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Dialect Comedy
The term "Dialect comedy" was coined by David Marc in his essay, ''Origins of the genre''. Dialect comedies are a genre of radio (and later television) sitcoms that were popular between the 1920s and the 1950s. They relied on the exaggerated and highly stylized portrayal of stereotypes, usually based on ethnic humor. The genre has its roots on the vaudeville stage and in the minstrel shows that became popular in the 19th century. The ethnicities of the actual actors portraying the dialects did not have to match the characters; while much Jewish dialect comedy was created and portrayed by actual Jews, other dialect comedies, such as those involving blackface, were often not. One of the most notable dialect comedies was ''The Goldbergs (broadcast series), The Goldbergs'', the brain child of creator/star Gertrude Berg about a Jewish family living in the Bronx. After its debut in 1929, the series had several incarnations in radio, television and a musical on Broadway. Berg continued t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnic Humor
An ethnic joke is a remark aiming at humor relating to an ethnic, racial or cultural group, often referring to an ethnic stereotype of the group in question for its punchline. Perceptions of ethnic jokes are ambivalent. Christie Davies gives examples that, while many find them racist and offensive, for some people jokes poking fun at one's own ethnicity may be considered acceptable. He points out that ethnic joke are often funny for some exactly for the same reason they sound racist for others; it happens when they play on negative ethnic stereotypes. Davies maintains that ethnic jokes reinforce ethnic stereotypes and sometimes lead to calls for violence. The perceived damage to the ethnic group can be of great concern as when the ethnic Polish jokes became so common in the 1970s the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs approached the U.S. State Department to complain. Academic theories of ethnic humor The predominant and most widely known theory of ethnic humor attempts to discov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Burns
George Burns (born Nathan Birnbaum; January 20, 1896March 9, 1996) was an American comedian, actor, writer, and singer, and one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, radio, film and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar-smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three-quarters of a century. He and his wife Gracie Allen appeared on radio, television and film as the comedy duo Burns and Allen. At the age of 79, Burns experienced a sudden career revival as an amiable, beloved and unusually active comedy elder statesman in the 1975 film ''The Sunshine Boys'', for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Burns was only a Tony Award shy of being one of the few EGOT award recipients in the American entertainment industry, winning an Emmy, a Grammy, and an Oscar. Burns became a centenarian in 1996, continuing to work until just weeks before his death of cardiac arrest at his home in Beverly Hills, shortly after his hundr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Press International
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th century. At its peak, it had more than 6,000 media subscribers. Since the first of several sales and staff cutbacks in 1982, and the 1999 sale of its broadcast client list to its main U.S. rival, the Associated Press, UPI has concentrated on smaller information-market niches. History Formally named United Press Associations for incorporation and legal purposes, but publicly known and identified as United Press or UP, the news agency was created by the 1907 uniting of three smaller news syndicates by the Midwest newspaper publisher E. W. Scripps. It was headed by Hugh Baillie (1890–1966) from 1935 to 1955. At the time of his retirement, UP had 2,900 clients in the United States, and 1,500 abroad. In 1958, it became United Press Intern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sara Berner
Sara Berner (born Lillian Ann Herdan; January 12, 1912 – December 19, 1969) was an American actress. Known for her expertise in dialect and characterization, she began her career as a performer in vaudeville before becoming a voice actress for radio and animated shorts. She starred in her own radio show on NBC, ''Sara's Private Caper'', and was best known as telephone operator Mabel Flapsaddle on ''The Jack Benny Program''. Columnist Erskine Johnson described Berner in 1944 as "the most famous voice in Hollywood." Early life and career Born Lillian Ann Herdan in 1912 in Albany, New York, she adopted her stage name by combining her mother's first name (Sarah) and her maiden name of Berner. She was the oldest of four children, and her family relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma when she was a teenager. She became interested in performing after watching silent movies and vaudeville shows at a theater and then imitating scenes in front of the women's restroom attendant. Berner performed in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Correctness
''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. Since the late 1980s, the term has been used to describe a preference for inclusive language and avoidance of language or behavior that can be seen as excluding, marginalizing, or insulting to groups of people disadvantaged or discriminated against, particularly groups defined by ethnicity, sex, gender, or sexual orientation. In public discourse and the media, the term is generally used as a pejorative with an implication that these policies are excessive or unwarranted. The phrase ''politically correct'' first appeared in the 1930s, when was used to describe dogmatic adherence to ideology in authoritarian regimes, such as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Early usage of the term ''politically correct'' by leftists in the 1970s and 1980 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Town Hall Tonight
''The Fred Allen Show'' is a long-running American radio comedy program starring comedian Fred Allen and his wife Portland Hoffa. Over the course of the program's 17-year run, it was sponsored by Linit Bath Soaps, Hellmann's, Ipana, Sal Hepatica, Texaco and Tenderleaf Tea. The program ended in 1949 under the sponsorship of the Ford Motor Company. The most popular period of the program was the few years of sponsorship under The Texas Company. During this time, the program was known as ''Texaco Star Theatre with Fred Allen''. On the December 6, 1942 episode of the program, Allen premiered his first in a series of segments known as "Allen's Alley". The segments would have Allen strolling through an imaginary neighborhood, knocking on the "doors" of various neighbors, including average-American John Doe (played by John Brown), Mrs. Nussbaum (Minerva Pious), pompous poet Falstaff Openshaw (Alan Reed), Titus Moody (Parker Fennelly), and boisterous Southern senator Beauregard Claghorn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Senator Claghorn
Senator Beauregard Claghorn was a popular fictional radio character on the "Allen's Alley" segment of ''The Fred Allen Show'', beginning in 1945. Succeeding the vaguely similar but much less popular Senator Bloat from the earliest "Allen's Alley" routines, Senator Claghorn, portrayed by Allen's announcer Kenny Delmar, was a blustery Southern politician whose home was usually the first at which Allen would knock. Claghorn would typically answer the door with, "Somebody, ah say, somebody knocked! Claghorn's the name, Senator Claghorn, that is. I'm from the South. Suh." Description Claghorn had an unshakable obsession with the South, and would happily complain about the North in dry ways. For instance, the Senator refused to ever wear a "Union suit" or drive through the Lincoln Tunnel when he visited New York City, and he claimed to drink only out of Dixie cups. At one point when asked which state he represented, he noted it was in the Gulf of Mexico, south of Alabama. The senator ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lum And Abner
''Lum and Abner'' was an American network radio comedy program created by Chester Lauck and Norris Goff that was aired from 1931 to 1954. Modeled on life in the small town of Waters, Arkansas, near where Lauck and Goff grew up, the show proved immensely popular. In 1936, Waters changed its name to "Pine Ridge" after the show's fictional town. Synopsis The series was created by co-stars Chester Lauck (who played Columbus "Lum" Edwards) and Norris Goff (Abner Peabody). Lum always pronounced his own name as Ed'erds and was very annoyed if Abner or anyone brought up his full first name. The two characters performed as a double act, with Lum generally playing the straight man to Abner's attempts to break free from Lum's influence. As co-owners of the Jot 'em Down Store in the fictional town of Pine Ridge, Arkansas, the pair are constantly stumbling upon moneymaking ideas only to find themselves fleeced by nemesis Squire Skimp, before finally finding a way to redeem themselves. Lum a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hillbilly
Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in southern Appalachia and the Ozarks. The term was later used to refer to people from other rural and mountainous areas west of the Mississippi river, too, particularly those of the Rocky Mountains and near the Rio Grande. The first known instances of "hillbilly" in print were in ''The Railroad Trainmen's Journal'' (vol. ix, July 1892), an 1899 photograph of men and women in West Virginia labeled "Camp Hillbilly", and a 1900 ''New York Journal'' article containing the definition: "a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him". The stereotype is twofold in that it incorporates both positive and negative traits: "Hillbillies" are often considered independent and self-relian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ... TV listings, listings information as well as entertainment and television-related news. The company sold its print magazine division, TV Guide Magazine, TV Guide Magazine LLC, in 2008. Corporate history Prototype The prototype of what would become ''TV Guide Magazine'' was developed by Lee Wagner (1910–1993), who was the circulation director of Macfadden Communications Group#Macfadden Publications, MacFadden Publications in New York City in the 1930s – and later, by the time of the predecessor publication's creation, for Cowles Media Company – distributing magazines focusing on movie celebrities. In 1948, Wagner printed New York City area lis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seinfeld
''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, over nine seasons and List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It stars Seinfeld as Jerry Seinfeld (character), a fictionalized version of himself and focuses on his personal life with three of his friends: best friend George Costanza (Jason Alexander), former girlfriend Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and his neighbor from across the hall, Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards). It is set mostly in an apartment building in Manhattan's Upper West Side in New York City. It has been described as "a show about nothing", often focusing on the slice of life, minutiae of daily life. Interspersed in earlier episodes are moments of stand-up comedy from the fictional Jerry Seinfeld, frequently using the episode's events for material. As a rising comedian in the late 1980s, Jerry Seinfeld was presented with an opportunity to create a show with NBC. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerry Seinfeld
Jerome Allen Seinfeld ( ; born April 29, 1954) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known for playing a Jerry Seinfeld (character), semi-fictionalized version of himself in the sitcom ''Seinfeld'', which he created and wrote with Larry David. The show aired on NBC from 1989 until 1998, becoming one of the most acclaimed and popular sitcoms of all time. As a stand-up comedian, Seinfeld specializes in observational comedy. In 2004, Comedy Central named him the 12th-greatest stand-up comedian of all time. Seinfeld produced, co-wrote, and starred in the 2007 film ''Bee Movie'', which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. In 2010, he premiered a reality series called ''The Marriage Ref (U.S. TV series), The Marriage Ref'', which aired for two seasons on NBC. Seinfeld is the creator and host of the web series ''Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee'' (2012–2019). He is married to author and philanthropist Jessica Seinf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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