title: Sky News

text: In March 2007, BSkyB and Chrysalis Group announced plans to launch a dedicated Sky News Radio station on the proposed bid by Channel 4's 4 Digital Group for the second digital audio broadcasting multiplex in the United Kingdom. However, two months later Chrysalis sold its radio stations to Global Radio, and in October 2007 following a business review Global's chief executive announced that it would be withdrawing from the joint venture.


title: Sky News

text: The Sky News Radio feed is available free-to-air on the Astra 2A satellite at 28.2 East by tuning it manually: 12207.00 V, 27500, 2/3 (Label: SNR).


title: Sky News

text: On 5 February 2019, Sky News launched a pop-up channel called Sky News Raw. It aired with behind-the-scenes programming from 07:00 to 17:00 on channel 523 on Sky TV and online via Sky News' social media channels. The pop-up channel celebrated the 30th anniversary of Sky News, having first broadcast on 5 February 1989.


title: Sky News

text: Robotic cameras were placed around the newsroom and planning rooms at Sky Studios, in the three main television studios at Osterley and Millbank, and in the broadcast galleries. There were also behind-the-scenes features from elsewhere in the newsgathering operation, such as the Sky News helicopter and ENG vehicles.


title: Sky News

text: From 16 October to 1 November 2019, Sky News ran a pop-up channel called Sky News Brexit-Free. The channel aired on weekdays from 17:00 to 22:00, and carried coverage of other news headlines unrelated to the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union. Sky News head John Ryley cited viewer fatigue over the near-constant coverage of Brexit as justification for the channel.


title: Sky News

text: The channel occasionally focuses on specific areas of society and current affairs. Past examples include "Inside Iraq", "Green Britain" and "Crime Uncovered".


title: Sky News

text: "Pakistan: On Terror's Frontline" was shown throughout the week beginning Monday 23 March 2009. A Sky News press release stated:


title: Sky News

text: Sky News operates under Ofcom broadcasting regulations which require impartial, unbiased coverage and prevent the channel from being encrypted in the UK. The channel is viewed by some in the media establishment as an impartial and unbiased provider of news.


title: Sky News

text: There are sources stating that Sky News may be inherently biased due to the fact that throughout the 1990s and 2000s it was minority owned and dominated by Rupert Murdoch's right-leaning News Corporation, and thereafter the Murdoch family's 21st Century Fox. Many News Corp subsidiaries, including News Corp UK & Ireland Ltd, the owner of the "Sun", "Times" and "Sunday Times" newspapers, have an openly conservative or right-wing outlook. In a 2010 article in the "New Statesman", prominent journalist and broadcaster Mehdi Hasan argued that "in style and in substance, of course, it is nothing like the pro-war, pro-Republican, pro-Palin Fox News Channel... Sky News remains, as far as I can see, free of party political bias." As of October 2018, Fox no longer has any stake in the broadcaster.


title: Sky News

text: Ofcom received complaints regarding the network's lack of neutrality ahead of the 2010 general election, but these were not upheld.


title: Sky News

text: In early 1994 Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of "The Sun" newspaper, was appointed managing director of BSkyB, Sky News's parent company at the time. MacKenzie's proposed changes to Sky News led to clashes with CEO Sam Chisholm and the head of Sky News, Ian Frykberg, who protested at what they saw as an attempt to take the channel's news values downmarket. The most ferocious battle occurred when Mackenzie wanted Sky News to run an interview with Lady Bienvenida Buck. Frykberg refused to air the interview and resigned shortly afterwards. The interview was broadcast on Sky One. MacKenzie announced his resignation in August 1994, but not before Sky News had transmitted live pictures of the freeway chase of O. J. Simpson's white Bronco on 17 June 1994, bringing US "helicopter journalism" to the UK.


title: Sky News

text: In 1997, Sky News broadcast live coverage of Louise Woodward's trial, held in Boston, Massachusetts, US. When Sky returned to a regular schedule, viewers demanded the trial coverage be continued. Sky News broadcast reaction from Woodward's home town of Elton, Cheshire, leading to criticism that the station had a pro-Louise Woodward stance.


title: Sky News

text: In November 2005 the then head of BBC News, Peter Horrocks, acknowledged that Sky News remained the first choice for "key opinion formers".


title: Sky News

text: Ofcom received 652 complaints regarding the network's neutrality after it hosted the second leaders' debate ahead of the 2010 General Election.


title: Sky News

text: Ofcom received 832 complaints about a May 2010 interview with electoral reformist David Babbs conducted by Sky News presenter Kay Burley. The interview led to Burley being heckled by protesters while reporting from Westminster, and further protest via a Twitter campaign.


title: Sky News

text: Ofcom received 696 complaints relating to Sky News's then political editor Adam Boulton's conduct during a May 2010 interview with Alastair Campbell.


title: Sky News

text: In 2014, Sky News journalist Colin Brazier rifled through an Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 victim's possessions on live TV. He picked up objects and briefly described what he had before putting them down and saying "we shouldn't really be doing this I suppose, really". 110 complaints were submitted to Ofcom. Sky News stated both Brazier "and Sky News apologise profusely for any offence caused".


title: Sky News

text: Sky News was again embroiled in controversy in October 2014, when crime correspondent Martin Brunt and his camera crew doorstepped Brenda Leyland, who had posted controversial comments concerning the McCann investigation on social media. Following the confrontation Leyland was found dead in a hotel, leading to calls on social media for Brunt to be sacked. During the inquest into Leyland's death, Brunt expressed to the coroner that he was devastated at hearing the news of Leyland's suicide. Following the inquest, Ofcom reported it had received 171 complaints in relation to the case and that it would consider these complaints in light of the coroner's verdict.


title: Sky News

text: In 2015, Kay Burley caused further controversy when, in response to the November 2015 Paris attacks, she tweeted a photograph of a Golden Retriever dog, to which she had added, "Sadness in his eyes #parisattacks".


title: Sky News

text: In April 2003, Sky News carried a report from James Forlong aboard the British nuclear submarine HMS "Splendid" purportedly showing a live firing of a cruise missile during the Iraq war. The report was a fabrication, with the crew acting along for the benefit of the cameras. The "Sky News" team did not accompany the submarine when it left port and the scenes were actually recorded whilst the vessel was docked. The shot of the missile launch had been obtained from stock footage.


title: Sky News

text: The faked report was revealed because another film crew did accompany the vessel to sea, and its footage showed that a modern missile is not launched by a crew member pressing a red button marked with the word "FIRE", as had been portrayed in the Sky News report, but is actually launched with a left mouse click. When the fabrication was exposed, Forlong and his producer were suspended. The next day, "The Guardian" reported that Forlong had resigned following an internal investigation. In a follow-up article, "The Guardian" speculated on the long-term effects on Sky News credibility. In October 2003, Forlong was found dead by his wife after committing suicide. In December, Sky News was fined £50,000 by the Independent Television Commission for breaching accuracy regulations.


title: Sky News

text: In August 2016 Sky News was criticised after allegedly paying €2,000 to a group of Romanians to pretend they were part of an eastern European gang selling guns to terrorists in Syria. The Romanians were arrested by Romanian DIICOT and confessed that they were paid by Sky News journalist Stuart Ramsay to pretend they were gun traffickers. The guns featured in the report were legally owned and were hunting weapons. Sky News has said it stands by the story.


title: Sky News

text: In November 2008 BSkyB paid substantial undisclosed libel damages to Robert Murat in relation to their reporting of the abduction of Madeleine McCann. Sky News had falsely suggested that Murat, who was assisting in the search of McCann, had acted like child murderer Ian Huntley following McCann's disappearance. Sky News also falsely accused Murat of misleading journalists into thinking he was working for the police. An apology was also placed on the Sky News website, the libellous material removed and Murat's costs were paid.


title: Sky News

text: In November 2010 the Attorney General for England and Wales, Dominic Grieve QC, was given the right to launch contempt of court proceedings against Sky News over the broadcaster's alleged breach of a media injunction. It was in relation to the reporting of the story of Paul and Rachel Chandler, a Kent couple who were held captive by Somali pirates for 13 months. The media was blocked from publishing details of the couple's "health and welfare" prior to their being freed on 14 November 2010. Sky claims that it "scrupulously observed the terms of the injunction", but also admitted that it "followed the spirit, if not the letter" of the order. At the time, lawyers representing the Chandlers obtained the court order over fears that their lives could be put in danger by the media reporting their capture. Sky News was alleged to have breached the injunction on the day of their release around from Somalia, leading the Attorney General to seek permission at the High Court to bring contempt proceedings. The Attorney General dropped the case in January 2012; a spokesperson for his office said that continuing with proceedings would no longer be in the public interest.


title: Sky News

text: In March 2013 Sky News journalist Mark Stone and his camera operator were detained in Tiananmen Square live on television, in what he described as a surreal but telling episode about reporting in China. Viewers saw Stone being directed into a police van live from Beijing. A police officer was filmed asking the Sky team to switch off their camera, saying they were now inside the Forbidden City and did not have permission to film there. While they had permission to film in the square, Stone said police told him the team were not displaying their passes correctly.


title: Sky News

text: Sky News's coverage of the 7 July 2005 London bombings won the 2006 International Emmy for Breaking News award. The coverage was commended as "fast and accurate".


title: Sky News

text: In June 2007, Sky News was named Best News Channel at the Broadcast Digital Channel Awards. It beat several other national and international broadcasters, including Al Jazeera English and the BBC.


title: Sky News

text: The channel won a BAFTA Award in the News Category on 10 May 2015, for Alex Crawford's coverage of the 2014 Ebola crisis.


title: Sky News

text: In 2018, Sky News was named Royal Television Society News Channel of the Year, the eleventh time the channel had won the award.


title: Sky News

text: Sky News won a BAFTA Award in the News Category on 13 May 2018 for "The Rohingya Crisis". Special Correspondent Alex Crawford, cameraman Martin Smith and producer Neville Lazarus travelled into Myanmar to bring a first-hand report of what was happening in Rakhine State. The same programme also won an International Emmy Award for News in October 2018.


title: Sky News

text: In November 2014, Sky News sponsored the Young Person in Business category of the National Chamber Awards. It was won by Oliver Bryssau of Origin Broadband, which was named Business of the Year.


title: Sky News

text: news.sky.com is the channel's main website. It provides news, sport, weather, showbiz and business stories.


title: Sky News

text: In 2009, the website changed to bring it in line with the on-screen look of Sky News. The site made use of Flash video encoding to match the visual style of the TV channel with pictures and breaking news. The site underwent a further refresh in 2012, when both the look of the pages and the content management system were updated.


title: Sky News

text: In 2021, to bring the website in line with the new Sky News branding on-screen minor tweaks were made such as font updates and updated breaking news graphics.


title: Sky News

text: On 1 March 2007, Sky's agreement to provide its basic channels (including Sky News) to Virgin Media expired. At midnight, Sky News was removed and the EPG entry for the channel was changed to "Sky Snooze Try BBC" until Sir Richard Branson demanded the message be removed, saying: "I have asked them to take it down. We do not mean any disrespect to Sky News. I think it is a very good news channel."


title: Sky News

text: Sky News, and the other Sky channels that had been removed, reappeared on Virgin Media on 13 November 2008.


title: Sky News

text: The Daily Telegraph reported in November 2021, "Sky's top performing shows, including "Trevor Phillips on Sunday", average around 160,000 viewers".


title: Sky News

text: As of 2018, Sky News had an estimated £90m annual budget, employs about 500 staff, but it makes a loss of between £15m and £20m a year according to The Guardian.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Weeds is an American dark comedy-drama television series created by Jenji Kohan, which aired on Showtime from August 8, 2005, to September 16, 2012. The series tells of Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker), a widowed mother of two boys (Hunter Parrish and Alexander Gould) who begins selling marijuana to support her family. Other main characters include Nancy's lax brother-in-law (Justin Kirk); foolish accountant (Kevin Nealon); narcissistic neighbor (Elizabeth Perkins) living with her husband (Andy Milder) and their daughter (Allie Grant); as well as Nancy's wholesalers (Tonye Patano) and (Romany Malco). Over the course of the series, the Botwin family becomes increasingly entangled in illegal activity.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Kohan serves as showrunner and is executive producer, under her "Tilted Productions" label. The first three seasons are set primarily in the fictional town of Agrestic, located in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. During seasons 4 and 5, the Botwins reside in the also fictional San Diego suburb of Ren Mar. In season 6, the family relocates to Seattle, Washington and Dearborn, Michigan. In season 7, the family resides in New York City, living in Manhattan for the duration of the season, but relocates to Connecticut in the season 7 finale and throughout season 8.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: When the show debuted on the Showtime cable network, it earned the channel's highest ratings. In 2012, TV Guide Network bought the airing rights and provided an edited version of the show free of charge. The show has received numerous awards, including two Emmy Awards, two Satellite Awards, one Golden Globe Award, a Writers Guild Award, and a Young Artist Award.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: In November 2019, it was revealed that a sequel series was in development at Starz, titled "Weeds 4.20". The series features Mary-Louise Parker and Elizabeth Perkins reprising their roles with the story set 10 years after the conclusion of the original series. Victoria Morrow, who was a producer on the writing team for "Weeds", is set to return as writer and executive producer on the spin-off series, while Kohan is not yet confirmed to be involved, along with any other returning cast.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Produced by Tilted Productions, in association with Lionsgate Television, the show is inspired by crime series, such as "The Shield" and "The Sopranos", in the sense of an antihero serving as the protagonist while retaining an individual moral code, which usually goes against the norms of society. The title, according to Kohan, refers "to a lot of things", including marijuana and widow's weeds; however, it mainly alludes to "hardy plants struggling to survive." The basic premise, as illustrated by the lyrics of the opening song from seasons 1-3 and 8, satirizes off-color characters struggling with faux suburban reality, in which everything is "all style, no substance". According to Kohan, she first pitched the series to HBO, which dismissed it. Robert Greenblatt invested in the show before it was commissioned by Showtime.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Showrunner and head writer Jenji Kohan, whose credits include "Tracey Takes On...", "Mad About You," and "Sex and the City", is the executive producer of the series, alongside Roberto Benabib, of "Little City" fame. Kohan also explains how she and Benabib "tag team[ed]" in running the writers room. Senior writer Matthew Salsberg and director Craig Zisk also joined as executive producers in later seasons. Following Zisk's departure from the series after five seasons, Mark Burley, director Scott Ellis, and Lisa Vinnecour were added on as executive producers. During season 7 and 8, senior writers Victoria Morrow and Stephen Falk became co-executive producers.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Exterior scenes for the first two seasons were shot almost exclusively in Stevenson Ranch, a suburban area of Santa Clarita Valley, California. The large fountain and Agrestic sign in the opening credits of the first three seasons was shot at the corner of Stevenson Ranch Parkway and Holmes Place. The name "Stevenson Ranch" was digitally replaced with "Agrestic" (and with "Majestic" and "Regrestic" in later episodes). The overhead satellite view in the beginning of the credits in the first three seasons is of Calabasas Hills, a gated community in Calabasas, California. The shot of the It's A Grind coffee shop in the introduction (seasons 1–3) is of an It's A Grind in Castaic, California. The show was originally filmed at Red Studios, previously known as Ren-Mar studios. The show moved to Universal Studios in Los Angeles for season 7, where it is noted on the studio tour. A version of this Wikipedia page served as the introduction for the season 5 episode titled "Where the Sidewalk Ends".


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Nancy Botwin is a single mother who lives in Agrestic—a fictional suburb of Los Angeles—with her two children, 15-year-old Silas and 10-year-old Shane, when the series begins. The pilot opens a few months after the untimely death of Nancy's husband Judah, who had a heart attack while jogging with their younger son. Nancy begins selling marijuana to maintain the upper middle-class lifestyle originally provided by her late husband's salary. References to conspicuous consumption are evident from the show's beginning episodes. The opening credits are set to Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes" song, which speaks of suburbanites from the same mold, all living the consumerist American dream. Visual and auditory references to designer labels, luxury homes, SUVs, plastic surgery, and expensive sugary drinks point to the consumption habits of the Agrestic characters. Nancy's desire to maintain her comfortable suburban lifestyle is the impetus for her decision to enter the illegal drug business and is another example of extreme consumerism in suburbia. The series follows Nancy's life as she gets drawn into the criminal system, develops a client base, starts a front to hide her selling, creates her own strain of weed called MILF, and relocates her family to stay out of jail and protect her children. Featured in the ensemble cast are her lazy, wisecracking brother-in-law Andy Botwin; foolish acquaintance Doug Wilson; and narcissistic neighbor and PTA mother Celia Hodes.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: The principal character is Nancy Price Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker), a housewife from Southern California who becomes a marijuana dealer after her husband Judah (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) dies. Although her drug-dealing career achieves mixed success, she eventually rises to the highest levels of an international drug-smuggling cartel. Nancy remarries three times during the series. First, she has an under-the-radar wedding with Peter Scottson (Martin Donovan), a DEA agent, who is later killed. In season five, she marries Esteban Reyes (Demián Bichir), the fictional mayor of Tijuana and leader of a cartel, who is murdered by the seventh season. While in prison, Nancy also establishes a long-term relationship with Zoya (Olga Sosnovska), a woman convicted of murdering her own boyfriend. In the series finale, which leaps forward seven years, viewers come to know that Nancy marries Rabbi David Bloom (David Julian Hirsh), who later dies in a car accident.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Throughout most of the show, Nancy shares her house with her brother-in-law Andy Botwin (Justin Kirk). When Andy arrives in Agrestic, he is little more than a fun-loving slacker (albeit a handsome and charming one), and Nancy views him as a burden. Nonetheless, he emerges as the primary father figure in the household; her children adore him and there is the suggestion that Nancy and her sons view Andy as their last link to Judah. Andy falls in love with Nancy during the fourth season but eventually realizes his feelings are unreciprocated. Nancy tries to balance their relationship to keep him "in the family." When he is not helping Nancy run her household, Andy engages in various educational and business ventures, from studying to be a rabbi in Hebrew school, to marijuana dealer, to entrepreneurial bicycle salesman. He also has a passion for cooking, becoming a professional chef by the sixth season.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Nancy begins the series with two sons, who after Judah's death are raised haphazardly. In the fifth season, she has a son, Stevie Ray Botwin (portrayed by uncredited babies and later by Ethan and Gavin Kent), with Esteban Reyes. Her first son, Silas (Hunter Parrish), who has been sexually active since the show's debut, later follows in his mother's footsteps: he becomes a marijuana dealer, grower, and dispensary operator.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Nancy's younger son, Shane (Alexander Gould), is highly intelligent yet poorly socialized and vulgar; he is deeply affected by his father's death and yearns for more attention from his mother. In the first three seasons, Shane was also frequently bullied in school. After his peers harassed him in the bathroom for his sexual inexperience, his uncle pursues his request in taking him for a handjob at the local massage parlor. He is portrayed as having psychological issues. For instance, just before leaving Agrestic, Shane has conversations with his dead father. Upon moving to Ren Mar, he loses his virginity and becomes a temporary alcoholic. Shane also engages in violence: When he overhears his mother's conversation with Estaban's scornful boss and political consultant Pilar, who threatens his and Silas' life, Shane murders Pilar by abruptly striking her over the head with a croquet mallet before her body collapses into the pool. By the seventh season, he joins the police academy before receiving his criminal justice degree — working for the New York City Police Department in season eight.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins) is Nancy's "frenemy". Obsessed with her personal image, she manipulates those around her who do not fit neatly into that image. She is unhappily married to Dean (Andy Milder) whom she regards as a "loser asshole"; they later divorce. Other characters also dislike her. Celia's older daughter, Quinn (Haley Hudson), kidnaps her as revenge for shipping her to a reform school in Mexico. She is also demanding over her younger daughter Isabelle's (Allie Grant) "weight problem," and disapproves of her being a lesbian. At the end of the first season, Celia is diagnosed with breast cancer and cured with chemotherapy. When interrogated by the police over Nancy's grow house in Celia's home burning down the city, Dean, Doug, and other characters falsely allege that Celia coordinated it, which leads to her arrest. Following her release from prison, she becomes addicted to cocaine, so Isabelle arranges a rehab home intervention. Celia later becomes envious of Nancy; therefore, she dresses like her. After the fifth season, the actress left to pursue other projects.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon) begins the series as an accountant and city councilman for the town of Agrestic. Doug is friends with many characters in the series including Andy, Dean, and Sanjay Patel (Maulik Pancholy); all four aid Nancy's career as a marijuana dealer. Doug makes mistakes and loses his position; his wife Dana leaves him. He becomes a drifter who follows the Botwins during seasons four through eight. He and the Botwins move to New York City, where he becomes the chief accountant for a Ponzi scheme posing as a hedge fund.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: The show has a changing cast of supporting characters. Heylia James (Tonye Patano) and her family — Conrad and Vaneeta, portrayed by Romany Malco and Indigo, respectively — play key roles during the first three seasons. They are wholesalers who supply marijuana to Nancy. Conrad later develops his own strain of marijuana, called MILF weed, which Nancy sells.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Season three features Sullivan Groff (Matthew Modine), an unethical, womanizing real estate developer with big plans for Agrestic. When Nancy moves to Ren Mar, the characters in Esteban's drug cartel—primarily Cesar (Enrique Castillo), Ignacio (Hemky Madera), and Guillermo (Guillermo Díaz), the latter first appearing in the third season—take a leading role. Other key characters include Nancy's housekeeper Lupita (Renée Victor); rival drug dealers; countless law enforcement officials; the romantic interests of Andy, Silas, and Shane; and the residents of Agrestic and Ren Mar.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: In the sixth season, Nancy is on the run, and the new characters only have minor roles and appear for only a few episodes. An exception to this is Warren Schiff (Richard Dreyfuss), who she first met when teaching her math in high school; he becomes infatuated with Nancy. When the Botwins and Doug settle in New York City, new supporting characters are introduced. The family later settles in Nancy's estranged sister Jill's (Jennifer Jason Leigh) house in Connecticut, becoming a regular guest character by the eighth season.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Other recurring characters include Albert Brooks as Nancy's father-in-law Lenny, Carrie Fisher as Celia's lawyer, Dave Thomas as a doctor, Martin Short as a lawyer for Nancy's custody battle, Alanis Morissette as a doctor at an abortion clinic, Zooey Deschanel as Andy's estranged girlfriend, Lee Majors as a border guard, Mary-Kate Olsen as a student who worships Jesus and sells pot, as well as Aidan Quinn, among others.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: As of September 16, 2012, 102 original episodes have been broadcast. The first season began August 8, 2005, and consisted of 10 episodes. The second season premiered on August 14, 2006, airing 12 episodes. The third season debuted on August 13, 2007, airing 15 episodes. The fourth season began June 16, 2008, the fifth season on June 8, 2009, and the sixth in August 2010, each with 13 episodes. The seventh season began airing on June 27, 2011, and, as of November 10, 2011, Weeds was renewed for an eighth and final season of 13 episodes that premiered Sunday, July 1, 2012.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: In 2006, before Season 2 airing, the first few episodes were leaked online. Before the third season began, the first two episodes appeared online on July 22, 2007 (nearly a month before the August 13 premiere date). The third episode appeared online on July 24, 2007, with the fourth appearing just three days later. The fourth episode was, however, an incomplete version—among other things, some dubbed lines were not complete (notably part of a voice mail message by U-Turn is spoken by a distinctly different actor), and a card simply reading "End Credits" was inserted instead of the actual credits. On August 1, 2010, the first episodes of season 6 leaked online. Due to the high quality of the leaked episodes, downloaders of the torrents speculated that they were leaked intentionally to garner interest in the show and to create internet buzz. Episode leaks of other Showtime programs such as "Californication" and "Dexter" were seen as giving weight to this theory.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: Jenji Kohan has stated that she does not mind episodes being distributed on the internet in this way, saying, "Revenue aside, I don't expect to get rich on "Weeds". I'm excited it's out there. Showtime is great, but it does have a limited audience." The show is rated TV-MA for drug content, profanity, nudity, brief violence, and other adult content.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: "Little Boxes" is the opening song for the first three seasons. The first season uses the version recorded by its composer Malvina Reynolds. In seasons 2 and 3, the song is performed by various artists. In season 4, the Malvina Reynolds version opens the first episode. Thereafter, the original titles and music are replaced by a short clip, different for each episode, that relates to the plot or some scene in the episode. The song is also subtly referenced in the eighth episode of the fourth season when a sleepy Nancy tells Shane that he's going to "...become a doctor or a lawyer or a business executive." In the opening credits of the eighth episode of season seven, a woman is heard humming the tune to "Little Boxes" as she arranges knickknacks on a shelf. In Season 8, the show returns to "Little Boxes" for the opening sequence.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: The music supervisors for the show include Gary Calamar (along with music coordinator Alyson Vidoli) (27 episodes), Amine Ramer (4 episodes), and Bruce Gilbert (3 episodes). The original score is provided by composers Brandon Jay and Gwendolyn Sanford.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: The Region 1 Season One DVD is only available in 4:3 pan and scan format. The Region 2 and 4 releases are all in anamorphic widescreen. Season one was released on Blu-ray on May 29, 2007, and Season two was released on July 24, 2007. Both seasons include all episodes in 1080p widescreen with Dolby Digital EX sound and either DTS-HD (season one) or LPCM (season two), as well as extras exclusive to the Blu-ray release. Season three was released on Blu-ray on June 3, 2008. Seasons one to three on Blu-ray are multi-region discs; however, season four has been region-locked to region A only.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: In late 2009, "Weeds" seasons four and five have been aired in at least one region B country, namely The Netherlands. Subsequently, a region 2 DVD of Season 4 has indeed been released. However, the region 2 DVD release was not accompanied by a region B Blu-ray. Showtime has not commented on whether they ever anticipate releasing a region B Blu-ray version, or if any further non-US transmission rights are agreed. The same region locking has been applied to Blu-ray for season five. In November 2011, Seasons 2–5 were released on Region B Blu-ray in Australia with Season 6 Region B Blu-ray released December 16, 2011. Blu-ray season seven is now available.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: An extra feature on the Season Two DVD (a marijuana-based cooking show parody) was rejected by the British Board of Film Classification since it was regarded as "likely [...] to promote and encourage the use of illegal drugs".


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: On August 7, 2007, Simon Spotlight, a division of Simon and Schuster, published "In the Weeds: The Official Guide to the Showtime Series" by Kera Bolonik, which features interviews with the series creator/showrunner, its other writer-producers, and the entire cast. It also features detailed character and plot descriptions, recipes, trivia and behind-the-scenes information.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: In its first year, "Weeds" was Showtime's highest rated series. The season 4 premiere attracted 1.3 million viewers to Showtime, the channel's then-highest-ever viewership; the season as a whole averaged 962,000 viewers.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: As the season 3 began in fall 2007, "Slate" named Nancy Botwin as one of the best characters on television. "TIME" magazine's James Poniewozik ranked "Weeds" #9 among the Top 10 Returning Series of 2007. "The New York Times" opined the show is "transforming for Showtime." Metacritic scored season 2 78 out of 100, season 4 67 out of 100, and season 5 73 out of 100.


title: Weeds (TV series)

text: The first season received mostly positive reviews from critics. Metacritic rated it 70 out of 100, based on the opinions of 29 critics. The second season achieved a Metacritic rating of 78 out of 100, based on 16 critics, and the third season reached a series-high score of 82 out of 100, based on 12 critics. The critical reviews dipped after season 3, reaching a low Metacritic rating of 55 out of 100 (based on 4 critics) for season 6.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: John Jeremy Thorpe (29 April 1929 – 4 December 2014) was a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament for North Devon from 1959 to 1979, and as leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 to 1976. In May 1979 he was tried at the Old Bailey on charges of conspiracy and incitement to murder his ex-boyfriend Norman Scott, a former model. Thorpe was acquitted on all charges, but the case, and the furore surrounding it, ended his political career.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe was the son and grandson of Conservative MPs, but decided to align with the small and ailing Liberal Party. After reading Law at Oxford University he became one of the Liberals' brightest stars in the 1950s. He entered Parliament at the age of 30, rapidly made his mark, and was elected party leader in 1967. After an uncertain start during which the party lost ground, Thorpe capitalised on the growing unpopularity of the Conservative and Labour parties to lead the Liberals through a period of notable electoral success. This culminated in the general election of February 1974, when the party won 6 million votes. Under the first-past-the-post electoral system this gave them only 14 seats, but in a hung parliament, no party having an overall majority, Thorpe was in a strong position. He was offered a cabinet post by the Conservative prime minister, Edward Heath, if he would bring the Liberals into a coalition. His price for such a deal, reform of the electoral system, was rejected by Heath, who resigned in favour of a minority Labour government.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: The February 1974 election was the high-water mark of Thorpe's career. Thereafter his and his party's fortunes declined, particularly from late 1975 when rumours of his involvement in a plot to murder Norman Scott began to multiply. Thorpe resigned the leadership in May 1976, when his position became untenable. When the matter came to court three years later, Thorpe chose not to give evidence to avoid being cross-examined by counsel for the prosecution. This left many questions unanswered; despite his acquittal, Thorpe was discredited and did not return to public life. From the mid-1980s he was disabled by Parkinson's disease. During his long retirement he gradually recovered the affections of his party, and by the time of his death was honoured by a later generation of leaders, who drew attention to his record as an internationalist, a supporter of human rights, and an opponent of apartheid.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe was born in South Kensington, London, on 29 April 1929. His father was John Henry Thorpe, a lawyer and politician who was the Conservative MP for Manchester Rusholme between 1919 and 1923. His mother, Ursula Norton-Griffiths (1903–1992), was the daughter of another Conservative MP, Sir John Norton-Griffiths, widely known as "Empire Jack" because of his passionate imperialism. The Thorpe family claimed kinship with distant forebears carrying the name, including Sir Robert Thorpe, who was briefly Lord Chancellor in 1372, and Thomas Thorpe, who was Speaker of the House of Commons in 1453–54. There is no direct evidence of any link between these figures and Jeremy Thorpe's family.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: The more recent Thorpe ancestors were Irish, stemming from the elder of two brothers who were, according to family tradition, soldiers under Cromwell during the re-conquest of Ireland. Both were rewarded with land; the descendants of the younger brother—from County Carlow—prospered in Dublin as High Sheriffs and Lord Mayors, but those of the elder lost their land and became tenant farmers and tradesmen. Jeremy Thorpe's great-grandfather, William Thorpe, was a Dublin policeman who, having been a labourer, joined the police as a constable and rose to the rank of superintendent. One of his many sons, John Thorpe, became an Anglican priest and served as Archdeacon of Macclesfield from 1922 to 1932. The archdeacon's marriage in 1884 to a daughter of the prosperous Anglo-Irish Aylmer family brought considerable wealth to the Thorpes, as did his elder daughter Olive's marriage into the influential Christie-Miller family of Cheshire. Both John Henry and Jeremy Thorpe would benefit from this connection, as the Christie-Millers paid the costs of their education.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Jeremy was his parents' third child, following two sisters. His upbringing was privileged and protected, under the care of nannies and nursemaids until, in 1935, he began attending Wagner's day school in Queen's Gate. He became a proficient violinist, and often performed at school concerts. Although John Henry Thorpe was no longer in parliament, he had maintained many of his political contacts and friendships, and leading politicians were regularly entertained at the Thorpe home. Among the strongest of these friendships was that with the Lloyd George family—Ursula Thorpe was a close friend of the former Liberal prime minister's daughter, Megan, who became Jeremy's godmother. The former prime minister David Lloyd George, an occasional visitor, became Jeremy's political hero and role model, and helped form his ambitions for a political career in the Liberal Party.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In January 1938 Jeremy went to Cothill House, a school in Oxfordshire that prepared boys for entry to Eton. By summer 1939 war looked likely, and the Thorpe family moved from London to the Surrey village of Limpsfield where Jeremy attended Hazelwood School. War began in September 1939; in June 1940, with invasion threatening, the Thorpe children were sent to live with their American aunt, Kay Norton-Griffiths, in Boston. In September that year Jeremy began at the Rectory School in Pomfret, Connecticut. He remained there for three generally happy years; his main extracurricular task, he later recalled, was looking after the school's pigs. In 1943 it was thought safe for the children to return to England, and John Henry used his political connections to secure for Jeremy a passage in the Royal Navy cruiser HMS "Phoebe".


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe started at Eton in September 1943. He proved an indifferent scholar, he lacked sporting aptitude, and although superficially a rebel against conformity, his frequent toadying to authority earned him the nickname "Oily Thorpe". He also annoyed his fellow-pupils by parading his acquaintance with a range of famous and important people. He offended the school's traditionalists by resigning from the school's cadet force, and shocked others by expressing his intention to marry Princess Margaret, then second in line to the British throne. Thorpe revealed little about his Eton years, beyond his membership of the school orchestra and his winning a cup for his violin playing—he briefly considered the possibility of a career as a professional violinist. His time at Eton was marred by the death of his father in 1944, at the age of 57.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Having secured a place at Trinity College, Oxford, Thorpe left Eton in March 1947. In September he began 18 months' National Service, but within six weeks was discharged on medical grounds after collapsing while attempting an assault course. As his place at Oxford was unavailable until the following year, Thorpe worked as a temporary preparatory school teacher before his admission to Trinity on 8 October 1948.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe was reading Law, but his primary interests at Oxford were political and social. From his earliest undergraduate days he drew attention to himself by his flamboyant behaviour; according to Thorpe's biographer, Michael Bloch, his "pallid appearance, dark hair and eyes and angular features, gave him a diabolonian air". He was quick to seek political office, initially in the Oxford University Liberal Club (OULC) which, despite the doldrums affecting the Liberal Party nationally, was a thriving club with over 800 members. Thorpe was elected to the club's committee at the end of his first term; in November 1949 he became its president. Outside Oxford, Thorpe showed a genuine commitment to Liberalism in his enthusiastic contributions to the party's national election campaigns, and on reaching his 21st birthday in April 1950, applied to have his name added to the party's list of possible parliamentary candidates.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Beyond the OULC, Thorpe achieved the presidency of the Oxford University Law Society, although his principal objective was the presidency of the Oxford Union, an office frequently used as a stepping-stone to national prominence. Normally, would-be presidents first served in the Union's junior offices, as Secretary, Treasurer or Librarian, but Thorpe, having impressed as a confident and forceful debater, decided early in 1950 to try directly for the presidency. He was easily defeated by the future broadcaster Robin Day. His single-minded pursuit of office, and the dubious strategies he sometimes employed, led to some acrimonious campaigns, but he gained many supporters, and later in 1950 beat two formidable contenders—the socialist Dick Taverne and the Conservative William Rees-Mogg—to secure the presidency for the Hilary term of 1951.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe's term as president was marked by the range of distinguished guest speakers that he recruited, among them the future Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham, the barrister and former Liberal MP Norman Birkett, and the humorist Stephen Potter. The time-consuming nature of his various offices meant that Thorpe required a fourth year to complete his law studies, which ended in the summer of 1952 with a third-class honours degree.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: At Oxford Thorpe enjoyed numerous friendships with his contemporaries, many of whom later achieved distinction. These were almost exclusively with men; even so, he was not identified as a member of any of Oxford's homosexual sets. He confided to a friend that politics provided him with the necessary level of emotional excitement, thus making sexual relationships unnecessary. Thus, Bloch suggests, he was accepted by his fellow-students as "a basically asexual character, wrapped up in politics and his career".


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Having been accepted as a potential Liberal parliamentary candidate, Thorpe looked for a constituency. The general elections of 1950 and 1951 had seen the party's MPs fall, first to nine, then six; some commentators saw little future except "further attrition and further losses to the two major parties". The journalist Julian Glover writes that Thorpe's determination to stay with the party, despite its woes, showed a more principled commitment to Liberalism than many critics have acknowledged; his prospects of reaching parliament would have been considerably greater within either the Conservative or Labour parties.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Initially the young would-be candidate was offered the opportunity of succeeding the party leader, Clement Davies, in the Welsh seat of Montgomeryshire, when Davies decided to retire. There being no immediate prospect of that, Thorpe looked elsewhere, in particular to Devon and Cornwall, where the party had long-standing traditions and had polled respectably in 1950 and 1951. In these elections Thorpe had assisted the Liberal candidate for North Cornwall, Dingle Foot, whose agent recommended him to the neighbouring North Devon constituency. The Torrington local party was also anxious to adopt Thorpe as their candidate, while Foot saw him as a possible successor in North Cornwall. Thorpe chose to fight North Devon, a seat once held by the Liberals although, in 1951, the party had finished in third place behind Conservative and Labour, with less than 20% of the vote.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe was adopted as North Devon's Liberal candidate in April 1952. His political stance matched that of other young activists, who believed that the party should offer a radical non-socialist alternative to the Conservative government. He and others founded the Radical Reform Group, to drive the party in that direction. He spent much of his spare time cultivating the voters in North Devon; at rallies and on the doorstep he mixed local concerns with conspicuously liberal views on larger, international issues such as colonialism and apartheid. When Anthony Eden, who had succeeded Winston Churchill as prime minister, called a snap general election in April 1955, Thorpe fought an energetic local campaign. He succeeded in halving the Conservative majority in the constituency, and restoring the Liberals to second place.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In need of a paid occupation Thorpe opted for the law, and in February 1954 was called to the bar in the Inner Temple. Initially he found it difficult to earn a living from his fees; he needed another source of income, and found it in television journalism. Thorpe was employed by Associated-Rediffusion, at first as chairman of a science discussion programme, "The Scientist Replies", and later as an interviewer on the station's major current affairs vehicle "This Week". Among various assignments for "This Week", he travelled to Ghana in 1957 to cover the country's independence celebrations, and in 1958 he reported from Jordan on a plot to assassinate King Hussein. Thorpe was a skilled broadcaster, and in addition to his television work he became a regular guest on the BBC radio programme "Any Questions?" In 1959 he was offered the post of chief commentator by Associated Rediffusion, but as the condition was that he gave up his parliamentary candidature, he declined.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Through the later 1950s Thorpe juggled his legal and television work with his political duties in North Devon, where he worked tirelessly to build up support. From September 1956 the Liberal Party was led by Jo Grimond, a more up-to-date figure than his elderly predecessor Davies, and more in tune with the ideas of Thorpe and the Radical Reform Group. After an uncertain beginning—the Liberals lost one of their six seats to Labour in a February 1957 by-election—Grimond's leadership began to produce results. The party polled well in a series of by-elections during 1957 and 1958, culminating in a victory at Torrington in March 1958—a seat which the party had not contested in the 1955 general election. Thorpe, who had figured prominently in the Torrington campaign, saw this victory in an adjoining Devon constituency as a harbinger of his own future success.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe's television and radio work had brought him a measure of celebrity, and his colourful and individualistic campaigning style was widely admired. The journalist Christopher Booker recalled: "He had an extraordinary ability both to cheer up his followers and send up his opponents". Throughout the 1950s Thorpe was leading a secret homosexual life, at a time when all such activity was illegal in the United Kingdom, and subject to heavy penalties; exposure would have ended his political prospects instantly. This sexual orientation, concealed from the wider public, was known and tolerated in North Devon, and was at least suspected by many in the wider Liberal Party.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe's efforts in North Devon came to fruition in the October 1959 general election, when he won the seat with a majority of 362 over his Conservative opponent—the Liberal Party's solitary gain in what was generally an electoral triumph for Harold Macmillan's Conservative government. On 10 November 1959, he made his maiden speech, during a debate on the government's local employment bill. He highlighted poor communications as the principal reason for the lack of employment opportunities in North Devon, and called for urgent government action.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe was a diligent MP, active in promoting local issues—a new general hospital, and a link road to the Exeter-Taunton motorway—and campaigned successfully to save the Barnstaple-to-Exeter railway line from the "Beeching axe". On broader questions he made no secret of his anti-hanging, pro-immigrant, pro-Europe opinions, largely not shared by his constituents. He championed freedom from colonial and minority rule, and was an outspoken opponent of regimes he considered oppressive such as those in South Africa and the short-lived Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. He was also noted for his verve and wit; when in 1962, after a series of by-election disasters, Macmillan sacked a third of his cabinet, Thorpe's reported comment, an inversion of the biblical verse John 15:13, was "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life".


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Within the Liberal Party, Thorpe helped to found an informal organisation known as "Winnable Seats", which directed energy and funding to selected target constituencies. This strategy led to some notable by-election performances during 1961–62, culminating in March 1962 with victory in Orpington, where a 14,760 Conservative majority was turned into a Liberal majority of 7,855. These results were accompanied by substantial Liberal gains in municipal elections; national opinion polls briefly showed the party on equal terms with the Labour and Conservative parties. This advance was barely reflected in the results of the October 1964 general election; the party nearly doubled its share of the national vote, to 11.2%, but secured a net gain of only two seats. One of the new Liberals was Peter Bessell, who won the Cornish seat of Bodmin. In North Devon, Thorpe increased his personal majority to over 5,000.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: After the election, which Labour won with a small majority, Thorpe was seen by many as Grimond's natural successor; his speeches were generally the highlights of the party's annual assemblies, and he strengthened his position when, in 1965, he secured the important post of party treasurer. He proved to be an excellent fund-raiser, although his insistence on personal control of much of the party's funds aroused criticism and resentment. In July 1965, after the end of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Thorpe toured Central and East Africa, visiting both Zambia and Rhodesia. On his return he advised the prime minister, Harold Wilson, that the all-white Rhodesian government under Ian Smith would make a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) before the end of the year, unless deterred by the threat of armed intervention. Wilson would not countenance the use of troops; the UDI took place on 11 November. In a speech to the Liberal Assembly in September 1966, Thorpe condemned Wilson's handling of the Rhodesia issue ("misjudged and misplanned"), and called for the bombing by United Nations aircraft of the rail link through which the post-UDI Rhodesian government received its oil supplies. The speech delighted the more radical elements in the Liberal Party but outraged many Conservatives, who used the derisive nickname "Bomber Thorpe" for the rest of Thorpe's parliamentary career.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In March 1966 Wilson called an election, hoping to improve his tiny parliamentary majority. He did so, increasing it to almost 100. The Liberals, although their overall share of the vote fell to 8.5%, increased their number of MPs from nine to 12, an indication of success in targeted campaigning under the "Winnable Seats" strategy. Thorpe suffered a personal disappointment in North Devon, where his majority dropped to 1,166.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Following the 1966 election, Grimond confided to senior party officials that he wished soon to step down from the leadership. Thorpe was now the senior Liberal MP after Grimond, and the party's highest-profile member, although Tim Beaumont, chairman of the party's organising committee, noted in his diary: "I am pretty certain that he has little popularity within the Parliamentary Party". When Grimond finally resigned, on 17 January 1967, an election to replace him was arranged to take place within 48 hours, leaving little time for manoeuvring. The 12 Liberal MPs formed the whole electorate; after the first ballot, Thorpe had secured six votes against three each for Eric Lubbock, the Orpington MP, and Emlyn Hooson who had succeeded to the Montgomeryshire seat. On 18 January Lubbock and Hooson withdrew their candidacies, and Thorpe was declared the winner.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: As Liberal leader, Thorpe provided a clear contrast with the pedestrian images of Wilson and Edward Heath, the Conservative leader since March 1965. He was considerably younger, and much more telegenic. His first years of leadership were problematic; he found himself at odds with the Young Liberals, who were advocating policies far to the left of the Liberal mainstream. Their demands for workers' control in nationalised industries, British withdrawal from NATO, and massive cuts in the defence budget, caused bitter disputes within the party and damaged its public image. At this time the political climate was not conducive to radical policies; the Wilson government's rapid descent into unpopularity brought a sharp swing to the right among voters. The beneficiaries were the Conservatives, who made spectacular by-election gains at Labour's expense while the Liberals failed to make any real impact. Discontent against Thorpe's leadership was being voiced within a year of his election, culminating in June 1968 when disaffected senior party members combined with Young Liberals in an attempt to depose him. Thorpe had just married Caroline Allpass, and was abroad on honeymoon when the plotters struck. The timing of their attempted coup, widely seen in and out of the party as treachery, ensured that on Thorpe's return the party executive backed him by 48 votes to 2.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe's marriage provided him with a period of emotional stability; a son, Rupert, was born in April 1969. Shortly afterwards, Thorpe received a political boost when the Liberals unexpectedly won a by-election at Birmingham Ladywood, in a previously safe Labour seat. This was a solitary success, and the party faced the general election of June 1970 with little confidence. The results justified their gloomy premonitions; the party's share of the vote fell to 7.5%, and seven of its thirteen seats, including Ladywood, were lost. Thorpe barely hung on in North Devon, his majority reduced to 369. Three of his colleagues had comparably small majorities; only Grimond, Hooson and Russell Johnston were relatively safe. Heath's Conservatives secured a 30-seat majority.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Following the Liberals' poor election performance Thorpe came under fire, but such criticisms were stifled when, ten days after the election, Caroline Thorpe was killed in a car crash. For the rest of 1970 and for much of 1971, Thorpe was preoccupied with his loss and his plan for a permanent memorial to Caroline. Meanwhile, the party began to recover, chiefly through its adoption of "community politics"—engagement with local rather than national issues—and achieved modest gains in the 1971 local elections.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: By early 1972, with the monument to Caroline erected on Codden Hill, Thorpe was fully re-engaged in political life. In February he assisted the passage through the House of Commons of Heath's European Communities Bill, approving the United Kingdom's accession to the European Economic Community. The bill was opposed by Labour and by some Conservatives. By aligning his party with the government, Thorpe ensured a majority of eight for the bill's second reading, and it duly became law. By mid-1972 the Liberals' fortunes were rising significantly; the public was equally disenchanted with both major parties, and community politics were proving popular. Impressive local election results were followed by sensational by-election results. In October 1972 Rochdale was won from Labour, and in the next year four victories were achieved over the Conservatives: Sutton, Isle of Ely, Ripon and Berwick-upon-Tweed.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: On 14 March 1973, Thorpe married Marion Stein, a concert pianist and the former wife of George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood. The couple had been brought together a year earlier by a mutual acquaintance, the pianist Moura Lympany. The year ended less happily for Thorpe, when the secondary banking firm of London & County Securities, of which he had been a director since May 1971, collapsed amid rumours of mismanagement and fraud, marking the start of the Secondary banking crisis of 1973–1975; the details were not revealed until 1976. In February 1974, Heath, whose government had been plagued by industrial unrest, called a general election on the issue of "Who governs Britain?". During the election campaign there was evidence of disaffection with both Heath and Wilson, and of a surge in Liberal support. Thorpe was confident that the party would make a significant breakthrough; on election day, 28 February, it secured its highest national vote to date, 6 million, and its highest share of the vote (19.3%) since 1929. Under the first-past-the-post voting system, these figures translated into just 14 seats. Thorpe's majority in North Devon rose to 11,072.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: The February 1974 general election produced a hung parliament; neither Labour, with 301 seats, nor the Conservatives, with 297 seats, achieved an overall majority. As was his right as the sitting Prime Minister, Heath did not resign, hoping to persuade the Liberals into a Conservative-led coalition. He met Thorpe on 2 March to discuss possible bases for co-operation, Heath's preferred option being a formal coalition in which Thorpe would be given a cabinet post, and junior ministries would be allocated to other senior Liberals. As the combined Conservative-Liberal vote amounted to 57% of the electorate, such a government would, Heath thought, have some moral legitimacy. If Thorpe would not accept coalition, a less formal basis of inter-party co-operation might be agreed which would enable the Conservative government to retain office.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: The next day, following discussions with senior colleagues, Thorpe advised Heath that a commitment to electoral reform would be a prerequisite to any arrangement between the two parties. Thorpe proposed that Heath establish a Speaker's Conference whose recommendations on electoral reform would, if acceptable to the Liberals, form the basis of subsequent legislation with full cabinet approval. Following further consultations with their parties, the two leaders met again; Heath reported that while his party would not object to a Speaker's Conference, they could not commit themselves in advance to accepting its recommendations, which would be subject to a free House of Commons vote. This was unacceptable to Thorpe, who then made a separate proposal that an all-party "Government of national unity" be formed to tackle the urgent economic problems facing the country. This idea was rejected by Heath, who resigned on Monday 4 March.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe later admitted that a coalition agreement would have torn the party apart; the more radical elements, in particular the Young Liberals, would never have accepted it. Furthermore, Thorpe said that "even with our support Heath wouldn't have had a parliamentary majority"; without some arrangements with the Scottish Nationalists or the Ulster Unionists, the coalition could have been brought down by the first vote on the Queen's Speech. Following Heath's resignation, Wilson formed a Labour minority government.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: As Harold Wilson did not have an overall majority following the February 1974 election, he was widely expected to call another election before too long; he did so in September 1974. Thorpe anticipated a turning point in the Liberals' fortunes and campaigned under the slogan "one more heave", aiming for a complete breakthrough with entering a coalition a last resort. The phrase is attributed to advertising agent and Liberal parliamentary candidate Adrian Slade. Future Liberal Party leader David Steel called the whole campaign "a slightly less successful re-run of February." In the October 1974 general election, the Liberals received over 700,000 fewer votes and returned 13 MPs, down one, with Wilson achieving an overall majority of three.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe and the Liberals were deflated by the outcome of the October 1974 election. Wilson's majority, albeit slim, denied Thorpe the role of kingmaker, leaving the Liberals without a clear role; as Dutton observes, apart from being neither Conservative or Labour, the Liberals lacked a distinctive identity and their policies were largely unknown to the public. A further problem for the party was the divergence between its activists, who were radicals well to the left of the official party, and a large section of its recent supporters who were disgruntled Conservatives. Thorpe, whose personal majority in North Devon had fallen to under 7,000 in October, confided to an associate that, unless the party were soon to make a significant impact, his days as leader might be numbered.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: During 1975 Thorpe campaigned for electoral reform, citing the "Great Vote Robbery" of the year before. He argued that electoral reform on a proportional basis would bring about a centrist stability to British politics that would favour British business. In the June 1975 referendum on the UK's continuing membership of the EEC, Thorpe campaigned for a "yes" vote alongside the pro-Europeans of both major parties, appearing with Heath (recently replaced as Conservative leader by Margaret Thatcher) at the Oxford Union. The referendum resulted in a two-to-one approval of the UK's membership, but Thorpe failed to stem the decline in his party's electoral fortunes. In the Woolwich West by-election on 26 June 1975 the party lost more than two-thirds of its October 1974 vote, a "major humiliation" according to "The Guardian".


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe's homosexual activities from time to time came to the attention of the authorities, and were investigated by the police; information was added to his MI5 file, but in no case was action taken against him. In 1971 he survived a party inquiry after a complaint against him by Norman Scott, a riding instructor and would-be model. Scott maintained that in the early 1960s he had been in a sexual relationship with Thorpe, who had subsequently mistreated him. The inquiry dismissed the allegations. but the danger represented by Scott continued to preoccupy Thorpe who, according to his confidant David Holmes, felt "he would never be safe with that man around".


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Scott (known then as Norman Josiffe) had first met Thorpe early in 1961 when the former was a 20-year-old groom working for one of Thorpe's wealthy friends. The initial meeting was brief, but nearly a year later Scott, by then in London and destitute, called at the House of Commons to ask the MP for help. Thorpe later acknowledged that a friendship had developed, but denied any physical relationship; Scott claimed that he had been seduced by Thorpe on the night following the Commons meeting. Over the following years Thorpe made numerous attempts to help Scott find accommodation and work, but Scott became increasingly resentful towards Thorpe, threatening him with exposure.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In 1965 Thorpe asked his parliamentary colleague Peter Bessell to help him resolve the problem. Bessell met Scott and warned him that his threats against Thorpe might be considered blackmail; he offered to help Scott obtain a new National Insurance card, the lack of which had been a long-running source of irritation. This quietened matters for a while, but within a year Scott came calling again. With Thorpe's agreement, Bessell began paying Scott a "retainer" of £5 a week, supposedly as compensation for the welfare benefits that Scott had been unable to obtain because of his missing card. Bessell later stated that by 1968 Thorpe was considering ways in which Scott might be permanently silenced; he thought David Holmes might organise this. Holmes had been best man at Thorpe's wedding, and was completely loyal to him.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: When Scott unexpectedly married in 1968, it appeared that the problem might be over, but by 1970 the marriage had ended. Early in 1971 Scott moved to the village of Talybont, in North Wales, where he befriended a widow, Gwen Parry-Jones, to whom he recounted his tale of ill-treatment at the hands of Thorpe. She passed the information to Emlyn Hooson, who was MP for the adjoining Welsh constituency; Hooson precipitated the party inquiry which cleared Thorpe. After Parry-Jones's death the following year, Scott fell into a depression and for a while was quiescent. In time, he began to tell his story to anyone who would listen. By 1974 Thorpe, at the crest of the Liberal revival, was terrified of exposure that might lose him the Liberal leadership. As Dominic Sandbrook observes in his history of the times: "The stakes had never been higher; silencing Scott had never been more urgent".


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Over the years Scott made several attempts to publicise his story, but no newspapers were interested. The satirical magazine "Private Eye" decided in late 1972 that the story "was defamatory, unproveable, and above all was ten years old". From late 1974 Holmes took the lead in furthering plans to silence Scott; through various intermediaries he found Andrew Newton, an airline pilot, who said he would dispose of Scott for a fee of between £5,000 and £10,000. Meanwhile, Thorpe procured £20,000 from Sir Jack Hayward, the Bahamas-based millionaire businessman who had previously donated to the Liberal Party, stating that this was to cover election expenses incurred during 1974. Thorpe arranged for these funds to be secretly channelled to Holmes rather than the party. He later denied that this money had been used to pay Newton, or anyone else, as part of a conspiracy.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In October 1975, Newton made a bungled attempt to shoot Scott that resulted in the killing of Scott's Great Dane. Newton was arrested on charges of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life, yet the press remained muted, possibly awaiting the bigger story that they hoped would break. Their reticence ended in January 1976 when Scott, in court on a minor social security fraud charge, claimed he was being hounded because of his previous sexual relationship with Thorpe. This statement, made in court and thus protected from the libel laws, was widely reported.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: On 29 January the Department of Trade published its report into the collapse of London & County Securities. The report criticised Thorpe's failure to investigate the true nature of the company before involving himself, "a cautionary tale for any leading politician". Thorpe received some relief when his former colleague Peter Bessell, who had resigned from parliament and relocated to California to escape from a string of business failures, re-emerged in early February after discovery by the "Daily Mail". Bessell gave muddled accounts of his involvement with Scott, but insisted that his former chief was innocent of any wrongdoing.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: On 16 March 1976 Newton's trial began at Exeter Crown Court, where Scott repeated his allegations against Thorpe despite the efforts of the prosecution's lawyers to silence him. Newton was found guilty and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, but did not incriminate Thorpe. The erosion of public support for the Liberal Party continued with several poor by-election results in March, which the former leader Grimond attributed to increasing lack of confidence in Thorpe. On 14 March, "The Sunday Times" printed Thorpe's answer to Scott's various allegations, under the heading "The Lies of Norman Scott". Nevertheless, many of the party's senior figures now felt that Thorpe should resign.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe's problems multiplied when Bessell, alarmed by his own position, confessed to the "Daily Mail" on 6 May that in his earlier statements he had lied to protect his former leader. Scott was threatening to publish personal letters from Thorpe who, to forestall him, arranged for "The Sunday Times" to print two letters from 1961. Although these did not conclusively indicate wrongdoing, their tone indicated that Thorpe had not been frank about the true nature of his friendship with Scott. On 10 May 1976, amid rising criticism, Thorpe resigned the party leadership, "convinced that a fixed determination to destroy the Leader could itself result in the destruction of the Party".


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe's resignation brought him a period of temporary calm. The new Liberal leader, David Steel, made him party spokesman on foreign affairs, with responsibility for European issues. Wilson had by this time retired as prime minister, and been replaced by James Callaghan. Thorpe lobbied the government hard for legislation to introduce direct elections to the European Parliament; at that time MEPs were appointed by member nations' parliaments.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: By-election losses eroded and finally removed Labour's small parliamentary majority, and in March 1977 Callaghan was in danger of losing a confidence vote that would have precipitated a general election. Opinion polls indicated that an election at that time would have been equally disastrous for the Labour and Liberal parties; to ensure mutual survival, a "Lib–Lab pact" was agreed, whereby in return for certain policy concessions the Liberals would support the Government. Thorpe used his influence to insist that legislation for direct elections to the European Parliament was part of the pact, but was unable to secure his principal objective, a commitment to a proportional basis in these elections. In parliament, Thorpe spoke in favour of Scottish and Welsh devolution, arguing that there was no alternative to home rule except total separation. In the various debates related to the unresolved issue of Rhodesia, Thorpe pressed for the involvement of representatives from the African nationalists, in the form of the Patriotic Front, in negotiations for a peaceful settlement to the long-running Rhodesian Bush War.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Although the press was generally quiet following Thorpe's resignation, reporters were still investigating him. The most persistent of these were Barry Penrose and Roger Courtiour, collectively known as "Pencourt", who had begun by believing that Thorpe was a target of South African intelligence agencies, until their investigations led them to Bessell in California. Bessell, no longer covering for Thorpe, gave the reporters his version of the conspiracy to murder Scott, and Thorpe's role in it. Pencourt's progress was covered in "Private Eye", to Thorpe's extreme vexation; when the pair attempted to question him outside his Devon home early in 1977, he threatened them with prosecution.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe's relatively peaceful interlude ended in October 1977 when Newton, released from prison, sold his story to the London "Evening News". Newton's claim that he had been paid "by a leading Liberal" to kill Scott caused a sensation, and led to a prolonged police investigation. Throughout this period Thorpe endeavoured to continue his public life, in and out of parliament. In the House of Commons on 1 August 1978, when it appeared certain he would face criminal charges, he asked the Attorney-General what sum of capital possessed by an applicant would prevent him from receiving legal aid. The next day he made his final speech in the House, during a debate on Rhodesia.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: On 4 August, Thorpe, along with Holmes and two of Holmes's associates, was charged with conspiracy to murder Scott. Thorpe was additionally charged with incitement to murder, on the basis of his alleged 1968 discussions with Bessell and Holmes. After being released on bail, Thorpe declared his innocence and his determination to refute the charges. Although he remained North Devon's MP he withdrew almost completely from public view, except for a brief theatrical appearance at the Liberals' 1978 annual assembly on 14 September—to the annoyance of the party's leaders who had asked him to stay away.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In November 1978, Thorpe, Holmes and two of the latter's business acquaintances, John le Mesurier (a carpet salesman, not to be confused with the actor of that name) and George Deakin, appeared before magistrates at Minehead, Somerset, in a committal hearing to determine whether they should stand trial. The court heard evidence of a conspiracy from Scott, Newton and Bessell; it also learned that Bessell was being paid £50,000 by "The Sunday Telegraph" for his story. At the conclusion, the four defendants were committed for trial at the Old Bailey. This was set to begin on 30 April 1979, but when in March the government fell, and a general election was called for 3 May, the trial was postponed until 8 May.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe accepted the invitation of his local party to fight the North Devon seat, against the advice of friends who were certain he would lose. His campaign was largely ignored by the national party; of its leading figures only John Pardoe, the MP for North Cornwall, visited the constituency. Thorpe, supported by his wife, his mother and some loyal friends, fought hard, although much of his characteristic vigour was missing. He lost to his Conservative opponent by 8,500 votes. Overall, the Conservatives obtained a majority of 43 seats, and Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. The Liberal Party's share of the national vote fell to 13.8%, and its total seats from 13 to 11. Dutton attributes much of the fall in the Liberal vote to the lengthy adverse publicity generated by the Thorpe affair.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: The trial, which lasted for six weeks, began on 8 May 1979, before Mr Justice Cantley. Thorpe was defended by George Carman. Carman quickly undermined Bessell's credibility by revealing that he had a significant interest in Thorpe's conviction; in the event of an acquittal, Bessell would receive only half of his newspaper fee. During his cross-examination of Scott on 22 May, Carman asked: "You knew Thorpe to be a man of homosexual tendencies in 1961?" This oblique admission of his client's sexuality was a stratagem to prevent the prosecution from calling witnesses who would testify to Thorpe's sex life. Nevertheless, Carman insisted, there was no reliable evidence of any physical sexual relationship between Thorpe and Scott, whom Carman dismissed as "this inveterate liar, social climber and scrounger".


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Following weeks in which the court heard the prosecution's evidence from the committal hearings, the defence opened on 7 June. Deakin testified that although he introduced Newton to Holmes, he had thought that this was to help deal with a blackmailer—he knew nothing of a conspiracy to kill. Deakin was the only defendant to testify; Thorpe and the others chose to remain silent and call no witnesses, on the basis that the testimonies of Bessell, Scott and Newton had failed to make the prosecution's case.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: On 18 June, following closing speeches from prosecution and defence counsel, the judge began his summing-up. While emphasising Thorpe's distinguished public record, he was scathing about the principal prosecution witnesses: Bessell was a "humbug", Scott a fraud, a sponger, a whiner, a parasite—"but of course he could still be telling the truth." Newton was "determined to milk the case as hard as he can." On 20 June the jury retired; they returned two days later and acquitted the four defendants on all charges. In a brief public statement, Thorpe said that he considered the verdict "a complete vindication." Scott said he was "unsurprised" by the outcome, but was upset by the aspersions on his character made by the judge from the safety of the bench.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Following his acquittal, Thorpe announced that he proposed to attend the 1979 Liberal assembly and the forthcoming Liberal International Congress in Canada. His failure to explain himself under oath was widely criticised in the press, and the public perception was that he had been fortunate to have "got off". Reluctantly, Thorpe accepted that there was no future role for him within the Liberal Party, and informed the North Devon association that he would not seek to fight the seat again. Steel expressed the hope that Thorpe would, "after a suitable period of rest and recuperation ... find many avenues where his great talents may be used."


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In his search for a new career Thorpe applied unsuccessfully for the posts of administrator of the Aldeburgh Festival, and race relations adviser to the Greater London Council. His attempts to restart a career in television also came to nothing. In February 1982, it was announced that he was to become director of the British section of Amnesty International, but the appointment was opposed by many of the organisation's membership, and he withdrew from the post after a month of controversy. He kept his position as chairman of the political committee of the United Nations Association, but in 1985 the progression of Parkinson's disease, which had first been diagnosed in 1979, led to the curtailment of most of his public activity. He continued to live in North Devon, and in 1987 accepted the honorary presidency of the North Devon Liberal Democrat association, formed after the Liberal–SDP merger. He thought he might return to parliament via a life peerage in the House of Lords, but although friends lobbied on his behalf, the merged party's leadership refused to recommend him. Within the party generally, feelings towards him warmed, and when he attended the 1997 annual conference he received a standing ovation.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In 1999 Thorpe published an anecdotal memoir, "In My Own Time", an anthology of his experiences in public life. In the book he repeated his denial of any sexual relationship with Scott, and maintained that the decision not to offer evidence was made to avoid prolonging the trial, since it was clear that the prosecution's case was "shot through with lies, inaccuracies and admissions". In the 2005 general election campaign Thorpe appeared on television, attacking both the Conservative and Labour parties for supporting the Iraq War. Three years later, in 2008, he gave interviews to "The Guardian" and to the "Journal of Liberal History". York Membery, the Liberal journal's interviewer, found Thorpe able to communicate only in a barely audible whisper, but with his brain power unimpaired. Thorpe asserted that he "still had steam in my pipes"; reviewing the current political situation, he considered the Labour prime minister Gordon Brown "dour and unimpressive", and dubbed the Conservative leader David Cameron "a phoney ... a Thatcherite trying to appear progressive". Some of Thorpe's pro-Europeanism had been eroded over the years; In his final years, he thought that the European Union had become too powerful, and insufficiently accountable.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Thorpe's last public appearance was in 2009, at the unveiling of a bust of himself in the Grimond Room at the House of Commons. Thereafter he was confined to his home, nursed by Marion until she became too infirm. She died on 6 March 2014; Thorpe survived for nine more months, dying from complications of Parkinson's disease on 4 December, aged 85. His funeral was at St Margaret's, Westminster, on 17 December.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: Most assessments of Thorpe's career emphasise his downfall rather than his political achievements, "a fall unparalleled in British political history", according to the "Daily Telegraph" obituarist. While Thorpe hoped that acquittal would ensure he would be remembered primarily for his revival of Liberal fortunes in the 1960s and 1970s, the trial shattered his reputation irretrievably. The prosecuting counsel at the Old Bailey likened the case to "a tragedy of truly Greek or Shakespearian proportions—the slow but inevitable destruction of a man by the stamp of one defect."


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: After Thorpe's death, sympathetic commentators drew attention to his internationalism and social liberalism, highlighting his long involvement with the Anti-Apartheid Movement, his denunciations of dictators, his opposition to the death penalty, and his rejection of racism. There is wide agreement that he was an outstanding political campaigner—persuasive, witty, and warm: "his astonishing memory for faces persuaded voters that they were intimate friends ... his resourceful mind afforded quips and stunts for every occasion." A different perspective on Thorpe, quoted by Michael Bloch, was given by a former friend, the art expert David Carritt, at the time of the trial: "Self-centred ..."Mildly" entertaining, slightly sinister. Said to be witty, but ... if one doesn't care for impersonations, he's really a bit of a bore".


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In assessing Thorpe's 10 years as party leader, Nick Clegg credited him with providing "the driving force that continued the Liberal revival that began under Jo Grimond", and Douglas Murray, writing for "The Spectator", recognised his strategy of identifying and concentrating on winnable seats as the basis for the major Liberal Democrat breakthrough in the 1997 election. Dutton, in his party history, took a more qualified view, suggesting that in spite of Thorpe's bold style and charisma, "the party drifted without a sense of conviction and underlying purpose ... [and was] dominated by tactics rather than ideas". Thorpe positioned the Liberals in the "moderate centre", equidistant from Labour and Conservative, a strategy which was very successful in February 1974 when dissatisfaction with the two main parties was at its height, but which left the party's specific identity obscure, and its policies largely unknown.


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: The political journalist Andrew Rawnsley described Thorpe as a "dandy, exhibitionist, superb showman, shallow thinker, wit and mimic, cunning opportunist, sinister intriguer, idealistic internationalist and a man with a clandestine homosexual life". Thorpe never discussed his sexuality publicly, although throughout his political career he led a double life—responsible politician by day while, according to Murray, "by night he was not only very gay but rather carefree about being so." The writer and broadcaster Jonathan Fryer, who was a gay activist within the Liberal Party in the 1970s, maintained that in the repressive climate of the time Thorpe "couldn't have come out, even if he'd wanted to". His double standard irritated and alienated the gay Liberals: "He wanted the best of both worlds—his fun and a family."


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In his review of Michael Bloch's biography, Murray writes: "Jeremy Thorpe had hoped to be remembered as a great political leader. I suppose they all do. And perhaps he will be remembered longer than many other politicians of his age or ours. But it will always be for the same thing. Jeremy, Jeremy, bang, bang, woof, woof."


title: Jeremy Thorpe

text: In 2009, the BBC attempted to film a TV biopic of Thorpe's life, with Rupert Everett in the title role, but this was subsequently abandoned after legal threats from Thorpe. "A Very English Scandal", a true crime non-fiction novel covering the Thorpe/Scott affair, by John Preston, was published on 5 May 2016 by Viking Press. The book was described as "a political thriller, with urgent dialogue, well-staged scenes, escalating tension and plenty of cliffhangers, especially once the trial begins". A British three-part television series, also titled ""A Very English Scandal", based on Preston's novel, aired on the BBC in May 2018, directed by Stephen Frears, with actor Hugh Grant starring as Thorpe and Ben Whishaw as Norman Scott.


title: The Croods

text: The Croods is a 2013 American computer-animated adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was written and directed by Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders, and stars the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, and Cloris Leachman. The film is set in a fictional prehistoric Pliocene era known as "The Croodaceous" (a prehistoric period which contains fictional creatures) when Grug, patriarch of The Croods, is threatened by the arrival of a genius named Guy, who comes up with revolutionary new inventions as they trek through a dangerous but exotic land in search of a new home.


title: The Croods

text: The film premiered at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival on February 15, 2013, and was released in the United States on March 22, 2013. As part of the distribution deal, this was the first DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by 20th Century Fox, since the end of their distribution deal with Paramount Pictures in 2012. "The Croods" received generally positive reviews and proved to be a box office success, earning more than $587 million on a budget of $135–175 million. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film but lost both awards to Walt Disney Animation Studios’ "Frozen".


title: The Croods

text: The film launched a new franchise, with a television series, "Dawn of the Croods", which debuted on December 24, 2015 on Netflix. A sequel directed by Joel Crawford, titled "", was released on November 25, 2020.


title: The Croods

text: A cave family called the Croods survives several natural disasters, due to stubborn patriarch Grug refusing to let anyone leave the cave except for short periods to gather food. Eep, his teenage daughter, loves her family but frequently rebels against Grug's strictures. One night, Eep sneaks out when she sees a light, and encounters an inventive modern human boy named Guy and his pet sloth Belt, who have made a torch. He warns her of an impending apocalypse and offers to help her escape, but Eep elects to stay with the family. Guy leaves her a shell horn to blow if she needs help, but when Eep returns to her frantic family, Grug destroys the horn out of fear of the "New".


title: The Croods

text: A massive earthquake destroys the cave and surrounding lands, and the Croods flee into a jungle they discover below their home mountains. Encountering a "Macawnivore", a brightly colored feline whom Eep's grandmother dubs "Chunky", the family flees him, until he is scared off by swarms of "piranhakeets" that devour a ground whale. Making another horn, Eep calls to Guy, who rescues them with his fire. After a great deal of confusion regarding the Croods' first contact with fire, Grug imprisons Guy in a log so he can guide them somewhere safe. To appease Grug, Guy suggests the Croods go to a mountain where there are caves, though in reality he and the other Croods doubt the wisdom of this.


title: The Croods

text: During the journey, Guy is eventually trusted enough to be allowed out of the log. Grug attempts to steal a bird's egg for dinner, but catches a scorpion instead, and Guy teaches Eep how to lay a trap for the bird itself. Guy endears himself to most of the Croods by inventing rudimentary shoes for the family, and other "ideas" which help them along the way. He also tells a story of "Tomorrow", a land of light where curiosity is not to be feared. Grug becomes jealous of Guy, especially when he notices he and Eep are falling in love. His disastrous attempts to fight against change, and to come up with inventions and ideas of his own, distance him from his family and cause his wife Ugga to have a serious discussion with him.


title: The Croods

text: The family finds a cave, but no one but Grug wants to go in, having learned to adapt to living outside. Angered, Grug attacks Guy, but the two fall over a cliff into a tar flow. Guy reveals that he lost his own family to a tar flow, and believes they are doomed. Grug, softened by the story, decides that he and Guy will have to work together to escape. They make a dummy to attract Chunky, who mistakes them for a female cat and pulls them free.


title: The Croods

text: A volcanic cataclysm begins, and Guy and the Croods flee until they are halted at the edge of a chasm where the continents are drifting apart. Grug feels the sun's warmth through the smoke, and realizes that there may be good land on the other side. Grug tosses the others over the chasm one by one, knowing he will be left behind. He shares his latest invention, a "hug", with Eep before throwing her over with the rest of the family. They land, unharmed, on fertile land on the opposite cliff, while Grug shelters alone in a cave.


title: The Croods

text: Grug encounters Chunky, who reveals he is scared of the dark, and seeks comfort with Grug instead of attacking him. Hearing Eep blowing her horn to mourn him, Grug assumes they are calling for his help and comes up with his biggest new idea. He uses tar, fire, a whale ribcage and the pirhanakeets to create a makeshift airship, in which he, Chunky, and several other animals escape the final eruption and fly over the chasm to join the others.


title: The Croods

text: Grug is welcomed lovingly back as the leader of the family, and Eep returns his hug. Together with Guy and their new pets, the Croods begin a new life in a tropical mountainside that leads down to the seashore, where they can follow the sun every day and enjoy inventions both Guy and Grug come up with.


title: The Croods

text: The film was announced in May 2005, under the working title "Crood Awakening", originally a stop motion film, being made by Aardman Animations, the creators of "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" starring Wallace and Gromit, as a part of a "five film deal" with DreamWorks Animation. John Cleese and Kirk DeMicco had been working together on a feature based on Roald Dahl's story "The Twits", a project that never went into production.


title: The Croods

text: DreamWorks got a copy of their script and liked it, and invited Cleese and DeMicco over to take a look at the company's ideas to see if they found something they would like to work with. They chose a basic story idea about two cavemen on the run, an inventor and a luddite, and wrote the first few drafts of the script. In January 2007, with the departure of Aardman, the rights for the film reverted to DreamWorks. Aardman, however, continued experimenting with the idea of a Stone Age-themed story into "Early Man" which would eventually be released in 2018.


title: The Croods

text: In March 2007, Chris Sanders, one of the writers of "Mulan" and writer/director of "Lilo & Stitch", joined DreamWorks to direct the film, with intentions to significantly rewrite the script. In September 2008, it was reported that Sanders took over "How to Train Your Dragon" putting "Crood Awakening" on hold, and thus postponing its original schedule for a year to a then planned March 2012. The film's final title, "The Croods", was revealed in May 2009, along with new co-director, Kirk DeMicco. In March 2011, the film got another delay, being pushed back a year to March 1, 2013, and finally settled at March 22.


title: The Croods

text: "The Croods" had its world premiere in the out of competition section at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival on February 15, 2013. It was released in the United States on March 22, 2013. The film was the first feature film to be shown in the 4DX format, featuring strobe lights, tilting seats, blowing wind and fog and odor effects in Hungary, where it was shown at the Cinema City theater in Budapest, Hungary. It was also the first film in China to be distributed by Oriental DreamWorks, a film production and distribution company founded in 2012 by DreamWorks Animation and Chinese investment companies.


title: The Croods

text: "The Croods" was released on Blu-ray (2D and 3D) and DVD on October 1, 2013 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The DVD and Blu-ray comes with a Belt plush toy. As of February 2015, 9.0 million home entertainment units were sold worldwide. The Croods was released on 4K Blu-Ray on November 17, 2020. It was also released in a 2-movie pack alongside its sequel "" on DVD and Blu-Ray by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment in the United States and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in the United Kingdom in 2021.


title: The Croods

text: "The Croods" grossed $187.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $400 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $587.2 million. "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the net profit of the film to be $106.5million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues. It is the eleventh highest grossing 2013 film, and the fourth highest grossing 2013 animated film (behind "Frozen", "Despicable Me 2", and "Monsters University"). It became the second highest grossing original DreamWorks Animation film, behind "Kung Fu Panda". As of January 2014, it is the 89th-highest-grossing film, and the 21st-highest-grossing animated film.


title: The Croods

text: In North America, the film earned $11.6 million on its opening day. On its opening weekend, the film topped the box office with $43.6 million from 4,046 locations, a vast improvement over the DreamWorks Animation's directly preceding release "Rise of the Guardians", yet still below some of the studio's other original films, like "Megamind" and "How to Train Your Dragon".


title: The Croods

text: Outside North America, the film topped the box office during its first weekend with $62.4 million (including previews from the previous weekend). It opened at number one in 54 countries, with the biggest openings achieved in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta ($8.08 million), Russia and the CIS ($7.82 million), China ($6.34 million), and Mexico ($4.37 million).


title: The Croods

text: In total grosses, the film's biggest market was China with $63.3 million, becoming the highest grossing original animated film, surpassing DreamWorks Animation's film "Kung Fu Panda". In addition, the film earned $43.1 million in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta, $28.6 million in Russia and the CIS, $27.7 million in Mexico, and $23.8 million in Australia. Earning a total of $400 million, it is the highest grossing 2013 film distributed by 20th Century Fox.


title: The Croods

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 72% based on 144 reviews, with an average score of 6.50/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "While it may not be as (ahem) evolved as the best modern animated fare, "The Croods" will prove solidly entertaining for families seeking a fast-paced, funny cartoon adventure." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Croods

text: Claudia Puig of "USA Today" gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "A visually dazzling animated adventure with a well chosen voice cast is hampered by lackluster humor and a meandering story." Tom Russo of "The Boston Globe" gave the film two and a half out of four, saying, "Had the movie figured out a way to stay the less clichéd course, it might have helped the DreamWorks oeuvre take steps toward Pixar's emotional resonance."


title: The Croods

text: Keith Staskiewicz of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a C+, and wrote in his review, "A handful of adrenalizing sequences of animated anarchy can't save this story from feeling overly primitive." David Rooney of "The Hollywood Reporter" called the film, "Further back on the evolutionary chain than the Flintstones, and also lagging in the comedy stakes, this sweet Stone Age clan nonetheless will captivate the youngsters." Leslie Felperin of "Variety" found that, "The main problem with the film is that the script simply isn't very funny, and its various subplots never quite mesh satisfyingly together."


title: The Croods

text: Tirdad Derakhshani of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "The movie is well edited and lean, a fast paced, action filled bit of froth that manages to be diverting and surprisingly fun." Lisa Kennedy of "The Denver Post" gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "It captures the wonder (and more gently, the anxiety) of discovery time and time again. And the filmmakers have a hoot playing with the Croods' encounters with, as well as their misunderstandings of, all things new." Laremy Legel of "Film.com" gave the film a B, saying ""How to Train Your Dragon" and "Lilo & Stitch" are completely indicative of the experience you'll have with "The Croods", which is to say a supremely positive one."


title: The Croods

text: Paul Asay of "Plugged In" gave the film a positive review, stating "The Croods is, first and foremost, Grug’s story. And it’s one I think an awful lot of fathers might relate to...I should say that there’s very little to fear from this movie. The Croods, for all its slapstick violence, is a fun, mostly clean and utterly charming diversion - something made for kids but meant for their parents. It’s funny. It’s touching. It reminds us that being a parent is tough in any epoch, but always worth the effort."