title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Mengistu Haile Mariam (, pronunciation: ; born 21 May 1937) is an Ethiopian politician and former army officer who was the head of state of Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991 and General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Ethiopia from 1984 to 1991. He was the chairman of the Derg, the socialist military junta that governed Ethiopia, from 1977 to 1987, and the president of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) from 1987 to 1991.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: The Derg took power in the Ethiopian Revolution following the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1974, marking the end of the Solomonic dynasty which had ruled Ethiopia since the 13th century. Mengistu purged rivals for power from the Derg and made himself dictator of Ethiopia, attempting to modernize the feudal economy of Ethiopia through Marxist-Leninist-inspired policies such as nationalization and land redistribution. His bloody consolidation of power in 1977–78 is known as the Ethiopian Red Terror, a brutal crackdown on opposition groups and civilians following a failed assassination attempt by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) in September 1976, after it had ignored the Derg's invitation to join the union of socialist parties. The death toll is unknown but is often estimated at between 30,000 and 750,000.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Internal rebellion, government repression, and economic mismanagement characterized Mengistu's presidency, the Red Terror period being a battle for dominance between the Derg, the EPRP, and their rival the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (MEISON), who had initially aligned themselves with the Derg. While this internal conflict was being fought, Ethiopia was threatened by both the Somali invasion and the guerrilla campaign of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, who demanded independence for Eritrea, then a province of Ethiopia. The Ogaden War of 1977–78 over a disputed border region (Ogaden) with Somalia was notable for the prominent role of Mengistu's Soviet and Cuban allies in securing an Ethiopian victory. The catastrophic famine of 1983–85 is what brought his government the most international attention.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe in May 1991 after the PDRE National Shengo dissolved itself and called for a transitional government. His departure brought an abrupt end to the Ethiopian Civil War. Mengistu Haile Mariam still lives in Harare, Zimbabwe, despite an Ethiopian court verdict which found him guilty of genocide "in absentia." Mengistu's government is estimated to be responsible for the deaths of 500,000 to 2,000,000 Ethiopians, mostly during the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Mengistu Haile Mariam was born on 21 May 1937 in the Kaffa region during the Italian occupation. He is from the Konso minority ethnic group. Mengistu’s father was a soldier and his mother was a servant. Mengistu’s mother died during childbirth when he was only eight years old. After the death of his mother, Mengistu and his two siblings went to live with their grandmother for a few years. He then came back to live with his father and soon after joined the army at a very young age.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Mengistu followed his father and joined the army where he attracted the attention of the Eritrean-born General Aman Andom, who raised him to the rank of sergeant and assigned him duties as an errand boy in his office. Mengistu graduated from the Holetta Military Academy, one of the two important military academies of Ethiopia. General Aman then became his mentor, and when the General was assigned to the commander of the Third Division took Mengistu with him to Harar, and later was assigned as an ordnance officer in the Third Division. He was subsequently sent to the US for the first time in 1964 to the Savanna Army Depot in Illinois for an Ordnance testing course.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: A few years before his second departure for training to the US he was in conflict with the then Third Division commander General Haile Baykedagn whose policy of strict discipline and order did not sit well with Mengistu. At the time, the ordnance group was offered military technical training support in the US. Despite his disapproval of Mengistu's insubordination and disrespect, the General was obliged to release him and Mengistu went for an 18-month training program at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, United States. He also took some night classes at the University of Maryland, making him fluent in English. He returned for a third time in 1970, this time as a student at the Combined Arms Center in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Returning after his training, he was expected to command the ordnance sub-division in Harar, but was prevented by General Haile Baykedagn who cited his previous insubordination. Years later, Mengistu would murder General Haile Baykedagn along with 60 ministers and generals.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Emperor Haile Selassie's government, having lost the confidence of the Ethiopian public following a drought and crop failures in Wello province, was overthrown in the Ethiopian revolution of 1974. As a result, power came into the hands of a committee of low-ranking officers and enlisted soldiers led by Atnafu Abate, which came to be known as the Derg. Mengistu was originally one of the lesser members, officially sent to represent the Third Division because his commander, General Nega Tegnegn, considered him a trouble-maker and wanted to get rid of him. Between July and September 1974 Mengistu expanded his influence in the Derg. Mengistu and Atnafu Abate were the deputy chairmen of Derg from March 1975 to February 1977.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Haile Selassie was strangled in 1975. It is rumored that Mengistu smothered the Emperor using a pillowcase, but Mengistu has denied these rumors. Though several groups were involved in the overthrow, the Derg succeeded to power. There is no doubt that the Derg under Mengistu's leadership ordered the execution without trial of 61 ex-officials of the Imperial government on 23 November 1974, and later of numerous other former nobles and officials including the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abuna Theophilos, in 1977. Mengistu himself has acknowledged that the Derg ordered these deaths but refuses to accept personal responsibility. Members of the Derg have contradicted him in interviews given from prison, saying he conspired and was in full agreement with their decisions.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Mengistu did not emerge as the leader of the Derg until after the 3 February 1977 shootout, in which Tafari Banti was killed. The vice-chairman of the Derg, Atnafu Abate, clashed with Mengistu over the issue of how to handle the war in Eritrea and lost, leading to his execution with 40 other officers, clearing the way for Mengistu to assume control. He formally assumed power as head of state, and justified his execution of Abate (on 13 November of that year) by claiming that he had "placed the interests of Ethiopia above the interests of socialism" and undertaken other "counter-revolutionary" activities. Under Mengistu, Ethiopia received aid from the Soviet Union, other members of the Warsaw Pact, and Cuba.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Resistance against the Derg ensued, led primarily by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP). Mengistu cracked down on the EPRP and other revolutionary student organizations in what would become called the "Red Terror". The Derg subsequently turned against the socialist student movement MEISON, a major supporter against the EPRP, in what would be called the "White Terror".


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: The EPRP's efforts to discredit and undermine the Derg and its MEISON collaborators escalated in the fall of 1976. It targeted public buildings and other symbols of state authority for bombings and assassinated numerous Abyot Seded and MEISON members, as well as public officials at all levels. The Derg, which countered with its own counter-terrorism campaign, labeled the EPRP's tactics the White Terror. Mengistu asserted that all "progressives" were given "freedom of action" in helping root out the revolution's enemies, and his wrath was particularly directed toward the EPRP. Peasants, workers, public officials, and even students thought to be loyal to the Mengistu regime were provided with arms to accomplish this task.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: In a public speech in April 1977, Mengistu shouted "Death to counterrevolutionaries! Death to the EPRP!" and then produced three bottles filled with a red liquid that symbolized the blood of the imperialists and the counterrevolutionaries and smashed them to the ground to show what the revolution would do to its enemies. Thousands of young men and women turned up dead in the streets of the capital and other cities in the following months. They were systematically murdered mainly by the militia attached to the kebeles, the neighborhood watch committees which served during Mengistu's reign as the lowest level local government and security surveillance units. Families had to pay the kebeles a tax known as "the wasted bullet" to obtain the bodies of their loved ones. In May 1977 the Swedish general secretary of the Save the Children Fund stated that "1,000 children have been killed, and their bodies are left in the streets and are being eaten by wild hyenas. You can see the heaped-up bodies of murdered children, most of them aged eleven to thirteen, lying in the gutter, as you drive out of Addis Ababa."


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Military gains made by the monarchist Ethiopian Democratic Union in Begemder were rolled back when that party split just as it was on the verge of capturing the old capital of Gondar. The army of the Somali Democratic Republic invaded Ethiopia, having overrun the Ogaden region, and was on the verge of capturing Harar and Dire Dawa, when Somalia's erstwhile allies, the Soviets and the Cubans, launched an unprecedented arms and personnel airlift to come to rescue of Ethiopia. The Derg government turned back the Somali invasion and made deep strides against the Eritrean secessionists and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) as well. By the end of the seventies, Mengistu presided over the second-largest army in all of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a formidable airforce and navy.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Amnesty International estimates that up to 500,000 people were killed during the Ethiopian Red Terror.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: In the 1970s, Mengistu embraced the philosophy of Marxism–Leninism, which was increasingly popular among many nationalists and revolutionaries throughout Africa and much of the Third World at the time. In the mid-1970s, under Mengistu's leadership, the Derg regime began an aggressive program of changing system of Ethiopia from a mixed feudal-capitalist emergent economy to an Eastern Bloc-style command economy. Shortly after coming to power, all rural land was nationalized, stripping the Ethiopian Church, the Imperial family, and the nobility of all their sizable estates and the bulk of their wealth. During this same period, all foreign-owned and locally owned companies were nationalized without compensation in an effort to redistribute the country's wealth. All undeveloped urban property and all rental property were also nationalized. Private businesses such as banks and insurance companies, large retail businesses, etc. were also taken over by the government. All this nationalized property was brought under the administration of large bureaucracies set up to administer them. Farmers who had once worked on land owned by absentee landlords were now compelled to join collective farms. All agricultural products were no longer to be offered on the free market but were to be controlled and distributed by the government. Despite progressive agricultural reforms, under the Derg, agricultural output suffered due to civil war, drought and misguided economic policies. There was also a famine in 1984, which was the 10th anniversary of the Derg.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: The Soviets hailed Ethiopia for its supposed similar cultural and historical parallels to the USSR. Moscow said it proved that a backward society could become revolutionary by adopting a Leninist system. It was hailed as a model junior ally that Moscow was eager to support. In the 1980s Ethiopia plunged into greater turmoil and the Soviet system itself was collapsing by 1990. Russian commentators had turned scornful of the Ethiopian regime.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: In early 1984, under Mengistu's direction, the Marxist–Leninist Worker's Party of Ethiopia (WPE) was founded as the country's ruling party, with Mengistu as general secretary. On 10 September 1987, a new Soviet-style constitution was adopted, and the country was renamed the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Mengistu became president, with sweeping executive and legislative powers. Due to the doctrine of democratic centralism, he was effectively a dictator. He and the other surviving members of the Derg all retired from the military. However, even as civilians, they dominated the Politburo of the WPE. In the late 1980s, some Western critics of Mengistu, including Michael Johns of The Heritage Foundation, charged that Mengistu's economic, military and political policies, along with the Soviet Union's support for Mengistu, were key contributing factors to the mid-1980s Ethiopian famine, which ultimately took over 500,000 lives. Mengistu made seven visits to the Soviet Union between 1977 and 1984, as well as other visits to his political allies Cuba, Libya, South Yemen, and Mozambique. From 1983 to 1984 Mengistu served as head of the Organization of African Unity.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: However, the government's military position gradually weakened. First came the Battle of Afabet in March 1989, a defeat at the hands of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, with 15,000 casualties and the loss of a great deal of equipment. This was followed up less than a year later by another crushing defeat at Shire, with over 20,000 men either killed or captured and the loss of even more equipment. On 16 May 1989, while Mengistu was out of the country for a four-day state visit to East Germany, senior military officials attempted a coup, and the Minister of Defense, Haile Giyorgis Habte Mariam, was killed; Mengistu returned within 24 hours and nine generals, including the air force commander and the army chief of staff, died as the coup was crushed.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: By 1990, the Soviet Union had all but ended its support for Mengistu's regime. In May 1991, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) forces advanced on Addis Ababa from all sides, and Mengistu fled the country with 50 family and Derg members. He was granted asylum in Zimbabwe as an official guest of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Although Mugabe was removed from power in 2017, no new extradition requests have been submitted.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Mengistu left behind almost the entire membership of the original Derg and the WPE leadership. The regime only survived without him for another week before the EPRDF streamed into the capital, precluding the previous leadership's escape. Almost all were promptly arrested and put on trial upon the assumption of power by the EPRDF. Mengistu has claimed that the takeover of his country resulted from the policies of Mikhail Gorbachev, who in his view allowed the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the termination of its aid to Ethiopia.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: An assassination attempt against Mengistu occurred on 4 November 1995, while he was out walking with his wife, Wubanchi Bishaw, near his home in the Gunhill suburb of Harare. While Mengistu was unharmed, his alleged attacker, Solomon Haile Ghebre Michael, an Eritrean, was shot and arrested by Mengistu's bodyguards. He was later tried for this assassination attempt, pleading not guilty in a Zimbabwean court on 8 July 1996. The Eritrean Ambassador to South Africa, Tsegaye Tesfa Tsion, flew to Harare to attend the trial. The attacker was sentenced to ten years in prison, while his accomplice Abraham Goletom Joseph, who had been arrested in a police raid, was sentenced to five years. They said that they had been tortured under Mengistu, and on appeal, their sentences were reduced to two years each due to "mitigatory circumstances". The Ethiopian ambassador to Zimbabwe, Fantahun Haile Michael, said his government was not involved in the assassination attempt, and that he heard about the incident from the media.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: , Mengistu still resided in Zimbabwe, despite the Ethiopian government's desire that he be extradited. He is said to live in luxurious circumstances, and it is claimed that he advised Mugabe on security matters; according to Zimbabwean intelligence sources, he proposed the idea of clearing slums, which was implemented as Operation Murambatsvina in 2005, and chaired meetings at which the operation was planned. However, the State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa strongly denied that Mengistu was involved in Operation Murambatsvina.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: In 2018, the former prime minister of Ethiopia Hailemariam Desalegn published a photo of himself meeting with Mengistu. He withdrew the photo after criticism.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Mengistu was charged by the Ethiopian government led by Meles Zenawi, "in absentia", for the killing of nearly 2,000 people. The charge sheet and evidence list for his crimes were 8,000 pages long. The evidence against him included signed execution orders, videos of torture sessions, and personal testimony.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: The trial began in 1994 and ended in 2006. The court found Mengistu guilty as charged on 12 December 2006, and imposed a life sentence in January 2007. In addition to the genocide conviction, the court found him guilty of imprisonment, illegal homicide, and illegal confiscation of property. Michael Clough, a US attorney and longtime observer of Ethiopia, said in a statement:


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Some experts believe hundreds of thousands of university students, intellectuals, and politicians (including Emperor Haile Selassie) were killed during Mengistu's rule. Amnesty International estimates that a total of half a million people were killed during the Red Terror of 1977 and 1978. Human Rights Watch describes the Red Terror as "one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed in Africa." During his reign it was not uncommon to see students, suspected government critics, or rebel sympathizers hanging from lampposts each morning. Mengistu himself is alleged to have murdered opponents by garroting or shooting them, saying that he was leading by example. Estimates of the number of deaths for which he was responsible range from 500,000 to over 2,000,000.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: 106 Derg officials were accused of genocide during the trials, but only 36 of them were present in the court. Several former members of the Derg have been sentenced to death. After Mengistu's conviction in December 2006, the Zimbabwean government said that he still enjoyed asylum and would not be extradited. A Zimbabwean government spokesman explained this by saying that "Mengistu and his government played a key and commendable role during our struggle for independence". According to the spokesman, Mengistu assisted Zimbabwean guerrilla fighters during the Rhodesian Bush War by providing training and arms; after the war, he had provided training for Zimbabwean air force pilots. The spokesman said that "not many countries have shown such commitment to us".


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Following an appeal on 26 May 2008, Mengistu was sentenced to death "in absentia" by Ethiopia's High Court, overturning his previous sentence of life imprisonment. Twenty-three of his most senior aides also received death sentences that were commuted on 1 June 2011. As of 4 October 2011, 16 former Mengistu officials have been released from prison on parole, due to their old age and good behavior while incarcerated. However, Mengistu's sentence remained unchanged.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: In 2010, Mengistu announced the publication of his memoirs. In early 2012, a manuscript of the memoir, entitled "Tiglatchin" ("Our Struggle" in Amharic), was leaked onto the internet. Some months later the first leaked volume was published in the United States, and in 2016 the second volume followed. This time it was published in Ethiopia. Mengistu accused the remnants of the EPRP of leaking the first volume to sabotage his publication.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Mengistu married Wubanchi Bishaw in 1968. They have a son, Andinet, and daughters, Tigist and Timihirt. Mengistu has resided in Zimbabwe, due to his friendship with Robert Mugabe, ever since 1991.


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Mengistu typically endured derogatory comments about his appearance. His features were far more "negroid", which Paul Henze believes gave him an inferiority complex. Henze also notes that while receiving military training in the United States, Mengistu experienced racial discrimination which led him to develop a strong anti-American sentiment, but Henze was unable to find any evidence of such incidents. When he took power, and attended the meeting of Derg members at the Fourth Division headquarters in Addis Ababa, Mengistu exclaimed with emotion:


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: In this country, some aristocratic families automatically categorize persons with dark skin, thick lips, and kinky hair as "Barias" (Amharic for slave)... let it be clear to everybody that I shall soon make these ignoramuses stoop and grind corn!


title: Mengistu Haile Mariam

text: Bahru Zewde notes that Mengistu was distinguished by a "special ability to size up situations and persons". Although Bahru notes that some observers "rather charitably" equated this ability with intelligence, the academic believes this skill is more akin to "street smarts": "it is rather closer to the mark to see it as inner-city smartness (or what in local parlance would be called "aradanat")."


title: Olive skin

text: Olive skin is a human skin colour spectrum. It is often associated with pigmentation in the Type III to Type IV and Type V ranges of the Fitzpatrick scale. It generally refers to light or moderate tan skin, and it is often described as having yellow, green, or golden undertones.


title: Olive skin

text: People with olive skin can sometimes become paler if their sun exposure is limited. However, lighter olive skin still tans more easily than light skin does, and generally still retains notable yellow or greenish undertones.


title: Olive skin

text: Type III pigmentation is frequent among populations from the Mediterranean (i.e. Southern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa) as well as some parts of Latin America and Asia. It ranges from cream to darker olive skin tones. This skin type sometimes burns and tans gradually, but always tans.


title: Olive skin

text: Type IV pigmentation is frequent among some populations from the Mediterranean, Romani people, as well as parts of Asia and Latin America. It ranges from brownish or darker olive to moderate brown, typical Mediterranean skin tones. This skin type rarely burns and tans easily.


title: Olive skin

text: Type V pigmentation is frequent among populations from the Middle East, parts of the Mediterranean and Southern Europe, Romani people, parts of Africa, Latin America, and the South Asian subcontinent. It ranges from olive to tan, Middle Eastern skin tones. This skin type very rarely burns and tans quite easily.


title: Chief financial officer

text: The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financial reporting. In some sectors, the CFO is also responsible for analysis of data. Some CFOs have the title CFOO for chief financial and operating officer. In the majority of countries, finance directors (FD) typically report into the CFO and FD is the level before reaching CFO. The CFO typically reports to the chief executive officer (CEO) and the board of directors and may additionally have a seat on the board. The CFO supervises the finance unit and is the chief financial spokesperson for the organization. The CFO directly assists the chief operating officer (COO) on all business matters relating to budget management, cost–benefit analysis, forecasting needs, and securing of new funding.


title: Chief financial officer

text: Most CFOs of large companies have finance qualifications such as a Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Science (in either Finance or Accounting), CFA or come from an accounting background such as a Certified Public Accountant. A finance department usually consists of qualified accountants such as Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Accountant, Certified Management Accountant, Chartered Certified Accountant.


title: Chief financial officer

text: The federal government of the United States has incorporated more elements of business-sector practices in its management approaches, including the use of the CFO position alongside, for example, an increased use of the chief information officer post, within public agencies.


title: Chief financial officer

text: The Chief Financial Officers Act, enacted in 1990, created a chief financial officer in each of 23 federal agencies. This was intended to improve the government's financial management and develop standards of financial performance and disclosure. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) holds primary responsibility for financial management standardization and improvement. Within OMB, the Deputy Director for Management, a position established by the CFO Act, is the chief official responsible for financial management.


title: Chief financial officer

text: The Office of Federal Financial Management (OFFM) is specifically charged with overseeing financial management matters, establishing financial management policies and requirements, and monitoring the establishment and operation of federal financial management systems. OFFM is led by a controller.


title: Chief financial officer

text: The CFO Act also established the CFO Council, chair by the OMB Deputy Director for Management and including the CFOs and Deputy CFOs of 23 federal agencies, the OFFM controller, and the Fiscal Assistant Secretary, the head of the Office of Fiscal Service of the Department of the Treasury. Its mandate is to work collaboratively to improve financial management in the U.S. government and "advise and coordinate the activities of the agencies of its members" in the areas of financial management and accountability.


title: Chief financial officer

text: OMB Circular A-123 (issued 21 December 2004) defines the management responsibilities for internal financial controls in federal agencies and addressed to all federal CFOs, CIOs and Program Managers. The circular is a re-examination of the existing internal control requirements for federal agencies and was initiated in light of the new internal control requirements for publicly traded companies contained in the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002.


title: Chief financial officer

text: While significant progress in improving federal financial management has been made since the federal government began preparing consolidated financial statements, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that "major impediments continue to prevent [GAO] from rendering an opinion." In December 2006, the GAO announced that for the 10th consecutive year, the GAO was prevented from expressing an opinion on the consolidated financial statements of the government due to a number of material weaknesses related to financial systems, fundamental recordkeeping, and financial reporting.


title: Chief financial officer

text: At the same time, in calendar year 2007, the CFOC announced that for the second consecutive year, every major federal agency completed its Performance and Accountability Report just 25 days after the end of the fiscal year (2006).


title: Chief financial officer

text: The role of the CFO has evolved significantly. Traditionally being viewed as a financial gatekeeper, the role of the CFO has expanded and evolved to an advisor and a strategic partner to the CEO. In fact, in a report released by McKinsey, 88 percent of 164 CFOs surveyed reported that CEOs expect them to be more active participants in shaping the strategy of their organizations. Half of them also indicated that CEOs counted on them to challenge the company's strategy. As a result, the 1990s saw the rise of the strategic CFO, and more recently many companies have created a chief strategy officer (CSO) position. As a result, a 2016 survey of CFOs suggests that their new role has focused on financial reporting, with 52% of CFOs still finding themselves bogged down in the basics of traditional accounting practices such as transaction reporting and unable to make time for business partnering. The rise of digital technologies and a focus on data analytics to support decision making impacting almost every industry and organization will only add more pressure on CFOs to address this tension on finding the time to meet the expectations of their C-Suite colleagues. Many organizations have embarked on the journey to help achieve this by creating a finance function based on four distinct pillars - An Accounting organization structured as a shared service, an FP&A organization responsible for driving financial planning processes as well as driving increased insight into financial and non financial KPIs that drive business performance, a Finance Business Partnering organization that supports the leadership of divisions, regions, functions to drive performance improvement and, last but not least, expertise centers around the areas of Tax, Treasury, Internal Audit, Investor Relations, etc.


title: Chief financial officer

text: According to one source, "The CFO of tomorrow should be a big-picture thinker, rather than detail-oriented, outspoken rather than reserved, prefer to delegate rather than be hands-on, emphasize what gets done rather than how things are done, and make collaborative rather than unilateral decisions. The CFO must serve as the financial authority in the organization, ensuring the integrity of fiscal data and modeling transparency and accountability. The CFO is as much a part of governance and oversight as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), playing a fundamental role in the development and critique of strategic choices. The CFO is now expected to be a key player in stockholder education and communication and is clearly seen as a leader and team builder who sets the financial agenda for the organization, supports the CEO directly and provides timely advice to the board of directors."


title: Chief financial officer

text: The uneven pace of recovery worldwide has made it more challenging for many companies. CFOs play a more critical role in shaping their company's strategies today, especially in light of the highly uncertain macroeconomic environments, where managing financial volatilities is a centerpiece for many companies' strategies, based on a survey held by Clariden Global. CFOs are increasingly being relied upon as the owners of business information, reporting and financial data within organizations and assisting in decision support operations to enable the company to operate more effectively and efficiently.


title: Chief financial officer

text: The duties of a modern CFO now straddle the traditional areas of financial stewardship and the more progressive areas of strategic and business leadership with direct responsibility and oversight of operations (which often includes procurement) expanding exponentially. This significant role-based transformation, which is well underway, is best-evidenced by the "CEO-in-Waiting" status that many CFOs now hold. Additionally, many CFOs have made the realization that an operating environment that values cash, profit margins, and risk mitigation is one that plays to the primary skills and capabilities of a procurement organization, and become increasingly involved (directly via oversight or indirectly through improved collaboration) with the procurement function according to a recent research report that looks at the CFO's relationship with procurement.


title: Animal Collective

text: Animal Collective is an American experimental pop band formed in Baltimore, Maryland. Its members consist of Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Geologist (Brian Weitz), and Deakin (Josh Dibb). The band's work is characterized by an eclectic exploration of styles, including psychedelia, freak folk, noise, and electronica, with the use of elements such as loops, drones, sampling, vocal harmonies, and sound collage, alongside complex production techniques. AllMusic's Fred Thomas suggests that the group "defined the face of independent experimental rock during the 2000s and 2010s."


title: Animal Collective

text: Records released under the name "Animal Collective" may include contributions from any or all of its members. Evolving from early collaborations between Lennox and Portner, the collective was not officially established until all four members came together for the album "Here Comes the Indian" (2003). Most prior collaborations between the band members were then retroactively classified under Animal Collective's discography. In the case of Dibb, who often takes breaks from recording and performing with the band, his time off does not constitute full leave.


title: Animal Collective

text: The band members met in school and started recording together in various forms of collaboration from a young age. In 1999, they established the record label Paw Tracks, issuing what is now considered their debut album, "Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished" (2000), as well as work by other artists. The band's 2007 album "Strawberry Jam" was their first to chart on the "Billboard" 200. Their 2009 follow-up "Merriweather Post Pavilion" was the band's most commercially successful album, reaching #13 on the US chart; its reverb-heavy psychedelic pop sound proved highly influential to independent music of the subsequent decade.


title: Animal Collective

text: Animal Collective grew out of childhood friendships in Baltimore County. Noah Lennox and Josh Dibb met in the second grade at the Waldorf School of Baltimore and became good friends. After the eighth grade, Lennox went away to a Waldorf high school in Pennsylvania, while Dibb enrolled at The Park School of Baltimore, where David Portner had studied since grade school. In 1993, Brian Weitz moved from Philadelphia to Baltimore County and began attending Park as well, becoming friends with Portner. According to Lennox, they attended "progressive" schools that emphasized creativity, imagination and artistic self-expression as part of "a complete kind of education". Weitz and Portner started playing music together at the age of fifteen because of their shared love of the band Pavement and horror movies. Their musical range included cover songs by Pavement and The Cure as well as the songs "Poison" by Bell Biv DeVoe and "Seasons In The Sun" by Terry Jacks.


title: Animal Collective

text: When Portner and Weitz met Dibb later in high school, they started an indie rock band called Automine with schoolmates Brendan Fowler (a.k.a. BARR) and David Shpritz, being the only ones they knew who wrote their own songs. "We [once] set up a show with four bands—bands that were different formations of us", Portner remembered in an interview with "Baltimore City Paper". At that time, the group did not have any contact to the music scene in Baltimore and "was more about the back porch." In 1995, Automine self-released their first and only record, the 7-inch-single "Paddington Band". Around that time, they also had their first experiences with psychedelic drugs like LSD and started to improvise while playing music.


title: Animal Collective

text: The four started to discover psychedelic rock bands like Can and Silver Apples, as well as local experimental groups such as Climax Golden Twins and Noggin. Meanwhile, Dibb had introduced Lennox to Portner and Weitz, and the four of them began playing music in different group lineups (and often solo), producing several home recordings and swapping them and sharing ideas. Using a drum machine for the first time, Weitz and Portner started a duo called Wendy Darling, whose sound was inspired by soundtracks of horror movies like "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "The Shining", especially György Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki.


title: Animal Collective

text: In 1997, Lennox and Dibb both went off to college in the Boston area (Boston University and Brandeis University), while Portner and Weitz attended schools in New York City (NYU and Columbia University). Lennox and Dibb assembled Lennox's debut album, "Panda Bear", during this time from the multitude of recordings Lennox had made in the previous years and established their own label, Soccer Star Records, to release it.


title: Animal Collective

text: Abhorring the new life as a student at NYU, Portner, along with Weitz, returned to Maryland every summer to meet Lennox and Dibb and play music together. At that time Portner was also working on a record, which would eventually become "Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished". Portner asked Lennox to play drums on the record and they recorded them along with piano and acoustic guitars in the summer of 1999. The rest of the year, Portner returned to Maryland on weekends to record overdubs and finish the mixing. It was finally released in the following summer under the name "Avey Tare and Panda Bear". Soccer Star morphed into the Animal label, with the intention of putting out music that came from the four musicians.


title: Animal Collective

text: In parallel with his environmental policy and marine biology studies, Weitz hosted a noise show at WKCR, Columbia's college radio station. On weekends, he and Portner borrowed avant-garde music records and listened to them all night at Weitz's dorm room which rapidly broadened their musical horizon.


title: Animal Collective

text: In the summer of 2000, the four friends spent several months at Portner's apartment in downtown New York City intensely playing music together using antiquated synthesizers, acoustic guitars, and household objects. According to Lennox, in this summer the basis for all of Animal Collective's later music was created. However, all recordings of this period were stolen when Portner changed apartments and packed up the car the night before he moved.


title: Animal Collective

text: While studying, Dave Portner organized shows at New York University for a while. As he had class together with Eric Copeland, he organized a show for his band Black Dice and eventually became friends with him. In 2000, "Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished" was finished, Lennox and Dibb left school in Boston and moved to New York and the group's music became much more collaborative in nature. After introducing Lennox to Copeland, Portner and Lennox played their first show together in New York at "The Cooler" with Dogg and Pony, The Rapture and Black Dice in late summer of 2000.


title: Animal Collective

text: This was also the first time they wore makeup and masks, which later became a prominent characteristic of the group's live performances. From there on, Portner wore a mask for the first two years of the group performing. Lennox wore a panda hood on his head and later put face paint on; throughout the Europe tour in early 2004 he wore a white wig and went by the name Edgar. Dibb performed masked during the "Here Comes the Indian" tour. On the Australia tour in November 2006 and inspired by Halloween, they wore masks for the last time. According to Portner, the reason for disguising was to "help us be more relaxed and find an easier place in that other world we wanted people to join us in." They eventually stopped because they felt like it could become "too gimmicky" and distract from the music, although Weitz still sports a head lamp at live performances, as he did from the beginning.


title: Animal Collective

text: After Portner and Lennox had played clubs around New York in twos, Weitz came on board in the end of 2000 and began performing with them. Much of the live material from this time would eventually end up on "Danse Manatee" (Catsup Plate). "Danse Manatee" was released in 2001 under the name of "Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist". The trio was also occasionally use the name "Forest Children" when performing live during this period.


title: Animal Collective

text: Notably, the close friendship with Black Dice has been a major influence throughout the group's career. In the summer of 2001, Black Dice took them as support on their first tour, which was captured on the 2002 live album "Hollinndagain". It was released by St. Ives, a boutique label run by Secretly Canadian which releases limited edition vinyl only records. Limited to 300 copies, each of which featured a one-of-a-kind handmade cover, "Hollinndagain" is among the rarest of Animal Collective artifacts. It was re-released, both on CD and vinyl, on October 31, 2006, through the Paw Tracks label.


title: Animal Collective

text: At this point, Dibb began to perform with the group. The next album to be released was "Campfire Songs", again working with Catsup Plate in 2003. The "Campfire Songs" concept and some of the material dated back to the earliest Avey Tare and Panda Bear shows in New York. Recorded live in 2001 on Portner's aunt's screened-in porch in Monkton, Maryland, the record is one take of five songs played straight through. Attempting to make a record as warm and inviting as a campfire, the band recorded their performance straight to minidisc, with one recorder outside to grab the ambient sound of the environment. Field recordings of the surrounding area were also added. The original album is out of print but Paw Tracks reissued it on January 26, 2010.


title: Animal Collective

text: After this recording session they started to work on new material which was later released on "Here Comes the Indian" and they were faced with some serious problems within the group. In early 2002, they went on their first big tour which took them to the South of the US and turned out to be "pretty brutal...". "We all lost our minds on that tour", Portner recalls. Right before their next tour in summer, Weitz got the message that he was accepted to his first choice graduate school in Arizona. After three chaotic days on the road with their tour van breaking down, equipment getting damaged bundled with a lack of money, the tour was about to be cancelled. "At that point we all knew we'd get back from tour, record the songs, and then we needed space from each other, and we still had more than 2 weeks left on the road", Weitz said on the Collected Animals message board.


title: Animal Collective

text: Worrying that "Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist" would be too long-winded a moniker, and with record companies advising that a unifying name would be necessary for the marketplace, the group decided to adopt a catch-all name. Using their old label of Animal as inspiration they picked "Animal Collective". This formation was to be different from a straightforward band, giving the musicians the freedom to work in combinations of two to four, as dictated by the project at hand or their mood. Their first entry under this name was "Here Comes the Indian", which was released in 2003 by their newly formed record label, Paw Tracks, formed with Carpark Records' Todd Hyman. Animal Collective makes decisions on what Paw Tracks is to release, while Hyman runs the day-to-day operations. The group was happy to find someone like Hyman, who had experience running a label and was dedicated to the group's music; the Animal label was more or less abandoned upon the formation of Paw Tracks. "Here Comes the Indian" was the first record to feature all four of Animal Collective.


title: Animal Collective

text: After the two releases in 2003 attracted much attention, Black Dice introduced the group to the Fat Cat Records label which eventually ended up with the group beginning a relationship with their new admirers. The first Fat Cat release from the Collective was a double disc package of "Spirit They've Gone, Spirit They've Vanished" and "Danse Manatee."


title: Animal Collective

text: After the dense soundscapes of "Here Comes the Indian", Portner and Lennox decided to concentrate on more stripped-down material. Each of them began composing material and they performed as a duo usually with just acoustic guitars, a single drum, some effects and their voices. The duo toured the world for the better part of a year with this new material, opening for múm and Four Tet among others, before retreating to Lamar, Colorado to record the material with Rusty Santos, a New York musician and friend. The result was the 2004 album "Sung Tongs", released on Fat Cat Records, which received a favorable Pitchfork review.


title: Animal Collective

text: In the meantime, Brian Weitz returned from Arizona and he and Josh Dibb joined the duo again. All four started writing new songs together which finally ended up on their 2005 release "Feels". Animal Collective, as the duo of Panda Bear & Deakin (a.k.a. Noah's Ark), toured in Japan for the first time in February 2004 with Carpark Records' artists Greg Davis & Ogurusu Norihide. In early 2004, they started touring with their regular setlists including exclusively post-"Sung-Tongs" material, except for "We Tigers" and "Who Could Win a Rabbit?", which have been performed regularly up to the present. During their Europe tour, the group was introduced to Vashti Bunyan in Edinburgh, Scotland by Kieran Hebden (AKA Four Tet), who had recently played in Bunyan's band. Being fans of the cult folk singer's 1970 album "Just Another Diamond Day", the group had dinner with Bunyan and asked her to collaborate on some recordings. The group encouraged her to sing lead vocals on three songs left over from the "Sung Tongs" era, released on the "Prospect Hummer" EP in early 2005. Weitz, who had started a day job in early 2004, could not join this tour and therefore missed the recording session with Bunyan, but contributed one instrumental song to the EP.


title: Animal Collective

text: Spring of 2005 saw the group refining soon to be released "Feels" material while on tour"." The spring tour included performances at small to mid-sized venues such as BAR Nightclub in New Haven, Connecticut and the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. Colleges and universities throughout the northeast United States also held concerts, including Middlebury College, Bennington College and State University of New York at Purchase. Ariel Pink supported as an opening act for the tour and Animal Collective's sets were well received as the buzz around the band slowly increased.


title: Animal Collective

text: In October 2005, Animal Collective released their sixth studio album, "Feels", recorded in Seattle with Climax Golden Twins' Scott Colburn, known for his work with the Sun City Girls. Following the release of "Feels", Animal Collective mounted their most extensive tour, which lasted into the Fall of 2006 and saw them visit Australia and New Zealand for the first time in addition to many European festivals and North American dates, including a headline set in the Carling Tent at the Reading and Leeds festival. In the summer of 2006, Dibb's father died, which led to a show breakup after only two songs at Rock Herk Festival on July 15.


title: Animal Collective

text: In the late fall of 2006, Animal Collective released "People" in Australia as a 7" on their Australian label Spunk Records, and worldwide as a 12" and CD EP in early 2007 on FatCat Records. It contains three studio songs "People", "Tikwid", and "My Favorite Colors", as well as a live version of "People".


title: Animal Collective

text: In January 2007, Domino Recording Company announced that they would be releasing the new, then still unnamed, Animal Collective album. During the recording process in early 2007, Dibb announced via the Collected Animals forum that he would take a break from touring for a "myriad of personal reasons" until fall. Animal Collective performed live as a three-piece from that time until late 2009 with Deakin making his return to live performances in 2011.


title: Animal Collective

text: On July 4, 2007, "Strawberry Jam" was leaked online. The album was released in the U.S. on September 11, 2007, and received much acclaim and multiple accolades, including Album of the Year from "Pitchfork Media" and "Tiny Mix Tapes".


title: Animal Collective

text: The band toured extensively throughout 2007, completing several American and European tours. Beginning in May 2007 the band debuted a brand new batch of post-"Strawberry Jam" live songs. These songs were written in an intense two-week session before the tour, months before the release of "Strawberry Jam". On October 5, 2007, the band, in its full four-man line up (as opposed to its three-man lineup performances in 2007 and 2008) made their national television debut on Late Night with Conan O'Brien performing the song "#1" in support of "Strawberry Jam".


title: Animal Collective

text: On March 12, 2008, "Water Curses" EP leaked and was released on May 5, 2008. On April 9, the song "Water Curses" was released by itself digitally.


title: Animal Collective

text: In early 2008, sans Dibb, the collective entered the studio to record tracks for their eighth studio album. The album, entitled "Merriweather Post Pavilion" after the outdoor concert venue, was officially announced on the band's official website on October 5, 2008 and was released January 6, 2009. It became the band's most commercially successful album, peaking at number 13 on the US "Billboard" 200 and selling over 200,000 copies. The first single released from the album was "My Girls". The band set to tour throughout Europe and US in 2009, notably being one of the headlining acts at September's ATP New York Festival, where Lennox also performed a solo set as Panda Bear.


title: Animal Collective

text: Starting with their first tour dates in early 2009, the band introduced a new song, "What Would I Want? Sky". This song was also part of a BBC Session recording, and the May 2009 tour saw the debut of "Bleed" - both of these songs would later be included on their "Fall Be Kind" EP. On May 7, the band made their second television appearance, on the Late Show with David Letterman, performing the single "Summertime Clothes" from "Merriweather Post Pavilion". The appearance included the regular three-man lineup indicative of their 2007–2009 tours, which excluded Josh Dibb. Four dancers draped in sheets also appeared on-stage behind the band, a first in their live performances. The video accompanied the release of the single on July 7, 2009, also featuring remixes by Zomby (Hyperdub), Dâm-Funk (Stones Throw), and L.D. In an interview with Pitchfork Media, Portner announced the last single from the album would be "Brother Sport", which was released November 9 on vinyl with the live B-side "Bleeding".


title: Animal Collective

text: The release of the "Fall Be Kind" EP followed on December 8, which included "Merriweather" leftovers "Graze" and "I Think I Can", along with "What Would I Want? Sky", containing the first ever legal Grateful Dead sample. Also included were "On A Highway" and "Bleed".


title: Animal Collective

text: For four years, the band had been working on "ODDSAC", a visual record, with Danny Perez, who directed music videos for the band's "Who Could Win a Rabbit" and "Summertime Clothes" singles. The movie featured visuals which were developed and edited simultaneously with the music they recorded for it. Panda Bear stated they would like to "create a movie that would have visuals similar to what somebody would see if they closed their eyes while listening to Animal Collective's music". Weitz further added that "it's the most experimental stuff we've ever done." According to Portner, "Maybe here and there, in our minds, there's some weird narratives going on. The whole thing cohesively doesn't have one narrative; it's more of a visual or psychedelic thing. There are parts that are almost completely abstract, and there are parts that are little bit more live-action."


title: Animal Collective

text: The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival on January 26. "ODDSAC" was screened in theaters in North America and Europe in spring 2010, followed by a DVD release in August.


title: Animal Collective

text: In January 2010 LAS Magazine posted an article about alternative music financing that points out Deakin's initiative to have fans pay for a trip to perform at Africa's Festival in the Desert.


title: Animal Collective

text: Aside from touring New Zealand and Australia in December 2009, the band planned a break from their two years of touring to focus more on creating and writing music. On November 13, Panda Bear announced a small European tour of his solo material in early 2010.


title: Animal Collective

text: On March 4, 2010, Animal Collective collaborated once again with Danny Perez in the audio-visual performance piece "Transverse Temporal Gyrus" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, celebrating its 50th anniversary. Two years later, it was announced that a collage of studio and live recordings of music from the project would be released as a 12" vinyl LP on April 21 for Record Store Day 2012.


title: Animal Collective

text: During several interviews in the second half of 2010, Lennox and Portner mentioned plans for Animal Collective's next album, including writing all together in the same location and the possibility of recording the new songs before taking them on tour, neither of which had happened for a long time. Portner revealed in October that the band would soon be moving back to Baltimore to write music there.


title: Animal Collective

text: Near the end of October 2010, All Tomorrow's Parties announced that Animal Collective would be curating and headlining their UK festival in May 2011. It was confirmed in late November 2010 that Deakin would be rejoining the group for this show as well as the rest of the shows of their new tour. Before starting their first European tour of 2011, all four members of the band had a short tour of California leading up to an appearance at the Coachella Music Festival. At the shows, the band mostly played their newly written songs that were yet to be recorded.


title: Animal Collective

text: On April 18 it was announced that Animal Collective would have a concert on July 9, 2011, at Merriweather Post Pavilion, the namesake of their eighth studio album.


title: Animal Collective

text: During this period, the members of Animal Collective were invited by Maryland Film Festival to share a favorite film with an audience. On the evening of May 6, 2011, Avey Tare, Geologist, and Deakin presented a rare 35mm print of the 1983 Shaw Brothers production "The Boxer's Omen" in the historic Charles Theatre, and noted that another favorite film of the group was "House".


title: Animal Collective

text: Portner, in an interview for Madison, revealed that they had just finished writing sessions and that they intended to start full recording sessions in January 2012 for the next album. "We just finished another two weeks of writing sessions and put together five new songs," he said, noting that the crew planned to begin full recording sessions in January. "We're really excited about this record ... and it's been really fun jamming with those guys again." On May 6, 2012, they announced the release of a 7" through Domino Records, entitled "Honeycomb" / "Gotham". Both tracks were immediately made available to stream through their website. One week later, Animal Collective released a video on their website indicating that a new album, "Centipede Hz", would be released in September 2012.


title: Animal Collective

text: On September 1, 2015, the band announced a live album, titled "", released as a limited 3 disc LP and on digital platforms on September 4, 2015.


title: Animal Collective

text: On July 15, 2015, EastWest Studios announced that the band had finished recording a new album in their Studio 3 room. On November 25, the album was reportedly named "Painting With", and debuted over the speakers of Baltimore-Washington International Airport, playing on loop until the evening. Tare confirmed that "FloriDada", the impending single from the album, would be released on November 30. The album was released in February 2016. On November 16, the band released "Mountain Game", a song that was rejected for the "Red Dead Redemption" soundtrack.


title: Animal Collective

text: On February 14, 2017, the band announced the release of "The Painters EP" later that week on the 17th. It features two songs recorded during the "Painting With" sessions, as well as two songs recorded for the EP, "Kinda Bonkers" and a cover of Martha and The Vandellas' "Jimmy Mack".


title: Animal Collective

text: On March 21, the band announced via their Instagram page their plans to release the "Meeting of the Waters" EP on Record Store Day 2017. It was recorded live in Brazil by Avey Tare and Geologist in 2016. The process of recording this EP was featured on the first episode of "Earthworks" on Viceland.


title: Animal Collective

text: On March 19, 2018, Animal Collective announced a tour where Portner and Lennox would be playing 2004's "Sung Tongs" in full. This was following a performance in 2017 for Pitchfork's 21st birthday where the duo also played the album live, and a two-night residency at the Music Box in New Orleans where Portner, Dibb, and Weitz played "site-specific music" with three accompanying musicians.


title: Animal Collective

text: On July 16, 2018, the band announced a new audiovisual album, "Tangerine Reef", which was released on August 17, 2018.


title: Animal Collective

text: The group featuring all four members embarked on a short tour in late 2019 performing new material. Production of a new album with all members participating began in early 2020 but was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Work resumed later in the year, done remotely from the member's respective homes, with a goal of a 2021 release date.


title: Animal Collective

text: In 2020, a collection of archival live recordings from 2001 and 2002, "2 Nights", was released on the band's Bandcamp page in June. The records' profits were donated to Climate Justice Alliance and Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. On July 2, the group announced a digital reissue of the majority of their back catalogue to Bandcamp, alongside the release of a new EP, "Bridge to Quiet". Along with the reissue of their back catalogue, the band officially changed the cover of "People" to remove the 'mammy' and changed the name of "Here Comes the Indian" to "Ark".


title: Animal Collective

text: Animal Collective (specifically members Deakin and Geologist) contributed the soundtrack for Marnie Ellen Hertzler's debut film "Crestone".


title: Animal Collective

text: On October 20, 2021, the group announced their fourteenth album, "Time Skiffs", released on February 4, 2022, via longtime label, Domino. The announcement corresponded with the release of the official music video of the album's lead single, "Prester John". The band later released the singles "Walker" and "Strung With Everything", with the latter accompanied by a music video created by band member Avey Tare's sister, Abby Portner. The final single to be released was "We Go Back".


title: Animal Collective

text: Portner, Lennox, Weitz, and Dibb began as lo-fi indie rock musicians who, by high school, had amassed individual bodies of work recorded on cassette tapes. Influenced by horror film soundtracks and 20th century classical music, along with a shared passion for vocal harmony the group progressed to "walls of drones with guitars and delay pedals and us screaming into mics," in Portner's words. In college, Weitz and Portner listened to avant-garde records while Lennox explored electronic music, a style he took interest in after listening to The Orb's "UFOrb" (1992) in boarding school. When the group (sans Dibb) convened in 2000 after the recording of "Spirit They've Gone, Spirit They've Vanished", they conducted improvisational music sessions which used vintage synthesizers, acoustic guitars and household objects. In 2005, Lennox spoke of it as a defining era: "everything since then has been a variation of what we explored that summer." The following album, "Danse Manatee" (2001), would draw from freak folk, noise rock, ambient drone, and psychedelia. Genres that have been used to label the band include experimental pop, psychedelic, electronic, experimental, indie rock, avant-pop, art rock, freak folk, noise pop, , and psychedelic pop.


title: Animal Collective

text: It sounds kind of lame, but we're all really big fans of animals. At the time, we were thinking along the lines of animals as beings that act purely instinctually ... kind of the opposite of a "collective" in that way. Musically, it was about not making decisions based on knowledge or reason. We wanted to work with music on an emotional level, not on an intellectual level. That's where it comes from.


title: Animal Collective

text: Lennox compared Portner's songwriting to the songwriting of Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham. Portner believes they're "one of the greatest ... in terms of older bands or pop bands ... a song like 'That's All for Everyone' is really influential to me. ... It blew me away the first time I heard it." For "Centipede Hz" (2012), Weltz created an "inspirational mix" of songs which influenced the album's making; the playlist included content by Pink Floyd, Portishead, We the People, Milton Nascimento, Zé Ramalho, Eddie & Ernie, Gandalf, Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes, Silver Apples, Dorothy Ashby, 13th Floor Elevators, Apryl Fool, and others.


title: Animal Collective

text: Animal Collective are often compared to American rock band the Beach Boys, a vocal group who performed original songs penned by their co-founder and leader Brian Wilson, himself inspired by barbershop music and his use of psychedelic drugs. The comparisons led Thorin Klosowski of the publication "Westword" to negatively refer to Animal Collective's music as "two Beach Boys records [playing] at the same time". Animal Collective responded to the initial comparisons by recording "College", an "anti-Beach Boys" song from the album "Sung Tongs". Lennox has expressed reverence for their album "Pet Sounds" (1966) and reluctance on being compared to the Beach Boys. In 2015, Animal Collective recorded their album "Painting With" in the same studio space once used by Wilson for the recording of "Pet Sounds" and "Smile".


title: Cashback (film)

text: Cashback is a 2006 British romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Sean Ellis. Originally exhibited as a short in 2004, it was expanded to feature length in 2006. Both versions were produced by Lene Bausager, starring Sean Biggerstaff and Emilia Fox.


title: Cashback (film)

text: After a painful breakup with his girlfriend Suzy, art student Ben Willis develops insomnia. To take his mind off Suzy and to occupy the extra waking hours he has recently gained, Ben begins working at a local Sainsbury's supermarket, where he meets colourful co-workers. Among them is his colleague Sharon, with whom he soon develops a mutual crush. As his personal means to escape the boredom inherent in the night shift, Ben lets his imagination run wild. In particular, he imagines that he can stop time so that he can walk around in a world that is "frozen" like the pause of a film. He imagines female patrons of the supermarket stopped in time, allowing him to undress and draw them. Finally, the ability to stop time becomes real.


title: Cashback (film)

text: A series of flashbacks occur with each progression of the plot, accompanied by Ben's narration and an examination of the effect the situation had had upon him. He explains how he always has been impressed by the beauty of the female body: how he, as a young boy, witnessed a Swedish boarder walk naked from the shower to her room. In another flashback, the young Ben and his best friend Sean share Sean's discovery of his parents' adult magazines, and Sean pays a neighborhood girl called Natalie fifty pence to show him her vulva. Other neighborhood boys repeat this trade.


title: Cashback (film)

text: Ben's boss, Alan Jenkins, recruits the staff for a weekend football game and, after an embarrassing defeat, 26-Nil, Ben freezes time again. This time he discovers that he is not alone when he sees a mysterious stranger who is able to move inside the frozen world as he can. When Jenkins throws a party to honor his own birthday and as a consolation for their defeat, Sharon asks Ben to be her date, to which he eagerly but nervously agrees. While there, Ben encounters Natalie, who is now a stripper, as well as his ex-girlfriend Suzy, who implores him to try their relationship again. Ben refuses her advance, but she kisses him, just as Sharon witnesses from afar. Sharon angrily leaves the party. Ben realizes Sharon has seen the kiss and freezes time. After spending several days "frozen", Ben concludes that although he can stop time, he cannot reverse it to correct the mistake. He eventually seeks to explain himself to Sharon at her apartment, and a confrontation similar to the film-opening breakup occurs. Sharon henceforth does not show up to work at the supermarket.


title: Cashback (film)

text: As a practical joke, colleagues Barry and Matt phone Ben; Matt poses as an art gallery owner who is interested in displaying Ben's drawings and schedules an appointment for Ben to present more to him. When Ben arrives as agreed, the reaction of the owner quickly reveals that he has been pranked. However, the gallery owner is nonetheless interested in Ben's work and decides to exhibit Ben's drawings. Sharon receives an invitation to the exhibition and visits. She is moved as most of the pieces depict her and she happily greets Ben, congratulating him on his success. The finale occurs as Ben shares his ability to stop time with her and the two step outside into a time-frozen snowfall.


title: Cashback (film)

text: Originally exhibited as a short film in 2004, it was expanded to feature length in 2006. The feature film includes nearly all of the content of the short. Following a decision in December 2005 to proceed with the feature, Ellis completed the expanded script in seven days. After getting commitments from his cast in March he secured financing and the film went into production in May. This schedule was exceedingly condensed by modern film making standards. As all of the key players were available to appear in the feature, it was possible to incorporate the original short virtually without change.


title: Cashback (film)

text: The feature film uses an original score composed by Guy Farley including one piece, "Frozen" which featured on the Classic FM album, "The Quiet Room" in July 2006.


title: Cashback (film)

text: The feature had its North American premiere on September 10, 2006, at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was later screened at a number of other international festivals. The film got a limited theatrical release in the US on 17 July 2007 and in the UK May 2008. The DVD for the European region was released in September 2007. The UK DVD was released in September 2008.


title: Cashback (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, "Cashback" holds a score of 48% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 5.50/10. The consensus reads, "An unlikable protagonist, messy editing, and gratuitous nudity might make audiences ask for their cash back." In contrast, Justin Chang of "Variety" described it as "slickly charming, gently erotic and directed with supreme polish". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" said the film is "lightweight, as it should be", adding that Ben and Sharon "are delighted to be admired by such wonderful partners, and we are happy for them. And that's about it." Matt Seitz of "The New York Times" called the film a "crock", criticizing its "validation of Ben’s adolescent concept of beauty, its wafer-thin characterizations, its gorgeous but overwrought widescreen photography and its abundance of 'How did they do that?' trick shots." Steven Rea of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" gave the film three of four stars, calling it "a sleek little meditation on beauty, desire, love and time", but saying it "isn't as deep as it pretends to be." Scott Tobias of "The A.V. Club" graded the film as a "C−", noting its "luscious imagery" but ultimately calling it trite and unremarkable. Jeff Shannon of "The Seattle Times" gave the film a positive review, commending its account of love and its visual style. Ed Gonzalez of "Slant Magazine" gave a particularly negative review, criticizing it for misogyny and sexual objectification, adding that Ben is "just as skuzzily self-absorbed as his perpetually horny mates." Jim Ridley of "The Village Voice" said "[t]he movie is too cute by half, made close to unbearable whenever Ben's narration spews glib pseudo-profundities about memory and temporal stillness", while also complimenting some of its comic and visual elements. Desson Thomson of "The Washington Post" was also critical, describing Ben and Sharon's romance as uninventive and the film as shallow.


title: Cashback (film)

text: The short film won 14 awards at international film festivals and was nominated for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. After the nomination, it was a popular download from iTunes (US).


title: Tex Avery

text: Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator, cartoonist, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of American animation. His most significant work was for the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, where he was crucial in the creation and evolution of famous animated characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Droopy, Screwy Squirrel, The Wolf, Red Hot Riding Hood, and George and Junior.


title: Tex Avery

text: He gained influence for his technical innovation, directorial style and brand of humor. Avery's attitude toward animation was opposite that of Walt Disney and other conventional family cartoons at the time. Avery's cartoons were known for their sarcastic, ironic, absurdist, irreverent, and sometimes sexual tone in nature. Avery's cartoon focused on sight gags, surrealist humor, rapid pacing, racial stereotypes, and violent humor, with wacky characters that broke the fourth wall.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery was born to Mary Augusta "Jessie" (née Bean; 1886–1931) and George Walton Avery (1867–1935) in Taylor, Texas. His father was born in Alabama and his mother was born in Chickasaw County, Mississippi.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery, nicknamed "Tex", "Fred", and "Texas", was born and raised in Taylor, Texas, a small town in the vicinity of Austin. Avery graduated in 1926 from North Dallas High School. A popular catchphrase at his school was "What's up, doc?", which he later used for Bugs Bunny in the 1940s. Interested in becoming a newspaper cartoonist, he took a three-month summer course at the Chicago Art Institute but left after a month.


title: Tex Avery

text: On January 1, 1928, Avery arrived in Los Angeles. He spent the following months working in menial jobs. According to animation historian Michael Barrier, these jobs included working in a warehouse, working on the docks at night, loading fruits and vegetables, and painting cars. He began his animation career when hired by the Winkler studio (named after producer Margaret J. Winkler and later known as Screen Gems). He was only an inker, inking cels for animated short films in the "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" series (A character who had ironically been created by Walt Disney). Avery then moved to a new studio, Universal Cartoon Studios (later known as Walter Lantz Productions). He was again employed as an inker, but moved rapidly up the studio's hierarchy. By 1930, Avery had been promoted to the position of animator.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery continued working at the Walter Lantz Studio into the early 1930s. He worked on most of the "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" cartoons from 1931 to 1935. He is shown as "animator" on the original title card credits on the Oswald cartoons. He later claimed to have directed two cartoons during this time.


title: Tex Avery

text: During some office horseplay at the Lantz studio, a thumbtack or paper clip flew into Avery's left eye and caused him to lose sight in that eye. Some speculate it was his lack of depth perception that gave him his unique look at animation and bizarre directorial style, but it did not stop his creative career. The incident is described in some detail by Barrier, based in part on old interviews with Avery. Part of the typical crude horseplay at the Universal studio was using a rubber band or a paper spitball to target the back of a colleague's head. An animator called Charles Hastings decided to take the game one step further, by using a wire paper clip instead. Avery heard one of his colleagues telling him to look out. He reacted by turning around. Instead of the back of his head, the paper clip hit Avery in his left eye. He instantly lost the use of his eye.


title: Tex Avery

text: As an animator, Avery worked under director Bill Nolan. Nolan reportedly delegated work to Avery, whenever Avery had to animate a sequence. Nolan's instructions for a scene involving Oswald being chased by bees were reportedly simple. He would describe in which direction Oswald was running ("right to left") and for how many feet. The rest of the details were left up to Avery. Avery started handing out work to other animators working under Nolan.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery wanted still greater control over the creative process and served as a de facto director for a couple of films. Based on Avery's recollections, there is a description of how this happened. He was submitting sight gags for use in the short films. Some of them were used in the actual films, and some funny ones were left out. He wanted to somehow get all his gags in the finished film. So he asked Nolan to let him create the entire storyboard for a film. Nolan instructed Avery to not only draw the storyboard but to work on the timing and the layout on his own. Avery completed two films using this process. An older Avery recalled that both films "were terrible", though they got accepted for release.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery was reportedly displeased with his salary and had started giving up on his work. After about six weeks of substandard work, his superiors let him go. In April 1935, Avery lost his job at the Universal studio.


title: Tex Avery

text: Later in 1935, Avery applied for a job at Leon Schlesinger Productions (the company later known as Warner Bros. Cartoons). Avery reportedly managed to convince producer Leon Schlesinger that he was an experienced director, a false claim. In Avery's own words:


title: Tex Avery

text: By 1935, when Avery was hired, the Schlesinger studio had only two full-time, regular film directors: Friz Freleng and Jack King. Avery became the third regular director. The staff of the Schlesinger studio had become too large to be housed in a single building, at the Warner Bros. backlot in Sunset Boulevard. The new Avery unit of the studio was granted their own building, a five-room bungalow. The unit staff dubbed their quarters "Termite Terrace", due to its significant termite population. "Termite Terrace" later became the nickname for the entire Schlesinger/Warners studio, primarily because Avery and his unit were the ones who defined what became known as "the Warner Bros. cartoon."


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery was granted exclusive use of four animators: Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Sid Sutherland, and Virgil Ross. The first animated short film produced by this unit was "Gold Diggers of '49" (1935), the third "Looney Tunes" film starring Beans. Beans was also featured in the film's title card, signifying that he was the intended protagonist. The film had a Western setting and cast Beans as a gold miner. Also featured in the film was a redesigned Porky Pig, making his second appearance. The Avery unit was assigned to work primarily on the black-and-white "Looney Tunes" instead of the Technicolor "Merrie Melodies", but was allowed to make color "Merrie Melodies" beginning with "Page Miss Glory" from 1936.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery stopped using Beans following "Gold Diggers of '49", but continued using Porky as a star character. According to Michael Barrier, Beans was more of a straight man. However, Porky had to be redesigned again. The early Porky was decidedly "piglike" in appearance. In Michael Barrier's description: Porky was very fat, had small eyes, a large snout, and pronounced jowls. He was like a porcine version of Roscoe Arbuckle. Starting with "Porky the Rainmaker" (1936), his fourth animated short starring Porky, Avery introduced a cuter version of Porky. The new design gave Porky more prominent eyes and a smaller snout. The jowls were replaced by chubby cheeks. Porky's body now had a rounder shape; its defining trait was not fatness but softness. Barrier notes that the new design by Avery departed from the "Disneyish" realism in the previous drawing style. Porky became a less-realistic pig and looked more like a cartoon character.


title: Tex Avery

text: According to Martha Sigall, Avery was one of the few directors to visit the ink and paint department - she avers that he liked to see how his cartoons were turning out. He would answer questions and be always in good humor. When some of the artists humorously criticized the wild action in his animated shorts, Avery would take time to explain his rationale. He recalled that while working at Warner Bros., the animators had a great deal of liberty, and were subject to very little censorship of their work.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery, with the assistance of Clampett, Jones, and the new associate director Frank Tashlin, laid the foundation for a style of animation that rivaled The Walt Disney Studio as the leader in animated short films, and created a group of cartoon characters that are still known today. Avery, in particular, was deeply involved. He crafted gags for the shorts, and sometimes provided voices for them (including his trademark belly laugh) and held such control over the timing of the shorts that he would add or cut frames out of the final negative if he felt a gag's timing was not quite right.


title: Tex Avery

text: "Porky's Duck Hunt" (1937) introduced the character of Daffy Duck, who possessed a new form of "lunacy" and zaniness that had not been seen before in animated cartoons. Daffy was an almost completely crazy "darn fool duck" who frequently bounced around the film frame in double-speed, screaming "Hoo-hoo! hoo-hoo" in a high-pitched, sped-up voice provided by the voice artist Mel Blanc, who, with this cartoon, also took over providing the voice of Porky Pig. Avery directed two more Daffy Duck cartoons: "Daffy Duck & Egghead" and "Daffy Duck in Hollywood". Egghead was a character inspired by comedian Joe Penner and he first appeared in Avery's "Egghead Rides Again".


title: Tex Avery

text: "Little Red Walking Hood" first introduced the early character of Elmer Fudd as a character mostly taking part of some running gag. Elmer in this early form had green clothes, a brown bowler hat, and a pink nose. He was also named "Elmer" on the lobby cards for ""The Isle of Pingo Pongo"" (1938), his second appearance, "Cinderella Meets Fella" (1938), his third appearance, and was fully called "Elmer Fudd" on screen in ""A Feud There Was"" (1938), also his fourth appearance. Elmer even appears on early merchandise and in the early Looney Tunes books in 1938 and 1939 and was later promoted as "Egghead's Brother" on the Vitaphone Release Sheet for "Cinderella Meets Fella" due to the fact that Elmer was also voiced by Danny Webb in his Joe Penner voice that was also use for Egghead.


title: Tex Avery

text: Ben Hardaway, Cal Dalton, and Chuck Jones directed a series of shorts which featured a Daffy Duck-like rabbit, created by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway. As is the case with most directors, each puts his own personal stamp on the characters, stories and overall feel of a short. So, each of these cartoons treated the rabbit differently. The next to try out the rabbit, known around Termite Terrace as "Bug's bunny" (named after Hardaway), was Avery. Since the recycling of storylines among the directors was commonplace, "A Wild Hare" was a double throwback. Avery had directed the short "Porky's Duck Hunt" featuring Porky Pig, which also introduced Daffy Duck.


title: Tex Avery

text: Hardaway remade this as "Porky's Hare Hunt" introducing the rabbit. So Avery went back to the "hunter and prey" framework, incorporating Jones' "Elmer's Candid Camera" gag for gag and altering the new design of Elmer Fudd; polishing the timing, and expanding the Groucho Marx smart-aleck attitude already present in "Porky's Hare Hunt", making Bugs a kind of slick Brooklyn-esque rabbit who was always in control of the situation. Avery has stated that it was very common to refer to folks in Texas as "doc", much like "pal", "dude" or "bud". In "A Wild Hare", Bugs adopts this colloquialism when he casually walks up to Elmer, who is "hunting wabbits" and while carefully inspecting a rabbit hole, shotgun in hand, the first words out of Bugs' mouth is a coolly calm, "What's up, doc?" Audiences reacted riotously to the juxtaposition of Bugs' nonchalance and the potentially dangerous situation, and "What's up, doc?" instantly became the rabbit's catchphrase. Originally, Avery wanted Bugs Bunny to be called Jack E. Rabbit because he hunted for jack rabbits when he was a kid. Numerous suggestions for names came up, but publicist Rose Horsely liked the name that was on Thorson's model sheet, saying that it was cute and they'll "play it two ways". Avery argued on his stance for the name "Jack E. Rabbit" saying that "Mine's a rabbit! A tall, lanky, mean rabbit. He isn't a fuzzy little bunny." He also said the name Bugs Bunny sounded like a Disney character. Nevertheless, Schlesinger settled on the name Bugs Bunny.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery ended up directing only four Bugs Bunny cartoons: "A Wild Hare", "Tortoise Beats Hare", "The Heckling Hare" and "All This and Rabbit Stew,". During this period, he also directed a number of one-shot shorts, including travelogue parodies ("The Isle of Pingo Pongo", which is the second cartoon to feature an early character that evolved into Elmer Fudd), fractured fairy-tales ("The Bear's Tale"), Hollywood caricature films ("Hollywood Steps Out"), and cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny clones ("The Crackpot Quail").


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery's tenure at the Schlesinger studio ended in late 1941 when he and the producer quarreled over the ending to "The Heckling Hare". In Avery's original version, Bugs and the hunting dog were to fall off a cliff "three times", making it an early example of the wild take. According to a DVD commentary for the cartoon, the historian and animator Greg Ford explained that the problem Schlesinger had with the ending was that, just before falling off the third time, Bugs and the dog were to turn to the screen, with Bugs saying "Hold on to your hats, folks, here we go again!", a punchline to a potentially risqué joke of the day. However, Barrier uncovered a typewritten dialogue transcript of the cartoon that mentions the three falls at the end, but the "Hold on to your hats" line is absent, with the rest of the dialogue in the cartoon transcribed accurately, meaning that Avery either misremembered or embellished the story and Schlesinger made the cut not because of any risque content, but because he didn't think that it was funny that Avery was killing Bugs three times and the ending simply dragged on for too long. "The Hollywood Reporter" reported on the quarrel on July 2, 1941. Avery was slapped with a four-week, unpaid suspension.


title: Tex Avery

text: While at Schlesinger, Avery created a concept of animating lip movement to live-action footage of animals. Schlesinger was not interested in Avery's idea, so Avery approached Jerry Fairbanks, a friend of his who produced the "Unusual Occupations" series of short subjects for Paramount Pictures. Fairbanks liked the idea and the "Speaking of Animals" series of shorts was launched. When Avery left the Schlesinger studio in mid-1941, he went straight to Paramount to work on the first three shorts in the series before joining Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The series continued without him, lasting seven years.


title: Tex Avery

text: On September 2, 1941, the "Reporter" announced that Avery had signed a five-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he was to form his own animation unit and direct shorts in Technicolor. By 1942, Avery was in the employ of MGM, working in their cartoon division under the supervision of Fred Quimby. Avery felt that Schlesinger had stifled him. When asked if he missed the Looney Tunes characters, he responded: "Sometimes, but I don't miss anything else. MGM is a heck of a better place to work, in every way, and the people here are just as great."


title: Tex Avery

text: At MGM, Avery's creativity reached its peak. His cartoons became known for their sheer lunacy, breakneck pace, and a penchant for playing with the medium of animation and film in general that few other directors dared to approach. MGM also offered him larger budgets and a higher quality production level than the Warners studio; plus, his unit was filled with talented ex-Disney artists such as Preston Blair and Ed Love. These changes were evident in Avery's first short released by MGM, "Blitz Wolf", an Adolf Hitler parody of the "Three Little Pigs" story which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) in 1942. Avery's cartoons at MGM somewhat felt like Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons done during that same period at Warner Bros., albeit the Warners' series gained more popularity than Avery's MGM cartoons.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery's best known MGM character debuted in "Dumb-Hounded" (1943). Droopy (originally "Happy Hound") was a small, calm, slow-moving and slow-talking dog who always won out in the end, whatever difficulties he was presented with. He also created a series of risqué cartoons, beginning with "Red Hot Riding Hood" (also 1943), featuring a sexy female star who never had a set name but has been unofficially referred to as "Red" by fans. Her visual design and voice varied somewhat between shorts. Other Avery characters at MGM included Screwy Squirrel and the "Of Mice and Men"-inspired duo of George and Junior.


title: Tex Avery

text: Other MGM cartoons directed by Avery include "Bad Luck Blackie", "Cellbound", "Magical Maestro", "Lucky Ducky", "Ventriloquist Cat," and "King-Size Canary". Avery began his stint at MGM working with lush colors and realistic backgrounds, but he slowly abandoned this style for a more frenetic, less realistic approach. The newer, more stylized look reflected the influence of the up-and-coming UPA studio, the need to cut costs as budgets grew higher, and Avery's own desire to leave reality behind and make cartoons that were not tied to the real world of live-action. During this period, he made a series of films which explored the technology of the future: "The House of Tomorrow", "The Car of Tomorrow", "The Farm of Tomorrow," and "TV of Tomorrow" (spoofing common live-action promotional shorts of the time). He also introduced a slow-talking wolf character, who was the prototype for MGM associates Hanna-Barbera's Huckleberry Hound character, right down to the voice by Daws Butler.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery took a year's sabbatical from MGM beginning in 1950 (to recover from overwork), during which time Dick Lundy, recently arrived from the Walter Lantz studio, took over his unit and made one "Droopy" cartoon, as well as a string of shorts featuring Barney Bear. Avery returned to MGM in October 1951 and began working again. Avery's last two original cartoons for MGM were "Deputy Droopy" and "Cellbound", completed in 1953 and released in 1955. They were co-directed by the Avery unit animator Michael Lah. Lah began directing a handful of CinemaScope Droopy shorts on his own. On March 1, 1953, Avery's unit was given the axe and he was fired from MGM. Fred Quimby spoke of bringing back the unit, however, in December of that year, Walter Lantz announced that Avery would be working for him.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery's return to the Lantz studio did not last long. He directed four cartoons in 1954–1955: the shorts "Crazy Mixed Up Pup", "Sh-h-h-h-h-h", "I'm Cold," and "The Legend of Rockabye Point", in which he defined the character of Chilly Willy the penguin. Although "The Legend of Rockabye Point" and "Crazy Mixed Up Pup" were nominated for Academy Awards, Avery left Lantz over a salary dispute, effectively ending his career in theatrical animation. Avery left three new Chilly Willy storyboards which were later made into cartoons by Alex Lovy.


title: Tex Avery

text: He turned to animated television commercials at Cascade Studios, including the Raid ones of the 1950s through 1970s, in which cartoon insects, confronted by the bug killer, screamed "RAID!" and died flamboyantly, and Frito-Lay's controversial mascot, the Frito Bandito. Avery also produced ads for Kool-Aid fruit drinks starring the Looney Tunes characters he had once helped create during his Termite Terrace days. During the 1960s and 1970s, Avery became increasingly reserved and depressed due to the suicide of his son and the break-up of his marriage, although he continued to draw respect from his peers. After Cascade, he briefly animated commercials for his own company, Tex Avery Cartoons, from June to July 1973. His final employer was Hanna-Barbera Productions, where he wrote gags for Saturday morning cartoons such as the Droopy-esque "Kwicky Koala". According to an interview by John Dunn in his diary, Avery didn't like the late animation industry at the time, feeling that it lacked quality.


title: Tex Avery

text: Gary Morris described Avery's innovative approach:Above all, [Avery] steered the Warner Bros. house style away from Disney-esque sentimentality and made cartoons that appealed equally to adults, who appreciated Avery's speed, sarcasm, and irony, and to kids, who liked the nonstop action. Disney's "cute and cuddly" creatures, under Avery's guidance, were transformed into unflappable wits like Bugs Bunny, endearing buffoons like Porky Pig, or dazzling crazies like Daffy Duck. Even the classic fairy tale, a market that Disney had cornered, was appropriated by Avery, who made innocent heroines like Red Riding Hood into sexy jazz babes, more than a match for any Wolf. Avery also endeared himself to intellectuals by constantly breaking through the artifice of the cartoon, having characters leap out of the end credits, loudly object to the plot of the cartoon they were starring in, or speak directly to the audience.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery had developed a distinct, signature style at Warner Bros. Studio which had breakneck pacing, outlandish, over-the-top acting from his characters and seemingly non-stop jokes and gags. Avery's style of directing encouraged animators to stretch the boundaries of the medium to do things in a cartoon that could not be done in the world of a live-action film. An often-quoted line about Avery's cartoons was, "In a cartoon, you can do anything." He also performed a great deal of voice work in his cartoons, usually throwaway bits. He also occasionally filled in for Bill Thompson as Droopy.


title: Tex Avery

text: Two days after being fired from Universal in Spring 1935, Avery married his girlfriend, Patricia. She was also employed at Universal Studios, as an inker. The newlyweds spent a long honeymoon in Oregon, but had to return to Los Angeles when they ran out of money.


title: Tex Avery

text: On Tuesday, August 26, 1980, Avery died of lung cancer at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, California at the age of 72. At the time of his death, he was developing a character named "Cave Mouse" for a new "Flintstones" series. His last words according to Chuck Jones, when watching a baseball game with another animator, were "I don’t know where animators go when they die, but I guess there must be a lot of them. They could probably use a good director though". He is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery's influence can be seen in modern cartoons such as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", "The Ren & Stimpy Show", "Animaniacs", "The Mask", and "SpongeBob SquarePants". An Avery-esque cowboy character bore his name in the otherwise unrelated series "The Wacky World of Tex Avery". Avery's work has been featured on shows such as "The Tex Avery Show" and "Cartoon Alley".


title: Tex Avery

text: In the mid-1990s, Dark Horse Comics released a trio of three-issue miniseries that were openly labeled tributes to Avery's MGM cartoons, "Wolf & Red", "Droopy" and "Screwy Squirrel", which other characters make appearances in the comics such as "George and Junior", "Spike", and the one-shot characters. Tex Avery, unlike most Warner Bros. directors, kept many original title frames of his cartoons, several otherwise lost due to Blue Ribbon Reissues. Rare prints and art containing original titles and unedited animation from Avery's MGM and Warner Bros. cartoons are now usually sold on eBay or in the collections of animators and cartoon enthusiasts. In 2008, France issued three postage stamps honoring Tex Avery for his 100th birthday, depicting Droopy, the redheaded showgirl, and the wolf.


title: Tex Avery

text: All of his MGM shorts were released in a North American MGM/UA laserdisc set called "The Compleat Tex Avery". While two cartoons on the set were edited versions, these being the blackface gags in "Droopy's Good Deed" and "Garden Gopher", others, including the controversial "Uncle Tom's Cabaña" and "Half-Pint Pygmy" were included intact (although these were removed from the Region 2 DVD release, now out of print). Several of his cartoons were released on VHS, in four volumes of "Tex Avery's Screwball Classics", two VHS Droopy collections, and various inclusions on MGM animation collection releases, with many gags edited out for television showings left in.


title: Tex Avery

text: Avery's Droopy cartoons are available on the DVD set "Tex Avery's Droopy: The Complete Theatrical Collection". The seven Droopy cartoons produced in CinemaScope were included here in their original widescreen versions (letter-boxed), instead of the pan and scan versions regularly broadcast on television.


title: Tex Avery

text: Also, some of his works could be found on home video releases (from VHS to Blu-ray) of Warner Bros.' "Merrie Melodies" and "Looney Tunes" shorts, and the same is true of his few Lantz Studio cartoons included in the DVD set "The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection".


title: Tex Avery

text: In February 2020, Warner Archive released "Tex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 1" on Blu-ray containing 19 of his MGM cartoons. The shorts are not presented in chronological order, because according to Jerry Beck, most of MGM's pre-1951 cartoons had their original negatives destroyed in a 1965 vault fire – causing massive difficulties in terms of restoration. However, using the best surviving archival elements, all 19 shorts on the set have been digitally restored in HD and are presented completely uncut. In March 2020, Warner Archive announced they were working on "Tex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 2", which was released in December 2020 and contained 21 restored and uncut shorts as well as "Tex Avery: The King of Cartoons" – an archival documentary as a special feature. "Volume 3" was released on October 5, 2021- with an additional 20 uncut restored cartoons with the Avery directed "Merrie Melodies" short, "The Crackpot Quail", as a bonus feature- restored with its original 1941 soundtrack.


title: Superman: The Animated Series

text: Superman: The Animated Series (often shortened as STAS) is an American superhero animated television series based on the DC Comics character Superman. It was produced by Warner Bros. Animation and originally aired on Kids' WB from September 6, 1996 to February 12, 2000. It was the second series in the DC Animated Universe after "", and like its predecessor it has been acclaimed for its thematic complexity, quality animation and writing, faithfulness to the source material, voice acting, maturity and modernization of the title character's comic-book mythos.


title: Superman: The Animated Series

text: Premiering ten years after the 1986 reboot of the Superman comic-book character, the animated series paid tribute to both the classic Superman of old and the newer "modern" Superman. For instance, the depiction of Krypton reflects the older idealized version in the Silver Age of Comic Books. The scope of Superman's powers reflects the more restrained contemporary concept as developed by John Byrne, in that the superhero has to struggle to perform spectacular feats. However, Clark Kent is shown to be open, if quietly, self-confident, without jeopardizing his secrets. This is similar to the depiction of Batman's alter-ego, Bruce Wayne, in "Batman: The Animated Series".


title: Superman: The Animated Series

text: Midway through the series' run, it was combined with "The New Batman Adventures" to become "The New Batman/Superman Adventures". The characters of Superman and Batman were then spun off into a new animated series, "Justice League". This series also featured other popular DC Comics characters, including Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Hawkgirl. It spawned a sequel series entitled "Justice League Unlimited".