1.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (song)
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Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a song written by Johnny Marks based on the 1939 story Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer published by the Montgomery Ward Company. Gene Autrys recording hit No.1 on the U. S. charts the week of Christmas 1949. In 1939 Marks brother-in-law, Robert L. May, created the character Rudolph as an assignment for Montgomery Ward, Marks was a radio producer who also wrote several other popular Christmas songs. The song was first sung by crooner Harry Brannon on New York City radio in early November 1949, Autrys version of the song also holds the distinction of being the only chart-topping hit to fall completely off the chart after reaching No.1. The official date of its No.1 status was for the week ending January 7,1950, the song was also performed on the December 6,1949, Fibber McGee and Molly radio broadcast by Teeny and The Kingsmen vocal group. The lyrics varied greatly from the Autry version, Autrys recording sold 1.75 million copies its first Christmas season, eventually selling a total of 12.5 million. Cover versions included, sales exceed 150 million copies, second only to Bing Crosbys White Christmas, current owner of copyrights is Kobalt Music Group 1950, The song was recorded by Bing Crosby on June 22,1950 with John Scott Trotter and his Orchestra. His version reached No.6 on Billboard magazines Best Selling Childrens Records chart and No.14 on Billboards pop singles chart that year. 1950, Spike Jones and his City Slickers released a version of the song peaked at No.7 on Billboard magazines pop singles chart. 1951, Red Foley and The Little Foleys released a version of the song peaked at No.8 on Billboard magazines Best Selling Childrens Records chart. 1957, The Cadillacs released a version of the song that peaked at No.11 on Billboard magazines Rhythm & Blues Records chart. 1959, Dean Martin recorded the song for his album, A Winter Romance,1959, Perry Como included the song in his album Seasons Greetings from Perry Como. 1960, Alvin and the Chipmunks recorded a cover for their album Around the World with The Chipmunks. They would record the song again for their 1961 album Christmas with The Chipmunks,1960, The Melodeers released a doo-wop version of the song that peaked at No.72 on Billboard magazines Hot 100 singles chart. 1960, Ella Fitzgerald included the song in her album Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas,1963, Johnny Mathis included the song in his album Sounds of Christmas. 1964, Burl Ives recorded the song for the soundtrack of the holiday TV special, the soundtrack album containing Ives version reached No.142 on the Billboard 200 albums sales chart. He would re-record the song the year for his holiday album Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. 1968, The Temptations released a version of the song peaked at No.12 on Billboard magazines special, year-end
2.
Voice acting
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Voice acting is the art of doing voice-overs or providing voices to represent a character or to provide information to an audience or user. Voice acting is also done for small handheld audio games, performers are called voice actors or actresses, voice artists, or voice talent. Their roles may also involve singing, although a voice actor is sometimes cast as the characters singing voice. Voice acting is recognised in Britain as a specialized dramatic profession, Voice artists are also used to record the individual sample fragments played back by a computer in an automated announcement. The voices for animated characters are provided by voice actors, for live action productions, voice acting often involves reading the parts of computer programs, radio dispatchers, or other characters who never actually appear on screen. With a radio drama or CD drama, there is freedom in voice acting, because there is no need to match a dub to the original actors. In the context of voice acting, narration is the use of commentary to convey a story to an audience. A narrator is a character or a non-personal voice that the creator of the story develops to deliver information to the audience. The voice actor who plays the narrator is responsible for performing the lines assigned to the narrator. In traditional literary narratives, narration is a story element, in other types of narratives, such as plays, television shows, video games. One of the most common uses for voice acting is within commercial advertising, the voice actor is hired to voice a message associated with the advertisement. This has different subgenres, television, radio, cinema, the subgenres are all different styles in their own right. Voiceover used in commercial adverts also is the area of voice acting where de-breathing is used. De-breathing means artificially removing breaths from the recorded voice and this is done to stop the audience being distracted in any way from the commercial message that is being put across. Dub localization is a type of voice-over and it is the practice of voice-over translation altering a foreign language film, art film or television series by voice actors. Voice-over translation is an audiovisual translation technique, in which, unlike in Dub localization, actor voices are recorded over the audio track. This method of translation is most often used in documentaries and news reports to translate words of foreign-language interviewees, automated dialogue replacement is the process of re-recording dialogue by the original actor after the filming process to improve audio quality or reflect dialogue changes. ADR is also used to change original lines recorded on set to clarify context, improve diction or timing, in the UK, it is also called post-synchronization or post-sync
3.
Billie Mae Richards
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Billie Mae Richards was a Canadian voice actress, who also appeared onstage and on television. Born as Billy Mae Dinsmore in Toronto, she was best known for voicing Rankin/Bass version of the character Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from 1964 to 1979. She also voiced Tenderheart Bear in the first two Care Bears movies, as well as the DIC-produced television series, and Brightheart Raccoon in the Nelvana-produced Care Bears television series, about that same time, she appeared in the original Spider-Man television series. She also voiced all the characters in The Undersea Adventures of Captain Nemo and The Toothbrush Family with Len Carlson. She made guest appearances on the television shows Maniac Mansion, My Secret Identity, War of the Worlds and The Hidden Room. She also had a bit part in the 1998 horror film Bram Stokers Shadow Builder, in which her character was attacked with an axe by Paul Soles, and she was at one time married to musician Bill Richards in 1940, they remained married until his death in 1995. Their daughter, Judi Richards, is a singer-songwriter and she died on September 10,2010 following a stroke. Billie Mae Richards at Find a Grave Profile, baltimoresun. com, accessed March 6,2015
4.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie
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Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Movie is a 1998 animated musical film about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, who first appeared in a 1939 story by Robert L. May. The film was the first theatrical feature from GoodTimes Entertainment, long known as a video company. It stars John Goodman, Eric Idle, Whoopi Goldberg, Debbie Reynolds, Richard Simmons, the film disappointed at the box-office, recouping only $113,000 of its $10 million budget. Claus witness the whole thing, to celebrate a special occasion. It is revealed that a baby reindeer which his parents, Blitzen and his wife, Mitzi name Rudolph is born with an unusual red, Blitzen starts to worry that Rudolph will be made fun of because of this, while Mitzi is more optimistic. Later in the morning, they meet up with Rudolphs three uncles- Dasher, Comet, and Cupid -and introduce Rudolph to them, Cupid tickles Rudolphs chin and tummy until his nose starts glowing, which draws attention. Blitzens worst fears are confirmed with the secret of their sons nose now revealed to Comet, Cupid, Dasher, and the rest of the residents of the North Pole. Meanwhile, two of Santas elves Doggle and Boone cross the bridge of the wicked Ice Queen, Stormella, to mail and accidentally crash into. Prancer and Zoey, a young doe whom Rudolph has a crush on. But as she leaves, she smiles over at Rudolph, making him realize that she likes him, years later, Rudolph is now a teenager and is about to take part in the Junior Reindeer Games. Zoey gives her pendant to Rudolph to bring him good fortune, much to the chagrin of Arrow, Rudolph wins the race, but is disqualified by the referee because his glowing nose is considered cheating and makes Arrow winner by default. Rudolphs disqualification infuriates both Blitzen and Zoey, who confronts Arrow for cheating and ends their relationship, Rudolph overhears his father arguing with the referee that his sons nose was an accident, attempting to persuade him that Rudolph couldnt have controlled his noses glow and avoided blinding Arrow. But Rudolph misinterprets it to believe that his father is ashamed of him, at night, unknowingly with the help and guidance of the Sprites of the Northern Lights, Rudolph finds an empty cave where he decides to sleep in. However, his rest is interrupted when an Arctic fox named Slyly comes in and tries to fight Rudolph for possession of the cave but after a few misunderstandings, Rudolph, later at night, Blitzen and Mitzi find a farewell note from Rudolph in their home. Zoey comes by to see Rudolph but his parents tell her the shocking news, upon learning about Rudolph and Zoeys disappearances from their parents, Santa assigns and sends Boone and Doggle to search for them. Meanwhile, Rudolph and Slyly abandon their cave when an avalanche occurs and seals off the entrance, so, they decide to look for another cave. At night, Rudolph and Slyly come across a cave which is inhibited by a bear named Leonard. At first, Slyly and a regretful Rudolph trick the polar bear into thinking his cave will collapse, however, the jig is up when an angry Leonard quickly returns and realizes hes been tricked
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Reindeer
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This includes both sedentary and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare, for this reason, it is considered to be vulnerable by the IUCN. Reindeer vary considerably in colour and size, both sexes can grow antlers annually, although the proportion of females that grow antlers varies greatly between population and season. Antlers are typically larger on males, hunting of wild reindeer and herding of semi-domesticated reindeer are important to several Arctic and Subarctic peoples. In traditional festive legend, Santa Clauss reindeer pull a sleigh through the sky to help Santa Claus deliver gifts to children on Christmas Eve. The name Rangifer, which Carl Linnaeus chose for the genus, was used by Albertus Magnus in his De animalibus. This word may go back to a Saami word raingo, for the origin of the word tarandus, which Linnaeus chose as the specific epithet, he made reference to Ulisse Aldrovandis Quadrupedum omnium bisulcorum historia fol. However, Aldrovandi – and before him Konrad Gesner – thought that rangifer, in any case, the tarandos name goes back to Aristotle and Theophrastus – see In history below. Because of its importance to many cultures, Rangifer tarandus and some of its subspecies have names in many languages, the name rein is of Norse origin. The Finnish name poro may also stem from the same, the word deer was originally broader in meaning, but became more specific over time. In Middle English, der meant a wild animal of any kind. Cognates of Old English dēor in other dead Germanic languages have the sense of animal, such as Old High German tior, Old Norse djúr or dýr, Gothic dius, Old Saxon dier. The name caribou comes, through French, from Mikmaq qalipu, meaning snow shoveler, in Inuktitut, spoken in eastern Arctic North America, the caribou is known by the name tuktu. In the western North American Arctic, the used by the Iñupiat is tuttu. Across the range of a species, individuals may display considerable morphological, genetic, COSEWIC developed Designated Unit attribution to add to classifications already in use. The species taxonomic name Rangifer tarandus was defined by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, the subspecies taxonomic name, Rangifer tarandus caribou was defined by Gmelin in 1788. Based on Banfields often-cited A Revision of the Reindeer and Caribou, Genus Rangifer, R. t. caboti, R. t. osborni and R. t. terraenovae were considered invalid and included in R. t. caribou. Some recent authorities have considered them all valid, even suggesting that they are quite distinct and he affirms that true woodland caribou is very rare, in very great difficulties and requires the most urgent of attention
6.
Joe Diffie
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Joe Logan Diffie is an American country music singer. After working as a singer in the 1980s, he signed with Epic Records Nashville division in 1990. In addition to cuts, he has 12 other top ten singles. He also co-wrote singles for Holly Dunn, Tim McGraw, and Jo Dee Messina, and has recorded with Mary Chapin Carpenter, George Jones, Diffie released seven studio albums, a Christmas album and a greatest hits package under the Epic label. He also released one album each through Monument Records, Broken Bow Records. His most recent album, Homecoming, The Bluegrass Album, was released in late 2010 through Rounder and his style is defined by a neotraditionalist country influence with a mix of novelty songs and ballads. Joe Diffie was born into a family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His first musical performance came at age four, when he performed in his aunts country music band, Diffies father, Joe R. played guitar and banjo, and his mother sang. Following in his mothers footsteps, Diffie began to sing at an early age, Diffie has said that his Mom and Dad claimed that could sing harmony when was three years old. His family moved to San Antonio, Texas while he was in the first grade, and subsequently to Washington state where he attended fourth and fifth grades. Later, he moved to Wisconsin for the years he was in grade through his second year of high school. In his last two years in school, Diffie played football, baseball, and golf in addition to running track. After graduating, he attended Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, although he initially earned credits toward medical school, he decided against a medical profession after marrying for the first time in 1977, and ultimately dropped out before graduation. Diffie first worked in oil fields, then drove a truck that pumped cement out of oil wells in Alice, Texas, before he moved back to Duncan to work in a foundry. During this period, he worked as a musician on the side, first in a group called Higher Purpose. Diffie then built a studio, began touring with Special Edition in adjacent states. Hank Thompson recorded Diffies Love on the Rocks, and Randy Travis put one of Diffies songs on hold, after the foundry closed in 1986, Diffie declared bankruptcy and sold the studio out of financial necessity. He also divorced his wife, who left with their two children, Diffie spent several months in a state of depression before deciding to move to Nashville, Tennessee
7.
Mr. Christmas (album)
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Mr. Christmas is the first Christmas album, released in 1995, by country music artist Joe Diffie. The song Leroy the Redneck Reindeer was released as a single, otherwise, the album features a mix of traditional Christmas music and newly penned songs. Mr. Christmas –3,14 The Christmas Song –4,23 Leroy the Redneck Reindeer –3,17 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas –3,51 Let It Snow. - acoustic guitar Bergen White - string arrangements Lonnie Wilson - drums Glenn Worf - bass guitar
8.
Santa Claus's reindeer
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In traditional festive legend, Santa Clauss reindeer pull a sleigh through the night sky to help Santa Claus deliver gifts to children on Christmas Eve. The commonly cited names of the reindeer are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and they are based on those used in the 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, arguably the basis of the reindeers popularity. The enduring popularity of the Christmas song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has led to Rudolph often joining the list. In traditional lore, Santa Clauss sleigh is led by eight reindeer, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder, the names Dunder and Blixem derive from Dutch words for thunder and lightning, respectively. The first reference to Santas sleigh being pulled by a reindeer appears in Old Santeclaus with Much Delight, the names of the author and the illustrator are not known. The poem, with eight colored lithographic illustrations, was published by William B, gilley as a small paperback book entitled The Childrens Friend, A New-Years Present, to the Little Ones from Five to Twelve. The 1823 poem by Clement C. Moore A Visit from St. Nicholas is largely credited for the contemporary Christmas lore that includes eight named reindeer. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, Moore version of the poem, including the German spelling of Donder and Blitzen, rather than the original 1823 version using the Dutch spelling, Dunder and Blixem. Both phrases translate as Thunder and Lightning in English, though German for thunder is now spelled Donner, Rudolphs story was originally written in verse by Robert L. May for the Montgomery Ward chain of department stores in 1939, according to this story, Rudolphs glowing red nose made him a social outcast among the other reindeer. Santa Claus worldwide flight one year was imperiled by severe fog, visiting Rudolphs house to deliver his presents, Santa observed Rudolphs glowing red nose in the darkened bedroom and decided to use him as a makeshift lamp to guide his sleigh. Rudolph accepted Santas request to lead the sleigh for the rest of the night, Rudolphs story is a popular Christmas story that has been retold in numerous forms, most notably a popular song, a stop motion television special and an animated feature film. The television special departed significantly from Robert L. Mays original story, depicting Rudolph as Donners son, in 1998, a film titled Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Movie was released that depicted Rudolph as Blitzens son. The comic strip Over the Hedge, added a character named Ralph, the Infrared Nosed Reindeer, the feature film, Rudolph and Frostys Christmas in July, features an antagonist reindeer named Scratcher. The feature film, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Movie, introduces Mitzi as Rudolphs mother and it also features two other reindeer Rudolphs love interest Zoey and his cousin and rival Arrow, the latter of whom is Cupids son. The animated movie Annabelles Wish tells the story of a calf who dreams to fly after meeting Santa. Many years later in her old age she is granted her wish, chet is a young reindeer in training who is introduced in the 2002 feature film, The Santa Clause 2. In the film Blizzard, the character is Blitzens daughter
9.
Christmas Eve
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Christmas Eve is the day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipation of Christmas Day, together, both days are considered one of the most culturally significant celebrations in Christendom and Western society. Many churches still ring their bells and hold prayers in the evening, for example. Since tradition holds that Jesus was born at night, Midnight Mass is celebrated on Christmas Eve, traditionally at midnight, roman Catholics and high church Anglicans traditionally celebrate Midnight Mass, which begins either at or sometime before midnight on Christmas Eve. This ceremony, which is held in churches throughout the world, celebrates the birth of Christ, Midnight Mass is popular in Poland. In recent years churches have scheduled their Midnight Mass as early as 7 pm. In Spanish-speaking areas, the Midnight Mass is sometimes referred to as Misa de Gallo, in the Philippines, the custom has expanded into the nine-day Simbang Gabi, when Filipinos attend dawn Masses from 16 December, continuing daily until Christmas Eve. In 2009 Vatican officials scheduled the Midnight Mass to start at 10 pm so that the 82-year-old Pope Benedict XVI would not have too late a night. Whilst it does not include any kind of Mass, the Church of Scotland has a service beginning just before midnight, the Church of Scotland no longer holds Hogmanay services on New Years Eve, however. The Christmas Eve Services are still very popular, on Christmas Eve, the Christ Candle in the center of the Advent wreath is traditionally lit in many church services. In candlelight services, while singing Silent Night, each member of the congregation receives a candle, lutherans traditionally practice Christmas Eve Eucharistic traditions typical of Germany and Scandinavia. Krippenspiele, special music for organ, vocal and brass choirs. A nativity scene may be erected indoors or outdoors, and is composed of figurines depicting the infant Jesus resting in a manger, Mary, other figures in the scene may include angels, shepherds, and various animals. The figures may be made of any material, and arranged in a stable or grotto, the Magi may also appear, and are sometimes not placed in the scene until the week following Christmas to account for their travel time to Bethlehem. While most home nativity scenes are packed away at Christmas or shortly thereafter, Christmas Vespers are popular in the early evening, and midnight services are also widespread in regions which are predominantly Lutheran. The old Lutheran tradition of a Christmas Vigil in the morning hours of Christmas Day can still be found in some regions. Methodists celebrate the evening in different ways, some, in the early evening, come to their church to celebrate Holy Communion with their families. The mood is very solemn, and the visible light is the Advent Wreath
10.
Winter weather
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In temperate continental climates, these storms are not necessarily restricted to the winter season, but may occur in the late autumn and early spring as well. Very rarely, they may form in summer, though it would have to be a cold summer. Snowstorms are storms where large amounts of snow fall, two inches of snow is enough to create serious disruptions to traffic and school transport. This is particularly true in places where snowfall is not typical, snowfalls in excess of 6 inches are usually universally disruptive. A massive snowstorm with winds and other conditions meeting certain criteria is known as a blizzard. A large number of heavy snowstorms, some of which were blizzards, occurred in the United States during 1888 and 1947 as well as the early and mid-1990s. The snowfall of 1947 exceeded 2 feet with drifts and snow piles from plowing that reached 12 feet and for months, the 1993 Superstorm manifested as a blizzard in most of the affected areas. Large snowstorms could be dangerous, a 6 in snowstorm will make some unplowed roads impassable. Snowstorms exceeding 12 in especially in southern or generally warm climates will cave the roofs of some homes, standing dead trees can also be brought down by the weight of the snow, especially if it is wet or very dense. Even a few inches of dry snow can form drifts many feet high under windy conditions, snowstorms are usually considered less dangerous than ice storms. However, the snow can bring secondary dangers, mountain snowstorms can produce cornices and avalanches. An additional danger, following a winter, is spring flooding if the snow melts suddenly because of a dramatic rise in air temperature. Deaths can occur from hypothermia, infections brought on by frostbite or car accidents due to slippery roads, fires and carbon monoxide poisoning can occur after a storm causes a power outage. There are also cases of heart attacks caused by overexertion while shoveling heavy wet snow. It is difficult to predict what form this precipitation will take, therefore, weather forecasters just predict a wintry mix. Usually, this type of precipitation occurs at temperatures between −2 and 2 °C, snowstorms generally occur when different types of air masses in the mid-latitudes interact. These storms feed on differences in temperature and moisture, initially, a wave is typically formed in the mid levels of the atmosphere as a result of a variety of things, be it a mountain range, injection of vorticity, or several other reasons. The boundaries between the air masses constitute the warm and cold fronts of the new cyclone/storm, snowstorms that produce a lot of snow require an outside source of moisture, such as the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean in the United States
11.
Montgomery Ward
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Montgomery Ward was the name of two historically distinct American retail enterprises. It can refer either to the mail order and department store retailer. Montgomery Ward was founded by Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872, Ward had conceived of the idea of a dry goods mail-order business in Chicago, Illinois, after several years of working as a traveling salesman among rural customers. He observed that rural customers often wanted city goods, but their access to them was through rural retailers who had little competition. He and two partners used $1,600 they had raised in capital and issued their first catalog in August 1872 and it consisted of an 8 in ×12 in single-sheet price list, listing 163 items for sale with ordering instructions for which Ward had written the copy. His two partners left the year, but he continued the struggling business and was joined by his future brother-in-law. In the first few years, the business was not well received by rural retailers, considering Ward a threat, they sometimes publicly burned his catalog. Customers were also inspired by the innovative and unprecedented company policy of satisfaction guaranteed or your money back, Ward turned the copy writing over to department heads, but he continued poring over every detail in the catalog for accuracy. In 1883, the catalog, which became popularly known as the Wish Book, had grown to 240 pages and 10,000 items. In 1896, Wards encountered its first serious competition in the mail order business, in 1900, Wards had total sales of $8.7 million, compared to $10 million for Sears, and both companies would struggle for dominance during much of the 20th century. By 1904, the company had expanded as such that it mailed three million catalogs, weighing 4 lb each, to customers, in 1908, the company opened a 1. 25-million-square-foot building stretching along nearly one-quarter mile of the Chicago River, north of downtown Chicago. The building, known as the Montgomery Ward & Co, catalog House, served as the company headquarters until 1974, when the offices moved across the street to a new tower designed by Minoru Yamasaki. The catalog house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1978, in the decades before 1930, Montgomery Ward built a network of large distributions centers across the country in Baltimore, Fort Worth, Kansas City, St. Paul, Portland, and Oakland. In most cases, these concrete structures were the largest industrial structures in their respective locations. The Baltimore Montgomery Ward Warehouse and Retail Store was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000, Ward died in 1913, after 41 years running the catalog business. Thorne, died in 1917, and was succeeded by Robert J. Thorne, Robert Thorne retired in 1920 due to ill health. In 1926, the company broke with its mail-order-only tradition when it opened its first retail store in Plymouth. It continued to operate its business while pursuing an aggressive campaign to build retail outlets in the late-1920s
12.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (TV special)
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Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer is a 1964 Christmas stop motion animated television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions and currently distributed by Universal Television. It first aired Sunday, December 6,1964, on the NBC television network in the United States, and was sponsored by General Electric under the umbrella title of The General Electric Fantasy Hour. The special was based on the Johnny Marks song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer which was based on the poem of the same name written in 1939 by Marks brother-in-law. Since 1972, the special has aired on CBS, with the unveiling a high-definition. As with A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph no longer airs just once annually, unlike other holiday specials that also air on several cable channels, Rudolph only airs on CBS. It has been telecast every year since 1964, making it the longest running Christmas TV special in history,2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the television special and a series of postage stamps featuring Rudolph was issued by the United States Postal Service on November 6,2014. Sam the Snowman narrates the story of Rudolph, a reindeer who is born with a red nose. His father, Santas lead reindeer Donner, feels ashamed after Santa Claus tells him that he not allow Rudolph to be in the sleigh team with his nose. Donner uses a cover to hide Rudolphs nose so Donner. A year later, Rudolph is a reindeer who is sent to take part in the Reindeer Games to learn how to fly. Donner still tries to hide the nature of Rudolphs nose with the cover and this causes Rudolphs voice to sound as if he had a permanent cold. Despite this, two deer befriend Rudolph, one is a little buck named Fireball, and one unnamed buck is said to be the son of Dasher. The other is a doe named Clarice, whose affection for Rudolph inspires him to fly higher. During some horseplay, Fireball inadvertently pops the cover off of Rudolphs nose, after seeing his glowing nose, Comet bans Rudolph from the rest of the games as a result. Clarice is the reindeer who still likes Rudolph and tries to comfort him. However, their musings are interrupted by Clarices father, who forbids Clarice from being around Rudolph, Rudolph runs off into the woods and meets up with Hermey, an elf who had been forced out of his job because he was more interested in dentistry than toymaking and singing. The two bond after they discover they each have something that makes them unique, after deciding to be independent together, they set out but encounter the Abominable Snow Monster aka the Bumble, a carnivorous monster who hates Christmas and feeds on reindeer. The two manage to escape him, later, they meet a prospector named Yukon Cornelius, who professes himself as the Greatest Prospector of the North but never finds any of the precious metal that he seeks
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Folklore
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Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes and they include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, the forms and rituals of celebrations like Christmas and weddings, folk dances, each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next, for folklore is not taught in a formal school curriculum or studied in the fine arts. Instead these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstration, the academic study of folklore is called folkloristics. To fully understand folklore, it is helpful to clarify its component parts and it is well-documented that the term was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms. He fabricated it to replace the contemporary terminology of popular antiquities or popular literature, the second half of the compound word, lore, proves easier to define as its meaning has stayed relatively stable over the last two centuries. Coming from Old English lār instruction, and with German and Dutch cognates, it is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, the concept of folk proves somewhat more elusive. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, a more modern definition of folk is a social group which includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. Folk is a concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. This expanded social definition of folk supports a view of the material, i. e. the lore. These now include all things people make with words, things they make with their hands, Folklore is no longer circumscribed as being chronologically old or obsolete. The folklorist studies the traditional artifacts of a group and how they are transmitted. Transmission is a part of the folklore process. Without communicating these beliefs and customs within the group over space and time, for folklore is also a verb. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, the folk group is not individualistic, it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, in direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within the social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, for these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group
14.
United States Postal Service
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The United States Postal Service, is an independent agency of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution, Mail traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, where Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The USPS as of February 2015 has 617,254 active employees, the USPS is the operator of the largest civilian vehicle fleet in the world. The USPS is legally obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price, the USPS has exclusive access to letter boxes marked U. S. The USPS lost $5.5 billion in fiscal year 2014 and $5.1 billion in 2015, in the early years of the North American colonies, many attempts were made to initiate a postal service. These early attempts were of small scale and usually involved a colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony for example, for example, informal independently-run postal routes operated in Boston as early as 1639, with a Boston to New York City service starting in 1672. A central postal organization came to the colonies in 1691, when Thomas Neale received a 21-year grant from the British Crown for a North American Postal Service, the patent included the exclusive right to establish and collect a formal postal tax on official documents of all kinds. The tax was repealed a year later, Neale appointed Andrew Hamilton, Governor of New Jersey, as his deputy postmaster. The first postal service in America commenced in February 1692, rates of postage were fixed and authorized, and measures were taken to establish a post office in each town in Virginia. Massachusetts and the other colonies soon passed laws, and a very imperfect post office system was established. Neales patent expired in 1710, when Parliament extended the English postal system to the colonies, the chief office was established in New York City, where letters were conveyed by regular packets across the Atlantic. Before the Revolution, there was only a trickle of business or governmental correspondence between the colonies, most of the mail went back and forth to counting houses and government offices in London. The Revolution made Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress, News, new laws, political intelligence, and military orders circulated with a new urgency, and a postal system was necessary. Journalists took the lead, securing post office legislation that allowed them to reach their subscribers at very low cost, overthrowing the London-oriented imperial postal service in 1774-1775, printers enlisted merchants and the new political leadership, and created a new postal system. The United States Post Office was created on July 26,1775, the official post office was created in 1792 as the Post Office Department. It was based on the Constitutional authority empowering Congress To establish post offices, the 1792 law provided for a greatly expanded postal network, and served editors by charging newspapers an extremely low rate. The law guaranteed the sanctity of personal correspondence, and provided the country with low-cost access to information on public affairs. Rufus Easton was appointed by Thomas Jefferson first postmaster of St. Louis under the recommendation of Postmaster General Gideon Granger, Rufus Easton was the first postmaster and built the first post office west of the Mississippi
15.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
16.
Coloring book
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A coloring book is a type of book containing line art to which people are intended to add color using crayons, colored pencils, marker pens, paint or other artistic media. Traditional coloring books and coloring pages are printed on paper or card, some coloring books have perforated edges so their pages can be removed from the books and used as individual sheets. Others may include a line and so are intended to be left intact. Today many childrens coloring books feature popular cartoon characters and they are often used as promotional materials for animated motion pictures. Coloring books may also incorporate other activities such as connect the dots, mazes, some coloring books also incorporate the use of stickers. The McLoughlin Brothers are credited as the inventors of the coloring book and they continued to publish coloring books until the 1920s, when the McLoughlin Brothers became part of the Milton Bradley Company. Another pioneer in the genre was Richard F. Outcault and he authored Busters Paint Book in 1907, featuring the character of Buster Brown, which he had invented in 1902. It was published by the Stokes Company and this launched a trend to use coloring books to advertise a wide variety of products, including coffee and pianos. Until the 1930s, books were designed with the intent for them to be painted instead of colored, even when crayons came into wide use in the 1930s, books were still designed so that they could be painted or colored. Coloring books are used in schooling for young children for various reasons. For example, children are more interested in coloring books rather than using other learning methods. Coloring may also increase creativity in painting, according to research, Coloring books are also said to help to motivate students understanding of concepts that they would otherwise be uninterested in. They have been used as teaching aids for developing creativity and knowledge of geometry, examples include The Anatomy Coloring Book and subsequent book series, by Wynn Kapit and Lawrence Elson, published by HarperCollins and Benjamin Cummings. There are some examples of educators using coloring books to explain complicated topics, like math. Some publishers have specialized in coloring books with an educational purpose. The books will often have extensive text accompanying each image, examples of publishers include Dover Books, Really Big Coloring Books, Running Press, and Troubador Press. Coloring books have wide application in the health professions as educational tools. One nurse, trying to limit the trauma of child surgery and they are also used in rehabilitation of accident victims to aid recovery of hand–eye coordination, and they are used with autistic children both for entertainment and for their soothing effect
17.
A Visit from St. Nicholas
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Some commentators now believe the poem was written by Henry Livingston, Jr. The poem has been called arguably the best-known verses ever written by an American and is responsible for some of the conceptions of Santa Claus from the mid-nineteenth century to today. It has had a impact on the history of Christmas gift-giving. Before the poem gained wide popularity, American ideas had varied considerably about Saint Nicholas, a Visit from St. Nicholas eventually was set to music and has been recorded by many artists. On Christmas Eve night, while his wife and children sleep, looking out the window, he sees Santa Claus in an air-borne sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. After landing his sleigh on the roof, the saint enters the house through the chimney, the father watches Santa filling the childrens Christmas stockings hanging by the fire, and laughs to himself. They share a moment before the saint bounds up the chimney again. As he flies away, Santa wishes everyone a Happy Christmas to all, the poems meter is anapestic tetrameter. The anapest is the foot used to construct limericks. For example, while the first two lines each use full anapests, lines 3 and 4 each drop the first unstressed syllable, likewise, lines 9 and 10 drop the first unstressed syllable, they also add an extra unstressed syllable to the end. According to legend, A Visit was composed by Clement Clarke Moore on a winters day during a shopping trip on a sleigh. His inspiration for the character of Saint Nicholas was a local Dutch handyman as well as the historical Saint Nicholas, Moore originated many of the features that are still associated with Santa Claus today while borrowing other aspects, such as the use of reindeer. It was first attributed in print to Moore in 1837, Moore himself acknowledged authorship when he included it in his own book of poems in 1844. By then, the publisher and at least seven others had already acknowledged his authorship. Moore had a reputation as a professor and had not wished at first to be connected with the unscholarly verse. He included it in the anthology at the insistence of his children, Moores conception of Saint Nicholas was borrowed from his friend Washington Irving, but Moore portrayed his jolly old elf as arriving on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. By having Saint Nicholas arrive the night before, Moore deftly shifted the focus away from Christmas Day with its religious associations. As a result, New Yorkers embraced Moores child-centered version of Christmas as if they had doing it all their lives
18.
Pearson PLC
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Pearson PLC is a British multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London. It was founded as a business in the 1840s. It shut down its activities in the 1920s and switched to publishing. It is the largest education company and the largest book publisher in the world, Pearson has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. It has a listing on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American Depository Receipts. The company was founded by Samuel Pearson in 1844 as a building and engineering concern operating in Yorkshire under the name S. Pearson & Son. In 1880, control passed to his grandson Weetman Dickinson Pearson, an engineer, in November 1915, the firm began construction of HM Factory, Gretna, the largest cordite factory in the UK during World War I. The construction business was shut down in the 1920s, among its final projects was completion of the Sennar Dam, in Sudan, in 1925. In 1919, the firm acquired a 45% stake in the London branch of merchant bankers Lazard Brothers, Pearson continued to hold a 50% stake until 1999. In 1921, Pearson purchased a number of daily and weekly newspapers in the United Kingdom. In 1957, it bought the Financial Times and acquired a 50% stake in The Economist and it purchased the publisher Longman in 1968. The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1969 and it went on to buy paperback publisher Penguin in 1970, and in 1972, childrens imprint Ladybird Books. In 1986, Pearson invested in the British Satellite Broadcasting consortium, which, during the 1990s, Pearson acquired a number of TV production and broadcasting assets and sold most of its non-media assets, under the leadership of future U. S. Westminster Press was sold to Newsquest in 1996, Pearson acquired the education division of HarperCollins in 1996 from News Corporation and acquired book publishers Scott Foresman & Co. in 1996. In 1998 Pearson acquired Prentice Hall Textbooks/Simon & Schuster Trade Books from Viacom and merged it with its own education unit, Addison-Wesley Longman to form Pearson Education. In 2002, Pearson sold its 22% stake in RTL Group for 1.5 billion Euros, and then purchased Rough Guides, the travel publisher, and brought it under Penguin. Pearson acquired Edexcel, a provider of qualifications in the UK, in 2003, Pearson purchased a series of other testing and assessment businesses, including Knowledge Technologies in 2004, AGS in 2005, and National Evaluation Systems and Promissor in 2006. Pearson then completed the acquisition of Harcourt Assessment, merging the businesses into Pearson Assessment & Information
19.
Lake Michigan
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Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. The other four Great Lakes are shared by the U. S. and it is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Lake Michigan is shared, from west to east, by the U. S. states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, ports along its shores include Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Gary, Indiana, and Benton Harbor, Michigan. The word Michigan originally referred to the lake itself, and is believed to come from the Ojibwa word mishigami meaning great water, some of the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region were the Hopewell Indians. Their culture declined after 800 AD, and for the few hundred years. The French explorer Jean Nicolet is believed to have been the first European to reach Lake Michigan, in the earliest European maps of the region, the name of Lake Illinois has been found in addition to that of Michigan, named for the Illinois Confederation of tribes. Lake Michigan is joined via the narrow, open-water Straits of Mackinac with Lake Huron, the Straits of Mackinac were an important Native American and fur trade route. The eastern end of the Straits was controlled by Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, French coureurs des bois and voyageurs established small ports and trading communities, such as Green Bay, on the lake during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In the 19th century, Lake Michigan played a role in the development of Chicago. The first person to reach the bottom of Lake Michigan was J. Val Klump. Klump reached the bottom via submersible as part of a 1985 research expedition, in 2007, a row of stones paralleling an ancient shoreline was discovered by Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College. This formation lies 40 feet below the surface of the lake, One of the stones is said to have a carving resembling a mastodon. So far the formation has not been authenticated, Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes wholly within the borders of the United States, the others are shared with Canada. It lies in the known as the American Midwest. Lake Michigan has an area of 22,404 sq. mi, making it the largest lake entirely within one country by surface area. It is the half of Lake Michigan–Huron, which is the largest body of fresh water in the world. It is 307 miles long by 118 miles wide with a shoreline 1,640 miles long, the lakes average depth is 46 fathoms 3 feet, while its greatest depth is 153 fathoms 5 feet. It contains a volume of 1,180 cubic miles of water, Green Bay in the northwest is its largest bay
20.
Penguin Books
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Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, Penguins success demonstrated that large audiences existed for serious books. Penguin also had a significant impact on public debate in Britain, through its books on British culture, politics, the arts, and science. Penguin Books is now an imprint of the worldwide Penguin Random House and it is one of the largest English-language publishers, formerly known as the Big Six, now the Big Five. The first Penguin paperbacks were published in 1935, but at first only as an imprint of The Bodley Head with the books originally distributed from the crypt of Holy Trinity Church Marylebone, Penguin Books has its registered office in the City of Westminster, London, England. However the question of how publishers could reach a larger public had been the subject of a conference at Rippon Hall, inexpensive paperbacks did not initially appear viable to Bodley Head, since the deliberately low price of 6d. This helped Allen Lane purchase publication rights for some works more cheaply than he otherwise might have done since other publishers were convinced of the short term prospects of the business. By March 1936, ten months after the launch on 30 July 1935. It was Frost who in 1945 was entrusted with the reconstruction of Penguin Inc after the departure of its first managing director Ian Ballantine, from the outset, design was essential to the success of the Penguin brand. In the central panel, the author and title were printed in Gill Sans. The initial design was created by the then 21-year-old office junior Edward Young, series such as Penguin Specials and The Penguin Shakespeare had individual designs. Lane actively resisted the introduction of images for several years. Some recent publications of literature from that time have duplicated the original look, from 1937 and on, the headquarters of Penguin Books was at Harmondsworth west of London and so it remained until the 1990s when a merge with Viking involved the head office moving to London. Paper rationing was the problem of publishers during wartime, with the fall of France cutting off supply of esparto grass. This was particularly advantageous to Penguin who as a volume printer had enjoyed a successful year that year. Further in a deal with the Canadian Government, Penguin had agreed to publish editions for their armed forces for which they were paid in tons of paper. Penguin would receive 60 tons a month from Paper Supply in return for 10 titles a month in runs of 75,000 at 5d, however demand was exceeding supply on the home front leading Lane to seek a monopoly on army books made specifically for overseas distribution. This dominance over the paper supply put Penguin in a strong position after the war as rationing continued
21.
Santa Claus
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Some maintain Santa Claus also absorbed elements of the Germanic god Wodan, who was associated with the pagan midwinter event of Yule and led the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession through the sky. This image has been maintained and reinforced through song, radio, television, childrens books, films and he accomplishes this feat with the aid of his elves, who make the toys in his workshop at the North Pole, and his flying reindeer, who pull his sleigh. He is commonly portrayed as living at the North Pole and saying ho ho ho often, Saint Nicholas of Myra was a 4th-century Greek Christian bishop of Myra in Lycia, a province of the Byzantine Empire, now in Turkey. Nicholas was famous for his generous gifts to the poor, in presenting the three impoverished daughters of a pious Christian with dowries so that they would not have to become prostitutes. He was very religious from an age and devoted his life entirely to Christianity. In continental Europe he is portrayed as a bearded bishop in canonical robes. The remains of Saint Nicholas are in Italy, in 1087, the Italian city of Bari mounted an expedition to locate the tomb of the Saint. The reliquary of St. Nicholas was conquered by Italian sailors, a basilica was constructed the same year to store the loot and the area became a pilgrimage site for the devout. Sailors from Bari collected just half of Nicholas skeleton, leaving all the fragments in the grave. These were collected by Venetian sailors during the First Crusade and taken to Venice, where a church to St. Nicholas, the patron of sailors, was built on the San Nicolò al Lido. This tradition was confirmed in two important scientific investigations of the relics in Bari and Venice, which revealed that the relics in the two Italian cities belong to the same skeleton. Saint Nicholas was later claimed as a saint of many diverse groups, from archers, sailors. He is also the saint of both Amsterdam and Moscow. During the Middle Ages, often on the evening before his day of 6 December. So Saint Nicholas changed to Santa Claus, martin Luther first suggested the Christkind as the bringer of gifts. But Nicholas remained popular as gifts bearer for the people, Father Christmas dates back as far as 16th century in England during the reign of Henry VIII, when he was pictured as a large man in green or scarlet robes lined with fur. He typified the spirit of good cheer at Christmas, bringing peace, joy, good food and wine, as England no longer kept the feast day of Saint Nicholas on 6 December, the Father Christmas celebration was moved to 25 December to coincide with Christmas Day. The Victorian revival of Christmas included Father Christmas as the emblem of good cheer, in the Netherlands and Belgium the character of Santa Claus has to compete with that of Sinterklaas, Santas presumed progenitor
22.
Max Fleischer
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Max Fleischer was an American animator, inventor, film director and producer. Fleischer was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon, born to a Jewish family in Kraków, then part of the Austrian-Hungarian province of Galicia, Max Fleischer was the second of six children of an Austrian immigrant tailor, William Fleischer. His family emigrated to the USA in 1887, settling in New York City, during his early formative years he enjoyed a Middle Class life style the result of his fathers success as an exclusive tailor to high society clients. This changed drastically after his father lost his business ten years later and his teens were spent in Brownsville, a poor Jewish ghetto in Brooklyn. Motivated to succeed, he continued his education, attending Evening High School and he received Commercial Art training at Cooper Union and formal art instruction at the Art Students League of New York, studying under the famous George Bridgman. He also attended The Mechanics and Tradesmans School in midtown Manhattan, Fleischer began his career at The Brooklyn Daily Eagle first as an Errand Boy, and was advanced to Photographer, Photoengraver, and later, became a staff Cartoonist. At first he drew single panel editorial cartoons, then graduated to the strips, Little Algie, and S. K. Sposher. These satirical strips reflected his life in Brownsville and his fascination with technology and photography respectively-both displaying his sense of irony and it was during this period he met newspaper cartoonist and early animator, John Randolph Bray, who would later give him his start in the animation field. On December 25,1905, Fleischer married his childhood sweetheart, on the recommendation of Bray, Fleischer was hired as a Technical Illustrator for The Electro-Light Engraving Company in Boston. By 1914 the first commercially produced animated cartoons started to appear in movie theaters, but they tended to be stiff and jerky. Fleischer devised an improvement in animation through a projector and easel for tracing images from live action film. This device, known as a rotoscope, enabled Fleischer to produce the first realistic animation since the works of Winsor McCay. Although his patent was granted in 1917, Max and his brothers Joe, the Pathe Film exchange offered Max his first opportunity as a Producer due in part to the fact that Dave had been working there as a Film Cutter since 1914. Max chose a political satire of a trip by Theodore Roosevelt. After several months of labor, the film was rejected, Bray had a distribution contract with Paramount at the time, and hired Max as Production Supervisor for his studio. Following the Armistice, Fleischer returned to Bray and the production of theatrical and educational films, Fleischer produced his Out of the Inkwell films featuring The Clown character, which originated from his youngest brother Dave, who had worked as a Sideshow clown at Coney Island. And it was the one of the later test made of footage of Dave as a clown that interested Bray. Fleischers initial series was first produced at The Bray Studios and released as an installment in the Bray-Goldwyn Pictograph Screen Magazine from 1919 to 1921
23.
Jam Handy
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Henry Jamison Jam Handy was an American Olympic breaststroke swimmer, water polo player, and leader in the field of commercial audio and visual communications. Handy was noted for the number of training films that he produced over the years, as a swimmer, Handy introduced a number of new swimming strokes to Americans, such as the Australian crawl. He would often wake up early and devise new strokes to give him an edge over other swimmers, swimming led to him getting a bronze in the 1904 Olympics at St. Louis, Missouri. Twenty years later he was part of the Illinois Athletic Club water polo team at the 1924 Olympics in Paris and he broke the record of longest period of time between first and last competition. The team won the bronze at that Olympics, Handy attended North Division High School in Chicago, and then the University of Michigan during the 1902–03 academic year. During that time he was working as a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune when on May 8 he wrote an article about a lecture in the Elocution 2 class given by Prof. Thomas C. Trueblood as a course in lovemaking, Handy went on to describe how Trueblood had dropped to a bended knee in order to demonstrate how to make an effective marriage proposal. John T. McCutcheon, a Chicago Record Herald cartoonist, followed the day with a cartoon about a Professor Foxy Truesport showing his class how to best make love. Neither Trueblood nor university President James B. Angell were amused, ten days after the initial article was published, Handy was suspended for a year for publishing false and injurious statements affecting the character of the work of one of the Professors. Handy was told he could re-apply one year later, instead, Handy decided to apply to a different school, but he was unable to gain acceptance to other schools because of what had happened at the University of Michigan. Handy was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania, but was told to leave two weeks of classes. Tribune editor Medill McCormick tried to intervene on Handys behalf, at that point McCormick offered Handy a job. Handy worked in a number of departments at the Tribune and it was during his time working on the advertising staff that Handy observed that informing and building up salespeoples enthusiasm for the products they were selling helped to move more merchandise. He also began researching exactly what people buy a particular product. Handy left the Tribune to do work on corporate communications. He worked with John H. Patterson of National Cash Register, with help from another associate, Handy began making and distributing films that showed consumers how to operate everyday products. After World War I broke out, Handy began making films to show how to operate military equipment, during this time the Jam Handy Organization was formed. Handy was married to Helen Hoag Rogers and had five children, one of his daughter Chailles children is the printmaker Garner Tullis
24.
Gene Autry
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Orvon Grover Gene Autry was an American performer who gained fame as a singing cowboy on the radio, in movies, and on television for more than three decades beginning in the early 1930s. Autry was also owner of a station, several radio stations in Southern California. From 1934 to 1953, Autry appeared in 93 films and 91 episodes of The Gene Autry Show television series, during the 1930s and 1940s, he personified the straight-shooting hero—honest, brave, and true—and profoundly touched the lives of millions of Americans. Autry was also one of the most important figures in the history of country music and his singing cowboy movies were the first vehicle to carry country music to a national audience. The town of Gene Autry, Oklahoma was named in his honor, orvon Grover Autry was born September 29,1907 near Tioga in Grayson County in north Texas, the grandson of a Methodist preacher. His parents, Delbert Autry and Elnora Ozment, moved in the 1920s to Ravia in Johnston County in southern Oklahoma and he worked on his fathers ranch while at school. After leaving high school in 1925, Autry worked as a telegrapher for the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway and his talent at singing and playing guitar led to performing at local dances. While working as a telegrapher, Autry would sing and accompany himself on the guitar to pass the lonely hours, one night, he was encouraged to sing professionally by a customer, the famous humorist Will Rogers, who had heard Autry singing. As soon as he could collect money to travel, he went to New York and he auditioned for Victor Records, about the time it became RCA Victor. According to Nathaniel Shilkret, director of Light Music for Victor at the time, Shilkret explained to Autry that he was turned down not because of his voice, but because Victor had just made contracts with two similar singers. Autry left with a letter of introduction from Shilkret and the advice to sing on radio to gain experience, L. Watson, recorded My Dreaming of You and My Alabama. Autry signed a deal with Columbia Records in 1929. He worked in Chicago on the WLS-AM radio show National Barn Dance for four years, and with his own show, in his early recording career, Autry covered various genres, including a labor song, The Death of Mother Jones, in 1931. Autry also recorded many records in 1930 and 1931 in New York City. These were much closer in style to the Prairie Ramblers or Dick Justice and these late Prohibition-era songs deal with bootlegging, corrupt police, and women whose occupation was certainly vice. These recordings are not heard today, but are available on European import labels. His first hit was in 1932 with That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine, a duet with fellow man, Jimmy Long. He wrote Here Comes Santa Claus after being the Grand Marshal of the 1946 Santa Claus Lane Parade and he heard all of the spectators watching the parade saying Here comes Santa Claus
25.
Billboard (magazine)
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Billboard is an American entertainment media brand owned by the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a division of Eldridge Industries. It publishes pieces involving news, video, opinion, reviews, events and it is also known for its music charts, including the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200, tracking the most popular singles and albums in different genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows, Billboard was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegens interest in 1900 for $500, in the 1900s, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs and burlesque shows. It also created a service for travelling entertainers. Billboard began focusing more on the industry as the jukebox, phonograph. Many topics it covered were spun-off into different magazines, including Amusement Business in 1961 to cover outdoor entertainment so that it could focus on music. After Donaldson died in 1925, Billboard was passed down to his children and Hennegans children, until it was sold to investors in 1985. The first issue of Billboard was published in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 1,1894 by William Donaldson, initially, it covered the advertising and bill posting industry and was called Billboard Advertising. At the time, billboards, posters and paper advertisements placed in public spaces were the means of advertising. Donaldson handled editorial and advertising, while Hennegan, who owned Hennegan Printing Co. managed magazine production, the first issues were just eight pages long. The paper had columns like The Bill Room Gossip and The Indefatigable, a department for agricultural fairs was established in 1896. The title was changed to The Billboard in 1897, after a brief departure over editorial differences, Donaldson purchased Hennegans interest in the business in 1900 for $500, to save it from bankruptcy. That May, Donaldson changed it from a monthly to a paper with a greater emphasis on breaking news. He improved editorial quality and opened new offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London and he also re-focused the magazine on outdoor entertainment like fairs, carnivals, circuses, vaudeville and burlesque shows. A section devoted to circuses was introduced in 1900, followed by more prominent coverage of events in 1901. Billboard also covered topics including regulation, a lack of professionalism, economics and it had a stage gossip column covering the private lives of entertainers, a tent show section covering traveling shows and a sub-section called Freaks to order. According to The Seattle Times, Donaldson also published articles attacking censorship, praising productions exhibiting good taste
26.
DC Comics
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DC Comics, Inc. is an American comic book publisher. It is the unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. a division of Time Warner, the company has also published non-DC Universe-related material, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta and many titles under their alternative imprint Vertigo. The initials DC came from the popular series Detective Comics. Random House distributes DC Comics books to the market, while Diamond Comic Distributors supplies the comics shop specialty market. DC Comics and its major, longtime competitor Marvel Comics together shared 70% of the American comic book market in 2016, entrepreneur Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications in autumn 1934. The company debuted with the tabloid-sized New Fun, The Big Comic Magazine #1 with a date of February 1935. That title evolved into Adventure Comics, which continued through issue #503 in 1983, in 2009 DC revived Adventure Comics with its original numbering. In 1935, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, created Doctor Occult. Wheeler-Nicholsons third and final title, Detective Comics, advertised with a cover illustration dated December 1936, the themed anthology series would become a sensation with the introduction of Batman in issue #27. By then, however, Wheeler-Nicholson had gone, Detective Comics, Inc. was formed, with Wheeler-Nicholson and Jack S. Liebowitz, Donenfelds accountant, listed as owners. Major Wheeler-Nicholson remained for a year, but cash-flow problems continued, shortly afterward, Detective Comics, Inc. purchased the remains of National Allied, also known as Nicholson Publishing, at a bankruptcy auction. Detective Comics, Inc. soon launched a fourth title, Action Comics, Action Comics #1, the first comic book to feature the new character archetype—soon known as superheroes—proved a sales hit. The company quickly introduced such popular characters as the Sandman and Batman. That year, Gaines let Liebowitz buy him out, and kept only Picture Stories from the Bible as the foundation of his own new company, at that point, Liebowitz promptly orchestrated the merger of All-American and Detective Comics into National Comics. Next he took charge of organizing National Comics, Independent News, National Periodical Publications became publicly traded on the stock market in 1961. The company began to move aggressively against what it saw as copyright-violating imitations from other companies, such as Fox Comics Wonder Man and this extended to DC suing Fawcett Comics over Captain Marvel, at the time comics top-selling character. Despite the fact that parallels between Captain Marvel and Superman seemed more tenuous, the courts ruled that substantial and deliberate copying of copyrighted material had occurred, faced with declining sales and the prospect of bankruptcy if it lost, Fawcett capitulated in 1955 and ceased comics publication
27.
Annual publication
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Annual publications, more often called simply annuals, are periodical publications appearing regularly once per year. Although exact definitions may vary, types of annuals include, Calendars and almanacs, directories, yearbooks, annual reports, proceedings and transactions, a weekly or monthly publication may produce an Annual featuring similar materials to the regular publication. Some encyclopedias have published annual supplements that essentially summarize the news of the past year, similar to some newspaper yearbooks, to libraries and collectors, annuals present challenges of size and completeness. They are handled similar to publications, which typically means a single library catalog record for the title. The single record must then indicate which volumes are held, the mid and late 20th century saw a sharp increase in the publication of annuals, to report scientific results and provide overview, both in ever more specialized topics and in popular summary. A new form of work called the Annual was a fad from about 1823 through 1857, and became so popular. They closely resemble many college literary books just produced for college campus today and they were the fashion magazines of the day. Later it became fashionable to watercolor the etchings, and the Annuals became early coloring books, there was later a backlash against beauty, and the fad ended, as did steel plate etchings for books. The Annual was a long running fad from 1824 until 1857 which started in England, steel plates of the 1820s allowed book publishers to mass-produce pictures. What started out as a book or a gift for the holidays. Countess Blessington and other royal women contributed to the works, and this fad was sometimes referred to as beauty, as books with plates of women defined the content. In one book, the plate was damaged and another picture of a woman was simply used as a replacement. The illustrations had often nothing to do with the text content, the content of the text was often of poor quality, and The American Book of Beauty contained a story of prison torture with an illustration of a pretty woman with a lapdog. The American Book of Beauty, also has copies of the books. One edition of the The Heaths Book of Beauty was a college project, in the 1830s you see a sarcastic poem about the Annuals by Thomas Hood. Watercolor became popular in the 1830s, and the black and white etchings were the books of the day. In 1842, Volume 1, page 521 of the Illustrated London News there are sarcastic pictures poking fun at the annuals, in 1844 there was an article referring to it as imbicilic mania, and finally the Obituary for the Annual, appeared in the Art Journal of 1857. The death of the annuals and new photo techniques replacing etching ended most engravers careers, for high school and college yearbooks, see Yearbook
28.
Limited Collectors' Edition
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Limited Collectors Edition is an American comic book series published by DC Comics from 1972 to 1978. It usually featured reprints of published stories but a few issues contained new material. The series was published in an oversized 10 x 14 tabloid format, Limited Collectors Edition was launched with a collection of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer stories which went on sale October 24,1972. DC Comics vice president Sol Harrison had suggested the format stating that We could create a tabloid size comic that would stand out on the newsstand, Limited Collectors Edition shared its numbering with two other treasury format series, Famous First Edition and All-New Collectors Edition. The final issues of the two series were tie-ins to the release of Superman, The Movie. DC later published treasuries as part of DC Special Series in 1981 and as a number of one-shots from 1999 to 2003 primarily produced by Paul Dini, several planned features for Limited Collectors Edition were never published. These include several projects by writer/artist Sheldon Mayer, Mayer had been working on an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz but DCs then-Publisher Carmine Infantino canceled the project upon learning of a similar adaptation by Marvel Comics. The two companies published the project jointly and the adaptation was crafted by Marvels Roy Thomas and John Buscema instead. Mayer also worked on a followup to The Bible issue of Limited Collectors Edition titled The Story of Jesus as well as Rudolphs Easter Parade an Easter-themed Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer issue, Famous First Edition was a series of oversized reprints of original Golden Age comics. All but two included full-size cover-stock reprints of the front and back covers in addition to the usual cardboard-like cover stock, Famous First Edition reprinted the comics in their entirety, including any paid advertising and other features that appeared in the original. Three features originally intended for All-New Collectors Edition were published due to the titles cancellation as part of the DC Implosion. Supermans Life Story by Martin Pasko and Curt Swan was published in Action Comics #500, the planned 1978 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer tabloids material appeared in The Best of DC #4. A Justice League story by Gerry Conway and Rich Buckler saw print in Justice League of America #210-212, the Amazing World of Superman, Metropolis Edition Reprints stories from Action Comics #210, Superman #170, and Superboy #153,161, and 169. New story by writer E. Nelson Bridwell and artists Carmine Infantino, Curt Swan, mGMs Marvelous Wizard of Oz The first joint publishing venture between Marvel Comics and DC Comics. Comics adaptation of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film by Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man The first cross-over between DC and Marvel characters. Written by Gerry Conway and drawn by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano, Superman, Peace on Earth One-shot by writer Paul Dini and artist Alex Ross. Superman / Fantastic Four Intercompany crossover by writer/penciler Dan Jurgens and inker Art Thibert, Batman, War on Crime One-shot by writer Paul Dini and artist Alex Ross. JLA, Heavens Ladder One-shot by writer Mark Waid and artists Bryan Hitch, power of Hope One-shot by writer Paul Dini and artist Alex Ross
29.
Sheldon Mayer
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Sheldon Mayer was an American comic book writer, artist and editor. One of the earliest employees of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholsons National Allied Publications and he is among those credited with rescuing the unsold Superman comic strip from the rejection pile. Mayer was inducted into the book industrys Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1992. Mayer is not to be confused with fellow Golden Age comics professional Sheldon Moldoff, Mayers career in the days before comic books was a diverse one. He worked as writer and artist on scores of titles for a juvenile audience circa 1932–33 and he began working for National Allied Publications shortly after it was founded, in 1935, writing and drawing stories and thus becoming one of the very first contributors to comic books. Between 1936 and 1938, Mayer worked for Dell Comics, producing illustrations, house advertisements and covers for titles including Popular Comics, The Comics, also in 1936, he joined the McClure Syndicate as an editor working for comics industry pioneer M. C. While working for the McClure syndicate, Mayer came across Jerry Siegel and Joe Shusters unsold Superman comics strip and he recalled in a 1985 book that, The syndicated press rejected it about fifteen times. Action Comics editor Vin Sullivan is also among those credited with discovering Superman, Mayer said, I was crazy about Superman for the same reason I liked The Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro, and The Desert Song. The mystery man and his ego are two distinct characters to be played off against each other. The Scarlet Pimpernels alter ego was scared of the sight of blood, Mayer edited and participated in the creation of - among others - the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Wonder Woman and All-Star Comics, home to the Justice Society of America. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that This was obviously a great notion, since it offered readers a lot of headliners for a dime, Mayer launched several funny animal titles including Funny Stuff, Animal Antics, and Funny Folks. Mayer retired from editing in 1948, to devote himself full-time to cartooning and he began to write and draw a number of humor comics for National, including the features The Three Mouseketeers, Leave It to Binky, a teenage humor book, and Sugar and Spike. Leave It to Binky debuted in February 1948 while Scribbly received its own title in August 1948 and he also created the funny-animal backup feature Doodles Duck, starring a dimwitted, easily angered instigator and his smarter, calmer nephew Lemuel, in Animal Antics #40. This is unrelated to Howie Posts early DC creation Doodles Duck, Sugar and Spike proved to be one of Mayers longest-lasting strips, starring two babies who could communicate in baby-talk that adults could not understand. Mayer even signed the stories he drew, something rare at National Periodical Publications in the late 1950s when Sugar, with artist Tony DeZuniga, he co-created the Black Orchid feature which ran in Adventure Comics #428-430 in 1973. Mayer wrote and drew several Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer treasuries starting in 1972 and these were published as Limited Collectors Edition C–24, C–33, C–42, C–50 and All-New Collectors Edition C–53, C–60. Additionally, one digest format edition was published as The Best of DC #4, in 1978, Mayer wrote and drew a How to Draw Batman Booklet as part of an ongoing debate with DC editor Paul Levitz regarding continuity in comic books. In the 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great, Mayer is cited as writing and drawing for the company that first published his great discovery, Superman
30.
Little Golden Books
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Little Golden Books is a popular series of childrens books. The eighth book in the series, The Poky Little Puppy, is the childrens book of all time. Many of the Little Golden Books have become bestsellers, including The Poky Little Puppy, Tootle, Scuffy the Tugboat, many books in the Little Golden Books series deal with nature and science, Bible stories, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales. Christmas titles are published every year, some Little Golden Books and related products have featured childrens characters from other media, e. g. Sesame Street, the Muppets, Disney, Looney Tunes, Barbie, Power Rangers, etc. Television and movie tie-ins have been particularly popular, over the years Hopalong Cassidy, Cheyenne, Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Captain Kangaroo, Mister Rogers, and even Donny and Marie Osmond have appeared in Little Golden Books. That many old titles remain in print shows the strong appeal of the series. Ownership and control of the series has changed several times since, although the details have changed over the years, the Little Golden Books have maintained a distinctive appearance. A copy of The Poky Little Puppy bought today is essentially the same as one printed in 1942, both are readily recognizable as Little Golden Books. At the time of the golden anniversary in 1992, Golden Books claimed that a billion. Some titles have appeared in different formats. Little Golden Books was the brainchild of Georges Duplaix, who in 1940 was head of Artists, meanwhile, a shared printing plant led Western and Simon & Schuster to develop a close relationship. In 1938, the first joint effort between Western and Simon & Schuster, A Children’s History, was published, Duplaix had the idea to produce a colorful, more durable and affordable children’s book than those being published at that time which sold for $2 to $3. The group decided to publish twelve titles for release in what was to be called the Little Golden Books Series. Each book would have 42 pages,28 printed in two-color, the group originally discussed a 50-cent price for the books, but Western did not want to compete with other 50-cent books already on the market. The group calculated that if the print run for each title was 50,000 copies instead of 25,000, mary Reed, Ph. D. a professor at the Teachers College, Columbia University, served as initial editor of the series. The first 12 titles were printed in September 1942 and released to stores in October, Three Little Kittens, by Marie Simchow Stern Bedtime Stories, gustaf Tenggren Mother Goose, by Phyllis Fraser, illus. Gertrude E. Espenscheid Prayers for Children, by Rachel Taft Dixon The Little Red Hen, rudolf Freund Nursery Songs, by Leah Gale, illus. Corinne Malvern The Alphabet from A to Z, by Leah Gale, vivienne Blake and Richard Peck The Poky Little Puppy, by Janette Sebring Lowrey, illus
31.
Children's literature
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Childrens literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are enjoyed by children. Modern childrens literature is classified in two different ways, genre or the age of the reader. Childrens literature can be traced to stories and songs, part of an oral tradition. The development of childrens literature, before printing was invented, is difficult to trace. Even after printing became widespread, many childrens tales were originally created for adults. Since the 15th century, a quantity of literature, often with a moral or religious message, has been aimed specifically at children. The late nineteenth and early centuries became known as the Golden Age of Childrens Literature as this period included the publication of many books acknowledged today as classics. There is no single or widely used definition of childrens literature and it can be broadly defined as anything that children read or more specifically defined as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama intended for and used by children and young people. The International Companion Encyclopedia of Childrens Literature notes that the boundaries of genre. are not fixed but blurred, sometimes, no agreement can be reached about whether a given work is best categorized as literature for adults or children. Rowlings Harry Potter series was written and marketed for young adults, the series extreme popularity led The New York Times to create a separate best-seller list for childrens books. Despite the widespread association of childrens literature with picture books, spoken narratives existed before printing, seth Lerer, in the opening of Childrens Literature, A Readers History from Aesop to Harry Potter, says, This book presents a history of what children have heard and read. The history I write of is a history of reception, early childrens literature consisted of spoken stories, songs, and poems that were used to educate, instruct, and entertain children. It was only in the 18th century, with the development of the concept of childhood, that a genre of childrens literature began to emerge, with its own divisions, expectations. French historian Philippe Ariès argues in his 1962 book Centuries of Childhood that the concept of childhood only emerged in recent times. He explains that children were in the past not considered as different from adults and were not given significantly different treatment. Pre-modern childrens literature, therefore, tended to be of a didactic and moralistic nature, with the purpose of conveying conduct-related, educational, during the 17th century, the concept of childhood began to emerge in Europe. Adults saw children as separate beings, innocent and in need of protection, the English philosopher John Locke developed his theory of the tabula rasa in his 1690 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. A corollary of this doctrine was that the mind of the child was born blank, and he also suggested that picture books be created for children
32.
Richard Scarry
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Richard McClure Scarry was a popular American childrens author and illustrator who published over 300 books with total sales of over 100 million worldwide. Scarry was born in Boston, Massachusetts, where his parents ran a shop, the Scarry family enjoyed a comfortable life even during the time of the Great Depression. Following high school graduation, Scarry enrolled in a college but soon dropped out. He then studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, after the war, Scarry worked for the art departments of various magazines before making a career breakthrough in 1949 with Little Golden Books. Scarrys most famous series of books was about Busytown, Scarrys characters were almost always anthropomorphic animals. His books were popular with children throughout the world, over 100 million copies of his books were sold, and they have been translated into dozens of languages. Many of his illustrations feature characters in traditional Swiss clothing. Examinations of drawings featuring mechanical devices, such as the rigging on a sailboat or a fighter jet, Scarry was closely associated with mass-market childrens publisher Ole Risom, the author and illustrator whose books have sold more than 100 million copies around the world. They worked together on dozens of books, including I Am a Bunny, First published in 1963, it is still in print. Moreover, Risom and Walter Retan later cowrote the illustrated biography, some of these animated films include Richard Scarrys Best Silly Stories and Songs Videos Ever and The Busiest Firefighters Ever. A further animated series, Busytown Mysteries, was commissioned by CBC Television from the Cookie Jar Group in 2007, Busytown was also featured at the Carnegie Science Center from June 13 through September 8,2002 in an interactive exhibit entitled Richard Scarrys Busytown. Books by Richard Scarry changed over the course of their several editions, characters in cowboy or Indian costumes were either removed or given nondescript clothing. Moral and religious elements were altered or removed, characters engaged in activities reflecting traditional gender roles were altered so as to make the scenes more gender-neutral. In some cases these changes necessitated removing whole sections altogether, including the Out West section, the buildings section, Scarrys wife, Patricia Murphy, was a writer of childrens textbooks who met Richard during collaboration when he was a textbook illustrator. She is credited with writing many of the stories in his subsequent childrens books, such as Good Night, Little Bear, The Bunny Book, in 1972 the Scarrys bought a chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland. Here he founded his studio where he spent most of the day writing and illustrating his books and his studio contained a single desk, lamp and chair. His wife was not to bother him except for his hour break for lunch. Scarry died of an attack in Gstaad on April 30,1994
33.
Rankin/Bass Productions
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Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. was an American production company, known for its seasonal television specials, particularly its work in stop motion animation. The pre-1974 library is owned by Universal Studios, while the library is owned by Warner Bros. Rankin/Bass stop-motion features are recognizable by their style of doll-like characters with spheroid body parts. Often, traditional cel animation scenes of falling snow would be projected over the action to create the effect of a snowfall, nearly all of the studios animation was outsourced to at least 4 Japanese animation companies, Topcraft, Mushi Production, Toei Doga and TCJ. The company was founded by Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass on September 14,1960, the majority of Rankin/Bass work, including all of their Animagic stop-motion productions, were created in Japan. Throughout the 1960s, the Animagic productions were headed by Japanese stop-motion animator Tadahito Mochinaga, in addition to the name talent that provided the narration for the specials, Rankin/Bass had its own company of voice actors. For the studios early work, this group was based in Toronto, Ontario and this group included actors such as Paul Soles, Larry D. Mann, and Paul Kligman. Outside of the specials, Larry Kenney had been with Rankin/Bass for years, doing characters on ThunderCats. Maury Laws served as director for almost all of the animated films. Romeo Muller was another consistent contributor, serving as screenwriter for many of Rankin/Basss best-known productions including Rudolph, The Little Drummer Boy, one of Videocrafts first projects was an independently produced series based on the character Pinocchio. It was done using Animagic, a stop motion animation process using figurines and this was followed by another independently produced series using more traditional cel animation and based on already established characters, Tales of the Wizard of Oz in 1961. One of the mainstays of the business was holiday-themed animated specials for airing on American television, in 1964, the company produced a special for NBC and sponsor General Electric, later owner of NBC. It was a stop motion animated adaptation of the Robert L, may story Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and the song it inspired, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer written by Mays brother-in-law, Johnny Marks. It had been made into a cartoon by Max Fleischer, brother and former partner of Dave Fleischer and this featured Billie Mae Richards as the voice of the title character. The special contained seven original songs, in 1965, a new song was filmed to replace Were A Couple Of Misfits titled Fame and Fortune. The success of Rudolph led to numerous other Christmas specials, many of their other specials, like Rudolph, were based on popular Christmas songs. In 1968, Greer Garson provided dramatic narration for The Little Drummer Boy, based on the traditional song, the following year, in 1969, Jimmy Durante sang and told the story of Frosty the Snowman, with Jackie Vernon voicing the title character. 1970 brought another Christmas special, Santa Claus Is Comin To Town, Rankin/Bass enlisted Fred Astaire as narrator S. D
34.
NBC
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The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is part of the Big Three television networks, founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America, NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States. Following the acquisition by GE, Bob Wright served as executive officer of NBC, remaining in that position until his retirement in 2007. In 2003, French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE, Comcast purchased a controlling interest in the company in 2011, and acquired General Electrics remaining stake in 2013. Following the Comcast merger, Zucker left NBC Universal and was replaced as CEO by Comcast executive Steve Burke, during a period of early broadcast business consolidation, radio manufacturer Radio Corporation of America acquired New York City radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph. Westinghouse, a shareholder in RCA, had an outlet in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ. This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&Ts manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas. The Bell System, AT&Ts telephone utility, was developing technologies to transmit voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, the 1922 creation of WEAF offered a research-and-development center for those activities. WEAF maintained a schedule of radio programs, including some of the first commercially sponsored programs. In an early example of chain or networking broadcasting, the station linked with Outlet Company-owned WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, AT&T refused outside companies access to its high-quality phone lines. The early effort fared poorly, since the telegraph lines were susceptible to atmospheric. In 1925, AT&T decided that WEAF and its network were incompatible with the companys primary goal of providing a telephone service. AT&T offered to sell the station to RCA in a deal that included the right to lease AT&Ts phone lines for network transmission, the divisions ownership was split among RCA, its founding corporate parent General Electric and Westinghouse. NBC officially started broadcasting on November 15,1926, WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, were operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On April 5,1927, NBC expanded to the West Coast with the launch of the NBC Orange Network and this was followed by the debut of the NBC Gold Network, also known as the Pacific Gold Network, on October 18,1931. The Orange Network carried Red Network programming, and the Gold Network carried programming from the Blue Network, initially, the Orange Network recreated Eastern Red Network programming for West Coast stations at KPO in San Francisco. The Orange Network name was removed from use in 1936, at the same time, the Gold Network became part of the Blue Network. In the 1930s, NBC also developed a network for shortwave radio stations, in 1927, NBC moved its operations to 711 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, occupying the upper floors of a building designed by architect Floyd Brown
35.
Burl Ives
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Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American singer and actor of stage, screen, radio and television. He began as an itinerant singer and banjoist, and launched his own show, The Wayfaring Stranger. In 1942, he appeared in Irving Berlins This Is the Army, in the 1960s, he successfully crossed over into country music, recording hits such as A Little Bitty Tear and Funny Way of Laughing. Ives was born near Hunt City, a town in Jasper County, Illinois, near Newton, Illinois, to Levi Frank Ives. He had six siblings, Audry, Artie, Clarence, Argola, Lillburn and his father was first a farmer and then a contractor for the county and others. One day, Ives was singing in the garden with his mother and he invited his nephew to sing at the old soldiers reunion in Hunt City. The boy performed a rendition of the folk ballad Barbara Allen, from 1927 to 1929, Ives attended Eastern Illinois State Teachers College in Charleston, Illinois, where he played football. During his junior year, he was sitting in English class, listening to a lecture on Beowulf, as he walked out of the door, the professor made a snide remark, and Ives slammed the door behind him, shattering the window in the door. Sixty years later, the school named a building after its most famous dropout, Ives was also involved in Freemasonry from 1927 onward. On July 23,1929, in Richmond, Indiana, Ives made a recording of Behind the Clouds for the Starr Piano Companys Gennett label. In later years, Ives did not recall having made the record, Ives traveled about the U. S. as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo. He was jailed in Mona, Utah, for vagrancy and for singing Foggy Dew, around 1931, he began performing on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana. He also went back to school, attending classes at Indiana State Teachers College, in 1933, Ives also attended the Juilliard School in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1938 with a role in Rodgers and Hart’s hit musical. In 1937, he met and befriended actor Eddie Albert, the two lived together for a while in Hollywood. In 1940, Ives began his own show, titled The Wayfaring Stranger after one of his ballads. Over the next decade, he popularized several traditional songs, such as Foggy Dew, The Blue Tail Fly. He was also associated with the Almanac Singers, a group which at different times included Woody Guthrie, Will Geer, Millard Lampell
36.
Yeti
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In the folklore of Nepal, the Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an ape-like entity taller than an average human that is said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the indigenous to the region. Stories of the Yeti first emerged as a facet of Western popular culture in the 19th century, the scientific community has generally regarded the Yeti as a legend, given the lack of conclusive evidence. In one genetic study, researchers matched DNA from hair samples found in the Himalaya with a bear from the Pleistocene epoch. The word Yeti is derived from Tibetan, གཡའ་དྲེད་, Wylie, g. ya dred, ZYPY, Yachê, a compound of the words Tibetan, གཡའ་, Wylie, g. ya, ZYPY, ya rocky, rocky place and bear. Pranavananda states that the words ti, te and teh are derived from the spoken word tre, Tibetan for bear, with the r so softly pronounced as to be almost inaudible, thus making it te or teh. Other terms used by Himalayan peoples do not translate exactly the same, dzu-teh – dzu translates as cattle and the full meaning translates as cattle bear, referring to the Himalayan brown bear. Migoi or Mi-go translates as wild man, bun Manchi - Nepali for jungle man that is used outside Sherpa communities where yeti is the common name. Mirka – another name for wild-man, local legend holds that anyone who sees one dies or is killed. The latter is taken from a statement by Frank Smythes sherpas in 1937. He adds that his Sherpa guides at once volunteered that the tracks must be that of The Wild Man of the Snows, metoh translates as man-bear and Kang-mi translates as snowman. Documentation suggests that the term metch-kangmi is derived from one source and it has been suggested that metch is simply a misspelling of metoh. Newman mistranslated the word metoh as filthy, substituting the term abominable, as author Bill Tilman recounts, wrote long after in a letter to The Times, The whole story seemed such a joyous creation I sent it to one or two newspapers. According to H. Siiger, the Yeti was a part of the pre-Buddhist beliefs of several Himalayan people and he was told that the Lepcha people worshipped a Glacier Being as a God of the Hunt. He also reported that followers of the Bön religion once believed the blood of the mi rgod or wild man had use in certain mystical ceremonies, the being was depicted as an apelike creature who carries a large stone as a weapon and makes a whistling swoosh sound. In 1832, James Prinseps Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published trekker B. H. Hodgsons account of his experiences in northern Nepal and his local guides spotted a tall, bipedal creature covered with long dark hair, which seemed to flee in fear. Hodgson concluded it was an orangutan, an early record of reported footprints appeared in 1899 in Laurence Waddells Among the Himalayas. Waddell reported his guides description of an apelike creature that left the prints
37.
Rudolph's Shiny New Year
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Rudolphs Shiny New Year is a 1976 Christmas/New Years stop motion animated television special and a sequel to the 1964 special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. The special premiered on ABC on December 10,1976, Three years later, it was also aired on TV Asahi in Japan on December 24,1979 under the Japanese dub title 赤鼻のトナカイ ルドルフ物語. Santa sends Rudolph out to find him, an evil vulture called Eon the Terrible is supposed to live for exactly one Eon after which he will turn into ice and snow and disintegrate. As his particular Eon will end January 1 of the New Year, he plans to kidnap Happy to keep the year from ending and stop time, sent to assist in this journey are some agents of Father Time including General Ticker, The Great Quarter-Past-Five, and Big Ben. Upon arrival in the Archipelagos, Rudolph first travels to the belonging to a caveman named One Million B. C. O. M. inhabits an island anachronistically inhabited with friendly dinosaurs and other prehistoric, as Rudolph and his friends search for Happy, they repeatedly encounter Eon. After other off-screen visits to the islands of 4000 B. C, meanwhile, Happy managed to befriend the Three Bears, but becomes saddened when he removes his hat and exposing his big ears to them, causing him to leave again. The group then travels to the island of 1776, which reflects Colonial America and is ruled over by Sev who resembles Benjamin Franklin. Following Happys seeming rejection on the Island of 1776, Eon kidnaps him, the group now leaves the Archipelego in pursuit. Catching up to Eon, they attempt to rescue the baby, however, Eon thwarts them by sending an avalanche down on the group and trapping them inside giant snowballs. Managing to melt his way free using his nose, Rudolph climbs up to Eons nest where he finds Happy, Rudolph shows Happy his nose and tells him his own story of being bullied because of his nonconformity before asking Happy to let him see his ears. Happy does so, and Rudolph, like everyone else before him, Happy once again gets upset, but Rudolph explains that the sight of Happys ears had made him feel so wonderful that he had to laugh out loud, just like it had done with everyone else. With this declaration, Happy shouts out with joy, but causes Eon to awaken, Rudolph quickly tells Happy to take off his hat and leave it off for good. At the sight of Happys large ears, Eon bursts into laughter which sends him tumbling down the side of the mountain. Rudolph realizes that Eon is now so full of warmth and happiness that it would be impossible for him to turn to ice, with Santas help, they return to Father Times castle with Happy just in time for the beginning of the new year, which is designated Nineteen-Wonderful. After the celebration, everyone wishes Happy a happy new year and Rudolph proclaims to the viewers that it may be shiny,4000 BC, Rudolph mentions that all its inhabitants wanted to do was built pyramids. 1023, Represented as an island filled with fairytale characters. The year 1023 is said to be all the well-known fairy tales
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Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July
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It premiered in the US on November 25,1979 on the ABC network. Paul Frees, Thurl Ravenscroft, Red Buttons and Ethel Merman also provide voices, Winterbolt, a powerful, wicked snow wizard has caused havoc upon the people who have entered his domain. He is then punished by the Queen of the Northern Lights, Lady Boreal, when she places a spell on him that puts him in a deep sleep. Years later, Winterbolt awakens and in her act of magic, Boreal transfers the last of her power into Rudolphs red nose when he is born. Winterbolt learns of this through his Genie of the Ice Scepter and plans not only to dispose of Rudolph, the only capable of stopping him. Santa agrees to pick up Frosty and family before the magic wears off, now, Winterbolt recruits him to try to get Rudolph to turn, or at least appear, evil in the eyes of his friends. With the blizzard keeping Santa from getting to the circus, Frosty, when Scratcher arrives, he forms an alliance with Sam Spangles during the parade. Scratcher, taking advantage of Rudolphs kindness, tricks him into stealing money from the circus, Rudolph agrees to appear guilty after making a deal with Winterbolt to extend the powers of the amulets Frostys family wears for an infinite time in exchange. Frostys family and friends and Lily are upset when Rudolph tells them he stole the money and his nose stops glowing, Rudolph sadly looks at the picture of his best friend and his family, along with postcards from Clarice and Father Time. While moping by the seashore, Big Ben the Clockwork Whale arrives, Frosty discovers the conspiracy of Sam Spangles and Scratcher, and he wants to restore Rudolphs glowing nose. Winterbolt takes advantage of Frosty as well by lying and agreeing to help Rudolph in exchange for Frostys hat, Rudolph manages to steal back the hat and his nose regains its glow. Rudolph returns to the circus with a policeman, who sets the record straight that Rudolph is innocent, the policeman also returns Frostys hat, who is brought back to life, and everyone apologizes to Rudolph. Winterbolt arrives and tries to attack everyone, but Lily throws her guns at his scepter, breaking it, once Winterbolt is defeated, Scratcher disappears, Sam is arrested, and all the spells that Winterbolt cast wear off, but sadly, Frosty and his family melt. However, Jack Frost arrives from South America on Big Ben and brings Frosty, Santa and Mrs. Claus bring them back to the North Pole, but Rudolph stays behind and Lily lets him lead the flying circus parade to thank him for getting the circus out of debt
39.
Frosty the Snowman (film)
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Frosty the Snowman is a 1969 animated Christmas television special based on the song Frosty the Snowman. The animation was produced by Mushi Production in Japan, with then-Mushi staffer Osamu Dezaki among the animation staff, Rankin/Bass veteran writer Romeo Muller adapted and expanded the story for television as he had done with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. TV Guide ranked the special number 4 on its 10 Best Family Holiday Specials list, on Christmas Eve, the teacher hires Professor Hinkle, an inept magician, to perform for the childrens Christmas party. After becoming uninterested in his tricks, the children go outside to play in the snow where they build a snowman, just then, Hinkles rabbit, Hocus Pocus, hops outside with Hinkles hat over him. The wind then blows the hat onto Frostys head, bringing him to life, however, Hinkle takes the hat back after finding out that its magic. When the children refuse him to take the hat back, Hinkle refuses, saying that when they grow up, theyll learn that snowmen cant come to life, however, Hocus escapes with the hat and returns it to the children who bring Frosty back to life. However, the starts to rise and Frosty worries he will melt. So the children decide to take him to the North Pole, after realizing they have no money to buy train tickets, Frosty and Karen hitch a ride on a train headed north in a refrigerator car. However, Hinkle sneaks aboard, still vowing to get his hat back, noticing that Karen is freezing in the boxcar, Frosty vows to warm her up. Frosty suggests Hocus to tell the forest animals to build a fire for her and find Santa Claus to come bring her home, but Hinkle soon shows up and puts out the fire. Frosty and Karen escape Hinkle, and see a greenhouse used to grow Christmas poinsettias, the exhausted Hinkle closes the door behind them. Meanwhile, Santa arrives and Hocus leads him to the greenhouse, but Santa explains that Frosty is made of Christmas snow and will come back every winter. He then opens the door, reviving Frosty. But just as theyre about to put his hat on to bring him back to life, as the end credits roll, Frosty and the children parade through town, including a reformed Professor Hinkle wearing his new hat. This edition contains the dialogue and song audio of both specials. The track listing is as follows, Medley, Santa Claus Is Comin To Town. Be Prepared To Pay 25,18 Medley, the CBC holds broadcast rights in Canada. The special also airs on Freeform in some territories, however, CBS does not own the telecast rights to the 1976 sequel Frostys Winter Wonderland, which prompted CBS to produce its own sequel of sorts, Frosty Returns. Family Home Entertainment released Frosty the Snowman on VHS as part of the Christmas Classics Series in 1989 and 1993 and it was paired with the The Little Drummer Boy on LaserDisc in 1992
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Home video
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Home video is pre-recorded media that is either sold, rented or streamed for home entertainment. The home video business distributes films, telemovies and television series in the form of videos in various formats to the public and these are either bought or rented and then watched privately from the comfort of consumers homes. Most theatrically released films are now released on media, both optical and download-based, replacing the largely obsolete VHS medium. The VCD format remains popular in Asia, though DVDs are gradually gaining popularity, prior to the arrival of home video as a popular medium, most feature films were essentially inaccessible to the public after their original theatrical runs were over. During this era, it was also the norm that television programs could only be viewed at the time of broadcast, viewers were accustomed to the fact that there was no normal way to record TV shows at home and watch them whenever desired. It was possible to purchase a 16 mm or 8 mm film projector and rent or buy home-use prints of some cartoons, short comedies and brief highlights reels edited from feature films. In the case of the 16 mm format, most of these were available with an optical soundtrack,8 mm films almost never ran longer than ten minutes and only a few were available with a magnetic soundtrack late in the life of the format. The Super 8 film format, introduced in 1965, was marketed for making home movies, eventually, longer, edited-down versions of feature films were issued, increasingly with a magnetic soundtrack and in color. But, these were expensive and served only a small niche market of very dedicated or affluent film lovers. The Betamax and VHS home videocassette formats were introduced in 1975 and 1976 respectively, taking several years, film studios and video distributors assumed that consumers would not want to buy prerecorded videocassettes, just rent them. They also felt that all of the sales would be to video rental stores. The first company to duplicate and distribute home video was Magnetic Video in 1977, at that time, not many consumers owned a VCR, and those who did tended to rent rather than buy videos. Home video is a new area of opportunity for adventuresome publishers willing to produce new programs. Todays limitations within the marketplace may be gone tomorrow. More people are finding ways to create visually stimulating entertainment. It is a new form of publishing, a specialty line of products for vertical readership, six years ago, dog handling videos, back pain videos and cooking videos were suppositions on a drawing board. Three years ago these took life, now, along with golf and skiing tapes these S. I. videos are beginning to claim a marketshare. The wild part of new video publishing adventure is the wide diversity of support with which each product comes to the market
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Villain
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A villain is an evil character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have an effect on other characters. A female villain is called a villainess. It referred to a person of less than knightly status and so came to mean a person who was not chivalrous, the villain therefore could appear twice, once in the opening of the story, and a second time as the person sought out by the hero. When a character performed only these acts, the character was a pure villain, the functions could also be spread out among several characters. If a dragon acted as the villain, but was killed by the hero, another character might take on the role of the villain, two other characters could appear in roles that are villainous in the more general sense. One is the hero, this character is always villainous. Among these characters are Cinderellas stepsisters, chopping off parts of their feet to fit on the shoe, another character, the dispatcher, sends a hero on his quest. This might be an innocent request, to fulfil a legitimate need, in fiction, villains commonly function in the dual role of adversary and foil to the storys heroes. In their role as adversary, the villain serves as an obstacle the hero must struggle to overcome, in their role as foil, the villain exemplifies characteristics that are diametrically opposed to those of the hero, creating a contrast distinguishing heroic traits from villainous ones. Others point out many acts of villains have a hint of wish-fulfillment. Because of this, a convincing villain must be given a characterization that provides a motive for doing wrong, as put by film critic Roger Ebert, Each film is only as good as its villain. Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, tod Slaughter always portrayed villainous characters on both stage and screen in a melodramatic manner, with mustache-twirling, eye-rolling, leering, cackling, and hand-rubbing. Brad Warner states that only cartoon villains cackle with glee while rubbing their hands together and dream of ruling the world in the name of all that is wicked, ben Bova recommends to authors that their works not contain villains. He states, in his Tips for writers, In the real world there are no villains, no one actually sets out to do evil. Or, more accurately, fiction serves as a lens to focus of what they know in life, there are no villains cackling and rubbing their hands in glee as they contemplate their evil deeds. There are only people with problems, struggling to solve them, david Lubar adds, This is a brilliant observation that has served me well in all my writing. He may be driven by greed, neuroses, or the conviction that his cause is just, in an attempt to add realism to their stories, many writers will try to create sympathetic villains, the antithesis to an antihero called a antivillain
