1.
Dennis Miller
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Dennis Miller is an American stand-up comedian, talk show host, political commentator, sports commentator, actor, and television and radio personality. He rose to fame as a cast member of Saturday Night Live in 1985, from 2007 to 2015, Miller hosted a daily, three-hour, self-titled talk radio program, nationally syndicated by Westwood One. He is known for his critical assessments of current events, laced with pop culture references, Miller is listed as 21st on Comedy Centrals 100 greatest stand up comedians of all time, and was ranked as the best host of SNLs Weekend Update by Vulture. com. Miller was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the suburb of Castle Shannon, Millers parents separated and he was raised by his mother, Norma, a dietitian at a Baptist home. Miller is reticent to speak about his father, usually just saying he moved on when I was very young and he is the oldest of Normas five children, and in his early life often looked after the rest of his siblings. Miller attended Saint Anne School, a Catholic elementary school, Millers personality during this period was not that of an innate performer but of a shy kid. Millers childhood pastimes included playing football, backyard baseball, playing basketball at St. Annes. At St. Annes Miller, served as manager for the Catholic Youth Organization basketball team for boys 15 to 16 years-old, Miller went on to Keystone Oaks High School. His two earliest childhood comedy heroes were Jonathan Winters and Tim Conway, by high school he had already developed a reputation for humor. Miller and his brother Rich had an invitation to the home of his best friend Ted Wasik. The Wasik parents, Pauline and Ted Herc Wasik Sr, at Keystone Oaks, Miller was a member of the Physical Fitness Club, and in his senior year he worked on the Keynote newspaper and served on student council. His senior year he served as co-master of ceremonies for the Keystone Oaks May Pageant. Despite a reputation for humor Millers actual personality at this time was one that was reserved, lacking self-confidence and he graduated high school in 1971 with the intent of studying to become a Sports Writer. At Point Park University Miller became a member of Sigma Tau Gamma Fraternity, Miller likened his social status at this period as being lower than Booger of Revenge of the Nerds. Inspired by the film All the President’s Men Miller majored in Journalism, in the fall of his senior year at University, Miller began writing for the South Hills Record, mixing humor into his sports reporting. When the paper changed its payment structure to pay around an eighth of a penny per column inch Miller quit, Miller graduated from Point Park in 1976 with a degree in journalism. Miller would later reflect on why he did not continue to pursue Journalism saying Im just not that interested in peoples business. After College Miller was unable to work in journalism
2.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
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Everybody Wants to Rule the World is a song by English band Tears for Fears. Originally released in the UK on 22 March 1985 it was the ninth single release in the United Kingdom. It was their seventh UK Top 30 chart hit, peaking at two in April 1985. In the US, it was the single from the album and gave the band their first Billboard Hot 100 number-one hit on 8 June 1985. It also reached number one on both the Hot Dance Club Play and Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales charts in the US, the song has since become the pinnacle of Tears for Fears chart success. In 1986, the song won Best Single at the Brit Awards, Everybody Wants to Rule the World was somewhat of an afterthought during the recording of Songs from the Big Chair. According to Roland Orzabal, he regarded the song as a lightweight that would not fit with the rest of the album. Originally, the lyrics of the song were everybody wants to go to war and it was producer Chris Hughes who convinced him to try recording it, in a calculated effort to gain American chart success. It was written and recorded in two weeks and was the track to be added to the Songs from the Big Chair album. The shuffle beat was alien to our way of doing things. It was jolly rather than square and rigid in the manner of Shout, the concept is quite serious – its about everybody wanting power, about warfare and the misery it causes. Everybody Wants to Rule the World is a new song set in the key of D major with a 128 time signature. As was the case with the three hit singles from Tears for Fears debut LP The Hurting, the featured bassist Curt Smith on lead vocals. In 1986, the song won Best Single at the Brit Awards, in 2015,30 years after its release, the song was honoured at the annual BMI Awards in London for achieving 6 million radio airplays. Pharaohs is the B-side to the Everybody Wants to Rule the World single, the title of the song is a play on the name of the Faroe Islands, one of the places referenced in the forecast. This is one of the few songs in the Tears for Fears catalogue on which founding member Curt Smith shares a writing credit. The song has since been included in the bands 1996 B-sides and rarities collection Saturnine Martial & Lunatic, as well as the remastered, pharaohs is also included on the Groove Armada compilation album Back to Mine. No matter how horrifying the conditions may really be, the reading the shipping forecast is deliberately calm
3.
Tears for Fears
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Tears for Fears are an English pop/rock band formed in Bath, Avon in 1981 by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. They were part of the MTV-driven Second British Invasion of the US and their second album contained two Billboard Hot 100 number ones, Shout and Everybody Wants to Rule the World, the latter winning the Brit Award for Best British Single in 1986. The duo re-formed in 2000 and released an album of new material, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, since 2013, the duo have been working on their seventh album. Tears for Fears have sold over 30 million albums worldwide, Orzabal and Smith met as teenagers in Bath, Somerset, England. The duo became session musicians for the band Neon, where they first met future Tears For Fears drummer Manny Elias, Neon also featured Pete Byrne and Rob Fisher who went on to become Naked Eyes. Smith and Orzabals professional debut came with the band Graduate, a mod revival/new wave act, in 1980, Graduate released an album, Acting My Age, and a single Elvis Should Play Ska. The single just missed the top 100 in the UK, though it performed well in Spain and in Switzerland, by 1981, Orzabal and Smith had become more influenced by artists such as Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno. They departed from Graduate and formed a band called History of Headaches, the bands name was inspired by primal therapy, developed by the American psychologist Arthur Janov, which gained tremendous publicity after John Lennon became Janovs patient in 1970. Many songs on their first two albums were related to Primal therapy, including the song Ideas as Opiates which was a chapter in Janovs book, Prisoners of Pain. As Tears for Fears, Orzabal and Smith intended to form the nucleus of the group, around this time they met local musician Ian Stanley who offered them free use of his home 8-track studio. Stanley began working with the duo as their player and. Their first single, Suffer the Children, was released on that label in November 1981, followed by the first edition of Pale Shelter in March 1982, though neither of these releases were successful. The band achieved their first taste of success with their single, Mad World. Their first album, The Hurting, was released in March 1983, the album, produced by Chris Hughes and Ross Cullum, showcased guitar and synthesiser-based songs with lyrics reflecting Orzabals bitter childhood. The Hurting may be considered Tears for Fears only true concept album, as references to emotional distress, the album itself was a big success and had a lengthy chart run in the UK, where it reached no.1 and platinum status. It also reached the top 20 in several countries and yielded the international hit singles Mad World, Change. All three of these reached the Top 5 in the UK. Towards the end of 1983, the released a new, slightly more experimental single, The Way You Are
4.
HBO
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Home Box Office is an American premium cable and satellite television network that is owned by Time Warner through its respective flagship company Home Box Office, Inc. HBO is the oldest and longest continuously operating pay television service in the United States, in 2014, HBO had an adjusted operating income of US$1.79 billion, compared to the US$1.68 billion it accrued in 2013. HBO has 49 million subscribers in the United States and 130 million worldwide as of 2016, the network provides seven 24-hour multiplex channels, including HBO Comedy, HBO Latino, HBO Signature and HBO Family. It launched the streaming service HBO Now in April 2015, and has over 2 million subscribers in the United States as of February 2017. In addition to its U. S. subscriber base, HBO distributes content in at least 151 countries, HBO subscribers generally pay for an extra tier of service that includes other cable- and satellite-exclusive channels even before paying for the channel itself. Cable providers can require the use of a converter box – usually digital – in order to receive HBO, many HBO programs have been syndicated to other networks and broadcast television stations, and a number of HBO-produced series and films have been released on DVD. The new system, which Dolan named Sterling Information Services, became the first urban underground cable system in the United States. In that same year, Time-Life, Inc. purchased a 20% stake in Dolans company, in the summer of 1971, while on a family vacation in France, Charles Dolan began to think of ideas to make Sterling Manhattan profitable. He came up with the concept for a television service. Dolan later presented his idea to Time-Life management, though satellite distribution seemed only a distant possibility at the time, he persuaded Time-Life to back him on the project. To gauge whether consumers would be interested in subscribing to a pay television service, in a meeting of Dolan and some Time-Life executives who were working on the project, various other names were discussed for the new service. Home Box Office launched on November 8,1972, however, HBOs launch came without fanfare in the press, as it was not covered by any local or national media outlets. Home Box Office distributed its first sports event immediately after the film, Four months later in February 1973, Home Box Office aired its first television special, the Pennsylvania Polka Festival. Home Box Office would use a network of relay towers to distribute its programming to cable systems throughout its service area. Sterling Manhattan Cable continued to lose money because the company had only a small base of 20,000 customers in Manhattan. Time-Life dropped the Sterling name and the company was renamed Manhattan Cable Television under Time-Lifes control in March 1973, Gerald Levin, who had been with Home Box Office since it began operations as its vice president of programming, replaced Dolan as the companys president and chief executive officer. In September 1973, Time-Life, Inc. completed its acquisition of the pay service. HBO would eventually increase its fortunes within two years, by April 1975, the service had around 100,000 subscribers in Pennsylvania and New York state, in 1974, they settled on using a geostationary communications satellite to transmit HBO to cable providers throughout the United States
5.
Emmy Award
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An Emmy Award, or simply Emmy, recognizes excellence in the television industry, and corresponds to the Academy Award, the Tony Award, and the Grammy Award. Because Emmy Awards are given in various sectors of the American television industry, Regional Emmy Awards are also presented throughout the country at various times through the year, recognizing excellence in local and statewide television. In addition, International Emmys are awarded for excellence in TV programming produced, each is responsible for administering a particular set of Emmy ceremonies. The Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences established the Emmy Award as part of an image-building and public relations opportunity. The first Emmy Awards ceremony took place on January 25,1949, at the Hollywood Athletic Club, shirley Dinsdale has the distinction of receiving the very first Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality, during that first awards ceremony. In the 1950s, the ATAS expanded the Emmys into a national event, in 1955, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was formed in New York City as a sister organization to serve members on the East Coast, and help to also supervise the Emmys. The NATAS also established regional chapters throughout the United States, with each one developing their own local Emmy awards show for local programming, the ATAS still however maintained its separate regional ceremony honoring local programming in the Los Angeles Area. Originally there was only one Emmy Awards ceremony held per year to honor shows nationally broadcast in the United States, in 1974, the first Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony was held to specifically honor achievement in national daytime programming. Other area-specific Emmy Awards ceremonies soon followed, also, the International Emmy Awards, honoring television programs produced and initially aired outside the U. S. was established in the early 1970s. Meanwhile, all Emmys awarded prior to the emergence of these separate, in 1977, due to various conflicts, the ATAS and the NATAS agreed to split ties. However, they agreed to share ownership of the Emmy statue and trademark. With the rise of television in the 1980s, cable programs first became eligible for the Primetime Emmys in 1988. The ATAS also began accepting original online-only web television programs in 2013, the Emmy statuette, depicting a winged woman holding an atom, was designed by television engineer Louis McManus, who used his wife as the model. The TV Academy rejected a total of forty-seven proposals before settling on McManus design in 1948. The statuette has become the symbol of the TV Academys goal of supporting and uplifting the art and science of television, The wings represent the muse of art. When deciding a name for the award, Academy founder Syd Cassyd originally suggested Ike, however, Ike was also the popular nickname of World War II hero and future U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the Academy members wanted something unique. Finally, television engineer and the third president, Harry Lubcke, suggested the name Immy. After Immy was chosen, it was feminized to Emmy to match their female statuette
6.
Michael J. Fuchs
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Michael J. Fuchs is an American executive producer for premium cable television network HBO. Fuchs is the son of Charles Fuchs a Real Estate Executive and he was educated at Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he obtained a BA in political science in 1967, and a law degree at New York University in law in 1971. After gaining experience in entertainment law, Fuchs joined HBO and became active in sports TV production, Fuchs held various senior positions by the early 1980s and was chief executive officer and chairman of the board in 1984. Then in May 1995 he became president of Time Warner and then chairman. Fuchs is also Chairman of the Bryant Park Corporation and is credited for being the inventor of the HBO Bryant Park Summer Movie Festival, one of New Yorks most popular free Summer events
7.
Rich Dahm
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Richard Dahm is an American comedy writer from Wisconsin. Currently a Co-Executive Producer on the sitcom The Middle, he was formerly Co-Executive Producer and he also wrote for Dennis Miller Live and Da Ali G Show. Dahm attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the late 1980s, where his career began as a writer for the then-new The Onion. He is the author of The Cultural Idiocy Quiz and co-author of several humor books. A six-time Emmy Award winner, Dahm currently resides in Los Angeles, with his wife, the Cultural Idiocy Quiz, Adams Media Corp,1997. ISBN 1-55850-796-5 Fanfare for the Area Man, The Onion Ad Nauseam Complete News Archives, Vol.15, ISBN 1-4000-5455-9 Rich Dahm at the Internet Movie Database
