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Wonder Showzen
''Wonder Showzen'' is an American adult sketch comedy television series that aired between 2005 and 2006 on MTV2. It was created by Vernon Chatman and John Lee of PFFR. Described as a children's television series for adults, the show's format is a parody of educational PBS children's television shows such as ''Sesame Street'' and ''The Electric Company'' (e.g. use of stock footage, puppetry, and clips of children being interviewed). In addition to general controversial comedy, it satirizes politics, religion, war, sex and culture with black comedy. Development ''Wonder Showzen'' was created by Vernon Chatman and John Lee, who originally made an early concept of it back in 1999, and pitched to the USA Network in 2000, but after a few minutes of viewing, executives there quickly concluded it did not fit the network's programming style. However, Viacom (2005–present), Viacom was re-branding MTV2 and made ''Wonder Showzen'' part of its new programming lineup. It aired as part of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adult Puppeteering
{{unreferenced, date=July 2015 Adult puppeteering is the use of puppets in contexts aimed at adult audiences. Serious theatrical pieces can use puppets, either for aesthetic reasons, or to achieve special effects that would not otherwise be impossible with human actors. In parts of the world where puppet shows have traditionally been children's entertainment, many find the notion of puppets in decidedly adult situations—for example, involving drugs, sex, profanity, or violence—to be humorous, because of the bizarre contrast it creates between subject matter and characters. Adult puppeteering appears in many forms. In the US and UK it is more easily found on screen. Television satire such as the UK's ''Spitting Image'' provides a strong link to the earlier traditions of Punch and Judy or Commedia dell'Arte as sources of social and political commentary. Puppetry sitcoms such as the US series ''Dinosaurs'' feature puppet characters who are entertaining in themselves, not as satiric ... [...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 |
Dirty Sanchez (TV Series)
''Dirty Sanchez'' is a British stunt and prank TV series featuring a group of three Welshmen and one Englishman harming themselves, and each other, through dangerous stunts, which ran from 2003 until 2007. It was known as ''Sanchez Boys'' and ''Team Sanchez'' in the U.S. The performers are the Welshmen Mathew Pritchard, Lee Dainton, Michael "Pancho" Locke and the Englishman Dan Joyce and was originally based in Newport, South Wales, but later series of the show took place elsewhere in the United Kingdom and the world. Pritchard and Locke also starred as the "Pain Men" in Channel 4's '' Balls of Steel''. The series is similar to the American series '' Jackass'' and the Finnish series ''The Dudesons''. The show aired on MTV in the United Kingdom and on MTV2 in the United States. Origins ''Dirty Sanchez'' consisted of three Welshmen named Mathew Pritchard, Lee Dainton, and Michael "Pancho" Locke, and one Englishman Dan Joyce. Pritchard and Dainton became close friends after be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viacom (2005–present)
Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Paramount Global and TV18 in India ** Viacom18 Studios, the film subsidiary of Viacom18 See also * CBS (other) * Paramount (other) * Paramount Global Paramount Global (doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned and operated by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. I ..., an American media conglomerate known as ViacomCBS until 2022 {{Disambiguation Paramount Global ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USA Network
USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madison Square Garden Sports Network, one of the first national sports cable television channels, before being relaunched under its current name on April 9, 1980. Since then, USA steadily gained popularity through its original programming, a long-established partnership with WWE and, for many years, limited sports programming that increased significantly in 2022 after the shutdown of NBCSN. As of September 2018, USA Network is commercially available to about 90.4 million households (98% of households with pay television) in the US. History Madison Square Garden Sports Network (1977–1980) USA Network originally launched on September 22, 1977, as the Madison Square Garden Sports Network (not to be confused with the New York City-area regional ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Comedy
Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discuss. Writers and comedians often use it as a tool for exploring vulgar issues by provoking discomfort, serious thought, and amusement for their audience. Thus, in fiction, for example, the term ''black comedy'' can also refer to a genre in which dark humor is a core component. Popular themes of the genre include death, crime, poverty, suicide, war, violence, terrorism, discrimination, disease, racism, sexism, and human sexuality. Black comedy differs from both blue comedy—which focuses more on crude topics such as nudity, sex, and Body fluids—and from straightforward obscenity. Whereas the term ''black comedy'' is a relatively broad term covering humor relating to many serious subjects, ''gallows humor'' tends to be used more specifical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylor, Edward. (1871). Primitive Culture. Vol 1. New York: J.P. Putnam's Son Culture is often originated from or attributed to a specific region or location. Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies. A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group. Accepting only a monoculture in a social group can bear risks, just as a single species can wither in the face of environmental change, for lack of functional responses to the change. Thus in military culture, valor is counted a typica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacred things, faith,Tillich, P. (1957) ''Dynamics of faith''. Harper Perennial; (p. 1). a supernatural being or supernatural beings or "some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life". Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human cultur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies politics and government is referred to as political science. It may be used positively in the context of a "political solution" which is compromising and nonviolent, or descriptively as "the art or science of government", but also often carries a negative connotation.. The concept has been defined in various ways, and different approaches have fundamentally differing views on whether it should be used extensively or limitedly, empirically or normatively, and on whether conflict or co-operation is more essential to it. A variety of methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising internal and external force, including wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puppetry
Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a performance is also known as a puppet production. The script for a puppet production is called a puppet play. Puppeteers use movements from hands and arms to control devices such as rods or strings to move the body, head, limbs, and in some cases the mouth and eyes of the puppet. The puppeteer sometimes speaks in the voice of the character of the puppet, while at other times they perform to a recorded soundtrack. There are many different varieties of puppets, and they are made of a wide range of materials, depending on their form and intended use. They can be extremely complex or very simple in their construction. The simplest puppets are finger puppets, which are tiny puppets that fit onto a single finger, and sock puppets, which are formed from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stock Footage
Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock footage is called a "stock shot" or a "library shot". Stock footage may have appeared in previous productions but may also be outtakes or footage shot for previous productions and not used. Examples of stock footage that might be utilized are moving images of cities and landmarks, wildlife in their natural environments, and historical footage. Suppliers of stock footage may be either rights managed or royalty-free. Many websites offer direct downloads of clips in various formats. History Stock footage companies began to emerge in the mid-1980s, offering clips mastered on Betacam SP, VHS, and film formats. Many of the smaller libraries that specialized in niche topics such as extreme sports, technological or cultural collections were boug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Electric Company
''The Electric Company'' is an American educational children's television series produced by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW, now known as Sesame Workshop). It was co-created by Paul Dooley, Joan Ganz Cooney, and Lloyd Morrisett. The series aired on PBS for 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971, to April 15, 1977. The program continued in reruns until October 4, 1985. ''The Electric Company'' later reran on Noggin, a channel co-founded by the CTW, from 1999 to 2003. Noggin also produced a compilation special for the show. The Workshop produced the show at Reeves Teletape Studios in Manhattan. ''The Electric Company'' employed sketch comedy and various other devices to provide an entertaining program to help elementary school children develop their grammar and reading skills. Since it was intended for children who had graduated from CTW's flagship program, ''Sesame Street'', the humor was more mature than what was seen there. The show w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
