title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: The shooting of the serial began on 7 April 2000. On 13 April 2005, the serial completed 1000 episodes which aired for 45 minutes rather than usual 30 minutes where producer Ekta Kapoor herself was seen in the episode. Aksahdeep Saigal's entry scene in 2004 as Ansh Gujral was the serial's costliest scene shot which cost about Rs. 5 Lakhs.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: The show took a leap in story three times including 20 years leap on 18 February 2002, followed by a 3 years leap and again a 20 years leap on 7 June 2006.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: Before its premiere, the serial's name was "Amma, b"ut actor and director Sachin Philgaonkar gave it the name "Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" to Balaji Telefilms. "Kyunki" was added to the beginning of the name by by Ekta Kapoor.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: Besides shooting in India, the series was also shot in foreign locations including Sydney, Australia in 2003 and Switzerland. In India the series was filmed at Mumbai's Powai, Kandivali, Film City at Goregaon.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: The character Mihir was named after Ekta Kapoor's school friend Mihir Shah. The character Tulsi was adopted from Harkishan Mehta's work, Jad Chetan.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: Earlier, Jignesh Gandhi was cast as Mihir. However, later the role came down for Amar Upadhyay and Cezzane Khan. Upadhyay was chosen while Khan went for "Kasautii Zindagii Kay". Smiti Irani auditioning among many girls was initially declined by the team in the production house stating her as 'not fit for TV'. But, producer Ekta Kapoor overruled them and cast her as Tulsi having great faith in her.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: After Amar Upadhyay quit in 2001, after the death of his character, nationwide protests made him return. In 2002, on a generation leap, Upadhyay quit to venture into Bollywood and was replaced by Inder Kumar. After Kumar quit in 2003, he was replaced by Ronit Roy as Mihir.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In June 2007, Smriti Irani playing Tulsi quit the serial as she was busy producing her serials and was replaced by Gautami Kapoor. Soon, in April 2008, Irani returned and Kapoor's character was revealed as Tulsi's imposter.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: On 10 October 2008, a notice was sent to the production house by the channel to terminate the serial by 10 November 2008 stating the declining ratings since July 2008.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: To save the series from cancellation, the production house took Star TV to Bombay High Court seeking for the stay order asserting that they had a contract through March 2009 and that the channel had not provided appropriate promotion while the channel pointed out the cancellation due to declining ratings as per agreement. The court refused the stay order and the claims were dismissed on 3 November 2008. The series went off air on 6 November 2008.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: Shailaja Bajpai from "The Indian Express" said, ""Kyunki..."'s success was due to the fact that it was a universal story that appealed to everyone. It was a winning combination of piety and family. The show celebrated all the big festivals, it was all packaged very well, there was drama and melodrama."


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: Another report from "The Indian Express" praising on the ratings delivered during its airing time slot said, "While prime-time television viewing is between 8 to 11 pm, the 9 to 10 pm block was considered safe because it delivered better ratings during the days of the weeklies. But the rule of game changed with "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" and "Kahanii Ghar Ghar Kii" which made the late prime-time (10 to 11 pm) extremely popular." The ratings delivered by this series in its slot was not achieved by any other shows launched after its off airing.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: "The Tribune" comparing women depiction in the series with some of the Star World English series stated, "The women in "Ally McBeal" or "Friends" are nothing like those in "Kahaani Ghar..." or "Kyunki..." Professionally competent, in control of their lives they are not to be held back by any stereotypical demands made on them. Perhaps one of the reasons for its ("Kyunki...") success is the strong element of empathy it evokes... what it depicts is probably "kahaani ghar ghar ki" (The story of every house)."


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: Produced with the backdrop of Mumbai and the concept of an ideal Gujarati joint family, the show made Producer Ekta Kapoor and Star Plus achieve great heights of success, by not only being the number 1 show on Indian Television which ran for eight constant long years, but also receiving great TRPs.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: It was the consistently most watched Hindi GEC overall until 2005 and the following years maintained its positions consistently in top five television programs.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: Until five weeks after its premiere, the ratings did not languish. After that, it started to rise gradually and also became the second most watched Hindi show of 2000 after "Kaun Banega Crorepati" with an average TRP of 6.4. In 2001, it averaged 12.04 TVR. In 2002 and 2003, it had an average of 12.50 and 12.30 TVR while in 2004 it was 11.42 TVR with a peak of 19.41 TVR maintaining its top position mostly with its higher ratings.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In March 2001, the series garnered its all-time high ratings of 22.4 TVR when the lead character Mihir returned to life on popular demand and protests. In week during 7 May to 13 May 2001, it was at first position with 16.6 TVR. On 24 May 2001, it garnered 14.7 TVR. On the week ending 26 September 2001, it topped the TRP list with 18.8 TVR. From 14 October to 20 October 2001 it garnered 12.74 TVR while during the same time in the next year 2002, it garnered 9.84 TVR.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In 2005, it remained the most watched Hindi show however with about 10 TVR garnered lesser than previous years. As months passed, the TVR of the series decreased from double digits to single digit after 2006 due to fragmentation in viewership, however mostly maintaining its top position until months before its end. In week ending 1 March 2006, it maintained its top position garnering 9 TVR. It achieved its highest ratings of 14.17, 14.31 and 13 TVR on 31 July 2006, 29 August 2006 and 4 September 2006 during the year.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: During the second week of January 2007, it garnered 6.3 TVR. In early March 2007, it garnered 4 TVR while in early June, it got 4.4 TVR. The sequence of Irani as Tulsi shown killed when she quit before being temporarily replaced by Gautami Kapoor made the ratings to increase to 7.81 and 8.09 TVR before which it was getting about 6 TVR in that year, maintaining its position in top 5 programs. After Irani was replaced by Gautami Kapoor as Tulsi in June 2007, the TVR dropped while it lost its number one position averaging 4.5 TVR while in that month it averaged 6.66 TVR overall. On 21 July 2007, it dropped to 5.3 TVR. Towards the last week in September 2007, it was beaten by "Banoo Main Teri Dulhann" with "Kyunki..." garnering 5.51 TVR and "Banoo..." getting 5.62 TVR. However overall, it was one of the top rated series of the year with its rating garnered less than the previous years.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In early 2008, "Kyunki..." had an average of 5 TVR, being one of the most watched series while on progressing it dropped to 2.5 TVR months before its end which made the channel to axe the series. As in week 17 of 2008, it garnered 5.5 TVR. In week ending 9 August 2008, it garnered 2.51 TVR occupying twentieth position. The final episode garnered 5.4 million viewership.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: The show also went on to receive several awards, most of which were won by Smriti Irani for her portrayal of the ideal character Tulsi. It also won "Best Continuing Series" at Indian Telly Awards for six consecutive years (2002-2007) and won "Best Serial (Popular)" for five consecutive years (2001-2005) at Indian Television Academy Awards.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: The show is the longest ran daily soap on Indian television during 2000's, running from 2000 to 2008 and completing 1833 episodes and was first Indian soap opera to cross 1000 episodes in the history of Indian Television and also entered the Limca Book of Records.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: The death of the lead character Mihir Virani in early 2001 lead to fan protest marches to bring the character back. The return of Mihir Virani in March 2001 brought an all-time high rating of 22.4 TVR, despite airing at late night slot of 10:30 pm (IST), which has been one of the highest rating ever achieved by an Indian serial.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In January 2001, despite the earthquake occurred in Gujarat, people put their television for watching this series.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In February 2003, "The Times of India" reported that the people started recreating the grand sets of the series in their homes at Kolkata.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In 2001, a conflict arouse between Star India and the production house over the Tamil series titled "Kelunga Mamiyare Neengalum Marumagal Than" (trans. "Listen mother in law, You were also a daughter in law") which began airing from April 2001 on Sun TV. While Star stated it as an exact copy of this series violating the copyright without their knowledge, Balaji Telefilms pointed only little similarities with the title meaning and the lead character name being similar. CEO of Balaji Telefilms Sanjay Doshi stated that the script of the Tamil series was already changed after episode 15.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In September 2001, the series was blacked out in Saurashtra when Rajputs protested for naming a dog in the series with the name of the Saint Jalamsinh Jadeja. Soon, it was sorted out when Balaji Telefilms apologized for it stating it unintentional.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In January 2002, the company Procter & Gamble, for advertising their detergent brand Tide aired the spoof version of the series consisting of the cast Smriti Irani, Aparna Mehta and Muni Jha of the series which was telecast on a rival channel. Both Star and Balaji Telefilms reported it as a copyright violation considering the advertisement which uses the same sets, backdrop, announcement fonts and music along with the cast of the series. Star filed a case against Leo Burnett (Star India v Leo Burnett) and the case was heard before Bombay court in 2003.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In February 2002, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation lodged a FIR at Andheri police station against Star TV and Balaji Telefilms when the episode aired on 5 February 2002 showed the character Puja undergoing pre sex determination test of her unborn child and also the doctor encouraging her for the child being a son. As per Pre-natal Diagnostic Technology (Regulation & Prevention of Misuse) Act of 1994, the test is illegal which was violated by the series. Many NGOs and state women organisation also protested against the episode sequence. However, both Kapoor and Star asked apology for portraying it for which Kapoor said, "It was not intentional. There was a slight lapse on the part of the writer of the script." while Star stated it as a genuine mistake and apologised in a subsequent episode.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In November 2004, Kapoor was summoned by National Commission for Women and even Star was sent a notice following complaints from many women groups for showing a marital rape sequence of character Nandhini by Ansh Gunral for 15 minutes in the episode aired on 14 October 2004 claiming it more sensitive considering the viewership of the series by all age groups. Kapoor's lawyer stated that they will appear on 1 December 2004, along with a copy of the episode to submit to them, while channel defended that they were mindful of their programs and they are for general viewing. However, when Kapoor failed to appear on that day, sending her two lawyers to represent her, the case was adjourned for Kapoor's appearance on 14 December 2004. However, on her demand, it was further adjourned to 3 January 2005.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: It was dubbed in Dari language and was aired on Tolo TV in Afghanistan since 2005 becoming the first Indian television series to air there and gained huge popularity. But it was soon banned along with all other Indian series aired then in 2008 with many complaints raising over them.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In January 2006, protests in front of Balaji Telefilms office at Andheri took place against the depicted scene of mercy killing, which was illegal then in India, of character Savitha done by the lead character Tulsi in the series. However Kapoor stated, "I dealt with marital rape in Kyunki…, didn't I? Then why can't I show euthanasia? TV is fiction and we are only bringing up social issues. If there is any problem, my legal department will take care of it." while Star India's senior creative director Shailaja Kejriwal stated, "We at Star, along with Balaji Telefilms, have decided to take up (through the serials) social issues that are not talked about openly. We just though that euthanasia is a subject of great importance… we should talk about it and keep the topic alive." Smriti Irani playing Tulsi who did the mercy killing of character Aparna said that she doesn't support mercy killing while she, who was uncomfortable for doing it, said that she did the sequence considering that she would have been labelled as an unprofessional actor.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In January 2008, the dialogue "You and your God, go to hell" pointing against lord Vishnu deity in an episode said by the antagonist Suvarna Jha playing Tripti hurted the sentiments of many people and Vaishnav community. Protests and rally arouse at Junagadh lead by the priests and various Vaishnav followers who also submitted a memo to the district collector for Balaji Telefilms, Producer Ekta Kapoor and Suvarna Jha to apologise for it. Many also criticised it as a move for increasing ratings. However, Kapoor stated that it was not their intention and they also being having Vishnu faith, requested apology from everyone.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In February 2008, Pulkit Samrat playing Lakshya got a notice from court stating his non absence for shooting and no response for phone calls from production house which was filed by the production house while Samrat stated that he attended the shoots regularly but was idle for most of the time with inconsequential scenes and so wished to work alongside. on other series. The problem arouse when he earlier complained to the production house for non payment of his dues and their contract which doesnot permit him to work for other production houses. The notice was received after these incidents after which he went to court and was relieved from the series and production house after the verdict.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: In 2009, the series was criticised glorifying social evils along with few other Indian television shows during the discussions in the Indian Parliament.


title: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

text: Acknowledging the impact of some of her shows including "Kyunki...", Ekta Kapoor stated, "They were heavily stylised and melodramatic. But they actually gave Indian women a voice. There's research that shows that after cable penetration, from about 2001 to 2005, which is when my shows ran, India, for the first time, saw women take decisions on family issues. This had never happened before, and it was directly linked to the fact that we made the women in our shows do this."


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: Little Shop of Horrors is a horror comedy rock musical with music by Alan Menken and lyrics and a book by Howard Ashman. The story follows a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood and flesh. The musical is loosely based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film "The Little Shop of Horrors". The music, composed by Menken in the style of early 1960s rock and roll, doo-wop and early Motown, includes several well-known tunes, including the title song, "Skid Row (Downtown)", "Somewhere That's Green", and "Suddenly, Seymour".


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The musical premiered Off-Off-Broadway in 1982 before moving to the Orpheum Theatre Off-Broadway, where it had a five-year run. It later received numerous productions in the U.S. and abroad, and a subsequent Broadway production. Because of its small cast, it has become popular with community theatre, school and other amateur groups. The musical was also made into a 1986 film of the same name, directed by Frank Oz.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: A trio of 1960s street urchins named Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon set the scene ("Little Shop of Horrors") and comment on the action throughout the show. Seymour Krelborn is a poor young man, an orphan living in an urban skid row. Audrey is a pretty blonde with a fashion sense that leans towards the tacky. They lament their stations in life and the urban blight in their neighborhood ("Skid Row (Downtown)"). They are co-workers at a run-down flower shop owned and operated by the cranky Mr. Mushnik. After a sudden eclipse of the sun, Seymour finds a mysterious plant that looks like a large venus flytrap ("Da-Doo"). Seymour, who is secretly in love with Audrey, names the plant Audrey II in her honor.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The plant does not thrive in its new environment and appears to be dying, though Seymour takes very good care of it. He accidentally pricks his finger on a rose thorn, which draws blood, and Audrey II's pod opens thirstily. Seymour realizes that Audrey II requires blood to survive and allows the plant to suckle from his finger ("Grow For Me"). As Audrey II grows, it becomes an attraction and starts generating brisk business for Mushnik. As the caretaker of the plant, the timid Seymour is suddenly regarded as a hero ("Ya Never Know"), while Audrey secretly longs to leave her abusive boyfriend. Her dream is to lead an ideal suburban life with Seymour, complete with a tract home, frozen dinners, and plastic on the furniture ("Somewhere That's Green").


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: Meanwhile, the employees at Mushnik's are sprucing up the flower shop because of the popularity of the rapidly growing Audrey II and the revenue that it is bringing in ("Closed for Renovation"). Audrey's abusive boyfriend, Orin Scrivello, a sadistic dentist ("Dentist!"), encourages Seymour to take the plant and get out of Skid Row. Realizing that his store's sudden profitability is completely dependent on the plant (and therefore on Seymour), Mushnik takes advantage of Seymour's innocence by offering to adopt him and make him a full partner in the business ("Mushnik and Son"). Seymour accepts, even though Mushnik treats him poorly. When Seymour, running out of blood, stops feeding the plant, Audrey II demands blood and promises that, if fed, it will make sure that all of Seymour's dreams come true ("Feed Me (Git It)").


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: Seymour sets up a late-night appointment with Orin, intending to kill him. However, Seymour loses his nerve and decides not to commit the crime. Unfortunately for Orin, who is getting high on nitrous oxide, the gas device is stuck in the "on" position, and he suffocates while asking Seymour to save him. Seymour cannot bring himself to shoot Orin but lets him die of asphyxiation ("Now (It's Just The Gas)"). Seymour feeds Orin's body to the now huge Audrey II, and the plant consumes it with ravenous glee ("Act I Finale").


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The flower shop is much busier, and Seymour and Audrey have trouble keeping up with the onslaught of orders ("Call Back in the Morning"). Audrey confides to Seymour that she feels guilty about Orin's disappearance, because secretly she wished it. The two admit their feelings for one another, and Seymour promises that he will protect and care for Audrey from now on ("Suddenly, Seymour").


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: Before they can go, Mushnik confronts Seymour about Orin's death. Seymour denies killing Orin, but Mushnik wants him to give a statement to the police, who have begun investigating. Audrey II tells Seymour that he has to be rid of Mushnik or he will lose everything, including Audrey ("Suppertime"). Seymour tells Mushnik that he put the days' receipts inside Audrey II for safekeeping. Mushnik climbs inside the plant's gaping maw to search for the money and screams as he is devoured. Seymour now runs the flower shop, and reporters, salesmen, lawyers and agents approach him, promising him fame and fortune. Seymour realizes that it is only a matter of time before Audrey II will kill again and that he is morally responsible, but he does nothing ("The Meek Shall Inherit").


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: As Seymour works on his speech for a lecture tour, Audrey II again squalls for blood. Seymour threatens to kill it just as Audrey walks in asking when Mushnik will return from visiting his "sick sister". Seymour learns that Audrey would still love him without the fame and decides that Audrey II must die after the scheduled "LIFE" magazine interview at the shop. Audrey is confused and frightened by Seymour's ramblings, but she runs home by his order.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: That night, unable to sleep and distressed by Seymour's strange behavior, Audrey goes to the flower shop to talk with him. He is not there, and Audrey II begs her to water him. Not sensing the danger, she approaches to water it, and a vine pulls her into the plant's gaping maw ("Sominex/Suppertime II"). Seymour arrives and pulls her out, but Audrey is mortally wounded. Her dying wish is for Seymour to feed her to the plant after she dies so that they can always be together. She dies in his arms, and he reluctantly honors her request ("Somewhere That's Green" (reprise)). Seymour falls asleep as Audrey II grows small red flower buds.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The next day, Patrick Martin from the World Botanical Enterprises tells Seymour that his company wishes to sell leaf cuttings of Audrey II in florist shops across America. Seymour realizes the plant's evil plan: world conquest. He tries shooting, cutting, and poisoning the plant, but it has grown too hardy to kill. Seymour, in desperation, runs into its open jaws with a machete planning to kill it from the inside, but he is quickly eaten. Patrick, Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon search for Seymour. Not finding him, Patrick tells the girls to take the cuttings.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon relate that, following these events, other plants appeared across America, tricking innocent people into feeding them blood in exchange for fame and fortune. Audrey II, bigger than ever, appears with opened new flowers revealing the faces of Seymour, Audrey, Mushnik and Orin, who beg that the plants must not be fed ("Finale Ultimo: Don't Feed the Plants"). Audrey II slithers towards the audience threateningly.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The musical had its world premiere Off-Off-Broadway on May 6, 1982, at the Workshop of the Players Art Foundation (WPA Theatre), playing there until June 6, 1982. It opened Off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre in Manhattan's East Village on July 27, 1982. The production, directed by Ashman, with musical staging by Edie Cowan, was critically acclaimed and won several awards including the 1982–1983 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical, as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and the Outer Critics Circle Award. Howard Ashman wrote, in the introduction to the acting edition of the libretto, that the show "satirizes many things: science fiction, 'B' movies, musical comedy itself, and even the Faust legend". The cast starred Lee Wilkof as Seymour, Ellen Greene as Audrey, Hy Anzell as Mr. Mushnik, Franc Luz as Orin and the other small roles, Leilani Jones was a replacement as Chiffon, Ron Taylor as the voice of Audrey II, and Martin P. Robinson as the Audrey II puppeteer.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The production ran for five years. When it closed on November 1, 1987, after 2,209 performances, it was the third-longest running musical and the highest-grossing production in Off-Broadway history. Though a Broadway transfer had been proposed for the production, book writer Howard Ashman felt the show belonged where it was. Since it was not produced on Broadway, the original production was ineligible for the 1982 Tony Awards. The producers were the WPA Theatre, David Geffen, Cameron Mackintosh and the Shubert Organization. The Audrey II puppets were designed and operated by Martin P. Robinson.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: An original cast recording, released in 1982, omitted the songs "Call Back in the Morning" and the reprise of "Somewhere That's Green", and had abridged versions of "Now (It's Just the Gas)," "Mushnik and Son," and "The Meek Shall Inherit". It also shifted the location of the song "Closed for Renovation," appearing in the show after "Somewhere That's Green" while appearing on the cast album after "Now (It's Just the Gas)" to serve as an upbeat bridge from Orin's death to the Act II love ballad, "Suddenly, Seymour". The recording features Leilani Jones, who replaced Marlene Danielle as Chiffon two weeks after the musical opened.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: A London West End production opened on October 12, 1983, at the Comedy Theatre, produced by Cameron Mackintosh. It ran for 813 performances, starring Barry James as Seymour, Greene reprising her role as Audrey and Harry Towb as Mr. Mushnik, with Sinitta (then surnamed Renet) understudying Chiffon, Crystal and Ronette. Zeeteah Massiah took over as Chiffon in 1984. Greene was replaced as Audrey by Claire Moore (1984) then Sarah Payne (1985). Orin was played by Terence Hillyer (1983), David Burt (1984) and Bogdan Kominowski (1985). Audrey II was puppeteered by Anthony Asbury, and the costumes were designed by Tim Goodchild. It received the 1983 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical and closed on October 5, 1985.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: An Australian production opened at Her Majesty's Theatre, Perth on January 14, 1984, starring Christopher Pate as Seymour and Denise Kirby as Audrey. It then moved to the Theatre Royal in Sydney from November 7, 1984, and the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne from February, 1985.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: A 1985 Canadian production starred Sheila McCarthy as Audrey and Michael Crossman as Seymour. Gerry Salsberg was Orin.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The musical is based on the basic concept and dark comic tone of the 1960 film, although it changes much of the story. The setting is moved from Skid Row, Los Angeles to Skid Row in New York. Seymour's hypochondriacal Jewish mother is omitted in the musical, and Seymour becomes an orphan in the care of Mushnik. Also dropped is the subplot involving the two investigating police officers. The characters of Mrs. Siddie Shiva and Burson Fouch are also omitted, although Mrs. Shiva is mentioned as being the shop's biggest funeral account. The gleefully masochistic dental patient, originally played by Jack Nicholson, is not in the musical but is in the 1986 film, played by Bill Murray.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: In the musical, the sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello, is killed by suffocation from laughing gas instead of being stabbed with a dental instrument as in the film. His abusive relationship with Audrey is added to the musical to give Seymour a motive to kill him. In the film, Seymour murders several innocent bystanders, and Mushnik tricks a thief into looking for money inside the plant, which eats the thief. In the musical, Seymour tricks Mushnik in the same way when Mushnik plans to turn Seymour over to the police. The two neighborhood girls in the film are replaced in the musical by a chorus of three street urchins: Crystal, Chiffon and Ronette, named after (and reminiscent of) girl groups of the 1960s. The plant is named "Audrey II" in the musical, rather than the film's "Audrey Junior", and instead of being a crossbreed of a butterwort and a Venus Flytrap, in the musical it is a creature from outer space intent on taking over the world.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: Perhaps the biggest difference is the ending. The musical ends with Orin, Mushnik, Audrey and Seymour all eaten by the plant, and the three girls report that Audrey II's progeny continues to consume people. In the 1960 film, Mushnik and Audrey survive, and the plant's carnivorous activities are discovered when its flowers bloom with the faces of its victims, including Seymour, imprinted on them. The musical references this ending in its finale, in which the Plant's four victims' faces are seen in its blooming flowers.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The change in ending of the musical contributes to its portrayal of class struggles and moral values. While the 1986 film shows Seymour and Audrey escaping to the dream suburban house, encapsulating ideals of the 1950s American Dream, the musical hints to a metaphorical portrayal of Seymour's greed as the plant. Seymour's greed gradually consumes himself and Audrey. The musical engages with ideas relating to human values in the face of capitalist culture, disempowering those who are enveloped with motivations of personal monetary gain and overlook moral values. It serves as a social commentary of commodity fetishism.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: In 2003, an $8 million revival of "Little Shop of Horrors" was planned with the goal of opening on Broadway. A pre-Broadway production debuted at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida on May 16, 2003. Lee Wilkof, who originated the role of Seymour in 1982, was cast as Mr. Mushnik. The production was directed by Wilkof's wife, Connie Grappo, who was the assistant to Howard Ashman during the original production. Martin P. Robinson, who designed the original Audrey II puppets, enlisted fellow puppeteers and builders from The Jim Henson Company to create and operate new puppets for the show, ranging from the smallest plant (operated solely by Robinson) to the largest (requiring three additional puppeteers to fully control). Hunter Foster and Alice Ripley played Seymour and Audrey, and Billy Porter was the voice of Audrey II.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: Critics complained that by expanding the show to fit a larger theatre, its intimacy was lost; they also judged several actors as miscast, although the "Miami Herald" declared that "Alice Ripley's Audrey – part lisping Kewpie doll (a la Ellen Greene, who originated the role), part dental punching bag – is heartbreakingly adorable." In June 2003, the producers announced that the Broadway production was cancelled. Nevertheless, within weeks, they ousted Grappo in favor of veteran Broadway director Jerry Zaks, who fired everyone in the cast, except Foster, and redirected the production from scratch. New casting was announced in July.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The musical made its Broadway debut at the Virginia Theatre on October 2, 2003, with Foster as Seymour, Kerry Butler as Audrey, Rob Bartlett as Mr. Mushnik, Douglas Sills as Orin, Michael-Leon Wooley as the voice of Audrey II and DeQuina Moore as Chiffon. Although this was the first time it had played on Broadway, the show's success in film and numerous regional productions made it fall under the "Revival" category for the 2003 Tony Awards. Foster was nominated for the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance. The revival was fairly faithful to the original 1982 production. Changes included the expanded version of the title song heard in the 1986 film, and expanded "You Never Know" with a "WSKID" radio introduction, and a revised Act I Finale and added Entr'acte before "Call Back in the Morning." The orchestrations were beefed up for the bigger theatre to add reeds, trumpets and percussion to the original 5-piece combo.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The cast album was released on October 21, 2003. Demo recordings to five songs ("A Little Dental Music", "The Worse He Treats Me", "We'll Have Tomorrow", "Bad" and "I Found a Hobby") cut during the development process of the musical were included as bonus material for the album. The production closed on August 22, 2004, after 40 previews and 372 regular performances. The closing Broadway cast included Joey Fatone as Seymour.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: On August 10, 2004, a U.S. national tour of the Broadway production began, with Anthony Rapp starring as Seymour, Tari Kelly as Audrey and Lenny Wolpe as Mushnik. The tour closed April 16, 2006 in Columbus, Ohio.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: A production began previews on November 17, 2006, at the Menier Chocolate Factory. This revival, directed by Matthew White, featured a new Audrey II designed by David Farley, resembling the pitcher plant. The production was a critical and commercial success and transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End in March 2007. In June 2007, the show transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre, where it ended its run on September 8, 2007. The West End cast featured Paul Keating as Seymour, Sheridan Smith as Audrey, Alistair McGowan as Orin, and Mike McShane providing the voice of Audrey II. Barry James, who portrayed Seymour in the original West End production, was Mr. Mushnik. Smith and McGowan received 2008 Laurence Olivier Award nominations, and the production was nominated for Best Musical Revival.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The Menier Chocolate Factory production toured the UK in 2009 with a cast including Damian Humbley as Seymour, Clare Buckfield as Audrey, Alex Ferns as Orin, Sylvester McCoy as Mr Mushnik and Clive Rowe as the voice of Audrey II.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: A three-performance Encores! concert staging at New York City Center as part of its Off-Center series ran in July 2015. Directed by Dick Scanlan, the production starred Jake Gyllenhaal as Seymour, and Ellen Greene reprising her role as Audrey. Taran Killam played Orin, with Tracy Nicole Chapman, Marva Hicks and Ramona Keller as the urchins. Joe Grifasi was Mr. Mushnik, with Eddie Cooper as the plant. Reviewers praised Greene, Gyllenhaal and the cast in general. Ben Brantley wrote in "The New York Times": "A confluence of alchemical elements was at work, converging in ways that made a perfectly charming but small musical feel like a major event."


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: An Australian tour opened at the Hayes Theatre in Sydney on February 22, 2016, before touring to Her Majesty's Theatre, Adelaide; The Comedy Theatre, Melbourne; Canberra Theatre Centre; Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, and The Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney. It starred Brent Hill as Seymour, Esther Hannaford as Audrey, Tyler Coppin as Mushnik and Scott Johnson as Orin. Hill also voiced Audrey II. The production was directed by Dean Bryant and choreographed by Andy Hallwsorth The production was nominated for ten Sydney Theatre Awards, winning eight, including Best Production of a Musical, and five Helpmann Awards, winning none. Cassie Tongue wrote of it in "The Guardian": "Watching this show feels like a discovery, or a reaffirmation; to be reminded why musical theatre matters, to be assured that musicals are a difficult, exhilarating art. And all this from a campy cult classic. What magic."


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: A UK tour began on August 4, 2016, directed by Tara Wilkinson, starring Sam Lupton as Seymour, Stephanie Clift as Audrey and Rhydian Roberts as Orin. It was booked through November 26, 2016.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: A revival at London's Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, from 3 August to 22 September 2018, was directed by Maria Aberg, choreographed by Lizzi Gee and designed by Tom Scutt. It starred Marc Antolin as Seymour, Jemima Rooper as Audrey, Forbes Masson as Mr Mushnik, Matt Willis as Orin and American drag performer Vicky Vox as Audrey II. The production included the song "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space", written for the 1986 film, as an encore number.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: An Off-Broadway revival at the Westside Theatre began previews on September 17, 2019, with an official opening on October 17, 2019. The cast starred Jonathan Groff as Seymour (Gideon Glick replaced him from November 5–17 and from January 21 to March 11, 2020), Tammy Blanchard as Audrey, Christian Borle as Orin and Tom Alan Robbins as Mr. Mushnik. Michael Mayer directed, with choreography by Ellenore Scott. The lighting designer was Bradley King. The plant for this production was voiced by Kingsley Leggs. A cast album was released digitally on December 20, 2019. The production suspended performances on March 11, 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and reopened on September 21, 2021, with Jeremy Jordan as Seymour; Mayer, Scott, Blanchard, Borle and Robbins returned. The cast album received a physical release on the day of reopening. Some performances were cancelled, due to the pandemic, off and on during December 2021. Replacements in the role of Seymour have since included Conrad Ricamora, Skylar Astin and Rob McClure. Matt Doyle is set to assume the role in November 2022.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: Pasadena Playhouse staged a production from September 17 to October 20, 2019, directed by Mike Donahue. The cast included George Salazar as Seymour, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez as Audrey, Amber Riley as Audrey II, Kevin Chamberlin as Mr. Mushnik and Matthew Wilkas as Orin.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: The character of Audrey II is described as being "An anthropomorphic cross between a Venus flytrap and an avocado. It has a huge, nasty-looking pod that gains a shark-like aspect when open and snapping at food. The creature is played by a series of increasing[ly] large puppets".


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: In productions, the first puppet is a small potted plant "less than one foot tall" held by the actor portraying Seymour. He manipulates the plant himself with his hand and then sets it down, where it is moved by an unseen hand from beneath a shelf. The second puppet is slightly larger than the first and is operated by Seymour during the song "You Never Know". A fake arm in a sleeve matching Seymour's jacket is attached to the plant's pot, while the actor's real arm operates the plant. The third puppet sits on the floor and is large enough to hide a person inside, who moves the plant's mouth in sync with Audrey II's voice, which is supplied by an offstage actor on a microphone. The puppeteer's legs are clad in green tights with "leaf" shoes that serve as part of the plant's tendrils. In Act II, the largest puppet again hides an actor inside, who manipulates the puppet's mouth and often some of its branches. By this point, the head is at least six feet long and capable of "swallowing" characters. For the finale, additions can be made to make the plant appear taller and even bigger. Actors and stage hands are often used to move larger branches and roots, which, in the original off-Broadway production, spilled off the stage and into the audience. In some productions, dangling vines over the house enhance the effect of Audrey II menacing the audience.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: Amateur productions of "Little Shop of Horrors" receive designs for building the puppets from MTI, as part of the rental scripts and scores, based on the original Martin P. Robinson designs. Some companies who have produced the show in the past and built their own puppets rent them out to other companies to recoup some of their construction costs.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: A film version of the musical was made in 1986. Directed by Frank Oz and noted as the only film written by Howard Ashman, it starred Rick Moranis as Seymour, Ellen Greene as Audrey, Vincent Gardenia as Mr. Mushnik, Steve Martin as Orin Scrivello, DDS, and the voice of Levi Stubbs as Audrey II. Bill Murray played the small comic role of the masochist, Arthur Denton. The 1986 film follows the plot of the musical closely but omits the songs "Ya Never Know" (rewritten as "Some Fun Now," a trio for Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon), "Mushnik and Son", "Now (It's Just the Gas)", "Sudden Changes," "Closed for Renovation" and "Call Back in the Morning"; the final cut ending also omits "Finale Ultimo (Don't Feed The Plants)". Other changes include the removal of Mr. Mushnik's adoption proposition and a new ending, in which Seymour is able to save Audrey from Audrey II and then electrocutes the plant after it has destroyed the shop. Seymour and Audrey marry and move to the tract home of her dreams, but a small Audrey II-type bud is seen in their garden, which portends a possible spread of the alien plants. An ending more faithful to the stage version was filmed, in which the plant eats Audrey and Seymour and then, having grown to massive size and reproduced, goes on a King Kong-style rampage through New York City. It was received poorly by test audiences, and the upbeat alternate ending was used for the theatrical cut. In October 2012, the original ending was restored and released with the film as "The Director's Cut" on DVD and Blu-ray. A new song for Audrey II, "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space", was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.


title: Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

text: Development of a feature film remake was announced in 2016, with Greg Berlanti directing and Matthew Robinson penning the screenplay. Berlanti, David Geffen and Marc Platt were set to serve as producers. By 2020, Taron Egerton, Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson had entered into negotiations to star as Seymour, Orin and Audrey, respectively, while Billy Porter was cast in the role of Audrey II. In September 2022, Egerton stated that the film was "dormant" due to factors including the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Rosie the Riveter is an allegorical cultural icon in the United States who represents the women who worked in factories and shipyards during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who joined the military. Rosie the Riveter is used as a symbol of American feminism and women's economic advantage.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Similar images of women war workers appeared in other countries such as Britain and Australia. The idea of Rosie the Riveter originated in a song written in 1942 by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. Images of women workers were widespread in the media in formats such as government posters, and commercial advertising was heavily used by the government to encourage women to volunteer for wartime service in factories. "Rosie the Riveter" became the subject and title of a Hollywood film in 1944.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Because the world wars were total wars, which required governments to utilize their entire populations to defeat their enemies, millions of women were encouraged to work in the industry and take over jobs previously done by men. During World War I women across the United States were employed in jobs previously done by men. World War II was similar to World War I in that massive conscription of men led to a shortage of available workers and therefore a demand for labor which could be filled only by employing women.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Nearly 19 million women held jobs during World War II. Many of these women were already working in lower-paying jobs or were returning to the work-force after being laid off during the depression. Only three million new female workers entered the workforce during the time of the war.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Women responded to the call of need the country was displaying by stepping up to fill positions that were traditionally filled by men. They began to work heavy construction machinery, taking roles in lumber and steel mills as well as physical labor including unloading freight, building dirigibles (which are airships similar to air balloons), making munitions, and much more. Forty women were hired by Pan American Airways to replace men in the repair and maintenance department in the hangars at LaGuardia airfield for service, repair and overhaul on the fleet of aircraft including the Boeing 314 Flying Boat flying to and from Europe.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Many women discovered they enjoyed the autonomy these jobs provided them with. It expanded their own expectations for womanly duty and capabilities. Unfortunately, this was reckoned as unnatural and as men began to return home from the war, the government instituted another propaganda campaign urging women to "return to normalcy".


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Although most women took on male-dominated trades during World War II, they were expected to return to their everyday housework once men returned from the war. Government campaigns targeting women were addressed solely at housewives, likely because already-employed women would move to the higher-paid "essential" jobs on their own, or perhaps because it was assumed that most would be housewives. One government advertisement asked women: "Can you use an electric mixer? If so, you can learn to operate a drill." Propaganda was also directed at their husbands, many of whom were unwilling to support such jobs. Many of the women who took jobs during World War II were mothers. Those women with children at home pooled together in their efforts to raise their families. They assembled into groups and shared such chores as cooking, cleaning and washing clothes. Many who did have young children shared apartments and houses so they could save time, money, utilities and food. If they both worked, they worked different shifts so they could take turns babysitting. Taking on a job during World War II made people unsure if they should urge the women to keep acting as full-time mothers, or support them getting jobs to support the country in this time of need.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Being able to support the soldiers by making all sorts of different products made the women feel very accomplished and proud of their work. Over six million women got war jobs; African American, Hispanic, White, and Asian women worked side by side. In the book "A Mouthful of Rivets", Vi Kirstine Vrooman writes about the time when she decided to take action and become a riveter. She got a job building B-17s on an assembly line, and shares just how exciting it was, saying, "The biggest thrill—I can't tell you—was when the B-17s rolled off the assembly line. You can't believe the feeling we had. We did it!" Once women accepted the challenge of the workforce they continued to make strong advances towards equal rights.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: In 1944, when victory seemed assured for the Allied Forces, government-sponsored propaganda changed by urging women back to working in the home. Later, many women returned to traditional work such as clerical or administration positions, despite their reluctance to re-enter the lower-paying fields. However, some of these women continued working in the factories. The overall percentage of women working fell from 36% to 28% in 1947.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: The term "Rosie the Riveter" was first used in 1942 in a song of the same name written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. The song was recorded by numerous artists, including the popular big band leader Kay Kyser, and it became a national hit. It was also recorded by the R&B group, The Four Vagabonds. The song portrays "Rosie" as a tireless assembly line worker, who earned a "Production E" doing her part to help the American war effort.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: In Canada in 1941, Veronica Foster became "Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl", Canada's poster girl representing women in the war effort.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: According to the "Encyclopedia of American Economic History", "Rosie the Riveter" inspired a social movement that increased the number of working American women from 12 million to 20 million by 1944, a 57% increase from 1940. By 1944 1.7 million unmarried men between the ages of 20 and 34 worked in the defense industry, while 4.1 million unmarried women between those ages did so.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Although the image of "Rosie the Riveter" reflected the industrial work of welders and riveters during World War II, the majority of working women filled non-factory positions in every sector of the economy. What unified the experiences of these women was that they proved to themselves (and the country) that they could do a "man's job" and could do it well.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: In 1942, just between the months of January and July, the estimates of the proportion of jobs that would be "acceptable" for women was raised by employers from 29 to 85%. African American women were some of those most affected by the need for women workers. It has been said that it was the process of whites working alongside blacks during the time that encouraged a breaking down of social barriers and a healthy recognition of diversity.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Women quickly responded to Rosie the Riveter, who convinced them that they had a patriotic duty to enter the workforce. Some claim that she forever opened the work force for women, but others dispute that point, noting that many women were discharged after the war and their jobs were given to returning servicemen. These critics claim that when peace returned, few women returned to their wartime positions and instead resumed domestic vocations or transferred into sex-typed occupations such as clerical and service work.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: For some, World War II represented a major turning point for women as they eagerly supported the war effort, but other historians emphasize that the changes were temporary and that immediately after the war was over, women were expected to return to traditional roles of wives and mothers. A third group has emphasized how the long-range significance of the changes brought about by the war provided the foundation for the contemporary woman's movement. Leila J. Rupp in her study of World War II wrote "For the first time, the working woman dominated the public image. Women were riveting housewives in slacks, not mother, domestic beings, or civilizers."


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: After the war, as the nation shifted to a time of peace, women were quickly laid off from their factory jobs. The "Rosies" and the generations that followed them knew that working in the factories was in fact a possibility for women, even though they did not reenter the job market in such large proportions again until the 1970s. By that time factory employment was in decline all over the country.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: According to Penny Colman's "Rosie the Riveter", there was also, very briefly, a "Wendy the Welder" based on Janet Doyle, a worker at the Kaiser Richmond Liberty Shipyards in California.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: In the 1960s, Hollywood actress Jane Withers gained fame as "Josephine the Plumber", a character in a long-running and popular series of television commercials for "Comet" cleansing powder that lasted into the 1970s. This character was based on the original "Rosie" character.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: One of Carnival Cruise Line's ships, the "Carnival Valor", has a restaurant located on the lido deck named Rosie's Restaurant. The restaurant is mostly a tribute to Rosie, but also contains artwork depicting other war-related manufacturing and labor.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: In 2010, singer Pink paid tribute to Rosie by dressing as her for a portion of the music video for the song "Raise Your Glass".


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: The 2013 picture book Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty, features Rosie as "Great Great Aunt Rose" who "Worked building aeroplanes a long time ago". She inspires Rosie Revere, the young subject of the book, to continue striving to be a great engineer despite early failures. Rose is shown wielding a walking stick made from riveted aircraft aluminum.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Singer Beyoncé paid tribute to Rosie in July 2014, dressing as the icon and posing in front of a "We Can Do It!" sign often mistaken as part of the Rosie campaign. It garnered over 1.15 million likes, but sparked minor controversy when newspaper "The Guardian" criticized it.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Other recent cultural references include a "Big Daddy" enemy type called "Rosie" in the video game "BioShock", armed with a rivet gun. There is a DC Comics character called Rosie the Riveter, who wields a rivet gun as a weapon (first appearing in "Green Lantern" vol. 2 No. 176, May 1984). In the video game "Fallout 3" there are billboards featuring "Rosies" assembling atom bombs while drinking Nuka-Cola. Of the female hairstyles available for player characters in the sequel, one is titled "Wendy the Welder" as a pastiche.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Boeing Orbital Flight Test 2, an uncrewed test flight of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station, carried an Anthropomorphic Test Device named "Rosie the Rocketeer." The device contained fifteen sensors to collect data on the effects of the flight on future passengers.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: "The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter" by Connie Field is a 65-minute documentary from 1980 that tells the story of women's entrance into "men's work" during WWII. "Rosies of the North" is a 1999 National Film Board of Canada documentary film about Canadian "Rosies," who built fighter and bomber aircraft at the Canadian Car and Foundry, where Elsie MacGill was also the Chief Aeronautical Engineer.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: John Crowley's 2009 historical novel "Four Freedoms" covers the wartime industries, and studies the real working conditions of many female industrial workers. "Rosie the Riveter" is frequently referenced.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: On October 14, 2000, the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park was opened in Richmond, California, site of four Kaiser shipyards, where thousands of "Rosies" from around the country worked (although ships at the Kaiser yards were not riveted, but rather welded). Over 200 former Rosies attended the ceremony.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: In 2014, Phyllis Gould, one of the original Rosie the Riveters, visited President Barack Obama in support of a National Rosie the Riveter Day; the United States Senate approved the observance on March 21 in 2017. She also pushed for a Gold Medal for Rosies that will be given starting in 2022.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Also in 2014 a nationwide program, run by the organization Thanks! Plain and Simple, was founded to encourage cities to pick a project that "Rosies" can do with younger generations, in order to educate young people about women's roles in World War II, and to involve the "Rosies", many of whom have become isolated as they have gotten older, in community projects.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: The name and logo of the Metropolitan Riveters, one of the founding members of the National Women's Hockey League, are inspired by the character of Rosie the Riveter.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: The Rose City Riveters is the fan club for the Portland Thorns Football Club, a National Women's Soccer League team in Portland, Oregon, nicknamed the Rose City. They have taken their inspiration (and their name) from the 30,000 women who worked in the Portland shipyards in Portland during World War II.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: In 1942, Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller was hired by the Westinghouse Company's War Production Coordinating Committee to create a series of posters for the war effort. One of these posters became the famous "We Can Do It!" image, an image that in later years would also be called "Rosie the Riveter" although it had never been given that title during the war. Miller is thought to have based his "We Can Do It!" poster on a United Press International wire service photograph taken of a young female war worker, widely but erroneously reported as being a photo of Michigan war worker Geraldine Hoff (later Doyle).


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: More recent evidence indicates that the formerly misidentified photo is actually of war worker Naomi Parker (later Fraley) taken at Alameda Naval Air Station in California. The "We Can Do It!" poster was displayed only to Westinghouse employees in the Midwest during a two-week period in February 1943, then it disappeared for nearly four decades. During the war, the name "Rosie" was not associated with the image, and the purpose of the poster was not to recruit women workers but to be motivational propaganda aimed at workers of both sexes already employed at Westinghouse. It was only later, in the early 1980s, that the Miller poster was rediscovered and became famous, associated with feminism, and often mistakenly called "Rosie the Riveter".


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Norman Rockwell's image of "Rosie the Riveter" received mass distribution on the cover of the "Saturday Evening Post" on Memorial Day, May 29, 1943. Rockwell's illustration features a brawny woman taking her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and beneath her penny loafer a copy of Adolf Hitler's manifesto, "Mein Kampf". Her lunch box reads "Rosie"; viewers quickly recognized that to be "Rosie the Riveter" from the familiar song.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Rockwell, America's best-known popular illustrator of the day, based the pose of his 'Rosie' on that of Michelangelo's 1509 painting "Prophet Isaiah" from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Rosie is holding a ham sandwich in her left hand, and her blue overalls are adorned with badges and buttons: a Red Cross blood donor button, a white "V for Victory" button, a Blue Star Mothers pin, an Army-Navy E Service production award pin, two bronze civilian service awards, and her personal identity badge.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: Rockwell's model was a Vermont resident, 19-year-old Mary Louise Doyle, who was a telephone operator near where Rockwell lived, not a riveter. Rockwell painted his "Rosie" as a larger woman than his model, and he later phoned to apologize. According to two of Doyle's obituaries, however, 'twenty-four years after Doyle posed, Rockwell sent Doyle a letter calling her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and apologizing for the hefty body in the painting. “I did have to make you into a sort of a giant,” he wrote.'


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: In a post interview, Mary explained that she was actually holding a sandwich while posing for the poster and that the rivet-gun she was holding was fake, she never saw Hitler's copy of "Mein Kampf", and she did have a white handkerchief in her pocket like the picture depicts. The "Post"s cover image proved hugely popular, and the magazine loaned it to the United States Department of the Treasury for the duration of the war, for use in war bond drives.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: After the war, the Rockwell "Rosie" was seen less and less because of a general policy of vigorous copyright protection by the Rockwell estate. In 2002, the original painting sold at Sotheby's for nearly $5 million. In June 2009 the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas acquired Norman Rockwell's iconic Rosie the Riveter painting for its permanent collection from a private collector.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: In late 1942, Doyle posed twice for Rockwell's photographer, Gene Pelham, as Rockwell preferred to work from still images rather than live models. The first photo was not suitable, because she wore a blouse rather than a blue work shirt. In total, she was paid $10 for her modeling work (). In 1949 she married Robert J. Keefe to become Mary Doyle Keefe. The Keefes were invited and present in 2002 when the Rockwell painting was sold at Sotheby's.


title: Rosie the Riveter

text: In an interview in 2014, Keefe said that she had no idea what impact the painting would have. "I didn't expect anything like this, but as the years went on, I realized that the painting was famous," she said. Keefe died on April 21, 2015, in Connecticut at the age of 92.


title: Dixie (song)

text: "Dixie", also known as "Dixie's Land", "I Wish I Was in Dixie", and other titles, is a song about the Southern United States first made in 1859. It is one of the most distinctively Southern musical products of the 19th century. It was not a folk song at its creation, but it has since entered the American folk vernacular. The song likely cemented the word "Dixie" in the American vocabulary as a nickname for the Southern U.S.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Most sources credit Ohio-born Daniel Decatur Emmett with the song's composition, although other people have claimed credit, even during Emmett's lifetime. Compounding the problem are Emmett's own confused accounts of its writing and his tardiness in registering its copyright.


title: Dixie (song)

text: "Dixie" originated in the minstrel shows of the 1850s and quickly became popular throughout the United States. During the American Civil War, it was adopted as a de facto national anthem of the Confederacy, along with "The Bonnie Blue Flag" and "God Save the South". New versions appeared at this time that more explicitly tied the song to the events of the Civil War.


title: Dixie (song)

text: The song was a favorite of President Abraham Lincoln (himself born in Kentucky); he had it played at some of his political rallies and at the announcement of General Robert E. Lee's surrender. Early recordings of the song include band versions by Issler's Orchestra ( 1895), Gilmore's Band (1896) and the Edison Grand Concert Band (1896) and a vocal version by George J. Gaskin (1896).


title: Dixie (song)

text: "Dixie" is structured into five two-measure groups of alternating verses and refrains, following an AABC pattern. As originally performed, a soloist or small group stepped forward and sang the verses, and the whole company answered at different times; the repeated line "look away" was probably one part sung in unison like this. As the song became popular, the audience likely joined the troupe in singing the chorus. Traditionally, another eight measures of unaccompanied fiddle playing followed, coming to a partial close in the middle; since 1936, this part has rarely been printed with the sheet music.


title: Dixie (song)

text: The song was traditionally played at a tempo slower than the one usually played today. Rhythmically, the music is "characterized by a heavy, nonchalant, inelegant strut," and is in duple meter, which makes it suitable for both dancing and marching. "Dixie" employs a single rhythmic motive (two sixteenth note pickups followed by a longer note), which is integrated into long, melodic phrases. The melodic content consists primarily of arpeggiations of the tonic triad, firmly establishing the major tonality. The melody of the chorus emulates natural inflections of the voice (particularly on the word "away"), and may account for some of the song's popularity.


title: Dixie (song)

text: According to musicologist Hans Nathan, "Dixie" resembles other material that Dan Emmett wrote for Bryant's Minstrels, and in writing it, the composer drew on a number of earlier works. The first part of the song is anticipated by other Emmett compositions, including "De Wild Goose-Nation" (1844), itself a derivative of "Gumbo Chaff" (1830s) and ultimately an 18th-century English song called "Bow Wow Wow". The second part is probably related to even older material, most likely Scottish folk songs. The chorus follows portions of "Johnny Roach," an Emmett piece from earlier in 1859.


title: Dixie (song)

text: As with other blackface material, performances of "Dixie" were accompanied by dancing. The song is a walkaround, which originally began with a few minstrels acting out the lyrics, only to be joined by the rest of the company (a dozen or so individuals for the Bryants). As shown by the original sheet music (see below), the dance tune used with "Dixie" by Bryant's Minstrels, who introduced the song on the New York stage, was "Albany Beef", an Irish-style reel later included by Dan Emmett in an instructional book he co-authored in 1862. Dancers probably performed between verses, and a single dancer used the fiddle solo at the end of the song to "strut, twirl his cane, or mustache, and perhaps slyly wink at a girl on the front row."


title: Dixie (song)

text: Countless lyrical variants of "Dixie" exist, but the version attributed to Dan Emmett and its variations are the most popular. Emmett's lyrics as they were originally intended reflect the mood of the United States in the late 1850s toward growing abolitionist sentiment. The song presented the point of view, common to minstrelsy at the time, that slavery was overall a positive institution. The pining slave had been used in minstrel tunes since the early 1850s, including Emmett's "I Ain't Got Time to Tarry" and "Johnny Roach". The fact that "Dixie" and its precursors are dance tunes only further made light of the subject. In short, "Dixie" made the case, more strongly than any previous minstrel tune had, that slaves belonged in bondage. This was accomplished through the song's protagonist, who, in comic black dialect, implies that despite his freedom, he is homesick for the plantation of his birth.


title: Dixie (song)

text: The lyrics use many common phrases found in minstrel tunes of the day—"I wish I was in ..." dates to at least "Clare de Kitchen" (early 1830s), and "Away down south in ..." appears in many more songs, including Emmett's "I'm Gwine ober de Mountain" (1843). The second stanza clearly echoes "Gumbo Chaff" from the 1830s: "Den Missus she did marry Big Bill de weaver / Soon she found out he was a gay deceiver." The final stanza rewords portions of Emmett's own "De Wild Goose-Nation": "De tarapin he thot it was time for to trabble / He screw aron his tail and begin to scratch grabble." Even the phrase "Dixie's land" had been used in Emmett's "Johnny Roach" and "I Ain't Got Time to Tarry," both first performed earlier in 1859.


title: Dixie (song)

text: As with other minstrel material, "Dixie" entered common circulation among blackface performers, and many of them added their own verses or altered the song in other ways. Emmett himself adopted the tune for a pseudo-African American spiritual in the 1870s or 1880s. The chorus changed to:


title: Dixie (song)

text: Both Union and Confederate composers produced war versions of the song during the American Civil War. These variants standardized the spelling and made the song more militant, replacing the slave scenario with specific references to the conflict or to Northern or Southern pride. This Confederate verse by Albert Pike is representative:


title: Dixie (song)

text: "The New Dixie!: The True 'Dixie' for Northern Singers" takes a different approach, turning the original song on its head:


title: Dixie (song)

text: Soldiers on both sides wrote endless parody versions of the song. Often these discussed the banalities of camp life: "Pork and cabbage in the pot, / It goes in cold and comes out hot," or, "Vinegar put right on red beet, / It makes them always fit to eat." Others were more nonsensical: "Way down South in the fields of cotton, / Vinegar shoes and paper stockings."


title: Dixie (song)

text: Aside from its being rendered in standard English, the chorus was the only section not regularly altered, even for parodies. The first verse and chorus, in non-dialect form, are the best-known portions of the song today:


title: Dixie (song)

text: According to tradition, Ohio-born minstrel show composer Daniel Decatur Emmett wrote "Dixie" around 1859. Over his lifetime, Emmett often recounted the story of its composition, and details vary with each account. For example, in various versions of the story, Emmett said he had written "Dixie" in a few minutes, in a single night, and over a few days. An 1872 edition of the "New York Clipper" provides one of the earliest accounts, relating that on a Saturday night shortly after Emmett had been taken on as a songwriter for the Bryant's Minstrels, Jerry Bryant told him they would need a new walkaround by the following Monday. By this account, Emmett shut himself inside his New York apartment and wrote the song that Sunday evening. The playbill for Jerry Bryant's Minstrel Show dated Monday, April 4, 1859, lists the first performance of "Dixie's Land" at Mechanics' Hall, New York.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Other details emerge in later accounts. In one, Emmett said that "Suddenly... I jumped up and sat down at the table to work. In less than an hour, I had the first verse and chorus. After that it was easy." In another version, Emmett stared out at the rainy evening and thought, "I wish I was in Dixie." Then, "Like a flash the thought suggested the first line of the walk-around, and a little later the minstrel, fiddle in hand, was working out the melody" (a different story has it that Emmett's wife uttered the famous line). Yet another variant, dated to 1903, further changes the details: "I was standing by the window, gazing out at the drizzly, raw day, and the old circus feeling came over me. I hummed the old refrain, 'I wish I was in Dixie,' and the inspiration struck me. I took my pen and in ten minutes had written the first verses with music. The remaining verses were easy." In his final years, Emmett even said he had written the song years before he had moved to New York. An article in "The Washington Post" supports this, giving a composition date of 1843.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Emmett published "Dixie" (under the title "I Wish I Was in Dixie's Land") on June 21, 1860, through Firth, Pond & Co. in New York. The original manuscript has been lost; extant copies were made during Emmett's retirement, starting in the 1890s. Emmett's tardiness registering the copyright for the song allowed it to proliferate among other minstrel groups and variety show performers. Rival editions and variations multiplied in songbooks, newspapers and broadsides. The earliest of these that is known today is a copyrighted edition for piano from the John Church Company of Cincinnati, published on June 26, 1860. Other publishers attributed completely made-up composers with the song: "Jerry Blossom" and "Dixie, Jr.," among others. The most serious of these challenges during Emmett's lifetime came from Southerner William Shakespeare Hays; this claimant attempted to prove his allegations through a Southern historical society, but he died before they could produce any conclusive evidence. By 1908, four years after Emmett's death, no fewer than 37 people had claimed the song as theirs.


title: Dixie (song)

text: "Dixie" is the only song Emmett ever said he had written in a burst of inspiration, and analysis of Emmett's notes and writings shows "a meticulous copyist, [who] spent countless hours collecting and composing songs and sayings for the minstrel stage ... ; little evidence was left for the improvisational moment." The "New York Clipper" wrote in 1872 that "[Emmett's] claim to authorship of 'Dixie' was and is still disputed, both in and out of the minstrel profession." Emmett himself said, "Show people generally, if not always, have the chance to hear every local song as they pass through the different sections of [the] country, and particularly so with minstrel companies, who are always on the look out for songs and sayings that will answer their business." He claimed at one point to have based the first part of "Dixie" on "Come Philander Let's Be Marchin, Every One for His True Love Searchin", which he described as a "song of his childhood days." Musical analysis does show some similarities in the melodic outline, but the songs are not closely related. Emmett also credited "Dixie" to an old circus song. Despite the disputed authorship, Firth, Pond & Co. paid Emmett $300 for all rights to "Dixie" on February 11, 1861, perhaps fearing complications spurred by the impending Civil War.


title: Dixie (song)

text: The latest challenge has been made on behalf of the Snowden Family Band of Knox County, Ohio, who may have been the source of Emmett's "Dixie." One strong assertion of the Snowden's claim is the point of view of the original lyrics—not making fun of "darkies," but describing relationships between the mistress of a house and her beau, along with the residents of the "Quarters." This unique point of view reflects the life circumstances of the Snowden family matriarch on her birthplace plantation in Maryland, prior to moving to Ohio.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Various theories exist regarding the origin of the term "Dixie". According to Robert LeRoy Ripley (founder of "Ripley's Believe It or Not!"), "Dixieland" was a farm on Long Island, New York, owned by a man named John Dixie. He befriended so many slaves before the Civil War that his place became a sort of a paradise to them.


title: Dixie (song)

text: James H. Street says that "Johaan Dixie" was a Haarlem (Manhattan Island) farmer who decided that his slaves were not profitable because they were idle during the New York winter, so he sent them to Charleston where they were sold. Subsequently, the slaves were busy constantly, longing for the less strenuous life on the Haarlem farm; they would chant, "I sure wish we was back on Dixie's land."


title: Dixie (song)

text: One explanation revolves around currency of the period, the ten-dollar note from "Banque des Citoyens de la Louisiane" (the Citizens Bank of New Orleans, in the French Quarter) which had engraved on the reverse a large DIX (ten, in French, the language of many in New Orleans of the period). The notes were known as Dixies by Southerners, and the area around New Orleans and the French-speaking parts of Louisiana came to be known as Dixieland.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Bryant's Minstrels premiered "Dixie" in New York City on April 4, 1859, as part of their blackface minstrel show. It appeared second to last on the bill, perhaps an indication of the Bryants' lack of faith that the song could carry the minstrel show's entire finale. The walkaround was billed as a "plantation song and dance." It was a runaway success, and the Bryants quickly made it their standard closing number.


title: Dixie (song)

text: "Dixie" quickly gained wide recognition and status as a minstrel standard, and it helped rekindle interest in plantation material from other troupes, particularly in the third act. It became a favorite of Abraham Lincoln and was played during his campaign in 1860. The "New York Clipper" wrote that it was "one of the most popular compositions ever produced" and that it had "been sung, whistled, and played in every quarter of the globe." Buckley's Serenaders performed the song in London in late 1860, and by the end of the decade, it had found its way into the repertoire of British sailors. As the American Civil War broke out, one New Yorker wrote,


title: Dixie (song)

text: Dixie" has become an institution, an irrepressible institution in this section of the country ... As a consequence, whenever "Dixie" is produced, the pen drops from the fingers of the plodding clerk, spectacles from the nose and the paper from the hands of the merchant, the needle from the nimble digits of the maid or matron, and all hands go hobbling, bobbling in time with the magical music of "Dixie."


title: Dixie (song)

text: The Rumsey and Newcomb Minstrels brought "Dixie" to New Orleans in March 1860; the walkaround became the hit of their show. That April, Mrs. John Wood sang "Dixie" in a John Brougham burlesque called "Po-ca-hon-tas, or The Gentle Savage", increasing the song's popularity in New Orleans. On the surface "Dixie" seems an unlikely candidate for a Southern hit; it has a Northern composer, stars a black protagonist, is intended as a dance song, and lacks any of the patriotic bluster of most national hymns and marches. Had it not been for the atmosphere of sectionalism in which "Dixie" debuted, it might have faded into obscurity. Nevertheless, the refrain "In Dixie Land I'll took my stand / To lib an die in Dixie", coupled with the first verse and its sanguine picture of the South, hit a chord. Woods's New Orleans audience demanded no fewer than seven encores.


title: Dixie (song)

text: New Orleans publisher P. P. Werlein took advantage and published "Dixie" in New Orleans. He credited music to J. C. Viereck and Newcomb for lyrics. When the minstrel denied authorship, Werlein changed the credit to W. H. Peters. Werlein's version, subtitled "Sung by Mrs. John Wood," was the first "Dixie" to do away with the faux black dialect and misspellings. The publication did not go unnoticed, and Firth Pond & Co. threatened to sue. The date on Werlein's sheet music precedes that of Firth, Pond & Co.'s version, but Emmett later recalled that Werlein had sent him a letter offering to buy the rights for $5. In a New York musical publishers' convention, Firth, Pond & Co. succeeded in convincing those present that Emmett was the composer. In future editions of Werlein's arrangement, Viereck is merely credited as "arranger." Whether ironically or sincerely, Emmett dedicated a sequel called "I'm Going Home to Dixie" to Werlein in 1861.


title: Dixie (song)

text: "Dixie" quickly spread to the rest of the South, enjoying vast popularity. By the end of 1860, secessionists had adopted it as theirs; on December 20 the band played "Dixie" after each vote for secession at St. Andrew's Hall in Charleston, South Carolina. On February 18, 1861, the song took on something of the air of national anthem when it was played at the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, arranged as a quickstep by Herman Frank Arnold, and possibly for the first time as a band arrangement. Emmett himself reportedly told a fellow minstrel that year that "If I had known to what use they were going to put my song, I will be damned if I'd have written it."


title: Dixie (song)

text: It is marvellous with what wild-fire rapidity this tune "Dixie" has spread over the whole South. Considered as an intolerable nuisance when first the streets re-echoed it from the repertoire of wandering minstrels, it now bids fair to become the musical symbol of a new nationality, and we shall be fortunate if it does not impose its very name on our country.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Southerners who shunned the song's low origins and comedic nature changed the lyrics, usually to focus on Southern pride and the war. Albert Pike's enjoyed the most popularity; the "Natchez (Mississippi) Courier" published it on May 30, 1861, as "The War Song of Dixie," followed by Werlein, who again credited Viereck for composition. Henry Throop Stanton published another war-themed "Dixie," which he dedicated to "the Boys in Virginia". The defiant "In Dixie Land I'll take my stand / To live and die in Dixie" were the only lines used with any consistency. The tempo also quickened, as the song was a useful quickstep tune. Confederate soldiers, by and large, preferred these war versions to the original minstrel lyrics. "Dixie" was probably the most popular song for Confederate soldiers on the march, in battle, and at camp.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Southerners who rallied to the song proved reluctant to acknowledge a Yankee as its composer. Accordingly, some ascribed it a longer tradition as a folk song. Poet John Hill Hewitt wrote in 1862 that "The homely air of 'Dixie,' of extremely doubtful origin ... [is] generally believed to have sprung from a noble stock of Southern stevedore melodies."


title: Dixie (song)

text: Meanwhile, many Northern abolitionists took offense to the South's appropriation of "Dixie" because it was originally written as a satirical critique of the institution of slavery in the South. Before even the fall of Fort Sumter, Frances J. Crosby published "Dixie for the Union" and "Dixie Unionized." The tune formed part of the repertoire of both Union bands and common troops until 1863. Broadsides circulated with titles like "The Union 'Dixie'" or "The New Dixie, the True 'Dixie' for Northern Singers." Northern "Dixies" disagreed with the Southerners over the institution of slavery and this dispute, at the center of the divisiveness and destructiveness of the American Civil War, played out in the culture of American folk music through the disputes over the meaning of this song. Emmett himself arranged "Dixie" for the military in a book of fife instruction in 1862, and a 1904 work by Charles Burleigh Galbreath claims that Emmett gave his official sanction to Crosby's Union lyrics. At least 39 versions of the song, both vocal and instrumental, were published between 1860 and 1866.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Northerners, Emmett among them, also declared that the "Dixie Land" of the song was actually in the North. One common story, still cited today, claimed that Dixie was a Manhattan slave owner who had sent his slaves south just before New York's 1827 banning of slavery. The stories had little effect; for most Americans, "Dixie" was synonymous with the South.


title: Dixie (song)

text: On April 10, 1865, one day after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, Lincoln addressed a White House crowd:


title: Dixie (song)

text: I propose now closing up by requesting you play a certain piece of music or a tune. I thought "Dixie" one of the best tunes I ever heard ... I had heard that our adversaries over the way had attempted to appropriate it. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured it ... I presented the question to the Attorney-General, and he gave his opinion that it is our lawful prize ... I ask the Band to give us a good turn upon it.


title: Dixie (song)

text: "Dixie" slowly re-entered Northern repertoires, mostly in private performances. New Yorkers resurrected stories about "Dixie" being a part of Manhattan, thus reclaiming the song for themselves. The "New York Weekly" wrote, "... no one ever heard of Dixie's land being other than Manhattan Island until recently, when it has been erroneously supposed to refer to the South, from its connection with pathetic negro allegory." In 1888 the publishers of a Boston songbook included "Dixie" as a "patriotic song," and in 1895 the Confederate Veterans' Association suggested a celebration in honor of "Dixie" and Emmett in Washington as a bipartisan tribute. One of the planners noted that:


title: Dixie (song)

text: In this era of peace between the sections ... thousands of people from every portion of the United States will be only too glad to unite with the ex-confederates in the proposed demonstration, and already some of the leading men who fought on the Union side are enthusiastically in favor of carrying out the programme. Dixie is as lively and popular an air today as it ever was, and its reputation is not confined to the American continent ... [W]herever it is played by a big, strong band the auditors cannot help keeping time to the music.


title: Dixie (song)

text: However, "Dixie" was still most strongly associated with the South. Northern singers and writers often used it for parody or as a quotation in other pieces to establish a person or setting as Southern. For example, African Americans Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle quoted "Dixie" in the song "Bandana Days" for their 1921 musical "Shuffle Along". In 1905 the United Daughters of the Confederacy mounted a campaign to acknowledge an official Southern version of the song (one that would purge it forever of its African American associations). Although they obtained the support of the United Confederate Veterans and the United Sons of Confederate Veterans, Emmett's death the year before turned sentiments against the project, and the groups were ultimately unsuccessful in having any of the 22 entries universally adopted. The song was played at the dedication of Confederate monuments like Confederate Private Monument in Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee, on June 19, 1909.


title: Dixie (song)

text: As African Americans entered minstrelsy, they exploited the song's popularity in the South by playing "Dixie" as they first arrived in a Southern town. According to Tom Fletcher, a black minstrel of the time, it tended to please those who might otherwise be antagonistic to the arrival of a group of black men.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Still, "Dixie" was not rejected outright in the North. An article in the "New York Tribune", c. 1908, said that "though 'Dixie' came to be looked upon as characteristically a song of the South, the hearts of the Northern people never grew cold to it. President Lincoln loved it, and to-day it is the most popular song in the country, irrespective of section." As late as 1934, the music journal "The Etude" asserted that "the sectional sentiment attached to "Dixie" has been long forgotten; and today it is heard everywhere—North, East, South, West."


title: Dixie (song)

text: "Dixie" had become Emmett's most enduring legacy. In the 1900 census of Knox County, Emmett's occupation is given as "author of Dixie." The band at Emmett's funeral played "Dixie" as he was lowered into his grave. His grave marker, placed 20 years after his death, reads,


title: Dixie (song)

text: Beginning in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans have frequently criticised "Dixie", saying it is a racist relic of the Confederacy and a reminder of decades of white domination and segregation. This position was amplified when white opponents to civil rights began answering songs such as "We Shall Overcome" with the song Dixie.


title: Dixie (song)

text: The earliest of these protests came from students of Southern universities, where "Dixie" was a staple of a number of marching bands. Similar protests have since occurred at the University of Virginia, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Tulane University. In 1968, the President of the University of Miami banned the song from its band's performances.


title: Dixie (song)

text: The debate has since moved beyond student populations. Members of the 75th United States Army Band protested "Dixie" in 1971. In 1989, three black Georgia senators walked out when the Miss Georgia Sweet Potato Queen sang "Dixie" in the Georgia chamber. Some musicologists have challenged the song as racist. For example, Sam Dennison writes that "Today, the performance of 'Dixie' still conjures visions of an unrepentant, militarily recalcitrant South, ready to reassert its aged theories of white supremacy at any moment... This is why the playing of 'Dixie' still causes hostile reactions."


title: Dixie (song)

text: Supporters consider the song a part of the patriotic American repertoire on a par with "America the Beautiful" and "Yankee Doodle." For example, Chief Justice William Rehnquist regularly included "Dixie" in his annual sing-along for the 4th Circuit Judicial Conference in Virginia. However, its performance prompted some African American lawyers to avoid the event.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Campaigns against "Dixie" and other Confederate symbols have helped create a sense of political ostracism and marginalization among working-class white Southerners. Confederate heritage groups and literature proliferated in the late 1980s and early 1990s in response to criticism of the song. Journalist Clint Johnson calls modern opposition to "Dixie" "an open, not-at-all-secret conspiracy" and an example of political correctness. Johnson believes that modern versions of the song are not racist and simply reinforce that the South "extols family and tradition." Other supporters, such as former State Senator Glenn McConnell of South Carolina, have called the attempts to suppress the song cultural genocide.


title: Dixie (song)

text: In 2016, the Ole Miss athletics department announced the song would no longer be played at athletic events – a tradition that had spanned some seven decades at football games and other sporting events. Ole Miss athletic director at the time Ross Bjork said, "It fits in with where the university has gone in terms of making sure we follow our creed, core values of the athletic department, and that all people feel welcome."


title: Dixie (song)

text: The song added a new term to the American lexicon: "Whistling 'Dixie'" is a slang expression meaning "[engaging] in unrealistically rosy fantasizing." For example, "Don't just sit there whistling 'Dixie'!" is a reprimand against inaction, and "You ain't just whistling 'Dixie'!" indicates that the addressee is serious about the matter at hand.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Dixie is sampled in the film scores of a great many American feature films, often to signify Confederate troops and the American Civil War. For example, Max Steiner quotes the song in the opening scene of his late 1930s score to "Gone with the Wind" as a down-beat nostalgic instrumental to set the scene and Ken Burns makes use of instrumental versions in his 1990 "Civil War" documentary. In 1943, Bing Crosby's film "Dixie" (a biopic of Dan Emmett) features the song and it formed the centerpiece of the finale. Crosby never recorded the song commercially.


title: Dixie (song)

text: The soundtracks of cartoons featuring Southern characters like Foghorn Leghorn often play "Dixie" to quickly set the scene. On the television series "The Dukes of Hazzard", which takes place in a fictional county in Georgia, the musical car horn of the "General Lee" plays the initial twelve notes of the melody from the song. Sacks and Sacks argue that such apparently innocent associations only further serve to tie "Dixie" to its blackface origins, as these comedic programs are, like the minstrel show, "inelegant, parodic [and] dialect-ridden." On the other hand, Poole sees the "Dixie" car horn, as used on the "General Lee" from the TV show and mimicked by white Southerners, as another example of the song's role as a symbol of "working-class revolt."


title: Dixie (song)

text: Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman in the Senate and only black senator at the time, claimed Senator Jesse Helms whistled "Dixie" while in an elevator with her soon after the 1993 Senate vote on the Confederate flag insignia.


title: Dixie (song)

text: Performers who choose to sing "Dixie" today usually remove the black dialect and combine the song with other pieces. For example, Rene Marie's jazz version mixes "Dixie" with "Strange Fruit", a Billie Holiday song about a lynching. Mickey Newbury's "An American Trilogy" (often performed by Elvis Presley) combines "Dixie" with the Union's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (also called "From Dixie with Love") and the negro spiritual "All My Trials". Bob Dylan also recorded a version of the song for the 2003 film "Masked and Anonymous".


title: Dixie (song)

text: The character Ian Malcolm from Michael Crichton's novel "The Lost World" (1995) sings lines from the song while in a morphine-induced stupor.


title: Dixie (song)

text: For many white Southerners, "Dixie," like the Confederate flag, is a symbol of Southern heritage and identity. Until somewhat recently, a few Southern universities including the University of Mississippi maintained the "Dixie" fight song, coupled with the Rebel mascot and the Confederate battle flag school symbol, which led to protests. Confederate heritage websites regularly feature the song, and Confederate heritage groups routinely sing "Dixie" at their gatherings. In his song "Dixie on My Mind," country musician Hank Williams, Jr., cites the absence of "Dixie" on Northern radio stations as an example of how Northern culture pales in comparison to its Southern counterpart.


title: Dixie (song)

text: In the 2022 Broadway Revival of 1776 (musical), portions of the song are quoted in The Lees of Old Virginia. In the number, the curtain opens and Richard Henry Lee introduces "The Lees of Old Virginia", standing on barrels postured and moving like mechanical marionettes, The Lees, sing the 1st verse of "Dixie",


title: Sarah Sherman

text: Sarah Sherman (born March 7, 1993) also known professionally as Sarah Squirm, is an American comedian, actress, and screenwriter. She is known for surreal and body horror comedy, and became a featured player on "Saturday Night Live" starting in its 47th season in October 2021.


title: Sarah Sherman

text: She graduated from Great Neck South High School, and from Northwestern University in 2015 with a degree in theater.


title: Sarah Sherman

text: While working as a comic in Chicago, Sherman had a monthly show called "Helltrap Nightmare" along with Luke Taylor, David Brown, Wyatt Fair and Scott Egleston.


title: Sarah Sherman

text: In 2019, Sherman opened for fellow comedian Eric André on his "Legalize Everything" tour. She had also been a writer for "The Eric Andre Show", "Three Busy Debras" and "Magic for Humans".


title: Sarah Sherman

text: In 2021, Sherman was cast as a featured player on the long-running NBC sketch-comedy show "Saturday Night Live", for its 47th season, alongside fellow newcomers James Austin Johnson and Aristotle Athari. Prior to getting hired on "SNL", she had trouble finding employment due to her gross-out videos turning off hiring managers.


title: Sarah Sherman

text: She received praise from critics for adapting her unusual and surreal comedy style to "SNL" without losing its impact. Luka Katic of "Collider" wrote, "Sherman certainly isn't the first unconventional comedian to be featured on "SNL" (i.e. Tim Robinson, Kyle Mooney, etc.). However, what makes her remarkable is her success in spite of that fact. Where actors like Robinson often felt they had to tone down their material for SNL, Sherman finds inventive alternative ways to channel her deranged sensibilities into the show." Jesse Hassenger of "Vulture" listed Sherman's "Meatballs" sketch from the Oscar Isaac/Charli XCX episode as one of the best of the season, writing "In a crowded season, it was especially refreshing to come upon a sketch that feels like such a clear expression of its star’s sensibilities."


title: Sarah Sherman

text: Sherman is set to star in the Adam Sandler comedy film for Netflix, "You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah" with Idina Menzel, Luis Guzmán and Ido Mosseri.


title: Sarah Sherman

text: Sherman has said her comedic influences include television shows such as "Seinfeld", "The Nanny", "The Golden Girls", "Pee-wee’s Playhouse", and "The Ren & Stimpy Show". She has cited Norm Macdonald as an influence on her "SNL" work: "He was a little troublemaker. I relate to him because he was never not himself." When she started performing stand-up comedy, she became influenced by comedians such as Todd Barry, Maria Bamford, and Kristen Schaal.


title: Sarah Sherman

text: In 2020, Sherman supported Bernie Sanders as the Democratic candidate for the 2020 United States presidential election. She is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.


title: Omnivore

text: An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutrients and energy of the sources absorbed. Often, they have the ability to incorporate food sources such as algae, fungi, and bacteria into their diet.


title: Omnivore

text: Omnivores come from diverse backgrounds that often independently evolved sophisticated consumption capabilities. For instance, dogs evolved from primarily carnivorous organisms (Carnivora) while pigs evolved from primarily herbivorous organisms (Artiodactyla). Despite this, physical characteristics such as tooth morphology may be reliable indicators of diet in mammals, with such morphological adaptation having been observed in bears.


title: Omnivore

text: The variety of different animals that are classified as omnivores can be placed into further sub-categories depending on their feeding behaviors. Frugivores include maned wolves and orangutans; insectivores include swallows and pink fairy armadillos; granivores include large ground finches and mice.


title: Omnivore

text: All of these animals are omnivores, yet still fall into special niches in terms of feeding behavior and preferred foods. Being omnivores gives these animals more food security in stressful times or makes possible living in less consistent environments.


title: Omnivore

text: The word "omnivore" derives from Latin "omnis" 'all' and "vora", from "vorare" 'to eat or devour', having been coined by the French and later adopted by the English in the 1800s. Traditionally the definition for omnivory was entirely behavioral by means of simply "including both animal and vegetable tissue in the diet." In more recent times, with the advent of advanced technological capabilities in fields like gastroenterology, biologists have formulated a standardized variation of omnivore used for labeling a species' actual ability to obtain energy and nutrients from materials. This has subsequently conditioned two context specific definitions.


title: Omnivore

text: The taxonomic utility of omnivore's traditional and behavioral definition is limited, since the diet, behavior, and phylogeny of one omnivorous species might be very different from that of another: for instance, an omnivorous pig digging for roots and scavenging for fruit and carrion is taxonomically and ecologically quite distinct from an omnivorous chameleon that eats leaves and insects. The term "omnivory" is also not always comprehensive because it does not deal with mineral foods such as salt licks and the consumption of plant and animal material for medical purposes which would not otherwise be consumed (i.e. zoopharmacognosy) within non-omnivores.