Big Bird

Big Bird is a character on the children's television show Sesame Street. Officially performed by Caroll Spinney since 1969, he is an eight-foot two-inch (249 cm) tall bright primrose-yellow bird. He can roller skate, ice skate, dance, swim, sing, write poetry, draw, and even ride a unicycle. But despite this wide array of talents, he is prone to frequent misunderstandings, on one occasion even singing the alphabet as one big long word (from the song called "ABC-DEF-GHI," pronounced /æbkədefgi:dʒekəlmɪnɒpkɔ:rstu:vwɪksɪz/), pondering what it could ever mean. He lives in a large nest behind the 123 Sesame Street brownstone and has a teddy bear named Radar.

In 2000, Big Bird was named a Living Legend by the United States Library of Congress.

Performing Big Bird

As Muppeteer Caroll Spinney has aged, the show has gradually started to train new performers to play Big Bird. These apprentices include both Rick Lyon in the opening theme song of the show's 33rd season on, and Matt Vogel in the show's Journey to Ernie segment.

Cryptid

In cryptozoology and sometimes in cryptobotany, both pseudoscience, a cryptid (from the Greek κρύπτω, krypto, meaning "hide") is an animal or plant whose existence has been suggested but has not been discovered or documented by the scientific community. Cryptids often appear in folklore and mythology, leading to stories and unfounded belief about their existence. Well-known examples include the Yeti in the Himalayas, the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland, Sasquatch in North America, the Jersey Devil in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and the Chupacabra in Latin America.

Overview

The term was coined by John E. Wall in a 1983 letter to the International Society of Cryptozoology newsletter. The prefix "crypt-" is Greek and means "hidden" or "secret".

"Cryptid" has also been applied by cryptozoologists to animals whose existence is accepted by the scientific community, but which are considered of interest to cryptozoology, such as the coelacanth, once believed to be extinct, and the okapi, at one time thought to be entirely fictitious.Legendary creatures such as the unicorn and the dragon are sometimes described as cryptids, but many cryptozoologists avoid describing them as such. Yet a case may be made that the dragon and griffin are real cryptids. Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Ph.D., writes in Warrior Women (2002) that what appear to be fanciful concoctions rest on a logical foundation: folklorist Adrienne Mayor traces the historical development of the legends of the two creatures, and concludes that both originated in ancient discoveries of hundreds of real Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus fossils in the Flaming Hills of Turkestan and the Tien Shan foothills.

KH-9 Hexagon

KH-9 (BYEMAN codename HEXAGON), commonly known as Big Bird or Keyhole-9, was a series of photographic reconnaissance satellites launched by the United States between 1971 and 1986. Of twenty launch attempts by the National Reconnaissance Office, all but one were successful. Photographic film aboard Big Bird was sent back to Earth in recoverable film return capsules for processing and interpretation. The best ground resolution achieved by the main cameras was better than 0.6 meters.

They are also officially known as the Broad Coverage Photo Reconnaissance satellites (Code 467), built by Lockheed Corporation for the National Reconnaissance Office.

The KH-9 was declassified in September 2011 and an example was put on public display, for one day, on September 17, 2011, in the parking lot of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum, outside Dulles International Airport.

On January 26, 2012 the National Museum of the United States Air Force put a KH-9 on public display along with its predecessors the KH-7 and KH-8.

Simba

Simba (from the Swahili word for lion) is a fictional character who appears in The Lion King franchise. Introduced in Walt Disney Animation's 32nd animated feature film The Lion King (1994), the character subsequently appears in its sequels The Lion King II: Simba's Pride (1998) and The Lion King 1½ (2004).

Simba was created by screenwriters Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts and Linda Woolverton. While Mark Henn served as Simba's supervising animator as a cub, Ruben A. Aquino animated the character as he appears as an adult.

Although considered an original character, Simba was inspired by the character Bambi from Disney's Bambi (1942), as well as the stories of Moses and Joseph from the Bible. Additionally, several similarities have been drawn between Simba and Prince Hamlet from William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. In 1997, The Lion King was adapted into Broadway musical, with actors Scott Irby-Ranniar and Jason Raize originating the roles of the cub and adult Simbas, respectively.

Simba (2016 film)

Simba is an upcoming Indian Tamil black comedy film, written and directed by Aravind Sridhar. The film features Bharath, Premgi Amaren and Bhanu Sri Mehra in the lead roles, while Ramana plays a supporting role. Featuring music composed by Vishal Chandrasekhar, Simba will have a theatrical release in 2016.

Cast

Production

Aravind Sridhar wrote a dark comedy script and signed on Bharath to appear in the lead role, as a youngster who acquires extra-sensory ability through some negative experiences. Actress Bhanu Sri Mehra was signed on to feature in the film and portray a journalist. Sridhar revealed that he based the script on a real life incident featuring his friend, who was a drug-taker, and spun a fictional story around his experiences. Bharath was initially hesitant about the financial viability of the script in the Tamil film industry but later chose to do the film. Production began during June 2015 and progressed across Chennai and Pondicherry. In October 2015, the team held discussion with actress Trisha about playing a cameo role in the film to promote animal welfare.

Simba (film)

Simba is a 1955 British drama film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Dirk Bogarde, Donald Sinden, Virginia McKenna and Basil Sydney. A British family living in East Africa become embroiled in the Mau Mau Uprising.

Plot

Alan Howard (Dirk Bogarde) visits Kenya to see his brother, who he discovers has been murdered by Mau Mau.

Production

The box office success of The Planter's Wife (1952) saw Rank become interested in making films about other contemporary Imperial stories and Earl St. John put out a call for story submissions to do with the Mau Mau Uprising. Anthony Perry obliged with a treatment and he was sent to Kenya, where his advisers included Charles Njonjo. The script was later rewritten by another writer.

The film was shot at Pinewood Studios, with second unit photography in Kenya. The producers had originally hoped to cast Jack Hawkins in the lead and used a double in Kenya to match him in long shot. When Hawkins was unavailable, Bogarde was cast instead and much of the Kenyan footage covering Hawkins could not be used. However, they had also used a tall, blond Rhodesian policeman as the long shot stand-in for the part of Inspector Drummond, but had difficulty finding an available blond actor in England to play the part and so match up the shots. A chance meeting in the bar at Pinewood between the director Brian Desmond Hurst and Donald Sinden, who had had to dye his hair blond for the comedy film Mad About Men, led to Sinden being cast as Drummond.