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Magical Maestro
''Magical Maestro'' is a 1952 American Animation, animated short film, short comedy film directed by Tex Avery and produced by Fred Quimby for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, MGM Cartoons. Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the short was released on February 9, 1952. It features the Great Poochini (played by Butch (film series), Butch Dog), a canine opera singer who spurns a magician. The magician is able to replace Poochini's normal conductor prior to the show through disguise. In 1993, ''Magical Maestro'' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", making it the only Tex Avery cartoon so far to be inducted. Plot Attention-craving Mysto the Magician rudely interrupts a world-famous opera singer, the great Poochini (a pun on opera composer Giacomo Puccini), in the midst of rehearsal and asks to perform an opening act at the show that night. Mysto's tri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tex Avery
Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (; February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator, cartoonist, animation director, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of American animation. His most significant work was for the Warner Bros. Cartoons, Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, where he was crucial in the creation and evolution of famous animated characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Droopy, Screwy Squirrel, Big Bad Wolf#MGM/Tex Avery's Big Bad Wolf, The Wolf, Red (animated character), Red Hot Riding Hood, and George and Junior. He gained influence for his technical innovation, directorial style, and brand of humor. Avery's attitude toward animation was opposite that of Walt Disney and other conventional family cartoons at the time. Avery's cartoons were known for their sarcastic, ironic, Surreal humour, absurdist, irreverent, and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera Singer
Opera is a form of Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of Western classical music, and Italian tradition in particular. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as ''Singspiel'' and ''Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aviation Vacation
''Aviation Vacation'' is a 1941 Warner Bros. ''Merrie Melodies'' theatrical short directed by Tex Avery, with story by Dave Monahan and musical direction by Carl Stalling. The cartoon was released on August 2, 1941. This is one of the cartoons that Warner would occasionally produce that featured none of its stable of characters, just a series of gags, usually based on outrageous stereotypes and plays on words, as a narrator (voiced by Robert C. Bruce) describes the action. Plot A small airplane takes its passengers on a world tour. Some excerpts: *The plane, as well as its shadow, are remarkably flexible. The plane takes off like a bird, running and jumping and flapping its wings. The plane's shadow, seen from above, dodges ground-level obstacles. *The plane passes Mount Rushmore, which is seen to also include the two major candidates from the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt ("For Democrats") and Wendell Willkie ("For Republicans"). *In Ireland, an Irish tenor (in rotosc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fourth Wall
The fourth wall is a performance dramatic convention, convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th century onward, the rise of illusionism in staging practices, which culminated in the realism (theatre), realism and naturalism (theatre), naturalism of the Nineteenth-century theatre, theatre of the 19th century, led to the development of the fourth wall concept. The metaphor suggests a relationship to the mise-en-scène behind a proscenium, proscenium arch. When a scene is set indoors and three of the walls of its room are presented onstage, in what is known as a Box set (theatre), box set, the fourth of them would run along the line (technically called the proscenium) dividing the room from the auditorium. The ''fourth wall'', though, is a theatrical convention, rather than of set design. The actors ignore the audience, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Movie Projector
A movie projector (or film projector) is an optics, opto-mechanics, mechanical device for displaying Film, motion picture film by projecting it onto a movie screen, screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices, are present in movie cameras. Modern movie projectors are specially built video projectors (see also digital cinema). Many projectors are specific to a particular film gauge and not all movie projectors are film projectors since the use of film is required. Predecessors The main precursor to the movie projector was the magic lantern. In its most common setup it had a concave mirror behind a light source to help direct as much light as possible through a painted glass picture slide and a lens, out of the lantern onto a screen. Simple mechanics to have the painted images moving were probably implemented since Christiaan Huygens introduced the apparatus around 1659. Initially, candles and oil lamps were used, but oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danny Webb (American Actor)
David Weberman, (May 24, 1906 — September 16, 1983) known professionally as Danny Webb, was an American voice actor. Early life Webb was born on May 24, 1906, in New York City to Herman Weberman, a Hungarian Jewish furrier, and Lena (née Rubin) Weberman. Herman left Budapest and moved to the United States in 1887 and worked as a salesman. Career When Webb arrived in Hollywood, he was using the name Dave Weber. He did celebrity impersonations on the Burns & Allen anniversary show along with doing voice work for a Screen Gems cartoon called ''Sing Time'', where he impersonated Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee, Eddie Cantor, Andy Devine and others. He started working for Warner Bros. in the mid-1930s and his first cartoon was ''The Coo-Coo Nut Grove''. He also voiced Egghead in '' Daffy Duck & Egghead'', Elmer Fudd in '' Cinderella Meets Fella'' (1938) and in '' Believe It or Else'' (1939). And Webb also did voices for the 1939 ''Merrie Melodies'' short ''A Day at the Zoo''. Webb, for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackface
Blackface is the practice of performers using burned cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a global perspective that includes European culture and Western colonialism. Blackface became a global phenomenon as an outgrowth of theatrical practices of racial misrepresentation, racial impersonation popular throughout Britain and its colonial empire, where it was integral to the development of imperial racial politics. Scholars with this wider view may date the practice of blackface to as early as Medieval Europe's mystery plays when bitumen and coal were used to darken the skin of white performers portraying demons, devils, and damned souls. Still others date the practice to English Renaissance theatre, English Renaissance theater, in works such as William Shakespeare's ''Othello''. However, some scholars see blackface as a specific pract ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anchors Aweigh
"Anchors Aweigh" is the fight song of the United States Naval Academy and unofficial march song of the United States Navy. It was composed in 1906 by Charles A. Zimmermann with lyrics by Alfred Hart Miles. When he composed "Anchors Aweigh", Zimmermann was a lieutenant and had been bandmaster of the United States Naval Academy Band since 1887. Miles was midshipman first class at the academy, in the class of 1907, and had asked Zimmermann to assist him in composing a song for that class, to be used as a football march. Another academy midshipman, Royal Lovell (class of 1926), later wrote what would be adopted into the song as its third verse. Another member of the Naval Academy Band, Willy Perlitz Jr., assisting in writing the music for the different instruments used in "Anchors Aweigh". Etymology "Weigh anchor" is an old English sailors' expression first referenced in literature in John Dryden's The Tempest, 1670. It is an order that a ship's anchors be raised, To "weigh anch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ink Spots
The Ink Spots were an American vocal pop group who gained international fame in the 1930s and 1940s. Their unique musical style predated the rhythm and blues and rock and roll musical genres, and the subgenre doo-wop. The Ink Spots were widely accepted in both the white and black communities, largely due to the ballad style introduced to the group by lead singer Bill Kenny. In 1989, the Ink Spots (Bill Kenny, Charlie Fuqua, Deek Watson, Jerry Daniels, and Orville Jones) were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1999 they were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. Since the Ink Spots disbanded in 1954, there have been well over a hundred vocal groups calling themselves "The Ink Spots", with and without any original members of the group. It has often been the case that these groups claimed to be "second generation" or "third generation" Ink Spots.Goldberg, Marv (1998). ''More Than Words Can Say: The Ink Spots And Their Music''. Scarecrow Press 1930s Early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmen Miranda
Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha (9 February 1909 – 5 August 1955), known professionally as Carmen Miranda (), was a Portuguese-born Brazilian singer, dancer, and actress. Nicknamed "The Brazilian Bombshell", she was known for her signature fruit hat outfit that she wore in her American films. As a young woman, Miranda designed clothes and hats in a boutique before making her debut as a singer, recording with composer Josué de Barros in 1929. Miranda's 1930 recording of "Taí (Pra Você Gostar de Mim)", written by Joubert de Carvalho, catapulted her to stardom in Brazil as the foremost interpreter of samba. During the 1930s, Miranda performed on Brazilian radio and appeared in five Brazilian ''Cinema of Brazil#1930s and 1940s, chanchadas'', films celebrating Brazilian music, dance and the country's carnival culture. ''Hello, Hello Brazil!'' and ''Hello, Hello, Carnival!'' embodied the spirit of these early Miranda films. The 1939 musical ''Banana da Terra'' (directed by Ruy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Barber Of Seville
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( ) is an ''opera buffa'' (comic opera) in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy '' The Barber of Seville'' (1775). The premiere of Rossini's opera (under the title ''Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione'') took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli. Rossini's ''Barber of Seville'' is considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all "opere buffe". After two centuries, it remains a popular work. Composition history Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro, the barber of the title. Mozart's opera '' The Marriage of Figaro,'' composed 30 years earlier in 178 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. He gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces and some Church music, sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of twelve and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823, he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an alm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
