1.
Dr. Seuss
–
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, cartoonist, animator, book publisher, and artist best known for authoring childrens books under the pen name Dr. Seuss. His work includes several of the most popular books of all time, selling over 600 million copies. Geisel adopted his Dr. Seuss pen name during his university studies at Dartmouth College and he left Oxford in 1927 to begin his career as an illustrator and cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Life, and various other publications. He also worked as an illustrator for advertising campaigns, most notably for Flit and Standard Oil and he published his first childrens book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street in 1937. After the war, Geisel focused on books, writing classics such as If I Ran the Zoo. If I Ran the Circus, The Cat in the Hat and he published over 60 books during his career, which have spawned numerous adaptations, including 11 television specials, four feature films, a Broadway musical, and four television series. He won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958 for Horton Hatches the Egg, Geisels birthday, March 2, has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day, an initiative on reading created by the National Education Association. Geisel was born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, the son of Henrietta, all four of his grandparents were German immigrants. His father managed the brewery and was later appointed to supervise Springfields public park system by Mayor John A. Denison after the brewery closed because of Prohibition. Mulberry Street in Springfield, made famous in Dr. Seuss first childrens book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, is less than a mile southwest of his home on Fairfield Street. He enrolled at Springfield Central High School in 1917 and graduated in 1921 and he took an art class as a freshman and later became manager of the school soccer team. Geisel attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1925, at Dartmouth, he joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and the humor magazine Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, eventually rising to the rank of editor-in-chief. While at Dartmouth, he was caught drinking gin with nine friends in his room, at the time, the possession and consumption of alcohol was illegal under Prohibition laws, which remained in place between 1920 and 1933. As a result of this infraction, Dean Craven Laycock insisted that Geisel resign from all extracurricular activities, to continue work on the Jack-O-Lantern without the administrations knowledge, Geisel began signing his work with the pen name Seuss. He was encouraged in his writing by professor of rhetoric W. Benfield Pressey, upon graduating from Dartmouth, he entered Lincoln College, Oxford intending to earn a PhD in English literature. At Oxford, he met Helen Palmer, who encouraged him to give up becoming an English teacher in favor of pursuing drawing as a career. Making use of his time in Europe, he pitched a series of cartoons called Eminent Europeans to Life magazine and his first nationally published cartoon appeared in the July 16,1927 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. This single $25 sale encouraged Geisel to move from Springfield to New York City, later that year, Geisel accepted a job as writer and illustrator at the humor magazine Judge, and he felt financially stable enough to marry Helen
2.
Warner Bros. Animation
–
Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, the studio is the successor to Warner Bros. Cartoons, the studio which produced Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon shorts from 1933 to 1963, Warner reestablished its own animation division in 1980 to produce Looney Tunes–related works. Animation has primarily focused upon the production of television and feature animation of other properties, cartoons studio, as well as all of Warner Bros. short subject production divisions, closed in 1969 due to the rising costs and declining returns of short subject production. Outside animation companies were hired to produce new Looney Tunes-related animation for TV specials and commercials at irregular intervals, Cartoon alumnus Chuck Jones began producing a series of Looney Tunes specials at his Chuck Jones Productions animation studio, the first of which was Carnival of the Animals. These specials, and a 1975 Looney Tunes retrospective feature film titled Bugs Bunny, Superstar and this film blended classic Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts with newly produced wraparounds of Bugs Bunny introducing each cartoon. Warner Bros. responded to the success of film by reestablishing its own cartoon studio. Animation opened its doors in 1980 to produce films and television specials starring the Looney Tunes characters. The new wraparounds for The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, Bugs Bunnys 3rd Movie,1001 Rabbit Tales, Animation staff, composed mainly of veterans from the golden age of WB cartoons, including writers John Dunn and Dave Detiege. By 1986, Freleng had departed, and Hal Geer also stepped down the following year, many of these shorts, as well as the new footage in the compilation film Daffy Ducks Quackbusters, were directed by Greg Ford and Terry Lennon, as well as Darrell Van Citters. Beginning in 1986, Warner Bros. moved into television animation production. A studio for the unit was set up in the office tower of the Imperial Bank Building adjacent to the Sherman Oaks Galleria northwest of Los Angeles. Darrell Van Citters, who used to work at Disney, would work on the newer Bugs Bunny shorts, later Amblin/Warner Bros. television shows, including Animaniacs, its spin-off Pinky and the Brain, and Freakazoid. Followed in continuing the Looney Tunes tradition of cartoon humor, Animation also began developing shows based upon comic book characters owned by sister company DC Comics. These shows were part of the DC animated universe, a Batman spin-off feature, Mask of the Phantasm, was produced in 1993 and bumped up to theatrical release. The film was near universally-well received by critics but performed poorly at the box-office, in 1991, Warner Bros. distributed its first animated film, Rover Dangerfield. Its title character is a dog whose look and mannerisms are inspired by his voice actor Rodney Dangerfield, the film received mixed reviews and under-performed at the box office due to lack of promotion. Three years later, Warner distributed Don Bluths Thumbelina, which received mixed reviews from critics
3.
Warner Bros. Television
–
Television is the television production arm of Warner Bros. Entertainment, itself part of Time Warner, as of 2015, it is the worlds largest television production company measured by revenue and library. Its most notable TV shows include Friends, ER, The West Wing, Smallville, Supernatural, The Big Bang Theory, The Wire and Full House. The division was started on March 21,1955 with its first and most successful head being Jack L. Warners son-in-law William T. Orr. ABC had major success against its competition with Walt Disneys Disneyland TV series, WB formally entered television production with the premiere of its self-titled anthology series Warner Bros. The one-hour weekly show featured rotating episodes of series based on the WB films, Casablanca and Kings Row. One such segment for Rebel Without a Cause featured Gig Young notably talking about road safety with James Dean, with only Cheyenne being a success, Warner Bros. ended the ten-minute promotions of new films and replaced Warner Bros. Presents with a series titled Conflict. It was felt that Conflict was what the series lacked. Conflict showed the pilots for Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip, the company also produced Jack Webbs Red Nightmare for the U. S. Department of Defense that was later shown on American television on Jack Webbs General Electric True. During a Hollywood television writers strike, Warner Bros. reused many plots from its films and this was another example of imitating Warner Bros B Pictures who would remake an A film and switch the setting. Two of the most popular stars, James Garner and Clint Walker, Garner never returned to the Warners fold during this period. Successful Warners television stars found themselves in leading roles of many of the films with no increase in salary. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. was simultaneously the lead of 77 Sunset Strip, in a role on Maverick. Edd Byrnes and Troy Donahue would go on to become teen heartthrobs, Warners also contracted established stars such as Ray Danton, Peter Breck, Jeanne Cooper and Grant Williams. These stars often appeared as guest stars, sometimes reprising their series role in another TV series, the stars appeared in Warner Bros. Some stars such as Connie Stevens, Edd Byrnes, Robert Conrad, depending on the particular show, William Lava or David Buttolph would compose the music, with lyrics by Stan Jones or Paul Francis Webster, among others. For the crime shows, it was up to the team of Jerry Livingston and Mack David, who also scored the themes for the sitcom Room for One More
4.
Netflix
–
Netflix is an American entertainment company founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph on August 29,1997, in Scotts Valley, California. It specializes in and provides streaming media and video-on-demand online and DVD by mail, in 2013, Netflix expanded into film and television production, as well as online distribution. As of 2017 the company has its headquarters in Los Gatos, Netflixs initial business model included DVD sales and rental, although Hastings jettisoned DVD sales about a year after Netflixs founding to focus on the DVD rental by mail business. In 2007, Netflix expanded its business with the introduction of streaming media, while retaining the DVD, Netflix entered the content-production industry in 2013, debuting its first series, House of Cards. It has greatly expanded the production of film and television series since then, offering Netflix Original content through its online library of films. Netflix released an estimated 126 original series or films in 2016, in January 2017, Netflix reported having over 93 million subscribers worldwide, including more than 49 million in the United States. Netflix was founded on August 29,1997, in Scotts Valley, California, by Marc Randolph, Randolph worked as marketing director for Hastings company, Pure Atria Corporation. Randolph was a co-founder of MicroWarehouse, a mail order company. Hastings, a computer scientist and mathematician, sold Pure Atria to Rational Software Corporation in 1997 for $700 million in what was then the richest acquisition in Silicon Valley history. Hastings, Randolphs mother and Integrity QA founder Steve Kahn invested $2.5 million in cash for Netflix. Randolph admired the fledgling e-commerce company Amazon and wanted to find a category of portable items to sell over the internet using a similar model. He and Hastings considered and rejected VHS tapes as too expensive to stock and too delicate to ship. When they heard about DVDs, which were available in only a few markets in 1997, when the disc arrived intact, they decided to take on the $16 billion home video sales and rental industry. Netflix introduced the monthly subscription concept in September 1999, and then dropped the model in early 2000. Since that time, the company has built its reputation on the model of flat-fee unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees, shipping and handling fees. In 2000, Netflix offered to be acquired by Blockbuster for $50 million, Netflix initiated an initial public offering on May 29,2002, selling 5.5 million shares of common stock at the price of US$15.00 per share. On June 14,2002, the company sold an additional 825,000 shares of stock at the same price. After incurring substantial losses during its first few years, Netflix posted its first profit during fiscal year 2003, in 2005,35,000 different films were available, and Netflix shipped 1 million DVDs out every day
