Monty Python were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. The group came to prominence for the sketch comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus, which aired on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. Their work then developed into a larger collection that included live shows, films, albums, books, and musicals; their influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' influence on music. Their sketch show has been called "an important moment in the evolution of television comedy".
Daniel Sexton Gurney was an American racing driver, race car constructor, and team owner who reached racing's highest levels starting in 1958. Gurney won races in the Formula One, Indy Car, NASCAR, Can-Am, and Trans-Am Series. Gurney is the first of three drivers to have won races in sports cars (1958), Formula One (1962), NASCAR (1963), and Indy cars (1967), the other two being Mario Andretti and Juan Pablo Montoya.
The Mille Miglia was an open-road, motorsport endurance race established in 1927 by the young Counts Francesco Mazzotti and Aymo Maggi. It took place in Italy 24 times from 1927 to 1957.
Rat Race is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Jerry Zucker. Inspired by Stanley Kramer's 1963 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the film features an ensemble cast consisting of Rowan Atkinson, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., Wayne Knight, Jon Lovitz, Kathy Najimy, Lanei Chapman, Breckin Meyer, Amy Smart, Seth Green, Vince Vieluf, John Cleese and Dave Thomas.
The Twits is a 1980 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. It was first published by Jonathan Cape. The story features The Twits, a spiteful, idle, unkempt couple who continuously play nasty practical jokes on each other to amuse themselves, and exercise their devious wickedness on their pet monkeys.
Rad is a 1986 American sports film directed by Hal Needham from a screenplay by Sam Bernard and Geoffrey Edwards. The film stars Bill Allen, Lori Loughlin, Talia Shire, Jack Weston and Ray Walston, along with 1984 Olympic gymnastics champion Bart Conner.
Street racing is typically an unsanctioned and illegal form of auto racing that occurs on a public road. Racing in the streets is considered an ancient hazard, as horse racing occurred on streets for centuries, and street racing in automobiles is likely as old as the automobile itself. It became especially prevalent during the heyday of hot rodding (1960s), muscle cars, Japanese imports (1990s) and sports cars (2000s). Since then, it continues to be both popular and hazardous, with deaths of bystanders, passengers, and drivers occurring every year. In the United States, modern street racing traces its roots back to Woodward Avenue, Michigan, in the 1960s when the three main Detroit-based American car companies were producing high-powered performance cars. Since a private racing venue was not always available, street races would be held illegally on public roads.
Flushed Away is a 2006 animated adventure comedy film directed by Sam Fell and David Bowers, produced by Cecil Kramer, David Sproxton, and Peter Lord, and written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan and Will Davies. It was the third and final DreamWorks Animation film co-produced with Aardman Features following Chicken Run (2000) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and was the first Aardman project mostly made in CGI animation as opposed to starting with their usual stop-motion – this was because using water on plasticine models could damage them, and it was complex to render the effect in another way. The film stars the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Shane Richie, Bill Nighy, Andy Serkis and Jean Reno. In the film, a pampered fancy rat named Roddy St. James (Jackman) is flushed down the toilet in his Kensington apartment by a sewer rat named Sid (Richie), and befriends a scavenger named Rita Malone (Winslet) in order to get back home while evading a sinister toad (McKellen) and his hench-rats.
Jimmy Lin Chih-ying is a Taiwanese singer, actor, and race car driver.
Lisa Lu Yan is a Chinese-American actress. She has worked extensively in Hong Kong, American, and mainland Chinese film and television since her debut in 1958. She won the Golden Horse Awards three times, twice for Best Leading Actress and once for Best Supporting Actress, in the 1970s. She is the only person who is a member of both the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Brian Deegan is an American professional freestyle motocross rider and racing driver.
Ford Performance is the high-performance division of the Ford Motor Company and the multinational name used for its motorsport and racing activity.
Planes is a 2013 American animated sports comedy film produced by Disneytoon Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed and co-written by Klay Hall and produced by Traci Balthazor-Flynn, it is a spin-off of Pixar's Cars franchise. Despite not being produced by Pixar, the film was co-written and executive produced by Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios' then-chief creative officer John Lasseter, who directed the first two Cars films, while the remaining writers of the film included Jeffrey M. Howard. The film stars the voices of Dane Cook, Stacy Keach, Priyanka Chopra in her Hollywood debut, Brad Garrett, Teri Hatcher, Danny Mann, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Roger Craig Smith, John Cleese, Carlos Alazraqui, Sinbad, Val Kilmer, and Anthony Edwards. In the film, Dusty Crophopper (Cook), a crop duster plane in the town of Propwash Junction, wants to complete Wings Around the Globe with racing planes, especially Ripslinger (Smith), despite his fear of heights, with the help of naval aviator Skipper Riley (Keach), who trains him.
Events in 1977 in animation.
The Reluctant Dragon & Mr. Toad Show is a 1970 American animated television series that aired on ABC's Saturday morning schedule. The show features two characters created by British children's writer Kenneth Grahame: the Reluctant Dragon from the 1898 short story of the same name, and Mr. Toad from the 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows. The show was created by Rankin/Bass Productions in New York City, who produced 17 episodes. The show was a flop and canceled midway through its first season, airing from September 12 until December 26, 1970. A year later, ABC aired reruns of the show on Sunday mornings on September 12, 1971. The show is partially lost, as only 8 of the 17 episodes have been recovered as of February 17, 2024.
Rainbow Road is the name of several levels featured in the Mario Kart racing game series, developed and published by Nintendo. Usually presented as a rainbow-coloured racing course suspended in space, Rainbow Road is widely recognized as one of the most iconic staple elements of the Mario Kart video game series.
Nimona is a 2023 American animated science fantasy adventure comedy drama film directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane from a screenplay by Robert L. Baird and Lloyd Taylor. It is based on the 2015 graphic novel of the same name by ND Stevenson. Set in a science fantasy world influenced by the Middle Ages, the film features the voices of Chloë Grace Moretz as the eponymous shapeshifting character and Riz Ahmed as her boss and former knight Ballister, with Eugene Lee Yang and Frances Conroy voicing supporting roles.
Marmaduke is a 2022 animated comedy film directed by Mark Dippé, and co-directed by Phil Nibbelink, Youngki Lee, and Matt Whelan, based on the comic strip of the same name by Paul and Brad Anderson. It is the second feature-length film based on the strip following the 2010 live-action film. The film stars Pete Davidson as the voice of Marmaduke, along with J. K. Simmons and David Koechner. It was released by SC Films in international countries and on Netflix in the United States on May 6, 2022. The film was universally panned by critics and audiences, with criticisms going towards its animation, screenplay, story, characters, and humor.
