The Russ Abbot Show
''The Russ Abbot Show'' is a British television sketch comedy series which in 1980 onwards stars Russ Abbot and ran for 17 years on television before moving over to Radio 2 for a further five years. History The series originated as ''The Freddie Starr Variety Madhouse''; with Russ Abbot, Mike Newman, Toni Palmer, Norman Collier and Bella Emberg. After one series in 1979, Freddie Starr left and the show was repackaged as ''Russ Abbot's Madhouse'' premiering on 12 April 1980, with Liz Smith, Dustin Gee, Nicky Croydon and Billy Hartman joining the cast. From the 1981 series there was a major cast upheaval, with many of the cast being replaced, with the new lineup being Dustin Gee, Bella Emberg, Susie Blake, Sherrie Hewson, Jeffrey Holland, Patti Gold, and Michael Barrymore. Les Dennis joined in Series 3 and Michael Barrymore left in Series 4. In 1986 the series was transferred over to the BBC, where it was renamed ''The Russ Abbot Show'', and featured Dennis, Emberg, Hewson ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Freddie Starr
Freddie Starr (born Frederick Leslie Fowell; 9 January 1943 – 9 May 2019) was an English stand up comedian, impressionist, singer and actor. Starr was the lead singer of Merseybeat rock and roll group the Midniters during the early 1960s, and came to prominence in the early 1970s after appearing on '' Opportunity Knocks'' and the Royal Variety Performance. In the 1990s, he starred in several television shows, including ''Freddie Starr'' (1993–1994), ''The Freddie Starr Show ''(1996–1998) and two episodes of '' An Audience with...'' in 1996 and 1997. In 1999, he presented the game show ''Beat the Crusher''. Early life Starr was born in Ulster Road, Liverpool, (from his autobiography) England. At the age of four, he moved with his family to Huyton. One of seven children, Starr was the son of a bricklayer, who was often unemployed. According to Starr, his mother Hilda (''née'' Feihnen) was from Germany and was Jewish. A twin brother died at birth. When his father, who wa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paul Shearer
Paul Shearer is an English actor, best known for his roles in ''The Fast Show'' and '' The Russ Abbot Show''. Together with Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, and Hugh Laurie, Shearer was a member of the Cambridge University's Footlights ensemble which won the first ever Perrier Comedy Award in 1981. , Shearer works as a property journalist. Personal life and education Shearer attended Lancing College between 1973 and 1978. He graduated from St John's College, Cambridge in 1981 with a degree in computer science. After graduating he lived in a flat with Peter Cook and Hugh Laurie. He married actor Vicky Licorish in 1994. On 30 October 2024, their 25-year-old child Cal Shearer, who was transgender, non-binary and autistic, was found dead in their dorm room at St John's College, Oxford, in an apparent suicide by hanging. Footlights On the Footlight committee, Shearer held the position of "Club Falconer", which, according to Fry, "went back to the days when the Footlights were quartered in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1990s British Television Sketch Shows
Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 ''Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Mesopotamia is partitioned into two Roman provinces divided by the Euphrates, Mesopotamia and Osroene. * Emperor Septimius Severus lays siege to the city-state Hatra in Central-Mesopotamia, but fails to capture the city despite breaching the walls. * Two new legions, I Parthica and III Parthica, are formed as a permanent garrison. China * Battle of Yijing: Chinese warlord Yuan Shao defeats Gongsun Zan. Korea * Geodeung succeeds Suro of Geumgwan Gaya, as king of the Korean kingdom of Gaya (traditional date). By topic Religion * Pope Zephyrinus succeeds Pope Victor I, as the 15th pope. Births Valerian Roman ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1980s British Television Sketch Shows
__NOTOC__ Year 198 (CXCVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sergius and Gallus (or, less frequently, year 951 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 198 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire *January 28 **Publius Septimius Geta, son of Septimius Severus, receives the title of Caesar. **Caracalla, son of Septimius Severus, is given the title of Augustus. China *Winter – Battle of Xiapi The Battle of Xiapi was fought between the forces of Lü Bu against the allied armies of Cao Cao and Liu Bei from the winter of 198 to 7 February 199 towards the end of the Eastern Han dynasty in China. The battle concluded with victory for C ...: The allied armies led by Cao Cao and Liu Bei defeat Lü Bu; afterward Cao Cao has him executed. By ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1970s British Television Sketch Shows
Year 197 ( CXCVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Magius and Rufinus (or, less frequently, year 950 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 197 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * February 19 – Battle of Lugdunum: Emperor Septimius Severus defeats the self-proclaimed emperor Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum (modern Lyon). Albinus commits suicide; legionaries sack the town. * Septimius Severus returns to Rome and has about 30 of Albinus's supporters in the Senate executed. After his victory he declares himself the adopted son of the late Marcus Aurelius. * Septimius Severus forms new naval units, manning all the triremes in Italy with heavily armed troops for war in the East. His soldiers embark on an artificial canal between the Tigris a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1996 British Television Series Endings
1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kinshasa, killing around 300 people. * January 9– 20 – Serious fighting breaks out between Russian soldiers and rebel fighters in Chechnya. * January 11 – Ryutaro Hashimoto, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, becomes Prime Minister of Japan. * January 13 – Italy's Prime Minister, Lamberto Dini, resigns after the failure of all-party talks to confirm him. New talks are initiated by President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro to form a new government. * January 14 – Jorge Sampaio is elected President of Portugal. * January 16 – President of Sierra Leone Valentine Strasser is deposed by the chief of defence, Julius Maada Bio. Bio promises to restore power following elections scheduled for February. * January 19 ** T ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1979 British Television Series Debuts
Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ''Chiquitita'' to commemorate the event. ** In 1979, the United States officially severed diplomatic ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan). This decision marked a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy, turning to view the People's Republic of China as the sole legitimate representative of China. ** The United States and the People's Republic of China establish full Sino-American relations, diplomatic relations. ** Following a deal agreed during 1978, France, French carmaker Peugeot completes a takeover of American manufacturer Chrysler's Chrysler Europe, European operations, which are based in United Kingdom, Britain's former Rootes Group factories, as well as the former Simca factories in France. * January 6 – Geylang Bahru family ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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IMDb
IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biographies, plot summaries, trivia, ratings, and fan and critical reviews. IMDb began as a fan-operated movie database on the Usenet group "rec.arts.movies" in 1990, and moved to the Web in 1993. Since 1998, it has been owned and operated by IMDb.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon. The site's message boards were disabled in February 2017. , IMDb was the 51st most visited website on the Internet, as ranked by Semrush. the database contained some million titles (including television episodes), million person records, and 83 million registered users. Features User profile pages show a user's registration date and, optionally, their personal ratings of titles. Since 2015, "badges" can be added showing a count of contributions. These badges rang ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stop Motion
Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back. Any kind of object can thus be animated, but puppets with movable joints (puppet animation) or clay figures (claymation) are most commonly used. Puppets, models or clay figures built around an armature are used in model animation. Stop motion with live actors is often referred to as pixilation. Stop motion of flat materials such as paper, fabrics or photographs is usually called cutout animation. Terminology The term "stop-motion", relating to the animation technique, is often spelled without a hyphen as "stop motion"—either standalone or as a compound modifier. Both orthographic variants, with and without the hyphen, are correct, but the hyphenated one is th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Comic Strip
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Caption, captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal Daily comic strip, strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday newspaper, Sunday papers offered longer sequences in Sunday comics, special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics. Most strips are written and drawn by a comics artist, known as a cartoonist. As the word "comic" implies, strips are frequently humorous. Examples of these gag-a-day strips are ''Blondie (comic strip), Blondie'', ''Bringing Up Father'', ''Marmaduke'', and ''Pearls Before Swine (comic strip), Pearls Before Swine''. In the late 1920s, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Superman
Superman is a superhero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, which first appeared in the comic book ''Action Comics'' Action Comics 1, #1, published in the United States on April 18, 1938.The copyright date of ''Action Comics'' Action Comics 1, #1 was registered as April 18, 1938. See Superman has been regularly published in American comic books since 1938, and has been adapted to other media including radio serials, novels, films, television shows, theater, and video games. Superman was born Kal-El, on the fictional planet Krypton (comics), Krypton. As a baby, his parents Jor-El and Lara (character), Lara sent him to Earth in a small spaceship shortly before Krypton was destroyed in a natural cataclysm. His ship landed in the American countryside near the fictional town of Smallville (comics), Smallville, Kansas. He was found and adopted by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, who named him Clark Kent. Clark began developing Superpower (ability), superhuman abi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tommy Cooper
Thomas Frederick Cooper (19 March 1921 – 15 April 1984) was a Welsh prop comedian and magician. As an entertainer, his appearance was large and lumbering at , and he habitually wore a red fez when performing. He served in the British Army for seven years before developing his conjuring skills and becoming a member of The Magic Circle. Although he spent time on tour performing his magical act, which specialised in magic tricks that appeared to fail, he rose to international prominence when his career moved into television, with programmes for London Weekend Television and Thames Television. By the end of the 1970s, Cooper was smoking and drinking heavily, which affected his career and his health, effectively ending offers to front new programmes and relegating him to performing as a guest star on other entertainment shows. On 15 April 1984, Cooper died at the age of 63 after suffering a heart attack on live television. Early life Thomas Frederick Cooper was born on 19 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |