title: Rangasthalam

text: Bhupathi refuses to help, and Kumar Babu approaches the local MLA Dakshina Murthy, who arranges for Chittibabu's bail. With Murthy's support, Kumar Babu nominates himself for the position of President of Rangasthalam. They gain support from the villagers over time, with a few of them filing nominations for the position of ward member. Rangamma, however, warns Chittibabu that many people who chose to run against Bhupathi, her husband included, were later found dead in mysterious circumstances. Chittibabu realizes that Bhupathi has had all of them murdered, and senses that Kumar Babu may be in danger. He takes bribes from Bhupathi and tries to force the villagers to withdraw their nominations. Despite this, Kumar Babu continues with his vie for leadership, leading to Chittibabu changing his mind and returning the money to Bhupathi.


title: Rangasthalam

text: Kumar Babu is attacked by Bhupathi’s group on the outskirts of the village, having gone to meet his girlfriend Padma in Rajahmundry. At first, Chittibabu manages to save him from death, but a veiled man slits his already-wounded brother's throat. Bhupathi runs away from Rangasthalam, fearing for his life, and Chittibabu continues to search for him in the nearby villages. Meanwhile, Rangamma is unanimously elected as the village's president. At one point over the following days, Chittibabu observes a group of dancers reciting "Srimannarayana" in a devotional hymn dedicated to the deity of the same name. He recalls Kumar Babu attempting to say something on the night of his death and realizes that he was repeating Srimannarayana


title: Rangasthalam

text: . Chittibabu rushes to meet Dakshina Murthy for help. He is too late, however, as he sees the latter severely injured in an accident in front of his own eyes.


title: Rangasthalam

text: Chittibabu attends to a comatose Dakshina Murthy without even returning to his village. The doctors warn that Murthy may not recover, and suggest euthanasia. Chittibabu opposes and continues to care for Dakshina Murthy for two years. One day, he regains consciousness, and Chittibabu brings him back to his home. The pair are accompanied by Ramalakshmi, now Chittibabu's wife. As they talk in private, Murthy asks about Bhupathi; Chittibabu replies that he beat him to death on the outskirts of Rangasthalam. Later, Chittibabu reveals that he, following Kumar Babu's dying chant of Srimannarayana, learned of Murthy’s orchestration of his brother's death. Kumar Babu was in a relationship with Murthy's daughter Padma, despite belonging to a lower caste. Dakshina opposed this, motivating him to have Babu killed. Chittibabu waited two years for Murthy to fully recover solely so that he could experience the full pain of death. Chittibabu then murders Murthy and leaves the building along with Ramalakshmi, as Padma arrives with her husband.


title: Rangasthalam

text: Writer and filmmaker Sukumar discussed the possibility of directing a rural drama with his regular collaborator, cinematographer R. Rathnavelu before the production of the former's directorial "" (2014). After completing "Nannaku Prematho" (2016), Sukumar narrated two story lines to Rathnavelu: a contemporary film with an Indian green revolution backdrop, and a rural drama. Rathnavelu chose the latter and suggested to make it a period drama as it would give them an opportunity to showcase the local culture more effectively. He felt more like a member of the direction team than being a cinematographer during the film's production: "You’ve to think like him [Sukumar] while working with him, and getting into the psychology of the characters helps a lot."


title: Rangasthalam

text: Sukumar approached Mythri Movie Makers in October 2016, and the latter agreed to bankroll the film. The production team wanted to shoot the film in Araku Valley, but Rathnavelu was opposed to the idea. He opined that "Rangasthalam" is a film which "drew a lot from the locations that it was going to be shot in". The film's crew scouted to locations near Rajahmundry and the Godavari region, and found areas near Kolleru Lake apt for the film's periodic setting. Rathanavelu found acres of grasslands by the riverside. They made it the entrance of the village, a "killing field" where people are murdered, to create an "eerie" mood in the film. Rathnavelu opted for a "muted and earthy" colour palette with no bright shades of yellow, red and blue.


title: Rangasthalam

text: Naveen Nooli, who earlier collaborated with Sukumar for "Nannaku Prematho", was signed as the editor. Impressed with their work in "Jyo Achyutananda" (2016), Sukumar chose Ramakrishna and Mounika to handle both art direction and production design. The film's production formally commenced on 26 February 2017 with the working title "RC11". Sukumar fine tuned the script until April 2017. Though the film was initially named "Rangasthalam 1985", it was later rechristened to "Rangasthalam". The film was produced on a budget of .


title: Rangasthalam

text: Sukumar met Ram Charan through a common friend Ranga during the filming of "Nannaku Prematho" and got his approval for the script. Charan played Chittibabu, a "partially hearing impaired innocent guy" whose disorder was used to convey all the emotions the character goes through. He sported a bearded look in the film and underplayed the character to make it feel real. Charan also had to master the accent spoken in the Godavari regions, and struggled to match the villagers' speed. Charan was styled by his sister Sushmita Konidela, who had to source fabrics with typical prints that were used in the 1980s. She also had to refer the looks sported by their father, actor Chiranjeevi in his earlier films.


title: Rangasthalam

text: A screen test was conducted on Anupama in January 2017 before selecting her as the female lead, though Samantha Akkineni was finalised later for the same. She played Ramalakshmi, a "typical village belle", and her lines were dubbed by Jyothi Varma. Most of Samantha's portions were filmed during the early mornings and late hours, as she did not like to work in the noon. In an interview with "Firstpost", she said that everything about her role in the film was on a different tangent, and that she initially struggled to adjust with the rural environment, as she grew up in the urban areas of Chennai. To prepare for her role, she observed and spent some time with the women in the villages near Rajahmundry, and took inputs from Sukumar who wanted her portrayal of Ramalakshmi seem unrestrained.


title: Rangasthalam

text: Jagapathi Babu was cast as the antagonist; his inclusion was confirmed by the film's crew in January 2017. He played the role of the village head who speaks less and conveys more through his eyes, gestures and body language. Aadhi Pinisetty was cast as the protagonist's brother Kumar Babu, whom Sukumar described as the "personification of the innocence of the [1980s]". Sukumar approached Pinisetty during the shoot of "Ninnu Kori" (2017) to cast him for the character, which the latter termed as one of his easiest portrayals. Pujita Ponnada, who made her debut with Sukumar's production "Darsakudu" (2017), was cast as Pinisetty's love interest in the film.


title: Rangasthalam

text: Television presenter Anasuya Bharadwaj was cast as Rangammatha, a 28-year-old woman with a mindset of the 1990s. Sukumar cast her after she successfully auditioned for the role, adding that she had a "divine face". For the role, she sported no makeup and instead opted for a turmeric-smeared look. Prakash Raj and Brahmaji were cast in supporting roles; the latter played the role of a Tehsildar. Some of Brahmaji's portions in the film were edited out due to excessive length. In October 2017, Pooja Hegde was signed to perform an item number song "Jigelu Rani" in the film.


title: Rangasthalam

text: "Rangasthalam" was majorly filmed in a village set worth erected in Hyderabad, with only ten percent of the footage shot in real locations. 400 people worked on the village set for two months. The props were procured from a few antique shops in Rajahmundry and from the old buildings in the nearby villages. Sukumar and Rathnavelu wanted to shoot the film in harsh sunlight, planning to complete by July 2017: "In April and May, the river appears dry and sand looks burnt. People haven't seen Godavari in this angle, in an angry mood. The same river looks different, romantic if the treatment is different." "Rangasthalam" is one of the first few Indian films to be entirely shot using Red Helium 8K cameras; it was chosen for its "great dynamic range" and for filming sequences under extremely low light conditions. A gimbal was used to support 90% of the film's shoot as the script was conversation-based and involved multiple actors. Rathnavelu also opted to shoot longer takes to capture sequences in real time without being "intrusive".


title: Rangasthalam

text: Principal photography commenced in April 2017; Charan and Samantha joined the film's sets at Rajahmundry where a song on the duo was filmed. The first schedule was wrapped on 27 April 2017, in which scenes featuring Charan, Samantha and Pinisetty were filmed. Unable to bear the heat, Samantha fainted on the sets, which resulted in the first schedule being wrapped up a day in advance. Filming was postponed further by a month, concerned with the rising temperatures in the Godavari belt. The film's crew left for Hyderabad in mid-May 2017, where Prakash Raj joined the sets. By the end of June 2017, two major schedules were wrapped up and filming continued near the Papikonda National Park. Some filming locations, scheduled to be submerged under the Polavaram Project, were either deserted or had limited inhabitation. Due to lack of proper communication and facilities, the equipment and the crew traveled in boats to Rajahmundry everyday post wrapping the day's shoot.


title: Rangasthalam

text: In mid-July 2017, the construction of the village set was completed and principal photography resumed at Hyderabad. Key scenes on the film's principal cast were filmed in a 35-day schedule. Due to the rains, M90 Lights were used to bring the harsh burnt-out look. As the grass turned green, Ramakrishna replaced the soil and planted dry grass to maintain the initially planned colour palette. A song on Charan and majority of the supporting cast was filmed in October 2017, which was choreographed by Shobhi. In November 2017, a key action sequence featuring Charan and other supporting actors was shot in a village fair set. By then, majority of the principal photography was wrapped up.


title: Rangasthalam

text: The final schedule commenced in mid-January 2018 near Rajahmundry. A song, choreographed by Prem Rakshith, was filmed on Charan and Samantha on the banks of the Godavari river in the beginning of the schedule. Samantha completed filming for her portions in February 2018. The item number "Jigelu Rani" featuring Pooja Hegde and choreographed by Jani Master was filmed in a set erected at a private studio in Hyderabad. In March 2018, Charan completed filming for his portions, and the principal photography was wrapped.


title: Rangasthalam

text: Sukumar drew inspiration from the lives of people he knew personally, and incorporated the themes of a corrupt co-operative society controlled by few influential men in the village, and that of young men leaving for the Gulf region to secure employment. Phanindra Bhupathi, being the most powerful man in the village, is shown at least 4–5 feet above everyone else. His house is built on a pedestal, signifying his authority over others. Priyanka Sundar, writing for "Hindustan Times", noted that the film focuses on the theme of good versus evil, by making the antagonist display signs of god complex.


title: Rangasthalam

text: Film critic Baradwaj Rangan noted that "Rangasthalam" exists in the feudal realm of Shyam Benegal "Ankur" (1974) and "Nishant" (1975), and Bapu "Mana Voori Pandavulu" (1978). He added that the film is both political and personal drama, with a "morally uplifting social uprising" and "carefully nurtured vigilante justice". Sankeertana Varma, writing for Film Companion, called "Rangasthalam" an upgraded version of "Mana Voori Pandavulu" set in a "village where caste is everywhere".


title: Rangasthalam

text: Film critic Karthik Keramalu noted that "Rangasthalam" explores the themes of caste-based honour killings and brahminical patriarchy through Dakshina Murthy's character, a soft-spoken politician. Sukumar added that he was also inspired from the ethics followed while implementing capital punishment, where the officials would wait until the person recovers from illness and is healthy.


title: Rangasthalam

text: Devi Sri Prasad composed the film's soundtrack and score. The former consists of six songs, all written by Chandrabose. Chandrabose wrote the lyrics at Puducherry after holding discussions with Sukumar and Prasad. He completed writing five songs out of six in four days, with each one taking half an hour to complete. The tunes were composed after Chandrabose completed writing the lyrics.


title: Rangasthalam

text: The first single "Yentha Sakkagunnave", sung by Prasad himself, was released by Lahari Music on 13 February 2018. Two other tracks, "Ranga Ranga Rangasthalana" and "Rangamma Mangamma", were released on 2 and 8 March 2018 respectively. Lahari Music released the soundtrack on 15 March 2018 in YouTube and all other digital platforms. The initial release contained only five tracks; the sixth one was excluded as it contained spoilers about the film's plot.


title: Rangasthalam

text: The sixth track, titled "Orayyo", was a song used in the score for the scenes depicting Kumar Babu's funeral in the film. Sung by Chandrabose himself, "Orayyo" was released on 3 April 2018. The soundtrack received positive reviews from the critics, who were appreciative of the lyrics and Prasad's instrumentation in tune with the film's periodic setting.


title: Rangasthalam

text: In December 2017, the makers announced that "Rangasthalam" would release globally on 30 March 2018. The global theatrical rights were sold for , and the film was scheduled to release in 1200 screens. "Rangasthalam" was released across 600 screens in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, 200 screens in the rest of India, and 350 screens in the overseas markets. In April 2018, the makers announced that the film would be dubbed into Tamil, Malayalam, Bhojpuri and Hindi languages with the same name. In March 2019, a Kannada-dubbed version of the film titled "Rangasthala" was announced, making "Rangasthalam" the second Telugu film after "Mayabazar" (1957) to have a dubbed release in Karnataka. It was released in 150 screens on 12 July 2019. The film's Tamil dubbed version was later released on 30 April 2021. The film's Hindi dubbed version is expected to release in theatres by Goldmines Telefilms along with AA Films in February 2022.


title: Rangasthalam

text: Star Maa purchased the satellite rights. The film registered a TRP rating of 19.5 on its television premiere. Amazon Prime Video acquired the film's digital rights, made it available online on 12 May 2018, much before the 50th day of theatrical release.


title: Rangasthalam

text: "Rangasthalam" opened to a 100% occupancy in some areas of India, including districts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, earning globally. At the United States box office, the film debuted with earnings of US$640,000 from its premieres in 160 locations, and of US$1,204,578 in two days. The film benefited from the then ongoing strike in Tamil Nadu against digital service providers, and earned in its first weekend at Chennai. "Rangasthalam" grossed globally, with a distributor share of in its first weekend. "Rangasthalam" earnings exceeded US$2 million on its third day of theatrical release in the US, becoming the ninth Indian Telugu-language film to do so.


title: Rangasthalam

text: By the end of its first week, the film grossed and a distributor share of , achieving break-even. After earning more than US$3 million in 9 days in the US, "Rangasthalam" became the all-time third highest grossing Telugu film in that country. In 31 days, it had grossed a worldwide total of and a distributor share of , becoming the third-highest grossing Telugu film of all time. In 33 days, the film crossed US$3.5 million mark in the US. In its complete global theatrical run, "Rangasthalam" grossed a total of and earned a distributor share of , becoming the highest grossing Telugu film of that year.


title: Rangasthalam

text: "Rangasthalam" received positive reviews from the critics who were particularly appreciative of Sukumar's writing and the performances of the ensemble cast; they were critical of the film's slow pace and runtime nearing three hours.


title: Rangasthalam

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of based on reviews, with an average rating of .


title: Rangasthalam

text: Baradwaj Rangan called "Rangasthalam" an "unusual masala movie" whose punch moments "arise organically from the screenplay" which aren't just "a shot or a line set up simply to get the pulse pounding at regular intervals". Rangan added that Sukumar "works with a larger vision", and "leaves behind his fingerprints" in what he called the "most hodgepodge of genres". Subhash K. Jha, in his review for the Indo-Asian News Service, called "Rangasthalam" a film "from the heart" and wrote that it "plays itself out with a karmic velocity giving the main characters a chance to grow without revelling in their dazzle [sic]". Jha praised the performances of Charan and Babu, in particular, adding that the former "remains almost flawlessly in character," which was "diffident and disarmingly disingenuous, valiant but not fearless".


title: Rangasthalam

text: Sangeetha Devi Dundoo, in her review for "The Hindu", likened "Rangasthalam" to a novel: "In its first few pages, this fictitious dusty village of the [1980s] reveals itself gradually. The dialect is rooted, not a generic one that mainstream films present in a broad brushstroke for instant appeal." Dundoo opined that it was the most defining film for both Sukumar and Charan, adding that it marked the latter's rise as an actor. Neeshita Nyayapati of "The Times of India" called Charan's performance "stupendous"; she wrote, "Be it in the scenes where he oozes childishness or the ones when you see a broken man that no one can heal, you can see it all in the way his eyes emote." Manoj Kumar R, reviewing for "The Indian Express", called "Rangasthalam" a "well-crafted canvas" which was made with "honesty and high regard for the audience". He found Babu's portrayal of the village's president "convincing".


title: Rangasthalam

text: Hemanth Kumar was particularly appreciative of Sukumar's writing in his review for "Firstpost". He wrote, "To narrate a political drama is one thing, but to create such an universe within the parameters of a revenge drama is sheer brilliance. The more you dig into "Rangasthalam", the more rewarding it is." Kumar called the climax "explosive" and remarked, "Adjectives don’t do enough justice to what [the film] manages to achieve in the end." Murali Krishna CH of "The New Indian Express" too praised the climax, stating that Sukumar "weaves his magic wand" towards the end with an "interesting" twist. However, he was critical of the film's narrative, opining that it "lingers too long" in certain sequences, which made them look staged. Calling the film a "well designed mass entertainer" with a "clearly and adamantly rural" narrative, K Naresh Kumar of "The Hans India" wrote, "As the disunited denizens slowly unite under the saviour, the story takes its interesting twists and turns with a very gripping climax to elevate the film altogether." In contrast, Nagarjuna Rao, in his review for "Gulf News", found "Rangasthalam" a "gripping" tale with a "predictable" end. He called Babu's performance "domineering" and added that the film "could well be" Charan's career best. Similarly, Latha Srinivasan opined that the climax was "a bit of a let-down". In her review for NewsX, she felt that the ending "could have been better written" to "pack a punch rather than just add a twist".


title: Rangasthalam

text: Krishna Sripada was critical of the climax as well. Reviewing the film for "The News Minute", he wrote, ""Rangasthalam" gives you likable characters in a screenplay that aims to touch dizzying heights without packing enough fuel. A story that makes you wait and wait should offer more when it eventually comes to a close." Priyanka Sundar called Prakash Raj the film's game changer towards the end. Sunder wrote that Raj stuns the viewers in the scene "because of the way all of it is presented". Sify, in its review, noted that the film holds the viewers' attention till the end despite the lengthy runtime and slow pace. It praised the performances of the ensemble cast, the cinematography, and the music but was critical of the film's plot for lacking novelty. Suresh Kavirayani of "Deccan Chronicle" too opined that "Rangasthalam" had a regular storyline but was presented by Sukumar in a unique way. "Film Companion" while compiling the "25 Greatest Telugu Films of the Decade", called this movie as an updated version of "Mana Voori Pandavulu" (1978). Nagarjuna Rao of "Gulf News" gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5 and stated, "There comes a career best for all actors at some point of time. "Rangasthalam" could well be Ram Charan’s, though he’s not been in the showbiz for too long, and there’s still a long innings ahead of him. "Rangasthalam" may not set the cash registers ring like some of Charan’s successful movies — and he’s had a few failures, too — but the film will remain as one of his best."


title: Rangasthalam

text: At the 66th National Film Awards, the film won the Best Audiography. It won ten awards at Zee Cine Awards Telugu. The film won many awards at Filmfare Awards South and South Indian International Movie Awards.


title: Lemming

text: A lemming is a small rodent, usually found in or near the Arctic in tundra biomes. Lemmings form the subfamily Arvicolinae (also known as Microtinae) together with voles and muskrats, which form part of the superfamily Muroidea, which also includes rats, mice, hamsters, and gerbils. In popular culture, a longstanding myth holds that they exhibit herd mentality and jump off cliffs, committing mass suicide.


title: Lemming

text: Lemmings measure around in length and weigh around . Lemmings are quite rounded in shape, with brown and black, long, soft fur. They have a very short tail, a stubby, hairy snout, short legs, and small ears. They have a flattened claw on the first digit of their front feet, which helps them to dig in the snow. They are herbivorous, feeding mostly on mosses and grasses. They also forage through the snow surface to find berries, leaves, shoots, roots, bulbs, and lichens.


title: Lemming

text: Lemmings choose their preferred dietary vegetation disproportionately to its occurrence in their habitat. They digest grasses and sedges less effectively than related voles.


title: Lemming

text: Lemmings do not hibernate through the harsh northern winter. They remain active, finding food by burrowing through the snow. These rodents live in large tunnel systems beneath the snow in winter, which protect them from predators. Their burrows have rest areas, toilet areas, and nesting rooms. They make nests out of grasses, feathers, and muskox wool (qiviut). In the spring, they move to higher ground, where they live on mountain heaths or in forests, continuously breeding before returning in autumn to the tundra.


title: Lemming

text: Like many other rodents, lemmings have periodic population booms and then disperse in all directions, seeking food and shelter their natural habitats cannot provide. The Norway lemming and brown lemming are two of the few vertebrates which reproduce so quickly that their population fluctuations are chaotic, rather than following linear growth to a carrying capacity or regular oscillations. Why lemming populations fluctuate with such great variance roughly every four years, before numbers drop to near extinction, is not known. Lemming behaviour and appearance are markedly different from those of other rodents, which are inconspicuously coloured and try to conceal themselves from their predators. Lemmings, by contrast, are conspicuously coloured and behave aggressively toward predators and even human observers. The lemming defence system is thought to be based on aposematism (warning display). Fluctuations in the lemming population affect the behaviour of predators, and may fuel irruptions of birds of prey such as snowy owls to areas further south.


title: Lemming

text: For many years, the population of lemmings was believed to change with the population cycle, but now some evidence suggests their predators' populations, particularly those of the stoat, may be more closely involved in changing the lemming population.


title: Lemming

text: Misconceptions about lemmings go back many centuries. In the 1530s, geographer Zeigler of Strasbourg proposed the theory that the creatures fell out of the sky during stormy weather and then died suddenly when the grass grew in spring. This description was contradicted by natural historian Ole Worm, who accepted that lemmings could fall out of the sky, but claimed that they had been brought over by the wind rather than created by spontaneous generation. Worm published dissections of a lemming, which showed that they are anatomically similar to most other rodents such as voles and hamsters, and the work of Carl Linnaeus proved that they had a natural origin.


title: Lemming

text: Lemmings have become the subject of a widely popular misconception that they are driven to commit mass suicide when they migrate by jumping off cliffs. It is not a deliberate mass suicide, in which animals voluntarily choose to die, but rather a result of their migratory behavior. Driven by strong biological urges, some species of lemmings may migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. They can swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat. In such cases, many drown if the body of water is an ocean or is so wide as to exceed their physical capabilities. Thus, the unexplained fluctuations in the population of Norwegian lemmings, and perhaps a small amount of semantic confusion (suicide not being limited to voluntary deliberation, but also the result of foolishness), helped give rise to the popular stereotype of the suicidal lemmings, particularly after this behaviour was staged in the Walt Disney documentary "White Wilderness" in 1958. The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late 19th century. In the August 1877 issue of "Popular Science Monthly", apparently suicidal lemmings are presumed to be swimming the Atlantic Ocean in search of the submerged continent of Lemuria.


title: Lemming

text: Another myth may have roots in the fiercely aggressive nature of lemmings during population booms, and the corresponding leftovers of predatory frenzies: lemmings do not explode.


title: Lemming

text: The misconception of lemming "mass suicide" is long-standing and has been popularized by a number of factors.


title: Lemming

text: It was well enough known to be mentioned in "The Marching Morons", a 1951 short story by Cyril M. Kornbluth.


title: Lemming

text: In 1955, Disney Studio illustrator Carl Barks drew an "Uncle Scrooge" adventure comic with the title "The Lemming with the Locket". This comic, which was inspired by a 1953 "American Mercury" article, showed massive numbers of lemmings jumping over Norwegian cliffs.


title: Lemming

text: Lemmings also appear in Arthur C. Clarke's 1953 short story "The Possessed", where their suicidal urges are attributed to the lingering consciousness of an alien group mind, which had inhabited the species in the prehistoric past.


title: Lemming

text: Perhaps the most influential and, for the lemmings involved, tragic, presentation of the myth was the 1958 Disney film "White Wilderness" which won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature and in which producers threw lemmings off a cliff to their deaths to fake footage of a "mass suicide", as well as faked scenes of mass migration. A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary, "Cruel Camera", found the lemmings used for "White Wilderness" were flown from Hudson Bay to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where, far from "casting themselves bodily out into space" (as the film's narrator states), they were, in fact, dumped off the cliff by the camera crew from a truck. Because of the limited number of lemmings at their disposal, which in any case were the wrong subspecies, the migration scenes were simulated using tight camera angles and a large, snow-covered turntable.


title: Lemming

text: The song "Lemmings (Including 'Cog')" from the 1971 album "Pawn Hearts" by progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator is about a person who sees their loved ones "crashing on quite blindly to the sea".


title: Lemming

text: The 1983 song "Synchronicity II" by The Police makes an allusion to the supposed suicidal tendencies of lemmings in its reference to commuters "packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes, contestants in a suicidal race."


title: Lemming

text: In 1991, a puzzle-platform video game called "Lemmings" was released, in which the player must save a certain percentage of the titular small humanoid creatures as they march heedlessly through a dangerous environment. The game became quite popular and has been through several versions up to the present day.


title: Lemming

text: In 2006, the German Fun Metal, Comedy Rock, and Neue Deutsche Härte band Knorkator produced the comedy rock song "Wir werden alle sterben" (Eng.: "We are all going to die"). The lyrics state that all signs indicate that "we" are all going to die soon, possibly even today. Also a child sings some parts stating that this might also happen during brushing teeth, making it more funny but dark. The lyrics do not mention any lemmings, but the music video (available freely on YouTube) shows some creatures which are clearly supposed to be lemmings dying in different situations. The video starts with the typical visualization of these lemmings lining up walking to and over a cliff (which, while falling to their deaths, happily sing about the party coming to an end).


title: Lemming

text: Lemmings are main characters of the 2016 French animated television series "Grizzy and the Lemmings". As a humorous allusion to the popular myth, the series frequently features lemmings jumping down from elevated platforms.


title: Lemming

text: In the animated Disney film "Zootopia" (2016) lemmings are employed as investment bankers of Lemmings Brothers. They are exceptionally prone to herd instinct, including mass suicide.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Pineapple Express is a 2008 American stoner action-comedy film directed by David Gordon Green, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and starring Rogen and James Franco. The plot centers on a process server and his marijuana dealer as they are forced to flee from hitmen and a corrupt police officer after witnessing them commit a murder. Producer Judd Apatow, who previously worked with Rogen and Goldberg on "Knocked Up" and "Superbad", assisted in developing the story.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Columbia Pictures released the film on August 6, 2008, and it grossed $102 million worldwide on a $26 million budget. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and has since developed a cult following. Franco was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Dale Denton, a process server and marijuana enthusiast, visits his drug dealer, Saul. Dale and Saul smoke the rare "Pineapple Express" strain together before Dale leaves to resume working. He arrives at the home of Ted Jones and witnesses Ted and police officer Carol Brazier shoot and kill an Asian man. While fleeing, Dale throws his roach containing Pineapple Express, which Ted identifies and he sends his henchmen Budlofsky and Matheson to Red, a drug dealer who tells them about Saul.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Back at Saul's apartment, Dale learns Ted is a local drug lord and could trace the roach as only Red and Saul have the Pineapple Express strain. Dale and Saul decide they must flee the city. They attempt to hide in the woods where Dale's car battery dies. Dale and Saul visit Red, who after a fight, reveals that Ted knows who they are and intends to kill them. Budlofsky and Matheson torture Red for information and both shoot him in the abdomen. Believing Dale’s high-schooler girlfriend Angie to be in danger, he and Saul travel to her home where they are removed at gunpoint by her father. Budlofsky and Matheson arrive at the house but Dale and Saul depart before they can be captured and Angie's family goes to a hotel.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Dale and Saul then sell Pineapple Express to raise bus fare but Dale is arrested by police officer Bobbra. Dale tells Bobbra that he witnessed Brazier and Ted murder a man. Bobbra has long been suspicious of Brazier's corruption and says she will investigate; Saul, thinking he is rescuing Dale, hijacks the police car. Brazier hears on police radio of Dale's arrest and pursues Dale and Saul in a high-speed chase but they escape. After Dale and Saul argue and split up, Saul is kidnapped and is held in Ted's lair. Dale breaks up with Angie over the phone after she talks about marriage. Dale then enlists an injured Red to help to rescue Saul but Red backs out at the last minute and Dale is captured. While Dale and Saul are waiting to be killed, they reconcile their friendship and plan an escape.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Ted's rivals, a Korean drug gang, attack the lair to avenge their fellow gangster's death. Dale and Saul free themselves but are caught by Matheson. A brawl and shootout ensues; Matheson kills Budlofsky for refusing to kill anyone. Red reappears and drives his car through the barn, killing Matheson and saving Saul but is shot by Brazier. A member of the Korean gang sets off a bomb killing Ted and setting fire to the barn. Red's car explodes and lands on Brazier, killing her. Dale carries Saul from the burning lair and Red, severely wounded, also escapes and reconciles with them. They talk about their adventure over breakfast at a diner before Saul's grandmother picks them up and takes them to the hospital.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: The inspiration for making "Pineapple Express", according to producer Judd Apatow, was Brad Pitt's character in "True Romance", a stoner named Floyd. Apatow "thought it would be funny to make a movie in which you follow that character out of his apartment and watch him get chased by bad guys". According to Rogen, the ideal production budget was $40 million, but due to the subject matter—"because it's a weed movie", as he described it—Sony Pictures allotted $25 million. The film inspired the name for a real cannabis strain called Pineapple Express.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: David Gordon Green met with Apatow, Rogen and Goldberg on the set of "Knocked Up" and later on the set of "Superbad" to discuss the project. Green cited "The Blues Brothers", "Midnight Run", "Running Scared", "The Gravy Train" and "Stir Crazy" as sources of inspiration and influence on directing the film. One particular aspect of the film that has been almost universally praised is the cinematography; Rogen even joked on the commentary that "even people who hate the movie admit that it's shot well".


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Rogen was originally going to play Saul, but Apatow suggested that Franco should play the role instead. After a table read, Rogen agreed, thus casting himself in the role of Dale Denton.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Seth Rogen spoke with musician Huey Lewis about writing and performing the film's theme song in November 2007.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Sony released the film on Wednesday, August 6, 2008 and it grossed $12.1 million on its first day. Over the weekend, it opened at number two behind "The Dark Knight" with $23.2 million, a five-day total of $41.3 million. The film went on to gross $87.3 million in the U.S. and Canada and $14.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $101.5 million.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: A red-band trailer for the film, featuring the song "Paper Planes" by M.I.A., leaked in February 2008. Sony Pictures had the video removed from YouTube within a few days of its posting. Patrick Goldstein's Summer Movie Posse of the "Los Angeles Times" described its incorporation as "the most impressive use of M.I.A.'s 'Paper Planes' ever". The film's makers had been keen on including the song in the film's main trailer and approached M.I.A.'s U.S. label Interscope Records for permission. She added "Interscope asked me and I was, like, well, since it’s just the trailer, that’s cool. I didn’t really think twice about it" stating she would have thought more carefully about permitting the song's use if it was in the main film, "scrutinizing what scene they were using it in and stuff like that". "Pineapple Express" had an advance screening at the Just for Laughs Film Festival on July 19, 2008. The film was released on August 6, 2008. Cable network FX pre-bought exclusive rights to air the film after its theatrical run.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on January 6, 2009. Both rated and unrated versions of the film are available. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray in Australia on December 31, 2008. Both the Blu-ray and 2-disc DVD versions of the film come with a digital copy of the unrated film. It was released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on March 1, 2016.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "Pineapple Express" holds an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "Both funny and scatter shot, this loose-knit action/buddy/stoner comedy bridges genres and keeps a steady tempo of low ball laughs." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" praised the film's script, noting that it "recalls what made "Superbad" worth seeing: the sidewinding conversational riffs, the "why-am-I-laughing?" wordplay." However, he was critical of the second half of the film, and felt that the violence in contrast to the comedy of the first half was jarring and gratuitous. Kelly Vance of "East Bay Express" enjoyed Franco's performance, stating that he "steals the movie easily", as well as the authenticity of the film's sets.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: The original motion picture soundtrack to the film was released on August 5, 2008. Although featured in the trailer for the film, the song "Paper Planes" by M.I.A. is not used in the film or included on its soundtrack. Following the trailer's release, "Paper Planes" gained massive airplay and reached the top 5 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart. Also featured in the film but absent from the soundtrack album are Grace Jones' Sly and Robbie produced cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire", the former of which can be found on her 1998 compilation "".


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: Due to the film's financial success and cult following, Rogen, Goldberg, and Apatow were interested in producing a second film. The project never came to fruition, with Rogen saying "I think we probably wanted too much money" (Apatow had placed the necessary cost of a sequel at $50 million, with Sony capping it at $45 million). In order to promote Rogen's 2013 film "This Is the End", which also starred Franco, Robinson, and McBride, Sony released a fake trailer for "Pineapple Express 2" as an April Fool's Day prank. According to Rogen and Goldberg, the homemade "Pineapple Express 2" film in "This Is the End" depicts what they envision for the actual sequel.


title: Pineapple Express (film)

text: After the 2014 Sony hack, emails were leaked confirming the budget disagreement. Rogen also confirmed this in a 2020 interview.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: Lady Louise Alice Elizabeth Mary Mountbatten-Windsor (born 8 November 2003), generally known as Lady Louise Windsor, is the elder child of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Forfar, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Forfar, both members of the British royal family. She is a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. A niece of King Charles III, Lady Louise Windsor is 15th in the line of succession to the British throne .


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: Lady Louise Windsor was born prematurely on 8 November 2003 at 23:32 GMT at Frimley Park Hospital in Frimley, Surrey, after her mother, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, was rushed there by ambulance from the Wessex home at Bagshot Park, Surrey. Louise's father, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, was not present for the birth because it occurred suddenly and while he was on an official visit to Mauritius. Louise was delivered by emergency Caesarean section due to placental abruption, which caused severe blood loss to both child and mother. Louise was transferred to a neo-natal unit in St George's Hospital, Tooting, London, as a precaution. Meanwhile, her mother remained at Frimley Park until she was well enough to be discharged, on 23 November 2003. Her name, Louise Alice Elizabeth Mary, was announced on 27 November.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: She was baptised in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle on 24 April 2004 by David Conner, the Dean of Windsor; her godparents were Lady Sarah Chatto, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, Lady Alexandra Etherington, Francesca Schwarzenbach and Rupert Elliott. Louise was the last child to wear the original royal christening gown.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: Born with esotropia, Louise underwent an operation in 2006 in an unsuccessful attempt to correct the problem. She had further treatment in late 2013 that corrected her eyes.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: Louise attended St George's School, Windsor Castle before moving to St Mary's School Ascot in 2017 from Year 9. She chose English, history, politics and drama as her A-Level subjects. While attending school, she took part in The Duke of Edinburgh's Award. Lady Louise started studying English at the University of St Andrews in September 2022. In August 2022, it was reported that she had been working at a garden centre over the summer.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: In April 2015, Louise and her brother James participated in their first overseas engagement. They accompanied their parents on a trip to South Africa.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: In August 2018, Louise accompanied her mother, patron of UK Sail Training, to Haslar Marina in Portsmouth Harbour to meet a group of young girls working towards earning their qualification on an entry-level course of the Royal Yachting Association. In the same month, mother and daughter attended the final of the Hockey Women's World Cup in London. The Countess has a great interest in the sport and is the patron of England Hockey. At the age of 14, Louise was a special attendant at the wedding of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank. To celebrate Louise's 15th birthday in November 2018, mother and daughter made a cameo appearance on "Strictly Come Dancing" as they watched the popular BBC television show from the audience. Louise accompanied the Countess in attending the International Horse Show at Olympia, London, in December 2018.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: In September 2020, Louise participated in the Great British Beach Clean with her family at Southsea Beach, in support of the Marine Conservation Society.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: Following the death of her grandfather Prince Philip, Louise accompanied her parents and uncle Prince Andrew to a church service at Royal Chapel of All Saints on 11 April 2021, and met members of the Windsor Estate staff to share memories and condolences. She also attended his funeral on 17 April 2021.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: In March 2022 she attended the memorial service for Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. In June 2022 she attended Trooping the Colour, where she also joined her family on the balcony, the Platinum Jubilee National Service of Thanksgiving and the Platinum Party at the Palace.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022, Lady Louise stood vigil for 15 minutes over her grandmother's coffin at Westminster Hall together with the other grandchildren of the late Queen on 17 September. On 19 September, she joined other family members at the state funeral.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: Louise is a member of Girlguiding, of which her grandmother was patron and her mother is president. Her mother was a Brownie and a Guide when she was a child.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: She was taught to ride at a young age, and joined her father on horseback as part of the Queen's 90th birthday celebrations in Windsor in 2016. She has taken up carriage driving, a sport popularised in Britain by her grandfather, Prince Philip. In May 2017, she was responsible for leading the carriages of the Champagne Laurent-Perrier Meet of the British Driving Society at the Royal Windsor Horse Show. In May 2019, Louise took part in the Private Driving Singles carriage drive at the Royal Windsor Horse Show and achieved third place. She inherited her grandfather's driving ponies and carriage in April 2021. In 2022, she drove one of his carriages in front of the Queen at the Royal Windsor Horse Show.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: She is styled as "Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor", although letters patent issued in 1917 assign a princely status and the style of "Royal Highness" to all children of a monarch's sons. However, when her parents married, the Queen, via a Buckingham Palace press release, announced that their children would be styled as the children of an earl, rather than as prince or princess. Thus, court communications refer to her as "Lady Louise Windsor". In 2020, the Countess of Wessex and Forfar stated that Louise retained her royal title and style and would make a choice on whether to use it when she reached the age of 18.


title: Lady Louise Windsor

text: In June 2008, to recognise a visit by Louise's father to the Canadian province of Manitoba, the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba renamed a lake in the north of the province after her. Her younger brother, James, was also honoured with a different lake in the province.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: The Munsters is a 2022 American horror comedy film produced, written, and directed by Rob Zombie and starring Sheri Moon Zombie, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Daniel Roebuck, Richard Brake, Jorge Garcia, Sylvester McCoy, Catherine Schell, and Cassandra Peterson. Based on the 1960s family sitcom of the same title, the story takes place prior to the events of the series, serving as an origin story for the characters.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Rob Zombie had pursued developing a "Munsters" film with Universal Pictures before the release of his debut feature in 2003, and was attached to several related projects before confirming a film adaptation of the television series in 2021. Zombie wanted the film to be in black and white, but the studio refused, and the director opted for a highly saturated look instead. Principal photography began on November 2021 in Budapest.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: "The Munsters" is a co-production of Universal 1440 Entertainment and Spookshow International Films. It was released on Digital, Blu-ray, and DVD, and also available to stream on Netflix on September 27, 2022. It received mixed reviews from critics.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Mad scientist Dr. Henry Augustus Wolfgang and his hunchbacked assistant Floop rob graves for body parts to build an experimental creation. Floop accidentally steals the head of hacky comedian Shecky Von Rathbone instead of Shecky's astrophysicist brother Shelly, whom Wolfgang wanted because he was considered the world's smartest man. Wolfgang uses electricity to give life to his Frankenstein creation which Floop names "Herman Munster".


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Seeking revenge on her ex-husband The Count, Romani Zoya Krupp entrances The Count's werewolf son Lester, who deeply owes money to Zoya, to come to her tent. Under threat of losing his head, Lester agrees to Zoya's plan to have The Count sell her his Transylvanian castle so she can turn it into a casino and theme park.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Lester calls his father with the proposal, but The Count immediately dismisses it. Over breakfast served by his faithful servant Igor, The Count talks with his 150-year-old vampire daughter Lily Gruesella about her unsatisfying love life and disappointing recent date with Count Orlock.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Lily and The Count watch the TV show "Good Morning Transylvania" with host Ezra Mosher. Ezra's guest Dr. Wolfgang unveils Herman Munster live on the air. Wolfgang is disgusted to discover Herman is a bumbling brute with a goofy sense of humor when he begins performing a stand-up comedy routine. However, Lily falls in love with Herman's unusual personality.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Herman becomes a celebrity with Floop acting as his manager, and Lily goes to see him perform with his band "The Punk Rods" at Zoya's nightclub Zombie-a-Go-Go. Lily is directed to him by Lester after he received another warning from Zoya, and Herman immediately falls for Lily when they meet backstage. The two of them agree to a dinner date the following night at The Count's castle. The Count takes an instant disliking to Herman due to his dimwittedness and begins scheming with Igor to use a magic spell to get rid of him.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: The Count later tries to conjure a new mate for Lily, but his potion inadvertently summons a semi-sentient chimpanzee instead. A week of dating culminates in Herman and Lily vacationing at Devil's Island Penal Colony. Herman proposes marriage and Lily accepts, which greatly frustrates her father.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Herman meets Lester for the first time at his wedding. With Herman as the new head of the household, Lester manipulates him into signing over the castle's deed to Zoya by promising a lucrative business venture. Herman and Lily are married as Wolfgang states to the Count that Herman is now his problem.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Following their marriage ceremony and a brief encounter with Lester, Herman and Lily honeymoon in Paris. On the trip, Herman captures a creature that had been haunting the city's sewers. Herman and Lily adopt the monster as a pet who they name Spot. After Zoya serves him with an eviction notice, The Count angrily confronts Herman in Paris. Lily learns that Herman fell for one of Lester's schemes, leaving all of them without a home.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: After Lily has a call with the incarcerated lawyer Shady MaGoon who claims that they don't have a case against Zoya, Herman gets the idea that they can get a fresh start by moving to Hollywood where Herman can become a famous star after watching a TV personality named Zombo. The Count transforms Igor into a bat so he can join them on the trip to California. Realtor Barbara Carr takes Herman, Lily, and The Count on a brief tour of Hollywood before taking them to Mockingbird Heights. Barbara shows The Munsters a model home, but the trio insists on buying a dilapidated old house at the 1313 address.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Herman, Lily, and The Count join their neighbors for a Halloween block party. Unaware of the holiday's customs, The Munsters assume they are partying with other freaks and weirdos. The residents assume The Munsters are wearing costumes, and award them a $1,500 contest prize. Herman leaves the house for his first day of work carrying corpses at the Gateman, Goodbury, and Graves funeral parlor. Getting his first look at Mockingbird Heights outside of Halloween, Herman retreats in shock when he sees that they live among normal people in an idyllic suburb. Lily and The Count are equally horrified.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Lester arrives at the house unexpectedly. Although The Munsters are initially unhappy to see him after what Zoya made him do, Lester presents Herman with a check for his portion of gambling money that Lester won in Las Vegas using Zoya's payment for The Count's castle. Herman and The Munsters excitedly realize they are now rich.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: A lifelong fan of the 1960s television series, Rob Zombie had pursued developing a film before the release of his debut feature, "House of 1000 Corpses" (2003), which first began as a Universal production. Zombie expressed his enthusiasm for the property to the studio's chairman Stacey Snider, only to learn a new take was already in development. In 2016, the director learned of another "Munsters" project for Universal, and became involved. He began to overhaul a film "aimed at preschoolers" that originally focused on Herman and Lily’s son, Eddie, but Universal eventually cancelled to explore television options instead.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: In March 2021, it was reported that Zombie was developing a feature film adaptation of the television series. This was confirmed by Zombie in June. In April of the same year, it was also reported that the project was being developed as a simultaneous theatrical and Peacock-exclusive film, but these reports turned out to be erroneous. The movie's budget was also rumored to be $40 million but Rob Zombie said that was untrue.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Zombie flew to Budapest in June 2021 to begin location scouting. On July 2, 2021, Sheri Moon Zombie confirmed that the film was in the pre-production stage. Zombie shared numerous pre-production materials through his social media accounts, including designs for the Munsters' house on Mockingbird Lane and early sculpting for Herman Munster's head prosthetic.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: On July 26, 2021, Rob Zombie shared the first costume designs for Lily and Herman. Further costume designs were revealed later that month. Wayne Toth's Ex Mortis special effects studio worked on special effects make-up for the film. Toth has regularly collaborated with Rob Zombie, including on the films "Halloween", "House of 1000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects". In September 2021, Zombie returned to the US for a series of tour dates but continued to share updates from the construction of Mockingbird Lane on his Instagram.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Rob Zombie used social media to bring casting and character updates to fans during the production of "The Munsters". His first announcement came in October 2021, when he revealed the main cast members—this included Jeff Daniel Phillips, who would be playing Herman Munster; Sheri Moon Zombie, who would be playing Lily Munster; and Dan Roebuck, who would be playing The Count. All three actors were veterans of Rob Zombie movies, and Zombie explained, "I couldn't risk getting on set in Budapest and going, my leads aren't getting along, they have no chemistry. So that's why I chose the cast I chose. Jeff Daniel Phillips and Sheri Moon Zombie and Daniel Roebuck, they work together a lot and I knew they would just fall right into it."


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Actor Richard Brake was cast as Dr. Henry Augustus Wolfgang, "Transylvania's most popular mad scientist". This was the fourth Rob Zombie movie that Brake has been cast in, previously appearing in "Halloween", "31" and "3 from Hell". Brake finished filming in May 2022. Scottish actor Sylvester McCoy was cast as Igor, "the loyal servant to the Munsters". McCoy wrapped in April 2022. In early 2022, Rob Zombie shared the first photo from the set of Catherine Schell, who would be playing Zoya Krupp. American actor and comedian Jorge Garcia played Floop, "Dr. Wolfgang's hunchback assistant and Herman Munster's best buddy". Cassandra Peterson, better known as the horror hostess character Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, was cast as Barbara Carr, "the number 1 real estate agent in all of Mockingbird Heights". Peterson said the role was "so so different from what I normally do, I'm playing a super straight character". Actress Dee Wallace was cast as "the voice of "Good Morning Transylvania"". Wallace has appeared in several Rob Zombie movies, including "Halloween", "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto", "The Lords of Salem" and "3 from Hell". British actor Jeremy Wheeler would join the cast as "Mr. Gateman, Herman's boss at the one and only Gateman, Goodbury and Graves Funeral Parlor". Actor Tomas Boykin was cast as Lily's brother Lester. Boykin had previously appeared in Rob Zombie's "3 from Hell".


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Following speculation about original "Munsters" cast members, Rob Zombie revealed that Pat Priest, who played Marilyn Munster from 1964 to 1966, had joined the cast of his movie. Another "Munsters" original actor, Butch Patrick, who played Eddie Munster from 1964 to 1966, was revealed to be playing the Tin Can Man, a robot built by Eddie on the series. Several minor characters were announced to appear with no casting information: Uncle Gilbert, who was in the original episode "Love Comes to Mockingbird Heights" and was played by Richard Hale, and Zombo, originally featured in the second season. Count Orlock also returned, and Zombie hinted that the character was a former beau of Lily's before she met Herman.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Principal photography officially began in November 2021, in Budapest. The producers felt a black and white film would be difficult to market. Zombie noticed the actors in makeup off set looked like "cartoon characters come to life", and decided to light the film in the same colorful "hyper-real" fashion. Because of COVID-19 lockdowns, the cast lived together in the same building for three months and got to know each other. Filming had wrapped by July 7, 2022.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Rob Zombie revealed that long-time collaborator Zeuss would be composing the music for "The Munsters". Zeuss had previously scored the music for Zombie's "3 from Hell" and "31".


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: In July 2022, two original songs for "The Munsters" were released, "It's Zombo" and "The House of Zombo", which feature performances by Rob Zombie, Jeff Daniel Phillips and Sheri Moon Zombie. "I Got You Babe", a cover of the Sonny & Cher song performed by Sheri Moon Zombie and Phillips, was released in August. The three tracks were made available on streaming platforms and a limited edition 12-inch single from Waxwork Records.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: On September 23, 2022, the full soundtrack was released on streaming platforms, featuring original songs from the film, including the previously released singles, and the original score music by Zeuss. It was also released as a double vinyl LP by Waxwork Records. In total there are 56 tracks with a runtime of 1 hour and 15 minutes.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: The track "They Are The Munsters", written by Rob Zombie and Zeuss was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Awards in November 2022.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: The first trailer was released on July 13, 2022, revealing elements of the plot, while also indicating the film's scheduled release month; it was met with a mixed-to-negative reception.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: On July 18, 2022, Zombie announced that "The Munsters" would be released on the streaming platform Netflix in the fall, around the same time as Netflix's "Wednesday", an update of "The Addams Family". A date of September 27, 2022, was given in late August for the film's Netflix premiere.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: On July 20, it was announced that "The Munsters" would be released on Blu-ray, DVD and digital platforms, starting on September 27, 2022. The "Collector's Edition" includes an hour-long behind the scenes feature called "The Munsters: Return to Mockingbird Lane", plus feature-length commentary from the director.


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Leigh Monson, of "The A.V. Club", gave the film a B−, writing "As a movie, it's nothing but loose ends, a lukewarm stew of concepts that haven't been stirred enough to combine in the cauldron. But as a faux television pilot, the actors, the sketches, the sight gags, and the puns mesh together endearingly." Matt Donato of "IGN" called it "a wholesome labor of love that's probably for the most diehard sitcom fans because for better and worse, Rob Zombie makes the Munsters reboot he wants to see." Owen Gleiberman wrote ""The Munsters", the family-of-ghouls '60s sitcom that Zombie is adapting, was such a ticky-tacky piece of gothic bat-house surrealism that the movie, broad and slovenly as it is, works more than it doesn't."


title: The Munsters (2022 film)

text: Steve Schneider, of "Orlando Weekly", gave the film a 1 out of 5 rating, writing, "Zombie has zero ability to structure a story: While his flick feels nearly interminable at 110 minutes, entire sections of plot seem to be missing, or at least glossed over. And he doesn't know how to tell a joke." William Bibbiani, of "TheWrap", also gave a negative review: "It's the kind of film you'd expect to see on a television set in the background of any other Rob Zombie film ... The appeal is understandable, but it doesn’t make for much of a movie." "Screen Rant" gave it a 2-star rating, stating, "Rob Zombie's mismanagement of nostalgia and modern expectations leaves us with a half-baked attempt that was brimming with great potential." Jim Morazzini, of "Voices from the Balcony" gave a scathing review of 1 out of 5 stars, elaborating that "The problem lies with the script. It's awful. He (Zombie) has even less understanding of comedy than he does horror, something I didn't think was possible."


title: Action Park

text: Action Park was an amusement and water park located in Vernon Township, New Jersey, United States, on the grounds of the Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski resort. The park consisted primarily of water-based attractions and originally opened to the public in 1978, under the ownership of Great American Recreation (GAR).


title: Action Park

text: Action Park featured three separate attraction areas: the Alpine Center, Motorworld, and Waterworld. The last was one of the first modern American water parks. Many of its attractions were unique, attracting thrill-seekers from across the New York metropolitan area. Action Park's popularity went hand-in-hand with a reputation for poorly designed rides, undertrained and underaged staff, intoxicated guests and staff, and a consequently poor safety record. At least six people are known to have died as a result of mishaps on rides at the park. Healthcare workers and local residents had nicknamed the place "Traction Park", "Accident Park", "Class Action Park" and "Friction Park".


title: Action Park

text: Little effort was made by state regulators to address those issues, despite the park's history of repeat violations. GAR's management resorted to illegal financial schemes to keep itself solvent, which led to indictments of its executives, some of whom, like founder Gene Mulvihill, pled guilty to some charges. In its later years, personal injury lawsuits led to the closure of increasing numbers of rides and eventually the entire park closed in 1996.


title: Action Park

text: In 1998, resort developer Intrawest announced the purchase of the majority of the Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski area, including Action Park and other developable real estate lands that GAR owned. The park received a massive overhaul, which included extensively renovating and repairing attractions, especially those deemed either outright unsafe or inappropriate relative to Intrawest's vision of the park, with some being removed entirely. Afterward, the park reopened as Mountain Creek Waterpark.


title: Action Park

text: In 1976, Eugene Mulvihill and his company, Great American Recreation (GAR), the owners of the recently combined Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski area in Vernon Township, New Jersey, wanted to make money during the summer off-season. Following the example of other ski areas, they opened a alpine slide down one of the steep ski trails. For the summer of 1978, Mulvihill added two water slides and a go-kart track, and named the collection of rides the "Vernon Valley Summer Park". Action Park was formally opened on July 4 of that year, with two opening-day promotions: a Dolly Parton look-alike contest and a tobacco juice-spitting contest.


title: Action Park

text: The following year, more water slides and a small deep-water swimming pool, as well as tennis courts and a softball field, were added to what became known as the Waterworld section of Action Park. By 1980, Motorworld had been carved out of swamplands the ski area owned across State Route 94. Combined, the park's formed one of North America's earliest modern water parks. It evolved into a major destination with 75 rides (35 motorized, self-controlled rides and 40 water slides).


title: Action Park

text: "Gene didn't want to do the same old shit, where you just get strapped into something or it twirls around," Andy Mulvihill, later the park's head lifeguard, recalls of his father's philosophy in creating Action Park. "He wanted to take the idea of skiing, which is exhilarating because you control the action, and transfer it to an amusement park. There's inherent risk in that, but that's what makes it fun."


title: Action Park

text: Action Park's most successful years were the early and mid-1980s. Most rides were still operating, and the park's dangerous reputation had not yet developed. In 1982, two guests died at the park within a week of each other, leading to the permanent closure of one ride. Despite this, people continued to come in massive numbers. The park's fortunes began to turn with two deaths in the summer of 1984, and the legal and financial problems that stemmed from the ensuing lawsuits. A state investigation of misconduct in the leasing of state land to Action Park led to a 110-count grand jury indictment against the nine related companies that ran the park and their executives for operating an unauthorized insurance company. Many took pretrial intervention to avoid prosecution; Gene pleaded guilty that November to five insurance fraud-related charges. Attendance remained high, and the park remained profitable, at least on paper.


title: Action Park

text: Action Park entertained over a million visitors per year during the 1980s, with as many as 12,000 coming on some of the busiest weekends. Park officials said this made the injury and death rate statistically insignificant. Nevertheless, the director of the emergency room at a nearby hospital said they treated from five to ten victims of park accidents on some of the busiest days, and the park eventually bought the township extra ambulances to keep up with the volume. In September 1989, GAR negotiated a deal with International Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) that would result in the sale of Vernon Valley/Great Gorge, and Action Park, for $50 million. IBC later backed out of the deal, feeling the site was not suitable for their needs upon further inspections of the properties.


title: Action Park

text: In September 1991, GAR petitioned the township committee to put a referendum on the November ballot that if passed would have legalized the operation of games of skill and chance at Action Park. The effort failed because only 643 of the 937 signatures on the petition came from registered voters.


title: Action Park

text: A few rides were closed and dismantled due to costly settlements and rising insurance premiums in the 1990s, and the park's attendance began to suffer as a recession early in that decade reduced the number of visitors. Action Park was still advertised as the world's largest water park.


title: Action Park

text: In early 1995, GAR operated Vernon Valley/Great Gorge and Action Park with no liability insurance. New Jersey did not require it, and GAR found it more economical to go to court than purchase liability insurance, since they relied on their own self-insurance. However, they ultimately purchased liability insurance from Evanston Insurance Company in May of that year to cover Action Park and the skiing facilities. As 1995 progressed, GAR's financial woes continued to accumulate. First Fidelity Bank, who lent $19 million to GAR and some 15 other connected corporations, filed suit against them in an effort to begin the process of foreclosing on the debt owed to them. Law firms owed money for services rendered between 1991 and 1993 also began filing suit. As November approached, GAR negotiated a deal with Noramco Capital Corp. and the Praedium Fund of CS First Boston, in which they would purchase the debt owed to First Fidelity, temporarily fending off an impending foreclosure.


title: Action Park

text: In February 1996, the creditors who had taken on GAR's $14 million debt petitioned to force it into bankruptcy. GAR filed for Chapter 11 protection that following March, but remained optimistic that they could regain their financial footing "within a year." After closing at the end of the season as usual on Labor Day 1996, it launched a website where visitors could find information about rides, directions to the park, lodging, and enter a lottery for park tickets.


title: Action Park

text: As the 1997 summer season approached, GAR remained optimistic that Action Park would open as expected on June 14, in spite of massive layoffs at the end of the prior ski season. The opening date was pushed back two weeks, and then into mid-July. On June 25, GAR announced the cessation of all its operations, including Action Park.


title: Action Park

text: Following the demise of GAR, Praedium Recovery Fund purchased the Vernon Valley/Great Gorge resort, including Action Park, for $10 million. The investment group put Angel Projects in charge of managing the resort, and aimed to spend $20 million to upgrade the ski resort's equipment and trails and remodel the water park. Instead, Canadian resort developer Intrawest purchased the property in February 1998. It revamped the Waterworld section of Action Park, and reopened it for the 1998 season as Mountain Creek Waterpark, while the Motorworld and Alpine Center sections were demolished. The Motorworld section of the park remained in place, undisturbed, until at least mid-2000, when work began on Mountain Creek's Black Creek Sanctuary.


title: Action Park

text: The Gladiator Challenge attraction, loosely based on the television series "American Gladiators", opened in 1992. It allowed guests to compete against other guests in an obstacle course and against park-employed "gladiators" in jousting matches. Former bodybuilders Michael and Vince Mancuso designed the attraction, and the employees against whom guests would compete in the jousting matches were found by scouting local gyms.


title: Action Park

text: The matches could lead to real violence. On one occasion, a guest who felt the gladiator he contended against had been too rough, striking him frequently on the head with the padded end of his pugil stick, returned to the attraction with some of his friends in an effort to exact retribution. The gladiator called in support of his own, and eventually a brawl involving several dozen people broke out. The Vernon police had to be called in to restore order.


title: Action Park

text: Over the course of a day, three shows were put on, and the guests who ran the fastest obstacle course times in the earlier shows were brought back to compete against each other later in the day. By 1995, the attraction was removed and replaced with a beach volleyball court.


title: Action Park

text: Action Park's alpine slide descended the mountain beneath one of the ski area's chairlifts, which provided guests access to the top of the slide. Riders sat on small sleds that had only a brake/accelerator control stick and rode down the slide in long chutes built into the slope. The ride, and more specifically the sleds, became notorious for causing injuries. The stick that was supposed to control the sled's speed in practice offered just two options on the infrequently maintained vehicles: extremely slow, and a speed described by one former employee as "death awaits". The chutes in which the sleds traveled were made of concrete, fiberglass, and asbestos, which led to serious abrasions on riders who took even mild falls. The tendency of guests to ride in bathing suits made the problem worse. The path underneath the chairlift resulted in verbal harassment and spitting from passengers going up for their turn. Guests riding the lift would also often knock the sleds off, slowing down operations as employees had to retrieve them.


title: Action Park

text: The slide was the site of the first fatality at the park in 1980: 19-year-old George Larsson, Jr., who had previously been a ski-lift operator at Vernon Valley, was thrown from the slide when his car jumped the track, and his head struck a rock. After several days in a coma, he died. Action Park said that Larsson was an employee, it was nighttime and also raining when the accident happened. They also said that as an employee, his death did not need to be reported to state regulators. In the 2020 documentary "Class Action Park", Larsson's mother and brother said that was incorrect, accusing park management of using the story of Larsson being an employee previously, to get out of having to report the death. Had state inspectors looked at the site, employees said years later, they would have seen that rocks there, which they had told the park to remove on an earlier visit, remained.


title: Action Park

text: Hay bales at the curves were put in place in an attempt to cushion the impact of guests whose sleds jumped the track, a frequent occurrence. While park officials regularly asserted its safety, the slide was responsible for the bulk of the accidents, injuries, lawsuits, and state citations for safety violations in the early years of the park. According to state records, in 1984 and 1985, the alpine slide produced 14 fractures and 26 head injuries.


title: Action Park

text: When Intrawest reopened the water park as Mountain Creek in spring 1998, they announced the slide would remain open for one final season, but riders were required to wear helmets and kneepads. The last day of the slide's operation was September 6 of that year, the day before the park closed for the season, as that year's Labor Day was rainy and the slide had to be closed.


title: Action Park

text: The chutes were torn out afterward, but the route can still be seen from the gondola that replaced the chairlift. The resort's mountain-bike route travels down the site and crosses over a few wooden footbridges that provided access over the alpine slide. In 2012, Mountain Creek introduced an alpine coaster, which combines elements of an alpine slide and a roller coaster.


title: Action Park

text: The Bailey Ball was an Alpine Center attraction developed and tested, but never opened to the public, as a result of those tests. It consisted of a large foam sphere in which a rider could be secured, and then rolled downward. The plan was to do it on a track with PVC pipe as its outer rails, and one was built alongside a ski trail.


title: Action Park

text: The designers neglected to take into account the tendency of PVC pipe to expand in heat. During the first test, with a state inspector present on a hot summer day, the ball, with a man inside testing it, went off the track as a result of the pipe expanding and bounded down the adjacent ski slope. It continued through the parking lot, across Route 94, and came to rest in a swamp. After it came to a natural stop at the bottom, the inspector left without saying anything and park management abandoned the project.


title: Action Park

text: In 1991, Action Park opened up a , two-station bungee jumping tower near the alpine slide. During news media coverage of the ride's opening, Andy Mulvihill pushed a television reporter who refused to make the jump off the platform, at the direction of his older sister, then head of public relations for the park. The next summer, the tower was upgraded to four jumping stations.


title: Action Park

text: Guests could not drop very far, and were tethered to a weight that prevented them from bouncing back up to the top of the tower. The attraction closed with the park in 1996.


title: Action Park

text: A skatepark briefly existed near the ski area's ski-school building, but closed after one season due to poor design. Bowls were separated by pavement, which in many cases did not meet the edges smoothly. Former park employee Tom Fergus was quoted in the magazine "Weird NJ" as saying that the "skate park was responsible for so many injuries we covered it up with dirt and pretended it never existed".


title: Action Park

text: The Transmobile was a monorail that took riders from the Alpine Center across Route 94 to the Cobblestone Village shopping complex and the park's Motorworld section. Riders sat sideways in cars built for two people. Each stop had two stations, one for guests heading towards the Alpine Center, and one for guests heading to Motorworld. Rides were one way, and riders were not allowed to stay on the ride and travel round-trip without getting off at either end. This restriction sometimes caused conflicts between park staff and riders, who either did not understand or did not want to follow the rules.


title: Action Park

text: Much of the Transmobile was dismantled when Intrawest took over the park in 1998. However, the Cobblestone Village station remains in place, as does the right-of-way through the village's miniature golf course.


title: Action Park

text: Action Park's Motorworld section consisted of rides based around powered vehicles and boats on the west side of Route 94, opposite the main part of the park. This area closed with Action Park in 1996 and never reopened; it has since been replaced with a condominium development, a restaurant, and additional parking for the Mountain Creek ski resort.


title: Action Park

text: Water-based attractions made up half of the park's rides and accounted for the greatest share of its casualty count. Mountain Creek Waterpark and its currently revived Action Park still operate some of these attractions. It also had a miniature golf course and standard pools and rides for children. These were sometimes smaller, safer versions of the park's main attractions.


title: Action Park

text: In 1983, GAR built an enclosed water slide called the Cannonball Loop. This was not unusual for that time. In fact, the park already had several such slides. On this one, however, they decided to build a complete vertical loop at the end, similar to that of a roller coaster. The resulting slide, called the "Cannonball Loop", was so intimidating that employees have reported they were offered $100 () to test it. Fergus, who described himself as "one of the idiots" who took the offer, said, "$100 did not buy enough booze to drown out that memory."


title: Action Park

text: The slide was open for only a month in 1985 before it was closed at the order of the state's Advisory Board on Carnival Amusement Ride Safety, a highly unusual move at the time. One worker told a local newspaper that "there were too many bloody noses and back injuries" from riders. Some early riders came back with lacerations to their bodies; when the ride was closed to determine what had caused them, teeth that had fallen out were found lodged in the interior walls. A former Navy physician found that riders were experiencing as much as nine Gs of acceleration as they went through the loop.


title: Action Park

text: A story widely rumored and reported in "Weird NJ" was that some of the test dummies sent down before it opened had been dismembered and decapitated. Gene Mulvihill's son Andy confirmed that to "The New York Times" in 2019. He was the first live person to test the ride afterwards, which he did wearing his full set of ice hockey protective equipment. "The Cannonball Loop was not fun", he recalled later. "It was more like a ride you ride to survive than to have fun."


title: Action Park

text: A rider also reportedly got stuck at the top of the loop due to insufficient water pressure, and a hatch had to be installed at the bottom of the slope to allow for future extractions. Those who rode the Cannonball Loop have said that more safety measures were taken than was otherwise common at the park. Riders were weighed, hosed down with cold water, instructed to remove jewelry, and then carefully instructed in how they had to position their bodies to complete the ride.


title: Action Park

text: The ride reopened a few more times over the years. In the summers of 1995 and 1996, it was opened for several days before further injuries forced its permanent shutdown. For the remainder of the park's existence, Cannonball Loop remained visible near the entrance of Waterworld. It was dismantled shortly after the park closed.


title: Action Park

text: In 2014, video footage that appeared to show riders going down the Cannonball Loop was unearthed and published online.


title: Action Park

text: In 2015, Action Park planned to debut another water slide, the "Sky Caliber" developed by Sky Turtle Technologies, which would encase riders inside a bullet-like capsule for a vertical drop and a loop, at and 6 Gs.


title: Action Park

text: The Aerodium is a skydiving simulator wind tunnel invented in Germany in 1984. In 1987, Action Park built and opened its own Aerodium in the Waterworld section of the park, becoming the first American amusement park to open one. The attraction was operated by Aerodium Inc., which acted as a concessionaire for the park through 1997. Stadium seating encircled the perimeter of the Aerodium, allowing friends and spectators to watch riders fly. Riders wearing a special skydiving suit, helmet, and earplugs would join the bodyflight instructor one-by-one on a trampoline-like netting directly over the fan. The instructor would grab each rider's wrists and guide the rider to fall forward, allowing the fan to lift the rider skyward. After a few seconds of flight, the attendant operating the fan would cut the power, causing the rider to fall onto the air cushions surrounding the fan. Park guests' flights were limited to a maximum of above the ground, about over the instructor's head. The Aerodium also caused severe injuries, for example, when a rider instinctively tried to break his fall by extending his arm, which caused shoulder dislocation, severed nerves, and near-permanent paralysis of the arm.


title: Action Park

text: A range of factors contributed to accidents at the park, from the design and construction of the rides themselves to the makeup of both visitors and staff, and lax government oversight.


title: Action Park

text: Action Park and its defenders often pointed out that it was one of the first water parks in the nation, pioneering ideas that were later widely copied. This meant that visitors were using rides that had not been tested through practical use for very long. Ride designers may have had insufficient training in physics or engineering. "They seemed to build rides," one attendee recalled, "not knowing how they would work, and [then let] people on them."


title: Action Park

text: GAR, as its legal troubles would suggest, was accused of cutting corners to maximize its profits. For example, it was accused of building rides cheaply, sporadically maintaining many of them, and failing to renovate rides to take advantage of later safety improvements to its ideas made by other facilities. These practices took place in a range of its operations, including customer safety. In the park's last year, it kept part of the ski area open despite being unable to obtain liability insurance. "Class Action Park" also reported that the park's restaurants often indulged in corner-cutting practices common in that industry, such as steaming hot dog buns stale enough to have hardened and dried so they would moisten and soften enough to appear fresh.


title: Action Park

text: The vast majority of workers at Action Park, at least the ones regularly seen by visitors, were teenagers. Jim DeSaye, a security director for the park, said that he got that job at the age of 21, after having worked at the park for two years. His experience was not uncommon.


title: Action Park

text: Training sessions were held, but often not taken seriously by staff. In "Class Action Park", one former employee recalls that sessions practicing the rescue of drowning victims were often pretexts for hazing. New hires often had to play the drowning victim, and after the training was over, or instead of training, were often abandoned in the water to get out themselves.


title: Action Park

text: Most were underaged, undertrained, often under the influence of alcohol, and generally cared little for enforcing park rules and safety requirements. Height- and weight-based restrictions were often ignored.


title: Action Park

text: Since it was closer and slightly cheaper than Six Flags Great Adventure, Action Park attracted many visitors from urban enclaves of the New York metropolitan area. Many of them were often from lower-income neighborhoods where they had few, if any, opportunities to swim, much less learn how. The park greatly overestimated these abilities, and this was a factor in many accidents, as well as the drownings, according to park officials. DeSaye faults management's decision to broaden the customer base by advertising in Spanish-language media as contributing to the accident rate, since few employees spoke Spanish and no written information was made available in that language.


title: Action Park

text: The staff's indifference to many of the park's own rules led to a similarly lawless culture among visitors, who generally liked the high level of control they had over their experience; as an interviewee in "Class Action Park" put it, "In a world filled with no, Action Park became the land of yes." Those injured were often happy to accept complimentary passes for future visits as compensation. Accidents were usually deemed by park employees to be the fault of the riders. A state official lamented that many water-slide accidents were due to guests who, in blatant violation of an explicitly posted rule, often discarded their mats midway down the slide and waited at a turn for their friends so they could go down together.


title: Action Park

text: Since many rides routed their lines so that those waiting could see every previous rider, many played to the audience with risque and bawdy behavior when it did finally come to be their turn. The Tarzan Swing in particular was known for outbursts of foul language (not always planned) and exhibitionism as people jumped off the swing in full view of the whole line behind them.


title: Action Park

text: Physical altercations sometimes occurred between different groups of visitors, or between visitors and staff. The collisions between rafts on the Colorado River ride sometimes resulted in fights, and a large-scale brawl that broke out at the Gladiator Challenge after a patron believed one of the gladiators had been overly rough with him required police intervention. The police also were called in on another occasion when a group of visiting bodybuilders threw lifeguards into the pool they were guarding, leading the lifeguards to bring in friends as reinforcements. Andy Mulvihill also recalls an occasion when a fight over alleged line jumping spilled outside the park, leading to one participant attempting to escape with an employee being driven home by her mother; the employee decided not to return to work afterwards.


title: Action Park

text: The park also sold beer in many kiosks on the grounds, with similarly relaxed enforcement of the drinking age as with other restrictions in the park. Doctors treating the injured often reported that many of them were intoxicated.


title: Action Park

text: Despite many citations for safety violations between 1979 and 1986, including allowing minors to operate some rides and failing to report accidents (which was unique among New Jersey's amusement parks; it was later disclosed that the park only reported those accidents where someone had to be transported in an ambulance), an investigation by the "New Jersey Herald", Sussex County's main daily newspaper, later found that the park was fined only once. It was also unique in that department in that all other amusement parks were fined for first offenses—except Action Park. It asked if some sort of special relationship existed between GAR and the state. A reporter for Vernon's local weekly said in "Class Action Park" that, as Sussex County's largest employer, Action Park received special treatment from the township government.


title: Action Park

text: Some of the state's regulations failed to adequately address the situation. After the 1987 drowning, the Tidal Wave Pool reportedly was considered a pool by the state, not a ride. Under state regulations at the time, that meant that the company merely had to keep the water clean and make sure that certified lifeguards were on duty.


title: Action Park

text: Action Park was a cultural touchstone for many Generation X-ers who grew up in North and Central Jersey, as well as nearby locales in New York and Connecticut. A popular list of "You Know You're from New Jersey When ..." that circulates in email begins with, "You've been seriously injured at Action Park."


title: Action Park

text: Some even credit the park for making them learn some difficult lessons. In 2000, Matthew Callan recalled Action Park thusly:


title: Action Park

text: On August 1, 1993, MTV's "Headbangers Ball" taped an episode at the park. The host, Riki Rachtman, interviewed and went on the rides with the band Alice in Chains.


title: Action Park

text: Action Park was the topic of the first episode of the Relay FM podcast "Ungeniused" in June 2016, which explores the legacy of the park, how unsafe it was, and why people continued to visit it.


title: Action Park

text: The original version of the park's notoriety for its unsafe reputation inspired a film by "Jackass" creator and star Johnny Knoxville; filming started in March 2017 and wrapped in June 2017. The film was released under the title "Action Point" by Paramount Pictures on June 1, 2018.


title: Action Park

text: Action Park is the subject of Mashable's documentary video, "The Most Dangerous Theme Park in America" (September 24, 2019).


title: Action Park

text: In 2010, the whole Mountain Creek ski area and water park complex was sold to a group led by Eugene Mulvihill, the former owner of Great American Recreation and the owner of the adjacent Crystal Springs Resort; however, he died two years later. Under the new ownership, the name of the water park was changed back to Action Park, starting with the 2014 season. In 2016, the Mountain Creek Waterpark name was restored to the park, thus retiring the Action Park name again.


title: Action Park

text: On April 14, 1980, Pocono Action Park Inc. was formed by GAR, which later opened Pocono Action Park and Motorworld. Located in the town of Tannersville, Pennsylvania, it had a Waterworld section with slides and tube rides, and a Motorworld section featuring many of the same racing-themed attractions—including Lola race cars and go-karts—as the Vernon park. By late 1991, the park was closed. The rides were torn down in stages, and The Crossings Premium Outlets was built over the location. Even after the park closed, however, Pocono Action Park Inc. continues to exist and is listed as an active business.


title: Action Park

text: In June 1984, Stony Point Recreation, a subsidiary of GAR, opened Action Mountain in Pine Hill, New Jersey. The park offered an alpine slide, go-karts, Lola race cars, bumper boats, speed slides, tube slides, and swimming pools, as well as a diving platform. By 1986, Stony Point Recreation had accumulated $398,697 in back taxes owed to the town of Pine Hill, and in an effort to relieve the debt, sold off the park. In 1999, the site was redeveloped into the Pine Hill Golf Course.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: The Pokémon Company (株式会社ポケモン, "Kabushiki gaisha Pokémon") is a Japanese company responsible for brand management, production, publishing, marketing, and licensing of the "Pokémon" franchise, which consists of video game software, a trading card game, anime television series, films, manga, home entertainment products, merchandise, and other ventures. It was established through a joint investment by the three companies holding the copyright of "Pokémon": Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures. It began operating in 1998 and adopted the moniker Pokémon Ltd. in October 2000. The company is headquartered in the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: The company has separate subsidiaries that handle operations in different parts of the world, with the Pokémon Company International supporting the territories outside Asia and being responsible for brand management, licensing, marketing, the "Pokémon" Trading Card Game, the animated TV series, home entertainment, and the official "Pokémon" website on the territories outside Asia.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: The Pokémon Company also handles publishing of all "Pokémon" video games since 2001 alongside Nintendo. The Pokémon Company is mostly responsible for marketing and funding, while Nintendo handles distribution of the titles in Japan and outside it. Both companies work together in localization, production, QA, and other aspects. The company is solely responsible for publishing and licensing mobile "Pokémon" titles, unlike console titles where it has help from Nintendo.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: In 1998, Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak established in order to effectively manage the Pokémon Center stores in Japan. After the popularity of "Pokémon Gold" and "Silver", they received many merchandising proposals from around the world. Companies were interested in working with the Pokémon brand. At that time, Tsunekazu Ishihara of Creatures was the person in charge of approving licensed products. Because of the sheer volume of products, Ishihara thought it was too much work for one person to handle. At the same time, in order for the franchise to continue, Ishihara wished to further expand the franchise with long-term goals, such as continuing the anime series, and releasing a movie every year. It was then decided that a new organization was needed in order to gather together all the strands of brand management.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: This led the three companies to turn The Pokémon Center Company into The Pokémon Company in order to further expand its scope, responsibilities, and areas of business. According to Satoru Iwata, establishing The Pokémon Company was one of his first projects at Nintendo.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: Managing the Pokémon Center stores is still a pillar for the company. In total, there are stores in 11 locations: Sapporo, Tohoku (Sendai), Tokyo, Skytree Town (Oshiage), Tokyo-Bay (Chiba), Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: The United States branch (Pokémon USA, Inc.) opened in 2001 to handle licensing overseas in the Americas. Nintendo Australia is responsible for some licensing and marketing of "Pokémon" products in Australia and New Zealand because The Pokémon Company does not have an Australian branch.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: Since 2001, nearly all "Pokémon" products are represented as "©Pokémon" in the copyright acknowledgments with the usual three of "©Nintendo", "©GAME FREAK inc." and "©Creatures Inc." The three companies also have ownership of all of the "Pokémon"-related trademarks in Japan while Nintendo is the sole owner of "Pokémon"-related trademarks in other countries. Licensed toys are made by third- and second-party companies such as Tomy and Jazwares.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: In October 2001, 4Kids Entertainment acquired a 3% stake in The Pokémon Company for an undisclosed sum. They liquidated this stake 4 years later for US$960,000.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: In 2006, Pokémon Korea, Inc. was founded to manage the company's operations in South Korea. Its headquarters is located in Seoul.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: In 2009, Pokémon USA and Pokémon UK merged to become The Pokémon Company International, which handles American and European Pokémon operations under the administration of Kenji Okubo. The company's office in the United States is located in Bellevue, Washington and its office in the United Kingdom is located in London. Some Australian operations are controlled by Nintendo Australia.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: Pokémon Center Co., Ltd. was established in August 2011 to manage the Pokémon Center brand and stores in Japan. Its operations include operating the Pokémon Store and Pokémon Center stores, maintaining the Pokémon Stand vending machines and operating the Pokémon Center Online, as well as overseeing the design and manufacture of Japanese Pokémon Center brand merchandise. Yomiomi Uego is currently the president and CEO.


title: The Pokémon Company

text: In April 2022, The Pokémon Company International announced the acquisition of Millennium Print Group for an undisclosed sum. The printing company has already been producing and packing cards for the Pokémon Trading Card Game since 2015 after partnering up with The Pokémon Company. The move will not have a major effect on Millennium's day-to-day productions, with the company still operating as a separate entity; The Pokémon Company will instead be providing "investment and industry expertise" while assisting Millennium in expanding its capabilities and infrastructure.