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Cardistry

Cardistry is the performance art of card flourishing. Unlike card magic, cardistry is meant to be visually impressive and appear very hard to execute.

The term cardistry is a portmanteau of card and artistry. People who engage in cardistry are colloquially known as cardists.

Cardistry involves the use of hands to create cuts, displays, fans, patterns, and sequences through the use of playing cards. Various arm-spreads, cuts, shuffles, and springs can be used. The intent is to create a captivating motion and beautiful display. The effects are limited only by the types of cards used, the imagination, and the degree of manual dexterity of the performer. The presentation is typically neither “illusionary” nor purportedly “magic”; rather, it is more like juggling, mime, or similar entertaining activities.

History
Conjuring tricks with playing cards became popular around the 19th century. At that time, simple card flourishes—such as the Charlier cut, riffle shuffle, and thumb fan—were often performed by magicians as a way of demonstrating sleight of hand.

American magician Chris Kenner published Totally Out of Control in 1992, an instructional book concerning magic tricks with household objects. On page 125 was a two-handed flourish he called "The Five Faces of Sybil". Making use of all fingers, Sybil ends with a display of the deck in five distinct packets. Kenner referred to Sybil in his book as "a quick cut flourish to demonstrate skill and dexterity". The cut became the most notable creation from Totally Out of Control and would eventually form the nucleus of what is now known as cardistry. Kevin Pang of Vanity Fair magazine remarked that "every cardist can deftly perform Sybil the way guitarists can run through a blues progression".

Los Angeles-based magician Brian Tudor released an instructional VHS tape in 1997 dubbed Show Off which featured only flourishes, including numerous variations of Sybil. The tape was well received by critics and resulted in growing attention to card flourishing as a performance art. In 2001 Sybil enthusiasts and twin brothers Dan and Dave Buck released Pasteboard Animations, another VHS tape explaining advanced cuts and flourishes. It sold hundreds of copies and was critically praised in a Genii magazine review that same year. In 2004, the twins released the instructional DVD The Dan and Dave System, which officially separated advanced card flourishing from magic. In 2007, Dan and Dave released The Trilogy, a three-disc DVD set. Retailing at $85 per unit, The Trilogy is the best-selling cardistry release of all time, having sold more than 25,000 copies. Virtually every cardist mentions either the System or The Trilogy as the source of their inspiration.

The term "cardistry" was first presented and popularized for this art form by "Richard Z." on the decknique.net forums in March 2006.  Until then, these tricks were known by other names such as card flourishes, card manipuation, card stunts, and xtreme card manipulation.

Grips
Styles of grips include:
 * Biddle grip: Biddle grip is when a deck is stationary on a table and is lifted by taking the thumb and middle and pointer fingers to apply pressure to either side of the deck, and lifting the deck into air.
 * Mechanic's grip: Mechanic's grip is a grip where the deck of cards is placed in the center of the palm of the individual's chosen hand. This grip is also commonly known as dealer's grip.

One-handed cuts
These moves require only one hand to perform. The Charlier cut is the most familiar one-handed cut; other famous one-handed cuts include Jerry Cestkowski's L-cuts, the revolution cut, and Nikolaj Pedersen's trigger and its variations.

Charlier cut: This is the classic one-handed cut, where the individual must hold their deck in straddle grip, then release pressure on their thumb to drop half a packet of cards, and follow up by using the ring finger to push the bottom packet through and complete the cut.

Revolution cut: This cut builds on top of the Charlier cut, with a small variation added to it. After the individual uses their ring finger to push the packet of cards to clear the top half of the deck, instead of dropping the packet, the ring, middle and pointer fingers are used to rotate the top packet 180 degrees and then finish the cut. Scissor cut: This is a cut that begins with the deck in straddle grip, with the thumb peeling off a packet of cards by lifting the thumb on the bottom edge of the deck. After this step, the thumb rotates the cards off the pointer finger until the top packet of cards clears the bottom packet. At this point the thumb brings back the (now) bottom packet back in to complete the cut.

Two-handed cuts
These moves are performed using both hands to grip/hold packets of cards; they often utilize one-handed cuts as a part of the move. These represent the bulk of all cardistry moves, ranging from beginner moves like the "Five Faces of Sybil", to highly complex and difficult cuts that require months to master. Dan and Dave greatly popularized this category with cuts like 'Pandora'. Other cardists like Daren Yeow, Oliver Sogard, Nikolaj Pedersen, Tobias Levin, Patrick Varnavas, Brian Tudor, and Noel Heath have greatly influenced and reformed two-handed cuts.

Swing cut: This is a flourish where the deck should be held in biddle grip in the dominant hand to start, followed by using the pointer finger to lift a small packet of cards. The pointer finger is then extended outwards, the card packet pivoted on the thumb, and the packet dropped onto the other hand. This process should be repeated until the deck is transferred from the dominant hand to the non-dominant hand.

Swivel cut: This is a cut that starts out in biddle grip, where the individual's second hand comes in from behind. and with the thumb finger, a small packet of cards is lifted from the thumb sided edge of the deck, pivoted around the pointer finger and dropped in the center palm of the second hand.

Sybil cut: This is a flourish which raises the stakes and requires an immense amount of practice. The cut begins with the deck in Z grip, after which the top packet of the Z grip is split into two packets, after which the bottom packet of Z grip is dropped onto the palm of the hand, while the second hand moves forward in a downward direction (making the side of the card packets parallel with the ground), then the top packets are rotated towards the bottom packet. The open second hand grabs the packet of cards for a moment before the first hand grabs a small packet of cards from the cleared packet and displays the packets.

Displays
These moves are either done in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional manner. Types of displays may include 3-D structures; ex: a card house, or a 3-D aspect; ex: Zach Mueller's "bloom," or 2-D displays that showcase repeating motifs or a symmetrical shape; ex: Dave Buck's "The Werm."

Ribbon spread (with turnover): This begins with the deck having a bevel towards the individual and held in biddle grip. The pointer finger is then taken to spread the deck onto a high friction (card mat) flat surface. With the cards spread out in front, the individual grabs one end of the deck, lifts it and places their pointer finger on top and trace across the whole deck to see each individual card turnover.

Five faces of Sybil: This is a flourish that is more advanced and will take rigorous practice to get right. The deck is held in Z grip on the left hand to start, with the top packet of the Z grip being split into two with the pointer finger, followed by the right wrist rotating downwards with the top two packet of cards while holding the third packet between the thumb and pointer finger. After rotating downward enough, the middle packet of Z grip is taken by the left hand with the thumb and middle finger. And lastly the right hand thumb and middle finger break off a small part of the middle packet, to display the five faces of sybil.

The Werm: This cardistry move begins by holding the deck in Z grip, and pivoting the three packets of cards on the pointer and thumb finger to face the ground, with the cards making a reverse U shape, then using the pointer and middle finger rotate a card from the top packet to touch the packet in front, forming a square shape. Lastly, take the thumb to pull a card from the top packet and let the friction between the pinky finger and the second thumb hold the card in place - and ending with the reveal of 5 packets of cards in a lengthwise display.

Fans and spreads
These moves involve spreading a deck of cards in various ways, typically in a circle. The 'index/thumb fan' is the most fundamental move in this category; other common moves in this category include the 'riffle fan' by Dimitri Arleri, the 'LePaul spread', and the 'pressure fan'.

Aerials
These moves involve cards (or packets of cards) continuously moving in a same direction, typically being caught by the other hand. Some of the most famous moves in this category include the 'Spring' and the 'Anaconda Dribble'. Aerials are moves that are completely independent and cannot be blended with other flourishes.

Isolations and twirls
These moves are mostly done with only a small number of cards. The performer usually fixes the card's center and rotates the card without changing its position. Belonging in this category are 'palm shift isolations', which were showcased by Jaspas Deck in his 2010 video Starry Eyed. Duy and Zach invented many unusual ways to do isolation.

Cardistry-Con
Cardistry-Con is an interactive conference centered around the art of cardistry, where cardists from all over the world can gather and explore the potential of an ordinary deck of playing cards. The event aims to promote cardistry, including interviews, panel discussions, live performances, exclusive video screenings, workshops, contests and giveaways.

One of the highlights of the annual event is the Cardistry-Con Awards, which includes categories for deck design as well as technical achievement.

The "beta" Cardistry-Con occurred in 2014 as a subsection of Dan & Dave's Magic Con. In 2015, Magic Con was discontinued and an official Cardistry Con took its place. Since then, Cardistry-Con has been held in Brooklyn (2015), Berlin (2016), Los Angeles (2017), Hong Kong (2018), and Portland (2019). The next Cardistry-Con was originally scheduled for mid-2020 in Brussels, Belgium, but was postponed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

title: Cardistry


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Talk:Cyberspace

Blockquotes
While some quotation from sources is OK, lifting whole blocks of text is surely not good and might infringe copyright. They need thinning IMHO. Richard Nowell (talk) 11:59, 19 January 2024 (UTC) MOS:BLOCKQUOTE

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

title: Talk:Cyberspace


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Talk:Clipper (programming language)

Uniqueness
The article is slightly misleading about code blocks. It calls them "unique" when they're not really. One only has to look at `lambda' from the Lisp world to see this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.176.88.206 (talk) 21:42, 1 December 2004 (UTC)

 * I agree and I removed the word from the text. Maybe they are unique if compared to xBase. EmilioSilva 23:58, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Still active?
"As of 2005, the Clipper language is being actively implemented, and extended"
 * Many are NOT using clipper but are migrating to other languages, meaning it is not actively implemented. Any comments? or should i remove this? 59.93.129.26 10:28, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Clipper is still the cornerstone of my company's product suite, and comp.lang.clipper is quite active indicating that it is still in active use worldwide. Wyomingaires 22:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I used to use clipper and purchased Visual Objects but I did not get into using it because it did not become popular.

Gregorydavid 07:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Not Used??? SAGE-SP products Contaplus and Facturaplus, leaders in spanish merchants (Spain and many sudamerican countries) are make wit clipper 5.2 + FiveWin library. --Museo8bits 16:05, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, yes it is still active since I was consulting for a customer still having a Clipper-driven dBase III application in 2004 ; not that far away in the past ;-) Regards User:Hefiz

General purpose?
Isn't Clipper more suited to the same niche of purpose of COBOL?

 * That would rather depend on what you think the "niche" of COBOL is. I can't say I've ever noticed that Clipper has a real "niche" as such -- I've seen it used to develop all sorts of applications. davep 09:09, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

configuration imprimante —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.200.4.148 (talk) 07:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

sharing a dbase ii rd plus file
in programme how can i share a dbase iii rd plus file —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.117.220 (talk) 06:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

definition
Clipper is not a programming language IMHO. It was, and still is, a dBase language "compiler" with extensions (the so-called Clipper libraries). A paraggraph could also be added about the Ashton-Tate answer to the widely-spread out Summer87 version (operating on dBase III+ if I remember correctly) : dBase IV, which was also "compiled" and led to many porting projects (including one I made in 1990).

As far as I remember, Clipper was nevcer considered as a language per se ; it was considered an extension to dBase III.

just my 0.02$ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.243.20.181 (talk) 07:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Response to comment above: Clipper 5.0, though introduced in 1990, was announced at the annual developer conference in 1989 by company president Larry Heimendinger. I was in the room when Jo Sager of Miller Comms wrote the press release and worked on the launch team with Larry & Brian Russell. It was a clear mandate at the time to move the product from the "compiler" category to "programming language." That's how the company positioned it from that moment on. Russell was quoted as saying "...you could write Clipper 5.0 in Clipper 5.0." My strong recollection is that the developer community at the time largely accepted the new positioning and considered v. 5.0 to be a stand alone programming language. 75.139.194.39 (talk) 23:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The comment above about Clipper 5.0 is accurate in terms of position Clipper as a programming language. While initially it was simply a way to compile dBase III instructions into executable code (ran faster than interpretive dBase, protected source code, distributed royalty fee), Clipper 5.0 introduced many new language constructs and concepts that set it apart from dBase IV while retaining much of the basic knowledge dBase IV offered on how to create programs. Moreover the trajectory of Clipper - building a Windows version, adding an integrated development environment, and other language conapts - would have solidified the new language idea. Brian Russell and Rich McConnell drove the development direction of Clipper certainly, but I drove it's conceptual adoption with the help of a great team at Nantucket and third party developers around the world. Larry Heimendinger24.19.251.35 (talk) 23:28, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

windows support
Among the third-party extensions to Clipper, a cornerstone was clip4win, the first library that allowed clipper programmers to write applications running under Windows with a Graphic User Interface, evolving the language to the incoming standard. Fivewin followed, another GUI-capable library, conceived by Antonio Linares and F. Pulpon (the history will remember probably only the former, the one who he started the Harbour project). Actually the community of xBase programmers can choose among many compilers and pseudo-compilers, the heirs of the glorious Clipper, running under Windows, Linux and other Operating Systems, with many different GUIs, but this is another story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.6.189.135 (talk) 18:42, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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The collection of 15 external links has been hatNoted as . . . a bit much
Trim? Will try. Pi314m (talk) 19:54, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Clipper (programming language)


text: Template:History of Saturday Night Live

title: Template:History of Saturday Night Live


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Erich Brandenberger

Erich Brandenberger (15 July 1892 – 21 June 1955) was a German general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves.

Biography
In World War I Brandenberger served as an officer in the 6th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment. He started World War II as Chief of the General Staff of the XXIII Army Corps (16 September 1939 - 15 February 1941) on the Westwall. He commanded 8th Panzer Division (20 February 1941 - 16 January 1943), LIX Army Corps (January — March 1943) and XXIX Army Corps (November 1943 - Jun 1944) on the Eastern Front.

In late 1944 and early 1945, Brandenberger led the 7th Army on the Western Front during the German Ardennes Offensive. He surrendered to the American forces commanded by Edward H. Brooks on 6 May 1945 as the commander of 19th Army in Innsbruck. He was interned until 1948.

Awards

 * Iron Cross (1914) 2nd Class (21 October 1914) & 1st Class (7 September 1916)
 * Clasp to the Iron Cross 2nd Class (24 December 1939) & 1st Class (15 May 1940)
 * Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves
 * Knight's Cross on 15 July 1941 as Generalmajor and commander of the 8. Panzer-Division
 * Oak Leaves on 12 November 1943 as General der Panzertruppe and commander of the XXIX. Armeekorps

title: Erich Brandenberger


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History of Saturday Night Live (1975–1980)

Saturday Night Live is an American sketch comedy series created and produced by Lorne Michaels for most of the show's run. The show has aired on NBC since 1975.

Saturday Night Live was not an immediate hit, but the show soon developed its own identity with help from the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players". After an unstable first season, more and more sketch comedy got on the air, and SNL became something of a New York institution. The first four seasons of the show were a hit both commercially and critically, catapulting the original cast into stardom.

For the 1979–80 season, cast members Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi left the show. This season is considered underwhelming by most standards. After this season, Michaels attempted to take a break and appoint featured player/writer Al Franken his successor, only to be replaced behind his back with associate producer Jean Doumanian for the 1980–81 season.

Conception and development
In 1974, NBC Tonight Show host Johnny Carson requested that weekend "Best of Carson" reruns of his show (known as The Weekend Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson) come to an end. This way, Carson could take two weeknights off and feed affiliates the specials on those nights. As Carson's show was extremely popular, NBC heard his request as an ultimatum, fearing he might use the issue to move to another network. To fill the gap, NBC brought in Dick Ebersol to develop a late-night variety show for airing on Saturday nights. Ebersol's first order of business was to hire a young Canadian producer named Lorne Michaels as the showrunner.

As New York City television production was in decline in the mid-1970s, NBC decided to base the new show at their studios in 30 Rockefeller Center. Michaels was given Studio 8H, a converted radio studio that was most famous for having hosted Arturo Toscanini and his orchestra in the 1950s. The studio had fallen into disuse, and was largely being used for election coverage by the mid-1970s.

Original team
The first cast members hired were Second City alumni Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, National Lampoon "Lemmings" alumnus Chevy Chase (whose trademark became his usual falls and opening spiel that cued the show's opening), Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris and George Coe. The original head writer was Michael O'Donoghue, a writer at National Lampoon. The original theme music was written by future Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore, who, along with his band (occasionally billed as the "All Nurse Band" or "Band of Angels"), was the original bandleader on the show. Paul Shaffer, who would go on to lead David Letterman's band on Late Night and then The Late Show, also served as bandleader in the early years.

Much of the talent pool involved in the inaugural season was recruited from The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a nationally syndicated comedy series that often satirised current events. O'Donoghue had worked alongside several cast members while directing the show. Actors and writers from Radio Hour received much more exposure and recognition on Saturday Night Live.

Debut (1975–1976)
The 1975–76 season began on October 11, 1975, with host George Carlin. The show was originally called NBC's Saturday Night, and would not be called Saturday Night Live until near the end of the 1976–77 season. The show was also intended to have just six episodes, and to be hosted by a permanent guest host instead of a rotating celebrity host (Albert Brooks was apparently picked as a permanent host). The show was originally much more of a typical variety show than it would later become, with the first episode featuring two musical guests (Janis Ian and Billy Preston) and the second almost entirely featuring music by Paul Simon. Sketch comedy would begin to dominate the show over the course of the season.

George Coe and Michael O'Donoghue would appear regularly throughout the season, even though they were only credited for the first few shows of the season. O'Donoghue would also appear regularly until the end of the 1978–79 season, although he was never again credited as a cast member.

Formula for success
Michaels fought network executives to accept his vision for the show, which was far removed from then-standard variety show conventions. One executive, visiting a dress rehearsal, noticed that the band was dressed in blue jeans and asked when their tuxedos would arrive. Before the show's premiere, Michaels remarked that he knew what the "ingredients would be, but not the proportions" and that the show would have to "find itself" on air. Indeed, the cast (known as the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players") would not be heavily featured in the show until the third episode, quickly becoming the focus of the show.

The 1975–76 season (and early episodes of the 1976–77 season) featured a recurring Muppets segment called The Land of Gorch. This segment was poorly received by the audience and was dropped. Films by Albert Brooks were also sometimes shown in these early episodes, although these were also dropped due to negative viewer reception.

It was also one of the only shows that consistently produced topical political satire. In 1976, Ron Nessen, press secretary for President Gerald Ford, hosted the show. Ford himself appeared in a pre-taped opening sequence. The show had been critical of Ford (with Chase's bumbling impression becoming popular with audiences) and promised to give him a break that night. On October 30, 1976, "Weekend Update" (a topical news sketch performed in every episode) played the 1974 broadcast of Ford pardoning President Richard Nixon. Many backstage felt that this decision was instrumental in helping Jimmy Carter win the 1976 election, especially among younger voters. Chase's departure for the show early in the 1976–77 season coincided with the 1976 presidential election, in which Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter was elected the 39th President of the United States of America. Cast member Dan Aykroyd was selected to portray Carter in subsequent seasons. His impression emphasized Carter's southern roots and the country twang in his voice. An episode hosted by Ralph Nader in January 1977 depicts Carter as a Confederate general, using his status as president-elect to take over the nation. Political parody was relatively new to American mainstream television in 1975; comedy shows in the past had rarely dared to push the envelope. By satirizing the head of the nation, Saturday Night Live redefined the parameters of acceptable television content and became "the first television show to speak the nation of the time", according to NBC executive Dick Ebersol.

Chevy Chase
Perhaps due to his recurring news parody sketch "Weekend Update", Chevy Chase was the first breakout star of Saturday Night Live, appearing on magazine covers, doing interviews, and receiving two Emmy awards in 1976 (one for performing and one for writing). As well as "Weekend Update", Chase would open each show with a pratfall before screaming the now-famous "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" On September 18, 1976, during the Ford-Carter debate sketch Debate '76, Chase tumbled off his podium. Because it lacked padding, he injured his groin. Dan Aykroyd, playing Jimmy Carter at the time, tried to help him, also falling. During the next two episodes, Chase appeared by phone with a picture of him calling from the hospital. A caption stated "VOICE OF CHEVY CHASE". He returned on October 16, 1976, via wheelchair.

Michaels later stated that he knew that Saturday Night Live could go in one of two directions: "It would either stay what it was... or it would morph into The Chevy Chase Show". Chase received offers to star in films. NBC offered him a prime-time series, but because he had signed a one-year contract, Chase would be free to leave television for a film career.

Though Chase had never been friendly with most of the cast (a rivalry with John Belushi went all the way back to their work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour, and by the time he left, he couldn't even get along with Lorne Michaels), Chase returned to host the show several times over the next two decades. Relations were often strained; the cast (whatever their own personal conflicts) would usually unite in opposition or disgust towards him, even hiding so that they would not have to share an elevator with him.

During Chase's 1978 hosting stint, Chase got into a brawl with Bill Murray mere moments before broadcast. In 1985, he horrified many of the cast by suggesting a sketch where openly gay performer Terry Sweeney develops AIDS and then show the audience how much weight he loses each week. In 1997, after being just generally difficult to work with, Chase was banned from ever hosting again. Despite this, Chase would occasionally make cameos following his ban from the show.

The Not Ready for Prime Time Players

 * Dan Aykroyd
 * John Belushi
 * Chevy Chase
 * George Coe (final episode: May 29, 1976)
 * Jane Curtin
 * Garrett Morris
 * Laraine Newman
 * Michael O'Donoghue
 * Gilda Radner

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor

Finding footing (1976–1977)
By the 1976–77 season, Saturday Night Live had grown into something of a television phenomenon. Like Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In several years earlier, it was, in many ways, a show that appealed to a younger audience, which made it appealing to advertisers. Recurring characters and catchphrases from the show soon entered the popular vernacular.

In March 1977, the show was renamed from NBC's Saturday Night to Saturday Night Live.

Bill Murray
Bill Murray's first appearance was on January 15, 1977, shortly after Chase left to pursue a movie career. Murray had a shaky start, forgetting his lines and seeming awkward. Many fans of Chase saw Murray as a replacement for him and had been sending hate mail. By the end of the second season, he began to develop a following with a sleazy know-it-all persona. Many of his characterizations, such as Nick the Lounge Singer and Todd DiLamuca (originally Todd DiLabounta before the real DiLabounta threatened to sue), became popular with audiences.

The Not Ready for Prime Time Players

 * Dan Aykroyd
 * John Belushi
 * Chevy Chase (final episode: October 30, 1976)
 * Jane Curtin
 * Garrett Morris
 * Bill Murray (first episode: January 15, 1977)
 * Laraine Newman
 * Gilda Radner

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor

Wide success (1977–1978)
The 1977–78 season was the final season of Saturday Night Live in which the cast was referred to as the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. Two notable "featured players" were hired during this season: writer Al Franken and his comedic partner Tom Davis.

The Not Ready for Prime Time Players
Featuring bold denotes Weekend Update anchor
 * Dan Aykroyd
 * John Belushi
 * Jane Curtin
 * Garrett Morris
 * Bill Murray
 * Laraine Newman
 * Gilda Radner
 * Tom Davis
 * Al Franken

Period of stability (1978–1979)
The 1978-79 season would be the last for popular cast members Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who would leave to work on their film The Blues Brothers (based on their Saturday Night Live characters). Belushi and Michael O'Donoghue (who also departed at the end of the season) both made cameos in the 100th episode of the show.

Weekend, which aired once-a-month in the SNL time slot (and had been airing since 1974), was moved to prime time in the fall of 1978. In addition to new SNL episodes and reruns, the Saturday late night slot in 1978-1979 also included Above Average Productions specials like Things We Did Last Summer (featuring the SNL cast) and Diary of a Young Comic (starring Richard Lewis). Both were directed by frequent SNL filmmaker Gary Weis, whose 80 Blocks from Tiffany's was also intended to air in the Saturday late night slot. Mr. Mike's Mondo Video, directed by SNL writer Michael O'Donoghue and featuring members of the show's cast, was another project that ultimately did not air on TV. The last of the specials was Bob & Ray, Jane, Laraine & Gilda. Produced by Jean Doumanian (who would eventually become SNL producer in 1980), it featured Bob and Ray, SNL's three female cast members and musical guests Willie Nelson and Leon Russell. Above Average Productions would later be succeeded by (and even later, revived by) Broadway Video.

Cast
Featuring
 * Dan Aykroyd
 * John Belushi
 * Jane Curtin
 * Garrett Morris
 * Bill Murray
 * Laraine Newman
 * Gilda Radner
 * Tom Davis
 * Al Franken

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor

Cast shake-up (1979–1980)
The 1979–80 season would see the hiring of many writers as featured players, usually temporarily. Harry Shearer was the only one promoted to repertory status. Paul Shaffer was a major part of the show's band and had a role in several sketches (mainly a Don Kirshner impression) before 1979. Tom Schiller was a longtime filmmaker for Saturday Night Live (off and on in 1976–94). Jim Downey had been a writer and bit player since the 1976–77 season and would continue to write for the show on and off for the next 25 years. Alan Zweibel had been a writer since the show's beginning. Brian Doyle-Murray (Bill Murray's older brother) returned to the cast two years later for a season.

Drugs were a major problem during the show's first five years. "The value system that was around there was, as long as people showed up on time, did their job, it was nobody's business what they did in their bedroom or in their lives. That value system turned out to be wrong", Michaels later said. Aykroyd said that "The cocaine was a problem. Not for me, it was never my favorite... but it was around a lot, and it was affecting the work, the performance, the quality of the scripts... wasting time, and that was bad".

Laraine Newman had developed serious eating disorders as well as a heroin addiction. She spent so much time in her dressing room playing Solitaire that for Christmas 1979, castmate Radner gave her a deck of playing cards with a picture of Laraine on the face of each card. Garrett Morris was feeling degraded from years of small roles and what he saw as racist sketches. At one point, the writers were going to have him do a fake ad for "Tarbrush" toothpaste, which would dull African-Americans' supposedly shiny teeth (the bit was pulled "mercifully" at the last minute). Morris also struggled with his status on the show, and began free-basing cocaine. During rehearsals for the Kirk Douglas-hosted show, Morris ran screaming onto the set, saying that someone had put an "invisible robot" on his shoulder who watched him everywhere he went. He pleaded with crew to get the robot off of him.

Radner, meanwhile, was resented by many because she and Michaels had spent much of the year working on a Broadway play/album, Gilda Live. She had recently broken off a relationship with Bill Murray, and they could barely speak to one another. Murray resented that the other male cast members had left him stranded and essentially forced him to play every male lead on the show. Exhausted, Gilda had few starring roles during the 1979–80 season.

The most energetic and diverse performer during this season was Jane Curtin, who was thrilled to see the "Bully Boys", as she called them (Aykroyd and Belushi), depart and who debuted a number of new characters and impressions while she had the chance (she became noted this season for her impersonation of Nancy Reagan). Featured players/writers Al Franken and Tom Davis also contributed more heavily during the season, giving themselves more prominent roles as Aykroyd and Belushi departed. Another surprise contributor was writer Don Novello, whose "Father Guido Sarducci" character was especially popular and appeared repeatedly during the 1979–80 season.

Michaels' departure
In May 1980, as the season was wrapping, Lorne Michaels decided he was ready for a break. Knowing that most of the cast and many of the writers would be departing, he attempted to persuade the network to put the show on hiatus for six months to recast; NBC refused this attempt to let the show survive in reruns for half a year. Michaels' contract was up for renewal, and he felt somewhat slighted by NBC in negotiations. Michaels had always held a tense relationship with then-NBC President Fred Silverman, and it was not helped by SNL ' s numerous on-air taunts about NBC's abysmal prime-time performance during Silverman's tenure. In fact, SNL was one of the few truly popular shows on the network during this period, but Michaels and his representatives felt renewing his contract was a secondary priority to NBC executives behind Johnny Carson's, which was also up for renewal.

Michaels subsequently took his name off the show and left at the end of the season, along with the rest of the original cast and the writing staff, most of whom followed suit due to loyalty towards Michaels. Among these was Franken, whom Michaels had originally hand-picked as his successor. Franken had, earlier in the season, written and delivered a monologue on the show called "A Limo For A Lame-O" that directly insulted Silverman, who had not been warned about the sketch and thereafter despised Franken. Harry Shearer, who had zero allegiance to Michaels, informed the incoming executive producer, Jean Doumanian, that he would stay as long as she let him completely overhaul the program. Doumanian refused, so Shearer also bid farewell (he would return briefly during the 1984–85 season).

The remaining cast appeared together for the last time on May 24, 1980, for the final episode of the season. The episode, hosted by longtime loyal host Buck Henry, gave a heartfelt goodbye from all the members of the cast, and Henry himself who, after hosting ten times in five years, never returned to the show (barring a brief appearance on the 1989 15th Anniversary Special). Almost every writer and cast member on the show, including Lorne Michaels, left the show after this episode. Brian Doyle-Murray was the only writer from this season to stay on for the 1980–81 season.

Cast
Featuring
 * Jane Curtin
 * Garrett Morris
 * Bill Murray
 * Laraine Newman
 * Gilda Radner
 * Harry Shearer (upgraded to repertory status: February 9, 1980)
 * Peter Aykroyd
 * Tom Davis
 * Jim Downey
 * Brian Doyle-Murray (first episode: December 15, 1979)
 * Al Franken
 * Don Novello
 * Tom Schiller
 * Paul Shaffer
 * Alan Zweibel (first episode: October 20, 1979)

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor


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Bowl

A bowl is a typically round dish or container generally used for preparing, serving, storing, or consuming food. The interior of a bowl is characteristically shaped like a spherical cap, with the edges and the bottom forming a seamless curve. This makes bowls especially suited for holding liquids and loose food, as the contents of the bowl are naturally concentrated in its center by the force of gravity. The exterior of a bowl is most often round, but can be of any shape, including rectangular.

The size of bowls varies from small bowls used to hold a single serving of food to large bowls, such as punch bowls or salad bowls, that are often used to hold or store more than one portion of food. There is some overlap between bowls, cups, and plates. Very small bowls, such as the tea bowl, are often called cups, while plates with especially deep wells are often called bowls.

In many cultures, bowls are the most common kind of vessel used for serving and eating food. Historically, small bowls were also used for serving both tea and alcoholic drinks. In Western culture plates and cups are more commonly used.

Background
Modern bowls can be made of ceramic, metal, wood, plastic, and other materials. Bowls have been made for thousands of years. Very early bowls have been found in China, Ancient Greece, Crete and in certain Native American cultures.

In Ancient Greek pottery, small bowls, including phiales and pateras, and bowl-shaped cups called kylices were used. Phiales were used for libations and included a small dent in the center for the bowl to be held with a finger, although one source indicates that these were used to hold perfume rather than wine. Some Mediterranean examples from the Bronze Age manifest elaborate decoration and sophistication of design. For example, the bridge spouted vessel design appeared at the Minoan site of Phaistos. In the 4th millennium BC, evidence exists that the Uruk culture of ancient Mesopotamia mass-produced beveled rim bowls of standardized sizes. Moreover, in Chinese pottery, there are many elaborately painted bowls and other vessels dating to the Neolithic period. , the oldest bowl found is 18,000 years old.

In examining bowls found during an archaeological dig in North America, the anthropologist Vincas Steponaitis defines a bowl by its dimensions, writing that a bowl's diameter rarely falls under half its height and that historic bowls can be classified by their edge, or lip, and shape.

Communal bowl

In many cultures, food and drink are shared in a communal bowl or cup. In Mali, the name of the town of Bandiagara refers to the communal bowl meals are served in. The name translates roughly to "large eating bowl." In Zimbabwe, sadza is traditionally eaten from a communal bowl, a tradition that is still maintained by some families, mainly in rural areas. It is generally eaten with the right hand without the aid of cutlery and often rolled into a ball before being dipped into a variety of condiments such as sauce/gravy, sour milk, or stewed vegetables. Lakh is a popular boiled porridge made with rolled millet flour pellets (araw/arraw) typically topped at serving with sweetened fermented milk. It is usually served in a communal bowl or platter in Senegal.

In China, it is considered rude and unhygienic for a diner to use his or her own chopsticks to pick up food from communal bowls and plates when such utensils are present. Other potentially rude behaviors with chopsticks include playing with them, separating them in any way (such as holding one in each hand), piercing food with them, or standing them vertically in a plate of food. (The latter is especially rude, evoking images of incense or joss sticks used ceremoniously at funerals.)

In some cultures, the communal bowl has a set of social strictures, as evidenced by the Spanish idiom, "¿Cuándo hemos comido en el mismo plato?" (English: When have we eaten from the same dish?).

title: Bowl


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Talk:Disk (mathematics)

Merge to circle
I think this article should be merged into Circle. Just because a disk and a circle are mathematically different doesn't mean they can't both be dealt with under the circle topic. It would also enable the business about the confusion between a disk and a circle to be dealt with in one place cleanly. Dmcq (talk) 09:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Nope. Most languages distinguish them, so you proposal would create even a worse interwiki mess than we have today. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:55, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * GOOD POINT. Finally someone understands this crisis.--**Najezeko**:) 19:45, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

This article should not be merged. Admittedly, the difference between the disc and circle may seem semantic, it is one which should be acknowledged. I mean, the article needs to cite sources, but it does appear accurate. If you ever refer to a circle instead of a disc, a mathematician will probably correct you, so the difference is more than semantic. ( I'm a math major in undergrad and I personally made the mistake of writing circle, a curve, instead of disc, the planar area inside the curve,and so I had it explained to me the importance of the difference between them by several mathematically knowledgable people). Zanotam - Google me (talk) 01:50, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

 * I am trying to solve a mess in PT wiki about this nomenclature problem and wanted to hear from you: isn't the curve made by the points r-distanced from the center called circunference instead of circle? In my non mathematician interpretation:
 * 1. Circumference: external line, its points, equidistant from the center
 * 2. Disk: the planar area inside a circunference.
 * 3. Circle: the geometric shape determined by a circunference (kinda disk + circumference) Sintropepe (talk) 21:52, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Note that you are replying to a 13-year-old conversation. Anyhow, in previous centuries the word "circle" was sometimes used to mean what we now call a "circle" and other times used to mean what we now call a "disk", and the word "circumference" was sometimes used to mean what we now call a "circle". Nowadays, they are still sometimes used these ways in informal contexts. In modern technical contexts, circle means just the one-dimensional boundary of the disk, disk means the two-dimensional filled-in shape, and circumference typically means the arc length around the circle. I can't tell you what the conventions are in Portuguese. –jacobolus (t) 22:59, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I don’t favour any change. In normal usage the term ‘circle’ is often used when discussing the properties of a disk, eg. its area, and these are accordingly covered in the ‘circle’ article. The disk article is limited to properties of the disk which would not apply to a circle, eg. its topological properties. On the other hand there is a standard statistical distribution over a circle – the circular normal distribution – which is quite separate from distributions over a disk, and which could reasonably be mentioned in the ‘circle’ article. It would make things worse to move properties of a circle which are distinguished from those of a disk to the ‘circumference’ article. I don’t think the word ‘circumference’ occurs in the article on the circular normal distribution, even though on sintropepe’s understanding it would be the only correct term. Colin.champion (talk) 08:20, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * These concepts should absolutely not be joined together. Both articles can be significantly expanded with largely unrelated material. –jacobolus (t) 08:59, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Homeomorphic
I'm suggesting that someone put a link to the article "homeomorphic". If there is no such article (I highly doubt there isn't), then please create one.--**Najezeko**:) 19:49, 14 November 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Najzeko (talk • contribs)

region surrounding the closed disk
What is the region surrounding the closed disk called? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reddwarf2956 (talk • contribs) 06:26, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

 * “Exterior” should do, or “complement” —Tamfang (talk) 00:23, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Disk (mathematics)


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History of Saturday Night Live (1980–1985)

Saturday Night Live is an American sketch comedy series created and produced by Lorne Michaels for most of the show's run. The show has aired on NBC since 1975.

After the 1979–80 season, Michaels attempted to take a break and appoint writer Al Franken his successor. However, then-president of NBC Fred Silverman passed on Franken and gave the job to associate producer Jean Doumanian, bringing in a brand new cast and mostly new writers, and resulting in the most critically unstable season in SNL's history. Doumanian was fired and replaced with Dick Ebersol, who brought in a new cast, keeping only Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo. Murphy and Piscopo became breakout stars and restored the show's popularity.

During the 1983–84 season, Murphy left SNL and went on to foster a successful film career. Piscopo and several other cast members also left after the season, prompting Ebersol to rebuild the cast for the following year with already-established celebrities such as Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest. After a successful 1984–85 season, NBC denied Ebersol a more permanent retool, which led to Ebersol leaving and original producer Michaels returning for the 1985–86 season.

Doumanian's season and Ebersol takes over (1980-1981)
Jean Doumanian took over the show for season six, hiring a completely new cast and new writers, but it was plagued by problems from the start and deemed a commercial disappointment by both critics and in the Nielsen ratings.

Departing producer Lorne Michaels had wanted to make writer and cast member Al Franken his successor. Any chance of this happening under then-NBC President Fred Silverman was gone when, in a Weekend Update segment on the May 10, 1980, broadcast, Franken delivered a harsh criticism of Silverman which deeply angered the network president.

Jean Doumanian was a talent scout for SNL in the early days and was one of the few members of the staff who remained after season five. In the fall of 1980, Doumanian accepted the job as the new executive producer. NBC almost immediately cut the show's budget from $1,000,000 (about $2,649,417 in 2010 dollars) per episode to about $350,000 (about $927,296 in 2010 dollars) per episode. Further, Doumanian had only two months to discover and prepare a new cast and crew; she claims she received virtually none of the support that was promised to her by either the network or her staff.

For much of this season, SNL was in turmoil and many critics, including Marvin Kitman of Newsday and Tom Shales of The Washington Post, wrote the show off as a pale imitation of its former glory.

First episode
The first episode, renamed "Saturday Night Live '80" in the opening credits, aired Nov. 15, 1980, and featured an all-new cast – Charles Rocket (groomed to be the new breakout star), Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, Joe Piscopo, and Ann Risley rounded out the new cast. Yvonne Hudson was hired as a featured player and became SNL's first black female cast-member. Elliott Gould had agreed to host the first episode.

Contributing to the sense that season six was doomed, in the first sketch the cast shared a bed with Gould and introduced themselves – Charles Rocket proclaimed himself to be a cross between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, and Gilbert Gottfried (prior to adopting his signature screechy, obnoxious voice) referred to himself as a cross between John Belushi "and that guy from last year who did Rod Serling, and no one can remember his name" (referring to Harry Shearer).

At the end of the show, Gould stood on stage and quickly introduced himself to the cast one more time by first name and declared "We're gonna be around forever, so we might as well..."

Eddie Murphy
In September 1980, talent coordinator Neil Levy received a telephone call from 19-year-old Eddie Murphy, who had begged the producer to "give him a shot" on the show, but was rejected since "the black cast member had already been chosen." Murphy pleaded with Levy that he had several siblings banking on him getting a spot on the show. Levy finally auditioned him, and recommended him to Doumanian. Doumanian, after seeing Murphy's audition, advocated for him with the network, and Murphy was cast as a featured player.

"Who Shot C.R.?", Ebersol starts
On February 21, 1981 the show featured a parody of the "Who Shot J.R.?" craze from the soap opera Dallas. In a cliffhanger titled "Who Shot C.R.?", cast member Charles Rocket was "shot" in the last sketch of the episode, after a running gag in which other members of the cast shared their grievances about Rocket with one another. Onstage for the goodnights, Dallas star and that week's host Charlene Tilton asked Rocket (still in character and sitting in a wheelchair) his thoughts on being shot. "Oh man, it's the first time I've been shot in my life", he replied. "I'd like to know who fuckin' did it." The cast, along with some of the audience, reacted with laughter and applause, but inside the control room, there was no laughter. Director Dave Wilson, fearing that the show was finished for good, simply threw his script papers in the air and said "Well, that's the end of live television" and walked out of the room. As a semi-joke, on the following week's episode hosted by Bill Murray, Murray snubbed Rocket for his behavior the previous week and told him to "watch his mouth and clean it up".

After Bill Murray hosted the following episode, the next episode was scheduled for March 14, 1981 and would have been hosted by Robert Guillaume and Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Subsequent reruns of the episode partially edit the good nights segment to remove the announcement for next week's episode. The cast and writers were also unaware that Brandon Tartikoff, the head of programming for NBC, invited Dick Ebersol, the original developer of SNL, to watch the show in secrecy in the control booth and was totally in despair over how the quality of the show sank.

Doumanian was officially replaced by Ebersol after the Murray episode. In his first two weeks, Ebersol fired Gottfried, Risley, and Rocket, replacing them with Robin Duke, Tim Kazurinsky, and Tony Rosato. At the end of the season, he would eliminate the rest of the 1980 cast except for Murphy and Piscopo. Ebersol originally wanted to bring in John Candy and Catherine O'Hara from SCTV; Candy turned down the offer. O'Hara initially accepted the job, but changed her mind after a production meeting where Michael O'Donoghue, the original head writer for SNL and had been hired to save the show, screamed at the cast and writers for the show's poor performances and sketches.

Writers' strike
Ebersol's first show aired April 11, with appearances by Chevy Chase on Weekend Update, and Al Franken asking viewers to "put SNL to sleep". Ebersol, wanting to establish a connection to the original cast, allowed Franken's mock-serious routine on the air.

Ebersol had promised Al Franken and Tom Davis that in addition to appearing on the April 11 show, they could host the next week. During the following week, with a writer's strike looming, Franken and Davis wrote material and mailed it to themselves so that their postmark could be used to prove they did not violate the strike. After seeing copies of the material, Ebersol (never a fan of Franken and Davis) caved to the writer's strike and called off the rest of the season, promising the duo they could host the season premiere that fall. As the summer ended, Ebersol, confident in his new cast, decided he no longer needed a link to the original cast. Franken claims Ebersol never returned his calls, and Franken and Davis never hosted SNL. Franken would not return to SNL until four years later, as a featured cast member.

Other episodes cancelled due to the strike were scheduled to air on April 25, 1981 (with host Dan Aykroyd, former cast member), May 9, 1981 (with host Steve Martin, an SNL favorite), May 16, 1981 (with host Brooke Shields), and May 23, 1981 (with another frequent SNL host, Buck Henry). Aykroyd wouldn't get a chance to host until the 28th season finale in 2003, Martin didn't come back until 1986, Shields has yet to host, and Henry never hosted again.

Cast
Repertory players
 * Denny Dillon
 * Robin Duke (first episode: April 11, 1981)
 * Gilbert Gottfried (last episode: March 7, 1981)
 * Tim Kazurinsky (first episode: April 11, 1981)
 * Gail Matthius
 * Eddie Murphy (first episode: November 22, 1980)
 * Joe Piscopo
 * Ann Risley (last episode: March 7, 1981)
 * Charles Rocket (last episode: March 7, 1981)
 * Tony Rosato (first episode: April 11, 1981)

Featured players
 * Yvonne Hudson (first episode: December 6, 1980/last episode: March 7, 1981)
 * Matthew Laurance (first episode: November 22, 1980/last episode: March 7, 1981)
 * Laurie Metcalf (first episode: April 11, 1981) (uncredited, but appeared)
 * Emily Prager (first episode: April 11, 1981) (credited, but did not appear)
 * Patrick Weathers (first episode: December 6, 1980/last episode: November 14, 1981)

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor

Ebersol era (1981-1982)
New cast members for the 1981 season included Christine Ebersole, Mary Gross, and 1979 featured player Brian Doyle-Murray, who ran the Weekend Update (under the title Saturday Night Live Newsbreak & Current Affairs) desk for one season. Also returning were Second City veterans Robin Duke, Tim Kazurinsky, and Tony Rosato, who had debuted April 11.

Ebersol ran a very different show from Michaels had in the 1970s. Many of the sketches were built less on "smart" and "revolutionary" comedy that was abundant in the early days and followed a much more "straightforward" approach. This shift alienated some fans and even some writers and cast members. Ebersol was eager to attract the younger viewers that advertisers craved. He dictated that no sketch should run longer than five minutes, so as not to lose the attention of teenagers.

Having come from the ranks of management, Ebersol was adept at dealing with the network. Ebersol was also not fond of political humor, and he and NBC mostly eschewed jokes about President Reagan during his time as showrunner. Later in his tenure, he was handling much of the business aspects and day-to-day production affairs, leaving producer Bob Tischler in charge of most of the creative facets of the show.

Unlike Michaels, Ebersol had no difficulty firing people. Among the first casualties after the 1981 season were Rosato (who later said that the firing was the best thing to ever happen to him, as he felt that the show's atmosphere encouraged his drug addiction) and Ebersole, who got the axe because of her frequent complaints that the women on the show had little airtime and what they did receive cast them in sexist and humiliating light. Michael O'Donoghue was fired in December 1981, after repeated arguments with Ebersol over the creative direction of the show, and because of his abusive treatment of the cast.

Murphy's rise
Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy were the only performers from Doumanian's cast to appear on SNL for season seven. Murphy, who had already emerged as a breakout star on Doumanian's season, continued to thrive under Ebersol, and his soaring popularity helped restore the show's ratings. He created memorable characters, including the empty-headed former child movie star Buckwheat and an irascible, life-size version of the Gumby toy character, complete with life-size star ego. Piscopo was also popular, renowned for his Frank Sinatra impersonation, as well as his character Paulie Herman.

Cast
Repertory players
 * Robin Duke
 * Christine Ebersole
 * Mary Gross
 * Tim Kazurinsky
 * Eddie Murphy
 * Joe Piscopo
 * Tony Rosato

Featured players
 * Brian Doyle-Murray

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor

New cast members, continued success of Murphy (1982-1983)
Ebersol hired new members from The Practical Theatre Company, including Gary Kroeger, Brad Hall, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who later married Hall), to join in the fall of season eight.

With the release of the film 48 Hours during season eight, Murphy's star began to eclipse the other cast members. Murphy's co-star in the film, Nick Nolte, was scheduled to host the show, but canceled at the last minute. Ebersol offered Murphy the chance to host, a move that Piscopo would perceive as a major slight. Piscopo would later claim that Ebersol used Murphy's success to divide the two erstwhile friends and play them against one another.

Murphy also performed an uncanny impression of Stevie Wonder (Wonder sportingly hosted in 1983 and appeared in a fake ad for the "Kannon AE-1" camera, which is "so simple, even Stevie Wonder can use it". )

Recurring characters and sketches
Brad Hall hosted Saturday Night News throughout the season. Recurring characters featured during this season include The Whiners, Mister Robinson (host of a parody of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood), and Buckwheat.

Cast
Repertory players

 * Robin Duke
 * Mary Gross
 * Brad Hall
 * Tim Kazurinsky

 * Gary Kroeger
 * Julia Louis-Dreyfus
 * Eddie Murphy
 * Joe Piscopo

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor

Murphy leaves (1983-1984)
Second City alumnus James Belushi, the late John Belushi's brother, joined the cast three episodes into the season.

Midway through season nine in February 1984, Eddie Murphy left the show. His appearances for the remainder of the season consisted of sketches he had pre-taped in September 1983. Duke, Piscopo, Hall, and Kazurinsky were not invited to return after season nine. Piscopo was offered a chance to guest host during season ten, but declined.

Cast
Repertory players

 * James Belushi (debut: October 22, 1983)
 * Robin Duke
 * Mary Gross
 * Brad Hall
 * Tim Kazurinsky

 * Gary Kroeger
 * Julia Louis-Dreyfus
 * Eddie Murphy (final: February 25, 1984)
 * Joe Piscopo

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor

"All-Star" cast, end of the Ebersol era (1984-1985)
Upon the departures of Murphy and Piscopo, Ebersol, having lost his key players, began rebuilding the cast for season ten, enlisting what is in retrospect known as the "All-Star" cast. Along with veteran players James Belushi, Gross, Kroeger, and Louis-Dreyfus, Ebersol added, for the first time in the show's history, well-known names to the repertory. This new cast included Soap star Billy Crystal; Martin Short, who had made a name for himself as Ed Grimley (a character he would bring to SNL that year) on Canada's SCTV; Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer (who was also a cast member in 1979) from The Credibility Gap and This Is Spinal Tap; Pamela Stephenson from Not the Nine O'Clock News and Superman III; and Rich Hall from HBO's Not Necessarily the News.

Billy Crystal became the show's breakout star. Crystal had been scheduled to appear in the first SNL in 1975, but walked when his airtime was whittled away during rehearsal. Already known for his stand-up comedy and even more for his role as Jodie Dallas on Soap, Crystal became the show's latest sensation, bringing the catchphrases "It is better to look good than to feel good" and "You look mahvelous!" (both uttered by his "Fernando" character) into popular culture.

Harry Shearer would depart after the January 12, 1985, broadcast, citing "creative differences". Shearer would later remark, "I was creative...and they were different." Shearer would go on to greater fame as a cast member of The Simpsons in which he voiced several characters including Mr. Burns and Principal Skinner.

At the end of the season, Ebersol requested to completely revamp the show to include mostly prerecorded segments. Short, Guest, and Rich Hall had grown tired of the show's demanding production schedule and showed little interest in returning for another season, leaving Crystal the only "A-cast" member available for season 11. Like Michaels at the end of season five, Ebersol made it known to NBC that he would only return to SNL if the network would take the show off the air for several months to recast and rebuild. Another idea was to institute a permanent rotation of hosts (Billy Crystal, Joe Piscopo, and David Letterman) for "a hip Ed Sullivan Show".

NBC turned down Ebersol's requests and decided to continue production only if they could get Lorne Michaels to produce again. Ebersol and Tischler, along with their writing staff and most of the cast, left the show after this season (those who wished to stay, such as Billy Crystal, were eventually not re-hired for 1985), which closed the book on an inconsistent, yet memorable, era in SNL history.

Cast
Repertory players

 * James Belushi
 * Billy Crystal
 * Mary Gross
 * Christopher Guest
 * Rich Hall

 * Gary Kroeger
 * Julia Louis-Dreyfus
 * Harry Shearer (final: January 12, 1985)
 * Martin Short
 * Pamela Stephenson

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor


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Blowback (intelligence)

Blowback is the unintended consequences and unwanted side-effects of a covert operation. To the civilians suffering the blowback of covert operations, the effect typically manifests itself as "random" acts of political violence without a discernible, direct cause; because the public—in whose name the intelligence agency acted—are unaware of the effected secret attacks that provoked revenge (counter-attack) against them.

Etymology
Originally, blowback was CIA internal coinage denoting the unintended, harmful consequences—to friendly populations and military forces—when a given weapon is used beyond its purpose as intended by the party supplying it. Examples include anti-Western religious figures (e.g. Osama bin Laden) who, in due course, attack foe and sponsor; right-wing counter-revolutionaries who sell drugs to their sponsor's civil populace (see CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US); and banana republic juntas (see Salvadoran Civil War) who kill American reporters or nuns (e.g. Dorothy Kazel).

In formal print usage, the term blowback first appeared in the Clandestine Service History—Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran—November 1952–August 1953, the CIA's internal history of the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, sponsored by the American and British governments, which was published in March 1954. Blowback from this operation would indeed occur with the Iranian Revolution and the Iran hostage crisis. Recent accounts of how blowback functioned in the War on Terror relation to US and UK intelligence and defense propaganda and became an important issue in a 21st Century media environment are discussed by Emma Briant in her book Propaganda and Counter-terrorism which presents first-hand accounts and discussions of deliberate and unintended consequences of blowback, oversight, and impacts for the public.

Nicaragua and Iran-Contra
In the 1980s, the blowback was a central theme in the legal and political debates about the efficacy of the Reagan Doctrine, which advocated public and secret support of anti-Communist counter-revolutionaries. For example, by secretly funding the secret war of the militarily-defeated, right-wing Contras against the left-wing Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which led to the Iran–Contra Affair, wherein the Reagan Administration sold American weapons to Iran (a state unfriendly to the US) to arm the Contras with Warsaw Pact weapons, and their consequent drug-dealing in American cities. Moreover, in the case of Nicaragua v. United States, the International Court of Justice ruled against the United States secret military attacks against Sandinista Nicaragua, because the countries were not formally at war.

Reagan Doctrine advocates, including The Heritage Foundation, argued that support for anti-Communists would topple Communist régimes without retaliatory consequences to the United States and help win the global Cold War.

Afghanistan and Al Qaeda
Examples of blowback include the CIA's financing and support for Afghan insurgents to fight an anti-Communist proxy guerilla war against the USSR in Afghanistan; some of the beneficiaries of this CIA support may have joined al-Qaeda's terrorist campaign against the United States.

Syria and ISIS
During the Syrian Civil War, the United States and Saudi Arabia supported and aided anti-Assad armed groups. Some of those groups later shifted loyalty to ISIS.

Yevno Azef and Russian Imperial secret police
Russian socialist revolutionary Yevno Azef, as a paid police informant, provided the Russian secret-police Okhrana with information to allow them to arrest an influential member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. After the arrest, Azef assumed the vacant position and organized assassinations, including those of the director of Imperial Russia's police and later Minister of the Interior Vyacheslav Plehve (1904) and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the Tsar's uncle (1905). By 1908, Azef was playing the double role of a revolutionary assassin and police spy who received 1000 rubles a month from the authorities.

Soviet disinformation blowback
Soviet intelligence, as part of active measures, frequently spread disinformation to distort their adversaries' decision-making. However, sometimes this information filtered back through the KGB's own contacts, leading to distorted reports. Lawrence Bittman also addressed Soviet intelligence blowback in The KGB and Soviet Disinformation, stating that "There are, of course, instances in which the operator is partially or completely exposed and subjected to countermeasures taken by the government of the target country."

People

 * Chalmers Johnson
 * João Goulart
 * Mohammad Mosaddeq
 * Qasem Soleimani

title: Blowback (intelligence)


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Vic Crowe

Victor Herbert Crowe (31 January 1932 – 21 January 2009) was a Welsh international football player and later football manager.

Career
Crowe was born in Abercynon, South Wales but moved to Handsworth, Birmingham with his family when he was two years old. On leaving school, he played for Erdington Albion, the West Bromwich Albion nursery team, but signed for Aston Villa in 1951 and would spend most of his career with the Birmingham club. He established himself in the Villa team when Danny Blanchflower vacated the right-half berth in 1954. He missed the 1957 FA Cup Final due to injury but captained the side to the Second Division title in 1960 and League Cup Final success in 1961. He was capped 16 times by Wales.

As manager, Crowe was unable to prevent Villa being relegated when he took charge towards the end of the 1969–70 season. The following season he led his Third Division team to the League Cup Final against Tottenham Hotspur, which Villa lost. He saw his side finish top of Division Three in 1972, however, breaking many records along the way. He was sacked in 1974 after his side finished 14th in Division Two.

In 1975, Crowe went to the United States to take part in the North American Soccer League, taking the manager's position with Portland Timbers. He brought a cast of English players with him, many of them young players from the Midlands area, and they proceeded to win the Western Division championship and advanced all the way to the NASL final, losing 2–0 to Tampa Bay Rowdies. In their two home playoff games, "The Lads" success forced the club to add temporary seating to accommodate their fans, and the team played before two crowds in excess of 30,000, totals unheard of in American soccer at the time.

Crowe stayed in Portland through the 1976 season before returning to England. The Timbers beckoned again in 1980, however, and he returned for three more seasons in America before the Timbers club folded after the 1982 season. Although his later teams never captured the success of that first year, he left an indelible mark on soccer in the Pacific Northwest by introducing thousands of Portland area residents to the joys of the game. Today, Portland is a soccer hotbed. In 2001 the Timbers re-emerged as a member of the professional USL First Division, and in 2011 Portland moved into the highest tier of American soccer by joining Major League Soccer. The modern edition of the Timbers play in the same stadium where Crowe and his lads excelled that first year in 1975.

Crowe died on 21 January 2009, at the age of 76, after a long illness.

title: Vic Crowe