text:
Law of sines

In trigonometry, the law of sines, sine law, sine formula, or sine rule is an equation relating the lengths of the sides of any triangle to the sines of its angles. According to the law, $$ \frac{a}{\sin{\alpha}} \,=\, \frac{b}{\sin{\beta}} \,=\, \frac{c}{\sin{\gamma}} \,=\, 2R, $$ where $α$, and $β$ are the lengths of the sides of a triangle, and $γ$, and $A$ are the opposite angles (see figure 2), while $B$ is the radius of the triangle's circumcircle. When the last part of the equation is not used, the law is sometimes stated using the reciprocals; $$ \frac{\sin{\alpha}}{a} \,=\, \frac{\sin{\beta}}{b} \,=\, \frac{\sin{\gamma}}{c}. $$ The law of sines can be used to compute the remaining sides of a triangle when two angles and a side are known—a technique known as triangulation. It can also be used when two sides and one of the non-enclosed angles are known. In some such cases, the triangle is not uniquely determined by this data (called the ambiguous case) and the technique gives two possible values for the enclosed angle.

The law of sines is one of two trigonometric equations commonly applied to find lengths and angles in scalene triangles, with the other being the law of cosines.

The law of sines can be generalized to higher dimensions on surfaces with constant curvature.

History
H. J. J. Winter's book Eastern Science states that the 7th century Indian mathematician Brahmagupta describes what we now know as the law of sines in his astronomical treatise Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta. In his partial translation of this work, Colebrooke translates Brahmagupta's statement of the sine rule as: The product of the two sides of a triangle, divided by twice the perpendicular, is the central line; and the double of this is the diameter of the central line.

According to Ubiratàn D'Ambrosio and Helaine Selin, the spherical law of sines was discovered in the 10th century. It is variously attributed to Abu-Mahmud Khojandi, Abu al-Wafa' Buzjani, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and Abu Nasr Mansur.

Ibn Muʿādh al-Jayyānī's The book of unknown arcs of a sphere in the 11th century contains the spherical law of sines. The plane law of sines was later stated in the 13th century by Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī. In his On the Sector Figure, he stated the law of sines for plane and spherical triangles, and provided proofs for this law.

According to Glen Van Brummelen, "The Law of Sines is really Regiomontanus's foundation for his solutions of right-angled triangles in Book IV, and these solutions are in turn the bases for his solutions of general triangles." Regiomontanus was a 15th-century German mathematician.

Proof
With the side of length $a$ as the base, the triangle's altitude can be computed as $C$ or as $a$. Equating these two expressions gives $$\frac{\sin \beta}{b} = \frac{\sin \gamma}{c}\,,$$ and similar equations arise by choosing the side of length $b$ or the side of length $c$ as the base of the triangle.

The ambiguous case of triangle solution
When using the law of sines to find a side of a triangle, an ambiguous case occurs when two separate triangles can be constructed from the data provided (i.e., there are two different possible solutions to the triangle). In the case shown below they are triangles $b$ and $c$.

Given a general triangle, the following conditions would need to be fulfilled for the case to be ambiguous:
 * The only information known about the triangle is the angle $a$ and the sides $α$ and $a, b$.
 * The angle $c$ is acute (i.e., $α, β$ < 90°).
 * The side $γ$ is shorter than the side $R$ (i.e., $b sin γ$).
 * The side $c sin β$ is longer than the altitude $ABC$ from angle $ABC′$, where $α$ (i.e., $a$).

If all the above conditions are true, then each of angles $c$ and $α$ produces a valid triangle, meaning that both of the following are true: $$ {\gamma}' = \arcsin\frac{c \sin{\alpha}}{a} \quad \text{or} \quad {\gamma} = \pi - \arcsin\frac{c \sin{\alpha}}{a}.$$

From there we can find the corresponding $α$ and $a$ or $c$ and $a < c$ if required, where $a$ is the side bounded by vertices $h$ and $β$ and $h = c sin α$ is bounded by $a > h$ and $β$.

Examples
The following are examples of how to solve a problem using the law of sines.

Example 1
Given: side $β′$, side $β$, and angle $b$. Angle $β′$ is desired.

Using the law of sines, we conclude that $$\frac{\sin \alpha}{20} = \frac{\sin (40^\circ)}{24}.$$ $$ \alpha = \arcsin\left( \frac{20\sin (40^\circ)}{24} \right) \approx 32.39^\circ. $$

Note that the potential solution $b′$ is excluded because that would necessarily give $b$.

Example 2
If the lengths of two sides of the triangle $A$ and $C$ are equal to $b′$, the third side has length $A$, and the angles opposite the sides of lengths $C′$, $a = 20$, and $c = 24$ are $γ = 40°$, $α$, and $α = 147.61°$ respectively then $$\begin{align} & \alpha = \beta = \frac{180^\circ-\gamma}{2}= 90^\circ-\frac{\gamma}{2} \\[6pt] & \sin \alpha = \sin \beta = \sin \left(90^\circ-\frac{\gamma}{2}\right) = \cos \left(\frac{\gamma}{2}\right) \\[6pt] & \frac{c}{\sin \gamma}=\frac{a}{\sin \alpha}=\frac{x}{\cos \left(\frac{\gamma}{2}\right)} \\[6pt] & \frac{c \cos \left(\frac{\gamma}{2}\right)}{\sin \gamma} = x \end{align}$$

Relation to the circumcircle
In the identity $$ \frac{a}{\sin{\alpha}} = \frac{b}{\sin{\beta}} = \frac{c}{\sin{\gamma}},$$ the common value of the three fractions is actually the diameter of the triangle's circumcircle. This result dates back to Ptolemy.

Proof

As shown in the figure, let there be a circle with inscribed $$ \triangle ABC$$ and another inscribed $$ \triangle ADB$$ that passes through the circle's center $α + β + γ > 180°$. The $$ \angle AOD$$ has a central angle of $$ 180^\circ$$ and thus $ \angle ABD = 90^\circ$, by Thales's theorem. Since $$ \triangle ABD$$ is a right triangle, $$ \sin{\delta}= \frac{\text{opposite}}{\text{hypotenuse}}= \frac{c}{2R},$$ where $ R= \frac{d}{2}$ is the radius of the circumscribing circle of the triangle. Angles $${\gamma}$$ and $${\delta}$$ lie on the same circle and subtend the same chord $a$; thus, by the inscribed angle theorem, ${\gamma} = {\delta}$. Therefore, $$ \sin{\delta} = \sin{\gamma} = \frac{c}{2R}.$$

Rearranging yields $$ 2R = \frac{c}{\sin{\gamma}}.$$

Repeating the process of creating $$ \triangle ADB$$ with other points gives

$$

Relationship to the area of the triangle
The area of a triangle is given by $T = \frac{1}{2}ab \sin \theta$, where $$\theta$$ is the angle enclosed by the sides of lengths $b$ and $x$. Substituting the sine law into this equation gives $$T=\frac{1}{2}ab \cdot \frac {c}{2R}.$$

Taking $$R$$ as the circumscribing radius,

$$

It can also be shown that this equality implies $$\begin{align} \frac{abc} {2T} & = \frac{abc} {2\sqrt{s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)}} \\[6pt] & = \frac {2abc} {\sqrt{{(a^2+b^2+c^2)}^2-2(a^4+b^4+c^4) }}, \end{align}$$ where $c$ is the area of the triangle and $a$ is the semiperimeter $s = \frac{1}{2}\left(a+b+c\right).$

The second equality above readily simplifies to Heron's formula for the area.

The sine rule can also be used in deriving the following formula for the triangle's area: denoting the semi-sum of the angles' sines as $S =\frac{1}{2}\left(\sin A + \sin B + \sin C\right)$, we have

$$

where $$R$$ is the radius of the circumcircle: $2R = \frac{a}{\sin A} = \frac{b}{\sin B} = \frac{c}{\sin C}$.

The spherical law of sines
The spherical law of sines deals with triangles on a sphere, whose sides are arcs of great circles.

Suppose the radius of the sphere is 1. Let $b$, $c$, and $α$ be the lengths of the great-arcs that are the sides of the triangle. Because it is a unit sphere, $β$, $γ$, and $ADB$ are the angles at the center of the sphere subtended by those arcs, in radians. Let $d$, $O$, and $c$ be the angles opposite those respective sides. These are dihedral angles between the planes of the three great circles.

Then the spherical law of sines says: $$\frac{\sin A}{\sin a} = \frac{\sin B}{\sin b} = \frac{\sin C}{\sin c}.$$

Vector proof
Consider a unit sphere with three unit vectors $a$, $b$ and $T$ drawn from the origin to the vertices of the triangle. Thus the angles $s$, $a$, and $b$ are the angles $c$, $a$, and $b$, respectively. The arc $c$ subtends an angle of magnitude $A$ at the centre. Introduce a Cartesian basis with $B$ along the $C$-axis and $OA$ in the $OB$-plane making an angle $OC$ with the $α$-axis. The vector $β$ projects to $γ$ in the $a$-plane and the angle between $b$ and the $c$-axis is $BC$. Therefore, the three vectors have components: $$\mathbf{OA} = \begin{pmatrix}0 \\ 0 \\ 1\end{pmatrix}, \quad \mathbf{OB} = \begin{pmatrix}\sin c \\ 0 \\ \cos c\end{pmatrix}, \quad \mathbf{OC} = \begin{pmatrix}\sin b\cos A \\ \sin b\sin A \\ \cos b\end{pmatrix}.$$

The scalar triple product, $a$ is the volume of the parallelepiped formed by the position vectors of the vertices of the spherical triangle $OA$, $z$ and $OB$. This volume is invariant to the specific coordinate system used to represent $xz$, $c$ and $z$. The value of the scalar triple product $OC$ is the $ON$ determinant with $xy$, $ON$ and $x$ as its rows. With the $A$-axis along $OA ⋅ (OB × OC)$ the square of this determinant is $$ \begin{align} \bigl(\mathbf{OA} \cdot (\mathbf{OB} \times \mathbf{OC})\bigr)^2 & = \left(\det \begin{pmatrix}\mathbf{OA} & \mathbf{OB} & \mathbf{OC}\end{pmatrix}\right)^2 \\[4pt] & = \begin{vmatrix} 0 & 0 & 1 \\  \sin c & 0 & \cos c \\ \sin b \cos A & \sin b \sin A & \cos b \end{vmatrix} ^2 = \left(\sin b \sin c \sin A\right)^2. \end{align}$$ Repeating this calculation with the $OA$-axis along $OB$ gives $OC$, while with the $OA$-axis along $OB$ it is $OC$. Equating these expressions and dividing throughout by $OA ⋅ (OB × OC)$ gives $$ \frac{\sin^2 A}{\sin^2 a} = \frac{\sin^2 B}{\sin^2 b} = \frac{\sin^2 C}{\sin^2 c} = \frac{V^2}{\sin^2 (a) \sin^2 (b) \sin^2 (c)}, $$ where $V$ is the volume of the parallelepiped formed by the position vector of the vertices of the spherical triangle. Consequently, the result follows.

It is easy to see how for small spherical triangles, when the radius of the sphere is much greater than the sides of the triangle, this formula becomes the planar formula at the limit, since $$\lim_{a \to 0} \frac{\sin a}{a} = 1$$ and the same for $3 × 3$ and $OA$.

Geometric proof
Consider a unit sphere with: $$OA = OB = OC = 1$$

Construct point $$D$$ and point $$E$$ such that $$\angle ADO = \angle AEO = 90^\circ$$

Construct point $$A'$$ such that $$\angle A'DO = \angle A'EO = 90^\circ$$

It can therefore be seen that $$\angle ADA' = B$$ and $$\angle AEA' = C$$

Notice that $$A'$$ is the projection of $$A$$ on plane $$OBC$$. Therefore $$\angle AA'D = \angle AA'E = 90^\circ$$

By basic trigonometry, we have: $$\begin{align} AD &= \sin c \\ AE &= \sin b \end{align}$$

But $$AA' = AD \sin B = AE \sin C $$

Combining them we have: $$\begin{align} \sin c \sin B &= \sin b \sin C \\ \Rightarrow \frac{\sin B}{\sin b} &=\frac{\sin C}{\sin c} \end{align}$$

By applying similar reasoning, we obtain the spherical law of sine: $$\frac{\sin A}{\sin a} =\frac{\sin B}{\sin b} =\frac{\sin C}{\sin c} $$

Other proofs
A purely algebraic proof can be constructed from the spherical law of cosines. From the identity $$\sin^2 A = 1 - \cos^2 A$$ and the explicit expression for $$\cos A$$ from the spherical law of cosines $$\begin{align} \sin^2\!A &= 1-\left(\frac{\cos a - \cos b\, \cos c}{\sin b \,\sin c}\right)^2\\ &=\frac{\left(1-\cos^2\!b\right) \left(1-\cos^2\!c\right)-\left(\cos a - \cos b\, \cos c\right)^2} {\sin^2\!b \,\sin^2\!c}\\[8pt] \frac{\sin A}{\sin a} &= \frac{\left[1-\cos^2\!a-\cos^2\!b-\cos^2\!c + 2\cos a\cos b\cos c\right]^{1/2}}{\sin a\sin b\sin c}. \end{align}$$ Since the right hand side is invariant under a cyclic permutation of $$a,\;b,\;c$$ the spherical sine rule follows immediately.

The figure used in the Geometric proof above is used by and also provided in Banerjee (see Figure 3 in this paper) to derive the sine law using elementary linear algebra and projection matrices.

Hyperbolic case
In hyperbolic geometry when the curvature is −1, the law of sines becomes $$\frac{\sin A}{\sinh a} = \frac{\sin B}{\sinh b} = \frac{\sin C}{\sinh c} \,.$$

In the special case when $OB$ is a right angle, one gets $$\sin C = \frac{\sinh c}{\sinh b} $$

which is the analog of the formula in Euclidean geometry expressing the sine of an angle as the opposite side divided by the hypotenuse.

The case of surfaces of constant curvature
Define a generalized sine function, depending also on a real parameter $$\kappa$$: $$\sin_\kappa(x) = x - \frac{\kappa}{3!}x^3 + \frac{\kappa^2}{5!}x^5 - \frac{\kappa^3}{7!}x^7 + \cdots = \sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{(-1)^n \kappa^n}{(2n+1)!}x^{2n+1} = \frac{\sin(\sqrt{\kappa\;}x)}{\sqrt{\kappa\;}} $$

The law of sines in constant curvature $$\kappa$$ reads as $$\frac{\sin A}{\sin_\kappa a} = \frac{\sin B}{\sin_\kappa b} = \frac{\sin C}{\sin_\kappa c} \,.$$

By substituting $$\kappa=0$$, $$\kappa=1$$, and $$\kappa=-1$$, one obtains respectively the Euclidean, spherical, and hyperbolic cases of the law of sines described above.

Let $$p_\kappa(r)$$ indicate the circumference of a circle of radius $$r$$ in a space of constant curvature $$\kappa$$. Then $$p_\kappa(r)=2\pi\sin_\kappa(r)$$. Therefore, the law of sines can also be expressed as: $$\frac{\sin A}{p_\kappa(a)} = \frac{\sin B}{p_\kappa(b)} = \frac{\sin C}{p_\kappa(c)} \,.$$

This formulation was discovered by János Bolyai.

Higher dimensions
A tetrahedron has four triangular facets. The absolute value of the polar sine ($OC$) of the normal vectors to the three facets that share a vertex of the tetrahedron, divided by the area of the fourth facet will not depend upon the choice of the vertex:

$$\begin{align} & \frac{\left|\operatorname{psin}(\mathbf{b}, \mathbf{c}, \mathbf{d})\right|}{\mathrm{Area}_a} = \frac{\left|\operatorname{psin}(\mathbf{a}, \mathbf{c}, \mathbf{d})\right|}{\mathrm{Area}_b} = \frac{\left|\operatorname{psin}(\mathbf{a}, \mathbf{b}, \mathbf{d})\right|}{\mathrm{Area}_c} = \frac{\left|\operatorname{psin}(\mathbf{a}, \mathbf{b}, \mathbf{c})\right|}{\mathrm{Area}_d} \\[4pt] = {} & \frac{(3~\mathrm{Volume}_\mathrm{tetrahedron})^2}{2~\mathrm{Area}_a \mathrm{Area}_b \mathrm{Area}_c \mathrm{Area}_d}\,. \end{align}$$

More generally, for an $z$-dimensional simplex (i.e., triangle ($OA$), tetrahedron ($z$), pentatope ($OB$), etc.) in $(sin c sin a sin B)^{2}$-dimensional Euclidean space, the absolute value of the polar sine of the normal vectors of the facets that meet at a vertex, divided by the hyperarea of the facet opposite the vertex is independent of the choice of the vertex. Writing $z$ for the hypervolume of the $OC$-dimensional simplex and $(sin a sin b sin C)^{2}$ for the product of the hyperareas of its $(sin a sin b sin c)^{2}$-dimensional facets, the common ratio is $$\frac{\left|\operatorname{psin}(\mathbf{b}, \ldots, \mathbf{z})\right|}{\mathrm{Area}_a} = \cdots = \frac{\left|\operatorname{psin}(\mathbf{a}, \ldots, \mathbf{y})\right|}{\mathrm{Area}_z} = \frac{(nV)^{n-1}}{(n-1)! P}.$$

title: Law of sines


text:
A Charlie Brown Christmas

A Charlie Brown Christmas is a 1965 animated television special. It is the first TV special based on the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz, and features the voices of Peter Robbins, Christopher Shea, Kathy Steinberg, Tracy Stratford, and Bill Melendez. Produced by Lee Mendelson and directed by Melendez, the program made its debut on the CBS television network on December 9, 1965. In the special, Charlie Brown (Robbins) finds himself depressed despite the onset of the cheerful holiday season. After Lucy van Pelt (Stratford) suggests he direct a neighborhood Christmas play, his best efforts are ignored and mocked by his peers when he chooses a puny Christmas tree as a centerpiece.

After the comic strip's debut in 1950, Peanuts had become a worldwide phenomenon by the mid-1960s. The special was commissioned and sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company, and was written over a period of several weeks, and produced on a small budget in six months. In casting the characters, the producers took an unconventional route, hiring child actors. The program's soundtrack was similarly unorthodox, featuring a jazz score by pianist Vince Guaraldi. Its lack of a laugh track (a staple in US television animation in this period), in addition to its tone, pacing, music, and animation, led both the producers and the network to predict the project would be a disaster. However, contrary to their collective apprehension, A Charlie Brown Christmas received high ratings and acclaim from critics. It received an Emmy and a Peabody Award, and became an annual presentation in the United States, airing on broadcast television during the Christmas season for 56 years before becoming exclusively available on Apple TV+ streaming service. Its success paved the way for a series of Peanuts television specials and films. Its jazz soundtrack achieved commercial success, selling five million copies in the US. Live theatrical versions of A Charlie Brown Christmas have been staged.

Plot
On their way to join their friends ice skating on a frozen pond, Charlie Brown confesses to Linus van Pelt that, despite all the things he likes about the Christmas season, he is still depressed. After Linus' reproach, and a put-down from Violet Gray, he visits Lucy van Pelt's psychiatric booth and tells her his problem. She suggests that he direct the group's annual Christmas play to get him involved, and he accepts.

Charlie Brown becomes even more discouraged by his observations of Christmas' commercialization as he heads for the rehearsal: Lucy laments over not receiving real estate for Christmas; Snoopy decorates his doghouse for a neighborhood lights and display contest; and Charlie Brown's younger sister Sally asks him to write a greedy letter to Santa Claus. At the rehearsal, Charlie Brown finds a play fit for the 1960s with dancing, lively music, an uncooperative cast and a "Christmas Queen" (Lucy). Unable to control the cast, Charlie Brown decides the play needs a more "proper mood", and recommends a Christmas tree; Lucy suggests a big, pink aluminum tree, then sends him and Linus to get one.

At the tree lot, Charlie Brown picks the only real tree there, a small sapling. Linus questions his choice, but Charlie Brown believes that once decorated, it will be perfect. When they return, however, Lucy, Violet, Patty and Frieda scorn him and the tree and walk away laughing. Crestfallen, Charlie Brown loudly asks if anyone knows what Christmas is all about; Linus says he does, walks to center stage, asks for a spotlight, drops his security blanket, recites the annunciation to the shepherds, picks up his blanket, returns and says, "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

Realizing that he does not have to let commercialism ruin his own Christmas, Charlie Brown takes the tree home to decorate it and show the others that it will work in the play. The others realize that they were too hard on Charlie Brown and quietly follow him after listening to Linus' speech. He stops at Snoopy's doghouse, which had won the lights and display contest, and hangs a large red Christmas ball on his tree. The ornament's weight causes the tiny tree to bend to the ground. Believing he has killed the tree, Charlie Brown, dejected, walks away.

The others arrive at Snoopy's doghouse and as they all start to see its potential, Linus gently uprights the drooping tree and wraps his blanket around its base to give it some support. After the others give the tree a makeover using more decorations from the doghouse, even Lucy concedes to Charlie Brown's choice. The kids then start humming "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Hearing them, Charlie Brown returns to see that the sapling is now a magnificent Christmas tree. All the kids shout, "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!", and then sing "Hark" with Charlie Brown joining in as snow begins to fall.

Cast

 * Peter Robbins as Charles "Charlie" Brown.
 * Christopher Shea as Linus van Pelt.
 * Tracy Stratford as Lucille "Lucy" van Pelt. This is Stratford’s last performance as Lucy.
 * Kathy Steinberg as Sally Brown. This is Steinberg’s first performance as Sally.
 * Chris Doran as Schroeder and Shermy. This is Doran’s last performance as Schroeder and Shermy.
 * Geoffrey Orstein as Pig-Pen.
 * Sally Dryer as Violet. This is Dryer’s last performance as Violet. She would later go on to voice Lucy van Pelt.
 * Ann Altieri as Frieda.
 * Bill Melendez as Snoopy.
 * Karen Mendelson as Patty.
 * Choral vocals: Members of the children's choir of St. Paul's Episcopal Church (San Rafael, California) directed by Robert "Barry" Mineah. The choir was recognized for their contribution to this work at a 40-year anniversary at the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. The choir was also featured on the Vince Guaraldi recording At Grace Cathedral.

Development
By the early 1960s, Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts had gained enormous popularity. Television producer Lee Mendelson acknowledged the strip's cultural impression and had an idea for a documentary on its success, phoning Schulz to propose the idea. Schulz, an avid baseball fan, recognized Mendelson from his documentary on ballplayer Willie Mays, A Man Named Mays, and invited him to his home in Sebastopol, California, to discuss the project. Their meeting was cordial, with the plan to produce a half-hour documentary set. Mendelson wanted to feature roughly "one or two" minutes of animation, and Schulz suggested animator Bill Melendez, with whom he collaborated some years before on a spot for the Ford Motor Company. Mendelson later stated that he was drawn to doing an animated Charlie Brown after working on A Man Named Mays, noting that Mays was arguably the best baseball player of all time, while Charlie Brown, in a running gag in the strips, was one of the worst, making him a natural follow-up subject to his previous work.

Despite the popularity of the strip and acclaim from advertisers, networks were not interested in the special. By April 1965, Time featured the Peanuts gang on its magazine cover, perhaps prompting a call from John Allen of the New York-based McCann Erickson Agency. Mendelson imagined he would sell his documentary, and blindly agreed to Allen's proposal: an animated half-hour Peanuts Christmas special. The Coca-Cola Company was looking for a special to sponsor during the holiday season. "The bad news is that today is Wednesday and they'll need an outline in Atlanta by Monday," Allen remarked to Mendelson. He quickly contacted Schulz, and the two got to work with plans for a Peanuts Christmas special. The duo prepared an outline for the Coca-Cola executives in less than one day, and Mendelson would later recall that the bulk of ideas came from Schulz, whose "ideas flowed nonstop." According to Mendelson, their pitch to Coca-Cola consisted of "winter scenes, a school play, a scene to be read from the Bible, and a sound track combining jazz and traditional music." The outline did not change over the course of its production.

As Allen was in Europe, the duo received no feedback on their pitch for several days. When Allen got in touch with them, he informed them that Coca-Cola wanted to buy the special, but also wanted it for an early December broadcast, giving the duo just six months to scramble together a team to produce the special. Mendelson assured him – without complete confidence in his statements – that this would be no problem. Following this, A Charlie Brown Christmas entered production, and was completed just ten days shy of its national broadcast premiere.

Writing
Schulz's main goal for a Peanuts-based Christmas special was to focus on the true meaning of Christmas. He desired to juxtapose this theme with interspersed shots of snow and ice-skating, perhaps inspired by his own childhood growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota. He also created the idea for the school play, and mixing jazz with traditional Christmas carols. Schulz was adamant about Linus' reading of the Bible, despite Mendelson and Melendez's concerns that religion was a controversial topic, especially on television. Melendez recalled Schulz turned to him and remarked, "If we don't do it, who will?" Schulz's estimation proved accurate, and in the 1960s, fewer than nine percent of television Christmas episodes contained a substantive reference to religion, according to university researcher Stephen Lind.

Schulz's faith in the Bible stemmed from his Midwest background and religious and historical studies; as such, aspects of religion would be a topic of study throughout his life. According to a 2015 "spiritual biography", Schulz's religion was personal and complex, and would be integrated in a number of his programs.

The program's script has been described as "barebones", and was completed in only a few weeks. In the days following the special's sale to Coca-Cola, Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez met with Schulz in his home to expand upon the ideas promised in the pitch. Mendelson remembered that on the previous Christmas Day he and his spouse had read Hans Christian Andersen's "The Fir-Tree" to their children. Schulz countered with the idea that there be a tree with the spirit of lead character Charlie Brown. They spoke at length about creating an official theme that was neither jazz nor traditional to open the program. Schulz wanted a part of the special to feature the character of Schroeder performing Beethoven, and Mendelson combined this with the inclusion of Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" number. Schulz penned the script for A Charlie Brown Christmas, with Melendez plotting out the animation via a storyboard. His storyboard contained six panels for each shot, spanning a combined eighty or-so pages.

Mendelson also suggested they employ a laugh track, a staple of television animation, but Schulz rejected this idea immediately. "Up until then, many, if not all, animated shows had laugh tracks," said Mendelson. "As we were discussing how we would handle our special, I said very casually, 'I assume we'll have a laugh track.' It was a statement, not a question. Sparky just got up and quietly walked out of the room. We looked at each other, then Bill said, 'Well, I guess we won't have a laugh track.' Sparky came back in the room, and we went on with the meeting as if the subject had never come up." Schulz felt strongly that the audience at home should not be instructed when to laugh.

Casting
In casting the silent comic strip characters of Peanuts, the trio pulled from their personalities. Lead character Charlie Brown's voice was decided to be downbeat and nondescript ("blah," as Mendelson observed), while Lucy should be bold and forthright. Linus' voice, it was decided, would combine sophistication with childlike innocence. Mendelson recognized that the character of Snoopy was the strip's most popular character who seemed to seize "the best jokes," but realized they could not cast a voice for the cartoon dog. "In the process, we gained a veritable 'canine Harpo Marx,'" Mendelson later wrote. Melendez suggested he provide gibberish for Snoopy's mutterings, and simply speed up the tape to prevent viewers from knowing. There are no adult characters in the strip or in this special. Later specials would introduce an offscreen teacher; her lines are eschewed for the sound of a muted trombone (suggested by Guaraldi) as the team behind the specials found it humorous.

With this in mind, the trio set out to cast the characters, which proved to be a daunting process. Casting for Charlie Brown proved most difficult, as it required both good acting skills but also the ability to appear nonchalant. The producers picked eight-year-old Peter Robbins, already known for his roles spanning television, film, and advertisements. Robbins considered Charlie Brown to be one of his favorite characters, and despite leaving acting as an adult, he considered his time in the role a highlight of his life. His godmother, Hollywood agent Hazel McMillen, discovered Christopher Shea, who would become Linus in the special. His slight lisp, according to Mendelson, gave him a "youthful sweetness," while his emotional script reading "gave him power and authority as well." Tracy Stratford played the role of Lucy, with the creators being impressed by her attitude and professionalism. Kathy Steinberg was the youngest of the performers, just six years old at the time of recording. Too young to read, the producers had to give her one line at a time to recite. Robbins remembered Melendez did this for him as well, joking that he also mistakenly copied his Latino accent. Mendelson desired to have non-actors (not "Hollywood kids") perform on the special, and he sent tape recorders home with his employees for their children to audition.

Much of the background cast came from Mendelson's home neighborhood in northern California. According to Robbins, the children viewed the script's sophisticated dialogue as "edgy," finding several words and phrases, among them "eastern syndicate", difficult to pronounce. He recalled the recording sessions as chaotic, with excited children running rampant. Nevertheless, the recording of A Charlie Brown Christmas was completed in one day. Jefferson Airplane was recording next door and came over to obtain the children's autographs. Following the special's broadcast, the children became wildly popular in their respective elementary schools; Robbins recalled groups approaching him asking him to recite lines of dialogue.

Animation
Animation for A Charlie Brown Christmas was created by Bill Melendez Productions. Mendelson had no idea whether or not completing a half-hour's worth of animation would be possible given the production's six-month schedule, but Melendez confirmed its feasibility. In actuality, animation was only completed in the final four months of production. CBS initially wanted an hour's worth of animation, but Melendez talked them down to a half-hour special, believing an hour of television animation was too much. Having never worked on a half-hour special before, Melendez phoned Bill Hanna of Hanna-Barbera for advice, but Hanna declined to give any. CBS gave a budget of $76,000 to produce the show and it went $20,000 over budget. The first step in creating the animation was to make a pencil drawing, afterwards inking and painting the drawing onto a cel. The cel was then placed onto a painted background. There are 13,000 drawings in the special, with 12 frames per second to create the illusion of movement.

Melendez had previously worked for Warner Bros. and Disney, and working on Peanuts-related material gave him a chance to animate a truly flat cartoon design. The movement of Schulz's characters, particularly the Peanuts gang, was limited. The character of Snoopy, however, proved the exception to the rule. "He can do anything – move and dance – and he's very easy to animate," said Melendez. Schulz had envisioned the special as essentially talking heads reciting the script; animator Bill Littlejohn recalled meeting resistance from Schulz when he and Melendez designed the sequence of Snoopy dancing on Schroeder's piano, as Schulz was concerned it distracted too much from the plot.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas is an unorthodox mix of traditional Christmas music and jazz. The jazz portions were created by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Producer Lee Mendelson, a fan of jazz, heard Guaraldi's crossover hit "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" on the radio not long after completion of his documentary Charlie Brown & Charles Schulz, and contacted the musician to produce music for the special. Guaraldi composed the music for the project, creating an entire piece, "Linus and Lucy," to serve as the theme. When Coca-Cola commissioned A Charlie Brown Christmas in spring 1965, Guaraldi returned to write the music. The first instrumentals for the special were recorded by Guaraldi at Glendale, California's Whitney Studio with bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey. Recycling "Linus and Lucy" from the earlier special, Guaraldi completed two new originals for the special, "Skating", and "Christmas Time Is Here". In the weeks preceding the premiere, Mendelson encountered trouble finding a lyricist for Guaraldi's instrumental intro, and penned "Christmas Time is Here" in "about 15 minutes" on the back of an envelope.

The special opens and closes with a choir of children, culled from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in San Rafael, California, performing "Christmas Time Is Here" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". One of the singers, Candace Hackett Shively, went on to become an elementary school teacher, and sent a letter of gratitude to Schulz after he announced his retirement in 2000. In the letter, she recalls recording the choir at Fantasy Studios and going out for ice cream afterwards, while also saying she tells the story to her grade-schoolers each holiday season. The recording sessions were conducted in late autumn 1965 and were cut in three separate sessions over two weeks. They often ran late into the night, resulting in angry parents, some who forbade their children from returning; consequently, numerous new children were present at each session. The children were directed by Barry Mineah, who demanded perfection from the choir. Mendelson and Guaraldi disagreed, desiring the "kids to sound like kids"; they used a slightly off-key version of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" in the final cut. Children were paid five dollars for their participation. In addition, the children recorded dialogue for the special's final scene, in which the crowd of kids shout "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!"

The soundtrack for the special was recorded during these sessions, with decisions regarding timing and phrasing determined quickly. Guaraldi brought in bassist Fred Marshall and drummer Jerry Granelli to record the music, and spent time later re-recording earlier tracks, including covers of "The Christmas Song" and "Greensleeves." The eventual LP release credited Guaraldi solely, neglecting to mention the other musicians; Guaraldi was notorious for never keeping records of his session players. Nearly three decades later, in an effort to resolve the matter, Fantasy surmised that the recordings with Budwig and Bailey were employed in the special, while Marshall and Granelli recorded the album. Despite this, other individuals have come forward claiming to have recorded the special's music: bassists Eugene Firth and Al Obidinski, and drummers Paul Distel and Benny Barth. Firth and Distil are listed as performers on a studio-session report Guaraldi filed for the American Federation of Musicians.

A Charlie Brown Christmas was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2007, and added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" American sound recordings in 2012.

"I have always felt that one of the key elements that made that show was the music," said Mendelson in 2010. "It gave it a contemporary sound that appealed to all ages. Although Vince had never scored anything else and although I was basically a documentary film maker at the time, we started to work together on the cues because we both loved jazz and we both played the piano. So he would bring in the material for each scene and we would go over it scene by scene. Most of the time, the music worked perfectly. But there were times we would either not use something or use it somewhere else. We went through this same process on all sixteen shows. Although there was always some left over music, most of the time what he wrote and performed is what went on the air."

Reception
All involved believed the special would be a disaster. Melendez first saw the completed animation at a showing in a theater in the days before its premiere, turning to his crew of animators and remarking, "My golly, we've killed it." Melendez was embarrassed, but one of the animators, Ed Levitt, was more positive regarding the special, telling him it was "the best special [he'll] ever make [...] This show is going to run for a hundred years." Mendelson was similar in his assumptions of the show's quality, and when he showed the film to network executives in New York, their opinions were also negative. Their complaints included the show's slow pace, the music not fitting, and the animation too simple. "I really believed, if it hadn't been scheduled for the following week, there's no way they were gonna broadcast that show," Mendelson later said. Executives had invited television critic Richard Burgheim of Time to view the special, and debated whether showing it to him would be a good idea. His review, printed the following week, was positive, praising the special as unpretentious and writing that "A Charlie Brown Christmas is one children's special this season that bears repeating."

The program premiered on CBS on December 9, 1965, at 7:30 pm ET (pre-empting The Munsters), and was viewed by 45% of those watching television that evening, with the number of homes watching the special an estimated 15,490,000, placing it at number two in the ratings, behind Bonanza on NBC. The special received critical acclaim: The Hollywood Reporter deemed the show "delightfully novel and amusing," while the Weekly Variety dubbed it "fascinating and haunting." Bob Williams of the New York Post praised the "very neat transition from comic page to screen," while Lawrence Laurent of The Washington Post declared that "natural-born loser Charlie Brown finally turned up a real winner last night." Harriet Van Horne of the New York World-Telegram hailed the scene in which Linus recites scripture, commenting, "Linus' reading of the story of the Nativity was, quite simply, the dramatic highlight of the season." Harry Harris of The Philadelphia Inquirer called the program "a yule classic [...] generated quiet warmth and amusement," and Terrence O'Flaherty of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Charlie Brown was a gem of a television show." Ben Gross of the New York Daily News praised the special's "charm and good taste," while Rick DuBrow of United Press International predicted, "the Peanuts characters last night staked out a claim to a major television future." The film has an aggregated review score of 85% based on 20 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

The show's positive reviews were highlighted with an ad in trade magazines; one thanked Coca-Cola, CBS, United Features Syndicate, and the show's viewers. Fantasy released the special's soundtrack the first week of December 1965, coinciding with the special's airdate. United Feature Syndicate pushed hard to promote the special, while Word Publishing issued a hardcover adaption of the special. CBS promptly ordered four additional Peanuts specials. A Charlie Brown Christmas was awarded the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program in 1966, making it the second animated TV program to win that award after Hanna-Barbera's The Huckleberry Hound Show. "Charlie Brown is not used to winning, so we thank you," Schulz joked.

When the special was aired for a second time in December 1966, it once again ranked No. 2 in the ratings, and again behind only Bonanza. In 1970, a viewer survey by Clarke Williamson ranked the special as the best Christmas special to air that year.

In 2022, an internal poll of writers at Fatherly ranked the special at 62 in a list of the 100 greatest family-friendly films of all time, one of only two productions made specifically for television to make the list (the other being the 1966 version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!). In its summary, the writers noted that the special's technical flaws "are what makes A Charlie Brown Christmas feel distinct and special rather than generic" and that its low-budget feel fit the theme of the story.

Rotten Tomatoes records three negative reviews for the special for an overall rating of 86%. One is a 2005 two-star review from Emanuel Levy that is no longer on Levy's website; the other two come from the Medium Popcorn podcast, in which both hosts gave the special a one-out-of-five stars review.

CBS
The special was originally broadcast on CBS in 1965 and rerun each year from 1966 until 2000.

The original broadcasts included references to the sponsor, Coca-Cola. Because of Dolly Madison's eventual co-sponsorship of the series, as well as subsequent FCC laws mandating the separation of commercial material from the actual program material, subsequent broadcasts and home media releases removed all references to Coca-Cola products. Broadcasts of the special in later years also had some scenes, animation, and sound effects redone for correction. Snoopy's dog bowl was repainted red instead of white, Lucy now makes a whirling noise when scared out of her psychiatric booth, new animation was placed in scenes where the children dance on stage after the first time to avoid repetition, music was added in the background of the rehearsal scenes, and Snoopy no longer sings like a human in the final carol, amongst others.

Removed from some subsequent broadcasts is a scene in which Linus throws a snowball at a tin can using his blanket. For several years it was rumored the can was a Coca-Cola can. However, a recently obtained copy of the original print disproves this rumor, showing the can was always a generic tin can.

ABC
Beginning with the 2001 holiday season, ABC held rights to the special. On December 6, 2001, a half-hour documentary on the special titled The Making of 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' (hosted by Whoopi Goldberg) aired on ABC. This documentary has been released as a special feature on the DVD and Blu-ray editions of the special. In subsequent years, to allow the special in an hour timeslot to be broadcast uncut for time, the animated vignette collection, Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales, is broadcast in the remaining time for that hour.

The show's 40th anniversary broadcast on December 6, 2005, had the highest ratings in its time slot.

The 50th anniversary broadcast aired on November 30, 2015, and it featured a full two-hour time slot that was padded by a special, It's Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown, which was hosted by Kristen Bell, and featured musical performances by Kristin Chenoweth, Matthew Morrison, Sarah McLachlan, Boyz II Men, Pentatonix, David Benoit, and the All-American Boys Chorus. It also included documentary features. After 18 consecutive years of being broadcast on the network, the special aired on ABC for the last time on December 17, 2019, at 8pm ET/PT.

Apple TV+
In October 2020, Apple TV+ acquired exclusive rights to all Peanuts-related media. Under the terms of the agreement, Apple TV+ must make A Charlie Brown Christmas and two other holiday specials (It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving) available for free on the platform during a three-day window. The window for A Charlie Brown Christmas was from December 11 to 13, 2020, and in 2022 it was from December 22 through December 25. Subscribers to Apple TV+ have a broader window to watch the specials.

PBS
After mounting criticism over Apple's decision to remove the Peanuts specials from free television, the company announced a deal with PBS to resume the annual broadcast tradition. In accordance with most PBS member stations' non-commercial educational licenses, the special was presented on PBS without commercial interruption, with an underwriting message from Apple being the only advertising. PBS, Apple and WildBrain, the rightsholder to the Peanuts television library, announced they had renewed the arrangement in October 2021. PBS did not acquire the broadcast rights for the Peanuts specials in 2022, ending a 57 year run on broadcast television.

Home media
In 1985, the special was released on VHS and Betamax by Media Home Entertainment, along with You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown. In 1987 the special was released on VHS by its kids subsidiary, Hi-Tops Video. In 1991, the special was released for a limited time on VHS through Shell Oil for sale at their gas stations.

On September 28, 1994, the special was released by Paramount on VHS. A laserdisc was released by Paramount (distributed by Pioneer) in 1996; Side 2 contained the 1979 special You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown. In September 2000 it was released on DVD. Bonus features included the 1992 special It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown. On September 23, 2008, Warner Home Video (to which the rights to the Peanuts specials reverted earlier in the year, due to Melendez's connections to WB) released a "remastered" DVD. Bonus features include a restored version of Christmastime Again and a new documentary titled "A Christmas Miracle: The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas".

On October 6, 2009, it was released in high definition Blu-ray Disc from Warner in remastered Dolby 5.1 surround sound. This disc also contains It's Christmastime Again, A Christmas Miracle, a DVD of the special, and a Digital Copy.

Since off-network rights to this special have been transferred to Warner Bros., it has become available as a download on the iTunes Store, PlayStation Network, Amazon Instant Video, and Google Play, and includes It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown and It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown.

In December 2014, a 50th anniversary 2-DVD set was released. It also features the special It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, and the Making of... documentary from previous editions.

On October 31, 2017, it was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray disc containing It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown and the Making of... special.

Legacy
A Charlie Brown Christmas has become a Christmas staple in the United States. Within the scope of future Peanuts specials, it established their style, combining thoughtful themes, jazzy scores, and simple animation. It also, according to author Charles Solomon, established the half-hour animated special as a television tradition, inspiring the creation of numerous others, including How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) and Frosty the Snowman (1969). (Earlier animated specials such as Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer ran a full hour.) USA Today summarized the program's appeal upon its 40th anniversary in 2005: "Scholars of pop culture say that shining through the program's skeletal plot is the quirky and sophisticated genius that fueled the phenomenal popularity of Schulz's work." Beyond its references to religion, unheard of on television at the time, the special also marked the first time children voiced animated characters.

The special influenced dozens of young aspiring artists and animators, many of whom went on to work within both the comics and animation industries, among them Eric Goldberg (Pocahontas), Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc., Up), Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL-E), Jef Mallett (Frazz), and Patrick McDonnell (Mutts). The show's score made an equally pervasive impact on viewers who would later perform jazz, among them David Benoit and George Winston. More directly, the special launched a series of Peanuts films, TV specials (many of them holiday-themed) and other works of entertainment.

Linus' speech near the end of the special was used in the Sidewalk Prophets Christmas song "What a Glorious Night".

The problems encountered during the special's production prompted CBS to place a "premium on quality" for its future Christmas specials, and for How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, CBS allotted Chuck Jones a budget of $315,000, quadrupling its budget compared to A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Stage adaptation
In 2013, Tams-Witmark Music Library, Inc. began licensing an official stage version of the television special authorized by the Schulz family and Lee Mendelson. The stage version follows the television special but includes an optional sing-along section of Christmas songs at the end. It includes all of Vince Guaraldi's music from the television special and the television script is adapted for the stage by Eric Schaeffer. It has been performed at hundreds of schools, churches and community theatres.

The Charlie Brown Christmas Tree
Charlie Brown's insistence on purchasing a real tree and disparagement of the aluminum Christmas tree practically eliminated the popularity of the aluminum tree, which was a fad at the time of the special. By 1967, they were no longer being regularly manufactured, to the point that most modern viewers of the special are unfamiliar with this type of artificial tree. On the contrary, artificial models of Charlie Brown's "poor tree" are offered by various retailers and have become synonymous with minimalist Christmas decorating.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: A Charlie Brown Christmas


text:
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol

Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol is a 1962 animated musical holiday television special produced by UPA. It is an adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, and it features UPA's character Mr. Magoo as Ebenezer Scrooge. The special first aired on December 18, 1962, on NBC and was the first animated Christmas special to be produced specifically for television.

Jim Backus provides the voice of Magoo, with additional voices provided by Paul Frees, Morey Amsterdam, Joan Gardner, and Jack Cassidy. The special is directed by Abe Levitow and features songs composed by Jule Styne, with lyrics by Bob Merrill, while Walter Scharf arranged and conducted the orchestral score.

Plot
Mr. Magoo is heading to a theater on Broadway, where he is starring as Ebenezer Scrooge in a musical production based on A Christmas Carol. Due to Magoo's nearsightedness, he arrives 30 minutes late and accidentally injures the director ("It's Great to Be Back on Broadway").

Scrooge is a miserly money lender in Victorian London on Christmas Eve, counting money while his clerk Bob Cratchit is underpaid and has no coal for his fire ("Ringle, Ringle"). After rudely refusing two men who ask him for a donation to charity, Scrooge reluctantly allows Cratchit to take the holiday off. Scrooge goes home and gets ready for bed, but is visited by the ghost of his business partner Jacob Marley, who has been dead for seven years. Marley is bound in heavy chains due to his misdeeds in life and warns Scrooge that he risks the same fate unless he heeds the advice of three spirits who will visit him over the course of the night.

The Ghost of Christmas Present visits Scrooge first and takes him to observe Cratchit and his family, who are counting their blessings despite their poor situation ("The Lord's Bright Blessing"). The Ghost warns Scrooge that Cratchit's young son Tiny Tim, who is sickly, will not survive to next Christmas if things do not change.

The Ghost of Christmas Past visits Scrooge next and takes him back to his boyhood, where Scrooge was a lonely schoolboy ("Alone in the World"). The Ghost also shows him Belle, a woman whom Scrooge, as a young man, had been courting; the moments he sees are those in which she sadly explains that she is leaving him due to his greed for money ("Winter Was Warm").

Scrooge encounters the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come and is shown a vision of the future, where an unloved man has recently died. Scrooge sees his charwoman, his laundress, and the local undertaker sell his belongings to a fence named Old Joe ("We're Despicable (Plunderer's March)"). Scrooge begs to be shown "tenderness connected with death", but discovers that Tiny Tim has died. The Ghost takes Scrooge to a cemetery and shows him his own grave, revealing that this deceased man is him. Scrooge realizes in anguish that he has spent his life poorly, and repents ("Alone in the World (Reprise)").

Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning with a renewed purpose. He meets the two men from the previous day and makes a generous donation, then anonymously sends Cratchit a Christmas turkey. He later visits Cratchit to give him a raise in pay and help nurse Tiny Tim back to health, and shares Christmas together with them ("The Lord's Bright Blessing (Reprise)").

The musical concludes and the audience applauds. Magoo brings the director out on stage, but the stage's props, lights and scenery fall on him. Magoo proudly exclaims "Oh, Magoo, you've done it again, and by George, I've brought down the house!" and wishes both his audience and the television audience a Merry Christmas.

Cast

 * Jim Backus as Mr. Magoo/Ebenezer Scrooge
 * Marie Matthews as young Ebenezer Scrooge
 * Morey Amsterdam as Brady, James
 * Jack Cassidy as Bob Cratchit, Dick Wilkins
 * Royal Dano as Jacob Marley, Old Joe (singing)
 * Paul Frees as Charity Man, Fezziwig, Old Joe (speaking), the Undertaker, Stage Director
 * Joan Gardner as Tiny Tim, Ghost of Christmas Past, Charwoman
 * John Hart as Billings, Stage Manager, Milkman
 * Jane Kean as Belle
 * Laura Olsher as Mrs. Cratchit, Laundress
 * Les Tremayne as Ghost of Christmas Present

Songs

 * 1) "It's Great to Be Back on Broadway"
 * 2) "It's Great to Be Back on Broadway (Reprise)"
 * 3) "Ringle, Ringle"
 * 4) "The Lord's Bright Blessing"
 * 5) "Alone in the World"
 * 6) "Winter Was Warm"
 * 7) "We're Despicable (Plunderer's March)"
 * 8) "Alone in the World (Reprise)"
 * 9) "Ringle, Ringle (Reprise)"
 * 10) "The Lord's Bright Blessing (Reprise)"
 * 11) "Winter Was Warm (End Credits)"

Background
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol was produced by UPA in its last days as an animation studio, following its acquisition by Henry G. Saperstein. UPA later produced a television series titled The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, in which Magoo portrayed other literary characters. The series ended soon after as UPA was unable to mass-produce cartoons for television. It fills an hour-long time slot, as opposed to half an hour, which is different from most animated Christmas specials.

The special depicts the visits of the ghosts in a different order than the book, with the Ghost of Christmas Present appearing before Past. Tiny Tim resembles UPA's character Gerald McBoing-Boing

The special was rerun on NBC throughout the Christmas season until 1969. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, it aired on local stations in syndication during the Christmas season, and in the 1990s, it aired on the Disney Channel and USA Network. Me-TV brought it back to broadcast television in 2011. NBC aired the special again in 2012, with scenes depicting Magoo in the framing device cut in order to make room for commercials. The CW subsequently acquired the broadcast rights to the special; the original special aired in its entirety in 2014, but the NBC version aired the following year. Distribution rights to the special are currently held by NBCUniversal Television Distribution following parent company Comcast's acquisition of its holder Classic Media, which was renamed DreamWorks Classics.

When it premiered on Freeform on December 13, 2022, several sequences were edited out, including the song "We're Despicable(Plunderers' March) and Magoo & Cratchett's duet on "Ringle Ringle."

Home media
The special was first released on VHS, Betamax, and LaserDisc in 1982 by Paramount Home Video on behalf of UPA. The VHS was re-released in 1988 and 1994. The special later made its DVD debut in 2001 by Goodtimes Home Video and had multiple re-releases on the format. On November 16, 2010, it was released on Blu-ray.

Reception
Thomas Vinciguerra for The New York Times praised the special and gave it a 4.5 out of 5, saying "not merely a superior musical version, it is a pioneer among animated Christmas traditions."

In popular culture
Clips from the special were seen on television monitors in Scrooged. Animal Collective's 2000 debut album Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished is named for one of Scrooge's lines in the special. In the Hill Street Blues episode "Santaclaustrophobia" a clip is seen playing on the television in Sgt Mick Belker's apartment.

The special was parodied as "Mr. McGrew's Christmas Carol" in The Simpsons 2003 episode 'Tis the Fifteenth Season".

The special was shown in the Christmas movie Surviving Christmas.

In the 2001 pilot episode of Six Feet Under, Claire Fisher (Lauren Ambrose) watches a clip from the special.

title: Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol


text:
Volkert van der Graaf

Volkert van der Graaf (born 9 July 1969) is a Dutch convicted murderer who assassinated politician Pim Fortuyn, the leader of the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) party, on 6 May 2002. Van der Graaf shot Fortuyn outside a radio studio in Hilversum shortly after Fortuyn gave an interview during the political campaign for the Dutch general election of 2002. An environmental and animal rights activist, Van der Graaf stated at his trial that he killed Fortuyn to stop him from exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats" and targeting "the vulnerable sections of society" in seeking political power. Van der Graaf was arrested shortly after shooting Fortuyn, who died immediately.

In court, Van der Graaf testified that he had become alarmed that Fortuyn was using Muslims and immigrants as scapegoats in a campaign to seek political power. He thought the politician endangered society with his controversial statements. His trial started on 27 March 2003. He was convicted on 15 April 2003 and sentenced to 18 years in prison. The trial generated large interest from the Dutch public, especially from supporters of Fortuyn. Some Fortuyn supporters and political commentators argued that the political left and the media had created a climate that had enabled Van der Graaf's actions through demonising Fortuyn.

After his conviction, Van der Graaf appealed for the reduction of the sentence to 16 years, but on 18 July 2003, the appeals court upheld the previous sentence. He was released on parole in May 2014 after serving 12 years, two-thirds of his sentence, according to Dutch practice. His parole ultimately expired on 30 April 2020, giving release from the remaining restrictions.

Family life and education
Van der Graaf was born in Middelburg, in the province of Zeeland. By the time he attended university in Wageningen, he had become a vegan and an advocate of animal rights. At the time of the murder he lived with his girlfriend and their infant daughter in Harderwijk.

Career
Van der Graaf worked for the environmental organisation Vereniging Milieu Offensief in Wageningen, which he had co-founded in 1992. His job involved challenging violators of environmental regulations through litigation. He concentrated particularly on contesting practices in intensive animal farming and fur farming. He was said to be highly motivated, working more than the four days per week of his contract. He was successful at litigation, winning about three out of every four cases.

Murder of Fortuyn
On 6 May 2002, Pim Fortuyn was shot outside a radio studio in Hilversum at 6:00 pm, just after he finished an interview. He was killed instantly. Interviewer Ruud de Wild witnessed the murder.

Van der Graaf was arrested near the scene of the crime after a pursuit by witnesses. Details of the suspect were always officially reported as "Volkert van der G.", in accordance with unwritten Dutch privacy practice, but his full name was readily available on the internet. His home and work addresses were soon circulated on web sites used by Fortuyn's supporters. Angry supporters gathered in several cities, so several people related to Van der Graaf went into hiding. His girlfriend and their daughter left their house on the evening of the murder.

The details of the murder emerged later; the accounts of the investigators and Van der Graaf were consistent. He had planned the attack using information obtained from the Internet; printouts of a map of the scene of the crime and schedules of Fortuyn's appearances were found in his car. In two boxes of cartridges found at his home, seven cartridges were missing, the exact number loaded in his gun. The attack has been described as the work of a single person, an amateur shooter who used a relatively simple plan and did not prepare a good escape route.

Van der Graaf purchased his weapons illegally: a semi-automatic Star Firestar M43 pistol in a café in Ede and 9mm cartridges in The Hague. After the murder of Fortuyn, the gun was linked to a suspect in the robbery of a jeweller in Emmen through DNA material found on the weapon.

On the day of the murder, he attended work in the morning, taking with him a backpack containing the gun, a pair of latex gloves, a baseball cap and a pair of dark glasses. At the end of the morning, he said he was taking the afternoon off on account of the beautiful weather. He drove towards Hilversum, knowing that Fortuyn was due to be interviewed in the radio studio of 3FM in the Media Park. During the trip he stopped several times, among other things to purchase a razor to remove his stubble, which together with the cap and glasses would disguise his appearance, while the gloves would avoid leaving fingerprints. The razor did not work.

He had never visited the Mediapark, relying on a map and a couple of photos to find his way into the park on foot and to the building where Fortuyn's interview was held. Recognising Fortuyn's car in the car park, he hid in some nearby bushes, burying the gun which was in a plastic bag in a shallow trough in case he was discovered. He could hear fragments of Fortuyn's interview from a speaker on the outside of the building. He waited there for about two hours. Fortuyn emerged from the building in the company of several others, including De Wild. Van der Graaf walked towards Fortuyn, passed by him, then turned and opened fire. He said that he aimed for the back to avoid Fortuyn's ducking away or a bullet mistakenly hitting somebody else. He held the gun in both hands, with the plastic bag around it. Less than 1.5 m from Fortuyn, he hit him in the back and head five times, and fired a sixth shot that missed.

Running away, Van der Graaf was chased by Hans Smolders, Fortuyn's chauffeur. Two employees from a different building joined in. During the chase, Van der Graaf threatened them by raising the gun in his jacket pocket toward them. They ran from the grounds of the Mediapark onto a public road, where Van der Graaf pointed the pistol at arm's length at Smolders, who had been reporting their position to the police by mobile phone. Reaching a gas station, Van der Graaf gave himself up when police pointed their pistols at him.

Initial investigations and conspiracy theories
For several months Van der Graaf refused to make any statement about the murder, on the advice of his lawyers. He was represented by Böhler, Koppe and Franken, with Böhler leading.

In the months following the murder, many conspiracy theories were put forth by supporters of Fortuyn and others. Officials investigating the murder dismissed these popular rumours, declaring that no evidence had been found for the involvement of others. No evidence was found to support rumors that Van der Graaf had committed the earlier murder in 1996 of Chris van de Werken, an environmental official from Nunspeet, or that he attended other appearances by Fortuyn.

On 7 July 2006, the national daily newspaper De Telegraaf published an article alleging Van der Graaf's connection with the murder of Van der Werken. De Telegraaf printed extracts of a secret police report on the murder of Van der Werken on its website. Quirijn Meijnen, a Dutch-based media lawyer who represented Van der Graaf, said the accusations were grave and unfounded, and that the publication of extracts of the secret police report infringed Van der Graaf's privacy rights. De Telegraaf failed to mention that Van der Graaf was never a suspect in the murder case of Van der Werken.

After Van der Graaf's arrest, he was held in strict isolation until 1 June. He could speak only to his lawyers and police and justice officials. He was kept under constant observation by video camera.

A second search of Van der Graaf's home on 24 June found a chemical mixture, calcium chlorate and sugar, hidden in 35 condoms in his garage. Nearby were flasks of sulphuric acid. Experts said the substances could be combined to make a fire bomb or explosive material. Van der Graaf later said that he had fabricated the materials around 1990–1992 for experimentation purposes and had forgotten about them. Detectives also conducted a search on Graaf's personal computer and found he had used the internet to gather information about Fortuyn.

First hearing
The first "pro forma" hearing in his trial started on 9 August, which Van der Graaf watched on television from his cell in the Bijlmerbajes prison. The prosecution outlined its evidence, which included the finding of DNA matching Fortuyn on Van der Graaf's clothes and gun, matching of the bullets used in the attack with the gun, and eyewitnesses who pursued him continuously from the murder scene to the point of arrest. The defence complained that lack of discretion in reporting by the press and statements by public officials would make it difficult to obtain a fair trial. It requested calling as witnesses several politicians who had made public comments about the murder, including the past Prime Ministers Wim Kok and Jan Peter Balkenende, as well as various members of Lijst Pim Fortuyn including Mat Herben and Jim Janssen van Raaij.

On the morning of 3 September, Van der Graaf's girlfriend was arrested at her workplace in connection with the chemicals found at their former home. Her lawyer and the lawyers of Van der Graaf denounced this as an attempt to pressure Van der Graaf into making a statement. She was released two days later and eventually cleared of any suspicion after Van der Graaf made a statement on her behalf.

Second hearing
During a second "pro forma" hearing on 4 November, it was decided that the trial would be delayed while Van der Graaf was sent for seven weeks of psychiatric observation at the Pieter Baan Centre, starting in the first week of January 2003. In a press statement of 23 November, the prosecution (Public Ministry) announced that Van der Graaf had confessed to the murder. He said he planned it for some time and that nobody else was involved in the plans or knew about them. He believed Fortuyn was a steadily increasing danger for vulnerable groups in society. He saw no other possibility than to end the danger by killing Fortuyn.

In response to the confession, Mat Herben said he was still not convinced that Van der Graaf had acted alone. Fortuyn's brother Marten said he was not surprised by the confession but feared that Van der Graaf was setting himself up as "saviour of the fatherland".

The confession has not been made publicly available. Reports have asserted that Van der Graaf said he was "not proud" of the deed. He said if he could consider the decision again, he would not do it. He said that he did not see himself as "the saviour of the Netherlands" or as a martyr.

On 6 January 2003, Van der Graaf was moved to the Pieter Baan Centrum (PBC) to begin the seven-week behavioural investigation. Disagreements between the Ministry of Justice and the management of the PBC over the conditions of his supervision delayed it. The Ministry wanted Van der Graaf under video surveillance 24 hours per day and isolated from other patients for his own safety. The PBC believed such cameras would prevent establishing the trust needed for the multi-disciplinary behavioural investigation. It took responsibility to supervise him in a small group so that the investigation could proceed optimally. On 20 January, Van der Graaf said he was suspending his cooperation for the investigation. The Minister of Justice, Piet Hein Donner, resolved the dispute by dropping the demands for video surveillance and isolation.

Third hearing
On 29 January 2003, a third "pro forma" hearing was held in which the dates for the trial were set. Since the subject of the trial was expected to be not so much the question of the guilt of Van der Graaf, but instead the degree of the punishment, the report of the Pieter Baan Centrum was considered highly significant, in case it found that he was of "diminished responsibilities". After the completion of the investigation on 14 March, he was returned to his prison cell in the Bijlmerbajes.

The report from the PBC was complete by about 21 March. It found that Van der Graaf could be held completely accountable for the killing. The report also stated that Van der Graaf has a severe personality disorder, which explains his rigid moral judgements. Menno Oosterhoff, a child psychiatrist from Groningen, publicly suggested that the Pieter Baan Centrum may have overlooked the possibility that Van der Graaf has Asperger syndrome; Oosterhoff later withdrew his theory. The PBC report stated that nothing could be said about the chance of another similar crime occurring, since the disorder had nothing to do with the murder. Van der Graaf agreed that he was accountable and that he had compulsive urges. The outcome of the investigation ensured that he would receive a prison sentence and not "TBS treatment".

The trial
The trial was held in a high-security court in Amsterdam-Osdorp over three days: 27 March, 31 March, and 1 April. About 15 supporters of Fortuyn demonstrated outside the building, with banners such as "for less than 20 years we will smash the place up", "better Fortuynist than socialist" and "the leftist church is criminal". The proceedings were followed by about 80 people, including a woman who disturbed the occasion by screaming at Van der Graaf, accusing him of such things as "destroying the whole of the Netherlands". Van der Graaf was counseled by the high-profile German-born attorney, Britta Böhler.

Van der Graaf was charged with the premeditated murder of Fortuyn, two counts of possession of illegal weapons, namely the gun and the explosive mixture at his house, and a charge of threatening the life of Fortuyn's chauffeur by pointing his gun at him during the chase following the murder.

The prosecutor asked for life imprisonment for the killing, saying that an example must be set for anybody else attempting to frustrate the democratic process through criminal means. He said the crime was serious because of its victim and the consequences, and that to a certain degree it was a "political murder". Van der Graaf had irrevocably damaged the democratic political progress of Fortuyn, and had done it intentionally. For an exceptional crime, he deserved an exceptional punishment.

During the trial, Van der Graaf described his reasons for killing Fortuyn. He claimed he hoped that the leaders of other political parties would criticize Fortuyn, but that it never happened (which was not true as other party leaders had openly criticized and derided Fortuyn in debates). He claimed that Fortuyn had the talent to channel criticism so that it never touched him. Van der Graaf said he had spoken to no one about his plan. He finished his planning just the day before the murder. Perhaps looking for sympathy, he said he was wrestling with regret for the killing, finding the killing of somebody morally reprehensible. On 6 May he had felt justified, saying that he wanted to fight the danger of what Fortuyn represented, not the man. He did not find it easy to talk about feelings. Asked about the danger of accidentally injuring somebody other than Fortuyn in the attack, he said that he had been confident that that would not happen. However, the 3FM disc jockey Ruud de Wild said that he barely escaped with his life, as he received a bullet in the bag used for a shield. De Wild also stated that witnessing the shooting had left him from suffering PTSD.

To the argument that Fortuyn would have been chosen through democratic means, Van der Graaf said that that was also the case for Hitler. He compared the rise of Fortuyn to the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. In his final argument, he said that he had acted from his conscience, but that did not justify murder. He said it was absolutely not normal to shoot somebody to death.

Van der Graaf said he murdered Fortuyn to defend Dutch Muslims from persecution. He wanted to stop Fortuyn from targeting "the weak parts of society to score points" and exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats" in an attempt to seek political power.

Van der Graaf said that he would not have committed the murder, at least not on that evening, if Fortuyn had been accompanied by security guards; this is relevant to accusations that the government should have provided security. On Tuesday, 15 April 2003, Van der Graaf was convicted and sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment.

Appeals
The prosecution and the defence both made appeals against the sentence. Prior to the appeal, suggestions in the media that Van der Graaf may have had Asperger syndrome were rejected by workers at the PBC. They said they had considered and rejected the possibility. A psychiatric report read in court said that Van der Graaf had an obsessive compulsive personality but was sane and could be held accountable for his actions. The prosecution argued that the court had not taken account of the political nature of the murder, and asked again for life imprisonment. The defence argued that the sentence did not take account of the harsh conditions under which Van der Graaf had been held, nor the damage that had been done by unsubstantiated allegations that had appeared in the media (such as the connection with Van der Werken), and requested a reduction in sentence to 16 years. The appeals court accepted some of the arguments from both parties, but on 18 July 2003 reiterated the sentence to 18 years' imprisonment.

Release
Van der Graaf was released on parole on 2 May 2014, after having served two-thirds of his sentence as required by Dutch law. The conditions of his parole were: weekly reporting to the probation service; a ban on visiting the places of residence of relatives of the victim or the municipal areas of Rotterdam, Hilversum and The Hague; location monitoring with an ankle bracelet with GPS; a ban on contacting the relatives of Fortuyn; a ban on communicating with the media; and compulsory meetings with a psychologist or psychiatrist. He subsequently settled in Apeldoorn. A public protest against Van der Graaf's release was organised in Rotterdam by former LPF politicians including Hans Smolders and members of Fortuyn's family.

In July 2014, his lawyer Stijn Franken started legal proceedings against the terms of the parole. Van der Graaf was interested in becoming a legal advisor, and the restriction on visiting The Hague was unreasonable when so many legal organisations are based there. He also claimed that the restriction on communicating with the press was a violation of free speech, and that this and other restrictions were unnecessary when experts had found the risk of recidivism to be extremely low. He was partially successful, in that the travel restrictions and the ankle bracelet conditions were removed, but the media ban remained to "prevent unnecessary social unrest". The government appealed the judgement, but it was upheld.

In 2017, Van der Graaf faced another court case in which the public prosecutor asked that he be returned to prison for a year for failing to sufficiently answer questions at probation meetings. However, on 6 February 2017 the court found that he had sufficiently met his probation requirements by appearing at the meetings.

In 2018, Van der Graaf again took legal action against the government over the terms of his parole, saying that the parole hearings prevented him from emigrating. The court ruled in his favour, and an appeal was withdrawn after a new arrangement was made: that Van der Graaf would report by email once every two months, until April 2020. As of May 2019, he was still resident in Apeldoorn.

His parole expired on 30 April 2020, giving release from the remaining restrictions.

title: Volkert van der Graaf


text:
Leticia, Amazonas

Leticia is the southernmost city in the Republic of Colombia, capital of the department of Amazonas, Colombia's southernmost town (4.09° south 69.57° west) and one of the major ports on the Amazon River. It has an elevation of 96 meters (315') above sea level and an average temperature of 27 °C (80.6 °F). Leticia has long been Colombia's shipping point for tropical fish for the aquarium trade. Leticia has a population of 33,503 located on the left bank of the Amazon River at the point where the borders of Colombia, Brazil and Peru meet in an area called Tres Fronteras.

A long-standing border dispute involving Leticia, between Colombia and Peru, was decided in 1934 by the League of Nations after these two nations were engulfed in an armed conflict known as the Colombia-Peru War.

Early history and etymology
Early Leticia history mentions a Portuguese explorer who, after becoming lost in the Amazon, died of starvation at the present site of Leticia with the rest of his crew. The Peruvian captain Benigno Bustamante, then governor of the Peruvian department of Loreto, founded the city itself on April 25, 1867. Legend has it that when the Peruvian government decided to colonise the area (in order to prevent the Colombian government from claiming it first), they found a cross inscribed with the words "San Antonio", naming the new town after this cross.

A legend states that a Colombian soldier fell in love with an Amerindian woman named Leticia and decided to name the settlement after her. It could also have been named after Saint Leticia. However, Peruvian records indicate that on the 15 December 1867, the port of "San Antonio" was renamed to "Leticia" by Peruvian engineer Manuel Charón. Charón named the port in honor of a young female resident of the Peruvian city of Iquitos named Leticia Smith, who in fact, was his wife.

Territorial dispute
Small border incidents between Peru and Colombia occurred in 1911, and in 1922 the two governments of those countries reached a controversial agreement awarding the Leticia area to Colombia in exchange for recognizing Peru's rights to the zone south of the Putumayo River, which was also claimed by Ecuador. This agreement proved to be unpopular among the Peruvian population, despite the treaty's ratification in 1928, because the treaty was signed in secret and it awarded Colombia a region that had been founded by Peruvians and that had a large Peruvian population living within its borders.

The Colombia-Peru War began in September 1932 when two hundred Peruvians, followed later by military troops, occupied public buildings in Leticia, which was not garrisoned. Hand-to-hand combat ensued between small Colombian and Peruvian forces in early 1933. The conflict lasted until May 1933, when a cease-fire negotiated by the League of Nations went into effect in order to settle the conflict. The League finally awarded the disputed area to Colombia in June 1934.

Recent history
Though the League of Nations' intervention had officially ended the war, the Colombian government remained wary of the Peruvians, and decided to populate Leticia with people from Bogotá in order to ensure the town's loyalty to Colombia. Most of the people who came from Bogotá from the 1940s to 1965 still live in Leticia. During that time Leticia has expanded greatly, with a new main street being built. However, the city's industries have changed little since then, with agriculture and tourism still the prime sources of income.

Tourism in Leticia has boomed and the town is today a recognized tourist site. International students travel to Leticia to learn Spanish. Meanwhile, students and visitors can enjoy the attractions nearby the city.

Climate
Leticia features a tropical rainforest climate with minimal difference in average high and low temperatures throughout the course of the year. Leticia does have noticeably wetter and drier months, with its wettest month (March) seeing a little more than twice as much rain as its driest month (July). The average monthly rainfall in the city is consistently above 150 mm.

Biodiversity
The frog fauna of Leticia is highly species rich. An intensive survey effort in primary rainforest and flooded forest some 10 km (6 miles) north of Leticia revealed 96 frog species (with two more found shortly afterwards). However, the true number might be as high as 123 species, based on species expected to occur in the area but not yet documented there.

People
The majority of Leticia's population have migrated from elsewhere. There is no obviously dominant segment, but migrants from Bogotá, Medellín, and Tolima are the majority. Few people from Cali live in Leticia. A significant proportion of Leticia's population comprises native Amerindians (as opposed to mestizos or caboclos). The prevailing trend is for people to move from the village of their birth in far-lying rural communities into the city to make a "better" living.

The region is home to several indigenous people, including the Witoto, Inga, Tucano, Ticuna, and Nukak. The Peruvian Yagua settled in the riverside village of La Libertad in the 1990s.

Food
Although the inhabitants commonly eat the same things each week, a wide variety of food is available in Leticia. Dishes specific to each of Colombia's regions are made here. For example, people make Sancocho, a hearty soup, with regional variations in different parts of Colombia. But even within regions, each family has its own recipe. Leticia's cuisine includes Brazilian and Peruvian influences. Common staples in Leticia include river fish, domestic (and occasionally wild) meat, rice, locally-grown vegetables and potatoes. Meals are usually cooked over a wood-fired stovetop in a pan. A typical Sunday meal might comprise grilled meats, cooked in makeshift charcoal grillers, served with rice and plantains.

Education
Leticia is considered an important area for the study of the Amazon and its biodiversity.

 * National University of Colombia at Leticia
 * Universidad Antonio Nariño (UAN)
 * Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia (UNAD)
 * University of the Amazon

Attractions

 * Amacayacu National Park
 * Parque nacional natural Cahuinarí
 * Isla de los Micos (Monkey Island)
 * Puerto Nariño, the only other Amazonas municipality
 * Lago Tarapoto, where botos can be seen
 * Lago Yahuarcacas
 * Parque Ecologico Mundo Amazonico (Amazon World Ecological Park)
 * Museum Banco de la República
 * Orellana Park
 * Santander Park
 * Our Lady of Peace Cathedral

Transportation
The Vásquez Cobo International Airport in Leticia is the largest airport in the south of Colombia. In addition to being the Colombian jungle region gateway, it also serves as the major airport in the triple-border region (Colombia, Brazil and Peru). For this reason, the airport handles the majority of passengers from the central Amazon region.

The city is not connected to the bulk of Colombia by road.

title: Leticia, Amazonas


text:
Three-dimensional chess

Three-dimensional chess (or 3‑D chess) is any chess variant that replaces the two-dimensional board with a three-dimensional array of cells between which the pieces can move. In practice, this is usually achieved by boards representing different layers being laid out next to each other. Three-dimensional chess has often appeared in science fiction—the Star Trek franchise in particular—contributing to the game's familiarity.

Three-dimensional variants have existed since at least the late 19th century, one of the oldest being Raumschach (German for "Space chess"), invented in 1907 by Ferdinand Maack and considered the classic 3‑D game. Chapter 25 of David Pritchard's The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants discusses some 50 such variations extending chess to three dimensions as well as a handful of higher-dimensional variants. Chapter 11 covers variants using multiple boards normally set side by side which can also be considered to add an extra dimension to chess.

The expression "Three-dimensional chess" is sometimes used as a colloquial metaphor to describe complex, dynamic systems with many competing entities and interests, including politics, diplomacy and warfare. To describe an individual as "playing three-dimensional chess" implies a higher-order understanding and mastery of the system beyond the comprehension of their peers or ordinary observers, who are implied to be "playing" regular chess.

Kubikschach
Lionel Kieseritzky (1806–1853) developed Kubikschach (German for "Cube chess") in 1851. He used an 8×8×8 board, labelling the third dimension with Greek letters alpha through theta. This format was later picked up by Maack in 1907 when developing Raumschach. According to David Pritchard, this format is: "the most popular 3‑D board amongst inventors, and at the same time the most mentally indigestible for the players ... Less demanding on spatial vision, and hence more practical, are those games confined to three 8×8 boards and games with boards smaller than 8×8."

Raumschach
Ferdinand Maack (1861–1930) developed Raumschach (German for "Space chess") in 1907. He contended that for chess to be more like modern warfare, attack should be possible not only from a two-dimensional plane but also from above (aerial) and below (underwater). Maack's original formulation was for an 8×8×8 board, but after experimenting with smaller boards eventually settled on 5×5×5 as best. Other obvious differences from standard chess include two additional pawns per player, and a special piece (two per player) named unicorn.

Board
The Raumschach 3‑D board can be thought of as a cube sliced into five equal spaces across each of its three major coordinal planes. This sectioning yields a 5×5×5 (125 cube) gamespace. The cubes (usually represented by squares and often called cells) alternate in color in all three dimensions.

The horizontal levels are denoted by capital letters A through E. Ranks and files of a level are denoted using algebraic notation. White starts on the A and B levels and Black starts on E and D.

Rules
White moves first. The game objective, as in standard chess, is checkmate. Rooks, bishops, and knights move as they do in chess in any given plane.

Star Trek Tri-Dimensional Chess

Tri-Dimensional Chess, Tri-D Chess, or Three-Dimensional Chess is a chess variant which can be seen in many Star Trek TV episodes and movies, starting with the original series (TOS) and proceeding in updated forms throughout the subsequent movies and spinoff series.

The original Star Trek prop was crafted using boards from 3D Checkers and 3D Tic-Tac-Toe sets available in stores at the time (games also seen in TOS episodes) and adding chess pieces from the futuristic-looking Classic chess set designed by Peter Ganine in 1961. The design retained the 64 squares of a traditional chessboard, but distributed them onto separate platforms in a hierarchy of spatial levels, suggesting to audiences how chess adapted to a future predominated by space travel. Rules for the game were never invented within the series – in fact, the boards are sometimes not even aligned consistently from one scene to the next within a single episode.

The Tri-D chessboard was further realized by its inclusion in the Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph, who created starting positions for the pieces and short, additional rules.

Rules development
The complete Standard Rules for the game were originally developed in 1976 by Andrew Bartmess (with encouragement from Joseph) and were subsequently expanded by him into a commercially available booklet. A free summary in English of the Standard Rules is contained on Charles Roth's website, including omissions and ambiguities regarding piece moves across the four Tri‑D gameboard 2×2 attack boards.

A complete set of tournament rules for Tri-Dimensional Chess written by Jens Meder is available on his website. Meder's rules are based on FIDE's rules more than Andrew Bartmess' Standard Rules, with some deviations too. A repository of Tournament Rules games can be found on the website of Michael Klein.

Board details
Plans for constructing a Tri‑D chessboard can be found on The Chess Variant Pages, as well as in Bartmess' Tri‑D Chess Rules. Details for building a travel-size board are included on Meder's website.

Software
There is software for playing Tri‑D Chess. Parmen (potentially named after a lead character in the episode "Plato's Stepchildren") is a Windows application written by Doug Keenan and available free on his website. A free Android version of Tri‑D Chess is offered by AwfSoft.

Other three-dimensional chess variants

 * Alice chess – two adjacent 8×8 boards
 * Cubic chess – a 6×6×6 variant
 * Dragonchess – three stacked 8×12 boards, a fantasy variant
 * Flying chess – two adjacent 8×8 boards
 * Millennium 3D chess – an 8×8×3 variant retaining most of the rules of standard chess
 * Parallel worlds chess – an 8×8×3 variant with two armies per player
 * Space shogi – a 9×9×9 shogi variant

In fiction
As well as in Star Trek, multi-dimensional chess games are featured in various fictional works, usually in a futuristic or science fiction setting. Examples include Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Nova, Blake's 7, UFO, Starman Jones, Unreal 2, the Legion of Super-Heroes franchise, Doctor Who, The Big Bang Theory, and The Lego Movie. The concept is parodied in Futurama as "tridimensional Scrabble".

title: Three-dimensional chess


text:
Ventriloquism

Ventriloquism is an act of stagecraft in which a person (a ventriloquist) speaks in such a way that it looks like their voice is coming from a different location, usually through a puppet known as a "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is ventriloquizing, and in English it is commonly called the ability to "throw" one's voice.

Origins

Originally, ventriloquism was a religious practice. The name comes from the Latin for 'to speak from the stomach: Venter (belly) and loqui (speak). The Greeks called this gastromancy (εγγαστριμυθία). The noises produced by the stomach were thought to be the voices of the unliving, who took up residence in the stomach of the ventriloquist. The ventriloquist would then interpret the sounds, as they were thought to be able to speak to the dead, as well as foretell the future. One of the earliest recorded group of prophets to use this technique was the Pythia, the priestess at the temple of Apollo in Delphi, who acted as the conduit for the Delphic Oracle.

One of the most successful early gastromancers was Eurykles, a prophet at Athens; gastromancers came to be referred to as Euryklides in his honour. Other parts of the world also have a tradition of ventriloquism for ritual or religious purposes; historically there have been adepts of this practice among the Zulu, Inuit, and Māori peoples.

Emergence as entertainment

The shift from ventriloquism as manifestation of spiritual forces toward ventriloquism as entertainment happened in the eighteenth century at travelling funfairs and market towns. An early depiction of a ventriloquist dates to 1754 in England, where Sir John Parnell is depicted in the painting An Election Entertainment by William Hogarth as speaking via his hand. In 1757, the Austrian Baron de Mengen performed with a small doll.

By the late 18th century, ventriloquist performances were an established form of entertainment in England, although most performers "threw their voice" to make it appear that it emanated from far away (known as distant ventriloquism), rather than the modern method of using a puppet (near ventriloquism). A well-known ventriloquist of the period, Joseph Askins, who performed at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London in the 1790s advertised his act as "curious ad libitum Dialogues between himself and his invisible familiar, Little Tommy". However, other performers were beginning to incorporate dolls or puppets into their performance, notably the Irishman James Burne who "carries in his pocket, an ill-shaped doll, with a broad face, which he exhibits ... as giving utterance to his own childish jargon," and Thomas Garbutt.

The entertainment came of age during the era of the music hall in the United Kingdom and vaudeville in the United States. George Sutton began to incorporate a puppet act into his routine at Nottingham in the 1830s, followed by Fred Neiman later in the century, but it is Fred Russell who is regarded as the father of modern ventriloquism. In 1886, he was offered a professional engagement at the Palace Theatre in London and took up his stage career permanently. His act, based on the cheeky-boy dummy "Coster Joe" that would sit in his lap and 'engage in a dialogue' with him was highly influential for the entertainment format and was adopted by the next generation of performers. A blue plaque has been embedded in a former residence of Russell by the British Heritage Society which reads 'Fred Russell the father of ventriloquism lived here'.

Fred Russell's successful comedy team format was applied by the next generation of ventriloquists. It was taken forward by the British Arthur Prince with his dummy Sailor Jim, who became one of the highest paid entertainers on the music hall circuit, and by the Americans The Great Lester, Frank Byron Jr., and Edgar Bergen. Bergen popularized the idea of the comedic ventriloquist. Bergen, together with his favorite figure, Charlie McCarthy, hosted a radio program that was broadcast from 1937 to 1956. It was the #1 program on the nights it aired. Bergen continued performing until his death in 1978, and his popularity inspired many other famous ventriloquists who followed him, including Paul Winchell, Jimmy Nelson, David Strassman, Jeff Dunham, Terry Fator, Ronn Lucas, Wayland Flowers, Shari Lewis, Willie Tyler, Jay Johnson, Nina Conti, Paul Zerdin, and Darci Lynne. Another ventriloquist act popular in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s was Señor Wences.

In south India, the art of ventriloquism was popularized by Y. K. Padhye and M. M. Roy, who are believed to be the pioneers of this field in India. Y. K. Padhye's son Ramdas Padhye borrowed from him and made the art popular amongst the masses through his performance on television. Ramdas Padhye's name is synonymous with puppet characters like Ardhavatrao (also known as Mr. Crazy), Tatya Vinchu and Bunny the Funny which features in a television advertisement for Lijjat Papad, an Indian snack. Ramdas Padhye's son Satyajit Padhye is also a ventriloquist.

The popularity of ventriloquism fluctuates. Comedian Jeff Dunham has been credited with reviving the artform and is said to done more promoting it than anyone since Edgar Bergen. In the UK in 2010, there were only 15 full-time professional ventriloquists, down from around 400 in the 1950s and 1960s. A number of modern ventriloquists have developed a following as the public taste for live comedy grows. In 2007, Zillah & Totte won the first season of Sweden's Got Talent and became one of Sweden's most popular family/children entertainers. A feature-length documentary about ventriloquism, I'm No Dummy, was released in 2010. Three ventriloquists have won America's Got Talent: Terry Fator in 2007, Paul Zerdin in 2015 and Darci Lynne in 2017. Two ventriloquists, Damien James and Christine Barger, have appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us. Several ventriloquists have grown large followings on popular social media apps like TikTok, as well.

Vocal technique

One difficulty ventriloquists face is that all the sounds that they make must be made with lips slightly separated. For the labial sounds f, v, b, p, and m, the only choice is to replace them with others. A widely parodied example of this difficulty is the "gottle o' gear", from the reputed inability of less-skilled practitioners to pronounce "bottle of beer". If variations of the sounds th, d, t, and n are spoken quickly, it can be difficult for listeners to notice a difference.

Ventriloquist's dummy

Modern ventriloquists use multiple types of puppets in their presentations, ranging from soft cloth or foam puppets (Verna Finly's work is a pioneering example), flexible latex puppets (such as Steve Axtell's creations) and the traditional and familiar hard-headed knee figure (Tim Selberg's mechanized carvings). The classic dummies used by ventriloquists (the technical name for which is ventriloquial figure) vary in size anywhere from twelve inches tall to human-size and larger, with the height usually 34 –. Traditionally, this type of puppet has been made from papier-mâché or wood. In modern times, other materials are often employed, including fiberglass-reinforced resins, urethanes, filled (rigid) latex, and neoprene.

Great names in the history of dummy making include Jeff Dunham, Frank Marshall (the Chicago creator of Bergen's Charlie McCarthy, Nelson's Danny O'Day, and Winchell's Jerry Mahoney), Theo Mack and Son (Mack carved Charlie McCarthy's head), Revello Petee, Kenneth Spencer, Cecil Gough, and Glen & George McElroy. The McElroy brothers' figures are still considered by many ventriloquists as the apex of complex movement mechanics, with as many as fifteen facial and head movements controlled by interior finger keys and switches. Jeff Dunham referred to his McElroy figure Skinny Duggan as "the Stradivarius of dummies." The Juro Novelty Company also manufactured dummies. Geoffrey Moran of Australia has built foam puppets Koala (Kevin) and Billy Baby. He has also built a wooden Irish Dancing Donut puppet along with Plunger the pull apart puppet, Ernie (from Tasmania) and Siegfried the World's Greatest Marching Band Leader. Other puppets, such as George, Darryl the Dinosaur, Goggles the bird, Barry the Box and Bruce the Robotic Bucket have been made by other associates.

Phobia
The plots of some films and television programs are based on "killer toy" dummies that are alive and horrific. These include "The Dummy", a May 4, 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone; Devil Doll; Dead Silence; Zapatlela; Buffy The Vampire Slayer; Goosebumps; Tales from the Crypt; Gotham (the episode "Nothing's Shocking"); Friday the 13th: The Series; Toy Story 4; and Doctor Who in different episodes. This genre has also been satirized on television in ALF (the episode "I'm Your Puppet"); Seinfeld (the episode "The Chicken Roaster"); and the comic strip Monty.

Some psychological horror films and other works feature psychotic ventriloquists who believe their dummies are alive and use them as surrogates to commit frightening acts including murder. Examples of this include the 1978 film Magic, the 1945 anthology film Dead of Night, and the Ventriloquist from Batman comics and other Batman media.

Literary examples of frightening ventriloquist dummies include Gerald Kersh's The Horrible Dummy and the story "The Glass Eye" by John Keir Cross. In music, NRBQ's video for their song "Dummy" (2004) features four ventriloquist dummies modelled after the band members who 'lip-sync' the song while wandering around a dark, abandoned house.

title: Ventriloquism