title: YFZ Ranch

text: The Associated Press reported that Texas Ranger Brooks Long called Colorado officials about two phone numbers, one of which "was possibly related to the reporting party for the YFZ Ranch incident". However, the CPS acted on additional evidence gathered while investigating this complaint, and Flora Jessop and some commentators have expressed gratitude to Swinton that her tip, even if false, allowed exposure of alleged child abuses.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: CPS has acknowledged that some ranch residents who were removed because they appeared to be minors may be older than first assumed. On May 13, Louisa Bradshaw Jessop gave birth to a son. Louisa Jessop had been classified as 17 by CPS, although her husband had previously provided a birth certificate and driver's license to demonstrate that she was 22. A CPS lawyer explained, "We can't just look at people and say, 'You're of age, you can go. A spokesman for FLDS believed that CPS "just wanted to keep the mother in custody until they could get the baby". Jessop was one of 27 "disputed minors", or ranch residents about whom the CPS has inaccurate or conflicting information regarding age. Child Protective Services lawyers on May 13 told Judge Walther that Louisa and the mother of a boy born April 29 were no longer considered to be minors. On May 22, CPS declared half of the alleged teen mothers to be adults, some as old as 27. One who had been listed as an underage mother had never been pregnant.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: Many FLDS members and supporters see the raid and the seizure of the children from their family as religious persecution and have likened it to a witch-hunt.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: In May 2008, FLDS spokesperson Willie Jessop wrote a letter to President George W. Bush, asking him to intervene, and outlining the harsh conditions that Jessop believed that the children and mothers were subjected to. In the letter Jessop claimed that, contrary to statements from authorities that the children were being placed in a safe and secure environment, the mothers and children were actually crowded by the hundreds into Fort Concho, a military facility without adequate toilets, bathing facilities, or privacy.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: Mental health workers who worked at the shelter testified similarly to state officials, also citing lack of privacy, only military cots for sleeping and poor-quality food, with no communications and threatened arrest if mothers waved to friends. "The CPS workers were openly rude to the mothers and children, yelled at them for trying to wave to friends ... threatened them with arrest if they did not stop waving" Workers took notes on everything the "guests" said. In many of the testimonies it was compared to a prison or concentration camp. Others testified the children were "amazingly clean, happy, healthy, energetic, well behaved and self-confident", while the mothers were "consistently calm, patient and loving with their children".


title: YFZ Ranch

text: The Christian legal group Liberty Legal Institute believes the state of Texas should be required to prove that the children taken from the ranch were actually abused or were in imminent danger. Liberty Legal warned of possible damage to religious liberties and the rights of all Texas parents. Home-schooling families were also fearful that opponents could file similarly false complaints against families to force attendance in government-run schools.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: Let's say you're a 6-month-old girl, no evidence whatsoever of any abuse. They're simply saying, "You, in this culture, may grow up to be a child bride when you're 14. Therefore we're going to remove you now when you're 6 months old" ... Or, "You're a 6-month-old boy; 25, 30 years, 40 years from now you're going to be a predator, so we're going to take you away now."


title: YFZ Ranch

text: Texas requires public education for children not in private or home schooling. Although the children had not been schooled while in state custody, a Texas Education Agency spokesman has stated that "there's a point at which their educational input is secondary" to their emotional well-being. CPS anticipates that the children will continue their education on the campus of their foster placement. There were no plans for the children to attend classes on any public school campus.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: The ACLU maintains that the raid was prompted by a single, unsubstantiated allegation of abuse, and they allege that all children at the ranch were believed at risk solely because of exposure to FLDS beliefs regarding underage marriage. But, the ACLU contends, "exposure to a religion's beliefs, however unorthodox, is not itself abuse and may not constitutionally be labeled abuse". The ACLU pointed out that parents were separated from their children without individual hearings and without particularized evidence of abuse, and that DNA testing was ordered without evidence that parentage was in dispute. Such actions, the ACLU asserts, "should not be indiscriminately targeted against a group as a whole – particularly when the group is perceived as being different or unusual".


title: YFZ Ranch

text: At the beginning of May, "National Review" columnist John Derbyshire called the raid the "atrocity of the [previous] month", but said he had seen only one editorial critical of the removals. The "Los Angeles Times" editorially endorsed the appeals court decision, saying CPS "was overzealous in its efforts".


title: YFZ Ranch

text: Several commentators compared the raid with the Short Creek raid of 1953, which was also a government raid on an FLDS community, and which led to a popular backlash against the raid.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: On April 14, 2008, the women and children were moved out of Fort Concho to San Angelo Coliseum, where the CPS reported that the children were playing and smiling. Mothers had complained about the living conditions inside Fort Concho, sending a letter to the Texas Governor asking him to investigate the conditions. In the letter, obtained by the Associated Press, the mothers claim that their children became sick and required hospitalization. They wrote "Our innocent children are continually being questioned on things they know nothing about. The physical examinations were horrifying to the children. The exposure to these conditions is traumatizing." FLDS and mental health workers complained about subjecting children to interrogation sessions, invasive physical examinations, pregnancy tests and complete body X-rays. Women staying at Fort Concho shelter told the press that the temporary housing was "cramped, with cots, cribs, and playpens lined up side by side, and that the children were frightened".


title: YFZ Ranch

text: The FLDS described the separation of mothers from their children as "inhumane". When the children under 5 realized their mothers would be taken away, the children started crying and screaming, requiring CPS workers to pry many from their mothers.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: The children were placed in 16 group shelters and foster homes. Minors with children were sent to the Seton Home in San Antonio, older boys to Cal Farley's Boys Ranch in Amarillo. Some parents stated on the Today Show that they were unable to visit their boys due to a shortage of CPS staff. Newspapers released names of facilities caring for the FLDS children that have requested donations of specific items, help or cash.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: On April 16, 2008, several of the mothers appeared on "Larry King Live" to ask for their children and tell their story from their own viewpoint. The program included a guided tour of the ranch by one of the mothers, showing where the children and families sleep and eat and stressing the loss felt with the children all now gone. The mothers declined to discuss the pending allegations of child abuse. On the 17th, a custody hearing began in the Tom Green County Courthouse to determine whether the children would remain in state custody. Judge Barbara Walther heard testimony from State officials, experts called in by the State and witnesses for ranch members over a period of 2 days while hundreds of lawyers representing the children looked on and offered objections. State officials alleged a pattern of abuse by adults, including marriages between young girls and older men, while ranch residents insisted that no abuse had taken place.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: On April 18, 2008, after 21 hours of testimony, Judge Walther ordered that all 416 children seized be held in protective custody and that the DNA of the children and adults be tested to establish family relationships. Children younger than 4 were to be separated from their mothers over 18 after DNA samples were taken; older children had already been separated. Children were to be given individual hearings to determine whether they must be moved to permanent foster care or returned to their parents. DNA testing of children and adults began on the 21st.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: On April 24, 2008, authorities stated that they believed 25 mothers from the YFZ Ranch were under 18. On the 28th, authorities announced that of the 53 girls aged 14–17, 31 have children or were pregnant.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: After the women regained custody of the children, one half of the families left the Yearning for Zion ranch and moved to another FLDS location.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: Carey Cockerell, representing Texas CPS investigators, said on April 30 that they have identified 41 children with past diagnoses of fractured bones. FLDS spokesman Rod Parker attributes the fractures to hereditary bone disease and believes that the fracture rate was low, considering the children's physically active lifestyle. Additionally, two children broke bones while they were removed from the ranch, and one girl broke a bone while in custody. CPS investigators also made new allegations of possible sexual abuse of boys, citing their diary notes.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: On May 13, 2008, a San Antonio judge allowed a couple from the ranch to have daily visits with their children, and granted them a hearing in 10 days to decide their children's custody. Other challenges to the blanket order by Judge Walther were filed in courts in San Antonio, Austin, and San Angelo.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: On December 22, 2008, The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services issued a 21-page final report on the raid entitled "El Dorado Investigation". The report found that "12 girls were 'spiritually' married at ages ranging from 12 to 15, and seven of these girls have had one or more children. The 12 confirmed victims of sexual abuse were among 43 girls removed from the ranch from the ages of 12 to 17, which means that more than one out of every four pubescent girls on the ranch was in an underage marriage."


title: YFZ Ranch

text: A year after the raid, two thirds of the families were back at the ranch and sect leaders had promised to end underaged marriages. Twelve men, not all apparently from the ranch, had been indicted on a variety of sex charges, including assault and bigamy. One child, a 14-year-old girl who was married to jailed leader Warren Jeffs when she was 12, remained in foster care. The following summer, 2009, she was sent to live with a relative and ordered not to have contact with Jeffs.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: In November 2012, the Texas Attorney General's Office began legal proceeding in an attempt to seize the ranch. In a 91-page affidavit filed with the 51st District Court of Texas, the Attorney General argues that Warren Jeffs authorized the purchase of the ranch property as "... a rural location where the systemic sexual assault of children would be tolerated without interference from law enforcement authorities", therefore, the property was contraband and subject to seizure. Under Texas law, property that was used to commit or facilitate certain criminal conduct can be seized by law enforcement authorities. In 2012 the property was appraised to have a value of $19.96 million, according to county tax rolls.


title: YFZ Ranch

text: On January 6, 2014, Judge Walther ruled that the state could seize the property, and that they could "enter the property and take an inventory." The FLDS Church had 30 days to appeal. On February 6, 2014, at the close of the courthouse day, the opportunity to appeal the seizure expired; since no one had filed an appeal challenging the seizure by that time, the state of Texas became the legal owner of the YFZ Ranch. Officials did not release details about their future plans for the ranch at that time. On April 16, 2014, officials met with two representatives of the remaining eight adult residents and discussed arrangements for them to vacate the premises, and the following day (April 17) the State of Texas took physical possession of the property.


title: Tom Cat

text: Thomas Jasper "Tom" Cat Sr. is a fictional character and one of the two titular main protagonists (the other being Jerry Mouse) in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's series of "Tom and Jerry" theatrical animated short films. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, he is a grey and white anthropomorphic domestic short haired mute tuxedo cat who first appeared in the 1940 MGM animated short "Puss Gets the Boot". The cat was known as "Jasper" during his debut in the short; however, beginning with his next appearance in "The Midnight Snack" he was known as "Tom" or "Thomas".


title: Tom Cat

text: His name, "Tom Cat", is based on "tomcat", a word which refers to male cats. He is usually mute and rarely heard speaking with the exception of a few cartoons (such as 1943's "The Lonesome Mouse", 1944's "The Zoot Cat", 1947's "Part Time Pal", 1953’s "Puppy Tale" and 1992's ""). His only notable vocal sounds outside of this are his various screams whenever he is subjected to panic or, more frequently, pain. He is continuously after Jerry Mouse, for whom he sets traps, many of which backfire and cause damage to him rather than Jerry. His trademark scream (which, ironically, was originally done by Butch in "Springtime for Thomas") was provided by creator William Hanna, Hanna's recordings of Tom screaming are later used as a stock sound effect for the other MGM Cartoon characters, whenever they scream including majority of Tex Avery's shorts.


title: Tom Cat

text: Tom has changed over the years upon his evolution, especially after the first episodes. For example, in his debut, he was quadrupedal. However, over the years (since the episode "Dog Trouble"), he has become almost completely bipedal and has human intelligence and he is similar to his previous appearance, in 1945 shorts he had twisted whiskers and his appearance kept changing. In the 1940s and early 1950s, he had white fur between his eyes. In newer cartoons, the white fur is gone. As a slapstick cartoon character, Tom has a superhuman level of elasticity.


title: Tom Cat

text: Tom is usually defeated (or very rarely, killed, like in "Mouse Trouble", where he explodes) in the end, although there are some stories where he outwits and defeats Jerry. Though besides Jerry he also has trouble with many other mouse characters or cat characters. One of them that appears frequently is Spike Bulldog. Spike regularly appears and usually assists Jerry and beats up Tom. Though in some occasions Tom beats him or he turns on Jerry (like his debut appearance in Dog Trouble) . Usually when Tom is chasing Jerry after a bit Jerry turns the tables on Tom and beats him or uses an outside character such as Spike to beat Tom.


title: Tom Cat

text: Tom has variously been portrayed as a house cat doing his job, and a victim of Jerry's blackmail attempts, sometimes within the same short. He is almost always called by his full name "Thomas" by Mammy Two Shoes.In 1961 short Switchin' Kitten Tom has a membership card as belong to the "International Brotherhood of Cats"


title: Tom Cat

text: Tom and Jerry showed up together at the 1945 Technicolor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical "Anchors Aweigh" where Tom briefly appears as a butler for King Jerry, the latter who has a dance sequence with Gene Kelly, and also in another musical with the same studio "Dangerous When Wet" (1953), where, in a dream sequence, main character Katie Higgins (Esther Williams) does an underwater ballet with Tom and Jerry, as well as animated depictions of the different people in her life.


title: Tom Cat

text: Despite almost every short depicting Tom as silent (besides his vocal sounds such as screaming and gasping), there are some cartoons which feature him speaking, with his first film appearance (along with co-star Jerry) in 1992, "," being an example as Tom and Jerry talk throughout the film.


title: Tom Cat

text: Tom has had a number of different voice actors over the years. When the character debuted in "Puss Gets the Boot", voice actor Harry E. Lang provided the screeches and meows for Tom. He would continue to do so until "Sufferin Cats" (1943). Beginning with the short "The Night Before Christmas" (1941), co-creator William Hanna provided the vocal effects and famous screams for the character until the last Hanna-Barbera short "Tot Watchers" (1958). This was accomplished by someone recording him screaming, chopping the top and bottom of it, leaving the strongest part of the recording in. During this time period, Lang continued doing vocal effects for Tom occasionally did his speaking voice between 1943 and 1946. Billy Bletcher also voiced him in a few shorts between 1944 and 1950. In 1961–1962, when Gene Deitch took over as director after the MGM cartoon studio shut down in 1957, he and Allen Swift did vocal effects for Tom throughout that time period. When Chuck Jones took over during 1963–1967, he, Abe Levitow and Mel Blanc (best known for voicing Bugs Bunny and other characters) voiced Tom. Terence Monk did his singing voice in "The Cat Above and the Mouse Below" (1964) and "Cat and Dupli-cat" (1967).


title: Tom Cat

text: In "The Tom and Jerry Show" (1975), Tom was voiced by John Stephenson. Lou Scheimer voiced him in "The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show" in 1980–1982. Frank Welker voiced him in "Tom and Jerry Kids" in 1990–1993. Other voice actors include Richard Kind (in "Tom and Jerry: The Movie"), Jeff Bergman (in a Cartoon Network Latin America bumper and a Boomerang UK bumper), Alan Marriott (in "Tom and Jerry in Fists of Furry"), Jeff Bennett (in "Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring"), Marc Silk (in "Tom and Jerry in War of the Whiskers"), Bill Kopp (in "Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars" and "Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry"), Spike Brandt (in "The Karate Guard", "Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale", "Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes", "Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz", "Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse", "Tom and Jerry's Giant Adventure", "Tom and Jerry: The Lost Dragon", "Tom and Jerry: Spy Quest", "Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz", and "Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"), and Don Brown (in "Tom and Jerry Tales"). In "The Tom and Jerry Show (2014 TV series)", his vocal effects are provided by the show's sound designer Rich Danhakl and archival recordings of William Hanna from the original theatrical shorts. In "Tom & Jerry (2021 film)", his voice was provided by Kaiji Tang and archived recordings of William Hanna.


title: Tom Cat

text: On November 18, 2021, it was confirmed that Eric Bauza would be voicing the character in the 2022 fighting game, "MultiVersus", which establishes Tom's original given name "Jasper" to be his middle name. Additionally, William Hanna's archival audio recordings (usually Tom's iconic screams as a death scream sound) are also used in the game.


title: Tom Cat

text: Tom's screams have been used as stock sound effects in various media, such as the 1981 James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only", "Critters 2" and "Critters 3" (used for the Critters when they scream and shriek) and the "Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi" episode, "Small Stuff" (used for Jang Keng, a black cat). It was also used for the caveman in the 1995 game "Prehistorik Man".


title: Tom Cat

text: Tom and Jerry were planned to appear as a cameo in the deleted scene "Acme's Funeral" from the 1988 film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".


title: Tom Cat

text: "The Itchy & Scratchy Show" from "The Simpsons" parodies "Tom and Jerry", with its cat character Scratchy, unlike Tom, usually being portrayed as a harmless character who is subject to wanton unprovoked violence by the psychopathic Itchy.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: This article about the demographics of Switzerland features the population of the Swiss Confederation, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: Switzerland had a population of 8.57 million as of mid-2019. Its population quadrupled over the period 1800 to 1990 (average doubling time 95 years). Population growth was steepest in the period after World War II (1.4% per annum during 1950–1970, doubling time 50 years), it slowed during the 1970s to 1980s and has since again picked up to 1% during the 2000s (doubling time 70 years).


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: More than 75% of the population live in the central plain, which stretches between the Alps and the Jura Mountains and from Geneva in the southwest to the High Rhine and Lake Constance in the northeast.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: The "Federal Population Census" (, , , ) has been carried out every 10 years starting in 1850. The census was initiated by Federal Councillor Stefano Franscini, who evaluated the data of the first census all by himself after Parliament failed to provide the necessary funds. The census is now being conducted by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, which makes most results available on its website.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: Collected data includes population data (citizenship, place of residence, place of birth, position in household, number of children, religion, languages, education, profession, place of work, etc.), household data (number of individuals living in the household, etc.), accommodation data (surface area, amount of rent paid, etc.) and building data (geocoordinates, time of construction, number of floors, etc.). Participation is compulsory and reached 99.87% of the population in 2000.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: Since 2010, the population census has been carried out and analysed annually in a new format by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). In order to ease the burden on the population, the information is primarily drawn from population registers and supplemented by sample surveys. Only a small proportion of the population (about 5%) are surveyed in writing or by telephone. The first reference day for the new census was 31 December 2010.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: During the 19th and 20th centuries, population growth rate has been at 0.7% to 0.8%, with a doubling time of ca. 90 years. In the later 20th century, the growth rate has fallen below 0.7% (1980s: 0.64%; 1990s: 0.65%), and in the 2000s it has risen again slightly (2000–2006: 0.69%), mostly due to immigration. In 2007 the population grew at a much higher 1.1% rate, again mostly due to immigration. For 2008, the population grew 1.6%, a level not seen since the early 1960s.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: The total fertility rate is the number of children born per woman. It is based on fairly good data for the entire period. Sources: Our World In Data and Gapminder Foundation.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: As population growth curbs, the percentage of elderly people increases. In July 2015, the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics published a projection estimating that by 2045, the ratio of residents over the retirement age of 65 would climb to 48.1 per 100 residents between 20 and 64 years old, and possibly as high as 50.0 in the highest case. In 2015 that ratio was only 29.1 per 100 residents.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: According to statistics released by the federal government in 2019, life expectancy stands at 81.9 years for men and 85.6 years for women, for an overall average of 83.8 years for the populace as a whole.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: Unlike many other OECD countries, the Swiss Federal Statistical Office does not collect any data on racial identity or ethnic identity. Data is collected on country of birth, but as the OECD write "In general, collecting migration-related information on the foreign-born population and their children is a crude method for capturing diversity."


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: Encompassing the Central Alps, Switzerland sits at the crossroads of several major European cultures. Its population includes a two-thirds majority of Alemannic German speakers and a one-quarter Latin minority (French, Italian and Romansh), see linguistic geography of Switzerland. 10% of the population natively speak an immigrant language.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: Switzerland consistently ranks high on quality of life indices, including per capita income, concentration of computer and internet usage per capita, insurance coverage per individual, and health care rates. For these and many other reasons, such as the four languages, it serves as an excellent test market for businesses hoping to introduce new products into Europe.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: The number of registered resident foreigners was 1,001,887 (16.17%) in 1970. This amount decreased to 904,337 (14.34%) in 1979, and has increased steadily since that time, passing the 20% mark during 2001 and rising to 1,524,663 (20.56%) in 2004. The number of Swiss citizens thus numbered about 5.9 million in that year.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: In 2013 there were a total of 1,937,447 permanent residents (23.8% of the total population of 8.14 million) in Switzerland. Of these, 1.65 million resident foreigners (85.0%, or 20.2% of the 8.14 Million total population), had European citizenship (Italian: 298,875; German: 292,291; Portuguese: 253,227; French: 110,103; Serbian: 90,704; Kosovan: 86,976; Spanish: 75,333, Macedonian: 62,633; British: 40,898; Austrian: 39,494; Bosnian and Herzegovinian: 33,002; Croatian: 30,471). From other continents; 122,941 residents were from Asia; 83,873 from Africa; 78,433 from the Americas; and 4,145 from Oceania.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: The following chart shows permanent resident numbers from selected regions and countries every 5 years.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: Tamil refugees fleeing from war in Sri Lanka are the largest number of Asians, while Albanians and former Yugoslavians continue to grow in number. Switzerland is also the second largest European country in number of acceptance of Iraqi refugees fleeing from the violence in Iraq since 2003, but behind Great Britain, Germany and Sweden in the number of Iraqis taken residence for a European country.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: In 2004, 35,700 people acquired Swiss citizenship according to Swiss nationality law, a figure slightly larger than that of the previous year (35,424), and four times larger than the 1990 figure (8,658). About a third of those naturalized are from a successor state of former Yugoslavia: 7,900 Serbia-Montenegro, 2,400 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2,000 North Macedonia, 1,600 Croatia. 4,200 were from Italy, 3,600 from Turkey, 1,600 from Sri Lanka, 1,200 from Portugal, and 1,200 from France.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: The yearly rate of naturalization has quintupled over the 1990s and 2000s, from roughly 9,000 to 45,000. Relative to the population of resident foreigners, this amounts to an increase from 8% in 1990 to 27% in 2007, or relative to the number of Swiss citizens from 1.6% in 1990 to 7.3% in 2007.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: In 2004, 623,100 Swiss citizens (8.9%) lived abroad, the largest group in France (166,200), followed by the United States (71,400) and Germany (70,500). (see Swiss diaspora).


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: Switzerland as a federal state has no state religion, though most of the cantons (except for Geneva and Neuchâtel) recognize official churches ("Landeskirchen"), in all cases including the Roman Catholic Church and the Swiss Reformed Church. These churches, and in some cantons also the Old Catholic Church and Jewish congregations, are financed by official taxation of adherents.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: In 2000, 5.78 million residents (79.2%, compared to 93.8% in 1980) were Christian (Roman Catholic 41.8%, Protestant 35.3%, Orthodox 1.8%). 809,800 (11.1%, compared to 3.8% in 1980) were without any religious affiliation. 310,800 (4.3%) were Muslim (compared to 0.9% in 1980), 17,900 (0.2%) were Jewish. The 2005 Eurobarometer poll found 48% of Swiss residents to be theist, 39% expressing belief in "some sort of spirit or life force", 9% atheist and 4% said that they "don't know".


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: Adherence to Christian churches has declined considerably since the late 20th century, from close to 94% in 1980 to about 67% as of 2016. Furthermore, notable is the significant difference in church adherence between Swiss citizens (72%) and foreign nationals (51%) in 2016.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: The Federal Statistical Office reported the religious demographics as of 2016 as follows (based on the resident population age 15 years and older):


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: (100%: 6,981,381, registered resident population age 15 years and older). From the same 2016 survey, of 15 to 24 year olds 65.4% were Christian (36.3% Roman Catholic, 22.6% Reformed, 6.6% other), 23.0% unaffiliated, 0.3% Jewish, 8.3% Muslim, 1.7% other religions. Those aged 25 to 44 were 58.4% Christian (33.1% Roman Catholic, 18.7% Reformed, 6.7% other), 31.0% unaffiliated, 0.2% Jewish, 7.5% Muslim, 1.7% other religions. Older adults (45 to 64 years old) were 67.0% Christian (37.7% Roman Catholic, 23.9% Reformed, 5.5% other), 25.9% unaffiliated, 0.2% Jewish, 4.2% Muslim, 1.5% other religions. Senior citizens (over 65) were 81.3% Christian (40.3% Roman Catholic, 36.2% Reformed, 4.8% other), 14.9% unaffiliated, 0.3% Jewish, 1.1% Muslim, 0.5% other religions.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: In 2017, permanent residents who spoke German (mostly Swiss German dialects) as their main language or co-main language numbered about 63% (5.2 million), followed by 22.9% (1.9 million) for French (mostly Swiss French, but including some Franco-Provençal dialects), 8.2% (678,000) for Italian (mostly Swiss Italian, but including Insubric dialects) and less than 0.5% (44,000) for Romansh.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: The non-official language with the largest group of main or co-main language speakers (in 2017) is English with 448,000 speakers, followed by Portuguese with 303,000, Albanian with 262,000, followed by Serbo-Croatian with 205,000 speakers and Spanish with 197,000. All other languages totaled 640,000.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: Almost all Swiss are literate. Switzerland's 13 institutes of higher learning enrolled 99,600 students in the academic year of 2001–02. About 25% of the adult population hold a diploma of higher learning. According to the CIA World Factbook data for 2003, 99% of the Swiss population aged 15 and over could read and write, with the rate being identical for both sexes.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: During the 2008/09 school year there were 1,502,257 students in the entire Swiss educational system. In kindergarten or pre-school, there were 152,919 students (48.6% female). These students were taught by 13,592 teachers (96.0% female) in 4,949 schools, of which 301 were private schools. There were 777,394 students (48.6% female) in the obligatory schools, which include primary and lower secondary schools. These students were taught by 74,501 teachers (66.3% female) in 6,083 schools, of which 614 were private. The upper secondary school system had 337,145 students (46.9% female). They were taught by 13,900 teachers (42.3% female) in 730 schools, of which 240 were private. The tertiary education system had 234,799 students (49.7% female). They were taught by 37,546 teachers (32.8% female) in 367 schools.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: The police registered a total of 553,421 criminal offences in 2009, including 51 killings and 185 attempted murders. There were 616 cases of rape. In the same year, 94,574 adults (85% of them male, 47.4% of them Swiss citizens) were convicted under criminal law. 57.3% of convictions were for traffic offences.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: In the same year, 15,064 minors (78.3% of them male, 68.2% of them of Swiss nationality, 76.3% aged between 15 and 18) were convicted.


title: Demographics of Switzerland

text: The number of convicted persons is given in the following tables. Each class of crime references the relevant section of the "Strafgesetzbuch" (Criminal Code, abbreviated as StGB in German), or "Betäubungsmittelgesetz" (abbr. BetmG, Narcotics Act), or the "Strassenverkehrsgesetz" (abbr. SVG, Swiss Traffic Regulations).


title: Rougarou

text: The rougarou (alternatively spelled as roux-ga-roux, rugaroo, or rugaru) is a legendary creature in French communities linked to traditional concepts of the werewolf.


title: Rougarou

text: The stories of the creature known as a rougarou are as diverse as the spelling of its name, though they are all connected to francophone cultures through a common derived belief in the loup-garou (, ). "Loup" is French for wolf, and "garou" (from Frankish "warulf," cognate with English werewolf) is a man who transforms into an animal.


title: Rougarou

text: "Rougarou" represents a variant pronunciation and spelling of the original French "loup-garou". According to Barry Jean Ancelet, an academic expert on Cajun folklore and professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in America, the tale of the rougarou is a common legend across French Louisiana. Both words are used interchangeably in southern Louisiana. Some people call the monster "rougarou"; others refer to it as the "loup-garou".


title: Rougarou

text: The rougarou legend has been spread for many generations, either directly from French settlers to Louisiana (New France) or via the French Canadian immigrants centuries ago.


title: Rougarou

text: In the Cajun legends, the creature is said to prowl the swamps around Acadiana and Greater New Orleans, and the sugar cane fields and woodlands of the regions. The rougarou most often is described as a creature with a human body and the head of a wolf or dog, similar to the werewolf legend.


title: Rougarou

text: Often the story-telling has been used to inspire fear and obedience. One such example is stories that have been told by elders to persuade Cajun children to behave. According to another variation, the wolf-like beast will hunt down and kill Catholics who do not follow the rules of Lent. This coincides with the French Catholic loup-garou stories, according to which the method for turning into a werewolf is to break Lent seven years in a row.


title: Rougarou

text: A common blood sucking legend says that the rougarou is under the spell for 101 days. After that time, the curse is transferred from person to person when the rougarou draws another human's blood. During that day the creature returns to human form. Although acting sickly, the human refrains from telling others of the situation for fear of being killed.


title: Rougarou

text: Other stories range from the rougarou as a rabbit to the rougarou being derived from witchcraft. In the latter claim, only a witch can make a rougarou—either by turning into a wolf herself, or by cursing others with lycanthropy.


title: Rougarou

text: The "rugaru" is mentioned as having come to Dakota consciousness from Ojibwa folktales, and figures both thematically and experientially in the narrative of Peter Mathiessen's" In The Spirit of Crazy Horse" (Viking, 1983).


title: Rougarou

text: The NBA team formerly known as the New Orleans Hornets filed for several new name trademarks among which was the Rougarous.


title: Rougarou

text: The creature is featured in an episode of "Cajun Justice", an AE Television show. A camp owner alerted authorities and video taped what he suspected to be a Rougarou in the weeds behind his camp.


title: Rougarou

text: The legend of the rougarou plays a prominent role in the History Channel television series "Cryptid: The Swamp Beast." An unknown creature has been mutilating and killing animals and perhaps humans in southern Louisiana; some locals attribute the attacks to a rougarou. Similarly, in episode 6 of "Swamp Mysteries," Troy Landry discusses the rougarou legend while hunting a creature killing pets at Voodoo Bayou.


title: Rougarou

text: The novel "Hagridden" by Samuel Snoek-Brown features heavy usage of the Cajun version of the rougarou.


title: Rougarou

text: In late 2014, Cedar Point theme park in Sandusky, Ohio announced plans to renovate the existing Mantis roller coaster into "Rougarou" for the 2015 season.


title: Rougarou

text: The 2015 short film "Atchafalaya" centers around a game warden searching in a Louisiana swamp for a missing person who is hinted to have been taken by a loup-garou. The creature is only vaguely seen in the film with a head resembling a bear.


title: Rougarou

text: J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter universe includes wands that contain rougarou hair as their magical core.


title: Rougarou

text: The rougarou is incorporated into the story of an episode of the American television show . In the episode a victim is killed while investigating a possible sighting of the rougarou, which occurs in the 20th episode of the .


title: Rougarou

text: The novel "Empire of Wild" (2019; Penguin Random House Canada) by Cherie Dimaline is "inspired by the traditional Métis story of the Rogarou—a werewolf-like creature that haunts the roads and woods of Métis communities."


title: Rougarou

text: The comic series Wilde Life by Pascalle Lepas features a Rougarou as an antagonist in Chapter Five: Monster.


title: Rougarou

text: The show "Shadow of the Rougarou" (2022, APTN lumi, AppleTV+), by Métis director Jordan Waunch, was created with the guidance of Elders and Knowledge Keepers in order to best represent the communal oral story.


title: River Monsters

text: River Monsters is a British and American wildlife documentary television programme produced for Animal Planet by Icon Films of Bristol, United Kingdom. It is hosted by extreme angler and biologist Jeremy Wade, who travels around the globe in search of the most fearsome freshwater and saltwater killers, looking for clues, eyewitnesses, and stories about people who were dragged underwater by these vicious predators. He tries to catch the biggest specimens and then release them back into the wild. His aim is to help people understand the truth behind the animals' attacks on humans to save these rare creatures from extinction.


title: River Monsters

text: "River Monsters" premiered on ITV in Great Britain, and became one of the most-watched, most successful programmes in Animal Planet's history, and one of the most-viewed series on Discovery Channel in the American market.


title: River Monsters

text: "River Monsters" follows the worldwide adventures of Suffolk-born British host, biologist, adventurer and extreme angler Jeremy Wade. He explores rivers and lakes to uncover the creatures behind local folklore and harrowing tales of monster fish. The show has taken viewers to Cambodia, Canada, Germany, Spain, Italy, Scotland, Iceland, Norway, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, India, Japan, Russia, Suriname, Brazil, Guyana, Mexico, Peru, Ethiopia, Uganda, South Africa, the Republic of the Congo, Mongolia, and the U.S. states of Alaska, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Oregon, Washington, and Vermont.


title: River Monsters

text: In the first season, Wade's weekly quest had him in search of piranha, goonch catfish (during his investigation of the Kali River goonch attacks), alligator gar, wels catfish, arapaima, piraíba, and the bull shark. All of them are potentially deadly creatures poorly understood by humans. The show also focuses on explaining the creatures' feeding habits, behaviour and conservation status. Rebroadcasts of the episodes with captions showing behind the scenes commentary from the host about the particular episode can also be seen on both Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. These episodes are going by the title "River Monsters: Unhooked".


title: River Monsters

text: The second season of "River Monsters" began airing on 24 April 2010, although the first episode, titled "Demon Fish" first appeared on Discovery Channel on 28 March 2010. This season consisted of 7 episodes and took viewers to the River Congo and other distant locations. In the episode, "Death Ray", Wade caught a pregnant giant freshwater stingray, the largest fish he ever landed. She later gave birth to two pups while being examined by Wade and a team of biologists. This season featured the white sturgeon, Wade's second largest catch.


title: River Monsters

text: Promoted as a special season under the title "River Monsters: Mysteries of the Ocean", this season sees Jeremy Wade shift his focus from freshwater to oceanic fish.


title: River Monsters

text: "River Monsters" had the best series premiere in Animal Planet's network history by delivering 1.3 million viewers. It was also its most watched regularly airing primetime telecast in over six years. The second episode of Animal Planet's "River Monsters" delivered a 39% boost in total viewers (1.866 million) compared to the series premiere. Those numbers made it the best performing regularly scheduled primetime telecast in Animal Planet's history. The first season of "River Monsters" made it the best performing show in Animal Planet's history with every episode averaging over 1 million households. The season finale delivered about 1.47 million households.


title: River Monsters

text: Its second-season premiere episode became the network's best season premiere ever. It drew in 1.7 million total viewers.


title: Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout

text: In automotive design, a FR, or front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout is one where the engine is located at the front of the vehicle and driven wheels are located at the rear via a drive shaft. This was the traditional automobile layout for most of the 20th century. Modern designs commonly use the front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout (FF). It is also used in high-floor buses and school buses.


title: Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout

text: In automotive design, a front mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout (FMR) is one that places the engine in the front, with the rear wheels of vehicle being driven. In contrast to the front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout (FR), the engine is pushed back far enough that its center of mass is to the rear of the front axle. This aids in weight distribution and reduces the moment of inertia, improving the vehicle's handling. The mechanical layout of an FMR is substantially the same as an FR car. Some models of the same vehicle can be classified as either FR or FMR depending on the length of the installed engine (e.g. 4-cylinder vs. 6-cylinder) and its centre of mass in relation to the front axle.


title: Nils Olav

text: Brigadier Sir Nils Olav III is a king penguin who resides in Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland. He is the mascot and colonel-in-chief of the Norwegian King's Guard. The name 'Nils Olav' and associated ranks have been passed down through three king penguins since 1972 – the current holder being Nils Olav III.


title: Nils Olav

text: The family of Norwegian shipping magnate Christian Salvesen gave a king penguin to Edinburgh Zoo when the zoo opened in 1913.


title: Nils Olav

text: When the Norwegian King's Guard visited the Edinburgh Military Tattoo of 1961 for a drill display, a lieutenant named Nils Egelien became interested in the zoo's penguin colony. When the King's Guard returned to Edinburgh in 1972, Egelien arranged for the regiment to adopt a penguin. This penguin was named Nils Olav in honour of Nils Egelien and King Olav V of Norway.


title: Nils Olav

text: Nils Olav was initially given the rank of "visekorporal" (lance corporal) in the regiment. He has been promoted each time the King's Guard has returned to the zoo. In 1982 he was made a corporal, and promoted to sergeant in 1987. Nils Olav I died shortly after his promotion to sergeant in 1987, and his place was taken by Nils Olav II, a two-year-old near-double. He was promoted in 1993 to the rank of regimental sergeant major and in 2001 promoted to 'honourable regimental sergeant major'. On 18 August 2005, he was appointed as colonel-in-chief of the same regiment. During the 2005 visit, a bronze statue of Nils Olav was presented to Edinburgh Zoo. The statue's inscription includes references to both the King's Guard and to the Military Tattoo. A statue also stands at the King's Guard compound at Huseby, Oslo.


title: Nils Olav

text: The next honour was a knighthood, awarded during a visit by soldiers from the Norwegian King's Guard on 15 August 2008. The knighthood was approved by King Harald V and Nils was the first penguin to receive such an honour in the Norwegian Army. During the ceremony a crowd of several hundred people watched the 130 guardsmen on parade at the zoo, and a citation from the King was read out, which described Nils as a penguin "in every way qualified to receive the honour and dignity of knighthood".


title: Nils Olav

text: A third penguin, Nils Olav III, took over at some point between 2008 and 2016. On 22 August 2016 he was promoted to brigadier in a ceremony attended by over 50 members of the King's Guard. Nils Olav now outranks Nils Egelien.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid is a 1992 American science fiction comedy family film, and the second installment of the "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" film series. Directed by Randal Kleiser and released by Walt Disney Pictures, it stars Rick Moranis, Marcia Strassman, Amy O'Neill, and Robert Oliveri reprising their roles as the Szalinski family, as well as newcomer Keri Russell in her film debut. In the film, Adam Szalinksi, the youngest addition to the family, is accidentally exposed to Wayne's new industrial-sized growth machine, which causes him to gradually grow to enormous size. Wayne's coworker, Dr. Charles Hendrickson, wants the giant Adam stopped at all costs, and would like to take over Wayne's invention, which is now owned by the large coorporation belonging to the kindly Clifford Sterling.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Three years after the events of the first film, inventor Wayne Szalinski and his family have moved to Nevada and have welcomed a new son, mischievous two-year-old Adam. One day, Wayne's wife, Diane, leaves with their daughter, Amy, to help her settle in her dorm at college, leaving Wayne to look after Adam and their now teenage son, Nick. Nick has developed a crush on Mandy Park, whom Wayne later arranges to babysit Adam. The next day, Wayne takes Nick and Adam to Sterling Labs, where he has constructed an advanced derivative of his shrink ray which enlarges objects. He tests it out on Adam's favorite toy, Big Bunny. However, when his and Nick's backs are turned, Adam attempts to retrieve it and is zapped by the machine, which appears to short circuit and not enlarge the targeted object.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Back home, Adam and Big Bunny are exposed to electrical waves from the microwave oven and grow in size, now 7 feet tall. Wayne and Nick try to take him back to the lab to reverse the process, but are caught and kicked out by Wayne's coworker, Dr. Charles Hendrickson, who wants to take over Wayne's invention for himself. Diane returns home early and discovers what happened, and she, Wayne, and Nick have a hard time trying to take care of the large Adam. Later, Wayne and Diane drive to a warehouse and retrieve Wayne's first shrink ray prototype to turn Adam back to normal. When Mandy arrives to babysit Adam, she panics and faints, forcing Nick to bind her. As he explains the situation to her, Adam is exposed to the television's electrical waves and grows to 14 feet before escaping through a wall.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Nick and Mandy search for him, but are taken into custody, with Adam placed into a truck. Wayne and Diane return home, finding Dr. Hendrickson and a U.S. Marshal waiting for them. He has summoned Clifford Sterling, the company chairman, with the plan to fire Wayne, have him and Diane arrested, and experiment on Adam. Sterling arrives and instead praises Wayne when he admits his mistake, and pledges to help Adam while firing Dr. Hendrickson for trying to smear Wayne. At the same time, the truck carrying Adam passes by high voltage lines, exposing him to more electrical waves and causing him to grow to 50 feet, escaping confinement. He mistakes Nick and Mandy for toys and puts them in his overalls pocket before heading for Las Vegas, pursued by his parents and the authorities. Wayne and Sterling figure out the cause of his growth and realize that exposure to Las Vegas' neon lights will make him grow bigger than ever. Dr. Hendrickson conspires with board director Terrence Wheeler to start a boardroom coup to take Sterling out of power. Dr. Hendrickson forcefully boards a military helicopter to attempt to tranquilize Adam.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Wayne is determined to use his shrink ray to shrink Adam back to normal but requires that Adam stand still for twelve seconds. Adam grows to 112 feet, wanders through Fremont Street, Las Vegas, causing mass panic. Dr. Hendrickson arrives by helicopter and starts shooting tranquilizer cartridges at Adam, but is stopped by Diane, deliberately made giant by Wayne's machine. She then comforts Adam and makes him stand still while Wayne powers the shrinking machine. The shrinking is successful, and both return to normal size. Dr. Hendrickson arrives to reluctantly congratulate Wayne but is knocked out with a punch by Diane.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Wayne and Diane then realize that Nick and Mandy were still in Adam's pocket and have been shrunk. Wayne quickly finds them and decides to give them a few minutes of privacy before returning them to normal size.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: The film was not originally written as a sequel to "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids". Originally titled "Big Baby", it was about a toddler who grew to giant size by a freak accident involving a growth ray and eventually terrorized Las Vegas in a non-violent, yet Godzillaesque way. Disney saw the possibilities of making this into a sequel to the first film and rewrote the script. The main characters from "Big Baby" became the Szalinski family, but there was no character in the original that Amy Szalinski could replace, so she leaves for college at the beginning of the film and is not seen again.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Rick Moranis, Marcia Strassman, Amy O'Neill, and Robert Oliveri all return as their respective characters: Wayne, Diane, Amy, and Nick Szalinski. Amy, now a young woman, leaves for her first year of college at the beginning of the film. Nick, while still considered "nerdy", has matured in his personality and takes more interest in girls and guitars.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Casting director Renee Rousselot searched over 1,000 small children for someone to portray Adam, the newest addition to the Szalinski clan. She searched for mostly three- to four-year-old boys because a younger child was thought to be problematic. She came across twins Daniel and Joshua Shalikar from New Jersey and immediately cast them in December 1990. One would act in the morning while the other was eating lunch or taking a nap. Baby consultant Elaine Hall Katz and director Randal Kleiser would plan the twins' scenes a week in advance. Tom Smith reported that, "On his own, Dan was almost too adventuresome to repeat one move, and Josh seemed very cautious. Put them together and they could do anything." However, the film did have difficulties in working with such small children, and one crew member later remarked it was "like playing hopscotch on hot coals".


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: At the time, the twins were scheduled to appear in two more "Honey" films. They did appear once, but were recast in "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves".


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: In the film, Nick has a crush on a girl named Mandy Park, played by Keri Russell in her first feature film. John Shea portrays Dr. Charles Hendrickson, who is scheming to get Wayne's control of the project, while Lloyd Bridges portrays Clifford Sterling, the owner of Sterling Labs.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Randal Kleiser, of "Grease" and "White Fang" fame, was chosen to direct the film, replacing Joe Johnston. He would return to film with the cast in the 3D show "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience", which was presented at several Disney parks until 2010. Like the first film, and "Grease", it had animated opening credits.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Production began on June 17, 1991. Filming took place in Simi Valley, California, for the parts involving the Szalinskis' house. Filming locations in Las Vegas included the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, the Mirage hotel-casino, and Fremont Street. Scenes involving a water park, where Nick worked and where Mandy is first introduced, were filmed at Wet 'n Wild in Las Vegas.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: While post-production special effects were used heavily throughout the film, some effects were practical (shot on-set). When Adam knocks down his bedroom door, production designer Leslie Dilley created a set with miniature furniture about four feet away from the camera, while the adult actors would be about fifteen feet away. Kleiser recalled, "Danny was generally better at improvising and fresh reactions. Josh was better at following directions, so we would alternate."


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Disney would later find itself the subject of a lawsuit as a result of the film. The suit was filed in 1991 by Mark Goodson Productions director Paul Alter, who claimed to have come up with the idea of an oversized toddler after babysitting his granddaughter and watching her topple over building blocks. He wrote a screenplay titled "Now, That's a Baby!", which had not been made into a film but had received some sort of treatment beforehand. Alter claimed there were several similarities between the film and his script, which consisted of the baby daughter of two scientists falling victim to a genetic experiment gone wrong instead of an enlarging ray. The case went to trial in 1993, with the jury finding in Alter's favor. Disney was forced to pay $300,000 in damages.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: The film was first released on VHS and LaserDisc on January 6, 1993. It was released on a bare-bones DVD in 2002. While the VHS release contained no bonus material besides a music video, the LaserDisc release contains the 1992 animated short film, "Off His Rockers" directed by Barry Cook, which accompanied the theatrical release. To date, "Off His Rockers" has only appeared on the Laserdisc release, making its availability rare, although the short can be viewed on YouTube.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: The film was released on VHS in 1997, alongside its predecessor to coincide with the release of the third film in the series, "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves."


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: The film opened on July 17, 1992 in 2,492 theaters in the United States and Canada, almost twice as many as the first film. It opened at number one on opening weekend with $11 million and grossed $58.7 million in the United States and Canada. Internationally it grossed $37 million for a worldwide total of $96 million.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 40% based on reviews from 20 critics, with an average rating of 4.85/10. On Metacritic the film has a score of 50 based on reviews from 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Desson Howe of "The Washington Post" claimed that the film "feels narratively limited. It's a one-joke movie: Adam just gets bigger and bigger. All Moranis needs to do is get the shrinker from the last movie and turn it on Adam." Also from "The Washington Post", Hal Hinson agreed that it was "a one-joke film" while also adding the film "squanders most of the comic opportunities its premise offers. As one-joke movies go, it's fairly inoffensive but also never better than mildly diverting. Roger Ebert, reviewing for the "Chicago Sun-Times", criticized the weak story writing that there "may be, for all I know, comic possibilities in a giant kid, but this movie doesn't find them." He further concluded that the "special effects, on the other hand, are terrific, as they were in the first movie. The filmmakers are able to combine the giant baby and the "real world" in shots that seem convincing, and the image of the toddler walking down Glitter Gulch is state-of-the-art. Too bad the movie relies on special effects to carry the show, and doesn't bring much else to the party."


title: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

text: Intrada Records released the record in 1992, in time for the film's release. The score was composed and conducted by Bruce Broughton, who would return to provide the score for "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience". "Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees appears in it. So does "Loco-Motion" by Carole King, Gerry Goffin, and "Ours If We Want It" written by Tom Snow and Mark Mueller. The soundtrack album consists of just the score. In 2017, the label released an expanded edition included Broughton's score for "Off His Rockers", the animated short that preceded the film in cinemas.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Grim Fandango is a 1998 adventure game directed by Tim Schafer and developed and published by LucasArts for Microsoft Windows. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered static backgrounds. As with other LucasArts adventure games, the player must converse with characters and examine, collect, and use objects to solve puzzles.


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" is set in the Land of the Dead, through which recently departed souls, represented as "calaca"-like figures, travel before they reach their final destination. The story follows travel agent Manuel "Manny" Calavera as he attempts to save new arrival Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, a virtuous soul, on her journey. The game combines elements of the Aztec afterlife with "film noir" style, with influences including "The Maltese Falcon", "On the Waterfront" and "Casablanca".


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" received praise for its art design and direction. It was selected for several awards and is often listed as one of the greatest video games of all time. However, it was a commercial failure and contributed towards LucasArts' decision to end adventure game development and the decline of the adventure game genre. The critical success of the 2012 video game, Telltale's "The Walking Dead", was seen as constituting a revitalization of the adventure genre.


title: Grim Fandango

text: In 2014, with help from Sony, Schafer's studio Double Fine Productions acquired the "Grim Fandango" license following Disney's acquisition and closure of LucasArts as a video game developer the previous year. In June 2014, Double Fine announced a remastered version of the game, featuring improved character graphics, controls (including point and click), an orchestrated score, and directors' commentary. It was released for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, OS X, and Linux in January 2015, for Android and iOS in May 2015, for Nintendo Switch in November 2018, and for Xbox One in October 2020.


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" is an adventure game, in which the player controls Manuel "Manny" Calavera ("calavera" being Spanish for 'skull') as he follows Mercedes "Meche" Colomar in the Underworld. The game uses the GrimE engine, pre-rendering static backgrounds from 3D models, while the main objects and characters are animated in 3D. Additionally, cutscenes in the game have also been pre-rendered in 3D. The player controls Manny's movements and actions with a keyboard, a joystick, or a gamepad. The remastered edition allows control via a mouse as well. Manny must collect objects that can be used with either other collectible objects, parts of the scenery, or with other people in the Land of the Dead in order to solve puzzles and progress in the game. The game lacks any type of HUD. Unlike the earlier 2D LucasArts games, the player is informed of objects or persons of interest not by text floating on the screen when the player passes a cursor over them, but instead by the fact that Manny will turn his head towards that object or person as he walks by. The player reviews the inventory of items that Manny has collected by watching him pull each item in and out of his coat jacket. Manny can engage in dialogue with other characters through conversation trees to gain hints of what needs to be done to solve the puzzles or to progress the plot. As in most LucasArts adventure games, the player can never die or otherwise get into a no-win situation (that prevents completion of the game).


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" takes place in the Land of the Dead (the Eighth Underworld), where recently departed souls aim to make their way to the Land of Eternal Rest (the Ninth Underworld) on the Four Year Journey of the Soul. Good deeds in life are rewarded by access to better travel packages, provided by the Department of Death, to assist in making the journey (such as sports cars and luxury ocean cruises), the best of which is the Number Nine, an express train that takes four minutes to reach the gate to the Ninth Underworld. However, souls who did not lead a kind life are left to travel through the Land of the Dead on foot, which would take around four years. Such souls often lose faith in the existence of the Ninth Underworld and instead find jobs and stay in the Land of the Dead. The travel agents of the Department of Death act as the Grim Reaper to escort the souls from the Land of the Living to the Land of the Dead, and then determine which mode of transport the soul has merited. Each year on the Day of the Dead, these souls are allowed to visit their families in the Land of the Living.


title: Grim Fandango

text: The souls in the Land of the Dead appear as skeletal "calaca" figures. Alongside them are demons that have been summoned to help with the more mundane tasks of day-to-day life, such as vehicle maintenance and even drink service. The souls themselves can suffer death-within-death by being "sprouted", the result of being shot with "sproutella"-filled darts that cause flowers to grow out through bones, rapidly feeding off the calcium of the soul's skeleton. Many of the characters are Mexican and occasional Spanish words are interspersed into the English dialogue, resulting in Spanglish. Many of the characters smoke, following a film noir tradition; the manual asks players to consider that every smoker in the game is dead.


title: Grim Fandango

text: The game is divided into four acts, each taking place on November 2 (the Day of the Dead) in four consecutive years. Manuel "Manny" Calavera is a travel agent at the Department of Death in the city of El Marrow, forced into his job to work off a debt "to the powers that be". Manny is frustrated with being assigned clients that must take the four-year journey due to their poor living choices and is threatened to be fired by his boss, Don Copal, if he does not come up with better clients. Manny steals a client, Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, from his successful co-worker Domino Hurley. The Department computers assign Meche to the four-year journey even though Manny believes she should have a guaranteed spot on the "Number Nine" luxury express train due to her pureness of heart in her life. After setting Meche on her way, Manny investigates further and finds that Domino and Don have been rigging the system to deny many clients Double N tickets, hoarding them for the boss of the criminal underworld, Hector LeMans. LeMans then sells the tickets at an exorbitant price to those that can afford it. Manny recognizes that he cannot stop Hector at present and instead, with the help of his driver and speed demon Glottis, he tries to find Meche on her journey in the nearby Petrified Forest. During the trip, Manny encounters Salvador "Sal" Limones, the leader of the small underground organization the Lost Souls Alliance (LSA), who is aware of Hector's plans and recruits Manny to help. Manny arrives at the small port city of Rubacava and finds that he has beaten Meche there, and waits for her to arrive.


title: Grim Fandango

text: A year passes, and the city of Rubacava has grown. Manny now runs his own nightclub off a converted automat near the edge of the Forest. Manny learns from Olivia Ofrenda, the owner of the beatnik Blue Casket nightclub, that Don has been sprouted for letting the scandal be known and that Meche was recently seen with Domino leaving the port.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Manny gives chase and a year later tracks them to a coral mining plant on the Edge of the World. Domino has been holding Meche there as a trap to lure Manny. All of Domino's clients who had their tickets stolen are also being held there and used as slave labor, both to make a profit with the coral mining and as a way to keep Hector's scandal quiet. Domino tries to convince Manny to take over his position in the plant seeing as he has no alternative and can spend the rest of eternity with Meche but he refuses. After rescuing Meche, Manny defeats Domino by causing him to fall into a rock crusher. Manny, along with Meche, Glottis and all the souls being held at the plant then escape from the Edge of the World.


title: Grim Fandango

text: The three travel for another year until they reach the terminus for the Number Nine train before the Ninth Underworld. Unfortunately, the Gate Keeper to the Ninth Underworld won't let the souls progress without their tickets, mistakenly believing they have sold them, and it's further revealed that a wicked soul that has either not paid off their debt or tried to cheat the Gate Keeper with a fake or stolen Double N Ticket to gain entrance to the Ninth Underworld will cause the express train to transform into the hell train (which sends all souls onboard to hell). Meanwhile, Glottis has fallen deathly ill. Manny learns from demons stationed at the terminus that the only way to revive Glottis is to travel at high speeds to restore Glottis' purpose for being summoned. Manny and the others devise a makeshift fuel source to create a "rocket" train cart, quickly taking Manny and Meche back to Rubacava and saving Glottis' life. The three return to El Marrow, now found to be fully in Hector's control and renamed as Nuevo Marrow. Manny regroups with Sal and his expanded LSA and with the help of Olivia, who volunteered to join the gang earlier in Rubacava, and is able to learn about Hector's current activities. Further investigation reveals that Hector not only has been hoarding the Number Nine tickets, but has created counterfeit versions that he has sold to others while keeping the real tickets for himself in a desperate attempt to balance out his sinful life and get out of the Land of the Dead. Manny tries to confront Hector but is lured into another trap by Olivia, who is revealed to be Hector's girlfriend, who has also captured Sal, and is taken to Hector's greenhouse to be sprouted. Manny is able to defeat Hector after Sal sacrifices himself to prevent Olivia from interfering. Manny and Meche are able to find the real Double N tickets, including the one that Meche should have received. Manny makes sure the rest of the tickets are given to their rightful owners; in turn, he is granted his own ticket for his good deeds. Together, Manny and Meche board the Number Nine for their happy journey to the Ninth Underworld while Glottis who can't join them waves tearfully goodbye.


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" development was led by project leader Tim Schafer, co-designer of "Day of the Tentacle" and creator of "Full Throttle" and the more recent "Psychonauts" and "Brütal Legend". Schafer had conceived a Day of the Dead-themed adventure before production of "Full Throttle" began, and he submitted both concepts to LucasArts for approval at the same time. "Full Throttle" was accepted instead because of its greater mainstream appeal; it became a hit and opened the way for Schafer to create "Grim Fandango". "" noted that the pitching process for "Grim Fandango" was "a breeze" because of Schafer's earlier success, despite the new project's unusual theme.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Development began soon after the completion of "Full Throttle" in June 1995. "Grim Fandango" was an attempt by LucasArts to rejuvenate the graphic adventure genre, in decline by 1998. In response to complaints that "Full Throttle" was too short, Schafer set the goal of having twice as many puzzles as "Full Throttle", which demanded a more lengthy and ambitious story to accommodate them. According to Schafer, the game was developed on a $3 million budget. It was the first LucasArts adventure since "" not to use the SCUMM engine, instead using the Sith engine, pioneered by "", as the basis of the new GrimE engine. The GrimE engine was built using the scripting language Lua. This design decision was due to LucasArts programmer Bret Mogilefsky's interest in the language, and is considered one of the first uses of Lua in gaming applications. The game's success led to the language's use in many other games and applications, including "Escape from Monkey Island" and "Baldur's Gate".


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" mixed static pre-rendered background images with 3D characters and objects. Part of this decision was based on how the "calaca" figures would appear in three dimensions. There were more than 90 sets and 50 characters in the game to be created and rendered; Manny's character alone comprised 250 polygons. The development team found that by utilizing three-dimensional models to pre-render the backgrounds, they could alter the camera shot to achieve more effective or dramatic angles for certain scenes simply by re-rendering the background, instead of having to have an artist redraw the background for a traditional 2D adventure game. The team adapted the engine to allow Manny's head to move separately from his body to make the player aware of important objects nearby. The 3D engine also aided in the choreography between the spoken dialog and body and arm movements of the characters. Additionally, full motion video cutscenes were incorporated to advance the plot, using the same in-game style for the characters and backgrounds to make them nearly indistinguishable from the actual game.


title: Grim Fandango

text: The game combines several Aztec beliefs of the afterlife and underworld with 1930s Art Deco design motifs and a dark plot reminiscent of the film noir genre. The Aztec motifs of the game were influenced by Schafer's decade-long fascination with folklore, stemming from an anthropology class he took at University of California Berkeley, and talks with folklorist Alan Dundes, with Schafer recognizing that the four-year journey of the soul in the afterlife would set the stage for an adventure game. Schafer stated that once he had set on the Afterlife setting: "Then I thought, what role would a person want to play in a Day of the Dead scenario? You'd want to be the grim reaper himself. That's how Manny got his job. Then I imagined him picking up people in the land of the living and bringing them to the land of the dead, like he's really just a glorified limo or taxi driver. So the idea came of Manny having this really mundane job that looks glamorous because he has the robe and the scythe, but really, he's just punching the clock." Schafer recounted a Mexican folklore about how the dead were buried with two bags of gold to be used in the afterlife, one on their chest and one hidden in their coffin, such that if the spirits in the afterlife stole the one on the chest, they would still have the hidden bag of gold; this idea of a criminal element in the afterlife led to the idea of a crime-ridden, film noir style to the world. The division of the game into four years was a way of breaking the game's overall puzzle into four discrete sections. Each year was divided into several non-linear branches of puzzles that all had to be solved before the player could progress to the next year.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Schafer opted to give the conversation-heavy game the flavor of film noir set in the 1930s and 1940s, stating that "there's something that I feel is really honest about the way people talked that's different than modern movies". He was partially inspired by novels written by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Several film noir movies were also inspiration for much of the game's plot and characters. Tim Schafer stated that the true inspiration was drawn from films like "Double Indemnity", in which a weak and undistinguished insurance salesman finds himself entangled in a murder plot. The design and early plot are fashioned after films such as "Chinatown" and "Glengarry Glen Ross". Several scenes in "Grim Fandango" are directly inspired by the genre's films such as "The Maltese Falcon", "The Third Man", "Key Largo", and most notably "Casablanca": two characters in the game's second act are directly modeled after the roles played by Peter Lorre and Claude Rains in the film. The main villain, Hector LeMans, was designed to resemble Sydney Greenstreet's character of Signor Ferrari from "Casablanca". His voice was also modeled after Greenstreet, complete with his trademark chuckle.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Visually, the game drew inspiration from various sources: the skeletal character designs were based largely on the "calaca" figures used in Mexican Day of the Dead festivities, while the architecture ranged from Art Deco skyscrapers to an Aztec temple. The team turned to LucasArts artist Peter Chan to create the "calaca" figures. The art of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth was used as inspiration for the designs of the hot rods and the demon characters like Glottis.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Originally, Schafer had come up with the name "Deeds of the Dead" for the game's title, as he had originally planned Manny to be a real estate agent in the Land of the Dead. Other potential titles included "The Long Siesta" and "Dirt Nap", before he came up with the title "Grim Fandango".


title: Grim Fandango

text: The game featured a large cast for voice acting in the game's dialog and cutscenes, employing many Latino actors to help with the Spanish slang. Voice actors included Tony Plana as Manny, Maria Canals-Barrera as Meche, Alan Blumenfeld as Glottis, and Jim Ward as Hector. Schafer credits Plana for helping to deepen the character of Manny, as the voice actor was a native Spanish speaker and suggested alternate dialog for the game that was more natural for casual Spanish conversations. Schafer planned from the beginning for the voice cast to consist entirely of Latino performers.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Originally, the game was to be shipped in the first half of 1998 but was delayed; as a result, the game was shipped on October 28, 1998, for release on October 30, the Friday before November 2, the actual date of the Day of the Dead celebration. Even with the delay, the team had to drop several of the puzzles and characters from the game, including a climactic five-step puzzle against Hector LeMans at the conclusion of the game; Schafer later noted that they would have needed one to two more years to implement their original designs.


title: Grim Fandango

text: A remastered release of "Grim Fandango" was announced in June 2014 during Sony Computer Entertainment's press event of the 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo, with a simultaneous release for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms on January 27, 2015. The Playstation 4 and Playstation Vita versions feature cross-buy and cross-save. It was later released for Android and iOS on May 5, 2015. The remastered version was released as a PlayStation Plus title for the month of January 2016. On November 1, 2018, "Grim Fandango" was released on the Nintendo Switch.


title: Grim Fandango

text: The remastered version was predicated on the transition of LucasArts from a developer and publisher into a licensor and publisher in 2013 shortly after its acquisition by Disney. Under new management, LucasArts licensed several of its intellectual properties (IP), including "Grim Fandango", to outside developers. Schafer was able to acquire the rights to the game with financial assistance from Sony, and started the process of building out the remaster within Double Fine Productions. Schafer said that the sale of LucasArts to Disney had reminded them of the past efforts of former LucasArts president Darrell Rodriguez to release the older LucasArts titles as Legacy Properties, such as the 2009 rerelease of "The Secret of Monkey Island". Schafer also noted that they had tried to acquire the property from LucasArts in the years prior, but the frequent change in management stalled progress. When they began to inquire about the rights with Disney and LucasArts following its acquisition, they found that Sony, through their vice president of publisher and developer relations Adam Boyes, was also looking to acquire the rights. Boyes stated that Sony had been interested in working with a wide array of developers for the PlayStation 4, and was also inspired to seek "Grim Fandango" after seeing developers like Capcom and Midway Games revive older properties. Boyes' determination was supported by John Vignocchi, VP of Production for Disney Interactive, who also shared memories of the game, and was able to bring in contacts to track down the game's assets. After discovering they were vying for the same property, Schafer and Boyes agreed to work together to acquire the IP and subsequent funding, planning to make the re-release a remastered version. Sony did not ask for any of IP rights for the game, instead only asking Double Fine to give the PlayStation platforms console exclusivity in exchange for funding support, similar to their Pub Fund scheme they use to support independent developers.


title: Grim Fandango

text: A major complication in remastering the original work was having many of the critical game files go missing or on archaic formats. A large number of backup files were made on Digital Linear Tape (DLT) which Disney/LucasArts had been able to recover for Double Fine, but the company had no drives to read the tapes. Former LucasArts sound engineer Jory Prum had managed to save a DLT drive and was able to extract all of the game's audio development data from the tapes.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Schafer noted at the time of "Grim Fandango" original development, retention of code was not as rigorous as present-day standards, and in some cases, Schafer believes the only copies of some files were unintentionally taken by employees when they had left LucasArts. As such, Schafer and his team have been going back through past employee records to try to trace down any of them and ask for any files they may have saved. In other cases, they have had difficulty in identifying elements on the low-resolution artwork of the original game, such as an emblem on one character's hat, and have had to go looking for original concept art to figure out the design.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Once original assets were identified, as to be used to present the "classic" look of the game in the Remastered edition, Double Fine worked to improve the overall look for modern computers. The textures and lighting models for the characters were improved, in particular for Manny. Schafer has likened the remastering approach to The Criterion Collection film releases in providing a high-fidelity version of the game without changing the story or the characters.


title: Grim Fandango

text: In addition to his own developers, Schafer reached out to players who had created unofficial patches and graphical improvements on the original game, and modifications needed to keep it running in ResidualVM, and gained their help to improve the game's assets for the remastered version. One such feature was a modified control scheme that converted the game's movement controls from the tank controls to a point and click-style interface. Schafer said the team used tank controls as it was popular with other games like "Resident Evil" at the time, but recognized it did not work well within the adventure game genre. Schafer contacted Tobias Pfaff who created the point-and-click modification to obtain access to his code to incorporate into the remastered version.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Double Fine demonstrated an in-progress version of the remastered game at the 2014 IndieCade event in October 2014; new features included higher-resolution textures and improved resolution for the character models as well as having real-time lighting models, and the ability to switch back and forth between this presentation and the original graphics at the touch of a control. The remastered game runs in 4:3 aspect ratio but has an option to stretch this to a 16:9 ratio rather than render in a native 4:3 ratio. The remaster includes improvements to the control scheme developed by Pfaff's patch and other alternate control schemes in addition to the original tank like controls, including analogue controls for console versions and point-and-click controls for computer versions. The game's soundtrack was fully orchestrated through performances of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (who also performed the soundtrack for Double Fine's "Broken Age"). The remastered version also includes developer commentary, which can be activated via the options menu and listened to at various points in the game. The PlayStation version also features cloud saving between the PS4 and Vita versions. During the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018, during a 20th anniversary live-reading event with several "Grim Fandango" actors, Schafer announced that the remastered version will also be ported to the Nintendo Switch sometime later that year. The Switch port was released on November 1, 2018. Double Fine was acquired by Xbox Game Studios in 2019, and Schafer confirmed that "Grim Fandango" for the Xbox One would arrive by 2020.


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" has an original soundtrack that combines orchestral score, South American folk music, jazz, bebop, swing, and big band music, inspired by the likes of Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman as well as film composers Max Steiner and Adolph Deutsch. It also has various influences from traditional Russian, Celtic, Mexican, Spanish, and Indian strings culture. It was composed and produced by Peter McConnell at LucasArts. Others credited are Jeff Kliment (Engineer, Mixed By, Mastered), and Hans Christian Reumschüssel (Additional Music Production). The score featured live musicians that McConnell knew or made contact with in San Francisco's Mission District, including a mariachi band. The soundtrack was released as a CD in 1998.


title: Grim Fandango

text: The soundtrack was very well received. IGN called it a "beautiful soundtrack that you'll find yourself listening to even after you're done with the game". SEMO said "the compositions and performances are so good that listening to this album on a stand-alone basis can make people feel like they're in a bar back then". RPGFan said "the pieces are beautifully composed, wonderfully played ... has a stellar soundtrack with music that easily stands alone outside the context of the game. This CD was an absolute pleasure to listen to and comes highly recommended." "Game Revolution" in its game review praised as one of the "most memorable soundtracks ever to grace the inside of a cranial cavity where an eardrum used to be." PC Gamer in its 2014 list of Top 100 Games, acclaimed Grim Fandango for including "one of the best soundtracks in PC gaming history". In 2017 "Fact" magazine also listed it as one of the "100 best video game soundtracks of all time".


title: Grim Fandango

text: In 1999's Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the soundtrack was nominated in the category of "Outstanding Achievement in Sound and Music". It was also lauded by GameSpot, which awarded it the "Best PC Music awards", and included it in the "Ten Best PC Game Soundtracks" list in 1999.


title: Grim Fandango

text: After the original Pro Tools sound files were recovered, Peter McConnell found that some of the samples he had used originally did not sound good, and the team opted to re-orchestrate the score. McConnell later announced that the game's soundtrack would be fully orchestrated through performances of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for the remastered version of the game released in 2015.


title: Grim Fandango

text: The re-made soundtrack was produced under Nile Rodgers' label Sumthing Else. It had a standard release of 37 tracks, as well as a Director’s Cut with 14 extra tracks (the latter sold exclusively through Sumthing Else). It included the original score from the LucasArts archives, new compositions by Peter McConnell and new orchestral arrangements, as well as new extended versions of jazz pieces re-mixed at Sony Computer Entertainment America.


title: Grim Fandango

text: In 2018, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the original release of the game, the soundtrack was released for the first time in vinyl format.


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" gained critical acclaim upon its release. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the game a score of 94/100. Critics lauded the art direction in particular, with GameSpot rating the visual design as "consistently great". "PC Zone" emphasized the production as a whole calling the direction, costumes, characters, music, and atmosphere expertly done. They also commented the game would make a "superb film". The "San Francisco Chronicle" stated ""Grim Fandango" feels like a wild dance through a cartoonish film-noir adventure. Its wacky characters, seductive puzzle-filled plot and a nearly invisible interface allow players to lose themselves in the game just as cinemagoers might get lost in a movie." The "Houston Chronicle", in naming "Grim Fandango" the best game of 1998 along with "Half-Life", complimented the graphics calling them "jaw-dropping" and commented that the game "is full of both dark and light humor". IGN summed its review up by saying the game was the "best adventure game" it had ever seen.


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Next Generation" reviewed the PC version of the game, rating it five stars out of five, and stated that ""Grim Fandango" is a smart, beautiful, and enjoyable adventure game that will leave you holding your breath waiting for "Grim Fandango 2"."


title: Grim Fandango

text: The game also received criticisms from the media. Several reviewers noted that there were difficulties experienced with the interface, requiring a certain learning curve to get used to, and selected camera angles for some puzzles were poorly chosen. The use of elevators in the game was particularly noted as troublesome. The review from Adventure Gamers expressed dislike of the soundtrack, and, at times, "found it too heavy and not well suited to the game's theme". A "Computer and Video Games" review also noted that the game had continuous and long data loading from the CD-ROM that interrupted the game and "spoils the fluidity of some sequences and causes niggling delays".


title: Grim Fandango

text: In 1999, "Next Generation" listed "Grim Fandango" as number 26 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that, ""Grim" offered adventure fans funny, touching, and infuriating moments in following its characters, and it did so through a magnificently beautiful game."


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" won several awards after its release in 1998. "PC Gamer" selected the game as the 1998 "Adventure Game of the Year". The game won IGN's "Best Adventure Game of the Year" in 1998, while GameSpot awarded it their "Best of E3 1998", "PC Adventure Game of the Year", "PC Game of the Year", "Best PC Graphics for Artistic Design", and "Best PC Music awards". GameSpot named "Grim Fandango" its Game of the Year for 1998, and in the following year included the game in their "Ten Best PC Game Soundtracks" and was selected as the 10th "Best PC Ending" by their readership. In 1999, "Grim Fandango" won "Computer Adventure Game of the Year" for the 2nd Annual AIAS Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards); it was also nominated for "Game of the Year", "Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics", "Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development" and "Outstanding Achievement in Sound and Music".


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" has been included in several publishers' "Top Games" lists well after its release. GameSpot inducted the game into their "Greatest Games of All Time" in 2003 citing, "Ask just about anyone who has played Grim Fandango, and he or she will agree that it's one of the greatest games of all time." GameSpy also added the game to their Hall of Fame in 2004, further describing it as the seventh "Most Underrated Game of All Time" in 2003. Adventure Gamers listed "Grim Fandango" as the seventh "Top Adventure Game of All Time" in 2004; in their 2011 list of "Top 100 All-Time Adventures" it was listed as #1. In 2007, IGN included the game in the "Top 25 PC Games" (as 15th) and "Top 100 Games of All Time" (at 36th), citing that "LucasArts' second-to-last stab at the classic adventure genre may very well be the most original and brilliant one ever made." "Grim Fandango" remained as the 20th in the Top 25 PC Games in IGN's 2009 list.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Initial estimates suggested that "Grim Fandango" sold well during the 1998 holiday season. It debuted at #6 for the first week of November on PC Data's computer game sales charts, at an average retail price of $35. It was absent by its second week. In the United Kingdom, "Grim Fandango" claimed first place on Chart-Track's weekly sales chart in December, before falling to ninth place. It secured 12th after four weeks, and 24th at the 13-week mark. The game sold 58,617 copies and earned $2.33 million in the United States by the end of 1998, and rose to 95,000 sales there by March 2000, according to PC Data. "Grim Fandango" sold another 16,157 units in the region during 2001, and 8,032 in the first six months of 2002; its jewel case SKU reached 5,621 sales during 2003. According to Tim Schafer, the game achieved sales of approximately 500,000 units by 2012, around 50% fewer than "Full Throttle" had achieved. It is commonly considered a commercial failure, even though LucasArts stated that "Grim Fandango met domestic expectations and exceeded them worldwide". The game had become profitable by 2000, although Dave Grossman has said, "It was pretty ambitious and expensive, and I don't think it made very much money back." A writer for "Edge" summarized in 2009, "While its reputation as a flop isn't entirely accurate, "Grim"s sales were either an indication that people preferred motorbikes to Gitanes-smoking corpses, or a sign of the times: adventure games were simply on their way out."


title: Grim Fandango

text: While LucasArts proceeded to produce "Escape from Monkey Island" in 2000, they canceled development of sequels to "Sam & Max Hit the Road" and "Full Throttle" stating that "After careful evaluation of current market place realities and underlying economic considerations, we've decided that this was not the appropriate time to launch a graphic adventure on the PC." Subsequently, the studio dismissed many of the people involved with their adventure games, some of whom went on to set up Telltale Games, creating an episodic series of "Sam & Max" games. These events, along with other changes in the video game market towards action-based games, are seen as primary causes in the decline of the adventure game genre. "Grim Fandango" underperformance was seen as a sign that the genre was commercially "dead" to rival Sierra, as well. LucasArts stated in 2006 that they do not plan on returning to adventure games until the "next decade". Ultimately the studio stopped developing video games in 2013 after The Walt Disney Company acquisition of Lucasfilm, and was dissolved shortly thereafter.


title: Grim Fandango

text: Tim Schafer left LucasArts shortly after "Grim Fandango" release, and created his own company, Double Fine Productions, in 2000 along with many of those involved in the development of "Grim Fandango". The company has found similar critical success with their first title, "Psychonauts". Schafer stated that while there is strong interest from fans and that he "would love to go back and spend time with the characters from any game [he] worked on", a sequel to "Grim Fandango" or his other previous games is unlikely as "I always want to make something new." With the help of developers such as Double Fine and Telltale Games, adventure games saw a resurgence in the 2010s, with financially successful titles such as "Broken Age", "The Walking Dead", and "The Wolf Among Us".


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango Remastered" has received similar positive reception as the original release, with many critics continuing to praise the game's story, characters, and soundtrack. They also found the developer's commentary to be very insightful to the history of the game. Reviewers were disappointed at the lack of an auto-save system, as well as the game not receiving a full high-definition upgrade, leaving the higher-resolution characters somewhat out of place with the original 3D backgrounds. Many reviewers also noted that the puzzles, though a staple of the day when "Grim Fandango" was first released, remain somewhat obtuse with solutions that are not clear even after the player solves them, and that a hint system, as was added to the "Monkey Island" remake, would have been very helpful. The game's pacing, also unchanged from the original version, was also found harder to grasp considering the direction taken in modern games, in both the pacing within the game's four acts, and the time taken to move around and between rooms. In his review for Eurogamer, Richard Cobbett warned players to "be careful of rose-tinted memories", that while the remastered version is faithful to the original, it does show aspects of the original game that have become outdated in more modern video game development. "Wired" Laura Hudson considered the remastered version highlighted how the original game was "an artifact of its time, an exceptional piece of interactive art wrapped inextricably around the technology and conventions of its time in a way that reveals both their limitations and the brilliance they were capable of producing".


title: Grim Fandango

text: In 2005, "The Guardian" characterized the game as "The last genuine classic to come from LucasArts, the company that helped define adventure games, Tim Schafer's noir-pastiche follows skull-faced Manny Calavera through a bureaucratic parody of the Land of the Dead. With a look that takes from both Mexican mythology and art deco, "Grim Fandango" is as unique an artistic statement as mainstream gaming has managed to offer. While loved by devotees, its limited sales prompted LucasArts to back away from original adventures to simply exploit franchises."


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Eurogamer" Jeffrey Matulef, in a 2012 retrospective look, believed that "Grim Fandango" combination of film noir and the adventure game genre was the first of its kind and a natural fit due to the script-heavy nature of both, and would later help influence games with similar themes like the "Ace Attorney" series and "L.A. Noire".


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" has been considered a representative title demonstrating video games as an art form; the game was selected in 2012 as a candidate for public voting for inclusion within the Smithsonian Institution's "The Art of Video Games" exhibit, while the Museum of Modern Art seeks to install the game as an exhibit as part of its permanent collection within the Department of Architecture and Design.


title: Grim Fandango

text: The game was included in the "Game Masters" exhibition, organized in 2012 by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI); an event devoted to explore the faces and the history behind computer games. Tim Schafer was featured as the creative force behind "Grim Fandango", within the exhibition section called "Game Changers", crediting him along a few other visionary game designers for having "pushed the boundaries of game design and storytelling, introducing new genres, creating our best-loved characters and revolutionising the way we understand and play games"


title: Grim Fandango

text: "Grim Fandango" has been the centerpiece of a large fan community for the game that has continued to be active more than 10 years after the game's release. Such fan communities include the Grim Fandango Network and the Department of Death, both of which include fan art and fiction in addition to other original content.


title: Grim Fandango

text: In an interview with "Kotaku" after the announcement of the remaster, Schafer stated that he has long considered the idea of a "Grim Fandango" sequel to further expand on the setting of the game. He felt the story would be a difficult component, as either they would have to figure a means to bring Manny back from his final reward, or otherwise build the story around a new character. One option he has considered to alleviate the issue is by creating an adventure game using an open-world mechanic similar to the "Grand Theft Auto" series.