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Love Of Chair
''Love of Chair'' was a recurring sketch on the television program ''The Electric Company''. Written by actor Paul Dooley, it was seen primarily during the 1971–1972 season. The sketch was a parody of classic soap operas, and spoofed numerous aspects of these shows: * The name of the sketch was based on the long-running TV soap opera ''Love of Life''. * The unseen announcer for the sketch was Ken Roberts, who at one time had been the announcer for ''Love of Life''. * The sketch featured background organ music similar in style to that of classic radio soap operas, including the use of dramatic strings during a key portion of the sketch. Format The scene was always set in a room with bare featureless walls and floors, and focused on the actions of a boy (played by Skip Hinnant dressed as a pre-teenaged child). In the early sketches, the only other visible objects in the room were a simple wooden chair in which the boy usually sat, and a paneled door in the background. Later s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sketch Comedy
Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is used widely in variety shows, comedy talk shows, and some sitcoms and children's television series. The sketches may be improvised live by the performers, developed through improvisation before public performance, or scripted and rehearsed in advance like a play. Sketch comedians routinely differentiate their work from a "skit", maintaining that a skit is a (single) dramatized joke (or "bit") while a sketch is a comedic exploration of a concept, character, or situation. definition 3b, Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved 5/4/2019 History Sketch comedy has its origins in[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick And Jane
''Dick and Jane'' are the two main characters created by Zerna Sharp for a series of basal readers written by William S. Gray to teach children to read. The characters first appeared in the ''Elson-Gray Readers'' in 1930 and continued in a subsequent series of books through the final version in 1965. These readers were used in classrooms in the United States and in other English-speaking countries for nearly four decades, reaching the height of their popularity in the 1950s, when 80 percent of first-grade students in the United States used them. Although the Dick and Jane series of primers continued to be sold until 1973 and remained in use in some classrooms throughout the 1970s, they were replaced with other reading texts by the 1980s and gradually disappeared from school curricula. The Dick and Jane series were known for their simple narrative text and watercolor illustrations. Despite the criticisms of the stereotypical content that depicted white, middle-class Americans and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy Sketches
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: in Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing ''agon'' or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal (; ; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and his older sister is actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He began acting as a child, making his acting debut in '' City Slickers'' (1991), followed by roles in his father's films '' A Dangerous Woman'' (1993) and '' Homegrown'' (1998). His breakthrough roles were as Homer Hickam in '' October Sky'' (1999) and as a psychologically troubled teenager in '' Donnie Darko'' (2001). Gyllenhaal starred in the 2004 science fiction disaster film '' The Day After Tomorrow''. He played Jack Twist in Ang Lee's 2005 romantic drama ''Brokeback Mountain'', for which Gyllenhaal won a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. His career progressed with starring roles in the thriller ''Zodiac'' (2007), the romantic comedy '' Love & Other Drugs'' (2010), and the science fiction film ''Source Code'' (2011) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Margalit Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal (; born November 16, 1977) is an American actress and filmmaker. Part of the Gyllenhaal family, she is the daughter of filmmakers Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Achs, and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She began her career as a teenager with small roles in several of her father's films, and appeared with her brother in the cult favorite '' Donnie Darko'' (2001). She then appeared in ''Adaptation,'' '' Confessions of a Dangerous Mind'' (both 2002), and '' Mona Lisa Smile'' (2003). Gyllenhaal received critical acclaim for her leading performances in the erotic romantic comedy drama ''Secretary'' (2002) and the drama ''Sherrybaby'' (2006), each of which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination. After several commercially successful films in 2006, including '' World Trade Center'', she received wider recognition for playing Rachel Dawes in the superhero film '' The Dark Knight'' (2008). For her performance as a single mother in '' C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal
Naomi Foner ( Achs; born March 4, 1946) is an American screenwriter and director. She is the mother of actor and actress Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal. Early life and education Foner was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the daughter of doctors Ruth (''née'' Silbowitz; 1920–1968) and Samuel Achs (1919–2014). Her parents were both of Jewish ancestry. Her aunt was Freda (Silbowitz) Hertz (1915–2013), a lawyer. She was raised in a family of "high-achieving New York Jews." Her Ashkenazi Jewish grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe (Latvia and Poland). She attended Barnard College in New York City, graduating with a BA degree in English. She later earned an MA degree in developmental psychology from Columbia University. Career She has written the screenplays for several feature films, including '' Running on Empty'' (for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay and won a Golden Globe Award for the same category), ''Losing Isaiah'', and mos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non Sequitur (absurdism)
A non sequitur ( , ; " tdoes not follow") is a conversational literary device, often used for comedic purposes. It is something said that, because of its apparent lack of meaning relative to what preceded it, seems absurd to the point of being humorous or confusing. This use of the term is distinct from the non sequitur in logic, where it is a fallacy. Etymology The expression is Latin for " tdoes not follow". It comes from the words ''non'' meaning "not" and the verb ''sequi'' meaning "to follow". Usage A non sequitur can denote an abrupt, illogical, or unexpected turn in plot or dialogue by including a relatively inappropriate change in manner. A non sequitur joke sincerely has no explanation, but it reflects the idiosyncrasies, mental frames and alternative world of the particular comic persona. Comic artist Gary Larson's ''The Far Side'' cartoons are known for what Larson calls "...absurd, almost non sequitur animal" characters, such as talking cows, which he uses to crea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'' (often simply referred to as ''Laugh-In'') is an American sketch comedy television program that ran for 140 episodes from January 22, 1968, to March 12, 1973, on the NBC television network, hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. It originally aired as a one-time special on September 9, 1967, and was such a success that it was brought back as a series, replacing '' The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'' on Mondays at 8 pm (ET). It quickly became the most popular television show in the United States. The title of the show was a play on the 1960s hippie culture "love-ins" or the counterculture " be-ins", terms derived from the " sit-ins" common in protests associated with civil rights and antiwar demonstrations of the time. In 2002, ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'' was ranked number 42 on ''TV Guide's'' 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. ''Laugh-In'' had its roots in the humor of vaudeville and burlesque, but its most direct influences were Olsen and Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary Owens
Gary Owens (born Gary Bernard Altman; May 10, 1934 – February 12, 2015) was an American radio announcer, personality, disc jockey and voice actor. His polished baritone speaking voice generally offered deadpan recitations of total nonsense, which he frequently demonstrated as the announcer on ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In''. Owens was equally proficient in straight or silly assignments and was frequently heard on television and radio as well as in commercials. He was best known, aside from being the announcer on ''Laugh-In'', for providing the voices of the titular superhero on ''Space Ghost'' and of Blue Falcon in '' Dynomutt, Dog Wonder''. He also played himself in a cameo appearance on ''Space Ghost Coast to Coast'' in 1998. Owens' first cartoon-voice acting was performing the voice of Roger Ramjet on the ''Roger Ramjet'' cartoons. He later served as announcer of Antenna TV. Early life Owens was born in Mitchell, South Dakota, the son of Venetta (née Clark), an educator and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most visited website, after Google Search. YouTube has more than 2.5 billion monthly users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. , videos were being uploaded at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute. In October 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 billion. Google's ownership of YouTube expanded the site's business model, expanding from generating revenue from advertisements alone, to offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content produced by YouTube. It also offers YouTube Premium, a paid subscription option for watching content without ads. YouTube also approved creators to participate in Google's AdSense program, which seeks to generate more revenue for both parties ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, entertainment, news, and sports. Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion.Diggs-Brown, Barbara (2011''Strategic Public Relations: Audience Focused Practice''p. 48 In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the U.S. and most other developed countries. The availability of various types of archival stora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skip Hinnant
Joseph Howard "Skip" Hinnant (born September 12, 1940) is an American actor, singer, voice actor and comedian. Career Skip Hinnant's first major role was as Cathy's boyfriend, Ted, on ''The Patty Duke Show'' from 1963 to 1965. In 1967, he played Schroeder in the original off-Broadway cast of Clark Gesner's '' You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown,'' where his older brother, Bill Hinnant, played Snoopy. Hinnant is best known as a featured performer on the children's show ''The Electric Company'', which aired on the American educational television network PBS from 1971 to 1977. He was best known at that time as word decoder Fargo North, Decoder (a play on "Fargo, North Dakota") and as "The Boy" in the soap opera satire " Love of Chair." Despite generally being known for acting in more family friendly works, Hinnant also performed in adult animation, providing the voice of Fritz the Cat in both the 1972 animated film of the same name and its 1974 sequel, '' The Nine Lives of Fritz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
