Stephen Glenn Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. He has won five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 2013. Additionally, he was nominated for two Tony Awards for his musical Bright Star in 2016. Among many honors, he received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2005, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2015. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Martin at sixth place in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics. The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.
The Smothers Brothers are Thomas and Richard, American folk singers, musicians, and comedians. The brothers' trademark double act was performing folk songs, which usually led to arguments between them. Tommy's signature line was "Mom always liked you best!" Tommy acted "slow" and Dick, the straight man, acted "superior".
Dan Curtis was an American director, writer, and producer of television and film, known among fans of horror films for his afternoon TV series Dark Shadows (1966–1971) and its 1991 remake, and TV films such as The Night Stalker (1972), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1974) and Trilogy of Terror (1975). He also directed three feature films – the Dark Shadows spinoffs House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971), and the supernatural horror Burnt Offerings (1976).
Martin Hayter Short is a Canadian actor, comedian, and writer. He has received various awards including two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. Short was awarded as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2019.
Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a compère or host. The variety format made its way from the Victorian era stage in Britain and America to radio and then television. Variety shows were a staple of English language television from the late 1940s into the 1980s.
Whoopee or whoopie may refer to:
Live television is a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. In a secondary meaning, it may refer to streaming television over the Internet when content or programming is played continuously. For example, the Pluto TV app has two categories for viewing: "Live TV" & "On Demand." On its website, Xfinity states "Watch TV series and top rated movies live and on demand with Xfinity Stream."
The whoopie pie, alternatively called a black moon, gob, black-and-white, bob, or "BFO" for Big Fat Oreo, is an American baked product that may be considered either a cookie, pie, sandwich, or cake. It is made of two round mound-shaped pieces of usually chocolate cake, or sometimes pumpkin, gingerbread or other flavored cakes, with a sweet, creamy filling or frosting sandwiched between them.
The Midnight Special is an American late-night musical variety series originally broadcast on NBC during the 1970s and early 1980s, created and produced by Burt Sugarman. It premiered as a special on August 19, 1972, then began its run as a regular series on February 2, 1973; its last episode was on May 1, 1981. The 90-minute program followed the Friday night edition of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Music Box was a pioneering pan-European 24-hour cable and satellite television channel that ran from 29 March 1984 to 30 January 1987, and was operated by Music Box Limited. It was originally one of three services that formed Thorn EMI's venture into satellite television as a British version of MTV, and later became part of Virgin Vision as one of Richard Branson's business ventures launched in 1983.
Chris Bearde was a British-born comedy writer, producer and director best known for his work as a writer on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and for co-writing and producing television specials for Elvis Presley, Bob Hope, Sonny & Cher, Bill Cosby, Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, Andy Williams, The Jackson 5, The Osmonds, Dinah Shore, Diana Ross, and Lucille Ball. He also created the format for the original Gong Show and a number of network and pay-cable comedy series including That's My Mama and Sherman Oaks.
Alan Dennis Metter was an American film director whose most notable credits include Back to School starring Rodney Dangerfield, and Girls Just Want to Have Fun with Sarah Jessica Parker. He also produced and directed the 1983 television special The Winds of Whoopie for Steve Martin. In 1988, he was set to direct Atuk, based on the Mordecai Richler novel The Incomparable Atuk, with Sam Kinison as the title character. The production was shut down early into filming.
The Winds of War is a 1983 miniseries, directed and produced by Dan Curtis, that follows the 1971 book of the same name written by Herman Wouk. Just as in the book, in addition to the lives of the Henry and Jastrow families, much time in the miniseries is devoted to the major global events of the early years of World War II. Adolf Hitler and the German General Staff, with the fictitious general Armin von Roon as a major character, is a prominent subplot of the miniseries. The Winds of War also includes segments of documentary footage, narrated by William Woodson, to explain major events and important characters.
Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales is an animated television series that originally aired Saturday mornings on CBS from 1963 to 1966 as one of the earliest Saturday morning cartoons. It was produced by Total Television, the same company that produced the earlier King Leonardo and the later Underdog, and primarily sponsored by General Mills. A co-sponsor was Pillsbury's Funny Face Drinks. The title is a play on the “tuxedo” dinner jacket worn as formal wear.
MTV Classic is an American pay television network owned by Paramount Media Networks. It was originally launched in 1998 as VH1 Smooth, an adult contemporary and smooth jazz channel. It was relaunched as VH1 Classic Rock in 1999, with an emphasis on classic rock. On August 1, 2016, in honor of MTV's 35th anniversary, the channel was rebranded as MTV Classic, and now exclusively shows music videos from all genres from the late 1970s to the mid 2010s.
Showtime at the Apollo is an American variety show that first aired in syndication from September 12, 1987 to May 24, 2008. In 2018, the series returned on Fox with Steve Harvey hosting. Filmed at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem, the show features live performances from both professional and up-and-coming artists, and also features the Amateur Night competition. In many cities such as New York, it often aired after Saturday Night Live during the late Saturday night/early Sunday morning hours, and was often paired with the similarly-syndicated Soul Train.
The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson is a one-hour special that aired on CBS on November 21, 1990. The program was a tribute to Muppet creator Jim Henson, who had died earlier in 1990 due to toxic shock syndrome caused by a streptococcus infection, and featured characters from The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and Sesame Street.
"Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special" is a three-and-a-half-hour prime-time special that aired on February 15, 2015, on NBC, celebrating Saturday Night Live's 40th year on the air, having premiered on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC's Saturday Night. It is produced by Broadway Video. This special generated 23.1 million viewers, becoming NBC's most-watched prime-time, non-sports, entertainment telecast since the Friends series finale in 2004. It is the third such anniversary special to be broadcast, with celebratory episodes also held during the 15th and 25th seasons.
The Ford 50th Anniversary Show, also known as The American Road, was a two-hour television special that was broadcast live on June 15, 1953, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Ford Motor Company purchased two hours of prime time from both NBC and CBS for an entertainment extravaganza celebrating the company's 50th anniversary. The program was presented without commercial interruption.
