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Jon Lovitz

Jon Lovitz

Jon Lovitz (born July 21, 1957) is a comedic actor who has been in many roles on TV and in movies, usually as a supporting character. He was a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1990. He has supplied voice acting talent in several animated series (most notably The Simpsons), including the lead character of Jay Sherman on The Critic, and animated movies. Lovitz' comic persona is an odd mixture of arrogance and low self esteem, which was used to great effect in his character "Tommy Flanagan, The Pathological Liar", from Saturday Night Live. His characters often start out acting very condescending to someone, only to end up grovelling for their attention. A common focus of his characters' affections is actress Morgan Fairchild. Lovitz is also known for his friendship with the late Phil Hartman, whom he ended up succeeding on the series NewsRadio after Hartman was killed. Lovitz attended and studied theater at the University of California at Irvine and graduated in 1979. Undergoing the starving actor route, Lovitz became a key member of the Groundlings comedy troupe where he befriend Phil Hartman and Paul Reubens. Lovitz later said in an interview with the book Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, that a memorable point in his career had been as a cast member of the show, he went from having no money to being offered a $500,000 movie contract.

Filmography

- The Brave Little Toaster (1987)
- Mr. Destiny (1990)
- An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)
- A League of their Own (1992)
- Mom and Dad Save The World (1992)
- Loaded Weapon 1 (1993)
- City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994)
- The Great White Hype (1996)
- High School High (1996)
- The Wedding Singer (1998)
- Little Nicky (2000) (cameo)
- Small Time Crooks (2000)
- Rat Race (2001)

External links

- [http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-3167 TV Tome: Jon Lovitz]
- Lovitz, Jon Lovitz, Jon Lovitz, Jon Lovitz, Jon Lovitz, Jon Lovitz, Jon Lovitz, Jon Lovitz, Jon

July 21

July 21 is the 202nd day (203rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 163 days remaining.

Events

- 1298 - Battle of Falkirk (1298): King Edward I of England defeats Scottish rebels led by William Wallace.
- 1403 - Battle of Shrewsbury: King Henry IV of England defeats rebels to the north of the county town of Shropshire, England
- 1568 - Battle of Jemmingen: Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva defeats Louis of Nassau
- 1579 - Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, was discovered underground in the city of Kazan, Tatarstan.
- 1718 - Treaty of Passarowitz between the Ottoman Empire, Austria and the Republic of Venice is signed.
- 1774 - Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji ending the Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774.
- 1831 - Inauguration of Léopold I of Belgium, first king of the Belgians.
- 1861 - American Civil War: First Battle of Bull Run - At Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war begins (Confederate victory).
- 1865 - In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots Dave Tutt dead in what is regarded as the first true western showdown.
- 1873 - At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American West.
- 1877 - After rioting by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers and the deaths of 9 rail workers at the hands of the Maryland militia, workers in Pittsburgh stage a sympathy strike that is met with an assault by the state militia.
- 1925 - Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.
- 1931 - CBS's New York City station begins broadcasting the first regular seven days a week television schedule in the U. S.
- 1944 - World War II: Battle of Guam - American troops land on Guam starting the battle (ends on August 10).
- 1954 - First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
- 1961 - Mercury program: Gus Grissom piloting the Mercury 4 capsule "Liberty Bell 7" becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).
- 1963 - Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini is elected Pope Paul VI by the College of Cardinals.
- 1970 - After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed.
- 1972 - Bloody Friday bombing by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, (PIRA) around Belfast, Northern Ireland, 22 bomb explosions, 9 people were killed,130 seriously injured.
- 1973 - In the Lillehammer affair in Norway, Israeli Mossad agents kill a waiter whom they mistakenly thought was involved in 1972's Munich Olympics Massacre.
- 1976 - Christopher Ewart-Biggs British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland is assassinated by the Provisional IRA
- 1978 - Big-bust model Francine Dee is born.
- 1984 - In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushes a worker against a safety bar in apparently the first robot-related death in the United States.
- 1994 - Tony Blair is declared the winner of the leadership election of the British Labour Party, paving the way to him becoming Prime Minister in 1997.
- 1995 - Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army begins firing missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.
- 1997 - The fully restored USS Constitution (aka "Old Ironsides") celebrates her 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.
- 2002 - Telecom giant WorldCom files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the largest such filing in United States history.
- 2003 - The last Volkswagen old-style Beetle rolls off the assembly line at Puebla, Mexico.
- 2004 - The United Kingdom government publishes Delivering Security in a Changing World, a paper detailing wide-ranging reform of the country's armed forces.
- 2005 - Clarence Richard Silva ordained to the episcopate as bishop of Honolulu.
- 2005 - Four terrorist bombings, occurring exactly two weeks after the similar July 7 bombings, target London's public transportation system. All four bombs fail to detonate and all four suspected suicide bombers escape.

Births

- 1414 - Pope Sixtus IV (d. 1484)
- 1515 - Philip Neri, Italian churchman (d. 1595)
- 1620 - Jean Picard, French astronomer (d. 1682)
- 1664 - Matthew Prior, English poet and diplomat (d. 1721)
- 1693 - Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, English statesman (d. 1768)
- 1710 - Paul Möhring, German physician and scientist (d. 1792)
- 1810 - Henri Victor Regnault, French chemist and physicist (d. 1878)
- 1858 - Lovis Corinth, German painter and graphic artist (d. 1925)
- 1870 - Emil Orlik, Czech painter and graphic artist (d. 1932)
- 1893 - Hans Fallada, German writer (d. 1947)
- 1899 - Hart Crane, American poet (d. 1932)
- 1899 - Ernest Hemingway, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1961)
- 1903 - Roy Neuberger, American financier and art collector
- 1911 - Marshall McLuhan, Canadian author (d. 1980)
- 1920 - Isaac Stern, Ukrainian-born violinist (d. 2001)
- 1923 - Rudolph A. Marcus, Canadian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1922 - Kay Starr, American singer
- 1924 - Don Knotts, American actor
- 1925 - Anne Meacham, American actress
- 1926 - Norman Jewison, Canadian film director
- 1932 - Ernie Warlick, American football player
- 1933 - John Gardner, American author (d. 1982)
- 1935 - Norbert Blüm, German politician
- 1938 - Janet Reno, United States Attorney General
- 1939 - John Negroponte, U.S. Director of National Intelligence
- 1943 - Edward Herrmann, American actor
- 1944 - Tony Scott, British film director
- 1944 - Paul Wellstone, U.S. Senator from Minnesota (d. 2002)
- 1946 - Kenneth Starr, American lawyer and judge
- 1948 - Ed Hinton, American sportswriter
- 1948 - Cat Stevens, English singer
- 1948 - Garry Trudeau, American cartoonist
- 1950 - Ubaldo Fillol, Argentinian footballer
- 1951 - Robin Williams, American comedian
- 1953 - Brian Talbot, English football player and manager
- 1957 - Jon Lovitz, American comedian
- 1960 - Lance Guest, American actor
- 1964 - Jens Weißflog, German ski jumper
- 1968 - Brandi Chastain, American soccer player
- 1968 - Lyle Odelein, Canadian hockey player
- 1978 - Josh Hartnett, American actor
- 1979 - David Carr, American football player
- 1983 - Eivør Pálsdóttir, Faroese singer and composer
- 1983 - Kellen Winslow Jr., American football player
- 1984 - Liam Ridgewell, English footbller

Deaths

- 1403 - Henry Percy, English soldier (killed in battle)
- 1425 - Manuel II Palaeologus, Byzantine Emperor (b. 1350)
- 1688 - James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, English statesman and soldier (b. 1610)
- 1796 - Robert Burns, Scottish poet (b. 1759)
- 1798 - François Sebastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt, Austrian field marshal (b. 1733)
- 1870 - Josef Strauss, Austrian composer (b. 1827)
- 1899 - Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and military officer (b. 1833)
- 1937 - Louis Vierne, French composer (b. 1870)
- 1938 - Owen Wister, American author (b. 1860)
- 1943 - Charlie Paddock, American athlete (b. 1900)
- 1944 - Claus von Stauffenberg, German army colonel who tried to assassinate Hitler (b. 1907)
- 1948 - David Wark Griffith, American film director (b. 1875)
- 1967 - Jimmie Foxx, baseball player (b. 1907)
- 1967 - Albert Lutuli, South African politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1967 - Basil Rathbone, English actor (b. 1892)
- 1968 - Ruth St. Denis, dancer and choreographer (b. 1878)
- 1970 - Bob Kalsu, American football player (b. 1945)
- 1972 - Ralph Craig, American athlete (b. 1889)
- 1982 - Dave Garroway, American television host (b. 1913)
- 1998 - Alan Shepard, astronaut (b. 1923)
- 1998 - Robert Young, American actor (b. 1907)
- 2001 - Steve Barton, American actor (b. 1954)
- 2003 - John Davies, New Zealand Olympic Committee president (b. 1938)
- 2003 - Walter M. "Matt" Jefferies, American film art director (b. 1921)
- 2004 - Jerry Goldsmith, American composer (b. 1929)
- 2004 - Edward B. Lewis, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1918)
- 2005 - Andrzej Grubba, Polish table tennis player (b. 1958)
- 2005 - Long John Baldry, British blues musician (b. 1941)

Holidays and observances

- Belgium: National holiday (1831 - inauguration of Léopold I, first king of the Belgians)
- Bolivia: Martyrs' Day
- Guam: Liberation Day (1944)
- Singapore: Racial Harmony Day

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/21 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20050721.html The New York Times: On This Day] ---- July 20 - July 22 - June 21 - August 21 -- listing of all days ko:7월 21일 ms:21 Julai ja:7月21日 simple:July 21 th:21 กรกฎาคม

Comedy

Comedy is the use of humor in from theater, where it simply referred to a play with a happy ending, in contrast to a tragedy. A recognized characteristic of comedy is that it is an intensely personal enjoyment. People frequently don't find the same things amusing, but when they do it can help to create powerful bonds. Humor being subjective, one may or may not find something humorous because it is either too offensive or not offensive enough. Comedy is judged according to a person’s taste. Some enjoy cerebral fare; others prefer less-sophisticated scatological humor (i.e. the "fart joke") or slapstick. A common gender stereotype that plays on this convention is that men love the comedy of The Three Stooges, while women do not. Mel Brooks on comedy and tragedy: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

Comedy drama

Comedy is the term applied to theatrical dramas the chief object of which are to amuse. It is contrasted on the one hand with tragedy and on the other with farce, burlesque, and so on. As compared with tragedy it is distinguished by having a happy ending (this being considered for a long time the essential difference), by quaint situations, and by lightness of dialogue and character-drawing. As compared with farce it abstains from crude and boisterous jesting, and is marked by some subtlety of dialogue and plot. It is, however, difficult to draw a hard and fast line of demarcation, there being a distinct tendency to combine the characteristics of farce with those of true comedy. This is perhaps more especially the case in the so-called "musical comedy," which became popular in Great Britain and America in the later 19th century, where true comedy is frequently subservient to broad farce and spectacular effects.

Derivation

The word "comedy" is derived from the Greek κωμοιδια, which is a compound either of κωμος (revel) and ωιδος (singer), or of κωμη (village) and ωιδος: it is possible that κωμος itself is derived from κωμη, and originally meant a village revel. The word comes into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia. It has passed through various shades of meaning. In the middle ages it meant simply a story with a happy ending. Thus some of Chaucer's Tales are called comedies, and in this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Commedia (cf. his Epistola X., in which he speaks of the comic style as "loquutio vulgaris, in qua et mulierculae communicant"; again "comoedia vero remisse et humiliter"; "differt a tragoedia per hoc, quod t. in principio est admirabilis et quieta, in fine sive exitu est foetida et horribilis"). Subsequently the term is applied to mystery plays with a happy ending. The modern usage combines this sense with that in which Renaissance scholars applied it to the ancient comedies. The adjective "comic" (Greek κομικος), which strictly means that which relates to comedy, is in modern usage generally confined to the sense of "laughter-provoking": it is distinguished from "humorous" or "witty" inasmuch as it is applied to an incident or remark which provokes spontaneous laughter without a special mental effort. The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it, the comic, have been carefully investigated by psychologists, in contrast with other phenomena connected with the emotions. It is very generally agreed that the predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential, if not the essential, factor: thus Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Physiological explanations have been given by Kant, Spencer and Darwin. Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression.

External links

- [http://www.emerson.edu/comedy Comedy Archives] Site of the American Comedy Archives, dedicated to preserving primary source material from the legends of the comic arts.
- [http://www.comedyclassics.org ComedyClassics.org] Forum for discussion about classic comedy from movies (silent & talkie), radio, and TV.
- [http://comedy.wikicities.com Wikicomedy]
- [http://www.wikihumor.com WikiHumor.com] A wiki dedicated to humor.
- [http://www.splangy.com/radio/ The Sound of Young America] A public radio program featuring interviews with comics.
- [http://www.howtobefunny.net/ Comedy Creation] Methods of creating your own comedy.
- Category:Culture Category:Arts ko:희극 ja:喜劇 simple:Comedy

Television

: Television is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term has come to refer to all the aspects of television programming and transmission as well. programming ]]

History

The development of television technology can be partitioned along two lines: those developments that depended upon both mechanical and electronic principles, and those which are purely electronic. From the latter descended all modern televisions, but these would not have been possible without discoveries and insights from the mechanical systems. The word television is a hybrid word, created from both Greek and Latin. Tele- is Greek for "far", while -vision is from the Latin visio, meaning "vision" or "sight". It is often abbreviated as TV or the telly.

Electromechanical television

The German student Paul Gottlieb Nipkow proposed and patented the first electromechanical television system in 1885. Nipkow's spinning disk design is credited with being the first television image rasterizer. However, it wasn't until 1907 that developments in amplification tube technology made the design practical. Meanwhile, Constantin Perskyi had coined the word television in a paper read to the International Electricity Congress at the International World Fair in Paris on August 25, 1900. Perskeyi's paper reviewed the existing electromechanical technologies, mentioning the work of Nipkow and others. 1900 In 1911, Boris Rosing and his student Vladimir Kosma Zworykin achieved a television system that used a mechanical mirror-drum scanner to transmit, in Zworykin's words, "very crude images" over wires to the electronic Braun tube (cathode ray tube) in the receiver. Moving images were not possible because, in the scanner, "the sensitivity was not enough and the selenium cell was very laggy." Zworykin later went to work for RCA to build a purely electronic television, the design of which was eventually found to violate patents by Philo Taylor Farnsworth. On March 25, 1925, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird gave a demonstration of televised silhouette images at Selfridge's Department Store in London. But if television is defined as the transmission of live, moving, half-tone (grayscale) images, and not silhouette or still images, Baird achieved this privately on October 2, 1925, and gave the world's first public demonstration of a working television system to members of the Royal Institution and a newspaper reporter on January 26, 1926 at his laboratory in London. Unlike later electronic systems with several hundred lines of resolution, Baird's vertically scanned image, using a scanning disc embedded with a double spiral of lenses, had only 30 lines, just enough to reproduce a recognizable human face. In 1928 Baird's company (Baird Television Development Company / Cinema Television) broadcast the first transatlantic television signal, between London and New York, and the first shore to ship transmission. He also demonstrated an electromechanical colour, infrared (dubbed "Noctovision"), and stereoscopic television, using additional lenses, disks and filters. In parallel he developed a video disk recording system dubbed "Phonovision"; a number of the Phonovision[http://www.tvdawn.com/tvimage.htm] recordings, dating back to 1927, still exist. In 1929 he became involved in the first experimental electromechanical television service in Germany. In 1931 he made the first live transmission, of the Epsom Derby. In 1932 he demonstrated ultra-short wave television. Baird's electromechanical system reached a peak of 240 lines of resolution on BBC television broadcasts in 1936, before being discontinued in favor of a 405 line all-electronic system. In the U.S., Charles Francis Jenkins was able to demonstrate on June 13, 1925, the transmission of the silhouette image of a toy windmill in motion from a naval radio station to his laboratory in Washington, using a lensed disc scanner with 48 lines per picture, 16 pictures per second. AT&T's Bell Telephone Laboratories transmitted half-tone images of transparencies in May 1925. But Bell Labs gave the most dramatic demonstration of television yet on April 7, 1927, when it field tested reflected-light television systems using small-scale (2 by 2.5 inches) and large-scale (24 by 30 inches) viewing screens over a wire link from Washington to New York City, and over-the-air broadcast from Whippany, New Jersey. The subjects, which included Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, were illuminated by a flying spot beam and scanned by a 50-aperture disc at 16 pictures per second.

Electronic television

Herbert Hoover Although the discoveries of Nipkow, Rosing, Baird and others were extraordinary, little of their technology is used in modern television. By 1934, all electromechanical television systems were outmoded, although electromechanical broadcasts continued on some stations until 1939. A.A. Campbell-Swinton wrote a letter to Nature on the 18 June 1908 describing his concept of electronic television using the cathode ray tube, which had been invented in 1897 by the German physicist and Nobel prize winner Karl Ferdinand Braun. He proposed using an electron beam in both the camera and the receiver, which could be steered electronically to produce moving pictures. He lectured on the subject in 1911 and displayed circuit diagrams, but no one, including Swinton, knew how to realize the design. Although his system was never built, the cathode ray tube did come to be used to display images in almost all television sets and computer monitors until the invention of the LCD panel. A fully electronic system was first achieved by Philo Taylor Farnsworth on September 7, 1927, although the low-resolution, light-insensitive camera tube limited the image to a plate of glass painted black, with a straight line etched across it, rotated in front of a bright carbon arc lamp. Seven years later, on August 25, 1934, at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Farnsworth gave the world's first public demonstration of a working, all-electronic television system, with 220 lines per picture, 30 pictures per second. Over a three week period, vaudeville acts, athletic and sports demonstrations, politicians, and hundreds of ordinary citizens were captured on Farnsworth's cameras in the open air and simultaneously shown on his receiving sets. Farnsworth, a Mormon farm boy from Rigby, Idaho, first envisioned his system at age 14. He discussed the idea with his high school chemistry teacher, who could think of no reason why it would not work (Farnsworth would later credit this teacher, Justin Tolman, as providing key insights into his invention). He continued to pursue the idea at Brigham Young Academy (now Brigham Young University). At age 21, he demonstrated a working system at his own laboratory in San Francisco. His breakthrough freed television from reliance on spinning discs and other mechanical parts. All modern picture tube televisions descend directly from his design. Vladimir Kosma Zworykin is also sometimes cited as the father of electronic television because of his invention of the iconoscope in 1923 and his invention of the kinescope in 1929. His design was one of the first to demonstrate a television system with all the features of modern picture tubes. His previous work with Rosing on electromechanical television gave him key insights into how to produce such a system, but his (and RCA's) claim to being its original inventor was largely invalidated by three facts: a) Zworykin's 1923 patent presented an incomplete design, incapable of working in its given form (it was not until 1933 that Zworykin achieved a working implementation), b) the 1923 patent application was not granted until 1938, and not until it had been seriously revised, and c) courts eventually found that RCA was in violation of the television design patented by Philo Taylor Farnsworth, whose lab Zworykin had visited while working on his designs for RCA. The controversy over whether it was first Farnsworth or Zworykin who invented modern television is still hotly debated today. Some of this debate stems from the fact that while Farnsworth appears to have gotten there first as an inventor, RCA brought television sets to market before Farnsworth, and it was RCA employees who first wrote the history of television. Even though Farnsworth eventually won the legal battle over this issue, he was never able to fully capitalize financially on his invention.

Color television

Most television researchers appreciated the value of color image transmission, with an early patent application in Russia in 1889 for a mechanically-scanned color system showing how early the importance of color was realized. John Logie Baird demonstrated the world's first color transmission on July 3, 1928, using scanning discs at the transmitting and receiving ends with three spirals of apertures, each spiral with filters of a different primary color; and three light sources at the receiving end, with a commutator to alternate their illumination. Color television in the United States had a protracted history due to conflicting technical systems vying for approval by the Federal Communications Commission for commercial use. Mechanically scanned color television was demonstrated by Bell Laboratories in June 1929 using three complete systems of photoelectric cells, amplifiers, glow-tubes, and color filters, with a series of mirrors to superimpose the red, green, and blue images into one full color image. In the electronically scanned era, the first color television demonstration was on February 5, 1940, when RCA privately showed to members of the FCC at the RCA plant in Camden, New Jersey, a television receiver producing images in color by a field sequential color system. CBS began non-broadcast color experiments using film as early as August 28, 1940, and live cameras by November 12. The CBS "field sequential" color system was partly mechanical, with a disc made of red, blue, and green filters spinning inside the television camera at 1,200 rpm, and a similar disc spinning in synchronization in front of the cathode ray tube inside the receiver set. RCA's later "dot sequential" color system had no moving parts, using a series of dichroic mirrors to separate and direct red, green, and blue light from the subject through three separate lenses into three scanning tubes, and electronic switching that allowed the tubes to send their signals in rotation, dot by dot. These signals were sorted by a second switching device in the receiver set and sent to red, green, and blue picture tubes, and combined by a second set of dichroic mirrors into a full color image. The first field test (i.e., broadcast) of color television was by NBC (owned by RCA) on February 20, 1941. CBS began daily color field tests on June 1, 1941. These color systems were not compatible with existing black and white television sets, and as no color television sets were available to the public at this time, viewership of the color field tests was limited to RCA and CBS engineers and the invited press. The War Production Board halted the manufacture of television and radio equipment for civilian use from April 1, 1942 to October 1, 1945, limiting any opportunity to introduce color television to the general public. The post-war development of color television was dominated by three systems competing for approval by the FCC as the U.S. color broadcasting standard: CBS's field sequential system, which was incompatible with existing black and white sets without an adaptor; RCA's dot sequential system, which in 1949 became compatible with existing black and white sets; and CTI's system (also incompatible with existing black and white sets), which used three camera lenses, behind which were color filters that produced red, green, and blue images side by side on a single scanning tube, and a receiver set that used lenses in front of the picture tube (which had sectors treated with different phosphorescent compounds to glow in red, green, or blue) to project these three side by side images into one combined picture on the viewing screen. After a series of hearings beginning in September 1949, the FCC found the RCA and CTI systems fraught with technical problems, inaccurate color reproduction, and expensive equipment, and so formally approved the CBS system as the U.S. color broadcasting standard on October 11 1950. An unsuccessful lawsuit by RCA delayed the world's first network color broadcast until June 25 1951, when a musical variety special titled simply Premiere was shown over a network of five east coast CBS affiliates. Viewership was again extremely limited: the program could not be seen on black and white sets, and Variety estimated that only thirty prototype color receivers were available in the New York area. Regular color broadcasts began that same week with the daytime series The World Is Yours and Modern Homemakers. While the CBS color broadcasting schedule gradually expanded to twelve hours per week (but never into prime time), and the color network expanded to eleven affiliates as far west as Chicago, its commercial success was doomed by the lack of color receivers necessary to watch the programs, the refusal of television manufacturers to create adaptor mechanisms for their existing black and white sets, and the unwillingness of advertisers to sponsor broadcasts seen by almost no one. In desperation, CBS bought a television manufacturer, and on September 20, 1951, production began on the first and only CBS color television model. But it was too little, too late. Only 200 sets had been shipped, and only 100 sold, when CBS pulled the plug on its color television system on October 20, 1951, and bought back all the CBS color sets it could to prevent law suits by disappointed customers. Starting before CBS color even got on the air, the U.S. television industry, represented by the National Television System Committee, worked in 1950-1953 to develop a color system that was compatible with existing black and white sets and would pass FCC quality standards, with RCA developing the hardware elements. When CBS testified before Congress in March 1953 that it had no further plans for its own color system, the path was open for the NTSC to submit its petition for FCC approval in July 1953, which was granted in December. The first publicly announced experimental TV broadcast of a program using the NTSC-RCA "compatible color" system was an episode of NBC's Kukla, Fran and Ollie on August 30, 1953. NBC made the first coast-to-coast color broadcast when it covered the Tournament of Roses Parade on January 1 1954, with public demonstrations given across the United States on prototype color receivers. A few days later Admiral brought out the first commercially made color television set using the RCA standards, followed in March by RCA's own model. Television's first prime time network color series was The Marriage, a situation comedy broadcast live by NBC in the summer of 1954. NBC's anthology series Ford Theatre became the first color filmed series that October. NBC was naturally at the forefront of color programming because its parent company RCA manufactured the most successful line of color sets in the 1950s. CBS and ABC, which were not affiliated with set manufacturers, and were not eager to promote their competitor's product, dragged their feet into color, with ABC delaying its first color series (The Flintstones and The Jetsons) until 1962. The Du Mont network, although it did have a television-manufacturing parent company, was in financial decline by 1954 and was dissolved two years later. Thus the relatively small amount of network color programming, combined with the high cost of color television sets, meant that as late as 1964 only 3.1 percent of television households in the U.S. had a color set. NBC provided the catalyst for rapid color expansion by announcing that its prime time schedule for fall 1965 would be almost entirely in color (the exception being I Dream of Jeannie). All three broadcast networks were airing full color prime time schedules by the 1966–67 broadcast season. But the number of color television sets sold in the U.S. did not exceed black and white sales until 1972, which was also the first year that more than fifty percent of television households in the U.S. had a color set. In Mexico, Guillermo González Camarena (1917–1965), invented the early color television transmission system. He received patents for color television systems in 1940 (U.S. Patent 1942 (2296019), 1960 and 1962. The 1942 patent was for a mechanically scanned color filter adapter for an existing monochrome electronic transmission system. In August 31, 1946 he sent his first color transmission from his lab in the offices of The Mexican League of Radio Experiments in Lucerna St. #1, in Mexico City. The video signal was transmitted at a frequency of 115 MHz. and the audio in the 40 metre band. European color television was developed somewhat later and was hindered by a continuing division on technical standards. Having decided to adopt a higher-definition 625-line system for monochrome transmissions, with a lower frame rate but with a higher overall bandwidth, Europeans could not directly adopt the U.S. color standard, which was widely perceived as wanting anyway, because of its tint control problems. There was also less urgency, since there were fewer commercial motivations, European television broadcasters being predominantly state-owned at the time. As a consequence, although work on various color encoding systems started already in the 1950s, with the first SECAM patent being registered in 1956, many years had passed till the first broadcasts actually started in 1967. Unsatisfied with the performance of NTSC and of initial SECAM implementations, the Germans unveiled PAL (phase alternating line) in 1963, staying closer to NTSC but borrowing some ideas from SECAM. The French continued with SECAM, notably involving Russians in the development. The first regular colour broadcasts in Europe were by BBC2 beginning on July 1, 1967, using PAL. Germans did their first broadcast in September (PAL), while the French in October (SECAM). PAL was eventually adopted by West Germany, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, much of Africa, Asia and South America, and most Western European countries except France. In addition to France and Luxembourg, SECAM was adopted by Soviet Union, much of Eastern Europe, much of Africa and of the Middle East. Both systems broadcast on UHF frequencies, the VHF being used for legacy black and white, 405 lines in UK or 819 lines in France, till the beginning of the eighties. It should be noted that some British television programmes, particularly those made by or for ITC Entertainment, were made in colour before the introduction of colour television to the UK, for the purpose of sales to US networks. The first British show to be made in colour was the drama series The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956-57), which was initially made in black and white but later shot in colour for sale to the NBC network in the United States. In Japan, NHK introduced color television in the year 1960.

Broadcast television

NHK The first regularly scheduled television service in the United States began on July 2, 1928. The Federal Radio Commission authorized C.F. Jenkins to broadcast from experimental station W3XK in a suburb of Washington, D.C. But for at least the first eighteen months, only silhouette images from motion picture film were broadcast due to the narrow 10kHz bandwidth allotted by the FRC. General Electric's experimental station in Schenectady, New York, on the air sporadically since January 13, 1928, was able to broadcast reflected-light, 48-line images via shortwave as far as Los Angeles, and by September was making four television broadcasts weekly. CBS's New York City station W2XAB began broadcasting the first regular seven days a week television schedule in the United States on July 21, 1931, with a 60-line electromechanical system. The first broadcast included Mayor Jimmy Walker, the Boswell Sisters, Kate Smith, and George Gershwin. The service ended in February 1933. By 1935, electromechanical television broadcasting had ceased in the United States except for a handful of stations run by public universities that continued to 1939. The Federal Communications Commission saw television in the continual flux of development with no consistent technical standards, hence all such stations in the U.S. were granted only experimental and not commercial licenses, hampering television's economic development. Just as importantly, Philo Farnsworth's 1934 demonstration of an all-electronic system pointed the direction of television's future. On June 15, 1936, Don Lee Broadcasting began a month-long demonstration of all-electronic television in Los Angeles on W6XAO (later KTSL) with a 300-line image from motion picture film. RCA demonstrated in New York City a 343-line electronic television broadcast, with live and film segments, to its licensees on July 7, 1936, and made its first public demonstration to the press on November 6. By April 1939, regularly scheduled 441-line electronic television broadcasts were available in New York City and Los Angeles, and by November on General Electric's station in Schenectady. With the adoption of NTSC television engineering standards in 1941, the FCC saw television ready for commercial licensing, with the first such licenses issued to NBC and CBS owned stations in New York on July 1, 1941, followed by Philco's station in Philadelphia. Electromechanical broadcasts began in Germany in 1929, but were without sound until 1934. Network electronic service started on March 22, 1935, on 180 lines using only telecine transmission of film or an intermediate film system. Live transmissions began on January 15, 1936. The Berlin Summer Olympic Games were televised, using both direct television and intermediate film cameras, to 28 public television rooms in Berlin and Hamburg in August 1936. The Germans had a 441-line system on the air in February 1937, and during World War II brought it to France, where they broadcast off the Eiffel Tower. The first British television broadcast was made by Baird Television's electromechanical system over the BBC radio transmitter in September 1929. Baird provided a limited amount of programming five days a week by 1930. On August 22, 1932, BBC launched its own regular service using Baird's 30-line electromechanical system, continuing until September 11, 1935. On November 2, 1936 the BBC began broadcasting a dual-system service, alternating on a weekly basis between Marconi-EMI's 405-line standard and Baird's improved 240-line standard, from Alexandra Palace in London, making the BBC the world's first regular high-definition television service. The corporation decided that Marconi-EMI's electronic picture gave the superior picture, and the Baird system was dropped in February 1937. The outbreak of the Second World War caused the BBC service to be suspended on September 1, 1939, resuming from Alexandra Palace on June 7, 1946. The Soviet Union began offering 30-line electromechanical test broadcasts in Moscow on October 31, 1931, and a commercially manufactured television set in 1932. The first experimental transmissions of electronic television took place in Moscow on March 9, 1937, using equipment manufactured and installed by RCA. Regular broadcasting began on December 31, 1938. The first regular television transmissions in Canada began in 1952 when the CBC put two stations on the air, one in Montreal, Quebec on September 6, and another in Toronto, Ontario two days later. two days later The first live transcontinental television broadcast took place in San Francisco, California from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference on September 4, 1951. In 1958, the CBC completed the longest television network in the world, from Sydney, Nova Scotia to Victoria, British Columbia. Reportedly, the first continuous live broadcast of a breaking news story in the world was conducted by the CBC during the Springhill Mining Disaster which began on October 23 of that year. Programming is broadcast on television stations (sometimes called channels). At first, terrestrial broadcasting was the only way television could be distributed. Because bandwidth was limited, government regulation was normal. In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission allowed stations to broadcast advertisements, but insisted on public service programming commitments as a requirement for a license. By contrast, the United Kingdom chose a different route, imposing a television licence fee on owners of television reception equipment, to fund the BBC, which had public service as part of its Royal Charter. Development of cable and satellite means of distribution in the 1970s pushed businessmen to target channels towards a certain audience, and enabled the rise of subscription-based television channels, such as HBO and Sky. Practically every country in the world now has developed at least one television channel. Television has grown up all over the world, enabling every country to share aspects of their culture and society with others. By the late 1980s, 98% of all homes in the U.S. had at least one TV set. On average, Americans watch four hours of television per day. An estimated two-thirds of Americans got most of their news about the world from TV, and nearly half got all of their news from TV. These figures are now estimated to be significantly higher.

Technology

Broadcasting

There are many means of distributing television broadcasts, including both analogue and digital versions of:
- Terrestrial television
- Stratovision (From aircraft flying in a loop)
- Satellite television
- Cable television
- MMDS (Wireless cable)

Receiving

Television sets

In television's electromechanical era, commercially made television sets were sold from 1928 to 1934 in the United Kingdom, United States, and Russia. The earliest commercially made sets sold by Baird in the U.K. and the U.S. in 1928 were radios with the addition of a television device consisting of a neon tube behind a mechanically spinning disk (the Nipkow disk) with a spiral of apertures that produced a red postage-stamp size image, enlarged to twice that size by a magnifying glass. The "televisor" was also available without the radio. The Baird televisor sold in 1930-1933 is considered the first mass-produced set, selling about a thousand units. The first commercially made electronic television sets with cathode ray tubes were manufactured by Telefunken in Germany in 1934, followed by other makers in Britain (1936) and America (1938). The cheapest of the pre-War World II factory-made American sets, a 1938 image-only model with a 3-inch (8 cm) screen, cost US$125, the equivalent of US$1,732 in 2005. The cheapest model with a 12-inch (30 cm) screen was $445 ($6,256). An estimated 19,000 electronic television sets were manufactured in Britain, and about 1,600 in Germany, before World War II. About 7,000-8,000 electronic sets were made in the U.S. before the War Production Board halted manufacture in April 1942, which resumed in October 1945. Television usage in the United States skyrocketed after World War II with the lifting of the manufacturing freeze, war-related technological advances, the gradual expansion of the television networks westward, the drop in set prices caused by mass production, increased leisure time, and additional disposable income. While only 0.5% of U.S. households had a television set in 1946, 55.7% had one in 1954, and 90% by 1962. In Britain, there were 15,000 television households in 1947, 1.4 million in 1952, and 15.1 million by 1968. For many years different countries used different technical standards. France initially adopted the German 441-line standard but later upgraded to 819 lines, which gave the highest picture definition of any analogue TV system, approximately four times the resolution of the British 405-line system. Eventually the whole of Europe switched to the 625-line PAL standard, once more following Germany's example. Meanwhile in North America the original NTSC 525-line standard from 1941 was retained. NTSC Television in its original form involves sending images and sound over radio waves in the VHF and UHF bands, which are received by a television set. Over-the-air broadcast television requires an antenna (aerial). This can be an outdoor Yagi antenna. In strong signal areas the antenna can be indoors, attached to or near the receiver, such as an adjustable dipole antenna called "rabbit ears" for the VHF band and a small loop antenna for the UHF band.

Specifications

Modern displays

Starting in the 1990s, modern television sets diverged into three different trends:
- standalone TV sets;
- integrated systems with DVD players and/or VHS VCR capabilities built into the TV set itself (mostly for small size TVs with up to 21" screen, the main idea is to have a complete portable system);
- component systems with separate big-screen video monitor, tuner, audio system which the owner connects the pieces together as a high-end home theater system. This approach appeals to videophiles who prefer components that can be upgraded separately. There are many kinds of video monitors used in modern TV sets. The most common are direct view CRTs for up to 40in (100cm) (in 4:3) and 46in (115cm) (in 16:9) diagonally; most big screen TVs (up to over 100 inch (254 cm)) use projection technology. Three types of projection systems are used in projection TVs: CRT-based, LCD-based, and DLP(reflective micromirror chip)-based. Modern advances have brought flat panels to TV that use active matrix LCD or plasma display technology. Flat panel LCDs and plasma displays are as little as 4in (10cm) thick and can be hung on a wall like a picture or put over a pedestal. They are multifunctional, because they are used like computer monitors too (VGA and DVI or HDMI connections). Some TVs integrate a pair of ports to connect computer cases and peripherals to it or to connect the set to an A/V home network (HAVI) (USB port for cord connection and BlueTooth/WiFi for wireless). Today, some LCD and Plasma sets have SD Card slots, so users can view pictures from a digital camera. On the new Panasonic LCDs and Plasmas (Viera), users have the capability to record onto SD card and then play it back on a hand-held PC or digital camera (anything that allows MPEG4). With SD cards now available with 1G of memory (soon 2GB, and Panasonic is also working on one that contains over 30GB of memory), a user can record over 1,000 minutes at low quality, and around 80 minutes on the highest quality. The playback of the recording is not brilliant, but these are the first generation. They will get better with time.

Signal connections

The number of ways to connect a video device to a television has increased over the years: WiFi
- HDMI - a compact 19 to 29 pin connector that carries digital video and digital audio signals. Essentially an enhanced version of DVI that includes digital audio. This is the most advanced form of connection currently available. DVI
- DVI - a 17 to 29 pin connector that carries digital video signals, designed to carry HDTV but also used in current DVD players and latest digital displays. Copy protection is available using HDCP. HDCP
- Component video - three separate RCA jacks (colored red, green and blue) carry three video signals, one brightness (luminance) and two colors (chromas), and is usually referred to as "Y, B-Y, R-Y", "Y Cr Cb" (interlaced) or "Y Pr Pb" (progressive), or YUV. Audio is not carried on this cable. This connection provides for picture quality superior to S-Video and is typically used in home theater for DVDs, satellite and analogue HDTV; less common in Europe but is starting to become more widely available. Europe
- SCART - a large 21 pin connector that may carry: one video signal composite video; or two video signals S-Video; or for picture quality similar to component video, three signals of separate red, green and blue or RGB; or for best picture quality, four video signals of separate red, green, blue and sync or RGBS; plus right and left line-level audio channels; along with a number of control signals including an aspect-ratio flag (e.g. widescreen). This system has been standard in Europe since mid-1980s for all consumer electronics, which meant that RGBS was available on even the earliest PAL DVD players and satellite receivers. Japan uses a 21 pin RGB connector which is visually similar to SCART but with different pin configurations. Japan
- S-Video - small round connector with two separate video signals, one carrying brightness (luminance), the other carrying color (chroma). Also referred to as Y/C video. Provides most of the benefit of component video, with slightly less color fidelity. Use started in the 1980s for S-VHS, Hi-8, and early NTSC DVD players to relay high quality video before component was available. Audio is not carried on this cable. Hi-8
- Composite video - The most common form of connecting external devices, putting all the video information into one signal. Most televisions provide this option with a yellow RCA jack. Audio is not carried on this cable, though two separate cables with similar red and white RCA jacks for right and left line-level audio are commonly bonded to composite video cables.
- Coaxial RF - All audio channels and picture components are transmitted through one coaxial cable and modulated on a radio frequency. Most TVs manufactured during the past 15–20 years accept coaxial connection, and the video is typically "tuned" on channel 3 or 4. This is the type of cable usually used for cable television. Most modern DVD players and other video devices no longer modulate RF output, so very old TV sets made before composite video jacks became commonplace will need a modulator.

Aspect ratios

Mechanically scanned television as first demonstrated by John Logie Baird in 1926 used a 7:3 vertical aspect ratio, oriented for the head and shoulders of a single person in close-up. Most of the early electronic TV systems from the mid-1930s onward shared the same aspect ratio of 4:3 which was chosen to match the Academy Ratio used in cinema films at the time. This ratio was also square enough to be conveniently viewed on round cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), which were all that could be produced given the manufacturing technology of the time. (Today's CRT technology allows the manufacture of much wider tubes, and the flat screen technologies which are becoming steadily more popular have no aspect ratio limitations at all.) The BBC's television service used a more squarish [http://tcc.members.beeb.net/tchistory.html 5:4] ratio from 1936 to circa 1949, when it too switched to a 4:3 ratio. In the 1950s, movie studios moved towards widescreen aspect ratios such as Cinerama in an effort to distance their product from television. Although this was initially just a gimmick widescreen is still the format of choice today and square aspect ratio movies are rare. Some people argued that widescreen is actually a disadvantage when showing objects that are tall instead of panoramic, others would say that natural vision is more panoramic than tall, and therefore widescreen is easier on the eye. The switch to digital television systems has been used as an opportunity to change the standard television picture format from the old ratio of 4:3 (approximately 1.33:1) to an aspect ratio of 16:9 (approximately 1.78:1). This enables TV to get closer to the aspect ratio of modern widescreen movies, which range from 1.78:1 through 1.85:1 to 2.35:1. There are two methods for transporting widescreen content, the better of which uses what is called anamorphic widescreen format. This format is very similar to the technique used to fit a widescreen movie frame inside a 1.33:1 35mm film frame. The image is squashed horizontally when recorded, then expanded again when played back. The anamorphic widescreen 16:9 format was first introduced via European PAL-Plus television broadcasts and then later on "widescreen" DVDs; the ATSC HDTV system uses straight widescreen format, no image squashing or expanding is used. Recently "widescreen" has spread from television to computing where both desktop and laptop computers are commonly equipped with widescreen displays, and it remains to be seen whether Work or movie enjoyment will take over. There are some complaints about distortions of movie picture ratio due to some DVD playback software not taking account of aspect ratios; but this will subside as the DVD playback software matures. Furthermore, computer and laptop widescreen displays are in the 16:10 aspect ratio both physically in size and in pixel counts, and not in 16:9 of consumer televisions, leading to further complexity. This was a result of widescreen computer display engineers' uninformed assumption that people viewing 16:9 content on their computer would prefer that an area of the screen be reserved for playback controls or subtitles, as opposed to viewing content full-screen.

Aspect ratio incompatibility

The television industry changing aspect ratios is not without teething difficulties, and can present a considerable problem. Displaying a widescreen aspect (rectangular) image on a conventional aspect (square) display can be shown:
- in "letterbox" format, with black horizontal bars at the top and bottom
- with part of the image being cropped, usually the extreme left and right of the image being cut off (or in "pan and scan", parts selected by an operator)
- with the image horizontally compressed A conventional aspect (square) image on a widescreen aspect (rectangular) display can be shown:
- in "pillarbox" format, with black vertical bars to the left and right
- with upper and lower portions of the image cut off
- with the image horizontally distorted A common compromise is to shoot or create material at an aspect ratio of 14:9, and to lose some image at each side for 4:3 presentation, and some image at top and bottom for 16:9 presentation. Horizontal expansion has advantages in situations in which several people are watching the same set, as it compensates for watching at an oblique angle.

Sound

Television add-ons

Today there are many add-ons for the television set. A few add-ons include Video Game Consoles, VCRs, Cable Boxes, Satellite Boxes, DVD players, or Digital Video Recorders, the television add-on market is ever growing.

New developments

- Broadcast flag
- CableCARD™
- Digital Light Processing (DLP)
- Digital Rights Management (DRM)
- Digital television (DTV)
- Digital Video Recorders
- Direct Broadcast Satellite TV (DBS)
- DVD
- Flicker-free (100Hz)
- High Definition TV (HDTV)
- High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI)
- IPTV
- Internet television
- LCD and Plasma display Flat Screen TV
- Pay Per View
- Picture-in-picture (PiP)
- Video on-demand (VOD)
- Ultra High Definition Video (UHDV)
- Web TV

Geographical usage

Content

Advertising

Since their inception in the USA in 1941, TV commercials have become one of the most effective, most pervasive, and most popular methods of selling products of many sorts, especially consumer goods. U.S. advertising rates are determined primarily by Nielsen ratings. The exception to this is the publicly-funded British Broadcasting Corporation.

Programming

Getting TV programming shown to the public can happen in many different ways. After production the next step is to market and deliver the product to whatever markets are open to using it. This typically happens on two levels: #Original Run or First Run - a producer creates a program of one or multiple episodes and shows it on a station or network which has either paid for the production itself or to which a license has been granted by the producers to do the same. #Syndication - this is the terminology rather broadly used to describe secondary programming usages (beyond original run). It includes secondary runs in the country of first issue, but also international usage which may or may not be managed by the originating producer. In many cases other companies, TV stations or individuals are engaged to do the syndication work, in other words to sell the product into the markets they are allowed to sell into by contract from the copyright holders, in most cases the producers. In most countries, the first wave occurs primarily on FTA television, while the second wave happens on subscription TV and in other countries. In the U.S. however, the first wave occurs on the FTA networks and subscription services, and the second wave travels via all means of distribution. First run programming is increasing on subscription services outside the U.S., but few domestically produced programs are syndicated on domestic FTA elsewhere. This practice is increasing however, generally on digital only FTA channels, or with subscriber-only first run material appearing on FTA. Unlike the U.S., repeat FTA screenings of a FTA network program almost only occur only on that network. Also, affiliates rarely buy or produce non-network programming that isn't intensely local.

Social aspects

Alleged dangers

Paralleling television's growing primacy in family life and society, an increasingly vocal chorus of legislators, scientists and parents are raising objections to the uncritical acceptance of the medium. For example, the Swedish government imposed a total ban on advertising to children under twelve in 1991 (see advertising). In the U.S., the [http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_tveffect.shtml National Institute on Media and the Family] (not a government agency) points out that U.S. children watch an average of 25 hours of television per week and features studies showing it interferes with the educational and maturational process. A February 23 2002 article in [http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=0005339B-A694-1CC5-B4A8809EC588EEDF Scientific American] suggested that compulsive television watching was no different from any other addiction, a finding backed up by reports of withdrawal symptoms among families forced by

Saturday Night Live

:SNL redirects here. For other uses of SNL, see SNL (disambiguation). Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late-night 90-minute comedy-variety show from NBC which has been broadcast virtually every Saturday night since its debut on October 11, 1975. It is one of the longest-running network entertainment programs in American television history. Each week, the show's cast is joined by a guest host and a musical act. Originally, the show was called NBC's Saturday Night because Howard Cosell was hosting a show on ABC titled Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell. After Cosell's show was cancelled, NBC retitled its show. The show—broadcast from Studio 8H at the GE Building in New York's Rockefeller Center—has been the launching place for some major American comedy stars of the last thirty years. It was created by Lorne Michaels who, excluding a hiatus from Season 6 through Season 10, has produced and written for the show and remains its executive producer (Jean Doumanian producing most of Season 6, and Dick Ebersol 7–10). In January 2005, NBC renewed SNL's contract until 2012. 2012

Structure of the show

The show usually follows a standard format. It opens with a sketch, known as the cold opening, which begins without any announcement or titles, is often about politics or other current events, and always ends with someone saying "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" The show then segues into the opening credits, which usually open with a shot of the Statue of Liberty and a montage of the cast members cut with various locations around the city. The opening credits are voiced-over by long-time NBC announcer Don Pardo. The show's theme music has been re-arranged many times, but always follows the same basic chord patterns. Next is the opening monologue performed by the guest host(s), often followed by a TV commercial parody. The show continues with more comedy skits (sketches might feature recurring characters, running gags, celebrity impersonations, movie and TV spoofs, and skits parodying the news issues of the day), followed by a performance by the guest musical act. More recent shows have the second act divided by an animated short by Robert Smigel. The news parody segment Weekend Update marks the show's midway point. The second half of the program continues with more sketches, and in most cases a second performance by the musical guest. Some shows also feature filmed segments, often featuring cast members, or it may feature independent film shorts. In a few rare cases, a third musical performance by the week's musical guest is done at the end of the show, but in most instances this is just a goodbye segment by the host and musical guest. Often times, the show "fades to black", or just blatantly cuts away while the credits roll, most likely a time-saving measure. Also, in some reruns, shows have been edited to contain a mixture of skits, and do not follow this sequence.

History

- 1975 – 1980
- 1980 – 1985
- 1985 – 1990
- 1990 – 1995
- 1995 – 2000
- 2000 – 2005
- 2005 – Present
- Weekend Update

Cast

Current repertory players

- Darrell Hammond (1995 – Present)
- Chris Parnell (1998 – 2001, 2002 – Present)
- Horatio Sanz (1998 – Present)
- Rachel Dratch (1999 – Present)
- Maya Rudolph (2000 – Present)
- Tina Fey (2000 – Present)
- Seth Meyers (2001 – Present)
- Amy Poehler (2001 – Present)
- Fred Armisen (2002 – Present)
- Will Forte (2002 – Present)
- Finesse Mitchell (2003 – Present)
- Kenan Thompson (2003 – Present)

Current featured players

- Jason Sudeikis (2005 – Present)
- Bill Hader (2005 – Present)
- Andy Samberg (2005 – Present)
- Kristen Wiig (2005 - Present)

For a full list of past and present cast, see Saturday Night Live cast.

Notable tenures

Although SNL has a rapid turnover of supporting players, some performers have had long tenures with the show. Few have broken the eight-year barrier. Among the longest serving repertory players are:
- Darrell Hammond (11 seasons and counting: September 1995 – Present)
- Tim Meadows (9½ seasons: February 1991 – May 2000)
- Kevin Nealon (9 seasons: October 1986 – May 1995)
- Horatio Sanz (8 seasons and counting: September 1998 – Present)
- Phil Hartman (8 seasons: October 1986 – May 1994) Featured Players: Al Franken (12 seasons: 1977-1980 and March 1986- May 1995)

Family connections

Some cast members are related to former staff on the show. The most prominent example is Jim Belushi, younger brother of Not Ready for Prime Time player John Belushi. Before that, Bill Murray's older brother Brian Doyle-Murray was a writer and cast member. When Dan Aykroyd left the show in 1979, he was replaced by a series of short-lived featured players, one of whom was his brother Peter. Other family connections are not as obvious. For instance, long-time writer and sometime performer Jim Downey is former cast member Robert Downey, Jr.'s uncle. Cast member Gilda Radner was briefly married to G.E. Smith, who later became the show's bandleader. Same goes for Michael O'Donoghue who was married to SNL band pianist Cheryl Hardwick. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall were later married.

Cast member deaths

Although SNL is well-known as the launchpad for many successful careers, a few cast members have died tragically young. The first of whom was John Belushi who in 1982 died from a lethal injection of cocaine and heroin. Gilda Radner died after a year-long battle with ovarian cancer in May 1989. Jim Henson, whose Muppets appeared in the first year, died in May of 1990, of pneumonia. In August 1994, Danitra Vance died of breast cancer, and in November of that year, Michael O'Donoghue, who long suffered from severe chronic migraine headaches, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Chris Farley, not unlike his idol, Belushi, also died from an accidental overdose of cocaine and heroin in 1997. Phil Hartman followed just months later in 1998 when his wife, who had been in treatment for her depression, consumed a dangerous combination of alcohol and the prescription drug Zoloft. She shot and murdered Phil that morning as he slept, after months of speculated marriage problems. She later turned the gun on herself. In October 2005, Charles Rocket tragically became the first SNL alum to commit suicide. Local police found him dead in his own yard with a self-inflicted cut to the throat.

Contracts

SNL received some negative publicity in 1999 when it was leaked that, henceforth, actors joining the show would have to agree in their five-to-six year contract that, upon request, they would act in up to three movies by SNL Films, for fees of US$75,000, US$150,000, and then US$300,000; and also that, upon request, they would leave SNL and act in an NBC sitcom for up to an additional six years. This appeared to be a reaction to former cast members like Adam Sandler and Mike Myers going on to movie stardom. Some agents and managers characterized these long-term contracts as involuntary servitude, saying that almost any young, undiscovered comic would immediately agree to any given set of exploitative contractual restrictions for the opportunity to launch their careers via the show. NBC publicly defended the new contracts, saying that SNL was doing a service to young comics by launching so many careers. It was reported in 1999 that the starting salary for SNL cast members was US$5,000 per episode.

The Studio

Since the show's inception, SNL has been filmed from Studio 8H located on Floors 8 and 9 of 30 Rockefeller Plaza (usually nicknamed "30 Rock"). Due to the studio originally being a radio soundstage for Orchestra, the layout of the studio floor and the audience positioning causes some audience members to have an obstructed view of many of the skits. During the summer 2005 shooting hiatus, crews began renovations on Studio 8H. With its thirty-first season premiere in October 2005, the show began broadcasting in High Definition, appearing letterboxed on conventional screens. On the August 17, 2005 episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien (also aired on NBC), Conan mentioned hearing furniture being moved around in the studio upstairs. When Conan asked if it was a rival show, someone mentioned that it was Saturday Night Live. Conan jokingly responded, "Saturday Night Live? It'll never make it." Late Night with Conan O'Brien is filmed in Studio 6A, on floors 6 and 7 of "30 Rock". Conan was a writer for SNL from 1988-1991. The offices of SNL writers, producers, and other staff can be found on the 17th floor of "30 Rock".

Production process

The following is a summary of the process used to produce the show. It is based in part on an August 2000 Writer's Digest article and an April 2004 Fresh Air interview with writer and performer Tina Fey:
- Monday: The day begins with a topical meeting, identifying the biggest story for the show's opening. This is followed by a free-form pitch meeting with Lorne Michaels and the show's host for the week. According to an October 2004 60 Minutes segment on the show, throughout the week the host has a lot of influence on which sketches get aired. Following the meeting, writers beg

Jon Lovitz

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Television

History

Electromechanical television

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Broadcasting

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Television sets

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Modern displays

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Aspect ratio incompatibility

Sound

Television add-ons

New developments

Geographical usage

Content

Advertising

Programming

Social aspects

Alleged dangers

Saturday Night Live

Structure of the show

History

Cast

Current repertory players

Current featured players

Notable tenures

Family connections

Cast member deaths

Contracts

The Studio

Production process