eAlmanac | A Unique Online Reference Source » Television

Green Room

Joel — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 07:12:57 +0000

“Green room” is a place where performers wait before going on stage. Though it is most commonly used to refer to the room where guests on talk shows waits before being interviewed either on television or radio. For example, “On Varick Street, 18 journalists will no longer be jammed into a shoebox of a newsroom; indeed, capacious new offices will permit a staff of 40. Guests will wait in an actual green room, not out in the hall at the water cooler.”—Glenn Collins, “WNYC’s Planned Move Will Finish Its Breakup With the City,” The New York Times, July 17, 2006.

It can also be used to refer to the place where people wait before they appear in public even if they are not going to perform. This quote refers to the public drama aspects of the draft of American college football players into the National Football League:

“Mr. Rodgers was one of six players who began the draft waiting in the famed green room, leading to a wry note from the Cal QB: ‘When we were joking around about putting some money in a pool or something to see who the last guy would be in the green room, it was funny. But it’s not so funny when you’re the last guy in the green room.’”—Carl Bialik and Jason Fry, “Rodgers, Castillo, and Clarett Are Three Draft-Day Surprises,” The Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2005.

The term can also be spelled “greenroom” (one word):

“Author, who generally sleeps till noon, is at television studio before 8 a.m. Seated in barbershop-type chair in secret makeup chamber, she is powdered, painted, blowdried. Sees in mirror Aschenbach in Death in Venice. In greenroom, Author is introduced to fairy godmother: Ann Patchett in glamorous black dress.”—Cynthia Ozick, “Lighting Out for the Territory,” The New York Times Book Review, January 2, 2005, p. 7.

“60 Minutes” (Television)

Joel — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:32:10 +0000

Fifteen (restaurant)

Joel — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:31:13 +0000

Fifteen is a London, England restaurant founded by British chef Jamie Oliver in 2002. It gets its name from the fifteen disadvantaged, young people that Mr. Oliver trained to work in the restaurant. A television documentary, “Jamie’s Kitchen,” was made about the founding of the restaurant and the training of the young people.

As of 2009, the foundation that Mr. Oliver created to own and operate Fifteen has opened three addition “Fifteen” restaurants: one in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2004); one in Watergate Bay (Cornwall), England (2006); and one in Melbourne, Australia (2006). All of these restaurants follow the model of the original by training disadvantaged, young people to work in them.

7 Up Film Series

Joel — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:58:16 +0000

The “7 Up” film series are a group of television documentaries that record the lives of fourteen Brits every seven years over the course of their lives. The series began in 1964 with “Seven Up!” (1964) and the latest installment, “49 Up,” was shown on British television in 2005. The premise of the series was that the class of the children in the first documentary would determine the course of the lives. The British director, Michael Apted, who directed such movies as “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (1980), “Gorillas in the Mist” (1988), and the James Bond film “The World Is Not Enough” (1999), has been involved with the series since it began, starting off as a researcher on the first documentary and becoming director and producer for the subsequent documentaries.

The series has been very influential with many similar projects started in other countries including Australia, Japan, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States.

Green Screen

Joel — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:39:31 +0000

20/20 News Program

Joel — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:11:11 +0000

The Six Stars of “Friends”

Joel — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:35:54 +0000

Number Six in “The Prisoner”

Joel — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:32:57 +0000

“Number Six” is the new identity given to the former secret agent, played by Patrick McGoohan, in the 1960′s ITV series, “The Prisoner.” The beginning of all 17 episodes of the series begins with the following exchange between the Prisoner and Number Two, the official in charge of breaking him, giving him his new “name”:

Prisoner: Where am I?

Number Two: In The Village.

Prisoner: What do you want?

Number Two: Information.

Prisoner: Which side are you on?

Number Two: That would be telling. We want information, information, information…

Prisoner: You won’t get it.

Number Two: By hook or by crook we will.

Prisoner: Who are you?

Number Two: The new Number Two.

Prisoner: Who is Number One?

Number Two: You are Number Six.

Prisoner: I am not a number. I am a free man.

Number Two: Ha, ha, ha, ha….

There is a remake of the series scheduled to be aired in November 2009 on AMC in the United States and on ITV in the United Kingdom.

Five Questions on “The Daily Show”

Joel — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:32:05 +0000

“Five Questions” was a standard segment on the original format for “The Daily Show” with original host Craig Kilborn. With Jon Stewart as host, the show has morphed into a different program—more politically, less celebrity, focused.

Doctor Who

Joel — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:57:12 +0000

Single-Camera Sitcoms

Joel — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:51:30 +0000

A Show About Nothing

Joel — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:35:14 +0000

“Seinfeld,” the most successful American sitcom of the 1990′s was famously “a show about nothing.” Something joked about by the shows creators, writers, and performers, even in the episodes themselves. The phrase and the concept have joined several other phrases from the show—such as “shrinkage,” “yada yada”—in the lexicon.

But the creative team behind “Seinfeld” weren’t the first to believe that their work was about nothing: “A card-carrying intellectual, a critic with a strong theoretical bias before he turned to filmmaking, Antonioni flirted with superficiality. On a visit to Mark Rothko’s studio, he coolly opined that they both made ‘work about nothing…but with precision.’”—J. Hoberman, “Seeing and Nothingness,” The Village Voice, July 7-13, 2006, p. 60.

First-Run Syndication

Joel — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:58:41 +0000

The A-Team

Joel — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:53:54 +0000