title: Mario (franchise)

text: "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" is currently in development and is scheduled to be released on April 7, 2023 by Universal Pictures in North America. Produced by Illumination and Nintendo, the film will feature the voices of Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek, and Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong. Charles Martinet, Mario's in-game voice actor, will also provide cameo roles. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, the developers of "Teen Titans Go!", will direct, while Matthew Fogel will write the screenplay. Shigeru Miyamoto and Chris Meledandri are the producers.


title: Mario (franchise)

text: Bowser and the Super Mushroom had a cameo in the 2012 Disney computer-animated film "Wreck-It Ralph". Mario was mentioned but not seen in the film. Banzai Bills from the "Mario" franchise also appear in the 2022 film "".


title: Mario (franchise)

text: is a manga series written by and published by Shogakukan. It is serialized in CoroCoro Comic. It contains many characters and scenarios from "Mario" games, such as "Super Mario World" and "Paper Mario". Having just hit its 41st volume, "Super Mario-kun" is the longest-running "Mario" series manga to date. It continues to release new volumes to date. Another consistent manga series based on various Mario games is a work written and drawn by and published by PikkaPika Comics that is, somewhat confusedly, also called It is currently at five volumes and stopped due to the author's death in 2006.


title: Mario (franchise)

text: The "Nintendo Comics System" was a series of comic books published by Valiant Comics in 1990 and 1991. It was part of a licensing deal with Nintendo, featuring characters from their video games and the cartoons based on them. Valiant's "Super Mario Bros." comic books were based on the three main "Mario" games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, as well as "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show". The "Mario" line was renewed for 1991 with two different books—"Super Mario Bros." and "Adventures of the Super Mario Bros."


title: Mario (franchise)

text: The "Nintendo Adventure Book" series was published from 1991 to 1992 by Archway books, and Mammoth books in the United Kingdom. There are twelve in all. They are formatted like the popular Choose Your Own Adventure books, where the reader makes decisions that change the outcome of the story. Ten of the books are about the Mario Bros.' adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom and are based primarily on the Valiant Comics published for the Nintendo Comics System imprint.


title: Mario (franchise)

text: Immediately following the end of "Super Mario Adventures", "Nintendo Power" concluded the epic with a ten-page story based on "" titled "Mario VS Wario", which ran in their January 1993 issue and was later reprinted in the graphic novel.


title: Mario (franchise)

text: At one point, Archie Comics made a pitch to Nintendo for a new Mario comic similar to its "Sonic the Hedgehog" series, but it was turned down.


title: Mario (franchise)

text: An encyclopedia based on "Super Mario Bros." was released in Japan in October 2015. In February 2017, Nintendo announced that the encyclopedia would launch in North America and Europe in June 2017.


title: Mario (franchise)

text: Another encyclopedia based on the series up until "Super Mario Maker" was published by Dark Horse Publishing on October 23, 2018.


title: Mario (franchise)

text: Mario has appeared on lunch boxes, T-shirts, jeans, magazines, commercials (notably, in a Got Milk? commercial), in candy form, on shampoo bottles, cereal, badges, and as a plush toy. In 1992, Gottlieb created a Super Mario themed pinball machine. A Monopoly board game based on the "Mario" franchise has been confirmed by the website USAopoly. In April 2017, a board game developed by USAopoly titled "Super Mario Level Up!" was announced for release. Another Monopoly-inspired board game called "Monopoly Gamer" was released in August 2017. In addition, Monopoly Gamer adds a "Mario Kart" version with courses from "Mario Kart 8" serving as properties. LINE released four voiced "Mario" sticker sets. Mario-themed Lego sets were released in August 2020. These sets feature an electronic Mario figure that interacts with other parts of the set.


title: Mario (franchise)

text: The "Super Mario Bros." theme has been featured in many concerts, including "PLAY! Chicago", the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Mario & Zelda Big Band Live, Play! A Video Game Symphony, and others.


title: Mario (franchise)

text: The "Mario" series has received highly positive reception from critics and audiences. A 1996 article in "Next Generation" declared that "The evolution of the "Mario" series led the rest of gaming by the hand, blazing a trail, and teaching lessons in game mechanics, structure, and sheer playability to any who would study its secrets".


title: Mario (franchise)

text: Mario has been featured in 256 games of various genres (including sports, puzzle, party, racing and first-person shooter), and the "Mario" franchise is the best-selling video game franchise of all time. At least 31 different "Mario" games have sold more than a million copies each since 1995. This includes the core "Super Mario" series, which alone has sold over 370 million units worldwide, as well as the "Mario Kart" series which sold 154.26 million units, the "Mario Party" series which sold over 56 million copies, "Donkey Kong" which sold over 125,000 arcade machines and six million Coleco cartridges, and "Mario Bros." which sold 1.72 million Famicom cartridges. By 2002, the "Super Mario" series had grossed more than $7 billion in software sales.


title: 1990s

text: The 1990s (pronounced "nineteen-nineties", shortened to "the '90s" and often referred to as simply "the Nineties") was a decade that began on January 1, 1990, and ended on December 31, 1999.


title: 1990s

text: Known as the Post-Cold War Decade, the 90s are often culturally defined as the period from the Revolutions of 1989 that marked the end of the Cold War until the Global War on Terror ("GWOT"), which included the September 11 attacks, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. In the United States, the decade saw greater attention to multiculturalism compared to the 1980s, as well as the advance of alternative media. Music movements like grunge, Eurodance, and hip-hop became popular with young adults worldwide, aided by the rise in popularity of tiered-pricing cable television, and the Internet. The 1990s saw advances in technology, with the World Wide Web, the first gene therapy trial, and cloning all emerging and being improved upon throughout the decade.


title: 1990s

text: A combination of factors led to a realignment and consolidation of economic and political power across the world, such as the continued mass-mobilization of capital markets through neoliberalism, the end of the Cold War caused by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the beginning of the widespread proliferation of new media such as the Internet, and increasing skepticism towards the government. Many countries were economically prosperous during the 1990s. High-income countries experienced steady economic growth throughout the majority of the decade during the Great Moderation. In contrast, the GDP of the states formed from the former Soviet Union declined, often as a result of economic restructuring. International trade increased with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 and formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. The "dot-com frenzy" resulted in the dot-com bubble of 1997–2000 that brought great wealth to some entrepreneurs before its crash in 2000 and 2001.


title: 1990s

text: New ethnic conflicts emerged, such as the Rwandan genocide in Africa, the Bosnian genocide in the Balkans, and several wars in the Chechen–Russian conflict in Caucasus. Signs of any resolution of tensions between Israel and the Arab world remained elusive, despite the progress of the Oslo Accords. However, in Northern Ireland, The Troubles came to a standstill in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement, putting to rest 30 years of violence.


title: 1990s

text: During this decade, the world population grew from 5.3 to 6.1 billion people. There were approximately 1.35 billion births and 525 million deaths.


title: 1990s

text: The 1990s saw a trend in frequent and more devastating natural disasters, breaking many previous records. Although the 1990s was designated by the United Nations as an International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction as part of its program to prevent losses due to disasters, disasters would go on to cause a record-breaking US$608 billion worth of damage—more than the past four decades combined.


title: 1990s

text: Many countries, institutions, companies, and organizations were prosperous during the 1990s. High-income countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Western Europe experienced steady economic growth for much of the decade during the Great Moderation. However, in the former Soviet Union, GDP decreased as their economies restructured to produce goods they needed, and some capital flight occurred.


title: 1990s

text: The 1990s were a revolutionary decade for digital technology. Between 1990 and 1997, household personal computer ownership in the US rose from 15% to 35%. Cell phones of the early-1990s and earlier ones were very large, lacked extra features, and were used by only a few percent of the population of even the wealthiest nations. Only a few million people used online services in 1990, and the World Wide Web, which would have a significant impact on technology for many decades, had only just been invented. The first web browser went online in 1993. By 2001, more than 50% of some Western countries had Internet access, and more than 25% had cell phone access.


title: 1990s

text: The opening of the Channel Tunnel between France and the United Kingdom saw the commencement by the three national railway companies of Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom, respectively SNCB/NMBS, SNCF and British Rail of the joint Eurostar service.


title: 1990s

text: On 14 November 1994 Eurostar services began between Waterloo International station in London, Gare du Nord in Paris and Brussels South in Brussels.


title: 1990s

text: On 8 January 1996 Eurostar launched services from a second railway station in the UK when Ashford International was opened. Journey times between London and Brussels were reduced by the opening of the High Speed 1 line on 14 December 1997.


title: 1990s

text: The 1990s began with a recession that dampened car sales. General Motors suffered huge losses because of an inefficient structure, stale designs, and poor quality. Sales improved with the economy by the mid-1990s, but GM's US market share gradually declined to less than 40% (from a peak of 50% in the 1970s). While the new Saturn division fared well, Oldsmobile fell sharply, and attempts to remake the division as a European-style luxury car were unsuccessful.


title: 1990s

text: Cars in the 1990s had a rounder, more streamlined shape than those from the 1970s and 1980s; this style would continue early into the 2000s and to a lesser extent later on.


title: 1990s

text: Chrysler ran into financial troubles as it entered the 1990s. Like GM, the Chrysler too had a stale model lineup (except for the best-selling minivans) that were largely based on the aging K-car platform. In 1992, chairman Lee Iacocca retired, and the company began a remarkable revival, introducing the new LH platform and "Cab-Forward" styling, along with a highly successful redesign of the full-sized Dodge Ram in 1994. Chrysler's minivans continued to dominate the market despite increasing competition. In 1998, Daimler-Benz (the parent company of Mercedes-Benz) merged with Chrysler. The following year, it was decided to retire Plymouth, which had been on a long decline since the 1970s. Ford continued to fare well in the 1990s, with the second and third generations of the Ford Taurus being named the best-selling car in the United States from 1992 to 1996. However, the Taurus would be outsold and dethroned by the Toyota Camry starting in 1997, which became the best-selling car in the United States for the rest of the decade and into the 2000s. Ford also introduced the Ford Explorer, with the first model being sold in 1991. Ford's Explorer became the best-selling SUV on the market, outselling both the Chevy Blazer and Jeep Cherokee.


title: 1990s

text: Japanese cars continued to be highly successful during the decade. The Honda Accord vied with the Taurus most years for being the best-selling car in the United States during the early decade. Although launched in 1989, the luxury brands Lexus and Infiniti began car sales of 1990 model year vehicles and saw great success. Lexus would go on to outsell Mercedes-Benz and BMW in the United States by 1991 and outsell Cadillac and Lincoln by the end of the decade. SUVs and trucks became hugely popular during the economic boom in the decade's second half. Many manufacturers that had never built a truck before started selling SUVs. Fabrication during the 1990s became gradually rounder and ovoid, the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable being some of the more extreme examples. Safety features such as airbags and shoulder belts became mandatory equipment on new cars.


title: 1990s

text: At the beginning of the decade, sustainable development and environmental protection became serious issues for governments and the international community. In 1987, the publication of the Brundtland Report by the United Nations paved the way to establish an environmental governance. In 1992, the Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, in which several countries committed to protect the environment, signing a Convention on Biological Diversity.


title: 1990s

text: The prevention of the destruction of the tropical rainforests of the world is a major environmental cause that first came into wide public concern in the early 1990s and has continued and accelerated in its prominence.


title: 1990s

text: The Chernobyl disaster had significant impact on public opinion at the end of the 1980s, and the fallout was still causing cancer deaths well into the 1990s and possibly even into the 21st century. Well into the 1990s, several environmental NGOs helped improve environmental awareness among public opinion and governments. The most famous of these organizations during this decade was Greenpeace, which did not hesitate to lead illegal actions in the name of environmental preservation. These organizations also drew attention to the large of the Amazon Rainforest during the period.


title: 1990s

text: Global warming as an aspect of climate change also became a major concern, and the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) after the Earth Summit helped coordinate efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere. From 1995, the UNFCCC held annual summits on climate change, leading to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997, a binding agreement signed by several developed countries.


title: 1990s

text: The 1990s represented continuing social liberalization in most countries, coupled with an increase in the influence of capitalism, which would continue until the Great Recession of the late 2000s/early 2010s.


title: 1990s

text: Those born from 1990 to 1996 are generally considered part of the Millennial Generation, while those born from 1997 onward are often considered part of Generation Z, the post-Millennial generation.


title: 1990s

text: Dogme 95 became an important European artistic motion picture movement by the decade's end. "Toy Story", the first full-length CGI movie, made by Pixar, was released in 1995 and revolutionized animated films. Pixar's parent company, Disney, was navigating the "Disney Renaissance", through both animated theatrical films and animated television series on the Disney Channel. The "Disney Renaissance" began with "The Little Mermaid" in 1989 and ended with "Tarzan" in 1999. Cartoons produced in the 90s are sometimes referred to as the "Renaissance Age of Animation" for cartoons in general. Disney Channel's two main rivals were Nickelodeon (owned by Viacom) and Cartoon Network (owned by Warner Brothers). These three channels are considered the "Big Three", of children's entertainment, even today, but especially during the 1990s. In 1998, with the release of DreamWorks's "Antz" and Pixar's "A Bug's Life", the rivalry between DreamWorks and Pixar began between the studios due to the similarities between both films. Also in 1998, "Titanic" (released in late 1997) became the highest-grossing film of all time, grossing over $1.8 billion worldwide. It would hold this record for over a decade until 2010 when director James Cameron had another one of his films, "Avatar" (released in late 2009), take the title.


title: 1990s

text: Family-centric animated feature films began to gain popularity through the late-1990s (1997, 1998, and 1999). Don Bluth's animation studio released a number of underperforming family animated films such as "Rock-a-Doodle", "Thumbelina" and "The Pebble and the Penguin" and closed down in 1995. In 1994 former Disney employee Jeffrey Katzenberg founded DreamWorks SKG, which would produce its first two animated films: "The Prince of Egypt" and "Antz" which were both aimed more at adults than children and were both critically and commercially successful. Meanwhile, films by Walt Disney Feature Animation became popular once more when the studio returned to making family-oriented animated musical films; the most notable films of this era were "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "The Lion King". Other significant animated films have also gained cult status, such as "", "The Princess and the Goblin", "Happily Ever After", "", "", "", "The Thief and the Cobbler", "Once Upon a Forest", "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story", "", "Felidae", "The Swan Princess", "Balto", "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America", "Cats Don't Dance", "Anastasia", "Quest for Camelot", "The Rugrats Movie", "Kirikou and the Sorceress", "The King and I", "" and "The Iron Giant".


title: 1990s

text: Live-action films also featuring computer-animated characters became popular, with films such as "Casper", "James and the Giant Peach", "101 Dalmatians", "Men in Black", "Small Soldiers" and "Stuart Little" proving financially successful. Live-action/traditional cel animated film featuring traditional characters like "Cool World", "The Pagemaster" and "Space Jam" were also prevalent.


title: 1990s

text: Japanese anime films continued in the 1990s as Studio Ghibli continued to dominate with films such as "Only Yesterday", "Porco Rosso", "Pom Poko", "Whisper of the Heart", "Princess Mononoke" (which became the highest-grossing anime film at the time) and "My Neighbors the Yamadas". Other significant anime films which gained cult status include "Roujin Z", "", "", "Ninja Scroll", "", "Ghost in the Shell", "Memories", "The End of Evangelion", "Perfect Blue", "", and the "Pokémon" film series which started with the first two entries "" and "".


title: 1990s

text: Music marketing became more segmented in the 1990s, as MTV gradually shifted away from music videos and radio splintered into narrower formats aimed at various niches. However, the 1990s are perhaps best known for grunge, gangsta rap, R&B, teen pop; Eurodance, electronic dance music, the renewed popularity of punk rock from the band Green Day (which would also help create a new genre pop punk), and for the entrance of alternative rock into the mainstream. U2 was one of the most popular 1990s bands; their groundbreaking Zoo TV and PopMart tours were the top-selling tours of 1992 and 1997, respectively. Glam metal died out in the music mainstream by 1991. Grunge became popular in the early 1990s due to the success of Nirvana's "Nevermind", Pearl Jam's "Ten", Alice in Chain's "Dirt", Soundgarden's "Badmotorfinger" and Stone Temple Pilot's "Core". Pop punk also becomes popular with such artists as Green Day, Blink-182, Weezer, Social Distortion, The Offspring, Bad Religion, NOFX and Rancid. Other successful alternative acts included Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M., Nickelback, Creed, Radiohead, Gin Blossoms, Soul Asylum, Third Eye Blind, Faith No More, The Smashing Pumpkins, Live, Everclear, Bush, Screaming Trees and Ween.


title: 1990s

text: Dr. Dre's 1992 album "The Chronic" provided a template for modern gangsta rap, and gave rise to other emerging artists of the genre, including Snoop Dogg. Due to the success of Death Row Records and Tupac Shakur, West Coast gangsta rap commercially dominated hip hop during the early-to-mid 1990s, along with Bad Boy Records and the Notorious B.I.G. on the East Coast. Hip hop became the best-selling music genre by the mid-1990s.


title: 1990s

text: In the United Kingdom, the alternative rock Britpop genre emerged as part of the more general Cool Britannia culture, with Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Suede, Supergrass and Elastica serving as popular examples of this emergence. The impact of boy band pop sensation Take That lead to the formation of other boy bands in the UK and Ireland, such as East 17 and Boyzone. Female pop icons Spice Girls took the world by storm, becoming the most commercially successful British group since the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. Also, R&B artists Des'Ree, Mark Morrison and Sade became quite popular during this decade. Their global success brought about a widespread scene of teen pop acts around the world such as All Saints, Backstreet Boys, Hanson, NSYNC, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera who came to prominence into the new millennium. 1991 also saw the death of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury from AIDS-related pneumonia. Many musicians from Canada (Snow, Celine Dion, The Barenaked Ladies, Shania Twain, Len, Sarah McLachlan, and Alanis Morissette) became known worldwide.


title: 1990s

text: Contemporary R&B and quiet storm continued to be quite popular among adult audiences, which began during the 1980s. Popular African-American contemporary R&B artists included Mariah Carey, D'Angelo, Lauryn Hill, Whitney Houston, Brandy, En Vogue, TLC, Destiny's Child, Toni Braxton, Boyz II Men, Dru Hill and Vanessa Williams.


title: 1990s

text: The Tibetan Freedom Concert brought 120,000 people together in the interest of increased human rights and autonomy for Tibet from China. Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain, Selena, Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. were the most publicized music-related deaths of the decade, in 1991, 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997 respectively.


title: 1990s

text: Richey Edwards of Manic Street Preachers was publicized in the media in 1991 following an incident involving Steve Lamacq backstage after a live show, in which Edwards carved '4 Real' into his arm. Edwards' disappearance in 1995 was highly publicized. He is still missing but was presumed dead in 2008.


title: 1990s

text: Controversy surrounded the Prodigy with the release of the track "Smack My Bitch Up". The National Organization for Women (NOW) claimed that the track was "advocating violence against women" due to the song's lyrics, which are themselves sampled from Ultramagnetic MCss' Give the Drummer Some. The music video (directed by Jonas Åkerlund) featured a first-person POV of someone going clubbing, indulging in drugs and alcohol, getting into fist fights, abusing women and picking up a prostitute. At the end of the video, the camera pans over to a mirror, revealing the subject to be a woman.1994 became a breakthrough year for punk rock in California, with the success of bands like Bad Religion, Social Distortion, Blink-182, Green Day, the Offspring, Rancid and similar groups following. This success would continue to grow over the next decade. The 1990s also became the most important decade for ska punk/reggae rock, with the success of many bands like Smash Mouth, Buck-O-Nine, Goldfinger, Less Than Jake, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Murphy's Law, No Doubt, Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris, Sublime and Sugar Ray.


title: 1990s

text: The rave movement that emerged in the late 1980s continued to grow in popularity. This movement spawned genres such as Intelligent dance music and Drum and bass. The latter is an offshoot of jungle techno and breakbeat. Popular artists included Moby, Fatboy Slim, Björk, Aphex Twin, Orbital, the Orb, the Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, Todd Terry, 808 State, Primal Scream, the Shamen, the KLF and the Prodigy.


title: 1990s

text: The rise of industrial music, somewhat a fusion of synthpop and heavy metal, rose to worldwide popularity with bands like Godflesh, Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein, Ministry and Marilyn Manson. Groove metal was born through the efforts of Pantera, whose seventh studio album "Far Beyond Driven" (1994) was notable for going number one on "Billboard" 200. Another heavy metal subgenre called nu metal, which mixed metal with hip hop influences, beca,e popular with bands like Korn, Slipknot and Limp Bizkit selling millions of albums worldwide. Metallica's 1991 eponymous album "Metallica" is the best-selling album of the SoundScan era, while extreme metal acts such as Death, Mayhem, Darkthrone, Emperor, Cannibal Corpse and others experienced popularity throughout the decade.


title: 1990s

text: In the 1990s, country music became a worldwide phenomenon thanks to Billy Ray Cyrus, Shania Twain and Garth Brooks. The latter enjoyed one of the most successful careers in popular music history, breaking records for both sales and concert attendance throughout the decade. The RIAA has certified his recordings at a combined (128× platinum), denoting roughly 113 million United States shipments. Other artists that experienced success during this time included Clint Black, Sammy Kershaw, Aaron Tippin, Travis Tritt, Suzy Bogguss, Alan Jackson, Lorrie Morgan and the newly formed duo of Brooks & Dunn. George Strait, whose career began in the 1980s, also continued to have widespread success in this decade and beyond. Female artists such as Reba McEntire, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Deana Carter, LeAnn Rimes and Mary Chapin Carpenter all released platinum-selling albums in the 1990s. Rimes, a teenager at the time, spawned a "teen movement" in country music; with fellow teen artists Lila McCann, Jessica Andrews, Billy Gillman, and others following suit; a feat that hasn't been duplicated since Tanya Tucker and Marie Osmond in the early 1970s. The Dixie Chicks became one of the most popular country bands in the 1990s and early 2000s. Their 1998 debut album "Wide Open Spaces" went on to become certified 12× platinum, while their 1999 album "Fly" went on to become 10× platinum.


title: 1990s

text: TV shows, mostly sitcoms, were popular with American audiences. Series such as "Roseanne", "Coach", "Empty Nest", "Mr. Belvedere", "227", "Cheers", "The Cosby Show", "Growing Pains", "Night Court", "The Hogan Family", "A Different World", "Amen", "ALF", "Perfect Strangers", "Family Matters", "Charles in Charge", "Saved by the Bell", "My Two Dads", "Newhart", "Dear John", "Designing Women", "The Golden Girls", "Who's the Boss?", "Head of the Class", and "Seinfeld", which premiered in the eighties, and "Frasier", a spin-off of the 1980s hit "Cheers" were viewed throughout the 1990s. These sitcoms, along with "Friends", "That '70s Show", "Ellen", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Full House", "Nurses", "Murphy Brown", "The Wonder Years", "Living Single", "Step by Step", "NewsRadio", "Blossom", "The King of Queens", "Major Dad", "Fired Up", "Jesse", "Parker Lewis Can't Lose", "For Your Love", "The Steve Harvey Show", "The Larry Sanders Show", "Sex and the City", "Arliss", "Dream On", "Grace Under Fire", "Mad About You", "Sabrina the Teenage Witch", "The Naked Truth", "The Jeff Foxworthy Show", "The Jamie Foxx Show", "Smart Guy", "The Wayans Bros.", "Malcolm & Eddie", "Clueless", "Moesha", "The Parent 'Hood", "Unhappily Ever After", "Roc", "Martin", "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper", "In Living Color", "Sister, Sister", "Boy Meets World", "Ned and Stacey", "Becker", "Veronica's Closet", "Two Guys and a Girl", "The Drew Carey Show", "Wings", "The John Larroquette Show", "Caroline in the City", "Sports Night", "Home Improvement", "Will & Grace", "Married... with Children", "Evening Shade", "Cosby", "Spin City", "The Nanny", "3rd Rock from the Sun", "Suddenly Susan", "Cybill", "Just Shoot Me!", "Everybody Loves Raymond", and "Dharma and Greg" turned TV in new directions and defined the humor of the decade. Furthermore, "Saturday Night Live" experienced a new era of success during the 1990s, launching the careers of popular comedians and actors such as Chris Farley, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Norm McDonald, David Spade, Cheri Oteri and others.


title: 1990s

text: In 1993, one of the last westerns to air on television was "Walker, Texas Ranger", a crime drama starring Chuck Norris as the title character. Running for nine seasons, the show tackled a wide variety of subjects and was one of few shows to feature an actor performing karate stunts at that time.


title: 1990s

text: 1993 also saw the debut of the medical–mystery drama, "Diagnosis Murder", a comeback vehicle for Dick Van Dyke, who guest-starred on an episode of its sequel, "Jake and The Fatman", where the show got off to a rocky start and became one of television's long-running mysteries, that lasted until its cancellation in 2001.


title: 1990s

text: Medical dramas started to come into television in the 1990s. In 1994, "ER", which originally starred Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle and George Clooney, was a domestic and international success, lasting until 2009 and spawned similar series such as "Grey's Anatomy" (2005–present). It made NBC the most-watched channel in the United States. This show launched the career of George Clooney. That same year, "Chicago Hope", that starred Héctor Elizondo, Mandy Patinkin and Adam Arkin, was also a popular series for CBS, lasting between 1994 and 2000.


title: 1990s

text: "Beverly Hills, 90210" ran on Fox from 1990 to 2000. It established the teen soap genre, paving the way for "Dawson's Creek", "Felicity", "Party of Five", and other shows airing later in the decade. The show was then remade and renamed simply "90210" and premiered in 2008. "Beverly Hills, 90210", and its spin-off "Melrose Place" also became a popular TV show throughout the 1990s. "Baywatch" became the most-watched TV show in history and influenced pop culture.


title: 1990s

text: "Sex and the City" portrayal of relationships and sexuality caused controversy and acclaim, leading to a new generation of sexually progressive television shows in the 2000s.


title: 1990s

text: Fantasy and science fiction shows were popular on television, with NBC airing "seaQuest DSV" beginning in 1993, which made Jonathan Brandis a popular teen idol, but was cancelled after three seasons. The 1990s saw a multitude of Star Trek content: in 1993, following the success of , Paramount released the follow up shows (1993–1999), starring Avery Brooks, and (1995–2001), starring Kate Mulgrew. "Touched By an Angel", broadcast by CBS in 1994, was intended as the comeback vehicle of Della Reese, and also launched the career of Roma Downey. It wasn't an immediate success and was cancelled, but was revived the following year due to a fan letter-writing campaign, and ran for eight more seasons. At the end of the decade, the fantasy drama series Charmed gained a cult following and helped popularize the WB.


title: 1990s

text: Crime drama and police detective shows returned to the spotlight after soap operas died down. After the successful debuts of "Law & Order", "NYPD Blue," "", Fox debuted "New York Undercover, "which starred Malik Yoba and Micheal DeLorenzo, is notable for featuring two people of color in the main roles. "Nash Bridges," a comeback vehicle for Don Johnson, lasting six seasons (1996–2001), dealt with escapist entertainment instead of tackling social issues.""


title: 1990s

text: Reality television began on MTV; this would grow in importance in the Western world into the next decade.


title: 1990s

text: During the mid-1990s, two of the biggest professional wrestling companies: "World Championship Wrestling" and "World Wrestling Federation" were in a ratings battle that was called the Monday Night Wars (1995–2001). Each company fought to draw more viewers to their respective Monday night wrestling show. The "War" ended in 2001 when "WWE" bought "WCW". In November 2001, there was a Winner Takes All match with both companies in a Pay-Per-View called "Survivor Series". WWF won the match, putting an end to WCW.


title: 1990s

text: An animated sitcom, "The Simpsons", premiered on Fox in December 1989 and became a domestic and international success in the 1990s. The show has since aired more than 600 episodes and has become an institution of pop culture. In addition, it has spawned the adult-oriented animated sitcom genre, inspiring more adult-oriented animated shows such as "Beavis and Butt-Head" (1993–1997), "Daria" (1997–2001), along with "South Park" and "Family Guy", the latter two of which began in 1997 and 1999, respectively, and continue to air new episodes through the 2000s and into the 2020s.


title: 1990s

text: Japanese anime was popular in the 1980s and expanded to a worldwide audience by the 1990s for its expansive spectrum of story subjects and themes not limited to comedy and superhero action found in the US. It featured well-produced, well-written, visual, and story content that came to showcase animation's potential for emotional and intellectual depth and integrity on par with live action media to its viewers. Anime expanded to older and adult ages in the medium of animation. TV shows such as "Sailor Moon", "Digimon", "Pokémon", "Tenchi Muyo!", "Detective Conan", "Dragon Ball Z", "Cowboy Bebop", "Gundam Wing", "Neon Genesis Evangelion", "Ranma ½", "Yu Yu Hakusho", "Slayers", "Rurouni Kenshin", "Initial D", "Gunsmith Cats", "Outlaw Star", to anime movies such as "Akira", "Vampire Hunter D", "My Neighbor Totoro", "Princess Mononoke", "Castle in the Sky", "The Castle of Cagliostro", and imports by various distributors such as Viz, AnimEigo, Central Park Media, A.D. Vision, Pioneer Entertainment, Media Blasters, Manga Entertainment, and Celebrity, helped begin the mid to late 1990s and turn of the millennium introductory anime craze in the US, and the Cartoon Network anime block Toonami in 1997.


title: 1990s

text: American animated children's programs went through a renaissance during the decade, with studios producing many critically acclaimed shows. Specifically, Warner Bros-animated shows like "Tiny Toon Adventures", "Animaniacs", and the start of the DC Animated Universe with shows such as "", and "", as well as syndicated shows like "Phantom 2040". Nickelodeon's first three animated series ("Doug", "Rugrats", "The Ren & Stimpy Show") all premiered in 1991. 1993 saw the debut of children's live-action series "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers", which became a pop culture phenomenon along with a line of action figures and other toys by merchandise manufacturer Bandai. This can also be said for the British pre-school series "Teletubbies", which was a massive hit loved by very young children. The late 1990s also saw the evolution of a new TV genre: primetime game shows, popularized by the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", hosted originally by Chris Tarrant on ITV and Regis Philbin on ABC, as well as other first-run game shows aired in prime time on the newly launched Game Show Network.


title: 1990s

text: Video game consoles released in this decade include the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Neo Geo, Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast. Portable video game consoles include the Game Gear, Atari Lynx and Game Boy Color. "Super Mario World" was the decade's best-selling home console video game, while "Pokémon Red and Blue" was the decade's best-selling portable video game; "Super Mario 64" was the decade's best-selling fifth-generation video game, while "Street Fighter II" was the decade's highest-grossing arcade video game.


title: 1990s

text: Mario as Nintendo's mascot finds a rival in Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog with the release of "Sonic the Hedgehog" on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in 1991. "Sonic the Hedgehog" would go on to become one of the most successful video game franchises of the decade and of all time.


title: 1990s

text: Notable video games of the 1990s include: "Super Metroid", "Metal Gear Solid", "Super Mario World", "Doom", "Donkey Kong Country", "Donkey Kong 64", "Pokémon Red" and "Blue" Versions, "Pokémon Yellow Version", "GoldenEye 007", "Super Mario 64", "", "Gran Turismo", "Mario Kart 64", "Half-Life", "Super Mario Kart", "Radiant Silvergun", "Rayman", "Gunstar Heroes", "Banjo-Kazooie", "Soulcalibur", "Star Fox" series, "Tomb Raider" series, "Final Fantasy", "Sonic the Hedgehog" series, "Story of Seasons" series, "Tony Hawk's" series, "Crash Bandicoot" series, "Metal Slug" series, "Resident Evil" series, "Street Fighter II", "Spyro the Dragon" series, "Commander Keen" series, "Test Drive" series, "Dance Dance Revolution" series, "Monkey Island" series, "Dune" series, "Mortal Kombat" series, "Warcraft" series, "Duke Nukem 3D", "Tekken" series, "EarthBound", "", and "StarCraft".


title: 1990s

text: Sony's PlayStation becomes the top-selling video game console and changes the standard media storage type from cartridges to compact discs (CDs) in home consoles. "Crash Bandicoot" is released on September 9, 1996, becoming one of the most successful platforming series for the Sony PlayStation. "Spyro The Dragon", released on September 9, 1998, also became a successful platforming series. "Tomb Raider"s Lara Croft became a video game sex symbol, becoming one of the most recognizable figures in the entertainment industry throughout the late 1990s.


title: 1990s

text: 3D graphics become the standard by the decade's end. Although FPS games had long since seen the transition to full 3D, other genres began to copy this trend by the end of the decade. The most notable first shooter games in the 1990s are "GoldenEye 007" and "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six".


title: 1990s

text: The console wars, primarily between Sega (Mega Drive, marketed as the Sega Genesis in North America, introduced in 1988) and Nintendo (Super NES, introduced in 1990), sees the entrance of Sony with the PlayStation in 1994, which becomes the first successful CD-based console (as opposed to cartridges). By the end of the decade, Sega's hold on the market becomes tenuous after the end of the Saturn in 1999 and the Dreamcast in 2002.


title: 1990s

text: Arcade games rapidly decreased in popularity, mainly due to the dominance of handheld and home consoles.


title: 1990s

text: Fighting games like Capcom's "Street Fighter II", Sega's "Virtua Fighter", and Midway's "Mortal Kombat" prompted the video game industry to accept a game rating system. Hundreds of knockoffs are widely popular in the mid-to-late 1990s. "Doom" (1993) bursts onto the world scene, and instantly popularizes the FPS genre. "Half-Life" (1998) builds upon this, using gameplay without levels and an immersive first-person perspective. Half-Life became one of the most popular FPS games in history.


title: 1990s

text: The real-time strategy (RTS) genre is introduced in 1992 with the release of "Dune II". "" (1994) popularizing the genre, and "Command & Conquer" and "" in 1995, setting up the first major real-time strategy competition and popularizing multiplayer capabilities in RTS games. "StarCraft" in 1998 becomes the second best-selling computer game of all time. It remains among the most popular multiplayer RTS games today, especially in South Korea. "Homeworld" in 1999 becomes the first successful 3D RTS game. The rise of the RTS genre is often credited with the fall of the turn-based strategy (TBS) genre, popularized with "Civilization" in 1991. "Final Fantasy" was introduced (in North America) in 1990 for the NES and remains among the most popular video game franchises, with many new titles to date and more in development, plus numerous spin-offs, sequels, films and related titles. "Final Fantasy VII", released in 1997, especially popularized the series.


title: 1990s

text: Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) see their entrance with "Ultima Online" in 1997. However, they do not gain widespread popularity until "EverQuest" and "Asheron's Call" in 1999. MMORPGs become among the most popular video game genres until the 2010s.


title: 1990s

text: "Pokémon" enters the world scene with the release of the original "Pokémon Red" and "Pokémon Green" for Game Boy in Japan in 1996, later changed to "Pokémon Red" and "Pokémon Blue" for worldwide release in 1998. It soon becomes popular in the United States and Canada, creating the term "Pokémonia", and is adapted into a popular anime series and trading card game, among other media forms.


title: 1990s

text: "Resident Evil" is released in 1996. It will become the most popular survival-horror series in video gaming into the next decades.


title: 1990s

text: The best-selling games of the 1990s are listed below (note that some sources disagree on particular years):


title: 1990s

text: Prominent websites launched during the decade include IMDb (1993), eBay (1995), Amazon (1994), GeoCities (1994), Netscape (1994), Yahoo! (1995), AltaVista (1995), AIM (1997), ICQ (1996), Hotmail (1996), Google (1998), Napster (1999). The pioneering peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing internet service Napster, which launched in Fall 1999, was the first peer-to-peer software to become massively popular. While at the time it was possible to share files in other ways via the Internet (such as IRC and USENET), Napster was the first software to focus exclusively on sharing MP3 files for music. Napster was eventually forced to shut down in July 2001 after legal disputes over copyright infringement and digital piracy, though it would eventually be relaunched as a music streaming service in 2016.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Ferdinand Porsche (3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was an Austrian-German automotive engineer and founder of the Porsche AG. He is best known for creating the first gasoline–electric hybrid vehicle (Lohner–Porsche), the Volkswagen Beetle, the Auto Union racing car, the Mercedes-Benz SS/SSK, several other important developments and Porsche automobiles.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: An important contributor to the German war effort during World War II, Porsche was involved in the production of advanced tanks such as the VK 4501 (P), the Elefant (initially called "Ferdinand") self-propelled gun, and the Panzer VIII Maus super-heavy tank, as well as other weapon systems, including the V-1 flying bomb. Porsche was a member of the Nazi Party and an officer of the Schutzstaffel (SS). He was a recipient of the German National Prize for Art and Science, the SS-Ehrenring and the War Merit Cross.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Porsche was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1996 and was named the Car Engineer of the Century in 1999.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Ferdinand Porsche was born to Anna Porsche (née Ehrlich) and Anton Porsche, in Maffersdorf (Vratislavice nad Nisou) in northern Bohemia, part of Austria-Hungary at that time, and today part of the Czech Republic. Ferdinand was his parents' third child. His father was a master panel-beater.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Ferdinand showed a great aptitude for technology, and was especially intrigued by electricity from a young age. He was already attending classes at the Imperial Polytechnical College in Reichenberg ( - some from his home) at night, while still helping his father in his mechanical shop by day. Thanks to a referral, Porsche landed a job with the Béla Egger & Co. Electrical company in Vienna (later Brown Boveri, now ABB), and moved there in 1893, at the young age of 18. While working in Vienna, he enrolled as a part-time student at what is now the Vienna University of Technology, and went there whenever he could after work. Other than attending classes there, Porsche did not complete any formal engineering education. During his five years with , he built their first electric wheel-hub motor, the concept for which had been developed by American inventor Wellington Adams, and Porsche also raced it, in 1897.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: After the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I, he chose Czechoslovak citizenship. In 1934, either Adolf Hitler or Joseph Goebbels made Porsche a naturalized German citizen.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In 1897 or 1898, Porsche joined the Vienna-based factory Jakob Lohner & Company, which produced coaches for Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria as well as for the monarchs of the UK, Sweden, and Romania. Jakob Lohner had begun construction of automobiles in 1896 under Ludwig Lohner in the trans-Danubian suburb of Floridsdorf. Their first design — unveiled in Vienna, Austria, on 26 June 1898 — was the Egger–Lohner vehicle (also referred to as the C.2 Phaeton).


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: The Egger–Lohner was a carriage-like car driven by two electric motors within the front wheel hubs, powered by batteries. This drivetrain construction was easily expanded to four-wheel drive, by mounting two more electric motors to the rear wheels, and a four-motor example was ordered by Englishman E. W. Hart in 1900. In December that year, the car was displayed at the Paris World Exhibition under the name Toujours-Contente. Even though this one-off vehicle had been commissioned for the purposes of racing and record-breaking, its of lead–acid batteries was a severe shortcoming. Though it "showed wonderful speed when it was allowed to sprint", the weight of the batteries rendered it slow to climb hills. It also suffered from limited range due to limited battery life.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Still employed by Lohner, Porsche introduced the "Lohner–Porsche Mixte Hybrid" in 1901: instead of a massive battery-pack, an internal combustion engine built by the German firm Daimler drove a generator which in turn drove the electric wheel hub motors. As a backup a small battery pack was fitted. This is the first petroleum-electric hybrid vehicle on record. Since sufficiently reliable gears and couplings were not available at the time, he chose to make it a series-hybrid, an arrangement now more common in diesel–electric or turbo-electric railway locomotives than in automobiles.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Though over 300 Lohner–Porsche chassis were sold up to 1906, most of them were two-wheel drive; either front- or rear-wheel driven trucks, buses and fire-engines. Some four wheel drive buses were produced, but no four wheel drive automobiles.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: The vehicles achieved speeds of up to , broke several Austrian speed records, and also won the Exelberg Rally in 1901, with Porsche himself driving a front-wheel drive hybrid. It was later upgraded with more powerful engines from Daimler and Panhard, which proved to be enough to gain more speed records. In 1905 Porsche was awarded the "Pötting prize" as Austria's most outstanding automotive engineer.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In 1902, he was drafted into military service. He served as a chauffeur to Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the crown prince of Austria whose assassination has been credited with contributing to the start of WWI.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In 1906, Austro-Daimler recruited Porsche as their chief designer. Porsche's best known Austro-Daimler car was designed for the Prince Henry Trial in 1910, named after Wilhelm II's younger brother Prince Heinrich of Prussia. Examples of this streamlined, 85 horsepower (63 kW) car won the first three places, and the car is still better known by the nickname "Prince Henry" than by its model name "Modell 27/80". He also created a 30 horsepower model called the Maja, named after Mercedes Jellinek's younger sister, Andrée Maja (or Maia) Jellinek.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Porsche had advanced to managing director by 1916 and received an honorary doctorate from the Vienna University of Technology in 1916: the title "Dr. Ing. h.c." is an abbreviation of ""Doktor Ingenieur Honoris Causa"". Porsche successfully continued to construct racing cars, winning 43 out of 53 races with his 1922 design. In 1923, Porsche left Austro-Daimler after differences ensued about the future direction of car development.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: A few months later Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft hired Porsche to serve as Technical Director in Stuttgart, Germany, which was already a major center for the German automotive industry. In 1924, he received another honorary doctorate from the Stuttgart Technical University for his work at Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft in Stuttgart and was later given the honorary title of Professor. While at Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft he came up with several very successful race car designs. The series of models equipped with superchargers that culminated in the Mercedes-Benz SSK dominated its class of motor racing in the 1920s.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In 1926, Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie merged into Daimler-Benz, with their joint products beginning to be called Mercedes-Benz. However, Porsche's ideas for a small, light-weight Mercedes-Benz car was not popular with Daimler-Benz's board. He left in 1929 for Steyr Automobile, but due to the Great Depression Porsche ended up being made redundant.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In April 1931, Porsche returned to Stuttgart and founded his consulting firm "Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche GmbH, Konstruktionen und Beratungen für Motoren und Fahrzeugbau" (designs and consulting services for motors and vehicles). With financial backing from his son-in-law the Austrian attorney Anton Piëch and Adolf Rosenberger, Porsche successfully recruited several former co-workers he had befriended at his former places of employment, including Karl Rabe, Erwin Komenda, Franz Xaver Reimspiess, and his son, Ferry Porsche.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Their first project was the design of a middle class car for Wanderer. Other commissioned designs followed. As the business grew, Porsche decided to work on his own design as well, which was a development of the small car concept from his days at Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart. He financed the project with a loan on his life insurance. Later Zündapp decided to help sponsor the project, but lost interest after their success with motorcycles. NSU then took over the sponsorship, but also lost interest due to the high tooling costs.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: With car commissions scarce due to the depressed economic climate, Porsche founded a subsidiary company, "Hochleistungs Motor GmbH (High Performance Engines Ltd.)," to develop a racing car for which he had no customer. Based on Max Wagner's mid-engined layout the "1923 Benz Tropfenwagen", or "Teardrop" aerodynamic design, the experimental P-Wagen project racing car (P stood for Porsche) was designed according to the regulations of the 750 kg formula. The main regulation of this formula was that the weight of the car without driver, fuel, oil, water and tires was not allowed to exceed .


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In 1932, Auto Union Gmbh was formed, consisting of struggling auto manufacturers Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. The chairman of the Board of Directors, Baron Klaus von Oertzen wanted a showpiece project, so at fellow director Adolf Rosenberger's insistence, von Oertzen met with Porsche, who had done work for him before. At the 1933 Berlin Motor Show German Chancellor Adolf Hitler announced his intention to motorize the nation, with every German owning either a car or a tractor in the future, and unveiled two new programs: the "people's car" and a state-sponsored motor racing programme to develop a "high speed German automotive industry"; to initiate this, Mercedes-Benz were to be given an annual grant of .


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: These projects led to two projects for Porsche, and set a precedent for the rest of the decade, with Porsche undertaking further projects for the German Government, including the Tiger tank and the Elefant tank destroyer.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In June 1934, Porsche received a contract from Hitler to design a people's car (or ""Volkswagen""), following on from his previous designs such as the 1931 Type 12 car designed for Zündapp. The first two prototypes were completed in 1935. These were followed by several further pre-production batches during 1936 to 1939. The car was similar to the contemporary designs of Hans Ledwinka of Tatra, in particular the Tatra V570 and Tatra 97. This resulted in a lawsuit against Porsche claiming infringement of Tatra's patents regarding air-cooling of the rear engine. The suit was interrupted by the German invasion of Czechoslovakia: several years after World War II Volkswagen paid a settlement.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Since being engaged by the National-Socialist authorities in building the "Volksauto", Porsche was praised as the "Great German Engineer". Hitler considered Czechs subhuman and Porsche was urged to apply for German citizenship in 1934. A few days later, he indeed filed a declaration giving up the Czechoslovak citizenship at a Czechoslovak consulate in Stuttgart. In 1937, he joined the Nazi Party (becoming member no. 5,643,287) as well as the SS. By 1938, he was using the SS as security personnel and drivers at his factory, and later set up a special unit called "SS Sturmwerk Volkswagen". In 1942, he reached the rank of "SS-Oberführer", and during the war, he was further decorated with the SS-Ehrenring and awarded the War Merit Cross. As the war progressed his proposed solutions to new developments became more complex and he gained a reputation in certain circles as a "mad scientist" especially with Albert Speer (mainly due to his newfound affinity for "pointy" designs).


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: A new city, "Stadt des KdF-Wagens" was founded near Fallersleben for the Volkswagen factory, but wartime production concentrated almost exclusively on the military Kübelwagen and Schwimmwagen variants. Mass production of the car, which later became known as the Beetle, began after the end of the war. The city is named Wolfsburg today and is still the headquarters of the Volkswagen Group.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: German racing driver Hans Stuck had met Hitler before he became Chancellor, and not being able to gain a seat at Mercedes, accepted the invitation of Rosenberger to join him, von Oertzen and Porsche in approaching the Chancellor. In a meeting in the Reich Chancellery, Hitler agreed with Porsche that for the glory of Germany, it would be better for two companies to develop the project, resulting in Hitler agreeing to split the money between Mercedes and Auto Union with to each company. This highly annoyed Mercedes, who had already developed their Mercedes-Benz W25, and resulted in a heated exchange both on and off the racing track between the two companies for the period until World War II.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Having obtained state funds, Auto Union bought "Hochleistungs Motor GmbH" and hence the P-Wagen Project for , relocating the company to Chemnitz. As Porsche became more involved with the construction of the Wolfsburg factory, he handed over his racing projects to his son, Ferry. The dominance of the "Silver Arrows" of both brands was only stopped by the outbreak of World War II in 1939.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Porsche produced a heavy tank design in 1942, the VK4501 also known as "Tiger (P)". Due to the complex nature of the drive system, a competing design from Henschel was chosen for production instead. Ninety chassis that had already been built were converted into self-propelled anti-tank guns; these were put into service in 1943 as the "Panzerjäger Tiger" (P) and known by the nickname "Ferdinand".


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: The Ferdinand was driven by a hybrid electric powertrain, and was armed with a long barrel development of the 88mm anti-aircraft gun. The most common reason for losses was because the vehicle became stuck or broke down, and so the crews often had to destroy their own vehicles to avoid allowing them to be captured. It had a kill ratio of nearly 10:1, but as with most German wartime vehicles, lack of supplies made maintenance a serious problem, reducing the effectiveness of the vehicles, and forcing crews to destroy many otherwise operational vehicles.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In November 1945, Porsche was asked to continue the design of the Volkswagen in France and to move the factory equipment there as part of war reparations. Whilst in France, Porsche was also asked to consult on the design/manufacture of the upcoming Renault 4CV, which led to serious conflict with the recently appointed head of Renault, the former resistance hero, Pierre Lefaucheux. Differences within the French government and objections from the French automotive industry put a halt to the Volkswagen project before it had even begun. On 15 December 1945, French authorities arrested Porsche, Anton Piëch, and Ferry Porsche as war criminals, under rightful suspicion of collaboration as personal friends of the former fuhrer. While Ferry was freed after 6 months, Ferdinand and Anton were imprisoned first in Baden-Baden and then in Paris and Dijon.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: While his father was in captivity, Ferry worked diligently to keep the company in business; and developing a business for the repair of automobiles, water pumps, and winches. A contract with Piero Dusio was completed for a Grand Prix motor racing car, the "Type 360 Cisitalia". The innovative 4WD design never raced.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: The legal circumstances of Piëch and Porsche's imprisonment and trial could be largely apportioned to Ferdinand Porsche's contribution to his country's war effort and personal friendship with Hitler. In the Porsche family's own account, the affair was a thinly veiled attempt at extorting money and forcing them to collaborate with Renault. But the family was deceptive about the use of forced labor and the size of their wartime operation. It was later shown that approximately 300 forced laborers were employed, including Poles and Russians. During the war, it was common practice for German factories of this size (about 1000 workers) to use what was essentially slave labor, often with Slavic prisoners of war, who were frequently worked to death. The post-war French government required a payment of one million francs, variously described as ransom or bail, for the release of Piëch and Porsche. Initially unable to obtain this amount of money, the family eventually raised it through their contract with Cisitalia. During a trial, witnesses were brought forward to testify that no French prisoners had been imported to work at the plant.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In addition to its work with Cisitalia, the company also started work on a new design, the Porsche 356, the first car to carry the Porsche brand name. The company then was located in Gmünd in Carinthia, where they had relocated from Stuttgart to avoid Allied bombing. The company started manufacturing the Porsche 356 in an old saw mill in Gmünd. They made only 49 cars, which were built entirely by hand.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: The Porsche family returned to Stuttgart in 1949 not knowing how to restart their business. While the banks would not give them credit, as the company's plant was still under American embargo and could not serve as collateral, they did still possess considerable resources. So Ferry Porsche took one of the limited series 356 models from Gmünd and visited Volkswagen dealers to raise some orders. He asked the dealers to pay for the ordered cars in advance.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: The series production version made in Stuttgart had a steel body, welded to the central-tube platform chassis, instead of the aluminium body used in the initial limited Gmünd-made series. When Ferry Porsche resurrected the company he counted on series production figures of about 1,500. More than 78,000 Porsche 356s were manufactured in the following 17 years.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Porsche was later contracted by Volkswagen for additional consulting work and received a royalty on every Volkswagen Beetle manufactured. This provided Porsche with a comfortable income as more than 20 million Type I were built.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In November 1950, Porsche visited the Wolfsburg Volkswagen factory for the first time since the end of World War II. Porsche spent his visit chatting with Volkswagen president Heinrich Nordhoff about the future of VW Beetles, which were already being produced in large numbers.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: In 1996, Porsche was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and in 1999 posthumously won the award of Car Engineer of the Century.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Porsche visited Henry Ford's operation in Detroit many times where he learned the importance of productivity. There he learned to monitor work. He was also surprised at how the workers and the managers treated each other as equals; even he, as a visiting dignitary, had to carry his own tray in the cafeteria and eat with the workers.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: The need to increase productivity became a primary interest of Porsche's. Conventional methods for increasing productivity included longer working hours, a faster rate of work, and new labour-saving techniques. Originally, the Volkswagen project was to be a collaboration of the existing German auto manufacturers, but they bowed out of the project, and a complete workforce was needed. The Volkswagen plant was completed in 1938 after Italian labour was brought in. Volkswagen, under Ferdinand Porsche, profited from forced labour. This included a large number of Soviets. By early 1945, German nationals only made up 10% of Volkswagen's workforce.


title: Ferdinand Porsche

text: Following protests from local World War II survivors that Porsche's Czech birthplace Vratislavice nad Nisou was promoting Nazism by displaying signs commemorating its native son, in 2013 the town authorities removed the signs and changed the content of a local exhibition so that it would cover not only his automotive achievements, but also his Nazi party and SS membership, and the importance of his work for the Nazi war cause. The move was criticized by the local association of Porsche car owners as silly and intent on smearing the name of Porsche. Moreover, Porsche AG removed cars that it had previously provided for the museum.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Leah Van Dale (born October 23, 1987) is an American professional wrestler, dancer and model. She is currently signed to WWE, where she performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Carmella, where she is a former WWE SmackDown Women's Champion, WWE Women's Tag Team Champion and WWE 24/7 Champion.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: In June 2013, Van Dale signed a contract with WWE and was assigned to their developmental brand NXT in Orlando, Florida. In October 2014, she aligned herself with Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady, becoming their manager. In July 2016, she made her main roster debut on SmackDown. In June 2017, Carmella became the winner of the inaugural women's Money in the Bank ladder match. In April 2018, she became the first woman in WWE history to successfully cash-in her Money in the Bank opportunity, when she defeated Charlotte Flair to win the WWE SmackDown Women's Championship. In 2019, Carmella won both the WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal and the WWE 24/7 Championship. In November 2021, after being drafted to Raw as part of the 2021 Draft, Carmella formed an alliance with Queen Zelina and the two went on to win the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Leah Van Dale was born on October 23, 1987 in Spencer, Massachusetts. She is the daughter of Paul Van Dale, a former mixed martial artist and professional wrestler, who worked as a jobber for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now known as WWE) in the 1980s and 1990s, making the younger Van Dale a second generation wrestler. Van Dale is of Italian and Dutch descent. She grew up in Spencer, Massachusetts, where she graduated from David Prouty High School in 2006. She graduated from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2010. Van Dale was a cheerleader for the New England Patriots for three seasons, ending in 2010. She successfully auditioned for the Los Angeles Lakers dance team, appearing as a Laker Girl during the 2010–2011 season.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Van Dale applied to be part of "WWE Tough Enough" in 2010, but withdrew from the selection process after being accepted as a Laker Girl and moving to Los Angeles. In June 2013, Van Dale signed a contract with WWE and she was assigned to the company's developmental territory NXT in late September. Later, she adopted the ring name Carmella.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Carmella made her debut on the September 4, 2014 episode of "NXT", portraying a hairdresser in a segment with Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady. Two weeks later on "NXT", Carmella appeared in another segment with Amore and Cassady at the WWE Performance Center, announcing she had lost her job as a hairdresser due to Amore and Cassady's actions and asked for a job at NXT. She made her in-ring debut on the October 16 episode of "NXT", wrestling an unnamed opponent whom Amore and Cassady dubbed Blue Pants. Carmella defeated Blue Pants on two occasions, but lost to her on the January 1, 2015 episode of "NXT" after Amore accidentally caused a distraction. In March, Amore and Cassady began a rivalry with the NXT Tag Team Champions Blake and Murphy while Carmella rejected Blake and Murphy's advances on several occasions. On the May 13 episode of "NXT", Carmella was defeated by Alexa Bliss after a distraction by Blake and Murphy. On May 20 at , Bliss attacked Carmella during the NXT Tag Team Championship title match, ensuring the win for Blake and Murphy.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: While continuing to manage Amore and Cassady, Carmella began feuding with Eva Marie, which led to a match between the two on the August 26 episode of "NXT", which Carmella lost. In January 2016, Carmella won a battle royal to become the number one contender to Bayley's NXT Women's Championship. Carmella unsuccessfully challenged Bayley for the title on February 10. After the match, Eva Marie and Nia Jax attacked the two, which led to a tag team match on the February 24 episode of "NXT", which Carmella and Bayley lost.<ref name="NXT 24/02/16"></ref> Carmella made her first appearance on WWE's main roster on March 12 at Roadblock, accompanying Amore and Cassady for their match against The Revival for the NXT Tag Team Championship. On the May 25 episode of "NXT", Carmella competed in a triple threat match against Alexa Bliss and Nia Jax to determine the number one contender to Asuka's NXT Women's Championship at , but she was pinned by Jax.<ref name="NXT25/05/16"></ref>


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: After being drafted to the SmackDown brand on July 19 as part of the 2016 WWE draft, Carmella made her main roster debut for the brand a week later, confronting the brand female talents before being interrupted by Eva Marie. On the August 9 episode of "SmackDown Live", Carmella achieved her first victory on the main roster by defeating Natalya. On August 20 at SummerSlam, Carmella took part in a six-woman tag team match alongside Becky Lynch and Naomi that was won by their opponents Alexa Bliss, Natalya, and Nikki Bella after Bella pinned Carmella. Two days later on "SmackDown Live", Carmella attacked Nikki Bella, turning heel in the process and starting a storyline feud between the two. Simultaneously with her feud with Bella, Carmella took part in a six-pack elimination challenge to determine the inaugural SmackDown Women's Champion on September 11 at Backlash. She was the last woman eliminated by Becky Lynch. She was also part of Team SmackDown in the traditional five-on-five Survivor Series match on November 20 at Survivor Series against Team Raw, where she was the first participant eliminated by Alicia Fox. On December 4 at , Carmella lost to Nikki Bella in a no disqualification match to end their feud.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Carmella then moved into a storyline with James Ellsworth, professing that she found him "uniquely attractive" and he later started accompanying her to her matches. On April 2, 2017, Carmella made her WrestleMania debut, competing in a six-pack challenge for the SmackDown Women's Championship, but was unsuccessful. In late April, Carmella formed an alliance, dubbed The Welcoming Committee, with Natalya and Tamina, and the three started a feud with Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Naomi. The two teams faced off in a six-woman tag team match on May 21 at Backlash, where The Welcoming Committee was victorious.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: On June 18 at Money in the Bank, Carmella was declared the winner of the inaugural women's Money in the Bank ladder match after Ellsworth obtained the briefcase and dropped it to her. Two days later on "SmackDown", Carmella was stripped of the briefcase and a second Money in the Bank ladder match was set by SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan. On June 27, Carmella regained the Money in the Bank briefcase after she won the second match with the help of Ellsworth. In November, Carmella ended her association with Ellsworth after he lost to Becky Lynch in an intergender match. On January 28, 2018, at the Royal Rumble, Carmella participated in the first women's Royal Rumble match, where she entered at number 17, lasting over 18 minutes before being eliminated by her former rival Nikki Bella. She then appeared in the first WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal at WrestleMania 34, but was the first woman eliminated from the match by Sonya Deville.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: After 287 days (the longest period ever for a wrestler to hold the contract) and a few unsuccessful attempts to cash in her briefcase on Charlotte Flair, Carmella officially cashed in her contract on the April 10 episode of "SmackDown Live", after The IIconics (Billie Kay and Peyton Royce) attacked Charlotte Flair, she defeated Flair to win the SmackDown Women's Championship for the first time in her career. In her first title defense, Carmella defeated Charlotte Flair at Backlash. Shortly after, Carmella was placed in a feud with Asuka that ultimately led to a title match between the two at Money in the Bank, which Carmella won after a distraction by the returning James Ellsworth. In a rematch between the two, which took place at Extreme Rules, Carmella again defeated Asuka to retain her title (with Ellsworth suspended in a shark cage). After losing to both Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair in non–title matches, it was announced that Carmella would face both of them in a triple threat match at SummerSlam on August 19. At the event, Flair pinned Lynch to win the championship, ending Carmella's reign at 131 days. Two weeks later, Carmella received her rematch against Flair but she was unsuccessful in regaining the championship.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Towards the end of her title reign, Carmella was placed in a storyline with R-Truth, after the latter implied that he wants a "title match by pinning her" (similar to Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair's title opportunities). On the September 4 episode of "SmackDown Live", Carmella turned face for the first time since 2016, after she agreed to manage Truth for his match with The Miz to avoid Maryse's interference. Shortly after, Carmella started managing Truth and the two were also announced as tag team partners for the upcoming season two of Mixed Match Challenge, calling themselves "The Fabulous Truth". In November, Carmella once again took part of Survivor Series as part Team SmackDown, where she went on to eliminate Tamina before being eliminated by Bayley.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Carmella and Truth lost the first three matches of Mixed Match Challenge, before defeating Rusev and Lana to qualify for the playoffs, and the team went on to defeat Jeff Hardy and Charlotte Flair in the quarter-finals and previous winners The Miz and Asuka in the semi-finals. In the final of the Mixed Match Challenge that took place at the pay-per-view, on December 16, Carmella and Truth defeated Jinder Mahal and Alicia Fox, earning both the number 30 spots for their respective Royal Rumble matches at Royal Rumble. At Royal Rumble, she participated in the Royal Rumble match, but was eliminated by Charlotte Flair.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: In February, Carmella started teaming up with Naomi and the two took part of a six-team Elimination Chamber match for the inaugural WWE Women's Tag Team Championship at the namesake pay-per-view, where they were the first team eliminated. On the WrestleMania 35 kickoff show Carmella won the WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal, with lastly eliminating Sarah Logan. In May, Carmella took part in the Money in the Bank ladder match at the namesake pay-per-view, where she once again displayed a knee injury and was ultimately unsuccessful in winning the match. The "knee injury" was used to spark a feud between Carmella, and Fire and Desire (Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville), which ended quickly as Carmella continued to manage R-Truth, who won the WWE 24/7 Championship and she helped him escape and defend it against various competitors. On the September 23 episode of "Raw", Carmella rolled-up Truth to capture the 24/7 Championship from him. Her title reign came to an end 11 days later, during "SmackDown's 20th Anniversary" on October 4, when she was pinned by Marshmello backstage. Later that night, Carmella regained the title from Marshmello in a segment that took place in the parking lot. During the Hell in a Cell, Tamina pinned Carmella to end her second reign with the title at only 2 days, but a few minutes later, Carmella helped Truth defeat Tamina to win the 24/7 Championship. The alliance between Carmella and R-Truth was ended abruptly during the draft, when Truth was drafted to the Raw brand and Carmella remained on the "SmackDown" brand. On the November 8 episode of "SmackDown", Carmella and Dana Brooke defeated Fire and Desire to qualify as part of Team SmackDown at Survivor Series, but they lost to Team NXT at the event.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: On January 26, 2020, at the Royal Rumble event, Carmella participated in the annual Royal Rumble match, entering at number 27 and lasting a little over six minutes, before she was eliminated by Shayna Baszler. After racking up some wins against the likes of Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose, in February, Carmella earned herself a title match for the SmackDown Women's Championship but came up short against Bayley. Throughout the next two months, she aligned herself with Dana Brooke, and the two eventually challenged Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship, however, they were unsuccessful in capturing them. In May, after defeating Mandy Rose in a qualifying match, she participated in her third ever Money in the Bank ladder match at the eponymous pay-per-view, however, she failed to win the briefcase.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: In September, vignettes began airing on "SmackDown" hyping the arrival of a mystery woman. Six weeks later, on the October 2 episode of "SmackDown", Carmella revealed herself as the mystery woman and began using the new mantra of "Untouchable", along with a new theme song. After a five month hiatus, she made her first appearance on the show on the November 6 episode, where she attacked Sasha Banks following her title defense against Bayley, thus turning heel for the first time since 2018. Towards the end of the year, the two continued to cut promos and attack each other, which eventually led to a match for the SmackDown Women's Championship at the event. At the event, on December 20, Carmella faced Banks for the title in a losing effort.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Carmella would team up with Billie Kay at WrestleMania 37 to participate in a Tag Team Turmoil match to determine the number one contenders against Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship, but were unsuccessful in the match. Carmella then faced both members of the Riott Squad individually, and beat them both. She then proclaimed herself "The Most Beautiful Woman in All of WWE". She would then have 3 opportunities for the SmackDown Women's Championship against Bianca Belair, one on the July 16 episode of SmackDown, one on the July 23 episode, and one at a house show in Louisville, Kentucky, but during all three of them, she would be unsuccessful in capturing the title. Carmella was then scheduled to be Sasha Banks' replacement for SummerSlam against Bianca Belair, but was then attacked by a returning Becky Lynch. Carmella lost to Liv Morgan at the Extreme Rules kickoff show.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: As part of the 2021 Draft, Carmella was drafted to the Raw brand. In October, Carmella entered the Queen's Crown tournament, where she defeated Liv Morgan in the first round, but lost to Zelina Vega in the semi-finals. As part of her gimmick, Carmella began using a protective face mask, that assistants would provide at ringside. On the November 22 episode of "Raw", Carmella and Queen Zelina defeated Rhea Ripley and Nikki A.S.H to win the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship. On night two of "Wrestlemania 38," Queen Zelina and Carmella lost the titles to Sasha Banks and Naomi in a Fatal 4-Way tag match, which also included the team of Shayna Baszler and Natalya, as well as the team of Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan. The following night on "Raw," Queen Zelina would blame Carmella for their loss at "Wrestlemania 38," which led to Zelina attacking Carmella, thus ending their alliance.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Carmella made her video game debut as a playable character in "WWE 2K17" and has since appeared in "WWE 2K18", "WWE 2K19", "WWE 2K20", "WWE 2K Battlegrounds" and "WWE 2K22".


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Carmella joined "Total Divas" as a main cast member for the show's seventh season in June 2017. Despite being a guest in the eighth season, Carmella returned to the show as a series regular in the ninth season, which premiered in October 2019. The season featured Carmella's real-life relationship with Corey Graves.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Van Dale was in a relationship with fellow wrestler William Morrissey, better known as Big Cass in WWE.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: In 2019, she began a relationship with fellow WWE employee Matthew Polinsky, better known as Corey Graves. The two got married on April 7, 2022. On October 31, 2022, she revealed in her instagram account, that she had an ectopic pregnancy, which resulted in a miscarriage.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: Van Dale is a certified fitness instructor and a personal trainer. Van Dale is a lifelong fan of professional wrestling, and idolized Miss Elizabeth as a child.


title: Carmella (wrestler)

text: On February 3, 2020, Van Dale launched her own wine label called Capo Cagna. On June 11, 2020, Van Dale and Matthew Polinsky (better known as WWE commentator Corey Graves) also launched a weekly podcast, "Bare With Us", where the two discuss different issues regarding relationships including issues within their own. It is Van Dale's first podcast as a host and Polinsky's second (along with "WWE After the Bell", which he hosts as Corey Graves).


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a 2017 action-adventure game developed and published by the British video game development studio Ninja Theory. Set in a dark fantasy world inspired by Norse mythology and Celtic culture, the game follows Senua, a Pict warrior who must make her way to Helheim by defeating otherworldly entities and facing their challenges, in order to rescue the soul of her dead lover from the goddess Hela. It was released worldwide for Windows and PlayStation 4 in August 2017, Xbox One in April 2018, Nintendo Switch in April 2019, and Xbox Series X and Series S in August 2021. "Hellblade" features support for virtual reality, which was added in a 2018 update.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: Self-described as an "independent AAA game", "Hellblade" was created by a team of approximately twenty developers led by writer and director Tameem Antoniades. The game blends different gameplay mechanics and concepts like puzzle solving, psychological horror and melee combat. Voice acting is an integral part of the game, while its cutscenes combine motion capture by Melina Juergens, and live action performances by other actors. The game's narrative serves as a metaphor for the character's struggle with psychosis, as Senua, who suffers from the condition but believes it to be a curse, is haunted by an entity known as the "Darkness", voices in her head known as "Furies", and memories from her past. To properly represent psychosis, developers worked closely with neuroscientists, mental health specialists, and people living with the condition.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: "Hellblade" was a commercial success and was well-received by critics, who praised it as a work of art and applauded its uncommon choice of revolving around psychosis, the quality and uniqueness of its approach of the condition, and its story and main character. Its overall presentation, along with Juergens' performance, was also considered superior in quality to what independent games usually provide, although its gameplay and other elements received some criticism. The game sold over a million copies across all platforms by June 2018. A sequel, "", was announced at The Game Awards 2019.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: "Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice" is divided into two types of gameplay: the first allows Senua to walk freely and interact with her surroundings. Those parts focus on either story via voiceover, as Senua travels from one location to another, or the resolution of a puzzle or challenge of some kind to progress further. She can use a capacity known as "focus", in reference to her tendency to see things differently from other people due to her condition, to trigger puzzle-related events. If she uses her focus on totems hidden throughout the game, it triggers a memory via voice-over of her friend Druth telling her of the stories of the Norsemen; activating all forty-four of them triggers a bonus cutscene shortly before the game's climax, that extends on Druth's backstory. Several areas feature their own exclusive mechanics or trials, such as reaching a safe zone in time before Senua dies, or using the focus ability to modify the structure of her surroundings.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: In addition, "Hellblade" features fights against malformed representations of Norsemen who block her progression, including occasional bosses. During those fights, Senua has her sword drawn out, and is turned towards one of her enemies, on which the camera is automatically focused; she can use two kinds of attacks, quick or heavy, kick an enemy to prevent it from blocking her attacks, parry, or dodge. She can also charge the opponent she is focusing on, to either get closer or directly attack or kick it. If she parries or dodges enough, she can use her focus ability in battle to move faster than her enemies or dissipate the shadows some of them are made of, which makes them impervious to regular attacks. Once she obtains Gramr, Senua can charge her heavy attacks for additional damage and parries more efficiently, both of which can allow her to use her focus ability. If Senua suffers a strong hit, or several hits in a row, she falls to the ground, and the player must press the corresponding button repeatedly as fast as possible before an enemy deals her a fatal blow; if she does not get back up in time, she dies. The closer she is to death, the more difficult it is for her to get back up; she can also die from a regular hit, if she was already very close to death.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: "Hellblade" does not feature any heads-up display or tutorials. Instead, Druth, Furies, or the Darkness, provide audio indications on game mechanics, and how to progress through levels and puzzles. The Furies provide Senua advice in battle, notably warning her if an enemy is attacking from her back. They react when Senua takes damage, and panic heavily if she is close to death: how nervous they are when she takes a hit is representative of how much damage she can still take. The nature of most apparitions, events witnessed, or voices heard, is purposely left unclear, and can be interpreted as either an actual apparition by a spirit, a memory of Senua, or a trick created by the Darkness or one of the deceptive creatures she has to face. As such, the clues given during the game are not always reliable (except for Druth's): certain Furies try to demotivate Senua, or give false indications such as telling her she took the wrong way, or that she is walking into a trap.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: Set in the late VIII century, the game starts with Senua (Melina Juergens), a Pict warrior from Orkney arriving at the border of Helheim in a quest to save the soul of her dead lover, Dillion (Oliver Walker), from the goddess Hela. Senua believes she suffers from a curse that causes her to hear the voices of spirits, referred to as "Furies", in her head, the most notable of which is the Narrator (Chipo Chung), who is aware of the player's presence and often breaks the fourth wall by talking to them directly. She is followed by the Darkness (Steven Hartley), a dark entity at the core of the curse. She carries Dillion's severed head to use it as a vessel for his soul and is guided by her memories of the stories of Druth (Nicholas Boulton), a former slave of the Norsemen well-versed in their legends, now deceased, who became her friend and mentor during a year-long self-imposed exile. To enter Helheim, Senua overcomes several tests and defeats both the fire giant Surt and the god of illusions Valravn, but as she crosses the bridge to Helheim, she is attacked by Hela, who defeats her with a single blow and shatters her sword. Barely surviving the encounter, Senua contemplates suicide, but instead scars herself with her broken blade. She then follows visions of Druth and a man-shaped light she believes to be Dillion to a great tree, where she undergoes four trials that test her body, spirit, and mind and is rewarded with the legendary sword Gramr, a weapon powerful enough to kill Hela.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: As the game progresses, Senua's backstory is unveiled in nonlinear order through her hallucinations, revealing that her mother, the healer Galena (Ellie Piercy), suffered the same curse she did but thought of it as a gift. However, Senua's devoutly religious father, Zynbel (also performed by Hartley), thought otherwise and burned Galena alive. Senua witnessed the event when she was just five years old, which caused her psychosis to worsen significantly and caused her to block out the memory. Her father, convincing her that she was tainted with evil, abused Senua emotionally and physically and isolated her from the rest of the world until she met Dillion when he visited her village. The two fell in love, and Senua left her father to be with him, as he saw her as different and misunderstood instead of cursed. However, after a plague killed many in Dillion's village, Senua, believing the fault to be hers, left in exile. When she returned a year later after seemingly conquering the Darkness, she found everyone killed by Norsemen raiders, who had sacrificed Dillion in a blood eagle to their gods. Remembering the stories of Druth, Senua then swore to save Dillion's soul from the gods of the Norsemen.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: Ultimately, Senua fights against the influence of the Darkness, surviving the "Sea of Corpses" and defeating the beast Garm at the gates of Helheim. She realizes that the Darkness is a representation of her father's abuse and temporarily imprisons the Furies in a magic mirror. She then confronts Hela, who summons a legion of undead warriors; Senua fights them until she is finally overwhelmed and tries to bargain with Hela. In her final moments, she recalls Dillion telling her the importance of accepting loss. As the imagery of Helheim fades away, Hela stabs Senua with Gramr and drops Dillion's head into the abyss, but as the camera returns to her, Senua is standing in her place, with a dead Hela at her feet. Having accepted that it was never possible to bring her lover back and that she is not responsible for his death or anyone else's, Senua finally banishes the Darkness from her soul and accepts the Furies not as a curse, but as a part of who she is. She invites the player to follow her, saying that there is another story to tell.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: "Hellblade" was announced for the PlayStation 4 at Sony's Gamescom media briefing on August 12, 2014, where a trailer was shown. In a joint statement, Ninja Theory described the game as "an experience focused on delivering a deep character in a twisted world, with brutal uncompromising combat", and stated that they wanted to "make a smaller, more focused game experience that is uncompromising in its combat, art and story". The developers called it an "independent AAA game", with their goal being to make a game with all the qualities and production values of any AAA game on the market, but with creative freedom and an "indie spirit". The team eventually succeeded in releasing the game independently, but to achieve this could only release it via digital distribution.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: Hugues Giboire, art director of the previous Ninja Theory game "Heavenly Sword", rejoined the studio to work on the game. A Windows version of the game was announced on January 9, 2015. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4, and was made by Ninja Theory with a team of around twenty developers. Its subtitle, "Senua's Sacrifice", was announced in March 2016. "Hellblade: Senua's Psychosis", a short documentary film included with the game, details the concept behind its story and inspirations, notably the team's study of mental illness. It was written and narrated by Antoniades, and edited by Juergens.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: The main inspiration of Senua's character was the Iceni queen Boudica, while her name came from Senuna, a Celtic goddess long lost to historians but re-discovered in 2002, whose name was at first read incorrectly as Senua. Based on what is believed of the way Celtic warriors looked, Senua was given war paints, and braided hair clumped with lime. Doing research to find the right angle for the character, the team realized that despite the Roman Empire being able to conquer nearly all of Europe, they were unable to conquer a group of Celts, known as the Picts, in the northern reaches of Great Britain. Towards the end of the 8th century, the first Vikings arrived in the lands of the Picts, more specifically the islands of Orkney, and replaced them as the main population of the land. Based on the belief that the Norsemen were known for sacrificing the leaders of the tribes they had conquered to their gods, the game's director and lead writer Tameem Antoniades decided to use this as the basis for Senua's quest and trauma, and to have her find everyone in her village killed by the Norsemen and her lover sacrificed to Norse gods via the blood eagle, a ritualized method of execution whose authenticity is actually debated among historians.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: According to Antoniades, the team, researching Celtic culture and the Celts' views on mental disorder, found out that they used the term "gelt" for a person who had been driven mad by a curse, grief, or the trauma of a battle, and that the gelt would take to a life in the woods in search of penance, punishment and purgatory; the team decided to make Senua a gelt, who had left her home in exile for those reasons. The character of Druth was based on both a real Irish Celt named Findan who was enslaved by the Norsemen in the 8th century, but eventually escaped and became a monk, and the Celtic tale of "a mad sinner who flees battle into exile and takes on a beastly nature, growing feathers on his body". The character was given a backstory similar to Findan's, a cloak featuring feathers, and was named after another word used by the Celts to describe the mental disorder, "druth", meaning "fool" or "one who utters the words of gods".


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: Antoniades and his team initially conceptualized "Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice" as "a compelling, adult, fantasy game". The game was always supposed to be hinted as taking place in Senua's mind, but with her mental illness originally less central to the story. However, the team came to see it as an opportunity to raise awareness on psychosis; regarding the team's interest with the condition, Antoniades stated "It is easy to see the pain and suffering caused by physical diseases or physical trauma, it is not so easy to see the mental suffering or trauma or severe mental illness. But what if we could find a way to see it? Games are capable of drawing you in for hours on end, playing the role of a character who's different from you, experiencing their perspective, and actively involving you in a world that functions with a different set of rules. [...] There are many things that happen in the world of "Hellblade" that make perfect sense within the context of Senua's mind. [...] To complete Senua's quest, you have to internalize and accept the logic and meaning behind these things to progress"; he notably felt that using the tendency of certain psychotics to see patterns others would not see or notice as a game mechanic to solve puzzles would provide a unique angle impossible in media other than video games.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: Antoniades admitted that during his research, he "didn't have to look very far to discover my own ignorance of the subject". To portray psychosis properly, Ninja Theory "consulted world-leading neuroscientists and non-profit organizations like Wellcome Trust to properly capture the experience of psychosis and its devastating effects on the human mind". Antoniades "learnt that people can experience hallucinations and delusional beliefs without it being a problem – the illness comes when those experiences cause suffering. Often the recovery is not about curing yourself of hallucinations, but finding ways to live with them. That was a revelation to me".


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: Experts who worked closely with the team include Professor Paul Fletcher from the University of Cambridge, and writer and psychologist Professor Charles Fernyhough from the University of Durham, an expert on voice hearing. Ninja Theory received funding for the game from the Wellcome Trust, who also helped them creatively in their depiction of mental illness, notably by helping them to get in contact with people actually experiencing it. They worked with a "recovery college", an establishment which acts as both a health facility, and a college for its patients. Antoniades was marked by the story of "a girl who has to live with an angry voice screaming at her, slamming on her doors and walls 24 hours a day. That's someone who would often see corpses hanging in the room, so real that they would sometimes try to rescue them"; this inspired several events featured in the game as well.


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: When working with experts, the team realized that "quite often, the illness comes not from the symptoms, but from the stigma, isolation, and mistreatment that comes about from the rest of society". This led the team to make Senua's father and the way he abused and isolated her during her youth the real nature of the Darkness which haunts her. To create the voices heard by Senua, the team "worked closely with a group of voice-hearers to try and get these sounding as realistic as possible"; Senua's visual hallucinations, including her flashbacks, or the way several elements of a level appear brighter than they should be, were also based on descriptions from people with delusions. In June 2017, the team presented the near-finished game to several of the people with mental illness they had collaborated with, as a way to see if the final result had "reflected their views or if it had misrepresented them".


title: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

text: Senua's voice acting and motion capturing were performed by German freelance photographer and video editor Melina Juergens, who had not done either of those things prior to "Hellblade". She was used by the team as a stand-in for Senua for several months while they perfected their motion capture techniques, and they eventually came to the conclusion that she could play the character in the finalized game. Game director and lead writer Tameem Antoniades stated that he knew her well enough to know that he did not have to teach her how to act, but to "relive her own internal pain". All cutscenes feature Juergens' vocal performance as she recorded it during the filming of her physical performance with a motion capture suit and markers, rather than before or afterward during a voice acting session. In addition to the camera placed in front of Juergens' face to capture her expressions for her animated counterpart, Antoniades used a portable camera to film the scenes as they appear in the final game. As they only had one camera, the team opted to make all the cutscenes be presented as one single long take, the objective being to make the viewer feel like "an observer, like a presence watching Senua throughout".