W. Watts Biggers
William Watts "Buck" Biggers (June 2, 1927 – February 10, 2013) was an American novelist and co-creator of the long-running animated television series ''Underdog''. Early life Born in Avondale Estates, Georgia, Biggers went to Avondale High where he was member of a debating team which won the state championship. Skipping his senior year of high school, he edited the school newspaper at North Georgia Military College and went on to Emory University Law School. At age 20, he headed for New York City where he struggled unsuccessfully as a pianist and vocalist, singing his own original songs. At the advertising agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, he began as a mailroom trainee and rose to the position of VP Account Supervisor on General Mills and Corn Products/Best Foods accounts, handling millions in billing. Animation At Dancer Fitzgerald Sample in 1960, Biggers teamed with Chester Stover, Treadwell D. Covington and artist Joseph Harris to create TV animation in formats devised t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jim McDermott (illustrator)
Jim McDermott (June 24, 1960 in Lowell, Massachusetts) is a New Hampshire-based artist who has illustrated for animation, magazines and comic books. After graduating in 1982 from Boston's New England School of Art and Design (now part of Suffolk University), McDermott headed west, where he held a position as the staff illustrator for a publishing firm before entering the animation industry. For Columbia Pictures Television/DiC Entertainment's animated ''The Real Ghostbusters'' (1986–91), McDermott created concept drawings and designed characters, props and backgrounds. Leaving California after a decade, he did freelance work in Texas before returning to New England in 1993. When the rates of famed caricaturist Bruce Stark became so high that Salem Sportswear (Hudson, New Hampshire) could no longer afford his illustrations for T-shirt designs, the company hired McDermott as a replacement, viewing him as the only illustrator capable of doing artwork similar to Stark and Jack D ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Go Go Gophers
''Go Go Gophers'' is an animated series set in the Old West that appears as a 4-5 minute long segment within 48 episodes of the ''Underdog'' TV series. It was then spun off as a separate series on CBS that aired from September 14, 1968 to September 6, 1969. However, the episodes were just repeats of the 48 segments that aired on the ''Underdog'' series. The show also shared with '' Space Kidettes'' on Saturday morning television in 1967. The show was produced by Total Television. The show was unusual for Old West-themed series, in that the Native American characters always beat the cowboys. Plot The series is set in the late 19th century, as well as the early 20th century, in the American West. There the coyote leaders of a local United States Army fort, one Colonel Kit Coyote (voiced by Kenny Delmar impersonating Theodore Roosevelt) whose name is an obvious parody of Kit Carson, and his right-hand man Sergeant Okey Homa (voiced by Sandy Becker impersonating John Wayne) who is r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of social alienation, alienation, existential anxiety, guilt (emotion), guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include the short story "The Metamorphosis" and novels ''The Trial'' and ''The Castle (novel), The Castle''. The term '':en:wikt:Kafkaesque, Kafkaesque'' has entered English to describe absurd situations, like those depicted in his writing. Kafka was born into a middle-class German-speaking History of the Jews in the Czech lands, Czech Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today the capit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Horatio Alger, Jr
Horatio is an English male given name, an Italianized form of the ancient Roman Latin '' nomen'' (name) ''Horatius'', from the Roman ''gens'' (clan) '' Horatia''. The modern Italian form is '' Orazio'', the modern Spanish form '' Horacio''. It appears to have been first used in England in 1565, in the Tudor era during which the Italian Renaissance movement had started to influence English culture. History Horatio de Vere, 1st Baron Vere of Tilbury (1565–1635), an English military leader, was one of the earliest English holders of the name, born 34 years before Shakespeare invented the character Horatio in his 1599/1601 play ''Hamlet''. He was a grandfather of Horatio Townshend, 1st Viscount Townshend (1630–1687), whose son Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend (a ward of Col. Robert Walpole (1650–1700) of Houghton Hall in Norfolk) married Dorothy Walpole, one of the latter's daughters and a sister of Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole (1678–1757) (and of Robert W ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Steppenwolf (novel)
''Steppenwolf'' (originally ) is the tenth novel by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse. Originally published in Germany in 1927, it was first translated into English in 1929. The novel was named after the German name for the steppe wolf. The story in large part reflects a profound crisis in Hesse's spiritual world during the 1920s. ''Steppenwolf'' was wildly popular and has been a perpetual success across the decades, but Hesse later asserted that the book was largely misunderstood. Background and publication history In 1924, Hermann Hesse married singer Ruth Wenger. After several weeks, however, he left Basel, only returning near the end of the year. Upon his return, he rented a separate apartment, adding to his isolation. After a short trip to Germany with Wenger, Hesse stopped seeing her almost completely. The resulting feeling of isolation and inability to make lasting contact with the outside world led to increasing despair and the return of Hesse's suicidal thoughts. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hermann Hesse
Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include ''Demian'', '' Steppenwolf'', '' Siddhartha'', and '' The Glass Bead Game'', each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Life and work Family background Hermann Karl Hesse was born on 2 July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw in Württemberg, German Empire. His grandparents served in India at a mission under the auspices of the Basel Mission, a Protestant Christian missionary society. His grandfather Hermann Gundert compiled a Malayalam grammar and a Malayalam-English dictionary, and also contributed to a translation of the Bible into Malayalam in South India. Hesse's mother, Marie Gundert, was born at such a mission in South India in 1842. In describing her own childhood, she said, "A happy child I was not..." As was usual among mi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alan Watts
Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, England, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. He received a master's degree in theology from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary and became an Episcopal priest in 1945. He left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies. Watts gained a following while working as a volunteer programmer at the KPFA radio station in Berkeley. He wrote more than 25 books and articles on religion and philosophy, introducing the emerging hippie counterculture to ''The Way of Zen'' (1957), one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism. In ''Psychotherapy East and West'' (1961), he argued that ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Higher Consciousness
Higher consciousness is the consciousness of God or, in the words of Dawn DeVries, "the part of the human mind that is capable of transcending animal instincts". While the concept has ancient roots, it was significantly developed in German idealism, and is a central notion in contemporary popular spirituality, including the New Age movement. Philosophy Fichte Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) was one of the founding figures of German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant. His philosophy forms a bridge between the ideas of Kant and those of the German idealist Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Fichte distinguished the finite or empirical ego from the pure or infinite ego. The activity of this "pure ego" can be discovered by a "higher intuition". According to Michael Whiteman, Fichte's philosophical system "is a remarkable western formulation of eastern mystical teachings (of Advaita)." Schopenhauer In 1812, Arthur Schopenhauer sta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Man Inside (novel)
''The Man Inside'' is a dream-like allegorical novel by W. Watts Biggers, published in 1968 by Ballantine Books as a paperback original. At the time, because of the author's name and the tale of a quest for higher consciousness, some readers believed the novel had been written under a pseudonym by Alan Watts. Along with a description of the characters, the story was only briefly described on the back cover as "Strange, hallucinatory, following its own inner logic down unexpected paths, ''The Man Inside'' is a novel of startling originality, a journey towards wisdom--like Hermann Hesse's '' Steppenwolf''--that culminates in revelation." However, the opening page blurb elaborated; :''The Man Inside'' is a novel of startling originality. It could be read as a parody of the Horatio Alger Horatio Alger Jr. (; January 13, 1832 – July 18, 1899) was an American author who wrote young adult novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-cla ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's original logo was a pair of mirrored letter Bs back to back, while its current logo is two Bs stacked to form an elaborate gate. The firm's early editors were Stanley Kauffmann and Bernard Shir-Cliff. History Following Fawcett Publications' controversial 1950 introduction of Gold Medal paperback originals rather than reprints, Lion Books, Avon and Ace also decided to publish originals. In 1952, Ian Ballantine, a founder of Bantam Books, announced that he would "offer trade publishers a plan for simultaneous publishing of original titles in two editions, a hardcover 'regular' edition for bookstore sale, and a paper-cover, 'newsstand' size, low-priced edition for mass market sale." When the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Little Golden Books
Little Golden Books is a series of children's books, published since 1942. '' The Poky Little Puppy'', the eighth release in the series, is the top-selling children's book of all time in the United States.. Many other Little Golden Books have become bestsellers, including ''Tootle'', '' Scuffy the Tugboat'', ''The Little Red Hen'', and ''Doctor Dan the Bandage Man''. Several of its illustrators later became influential within the children's book industry, including Corinne Malvern, Tibor Gergely, Gustaf Tenggren, Feodor Rojankovsky, Richard Scarry, Eloise Wilkin, and Garth Williams. Many books in the Little Golden Books series deal with nature, science, Bible stories, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales. Christmas titles are published every year. Some Little Golden Books and related products have featured popular characters from other media, such as ''Disney, ''Looney Tunes'', ''The Muppets'', ''Sesame Street'', ''Sonic the Hedgehog'', ''Barbie'', ''Power Rangers'', Thom ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels (born Lorne David Lipowitz; November 17, 1944) is a Canadian-American producer, screenwriter, and comedian. He is best known for creating and producing ''Saturday Night Live'' (1975–1980, 1985–present) and producing the '' Late Night'' series (since 1993), '' The Kids in the Hall'' (from 1989 to 1995) and ''The Tonight Show'' (since 2014). He has received 21 Primetime Emmy Awards from 98 nominations, holding the record for being the most nominated individual in the award show's history. Early life Lorne Michaels was born on November 17, 1944, to Florence (née Becker) and Henry Abraham Lipowitz. His place of birth is disputed; multiple sources have said he was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, while others state he was born on a kibbutz in the then British mandate of Palestine (now Israel) and that his Jewish family immigrated to Toronto when he was an infant. Michaels and his two younger siblings were raised in Toronto; he attended Forest Hill Collegiate ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |