Task: Question Answering
Input (English): Context: A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts (hence the name), especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and is normally introduced by a compère (master of ceremonies) or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. The variety format made its way from Victorian era stage to radio to television. Variety shows were a staple of anglophone television from its early days (late 1940s) into the 1980s., Andrew Roane "Andy" Dick (born December 21, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, musician, and television and film producer. Best known as a comic, he is also known for his eccentric and controversial behavior. His first regular television role was on the short-lived but influential "Ben Stiller Show". In the mid-1990s, he had a long-running stint on NBC's "NewsRadio" and was a supporting character on "Less than Perfect". He briefly had his own program, "The Andy Dick Show" on MTV. He is noted for his outlandish behavior from a number of "Comedy Central Roasts". He landed in 7th place on the 16th season of "Dancing with the Stars"., Khandi Alexander (born September 4, 1957) is an American dancer, choreographer, and actress. She began her career as dancer in 1980s and was a choreographer for Whitney Houston's world tour from 19881992., Advertising is an audio or visual form of marketing communication that employs an openly sponsored, nonpersonal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea. Sponsors of advertising are often businesses who wish to promote their products or services. Advertising is differentiated from public relations in that an advertiser usually pays for and has control over the message. It is differentiated from personal selling in that the message is nonpersonal, i.e., not directed to a particular individual.
Advertising is communicated through various mass media, including old media such as newspapers, magazines, Television, Radio, outdoor advertising or direct mail; or new media such as search results, blogs, websites or text messages. The actual presentation of the message in a medium is referred to as an advertisement or "ad"., NewsRadio is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC from 1995 to 1999, focusing on the work lives of the staff of an AM news station. It had an ensemble cast featuring Dave Foley, Stephen Root, Andy Dick, Joe Rogan, Maura Tierney, Vicki Lewis, Khandi Alexander and Phil Hartman in his final regular role before his death., A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a work of culture. A film, book, musical artist, television series or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fanbase. A common component of cult followings is the emotional attachment the fans have to the object of the cult following, often identifying themselves and other fans as members of a community. Cult followings are also commonly associated with niche markets. Cult media are often associated with underground culture, and are considered too eccentric or subversive to be appreciated by the general public or to be a commercial success.
Many cult fans express a certain irony about their devotion. Sometimes, these cult followings cross the border to camp followings. Fans may become involved in a subculture of fandom, either via conventions, online communities or through activities such as writing series-related fiction, costume creation, replica prop and model building, or creating their own audio or video productions from the formats and characters., Vicki Lewis (born March 17, 1960) is an American singer and actress of film, stage and television. She may be best known for her role as Beth in the NBC sitcom "NewsRadio"., Seth Woodbury MacFarlane (born October 26, 1973) is an American television producer, filmmaker, actor, and singer, working primarily in animation and comedy, as well as live-action and other genres. He is the creator of the TV series "Family Guy" (19992003, 2005present), co-creator of the TV series "American Dad!" (2005present) and "The Cleveland Show" (200913), and writer-director of the films "Ted" (2012), its sequel "Ted 2" (2015), and "A Million Ways to Die in the West" (2014)., Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved and transmitted orally from one generation to another. The transmission is through speech or song and may include folktales, ballads, chants, prose or verses. In this way, it is possible for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other knowledge across generations without a writing system, or in parallel to a writing system. Indian religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, for example, have used an oral tradition, in parallel to a writing system, to transmit their canonical scriptures, secular knowledge such as Sushruta Samhita, hymns and mythologies from one generation to the next., Lewis `` Lew '' Morton is an American television writer . He has written for several shows , including Saturday Night Live ( from 1993 - 1995 ) , NewsRadio , Family Guy and Futurama . He worked as a producer for Undeclared , but never authored any episodes . He also executive produced the film Walk Hard : The Dewey Cox Story . During his time on Futurama Lewis wrote twelve episodes , making him and writer Ken Keeler the two writers who wrote the most episodes on that show as well as the most known . Lewis also went to the same primary school as David X. Cohen ., Kenneth "Ken" Keeler (born 1961) is an American television producer and writer. He has written for numerous television series, most notably "The Simpsons" and "Futurama". According to an interview with David X. Cohen, he proved a theorem which appears in the "Futurama" episode "The Prisoner of Benda"., Joseph James "Joe" Rogan (born August 11, 1967) is an American comedian, podcaster, and sports color commentator. Born in New Jersey, Rogan learned martial arts as a teenager, earning a black belt in Taekwondo where he became a US champion. A fan of comedy, he began his stand-up career in 1988 in the Boston area and has since recorded several albums and specials., Rhode Island, officially the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Rhode Island is the smallest in area, the eighth least populous, and the second most densely populated of the 50 U.S. states, following New Jersey. Its official name is also the longest of any state in the Union. Rhode Island is bordered by Connecticut to the west, Massachusetts to the north and east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound. The state also shares a short maritime border with New York., The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is headquartered in the Comcast Building (formerly known as the GE Building) at Rockefeller Center in New York City, with additional major offices near Los Angeles (at Universal City Plaza), Chicago (at the NBC Tower) and soon in Philadelphia at Comcast Innovation and Technology Center. The network is part of the Big Three television networks. NBC is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network", in reference to its stylized peacock logo, which was originally created in 1956 for its then-new color broadcasts and became the network's official emblem in 1979., Philip Edward "Phil" Hartman (September 24, 1948May 28, 1998; born Hartmann) was a Canadian-American actor, voice actor, comedian, screenwriter and graphic artist. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Hartman and his family moved to the United States in 1958. After graduating from California State University, Northridge, with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands like Poco and America. Feeling the need for a more creative outlet, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings in 1975 and there helped comedian Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the screenplay for the film "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and made recurring appearances on Reubens' show "Pee-wee's Playhouse"., The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of working-class life epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture, society, television, and the human condition., Entertainment Weekly (sometimes abbreviated as EW) is an American magazine, published by Time Inc., that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books and popular culture., Television or TV is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome (black-and-white), or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. It can refer to a television set, a television program ("TV show"), or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium, for entertainment, education, news, and advertising., Judd Apatow (born December 6, 1967) is an American producer, writer, director, actor, and comedian. He is the founder of Apatow Productions, through which he produced and developed the cult television series "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared" and directed and produced "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" (2005), "Knocked Up" (2007), "Funny People" (2009), "This Is 40" (2012), and "Trainwreck" (2015)., Saturday Night Live (abbreviated as SNL) is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC's Saturday Night. The show's comedy sketches, which parody contemporary culture and politics, are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest (who usually delivers an opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast) and features performances by a musical guest. An episode normally begins with a cold open sketch that ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", properly beginning the show., Undeclared is an American sitcom created by Judd Apatow, which aired on Fox during the 200102 season. The show has developed a cult following, and in 2012, "Entertainment Weekly" listed it at #16 in the "25 Best Cult TV Shows from the Past 25 Years"., A television set, more commonly called a television, TV, TV set, television receiver, or telly, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers for the purpose of viewing television. Introduced in the late 1920s in mechanical form, television sets became a popular consumer product after World War II in electronic form, using cathode ray tubes. The addition of color to broadcast television after 1953 further increased the popularity of television sets in the 1960s, and an outdoor antenna became a common feature of suburban homes. The ubiquitous television set became the display device for the first recorded media in the 1970s, such as Betamax, VHS and later DVD. It was also the display device for the first generation of home computers (e.g., Timex Sinclair 1000) and video game consoles (e.g., Atari) in the 1980s. In the 2010s flat panel television incorporating liquid-crystal displays, especially LED-backlit LCDs, largely replaced cathode ray tubes and other displays., Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience, or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands of years specifically for the purpose of keeping an audience's attention. Although people's attention is held by different things, because individuals have different preferences in entertainment, most forms are recognisable and familiar. Storytelling, music, drama, dance, and different kinds of performance exist in all cultures, were supported in royal courts, developed into sophisticated forms and over time became available to all citizens. The process has been accelerated in modern times by an entertainment industry that records and sells entertainment products. Entertainment evolves and can be adapted to suit any scale, ranging from an individual who chooses a private entertainment from a now enormous array of pre-recorded products; to a banquet adapted for two; to any size or type of party, with appropriate music and dance; to performances intended for thousands; and even for a global audience., Sketch comedy comprises a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio or visual medium such as radio and television. Often sketches are first improvised by the actors and written down based on the outcome of these improv sessions; however, such improvisation is not necessarily involved in sketch comedy., Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late-20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry, who, after being unwittingly cryogenically frozen for one thousand years, finds employment at Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery company in the retro-futuristic 31st century. The series was envisioned by Groening in the mid-1990s while working on "The Simpsons"; he later brought David X. Cohen aboard to develop storylines and characters to pitch the show to Fox., Family Guy is an American adult animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian. The show is set in the fictional city of Quahog, Rhode Island, and exhibits much of its humor in the form of cutaway gags that often lampoon American culture., Maura Tierney (born February 3, 1965) is an American film and television actress who is best known for her roles as Lisa Miller on the sitcom "NewsRadio", Audrey Reede in "Liar Liar" (1997), Abby Lockhart on the medical drama "ER" and as Helen Solloway on the television drama "The Affair" for which she won the Golden Globe Award in 2016., Live television is a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. Shows broadcast live include newscasts, morning shows, awards shows, sports programs, and, occasionally, episodes of television series. Live television was more common until the late 1950s, when videotape technology was invented. Because of the prohibitive cost, adoption was slow, and some television show remained live until the 1970s, such as soap operas. To prevent unforeseen issues, live television programs may be delayed, which allows censors to edit the program. Some programs may be broadcast live in certain time zones and delayed in others., A situation comedy, or sitcom, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy where a troupe may use new characters in each sketch, and stand-up comedy where a comedian tells jokes and stories to an audience. Sitcoms originated in radio, but today are found mostly on television as one9 of its dominant narrative forms. This form can also include mockumentaries., David Samuel Cohen (born July 13, 1966), better known as David X. Cohen, is an American television writer. He has written for "The Simpsons" and served as the head writer and executive producer of "Futurama"., A cold open (also called a teaser) in a television program or movie is the technique of jumping directly into a story at the beginning or opening of the show before the title sequence or opening credits are shown. On television, this is often done on the theory that involving the audience in the plot as soon as possible will reduce the likelihood of their switching away from a show during the opening commercial. A cold open may summarize events in previous episodes or storylines that will be revisited during the current episode., David Scott "Dave" Foley (born January 4, 1963) is a Canadian actor, stand-up comedian, director, writer and producer. He is known as a co-founder of the comedy group "The Kids in the Hall", responsible for their eponymous sketch show and the feature length film "". He also starred as Dave Nelson in the sitcom "NewsRadio" and Flik in the Pixar film "A Bug's Life", hosted the game show "Celebrity Poker Showdown" and appeared in numerous other films and TV series., Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening (; born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, animator, and voice actor. He is the creator of the comic strip "Life in Hell" (19772012) and the television series "The Simpsons" (1989present) and "Futurama" (19992003, 20082013). "The Simpsons" has gone on to become the longest-running U.S. primetime-television series in history, as well as the longest-running animated series and sitcom., Duncan "Dick" Ebersol (born July 28, 1947) is an American television executive and a senior adviser for NBC Universal Sports & Olympics. He had previously been the chairman of NBC Sports, producing large scale television events such as the Olympic Games and National Football League broadcasts., NeWS (Network extensible Window System) is a discontinued windowing system developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid-1980s. Originally known as "SunDew", its primary authors were James Gosling and David S. H. Rosenthal. The NeWS interpreter was based on PostScript (as was the later Display PostScript, although the two projects were otherwise unrelated) extending it to allow interaction and multiple "contexts" to support windows. Like PostScript, NeWS could be used as a complete programming language, but unlike PostScript, NeWS could be used to make complete interactive programs with mouse support and a GUI., Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or values of one color. A monochromatic object or image reflects colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey (with or without black or white) are called grayscale or black-and-white. However, scientifically speaking, monochromatic light refers to visible light of a narrow band of wavelengths (see spectral color)., The Fox Broadcasting Company (often shortened to/commonly referred to as Fox) is an American commercial broadcast television network that is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group subsidiary of 21st Century Fox. The network is headquartered at the 20th Century Fox studio lot on Pico Boulevard in the Century City section of Los Angeles, with additional major offices and production facilities at the Fox Television Center in nearby West Los Angeles and the Fox Broadcasting Center in Yorkville, Manhattan, New York. It is the third largest major television network in the world based on total revenues, assets, and international coverage., In theatre (especially in the illusionistic Western tradition), breaking character occurs when an actor ceases to maintain the illusion that they are identical with the character they are portraying. If the breaking of character is particularly serious, it is considered corpsing, which in film or television would normally result in an abandonment of that take., A writer is a person who uses written words in various styles and techniques to communicate their ideas. Writers produce various forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, poetry, plays, screenplays, and essays as well as various reports and news articles that may be of interest to the public. Writers' texts are published across a range of media. Skilled writers who are able to use language to express ideas well often contribute significantly to the cultural content of a society. The word is also used elsewhere in the arts  such as songwriter  but as a standalone term, "writer" normally refers to the creation of written language. Some writers work from an oral tradition., In theatre, a monologue (from , from  "mónos", "alone, solitary" and  "lógos", "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their mental thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media (plays, films, etc.), as well as in non-dramatic media such as poetry. Monologues share much in common with several other literary devices including soliloquies, apostrophes, and aside. There are, however, distinctions between each of these devices., A television program is a segment of content intended for broadcast on over-the-air, cable television, or Internet television, other than a commercial, trailer, or any other segment of content not serving as attraction for viewership. It may be a single production, or more commonly, a series of related productions (also called a television series or a television show)., Lorne Michaels (born Lorne Lipowitz; November 17, 1944) is a Canadian-American television producer, writer, comedian, and actor, best known for creating and producing "Saturday Night Live", and producing the "Late Night" series (since 1993), and "The Tonight Show" (since 2014)., Stephen Root (born November 17, 1951) is an American actor, comedian and voice actor. He has starred as Jimmy James on the TV sitcom "NewsRadio", as Milton Waddams in the film "Office Space" and as the voices of Bill Dauterive and Buck Strickland in the animated series "King of the Hill". His other roles have included Captain K'Vada in the "" feature-length episode "", and Gordon Pibb in ""., Subject: lew morton, Relation: occupation, Options: (A) actor (B) actress (C) advertising (D) animator (E) artist (F) band (G) book (H) captain (I) cartoonist (J) celebrity (K) choreographer (L) comedian (M) commercial (N) creator (O) dancer (P) director (Q) entertainment (R) executive producer (S) interpreter (T) literary (U) magic (V) major (W) marketing (X) master (Y) miller (Z) official ([) pet (\) podcaster (]) producer (^) public relations (_) radio (`) science (a) screenwriter (b) singer (c) songwriter (d) television (e) television producer (f) writer (g) writing system
Output (English): screenwriter