1.
Fox Broadcasting Company
–
The Fox Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcast television network that is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group subsidiary of 21st Century Fox. It is the third largest major network in the world based on total revenues, assets. Launched on October 9,1986 as a competitor to the Big Three television networks, Fox and its affiliated companies operate many entertainment channels in international markets, although these do not necessarily air the same programming as the U. S. network. Most viewers in Canada have access to at least one U. S, the network is named after sister company 20th Century Fox, and indirectly for producer William Fox, who founded one of the movie studios predecessors, Fox Film. Fox is a member of the North American Broadcasters Association and the National Association of Broadcasters, 20th Century Fox had been involved in television production as early as the 1950s, producing several syndicated programs. Following the demise of the DuMont Television Network in August of that year after it became mired in financial problems. 20th Century Fox would also produce original content for the NTA network, KTTV in Los Angeles, KRIV in Houston, WFLD-TV in Chicago, and KRLD-TV in Dallas. In October 1985, 20th Century Fox announced its intentions to form a television network that would compete with ABC, CBS. The plans were to use the combination of the Fox studios, organizational plans for the network were held off until the Metromedia acquisitions cleared regulatory hurdles. Then, in December 1985, Rupert Murdoch agreed to pay $325 million to acquire the remaining equity in TCF Holdings from his original partner, Marvin Davis. These first six stations, then broadcasting to a reach of 22% of the nations households. Except for KDAF, all of the original owned-and-operated stations are part of the Fox network today. Like the core O&O group, Foxs affiliate body consisted of independent stations. The Fox Broadcasting Company launched at 11,00 p. m. Eastern and its inaugural program was a late-night talk show, The Late Show, which was hosted by comedian Joan Rivers. By early 1987, Rivers quit The Late Show after disagreements with the network over the creative direction. The network expanded its programming into prime time on April 5,1987, with Children and the sketch comedy series The Tracey Ullman Show. Fox added one new show per week over the several weeks, with the drama 21 Jump Street. On July 11, the network rolled out its Saturday night schedule with the premiere of the drama series Werewolf
2.
Kmart
–
Kmart Corporation is a chain of big box department stores headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The chain purchased Sears for $11 billion in 2005, forming a new corporation under the name Sears Holdings Corporation, the Kmart name was incorporated in 1916 while the first store didnt open its doors until 1962. At its peak in 2000, Kmart operated 2,171 stores including 105 Super Center locations, for the 2005 fiscal year under the new company, the Kmart store count was at 1,416 with only 55 Super Center locations. Currently, the chain is operating 734 stores with only 1 Super Center location remaining and this number will decrease further due to the previously announced closings that will take place in Q12017. It operates stores in 49 states, Puerto Rico, the U. S. Virgin Islands and it also used to operate stores in Canada, Mexico, and Eastern Europe. At the height of Kmarts popularity, the phrase Attention Kmart shoppers. Entered into the American pop psyche, appearing in films and other such as Troop Beverly Hills, Six Days Seven Nights, Rain Man, Beetlejuice, Madea Goes to Jail. Kmarts world headquarters were located in Troy, Michigan, in Metro Detroit, but since the purchase of Sears, it has relocated to Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Kmart also exists in Australia and New Zealand, although it now has no relation to the American stores except in name, in 1912, Kresge incorporated the S. S. Kresge Corporation with eighty-five stores. The company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange on May 23,1918, during World War I, Kresge experimented with raising the limit on prices in his stores to $1. By 1924, Kresge was worth approximately $375 million and owned real estate of the value of $100 million. Early century growth remained brisk, with 257 stores in 1924 growing to 597 stores operating in 1929, Kresge retired as president in 1925. The Great Depression reduced profitability and resulted in store closings, with the reduced to 682 in 1940. After the war shopping patterns changed and many moved out of the cities into the suburbs. The Kresge company followed them and closed and merged many urban stores so that by 1954 the total number of stores in the US had declined to 616. Under the leadership of executive Harry Cunningham, S. S. Kresge Corp. opened the first Kmart store on March 1,1962, in Garden City, Michigan, just four months before the first Walmart opened. This store is still in operation as a Big Kmart store but will be closed in March 2017, eighteen Kmart stores opened that year. Kmart Foods, a chain of Kmart supermarkets, opened in that decade
3.
Telly Monster
–
Telly Monster, known usually as just Telly, is an eternally worrying, red-violet monster Muppet on Sesame Street. He is puppeteered by Martin P. Robinson, on his debut in 1979, he was known as the Television Monster, a character that was fixated on television. He was violet-red and had antennae standing out of the top of his head and his first appearance on Sesame Street, after the Television Monster season, was with guest star Itzhak Perlman playing the violin, while Telly played the tuba. His name is derived from the British slang term for a television, Telly is a triangle lover, and he has a pet hamster, Chuckie Sue. He has been known to pogo stick uncontrollably around Sesame Street and this segment is shown on Sesame Street Unpaved. Baby Bear is his best friend and appears occasionally in many of the plots in the later series. Telly also has something of a friendship with Oscar the Grouch, personality-wise, Telly is a fidgeting, nervous wreck, prone easily to manic behavior and paranoia. In contrast to Kermit the Frog as a reporter for the Sesame Street News Flash, Telly also has been a roving reporter for his own segment. In Tellys first Sesame Street appearance, when he was performed by Bob Payne, a T. V. obsessed Telly, enters Hoopers store, suddenly, Telly runs out of the store, leaving Mr. Hooper nervous. David then enters the store, and Mr. Hooper tells him about how he let Telly use his outlet, afterwards, both Mr. Hooper and David become puzzled with Tellys strange name. Telly Monster on Muppet Wiki, an external wiki
4.
Grover
–
Grover, also known as Grover Monster, is a Muppet character on the popular television show Sesame Street. Self-described as lovable, cute and furry, he is a monster who rarely uses contractions when he speaks or sings. Grover was originally performed by Frank Oz from his earliest appearances until 2001, eric Jacobson began performing Grover in 1998, he has performed the character regularly since 2001, although Oz still performs him occasionally but not usually. A prototype version of Grover appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in a Christmas Eve appearance in 1967 and this puppet had greenish-brown fur and a red nose. He also had a voice, and was played a bit more unkempt than Grover would later behave. The monster was referred to as Gleep, a monster in Santas workshop and he later made a cameo appearance in The Muppets On Puppets in 1968 with the Rock and Roll Monster. In 1969, clad in a necktie, he appeared in the Sesame Street Pitch Reel in the board room sequences, during the first season of Sesame Street, the character was nicknamed Fuzzyface or The Hairy One, though neither would be used for his actual name. In an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 31,1970, the character acquired his present name and his appearance was changed to the more familiar puppet with blue fur and a pink nose. In this appearance, Kermit the Frog tried to sing What Kind of Fool Am I. the true Grover officially debuted in the second season of Sesame Street. Another of the more frequent sketch segments featuring Grover involves him taking a series of service jobs. One of his customers is always Mr. Johnson, a balding, Johnson series of sketches, set at Charlies Restaurant, aired in the early 1970s, here, Grover is employed as a waiter and Mr. Johnson is his customer. Repeats of the Charlies Restaurant series of sketches aired for years on Sesame Street. In the years since, new Grover-Mr, Johnson sketches have been produced, with Grover taking other customer service jobs and Mr. Johnson as his hapless customer. Every time, Mr. Johnson recognizes Grover as that waiter from Charlies, Grovers jobs have ranged from that of a taxi driver and a photographer to a flight attendant and singing telegram artist. One sketch parodied the ABC television series Extreme Makeover, Home Edition in a segment where Grover began remodeling Mr. Johnsons home against his express wishes. In another one, Mr. Grover also has a persona who wears a cap and gown to provide educational context for simple. His lessons are often wrong, leaving himself open to correction by a group of children or Muppets and this, combined with the failings of the Super Grover character, means that Grover can be very self-conscious and timid. He is often a source of humor and often accidentally injures himself
5.
Cookie Monster
–
Cookie Monster is a Muppet on the long-running childrens television show Sesame Street. He is best known for his voracious appetite and his famous eating phrases, Me eat cookie. and Om nom nom nom. He often eats just about anything, including ice cream, hot dogs, cake, pizza, doughnuts, lettuce, apples, bananas, watermelon, however, as his name suggests, his preferred food is cookies. Chocolate chip cookies are his favorite kind, oatmeal cookies are his second favorite, in a song in 2004, Cookie Monster revealed that, before he ate his first cookie, he believed his name was Sid. He is known to have a mother, a sister, and an identically-designed cousin. He also has a father, who appeared in a Monsterpiece Theater sketch promoting energy conservation, water conservation, both Cookie Monsters mother and father share his enormous appetite and craving for cookies. He and his Sesame Street friends are popular motifs on T-shirts, each snack was represented by a different monster. The Wheel-Stealer was a short, fuzzy monster with wonky eyes, the Flute-Snatcher was a speed demon with a long, sharp nose and windblown hair. The Crown-Grabber was a hulk of a monster with a Boris Karloff accent and these monsters had insatiable appetites for the snack foods they were named after. Each time the Muppet narrator, a fellow, fixes himself a tray of Wheels, Flutes and Crowns. One by one, the monsters sneak in and zoom away with the snacks, as it turns out, these commercials were never aired — but all three monsters had a future in the Muppet cast. The Crown-Grabber was used in a sketch on The Ed Sullivan Show, known from then on as the Beautiful Day Monster, he made a number of appearances on Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. The Flute-Snatcher turned into Snake Frackle, a monster from The Great Santa Claus Switch. In 1967, Henson used the Wheel-Stealer puppet for an IBM training film called Coffee Break Machine, in the sketch, called The Computer Dinner, the monster devours a complex coffee making machine as it describes its different parts. When he is finished, the machine announces the monster has activated the machines anti-vandalism system and this sketch was also performed in October,1967 on The Ed Sullivan Show. It was also performed on the George Burns episode of The Muppet Show using the Luncheon Counter Monster. Two years later, Henson used a similarly-designed and equally ravenous monster for three commercials selling Munchos, a Frito-Lay potato chip and this time, the puppet was called Arnold, the Munching Monster. After the three ads were produced, Henson had the opportunity to renew the contract and he chose not to, because at that point he was working on Sesame Street — and that monster puppet was moving on to the next stage in his career
6.
Kathy Najimy
–
Kathy Ann Najimy is an American actress and comedian. Prior to her work, Najimy was best known for two Off-Broadway shows with Mo Gaffney working as the duo Kathy and Mo. One of the shows became an HBO comedy special and garnered Najimy her first nationwide fan base, Najimy was born on February 6,1957 in San Diego, California, the daughter of Lebanese American parents Samia and Fred Najimy, a postal worker. She was raised Roman Catholic and attended Crawford High School, najimys film career began in the early 1990s, with a number of off-beat minor roles, but her first major role was in the 1992 comedy Sister Act, in the role of Sister Mary Patrick. She reprised this role in 1993 in Sister Act 2 and she also starred in Hocus Pocus with Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker as the Sanderson sisters. In 1997, she lent her voice to Warner Bros, in 1998, she made a cameo in Bride of Chucky as the maid who discovers Diane and Russ bodies. In 1999, she played the Stepmother in CinderElmo a primetime special for Sesame Street, in 2001, she co-starred in the hit comedy film Rat Race alongside John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Cuba Gooding, Jr. Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Lovitz and Seth Green. She guest starred in Thats So Raven and she has made four movies with Goldberg. From film, Najimy expanded into television roles, including a recurring role on Chicago Hope. Najimy was part of the cast of Veronicas Closet from 1997 to 2000 and she co-created and starred in the hit Off-Broadway show and HBO specials Kathy & Mo, with friend and actress Mo Gaffney. She appeared as Mae West in the Broadway hit Dirty Blonde and she also portrayed Dr. Mildred Finch on Numb3rs. Najimy also provided the voice of the teacher, Miss Thespius, in the 1998 Disney show Hercules. In 2003, Najimy provided the voice of Margalo in Stuart Little, The Animated Series, taking over from Melanie Griffith. She is the co-creator and director of the musical revue Back to Bacharach and David, which ran in New York City in 1992 and 1993, and she also appeared in Drop Dead Diva. In October 2009, Najimy played a police investigating an attack on Wisteria Lane on an episode of Desperate Housewives. In March 2010, she appeared in the Ugly Betty episode Million Dollar Smile, portraying Bettys new orthodontist, in July 2011, Najimy appeared in TNTs Franklin and Bash episode Bangover, playing a judge. Premiering in August 2015, Najimy appeared in Disneys Descendants as the Evil Queen, in the movie, she makes references to her previous role as Mary Sanderson in Hocus Pocus. Najimy, an outspoken feminist, is noted as an activist for human rights
7.
Oliver Platt
–
Oliver James Platt is a Canadian-born American actor. He has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award, as well as multiple Emmy and he has an older brother, Adam Platt, a New York Magazine restaurant critic, and a younger brother, Nicholas Platt, Jr. His family moved back to the United States when Platt was three months old, Platts paternal great-grandfather was artist Charles A. Platt. Platt is also a great-great-grandson of diplomat and lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate, when asked about Diana, Platt said, I never met her. Id love to tell you we were confidantes, the truth is I dont know much more about it than you do. Platts family made frequent trips back to Washington, where they held Redskins season tickets, Platt is also a fan of the Boston Red Sox. When he was nine years old, Platt and his family visited the Kennedy Center in Washington, One of the performances that really made me want to be an actor started out with this probably 20-minute rambling, drunken monologue by this bum. And it was a young Morgan Freeman and this guy was just so riveting. He stood there on stage alone before the curtain went up, according to Platt, drama departments gave his childhood some stability, It was something of a survival mechanism, in that it gave me a little subculture to plug into wherever I ended up. Platt attended a boarding school named Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale. Platt majored in drama at Tufts University, where he met, Platt travelled with Shakespeare and Company, based in Lenox, Massachusetts, touring schools to earn his Equity card, before moving to New York. He obtained an agent while working at Manhattan Punch Line Theatre, Murray attended Platts show and recommended Platt to director Jonathan Demme, who cast him in Married to the Mob in 1988. Platt attributes his breakthrough to appearing at the Punch Line Theater, Platt makes his decisions about accepting acting roles based on the role being different from what I just did. I do have to be interested in the role. After Married to the Mob, he appeared in Working Girl, Flatliners, Beethoven, The Three Musketeers, A Time to Kill, in 1998 Platt and Stanley Tucci played two deadbeat actors who improvise with unsuspecting strangers in The Impostors. Tucci and Platt developed the characters while working on a play at Yale University in 1988, Tucci later completing the screenplay, in 1999 Platt played the wealthy and eccentric crocodile enthusiast Hector in David E. Kelleys Lake Placid, alongside Bill Pullman and Bridget Fonda. Platt described Hector as pretty abrasive and obnoxious at times, but, I hope, I think David originally thought of him as a great white hunter sort of guy, but when I signed on for the role he sort of wrote him in a different direction. The short-lived drama Deadline provided Platts first lead role on television, created by Dick Wolf, who also created Law & Order, Deadline focused on the lives of newspaper journalists in New York City. Platt starred as Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Wallace Benton, an unlikely hero, the strong cast, which also included Bebe Neuwirth and Hope Davis, could not compensate for sub-standard writing and the series was soon canceled
8.
Keri Russell
–
Keri Lynn Russell is an American actress and dancer. She came to fame for portraying the role of Felicity Porter on the series Felicity, which ran from 1998 to 2002. Russell has since appeared in films including Mission, Impossible III, Waitress, August Rush, Extraordinary Measures, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. She currently stars as KGB agent Elizabeth Jennings in the FX television series The Americans for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award, Russell was born in Fountain Valley, California, the daughter of Stephanie, a homemaker, and David Russell, a Nissan Motors executive. She has a brother, Todd, and a younger sister. The family lived in Coppell, Texas, Mesa, Arizona, russells dancing earned her a spot on The Mickey Mouse Club. Russell first appeared on television at age 15 as a cast member of the All-New Mickey Mouse Club variety show on the Disney Channel. She was on the show from 1991 to 1994 and co-starred with future actor Ryan Gosling and future pop stars Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, JC Chasez, Justin Timberlake, and Tony Lucca. In 1992, Russell appeared in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid alongside Rick Moranis and in 1993, with Children in a 1995 episode. She subsequently starred in film and television roles, including the 1996 made-for-television film The Babysitters Seduction. That year she also had a role on the soap opera series Malibu Shores. In 1994, Russell appeared as the woman in Bon Jovis music video Always with Jack Noseworthy, Carla Gugino. In 1997, she appeared in two episodes of Roar alongside Heath Ledger, from 1998 to 2002, Russell starred as the title character on the successful WB Network series Felicity. She won a Golden Globe for the role in 1999, russells long and curly hair was one of her characters defining characteristics. A drastic hairstyle change at the beginning of the second season was thought to cause a significant drop in the shows television ratings. During the shows run, Russell appeared in the films Eight Days a Week, The Curve and her next role was in the film We Were Soldiers, playing the wife of a United States serviceman during the Vietnam War. The film was released two months before the end of Felicitys run, when Felicity ended, Russell moved to New York City and made her off-Broadway stage debut in 2004, appearing opposite Jeremy Piven, Andrew McCarthy, and Ashlie Atkinson in Neil LaButes Fat Pig. Directing Mission, Impossible III in 2005, J. J. Abrams asked Russell to join the cast and she was screen tested for the role of Lois Lane in Superman Returns but lost the role to Kate Bosworth
9.
Kevin Clash
–
Kevin Jeffrey Clash is an American puppeteer, director and producer whose characters include Elmo, Clifford, Benny Rabbit, and Hoots the Owl. Clash developed an interest in puppetry at an age and began performing for local TV childrens shows in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. In the early 1980s, he working in Captain Kangaroo. He was the puppeteer to perform Elmo, the character he became the most famous for and became an executive producer. Clash worked in productions for the Muppets and Jim Henson Productions. He resigned from Sesame Street on November 20,2012, after allegations of sexual impropriety, Clash wrote an autobiography, My Life as a Furry Red Monster, which was published in 2006, and also featured in the 2011 documentary Being Elmo, A Puppeteers Journey. Clash developed an interest in puppetry at an age, inspired by childrens shows like Kukla, Fran and Ollie. He made his first puppet, a version of Mickey Mouse, when he was twelve, he created a monkey puppet out of the lining of his fathers coat. His first performances were for his mothers daycare children, by the time he was a teenager, he had built almost 90 puppets, which he based upon commercials, popular music, and his friends. While still in school, Clash performed at venues throughout Baltimore, including schools, churches, fundraisers. Clash also built puppets for the Romper Room franchise, when he was 17, he contacted and met puppeteer Kermit Love, who became Clashs mentor, after seeing Love featured in an episode of the documentary Call It Macaroni. When he was nineteen, Clash became a puppeteer for Captain Kangaroo, initially as a guest performer, the producers of Captain Kangaroo used some of Clashs puppet creations for the show. Captain Kangaroo was cancelled in 1984 after 29 seasons, and Great Space Coaster ended, freeing up Clash to work on projects with Henson such as the film Labyrinth and Sesame Street. Clash started working at Sesame Street for ten episodes in 1983, mostly performing nondescript, some of his earliest characters included the saxophone-playing Hoots the Owl, the infant Baby Natasha, and inventor Dr. Nobel Price. After 1985, Elmo, a red monster, became his main character. Four puppeteers, including Richard Hunt, had performed Elmo previously, but it was Clashs development, with a falsetto voice and he based Elmos character on the preschool children that attended his mothers daycare in Baltimore and upon his own personality and the personality of his parents. Clash followed the advice of fellow puppeteer Frank Oz, who told Clash to always find one special hook for each character, Clash decided that the central characteristic for Elmo should be that he should represent love. After the height of Elmos popularity, especially the Tickle Me Elmo craze in 1996 and he recruited, auditioned, and trained its puppeteers, and became the senior Muppet coordinator, a writer, director, and co-producer of the Elmos World segment of the show
10.
Frank Oz
–
Frank Oz is an English-born American puppeteer, filmmaker and actor. His career began as a puppeteer, where he performed the Muppet characters of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle in The Muppet Show, and Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover in Sesame Street. He is also known for being the puppeteer and voice of Yoda in the Star Wars films and his work as a director includes Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, What About Bob. In & Out, Bowfinger, The Score and Death at a Funeral, Oz was born in Hereford, England, the son of Frances and Isidore Oznowicz, both of whom were puppeteers. His father was also a window trimmer and his parents moved to England after fighting the Nazis with the Dutch Brigades. Ozs Dutch/Polish father was Jewish and his Flemish mother was a lapsed Roman Catholic, Oz left England when he was six months old and lived in Belgium until he was five. Oz and his moved to Montana in 1951. They eventually settled in Oakland, California, Oz attended Oakland Technical High School and Oakland City College. He worked as a puppeteer at Childrens Fairyland as a teenager with the Vagabond Puppets, a production of the Oakland Recreation Department. Oz is known for his work as a puppeteer, performing with Jim Hensons Muppets and his characters have included Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle on The Muppet Show, and Grover, Cookie Monster and Bert on Sesame Street. In addition to performing a variety of characters, Oz has been one of the primary responsible for the development of the Muppets over the last 30 years. His puppetry work spans from 1963 to the present, although he retired completely from the Muppets in 2000, in 2001, his characters were taken over primarily by Eric Jacobson (with David Rudman as Cookie Monster. Oz is also known as the performer of Jedi Master Yoda from George Lucas Star Wars series, Jim Henson had originally been contacted by Lucas about possibly performing Yoda. Henson was pre-occupied and suggested Oz to be assigned as chief puppeteer, while Stuart Freeborn designed and fabricated the Yoda puppet, Oz performed the voice and puppet for Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and Star Wars, Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Oz also provided the voice of the computer-generated imagery Yoda in Star Wars, Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Star Wars, the conversion to CGI was met with some criticism among fans but Oz himself said that was exactly what should have done. Oz had a deal of creative input on the character and was himself responsible for creating the characters trademark syntax. Inspiration as a film-maker came to Oz upon a viewing of the film Touch of Evil, I think it opened up my view of film—that theres so much more that could be done. Actually, by breaking so many rules, he allowed other people to say, Hey, I can maybe think of some stuff and he just opened up the possibilities more for me
11.
Baker
–
A baker is someone who bakes and sometimes sells breads and other products made using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery, since grains have been a staple food for millennia, the activity of baking is a very old one. Control of yeast, however, is relatively recent, by the fifth and sixth centuries BCE, the ancient Greeks used enclosed ovens heated by wood fires, communities usually baked bread in a large communal oven. Greeks baked dozens and possibly hundreds of types of bread, Athenaeus described seventy-two varieties, in ancient Rome several centuries later, the first mass production of breads occurred, and the baking profession can be said to have started at that time. Ancient Roman bakers used honey and oil in their products, creating pastries rather than breads, in ancient Rome, bakers were sometimes slaves, who were sometimes manumitted. Large households in Rome normally had their own bakers, the Gauls are credited with discovering that the addition of beer froth to bread dough made well-leavened bread, marking the use of controlled yeast for bread dough. In medieval Europe, baking ovens were often separated from buildings to mitigate the risk of fire. Because bread was an important staple food, bakers production factors were heavily regulated, soon after the enactment of the Assize, baking became a very stable industry, and was executed much more professionally than brewing, resulting in towns and villages having fewer bakers than brewers. Because ovens were expensive capital investments and required careful operation, specialized bakeries opened, Bakers were often part of the guild system, which was well-established by the sixteenth century, master bakers instructed apprentices and were assisted by journeymen. In Amsterdam in 1694, for example, the cake-bakers, pie-bakers, a fraternity of bakers in London existed as early as 1155, according to records of payments to the Exchequer, the Worshipful Company of Bakers was formed by charters dated 1486,1569, and 1685. The guild still exists today, with ceremonial and charitable functions. Five bakers have served as mayor of London. The Columbian Exchange, which began in 1492, had a influence on the baking occupation. Access to sugar greatly increased as a result of new cultivation in the Caribbean, in the eighteenth century, processors learned how to refine sugar from sugar beets, allowing Europeans to grow sugar locally. These developments led to an increase in the sophistication of baking and pastries, and this occupation was less common that cloth manufacturer and tavern/public house worker, but more common than cotton spinner, merchant, calico printer, or grocer. The legislation was soon replicated in other states, joseph Lochner, a bakery owner in Utica, New York, was subsequently convicted of violating the law for forcing his employees to work more than sixty hours a week. Frustrated with the deterioration of working conditions, bakery workers in New York went on strike in August 1905. In Roman Catholic tradition, the saint of bakers and pastry chefs is Honoratus of Amiens
12.
David Rudman
–
David Rudman is an American puppeteer, writer, director, producer and musician, best known as a performer of many of Sesame Streets Muppets. He originated the role of Baby Bear and has been nominated for four Emmy Awards for his work replacing Frank Oz in the role of Cookie Monster, however, Oz still comes in to record new material with Cookie Monster occasionally, as well as Grover and Bert. Rudman also took over as Richard Hunts half of the Two-Headed Monster after his death, along with Sonny Friendly, and also he took over for Sully to Jerry Nelsons Biff, the construction workers. He has also taken over two roles once held by Richard Hunt, Scooter, and Janice of Dr. Teeth, Rudman has also written for Hocle and Stoty and Curious Buddies. Rudman was the speaker at the 2005 graduation ceremony for the Illinois Institute of Art—Chicago and he attended Highland Park High School and graduated in 1981. He has been a speaker at the schools biennial Focus on the Arts program since 2003 and he attended college at the University of Connecticut. He has written and produced cartoons for MTV, Disney Channel and he also created Spiffy Pictures, which was in 1991. His cousin is Max Joseph, host and cameraman from MTVs Catfish, david Rudman at the Internet Movie Database Spiffy Pictures
13.
Caroll Spinney
–
Caroll Edwin Spinney is an American puppeteer, cartoonist, author, and speaker most famous for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street since 1969. He has sometimes credited as Carroll Spinney or Ed Spinney. Spinney was born Caroll Edwin Spinney in Waltham, Massachusetts on December 26,1933 and his mother, a native of Bolton, England, named him Caroll because he was born the day after Christmas. He has been drawing and painting since he was a child and he developed a love of puppeteering when his mother took him to see Punch and Judy shows in the British seaside town of Blackpool. She built him a set for Christmas when he was nine. After he graduated from Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in Acton, Massachusetts, while in the Air Force, Spinney wrote and illustrated Harvey, a comic strip about military life. He also animated a series of cartoons called Crazy Crayon. In 1955, Spinney relocated to Las Vegas, where he performed in the show Rascal Rabbit and he returned to Boston, joining The Judy and Goggle Show in 1958 as a puppeteer Goggle to Judy Valentines Judy. Through that decade, he was also a commercial artist and animator, Spinney created a puppet of a cat named Picklepuss. This cat and his friends joined Spinney in entertaining audiences of the 1960s. Many years later, Spinneys Picklepuss and Pop puppets were characters in Wow, Spinney first met Jim Henson in 1962 at a puppeteering festival, where Henson asked if he would like to talk about the Muppets. As Spinney failed to realize the question was an employment offer, in 1969, Spinney performed at a Puppeteers of America festival in Utah. His show was a mixture of actors and puppets but was ruined by an errant spotlight that washed out the animated backgrounds. Henson was once again in attendance and noticed Spinneys performance, I liked what you were trying to do, Henson said, and he asked once more if they could talk about the Muppets. This time, they did have the conversation, and Spinney joined the Muppeteers full-time by late 1969, Spinney joined Sesame Street for the inaugural season in 1969. However, he left after the first season because he was not getting acceptable pay. He has performed the Big Bird and Oscar characters in Australia, China, Japan, as Big Bird/Oscar, he has conducted orchestras across the US and Canada, including the Boston Pops, as well as visited the White House multiple times. He has provided the voices on dozens of albums
14.
Steve Whitmire
–
Steven Lawrence Steve Whitmire is an American puppeteer and singer, best known for being the performer of Kermit the Frog and, formerly, Ernie—roles he inherited after Jim Hensons death in 1990. Whitmire first appeared, as an event at Six Flags Over Georgia. He performed with his then alter-ego puppet Otis for the children waiting to see a multimedia show, from there Whitmire appeared on local Atlanta TV with his puppet Otis. WATL was owned at that time by former Atlanta childrens television host Officer Don Kennedy, Otis made appearances on various WATL36 shows with Ludlow Porch, performing with the Georgia Bulldogs Larry Munson, Don Kennedy, and Entertainment Page host Artie Goodman. As Otis, Whitmire interviewed Olivia Newton-John during a tour promoting an album and he worked with puppets after graduating high school, and eventually got a job working on The Muppet Show in 1978. Since then, Whitmire has performed in almost every major Henson company project, including fare such as The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth. Whitmire has been the performer of two signature Muppets—Kermit the Frog and Ernie—since the death of their creator and original performer Jim Henson in 1990, Whitmire was personally asked by Brian Henson to be Kermits performer a few weeks after Jim Hensons death. Henson sent Whitmire a Kermit puppet to his residence, however, in 2014, Billy Barkhurst took over the role of Ernie. Whitmire left the role so he could continue focusing on projects by the The Muppets Studio. Muppet characters original to Whitmire include Rizzo the Rat, Lips, Foo-Foo, Fraggle Rocks Wembley Fraggle and Sprocket, following the death of Richard Hunt and the retirement of Jerry Nelson, Whitmire took over the roles of Beaker and Statler. He voiced Link Hogthrob in the Muppet RaceMania and Muppet Party Cruise video games and he also performed Hogthrob for the 2011 film, The Muppets. This was the first speaking appearance of the puppet since the death of Jim Henson, Hogthrob appears in several scenes in the background and gets a moment in the spotlight as part of a barbershop quartet, singing Smells Like Teen Spirit. He also performed him in Muppets Most Wanted, since 2008, Whitmire has also been the new performer of another of Jim Hensons roles, The Muppet Newsman. Whitmire has been married to his wife Melissa Whitmire since June 1978, together, they live in Atlanta, Georgia. Steve Whitmire at the Internet Movie Database
15.
Jerry Nelson
–
Jerry L. Nelson was an American puppeteer, singer, and musician, best known for his work with The Muppets. Renowned for his range of characters and singing abilities, he performed Muppet characters on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock. On Sesame Street, Nelsons longest-running character was Count von Count, Nelson did the voice and puppetry for the Count from 1972 until 2012 and continued to provide the Counts voice until his death. Nelson was the first puppeteer to perform Mr. Snuffleupagus, keeping the role from 1971 to 1978. But the reasons for giving it up were because at that time we were doing The Muppet Show and he was a part of the show. So they asked if Id mind giving it up and he also performed many characters on The Muppet Show, including Sgt. Floyd Pepper, Pigs in Space star Dr and he performed Statler in the pilot episode but was replaced by Richard Hunt when he could not perform full-time in the first season. He was a performer for the rest of the shows run. Nelson was also selected to play Statler after Hunts death, after the end of the show, Nelsons Muppets on The Muppet Show were all only supporting roles, but they did occasionally play a central role in an episodes plot. Nelson performed the puppet and voice of Emmet in Emmet Otters Jug-Band Christmas and he later performed the signature song from that show, When the River Meets the Sea, as Robin, in a duet with John Denver for a Muppet Christmas special. That version of the song gets frequent radio airplay during the Christmas season, on Fraggle Rock, he performed Gobo Fraggle, Pa Gorg, and Marjory the Trash Heap. Frank Oz did not perform on Fraggle Rock, and Jim Henson and Richard Hunt limited their time on the show, for this reason, Nelson was asked to perform Gobo, the central role on the show. Nelsons characters were often singers or musicians, Most of his main characters in all three shows sang songs at one time or another. He reprised the role of the announcer in The Muppets and his final performance as the said announcer was part of the Jim Hensons Musical World concert at Carnegie Hall. Archive audio of his role was reused in Muppets Most Wanted. Nelson also performed the voice of General Public in the Cartoon Network animated series Sheep in the Big City. In December 2009, Nelson, who summered in Truro, Massachusetts on Cape Cod, released Truro Daydreams, Nelson had a daughter named Christine from his first marriage to Jacqueline Nelson Gordon. Christine had cystic fibrosis and died from the disease in 1982, caring for her limited Nelsons involvement in the The Muppet Shows first season
16.
Rick Lyon
–
Richard Rick Lyon is an American puppeteer, actor, puppet designer and builder. He has worked for the Jim Henson Company as one of the operators of Big Bird, in the fall of 2005 he reprised his roles in the production of the show in Las Vegas for eight months before returning to the Broadway cast. Rick was a puppeteer on Sesame Street for 15 seasons, from 1987 to 2002 and he also worked with Nickelodeon on the Stick Stickly project and on the Me + My Friends pilot. He was a puppeteer for the first season of Comedy Centrals television program Crank Yankers. Lyons company The Lyon Puppets, maintains a permanent workshop outside New York City in New Jersey. Rick frequently coaches actors in puppetry for productions of Avenue Q for which he provides puppets and he studied theater at Penn State University and puppetry at the Institute of Professional Puppetry Arts in Connecticut and the Institut International de la Marionnette in France. - television Me and My Friends - television Rick Lyon at the Internet Movie Database Lyon Puppets
17.
The New York Times
–
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
18.
Sesame Street
–
Sesame Street is a long-running American childrens television series, produced by Sesame Workshop and created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett. The program is known for its content, and images communicated through the use of Jim Hensons Muppets, animation, short films, humor. The show has undergone significant changes throughout its history, with the creation of Sesame Street, producers and writers of a childrens television show used, for the first time, educational goals and a curriculum to shape its content. It was also the first time a shows educational effects were studied, the show was initially funded by government and private foundations but has become somewhat self-supporting due to revenues from licensing arrangements, international sales, and other media. By 2006, there were independently produced versions, or co-productions, in 2001 there were over 120 million viewers of various international versions of Sesame Street, and by the shows 40th anniversary in 2009, it was broadcast in more than 140 countries. By its 40th anniversary in 2009, Sesame Street was the childrens television show in the United States. A1996 survey found that 95% of all American preschoolers had watched the show by the time they were three years old, in 2008, it was estimated that 77 million Americans had watched the series as children. As of 2014, Sesame Street has won 167 Emmy Awards and 8 Grammy Awards—more than any other childrens show, Sesame Street was conceived in 1966 during discussions between television producer Joan Ganz Cooney and Carnegie Foundation vice president Lloyd Morrisett. Their goal was to create a television show that would master the addictive qualities of television and do something good with them. The program premiered on television stations on November 10,1969. It was the first preschool educational television program to base its contents and production values on laboratory, initial responses to the show included adulatory reviews, some controversy, and high ratings. By its 40th anniversary in 2009, Sesame Street was broadcast in over 120 countries, Sesame Street has evolved from its initial inception. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become an American institution, the cast and crew expanded during this time, with emphasis on the hiring of women crew members and the addition of minorities to the cast. The shows success continued into the 1980s, Sesame Streets curriculum has expanded to include more affective topics such as relationships, ethics, and emotions. After the turn of the 21st century, Sesame Street made major structural changes, for example, starting in 2002, its format became more narrative and included ongoing storylines. After its thirtieth anniversary in 1999 and due to the popularity of the Muppet Elmo, upon its fortieth anniversary in 2009, the show received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy at the 36th Daytime Emmy Awards. In April 2017, Sesame Street will introduce a new puppet called Julia with Autism to the show, and will be voiced by Stacey Gordon, who started Puppet Pie and has a son on the autism spectrum. From its first episode, Sesame Street has structured its format by using a visual style, fast-moving action, humor
19.
Sesame Workshop
–
They spent two years, from 1966 to 1968, researching, developing, and raising money for the new series. Cooney was named as the Workshops first executive director, which was termed one of the most important television developments of the decade. Sesame Street premiered as a series of Public Broadcasting Service PBS in the United States during November 1969, gerald S. Lesser and Edward L. They also hired a staff of producers and writers, after the initial success of Sesame Street, they began to plan for its continued survival, which included procuring additional sources of funding and creating other television series. By 2005, income from the CTWs international co-productions of the series was $96 million, by 2008, the Sesame Street Muppets accounted for $15–17 million per year in licensing and merchandising fees. Cooney resigned as CEO during 1990, David Britt was named as her replacement, during 2014, Ming was succeeded by Jeffrey D. Dunn. During the late 1960s, 97% of all American households owned a television set, early childhood educational research at the time had shown that when children were prepared to succeed in school, they earned better grades and learned more effectively. Children from low-income families, however, had fewer resources than children from families to prepare them for school. The topic of psychology had grown during this period. During the winter of 1966, Joan Ganz Cooney hosted what she called a little dinner party at her apartment near Gramercy Park, attending were her husband Tim Cooney, her boss Lewis Freedman, and Lloyd and Mary Morrisett, whom the Cooneys knew socially. Cooney was a producer of films at New York public television station WNDT. Cooney was committed to using television to change society, and Morrisett was interested in using television to reach numbers of needy kids. A week later, Cooney and Freedman met with Morrisett at the office of Carnegie Corporation to discuss doing a feasibility study for creating a television program for preschoolers. Cooney was chosen to perform the study and she reported her findings in a fifty-five-page document entitled The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education. For the next two years, Cooney and Morrisett researched and developed the new show, acquiring $8 million funding for Sesame Street, due to her professional experience, Cooney always assumed the shows natural network would be PBS. Morrisett was amenable to broadcast it by commercial stations, but all three major networks rejected the idea, Davis, considering Sesame Streets licensing income years later, termed their decision a billion-dollar blunder. Morrisett was responsible for acquisition, and was so successful at it that writer Lee D. Mitgang later said that it defied conventional media wisdom. Cooney was responsible for the creative development, and for hiring the production
20.
Sesame Street characters
–
A wide variety of characters have appeared on the American childrens television series Sesame Street. A large number of the characters are Muppets, which are made in Jim Hensons distinctive puppet-creation style. Most of the characters are human characters, but there are a few characters that are animated. Jim Henson created many Muppet characters for the purpose of appearing on Sesame Street and his involvement with the show began when he and one of the creators, Joan Ganz Cooney, met in the summer of 1968 at one of the shows five three-day curriculum planning seminars in Boston. Author Christopher Finch reported that director Jon Stone, who had worked with Henson previously, felt that if they could not bring him on board, Henson was initially reluctant, but he agreed to join Sesame Street for social goals. The Muppets were a part of the shows popularity and it brought Henson national attention. In early research, the Muppet segments of the show scored high, the Muppets were effective teaching tools because children easily recognized them, they were predictable, and they appealed to adults and older siblings. During the production of Sesame Streets first season, producers created five one-hour episodes to test the appeal to children. Not intended for broadcast, they were presented to preschoolers in 60 homes throughout Philadelphia, the results were generally very positive, children learned from the shows, their appeal was high, and childrens attention was sustained over the full hour. However, the found that although childrens attention was high during the Muppet segments, their interest wavered during the Street segments. This was because the producers had followed the advice of psychologists who were concerned that children would be confused if human actors. As a result of decision, the appeal of the test episodes was lower than the target. The Street scenes were the glue that pulled the show together, the producers decided to reject the advisers advice and reshot the Street segments, Henson and his coworkers created Muppets that could interact with the human actors. These test episodes were responsible for what writer Malcolm Gladwell called the essence of Sesame Street—the artful blend of fluffy monsters. Since 2001, the rights for the Sesame Street Muppets have been owned by Sesame Workshop. Oscar and Big Bird were specifically created for the reshooting of the Street scenes with the idea that they would be able to interact with the human characters. Big Birds best friend is Aloysius Snuffleupagus, who was portrayed as the imaginary friend until revealed to the human cast in 1985. For his part, Oscar has several friends of his own despite his pessimism, these include the Grouchs pet worm, Slimey, the Three Bears from the story of Goldilocks appear in Muppet form on Sesame Street
21.
Format of Sesame Street
–
It utilizes the conventions of television such as music, humor, sustained action, and a strong visual style, and combines Jim Hensons Muppets, animation, short films, humor, and cultural references. The show, which premiered in 1969, was the first to base its contents, format, according to researchers, it was also the first to include a curriculum detailed or stated in terms of measurable outcomes. The format of Sesame Street consisted of a combination of television production elements. It was the first time a more realistic setting, a city street. The popular, fifteen-minute long segment, Elmos World, hosted by the Muppet Elmo, was added in 1998 to make the more accessible to a younger audience. The producers of Sesame Street expanded the new format to the show in 2002. They also used animation and live-action short films, the shows staff produced segments filmed in-studio with their human and Muppet cast and they contracted out the animations and short films to independent producers. Co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney was the first to suggest that they use commercial-like 12–90-second shorts that consistently repeated several key concepts throughout an episode, the studio segments were written to concentrate on the African-American child, a key component of the shows audience. The shows producers and writers decided to build the new show around a brownstone on an inner-city street, a choice writer Michael Davis called unprecedented. They reproduced their viewers neighborhoods—as writer Cary ODell described it, a city street, complete with peeling paint, alleys, front stoops. Director Jon Stone was convinced that in order for inner-city children to relate to Sesame Street, despite its urban setting, the producers depicted the world in a positive way—both realistically and as it could be. They attempted to present a world of learning and play. Director Jim Martin called Sesame Street an urban show kids could relate to, as a result, each episode was structured like a magazine, which made it possible for the producers to create a mixture of styles, paces, and characters. The structure allowed them to have flexibility, meaning that segments were dropped, modified, as Lesser stated, It is unlikely that any other approach would have provided enough room to present material on the wide range of goals we had selected. Producers found that if the segments were sufficiently varied in character, content, style, pace. The shows magazine format accommodated both the curriculum and its production schedule. At first, the street scenes, which referred to the action taking place on the brownstone set, were not story-based. Instead, they consisted of individual segments connected to the curriculum and interrupted by inserts, or puppet skits, short films, by 1990, research had shown that children were able to follow a story, so the street scenes were changed to depict storylines
22.
Influence of Sesame Street
–
The childrens television program Sesame Street premiered in 1969 to high ratings, positive reviews, and some controversy, which have continued during its history. Even though the show aired on only 67% of American televisions at the time of its premiere, it earned a 3.3 Nielsen rating, by its tenth anniversary in 1979,9 million American children under the age of six were watching Sesame Street daily. Its ratings declined in the 1990s, due to societal changes, a survey conducted in 1993 found that by the age of three, 95% of all American children had watched it. By its fortieth anniversary in 2009, it was ranked the fifteenth most popular childrens show, According to writer Michael Davis, Sesame Street is perhaps the most vigorously researched, vetted, and fretted-over program. By 2001, there were over 1,000 research studies regarding its efficacy, impact, two landmark summative evaluations, conducted by the Educational Testing Service in 1970 and 1971, demonstrated that Sesame Street had a significant educational impact on its viewers. Additional studies conducted throughout the history demonstrated that the show continued to have a positive effect on its young viewers. Sesame Street has also been the subjects of many throughout its long run on television. In 1970, a commission in Mississippi voted to exclude the show from its state educational TV programming, the controversy surrounding the show stemmed from cultural and historical reasons regarding children and televisions effect on them. Latino and feminists groups criticized Sesame Street for its depictions of some groups, by 2009, Sesame Street had received 118 Emmy Awards, more than any other television series. When Sesame Street premiered in 1969, it aired on only 67. 6% of American televisions, the Childrens Television Workshop, the organization that oversaw the production of Sesame Street, insisted that its seemingly low ratings were misleading. They found that although a percentage of all viewers watched Sesame Street. Ninety percent of households who viewed the show had children under the age of six. C, the results of the poll were positive in three out of the four neighborhoods and confirmed the shows high viewership. Sesame Streets high ratings increased during its season, and Nielsen reported high audience loyalty. Gerald S. Lesser, CTWs first advisory board chair, reported rumors about the show becoming a fad among college students and its ratings steadily increased for the first five seasons, and Nielsen reported that Sesame Street had the highest ratings of any PBS program. In 1985, the Workshop estimated that 20% of its regular viewers consisted of adults, by the shows tenth anniversary in 1979,9 million American children under the age of six were watching Sesame Street daily. Four out of five children had watched it over a six-week period, According to a 1993 survey conducted by the US Department of Education, out of the shows 6.6 million viewers,2.4 million kindergartners regularly watched it. 77% of preschoolers watched it once a week, and 86% of kindergartners, first-, over 80% of children from all minority language groups watched it before starting school. Children from the poorest communities were most likely to be regular viewers, the shows ratings significantly decreased in the early 1990s, when children viewing habits and the television marketplace had changed
23.
Joan Ganz Cooney
–
Joan Ganz Cooney is an American television producer. She is one of the founders of the Sesame Workshop, the famous for the creation of the childrens television show Sesame Street. Cooney grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and earned a B. A. degree in education from the University of Arizona in 1951. After working for the State Department in Washington, D. C. and as a journalist in Phoenix, in 1961, she became interested in working for educational television, and became a documentary producer for New Yorks first educational TV station WNET. Many of the programs she produced won local Emmys, in 1966, Cooney hosted what she called a little dinner party at her apartment near Gramercy Park. Cooney was named CTWs first executive director, as one of the first female executives in American television, her appointment was called one of the most important television developments of the decade. Cooney remained executive director of the CTW until 1990, when she became the chair of CTWs executive board and she served on several boards, was the trustees of many organizations, and received many awards and honorary degrees. In 2007, the Sesame Workshop founded The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Joan Ganz was born on November 30,1929 in Phoenix, Arizona, to Sylvan Ganz, a banker, and Pauline, a homemaker. Her father was a native Phoenician who was born in the U. S. so that his mother could receive medical care after his birth, Joan Ganz was the youngest of three siblings. Her father was Jewish and her mother was Catholic and she attended North High School in Phoenix, where she was active in school plays. Brown was later investigated as a Communist and she went to Dominican College, an all-girls Catholic institution in San Rafael, California for a year before transferring to the University of Arizona in 1948. She stopped acting in college because her father refused to support her in that career, after graduating in 1951, Joan Ganz moved to Washington, D. C. where she worked as a clerk and typist at the State Department. She was exposed to Father James Kellers Christopher Movement, which inspired her to become involved with television, Ganz later said, Father Keller said that if idealists didnt go into the media, nonidealists would. She returned to Phoenix and despite no experience in journalism, took a job as a reporter at the Arizona Republic, some of this notable group included Jason Epstein and Norman Mailer. In 1956, after years of depression, Joan Ganzs father committed suicide at his home in Phoenix. While working for the U. S. Steel Hour, a left to work for the educational television station WGBH-TV in Boston, her reaction was life-changing. She later stated, I knew that I was born to be in educational television, when channel 13 became non-commercial two years later as WNDT, Joan Ganz applied for a position as the stations publicist, but the general manager told her they needed producers. I can produce, she told him, even though she had no experience in producing television shows and she later stated, Ive never been qualified for any job Ive been hired for
24.
Lloyd Morrisett
–
Lloyd Newton Morrisett Jr is an American experimental psychologist with a career in education, communications, and philanthropy. He is married to Mary Pierre Morrisett and they have two children — Sarah Elizabeth Otley and Julie Margaret Morrisett. Morrisett was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the son of Jessie Watson, the family moved to New York City in 1933 to escape the hardships brought about by the Dust Bowl and the Depression. Morrisett assumed he was headed for a life of academia like his father, “I was brought up to believe that being a professor was the best job in the world, ” he said. Today, he credits his father with inspiring his lifelong interest in education, Morrisett attended Oberlin College and received his BA in philosophy in 1951. Originally, he had wanted to become a chemist, but after taking a course in his junior year. He became an Oberlin College trustee and was Chairman of the Board from 1975 to 1981. He did graduate work in psychology for two years at UCLA, where he met an assistant professor named Irving Maltzman — whom he describes as “very important, very influential in psychology. ”Morrisett became Maltzman’s research assistant, and together, they co-authored six papers and studies. Inspired by Maltzman, whose area was human learning, creativity and human thinking, There, he met and apprenticed with Carl I. Hovland, a leading psychologist who founded the Yale Communications and Attitude Change program, in later years, Morrisett would credit that apprenticeship with sparking his interest in communications. At Yale, Morrisett wrote a dissertation, “The Role of Implicit Practice in Learning. ”The thesis, Morrisett concluded that in the instance of dart throwing, it is not possible. But in the instance of a two-handed coordination task, it is possible, today, the dissertation is cited as an important early contribution to sports psychology. In 1956, Morrisett landed a job in the School of Education at the University of California at Berkeley. But he was having doubts about academic life and it lacked mystery and excitement, he thought, and he was “unimpressed by the seriousness of his students. ”He joined the Social Science Research Council in New York as a staff member from 1958-59. While there, he met Herbert A. Simon and Allen Newell. ”They based their theoretical models on computer simulations of the thought process and these early computer simulations led to Morrisett’s permanent fascination with computer technology. Morrisett first encountered the Carnegie Corporation, a foundation focused on education. He stayed with the Corporation for ten years, one of the main contributions of Carnegie during those years was the creation of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. NAEP is the only representative and continuing assessment of what Americas students know
25.
Jim Henson
–
James Maury Henson was an American puppeteer, artist, cartoonist, inventor, screenwriter, film director and producer who achieved international fame as the creator of the Muppets. Born in Greenville, Mississippi, and raised in Leland, Mississippi, while he was a freshman at the University of Maryland, College Park, he created Sam and Friends, a five-minute sketch-comedy puppet show that appeared on television. After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in economics, he produced coffee advertisements. Feeling the need for more output, Henson founded Muppets Inc. in 1958. Henson became famous in the 1960s when he joined the educational television program Sesame Street. He also appeared on the comedy show Saturday Night Live. In 1976, after scrapping plans for a Broadway show, he produced The Muppet Show and he won fame for his creations, particularly Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, and Ernie, and was involved with Sesame Street for over 20 years. Rowlf the Dog was a cast member on the Jimmy Dean Show in the early 60s, during the later years of his life, he also founded the Jim Henson Foundation and Jim Hensons Creature Shop. His involvement in two television programs—The Storyteller and The Jim Henson Hour—led to Emmy Award wins, in the weeks after his death, he was celebrated in a wave of tributes. He was posthumously inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, and as a Disney Legend in 2011. He was raised as a Christian Scientist and spent his childhood in Leland, Mississippi, before moving with his family to University Park, Maryland, near Washington. In 1954, while attending Northwestern High School, he working for WTOP-TV. After graduating from school, Henson enrolled at the University of Maryland, College Park, as a studio arts major. A puppetry class offered in the arts department introduced him to the craft and textiles courses in the College of Home economics. As a freshman, he had asked to create Sam and Friends. The characters on Sam and Friends were forerunners of Muppets, Henson would remain at WRC for seven years, from 1954 to 1961. A marionettes arms are manipulated by strings, but Henson used rods to move his Muppets arms, when Henson began work on Sam and Friends, he asked fellow University of Maryland sophomore Jane Nebel to assist him. The show was a success, but after graduating from college
26.
Joe Raposo
–
He also wrote music for television shows such as The Electric Company, Shining Time Station and the sitcoms Threes Company and The Ropers, including their theme songs. Raposo was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, the child of Portuguese immigrant parents Joseph Soares Raposo. He was known as Sonny to his family, Joseph Sr. was an accomplished musician, classical guitarist, violinist, flutist, pianist, music teacher and Joes first music teacher. He was a graduate of B. M. C, durfee High School in Fall River. A1958 graduate of Harvard College, he was known for writing the scores for several Hasty Pudding shows there. He was also a graduate of LEcole Normale de Musique in Paris, Raposo worked in musical theater both before and after his work for the Childrens Television Workshop and Sesame Street, musical theater was where he first encountered future collaborator Jim Henson. Upon hearing Raposos musical skill, Schwartz claims in his autobiography he urged Raposo to give up piano bar playing in Boston, Raposos decision to take Schwartzs suggestion and move in 1965 eventually led him to his fated meeting with Henson, to Sesame Street, and toward international fame. Raposo was the supervisor and arranger of the original off-Broadway run of Youre a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Raposo is best known for the songs he wrote for Sesame Street from its beginning in 1969 through the mid-1970s, and also for a time in the 1980s. He wrote the Sesame Street Theme – various versions of which have opened every episode – as well as many of its most popular songs, such as Bein Green, C is for Cookie, Sing and ABC-DEF-GHI. A version of Sing recorded by The Carpenters in 1973 reached #3 on the Billboard top singles chart, for many years, most of the music used in Sesame Streets film segments was also written — and often sung — by Raposo. Aside from his contributions, Raposo performed several uncredited stock characters on Sesame Street during the early 1970s. According to his son Nicholas in a 2002 telephone conversation, Joe Raposo usually chose to portray anonymous, silly characters in these segments and he also did voice-overs for a few animated segments. The Sesame Street character Don Music maintained a framed and autographed glamour photograph of Raposo on the wall of his Muppet atelier, Raposo was very fond of sweets according to many who knew him. One favorite food of his was cookies, Raposo was actually the first puppeteer to operate Cookie Monster on television for Sesame Street. His widow Pat Collins-Sarnoff celebrated his life with a milk and cookies reception, one of Raposos Sesame Street compositions, The Square Song, was used in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In 1971, Childrens Television Workshop created the show The Electric Company, Raposo served as the musical director of the show for its first three seasons, and contributed songs throughout the shows run, until 1977. Raposo performed joke characters for film segments on The Electric Company similar in style to what he had done on Sesame Street, although primarily known for work in live-action and animated childrens television, Joe Raposo actually aspired to become a Broadway musical composer
27.
Kermit Love
–
Kermit Ernest Hollingshead Love was an American puppet maker, puppeteer, costume designer, and actor in childrens television and on Broadway. He was best known as a designer and builder with the Muppets, Love was born in Spring Lake, New Jersey on August 7,1916 to Ernest and Alice Love. He was raised by his grandmother and great-grandmother following after his mothers death when he was three years old, Love began his theatrical career working as a marionette maker for a federal Works Progress Administration theater in Newark, New Jersey in 1935. He was also a designer for Broadway and other stage productions as in the 1930s. Love also appeared on stage in a bit part as a student for the 1937 play Naught Naught 00, Love worked with many of the great figures of mid-century Broadway and American ballet. He was the costumer for the Agnes de Mille ballet Rodeo, for the Kurt Weill musical One Touch of Venus, for George Balanchine he designed, amongst other items, a 28 ft marionette giant for Don Quixote. During the early 1960s, Love first crossed paths with Jim Henson through Don Sahlin, the three first collaborated on The LaChoy Dragon. Loves theatrical background had given him particular skill at handling full body-puppets, from this, Love went on to build Oscar the Grouch and then Big Bird after a drawing was designed by Henson. Love talked about how he designed Big Bird so that he would subtly shed feathers in the course of normal movement and he believed this made Big Bird appear more natural to young viewers. Later, Love designed Mr. Snuffleupagus and helped create Cookie Monster and he accompanied the Big Bird costume when it traveled overseas for appearances. Despite the coincidence of names, Kermit Love first met Jim Henson after the 1955 creation, though he also worked on The Muppet Show and The Muppet Movie, Sesame Street was Loves domain, along with Caroly Wilcox, as one of the key supervisors. He also portrayed Willy, the hot dog vendor, on Sesame Street and he even puppeteered on the special Julie on Sesame Street. For the feature film Follow That Bird, he served as special Muppet consultant, Love was also involved in designing many of the Sesame Street puppets for the early international productions. For the special The Great Santa Claus Switch, Love contributed to the giant Thig, in his memoir The Wit and Wisdom of Big Bird, Caroll Spinney speaks affectionately of Love and his importance to the show, though noting an occasional cantankerous side. In addition to his work on Sesame Street, Love remained busy as freelancer, One of his specials was watched by a young Kevin Clash, whose parents got hold of Kermit and told him about their son. Kermit worked as a mentor to Kevin and introduced him to Jim Henson, helped Kevin get jobs on childrens shows The Great Space Coaster, after both shows were cancelled, Kevin moved on to Sesame Street. Other works included building the Snuggle Bear puppet for the popular Snuggle fabric softener commercials, Love also appeared as Santa Claus on the cover of New York magazine in December 1982,1984 and 1985. In 1993, he directed the Whirligig pilot for PBS at The Studios at Los Colinas, Irving, in 2001, Love designed Aza, the bird-like mascot for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums
28.
History of Sesame Street
–
The preschool educational television program Sesame Street was first aired on public broadcasting television stations November 10,1969, and will reach its 47th season in 2017. The history of Sesame Street has reflected changing attitudes to developmental psychology, early childhood education, initial responses to the show included adulatory reviews, some controversy and high ratings. By its 40th anniversary in 2009, Sesame Street was broadcast in over 120 countries, the show was conceived in 1966 during discussions between television producer Joan Ganz Cooney and Carnegie Corporation vice president Lloyd Morrisett. Their goal was to create a television show that would master the addictive qualities of television and do something good with them. By the shows tenth anniversary in 1979, nine million American children under the age of six were watching Sesame Street daily, the cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. In 1981, the government withdrew its funding, so the CTW turned to other sources, such as its magazine division, book royalties, product licensing. During the 1980s, Sesame Streets curriculum expanded to include such as relationships, ethics. Many of the storylines were taken from the experiences of its writing staff, cast and crew, most notably the death of Will Lee—who played Mr. Hooper—and the marriage of Luis. After the turn of the 21st century, the show made major structural adaptations, because of the popularity of the Muppet Elmo, the show incorporated a popular segment known as Elmos World. Sesame Street has won eight Grammys and over a hundred Emmys in its history—more than any other childrens show, producer Joan Ganz Cooney called childrens programming a wasteland, and she was not alone in her criticism. According to childrens media experts Edward Palmer and Shalom M. Fisch, for example, they tended to show simple shots of a cameras-eye view of a location filled with children, or they recreated storybooks with shots of book covers and motionless illustrated pages. Early childhood educational research had shown that children were prepared to succeed in school, they earned higher grades. Children from low-income families had fewer resources than children from families to prepare them for school. The field of psychology had grown during this period. Because of these trends in education, along with the societal changes occurring in the United States during this era. Since 1962, Cooney had been producing talk shows and documentaries at educational television station WNDT, Cooneys boss, Lewis Freedman, whom Cooney called the grandfather of Sesame Street, also attended the party, as did their colleague Anne Bower. As a vice-president at the Carnegie Corporation, Morrisett had awarded several million dollars in grants to organizations that educated poor, Morrisett and the other guests felt that even with limited resources, television could be an effective way to reach millions of children. She researched their ideas about the habits of young children
29.
Sesame Street research
–
In 1969, the childrens television show Sesame Street premiered on the National Educational Television network in the United States. Unlike earlier childrens programming, the producers used research and over 1,000 studies and experiments to create the show. CTW researchers invented tools to measure young viewers attention to the program, based on these findings, the researchers compiled a body of data and the producers changed the show accordingly. The formative research on Sesame Street was the first time childrens television viewing was studied scientifically, as CTW researcher Gerald S. Lesser stated in 1974, early tests conducted on the show suggested that Sesame Street was making strides towards teaching what it had set out to teach. According to author Louise A. Gikow, Sesame Streets use of research to create individual episodes, co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney called the idea of combining research with television production positively heretical because it had never been done before. Scriptwriters of these shows had no training in education or child development, seminar participants were television producers and child development experts. Some Muppet characters were created during the seminars to fill specific curriculum needs, Lesser reported that Jim Henson had a particular gift for creating scenes that might teach. The shows research staff and producers conducted regularly-scheduled internal reviews and seminars to ensure that their goals were being met. As of 2001, ten seminars had been conducted specifically to address the needs of preschool children. Curriculum seminars prior to Sesame Streets 33rd season in 2002 resulted in a change from the shows format to a more narrative format. There have been over 1,000 studies as of 2001 which examine the impact on childrens learning. Most of these studies were conducted by the CTW and remain unpublished, the most important studies that found negative effects of Sesame Street were conducted by educator Herbert A. Sprigle and psychologist Thomas D. Cook during its first two seasons. Both studies found that the show increased the gap between poor and middle-class children. Morrow reported that studies had little impact on the public discussion about Sesame Street. Another criticism was made by journalist Kay Hymowitz in 1995, who reported that most of the research conducted on the show has been done by the CTW. She charged that the studies conducted by the CTW hint at advocacy masquerading as social science, shortly after beginning Sesame Street, its creators developed the CTW model, a system of planning, production, and evaluation which only emerged after the shows first season. According to Cooney, Without research, there would be no Sesame Street, Cooney credited Palmer and his colleague at Harvard, Gerald S. Lesser, whom CTW hired to write the programs educational objectives, for bridging the gap between producers and researchers. She described the collaboration as an arranged marriage, the shows staff worked to create a non-adversarial relationship between producers and researchers, each side contributed, as Fisch stated, its own unique perspective and expertise
30.
Sesame Street international co-productions
–
Sesame Street international co-productions are educational childrens television series based on the American Sesame Street but tailored to the countries in which they are produced. Creator Joan Ganz Cooney hired former CBS executive Michael Dann to field offers to produce versions of the show in other countries. The producers of these shows developed them using a variant on the CTW model, the model consisted of the combination of producers and researchers working together on the show, the development of a unique curriculum, and extensive test screening of the shows. The shows came to be called co-productions, and they contained original sets, characters, different co-productions were produced, depending upon each countrys needs and resources. They included both dubbed versions of the American show and versions created, developed, and produced in country that reflected their needs, educational priorities. By 2006, there were 20 co-productions in countries all over the world, in 2001, there were more than 120 million viewers of all international versions of Sesame Street, and by the US shows 40th anniversary in 2009, they were seen in more than 140 countries. Even before the American shows debut, the CTW established an international division, many years later, co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney recalled, To be frank, I was really surprised, because we thought we were creating the quintessential American show. We thought the Muppets were quintessentially American, and it turns out theyre the most international characters ever created. Mike Dann, a former CBS executive whom Cooney had hired as a CTW vice-president, danns appointment led to television critic Marvin Kitman stating, After he sells in Russia and Czechoslovakia, he might try Mississippi, where it is considered too controversial for educational TV. By summer 1970, Dann had made the first international agreements for what the CTW later called co-productions,38 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television stations broadcast Sesame Street to Canadas English-speaking provinces. During his tenure at CTW, Dann also made agreements with several Caribbean nations, Mexico, Australia, Japan, the Philippines, France, Israel and he later told author Michael Davis, I was aggressive and I knew people around the world. The American version was broadcast throughout the UK on a limited basis starting in 1971, as of 2006, there were 20 active co-productions. In 2005, Doreen Carvajal of The New York Times reported that income from the co-productions accounted for US$96 million, Cole stated, Childrens Television Workshop can be regarded as the single largest informal educator of young children in the world. Studies conducted on the effects of several co-productions found that viewers of these shows gain basic skills, especially literacy and numeracy. As of 2009 it aired in countries, including Japan, Korea. In 2003, in response to the epidemic of AIDS in South Africa and they created the first HIV-positive Muppet, Kami, to confront the stigma of HIV and AIDS in South Africa. According to the documentary The World According to Sesame Street, the reaction of many in the US surprised Sesame Workshop, some members of Congress attacked Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop, and PBS. According to co-producer Naila Farouky, The reaction we got in the US blew me away, I didnt expect people to be so horrible
