Henry B. Wonham
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195161946
- eISBN:
- 9780199788101
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161946.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter explores Mark Twain's life-long fascination with ethnic humor and caricature, highlighting the oxymoronic logic involved in his affection for “the genuine nigger show” and other forms of ...
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This chapter explores Mark Twain's life-long fascination with ethnic humor and caricature, highlighting the oxymoronic logic involved in his affection for “the genuine nigger show” and other forms of patently racist entertainment. This book traces the history of minstrel comedy in America and its transformation during the late 19th century into a new set of comedic conventions, including the “coon show” and the “variety show.” The chapter also explores the relationship between Huckleberry Finn's illustrations, which draw heavily on “coon” imagery and the novel's ostensibly “realist” tendencies.Less
This chapter explores Mark Twain's life-long fascination with ethnic humor and caricature, highlighting the oxymoronic logic involved in his affection for “the genuine nigger show” and other forms of patently racist entertainment. This book traces the history of minstrel comedy in America and its transformation during the late 19th century into a new set of comedic conventions, including the “coon show” and the “variety show.” The chapter also explores the relationship between Huckleberry Finn's illustrations, which draw heavily on “coon” imagery and the novel's ostensibly “realist” tendencies.
Charlotte Greenspan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195111101
- eISBN:
- 9780199865703
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195111101.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter focuses on the show business career of Dorothy's father Lew Fields. Fields and childhood friend Joe Weber first developed was a patchwork of entertaining bits—songs, dances, and humor, ...
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This chapter focuses on the show business career of Dorothy's father Lew Fields. Fields and childhood friend Joe Weber first developed was a patchwork of entertaining bits—songs, dances, and humor, both verbal and physical. For five years, until 1889, they moved around the country as members of assorted traveling variety shows. In 1890, when they were twenty-three, Weber and Fields felt ready to produce and manage their own traveling show. By May 1896, Weber and Fields were playing at the Olympia Theater on Broadway between Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Streets. Their success was a reaffirmation of the belief that the team could entertain audiences not only on the Lower East Side where they had spent their childhood or touring across the nation where they had spent much of their adolescence, but also on Broadway.Less
This chapter focuses on the show business career of Dorothy's father Lew Fields. Fields and childhood friend Joe Weber first developed was a patchwork of entertaining bits—songs, dances, and humor, both verbal and physical. For five years, until 1889, they moved around the country as members of assorted traveling variety shows. In 1890, when they were twenty-three, Weber and Fields felt ready to produce and manage their own traveling show. By May 1896, Weber and Fields were playing at the Olympia Theater on Broadway between Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Streets. Their success was a reaffirmation of the belief that the team could entertain audiences not only on the Lower East Side where they had spent their childhood or touring across the nation where they had spent much of their adolescence, but also on Broadway.
Christine E. Evans
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300208481
- eISBN:
- 9780300208962
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300208481.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This chapter examines Central Television's use of holiday programming to evaluate and negotiate audience needs. It first discusses the place of television in the Soviet festive system before ...
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This chapter examines Central Television's use of holiday programming to evaluate and negotiate audience needs. It first discusses the place of television in the Soviet festive system before explaining how holiday variety shows emerged during the 1960s as a solution to the problem of television entertainment amid the state's focus on enlightenment and mobilization. It then considers the variety show Little Blue Flame and its emergence as a modest, flexible form of television festivity based on gift exchange, along with its New Year's broadcasts and how it was affected by the crisis of 1967–1970. It also looks at the creation of a new holiday program entitled Song of the Year in 1970 and how it turned to audience voting and other, more procedural, ways to reflect the musical tastes of Soviet young people in its lineup. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the fragmentation of Central Television's holiday musical programming that began to be reflected in Song of the Year's own broadcasts.Less
This chapter examines Central Television's use of holiday programming to evaluate and negotiate audience needs. It first discusses the place of television in the Soviet festive system before explaining how holiday variety shows emerged during the 1960s as a solution to the problem of television entertainment amid the state's focus on enlightenment and mobilization. It then considers the variety show Little Blue Flame and its emergence as a modest, flexible form of television festivity based on gift exchange, along with its New Year's broadcasts and how it was affected by the crisis of 1967–1970. It also looks at the creation of a new holiday program entitled Song of the Year in 1970 and how it turned to audience voting and other, more procedural, ways to reflect the musical tastes of Soviet young people in its lineup. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the fragmentation of Central Television's holiday musical programming that began to be reflected in Song of the Year's own broadcasts.
Jennifer Fleeger
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199936892
- eISBN:
- 9780199389971
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199936892.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, American
Kate Smith is best known today for popularizing Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”. However, her ability to sell Berlin’s song rested in her radio fame: she hosted her own weekly evening program ...
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Kate Smith is best known today for popularizing Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”. However, her ability to sell Berlin’s song rested in her radio fame: she hosted her own weekly evening program and daily commentary show for decades. In 1950 her television program paved the way for the variety show to be a staple of the medium because it accommodated the viewing habits of the housewife and played on the desires of the amateur in the audience while teaching viewers to appreciate professional entertainment. Moreover, as a mismatched woman, Smith posed no threat to the invasion of the home that could have been associated with television; she was neither mother nor temptress. Smith relied on her professionalism, patriotism, and mismatch to make a tacit argument that television was an ideal medium for representing American talent.Less
Kate Smith is best known today for popularizing Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”. However, her ability to sell Berlin’s song rested in her radio fame: she hosted her own weekly evening program and daily commentary show for decades. In 1950 her television program paved the way for the variety show to be a staple of the medium because it accommodated the viewing habits of the housewife and played on the desires of the amateur in the audience while teaching viewers to appreciate professional entertainment. Moreover, as a mismatched woman, Smith posed no threat to the invasion of the home that could have been associated with television; she was neither mother nor temptress. Smith relied on her professionalism, patriotism, and mismatch to make a tacit argument that television was an ideal medium for representing American talent.
David Monod
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781501702389
- eISBN:
- 9781501703997
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501702389.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter narrates the account of P. T. Barnum, an entrepreneur who harnessed the growing popularity of the theatre to further his business ventures. During his stint at the Vauxhall, Barnum ...
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This chapter narrates the account of P. T. Barnum, an entrepreneur who harnessed the growing popularity of the theatre to further his business ventures. During his stint at the Vauxhall, Barnum noticed that the taste for popular family entertainment of a reasonably respectable kind existed even among members of the artisan class. While pleasure gardens welcomed families, theatres traditionally did not, Barnum recognized the benefits of breaking this tradition. When he learned in 1841 that Scudder's American Museum, on the corner of Broadway and Ann, had been put up for sale, he secured it. Here, in 1841, Barnum began mounting spiritually invigorating dramas and family-oriented minstrel and variety shows.Less
This chapter narrates the account of P. T. Barnum, an entrepreneur who harnessed the growing popularity of the theatre to further his business ventures. During his stint at the Vauxhall, Barnum noticed that the taste for popular family entertainment of a reasonably respectable kind existed even among members of the artisan class. While pleasure gardens welcomed families, theatres traditionally did not, Barnum recognized the benefits of breaking this tradition. When he learned in 1841 that Scudder's American Museum, on the corner of Broadway and Ann, had been put up for sale, he secured it. Here, in 1841, Barnum began mounting spiritually invigorating dramas and family-oriented minstrel and variety shows.
Ross Melnick
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231159050
- eISBN:
- 9780231504256
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231159050.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book analyzes the career of film exhibitor and radio broadcaster, Samuel Lionel “Roxy” Rothafel (1882–1936), between the years 1908 and 1935. It shows how Roxy did not merely project motion ...
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This book analyzes the career of film exhibitor and radio broadcaster, Samuel Lionel “Roxy” Rothafel (1882–1936), between the years 1908 and 1935. It shows how Roxy did not merely project motion pictures to audiences but presented unitary texts that extended well beyond film exhibition and formed the theoretical basis of his work in broadcasting. This intervention in the nascent field of radio and its programmatic forms led to his development of the variety show format, which he pioneered and promoted over the air. The book also examines Roxy' unique role during World War I as both an exhibitor and a producer of pro-war films and stage shows; his position as one of America's most popular and influential interwar broadcasters; his national stardom and its implications for Jewish visibility and assimilation; and his work in converging film, broadcasting, and music publishing and recording.Less
This book analyzes the career of film exhibitor and radio broadcaster, Samuel Lionel “Roxy” Rothafel (1882–1936), between the years 1908 and 1935. It shows how Roxy did not merely project motion pictures to audiences but presented unitary texts that extended well beyond film exhibition and formed the theoretical basis of his work in broadcasting. This intervention in the nascent field of radio and its programmatic forms led to his development of the variety show format, which he pioneered and promoted over the air. The book also examines Roxy' unique role during World War I as both an exhibitor and a producer of pro-war films and stage shows; his position as one of America's most popular and influential interwar broadcasters; his national stardom and its implications for Jewish visibility and assimilation; and his work in converging film, broadcasting, and music publishing and recording.
Holly Van Leuven
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190639044
- eISBN:
- 9780190639075
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190639044.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Ray Bolger: More Than a Scarecrow is the first book-length biography of the American eccentric dancer and popular culture figure, best known for his role in the 1939 film musical The Wizard of Oz. ...
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Ray Bolger: More Than a Scarecrow is the first book-length biography of the American eccentric dancer and popular culture figure, best known for his role in the 1939 film musical The Wizard of Oz. The book traces Bolger’s career from repertory and vaudeville into New York movie houses, Broadway, nightclubs, the major film studios, Las Vegas resorts, and television programs. Bolger’s dance lineage is also traced through eccentric dancers like Fred Stone and “Irish prince” soft-shoe dancers like George Primrose and Jack Donahue. Special attention is given to Bolger’s involvement in the nascent United Service Organizations (USO) Camp Shows, including his participation in the first ever camp show unit, which went to the Caribbean in November 1941, and later the first unit to entertain in the South Pacific. An entire chapter is dedicated to the creation and performance of Where’s Charley?, Bolger’s most important show and the one for which he earned a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. The Where’s Charley? material explores Bolger’s collaboration with his wife, Gwendolyn Rickard Bolger, who became the first female producer of a musical comedy on Broadway with her contributions to the production. Bolger’s later life as a political spokesperson, a television guest star, and a pop culture personality are also explored.Less
Ray Bolger: More Than a Scarecrow is the first book-length biography of the American eccentric dancer and popular culture figure, best known for his role in the 1939 film musical The Wizard of Oz. The book traces Bolger’s career from repertory and vaudeville into New York movie houses, Broadway, nightclubs, the major film studios, Las Vegas resorts, and television programs. Bolger’s dance lineage is also traced through eccentric dancers like Fred Stone and “Irish prince” soft-shoe dancers like George Primrose and Jack Donahue. Special attention is given to Bolger’s involvement in the nascent United Service Organizations (USO) Camp Shows, including his participation in the first ever camp show unit, which went to the Caribbean in November 1941, and later the first unit to entertain in the South Pacific. An entire chapter is dedicated to the creation and performance of Where’s Charley?, Bolger’s most important show and the one for which he earned a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. The Where’s Charley? material explores Bolger’s collaboration with his wife, Gwendolyn Rickard Bolger, who became the first female producer of a musical comedy on Broadway with her contributions to the production. Bolger’s later life as a political spokesperson, a television guest star, and a pop culture personality are also explored.
Nhi T. Lieu
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816665693
- eISBN:
- 9781452946436
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816665693.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
Using research on popular culture of the Vietnamese diaspora, this book explores how people displaced by war reconstruct cultural identity in the aftermath of migration. Embracing American democratic ...
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Using research on popular culture of the Vietnamese diaspora, this book explores how people displaced by war reconstruct cultural identity in the aftermath of migration. Embracing American democratic ideals and consumer capitalism prior to arriving in the United States, postwar Vietnamese refugees endeavored to assimilate and live the American Dream. The text claims that nowhere are these fantasies played out more vividly than in the Vietnamese American entertainment industry. The book examines how live music variety shows and videos, beauty pageants, and websites created by and for Vietnamese Americans contributed to the shaping of their cultural identity. It shows how popular culture forms repositories for conflicting expectations of assimilation, cultural preservation, and invention, alongside gendered and classed dimensions of ethnic and diasporic identity. This text demonstrates how the circulation of images manufactured by both Americans and Vietnamese immigrants serves to produce these immigrants’ paradoxical desires. Within these desires and their representations, the book finds the dramatization of the community’s struggle to define itself against the legacy of the refugee label, a classification that continues to pathologize their experiences in American society.Less
Using research on popular culture of the Vietnamese diaspora, this book explores how people displaced by war reconstruct cultural identity in the aftermath of migration. Embracing American democratic ideals and consumer capitalism prior to arriving in the United States, postwar Vietnamese refugees endeavored to assimilate and live the American Dream. The text claims that nowhere are these fantasies played out more vividly than in the Vietnamese American entertainment industry. The book examines how live music variety shows and videos, beauty pageants, and websites created by and for Vietnamese Americans contributed to the shaping of their cultural identity. It shows how popular culture forms repositories for conflicting expectations of assimilation, cultural preservation, and invention, alongside gendered and classed dimensions of ethnic and diasporic identity. This text demonstrates how the circulation of images manufactured by both Americans and Vietnamese immigrants serves to produce these immigrants’ paradoxical desires. Within these desires and their representations, the book finds the dramatization of the community’s struggle to define itself against the legacy of the refugee label, a classification that continues to pathologize their experiences in American society.
Timothy D. Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226791159
- eISBN:
- 9780226791142
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226791142.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
From the early days of radio through the rise of television after World War II to the present, music has been used more and more often to sell goods and establish brand identities. And since at least ...
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From the early days of radio through the rise of television after World War II to the present, music has been used more and more often to sell goods and establish brand identities. And since at least the 1920s, songs originally written for commercials have become popular songs, and songs written for a popular audience have become irrevocably associated with specific brands and products. Today, musicians move flexibly between the music and advertising worlds, while the line between commercial messages and popular music has become increasingly blurred. This book is the story of this infectious part of our musical culture. It tracks the use of music in American advertising for nearly a century, from variety shows such as The Clicquot Club Eskimos to the rise of the jingle, the postwar rise in consumerism and the more complete fusion of popular music and consumption in the 1980s and after. The author contends that today there is no longer a meaningful distinction to be made between music in advertising and advertising music. To make his case, he draws on rare archival materials, the extensive trade press, and hours of interviews with musicians ranging from Barry Manilow to unknown but unforgettable jingle singers.Less
From the early days of radio through the rise of television after World War II to the present, music has been used more and more often to sell goods and establish brand identities. And since at least the 1920s, songs originally written for commercials have become popular songs, and songs written for a popular audience have become irrevocably associated with specific brands and products. Today, musicians move flexibly between the music and advertising worlds, while the line between commercial messages and popular music has become increasingly blurred. This book is the story of this infectious part of our musical culture. It tracks the use of music in American advertising for nearly a century, from variety shows such as The Clicquot Club Eskimos to the rise of the jingle, the postwar rise in consumerism and the more complete fusion of popular music and consumption in the 1980s and after. The author contends that today there is no longer a meaningful distinction to be made between music in advertising and advertising music. To make his case, he draws on rare archival materials, the extensive trade press, and hours of interviews with musicians ranging from Barry Manilow to unknown but unforgettable jingle singers.
Simon Dickie
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226146188
- eISBN:
- 9780226146201
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226146201.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
Eighteenth-century British culture is often seen as polite and sentimental—the creation of an emerging middle class. This book disputes these assumptions, plunging into the forgotten comic literature ...
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Eighteenth-century British culture is often seen as polite and sentimental—the creation of an emerging middle class. This book disputes these assumptions, plunging into the forgotten comic literature of the age. Beneath the surface of Enlightenment civility, it uncovers a rich vein of cruel humor that forces us to recognize just how slowly ordinary human sufferings became worthy of sympathy. Delving into an enormous archive of comic novels, jestbooks, farces, variety shows, and cartoons, the author finds a vast repository of jokes about cripples, blind men, rape, and wife-beating. Epigrams about syphilis and scurvy sit alongside one-act comedies about hunchbacks in love. The author shows us that everyone—rich and poor, women as well as men—laughed along. In the process, he also expands our understanding of many of the century’s major authors, including Samuel Richardson, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Tobias Smollett, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen. The author devotes particular attention to Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, a novel that reflects repeatedly on the limits of compassion and the ethical problems of laughter. The book is a far-reaching study of the other side of culture in eighteenth-century Britain.Less
Eighteenth-century British culture is often seen as polite and sentimental—the creation of an emerging middle class. This book disputes these assumptions, plunging into the forgotten comic literature of the age. Beneath the surface of Enlightenment civility, it uncovers a rich vein of cruel humor that forces us to recognize just how slowly ordinary human sufferings became worthy of sympathy. Delving into an enormous archive of comic novels, jestbooks, farces, variety shows, and cartoons, the author finds a vast repository of jokes about cripples, blind men, rape, and wife-beating. Epigrams about syphilis and scurvy sit alongside one-act comedies about hunchbacks in love. The author shows us that everyone—rich and poor, women as well as men—laughed along. In the process, he also expands our understanding of many of the century’s major authors, including Samuel Richardson, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Tobias Smollett, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen. The author devotes particular attention to Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, a novel that reflects repeatedly on the limits of compassion and the ethical problems of laughter. The book is a far-reaching study of the other side of culture in eighteenth-century Britain.
