title: Hoda Kotb

text: In 2011, Martina McBride asked Kotb to be featured in her music video for "I'm Gonna Love You Through It," a ballad dedicated to cancer survivors.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: Kotb officially joined NBC News in April 1998 as a correspondent for "Dateline NBC" and all NBC News platforms.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: She was the first host of "Today"'s first fourth-hour weekday morning broadcast at 10:00 a.m. in September 2007 and was joined by Kathie Lee Gifford as a co-host in April 2008. Gifford was later succeeded by Jenna Bush Hager in April 2019, following Gifford's departure from the show.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: On February 23, 2015, Kotb began hosting a live, one-hour show twice a week on Sirius XM's "Today" channel, discussing casual, water cooler topics.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: On January 2, 2018, Kotb was named co-anchor of "Today" with Savannah Guthrie after anchor Matt Lauer was terminated by NBC News following accusations of sexual misconduct. She and Guthrie had been interim co-anchors since Lauer's termination on November 29, 2017. They make up the first female anchor duo to lead the show.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: In October 2010, Kotb released a "New York Times" bestselling autobiography, "Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee."


title: Hoda Kotb

text: On January 15, 2013, she released her second book, "Ten Years Later: Six People Who Faced Adversity and Transformed Their Lives", in which she chronicles six stories by identifying a life-changing event in each subject's life and then revisiting each of those six people a decade later.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: In 2016, Kotb released her third book, "Where They Belong: The Best Decisions People Almost Never Made", which features a selection of various stories of inspiring people who "found themselves" in completely unexpected moments or unforeseen circumstances.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: In October 2019, Kotb released her sixth book, "I Really Needed This Today", which includes personal notes about her experiences and relationships, an assortment of quotes, and 365 sayings that she hopes inspires and uplifts readers. She released a follow-up in October 2020 titled "This Just Speaks to Me", which expands on her daily reflections and includes additional personal anecdotes and quotes.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: Kotb has also released her own children's books. The first one, her fourth book overall, "I've Loved You Since Forever", was released in 2018, and was adapted into a lullaby by Kelly Clarkson. Her second children's book, her fifth book overall, "You Are My Happy", which celebrates the things in life that bring gratitude, was released in March 2019.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: In 2006, Kotb was awarded a Peabody Award for "Dateline NBC"'s "The Education of Ms. Groves", which earned her an additional Headliner Award in 2007, as well as the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award in 2008.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: In 2010, 2011, and 2012, during which Kotb was a part of the "Today" morning host lineup, "Today" won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Morning Program.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: In 2015, she won a Webby Award for Online Film & Video – Public Service & Activism for her music video, "Truly Brave", which she created in collaboration with Sara Bareilles and Cyndi Lauper to raise awareness for pediatric cancer. That same year, she received an additional Gracie Award for Outstanding Host in News/Non-fiction in 2015.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: In 2016, Kotb was awarded with a Gracie Award for Outstanding Host in Entertainment/Information for her SiriusXM show.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: In 2019, Kotb and Gifford were awarded a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informative Talk Show Host during their time as co-hosts.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: In 2005, Kotb married former University of New Orleans tennis coach, Burzis Kanga. The marriage ended in divorce in 2008.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: Kotb began a relationship with New York financier Joel Schiffman in 2013. On November 25, 2019, Kotb announced live on "Today" that she was engaged to Schiffman. On January 31, 2022, Kotb announced during the fourth hour of "Today" ("Hoda & Jenna") that she and Schiffman had ended their engagement and would focus on co-parenting as friends.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: On February 21, 2017, Kotb announced on "Today" that she had adopted a baby girl named Haley Joy Kotb. On April 16, 2019, Kotb came on "Today" via phone to announce she had adopted a second baby girl named Hope Catherine Kotb.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: In March 2007, Kotb underwent a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery for breast cancer and has since become an advocate for breast cancer awareness. Kotb allowed "Today" cameras to follow her throughout her cancer battle. After she was declared cancer-free, she has continued to document and use the story on the show to raise awareness for breast cancer.


title: Hoda Kotb

text: On January 6, 2022, Kotb announced she tested positive for COVID-19. Although she has received both of her vaccine doses as well as her booster shot, Kotb told "Today" that she is "experiencing mild symptoms and is feeling good while isolating at home."


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Kimora Lee Simmons (née Perkins) is an American model, business woman, fashion designer, venture capitalist, entrepreneur, TV personality, philanthropist and author.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Growing up in the northern St. Louis suburb of Florissant, Missouri, Simmons was a frequent target of bullying at school. Because of her height - 5'10" by age ten - and multiethnic background (she is African-American on her father's side and Japanese-Korean on her mother's), Simmons struggled to find confidence and felt, in her own words, "different."


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: In an effort to bolster Kimora's confidence, Kimora's mother enrolled her in modeling classes when she was eleven years old. Two years later, Simmons attended a model search event in Kansas City, where she was discovered by the event's organizer, Marie-Christine Kollock, an agent from the prominent Paris modeling agency, Glamour. Kollock then sent Simmons to Paris, where she would soon find favor with fashion industry leaders and begin her modeling career in earnest.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Simmons is a graduate of Lutheran North High School in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2017, Simmons returned to school, and in 2018, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Business and Entrepreneurial Affairs from the University of Hartford's Barney School of Business in Hartford, Connecticut.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: At the age of thirteen, Simmons secured an exclusive modeling contract with Chanel and began working under the tutelage of Chanel's then designer, the late Karl Lagerfeld. Lagerfeld and Simmons's mentor-muse relationship happened at a time in fashion history when a multiethnic look like Simmons's was uncommon in high-end fashion advertising. As Simmons remembers: "Karl chose to put a mixed-race model on a Parisian runway before anyone else. By his example, I learned how to stand tall and claim my destiny - to dream bigger than I ever thought possible and command my dreams into reality."


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: After closing the 1989 Chanel haute couture show as "The Bride," Simmons went on to walk the runways for such fashion houses as Fendi, Valentino, Emanuel Ungaro, and Yves Saint Laurent as well as appear on covers and in the pages of such fashion publications as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: In 1999, Simmons launched the global lifestyle brand, Baby Phat. The label was launched as a womenswear off-shoot of the men's streetwear line, Phat Farm and overarching fashion label Phat Fashions, which Russel Simmons - Simmons's then husband - had founded in 1992. Like Phat Farm - and other black-owned fashion labels that emerged around the same period - Baby Phat was created to offer consumers of color collections that were authentic to the culture. Mirroring the trajectory of the hip-hop music and style that inspired it, however, Baby Phat eventually grew to cross all barriers of culture and race, reaching mass-marketability and entering the lexicon of both fashion and popular culture.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: On September 15, 1999, Baby Phat debuted its first fashion show at New York Fashion Week. The show was held at Radio City Music Hall and streamed live to the Jumbotron in Times Square. With celebrities like Aaliyah, Lil' Kim (who also walked the Baby Phat runway in 2000), Missy Elliot, Mary J. Blige, and Paris Hilton in attendance, Baby Phat fashion shows were a frequent focal point during New York Fashion Week. Simmons concluded every Baby Phat show by walking the runway with her daughters, Ming Lee and Aoki Lee, in hand. Of being a mother and a business woman, Simmons told Refinery29: "Of course having my babies on the runway with me is still number one for me as a mother. But I also really loved our front rows. The celeb and musician friends that supported the brand also inspired it - really innovative women who pushed the world forward to embrace the urban lifestyle when many in the business and in society at large did not have the vision or foresight [to do so]. This was a movement. People forget that."


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Simmons was eventually appointed President and Creative Director of Phat Fashions - which included Baby Phat, Phat Farm, Baby Phat Girlz and Phat Farm Boys - thus becoming one of the first women of color ever to preside over a stable of fashion brands. During her tenure as Creative Director of Baby Phat, Simmons created an entirely new category of urban lifestyle apparel and accessories designed for women by women.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Baby Phat's commercial success (the company was at one point estimated to be worth in excess $1 billion) and cultural impact ultimately drove the expansion of Phat Fashions into a multitude of new product categories that included jewelry, handbags, footwear, swimwear, outerwear, infant accessories and fragrance, all of which were distributed on a global scale. Over time, the Baby Phat fragrance portfolio grew to include a total of six perfumes: Goddess, Golden Goddess, Seductive Goddess, Fabulosity, Luv Me, and Dare Me, the last of which was produced in Partnership with COTY Fragrances.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: In 2010, Simmons parted ways with Phat Fashions and its parent company Kellwood. The following year, Simmons announced her new position as President and Creative Director of JustFab, a personalized shopping website. Simmons served in this role until 2015.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Following her tenure at JustFab, Simmons began work on the development of a new fashion label, and in the pre-fall season of 2015, KLS by Kimora Lee Simmons debuted its first collection. The namesake women's wear line offers upscale apparel at entry-level price points in the American designer category. Following development, KLS by Kimora Lee Simmons was marketed for nationwide placement within the designer arena at high-end luxury retailers such as Bloomingdales, Lord and Taylor and Farfetch.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: On International Women's Day, March 8 of 2019, Simmons delivered the keynote address at the launch of the She Innovates initiative led by UN Women's Gender Innovation Coalition for Change (GICC). There, Simmons announced to Bloomberg News the reacquisition and forthcoming return of Baby Phat, by Kimora Lee Simmons. The new Baby Phat would retain the same ethos of female-empowerment as did the brand's first iteration by being woman-owned, woman-led and, as ever, designed for women by women.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Baby Phat relaunched in the summer of 2019 and then debuted a new signature collection in the fall of 2019. In an interview about the relaunch of Baby Phat, Simmons said to Women's Wear Daily: "The relaunch of Baby Phat will be a mainstream sportswear collection for millennials targeted to the mid-tier retail level. Over the past several years, we realized that Baby Phat resonated with people and lives deep in their souls. Young people have an appetite for design with a purpose and place importance on a need for messaging that is similar to what Baby Phat represented in its prime and still can today."


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Simmons has built a diverse portfolio of investments in new and innovative businesses in such fields as fashion, skin care, consumer goods and technology. Among these investments are Codage, an advanced technical skin care line based in France; Pureform Global, the first manufacturer of non-cannabis, non-hemp all natural CBD products; and Celsius, a "clean energy" negative calorie drink acquired in 2015. In the spring of 2019, Simmons co-launched Pellequr, a Beverly Hills spa with a novel take on the traditional Korean Spa. Through her various businesses and investments, Simmons is reported to have amassed a net worth of over $200 million dollars.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Simmons has a long history of philanthropy. As a member of the board of directors, Simmons has been instrumental at the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation for many years. In 2014, Simmons established the Kimora Lee Simmons Scholarship Fund at FIT with a personal donation of one million dollars to aid students from underserved communities who are pursuing careers in fashion. Additionally, Simmons is an active supporter of amfAR, The G&P Foundation, Keep a Child Alive, and the Hetrick-Martin Institute.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Alongside her daughters, Simmons has done extensive humanitarian work in support of refugees and in-crisis migrant women and children fleeing violence, persecution and natural disasters in their home countries. As Lead Global Ambassador for intimate health nonprofit The Unmentionables, Simmons has helped to fund the distribution of reusable female hygienic products and supplies to communities of migrant and refugee women entering Europe through Greece. In 2017, Simmons and her family traveled to Texas with The Unmentionables to help with relief efforts following the devastation of Hurrican Harvey.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: In 2018, Simmons delivered an address to The Global Innovation Coalition for Change (GICC), in partnership with UN Women to drive industry wide change and advance women and girls in innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship. She currently serves as a Global Innovator for Change as an advocate for gender equality in the workplace. In September 2018, Simmons partnered with UN Women and GICC to help launch their Gender Innovation Principles and She Innovates calls to action.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: In 2008, Simmons lent her voice and image to PETA in support of the organization's Be an Angel to Dogs campaign, which called for more humane consideration in the care and keeping of household pets. In the campaign, Simmons is pictured wearing angel wings designed by the costume maker, Martin Izquierdo, who is known for designing the angel wings worn by models in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Simmons has also protested with PETA. Additionally, she donated $20,000 to PETA's Angel for Animals Project, which provides sturdy, custom-made dog houses to needy dogs.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: In 2021, Simmons and Baby Phat partnered with Smile Train in the #AllSmilesAreBeautiful campaign to design and produce an exclusive limited edition All Smiles Are Beautiful t-shirt, with all net proceeds going to Smile Train's programs supporting mental health for children with cleft palates.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Most recently, Simmons, Baby Phat and Phat Farm partnered with Family Dollar and Crayola to host a back-to-school giveaway benefiting families facing financial hardship in the Los Angeles area. The event was hosted at the Boys and Girls Club of Carson. Together with Crayola and Family Dollar, Baby Phat and Phat Farm donated hundreds of thousands of dollars of school supplies including backpacks, stationery and art supplies. Additional distribution of these supplies was made to Boys and Girls Clubs in the Atlanta and Southeast Virginia areas.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: At a homecoming ceremony held at Washington University in St. Louis on March 14, 2008, the mayor of St. Louis recognized Simmons's contributions to society by presenting her with the key to the city and declaring March 14 Kimora Day.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Kimora Perkins married Russell Simmons in December, 1998. Before the couple divorced, they had two daughters: Ming Lee Simmons (born January 2000) and Aoki Lee Simmons (born August 2002).


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: In May 2009, Simmons gave birth to her eldest son, Kenzo Lee Hounsou, whom she shares with actor and model Djimon Hounsou. In April 2015, Simmons gave birth to her youngest son, Wolf Lee Leissner, whom she shares with financier, Tim Leissner. And, in 2020, Simmons adopted Gary Lee Foster, making her a mother of five children in total.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Simmons has worked in television as a host, actress, reality star and producer. She was one of three hosts on the music and pop-culture weekly TV series, "One World Music Beat", which aired in syndication from 1998-2001. Simmons also contributed to the VH1 projects Uncut New York Fashion Week and Party Fabulous. In 2003, Simmons appeared alongside Tyra Banks as a judge on season one of America's Next Top Model.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: In 2007, "" premiered on the Style Network. The reality series follows Simmons's daily life as she navigates the roles of business woman and mother. "Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane" aired from 2007-2011. In addition to starring in the series, Simmons produced four episodes of the show's inaugural season and executive produced ten episodes between 2009-2010. In 2013, The Style Network debuted "." Unlike "Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane", which showcases scenes from both Simmons's professional and personal lives, this second reality series focuses solely on Simmons's professional life as the Creative Director of online fashion company, JustFab. "Kimora: House of Fab" ran for one season with Simmons starring in and executive producing on each of the series's eight episodes.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Simmons is the author of the book "Fabulosity: What It Is & How to Get It," which was published by Harper Entertainment in 2006. The female empowerment lifestyle manual received favorable reviews from such publications as the Washington Post and Boston Globe.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: In 2006, Simmons joined the long list of celebrities from the fields of sports, media and entertainment who have donned milk mustaches for the Got Milk? campaign.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: In February 2008, Mattel released the Kimora Lee Simmons Barbie Doll. Dressed in a faux chinchilla floor-length coat and hot pink thigh-high boots, mini skirt and peplum top, the doll was created under the direction Simmons to epitomize the brand identity she has cultivated across her life's many endeavors.


title: Kimora Lee Simmons

text: Simmons has appeared in multiple roles in television and films including "Beauty Shop, Brown Sugar," and "Waist Deep." She has also appeared in music videos for Ginuwine, Usher ("Nice and Slow"), and Rich Gang ("Tap Out"). Simmons has been a cohost of Sony Television's sydicated talk show "Life & Style."


title: Les Wexner

text: Leslie Herbert Wexner (born September 8, 1937) is an American billionaire businessman, the founder and chairman emeritus of Bath & Body Works, Inc. (formerly Limited Brands). Wexner grew a business empire after starting The Limited, a clothing retailer with a restricted selection of profitable items, and later expanded his holdings to include Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, Inc., and Bath & Body Works.


title: Les Wexner

text: In February 2020, Wexner announced that he was transitioning from CEO of L Brands into the role of chairman emeritus.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner hired Jeffrey Epstein as his financial manager beginning sometime in the 1980s and continuing until 2007. Wexner had a very close relationship with Epstein that began in the 1980s and continued until Epstein's death. Wexner was once the “main client” of Epstein’s money-management firm, according to Bloomberg. Wexner allowed Epstein to run his business out of a house he owned and resided in whilst CEO of Victoria's Secret.


title: Les Wexner

text: Leslie Wexner was born in Dayton, Ohio, on September 8, 1937, to parents Bella (née Cabakoff 1908–2001) and Harry Louis Wexner (1899–1975). His parents were both of Russian-Jewish origin. His father was born in Russia. His mother, a first generation American, was born in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn and moved to Columbus, Ohio, as a toddler. He has a younger sister, Susan. Wexner attended Bexley High School. He attended Ohio State University, and although he had expressed an interest in architecture he graduated in 1959 with a major in business administration. While at Ohio State University, he became a member of Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. Wexner served in the Air National Guard. He briefly attended the Moritz College of Law.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner began his retail career working in his parents' clothing store "Leslie's", which had been named in his honor. After he decided to leave law school, his parents asked him to take care of the store when they went on their first vacation in ten years. While they were away on vacation, he analyzed the profit and loss margins on the women's clothing they sold. He found that although higher-priced clothing (e.g. jackets) had a higher margin per item, they sold less frequently than blouses and were therefore less profitable as a line. When he told his father this, his father was uninterested in changing his inventory.


title: Les Wexner

text: In 1963, Wexner was lent $5,000 from his aunt Ida, which was then matched by a bank in order to start The Limited. The store took its name due to its limited focus on moderately priced merchandise, such as skirts, sweaters and shirts, that turned over quickly and generated greater revenues. Wexner opened the first store on August 10, 1963, in the Kingsdale Shopping Center in Upper Arlington, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. One year later, Wexner's parents closed their store and joined their son in running The Limited. He opened the second Limited store in August 1964. He took Limited Brands public in 1969, listed as LTD on the NYSE.


title: Les Wexner

text: A. Alfred Taubman reportedly served as a mentor for Wexner, starting in the mid 1960s, and the two partnered on many deals involving Taubman's shopping malls over the years.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner expanded the Limited considerably in the 1970s, having opened the 100th store in 1976. He took on significant debt in 1978 to purchase the importer and manufacturer Mast Industries, which later was regarded to have provided him with essential business advantages over competitors.


title: Les Wexner

text: In the 1980s, Wexner doubled his retail holdings by purchasing a number of companies and became known as a major retail owner at malls in America.


title: Les Wexner

text: In 1982, Wexner acquired the lingerie business Victoria's Secret. Started as an MBA project by Stanford graduate Roy Raymond, Victoria's Secret attracted Wexner's interest due to the unique, high quality merchandise and Victorian-era decor of the shop which featured red-velvet sofas. Wexner described Raymond as "very guarded", stating, "When I met him, it was as if he met the devil." Six months later, when Raymond was facing bankruptcy, he contacted Wexner and offered to sell Victoria's Secret. Wexner bought the company for $1 million and by the 1990s it was worth an estimated $1 billion. After Wexner assumed ownership, Victoria's Secret became widely known for marketing its items with the use of super models known as "angels" which were featured in an annual fashion show, overseen by Ed Razek. By 2015, sales were in decline and 2018 proved to be the final year for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.


title: Les Wexner

text: In 1993, he hired Len Schlesinger, a Harvard Business School professor, whom he later appointed a company director, to advise him.


title: Les Wexner

text: Over the years, Wexner built a retailing and marketing conglomerate that included Victoria's Secret, Pink (Victoria's Secret for teens), Bath & Body Works, Henri Bendel, The White Barn Candle Company, and La Senza. Previous brands that were spun off include Lane Bryant, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lerner New York, The Limited Too (now Tween Brands, Inc.), Structure 9, Aura Science, The Limited (which closed its brick-and-mortar stores while retaining its online presence), and Express (which closed its Canadian stores and hundreds of its U.S.-based stores).


title: Les Wexner

text: In 2012, "CNN Money" described Wexner as the longest serving CEO of a Fortune 500 company. In February 2020, Wexner was described as the longest serving CEO of a Fortune 500 company, with his 57 years at the helm of L Brands. He was on Harvard Business Review’s Top 100 Best Performing CEOs, ranked #11 in 2015, and #34 in 2016.


title: Les Wexner

text: L Brands shareholders filed a complaint in the Court of Chancery of Delaware on January 14, 2021, stating that Wexner, among others, created an "entrenched culture of misogyny, bullying and harassment", and was aware of abuses being committed by Jeffrey Epstein, which breached his fiduciary duty to the company, causing devaluation of the brand. The complaint also names Wexner's wife, current chair Sarah E. Nash, and former marketing officer Ed Razek, whose "widely known misconduct" was long allowed at the company.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner was called out in the pop song "Victoria's Secret", for profiting off women and contributing to their toxic body ideals. When Jax sings that Victoria is "an old man who lives in Ohio", she refers to Wexner. Wexner had developed the “perfect body” campaign for the brand.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner hired Jeffrey Epstein as his financial manager beginning sometime in the 1980s and continuing until 2007. He was the primary billionaire client of Epstein, a financier who claimed to only work with clients with a net worth of one billion USD or greater. Epstein became Wexner's financial manager in 1987. Wexner purchased the New York property, the Herbert N. Straus House, in 1989 and later sold it to Epstein in the mid-1990s following his marriage to Abigail. In July 1991, Wexner granted Epstein power of attorney and also instated him as a trustee on the board of the Wexner Foundation.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner has been accused of failing to take action when complaints were raised against Epstein, including after executives of L Brands reported (in the mid-1990s) that Epstein was abusing his power and connection to Wexner by posing as a recruiter of Victoria's Secret models. The artist Maria Farmer contacted local and federal authorities about an assault she allegedly endured by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell while working as an artist-in-residence on Wexner's Ohio property in 1996. Within a year of Farmer's complaint, the actress Alicia Arden filed a police report in Los Angeles detailing that Epstein had misrepresented himself as a recruiter for Victoria's Secret prior to another alleged assault.


title: Les Wexner

text: In early 2006, Epstein was charged in Florida with "multiple counts of molestation and unlawful sexual activity with a minor." The "New York Times" reported that it was 18 months after the charges were raised that Wexner cut his ties to Epstein.


title: Les Wexner

text: In August 2019, following Epstein's second incarceration and prior to his death, Wexner addressed the Wexner Foundation in writing, releasing a statement that his former financial advisor, Jeffrey Epstein, had “misappropriated vast sums of money” from him and from his family. Wexner retained services of criminal defense attorney Mary Jo White of Debevoise & Plimpton.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner faced additional public scrutiny in late 2019 (and again in early 2020) when a group of wrestlers who are survivors of the Ohio State University abuse scandal publicly called on state and federal officials to conduct further inquiry into Maria Farmer's allegations of sexual assault at the Wexner property. The wrestlers called for accountability surrounding the Wexner family's involvement in Epstein's abuse and raised the issue of the continuing influence of Abigail and Leslie Wexner serving as the "biggest and best-known benefactors" of the university.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner's relationship with Epstein was one of the subjects of the 2022 Hulu documentary "Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons".


title: Les Wexner

text: In 1989, Wexner and his mother Bella were the first to make a $1 million personal donation to the United Way. Both of their names were inscribed in marble, and are on display in the lobby of the United Way Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner was listed by Forbes in 2017, the wealthiest of seven billionaires from Ohio who made the list. He was a major funder of the Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University, which is named in honor of his father.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner explained that because "growing up, my folks moved around a lot, and I never got a good Jewish education", he felt unprepared to take leadership roles in the Jewish community. So, in 1985, he joined Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman to establish the Wexner Foundation's first core program, aimed "to educate Jewish communal leaders in the history, thought, traditions and contemporary challenges of the Jewish people."


title: Les Wexner

text: In 1991, Wexner formed with billionaire Charles Bronfman the Study Group, which is more widely known as the Mega Group. The group was a loosely organized club of some of the country's wealthiest and most influential businessmen who were concerned with Jewish issues. Max Fischer, Michael Steinhardt, Leonard Abramson, Edgar Bronfman, and Laurence Tisch were some of the members. The group would meet twice a year for two days of seminars related to the topic of philanthropy and Jewishness. In 1998, Steven Spielberg spoke about his personal religious journey, and later the group discussed Jewish summer camps. The group, which Wexner co-chaired with Charles Bronfman, went on to inspire a number of philanthropic initiatives such as the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, Birthright Israel, and the upgrading of national Hillel.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner served on the board of trustees of Ohio State University from 1988 to 1997. In December 2005, Wexner was appointed to his second term and was elected chairman in 2009. It was announced in June 2012 that Wexner's chairmanship was to end, eight years before his appointment would have ended.


title: Les Wexner

text: On May 11, 2004, Wexner received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship at a dinner in Columbus, Ohio. The award was presented by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.


title: Les Wexner

text: On February 16, 2011, Wexner pledged a donation of $100 million to Ohio State, which will be allocated to the university’s academic Medical Center and James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, with additional gifts to the Wexner Center for the Arts and other areas. This latest gift is the largest in the university’s history.


title: Les Wexner

text: Through the L Brands Foundation, Wexner and L Brands contributed $163.4 million to the Columbus Foundation.


title: Les Wexner

text: On February 10, 2012, Ohio State University Medical Center officially changed its name to the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University commemorating "Mr. Wexner's indelible, lifelong legacy of leadership at Ohio State", according to university president E. Gordon Gee, during over 30 years of "ardent support" of the institution.


title: Les Wexner

text: On January 23, 1993, Wexner, then 55 years of age, married Abigail S. Koppel, 31, an attorney, in a ceremony at their home in New Albany, Ohio. The couple have four children.


title: Les Wexner

text: Formerly of the Bexley area of Columbus, Ohio, Wexner now lives in New Albany, a community northeast of that city. He owns a 30-room, $47 million, Georgian-inspired estate, on nearly , that was built in 1990. The estate was, for twenty years, the location of the Annual New Albany Classic Invitational Grand Prix & Family Day benefiting The Center for Family Safety and Healing. The Classic consistently drew the top professional show jumping riders because of its elaborate and well-maintained jumping course. In February 2018, Abigail Wexner announced the end of the event, citing the growing number of elite equestrian competitions.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner has owned the mid-eighteenth century Grade II* listed Foxcote House in Warwickshire, England, since 1997.


title: Les Wexner

text: At the time of its construction in 1997, Wexner's "Limitless" was the largest American-owned private yacht, measuring long and wide. Few authorized images exist, but photographs of the yacht's interior appear in an October 2016 retrospective of the career of the yacht's interior designer, François Catroux, written by David Netto and published by Rizzoli. The "Limitless" is one of the largest privately owned yachts in use.


title: Les Wexner

text: President George W. Bush appointed Wexner to serve in the Honorary Delegation to accompany him to Jerusalem for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel in May 2008.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner was inducted as an honorary member into the 104th Class of Sphinx Senior Class Honorary at The Ohio State University on May 7, 2010.


title: Les Wexner

text: On February 10, 2012, The Ohio State University board of trustees voted to rename The Ohio State University Medical Center in honor of Wexner, in recognition of his leadership and service to the university and the medical center. Now the medical center is known as Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University.


title: Les Wexner

text: Wexner hosted a fundraiser in 2012 for Mitt Romney and donated $250,000 to Restore Our Future, Romney's super PAC. In 2015, Wexner donated $500,000 to the Right to Rise USA Super-Pac that supported the 2016 presidential campaign of Jeb Bush.


title: Les Wexner

text: "The Columbus Dispatch" reported on September 14, 2018, that Wexner had renounced his affiliation with the Republican Party due to changes in its nature. Wexner made his comment shortly after former President Obama gave a speech on the same Columbus Partnership panel that Wexner addressed.


title: Finch (film)

text: Finch is a 2021 American post-apocalyptic survival film directed by Miguel Sapochnik and written by Craig Luck and Ivor Powell. The film stars Tom Hanks and Caleb Landry Jones.


title: Finch (film)

text: The film was announced as "BIOS" in October 2017. Filming took place throughout New Mexico from February to May 2019. The film was scheduled to be released in theaters in the United States by Universal Pictures on October 2, 2020, but was delayed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was retitled "Finch", sold to Apple TV+, and was released on November 5, 2021. The film received lukewarm reviews from critics, with praise given to Hanks' performance, the visuals, and overall charm, but criticism for its lack of originality and innovation within the post-apocalypse genre.


title: Finch (film)

text: Fifteen years have passed since a massive solar flare destroyed the ozone layer, turning the planet Earth into a largely uninhabitable wasteland ravaged by extreme weather events while being scorched by the sun's ultraviolet rays, increasing temperatures to . One of the few survivors, robotics engineer Finch Weinberg, lives alone with his dog Goodyear and a helper-robot Dewey in an underground St. Louis laboratory once owned by the company he worked for before the cataclysm. Finch only ventures outside to search for supplies wearing a protective suit.


title: Finch (film)

text: Dying of an undisclosed ailment (although Finch is seen reading a book on radiation poisoning), Finch is working on creating a more advanced humanoid robot companion to take care of his dog once he is gone. Finch feeds it volumes of encyclopedic knowledge, including a manual for training and caring for dogs. However, Goodyear initially doesn't trust the robot (which eventually chooses the name "Jeff").


title: Finch (film)

text: Finch discovers that a massive storm is approaching St. Louis that will certainly destroy the area and kill him. Finch, Jeff, Dewey, and Goodyear set out in a heavily modified motorhome towards San Francisco. Because of the hasty departure, Jeff could download only 72% of his encyclopedic data, and his mental capacity requires training. Despite his condition worsening, Finch tries to teach Jeff some valuable lessons about life and how to protect Goodyear. Jeff's inquisitive behavior both amuses and frustrates Finch, but the robot slowly shows more initiative.


title: Finch (film)

text: By the time they reach Denver, Finch becomes bedridden and Jeff decides to loot an abandoned hospital with Dewey. Dewey unwittingly gets crushed by a beartrap and Finch retrieves Jeff to escape the city, realizing that the area is a trap set up by other humans. Later in the evening, the motorhome is pursued by an unknown car (which evidently followed them from the hospital). Finch makes a panicked error in judgment and crashes their vehicle through an underpass with too little clearance, but Jeff is strong enough to squeeze it out of sight. Finch begins to give up hope that he will survive the journey and tells a story (in a flashback) about how he rescued Goodyear.


title: Finch (film)

text: Approaching their destination, the UV radiation has dropped low enough for Finch to be able to step out into the sunshine without a protective suit. Ecstatic, Finch spends an afternoon outside with Jeff, teaching him how to play fetch with Goodyear before quietly dying. After cremating Finch in a funeral pyre, Jeff and Goodyear make their way to San Francisco. Although they find the city habitable but deserted, they find possible evidence of surviving humans at the Golden Gate Bridge and set out to find them.


title: Finch (film)

text: Additionally, Samira Wiley, Skeet Ulrich, Laura Harrier, and Alexis Raben were all set to appear in the film, but their roles were cut from the final version.


title: Finch (film)

text: On October 26, 2017, it was announced that Tom Hanks would star in "BIOS", a post-apocalyptic film about a robot who is built by Hanks' ailing character Finch to protect the life of his beloved dog when he dies. Miguel Sapochnik would direct the film, which would be produced by Robert Zemeckis and Kevin Misher, from a spec script by Craig Luck and Ivor Powell. Several major studios were bidding for the rights of the film, with production expected to begin in early 2018. A few days later, it was reported that Amblin Entertainment had purchased the project, with Universal Pictures set to distribute it. In December 2017, the film was revealed to be on that year's "Black List" of most-liked unproduced screenplays.


title: Finch (film)

text: In January 2019, Caleb Landry Jones joined the cast in a motion capture and voice role as the robot which Finch builds. In March 2019, Samira Wiley was announced as part of the cast, followed by Skeet Ulrich and Laura Harrier in May, but were all absent in the released film.


title: Finch (film)

text: Principal photography began in February 2019, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Filming also took place in Santa Fe, Shiprock, Los Lunas, Socorro, and the White Sands National Monument, and ended in May 2019.


title: Finch (film)

text: In May 2018, the film was scheduled to be released in theaters by Universal Pictures on October 2, 2020. In June 2020, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic shutting down theaters worldwide, it was delayed to April 16, 2021. In January 2021, it was moved to August 13, 2021, and in March, it was moved a week later to August 20.


title: Finch (film)

text: In May 2021, it was announced that the film had been retitled from "BIOS" to "Finch" and bought by Apple TV+ for a release on November 5, 2021, while Universal Pictures Home Entertainment would also retain home entertainment and linear television rights to the film. According to Samba TV, the film was watched in 1.4 million households in its first 30 days of release.


title: Finch (film)

text: Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 57 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Finch (film)

text: Tomris Laffly of Variety gave the film a positive review: "Despite the bleak backdrop, Finch manages to stay true to the fuzzy ring of its basic idea, delivering a family-friendly movie that is big-hearted, comfortingly traditional and bolstered by a genuine love of dogs." David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter gave it a mixed review: "There's little that's unpredictable in Miguel Sapochnik's unabashedly sentimental sci-fi road movie, which could almost have been assembled in a robotics lab from the durable parts of countless movies past. But darned if I wasn't misting up in the melancholy climactic scenes." Richard Schertzer of Sportskeeda commented, ""Finch" proves to be a decent watch but it often gets lost in other science-fiction movies, living in their shadow, rather than doing something new."


title: Matthew Daddario

text: Matthew Quincy Daddario (born October 1, 1987) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Alec Lightwood on the Freeform television series "Shadowhunters" (2016–2019). He is the younger brother of actress Alexandra Daddario.


title: Matthew Daddario

text: Daddario was born and raised in New York City, the son of Christina Daddario, a lawyer, and Richard Daddario, a prosecutor and former head of NYPD Counterterrorism under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. His older sister is actress Alexandra Daddario.


title: Matthew Daddario

text: Daddario's paternal grandfather was Emilio Q. Daddario, a Democratic representative to the United States House of Representatives for the state of Connecticut from 1959 to 1971. He is of Italian, English, Irish, Hungarian, and Slovak ancestry. Daddario attended the Collegiate School, before graduating with a degree in economics from Indiana University Bloomington in 2010.


title: Matthew Daddario

text: Daddario made his major film debut as Aaron in the romantic drama film "Breathe In" which was directed by Drake Doremus. In the same year he had a supporting role as Channing in the Vince Vaughn-led comedy film "Delivery Man", directed by Ken Scott. In 2014, Daddario portrayed Danny Ladouceur in the sports drama film "When the Game Stands Tall", co-starring alongside Jim Caviezel, Laura Dern, and Alexander Ludwig. The film is based on the achievements of football coach Bob Ladouceur and the De La Salle Spartans, who set a record 151-game winning streak.


title: Matthew Daddario

text: In 2015, he co-starred as Gabriel in the teen comedy-drama "Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List". In May 2015, it was announced that Daddario would portray Alec Lightwood on the Freeform fantasy series "Shadowhunters", based on "The Mortal Instruments" series of novels by Cassandra Clare. He received a variety of nominations including Teen Choice Awards and GLAAD awards for his performance in the series. The show began airing on January 12, 2016 and ended on May 6, 2019. Also in 2016, he starred in the remake of Eli Roth's horror film "Cabin Fever" which was directed by Travis Z. In 2020, he joined the cast of Why Women Kill for the show's second season. He portrayed Scooter, a wannabe actor described as "charming but not so bright."


title: Matthew Daddario

text: Daddario married Esther Kim on December 31, 2017. The couple announced via Instagram posts in May 2020 that they were expecting their first child. Their daughter was born in September 2020.


title: Amanda Abbington

text: Amanda Abbington (born Amanda Jane Smith; 28 February 1974) is an English actress. She is best known for playing Miss Mardle in "Mr Selfridge" and Mary Watson in "Sherlock", the BBC adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.


title: Amanda Abbington

text: She appeared in the TV series "The Bill" until 2007 playing various characters. During that time she also appeared in the TV series "Wycliffe", "Casualty", "Dream Team", "The Sins", "Shades", "Doc Martin", "Coupling", and "Teachers". She appeared in the 2005 comedy sketch show "Man Stroke Woman" and the 2007–2008 comedy "After You've Gone" with Nicholas Lyndhurst. She has also appeared in recurring series such as "Bernard's Watch" and "Case Histories".


title: Amanda Abbington

text: In 2013, she began appearing in the television series "Mr Selfridge" as Miss Mardle alongside Jeremy Piven and Frances O'Connor. In 2014, Abbington appeared in the third series of "Sherlock" as Mary Morstan, the wife of John Watson, played by her then real-life partner Martin Freeman. In 2015 she appeared in the BBC TV crime drama series "Cuffs".


title: Amanda Abbington

text: On stage Abbington appeared in August 2018 in the role of Annette in "God of Carnage" at the Theatre Royal, Bath, and in 2019 as the character Anne in Florian Zeller's play "The Son" at the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn, London which later that year transferred to The Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End.


title: Amanda Abbington

text: Abbington was the partner of British actor Martin Freeman, whom she met on the set of the film "Men Only" in 2000. The couple appeared together on screen in productions such as "The Debt, The Robinsons, The Good Night" and "Sherlock". Abbington and Freeman, who have two children, lived in Hertfordshire before their separation in 2016.


title: Amanda Abbington

text: She is engaged to escapologist Jonathan Goodwin. She and Goodwin had been social media friends for a decade, but only met after her split from Freeman. Goodwin proposed marriage within 30 minutes of their first meeting, in Vienna.


title: Aconcagua

text: Aconcagua () is a mountain in the Principal Cordillera of the Andes mountain range, in Mendoza Province, Argentina. It is the highest mountain in the Americas, the highest outside Asia, and the highest in the Southern Hemisphere with a summit elevation of . It lies northwest of the provincial capital, the city of Mendoza, about from San Juan Province, and from Argentina's border with neighbouring Chile. The mountain is one of the Seven Summits of the seven continents.


title: Aconcagua

text: Aconcagua is bounded by the "Valle de las Vacas" to the north and east and the "Valle de los Horcones Inferior" to the west and south. The mountain and its surroundings are part of the Aconcagua Provincial Park. The mountain has a number of glaciers. The largest glacier is the Ventisquero Horcones Inferior at about long, which descends from the south face to about in elevation near the Confluencia camp.


title: Aconcagua

text: Two other large glacier systems are the Ventisquero de las Vacas Sur and Glaciar Este/Ventisquero Relinchos system at about long. The best known is the north-eastern or Polish Glacier, as it is a common route of ascent.


title: Aconcagua

text: The origin of the name is uncertain. It may be from the Mapudungun "Aconca-Hue", which refers to the Aconcagua River and means "comes from the other side;" the Quechua "Ackon Cahuak", meaning "'Sentinel of Stone;" the Quechua "Anco Cahuac", meaning "White Sentinel;" or the Aymara "Janq'u Q'awa", meaning "White Ravine".


title: Aconcagua

text: The mountain was created by the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate. Aconcagua used to be an active stratovolcano (from the Late Cretaceous or Early Paleocene through the Miocene) and consisted of several volcanic complexes on the edge of a basin with a shallow sea. However, sometime in the Miocene, about 8 to 10 million years ago, the subduction angle started to decrease, resulting in a stop of the melting and more horizontal stresses between the oceanic plate and the continent, causing the thrust faults that lifted Aconcagua up off its volcanic root. The rocks found on Aconcagua's flanks are all volcanic and consist of lavas, breccias and pyroclastics. The shallow marine basin had already formed earlier (Triassic), even before Aconcagua arose as a volcano. However, volcanism has been present in this region for as long as this basin was around and volcanic deposits interfinger with marine deposits throughout the sequence. The colorful greenish, blueish and grey deposits that can be seen in the Horcones Valley and south of Puente Del Inca, are carbonates, limestones, turbidites and evaporates that filled this basin. The red colored rocks are intrusions, cinder deposits and conglomerates of volcanic origin.


title: Aconcagua

text: In mountaineering terms, Aconcagua is technically an easy mountain if approached from the north, via the normal route. Aconcagua is arguably the highest "non-technical" mountain in the world since the northern route does not absolutely require ropes, axes, and pins. Although the effects of altitude are severe (atmospheric pressure is 40% of sea level at the summit), the use of supplemental oxygen is not common. Altitude sickness will affect most climbers to some extent, depending on the degree of acclimatization. Although the normal climb is technically easy, multiple casualties occur every year on this mountain (in January 2009 alone, five climbers died). This is due to the large numbers of climbers who make the attempt and because many climbers underestimate the objective risks of the elevation and of cold weather, which is the real challenge on this mountain. Given the weather conditions close to the summit, cold weather injuries are very common.


title: Aconcagua

text: The routes to the peak from the south and south-west ridges are more demanding and the south face climb is considered quite difficult.


title: Aconcagua

text: The Polish Glacier Traverse route, also known as the "Falso de los Polacos" route, crosses through the Vacas valley, ascends to the base of the Polish Glacier, then traverses across to the normal route for the final ascent to the summit. The third most popular route is by the Polish Glacier itself.


title: Aconcagua

text: Provincial Park rangers do not maintain records of successful summits but estimates suggest a summit rate of 30–40%. About 75% of climbers are foreigners and 25% are Argentinean. Among foreigners, the United States leads in the number of climbers, followed by Germany and the UK. About 54% of climbers ascend the Normal Route, 43% up the Polish Glacier Traverse Route, and the remaining 3% on other routes.


title: Aconcagua

text: Summit attempts are usually made from a high camp at either Berlín or Colera, or from the lower camp at Nido de Cóndores.


title: Aconcagua

text: The first attempt to summit Aconcagua by Europeans was made in 1883 by a party led by the German geologist and explorer Paul Güssfeldt. Bribing porters with the story of treasure on the mountain, he approached the mountain via the Rio Volcan, making two attempts on the peak by the north-west ridge and reaching an elevation of . The route that he prospected is now the standard route up the mountain.


title: Aconcagua

text: The first recorded ascent was in 1897 by a European expedition led by the British mountaineer Edward FitzGerald. FitzGerald failed to reach the summit himself over eight attempts between December 1896 and February 1897, but the (Swiss) guide of the expedition, Matthias Zurbriggen reached the summit on 14 January. On the final attempt a month later, two other expedition members, Stuart Vines and Nicola Lanti, reached the summit on 13 February.


title: Aconcagua

text: The east side of Aconcagua was first scaled by a Polish expedition, with Konstanty Narkiewicz-Jodko, Stefan Daszyński, Wiktor Ostrowski and Stefan Osiecki summiting on 9 March 1934, over what is now known as the "Polish Glacier". A route over the Southwest Ridge was pioneered over seven days in January 1953 by the Swiss-Argentine team of Frederico and Dorly Marmillod, Francisco Ibanez and Fernando Grajales. The famously difficult South Face was conquered by a French team led by . Pierre Lesueur, Adrien Dagory, Robert Paragot, Edmond Denis, Lucien Berardini and Guy Poulet reached the summit after a month of effort on 25 February 1954.


title: Aconcagua

text: In the base camp Plaza de Mulas (at above sea level) there is the highest contemporary art gallery tent called "Nautilus" of the Argentine painter Miguel Doura.


title: Aconcagua

text: In 2014 Kilian Jornet set a record for climbing and descending Aconcagua from Horcones in 12 hours and 49 minutes. The record was broken less than two months later by Ecuadorian-Swiss Karl Egloff, in a time of 11 hours 52 minutes, nearly an hour faster than Kilian Jornet. The women's record is held by Ecuadorean Daniela Sandoval at 20 hours, 17 minutes.


title: Aconcagua

text: On 25 September 2019, an Airbus Helicopters H145 landed on the very peak of Mount Aconcagua. This is the first time in history a twin-engine helicopter has landed at this altitude. It took a total of 45 minutes for the entire trip, 30 minutes from Mendoza and another 15 from the base camp up to the peak. Temperatures were reported as low as , with wind gusts up to . This is not the highest a helicopter has landed before, as a single-engine Airbus Helicopters H125 landed on Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world.


title: Aconcagua

text: At nearly , Aconcagua is the highest peak outside of Asia. It is believed to have the highest death rate of any mountain in South America – around three a year – which has earned it the nickname "Mountain of Death". More than 100 people have died on Aconcagua since records began.


title: Aconcagua

text: Due to the improper disposal of human waste in the mountain environment there are significant health hazards that pose a threat to both animals and human beings. Only boiled or chemically treated water is accepted for drinking. Additionally, ecofriendly toilets are available only to members of an organised expedition, meaning climbers have to "be contracted to a toilet service" at the base camp and similar camps along the route. Currently, from two base camps (Plaza de Mulas and Plaza Argentina), over 120 barrels of waste (approx. ) are flown out by helicopter each season. In addition, individual mountaineers must make a payment before using these toilets. Some large organisers will give a price up to US$100, some smaller US$5/day or US$10 for the entire stay. Thus, many independent mountaineers defecate on the mountainside.


title: Aconcagua

text: For the Incas, Aconcagua was a sacred mountain. As on other mountains (e.g. Ampato), places of worship were built here and sacrifices, including human sacrifices, were made. The sites discovered in 1985 at an elevation of 5167 m are among the highest in the world and are the most difficult of all Inca sites to reach. Here, the remains of a child bedded on grass, cloth and feathers were found inside stone walls (Aconcagua mummy). The clothing indicates that the child was a member of the highest social class. Other offerings found included figures and coca leaves.


title: Bambi

text: Bambi is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book "Bambi, a Life in the Woods" by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten. The film was released by RKO Radio Pictures on August 13, 1942, and is the fifth Disney animated feature film.


title: Bambi

text: The main characters are Bambi, a white-tailed deer; his parents (the Great Prince of the forest and his unnamed mother); his friends Thumper (a pink-nosed rabbit); and Flower (a skunk); and his childhood friend and future mate, Faline. In the original book, Bambi was a roe deer, a species native to Europe; but Disney decided to base the character on a mule deer from Arrowhead, California. Illustrator Maurice "Jake" Day convinced Disney that the mule deer had large "mule-like" ears and were more common to western North America; but that the white-tail deer was more recognized throughout America.


title: Bambi

text: The film received three Academy Award nominations: Best Sound (Sam Slyfield), Best Song (for "Love Is a Song" sung by Donald Novis) and Original Music Score.


title: Bambi

text: In June 2008, the American Film Institute presented a list of its "10 Top 10"—the best ten films in each of ten classic American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. "Bambi" placed third in animation. In December 2011, the film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant".


title: Bambi

text: A doe gives birth to a fawn named Bambi, who will one day take over the position of Great Prince of the Forest, a title currently held by Bambi's father, who guards the woodland creatures against the dangers of hunters. The fawn is quickly befriended by an eager, energetic rabbit named Thumper, who helps to teach him to walk and speak. Bambi grows up very attached to his mother, with whom he spends most of his time. He soon makes other friends, including a young skunk he mistakenly calls "Flower" (who is so flattered, he keeps the name) and a female fawn named Faline. Curious and inquisitive, Bambi frequently asks about the world around him and is cautioned about the dangers of life as a forest creature by his loving mother. One day out in a meadow, Bambi briefly sees The Great Prince but does not realize that he is his father. As the Great Prince wanders uphill, he discovers the human hunter, named "Man" by all the animals, is coming and rushes down to the meadow to get everyone to safety. Bambi is briefly separated from his mother during that time but is escorted to her by the Great Prince as the three of them make it back in the forest just as Man fires his gun.


title: Bambi

text: During Bambi's first winter, he and Thumper play in the snow while Flower hibernates. One day his mother takes him along to find food when Man shows up again. As they escape, his mother is shot and killed by the hunter, leaving the little fawn mournful and alone. Taking pity on his abandoned son, the Great Prince leads Bambi home as he reveals to him that he is his father. Next year, Bambi has matured into a young stag, and his childhood friends have also entered young adulthood. They are warned of "twitterpation" by Friend Owl and that they will eventually fall in love, although the trio views the concept of romance with scorn. However, Thumper and Flower soon encounter their beautiful romantic counterparts and abandon their former thoughts on love. Bambi himself encounters Faline as a beautiful doe. However, their courtship is quickly interrupted and challenged by a belligerent older stag named Ronno, who attempts to force Faline away from Bambi. Bambi successfully manages to defeat Ronno in battle and earn the rights to the doe's affections.


title: Bambi

text: Bambi is awakened afterward by the smell of smoke; he follows it and discovers it leads to a hunter camp. His father warns Bambi that Man has returned with more hunters. Although Bambi is separated from Faline in the turmoil and searches for her along the way, the two flee to safety. He soon finds her cornered by Man's vicious hunting dogs, which he manages to ward off. Bambi escapes them and is shot by Man, but survives. Meanwhile, at the "Man's" camp, their campfire suddenly spreads into the forest, resulting in a wildfire from which the forest residents flee in fear. Bambi, his father, Faline, and the forest animals manage to reach shelter on a riverbank. The following spring, Faline gives birth to twins under Bambi's watchful eye as the new Great Prince of the Forest.


title: Bambi

text: In 1933, Sidney Franklin, a producer and director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, purchased the film rights to Felix Salten's novel "Bambi, a Life in the Woods", intending to adapt it as a live-action film. After years of experimentation, he eventually decided that it would be too difficult to make such a film and he sold the film rights to Walt Disney in April 1937. Disney began work on crafting an animated adaptation immediately, intending it to be the company's second feature-length animated film and their first to be based on a specific, recent work. However, the original novel was written for an adult audience, and was considered too "grim" and "somber" for a regular light-hearted Disney film. The artists also discovered that it would be challenging to animate deer realistically. These difficulties resulted in Disney putting production on hold while the studio worked on several other projects. In 1938, Disney assigned Perce Pearce and Carl Fallberg to work on the film's storyboards, but attention was soon drawn away as the studio began working on "Fantasia". Finally, on August 17, 1939, production on "Bambi" began in earnest, but progressed slowly owing to changes in the studio personnel, location, and methodology of handling animation at the time.


title: Bambi

text: Originally the film was intended to have six individual bunny characters, similar to the dwarfs in "Snow White". However Perce Pearce suggested that they could instead have five generic rabbits and one rabbit with a different color than the rest, with one tooth, would have a very distinct personality. This character later became known as Thumper.


title: Bambi

text: There originally was a brief shot in the scene where Bambi's mother dies after jumping over a log and getting shot by a man. Larry Morey, however, felt the scene was too dramatic, and that it was emotional enough to justify having her death occur off screen. Walt Disney was also eager to show the man burned to death by his fire that he inadvertently started, but this was discarded when it was decided not to show the man at all. There was also a scene involving two autumn leaves conversing like an old married couple before parting ways and falling to the ground, but Disney found that talking flora did not work in the context of the film, and instead a visual metaphor of two realistic leaves falling to the ground was used instead. Disney and his story team also developed the characters consisting of a squirrel and a chipmunk that were to be a comic duo reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy. However, after years of experimentation, Walt felt that the story should focus on the three principal characters: Bambi, Thumper and Flower. The squirrel and chipmunk make only brief appearances in the final film.


title: Bambi

text: Although the animators had animated deer in "Snow White", they were animated, in the words of Eric Larson, "like big flour sacks". Disney wanted the animals in "Bambi" to be more realistic and expressive than those in "Snow White". He had Rico LeBrun, a painter of animals, come and lecture to the animators on the structure and movement of animals. The animators visited the Los Angeles Zoo and Disney set up a small zoo at the studio with animals such as rabbits, ducks, owls, and skunks, and a pair of fawns named Bambi and Faline so that the artists could see first-hand the movement of these animals. Rico LeBurn's sketches depicted realistic animals, but as characters they lacked personality. Marc Davis created the final design of Bambi by incorporating LeBurn's realistic study of deer anatomy but exaggerating the character's face by making his proportions baby-like (short snout, big eyes, etc.). Although there were no humans in "Bambi", live-action footage of humans was used for one scene: actress Jane Randolph and Ice Capades star Donna Atwood acted as live-action references for the scene where Bambi and Thumper are on the icy pond. The animators learned a lot about animals during the film's production, giving them a broader spectrum of animation styles to use in future projects.


title: Bambi

text: The backgrounds for the film were inspired by the Eastern American woodlands. One of the earliest and best-known artists for the Disney studio, Maurice "Jake" Day, spent several weeks in the Vermont and Maine forests, sketching and photographing deer, fawns, and the surrounding wilderness areas. However his first sketches were too "busy" as the eye did not know where to focus. Tyrus Wong, a Chinese animator, showed Day some of his impressionistic paintings of a forest. Day liked the paintings and appointed him art director of the film. Wong's backgrounds were revolutionary since they had more detail around the center and less around the edges, thus leading a viewer's eye to the characters.


title: Bambi

text: Due to World War II, which began in Europe in 1939, "Pinocchio" and "Fantasia" failed at the box office. Facing financial difficulty, Disney was forced to cut 12 minutes from the film before final animation to save production costs.


title: Bambi

text: "Bambi" was released in theaters in 1942, during World War II, and was Disney's 5th full-length animated film. The film was re-released to theatres in the United States in 1947, 1957, 1966, 1975, 1982 and 1988. It was then made available in North America on home video in 1989 and in the UK in 1994. Even in home video, it has seen multiple releases, including three VHS releases — in 1989 (Classics Version), 1997 (Masterpiece Collection Version), and 2005 (Platinum Edition version), one Betamax release in 1989 (Classics version), two Laserdisc releases in 1989 (Classics version) and 1997 (Masterpiece Collection version) — and most recently a digitally-remastered and restored Platinum Edition DVD. The Platinum Edition DVD went on moratorium on January 31, 2007.


title: Bambi

text: "Bambi" was released as a Diamond Edition on March 1, 2011, consisting of a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack. This release included multiple bonus features not previously included in "Bambi" home releases: a documentary entitled "Inside Walt's Story Meetings – Enhanced Edition", two deleted scenes, a deleted song, an image gallery, and a game entitled "Disney's Big Book of Knowledge: Bambi Edition". This release also marked the first use of "Disney Second Screen", a feature which is accessed via a computer or iPad app download that syncs with the Blu-ray disc, allowing the viewer to follow along by interacting with animated flip-books, galleries and trivia while watching the movie. A UK version of Diamond Edition was released on February 7, 2011.


title: Bambi

text: In honor of the film's 75th anniversary, "Bambi" was released as part of the Walt Disney Signature Collection on May 23, 2017 (digital) and June 6, 2017 (Blu-ray/DVD/digital combo pack).


title: Bambi

text: On the initiative of Stephen Greymoming, professor of Native American studies and anthropology at the University of Montana, an Arapaho-language dubbing of the movie was produced in 1994, in collaboration with the Northern Plains Educational Foundation. The final product was, however, only a partial dubbing, as the spoken parts were dubbed in Arapaho, but all the songs were left in English. The dubbed version of the movie premiered on November 3 the same year, and Disney later provided the Arapaho Nation with 2000 VHS tapes of the movie. The dubbing was never issued again in any other forms, until it was uploaded on the streaming platform Disney+ in October 2022. "Bambi" was the first of three Disney movies to receive a dubbing in a Native American language. The next such instance had to wait until 2016, when Pixar's "Finding Nemo" received a dubbing in Navajo, and then Disney's "Moana" in Hawaiian two years later. While the first was also made available on Disney+, the latter was only distributed for free in schools in Hawaii, and never received any home media release form.


title: Bambi

text: At the time of the film's release, "Bambi" received mixed reviews from the critics, mainly because of the lack of fantasy elements in the film and objection towards a dramatic story of animals and their struggle to survive in the woods and avoid the threat of humans. "The New York Times" claimed that "In the search for perfection, Mr. Disney has come perilously close to tossing away his whole world of cartoon fantasy." Manny Farber of "The New Republic" deemed the film "unpleasant". He also stated that "In an attempt to ape the trumped-up realism of flesh and blood movies, he has given up fantasy, which was pretty much the magic element." Even Disney's daughter Diane complained, saying that Bambi's mother did not need to die. When Walt claimed that he was only following the book, Diane protested, saying that he had taken other liberties before and that Walt Disney could do whatever he wanted.


title: Bambi

text: Today, however, "Bambi" is viewed as one of the greatest animated films ever made. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 53 reviews with an average rating of . The website consensus reads: "Elegantly animated and deeply touching, "Bambi" is an enduring, endearing, and moving Disney classic." Critics Mick Martin and Marsha Porter call the film "the crowning achievement of Walt Disney's animation studio". English film historian Leslie Halliwell wrote that "Bambi" was "one of Disney's most memorable and brilliant achievements with a great comic character in Thumper and a climactic forest fire sequence that is genuinely thrilling". He concluded that it was "a triumph of the animator's arts."


title: Bambi

text: The film was released during World War II and did not perform as well as hoped. Roy O. Disney sent a telegram to his brother Walt after the New York opening of the film that read: "Fell short of our holdover figure by $4,000. Just came from Music Hall. Unable to make any deal to stay third week ... Night business is our problem." The film earned RKO theatrical rentals of $1,270,000 in the United States and Canada in its initial release.


title: Bambi

text: Disney lacked access to much of the European market during the war, however, the film earned rentals of $1,685,000 internationally for an initial worldwide total of $2,955,000, Disney's third highest, behind "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) with $7.8 million and "Pinocchio" (1940) with $3.2 million.


title: Bambi

text: In its first reissue in the United States in 1947, the film earned additional domestic rentals of $900,000 but did much better 10 years later, more than doubling the domestic rental total with a further $2.5 million taking its total domestic rental earnings to $4.7 million.


title: Bambi

text: The film earned $14 million in domestic rentals from its reissues in 1966 and 1975 giving it a total domestic rental of $18,735,000, which equates to a gross of around $40 million. In 1982, it grossed another $23 million in the United States and Canada and in 1988, a further $39 million, taking its total in the United States and Canada to $102 million, making it (at the time) the second highest-grossing animated movie of all-time after "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". With grosses from international reissues, the film has a worldwide gross of $267 million.


title: Bambi

text: In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "10 Top 10" – the best ten films in ten classic American film genres – after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. "Bambi" was acknowledged as the third best film in the animation genre. It is also listed in the Top 25 Horror Movies of All Time by "Time" magazine. "Bambi", "Time" states, "has a primal shock that still haunts oldsters who saw it 40, 50, 65 years ago."


title: Bambi

text: Prior to "Bambi"s initial release on home video on September 28, 1989, initial orders placed in the United States and Canada up to the end of August totaled 9.8 million units, the second largest number of orders for a video at the time, behind "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", with a wholesale value of $167 million.


title: Bambi

text: The "Silly Symphony" Sunday comic strip ran a three-month-long adaptation of "Bambi" from July 19 to October 4, 1942.


title: Bambi

text: Some critics have cited parallels between Frank Churchill's theme music for "Man" (which consisted of three simple notes) and John Williams's theme music in "Jaws" (which consists of two notes).


title: Bambi

text: Paul McCartney has credited the shooting death of Bambi's mother for his initial interest in animal rights.


title: Bambi

text: Soon after the film's release, Walt Disney allowed his characters to appear in fire prevention public service campaigns. However, Bambi was only loaned to the government for a year, so a new symbol was needed, leading to the creation of Smokey Bear. Bambi and his mother also make a cameo appearance in the satirical 1955 Donald Duck short "No Hunting": drinking from a forest stream, the deer are startled by a sudden trickle of beer cans and other debris, and Bambi's mother tells him, "Man is in the forest. Let's dig out."


title: Bambi

text: In 2006, the Ad Council, in partnership with the United States Forest Service, started a series of Public Service Announcements that feature footage from "Bambi" and "Bambi II" for wildfire prevention. During the ads, as the "Bambi" footage is shown, the screen will momentarily fade into black with the text "Don't let our forests...become once upon a time", and usually (but not always) ending the ads with Bambi's line "Mother, what we gonna do today?" followed by Smokey Bear saying "Only you can prevent wildfires" as the Smokey logo is shown on the screen. Bambi had previously been the Forest Service's advertising icon beginning in 1942, but was only allowed by Disney to use the character for a year.


title: Bambi

text: In December 2011, "Bambi" was among the films selected for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. In its induction, the Registry said that the film was one of Walt Disney's favorites and that it has been "recognized for its eloquent message of nature conservation."


title: Bambi

text: Characters of the film appear in several other Disney media, such as guest appearances in the animated television series "House of Mouse", Bambi being a character to summon in the video game "Kingdom Hearts", and Bambi, Thumper and Flower being playable characters in "Disney Magic Kingdoms".


title: Bambi

text: Set in the middle of "Bambi", "Bambi II" shows the Great Prince of the Forest struggling to raise the motherless Bambi, and Bambi's doubts about his father's love. The film was released direct-to-video on February 7, 2006. While the film was a direct-to-video release in the United States and other countries, including Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, it was a theatrical release in some countries, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Dominican Republic, France, Mexico, the United Kingdom and some other European countries.


title: Bambi

text: On January 28, 2020, it was announced that a photorealistic CGI feature-length remake is in development with a script co-written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Lindsey Beer. Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz, and Andrew Miano will produce the film; a joint-venture production between Walt Disney Pictures, Depth of Field Studios, and Known Universe Productions. The Walt Disney Company described the film as a "companion piece" to "The Jungle Book" (2016) and "The Lion King" (2019), as the three films feature wildlife that requires extensive CGI and special effects.


title: Bambi

text: The copyrights for "Bambi, a Life in the Woods" were inherited by Anna Wyler, Salten's daughter, who renewed them in 1954. After her death, Wyler's husband sold the rights to Twin Books, a publishing company which subsequently filed a lawsuit against Disney, claiming Disney owed it money for the continued licensing for the use of the book. Disney countered by claiming that Salten had published the story in 1923 without a copyright notice, thus it immediately entered into the public domain. Disney also argued that if the claimed 1923 publication date was accurate, then the copyright renewal filed in 1954 had been registered after the deadline and was thus invalid. The courts initially upheld Disney's view; however, in 1996, the Ninth Circuit Court reversed the decision on appeal in "Twin Books Corp. v. Walt Disney Co.", 83 F.3d 1162 (1996).


title: Dune Messiah

text: Dune Messiah is a science fiction novel by American writer Frank Herbert, the second in his "Dune" series of six novels. A sequel to "Dune" (1965), it was originally serialized in "Galaxy" magazine in 1969, and then published by Putnam the same year. "Dune Messiah" and its own sequel "Children of Dune" (1976) were collectively adapted by the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003 into a miniseries entitled "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune".


title: Dune Messiah

text: Twelve years after the events described in "Dune" (1965), Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides rules as Emperor. By accepting the role of messiah to the Fremen, Paul has unleashed a jihad which conquered most of the known universe. Paul is the most powerful emperor ever known, but is powerless to stop the lethal excesses of the religious juggernaut he has created. Although 61 billion people have perished, Paul's prescient visions indicate that this is far from the worst possible outcome for humanity. Motivated by this knowledge, Paul hopes to set humanity on a course that will not inevitably lead to stagnation and destruction, while at the same time acting as ruler of the empire and focal point of the Fremen religion.


title: Dune Messiah

text: The Bene Gesserit, Spacing Guild, and Tleilaxu conspire to dethrone Paul, and the Guild Navigator Edric is able to use his own prescience to shield the plot from Paul's prescient visions. The Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Mohiam has enlisted Paul's wife Princess Irulan, daughter of the deposed Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. Paul has refused to father a child with Irulan (or even touch her), but he and his Fremen concubine Chani have also failed to produce an heir, causing tension within his monarchy. Desperate both to secure her place in the Atreides dynasty and to preserve the Atreides bloodline for the Bene Gesserit breeding program, Irulan has secretly been giving contraceptives to Chani. Paul is aware of this fact, but has foreseen that the birth of his heir will bring Chani's death, and does not want to lose her.


title: Dune Messiah

text: Edric gives Paul a gift he cannot resist: a Tleilaxu-grown ghola of the deceased Duncan Idaho, Paul's childhood teacher and friend, now called "Hayt". The conspirators hope the presence of Hayt will undermine Paul's ability to rule by forcing Paul to question himself and the empire he has created. Furthermore, Paul's acceptance of the gift weakens his support among the Fremen, who see the Tleilaxu and their tools as unclean. Chani, taking matters into her own hands, switches to a traditional Fremen fertility diet, preventing Irulan from being able to tamper with her food, and soon becomes pregnant. It becomes clear her fetuses are developing much faster than normal, putting a strain on her body.


title: Dune Messiah

text: Otheym, one of Paul's former Fedaykin death commandos, reveals evidence of a Fremen conspiracy against Paul. Otheym gives Paul his dwarf Tleilaxu servant Bijaz, who, like a recording machine, can remember faces, names, and details. Paul accepts reluctantly, seeing the strands of a Tleilaxu plot. As Paul's soldiers attack the conspirators, others set off an atomic weapon called a stone burner, purchased from the Tleilaxu, that destroys the area and blinds Paul. By tradition, all blind Fremen exile themselves in the desert, but Paul shocks the Fremen and entrenches his godhood by proving he can still see, even without eyes. His oracular powers have become so developed that he can foresee in his mind everything that happens, so by moving through his life in lockstep with his visions, he can see even the slightest details of the world around him.


title: Dune Messiah

text: Bijaz, actually an agent of the Tleilaxu, uses a specific humming intonation to implant a command that will compel Hayt to attempt to kill Paul under certain circumstances. Chani dies in childbirth, and Paul's reaction to her death triggers Hayt, who attempts to kill Paul. Hayt's ghola body reacts against its own programming and Duncan's full consciousness is recovered, simultaneously making him independent of Tleilaxu control.


title: Dune Messiah

text: Paul and Chani's newborn twins come into the world fully conscious with Kwisatz Haderach-like access to ancestral memories. The son is a total surprise for Paul, who had only foreseen the birth of their daughter. Scytale offers to revive Chani as a ghola, but Paul refuses to submit, considering the possibility that the Tleilaxu might program Chani in some diabolical way. The Face Dancer then threatens the infants with a knife to force Paul to accept, and also demands all of his CHOAM holdings in return. By successfully escaping the oracular trap and setting the universe on a new path, Paul has been rendered completely blind, yet he is able to kill Scytale with an accurately aimed dagger due to a psychic vision from his son's perspective. Later that evening Bijaz approaches Paul and repeats Scytale's offer, but is killed by Duncan on Paul's order. Now prophetically and physically blind, Paul chooses to embrace the Fremen tradition of a blind man walking alone into the desert, winning the fealty of the Fremen for his children, who will inherit his empire.


title: Dune Messiah

text: Paul leaves Alia, now romantically involved with Duncan, as regent for the twins, whom he has named Leto and Ghanima. Alia orders the execution of Edric, Mohiam, and others involved in the plot against her brother, going against his wish that none of them should be hurt, but spares Irulan. Duncan notes the irony that Paul and Chani's deaths have enabled them to triumph against their enemies, and that Paul has escaped deification by walking into the desert as a man, while guaranteeing Fremen support for the Atreides line.


title: Dune Messiah

text: Parts of "Dune Messiah" (and its sequel "Children of Dune") were written prior to the completion of "Dune" itself. The novel appeared initially as a five part serial in "Galaxy Science Fiction" magazine published from June (cover dated July) to October (cover dated November) 1969 with illustrations by Jack Gaughan. A Putnam hardback edition also appeared in October 1969. The American and British editions contain different prologues which summarized the events of "Dune". "Dune Messiah" and "Children of Dune" were published in a single volume by the Science Fiction Book Club in 2002, and in 1979 by Gollancz with "Dune" and "Children of Dune" as "The Great Dune Trilogy".


title: Dune Messiah

text: Herbert likened the initial trilogy of novels ("Dune", "Dune Messiah", and "Children of Dune") to a fugue, and while "Dune" was a heroic melody, "Dune Messiah" was its inversion. Paul rises to power in "Dune" by seizing control of the single critical resource in the universe, melange. His enemies are dead or overthrown, and he is set to take the reins of power and bring a hard but enlightened peace to the universe. Herbert chose in the books that followed to undermine Paul's triumph with a string of failures and philosophical paradoxes.


title: Dune Messiah

text: "Galaxy Science Fiction" called "Dune Messiah" "Brilliant ... It was all that "Dune" was, and maybe a little more." Spider Robinson enjoyed the book "even as [he] was driving a truck through the holes in its logic, because it had the same majestic rolling grandeur of the previous book." "Challenging Destiny" called the novel "The perfect companion piece to "Dune" ... Fascinating."


title: Dune Messiah

text: "Dune Messiah" and its sequel "Children of Dune" (1976) were collectively adapted by the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003 into a miniseries entitled "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune". The first installment of the three part, six-hour miniseries covers the bulk of the plot of "Dune Messiah". The second and third installments adapt "Children of Dune".


title: Dune Messiah

text: Director Denis Villeneuve confirmed at the 2021 Venice Film Festival prior to the debut of his theatrical adaptation of "Dune" that a film based on "Dune Messiah" was planned, and it would serve as the third film in a trilogy. After "" (covering the second half of the first novel) was officially greenlit in October 2021, Villeneuve reiterated his hope to continue the series with a third film focusing on "Dune Messiah". Screenwriter Jon Spaihts confirmed in March 2022 that Villeneuve still plans on a third film, and potential TV series spin-offs to continue the "Dune" saga.


title: Transformers

text: Transformers is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the Autobots and the Decepticons, two alien robot factions at war that can transform into other forms, such as vehicles and animals. The franchise encompasses toys, animation, comic books, video games and films. As of 2011, it generated more than () in revenue, making it one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.


title: Transformers

text: The franchise began in 1984 with the "Transformers" toy line, comprising transforming mecha toys from Takara's "Diaclone" and "Micro Change" toylines rebranded for Western markets. The term "" covers both the animated television series "The Transformers" and the comic book series of the same name, which are further divided into Japanese, British and Canadian spin-offs, respectively. Sequels followed, such as the "" comic book and "Beast Wars" TV series, which became its own mini-universe. Generation 1 characters underwent two reboots with Dreamwave in 2001 and IDW Publishing in 2005, with a third starting in 2019. There have been other incarnations of the story based on different toy lines during and after the 20th century. The first was the "" series, followed by three shows (", ", and "") that constitute a single universe called the "Unicron Trilogy".


title: Transformers

text: A live-action film series started in 2007, again distinct from previous incarnations, while the "" series merged concepts from the G1 continuity, the 2007 live-action film and the "Unicron Trilogy". For most of the 2010s, in an attempt to mitigate the wave of reboots, the "Aligned Continuity" was established. In 2018, "" debuted, once again, distinct from the previous incarnations.


title: Transformers

text: Although initially a separate and competing franchise started in 1983, Tonka's Gobots became the intellectual property of Hasbro after their buyout of Tonka in 1991. Subsequently, the universe depicted in the animated series "Challenge of the GoBots" and follow-up film "" was retroactively established as an alternate universe within the "Transformers" multiverse.


title: Transformers

text: "Generation One" is a retroactive term for the "Transformers" characters that appeared between 1984 and 1993. The "Transformers" began with the 1980s Japanese toy lines "Micro Change" and "Diaclone". They presented robots able to transform into everyday vehicles, electronic items or weapons. Hasbro bought the "Micro Change" and "Diaclone" toys, and partnered with Takara. Marvel Comics was hired by Hasbro to create the backstory; editor-in-chief Jim Shooter wrote an overall story, and gave the task of creating the characters to writer Dennis O'Neil. Unhappy with O'Neil's work (although O'Neil created the name "Optimus Prime"), Shooter chose Bob Budiansky to create the characters.


title: Transformers

text: The "Transformers" mecha were largely designed by Shōji Kawamori, the creator of the Japanese mecha anime franchise "Macross" (which was adapted into the "Robotech" franchise in North America). Kawamori came up with the idea of transforming mechs while working on the "Diaclone" and "Macross" franchises in the early 1980s (such as the VF-1 Valkyrie in "Macross" and "Robotech"), with his "Diaclone" mechs later providing the basis for "Transformers".


title: Transformers

text: The primary concept of Generation One is that the heroic Optimus Prime, the villainous Megatron, and their finest soldiers crash land on pre-historic Earth in the "Ark" and the "Nemesis" before awakening in 1985, Cybertron hurtling through the Neutral zone as an effect of the war. The Marvel comic was originally part of the main Marvel Universe, with appearances from Spider-Man and Nick Fury, plus some cameos, as well as a visit to the Savage Land.


title: Transformers

text: "The Transformers" TV series began around the same time. Produced by Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions, later Hasbro Productions, from the start it contradicted Budiansky's backstories. The TV series shows the Autobots looking for new energy sources, and crash landing as the Decepticons attack. Marvel interpreted the Autobots as destroying a rogue asteroid approaching Cybertron. Shockwave is loyal to Megatron in the TV series, keeping Cybertron in a stalemate during his absence, but in the comic book he attempts to take command of the Decepticons. The TV series would also differ wildly from the origins Budiansky had created for the Dinobots, the Decepticon turned Autobot Jetfire (known as Skyfire on TV), the Constructicons (who combine to form Devastator), and Omega Supreme. The Marvel comic establishes early on that Prime wields the Creation Matrix, which gives life to machines. In the second season, the two-part episode The Key to Vector Sigma introduced the ancient Vector Sigma computer, which served the same original purpose as the Creation Matrix (giving life to Transformers), and its guardian Alpha Trion.


title: Transformers

text: In 1986, the cartoon became the film "", which is set in the year 2005. It introduced the Matrix as the "Autobot Matrix of Leadership", as a fatally wounded Prime gives it to Ultra Magnus; however, as Prime dies he drops the matrix, which is then caught by Hot Rod who subsequently becomes Rodimus Prime later on in the film. Unicron, a transformer who devours planets, fears its power and recreates a heavily damaged Megatron as Galvatron, as well as Bombshell or Skywarp becoming Cyclonus, Thundercracker becoming Scourge and two other Insecticons becoming Scourge's huntsmen, the Sweeps. Eventually, Rodimus Prime takes out the Matrix and destroys Unicron. In the United Kingdom, the weekly comic book interspliced original material to keep up with U.S. reprints, and "The Movie" provided much new material. Writer Simon Furman proceeded to expand the continuity with movie spin-offs involving the time travelling Galvatron. The Movie also featured guest voices from Leonard Nimoy as Galvatron, Scatman Crothers as Jazz, Casey Kasem as Cliffjumper, Orson Welles as Unicron and Eric Idle as the leader of the Junkions (Wreck-Gar, though unnamed in the movie). The Transformers theme tune for the film was performed by Lion with "Weird Al" Yankovic adding a song to the soundtrack.


title: Transformers

text: The third season followed up "The Movie", with the revelation of the Quintessons having used Cybertron as a factory. Their robots rebel, and in time the workers become the Autobots and the soldiers become the Decepticons. (Note: This appears to contradict background presented in the first two seasons of the series.) It is the Autobots who develop transformation. Due to popular demand, Optimus Prime is resurrected at the conclusion of the third season, and the series ended with a three-episode story arc. However, the Japanese broadcast of the series was supplemented with a newly produced OVA, "", before creating entirely new series to continue the storyline, ignoring the 1987 end of the American series. The extended Japanese run consisted of "", "", "" and "", then in illustrated magazine form as "Battlestars: Return of Convoy" and "Operation: Combination". Just as the TV series was wrapping up, Marvel continued to expand its continuity. It followed "The Movie"'s example by killing Prime and Megatron, albeit in the present day. Dinobot leader Grimlock takes over as Autobot leader. There was a "G.I. Joe" crossover and the limited series "", which further expanded the scope to the planet Nebulon. It led on to the main title resurrecting Prime as a Powermaster.


title: Transformers

text: In the United Kingdom, the mythology continued to grow. Primus was introduced as the creator of the Transformers, to serve his material body that is planet Cybertron and fight his nemesis Unicron. Female Autobot Arcee also appeared, despite the comic book stating the Transformers had no concept of gender, with her backstory of being built by the Autobots to quell human accusations of sexism. Soundwave, Megatron's second-in-command, also broke the fourth wall in the letters page, criticising the cartoon continuity as an inaccurate representation of history. The UK also had a crossover in "Action Force", the UK counterpart to G.I. Joe. The comic book featured a resurrected Megatron, whom Furman retconned to be a clone when he took over the U.S. comic book, which depicted Megatron as still dead. The U.S. comic would last for 80 issues until 1991, and the UK comic lasted 332 issues and several annuals, until it was replaced as Dreamwave Productions, later in the 20th-Century.


title: Transformers

text: In 2009, Shout! Factory released the entire G1 series in a 16-DVD box set called the Matrix of Leadership Edition. They also released the same content as individual seasons.


title: Transformers

text: It was five issues of the "" comic in 1993 that would springboard a return for Marvel's Transformers, with the new twelve-issue series "", to market a new toy line.


title: Transformers

text: This story revealed that the Transformers originally breed asexually, though it is stopped by Primus as it produced the evil Swarm. A new empire, neither Autobot nor Decepticon, is bringing it back, however. Though the year-long arc wrapped itself up with an alliance between Optimus Prime and Megatron, the final panel introduced the Liege Maximo, ancestor of the Decepticons. This minor cliffhanger was not resolved until 2001 and 2002's Transforce convention when writer Simon Furman concluded his story in the exclusive novella "Alignment".


title: Transformers

text: The story focused on a small group of Maximals (the new Autobots), led by Optimus Primal, and Predacons, led by Megatron, 300 years after the "Great War". After a dangerous pursuit through transwarp space, both the Maximal and Predacon factions end up crash landing on a primitive, uncivilized planet similar to Earth, but with two moons and a dangerous level of Energon (which is later revealed to "be" prehistoric Earth with an artificial second moon, taking place sometime during the 4 million year period in which the Autobots and Decepticons were in suspended animation from the first episode of the original Transformers cartoon), which forces them to take organic beast forms in order to function without going into stasis lock. After writing this first episode, Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio learned of the G1 Transformers, and began to use elements of it as a historical backstory to their scripts, establishing "Beast Wars" as a part of the "Generation 1" universe through numerous callbacks to both the cartoon and Marvel comic. By the end of the first season, the second moon and the Energon are revealed to have been constructed by a mysterious alien race known as the Vok.


title: Transformers

text: The destruction of the second moon releases mysterious energies that make some of the characters "transmetal" and the planet is revealed to be prehistoric Earth, leading to the discovery of the "Ark". Megatron attempts to kill the original Optimus Prime, but at the beginning of the third season, Primal manages to preserve his spark. In the two-season follow-up series, "Beast Machines", Cybertron is revealed to have organic origins, which Megatron attempts to stamp out.


title: Transformers

text: After the first season of "Beast Wars" (comprising 26 episodes) aired in Japan, the Japanese were faced with a problem. The second Canadian season was only 13 episodes long, not enough to warrant airing on Japanese TV. While they waited for the third Canadian season to be completed (thereby making 26 episodes in total when added to season 2), they produced two exclusive cel-animated series of their own, "Beast Wars II" (also called "Beast Wars Second") and "Beast Wars Neo," to fill in the gap. Dreamwave retroactively revealed "Beast Wars" to be the future of their G1 universe, and the 2006 IDW comic book "" eventually confirmed the Japanese series to be canon within a story set during Season 3.


title: Transformers

text: Beast Wars contained elements from both the G1 cartoon series and comics. Attributes taken from the cartoon include Transformers that were female, the appearance of Starscream (who mentions being killed off by Galvatron in "The Transformers: The Movie"), and appearances of the Plasma Energy Chamber and Key to Vector Sigma. The naming of the Transformer ship, the "Ark" (and reference to 1984, the year the Transformers on board were revived) and the character, Ravage being shown as intelligent, and Cybertron having an organic core were elements taken from the comics.


title: Transformers

text: In 2001, Dreamwave Productions began a new universe of annual comics adapted from Marvel, but also included elements of the animated. The Dreamwave stories followed the concept of the Autobots defeating the Decepticons on Earth, but their 1997 return journey to Cybertron on the "Ark II" is destroyed by Shockwave, now ruler of the planet. The story follows on from there, and was told in . The series also added extra complexities such as not all Transformers believing in the existence of Primus, corruption in the Cybertronian government that first lead Megatron to begin his war and Earth having an unknown relevance to Cybertron.