Posts Tagged ‘history of television’
P-ewww…
Did you know that 33 percent of puppies never get hugged?
Or that the top baby names for 2011 were Edward, Harry, Dylan, Chase and Sealteamsix?
If you do, chances are you are one of the more than 13,800 people following @fakepewresearch, a hilarious new parody Twitter account from the minds behind @fakeapstylebook. The account parodies the Pew Research Center, a think tank established in 2004 as a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, known for its public opinion polls and social science research.
In the increasingly popular parody-account community, @fakepewresearch and @fakeapstylebook are anomalies. Not only have they amassed more than 260,000 followers combined, they are managed by a 15-person team called the Bureau Chiefs. They are a group of volunteer journalists, advertising writers, and librarians who mull over and edit every tweet before sending it out to the world. (All have other day jobs.)…
Read the full profile at Daily Dot. Check out the feed at #fakepewresearch (from whence, the examples above). And visit The Bureau Chiefs here…
As we distill our results to 140 characters, we might recall that it was on this date in 1948 that Community Antenna Television (CATV)– what grew up to become cable television– was born, when Leroy “Ed” Parsons, who sold electronics and ran a radio station in Astoria, Oregon treated his family to KRSC’s inaugural TV broadcast from 150 miles away in Seattle. He picked up a usable signal with a large antenna on the roof of the John Jacob Astor Hotel, and strung a coaxial cable across the street to his living room. Encouraged, he placed a TV in the hotel lobby and another in a nearby store window. As others in town asked for the same service, Parsons helped them hook into a system using a community antenna on Coxcomb Hill completed Feb 1949. He moved to Alaska in 1953, and by 1967 had installed the state’s first cable system in Barrow. From Parsons’ wire to The Wire in under 60 years…
Here we are now, entertain us…
Hannah and her patron (source)
Readers may have encountered the storm that’s arisen online over the release of a video of Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana in a Quito concert covering Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It is, in fact, execrable. But then, in fairness to Ms. Montana, so are many of the attempts to capture Kurt Cobain’s lightning in a different bottle… as is amply (if not indeed painfully) demonstrated in Flavorwire’s “10 ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ Covers That Are Worse Than Miley’s.”
From the louche stylings of Paul Anka and Michael Bublé, through folk, a cappella, pop, R&B, even classical, to a stunningly-bad rendition by Limp Bizkit, there is video evidence for review. But lest readers click away with bad tastes in their mouths, the good folks at Flavorwire conclude with “Nyevana”‘s delightful “Smells Like Air Pressure.”
(Readers may recall that RD has visited “Smells Like Teen Spirit” before– in what may be the strangest mash-up ever… some songs are just so good that no one can leave them alone… Your correspondent’s own favorite cover: by the always-astounding Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.)
As we promise to pay our exemplars more respect, we might recall that it was on this date in 1660 that Isaack B. Fubine of the Hague patented macaroni… and thus made possible, on this date in 1947, the launch of the first-ever weekly TV series – “Kraft Television Theater.”
A rose by any other name…
Business Insider reports:
We’re now exporting Jersey Shore to Japan.
Because the average Japanese viewer has no clue about U.S. geography, MTV re-titled it Macaroni Rascals.
If that isn’t offensive enough, the translation Macaroni Rascals is actually the polite translation. The real translation is closer to Macaroni Assholes.
Jersey Shore is only the latest popular American show or movie that’s title is hilariously lost in translation.
For example, the film released in China as Six Naked Pigs…
… is better known in Anglo-Saxon climes by it’s original title, The Full Monty:
More “Exported American TV Shows And Movies With Titles Hilariously Lost In Translation” here.
As we marvel that any cross-cultural communications occurs at all, we might recall that it was on this dat ein 1929 that Vladimir Zworykin, inventor, engineer, and pioneer of television technology, demonstrated the “kinescope,” the first practical television receiver. Two days later Zworykin, who was at Westinghouse at the time, presented his work in a paper at a convention of the Institute of Radio Engineers, which brought him to the attention of David Sarnoff, who eventually hired him and put him in charge of television development for RCA at their newly established laboratories in Camden, New Jersey. Zworykin went on to be a leader in the practical development of television; and helped create charge storage tubes, infrared image tubes and the electron microscope.
Zworykin demonstrating the kinecope in 1929 (source)
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