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Festival Of Family Classics
''Festival of Family Classics'' is a Rankin/Bass animated anthology series that originally aired between 1972 and 1973. The show originally aired in syndication. It was re-aired 1 November 2005 on the Boomerang channel and on 16 June 2011 via the Teletoon Retro network. ''Festival of Family Classics'' is a series of television versions of famous folk tales and classic literature. 16 of the 18 episodes were 20 minutes long. The two 40 minutes-long episodes (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days) were split into two-parters, making 20 episodes in total. The episodes were animated by two Japanese animation studios: Mushi Production and Topcraft. Videos have been distributed by several companies, including Prism Entertainment, Anchor Bay Entertainment's Starmaker Video, EBM Group, and Classic Media (now known as DreamWorks Classics due to purchase from DreamWorks Animation in 2012). 12 episodes (including the two-parters as single episodes) have been released o ...
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Arthur Rankin Jr
Arthur Gardner Rankin Jr. (July 19, 1924 – January 30, 2014) was an American director, producer and writer, who mostly worked in animation. Co-creator of Rankin/Bass Productions with his friend Jules Bass, he created stop-motion animation features such as ''Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer'', ''Frosty the Snowman'', ''Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town'' and the 1977 cartoon special of ''The Hobbit''. He is credited on over 1,000 television programs. Early life Rankin was born in New York City, the son of actors Arthur Rankin and Marian Mansfield. His paternal grandmother was actress Phyllis Rankin, and his paternal step-grandfather, who adopted his father, was actor Harry Davenport, who played Dr. Meade in the film ''Gone with the Wind''. Career Rankin began his career as an art director for the American Broadcasting Company in the 1940s. In 1955, he and Jules Bass formed the production company Videocraft International to produce television commercials. In 1960, they moved ...
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Yankee Doodle
"Yankee Doodle" is a traditional song and nursery rhyme, the early versions of which predate the Seven Years' War and American Revolution. It is often sung patriotically in the United States today. It is the state anthem of Connecticut. Its Roud Folk Song Index number is 4501. The melody is thought to be much older than both the lyrics and the subject, going back to folk songs of Medieval Europe. Origin The tune of "Yankee Doodle" is thought to be much older than the lyrics, being well known across western Europe, including England, France, Netherlands, Hungary, and Spain. Johnson, Helen Kendrick The melody of the song may have originated from an Irish tune "All the way to Galway" in which the second strain is identical to Yankee Doodle. The earliest words of "Yankee Doodle" came from a Middle Dutch harvest song which is thought to have followed the same tune, possibly dating back as far as 15th-century Holland. It contained mostly nonsensical words in English and Dutch: "Ya ...
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The Swiss Family Robinson
''The Swiss Family Robinson'' (German: ''Der Schweizerische Robinson'') is a novel by Johann David Wyss, first published in 1812, about a Swiss family of immigrants whose ship en route to Port Jackson, Australia, goes off course and is shipwrecked in the East Indies. The ship's crew is lost, but the family and several domestic animals survive. They make their way to shore, where they build a settlement, undergoing several adventures before being rescued; some refuse rescue and remain on the island. The book is the most successful of a large number of "castaway novels" that were written in response to the success of Defoe's ''Robinson Crusoe'' (1719). It has gone through a large number of versions and adaptations. History Written by Swiss writer, Johann David Wyss, edited by his son Johann Rudolf Wyss, and illustrated by another son, Johann Emmanuel Wyss, the novel was intended to teach his four sons about family values, good farming, and the uses of the natural world and self- ...
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Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack and folk hero in American and Canadian folklore. His tall tales revolve around his superhuman labors, and he is customarily accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox, his pet and working animal. The character originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers, and was later popularized by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882–1958) in a 1916 promotional pamphlet for the Red River Lumber Company. He has been the subject of various literary compositions, musical pieces, commercial works, and theatrical productions. His likeness is displayed in a number of oversized statues across North America. Etymology There are many hypotheses about the etymology of the name ''Paul Bunyan''. Much of the commentary focuses on a French-Canadian origin for the name. Phonetically, Bunyan is similar to the Québécois expression "''bon yenne!''" expressing surprise or astonishment. The English surname Bunyan is derived from the same root as "bunion" in the ...
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Puss In Boots
"Puss in Boots" ( it, Il gatto con gli stivali) is an Italian fairy tale, later spread throughout the rest of Europe, about an anthropomorphic cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand of a princess in marriage for his penniless and low-born master. The oldest written telling is by Italian author Giovanni Francesco Straparola, who included it in his ''The Facetious Nights of Straparola'' (c. 1550–1553) in XIV–XV. Another version was published in 1634 by Giambattista Basile with the title ''Cagliuso'', and a tale was written in French at the close of the seventeenth century by Charles Perrault (1628–1703), a retired civil servant and member of the ''Académie française''. There is a version written by Girolamo Morlini, from whom Straparola used various tales in ''The Facetious Nights of Straparola''. The tale appeared in a handwritten and illustrated manuscript two years before its 1697 publication by Barbin in a collection of eight fairy tales ...
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William Overgard
William Overgard (April 30, 1926''Comics Buyer's Guide'' #1485; May 3, 2002; Page 29 – May 25, 1990), was an American cartoonist and writer with a diverse opus, including novels, screenplays, animation, and the comic strips '' Steve Roper and Mike Nomad'' and ''Rudy''. Biography Early life William Thomas Overgard was born on April 30, 1926 in Santa Monica, California, son of silent-movie actor William A. Overgard, and grew up there. Inspired as a boy by Milton Caniff's '' Terry and the Pirates'', at age twelve he sent him a fan letter and samples of his own art, and received encouragement. They continued corresponding during Overgard's high school years and two years in the Navy during World War II. Afterwards, he headed for New York and worked with Caniff, assisting him on his new strip '' Steve Canyon''. (He later regarded this apprenticeship as his only true training for cartooning.) Then, on Caniff's advice, he launched his own cartooning career in the 1950s with comic ...
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Robin Hood
Robin Hood is a legendary heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature and film. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions of the legend, he is depicted as being of noble birth, and in modern retellings he is sometimes depicted as having fought in the Crusades before returning to England to find his lands taken by the Sheriff. In the oldest known versions he is instead a member of the yeoman class. Traditionally depicted dressed in Lincoln green, he is said to have robbed from the rich and given to the poor. Through retellings, additions, and variations, a body of familiar characters associated with Robin Hood has been created. These include his lover, Maid Marian, his band of outlaws, the Merry Men, and his chief opponent, the Sheriff of Nottingham. The Sheriff is often depicted as assisting Prince John in usurping the rightful but absent King Richard, to whom Robin Hood remains loy ...
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Leonard Starr
Leonard Starr (October 28, 1925 – June 30, 2015) was an American cartoonist, comic book artist, and advertising artist, best known for creating the newspaper comic strip '' On Stage'' and reviving ''Little Orphan Annie''. Early life Born October 28, 1925, in New York City, Starr graduated from Manhattan's High School of Music and Art and then studied at Pratt Institute. Career While attending Pratt during 1942-43, Starr worked for the Harry "A" Chesler and the Funnies, Inc. studios, contributing to the early comic book features produced at these studios. For Funnies, Inc., he began as a background artist, eventually inking Bob Oksner's pencils. He graduated to drawing for early Timely/Marvel Comics titles, including the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. Throughout the 1940s, Starr worked for a plethora of publishers of both comic books and pulps, including Better Publications, Consolidated Book, Croyden Publications, E. R. Ross Publishing, Fawcett Comics (doing ''Don Wins ...
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Around The World In Eighty Days
''Around the World in Eighty Days'' (french: link=no, Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is an adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in French in 1872. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a wager of £20,000 set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne's most acclaimed works. Plot Phileas Fogg is a wealthy English gentleman living a solitary life in London. Despite his wealth, Fogg lives modestly and carries out his habits with mathematical precision. Very little can be said about his social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club, where he spends the best part of his days. Having dismissed his valet for bringing him shaving water at a temperature slightly lower than expected, Fogg hires Frenchman Jean Passepartout as a replacement. On the evening of 2 October 1872, while at the Reform Club, Fogg gets involved in an a ...
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Robert Littell (author)
Robert Littell (born January 8, 1935) is an American novelist and former journalist who resides in France. He specializes in spy novels that often concern the CIA and the Soviet Union. Littell was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family, of Russian Jewish origin. He is a 1956 graduate of Alfred University in western New York. He spent four years in the U.S. Navy and served at times as his ship's navigator, antisubmarine warfare officer, communications officer, and deck watch officer. Later Littell became a journalist and worked many years for ''Newsweek'' during the Cold War. He was a foreign correspondent for the magazine from 1965 to 1970. Littell is an amateur mountain climber and is the father of award-winning novelist Jonathan Littell. His brother, Alan Littell (born 1929), is also an author and journalist. He is the brother-in-law of the French writer Bernard du Boucheron.Corty, BrunoÀ la rencontre de l'autre Littell ''Le Figaro'', 21 March 2009. Bibliography Nov ...
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Johnny Appleseed
John Chapman (September 26, 1774March 18, 1845), better known as Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario, as well as the northern counties of present-day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for The New Church (Swedenborgian) and the inspiration for many museums and historical sites such as the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio. Family Chapman was born on September 26, 1774, in Leominster, Massachusetts, the second child of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Chapman (née Simonds, married February 8, 1770). His birthplace has a granite marker, and the street is now called ''Johnny Appleseed Lane''. Chapman's mother, Elizabeth, died in 1776, shortly after giving birth to a second son, Nathaniel Jr., who died ...
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Jack-o'-lantern
A jack-o'-lantern (or jack o'lantern) is a carved lantern, most commonly made from a pumpkin or a root vegetable such as a rutabaga or turnip. Jack-o'-lanterns are associated with the Halloween holiday. Its name comes from the reported phenomenon of strange lights flickering over peat bogs, called ''will-o'-the-wisp, will-o'-the-wisps'' or ''jack-o'-lanterns''. The name is also tied to the Irish mythology, Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a drunkard who bargains with Satan and is doomed to roam the Earth with only a hollowed turnip to light his way. Jack-o'-lanterns carved from pumpkins are a yearly Halloween tradition that developed in the United States when Irish Americans, Irish immigrants brought their root vegetable carving tradition with them. It is common to see jack-o'-lanterns used as external and internal decorations prior to and on Halloween. To make a jack-o'-lantern, the top of a pumpkin or turnip is cut off to form a lid, the inside flesh is scooped out, and an image ...
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