title: Billy Graham

text: Graham then enrolled in Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. During his time there, he decided to accept the Bible as the infallible word of God. Henrietta Mears of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood in California was instrumental in helping Graham wrestle with the issue. He settled it at Forest Home Christian Camp (now called Forest Home Ministries) southeast of the Big Bear Lake area in southern California. While attending Wheaton, Graham was invited to preach one Sunday in 1941 at the United Gospel Tabernacle church. After that, the congregation repeatedly asked Graham preach at their church and later asked him to become the pastor of their church. After Graham prayed and sought advice from his friend, Dr. Edman, Graham become the pastor of their church.


title: Billy Graham

text: In June 1943, Graham graduated from Wheaton College with a degree in anthropology. That same year, Robert Van Kampen, treasurer of the National Gideon Association, invited Graham to preach at Western Springs Baptist Church, and Graham accepted the opportunity on the spot. While there, his friend Torrey Johnson, pastor of the Midwest Bible Church in Chicago, told Graham that his radio program, "Songs in the Night", was about to be canceled due to lack of funding. Consulting with the members of his church in Western Springs, Graham decided to take over Johnson's program with financial support from his congregation. Launching the new radio program on January 2, 1944, still called "Songs in the Night", Graham recruited the bass-baritone George Beverly Shea as his director of radio ministry.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1948, in a Modesto, California, hotel room, Graham and his evangelistic team established the Modesto Manifesto – a code of ethics for life and work to protect against accusations of financial, sexual, and power abuse. The code includes rules for collecting offerings in churches, working only with churches supportive of cooperative evangelism, using official crowd estimates at outdoor events, and a commitment to never be alone with a woman other than his wife (which become known as the "Billy Graham rule").


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham was 29 when he became president of Northwestern Bible College in Minneapolis in 1948. He was the youngest president of a college or university in the country, and held the position for four years before he resigned in 1952. Graham initially intended to become a chaplain in the Armed Forces, but he contracted mumps shortly after applying for a commission. After a period of recuperation in Florida, he was hired as the first full-time evangelist of the new Youth for Christ (YFC), co-founded by Torrey Johnson and the Canadian evangelist Charles Templeton. Graham traveled throughout both the United States and Europe as a YFCI evangelist. Templeton applied to Princeton Theological Seminary for an advanced theological degree and urged Graham to do so as well, but he declined as he was already serving as the president of Northwestern Bible College.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1949, Graham scheduled a series of revival meetings in Los Angeles, for which he erected circus tents in a parking lot. He attracted national media coverage, especially in the conservative Hearst chain of newspapers, although Hearst and Graham never met. The crusade event ran for eight weeks – five weeks longer than planned. Graham became a national figure with heavy coverage from the wire services and national magazines. Pianist Rudy Atwood, who played for the tent meetings, wrote that they "rocketed Billy Graham into national prominence, and resulted in the conversion of a number of show-business personalities".


title: Billy Graham

text: From the time his ministry began in 1947, Graham conducted more than 400 crusades in 185 countries and territories on six continents. The first Billy Graham Crusade, held September 13–21, 1947 at the Civic Auditorium in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was attended by 6,000 people. Graham was 28 years old and would rent a large venue, such as a stadium, park, or street. As the sessions became larger, he arranged a group of up to 5,000 people to sing in a choir. He would preach the gospel and invite people to come forward (a practice begun by Dwight L. Moody). Such people were called inquirers and were given the chance to speak one-on-one with a counselor to clarify questions and pray together. The inquirers were often given a copy of the Gospel of John or a Bible study booklet. At a 1973 rally attended by 100,000 in Durban, South Africa, that was the first large mixed-race event in apartheid South Africa, he stated that "apartheid is a sin". In Moscow in 1992, one-quarter of the 155,000 people in Graham's audience went forward at his call. During his crusades, he frequently used the altar call song, "Just As I Am".


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham was offered a five-year, $1 million contract from NBC to appear on television opposite Arthur Godfrey, but he had prior commitments. He turned down the offer in order to continue his touring revivals. Graham had crusades in London (which lasted 12 weeks), and a New York City crusade in Madison Square Garden in 1957, which ran nightly for 16 weeks.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham spoke at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Urbana Student Missions Conference at least nine times – in 1948, 1957, 1961, 1964, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1984, and 1987.


title: Billy Graham

text: At each Urbana conference, he challenged the thousands of attendees to make a commitment to follow Jesus Christ for the rest of their lives. He often quoted a six-word phrase that was reportedly written in the Bible of William Whiting Borden, the son of a wealthy silver magnate: "No reserves, no retreat, no regrets". Borden had died in Egypt on his way to the mission field.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham also held evangelistic meetings on a number of college campuses: at the University of Minnesota during InterVarsity's "Year of Evangelism" in 1950–51, a 4-day mission at Yale University in 1957, and a week-long series of meetings at the University of North Carolina's Carmichael Auditorium in September 1982.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1955, he was invited by Cambridge University students to lead the mission at the university; the mission was arranged by the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, with London pastor-theologian John Stott serving as Graham's chief assistant. This invitation was greeted with much disapproval in the correspondence columns of "The Times".


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1950, Graham founded the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) with its headquarters in Minneapolis. The association relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1999, and maintains a number of international offices, such as in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires. BGEA ministries have included:


title: Billy Graham

text: In April 2013, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association started "My Hope With Billy Graham", the largest outreach in its history. It encouraged church members to spread the gospel in small group meetings, after showing a video message by Graham. "The idea is for Christians to follow the example of the disciple Matthew in the New Testament and spread the gospel in their own homes." "The Cross" video is the main program in the My Hope America series, and was also broadcast the week of Graham's 95th birthday.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham's early crusades were segregated, but he began adjusting his approach in the 1950s. During a 1953 rally in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Graham tore down the ropes that organizers had erected in order to segregate the audience into racial sections. In his memoirs, he recounted that he told two ushers to leave the barriers down "or you can go on and have the revival without me." He warned a white audience, "We have been proud and thought we were better than any other race, any other people. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to stumble into hell because of our pride."


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1957, Graham's stance towards integration became more publicly shown when he allowed black ministers Thomas Kilgore and Gardner C. Taylor to serve as members of his New York Crusade's executive committee. He also invited Martin Luther King Jr., whom he first met during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, to join him in the pulpit at his 16-week revival in New York City, where 2.3 million gathered at Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium, and Times Square to hear them. Graham recalled in his autobiography that during this time, he and King developed a close friendship and that he was eventually one of the few people who referred to King as "Mike", a nickname which King asked only his closest friends to call him. Following King's assassination in 1968, Graham mourned that the US had lost "a social leader and a prophet". In private, Graham advised King and other members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).


title: Billy Graham

text: Despite their friendship, tensions between Graham and King emerged in 1958, when the sponsoring committee of a crusade that took place in San Antonio, Texas, on July 25 arranged for Graham to be introduced by that state's segregationist governor, Price Daniel. On July 23, King sent a letter to Graham and informed him that allowing Daniel to speak at a crusade which occurred the night before the state's Democratic Primary "can well be interpreted as your endorsement of racial segregation and discrimination." Graham's advisor, Grady Wilson, replied to King that "even though we do not see eye to eye with him on every issue, we still love him in Christ." Though Graham's appearance with Daniel dashed King's hopes of holding joint crusades with Graham in the Deep South, the two still remained friends and King told a Canadian television audience the following year that Graham had taken a "very strong stance against segregation." Graham and King would also come to differ on the Vietnam War. After King's "" speech denouncing US intervention in Vietnam, Graham castigated him and others for their criticism of US foreign policy.


title: Billy Graham

text: By the middle of 1960, King and Graham traveled together to the Tenth Baptist World Congress of the Baptist World Alliance. In 1963, Graham posted bail for King to be released from jail during the Birmingham (Alabama) campaign, according to Michael Long, and the King Center acknowledged that Graham had bailed King out of jail during the Albany Movement, although historian Steven Miller told CNN he could not find any proof of the incident. Graham held integrated crusades in Birmingham on Easter of 1964, in the aftermath of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and toured Alabama again in the wake of the violence that accompanied the first Selma to Montgomery march in 1965.


title: Billy Graham

text: Following Graham's death, former SCLC official and future Atlanta politician Andrew Young (who spoke alongside Coretta Scott King at Graham's 1994 crusade in Atlanta), acknowledged his friendship with Graham and stated that Graham did in fact travel with King to the 1965 European Baptist Convention. Young also claimed that Graham had often invited King to his crusades in the Northern states. Former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) leader and future United States Congressman John Lewis also credited Graham as a major inspiration for his activism. Lewis described Graham as a "saint" and someone who "taught us how to live and who taught us how to die".


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham's faith prompted his maturing view of race and segregation. He told a member of the Ku Klux Klan that integration was necessary, primarily for religious reasons. "There is no scriptural basis for segregation," Graham argued. "The ground at the foot of the cross is level, and it touches my heart when I see whites standing shoulder to shoulder with blacks at the cross."


title: Billy Graham

text: The friendship between Graham and John Stott led to a further partnership in the Lausanne Movement, of which Graham was a founder. It built on Graham's 1966 World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin. In collaboration with "Christianity Today", Graham convened what "Time" magazine described as "a formidable forum, possibly the widest–ranging meeting of Christians ever held" with 2,700 participants from 150 nations gathering for the International Congress on World Evangelization. Women were represented by Millie Dienert, who chaired the prayer committee. This took place in Lausanne, Switzerland (July 16–25, 1974), and the movement which ensued took its name from the host city. Its purpose was to strengthen the global church for world evangelization, and to engage ideological and sociological trends which bore on this. Graham invited Stott to be chief architect of the Lausanne Covenant, which issued from the Congress and which, according to Graham: "helped challenge and unite evangelical Christians in the great task of world evangelization." The movement remains a significant fruit of Graham's legacy, with a presence in nearly every nation.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham played multiple roles that reinforced each other. Grant Wacker identified eight major roles that he played: preacher, icon, Southerner, entrepreneur, architect (bridge builder), pilgrim, pastor, and his widely recognized status as America's Protestant patriarch, which was on a par with Martin Luther King and Pope John Paul II.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham deliberately reached into the secular world as a bridge builder. For example, as an entrepreneur he built his own pavilion for the 1964 New York World's Fair. He appeared as a guest on a 1969 Woody Allen television special, in which he joined the comedian in a witty exchange on theological matters. During the Cold War, Graham became the first evangelist of note to speak behind the Iron Curtain, addressing large crowds in countries throughout Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, calling for peace. During the apartheid era, Graham consistently refused to visit South Africa until its government allowed integrated seating for audiences. During his first crusade there in 1973, he openly denounced apartheid. Graham also corresponded with imprisoned South African leader Nelson Mandela during the latter's 27-year imprisonment.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1984, he led a series of summer meetings—Mission England—in the United Kingdom, and he used outdoor football (soccer) fields for his venues.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham was interested in fostering evangelism around the world. In 1983, 1986 and 2000 he sponsored, organized and paid for massive training conferences for Christian evangelists; this was, at the time, the largest representation of nations ever held. Over 157 nations were gathered in 2000 at the RAI Convention Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. At one revival in Seoul, South Korea, Graham attracted more than one million people to a single service. He appeared in China in 1988; for his wife, Ruth, this was a homecoming, since she had been born in China to missionary parents. He appeared in North Korea in 1992.


title: Billy Graham

text: On October 15, 1989, Graham received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was the only person functioning as a minister who received a star in that capacity.


title: Billy Graham

text: On September 22, 1991, Graham held his largest event in North America on the Great Lawn of Manhattan's Central Park. City officials estimated that more than 250,000 were in attendance. In 1998, Graham spoke to a crowd of scientists and philosophers at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference.


title: Billy Graham

text: On September 14, 2001 (only three days after the World Trade Center attacks), Graham was invited to lead a service at Washington National Cathedral; the service was attended by President George W. Bush and past and present leaders. He also spoke at the memorial service following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. On June 24–26, 2005, Graham began what he said would be his last North American crusade: three days at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in the borough of Queens, New York City. On the weekend of March 11–12, 2006, Graham held the "Festival of Hope" with his son, Franklin Graham. The festival was held in New Orleans, which was recovering from Hurricane Katrina.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham prepared one last sermon, "My Hope America", which was released on DVD and played around America and possibly worldwide between November 7–10, 2013. November 7 was Graham's 95th birthday, and he hoped to cause a revival.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham said that his planned retirement was a result of his failing health; he had suffered from hydrocephalus from 1992 on. In August 2005, Graham appeared at the groundbreaking for his library in Charlotte, North Carolina. Then 86, he used a walker during the ceremony. On July 9, 2006, he spoke at the Metro Maryland Franklin Graham Festival, held in Baltimore, Maryland, at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.


title: Billy Graham

text: In April 2010, Graham was 91 and experiencing substantial vision, hearing, and balance loss when he made a rare public appearance at the re-dedication of the renovated Billy Graham Library.


title: Billy Graham

text: There was controversy within his family over Graham's proposed burial place. He announced in June 2007 that he and his wife would be buried alongside each other at the Billy Graham Library in his hometown of Charlotte. Graham's younger son Ned argued with older son Franklin about whether burial at a library would be appropriate. Ruth Graham had said that she wanted to be buried in the mountains at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove near Asheville, North Carolina, where she had lived for many years; Ned supported his mother's choice. Novelist Patricia Cornwell, a family friend, also opposed burial at the library, calling it a tourist attraction. Franklin wanted his parents to be buried at the library site. When Ruth Graham died, it was announced that they would be buried at the library site.


title: Billy Graham

text: After his close relationships with Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, Graham tried to avoid explicit partisanship. Bailey says: "He declined to sign or endorse political statements, and he distanced himself from the Christian right ... His early years of fierce opposition to communism gave way to pleas for military disarmament and attention to AIDS, poverty and environmental threats."


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham was a lifelong registered member of the Democratic Party. In 1960, he opposed the candidacy of John F. Kennedy, fearing that Kennedy, as a Catholic, would be bound to follow the Pope. Graham worked "behind the scenes" to encourage influential Protestant ministers to speak out against Kennedy. During the 1960 campaign, Graham met with a conference of Protestant ministers in Montreux, Switzerland, to discuss their mobilization of congregations to defeat Kennedy. According to the PBS "Frontline" program, "God in America", Graham organized a meeting of hundreds of Protestant ministers in Washington, D.C., in September 1960 for this purpose; the meeting was led by Norman Vincent Peale. This was shortly before Kennedy's speech in Houston, Texas, on the separation of church and state; the speech was considered to be successful in meeting the concerns of many voters. After his election, Kennedy invited Graham to play golf in Palm Beach, Florida, after which Graham acknowledged Kennedy's election as an opportunity for Catholics and Protestants to come closer together. After they had discussed Jesus Christ at that meeting, the two remained in touch, meeting for the last time at a National Day of Prayer meeting in February 1963. In his autobiography, Graham claimed to have felt an "inner foreboding" in the week before Kennedy's assassination, and to have tried to contact him to say, "Don't go to Texas!"


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham opposed the large majority of abortions, but supported it as a legal option in a very narrow range of circumstances: rape, incest, and the life of the mother. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association states that "Life is sacred, and we must seek to protect all human life: the unborn, the child, the adult, and the aged."


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham leaned toward the Republicans during the presidency of Richard Nixon, whom he had met and befriended as vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower. He did not completely ally himself with the later religious right, saying that Jesus did not have a political party. He gave his support to various political candidates over the years.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 2007, Graham explained his refusal to join Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority in 1979, saying: "I'm for morality, but morality goes beyond sex to human freedom and social justice. We as clergy know so very little to speak with authority on the Panama Canal or superiority of armaments. Evangelists cannot be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle in order to preach to all people, right and left. I haven't been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will be in the future."


title: Billy Graham

text: According to a 2006 "Newsweek" interview, "For Graham, politics is a secondary to the Gospel ... When "Newsweek" asked Graham whether ministers – whether they think of themselves as evangelists, pastors or a bit of both – should spend time engaged with politics, he replied: 'You know, I think in a way that has to be up to the individual as he feels led of the Lord. A lot of things that I commented on years ago would not have been of the Lord, I'm sure, but I think you have some – like communism, or segregation, on which I think you have a responsibility to speak out.'"


title: Billy Graham

text: In 2012, Graham endorsed the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. Shortly after, apparently in order to accommodate Romney, who is a Mormon, references to Mormonism as a religious cult ("A cult is any group which teaches doctrines or beliefs that deviate from the biblical message of the Christian faith.") were removed from Graham's website. Observers have questioned whether the support of Republican and religious right politics on issues such as same-sex marriage coming from Graham – who stopped speaking in public or to reporters – in fact reflects the views of his son, Franklin, head of the BGEA. Franklin denied this, and said that he would continue to act as his father's spokesperson rather than allowing press conferences. In 2016, according to his son Franklin, Graham voted for Donald Trump.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham had a personal audience with many sitting US presidents, from Harry S. Truman to Barack Obama – 12 consecutive presidents. After meeting with Truman in 1950, Graham told the press he had urged the president to counter communism in North Korea. Truman disliked him and did not speak with him for years after that meeting. Later he always treated his conversations with presidents as confidential.


title: Billy Graham

text: Truman was not fond of Graham. He wrote about Graham in his 1974 autobiography "Plain Speaking", "But now we've got just this one evangelist, this Billy Graham, and he's gone off the beam. He's ... well, I hadn't ought to say this, but he's one of those counterfeits I was telling you about. He claims he's a friend of all the presidents, but he was never a friend of mine when I was President. I just don't go for people like that. All he's interested in is getting his name in the paper."


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham became a regular visitor during the tenure of Dwight D. Eisenhower. He purportedly urged him to intervene with federal troops in the case of the Little Rock Nine to gain admission of black students to public schools. House Speaker Sam Rayburn persuaded Congress to allow Graham to conduct the first religious service on the steps of the Capitol building in 1952. Eisenhower asked for Graham while on his deathbed.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham met and became a close friend of Vice President Richard Nixon, and supported Nixon, a Quaker, for the 1960 presidential election. He convened an August strategy session of evangelical leaders in Montreaux, Switzerland, to plan how best to oppose Nixon's Roman Catholic opponent, Senator John F. Kennedy. Though a registered Democrat, Graham also maintained firm support of aggression against the foreign threat of Communism and strongly sympathized with Nixon's views regarding American foreign policy. Thus, he was more sympathetic to Republican administrations.


title: Billy Graham

text: On December 16, 1963, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was impressed by the way Graham had praised the work of his great-grandfather, George Washington Baines, invited Graham to the White House to receive spiritual counseling. After this visit, Johnson frequently called on Graham for more spiritual counseling as well as companionship. As Graham recalled to his biographer Frady, "I almost used the White House as a hotel when Johnson was President. He was always trying to keep me there. He just never wanted me to leave."


title: Billy Graham

text: In contrast with his more limited access with Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy, Graham would not only visit the White House private quarters but would also at times kneel at Johnson's bedside and pray with him whenever the President requested him to do so. Graham once recalled "I have never had many people do that." In addition to his White House visits, Graham visited Johnson at Camp David and occasionally met with the President when he retreated to his private ranch in Stonewall, Texas. Johnson was also the first sitting president to attend one of Graham's crusades, in Houston, Texas, in 1965.


title: Billy Graham

text: During the 1964 United States presidential election, supporters of Republican nominee Barry Goldwater sent an estimated 2 million telegrams to Graham's hometown of Montreat, North Carolina, and sought the preacher's endorsement. Supportive of Johnson's domestic policies, and hoping to preserve his friendship with the president, Graham resisted pressure to endorse Goldwater and stayed neutral in the election. Following Johnson's election victory, Graham's role as the main White House pastor was solidified. At one point, Johnson even considered making Graham a member of his cabinet and grooming him to be his successor, though Graham insisted he had no political ambitions and wished to remain a preacher. Graham's biographer David Aikman acknowledged that the preacher was closer to Johnson than any other president he had ever known.


title: Billy Graham

text: He spent the last night of Johnson's presidency in the White House, and he stayed for the first night of Nixon's. After Nixon's victorious 1968 presidential campaign, Graham became an adviser, regularly visiting the White House and leading the president's private worship services. In a meeting they had with Golda Meir, Nixon offered Graham the ambassadorship to Israel, but he declined the offer.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1970, Nixon appeared at a Graham revival in East Tennessee, which they thought safe politically. It drew one of the largest crowds in Tennessee of protesters against the Vietnam War. Nixon was the first president to give a speech from an evangelist's platform. Their friendship became strained in 1973 when Graham rebuked Nixon for his post-Watergate behavior and the profanity heard on the Watergate tapes. They eventually reconciled after Nixon's resignation.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham officiated at one presidential burial and one presidential funeral. He presided over the graveside services of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973 and took part in eulogizing the former president. Graham officiated at the funeral services of former First Lady Pat Nixon in 1993, and the death and state funeral of Richard Nixon in 1994. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Graham asserted that he believed President Bill Clinton to be "a spiritual person". He was unable to attend the state funeral of Ronald Reagan on June 11, 2004, as he was recovering from hip replacement surgery. This was mentioned by George W. Bush in his eulogy.


title: Billy Graham

text: On April 25, 2010, President Barack Obama visited Graham at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, where they "had a private prayer".


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham had a friendly relationship with Queen Elizabeth II and was frequently invited by the Royal Family to special events. They first met in 1955 and Graham preached at Windsor Chapel at the Queen's invitation during the following year. Their friendly relationship may have been because they shared a traditional approach to the practical aspects of the Christian faith.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham was outspoken against communism and supported the American Cold War policy, including the Vietnam War. In a secret letter from April 15, 1969, made public twenty years later, Graham encouraged Nixon to bomb the dikes in North Vietnam if the peace talks in Paris should fail. This action would "destroy the economy of North Vietnam" and, by Nixon's estimate, would have killed a million people.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1982, Graham preached in the Soviet Union and attended a wreath-laying ceremony to honor the war dead of World War II, when the Soviets were American allies in the fight against Nazism. He voiced fear of a second holocaust, not against Jews, but "a nuclear holocaust" and advised that "our greatest contribution to world peace is to live with Christ every day."


title: Billy Graham

text: In a 1999 speech, Graham discussed his relationship with the late North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, praising him as a "different kind of communist" and "one of the great fighters for freedom in his country against the Japanese". Graham went on to note that although he had never met Kim's son and then-current North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, he had "exchanged gifts with him".


title: Billy Graham

text: During the Watergate affair, there were suggestions that Graham had expressed antisemitic opinions in private discussions with Richard Nixon; he denied this, stressing his efforts to build bridges to the Jewish community. In 2002, the controversy was renewed when declassified "Richard Nixon tapes" confirmed remarks made by Graham to Nixon three decades earlier. Captured on the tapes, Graham agreed with Nixon that Jews control the American media, calling it a "stranglehold" during a 1972 conversation with Nixon, and suggesting that if Nixon was re-elected that they might be able to do something about it.


title: Billy Graham

text: When the tapes were made public, Graham apologized and said, "Although I have no memory of the occasion, I deeply regret comments I apparently made in an Oval Office conversation with President Nixon ... some 30 years ago. ... They do not reflect my views and I sincerely apologize for any offense caused by the remarks." According to "Newsweek" magazine, "[T]he shock of the revelation was magnified because of Graham's longtime support of Israel and his refusal to join in calls for conversion of the Jews."


title: Billy Graham

text: In 2009, more Nixon tapes were released, in which Graham is heard in a 1973 conversation with Nixon referring to a group of Jewish journalists as "the synagogue of Satan". A spokesman for Graham said that Graham has never been an antisemite and that the comparison (in accord with the context of the quotation in the Book of Revelation) was directed specifically at those claiming to be Jews, but not holding to traditional Jewish values.


title: Billy Graham

text: After a 1957 crusade in New York, some more fundamentalist Protestant Christians criticized Graham for his ecumenism, even calling him "Antichrist".


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham expressed inclusivist views, suggesting that people without explicit faith in Jesus can be saved. In a 1997 interview with Robert Schuller, Graham said


title: Billy Graham

text: Iain Murray, writing from a conservative Protestant standpoint, argues that "Graham's concessions are sad words from one who once spoke on the basis of biblical certainties."


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1970, Graham stated that feminism was "an echo of our overall philosophy of permissiveness" and that women did not want to be "competitive juggernauts pitted against male chauvinists". He further stated that the role of wife, mother, and homemaker was the destiny of "real womanhood" according to the Judeo-Christian ethic. Graham's assertions, published in the "Ladies' Home Journal", elicited letters of protest, and were offered as rebuttal to the establishment of "The New Feminism" section of the publication that had added following a sit-in protest at the "Journal" offices demanding female representation on the staff of the publication.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham's daughter Bunny recounted her father denying her and her sisters higher education. As reported in "The Washington Post":


title: Billy Graham

text: Bunny remembers being groomed for the life of wife, homemaker, and mother. "There was never an idea of a career for us", she said. "I wanted to go to nursing school – Wheaton had a five-year program – but Daddy said no. No reason, no explanation, just 'No.' It wasn't confrontational and he wasn't angry, but when he decided, that was the end of it." She added, "He has forgotten that. Mother has not."


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham's daughter Anne is a Christian minister, leading a Christian ministry organization known as AnGeL Ministries.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham talked his future wife, Ruth, into abandoning her ambition to evangelize in Tibet in favor of staying in the United States to marry him – and that to do otherwise would be "to thwart God's obvious will". After Ruth agreed to marry him, Graham cited the Bible for claiming authority over her, saying, "then I'll do the leading and you do the following". According to her obituary, Ruth was active in Christian ministry after they married, often teaching Sunday School. Her obituary states that in addition to his two sons, all three of Graham's daughters would become Christian ministers as well.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham regarded homosexuality as a sin, and in 1974 described it as "a sinister form of perversion". In 1993 he said that he thought AIDS might be a "judgment" from God, but two weeks later he retracted the remark, saying, "I don't believe that, and I don't know why I said it." Graham opposed same-sex marriage, stating that "I believe the home and marriage is the foundation of our society and must be protected." Graham's obituary noted that his stated position was that he did not want to talk about homosexuality as a political issue. Corky Siemaszko, writing for NBC News, noted that after the 1993 incident, Graham "largely steered clear of the subject". However, Graham appeared to take a more tolerant approach to the issue of homosexuality when he appeared on the May 2, 1997, episode of "20/20", stating "I think that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, but the Bible also teaches that pride is a sin, jealously is a sin, and hate is a sin, evil thoughts are a sin, and so I don't think that homosexuality should be chosen as the overwhelming sin that we are doing today."


title: Billy Graham

text: In 2012, Graham and his son, Franklin, publicly endorsed North Carolina Amendment 1, a measure to ban same-sex marriage in the state. They both condemned President Obama's public declaration of support for same-sex marriage later that year.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham was frequently honored by surveys, including "Greatest Living American", and consistently ranked among the most admired persons in the United States and the world. He appeared most frequently on Gallup's list of most admired people. On the day of his death, Graham had been on Gallup's Top 10 "Most Admired Man" list 61 times, and held the highest rank of any person since the list began in 1948.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1967, he was the first Protestant to receive an honorary degree from Belmont Abbey College, a Roman Catholic school. In 1983, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by US President Ronald Reagan.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham received the Big Brother of the Year Award for his work on behalf of children. He was cited by the George Washington Carver Memorial Institute for his contributions to race relations. He received the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion and the Sylvanus Thayer Award for his commitment to "Duty, Honor, Country". The "Billy Graham Children's Health Center" in Asheville is named after and funded by Graham.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 1999, the Gospel Music Association inducted Graham into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame to recognize his contributions to Christian music artists such as Michael W. Smith, dc Talk, Amy Grant, Jars of Clay, and others who performed at the Billy Graham Crusades. Graham was the first non-musician inducted, and had also helped to revitalize interest in hymns and create new favorite songs. Singer Michael W. Smith was active in Billy Graham Crusades as well as Samaritan's Purse. Smith sang "Just As I Am" in a tribute to Graham at the 44th GMA Dove Awards. He also sang it at the memorial service honoring Graham at the United States Capitol rotunda on February 28, 2018.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 2000, former First Lady Nancy Reagan presented the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award to Graham. Graham was a friend of the Reagans for years.


title: Billy Graham

text: In 2001, Queen Elizabeth II awarded him an honorary knighthood. The honor was presented to him by Sir Christopher Meyer, British Ambassador to the US at the British Embassy in Washington DC on December 6, 2001.


title: Billy Graham

text: A professorial chair is named after him at the Alabama Baptist-affiliated Samford University, the Billy Graham Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth. His "alma mater", Wheaton College, has an archive of his papers at the Billy Graham Center. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Ministry. Graham received 20 honorary degrees and refused at least that many more. In San Francisco, California, the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium is sometimes erroneously called the "Billy Graham Civic Auditorium" and incorrectly considered to be named in his honor, but it is actually named after the rock and roll promoter Bill Graham.


title: Billy Graham

text: On May 31, 2007, the $27 million Billy Graham Library was officially dedicated in Charlotte. Former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton appeared to celebrate with Graham. A highway in Charlotte bears Graham's name, as does I-240 near Graham's home in Asheville.


title: Billy Graham

text: As Graham's final crusade approached in 2005, his friend Pat Boone chose to create a song in honor of Graham, which he co-wrote and produced with David Pack and Billy Dean, who digitally combined studio recordings of various artists into what has been called a "'We Are the World'-type" production. Titled "Thank You Billy Graham", the song's video was introduced by Bono, and included Faith Hill, MxPx, John Ford Coley, John Elefante, Mike Herrera, Michael McDonald, Jeffrey Osborne, LeAnn Rimes, Kenny Rogers, Connie Smith, Michael Tait, and other singers, with brief narration by Larry King. It was directed by Brian Lockwood as a tribute album. In 2013, the album "My Hope: Songs Inspired by the Message and Mission of Billy Graham" was recorded by Amy Grant, Kari Jobe, Newsboys, Matthew West, tobyMac, and other music artists with new songs to honor Graham during his "My Hope America with Billy Graham" outreach and the publication of his book "The Reason for My Hope: Salvation". Other songs written to honor Graham include "Hero of the Faith" written by Eddie Carswell of NewSong, which became a hit, "Billy, You're My Hero" by Greg Hitchcock, "Billy Graham" by The Swirling Eddies, "Billy Graham's Bible" by Joe Nichols, "Billy Frank" by Randy Stonehill, and an original song titled "Just as I Am" by Fernando Ortega.


title: Billy Graham

text: The movie "" officially premiered in theaters on October 10, 2008, less than one month before Graham's 90th birthday. Graham did not comment on the film, but his son Franklin released a critical statement on August 18, 2008, noting that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association "has not collaborated with nor does it endorse the movie". Graham's eldest daughter, Gigi, praised the film and was hired as a consultant to help promote it.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham authored the following books; many of which have become bestsellers. In the 1970s, for instance, "The Jesus Generation" sold 200,000 copies in the first two weeks after its publication; "Angels: God's Secret Agents" had sales of a million copies within 90 days after release; "How to Be Born Again" was said to have made publishing history with its first printing of 800,000 copies."


title: Billy Graham

text: On August 13, 1943, Graham married Wheaton classmate Ruth Bell, whose parents were Presbyterian missionaries in China. Her father, L. Nelson Bell, was a general surgeon. Ruth died on June 14, 2007, at the age of 87. The couple were married for almost 64 years.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham and his wife had five children together. Virginia Leftwich (Gigi) Graham (b. 1945), an inspirational speaker and author; Anne Graham Lotz (b. 1948), leader of AnGeL ministries; Ruth Graham (b. 1950), founder and president of Ruth Graham & Friends and leader of conferences throughout the US and Canada; Franklin Graham (b. 1952), president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and president and CEO of international relief organization Samaritan's Purse; and Nelson Edman Graham (b. 1958), a pastor who runs East Gates Ministries International, which distributes Christian literature in China.


title: Billy Graham

text: At the time of his death at age 99 in 2018, Graham was survived by 5 children, 19 grandchildren (including Will Graham and Tullian Tchividjian), 41 great-grandchildren, and 6 great-great-grandchildren.


title: Billy Graham

text: Graham died of natural causes on February 21, 2018, at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, at the age of 99.


title: Billy Graham

text: On February 28 and March 1, 2018, Graham became the fourth private citizen in United States history to lie in honor at the United States Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C. He is the first religious leader to be so honored. At the ceremony, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan called Graham "America's pastor". President Donald Trump said Graham was "an ambassador for Christ". In addition, Televangelist Jim Bakker paid respect to Graham, stating he was the greatest preacher since Jesus. He also said that Graham visited him in prison.


title: Billy Graham

text: A private funeral service was held on March 2, 2018. Graham was buried beside his wife at the foot of the cross-shaped brick walkway in the Prayer Garden, on the northeast side of the Billy Graham Library. Graham's pine plywood casket was handcrafted in 2006 by convicted murderers at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and topped with a wooden cross that was nailed to it by the prisoners.


title: Billy Graham

text: He is honored with a commemoration on the liturgical calendar of the Anglican Church in North America on February 21.


title: Michael Mando

text: Michael Mando (born July 13, 1981) is a Canadian actor. He played Nacho Varga on the AMC series "Better Call Saul" (2015–2022), Vaas Montenegro in the video game franchise "Far Cry" (2012, 2021), Vic Schmidt in the sci-fi series "Orphan Black" (2013–2014), and Mac Gargan in "" (2017). He is a two-time Canadian Screen Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominee.


title: Michael Mando

text: Mando was born in Quebec City. He was raised by his father and is the second of three brothers. The family frequently travelled, living in more than 10 cities across four continents and in more than 35 homes, all before he was in his mid-20s. His native language is French, and he speaks English and Spanish fluently. He grew up wanting to be a writer or an athlete.


title: Michael Mando

text: In his mid-20s he suffered a knee injury and consequently decided to change paths. He was enrolled in many fields, including international relations, at the University of Montreal, before discovering the performing arts at the Dome Theatre Program (Dawson College) in 2004. Despite no training he went on to play the male lead in all five productions of the program. He graduated in 2007. His Dome credits included Orlando in Shakespeare's "As You Like It", Professor Katz in David Edgar's "Pentecost", and Valentine Xavier in Tennessee Williams' "Orpheus Descending". Steven W. Lecky, the chair of the program, called Mando "one of the finest talents to emerge from the program in the past 25 years."


title: Michael Mando

text: After playing the leading character in two award-winning professional theatre productions in Montreal, Mando founded Red Barlo Productions. The company’s first film, "Conditional Affection" (which Mando starred in, directed and wrote) was released in 2010 and officially selected to Fantasia, Bare Bones, ACTRA Short Films, and the New Hope International Film Festivals.


title: Michael Mando

text: Mando’s television debut simultaneously followed with a wide range of contrasting characters. His credits include guest appearances in the crime series "The Bridge", the medical drama mini-series "Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures", as an MS-13 gang member in "The Border", and as a close friend of the character Kenzi (played by Ksenia Solo) in the sci-fi series "Lost Girl".


title: Michael Mando

text: Mando has had repeated collaborations with directors John Fawcett and Érik Canuel as well as producer David Barlow. He had a starring role in the 2010 feature film "Territories". In 2011, he had a recurring role in "Les Bleus de Ramville" and a guest appearance on the series "King". He is the voice and likeness of Vaas Montenegro, a major character of the 2012 video game "Far Cry 3". He also starred in a webseries called "The Far Cry Experience" as Vaas, who captures and tortures Christopher Mintz-Plasse as himself. In the 2020s, Mando would reprise his role as Vaas for "Far Cry VR: Dive Into Insanity" and "Far Cry 6".


title: Michael Mando

text: In 2012, Mando was cast in the first season of the science fiction television series "Orphan Black", which began airing in 2013. He played Vic, an abusive drug-dealer and was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for his work on the series. He reprised his role of Vic in the second season in a recurring role. In 2014, Mando joined the cast of "Better Call Saul", the "Breaking Bad" spin-off, portraying Nacho Varga, a career criminal.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Big Hero 6 is a 2014 American computer-animated superhero film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Loosely based on the Marvel comics of the same name created by Man of Action, it is the 54th Disney animated feature film. The film was directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams and produced by Roy Conli, from a screenplay written by Jordan Roberts and the writing team of Robert L. Baird and Dan Gerson. The film stars the voices of Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Daniel Henney, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr., Genesis Rodriguez, James Cromwell, Maya Rudolph, and Alan Tudyk. "Big Hero 6" tells the story of Hiro Hamada, a young robotics prodigy, and Baymax, his late-brother Tadashi's healthcare-provider robot, who form a superhero team to combat a masked villain who is responsible for Tadashi's death. The official Marvel universe for the animated franchise has been labeled Earth-14123.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: "Big Hero 6" is the first Disney animated film to feature Marvel Comics characters, whose parent company was acquired by The Walt Disney Company in 2009. Walt Disney Animation Studios created new software technology to produce the film's animated visuals.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: "Big Hero 6" premiered at the 27th Tokyo International Film Festival on October 23, 2014, and at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival on October 31; it then premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 4, and was theatrically released in the Disney Digital 3D and RealD 3D formats in the United States on November 7. The film was met with both critical and commercial success. It received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the animation, action sequences, pacing, entertainment value, heart, and emotional weight. It grossed over $657.8 million worldwide and became the highest-grossing animated film of 2014. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and the Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Animated Movie. It also received nominations for the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature and the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, losing both to "How to Train Your Dragon 2". It was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, but lost to "The Lego Movie". "Big Hero 6" was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on February 24, 2015.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: A , which continues the story of the film, aired from 2017 to 2021 on Disney Channel and Disney XD. A two-season short series, "Baymax Dreams", premiered in 2018. Another series, "Baymax!", premiered on Disney+ on June 29, 2022.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: In the futuristic city of San Fransokyo (a portmanteau of San Francisco and Tokyo), Hiro Hamada, a 13-year-old high school graduate and robotics prodigy, is competing in underground robot fights for a living, constantly dodging violent threats from his bitter, defeated opponents. In an effort to get Hiro out of this dangerous lifestyle, Hiro's older brother Tadashi takes him to his research lab at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. Hiro meets Tadashi's friends Go Go, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, and Fred, as well as his creation Baymax — an inflatable healthcare robot — and his mentor, Professor Robert Callaghan. Inspired, Hiro gives up his robot fighting habits and applies to the university, impressing the school's showcase with his project: a swarm of tiny microbots that can link together in any configuration using a neural transmitter. Callaghan accepts him into the school, and Hiro rejects tech giant Alistair Krei's offer to buy the microbots. When a fire erupts moments later, Tadashi rushes inside to save Callaghan, but dies when the building collapses after an explosion resulting from the fire.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Two weeks later, Hiro inadvertently activates Baymax and they follow his only remaining microbot to an abandoned warehouse, where they discover someone has been mass-producing the microbots. A man wearing a Kabuki mask attacks them with the microbot swarm, but they escape, and Hiro suspects the masked man set the fire to cover his theft of the microbots. Determined to avenge his brother's death, Hiro equips Baymax with armor and a chip programmed with martial arts moves for defense, and they return to find the warehouse empty. At the nearby docks, Baymax summons Tadashi's friends, and the group is attacked by the masked man but escapes after driving into a lake. Once they resurface, the group stops at Fred's mansion, where Hiro upgrades Baymax's armor and he and the others weaponize their various inventions to take on the masked man, whom they suspect is Krei.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: They track the masked man to Krei's abandoned island lab, which they discover was used for teleportation research until a test pilot disappeared inside a portal, leading the government to shut down Krei's experiment and seal off the island. The masked man suddenly attacks the group, but Hiro knocks off the man's mask, revealing him to be Callaghan, who was thought to be dead. Callaghan reveals that he had actually escaped using the microbots to shield himself from the flames. Shocked and enraged that Tadashi died in vain, Hiro removes Baymax's healthcare chip and orders him to kill Callaghan, but his friends intervene and Honey re-installs the chip at the last second. Callaghan escapes with the microbots, and Hiro, angered by his friends’ actions against Callaghan, flies off with Baymax, still intent on avenging Tadashi.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: When they return home, Hiro tries to remove the healthcare chip again, but Baymax blocks his access port and shows him footage of Tadashi's numerous tests during Baymax's development, reminding Hiro that his brother's goal was to help others. Hiro apologizes to Baymax and his friends; through research, they discover the lost test pilot was Callaghan's daughter, Abigail.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Having stolen the microbots to seek revenge on Krei, Callaghan reactivates the teleportation portal to destroy Krei and his headquarters during a ceremony, but Hiro, Baymax, and their friends defeat Callaghan and save Krei. Baymax detects Abigail alive inside the portal, and despite Krei’s attempts to keep them away from the portal because of its instability, Hiro and Baymax leap through and find Abigail trapped in hyper-sleep in her rocket. While helping Hiro transport Abigail out of the portal, Baymax is struck by debris, disabling his thrusters and forcing him to fire his rocket fist, leaving him behind while propelling Hiro and Abigail back through the portal before it is destroyed. Abigail regains consciousness, and Callaghan is arrested.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Hiro joins his friends at the university, and discovers Baymax's healthcare chip clenched in the rocket fist. He rebuilds Baymax, and they and their friends continue to protect the city as a team of high-tech superheroes, known as Big Hero 6.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: In a post-credits scene, Fred stumbles upon a secret superhero lair in his family mansion and is reunited with his father, who tells him they have a lot to talk about.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: After Disney's acquisition of Marvel Entertainment in 2009, CEO Bob Iger encouraged the company's divisions to explore Marvel's properties for adaptation concepts. By deliberately picking an obscure title, it would give them the freedom to come up with their own version. While directing "Winnie the Pooh", director Don Hall was scrolling through a Marvel database when he stumbled upon "Big Hero 6", a comic he had never heard of before. "I just liked the title," he said. He pitched the concept to John Lasseter in 2011, as one of five ideas for possible productions for Walt Disney Animation Studios, and this particular idea "struck a chord" with Lasseter, Hall, and Chris Williams (Director of "Bolt").


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: In June 2012, Disney confirmed that Walt Disney Animation Studios was adapting Marvel Comics' series and that the film had been commissioned into early stages of development. Because they wanted the concept to feel new and fresh, head of story Paul Briggs (who also voices Yama in the film) only read a few issues of the comic, while screenwriter Robert Baird admitted he had not read the comic at all.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: "Big Hero 6" was produced solely by Walt Disney Animation Studios, although several members of Marvel's creative team were involved in the film's production including Joe Quesada, Marvel's chief creative officer, and Jeph Loeb, head of Marvel Television. According to an interview with Axel Alonso by CBR, Marvel did not have any plans to publish a tie-in comic. Disney planned to reprint the Marvel version of "Big Hero 6" themselves, but reportedly Marvel disagreed. They eventually came to agreement that Yen Press would publish the Japanese manga version of "Big Hero 6" for Disney.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Conversely, Lasseter dismissed the idea of a rift between the two companies, and producer Roy Conli stated that Marvel allowed Disney "complete freedom in structuring the story". Disney Animation Studio President Andrew Millstein stated: ""Hero" is one example of what we've learned over the years and our embracing some of the Pixar DNA." Regarding the film's story, Quesada stated, "The relationship between Hiro and his robot has a very Disney flavor to it ... but it's combined with these Marvel heroic arcs." The production team decided early on not to connect the film to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and instead set the film in a stand-alone universe.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: With respect to the design of Baymax, Hall mentioned in an interview, "I wanted a robot that we had never seen before and something to be wholly original. That's a tough thing to do, we've got a lot of robots in pop culture, everything from The Terminator to WALL-E to C-3PO on down the line and not to mention Japanese robots, I won't go into that. So I wanted to do something original." Even if they did not yet know what the robot should look like, artist Lisa Keene came up with the idea that it should be a huggable robot. Other sources of inspiration cited by the team include Japanese anime, such as Hayao Miyazaki films (including "Spirited Away" and "The Wind Rises") and "Pokémon", as well as Shogun Warriors toys. Mecha designer Shigeto Koyama, who previously did design work for mecha anime such as "Gunbuster 2", "Eureka Seven", "Gurren Lagann", and "Rebuild of Evangelion", worked on the concept design for Baymax.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Early on in the development process, Hall and the design team took a research trip to Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, where they met a team of DARPA-funded researchers who were pioneering the new field of 'soft robotics' using inflatable vinyl, which ultimately inspired Baymax's inflatable, vinyl, truly huggable design. Hall stated that "I met a researcher (Chris Atkeson) who was working on soft robots. ... It was an inflatable vinyl arm and the practical app would be in the healthcare industry as a nurse or doctor's assistant. He had me at vinyl. This particular researcher went into this long pitch but the minute he showed me that inflatable arm, I knew we had our huggable robot." Hall stated that the technology "will have potential probably in the medical industry in the future, making robots that are very pliable and gentle and not going to hurt people when they pick them up."


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Hall mentioned that achieving a unique look for the mechanical armor took some time and "just trying to get something that felt like the personality of the character". Co-director Williams stated, "A big part of the design challenge is when he puts on the armor you want to feel that he's a very powerful intimidating presence ... at the same time, design-wise he has to relate to the really adorable simple vinyl robot underneath." Baymax's face design was inspired by a copper "suzu" bell that Hall noticed while at a Shinto shrine.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: According to Conli, Lasseter initially disliked Baymax's description (while low on battery power) of Hiro's cat as a "hairy baby", but Williams kept the line in any way, and at the film's first test screening, Lasseter admitted that Williams was correct.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: According to Williams, Baymax was originally going to be introduced rather late in the film, but then story artist John Ripa conceived of a way for Baymax to meet Hiro much earlier. The entire film became much stronger by establishing the relationship between Hiro and Baymax early on, but the filmmakers ended up having to reconstruct "a fair amount of the first act" in order to make that idea work.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: About ninety animators worked on the film at one point or another; some worked on the project for as long as two years. In terms of the film's animation style and settings, the film combines Eastern world culture (predominantly Japanese) with Western world culture (predominantly California). In May 2013, Disney released concept art and rendered footage of San Fransokyo from the film. San Fransokyo, the futuristic mashup of San Francisco and Tokyo, was described by Hall as "an alternate version of San Francisco. Most of the technology is advanced, but much of it feels retro … Where Hiro lives, it feels like the Haight. I love the Painted ladies. We gave them a Japanese makeover; we put a cafe on the bottom of one. They live above a coffee shop." The house that Hiro's family lives in is based on a Victorian house at the corner of Haight Street and Masonic Avenue in the Haight-Ashbury. According to production designer Paul Felix, "The topography is exaggerated because what we do is caricature, I think the hills are times exaggerated. I don't think you could really walk up them ... When you get to the downtown area, that's when you get the most Tokyo-fied, that pure, layered, dense kind of feeling of the commercial district there. When you get out of there, it becomes more San Francisco with the Japanese aesthetic. … (It's a bit like) "Blade Runner", but contained to a few square blocks. You see the skyscrapers contrasted with the hills."


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: The reason why Disney wanted to merge Tokyo (which is where the comic book version takes place) with San Francisco was partly because San Francisco had not been used by Marvel before, partly because of all the city's iconic aspects, and partly because they felt its aesthetics would blend well with Tokyo. The filmmakers' idea was that San Fransokyo is based on an alternative history in which San Francisco was largely rebuilt by Japanese immigrants in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake, although this premise is not stated in the film.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: To create San Fransokyo as a detailed digital simulation of an entire city, Disney purchased the actual assessor data for the entire city and county of San Francisco. The final city contains over 83,000 buildings and 100,000 vehicles.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: A software program called Denizen was used to create over 700 distinctive characters that populate the city. Another one named Bonzai was responsible for the creation of the city's 250,000 trees, while a new rendering system called Hyperion offered new illumination possibilities, like light shining through a translucent object (e.g. Baymax's vinyl covering). Pixar's RenderMan was considered as a "Plan B" for the film's rendering, if Hyperion was not able to meet production deadlines.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Development on Hyperion started in 2011 and was based upon research into multi-bounce complex global illumination originally conducted at Disney Research in Zürich. Disney, in turn, had to assemble a new super-computing cluster just to handle Hyperion's immense processing demands, which consists of over 2,300 Linux workstations distributed across four data centers (three in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco). Each workstation, , included a pair of 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon processors, 256 GB of memory, and a pair of 300 GB solid-state drives configured as a RAID Level 0 array (i.e., to operate as a single 600 GB drive). This was all backed by a central storage system with a capacity of five petabytes, which holds all digital assets as well as archival copies of all 54 Disney Animation films. Cinematographer Robert Richardson was brought on as a visual consultant to assist in the creation of realistic lighting.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: The emotional climax takes place in the middle of a wormhole portal, which is represented by the stylized interior of a mandelbulb.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: The post-credits scene was only added to the film in August 2014, late in production, after co-director Don Hall and his crew went to see Marvel Studios' "Guardians of the Galaxy". He stated that "[i]t horrified us, that people were sat waiting for an end credits thing, because of the Marvel DNA. We didn't want people to leave the movie disappointed."


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Henry Jackman composed the score for the film. The soundtrack features an original song titled "Immortals" written and recorded by American rock band Fall Out Boy, which was released by Walt Disney Records on October 14, 2014. The soundtrack album was digitally released by Walt Disney Records on November 4, 2014, and had a CD release on November 25. While not part of the soundtrack, a brief instrumental section of "Eye of the Tiger" plays in the film. For the Japanese release of the album, a previously unreleased English version of Japanese-American singer Ai's single "Story" was released as a single by EMI Records and Walt Disney Records exclusively in Japan. The song was used in promotional videos and the film's credits for the Japanese release.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: "Big Hero 6" premiered on October 23, 2014 as the opening film at the Tokyo International Film Festival. The world premiere of "Big Hero 6" in 3D took place at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival on October 31, 2014. It was theatrically released in the United States and Canada on November 7, 2014 with limited IMAX international showings. Theatrically, the film was accompanied by the Walt Disney Animation Studios short, "Feast".


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: For the South Korean release of the film, it was retitled "Big Hero", to avoid the impression of being a sequel, and edited to remove indications of the characters' Japanese origin. This is owing to the tense relations between Korea and Japan. For instance, the protagonist's name, Hiro Hamada, was changed to "Hero Armada", and Japanese-language signage onscreen was changed to English. Nonetheless, the film caused some online controversy in South Korea, because of small images resembling the Rising Sun Flag in the protagonist's room.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: "Big Hero 6" was released in the United States by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on Blu-ray and DVD on February 24, 2015. Writer Steven T. Seagle, who co-created the comic book "Big Hero 6", criticized the Blu-ray featurette documenting the origins of the group, for not mentioning him or co-creator Duncan Rouleau. Seagle also criticized the book "Art of Big Hero 6" for the same omission. Big Hero 6 was released in 4K Blu-ray on November 5, 2019.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: In the United States, the film grossed from Blu-ray and DVD sales . In the United Kingdom, it was watched by viewers on television in 2017, making it the year's second most-watched film on UK television.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: "Big Hero 6" earned $222.5 million in North America and $435.3 million in other territories for a worldwide estimated total of $657.8 million. Calculating in all expenses, "Deadline" estimated that the film made a profit of $187.34 million. Worldwide, it is the highest-grossing animated film of 2014, and one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time. By grossing over $500 million worldwide, it became the fourth Disney release of 2014 to do so; the other titles being "Guardians of the Galaxy", "Maleficent", and "".


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: In the U.S. and Canada, the film is the second-highest-grossing science-fiction animated film (behind 2008's "WALL-E"), the third-highest-grossing animated superhero comedy film (behind 2004's "The Incredibles" and 2018's "Incredibles 2"), and the fifth-highest-grossing Disney animated film. The film earned $1.4 million from late Thursday night showings, which is higher than the previews earned by "Frozen" ($1.2 million) and "The Lego Movie" ($400,000). In its opening day on November 7, the film earned $15.8 million, debuting at number two behind "Interstellar" ($16.9 million). "Big Hero 6" topped the box office in its opening weekend, earning $56.2 million from 3,761 theaters ahead of "Interstellar" ($47.5 million); at the time it was Walt Disney Animation Studios' second-best opening behind "Frozen" ($67.4 million), both adjusted and unadjusted.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: On February 15, 2015, "Big Hero 6" became the third-highest-grossing Disney animated film in both the U.S. and Canada, behind "The Lion King" and "Frozen".


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Two weeks ahead of its North American release, "Big Hero 6" was released in Russia (earned $4.8 million) and Ukraine (earned $0.2 million) in two days (October 25–26). The main reason behind the early release was in order to take advantage of the two weeks of school holidays in Russia. Jeff Bock, box office analyst for "Exhibitor Relations", said "For a two-day gross, that's huge. It's a giant number in Russia." In its second weekend, the film added $4.8 million (up 1%) bringing its total nine-day cumulative audience to $10.3 million in Russia and $10.9 including its revenue from Ukraine.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: In its opening weekend, the film earned $7.6 million from seventeen markets for a first weekend worldwide total of $79.2 million, behind "Interstellar" ($132.2 million). It went to number one in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia. It opened with $4.8 million in Mexico. In Japan, where the film is locally known as "Baymax", it opened at second place behind "", with $5.3 million, marking it the second-biggest Disney opening in Japan behind "Frozen". and topped the box office for six consecutive weekends. The film opened in second place with $6 million ($6.8 million including previews) in the U.K., which is 15% lower than "Frozen". It opened at No. 1 with $14.8 million in China, which is the biggest opening for a Disney and Pixar animated film (breaking "Frozen" record) and topped the box office for three consecutive weekends.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: The film became the highest-grossing Disney animated film in Vietnam and in China (surpassed by "Zootopia")), the second-highest-grossing Disney animated film of all time in Russia, in the Philippines (behind "Toy Story 3"), and in Japan (behind "Frozen"). In addition to being the second-highest-grossing Disney animated film, it is also the fifth-highest-grossing animated film of all time in China. In total earnings, its biggest markets outside of the United States and Canada are China ($83.5 million) and Japan ($76 million).


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of based on reviews and an average rating of . The site's consensus states: "Agreeably entertaining and brilliantly animated, "Big Hero 6" is briskly-paced, action-packed, and often touching." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 from top reviews from mainstream critics, has calculated a score of 74 based on 38 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Michael O'Sullivan of "The Washington Post" gave the film 3.5/4 stars, writing that "The real appeal of "Big Hero 6" isn't its action. It's the central character's heart." Maricar Estrella of "Fort Worth Star-Telegram" gave the film 5 stars, saying it "offers something for everyone: action, camaraderie, superheroes and villains. But mostly, Baymax offers a compassionate and healing voice for those suffering, and a hug that can be felt through the screen." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, stating, "The breakthrough star of the season is here. His name is Baymax and he's impossible not to love. The 3-D animated "Big Hero 6" would be a ton less fun without this irresistible blob of roly-poly, robot charisma." Kofi Outlaw of "Screen Rant" gave the film 4 out of 5 stars or "excellent", explaining that ""Big Hero 6" combines Disney wonder and charm with Marvel awe and action to deliver a film that exhibits the best of both studios." Alonso Duralde of "The Wrap" gave the film a positive review, calling it "sweet and sharp and exciting and hilarious" and says that the film "comes to the rescue of what's become a dreaded movie trope—the origin story—and launches the superhero tale to pleasurable new heights." Calvin Wilson of "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" gave the film 3.5 of 4 stars, writing that "the storytelling is solid, propelled by characters that you come to care about. And that should make "Big Hero 6" a big hit."


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Bill Goodykoontz of "The Arizona Republic" gave the film a positive review, writing, "Directors Don Hall and Chris Williams have made a terrific movie about a boy (Ryan Potter) and his robot friend, who seek answers to a deadly tragedy," calling it an "unexpectedly good treat". Soren Anderson of "The Seattle Times" gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying that "Clever, colorful, fast on its feet, frequently very funny and sweet (but not excessively so), "Big Hero 6" mixes its myriad influences into a final product that, while in no way original, is immensely entertaining." Michael Rechtshaffen of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a positive review, saying that "the funny and heartwarming story about the bond between a teen tech geek and a gentle robot represents another can't-miss proposition by Walt Disney Animation Studios." Jon Niccum of "The Kansas City Star" gave the film 3.5 out of four stars, writing that while it "may hit a few familiar beats inherent to any superhero 'origin story,'" it is still "the best animated film of the year, supplying "The Incredibles"-size adventure with a level of emotional bonding not seen since "The Iron Giant"", and that it "never runs low on battery power". Elizabeth Weitzman of the "Daily News" gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, calling it a "charming animated adventure", saying that with "appealing 3D animation" and a smart and "sharp story and script", it is "one of the rare family films that can fairly boast of having it all: humor, heart and huggability". Rafer Guzmán from "Newsday" gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying that "Marvel plus Disney plus John Lasseter equals an enjoyable jumble of kid-approved action", with "rich, vivid colors and filled with clever details".


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: In March 2016, Disney announced that a "Big Hero 6" television series was in development and premiered on Disney Channel and Disney XD in 2017. The series takes place immediately after the events of the film, is created and executive produced by "Kim Possible"s Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, and is co-executive produced by Nick Filippi. The majority of the cast from the film returned to voice the characters, except for Wayans Jr. and Miller.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: In December 2020, Disney announced a new Disney+ series titled "Baymax!", which would follow Baymax working as a nurse around San Fransokyo. The series premiered on June 29, 2022.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: On February 18, 2015, the film's directors, Don Hall and Chris Williams, said a sequel was possible. Hall added, "Having said that, of course, we love these characters, and the thought of working with them again some day definitely has its appeal." In March 2015, Genesis Rodriguez told "MTV" that a sequel was being considered, saying, "…There's nothing definitive. There's talks of something happening. We just don't know what yet." In April 2015, Stan Lee mentioned a projected sequel as one of several that he understood were in Marvel's plans for upcoming films. In March 2021, head animator Zach Parrish expressed a desire for a sequel, "There have definitely been stories told beyond... I think there's still a lot of potential. There's still plenty of time. The beauty of animation is that can pick up the story at the very end of Big Hero, or we could jump in time. We could go wherever we want, since it's animation."


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Vinyl toy company Funko released the first images of the toy figures via their "Big Hero 6" Funko. The POP Vinyl series collection features Hiro Hamada, Go Go Tomago, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, Fred, and a 6-inch Baymax.


title: Big Hero 6 (film)

text: Bandai released a number of action figures related to the film; these toys including a number of different Baymax figures. One is a soft plastic 10-inch version that includes a series of projected stills from the film on his stomach, which can be changed when the figure's arm is moved, and which emits accompanying sounds. Deluxe Flying Baymax, which retails for $39.99, depicts the armored version of the character and features lights and sounds that activate at the push of a button. Placing the Hiro figurine on his back changes the sounds into speech and when the figure is tilted, the sounds are those of flying. The Armor-Up Baymax (original retail cost $19.99) comes with 20 pieces of armor that can be assembled onto the robot by the owner. The other characters from the film, including the other members of team and Professor Callaghan (who is called Yokai) are issued in 4-inch action figures, each of which have eight points of articulation.


title: Pop rock

text: Pop rock (also typeset as pop/rock) is a fusion genre with an emphasis on professional songwriting and recording craft, and less emphasis on attitude than rock music. Originating in the late 1950s as an alternative to normal rock and roll, early pop rock was influenced by the beat, arrangements, and original style of rock and roll (and sometimes doo-wop). It may be viewed as a distinct genre field rather than music that overlaps with pop and rock. The detractors of pop rock often deride it as a slick, commercial product and less authentic than rock music.


title: Pop rock

text: Much pop and rock music has been very similar in sound, instrumentation and even lyrical content. The terms "pop rock" and "power pop" have been used to describe more commercially successful music that uses elements from, or the form of, rock music. Writer Johan Fornas views pop/rock as "one single, continuous genre field", rather than distinct categories. To the authors Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman, it is defined as an "upbeat variety of rock music" represented by artists and bands such as: Andy Kim, the Bells, Paul McCartney, Lighthouse, and Peter Frampton.


title: Pop rock

text: The term pop has been used since the early twentieth century to refer to popular music in general, but from the mid-1950s it began to be used for a distinct genre, aimed at a youth market, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll. In the aftermath of the British Invasion, from about 1967, it was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock, to describe a form that was more commercial, ephemeral and accessible.


title: Pop rock

text: As of the 2010s, "guitar pop rock" and "indie rock" are roughly synonymous terms. "Jangle" is a noun-adjective that music critics often use in reference to guitar pop with a bright mood.


title: Pop rock

text: Critic Philip Auslander argues that the distinction between pop and rock is more pronounced in the US than in the UK. He claims that in the US, pop has roots in white crooners such as Perry Como, whereas rock is rooted in African-American music influenced by forms such as rock and roll. Auslander points out that the concept of pop rock, which blends pop and rock, is at odds with the typical conception of pop and rock as opposites. Auslander and several other scholars, such as Simon Frith and Grossberg, argue that pop music is often depicted as an inauthentic, cynical, "slickly commercial", and formulaic form of entertainment. In contrast, rock music is often heralded as an authentic, sincere, and anti-commercial form of music, which emphasizes songwriting by the singers and bands, instrumental virtuosity, and a "real connection with the audience".


title: Pop rock

text: Simon Frith's analysis of the history of popular music from the 1950s to the 1980s has been criticized by B. J. Moore-Gilbert, who argues that Frith and other scholars have overemphasized the role of rock in the history of popular music by naming every new genre using the "rock" suffix. Thus when a folk-oriented style of music developed in the 1960s, Frith termed it "folk rock", and the pop-infused styles of the 1970s were called "pop rock". Moore-Gilbert claims that this approach unfairly puts rock at the apex and makes every other influence become an add-on to the central core of rock.


title: Pop rock

text: In "" (1981), Robert Christgau discussed the term "pop-rock" in the context of popular music's fragmentation along stylistic lines in the 1970s; he regarded "pop-rock" as a "monolith" that "straddled" all burgeoning movements and subgenres in the popular and semipopular music marketplace at the time, including singer-songwriter music, art rock, heavy metal, boogie, country rock, jazz fusion, funk, disco, urban contemporary, and new wave, but not punk rock.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, also referred to as CSI and CSI: Las Vegas, is an American procedural forensics crime drama television series that ran on CBS from October 6, 2000, to September 27, 2015, spanning 15 seasons. This was the first in the "CSI" franchise, and starred William Petersen, Marg Helgenberger, Gary Dourdan, George Eads, Jorja Fox, Ted Danson, Laurence Fishburne, Elisabeth Shue and Paul Guilfoyle. The series concluded with a feature-length finale, "". A follow-up series, "", premiered in 2021.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: Mixing deduction and character-driven drama, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" follows a team of crime-scene investigators employed by the Las Vegas Police Department as they use physical evidence to solve murders.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: The team is originally led by Dr. Gil Grissom (Petersen), a socially awkward forensic entomologist and career criminalist who is promoted to CSI supervisor following the death of a trainee investigator. Grissom's second-in-command, Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger), is a single mother with a cop's instinct. Born and raised in Las Vegas, Catherine was a stripper before being recruited into law enforcement and trained as a blood-spatter specialist.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: Following Grissom's departure during the ninth season of the series, Catherine is promoted to supervisor. After overseeing the training of new investigator Raymond Langston (Fishburne), Willows is replaced by D.B. Russell (Danson) and recruited to the FBI shortly thereafter. Russell is a family man, a keen forensic botanist, and a veteran of the Seattle Crime Lab.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: In the series' twelfth season, Russell is reunited with his former partner Julie Finlay (Elisabeth Shue), who, like Catherine, is a blood-spatter expert with an extensive knowledge of criminal psychology. With the rest of the team, they work to tackle Las Vegas's growing crime rate and are on the job 24/7, scouring the scene, collecting the evidence, and finding the missing pieces that will solve the mystery.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: During the 1990s, Anthony Zuiker caught producer Jerry Bruckheimer's attention after writing his first movie script. Zuiker was convinced that a series was in the concept; Bruckheimer agreed and began developing the series with Touchstone Television. The studio's head at the time liked the spec script and presented it to ABC, NBC, and Fox executives, who decided to pass.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: The head of drama development at CBS saw potential in the script, and the network had a pay-or-play contract with actor William Petersen, who said he wanted to do the "CSI" pilot. The network's executives liked the pilot so much, they decided to include it in their 2000 schedule immediately, airing on Fridays after "The Fugitive".


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: After CBS picked up the show, the Disney-owned Touchstone decided to pull out of the project, as they didn't want to spend so much money producing a show for another network (ABC is also owned by Disney). Instead of the intended effect of making CBS cancel the show (since it no longer had a producer), Bruckheimer was able to convince Alliance Atlantis to step in as a producer, saving the show and adding CBS as another producer.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: Initially, "CSI" was thought to benefit from "The Fugitive" (a remake of the 1960s series), which was expected to be a hit, but by the end of 2000, "CSI" had a much larger audience.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: The show began on Friday at 9:00 following "The Fugitive", premiering on October 6, 2000, with an impressive 5.4 in the 18-49 demo and 17 million viewers. The show hovered around that mark for the next 10 episodes. The final Friday episode, "I-15 Murders" aired on January 12, 2001. The show moved to Thursday at 9:00 following "Survivor" on February 1, 2001, episode "Fahrenheit 932" and remained in that time slot until Season 11.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Television and CBS Productions, which became CBS Paramount Television in the fall of 2006 and CBS Television Studios three years later. Formerly a co-production with the now-defunct Alliance Atlantis Communications, that company's interest was later bought by the investment firm GS Capital Partners, an affiliate of Goldman Sachs. CBS acquired AAC's international distribution rights to the program, though the non-US DVD distribution rights did not change (for example, Momentum Pictures continues to own UK DVD rights). The series is currently in syndication, and reruns are broadcast in the US on Oxygen, Syfy, and the USA Network on cable, with Court TV Mystery holding the broadcast syndication rights. The show has aired in reruns on the USA Network since January 14, 2011. The CSI catalog has been exclusive to the whole NBC Universal portfolio since September 2014, after several years with Viacom Media Networks' Spike and TV Land.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: "CSI" was originally shot at Rye Canyon, a corporate campus owned by Lockheed Martin situated in the Valencia area of Santa Clarita, California, due to the Santa Clarita Valley's strong similarity to the outskirts of Las Vegas; after episode 11, filming shifted to the nearby Santa Clarita Studios. Occasionally, the cast still shot on location in Las Vegas (the season-four DVD set revealed that the episode "Suckers" was mostly shot during December 2003 in Las Vegas, where they filmed a Gothic club scene on location for rent, and in January 2004, some scenes were filmed at Caesars Palace), although Las Vegas was primarily used for second unit photography such as exterior shots of streets. Other California locations include Verdugo Hills High School, UCLA's Royce Hall, Pasadena City Hall, and California State University, Los Angeles. After season five, "CSI" episodes were primarily filmed at Universal Studios Hollywood in Universal City, California, but since Santa Clarita's surroundings had proven so versatile, "CSI" continued to shoot some outdoor scenes there.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: "CSI"'s theme song was "Who Are You", written by Pete Townshend with vocals by lead singer Roger Daltrey of The Who. Daltrey made a special appearance in the episode "Living Legend", which also contained many musical references such as the words "Who's next" on a dry-erase board in the episode's opening sequence. In certain countries, to avoid music licensing fees, a unique theme was used, instead.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: Throughout the series, music played an important role; artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, The Wallflowers, John Mayer, and Akon (with Obie Trice) performed onscreen in the episodes "Skin in the Game", "The Accused Is Entitled", "Built to Kill, Part 1", and "Poppin' Tags", respectively. Mogwai was often heard during scenes showing forensic tests in progress, as were Radiohead and Cocteau Twins, but several other artists lent their music to "CSI", including Rammstein and Linkin Park—used heavily in Lady Heather's story arc. Sigur Rós can be heard playing in the background in the episode "Slaves of Las Vegas", The Turtles in "Grave Danger", and Marilyn Manson in "Suckers". A cover of the Tears for Fears song "Mad World", arranged by Michael Andrews and featuring vocals by Gary Jules, was used in the pilot episode and during three episodes of season six ("Room Service", "Killer", and "Way to Go"). Industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails was also featured multiple times throughout the three series. One episode started with The Velvet Underground's excited rendition of "Sweet Jane" and ended with the downbeat version of Cowboy Junkies' revision of the song. Character David Hodges' good luck has, on occasion, been accompanied by Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky". This song was first used in the season seven episode "Lab Rats" and last used during season ten's "Field Mice".


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: From "CSI", CBS produced a franchise starting in 2002 with a spin-off entitled "". Set in Miami, Florida, and starring David Caruso and Emily Procter, "Miami" later launched "" in 2004. Starring Gary Sinise, Sela Ward, and Melina Kanakaredes, "NY" was set in New York City and was based upon the idea that "Everything Is Connected." In 2015, a fourth "CSI" series, "", starring Patricia Arquette and Ted Danson, was created. It focuses on the FBI's Cyber Crime Division. The "CSI" series exists within the same fictional "universe" as fellow CBS police dramas "Without a Trace" and "Cold Case". A number of comic books, video games, and novels based on the series have been made.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: In 2006, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History developed a traveling museum exhibit, CSI: The Experience. On May 25, 2007, Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry was the first museum to host the exhibit, and the exhibit's opening featured stars from the TV series. Also a supporting website designed for the benefit of people who cannot visit the exhibit was developed, designed by Rice University's Center for Technology in Teaching and Learning and Left Brain Media. CSI: The Experience also has an interactive attraction at the MGM Grand Las Vegas in Las Vegas, and the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: On February 10, 2020, CBS announced that a limited series revival of "CSI" was in the works at CBS. Filming was said to possibly begin in late 2020, with William Petersen and Jorja Fox reprising their roles. In February 2021, it was announced that Matt Lauria, Paula Newsome and Mel Rodriguez had joined the cast and the event series was near a series order. On March 31, 2021, it was announced that Mandeep Dhillon had joined the cast, and also Wallace Langham would be reprising his role, along with a series order. In May 2021, it was announced that Jamie McShane had joined the cast in a recurring role, and also Paul Guilfoyle would be reprising his role.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: During its 15 years in production, "CSI" secured an estimated world audience of over 73.8 million viewers (in 2009), commanded, as of the fall of 2008, an average cost of $262,600 for a 30-second commercial, and reached milestone episodes including the 100th ("Ch-Ch-Changes"), the 200th ("Mascara") and the 300th ("Frame by Frame"). "CSI" spawned three spin-off series, a book series, several video games, and an exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. At the time of its cancellation, "CSI" was the seventh-longest-running scripted US primetime TV series overall and had been recognized as the most popular dramatic series internationally by the Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo, which awarded the series the International Television Audience Award (Best Television Drama Series) three times. "CSI" became the second-most watched show on American television by 2002, finally taking the top position for the 2002–2003 season. It was later named the most watched show in the world for the sixth time in 2016, making it the most watched show for more years than any other show.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: Critical reception to the show has been positive. Early reviews of the opening season were mixed. The "Hollywood Reporter "noted of the pilot "...the charismatic William Petersen and the exquisite Marg Helgenberger, lend credibility to the portrayals that might be indistinct in lesser hands. There's also a compelling, pulsating edge at the outset of CSI that commands instant attention, thanks in part to dynamic work from director Danny Cannon." "Entertainment Weekly" gave the opening two seasons "B+" and "A-" ratings, respectively, noting: "The reason for CSI's success is that it combines a few time-tested TV elements in a fresh way. Each episode presents a murder case and a group of lovable heroes armed with cool, high-tech gadgets who do the sleuthing and wrap things up in an hour." The CSI TV series has won six Primetime Emmy awards (out of 39 nominations) and four People's Choice awards (out of six nominations) and was nominated for six Golden Globe Awards, among other awards.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: According to TV media critic Liv Hausken, crime drama T.V. shows like "CSI" normalize surveillance. "The absence of any critical distance to technology on "CSI" involves a lack of reflection on the security of information (that is, the constant risk of losing sensitive data) and the potential use and misuse of information. This can be contrasted with a whole range of crime series that may rely heavily on surveillance technologies but nevertheless allow critical reflection as part of the plot as such (showing misinterpretation of data or misuse of surveillance techniques)...This trust in technologies on "CSI" is important for understanding the status of surveillance in this fictional universe. It is also an indicator of the show's presentation of "power", a third component for consideration in this discussion about how "CSI" lends a certain normalization of surveillance to everyday life...The series ignores the fact that everyone is a cultural being, that each person sees something "as" something, that they understand things from particular "perspectives" in everyday life as well as in science."


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: "CSI" was often criticized for its level and explicitness of graphic violence, images, and sexual content. The "CSI" series and its spin-off shows have been accused of pushing the boundary of what is considered acceptable viewing for primetime network television. The series had numerous episodes centered on sexual fetishism and other forms of sexual pleasure (notably the recurring character of Lady Heather, a professional dominatrix). "CSI" was ranked among the worst primetime shows by the Parents Television Council from its second through sixth seasons, being ranked the worst show for family prime-time viewing after the 2002–2003 and 2005–2006 seasons. The PTC also targeted certain "CSI" episodes for its weekly "Worst TV Show of the Week" feature. In addition, the episode "" that aired in February 2005, which the PTC named the most offensive TV show of the week, also led the PTC to start a campaign to file complaints with the FCC with the episode; to date, nearly 13,000 PTC members complained to the Federal Communications Commission about the episode. The PTC also asked Clorox to pull their advertisements from "CSI" and "CSI: Miami" because of the graphically violent content on those programs.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: A grassroots campaign started in August 2007, upon rumors of Jorja Fox leaving the show, organized by the online forum Your Tax Dollars At Work. Many of its 19,000 members donated to the cause, collecting over $8,000 for gifts and stunts targeted at CBS executives and "CSI"'s producers and writers. The stunts included a wedding cake delivery to Carol Mendelsohn, 192 chocolate-covered insects with the message "CSI Without Sara Bugs Us" to Naren Shankar, and a plane flying several times over the Universal Studios of Los Angeles with a "Follow the evidence keep Jorja Fox on CSI" banner. Other protests included mailing the show's producers a dollar, to save Fox's contract "one dollar at a time." By October 16, 2007, according to the site's tally, more than 20,000 letters with money or flyers had been mailed to the Universal Studios and to CBS headquarters in New York from 49 different countries since the campaign started on September 29, 2007. Fox and Mendelsohn chose to donate the money to Court Appointed Special Advocate, a national association that supports and promotes court-appointed advocates for abused or neglected children.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: On September 27, 2007, after "CSI"'s season eight premiered, a miniature model of character Gil Grissom's office (which he was seen building during ) was put up on eBay. The auction ended October 7, with the prop being sold for $15,600; CBS donated the proceeds to the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: Real-life crime scene investigators and forensic scientists warn that popular television shows like "CSI" (often specifically citing "CSI") do not give a realistic picture of the work, wildly distorting the nature of crime scene investigators' work, and exaggerating the ease, speed, effectiveness, drama, glamour, influence, scope, and comfort level of their jobs, which they describe as far more mundane, tedious, limited, and boring, and very commonly failing to solve a crime.


title: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

text: Another criticism of the show is the depiction of police procedure, which some consider to be decidedly lacking in realism. For instance, the show's characters not only investigate ("process") crime scenes, but they also conduct raids, engage in suspect pursuit and arrest, interrogate suspects, and solve cases, all of which falls under the responsibility of uniformed officers and detectives, not CSI personnel. Although "some" detectives are also registered CSIs, this is exceedingly rare in real life. It is considered an inappropriate and improbable practice to allow CSI personnel to be involved in detective work, as it would compromise the impartiality of scientific evidence and would be impracticably time-consuming. Additionally, it is inappropriate for the CSIs who process a crime scene to be involved in the examination and testing of any evidence collected from that scene. "CSI" shares this characteristic with the similar British drama series "Silent Witness".