prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Are Yut and Tsuro both board games?

The following are given passages.
Context 1: Passage 1:
List of word board games
This is a list of board games  See the article on game classification for other alternatives, or see Category:Board games for a list of board game articles 

Single-player board games
Some board games have solo variants, such as Arkham Horror and Agricola  Others are specifically designed for one player 

Two-player abstract strategy games
In abstract strategy games, players know the entire game state at all times, and random generators such as dice are not used 

Two-player board games
Multi-player elimination board games
Participants are typically eliminated before game end 

European race games
Multiplayer games without elimination
Everyone can play along to the end  These games are especially suited for mixed play with adults and children 

Economics strategy games
Games involving scarce resources and strategy 

Games of physical skill
Coordination, finesse, or other physical skills are necessary  Also known as dexterity games 

Children's games
The rules are easy to learn and the outcome is mostly or entirely due to chance 

Cooperative games
Cooperative games in which all players need to work together to win 

Word games
These games are based on construction of words to score points 

Gaming systems
These are sets that can be used to play multiple games 

See also
Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year)
Games 100
List of board wargames
List of Japanese board games
List of mancala games
List of board game publishers
List of game manufacturers
List of cross and circle games

External links
Board Game Geek
Boardgames org
A Zen Guide to Board Games
Gamerate Game database
Board Games Land
Board Game Theories
Passage 2:
Glossary of board games
This glossary of board games explains commonly used terms in board games, in alphabetical order  For a list of board games, see List of board games; for terms specific to chess, see Glossary of chess; for terms specific to chess problems, see Glossary of chess problems 

A
active  
See in play 

B
bear off  
To remove game piece(s) from the board and out of play  Past tense: borne off 

bit  
See piece 

Black  
Used often to refer to one of the players in two-player games  Black's pieces are typically a dark color but not necessarily black (e g  in English draughts official play they are red)  Cf  White  See also White and Black in chess 

board  
Short for gameboard 

C
capture  
A method that removes another player's piece(s) from the board  For example: in checkers, if a player jumps an opponent's piece, that piece is captured  Captured pieces are typically removed from the game  In some games, captured pieces remain in hand and can be reentered into active play (e g  shogi, Bughouse chess)  See also Game mechanics § Capture/eliminate 

card  
A piece of cardboard often bearing instructions, and usually chosen randomly from a deck by shuffling 

cell  
See hex and space 

checker  
See piece 

checkerboard 
A square gameboard with alternating dark and light-colored squares 

chessboard 
The square gameboard used in chess, having 64 squares of alternating dark and light-colors 

column  
See file 

component  
A physical item included in the game  E g  the box itself, the board, the cards, the tokens, zipper-lock bags, inserts, rule books, etc  See also equipment 

counter  
See piece 

currency  
A scoring mechanic used by some games to determine the winner, e g  money (Monopoly) or counters (Zohn Ahl) 

custodian capture 
A capture method whereby an enemy piece is captured by being blocked on adjacent sides by opponent pieces  (Typically laterally on two sides as in Tablut and Hasami shogi, or laterally on four sides as in Go  Capture by blocking on two sides diagonally is done in Stone Warriors, and surrounding on three sides is required in Bizingo ) Also called escort capture and interception capture 

custodian method 
See custodian capture 

D
deck  
A stack of cards 

die  
sing  of dice 

dice  
Modern cubic dice are used to generate random numbers in many games – e g  a single die in Trivial Pursuit, or two dice per player in backgammon  Role-playing games typically use one or more polyhedral dice  Games such as Pachisi and chaupur traditionally use cowrie shells  The games Zohn Ahl and Hyena chase use dice sticks  The game yut uses yut sticks 

direction of play  
The order of turns in a multiplayer game, e g  clockwise around the board means the player to the left has the next turn  
  
disc  
See piece    
 
displacement capture  
A capture method whereby a capturing piece replaces the captured piece on its square, cell, or point on the gameboard 

doublet  
1   The same number displayed by two dice 
2   The number displayed by one or more die is doubled 
3   The union of two game pieces to move as one 

E
empty board  
Many games start with all pieces out of play; for example, Nine men's morris, Conspirateurs, Entropy, and Go (if a handicap is not employed)  Some gameboards feature staging areas for the pieces before any are put into play; for example, Ludo and Malefiz 

enemy  
An enemy piece is a piece in the same army or set of pieces controlled by the opponent; or, in a multiplayer game, a piece controlled by the partner of an opponent 

Engine-building  
A board game genre and gameplay mechanic that involves adding and modifying combinations of abilities or resources to assemble a virtuous circle of increasingly powerful and productive outcomes  A successfully built engine can create a snowball or domino effect 

equipment  
Refers to physical components required to play a game, e g  pieces, gameboard, dice 

escort capture  
See custodian capture 

exchange  
For games featuring captures, the capture of a piece followed immediately by the opponent's recapture 

F
file 
A straight line of spaces running from top to bottom of a gameboard at right angle to a rank  Also called column 

friendly  
A piece in the same army or set of pieces controlled by a player; or, in a multiplayer game, a piece controlled by a player's partner 

G
gameboard  
Or game board  The (usually quadrilateral) marked surface on which one plays a board game  The namesake of the board game, gameboards would seem to be a necessary and sufficient condition of the genre, though card games that do not use a standard deck of cards (as well as games that use neither cards nor a gameboard) are often colloquially included  Most games use a standardized and unchanging board (chess, Go, and backgammon each have such a board), but some games use a modular board whose component tiles or cards can assume varying layouts from one session to another, or even during gameplay 

game component  
See component 

game equipment  
See equipment 

game piece  
See piece 

gameplay  
The execution of a game; or specifically its strategy, tactics, conventions, or mechanics 

gamer  
A person who plays board game(s)  See also player 
 
gamespace  
A gameboard for a three-dimensional game (e g , the 5×5×5 cubic board for Raumschach) 

grace  
An extra turn 

H
handicap  
An advantage given to a weaker side at the start of a game to level the winning chances against a stronger opponent  Go has formal handicap systems (see Go handicaps); chess has traditional handicap methods not used in rated competitions (see Chess handicap) 

hex  
In hexagon-based board games, this is the common term for a standard space on the board  This is most often used in wargaming, though many abstract strategy games such as Abalone, Agon, hexagonal chess, GIPF project games, and connection games use hexagonal layouts 

huff  
The forfeiture of a piece as a penalty for infringing a rule 

I
in hand  
A piece in hand is one currently not in play on the gameboard, but may be entered into play on a turn  Examples are captured pieces in shogi or Bughouse chess, able to be dropped into play as a move; or pieces that begin the game in a staging area off the main board, as in Ludo or Chessence 

in play  
A piece active on the main board, not in hand or in a staging area  Antonym: out of play 

interception capture  
See custodian capture 

intervention capture  
A capture method the reverse of the custodian method: a player captures two opponent pieces by moving to occupy the empty space between them 

J
jump  
To move a piece over one or more pieces or spaces on the gameboard  Depending on the context, jumping may include  capturing an opponent's piece  See also Game mechanics § Capture/eliminate 

L
leap  
See jump 

M
man  
In chess, a piece or a pawn  In draughts, an uncrowned (i e  not a king) piece 

meeple  
A game piece that represents a person in concept, shaped like an approximation of a person 

mill  
Three or more pieces in a line of adjacent spaces 

move  
See turn 

O
odds  
See handicap 

open board  
A gameboard with no pieces, or one piece, in play  Typically for demonstration or instruction 

order of play  
See direction of play 

orthogonal  
A horizontal (straight left or right) or vertical (straight forward or backward) direction a piece moves on a gameboard 

out of play  
A piece not active on the main board, it might be in hand or in a staging area  Antonym: in play 

over the board 
A game played face to face with the opponent, as opposed to playing remotely (online or other means, for e g  correspondence chess) 

P
pass  
The voluntary or involuntary forfeiture of a turn by a player 

pie rule  
Used in some two-player games to eliminate any advantage of moving first  After the first player's opening move, the second player may optionally swap sides 

piece  
Or bit, checker, chip, counter, disc, draughtsman, game piece, man, meeple, mover, pawn, player piece, playing piece, singleton, stone, token, unit  A player's representative on the gameboard made of a piece of material made to look like a known object (such as a scale model of a person, animal, or inanimate object) or otherwise general symbol  Each player may control one or more pieces  Some games involve commanding multiple pieces, such as chess pieces or Monopoly houses and hotels, that have unique designations and capabilities within the parameters of the game; in other games, such as Go, all pieces controlled by a player have the same capabilities  In some modern board games, such as Clue, there are other pieces that are not a player's representative (i e  weapons)  In some games, such as mancala games, pieces may not represent or belong to any particular player  Mancala pieces are undifferentiated and  typically seeds but sometimes beans, coins, cowry shells, ivory balls, or pebbles  Note that in chess usage the term piece in some contexts only refers to some of the pieces, which are also known as chessmen  See also Counter (board wargames) 
playboard  
See gameboard 

player  
The participant(s) in the game  See also gamer 

playing area 
The spaces on a gameboard for use by pieces in play 

playspace 
See playing area 

point  
See space 

polyhedral dice  
Dice that are not cubes, usually some kind of Platonic solid  Polyhedral dice are generally referred to through the construction "d + number of sides" (ex  d4, d8, d12, d20)  See also dice 

R
rank 
A straight line of spaces running from one side to the other across a gameboard at right angle to a file  Also called row 

replacement capture  
See displacement capture 

row  
See rank 

rule  
A condition or stipulation by which a game is played 

ruleset  
The comprehensive set of rules which define and govern a game 

S
singleton  
A game piece that is isolated and often prone to attack 

space  
A physical unit of progress on a gameboard delimited by a distinct border, and not further divisible according to the game's rules  Alternatively, a unique position on the board on which a piece in play may be located  For example, in Go, the pieces are placed on grid line intersections called points, and not in the areas bounded by the borders, as in chess  The bounded area geometries can be square (e g  chess), rectangular (e g  shogi), hexagonal (e g  Chinese Checkers), triangular (e g  Bizingo), quadrilateral (e g  three-player chess), cubic (e g  Raumschach), or other shapes (e g  Circular chess)  Cf  gamespace  See also Game mechanics § Movement 

square  
See space 

staging area  
A space set aside from the main gameboard to contain pieces in hand  In Ludo, the staging areas are called yards  In shogi, pieces in hand are placed on komadai 

starting area  
See staging area   
  
stone  
See piece 

swap  
See exchange 

T
take  
See capture 

token  
See piece 

trade  
See exchange 

triplet  
The same number displayed by three dice 

turn  
A player's opportunity to move a piece or make a decision that influences gameplay  Turns to move usually alternate equally between competing players or teams  See also Turn-based game 

W
White  
Used often to refer to one of the players in two-player games  White's pieces are typically a light color but not necessarily white (e g  backgammon sets use various colors for White; shogi sets have no color distinction between sides)  White often moves first but not always (e g  Black moves first in English draughts, shogi, and Go)  Cf  Black  See also White and Black in chess 

Worker Placement 
A genre of board games in which players take turns selecting an action while optimizing their resources and making meaningful decisions 

Notes
Passage 3:
Bear games
Bear games is a category of board games of which many have historical roots in the Roman Empire  They were played in parts of the Empire as far away as Turkey and France and are still played today, especially in Italy   All of the games are two-player abstract strategy board games   Normally, the game is played with three hunters and one bear on a patterned board   It bears similarity to the hunt games such as the Fox games, Rimau-rimau, and Bagha-Chall, however, there are no captures involved   The three hunters are trying to hem in the bear, and block its movements 
The closest relative of the Bear games are the Hare games   In this case, the hares are the "hunters" (a reversal in the naming procedure where the bear in the Bear games is the "hunted"), and there are three of them which is the same number of hunters in the Bear games   The difference is that the hares cannot move backwards in any way, whereas, the hunters can move in any direction   As a result, the boards used are also different   Another close relative is the game called Watermelon Chess   In one of the Bear game variants, the board is the same as that of Watermelon Chess   Furthermore, the game Sz'Kwa also uses the same board, although it is not actually related to the Bear games since the rules and game play are completely different 

Goal
The hunters attempt to hem in the bear and block its movements   The goal of the bear is to avoid this fate   As an optional rule, if the hunters cannot stalemate the bear in a given number of moves, e g  40 moves, the bear wins 

Equipment
There are a variety of patterned boards anywhere from round to rectangular boards   The first link below shows seven   There are normally three hunters, and one bear, however, these quantities especially for the hunters can change drastically depending upon the variant 

Rules
Initial positions of the pieces vary depending upon the variant   Usually the bear is placed in the middle of the board, and the hunters are placed together on one end of the board   One player plays the hunters (normally three pieces), and the other player plays the bear 
Both hunters and bears move one space at a time following the pattern on the board   Only one piece may be moved by each player   Players alternate their turns   There are no captures in this game 
As an optional rule – the bear wins if the hunters cannot stalemate the bear in a given number of moves, e g  40 moves 

Analysis
With perfect play, the hunters win 
This is a great example of a game where the humans have an edge over the computer   In some variants, the Zillions of Games program takes longer to win a game for the hunters as compared to human players 

Related Games
Hare games
Watermelon Chess
Sz'Kwa
Fox games
Rimau-rimau
Bagha-Chall
Main Tapal Empat
Adugo
Passage 4:
BoardGameGeek
BoardGameGeek (BGG) is an online forum for board gaming hobbyists and a game database that holds reviews, images and videos for over 125,600 different tabletop games, including European-style board games, wargames, and card games  In addition to the game database, the site allows users to rate games on a 1–10 scale and publishes a ranked list of board games As of 10 March 2019, boardgamegeek com has an Alexa rank of
1,745 

History
BoardGameGeek was founded in January 2000 by Scott Alden and Derk Solko, and marked its 20th anniversary on 20 January 2020 Since 2005, BoardGameGeek hosts an annual board game convention, BGG CON, that has a focus on playing games, and where winners of the Golden Geek Awards are announced  New games are showcased and convention staff is provided to teach rules  There is also an annual Spring BGG CON which is family friendly, and an annual BGG@Sea which is held on a cruise 
In 2010, BoardGameGeek received the Diana Jones Award, which recognized it as "a resource without peer for board and card gamers, the recognized authority of this online community " The New York Times has called BoardGameGeek "the hub of board gaming on the Internet "In 2020, BoardGameGeek was inducted into the Origins Award Hall of Fame The site has branched out into other fields by using the same system for RPGs and video games (rpggeek com and videogamegeek com) 

Golden Geek Award
Since 2006, the site annually awards the best new board games of the year with the Golden Geek Award  Winners are selected based on a vote by registered users 

2006–2009
2010–2019
RPG and Video Game awardsRPG and Video game awards were introduced in 2014 and awarded through 2017  Only 1 category was awarded in 2018, and none in following years 

2020–present
2020 saw many awards replaced with new categories, such as "Board Game of the Year" replaced with "Game of the Year, Light", "Medium" and "Heavy" 

See also
Going Cardboard (documentary)
Passage 5:
David Parlett
David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board games  He is the president of the British Skat Association 

Life
David Sidney Parlett was born in London on 18 May 1939 to Sidney Thomas Parlett and Eleanor May Parlett, née Nunan  He is one of three brothers  During the Second World War, Parlett lived in Barry, Glamorgan  Parlett was educated at Battersea Grammar School and the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth  He has a BA in Modern Languages  Parlett was a technical writer with PR companies and later a freelance write for Games & Puzzles magazine  He is married to Barbara and they have a son and a daughter 

Works
His published works include many popular books on games such as Penguin Book of Card Games, as well as the more academic volumes The Oxford Guide to Card Games and The Oxford History of Board Games, both now out of print  Parlett has also invented many card games and board games   The most successful of these is Hare and Tortoise (1974)  Its German edition was awarded Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) in 1979 
Parlett is a Quaker 

Books
Games and gaming
All the Best Card Games
Anarquía y Otros Juegos Sociales de Cartas
Botticelli and Beyond
Card Games for Everyone
Family Card Games
Know the Game: Patience
Original Card Games
Solitaire: Aces Up and 399 other Card Games
Teach Yourself Card Games
Teach Yourself Card Games for Four
Teach Yourself Card Games for One
Teach Yourself Card Games for Three
Teach Yourself Card Games for Two
Teach Yourself Poker and Brag
The Guinness Book of Word Games
The Oxford Dictionary of Card Games
The Oxford Guide to Card Games / A History of Card Games
The Oxford History of Board Games reprinted as History of Board Games
The Penguin Book of Card Games
The Penguin Book of Patience
The Penguin Book of Word Games
The Penguin Encyclopedia of Card Games
The Popular Dictionary of Card Games

Other subjects
A Short Dictionary of Languages
Dalcroze Today (translation of Marie-Laure Bachmann's work)
Learning a Language Alone
Selections from the Carmina Burana (translations)

Games invented
Board games
Since 1974, David Parlett has published numerous games, including the following:
Around the World in 80 Days (2016)
Asterix: Das Kartenspiel (1990)
Chicken Out! (2017)
Die Wilden Kerle (The Wild Kids) (2017)
Hare and Tortoise (1973)
Katarenga (Colorado) (2017)
LifeCards
Metal Mickey's All Around the House Game (1982)
Ninety-Nine (1974) / Four Seasons (2016)
Pot Black: Snooker Dice (1980)
Rainbow Junior Scrabble (1989)
Roman Poker (2015)
Shoulder to Shoulder (1975)
Star Wars: Duell der Mächte (2015)
Sushi Spiel (Chinese Take-Away)
The Gnümies Party Game (2001)
The Puzzle of Oz (2012)
Zoo Party / 7Safari (2000) / Alles für die Katz

Card games
Parlett has invented more than 70 original card games that can be played with a standard deck of playing cards 

Solitaire games
Archway
Black Hole
Gay Gordons
Penguin
Passage 6:
Yut
Yut nori, also known as yunnori, nyout, and yoot, is a traditional board game played in Korea, especially during Korean New Year  The game is also called cheok-sa (척사; 擲柶) or sa-hui (사희; 柶戲)  The combining-form -nori means 'game' 
Although the origins of this popular family game are unclear, some research suggests that yut was played as early as the Three Kingdoms (57 BCE – 668 CE)  The Taiping Imperial Reader states that people of Baekje played a board game similar to po yut, which is believed to be similar to Pachisi, a board game originating in India There is a folk explanation for the game, describing a bet by some villagers to raise five different kind of livestock: pigs, dogs, sheep, cows and horses  Each of the villagers would raise only one type 
The board and the game are known to have been used in casting hexagrams, particularly in mountain-areas and small farming-villages, but this is no longer practiced 

Equipment
The board (mal-pan, 말판) is normally made of stitched cloth  The modern board is a rectangular shape, but historically there was also a round variation  There are four straight courses and two diagonal ones  Each of the straight courses comes with five stations, the diagonal ones have five stations, too, but one is shared  This brings the number of stations to twenty-nine in total  The board is also known to sometimes be drawn onto the floor 
Instead of dice, yut-sticks are used  (These are similar to those used in the Egyptian board game Senet ) There are two kinds of yut-stick: jang-jak yut (장작 윷) and bam yut (밤 윷)  Jang-jak yut are made of firewood  There are four sticks of about 15 cm in length and from 2 cm to 3 cm  in diameter  These sticks are split into halves  Chestnut-wood is most commonly used, but birch-wood is also common  These woods are chosen for their weight and the fresh sound they make when playing  Bam yut, on the other hand, are wooden sticks of about 3 cm in length  They have a diameter of about 1 cm, and also are split into halves  The bam yut are played in a small bowl, shaken in the palm, and then released 
There are small tokens (marks) used for the game, called mal (말, literally a "horse")  There are four tokens for each team, although there are no common rules what a token can be made of  The only rule is that the mals of the opponent teams must be clearly distinguishable  Apart from black and white plastic tokens generally found today, common mals are coins, buttons, small pebbles, or even chess beads (both from Western chess and Korean chess)  When choosing the mal, some Koreans consider its speed, because the faster a horse runs, the better it is thought to run 

Yut sticks
The sticks are cast to determine how far a token can advance  The score is determined by counting the sticks that are over, and those that are up  Each combination has a name  One stick over (flat side up) and three sticks up (round side up) is called "do" (도, pig)  Two sticks up and two sticks over is called "gae" (개, dog)  One stick up and three sticks over is called "geol" (걸, sheep)  All sticks over is called "yut" (윷, cow), whereas all sticks up is called "mo" (모, horse)  A "do" is worth one space advancement, a "gae" is worth two space advancement, a "geol" is worth 3 space advancement, "yut" is worth 4 space advancement, and "mo" is worth 5 space advancement  When the sticks come to the result of either "yut" or "mo", the player has another chance of throwing the sticks up again (optional- some people prefer not to play with this rule)  If you get "yut" or "mo" consecutively, you play (throw) again 

Game rules
The game is played between two partners or two teams who play in turns, sometimes it is played with more teams  There is no limit in the number of participants in a game, which means that the game can be played by a considerable group  When played with large groups it is not uncommon for some group members never to cast the sticks: they still participate discussing the strategy 
The start of the game is determined by each team casting the yut-sticks  The team with the highest score starts first 
Each team then casts the sticks in turn, then moves a mal according to the score achieved  One turn usually consists of only one cast   However, a player achieving a yut or mo earns an extra cast for the turn; if the player casts a yut or mo at the second cast, they earn an extra cast again, so there is no limit to the number of times a player can cast again before the end of a turn, provided they keep casting yuts or mos  The respective scores can be played separately if wished, each given to another mal (or group of mals, see below), but a score earned from one cast cannot be split into two moves—for example, a geol (advance three steps) cannot be split into a do (one step) and a gae (two steps) 

As long as there are mals outside the board, a team can either put a new mal onto the board according to the scores it got, or move a mal already on the board  The mals travel around the board and can move forward only  However, when landing on one of the big stations (in the corner and the centre), the team can choose to take the shorter way should they wish to  There are four possible courses, the default course being longest one with no abbreviation (No  4) 
If a mal lands on a station occupied by the opponent's team, the opponent's mal is removed from the course and returned to the starting position, and the current player is allowed to cast again 
If a mal lands on a station occupied by the own team, these mals can form a group and travel together from that point on   However, this bears a risk: If an opponent lands their mal on a station occupied by a group of mals of the opponent, all mals in the group are removed from the course 
For example, if one casts two yuts and one do at their first turn in the game, possible moves would include (see The Stations below for the station names):

Put a mal on the board at the yut station (uses the first yut score); advance to mo (uses the do score), then to sok-yut (uses the second yut) 
Put a mal on the board at the yut station (uses first yut score); put another mal on the board at the same yut station (uses the second yut score), causing the two mals to move together from then on; advance them to mo (uses the do) 
Put a mal on the board at the yut station (uses the first yut); advance to duet-geol (uses the second yut), then to duet-yut (uses the do) The game is won by the team who brings all their mals home first, that is complete the course with all their mals  A course is completed if a mal passes the station where the game is started (cham-meoki)  Landing on cham-meoki is no finish, but any score going "beyond" this station completes a home run  Yut is often played for three or more wins 

Special rules
The game is sometimes enhanced by labeling one, two, or three of the yut stick on their flat side  The Seoul rule can be played if one of the sticks is labelled Seoul (서울)  If this stick is the only one facing down (do so that the letters Seoul can be read), a mal can be placed directly into the centre (bang), which in this case is called Seoul  If all the mals are already on the course, this counts as a do  The Busan rule is similar  One of the yut sticks is labelled Busan (부산)  Rather than to the centre, the mal travels directly to the far corner (mo)  Again, this only applies if this is the only stick facing down, and not all mals are on the course already 
There is also the back rule, where one of the sticks is labelled back (후퇴)  If this is the only stick facing down, one of the mals has to go back one step  Depending on the rules used, if none of the mals are on the course, then this is counted as either a do or a skipped turn   Alternatively, if the do rule is not being used, the other most common rule is for a mal to be placed onto the arrow next to the start  The mal remains there until another back is cast  In this case, however, the mal completes the course at once  Furthermore, if a mal is placed on the do spot, and then gets a back, then they will be on the cham-meoki spot and then will exit the malpan when a do, gae or geul, yut or mo is thrown  Another back will put them on the nal-yut spot 

Social meaning
The game is a popular board game throughout Korea, and it is considered a game of deep tradition  The game is often treated as a social spectacle with onlookers and team members shouting loudly, encouraging each other, or wishing for a certain score  This game is played in almost every Seollal gathering and is commonly played in almost any region of the world with a significant Korean population   The rare scores of yut and mo in particular cause excitement, particularly if cast more than one at a time 
The Australian film and theatre group, Yut Art, takes its names from the game as a result of the excitement and crowd participation associated with its activities 

The stations
Each station of the gameboard has its own name, although they are obscure to most Koreans  It is thought that the outer stations symbolize heaven, and the inner square, the earth  The whole board can be also interpreted as a reflection of universal symmetry and celestial procession, reflecting elements of Korean shamanism The mid-Joseon writer Gim Munpyo described the Yut board as symbolising the circle of the cosmos, with the North Star in the centre, surrounded by 28 constellations 

Yut Fortune
According to the Dongguksesigi (literally meaning a Book on Eastern Country's Annual Observances), a book listing 22 Korean annual observances, on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, there was a game of fortune-telling good and bad with a hand-thrown out of yut  The possible combinations of yut are do, gae, geol, yut, and mo, but yut and mo hit the same thing  As a result, there are 64 fortune tellings in total, and in each case, matters to be careful about behavior and the answer for the year's luck are set 

See also
Lambs and Tigers
Korean culture
List of cross and circle games
Passage 7:
Francis Tresham (game designer)
Francis Tresham (1936 – 23 October 2019) was a British board game designer who produced board games since the early 1970s  Tresham founded and ran games company Hartland Trefoil (founded 1971), a company well-known for its Civilization board game, until its sale to MicroProse in 1997  His 1829 game was the first of the 18xx board game series and some of his board games inspired Sid Meier computer games such as Railroad Tycoon 
Francis Tresham was the first to introduce a technology tree into his boardgames  This idea had a large influence on later board and computer games 
He was managing director of Tresham Games, which produced 18xx-style board games  In 2013, he was one of the first inductees in the UK Games Expo Hall of Fame  He died on 23 October 2019 

Published board games
1825
1829
1829 Mainline
1830
1853
Civilization
Revolution: The Dutch Revolt 1568–1648
Shocks & Scares
Spanish Main
The Game of Ancient Kingdoms
Passage 8:
Days of Wonder
Days of Wonder is a board game publisher founded in 2002 and owned by Asmodee Group since 2014  Days of Wonder distributes its games to 25 countries  It specializes in German-style board games and has branched out to include some online games  Days of Wonder has published games in several languages including English, Dutch, French, German, Russian, and Greek  Days of Wonder was co-founded by Eric Hautemont, Mark Kaufmann and Yann Corno 

History
Days of Wonder was founded in 2002 by Mark Kaufmann, Eric Hautemont and Yann Corno  It released its first game, Gang of Four in 2002  In March 2004, the company released Ticket to Ride, designed by Alan R  Moon  In 2004, Ticket to Ride was awarded the Spiel des Jahres  In 2006, the company released a digital version of Ticket to Ride  Also in 2006, the company's game Shadows Over Camelot was named the Best Fantasy Game at the 2006 Spiel des Jahres In 2009, Smallworld received three awards including "Best Game of the Year", "Best Family Game", and "Best Game Artwork" from the Dice Tower Gaming Awards In 2014, Days of Wonder was acquired by French game distributor Asmodee Group 

Games Published
Below are all of the games published by Days of Wonder from 2002 to 2018:

Small Box games
Awards and honors
See also
Going Cardboard (Documentary)
Passage 9:
Tsuro
Tsuro is a tile-based board game designed by Tom McMurchie, originally published by WizKids and now published by Calliope Games 
Tsuro is a board game for two to eight players  To play, players compete to have the last playing piece remaining on the board  Player turns consist of placing tiles on the board from the player's hand  Then they move their respective pieces along these paths  Players are eliminated by following a path that ends at the board edge 
There have also been a number of differently themed Tsuro editions and expansions released, beginning with Tsuro of the Seas  Although core gameplay remains the same, some versions feature expanded rules or larger boards 
The name of the game is taken from the Japanese word tsūro (wikt:通路) meaning "route"   The word, written in kanji, appears in the art on the game board 

Gameplay
The game is played on a square board that is divided into a six-by-six grid of squares  There are eight player markers, thirty-five standard path tiles, and one Dragon tile  Before the game begins, the Dragon tile is set aside 
To start, each player chooses a different colored playing piece and places their marker on any of the white notches that surround the edge of the board; each edge has twelve notches  The path tiles are shuffled and each player is dealt three path tiles; the remainder are left as a draw pile  Each turn includes a tile-laying phase and then a marker movement phase  The turn ends with the active player drawing another path tile In each turn, the active player must place a tile in the square adjacent to their piece  Once placed, the piece moves along the line in front of it  If the placed tile connects to the path that another player's piece is on, the other (inactive) player must move their piece to the end of the line on the newly-placed tile  Sometimes this will cause the piece to go off the board, in which case that player is eliminated  The active player may not choose to connect their path to the edge of the board (eliminating that player), unless no other move is available  If two pieces end up on the same path, both players are out  The unused path tiles of the players that are eliminated are shuffled into the draw pile  The winner is the player with the last remaining marker on the board 
The Dragon tile is only used when there are three or more players  When there are no more tiles to draw from, the player takes the Dragon tile  This is to indicate that they will draw from the pile after the eliminated players give up their unplayed tiles, regardless of whether they are the active player or not  The Dragon tile is set aside once the draw pile has been restocked 

Tiles
There are thirty-five possible permutations for a four-sided tile with two entry points per side and four paths linking the eight points  In the table below, tiles are named according to the connected points  Points are numbered sequentially anti-clockwise from the left point on the bottom edge, so the bottom edge contains points 1 (left) and 2 (right), the right edge contains points 3 (lower) and 4 (upper), the top edge contains points 5 (right) and 6 (left), and the left edge contains points 7 (upper) and 8 (lower)  The nomenclature AB-CD-EF-GH indicates that points A and B are connected, C and D are connected, E and F are connected, and G and H are connected  A single 90° rotation anti-clockwise will increment each number by 2 (modulo 8) to determine path connections when rotated 

Alternate Editions and Expansions
History
McMurchie received a patent for the "Squiggle game" in 1979  The 1979 patent described two different implementations; the first, commercialized largely intact as Tsuro, used the square tiles with two entry points per side and four paths, while the second used square tiles similarly with eight entry points and four paths per tile, but the entry points were changed to the middle of each side and at each corner instead  In both cases, the preferred board size was a 6×6 grid and what became the Dragon tile was initially called the NEXT card  The patent also provided specific names for player actions:
SHORT CUTS: when a player is connected to a previously unused path, the player is required to advance their piece to the end of the newly-connected path 
SUICIDE: an illegal move in which a player connects their own path to the edge of the board, unless no other legal move is possible) 
MEDDLING: a player's legal move which extends the path of another player; the other player is required to advance their piece to the end of the newly-connected path 
COLLISIONS: connecting the paths of two players, forcing them both out of the game  In effect, the start of one player's path serves as the connection to the edge for the other player and vice versa 
INHERITANCE: when a player's action results in another player (or players) being eliminated, the active player may exchange any number of cards in their own hand with the cards held by the eliminated player(s); the remaining cards from the eliminated player(s) are shuffled back into the draw pile 
One of the patents cited by the examiner was US3309092A (1963) by Hardesty and Schenck, entitled "Competitive road building and travel game", which included a variety of square tiles, including what they called "tiles with two, three or four roads" similar in pattern to the Tsuro tiles  Dawne and Jordan Weisman, the owners of Games and Gizmos in Redmond, Washington watched McMurchie playing Squiggles and asked him if he would be interested in publishing the game  The Weismans had founded the games publishing company WizKids and reworked Squiggles into Tsuro, switching the original 1950s theme to one that was Japanese-inspired  The game was released in 2005 
WizKids was later acquired by Topps and then NECA, and the rights for the game reverted back to Tom McMurchie  Ray Wehrs, who had been the director of sales for WizKids, purchased a license from McMurchie and founded Calliope Games in 2011 with Tsuro as its flagship product  In 2012, actor and blogger Wil Wheaton featured the game in one of his YouTube videos, causing sales to spike 

Variants
After Calliope Games began publishing Tsuro, different versions and spin-offs of the game were created   The game also has an app for mobile devices created by Thunderbox Entertainment  The game also has been published in multiple languages including a German, a Greek and a multilingual version 
The German version of Tsuro was published in 2007 by KOSMOS  In addition to the language translation, the game's individual player pieces were little tree figures instead of the dragon stones, and the board was made two-sided, with the other side being a 7×7 grid  The 35 unique tiles were expanded to a set of 64, with some duplication of paths, and players would randomly choose 35 (plus the Dragon/Next tile) for play on the 6×6 side of the board  The KOSMOS-published variant was licensed by a Greek publisher, Kaissa, and released in that market The first Tsuro spin-off created was a Star Wars-themed spin-off called Asteroid Escape  This version of Tsuro was published in 2011 by Abysse Corp, exclusively in France  Asteroid Escape has additional asteroid tiles, which remove any player that lands on them instantly  They are placed on the board randomly at the start of (and occasionally during) the game, and move randomly as the game progresses, consuming any tiles or players in their path  The board is also slightly larger, 7x7 instead of 6x6  In addition, the player's individual pieces are cardboard spaceships In 2012, Calliope Games published Tsuro of the Seas, which included similar changes, after receiving funding from Kickstarter  The game's creators included the original creator of Tsuro, Tom McMurchie, and Jordan Weisman  Tsuro of the Seas has a few changed gameplay aspects and visuals, including player pieces shaped like boats and daikaiju tiles, which are equivalent to the asteroid tiles Tsuro of the Seas later received an expansion called Veterans of the Seas, published in 2013 by Calliope Games  This expansion includes four new types of tiles that all do different things   There is the mystical portal tile that moves ships and daikaiju tiles to new paths on the board   The tsunami tile moves steadily across the board, giving players a new obstacle they must overcome by rolling a die  If the player does not roll high enough they are eliminated from the game   The whirlpool tile destroys all ships and daikaiju tiles it comes in contact with   The cannon tiles are a defensive card players can use to defend themselves from daikaiju Tsuro: Phoenix Rising was initially funded by Kickstarter and released in 2019 by Calliope  Like the original game, Phoenix Rising is played on a 6×6 board with 36 square tiles, each with four paths  However, the tiles in Phoenix are classified as either "center" tiles (total of 16 "center" tiles) or "edge" tiles (20 "edge" tiles)  These tiles have additional entry points at the corners and the center tiles are pre-placed in the center of the board prior to starting play  Tiles are flipped or rotated during play, and the goal of the game is to create and collect seven stars by traversing paths In 2022, Calliope Games announced that a "Luxury Limited Edition" of the original Tsuro would be released later that year; changes included upgraded materials, including carved stone tiles, satin tile storage bag, bamboo rules scroll, and wooden box, individually numbered  The limited edition set was priced at US$350 

Reviews
Pyramid

See also
Black Path Game
Passage 10:
Robert Charles Bell
Robert Charles Bell (1917–2002) was the author of several books on board games, most importantly Board and Table Games 1 & 2 (reprinted as Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations)   This work won the Premier Award of the Doctors' Hobbies Exhibition, London   He was instrumental in popularizing traditional games, and is acknowledged as one of 11 "principal sources" in David Parlett's The Oxford History of Board Games 

Life
He was born 1917 in Sudbury, Ontario and moved to England in 1928; and was educated at Haileybury College, Hertfordshire and St Bartholomew's Hospital by 1941  He became a consultant plastic surgeon and was on the editorial board of the British Journal of Plastic Surgery   Outside medicine, Bell was a polymath who became an international authority on board games and wrote books for collectors on Tyneside Pottery and Trade Tokens  His first work on games was Board and Table Games (1960), and he later produced many articles on coin collecting for World Coins He died in 2002  As of 2007, much of his extensive collection of games and game paraphernalia resides at the University of Durham 

Categories of board and table games
Bell gives origins, history and some game-playing details for some 180 games in the 2 volumes of his main work (Board and Table Games)  He divides board games into four main categories:

A race game requires the pieces to move from a start point to a finish point usually based on the throw of dice (e g  Ludo) 
A wargame involves movement (and occasionally placement) and is typically won with the capture of all opponent pieces (e g  draughts) or a special opponent piece (e g  chess) 
A positional game requires the winning player to form a pattern or shape by merely placing (noughts and crosses and Go are respectively the simplest and most complex examples) or placing and moving pieces on a board (nine men's morris) 
Mancala games involve players distributing seeds across a series of holes and collecting the contents of holes that achieve specific numeric or numeric/positional status  Typically one wins by collecting the most seeds, or rendering the opponent unable to move Bell used the basic categories suggested by Murray with some alterations   Because his treatment extended beyond board games, Bell also included the categories of dice and domino games; and in his second volume added "Games of Words and Numbers", "Card Games Requiring Boards", and "Games of manual dexterity"  In addition, there is mention of the subgenre of solitaire and puzzle games 
Bell drew on a wide range of sources, including Edward Falkener, Stewart Culin, Willard Fiske, H  J  R  Murray, John Scarne, and many others; as well as his own research and collection 

Publications
Books about board and table games
Robert Charles Bell MB, FRCS (R  C  Bell)

Board And Table Games From Many Civilizations 1 – Oxford University Press, 1960 
Board And Table Games From Many Civilizations 2 – Oxford University Press, 1969 Board And Table Games From Many Civilizations (revised edition with above two volumes bound into a single book) - Dover Publications, Mineola, New York, 1979  ISBN 0-486-23855-5; reprinted by Exeter Books, New York City, 1983 Tangram Teasers: A Selection Of Ch'i Ch'iau Puzzles – Corbitt & Hunter, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1965  ISBN 978-0900309069 
Discovering Old Board Games – Shire Publications #182, 1973  ISBN 0-85263-235-5
Discovering Backgammon – Shire Publications  #201, 1975  ISBN 0-85263-263-0
Discovering Mah-Jong – Shire Publications #222, 1976  ISBN 0 85263 444 7
Discovering Chess – Shire Publications #221, 1976  ISBN 0 85263 478 1  A second edition, revised by Ken Whyld, was published in 1979 
The Boardgame Book – Bookthrift Company / Marshall Cavendish / Knapp Press / Viking Press / Penguin Books, London, 1979  ISBN 0 89535 007 6 Les Plus Beaux Jeux Du Monde (French edition of the above) – Fernand Nathan, 1979  ISBN 978-2092846216 
Das Große Buch Der Brettspiele (German edition of the above) – ?, 1979? Discovering Dice And Dominoes - Shire Publications #255, 1980  ISBN 0 85263 532 X 
Oriental Games - Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art / University of Durham, 1981 
Board And Table Game Antiques - Shire Publications (Shire Album 60), 1981  ISBN 0 85263 538 9 
Games to Play: Board And Table Games For All The Family - Michael Joseph / Penguin Group / Guild Publishing, 1988  ISBN 0 7181 2993 8 
A Compendium Of Games: Family Entertainment From Around The World – Smithmark Publications, 1999  ISBN 978-0765117083 Robbie Bell and Michael Cornelius

Board Games Round The World: A Resource Book For Mathematical Investigations – Cambridge University Press, 1988  ISBN 0 521 35924 4 

Other books
R  C  Bell

Commercial Coins 1787–1804 – Corbitt & Hunter, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1963 
Copper Commercial Coins 1811–1819 – Corbitt & Hunter, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1964 
Tradesmen's Tickets And Private Tokens 1785-1819 – Corbitt & Hunter, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1966 
Specious Tokens And Those Struck For General Circulation 1784-1804 – Corbitt & Hunter, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1968 
Tyneside Pottery - Littlehampton Book Services Ltd, 1971  ISBN 978-0289700532 
Monographs On Plastic Surgery, volume 1: The Use Of Skin Grafts – Oxford University Press, 1973 
Unofficial Farthings 1820-1870 – B A  Seaby, London, 1975  ISBN 978-0900652400 
The Building Medalets Of Kempson And Skidmore 1796-1797 – Frank Graham, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1978  ISBN 978-0859831055 
Maling And Other Tyneside Pottery – Shire Publications, 1986  ISBN 978-0852637920 
Political And Commemorative Pieces Simulating Tradesmen's Tokens 1770-1802 - ?, Felixstowe, 1987 
Bell's Unofficial Farthings: A Supplement – Whitmore, 1994  ISBN 978-0951325735 R  C  Bell and M  A  V  Gill

Potteries Of Tyneside – Frank Graham, 1973  ISBN 978-0902833777 R  C  Bell and Simon Rodway

Fun at the Lathe - Guild of Master Craftsman Publications Ltd, 1998 Edited by R  C  Bell

Diaries From The Days Of Sail (with an Introduction by Alan Villiers) – Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1974  ISBN 978-0030129414 

Miscellaneous
Token Tales – a series of articles, originally appearing in 'World Coins' in the 1960s and 1970s, republished by the Conder Token Collector's Club from 2003
Games of the World – this book, edited by Frederic V  Grunfeld and published by Ballantine Books of New York in 1975, cited R C  Bell and Léon Vié as Editorial Consultants 

Notes
Context 2: Passage 1:
Santa's Workshop (Colorado)
Santa's Workshop is an amusement park that opened on June 16, 1956 in Cascade, Colorado, located on U S  Route 24 just west of Colorado Springs at the entrance to the Pikes Peak Highway, at the Northern end of Pikes Peak  Modeled after the Santa's Workshop in Wilmington, New York, the park features a charming North Pole village complete with a variety of shops selling toys, candy, and Christmas decorations  The village is also home to Santa's Workshop itself, where children (and adults) can meet with Santa Claus and Mrs  Claus year round  Much of the staff is dressed in Christmas themed attire, especially those at work in stores and admissions 
In addition to the village, Santa's Workshop is a fully operational amusement park best suited for children ages 2 to 12  It is home to 28 rides, many of which are classified specifically as "kiddie" rides  Family highlights include a small roller coaster, the highest altitude Ferris wheel in North America, a Giant Slide (Helter skelter), as well as a North Pole made of permanent ice in the center of the park   Attractions also include a Tilt-A-Whirl, a Scrambler, a chairlift, a narrow gauge railroad, a magic show, and an arcade  In 2014, Santa's Sleigh, a 30 mph, 2-person zip line was added 
The park is generally open from mid-May through Christmas Eve, and is closed from January to May  As of 2018, admission is $24 00 per person for ages 3–59  Under 3 and 60 or older are free  Military and group rates are available  The park is still owned and operated by the Haggard family who opened it in 1956 

External links
Santa's Workshop (Colorado amusement park) at the Roller Coaster DataBase
Passage 2:
Larry Wilson (screenwriter)
Larry Wilson (born January 23, 1948) is an American film producer and screenwriter  He is best known for his screenwriting work on the films Beetlejuice (1988) and The Addams Family (1991)  He also co-wrote the films The Little Vampire (2000) and, for television, The Year Without a Santa Claus (2006)  He wrote and directed a number of episodes of the Tales from the Crypt television series from 1991 to 1996 
Passage 3:
Rankin/Bass Productions
Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment (founded and formerly known as Videocraft International, Ltd  and Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc ) was an American production company located in New York City, and known for its seasonal television specials, usually done in stop motion animation  Rankin/Bass' stop-motion productions are recognizable by their visual style of doll-like characters with spheroid body parts and ubiquitous powdery snow using an animation technique called "Animagic" 
Nearly all of the studio's animation was outsourced to Japanese animation companies such as Toei Doga Entertainment, MOM Production, Mushi Productions and Topcraft  Rankin/Bass was one of the first western studios to outsource their low-budget animated television and film productions to animation studios in foreign countries; the others that already practiced animation outsourcing includes Total Television and King Features Syndicate TV in New York City; and Jay Ward Productions and Hanna-Barbera Productions in Los Angeles, California 

History
The company was founded in New York City by Arthur Rankin Jr  and Jules Bass on September 14, 1960, as Videocraft International, Ltd  The majority of Rankin/Bass' work, including all of their "Animagic" stop-motion productions (which they were well known for), were created in Tokyo, Japan  Throughout the 1960s, the Animagic productions were headed by Japanese stop-motion animator Tadahito Mochinaga at his studio, MOM Production  He was credited for his supervision as "Tad Mochinaga" 
Rankin/Bass' traditional animation output was done by several animation studios such as Toei Animation, Eiken (formerly known as TCJ, short for the Television Corporation of Japan), Mushi Production, and especially Topcraft, which was formed on February 1, 1972 by Toei animator Toru Hara (who was credited as an animation supervisor in some of Rankin/Bass' specials)  While several of Topcraft's staff, including Hara and industry legends such as Hayao Miyazaki, would go on to form Studio Ghibli in the wake of Topcraft's death, others formed another studio: Pacific Animation Corporation, which continued working on Rankin/Bass' titles until the latter company shut down 
In addition to the "name" talent that provided the narration for the specials, Rankin/Bass had its own company of voice actors  For the studio's early work, this group was based in Toronto, Ontario where recording was supervised by veteran CBC announcer Bernard Cowan  The Canadian group included actors such as Paul Soles, Larry D  Mann, and Carl Banas 
Maury Laws served as musical director for almost all of the animated films and television programs  Romeo Muller was another consistent contributor, serving as screenwriter for many of Rankin/Bass' best-known productions including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), The Little Drummer Boy (1968), and Frosty the Snowman (1969) 

Output
One of Videocraft's first projects was an independently produced television series in 1960, The New Adventures of Pinocchio, based on the Italian author Carlo Collodi's 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio and featuring "Animagic", a stop motion animation process using figurines or puppets (a process already pioneered by George Pal's "Puppetoons" and Art Clokey's Gumby and Davey and Goliath), managed by Mochinaga and his MOM Production staffers for Videocraft with Dentsu  This was followed by another independently produced series in 1961, Tales of the Wizard of Oz, Videocraft's adaptation of the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L  Frank Baum, as well as their first production to use traditional cel animation  Unlike many of Rankin/Bass' works, Tales of the Wizard of Oz was animated by Crawley Films in Ottawa, headed by F  R  Crawley 

Rudolph era
One of the mainstays of the business was holiday-themed animated specials for airing on American television  In 1964, the company produced a special for NBC and sponsor General Electric, later owner of NBC  It was a stop motion animated adaptation of Robert L  May's 1939 story "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and the 1949 song it inspired, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", written by May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks  Almost two decades earlier, in 1948, it had been made into a cartoon by Max Fleischer, brother and former partner of Dave Fleischer, as a traditional cel animated short for the Jam Handy Film Company   
With the American actor Burl Ives in the role of Sam the snowman, the narrator, Canadian actress Billie Mae Richards as the voice of the main title character, Rudolph, and an original orchestral score composed by Marks himself, Rudolph became one of the most popular, and longest-running Christmas specials in television history: it remained with NBC until around 1972 when it moved to CBS  In 2019, for its 55th anniversary, the special was also aired on Freeform as part of its "25 Days of Christmas" franchise, although it will continue to air on CBS under a separate license with Universal The special contained seven original songs  In 1965, a new song was filmed in "Animagic" to replace "We're a Couple of Misfits", titled "Fame and Fortune" 
The success of Rudolph led to numerous other Christmas specials  The first was The Cricket on the Hearth in 1967, with two live-action announcements by Danny Thomas, continuity and character designs by Don Duga and Paul Coker, and animation by Jiro Yanase's TCJ, followed by the 1968 Thanksgiving special The Mouse on the Mayflower, told by Tennessee Ernie Ford and animated by Kenzo Masaoka, Sanae Yamamoto, and Yasuji Murata's Toei Animation  Paul Coker Jr  would go on to design characters and production for more than 40 Rankin-Bass specials and episodes 

Other holiday specials
Many of their other specials, like Rudolph, were based on popular Christmas songs  In 1968, the British-American actress Greer Garson provided dramatic narration for The Little Drummer Boy, based on the traditional song and set during the birth of the baby Jesus Christ, and starring the Puerto Rican actor José Ferrer as the voice of Ben Haramed  During that year, Videocraft International, Ltd  (whose logo dominated the Rankin/Bass logo in the closing credit sequences) changed its name to Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc , and adopted a new logo, retaining a Videocraft byline in their closing credits until 1971 when Tomorrow Entertainment, a unit of the General Electric Company, acquired the production company  The "Animagic" process for The Little Drummer Boy took place at MOM Production, which was renamed Video Tokyo Production after Tadahito Mochinaga left Japan for his return trip to China following the completion of the animation for Mad Monster Party?, thus ending his collaboration with Rankin/Bass  Takeo Nakamura, the director of Sanrio's 1979 stop motion feature Nutcracker Fantasy, was among the "Animagic" team, but he was never credited as a supervisor 
The following year, in 1969, Jimmy Durante sang and told the story of Frosty the Snowman, with Jackie Vernon voicing Frosty  It was based on Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins' 1950 song of the same name, and also introduced Billy De Wolfe as the voice of Professor Hinkle, a greedy magician who tries to steal away the magic hat that brought Frosty to life to become a billionaire  Mushi Production, an animation studio founded in 1961 and formerly led by the manga artist Osamu Tezuka (creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Ambassador Magma), handled the animation for the special with supervision by Yusaku "Steve" Nakagawa, a layout artist and character designer from Hanna-Barbera Productions in Los Angeles, California 
The year 1970 brought another Christmas special, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town  Rankin/Bass enlisted Fred Astaire as narrator S D  (Special Delivery) Kluger, a mailman answering children's questions about Santa Claus and telling his origin story  The story involved young Kris Kringle, voiced by Mickey Rooney, and the villainous Burgermeister Meisterburger, voiced by Paul Frees  Kringle later marries the town's schoolteacher, Miss Jessica, voiced by Robie Lester  Kizo Nagashima, the associate director of Rankin/Bass' previous productions, was credited as a production supervisor 
In 1971, Rankin/Bass produced their first Easter television special, Here Comes Peter Cottontail, with the voices of Danny Kaye as the narrator Seymour S  Sassafrass, Vincent Price as the evil rabbit January Q  Irontail, and Casey Kasem from Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo franchise as the title character Peter Cottontail  It was not based upon the title song by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins, but on a 1957 novel by Priscilla and Otto Friedrich titled The Easter Bunny That Overslept  This was the second and final "Animagic" production to be supervised by Kizo Nagashima  Steve Nakagawa was also involved in this special as a continuity designer  In 1977, Fred Astaire returned as S  D  Kluger in The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town, telling the tale of the Easter Bunny's origins  From there, Rankin/Bass used Masaki Iizuka as an associate producer, and Akikazu Kono as an "Animagic" supervisor  Back in 1973, Iizuka was the production assistant of Marco—a live-action musical film based on the biography of Italian merchant, explorer, and writer Marco Polo, filmed at Toho Company in Tokyo and on location throughout East Asia, and featuring Kono's "Animagic" sequence of the Tree People  Previously, he was met by Rankin during the animation production of the Halloween television special Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters at Mushi Production in 1972, and became an integral part of Rankin/Bass for many years 
In 1974, Rankin/Bass Productions was relaunched once again as an independent production company and produced another Christmas special for television, The Year Without a Santa Claus, featuring Shirley Booth, voicing narrator Mrs  Claus; Mickey Rooney, returning as the voice of Santa Claus; and supporting characters Snow Miser (voiced by Dick Shawn) and Heat Miser (voiced by George S  Irving)  It was the first Rankin/Bass "Animagic" production on which Akikazu Kono and puppet maker Ichiro Komuro share in the production supervision  It was remade as a poorly received live-action/special effects TV movie shown on NBC in 2006 starring Delta Burke and John Goodman as Mrs  Claus and Santa Throughout the 1970s, Rankin/Bass, with Video Tokyo and the former Toei Animation employee Toru Hara's Topcraft, continued to produce animated sequels to its classic specials, including the teaming of Rudolph and Frosty in 1979's Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, with the voice of Ethel Merman as Lilly Loraine, the ringmistress of a seaside circus, and Rooney again returning as Santa  The special features cameos by characters from several other Rankin/Bass holiday specials, including Big Ben the Clockwork Whale from Rudolph's Shiny New Year and Jack Frost from Frosty's Winter Wonderland  Later that year, Jack appeared in his own special, Jack Frost  Narrated by Buddy Hackett, it tells the story of the winter sprite's love for a mortal woman menaced by the evil Cossack king, Kubla Kraus (Paul Frees, in addition to Kubla, voiced Jack Frost's overlord, Father Winter)  In this special, Jack's voice was performed by Robert Morse, who previously voiced Stuffy in 1976's The First Easter Rabbit (loosely based on Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit), and young Ebenezer Scrooge in 1978's The Stingiest Man in Town (based on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol) 
Among Rankin/Bass' original specials was 1975's The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow, featuring the voice of Angela Lansbury (who also starred in the 1982 adaptation of The Last Unicorn) as the narrating and singing nun, Sister Theresa, and Irving Berlin's Christmas classic "White Christmas" 
Their final stop-motion style Christmas story was The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, taken from the L  Frank Baum story of the same name and released in 1985  In this story, the Great Ak (voiced by Alfred Drake) summons a council of the Immortals to bestow upon a dying Claus (voiced by Earl Hammond, with J D  Roth voicing the young Claus) the Mantle of Immortality  To make his case, the Great Ak tells Claus's life story, from his discovery as a foundling in the magical forest and his raising by Immortals, through his education by the Great Ak in the harsh realities of the human world, and his acceptance of his destiny to struggle to bring joy to children  This special has recently been released as part of Warner Bros  Home Entertainment's Warner Archive Collection, on a double-feature disc that also contains Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey which is often paired with The First Christmas on holiday broadcasts 
Many of these specials are still shown seasonally on American television, and some have been released on VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital 

Non-holiday output
Throughout the 1960s, Videocraft produced other stop motion and traditional animation specials and films, some of which were non-holiday stories  1965 saw the production of Rankin/Bass' first theatrical film, Willy McBean and His Magic Machine, another joint venture between Videocraft and Dentsu  1966 brought The Daydreamer, the first of three films to be produced in association with executive producer Joseph E  Levine's Embassy Pictures in Los Angeles, California, and the film adaptation of the stories and characters by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, which combines live-action, special effects and "Animagic"; and The Ballad of Smokey the Bear, the story of the famous forest fire-fighting bear seen in numerous public service announcements, narrated by James Cagney The theatrical feature film Mad Monster Party? saw theatrical release in the spring of 1967, featuring one of the last performances by the British actor Boris Karloff  The film features affectionate send-ups of classic movie monsters and their locales, adding "Beatle"-wigged skeletons as a send-up of the era's pop bands, and a writing staff borrowed from Mad magazine, including the cartoonist Jack Davis, who designed the characters of this film  It is also the last "Animagic" project that Tadahito Mochinaga supervised 
In 1972 and 1973, Rankin/Bass produced four animated TV movies for The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie series: Mad Mad Mad Monsters (with the animation by Mushi), Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid, The Red Baron, and That Girl in Wonderland (all featuring the animation by Topcraft) 
In 1977, Rankin/Bass produced an animated version of J  R  R  Tolkien's The Hobbit  It was followed in 1980 by an animated version of The Return of the King (the animation rights to the first two volumes were held by Saul Zaentz, producer of Ralph Bakshi's animated adaptation The Lord of the Rings)  Other books adapted include The Last Unicorn by Peter S  Beagle, a rare theatrical release that was co-produced with ITC Entertainment in London, England, Peter Dickinson's The Flight of Dragons and Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows which was animated by the second overseas animation unit of Hanna-Barbera, James Wang's Cuckoo's Nest Studios (now Wang Film Productions) in Taipei, Taiwan 
In addition to their prime time specials, Rankin/Bass produced several regular television shows in traditional animation, including The King Kong Show in 1966, co-produced with Toei Animation, The Tomfoolery Show in 1970, The Jackson 5ive in 1971 (the latter co-produced with Motown Productions), and Kid Power and The Osmonds in 1972  The most successful of these was Ted Wolf's ThunderCats in 1985, an action-adventure series based on his related line of toys  It was followed by two similar TV shows about humanoid animals, SilverHawks in 1986, and TigerSharks, as part of the series The Comic Strip in 1987  Each of those four series was mainly animated by former Topcraft employees' Pacific Animation Corporation, with production management by Masaki Iizuka, just before the studio was bought by Disney and renamed Walt Disney Animation Japan in 1988  Neither one enjoyed the same commercial success as ThunderCats did, however 
Rankin/Bass also attempted live-action productions, such as 1967's King Kong Escapes, a co-production with Toho; 1976's The Last Dinosaur; 1978's The Bermuda Depths; 1980's The Ivory Ape (all co-produced with Tsuburaya Productions, the creators of the Ultra Series); and 1983's The Sins of Dorian Gray  With the exception of King Kong Escapes, all were made-for-television films 

Demise
After its last series output, Rankin/Bass shut down its production company on March 4, 1987 
Arthur Rankin Jr  would split his time between New York City, where the company still has its offices, and his home in Bermuda  Rankin died at Harrington Sound, Bermuda on January 30, 2014, at the age of 89  Bass became a vegetarian; a decade later, he wrote Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon, the first children's book character developed specifically to explore moral issues related to vegetarianism  The original story and a follow-up cookbook became bestsellers for independent publishing house Barefoot Books  Bass died on October 25, 2022 at the age of 87 In 1999, Rankin/Bass joined forces with James G  Robinson's Morgan Creek Productions and Nest Family Entertainment (creators of The Swan Princess franchise) for the first and only animated adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical The King and I, based on a treatment by Rankin  Distributed by Warner Bros  Pictures with its Warner Bros  Family Entertainment division, the film flopped at the American box office  Stephen Hunter, among several American film critics, criticized the film's depictions of "offensive ethnic stereotyping "In 2001, Fox aired the first new original Christmas special to be produced by both Rankin and Bass in 16 years, Santa, Baby!, which like most of their production company's other specials was based on a popular, similarly-titled Christmas song  Santa, Baby! stood out from its predecessors due to its use of African-American characters and voice performers, such as Patti LaBelle (the narrator), Eartha Kitt, Gregory Hines, Vanessa L  Williams and Tom Joyner  Although Pacific Animation Corporation was responsible for the overseas animation production of the special with the background art provided by Atelier BWCA and the See Throu Studio, some of the animation services were done at Steven Hahn's Hanho Heung-Up in Seoul, South Korea  Santa, Baby! turned out to be the final Rankin/Bass-produced special; the Rankin/Bass partnership was officially dissolved shortly after, with most of its remaining assets acquired by Warner Bros  Entertainment 
Currently, the pre-September 1974 Rankin/Bass library (including works from Videocraft International) is owned by NBCUniversal's Universal Pictures via DreamWorks Animation's DreamWorks Classics subsidiary, while Warner Bros  Discovery through Warner Bros  unit owns the rights to the post-September 1974 library via Telepictures  NBCUniversal also retained the rights to King Kong Escapes and also currently holds the rights to Willy McBean and his Magic Machine, again, via DreamWorks Classics  StudioCanal holds the rights to the films from Rankin/Bass that Embassy Pictures distributed, while ITV Studios currently holds the rights to The Last Unicorn  The rights to the 1999 animated film adaptation of The King and I are currently held by Morgan Creek Entertainment 

Legacy
For over 20 years, most of Rankin/Bass' films were shown on the Family Channel and Freeform during their December "25 Days of Christmas" seasonal period  Starting in 2018, the post-1974 specials moved to AMC and air during their "Best Christmas Ever" seasonal period, with Freeform retaining the pre-1974 specials' cable rights  The original Rudolph and Frosty specials currently air on CBS under a separate contract with Rankin/Bass and its successors-in-interest, with Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town airing on ABC 
The specials of Rankin/Bass have been parodied by the likes of TV series from Saturday Night Live to South Park, while non-holiday works like The Last Unicorn maintained a cult following  The look and style of the Christmas specials heavily influences more modern holiday classics such as Elf (2003) Beginning in 2013, and for several years thereafter, the animation studio ShadowMachine was hired by the SoCal Honda Dealers group (via Secret Weapon Marketing) to create stop-motion animated commercials in the style of Rankin/Bass's Christmas specials RiffTrax, consisted of former Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett and Michael J  Nelson, spoofed Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey on December 17, 2006 (this time with just Nelson himself riffing) In 2022, an agreement between Warner Bros  and NBCUniversal (which co-owned Studio Distribution Services, LLC) was made to release The Complete Rankin-Bass Christmas Collection as a nine-disc DVD box set with a 24-page booklet and special features  The box set features eighteen specials, comprising every stand-alone, Rankin-Bass produced Christmas special aside from Santa, Baby! 

Filmography
Franchises
Overseas animation studios used by Rankin/Bass
Japanese studios
MOM Production, Tokyo, Japan
Toei Animation, Tokyo, Japan
TCJ (Television Corporation of Japan) (now Eiken), Tokyo, Japan
Mushi Production, Tokyo, Japan
Topcraft, Tokyo, Japan
Pacific Animation Corporation, Tokyo, Japan
The Anime International Company, Tokyo, Japan
Anime R, Osaka, Japan
Mook Animation, Tokyo, Japan
Atelier BWCA (background studio), Tokyo, Japan
See Throu Studio (background studio), Tokyo, Japan

Other studios
Crawley Films, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Halas and Batchelor, London and Stroud, England, United Kingdom
Estudios Moro, Barcelona, Spain
Cuckoo's Nest Studios (Wang Film Productions), Taipei, Taiwan
Hong Ying Animation, Taipei, Taiwan
Hanho Heung-Up, Seoul, South Korea
Passage 4:
Santa Claus: The Movie
Santa Claus: The Movie is a 1985 Christmas film starring Dudley Moore, John Lithgow, and David Huddleston  It depicts the origin of Santa Claus (played by Huddleston), and his modern-day adventure to save one of his elves (Moore) who has been manipulated by an unscrupulous toy company executive (Lithgow)  It was directed by Jeannot Szwarc and was the last major fantasy film produced by the Paris-based father-and-son production team of Alexander and Ilya Salkind 
Released in North America by TriStar Pictures on November 27, 1985, Santa Claus: The Movie was a box office bomb and received mostly negative reviews from critics 

Plot
In the Middle Ages, a woodcutter named Claus delivers hand-carved toys to the children of his village each Christmas, accompanied by his wife Anya and their reindeer Donner and Blitzen  Caught in a blizzard, they are saved by elves and taken to their magical workshop at the North Pole  Lead elf Dooley explains that their coming was prophesied; that it is Claus' destiny to deliver the toys made by the elves to the children of the world; and that they, like the elves, will live forever  The following Christmas Eve, the oldest elf dubs Claus "Santa Claus" and explains that the night will last as long as it takes for him to deliver toys to every child on Earth  Donner and Blitzen join six other reindeer and are fed hay sprinkled with magical powder that enables them to fly, pulling Santa's sleigh through the air  As the centuries pass, much of the mythology and traditions surrounding Santa Claus develop 
By the late 20th century Santa is exhausted by his ever-growing workload, and Anya suggests that he enlist an assistant  Two elves compete for the position: Puffy, who follows traditional toymaking methods, and Patch, who has many ideas for modernization  Patch wins by designing a machine to increase production through automation, but unbeknownst to him it begins to malfunction and produce shoddy toys  In New York City Santa befriends homeless orphan boy Joe and takes him for a ride in his sleigh  They unsuccessfully attempt the "Super Duper Looper", a vertical loop maneuver which always fails due to Donner's acrophobia  They also meet wealthy orphan girl Cornelia, who befriends Joe 
When the toys produced by Patch's machine fall apart on Christmas Day, he resigns in disgrace and leaves the North Pole, winding up in New York City  Meanwhile, the B Z  Toy Company, run by Cornelia's unscrupulous step-uncle B Z , is facing shutdown by the government for producing unsafe toys  Seeing the company's toys being pulled from a storefront, Patch mistakenly thinks they are very popular and approaches B Z  about a job  Hoping to redeem himself in Santa's eyes, he creates lollipops laced with the magic powder that allows the reindeer to fly, and a flying car which he uses to deliver them to the world's children on Christmas Eve  The lollipops allow people to fly, making them an instant sensation and leaving Santa feeling obsolete and disheartened  B Z  convinces Patch to strengthen the formula and put it in candy canes, planning to launch his own holiday called "Christmas 2" in late March 
Cornelia and Joe overhear B Z  plotting to oust Santa as the figurehead of Christmas, and Joe is captured  Cornelia further overhears B Z 's assistant, Towzer, share his discovery that the candy canes explode when exposed to heat  B Z  plans to take Towzer and their money and flee to Brazil, letting Patch take the fall for their dangerous product  Cornelia writes to Santa, who rushes to help despite two of his reindeer being sidelined by illness  Patch finds Joe tied up in the toy factory and frees him  Seeing a wood carving resembling Patch that Santa made for Joe, Patch realizes that Santa misses him  He and Joe take off for the North Pole in his flying car with the candy canes loaded in the trunk, unaware that they are becoming unstable  Santa and Cornelia pursue in Santa's sleigh; as the car explodes, they successfully perform the Super Duper Looper, saving Joe and Patch  The police, alerted by Cornelia, attempt to arrest B Z , but he eats several of the magic candy canes and jumps out a window, only to float upward uncontrollably 
Santa agrees to let Joe and Cornelia stay at his workshop until next Christmas  As they celebrate with the elves, B Z  floats off into space 

Cast
Dudley Moore as Patch
John Lithgow as B Z 
David Huddleston as Claus/Santa Claus
Burgess Meredith as the Ancient Elf
Judy Cornwell as Anya
Jeffrey Kramer as Towzer
Christian L Fitzpatrick as Joe
Carrie Kei Heim as Cornelia
John Barrard as Dooley
Anthony O'Donnell as Puffy
Aimee Delamain as a storyteller in Claus' village
Dorothea Phillips as Miss Tucker, Cornelia's nanny
John Hallam as Grizzard, B Z 's chauffeur
Judith Morse as Miss Abruzzi, who works for B Z 
Jerry Harte as a Senate Chairman
Ian Wise as Salvation Army Bandsman (Central Park Scene)Additional elves were played by Melvyn Hayes, Don Estelle, Tim Stern, Peter O'Farrell, and Christopher Ryan as Goober, Groot, Boog, Honka, Vout, and Goobler, respectively  Other minor roles were played by Paul Aspland, Sally Granfield, and Michael Drew as reporters; Walter Goodman as a street corner Santa; John Cassady as a wino; and Ronald Fernee and Michael Ross as policemen 

Production
Development
Conceived by Ilya Salkind in the wake of the apparently waning critical and U S  box office success of 1983's Superman III and its immediate follow-up, 1984's Supergirl, Santa Claus: The Movie was directed by Supergirl director Jeannot Szwarc, from a story by David and Leslie Newman (though David Newman took sole screenplay credit)  Pierre Spengler, Ilya's longtime partner and a longtime collaborator of the Salkinds', joined Ilya as the project's producer 
John Carpenter was originally offered the chance to direct, but also wanted a say in the writing, musical score, and final cut of the film  Carpenter's original choice for the role of Santa was Brian Dennehy  Szwarc, however, felt that he needed an actor with more warmth than Dennehy  Lewis Gilbert was another early choice for director but, despite initial interest, he could not agree with the Salkinds over certain aspects of the script  Robert Wise was also offered the chance to direct, but had a different approach to the story  Guy Hamilton, who'd had to withdraw from directing Superman: The Movie in 1976, lobbied hard for the chance to direct the film, but only on the condition that it be shot either in Los Angeles, Vancouver, or Rome  Ultimately, the Salkinds chose Szwarc because of their excellent working relationship on Supergirl 

Casting
Dudley Moore was the Salkinds' top choice to play the lead elf in the film, Ilya Salkind having remembered a scene in Arthur in which Liza Minnelli's character asks Moore if he is Santa's Little Helper  Moore was attached to the project early on, and had a say in both scripting and choice of director  David Newman's first script draft named Moore's character Ollie, but Moore decided that the name should be changed to Patch, which was the nickname of his young son, Patrick  Moore had briefly been considered to play the role of Mister Mxyzptlk in the Salkinds' aborted original script for Superman III, and for the role of Nigel in Supergirl  He turned down that role, but suggested his longtime friend and comic partner Peter Cook for the part 
Ilya Salkind wanted an American actor to portray Santa Claus because he felt that the film focused on a primary piece of Americana in much the same way that Superman: The Movie had  Szwarc screen-tested such actors as David White (who, being in his late 60s, was considered too old for the role) and Moore's Arthur co-star Barney Martin  For a while, Ilya Salkind actively pursued Carroll O'Connor for the role before Szwarc showed him David Huddleston's screen-test, which won Salkind over 
For the role of B Z , the producers wanted a star with a similar stature to Gene Hackman when he had played Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie  To this end, they offered the role to Harrison Ford who turned them down  They made offers to Dustin Hoffman, Burt Reynolds and Johnny Carson, each of whom also turned the part down  Eventually, John Lithgow was settled on after Ilya Salkind watched Terms of Endearment and realized that he had a Grinch-type look to him 
The role of the Ancient Elf was written with James Cagney in mind  Though he liked the film's overall idea, Cagney, at 84, turned the role down due to being too weakened by age to perform it  Fred Astaire was considered, but when this eventually came to nothing Dudley Moore suggested his friend Burgess Meredith for the role, which he in the end won  At the time of the film's announcement in mid-1983, the British Press carried reports that diminutive actors such as David Jason, Patrick Troughton and Norman Wisdom would be cast alongside Moore as fellow elves, but none of them were 

Filming
Santa Claus: The Movie was filmed in Buckinghamshire, England at Pinewood Studios, between August and November 1984  The film was photographed by Arthur Ibbetson, whose credits included Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)  Santa Claus: The Movie was his final feature film  Serving as film editor was Peter Hollywood  The production was designed by Anthony Pratt, with costume design concepts by Bob Ringwood  The visual effects unit, as well as several of the production staff, were Salkind stalwarts from the Superman films: Derek Meddings, director of visual and miniature effects; Roy Field, optical visual effects supervisor; and David Lane, flying and second unit director 

Reception
Santa Claus: The Movie received negative reviews upon release, with a rating of 20% on Rotten Tomatoes, from the 20 reviews counted  Box Office Mojo lists the film's total United States box office gross as $23,717,291, less than its $30–50 million production budget  It was very popular in the UK, grossing £5,073,000 Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert noted some positive points to the film, writing that the film "does an interesting job of visualizing Santa's workshop" and Santa's elves  He also praised the film's special effects, particularly the New York City fly-over sequence involving Santa  Ebert also had some praise for Lithgow's "nice, hateful performance", but wrote that "the villain is not drawn big enough " He ceded that young children would probably like most of the film, but that older children and adults are "likely to find a lot of it a little thin "Vincent Canby of The New York Times was less positive than Ebert, calling the production "elaborate and tacky"  He described the film as having "the manner of a listless musical without any production numbers"  Unlike Ebert, he offered little praise for the film's production design  Canby quipped that "Santa's workshop must be the world's largest purchaser of low-grade plywood" and that the flyover sequences with Santa "aren't great " The only praise he had for the film's acting was for John Lithgow, who Canby wrote "(gave) the film's only remotely stylish performance " A more recent review by William Mager for the BBC echoed Canby and Ebert's comments In his book Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, critic Alonso Duralde lists Santa Claus: The Movie in his chapter of worst Christmas films ever  His reasons include weak plot, garish production design, blatant product placement (particularly for McDonald's, though Coke and Pabst Blue Ribbon are also prominent), and scenery-chewing overacting on the part of Lithgow  Duralde ultimately concludes that the film is "a train-wreck of a Christmas film that's so very wrong that you won't be able to tear yourself away from it "John Lithgow, in a 2019 interview, said, "It's just one of the tackiest movies I've ever been in  It seemed cheesy and it certainly never stuck   except in England  It is huge over there  I wish I had a nickel for every Englishman who's told me [it's their favorite film]  In England, that's half of what I'm known for "

Soundtrack
The soundtrack score was composed and conducted by Henry Mancini, composer of the themes from The Pink Panther and Peter Gunn, with veteran lyricist and screenwriter Leslie Bricusse contributing five original songs  The song "It's Christmas (All Over the World)" was written by Bill House and John Hobbs with Freddie Mercury in mind  While it is known that Mercury recorded a demo for the House/Hobbs song at Pinewood Studios, he was never to make a full commitment to the project, as he and his Queen bandmates had already committed themselves to the Highlander soundtrack  In the end, Mercury turned down the project, stating that he felt that Queen had become overcrowded with requests to work on film soundtracks; as a result, Sheena Easton was ultimately chosen to record the tune  As mentioned on the DVD commentary of the film by Jeannot Szwarc, Paul McCartney was asked to compose songs for the film  It is unknown why he did not do so in the end 

Track listing"Main Title: Every Christmas Eve 1 and Santa's Theme (Giving)" (Mancini/Bricusse)
"Arrival of the Elves" (Mancini)
"Making Toys" (Mancini/Bricusse)2
"Christmas Rhapsody: Deck the Halls/Joy to the World/Hark! The Herald Angels Sing/12 Days of Christmas/O Tannenbaum/The First Noel/Silent Night"
"It's Christmas Again" (Mancini/Bricusse)2
"March of the Elves" (Mancini)
"Patch, Natch!" (Mancini/Bricusse) 3
"It's Christmas (All Over The World)" (Bill House, John Hobbs)5
"Shouldn't Do That" (Nick Beggs, Stuart Croxford, Neal Askew, Steve Askew) 4
"Sleigh Ride over Manhattan" (Mancini)
"Sad Patch" (Mancini)
"Patch Versus Santa" (Mancini)
"Thank You, Santa" (Mancini/Bricusse) 21Sung by Aled Jones2Performed by the Ambrosian Children's Choir  3Performed by the Ambrosian Singers4Produced by Ken Scott and performed by Kaja5Produced by Keith Olsen for Pogologo Corporation, and performed by Sheena Easton 
The soundtrack was originally released on record and cassette by EMI America Records in 1985  Soon after, it went out of print and remained unavailable until 2009 when it was released on CD as a limited run of 1000 copies which sold out immediately upon release  This production suffered from several issues, most notably a master which had been subjected to heavy noise reduction resulting in a loss of sound quality  Additionally, the left & right channels had been erroneously flipped, a superficial re-edit had been performed on "It's Christmas (All Over the World)", and the song "Shouldn't Do That" by Kaja (Kajagoogoo) had been omitted due to licensing issues  In 2012 a deluxe three-disc set, including remastered tracks, outtakes and alternate versions and a 32-page booklet, was released 

Comic book adaptation
Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation of the film by writer Sid Jacobson and artist Frank Springer in Marvel Super Special #39 

See also
Santa Claus in film
List of Christmas films
Passage 5:
Jonathan Meath
Jonathan Meath (born September 16, 1955) is an American television producer and director  He was senior producer of the television game show Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? He also was a producer of The Wubbulous World of Dr  Seuss and the 1990s' remake of Zoom  In addition, he is notable for having a dual career as a professional Santa Claus  He made numerous appearances in various media as Santa, including on Good Morning America, at Radio City Music Hall with The Rockettes, on the cover of Boston Magazine, and on a Delta Air Lines' pre-flight safety demonstration  He was described by National Public Radio and Time as a "top Santa" 

Television career
Meath attended Phillips Academy and graduated in 1974 with the school's first co–educational class  He graduated from New York University in 1979  During the 1980s Meath worked at CBS, Business Times, The Creative Establishment, MTV Networks and Greenwood Productions in various capacities  During 1996–1998, he produced shows for the Jim Henson Company called The Wubbulous World of Dr  Seuss  He produced for PBS 295 half-hour episodes of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, as well as 80 episodes of Zoom 

Career
Meath, whose beard and hair went white early in life, noticed that children sometimes called him "Santa"  He is slightly overweight – he has described himself as an "organic Santa" – and his wife bought him a red suit  He attended schools to learn the craft of being a Santa  He appeared in parades  He is a professional vocalist  In 2012, he appeared as Santa at Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Spectacular show in New York City  Meath uses his real beard but conditions it with a "shimmer-like shampoo known as Cowboy Magic, and uses hair gel for his mustache  His role as Santa was described in numerous publications  In 2009, he appeared in a thirty-second television commercial spot for the Boston Red Sox baseball team 

Personal life
Meath has one child and lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts  His mother was activist and historian Mary Stewart Hewitt  He is the great great grandson of businessman and sportsman John Malcolm Forbes and the great great great grandson of railroad industrialist John Murray Forbes  Through this, Meath is distantly related to John Kerry  Meath's daughter, Amelia Randall Meath, is a member of the bands Mountain Man and Sylvan Esso 

Awards
Passage 6:
Santa Claus Is a Black Man
"Santa Claus Is a Black Man" is a Christmas song by record producer and songwriter Teddy Vann, performed by his daughter Akim Vann (billed as Akim) and his Teddy Vann Production Company for a 1973 single  The song, described as "Vann's take on 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus'", has been called a cult classic, and continues to receive Christmas airplay The elder Vann wrote the song as a Christmas gift for Akim, then five years old, who performs vocals on the recording  A soul song, the lyrics describe Akim happening upon her mother and Santa Claus dancing, noting Santa's curious resemblance to her father  The elder Vann was active in mentoring children, and intended the song to provide positive imagery and empowerment for young African-Americans; the song also makes reference to the Kwanzaa holiday, which the elder Vann was active in promoting in his native Brooklyn Vann would later become better known for co-writing "Power of Love/Love Power" with Luther Vandross in 1991, for which he won a Grammy Award Film director John Waters included the song on his 2004 Christmas music collection, A John Waters Christmas, despite the wishes of the elder Vann, who rejected Waters's request because the auteur "is not considered mainstream"  Vann filed suit against Waters for using the song without permission 
Passage 7:
Santa Claus in film
Motion pictures featuring Santa Claus constitute their own subgenre of the Christmas film genre  Early films of Santa revolve around similar simple plots of Santa's Christmas Eve visit to children  In 1897, in a short film called Santa Claus Filling Stockings, Santa Claus is simply filling stockings from his pack of toys  Another film called Santa Claus and the Children was made in 1898  A year later, a film directed by George Albert Smith titled Santa Claus (or The Visit from Santa Claus in the United Kingdom) was created  In this picture, Santa Claus enters the room from the fireplace and proceeds to trim the tree  He then fills the stockings that were previously hung on the mantle by the children  After walking backward and surveying his work, he suddenly darts at the fireplace and disappears up the chimney  
Santa Claus' Visit in 1900 featured a scene with two little children kneeling at the feet of their mother and saying their prayers  The mother tucks the children snugly in bed and leaves the room  Santa Claus suddenly appears on the roof, just outside the children's bedroom window, and proceeds to enter the chimney, taking with him his bag of presents and a little hand sled for one of the children  He goes down the chimney and suddenly appears in the children's room through the fireplace  He distributes the presents and mysteriously causes the appearance of a Christmas tree laden with gifts  The scene closes with the children waking up and running to the fireplace just too late to catch him by the legs  A 1909 film by D  W  Griffith titled A Trap for Santa Claus shows children setting a trap to capture Santa Claus as he descends the chimney, but instead capture their father who abandoned them and their mother but tries to burglarize the house after he discovers that she inherited a fortune  A 29-minute 1925 silent film production titled Santa Claus, by explorer/documentarian Frank E  Kleinschmidt, filmed partly in northern Alaska, feature Santa in his workshop, visiting his Eskimo neighbors, and tending his reindeer  A year later, another movie titled Santa Claus was produced with sound on De Forest Phonofilm Over the years, various actors have donned the red suit (aside from those discussed below), including Leedham Bantock in Santa Claus (1912), Monty Woolley in Life Begins at Eight-thirty (1942), Alberto Rabagliati in The Christmas That Almost Wasn't (1966), Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places (1983), Jan Rubes in One Magic Christmas (1985), David Huddleston in Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), Jonathan Taylor Thomas in I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998), and Ed Asner in The Story of Santa Claus (1996), Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999), Ellen's First Christmas (2001), Elf (2003), Regular Show: The Christmas Special (2012), Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas (2014), Santa Stole Our Dog: A Merry Doggone Christmas!, and A StoryBots Christmas (both 2017) 

Santa's origins
Some films about Santa Claus seek to explore his origins  They explain how his reindeer can fly, where the elves come from, and other questions that children have generally asked about Santa  Two Rankin/Bass stop motion animation television specials addressed this issue: the first, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970), with Mickey Rooney as the voice of Kris Kringle, reveals how Santa delivered toys to children despite the fact that the evil Burgermeister Meisterburger had forbidden children to play with them; and the second, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985), based on L  Frank Baum's 1902 children's book of the same name, follows Santa being reared by a collection of mythical creatures who finally grant him immortality  Another animated version of Baum's book was made by Glen Hill in 2000, and the book also served as the basis for an anime series, Shounen Santa no Daibôken (Young Santa's Adventures) in 1994 and The Oz Kids video, Who Stole Santa? (1996)  None of these films focus on Santa Claus's saintly origins 
The 1985 feature film Santa Claus: The Movie, inspired by the 1978 Superman: The Movie, stars David Huddleston as Santa Claus and British actress Judy Cornwell as his wife Anya, shows how Santa and Anya are discovered by a clan of elves called the Vendequm  Dudley Moore portrays Patch, the central character and main focus of the story; Burgess Meredith portrays their wise leader, the Ancient One, who reveals that Claus represents the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, whereby he has been designated as "the Chosen One", whose mission it will be to deliver the elves' toys to children all over the world  The film's prologue features Claus and Anya performing Santa-like duties in their home village, and strongly suggests Santa's saintly origins 
The 2019 animated Netflix Christmas comedy Klaus, also features its own telling of the origin of Santa  Where Jesper Johansen, the pampered spoiled son of a postmaster general (played by Jason Schwartzman) is sent to the secluded town of Smeerensburg, as their latest postman  There Jesper learns that due to a local family feud, the town’s people hardly have time for anything else, let alone writing or exchanging letters  There he reluctantly teams up with the titular Santa Claus (played by J  K Simmons) who is portrayed as gruff hermit, with a sad past and a skilled hand for woodcarving and toy making  Together, they not only help end the feud in Smeerensburg, but also create one of the most beloved holiday traditions 

Questioning and believing
Another genre of Santa Claus films seeks to dispel doubts about his existence 

One of the first films of this nature was titled A Little Girl Who Did Not Believe in Santa Claus (1907) and involves a well-to-do boy trying to convince his poorer friend that Santa Claus is real  She doubts because Santa has never visited her family because of their poverty 
Miracle on 34th Street (1947), starring Natalie Wood as Susan Walker, revolves around the disbelief of young Susan, whose mother (Maureen O'Hara) employs a kind old man (Edmund Gwenn, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor) to play Santa Claus at Macy's; he later convinces Susan that he really is Santa 
One Magic Christmas (1985) depicts Santa as the Dutch Sinterklaas, in charge of Christmas angels (deceased people) in lieu of elves, whom he assigns to restore individuals' Christmas spirit  He assigns Gideon (Harry Dean Stanton) to a woman (Mary Steenburgen) who worries too much about the practical side of life and shows little charity  Gideon shows her a potential Christmas in which her husband is killed by a desperate bank robber whom she has neglected to help, and takes her little girl to Santa, who gives her the last letter her mother sent him as a child and tells her to give it to her  This works to restore her spirit and gives her a do-over of Christmas with her husband and the desperate man, and she greets Santa putting presents under her tree 
The Polar Express (2004), based on the children's book of the same name, also deals with issues and questions of belief as a magical train conducted by Tom Hanks transports a doubting boy to the North Pole to visit Santa Claus 
Yes, Virginia (2009) is an animated holiday TV special based on the true story of a young girl, Virginia O'Hanlon, who writes a letter to the editor of the New York Sun in 1897 after her friends tell her that there is no Santa  The newspaper editor tells her that indeed there is a Santa: "He lives, and he lives forever " Francis Pharcellus Church was the real-life editor played by Charles Bronson in the special 

Santa as a hero
Some science fiction B movies feature Santa Claus as a superhero-type figure, such as the 1959 film titled Santa Claus produced in Mexico with José Elías Moreno as Santa Claus  In this movie, Santa allies with Merlin the magician to battle the devil, who is attempting to trap Santa  In the Cold War-era film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964), Santa Claus is captured by Martians and brought to Mars, and ultimately foils a plot to destroy him In the 1984 film The Night They Saved Christmas, starring Art Carney as Santa, likewise chronicles how Santa Claus and Claudia Baldwin (Jaclyn Smith), the wife of an oil explorer, have to save the North Pole from explosions while Baldwin's husband is searching for oil in the Arctic  Santa Claus: The Movie contains a subplot in which Santa Claus rescues Joe (Christian Fitzpatric) from his best friend Cornelia's (Carrie Kei Heim) evil step-uncle B  Z  (John Lithgow)  Santa is a hero in The Nightmare Before Christmas, held captive by Oogie Boogie, although he is spiteful and enraged at Jack when freed  The 2004 film Christmas With the Kranks, based on the 2001 John Grisham novel Skipping Christmas, has Austin Pendleton as Marty, a Santa-dressed umbrella salesman who turns out to be the real Santa, saving Luther Krank's (Tim Allen's) forced Christmas party by capturing a burglar unintentionally brought to the house by the police  After leaving the party, he rides through the sky in his Volkswagen Beetle, pulled by reindeer  In the 2005 film adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Father Christmas (James Cosmo) supplies the Pevensie children with the weapons and tools they need to battle the White Witch (Tilda Swinton)  In the 2012 DreamWorks film Rise of the Guardians, which is based on the book series The Guardians of Childhood by William Joyce, Santa (Alec Baldwin) is shown as one of the main characters and leader of the Guardians, who are the heroes of the movie  The 2022 film Violent Night portrays a drunk and disillusioned Santa (played by David Harbour) caught up in a hostage situation and becoming an action hero, parodying the film Die Hard and its protagonist John McClane In the television show South Park, Santa is often depicted with firearms; in the episode "Red Sleigh Down", he battles Iraqis to try to bring Christmas to Iraq  In the episode "A Woodland Critter Christmas", he uses a combat shotgun to blast away Satanic animals who try to give birth to the AntiChrist  Santa (played by Nick Frost) made a brief appearance at the end of the Doctor Who episode, "Death in Heaven"  In the following episode, which served as the show's 2014 Christmas special, "Last Christmas", he plays a more prominent role  It is eventually revealed that the scenes with him are the characters experiencing a shared dream, and he is their subconscious trying to help them wake up before they are killed  At the episode's end, he successfully awakens the Doctor and Clara, reuniting the two 

Succession of Santas
One genre of movies suggests that Santa Claus is not historically a single individual but a succession of individuals 
In Ernest Saves Christmas (1988), Ernest P  Worrell (Jim Varney) joins the challenge of Santa Claus, alias Seth Applegate (Douglas Seale), to convince Florida kids' show host Joe Carruthers (Oliver Clark) to become the next Santa 
In The Santa Clause (1994), Tim Allen plays Scott Calvin, who accidentally causes Santa Claus to fall off the roof of his house  After he puts on Santa's suit, he finds himself contractually obligated to become the next Santa  Reluctant at first, his appearance changes over the next year from average to the legendary image: he grows fat, his hair whitens, and his beard grows uncontrollably by magic  He ultimately falls in love with his new role 
A 2001 television special, Call Me Claus, stars Whoopi Goldberg as Lucy Cullins, an African American woman destined to reluctantly become the next Santa Claus 
In The Hebrew Hammer (2003), the role of Santa Claus is traditionally passed down from father to son  The system is disrupted when the reigning Santa is murdered by his son, Damian, who then uses the position to attack the competing holidays of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa 
The 2011 animated film Arthur Christmas portrays being Santa Claus as a dynasty  The first "Santa", Saint Nicholas, established the North Pole workshop and passed the title and responsibilities to his son after 70 Christmases, after which his son passed them on to his son, and so on  In the film, the current Santa initially refuses to retire, due to worry about what he will be if he is not Santa 

Impostor Santas
Several films have been created which explore the consequences should an impostor Santa take over 
One of the first films featuring a fake Santa Claus is the 1914 silent film, The Adventure of the Wrong Santa Claus, written by Frederic Arnold Kummer  In this film, a bogus Santa steals all the Christmas presents and amateur detective Octavius (played by Herbert Yost) tries to recover them  
The most notorious impostor appears in the 1966 cartoon based on Dr  Seuss's 1957 children's book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, wherein the Grinch, a hairy and mean-tempered creature, attempts to rob the Whos in Whoville of their Christmas by stealing their presents, food and decorations, but has a change of heart when he sees that he has not stopped them from celebrating after all  This animated feature was made into a live-action movie in 2000, directed by Ron Howard and starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch  A CGI feature film was made in 2018, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of the Grinch  
Another less-than-friendly impostor appears in A Christmas Story (1983) as a disgruntled mall Santa at Higbee's Department Store (a real store in downtown Cleveland, Ohio) in the fictional town of Holman, Indiana  Played by Jeff Gillen, Santa is depicted as a larger-than-life figure who terrifies, rather than amuses, children  Gillen's performance lends credence to the theory that the mall Santa is not quite genuine 
Another recent devious mall Santa was played by Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa (2003), a film which gained the normally family-friendly Disney "bad press" Tim Burton's stop-action animated musical film, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), depicts Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, wanting to become Santa Claus after an accidental visit to Christmas Town  After the mostly well-meaning but totally clueless Halloween Town citizens capture Santa, they then try to take over Christmas with disastrous results; children are terrified by Jack's Halloween-themed gifts, and the real Santa is almost killed by Oogie Boogie  Santa is voiced here by Ed Ivory and in the video game spinoffs by Corey Burton 
In 2002's The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs  Clause, Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) must leave the North Pole to find a wife, so his number one elf turns a plastic toy Santa into a life-size robot clone of Calvin to cover for him  The robo-Santa interprets the rules of Christmas literally, convinces himself that all of the world's children are naughty, and dresses and runs the North Pole like a Latin American dictator, constructing an army of giant toy soldiers  When Calvin returns with his wife, he must defeat his clone to regain control of Christmas 
In 2006's The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, Martin Short appears as Jack Frost, who is jealous of Santa Claus  He usurps the role from Scott Calvin, turns Christmas into "Frostmas" and the North Pole into a Disneyesque tourist resort, and addicts the worlds' children to toys which their parents must buy from him 
In 2007's Fred Claus, Vince Vaughn plays Santa's jealous older brother who grows up hating Santa and Christmas  He cons his brother (Paul Giamatti) into giving him a large sum of money for a business deal, in return for which he must come to the Pole and help prepare for Christmas  Fred ends up sabotaging his brother by placing all the world's naughty children on the nice list  Meanwhile, another Santa-hater (Kevin Spacey) is auditing Santa, looking for excuses to fire him and the elves  When Santa injures his back, Fred must deliver the gifts in order to save Christmas 
Other, darker impostors have appeared in slasher films such as the first three films of the five-film Silent Night, Deadly Night series, Santa Claws and Santa's Slay, and in the short "   And All Through the House", part of the horror anthology film Tales from the Crypt (1972) and later remade as episode 1 2 and directed by Robert Zemeckis for the HBO TV series of the same name  Both versions were inspired by the comic book Tales from the Crypt 

See also
Christmas elf#In films and television
Mrs  Claus#In popular media
List of Christmas films
Passage 8:
The Year Without a Santa Claus
The Year Without a Santa Claus is a 1974 stop motion animated Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions  The story is based on Phyllis McGinley's 1956 book of the same name  It is narrated by Shirley Booth (her final acting credit before her retirement from acting) and starring the voices of Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, and George S  Irving  It was originally broadcast on December 10, 1974, on ABC 

Plot
Santa Claus wakes up with a cold sometime before Christmas in the early 20th century  His doctor, who thinks nobody cares about Santa anymore, advises him to make some changes to his routine, so Santa decides to take a holiday instead of delivering gifts  Mrs  Claus unsuccessfully tries to convince him otherwise, so she enlists two elves named Jingle and Jangle to find proof that people still believe in Santa 
Jingle and Jangle set out with Santa's youngest reindeer Vixen, but are shot down by crossfire between the conflicting Miser Brothers: Snow Miser, who controls the world's cold weather, and Heat Miser, who controls its warm weather  Vixen saves her guardian elves from falling to their doom and they continue on their uncertain path 
Jingle, Jangle, and Vixen come upon Southtown, a small community in the southern United States  They ask a group of children, including a boy named Iggy, if they believe in Santa, but they are skeptical  To make matters worse, Vixen grows sick due to the warm weather and is sent to the local animal shelter after Jingle and Jangle disguise her as a dog  The town's police officer refers them to the town's mayor, who laughs at their story but agrees to free Vixen if they can prove they are elves by making it snow in Southtown on Christmas 
Jingle and Jangle call Mrs  Claus to pick them up  As she leaves, Santa discovers Vixen is missing and travels to Southtown himself to retrieve her while disguised as a civilian named "Klaus"  While there, he meets Iggy and his family  Klaus reveals his belief in Santa, and Iggy's father reveals that Santa personally visited him one Christmas, and he still believes as well  When Claus leaves to retrieve Vixen, Iggy realizes his true identity and resolves to help Jingle and Jangle 
Iggy joins Mrs  Claus when she arrives to pick up Jingle and Jangle, and together they visit the Miser Brothers  They ask Snow Miser to send snow to Southtown for a day; he is agreeable but says he cannot as it is part of Heat Miser's territory  They then ask Heat Miser, who says he will only comply if Snow Miser turns the North Pole over to him in exchange  When the brothers begin bickering again, Mrs  Claus goes over their heads and visits their mother, Mother Nature, who convinces her sons to compromise 
As Christmas approaches, the world's children send their own presents to Santa, setting off international headlines  Touched by the outpouring of generosity and appreciation, Santa decides to make his journey after all  On Christmas Eve, he makes a public stop in Southtown during a snowfall  The next day, the children, including Iggy, are delighted to receive their presents  As the special ends, Mrs  Claus narrates that somehow, "yearly, newly, faithfully and truly", Santa always comes  Santa is shown getting out of bed to prepare himself, his reindeer, and his gift-loaded sleigh, remarking he could never imagine "a year without a Santa Claus" 

Voice cast
Shirley Booth as Mrs  Claus
Mickey Rooney as Santa Claus
Dick Shawn as Snow Miser
George S  Irving as Heat Miser
Bob McFadden as Jingle Bells, Elf Doctor
Bradley Bolke as Jangle Bells, Police Officer
Rhoda Mann as Mother Nature, Mrs  Thistlewhite
Ron Marshall as Mr  Thistlewhite, Mayor of Southtown
Colin Duffy as Ignatius "Iggy" Thistlewhite
Noelle Magargle as the Blue Christmas Girl
The Wee Winter Singers as the Children Choir

Songs
"Sleigh Ride" (instrumental)
"The Year Without a Santa Claus"
"I Could Be Santa Claus"
"I Believe in Santa Claus"
"It's Gonna Snow Right Here in Dixie"
"The Snow Miser Song"
"The Heat Miser Song"
"Blue Christmas"
"Sleigh Ride" (instrumental)
"Here Comes Santa Claus"
"The Year Without a Santa Claus (reprise)"

Television rights
The special premiered in 1974 on ABC and aired annually on Freeform during its 25 Days of Christmas programming block until 2017  As of 2018, AMC: American Movie Classics currently airs the special uncut as part of the Best Christmas Ever block  Warner Bros  Entertainment currently distributes the special through their ownership of the post-1974 Rankin/Bass Productions library 

Home video
The special was first released on VHS by Vestron Video on September 5, 1991 as part of their Christmas Classics Series, which is distributed by Family Home Entertainment  Warner Home Video released the special on VHS on September 2, 1992, and re-released it on VHS on September 28, 1999  The special was then released on DVD on October 31, 2000, and re-released on the Deluxe Edition DVD on October 2, 2007  Warner Home Video released the special on Blu-ray on October 5, 2010, making it the first Rankin/Bass production to be released on that format 

DVD details
Release date: October 31, 2000 (Original DVD), January 17, 2004 (30th Anniversary Edition DVD), October 2, 2007 (Deluxe Edition DVD), October 5, 2010 (Blu-ray)
Full Screen
Region: 1
Aspect Ratios: 1 33:1
Audio tracks: English
Special Features:
Rudolph's Shiny New Year
Nestor, The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
Stop Motion 101 (Deluxe Edition Exclusive)
We Are Santa's Elves: Profiling Arthur Rankin Jr  & Jules Bass (Deluxe Edition Exclusive)

Live-action remake
A live-action remake of The Year Without a Santa Claus premiered on NBC on December 11, 2006, and was released on DVD the following day  It follows largely the same plot as the original special 
Paul Mavis, for Drunk TV, wrote, "The Year Without a Santa Claus is a nauseating, angry, joyless little holiday confection sure to poison any child unlucky enough to chance upon it  This hate-filled stocking stuffer has nothing but contempt for its intended audience, promoting the worst possible beliefs about people, while cloaking itself, incredibly, in the fake guise of a meaningful lesson about the holidays: the gall that the cretinous makers of this film have is really quite audacious ”

Cast
John Goodman as Santa Claus
Delta Burke as Mrs  Claus
Michael McKean as Snow Miser
Harvey Fierstein as Heat Miser
Ethan Suplee as Jingle Bells
Eddie Griffin as Jangle Bells
Chris Kattan as Sparky
Dylan Minnette as Ignatius "Iggy" Thistlewhite
Billy Slaughter as Nerd ElfCarol Kane as Mother Nature
Carson Kressley as the elf costumer
Laura Schlessinger, "Dr  Laura", as herself
Jack LaLanne as Hercules

Sequel
A sequel, titled A Miser Brothers' Christmas, was produced in 2008 by Warner Bros  Animation and Cuppa Coffee Studios, and it also used stop-motion animation  Mickey Rooney, age 88, reprised his role as Santa Claus, and George S  Irving, age 86, reprised his role as Heat Miser  Juan Chioran and Catherine Disher replaced Dick Shawn and Shirley Booth as Snow Miser and Mrs  Claus, respectively, Shawn and Booth having died prior to the film's production 

See also
List of Christmas films
Santa Claus in film
List of animated feature films
List of stop-motion films
List of Rankin/Bass Productions films
Passage 9:
A Miser Brothers' Christmas
A Miser Brothers’ Christmas is a stop motion spin-off special based on some of the characters from the 1974 Rankin-Bass special The Year Without a Santa Claus  Distributed by Warner Bros  Animation under their Warner Premiere label (the rights holders of the post-1974 Rankin-Bass library) and Toronto-based Cuppa Coffee Studios, the one-hour special premiered on ABC Family on Saturday, December 13, 2008, during the network's annual The 25 Days of Christmas programming Mickey Rooney (at age 88) and George S  Irving (at age 86) reprised their respective roles as Santa Claus and Heat Miser  Snow Miser (originally portrayed by Dick Shawn who died in 1987) was voiced by Juan Chioran, while Mrs  Claus (voiced in the original by Shirley Booth who died in 1992) was portrayed by Catherine Disher  The movie aimed to emulate the Rankin/Bass animation style  This is the last Christmas special to feature Mickey Rooney as Santa Claus, as he died in 2014, as well as the last time George Irving voiced Heat Miser, as he died in 2016 

Plot
The feuding Miser Brothers (Heat and Snow) attend their family reunion with Mother Nature and their fellow siblings including the North Wind, Earthquake, Thunder and Lightning, and the Tides  North Wind passively asks Mother Nature what might happen if Santa would be unable to complete his duties on Christmas  She responds that North Wind would take control instead  Heat then begins to call out Snow for trying to "give global warming a bad name"  Snow responds by talking about Heat's attempts to scare people with reports of a second Ice Age  Heat then reprimands Snow for claiming Iceland as his own, which barely has any ice  Snow then calls out Heat for claiming Greenland as his own because it's full of ice  The brothers then fight each other  Mother Nature ends the fight 
Despite his dashing appearance and veneer of flattery and devotion toward Mother Nature, the North Wind is far more malevolent than either of his brothers  Self-absorbed and vain, the North Wind is fixated with the idea of replacing Santa Claus as a way to achieve personal glory  Beginning his machinations, He then sends two of his minions to crash Santa's Super-Sleigh designed by his mechanic Tinsel, causing Santa to injure his back after falling in the middle of a fight between the brothers as he unintentionally crosses into their domain 
Despite what she told the North Wind before and having been informed by Mrs  Claus about what happened to Santa, Mother Nature assigns the Miser Brothers the responsibility of running the toy factory  Their fighting continues as they move through several workshop stations  The North Wind hatches a new plan to keep them fighting so it would appear as if they ruined Christmas themselves, but Mrs  Claus convinces the Miser Brothers to put aside their differences and cooperate by showing them the Naughty/Nice list station  The brothers' history is revealed, showing they've always been on Santa's naughty list for mutual bickering  Upon learning the error of their ways, they begin working together and successfully get work back up to speed  However, the North Wind hatches a plan to destroy their truce and get them fighting again, leaving Santa to deliver the toys and giving North Wind the chance to finish him off 
On Christmas Eve, the North Wind's minions surreptitiously attach heating and cooling units to the sleigh, apparently capable of heating or cooling entire regions of the planet  The discovery causes the Miser Brothers to blame each other  With them fighting again, Santa has no choice but to drive the sleigh as North Wind planned  After Santa leaves, Tinsel discovers the super-sleigh has been sabotaged, which stops the Misers' fight as they realize that neither of them was responsible for injuring Santa  Upon finding one of North Wind's Christmas cards with him dressed as Santa, the Misers realize the truth about their brother and comprehend his plan  Meanwhile, the North Wind attacks Santa's sleigh in flight, whipping up a vortex to consume Santa, but the Miser Brothers, with the aid of Tinsel and a team of young reindeer, save Santa in the nick of time 
The North Wind's cover is blown and Mother Nature sentences him to do household chores for the next several thousand years as punishment for trying to finish off Santa and making his brothers fight  With North Wind thwarted, the brothers learn they've finally made the nice list  They deliver the presents for Santa and give gifts to each other in the process, making peace between them and ending their feud 

Cast
Mickey Rooney as Santa Claus
George S  Irving as Heat Miser
Juan Chioran as Snow Miser
Catherine Disher as Mrs  Claus, Reindeer Elf
Brad Adamson as North Wind
Patricia Hamilton as Mother Nature
Peter Oldring as Bob, Elf #1
Susan Roman as Tinsel, Dr  Noel

Reception
The movie had 3 7 million viewers in its first airing, as determined by Nielsen ratings  It received a nomination for "Best Animated Television Production Produced for Children" in the 36th Annual Annie Awards 

See also
Santa Claus in film
List of Christmas films
Context 3: Passage 1:
Merck &amp; Co 
Merck & Co , Inc  is an American multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Rahway, New Jersey, and is named for Merck Group, founded in Germany in 1668, of whom it was once the American arm  The company does business as Merck Sharp & Dohme or MSD outside the United States and Canada  It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, generally ranking in the global top five by revenue Merck & Co  was originally established as the American affiliate of Merck Group in 1891  Merck develops and produces medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies and animal health products  It has multiple blockbuster drugs or products each with 2020 revenues including cancer immunotherapy, anti-diabetic medication and vaccines against HPV and chickenpox 
The company is ranked 71st on the 2022 Fortune 500 and 87th on the 2022 Forbes Global 2000, both based on 2021 revenues 

Products
The company develops medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies and animal health products  In 2020, the company had 6 blockbuster drugs or products, each with over $1 billion in revenue: Keytruda (pembrolizumab), a humanized antibody used in cancer immunotherapy that had $14 3 billion in 2020 revenue; Januvia (sitagliptin), an anti-diabetic medication used to treat type 2 diabetes that had $5 3 billion in 2020 revenue; Gardasil, an HPV vaccine that had $3 9 billion in 2020 revenue; Varivax, a varicella vaccine used to protect against chickenpox that had $1 9 billion in 2020 revenues; Bridion (Sugammadex), a neuromuscular-blocking drug that had $1 2 billion in 2020 revenue; and Pneumovax 23, a pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine that had $1 1 billion in 2020 revenue  Other major products by the company include Isentress (raltegravir), an antiretroviral medication used to treat HIV/AIDS that had $857 million in 2020 revenue; Simponi (golimumab), a human monoclonal antibody used as an immunosuppressive drug that had $838 million in 2020 revenue; RotaTeq, a rotavirus vaccine that had $797 million in 2020 revenue; and Lynparza (olaparib), a medication for the maintenance treatment of BRCA-mutated advanced ovarian cancer in adults that generated $725 million in 2020 revenue for the company Details of Merck's major products are as follows:

Januvia (sitagliptin) is a dipeptidyl peptidase IV inhibitor for the treatment of type 2 diabetes  In 2013, Januvia was the second largest selling diabetes drug worldwide  Januvia is commonly paired with the generic anti-diabetes drug metformin  It has been popular due in part because unlike many other diabetes drugs, it causes little or no weight gain and is not associated with hypoglycemic episodes  Merck also sells a single pill combination drug containing both Januvia and metformin under the trade name Janumet  There has been some concern that treatment with Januvia and other DPP-IV inhibitors may be associated with a modestly increased risk of pancreatitis 
Zetia (ezetimibe) is a drug for hypercholesterolemia that acts by inhibiting the absorption of dietary cholesterol  Zetia has been controversial, as it was initially approved based on its impact on serum cholesterol levels without proof that it actually impacted the incidence of cardiovascular disease  Results of the IMPROVE-IT study, however, introduced at the 2014 Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association, showed a statistically significant, albeit modest, benefit in adding Zetia to simvastatin for high-risk, post-acute-coronary-syndrome patients 
Remicade (infliximab) is a monoclonal antibody directed toward the cytokine TNF-alpha and used for the treatment of a wide range of autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, ankylosing spondylitis, plaque psoriasis, and others  Remicade and other TNF-alpha inhibitors exhibit additive therapeutic effects with methotrexate and improve quality of life  Adverse effects include increased risk of infection and certain cancers  Merck had rights to the drug in certain areas, while Janssen Biotech had rights in other areas; in 2017, Merck announced a biosimilar to Remicade, Renflexis 
Gardasil (recombinant human papilloma virus vaccine) is a vaccine against multiple serotypes of human papilloma virus (HPV), which is responsible for most cases of cervical cancer worldwide 
Isentress (raltegravir) is a human immunodeficiency virus integrase inhibitor for the treatment of HIV infection  It is the first anti-HIV compound having this mechanism of action  It is part of one of several first line treatment regimens recommended by the United States Department of Health and Human Services 
Keytruda (pembrolizumab) is an immune modulator for the treatment of cancer  On September 4, 2014, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Pembrolizumab (MK-3475) as a breakthrough therapy for melanoma treatment  In clinical trials, pembrolzumab provided partial tumor regression in about one quarter of patients, many of whom have not seen further progression of their disease in over 6 months of follow-up 
Invanz (Ertapenem) is an injectable antibiotic, rights to which Merck has owned since 1999  Merck was in a legal dispute with the Taiwanese company Savior Lifetec over their attempt to secure rights to sell a generic drug version in the United States  Savior has since obtained approval to market generic ertapenem 
Mexsana is an antiseptic medicated powder 
Mectizan (ivermectin) is an anti-parasitic medicine traditionally used to treat river blindness  It is the focus of Merck's Mectizan Donation Program, wherein Merck has donated doses of the drug to treat millions of people in countries such as Yemen and African nations 
Molnupiravir is an antiviral pill to treat COVID-19, developed in partnership with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics Merck & Co  publishes The Merck Manuals, a series of medical reference books for physicians, nurses, technicians, and veterinarians  These include the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, the world's best-selling medical reference  The Merck Index, a compendium of chemical compounds, was published by Merck & Co  until it was acquired by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2012 

History
Roots and early history
Merck & Co  traces its origins to its former German parent company Merck Group, which was established by the Merck family in 1668 when Friedrich Jacob Merck purchased a drug store in Darmstadt  In 1827, Merck Group evolved from a pharmacy to a drug manufacturer company with the commercial manufacture of morphine  Merck perfected the chemical process of deriving morphine from opium and later introduced cocaine, used to treat sinus problems and to add to beverages to boost energy levels In 1887 a German-born, long-time Merck employee, Theodore Weicker, went to the United States to represent Merck Group  In 1891, with $200,000 received from E  Merck, Weicker started Merck & Co , with headquarters in lower Manhattan  That year George Merck, the 23-year-old son of the then head of E  Merck (and grandson of the founder) joined Weicker in New York  Merck & Co  operated from 1891 to 1917 as the US subsidiary of the Merck Group 

Nationalization
After the U S  entered World War I, due to its German connections, Merck & Co  was the subject of expropriation under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917  In 1919, George W  Merck, in partnership with Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, bought the company back at a U S  government auction for $3 5 million, but Merck & Co  remained a separate company from its former German parent  Merck & Co  holds the trademark rights to the "Merck" name in the United States and Canada, while its former parent company retains the rights in the rest of the world; the right to use the Merck name was the subject of litigation between the two companies in 2016 In 1929, H  K  Mulford Company merged with Sharp and Dohme, Inc  and brought vaccine technology, including immunization of cavalry horses in World War I and delivery of a diphtheria antitoxin to Merck & Co 
In 1943, Streptomycin was discovered during a Merck-funded research program in Selman Waksman's laboratory at Rutgers University  It became the first effective treatment for Tuberculosis  At the time of its discovery, sanatoriums for the isolation of tuberculosis-infected people were a ubiquitous feature of cities in developed countries, with 50% dying within 5 years of admission  Although Merck's agreement with Rutgers gave it exclusive rights to streptomycin, at Waksman's request the company renegotiated the agreement, returning the rights to the university in exchange for a royalty  The university then set up non-exclusive licenses with seven companies to ensure a reliable supply of the antibiotic 

1950–2000
In the 1950s, thiazide diuretics were developed by Merck scientists Karl H  Beyer, James M  Sprague, John E  Baer, and Frederick C  Novello and led to the marketing of the first drug of this class, chlorothiazide, under the trade name Duiril in 1958  The research leading to the discovery of chlorothiazide, leading to "the saving of untold thousands of lives and the alleviation of the suffering of millions of victims of hypertension" was recognized by a special Public Health Award from the Lasker Foundation in 1975 In 1953, Merck & Co  merged with Philadelphia-based Sharp & Dohme, Inc , becoming the largest U S  drugmaker  Sharp and Dohme had acquired H  K  Mulford Company in 1929, adding smallpox vaccines to its portfolio  The combined company kept the trade name Merck in the United States and Canada, and as Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) outside North America In 1965, Merck & Co  acquired Charles Frosst Ltd  of Montreal (founded 1899), creating Merck-Frosst Canada, Inc , as its Canadian subsidiary and pharmaceutical research facility  Merck & Co  closed this facility in July 2010 but remerged in 2011 as Merck Canada Maurice Hilleman, a scientist at Merck, developed the first mumps vaccine in 1967, the first rubella vaccine in 1969, and the first trivalent measles, mumps, rubella (MMR vaccine) in 1971  The incidence of rubella-associated birth defects fell from up to 10,000 per year in the U S  to zero in the aftermath of the rubella vaccine's development  Hilleman also developed the first Hepatitis B vaccine and the first varicella vaccine, for chickenpox The company was incorporated in New Jersey in 1970  John J  Horan became CEO and Chairman in 1976, serving until 1985  Under his leadership, the company's investment in R&D grew threefold, and Merck became the largest pharmaceutical company in the world In 1979, Merck scientists developed lovastatin (Mevacor), the first drug of the statin class Merck scientist William C  Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura developed ivermectin for veterinary use in 1981, and later put it to human use against Onchocerciasis in 1987–88 with the name Mectizan; today the compound is used against river blindness, lymphatic filariasis, scabies and other parasitic infections In 1982, the company formed a joint venture, KBI Inc , with AstraZeneca  During the late 1980s and 1990s, the company also established joint ventures with DuPont to access research and development expertise, and with Johnson & Johnson to sell over-the-counter consumer medications In 1985, Merck received approval for imipenem, the first member of the carbapenem class of antibiotics  Antibiotics of the carbapenem class play an important role in treatment guidelines for certain hospital-acquired and multi-drug resistant infections  P  Roy Vagelos became CEO and Chairman that year, succeeding Horan In 1991, Merck's Kelco subsidiary was responsible for volatile organic compound (VOC) emission pollution in the San Diego area  In 1996 Merck paid $1 8 million for polluting the air  New machines were installed to reduce smog emissions by 680,000 lb (310,000 kg) a year In November 1993, Merck & Co  acquired Medco Containment Services for $6 billion  Merck & Co  spun Medco off ten years later 

2001–2019
In May 2002, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation purchased stock in Merck From 2002 through 2005, the Australian affiliate of Merck paid publishing house Elsevier an undisclosed amount to produce eight issues of a medical journal, the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine  Although it gave the appearance of being an independent peer-reviewed journal, without any indication that Merck had paid for it, the journal actually reprinted articles that originally appeared in other publications and that were favorable to Merck  The misleading publication came to light in 2009 during a personal injury lawsuit filed over Vioxx; 9 of 29 articles in the journal's second issue referred positively to Vioxx  The CEO of Elsevier's Health Sciences Division, Michael Hansen, admitted that the practice was "unacceptable" In 2005, CEO Raymond Gilmartin retired following Merck's voluntary worldwide withdrawal of Vioxx  Former president of manufacturing Richard Clark was named CEO and company president In November 2009, Merck & Co  completed a merger with Schering-Plough in a US$41 billion deal  Although Merck & Co  was in reality acquiring Schering-Plough, the purchase was declared a "reverse merger", in which "Old" Merck & Co  was renamed Merck Sharp & Dohme, and Schering-Plough renamed as "Merck & Co , Inc  The maneuver was an attempt avoid a "change-of-control" in order to preserve Schering-Plough's rights to market Remicade  A settlement with Johnson & Johnson was reached in 2011, in which Merck agreed to pay $500 million  Merck Sharp & Dohme remains a subsidiary of the Merck & Co  parent Richard Clark retired as CEO and company president in October 2011 and Kenneth Frazier became CEO In October 2013, Merck announced it would cut 8,500 jobs in an attempt to cut $2 5 billion from its costs by 2015  Combined with 7,500 job cuts announced in 2011 and 2012, the layoffs amounted to 20% of its workforce By 2014, research performed at Merck has led to U S  FDA approval of 63 new molecular entities In August 2014, Merck acquired Idenix Pharmaceuticals for $3 85 billion In December 2014, the company acquired Swiss biotechnology company OncoEthix for up to $375 million Between 2010 and 2015, the company cut around 36,450 jobs  During that time, the company sold its consumer health business to Bayer and narrowed the company's focus to immunology, vaccines, diabetes, emerging markets and medicines used in hospitals, like certain antibiotics In January 2015, Merck acquired Cubist Pharmaceuticals In July 2015, Merck and Ablynx expanded their 18-month-old immuno-oncology collaboration by four years, generating a potential $4 4 billion in milestone payments for the Abylnx  The company also announced it would spend $95 million up front collaborating with cCAM Biotherapeutics and its early-stage treatment similar to Keytruda  Merck & Co  will bring in CM-24, an antibody designed to block the immune checkpoint CEACAM1 In January 2016, Merck announced two new partnerships; the first with Quartet Medicine and its small molecule pain treatments, the second with Complix investigating intracellular cancer targets, with both collaborations potentially generating up to $595 million and $280 million respectively  Days later the company announced it would acquire IOmet Pharma, with IOmet becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck & Co  The acquisition includes IOmets indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO), tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO), and dual-acting inhibitors In July 2016, the company acquired Afferent Pharmaceuticals, developer of a candidate used to block P2RX3 receptors, for approximately $1 billion, plus up to $750 million in milestone payments In 2017, Merck bought the PARP inhibitor Lynparza from AstraZeneca In April 2017, Merck Animal Health acquired Vallée S A , a Brazilian animal health product manufacturer In September 2017, the company announced it would acquire Rigontec, developer of a candidate to target the retinoic acid-inducible gene I pathway, for $554 million In October 2017, the company granted the inaugural Merck-AGITG Clinical Research Fellowship in Gastro-Intestinal (GI) Cancer to David Lau, a professional in Melbourne, Australia In June 2018, Merck acquired Viralytics, an Australian viral cancer drug company, for AUD$502 million In 2018, Merck began the submission process for a Biologics License Application to the Food and Drug Administration under the Breakthrough Therapy Designation for an investigational vaccine, called V920, to fight the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus In April 2019, the company acquired Immune Design for approximately $300 million, gaining access to its immunotherapy programs  It also acquired Antelliq Group for $2 4 billion, or $3 7 billion including debt In May 2019, Merck announced it would acquire Peloton Therapeutics, developer of a HIF-2alpha inhibitor for Von Hippel–Lindau disease-associated renal cell carcinoma, for up to $2 2 billion In June 2019, Merck announced it would acquire Tilos Therapeutics for up to $773 million In November 2019, the company acquired Calporta, which focused on Parkinsons and Alzheimers treatments In December 2019, Merck Animal Health acquired Vaki, an aquaculture company, from Pentair 

2020–present
In January 2020, Merck acquired ArQule, developer of ARQ 531, an oral Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, for $2 7 billion In March 2020, Merck was one of ten companies recognised at the inaugural Manufacturing Awards by New Jersey Business magazine and the New Jersey Business and Industry Association In June 2020, Merck acquired Themis Bioscience, a company focused on vaccines and immune-modulation therapies for infectious diseases including COVID-19 and cancer Also in June 2020, Merck Animal Health acquired Quantified Ag, a data and analytics company that monitors cattle body temperature and movement in order to detect illness early In August 2020, Merck Animal Health acquired IdentiGEN, engaged in DNA-based animal traceability In September 2020, Merck acquired $1 billion of Seattle Genetics common stock, and agreed to co-develop ladiratuzumab vedotin In November 2020, Merck announced it would acquire VelosBio for $2 75 billion, developer of VLS-101, an antibody-drug conjugate designed to target Tyrosine kinase-like orphan receptor 1 (ROR1) in both hematological and solid tumors  VLS-101 is currently Phase I and Phase II clinical trials  The company also announced it would acquire OncoImmune for $425 million and its phase 3 candidate, CD24Fc, used in the treatment of patients with severe and critical COVID-19 In February 2021, Merck Animal Health acquired PrognostiX Poultry In March 2021, Merck Head of Corporate Affairs Petra Wicklandt represented the company at the Munich Security Conference, where she participated in a tabletop exercise simulating the public health response to the release of a weaponized strain of monkeypox In April 2021, Merck acquired Pandion Therapeutics for $1 85 billion, expanding its offering in treating autoimmune diseases In June 2021, the U S  government agreed to spend $1 2 billion to purchase 1 7 million doses of Molnupiravir, a Merck product, if it were to be approved by regulators to treat COVID-19  In October 2021, the company said that the drug reduces the risk of hospitalization or death by around 50% for patients with mild or moderate cases of COVID-19 and that it would seek Emergency Use Authorization for the drug In July 2021, Robert M  Davis became CEO, succeeding Kenneth Frazier, who became executive chairman In July 2021, Merck completed the corporate spin-off of Organon & Co In September 2021, Merck announced it would acquire Acceleron Pharma for $11 5 billion, gaining control over Sotatercept, used in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension, and luspatercept-aamt In September 2022, the company announced it would acquire Vence, a livestock management company for an undisclosed sum, incorporating it within Merck Animal Health In December 2022, the company announced a licensing deal with Kelun-Biotech of China whereby it would expand its early cancer pipeline with a set of antibody-drug conjugates; this follows an earlier agreement between the two companies to co-develop such drugs In April 2023, Merck announced it would acquire Prometheus Biosciences Inc for $10 8 billion 

Acquisition history
Philanthropy
Merck Company Foundation
Since it was founded in 1957, the Merck Company Foundation has distributed $740 million in overall charitable distributions including more than $480 million to educational and non-profit organizations On December 7, 2012, the foundation announced that it was ending its donations to the Boy Scouts of America citing its discrimination against gay people 

Patient assistance programs
Merck & Co  was one of the first American pharmaceutical companies to offer assistance to those unable to afford its medications, beginning a program in the 1950s  Merck & Co  offers seven patient assistance programs, each with specific eligibility requirements 

Hilleman Laboratories
Merck and the Wellcome trust jointly fund the Hilleman Laboratories, an India-based non-profit research organization dedicated to the development of low-cost vaccines for use in developing countries  Current projects include the development of low cost, thermostable vaccines for the prevention of cholera, rotavirus, and meningitis 

Merck for Mothers
Merck for Mothers is Merck's global initiative to help create a world where no woman has to die while giving life 

Mectizan donation program
In 1987, Merck began a program with UNICEF to donate its new drug Mectizan to "all that need it for as long as needed" in an effort to combat onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, primarily in Africa  Up to that point, the World Health Organization had fought the disease through the use of insecticides to lower the population of its primary vector, the Black Fly  However, when studies in the 1980s showed how effective the drug was at treating and preventing the disease, the WHO agreed to use it instead of its previous strategies  Merck's involvement is considered a key factor in the success against the disease all over the world, and the decision to donate the entirety of the drug to all those in need of it is used as part of the Mectizan Donation Program that covers countries such as Yemen and African countries  More than 700 million people have been treated since the inception of the program with 80 million people still undergoing treatment in Africa, Latin America, and Yemen  Blindness caused by onchocerciasis is decreasing, and there are regions of Latin America and Africa that have been shown to have eliminated the disease altogether 

Lawsuits and controversies
Vioxx
In 1999, the U S  Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Vioxx (known generically as rofecoxib), a Merck product for treating arthritis  Vioxx was designed as a selective inhibitor of the enzyme cyclooxygenase-2  Such compounds were expected to cause less gastrointestinal bleeding than older anti-inflammatory drugs such as naproxen, which were associated with 20,000 hospitalizations and 2000 deaths each year  Vioxx became one of the most prescribed drugs in history Thereafter, studies by Merck and by others found an increased risk of heart attack associated with Vioxx use when compared with naproxen  Merck adjusted the labeling of Vioxx to reflect possible cardiovascular risks in 2002 On September 23, 2004, Merck received information about results from a clinical trial it was conducting that included findings of increased risk of heart attacks among Vioxx users who had been using the medication for over eighteen months  On September 28, 2004, Merck notified the FDA that it was voluntarily withdrawing Vioxx from the market, and it publicly announced the withdrawal on September 30  An analysis for the period 1999–2004, based on U S  Medical Expenditure Survey data, reported that Vioxx was associated with 46,783 heart attacks, and along with the other popular COX-2 inhibitor Celebrex, an estimated 26,603 deaths from both About 50,000 people sued Merck, claiming they or their family members had suffered medical problems such as heart attacks or strokes after taking Vioxx  In November 2007, Merck agreed to pay $4 85 billion to settle most of the pending Vioxx lawsuits  The settlement required that claimants provide medical and pharmacy records confirming the occurrence of a heart attack, ischemic stroke, or sudden cardiac death; the receipt of at least 30 Vioxx pills within 60 days prior to the injury or death; and confirmation of Vioxx being used within 14 days of the Vioxx-related event  The settlement was generally viewed by industry analysts and investors as a victory for Merck, considering that original estimates of Merck's liability reached between $10 billion and $25 billion  As of mid-2008, when the plaintiff class had reached the threshold percentage required by Merck to go through with the settlement, plaintiffs had prevailed in only three of the twenty cases that had reached juries, all with relatively small awards Merck has refused to consider compensation for Vioxx victims and their families outside the US  This is particularly true in the UK where there are at least 400 victims and the legal protection afforded to the victims and their families is particularly weak According to internal e-mail traffic released at a later lawsuit, Merck had a list of doctors critical of Vioxx to be "neutralized" or "discredited"  "We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live," wrote an employee  A Stanford Medical School professor said that Merck was engaged in intimidation of researchers and infringement upon academic freedom On May 20, 2008, Merck settled for $58 million with 30 states alleging that Merck engaged in deceptive marketing tactics to promote Vioxx  All its new television pain-advertisements must be vetted by the Food and Drug Administration and changed or delayed upon request until 2018 

Fosamax
Fosamax (alendronate) is a bisphosphonate used for the treatment of post-menopausal osteoporosis and for the prevention of skeletal problems in certain cancers  The American College of Clinical Endocrinology, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the North American Menopause Society and the UK National Osteoporosis Guideline Group recommend alendronate and certain other bisphosphonates as first line treatments for post-menopausal osteopotosis  Long-term treatment with bisphosponates produces anti-fracture and bone mineral density effects that persist for 3–5 years after an initial 3–5 years of treatment  Alendronate reduces the risk of hip, vertebral, and wrist fractures by 35-39% In December 2013, Merck agreed to pay a total of $27 7 million to 1,200 plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit alleging that the company's osteoporosis drug had caused them to develop osteonecrosis of the jaw  Prior to the settlement, Merck had prevailed in 3 of 5 so-called bellwether trials  Approximately 4000 cases still await adjudication or settlement as of August 2014 

Medicaid overbilling
A fraud investigation by the United States Department of Justice began in 2000 when allegations were brought in two separate lawsuits filed by whistleblowers under the False Claims Act  They alleged that Merck failed to pay proper rebates to Medicaid and other health care programs and paid illegal remuneration to health care providers  On February 7, 2008, Merck agreed to pay more than $650 million to settle charges that it routinely overbilled Medicaid for its most popular medicines  The settlement was one of the largest pharmaceutical settlements in history  The federal government received more than $360 million, plus 49 states and Washington, DC, received over $290 million  One whistleblower received a $68 million reward  Merck made the settlement without an admission of liability or wrongdoing 

"Merck" name legal dispute
In 191 of 193 countries, the original Merck company, the Merck Group of Darmstadt, owns the rights to the "Merck" name  In the United States and Canada, the company trades under the name EMD (an abbreviation of Emanuel Merck, Darmstadt), its legal name here says Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and instead of "Merck Group", the "EMD Group" name is used  In the United States and Canada, Merck & Co  holds the rights to the trademark "Merck", while in the rest of the world the company trades under the name MSD (an abbreviation of Merck, Sharp & Dohme) and its legal name says here Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC , a subsidiary of Merck & Co , Inc  Kenilworth, NJ, USA 
In 2015 the Merck Group adopted a new logo and said it will be "much more aggressive" about protecting the brand of "the real Merck"  Merck of Darmstadt has initiated litigation against its former subsidiary, Merck & Co  (MSD) of Kenilworth, in several countries over infringing use of the Merck name  In 2016, the High Court of Justice in the United Kingdom ruled that MSD had breached an agreement with its former parent company and that only Merck of Darmstadt is entitled to use the Merck name in the United Kingdom  The judge also held that MSD's use of "Merck" as part of branding on its global websites were directed to the UK and infringed Merck's trade mark rights in the UK In response to the ruling, MSD initiated counter-litigation in the United States in January 2016 by filing a federal lawsuit which accused its former parent company of "infringing on its trademark" through actions that included the increased usage of "Merck KGaA" and "MERCK" in branding in the US as well as on its social media presence  Further Merck & Co  has also accused the Merck Group of federal trademark dilution, unfair competition, false advertising, deceptive trade practices, breach of contract, and cybersquatting  The case came to a head when a research scientist believed he was communicating with Merck & Co regarding a research grant in oncology, when in fact he was talking with the Merck Group  As a result, Merck & Co  asked the federal court to stop the Merck Group from using "Merck" on any products or marketing materials in the United States  As a direct result, Merck & Co is seeking "all monetary gains, profits, and advantages" made by the Merck Group and three-times the damage, plus additional punitive damages In April 2020, in the course of litigation of Merck against MSD in Switzerland, the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland ruled that MSD's use of the "Merck" brand in its global websites could, absent geotargeting mechanisms, have "commercial effect" in Switzerland and could therefore violate Merck's rights (if any) to the "Merck" brand in Switzerland 

Tax fraud
In 2007, Merck paid $2 3 billion to settle allegations of offshore tax fraud between 1993 and 2001 

Propecia
In 2021, an investigation by Reuters revealed that Merck's baldness drug Propecia caused persistent sexual dysfunction in men  The drug has been linked to over 700 incidences of suicidal thoughts and 110 deaths  Merck has been receiving reports since 1998, but never included the risks on the label  In 2015, Merck was sued by consumer-rights law firm Hagens Berman over a wrongful death linked to Propecia 

Environmental violations
Merck & Co  once used methylene chloride, an animal carcinogen on the United States Environmental Protection Agency's list of pollutants, as a solvent in some of its manufacturing processes  Merck chemists and engineers subsequently replaced the compound with others having fewer negative environmental effects  Merck has also modified its equipment to protect the environment, installing a distributed control system that coordinates chemical reactions more efficiently and expedites manufacturing by 50 percent, eliminating the need for the disposal and storage of harmful waste  Biological oxygen demand has also been reduced  In 2011, Merck paid a $1 5 million civil penalty to settle alleged violations of federal environmental laws at its pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities in Riverside, Pennsylvania and West Point, Pennsylvania 

Public-private engagement
Conferences
Merck was a Conference Supporter for the Virtual ISPOR Asia Pacific conference in September 2020 

Political lobbying
Merck is a contributing member of AcademyHealth, a health research advocacy network that also includes government agencies, universities, pharmaceutical companies and lobbying groups 
Passage 2:
American Laser Games
American Laser Games was a company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico that created numerous light gun laserdisc video games featuring live action full motion video  The company was founded in the late 1980s by Robert Grebe, who had originally created a system to train police officers under the company name ICAT (Institute for Combat Arms and Tactics) and later adapted the technology for arcade games  Its first hit game was Mad Dog McCree, a light gun shooter set in the American Old West  By mid-1995 they were recognized as the leading company in the medium of laserdisc-based arcade games  Almost all arcade games released by the company were light gun shooters and a number of them also had an Old West theme 
Later, the company turned toward compact disc technology to release its games  Ports of its arcade titles were released for the Sega CD, CD-i and DOS computers equipped with CD-ROM drives  The company was particularly supportive of the 3DO, not only releasing versions of its games for the console, but also offering a modified version of the 3DO platform as an upgrade kit for existing arcade video game cabinets, supporting compressed video versions of their games at a lower cost  In 1995, American Laser Games released Mazer for the 3DO home market and Orbatak (3DO-powered) for the arcade - their first and only in-house non-Full motion video based games  The company also released a series of light-gun controllers, including the 3DO Game Gun and the PC Gamegun, for home computer use  The latter proved unsuccessful due to its poor accuracy 
American Laser Games lasted until the mid-to-late 1990s, by which time it had begun making "games for girls" for the PC under the moniker Her Interactive, beginning with McKenzie & Co  In response to a major slump in the arcade industry, American Laser Games ended its direct manufacturing of coin-op machines in November 1995, and turned its focus to developing games for the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation  This failed to revive the company's fortunes, and revenues in 1996 were roughly half of the $16 million it generated in 1995  At the end of 1996 ALG laid off a third of its staff, Jan Claesson replaced Grebe as president, and the company began focusing primarily on the Her Interactive line, cancelling all the games in their mainstream line except for Shining Sword  The company eventually closed its doors and was bought out by Her Interactive, which had been spun off before ALG closing and is still making games as of January 2018  In 2000, the development and publishing rights to all of the games that were produced by American Laser Games were purchased by Digital Leisure, Inc from Her Interactive  Many of these games were then re-released for the PC and in DVD TV game format 

Games
Light gun arcade games
Mad Dog McCree (1990)
Who Shot Johnny Rock? (1991)
Space Pirates (1992)
Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold (1992)
Gallagher's Gallery (1992)
Crime Patrol (1993)
Crime Patrol 2: Drug Wars (1993)
The Last Bounty Hunter (1994)
Fast Draw Showdown (1994)
Shootout at Old Tucson (1994, limited arcade release  3DO port was cancelled)

Other games
Mazer
Way of the Warrior (with Naughty Dog)
Orbatak
McKenzie & Co 
McKenzie & Co  : More Friends
The Vampire Diaries
Battles in Time (with QQP)
Shining Sword (cancelled)
Blood Bath at Red Falls(1995)

See also
Digital Pictures

Notes
Passage 3:
Devon General
Devon General was the principal bus operator in south Devon from 1919  The name was first used by the Devon General Omnibus and Touring Company which was created in 1919  In 1922 it was purchased by the National Electric Construction Company which merged with British Electric Traction in 1931  Nationalisation in 1969 resulted in 1971 with the company being merged into Western National  In 1983 a new Devon General Limited was created which became the first operating subsidiary of the National Bus Company to be privatised in 1986 when it became the first company of Transit Holdings  It was sold to the Stagecoach Group in 1996 and renamed Stagecoach Devon in 2003 
Coaches were operated under various names, principally Fleet Cars from 1925 until 1933, and Grey Cars from 1932 until 1971 
Its main principal depots were in Exeter and Torquay, but the area of operation covered most of south, east and mid Devon 

History
The Devon General Omnibus and Touring Company started operations in south Devon in 1919 with two bus routes from Exeter to Torquay  In 1922 Torquay Tramways bought the company for £36,000, although it was operated as a subsidiary of the National Electric Construction Company (NECC) and the motor buses already owned by the tramway company were transferred to Devon General  Some charabanc tours had been operated by the Torquay Tramways and this continued under Devon General



ground_truth: yes

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: For what type of work is the production company for The Year Without a Santa Claus best known?

The following are given passages.
Context 3:  A local independent company that traded as Fleet Cars was purchased in 1925 but continued to operate as a separate business for a few seasons, during which time a number of other small operators were also acquired and merged with Fleet Cars In 1931 the NECC became a part of British Electric Traction (BET)  The Torquay tram network was closed in January 1934  The Tramways company was sold to Devon General, the fleet of which was enlarged by 24 buses to allow it to operate the former tram routes Devon General had turned down the chance to buy local independent coach operator Grey Cars in 1930 so it had instead been purchased by A Timpson & Sons of Catford in 1931  Timpsons sold the business to Devon General in 1932 and the following year both Grey Cars and Fleet Cars, which had been operated as separate businesses, were merged into Devon General  Most coaches continued to operate under Grey Cars' name, although some small operators that were subsequently bought out by Devon General continued in their old names for a while 

National Bus Company
BET's bus operations, including Devon General, became part of the National Bus Company (NBC) when it was formed on 1 January 1969  Devon General had worked closely with the Corporation of Exeter's bus services since 1947  In April 1970 the corporation's buses and routes were transferred to the NBC and merged into Devon General  The city's unusual use of route letters (as opposed to numbers) continued In January 1971, the NBC transferred the bus operations of Devon General to neighbouring Western National but the Devon General name was retained as a brand, while the Grey Cars coaching operation was transferred to Exeter-based Greenslades  NBC split Western National into four new companies on 1 January 1983, one of which was Devon General Limited  This operated in south and east Devon as the old Devon General had done, but the Tiverton area became a part of a new North Devon operation 

Transit Holdings
On 19 August 1986, Devon General became the first NBC operating subsidiary to be privatised under the Transport Act 1985 by being sold in a management buyout led by managing director Harry Blundred An experimental high-frequency service using 22 minibuses had been introduced in Exeter on 27 February 1984  By the time the company was privatised in August 1986, the minibus fleet had expanded to more than 200 vehicles, more than half the buses in service  By the end of 1990 all regular services had been converted to minibus operation using a mixture of 16 and 24-seat vehicles The new owners of Devon General formed Transit Holdings to operate number of other bus companies, most of them in southern England:
Bayline (Torquay)
Devon General (Exeter)
Docklands Transit (London)
Portsmouth Transit (Portsmouth)
Thames Transit (Oxford)
Transit AustraliaBayline was established in 1992 for the operations in Torbay and Newton Abbot, after which Devon General operated in the Exeter area  Both companies were sold to the Stagecoach Group in 1996, and became Stagecoach Devon in 2003 

Area of operation
Devon General quickly expanded beyond its original routes between Exeter, Newton Abbot and Torquay  A number of small operators were bought out (see below), but area agreements with larger neighbours set out the company's area of operation  While the boundaries changed in detail from time to time, the area was largely set out in two agreements 

In 1922 an eastern boundary was agreed with the National Omnibus and Transport Company along the road from Minehead via Tiverton, Cullompton and Honiton to Sidmouth 
In 1924 a northern boundary was agreed with Hardy Central Garage between Okehampton, Bampton and Wellington 
By 1929 the western boundary had settled at Kingswear, Totnes, Buckfastleigh and Okehampton, with Western National having control beyond 

Offices and depots
Most of the directors of the Devon General Omnibus and Touring Company came from the London area and so the company offices were established in a house Kilmore Road, Forest Hill, London  The first buses were housed at the Exeter Garage Company's premises in Paris Street, Exeter  In 1921 the offices were moved to the new garage that was being constructed at Blackboy Road in Exeter, but the takeover by the NECC the following year saw the office moved back to Queen Street in the city of London The merger of NECC with BET in 1932 saw the Queen Street office closed in favour of BET's headquarters in Kingsway, London  At around this time work started on the construction of a new large garage and central workshops at Newton Road in Torquay  The BET headquarters were moved across London to Piccadilly in 1952 but in 1956 the registered offices of Devon General were moved to the garage at 87 Newton Road, Torquay When Devon General was absorbed into Western National in 1971, all the office work was moved to the latter company' offices in Queen Street, Exeter  The newly independent Devon General Limited of 1983 chose to remain in Exeter, but moved into offices in Belgrave Road where a new bus depot had opened in 1975 Buses were based in garages or open yards at
Ashburton
Dropping Wells 1925–1927
West Street (Blue Saloon Motor Services) 1927–1928
Brixham
New Road 1935–1939
Mount Pleasant Road 1940–1957
Bus Station 1957–1992
Crediton
Unknown site 1928?–1931
Mill Street 1931–1954
Exeter
Gold's Garage, Heavitree Road 1919–1921
Blackboy Road 1921–1971
Heavitree Road (Exeter Corporation) 1970–1975
Belgrave Road 1975–(1996)
Exmouth
New Street 1921–1931
Imperial Road 1931–(1996)
Moretonhampstead
Station Road June – September 1924
Steven's Garage, Chagford 1924–1928?
Court Street 1928–1971 Moved to a different site in Court Street in 1931
Newton Abbot
Bradley Hotel 1919–1921
Newton Road, Kingsteignton 1921–1960
Kingsteignton Road 1960–1992
Paignton
Roundham Road 1923–1925
Churston 1925–1930
Orient Road, Preston 1924–1932
Bus Station 1988–(1996) The bus station opened in 1954
Sidmouth
Mill Street 1922–?
Station Road, Newton Poppleford ?–1930
Woolbrook 1930–1996
Tiverton
Chapel Street (Croscols) 1924–1938
Old Road 1938–1971 After 1971 buses were kept at the bus station 
Torquay
Westhill Avenue (Torquay Tramways) 1922–1931
Newton Road 1931–1988
Torwood Street (Grey Cars) 1933–1940 and 1946–1971
Belgrave Road (Court Garages) 1940–1946 and 1966–1973
Regents Close 1992–(1996)One or two buses were also kept at a number of other towns and villages such as Axminster (1922–1924, 1927–1984), Budleigh Salterton (1930–1939, 1988–1989), Crockernwell (1942–1957), Cullompton (1922–1996), East Budleigh 1921–1931, Kenton (1942–1947), Okehampton (1923–1997), Ottery St Mary (1927–1938, 1949–1967), Tiverton Junction (1955–1977), Uffculme (1942–1954) 

Livery
The first buses were painted in red with cream relief  Coaches were generally grey with deep red relief and open top buses (introduced in 1955) were given a cream livery with red relief In 1972 NBC imposed a standard poppy red colour with white relief, but from 1979 Devon General buses started to be painted in leaf green and white, the same colours as the parent Western National fleet  Six months after the operation became independent of Western National in 1983 a red livery was again adopted  The first minibuses were painted in bright red and yellow colours with a black skirt To coincide with privatisation in 1986 a new livery was introduced  Buses were painted an ivory colour with red skirt and lower deck window surrounds 

Amalgamated companies
Over the years many rival operators were purchased and their fleets and/or routes were amalgamated into Devon General 

Torquay–Chelston Car Company
The Torquay–Chelston Car Company, which Devon General bought in 1927, had its origins in 1903, when a Chelmsford steam bus was demonstrated in Torquay in May 1903  Torquay & District Motor Omnibus Co Ltd, formed on 23 July 1903, ran a Strand - Chelston route from 2 November 1903 via Torbay Road and Rathmore Road terminating at Normanhurst, just short of Rosery Road railway bridge  The bus was green with orange lines and the domed roof was white  It carried 12 inside and 2 beside the driver and 2,828 passengers in the first week  8 steam buses were working by Easter 1905 between St Marychurch and Babbacombe, but sold after trams started on 4 April 1907  Torquay Road Car took over the old bus garage and ran until liquidation on 24 December 1908 
On 28 March 1911 Torquay-Chelston Steam Car Company Ltd started with 3 Chelmsford buses, possibly those stored after the liquidation  They dropped the 'Steam' part of the name when a single deck RAF type Leyland took over, after Devon General started a competing Meadfoot Beach - Chelston route on 31 March 1923  The Chelston company bought a new Leyland PLSC Lion in 1925  In 1926, Devon General started to shadow the Chelston bus  The company sold out to Devon General in 1927, the Leylands becoming 98 and 99 in their fleet  The Devon General timetables were revised in July, 1929, with numbering similar to current services, including 32 (Torquay - Paignton via Preston), 33 (Strand-Chelston circular) and 35 (Shiphay Turn - Meadfoot Beach) 
On the Chelston routes Devon General used Leyland Lions, Dennis Lancet lIs from 1938, AEC Regals from 1939, Leyland Royal Tigers in 1954, AEC Reliances in 1957, Regent IIIs in 1960 and Leyland Atlanteans from 1964 

See also
Open top buses in Torbay
Passage 4:
Hercules Inc 
Hercules, Inc  was a chemical and munitions manufacturing company based in Wilmington, Delaware, United States, incorporated in 1912 as the Hercules Powder Company following the breakup of the DuPont explosives monopoly by the U S  Circuit Court in 1911   Hercules Powder Company became Hercules, Inc  in 1966,  operating under this name until 2008, when it was merged into Ashland Inc 
An earlier Hercules Powder Company was formed in 1882 by DuPont and Laflin & Rand Powder Company   This company was dissolved on June 30, 1904 Hercules was one of the major producers of smokeless powder for warfare in the United States during the 20th century  At the time of its spin-off, the DuPont Corp  retained the processes and patents for the production of "single-base" nitrocellulose gunpowders, whereas Hercules was given the patents and processes for the production of "double-base" gunpowders that combined nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine 

History
A special formulation of dynamite was patented in 1874 by J W  Willard, superintendent of the California Powder Works in Santa Cruz, California  He called his invention "Hercules powder", a competitive jab at rival Giant Powder Company which had acquired the exclusive U S  rights to Alfred Nobel's original dynamite formula   The mythological Hercules was known as a giant slayer 
The California Powder Works became the only manufacturer of Hercules powder  In 1877, J W  Willard moved to Cleveland, Ohio to oversee the opening of a new California Powder Works plant there, dedicated to the manufacture of Hercules powder  In 1881, the California Powder Works moved its Hercules powder manufacturing in California to a new site along the northeast shore of San Francisco Bay   The company town that grew up around the facility became known as "Hercules", later (1900) incorporated as Hercules, California 
In 1882, thanks to their interlocking ownership interests with the California Powder Works by that time, the DuPont corporation and Laflin & Rand Powder Company acquired the rights to manufacture Hercules powder and incorporated the Hercules Powder Company for that purpose   In 1904, Du Pont dissolved the company as part of its ongoing effort to consolidate the many explosives manufacturers that it controlled under the Du Pont name 
In 1911, the United States won a lawsuit that it had brought against the Du Pont corporation under the Sherman Antitrust Act  The U S  Circuit Court in Delaware found that Du Pont had been operating an unlawful monopoly, and ordered a breakup of its explosives and gunpowder manufacturing business   The breakup resulted in the creation of two new companies in 1912, Atlas Powder Company and Hercules Powder Company  Atlas received the explosives manufacturing portion of Du Pont's business (including the facilities acquired from the Giant Powder Company), while Hercules received the gunpowder portion 
The first management team of this new Hercules Powder Company included President H  Dunham, T W  Bacchus, G G  Rheuby, J T Skelly, Norman Rood, Fred Stark, C D  Prickett, and George Markell Some of their products were used by the military in World War I  A school and a plant were named after T  W  Bacchus in Bacchus, Utah  Hercules Powder Company ranked 65th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts In the 1920s and 30s, Hercules diversified into the pine resin products business (see below) 
On 12 September 1940, the Kenvil, New Jersey plant suffered a major explosion  News reports at the time estimated at least fifteen buildings were destroyed along with twenty-five tons of explosives  Fifty-one people were killed outright with perhaps two hundred injured and many missing  This facility also exploded twice in 1934 and again in 1989 Richard F  Heck, recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, gained experience with transition metal chemistry while working at Hercules in 1957 By the 1960s, the community was experiencing the first signs of a suburban transition  The Hercules Powder Co , once a small dynamite manufacturing firm, had begun producing rocket motors at its Bacchus Works south of the Magna community  The growing availability of jobs was one factor encouraging subdivision development in the Magna, Kearns and West Valley areas 
In 1966, the Hercules Powder Company changed its name to Hercules, Inc 

In 1995, Hercules, Inc  sold its subsidiary Hercules Aerospace Co  to Alliant Techsystems Inc  The sale included all of what remained of Hercules' gunpowder lines 
By the end of the 1990s, Hercules Inc , had sold off a significant number of its divisions that had not been profitable for the company  This caused the price of shares of common stock in Hercules to rise above US$70  Several successful cost-savings programs were implemented in addition to buying back its own shares   Also at that time, Hercules had a significant amount of assets  available for possible purchases of other corporations  Hercules, Inc , had a Paper Technology Division (PTD) whose products were slowly becoming commodities  In order to survive, this division needed to obtain new products 
First, Hercules Inc , tried to purchase the Allied Colloids Company, but this was not successful  Next, Hercules bought the Betz-Dearborn Corporation  Betz-Dearborn produced mostly chemicals for paper processing, and the Hercules PTD produced mainly functional chemicals for paper  According to some business analysts, Hercules Inc  paid about three times as much for Betz-Dearborn as compared with its actual value 
Soon after the purchase of Betz-Dearborn, the price per share of stock in Hercules Inc , had dropped from above US$70 to below US$10  It has been speculated that Hercules Inc , was close to going bankrupt after this failed purchase operation  Afterwards, several senior managers were forced out of the company because of this failure; however, a significant amount of former PTD senior managers were able to keep their positions within Hercules  The price of stock shares in Hercules Inc  never recovered from this debacle  Finally, Hercules Inc  was sold off to the Ashland Corporation in 2008, and dissolved 
In 2009, rapper George Watsky released a song about the history of the company called "Hercules" 

Product lines
Commercial gunpowders
Some of the more recent gunpowders marketed to reloaders include the brand names "Bullseye", "2400", "Reloder", "Unique", and "Red Dot"   These gunpowders are still being manufactured by Alliant Techsystems Inc  in Radford, Virginia 

Powders inherited from DuPont in 1912
EC (Explosives Company) shotgun powder was the first smokeless powder manufactured in the United States   Production began in 1890, and was discontinued in 1931 
WA  30 caliber powder was named W for United States Army Lieutenant Whistler and A for American Smokeless Powder Company factory superintendent Aspinwall   This tubular powder was used for military loading of the  30 U S  Army (the M1892 Springfield and the M1893 Gatling) from 1894 until the military specification was changed to single-base nitrocellulose powder in 1908   Grains of 2 mm (0 08 inch) diameter were 1 mm long   Hercules continued producing the powder for other users until 1930 
Sharpshooter was a flake powder introduced by Laflin & Rand in 1897 to replace black powder for loading the  45-70   Black flakes containing 15 to 18 percent nitroglycerin were approximately 2 mm in diameter   Production was discontinued after World War II 
Bullseye was introduced by Laflin & Rand in 1898   Large surface area per unit weight enables rapid combustion in short-barreled handguns   Laflin & Rand began production using small, irregular particles removed by screening runs of larger grained powders   Improved manufacturing processes offered other reclamation options for reduced quantities of rejected material   Hercules manufactured Bullseye as thin, round flakes   It is believed to be the oldest smokeless powder formulation still being manufactured in the United States   It is designed for handguns and can also be used in 12-gauge shotgun target loads
Lightning was introduced by Laflin & Rand in 1899 for lever action sporting rifles like the  30-30 Winchester and  303 Savage   Production of 2 mm diameter flakes was discontinued after World War II   Tubular Lightning # 2 was manufactured from 1903 to 1929 
Infallible was a flake shotgun powder introduced by Laflin & Rand in 1900   Initial production had an orange color, but graphite coating gave later production a black color   Production was discontinued after World War II 
Unique is a gray flake powder introduced by Laflin & Rand in 1900   Individual flakes are approximately 1 5 mm (0 06 inch) in diameter   It is designed for shotguns and can be used in handguns 
Bear was a tubular powder introduced by Laflin & Rand in 1908 for small capacity rifle cartridges like the  351 and  401 Winchester Self-Loading and the  32-20 and  25-20 Winchester   Production was discontinued after World War II 
Military Rifle (MR) # 19 was a tubular powder containing 20 percent nitroglycerin introduced by DuPont in 1908 and was renamed HiVel (# 1) when manufactured by Hercules   It was modified as HiVel # 2 in 1915   Production was discontinued in 1964   A smaller grained version was produced as HiVel # 3 from 1926 to 1941 

Powders developed by Hercules Powder Company
Hercules # 308 was Hercules production of single-base tubular Pyro DG (Diphenylamine Graphited) powder for loading military  30-06 Springfield ammunition through World War I   Production began in 1915 and continued through the 1920s 
Hercules # 300 was a black, tubular single-base rifle powder produced from 1916 to 1932 
Pyro was produced from 1922 to 1928 as lightly graphited yellow flakes for loading the  45 ACP 
Hercules # 2400 is a coated flake powder containing 20 percent nitroglycerin introduced in 1932   Individual dark gray flakes are approximately 1 mm (0 04 inch) in diameter and 0 3 mm thick   It is designed for small capacity center-fire rifle cartridges and can be used in magnum handgun and  410 bore shotgun loads 
Red Dot is a flake powder introduced in 1932   Individual flakes are approximately 1 5 mm (0 06 inch) in diameter and some are dyed red to aid identification   It is designed for light and standard loads for 12, 16, and 20 gauge shotguns and can be used in handguns 
HiVel # 6 was produced from 1933 to 1941 for loading the  30-06 Springfield 
Herco is a flake powder introduced in the 1930s   Individual flakes are approximately 1 5 mm (0 06 inch) in diameter   It is designed for heavy loads for 10, 12, 16, 20 and 28 gauge shotguns and can be used for heavy handgun loads 
Green Dot is a flake powder introduced in 1965   Individual flakes are approximately 1 5 mm (0 06 inch) in diameter and some are dyed green to aid identification   It is designed for medium and standard loads for 12, 16, and 20 gauge shotguns and can be used in handguns 
Reloder 7 was the most popular of three cylindrical rifle powders introduced in 1965 to replace HiVel # 2   Each powder was blended from four different formulations dyed different colors   Production of the other two longer-grained powders, Reloder 11 and Reloder 21, was discontinued in 1972 
Blue Dot is a flake powder introduced in 1972   Individual flakes are approximately 1 5 mm (0 06 inch) in diameter and some are dyed blue to aid identification   It is designed for magnum loads for 10, 12, 16, 20 and 28 gauge shotguns and can be used for magnum handgun loads 

Pine resin products
In the 1920s, Hercules entered the pine resin products business, a development which followed upon the faster clearing of forests for lumber and farmland , especially in the southeast U S , around the time of the First World War  The clearings had left many stumps which had to be removed, often with dynamite supplied by Hercules and others   Hercules itself was a consumer of wood pulp, a key ingredient in their dynamite  The increasing surplus of wood pulp led the company to the idea of producing other things from it, namely, the various chemicals that were present in pine resin  They set up production sites such as the one in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Brunswick, Georgia for this express purpose, and added to their raw supply by offering to take or buy tree stumps from farmers 

Solid-fuel rocket motor production
Beginning in 1959, Hercules, Inc , began to diversify into the production of large solid-propellant rocket motors, and it soon became a primary producer of these, especially for the U S  Department of Defense, U S  Air Force, U S  Navy, and U S  Army - and to a lesser degree for the civilian National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)  In 1961, the company hired contractors C H  Leavell & Company, Morrison-Knudsen, and Alaskan Plumbing and Heating Company to expand the existing Bacchus Works site  The contractors added "Air Force Plant 81" adding 97 buildings, including a 97,000 square foot administration building  One of its major solid-fuel rocket products was the third-stage engine for the three -stage solid-fueled Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the U S  Air Force, of which 1,000 were made and deployed at Air Force Bases in several northern states during the 1960s  In addition, all of the missiles of the Minuteman I series were removed from service and replaced with the Minuteman II and Minuteman III series of more-advanced ICBMs  Hence, the Minuteman ICBM program was a huge project and a major source of revenue for Hercules, Inc 
Hercules, Inc , also produced the solid-fueled rocket motors for the two-stage Polaris missile system of intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) for the U S  Navy in its 41 for Freedom series of 41 George Washington class ballistic missile submarines  These nuclear submarines carried 16 Polaris missiles apiece for a grand total of 656 missiles  In addition, the Polaris series consisted of the successively-improved Polaris A-1, Polaris A-2, and Polaris A-3 missiles  The early Polaris submarines that had been armed with the Polaris A-1 were upgraded to the Polaris A-2; and then all that had been armed with the Polaris A-2 were upgraded to the Polaris A-3 
For some of the early Polaris submarines, the Polaris A-3 was the end of their upgrades, but a large number of them (about 31) were further rearmed with the more-advanced and longer-ranged two-stage Poseidon C-3 missile  Hence, the Polaris missile submarine program was also a huge project and a major source of revenue for Hercules, Inc 
During the 1960s, Hercules, Inc , also made solid-fuel rocket motors for hundreds of the U S  Army's Honest John missile, a mobile tactical missile for carrying tactical nuclear weapons for U S  Army divisions  The Honest John missile was mostly deployed with the U S  Seventh Army in West Germany as part of the American commitment to NATO to defend Western Europe against aggression from the Warsaw Pact, using nuclear weapons on Eastern Europe, if necessary  None of the Honest John, Minuteman, Polaris, or Poseidon has ever been used in combat, and the threat of nuclear war has been sufficient to deter aggression and make it unnecessary to use nuclear weapons for defense 
During the 1970s and 80s, the Honest John missile was removed from deployment, scrapped, and replaced by the more-advanced Lance missile by the U S  Army in Europe  Of all of the missiles mentioned above, only a reduced number of the Minuteman missiles remain in service at Air Force Bases in the United States, with all of the others having been removed from deployment and scrapped, along with all of the Polaris and Poseidon submarines 
For space exploration and satellite launches by the U S  Air Force and NASA, Hercules, Inc , developed and manufactured the two large, strap-on solid-fueled Solid Rocket Motor Upgrade (SRMU) booster rockets for the otherwise liquid-fueled Titan IVB rockets  These strap-on rockets replaced the UA120 series of boosters used on the Titan IVB's predecessors, the Titan IIIC, Titan IIIE and Titan IVA 
After the end of production and firing of NASA's huge Saturn IB and 
Saturn V rockets, the Titan IV was the largest and heaviest  unmanned rocket available anywhere in the world, and especially in the Titan IV-Centaur version  The Titan IV-Centaur was used for special launches of heavy space probes into the Solar System, such as the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn which was launched in 1997  The Titan IV is no longer manufactured, and the last one of these was fired during a launch in October 2005   In 1995 the aerospace division of Hercules, including its solid motor line, was acquired by the American defense contractor ATK 

Business segments
In its later years, Hercules, Inc , manufactured and marketed worldwide specialist chemicals that were used in a wide variety of industrial, home, and office markets, and it and had over 4,500 employees  Hercules was composed of two major divisions: the Paper Technologies and Ventures (PTV) division and the Aqualon division  In 2005, the former accounted for 49% of its sales and 35% of its operating profits, with the latter producing 37% and 68% respectively 

Aqualon Group
Aqualon produces products for physical property modification of aqueous systems which are sold into a wide variety of industries including personal care, food additives, and construction 

Paper Technologies and Ventures Group
Paper Technologies
Paper Technologies produces specialty chemicals to the pulp and paper industry  These products include functional, process, and water treatment chemicals for a wide variety of pulp and paper applications 
Functional chemicals can be divided in three main groups  Wet strength resins, Rosin sizes and AKD -sizes  Significant persons developing functional chemicals in Hercules could be mentioned: Dr  Keim on his efforts developing PAE wet strength resin, Mr Kai Kiviö on his efforts on developing cationic rosin size  Basis of AKD -technology Hercules acquired more or less voluntary from German BASF after the Second World War 

Ventures
Ventures produces specialty chemicals for a variety of markets, including adhesives and sealants, paints, inks, coatings, lubricants, rubber, plastics, and building and construction 
Hercules Incorporated, in collaboration with Professor Kaichang Li of Oregon State University and Columbia Forest Products, received a 2007 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for the Greener Synthetic Pathways category in developing and commercializing a formaldehyde-free adhesive made from soy flour and Hercules' unique polymer chemistries 

See also
Tekoi, a former solid fuel rocket motor test and calibration site operated by Hercules Aerospace
Passage 5:
Doravirine
Doravirine, sold under the brand name Pifeltro, is a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor medication developed by Merck & Co  for use in the treatment of HIV/AIDS 
Doravirine was approved for medical use in the United States in August 2018 
Passage 6:
Liquid Assets Paint &amp; Pigment Company
Liquid Assets Paint & Pigment Company is an artist supply company based in Buenos Aires, Argentina that manufactures acrylic paints and pigments created with real currency, such as Euro, US Dollar, Argentine Peso, and Romanian Leu  The Company's slogan "The Price of Art" refers to the company's assertion that its products allow fine artists to quantify the precise and actual value of a work of art created using Liquid Assets products  The company was started in 2007 by a group of Buenos Aires–based professional artists and presently operates a manufacturing plant in Buenos Aires, as well as a retail store in the Palermo Soho neighborhood  In September 2010, Liquid Assets opened a temporary pop up store in New York City's Tribeca neighborhood in conjunction with the Swervewolf Experience marketing and design firm  Although artists have used valuable commodities such as gold leaf to create works of art for centuries, such as gilding, Liquid Assets Paint & Pigment Company is the world's only known manufacturer of artist paint and pigment created with actual currency 
Passage 7:
New England Emigrant Aid Company
The New England Emigrant Aid Company (originally the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company) was a transportation company founded in Boston, Massachusetts by activist Eli Thayer in the wake of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed the population of Kansas Territory to choose whether slavery would be legal  The Company's ultimate purpose was to transport anti-slavery immigrants into the Kansas Territory  The Company believed that if enough anti-slavery immigrants settled en masse in the newly-opened territory, they would be able to shift the balance of political power in the territory, which in turn would lead to Kansas becoming a free state (rather than a slave state) when it eventually joined the United States The Company is noted less for its direct impact than for the psychological impact it had on proslavery and abolitionist groups  Thayer's prediction that the Company would eventually be able to send 20,000 immigrants a year never came to fruition, but it spurred border ruffians from nearby Missouri, where slavery was legal, to move to Kansas to ensure its admission to the Union as a slave state  That, in turn, further galvanized Free-Staters and other enemies of the Slave Power 
Thayer's intention was to capitalize on anti-slavery sentiment in the Northern United States and to send settlers to Kansas to purchase land and build houses, shops, and mills  They could then sell the land at a significant profit and send the proceeds back to Thayer and his investors  At the behest of several investors, who found the notion of profiting from the anti-slavery cause distasteful, the company's model was shifted to that of a benevolent society, and it was renamed the New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1855  While the company achieved neither a profit nor a significant impact on the population of Kansas, it played an important role in the events that would later be termed Bleeding Kansas 

Creation
The Company was formed in the midst of the sectional crisis that preceded the American Civil War  To the Northern United States, the concept of popular sovereignty, which stated that the population of each new U S  state should be allowed to decide if it allowed slavery, was an attempt by Southerners to gain power  When the Kansas–Nebraska Act threatened to extend popular sovereignty into the new Kansas Territory, Eli Thayer, a second-term Congressman from Massachusetts, hatched the idea of an Emigrant Aid Company in the winter of 1853–1854  His primary partners in the venture were Alexander H  Bullock and Edward Everett Hale, and together, they set Thayer's plans in motion on March 5, 1854  Thayer announced the Company at a rally against the impending passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in Worcester on March 11  Shortly thereafter, the Company's charter was approved by the Massachusetts Legislature for up to $5,000,000 in capital Officially, the Company was a profit-making venture, and how the settlers voted was of no consequence to the company  For example, the company secretary, Thomas Webb released a pamphlet in 1855 stating that although the settlers sent to the territories would not be required to vote for one side or the other, they were expected to support the free-state movement  A number of abolitionists questioned the profit motive behind the company, and even many of Thayer's potential investors balked at the notion "that people might say we were influenced by pecuniary considerations in our patriotic work " Although Thayer personally disagreed with such hesitations, in 1855 the Company reorganized as a benevolent society and changed its name to the New England Emigrant Aid Company 

Reaction
The success of the endeavor prompted other aid assistance companies to form back East, in New York and Ohio, with new companies such as the Worcester County Emigrant Aid Society 

Impact
The company was directly responsible for creating the Kansas towns of Lawrence and Manhattan, and it played a key role in founding Topeka and Osawatomie  Lawrence was named after the Company secretary, Amos Adams Lawrence  Multiple politicians were found in the emigrants who left for Kansas, such as Daniel Read Anthony, Charles L  Robinson, Samuel C  Pomeroy, and Martin F  Conway, who would later be Kansas's first US Representative 
The exact number of people who left for Kansas is unknown  James Rawley puts the numbers somewhere around 2000, about a third of whom returned home, but the Kansas Historical Society puts the number at around 900 for those who left for Kansas in 1855 alone The Company's mission was ultimately successful, and Kansas entered the United States as a free state in 1861 

Notes



ground_truth: seasonal television specials, particularly its work in stop motion animation

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Where is the company that created Doravirine ( from?

The following are given passages.
Context 4:  The historic beverage comes served in an ice-frosted silver julep cup  However, most Churchill Downs patrons sip theirs from souvenir glasses (first offered in 1939 and available in revised form each year since) printed with all previous Derby winners  Also, burgoo, a thick stew of beef, chicken, pork, and vegetables, is a popular Kentucky dish served at the Derby 
The infield—a spectator area inside the track—offers general admission prices but little chance of seeing much of the race, particularly before the jumbotron installation in 2014  Instead, revelers show up in the infield to party with abandon  By contrast, "Millionaire's Row" refers to the expensive box seats that attract the rich, the famous and the well-connected  Women appear in elegant outfits lavishly accessorized with large, elaborate hats  Following the Call to the Post played on bugle by Steve Buttleman, as the horses start to parade before the grandstands, the University of Louisville Cardinal Marching Band plays Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home"  This song is a tradition which began in 1921  The event attracts spectators from a large area, flying in hundreds of private aircraft to Louisville International Airport The Derby is frequently referred to as "The Run for the Roses", because a lush blanket of 554 red roses is awarded to the Kentucky Derby winner each year  The tradition originated in 1883 when New York City socialite E  Berry Wall presented roses to ladies at a post-Derby party  The Churchill Downs founder and president, Col  M  Lewis Clark, attended that event  This gesture is believed to have led Clark to the idea of making the rose the race's official flower  However, it was not until 1896 that any recorded account referred to draping roses on the Derby winner  The Governor of Kentucky and the Chairman of Churchill Downs Incorporated present the garland and the Kentucky Derby Trophy to the winner  Pop vocalist Dan Fogelberg composed the song "Run for the Roses", released in time for the 1980 running of the race 

Riders Up!
"Riders Up!" is the traditional command from the Paddock Judge for jockeys to mount their horses in advance of the upcoming race  Since 2012, a dignitary or celebrity attendee recites this phrase 

Festival
In the weeks preceding the race, numerous activities took place for the Kentucky Derby Festival  Thunder Over Louisville—an airshow and fireworks display—generally begins the festivities in earnest two weeks before the Derby 

Derby Galas
A number of galas are held to celebrate the Kentucky Derby leading up to Derby day itself including one of the oldest, ongoing galas called Barnstable Brown  Funds raised at Barnstable Brown support the Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center at the University of Kentucky 
 

Records
Horse records
Secretariat set the record for speed in 1973 with a time of 1:59 4  During its first two decades when the Derby was run at 1+1⁄2 miles, and the record was 2:34 5, set by Spokane in 1889 
The largest margin of victory is 8 lengths, a feat tied by four different horses: Old Rosebud in 1914, Johnstown in 1939, Whirlaway in 1941, and Assault in 1946 
The highest odds of a winning horse were 91 to 1 for Donerail in 1913  The second-highest odds occurred in 2022, when Rich Strike went off at 80 to 1 and won the race 
Three horses have won the Kentucky Derby without competing as a two-year-old: Apollo (1882), Justify (2018), and Mage (2023) 

Jockey records
107 jockeys have won the Kentucky Derby, with 27 doing so multiple times  Isaac Murphy (1890–91), Jimmy Winkfield (1901–02), Ron Turcotte (1972–73), Eddie Delahoussaye (1982–83), Calvin Borel (2009–10), and Victor Espinoza (2014–15) are the only jockeys to win the Derby in back-to-back years  Borel is the only jockey with three wins in a four-year span (2007, '09, '10) 

Trainer records
116 trainers have won the Kentucky Derby, with 19 doing so multiple times  Six trainers have won the Derby in back-to-back years: Herbert J  Thompson (1932–33), Ben Jones (1948–49), Jimmy Jones (1957–58), Lucien Laurin (1972–73), D  Wayne Lukas (1995–96), and Bob Baffert (1997–98) 

Owner Records
Seventeen owners have won the Kentucky Derby multiple times with horses they fully or partially owned 

* Partnered with other entities in an ownership group for one or more winning horses 

"Oaks/Derby Double"
Jockeys, trainers, and owners competing in the Kentucky Derby often will compete in the Kentucky Oaks, a race for fillies held the day before the Derby  Winning both these races in the same year is referred to as an "Oaks/Derby Double;" 7 jockeys, 3 trainers, and 4 owners have accomplished this feat:

*Until the 1950s, the Oaks was held several days or weeks after the Derby 

Winners
Triple Crown winners are in bold and highlighted with gold 

Notes# Designates a filly 
† Designates a horse that won American Horse of the Year in the same year they won the Derby 
‡ Designates a horse that was inducted in subsequent years into the National Racing Hall of Fame 

Sire lines
Winners of the Kentucky Derby can be connected to each other due to the practice of arranging horse breeding based on their previous success  All of the horses can be traced back to the three foundational sires, with Godolphin Arabian the ancestor of 7 winners, Byerley Turk the ancestor of 11 winners, and Darley Arabian is the ancestor of 130 winners, including all winners since 1938 

Darley Arabian line
The Darley Arabian (1700c) sire line (all branched through the Eclipse (1764) line) produced 131 Derby winners (123 colts, 5 geldings, 3 fillies), including all winners from 1938 to present  The main branches of this sire line are:

The King Fergus (1775) branch (all branched through the Voltigeur (1847) line), produced 14 winners  His sire line continued primarily through his son Vedette (1854) with 12 winners, due to his sons Speculum (1865) with 6 winners (nearly exclusively through Sundridge (1898) with 5 winners, most recently Count Turf in 1951) and Galopin (1872) with 6 winners (exclusively through St  Simon (1881), most recently Go For Gin in 1994) 
The Potoooooooo (1773) branch produced 117 winners (all branched through the Waxy (1790) line), including all winners from 1995 to present  The primary branch of this sire line is through Whalebone (1807), which has produced 112 winners  In turn, the primary branch continues through Sir Hercules (1826), which has produced 90 winners (including all winners since 2006), and then the Birdcatcher (1833) branch which produced 78 winners  From Birdcatcher, the branch of The Baron (1842) has produced 68 winners, of which 66 winners trace to Stockwell (1849)  Stockwell's son Doncaster (1870) sired Bend Or (1877), whose sire line accounts for 64 winners  The main branch of the Bend Or sire line continued through his son Bona Vista (1889) with 55 winners, exclusively through the Phalaris (1913) line, which has dominated in the last several decades (including all winners from 2006 to present) through the following sons:The Pharamond (1925) branch (4 winners all through the Tom Fool (1949) line, most recently Silver Charm in 1997) 
The Sickle (1924) branch, which has produced all winners from 2022 to present (24 winners all branched through the Native Dancer (1950) line, nearly exclusively through Raise a Native (1961) with 23 winners, continued primarily through Mr Prospector (1970) with 16 winners (including all winners since 2022) through 8 different sons: Fusaichi Pegasus, winner of the 2000 Kentucky Derby, and 7 other sons through their progeny (most recently Mage in 2023, with his son Fappiano (1977) accounting for 6 winners (most recently Always Dreaming in 2017)) 
The Pharos (1920) branch (27 winners all branched through the Nearco (1935) line, through his sons Royal Charger (1942), Nearctic (1954), and Nasrullah (1940))  The Royal Charger branch produced 5 winners (most recently Barbaro in 2006), the Nearctic branch produced 8 winners, exclusively through his son Northern Dancer (1961) with his win in the 1964 Kentucky Derby, and direct male progeny of 7 winners (most recently Mandaloun in 2021), while the Nasrullah branch produced 14 winners (most recently Nyquist in 2016) primarily due to his son Bold Ruler (1954) with 10 winners (most recently California Chrome in 2014) 
Special notes:
The Waxy (1790) branch produced two main lines: the primary branch of Whalebone (1807), and the secondary branch of Whisker (1812) which produced 5 winners (exclusively through the King Tom (1851) line), most recently 1909 Kentucky Derby winner Wintergreen 
An offshoot of the Whalebone (1807) branch, the Camel (1822) branch (18 winners exclusively through the Touchstone (1831) line), produced 2005 Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo through his grandson Orlando's (1841) branch  Since then, each winner of the Kentucky Derby has gone through Whalebone's more frequent sire line branch of Sir Herecules (1826)  The Orlando branch (6 winners exclusively through the Himyar (1875) line) is the less common of the two branches derived through Camel  Orlando's brother Newminster (1848) produced 12 winners (primarily through the Hyperion (1930) line with 8 winners), most recently Chateaugay in 1963 
The Sir Hercules (1826) branch produced two main lines: the primary branch of Birdcatcher (1833), and the secondary branch of Faugh-a-Ballagh (1841) which produced 12 winners (exclusively through the Leamington (1853) line), most recently 1908 Kentucky Derby winner Stone Street 
The Birdcatcher (1833) branch produced two main lines: the primary branch of The Baron (1842), and the secondary branch of Oxford (1857) which produced 10 winners (primarily through the Swynford (1907) line with 8 winners), most recently 1965 Kentucky Derby winner Lucky Debonair 
The Bend Or (1877) branch produced two main lines: the primary branch of Bona Vista (1889), and the secondary branch of Ormonde (1883) which produced 8 winners (exclusively through the Teddy (1913) line), most recently 1957 Kentucky Derby winner Iron Liege 

Byerley Turk line
The Byerley Turk (1680c) sire line produced 11 winners (8 colts, 3 geldings)  The main branches of this sire (all branched through the Herod (1758) line) are:

The Highflyer (1774) branch produced 1 winner, most recently Macbeth II in 1888 
The Florizel (1768) branch produced 3 winners (all branched through the Lexington (1850) line), most recently Manuel in 1899 
The Woodpecker (1773) branch produced 7 winners (all branched through the Buzzard (1787) line)  The main branches of this sire line are:
The Castrel (1801) branch produced 1 winner, most recently Kingman in 1891 
The Selim (1802) branch produced 6 winners (all branched through the Glencoe (1831) line)  The main branches of this sire line are:
The Star Davis (1849) branch produced 1 winner, most recently Day Star in 1878 
The Vandal (1850) branch produced 5 winners (all branched through the Virgil (1864) line), most recently Alan-a-Dale in 1902 

Godolphin Arabian line
the Godolphin Arabian (1724c) sire line produced 7 winners (6 colts, 1 gelding)  The main branches of this sire (all branched through the West Australian (1850) line) are:
the Solon (1861) branch produced 3 winners, including:
the Barcaldine (1878) branch produced 1 winner, most recently Omar Khayyam in 1917
the Arbitrator (1874) branch produced 2 winners (all branched through The Finn (1912) line), most recently Flying Ebony in 1925
the Australian (1858) branch produced 4 winners, including:
Baden-Baden (1874), winner of the 1877 Kentucky Derby
the Waverly (1870) branch produced 1 winner, most recently Montrose in 1887
the Spendthrift (1876) branch produced 2 winners (all branched through the Man o' War (1917) line), most recently War Admiral in 1937

Kentucky Derby winners with male-line descendants including other Kentucky Derby winners
Northern Dancer (1964 winner) – 7 colts; most recently Mandaloun (2021)
Ben Brush (1896 winner) - 3 winners (2 colts, 1 filly); most recently Whiskery (1927)
Seattle Slew (1977 winner) – 3 colts; most recently California Chrome (2014)
Unbridled (1990 winner) – 3 winners (2 colts, 1 gelding); most recently American Pharoah (2015)
Hindoo (1881 winner) – 2 colts; most recently Alan-a-Dale (1902)
Bold Venture (1936 winner) – 2 colts; most recently Middleground (1950)
Reigh Count (1928 winner) – 2 colts; most recently Count Turf (1951)
Pensive (1944 winner) – 2 colts; most recently Needles (1956)
Majestic Prince (1969 winner) – 2 colts; most recently Super Saver (2010)
Halma (1895 winner) – 1 colt; Alan-a-Dale (1902)
Leonatus (1883 winner) – 1 colt; Pink Star (1907)
Bubbling Over (1926 winner) – 1 colt; Burgoo King (1932)
Gallant Fox (1930 winner) – 1 colt; Omaha (1935)
Count Fleet (1943 winner) – 1 colt; Count Turf (1951)
Ponder (1949 winner) – 1 colt; Needles (1956)
Determine (1954 winner) – 1 colt; Decidedly (1962)
Swaps (1955 winner) – 1 colt; Chateaugay (1963)
Grindstone (1996 winner) – 1 gelding; Mine That Bird (2009)

See also
Kentucky Oaks
Kentucky Derby Festival
American thoroughbred racing top attended events
Kentucky Derby top four finishers
List of graded stakes at Churchill Downs
"The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", a seminal example of New Journalism by Hunter S  Thompson
Triple Crown Productions
Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing
Grand Slam of Thoroughbred Racing
List of attractions and events in the Louisville metropolitan area
Derby Pie
List of Kentucky Derby broadcasters
Passage 6:
Claiming race
In Thoroughbred racing, a claiming race is a type of horse race in which the horses are all for sale at a specified claiming price until shortly before the race  In the hierarchy of horse races, based on the quality of the horses that compete, claiming races are at the bottom, below maiden races (races for horses that have never won a race)  In most race tracks in the United States, most of the races are claiming races  For example in Kentucky in 1999, 54% of all races run were claiming races, but had only 20% of the purse dollar value, the lowest average purse among race types The mechanics of claiming vary based on jurisdiction but in most cases almost anyone, or possibly anyone who is licensed to own racehorses, may claim  For example, the Illinois Racing Board stipulates that any horse may be claimed for its entered price by any licensed owner or agent or anyone who has filed an application and been granted a claiming license  Title to the horse typically transfers just before the start of the race, but the previous owner is entitled to the purse, if any, that results from the horse's performance in the race  Usually related parties such as the trainer or employees, or relatives, are prohibited from claiming, as are reciprocal agreements between owners to "protect" each other's horses  If a horse is purchased, a track official tags it (often with a red tag) after the race, and it goes to its new owner, assuming the new owner had sufficient funds on deposit Claiming races have claim amounts which vary, and higher amounts tend to have richer purses  The intent of this is to even the race; if a better-than-class horse is entered (with the expectation of an easy purse win), it might be lost for the claiming price, which is likely less than the horse is worth  Someone may wish to claim a horse if they think the horse has not been trained to its fullest potential under another trainer 
Claiming races serve several purposes  They are a quality classification, as well as a way of ensuring racing outcomes are less predictable, which in turn increases the handle, or amount of parimutuel betting, and a way to bring liquidity to the racehorse marketplace  Although many horses never rise above claiming races, some do  For example Stymie, a USD 1500 claimer, went on to earn over 900,000 USD, winning many storied grade 1 stakes and handicap races in the 1940s  General Quarters, a USD 20,000 claimer, won the grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes and ran in the 2009 Kentucky Derby  Make A Stand, claimed for £8,000 in 1995, won the 1997 Champion Hurdle   In 2018,  Maximum Security won a claiming race, but was not claimed, and went on to run in the 2019 Kentucky Derby, and initially appeared to win, but was disqualified for interfering with other horses  The 2022 Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike was purchased in a claiming race for $30,000, was entered into the Derby only after Ethereal Road was scratched, and won at 80-1 odds 
Passage 7:
Miss Preakness Stakes
The Miss Preakness Stakes is a Grade III American Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-old fillies over a distance of six furlongs on the dirt held annually run on Black-Eyed Susan Stakes Day at the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland as a stakes feature of the undercard  The event offers a purse of $150,000 added 

History
The race was first carded in its inaugural running in 1986  It became graded for the first time in 2002 by the American Graded Stakes Committee  The race was simply called the Miss Preakness Stakes from 1986 through 2003  The race was renamed with sponsorship in 2004 to the "Adena Stallions Miss Preakness Stakes" 

Sponsorship
From 2015 to 2019 the event was sponsored by Adena Springs, a breeding operation owned by Magna Entertainment Corporation Chairman, Frank Stronach  Adena Stallions' are the breeding stock stallions at Adena Springs including: Ghostzapper, Macho Uno, Giacomo, Congaree, Awesome Again and Touch Gold in Midway, Kentucky  Adena Springs stallions standing in Ocala, Florida includes Red Bullet, Milwaukee Brew, and Alphabet Soup   Adena Springs has donated a 2017 no guarantee breeding season to point of entry for the winning entry 

Records
Speed record:  

1:07 70 – Covfefe (2019)Margins: 

8+1⁄2 lengths – Covfefe (2019)Most wins by a jockey:

4 – Chris McCarron     (1986, 1987, 1988 & 1990)Most wins by a trainer:

3 – D  Wayne Lukas    (1995, 1998, & 2007)
3 – Todd Pletcher   (2000, 2011, 2016)Most wins by an owner:

no owner has won this race more than once 

Winners of The Miss Preakness Stakes
See also
Black-Eyed Susan Stakes
List of American and Canadian Graded races
List of graded stakes at Pimlico Race Course
Miss Preakness Stakes "top three finishers" and starters
Pimlico Race Course
Preakness Stakes
Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association
Passage 8:
Alysheba Stakes
The Alysheba Stakes is a Grade II American Thoroughbred horse race for horses aged three and older  over a distance of 1+1⁄16 miles on the dirt held annually in early May on the Kentucky Oaks day meeting at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky  during the spring meeting 

History
The Alysheba became the most recent addition to the Derby Week stakes with the inaugural running on 30 April 2004 as the sixth race on the undercard of the Kentucky Oaks day meeting  It was the first stakes to join the Derby Week lineup since 1997 
The event is named for the talented 1987 Kentucky Derby winner and United States Racing Hall of Fame inductee,  Alysheba, who returned to the Downs in 1988 to win the Breeders' Cup Classic  His victory marked the first time a Derby winner had returned to Churchill to win a stakes since Whirlaway took the 1942 Clark Handicap The event received graded status in 2007 and was upgrade to Grade II in 2012 The 2012 winner Successful Dan broke the track record for the distance which to date still holds 

Records
Speed record1+1⁄16 miles:  1:41 04 -  Successful Dan   (2012)Margins6 lengths - Take Charge Indy (2013)Most wins by a jockey3 - John Velazquez    (2004, 2005, 2015)Most wins by a trainer2 - Todd Pletcher (2005, 2015)
2 - Bob Baffert (2011, 2019)

Winners
See also
List of American and Canadian Graded races
Passage 9:
Jim McKay Turf Sprint
The Jim McKay Turf Sprint is a Listed American Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds and up over a distance of five furlongs on the turf held  as part of the undercard for the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes annually during the third week of May at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland    The race offers a purse of $100,000 The Jim McKay Turf Sprint is the lead off leg of the Mid Atlantic Thoroughbred Championships Sprint Turf Division or MATCh Races   MATCh is a series of five races in five separate thoroughbred divisions run throughout four Mid-Atlantic States including; Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park Racecourse in Maryland; Delaware Park Racetrack in Delaware; Parx, Philadelphia Park and Presque Isle Downs in Pennsylvania and Monmouth Park in New Jersey 

Race name
The race was named in honor of James Kenneth McManus (1921-2008), better known by his professional name of Jim McKay, was an American television sports journalist  McKay is best known for hosting ABC's Wide World of Sports (1961–1998)  McKay covered a wide variety of special events, including horse races such as the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, golf events such as the British Open, and the Indianapolis 500 

History
The Jim McKay Turf Sprint was first run in 2006 as the Baltimore Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint  In 2007, it ran as the Baltimore City Turf Sprint and in 2008 the race was known as the Old Mutual Turf Sprint  The stakes record is held by Heros Reward, who won the race in 2007 in a time of :55 90 over five furlongs 

Records
Speed record: 

5 furlongs - 55 4/5 - Hero's Reward  (2007)Most wins by a horse:

5 - Ben's Cat (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016)Most wins by a jockey:

3 - Julian Pimentel (2013, 2014 & 2015)Most wins by a trainer:

5 - King T  Leatherbury  (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016)Most wins by an owner:

5 - The Jim Stable    (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016)

Winners of the Jim McKay Turf Sprint since 2006
See also
Jim McKay Turf Sprint top three finishers
Pimlico Race Course
List of graded stakes at Pimlico Race Course
Passage 10:
Horse Racing (video game)
Horse Racing is an equestrian video game released by Mattel Electronics for its Intellivision video game console in 1980   Although primarily a sports video game, Horse Racing received Mattel's "Gaming Network" branding, due to its pari-mutuel betting on horses during the game 
The game houses 8 virtual Thoroughbred race horses residing in the fictional Rainbow Thoroughbred Stables at a fictional western Kentucky race track called Plympton Downs (based loosely on long-time sportscaster/Intellivision sales personality George Plimpton)   Each of the horses have differing racing abilities (front runner, pace keeper, come from behind,    ), and do vary from game time to game time (a horse with come from behind traits during one match may have front runner abilities during the next match)   These horses are known by their colors (instead of their post position numbers—unlike in regular horse racing) 
Horse Racing was also released by Sears for their Intellivision private-label clone, the Super Video Arcade 

Gameplay
In Intellivision's original Horse Racing game, 6 players (bettors) begin each of the 10 races on the simulated match program by checking out the race program screen; 4 horses are entered for each race, with bettors starting out with a $750 simulated bankroll   For each of the 4 horses entered into a race, the odds—along with past performances—are listed (accessed by a side action button during placing bets)   Each bettor then keys in his/her player number (from 1 to 6 on the keypad), enters a bet pay amount against 
his/her bankroll, then—places the bet (of a win or exacta only—by pressing [9] on the keypad) on his/her selection of horse(s)   After all bets are made, a keypad press of [0] then [ENTER] starts the race 
The call to the post then plays   After a brief silence, the starting gate opens up, and 4 Thoroughbred horses run away from the gate   During the actual race, the disk/joystick is used to move a horse along, while the side action buttons perform either of 2 functions (top to coax a horse along, bottom to whip it)   Each race takes place on any of 3 different types of track:  dry, turf (grass), or muddy; additionally, the races run in length from 3 to 10 furlongs   After the horses cross the finish line, the results are shown on the tote board as colorful horse heads (reading from right to left in finishing order), along with the elapsed time of the race   The play screen then switches to the bet placing screen for the next race; after the full 10-race match program has run, a final GAME OVER screen shows up, with the bettors' final bankroll amounts 
The track is horizontally scrolling, with its color changing according to the racing surface (khaki for dry, pine green for turf, and brown for muddy)  A 4-stall starting gate with the horses loaded therein is shown at the start of each race   The cheering crowd fanfare sound is played as the horses cross the finish line 

The Rainbow Thoroughbred Stables
The RTS is a fictional stable in where the race horses featured in the game are housed   Each horse has differing abilities and personalities   These are referred to by their colors (unlike in actual horse races where they would get entrant post position numbers in relation to the inner rail)   These are assigned a button on the keypad as follows:

[1] PINK — Pink Lady
[2] RED — Red Devil
[3] ORANGE — Sun Shine Shake
[4] YELLOW — Gold Torts
[5] GREEN — Green Goblin
[6] BLUE — Blue Boy
[7] VIOLET (PURPLE) — Grape Ghost
[8] WHITE — Snowy GuyOn the original prototype ROM, there was a BLACK horse called Black Maurauder; however, he got dropped from the original release of the game, and got replaced by Snowy Guy 

Legacy
Horse Racing is included in the Intellivision Lives! game collection 



ground_truth: American