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

Question: What award did the author of The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden receive?

The following are given passages.
Context 1: Passage 1:
Happy, Happy
Happy, Happy (Norwegian: Sykt lykkelig, lit  'Insanely Happy') is a 2010 Norwegian comedy film directed by Anne Sewitsky  The film was selected as the Norwegian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist 

Plot
Kaja (Agnes Kittelsen) is a school teacher living in the countryside with her husband, Eirick, and son  Despite the fact that her husband is cold to her, she maintains a cheerful happy-go-lucky disposition and tries her best to please him 
A couple from Denmark, Elisabeth and Sigve, come to live in the neighbouring house with their adopted son Noa  Kaja is in awe of Elisabeth and is impressed by the couple's relationship and their strong bond  The four play a game during which the couples must answer questions to reveal how well they know each other; Kaja becomes upset when she and Eirick fail to get a single question right  Kaja begins crying saying that they never have sex, which Eirick blames on her yeast infection  Alone with Sigve, Kaja apologizes for her outburst explaining that she wishes that she and Eirick were more like Elisabeth and Sigve  Sigve reveals that things are not as perfect as they seem as the two have moved to the country to rebuild their marriage after Elisabeth had an affair  In response Kaja kisses Sigve and then performs oral sex on him 
Kaja and Sigve embark on an affair which leaves Kaja sexually fulfilled  She joins Elisabeth and Sigve's choir and tries to initiate sex with her husband only to be shut down 
One day, while leaving Kaja's home, Sigve is joined on his jog by Eirick  The two men talk about their past lives as bachelors and when Sigve remarks that they deserve better Eirick misinterprets his meaning and kisses him, only to be rebuffed 
Eventually Elisabeth spies Kaja flirting with and touching Sigve  She confronts him about his affair and he tells her that he enjoys feeling needed  Elisabeth then tells Eirick what has happened, causing him to attack Sigve  As a result Sigve moves into Kaja's home  Elisabeth briefly invites Eirick to stay with her but after an uncomfortable and awkward attempt at sex she kicks him out again 
Kaja and Sigve host a Christmas dinner for the children inviting Elisabeth  After Elisabeth gets drunk she confesses to Sigve that she misses him and asks him to come home  He kisses her and the two are caught by Kaja  She realizes that Sigve will always love Elisabeth and that all she ever really wanted was to be loved by Eirick, who she now realizes is gay  Sigve leaves to go home with Elisabeth and Eirick comes back and asks to move back in, swearing he will never leave Kaja and will be a better husband  Kaja tells him she is leaving him 
Elisabeth and Sigve pack up their things and say goodbye to Kaja and Eirick  Eirick meanwhile moves into their home so that he can be close to Kaja and their son while the two of them start separate lives 

Cast
Agnes Kittelsen as Kaja
Henrik Rafaelsen as Sigve
Joachim Rafaelsen as Eirik
Maibritt Saerens as Elisabeth
Oskar Hernæs Brandsø as Theodor
Ram Shihab Ebedy as Noa
Heine Totland as Dirigenten

See also
List of submissions to the 84th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
List of Norwegian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Passage 2:
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
The PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay is awarded by the PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to an author for a book of original collected essays  The award was founded by PEN Member and author Barbaralee Diamonstein and Carl Spielvogel, former New York Times columnist, "to preserve the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature " The winner receives a cash award of $10,000 The award was on hiatus from 2005 to 2010 The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN affiliates in over 145 PEN centres around the world  The PEN American Center awards have been characterized as being among the "major" American literary prizes 

Award winners
Passage 3:
Aaron Robinson (composer)
Aaron Robinson is an American composer, conductor, and musicologist  He is the author of Does God Sing? – A Musical Journey  He created the musical work Black Nativity – In Concert: A Gospel Celebration  He also served as conductor and musical director in the PBS documentary On This Island  In 2013, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for composing Maine Public Broadcasting Network's Maine Arts series theme music 

Personal background
Robinson attended Medomak Valley High School in Waldoboro, Maine  At 16 years of age—a self-taught musician who never took piano lessons—he became the organist at both the Broad Cove Community Church in Cushing and the Friendship United Methodist Church  By his late teens, he was creating, performing and producing concerts and theatrical productions, including the musical Moody Blue for which he wrote both the music and lyrics  According to a 2013 interview, Robinson studied composition and piano performance at the Boston Conservatory of Music with composer John Adams and Lawrence Thomas Bell, as well as film scoring with John Williams at the Berklee School of Music; but chose not to graduate with a degree  Instead, Robinson "went out and lived the life of music," as he said in a 2017 interview  In 2001, he became organist and choirmaster for "Music at Immanuel" at the Immanuel Baptist Church in Portland, Maine In 2009, he retired from public performing due to illness  During which time Robinson wrote the memoir, Does God Sing – A Musical Journey  It reached No  5 on the Barnes & Nobles best-sellers non-fiction paperback list for March 2013 Robinson lives on the coast of Maine with his wife and son 

Career
Robinson has conducted works for the concert and theatrical stage, including Leonard Bernstein's Candide – The Concert Version  In 1997, Robinson conducted Treemonisha: The Concert Version by ragtime composer Scott Joplin at the Rockport Opera House in Rockport, Maine, with a new libretto by Judith Kurtz Bogdanove In 2001, he orchestrated, arranged, and conducted the musical Islands, which was produced on Broadway at the New Victory Theater by John Wulp, with music and lyrics by Cidny Bullens Robinson conducted the world premiere performance of his Black Nativity – In Concert: A Gospel Celebration in 2001 at the Immanuel Baptist Church  The concert version recreated the original performance of Langston Hughes's Gospel Song-Play Black Nativity that opened in 1961 at the 41st Street Theatre in New York City  In 2004, the documentary film Black Nativity – In Concert: A Gospel Celebration was made about the world premiere performance, production, and creation under the direction of Robinson with the original cast  In December 2013, Robinson collaborated with Dr  Anthony Antolini and the Bowdoin College Chorus and Down East Singers to mount a revised version of his 2004 creation Robinson composed An American Requiem, which had its New England Premiere under the direction of Dr  Robert Russell and the USM Chorale  He also wrote Driving Old Memories (The Rockland Maine Song) with his father Ervin Robinson  On June 2, 2021, the Mayor of Rockland, Maine presented a key to the city and proclaimed June 2021 "Driving Old Memories" month In 2012 he wrote the music for the independent documentary In the Shadows of Grey Gardens In an article entitled "Robinson and Ragtime", David Welker called him "one of today’s leading proponents of early jazz and ragtime music"  He is perhaps best known for his composition "The New England Ragtime Suite" for piano In 2014, the opening of Maine Public Broadcasting's "Maine Arts!" Series received an Emmy Award at the 36th annual New England Emmy Awards for which Robinson contributed the series’ theme music and was nominated for a separate Emmy Award  Robinson composed the Maine-based musical, The Legend of Jim Cullen – A Dramatic Musical, which received its world premiere at the Heartwood Regional Theater Company in the summer of 2014 In May 2017, Robinson premiered two choral works in Studzinski Hall at Bowdoin College: "Requiem For a New World" and "This Will Be Our Reply To Violence" with words by Leonard Bernstein  With a famous line taken from an address Bernstein gave a few days after the assassination of President John F  Kennedy, according to a 2017 interview, it was the first time the Bernstein Estate had ever granted a composer the rights to set the words to music  It was performed later that year by the Vox Nova Chamber Choir  Robinson received acclaim for his compositions from Maine's Senators Angus King and Susan Collins, who remarked: "With the scourge of violence unabated in our times, we all must increase our devotion to the highest ideals of humanity  Through your remarkable career as a composer, performer, and author, you are helping to elevate our nation as you bring distinction to our great state of Maine ”Robinson collaborated with children's book author and illustrator Ashley Bryan in 2018 on an African-American Requiem titled "A Tender Bridge"  The work celebrates Bryan's life and career based on his writings; and uses "jazz, ragtime, Negro spirituals, Southern hymns and other musical idioms, along with a full choir, gospel choir, children’s choir, orchestra jazz ensemble and multiple narrators "

Published works
Robinson, Aaron (2013)  Does God Sing?: A Musical Journey, Tate Publishing  182 pages  ISBN 978-1621474630
Langston, Hughes (1961) Aaron Robinson (2004)  Black Nativity, Dramatic Publishing  34 pages  ISBN 0871291924

Filmography
Television
Film
Discography
Awards and nominations
Passage 4:
Brandon Bays
Brandon Bays (born August 21, 1953) is an American author and motivational speaker  She has authored New Thought self-help books, and is best known for her 1999 book, The Journey, which became a bestseller in England and Australia She was born in New York City to an American father and a Romanian mother, who grew up in Vienna, Austria 

The Journey
The Journey is the title of Brandon's first book, The Journey (1999 and 2012)  The Journey book has been translated into 23 languages The book describes her experience of healing from a basketball-sized tumour, without drugs or surgery, in 6 weeks  
Ultimately, she attributes her healing to 4 key elements:

Gaining access to the 'cellular memory' where the trauma associated with the tumour was stored
Forgiveness of the circumstances surrounding the trauma 
Accessing 'Source' / her own soul / infinite intelligence / Purusha 
Feeling the emotions associated with the trauma, as a gateway into the direct experience of Source Based on these experiences, she pioneered a healing methodology that combines all four elements of healing  The Journey method is designed to help individuals access and resolve the root cause of longstanding difficulties – emotional or physical 

The Journey Method
The Journey is also the name of the healing method Brandon developed  This method is currently taught in 44 countries via live online workshops 

Education and career
As she writes in The Journey book:
Brandon Bays studied at University
Her informal studies included naturopathy, iridology, philosophy, storytelling, among other things  
Together with a group of colleagues, she volunteered at a free-of-charge clinic in New York City which provided alternative treatments to people with terminal illness and no other options from the medical profession  
She worked for Tony Robbins for 10 years, presenting the Living Health program as a Master Trainer 

Spiritual life
Brandon was deeply influenced by a spiritual teacher she fondly calls 'Papaji' ( H  W  L  Poonjaji ) whom she met in Lucknow, India in the early 90s  Papaji was a teacher of self inquiry in the tradition of the sage, Ramana Maharshi 

Personal life
Brandon's first husband, Dr  Bob (Robert) Bays was also a former Head Trainer for Tony Robbins  
In the 1990s, Brandon and Bob lived on the beach in Malibu and lost everything when flames from the Californian brushfires leapt over the 6 lane highway and burned their house down  
Brandon lives in Greece with her second husband, Kevin Billet, who is co-director of The Journey and the primary author of Light in The Heart of Darkness: The Surprising Truth About Depression & How To Free Yourself Completely from its Grips, which Brandon Bays co-authored 

Bibliography
The Journey: A Road Map to the soul  Simon and Schuster  2001  ISBN 978-0743443920  Retrieved July 9, 2012 
The Journey for Kids: Liberating your child's shining potential  Harpercollins UK  2003  ISBN 978-0007155262  Retrieved July 9, 2012 
Freedom Is: Liberating Your Boundless Potential  New World Library  2007  ISBN 978-1577316008  Retrieved July 9, 2012 
Consciousness: The New Currency  Journey Productions, Limited  2009  ISBN 978-0956337900  Retrieved July 9, 2012 
The Journey: A Practical Guide to Healing Your Life and Setting Yourself Free  Atria Books  2012  ISBN 978-1451665611 
Living The Journey: Using The Journey Method to Heal Your Life and Set Yourself Free  Atria Books  2012  ISBN 978-1451665628 
Passage 5:
Happy Feet
Happy Feet is a 2006 computer-animated jukebox musical comedy film directed, produced, and co-written by George Miller  It stars the voices of Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving, and E G  Daily  An international co-production between the United States and Australia, the film was produced at Sydney-based visual effects and animation studio Animal Logic for Warner Bros  Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and Kingdom Feature Productions, and was released in North American theaters on November 17, 2006, and in Australian theaters on December 26, 2006  It is the first animated film produced by Kennedy Miller and Animal Logic  Set in the cold land of Antarctica, the film follows Mumble, an emperor penguin who, despite his lacking the ability to sing the heartsong to attract a soul mate, is able to tap dance brilliantly  After being continuously ridiculed and rejected by peers and his own father, Mumble departs on a journey to learn what is causing the local fish population to decline--and to find himself along the way 
Though primarily an animated film, the film does incorporate motion capture of live action humans in certain scenes  The film was simultaneously released in both conventional theatres and in IMAX 2D format  The studio had hinted that a future IMAX 3D release was a possibility  However, Warner Bros , the film's production company, was on too tight a budget to release Happy Feet in IMAX digital 3D Happy Feet received generally positive reviews from critics with praise for its visuals, storyline and songs, and grossed $384 million against its $100 million production budget  It earned the recipient of the inaugural BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, and the fourth non-Disney or Pixar film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature  It was nominated for the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature and the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film, both losing to Cars  A sequel, Happy Feet Two, was released on November 18, 2011, but it was unable to replicate the critical and commercial success of the original film 

Plot
Every emperor penguin attracts a mate by singing a unique "heartsong"  If the male penguin's heartsong matches the female's song, the two penguins mate  Norma Jean, a female penguin, falls for Memphis, a male penguin and they become mates  They lay an egg, which Memphis cares for while Norma Jean leaves with the other females to fish  While the males struggle through the harsh winter, Memphis briefly drops the egg  The resulting chick, Mumble, is unable to sing but can tap dance  Nevertheless, he is enamored with Gloria, a female penguin who is regarded as the most talented of her age  One day, Mumble encounters a group of hostile skua, with a leader who is tagged with a yellow band, which he says is from an alien abduction  Mumble narrowly escapes the hungry birds by falling into a crevice 
Now a young adult, Mumble is frequently ridiculed by the elders and their leader Noah  After escaping from a leopard seal attack, Mumble befriends five Adelie penguins named Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul, known collectively as "the Amigos", who embrace Mumble's dance moves and assimilate him into their group  After seeing a hidden human excavator in an avalanche, they opt to ask Lovelace, a rockhopper penguin, about its origin  Lovelace has the plastic rings of a six pack entangled around his neck, saying that they have been bestowed upon him by mystic beings 
For the emperor penguins, it is mating season and Gloria is the center of attention  The Amigos unsuccessfully attempt to help Mumble win her affection by having Ramón sing a Spanish version of "My Way" behind Mumble, with the latter lip syncing  After Mumble desperately begins tap dancing in synch with her song, she falls for him and the youthful penguins join in for singing and dancing to "Boogie Wonderland"  The elders are appalled by Mumble's conduct, which they see as the reason for their lean fishing season  Memphis begs Mumble to stop dancing, for his own sake, but when Mumble refuses, he is exiled 
Mumble and the Amigos return to Lovelace, only to find him being choked by the plastic rings  Lovelace confesses they were snagged on him while swimming off the forbidden shores, beyond the land of the elephant seals  Not long into their journey, Gloria encounters them, wishing to become Mumble's mate  Fearing for her safety, he ridicules Gloria, driving her away 
At the forbidden shore, Mumble, Lovelace and the Amigos are attacked by the two orcas, during which Lovelace gets free from the plastic rings  After escaping, they find a fishing boat  Mumble exhaustingly pursues it alone, eventually washing up on the shore of Florida, where he is rescued and kept at Sea World with Magellanic penguins  After a long and secluded confinement in addition to fruitlessly trying to communicate with the humans, he nearly succumbs to madness  When a girl attempts to interact with Mumble by tapping the glass, he starts dancing, which attracts a large crowd  He is released back into the wild, with a tracking device attached to his back  He returns to his colony and challenges the will of the elders  Memphis reconciles with him, just as a research team arrives, verifying Mumble's statements of "aliens" existing  The entire colony engages in dance in front of the research team, whose expedition footage prompts a worldwide debate, which eventually leads to the banning of all Antarctic overfishing, satisfying both the emperor penguins and the Amigos 

Cast
Production
George Miller cites as an initial inspiration for the film an encounter with a grizzled old cameraman, whose father was Frank Hurley of the Shackleton expeditions, during the shooting of Mad Max 2: "We were sitting in this bar, having a milkshake, and he looked across at me and said, ‘Antarctica ’ He'd shot a documentary there  He said, ‘You’ve got to make a film in Antarctica  It’s just like out here, in the wasteland  It’s spectacular ’ And that always stuck in my head "Happy Feet was also partially inspired by earlier documentaries such as the BBC's Life in the Freezer  In 2001, during an otherwise non-sequitur meeting, Doug Mitchell impulsively presented Warner Bros , studio president Alan Horn with an early rough draft of the film's screenplay, and asked them to read it while he and Miller flew back to Australia  By the time they'd landed, Warner had decided to provide funding on the film  Production was slated to begin sometime after the completion of the fourth Mad Max film, Fury Road, but geo-political complications pushed Happy Feet to the forefront in early 2003 
The animation is invested heavily in motion capture technology, with the dance scenes acted out by human dancers  The tap-dancing for Mumble in particular was provided by Savion Glover who was also co-choreographer for the dance sequences  The dancers went through "Penguin School" to learn how to move like a penguin, and also wore head apparatus to mimic a penguin's beak Happy Feet needed an enormous group of computers, and Animal Logic worked with IBM to build a server farm with sufficient processing potential  The film took four years to make  Ben Gunsberger, Lighting Supervisor and VFX Department Supervisor, says this was partly because they needed to build new infrastructure and tools  The server farm used IBM BladeCenter framework and BladeCenter HS20 blade servers, which are extremely dense separate computer units each with two Intel Xeon processors  Rendering took up 17 million CPU hours over a nine-month period According to Miller, the environmental message was not a major part of the original script, but "In Australia, we're very, very aware of the ozone hole," he said, "and Antarctica is literally the canary in the coal mine for this stuff  So it sort of had to go in that direction " This influence led to a film with a more environmental tone  Miller said, "You can't tell a story about Antarctica and the penguins without giving that dimension "The film was dedicated to the memory of Nick Enright, Michael Jonson, Robby McNeilly Green, and Steve Irwin 

Music
Happy Feet is a jukebox musical, taking previously recorded songs and working them into the film's soundtrack to fit with the mood of the scene or character  Two soundtrack albums were released for the film; one containing songs from and inspired by the film, and another featuring John Powell's instrumental score  They were released on 31 October 2006 and 19 December 2006, respectively 
Prince's "Song of the Heart" won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song  The film won Golden Trailer Award for Best Music  The song was written by Prince specifically for Happy Feet shortly after he was given a private screening of the film in order to gain his approval for the use of his song "Kiss" in a musical number  Prince enjoyed the film, gave his approval for the use of "Kiss" and offered to write an original song for the production, which he completed a week later 

Soundtrack
Happy Feet: Music from the Motion Picture is the lyrical soundtrack album from the 2006 animated film Happy Feet  As of March 2007, the OST has sold over 272,627 copies in the US 

Certifications
Reception
Box office
The film opened at number 1 in the United States on its first weekend of release (17–19 November), grossing $41 6 million and beating Casino Royale for the top spot  It remained number 1 for the Thanksgiving weekend, making $51 6 million over the five-day period  In total, the film was the top grosser for three weeks, a 2006 box office feat matched only by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest  As of 8 June 2008,  Happy Feet had grossed $198 0 million in the U S  and $186 3 million overseas, making about $384 3 million worldwide  Happy Feet was the third highest grossing animated film of 2006 in the U S , behind Cars and Ice Age: The Meltdown  The film was released in about 35 international territories at the close of 2006 The production budget was $100 million 

Critical reception
Happy Feet received generally positive reviews from critics  On review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 76% "Certified Fresh" score based on 169 reviews, with an average rating of 6 9/10  The site's consensus reads, "Visually dazzling, with a thoughtful storyline and catchy musical numbers, Happy Feet marks a successful animated debut from the makers of Babe " Metacritic reports a 77 out of 100 rating, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews"  Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale 

Analysis
The film garnered analysis and dissection from various critics  Film critic Yar Habnegnal wrote an essay in Forum on Contemporary Art and Society that examines the themes of encroachment presented throughout the film, as well as various other subtexts and themes, such as religious hierarchy and interracial tensions   Vadim Rizov of IFC sees Mumble as just the latest in a long line of cinematic religious mavericks  Some Christians have also considered the film to be anti-Christian (or antireligious in general) due to the imagery and behaviours of various characters On a technical or formal level, the film has also been lauded in some corners for its innovative introduction of Miller's roving style of subjective cinematography into contemporary animation 

Home media
Happy Feet was released on home media on March 27, 2007, in the United States in three formats: DVD (in separate widescreen and pan-and-scan editions), Blu-ray Disc, and an HD DVD/DVD combo pack  Overall, Happy Feet was the third best-selling film of 2007 with 12 2 million units sold and earning a revenue of $196 9 million Among the DVD's special features is a scene that was cut from the film where Mumble meets a blue whale and an albatross while pursuing the fishing boat  The albatross was Steve Irwin's first voice role in the film before he voiced the elephant seal in the final cut  The scene was finished and included on the DVD in Irwin's memory  This scene is done in Irwin's classic documentary style, with the albatross telling the viewer all about the other characters in the scene, and the impact people are having on their environment  Another special feature included with the DVD is the 1936 Merrie Melodies short I Love to Singa 

Accolades
The film appeared on numerous critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2006 

Video games
A video game based on the film was developed by A2M and published by Midway Games  It has the same main cast as the film  It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Wii Artificial Life, Inc  has also developed a mobile game for the Japan market 

Sequel
Happy Feet Two was produced at Dr  D Studios and released on November 18, 2011  Wood and Williams reprised their roles for the sequel  Murphy was set to reprise her role and begin recording sometime in 2010, but was replaced by P!nk after Murphy died from pneumonia on December 20, 2009  Matt Damon and Brad Pitt signed on as Bill the Krill and Will the Krill respectively  The film was neither critically nor financially as successful as its predecessor and its performance at the box office resulted in Dr  D Studios closing down 

4-D attraction
Happy Feet 4-D Experience is a 12-minute 4D film shown at various 4D theaters over the world  It retells the condensed story of Happy Feet with the help of 3D projection and sensory effects, including moving seats, wind, mist and scents  Produced by SimEx-Iwerks, the 4D experience premiered in March 2010 at the Drayton Manor Theme Park  Other locations included Sea World (2010–2011), Shedd Aquarium (2010–2012), Moody Gardens (2010–2011), Nickelodeon Suites Resort, and Adventure Aquarium 

See also
March of the Penguins — A 2005 nature documentary film about the real life emperor penguins  It won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature 
Passage 6:
Trenton Lee Stewart
Trenton Lee Stewart (born May 27, 1970) is an American author best known for the Mysterious Benedict Society series  Stewart is a graduate of Hendrix College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop  He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas 

Life and career
Trenton Lee Stewart was born on May 27, 1970, to Jerry and Sandi Stewart, and he grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas  In 1992, Stewart received a bachelor's degree in English from Hendrix College  Afterwards he attended the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, receiving his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing in 1995  Stewart taught at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and, after moving to Cincinnati, at the Miami University of Ohio in 2005  After that he returned to Arkansas in 2006 Stewart's first novels were published during this time: Flood Summer in 2005 and The Mysterious Benedict Society in 2007, the latter remaining on The New York Times Best Seller list for over a year 
Two more books were completed in the series: The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey in 2008, and The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma in 2009, both of which appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list  In 2012, a bestselling prequel to the series, The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, was published, and 2016 saw the release of Stewart's The Secret Keepers, a stand-alone novel for young readers that was also a bestseller 
Stewart was a Murphy Visiting Writer-in-Residence and taught a Writing Fiction course at Hendrix College in the spring of 2019  Stewart's latest novel, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages, was published September 24, 2019 

Bibliography
Flood Summer: A Novel (2005)
The Mysterious Benedict Society (2007)
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey (2008)
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma (2009)
The Mysterious Benedict Society: Mr  Benedict's Book of Perplexing Puzzles, Elusive Enigmas, and Curious Conundrums (2011)
The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict (2012)
The Secret Keepers (2016)
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages (2019)
Secret Keepers Zeit der Späher (2019)
Passage 7:
The Skin of Our Teeth
The Skin of Our Teeth is a play by Thornton Wilder that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama  It opened on October 15, 1942, at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, before moving to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway on November 18, 1942  It was produced by Michael Myerberg and directed by Elia Kazan with costumes by Mary Percy Schenck  The play is a three-part allegory about the life of mankind, centering on the Antrobus family of the fictional town of Excelsior, New Jersey  The epic comedy-drama is noted as among the most heterodox of classic American comedies — it broke nearly every established theatrical convention 
The phrase used as the title comes from the King James Bible, Job 19:20: "My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth "

Overview
The main characters of the play are George and Maggie Antrobus (from Greek: άνθρωπος (anthropos), "human" or "person"), their two children, Henry and Gladys, and Sabina, who appears as the family's maid in the first and third acts, and as a beauty queen temptress in the second act   The play's action takes place in a modern setting, but is full of anachronisms reaching back to prehistoric times   The characters' roles as archetypes are emphasized by their identification with Biblical and classical personalities:
The name Lilly Sabina is a reference to the myth of Lilith and to the historical rape of the Sabine women, identifications made relatively explicit in the play's text  Henry Antrobus's name was changed from "Cain", following his murder of his brother Abel, mirroring the biblical story in which Adam's son murders his brother after God favors Abel over Cain by gifts  This implies that George Antrobus is Adam, and Maggie Antrobus Eve, supported when George composes a song for his wife Maggie in honor of their anniversary: "Happy w'dding ann'vers'ry dear Eva "
The murder of Abel is an underlying theme in the play  Mr  Antrobus pays far more attention to his "perfect" third child Gladys than he does Henry  As this treatment of Henry continues, Henry's anger progresses throughout the play, reaching its climax in the third act 
While the Antrobus family remains constant throughout the play, the three acts do not form a continuous narrative   The first act takes place during an impending ice age; in the second act the family circumstances have changed as George becomes president of the Fraternal Order of Mammals (apparent references to Sodom and Gomorrah but also to the Roaring Twenties), while the end of the world approaches a second time; the third act opens with Maggie and Gladys emerging from a bunker at the end of a seven-year-long war 
An additional layer of stylistic complexity is added by the occasional interruption of the recite narrative scene by actors directly addressing the audience: In the first scene, the actress playing Sabina reveals her misgivings to the audience about the play; in the second act she refuses to recite her lines and instead talks to the spectators, causing a woman in the audience to run from the theater sobbing; and in the third act, the actor playing Mr  Antrobus interrupts to announce that several actors have taken ill, asking the audience to indulge them while the  "stage manager" of the play conducts a rehearsal with the replacements 

Plot
Act I
Act one is an amalgam of early 20th century New Jersey and the dawn of the Ice Age  The father is inventing things such as the lever, the wheel, the alphabet, and multiplication tables  The family and the entire northeastern U S  face extinction by a wall of ice moving southward from Canada  The story is introduced by a narrator and further expanded by the family maid, Sabina   There are unsettling parallels between the members of the Antrobus family and various characters from the Bible  In addition, time is compressed and scrambled to such an extent that the refugees who arrive at the Antrobus house seeking food and fire include the Old Testament prophet Moses, the ancient Greek poet Homer, and women who are identified as Muses 

Act II
Act II takes place on the Boardwalk at Atlantic City, New Jersey, where the Antrobuses are present for George's swearing-in as president of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Mammals, Subdivision Humans  Sabina is present, also, in the guise of a scheming beauty queen, who tries to steal George's affection from his wife and family  The conventioneers are rowdy and party furiously, but there is an undercurrent of foreboding as a fortune teller warns of an impending storm  The weather soon transforms from summery sunshine to hurricane to deluge  Gladys and George each attempt their individual rebellions, and are brought back into line by the family  The act ends with the family members reconciled and, paralleling the Biblical story of Noah's Ark, directing pairs of animals to safety on a large boat where they survive the storm and the end of the world 

Act III
The final act takes place in the ruins of the Antrobuses' former home   A devastating war has occurred; Maggie and Gladys have survived by hiding in a cellar   When they come out of the cellar we see that Gladys has a baby   Sabina joins them, "dressed as a Napoleonic camp-follower"   George has been away at the front lines leading an army  Henry also fought, on the opposite side, and returns as a general   The family members discuss the ability of the human race to rebuild and continue after continually destroying itself   The question is raised: "Is there any accomplishment or attribute of the human race of enough value that its civilization should be rebuilt?"
The stage manager interrupts the play-within-the-play to explain that several members of their company can't perform their parts, possibly due to food poisoning (as the actress playing Sabina saw blue mold on the lemon meringue pie at dinner)  The stage manager drafts a janitor, a dresser, and other non-actors to fill their parts, which involve quoting philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle to mark the passing of time within the play 
The alternate history action ends where it began, with Sabina dusting the living room and worrying about George's arrival from the office  Her final act is to address the audience and turn over the responsibility of continuing the action, or life, to them 

Themes
Sabina's stock-maid monologue begins and ends the play in the same way; this "stage-play" goes on and on 
In her role as resident pessimist, lacking vision, Sabina says, "That's all we do—always beginning again! Over and over again  Always beginning again " After each disaster, they just rebuild the world again  She also says: "Don't forget that a few years ago we came through the depression by the skin of our teeth! One more tight squeeze like that and where will we be?" And later she says,   "My nerves can't stand it  But if you have any ideas about improving this crazy old world, I'm really with you  I really am "
The Ice Age, the Great Flood, the War imply we are always plagued by the potential for disaster, both natural and man-made 
Art and literature are ways of advancing our humanity: enhancing empathy, tolerance, vision  Improvements in technology, though, don't necessarily advance human nature at all 

Influences and criticism
Similarities between the play and James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake (1939) were noted in the Saturday Review during the play's run on Broadway  Norman Cousins, editor of the Review, printed a short article by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson titled "The Skin of Whose Teeth? The Strange Case of Mr  Wilder's New Play and Finnegans Wake" in the issue for December 19, 1942, with a second part in the February 13, 1943, issue 
In Campbell's book Pathways to Bliss, Campbell recalls his reaction to the similarities he noted between Wilder's play and Joyce's novel:[W]hen I went to see Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, which was the big Broadway hit at the time   all I heard was Finnegans Wake  [   ] I phoned Robinson, and I said, "Good God, here's Wilder making tons of money and a lot of fame on this thing, and it's simply Finnegans Wake " Joyce had just died, and his family was destitute  So I said, "I think we should write a letter to the New York Times "
Campbell claimed to have compared Finnegans Wake and the book form of The Skin of Our Teeth and found "nearly two hundred and fifty analogues—characters, themes, and finally a four-line, word-for-word quote "

Notable productions
The original production starred Tallulah Bankhead, Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, and Montgomery Clift  Bankhead won a Variety Award for Best Actress and the New York Drama Critics Award for Best Actress of the Year for her role as Sabina  When she left the production in March 1943, she was replaced by Miriam Hopkins  Hopkins was in turn replaced by Gladys George  For two performances, while George was ill, Lizabeth Scott, who had been Bankhead's understudy, was called in to play the role  Scott then played the role for the production's run in Boston  Originally billed in New York as "Elizabeth Scott", she dropped the "E" before taking the part in Boston, and it became her breakthrough role 
Following a pre-London tryout tour of the UK, the play had its London premiere at the Phoenix Theatre on 16 May 1945, where it ran for 77 performances, closing 21 July 1945   It re-opened in London at the Piccadilly Theatre on 11 September 1946, running there for a further 109 performances, until 14 December   Directed by Laurence Olivier, Sabina was played by Vivien Leigh, with Cecil Parker as George Antrobus (George Devine at the Piccadilly)  The Oliviers also included the production on their Old Vic tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1948, and Leigh revived the role in a 1959 television production filmed live by Granada Television The play was revived on Broadway in 1955, premiering at the ANTA Theatre  It was staged by the Edinburgh Gateway Company in 1961 In 1983, American Playhouse, on PBS, aired a production that was produced at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego   It starred Blair Brown, Harold Gould, Sada Thompson, Rue McClanahan, Jeffrey Combs and was directed by Jack O'Brien 
New York City's Public Theater presented a production as part of its 1998 summer Shakespeare in the Park festival at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park   That production starred Kristen Johnston, John Goodman and Frances Conroy   It was directed by Irene Lewis In 2017, Theatre for a New Audience performed The Skin of Our Teeth directed by Arin Arbus  It won the 2017 Obie Award for Directing and Performance by Kecia Lewis A Broadway revival of the play directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz  premiered at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in previews on April 1, 2022, and officially on April 25  It was subsequently nominated for six Tony Awards including Best Direction, Best Lead Actress, Best Costume Design, Best Lighting Design, Best Sound Design, and Best Set Design 

Cast list
Awards and nominations
2022 Broadway Revival
Passage 8:
Battle of Trenton
The Battle of Trenton was a small but pivotal American Revolutionary War battle on the morning of December 26, 1776, in Trenton, New Jersey  After General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River north of Trenton the previous night, Washington led the main body of the Continental Army against Hessian auxiliaries garrisoned at Trenton  After a brief battle, almost two-thirds of the Hessian force were captured, with negligible losses to the Americans  The battle significantly boosted the Continental Army's waning morale, and inspired re-enlistments 
The Continental Army had previously suffered several defeats in New York and had been forced to retreat through New Jersey to Pennsylvania  Morale in the army was low; to end the year on a positive note, George Washington—Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army—devised a plan to cross the Delaware River on the night of December 25–26 and surround the Hessians' garrison 
Because the river was icy and the weather severe, the crossing proved dangerous  Two detachments were unable to cross the river, leaving Washington with only 2,400 men under his command in the assault, 3,000 fewer than planned  The army marched 9 mi (14 5 km) south to Trenton  The Hessians had lowered their guard, thinking they were safe from the Americans' army, and had no long-distance outposts or patrols  Washington's forces caught them off guard, and after a short but fierce resistance, most of the Hessians surrendered and were captured, with just over a third escaping across Assunpink Creek 
Despite the battle's small numbers, the victory inspired patriots and sympathizers of the newly formed United States  With the success of the ongoing revolution in doubt a week earlier, the army had seemed on the verge of collapse  The dramatic victory inspired soldiers to serve longer and attracted new recruits to the ranks 

Background
In early December 1776, American morale was very low  The Americans had been ousted from New York by the British and their Hessian auxiliaries, and the Continental Army was forced to retreat across New Jersey  Ninety percent of the Continental Army soldiers who had served at Long Island were gone  Men had deserted, feeling that the cause for independence was lost  Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, expressed some doubts, writing to his cousin in Virginia, "I think the game is pretty near up "At the time a small town in New Jersey, Trenton was occupied by four regiments of Hessian soldiers (numbering about 1,400 men) commanded by Colonel Johann Rall  Washington's force comprised 2,400 men, with infantry divisions commanded by Major Generals Nathanael Greene and John Sullivan, and artillery under the direction of Brigadier General Henry Knox 

Prelude
Intelligence
George Washington had stationed a spy named John Honeyman, posing as a Tory, in Trenton  Honeyman had served with Major General James Wolfe in Quebec at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on September 13, 1759, and had no trouble establishing his credentials as a Tory  Honeyman was a butcher and bartender, who traded with the British and Hessians  This enabled him to gather intelligence and to convince the Hessians that the Continental Army was in such a low state of morale that they would not attack Trenton  Shortly before Christmas, he arranged to be captured by the Continental Army, who had orders to bring him to Washington unharmed  After being questioned by Washington, he was imprisoned in a hut to be tried as a Tory in the morning, but a small fire broke out nearby, enabling him to "escape"  On the evening before the battle, Hessian commander Rall was celebrating Christmas with his troops at the farm of Abraham Hunt, a wealthy merchant and farmer of Trenton  Hunt played the role of a friendly Loyalist host, giving Rall a false sense of serenity while Washington and his troops were preparing for a surprise attack 

U S  plan
The U S  plan relied on launching coordinated attacks from three directions  General John Cadwalader would launch a diversionary attack against the British garrison at Bordentown, New Jersey, to block off reinforcements from the south  General James Ewing would take 700 militia across the river at Trenton Ferry, seize the bridge over the Assunpink Creek and prevent enemy troops from escaping  The main assault force of 2,400 men would cross the river 9 mi (14 km) north of Trenton and split into two groups, one under Greene and one under Sullivan, to launch a pre-dawn attack  Sullivan would attack the town from the south, and Greene from the north  Depending on the success of the operation, the Americans would possibly follow up with separate attacks on Princeton and New Brunswick During the week before the battle, U S  advance parties began to ambush enemy cavalry patrols, capturing dispatch riders and attacking Hessian pickets  The Hessian commander, to emphasize the danger his men were facing, sent 100 infantry and an artillery detachment to deliver a letter to the British commander at Princeton  Washington ordered Ewing and his Pennsylvania militia to try to gain information on Hessian movements and technology  Ewing instead made three successful raids across the river  On December 17 and 18, 1776, they attacked an outpost of jägers and on the 21st, they set fire to several houses  Washington put constant watches on all possible crossings near the Continental Army encampment on the Delaware, as he believed William Howe would launch an attack from the north on Philadelphia if the river froze over On December 20, 1776, some 2,000 troops led by General Sullivan arrived in Washington's camp  They had been under the command of Charles Lee and had been moving slowly through northern New Jersey when Lee was captured  That same day, an additional 800 troops arrived from Fort Ticonderoga under the command of Horatio Gates 

Hessian moves
On December 14, 1776, the Hessians arrived in Trenton to establish their winter quarters  At the time, Trenton was a small town with about 100 houses and two main streets, King (now Warren) Street and Queen (now Broad) Street  Carl von Donop, Rall's superior, had marched south to Mount Holly on December 22 to deal with the resistance in New Jersey, and had clashed with some New Jersey militia there on December 23 Donop, who despised Rall, was reluctant to give command of Trenton to him  Rall was known to be loud and unacquainted with the English language, but he was also a 36-year veteran with a great deal of battle experience  His request for reinforcements had been turned down by British commander General James Grant, who disdained the American rebels and thought them poor soldiers  Despite Rall's experience, the Hessians at Trenton did not admire their commander Trenton lacked city walls or fortifications, which was typical of U S  settlements  Some Hessian officers advised Rall to fortify the town, and two of his engineers advised that a redoubt be constructed at the upper end of town and fortifications be built along the river  The engineers went so far as to draw up plans, but Rall disagreed with them  When Rall was again urged to fortify the town, he replied, "Let them come     We will go at them with the bayonet "As Christmas approached, Loyalists came to Trenton to report the Americans were planning action  U S  deserters told the Hessians that rations were being prepared for an advance across the river  Rall publicly dismissed such talk as nonsense, but privately in letters to his superiors, he said he was worried about an imminent attack  He wrote to Donop that he was "liable to be attacked at any moment"  Rall said that Trenton was "indefensible" and asked that British troops establish a garrison in Maidenhead (now Lawrenceville)  Close to Trenton, this would help defend the roads from Americans  His request was denied  As the Americans disrupted Hessian supply lines, the officers started to share Rall's fears  One wrote, "We have not slept one night in peace since we came to this place " On December 22, 1776, a spy reported to Grant that Washington had called a council of war; Grant told Rall to "be on your guard" The main Hessian force of 1,500 men was divided into three regiments: Knyphausen, Lossberg and Rall  That night, they did not send out any patrols because of the severe weather 

Crossing and march
Before Washington and his troops left, Benjamin Rush came to cheer up the general  While he was there, he saw a note Washington had written, saying, "Victory or Death"  Those words would be the password for the surprise attack  Each soldier carried 60 rounds of ammunition, and three days of rations  When the army arrived at the shores of the Delaware, they were already behind schedule, and clouds began to form above them  It began to rain  As the air's temperature dropped, the rain changed to sleet, and then to snow  The Americans began to cross the river, with John Glover in command  The men went across in Durham boats, while the horses and artillery went across on large ferries  The 14th Continental Regiment of Glover manned the boats  During the crossing, several men fell overboard, including Colonel John Haslet  Haslet was quickly pulled out of the water  No one died during the crossing, and all the artillery pieces made it over in good condition Two small detachments of infantry of about 40 men each were ordered ahead of main columns  They set roadblocks ahead of the main army and were to take prisoner whoever came into or left the town  One of the groups was sent north of Trenton, and the other was sent to block River Road, which ran along the Delaware River to Trenton 

The terrible weather conditions delayed the landings in New Jersey until 3:00 am; the plan was that they were supposed to be completed by 12:00 am  Washington realized it would be impossible to launch a pre-dawn attack  Another setback occurred for the Americans, as generals Cadwalader and Ewing were unable to join the attack because of the weather conditions At 4:00 am, the soldiers began to march towards Trenton  Along the way, several civilians joined as volunteers and led as guides (such as John Mott) because of their knowledge of the terrain  After marching 1 5 mi (2 4 km) through winding roads into the wind, they reached Bear Tavern, where they turned south onto Bear Tavern Road   The ground was slippery, but it was level, making it easier for the horses and artillery  They began to make better time  They soon reached Jacobs Creek, where, with difficulty, the Americans made it across  The two groups stayed together until they reached Birmingham (now West Trenton), where they split apart, with Greene’s force heading east to approach Trenton by the Scotch and Pennington roads and Sullivan’s heading southwest to approach via River Road  Soon after, they reached the house of Benjamin Moore, where the family offered food and drink to Washington  At this point, the first signs of daylight began to appear  Many of the troops did not have boots, so they were forced to wear rags around their feet  Some of the men's feet bled, turning the snow to a dark red  Two men died on the march As they marched, Washington rode up and down the line, encouraging the men to continue  General Sullivan sent a courier to tell Washington that the weather was wetting his men's gunpowder  Washington replied, "Tell General Sullivan to use the bayonet  I am resolved to take Trenton "About 2 mi (3 km) outside the town, the main columns reunited with the advance parties  They were startled by the sudden appearance of 50 armed men, but they were American  Led by Adam Stephen, they had not known about the plan to attack Trenton and had attacked a Hessian outpost  Washington feared the Hessians would have been put on guard, and shouted at Stephen, "You sir! You Sir, may have ruined all my plans by having them put on their guard " Despite this, Washington ordered the advance continue to Trenton  In the event, Rall thought the first raid was the attack which Grant had warned him about, and that there would be no further action that day 

Battle
U S  attack
At 8 am on the morning of December 26, the outpost was set up by the Hessians at a cooper shop on Pennington Road about one mile northwest of Trenton  Washington led the assault, riding in front of his soldiers  As the Hessian commander of the outpost, Lieutenant Andreas Wiederholdt, left the shop, an American fired at him but missed  Wiederholdt immediately shouted, "Der Feind!" (The Enemy!) and other Hessians came out  The Americans fired three volleys, and the Hessians returned one of their own  Washington ordered Edward Hand's Pennsylvania Riflemen and a battalion of German-speaking infantry to block the road that led to Princeton  They attacked the Hessian outpost there  Wiederholdt soon realized that this was more than a raiding party; seeing other Hessians retreating from the outpost, he led his men to do the same  Both Hessian detachments made organized retreats, firing as they fell back  On the high ground at the north end of Trenton, they were joined by a duty company from the Lossberg Regiment  They engaged the Americans, retreating slowly, keeping up continuous fire and using houses for cover  Once in Trenton, they gained covering fire from other Hessian guard companies on the outskirts of the town  Another guard company nearer to the Delaware River rushed east to their aid, leaving open the River Road into Trenton  Washington ordered the escape route to Princeton be cut off, sending infantry in battle formation to block it, while artillery formed at the head of King and Queen streets Leading the southern U S  column, General Sullivan entered Trenton by the abandoned River Road and blocked the only crossing over the Assunpink Creek to cut off the Hessian escape  Sullivan briefly held up his advance to make sure Greene's division had time to drive the Hessians from their outposts in the north  Soon after, they continued their advance, attacking the Hermitage, home of Philemon Dickinson, where 50 jägers under the command of Lieutenant von Grothausen were stationed  Lieutenant von Grothausen brought 12 of his jägers into action against the advanced guard but had only advanced a few hundred yards when he saw a column of Americans advancing to the Hermitage  Pulling back to the Hessian barracks, he was joined by the rest of the jägers  After the exchange of one volley, they turned and ran, some trying to swim across the creek, while others escaped over the bridge, which had not yet been cut off  The 20 British dragoons also fled  As Greene and Sullivan's columns pushed into the town, Washington moved to high ground north of King and Queens streets to see the action and direct his troops  By this time, U S  artillery from the other side of the Delaware River had come into action, devastating the Hessian positions With the sounding of the alarm, the three Hessian regiments began to prepare for battle  The Rall regiment formed on lower King Street along with the Lossberg regiment, while the Knyphausen regiment formed at the lower end of Queen Street  Lieutenant Piel, Rall's brigade adjutant, woke his commander, who found that the rebels had taken the "V" of the main streets of the town  This is where the engineers had recommended building a redoubt  Rall ordered his regiment to form up at the lower end of King Street, the Lossberg regiment to prepare for an advance up Queen Street, and the Knyphausen regiment to stand by as a reserve for Rall's advance up King Street The U S  cannon stationed at the head of the two main streets soon came into action  In reply, Rall directed his regiment, supported by a few companies of the Lossberg regiment, to clear the guns  The Hessians formed ranks and began to advance up the street, but their formations were quickly broken by the U S  guns and fire from Mercer's men who had taken houses on the left side of the street  Breaking ranks, the Hessians fled  Rall ordered two three-pound cannons into action  After getting off six rounds each, within just a few minutes, half of the Hessians manning their guns were killed by the U S  cannon  After the men fled to cover behind houses and fences, their cannons were taken by the Americans  Following capture of the cannons, men under the command of George Weedon advanced down King Street On Queen Street, all Hessian attempts to advance up the street were repulsed by guns under the command of Thomas Forrest  After firing four rounds each, two more Hessian guns were silenced  One of Forrest's howitzers was put out of action with a broken axle  The Knyphausen regiment became separated from the Lossberg and the Rall regiments  The Lossberg and the Rall regiments fell back to a field outside of town, taking heavy losses from grapeshot and musket fire  In the southern part of the town, Americans under command of Sullivan began to overwhelm the Hessians  John Stark led a bayonet charge at the Knyphausen regiment, whose resistance broke because their weapons would not fire  Sullivan led a column of men to block off escape of troops across the creek 

Hessian resistance collapses
The Hessians in the field attempted to reorganize and make one last attempt to retake the town so they could make a breakout  Rall decided to attack the U S  flank on the heights north of the town  Rall yelled "Forward! Advance! Advance!", and the Hessians began to move, with the brigade's band playing fifes, bugles and drums to help the Hessians' spirit Washington, still on high ground, saw the Hessians approaching the U S  flank  He moved his troops to assume battle formation against the enemy  The two Hessian regiments began marching toward King Street but were caught in U S  fire that came at them from three directions  Some Americans had taken up defensive positions inside houses, reducing their exposure  Some civilians joined the fight against the Hessians  Despite this, they continued to push, recapturing their cannons  At the head of King Street, Knox saw the Hessians had retaken the cannons and ordered his troops to take them  Six men ran and, after a brief struggle, seized the cannons, turning them on the Hessians  With most of the Hessians unable to fire their guns, the attack stalled  The Hessians' formations broke, and they began to scatter  Rall was mortally wounded  Washington led his troops down from high ground while yelling, "March on, my brave fellows, after me!" Most of the Hessians retreated into an orchard, with the Americans in close pursuit  Quickly surrounded, the Hessians were offered terms of surrender, to which they agreed 
Although ordered to join Rall, the remains of the Knyphausen regiment mistakenly marched in the opposite direction  They tried to escape across the bridge but found it had been taken  The Americans quickly swept in, defeating a Hessian attempt to break through their lines  Surrounded by Sullivan's men, the regiment surrendered, just minutes after the rest of the brigade 

Casualties and capture
The Hessian forces lost 22 killed in action, including their commander Colonel Johann Rall, 83 wounded, and 896 captured–including the wounded  The Americans suffered only two deaths during the march and five wounded from battle, including a near-fatal shoulder wound to future president James Monroe  Other losses incurred by the patriots from exhaustion, exposure, and illness in the following days may have raised their fatalities above those of the Hessians The captured Hessians were sent to Philadelphia and later Lancaster  In 1777 they were moved to Virginia  Rall was mortally wounded and died later that night at his headquarters  All four Hessian colonels in Trenton were killed in the battle  The Lossberg regiment was effectively removed from the British forces  Parts of the Knyphausen regiment escaped to the south, but Sullivan captured some 200 additional men, along with the regiment's cannon and supplies  They also captured approximately 1,000 arms and much-needed ammunition  The Americans also captured their entire store of provisions—tons of flour, dried and salted meats, ale and other liquors, as well as shoes, boots, clothing and bedding—things that were as much needed by the ragtag Continental forces, such as weapons and horses 
Among those captured by the Patriots was Christian Strenge, later to become a schoolmaster and fraktur artist in Pennsylvania 

Hessian drinking
An officer in Washington's staff wrote before the battle, "They make a great deal of Christmas in Germany, and no doubt the Hessians will drink a great deal of beer and have a dance to-night  They will be sleepy tomorrow morning " Popular history commonly portrays the Hessians as drunk from Christmas celebrations  However, historian David Hackett Fischer quotes Patriot John Greenwood, who fought in the battle and supervised Hessians afterward, who wrote, "I am certain not a drop of liquor was drunk during the whole night, nor, as I could see, even a piece of bread eaten " Military historian Edward G  Lengel wrote, "The Germans were dazed and tired but there is no truth to the legend claiming that they were helplessly drunk "

Aftermath
After the Hessians' surrender, Washington is reported to have shaken the hand of a young officer and said, "This is a glorious day for our country " On December 28, General Washington interviewed Lieutenant (later Colonel) Andreas Wiederhold, who detailed the failures of Rall's preparation  Washington soon learned, however, that Cadwalader and Ewing had been unable to complete their crossing, leaving his worn-out army of 2,400 men isolated  Without their 2,600 men, Washington realized he did not have the forces to attack Princeton and New Brunswick By noon, Washington's force had moved across the Delaware back into Pennsylvania, taking their prisoners and captured supplies with them  Washington would follow up his success a week later in the Battle of the Assunpink Creek and the Battle of Princeton solidifying Patriot gains 

Legacy
This small but decisive battle, as with the later Battle of Cowpens, had an effect disproportionate to its size  The Patriot victory gave the Continental Congress new confidence, as it proved colonial forces could defeat them in the future  It also increased re-enlistments in the Continental Army forces  By defeating a European army, the colonials reduced the fear that the Hessians had caused earlier that year after the fighting in New York  Howe was stunned that the Patriots so easily surprised and overwhelmed the Hessian garrison  Colonial support for the rebellion was further buoyed significantly at this time by writings of Thomas Paine and additional successful actions by the New Jersey Militia Two notable U S  officers were wounded while leading the charge down King Street: William Washington, cousin of General Washington, and Lieutenant James Monroe, the future President of the United States  Monroe was carried from the field bleeding badly after he was struck in the left shoulder by a musket ball, which severed an artery  Doctor John Riker clamped the artery, preventing him from bleeding to death The Trenton Battle Monument, erected at "Five Points" in Trenton, stands as a tribute to this U S  victory  The crossing of the Delaware River and battle are reenacted by local enthusiasts every year (unless the weather is too severe on the river) Eight current Army National Guard units (101st Eng Bn, 103rd Eng Bn, A/1-104th Cav, 111th Inf, 125th QM Co, 175th Inf, 181st Inf and 198th Sig Bn) and one currently-active Regular Army Artillery battalion (1–5th FA) are derived from U S  units that participated in the Battle of Trenton  There are thirty current units of the U S  Army with colonial roots 

Painting
In 1851, German-American artist Emanuel Leutze painted the second of three paintings depicting Washington crossing the Delaware  It is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is "one of the most famous American paintings " At the time of its first exhibition it caused a sensation, in Europe and the United States  Leutze hoped it would stir revolutionary sentiments in Germany  After six months in Germany it was shipped to New York City where the New-York Mirror newspaper lauded it with the words, "the grandest, most majestic, and most effective painting ever exhibited in America " The painting is the center-piece of the collections in the American Wing  It is still one of the most recognizable paintings at the Metropolitan  It is central to the canon of American historical art images, its monumental popularity undimmed in the years since it was first exhibited 

See also
American Revolutionary War British New York counter-offensive  The 'Battle of Trenton' placed in overall sequence and strategic context 
Battle of Bennington
Battle of Iron Works Hill
Battle of Princeton – fought the day after the Battle of the Assunpink Creek
Battle of the Assunpink Creek – also known as the Second Battle of Trenton, fought one week later
Battles of Saratoga
Battle of Yorktown* List of American Revolutionary War battles
New Jersey in the American Revolution

Footnotes
Bibliography
Brooks, Victor (1999)  How America Fought Its Wars  New York: Da Capo Press  ISBN 1-58097-002-8 
Burt, Daniel S  (2001)  The Biography Book  New York: Oryx Press  ISBN 1-57356-256-4 
Ferling, John (2007)  Almost a Miracle  Oxford University Press  ISBN 978-0-19-518121-0 
Fischer, David Hackett (2006)  Washington's Crossing  Oxford University Press  ISBN 0-19-517034-2 
Ketchum, Richard (1999)  The Winter Soldiers: The Battles for Trenton and Princeton (1st Owl books ed )  Holt Paperbacks  ISBN 0-8050-6098-7 
Lengel, Edward (2005)  General George Washington, a Military Life  New York: Random House Paperbacks  ISBN 0-8129-6950-2 
McCullough, David (2006)  1776  New York: Simon and Schuster Paperback  ISBN 0-7432-2672-0  1776 David 
Mitchell, Craig (2003)  George Washington's New Jersey  Middle Atlantic Press  ISBN 0-9705804-1-X 
Rosenfeld, Lucy (2007)  History Walks in New Jersey  Rutgers  ISBN 978-0-8135-3969-0 
Savas, Theodore (2006)  Guide to the Battles of the American Revolution  Savas Beatie  ISBN 1-932714-12-X 
Sawicki, James A  (1981)  Infantry Regiments of the US Army  Dumfries, VA: Wyvern Publications  ISBN 978-0-9602404-3-2 
Scheer, George (1987)  Rebels and Redcoats  Da Capo Press  ISBN 0-306-80307-0 
Schuyler, Hamilton (1929)  A history of Trenton, 1679-1929  Princeton : Princeton University Press: The Trenton Historical Society 
Stanhope, Phillip Henry (1854)  History of England: From the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles  GB, Murray 
Stryker, William S  (1898)  The Battles of Trenton and Princeton  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company  OCLC 49835662 
Tucker, Philip Thomas (2014), George Washington's Surprise Attack: A New Look at the Battle That Decided the Fate of America, Skyhorse Publishing, ISBN 978-1628736526
Wiederholdt, Andreas (2015) [1862]   M D  Learned; C  Grosse (eds )  Tagebuch des Capt  Wiederholdt vom 7 Oktober bis 7 December 1780  The University of Michigan Library: The MacMillan Co, New York 
Wood, W J  Henry (2003)  Battles of the Revolutionary War  Da Capo Press  ISBN 0-306-81329-7 

Further reading
Maloy, Mark  Victory or Death: The Battles of Trenton and Princeton, December 25, 1776 – January 3, 1777  Emerging Revolutionary War Series  El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2018  ISBN 978-1-61121-381-2 

External links

"The Two Battles of Trenton"  The Trenton Historical Society 
"The Winter Patriots: The Trenton-Princeton Campaign of 1776–1777"  George Washington's Mount Vernon 
Passage 9:
Hellfire: A Journey from Hiroshima
Hellfire: A Journey from Hiroshima is a 1986 American documentary film directed by John Junkerman  It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature 
Passage 10:
The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden
The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden is a one act play by American novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder written in 1931   It was first published in The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act (New York: Coward-McCann, 1931) 

Productions
The first production of The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden was by the Yale Dramatic Association and the Vassar College Philalethis  at the Yale University theater in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 25, 1931   It opened on Broadway at the Cort Theatre on March 16, 1948, in a production starring Peggy Allenby as Ma Kirby and Don MacLaughlin as Elmer   A production by Theodore Mann at the Circle in the Square Theatre which opened on April 21, 1993, won both a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play 

Plot summary
Almost the entire play takes place during an automobile journey from Newark to Camden, New Jersey by a family on their way to visit a married daughter, who has recently lost a baby in childbirth   Very little happens, but the father, mother, and children reminisce, joke, and sightsee and somehow, in classic Thornton Wilder fashion, capture something of the universal joy and sadness of life as they motor along 

Themes
Comparing this play with his later masterpiece, Our Town, Wilder said in 1974, "In my plays I attempted to raise ordinary daily conversation between ordinary people to the level of the universal human experience " In his "Notes to the Producer" written in 1931, Wilder stated that:

It should constantly be borne in mind that the purpose of this play is the portrayal of the character of Ma Kirby     the director should constantly keep in mind that Ma Kirby's humor, strength and humanity constitute the unifying element throughout 
Eric Specie in an overview of the play says:

A family car trip occurs on a bare stage  Yet the ordinary is only the setting for an investigation of extraordinary existential issues  In this family drama, nothing much happens—and yet everything important happens 
In this play, Ma Kirby is the leading and strong character  She is a loving mother, an active woman, strict about dress and manners, thoughts and beliefs in God  She is satisfied and joyful with her family members  For her, the place where her family lives is the best place on earth  As a responsible or good mother, she wants her children to be honest by doing good and think good  She is a philosophical, determined, and kind-hearted person 
Passage 11:
Old Barracks Museum
The Old Barracks Museum, also known just as the Old Barracks, is a historic building located at 101 Barracks Street in Trenton, Mercer County, New Jersey  Built in 1758 to house soldiers of the British Army, it is the only remaining colonial barracks in the state and is one of the only tangible surviving elements of the 1776 Battle of Trenton  The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 25, 1971 and listed as a National Historic Landmark on November 28, 1972, for its significance in military history   It is now a state-run historic site and museum 

History
The Old Barracks were built in 1758 to house British soldiers during the French and Indian War, after colonists complained about the forced quartering of soldiers engaged in the conflict   It was built as a U-shaped stone structure, capable of housing about 300 soldiers at a time   It was reoccupied as a winter quarters by Hessian troops in the fall of 1776, during the American Revolutionary War   George Washington crossed the Delaware River to catch the Hessian garrison by surprise during the Battle of Trenton on the morning of December 26, 1776   Most of this battlefield is now occupied by downtown Trenton   For the remainder of that conflict it was occupied by whichever force controlled Trenton, including at various times British and American Continental Army troops  In the later stages of the war it was used as a military hospital by the Continental Army Following the Revolution, the building was sold off, and it was converted into a series of private residences   One arm of the barracks was demolished in 1813 to make way for Front Street   From 1855 to 1899 it was used as a home for elderly women   In 1902, members of the Daughters of the Revolution, under the leadership of Beulah A  Oliphant, bought part of the building to preserve it   The state bought the other part and formed a museum in 1914 which continues to be open and supported by the State of New Jersey The museum is open to visitors year round, Monday–Saturday, and is known for the annual Battle of Trenton Reenactments 

Gallery
See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Mercer County, New Jersey
East Jersey Olde Towne Village, site of replica of New Brunswick Barracks
Context 3: Passage 1:
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey  is a 1993 American adventure comedy film and a remake of the 1963 film The Incredible Journey, which was based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Sheila Burnford  Directed by Duwayne Dunham, it was released on February 3, 1993  It grossed $57 million worldwide and was followed in 1996 by the sequel Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco  This film is dedicated to producer Franklin R  Levy, who died during production of the film 

Plot
Chance, a selfish and free-spirited American Bulldog and the narrator of the film, explains that he is the pet of Jamie Burnford, but expresses no interest in his owner or being part of a family  He shares his home with Shadow, a wise old Golden Retriever owned by Jamie's brother Peter, and Sassy, a pampered Himalayan cat owned by Peter and Jamie's sister Hope  That morning, the children's mother, Laura Burnford, marries Bob Seaver, and Chance causes trouble by devouring the wedding cake in front of all the guests 
Shortly after the wedding, the family has to temporarily move to San Francisco because Bob must relocate there for his job  They leave the pets at a ranch belonging to Kate, Laura's college friend  Shadow and Sassy miss their owners immediately, but Chance sees it as an opportunity to relax and be free  Later in the week, Kate goes on a cattle drive, leaving the animals to be looked after by her neighbor Frank  However, half of her message to him is lost, leading him to believe that she has taken them along, leaving the animals alone  Unsure about the disappearance of their host, the animals fear they have been abandoned  Shadow, refusing to believe that his boy would leave him, decides to make his way home  Not wanting to be left alone on the ranch, Chance and Sassy decide to accompany Shadow on his journey 
They head into the rocky, mountainous wilderness of the Sierra Nevada with Shadow leading  After a night spent in fear of the woodland noises, the group stops to catch breakfast at a river  However, two black bear cubs interrupt Chance and a large brown bear causes the group to retreat  At another river, Sassy refuses to swim across to follow the dogs and instead tries to cross via a wooden path further downstream; halfway across, the wood breaks and she falls into the river  Shadow tries to save her, but she goes over a waterfall to her apparent death  Guilt-ridden, Shadow and Chance go on without her  Unknown to them, Sassy survives and is later found on the riverbank by an old man named Quentin, who nurses her back to health 
Over the next two days, Shadow and Chance try unsuccessfully to catch food and encounter a mountain lion, which chases them to the edge of a cliff  Shadow gets an idea to use rocks positioned like a seesaw as a way to outsmart the mountain lion  While Shadow acts as bait, Chance pounces onto the end of the rock and sends the mountain lion over the cliff and into a river  Sassy hears the dogs barking in celebration and follows the sound to rejoin them 
The animals continue on their way, but Chance begins pestering a porcupine, ending up with a load of quills in his muzzle  The animals then encounter a little girl named Molly, who is lost in the woods  Loyalty instinct takes over and they stand guard over her during the night  In the morning, Shadow finds a rescue party and leads them back to the girl  They recognize the animals from a missing pets flyer and take them to the local animal shelter, but Chance mistakes it for an animal pound and the trio panic  As the medical staff remove the quills from Chance's muzzle, Sassy sneaks in and frees Shadow  Together, they retrieve Chance and escape the shelter, unaware that their owners are on their way to get them 
Finally reaching their hometown, the animals cross through a train yard, where Shadow falls into a muddy pit and injures his leg  Despondent, he tells Chance and Sassy to go on without him, and when Chance argues passionately, tells the younger dog he's learned all he needs; "Now all you have to learn is how to say goodbye " Heartbroken, Chance insists he won't let him give up  Near dusk, Chance and Sassy finally make it home and are happily reunited with their owners  Shadow initially fails to appear, but eventually he limps into view and happily comes running home at the sight of Peter  Chance narrates how it was Shadow's belief that brought them home and how the years seemed to lift off of him, making him a puppy again as he reunited with his boy  The film ends with Chance musing about how he truly feels "home" with his family, before happily running into the house at the smell of food 

Cast
Reception
The film received positive reception  The film holds an 87% aggregate critic approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 30 reviews, with the consensus stating "Disney's remake of The Incredible Journey successfully replicates, and in some ways improves upon, the simple charms of the original, with its cross-country animal odyssey sure to delight kids " According to movie critic Roger Ebert, the movie is "frankly designed for kids, and yet it has a certain craftsmanship and an undeniable charm, and if you find yourself watching it with a child you may end up liking it almost as much " Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale The film grossed $41,833,324 in the United States and Canada and $15 5 million internationally for a worldwide total of $57 4 million 
Passage 2:
McGruff the Crime Dog
McGruff the Crime Dog is an anthropomorphic animated bloodhound created by Dancer Fitzgerald Sample advertising executive Jack Keil (who also voiced the character) through the Ad Council and later the National Crime Prevention Council to increase crime awareness and personal safety in the United States  McGruff costumes are used by police outreach efforts, often with children  McGruff was created in 1979 and debuted in 1980 with a series of public service announcements educating citizens on personal security measures, such as locking doors and putting lights on timers, in order to reduce crime  His name was selected as part of a nationwide contest in July 1980 
McGruff proved to be a successful campaign with over $100 million in free air time donated in the first year reaching over 50% of adults  McGruff campaigns continued over the years to cover topics such as child abduction, robbery, anti-drug messages, and anti-bullying campaigns  From 1982 to 2012, a number of municipalities participated in the McGruff house program which offered temporary haven to children fearing immediate harm  McGruff has continued to be well-recognized, with nine out of ten people recognizing him in a 2021 survey  This is thanks partly to recent campaigns against cyber-bullying, stopping online fakes, and elder-crime 

History
Crime as a public concern
The decades prior to McGruff's creation saw an increase in U S  public concern over crime  In the 1960s, a number of riots broke out across the U S  and numerous public figures were assassinated, including President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr , and Malcolm X  Accepting the Republican nomination for president, Barry Goldwater positioned crime as one of the biggest issues facing the nation  While Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson, the issue of crime did not stop there  In July 1965, President Johnson formed the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice to "probe     fully and deeply into the problems of crime in our nation "After two years and $2 5 million, the Commission delivered its report, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, in February 1967 which influenced the Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968  The act gave $300 million to local police forces for more personnel and equipment  With the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, the attempts to control rising crime rates shifted from a social approach—the "War on Poverty"—to a tough on crime approach—the "War on Crime"  Despite Nixon's attempts (until his resignation in 1973), crime continued to rise from 363 5 crimes per 100,000 people in 1970 to 549 5 in 1979  The Carter administration took the focus away from crime and onto nuclear arms control and human rights  During Carter's presidency, crime continued to be a concern with the "kill for thrill murders" of 1979, when two men killed four people over eight days in Western Pennsylvania 

Creation
The Ad Council was first approached by the Department of Justice in 1977 to create a public campaign to engage the public in reducing crime  The FBI director recommended a campaign playing on fears to convince citizens to take personal safety steps, but the Ad Council rejected their proposal believing it would largely be ignored by an already frightened public  However, the Ad Council was still interested in a crime prevention campaign  Leo Perlis, a member of the Ad Council's Public Policy Committee, heard the proposal and liked the idea  He met with FBI Director Clarence M  Kelley, the head of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and a board member of the National Sheriffs' Association to form a coalition to direct the ad campaign The Ad Council gave the creative responsibilities to Dancer Fitzgerald Sample who they had previously worked with on the Keep America Beautiful campaign  On February 8, 1979, the Ad Council's board of directors held a meeting where they and public officials met to listen to data Dancer Fitzgerald Sample had compiled  Dancer Fitzgerald Sample had conducted focus groups in a number of cities to determine public perceptions on crime  The focus groups found that the public believed police should be the ones to prevent crime, but that they were unwilling to pay more in taxes to support more officers  They recommended a campaign which would "emphasize that individual actions can reduce crime" and "offer easily accessible opportunities for people to participate "The task was given to Jack Keil, executive vice president and creative director of Dancer Fitzgerald Sample  Keil, thinking of Smokey Bear, came up with the idea of an animal mascot  After coming up with the slogan—"Take a bite out of crime"—he settled upon the idea of a dog  His first version was "a Snoopy look-alike wearing a Keystone Cop hat " His creative team however did not believe the dog would be taken seriously  In response, he gave the team a day to come up with a new version Five teams of two—a copywriter and an art director—produced proposals  They rejected proposals included a bulldog version of J  Edgar Hoover, a golden retriever, an "aggressive-looking deputy dog", and a "mongrel who became a wonder dog"  The proposal Keil selected, which would go on to become McGruff, was a talking dog in a trench coat produced by Sherry Nemmers and Ray Krivascy who "was tired   he had seen the world, and he had epitomized all the detectives we had seen from Raymond Chandler to Dashiell Hammett and even Columbo "While lauded by Keil, the U S  Department of Justice was less enthused by the idea of a talking dog as the spokesman for crime prevention  By 1979, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), created by President Johnson, was being criticized for its wastefulness prompting President Carter to shut down the program  The public safety outreach, part of the LEAA, was one of the few programs saved by Robert Diegelman who was tasked with dismantling the LEAA  Diegelman saw value in the public outreach effort and so sent monthly reports to his superiors in order to assuage their concerns  Despite this, Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti criticised the effort saying: "Why has the LEAA gotten into a campaign that is spending good money on a talking dog?" Civiletti ordered the campaign be shut down, but the advertisements had already been distributed to the media and were set to run In November 1979, the dog was introduced at a press Conference in New York City with his slogan "Take a bite out of crime " Eight months later, in July 1980, a nationwide contest to name the dog was concluded  "McGruff the Crime Dog" was selected as the winner with "Shurlocked Homes" as the runner-up  The winning name was submitted by Officer John Isbell of the New Orleans Police Department 

Initial impact
McGruff was the first Ad Council campaign to be independently evaluated  Garrett O'Keefe of the University of Denver was given a grant of $900,000 by the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice in order to evaluate the campaign  O'Keefe found that "media response to the campaign was excellent  More than $100 million of [ad] time and space had been donated by mid-1981, making McGruff one of the most popular Ad Council campaigns " As a result of the advertisements, over 1 million free booklets had been distributed, and another 250,000 were purchased from the Government Printing Office  The Army printed 300,000 booklets for their own programs as well 
By the end of 1981, over 50% of Americans had seen at least one McGruff advertisement with one third reporting they had seen the advertisements more than ten times  The dominant medium of exposure was television advertisements, comprising 78% of views, followed by posters and billboards at 14%, and newspapers at 8%  While the demographics of exposure were notably diverse, there were some trends in who saw the ads more often than others  The ads were found to reach demographics prone to crime—men, youth, people with less stable residences, and those living in lower-working-class neighborhoods—slightly more often than those populations less prone to crime  Of those who had seen the advertisements, 88% were able to articulate what they were "trying to get across" with 28% pointing out the advertisements' goals of getting citizens to participate in crime prevention programs and reporting crime to the police 
O'Keefe also asked some questions related to public perception of McGruff  He found that only 3% disliked McGruff, most calling him "too cutesy", while 57% liked him for being "attention-getting, clever, different, or appealing to all ages " 36% of respondents were neutral to McGruff  8% said that they were annoyed by the commercials while 59% said that they were "pleased" by them In order to assess the impact of the McGruff advertisements, O'Keefe surveyed adults in 1979 and in 1981, a year before and a year after the premiere of the first McGruff advertisement  Of the forty personal security measures that McGruff advertisements recommended, only seven were explicitly mentioned in TV advertisements: locking doors, leaving outdoor lights on, putting indoor lights on timers, asking neighbors to watch your house, watching the neighborhood, reporting suspicious activity, and forming community groups to prevent crime  Of those seven, six saw a significant increase in usage by the public after seeing McGruff advertisements  The only activity not to see an increase was locking doors, despite the first McGruff spot specifically advocating this  O'Keefe hypothesizes that this is due to a plateau effect, as 75% of respondents in 1979 already reported locking their doors; the only personal security measure not mentioned in a television advertisement to see a significant increase was getting a dog 

Campaigns
McGruff debuted in 1980 with television, newspaper, billboard, and radio advertisements  The Ad Council and the National Crime Prevention Council still use McGruff in national campaigns to raise awareness about crime and crime prevention strategies  About 1500 law enforcement agencies use McGruff costumes as part of their outreach efforts in communities  McGruff advertisements feature a "fulfillment strategy", a means of contact for more information  Early advertisements contained PO boxes that could be written to for more information, but now contain phone numbers and websites McGruff was well received in the 1980s, and current campaigns are similarly recognizable  In a survey done by Harris Interactive for the National Crime Prevention Council, McGruff was known by 9 in 10 adults, teens, and children once being prompted; about 3 in 4 adults, 8 in 10 teens, and 8 in 10 children recognized McGruff without being prompted  Respondents were asked how likely they were to take McGruff's advice  Children were found to be very receptive, with 8 in 10 responding they were likely to take his advice  7 in 10 teens and 6 in 10 adults gave similar responses 

Initial campaign
The first McGruff campaign featured three television and radio advertisements as well as billboards and posters  The campaign focused on raising awareness of the ability for citizens to help prevent crime through personal security steps, community awareness, and reporting crimes in progress 
The first television advertisement, "Stop a Crime", debuted in February 1980  The full 60-second advertisement features McGruff (voiced by Jack Keil) entering an unlocked house and telling the viewer, "All crime needs is a chance  Don't give it a chance" before giving tips on preventive measures  These measures included locking doors, turning on exterior lights, securing windows, asking neighbors to watch the house during long absences, and putting lights on timers The advertisement was followed by two more which focused on community crime prevention tactics: "The Gilstraps" and "Mimi Marth"  In "The Gilstraps", McGruff is backgrounded by men loading furniture into a moving truck  McGruff points out that these are actually thieves stealing from the home of the titular Gilstraps  The camera cuts to the Gilstraps' neighbors who, knowing the Gilstraps are out of town, call the police In order to show the effectiveness of community watch, McGruff creator Sherry Nemmers selected actual Hartford resident Mimi Marth for the advertisement which now bears her name  "Mimi Marth" shows Marth and another watch member, Albert Bell, responding to crimes in progress by reporting them to police on their radios  McGruff tells the viewer that "There's 126 of them, regular people like you and me, working against crime "In addition to advertising and media campaigns, a costume was created for in-person appearances  Approximately 1,500 state and local law enforcement agencies use officers wearing a McGruff costume to educate children and others about crime prevention 

Addressing kidnapping, drugs, gun violence, and online fakes
The National Crime Prevention Council hired their first president and CEO, Jack Calhoun  Calhoun wanted to address the roots of crime saying, "At some point, I have to step out from my locked house and barred windows " Current plans are to introduce McGruff to a new generation and to have the Crime Dog become a watchdog to combat new criminal and 21st Century online crime  "A greater investment in community interventions will help take a bite out of violent crime," said Paul DelPonte, current head of the National Crime Prevention Council  "Strategies that increase public engagement in public safety are proven crime stoppers " DelPonte also has urged public health officials to use McGruff and crime prevention in health prevention programs 

NCPC and McGruff are currently working with the U S  Patent and Trademark Office to combat the sale of fake products online  The campaign, "You're Smart  Buy Smart ", premiered the first television ads  featuring McGruff in 3D animation in August 2022  The ads, filmed on the lot of Jim Henson Studios in Hollywood, are also in Spanish  Among the largest campaigns in the Crime Dog's lengthy career, it includes a partnership with NASCAR and featured a new car with driver Joey Gase In December 2021, the animated television show Family Guy featured McGruff and the National Crime Prevention Council on preventing kidnapping  The re-emergence of McGruff generated an outpouring of fan support In April 2022, the National Crime Prevention Council announced a partnership with McGruff the Crime Dog in creating Fentanyl Prevention Awareness Day scheduled for August 21, 2022  In October of the same year, the organization launched livesproject org, a digital remembrance quilt to honor victims and to raise awareness of the problem 

McGruff Houses and trucks
The McGruff House program was a program that designated temporary safe havens for children in emergency situations  The program was first created in Utah in 1982 in response to the abduction and murder of five children by Arthur Gary Bishop  Owners of houses and apartments, after clearing a background check, would display a sign in their window with the image of McGruff  Children would be educated at school and community events to go to these houses when they felt threatened or in need of help The program operated under the motto "we'll call for help" and emphasized its use as a temporary haven  Volunteers were trained to call the appropriate authorities in emergency situations and would provide emotional support to children in danger  The program made clear that volunteers were for emergency situations, and even in such situations, volunteers would not act as escorts or provide first aid "except in extreme emergency situations and then only if qualified "The first McGruff truck was established in Utah in 1986  A utility company asked that its trucks be designated as "rolling McGruff Houses" and were approved  The program was extended to other companies and municipalities, and in 2006 there were over 170 participants  In February 2012, the McGruff House program was ended after nearly 30 years  The program was ended because, with the advent and growing prominence of cell phones, the need for McGruff Houses declined combined with tightening budgets In 2018, the Martin Agency brought back McGruff as part of GEICO Insurance's 'count on GEICO' campaign  The TV spot has an animated McGruff attempting to share his investigation evidence with several human colleagues  They respond by not taking him seriously and treating him like an actual dog with 'baby talk', leading to McGruff's throwing his paperwork in the air and storming out of the scene 

In popular culture
Major League Baseball player Fred McGriff was given the name "Crime Dog" in reference to McGruff 
"The Springfield Connection", a sixth-season episode of The Simpsons, features a hand puppet named "McGriff the Crime Dog" briefly used by Marge 

The Dexter's Laboratory episode "G I R L  Squad" features a parody of McGruff named McBark the Crime Hound, depicted as a disinterested man wearing a dog mascot suit



ground_truth: Pulitzer Prize for Drama

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

Question: Who is the spouse of the person who plays Batman in the Lego Batman Movie?

The following are given passages.
Context 2: Passage 1:
Batman: Gotham County Line
Batman: Gotham County Line is a three-issue American comic book limited series written by Steve Niles, known for his series 30 Days of Night, and illustrated by Scott Hampton  It follows Batman as a series of ritual murders outside Gotham City leads him into a macabre supernatural realm 

Plot
During a fight with Batman, the Joker raises the issue of the existence of an afterlife, which Batman puts down, along with his nemesis  Jim Gordon summons Batman with a case in the suburbs of Gotham County, where entire families have been killed in the same grisly and ritualistic way, shortly after being robbed by a junkie   Batman investigates one of the crime scenes before being called to another murder in progress where he pursues the killer but is ambushed and knocked out  He is rescued by detectives Keith and Radmuller of the Gotham County Sheriff's Department and questions the junkie thief at his residence   Before the thief can give any information, he is shot by the killer who eludes Batman again, but not before Batman procures a Sheriff's badge from his person, that of Detective Radmuller  Batman arrives at Radmuller's apartment to apprehend him, but Radmuller has set a trap causing Batman to inadvertently hang him by opening the door  The case is solved and Batman returns to Gotham, but Radmuller springs to life in the back of the ambulance transporting his corpse, killing those inside and leading their reanimated corpses back into town 
Bruce is haunted by dreams and visions of reanimated corpses and his parents blaming him for their deaths  He suspects Radmuller of poisoning him with something, though his tests for such come back negative  Detective Keith contacts him to inform him that Radmuller's body is missing, along with those of the most recently murdered family  At the crime scene, Batman and Keith are accosted by the corpse of the murdered father, who shoots Keith with her own gun and flees  Deadman emerges from Keith's body and informs Batman that he is trapped in a world between that of the living and the dead, having been cursed by Radmuller before his death   Deadman tells Batman that he must open his mind if he is to escape the realm and lets slip that he is aware of Batman's secret identity, before they are accosted by a horde of zombies led by Radmuller and Deadman disappears 
Batman attempts to fight the zombies off, but they are immune to his struggles   Radmuller explains that they are the victims of crimes that Batman failed to stop  Batman flees and is saved by the zombie of Jason Todd, who thanks Batman for thinking of him  Batman takes shelter in a decrepit house, where he sees the corpses of Radmuller's parents, who tell how their son killed them just to watch them die  Deadman reappears with the Phantom Stranger, who destroys the attacking zombies  Batman goes to confront Radmuller, on the way meeting his parents, who ask him to believe in something beyond their violent deaths and inspiring Batman to confront Radmuller with his own dead parents  Radmuller's power over the realm dissipates and Batman returns to the moment before the curse was enacted, stopping Radmuller's hanging death and turning him over to the GCSD 

Collected editions
The limited series has been collected in a trade paperback:

Batman: Gotham County Line (180 pages, October 2006, ISBN 140120905X)

Reception
The List called the comic "interesting but not essential" 

Notes
Passage 2:
On Broadway (film)
On Broadway is an independent film, shot in Boston in May 2006, starring Joey McIntyre, Jill Flint, Eliza Dushku, Mike O'Malley, Robert Wahlberg, Amy Poehler and Will Arnett 

Plot
Emotionally devastated by the death of his uncle, Boston carpenter Jack O'Toole (McIntyre) writes a play inspired by the man's wake  When nobody will produce the play, Jack quits his job to produce it himself, imagining that this play will give a new start to the strained relationship Jack has with his father  But the only stage Jack can afford is in the back room of a neighborhood pub  In this humble environment, Jack pulls together a theater company of sorts and brings his story to the stage, and in the process he brings together his family and friends and helps them move beyond their loss 

Cast
Joey McIntyre as Jack O'Toole, a carpenter turned playwright
Eliza Dushku as Lena Wilson, the lead actress in Jack's play
Mike O'Malley as Father Rolie O'Toole, Jack's priest brother
Sean Lawlor as Martin O'Toole, Jack's estranged father
Will Arnett as Tom, the actor and Jack's friend
Amy Poehler as Farrah, Tom's wife
Lance Greene as Billy O'Toole, Pete's son and Jack's cousin
Robert Wahlberg as Kevin Sheehan, Jack's cousin
Vincent Dowling as Augie Burke, a friend of the O'Tooles
Lucas Caleb Rooney as Neil Quinn, Jack's friend
Jill Flint as Kate O'Toole, Jack's wife
Andrew Connolly as Pete O'Toole, Jack's late uncle

Credits
The film was written and directed by playwright/screenwriter Dave McLaughlin and shot by cinematographer Terrence Fitzgerald Hayes  The film was produced by Charlie Harrington 
Additional cast members included Vincent Dowling, Sean Lawlor, Lucas Caleb Rooney, Lance Greene, Andrew Connolly, Peter Giles, Dossy Peabody, Will Harris and Nancy E  Carroll 

Release
On Broadway had its festival release at a sold-out premiere at the Independent Film Festival of Boston on April 27, 2007  It received good reviews  The film went on to screen at the film festivals of Woods Hole, Galway, New Hampshire, Hoboken, New Jersey, Waterfront, Napa and Northampton  It won an award for Best Feature in the Galway Film Fleadh, another for Audience Best Feature in the Woods Hole Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize for Best Film in the New Hampshire Film Festival and had six nominations in the Hoboken Film Festival   At the 2007 Phoenix Film Festival On Broadway won the Sundance Channel Audience Award for Best Film, and Joey McIntyre won the Best Breakthrough Performance Award at the same festival 
On Broadway had a theatrical release on March 14, 2008 in Boston at the Somerville Theater, West Newton Cinema, Sharon Cinemas 8 and Dedham Community Theater 
Passage 3:
Batman: Under the Red Hood
Batman: Under the Red Hood is a 2010 American animated superhero action thriller direct-to-video film produced by Warner Bros  Animation and released by Warner Home Video  It is the eighth film of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies  The writer, Judd Winick, also wrote the "Under the Hood" run in the monthly Batman comic the film is based on  The film was released on July 27, 2010, and received highly positive reviews from critics, who praised its plot, animation, and focus on storytelling  It is generally considered to be one of the best in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line  The film was also a commercial success, grossing over $12 million in home video sales 
The two-disc special edition and Blu-ray also includes an animated short featuring Jonah Hex  An interactive short spiritual sequel/film adaptation, Batman: Death in the Family, was released on October 13, 2020,  ten years after Red Hood 

Plot
Ra's al Ghul realizes his mistake in hiring the Joker to use him as a distraction while he destroyed Europe's financial districts after learning that he has captured Jason Todd, the second Robin, Batman's partner  In Sarajevo, Bosnia, Joker brutally assaults Jason, in an abandoned warehouse with a crowbar  Jason is locked in the warehouse with a bomb, which explodes and kills him before Batman arrives 
Five years later in Gotham City, a mysterious vigilante called Red Hood assembles a meeting of the city's most prominent drug dealers  He announces a takeover of their drug trade, taking only 40% of the profit while offering them protection from both Black Mask and Batman - under punishment of death to anyone caught dealing drugs to children 
Batman stops an attempted theft of a shipment belonging to Black Mask, which is the advanced android Amazo  Batman destroys Amazo with the help of Jason's predecessor Dick Grayson a k a  Nightwing and discovers the thieves are working for Red Hood who then kills them  He chases Red Hood to Ace Chemicals, where an explosion destroys the facility  Batman and Nightwing interrogate Joker at Arkham Asylum about Red Hood, but he denies involvement 

Black Mask puts a hit on Red Hood for Amazo's destruction  Batman and Nightwing prevent Red Hood from hijacking Black Mask's next weapon shipment  They chase Red Hood to a train station, where he escapes after detonating a bomb, which injures Nightwing  Batman and Nightwing realize Red Hood is trained and has knowledge of Batman's tactics and gear  A review of audio footage of the chase reveals Red Hood knows Batman's secret identity 
Batman recalls Jason performing the same maneuvers as Robin and that Jason grew more violent and bloodthirsty as he aged, with Batman having to stop him many times from nearly killing criminals  The Fearsome Hand of 4 lure out Red Hood and nearly overpower him until Batman helps incapacitate three of them and Red Hood kills the fourth, horrifying Batman  Red Hood explains he is doing what Batman will not: killing criminals who are not afraid 
Batman analyzes a blood sample of Red Hood drawn from the battle and it matches Jason's  After discovering Jason's corpse is fake, Batman confronts Ra's al Ghul and demands to know the truth  Ra's explains that he felt responsible for Jason's death and, as a peace offering, he swapped Jason's body for a fake and revived him in the Lazarus Pit  Following his resurrection, Jason was driven insane and escaped 
After surviving an assassination attempt by Red Hood, Black Mask sets Joker free, tasking him with killing Red Hood  However, Joker instead abducts Black Mask and the drug dealers and plans to set them on fire; Red Hood appears and reveals his real target all along has been the Joker  Batman saves the hostages and Red Hood takes Joker  Red Hood brutally beats Joker in revenge for his own murder and confronts Batman 
During the fight, Red Hood removes his helmet, confirming he is Jason  Their fight makes its way to the dilapidated building where Jason is keeping the Joker and ends with Jason holding Batman at gunpoint  Though he has forgiven Batman for not saving him, Jason is upset and angry that Joker is still alive after killing him  Batman admits he has thought constantly about torturing and killing the Joker but will not, fearing he will not stop if he kills even once 
Jason tosses Batman a gun and gives him an ultimatum – he will execute the Joker unless Batman shoots him  Batman refuses and drops the gun, causing Jason to shoot at him  Batman throws a batarang, which jams Jason's pistol  When Jason pulls the trigger again, the gun is destroyed and his right hand gets mangled  Defeated, Jason sets off a time bomb and Batman subdues Joker before attempting to save Jason 
The bomb explodes; Batman and Joker survive but Jason is gone  Joker is returned to Arkham and Black Mask is arrested for his involvement in the Joker's escape  At the Batcave, Alfred offers to remove the glass case display of Jason's Robin costume after everything that has happened, but Bruce refuses, claiming it doesn't change anything 
A final flashback shows Jason's first day as Robin, which he cheerfully declares is the best day of his life 

Cast
Crew
Andrea Romano – Voice Director

Music
The score for Batman: Under the Red Hood was composed by Christopher Drake, who had previously scored several animated films set in the DC Universe  It was inspired by the soundtracks of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm which features a traditional orchestral score and The Dark Knight which features a computer generated, electronic score  Drake said that since Under the Red Hood has a darker tone than previous DC Universe animated films, he chose not to use the music as epic and melodramatic instead opting for a more intimate, minimal and restrained tone  He added that this is the first DC film he has scored that didn't rely on using a large choir to make the fight scenes sound bigger  Drake scored the film as a reference to modern minimalist electronic scores because the film's director Brandon Vietti felt that Under the Red Hood needed to go in a different, more modern direction to separate it from previous DC animation scores  At that point, Drake introduced more electronic and ambient elements, like synthesized and processed electronic guitar, while retaining orchestral elements Batman: Under The Red Hood – Soundtrack to The Animated Original Movie was released by WaterTower Music on July 27, 2010 and features 18 tracks composed for the film 

Commercial performance
The film grossed over $12 million in domestic home video sales, making it one of the highest grossing DC animated films 

Critical reception
Batman: Under the Red Hood received positive reviews from critics who praised the film's direction, animation, emotional weight of the story, and voice acting particularly for Jensen Ackles  On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 100% based on reviews from seven critics, with an average rating of a 7 3/10  
Demeter's review for The World's Finest stated: "I have to say this really was a damn good film"  James Harvey's review on the same website was even more positive, calling it "a mature and faithful take on the Batman lore"  IGN gave the movie an 8 out of 10, calling it "An interesting peek inside the psyche of Batman and the fine line between good and evil"  It was the highest rated direct-to-video Batman film until the release of The Dark Knight Returns 

Continuation
A follow-up film titled Batman: Death in the Family was released on October 13, 2020, a decade after Under the Red Hood with Greenwood, Martella, and DiMaggio reprising their roles  Zehra Fazal plays Talia al Ghul and Gary Cole plays both Two-Face and Commissioner Gordon  It is an interactive narrative where the viewer chooses what happens in the story 
Passage 4:
Batman Bridge
The Batman Bridge is a modern road bridge that carries the Batman Highway across the Tamar River, between Whirlpool Reach, Hillwood at its eastern end and Sidmouth / Deviot midpoint at its western end, in north Tasmania, Australia  The bridge connects the Batman Highway with the West Tamar Highway (state route A7) and the East Tamar Highway (state route A8)  The bridge overlooks the Deviot Sailing Club and is named in honour of John Batman, a Launceston businessman and co-founder of Melbourne 

Design features
Built between 1966 and 1968, it was the first cable-stayed bridge in Australia and among the first such bridges in the world  The main span is 206 metres (676 ft) long, suspended from a 91-metre-high (299 ft) steel A-frame tower  The deck is 10 3 metres (34 ft) wide  The tower is on the west bank of the Tamar river, on a solid dolerite rock base which carries 78% of the weight of the main span  The length of the bridge is 432 metres (1,417 ft) between abutments  The east bank is soft clay not capable of supporting a bridge  A causeway carries the highway across this softer base, supported by four piers built on piles driven up to 18 metres (59 ft) into the clay  The bridge deck is constructed of steel 

Gallery
Passage 5:
The Lego Batman Movie
The Lego Batman Movie (stylized as The LEGO Batman Movie) is a 2017 computer-animated superhero comedy film produced by Warner Animation Group, DC Entertainment, RatPac Entertainment, Lego System A/S, Lin Pictures, Lord Miller Productions, and Vertigo Entertainment, and distributed by Warner Bros  Pictures  It was directed by Chris McKay (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern, and John Whittington  Based on the characters from the DC Universe created by DC Comics and the Lego DC Super Heroes' Batman toy line, the film is a collaboration between production houses from the United States, Australia, and Denmark, the first spin-off in The Lego Movie franchise and the second installment overall  The film features Will Arnett reprising his role as Batman from The Lego Movie alongside Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, and Ralph Fiennes  The story follows the title character (Arnett) as he attempts to overcome his greatest fear to stop the Joker's (Galifianakis) latest plan 
Development of The Lego Batman Movie started in October 2014, after Warner Bros  announced several Lego films, following the critical and commercial success of The Lego Movie, while Chris McKay was hired to direct the film after being replaced by Rob Schrab to direct the sequel to The Lego Movie  He cited both The Naked Gun and Airplane! film series as his main inspirations  Casting call began in July to November 2015  The film pays homage to previous Batman films, cartoons, and comics  The film also features characters from other notable franchises and film series with them  Like The Lego Movie, the animation was provided by Animal Logic  Lorne Balfe composed the film's musical score 
The Lego Batman Movie had its world premiere in Dublin, Ireland on January 29, 2017, and was released in the United States on February 10, 2017 in RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX, IMAX 3D and 4DX formats  The film received generally positive reviews from critics for its animation, voice acting, score, visual style, and humor, and was also commercially successful, having grossed $312 million worldwide against a budget of around $80 million  A sequel, Lego Superfriends, was announced in 2018, but was cancelled after Universal Pictures acquired the Lego franchise rights, with Zach's casting being the main criminal of the film 

Plot
Within the DC superhero dimension of the Lego multiverse, Batman protects Gotham City and fights crime  During his latest mission to stop the Joker, Kite Man, Crazy Quilt, the Penguin, the Riddler, the Kabuki Twins, Calculator, Captain Boomerang, Man-Bat, Red Hood and more villains from destroying the city, Batman succeeds, but also hurts the Joker's feelings by telling him he is not as important in his life as he thinks he is, leading the Joker to seek the ultimate revenge on him 
The following day, Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne attends the city's winter gala, which is celebrating both the retirement of Police Commissioner Gordon and the ascension of his daughter Barbara to replace him  Wayne is smitten by Barbara, and this distraction results in him unwittingly agreeing to adopt the enthusiastic orphan Dick Grayson  Wayne is then infuriated by Barbara's plans to restructure the police to function without the need of Batman  The Joker crashes the party with his villain team  The Joker surrenders himself to police, while capturing almost all the villains for the police, except Harley Quinn  With so many villains incarcerated, Batman becomes desolate as Gotham no longer requires his crime-fighting skills 
Suspecting that the Joker is up to no good, Batman plans to steal Superman's Phantom Zone projector, a device that can banish anyone to the Phantom Zone, which houses some of the most dangerous criminals in the Lego multiverse, only for Alfred to intervene and advise him to take care of Dick  Batman initially refuses, so Alfred allows Dick to enter the Batcave  Appearing as Batman before Dick, Batman states that he is also adopting Dick, and fosters Dick as Robin to help in his scheme  Batman and Robin recover the projector from the Fortress of Solitude, break into Arkham Asylum and successfully send the Joker to the Phantom Zone  Suspecting that the Joker wanted to be sent there, Barbara locks up Batman and Robin 
While the projector is being seized as evidence, Harley steals it back as part of the Joker's plan, and frees him, allowing him to return to Gotham with all the multiverse's villains he had recruited in the Phantom Zone, including Sauron, who informs the Joker that Batman is Bruce Wayne  The criminals attack Gotham and take over Wayne Island  Realizing that Gotham does need Batman after all, Barbara releases Batman and Robin and teams up with them and Alfred to stop the new threat  Although his teammates achieve some success in fighting the multiverse's villains, Batman forcibly sends them away and confronts the Joker alone, fearing that he might lose them just like his parents 
Believing that Batman is incapable of changing his ways, the Joker sends him to the Phantom Zone before stealing the Batcave's stash of confiscated bombs to destroy Gotham  Meanwhile, Phyllis, the Phantom Zone's gatekeeper, shows Batman how he has mistreated Dick, Alfred, Barbara and the Joker  Batman accepts his greatest fear, being part of a family, and decides to change  Batman's teammates return to the fight to help him, but are endangered themselves  Batman makes a deal with Phyllis to temporarily return to Gotham to retrieve the Zone's escaped prisoners, and arrives in time to save his teammates, apologizing to them for leaving them and requesting their help to stop the Joker  They agree, with Barbara taking on the Batgirl costume 
With help from Bane, Orca and Egghead, who felt neglected by the Joker when he refused to break them out of Arkham, Batman and his team defeat the escaped multiverse's villains and send them back to the Phantom Zone  However, the Joker's bombs explode, tearing Gotham apart at the plates below the city  Batman convinces Joker to help him by telling him he gives him purpose to be the hero he is, and with the help of every civilian and villain, they manage to save Gotham, chain-linking themselves together to reassemble the plates 
In the aftermath, Batman reveals to Dick that he is Wayne in disguise, then goes to return to the Phantom Zone to face the consequences of his earlier behavior  Phyllis prevents Batman from entering the Phantom Zone, after realizing he is a hero and seeing how he changed to save everyone  Afterward, Batman gives the Joker, the Penguin, Bane, Mr  Freeze, Clayface, the Riddler, Harley, the Kabuki Twins and the rest of the villains a headstart, knowing they will be no match for the Bat-family 

Voice cast
Will Arnett as Bruce Wayne / Batman: A billionaire by day and superhero by night, who defends Gotham City from crime  Arnett also voiced the character in The Lego Movie and later reprised his role in its sequel 
Zach Galifianakis as Joker: A clown-themed villain in Gotham City and Batman's archenemy, who defines himself by his conflict with him 
Michael Cera as Dick Grayson / Robin: An orphan who is adopted by Bruce Wayne, and becomes a sidekick to Batman 
Rosario Dawson as Barbara Gordon / Batgirl: The newly elected police commissioner of Gotham, who hopes to restructure the Gotham City Police Department so that the city could defend itself without Batman  She eventually comes to trust Batman and becomes Batgirl 
Ralph Fiennes as Alfred Pennyworth: The Wayne family's butler, and Bruce's father figure and only confidant  Fiennes later reprised his role in The Lego Movie 2 
Jenny Slate as Harley Quinn, The Joker's girlfriend and accomplice 
Héctor Elizondo as James Gordon, the retired police commissioner of Gotham and Barbara's father 
Ellie Kemper as Phyllis, a brick who is the gatekeeper of the Phantom Zone 
Mariah Carey as Mayor McCaskill, the mayor of Gotham 
Lauren White as Chief O'Hara, the police chief of Gotham 
Todd Hansen and Chris McKay respectively as Captain Dale and Pilot Bill, the two pilots of the airplane hijacked by the Joker at the beginning of the film 
Brent Musburger, Ralph Garman, and Chris Hardwick make cameo appearances as three unnamed reporters 
Mark Jonathan Davis as a fictionalized version of himself (his character Richard Cheese also appears through the use of archival recordings) 
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as Superman and Green Lantern, both reprising their respective roles from The Lego Movie 
Adam DeVine as The Flash Several actors voice the various villains from Batman's rogues gallery, including Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face (as a nod to his role as Harvey Dent, Two-Face's former identity, in the 1989 Batman film), Riki Lindhome as Poison Ivy, Conan O'Brien as Riddler, Jason Mantzoukas as the Scarecrow, Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman (she would later portray Catwoman in The Batman), Matt Villa as Killer Croc, Kate Micucci as Clayface, Doug Benson as Bane (the character's appearance and Benson's performance are meant to satirize Tom Hardy's portrayal of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises), John Venzon as Penguin, (the character's appearance is a nod to Danny DeVito‘s portrayal of Penguin in Batman Returns), David Burrows as Mr  Freeze (Burrows also voices an anchorman), and Laura Kightlinger as Orca (Kightlinger also voices a reporter)  The film also features villains from other franchises, including Sauron's Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (voiced by Jemaine Clement), the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz (also voiced by Riki Lindhome), Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter (voiced by Eddie Izzard), King Kong from King Kong, the Swamp Creature from various monster films (both voiced by Seth Green), Medusa from Greek mythology (also voiced by Lauren White), and the Daleks from Doctor Who (voiced by Nicholas Briggs, reprising his role from the television series) 
The voice of the Batcomputer (credited as 'Puter), depicted here as an artificial intelligence controlling all of Batman's gadgets and vehicles, is done by Siri Archive footage of Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger from Jerry Maguire is used 

Production
Development
In October 2014, following the success of The Lego Movie, Warner Bros  greenlit multiple Lego films, including The Lego Batman Movie, a spin-off starring Batman  Warner Bros  scheduled the release of The Lego Batman Movie for May 26, 2017, moving the release date for The Lego Movie 2 (later titled as The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part) to May 25, 2018  Chris McKay, who co-directed The Lego Movie, was brought on board to direct the film, making it his solo directorial debut  Will Arnett returned to voice Batman, with the story written by Seth Grahame-Smith, and the film produced by Dan Lin, Roy Lee, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller  On April 20, 2015, Warner Bros  moved up The Lego Batman Movie to a February 10, 2017 release  The film itself also serves as the first theatrically released animated feature to be based on a licensed property, which explains the lack of yellow Lego figures, despite Emmet Brickowski, the main character of the Lego Movie, making a small cameo 
In an interview about his work on the film, McKay stated that working on the film was "a very mixed blessing" owing partly to the film's hectic time schedule for its production, remarking that the two-and-a-half years allocated to the film made it difficult to fit in everything that he wanted for the movie, considering his earlier work on The Lego Movie  His work on The Lego Batman Movie was influenced by the comedy portrayed in both The Naked Gun and Airplane! film series, with his pitch for the film to the studios being described as like "Jerry Maguire as directed by Michael Mann"  His proposal to combine all the Batman eras featured in the comic book series and various media formats, including movies and comic series, despite a couple of issues—the total inconsistency inherent to such a task, and Lego rejecting some of the characters he proposed to include in the film—was based on his desire of how to portray Robin within the film's setting  In an interview regarding his version of the superhero duo, McKay stated:
"I was thinking that we were basically taking the Burt Ward Robin and sticking him in the Batmobile with the Zack Snyder/Ben Affleck Batman, or the Frank Miller Batman  And putting these two different energies together  Somebody who’s like the grumpiest, dark grittiest, broodiest Batman with the most positive, indefatigable kid "
In 2019, prior to the release of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, Chris Miller stated that all of the Lego movies are based on the imagination of a child character, with The Lego Movie events happening in young Finn's mind  Miller affirmed that The Lego Batman Movie was also from the imagination of Finn and Bianca, though the characters did not appear within the film, although Bianca was alluded to as Phyllis' boss 

Casting
In July 2015, Arnett's Arrested Development co-star Michael Cera was cast to voice Robin  In August 2015, Zach Galifianakis entered final negotiations to voice the Joker  In October 2015, Rosario Dawson was cast to voice Barbara Gordon, the daughter of police commissioner James Gordon who later becomes the crime-fighting heroine Batgirl  The following month, Ralph Fiennes was cast as Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler  Initial reports indicated that Mariah Carey was playing Commissioner Gordon  However, she was actually cast as Mayor McCaskill 

Batman and pop culture references
As part of its production, the film was designed to make numerous references to previous Batman films, cartoons and comics  In two distinct scenes where Barbara Gordon depicts Batman's long history of services for the police and Alfred quotes Batman's previous films (as previous moments of emotional crisis), they mention: the 1940s Batman serials (erroneously placed earlier than his comic books appearances); the films Batman (1966), Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995), Batman & Robin (1997), Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Suicide Squad (2016); the television shows Batman (1960s), Batman: The Animated Series (1990s), Batman Beyond (2000s) and The Batman (2000s); and the comics Detective Comics #27 (Batman's introductory story), The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Gotham by Gaslight (1989)  Other references include previous costumes worn by Batman and Robin and the various Batmobiles used  In most cases, their appearances in the film are done in a Lego style, with the exception being footage from a live-action shot of Adam West's depiction of Batman in the 1960s Batman series and a picture of Batman's suit from Batman and Robin  Climactic events from past Batman films involving the Joker have been mentioned, including "that time with the parade and the Prince music" (1989's Batman) and "the two boats" (The Dark Knight) Alongside Joker, the main antagonist of the film's story, and Superman, who features heavily and has notable links to the Christopher Reeve films Superman (1978) and its sequel Superman II (1980), many other DC characters, both villains associated with Batman and other DC superheroes, feature in the film  The film's villains who have been featured in Batman comics, films and cartoons include: Man-Bat; Captain Boomerang; Egghead; Crazy Quilt; Eraser; Polka-Dot Man; Mime; Tarantula; King Tut from the 1960s series; Killer Moth; March Harriet; Zodiac Master; the Mutant Leader from The Dark Knight Returns; Doctor Phosphorus; Magpie; Calculator; Hugo Strange; an unidentified version of Red Hood; the Kabuki Twins from The Batman; Orca; Gentleman Ghost; Clock King; Calendar Man; Kite Man; Catman; Zebra-Man; and a variation of Condiment King from Batman: The Animated Series  The other DC heroes who feature, both from the Justice League and Super Friends, include: Wonder Woman; Aquaman; The Flash; Cyborg; Green Arrow; Black Canary; Hawkman; Hawkgirl; Martian Manhunter; Apache Chief; Black Vulcan; El Dorado; Samurai; Wonder Dog; the Wonder Twins and Gleek  Although not part of the DC franchise, Iron Man from Marvel Comics is referenced in the film as part of a small joke about Batman's password for entering the Batcave, referencing the famous rivalry between DC and Marvel The film also features characters from other notable franchises and film series with them following the same narrative of The Lego Movie in that they came from worlds that co-exist alongside others of the Lego Universe, which are made up of Lego playsets of the various media franchises  These additional characters include: Medusa from Lego Minifigures; the Swamp Creature, Evil Mummy, and Lord Vampyre from Lego Monster Fighters; King Kong; the Daleks from Doctor Who; the Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz; the Kraken from Clash of the Titans; Agent Smith and his clones from The Matrix; the great white shark from Jaws; Voldemort from Harry Potter; Sauron from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit; the Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptors from Jurassic Park; The Skeleton Warriors from Jason and the Argonauts and the Gremlins  The way in which the Gremlins attack a plane references The Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" The film also includes Batman watching the scene from Jerry Maguire where Tom Cruise says "You complete me" (which makes Batman laugh out loud); this line had previously been quoted by The Joker in The Dark Knight  In the scene where Batman discusses possible team names he mentions Fox Force Five, which is the name of Mia Wallace's failed television pilot mentioned in Pulp Fiction  The film's use of Cutting Crew's "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" is a nod to the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed  The film's other references include Gleaming the Cube and Gymkata The casting of Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face references the 1989 Batman film, in which Williams played District Attorney Harvey Dent, before his transition to Two-Face  Director Chris McKay said the film's depiction of Gotham City was inspired by Chicago partly due to  Christopher Nolan having filmed The Dark Knight Trilogy in Chicago A scene from The Lego Movie is reused in the film, depicting Emmet falling down from Lord Business's tower into the real world, as television journalists explain what would happen if Joker detonates his bomb 

Music
The Lego Batman Movie is the first in the franchise not to be composed by Mark Mothersbaugh; the film score is composed by Lorne Balfe  The soundtrack album was released by WaterTower Music on February 3, 2017, through two-disc CD and for digital download, while the vinyl version was released on May 19, 2017 

Marketing
The first teaser trailer for The Lego Batman Movie was released on March 24, 2016, and features the song "Black and Yellow" by Wiz Khalifa  It was attached to showings of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in theatres  A second teaser trailer was released on March 28, 2016, and features references to all live-action iterations of Batman, from the 1960s Batman TV series to Batman v Superman  A third trailer was released on July 23, 2016  A fourth trailer was released on November 4, 2016  Over twenty Lego sets inspired by scenes from the film were released for the film including two sets of Collectible Minifigures  A Story Pack for the toys-to-life video game Lego Dimensions based on The Lego Batman Movie was released on February 10, 2017, alongside the film  The pack adds a six-level story campaign adapting the events of the film, and includes playable figures of Robin and Batgirl, a driveable Batwing, and a constructible gateway model based on the Batcomputer  A Fun Pack including Excalibur Batman and his Bionic Steed was also released the same day On January 14, 2017, at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Chevrolet unveiled a life-sized Lego Batmobile inspired by the design featured in the film, constructed from around 350,000 Lego pieces  As a related promotion, a Bat-Signal (alternating between Batman's emblem and the Chevrolet logo) was projected on the Renaissance Center over the weekend, and Chevrolet released a new television commercial tying into the film, featuring the Batmobile as a crossover with its ongoing "Real People, Not Actors" campaign Warner Bros  released several promotional tie-ins on the week of the movie's release  LEGO billboard versions of several TV shows were shown outside of the studio lot, that took 300 hours to make out of 10,000 bricks  The Big Bang Theory included a LEGO version of the opening sequence in the episode "The Locomotion Reverberation" that first aired on CBS  In addition, the network aired two LEGO commercials featuring Batman and the cast The CW featured LEGO end cards for Supergirl, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow, respectively, on the week of the movie's release  All four DC shows also include a special variant of the Berlanti Productions logo that featured Batman's cameo and a new recording from Greg Berlanti's real-life father who says "Batman, move your head " instead of the usual "Greg, move your head " In addition, the network aired two commercials where Batman interacts with the characters from each show 

Release
Theatrical
The film's world premiere was conducted in Dublin, Ireland on January 29, 2017, where upon it went into general release from February 8; it was released in Denmark on February 9, and in the United States and the United Kingdom on February 10  Its overall release saw movie theatres displaying the film in 3D, RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX 3D and 4DX  though the latter format was restricted to 3D for North America, while international countries were able to view it in IMAX The Lego Batman Movie is notably the first animated movie based on Batman to receive a full theatrical release since Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) 

Home media
The LEGO Batman Movie was released on Digital HD on May 19, 2017  The release included the theatrical short film The Master: A LEGO Ninjago Short, as well as four new short films: Dark Hoser, Batman is Just Not That Into You, Cooking with Alfred and Movie Sound Effects: How Do They Do That?  The LEGO Batman Movie was released on DVD, Blu-ray (2D and 3D), and Ultra HD Blu-ray by Warner Bros  Home Entertainment on June 13, 2017  The film debuted at No  3 on the NPD VideoScan overall disc sales chart 

Reception
Box office
The Lego Batman Movie grossed $175 8 million in the United States and Canada and $136 2 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $312 million, against a production budget of $80 million In the United States and Canada, The Lego Batman Movie opened alongside two other sequels, Fifty Shades Darker and John Wick: Chapter 2, and was projected to gross around $60 million from 4,088 theaters in its opening weekend  It earned $2 2 million from Thursday-night previews and $14 5 million on Friday  It went on to open with $53 million, finishing first at the box office  In its second weekend, the film grossed $32 7 million (a small drop of 38 4%), again topping the box office; with the additional President's Day holiday on Monday, it made a total of $42 7 million for the weekend  In its third weekend of release, the film dropped to second at the box office, behind newcomer Get Out, grossing $19 2 million (a drop of 41 2%) Outside North America the film was simultaneously released in 61 countries, and was expected to gross around $40 million over its first three days  It ended up grossing $37 million in its opening weekend, including $9 3 million in the United Kingdom, $2 6 million in Mexico, $2 3 million in Germany and $2 2 million in Russia 

Critical response
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 90% based on 315 reviews, with an average rating of 7 5/10  The website's critical consensus reads, "The Lego Batman Movie continues its block-buster franchise's winning streak with another round of dizzyingly funny—and beautifully animated—family-friendly mayhem " It was ranked the 23rd best superhero movie of all time on the site  On Metacritic, the film has a score of 75 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews"  Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale Mike Ryan of Uproxx gave the film a positive review, praising its comedy, and saying: "The LEGO Batman Movie isn't the same experience as watching The LEGO Movie, but I also don't think it's trying to be  It's trying to be a fun superhero movie with clever callbacks to previous Batman films (every single Batman movie all the way back to the 1940s serials are referenced) that can, at least, provide DC superhero fans with a taste of fun amidst all the doom and gloom  (That can either be a reference to 'the real world' or the current DC Cinematic Universe films, you can choose either one you want or both ) And at that, The LEGO Batman Movie succeeds " Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B+" and wrote, "LEGO Batman revs so fast and moves so frenetically that it becomes a little exhausting by the end  It flirts with being too much of a good thing  But rarely has corporate brainwashing been so much fun and gone down with such a delightful aftertaste " Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times was positive in his review, saying, "In its best moments, this gag-a-minute Bat-roast serves as a reminder that, in the right hands, a sharp comic scalpel can be an instrument of revelation as well as ridicule " Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post praised the film for its heart, humor, and action which "snap together, with a satisfying click "

Accolades
Other media
Sets
Video games
Lego Dimensions includes characters from various franchises, including The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie  The game's Starter Pack includes Wyldstyle, while Emmet, Benny, Bad Cop, and Unikitty are included in Fun Packs  From The Lego Batman Movie, Robin and Batgirl are included in a Story Pack while Excalibur Batman is included in a Fun Pack  However, Robin gets his voice actor changed in the game to Robbie Daymond and can also use his appearance from Teen Titans Go! if he is used in the Teen Titans Go! World 
Based on The Lego Batman Movie, Warner Bros  Interactive Entertainment released the endless-runner game coinciding with the release of the film  It was released for Android and iOS 

Cancelled sequel
On December 5, 2018, McKay announced a sequel to the film was in the works, with him returning to direct  The film was set for release in 2022  However, following the box office underperformance of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part in 2019, Universal Pictures acquired the film rights to The Lego Movie franchise in 2020, effectively cancelling the sequel due to the rights of DC Comics being owned by Warner Bros In June 2021, McKay revealed that the script was being written by Michael Waldron and Dan Harmon  It would have focused on Batman's relationship with the Justice League, particularly Superman, and the main villains would have been Lex Luthor and OMAC  Waldron revealed that the film was tentatively titled Lego Superfriends 
Passage 6:
The Lego Batman Movie
The Lego Batman Movie (stylized as The LEGO Batman Movie) is a 2017 computer-animated superhero comedy film produced by Warner Animation Group, DC Entertainment, RatPac Entertainment, Lego System A/S, Lin Pictures, Lord Miller Productions, and Vertigo Entertainment, and distributed by Warner Bros  Pictures  It was directed by Chris McKay (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern, and John Whittington  Based on the characters from the DC Universe created by DC Comics and the Lego DC Super Heroes' Batman toy line, the film is a collaboration between production houses from the United States, Australia, and Denmark, the first spin-off in The Lego Movie franchise and the second installment overall  The film features Will Arnett reprising his role as Batman from The Lego Movie alongside Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, and Ralph Fiennes  The story follows the title character (Arnett) as he attempts to overcome his greatest fear to stop the Joker's (Galifianakis) latest plan 
Development of The Lego Batman Movie started in October 2014, after Warner Bros  announced several Lego films, following the critical and commercial success of The Lego Movie, while Chris McKay was hired to direct the film after being replaced by Rob Schrab to direct the sequel to The Lego Movie  He cited both The Naked Gun and Airplane! film series as his main inspirations  Casting call began in July to November 2015  The film pays homage to previous Batman films, cartoons, and comics  The film also features characters from other notable franchises and film series with them  Like The Lego Movie, the animation was provided by Animal Logic  Lorne Balfe composed the film's musical score 
The Lego Batman Movie had its world premiere in Dublin, Ireland on January 29, 2017, and was released in the United States on February 10, 2017 in RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX, IMAX 3D and 4DX formats  The film received generally positive reviews from critics for its animation, voice acting, score, visual style, and humor, and was also commercially successful, having grossed $312 million worldwide against a budget of around $80 million  A sequel, Lego Superfriends, was announced in 2018, but was cancelled after Universal Pictures acquired the Lego franchise rights, with Zach's casting being the main criminal of the film 

Plot
Within the DC superhero dimension of the Lego multiverse, Batman protects Gotham City and fights crime  During his latest mission to stop the Joker, Kite Man, Crazy Quilt, the Penguin, the Riddler, the Kabuki Twins, Calculator, Captain Boomerang, Man-Bat, Red Hood and more villains from destroying the city, Batman succeeds, but also hurts the Joker's feelings by telling him he is not as important in his life as he thinks he is, leading the Joker to seek the ultimate revenge on him 
The following day, Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne attends the city's winter gala, which is celebrating both the retirement of Police Commissioner Gordon and the ascension of his daughter Barbara to replace him  Wayne is smitten by Barbara, and this distraction results in him unwittingly agreeing to adopt the enthusiastic orphan Dick Grayson  Wayne is then infuriated by Barbara's plans to restructure the police to function without the need of Batman  The Joker crashes the party with his villain team  The Joker surrenders himself to police, while capturing almost all the villains for the police, except Harley Quinn  With so many villains incarcerated, Batman becomes desolate as Gotham no longer requires his crime-fighting skills 
Suspecting that the Joker is up to no good, Batman plans to steal Superman's Phantom Zone projector, a device that can banish anyone to the Phantom Zone, which houses some of the most dangerous criminals in the Lego multiverse, only for Alfred to intervene and advise him to take care of Dick  Batman initially refuses, so Alfred allows Dick to enter the Batcave  Appearing as Batman before Dick, Batman states that he is also adopting Dick, and fosters Dick as Robin to help in his scheme  Batman and Robin recover the projector from the Fortress of Solitude, break into Arkham Asylum and successfully send the Joker to the Phantom Zone  Suspecting that the Joker wanted to be sent there, Barbara locks up Batman and Robin 
While the projector is being seized as evidence, Harley steals it back as part of the Joker's plan, and frees him, allowing him to return to Gotham with all the multiverse's villains he had recruited in the Phantom Zone, including Sauron, who informs the Joker that Batman is Bruce Wayne  The criminals attack Gotham and take over Wayne Island  Realizing that Gotham does need Batman after all, Barbara releases Batman and Robin and teams up with them and Alfred to stop the new threat  Although his teammates achieve some success in fighting the multiverse's villains, Batman forcibly sends them away and confronts the Joker alone, fearing that he might lose them just like his parents 
Believing that Batman is incapable of changing his ways, the Joker sends him to the Phantom Zone before stealing the Batcave's stash of confiscated bombs to destroy Gotham  Meanwhile, Phyllis, the Phantom Zone's gatekeeper, shows Batman how he has mistreated Dick, Alfred, Barbara and the Joker  Batman accepts his greatest fear, being part of a family, and decides to change  Batman's teammates return to the fight to help him, but are endangered themselves  Batman makes a deal with Phyllis to temporarily return to Gotham to retrieve the Zone's escaped prisoners, and arrives in time to save his teammates, apologizing to them for leaving them and requesting their help to stop the Joker  They agree, with Barbara taking on the Batgirl costume 
With help from Bane, Orca and Egghead, who felt neglected by the Joker when he refused to break them out of Arkham, Batman and his team defeat the escaped multiverse's villains and send them back to the Phantom Zone  However, the Joker's bombs explode, tearing Gotham apart at the plates below the city  Batman convinces Joker to help him by telling him he gives him purpose to be the hero he is, and with the help of every civilian and villain, they manage to save Gotham, chain-linking themselves together to reassemble the plates 
In the aftermath, Batman reveals to Dick that he is Wayne in disguise, then goes to return to the Phantom Zone to face the consequences of his earlier behavior  Phyllis prevents Batman from entering the Phantom Zone, after realizing he is a hero and seeing how he changed to save everyone  Afterward, Batman gives the Joker, the Penguin, Bane, Mr  Freeze, Clayface, the Riddler, Harley, the Kabuki Twins and the rest of the villains a headstart, knowing they will be no match for the Bat-family 

Voice cast
Will Arnett as Bruce Wayne / Batman: A billionaire by day and superhero by night, who defends Gotham City from crime  Arnett also voiced the character in The Lego Movie and later reprised his role in its sequel 
Zach Galifianakis as Joker: A clown-themed villain in Gotham City and Batman's archenemy, who defines himself by his conflict with him 
Michael Cera as Dick Grayson / Robin: An orphan who is adopted by Bruce Wayne, and becomes a sidekick to Batman 
Rosario Dawson as Barbara Gordon / Batgirl: The newly elected police commissioner of Gotham, who hopes to restructure the Gotham City Police Department so that the city could defend itself without Batman  She eventually comes to trust Batman and becomes Batgirl 
Ralph Fiennes as Alfred Pennyworth: The Wayne family's butler, and Bruce's father figure and only confidant  Fiennes later reprised his role in The Lego Movie 2 
Jenny Slate as Harley Quinn, The Joker's girlfriend and accomplice 
Héctor Elizondo as James Gordon, the retired police commissioner of Gotham and Barbara's father 
Ellie Kemper as Phyllis, a brick who is the gatekeeper of the Phantom Zone 
Mariah Carey as Mayor McCaskill, the mayor of Gotham 
Lauren White as Chief O'Hara, the police chief of Gotham 
Todd Hansen and Chris McKay respectively as Captain Dale and Pilot Bill, the two pilots of the airplane hijacked by the Joker at the beginning of the film 
Brent Musburger, Ralph Garman, and Chris Hardwick make cameo appearances as three unnamed reporters 
Mark Jonathan Davis as a fictionalized version of himself (his character Richard Cheese also appears through the use of archival recordings) 
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as Superman and Green Lantern, both reprising their respective roles from The Lego Movie 
Adam DeVine as The Flash Several actors voice the various villains from Batman's rogues gallery, including Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face (as a nod to his role as Harvey Dent, Two-Face's former identity, in the 1989 Batman film), Riki Lindhome as Poison Ivy, Conan O'Brien as Riddler, Jason Mantzoukas as the Scarecrow, Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman (she would later portray Catwoman in The Batman), Matt Villa as Killer Croc, Kate Micucci as Clayface, Doug Benson as Bane (the character's appearance and Benson's performance are meant to satirize Tom Hardy's portrayal of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises), John Venzon as Penguin, (the character's appearance is a nod to Danny DeVito‘s portrayal of Penguin in Batman Returns), David Burrows as Mr  Freeze (Burrows also voices an anchorman), and Laura Kightlinger as Orca (Kightlinger also voices a reporter)  The film also features villains from other franchises, including Sauron's Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (voiced by Jemaine Clement), the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz (also voiced by Riki Lindhome), Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter (voiced by Eddie Izzard), King Kong from King Kong, the Swamp Creature from various monster films (both voiced by Seth Green), Medusa from Greek mythology (also voiced by Lauren White), and the Daleks from Doctor Who (voiced by Nicholas Briggs, reprising his role from the television series) 
The voice of the Batcomputer (credited as 'Puter), depicted here as an artificial intelligence controlling all of Batman's gadgets and vehicles, is done by Siri Archive footage of Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger from Jerry Maguire is used 

Production
Development
In October 2014, following the success of The Lego Movie, Warner Bros  greenlit multiple Lego films, including The Lego Batman Movie, a spin-off starring Batman  Warner Bros  scheduled the release of The Lego Batman Movie for May 26, 2017, moving the release date for The Lego Movie 2 (later titled as The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part) to May 25, 2018  Chris McKay, who co-directed The Lego Movie, was brought on board to direct the film, making it his solo directorial debut  Will Arnett returned to voice Batman, with the story written by Seth Grahame-Smith, and the film produced by Dan Lin, Roy Lee, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller  On April 20, 2015, Warner Bros  moved up The Lego Batman Movie to a February 10, 2017 release  The film itself also serves as the first theatrically released animated feature to be based on a licensed property, which explains the lack of yellow Lego figures, despite Emmet Brickowski, the main character of the Lego Movie, making a small cameo 
In an interview about his work on the film, McKay stated that working on the film was "a very mixed blessing" owing partly to the film's hectic time schedule for its production, remarking that the two-and-a-half years allocated to the film made it difficult to fit in everything that he wanted for the movie, considering his earlier work on The Lego Movie  His work on The Lego Batman Movie was influenced by the comedy portrayed in both The Naked Gun and Airplane! film series, with his pitch for the film to the studios being described as like "Jerry Maguire as directed by Michael Mann"  His proposal to combine all the Batman eras featured in the comic book series and various media formats, including movies and comic series, despite a couple of issues—the total inconsistency inherent to such a task, and Lego rejecting some of the characters he proposed to include in the film—was based on his desire of how to portray Robin within the film's setting  In an interview regarding his version of the superhero duo, McKay stated:
"I was thinking that we were basically taking the Burt Ward Robin and sticking him in the Batmobile with the Zack Snyder/Ben Affleck Batman, or the Frank Miller Batman  And putting these two different energies together  Somebody who’s like the grumpiest, dark grittiest, broodiest Batman with the most positive, indefatigable kid "
In 2019, prior to the release of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, Chris Miller stated that all of the Lego movies are based on the imagination of a child character, with The Lego Movie events happening in young Finn's mind  Miller affirmed that The Lego Batman Movie was also from the imagination of Finn and Bianca, though the characters did not appear within the film, although Bianca was alluded to as Phyllis' boss 

Casting
In July 2015, Arnett's Arrested Development co-star Michael Cera was cast to voice Robin  In August 2015, Zach Galifianakis entered final negotiations to voice the Joker  In October 2015, Rosario Dawson was cast to voice Barbara Gordon, the daughter of police commissioner James Gordon who later becomes the crime-fighting heroine Batgirl  The following month, Ralph Fiennes was cast as Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler  Initial reports indicated that Mariah Carey was playing Commissioner Gordon  However, she was actually cast as Mayor McCaskill 

Batman and pop culture references
As part of its production, the film was designed to make numerous references to previous Batman films, cartoons and comics  In two distinct scenes where Barbara Gordon depicts Batman's long history of services for the police and Alfred quotes Batman's previous films (as previous moments of emotional crisis), they mention: the 1940s Batman serials (erroneously placed earlier than his comic books appearances); the films Batman (1966), Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995), Batman & Robin (1997), Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Suicide Squad (2016); the television shows Batman (1960s), Batman: The Animated Series (1990s), Batman Beyond (2000s) and The Batman (2000s); and the comics Detective Comics #27 (Batman's introductory story), The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Gotham by Gaslight (1989)  Other references include previous costumes worn by Batman and Robin and the various Batmobiles used  In most cases, their appearances in the film are done in a Lego style, with the exception being footage from a live-action shot of Adam West's depiction of Batman in the 1960s Batman series and a picture of Batman's suit from Batman and Robin  Climactic events from past Batman films involving the Joker have been mentioned, including "that time with the parade and the Prince music" (1989's Batman) and "the two boats" (The Dark Knight) Alongside Joker, the main antagonist of the film's story, and Superman, who features heavily and has notable links to the Christopher Reeve films Superman (1978) and its sequel Superman II (1980), many other DC characters, both villains associated with Batman and other DC superheroes, feature in the film  The film's villains who have been featured in Batman comics, films and cartoons include: Man-Bat; Captain Boomerang; Egghead; Crazy Quilt; Eraser; Polka-Dot Man; Mime; Tarantula; King Tut from the 1960s series; Killer Moth; March Harriet; Zodiac Master; the Mutant Leader from The Dark Knight Returns; Doctor Phosphorus; Magpie; Calculator; Hugo Strange; an unidentified version of Red Hood; the Kabuki Twins from The Batman; Orca; Gentleman Ghost; Clock King; Calendar Man; Kite Man; Catman; Zebra-Man; and a variation of Condiment King from Batman: The Animated Series  The other DC heroes who feature, both from the Justice League and Super Friends, include: Wonder Woman; Aquaman; The Flash; Cyborg; Green Arrow; Black Canary; Hawkman; Hawkgirl; Martian Manhunter; Apache Chief; Black Vulcan; El Dorado; Samurai; Wonder Dog; the Wonder Twins and Gleek  Although not part of the DC franchise, Iron Man from Marvel Comics is referenced in the film as part of a small joke about Batman's password for entering the Batcave, referencing the famous rivalry between DC and Marvel The film also features characters from other notable franchises and film series with them following the same narrative of The Lego Movie in that they came from worlds that co-exist alongside others of the Lego Universe, which are made up of Lego playsets of the various media franchises  These additional characters include: Medusa from Lego Minifigures; the Swamp Creature, Evil Mummy, and Lord Vampyre from Lego Monster Fighters; King Kong; the Daleks from Doctor Who; the Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz; the Kraken from Clash of the Titans; Agent Smith and his clones from The Matrix; the great white shark from Jaws; Voldemort from Harry Potter; Sauron from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit; the Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptors from Jurassic Park; The Skeleton Warriors from Jason and the Argonauts and the Gremlins  The way in which the Gremlins attack a plane references The Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" The film also includes Batman watching the scene from Jerry Maguire where Tom Cruise says "You complete me" (which makes Batman laugh out loud); this line had previously been quoted by The Joker in The Dark Knight  In the scene where Batman discusses possible team names he mentions Fox Force Five, which is the name of Mia Wallace's failed television pilot mentioned in Pulp Fiction  The film's use of Cutting Crew's "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" is a nod to the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed  The film's other references include Gleaming the Cube and Gymkata The casting of Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face references the 1989 Batman film, in which Williams played District Attorney Harvey Dent, before his transition to Two-Face  Director Chris McKay said the film's depiction of Gotham City was inspired by Chicago partly due to  Christopher Nolan having filmed The Dark Knight Trilogy in Chicago A scene from The Lego Movie is reused in the film, depicting Emmet falling down from Lord Business's tower into the real world, as television journalists explain what would happen if Joker detonates his bomb 

Music
The Lego Batman Movie is the first in the franchise not to be composed by Mark Mothersbaugh; the film score is composed by Lorne Balfe  The soundtrack album was released by WaterTower Music on February 3, 2017, through two-disc CD and for digital download, while the vinyl version was released on May 19, 2017 

Marketing
The first teaser trailer for The Lego Batman Movie was released on March 24, 2016, and features the song "Black and Yellow" by Wiz Khalifa  It was attached to showings of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in theatres  A second teaser trailer was released on March 28, 2016, and features references to all live-action iterations of Batman, from the 1960s Batman TV series to Batman v Superman  A third trailer was released on July 23, 2016  A fourth trailer was released on November 4, 2016  Over twenty Lego sets inspired by scenes from the film were released for the film including two sets of Collectible Minifigures  A Story Pack for the toys-to-life video game Lego Dimensions based on The Lego Batman Movie was released on February 10, 2017, alongside the film  The pack adds a six-level story campaign adapting the events of the film, and includes playable figures of Robin and Batgirl, a driveable Batwing, and a constructible gateway model based on the Batcomputer  A Fun Pack including Excalibur Batman and his Bionic Steed was also released the same day On January 14, 2017, at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Chevrolet unveiled a life-sized Lego Batmobile inspired by the design featured in the film, constructed from around 350,000 Lego pieces  As a related promotion, a Bat-Signal (alternating between Batman's emblem and the Chevrolet logo) was projected on the Renaissance Center over the weekend, and Chevrolet released a new television commercial tying into the film, featuring the Batmobile as a crossover with its ongoing "Real People, Not Actors" campaign Warner Bros  released several promotional tie-ins on the week of the movie's release  LEGO billboard versions of several TV shows were shown outside of the studio lot, that took 300 hours to make out of 10,000 bricks  The Big Bang Theory included a LEGO version of the opening sequence in the episode "The Locomotion Reverberation" that first aired on CBS  In addition, the network aired two LEGO commercials featuring Batman and the cast The CW featured LEGO end cards for Supergirl, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow, respectively, on the week of the movie's release  All four DC shows also include a special variant of the Berlanti Productions logo that featured Batman's cameo and a new recording from Greg Berlanti's real-life father who says "Batman, move your head " instead of the usual "Greg, move your head " In addition, the network aired two commercials where Batman interacts with the characters from each show 

Release
Theatrical
The film's world premiere was conducted in Dublin, Ireland on January 29, 2017, where upon it went into general release from February 8; it was released in Denmark on February 9, and in the United States and the United Kingdom on February 10  Its overall release saw movie theatres displaying the film in 3D, RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX 3D and 4DX  though the latter format was restricted to 3D for North America, while international countries were able to view it in IMAX The Lego Batman Movie is notably the first animated movie based on Batman to receive a full theatrical release since Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) 

Home media
The LEGO Batman Movie was released on Digital HD on May 19, 2017  The release included the theatrical short film The Master: A LEGO Ninjago Short, as well as four new short films: Dark Hoser, Batman is Just Not That Into You, Cooking with Alfred and Movie Sound Effects: How Do They Do That?  The LEGO Batman Movie was released on DVD, Blu-ray (2D and 3D), and Ultra HD Blu-ray by Warner Bros  Home Entertainment on June 13, 2017  The film debuted at No  3 on the NPD VideoScan overall disc sales chart 

Reception
Box office
The Lego Batman Movie grossed $175 8 million in the United States and Canada and $136 2 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $312 million, against a production budget of $80 million In the United States and Canada, The Lego Batman Movie opened alongside two other sequels, Fifty Shades Darker and John Wick: Chapter 2, and was projected to gross around $60 million from 4,088 theaters in its opening weekend  It earned $2 2 million from Thursday-night previews and $14 5 million on Friday  It went on to open with $53 million, finishing first at the box office  In its second weekend, the film grossed $32 7 million (a small drop of 38 4%), again topping the box office; with the additional President's Day holiday on Monday, it made a total of $42 7 million for the weekend  In its third weekend of release, the film dropped to second at the box office, behind newcomer Get Out, grossing $19 2 million (a drop of 41 2%) Outside North America the film was simultaneously released in 61 countries, and was expected to gross around $40 million over its first three days  It ended up grossing $37 million in its opening weekend, including $9 3 million in the United Kingdom, $2 6 million in Mexico, $2 3 million in Germany and $2 2 million in Russia 

Critical response
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 90% based on 315 reviews, with an average rating of 7 5/10  The website's critical consensus reads, "The Lego Batman Movie continues its block-buster franchise's winning streak with another round of dizzyingly funny—and beautifully animated—family-friendly mayhem " It was ranked the 23rd best superhero movie of all time on the site  On Metacritic, the film has a score of 75 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews"  Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale Mike Ryan of Uproxx gave the film a positive review, praising its comedy, and saying: "The LEGO Batman Movie isn't the same experience as watching The LEGO Movie, but I also don't think it's trying to be  It's trying to be a fun superhero movie with clever callbacks to previous Batman films (every single Batman movie all the way back to the 1940s serials are referenced) that can, at least, provide DC superhero fans with a taste of fun amidst all the doom and gloom  (That can either be a reference to 'the real world' or the current DC Cinematic Universe films, you can choose either one you want or both ) And at that, The LEGO Batman Movie succeeds " Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B+" and wrote, "LEGO Batman revs so fast and moves so frenetically that it becomes a little exhausting by the end  It flirts with being too much of a good thing  But rarely has corporate brainwashing been so much fun and gone down with such a delightful aftertaste " Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times was positive in his review, saying, "In its best moments, this gag-a-minute Bat-roast serves as a reminder that, in the right hands, a sharp comic scalpel can be an instrument of revelation as well as ridicule " Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post praised the film for its heart, humor, and action which "snap together, with a satisfying click "

Accolades
Other media
Sets
Video games
Lego Dimensions includes characters from various franchises, including The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie  The game's Starter Pack includes Wyldstyle, while Emmet, Benny, Bad Cop, and Unikitty are included in Fun Packs  From The Lego Batman Movie, Robin and Batgirl are included in a Story Pack while Excalibur Batman is included in a Fun Pack  However, Robin gets his voice actor changed in the game to Robbie Daymond and can also use his appearance from Teen Titans Go! if he is used in the Teen Titans Go! World 
Based on The Lego Batman Movie, Warner Bros  Interactive Entertainment released the endless-runner game coinciding with the release of the film  It was released for Android and iOS 

Cancelled sequel
On December 5, 2018, McKay announced a sequel to the film was in the works, with him returning to direct  The film was set for release in 2022  However, following the box office underperformance of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part in 2019, Universal Pictures acquired the film rights to The Lego Movie franchise in 2020, effectively cancelling the sequel due to the rights of DC Comics being owned by Warner Bros In June 2021, McKay revealed that the script was being written by Michael Waldron and Dan Harmon  It would have focused on Batman's relationship with the Justice League, particularly Superman, and the main villains would have been Lex Luthor and OMAC  Waldron revealed that the film was tentatively titled Lego Superfriends 
Context 3: 
In "Christmas Crime", a twentieth-season episode of Family Guy, Brian states he was briefly McGruff's sidekick "Sergeant Bark"; a cutaway gag has him appearing in an edited remastered version of the 1984 "Don't Talk to Strangers" PSA 
McGruff makes a cameo appearance in the 2022 film Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 
The album Never Breathe What You Can't See by Jello Biafra and Melvins features a song named after McGruff the Crime Dog which is critical of the United States Homeland Security 
In the Rooster Teeth original series, Death Battle, McGruff would face off against fellow PSA mascot Smokey Bear  He ultimately ended up losing the match 

See also
National Night Out
Smokey Bear
Passage 3:
List of Back to the Future characters
The Back to the Future film trilogy and subsequent animated series feature characters created by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale 
The lead character of the series is Marty McFly  During the course of the trilogy, he travels through time using a DeLorean time machine invented by his friend Emmett Brown  He also encounters the central antagonist, Biff Tannen, in several different time periods and visits his ancestors and descendants 

Main characters
Marty McFly
Martin Seamus "Marty" McFly (portrayed by Michael J  Fox in the films and voiced by him in Lego Dimensions, voiced by David Kaufman in the animated series) is the son of George McFly and Lorraine Baines McFly  Marty travels between the past and the future, encountering his ancestors and descendants  Marty and his friend Doc Brown help restore the space-time continuum while encountering Biff Tannen (or members of the Tannen clan) at various points in time 

Emmett "Doc" Brown
Doctor Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown (portrayed by Christopher Lloyd and voiced by him in Lego Dimensions, voiced by Dan Castellaneta in the animated series) is the inventor of the DeLorean time machine  At various points in time, Doc helps Marty restore the space-time continuum and reverse the changes that were caused by time travel 
In 2008, the character was selected by film magazine Empire as one of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time, ranking at No  20 

George McFly
George Douglas McFly (portrayed by Crispin Glover in Back to the Future, Jeffrey Weissman in Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III, voiced by Michael X  Sommers in Back to the Future: The Game) is married to Lorraine Baines McFly and is the father of Marty, Linda and Dave  Although he is one of the main characters in the first movie, George only makes cameos in Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III 
In the first film, George is portrayed as weak and the main target of Biff Tannen's bullying  The novelization of the film expounds on George's history of weakness, describing two incidents in which he is unable to stand up for himself  In 1955, in contrast with Marty, George did not have any friends for support and was targeted not only by Biff and his gang but also other kids in school  He has a penchant for science fiction, and writes some of his own but never allows himself to share them with anyone due to his fear of rejection  In 1955, with Marty's help, he gets the courage to stand up to Biff, knocking him unconscious  As a result, he and Lorraine fall in love and George becomes popular in school for defeating Biff in a fight  In the new future, they are both married with George working as a college professor and being a successful writer who orders Biff around  In the dystopian timeline in Part II, George was murdered by Biff in 1973 
George's character was greatly reduced in the sequels, and the role was recast  Weissman wore prosthetics to resemble Glover and imitated Glover's rendering of McFly, and his scenes were spliced with shots of Glover from Back to the Future  The result was so convincing that many people were fooled by it  However, Glover did not appreciate this and sued  The lawsuit resulted in the adoption of stricter rules by the Screen Actors Guild to prevent this situation from occurring again 

Lorraine Baines-McFly
Lorraine Baines-McFly (portrayed by Lea Thompson, voiced by Aimee Miles in Back to the Future: The Game) is married to George McFly and the mother of Marty, Linda and Dave  She is the oldest daughter of Sam (George DiCenzo) and Stella (Frances Lee McCain) Baines, and sister of Milton (Jason Hervey), Sally (Maia Brewton), Toby, and Joey 
In Back to the Future, Lorraine is initially portrayed in 1985 as middle-aged and unhappy  After Marty changes the timeline, she is shown to be fit and happily married to George in 1985  In Part II, Lorraine is still happily married to George in 2015 but they are constantly disappointed in Marty for giving in to peer pressures that make his life difficult  In the alternate 1985 timeline, she is widowed and married to Biff Tannen 

Clara Clayton
Clara Clayton (portrayed by Mary Steenburgen in both Back to the Future Part III and the animated series) is married to Doc Brown and is the mother of Jules and Verne Brown 
Clara moved to Hill Valley and originally died in an accident when her wagon plummeted into Shonash Ravine, which was renamed Clayton Ravine in her memory  This later changed after Doc rescued her, with Mayor Herburt naming it Eastwood Ravine in honor of Marty's alias Clint Eastwood, remembered as a town hero who saved Clara, defeated Buford Tannen, and allegedly died trying to stop two bandits who hijacked a locomotive  The animated series reveals that Clara, along with the rest of the family, moves to the early 1990s and lives in a farmhouse outside of Hill Valley  She then became a teacher at Hill Valley Elementary School 

Jennifer Parker
Jennifer Jane Parker (portrayed by Claudia Wells in the first film and voiced by her in Back to the Future: The Game, Elisabeth Shue in the second and third film, voiced by Cathy Cavadini in the animated series) is dating Marty McFly  In 2015 as seen in Back to the Future Part II, they are married 
In 1985, Jennifer attends Hill Valley High School, along with her boyfriend Marty  In the animated series, Jennifer is enrolled to Hill Valley College with Marty after graduating high school and working part-time as a tutor  She lives with her family on a ranch, the deed to which was owned by Biff Tannen, after one of his ancestors forced Jennifer's great-great-grandfather to sign it over by holding Jennifer's great-great-grandmother hostage  In the episode "A Friend in Deed", Marty travels back in time to 1875 and sabotages the deal with help from Jules and Verne In the future witnessed in Back to the Future Part II, Jennifer and Marty had two children, Marlene and Marty Jr  (both played by Michael J  Fox) 
Melora Hardin was initially cast in the role, to appear alongside Eric Stoltz' Marty McFly  After Stoltz was fired from the production and Michael J  Fox was brought in, Claudia Wells was cast to portray the character, as Hardin was deemed too tall to appear next to the much shorter Fox  However, Wells was not available to film the sequels for personal reasons, and the role was recast to Elisabeth Shue although Wells reprised her role as Jennifer in Back to the Future: The Game as a punk rock version of her character  Consequently, the opening scene of Back to the Future Part II was re-shot with Shue taking Wells' place, rather than using the ending of Back to the Future 

Biff Tannen
Biff Howard Tannen (portrayed by Thomas F  Wilson) is the main antagonist of the first two films, and a local bully who harassed George McFly and managed to alter history in the second film  He comes from a long line of bullies in Hill Valley, most of whom harassed members of the McFly family, including Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (also portrayed by Wilson, in Part III), who is one of Hill Valley's outlaws during the 1880s 

McFly family
Dave McFly
David "Dave" McFly (portrayed by Marc McClure) is the eldest child of George and Lorraine McFly  In 1985, before Marty went to 1955, Dave works at Burger King, but in the post-time travel 1985, he wears a suit as a nondescript white-collar worker for an accounting firm  In a deleted scene from Part II, the alternate 1985 timeline shows that Dave is an alcoholic and a gambling addict following George's death and Lorraine's second marriage to Biff Tannen 

Linda McFly
Linda McFly (portrayed by Wendie Jo Sperber) is the middle child and only daughter of George and Lorraine McFly  In 1985 before Marty went to 1955, Linda is having boy trouble and it is unknown if she is in college or has a job  In 1985 after Marty went to 1955, Linda works in a boutique and has gained the attention of many boys 

Seamus and Maggie McFly
Seamus and Maggie McFly (portrayed by Michael J  Fox and Lea Thompson) are Irish immigrants and the paternal great-great-grandparents of Marty McFly  In Part III, Marty is befriended by Seamus and Maggie  While Maggie does not trust the "strange young man", Seamus has a familiar feeling about him and believes that helping him is the right thing to do  They have a son named William (Marty's great-grandfather)  Much like his descendants, Seamus is harassed by a member of the Tannen family, Buford Tannen  He also had a brother, Martin, who was fatally stabbed prior to the film's events 
Maggie McFly is played by Lea Thompson, who also plays Marty's mother Lorraine, even though Maggie is not an ancestor of Lorraine; in a DVD commentary track for Part III, Bob Gale states that the creative team considered it important to include Thompson in the film, and he imagines that McFly men are simply "genetically predisposed" to be attracted to women who look like her 

William McFly
William "Willie" McFly (voiced by Michael J  Fox in Back to the Future: The Game) is the son of Seamus and Maggie McFly as well as Marty's great-grandfather  Baby Willie was played by Lindsay Clark  She left acting shortly after this role 

Arthur McFly and Sylvia Miskin
Arthur "Artie" McFly and Sylvia Miskin (stage name "Trixie Trotter") are Marty's paternal grandparents and George's parents introduced in Back to the Future: The Game and voiced by Michael X  Sommers and Melissa Hutchison respectively 

Marty Jr  and Marlene McFly
Marty Jr  and Marlene McFly (both portrayed by Michael J  Fox) are Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker's future son and daughter in 2015 in Part II 
Originally, 17-year-old Marty Jr  was to be arrested and sentenced to fifteen years in prison for joining a robbery initiated by Griff and his gang  Marlene attempted to help Marty Jr  break out of jail but failed and was sentenced to twenty years in a woman's prison  Doc and Marty prevented the event from ever happening 

Baines family
Sam Baines
Sam Baines was the husband of Stella Baines and the father of six children, including Lorraine, Milton, Toby, Joey, Sally, and Ellen Baines  He is the father-in-law of George McFly and the maternal grandfather of Marty, David, and Linda McFly 

Stella Baines
Stella Baines (portrayed by Frances Lee McCain) was the wife of Sam Baines and the mother of six children, including Lorraine, Milton, Toby, Joey, Sally, and Ellen Baines  She is the mother-in-law of George McFly and the maternal grandmother of Marty, David, and Linda McFly 

Milton Baines
Milton Samuel Baines (portrayed by Jason Hervey) is the second child of Sam and Stella Baines, the brother of Lorraine, Sally, Toby, Joey, and Ellen Baines, the brother-in-law of George McFly, and the uncle of David, Linda, and Marty McFly  He was 12 years old in 1955  In 1955, Milton liked to wear a coonskin cap, a fad inspired by the Davy Crockett film and television show, which Stella took off his head twice while Marty was eating dinner with the family, putting it back on both times 

Sally Baines
Sally Flora Baines (portrayed by Maia Brewton) was the third child of Sam and Stella Baines, the sister of Lorraine, Milton, Toby, Joey, and Ellen Baines, the sister-in-law of George McFly, and the aunt of David, Linda, and Marty McFly  Born in 1949, she was present when Marty McFly in 1955 had dinner with her family, but did not speak 

Toby Baines
Toby Baines was the fourth child of Sam and Stella Baines, the brother of Lorraine, Milton, Sally, Joey, and Ellen Baines, the brother-in-law of George McFly, and the uncle of David, Linda, and Marty McFly  He was born in 1951  On November 5, 1955, he sat at the dinner table with his family and Marty McFly, whom his father had hit with the car earlier that day  He remained silent while the guest was present 

Joey Baines
Joey Baines was born on August 28, 1954, to Sam and Stella Baines, and was the fifth child in the Baines family  In the early 1970s, Joey was Marty McFly's favorite uncle  Joey would allow Marty to do dangerous things, but would always be there to make sure he was all right  He spent many years in Folsom Prison  On October 25, 1985, he failed to earn his release on parole for at least the second time 
By the 21st century, USA Today ran an article on Joey Baines in their October 22, 2015 issue, titled Parole denied again, which mentioned that this was Joey's twelfth consecutive parole hearing to end in denial  He was serving a twenty-year term at Folsom for racketeering and had spent two-thirds of his life behind bars 

Ellen Baines
Ellen Baines was the sixth child of Sam and Stella Baines, the sister of Lorraine, Milton, Sally Toby, and Joey Baines, the sister-in-law of George McFly, and the aunt of David, Linda, and Marty McFly  Born in 1956 (a few months after Marty's trip to 1955), she moved to Chicago at some point prior to 1986 

Brown family
Jules and Verne Brown
Jules Eratosthenes Brown and Verne Newton Brown (portrayed by Todd Cameron Brown and Dannel Evans in Back to the Future Part III, voiced by Josh Keaton and Troy Davidson in the animated series) are the two children of Doc Brown and his wife, Clara, who named them after their favorite author Jules Verne 
The characters had minor, non-speaking roles in Back to the Future Part III but were further developed in the animated series  Jules, an introvert, mostly imitates his father's interests and mannerisms while Verne appears to be more outgoing and extroverted  Several plot points of the animated series revolve around either Jules or Verne altering history and the steps necessary to correct the damage 
In the Back to the Future game when asked about his family, Doc reveals that his sons are now teenagers and their parents are discussing what time period they should attend college at 

Copernicus
Copernicus is Doc's dog from 1955  Like his other dogs, Copernicus was used in many of Doc's experiments  When Copernicus died, he was eventually replaced by Einstein 

Einstein
Einstein (portrayed by Tiger and stuntman Dick Butler in the first film and Freddie in the other two, voiced by Danny Mann in the animated series) is Doc Brown's pet Catalan sheepdog  He later becomes one of the main characters in the animated series as the Brown family's dog 
In the first film, Doc successfully tests his time machine by placing Einstein in it and sending him one minute into the future  In the animated series, Einstein becomes anthropomorphic and smarter, helping Doc with his inventions for traveling to the past and the future 

Tannen family
Irving "Kid" Tannen
Kid Tannen (voiced by Owen Thomas) is Biff's father who only appears in the Back to the Future: The Game  Kid is a gangster who runs a local speakeasy in the 1930s Hill Valley  He, like the rest of the Tannen family, bullies the McFly family forcing Marty's grandfather Arthur to do his accounting  Kid is brought down with the help of Marty, a young version of Doc, and Arthur McFly  He later marries Edna Strickland and reforms from his criminal ways with her help 

Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen
Buford Tannen (portrayed by Thomas F  Wilson in Back to the Future Part III, Liam O'Brien in Lego Dimensions) is the main antagonist of the third film  He is the great-grandfather of Biff Tannen and the local town outlaw in 1885 Hill Valley  He was nicknamed "Mad Dog" by a newspaper reporter, due to his violent temper and propensity for drooling, a nickname Tannen greatly despises  Buford is cruel, homicidal, rude, and emotionally unstable  He displays a need for control and is brought down to childlike tantrums when he is humiliated or makes mistakes, whether it be something that happens to him or something he says or does  He is often accompanied by his gang (played by Christopher Wynne, Sean Sullivan and Mike Watson), and developed a feud with Marshal James Strickland and his deputies  Like his descendant Biff, he has a dislike for manure 

Griff Tannen
Griff Tannen (portrayed by Thomas F  Wilson in both Back to the Future Part II and in the animated series) is a grandson of Biff  He is part of a gang that also consists of Rafe "Data" Unger, Leslie "Spike" O'Malley and Chester "Whitey" Noguera  Unlike his grandfather and great-great-great-grandfather whose gangs only consisted of Caucasian males, his accomplices are one Caucasian male (Data), one Caucasian female (Spike), and one Asian-American male (Whitey) 
In the animated series, Griff makes a brief cameo appearance in the episode "Solar Sailors" where his grandson, Ziff (also voiced by Wilson), is detained after he attempts to sabotage Marta McFly's space cruiser due to his hatred towards her family 
Griff's last name is never mentioned in the movie, which means he could either be the son of Biff's son Biff Jr, or the son of Biff's daughter, Tiffaney, but in the animated series, Ziff says that both he and Griff are Tannens 

Biff Tannen Jr 
In the animated series, Biff Jr  (voiced by Benji Gregory) is the son of Biff Tannen  Like his father and paternal relatives, he likes to bully and steal from children around him including Jules and Verne Brown with whom he developed a feud  In addition, Biff Jr  delights in vandalizing other people's properties  Biff Jr  lives with his father with whom he has an abusive relationship 

Strickland family
Gerald Strickland
Gerald Strickland (portrayed by James Tolkan) is the strict principal of Hill Valley High School  He is a descendant of Chief Marshal James Strickland of Hill Valley 1885  He frequently makes a great noisy show of sternly reprimanding his students for faults such as "slacking" or liquor consumption, although he himself is revealed to sneak a drink of alcohol at his desk at school 
There is a reference from Verne Brown that there is another Strickland who works at Hill Valley Elementary School as its vice principal 

James Strickland
James Strickland (portrayed by James Tolkan in Back to the Future Part III) is the chief marshal of Hill Valley in 1885 and an ancestor of Mr  Strickland  He also has an unnamed son (portrayed by Kaleb Henley) 
In a deleted scene not included in the final cut, and in the movie's novelization, Strickland is killed by Buford Tannen  In the theatrical release Strickland simply remains absent for the latter half 
In the Back to the Future game, Edna Strickland in 1986 notes that James was shot and killed by Buford  Marty remarks that's a detail he doesn't remember, possibly a reference to the differences between the film and the movie novelization 

Edna Strickland
Edna Strickland (voiced by Rebcca Sweitzer) is introduced in Back to the Future: The Game where she is the sister of Gerald Strickland  She is somewhat nicer than her brother, but still set in her ways towards upholding strong morals and abolishing crime and laziness  After Marty alters her original timeline, Edna married Kid Tannen and became the stepmother of Biff Tannen 

Other characters
Marvin Berry
Marvin Berry (portrayed by Harry Waters Jr ) is an African-American jazz musician and electric guitar player whose band was hired in Back to the Future Part I to perform at the "Enchantment Under The Sea" dance  He is also the cousin of then-rising musician Chuck Berry  After injuring his hand while helping Marty McFly out of a car's trunk, Marty takes his place as guitarist in the evening's most important dance  When Marty subsequently performs Johnny B  Goode to the audience's excitement, Marvin immediately calls Chuck to introduce him to the new music style, thereby humorously implying that Chuck stole the song to further his musical career  This creates a time paradox, since Marty was playing a song made famous by Chuck Berry, before Berry wrote it, so the song either has no actual creator or Berry was essentially stealing a song from his alternate timeline self  Another theory was that Chuck was going to write it anyway, but after hearing it maybe wrote it faster 

Otis "Old Man" Peabody
Otis Peabody (portrayed by Will Hare) is the patriarch of a 1950s farmer family in Back to the Future Part I  For some obscure reason, he decided to plant pines on his land; while his plan ultimately came to no fruition, the area was decades later converted into a shopping mall named "Twin Pines Mall" as a testimony to his efforts  The town sees Peabody odd including Doc Brown, who himself has a similar reputation  When Marty McFly makes his involuntary time trip back to 1955, he ends up crashing into Peabody's shed with the DeLorean and then flattening one of his two growing pine saplings while escaping  The farmer's family believes that the time-traveling car and its driver in an NBC suit are extraterrestrial  As results, according to a headline of the newspaper Hill Valley Telegraph with Peabody being photographed in a straitjacket, he is committed to a county asylum after claiming "'space zombie' wrecked his barn," and after Marty returns to 1985, the mall is found having been (re)named "Lone Pine Mall" 

Douglas J  Needles
Douglas J  Needles (portrayed by Flea in Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III) is the rival of Marty McFly in Hill Valley High School  Like his school's alumnus, Biff Tannen, Needles also has his own gang and develops a rivalry with Marty (although he doesn't outright bully him like Biff did to George and has no relation to the Tannens)  He often goads Marty into doing reckless things, leveraging on Marty's fear of being labeled as a "chicken" 

Goldie Wilson
Goldie Wilson (played by Donald Fullilove in the first film) is a young man working at Lou's Cafe in 1955 who goes on to become the first black Mayor of Hill Valley in the 1980s  By 1985, he creates a controversy when he plans to replace the damaged clock from the Hill Valley Courthouse's clock tower, which continues in 2015 after he left the office  A campaign poster shows the name Goldie in quotation marks, suggesting Goldie is a nickname, presumably in reference to his gold tooth 
He would also have a grandson, Goldie Wilson III (also played by Fullilove) who works as a car salesman in Back to the Future: Part II 

Match, Skinhead and 3-D
"Match" O'Malley (portrayed by Billy Zane), Joey "Skinhead" Unger (portrayed by Jeffrey Jay Cohen), and "3-D" Noguera (portrayed by Casey Siemaszko) are the three high school boys who make up Biff Tannen's gang in 1955  Their nicknames are only given in the films' novels, screenplays, and credits  Only one of their real names is mentioned in the movies – Biff refers to Skinhead as Joey in one of the 1955 scenes in Back to the Future Part II, while outside of the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance 
In the alternate 1985, the three work in Biff's casino as his bodyguards  Each get their nickname from a distinctive character trait  Match often has a match sticking out of his mouth; Skinhead has very short, close-cropped hair; 3-D is always wearing a pair of anaglyphic 3-D glasses (a reference to the 3-D movies that were popular in the 1950s) 

Spike, Data and Whitey
Leslie "Spike" O'Malley (portrayed by Darlene Vogel), Rafe "Data" Unger (portrayed by Ricky Dean Logan) and Chester "Whitey" Noguera (portrayed by Jason Scott Lee) they are high school kids who make up Griff Tannen's gang in 2015  Each one of them is also the grandchild of Biff Tannen's original gang  Spike is Match's granddaughter, Data is Skinhead's grandson, and Whitey is 3-D's grandson 
Passage 4:
Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part II is a 1989 American science fiction film directed by Robert Zemeckis from a screenplay by Bob Gale; both wrote the story  It is the sequel to the 1985 film Back to the Future and the second installment in the Back to the Future franchise  The film stars Michael J



ground_truth: Amy Poehler

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

Question: Who played the girlfriend of Chance's voice actor in Homeward Bound in Back to the Future?

The following are given passages.
Context 3:  Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, and Thomas F  Wilson with Elisabeth Shue (replacing Claudia Wells), and Jeffrey Weissman (replacing Crispin Glover) in supporting roles  It follows Marty McFly (Fox) and his friend Dr  Emmett "Doc" Brown (Lloyd) as they travel from 1985 to 2015 to prevent Marty's son from sabotaging the McFly family's future  When their arch-nemesis Biff Tannen (Wilson) steals Doc's DeLorean time machine and uses it to alter history for his benefit, the duo must return to 1955 to restore the timeline 
The film was produced on a $40 million budget and was filmed back to back with its sequel Part III  Filming began in February 1989, after two years were spent building the sets and writing the scripts  Back to the Future Part II was also a ground-breaking project for visual effects studio Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)  In addition to digital compositing, ILM used the VistaGlide motion control camera system, which allowed an actor to portray multiple characters simultaneously on-screen without sacrificing camera movement 
Back to the Future Part II was released by Universal Pictures on November 22, 1989  Though the film received mostly positive reviews from critics, it was deemed inferior to its predecessor  The film grossed over $332 million worldwide in its initial run, making it the third-highest-grossing film of 1989 

Plot
On October 26, 1985, Dr  Emmett "Doc" Brown arrives unexpectedly in the DeLorean time machine  He persuades Marty McFly and his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker, to travel to the future with him and help their future children, with Biff Tannen witnessing their departure  They arrive on October 21, 2015, where Doc incapacitates Jennifer electronically leaving her asleep in an alley, explaining that she should not have too much knowledge of future events  He has Marty pose as his son and lookalike Marty Jr  to refuse an offer to participate in a robbery with Biff's grandson Griff, thus saving Marty Jr  from prison 
Marty switches places with Marty Jr  and refuses Griff's offer, but Griff goads Marty into a fight, and a subsequent hoverboard chase ensues  Griff and his gang are arrested, saving Marty's future children  Before rejoining Doc, Marty purchases an almanac containing the results of major sporting events from 1950 to 2000  Doc discovers it and warns Marty about profiting from time travel  Before Doc can adequately dispose of it, they are interrupted by the police, who have found Jennifer incapacitated and are taking her to her 2015 home  They pursue, as does the elderly Biff, who has overheard their conversation and retrieved the discarded almanac 
Jennifer wakes up in her 2015 home and hides from the McFly family  She overhears that her future self's life with Marty is not what she expected, due to his involvement in an automobile accident  She witnesses Marty being goaded by his co-worker, Douglas Needles, into a shady business deal, resulting in Marty's firing  Jennifer tries to escape the house but faints after encountering her 2015 self  While Marty and Doc attend to her, Biff steals the time machine to give the almanac to his younger self, then returns to 2015  Marty, Doc, and an unconscious Jennifer return to 1985, unaware of Biff's actions  They leave Jennifer on her front porch 
The 1985 they return to has changed dramatically, with Biff now one of the country's wealthiest and most corrupt men  He has turned Hill Valley into a chaotic dystopia, secretly killed Marty's father, George, in 1973, and forced Marty's mother, Lorraine, to marry him  Doc has been committed to a mental hospital  Doc deduces that old Biff took the time machine to give his younger self the almanac, and Marty learns from the alternate 1985 Biff that he received it on November 12, 1955  Biff tries to kill Marty, but Marty flees and travels to 1955 with Doc 
Marty secretly follows the 1955 Biff and watches him receive the almanac from his 2015 self  Marty then follows him to the high school dance, carefully avoiding interrupting the events from his previous visit  After several fruitless attempts, Marty finally gets the almanac, leaving Biff to crash into a manure truck 
Marty burns the almanac, nullifying the changes to the timeline that it had caused, as Doc hovers above in the time machine  Before Marty can join him, the DeLorean is struck by lightning and disappears  A Western Union courier arrives immediately after and delivers a letter to Marty; it is from Doc, who tells him that the lightning strike transported him 70 years in the past to 1885  Marty races back into town to find the 1955 Doc, who had just helped Marty to return to 1985  Shocked by Marty's sudden reappearance, Doc faints 

Cast
Development
Director Robert Zemeckis said that initially, a sequel was not planned for the first film, but its huge box office success led to the conception of a second installment  He later agreed to do a sequel, but only if Michael J  Fox and Christopher Lloyd returned as well  With Fox and Lloyd confirmed, Zemeckis met with screenwriting partner Bob Gale to create a story for the sequel  Zemeckis and Gale would later regret that they ended the first one with Jennifer in the car with Marty and Doc Brown, because it required them to come up with a story that would fit her in, rather than a whole new adventure Gale wrote most of the first draft by himself as Zemeckis was busy making Who Framed Roger Rabbit  At first, the film's third act was to take place in 1967 where Lorraine was a flower child protesting the war and George was a college professor at Berkeley, but Zemeckis later stated that the time paradoxes of it provided a good opportunity to go back to 1955 and see the first film's events in a different light  While most of the original cast agreed to return, a major stumbling block arose when negotiating Crispin Glover's fee for reprising the role of George McFly  When it became clear that he would not return, the role was rewritten so that George is dead when the action takes place in the alternative version of 1985 The greatest challenge was the creation of the futuristic vision of Marty's hometown in 2015  Production designer Rick Carter wanted to create a very detailed image with a different tone from the film Blade Runner, wishing to get past the smoke and chrome  Carter and his crew spent months plotting, planning, and preparing Hill Valley's transformation into a city of the future  Visual effects art director John Bell said that they had no script to work with, only the indications that the setting would be 30 years into the future featuring "something called hoverboards" When writing the script for Part II, Gale wanted to push the first film's ideas further for humorous effect  Zemeckis said he was somewhat concerned about portraying the future because of the risk of making wildly inaccurate predictions  According to Gale, they tried to make the future a nice place, "where what's wrong is due to who lives in the future as opposed to the technology" in contrast to the pessimistic, Orwellian future seen in most science fiction  To keep production costs low and take advantage of an extended break Fox had from Family Ties (which was ending its run when filming began), it was shot back-to-back with sequel Part III 

Production
Two years were needed to finish building the sets and writing the scripts before shooting could begin  During filming the creation of the appearance of the aged characters was a well-guarded secret, involving state-of-the-art make-up techniques  Fox described the process as very time-consuming, saying that "it took over four hours, although it could be worse"  Principal photography began on February 20, 1989  For a three-week period near the end of the filming, the crew split and, while most remained dedicated to shooting Part III, a few, including Gale, focused on finishing its predecessor  Zemeckis himself slept only a few hours per day, supervising both films, having to fly between Burbank, where it was being finished and other locations in California for Part III The film was considered one of the most ground-breaking projects for Industrial Light & Magic  It was one of the effects house's first forays into digital compositing, as well as the VistaGlide motion control camera system, which enabled them to shoot one of its most complex sequences, in which Fox played three separate characters (Marty Sr , Marty Jr , and Marlene), all of whom interacted with each other  Although such scenes were not new, the VistaGlide allowed, for the first time, a completely dynamic scene in which camera movement could finally be incorporated  The technique was also used in scenes where Fox, Thomas F  Wilson, Christopher Lloyd, and Elisabeth Shue's characters encounter and interact with their counterparts  It also includes a brief moment of computer-generated imagery in a holographic shark used to promote a fictional Jaws 19, which wound up unaltered from the first test done by ILM's digital department because effects supervisor Ken Ralston "liked the fact that it was all messed up "Animation supervisor Wes Takahashi, who then was the head of ILM's animation department, worked heavily on the film's time travel sequences, as he had done in the original film and in Part III  As Part II neared release, sufficient footage of Part III had been shot to allow a trailer to be assembled  It was added to the conclusion of Part II before the closing credits, as a reassurance to moviegoers that there was more to follow 

Replacement of Crispin Glover and lawsuit
Crispin Glover was asked to reprise the role of George McFly  He expressed interest, but could not come to an agreement with the producers regarding his salary  He stated in a 1992 interview on The Howard Stern Show that the producers' highest offer was $125,000, less than half of what the other returning cast members were offered  Gale has since asserted that Glover's demands were excessive for an actor of his professional stature at that time  In an interview on the Opie and Anthony show in 2013, Glover stated that his primary reason for not doing Part II was a philosophical disagreement on the film's message; Glover felt the story rewarded the characters with financial gain, such as Marty's truck, rather than love Rather than write George out of the film, Zemeckis used previously filmed footage of Glover from the first film as well as new footage of actor Jeffrey Weissman, who wore prosthetics including a false chin, nose, and cheekbones to resemble Glover  Various techniques were used to obfuscate the Weissman footage, such as placing him in the background rather than the foreground, having him wear sunglasses, and hanging him upside down  Unhappy with this, Glover filed a lawsuit against the producers of the film on the grounds that they neither owned his likeness nor had permission to use it  As a result of the suit, there are now clauses in the Screen Actors Guild collective bargaining agreements stating that producers and actors are not allowed to use such methods to reproduce the likeness of other actors  Glover's legal action, while resolved outside of the courts, has been considered as a key case in personality rights for actors with increasing use of improved special effects and digital techniques, in which actors may have agreed to appear in one part of a production but have their likenesses be used in another without their agreement 

Replacement of Claudia Wells
Claudia Wells, who had played Marty's girlfriend Jennifer Parker in the first film, planned to reprise her role, but turned it down due to family reasons–reportedly to care for her mother, who was ill with cancer at the time of filming the second film  The producers cast Elisabeth Shue instead, which involved re-shooting the closing scenes of the first film for the beginning of Part II  The re-shot sequence is a near shot-for-shot match with the original, with only minor differences Wells returned to acting with a starring role in the 2008 independent film Still Waters Burn  She is one of the few cast members not to make an appearance within the bonus material on the Back to the Future Trilogy DVD set released in 2002  However, she is interviewed for the Tales from the Future documentaries in the trilogy's 25th anniversary issue on Blu-ray Disc in 2010  In 2011, she finally had the opportunity to reprise her role from the first film, 26 years after her last appearance in the series, by providing the voice of Jennifer for Back to the Future: The Game by Telltale Games 

Hoverboard hoax
Zemeckis said on the film's behind-the-scenes featurette that the hoverboards (flying skateboards) used in it were real, yet not released to the public, due to parental complaints regarding safety  Footage of "real hoverboards" was also featured in the extras of a DVD release of the trilogy  A number of people thought Zemeckis was telling the truth and requested them at toy stores  In an interview, Wilson said one of the most frequent questions he was asked was if they are real 

Depiction of the future
Though the filmmakers did research contemporary predictions by scientists on what might occur by 2015, Zemeckis has said that the film was not meant to be a serious attempt at predicting the future  In 2010, he commented: "For me, filming the future scenes of the movie were the least enjoyable of making the whole trilogy, because I don't really like films that try and predict the future  The only ones I've actually enjoyed were the ones done by Stanley Kubrick, and not even he predicted the PC when he made A Clockwork Orange  So, rather than trying to make a scientifically sound prediction that we were probably going to get wrong anyway, we figured, let's just make it funny"  Similarly, Gale said: "We knew we weren't going to have flying cars by the year 2015, but God we had to have those in our movie" However, the film did correctly predict a number of technological and sociological changes that occurred by 2015, including: the rise of ubiquitous cameras; use of unmanned flying drones for newsgathering; widescreen flat-panel television sets mounted on walls with multiple channel viewing; smart home technology; video chat systems; hands-free video games; talking animated billboards; wearable technology; tablet computers with fingerprint scanners and head-mounted displays  Payment on personal portable devices is also depicted  Although payment by thumbprint is not widely used, fingerprint scanning is in use as security at places such as airports and schools, and electronic payment with fingerprint scanning as a security feature is deployed for Apple Pay Other aspects of the depiction of the future had not come to pass by 2015, but efforts were made to replicate the technology advances 

The film shows Marty putting on Nike "Air Mag" tennis shoes with automatic shoelaces  Nike released a version of their Hyperdunk Supreme shoes, which appear similar to Marty's, in July 2008  Fans dubbed them the Air McFly  In April 2009, they filed the patent for self-lacing shoes, and their design bears a resemblance to those worn by Marty in the film  In 2010, a fan named Blake Bevin created shoes that tie themselves  Though Nike had made a very limited quantity of Air Mags in the same style as the movie, they stated in September 2011 that their consumer-line MAG line of shoes would not feature the self-lacing feature shown in it  Tinker Hatfield, one of the shoe's designers, indicated in 2014 that they would introduce shoes with power-lacing technology the following year, 2015  In March 2016, Nike unveiled the HyperAdapt 1 0 shoe, a consumer-market model of the Air Mag which features the same self-lacing technology used for the commemorative Air Mags; these were put on sale in limited quantities in late 2016 The producers created a futuristic flying car to depict a typical taxi cab in the future world of 2015  This taxi was based on the Citroën DS The concept of the hoverboard—a skateboard that can float off the ground—has been explored by various groups since the release of the film  Attempts similar to hoverboats, which blast air at the ground, have been demonstrated, with a 2021 record distance of 275 meters (902 ft)  A different type is the MagBoard, developed by researchers at the Paris Diderot University  It uses a large superconductor plate on the bottom cooled with liquid nitrogen as to achieve the Meissner effect and allow it to float over a special track; it was shown capable of carrying the weight of a human in its practical demonstration  However, the requirement to run the superconductor at higher, more ambient temperatures prevents this from becoming practical  In March 2014, a company named HUVr Tech purportedly demonstrated a working hoverboard along with several celebrities including Lloyd, though this shortly was revealed as a hoax created by the website Funny or Die  Self-balancing 'hoverboards' became popular in 2015 even though they do not hover above the ground In the 2015 scene, the film imagines the Chicago Cubs winning the 2015 World Series against the fictional Miami-based Gators, referring to the Cubs' longstanding failure to win a championship  In the actual 2015 season, the Cubs qualified for the postseason, their first postseason appearance since 2008, but lost the National League Championship Series (not the World Series) to the New York Mets on October 21, which coincidentally was the same day as "Back to the Future Day", the day Marty McFly arrived in 2015 in the film  Despite losing, one year later the Cubs did win the 2016 World Series against the Cleveland Indians; in congratulations to the Cubs, the official Twitter feed for the Back to the Future franchise jokingly tweeted out that Marty & Doc's time-traveling caused "a rift in the space-time continuum" that led to the 1994 strike (and subsequent cancellation of the 1994 World Series), thus delaying the accurate prediction by a year  In the real 2015 World Series, the Kansas City Royals defeated the Mets to win their first World Series championship since 1985, the year which Marty and Doc time traveled in the film  As for the fictional Miami team, when the film was made, Florida did not have a Major League Baseball team, but has since gained two: the Florida Marlins (now the Miami Marlins) in 1993 and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now the Tampa Bay Rays) in 1998  While both teams have each made two appearances in the World Series (the Marlins winning in 1997 and 2003, and the Rays losing in 2008 and 2020), neither qualified for the postseason in 2015 

Release and reception
Box office
The film was released to theaters in North America on Wednesday, November 22, 1989, the day before Thanksgiving  It grossed a total of $27 8 million over Friday to Sunday, and $43 million across the five-day holiday opening, breaking the previous Thanksgiving record set by Rocky IV in 1985  On the following weekend, it had a drop of 56 percent, earning $12 1 million, but remained at number 1  Its total gross was $118 5 million in the United States and $213 million overseas, for a total of $332 million worldwide, ranking as 1989's sixth-most successful film domestically and the third-most worldwide—behind Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Batman  However this was still short of the first film's gross  Part III, which Universal released only six months later, experienced a similar drop  In Japan, it had a record opening, grossing $7 5 million in six days from 153 screens 

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 63% based on 63 reviews, with an average rating of 6 2/10  The website's critics consensus reads: "Back to the Future II is far more uneven than its predecessor, but its madcap highs outweigh the occasionally cluttered machinations of an overstuffed plot"  On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews"  Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars  Ebert criticized it for lacking the "genuine power of the original" but praised it for its slapstick humor and the hoverboard in its chase sequence  Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film is "ready for bigger and better things" and later said that it "manages to be giddily and merrily mind-boggling, rather than confusing"  Tom Tunney of Empire magazine wrote that the film was well-directed, "high-energy escapism", and called it "solidly entertaining", though noting it as being inferior to the other two films in the franchise Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader gave the film a negative review, criticizing Zemeckis and Gale for turning the characters into "strident geeks" and for making the frenetic action formulaic  He believed that it contained "rampant misogyny", because the character of Jennifer Parker "is knocked unconscious early on so she won't interfere with the little-boy games"  He cited, as well, Michael J  Fox dressing in drag  Variety said, "[Director Robert] Zemeckis' fascination with having characters interact at different ages of their lives hurts it visually, and strains credibility past the breaking point, by forcing him to rely on some very cheesy makeup designs" In 2018, Bob Gale, who co-wrote the movie with Robert Zemeckis, said the movie received a mixed reception because of the dark aspect of the story: "They [the audiences] were absolutely surprised by it  The whole 1985 stuff    we went places the audience was not ready to go  That is some of my favorite stuff in the whole trilogy" 

Accolades
The film won the Saturn Award for Best Special Effects (for Ken Ralston, the special effects supervisor), the BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects (Ken Ralston, Michael Lantieri, John Bell and Steve Gawley), an Internet-voted 2003 AOL Movies DVD Premiere Award for the trilogy DVDs, a Golden Screen Award, a Young Artist Award, and the Blimp Awards for Favorite Movie Actor (Michael J  Fox), and Favorite Movie Actress (Lea Thompson) at the 1990 Kids' Choice Awards  It was nominated in 1990 for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (John Bell, Steve Gawley, Michael Lantieri and Ken Ralston), but lost to The Abyss 

Home media
The film was released on VHS and LaserDisc on May 22, 1990, three days before the theatrical release of Part III  It was due to be the first release under the MCA/Universal Home Video banner  Universal reissued it on VHS, LaserDisc, and compact disc in 1991, 1995, and 1998  On December 17, 2002, Universal released it on DVD in a boxed trilogy set, although widescreen framing problems led to a product recall  The trilogy was released on Blu-ray Disc in October 2010 
Universal re-released the trilogy alongside new features on DVD and Blu-ray on October 20, 2015, coinciding with Back to the Future Day the following day  The new set included a featurette called "Doc Brown Saves the World", where Lloyd, reprising his role as Doc Brown, explains the reasons for the differences between the future of 2015 as depicted in Back to the Future Part II and in real life  A new remaster as part of Back to the Future: The Ultimate Trilogy on Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray was released on October 20, 2020 In May 2020, the trilogy was released for streaming on Netflix  A small minor edit was noticed to Part II during the scene featuring the fictional soft porn magazine called Oh La La!  Gale stated that neither he nor Zemeckis were aware of this change, and believed it originated from a foreign print of the film  Shortly afterwards, Universal provided Netflix with the unedited, theatrical version of the film, replacing the censored cut on the streaming platform 

Music
The soundtrack was released by MCA Records on November 22, 1989  AllMusic rated it four-and-a-half stars out of five  Unlike the previous soundtrack, it contains only a musical score by composer Alan Silvestri  None of the vocal songs featured throughout the film are included  On October 12, 2015, Intrada Records released the complete score of Back to the Future Part II in a 2-disc set including early scoring sessions and alternative takes 

See also
List of 1989 box office number-one films in the United States
List of films featuring drones

Notes
Passage 5:
William Ragsdale
William Ragsdale (born January 19, 1961) is an American actor known for playing teenaged vampire slayer Charley Brewster in the horror vampire film Fright Night (1985) and Herman Brooks in the television series Herman's Head (1991–94) 

Early life and education
Ragsdale was born January 19, 1961, in El Dorado, Arkansas, and attended Hendrix College, where he appeared in plays alongside Natalie Canerday 

Career
He garnered attention as the young hero of Fright Night and Fright Night Part 2 and onstage in Neil Simon's plays Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues, two of the three parts of Simon's trilogy, which ends with Broadway Bound  Ragsdale featured in the romance comedy movie Mannequin Two: On the Move (1991) Ragsdale has had a sporadic career with regard to prime-time television  He featured for three years on Herman's Head  He had a brief recurring role in the television series Judging Amy  He played a television producer for Grosse Pointe, which lasted one season 
He was cast in the pilot for Charmed, but refused the series to feature in the short-lived situation comedy Brother's Keeper  He appeared on Ellen as the boyfriend of Ellen Morgan (played by Ellen DeGeneres) before her character revealed her homosexuality  He has had guest roles on television, including a four-episode stint on Less than Perfect, as well as small feature movie roles 
He played the role of Gary Hawkins in 12 episodes of the television series Justified from March 2010 through March 2012, during the series' first three seasons   In 2014, he played Chris Smith in the remake of the movie Left Behind In 2017, he appeared in the role of Reverend Todd in the Off-Broadway production of Man from Nebraska at the Second Stage Theatre 

Filmography
Film
Television



ground_truth: Claudia Wells