title: Władysław Sikorski

text: As the Polish–Soviet War grew in intensity, in late April 1920 the Red Army of Russia's new Soviet regime pushed back Polish forces and invaded Poland. Subsequently, Sikorski successfully defended Mozyr and Kalenkowicze until 29 June, but later failed to hold the Brest fortress, although he defended it long enough to allow the Polish forces in the region to retreat in an orderly manner. On 6 August he was named the commander of the newly formed Polish 5th Army, which was tasked with holding the front to the north of Modlin, between Narew and Wkra rivers. He distinguished himself commanding the 5th Army on the Lower Vistula front during the Battle of Warsaw. At that time Soviet forces, expecting an easy final victory, were surprised and crippled by the Polish counter-attack. During that battle (sometimes referred to as "the Miracle at the Vistula") Sikorski stopped the Bolshevik advance north of Warsaw and gave Piłsudski, the Polish commander-in-chief, the time he needed for his counter-offensive; beginning with the 15 August his forces successfully engaged the Soviet 5th and 15th Armies. After the Battle of Warsaw, from 30 August, Sikorski commanded the 3rd Army. His forces took Pińsk, and fought during the latter stages of the Battle of Lwów and the Battle of Zamość, and then after Battle of Niemen advanced with his forces toward Latvia and deep into Belarus. The Poles defeated the Soviets, and the Polish–Soviet Treaty of Riga (March 1921) gave Poland substantial areas of Belarus and Ukraine's (Kresy). Sikorski's fame was enhanced as he became known to the Polish public as one of the heroes of the Polish–Soviet War. He also kept publishing military science articles during the war itself. For his valorous achievements Sikorski was promoted to divisional general on 28 February 1921, and was awarded Poland's highest military decoration, the order of Virtuti Militari, on 15 March that year.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: Despite their differences, Piłsudski praised Sikorski in his reports, recommending him for Chief of the General Staff and minister of war positions; only generals Kazimierz Sosnkowski and Edward Rydz-Śmigły received better evaluations from him. Sikorski was popular among many soldiers, and in politics, particularly appealing to Polish conservatives and liberals. On 1 April 1921 Sikorski replaced general Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski as the chief of the Polish General Staff. Between 1922 and 1925 he held a number of high government offices. Based on his analysis, the Polish Council of Ministers adopted new foreign policy that would remain roughly unchanged until the late 1930s (preserving the "status quo" in Europe, and treating Germany and Russia as equal sources of potential threat). On 12 December 1922 he issued a general order, stressing the need for the military to stay out of politics. After the assassination of President of Poland Gabriel Narutowicz on 16 December 1922, the Marshal of the Sejm (Sejm being the Polish parliament), Maciej Rataj, appointed Sikorski prime minister. From 18 December 1922, to 26 May 1923, Sikorski served as prime minister and also as minister of internal sffairs, and was even considered as possible president. During his brief tenure as prime minister, he became popular with the Polish public and carried out essential reforms in addition to guiding the country's foreign policy in a direction that gained the approval and cooperation of the League of Nations and tightened Polish-French cooperation. He obtained recognition of Poland's eastern frontiers from the UK, France and the United States during the Conference of Ambassadors on 15 March 1923 He aided Treasury Minister Władysław Grabski's reforms aiming at curtailing inflation and reforming the currency and supported ethnic minorities. His government nonetheless lost support in the Sejm and resigned on 26 May 1923.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: From 30 September 1923 to 1924 he held the post of chief inspector of infantry ("Generalny Inspektor Piechoty"). From 17 February 1924 to 1925, under Prime Minister Grabski, he was minister of military affairs and guided the modernization of the Polish military; he also created the Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza. He worked actively to promote the cause of the Polish-French military alliance. His proposal to increase the powers of the minister of military affairs while reducing those of the Chief Inspector of the Armed Forces met with sharp disapproval from Piłsudski, who at that time was gathering many opponents of the current government. From 1925 to 1928 Sikorski commanded Military Corps District ("Okręg Korpusu") VI in Lwów.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: A democrat and supporter of the Sejm, Sikorski declared his opposition to Józef Piłsudski's May coup d'état in 1926; however he remained in Lwów, refused to dispatch his forces, and played no significant role in the short struggle surrounding the coup. In 1928 he was relieved by Piłsudski of his command, and while he remained on active service, he received no other posting. That year also saw the publication of his book on the Polish–Soviet War, "Nad Wisłą i Wkrą. Studium do polsko–radzieckiej wojny 1920 roku" (At the Vistula and the Wkra Rivers: a Contribution to the Study of the Polish–Soviet War of 1920). He would spend the following years studying military theory, publishing works on military theory, history and foreign policy. His most famous work was his 1934 book "Przyszła wojnajej możliwości i charakter oraz związane z nimi zagadnienia obrony kraju" (lit. "War in the Future: Its Capacities and Character and Associated Questions of National Defense", published in English in as "Modern warfare. Its character, its problems" in 1943), in which he predicted the return of the maneuver warfare. He wrote several other books and many articles, foreseeing, among other things, the rapid militarization of Germany.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: In due course, soon after he was relieved of his command, and as a semi-dictatorial "Sanacja" regime was established, Sikorski joined the anti-Piłsudski opposition. Sikorski largely withdrew from politics, spending much of his time in Paris, France, and working with the French Ecole Superieure de Guerre (war college). Even after the death of Piłsudski in 1935, he was still marginalized, politically and militarily, by Piłsudski's successors. In February next year, together with several prominent Polish politicians (Wincenty Witos, Ignacy Paderewski, and General Józef Haller) he joined the Front Morges, an anti-Sanacja political grouping.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: In the days before Poland was invaded by Germany in September 1939, and during the invasion itself, Sikorski's request for a military command continued to be denied by the Polish commander in chief, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły. Sikorski escaped through Romania to Paris, where on 28 September he joined Władysław Raczkiewicz and Stanisław Mikołajczyk in a Polish government-in-exile, taking command of the newly formed Polish Armed Forces in France. Two days later, on 30 September, president Raczkiewicz called him to serve as the first Polish prime minister in exile. On 7 November he became commander in chief and General Inspector of the Armed Forces ("Naczelny Wódz i Generalny Inspektor Sił Zbrojnych"), following Rydz-Śmigły's resignation. Sikorski would also hold the position of the Polish Minister of Military Affairs, thus uniting in his person all control over the Polish military in wartime.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: During his years as prime minister in exile, Sikorski personified the hopes and dreams of millions of Poles, as reflected in the saying, "When the sun is higher, Sikorski is nearer" (Polish: ""Gdy słoneczko wyżej, to Sikorski bliżej""). At the same time, from early on he had to work to reconcile the pro- and anti-Piłsudski's factions.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: His government was recognized by the western Allies. Nonetheless, Sikorski's government struggled to get its point of view heard by France and the United Kingdom. The western Allies refused to recognize the Soviet Union as an aggressor, despite the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939. Furthermore, he struggled to secure resources needed to recreate the Polish Army in exile.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: Poland, even with its territories occupied, still commanded substantial armed forces: the Polish Navy had sailed to Britain, and many thousands of Polish troops had escaped via Romania and Hungary or across the Baltic Sea. Those routes would be used until the end of the war by both interned soldiers and volunteers from Poland, who jocularly called themselves "Sikorski's tourists" and embarked on their dangerous journeys, braving death or imprisonment in concentration camps if caught by the Germans or their allies. With the steady flow of recruits, the new Polish Army was soon reassembled in France and in French-mandated Syria. In addition to that, Poland had a large resistance movement, and Sikorski's policies included founding of the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union of Armed Struggle), later transformed into Armia Krajowa (Home Army), and creation of the Government Delegation for Poland position, to supervise the Polish Underground State in occupied Poland.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: In 1940 the Polish Highland Brigade took part in the Battle of Narvik (Norway), and two Polish divisions participated in the defense of France, while a Polish motorized brigade and two infantry divisions were in process of forming. A Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade was created in French-mandated Syria. The Polish Air Force in France had 86 aircraft with one and a half of the squadrons fully operational, and the remaining two and a half in various stages of training. Although many Polish personnel had died in the fighting or had been interned in Switzerland following the fall of France, General Sikorski refused French Marshal Philippe Pétain's proposal of a Polish capitulation to Germany. On 19 June 1940, Sikorski met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and promised that Polish forces would fight alongside the British until final victory. Sikorski and his government moved to London and were able to evacuate many Polish troops to Britain. After the signing of a Polish-British Military Agreement on 5 August 1940, they proceeded to build up and train the Polish Armed Forces in the West. Experienced Polish pilots took part in the Battle of Britain, where the Polish 303 Fighter Squadron achieved the highest number of kills of any Allied squadron. Sikorski's Polish forces would form one of the most significant Allied contingents.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: The Fall of France weakened Sikorski's position, and his proposal to consider building a new Polish army in the Soviet-occupied territories led to much criticism from within the Polish community in exile. On 19 July Raczkiewicz dismissed him from his position as the prime minister, replacing him with August Zaleski; however, within days pressure from Sikorski's sympathizers, including the British government, made Raczkiewicz reconsider his decision, and Sikorski was reinstated as the prime minister on 25 July.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: One of Sikorski's political goals was the creation of a Central and Eastern European federation, starting with the Polish-Czechoslovakian confederation. He saw such an organization as necessary if smaller states were to stand up to traditional German and Russian imperialism. That concept, although ultimately futile, gained some traction around that time, as Sikorski and Edvard Beneš from the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, signed an agreement declaring the intent to pursue closer cooperation on 10 November that year. On 24 December 1940 Sikorski was promoted to generał broni. In March 1941 he visited the United States; he would visit the US again in March and December 1942.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union ("Operation Barbarossa") in June 1941, Sikorski opened negotiations with the Soviet ambassador to London, Ivan Maisky, to re-establish diplomatic relations between Poland and the Soviet Union, which had been broken off after the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939. In December that year, Sikorski went to Moscow with a diplomatic mission. The Polish Government reached an agreement with the Soviet Union (the Sikorski-Maisky Pact of 17 August 1941), confirmed by Joseph Stalin in December of that year. Stalin agreed to invalidate the September 1939 Soviet-German partition of Poland, declare the Russo-German Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 null and void, and release tens of thousands of Polish prisoners-of-war held in Soviet camps. Pursuant to an agreement between the Polish government-in-exile and Stalin, the Soviets granted "amnesty" to many Polish citizens, from whom a new army (the Polish II Corps) was formed under General Władysław Anders and later evacuated to the Middle East, where Britain faced a dire shortage of military forces. The whereabouts of thousands more Polish officers, however, would remain unknown for two more years, and this would weigh heavily on both Polish–Soviet relations and on Sikorski's fate.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: Initially, Sikorski supported the Polish–Soviet rapprochement, which reignited criticism of his person from some Polish factions. Nonetheless, Sikorski soon realized that the Soviet Union had plans for Polish territories, which would be unacceptable to Polish public. The Soviets began their diplomatic offensive after their first major military victory in the Battle of Moscow, and intensified this policy after the battle of Stalingrad, showing less and less regard for their deals with Poland. In January 1942 British diplomat Stafford Cripps informed General Sikorski that while Stalin planned to extend Polish borders to the west, by giving Poland Germany's East Prussia, he also wanted to considerably push Poland's eastern frontier westwards, along the lines of the Versailles concept of the Curzon Line, and acquire Lwów and Wilno, if not both. Sikorksi's stance on eastern borders was not inflexible; he noted in some documents that some concessions might be acceptable, however, giving up both Lwów and Wilno was not. Initially he also referred to plans of annexing German land to the Oder as megalomania.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: In 1943 the fragile relations between the Soviet Union and the Polish government-in-exile finally reached their breaking point when, on 13 April, the Germans announced via the Katyn Commission the discovery of the bodies of 20,000 Polish officers who had been murdered by the Soviets and buried in Katyn Forest, near Smolensk, Russia. Stalin claimed that the atrocity had been carried out by the Germans, while Nazi propaganda orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels successfully exploited the Katyn massacre to drive a wedge between Poland, the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, and subsequently Russia, did not acknowledge responsibility for this and similar massacres of Polish officers until the 1990s.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: When Sikorski refused to accept the Soviet explanation and requested an investigation by the International Red Cross on 16 April, the Soviets accused the government-in-exile of cooperating with Nazi Germany and broke off diplomatic relations on 25 April.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: Beginning in late May 1943, Sikorski began visiting Polish forces stationed in the Middle East. In addition to inspecting the forces and raising morale, Sikorski was also occupied with political matters; around that time, a conflict was growing between him and General Władysław Anders, as Sikorski was still open to some normalization of Polish–Soviet relations, to which Anders was vehemently opposed. On 4 July 1943, while Sikorski was returning from an inspection of Polish forces deployed in the Middle East, he was killed, together with his daughter, his chief of staff, Tadeusz Klimecki, and seven others, when his plane, a Liberator II, serial "AL523", crashed into the sea 16 seconds after takeoff from Gibraltar Airport at 23:07 hours. The crash was attributed to cargo on the plane shifting to the back upon takeoff. Only the pilot, Eduard Prchal (1911–1984), survived the crash. Sikorski was subsequently buried in a brick-lined grave at the Polish War Cemetery in Newark-on-Trent, England on 16 July that year. Winston Churchill delivered a eulogy at his funeral. On 14 September 1993, his remains were exhumed and transferred via Polish Air Force TU-154M, and escorted by RAF 56 Sqn Tornado F3 jets, to the royal crypts at Wawel Castle in Kraków, Poland.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: Immediately after the crash, a Polish officer who had witnessed the event from the airstrip began sobbing quietly and repeating: "Now Poland is lost! Now Poland is lost!" ("To Polska stracona!") General Sikorski's death marked a turning point for Polish influence amongst the Anglo-American allies. No Pole after him would have much sway with the Allied politicians. Sikorski had been the most prestigious leader of the Polish exiles and his death was a severe setback for the Polish cause. After the Soviets had broken off diplomatic relations with Sikorski's government in April 1943, in May and June Stalin had recalled several Soviet ambassadors for "consultations": Maxim Litvinov from Washington, Fyodor Gusev from Montreal, and Ivan Maisky from London. While Churchill had been publicly supportive of Sikorski's government, reminding Stalin of his pact with Nazi Germany in 1939 and their joint attack on Poland, in secret consultations with Roosevelt he admitted that some concessions would have to be made by Poland to appease the powerful Soviets. The Polish–Soviet crisis was beginning to threaten cooperation between the western Allies and the Soviet Union at a time when the Poles' importance to the western Allies, essential in the first years of the war, was beginning to fade with the entry into the conflict of the military and industrial giants, the Soviet Union and the United States.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: The Allies had no intention of allowing Sikorski's successor, Stanisław Mikołajczyk, to threaten the alliance with the Soviets. No representative of the Polish government was invited to the Tehran Conference (28 November – 1 December 1943) or the Yalta Conference (4–11 February 1945), the two crucial events in which the Western Allies and the Soviet Union discussed the shape of the post-war world and decided on the fate of Poland. Only four months after Sikorski's death, in November 1943, at Tehran, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed with Stalin that the whole of Poland east of the Curzon Line would be ceded to the Soviets. In Teheran, neither Churchill nor Roosevelt objected to Stalin's suggestion that the Polish government in exile in London was not representing Polish interests; as historian Anita Prażmowska noted, "this spelled the end of that government's tenuous influence and raison d'être." After the Teheran Conference, Stalin decided to create his own puppet government for Poland, and a Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) was proclaimed in the summer of 1944. The committee was recognized by the Soviet Government as the only legitimate authority in Poland, while Mikołajczyk's Government in London, was termed by the Soviets an "illegal and self-styled authority." Mikołajczyk would serve in the prime minister's role until 24 November 1944, when, realizing the increasing powerlessness of the government in exile, he resigned and was succeeded by Tomasz Arciszewski, "whose obscurity", in the words of historian Mieczysław B. Biskupski, "signaled the arrival of the government in exile at total inconsequentiality." Stalin soon began a campaign for recognition by the Western Allies of a Soviet-backed Polish government led by Wanda Wasilewska, a dedicated communist with a seat in the Supreme Soviet, with General Zygmunt Berling, commander of the 1st Polish Army in Russia, as commander-in-chief of all Polish armed forces. By the time of the Potsdam conference in 1945, Poland has been relegated to the Soviet sphere of influence; an abandonment of the Polish government in exile that has led to the rise of the Western betrayal concept.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: A number of poems dedicated to Sikorski were written by Polish authors during the war. In its aftermath, in the People's Republic of Poland, Sikorski's historic role, like that of all the adherents of the London government, would be minimized and distorted by propaganda, and those loyal to the government-in-exile would be liable to imprisonment and even execution. In time, restrictions on discussing Sikorski began to ease; on a centennial anniversary of his birth in 1981, commemorative events were held on the Rzeszów Voivodeship, including an academic conference, and revealing of plaques in Nisko and Leżajsk. published a novel on him, "Wejście w mrok" (1971), and in 1983 a movie, "Katastrofa w Gibraltarze" by Bohdan Poręba, was made. The Polish government-in-exile, of which Sikorski was the first prime minister, would continue in existence until the end of communist rule in Poland in 1990, when Lech Wałęsa became the first post-communist president of Poland. On 17 September 1993 a statue of Sikorski, sculpted by , was revealed in Rzeszów. In 1995, Sikorski became the patron of the newly formed Polish 9th Mechanized Brigade. In 2003, the Polish parliament (Sejm) declared the year (60th anniversary of Sikorski's death) to be the "Year of General Sikorski". A number of streets and schools in Poland bear Sikorski's name.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: Memory of General Sikorski was also preserved both in Poland and abroad, by organizations like the Sikorski Institute in London. In the UK, Sikorski received honoris causa degrees from the University of Liverpool and University of St Andrews. In 1981, a commemorative plaque was revealed at Hotel Rubens in London, where during the war Polish Military Headquarters, including Sikorski's office, were located. He is commemorated in London's Portland Place, near the Embassy of Poland, with a larger than life statue, unveiled in 2000. A propeller from the plane in which he died is the centrepiece of a new memorial to Sikorski at Europa Point, Gibraltar.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: A British Court of Inquiry convened on 7 July 1943, investigated the crash of Sikorski's Liberator II serial "AL 523", but was unable to determine the cause, finding only that it was an accident and "due to jamming of elevator controls", noting that "it has not been possible to determine how the jamming occurred but it has been established that there was no sabotage.". The Polish government refused to endorse this report, due to the contradiction about the cause not being determined but sabotage being ruled out.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: The political context of the event, coupled with a variety of curious circumstances (for instance, the Soviet agent Kim Philby was head of counter-intelligence for MI6 in Gibraltar at the time), immediately gave rise to numerous speculation that Sikorski's death had been no accident, and may have been the direct result of a Soviet, British, or even Polish conspiracy. Some modern sources note that the accident is not fully explained. However, as Roman Wapiński noted in his biographical entry on Sikorski in the "Polish Biographical Dictionary" in 1997, no conclusive evidence of any wrongdoing has been found, and Sikorski's official cause of death is listed as an accident.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: In 2008 Sikorski was exhumed and his remains were examined by Polish scientists, who in 2009 concluded that he died due to injuries consistent with an air crash and that there was no evidence that Sikorski was murdered, ruling out theories that he was shot or strangled before the incident; however they did not rule out the possibility of sabotage, which is still being investigated by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. , the investigation continues.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: In August 2020 Canadian Aeronautical expert and mechanic Chris Wroblewski combined with WW2 Air Crash Investigator - Britain's Garth Barnard (who produced 'Sikorski's Last Flight') used scientific aeronautical analysis results produced a series of physical Trials based upon a model of Sikorski's plane (AL523). The Trials proved that the method outlined in the book by author Peter Urbanski 'To Live Well is to Hide Well' was the sole reason for the plane's crash.


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: General Sikorski was also an active writer on the subjects of military tactics and describing his personal war experiences. His works include:


title: Władysław Sikorski

text: a For a detailed analysis of the size of Polish forces, in comparison to other allies, see note a in the Polish contribution to World War II article.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: David Schultz (born June 1, 1955) is an American former professional wrestler. He competed in North American regional promotions Stampede Wrestling, the National Wrestling Alliance, and the American Wrestling Association in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During his short stint in the World Wrestling Federation in 1984, he gained notoriety by assaulting "20/20" reporter John Stossel during a report on the legitimacy of professional wrestling.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: Trained by Herb Welch, Schultz began wrestling in NWA Mid-America during the mid-1970s eventually teaming with Roger Kirby to defeat Bill Dundee and Big Bad John for the NWA Mid-America Tag Team Championship in May 1976. He would also team with Bill Ash to win the NWA Mid-America Tag Team Championship before losing the titles to George Gulas and Gorgeous George, Jr. later that year.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: While in the Maritimes, he also defeated Terry Sawyer for the Canadian Heavyweight Championship in Halifax, Nova Scotia on August 9, 1977. Feuding with Sawyer over the title, he would briefly lose the title back to Sawyer before regaining it on August 13 and remained champion until the title became inactive before the end of the year.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: Although losing to Bob Armstrong in a match for the NWA Southeastern Heavyweight Championship in 1978, he later regained the title the following year feuding over the title with Ron Slinker in mid-1979. Teaming with Dennis Condrey, the two later won the NWA Southeast Tag Team Championship after defeating Dick Slater and Paul Orndorff in November 1979 and successfully defended the titles for several months before the title was held up during a match against Mike Stallings and The Matador on February 3, 1980 and lost the titles to them in a rematch a week later.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: Returning to the Maritimes region, he wrestled as David von Schultz in Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling later becoming the first AGPW US Heavyweight Champion on June 26, 1980. Defending the title against veterans such as Leo Burke, Stephen Petitpas and The Great Malumba throughout the summer, he eventually lost the title while he and the Cuban Assassin feuded with AGPW North American Tag Team Champions Leo Burke and Stephen Petitpas during his last weeks in the region.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: During the next several years, he began wrestling for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling as part of Foley's Army feuding with Leo Burke and Mr. Hito over the Stampede Wrestling North American Heavyweight Championship during 1981 and also faced AWA World champion Nick Bockwinkel in a non-title interpromotional match. He also briefly teamed with Wayne Ferris as the Memphis Mafia before Ferris turned on him in a storyline in which he had been "bought" by manager J.R. Foley. The two would continue feuding with each other throughout Western Canada and eventually defeated Ferris in a steel cage match in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1983.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: In 1984, while competing in Memphis, promoter Vince McMahon had become impressed with Schultz after watching an interview in which he had made derogatory remarks about Hulk Hogan during his brief stay in the area. He, along with tag team partner "Macho Man" Randy Savage and his brother Lanny Poffo, would become one of the first major regional wrestlers to be signed by Vince McMahon. Within a short time, had become one of the top "heels" in the promotion being aligned with Roddy Piper, Bob Orton and Paul Orndorff in their feud with "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka and later teamed with Piper and Orndorff to defeat S. D. Jones, Rocky Johnson and Bobo Brazil in a 6-man tag team match at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland. On June 17, he would also face WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: Schultz had a notorious encounter on December 28, 1984, with "20/20" reporter John Stossel while Stossel was backstage at Madison Square Garden doing a story about professional wrestling's secrets. During an interview Stossel told Schultz that he thought pro wrestling was fake and Schultz's response was to hit Stossel in the head twice, knocking him to the floor each time. The attack, which attracted a large amount of media coverage, was later aired on national television including ABC News which reported that the network had received more than 1,000 calls from viewers inquiring about Stossel's health.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: Marvin Kohn, a deputy commissioner at the New York State Athletic Commission, had been present at the arena during the incident and immediately suspended Schultz for his actions. Although called by Commissioner Jose Torres to attend a hearing before the commission, Kohn later reported that Schultz had written a letter to the commission admitting "that he had acted improperly and apologized both to the commission and to Mr. Stossel" and further stated "I admit the allegations ... I intend the commission to know that I did not intend to hurt John Stossel. I apologize to the commission and to John Stossel."


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: Stossel stated that he suffered from pain and buzzing in his ears eight weeks after the assault. Stossel later claimed he was unaware of Schultz's apology and would pursue his action in court although commented he would be "less likely to sue" if the after-effects of his injury disappeared. Stossel eventually filed a lawsuit against the World Wrestling Federation, and settled out of court for $280,000. In his book, "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity", Stossel writes that he has come to regret filing charges, having adopted the belief that lawsuits harm hundreds of innocent people.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: Although Schultz has consistently maintained that World Wrestling Federation officials told him to hit Stossel (specifically, he insists that Vince McMahon himself said, "Blast him (Stossel), tear his ass up, stay in character -- 'Doctor D'..."), Schultz ultimately was fired. Many industry insiders believe that it was not because of his actions against Stossel, but rather because he challenged Mr. T to a fight backstage at a WWF show at Madison Square Garden.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: Moving to Connecticut, Schultz opened a successful bail bonds business and began a second career as a professional bounty hunter.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: Schultz briefly reappeared in the spotlight in the early 1990s when Vince McMahon was accused of illegally distributing anabolic steroids. Although Hulk Hogan was considered to be the prosecution's major witness, Schultz was one of several former WWF wrestlers called to testify against McMahon at the trial although McMahon would eventually be acquitted of all charges against him.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: During the early 2000s, Schultz was under consideration for induction into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in November 2003, and the following month, attended the Fan Slam Convention in Totowa, New Jersey on December 6, 2003. During the event, he participated in a Q&A panel which included Hulk Hogan, Ted DiBiase, Virgil, Gary Michael Cappetta, Chief Jay Strongbow and The Missing Link.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: In October 2006, Schultz was honored along with J. J. Dillon and Missy Hyatt at a dinner banquet hosted by the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and attended by former WWF wrestlers from the 1970s and 80s. During the event, he would participate on a Q&A panel discussing the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and taking questions from audience members as well as conducted a "shoot interview" with RF Video. As part of their agreement, RF Video donated $500 in his name to the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame Building Fund and later presenting a check to Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame President Tony Vellano.


title: David Schultz (professional wrestler)

text: On April 28, 2020, "Dark Side of the Ring" aired a second season episode that focuses on Schultz's wrestling career, his assault on John Stossel that ended his wrestling career, and his transition as a bounty hunter.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow Rosenberg is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997–2003). She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed throughout the TV series by Alyson Hannigan.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow plays an integral role within the inner circle of friends—called the Scooby Gang—who support Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a teenager gifted with superhuman powers to defeat vampires, demons, and other evil in the fictional town of Sunnydale. The series begins as Buffy, Willow, and their friend Xander (Nicholas Brendon) are in 10th grade and Willow is a shy, nerdy girl with little confidence. She has inherent magical abilities and begins to study witchcraft; as the series progresses, Willow becomes more sure of herself and her magical powers become significant. Her dependence on magic becomes so consuming that it develops into a dark force that takes her on a redemptive journey in a major story arc when she becomes the sixth season's main villain, threatening to destroy the world in a fit of grief and rage.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: The "Buffy" series became extremely popular and earned a devoted fanbase; Willow's intelligence, shy nature, and vulnerability often resounded strongly with viewers in early seasons. Of the core characters, Willow changes the most, becoming a complex portrayal of a woman whose powers force her to seek balance between what is best for the people she loves and what she is capable of doing. Her character stood out as a positive portrayal of a Jewish woman and at the height of her popularity, she fell in love with another woman, a witch named Tara Maclay (Amber Benson). They became one of the first lesbian couples on U.S. television and one of the most positive relationships of the series. Despite not being a titular character, Willow Rosenberg holds the distinction of having the second largest number of appearances on episodes of "Buffy" and the spin-off series "Angel". Alyson Hannigan appeared as Willow in all 144 episodes of "Buffy", as well as guest appearances in three episodes of the spinoff "Angel", for a total of 147 on-screen appearances over the course of both series. She is also featured in an animated series and video game, both of which use Hannigan's voice, and the comics "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight" (2007–2011), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine" (2011-2013), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten" (2014-2016), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eleven" (2016-2017) and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Twelve" (2018) which use Hannigan's likeness and continues Willow's storyline following the television series.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (often simplified as "Buffy") was originally conceived by Joss Whedon for a 1992 feature film. However, in its development Whedon felt it lost some of the quirkiness he considered was the heart of the project, and it was not received as well as he liked. He began to develop for television the concept of a fashion-conscious girl named Buffy, who is imbued with superhuman abilities and attends a high school situated on a portal to hell. Whedon created a group of friends for the main character, including Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris. A half-hour pilot was filmed starring Riff Regan as Willow, but it was eventually left unaired and network executives requested that Regan be replaced. Willow's character demanded that she be shy and unsure of herself, and the casting department encountered some difficulty finding actors who could portray this effectively and still be likable. After seven auditions, 23-year-old Alyson Hannigan was hired for the role. She was chosen for being able to spin the character's lines with a self-effacing optimism. She later stated in an interview, "I didn't want to do Willow as someone who's feeling sorry for herself. Especially in the first season, she couldn't talk to guys, and nobody liked her. I was like, 'I don't want to play somebody who's down on herself.'"


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: In the beginning of the series, Hannigan used her own experiences in high school—which she called "overwhelmingly depressing"—to guide her portrayal of Willow: "My theory on high school was, get in, get out and hopefully I won't get hurt. Basically it was a miserable experience, because you're a walking hormone in this place that is just so cruel. There were times that were OK, but it's not the little myth that high school is the best years of your life. No way." Whedon intended Willow to be realistically introverted, saying, "I wanted Willow to have that kind of insanely colorful interior life that truly shy people have. And Alyson has that. She definitely has a loopiness I found creeping into the way Willow talked, which was great. To an extent, all the actors conform to the way I write the character, but it really stands out in Willow's case."


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: The "Buffy" television series first aired mid-season in March 1997 almost immediately earning positive critical reviews. Willow is presented as a bookish nerd with considerable computer skills, dowdily dressed and easily intimidated by more popular girls in school. She grows faint at the sight of monsters, but quickly forms a friendship with Buffy and is revealed to have grown up with Xander (Nicholas Brendon). They are mentored by the school librarian who is also Buffy's Watcher, Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), who often works closely with Willow in researching the various monsters the group encounters. Joss Whedon found that Hannigan was especially gifted reacting with fear (calling her the "king of pain") and viewers responded strongly when she was placed in danger, needing to be rescued by Buffy. Willow in various predicaments became common in early episodes. However, Willow establishes herself as integral to the group's effectiveness, often willing to break rules by hacking into highly secure computer systems.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: In the second season when the characters are in 11th grade, Willow becomes more sure of herself, standing up to the conceited Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), and approaching Xander, on whom she has had a crush for years, although it is unrequited as Xander is in love with Buffy. Seth Green joined the cast during the second season as Oz, a high school senior who becomes a werewolf, and Willow's primary romantic interest. The show's popularity by early 1998 was evident to the cast members, and Hannigan remarked on her surprise specifically. Willow was noted to be the spirit of the Scooby Gang, and Hannigan attributed Willow's popularity with viewers (she had by May 1998 seven websites devoted to her) to being an underdog who develops confidence and is accepted by Buffy, a strong, popular person in school. Hannigan described her appeal: "Willow is the only reality-based character. She really is what a lot of high-schoolers are like, with that awkwardness and shyness, and all those adolescent feelings."


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: At the end of the second season, Willow begins to study magic following the murder of the computer teacher and spell caster Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte). Willow is able to perform a complicated spell to restore the soul of Angel (David Boreanaz), a vampire who is also Calendar's murderer and Buffy's boyfriend. During the third season three episodes explore Willow's backstory and foreshadow her development. In "Gingerbread", her home life is made clearer: Sunnydale falls under the spell of a demon who throws the town's adults into a moral panic, and Willow's mother Sheila (Jordan Baker) is portrayed as a career-obsessed academic who is unable to communicate with her daughter, eventually trying to burn Willow at the stake for being involved in witchcraft; her father is never featured. In "The Wish" a vengeance demon named Anya (Emma Caulfield) grants Cordelia's wish that Buffy never came to Sunnydale, showing what would happen if it were overrun with vampires. In this alternate reality, Willow is an aggressively bisexual vampire. In a related episode, "Doppelgangland", Willow meets "Vamp Willow", who dresses provocatively and flirts with her.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow chooses to attend college with Buffy in Sunnydale although she is accepted to prestigious schools elsewhere. Her relationships with Buffy and Xander become strained as they try to find their place following high school. Willow becomes much more confident in college, finally finding a place that respects her intellect, while Buffy has difficulty in classes and Xander does not attend school. Willow's relationship with her boyfriend, Oz, continues until a female werewolf appears on the scene, aggressively pursuing him, and he leaves town to learn how to control the wolf within. She becomes depressed and explores magic more deeply, often with powerful but inconsistent results. She joins the campus Wicca group, meeting Tara Maclay, for whom she immediately feels a strong attraction. Willow adapts to her newfound sexual identity, eventually falling in love with and choosing to be with Tara, even when Oz returns to Sunnydale after apparently getting his lycanthropic tendencies under control.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Each season the Scoobies face a villain they call the Big Bad. In the fifth season, this is a goddess named Glory (Clare Kramer) that Buffy is unable to fight by herself.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: The writers of the series often use elements of fantasy and horror as metaphors for real-life conflicts. The series' use of magic, as noted by religion professor Gregory Stevenson, neither promotes nor denigrates Wiccan ideals and Willow rejects Wiccan colleagues for not practicing the magic she favors. Throughout the series, magic is employed to represent different ideas -— relationships, sexuality, ostracism, power, and particularly for Willow, addiction -— that change between episodes and seasons. The ethical judgment of magic, therefore, lies in the results: performing magic to meet selfish needs or neglecting to appreciate its power often ends disastrously. Using it wisely for altruistic reasons is considered a positive act on the series.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Through witchcraft, Willow becomes the only member of the group to cause damage to Glory. She reveals that the spells she casts are physically demanding, giving her headaches and nosebleeds. When Glory assaults Tara, making her insane, Willow, in a magical rage that causes her eyes to turn black, finds Glory and battles her. She does not come from the battle unscathed (after all, Glory is a goddess and Willow "just" a very powerful witch) and must be assisted by Buffy, but her power is evident and surprising to her friends. The final episode of the fifth season sees Willow restoring Tara's sanity and crucially weakening Glory in the process. It also features Buffy's death, sacrificing herself to save the world.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow and Tara move into the Summers house and raise Buffy's younger sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg). Fearing that Buffy is in hell, Willow suggests at the beginning of the sixth season that she be raised from the dead. In a dark ceremony in which she expels a snake from her mouth, Willow performs the magic necessary to bring Buffy back. She is successful, but Buffy keeps it secret that she believes she was in heaven.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow's powers grow stronger; she uses telepathy which her friends find intrusive, and she begins to cast spells to manipulate Tara. After Willow fails Tara's challenge to go for one week without performing magic, Tara leaves her, and for two episodes Willow descends into addiction that almost gets Dawn killed. Willow goes for months without any magic, helping Buffy track three geeks called The Trio who grandiosely aspire to be supervillains.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Immediately following Willow's reconciliation with Tara, Warren (Adam Busch), one of the Trio, shoots Buffy; a stray shot kills Tara right in front of Willow. In an explosion of rage and grief, Willow soaks up all the dark magic she can, which turns her hair and eyes black. In the final episodes of the season Willow becomes exceedingly strong, surviving unharmed when Warren hits her in the back with an axe. “Axe not gonna cut it,” she quips. She hunts Warren, tortures him by slowly pushing a bullet into his body, then kills him by magically flaying him. Unsatisfied, she attempts to kill the other two members of the Trio but is unsuccessful due to her weakening power. She solves this problem by killing her 'dealer' from earlier in the season and draining him of his magic. When she is confronted by Buffy they begin to fight, only to be stopped by Giles who has borrowed magic from a coven of wiccans. Willow successfully drains him of this borrowed magic, fulfilling his plan and causing her to feel all the pain of everyone in the world. She tries to ease the pain by destroying the world, finally stopped by Xander’s passionate confession of platonic familial love for her.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: The seventh season starts with Willow in England, unnerved by her power, studying with a coven near Giles' home to harness it. She fears returning to Sunnydale and what she is capable of doing if she loses control again, a fear that dogs her the whole season.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Buffy and the Scoobies face the First Evil, bent on ending the Slayer line and destroying the world. Potential Slayers from around the globe congregate at Buffy's home and she trains them to battle the First Evil. Willow continues to face her grief over Tara's death and, reluctantly, becomes involved with one of the Potentials, Kennedy (Iyari Limon).


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: In the final episode of the series, "Chosen", Buffy calls upon Willow to perform the most powerful spell she has ever attempted. With Kennedy nearby, cautioned to kill her if she becomes out of control, Willow infuses every Potential Slayer in the world with the same powers Buffy and Faith have. The spell momentarily turns her hair white and makes her glow—Kennedy calls her "a goddess"—and it ensures that Buffy and the Potentials defeat the First Evil. Willow is able to escape with Buffy, Xander, Giles, and Kennedy as Sunnydale is destroyed.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Through the gamut of changes Willow endures in the series, "Buffy" studies scholar Ian Shuttleworth states that Alyson Hannigan's performances are the reason for Willow's popularity: "Hannigan can play on audience heartstrings like a concert harpist... As an actress she is a perfect interpreter in particular of the bare emotional directness which is the specialty of [series writer Marti] Noxon on form."


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Subsequent to "Buffy"s television finale, Dark Horse Comics collaborated with Joss Whedon to produce a canonical comic book continuation of the series, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight" (2007–11), written by Whedon and many other writers from the television series. Unfettered by the practical limitations of casting or a television special effects budget, "Season Eight" explores more fantastic storylines, characters, and abilities for Willow. Willow's cover art is done by Jo Chen, and Georges Jeanty and Karl Moline produce character artwork and provide alternative covers. It was followed by two closely interlinked sequels, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine" and "Angel & Faith" (both 2012–14). Willow features at different times in both series, as well as in her own spin-off miniseries. Jeanty continues to provide Willow's likeness in "Season Nine", while Rebekah Isaacs and Brian Ching are the primary pencillers of "Angel & Faith" and "Willow: Wonderland" respectively. While "Season Nine" and "Angel & Faith" are substantially less fantastical in tone than "Season Eight", Willow's spin-off is high fantasy and focuses on her journey through magical alternate worlds.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow appears to Buffy and Xander, who are in charge of thousands of Slayers, a year after the destruction of Sunnydale. Willow reveals a host of new abilities including being able to fly and absorbing others' magic to deconstruct it. The Big Bad of "Season Eight" is a being named Twilight who is bent on destroying magic in the world. A one-shot comic dedicated to Willow's story was released in 2009 titled "Willow: Goddesses and Monsters". It explores the time she took away to discover more about her magical powers, under the tutelage of a half-woman half-snake demon named Aluwyn. Willow is still involved with Kennedy through "Season Eight", but becomes intimate with Aluwyn while they are together. She also continues to deal with grief from Tara's death, and struggles with the dark forces of magic that put her in opposition to Buffy. At the conclusion of the season, Buffy destroys an object, a seed, that is the source of the magic in the world, leaving Willow powerless. Whedon divulged that recovering her magical abilities will become Willow's "personal obsession" in a miniseries where she will be the central character.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: From the inception of Willow's character in the first season, she is presented with contradictions. Bookish, rational, naive, and sometimes absent-minded, she is also shown being open to magic, aggressively boyish, and intensely focused. Willow is malleable, in continuous transition more so than any other "Buffy" character. She is, however, consistently labeled as dependable and reliable by the other characters and thus to the audience, making her appear to be stable. She is unsure of who she is; despite all the tasks she takes on and excels at, for much of the series she has no identity. This is specifically exhibited in the fourth season finale "Restless", an enigmatic pastiche of characters' dream sequences. In Willow's dream, she moves from an intimate moment painting a love poem by Sappho on Tara's bare back, to attending the first day of drama class to learn that she is to be in a play performed immediately for which she does not know the lines or understand. The dream presents poignant anxieties about how she appears to others, not belonging, and the consequences of people finding out her true self. As Willow gives a book report in front of her high school class, she discovers herself wearing the same mousy outfit she wore in the first episode of the show ("Welcome to the Hellmouth") as her friends and classmates shout derisively at her, and Oz and Tara whisper intimately to each other in the audience. She is attacked and strangled by the First Slayer as the class ignores her cries for help.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Long a level-headed character who sacrifices her own desires for those of her friends, she gradually abandons these priorities to be more independent and please herself. She is often shown making choices that allow her to acquire power or knowledge and avoid emotional conflict. The story arc of Willow's growing dependence on magic was noted by Marti Noxon as the representation of "adult crossroads" and Willow's inability and unwillingness to be accountable for her own life. Willow enjoys power she is unable to control. She steals to accomplish her vocational goals and rationalizes her amoral behavior. This also manifests itself in a competitive streak and she accuses others who share their concerns that she uses magic for selfish purposes of being jealous. No longer the conscience of the Scooby Gang, Willow cedes this role to Tara then revels in breaking more rules. After Tara leaves Willow, Willow divulges to Buffy that she does not know who she is and doubts her worth and appeal—specifically to Tara—without magic. Contradicting the characterization of Willow's issues with magic as addiction, "Buffy" essayist Jacqueline Lichtenberg writes "Willow is not addicted to magic. Willow is addicted to the surging hope that this deed or the next or the next will finally assuage her inner pain."


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Vamp Willow appears in the third season episodes "The Wish" and "Doppelgangland". She is and aggressive, the opposite of Willow's usual nature; her bad behavior so exaggerated that it does not instill fear into the viewer like other female vampires in the series, but indicates more about Willow's personality. Shocked upon seeing her alter ego in "Doppelgangland", Willow states "That's me as a vampire? I'm so evil and . And I think I'm kinda gay!" Angel is stopped by Buffy in telling the Scoobies that the vampire self carries many of the same attributes as the human self, at which Willow says that is nothing like her. Many Buffy fans saw this as a funny Easter egg when Willow revealed herself to actually be lesbian in later seasons. As surprised as Willow is with Vamp Willow, she feels bound to her, and does not have the heart to allow Buffy to kill her. Both Willows make the observation that "this world's no fun", before they send Vamp Willow back into the alternate dimension from which she came, whereupon she is staked and dies immediately.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: A shadow of Dark Willow appears to fight Glory in the fifth season episode "Tough Love", but she does not come into full force until the sixth season in "Villains", "Two to Go", and "Grave". The transition from Willow into Dark Willow, precipitated by Tara's immediate death when she is shot through the heart, was ambiguously received by audiences, many of whom never foresaw Willow's psychic break. It was simultaneously lauded for being an overwhelming depiction of a powerful woman, and derided as representative of a worn cliché that lesbians are amoral and murderous. Dark Willow proved to be exceptionally more powerful than Buffy. She changes visually when she walks into the Magic Box, a store owned by Giles, telekinetically retrieves dozens of dark magic books from the shelves, and leeches the words from the pages with her fingertips. As the words crawl up her arms and soak into her skin, her eyes and hair become black and her posture "aggressively aware and confident".


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Susan Driver writes that it is "crucial to recognize that never before in a teen series has raw fury been so vividly explored through a young queer girl responding to the sudden death of her lover". Dark Willow is preternaturally focused on revenge, relentless and unstoppable. Lights explode when she walks past. She forcefully takes advantage of any opportunity to further her goals. She saves Buffy by removing the bullet from her chest, but later commandeers a tractor trailer, making it slam into Xander's car while he and Buffy are inside protecting Jonathan and Andrew, the other two members of the Trio. She floats, flies and dismantles the local jail where Jonathan and Andrew are held.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: She is cruelly honest to Dawn and Buffy, and overpowers everyone with whom she comes in contact. When she takes Giles' magic from him, she gains the ability to feel the world's pain, becoming determined to put the world out of its misery. She does not acknowledge her grief, and only Xander can force her to face it when he tells her that he loves her no matter what or who she is, and if she is determined to end the world she must start by killing him. Only then does Willow return, sobbing.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: At Salon.com, Stephanie Zacharek writes that Dark Willow is "far from being a cut-out angry lesbian, is more fleshed out, and more terrifyingly alive, than she has ever been before. More than any other character, she has driven the momentum of the past few episodes; she very nearly drove it off a cliff." Several writers state that Willow's transition into Dark Willow is inevitable, grounded in Willow's self-hatred that had been festering from the first season. Both Dark Willow and even Willow herself state that Willow's sacrifices for her friends and lack of assertiveness are her undoing. In "Doppelgangland", Willow (posing as Vampire Willow) says "It's pathetic. She lets everyone walk all over her and gets cranky at her friends for no reason." In "Two to Go", Dark Willow remarks "Let me tell you something about Willow. She's a loser. And she always has been. People picked on Willow... and now Willow's a junkie." Vamp Willow served as an indicator of what Willow is capable of; immediately before she flays Warren in one violent magical flash, she uses the same line Vamp Willow used in the third season: "Bored now."


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Following the sixth season, Willow struggles to allow herself to perform magic without the darkness within her taking her over. She is no longer able to abstain from magic as it is such an integral part of her that doing so will kill her. In the instances when she is highly emotional the darkness comes out. Willow must control that part of her and is occasionally unable to do so, giving her a trait similar to Angel, a cursed vampire who fears losing his soul will turn him evil. In a redemptive turn, when Willow turns all the Potentials into Slayers, she glows and her hair turns white, astonishing Kennedy and prompting her to call Willow a goddess.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow's earliest and most consistent relationships are with Buffy and Xander, both of whom she refers to as her best friends although they have their conflicts, and Giles as a father figure. Willow takes on the leadership role when Buffy is unavailable, and her growing powers sometimes make her resent being positioned as Buffy's sidekick. Some scholars see Willow as Buffy's sister-figure or the anti-Buffy, similar to Faith, another Slayer whose morals are less strict. In early seasons, Willow's unrequited crush on Xander creates some storylines involving the relationships between Xander, Cordelia, and Oz. Willow is part of a powerful quartet: she represents the spirit, Giles intelligence, Xander heart, and Buffy strength of the Scoobies. Although they often drift apart, they are forced to come together and work in these roles to defeat forces they are unable to fight individually.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow meets stoic Oz in the second season. Their courtship is slow and patient. Oz is bitten by a werewolf, and just as Willow begins to confront him about why he does not spend time with her, he transforms and attacks her. She must shoot him with a tranquilizer gun several times while he is wild, but her assertiveness in doing so makes her more confident in their relationship. Oz's trials in dealing with a power he cannot control is, according to authors J. Michael Richardson and J. Douglas Rabb, a model for Willow to reference when she encounters her own attraction to evil. When Willow and Oz decide to commit to each other, Willow is enthusiastic that she has a boyfriend, and, as a guitarist in a band, one so cool. Her relationship with Oz endures the high school storylines of exploring her attraction to Xander, which briefly separates them. She worries that she is not as close to Oz as she could be. They stay together through graduation into college, but Oz is drawn to Veruca, another werewolf. He admits an animal attraction to Veruca, which he does not share with Willow. He sleeps with Veruca and leaves shortly after to explore the werewolf part of himself. Willow becomes very depressed and doubts herself. She drinks, her magical abilities are compromised, her spells come out wrong, and she lashes out at her friends when they suggest she get over it ("Something Blue").


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Joss Whedon did not intend to write Oz out of the series. Seth Green came to Whedon early in the fourth season to announce that he wished to work on his film career. Whedon admitted he was upset by Green's announcement and that if he had wanted to continue, Oz would have been a part of the story. However, to resolve the relationship between Oz and Willow Whedon says, "we had to scramble. And out of the heavens came Amber Benson."


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: "Buffy" earned international attention for its unflinching focus on the relationship between Willow and Tara Maclay. Whedon and the writing staff had been considering developing a story arc in which a character explores his or her sexuality as the Scoobies left high school, but no particular effort was made to assign this arc to Willow. In 1999, at the end of the third season, the "Boston Herald" called "Buffy" "the most gay show on network TV this year" despite having no overtly gay characters among the core cast. It simply presented storylines that resembled coming out stories. In the fourth season episode "Hush", Willow meets Tara, and to avoid being killed by a group of ghouls, they join hands to move a large vending machine telekinetically to barricade a door. The scene was, upon completion, noticeably sensual to Whedon, the producers, and network executives, who encouraged Whedon to develop a romantic storyline between Willow and Tara, but at the same time placed barriers on how far it could go and what could be shown. Two episodes later, Hannigan and Amber Benson were informed that their characters would become romantically involved. The actors were not told the end result of the Willow–Oz–Tara storyline, not sure what the eventual trajectory of the relationship would be, until Hannigan said, "Then finally it was, 'Great! It's official. We're in luurrvvve.'"


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Whedon made a conscious effort to focus on Willow and Tara's relationship instead of either's identity as a lesbian or the coming out process. When Willow discloses to Buffy what she feels for Tara, she indicates that she has fallen in love with Tara, not that she is a lesbian, and avoids categorizing herself. Some critics regard this as a failure on Willow's part to be strong; Em McAvan interprets this to mean that Willow may be bisexual. Scholar Farah Mendlesohn asserts that Willow's realization that she is in love with Tara allows viewers to re-interpret Willow's relationship with Buffy; in the first three seasons, Willow is often disappointed that she is not a higher priority to Buffy, and even after Willow enters a relationship with Tara, still desires to feel integral to Buffy's cause and the Scooby Gang.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow's progression has been noted to be unique in television. Her relationship with Tara coincides with the development of her magical abilities becoming much more profound. By the seventh season, she is the most powerful person in Buffy's circle. Jessica Ford at PopMatters asserts that Willow's sexuality and her magical abilities are connected and represented by her relationships. In her unrequited attraction to Xander, she has no power. With Oz, she has some that gives her the confidence she sorely lacks, but his departure leaves her unsure of herself. Only when she meets Tara do her magical abilities flourish; to Ford, sexuality and magic are both empowering agents in Willow's story arc. David Bianculli in the "New York Daily News" writes that Willow's progression is "unlike anything else I can recall on regular prime-time television: a character evolving naturally over four seasons of stories and arriving at a place of sexual rediscovery".


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Not all viewers considered Willow and Tara's relationship a positive development. Some fans loyal to Willow reacted angrily as she chose to be with Tara when Oz made himself available, and they lashed out at Tara and Amber Benson on the fansite message boards. Whedon replied sardonically, "we're going to shift away from this whole lifestyle choice that Willow has made. Just wipe the slate. From now on, Willow will no longer be a Jew. And I think we can all breathe easier." However, he seriously explained his motivation, writing "My show is about emotion. Love is the most powerful, messy, delightful and dangerous emotion... Willow's in love. I think it's cool." Hannigan was also positive about the way the character and her relationship with Tara was written: "It is not about being controversial or making a statement. I think the show is handling it really nicely. It's about two people who care about each other."


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Contrasting with some of the more sexual relationships of the other characters, Willow and Tara demonstrate a sentimental, soft, and consistent affection for each other. Some of this was pragmatic: the show was restricted in what it could present to viewers. Willow and Tara did not kiss until the fifth season in an episode that diverted the focus away from the display of affection when Buffy's mother dies in "The Body". Before this, much of their sexuality is represented by allusions to witchcraft; spells doubled for physical affection such as an erotic ritual in "Who Are You?" where Willow and Tara chant and perspire in a circle of light until Willow falls back on a pillow gasping and moaning. Within the "Buffy" universe, magic is portrayed in a mostly female realm. As opposed to it being evil, it is an earth-bound force that is most proficiently harvested by women. The treatment of the lesbian relationship as integral to magic, representative of each other (love is magic, magic is love), earned the series some critical commentary from conservative Christians. To avoid large-scale criticism, scenes had to be shot several different ways because censors would not allow some types of action on screen. In the fourth and fifth seasons, the characters could be shown on a bed, but not under the covers. Hannigan noted the inconsistent standards with the other relationships on the show: "you've got Spike and Harmony just going at it like rabbits, so it's very hypocritical". As a couple, Willow and Tara are treated by the rest of the Scoobies with acceptance and little fanfare. Susan Driver writes that younger viewers especially appreciate that Willow and Tara are able to be affectionate without becoming overly sexual, thus making them objects of fantasy for male enjoyment. Willow and Tara's influence on specifically younger female viewers is, according to Driver, "remarkable".


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Academics, however, comment that Willow is a less sexual character than the others in the show. She is displayed as "cuddly" in earlier seasons, often dressing in pink fuzzy sweaters resulting in an innocent tomboyishness. She becomes more feminine in her relationship with Tara, who is already feminine; no issues with gender are present in their union. Their relationship is sanitized and unthreatening to male viewers. When the series moved broadcast networks from The WB to UPN in 2001, some of the restrictions were relaxed. Willow and Tara are shown in some scenes to be "intensely sexual", such as in the sixth season episode "Once More, with Feeling" where it is visually implied that Willow performs cunnilingus on Tara. When Willow and Tara reconcile, they spend part of the episode in "Seeing Red" unclothed in bed, covered by red sheets.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow is more demonstrative in the beginning of her relationship with Tara. Where in her relationship with Oz she described herself as belonging to him, Tara states that she belongs to Willow. Willow finds in Tara a place where she can be the focus of Tara's attention, not having to appease or sacrifice as she has in the past. Tara, however, eclipses Willow's role as the moral center of the Scoobies, and as Willow becomes more powerful and less ethical, Tara becomes a maternal figure for the group. Willow acts as a sort of middle child between Xander's immaturity and Buffy's weighty responsibilities. She becomes completely devoted to and enamored of Tara, and then manipulates her to avoid conflict when Tara does not conform to what she wants. Displeased with how Willow abuses her power, especially toward herself, Tara leaves Willow while continuing to counsel Dawn and Buffy. Long after Tara's death, Willow faces the choices she made: in the "Season Eight" issue "Anywhere But Here", Willow tells Buffy that she is responsible for Tara's death. Her ambition to bring back Buffy from the dead inevitably led to Tara getting shot and killed. In the one-shot comic, Willow is offered Tara as a guide for her mystical path to understanding her own powers, but rejects her as being an illusion, too much of a comfort, and not a guide who will force her to grow. She begins a relationship with Kennedy.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Following protests angry about the death of Tara, Whedon and the writing team made a decision to keep Willow gay. In 2002, he told "The Advocate" about the possibility of Willow having a relationship with a man, "We do that now, and we will be burned alive. And possibly justifiably. We can't have Willow say, 'Oh, cured now, I can go back to cock!' Willow is not going to be straddling that particular fence. She will just be gay." Kennedy is markedly different from Tara. She is younger, outspoken, and aggressively pursues Willow, who hesitates to become involved again. When they first kiss in the episode "The Killer in Me", Willow's realization that she let Tara go reacts with a curse put upon her by another witch named Amy Madison (Elizabeth Anne Allen), turning Willow into Warren, Tara's murderer. The spell is broken when Willow acknowledges her guilt and Kennedy kisses her again. Kennedy expresses that she does not understand the value of magic and assumes it involves tricks, not the all-consuming energy that Willow is capable of. When Willow eventually exhibits what power she has, it briefly frightens Kennedy. Willow worries about becoming sexually intimate with Kennedy, unsure of what may transpire if she loses control of herself.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: In season 7 episode 20, "Touched", in which practically all the main cast has sex (two by two) Willow and Kennedy take part in the first lesbian sex scene on primetime television.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: In "Season Eight", Kennedy and Willow are still romantically involved, but separated during Willow's self-exploration. Unlike her relationship with Tara, Willow is able to hold a separate identity while with Kennedy. When she realizes her powers have gone at the end of "Season Eight", however, Willow ends her relationship with Kennedy, saying that there is someone else Willow is in love with, who she will never see again.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Kennedy's role split many Buffy fans into two groups. Many viewers hated Kennedy, because they saw her as a way of saying; "Tara's dead, let's move on." and they weren't ready to. After the emotional death of Tara and Willow's reaction (nearly ending all life on Earth) many fans thought that it was ridiculous for Willow to recover and move on so quickly. Kennedy overall, has received much hate, but there is the other side who say that she was exactly what Willow needed to recover and continue a happy life.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow's religion and sexuality have made her a role model for audiences. Whedon, however, has compared her Jewish identity to her sexuality, stating that they are rarely made a significant focus of the show. Willow at times reminds the other characters of her religion, wondering what her father might think of the crucifixes she must apply to her bedroom wall to keep out vampires, and commenting that Santa Claus misses her house every Christmas because of the "big honkin' menorah". "Buffy" essayist Matthew Pateman criticizes the show for presenting Willow's Jewish identity only when it opposes Christian declarations of holidays and other traditions. "The New York Times", however, named her as a positive example of a depiction of a Jewish woman, who stood out among portrayals of Jews as harsh, unfeminine, and shallow. Producer Gail Berman states that as a Jew, Willow "handles herself just fine, thank you".


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: In "Queer Girls and Popular Culture", Susan Driver states that television ascribes to viewers what lesbians look and act like, and that realistic portrayals of girls outside the norm of white, upper or middle class, and heterosexual are extremely rare. Realistic depictions of lesbians are so rare that they become strong role models and enable "hope and imagination" for girls limited by the conditions of their immediate surroundings, who may know of no other gay people. The time and space given to Willow to go from being a shy scared girl into a confident woman who falls in love with another woman is, as of 2007, unique in television; it does not occur in one flash or single moment. It is a progression that defies strict definition. Manda Scott in "The Herald" states that Willow's lack of panic or self-doubt when she realizes she is in love with Tara makes her "the best role model a teen could ask for".


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: When viewers realized that Willow was falling in love with Tara, Whedon remembered that some threatened to boycott the show, complaining "You made Willow a fag", to which he responded, "Bye. We'll miss you "a whole lot."" However, he also said, "For every (negative) post, there's somebody saying, 'You made my life a lot easier because I now have someone I can relate to on screen'." Gay characters had been portrayed before on television, and at the time the popular sitcom "Will & Grace" was on the air. Lesbian-themed HBO special "If These Walls Could Talk 2" won an Emmy. Twenty-three television shows depicted a gay character of some kind in 2000. However, these other characters were mostly desexualized, none were partnered or shown consistently affectionate towards the same person. Willow and Tara's relationship became the first long-term lesbian relationship on U.S. television. "Jane" magazine hailed Willow and Tara as a bold representation of gay relationship, remarking that "they hold hands, slow-dance and lay in bed at night. You won't find that kind of normalcy on "Will and Grace"." Despite Whedon's intentions of not making "Buffy" about overcoming issues, he said Willow's exploration of her sexuality "turned out to be one of the most important things we've done on the show".


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Although the show's writers and producers received a minimal negative reaction from Willow choosing Tara over Oz, the response from viewers and critics alike was overwhelming towards Whedon for killing Tara, accusing him of homophobia. Particularly because Tara's death came at a point where Willow and Tara had reconciled and were shown following an apparent sexual encounter, the writers were criticized for representing the consequences of lesbian sex as punishable by death. Series writer and producer Marti Noxon—whose mother fell in love with another woman when Noxon was 13 years old—was unable to read some of the mail the writing team received because it was so upsetting. To her, the pain expressed in viewers' letters was a logical reaction to the lack of realistic lesbian role models on television.


title: Willow Rosenberg

text: Willow's cultural impact has been noted in several other ways. Patrick Krug, a biologist at California State University, Los Angeles named a sea slug with traits of sexual flexibility "Alderia willowi" partly for his grandmother and partly after Willow's character. Willow was included in AfterEllen.com's Top 50 Lesbian and Bisexual Characters, ranking at No. 7. She was also ranked No. 12 in their Top 50 Favorite Female TV Characters. UGO.com named her one of the best TV nerds. AOL also listed her as the #1 TV witch of all time, and one of the 100 Most Memorable Female TV Characters.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: Marvin the Paranoid Android is a fictional character in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series by Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship's robot aboard the starship "Heart of Gold". Originally built as one of many failed prototypes of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's "GPP" (Genuine People Personalities) technology, Marvin is afflicted with severe depression and boredom, in part because he has a "brain the size of a planet" which he is seldom, if ever, given the chance to use. Instead, the crew request him merely to carry out mundane jobs such as "opening the door". Indeed, the true horror of Marvin's existence is that no task he could be given would occupy even the tiniest fraction of his vast intellect. Marvin claims he is 50,000 times more intelligent than a human (or 30 billion times more intelligent than a live mattress), though this is, if anything, an underestimation. When kidnapped by the bellicose Krikkit robots and tied to the interfaces of their intelligent war computer, Marvin simultaneously manages to plan the entire planet's military strategy, solve "all of the major mathematical, , chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe, except his own, three times over", and compose a number of lullabies.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: According to Douglas Adams, "Marvin came from Andrew Marshall. He's another comedy writer, and he's exactly like that." (Indeed, in one of the early drafts for "Hitchhiker's", the robot was called Marshall. It was changed to "Marvin" partly to avoid causing offence, but also because it was pointed out to Adams that on radio the name would sound like "Martial", which would have undesirable military connotations.) However, Adams also admitted that Marvin is part of a long line of literary depressives, such as A. A. Milne's Eeyore or Jacques in Shakespeare's "As You Like It", and even owes something to Adams's own periods of depression.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: Marvin does not actually display any signs of paranoia, though Zaphod Beeblebrox refers to him as "the Paranoid Android". Nor does he show any signs of mania, though Ford refers to him as a "manically depressed robot". He merely remains consistently morose throughout. In fact, he exhibits remarkable stoicism, being willing to wait hundreds of millions of years for his employers to come.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: According to his autobiography read in the Secondary Phase of the radio series, Marvin was constructed, much against his own wishes, by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation to prototype human personality artificial intelligence. In his own words:


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: The cutaway illustration of Marvin made by Kevin J. Davies for the "Depreciation Society" featured a "rat cavity".


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: As the menial labourer on the "Heart of Gold" spaceship, he grew immensely resentful of the insistence of his new masters (Zaphod Beeblebrox and Trillian; later also Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent) that he open doors, check airlocks and pick up pieces of paper. He reserved a particular contempt for the sentient doors, despising their blissful satisfaction with existence.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: When the "Heart of Gold" crew arrive on the ancient planet of Magrathea, they abandon Marvin on the surface. During an apparently suicidal confrontation with a pair of trigger-happy cops, the crew are teleported directly from Magrathea into the future to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe to find that, in fact, they haven't travelled an inch. The Restaurant was constructed on the ruins of the planet they had just left, and, while there, they find Marvin, who had been waiting patiently for their return for 576,000,003,579 years (he counted them). According to Marvin, "The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline." Apparently, the best conversation he had was over 40 million years ago with a coffee machine.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: Deciding they had better leave, the crew make a desperate and futile attempt to engage Marvin's enthusiasm (he "hasn't got one") before he simply does what they really want and opens the door to the ship they want to steal. The ship turns out to be a Haggunenon battle cruiser, and the entire group, including Marvin, but excluding Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent, who escape, are eaten by its crew. Marvin's subsequent survival is never explained, but against all probability, he eventually finds himself on Ursa Minor Beta, just in time to rescue Zaphod from a robotic tank.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: A subsequent section of Marvin's biography occurs only in the Secondary Phase of the radio series. Marvin rejoins the crew on the "Heart of Gold", and using the improbability drive programmed by Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth, takes them to the ravaged planet Brontitall. Having landed in a giant floating marble copy of a plastic cup, the crew accidentally find themselves falling several miles through the air. The carbon-based members of the crew manage to stay alive by grabbing onto passing giant birds. Marvin has no such luck, and, upon impact with the ground, creates his own archaeological excavation site. Cruelly intact, he grudgingly saves the crew multiple times from the Foot Soldiers of the Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation. Marvin remains in "Heart of Gold" whilst Ford, Zaphod, Zarniwoop and Arthur bother the Ruler of the Universe, leaving when an enraged Arthur hijacks the ship.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: However, in the Tertiary Phase, Trillian claims this story is Zaphod's hallucination, especially as reverse temporal engineering explanation has not entered the plot yet. However of the stories of Zaphod's visit to the Frogstar, the Guide says "10% are 95% true, 14% are 65% true, 35% are only 5% true and the rest are told by Zaphod Beeblebrox", and listeners are presented with one "version" of that visit.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: In the television series, the black ship stolen at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe is actually the stunt ship of the Disaster Area rock band, and, having taken them back in time two million years before the present, is set on an irreversible course to collide with the sun of Kakrafoon. Forced to flee in the ship's barely functional teleport, the crew politely ask Marvin to stay behind and operate it. He does so, and stoically awaits his fate "almost as good as death" in the heart of the blazing sun.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: Marvin's voice was performed by Stephen Moore on the first five radio series and television series and by Jim Broadbent in the sixth radio series. David Learner operated his body on television, having previously played and voiced the part for the stage version.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: Warwick Davis wore the Marvin costume in the 2005 film. He is voiced by Alan Rickman. This Marvin's design is a departure from the Marvin of the television series, featuring shorter with an oversized head and stubby limbs. The original television costume from the 1981 television series was refurbished for a cameo role in the film, standing in a queue in the Vogon office on Vogsphere, where the main characters are trying to release Tricia, with various other life forms.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: A difference to the radio and TV series occurs in the novels when the "Heart of Gold" crew arrive on the ancient planet of Magrathea. Marvin inadvertently saves the crew by plugging himself into the onboard computer of a police vehicle, which, when exposed to the true nature of Marvin's view of the universe, commits suicide, taking the two police who were then firing at the ship's crew with it. The crew leave Magrathea on the " Heart of Gold", but are teleported summarily to Ursa Minor Beta, where Zaphod's great grandfather, in an apparent fit of vicious humour, forces Marvin to accompany Zaphod on his mission of self-discovery. Marvin subsequently saves Zaphod's life by engaging in a battle of wits with a vicious (yet stupid) automated tank, and then is abandoned on the planet Frogstar B when Zaphod is sent to the Total Perspective Vortex. Eventually the crew arrive at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe (which was built over the ruins of Frogstar B in this continuity) and the story continues as with the TV series.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: In the third novel, "Life, the Universe and Everything", we find that Marvin survived his collision with the sun of Kakrafoon, and was sent back in time by the Improbability Field projected by the "Heart of Gold" to be rescued by a scrap metal merchant on Sqornshellous Zeta. The merchant grafted a steel rod to Marvin's now lost leg, and sold him to a Mind Zoo, where excited onlookers would try to make him happy. This made him something of a celebrity on the planet of Sqornshellous Zeta, and he was asked to open the brand new bridge that was meant to revitalise the planet's economy. Marvin dutifully plugged himself into the bridge's opening circuit, and, just like the police computer, the bridge committed suicide, taking the entire gathered crowd with it. Marvin was left in the swamp, his false leg having trapped him in the mud, so he spent just over 1.5 million years walking around in a circle, "just to make the point." He planned to keep walking in a circle for another million years before trying it backward. "Just for the variety, you understand."


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: Suddenly, he is kidnapped by a squad of Krikkit war robots, who are after his leg, a fragment of the key that will reopen their imprisoned world and restart the genocidal Krikkit War. Thinking that Marvin's intelligence will be an asset, they wire his brain into the interfaces of their intelligent war computer. This is a mistake. The once formidable Krikkit robots find themselves overcome with crippling sorrow and depression, and rather than focusing on their mission of extermination, instead sulk in corners doing quadratic equations. It is also due to Marvin's influence that Zaphod and the others' lives are spared by the Krikkit robots. Marvin is (presumably) rescued by his friends, who bring him back to the "Heart of Gold." From here his story is unknown.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: Marvin reappears in the second-to-last chapter of "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish". Arthur and Fenchurch find him on the planet where God's Final Message To His Creation is located. He is barely functional, claiming that, due to time travel, he is now "thirty-seven times older than the Universe itself." Every part of his body has been replaced, with the exception of "all the diodes down [his] left side", which have been giving him severe pain for the whole of his existence. Arthur and Fenchurch end up carrying him, enduring the robot's constant abuse, to the God's Final Message viewing station, where they lift him up to see the words of the message: "We apologise for the inconvenience." Astonishingly, Marvin responds "I think... I feel good about it." The lights in his eyes go out and his already-worn circuits completely stop working; Marvin is no more. (In the radio dramatisation, his last words are "Goodbye, Arthur." Marvin's 'death' prompts Arthur to say, "Miserable git!" and then, to his own obvious astonishment, to add, "I'll "miss" him.")


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: However, in the 2005 radio adaptation of the fifth novel in the series, "Mostly Harmless", in which Marvin did not originally appear, he has a cameo at the end of the last episode alive and well. He explains that it turned out he was still covered by his warranty agreement, and is back to parking cars at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: Stephen Moore released two pop singles—"Marvin/Metal Man" and "Reasons to Be Miserable/Marvin I Love You" (double B-side)—in the UK in 1981, though neither reached the top 40. Two of these were re-recorded and rearranged to coincide with the 2005 Hitchhiker's movie release, "Reasons To Be Miserable (His Name Is Marvin)" and "Marvin" now being performed by Stephen Fry (singing in the third-person, not as Marvin).


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: The song involves Marvin describing his woes ("My moving parts are in a solid state") and frustrations ("You know what really makes me mad? They clean me with a Brillo Pad"), to a synthesiser backing. The intro to the song consists of a simple guitar figure, but with the tape reversed so that the notes play backwards.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: The vocal was performed by Stephen Moore, who had played Marvin on the radio and television series. Moore also narrated the ship's captain on the B-side.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: "Metal Man" was the B-side. The song involves a spoken exchange between the starship captain (also played by Moore, as is a cameo radio voice) and the depressed robot Marvin. The starship is falling into a black hole, and can only be saved by assigning control to Marvin. In thanks for saving the ship, Marvin is relegated back to a menial servant. Such is the lot of a robot.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: "Reasons To Be Miserable" was released in 1981. Its official title was "The Double 'B'-Side", and it was a double B-side single released by Polydor on Depressive Discs. The song involves Marvin describing his views on life ("I'd feel a little better if they broke me up for spares", "If I had my time again, I'd rather be a lemming"), to a synthesiser backing. The title is a reference to the hit song "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3" by Ian Dury and The Blockheads.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: "Marvin I Love You" was the other B-side. Marvin describes finding a love letter in his data banks eons after receiving it. The female vocal is provided by Kimi Wong-O'Brien. The song was a frequently requested tune on the Dr. Demento radio show, and was featured on one of the Dr. Demento "Greatest Hits" compilation albums. As of 2008, it is ranked 56 out of the top 100 favorite novelty tunes on the official Dr. Demento web site.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: "How I Hate the Night", also known as "Marvin's lullaby", was published in the book "Life, the Universe and Everything", where it is described as "a short dolorous ditty of no tone, or indeed tune." The first verse of "Marvin's Lullaby" appears close to the end of the episode "Fit the Seventeenth", and the second verse soon after the start of "Fit the Eighteenth" as listed below:


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: The line "try to count electric sheep" is a reference to Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", which inspired the movie "Blade Runner". According to "Don't Panic", Douglas Adams wrote a guitar tune for the lullaby, and thought it should have been released. In the radio series, Stephen Moore sings the words to a tune resembling "Abendsegen" from Humperdinck's opera "Hansel and Gretel".


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: In the episode "Sibling Tsunami" of the animated series "My Life as a Teenage Robot", when asked what's wrong, XJ-7, a chronically depressed robot character, replied: "The usual, life, the universe, everything", a reference not only to Marvin, but the "Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", a central tenet of the series' storyline (as well as the title of the third book).


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: British alternative rock group Radiohead named "Paranoid Android", the lead single from their 1997 album "OK Computer", after Marvin.


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: Marvin's origins (including those of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, and the HitchHikers handheld device) are referenced in the 2008 radio series "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul". In episode 4, Dirk Gently phones his friend Richard McDuff, who now works for a new startup, Sirius Cybernetics. Occasionally, background noises of electronic groans and air-pistons can be heard. At the end of the phone call, the electronic voice of Stephen Moore says "Richard, I think we might have a problem with these diodes."


title: Marvin the Paranoid Android

text: Marvin appeared, and was declared the winner in the Q-series episode "Quests: Part II" of the panel game show QI.


title: Jacques Rougeau

text: Jacques Rougeau Jr. (born June 13, 1960) is a Canadian former professional wrestler best known for his appearances in the 1980s and 1990s with the World Wrestling Federation. He began his career under his real name as half of the tag team The Fabulous Rougeaus with his brother Raymond Rougeau. In 1991, he began a singles career as The Mountie, winning the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship once. In 1993, he formed three time WWF Tag Team Championship winning tag team The Quebecers with Pierre Ouellet.


title: Jacques Rougeau

text: At least 3 of Jacques' family members were wrestling promoters and/or wrestled themselves: his older brother Ray, his father Jacques Sr., and his uncle Jean "Johnny" Rougeau. Jacques' sister Johanne also promoted wrestling matches in Montreal, and brother Armand wrestled for smaller federations.


title: Jacques Rougeau

text: Jacques Rougeau began his career in 1977, working in Stu Hart's Calgary, Alberta based Stampede Wrestling promotion. In the 1980s he began wrestling in the United States, achieving success in Alabama and Tennessee, and in 1985 he and Ray were signed by the World Wrestling Federation.


title: Jacques Rougeau

text: Jacques debuted in the WWE (then WWF) on February 26, 1986 during the Australian leg of the company's "International Tour," in a losing effort against Moondog Rex. Raymond, who was victorious in his debut match against Moondog Spot the same night, debuted alongside Jacques 6 days later, winning their debut match as "The Fabulous Rougeaus" against the Moondogs.In their first year in the WWE, the Fabulous Rougeaus claimed tag-team victories against The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart), The Moondogs, Jimmy Jack and Dory Funk Jr., and The Dream Team (Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake).


title: Jacques Rougeau

text: Although they lost their match at WrestleMania III in 1987 to Valentine and Beefcake, they briefly upset The Hart Foundation for the WWF Tag Team Championship at the Montreal Forum on August 10 that year. The decision was reversed to a disqualification and the championship returned, since the challengers initially won after using Jimmy Hart's megaphone as a weapon.


title: Jacques Rougeau

text: After two years in the Federation, The Fabulous Rougeaus turned heel. The Canadian brothers began being announced as "From Canada, but soon to relocate to the United States" and debuted an intentionally annoying entrance song, in which they sang (partly in French) about being "All-American Boys" and their manager, Jimmy Hart. They were also briefly billed from Memphis, Hart's home city. They mockingly waved tiny American flags to the chagrin of many American fans. They would humorously attempt to start "USA!" chants, which led to further negative fan "heat". According to Jacques, the widespread antipathy of American fans inspired Vince McMahon to turn them into heels. They feuded with The Killer Bees, The Hart Foundation (who had turned face in between), The Bushwhackers, and The Rockers during their heel run.


title: Jacques Rougeau

text: Ray Rougeau retired in early 1990, ending his tag-team partnership with Jaqcues. Jacques departed the Federation for a year before redebuting in January 1991, once again alongside Jimmy Hart. The Mountie character was that of a corrupt, cattle prod-wielding member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who often boasted that he "always gets his man" (a phrase long associated with the RCMP, which insinuated that criminals cannot escape from Canada's federal police force). The cattle prod came into play as part of The Mountie's post-match gimmick, where he would handcuff, berate and then "shock" his defeated and helpless opponents in the stomach. The story of the character change was that Jacques Rougeau had actually gone through the training to become a Mountie to wield authority. The character was eventually the subject of litigation in Canada, preventing Rougeau from performing as The Mountie in his home country. Thus, while wrestling in Canada, he was billed using only his real name and did not wear his Mountie-inspired hat and jacket to the ring, although he did retain other parts of his costume such as red shirt, black pants, and boots.


title: Jacques Rougeau

text: The Mountie made his in-ring debut in January 1991. In his pay-per-view debut, he defeated Koko B. Ware at the 1991 Royal Rumble. He gained another major victory at WrestleMania VII, defeating Tito Santana after using the shock stick. The Mountie began a feud with the Big Boss Man after declaring that he was the sole legitimate law enforcer in the WWF, and on August 26, 1991, he spent a night in prison (kayfabe) after Bossman defeated him in a Jailhouse Match at SummerSlam. At the 1991 Survivor Series, Mountie teamed with Ric Flair, Ted DiBiase and The Warlord to defeat Roddy Piper, Bret Hart, Virgil and Davey Boy Smith in a four-on-four Survivor Series elimination match.