IN: Marvin Neil Simon (born July 4, 1927) is an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He has written more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly adaptations of his plays. He has received more combined Oscar and Tony nominations than any other writer. Simon grew up in New York during the Great Depression, with his parents' financial hardships affecting their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and unstable childhood.

Simon's characters are typically portrayed as "imperfect, unheroic figures who are at heart decent human beings", according to Koprince, and she traces Simon's style of comedy to that of Menander, a playwright of ancient Greece. Menander, like Simon, also used average people in domestic life settings, the stories also blending humor and tragedy into his themes. Many of Simon's most memorable plays are built around two-character scenes, as in segments of California Suite and Plaza Suite. Before writing, Simon tries to create an image of his characters. He says that the play, Star Spangled Girl which was a box-office failure, was "the only play I ever wrote where I did not have a clear visual image of the characters in my mind as I sat down at the typewriter." Simon considers "character building" as an obligation, stating that the "trick is to do it skillfully". While other writers have created vivid characters, they have not created nearly as many as Simon: "Simon has no peers among contemporary comedy playwrights," states biographer Robert Johnson. Simon's characters often amuse the audience with sparkling "zingers," believable due to Simon's skill with writing dialogue. He reproduces speech so "adroitly" that his characters are usually plausible and easy for audiences to identify with and laugh at. His characters may also express "serious and continuing concerns of mankind ... rather than purely topical material". McGovern notes that his characters are always impatient "with phoniness, with shallowness, with amorality", adding that they sometimes express "implicit and explicit criticism of modern urban life with its stress, its vacuity, and its materialism." However, Simon's characters will never be seen thumbing his or her nose at society."
QUESTION: what were the characters from?
IN: Koenig was born in New York City, and is the son of Bobby Bass, a psychotherapist, and Robin Koenig, a set dresser on film and TV productions. His parents lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan before moving to Glen Ridge, New Jersey. He is Jewish, and his family came to the U.S. from Europe (including Romania and Hungary). He grew up in Northern New Jersey and attended Glen Ridge High School.

Following a hiatus from Vampire Weekend, Koenig wrote and produced an animated comedy-adventure series about a depressive, demon-slaying playboy voiced by Jaden Smith. The series, titled Neo Yokio, debuted on Netflix in September 2017.The show was written and produced in 2015, with the final sound mix being completed in January 2016, however, due to issues with Fox, the show was postponed until finally being picked up by Netflix. Yokio is presented in the style of a Japanese anime series. However, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he stated that he believes the show is not a traditional anime, "First of all, out of respect for true anime, I've always called Neo Yokio "anime-inspired" - it's a hybrid. But I've always been a fan of anime, and I always wanted to do something that was kind of an homage to it. Maybe a loving parody. Initially the people I was working with thought I should be the voice of the main character, but I was, like, 'I just spent seven years being the frontman of something, using my voice all the time. What I need right now is to slip into the background of something.'" Upon release, the show's first season received mixed reviews from critics, earning a 36% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Writer, Shannon Liao of The Verge criticised the show's story and voice-acting, citing, "the initial glamor of the backdrops and talent involved wears off fast. It has awful voice acting, and a pointless, predictable story that's only surprising because it's so willing to hit the bottom of the barrel." Contrastingly, The New York Times gave the show a more optimistic review, stating, "if a defensive reading of the line, "Yes, my girlfriend broke up with me to take a finance job in San Francisco," makes you chuckle, "Neo Yokio" may be for you." On an episode of Time Crisis in early 2018, Koenig spoke about the future of Yokio, hinting that "Neo's not dead."
QUESTION: When was the show supposed to be?
IN: Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional film actor, best known as the frontman of the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Cave's music is generally characterised by emotional intensity, a wide variety of influences, and lyrical obsessions with death, religion, love and violence. Born and raised in rural Victoria, Cave studied art before turning to music in the 1970s. As frontman of the Boys Next Door (later renamed the Birthday Party), he became a central figure in Melbourne's burgeoning post-punk scene.

In 1973, Cave met Mick Harvey (guitar), Phill Calvert (drums), John Cochivera (guitar), Brett Purcell (bass), and Chris Coyne (saxophone); fellow students at Caulfield Grammar. They founded a band with Cave as singer. Their repertoire consisted of proto-punk cover versions of songs by Lou Reed, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Roxy Music and Alex Harvey, among others. Later, the line-up slimmed down to four members including Cave's friend Tracy Pew on bass. In 1977, after leaving school, they adopted the name The Boys Next Door and began playing predominantly original material. Guitarist and songwriter Rowland S. Howard joined the band in 1978. They were a leader of Melbourne's post-punk scene in the late 1970s, playing hundreds of live shows in Australia before changing their name to the Birthday Party in 1980 and moving to London, then West Berlin. Cave's Australian girlfriend and muse Anita Lane accompanied them to London. The band were notorious for their provocative live performances which featured Cave shrieking, bellowing and throwing himself about the stage, backed up by harsh pounding rock music laced with guitar feedback. Cave utilised Old Testament imagery with lyrics about sin, debauchery and damnation. Cave's droll sense of humour and penchant for parody is evident in many of the band's songs, including "Nick the Stripper" and "King Ink". "Release the Bats", one of the band's most famous songs, was intended as an over-the-top "piss-take" on gothic rock, and a "direct attack" on the "stock gothic associations that less informed critics were wont to make". Ironically, it became highly influential on the genre, giving rise to a new generation of bands. After establishing a cult following in Europe and Australia, the Birthday Party disbanded in 1984. Howard and Cave found it difficult to continue working together and both were rather worn down from alcohol and drug use.
QUESTION:
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?