title: Lingayatism

text: The origins of Lingayatism is traced to the 11th- and 12th-century CE in a region that includes northern Karnataka and nearby districts of South India. This region was a stronghold of Jainism and Shaivism. According to Iyer and other scholars, the Lingayatism theology emerged as a definitive egalitarian movement in this theological milieu, growing rapidly beyond north Karnataka. The Lingayats, states Burjor Avari quoting Jha, were "extremely anti-Jain". The Veerashaiva philosophy enabled Lingayats to "win over the Jains to Shiva worship". The Lingayats were also anti-Brahmin as evidenced by the polemics against the Brahmins in early Veerashaiva literature.


title: Lingayatism

text: According to a tradition which developed after Basava's time, "Veerashaivism" was transmitted by five "Panchacharyas", namely Renukacharya, Darukacharya, Ekorama, Panditharadhya, and Vishweswara, and first taught by Renukacharya to sage Agasthya, a Vedic seer. A central text in this tradition is Siddhanta Shikhamani, which was written in Sanskrit, and gives an elaboration of "the primitive traits of Veerashaivism [found] in the Vedas and the Upanishads" and "the concrete features given to it in the latter parts (Uttarabhaga) of the Saivagamas." While Veerashaivas regard the "Siddhanta Shikhamani" to predate Basava, it may actually have been composed in the 13th or 14th century, post-dating Basava.


title: Lingayatism

text: According to Gauri Lankesh, "Lingayats are followers of Basavanna," while Veerashaivism is a Vedic Shaiva tradition, which "accepts the Vedic text." Basava's reform movement attracted Shaivite Brahmins from Andhra Pradesh; a century after Basava, "their descendants started mixing practices from their former religion with Lingayatism." Basava's teachings also got mixed-up with Vedic teachings because much sharana literature was lost after the exile of sharana authors from the Bijjala kingdom.


title: Lingayatism

text: According to Gauri Lankesh, Veerashaivism is preserved and transmitted by five peethas (Rambhapuri, Ujjaini, Kedar, Shreeshail, Kashi), which play an essential role in the Veerashaiva tradition. In contrast, the monastic organisation upheld "the ideals of Basava and his contemporaries." According to Bairy, the tradition criticised "[t]he Panchacharya tradition, the Mathas which belonged to it and the (upper) castes which owed their allegiance to them" for their support of Brahmins and their deviation from Basava's ideals.


title: Lingayatism

text: According to Sri Sharanbasava Devaru of Charanteshwar Mutt, interviewed in 2013, Lingayatism is a separate religion, distinct from the Hindu cultural identity, while Veerashaivism is a Shaivite sect "based on Vedic philosophy." Sri Sharanbasava Devaru further states that Veerashaivism "started gaining importance only after 1904 with some mutts mixing Veerashaivism with Lingayatism."


title: Lingayatism

text: According to "India Today", while "Veerashaivas' claim that the two communities are one and the same," orthodox Lingayats claim that they are different. Lingayats claim that Veerashaivas do not truly follow Basava, accept Vedic literature, and "worship idols of Lord Shiva." Veerashaivas further "owe allegiance to various religious centres (mutts), [while] the Lingayats mostly follow their own gurus."


title: Lingayatism

text: The Sharana-movement, which started in the 11th century, is regarded by some as the start of Veerashaivism. It started in a time when Kalamukha Shaivism, which was supported by the ruling classes, was dominant, and in control of the monasteries. The Sharana-movement was inspired by the Nayanars, and emphasised personal religious experience over text-based dogmatism.


title: Lingayatism

text: The traditional legends and hagiographic texts state Basava to be the founder of the Lingayats and its secular practices. He was a 12th-century Hindu philosopher, statesman, Kannada poet in the Shiva-focused Bhakti movement and a social reformer during the reign of the Kalachuri king Bijjala II (reigned 1157–1167) in Karnataka, India.


title: Lingayatism

text: Basava grew up in a Brahmin family with a tradition of Shaivism. As a leader, he developed and inspired a new devotional movement named "Virashaivas", or "ardent, heroic worshippers of Shiva". This movement shared its roots in the ongoing Bhakti movement, particularly the Shaiva Nayanars traditions, over the 7th- to 11th-century. However, Basava championed devotional worship that rejected temple worship with rituals led by Brahmins, and emphasized personalised direct worship of Shiva through practices such as individually worn icons and symbols like a small linga.


title: Lingayatism

text: Basavanna spread social awareness through his poetry, popularly known as "Vachanaas". Basavanna rejected gender or social discrimination, and caste distinctions, as well as some extant practices such as the wearing of sacred thread, and replaced this with the ritual of wearing "Ishtalinga" necklace, with an image of the Shiva Liṅga, by every person regardless of his or her birth, to be a constant reminder of one's bhakti (loving devotion) to god Shiva. As the chief minister of his kingdom, he introduced new public institutions such as the "Anubhava Mantapa" (or, the "hall of spiritual experience"), which welcomed men and women from all socio-economic backgrounds to discuss spiritual and mundane questions of life, in open.


title: Lingayatism

text: After initially supporting Basava, king Bijjala II disagreed with Basava's rejection of caste distinctions. In 1167 the Veerashaivas were repressed, and most of them left Kalyāna, Bijjala's new capital, spreading Basava's teachings into a wider area in southern India. The king was assassinated by the Veerashaivas in 1168.


title: Lingayatism

text: After Basava's death, Shaivism consolidated its influence in southern India, meanwhile adjusting to Hindu orthodoxy. Basava's nephew Channabasava organised the community and systematised Virasaiva theology, moving the Virashaiva community toward the mainstream Hindu culture. Basava's role in the origins of Shaivism was downplayed, and a mythology developed in which the origins of Veerashaivism were attributed to the five Panchacharyas, descending to earth in the different world-ages to teach Shaivism. In this narrative, Basava was regarded as a reviver of this ancient teaching.


title: Lingayatism

text: Monasteries of the older Saiva schools, "such as the Kalamukha," were taken over by the Virasaivas. Two kinds of monastic orders developed. Due to their roots in the traditional schools, the "gurusthalada" monasteries were more conservative, while the "viraktas" "constituted the true Virasaiva monastic organisation, shaped by the ideals of Basava and his contemporaries."


title: Lingayatism

text: In the 14th-15th century, a Lingayat revival took place in northern Karnataka in the Vijayanagara Empire. The Lingayats likely were a part of the reason why Vijayanagara succeeded in territorial expansion and in withstanding the Deccan Sultanate wars. The Lingayat text "Sunyasampadane" grew out of the scholarly discussions in an Anubhava Mantapa, and according to Bill Aitken, these were "compiled at the Vijayanagara court during the reign of Praudha Deva Raya". Similarly, the scripture of Lingayatism "Basava Purana" was completed in 1369 during the reign of Vijayanagara ruler Bukka Raya I.


title: Lingayatism

text: The Virasaivas were an important part of the Vijayanagara empire army. They fought the Bijapur Sultans, and the Virasaiva leader Sadasiva Nayaka played a key role in leading the capture of Sultanate fortress such as at Gulbarga. This success led to Nayaka being appointed as the governor of the coastal Karnataka Kanara region. This emerged as a Lingayat dynasty, called the Nayakas of Keladi. Another group of Virasaivas merchants turned warriors of the Vijayanagara empire were successful in defeating the Deccan Sultanates in the Lepakshi region (Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh border region). After the collapse of the Vijayanagara empire, the Lingayat Keladi/Ikkeri dynasty ruled the coastal Karnataka till the invasion and their defeat by Hyder Ali seeking a Mysore-based Sultanate.


title: Lingayatism

text: The Virasaiva dynasty Nayaka rulers built major 16th to 18th-century shrines and seminaries of Lingayatism, repaired and built new Hindu and Jain temples, sponsored major Hindu monasteries such as the Advaita Sringeri matha as well as forts and temples such as at Chitradurga. They also started new towns and merchant centres in coastal and interior Karnataka.


title: Lingayatism

text: In early decades of the 19th century, the Lingayats were described by British officials such as Francis Buchanan as a conglomeration of Hindu castes with enormous diversity and eclectic, egalitarian social system that accepted converts from all social strata and religions. However, the British officials also noted the endogamous tradition and hereditary occupations of many Lingayats, which made their classification difficult. In the 1871 and the 1881 colonial era census of British India, Lingayats were listed as "shudras". According to the sociologist M. N. Srinivas, Lingayats traditionally believed themselves to be equal in status to Brahmins, and some orthodox Lingayats were so anti-Brahmin that they would not eat food cooked or handled by Brahmins. The egalitarian Lingayats, states Srinivas, had been a major force in Sanskritization of Kannada-speaking (Karnataka) and nearby regions but against elitism.


title: Lingayatism

text: After being placed in the shudra category in the 1881 census, Lingayats demanded a higher caste status. This was objected and ridiculed by a Brahmin named Ranganna who said that Lingayats were not Shaiva Brahmins given their eclectic occupations that included washermen, traders, farmers and others, as well as their exogamous relationships with the royal family. Lingayats persisted in their claims for decades, and their persistence was strengthened by Lingayat presence within the government, and a growing level of literacy and employment in journalism and the judiciary. In 1926, the Bombay High Court ruled that "the Veerashaivas are not Shudras."


title: Lingayatism

text: According to Schouten, in the early 20th century Lingayats tried to raise their social status, by stressing the specific characteristics of their history and of their religious thought as being distinctive from the Brahmin-dominated Hindu-culture. In the 1910s, the narrative of Basava and Allama as the "founding pillars" of the Lingayats gained new importance for the identity of parts of the Lingayat-community, with other parts responded with rejection of this "resurrection."


title: Lingayatism

text: According to Ramanujan, "A modern attempt was made to show Lingayats as having a religion separate from Hindu when Lingayats received discrete entry in the Indian constitution of 1950." Individuals and community leaders have made intermittent claims for the legal recognition of either being distinct from Hinduism or a caste within Hinduism.


title: Lingayatism

text: In 2000, the "Akhila Bharatha [All India] Veerashaiva Mahasabha" started a campaign for recognition of "Veerashaivas or Lingayats" as a non-Hindu religion, and a separate listing in the Census. Recognition as a religious minority would make Lingayats "eligible for rights to open and manage educational institutions given by the Constitution to religious and linguistic minorities." In 2013, the "Akhila Bharatha [All India] Veerashaiva Mahasabha" president was still lobbying for recognition of Lingayatism as a separate religion, arguing that Lingayatism rejects the social discrimination propagated by Hinduism.


title: Lingayatism

text: In 2017, the demands for a separate religious identity gained further momentum on the eve of the 2018 elections in Karnataka. While the Congress party supports the calls for Lingayatism as a separate religion, the BJP regards Lingayats as Veerashaivas and Hindus. In August 2017, a rally march supporting Lingayatism as "not Hinduism" attracted almost 200,000 people, while the issue further divides the Lingayat and Veerashaiva communities, and various opinions exist within the Lingayat and Veerashaiva communities. According to India Today, "Veerashaivas claim that the two communities are one and the same," while orthodox Lingayats claim that they are different. Veerashaivas further "owe allegiance to various religious centres (mutts), [while] the Lingayats mostly follow their own gurus." Nevertheless, some mutts support the campaign for the status of a separate religion, while "others content to be counted as a caste within Hinduism."


title: Lingayatism

text: In March 2018, the Nagamohan Das committee advised "to form a separate religion status for the Lingayats community." In response, the Karnataka government approved this separate religious status, a decision which was decried by Veerashaivas. It recommended the Indian government to grant the religious minority status to the sect. Central NDA government does not took any decision on this. This is on hold status.


title: Lingayatism

text: Lingayatism is often considered a Hindu sect. because it shares beliefs with Indian religions, and "their [Lingayats] beliefs are syncretistic and include an assemblage of many Hindu elements, including the name of their god, Shiva, who is one of the chief figures of the Hindu pantheon." Its worship is centred on Hindu god Shiva as the universal god in the iconographic form of "Ishtalinga". They believe that they will be reunited with Shiva after their death by wearing the "lingam".


title: Lingayatism

text: Lingayat worship is centred on the Hindu god Shiva as the universal supreme being in the iconographic form of "Ishtalinga". The Lingayats always wear the "Ishtalinga" held with a necklace. The Istalinga is made up of small blue-black stone coated with fine durable thick black paste of cow dung ashes mixed with some suitable oil to withstand wear and tear. The "Ishtalinga" is a symbolism for Lord Shiva. It is viewed as a "living, moving" divinity with the Lingayat devotee. Every day, the devotee removes this personal linga from its box, places it in left palm, offers puja and then meditates about becoming one with the linga, in his or her journey towards the "atma-linga".


title: Lingayatism

text: Lingayatism teaches a path to an individual's spiritual progress, and describes it as a six-stage "Satsthalasiddhanta". This concept progressively evolves:


title: Lingayatism

text: Thus bhakti progresses from external icon-aided loving devotional worship of Shiva to deeper fusion of awareness with abstract Shiva, ultimately to advaita (oneness) of one's soul and god for "moksha".


title: Lingayatism

text: While they accept the concept of transmigration of soul (metempsychosis, reincarnation), they believe that Lingayats are in their last lifetime, and believe that will be reunited with Shiva after their death by wearing the "lingam". Lingayats are not cremated, but "are buried in a sitting, meditative position, holding their personal linga in the right hand."


title: Lingayatism

text: Indologist F. Otto Schrader was among early scholars who studied Lingayat texts and its stand on metempsychosis. According to Schrader, it was Abbe Dubois who first remarked that Lingayatism rejects metempsychosis – the belief that the soul of a human being or animal transmigrates into a new body after death. This remark about "rejecting rebirth" was repeated by others, states Schrader, and it led to the question whether Lingayatism is a religion distinct from other Indian religions such as Hinduism where metempsychosis and rebirth is a fundamental premise. According to Schrader, Dubois was incorrect and Lingayat texts such as "Viramahesvaracara-samgraha", "Anadi-virasaivasara-samgraha", "Sivatattva ratnakara" (by Basava), and "Lingait Paramesvara Agama" confirm that metempsychosis is a fundamental premise of Lingayatism. According to Schrader, Lingayats believe that if they live an ethical life then this will be their last life, and they will merge into Shiva, a belief that has fed the confusion that they do not believe in rebirth. According to R. Blake Michael, rebirth and ways to end rebirth was extensively discussed by Basava, Allama Prabhu, Siddharameshawar and other religious saints of Lingayatism.


title: Lingayatism

text: "Shunya", in a series of Kannada language texts, is equated with the Virashaiva concept of the Supreme. In particular, the "Shunya Sampadane" texts present the ideas of Allama Prabhu in a form of dialogue, where "shunya" is that void and distinctions which a spiritual journey seeks to fill and eliminate. It is the described as state of union of one's soul with the infinite Shiva, the state of blissful moksha.


title: Lingayatism

text: This Lingayat concept is similar to "shunya Brahma" concept found in certain texts of Vaishnavism, particularly in Odiya, such as the poetic "Panchasakhas". It explains the "Nirguna Brahman" idea of Vedanta, that is the eternal unchanging metaphysical reality as "personified void". Alternate names for this concept of Hinduism, include "shunya purusha" and "Jagannatha" in certain texts. However, both in Lingayatism and various flavors of Vaishnavism such as "Mahima Dharma", the idea of "Shunya" is closer to the Hindu concept of metaphysical "Brahman", rather than to the "Śūnyatā" concept of Buddhism. However, there is some overlap, such as in the works of Bhima Bhoi.


title: Lingayatism

text: Sripati, a Veerashaiva scholar, explained Lingayatism philosophy in "Srikara Bhashya", in Vedanta terms, stating Lingayatism to be a form of qualified non-dualism, wherein the individual Atman (soul) is the body of God, and that there is no difference between Shiva and Atman (self, soul), Shiva is one's Atman, one's Atman is Shiva. Sripati's analysis places Lingayatism in a form closer to the 11th century Vishishtadvaita philosopher Ramanuja, than to Advaita philosopher Adi Shankara.


title: Lingayatism

text: Other scholars state that Lingayatism is more complex than the description of the Veerashaiva scholar Sripati. It united diverse spiritual trends during Basava's era. Jan Peter Schouten states that it tends towards monotheism with Shiva as the godhead, but with a strong awareness of the monistic unity of the Ultimate Reality. Schouten calls this as a synthesis of Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita and Shankara's Advaita traditions, naming it "Shakti-Vishishtadvaita", that is monism fused with Shakti beliefs. But Basava's approach is different than Adi Shankara, states Schouten, in that Basava emphasises the path of devotion, compared to Shankara's emphasis on the path of knowledge—a system of monistic Advaita philosophy widely discussed in Karnataka in the time of Basava.


title: Lingayatism

text: The "Panchacharas" describe the five codes of conduct to be followed by the Lingayats. The "Panchacharas" include:


title: Lingayatism

text: The "Ashtavaranas", the eight-fold armour that shields the devotee from extraneous distraction and worldly attachments. The "Ashtavaranas" include:


title: Lingayatism

text: "Kayakave kailasa" is a slogan in Veerashaivism. It means "work is heaven" or "to work ["Kayakave"] is to be in the Lord's Kingdom ["Kailasa"]". Some scholars translate "Kayaka" as "worship, ritual", while others translate it as "work, labour". The slogan is attributed to Basava, and generally interpreted to signify a work ethic for all social classes.


title: Lingayatism

text: Lingayat poet-saints accepted the concept of "karma" and repeatedly mention it in their Shiva poetry. For example, states Ramanujan, Mahadeviyakka mentions karma and resulting chain of rebirths that are cut short by bhakti to Shiva. Lingayatism has the concepts of karma and dharma, but the Lingayatism doctrine of karma is not one of fate and destiny. Lingayats believe in "kayaka" (work) and the transformative potential of "one's work in the here and now". According to Schouten, Siddharama and Allama debated the doctrine of karma as the law of work and merit, but Allama persuaded Siddharama that such merit is a low-level mechanism, and real mystical achievement transcends "the sphere of works and rewards" and is void of self-interest. These ideas, states Schouten, are similar to those found in Bhagavad Gita which teaches "work must be done without any attachment to the results".


title: Lingayatism

text: "Dasoha" is the purpose and result of "Kāyakavē Kailāsa" in Lingayatism. "Dasoha" means "service", and more specifically "service to other Lingayats" including the "Jangama". Regardless of one's vocation, Lingayatism suggests giving and donating a part of one's time, effort and income to one's community and to religious mendicants.


title: Lingayatism

text: According to Virasaivism, skilful work and service to one's community, without discrimination, is a means to experiencing the divine, a sentiment that continues to be revered in present-day Virasaivas. According to Jan Peter Schouten, this doctrine is philosophically rooted in the more ancient So'ham Sanskrit oneness mantra related to Shiva, and which means "I am He". This social ethic is also found among other Hindu communities of South India, and includes community provisioning of grains and sharing other essentials particularly with poorer members of society and those affected by natural or other disasters.


title: Lingayatism

text: "Lingadharane" is the ceremony of initiation among Lingayats. Though "lingadharane" can be performed at any age, it is usually performed when a fetus in the womb is 7–8 months old. The family Guru performs pooja and provides the ishtalinga to the mother, who then ties it to her own ishtalinga until birth. At birth the mother secures the new ishtalinga to her child. Upon attaining the age of 8–11 years, the child receives "Diksha" from the family Guru to know the proper procedure to perform pooja of ishtalinga. From birth to death, the child wears the Linga at all times and it is worshipped as a personal ishtalinga. The "Linga" is wrapped in a cloth housed in a small silver and wooden box. It is to be worn on the chest, over the seat of the indwelling deity within the heart. Some people wear it on the chest or around the body using a thread.


title: Lingayatism

text: Lingayats are strict vegetarians. Devout Lingayats do not consume beef, or meat of any kind including fish. The drinking of liquor is prohibited.


title: Lingayatism

text: The early Lingayat literature, including the Basava Purana, highly praises militant action against anyone who persecutes a fellow Lingayat or their ability to practice their Shiva-bhakti traditions. According to Schouten, one of earliest assassinations in retaliation for persecution happened in the 12th-century when King Bijjala was murdered. However, states Schouten, the early texts of Lingayats give different accounts on who ordered the assassination leading to doubts about the trustworthiness of these historic texts.


title: Lingayatism

text: Lingayats believe that the human body is a temple. In addition, they have continued to build the community halls and Shaiva temple traditions of South India. Their temples include Shiva linga in the sanctum, a sitting Nandi facing the linga, with mandapa and other features. However, the prayers and offerings are not led by Brahmin priests but by Lingayat priests. The temple format is simpler than those of Jains and Hindus found in north Karnataka. In some parts of Karnataka, these temples are samadhis of Lingayat saints, in others such as the Veerabhadra temple of Belgavi – one of the important pilgrimage sites for Lingayats, and other historic temples, the Shiva temple is operated and maintained by Lingayat priests. Many rural Lingayat communities include the images of Shiva, Parvati and Ganesha in their wedding invitations, while Ganesha festivities are observed by both rural and urban Lingayats in many parts of Karnataka. Colonial-era reports by British officials confirm that Lingayats observed Ganesha Chaturthi in the 19th century.


title: Lingayatism

text: Several works are attributed to the founder of Lingayatism movement, Basava, and these texts are revered in the Lingayat community. In particular, these include various "Vachana" (literally, "what is said") such as the "Shat-sthala-vachana", "Kala-jnana-vachana", "Mantra-gopya", "Ghatachakra-vachana" and "Raja-yoga-vachana". Saints and Sharanas like Allamaprabhu, Akka Mahadevi, Siddarama and Basava were at the forefront of this development during the 12th century.


title: Lingayatism

text: The "Basava Purana", a Telugu biographical epic poem which narrates the life story of Basava, was written by Palkuriki Somanatha in 13th-century, and an updated 14th-century Kannada version was written by Bhima Kavi in 1369. Both are sacred texts in Lingayatism.


title: Lingayatism

text: The book named Religion and society among the Lingayats of South India by internationally acclaimed social scientist Hiremallur Ishwaran.


title: Lingayatism

text: Lingayat (Veerashaiva) thinkers rejected the custodial hold of Brahmins over the Vedas and the shastras, but they did not outright reject the Vedic knowledge. The 13th-century Telugu Virashaiva poet Palkuriki Somanatha, author of Basava Purana—a scripture of Veerashaivas, for example asserted, "Virashaivism fully conformed to the Vedas and the shastras." Somanatha repeatedly stated that "he was a scholar of the four Vedas".


title: Lingayatism

text: Lingayatism considers the Vedas as a means, but not the sanctimonious end. It rejected various forms of ritualism and the uncritical adherence to any text including the Vedas.


title: Lingayatism

text: The "Anubhava Mantapa" literally means the "hall of spiritual experience". It has been a Lingayat institution since the time of Basava, serving as an academy of mystics, saints and poet-philosophers for discussion of spiritual and mundane questions of life, in open. It was the fountainhead of all religious and philosophical thought pertaining to the Lingayata. It was presided over by the mystic Allamaprabhu, and numerous sharanas from all over Karnataka and other parts of India were participants. This institution also helped propagate Lingayatism religious and philosophical thought. Akka Mahadevi, Channabasavanna and Basavanna himself were participants in the Anubhava Mantapa.


title: Lingayatism

text: Lingayats today are found predominantly in the state of Karnataka, especially in North and Central Karnataka with a sizeable population native to South Karnataka. Lingayats have been estimated to be about 16% of Karnataka's populationand about 6-7% of Maharashtra's population.


title: Lingayatism

text: Significant populations are also found in parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana bordering Karnataka, as well as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat and Sri Lanka. The Lingayat diaspora can be found in countries around the world, particularly the United States, Britain and Australia.


title: Lingayatism

text: Today, the Lingayat community is a blend of various castes, consisting of Forward Castes, OBC and SC. Currently, 16 castes of Lingayats have been accorded the OBC status by the Central Government. According to one of the estimates by a Lingayat politician around 7 per cent of people in Lingayat community come under SC/STs. Veerashaiva Lingayats get OBC reservation at state level in both Karnataka and Telangana.


title: Sam Snead

text: Samuel Jackson Snead (pronounced [sni:d]; May 27, 1912 – May 23, 2002) was an American professional golfer who was one of the top players in the world for the better part of four decades (having won PGA of America and Senior PGA Tour events over six decades) and widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. Snead was awarded a record 94 gold medallions, for wins in PGA of America (referred to by most as the PGA) Tour events and later credited with winning a record 82 PGA Tour events tied with Tiger Woods, including seven majors. He never won the U.S. Open, though he was runner-up four times. Snead was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.


title: Sam Snead

text: Snead's nicknames included "The Slammer", "Slammin' Sammy Snead", and "The Long Ball Hitter from West Virginia", and he was admired by many for having a "perfect swing", which generated many imitators. Snead was famed for his folksy image, wearing a straw hat, and making such statements as "Keep close count of your nickels and dimes, stay away from whiskey, and never concede a putt." and "There are no short hitters on the tour anymore, just long and unbelievably long." Fellow West Virginia Golf Hall of Fame Inductee Bill Campbell has said of Snead, "He was the best natural player ever. He had the eye of an eagle, the grace of a leopard and the strength of a lion." Gary Player once said that, "I don't think there's any question in my mind that Sam Snead had the greatest golf swing of any human being that ever lived." Jack Nicklaus said that Snead's swing was "so perfect."


title: Sam Snead

text: Snead was the PGA leading money winner in 1938, 1949 and 1950. He won the Vardon Trophy, for lowest scoring average, four times: 1938, 1949, 1950, and 1955. In 1949, he was PGA Golfer of the Year.


title: Sam Snead

text: Snead was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1973. In 1986, Snead was inducted into the Middle Atlantic PGA Hall of Fame. Snead was also inducted into the PGA of America Hall of Fame and the Helms Hall of Fame. Snead received the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. In 2009, Snead was inducted into the inaugural class of the West Virginia Golf Hall of Fame and in 2016, Snead was the unanimous top choice for inclusion in the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame's inaugural class.


title: Sam Snead

text: Born in Ashwood, Virginia, near Hot Springs, Snead began caddying at age seven at The Homestead's Old Course in Hot Springs. He worked as an assistant pro at The Homestead at 17 in 1929, then moved to the Cascades Course and turned professional in 1934. During the depression, Snead taught himself the game of golf from a set of clubs carved from tree limbs. Snead joined the PGA Tour in 1936, and achieved immediate success by winning the West Virginia Closed Pro tournament.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1936 he won two matches at the Meadow Brook Club, earning a $10,000 prize. This gave him the money he needed to start playing professionally full-time. In 1944 he became resident playing professional at The Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and maintained ties to Hot Springs and The Homestead all of his life. During the winter, he was resident playing pro at the Boca Raton Resort from 1956 to 1969. Each spring he returned to the Mid-Atlantic, stopping at The Masters Tournament on his way back to The Greenbrier.


title: Sam Snead

text: Snead served in the U.S. Navy during World War II from 1942 to 1944. He was an athletic specialist in Cmdr. Gene Tunney's program in San Diego, and was given a medical discharge for a back injury in September 1944.


title: Sam Snead

text: Snead appeared as himself in an episode of "The Phil Silvers Show", "The Colonel Breaks Par", in 1957.


title: Sam Snead

text: His nephew, J. C. Snead, was also a successful professional golfer, winning tournaments on both the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour.


title: Sam Snead

text: In July 1936, Snead won his first tournament, the West Virginia Closed Pro, contested at The Greenbrier's Championship Course and Old White Course. He shot rounds of 70–61 to rout Logan, West Virginia professional, Clem Wiechman by 16 strokes (74-73). The following month, he won the first of 17 West Virginia Open championships by beating Art Clark by five strokes at Guyan Country Club in Huntington, West Virginia.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1937, Snead's first full year on the PGA Tour, he won six events, including the Oakland Open at Claremont Country Club in California and his second West Virginia Open. In Snead's debut in the U.S. Open hosted at Oakland Hills, he finishes runner-up to Ralph Guldahl (who won with 19 clubs in his bag). Snead shared the first round lead shooting 69 with fellow West Virginian Denny Shute (1936 and 1937 PGA Champion). In Snead's first of two attempts in The Open Championship, he finished tied for 11th. While working at The Greenbrier, Snead played in the U.S. Pro Tennis Championships. In the first round, he faced eventual winner Karel Kozeluh, losing to Kozeluh by scores of 6–1, 6–1, and 6–1.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1938, Snead first won the Greater Greensboro Open, the first of eight times, the Tour record for victories of a single tournament event. Snead's last win at Greensboro was in 1965, at the age of , making him the oldest player to win a PGA Tour event. Snead introduced his first book, "Sam Snead's quick way to better golf".


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1939, Snead won three times. 1939 was the first of four times (although Snead had already come close in 1937, losing to the eventual champion who had 19 clubs in his bag) where Snead failed at crucial moments of the U.S. Open, the only major event he never won. Needing par to win at the Philadelphia C.C., but not knowing that, since on-course scoreboards did not exist at that time, Snead posted a triple-bogey 8 on the par-5 72nd hole, taking a risky shot from a difficult lie in the fairway. Snead had been told on the 18th tee by a spectator that he needed a birdie to win. Snead ended up in fifth place, two shots behind three players who went into a playoff.


title: Sam Snead

text: During World War II, Snead was prevented from participating in 14 major championships (1940–1945 Open Championship, 1942–1945 U.S. Open, 1943–1945 Masters, 1943 PGA Championship), due to their cancellations. Snead served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1944.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1946, Snead won six times including the Open Championship at St Andrews. His expenses for playing there were more than three times his winning purse. Snead tied for sixth in the Open in 1962. Snead introduced the book, "Sam Snead's How to play golf, and professional tips on improving your score. Also, rules of the game of golf, as approved by the United States Golf Association, and by the Royal and ancient golf club of St. Andrews".


title: Sam Snead

text: At the U.S. Open in 1947, Snead missed a putt on the final playoff hole to finish runner-up to Lew Worsham.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1949, Snead won nine PGA events including two majors including the Masters and the PGA Championship and was awarded Golfer of the Year. For Snead, it was the third of four second-place finishes at the U.S. Open, the only major championship he never won. Needing two pars to finish in a tie for the lead, Snead took three shots to hole out his ball from the fringe of the green on the 17th hole.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1950, Snead won 11 events, placing him third in that category behind Byron Nelson (18, in 1945) and Ben Hogan (13, in 1946). Snead claimed that 1950 was his "greatest year" winning "eleven tournaments" including a playoff victory over Hogan in the L.A. Open yet lost the "Golfer of the Year" to Hogan, who won one "tournament". His scoring average of 69.23 was a Vardon Trophy record that stood for 50 years.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1952, Snead won ten events including the Masters. At the Jacksonville Open, Snead forfeited rather than play an 18-hole playoff against Doug Ford after the two golfers finished in a tie at the end of regulation play. The forfeit stemmed from a ruling Snead received during the tournament's second round of play. On the 10th hole, Snead's drive landed behind an out-of-bounds stake. While Chick Harbert, who was playing with Snead, thought the ball was out of bounds, a rules official ruled differently due to the starter not telling players the stakes had been moved after the previous day's play had ended. Afterwards, Snead explained why he forfeited even though Ford suggested they play sudden death for the title. "I want to be fair about it. I don't want anyone to think I took advantage of the ruling." Snead set the record for most PGA wins after reaching age 40, with 17.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1953, Snead won three events. He finished runner-up to Ben Hogan at the U.S. Open (the fourth time he would finish runner-up at the U.S. Open).


title: Sam Snead

text: In December 1959, Snead took part in a controversial match against Mason Rudolph, at the Mid Ocean Club in Bermuda. Snead decided to deliberately lose the televised match, played under the "World Championship Golf" series, during its final holes, after he discovered on the 12th hole that he had too many golf clubs in his bag. (A player is limited to 14 clubs during competitive rounds.) The match was tied at that stage. The extra club in his bag, a fairway wood Snead had been experimenting with in practice, would have caused him to be immediately disqualified according to the Rules of Golf, even though he did not use it during the round. After the match was over, Snead explained the matter, and said he did not disqualify himself in order not to spoil the show. The problem did not become known outside a small circle until the show was televised four months later. After the incident came to light, the sponsor cancelled further participation in the series.


title: Sam Snead

text: Beginning in 1960, Snead hosted television's "Celebrity Golf" program, emceed by Harry von Zell, competing for charity in nine-hole contests against Hollywood celebrities like Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope. Snead had appeared with Martin and Lewis in their 1953 comedy film, "The Caddy".


title: Sam Snead

text: On February 7, 1962, at age 49, Snead won the Royal Poinciana Plaza Invitational, an LPGA Tour "Battle of the Sexes" tournament where he faced off against 14 LPGA pros. The low woman was Mickey Wright, herself Snead's equivalent in women's golf, with the most wins on that tour.


title: Sam Snead

text: His 1962 autobiography was titled "The Education of a Golfer." Snead later wrote several golf instructional books, and frequently wrote instructional columns in golf magazines.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1965, Snead became the oldest player (52 years, 10 months and 8 days) to win on the PGA Tour (the Greater Greensboro Open).


title: Sam Snead

text: Snead played on seven Ryder Cup teams: 1937, 1947, 1949, 1951, 1953, 1955, and 1959. Snead was selected to the 1939 Ryder Cup team however the event was never played due to World War II. He captained the team in 1951, 1959, and 1969.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1974, at age 61, he shot a third-round 66 at the Los Angeles Open at Riviera Country Club to move into contention. A birdie at #17 in the last round moved him to within one stroke of the lead. Dave Stockton hit a miraculous fairway wood on the final hole. Snead was joint runner-up.


title: Sam Snead

text: He shot a final-round 68 at the 1974 PGA Championship to finish tied for third, three strokes behind winner Lee Trevino. At age 62, it was Snead's third consecutive top-10 finish at the PGA Championship, but his last time in contention at a major.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1978, he won the first Legends of Golf event, which was the impetus for the creation, two years later, of the Senior PGA Tour, now the Champions Tour.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1979, he was the youngest PGA Tour golfer to shoot his age (67) in the second round of the 1979 Quad Cities Open. He shot under his age (66) in the final round.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1982, he teamed with Don January to shoot 27-under-par to win the rain-shortened 54-hole Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf event at Onion Creek Club "The Birthplace of the Senior PGA Tour" in Austin, Texas. This victory would mark victories for Snead that spanned over six decades (1930s–1980s) winning tour and senior tour events.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 1997, at age 85, he shot a round of 78 at the Old White course of The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.


title: Sam Snead

text: From 1984 to 2002, he hit the honorary starting tee shot at the Masters Tournament. Until 1999, he was joined by Gene Sarazen, and until 2001, by Byron Nelson.


title: Sam Snead

text: In 2000, Snead was ranked the third greatest golfer of all time, in "Golf Digest" magazine's rankings, behind only Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan.


title: Sam Snead

text: Snead died in Hot Springs, Virginia in 2002 following complications from a stroke, four days before his 90th birthday. He was survived by two sons: Sam Jr. of Hot Springs, and Terry, of Mountain Grove, Virginia, and a brother, Pete, of Pittsburgh, as well as two grandchildren. His wife Audrey died in 1990. His nephew J. C. Snead was also a PGA Tour golfer.


title: Sam Snead

text: Snead was mentioned several times in the comic strip "Peanuts" at the height of his popularity during the 1950s and 1960s. As its creator and avid golfer Charles M. Schulz said in a 1971 interview: "I was a great admirer of Sam Snead. I once watched him play a round in the St. Paul tournament when he hit every green in regulation figures – and all the par fives in two – for a truly flawless round."


title: Sam Snead

text: During his peak years, Snead was an exceptionally long driver, particularly into the wind, with very good accuracy as well. He was a superb player with the long irons. Snead was also known for a very creative short game, pioneering use of the sand wedge for short shots from grass. As he aged, he began to experiment with different putting styles. Snead pioneered croquet-style putting in the 1960s, where he straddled the ball with one leg on each side. The United States Golf Association banned this technique in 1968 by amending the old Rule 35–1, since, until that time, golfers had always faced the ball when striking. Snead then went to side-saddle putting, where he crouched and angled his feet towards the hole, and held the club with a split grip. He used that style for the rest of his career.


title: Sam Snead

text: "Note: The PGA Championship was match play until 1958."<br>Defeated Ben Hogan in 18-hole playoff – Snead 70 (−2), Hogan 71 (−1).


title: McLean, Virginia

text: McLean ( ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its proximity to Washington, D.C., the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. It is the location of Hickory Hill, the former home of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy. It is also the location of Salona, the former home of Light-Horse Harry Lee, the Revolutionary War hero.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The population of the community was 50,773 at the 2020 census. It is located between the Potomac River and the town of Vienna. McLean is often distinguished by its luxury homes and its nearby high-profit shopping destinations: Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria. The two McLean ZIP Codes – 22101 and 22102 – are among the most expensive ZIP Codes in Virginia and the United States. In 2018, data from the American Community Survey revealed that McLean was the third wealthiest city in the United States, based on its poverty rate of 2.6% and its median household income of $190,258.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The community received its name from John Roll McLean, the former publisher and owner of "The Washington Post". Along with Stephen Benton Elkins and French aristocrat Jean-Pierre Guenard, in 1902 he bought the charter for the Great Falls and Old Dominion Railroad. Completed in 1906, it connected the area with Washington, D.C. McLean named a railroad station costing $1,500, of which $500 was raised locally, after himself where the rail line (traveling on the present route of Old Dominion Drive) crossed the old Chain Bridge Road. The community itself was founded in 1910, when the communities of Lewinsville and Langley merged.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: McLean is located at (38.9342776, −77.1774801) at an elevation of 285 feet (87 m). Located on the Capital Beltway (Interstate 495) in Northern Virginia, central McLean is northwest of downtown Washington, D.C. and northeast of Fairfax, the county seat.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The community lies in the Piedmont upland on the west bank of the Potomac River. The river forms the community's northern and eastern borders, and a number of its smaller tributaries flow north and northeast through the CDP. From west to east, these include Bull Neck Run, Scott Run, Dead Run, Turkey Run, and Pimmit Run.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of of which is land and is water.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: As an inner suburb of Washington, D.C., McLean is a part of both the Washington Metropolitan Area and the larger Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. The CDP includes the unincorporated communities of Langley, Lewinsville, and West McLean, and it borders several other Washington suburbs including: Potomac and Cabin John, Maryland to the north; Brookmont, Maryland to the northeast; Arlington to the southeast; Falls Church to the south; Idylwood, Pimmit Hills, and Tysons to the southwest; Wolf Trap to the west; and Great Falls to the northwest.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: As of the 2010 census, there were 48,115 people, 17,063 households, and 13,453 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 1,940.9 people per square mile (749.4/km). There were 17,756 housing units at an average density of 716.3 per square mile (276.6/km). The racial makeup of the CDP was 79.3% White, 14.9% Asian, 1.8% African American, 0.1% Native American, 0.8% from other races, and 3.0% from two or more races. Hispanics and Latinos of any race were 4.9% of the population.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: There were 17,063 households, out of which 39.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 70.5% were married couples living together, 2.4% had a male householder with no wife present, 6.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 21.2% were non-families. Of all households, 18.0% were made up of individuals, and 10.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.80, and the average family size was 3.17.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The median age was 45.1 years. 26.9% of the population was under the age of 18, 4.3% was 18 to 24, 18.6% was 25 to 44, 33.2% was 45 to 64, and 17.0% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the community was 48.2% male and 51.8% female.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The median income for a household in the CDP was $164,888, and the median income for a family was $194,832. Males had a median income of $132,714 versus $87,663 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $87,073. About 1.3% of families and 2.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.6% of those under the age of 18 and 3.2% of those 65 and older.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: Mars and Geebo are among the companies based in McLean. Many businesses in neighboring Tysons, particularly those east of Leesburg Pike (VA Route 7) have a McLean mailing address, because the US Postal Service boundary for West McLean (ZIP Code 22102) generally follows Leesburg Pike.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: As of 2012, 61.6% of the population over the age of 16 was in the labor force. 0.4% was in the armed forces, and 61.2% was in the civilian labor force with 58.4% employed and 2.9% unemployed. The occupational composition of the employed civilian labor force was: 73.2% in management, business, science, and arts; 17.9% in sales and office occupations; 5.5% in service occupations; 2.0% in natural resources, construction, and maintenance; 1.4% in production, transportation, and material moving. The three industries employing the largest percentages of the working civilian labor force were: professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (27.8%); educational services, health care, and social assistance (17.7%); and public administration (16.6%).


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The cost of living in McLean is very high; compared to a U.S. average of 100, the cost of living index for the community is 142.6. As of 2012, the median home value in the community was $908,000, the median selected monthly owner cost was $3,803 for housing units with a mortgage and $1,000+ for those without, and the median gross rent was $2,000+.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency is located in the Langley area of McLean, and the headquarters of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is also located in McLean. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center is also located down the street from the CIA headquarters.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: FCPS public elementary schools within the CDP include Chesterbrook; Churchill Road; Haycock; Kent Gardens; Franklin Sherman, and Spring Hill. FCPS public middle schools within the CDP include James Fenimore Cooper Middle School and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Middle School. FCPS public high schools within the CDP include Langley High School and McLean High School.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: In addition, the Mount Daniel School of the Falls Church City Public Schools is physically within the McLean CDP.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: Several private schools, ranging from pre-school to 12th grade, are located in McLean, including The Langley School, The Madeira School, The Potomac School, Oakcrest School, Saint Luke Catholic School, Saint John School, Brooksfield Montessori, The Montessori School of McLean, and The Country Day School.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: Nearby colleges and universities include the Marymount University in Arlington and DeVry University (Arlington campus). The University of Virginia's School of Continuing and Professional Studies has an academic center in Falls Church, just south of McLean. George Mason University is located 9 miles southwest of McLean in Fairfax, Virginia, while American University, Georgetown University and George Washington University are located 6, 7, and 9 miles east of McLean, respectively, in Washington, D.C.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The Washington Japanese Language School (WJLS, ワシントン日本語学校 "Washington Nihongo Gakkō"), a supplementary weekend Japanese school, previously held classes at St. Luke Catholic School in McLean. The institution, giving supplemental education to Japanese-speaking children in the Washington DC area, was founded in 1958, making it the oldest Japanese government-sponsored supplementary school in the U.S.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The Polish School of Washington, D.C. holds classes on Saturdays at Longfellow Middle School, which are funded by the Polish Embassy in Washington D.C. ABRACE Inc., a Brazilian Portuguese heritage language program, holds weekly classes at McLean High School for children ages 3 to 18.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The Capital Beltway, George Washington Memorial Parkway, Interstate 66, Dulles Access Road, Dolley Madison Boulevard/Chain Bridge Road, Georgetown Pike, and Old Dominion Drive all run through McLean.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The Washington Metro's Silver Line is southwest of downtown McLean. Both the Silver and Orange lines physically enter the borders in between East Falls Church and West Falls Church. The McLean station on the Silver Line is in the McLean CDP but lies along VA Route 123 about two miles west of downtown McLean. Other Metro stations nearby include West Falls Church in the Orange line, and East Falls Church, on both the Silver and Orange lines, and the Tysons Corner station on the Silver line which also has a McLean address.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: WMATA (MetroBus) and Fairfax Connector each have several bus routes traveling through McLean, including routes connecting downtown McLean with the McLean Metrorail station.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: The McLean Little League is also located in McLean. In 2005, the girls' All-Star softball team from McLean Little League won the Little League Softball World Series Championship in Portland, Oregon. MLL's girls' All-Star softball team has been the Little League Softball World Series runner-up twice, in 2004 and in 2013. The Mount Daniel School Park, operated by The City of Falls Church, is physically within the McLean CDP. Clemyjontri Park opened in 2006.


title: McLean, Virginia

text: Due to its proximity to Washington, D.C., numerous figures from U.S. politics and government live or have lived in McLean, including President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, former Vice President Dick Cheney and his family, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, and U.S. Senators Byron Dorgan, Patrick Leahy, Don Nickles, and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. Foreign diplomats such as Turki bin Faisal Al Saud and Bandar bin Sultan have also lived in McLean. Other famous residents have included the one of the "fathers of the internet", Vint Cerf, former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, author and political activist Gore Vidal, science fiction writer James Tiptree, Jr., hockey player Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, and basketball players Bradley Beal and Otto Porter for the Washington Wizards. Businessman Steve Salis became a resident of McLean after he purchased Bradley Beal's mansion in August 2020.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: Disneytoon Studios (DTS), originally named Disney MovieToons and also formerly Walt Disney Video Premieres, was an American animation studio which created direct-to-video and occasional theatrical animated feature films. The studio was a division of Walt Disney Animation Studios, with both being part of The Walt Disney Studios, itself a division of The Walt Disney Company. The studio produced 47 feature films, beginning with "" in 1990. Its final feature film was "Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast" in 2015.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: Disney MovieToons' first feature production was "" in 1990, with animation by Walt Disney Animation France. Disney Television Animation hired director of specials, Sharon Morrill, in 1993.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: Disney began producing direct-to-video (DTV) sequels of Walt Disney Feature Animation films: the first of which was the "Aladdin" (1992) sequel "The Return of Jafar" (1994). When "Aladdin" was selected as a possible candidate as an animated TV series (before the film's release), as with many animated series, the first three episodes were a multi-part story which Disney used as a potential "family movie special" for the Friday night before the series' premiere. The opening story was instead greenlit for a direct-to-video release. Thus with "The Return of Jafar" and its success, the direct-to-video unit was started. Then a second sequel, "Aladdin and the King of Thieves" (1996), assigned work to both the Australian and Japanese animation units.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: In August 1994 with the departure of Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, its filmed entertainment business was split into two, with this division moved as a part of Walt Disney Television Animation into the newly created Walt Disney Television and Telecommunications under chairman Richard H. Frank.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: Morrill was in charge of the above first "Aladdin" DTV film, launching Disney Video Premiere. Morrill expanded the DTV market making it more important for Disney, thus the overseas Disney studios were increased and assigned to these features. Morrill was promoted to vice president of the direct-to-video unit by November 1997.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: The Walt Disney Television group, upon the departure of its president Dean Valentine in September 1997, was split into two units, Walt Disney Television (WDT) and Walt Disney Network Television (WDNT), reporting to Walt Disney Studios chairman Joe Roth. WDT would be headed by Charles Hirschhorn as president and consisted of Disney Telefilms and Walt Disney Television Animation, which included including Disney MovieToons and Disney Video Premiere.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: The unit released a short under the WDTA name in 1997, "Redux Riding Hood", which was nominated for a 1998 Academy Award. More direct-to-video sequels followed, among them "" (1997), "" (1998), "" (1998), "" (2000) and "" (2002). By April 1998, MovieToons was merged with the units of direct-to-video films and network TV specials as Morrill was promoted to executive vice president over her existing unit of DTV films, network TV specials and theatrical films. Ellen Gurney was promoted from director of DTV films, theatrical movies and specials to vice president in April 1999.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: In a reorganization of Disney, Disney MovieToons/Disney Video Premieres was transferred from Walt Disney Television Animation to Walt Disney Feature Animation and renamed Disneytoon Studios (DTS) in June. Morrill continued to lead the division as executive vice president. With the split, both Disneytoon and Disney Television Animation were issuing direct to video features.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: Disney closed Disney Animation Japan, one of the two remaining internal overseas studios Disneytoon worked with, in June 2004, with "Pooh's Heffalump Movie" (2005) as its final DTS work. By , Morrill was promoted to president of Disneytoon. On , Disney announced that it was closing Disneytoon Studios Australia in October 2006 after 17 years of existence, with its final feature being "" (2007).


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: In the early 2000s, Disneytoon joined Disney Consumer Products (DCP) as their internal video partner within the Disney conglomerate in developing the new Disney franchises, which then only consisted of Disney Princess and Disney Fairies. While DCP eyed other potential franchises, DTS looked into the Seven Dwarfs for a male-centric franchise to counterbalance the female-centric Fairies by 2005.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: John Lasseter joined Disney with the purchase of Pixar in 2006, and made it known that he disliked Disneytoon's sequels and prequels, as he felt that they were undercutting the value of the original feature films. Following complications relating to the production of "Tinker Bell" (2008), the debut film of DCP's Fairies franchise, it led to discussions over the focus of the division. Thus, Sharon Morrill, president of the studio, moved to a new position in the company. On June 22, 2007, management of Disneytoon Studios was turned over to the control of Alan Bergman, president of Walt Disney Studios, with input from Ed Catmull and Lasseter. As chief creative officer, Lasseter called for the cancellation of all future films in production or development at Disneytoon Studios. As a result, planned or in-progress sequels to "Pinocchio" (1940), "Dumbo" (1941), "The Aristocats" (1970), "Chicken Little" (2005), and "Meet the Robinsons" (2007) were all cancelled, among other projects. "Tinker Bell"s animation was scrapped and was restarted while two projects that DCP formed as franchise projects were canceled, which were "Disney's Dwarfs" and the "Disney Princess Enchanted Tales" line after the latter's first DVD. The release of "The Little Mermaid 3" was put on hold. Disney Studios president Alan Bergman went to oversee day-to-day operations of DTS. Thus DTS halted production of sequels and prequels when it originally indicated that the division would shift to support various Playhouse Disney franchises with direct-to-videos.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: Meredith Roberts transferred from Walt Disney Television Animation to senior vice president and general manager of Disneytoon Studios in . At the April unveiling of Disney's animated feature lineup, it was announced that Disneytoon Studios would no longer produce future sequels to Disney animated films, but will instead focus on spin-offs. Also, the division was under the banner of the renamed Walt Disney Feature Animation studio, now called Walt Disney Animation Studios, led by Catmull and Lasseter.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: In November 2017, Lasseter announced that he would be taking a six-month leave of absence after acknowledging what he called "missteps" in his behavior with employees in a memo addressed to the staff of Disneytoon Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Pixar. According to "The Hollywood Reporter" and "The Washington Post", Lasseter had a history of alleged sexual misconduct towards employees. On June 8, 2018, it was announced that Lasseter would leave Disney Animation and Pixar at the end of the year, but would take on a consulting role until then.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: Disneytoon Studios closed on June 28, 2018, resulting in a layoff of 75 animators and staff. As a result, the studio's third "Planes" film about the future of aviation in outer space was removed from both Disney's film release date schedule of April 12, 2019 and from development.


title: Disneytoon Studios

text: As of 2002, the films that Disneytoon had made often had budgets less than $15 million for production, and had taken in $100 million in sales and rentals.


title: Henry Darger

text: Henry Joseph Darger Jr. (; April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was an American writer, novelist and artist who worked as a hospital custodian in Chicago, Illinois. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page fantasy novel manuscript called "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion", along with several hundred drawings and watercolor illustrations for the story.


title: Henry Darger

text: The visual subject matter of his work ranges from idyllic scenes in Edwardian interiors and tranquil flowered landscapes populated by children and fantastic creatures, to scenes of horrific terror and carnage depicting young children being tortured and massacred. Much of his artwork is mixed media with collage elements. Darger's artwork has become one of the most celebrated examples of outsider art.


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger was born on April 12, 1892, in Chicago, Illinois, to Henry Darger Sr. and Rosa Fullman. Cook County records show he was born at home, located at 350 W. 24th Street. When he was four years old, his mother died of puerperal fever after giving birth to a daughter, who was given up for adoption; Darger never knew his sister. One of his biographers, the art historian and psychologist John M. MacGregor, discovered that Rosa had two children before Henry, but did not discover their whereabouts.


title: Henry Darger

text: By Darger's own account, his father was kind and reassuring to him. Darger Sr. was a tailor with disabilities, and his poor health made caring for his son difficult. They lived together until 1900, when his father was taken to St. Augustine's Home for the Aged. Because of his apparent intellect, the young Darger had been enrolled in public school at the third grade level; after his father's hospitalization, Darger was moved to the Mission of Our Lady of Mercy, a Roman Catholic orphanage. After bad behavior, he was relocated to the Illinois Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children in Lincoln, Illinois, also called the Lincoln State School (today the Lincoln Developmental Center), with the diagnosis, according to Stephen Prokopoff, that "little Henry's heart is not in the right place". According to John MacGregor, the diagnosis was actually "self-abuse", a euphemism for masturbation.


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger himself felt that much of his problem was being able to see through adult lies and becoming a "smart-aleck" as a result, which often led to his being punished by teachers and ganged up on by classmates. He also felt compelled to make unusual noises. The Lincoln asylum's practices included forced child labor and severe punishments, which Darger would later seemingly incorporate into his writing. Darger later said that, to be fair, there were also "good times" at the asylum, he enjoyed some of the work, and he had friends as well as enemies.


title: Henry Darger

text: In 1908, Darger received word that his father had died in St. Augustine's Home for the Aged; Darger never had a chance to visit him since his departure eight years prior. He attempted to escape in 1908 by freight train, but was thwarted by police after reaching Chicago and forced back into the asylum. He escaped once more in 1909 and succeeded, now free in Chicago.


title: Henry Darger

text: With the help of his godmother, Darger found menial employment in a Catholic hospital and in this fashion continued to support himself until his retirement in 1963.


title: Henry Darger

text: Except for a brief stint in the U.S. Army during World War I, his life took on a pattern that seems to have varied little. A devout Catholic, he attended Mass daily, frequently returning for as many as five services. He collected found objects from the streets – including shoes, eyeglasses, and balls of string – to exhibit alongside artwork in his home-studio. His dress was shabby, although he attempted to keep his clothes clean and mended, and he was largely solitary.


title: Henry Darger

text: His close friend of 48 years, William Schloeder, was of like mind on the subject of protecting abused and neglected children, and the pair proposed founding a "Children's Protective Society" that would put such children up for adoption to loving families. Schloeder left Chicago sometime in the mid-1930s, but he and Darger stayed in touch through letters until Schloeder's death in 1959. Darger's biographer Jim Elledge speculates that Darger and Schloeder may have had a romantic relationship while Schloeder lived in Chicago, and Darger sometimes referred to Schloeder as his "special friend."


title: Henry Darger

text: In 1930, Darger settled into a second-floor room on Chicago's North Side at 851 W. Webster Avenue in the Lincoln Park section of the city, near the DePaul University campus. It was in this room for the next 43 years that Darger would imagine and write his massive tomes (in addition to a 10-year daily weather journal and assorted diaries) and collect and display artwork until his death at St. Augustine's Home for the Aged (the same institution at which his father had died) on April 13, 1973, one day after his 81st birthday.


title: Henry Darger

text: In the last entry in his diary, Darger wrote: "January 1, 1971. I had a very poor nothing like Christmas. Never had a good Christmas all my life, nor a good new year, and now... I am very bitter but fortunately not revengeful, though I feel should be how I am..."


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger is buried at All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Illinois, in a plot called "The Old People of the Little Sisters of the Poor Plot". His headstone is inscribed "Artist" and "Protector of Children".


title: Henry Darger

text: "In the Realms of the Unreal" is a 15,145-page work bound in fifteen immense, densely typed volumes (with three of them consisting of several hundred illustrations, scroll-like watercolor paintings on paper derived from magazines and coloring books) created over six decades. Darger illustrated his stories using a technique of traced images cut from magazines and catalogues, arranged in large panoramic landscapes and painted in watercolors, some as large as 30 feet wide and painted on both sides. He wrote himself into the narrative as the children's protector.


title: Henry Darger

text: The largest part of the book, "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion", follows the adventures of the daughters of Robert Vivian, seven princesses of the Christian nation of Abbieannia who assist a daring rebellion against the child slavery imposed by John Manley and the Glandelinians. Children take up arms in their own defense and are often slain in battle or viciously tortured by the Glandelinian overlords. The elaborate mythology includes the setting of a large planet, around which Earth orbits as a moon (where most people are Christian and mostly Catholic), and a species called the "Blengigomeneans" (or Blengins for short), gigantic winged beings with curved horns who occasionally take human or part-human form, even disguising themselves as children. They are usually benevolent, but some Blengins are extremely suspicious of all humans, due to Glandelinian atrocities.


title: Henry Darger

text: Once released from the Lincoln asylum, Darger repeatedly attempted to adopt a child, but his efforts failed. Images of children often served as his inspiration, particularly a portrait from the "Chicago Daily News" from May 9, 1911: a five-year-old murder victim, named Elsie Paroubek. The girl had left home on April 8 of that year telling her mother she was going to visit her aunt around the corner from her home. She was last seen listening to an organ grinder with her cousins. Her body was found a month later in a sanitary district channel near the screen guards of the powerhouse at Lockport. An autopsy found she had probably been suffocated—not strangled, as is often stated in articles about Darger. Paroubek's disappearance and murder, her funeral, and the subsequent investigation, were the subjects of a huge amount of coverage in the "Daily News" and other papers at the time.


title: Henry Darger

text: This newspaper photo was part of a growing personal archive of clippings Darger had been gathering. There is no indication that the murder or the news photo and article had any particular significance for Darger, until one day he could not find it. Writing in his journal at the time, he began to process this forfeiture of yet another child, lamenting that "the huge disaster and calamity" of his loss "will never be atoned for", but "shall be avenged to the uttermost limit". According to his autobiography, Darger believed the photo was among several items that were stolen when his locker at work was broken into. He never found his copy of the photograph again. Because he could not remember the exact date of its publication, he could not locate it in the newspaper archive. He carried out an elaborate series of novenas and other prayers for the picture to be returned. The fictive war that was sparked by Darger's loss of the newspaper photograph of Paroubek, whose killer was never found, became Darger's "magnum opus". He had been working on some version of the novel before this time (he makes reference to an early draft which was also lost or stolen), but now it became an all-consuming creation.


title: Henry Darger

text: In "The Realms of the Unreal", Paroubek is imagined as Annie Aronburg, the leader of the first child slave rebellion. "The assassination of the child labor rebel Annie Aronburg... was the most shocking child murder ever caused by the Glandelinian Government" and was the cause of the war. Through their sufferings, valiant deeds and exemplary holiness, the Vivian Girls are hoped to be able to help bring about a triumph of Christianity. Darger provided two endings to the story, one in which the Vivian Girls and Christianity are triumphant and another in which they are defeated and the godless Glandelinians reign.


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger's human figures were rendered largely by tracing, collage, or photo enlargement from popular magazines and children's books (much of the "trash" he collected was old magazines and newspapers, which he clipped for source material). Some of his favorite figures were the Coppertone Girl and Little Annie Rooney. He is praised for his natural gift for composition and the brilliant use of color in his watercolors. The images of daring escapes, mighty battles, and painful torture are reminiscent not only of contemporaneous epic films such as "The Birth of a Nation" (which Darger might easily have seen) but of events in Catholic history; the text makes it clear that the child victims are heroic martyrs like the early saints. Art critic Michael Moon explains Darger's images of tortured children in terms of popular Catholic culture and iconography. These included martyr pageants and Catholic comic books with detailed, often gory tales of innocent female victims.


title: Henry Darger

text: One idiosyncratic feature of Darger's artwork is that his girl subjects are shown to have penises when unclothed or partially clothed. Darger biographer Jim Elledge speculates that this represents a reflection of Darger's own childhood issues with sexual identity and homosexuality. Darger's second novel, "Crazy House", deals with these subjects more explicitly. However this may simply reflect Darger's lack of knowledge of anatomy as girls are always depicted either with no genitalia at all, or with penises.


title: Henry Darger

text: In a paraphrase of the Declaration of Independence, Darger wrote of children's right "to play, to be happy, and to dream, the right to normal sleep of the night's season, the right to an education, that we may have an equality of opportunity for developing all that are in us of mind and heart."


title: Henry Darger

text: A second work of fiction, provisionally titled "Crazy House: Further Adventures in Chicago", contains over 10,000 handwritten pages. Written after "The Realms", it takes that epic's major characters—the seven Vivian sisters and their companion/secret brother, Penrod—and places them in Chicago, with the action unfolding during the same years as that of the earlier book. Begun in 1939, it is a tale of a house that is possessed by demons and haunted by ghosts, or has an evil consciousness of its own. Children disappear into the house and are later found brutally murdered. The Vivians and Penrod are sent to investigate and discover that the murders are the work of evil ghosts. The girls go about exorcising the place, but have to resort to arranging for a full-scale Holy Mass to be held in each room before the house is clean. They do this repeatedly, but it never works. The narrative ends mid-scene, with Darger having just been rescued from the Crazy House.


title: Henry Darger

text: In 1968, Darger became interested in tracing some of his frustrations back to his childhood and began writing "The History of My Life". Spanning eight volumes, the book only spends 206 pages detailing Darger's early life before veering off into 4,672 pages of fiction about a powerful tornado called "Sweetie Pie", probably inspired by memories of a tornado he had witnessed in 1908.


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger's landlords, Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner, discovered his work shortly before his death. Nathan Lerner, an accomplished photographer whose long career, the "New York Times" wrote, "was inextricably bound up in the history of visual culture in Chicago," immediately recognized the artistic merit of Darger's work. By this time Darger was in St. Augustine's, operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor, where his father had died.


title: Henry Darger

text: The Lerners took charge of the Darger estate, publicizing his work and contributing to projects such as the 2004 documentary "In the Realms of the Unreal". In cooperation with Kiyoko Lerner, dedicated the Henry Darger Room Collection in 2008 as part of its permanent collection. Darger has become internationally recognized thanks to the efforts of the people who salvaged his work. After Nathan Lerner's death in 1997, Kiyoko became the sole figure in charge of both her husband's and Darger's estates. The U.S. copyright representative for the Estate of Henry Darger and the Estate of Nathan Lerner is the Artists Rights Society.


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger is today one of the most famous figures in the history of outsider art. At the Outsider Art Fair, held every January in New York City, and at auction, his work is among the highest-priced of any self-taught artist. The American Folk Art Museum in New York opened a Henry Darger Study Center in 2001. His work now commands upwards of $750,000.


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger left no will and no immediate surviving relatives when he died in 1973. Eventually, distant relatives of Darger began making legal claims to his artwork, alleging that the Lerners did not have title or any other right to benefit from the sale of Darger's work. The dispute is currently in state court in Cook County, Illinois. In June 2022, a probate judge agreed to make one of the distant relatives, Christen Sadowski, "the supervised administrators of the estate," making him "authorized to take possession of and collect the assets of the Estate, including its copyright and personal property interests." Sadowski filed a federal lawsuit against Kiyoko Lerner the following month, seeking possession of Darger's work and associated copyrights.


title: Henry Darger

text: Since his death in 1973 and the discovery of his "magnum opus", and especially since the 1990s, there have been many references in popular culture to Darger's work by other visual artists including, but not limited to, artists of comics and graphic novels; numerous popular songs; a 1999 book-length poem, "Girls on the Run", by John Ashbery; a multi-player online game, "Sissyfight 2000", and a 2004 multimedia piece by choreographer Pat Graney incorporating Darger images. Jesse Kellerman's 2008 novel, "The Genius," took part of its inspiration from Darger's story. Mike Walker and Judith Kampfner's radio play "Darger and the Detective", performed by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company for BBC Radio, focuses on Darger's obsessions and a police detective investigating the disappearance of Elsie Paroubek. Charlie Kaufman's 2020 novel "Antkind" includes several references to Darger.


title: Henry Darger

text: These artists have variously drawn from and responded to Darger's artistic style, his themes (especially the Vivian Girls, the young heroines of Darger's massive illustrated novel), and the events in his life.


title: Henry Darger

text: Jessica Yu's 2004 documentary "In the Realms of the Unreal" details Darger's life and artworks. Another documentary, "Revolutions of the Night" by Mark Stokes, looks at Darger's early life and examines lesser-known works by the artist.


title: Henry Darger

text: Comic book artist Scott McCloud refers to Darger's work in his book "Making Comics", while describing the danger artists encounter in the creation of a character's back-story. McCloud says that complicated narratives can easily spin out of control when too much unseen information is built up around the characters.


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger and his work have been an inspiration for several music artists. The Vivian Girls are an all-girl indie/punk trio from Brooklyn; "Henry Darger" is a song by Natalie Merchant on her album "Motherland", "Vivian Girls" is song by the band Wussy on their album "Left for Dead". "The Vivian Girls Are Visited in the Night by Saint Dargarius and His Squadron of Benevolent Butterflies" is a song by Sufjan Stevens on his album "", "The Story of the Vivian Girls" is a song by Comet Gain on their 2005 album "City Fallen Leaves", and "Segue: In the Realms of the Unreal" is song by the band ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead on their album "So Divided", "The Vivian Girls" is a 1979 song by Snakefinger (Philip Lithman Roth) also recorded by the Monks of Doom on their album "The Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company", "Vivian Girls" is a song by the band Fucked Up on their album "Hidden World", and "Lost Girls" (about Darger's work) is a song by Tilly and the Wall on their album "Bottoms of Barrels". On their 1994 album "Triple Mania II", San Diego's industrial noise performance outfit Crash Worship reworked several Darger images and screen printed them on a copper foil foldout discfolio; as well as the insert and disc. In 2011, Majical Cloudz released "Childhood's End", a haunting song influenced by Darger's later life. New York jazz pianist Sam Harris's 2014 album "Interludes" includes a song entitled "The Hermit Darger". The song "April 8th" by indie rock band Neutral Milk Hotel, from their debut studio album "On Avery Island", has also been suggested to be heavily inspired by Darger's life, especially on his later years of extreme social reclusion; April 8 was the date on which Elsie Paroubek went missing, and the song appears to imagine a fictional meeting between Paroubek and Darger.


title: Henry Darger

text: French pop rock and new wave band Indochine paid tribute to Henry Darger in writing the song "Henry Darger" available on their studio album "13" released in September 2017.


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger is referenced by the character Sergeant Hatred in the cartoon "The Venture Bros." in season 4, episode 6 "Self-Medication".


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger appears as a major supporting character in Elizabeth Hand's novel "Curious Toys", set around Chicago's Riverview Park in 1915.


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger's works are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the American Folk Art Museum in New York, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Collection de l'art brut, the Walker Art Center, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, High Museum of Art, and the Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art in Villeneuve d'Ascq, and the Museum of Old and New Art, in Tasmania; Australia.


title: Henry Darger

text: Darger's art also has been featured in many notable museum exhibitions, including "The Unreality of Being" exhibit curated by Stephen Prokopoff. It was also seen in "Disasters of War" (P.S. 1, New York, 2000), where it was presented alongside prints from the famous Francisco Goya series "The Disasters of War" and works derived from these by the British contemporary-art duo Jake and Dinos Chapman. Darger's work has also been shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Setagaya Art Museum, and the Collection de l'art brut, La Maison Rouge, Museum Kunstpalast, Musée d'Art Moderne de Lille-Métropole, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.


title: Henry Darger

text: In 2008, the exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum, titled "Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger", examined the influence of Darger's "œuvre" on 11 artists, including Trenton Doyle Hancock, Robyn O'Neil and Amy Cutler, who were responding not only to the aesthetic nature of Darger's mythic work – with its tales of good versus evil, its epic scope and complexity, and its transgressive undertone – but also to his driven work ethic and all-consuming devotion to artmaking.


title: Henry Darger

text: Also in 2008, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago opened its permanent exhibit of the Henry Darger Room Collection, an installation that meticulously recreates the small northside Chicago apartment where Darger lived and made his art.


title: Saints Row 2

text: Saints Row 2 is a 2008 action-adventure game developed by Volition and published by THQ. It is the sequel to 2006's "Saints Row" and the second installment in the "Saints Row" series. The game was released in October 2008 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, January 2009 for Microsoft Windows, and April 2016 for Linux. A mobile tie-in game was developed by G5 Entertainment and also released in October 2008. "Saints Row 2" directly follows from the events of the first game, as the player's custom character awakens from a coma after five years to find that their gang, the 3rd Street Saints, has been disbanded, and their former territories taken over by newly-formed criminal syndicates and a corrupt corporation. With the help of new and old allies, the player attempts to rebuild the Saints and take back Stilwater from their rivals.


title: Saints Row 2

text: Story missions are unlocked by trading in "Respect" points, currency earned by completing minigames and side-missions. Outside of the main story, players can freely roam Stilwater, which has been expanded with new locations and consists of two main islands. The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on-foot or by vehicle. Players can fight enemies using a variety of firearms, and call in non-playable gang members to assist them. An online multiplayer mode allows two players to explore Stilwater together while completing missions and activities, or multiple players to engage in a variety of cooperative and competitive game modes.


title: Saints Row 2

text: "Saints Row 2"'s developers opted for a more comedic tone to set the game apart from the "Grand Theft Auto" series, with which the original game was compared by most reviewers for their similar premise and gameplay elements. The game's promotional effort included various public showings, special editions and downloadable content including the "" and "" mission packages. Reviews were largely favorable, praising the action and straightforward gameplay, while only criticizing technical issues. The Windows port in particular was heavily criticized for technical issues not present in any of the other versions. The game had sold around 400,000 units by November 2008, and 3.4 million units by September 2010. A sequel, "", was released in November 2011.


title: Saints Row 2

text: "Saints Row 2" is an action-adventure video game set in an open world environment, offering the player a large open environment in which to move around. The player's character is capable of maneuvering through the environment, utilizing weaponry and engaging in melee combat warfare. After successfully completing the first game mission, the player meets the Third Street Saints and begin their devious schemes with the gang. Missions are unlocked by earning 'Respect' points from minigames and side-missions and although completing missions is necessary for game progression, players can complete them at their own leisure. The player is granted the option of instantly retrying the missions should they fail an attempt. Numerous checkpoints save progress in each mission, and missions can be replayed from locations within the environment. Aside from attempting missions, the player can explore the environment, purchase items at shops and participate in the aforementioned mini-games and side-missions. The player can also wreak havoc upon the city of Stilwater which can provoke potentially fatal attention from authoritative forces. The player can recruit members from a friendly gang and use a mobile phone to contact friends and/or businesses, as well as to input cheat codes. Entering cheats will disable Xbox 360 achievements.


title: Saints Row 2

text: Players drive vehicles that are stolen, bought or unlocked. Aside from automobiles, players can use boats and water craft, helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and motorcycles. A cruise control system can be activated while using land or sea vehicles. Waypoints can be placed on the pause-screen map, leaving a GPS route between the player character's location and the set destination. Players can hail taxicab services and pay a fee to quickly navigate the city. By taking land vehicles to Mechanics, players can apply paint schemes, body mods, hydraulics and nitrous oxide.


title: Saints Row 2

text: Players create their own character through a system that allows them to modify gender, ethnicity, fitness, voice, face and hairstyle. Walk and fighting styles, and personality traits can be assigned. Players purchase clothes, tattoos and piercings, and set outfits can be bought or created and saved to the player character's wardrobe. "Cribs" (safe houses) allow players to withdraw earnings, change outfits, replay missions and save the game. Cribs can be customized by applying themes and purchasing objects like TVs and pool tables. Boats and fixed-wing aircraft can be stored at purchased docks and hangars. Players select the outfits, vehicles, gestures and graffiti styles used by street members of the Third Street Saints.


title: Saints Row 2

text: The combat systems from "Saints Row" have been updated but many of the basics remain unchanged. While engaging in melee-based combat, the player character will perform combos and charge up attacks, and can execute a finishing move if three consecutive hits are dealt. With a gun equipped, the player can perform a groin attack, and can zoom in for a finer aim reticle. The player can also employ the use of human shields, and can use makeshift weapons pulled from the environment e.g. fire hydrants, cement blocks. Should the player either commit illegal activities or incite rival gang members, they will provoke potentially fatal attention from authoritative figures or rival gangs. The notoriety bar is a visual representation of the proactivity of the opposing figures' response and continual inciting of these groups will bring about a more powerful response, such as SWAT teams from the police. The player will continue to be chased by these groups until captured or killed and must reduce the notoriety bar by either hiding from the police or gang and wait for it to "cool off", or by seeking out a drive-through confessional which will clear the notoriety bar for a small fee. Should the player character be apprehended or killed, a small percentage of the player's earnings will be removed and the player will respawn at law or healthcare institutions. The game contains over forty different weapons, many of which have been recycled from "Saints Row". The game allows the player to utilise new weapon types, examples of which include satchel charges, laser-guided rocket launchers, chainsaws and more. The player has the ability to dual wield handguns and submachine guns. Weaponry can be purchased by the player from specific stores or unlocked throughout in-game progress.


title: Saints Row 2

text: Players navigate the open world, fictional city of Stilwater. The city consists of forty-five neighborhoods divided between twenty districts. It is expanded from "Saints Row"'s version of Stilwater, roughly one-and-a-half times as big and featuring new districts such as the prison, nuclear power plant, and expanded airport among others. Game developers stated that the city has very much been redeveloped and each individual neighborhood has been touched up in one way or another. According to the storyline, the in-game corporation Ultor spent more than 300 million dollars redeveloping the city, funding the police force and, as it states, turning the "once crime-ridden third-tier city" into an "urban utopia". The Saint's Row district is a more notable change within the city, having been completely redesigned and serving as the location of Ultor's headquarters; a towering skyscraper referred to as the Phillips Building. Many old districts from the earlier revision of Stilwater have also seen changes. Examples include the expansion taken place on the Suburbs district, which is double the size of its depiction in "Saints Row" and the Museum district, which features the Eramenos Ancient Greek museum exhibit, complete with models of the Acropolis of Athens and Theatre of Dionysus. There are also several completely new districts, such as the Marina and the University.


title: Saints Row 2

text: From the beginning of the game, the map of Stilwater is fully visible. However, shops and activities will simply be displayed as a question mark until the player discovers them. By completing missions and wiping out enemy strongholds the player gains control of the various neighborhoods the city is split into. There are over 130 interiors within the city, and hidden events can be triggered by some, including over ninety shops which can be purchased when the player controls each shops' associated territory. The player gets a 10% discount at owned stores and buying an entire chain of departments will mean that the protagonist's face appears on in-game billboard advertisements. The game shares technology with that of "", another Volition-developed game and so certain elements of the environment are fully destructible. A number of Easter eggs are placed within the sandbox, including the pop-out Easter Bunny which won "Top Easter Egg of 2008".


title: Saints Row 2

text: The Respect system is a scoring system where the player earns Respect points to unlock missions and progress through the storyline. The player can partake in storyline and stronghold missions only after filling up at least one bar of Respect, and Respect points are removed when the player starts a mission. The 'style rank' is a modifier of how much Respect the player can earn; this is increased by purchasing items for the player character. Respect points can be earned in two ways; by progressing through side-missions called Activities and by completing mini-games and stunts called Diversions.


title: Saints Row 2

text: There are a broad range of Activities and Diversions available for the player to progress through. Many of the game's Activities made appearance in "Saints Row" and a variety of new Activities have also been introduced in the game. Examples include an underground fight club, a parody of the "Cops" television show known as FUZZ and numerous others. Each Activity can be initiated from various locations and plays out over six levels of increasing difficulty. The Activities have been designed to suit solo and co-operative play. Most Diversions do not have specific start points. There are numerous Diversions playable in the game, such as acts of indecent exposure, combat and driving stunts, car surfing and a survival horror minigame called Zombie Uprising.


title: Saints Row 2

text: "Saints Row 2" has various multiplayer components implemented throughout the game. Through an online network or through System Linking, the player can progress through the game with a cooperative partner. While in co-op mode, both players can explore the city and progress through the game's storyline missions and minigames. Both players are rewarded and credited for completion of such activities, and the players can furthermore play against each other in competitive metagames. The co-op mode is "drop-in/drop-out" and there is no limit as to how far the players can be away from each other.


title: Saints Row 2

text: The game contains competitive multiplayer modes, supporting between four and twelve players in a match. There are two standard deathmatch modes; the free-for-all "Gangsta Brawl" mode and its team-based variant, "Team Gangsta Brawl". Another mode, known as "Strong Arm", puts two teams against each other fighting for control over the neighborhood. In "Strong Arm", the first team to earn $100,000,000 dollars wins and money is earned by competing head-to-head in activities, controlling "tag spots" which serve as bonus modifiers or by eliminating members of the opposing team. While in a party, players are free to roam around a lobby. The player can rank up in multiplayer and displays this by earning various "badges" which are displayed next to the player's name. By ranking up, the player can unlock more expensive clothing for their multiplayer character.


title: Saints Row 2

text: The multiplayer mode on PC and PlayStation 3 was discontinued in May 2014 when GameSpy's servers were shut down. However, the PC version's multiplayer can still be played via LAN tunneling software such as Evolve or Tunngle and the PS3 version's multiplayer can still be played using XLink Kai. The Xbox 360 versions of the game were unaffected as they use Xbox Live for matchmaking.


title: Saints Row 2

text: Five years after the explosion on Richard Hughes' yacht, the player character (Charles Shaughnessy, Kenn Michael, Alex Mendoza, Katie Semine, G.K. Bowes, or Rebecca Sanabria), who was the sole survivor, awakens from a coma within the infirmary of Stilwater's maximum security prison after undergoing extensive plastic surgery. They escape to Stilwater with the help of Carlos Mendoza (Joe Camareno), the brother of a former 3rd Street Saints member, who explains that the gang has since disbanded. Most members were arrested by Troy Bradshaw (Michael Rapaport), an undercover cop who had infiltrated the gang as a lieutenant, and who has since become Chief of Police, using his influence to protect the imprisoned Saints. In the gang's absence, their former base of operations, the Saint's Row district, has been redeveloped into a pristine commercial and residential area by the Ultor Corporation, who have further plans for Stilwater.


title: Saints Row 2

text: The player works to rebuild the Saints by rescuing their former lieutenant Johnny Gat (Daniel Dae Kim) from his trial; recruiting new members, including Carlos and Gat's acquaintances Pierce Washington (Arif S. Kinchen) and Shaundi (Eliza Dushku), whom they quickly promote to lieutenants; and setting up a new headquarters in a hotel destroyed by an earthquake. Eventually, the player steps up as the Saints' new leader, earning the monicker of "The Boss", and declares war on the new gangs that have taken over the city during their absence, assigning their lieutenants to discover more about each.


title: Saints Row 2

text: • Gat and Pierce focus on the Ronin, a Japanese "bosozoku" gang who conduct gambling and porn operations, led by Shogo Akuji (Yuri Lowenthal) and his second-in-command, Jyunichi (Brian Tee) – on behalf of Shogo's father, Kazuo, who leads international operations. After the Saints rob their casino, the Ronin retaliate by infiltrating the home of Gat's girlfriend Aisha (Sy Smith), killing her and severely wounding Gat. After Gat recovers, he and the Boss retaliate by killing Jyunichi (who was sold out by Shogo, out of envy for Jyunichi's closer bond with Kazuo), Shogo (whom they bury alive after he ambushes them at Aisha's funeral) and ultimately Kazuo, ending the Ronin.


title: Saints Row 2

text: • Carlos researches the Brotherhood, an outlaw gang who conduct gun-running operations, led by Maero (Michael Dorn), his girlfriend Jessica (Jaime Pressly), and tattoo artist Matt (Anthony Pulcini). After the Boss rejects Maero's offer to join forces and split their profits 80-20, a series of tit-for-tat retaliations results in the deaths of Carlos (who is dragged face-down from the hitch of a speeding truck before Boss grants him a mercy kill) and Jessica (who is trapped in the trunk of a car by the Boss and then unknowningly crushed by Maero with his monster truck). After failing to kill Maero during an assault of the Brotherhood's base, the Boss eventually eliminates him during a demolition derby.