltimore artists exclusively. The first season received positive reviews from critics, some calling it superior to HBO's better-known "flagship" drama series such as The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. One reviewer felt that the show was partially a retread of themes from HBO and David Simon's earlier works but still valuable viewing and described the series as particularly resonant because it parallels the war on terror through the chronicling of the war on drugs. Another review postulated that the series might suffer because of its reliance on profanity and slowly drawn-out plot, but was largely positive about the show's characters and intrigue. Despite the critical acclaim, The Wire has received poor Nielsen Ratings, which Simon attributes to the complexity of the plot, a poor time slot, heavy use of esoteric slang, particularly among the gangster characters and a predominantly black cast. Critics felt the show was testing the attention span of its audience and felt that it was mistimed in the wake of the launch of the successful crime drama The Shield on FX. However, anticipation for a release of the first season on DVD was high at Entertainment Weekly. The Guardian described the second season as even more powerful than the first and praised it for deconstructing the show's central foundations with a willingness to explore new areas. One reviewer with the Boston Phoenix felt that the subculture of the docks failed to come to life as well as that of the housing projects. However, the review continued to praise the writers for creating a realistic world and populating it with an array of interesting characters. At the close of the third season, The Wire still struggled to maintain its ratings and the show faced possible cancellation. Creator David Simon blamed the show's low ratings in part on its competition against Desperate Housewives and worried that expectations for HBO dramas had changed following the success of The Sopranos. The critical response to the third season remained positive. Entertainment Weekly named The Wire the best show of 2004, describing it as "the smartest, deepest and most resonant drama on TV." They credited the complexity of the show for its poor ratings The Baltimore City Paper was so concerned that the show might be cancelled that it published a list of ten reasons to keep it on the air, including strong characterization, Omar Little, an unabashedly honest representation of real world problems, and its unique status as "broadcast literature." It also worried that the loss of the show would have a negative impact on Baltimore's economy. As the fourth season was poised to begin, almost two years after the previous season's end, Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that The Wire "has tackled the drug war in this country as it simultaneously explores race, poverty and 'the death of the American working class,' the failure of political systems to help the people they serve and the tyranny of lost hope. Few series in the history of television have explored the plight of inner-city African Americans and none—not one—has done it as well." Meanwhile, The New York Times called the fourth season of The Wire "its best season yet." Doug Elfman of the Chicago Sun-Times was more reserved in his praise, calling it the "most ambitious" show on television, but faulting it for its complexity and the slow development of the plotline. The Los Angeles Times took the rare step of devoting an editorial to the show, stating that "even in what is generally acknowledged to be something of a golden era for thoughtful and entertaining dramas—both on cable channels and on network TV—The Wire stands out." TIME Magazine especially praised the fourth season, stating that "no other TV show has ever loved a city so well, damned it so passionately, or sung it so searingly." The website Metacritic, which gathers reviews from published news sources and translates them into a percentage score, has assigned to The Wire's fourth season a weighted average score of 98%, the highest for any television show since Metacritic began tracking them in 2005. Several reviewers have called it the best show on television, including TIME, Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian, the Chicago Tribune, Slate, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Philadelphia Daily News. Charlie Brooker, a columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian has been particularly copious in his praise of the show, in both his column "Screen Burn" and his BBC Four television series Screenwipe, in which he often speaks highly of it, calling it possibly the greatest show of the last 20 years. In January 2008, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama was quoted in the Las Vegas Sun as saying that The Wire is the best show on television. In the May 4, 2008 issue of the Sunday New York Times Magazine, in a profile of Andrew Stanton, the Oscar-winning director and writer of Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life was quoted as saying that The Wire is one of his two favorite TV shows (the other being Battlestar Galactica) because, "There will never be a smarter show." HBO aired the first four seasons of the show in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006, respectively. New episodes were shown once a week, occasionally skipping one or two weeks in favor of other programming. Starting with the fourth season, subscribers to the HBO On Demand service were able to see each episode of the season six days earlier. American basic cable network BET also airs the show. BET adds commercial breaks, blurs some nudity, and mutes the word f*** and its derivatives. Much of the waterfront storyline from the second season is edited out from the BET broadcasts. In the United Kingdom, the show has been broadcast on FX. In a world first, British newspaper The Guardian made the first episode of the first season available to stream on its website for a brief period. In Ireland, season 5 of the show is currently broadcast on Monday nights on TG4 and season 1 is now being shown on Channel 6. In Australia, the fourth season is currently broadcast on the free-to-air Nine Network at varying times soon after midnight on Wednesdays as well as seasons 1 and 2 on the cable television channel FOX8. It also airs in France, under the title Sur écoute ("wiretapped") on the pay channel Jimmy. The Polish channel TVN shows the series under the name Prawo ulicy ("law of the street"). The Swedish public service network SVT has shown the first four seasons of the series. In Norway, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) aired the first season of the show in the autumn of 2007. In Israel, the show is broadcast on the Xtra Hot channel, under the name HaSmuya (הסמויה - The Covert Unit). The show airs in Canada, on The Movie Network, Movie Central and OMTV channels. In Finland the series is shown on Subtv and MTV3 channels under the name Langalla ("On the wire"). The show has been broadcast in Hungary on Duna TV since March 2007 under the name A drót ("the wire").

The Wire was on TV for five seasons, from 2002-2008; and throughout its runs people said the same damn thing over and over again: “The Wire is the best show on TV.” Hell, it was said by so many critics so many times that it almost became cliché. However, there was a very good reason they said it so often: they were right. The Wire was the smartest and most realistic show on TV and will probably hold that distinction for a long time. Through a sprawling, Balzac-ian network of cops, their targets, and the politicians and bureaucrats around them, The Wire tells the story of a declining industrial city (Baltimore, but it could be many others) and the people struggling amid (the cops), or profiting off of (lawyers, politicians, and criminals), its downfall. In The Wire's view, the world is not divided cop-vs.-robber or black-vs.-white so much as machine-vs.-individual; officer, teacher, drug soldier, or pol, people are screwed by institutions that discard them when they're used up and reward inertia over innovation. The best chance, The Wire suggests, is for free agents like its unlikely hero, the street bandit Omar, who robs drug dealers and answers to no one. However, the series wasn’t just a fantastically realistic cop show; I mean it was. It had intriguing plots (each season focused on one aspect of the city: the police and the criminals (Season 1), the docks and unions (Season 2), the politicians (Season 3), the public schools (Season 4), and the media (Season 5), great characters (I would list a few, but there are too many good ones to pick from), and well-written realistic episodes. But, the show was also funny and the opposite of nihilist, giving everyone from detectives to junkies dignity (hell, the most sympathetic character was the junkie who went clean Bubbles). Occasionally, it even offers a glimpse of something like hope, which is all the sweeter for being harder earned. All in all, David Simon’s unflinching take on Baltimore was epic in scope and journalistic in detail, using a police wiretap as a metaphor for the dizzyingly complex web that connects the drug-infested streets to the police, schools, and politicians. It’s a shame The Wire never got as much attention as HBO’s other top-notch dramas The Sopranos or Six Feet Under. In ways, it was a lot better and a lot more human than its peers.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

17. Star Trek



Genre: Science Fiction.
Created by: Gene Roddenberry.
Executive Producer(s): Gene Roddenberry.
Starring: William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Lieutenant Commander, later Commander, Spock), DeForest Kelley (Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy), Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura), James Doohan (Lieutenant Commander Montgomery “Scotty” Scott), George Takei (Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu), and Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 3.
Number of Episodes: 80.
Running Time: 51 minutes.
Original Channel: NBC.
Original Run: September 8, 1966 – September 2, 1969.
Spinoffs: A lot; it holds the Guinness World Record for the TV with the most spinoffs. There were 6 movies based on the show: “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979), “Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan” (1982), “Star Trek III: The Search For Spock” (1984), “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986), “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” (1989), and “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” (1991). Also, the characters of Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov appear in the move “Star Trek: Generations.” It has also spawned five TV shows: Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Generation (which also had 4 movies), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. And, there are also the countless comic books and novels.

A longtime fan of science fiction, in 1960 Roddenberry put together a proposal for Star Trek, a science fiction television series set on board a large interstellar space ship dedicated to exploring the galaxy. Some influences Roddenberry noted were A. E. van Vogt's tales of the Space Beagle, Eric Frank Russell's Marathon stories, and the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet. Parallels have also been drawn with the 1954 TV sci-fi series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, a much less sophisticated space opera that nevertheless included many of the elements, organization, crew relationships, missions, elements of bridge layout, and even some technology, that made up Star Trek.[9] Roddenberry also drew heavily from the Horatio Hornblower novels depicting a daring sea captain exercising broad discretionary authority on distant missions of noble purpose; his Kirk character was more or less Hornblower in space. Roddenberry had extensive experience in writing westerns that were particularly popular television fare at the time, and pitched the show to the network as a "Wagon Train to the stars." In 1964, Roddenberry secured a three-year development deal with leading independent TV production company Desilu (founded by comedy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz). In Roddenberry's original concept, the protagonist was named Captain Robert April of the "S.S. Yorktown". Eventually, this character became Captain Christopher Pike. The first pilot episode, "The Cage", was made in 1964, with actor Jeffrey Hunter in the role of Pike after Roddenberry's first choice, Lloyd Bridges reportedly turned it down. At a time when racial segregation was still firmly entrenched in many areas of the United States, Roddenberry envisaged a multi-racial and mixed-gender crew, based on his assumption that racial prejudice and sexism would not exist in the 23rd century. He also included recurring characters from alien races, including Spock, who was half human and half Vulcan, united under the banner of the United Federation of Planets. Other innovative Star Trek features involved solutions to basic production problems. The idea of the faster-than-light warp drive was not new to science fiction, but it allowed a narrative device that permitted the Enterprise to quickly traverse space. The matter transporter, where crew members "beamed" from place to place, solved the problem of moving characters quickly from the ship to a planet, a spacecraft landing sequence for each episode being prohibitively expensive. The famous flip-open communicator was introduced as a plot device to strand the characters in challenging situations by malfunctioning, being lost or stolen, or out of range; absent such a device, the characters could simply beam up at the first sign of trouble. The flip-open communicator has been copied in many popular cell phone designs from the mid-1990s on. The Star Trek concept was first offered to the CBS network, but the channel turned it down for the more mainstream Irwin Allen production, Lost In Space. Star Trek was then offered to NBC, who commissioned and then turned down the first pilot (NBC executives would later be quoted as saying that the initial pilot episode was 'too cerebral'). However, the NBC executives were favorably impressed with the concept and made the unusual decision to commission a second pilot: "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Only the character of Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy) remained from the original pilot, and only two cast members (Majel Barrett and Leonard Nimoy) carried on to the series. Much of the first pilot's footage was used in a later two-part episode, "The Menagerie." The second pilot introduced the main characters: Captain Kirk (William Shatner), chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Scott (James Doohan) and Lieutenant Sulu (George Takei). Sulu's title in this episode was Ship's Physicist (changed to Helmsman in subsequent episodes). Paul Fix played Dr. Mark Piper in the second pilot. Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, (DeForest Kelley) joined the cast with principal photography began on the first season, along with Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) and communications officer Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols.) Majel Barrett's role of Nurse Christine Chapel would make her debut later in "The Naked Time". Barrett, Roddenberry's wife, also did the voice for the ship's computer. She also played (as a brunette) the part of Captain Pike's First Officer in the pilot episode "The Cage". Barrett married Roddenberry in 1969. Roddenberry's inclusion of the Asian Sulu and black Uhura, both of them intelligent, well-spoken professionals, was a bold move when most television characters of the time were white and those who weren't were often presented in a highly stereotypical manner. Sulu and Uhura were not given first names in this series. Sulu's first name, Hikaru, was revealed non-canonically in Vonda McIntyre's Pocket Book novel "The Entropy Effect". The name was "officially" put into the canon by George Takei in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Uhura's first name was never mentioned on screen, but the name Nyota was used in fandom, and in Pocket Book novels. The Original Series holds the record for the most original novels, with over 100 published (including the James Blish and Star Trek Logs book series). Kirk's middle name was never used in the series until the episode B.E.M. in Star Trek: The Animated Series. Due to internal disagreements on the status of The Animated Series as official Star Trek canon, Kirk's middle name ('Tiberius') would not become canon until the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. A tombstone in the second pilot intended for Kirk reads "James R. Kirk". The relatively young, mop-topped Russian navigator Ensign Chekov was added in the second season. There may be some truth to the unofficial story that the Soviet newspaper Pravda complained that there were no Russians among the culturally diverse characters. However, studio documentation suggests that the intention was to introduce a character with more appeal to a teenage market, especially the female sector. Walter Koenig himself noted in the 40th (2006) anniversary special of Star Trek The Original series that he doubted the Pravda rumor since Star Trek was never even shown on Soviet television. It's also been claimed that former Monkees member Davy Jones may have served as a model for the character. In addition, the series frequently included characters (usually security personnel wearing red uniforms) who are killed or injured soon after their introduction. So prevalent was this plot device that it inspired the term "redshirt" to denote a stock character whose sole purpose is to die violently in order to demonstrate the dangerous circumstances facing the main characters. Roddenberry's production staff included art director Matt Jefferies. Jefferies designed the Enterprise; his contribution was commemorated in the so-called Jefferies tube, which became a standard part of the (fictional) design of Federation starships. Jefferies' starship concepts arrived at a final saucer-and-cylinders design that became a template for all subsequent Federation space vehicles. Jefferies also developed the main set for the Enterprise bridge (based on an original design by Pato Guzman) and used his practical experience as a WWII airman and his knowledge of aircraft design to come up with a sleek, functional, ergonomic bridge layout. Costume designer William Ware Theiss created the striking look of the Enterprise uniforms and the risqué costumes for female guest stars. Artist and sculptor Wah Chang, who had worked for Walt Disney, was hired to design and manufacture props: he created the flip-open communicator, the portable sensing-recording-computing tricorder and the phaser weapons. Later, he would create various memorable aliens, such as the Gorn. The series introduced television viewers to many ideas which later became common in science fiction films: warp drive, teleportation, wireless hand-held communicators and scanners, directed energy weapons, desktop computer terminals, laser surgery, starship cloaking devices, and computer speech synthesis. Although these concepts had numerous antecedents in sci-fi literature and film, they had never before been integrated in one presentation and most of them were certainly new to TV. Even the ship's automatic doors were a novel feature in 1966. In the 2002 book 'Star Trek: I'm Working On That', William Shatner and co-author Chip Walter explore some of these technologies and how they relate to today's world. After a few episodes were filmed, but before they had been officially aired, Roddenberry screened one or two of them at Worldcon in Cleveland in August, 1966 and, as he related in a telegram to Desilu production executive Herbert F. Solow, received a standing ovation. Star Trek made celebrities of its cast of largely unknown actors. Kelley had appeared in many films and TV shows, but mostly in smaller roles. Nimoy also had previous TV and film experience but was also not well-known. Shatner had played Cyrano on Broadway, was well-known in the trades, and had even turned down the part of Dr. Kildare. However, when roles became sparse he took the regular job after Jeffrey Hunter's contract wasn't renewed. After the episodes aired, many performers found themselves typecast due to their roles. The three main characters were Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, with writers often playing the different personalities off each other: Kirk was passionate and often aggressive, Spock was coolly logical, and McCoy was sardonic but always compassionate. In many stories the three clashed, with Kirk forced to make a tough decision while Spock advocated the logical but sometimes callous path and McCoy (or "Bones," as Kirk nicknamed him, short for "sawbones," a traditional, slightly pejorative nickname for doctors) insisted on doing whatever would cause the least harm. McCoy and Spock had a sparring relationship that masked their true affection and respect for each other, and their constant arguments became very popular with viewers. The Spock character was at first rejected by network officials who feared his vaguely "satanic" appearance (with pointed ears and eyebrows) might prove upsetting to some viewers. The network had even airbrushed out Spock's pointed ears and eyebrows from publicity materials sent to network affiliates. But Spock went on to become one of the most popular characters on the show, as did McCoy's impassioned country-doctor personality. Spock, in fact, became a sex symbol of sorts to many young girls, something no one connected with the show had expected. Leonard Nimoy notes that the question of Spock's extraordinary sex appeal emerged "almost any time I talked to someone in the press...I never give it a thought....to try to deal with the question of Mr. Spock as a sex symbol is silly." The series was created during a time of Cold War politics, and the plots of its episodes occasionally reflected this. The Original Series shows encounters with other advanced spacefaring civilizations, including the Klingons and the Romulans, used as symbolic references to the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, respectively. The sequel to the original series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, which premiered in 1987, was set approximately 80 years after the events of TOS. As that show and its spin-offs progressed, several TOS characters made appearances: Spock, now a Vulcan ambassador, goes underground in the Romulan Empire in hopes of fostering peaceful coexistence with the Federation and reunification with Vulcan society ("Unification, Parts I and II"). Leonard "Bones" McCoy, now a 137-year-old admiral, inspects the Enterprise-D during its maiden flight in "Encounter at Farpoint." Scotty, now chronologically 147 years old but still only physically 77 years old due to spending about 70 years trapped in suspended animation (inside a transporter buffer and not aging as a result), was rescued by the Enterprise-D crew and resuming his life in "Relics". Captain Picard indefinitely loans him a shuttlecraft, and Scott decides that he might have some more traveling left to do after all. Sulu, promoted to captain of the USS Excelsior in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” reprises his role from that performance in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback". Grace Lee Whitney also reprises her role as Janice Rand in that same episode. Sarek (portrayed by Mark Lenard), Spock's father, continued to be an ambassador for the next century, finally retiring to Vulcan where he passed away during the events of "Unification". Mark Lenard also appeared as Sarek in several of the movies, as well as playing the Romulan commander in the ST:TOS episode "Balance of Terror", and as a Klingon in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.” Kang, Koloth, and Kor, the three Klingons featured in "Day of the Dove," "The Trouble With Tribbles," and "Errand of Mercy," continued to serve the Empire well into the 24th century. They appeared in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Blood Oath" in which Kang and Koloth were killed. Kor later appeared in two more episodes: "The Sword of Kahless" and finally in "Once More Unto the Breach" where he died fighting in the Dominion War. A younger version of Kang, from the era of “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” later appeared in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback." James Kirk disappears in 2293 during the maiden voyage of the Enterprise-B but 78 years later Kirk is recovered from The Nexus, an alternate plane of existence, by Enterprise-D Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Kirk's time in the 24th century is short however, when he is killed by Dr. Soran in “Star Trek Generations.” Besides the above examples, there have been numerous non-canon novels and comic books published over the years in which TOS-era crew are depicted in the TNG era, either through time-travel or other means. In addition, many actors who appeared on TOS later made guest appearances as different characters in later series, most notably Majel Barrett, who not only provided the voice for most Starfleet computers in episodes of every spin-off series (including Enterprise), but also had the recurring role of Lwaxana Troi in TNG and DS9. In terms of its writing, Star Trek is notable as one of the earliest science-fiction TV series to utilize the services of leading contemporary science fiction writers, such as Robert Bloch, Norman Spinrad, Harlan Ellison, and Theodore Sturgeon, as well as established TV writers. Series script editor Dorothy C. Fontana (originally Roddenberry's secretary) was also a vital part of the success of Star Trek; she edited most of the series' scripts and wrote several episodes. Her credits read D.C. Fontana at the suggestion of Gene Roddenberry since he felt that a woman might not be taken seriously because almost all science fiction writers were men. Several notable themes were tackled throughout the entire series including the exploration of major issues of 1960s USA, like sexism, racism, nationalism, and global war. Roddenberry utilized the allegory of a space vessel set many years in the future to explore these issues. Although Sammy Davis, Jr. and Nancy Sinatra had openly kissed on the December 1967 musical-variety special Movin' With Nancy, Star Trek was the first American television show to feature an interracial kiss between fictional characters (in the episode "Plato's Stepchildren") although the kiss was only mimed and depicted as involuntary. Episodes such as "The Apple," "Who Mourns for Adonis?," and "The Return of the Archons" display subtle anti-religious and anti-establishment themes. "Bread and Circuses" and "The Omega Glory" have themes that are more overtly pro-religion and patriotic. Network interference, up to and including wholesale censorship of scripts and film footage, was a regular occurrence in the 1960s and Star Trek suffered from its fair share of tampering. Many scripts had to be revised after vetting by the NBC censors. The Original Series was also noted for its sense of humor, such as Spock and McCoy's pointed, yet friendly, bickering. Episodes like "The Trouble with Tribbles," "I, Mudd," and "A Piece of the Action," are written and staged as comedies. Star Trek's humor is generally much more subdued in the spin-offs and movies, with notable exceptions such as “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.” Several episodes used the concept of duplicate Earths, allowing re-use of stock props and sets. "Bread and Circuses," "Miri," and "The Omega Glory." depict such worlds, and three episodes, "A Piece of the Action," "Patterns of Force," and "Plato's Stepchildren" are based on alien planets that have adopted period Earth cultures (Prohibition-era Chicago, Nazi Germany, and ancient Greece, respectively). In 1968, Star Trek's most critically acclaimed episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever," written by Harlan Ellison, won the prestigious Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Teleplay, although this was for Ellison's original draft script, and not for the screenplay of the episode as it aired. All 79 episodes of the series have been digitally remastered by CBS Television Distribution (now the rights holders for the Star Trek television franchises), and have since been released on DVD in production order. As of 2008 there has been no announcement as to whether the original versions of the episodes will be made available in the high definition video formats, as CBS/Paramount is presently only releasing Star Trek Remastered in that format. In 1983, Leonard Nimoy hosted a one-hour special as a promotional tie-in with the film “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” called "Star Trek Memories." In the special, he recounted his memories of working on The Original Series and explained the origins of things such as the Vulcan nerve pinch and the Vulcan salute. This special continues to be widely seen in some areas; it was included in the syndication package for The Original Series, in order to bump up the episode count to 80. The show's theme tune, immediately recognizable by many, was written by Alexander Courage, and has been featured in a number of Star Trek spin-off episodes and motion pictures. The lyrics for the introduction were written by Gene Roddenberry without Courage's knowledge and without intending for them ever to be sung. Roddenberry would nevertheless wrangle himself a 50% share of the music's performance royalties, which was the motivation for Courage's leaving the series. Later episodes would use stock recordings from his earlier work. Jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson recorded a jazz fusion version of the tune with his big band, during the late 1970s, and Nichelle Nichols would perform the song live complete with lyrics. For budgetary reasons, this series made significant use of "tracked" music, or music written for other episodes that was re-used in later episodes. Of the 79 episodes that were broadcast, only 31 had complete or partial original dramatic underscores created specifically for them. The remainder of the music in any episode was tracked from a different episode. It was mostly the decision of Robert H. Justman, the Associate Producer during the first two seasons, of which episodes would have new music. Screen credits for the composers were given based on the amount of music composed for, or composed and re-used in, the episode. Some of these final music credits were occasionally incorrect. Beyond the short works of "source" music (music whose source is seen or acknowledged onscreen) created for specific episodes, eight composers were contracted to create original dramatic underscore during the series run: Alexander Courage, George Duning, Jerry Fielding, Gerald Fried, Sol Kaplan, Samuel Matlovsky, Joseph Mullendore, and Fred Steiner. Each conducted his own music. Of these composers, Steiner composed the original music for the largest number of episodes (thirteen) and it is his instrumental arrangement of Alexander Courage's main theme that is heard over many of the end title credits of the series. The tracked musical underscores were chosen and edited to the episode by the music editors, principal of whom were Robert Raff (most of Season One), Jim Henrikson (Season One and Two), and Richard Lapham (Season Three). The original recordings of the music of some episodes were released in the United States commercially on the GNP Crescendo Record Co. label. Music for a number of the episodes were re-recorded by the Varese Sarabande label, with Fred Steiner conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; and on the Label X label, with Tony Bremner conducting the Royal Philharmonic. Episodes of the Original Series were among the first television series to be released on the VHS and laserdisc formats in North America the 1980s, with all episodes eventually being released to VHS. With the advent of DVD in the late 1990s, single DVDs featuring two episodes each were released. In the early 2000s, Paramount Home Video reissued the series to DVD in a series of three deluxe season boxes with added featurettes and documentaries. As of 2008 there are no plans for the Original Series to be released in either HD DVD or Blu-Ray formats, as Paramount has chosen to reserve high definition release for the reedited Remastered version of the series; it is not known if Paramount intends to keep the Original Series available in DVD format. In September 2006, CBS Paramount Domestic Television (now known as CBS Television Distribution) began syndication of an enhanced version of Star Trek: The Original Series in high definition with new state-of-the-art CGI visual effects. These are being done under the supervision of Mike Okuda, technical consultant to several of the later series. The restoring and updating of the visual effects is being performed by CBS Digital. All live action footage was scanned in high definition from its first generation 35 mm film elements, while visual effects shots have been digitally reproduced. As noted in the "making of" DVD feature, first generation "original camera negatives" were used for all live action footage but not for external shots of the ship and planets, etc. Notable changes include new space shots with a CGI Enterprise, and other new models (for example, a Gorn ship is shown in Arena), redone matte background shots, and other minor touches such as tidying up viewscreens. A small number of scenes have also been recomposed, and in some cases new actors have been placed into the background of some shots. In addition, the opening and closing music has been re-recorded in digital stereo. The first episode to be released to syndication was "Balance of Terror" on the weekend of September 16, 2006. Episodes are being released at the rate of about one a week and broadcast in a 4:3 aspect ratio. Star Trek Remastered is also being broadcast in Japan, but the Japanese version is presented in a 16:9 aspect ratio rather than in a 4:3 ratio. While the CGI shots have already been mastered in a 16:9 aspect ratio for future applications, they are currently broadcast in the US - along with the live action footage in the original 4:3 aspect ratio TV format to respect the show's original composition. If the producers choose to reformat the entire show for the 16:9 ratio, live action footage would have to be recropped, widening the frame to the full width of the 35 mm negatives while trimming its height by nearly 30%. Although this would add a marginal amount of imagery on the sides, much more would need to be eliminated from the tops and bottoms of the frames to fit. This is what has been done for the Japanese version of the show. On July 26, 2007, CBS Home Entertainment announced that the remastered episodes of TOS will be released on a DVD/HD DVD hybrid format. The remastered season one was released on November 20, 2007. Season 2 had been scheduled for release in the summer of 2008, but it was cancelled when Toshiba (which had been financing the remastering of the show) pulled out of the HD-DVD business. No Blu-ray Disc releases for the remastered series have as yet been scheduled. However, it was announced on March 21, 2008 that Season 2 will be released on DVD only, with a street date of August 5, 2008. On April 10, 2006, an interactive version of TOS, known as "Star Trek 2.0," began broadcast on the television channel G4 where members can use the online chat and "Spock Market." Messages from the online chat may be shown during the broadcast along with "Trek Stats" and "Trek Facts." The feature debuted on the cable network G4 began playing episodes of Star Trek along with showing interactive menus. Sometime in 2007, they stopped airing the show in its 2.0 format. The show aired though on the network every Monday in a marathon until it was cancelled. As a promotion of Star Trek 2.0, advertising agency 72andSunny created four 30-second stop-motion commercials using detailed Mego action figures of the crew, which became enormously popular on video site YouTube as well as G4TV.com's "Streaming Pile" video site. They also released a minute-long "Director's Cut" of the "Cribs" clip. On January 15, 2007, G4 launched Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.0 at 9:00pm Monday through Friday. A press release for the show indicated it features TNG Facts and Stats along with 32 (up from 24) new stocks for the Spock Market game. Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.0 was later removed from Monday nights. An "urgent subspace message" on the Star Trek 2.0 Hailing Frequencies e-newsletter stated that Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.0 was scheduled for a "refit". It no longer featured live chat, stats, or facts on screen. The Spock Market game continued running as usual until it was shut down. Star Trek has inspired fan-made and -produced series for free internet distribution, including Star Trek: Phase II. Walter Koenig, D. C. Fontana and other Star Trek actors and production personnel have participated in producing various episodes. CBS Interactive is presenting all 3 seasons of the series online via Adobe Flash streaming media. They are full-length episodes available free of charge, but with ads embedded into the stream of each episode. They are currently viewable at www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek. In January 2007, the first season of Star Trek became available for download from Apple's iTunes Store. Although consumer reviews indicate that some of the episodes on iTunes are the newly "remastered" editions, iTunes editors had not indicated such, and if so, which are which. All first season episodes that had been remastered and aired were available from iTunes, except Where No Man Has Gone Before, which remains in its original form. On March 20, 2007, the first season was again added to the iTunes Store, with separate downloads for the original and remastered versions of the show, though according to the customer reviews, the original version contains minor revisions such as special effect enhancements. Microsoft's Xbox 360 videogame console provides downloads of the Original series on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

The world is made up of two kinds of people: the Faithful, those who embrace the Star Trek universe, the original series, the 10 films (a prequel is scheduled to come out in 2009), the five spinoffs, and every piece of Star Trek memorabilia ever made; and the Disbelievers, who sneer that William Shatner named it perfectly in a Saturday Night Live skit when he ordered a roomful of nerdy Trekkies to “get a life.” Shatner’s quip stung, and here’s why: Star Trek fans do indeed hanker after a different life, but not necessarily the one belonging to Capt. James T. Kirk. No, what they really want is the optimistic vision of the future Gene Roddenberry created with the show. In the world according to Trek, we aren’t destined to blow ourselves to smithereens or degenerate into “Blade Runner”-like squalor. Instead, we’ll spend our lives going “boldly where no man has gone before,” unsullied by racism and sexism and untroubled by finances. Who wouldn’t want to go? And, it isn’t hard to see why Roddenberry came up with this vision of the future. For a show that was set hundreds of years in the future, Star Trek was very 1960s: not just the miniskirts, but the war and race allegories that Roddenberry wrote into the series. Capt. Kirk led a crew of all colors (and ear shapes) across the universe to follow (more like “follow) the Prime Directive and defuse conflicts. And, let’s remember that those 1960s were a troubled time of war, political division, and civil rights struggles. It isn’t surprising that such a turbulent time would cause a man to make a non-turbulent future. Though the sci-fi show was colored by its troubled times, it also had a genuine postwar optimism, believing that technology, science and cooperation could actually lead humanity to unity and progress. Dated as the original Trek can look (with Kirk chasing galactic babes and space hippies) its first-rate sci-fi plots still hold up. And, it hasn’t stopped holding up, because Trekkies won’t let it stop. In its original run, Star Trek never made it into the Top 25 of any season, and NBC pulled the plug in 1969. Yet, 10 years later, like Tribbles that wouldn’t stop breeding, reruns had popped up on more than 140 stations. In response, conventions popped up everywhere, the original cast was reassembled in feature films, and a new series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, premiered in 1987. This show has had more spinoffs than any other show in TV history. And, why won’t it just die? Because, in an era of movies with skyscraper-high monsters and mindless explosions, Star Trek had always possessed something rare in pop culture: a real vision of hope that hundreds of years from now we might be still boldly going where no one has gone before. And, that trumps soulless state-of-the-art special effects any day of the week.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

16. The Honeymooners



Genre: Sitcom.
Created by: Jackie Gleason.
Executive Producer(s): Jack Philbin.
Starring: Jackie Gleason (Ralph Kramden), Audrey Meadows (Alice Kramden), Art Carney (Ed Norton), and Joyce Randolph (Thelma “Trixie” Norton).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 1.
Number of Episodes: 39.
Running Time: 30 minutes.
Original Channel: CBS.
Original Run: October 1, 1955 – September 22, 1956.
Spinoffs: The show is the first spinoff in TV history, based on sketches of the same name that originally aired on Cavalcade of Stars and later aired on The Jackie Gleason Show. There was also a movie made based on the show “The Honeymooners” (2005), which had African-American actors in the main character roles. The roles of Ralph, Alice, Ed, and Trixie were played by Cedric the Entertainer, Gabrielle Union, Mike Epps, and Regina Hall, respectively. The film was a commercial and critical flop.

In July 1950, Jackie Gleason took over as the host of Cavalcade of Stars, a variety show that aired on the DuMont Television Network. After a few episodes, Gleason and his writing staff developed a sketch that drew upon familiar domestic situations for its material. Gleason wanted a realistic portrayal of life for a poor husband and wife living in Brooklyn. The couple would fight constantly, but ultimately show their love for each other. After rejecting titles such as "The Beast", "The Lovers", and "The Couple Next Door", Gleason and his staff settled on "The Honeymooners" for the name of the new sketch. Gleason took the role of Ralph Kramden, a blustery bus driver, and he chose veteran comedy movie actress Pert Kelton for the role of Alice Kramden, Ralph's acerbic wife. The majority of The Honeymooners focused on its four principal characters, although various secondary characters made multiple appearances. The main characters were:

Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason): a bus driver for the fictional Gotham Bus Company. He is never seen driving a bus (except in publicity photos), but is shown multiple times at the bus depot. Ralph is frustrated by his lack of success, and often develops schemes designed to earn him and his wife a quick fortune. Ralph is very quick-tempered, and frequently resorts to insults and hollow threats of physical violence.

Alice Kramden (Audrey Meadows): Ralph's patient, but sharp-tongued wife of roughly 15 years. Alice often finds herself bearing the brunt of Ralph's insults, which she returns in fine form. She is bitingly sarcastic and very level-headed, trying to convince Ralph of the stupidity of his various schemes, which makes him lose his temper. However, she is considerably unruffled and never fazed by Ralph's constant threats to strike her "one of these days..." She studied to be a secretary before her marriage and works briefly in that capacity when Ralph is laid off. Ralph's jealousy of Alice's handsome boss "Tony Amico", who is told that Ralph is Alice's brother because married women have a harder time finding jobs, soon puts paid to that venture, particularly after Amico asks Ralph about dating Alice. Another foil for Ralph is Alice's mother, even sharper-tongued, whom Ralph despises. Alice's father is occasionally mentioned but never seen.

Edward "Ed" Norton (Art Carney): a New York City sewer worker and Ralph's best friend. He is considerably more good-natured than Ralph, but nonetheless trades insults with him on a regular basis. Ed (typically called "Norton" by Ralph) often gets mixed up in Ralph's schemes, and his carefree and rather dimwitted nature usually results in raising Ralph's ire, while Ralph often showers him with verbal abuse, shoves him around, and throws him out of the apartment when Ed irritates him. Ed and Ralph are both members of the fictional Raccoon Lodge.

Thelma "Trixie" Norton (Joyce Randolph): Ed's wife and Alice's best friend. She did not appear on every episode and had a less developed character, though she is shown to be bossy towards her husband and rather disposed towards violence. In one episode she is depicted as a pool hustler. On another episode, Ralph insults Trixie by making a reference to Minsky's (a burlesque theatre; the original Trixie (played by Elaine Stritch) was a burlesque dancer). However Randolph's characterization was more wholesome and there are no references to her background. She is even rather prudish, complaining to her husband when a "fresh" store employee called her "sweetie-pie."

Some of the actors that appeared multiple times on the show include Jimmy Guarasci, Blanche Rothstein (who played Alice's mother); and Meg Laduca. "The Honeymooners" made its debut on October 5, 1951, as a six-minute sketch. Cast member Art Carney made a brief appearance as a police officer who gets hit with flour Ralph had thrown out the window. The tone of these early sketches was much darker than the later series, with Ralph exhibiting extreme bitterness and frustration with his marriage to an equally bitter and argumentative middle-aged woman (Kelton was nine years older than Gleason). The Kramdens' financial struggles mirrored those of Gleason's early life in Brooklyn, and he took great pains to duplicate on set the interior of the apartment where he grew up (right down to his boyhood address of 328 Chauncey Street). The Kramdens (and later the Nortons) are childless, an issue never explored, but a condition on which Gleason insisted. Early additions to the cast of later sketches were upstairs neighbors Ed and Trixie Norton. Ed (played by Carney) was a sewer worker and Ralph's best friend, although his innocent and guileless nature was the source of many arguments between the two. Trixie Norton (maiden name unknown), Ed's wife, was originally portrayed as a burlesque dancer by Elaine Stritch, but was replaced by the more wholesome looking Joyce Randolph, after just one appearance. Trixie is a foil to Ed, just as Alice does for Ralph, but derivatively, and almost always off-screen. Due in part to the colorful array of characters that Gleason invented (including the cast of "The Honeymooners"), Cavalcade of Stars became a huge success for DuMont. It increased its audience share from nine to 25 percent. Gleason's contract with DuMont expired in the summer of 1952, and the financially struggling network (which folded in the mid-1950s) was unable to re-sign him. CBS president William S. Paley convinced Gleason to leave the DuMont Network and bring his show to CBS. In July 1952, the cast of the retitled Jackie Gleason Show embarked on a highly successful five-week promotional tour across the United States, performing a variety of musical numbers and sketches (including the popular "Honeymooners"). The cast performed four shows a day, which was too much for Kelton, who was suffering from "heart problems." In actuality, Kelton was blacklisted as a suspected communist. She was replaced on the tour by Gingr Jones [sic], and subsequently was blacklisted (having earlier been named on the Red Channels blacklist) by CBS, which meant that a new Alice was needed. Jones's replacement was Audrey Meadows, already known for her work in the 1951 musical Top Banana and on Bob and Ray's television show. Before receiving the role, Meadows had to overcome Gleason's reservations about her being too attractive to make a credible Alice. To accomplish this, she hired a photographer to come to her apartment early in the morning and take pictures of her with no make-up on, wearing a torn housecoat, and with her hair undone. When the pictures were delivered to Gleason, he looked at them and said, "That's our Alice." When it was explained to him who it was he said, "Any dame who has a sense of humor like that deserves the job." With the addition of Meadows the now-famous Honeymooners lineup of Gleason, Carney, Meadows, and Randolph was in place. The Honeymooners was filmed using three Electronicams. In 1955, most television shows (including The Jackie Gleason Show) were performed live and recorded using kinescope technology. One notable exception was I Love Lucy, which was recorded directly onto 35 mm film. For The Honeymooners, Gleason utilized the Electronicam TV-film system, developed by DuMont in the early 1950s. As a result of the superior picture and sound quality afforded by the Electronicam system, episodes of The Honeymooners were much more suitable for rebroadcast than some other shows of the era. All 39 episodes of The Honeymooners were filmed at the DuMont Television Network's Adelphi Theater in New York City, in front of an audience of 1,000. Episodes were never fully rehearsed, as Gleason felt that rehearsals would rob the show of its spontaneity. The result was that while the cast was able to bring a fresh approach to the material, mistakes were often made: lines were either recited incorrectly or forgotten altogether, and actors did not follow the scripted action. To compensate, the cast developed visual cues for each other: Gleason patted his stomach when he forgot a line, while Meadows would glance at the refrigerator when someone else was supposed to retrieve something from it. In contrast to other popular comedies of the era (such as Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet), which depicted their characters in comfortable, middle class suburban environments, the set design for The Honeymooners reflected the blue collar existence of its characters. The Kramdens' apartment, in particular, was sparsely furnished; the main set was a kitchen, which consisted of a functional table and chairs, a curtain-less window (with a view of a fire escape) and an outdated icebox. The instrumental theme song for The Honeymooners, "You're My Greatest Love", was composed by Gleason and performed by an orchestra led by Ray Bloch (who had previously served as orchestra leader on Gleason's variety show, as well as The Ed Sullivan Show). Although lyrics were composed, they were never sung. Sammy Spear, who later became Gleason's musical director, provided the arrangement. The music heard in the episodes was not performed during the show, so to enhance the feeling of a live performance for the studio audience an orchestra performed before filming and during breaks. The show's original announcer was Jack Lescoulie, who was also a spokesman for the sponsor, Buick. For the non-sponsored syndicated version, the introduction was voiced by CBS staff announcer Gaylord Avery. The rising popularity of "The Honeymooners" was reflected in its increasing prominence as part of The Jackie Gleason Show. During the first season, it appeared on a regular basis (although not weekly) as a short sketch during part of the larger variety show. The sketches ranged in length from seven to thirteen minutes. For the 1953–54 season, the shorter sketches were outnumbered by ones that ran for a half hour or longer. During the 1954–55 season, most episodes consisted entirely of "The Honeymooners". Fan response was overwhelming. Meadows received hundreds of curtains and aprons in the mail from fans who wanted to help Alice lead a fancier life. By January 1955, The Jackie Gleason Show was competing with (and sometimes beating) I Love Lucy as the most-watched show in the United States. Audience members lined up around the block hours in advance to attend the show. Before Gleason's initial three-year contract with CBS expired, he was offered a much larger one by CBS and Buick (the carmaker having dropped their sponsorship of The Milton Berle Show). The three-year contract, reportedly valued at $USD 11 million, was one of the largest in show business history. It called for Gleason to produce 78 filmed episodes of The Honeymooners over two seasons, with an option for a third season of 39 more. He was scheduled to receive $65,000 for each episode ($70,000 per episode in the second season), but had to pay all production costs out of that amount. Art Carney received $3,500 per week, Audrey Meadows received $2,000 per week, and Joyce Randolph (who did not appear in every episode) received $500 per week. Production for The Honeymooners was handled by Jackie Gleason Enterprises, Inc., which also produced the show's lead-in, Stage Show. The first episode of the new half-hour series aired Saturday, October 1, 1955, at 8:30 pm (during prime time), opposite Ozark Jubilee on ABC and The Perry Como Show on NBC. As it was sponsored by Buick, the opening credits ended with an advertisement ("Brought to you by your Buick dealer. And away we go!"), and the show concluded with a brief Gleason sales pitch for the company. All references to the carmaker were removed when the show entered syndication. Critical reaction to The Honeymooners was mixed. While The New York Times and Broadcasting and Telecasting Magazine wrote that it was "labored" and lacked the spontaneity of the live sketches, TV Guide praised it as "rollicking", "slapsticky" and "fast-paced." In February 1956, the show was moved to the 8 pm time slot, but had already started to lose viewers to the hugely popular Perry Como Show. Gleason's writers had also begun to feel confined by the restrictive half-hour format, and Gleason felt that they were starting to run out of original ideas. After just one season, Gleason and CBS agreed to cancel The Honeymooners, which aired its 39th and last original episode on September 22, 1956. In explaining his decision to end the show with $7 million remaining on his contract Gleason said, "the excellence of the material could not be maintained, and I had too much fondness for the show to cheapen it. Gleason subsequently sold the films of the "Classic 39" episodes of the show to CBS for $USD 1.5 million. One week after The Honeymooners ended, The Jackie Gleason Show returned on September 29, 1956. "The "Honeymooners" sketches were soon brought back as part of the revived variety show. When Art Carney left the show in 1957, the sketches ceased production. In 1962, Gleason's variety show returned as Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine. The “Honeymooners" sketches returned as well, whenever Carney was available. Audrey Meadows and Joyce Randolph were replaced as Alice and Trixie by Sue Ane Langdon and Patricia Wilson, respectively. In January 1966, Meadows returned as Alice for a musical special entitled The Honeymooners: The Adoption, a re-enactment of a 1955 sketch of the same name. When The Jackie Gleason Show (now based in Miami Beach, Florida) returned in 1966, the "Honeymooners" sketches (now in color for the first time) returned as a series of elaborate musicals. The sketches, which comprised ten of the first season's thirty-two shows, followed a story arc that had the Kramdens and Nortons traveling across Europe after Ralph won a contest. "The Color Honeymooners", as it has since become known, featured Sheila MacRae and Jane Kean in the roles of Alice and Trixie, respectively (Meadows and Randolph did not want to relocate to Miami). One notable 1967 segment featured the return of Pert Kelton, this time playing Alice's mother, Mrs. Gibson. "The Honeymooners" ended again when The Jackie Gleason Show was canceled in 1970, the result of a disagreement in direction between Gleason and the network. Gleason wanted to continue interspersing "The Honeymooners" within the confines of his regular variety show, while CBS wanted a full-hour "Honeymooners" every week. On October 11, 1973, Gleason, Carney, MacRae and Kean reunited for a 'Honeymooners' skit called "Women's Lib" on a Gleason special on CBS. Finally, the Kramdens and Nortons were brought back for four final one-hour specials on ABC, which aired from 1976–78. Alongside Gleason and Carney, Audrey Meadows returned as Alice (for the first time since 1966) while Jane Kean continued to play Trixie. Joyce Randolph, the actress most identified as Trixie, never played the part after the 1950s. These four specials were the final original "Honeymooners" productions. Art Carney won five Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Ed Norton: two for the original Jackie Gleason Show, one for The Honeymooners, and two for the final version of The Jackie Gleason Show. He was nominated for another two (1957, 1966) but lost. Gleason and Meadows were both nominated in 1956 for their work on The Honeymooners. Gleason was nominated for Best Actor – Continuing Performance but lost to Phil Silvers, while Meadows was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role but lost to Nanette Fabray. Meadows was also nominated for Emmys for her portrayal of Alice Kramden in 1954 and 1957. Most of The Honeymooners took place in Ralph and Alice Kramden's kitchen. Other settings used in the show included the Gotham Bus Company depot, the Raccoon Lodge, and on occasion the Nortons' apartment. Many episodes began with a shot of Alice in the kitchen, awaiting Ralph's arrival from work. Most episodes focused on Ralph and Ed Norton's characters, although Alice played a substantial role. Ed's wife, Trixie, played a smaller role in the series, and didn't appear in every episode as the other three did. Each episode presented a self-contained story, which never carried over into a subsequent one. The show employed a number of standard sitcom clichés and plots, particularly those of jealousy and comic misunderstanding. The show presented Ralph as an everyman and an underdog who struggled to make a better life for himself and his wife, but who ultimately failed due to his own shortcomings. He (along with Ed) devised a number of get-rich-quick schemes, none of which succeeded. Ralph was quick to blame others for his misfortune, until it was pointed out to him where he had fallen short. Ralph's anger was replaced by short-lived remorse, and he would then apologize for his actions. Many of these apologies to Alice ended with Ralph saying, "Baby, you're the greatest", followed by a hug and kiss. In most episodes, Ralph's short temper got the best of him, leading him to yell at others and to threaten physical violence, particularly against Alice. Ralph's favorite threats to her were "Bang, zoom, straight to the moon!" and "One of these days … one of these days … POW, right in the kisser!" This has led some to criticize the show as displaying an acceptance of domestic violence. Ralph never carried out his threats, however, and others have pointed out that Alice knew he never would. In retaliation, the targets of Ralph's verbal abuse often responded by simply joking about his weight, a common theme throughout the series. Alice was never seen to back down during any of Ralph's tirades. The Honeymooners gained its greatest fame in syndication, where it has aired almost continually since its cancellation. New York's WPIX-TV airs The Honeymooners nightly and on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day for more than four decades, with occasional breaks, in a marathon entitled The Honeymooners' blowout. BBC2 aired 38 of the original 39 episodes beginning in 1989 and ending in 1991. The show has also aired in Australia, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Ireland and Suriname. In 1984, the Museum of Television and Radio announced the discovery of four original Honeymooners sketches from the original The Jackie Gleason Show. When they later held a public viewing for three of them, the response was overwhelmingly positive. In January 1985, Gleason announced the release of an additional group of lost episodes from his private vault. As with the previously released sketches, these "lost episodes" were actually kinescopes of sketches from the 1952–55 run of The Jackie Gleason Show. Gleason sold the broadcast rights to the lost episodes to Viacom, and they were first aired from 1985–86 as a series of 68 22-minute episodes on the Showtime cable network. They have since joined the original 39 episodes in syndication, and have also been released on VHS and DVD. In September 2004, another "lost" episode was reported discovered at the Peabody Award archives in Georgia. This episode, "Love Letter," originally aired on The Jackie Gleason Show on October 16, 1954. It aired for the first time since then on October 16, 2004 (its fiftieth anniversary), on TV Land. CBS Paramount Television (the modern-day successor to Viacom), via CBS Broadcasting, owns the "classic 39" series outright, while the Gleason estate owns the "lost episodes" (although CBS Paramount does distribute them). Paramount Home Entertainment released a six disc-DVD set entitled The Honeymooners "Classic 39" Episodes in November 2003 (only available in Region 1). The set contains all 39 episodes from the series' original 1955–56 broadcast run. Also included in the set is an edited version of a 1990 anniversary special hosted by Audrey Meadows, as well as original show openings and closings (sponsored by Buick) that were removed when the show entered syndication. MPI Home Video released the "lost episodes" on DVD in Region 1 in 24 volume collections from 2001 - 2002. They have subsequently re-released these episodes in 6 box sets featuring all 80 episodes. In June 2006, MPI Home Video released The Color Honeymooners – Collection 1 (NTSC and PAL), which collects the "Trip to Europe" story arc presented on The Jackie Gleason Show in 1966. Another set of eight episodes will be released on February 26, 2008. The AmericanLife TV Network is currently airing The Color Honeymooners shows under license from Gleason Enterprises and Paul Brownstein Television.

“The first one was about four, five minutes,” recalled writer Walter Stone. “He comes home from work, she’s steaming. She says ‘Go to the store,’ or something. Just five minutes of that.” From one humble off-the-cuff running sketch in 1951 on Cavalcade Of Stars, which featured Jackie Gleason as the MC, grew a TV comedy whose proportions were even more epic that its star’s. The Honeymooners represented a number of historical firsts, most notably being the first spinoff series and the first show to present an unvarnished picture of blue-collar life. But, the reason it endures is that its characters and their relationships were timeless right off the bat. It presented the story of bus driver Ralph Kramden and wife Alice and was an unfancy celebration of unfancy people. In a landscape in which Ozzie and Harriet Nelson were the norm, Ralph and Alice Kramden were real. Between “Bang-zoom!” and “Baby, you’re the greatest!”, they caught the arc of marriage and magnified it until the only recourse was laughter. The episodes, most of them sketches within Cavalcade Of Stars and the two versions of The Jackie Gleason Show, were limited to sparse sets, usually the Kramdens' bare bones Brooklyn walkup. But the dynamics among the cast made the setting seem expansive. Gleason submerged his charismatic bluster into this little big man: Brooklynite bus driver Ralph is a study in the comic frustrations of the working stiff, ballooning with dreams (furniture shampoo, Kram-Nor’s hair restorer, glow-in-the-dark shoe polish), sagging when reality hits, then shrugging and moving on. Meadows played Alice as the Good Shrew, just as ready with the fat jokes “If you knew how to throw your weight around, you wouldn’t leave it where it is!”). And, then, there was Ed Norton” sewer worker, coconspirator, best friend, patsy. Art Carney pulled off the impossible trick of seeming both smarter and denser than his costar; in essence, he was the Sancho Panza of 358 Chauncey Street. And, yes, it had TV's most famous example of spouse-abuse-threats-as-comedy. But knowing that there was no way Alice was ever actually going to go to the moon only added to Ralph's blobby comic ineffectuality. It’s startling to realize that The Honeymooners wasn’t truly a hit the first time around. Yes, audiences loved the recurring sketches when they originally aired on Cavalcade and both Jackie Gleason Shows. But, in 1955, when Gleason signed a $6 million two-season contract to spin Honeymooners off on its own, the deal was to last only a year thanks to unexpected competition from The Perry Como Show on NBC. When The Honeymooners finished 20th in the ratings, Gleason called it quits and sold the 39 episodes to CBS, which later sold them into syndication. There “the classic 39” ran and reran and reran until they became almost biblical in their towering impact. And, it has been the inspiration for every “fat guy with a beautiful wife” show since then, from The Flintstones to The King Of Queens; but they all paled in comparison to The Honeymooners. Baby, it was the greatest!

[Hulk With A Mustache]

15. Sesame Street



Genre: Kid’s show.
Created by: Joan Ganz Cooney and her Sesame Workshop staff. Special mention to Jim Henson for creating the Muppets on the show.
Executive Producer(s): Jon Stone (1969-1975), Dulcy Singer (1984-1994), Carol-Lynn Parente (2005-2007), Kevin Clash (2005-2008), Lewis Bernstein (2005), David D. Connell (unknown), Joan Ganz Cooney (unknown), Nina Elias-Bamberger (unknown), and Steve Garfinkel (unknown).
Starring: Loretta Long (Susan Robinson 1969-present), Bob McGrath (Bob 1969-present), Caroll Spinney (Big Bird and Oscar The Grouch 1969-present), Frank Oz (Grover, Cookie Monster, Bert, and various muppets 1969-2007), Jim Henson (Kermit The Frog, Ernie, and Guy Smiley 1969-1990), Will Lee (Harold Hooper 1969-1982), Sonia Manzano (Maria 1970-present), Fran Brill (Various muppets 1970-2007), Jerry Nelson (Various muppets 1970-2007), Emilio Delgado (Luis 1971-present), Matt Robinson (Gordon Robinson 1969-1972), Hal Miller (Gordon Robinson 1972-1973), Roscoe Orman (Gordon Robinson 1973-present), Pam Arciero (Grundgetta and various muppets 1975-2007), Martin P. Robinson (Telly Monster, Slimey the Worm, Mr. Snuffleupagus, and various muppets 1985-present), Miles Orman (Miles Robison 1985-1992), Imani Paterson (Miles Robinson 1992-2003), Olamide Faison (Miles Robinson 2003-present), Kevin Clash (Elmo, Clifford, Splinter, Hoots the Owl, and various muppets 1985-present), Alison Bartlett-O'Reilly (Gina Jefferson 1987-present), Steve Whitmire (Ernie 1990-present), Joey Mazzarino (Various muppets 1991-present), Carmen Osbahr (Rosita 1991-present), David Rudman (Baby Bear, Cookie Monster, and various muppets 1992-present), Desiree Casado (Gabriella Rodriguez (1993-present), Stephanie D'Abruzzo (Various muppets 1993-present), Alan Muraoka (Alan 1997-present), Eric Jacobson (Bert, Grover, Cookie Monster, and Guy Smiley 2000-present), Bill Irwin (Mr. Noodle 2000-present), Christopher Knowings (Chris Robinson 2007-present), and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph (Abby Cadabby 2006-present).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 38.
Number of Episodes: 4,160.
Running Time: 54 minutes.
Original Channel: PBS.
Original Run: November 10, 1969 – present.
Spinoffs: Several specials featuring characters from the show have been made, as have two movies “Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird” (1985) and “The Adventures Of Elmo In Grouchland” (1999). There are also several different versions of Sesame Street in different countries around the world.

Sesame Street is a kid’s show that uses combinations of animation, and live actors to stimulate young children's minds, improve their letter and word recognition, basic arithmetic, geometric forms, classification, simple problem solving, and socialization by showing children or people in their everyday lives. Since the show's inception, other instructional goals have been basic life skills, such as how to cross the street safely, proper hygiene, healthy eating habits, and social skills. The show displays a subtle sense of humor that has appealed to older viewers since it first premiered; this was devised as a means to encourage parents and older siblings to watch the series with younger children, thus becoming involved in the learning process, rather than having Sesame Street act as a babysitter. A number of parodies of popular culture appear, especially ones aimed at the Public Broadcasting Service, the network that broadcasts the show. For example, the recurring segment Monsterpiece Theatre once ran a sketch called "Me Claudius". Children viewing the show might enjoy watching Cookie Monster and the Muppets, while adults watching the same sequence may enjoy the spoof of the Masterpiece Theatre showing of I, Claudius on PBS. Over two hundred notable personalities have made guest appearances on the show, beginning with Carol Burnett on the first episode, and ranging from performers like James Brown, The Goo Goo Dolls, and Johnny Cash, to political figures such as Laura Bush and Kofi Annan. By making a show that not only educates and entertains kids, but also keeps parents entertained and involved in the educational process, the producers hope to inspire discussion about the concepts on the show. In 1999, the series became the longest running American children's program, taking the title from Captain Kangaroo. The British series Blue Peter still retains the worldwide record. The series has made many published lists, including greatest all-time show compilations by TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. Nielsen Media Research has found that 99% of American preschoolers recognize the series' characters. Another study found that 81% of kids under the age of six own a Sesame Street toy or game, and 87% own a book based on the series. The series' music has appeared on music charts around the world, including Ernie's "Rubber Duckie" song, which made #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1970; the song achieved an even higher position in Germany. In 1992, British band Smart E's released Sesame's Treet, a techno dance track which sampled the "classic" version of the Sesame Street theme. It reached #2 on the UK singles chart. Sesame Street has won 11** Grammy Awards, most recently for 2001 release Elmo and the Orchestra. The show's format called for the humans to be intermixed with the segments of animation, live-action shorts and Muppets. These segments were created to be like commercials, quick, catchy, and memorable, and made the learning experience much more like fun. The format became a model for what is known today as edutainment-based programming. CTW aired the program for test groups to determine if the revolutionary new format was likely to succeed. Results showed that test watchers were entranced when the ad-like segments aired, especially those with the jovial puppets, but were remarkably less interested in the street scenes. Psychologists warned CTW against a mixture of fantasy and reality elements, but producers soon decided to mix the elements. A simple dose of cartoon-like characters lets the humans deliver messages without causing viewers to lose interest. Prior to its national debut, a week of test episodes were seen in July 1969 on Philadelphia educational station WUHY-TV (now WYBE). Sesame Street, along with several other Sesame Workshop-produced shows (such as The Electric Company, which was produced for six seasons, when Sesame Workshop was still known as CTW) were all taped in New York City. Originally they were shot at the Teletape Studios at West 81st Street and Broadway in Manhattan, but to make room for the incoming production of Search For Tomorrow, Sesame Street moved first to another Manhattan studio that was formerly WNET's Dick Cavett studio at 9th Ave. and 55th St in 1982. With the bankruptcy of Teletape's parent company Reeves Entertainment in 1986, operation of Sesame Street's studio was taken over by Unitel Video NY in that year. In 1992, the production moved again to Kaufman Astoria Studios in neighboring Queens where it is to this day. The show is broadcast worldwide; in addition to the U.S. version, many countries have locally-produced versions adapted to local needs, some with their own characters, and in a variety of different languages. In Canada, beginning in 1970, 15-minute shows called Canada's Sesame Street were broadcast, and by 1972 an edited version of the one-hour American program was airing but with specially filmed Canadian segments, which featured the French language. In 1995 the American version was replaced by a half-hour long all-Canadian version of the series entitled Sesame Park. Since the original Sesame Street was still accessible to Canadians, and more familiar, the format change didn't find acceptance with audiences and was taken off the air in 2002. Broadcasts in New Zealand and Australia began in 1971. In the United Kingdom its introduction was controversial. The ITV network company London Weekend Television first showed the series in the London region in the early 1970s to much criticism (generally regarding its Americanism). In time the show was subsequently broadcast by other ITV regions in the early 1980s, after which it moved to Channel 4, where it was a lunch-time fixture for many years through to the early 2000s. Later broadcasts of the show featured the hour-long episodes in a format of 2½-hour episodes. 120 countries have aired the show, many of which partnered with Sesame Workshop to create local versions. In recent years Sesame Street has made what area educators consider to be critical advances in its international versions. In the late 1990s versions appeared in China and Russia as these countries shifted away from communism. There is also a joint Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian project, called Sesame Stories, which was created with the goal of promoting greater cultural understanding .The show along with 123 Sesame Street and Sesame Street Unpaved aired on the half Sesame Workshop/Viacom Noggin until 2005. The show has also spawned the spin-off series Play with Me Sesame, ESL program Sesame English, the "classics" show Sesame Street Unpaved, and the segment-only series Open Sesame. Elmo's World and Global Grover, both of which are segments of Sesame Street, have been distributed as individual series. Jennifer Monier-Williams, Vice President, Worldwide Television Distribution at Sesame Workshop commented "The expansion of the Sesame brand through wonderfully interactive shows like Play With Me Sesame and Elmo's World give children around the globe new ways to experience fun and learning in the way Sesame does it best." Funding for season 38 of Sesame Street is provided by a Ready To Learn grant in partnership with New Balance, the McDonald's Corporation, Beaches Family Resorts, Earth's Best Organic, American Greetings, and EverydayKidz.com from Astra Zeneca. Major funding for Sesame Street is provided by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (did not fund from 1972–1992, or from 1998–2000) and by contributions to PBS stations from "Viewers Like You." Previous donors of funding for Sesame Street included The Ford Foundation, Discovery Zone, Pfizer, Life Cereal from the Quaker Oats Company, LookSmart, AOL, PNC Grow Up Great, Pampers Baby-Dry, U.S. Department of Education, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. During the first 29 seasons, Sesame Street did not show its underwriting credits at the start of the show. Other CTW productions, such as The Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact and Square One Television, also limited underwriting announcements to the end of the show, unlike most PBS series, where they opened and closed each episode. Occasionally, local businesses and organizations fund local telecasts of Sesame Street on PBS stations throughout the U.S. For example, the W. M. Keck Foundation underwrites the broadcast of Sesame Street on KCET in Los Angeles. Within the context of the show, and before the actual underwriting announcements, it is announced that "Sesame Street is brought to you by" the letters and number of the day, as though they too were sponsors. As a result of its success in revolutionizing the standards of children's television, Sesame Street inadvertently diminished its own audience share. According to PBS Research, the show went from a 2.0 average on Nielsen Media Research's "people meters" in 1995–1996 to a 1.3 average in 2000–2001. Even with this decrease, Sesame Street's viewership in an average week came from roughly 5.6 million households with 7.5 million viewers. This placed Sesame at 8th place in the overall kids' charts, as of 2002. The program fares better among mothers age 18–49 who had children under the age of 3, taking second place. A format change helped the show's ratings, boosting them up 31% in February 2002 among children age 2–5, in comparison to its ratings in 2001. As of 2005, Sesame Street and three other PBS shows are in the top 10 shows for children ages 2 to 5. As of season 36 in 2005, there were 8 million viewers daily. Sesame Street is known for its multicultural element and is inclusive in its casting, incorporating roles for disabled people, young people, senior citizens, Hispanic actors, Black actors, Asian actors, and others. While some of the puppets look like people, others are animal or "monster" puppets of different sizes and colors. This encourages children to believe that people come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors, and that no particular physical "type" is any better than another. Jim Henson commented that "The only kids who can identify along racial lines with the Muppets have to be either green or orange." In harmony with its multiculturalist perspective, the show pioneered the idea of occasionally inserting very basic Spanish words and phrases to help young children become acquainted with the concept of a foreign language, doing so almost three decades before Dora the Explorer made her debut on Nickelodeon. Perhaps in response to the popularity of Dora, the recently revamped format gives Rosita, the bilingual muppet who "emigrated" in 1993 from the Mexican version of the show, more time in front of viewers, and also introduced the more formalized "Spanish Word of the Day" in every episode. Each of the puppet characters has been designed to represent a specific stage or element of early childhood, and the scripts are written so that the character reflects the development level of children of that age. This helps the show address not only the learning objectives of various age groups, but also the concerns, fears, and interests of children of different age levels. Big Bird is an 8 ft 2-inch (250cm) tall yellow bird who lives in a large nest on an abandoned lot which is located in 123 Sesame Street's garbage heap. Big Bird is often visited by his friend Aloysius Snuffleupagus, who is a very large, brown creature, which looks very much like the prehistoric wooly mammoth, and is known more popularly by his nickname "Snuffy". Various other Snuffleupaguses have appeared on the show from time to time, most notably Snuffy's little sister Alice and his unnamed mother. Initially, Snuffy showed up when no one but Big Bird was around, leaving the rest of the neighborhood to think he was imaginary. In the mid-1980s, however, Snuffy was revealed to be "real" and incorporated into the regular cast of the show. Oscar the Grouch lives with his pet worm Slimey and his pet elephants Fluffy, Sophie, Blitzen, and Schopenhauer in a garbage can in the heap. He is always grumpy, and loves everything that other people hate, and vice versa- he loves rainy days, but hates cute puppies and kittens. His favorite thing in the world is rubbish (trash, or garbage), hence his signature song, "I Love Trash", and consequently, he lives in a garbage can. Bert and Ernie two of the most-recognized Muppets, are roommates who share the basement apartment of 123 Sesame Street, and regularly engage in comic routines which showcase their odd-couple personalities. Ernie's flowerbox was once a hotspot for Twiddlebugs, a colorful family of insects. Ernie is a fun-loving orange Muppet who is always ready to play a game, and is always trying, often in vain, to interest Bert in his latest idea for one. Bert usually ends up grudgingly, or in the case of the "Feelings Game", unwittingly, joining in. Ernie especially loves his Rubber Duckie, who is the subject of several of Ernie's songs. Bert's idea of having fun involves doing things which most people find boring, like playing with pigeons, and collecting paperclips and bottle caps. The Bear family, which is identified as the bears of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, resides in Sesame Street. This family, headed by Papa Bear and Mama Bear, welcomed their second child Curly Bear, and Baby Bear became a good friend of the monsters Telly and Zoe, Mexico-born Rosita, and the furry, red preschooler Elmo. Elmo has his own segment near the end of each episode, in which viewers explore topics in Elmo's World. New to Sesame Street is Abby Cadabby, a fairy-in-training who attends Storybook Community School with Baby Bear. Grover's regular segment, Global Grover, follows the self-described "cute, furry monster" around the world as he explores local cultures and traditions. Grover has had several notable roles over the years, often as a waiter or a superhero (Super Grover). In the waiter sketches, Grover always serves the same customer- a blue Muppet with very little hair on his head. Grover always serves the customer inappropriate food, and he eventually loses his temper. Cookie Monster is a character who, as he name would suggest, loves cookies, but doesn't seem to mind eating anything, edible or not. He currently has a segment of the show in which he fights with his conscience daily during Letter of the Day, as he tries to control his urges to eat the letters, shown as icing on cookies. Prairie Dawn often attempts to help Cookie Monster refrain from eating the letters, but never succeeds and always leaves frazzled. Count von Count has fewer problems during the Number of the Day segment, where he indulges in counting until the mystery number is revealed by his pipe organ. He is usually known simply as "The Count". He has more songs than most of the other characters. They are usually catchy songs, such as "The Batty Bat", and "The First Day of School", in which he tells the story of how he soon settled in at school, because he enjoyed counting his fellow pupils. Humphrey and Ingrid are a married couple who have a baby named Natasha, and they are the proprietors of the hotel known as The Furry Arms, which is located near the Sesame Street Subway station. The hotel's bellhop, Benny Rabbit, tends to be easily irritated, but begrudgingly helps out. His sketch usually includes someone mistakenly referring to him as Bunny, which makes him very angry. The Two-Headed Monster sounded out words coming together, and the Yip-Yip aliens, furry blue monsters with long, curly antennae, named after the only word in their vocabulary, discovered telephones and typewriters. For two seasons, Googel, Narf, Mel and Phoebe hung out in the Monster's Clubhouse. Kermit the Frog hosted the segment Sesame Street News Flash. The newsflashes were often takes on popular fairy tales, although there was also one about the first ever day at school, in which Kermit assists the inexperienced caveman teacher, Mr. James, in his lesson about the letter "N". In other segments, Kermit would play straight man to the wacky antics of other Muppets. Incidental characters include television personality Guy Smiley, who presented various game shows, such as "Beat The Time", and "Mystery Guest", construction workers Sully and Biff, the large Herry Monster (who does not know his own strength), and The Big Bad Wolf, who is not a terror to the Street. Forgetful Jones, a cowboy with a short-term memory disorder, rode his trusty Buster the Horse with his girlfriend Clementine, and Rodeo Rosie was an early cowgirl. The Amazing Mumford tries his hardest to amaze with his magic, but his tricks always end up backfiring. "Sherlock Hemlock", was the self-proclaimed World's Greatest Detective, although he was actually rather hapless, and it was usually someone else, often his dog Watson, who solved the mystery. Whenever he discovered a clue, he would say "Egad!" He had only one song, "X Marks The Spot." Don Music wrote songs such as "Yankee Doodle" and "Mary had a Bicycle". He always banged his head on the piano every time he forgot a word to each song. His favourite catchphrase is "Oh I will never get the word to my song, Never Never NEVER"!. Kermit always helped him every time he entered the studio. A slate of live actors pull the zaniness of the Muppets back to reality. They were not always meant to serve this purpose. The show lost test viewers' attention during the Street Scenes, meaning Muppets needed to be added, to hide the fact it was educational. Music teacher Bob has been on Sesame Street since its inception. He dated Linda the local New York Library librarian, who was the first regular deaf character on television. Linda owns Barkley, a Muppet dog. The Robinson family are an African-American family that includes schoolteacher Gordon, nurse Susan, and adopted son Miles. The Puerto Rican Rodriguez Family include Maria and Luis, who ran the Fix-It Shop, which was turned into the Mail-It Shop; Maria gave birth to daughter Gabby in 1989, and her pregnancy was covered on the show. General store and restaurant operator Harold Hooper, played by actor Will Lee, was a mainstay at Mr. Hooper's Store. When Lee died in 1982, the producers opted to help their young viewers deal with the death of someone they loved rather than cast a new actor in the role, and the character's death was discussed in a landmark 1983 episode. Afterwards, Hooper's apprentice David took over, followed by later owners Gina, Mr. Handford, and Alan. Gina stopped running the store in the 1990s, to earn a PhD and became a veterinarian. Mr. Noodle and his brother and sister (sister played by Kristin Chenoweth), who appear only in Elmo's World are meant to provide a vaudevillian perspective on subjects, contrary to most of the show's current human characters (though reminiscent of such earlier insert characters as Buddy and Jim, Larry and Phyllis, and The Mad Painter). Famous guest stars and various children from New York schools and day-care centers are a constantly changing part of the cast, including children who would later become celebrities, like actor Tyler James Williams, actress Tatyana M. Ali and rapper GM Grimm. Some countries have co-produced their own unique versions of Sesame Street, in which the characters and segments represent their country's cultures. Other countries simply air a dubbed version of Sesame Street, or a dubbed version of Open Sesame. Among various other countries, Australia has and still does broadcast the American version on the ABC and the UK had broadcast the American show, on Channel 4 until 2001 when it was replaced with Henson production The Hoobs. Dubbed versions include Seesamtie in Finnish, Boneka Sesame in Indonesian, Sesam Opnist Þú in Icelandic, Sesamo Apriti in Italian, Sezame, otevři se in Czech, and Taman Sesame in Malay. In 2004, one Japanese network cancelled the dubbed American Sesame, while another created a local version. In New Zealand, locally produced segments entitled "Korero Māori" (in English: "let's speak Māori") were inserted into episodes to educate children in the Māori language. Likewise, in Canada the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation substituted locally-produced French language segments in place of the Spanish language portions of the US version. Spanish program La Cometa Blanca also includes segments from Sesame Street. Locally produced adaptations of Sesame Street include:

1972: Vila dos Glofinhos, Brazil
1972: Plaza Sésamo, Mexico
1973: Sesamstraße, Germany
1973: Canadian Sesame Street, Canada (reformatted as Sesame Park in the 1990s)
1976: Sesamstraat, Netherlands
1978: 1, rue Sesame, France
1979: Iftah Ya Simsim, Arab World (in classical Arabic)
1979: Barrio Sésamo, Spain
1981: Svenska Sesam, Sweden
1983: Rechov Sumsum, Israel
1984: Sesame! (Batibot), Philippines
1986: Susam Sokağı, Turkey
1989: Rua Sésamo, Portugal
1991: Sesam Stasjon, Norway
1996: Ulitsa Sezam, Russia
1996: Sezame otevři se, Czech Republic
1996: Ulica Sezamkowa, Poland
1998: Rechov Sumsum and Shari'a Simsim, Israel and Palestinian Territories
1998: Zhima Jie, China
1999: Sesame English, Taiwan, China, Italy, Poland
2000: Takalani Sesame, South Africa
2000: Alam Simsim, Egypt (using the local dialect)
2002: Play with Me Sesame, United Kingdom
2003: Open Sesame, Australia
2004: Koche Sesame, Afghanistan
2004: Sesame Street, Japan
2005: Sisimpur, Bangladesh
2005: 5, Rue Sésame, France
2005: Sabai Sabai Sesame, Cambodia
2006: Galli Galli Sim Sim, India
2007: Jalan Sesama Indonesia
2008: Sesame Tree Northern Ireland
2008: Tar ag Spraoi Sesame (Ireland), Irish language dub of Play With Me Sesame

Note that dates solely refer to the year production on the series began. It should also be noted that popular, long-running British children's series Rainbow was originally conceived as a British equivalent of Sesame Street, however it holds no official affiliation with Sesame Workshop. On Sesame Workshop's website for the program, on the games, the voices for the Muppet characters in the games are done by their respective puppeteers (for example, Fran Brill voices Zoe, Kevin Clash voices Elmo, etc). Sesame Street has operated with a rigorous research standard since its foundation, to ensure that programming addresses its viewers' needs. The Education and Research (E&R) department of Sesame Workshop, which started with Sam Ball, then employed at Teachers College Columbia University and editor of the Journal of Educational Psychology. E&R is currently headed by Rosemarie T. Truglio, Ph.D. and Jeanette Betancourt, Ed. D. Truglio states that the level of interaction between E&R, Content, and Production is "ntimately•hand-in-hand. They are not creating anything without our knowledge, our guidance and our review. We are involved in content development across all media platforms." This close-knit organizational structure has been an integral part of Sesame Workshop since it began. Writers create plots for Sesame Street scenes and segments, and the content is reviewed by the E&R team, which has authority to reject a script and force rewrites if the content is not acceptable. When a script is factually correct, but includes gray areas that may not be comprehensible to children, the writers and E&R work together to tweak everything. "A balance between content and humor" is always pursued, according to Truglio. Since 1998 Sesame Workshop has provided a great deal of content on its website and others such as Random House. The content is targeted at parents and children ranging in age from birth to school-age, and includes information on dozens of topics, such as appropriate parenting techniques, dealing with children's fears, development of literacy, and maintenance of good health. Research is funded by government grants, corporate and private donations (including, recently, The Prudential Foundation for the Sesame Beginnings program), and the profits gained from the sale of Sesame Workshop merchandise. In 2005, Sesame Street launched its Healthy Habits for Life programming, to encourage young viewers to lead more active and nutritious lifestyles. A major catalyst for this was data published by the US Centers for Disease Control regarding obesity in children. Health content has existed on Sesame Street for years, but to a limited extent. In one instance press kits for a project were made available, news wires latched onto the story, and literally hundreds of newspapers reported that Cookie Monster was "going on a diet". In actuality there was no change to Cookie Monster's character. The new season featured a new segment with musician Wyclef Jean singing the praises of fruits and vegetables, similar to segments in the 1990s which featured Cookie doing nearly the same. According to people from Sesame Workshop,

“Health has always been a part of our Sesame Street curriculum, therefore we will always be committed to ensuring kids are given information and messages that will help them become healthy and happy in their development. For season 36, we have turned up the dial in health, but it will always be part of our curriculum.”

The Workshop formed an Advisory Board consisting of experts such as Woodie Kessel, M.D., M.P.H., the Assistant Surgeon General of the United States. This board examines the research of other organizations, and also conducts pilot studies to determine which areas of research should be expanded, based on social, ethnic and socio-economic sections of the population. Characters Elmo and Rosita filmed public service announcements with various U.S. Governors in 2006. Sesame Street is known for its extensive merchandising, which includes many books, magazines, video/audio media, and toys. A percentage of the money from any Sesame Workshop product goes to help fund Sesame Street or its international co-productions. Current licensors include Fisher-Price, Nakajima USA, Build-A-Bear Workshop (Build-An-Elmo, Build-A-Cookie Monster, And Build-A-Big Bird), Hasbro (Sesame Street Monopoly), Wooly Willy, Betty Crocker (Elmo Fruit Snacks), C&D Visionary (air freshners) and Children's Apparel Network. Former licenses include Applause, Child Dimension, Gibson Greetings, Gorham Fine China, Ideal Toys, Milton Bradley Company, Nintendo, Palisades Toys, Questor, Radio Shack, Tyco, and the Western Publishing Company. Creative Wonders (a partnership between ABC and Electronic Arts) produced Sesame Street software for the Macintosh, since at least 1995 and on the PC since 1996; Atari produced Sesame Street games in 1983. Before going bankrupt, Palisades Toys was to release a line of deluxe series action figures, for adults, as part of Sesame Workshop's push to expand into retro products for teens and adults. Tickle Me Elmo was one of the fastest selling toys of the 1996 season. That product line was and still is one of the most successful products Mattel has ever launched. Both it and its most notable successor, TMX, have caused in-store fights. Elmo starred in a Christmas special that year, in which he wished every day of the year was Christmas. After Fisher-Price recalled a large number of Sesame Street brand toys (among multiple licenses) in 2007, Sesame Workshop announced that they would independently inspect the products of all manufacturers. It went so far as to threaten withdrawing entirely from toy licensing, if it were not satisfied with the manufacturer's guarantees. Its fiction books are published on five continents, primarily by Random House in North America. Over 18 million Sesame Street books and magazines were purchased in 2005. The books often mention that children do not have to watch the show to benefit from its publications. Live touring show Sesame Street Live presents costumed actors and dancers as characters from the series, in original plots. In recent years, VEE has had four touring casts, each performing a unique multi-million dollar budget show. Each season, the tours reach 160 different cities across North America, reaching 2 million people annually. Since the first production of Sesame Street Live on September 17, 1980, 48 million children and their parents have seen the show performed, across the world. Langhorne, Pennsylvania, United States, is the long-time home to Sesame Street theme park Sesame Place. SeaWorld Orlando started a stage show called Elmo and the Bookaneers in 2007. Another theme park, Parque Plaza Sésamo, exists in Monterrey, Mexico, and Universal Studios Japan includes a three-dimensional movie based on the show. The Sesame Beginnings line, launched in mid-2005, consists of apparel, health and body, home, and seasonal products. The products in this line are designed to accentuate the natural interactivity between infants and their parents. Most of the line is exclusive to a family of Canadian retailers that includes Loblaws, Fortinos, and Zehrs. Although Sesame Street characters occasionally endorse non-educational products, they rarely appear in their puppet form, to limit the suggestion to children that the characters are formally endorsing the product. The Muppets do appear in puppet form to endorse select causes. Big Bird has promoted safe seating practices and the wearing of seatbelts, for the Ford Motor Company, while Grover promoted a new course on children's informal learning, created by Harvard University with Sesame Workshop. Elmo has appeared before the US Education Appropriations Subcommittee to urge more spending on music in schools. Barrio Sésamo, Plaza Sésamo, Sesamstraße, Sesame English and Sesamstraat have all had merchandise of their local characters. Shalom Sesame videos and books have also been released. In 2004, Copyright Promotions Licensing Group (CPLG) became Sesame Workshop's licensing representative for The Benelux, adding to their United Kingdom representation. Sesame Street's Web site was one of the first to include educational materials, for both parents and children. "There are downloadable games plus number- and alphabet-coloring pages for the children. Their parents can consult references covering everything from how to comb their baby's hair to how to play with their 4-year-old." The Web site has been recommended by academic journals. It receives over 1 million visitors daily. On August 11, 2008, a new site is expected to debut with new features such as videos, games, etc. A series of Sesame Street telefilms have featured the characters on day trips or in foreign countries. Don't Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1983) saw the cast locked in the gallery overnight; Big Bird and Snuffy help a cursed boy pharaoh. NBC's Big Bird in China (1983) followed Big Bird, Barkley, and their new friend Xiao Foo traveling through China to find Feng Huang, the phoenix bird. In Big Bird in Japan (1988), the titular character gets lost. Out to Lunch (1974) features the cast of Sesame Street and The Electric Company taking over ABC News. Big Bird turned six in Big Bird's Birthday or Let Me Eat Cake (1991), despite being referred to as four years old previously. CinderElmo (1999) was a FOX special, with Keri Russell as the princess looking for her match in the kingdom. Telly fears what the New Year will bring in Sesame Street Stays Up Late! (1993, DVD in 2004). Various strictly musical programs have been made. Julie Andrews and Perry Como performed with the Muppets on Julie on Sesame Street (1974). Special episodes of the PBS series Evening at Pops variety show have featured Sesame Street characters. The Sesame Street Special (1988) also included many guest performances. Holiday special Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978) won an Emmy Award, while another special that year, A Special Sesame Street Christmas (1978), has mostly unfavorable reviews. Anniversary specials include A Walking Tour of Sesame Street with James Earl Jones (1979), Sesame Street: 20 And Still Counting (1989), All-Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever (1994) and Sesame Street Jam: A Musical Celebration (1994), and The Street We Live On (2004). Jon Stewart is set to host a "live" retrospective on the series on ABC, but is accidentally locked in his dressing room with the tapes. Elmo attempts to salvage the show, improvised, in Elmopalooza! (1998). In 1987 and 1992, episodes of Shalom Sesame were produced, focusing on introducing Jewish culture, customs, and language to Jewish-American children. International co-productions of Sesame Street have created many of their own specials as well. The characters have made appearance on television series including Between the Lions (2001), The Electric Company (1972, 1975), Emeril Live (2005), Fanfare, The Flip Wilson Show (1970), The Frugal Gourmet (1992, 1995, 1997), Hollywood Squares, Jeopardy!, Martha (2006), Martha Stewart Living, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1981), Soul Man (1998), The Torkelsons (1991), The Muppet Show (1976), The West Wing (2004), What's My Line?, and numerous talk shows and mornings shows, ranging from The Ed Sullivan Show to The Today Show. Two feature films based on the series have been made. Co-produced with Warner Bros., the 1985 film “Sesame Street Presents: Follow that Bird” revolved around a social worker forcing Big Bird into adoption. Big Bird gets homesick and tired of his adoptive parents, and heads back to New York, when he is kidnapped by evil carnival leaders (played by Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty); the residents of Sesame Street launch a cross-country search to find him. In the second Sesame Street theatrical film, 1999's “The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland,” fourteen years after Follow That Bird, Elmo spends time with his favorite blanket. After Zoe accidentally tears the blanket, when Elmo refuses to share, the blanket winds up in Grouchland, ruled by the Queen of Trash (Vanessa L. Williams). Elmo ventures forth, to rescue his blanket from the villainous Huxley (Mandy Patinkin). Soon, the rest of the Sesame Street gang follow in pursuit. According to a rumor posted on /FILM, Elmo has suggested to TVguide.com that Elmo's World might later be turned into a movie. Some educators criticized the show when it debuted, as it emphasized cognitive learning rather than play and activities like other children's shows at the time. In addition it was believed that it would only worsen children's attention spans. These concerns still exist today, although there is no conclusive proof of this being the case, even after more than 38 seasons of televised shows. In a letter to the Boston Globe, Boston University professor of education Frank Garfunkel commented "If what people want is for their children to memorize numbers and letters without regard to their meaning or use and without regard to the differences between children, then Sesame Street is truly responsive. To give a child 30 seconds of one thing and then to switch it and give him 30 seconds of another is to nurture irrelevance." In the magazine Childhood Education, Minnie P. Berson of SUNY Fredonia asked "Why debase the art form of teaching with phony pedagogy, vulgar sideshows, bad acting, and layers of smoke and fog to clog the eager minds of small children?" For an animation on the letter "J", the writers included "a day in jail." This drew criticism from San Francisco Chronicle columnist Terrence O'Flaherty, despite executive producer David Connell's assertion that kids are familiar with the word through shows like Batman and Superman, and that "when you're trying to come up with a lot of words starting with J, you soon run short" of words they are already familiar with. The series also met with criticism in its attempts to help the underprivileged. Educator Sister Mary Mel O'Dowd worried that the show might start to replace "personalized experiences". "If Sesame Street is the only thing ghetto kids have, I don't think it's going to do much good. It never hurts a child to be able to count to 10 or recognize the 26 letters of the alphabet. But without the guidance of a teacher, he'll be like one of our preschoolers who was able to write 'CAUTION' on the blackboard after seeing it on the back of so many buses, and told me 'That says STOP.'" Sesame Street has long had to contend with those who disagree with its social content. Gerald S. Lesser comments in his book Children and Television: Lessons from Sesame Street that the show faced hostility in the southern United States when it first aired because it portrayed people of various races mingling peacefully. At first the Commission for Educational Television in Mississippi refused to air the show. However, the commission had no choice but to allow their local public television stations to air the show when commercial stations in Mississippi said they would air the program themselves. When Sesame Street premiered in Australia on the ABC in 1973 it replaced the long-running and popular Australian children's series Adventure Island. Australian TV historians Tony Harrison and Albert Moran record that the cancellation of Adventure Island and its replacement with an American-made program caused a controversy and that questions were asked in federal parliament about the detrimental effects of the ABC's decision on local TV production. While many rumors have been started about the series, a few have been widely promulgated and perpetuated over the years. It has widely been suggested that Bert and Ernie are a gay couple, as they are apparently adult human males portrayed sharing a bedroom, though with separate beds. A 1980 collection of humorous essays by Kurt Andersen, titled The Real Thing, made light of the growing rumor. "Bert and Ernie conduct themselves in the same loving, discreet way that millions of gay men, women and hand puppets do. They do their jobs well and live a splendidly settled life together in an impeccably decorated cabinet." The rumor was promulgated repeatedly, so much so that by 1993, Sesame Workshop had a prepared statement to send out to people inquiring on the topic. In a 1994 effort to get the characters banned, Rev. Joseph Chambers stated on his radio show: "Bert and Ernie are two grown men sharing a house and a bedroom. They share clothes, eat and cook together and have blatantly effeminate characteristics. In one show, Bert teaches Ernie how to sew. In another, they tend plants together. If this isn't meant to represent a homosexual union, I can't imagine what it's supposed to represent." Both Steve Whitmire as Ernie and Eric Jacobson as Bert have stated publicly that the characters are not gay. The alleged relationship has been parodied on the animated series Family Guy and by Ernest & Bertram. The latter, a 2002 short film that ran at the Sundance Film Festival, was the subject of a cease and desist order from the legal department of Sesame Workshop. The Broadway musical Avenue Q includes two characters similar to Bert and Ernie, named Rod and Nicky, one of which is gay. The pair's relationship bears similarity to that of Laurel and Hardy, who were also occasionally shown sleeping together; this became such a comedy staple as to be adopted by Morecambe and Wise in the 1970s, all of whom were similarly asexual. The Odd Couple is another, more apposite, contemporary comparison. Some adult viewers are upset by the assertions, as in their view, Ernie and Bert act like children, teenagers at the oldest, and are no more different than brothers or cousins who share a room. In 1990, puppeteer Jim Henson's death spurred rumors that Ernie would be "killed off" in the show, much the way the character of Mr. Hooper was after actor Will Lee's passing some years earlier. Rumor said that he would be either killed by a vehicle, AIDS, or cancer. There was no legitimacy to this rumor, but because producers took their time recasting a puppeteer for Ernie, the delay allowed the claims to burgeon. A spokesperson for the series was quoted as saying "Ernie is not dying of AIDS, Ernie is not dying of leukemia. Ernie is a puppet." In 2002, Sesame Workshop announced that a character with HIV would be introduced to Takalani Sesame, the South African version of the show. Many conservatives and religious groups wrongly presumed that the American version would be getting a "gay Muppet." This concern came about presumably because of a perceived connection between homosexuality and HIV in the United States, but the character with HIV is only present on this international version of the show. The character, Kami, contracted HIV from a blood transfusion as an infant.

How do you get a kid to swallow something icky? You put it on a brightly colored spoon and fly it around the room like an airplane while making keen barnstorming noises. In other words, you make a game out of it. And, that’s what Sesame Street did with education: It dolled up learning and made it fun. Recognizing that television was going to be an electronic babysitter whether anyone liked it or not, Joan Ganz Cooney, Jim Henson, and his Muppets provided a safe, friendly haven that spoofed the media world that kids were immersed in when the show wasn't on. And, this richly imaginative series, arguably the most ambitious educational experiment ever mounted on TV, has become so engrained in the global culture (forget pop culture; this is way bigger than that) that to imagine a world without Kermit The Frog is…well, inhuman. Conceived by Cooney in 1968, Sesame Street was a radical departure from the lazy, hazy ways of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. From Kermit's news reports to Guy Smiley's game shows to Elmo's World, Sesame Street has been filled with shows within shows, which take the frenzied appeal of Rowan And Martin’s Laugh-In and the repetitive lure of TV commercials and apply them to educational building blocks. The show boasted a snappy style and catchy tunes, but what really made the show fly into the hearts of children in 120 countries around the world was Henson’s Muppets. When the Muppet maestro decided to take up residence in the brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, Kermit, Big Bird, Oscar The Grouch, Ernie, Bert, Cookie Monster, The Count, and countless others became neighbors to the kids of the world. And, while the Muppets indulged young viewers’ flights of fancy, the multiethnic human cast reflected the varied hues of Sesame Street’s target viewers: urban youth. And, along the way, kids have learned about numbers, letters, friendship, cooperation, and even (through Mr. Hooper) death. The show's format has evolved over the years (recently taking cues from hits like Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer), tons of accolades have been heaped upon it, and scores of celebs have visited the playful patch of pavement. But, the true measure of its success can be found in the hearts and minds of the kids who have grown up and taken their place in a society formed, in part, through the eternal lessons taught on the show. To this day, Sesame Street remains one of the savviest things ever brought to kids by the letters T and V.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Tomorrow, numbers 14-11. Here are the hints:

A really big shew, a fake talk show, what you say at a toast, and they hold plants to the ground.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

Countdown time, Barbie! Here's number 14:

14. The Ed Sullivan Show



Genre: Variety Show.
Created by: CBS.
Executive Producer(s): Ed Sullivan.
Starring: Ed Sullivan (host).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 24.
Number of Episodes: 1087.
Running Time: 60 Minutes.
Original Channel: CBS.
Original Run: June 20, 1948–June 6, 1971
Spinoffs: None.

The Ed Sullivan Show ran on CBS every Sunday night at 8 p.m., and is one of the few shows to have been run in the same time slot, weekly on the same day of the week, and on the same network, for more than two decades. Virtually every type of entertainment appeared on the show; opera singers, rock stars, songwriters, comedians, ballet dancers, and circus acts were regularly featured. The format was essentially the same as vaudeville, and although vaudeville had died a generation earlier, Sullivan presented many ex-vaudevillians on his show. The show was originally titled Toast of the Town, but was widely referred to as The Ed Sullivan Show for years before September 25, 1955, when that became its official name. In its debut, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis performed along with Broadway composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II previewing the score to South Pacific. The show was broadcast live from CBS-TV Studio 50 in New York City, which is now named The Ed Sullivan Theater and is the home of The Late Show with David Letterman. The last Ed Sullivan Show was episode #1071, aired on March 28, 1971. It featured the following musical acts: Melanie, Joanna Simon, Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass, and Sandler and Young. Along with the new talent Sullivan booked each week, he also had recurring characters appear many times a season, such as his "Little Italian Mouse" puppet sidekick Topo Gigio, who debuted April 14, 1963, and ventriloquist Señor Wences. While most of the episodes aired live from New York City, the show also aired live on occasion from other nations, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan. For many years, Ed Sullivan was a national event each Sunday evening, and was the first exposure for foreign performers to the American public. On the occasion of the show's tenth anniversary telecast, Sullivan commented on how the show had changed during a June 1958 interview syndicated by the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA):

The chief difference is mostly one of pace. In those days, we had maybe six acts. Now we have 11 or 12. Then, each of our acts would do a leisurely ten minutes or so. Now they do two or three minutes. And in those early days I talked too much. Watching these kines I cringe. I look up at me talking away and I say "You fool! Keep quiet!" But I just keep on talking. I've learned how to keep my mouth shut.

The show enjoyed phenomenal popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. As had occurred with Amos 'n Andy on the radio in the early 1930s, the family ritual of gathering around the television set to watch Ed Sullivan became almost a U.S. cultural universal. Ed Sullivan was regarded as a kingmaker, and performers considered an appearance on his program as a guarantee of stardom. The show's iconic status is illustrated by a song from the 1960 musical Bye Bye Birdie. In the song "Hymn for a Sunday Evening," a family of viewers expresses their regard for the program in worshipful tones. In the late 1960s, Sullivan remarked that his program was waning as the decade went on. He realized that to keep viewers, the best and brightest in entertainment had to be seen, or else the viewers were going to keep on changing the channel. Along with declining viewership, Ed Sullivan attracted a higher median age for the average viewer as the seasons went on. These two factors were the reason the show was canceled by CBS after the end of the 1970-1971 season. Because there was no notice of cancellation, Sullivan's landmark program ended without a series finale. Sullivan would produce one-off specials for CBS until his death in 1974. Many episodes still exist; reruns aired on TV Land in the late 1990s. The program did not shy away from airing performances from black entertainers. Sullivan also commented on this during his NEA interview:

"The most important thing [during the first ten years of the program] is that we've put on everything but bigotry. When the show first started in '48, I had a meeting with the sponsors. There were some Southern dealers present and they asked if I intended to put on Negroes. I said yes. They said I shouldn't, but I convinced them I wasn't going to change my mind. And you know something? We've gone over very well in the South. Never had a bit of trouble."

The show included frequent performances from black entertainers such as Diahann Carroll, Dionne Warwick, Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, Bo Diddley, The Fifth Dimension, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson, The Supremes, The Four Tops, The Miracles, Little Anthony & The Imperials , The Jackson 5, Jackie Wilson , Nina Simone, Gladys Knight & The Pips, and The Temptations. One telecast included black bass-baritone Andrew Frierson singing Ol' Man River from Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat, a song that, at that time, was usually sung on television by white singers, although it was specifically written for a black character in the musical. However, Sullivan featured "rockers", particularly black musicians, on his show "not without censorship." For instance, he scheduled Fats Domino "at the show's end in case he had to cancel a guest – a year later he would do just that to Sam Cooke, actually cutting him off in the middle of 'You send me.'... Aware that many white adults considered Domino a threat, Sullivan hid his band behind a curtain, reducing the number of black faces. He presented Fats alone at his piano singing the Tin Pan Alley ballad, as if he were a young Nat 'King' Cole or Fats Waller," and he "had Fats stand up during the last verse of the song to reveal his pudgy figure." In that same 1958 NEA interview, Sullivan noted his pride about the role that the show had had in improving the public's understanding of mental illness. Sullivan considered his May 17, 1953 telecast to be the single most important episode in the show's first decade. During that show, a salute to the popular Broadway director Joshua Logan, the two men were watching in the wings, and Sullivan asked Logan how he thought the show was doing. According to Sullivan, Logan told him that the show was dreadfully becoming "another one of those and-then-I-wrote shows;" Sullivan asked him what he should do about it, and Logan volunteered to talk about his experiences in a mental institution. Sullivan took him up on the offer, and in retrospect believed that several advances in the treatment of mental illness could be attributed to the resulting publicity, including the repeal of a Pennsylvania law about the treatment of the mentally ill and the granting of funds for the construction of new psychiatric hospitals. The Ed Sullivan Show is especially known to today's generation for airing breakthrough performances by Elvis Presley and The Beatles.

The Elvis Presley Performance:

"I wouldn't have Presley on my show at any time" — Ed Sullivan, early 1956

"And now, here is Elvis Presley!" — Ed Sullivan, October 28, 1956

On September 9, 1956, Presley made his first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (after earlier appearances on shows hosted by the Dorsey Brothers, Milton Berle, and Steve Allen) even though Sullivan had previously vowed never to allow the performer on his show. According to biographer Michael David Harris, “Sullivan signed Presley when the host was having an intense Sunday-night rivalry with Steve Allen. Allen had the singer on July 1 and trounced Sullivan in the ratings. When asked to comment, the CBS star said that he wouldn't consider presenting Presley before a family audience. Less than two weeks later he changed his mind and signed a contract. The newspapers asked him to explain his reversal. 'What I said then was off the reports I'd heard. I hadn't even seen the guy. Seeing the kinescopes, I don't know what the fuss was all about. For instance, the business about rubbing the thighs. He rubbed one hand on his hip to dry off the perspiration from playing his guitar.'” At the time Presley was filming Love Me Tender so Sullivan's producer Marlo Lewis flew to Los Angeles, California to supervise the Hollywood side of the show taping. Sullivan, however, was not able to host his show in New York City because he was recovering from a near fatal automobile accident. Oscar-winner Charles Laughton guest-hosted in Sullivan's place. Laughton appears in front of plaques with gold records and states, “These gold records, four of them... are a tribute to the fact that four of his recordings have sold, each sold, more than a million copies. And this by the way is the first time in record making history that a singer has hit such a mark in such a short time. ... And now, away to Hollywood to meet Elvis Presley.” However, according to Greil Marcus, Laughton was the main act of Sullivan's show. "Presley was the headliner, and a Sullivan headliner normally opened the show, but Sullivan was burying him. Laughton had to make the moment invisible: to act as if nobody was actually waiting for anything. He did it instantly, with complete command, with the sort of television presence that some have and some — Steve Allen, or Ed Sullivan himself — don’t.” Once on camera, Elvis cleared his throat and said, “Thank you Mr Laughton, ladies and gentlemen. Wow”, and wiped his brow. “This is probably the greatest honor I’ve ever had in my life. Ah. There’s not much I can say except, it really makes you feel good. We want to thank you from the bottom of our heart. And now..." "Don't Be Cruel," which was, after a short introduction by Elvis, followed by "Love Me Tender." According to Elaine Dundy, Presley sang "Love Me Tender" "straight, subdued and tender ... – a very different Elvis from the one in the Steve Allen Show three months before", when Allen smirkingly presented him "with a roll that looks exactly like a large roll of toilet paper with, says Allen, the 'signatures of eight thousand fans.' " When the camera returns to Laughton, he states, “Well, well, well, well, well Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis Presley. And Mr Presley, if you are watching this in Hollywood, and I may address myself to you. It has been many a year since any young performer has captured such a wide, and, as we heard tonight, devoted audience.” Elvis's second set in the show consisted of "Ready Teddy" and a short on air comment to Sullivan, "Ah, Mr Sullivan. We know that somewhere out there you are looking in, and, ah, all the boys and myself, and everybody out here, are looking forward to seeing you back on television." Next, Elvis declares, "Friends, as a great philosopher once said, ‘You ain’t nothin’ but a Hound Dog...,' " as he launches into a short (1:07) version of the song. According to Marcus, "For the first of his two appearances that night, as a performer Elvis had come on dressed in grandma’s nightgown and nightcap." Concerning the singer's second set in the show, the author adds that there were "Elvis, Scotty Moore on guitar, Bill Black on stand-up bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, three Jordanaires on their feet, one at a piano. They were shown from behind; the camera pulled all the way back. They went into 'Ready Teddy.' It was Little Richard’s most thrilling record," however, "there was no way Elvis was going to catch him, but he didn’t have to — the song is a wave and he rode it. Compared to moments on the Dorsey shows, on the Berle show, it was ice cream — Elvis’s face unthreatening, his legs as if in casts ..." When "he sang Little Richard’s 'Reddy Teddy' and began to move and dance, the camera pulled in, so that the television audience saw him from the waist up only." Although Laughton was the main star and there were seven other acts on the show, Elvis was on camera for more than a quarter of the time allotted to all acts. The show was viewed by a record 60 million people which at the time was 82.6% of the television audience and the largest single audience in television history. "In the New York Times," however, "Jack Gould began his review indignantly: Elvis Presley had 'injected movements of his tongue and indulged in wordless singing that were singularly distasteful.' Overstimulating the physical impulses of the teenagers was 'a gross national disservice.' " Sullivan hosted a second appearance by Presley on October 28 later the same year. Elvis performed "Don't Be Cruel," then "Love Me Tender." Sullivan then addresses the audience as he stands beside Elvis, who begins shaking his legs, eliciting screams from the audience. By the time Sullivan turns his head, Elvis is standing motionless. After Presley leaves the stage, Sullivan states, "I can’t figure this darn thing out. You know. He just does is this and everybody yells." Elvis appears a second time in the show and sings "Love Me." Still later he does a nearly four minute long version of "Hound Dog" and is shown in full the entire song. For the third and final appearance, January 6, 1957 Presley performed a medley of "Hound Dog," "Love Me Tender," and "Heartbreak Hotel," followed by a full version of "Don't Be Cruel." For a second set later in the show he did "Too Much" and "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again". For his last set he sang "Peace in the Valley." Although much has been made of the fact that Elvis was shown only from the waist up, except for the short section of "Hound Dog," all of the songs on this show were ballads. "Leaving behind the bland clothes he had worn on the first two shows," Greil Marcus says, Elvis "stepped out in the outlandish costume of a pasha, if not a harem girl. From the make-up over his eyes, the hair falling in his face, the overwhelmingly sexual cast of his mouth, he was playing Rudolph Valentino in The Shiek, with all stops out. That he did so in front of the Jordanaires, who this night appeared as the four squarest-looking men on the planet, made the performance even more potent." Sullivan praised Elvis at the end of the show, saying "This is a real decent, fine boy. We've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you.... You're thoroughly all right." Years later, Sullivan "tried to sign the singer up again... He phoned Presley's manager, Col. Tom Parker, and asked about a price. Parker came up with a list of instructions and conditions and after hearing the demands Sullivan said, 'Give Elvis my best—and my sympathy,' and he hung up." The singer never again appeared in Sullivan's show, although in February 1964 at the start of the first of three broadcasts featuring the Beatles (see below), Sullivan announced that a telegram had been received from Presley and Parker wishing the British group luck. Many television historians consider Elvis Presley's three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show as helping to bridge a large generation gap between Great Depression and World War II era parents and their baby boomer children. Later performers would use this bridge to introduce themselves to millions of American households. Among them were The Rolling Stones, The Doors, and The Beatles.

The Beatles Performance: In late 1963, Sullivan found himself among a throng of 15,000 excited kids at Heathrow Airport in London who were there to see a young British recording group, The Beatles. Sullivan was intrigued. In December, 1963, Beatles manager Brian Epstein arranged for the group, still relatively unknown in the United States, to appear three times on the show at $4000 per appearance. Epstein was then able to convince Capitol Records to mount a publicity campaign for the Beatles arrival, and to release "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The Beatles appeared on three consecutive Sundays in February, 1964, to great anticipation and fanfare as "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had swiftly risen to #1 in the charts. Their first appearance on February 9 is considered a milestone in American pop culture and the beginning of the British Invasion in music. The broadcast drew an estimated 73 million viewers, at the time a record for an American television program, and was characterized by an audience composed largely of screaming teenage girls in tears. The Beatles followed Ed's show opening intro, performing "All My Loving," "Till There Was You (featuring the Beatles names imposed on the screen and the famous "SORRY GIRLS, HE'S MARRIED" caption under John), and "She Loves You." Then, late in the hour, they returned to perform "I Saw Her Standing There" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The Beatles returned to the show, this time broadcast from Miami Beach, on February 16. A crush of people nearly prevented the boys from making it on stage in time. A wedge of policemen was needed, and the band began playing "From Me to You" only seconds after reaching their instruments. They continued with "This Boy," and "All My Loving," and returned later to close the show with "I Saw Her Standing There" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand." They were shown on tape February 23 (this appearance had been taped earlier in the day on February 9 before their first live appearance). They followed Ed's intro with "Twist and Shout" and "Please Please Me" and closed the show once again with "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The Beatles appeared for the final time on September 12, 1965 and earned Sullivan a 60 percent share of the nighttime audience for one of the appearances. This time, they followed three acts before coming out to perform "I Feel Fine," "I'm Down" and "Act Naturally," then closed the show with "Ticket to Ride," "Yesterday" and "Help!." Although this was their final live appearance on the show, the group would for several years provide filmed promotional clips of songs to air exclusively on Sullivan's program. Such as in 1966 and 1967 airing clips of Paperback Writer, Rain, Penny Lane, and Strawberry Fields Forever. Although the appearances by The Beatles and Elvis are considered the most famous rock and roll performances on Ed Sullivan, several months before Elvis debuted, Sullivan invited Bill Haley & His Comets to perform their then-current hit "Rock Around the Clock" in early August 1955. This was later recognized by CBS and others (including music historian Jim Dawson in his book on "Rock Around the Clock") as the first performance of a rock and roll song on a national television program.

The show has been noted for several controversies throughout its run. These included:

On November 20, 1955, African-American rock 'n' roll singer and guitarist Bo Diddley appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show only to infuriate him ("I did two songs and he got mad"). Diddley had been asked to sing Tennessee Ernie Ford's hit "Sixteen Tons". But when he appeared on stage, he sang his #1 R&B hit "Bo Diddley." Diddley later recalls, "Ed Sullivan says to me in plain words: 'You are the first black boy - quote - that ever double crossed me!' I was ready to fight, because I was a little young dude off the streets of Chicago, an' him callin' me 'black' in them days was as bad as sayin' 'n*****'. My manager says to me 'That’s Mr Sullivan!' I said: 'I don’t give a shit about Mr Sullivan, [h]e don't talk to me like that!' An' so he told me, he says, 'I'll see that you never work no more in show business. You'll never get another TV show in your life!' "[16] Indeed, Diddley seems to have been banned from further appearances, as "the guitarist never did appear on The Ed Sullivan Show again."

On October 18, 1964, Jackie Mason allegedly gave Sullivan the finger on air. A tape of the incident shows Mason doing his stand-up comedy act and then looking toward Sullivan, commenting that Sullivan was signaling him. Sullivan was reportedly telling Mason to wrap it up, since CBS was about to cut away to show a speech by President Lyndon Johnson. Mason began working his own fingers into his act and pointed toward Sullivan with his middle finger slightly separated. After Mason left the stage, the camera then cut to a visibly angry Sullivan. Sullivan argued with Mason backstage, then terminated his contract. Mason denied knowingly giving Sullivan the finger and later filed a libel suit. Sullivan publicly apologized to Mason when he appeared on the show two years later. At that time, Mason opened his monologue by saying "it is great to see all of you in person again." Mason dropped the lawsuit, but never appeared on the show again.

Bob Dylan was slated to make his first nationwide television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 12, 1963, and intended to perform "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues," a song he wrote lampooning the John Birch Society and the red-hunting paranoia associated with it. During the afternoon rehearsal that day, CBS officials told Dylan they had deemed the song unacceptable for broadcast and wanted him to substitute another. "No; this is what I want to do," Dylan responded. "If I can't play my song, I'd rather not appear on the show." He then left the studio, walking out on the stint.

The Doors were notorious for their appearance on the show. CBS network censors demanded that lead singer Jim Morrison change the lyrics to their hit single "Light My Fire" by altering the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher," before the band performed the song live on September 17, 1967 . The line was changed to, "Girl, we couldn't get much better". However, Morrison sang the original line, and on live television with no delay, CBS was powerless to stop it. A furious Ed Sullivan refused to shake the band members' hands, and they were never invited back to the show. According to Ray Manzarek , the band was told they would never do the Ed Sullivan show again; Morrison replied, "So what. We just did the Ed Sullivan Show"—at the time, an appearance was a hallmark of success. Manzarek claims the band agreed with the producer beforehand but had no intention of altering the line.

In contrast, the Rolling Stones were instructed to change the title of their "Let's Spend the Night Together" single for the band's January 15, 1967 appearance. The band complied, with Mick Jagger ostentatiously rolling his eyes heavenward whenever he reached the song's one-night-only, clean refrain, "Let's spend some time together."

Ironically, Diana Ross & The Supremes, frequent guests on Sullivan's show, performed their then-release and eventual controversial #1 hit song "Love Child" on Ed's show, but nothing about its title or content seemed to faze Ed or its producers, or the network.

The show is also famous for showcasing original cast members of Broadway shows performing hit numbers from the musicals in which they were then appearing, at a time when this was rare. There were appearances from Broadway celebrities such as Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert singing "Tonight" from West Side Story, Julie Andrews singing "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" from My Fair Lady, as well as with Richard Burton singing "What Do The Simple Folk Do?" from Camelot, Robert Goulet singing "If Ever I Would Leave You" from the same show, and Richard Kiley singing "The Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha. La Mancha leading lady Joan Diener also made an extremely rare television appearance in her stage role of Aldonza/Dulcinea, singing the song "What Does He Want of Me?" All of these artists performed their songs wearing the same makeup and costumes that they wore in the shows, in order to preserve the illusion that one was actually seeing the musical in question. This was also extremely rare on television at the time. Several of these performances have recently been released on a DVD. Due to the program's legacy, many musicians have parodied The Ed Sullivan Show over the years in countless music videos. Among the notable include: L.A. Guns' "Never Enough," Billy Joel's "Tell Her About It," Nirvana's "In Bloom," Outkast's "Hey Ya!," Red Hot Chili Peppers's "Dani California," “The Rutles” (1978) (Movie), and Rain: The Beatles Experience, which opens their concerts with prerecorded footage of a man doing an intentionally poor Ed Sullivan impression in black and white and then introducing the band, which plays the first part of the show with an exact recreation of the set the Beatles used,

For someone under 40, seeing Ed Sullivan on a television screen is astonishing. Stooped, brusque and imposing, he seems not only pre-televisual, but prehistoric (his contemporaries nicknamed him "Old Stone Face"). On Ed Sullivan’s stiff, finger-pointing style of bringing on his guests, radio comic Fred Allen once said, “A dog could do that, if you rubbed meat on the actors. His introductions were famously inept (“Here’s José Feliciano. He’s blind, and he’s Puerto Rican!”). Sullivan himself once commented that it took him six years to “thaw out” in front of the camera. This guy brought us The Beatles and Elvis!? Hell, I’m amazed he was able to stay on the air for more than two decades! And yet, he did. How? It’s pretty simple. Where we now skip nervously through a bewildering agora of 500 specialty channels, The Ed Sullivan Show packed it all into one hour on Sunday nights at 8:00 pm EST. The very first broadcast of Toast Of The Town (the original name), on June 20, 1948, set the standard for the host’s weirdly polyglot mix of talent: the hot young comedy duo of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, concert pianist Eugene List, Broadway songwriters Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, boxing referee Ruby Goldstein, singing fireman John Kokoman, and the Toastette dancers. Tune into CBS on a Sunday night and you might find the Bolshoi Ballet, 17-year-old Liza Minnelli, Albert Schweitzer playing an organ solo from his African mission, scenes from the latest Broadway smash, or a demented Italian mouse-puppet called Topo Gigio (who appeared over 50 times, more than any other act). Oh yeah, there were also those famous performances by Elvis Presley and The Beatles. And, that’s what made the show so great. Sullivan defined pop culture every Sunday night. By making comfortable older viewers who had grown up before TV, the square Sullivan bridged the generation gap like a Soviet-bloc leader transitioning from socialism to runaway capitalism. Hell, 60 million people (83% of everyone watching TV) saw his show. And over the course of 1,087 “rilly big shews” from 1948 to 1971, Sullivan both tailored the variety format and saw its demise. He knew that the ultimate power was in the hands of the viewer (“This isn’t vaudeville,” he said. “People flip that knob.”) and consequently front-loaded his big acts into the opening minutes of the show, promising audiences they would return later. But, as the 1960s turned into the 1970s, the revolution he started overtook him. The Rolling Stones mocked him, The Doors defied him, and the young audience finally flipped that knob. But not before he established TV as America's new arbiter of taste and tastelessness.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

13. The Larry Sanders Show



Genre: Sitcom.
Created by: Dennis Klein & Garry Shandling
Executive Producer(s): Brad Grey (1992-1998), Garry Shandling, (1992-1998), Peter Tolan (1992-1994), Fred Barron (1992), Judd Apatow (1993-1998), Paul Simms (1993-1994), Maya Forbes (1994-1995), Jon Vitti (1995-1997), Steven Levitan (1995), Richard Day (1997-1998), Craig Zisk (1997-1998), and Adam Resnick (1998).
Starring: Garry Shandling (Larry Sanders), Rip Torn as (Arthur "Artie"), Jeffrey Tambor (Hank Kingsley), Penny Johnson (Beverly Barnes), Janeane Garofalo (Paula 1992-1997), Mary Lynn Rajskub (Mary Lou 1996-1998), Jeremy Piven (Jerry), Wallace Langham (Phil), Linda Doucett (Darlene Chapinni), Scott Thompson (Brian 1995-1998), Megan Gallagher (Jeannie Sanders 1992-1995), Kathryn Harrold (Francine Sanders 1993), Deborah May (Melanie Parrish), and Bob Odenkirk (Stevie Grant 1993-1998).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 6.
Number of Episodes: 89.
Running Time: 30 minutes.
Original Channel: HBO.
Original Run: August 15, 1992 – May 31, 1998.
Spinoffs: None.

The Larry Sanders Show was created by Dennis Klein and Garry Shandling and starred Shandling as vain, neurotic talk show host Larry Sanders. It centered around the running of his TV show and the many people behind the scenes. It is notable for featuring celebrities as themselves (often parodying themselves, by being themselves) and its character-based humor, which is similar to other series like Curb Your Enthusiasm, Entourage and Extras, all of which also air or have aired on HBO. The series, in which Shandling used his experience as a guest host on The Tonight Show, is ranked by various critics and fans alongside Seinfeld as one of the best TV comedies of the 1990s. The Larry Sanders Show mixed video-taped footage of the fictional broadcast show (which was recorded in front of an actual live studio audience) with "behind the scenes" footage shot on film (for example, Larry talking to his guests during the commercial break or the everyday workings of the office between shows). As such it featured real-life celebrity guests as they appeared on the talk show, but also as they appeared behind the scenes. This gave the writers and the celebrity guests the opportunity to send up their media images while making the show appear more realistic. Most episodes featured celebrity guests who usually played themselves appearing on the fictional Larry Sanders Show, and who were often the primary source of conflict between Sanders and his co-workers. Guests included Robin Williams, David Duchovny, Roseanne Barr, Elvis Costello, Chris Farley, Sharon Stone, Jon Stewart, Danny DeVito, Rob Reiner, Alec Baldwin, Jon Lovitz, David Spade, Dana Carvey, Jim Carrey, John Ritter, Bob Saget, Bruno Kirby, Ellen DeGeneres and Howard Stern, among others. Jeff Cesario was the butt of a long running joke, being frequently "bumped" when booked to appear. On the season 1 DVD, Shandling says the guests were invariably very happy to parody their media images and generally shared the same sense of humor as himself and the other writers. In addition to Shandling, the show featured the following regular primary actors and characters:

Rip Torn as Arthur ("Artie"), the show's producer
Jeffrey Tambor as Larry's sidekick Hank Kingsley
Penny Johnson as Larry's personal assistant, Beverly
Janeane Garofalo as the show's booker Paula (until episode 76)
Mary Lynn Rajskub as the show's booking assistant/booker Mary Lou (from episode 69)
Jeremy Piven as head writer Jerry (until episode 25)
Wallace Langham as writer/head writer Phil
Linda Doucett as Hank's personal assistant Darlene (until episode 48)
Scott Thompson as Hank's personal assistant Brian (from episode 50)
Megan Gallagher as Larry's second ex-wife Jeannie (episodes 1-13, 53)
Kathryn Harrold as Larry's first ex-wife Francine (episodes 14-30)
Deborah May as network executive Melanie Parrish
Bob Odenkirk as Larry's agent Stevie Grant

Directors and writers of note include Judd Apatow (The 40 Year Old Virgin) who also became an executive producer on the show, Todd Holland (Twin Peaks, Malcolm in the Middle, Friends), Ken Kwapis (The Office (US), Malcolm in the Middle), David Mirkin (The Simpsons, Get A Life), Jon Vitti, (The Simpsons, Da Ali G Show), Joe Flaherty (SCTV), Carol Leifer (Seinfeld), comedian Jeff Cesario (Dennis Miller Live), Adam Resnick (Late Night with David Letterman, Get A Life) and Paul Simms (NewsRadio). Ken Kwapis and Todd Holland, who directed the bulk of the first season, were particularly instrumental in determining the style of the program.

These were the final words heard on The Larry Sanders Show: “I’m such a prick.” Spoken by the usually obsequious sidekick Hank Kingsley (Tambor), it was his apology for blowing up after Larry (Shandling) cut short Hank’s farewell speech on the talk show’s final telecast. Those words were the perfect epitaph for The Larry Sanders Show, with wallowed brilliantly in the self-loathing world of Hollywood. And, if there's one thing Hollywood has more of than self-love, it's self-loathe. Premiering right around the King-Lear-like bloodsport over the future of Johnny Carson's throne, Garry Shandling's comedy cast a gimlet eye on insecure, petty late-night host Sanders, and found no shortage of takers in showbiz to send themselves up: Ellen DeGeneres (who had sex with Larry (this was before she came out of the closet)), Carol Burnett (who whispered the immortal words “I saw your balls” after Larry’s loincloth slipped during a Tarzan sketch), Jim Carrey (who sang a song to Larry on the final show only because he knew it would be a memorable moment), and David Duchovny (who evincing the most unsettling man-crush TV has ever seen). And, one of the reasons the show was so dark and self-loathing was that it aired on HBO. On the pay cable network, Shandling’s satire of late-night shows was free from censorship and ratings constraints. As Shandling explained in 1994: “We can show people in the show-business world talking as they really do, which does include profanity. Also we explore a dark side of people’s personalities that often network shows aren’t willing to explore, because it’s not always pleasant.” Maybe not, but it was always funny, even when it may you squirm. Consider this exchange between Larry and head writer Jerry (Jeremy Piven), backstage before the last show:

Jerry: I just wanted to see, after you fired me and f***ed up my life, if you’d stand there and smile at me like we were old buddies.

Larry: (smiling like they were old buddies) Well, now you know.

And, that was another reason the show was so great; the needy heart of The Larry Sanders Show was its supporting characters: Jeffrey Tambor as self-promoting, self-hating sidekick Hank "Hey Now!" Kingsley, Wallace Langham as the “loves to be miserable” writer Phil, Penny Johnson as Larry’s unassuming but secretly knows all assistant Beverly, and Rip Torn as Artie, the most terrifyingly unctuous producer ever to stalk a green room. But, the true mark of the show’s greatness is that it is guaranteed to stand the test of time thanks to its incisive portrayal of the behind-the-scenes politics of showbiz. Shandling revealed Hollywood's blemishes like the world's funniest jar of makeup remover, and he and his show will be remembered as the most brutally honest and hilarious portrait of Hollywood in TV history.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

12. Cheers



Genre: Sitcom.
Created by: James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles.
Executive Producer(s): James Burrows, Glen Charles, Les Charles, Phoef Sutton, Rob Long, and Dan Staley.
Starring: Ted Danson (Sam Malone), Shelley Long (Diane Chambers 1982-1987), Kirstie Alley (Rebecca Howe 1987-1993), Nicholas Colasanto (Ernie “Coach” Pantusso 1982-1985), Rhea Perlman (Carla Tortelli), John Ratzenberger (Cliff Clavin), Woody Harrelson (Woody Boyd 1985-1993), Kelsey Grammer (Dr. Frasier Crane 1984-1993), Bebe Neuwirth (Dr. Lilith Sternin 1986-1993), and George Wendt (Norm Peterson).
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 11.
Number of Episodes: 269, plus 2 specials.
Running Time: 24 minutes.
Original Channel: NBC.
Original Run: September 30, 1982 – May 20, 1993.
Spinoffs: Frasier, based on character Dr. Frasier Crane moving back to his hometown of Seattle, which lasted from 1993 to 2004. However, Frasier was not the first spinoff from Cheers but rather The Tortellis, premiering in 1987. The show featured Carla's husband Nick Tortelli and his wife Loretta but was cancelled after 13.

The concept for Cheers was the end result of a long consideration process. The original idea was a group of workers who interacted like a family, hoping to be similar to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The creators, James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles, considered making an American version of the British Fawlty Towers centered around a hotel or an inn. When the creators settled on a bar as their setting the show began to resemble the radio show Duffy's Tavern. They liked the idea of a tavern as it provided a continuous stream of new people arriving, giving them a constant supply of characters. After choosing a plot, the three had to choose a location. Early discussions centered around Barstow, California, then Kansas City, Missouri. They eventually turned to the East Coast and Boston. The Bull & Finch Pub in Boston that Cheers was styled after was originally chosen from a phone book. When Glen Charles asked the owner to shoot initial exterior and interior shots the owner agreed, charging $1. He has since gone on to make millions, licensing the pub's image and selling a variety of Cheers memorabilia, making the Bull & Finch the 42nd busiest outlet in the American food and beverage industry in 1997. Coincidentally during Shelley Long's casting (who was in Boston at the time filming A Small Circle of Friends), she remarked that the bar in the script resembled a bar she had come upon in Boston, which turned out to be the Bull & Finch. Most Cheers episodes were shot before a live studio audience on Paramount Stage 25, generally on Tuesday nights. Scripts for a new episode were issued the Wednesday before for a read-through, Friday was rehearsal day, and final scripts were issued on Monday. Nearly 100 crewmembers were involved in the shooting of a single episode. Burrows, who directed most episodes, insisted on shooting on film rather than videotape. He was also noted for using motion in his directorial style, trying to always keep characters moving rather than standing still. The crew of Cheers numbered in the hundreds; as such, this section can only provide a brief summary of the many crewmembers for the show. The three creators stayed on throughout the series as executive producers along with Tom Palmer. In fact, the two Charles brothers kept offices on Paramount's lot for the duration of Cheers run. In the final seasons, however, they handed over much of the show to Burrows. Burrows is regarded as being a factor in the show's longevity, directing 243 of the episodes and supervising the show's production. David Angell was also a part of the crew from the start, writing many Cheers episodes. The show was often noted for its writing which most credit along with other production factors and the ensemble cast for the show's success. Cheers maintained an ensemble cast, keeping roughly the same set of characters for the entire run. Numerous secondary characters and love interests for these characters appeared intermittently to complement storylines that generally revolved around this core group. The character of Sam Malone was originally intended to be a retired football player and was originally supposed to be played by Fred Dryer, but after casting Ted Danson it was decided that a former baseball player would be more believable, given Danson's slimmer physique. The character of Cliff Clavin was created for John Ratzenberger after he auditioned for the role of "Norm". While chatting with producers afterwards, he asked if they were going to include a "bar know-it-all", the part which he eventually played. Kirstie Alley joined the cast when Shelley Long left, and Woody Harrelson joined when Nicholas Colasanto died. Danson, George Wendt, and Rhea Perlman were the only actors to appear in every episode of the series. Paul Willson, who played the recurring barfly character of "Paul", made early appearances in the first season as "Glen", was credited as "Gregg", and also appeared in the show as a character named "Tom". Although Cheers operated largely around that main ensemble cast, guest stars did occasionally supplement them. Notable repeat guests included Jay Thomas as Eddie LeBec, Dan Hedaya as Nick Tortelli, Jean Kasem as Loretta Tortelli, Roger Rees as Robin Colcord, Tom Skerritt as Evan Drake, and Harry Anderson as Harry the Hat. Other celebrities guest-starred in single episodes as themselves throughout the series. Some sports figures appeared on the show as former team-mates of Sam's from the Red Sox such as Luis Tiant and Wade Boggs, while others appeared with no connection to Cheers such as Kevin McHale (star player of the Boston Celtics, Cheers' hometown basketball team) or Mike Ditka. Some television stars also made guest appearances such as Johnny Gilbert, Alex Trebek, Arsenio Hall, Dick Cavett, and Johnny Carson. Some political figures even made appearances on Cheers such as then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William J. Crowe, former Colorado Senator Gary Hart, then-Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, Senator John Kerry, then-Governor Michael Dukakis, and then-Mayor of Boston Raymond Flynn (the last four of which all represented Cheers' home state and city). Musician Harry Connick, Jr. appeared in an episode as Woody's cousin and plays a song from his Grammy winning album We Are in Love (c. 1991). John Cleese won an Emmy for his guest appearance as "Dr. Simon Finch-Royce" in a fifth season episode "Simon Says". Emma Thompson guest starred as Nanny Gee/Nanette Guzman, a famous singing nanny and Frasier's ex-wife. Christopher Lloyd guest starred as a tortured artist who wanted to paint Diane. The Righteous Brothers, Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley, also guest starred. Nearly all of Cheers took place in the front room of the bar, but they often went into the rear pool room or the bar's office. Cheers didn't show any action outside the bar until the first episode of the second season, which took the action to Diane's apartment. Cheers had some running gags, such as Norm arriving in the bar greeted by a loud "Norm!" Early episodes generally followed Sam's antics with his various women, following a variety of romantic comedy clichés to get out of whatever relationship troubles he was in for each episode. As the show progressed and Sam got into more serious relationships the general tone switched to comedy on Sam settling down into a monogamous lifestyle. Throughout the series, larger story arcs began to develop that spanned multiple episodes or seasons interspersed with smaller themes and one-off episodes. The show's main theme in its early seasons was the romance between the intellectual waitress Diane Chambers and bar owner Sam Malone, a former major league baseball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and a recovering alcoholic. After Long left the show, the focus shifted to Sam's new relationship with neurotic corporate climber Rebecca. Both relationships featured multi-episode "will they or won't they" sexual tension that drew viewers in. After Sam and Diane's courtship was consummated, the show's popularity grew greatly and subsequent TV shows now very commonly have such "will they or won't they" tensions between opposites. Many Cheers scripts centered around or were improved with a variety of social issues. As Toasting Cheers puts it:

“The script was further strengthened by the writers' boldness in successfully tackling controversial issues such as alcoholism, homosexuality, and adultery.”

Social class was a subtext of the show. The "upper class" - represented by characters like Diane Chambers, Frasier Crane, Lilith Sternin and (initially) Rebecca Howe — rubbed shoulders with middle and working class characters — Sam Malone, Carla Tortelli, Norm Peterson and Cliff Clavin. An extreme example of this was the relationship between Woody Boyd and millionaire's daughter Kelly Gaines. Many viewers enjoyed Cheers in part because of this focus on character development in addition to plot development. Feminism and the role of women were also recurring themes throughout the show, with some seeing each of the major female characters as a flawed feminist in her own way. Diane was a vocal feminist, but Sam was the epitome of everything she hated: a womanizer and a male chauvinist. Their relationship led Diane to several diatribes on Sam's promiscuity, while Carla merely insulted people. Carla was respected because of her power, while Diane was ignored as she commanded little respect. Rebecca was a stereotypical ambitious and golddigging woman, seeking relationships with her superiors at the Lillian Corporation, most notably Robin Colcord, to gain promotions or raises. However, she encountered a glass ceiling and ended the show by marrying a plumber rather than a rich businessman. Homosexuality was dealt with from the very first season, a rare move for American network television in the early 1980s. In the first season episode "The Boys In The Bar" (after the 1970s film The Boys in the Band) a friend and former teammate of Sam's comes out in his autobiography. Some of the male regulars pressure Sam to take action to ensure that Cheers does not become a gay bar. The episode won a GLAAD Media Award, and the script's writers, Ken Levine & David Isaacs, were nominated for an Emmy Award for their writing. Harvey Fierstein would later appear in the 1990s as "Mark Newberger", Rebecca's old high school sweetheart who is gay. Finally, the final episode included a gay man who gets into trouble with his boyfriend (played by Anthony Heald) after agreeing to pose as Diane's husband. Addiction also plays a role in Cheers, almost exclusively through Sam, although some critics believed the issue was never really developed. Sam was a recovering alcoholic who ended up buying a bar after his baseball career was ruined by his drinking. Frasier also has a notable bout of drinking in the fourth season episode "The Triangle." Some critics believe Sam was a generally addictive personality who had largely conquered his alcoholism but was still a sexual addict, shown through his womanizing. Another theme throughout the show was the numerous owners the bat Cheers had. Cheers obviously had several owners before Sam, as the bar was opened in 1889 (The "Est. 1895" on the bar's sign is a made-up date chosen by Carla for numerological purposes as revealed in the 8th season episode "The Stork Brings a Crane"). In the second episode, "Sam's Women", Norm tells a customer looking for the owner of Cheers that the man he thought was the owner has been replaced, and his replacement was replaced by Sam. The biggest storyline surrounding the ownership of Cheers begins in the fifth season finale, "I Do, Adieu", when Sam and Diane part ways, Shelley Long leaves the regular cast, and Sam leaves to attempt circumnavigating the Earth. Before he leaves, Sam sells Cheers to the Lillian Corporation. Sam returns in the sixth season premiere, "Home is the Sailor", having sunk his boat, to find the bar under the new management of Rebecca Howe. He begs for his job back and is hired by Rebecca as a bartender. Throughout the sixth season, Sam tries a variety of schemes to buy back Cheers. This plot largely comes to an end in the seventh season premiere, "How to Recede in Business", when Rebecca is fired and Sam is promoted to manager. Rebecca is allowed to keep a job at Lillian vaguely similar to what she had before, but only after Sam had Rebecca "agree" (in absentia) to a long list of demands that the corporation had for her. From there Sam would occasionally attempt to buy the bar back with schemes that usually involved wealthy executive Robin Colcord. Cheers did eventually end up back in Sam's hands in the eighth season finale, when it was sold back to him for eighty-five cents by the Lillian Corporation after he alerted the company of Colcord's insider trading. Rebecca earns back a waitress/hostess job from Sam. Aside from the storylines that spanned across the series, Cheers had several themes that followed no storylines but that recurred throughout the series. There was a heated rivalry between Cheers and the rival bar, Gary's Olde Towne Tavern. One episode of every season depicted some wager between Sam and Gary, which resulted in either a sports competition or a battle of wits that devolved into complex practical jokes. Aside from the very first and very last "Bar Wars" episodes, the Cheers gang almost always lost to Gary's superior ingenuity, though they managed to trick him into missing the annual Bloody Mary contest in one episode. Another episode had Sam collaborating with Gary's to get revenge on his co-workers on a prior practical joke. Sam also had a long-running feud with the management of the upscale restaurant situated directly above the bar, Melville's. The restaurant's management found the bar's clientele decidedly uncouth, while Sam regarded the restaurant as snobbish (despite the fact that customers often drifted between the two businesses via a prominent staircase). This conflict escalated in later seasons, when Melville's came under the ownership of John Allen Hill (Keene Curtis), and it emerged that Sam did not technically own the bar's poolroom and bathrooms. Sam subsequently was forced to pay rent for them and often found himself at the mercy of Hill's tyranny. Norm Peterson continually searched for gainful employment as an accountant but spent most of the series unemployed, thereby explaining his constant presence in Cheers at the same stool. The face of his wife, Vera, was never fully seen onscreen, despite a few fleeting appearances and a couple of vocal cameos. Cliff Clavin seemed unable to shake the constant presence of his mother, Esther Clavin (Frances Sternhagen). Though she did not appear in every episode, he would refer to her quite often, mostly as both an emotional burden and a smothering parent. Carla Tortelli carried a reputation of being both highly fertile and matrimonially inept. The last husband she had on the show, Eddie LeBec, was a washed-up ice hockey goaltender who ended up dying in an ice show accident. Carla later discovered that Eddie had cheated on her, marrying another woman after impregnating her. Carla's sleazy first husband, Nick Tortelli, also made frequent appearances, mostly to torment Carla with a new custody battle or legal scam that grew out of their divorce. Carla's eight children (four of whom were "born" during the show's run) were also notoriously ill-behaved. Over its eleven-season run, Cheers and its cast and crew earned many awards. Cheers earned 117 Emmy nominations. In addition, Cheers has earned 31 Golden Globe nominations with a total of 6 wins. All ten of the actors who were regulars on the series received Emmy nominations for their roles. Cheers won the Golden Globe for "Best TV-Series - Comedy/Musical" in 1991 and the Emmy for "Outstanding Comedy Series" in 1983, 1984, 1989 and 1991. Cheers was presented with the "Legend Award" at the 2006 TV Land Awards, with many surviving cast members attending the event. Cheers was critically acclaimed in its first season, though it landed a disappointing 74th in the ratings that year out of only 74 shows. This critical support, coupled with early success at the Emmys and the support of the president of NBC's entertainment division Brandon Tartikoff, is thought to be the main reason for the show's survival and eventual success. The cast themselves went across the country on various talk shows to try to further promote the series after its first season. With the growing popularity of Family Ties which ran in the slot ahead of Cheers from both shows' inceptions until the end of the former was moved to Sundays in 1987 and the placement of The Cosby Show in front of both at the start of their third season (1984), the line-up became a runaway ratings success that NBC eventually dubbed "Must See Thursday". The next season, Cheers ratings increased dramatically after Woody Boyd became a regular character as well. By its final season Cheers had a run of eight consecutive seasons in the Top Ten of the Nielsen ratings. Some critics now use Frasier and Cheers as a model of a successful spin-off for a character from an already successful series to compare to modern spin-offs. NBC dedicated a whole night to the final episode of Cheers. The show began with a "pregame" show hosted by Bob Costas, followed by the final 98-minute episode itself. NBC affiliates then aired tributes to Cheers during their local newscasts, and the night concluded with a special Tonight Show broadcast live from the Bull & Finch Pub. Although the episode fell short of its hyped ratings predictions to become the most-watched television episode, it was the most watched show that year, bringing in 80.4 million viewers (64 percent of all viewers that night), and ranked 11th all time in entertainment programming. The episode originally aired in the usual Cheers spot of Thursday night and was then rebroadcast on Sunday. Some estimate that while the original broadcast did not outperform the M*A*S*H finale, the combined non-repeating audiences for the Thursday and Sunday showings did. Toasting Cheers also notes that television had greatly changed between the M*A*S*H and Cheers finales, leaving Cheers with a broader array of competition for ratings. Some of the actors and actresses from Cheers brought their characters into other television shows, either in a guest appearance or in a new spin-off. The most successful Cheers spin-off was the show Frasier which directly followed Frasier Crane after he moved back to Seattle, Washington (on the other end of Interstate 90) to live with his recently-disabled father and to host a call-in radio show. Frasier was originally supposed to be a small disliked character who only existed to further Diane and Sam's relationship, but Kelsey Grammer's acting turned what were supposed to be unfunny lines into comedy the audience enjoyed. Sam, Diane and Woody all had individual crossover appearances on Frasier where they came to visit Frasier, and his ex-wife Lilith was a constant supporting character throughout Frasier. Cliff, Norm, Carla, and two of Cheers' regular background barflies Paul and Phil had a crossover together in the Frasier episode "Cheerful Goodbyes". In the episode Frasier, on a trip to Boston, meets the Cheers gang (not at Cheers itself however); and Cliff thinks Frasier has flown out specifically for his (Cliff's) retirement party, which Frasier ends up attending. Rebecca Howe is the only "Cheers" regular aside from Coach (whose actor, Nicholas Colasanto, had died, after which the character died in the series) to not appear on "Frasier". Frasier was on the air for as many seasons as Cheers, going off the air in 2004 after an eleven-season run. Although Frasier was the most successful spin-off, The Tortellis was the first series to spin-off from Cheers, premiering in 1987. The show featured Carla's husband Nick Tortelli and his wife Loretta, but was cancelled after 13 episodes and drew protests for its stereotypical depictions of Italian Americans. Characters also had crossovers with Wings, which was created by Cheers producers/writers, and St. Elsewhere in a somewhat rare comedy-drama crossover. Cheers was perhaps the first major non-science fiction TV series to have an important licensing campaign since I Love Lucy. The show lent itself naturally to the development of "Cheers" bar-related merchandise, culminating in the development of a chain of "Cheers" themed pubs. Paramount's licensing group, led by Tom McGrath, developed the "Cheers" pub concept initially in partnership with Host Marriott which placed "Cheers" themed pubs in 24+ airports around the world. A full-scale Cheers reproduction was built in Piccadilly Circus in London and Boston boasts of the original Cheers bar (historically known to generations of Boston insiders as the Bull and Finch) as well as a Cheers restaurant in the Faneuil Hall marketplace and Sam's Place, a spin-off sports bar concept also located at Faneuil Hall. The theme song to the show was licensed to a Canadian restaurant, Kelsey's. Cheers grew in popularity as it aired on American television and entered into syndication. When the show went off the air in 1993, Cheers was syndicated in 38 countries with 179 American television markets and 83 million viewers. Then, after going off the air, Cheers entered a long, successful, and continuing syndication run on Nick at Nite. While the quality of some earlier footage of Cheers had begun to degrade, it underwent a careful restoration in 2001 due to its continued success. Notably, a Cheers rerun replaced Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos on Australia's Nine Network. The latter was cancelled mid-episode on its only broadcast by Kerry Packer, who pulled the plug after a phone call. Cheers was aired by NCRV in the Netherlands. After the last episode, NCRV simply began re-airing the series, and then again, thus airing the show three times in a row, showing an episode nightly. The series now airs weekday mornings on TV Land and will premiere on Hallmark Channel in fall 2008. CBS Home Entertainment has released the first nine seasons of Cheers on DVD for Region 1. Cheers season 1-6 have been released on DVD for Region 2. Kelsey Grammer was arguably the most successful with his spin-off Frasier, which lasted for the same eleven-season run Cheers had and a recurring guest role on The Simpsons as Sideshow Bob. By the final season of Frasier, Grammer had become the highest paid actor on television, earning about $1.6 million an episode. Woody Harrelson has also had a successful career following Cheers, including appearances in a number of notable films that have established him as a box-office draw. He also earned an Academy Award nomination in 1997 for “The People vs. Larry Flynt.” Ted Danson, who had been the highest paid Cheers cast member earning $450,000 an episode in the final season, has starred in the successful sitcom Becker as well as the unsuccessful sitcoms Ink and Help Me Help You and the drama series Damages. He has starred in a number of movies, including “Three Men and a Baby” and “Made in America.” Ted and his wife Mary Steenburgen regularly play themselves on Curb Your Enthusiasm as Larry David's friends. John Ratzenberger has voice acted in all of Pixar's computer-animated feature films and currently hosts the Travel Channel show Made in America. On Made in America he travels around the U.S. showing the stories of small towns and the goods they produce. Coincidentally, Ted Danson starred in a film also called Made in America. He is heavily involved in a charity known as the Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs Foundation, which encourages children to get involved with tinkering and mechanical work, as well as to encourage schools to resurrect Industrial Arts programs. He also was on Dancing with the Stars. Bebe Neuwirth has gone on to star in numerous Broadway musicals, earning two Tony Awards for her work, and co-star in numerous successful films. She also did voice work for “All Dogs Go To Heaven 2” and All Dogs Go To Heaven the TV series. Kirstie Alley starred in the 2 TV series, Veronica's Closet and Fat Actress, as well as numerous miniseries and film roles. Although some believe Shelley Long leaving the show was a bad career move, she has gone on to star in several television and film roles, notably “The Brady Bunch Movie” and its sequels. In addition to continuing careers after Cheers, some of the cast members have had personal problems. In 2004, Shelley Long grew depressed after divorcing her husband of 23 years and appears to have attempted suicide by overdosing on drugs. Kirstie Alley gained a significant amount of weight after Cheers, which somewhat affected her career. She went on to write and star in a sitcom partly based on her life and weight gain, Fat Actress. She formerly was a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig. The Host Marriott Corporation installed 46 bars modeled after Cheers in their hotel and airport lounges. Paramount Pictures licensed the characters and details of the show, allowing the bars to have fake memorabilia such as Sam Malone's supposed jersey while playing for the Red Sox. Among the details Marriott included were two robots, "Bob" and "Hank", one of which was heavy (resembling Norm Peterson), with the other wearing a postal uniform (Cliff Clavin). Ratzenberger and Wendt filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against Paramount in 1993 (around the time that Viacom purchased Paramount), claiming that the company was illegally licensing and earning off their images without their permission. Ratzenberger and Wendt claimed that Paramount could not earn off their images simply because the robots are dressed like the characters over which Paramount still holds rights. The case was dismissed by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge in 1996, though a federal judge reinstated the case in the Los Angeles court. Paramount tried to bring the case before the Supreme Court of the United States but the court refused to hear the case, instead merely reaffirming the ruling to reinstate the case in the Superior Court. Some believe the case could have had significant implications in Hollywood, as its outcome would have determined whether rights over a character imply rights to reproduce the actor's image with or without his or her permission, so long as the image is of the actor as the character. Rather, Paramount settled with the two before a ruling in the suit was delivered. The first year of the show took place entirely within the confines of the bar. (The first location outside the bar ever seen was Diane's apartment.) When the series became a hit, the characters started venturing further afield, first to other sets and eventually to an occasional exterior location. The exterior location shots of the bar were actually of the Bull & Finch Pub, located directly north of the Boston Public Garden, which has become a tourist attraction because of its association with the series and draws in nearly a million visitors annually. It has since been renamed Cheers Beacon Hill, though its interior is different from the TV bar. To further capitalize on the show's popularity, another bar, Cheers Faneuil Hall, was built to be a replica of the show's set to provide tourists with a bar whose interior was closer to the one they saw on TV. It is near Faneuil Hall, about a mile from the Bull & Finch Pub. The official Cheers site is www.cheersboston.com. In 1997 Europe's first officially licensed Cheers bar opened in London's Regent's Street W1. Like Cheers Faneuil Hall, Cheers London is an exact replica of the set. The gala opening was attended by James Burrows and cast members George Wendt and John Ratzenberger. The actual bar set was on display at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum until the museum’s closing in early 2006.

NBC was thinking cheap beer; what it got was fine wine. All revved up over a series of popular Miller Lite commercials that featured famous athletes bellying up to the bat, the network went looking for a new sitcom with the same hell raising atmosphere. While the writing team of Glen and Les Charles and director James Burrows, coming off their success with Taxi, obliged with a comedy set in a Boston bar (modeled after the city’s real Bull & Finch). The three creators wanted to create a show like Fawlty Towers, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Duffy’s Tavern, but it amazingly has a lot more in common with the show Lost. Long before Lost, there was a series about the connections among a group of unrelated people on an island. This island just happened to have stools around it and an alcoholic ex-pitcher pulling beers in the middle of it. Cheers's bar setting, not the home or the office, set it at the margins of its characters' lives; a bar is where you go to get away from the big events of your life, not live them out. That meant that Cheers was free to find humor in the little things: Cliff Clavin's obsession with his mother and trivia (“Due to the shape of the North American elk’s esophagus, even if it could speak, it could not pronounce the word ‘lasagna’”), cuddly but beleaguered bar-stool fixture Norm's greetings (“It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and I’m wearing Milk Bone underwear”), caustic barmaid Carla's insults (she constantly referred to Diane as “stick,” one of the more polite nicknames). And, let’s not forget the other characters: pompous shrink Dr. Frasier Crane, the old dim-bulb bartender Ernie “Coach” Pantusso, the young dim-bulb bartender Woody Boyd, and the sultry bur insecure Rebecca Howe. And, the one big thing driving the show's early years was likable lunkhead with a drinking problem and baseball career in his past Sam Malone and pretentious, just-slumming grad-student barmaid Diane Chamber's bickering romance. It is painful when TV writers boast that they’re going for Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn-style repartee and end up with dialogue more on the level of Who’s The Boss, but with Sam and Diane, the art of the sitcom came damn close to 1940s-era sparkle. Their intercourse was a cocktail of crackling wordplay and sexual tension; it was a rare will-they-won't-they-oh-they-just-did storyline that didn't disappoint. Amazingly, the show was able to survive Shelley Long (Diane) leaving the show, with Kirstie Alley stepping in as Rebecca, and not losing its fizz for an instant. One of the keys to Cheers’s longevity at the top of the Nielsen heap (it was a top five show for seven straight years) was the Charles-Burrows-Charles team’s careful avoidance of easy sentimentality; to Cheers, the Very Special Episodes about “serious” topics that dragged down many aging comedies were anathema. Its humor was adult but never grown-up; it was playful, urbane, and bracing as a tall cold one. When Cheers closed its doors in 1993 because Ted Danson (Sam) wanted to move on and no one wanted to continue without him, the characters were spectacularly unredeemed. They had made it through 11 seasons with their frailties as firmly in place as when they first descended the steps to the bar “where everybody knows your name.” And, that’s something worth drinking to.

[Hulk With A Mustache]

11. Roots



Genre: Miniseries; Period Piece.
Created by: Alex Haley.
Executive Producer(s): David L. Wolper.
Starring: Levar Burton (Kunta Kinte/Toby), John Amos (Kunta Kinte/Toby adult), Cicely Tyson (Binta), Thalmus Rasulala (Omoro), Maya Angelou (Nyo Boto), Ji-Tu Cumbuka (Wrestler), O.J. Simpson (Kadi Touray), Moses Gunn (Kintango), Hari Rhodes (Brima Cesay), Ren Woods (Fanta), Beverly Todd (Fanta adult), Ernest Lee Thomas (Kailuba), Edward Asner (Capt. Davies), Ralph Waite (Third Mate Slater), Louis Gossett Jr. (Fiddler), Lorne Greene (John Reynolds), Lynda Day George (Mrs. Reynolds), Vic Morrow (Ames), Paul Shenar (John Carrington), Robert Reed (Dr. William Reynolds), Madge Sinclair (Bell Reynolds), Gary Collins (Grill), Raymond St. Jacques (The Drummer), Chuck Connors (Tom Moore), Sandy Duncan (Missy Anne Reynolds), Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (Noah), John Schuck (Ordell), Leslie Uggams (Kizzy Reynolds), Macdonald Carey (Squire James), Olivia Cole (Mathilda), Scatman Crothers (Mingo), George Hamilton (Stephen Bennett), Carolyn Jones (Mrs. Moore), Ian McShane (Sir Eric Russell), Lillian Randolph (Sister Sara), Richard Roundtree (Sam Bennett), Ben Vereen (Chicken George Moore), Lloyd Bridges (Evan Brent), Georg Stanford Brown (Tom Harvey), Brad Davis (Ol' George Johnson), Lane Binkley (Martha Johnson), Hilly Hicks (Lewis), Doug McClure (Jemmy Brent), Lynne Moody (Irene Harvey), Burl Ives (Sen. Arthur Johnson), Thayer David (Harlan), Roxie Roker (Melissa), Austin Stoker (Virgil), John Quade (Sheriff Biggs), Charles Cyphers (Drake), Todd Bridges (Bud), Ross Chapman (Sergeant Williams), Grand L. Bush (Captured Runaway Slave), with: Tanya Boyd, Helen Martin, William Watson, Lee de Broux, Fred Covington (actor), Maurice Hunt, Lee Kessler, Hank Rolike, Allen Williams and more.
Country of Origin: United States.
Number of Seasons: 1.
Number of Episodes: 8.
Running Time: 573 minutes (full miniseries).
Original Channel: ABC.
Original Run: January 23, 1977 – January 30, 1977.
Spinoffs: Roots: The Next Generations, a sequel that aired in 1979, and “Roots: The Gift,” a 1988 TV movie that takes place between the first two miniseries.

Roots was a 1977 miniseries based on Alex Haley's work Roots: The Saga of an American Family, his critically acclaimed but factually disputed genealogical novel. It was a ground-breaking event in U.S.A. television history, receiving 37 Emmy Award-nominations. It went on to win 9 Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen Ratings with the finale still standing as the 3rd highest rated U.S. program ever, behind the series finale of M*A*S*H and Super Bowl XLII and captivated American television audiences, successfully crossing racial lines and piquing the interest of families, in all ethnic groups. The series and its 1979 sequel Roots: The Next Generations featured many African American actors at all levels of experience. The program introduced LeVar Burton in the role of Kunta Kinte. It also starred Louis Gossett Jr. as Fiddler. A second sequel, “Roots: The Gift,” was also produced as a Christmas movie and is widely considered inferior to the other two entries in the series, despite the fact that LeVar Burton and Louis Gossett Jr. star. Roots and the book it was adapted from revived interest in oral and genealogical history among all segments of the population. It also spurred an interest in African or African sounding names; Kizzy (played by Leslie Uggams), for example, became popular for African-American baby girls. Even an entire generation later, famous black American comedian Dave Chappelle satirized the TV series in a popular sketch aired on his Chappelle's Show. The series was directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, John Erman, David Greene and Gilbert Moses. It was produced by Stan Margulies; David L. Wolper was executive producer. The now-familiar score was composed by Gerald Fried and Quincy Jones. Alex Haley narrates the last few minutes of the series, where photos of him appear along with other people who connect him as the 9th generation from Kunta Kinte's grandmother to him. The story begins in the Gambia, West Africa, in 1750. Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) is born to Mandinka warrior Omoro Kinte (Thalmus Rasulala) and his wife Binta (Cicely Tyson). When their son reaches the age of 15, he and a group of other adolescent males take part in a tribal ceremony known as the "coming of manhood", after which they officially become Mandikan warriors themselves. While trying to find wood outside his village to make a drum, Kunta Kinte is captured by slave traders and put on a slave ship commanded by Captain Davies (Edward Asner) and his third mate Slater (Ralph Waite) for a three month journey to Colonial America. During the course of their forced journey, a group of Africans rebel but fail to take over the ship. The ship lands months later in Annapolis, Maryland, where the captured Africans are sold as chattel slaves. Kunta Kinte is sold to plantation owner John Reynolds (Lorne Greene) and is forced to take the slave name of Toby. An older slave named Fiddler (Louis Gossett Jr.) is charged with teaching Toby the ways of being a chattel slave, including learning English. In his desperate struggle to survive, he makes several attempts to escape. Eventually, he submits to the harsh life, but only after having half his foot chopped off to keep him from attempting further escapes. The adult Kunta Kinte/Toby (John Amos) learns then what it means to be a chattel slave but is still haunted by his Mandinkan roots and what it was to once be free. He is sold to John Reynolds' brother William (Robert Reed), eventually marrying another slave named Bell (Madge Sinclair) and having a daughter named Kizzy (Leslie Uggams) When Kizzy is in her late teens, she is sold away to Tom Moore (Chuck Connors) in North Carolina when it was discovered that she had written a fake traveling pass for a young slave boy she was in love with (she had been taught to read and write secretly by Missy Anne (Sandy Duncan), niece to the plantation owner Reynolds). Kizzy is then raped by Moore and bears a son named Chicken George (Ben Vereen). Chicken George becomes an expert in cockfighting, which eventually gives him the opportunity in the 1820s to be sent into servitude in England. He later returns to America as a free man. George's son Tom Harvey (Georg Stanford Brown) becomes a blacksmith and then is recruited into the army during the American Civil War. After the war, racists led by Evan Brent (Lloyd Bridges) start to frequently harass George, his family and other blacks, exploiting them economically in the daytime and trying to haunt them wearing hooded robes during the evening. The miniseries ends as Tom and his family move to Tennessee to start a new life. Alex Haley narrates the last few minutes of the miniseries: a montage of photos of family members connecting Tom's daughter Cynthia, the great-great-granddaughter of Kunta Kinte, to Haley himself. There are numerous differences between the miniseries and novel that it is based on. The differences include:

All the characters surnames are different. (Waller is changed to Reynolds, Lea is changed to Moore, and Murray is changed to Harvey.) Additionally, Murray's first name is not revealed in the book, whereas Harvey is given the first name Samuel in the miniseries.

Kunta's grandfather, Kairaba Kunte Kinte, is only mentioned one time, at the very end of the third episode, as Kunta is describing his newborn daughter Kizzy's Mandinka lineage to her. While Sireng, Kairaba's first wife, is not referenced in the miniseries as in the book, it is important to note that Kunta's narrative to his daughter is the final scene of the episode (the audio gradually tapers off with Kairaba's name barely distinguishable). Thus, presumably Kunta would have mentioned Sireng shortly after mentioning Kairaba.

The book records the early life and adolescence of Kunta Kinte in Juffure while the miniseries covers only his birth and teenage years before his capture.

The Character of Nyo Boto is a combination of the same character in the novel as well as Kunta's paternal grandmother Yaisa. Also Nyo Boto seems to be Kunta's maternal grandmother in the television adaptation whereas the novel portrays her as a family friend and someone who fills in the void of grandmother when Yaisa dies.

Kunta has two more brothers besides Lamin, named Suwadu and Madi in the novel while he is only referred to have two total brothers in the television adaptation.

The character of Fanta is a widow at least twenty years older than Kunta in the novel while she is portrayed as closer to his age in the miniseries. She also plays a more crucial role in Kunta's journey whereas in the novel she has only one scene, and is never captured along with Kunta.
Kunta's two half-uncles Janneh and Saloum Kinte are omitted entirely.

The sub plot of Captain Thomas Davies and his crew was expanded. In the book only Capt. Davies is named, two times, toward the very end of the book (pp 582-583, 1st Edition printing, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1976).

The women captured, most notably one who commits suicide in order to escape, are topless like the men.

The woman who tries to escape seemingly dies by drowning but in the novel she is quickly attacked and killed by sharks.

An entire scene of John Reynolds and his family is only in the miniseries. Also later scenes of Reynolds and his brother were made in order to link the story.

Kunta escapes at least three times from the Reynolds plantation during his first year there. While the miniseries only shows one escape when he is young, and the other when he is older.

The characters of Fiddler, Mrs. Reynolds, and William Reynolds have larger roles in the miniseries than in the book.

When Kunta is first purchased, the black slave bringing him back to Virginia is named "Samson" and is cruel towards Kunta. Kunta tries to kill him and is later sold and only then does he meet Fiddler. In the mini-series, Fiddler was present from the beginning at Annapolis.

In the book Kunta's foot is amputated after his third escape at the age of seventeen, but in the miniseries this occurs when he is twenty six.

Kunta's process of counting the number of rains he has seen by placing pebbles in a gourd has been omitted.

Fiddler tries to buy his freedom in the book, something not mentioned in the mini-series, and comes to a very bad end with Dr. Waller (Reynolds, in the miniseries) who won't sell it to Fiddler except for double the originally agreed-upon price. Some may argue that this is due chiefly to the slave-price inflation of that day, spurred by the invention of the cotton gin and a resulting greater need for slave labor in the deep South. However, it is more likely that slave-owners seldom, if ever, felt obligated to keeping their word to chattel slaves and were not legally compelled to do so.

Kunta is somewhat more willing to engage in sexual relations with other slaves in the miniseries than he is in the book. In the miniseries, a beautiful mulatto slave named Genelva directly propositions Kunta in his cabin, though they are interrupted when the overseer barges in. As depicted in the book, however, Kunta is far too proud a Mandinka to engage with anyone with the lack of self-dignity to not want to be free, until his eventual marriage to Bell.

Bell and Kunta are married after just over four years from when she cares for him, but in the novel it takes nearly twenty two years after she cares for him before they finally marry.

The character of Missy Anne is given a unique backstory as the product of an adulterous affair between William Reynolds and his sister-in-law. In the book Reynolds is simply Missy Anne's adopting Uncle. Also Missy Anne is slightly older in the miniseries as opposed to the novel, and plays a much larger role.

William Reynolds's backstory involving Bell's admiration toward him and Missy Anne has been omitted.

Kizzy's childhood has been omitted from the miniseries.

Bell's knowledge of reading and writing was shared by Kizzy in the book. Bell seems proud--though very cautiously so, given the laws of that day regarding black people and literacy--with her daughter's knowledge, but in the television adaptation she is furious with Kizzy for learning how to read and write from Missy Anne.

When Kizzy is sold to Tom Lea (Moore, in the miniseries) she befriends the cook Ms. Malizy and the two become good friends for years. In the miniseries the character's name is slightly changed to Melissa, and only appears in two scenes. Also several characters whom Kizzy befriends including Uncle Pompey and Sister Sarah have been omitted entirely.

In the miniseries, there is only one "Pompey" shown. This is the drummer, whose real name is "Bodeyn Bodiako", who is plotting to escape to the north. In the novel, his real name is spelled "Boteng Bediako", and he is not planning escape. Rather, he is an attendee at Kunta's and Bell's wedding.

In the novel, Mrs. Moore is a scatterbrained but somewhat understanding woman who shows benevolence at times. But in the television adaptation, she is an aloof shrew who is very disturbed by her husband's adultery and has a quick temper.

The romance between Kizzy and Sam Bennett, and her returning to the Reynolds plantation where she finds Kunta's grave, were both created for the miniseries.

Matilda's father, a Reverend, is seen briefly, while in the book Matilda claims she never knew anything about her father except that his name was Virgil, and it was a reverend who formally owned her.

Out of Matilda's eight children only Tom and Lewis and Julius remain in the miniseries.
The plot regarding Nat Turner and his rebellion is dated as occurring in 1841 but in reality it happened a decade before.

Chicken George leaves for England and does not return for fourteen years whereas the novel portrays his stay as four years.

The selling of Chicken George's family and his later return to the Moore plantation are only referenced but never shown. Additionally, the skills that Tom Harvey shows as a blacksmith at a young age and his eventual marriage to Irene Holt, are not shown.
In the book Irene is pregnant when she first meets Chicken George but in the miniseries she already has at least four children as opposed to eight in the book.

C. J. Barnes is changed to Evan Brent.

In the novel, Tom is shoeing horses for Captain J. D. Cates, a former Alamance County sheriff.

In the mini-series he is working for Evan Brent.

Most of the plot from the eighth episode was created especially for the miniseries and was not derived from the book.

In the film, Martha is with Ol' George Johnson when he arrives. In the novel he goes and fetches her after a time.

Senator Arthur Johnson was created for the miniseries, as was the selling of Sam Harvey's property and the delayed freedom of the slaves.

Warner Home Video, which released a 25th-anniversary 3-disc DVD edition of the series in 2002, released a four-disc (three double-sided, one single-sided) 30th-anniversary set on May 22nd, 2007. Bonus features include a new audio commentary by LeVar Burton, Cicely Tyson and Ed Asner among other key cast members, "Remembering Roots" behind-the-scenes documentary, "Crossing Over: How Roots Captivated an Entire Nation" featurette, new interviews with key cast members and the DVD-ROM "Roots Family Tree" feature.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: “Again, you put a miniseries on this list when you know full well this is a list of TV shows! And, you can’t fall back on the “it was made into a weekly TV show” defense like with V.” And, you’re right. I can’t justify putting Roots on this list because it wasn’t turned into a TV show, and I’m not going to say that the two sequels it had make it a full TV show. But, I can justify Roots’s inclusion on the list by saying this: how dare you imply that Roots doesn’t belong on a 100 Greatest TV Shows countdown simply because it was a miniseries! This just doesn’t have to do with the fact that miniseries are just as much a part of TV as weekly shows! It has to do with its importance. Roots is too damn important to TV to leave it off the list. I mean, from the minute viewers first met Kunta Kinte, the young, proud, and very frightened African man being taken to America in chains, they were engaged by his story. It was a star-studded affair (featuring everyone from LeVar Burton to John Amos Louis Gossett Jr. to Cicely Tyson to Ed Asner to Robert Reed to O.J. Simpson; yes, O.J. Simpson was in Roots), a 12-hour saga based on author Alex Haley’s own family history, and had an entire county captivated for one entire week in January of 1977. The most watched TV drama ever, Roots reached the height of TV's ability to spur social discussion by surveying the depths of America's original sin. The show, viewed by over 100 million Americans, provided a surrogate family story for millions of African Americans whose histories were lost in the culture-obliterating diaspora, and confronted whites with the brutalities of slavery. How authentic Roots' history was remains open to question: scholars have cast doubt on Haley's novel (which he said was based on genealogical research into his own family), and, yes, the miniseries itself tended toward melodrama. But, it was still the first TV program to give the issue of slavery national TV exposure and started an important conversation about race in America and spurred popular interest in long-neglected African American history. Since then, no miniseries has equaled its ratings and only one came close to equaling its impact, NBC’s 1978 miniseries Holocaust. Roots got the country talking about an ugly period in human history. Whether Roots offered the right answers or not, its power came from getting America to ask the right questions. So, that is why I put Roots on this list and so high; much like its subject, it cannot be ignored or forgotten.