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Rocky IV

Rocky IV is a 1985 American sports drama film starring, written and directed by Sylvester Stallone. The film is the sequel to Rocky III (1982) and the fourth installment in the Rocky film series. It also stars Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Brigitte Nielsen, and Dolph Lundgren. In the film, Rocky Balboa (Stallone) confronts Ivan Drago (Lundgren), a Soviet boxer responsible for another personal tragedy in Balboa's life.

Development for a fourth Rocky film began soon after the success of Rocky III, which faced controversy after it was subject to a copyright lawsuit. Principal photography began in 1984, with filming locations including Philadelphia, Wyoming, and Vancouver. Rocky IV was Lundgren's American film debut, and Stallone's last directorial effort until 2006; they engaged in authentic punching in their fight scenes, which led to Stallone being admitted to intensive care. Filming also featured new special effects and bona fide and groundbreaking sport methods and equipment, some of which were years removed from public use. Rocky IV is known for its strong Cold War themes, as well as its successful theme songs "Burning Heart" and "Living in America".

Rocky IV premiered in Los Angeles on November 21, 1985, and was theatrically released in the United States by MGM/UA Entertainment Co. under its United Artists label on November 27. The film received mixed reviews, with criticism for its predictable screenplay and praise for Drago's credibility as a villain. Scholars note that Drago's ultimate defeat and the Soviet crowd's embrace of Rocky represented the dissolution of the Soviet Union, while others criticized the film as propaganda through its Cold War themes and negative portrayals of Russians.

The film was a box office success, grossing $300 million worldwide, becoming the highest grossing film in the franchise and the third highest-grossing film of 1985 domestically and the second highest grossing film worldwide. Critical reception of the film became more favorable in the years later, with praise for the training montages. The film has been considered an icon of 1980s pop culture. In 2021, a director's cut was released with the title Rocky IV: Rocky vs Drago, receiving positive reviews from critics. The sequel, Rocky V, was released in 1990.

Plot
In 1985, Russian boxer Ivan Drago arrives in the United States from the Soviet Union with his wife, his trainers and his manager, Nicoli Koloff. Koloff takes every opportunity to promote Drago's athleticism as a hallmark of Soviet superiority. Motivated by patriotism and a desire to step back in the ring, former heavyweight champion Apollo Creed challenges Drago to an exhibition fight. Rocky has reservations about his much larger opponent and about Creed coming out of retirement but agrees to help train Apollo for the match.

The boxing exhibition takes place at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. Apollo enters the ring in an over-the-top patriotic entrance with James Brown performing "Living in America", complete with showgirls. The bout starts tamely with Apollo landing several punches that are ineffective against Drago, but Drago suddenly retaliates with devastating effects. By the end of the first round, Rocky and Apollo's trainer Duke plead with him to stop the match, but Apollo refuses to do so. Drago aggressively pummels him in the second round. Apollo falls after a particularly savage blow and lies twitching on the ground. After the match is called in Drago's favor, he displays no contrition, commenting to the assembled media: "If he dies, he dies." Apollo dies as a result of the blow.

Rocky decides to challenge Drago himself, but has to surrender his championship to do so. Drago's camp agrees to an unsanctioned 15-round fight in the Soviet Union on Christmas Day, an arrangement meant to protect Drago from the threats of violence he has been receiving in the United States. Rocky travels to the Soviet Union without his wife Adrian due to her disapproval of the match, setting up his training base in a remote cabin in Krasnogourbinsk with only Duke and Paulie to accompany him. Duke opens up to Rocky, stating that he actually raised Apollo and that his death felt like a father losing his son, and expresses his faith in Rocky that he will emerge victorious. To prepare for the match, Drago uses high-tech equipment, a team of trainers and doctors monitoring his every movement, and regular doses of anabolic steroids. Rocky, on the other hand, does roadwork in deep snow over mountainous terrain and workouts utilizing antiquated farm equipment. Adrian arrives unexpectedly five days before the fight to give Rocky her support, which gives Rocky a new vigor.

On the night of the match, Balboa enters to a hostile jeering crowd. Drago is introduced with cheers and an elaborate patriotic ceremony, with the Soviet general secretary and the Politburo in attendance. In contrast to his match with Apollo, Drago immediately goes on the offensive. Rocky takes a pounding in the first round, but toward the end of the second round he lands a right hook that cuts Drago's left eye. Between rounds, Duke encourages Rocky by telling him he's proven Drago is only human, and Drago comments to his trainers that Rocky "is like a piece of iron."

The two boxers spend the next dozen rounds trading blows, with Rocky managing to hold his ground despite Drago's best efforts. As the 12th round begins, the Russian crowd starts to cheer for Balboa. After Koloff berates Drago for not finishing the fight, Drago rebels, throwing him from the ring and directly addressing the Soviet leadership, stating he fights only for himself. In the final round, with both fighters exhausted, Rocky seizes an opening to unleash a series of blows that KOs Drago, avenging Apollo's death.

Rocky gives a victory speech, acknowledging the crowd's initial disdain of him, but points out that it changed to respect during the fight. He states that he thinks everybody can change, so there doesn't need to be any war. Rocky ends his speech by wishing his son a Merry Christmas and raises his arms into the air in victory as the crowd applauds.

Cast
LeRoy Neiman plays the ring announcer in the Creed-Drago match. Burgess Meredith appears as Mickey Goldmill in archive footage. Appearing as themselves are singer James Brown and commentators Stu Nahan, Warner Wolf, R. J. Adams, Barry Tompkins and Al Bandiero.
 * Sylvester Stallone as Robert "Rocky" Balboa, "The Italian Stallion": The reigning two-time Heavyweight Champion of the World.
 * Talia Shire as Adrian Balboa: Rocky's wife and support through his boxing career.
 * Burt Young as Paulie Pennino: Rocky's friend and brother-in-law.
 * Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed: Former Heavyweight Champion of the World, and close friend to Rocky.
 * Brigitte Nielsen as Ludmilla Vobet Drago: Wife and supporter of Ivan Drago, and Olympic swimming champion. In real life, Nielsen was engaged to Stallone during the production, and married shortly after the release. They appeared together once again in 1986's Cobra, before they divorced in 1987.
 * Dolph Lundgren as Captain Ivan Drago: the Soviets' prize Champion boxer "The Siberian Express" and a Soviet Army infantry captain
 * Tony Burton as Tony "Duke" Evers: Apollo's father-figure, friend, trainer and manager, who becomes Rocky's trainer for his match against Drago.
 * Michael Pataki as Nicolai Koloff: Trainer, promoter, and manager of Ivan Drago.
 * Rocky Krakoff as Rocky Balboa Jr.
 * David Lloyd Austin as Mikhail Gorbachev
 * Sylvia Meals as Mary Anne Creed: Wife of Apollo
 * George Rogan as Sergei Rimsky: Another Ivan Drago trainer.

Casting
Sportscaster Stu Nahan makes his fourth appearance in the series as commentator for the Creed–Drago fight. Warner Wolf replaces Bill Baldwin, who died following filming for Rocky III, as co-commentator. For the fight between Rocky and Drago, commentators Barry Tompkins and Al Bandiero portray themselves as USA Network broadcasters.

Apollo Creed's wife Mary Anne (Sylvia Meals) made her second appearance in the series, the first being Rocky II, although the character was mainly featured in Rocky II. Stallone's future wife, Brigitte Nielsen, appeared as Drago's wife, Ludmilla.

The Soviet premier in the sky box during the Rocky–Drago match, played by David Lloyd Austin, strongly resembles contemporary (and last) Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Austin later played Gorbachev in The Naked Gun, and Russian characters in other films.

Filming
Wyoming doubled for the frozen expanse of Russia. The small farm where Rocky lived and trained was in Jackson Hole, and Grand Teton National Park was used for filming many of the outdoor sequences in the Soviet Union. The PNE Agrodome at Hastings Park in Vancouver, British Columbia served as the location of Rocky's Moscow bout.

Sylvester Stallone has stated that the original punching scenes filmed between him and Dolph Lundgren in the first portion of the fight are completely authentic. Stallone wanted to capture a realistic scene and Lundgren agreed that they would engage in legitimate sparring. One particularly forceful punch to Stallone's chest slammed his heart against his breastbone, causing the heart to swell. Stallone, suffering from labored breathing and a blood pressure over 200, was flown from the set in Vancouver, British Columbia to Saint John's Regional Medical Center in Santa Monica, California and was forced into intensive care for eight days. Stallone later commented that he believed Lundgren had the athletic ability and talent to fight in the professional heavyweight division of boxing. Producer Winkler describes the exact same event in his autobiography, observing not Lundgren, rather, "Sly took a punch from a stand-in fighter and ended up in the emergency room with his blood pressure dangerously high."

Additionally, Stallone has stated that Lundgren nearly forced Carl Weathers to quit during the filming of the Apollo vs. Drago exhibition fight. At one point in the filming of the scene, Lundgren tossed Weathers into the corner of the boxing ring. Weathers shouted profanities at Lundgren while leaving the ring and announced that he was calling his agent and quitting the movie. Only after Stallone forced the two actors to reconcile did filming continue. The event caused a four-day work stoppage, while Weathers was talked back into the part and Lundgren agreed to tone down his aggressiveness.

Post-production
Rocky IV is one of the few sport movies that applies genuine sound effects from actual punches, bona fide training methods created by boxing consultants, and a bevy of other new special effects. The film is recognized as being ahead of its time in its demonstration of groundbreaking high-tech sporting equipment, some of which was experimental and 20 years from public use. In 2012, Olympians Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte noted that the training sequences in Rocky IV inspired them to use a cabin similar to what the resourceful Balboa utilized in the film.

Paulie's robot, a character that through the years has enjoyed a cult following of its own, was created by International Robotics Inc. in New York City. The robot's initial voice was that of the company's CEO, Robert Doornick. The robot is identified by its engineers as "SICO" and is/was a member of the Screen Actors Guild. It toured with James Brown in the 1980s. The robot was written into the movie after it had been used to help treat Stallone's autistic son, Seargeoh.

Soundtrack
The musical score for Rocky IV was composed by Vince DiCola, who would later compose the music for The Transformers: The Movie. Rocky IV is the only film in the series prior to Creed not to feature original music by Bill Conti; however, it does feature arrangements of themes composed by Conti from previous films in the series, such as "The Final Bell". Conti, who was too busy with the first two Karate Kid films at the time, would return for Rocky V and Rocky Balboa. Conti's famous piece of music from the Rocky series, "Gonna Fly Now", does not appear at all in Rocky IV (the first time in the series this happened), though a few bars of it are incorporated into DiCola's training montage instrumental.

Songs from the movie include "Living in America" by James Brown, as well as music by John Cafferty ("Heart's on Fire", featuring Vince DiCola), Survivor, Kenny Loggins, and Robert Tepper. Four of these songs became U.S. chart hits, two of which reached the Top Five. Go West wrote "One Way Street" for the movie by request of Sylvester Stallone. Europe's hit "The Final Countdown", written earlier in the decade by lead singer Joey Tempest, is often incorrectly stated as being featured in the film due to its similarity to DiCola's "Training Montage." However, Europe's track was not released as a single until late 1986, after Rocky IV ' s release.

According to singer Peter Cetera, he originally wrote his best-selling solo single "Glory of Love" as the end title for this film, but was passed over by United Artists, and was instead subsequently used as the theme for The Karate Kid Part II.

Theatrical
Rocky IV premiered in Westwood, Los Angeles on November 21, 1985. It opened Wednesday, November 27 on 1,325 screens in the United States and Canada prior to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Lawsuit
The script development was the subject of a famous copyright lawsuit, Anderson v. Stallone. Timothy Anderson developed a treatment for Rocky IV on spec; after the studio decided not to buy his treatment, he sued when the resulting movie script was similar to his treatment. The court held that Anderson had prepared an unauthorized derivative work of the characters Stallone had developed in Rocky I through III, and thus no part of his infringing work was eligible for copyright restriction.

Director's cut
In August 2020, Stallone announced that a director's cut edition of the film would be released to commemorate the film's 35th anniversary. Approximately 38 minutes of previously unreleased footage consisting of both new scenes and alternate takes was added to the film, including significant extensions of both fight scenes and the Apollo Creed funeral scene, in addition to a lengthier recap of Rocky III at the beginning of the film. A significant amount of original footage was removed or replaced to make way for these additions, as the director's cut runs 93 minutes compared to the original cut's 91 minutes.

One major cut was that of the scenes featuring Paulie's robot. "The robot is going to the junkyard forever, no more robot," Stallone commented. Robert Doornick, founder of International Robotics and the voice of the robot, commented that Stallone cut all of the robot scenes in the director's cut to save money on royalty fees that were given to Doornick in the original cut. Scenes with Brigitte Nielsen playing Ludmilla, Ivan Drago's wife, were also substantially diminished, particularly the scenes where she spoke for her husband at press conferences and her encounter with Apollo Creed's wife in Las Vegas just before the tragic fight between Creed and Drago. Nielsen and Stallone were married in 1985, shortly after the film's premiere, and divorced in 1987, which perhaps explains Stallone's decision to now reduce the role of his ex-wife in the film. In contrast, additional minor scenes featuring Adrian and Drago's manager Nicolai were added to the movie.

Other scenes from the 1985 version removed in the new cut include Balboa celebrating his wedding anniversary with Adrian and the Soviet regime leaders "Mikhail Gorbachev" applauding Rocky for his speech after winning the final fight, with them instead leaving the room, as well as the scene which Balboa says "Merry Christmas" at the end of the speech was diminished. The director's cut also features the addition of some of Bill Conti's musical themes from the previous films onto the soundtrack, and the toning down of sound effects, particularly the exaggerated punching sounds heard in the original cut. The new cut is also presented in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 compared to the original's 1.85:1.

The director's cut, titled Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago – The Ultimate Director's Cut, had a one-night theatrical release on November 11, 2021, and was released in digital formats the following day. A "making of" video was released on YouTube a week prior to the director's cut release.

Box office
Over the 5-day Thanksgiving weekend, it grossed a non-summer record $31,770,105. In its fourth week of release it expanded to a then-record 2,232 screens. It spent a total of six weeks as the number one film at the US box office, staying on top through the Christmas and New Years period, and grossed a total of $127.8 million in United States and Canada, and $300 million worldwide, the most of any Rocky film. It was the highest-grossing sports film of all time, until The Blind Side (2009), which grossed $309 million (without accounting for inflation). It was also the highest-grossing fourth installment of a film in the United States and Canada, surpassing the record of Sudden Impact (1983). Its success led to other studios opening major films over the Thanksgiving holiday.

In the United Kingdom it also had a record opening, grossing £1,780,894 in its first five days.

Stallone has been quoted as saying the enormous financial success and fan-following of Rocky IV once had him envisioning another Rocky movie, devoted to Drago and his post-boxing life, with Balboa's storyline running parallel to Drago's. However, he noted the damage both boxers sustained in the fight made them "incapable of reason", and thus instead planned Rocky V as a showcase of the dangers of boxing.

Theatrical cut (1985)
The film has a 40% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 50 critics with an average rating of 5.1/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Rocky IV inflates the action to absurd heights, but it ultimately rings hollow thanks to a story that hits the same basic beats as the first three entries in the franchise." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 40 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars, stating that with this film the Rocky series began "finally losing its legs. It's been a long run, one hit movie after another, but Rocky IV is a last gasp, a film so predictable that viewing it is like watching one of those old sitcoms where the characters never change and the same situations turn up again and again." Ian Nathan of Empire gave the film two out of five stars, calling the script a "laughable turd" and describing Rocky IV as "the [film] where the Rocky series threw in the towel on the credibility."

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film a 3.5 out of 4 stars, and stated in his review, "[Stallone] creates credible villains worthy of his heroic character."

Director's cut (2021)
The new cut, entitled Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago, received better reviews from critics, mainly praising the fights (new choreography and sound), more dramatic tone and character development, but still criticising the plot.

Jeremy Smith, from Polygon, stated: "The triumph of Stallone’s director’s cut — with a pin-sharp focus on Apollo and Rocky’s relationship and its ruthless removal of anything which distracts — is that it not only nails the central message of the film, but the very point of it existing at all (montages aside)".

In her review for Empire, Terri White praised the clearer motivations in the director's cut: "It's a much more sombre context for the film (and goes some way to recontextualising the first three outings) and serves to subdue its worst indulgences. Without the gills of excess breathing quite so hard, the story of Rocky then pledging to fight Drago in Russia on Christmas Day becomes clear: it's not about solving the Cold War or even a simple revenge yarn wrapped in bombastic patriotism. Rocky needs to find a way to break free of the code. To find a way to change. Apollo couldn't, it says now more explicitly, and he died because of it".

Accolades
Dolph Lundgren received acclaim for his performance as Ivan Drago. He won the Marshall Trophy for Best Actor at the Napierville Cinema Festival. Rocky IV also won Germany's Golden Screen Award.

The film won five Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Actor (Sylvester Stallone, along with Rambo: First Blood Part II), Worst Director (Stallone), Worst Supporting Actress (Brigitte Nielsen), Worst New Star (Nielsen, and also for Red Sonja) and Worst Musical Score. It also received nominations for Worst Picture, Worst Supporting Actress (Talia Shire), Worst Supporting Actor (Burt Young) and Worst Screenplay.

Analysis
Scholars note that the film's strong yet formulaic structure emphasizes the power of the individual, embodied by Rocky, the prototypically American hero who is inventive, determined, and idealistic. They contrast that with Ivan Drago's hyperbolic characterization as a representation of Soviet power in the context of the latter part of the Cold War. Writer/director Stallone highlights the nationalistic overtones of the Balboa–Drago fight throughout the film, such as when Drago's wife claims the United States is filled with "threats of violence" to her husband. Drago's trainer comments that American society has become "pathetic and weak" and "antagonistic and violent," a common fascist trope depicting an enemy both weak and strong at the same time. Drago represents the totalitarian regime, demonstrating his power when he topples an arrogant opponent (Creed). Later on, the radio announcer says, "Ivan Drago is a man with an entire country in his corner."

Reaction in Russia
Russia's state-run Russia Beyond published an article in 2021, detailing the trip of a Russian goodwill ambassador Katya Lycheva to America in the 1980s. In the article, it is claimed that she objected to the character Ivan Drago, saying that the film uses him to vilify the Russian people: "In the movie Rocky IV there is not a word of truth about the Soviet Union. We don't even have such faces." Russia Beyond quoted an alleged American journalist saying: "What this film can be blamed for is the constant and shameless pressure on the audience to treat the Russians and their government with contempt, pity and disgust". In 2020, Russia's Maxim magazine ranked the film 8th in the list of "12 most delusional films about Russia", noting that "cinema takes its grudge against the most unpleasant, pre-Gorbachev Soviet realities. […] Soviet sports and party apparatchiks are portrayed in the film with incredible poison and malice".

Sequel
A sequel titled Rocky V, was released in November 1990.

Novelization
A novelization was published by Ballantine Books in 1985. Sylvester Stallone was credited as the author. The novel included some backstory for Drago and his wife. Drago was a former coal miner who had come to the government's attention after being featured in a Party promotional film about mining. Ludmilla, born in Kiev to a Party official, had begun training to become a swimming Olympic champion when she was nine.

Video games
In 1987, Rocky was released, based on the first four Rocky films. 2002 saw the release of Rocky, based on the first five Rocky films. 2004 saw the release of Rocky Legends, also based on the first five Rocky films.

Creed II
Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, and Brigitte Nielsen reprise their roles from Rocky IV in Creed II, the sequel to the 2015 film Creed. The plot involves Drago's son Viktor fighting Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) for his title as a way of his father Ivan regaining some of the prestige he lost after his defeat in Rocky IV.

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Isidore de Lara

Isidore de Lara, born Isidore Cohen (9 August 1858 – 2 September 1935), was an English composer and singer. After studying in Italy and France, he returned to England, where he taught for several years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and became a well known singer and composer of art songs. In the early 1880s he began to compose music for the stage, eventually achieving his greatest successes with opera in Monte Carlo from the late 1890s through the outbreak of World War I. His most popular opera, Messaline (1899), enjoyed frequent revivals throughout Europe and in the United States during the first quarter of the 20th century. He returned to London and spent much of the 1920s trying to create a permanent National opera company in England, without much success.

Biography

Born in London, de Lara went to Milan in 1874 to study composition with Alberto Mazzucato and singing with Francesco Lamperti at the Milan Conservatory. In 1876 he went to Paris to study with Édouard Lalo. The following year he returned to London to take a position as a professor of singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He became known as a concert singer and a writer of vocal songs, of which his The Garden of Sleep (1877) and After Silent Years (1887) were particularly popular.

In the early 1880s, de Lara began to switch his attention to composing music for the theatre. His first opera, The Royal Word, premiered at the Gaiety Theatre, London on 17 April 1883 with de Lara portraying the role of Charles II of England. This was soon followed by Wrong Notes (1883) and Minna, or The Fall from the Cliff (1886). A few years later the acclaimed French baritone Victor Maurel persuaded him to turn his cantata The Light of Asia, based on the life of Buddha, into an Italian opera, La luce dell'Asia, which was produced at Covent Garden in 1892.

In 1893 de Lara's opera Amy Robsart was given in French at Covent Garden with Emma Calvé. Well received, the work was staged the following year at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. While in Monte Carlo, De Lara met Princess Alice of Monaco who became a close friend, patron and, eventually, lover.

Under her support, De Lara remained in Monaco and moved into the most successful part of his career. His opera Moïna was produced there in 1897. It was followed in 1899 by his most famous work, Messaline, which featured the presence of the greatest Italian heroic tenor of the era, Francesco Tamagno, in the cast of the premiere performance. Messaline proved very popular and was the inspiration for Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's painting of the same name. Notably, it was the first opera by an English composer to be mounted at La Scala (in 1901).

With the outbreak of World War I, de Lara returned to London. Concerned for the survival of the arts during this time, he established a fund for the relief of distressed musicians. At the close of the war, he strove to establish an English national opera throughout the 1920s, but was unable to get the financial support needed to maintain a permanent company. He retired to Paris where he died on 2 August 1935.

Works
De Lara was a moderately prolific composer, producing a total of 13 operas, 67 vocal art songs, and a small amount of chamber music. His musical style was highly eclectic, although the influences of Jules Massenet and Camille Saint-Saëns are readily apparent within his operas. Musicologist Nigel Burton wrote, "His style may be said to have developed, but it never really settled down." The somewhat erratic side to his writing was a weakness and a strength. The fluctuating musical vocabulary in his writing enabled him to create any attitude, emotion, or impression at a moment's notice, but at times the musical effects seem out of place or without cause; a criticism also made of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Critics have also commented on de Lara's tendency towards over sentimentality. As one critic said, "at the moments when the music should attempt to rise to dramatic greatness, it degenerates into synthetic posturings." However, de Lara by all accounts had a wonderful musical ear and at his best he is a fine composer. Perhaps de Lara's strongest area was his skill at orchestration which was both tasteful and highly creative at the same time.

Selected operas

 * The Royal Word (1883)
 * Wrong Notes (1883)
 * Minna, or The Fall from the Cliff (1886)
 * La luce dell'Asia (The Light of Asia) (1892, Covent Garden)
 * Amy Robsart (1893, Covent Garden)
 * Moïna (1897, Monte Carlo)
 * Messaline (1899, Monte Carlo)
 * Soléa (1907)
 * Naïl (abt. 1910)
 * Les trois mousquetaires (abt. 1920)

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Steven Wright

Steven Alexander Wright (born December 6, 1955) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and film producer. He is known for his distinctive lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, non sequiturs, anti-humor, and one-liners with contrived situations.

Wright was ranked as the 15th Greatest Comedian by Rolling Stone in its 2017 list of the 50 Greatest Stand-up Comics. His accolades include the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for starring in, writing, and producing the short film The Appointments of Dennis Jennings (1988) and two Primetime Emmy Awards nominations as a producer of Louie (2010–2015). He had a supporting role as Leon in the Peabody Award–winning tragicomedy web series Horace and Pete.

Early life, family and education
Wright was born at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and grew up in Burlington, Massachusetts, one of four children of Lucille "Dolly" (née Lomano) and Alexander K. Wright. He was raised Catholic. His mother was Italian American, and his father of Scottish descent. Wright's father worked as an electronics technician who "tested a lot of stuff" for NASA during the Apollo spacecraft program. When that program ended, he worked as a truck driver.

Wright attended Middlesex Community College in Bedford, Massachusetts, for two years to earn his associate degree, then continued his education at Emerson College. He graduated from Emerson in 1978.

Career
Wright began performing stand-up comedy in 1979 at the Comedy Connection in Boston. Wright cites stand-up comic George Carlin and director and former stand-up comic Woody Allen as comedic influences. In 1982, Peter Lassally, executive producer of NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, saw Wright performing on a bill with other local comics at the Ding Ho comedy club in Cambridge, a venue Wright described as "half Chinese restaurant and half comedy club. It was a pretty weird place." Lassally booked Wright on The Tonight Show, and Wright so impressed host Johnny Carson and the studio audience that less than a week later he was invited to appear on the show again.

Stand-up success
Wright's 1985 comedy album I Have a Pony was released on Warner Bros. Records, received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. The album's success landed him an HBO special, in the On Location: series, taped at Wolfgang's in San Francisco. It was broadcast as A Steven Wright Special.

By then Wright had firmly developed a new brand of obscure, laid-back performing and was rapidly building a cultlike following and an onstage persona characterized by an aura of obscurity, with his penchant for non sequiturs and impassive, slow delivery adding to his mystique. The performance became one of HBO's longest-running and most requested comedy specials and propelled him to great success on the college-arena concert circuit.

Continued success beyond stand-up
In 1989, Wright and fellow producer Dean Parisot won an Academy Award for their 30-minute short film The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, directed by Parisot, written by Mike Armstrong and Wright, and starring Wright and Rowan Atkinson. Upon accepting the Oscar, Wright said, "We're really glad that we cut out the other sixty minutes." In 1992, Wright had a recurring role on the television sitcom Mad About You. He also supplied the voice of the radio DJ in writer-director Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs that year. "Dean Parisot's wife Sally Menke is Quentin Tarantino's [film] editor, so when she was editing the movie and it was getting down toward the end where they didn't have the radio DJ yet, she thought of me and told Quentin and he liked the idea," Wright explained in 2009.

In 1995, Wright provided voiceover work for TBS's Disaster Area cartoon block.

Numerous lists of jokes attributed to Wright circulate on the Internet, sometimes of dubious origin. Wright has said, "Someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn't write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn't write any of it. What's disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I'm embarrassed that people think I thought of them because some are really bad."

After his 1990 comedy special Wicker Chairs and Gravity, Wright continued to do stand-up performances, but these were largely absent from television, and he only occasionally made guest spots on late-night talk shows. In 1999, he wrote and directed the 30-minute short One Soldier, saying it's "about a soldier who was in the Civil War, right after the war, with all these existentialist thoughts and wondering if there is a God and all that stuff."

In May 2000, Wright and other Ding Ho alumni, including Lenny Clarke, Barry Crimmins, Steve Sweeney, Bill Sohonage and Jimmy Tingle, appeared at a reunion benefit for comic Bob Lazarus, who was diagnosed with leukemia.

In 2006, Wright produced his first stand-up special in 16 years, Steven Wright: When the Leaves Blow Away, originally aired on Comedy Central on October 21, 2006. On September 25, 2007, Wright released his second album, I Still Have a Pony, a CD release of the material from When The Leaves Blow Away. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.

Beginning in 2008, Wright occasionally appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson as a visiting celebrity, often dropping by to help with the fan-mail segment. He joined a small cadre of Hollywood comedy celebrities who supported the show.

Awards and honors
Wright was awarded an Oscar in 1989 for Best Short Live-Action Film for The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, which he co-wrote (with Michael Armstrong) and starred in. He received two Emmy nominations as part of the producing team of Louie, first in 2014 and again in 2015.

On December 15, 2008, Wright became the first inductee to the Boston Comedy Hall of Fame.

In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. He was named No. 23 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics.

Other interests
Wright is a musician and has recorded several non-comedy songs with his friend and occasional actor Mark Wuerthner. He also has an interest in painting.

title: Steven Wright


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Atrocities (album)

Atrocities is the fourth studio album by American rock band Christian Death, released in 1986 through record label Normal.

The album's subject matter deals almost exclusively with the Holocaust, including songs about Auschwitz and Josef Mengele. Recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales it also featured the songwriting and arrangement skills of Barry Galvin, who, along with Johann Schumann, would leave the group upon the completion of Atrocities - both went on to form Mephisto Walz.

It is the first Christian Death record with Valor Kand taking over main duties following Rozz Williams' departure.

Track listing

 * Prologue
 * 1) "Will-o-the-Wisp" (Valor) - 3:15
 * 2) "Tales of Innocence" (Valor, B. Galvin) - 6:23
 * 3) "Strapping Me Down" (Valor, B. Galvin) - 2:36
 * 4) "The Danzig Waltz" (Valor) - 3:31
 * 5) "Chimere De-ci De-la" (Valor) - 4:41

 * Finale
 * 1) "Silent Thunder" (Valor, B. Galvin) - 6:32
 * 2) "Strange Fortune" (Valor) - 3:52
 * 3) "Ventriloquist" (Valor) - 4:31
 * 4) "Gloomy Sunday" (Sam M. Lewis, Rezső Seress) - 3:01
 * 5) "The Death of Josef" (Valor, D. Glass) - 4:41

Personnel

 * Valor Kand - vocals, guitar, violin, piano
 * Gitane Demone - vocals, keyboards
 * Johann Schumann - bass
 * Barry Galvin - guitar, vocals
 * David Glass - drums

title: Atrocities (album)


text:
Sequential art

In comics studies, sequential art is a term proposed by comics artist Will Eisner to describe art forms that use images deployed in a specific order for the purpose of graphic storytelling (i.e., narration of graphic stories) or conveying information. The best-known example of sequential art is comics.

Etymology
The term "sequential art" was coined in 1985 by comics artist Will Eisner in his book Comics and Sequential Art. Eisner analyzed this form into four elements: design, drawing, caricature, and writing.

Scott McCloud, another comics artist, elaborated the explanation further, in his books Understanding Comics (1993) and Reinventing Comics (2000). In Understanding Comics, he notes that the movie roll, before it is being projected, arguably could be seen as a very slow comic.

Related terms include: visual narrative, graphic narrative, pictorial narrative, picto-narrative, sequential narrative, sequential pictorial narrative, sequential storytelling, graphic fiction, graphic literature,  pictorial literature, sequential literature, and narrative illustration. The related term sequential sculpture has also been used.

title: Sequential art


text:
Ticino (river)

The river Ticino (, ; Tesin; French and Tessin; Ticīnus) is the most important perennial left-bank tributary of the Po. It has given its name to the Swiss canton through which its upper portion flows.

It is one of the four major rivers taking their source in the Gotthard region, along with the Rhône, Reuss and Rhine. The river rises in the Val Bedretto in Switzerland at the frontier between the cantons of Valais and Ticino right below the Nufenen Pass, is fed by the glaciers of the Alps and later flows through Lake Maggiore, which traverses the border to Italy. The Ticino joins the Po a few kilometres downstream (along the Ticino) from Pavia. It is about 248 km long. The stretch of river between Lake Maggiore and the confluence in the Po is included in the Parco naturale lombardo della Valle del Ticino, a Nature reserve included by UNESCO in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

Name
The name may have meant "the runner," from Proto-Indo-European *tekʷ-ino-s, from *tekʷ- (“to run, flow”).

Course
The Ticino arises from the many torrents that drain the mountain flanks on the eastern side of Nufenen Pass in the upper Val Bedretto. From here, the river flows to the north-east through the Val Bedretto to Airolo (1127 m) where the south ramp of the St Gotthard Pass and south portals of both the St Gotthard Railway Tunnel and the Gotthard Road Tunnel are located. Then it turns slowly to the southeast and enters the Valle Leventina. In the Leventina, the Ticino flows through three terrain steps separated by two narrow gorges (Gola di Monte Piottino and Biaschina) and finally reaches the valley floor near Bodio at around 320 m (1050 ft). Shortly after, at Biasca (286 m (938 ft)), the river is joined by its first major tributary, the Brenno which flows from Passo del Lucomagno through the Valle di Blenio.

Before the Ticino passes west of the canton's capital, Bellinzona, the river converges with its second larger left tributary, the Moesa, originating below the Passo del San Bernardino and flowing through the Valle Mesolcina. The Valle Mesolcina (and the Val Calanca) belongs geographically and culturally to the Ticino, but politically it is part of the canton of the Grisons. This part of the river valley between Biasca and Bellinzona is called the Riviera. The river is dammed after Bellinzona. Now the Ticino turns almost westwards and flows through the perfectly flat Piano di Magadino, an important cultivation and nature reserve area the river generated itself by its own sediments over millions of years, before it enters the Lago Maggiore at the lowest point of Switzerland at 193 m.

Only about the first sixth of the lake lies in Switzerland. Four major tributaries join the Ticino in Lago Maggiore. The Verzasca and the Maggia enter the lake in Switzerland in Tenero and in Locarno/Ascona, respectively. The Tresa drains the Lago di Lugano and flows in Luino into Lago Maggiore. The Toce drains many valleys to the northwest of Lago Maggiore and joins the lake near Feriolo. It surpasses the Ticino in average discharge volume and contains the highest peak of the catchment area of the Ticino river system, the Grenzgipfel (4617 m (15148 ft)) in the Monte Rosa massif.

In Sesto Calende the river, now called Fiume Ticino, exits Lake Maggiore and meanders southwards, passing the Milano-Malpensa Airport in the east. Now slowly turning to the southeast, the river circumvents Milano at a distance of about 20 km in the east. Shortly before it converges with the Po in the south of Milano, it passes Pavia on its northern shore.

History
The legendary Gallic leader Bellovesus was said to have defeated the Etruscans here in circa 600 BC. Ticino was the location of the Battle of Ticinus, the first battle of the Second Punic War fought between the Carthaginian forces of Hannibal and the Romans under Publius Cornelius Scipio in November 218 BC.

In the Middle Ages Pavia (first capital of the Kingdom of the Lombards and then of the kingdom of Italy) was, thanks to the waters of the Ticino, a fundamental hub for communications and trade between Venice and the Po valley. Furthermore, still in Pavia, there was the only brick bridge (ponte Coperto) which until the 19th century crossed the Ticino from Lake Maggiore to the Po.

A wooden bridge was built by the Visconti in Vigevano in the early fourteenth century, but it was set on fire by the Pavia fleet in 1315, rebuilt by Luchino Visconti, it was destroyed again by the Pavia in 1356 and never rebuilt.

The Ticino was in the territory of the Duchy of Milan during much of the later medieval and early modern period, although its upper portion as far as Bellinzona in 1500 and as far as the shores of Lago Maggiore in 1513, fell to the Old Swiss Confederacy as a result of the Swiss campaigns in the Italian Wars.

Val Bedretto
Val Bedretto, a narrow alpine valley named after the village of Bedretto, culminates in Nufenen Pass, (Passo della Novena, Nufenen Pass), at 2478 m located between Pizzo Gallina (north, 3060 m) and Nufenenstock (south, 2865 m). The road up the valley is fairly straight until it approaches the pass, where the nine hairpin turns start.

The Ticino originates on both sides, north and south, of the Nufenenstock: A smaller tributary originates from a small mountain lake south of the Nufenenstock and north of the Piccolo Corno Gries (2928 m) below the Passo del Corno at 2484 m in the short valley of the same name. Until the beginning of the 20th century the Valaisinne Gries Glacier was still flowing over the Corno Pass into the Val Corno!

Both spring areas converges about where the hairpins of the eastern pass road begins to circumvent about 700 m in altitude. Through the passes and over the Nufenenstock runs the border between the cantons of Valais and Ticino.

A paved road constructed in 1964 goes over the Passo della Novena and after some ten hairpins down about 500 m in altitude on its western side and then through the Ägenental in northeasten direction ultimately leading to the Obergoms, the upper half of the valley of the uppermost part the Rhône course. While the lower part of the Valais speaks French, the upper part speaks its particular Highest Alemannic dialect, the Walliser German, the population of Ticino speaks Italian.

Subsequently, the Ticino becomes a mountain brook flowing straight down the valley to the hamlet of All'Acqua or All'Acqua Ospizio at 1614 m, named for the hospice for travellers located there near the previous end of a drivable road in former centuries. Currently, it is a base for skiing and hiking. Further down eastwards the small villages of Ronco at 1476 m and finally Bedretto (1402 m) and Villa Bedretto appear. Below Bedretto the Ri di Cristallina, "Cristallina stream", a right tributary from the Val Torta, joins the Ticino at Ossasco, and further down the valley, Fontana is the lowest village in Val Bedretto. The entire area is laced with hiking trails and mountain huts. The valley is subject to avalanches and snow can remain on the ground as late as September.

Valle Leventina

 * Airolo

Other

 * in Switzerland: Bellinzona, Locarno (on Lake Maggiore).
 * in Italy: Stresa (on Lake Maggiore), Vigevano, Pavia.

Tributaries
The Ticino has the following tributaries (R on the right bank, L on the left, looking downstream):

 * Brenno (L)
 * Moesa (L)
 * Verzasca (Lake Maggiore, R)
 * Maggia (Lake Maggiore, R)
 * Cannobino (Lake Maggiore, R)
 * Giona (Lake Maggiore, L)
 * Tresa (Lake Maggiore, L)
 * Boesio (Lake Maggiore, L)
 * San Bernardino (Lake Maggiore, R)
 * Toce (Lake Maggiore, R)
 * Stronetta (Lake Maggiore, R)
 * Bardello (Lake Maggiore, L)
 * Arno (L)
 * Roggia Vernavola (L)

title: Ticino (river)


text:
Fridays (TV series)

Fridays was a late-night live comedy show that aired on ABC on Friday nights from April 11, 1980, to April 23, 1982.

Overview
The program was ABC's attempt to duplicate the success of NBC's Saturday Night Live, which, at the time, was in its fifth and final season featuring the original "Not Ready for Primetime" cast, along with several writers (and SNL band leader at the time, Paul Shaffer) who had been promoted to feature player status, as well as newcomer Harry Shearer. Like SNL, Fridays featured popular musical guests and, beginning in the second season, celebrity guest hosts, some of whom had appeared on SNL before and after Fridays aired, such as Andy Kaufman, Billy Crystal, William Shatner, Mark Hamill, and George Carlin. (Carlin, who had hosted the very first SNL in 1975, was also Fridays' first official "guest host" in 1981.)

The show featured many recurring characters and sketches, short films, and a parody news segment called Friday Edition, with Melanie Chartoff as the anchor (later joined by Rich Hall in seasons two and three). Veteran comedian Jack Burns served as show announcer and made on-screen appearances on the show. Initially, the show was compared unfavorably to Saturday Night Live as a weak clone that resorted to shock humor for laughs. The third episode (original airdate: April 25, 1980) was the last episode to air on some affiliates due to objectionable content concerning zombie gore and cannibalism ("Diner of the Living Dead"), disgusting habits ("Women Who Spit"), and blasphemous humor ("The Inflatable Nun").

When Saturday Night Live's sixth season was met with negative reviews and low ratings over the new cast, new writers, and new showrunner Jean Doumanian, critics who once panned Fridays praised it, citing the show as being sharper, edgier and funnier than Saturday Night Live at the time. Some critics attributed this to the sprawling, ambitious, and often pointed sociopolitical and situational sketches.

Some examples of this include:

 * A Bing Crosby-Bob Hope buddy comedy parody about the United States' dealings with El Salvador ("Road to El Salvador");
 * A Close Encounters of the Third Kind parody about refugees from an impoverished Central American country mistaking a Playboy magazine location scout and an American military invasion for extraterrestrials coming to save them ("Close Encounters of the Third World");
 * A Marx Brothers parody of Iran's revolution ("A Night in Tehran");
 * Palestinian radio DJs (played by Bruce Mahler and episode guest star George Carlin) broadcasting a morning show from a PLO bunker ("K.P.L.O");
 * A live-action Robert Altman Popeye movie parody with Popeye (Mark Blankfield) and a band of first-wave hippies fighting back against a fascist regime led by Bluto ("Popeye's Got a Brand New Bag");
 * The US Founding Fathers worrying that the Second Amendment ("The Right to Bear Arms") will be abused in the future while ignoring suggestions for amendments granting equal rights to women and African-Americans;
 * A variety show run by the Moral Majority featuring a magician who makes minorities disappear, a top ten list of things the Moral Majority hate, and a punk band performing bowdlerized hits for conservatives ("The Moral Majority Comedy Hour");
 * A parody of Altered States where Ronald Reagan (John Roarke) uses sensory deprivation and psychedelic mushrooms to find a way to bring America back to its glory days, but ends up transforming himself into Richard Nixon ("Altered Statesman");
 * A spaghetti western centered on the creationism vs. evolution argument featuring Don Novello as Father Guido Sarducci ("A Fist Full of Darwin"), and,
 * In what is considered the show's magnum opus, a 17-minute parody of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with Ronald Reagan (John Roarke) as Tim Curry's Dr. Frank N. Furter creating the perfect Republican, who turns out to be a militant black man who leads Reagan's followers in a revolution.

Unusual for a sketch comedy series at the time, Fridays occasionally featured serious interludes and dramatic sketches, such as a segment that aired soon after the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan involving all nine of the cast members recalling where they were at the time of previous assassinations and attempts and a sketch where a punk rocker (Michael Richards) visits his father (John Roarke) who rejects him by yelling, "Who are you?" and "I have no son!". After a long, heartfelt speech from the punk about how his father should accept that he is from a different generation and learn to love him, the punk discovers that the old man was right: they aren't father and son because they have different hair and eye colors.

From its inception, Fridays embraced the emerging new wave rock music scene and its associated culture to a greater extent than Saturday Night Live did at the time, widely incorporating it into their selection of musical guests, hosts and sketches. Unlike Saturday Night Live, Fridays did not have a show band on set. Pop art drawings were displayed and accompanied with a fuzz heavy electric guitar solo whenever the show went to and came back from commercial breaks, though season one featured cartoons by B. Kliban with some kind of pun as the punchline.

Three seasons of Fridays aired on ABC (see ). The last episode aired as a primetime sketch show. The show was originally 70 minutes in its first season. It was expanded to 90 minutes in seasons two and three.

SNL executive producer Dick Ebersol gave all Fridays cast members an offer to join Saturday Night Live in 1982, but most turned him down. Only Larry David, Kevin Kelton and Rich Hall worked on SNL for a short time after Fridays was completed (all of them worked on Saturday Night Live during its tenth season in 1984; Hall was a cast member while David and Kelton were writers).

Directors
Directors of Fridays include:

 * Bob Bowker
 * Tom Kramer
 * Paul Miller
 * John Moffitt

Producers
Producers of Fridays include:

 * Jack Burns
 * Bill Lee
 * Pat Tourk Lee
 * John Moffitt

Writers
The writing staff of Fridays consisted of:

 * Steve Adams (all episodes: writer, season 1; credited as head writer, along with Joe Shulkin, for seasons 2 and 3)
 * Rod Ash (beginning midway through season 1, through season 3)
 * Steve Barker (last half of season 3)
 * Jack Burns (script supervisor/creative consultant only)
 * Larry Charles (all episodes)
 * Mark Curtiss (seasons 2 and 3)
 * Larry David (seasons 2 and 3)
 * Bryan Gordon (seasons 1 and 2)
 * Rich Hall (season 3)
 * Sam Hefter (season 1 and first half of season 2)
 * Kevin Kelton (first half of season 2 only)
 * Bruce Kirschbaum (all episodes)
 * Tom Kramer (occasional filmed segments, seasons 1-3)
 * Bruce Mahler (season 3)
 * Matt Neuman (last third of season 3)
 * Elaine Pope (all episodes)
 * Fred Raker (season 1, and the first half of season 2)
 * Michael Richards (season 3)
 * Sam Sandora (last half of season 3)
 * Joe Shulkin (all episodes: writer, season 1; credited as head writer, along with Steve Adams, for seasons 2 and 3)

Performers
Main cast, guest stars and musical guests on Fridays include:

Main cast

 * Mark Blankfield
 * Maryedith Burrell
 * Melanie Chartoff
 * Larry David
 * Rich Hall
 * Darrow Igus
 * Brandis Kemp
 * Bruce Mahler
 * Michael Richards
 * John Roarke

Guest stars (seasons 2 and 3)

 * Karen Allen
 * Bob Balaban
 * Valerie Bertinelli
 * Beau Bridges
 * George Carlin
 * Billy Crystal
 * Jamie Lee Curtis
 * Shelley Duvall
 * Marty Feldman
 * Peter Fonda
 * Genie Francis
 * Anthony Geary
 * Mark Hamill
 * George Hamilton
 * Valerie Harper
 * Marilu Henner
 * Gregory Hines
 * Tab Hunter
 * Madeline Kahn
 * Andy Kaufman
 * David L. Lander
 * Michael McKean
 * David Naughton
 * Don Novello
 * Victoria Principal
 * Lynn Redgrave
 * Howard E. Rollins Jr.
 * Susan Sarandon
 * William Shatner
 * Brooke Shields
 * David Steinberg
 * Shelley Winters
 * Henny Youngman

Musical guests

 * AC/DC
 * The Beach Boys
 * Pat Benatar
 * The Blasters
 * Gary U.S. Bonds
 * The Boomtown Rats
 * Jack Bruce and Friends
 * Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band
 * The Busboys
 * Kim Carnes
 * Jim Carroll
 * The Cars
 * Bill Champlin
 * Chubby Checker
 * The Clash
 * Bruce Cockburn
 * Devo
 * Dire Straits
 * The Eagles
 * Steve Forbert
 * The Four Tops
 * Franke and the Knockouts
 * Rory Gallagher
 * David Grisman Quintet
 * Heart
 * Ian Hunter with Ellen Foley and Mick Ronson
 * The Jam
 * Al Jarreau
 * Jefferson Starship
 * Garland Jeffreys
 * Journey
 * King Crimson
 * Kiss
 * Kool & the Gang
 * Huey Lewis and the News
 * Kenny Loggins
 * The Manhattan Transfer
 * The Marshall Tucker Band
 * Paul McCartney
 * Randy Meisner and the Silverados
 * Eddie Money
 * Ted Nugent
 * Graham Parker and The Rumour
 * Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
 * The Plasmatics
 * The Pretenders
 * Quarterflash
 * Bonnie Raitt
 * REO Speedwagon
 * Rockpile
 * Boz Scaggs
 * Scandal
 * Sir Douglas Quintet
 * Sister Sledge
 * Split Enz
 * The Stray Cats
 * George Thorogood and the Destroyers
 * The Tubes
 * Billy Vera and The Beaters
 * Stevie Wonder
 * Warren Zevon
 * Tommy Tutone

AC/DC, The Clash and The Stray Cats made their American television debuts on Fridays. At the time of The Stray Cats' appearance, the band had yet to be signed by a record company. During the group's performance, there was a crawl at the bottom of the screen inviting offers from record companies.

Andy Kaufman incident
On the February 20, 1981, episode, Andy Kaufman was the host. During a sketch about couples at dinner sneaking away to the bathroom to smoke marijuana, Kaufman, who was known for causing trouble on live television, broke character and refused to read his lines (saying "I can't play stoned"). Michael Richards got up from the table, grabbed the cue cards and threw them down on the table in front of Kaufman, who responded by dumping a glass of water on Richards. Some of the show's cast and crew members (including Richards and Burns) became angry and a small brawl broke out on stage. Since the show was broadcast live, home viewers were able to see most of these events transpire until the network cut the cameras off. Kaufman returned the following week in a taped apology to home viewers. The incident was planned by Kaufman, who concocted it with his sidekick Bob Zmuda, and was meant as a prank. The only individuals aware of the plan were producer/director Moffitt, producer/announcer Burns, and the three comedians acting in the sketch along with Kaufman: Richards, Chartoff and Burrell. This incident was reenacted in the film Man on the Moon (1999), starring Jim Carrey as Kaufman, Zmuda as Burns, Norm Macdonald as Richards, Caroline Rhea as Chartoff and Mary Lynn Rajskub as Burrell.

Cancellation
The series ended in 1982 following ABC's decision to expand Nightline to five nights a week, which moved Fridays to air at midnight instead of 11:30pm. This lasted from January through April 1982, after which the show was dropped from ABC's schedule.

One final attempt was made by ABC to revive the show by putting it on in prime time, about a month after its final late-night broadcast. The sole prime-time episode of Fridays (broadcast on April 23, 1982) was scheduled against Dallas, which did nothing to help the show's moribund ratings. The series was promptly canceled.

Syndication and DVD release
A few years after the show's cancellation, Fridays appeared in reruns on the USA Network in the late 1980s. However, the episodes were edited down to 60 minutes (similar to how Saturday Night Live is edited on cable reruns and NBC reruns that air at 10pm EST as filler). The reruns were pulled after a year.

For some time, a home video release of Fridays was considered out of the question, as cast member Michael Richards was said to have signed a deal stating that no episode would be released on any home video format. However, clips of sketches from the show (mostly sketches that featured Richards or David) surfaced on the Seinfeld season three DVD set in the bonus features set. Shout Factory announced plans to release all three seasons of the show on DVD in 2013. In August 2013, after missing their original release date, Shout Factory released a five disc best-of collection featuring highlights of 16 episodes from seasons one through three (not complete episodes). In 2015, Hulu Plus streamed select episodes from all three seasons (season one has episodes 1, 3, 8, and 10; season 2 has episodes 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 19, and 20; and season three has episodes 2, 4, 12, and 13). As of 2017, the show is no longer streaming on Hulu Plus, but the best-of DVD collection is still available for purchase, and the show's episodes (which include the Hulu episodes and some episodes that weren't featured on Hulu) can be streamed on Tubi TV and Shout! Factory.

title: Fridays (TV series)