title: Static Shock

text: "Static Shock" was produced by Warner Bros. Animation from a crew composed mostly of people from the company's past shows, but also with the involvement of two of the comic's creators, Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan. "Static Shock" had some alterations from the original comic book because it was oriented to a pre-teen audience. Although originally not intended to be a part of it, it soon became the fifth series of the DC Animated Universe beginning with its second season.


title: Static Shock

text: The show approached several social issues, which was positively received by most television critics. "Static Shock" was nominated for numerous awards, including the Daytime Emmy. Some criticism was directed towards its jokes—which were said to be stale and too similar to the Spider-Man style—and animation, which was said to be unnatural and outdated. The series also produced some related merchandise, which sold poorly; McDuffie cited the low sales as one of the main factors behind the series' cancellation. In spite of this, its popularity revived interest in the original Milestone comic and introduced McDuffie to the animation industry.


title: Static Shock

text: Virgil Hawkins is a 14-year-old who lives with his older sister Sharon, and his widowed father Robert in Dakota City. He attends high school with his best friend Richie Foley, and has a crush on a girl named Frieda. He also has a dispute with a bully named Francis Stone, nicknamed "F-Stop." A gang leader named Wade recently helped Virgil, hoping to recruit him, but Virgil is hesitant, as he knows his mother died in an exchange of gunfire between gangs. Wade eventually leads Virgil to a restricted area for a fight against F-Stop's crew, but it was interrupted by police helicopters. During the dispute with the police, chemical containers explode, releasing a gas that causes mutations among the people in the vicinity (this event was later known as "The Big Bang"). As a result, Virgil obtains the ability to create, generate, absorb, and control electricity and magnetism—he takes up the alter-ego of "Static". The gas also gives others in the area their own powers, and several of them become supervillains. The mutated people become meta-humans known as "Bang Babies" and their mutations apparently spread to other people around them.


title: Static Shock

text: The series was produced by Warner Bros. Animation based on the Milestone Media/DC Comics character Static. Its supervising producer was Alan Burnett, and Scott Jeralds was the main producer under the executive production of Jean MacCurdy and Sander Schwartz. The production team consisted mostly of people who were involved with "" and "", but also included Static's co-creator Denys Cowan. Although the show hired the comic series' co-creator Dwayne McDuffie as story editor and writer, McDuffie had no direct involvement on the development of "Static Shock". The idea of a "Static" cartoon first emerged with DC's editor-in-chief Jenette Kahn during the time McDuffie was working for Milestone under Kahn. In 1993, Kahn proposed to adapt some Milestone comics; Burnett was hired to write a pilot episode for an "X-Men"-esque series with Milestone superheroes called "The New Guard". After attempts to produce several other Milestone projects, "Static" was eventually the series "they went for". By the time Milestone and DC drafted their contract over DC distributing Milestone comics, the characters were from separate fictional universes. However, when crossovers between "Static Shock" and other DC animated series were suggested, it was established that they were from the same DC animated universe—"rather than having to muck around with multiple dimensions, or whatever."


title: Static Shock

text: Although McDuffie stressed that the show remains loyal to "the spirit and the tone" of the comic book, some changes were done because of its timeslot and target audience of pre-teens. For example, guns appeared less frequently, Richie is not explicitly portrayed as homosexual, and he is Virgil's confidant instead of Frieda. Virgil is also younger in the animated series, his costumes and use of his powers are different from the original, and his mother is dead in the show despite the fact that she is alive in the comics. The latter change was done because producers had the intention "to focus on a strong, complex relationship between an African-American father and son." Nevertheless, McDuffie was concerned by the change because he originally intended to oppose the stereotype of black people not having a complete nuclear family. However, McDuffie said "that [it] worked out okay" as the crew could use the absence of Virgil's mother to create a "couple of great stories". Virgil's father, Robert, "for all intents and purposes, is a new character", as he was reconceptualized as a social worker. The same goes for Richie, who is described as an amalgam of different characters from the original comic. For the villains, Hotstreak was reused from the "Static" comics, Edwin Alva was brought from another Milestone's series—"Hardware"—, and the group Meta-Breed was created for the TV series.


title: Static Shock

text: The third season of the show saw some of the biggest changes; in addition to Richie's superhero powers and a new opening, Static changed his costume. Cowan stated that the change was done to give his clothes a "feel of the comic book", while McDuffie said it represented a growth that Virgil was passing through. This maturation made possible to "explore some of the darker places in his world," and to have more varied conflicts, as the villains have also become more mature. He described it is as "a natural outgrowth of all that, as is the new, more naturalistic look of the show." This change followed the second-season premiere—"The Big Leagues"—when Static meets Batman and Robin. Burnett said, "after that show, everybody went, 'Let's go in that direction.'" Writer John Semper, Jr. commented, "of course, I always lean toward the dramatic ... But the same old light-hearted Static spirit is still there." Richie gains superhero powers because it was becoming hard to fit him into the story and the producers wanted to keep the "chemistry" between voice actors LaMarr and Marsden. There was also a positive response from children in focus groups so "[t]he answer seemed pretty obvious."


title: Static Shock

text: The series' music director was Richard Wolf, while he, Stanley Clarke and Max Gousse were the composers, and Kennard Ramsey was the orchestrator. For action sequences, Wolf wanted to use "real adrenaline-pumping beat" of 125 beats per minute; however, hip hop music usually only reached 110 beats. The predominant score was electronica with some hip hop-type and DMX-type vocals. R&B and old school hip hop melodies were also used depending on the scenes, and each character had a specific theme. Wolf composed the opening theme for the first two seasons. Starting from the third season, the show had a new opening theme, written by Master P and Lil' Romeo (and performed by the latter).


title: Static Shock

text: "Static Shock" aired on the Kids' WB programming block of The WB from September 23, 2000, until May 22, 2004. The first African American superhero-centered television series, it ran a total of 52 episodes. Reruns of the series were shown on Cartoon Network, starting in December 2001, and on Disney XD in February 2009. The first six episodes were released to DVD on September 28, 2004, in a single volume entitled "The New Kid". The complete first season was made available for download on iTunes on July 4, 2011. In 2017, Warner Bros. started to release "Static Shock" complete seasons on manufacture on demand DVDs as a part of the Warner Archive Collection. The first season was published on March 28; the second season on May 23; the third on January 30, 2018; and the fourth on April 13, 2018. Starting in September 2018, all episodes of the series have been made available on the DC Universe digital streaming service. The series is now streaming on HBO Max since 2021.


title: Static Shock

text: "Static Shock"s episodes handle different issues, including gangs, gun violence, homelessness, bullying, racism, mental illness, bigotry, and drugs. Other episodes also featured the subject of Hanukkah and Christmas celebrations. The series was also marked by several crossover episodes with characters from the DC animated universe like Superman, Green Lantern, the Justice League, and the "Batman Beyond" cast. Several episodes also featured guest voice actors, including basketballers (like Shaquille O'Neal, Karl Malone, Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and Steve Nash) and musicians, such as the B2K group, Lil' Romeo and the Backstreet Boys' A. J. McLean. Guest crew was also featured, including cartoonist Rick Hoberg as storyboard artist, and Paul Dini and John Ridley as writers.


title: Static Shock

text: "Static Shock" was an extremely popular show, granting its new renewal for a second season just a month after its debut. As of December 2000, it was the highest-rated preteen show (from 2 to 11 years old) among all networks on its timeslot, and the third best on the Kids' WB! lineup. From its debut to July 2003, the show secured the second post among boys aged 6 to 11 years. Ratings increased after Richie's character obtained superhero powers; McDuffie affirmed that this is what secured the renewal for a new season. Indeed, the show's third season was its most popular and was the second best-rated Saturday morning program among boys aged 6 to 11 years, and tweens and male tweens aged 9 to 14. From February to April 2003, ratings regularly performed over the 4.0 stake among the public aged 9 to 14 years; it even reached the 6.4 mark in May. "Static Shock"s last season was only surpassed by the children's anime "Pokémon", and the show's reruns on Cartoon Network were only surpassed by the adult animated sitcom "Family Guy". "Static Shock" was the only program on Cartoon Network to be among the top 30 most watched kids shows in a week of October 2004. It was also the best rated program of the channel among kids on a week of January 2005, and the best rated show on Cartoon Network's Miguzi block as of March 2005. For the 2004–05 season, it was the 18th most watched Saturday morning children's show of all networks. "Static Shock" was ultimately cancelled due to the low production of associated merchandising products.


title: Static Shock

text: "Static Shock"s episode "The Big Leagues" earned director Dave Chlystek a nomination for Outstanding Achievement for Directing in an Animated Television Production at the 2002 Annie Awards. This episode was also nominated for a Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Television Animation in 2003. That same year, for the episode "Jimmy", McDuffie and Burnett were awarded the Humanitas Prize in the Children's Animation Category in 2003. At the 30th Daytime Emmy Awards in 2003, the show was nominated for Special Class Animated Program and Richard Wolf was nominated for Achievement in Music Direction and Composition. At the 31st Daytime Emmy Awards in 2004, both the animated series and Wolf were again nominated for the same categories—this time, Wolf won the award.


title: Static Shock

text: The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes only provides an average score for the series first season; it reports a 75% approval rating based on eight reviews. Leonard Pierce of "The A.V. Club" described it as "a surprising and sometimes rewarding success". October 2001 issue of "Wizard" listed the 100 best cartoon shows ever as selected by their readers, with "Static Shock" ranked at number 88. Jonathon Dornbush, in a 2014 "Entertainment Weekly" article, included it among the nine best comics-based animated TV series. He asserted, ""Static Shock" didn't have quite the name recognition of its DC brethren when it debuted, but the show proved it could stand alongside the greats." Charlie Jane Anders, for io9, ranked it 91st on a list of the best science fiction and fantasy shows; she commented, "amidst a glut of superhero cartoons, this is one of the most memorable."


title: Static Shock

text: In "The Superhero Book", Andy Mangels praised "Static Shock"s multicultural approach, while Emily Ashby from Common Sense Media lauded it for encouraging diversity. Mangels declared that ""Static Shock" provides solid superheroic entertainment and a role model and promotion of diversity for not only African-American viewers, but for audiences of all colors and ages." Writing for "Entertainment Weekly", Monique Jones praised the series for a positive depiction not only of an African American superhero but of an African country—Ghana. Jones also commended how the series incorporated social issues in "an easily digestible" way without having to "sugarcoat" them. Lynne Heffley of "Los Angeles Times" commented it "isn't your typical Saturday-morning cartoon series", praising its themes and electing the episode "Jimmy"—about gun violence—as an example. Evan Levine, writing for "Rome News-Tribune", asserted that "the series is at its best when it confronts issues actually facing kids."


title: Static Shock

text: Jones commended Virgil's portrayal as an everyman teenager, while Ashby appreciated Virgil's "relatable" character. Colby Lanham of Comic Book Resources said Virgil "was perhaps the most human of many superheroes on television at the time" and considered the series was canceled too soon. Ashby was also positive to the fact that Virgil usually counted on dialogues before going into action; this action was also praised by John Sinnott of DVD Talk, who said it is "something that most animated heroes never think to do." Ashby also applauded Virgil's "surprising depth of character" to not follow a gang but to use his powers for good.


title: Static Shock

text: While Levine praised "its bright, cartoony visuals [that] are a notch above those of many other animated series," Sinnott considered some of the animation to be "a little stilted." Sinnott called it "a fun series overall", but considered some jokes to be "a little stale". Neil Dorsett of DVD Verdict was generally disappointed; he called voice acting "very standard", and said that "artwork and animation are also both behind the times". Dorsett also criticized Virgil's one-lines, which "invites, like many other elements of the series, comparison to Spider-Man." He, however, pondered that his opinion may come from a bad first impression: "Although there are lots of things to nitpick about the show, there's not really anything wrong with it." Both Sinnott and Dorsett compared it unfavorably to the original comic book.


title: Static Shock

text: "Entertainment Weekly"s Ken Tucker questioned why The WB made a TV show based on a cancelled, poorly-sold comic and criticized the "uttering tired, condescending lines" professed by Virgil. Nancy Imperiale Wellons from the "Orlando Sentinel" said "Virgil has a believable relationship with his family -- including a strong father figure -- but the show's pacing lags." Paul Schultz wrote for the "New York Daily News" that "Many of the characters -- the conservative, the annoying sister -- are cliches." Thelma Adams criticized the show in the "New York Post"; first she called it "formulaic but appealing" and ultimately dubbed it "lame".


title: Static Shock

text: The show's popularity led to new demand for Milestone's Static comics: the first four issues of it were reissued as "Static Shock: Trial by Fire" in 2000 and a miniseries, "Static Shock!: Rebirth of the Cool", was released between January and September 2001. It also led to the production of an unreleased video game, toys, and books. In May 2003, Midway Games announced the production of a platform game based on the show for the Game Boy Advance. Although it was displayed at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the game was later cancelled. For a period starting on July 4, 2004, Subway Restaurants released a series of toys based on the TV series to be offered in the United States and Canada. On September 1, 2004, Scholastic Corporation published two tie-in children's books written by Tracey West.


title: Static Shock

text: McDuffie's work on "Static Shock" placed him in the circles of animated series, and he became a writer and producer for shows like "Justice League", "Teen Titans", "Justice League Unlimited", and "". McDuffie was responsible for diversifying the DC animated universe's Justice League by including black and female characters. Moreover, Arie Kaplan credits McDuffie and his co-writers for giving "a depth and complexity" the group was lacking since the 1970s. A future, older version of Virgil appeared in the "Justice League Unlimited" episode "The Once and Future Thing, Part 2: Time, Warped" in January 2005.


title: Lumbini

text: Lumbinī ( , "the lovely") is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Rupandehi District of Lumbini Province in Nepal. It is the place where, according to Buddhist tradition, Queen Mahamayadevi gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama at around 566 BCE. Gautama, who, according to Buddhist tradition, achieved Enlightenment some time around 528 BCE, became Gautama Buddha and founded Buddhism. Lumbini is one of many magnets for pilgrimage that sprang up in places pivotal to the life of the Buddha.


title: Lumbini

text: Lumbini has a number of older temples, including the Mayadevi Temple, and various new temples, funded by Buddhist organisations from various countries, have been completed or are still under construction. Many monuments, monasteries and a museum, and the Lumbini International Research Institute are also within the holy site. Also, there is the Puskarini, or Holy Pond, where the Buddha's mother took the ritual dip prior to his birth and where he had his first bath. At other sites near Lumbini, earlier Buddhas were, according to tradition, born, then achieved ultimate Enlightenment and finally relinquished their earthly forms. The Government of Bangladesh is currently constructing a major Buddhist Monastery in Lumbhini.


title: Lumbini

text: In the Buddha's time, Lumbini was situated in east of Kapilavastu and southwest Devadaha of Shakya, an oligarchic republic. According to Buddhist tradition, it was there that the Buddha was born. A pillar discovered at Rupandehi in 1896 is believed to mark the spot of Ashoka's visit to Lumbini. The site was not known as Lumbini before the pillar was discovered. The translation of Inscription reads: "When King Devanampriya Priyadarsin had been anointed twenty years, he came himself and worshipped (this spot) because the Buddha Shakyamuni was born here. (He) both caused to be made a stone bearing a horse (?) and caused a stone pillar to be set up, (in order to show) that the Blessed One was born here. (He) made the village of Lumbini free of taxes, and paying (only) an eighth share (of the produce)." The park was previously known as Rupandehi, 2 mi () north of Bhagavanpura.


title: Lumbini

text: The Sutta Nipáta (vs. 683) states that the Buddha was born in a village of the Sákyans in the Lumbineyya Janapada. The Buddha stayed in Lumbinívana during his visit to Devadaha and there preached the Devadaha Sutta.


title: Lumbini

text: In 1896, former Commander-In-Chief of the Nepalese Army General Khadga Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana and Alois Anton Führer discovered a great stone pillar at Rupandehi, according to the crucial historical records made by the ancient Chinese monk-pilgrim Xuanzang in the 7th century CE and by another ancient Chinese monk-pilgrim Faxian in the early 5th century CE.


title: Lumbini

text: The Brahmi inscription on the pillar gives evidence that Ashoka, emperor of the Maurya Empire, visited the place in 3rd-century BCE and identified it as the birth-place of the Buddha. The inscription was translated by Paranavitana:


title: Lumbini

text: At the top of the pillar, there is a second inscription by king Ripumalla (13-14th century CE), who is also known from an inscription at the Nigali Sagar pillar:


title: Lumbini

text: A second pillar of Ashoka is located about 22 kilometers to the northwest of Lumbini, the Nigali Sagar pillar (with inscription), and a third one 24 kilometers to the west, the Gotihawa pillar (without inscription).


title: Lumbini

text: According to Robin Coningham, excavations beneath existing brick structures at the Mayadevi Temple at Lumbini provide evidence for an older timber structure beneath the walls of a brick Buddhist shrine built during the Ashokan era (3rd-century BCE). The layout of the Ashokan shrine closely follows that of the earlier timber structure, which suggests a continuity of worship at the site. The pre-Mauryan timber structure appears to be an ancient tree shrine. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal from the wooden postholes and optically stimulated luminescence dating of elements in the soil suggests human activity began at Lumbini around 1000 BCE. The site, states Coningham, may be a Buddhist monument from 6th-century BCE. Other scholars state that the excavations revealed nothing that is Buddhist, and they only confirm that the site predates the Buddha.


title: Lumbini

text: Lumbini is in length and in width. The holy site of Lumbini is bordered by a large monastic zone in which only monasteries can be built, no shops, hotels or restaurants. It is separated into an eastern and western monastic zone, the eastern having the Theravadin monasteries, the western having Mahayana and Vajrayana monasteries. There is a long water filled canal separating the western and eastern zones, with a series of brick arch bridges joining the two sides along the length. The canal is serviced by simple outboard motor boats at the north end which provides tours.The holy site of Lumbini has ruins of ancient monasteries, a sacred Bodhi tree, an ancient bathing pond, the Ashokan pillar and the Mayadevi Temple, a site traditionally considered to be the birthplace of the Buddha. From early morning to early evening, pilgrims from various countries perform chanting and meditation at the site.


title: Lumbini

text: Lumbini complex is divided into three areas: the Sacred Garden, the Monastic Zone and the Cultural Center and New Lumbini Village. The Sacred Garden remains the epicenter of the Lumbini area and consists of the birthplace of Buddha and other monuments of archaeological and spiritual importance such as the Mayadevi Temple, the Ashoka Pillar, the Marker Stone, the Nativity Sculpture, Puskarini Sacred Pond and other structural ruins of Buddhist stupas and viharas. The Monastic Zone, spanning an area of 1 square mile is divided into two zones: the East Monastic Zone which represents Theravada school of Buddhism and the West Monastic Zone which represents Mahayana and Vajrayana school of Buddhism, with their respective monasteries on the either side of a long pedestrian walkway and canal. Marking the monastic spot as a sacred pilgrimage site, many countries have established Buddhist stupas and monasteries in the monastic zone with their unique historical, cultural and spiritual designs.The Cultural Center and New Lumbini Village comprises Lumbini Museum, Lumbini International Research Institute, World Peace Pagoda of Japan, Lumbini Crane Sanctuary and other administrative offices.


title: Lumbini

text: Nepal's central bank has introduced a 100-rupee Nepali note featuring Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. The Nepal Rastra Bank said the new note would be accessible only during the Dashain, Nepal's major festival in the time of September/October. It displays the portrait of Mayadevi, Gautam Buddha's mother in silver metallic on the front. The note also has a black dot which would help the blind recognise the note. The name of the central bank in Latin script would be printed on the note along with the date of printing in both the Christian Era and the Bikram Era. The new note is being issued following a cabinet decision 27 August.


title: Lumbini

text: Nipponzan Myohoji decided to build a Peace Pagoda in the park in 2001, which is visited by many different cultures and religions every day. Because some Hindus regard the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu, thousands of Hindus have begun to come here on pilgrimage during the full moon of the Nepali month of Baisakh (April–May) to worship Queen Mayadevi as Rupa Devi, the mother goddess of Lumbini. Lumbini was granted World Heritage status by UNESCO in 1997.


title: Lumbini

text: A non-governmental organisation named Samriddhi Foundation started working in 2013 in the fields of education and health, particularly in government schools in the area where underprivileged children study. A non-governmental organisation called "Asia Pacific Exchange and Co-operation Foundation" (APECF) backed by chairman of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and then Prime Minister Prachanda, the Chinese government and a UN group called "United Nations Industrial Development Organization" (UNIDO) signed a deal to develop Lumbini into a "special development zone" with funds worth $3 billion. The venture was a China-UN joint project. A broader 'Lumbini Development National Director Committee' under the leadership of Pushpa Kamal Dahal was formed on 17 October 2011. The six-member committee included Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) leader Mangal Siddhi Manandhar, Nepali Congress leader Minendra Rijal, Forest Minister Mohammad Wakil Musalman, among other leaders. The committee was given the authority to "draft a master plan to develop Lumbini as a peaceful and tourism area and table the proposal" and the responsibility to gather international support for the same.


title: Lumbini

text: Lumbini is a 10-hour drive from Kathmandu and a 30-minute drive from Bhairahawa. The closest airport is Gautam Buddha Airport at Bhairahawa, with flights to and from Kathmandu. The India border town of Sonauli in Maharajganj district is 1 hour drive from Lumbini and Nautanwa railway station in India is just a few kilometres away. The nearest big city is Gorakhpur, which is about 100 km and is 4 hours drive from Lumbini.


title: Lumbini

text: The nearest airport to Lumbini, Gautam Buddha Airport in Bhairahawa, is currently undergoing expansion. This small domestic airport is soon expected to become an international airport, with latest deadline set for 2019. The airport expansion attracted investors and hoteliers, and a series of new hotels are being constructed in and around Lumbini, hoping to cash in on the expected international tourist boom once the airport expansion work is completed.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Krzysztof Kieślowski (; 27 June 1941 – 13 March 1996) was a Polish film director and screenwriter. He is known internationally for "Dekalog" (1989), "The Double Life of Veronique" (1991), and the "Three Colours" trilogy (1993


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: –1994). Kieślowski received numerous awards during his career, including the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize (1988), FIPRESCI Prize (1988, 1991), and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (1991); the Venice Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize (1989), Golden Lion (1993), and OCIC Award (1993); and the Berlin International Film Festival Silver Bear (1994). In 1995, he received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: In 2002, Kieślowski was listed at number two on the British Film Institute's "Sight & Sound" list of the top ten film directors of modern times. In 2007, "Total Film" magazine ranked him at No. 47 on its "100 Greatest Film Directors Ever" list.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Kieślowski was born in Warsaw, Poland, the son of Barbara ("née" Szonert) and Roman Kieślowski. He grew up in several small towns, moving wherever his engineer father, a tuberculosis patient, could find treatment. He was raised Roman Catholic and retained what he called a "personal and private" relationship with God. At sixteen, he attended a firefighters' training school but dropped out after three months. Without any career goals, he then entered the College for Theatre Technicians in Warsaw in 1957 because it was run by a relative. He wanted to become a theatre director, but lacked the required bachelor's degree for the theatre department, so he chose to study film as an intermediate step.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Leaving college and working as a theatrical tailor, Kieślowski applied to the Łódź Film School, which has Roman Polanski and Andrzej Wajda among its alumni. He was rejected twice. To avoid compulsory military service during this time, he briefly became an art student, and also went on a drastic diet to make himself medically unfit for service. After several months of avoiding the draft, he was accepted to the school's directing department in 1964, on his third attempt. He attended Łódź Film School until 1968 and, despite state censorship and interdiction on foreign travel, was able to travel around Poland for his documentary research and filming. Kieślowski lost his interest in theatre and decided to make documentary films.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Kieślowski's early documentaries focused on the everyday lives of city dwellers, workers, and soldiers. Though he was not an overtly political filmmaker, he soon found that attempting to depict Polish life accurately brought him into conflict with the authorities. His television film "Workers '71", which showed workers discussing the reasons for the mass strikes of 1970, was only shown in a drastically censored form. After "Workers '71", he turned his eye on the authorities themselves in "Curriculum Vitae", a film that combined documentary footage of Politburo meetings with a fictional story about a man under scrutiny by the officials. Though Kieślowski believed the film's message was anti-authoritarian, he was criticized by his colleagues for cooperating with the government in its production.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Kieślowski later said that he abandoned documentary filmmaking due to two experiences: the censorship of "Workers '71", which caused him to doubt whether truth could be told literally under an authoritarian regime, and an incident during the filming of "Station" (1981) in which some of his footage was nearly used as evidence in a criminal case. He decided that fiction not only allowed more artistic freedom but could portray everyday life more truthfully.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: His first non-documentary feature, "Personnel" (1975), was made for television and won him first prize at the Mannheim Film Festival. Both "Personnel" and his next feature, "The Scar" ("Blizna"), were works of social realism with large casts: "Personnel" was about technicians working on a stage production, based on his early college experience, and "The Scar" showed the upheaval of a small town by a poorly-planned industrial project. These films were shot in a documentary style with many nonprofessional actors; like his earlier films, they portrayed everyday life under the weight of an oppressive system, but without overt commentary. "Camera Buff" ("Amator", 1979) (which won the grand prize at the 11th Moscow International Film Festival) and "Blind Chance" ("Przypadek", 1981) continued along similar lines, but focused more on the ethical choices faced by a single character rather than a community. During this period, Kieślowski was considered part of a loose movement with other Polish directors of the time, including Janusz Kijowski, Andrzej Wajda, and Agnieszka Holland, called the Cinema of moral anxiety. His links with these directors, Holland in particular, caused concern within the Polish government, and each of his early films was subjected to censorship and enforced re-shooting/re-editing, if not banned outright. For example, "Blind Chance" was not released domestically until 1987, almost six years after it had been completed.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: "No End" ("Bez końca", 1984) was perhaps his most clearly political film, depicting political trials in Poland during martial law, from the unusual point of view of a lawyer's ghost and his widow. At the time it was harshly criticized by both the government, dissidents, and the church. Starting with "No End", Kieślowski closely collaborated with two people, the composer Zbigniew Preisner and the trial lawyer Krzysztof Piesiewicz, whom Kieślowski met while researching political trials under martial law for a planned documentary on the subject. Piesiewicz co-wrote the screenplays for all of Kieślowski's subsequent films.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Preisner provided the musical score for "No End" and most subsequent of Kieślowski's films and often plays a prominent part. Many of Preisner's pieces are referred to and discussed by the films' characters as being the work of the (fictional) Dutch composer "Van den Budenmayer".


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: "Dekalog" (1988), a series of ten short films set in a Warsaw tower block, each nominally based on one of the Ten Commandments, was created for Polish television with funding from West Germany; it is now one of the most critically acclaimed film cycles of all time. Co-written by Kieślowski and Piesiewicz, the ten one-hour-long episodes had originally been intended for ten different directors, but Kieślowski found himself unable to relinquish control over the project and directed all episodes himself. Episodes five and six were released internationally in a longer form as "A Short Film About Killing" and "A Short Film About Love" respectively. Kieślowski had also planned to shoot a full-length version of Episode 9 under the title "A Short Film About Jealousy", but exhaustion eventually prevented him from making what would have been his thirteenth film in less than a year.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Kieślowski's last four films, his most commercially successful, were foreign co-productions, made mainly with money from France and in particular from Romanian-born producer Marin Karmitz. These focused on moral and metaphysical issues along lines similar to "Dekalog" and "Blind Chance" but on a more abstract level, with smaller casts, more internal stories, and less interest in communities. Poland appeared in these films mostly through the eyes of European outsiders.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: The first of these was "The Double Life of Veronique" ("La double vie de Veronique", 1990), which starred Irène Jacob. The commercial success of this film gave Kieślowski the funding for his ambitious final films (1993–94), the trilogy "Three Colours" ("", "", ""), which explores the virtues symbolized by the French flag. The three films garnered prestigious international awards, including the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival, in addition to three Academy Award nominations.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Kieślowski announced his retirement from filmmaking after the premiere of his last film "" at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: At the time of his death, Kieślowski was working with his longterm collaborator Piesiewicz on a second trilogy: Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. After his death, the scripts were adapted and produced by three different directors: "Heaven" by Tom Tykwer in 2002; "Hell" ("L'Enfer") by Danis Tanovic in 2005; and "Purgatory", not yet produced.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Kieślowski married his lifelong love, Maria (Marysia) Cautillo, on 21 January 1967 during his final year in film school. They had a daughter, Marta ( 8 January 1972), and remained married until his death.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: He characterized himself as having "one good characteristic, I am a pessimist. I always imagine the worst. To me, the future is a black hole."


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: He has been described as "conveying the sadness of a world-weary sage", "a brooding intellectual and habitual pessimist".


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Visiting the United States he noted, "the pursuit of empty talk combined with a very high degree of self-satisfaction".


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: On 13 March 1996, less than two years after he had retired, Kieślowski died at age 54 during open-heart surgery following a heart attack. He was interred in Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw. His grave has a sculpture of the thumb and forefingers of two hands forming an oblong space; the classic view as if through a film camera. The small sculpture is in black marble on a pedestal slightly over a metre tall. The slab with Kieślowski's name and dates lies below.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Kieślowski remains one of Europe's most influential directors, his works included in the study of film classes at universities throughout the world. The 1993 book "Kieślowski on Kieślowski" describes his life and work in his own words, based on interviews by Danusia Stok. He is also the subject of a biographical film, "Krzysztof Kieślowski: I'm So-So" (1995), directed by Krzysztof Wierzbicki.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: After Kieślowski's death, Harvey Weinstein, then head of Miramax Films, which distributed the last four Kieślowski films in the US, wrote a eulogy for him in "Premiere" magazine.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Though he had claimed to be retiring after "Three Colours", at the time of his death, Kieślowski was working on a new trilogy co-written with Piesiewicz, consisting of "Heaven", "Hell", and "Purgatory" and inspired by Dante's "The Divine Comedy". As was originally intended for "Dekalog", the scripts were ostensibly intended to be given to other directors for filming, but Kieślowski's untimely death means it is unknown whether he might have broken his self-imposed retirement to direct the trilogy himself. The only completed screenplay, "Heaven", was filmed by Tom Tykwer and premiered in 2002 at the Berlin International Film Festival.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: The other two scripts existed only as thirty-page treatments at the time of Kieślowski's death; Piesiewicz has since completed these screenplays, with "Hell", directed by Bosnian director Danis Tanović and starring Emmanuelle Béart and released in 2005.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: The 2007 film "Nadzieja (Hope)", directed by Ibo Kurdo and Stanislaw Mucha, also scripted by Piesiewicz, has been incorrectly identified as the third part of the trilogy, but is in fact, an unrelated project.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Jerzy Stuhr, who starred in several Kieślowski films and co-wrote "Camera Buff", filmed his own adaptation of an unfilmed Kieślowski script as "The Big Animal" ("Duże zwierzę") in 2000.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: It comes from a deep-rooted conviction that if there is anything worthwhile doing for the sake of culture, then it is touching on subject matters and situations which link people, and not those that divide people. There are too many things in the world which divide people, such as religion, politics, history, and nationalism. If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us all. And there are so many things which unite people. It doesn't matter who you are or who I am, if your tooth aches or mine, it's still the same pain. Feelings are what link people together, because the word 'love' has the same meaning for everybody. Or 'fear', or 'suffering'. We all fear the same way and the same things. And we all love in the same way. That's why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: In 2012, Cyrus Frisch voted for "A Short Film About Killing" as one of "the best-damned films" with the comment: "In Poland, this film was instrumental in the abolition of the death penalty." Since 1952, "Sight & Sound" magazine conducts a poll every ten years of the world's finest film directors to determine the Ten Greatest Films of All Time, which has become the most recognised poll of its kind in the world.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Since 2011, the Polish Contemporary Art Foundation In Situ has been organizing The Sokołowsko Film Festival: Hommage à Kieślowski. It is an annual film festival in Sokołowsko, where Kieślowski spent a part of his youth, and commemorates the director's work with screenings of his films, as well as films of younger generations of filmmakers both from Poland and Europe, accompanied by creative workshops, panel discussions, performances, exhibitions and concerts.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: In total, Kieślowski wrote and directed 48 films, out of which 11 are feature films, 19 are documentaries, 12 are TV films, and 6 are shorts.


title: Krzysztof Kieślowski

text: Krzysztof Kieślowski earned numerous awards and nominations throughout his career, dating back to the Kraków Film Festival Golden Hobby-Horse in 1974. The following is a list of awards and nominations earned for his later work.


title: The Mist (novella)

text: The Mist is a psychological horror novella by American author Stephen King. First published by Viking Press in 1980 as part of the "Dark Forces" anthology, an edited version was subsequently included in King's 1985 collection "Skeleton Crew". In the story, the small town of Bridgton, Maine is shrouded in a dense mist that conceals otherworldly creatures. The protagonist and narrator David Drayton, who has taken refuge with his young son in a supermarket, tries to survive against not only the creatures of the mist, but also fanatical aggression from other survivors. In "The Mist", King addresses the themes of man-made fears and religious fundamentalism.


title: The Mist (novella)

text: King was inspired to write "The Mist" by a trip to his local supermarket following a thunderstorm, during which he imagined prehistoric animals and giant insects besieging the building. "The Mist" was nominated for a World Fantasy Award and a Locus Award in 1981, and critics have considered it to be one of King's iconic works and a classic in its genre. Some reviewers lamented the superficial explanation of the mist's nature, while others were pleased with the cinematic presentation. A film adaptation directed by Frank Darabont was released in 2007, and a television series based on the novella's premise aired on Spike in 2017.


title: The Mist (novella)

text: The morning after a severe thunderstorm left the area without electrical power, an unnaturally thick and straight-edged cloud of mist spreads across the small town of Bridgton, Maine, bringing with it a whole ecosystem of deadly creatures. The source of this mist is never determined, but there are indications that it was caused by the storm disrupting experiments being conducted at a nearby U.S. military installation under the rumored name "Project Arrowhead".


title: The Mist (novella)

text: Commercial artist David Drayton, along with his young son Billy and neighbor Brent Norton (whose car has been smashed by a fallen tree), go to the local supermarket for groceries, leaving David's wife behind at their home. The mist-edge soon arrives at the supermarket, blotting out the sun, followed by an earthquake-like jolt. When a young bagger, Norm, goes outside to fix a clogged vent in the store's generator, he is dragged into the mist by a mass of giant tentacles. David and assistant manager Ollie Weeks witness Norm's death and try to convince the remaining survivors of what has happened, imploring that no one leave the store. Norton and a small group of people accuse David of lying and go outside for help, only to be killed by one of the creatures. Ollie is given a revolver by the young Amanda Dumfries; she and David also have passionless stress-induced sex. Large "insects" begin crawling over the outside of the store, attracting pterosaur-like creatures, one of which squirms inside through a broken window and is killed with an improvised torch. David leads a group of people to an adjacent pharmacy as a test of possibly escaping the situation, where they encounter huge spiders, which kill several members of the expedition and force the rest to retreat to the supermarket.


title: The Mist (novella)

text: As these events progress, the elderly religious fanatic Mrs.Carmody gradually convinces a majority of the remaining survivors that current events fulfill a biblical prophecy of the end time, and that human sacrifice is required to save themselves from God's wrath. When David, Billy, Ollie, Amanda and a few other survivors attempt to escape to David's car, they are confronted by Mrs.Carmody, who calls on the crowd to offer Billy and Amanda as sacrifices. Ollie shoots Mrs.Carmody, breaking her "congregation". En route to the car, Ollie and one other survivor are killed, while another flees back to the store. The rest attempt to reach David's house to determine the fate of his wife, but the driveway is hopelessly blocked with fallen trees. They drive south through a devastated and mist-shrouded New England. While stopped for the night, David searches the radio bands and, through the mist's interference, possibly hears someone say "Hartford", giving him a last reed of hope.


title: The Mist (novella)

text: King, in the Notes section in "Skeleton Crew", says "The Mist" was inspired by a real-life experience, when a massive thunderstorm much like the one that opens the story occurred where King lived at the time. The day after the storm, he went to a local supermarket with his son. While looking for hot dog buns, King imagined a "big prehistoric flying reptile" flapping around in the store. By the time the two were in line to pay for their purchases, King had the basis for his story: survivors trapped in a supermarket surrounded by unknown creatures.


title: The Mist (novella)

text: While experiencing the unusual spring weather which precedes the storm, some characters make reference to the real-life Great Blizzard of 1888, which devastated much of the northeastern United States.


title: Asian black bear

text: The Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus), also known as the Asiatic black bear, moon bear and white-chested bear, is a medium-sized bear species native to Asia that is largely adapted to an arboreal lifestyle. It lives in the Himalayas, southeastern Iran, the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent, the Korean Peninsula, China, the Russian Far East, the islands of Honshū and Shikoku in Japan, and Taiwan. It is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, and is threatened by deforestation and poaching for its body parts, which are used in traditional medicine.


title: Asian black bear

text: The Asian black bear has black fur, a light brown muzzle, and a distinct whitish or creamy patch on the chest, which is sometimes V-shaped. Its ears are bell shaped, proportionately longer than those of other bears, and stick out sideways from the head. Its tail is short, around long.


title: Asian black bear

text: Adults measure at the shoulder, and in length. Adult males weigh with an average weight of about . Adult females weigh , and large ones up to .


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears are similar in general build to brown bears ("Ursus arctos"), but are more lightly built and are more slender limbed. The lips and nose are larger and more mobile than those of brown bears. The skulls of Asian black bears are relatively small, but massive, particularly in the lower jaw. Adult males have skulls measuring in length and in width, while female skulls are long and wide. Compared to other bears of the genus "Ursus", the projections of the skull are weakly developed; the sagittal crest is low and short, even in old specimens, and does not exceed more than 19–20% of the total length of the skull, unlike in brown bears, which have sagittal crests comprising up to 41% of the skull's length.


title: Asian black bear

text: Although mostly herbivorous, the jaw structure of Asian black bears is not as specialized for plant eating as that of giant pandas: Asian black bears have much narrower zygomatic arches, and the weight ratio of the two pterygoid muscles is also much smaller in Asian black bears. The lateral slips of the temporal muscles are thicker and stronger in Asian black bears.


title: Asian black bear

text: An Asian black bear with broken hind legs can still climb effectively. In contrast to polar bears, Asian black bears have powerful upper bodies for climbing trees, and relatively weak hind legs which are shorter than those in brown bears and American black bears. They are the most bipedal of all bears, and have been known to walk upright for over a quarter of a mile. The heel pads on the forefeet are larger than those of most other bear species. Their claws, which are primarily used for climbing and digging, are slightly longer on the fore foot (30–45 mm) than the back (18–36 mm), and are larger and more hooked than those of the American black bear.


title: Asian black bear

text: On average, adult Asian black bears are slightly smaller than American black bears, though large males can exceed the size of several other bear species.


title: Asian black bear

text: The famed British sportsman known as the "Old Shekarry" wrote of how an Asian black bear he shot in India probably weighed no less than based on how many people it took to lift its body. The largest Asian black bear on record allegedly weighed . Zoo-kept specimens can weigh up to . Although their senses are more acute than those of brown bears, their eyesight is poor, and their hearing range is moderate, the upper limit being 30 kHz.


title: Asian black bear

text: Biologically and morphologically, Asian black bears represent the beginning of the arboreal specializations attained by sloth bears and sun bears. Asian black bears have karyotypes nearly identical to those of the five other ursine bears, and, as is typical in the genus, they have 74 chromosomes. From an evolutionary perspective, Asian black bears are the least changed of the Old World bears, with certain scientists arguing that it is likely that all other lineages of ursine bear stem from this species. Scientists have proposed that Asian black bears are either a surviving, albeit modified, form of "Ursus etruscus", specifically the early, small variety of the Middle Villafranchian (Upper Pliocene to Lower Pleistocene) or a larger form of "Ursus minimus", an extinct species that arose 4,000,000 years ago. With the exception of the age of the bones, it is often difficult to distinguish the remains of "Ursus minimus" with those of modern Asian black bears.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears are close relatives to American black bears, with which they share a European common ancestor; the two species are thought to have diverged 3,000,000 years ago, though genetic evidence is inconclusive. Both the American and Asian black species are considered sister taxa and are more closely related to each other than to the other species of bear. The earliest known specimens of Asian black bears are known from the Early Pliocene of Moldova. The earliest American black bear fossils, which were located in Port Kennedy, Pennsylvania, greatly resemble the Asian black species. The first mtDNA study undertaken on Asian black bears suggested that the species arose after the American black bears, while a second study could not statistically resolve the branching order of sloth bears and the two black species, suggesting that these three species underwent a rapid radiation event. A third study suggested that American black bears and Asian black bears diverged as sister taxa after the sloth bear lineage and before the sun bear lineage. Further investigations on the entire mitochondrial cytochrome b sequence indicate that the divergence of continental Asian and Japanese black bear populations might have occurred when bears crossed the land bridge between the Korean peninsula and Japan 500,000 years ago, which is consistent with paleontological evidence.


title: Asian black bear

text: Until the Late Pleistocene, two further subspecies ranged across Europe and western Asia. These are "Ursus thibetanus mediterraneus" in western Europe and the Caucasus and "Ursus thibetanus permjak" from eastern Europe, especially the Ural Mountains.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears are reproductively compatible with several other bear species, and have on occasion produced hybrid offspring. According to Jack Hanna's "Monkeys on the Interstate", a bear captured in Sanford, Florida, was thought to have been the offspring of an escaped female Asian black bear and a male American black bear, and Scherren's "Some notes on hybrid bears" published in 1907 mentioned a successful mating between an Asian black bear and a sloth bear. In 1975, within Venezuela's "Las Delicias" Zoo, a female Asian black bear shared its enclosure with a male spectacled bear, and produced several hybrid descendants. In 2005, a possible Asian black bear–sun bear hybrid cub was captured in the Mekong River watershed of eastern Cambodia. An Asian black bear/brown bear hybrid, taken from a bile farm, is housed at the Animals Asia Foundation's China Moon Bear Rescue .


title: Asian black bear

text: Fossil record indicate that the Asian black bear once ranged as far west as Western Europe, though it now occurs very patchily throughout its former range, which is limited to Asia. Today, it occurs from southeastern Iran eastward through Afghanistan and Pakistan, across the foothills of the Himalayas in India and Myanmar to mainland Southeast Asia, except Malaysia. Its range in northeastern and southern China is patchy, and it is absent in much of east-central China. Other population clusters exist in the southern Russian Far East and in North Korea. A small remnant population survives in South Korea. It also occurs on the Japanese islands of Honshu and Shikoku, as well as on Taiwan and the Chinese island of Hainan.


title: Asian black bear

text: It typically inhabits deciduous forests, mixed forests and thornbrush forests. In the summer, it usually inhabits altitudes of around in the Himalayas but rarely above . In winter, it descends to altitudes below . In Japan, it also occurs at sea level.


title: Asian black bear

text: There is no definitive estimate as to the number of Asian black bears: Japan posed estimates of 8–14,000 bears living on Honshū, though the reliability of this is now doubted. Although their reliability is unclear, rangewide estimates of 5–6,000 bears have been presented by Russian biologists. In 2012, Japanese Ministry of the Environment estimated the population at 15–20,000. Rough density estimates without corroborating methodology or data have been made in India and Pakistan, resulting in the estimates of 7–9,000 in India and 1,000 in Pakistan. Unsubstantiated estimates from China give varying estimates between 15 and 46,000, with a government estimate of 28,000.


title: Asian black bear

text: The Wildlife Trust of Bangladesh conducted an on-field survey of bears in Bangladesh from 2008 to 2010 that included Asian black bears. The survey was done in 87 different places, mostly in the north-central, northeastern and southeastern areas of Bangladesh that had historical presence of bears. The survey result says that most of the areas still has some isolated small bear populations, mainly the Asian black bears. According to the survey, the most evidence found relating to bears were of Asian black bears that included nests, footprints, local sightings, etc. There are many reports on the presence of Asian black bears in the central, north-central, northeastern and southeastern parts of Bangladesh.


title: Asian black bear

text: Although Asian black bears still occur in different parts of Bangladesh, mainly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the population is very small. Conservationists fear that the species will soon be extinct in the country if necessary steps to protect it are not taken in the near future.


title: Asian black bear

text: Three subspecies of the Asian black bear occur in China: the Tibetan subspecies ("U. thibetanus thibetanus"), the Si Chuan subspecies ("U. thibetanus mupinensis"), and the northeastern subspecies ("U. thibetanus ussuricus"), which is the only subspecies of bear in northeastern China. Asian black bears are mainly distributed in the conifer forests in the cold and temperate zones of northeast China, the main areas being Chang Bai, Zhang Guangcai, Lao Ye, and the Lesser Xingan Mountains. Within Liaoning province, there are about 100 Asian black bears, which only inhabit the five counties of Xin Bin, Huan Ren, Ben Xi, Kuan Dian, and Fen Cheng. Within Jilin province, Asian black bears occur mainly in the counties of Hunchun, Dun Hua, Wangqing, An Tu, Chang Bai, Fu Song, Jiao He, Hua Dian, Pan Shi, and Shu Lan. In Heilongjiang province, Asian black bears occur in the counties of Ning An, BaYan, Wu Chang, Tong He, Bao Qing, Fu Yuan, Yi Chun, Tao Shan, Lan Xi, Tie Li, Sun Wu, Ai Hui, De Du, Bei An, and Nen Jiang. This population has a northern boundary of about 50° N and the southern boundary in Feng Cheng is about 40°30" N.


title: Asian black bear

text: In Siberia, the Asian black bear's northern range runs from Innokenti Bay on the coast of the Sea of Japan southwest to the elevated areas of Sikhote Alin crossing it at the sources of the Samarga River. At this point, the boundary directs itself to the north, through the middle course of the Khor, Anyui and Khungari rivers, and comes to the shore of the Amur, crossing it at the level of the mouth of the Gorin River. Along the Amur river, the species' presence has been noted as far as 51° N. Lat. From there, the territorial boundary runs southwest of the river's left bank, passing through the northern part of Lake Bolon and the juncture point of the Kur and Tunguska. Asian black bears are encountered in the Urmi's lower course. Within the Ussuri krai, the species is restricted to broad-leaved Manchurian-type forests.


title: Asian black bear

text: In Korea, most of the Asian black bears live in the broad-leaved forest of the alpine region, more than 1,500 meters north of Jirisan. Korean National Park Service announced on April 15, 2018, that eight mother bears gave birth to 11 babies. Six mother bears living in the wild gave birth to eight babies. Two mothers that were being taken care by the nature adaptation training center in Gurye, South Jeolla Province gave birth to three babies. Now, there are 56 Asian black bears living in the wild of Jirisan. If the Korea National Park Service releases three cubs born in natural adaptation training centers at September this year, the number of Asian black bears living in the wild will increase to 59. As a result, the restoration of the target of 50 Asian black bears, or the minimum remaining population, will be achieved two years earlier. It was a goal by 2020. Their next goal is to expand and improve the habitat and to increase the genetic diversity of the Asian black bears in Mt. Jiri.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears are diurnal, though they become nocturnal near human habitations. They may live in family groups consisting of two adults and two successive litters of young. They will walk in a procession of largest to smallest. They are good climbers of rocks and trees, and will climb to feed, rest, sun, elude enemies and hibernate. Some older bears may become too heavy to climb. Half of their life is spent in trees and they are one of the largest arboreal mammals. In the Ussuri territory in the Russian Far East, Asian black bears can spend up to 15% of their time in trees. Asian black bears break branches and twigs to place under themselves when feeding on trees, thus causing many trees in their home ranges to have nest-like structures on their tops. Asian black bears will rest for short periods in nests on trees standing fifteen feet or higher.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears do not hibernate over most of their range. They may hibernate in their colder, northern ranges, though some bears will simply move to lower elevations. Nearly all pregnant sows hibernate. Asian black bears prepare their dens for hibernation in mid-October, and will sleep from November until March. Their dens can either be dug-out hollow trees (60 feet above ground), caves or holes in the ground, hollow logs, or steep, mountainous and sunny slopes. They may also den in abandoned brown bear dens. Asian black bears tend to den at lower elevations and on less steep slopes than brown bears. Female Asian black bears emerge from dens later than do males, and female Asian black bears with cubs emerge later than barren females. Asian black bears tend to be less mobile than brown bears. With sufficient food, Asian black bears can remain in an area of roughly , and sometimes even as little as .


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears have a wide range of vocalizations, including grunts, whines, roars, slurping sounds (sometimes made when feeding) and "an appalling row" when wounded, alarmed or angry. They emit loud hisses when issuing warnings or threats, and scream when fighting. When approaching other bears, they produce "tut tut" sounds, thought to be produced by bears snapping their tongue against the roof of their mouth. When courting, they emit clucking sounds.


title: Asian black bear

text: Within Sikhote-Alin, the breeding season of Asian black bears occurs earlier than in brown bears, starting from mid-June to mid-August. Birth also occurs earlier, in mid-January. By October, the uterine horns of pregnant females grow to . By late December, the embryos weigh 75 grams. Sows generally have their first litter at the age of three years. Pregnant females generally make up 14% of populations. Similar to brown bears, Asian black bears have delayed implantation. Sows usually give birth in caves or hollow trees in winter or early spring after a gestation period of 200–240 days. Cubs weigh 13 ounces at birth, and will begin walking at four days of age, and open their eyes three days later. The skulls of newborn Asian black bear cubs bear great resemblance to those of adult sun bears. Litters can consist of 1–4 cubs, with 2 being the average. Cubs have a slow growth rate, reaching only 2.5 kg by May. Asian black bear cubs will nurse for 104–130 weeks, and become independent at 24–36 months. There is usually a 2–3 year interval period before females produce subsequent litters. The average lifespan in the wild is 25 years, while the oldest Asian black bear in captivity died at the age of 44.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears are omnivorous, and will feed on insects, beetle larvae, invertebrates, termites, grubs, carrion, bees, eggs, garbage, mushrooms, grasses, fruits, nuts, seeds, honey, herbs, acorns, cherries, dogwood, and grain. Although herbivorous to a greater degree than brown bears, and more carnivorous than American black bears, Asian black bears are not as specialized in their diet as giant pandas are: while giant pandas depend on a constant supply of low calorie, yet abundant foodstuffs, Asian black bears are more opportunistic and have opted for a nutritional boom-or-bust economy. They thus gorge themselves on a variety of seasonal high calorie foods, storing the excess calories as fat, and then hibernate during times of scarcity. Asian black bears will eat pine nuts and acorns of the previous year in the April–May period. In times of scarcity, they enter river valleys to gain access to hazelnuts and insect larvae in rotting logs. From mid-May through late June, they will supplement their diet with green vegetation and fruit. Through July to September, they will climb trees to eat bird cherries, pine cones, vines and grapes. On rare occasions they will eat dead fish during the spawning season, though this constitutes a much lesser portion of their diet than in brown bears. In the 1970s, Asian black bears were reported to kill and eat Hanuman langurs in Nepal. They appear to be more carnivorous than most other bears, including American black bears, and will kill ungulates with some regularity, including domestic livestock. Wild ungulate prey can include muntjacs, serow, takin, malayan tapir wild boar and adult water buffaloes, which they kill by breaking their necks.


title: Asian black bear

text: The Asian black bear's range overlaps with that of the sloth bear in central and southern India, the sun bear in Southeast Asia and the brown bear in the southern part of the Russian Far East.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears seem to intimidate Himalayan brown bears in direct encounters. They eat the fruit dropped by Asian black bears from trees, as they themselves are too large and cumbersome to climb.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears are occasionally attacked by tigers and brown bears. Leopards are known to prey on bear cubs younger than two years old. Packs of wolves and Eurasian lynxes are potential predators of bear cubs as well.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears usually dominate Amur leopards in physical confrontations in heavily vegetated areas, while leopards are uppermost in open areas, though the outcome of such encounters is largely dependent on the size of the individual animals.


title: Asian black bear

text: Tigers occasionally attack and consume Asian black bears. Russian hunters found their remains in tiger scats, and Asian black bear carcasses showing evidence of tiger predation. To escape tigers, Asian black bears rush up a tree and wait for the tiger to leave, though some tigers will pretend to leave, and wait for the bear to descend. Tigers prey foremost on young bears.


title: Asian black bear

text: Some are very tenacious when attacked: Jim Corbett observed a fight between a tiger and the largest Asian black bear he had ever seen. The bear managed to chase off the tiger, despite having half its nose and scalp torn off. He twice saw Asian black bears carry off tiger kills when the latter was absent.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears are usually safe from tiger attacks once they reach five years of age. One fatal attack of a tiger on a juvenile Asian black bear has been recorded in Jigme Dorji National Park.


title: Asian black bear

text: One Siberian tiger was reported to have lured an Asian black bear by imitating its mating call. However, Asian black bears are probably less vulnerable to tiger attacks than brown bears, due to their habit of living in hollows or in close set rocks.


title: Asian black bear

text: The Asian black bear is listed as a protected animal in China's National Protection Wildlife Law, which stipulates that anyone hunting or catching bears without permits will be subject to severe punishment.


title: Asian black bear

text: Although the Asian black bear is protected in India, due to being listed as vulnerable in the Red Data Book in Appendix I of CITES in India and in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act and its 1991 amendment, it has been difficult to prosecute those accused of poaching Asian black bears due to lack of witnesses and lack of Wildlife Forensic Labs to detect the originality of confiscated animal parts or products. Moreover, due to India's wide-stretching boundaries with other nations such as Pakistan, Tibet, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, it is difficult to police such borders, which are often in mountainous terrain.


title: Asian black bear

text: Five Asian black bear populations, occurring in Kyushu, Shikoku, West-Chugoku, East-Chugoku and Kii areas, were listed as endangered by the Environmental Agency in the Japanese Red Data Book in 1991. Small isolated populations in the Tanzawa and Shimokita areas of mainland Honshū were listed as endangered in 1995. Beyond recognizing these populations as endangered, there is still a lack of efficient conservation methods for Japanese black bears.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears occur as an infrequent species in the Red Data Book of Russia, thus falling under special protection and hunting is prohibited. There is currently a strong movement to legalize the hunting of Russian black bears, which is supported by most of the local scientific community.


title: Asian black bear

text: As of January 30, 1989, Taiwan's Formosan black bears have been listed as an endangered species under the Natural and Cultural Heritage Act on, and was later listed as a Conserved Species Category I.


title: Asian black bear

text: The Vietnamese government issued Decision 276/QD, 276/1989, which prohibits the hunting and exporting of Asian black bears. The Red Book of Vietnam lists Vietnamese black bears as endangered.


title: Asian black bear

text: The Korean Government designated the Asian black bear as Natural Monument No. 329 and it is considered an extinction crisis. At the present time, the Endangered Species Restoration Center of Korea National Park Service is going through species restoration business.


title: Asian black bear

text: The main habitat threat to Asian black bears is overcutting of forests, mainly due to human populations increasing to over 430,000 in regions where bears are distributed, in the Shaanxi, Ganshu, and Sichuan provinces. 27 forestry enterprises were built in these areas between 1950 and 1985 (excluding the lumbering units belonging to the county). By the early 1990s, the Asian black bear distribution area was reduced to only one-fifth of the area that existed before the 1940s. Isolated bear populations face environmental and genetic stress in these circumstances. However, one of the most important reasons for their decrease involves overhunting, as Asian black bear paws, gall bladders and cubs have great economic value. Asian black bear harvests are maintained at a high level due to the harm they cause to crops, orchards and bee farms. During the 1950s and 1960s, 1,000 Asian black bears were harvested annually in the Heilongjiang Province. However, purchased furs were reduced by 4/5, even by 9/10 yearly in the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Asian black bears have also been declining annually in Dehong Dai and Jingpo Nations Autonomous Prefecture and the Yunnan Province.


title: Asian black bear

text: Although the poaching of Asian black bears is well known throughout Japan, authorities have done little to remedy the situation. The killing of nuisance bears is practiced year-round, and harvest numbers have been on the increase. Box traps have been widely used since 1970 to capture nuisance bears. It is estimated that the number of shot bears will decrease in time, due to the decline of old traditional hunters and the increase of a younger generation less inclined to hunt. Logging is also considered a threat.


title: Asian black bear

text: Although Asian black bears have been afforded protection in Russia since 1983, illegal poaching, fueled by a growing demand for bear parts in the Asian market, is still a major threat to the Russian population. Many workers of Chinese and Korean origin, supposedly employed in the timber industry, are actually involved in the illegal trade. Some Russian sailors reportedly purchase bear parts from local hunters to sell them to Japanese and Southeast Asian clients. Russia's rapidly growing timber industry has been a serious threat to the Asian black bear's home range for three decades. The cutting of trees containing cavities deprives Asian black bears of their main source of dens, and forces them to den on the ground or in rocks, thus making them more vulnerable to tigers, brown bears and hunters.


title: Asian black bear

text: In Taiwan, Asian black bears are not actively pursued, though steel traps set out for wild boars have been responsible for unintentional bear trappings. Timber harvesting has largely stopped being a major threat to Taiwan's Asian black bear population, though a new policy concerning the transfer of ownership of hill land from the government to private interests has the potential to affect some lowland habitat, particularly in the eastern part of the nation. The building of new cross island highways through bear habitat is also potentially threatening.


title: Asian black bear

text: Vietnamese black bear populations have declined rapidly due to the pressures of human population growth and unstable settlement. Vietnamese forests have been shrinking: of the of natural forests, about disappear every year. Hunting pressures have also increased with a coinciding decline of environmental awareness.


title: Asian black bear

text: South Korea remains one of two countries to allow bear bile farming to continue legally. As reported in 2009, approximately 1,374 Asian black bears reside in an estimated 74 bear farms, where they are kept for slaughter to fuel the demands of traditional Asian medicine. In sharp contrast, fewer than 20 Asian black bears can be found at Jirisan Restoration Center, located in Korea's Jirisan National Park.


title: Asian black bear

text: In Japanese culture, the Asian black bear is traditionally associated with the mountain spirit ("yama no kami") and is characterized variously as "mountain man" (""), "mountain uncle" (), "mountain father" (), a loving mother, and a child. Being a largely solitary creature, the Asian black bear is also viewed as "lonely person" ("sabishigariya"). Asian black bears feature very little in lowland Japanese folklore, but are prominent in upland Japan, a fact thought to reflect the bear's greater economic value in upland areas. According to the local folklore in Kituarahara-gun in Niigata, the Asian black bear received its white mark after being given a silk-wrapped amulet by , which left the mark after being removed.


title: Asian black bear

text: In Hindu mythology, the Asian black bear Jambavantha (also known as Jambavan or Jamvanta) is believed to have lived from Treta Yuga to Dvapara Yuga. In the epic "Ramayana", Jambavantha assists Rama in finding his wife Sita and battle her abductor, Ravana.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears are briefly mentioned in Yann Martel's novel "The Life of Pi", in which they are described by the protagonist's father as being among the most dangerous animals in his zoo.


title: Asian black bear

text: Although usually shy and cautious animals, Asian black bears are more aggressive towards humans than the brown bears of Eurasia and American black bears. David W. Macdonald theorizes that this greater aggression is an adaptation to being sympatric with tigers. According to Brigadier General R. G. Burton:


title: Asian black bear

text: In response to a chapter on Asian black bears written by Robert Armitage Sterndale in his "Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon" on how Asian black bears were no more dangerous than other animals in India, a reader responded with a letter to "The Asian" on May 11, 1880:


title: Asian black bear

text: At the turn of the 20th century, a hospital in Srinagar, Kashmir received dozens of Asian black bear victims annually. When Asian black bears attack humans, they rear up on their hind legs and knock victims over with their paws. Then they bite them on an arm or leg and snap on the victim's head, this being the most dangerous part of the attack.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bear attacks have been increasing in Kashmir since the Kashmir conflict. In November 2009, in the Kulgam district of Indian-administered Kashmir, an Asian black bear attacked four insurgents after discovering them in its den, and killed two of them.


title: Asian black bear

text: In India, attacks on humans have been increasing yearly, and have occurred largely in the northwestern and western Himalayan region. In the Chamba District of Himachal Pradesh, the number of Asian black bear attacks on humans has gradually increased from 10 in 1988–89 to 21 in 1991–92. There are no records of predation on humans by Asian black bears in Russia, and no conflicts have been documented in Taiwan. Recent Asian black bear attacks on humans have been reported from Junbesi in Langtang National Park, Nepal, and occurred in villages as well as in the surrounding forest.


title: Asian black bear

text: Nine people were killed by Asian black bears in Japan between 1979 and 1989. In September 2009, an Asian black bear attacked a group of tourists, mauling nine people and seriously injuring four more at a bus station in the built-up area of Takayama, Gifu.


title: Asian black bear

text: The majority of attacks tend to occur when Asian black bears are encountered suddenly, and in close quarters. Because of this, Asian black bears are generally considered more dangerous than brown bears, which live in more open spaces and are thus less likely to be surprised by approaching humans. They are also likely to attack when protecting food.


title: Asian black bear

text: 2016 saw several attacks by Asian black bears in Japan. In May and June four people were killed by Asian black bears in Akita prefecture while picking bamboo shoots, and in August a female safari park worker in Gunma prefecture was killed when an Asian black bear climbed into her car and attacked her.


title: Asian black bear

text: In the past, the farmers of the Himalayan lowlands feared Asian black bears more than any other pest, and would erect platforms in the fields, where watchmen would be posted at night and would beat drums to frighten off any interlopers. However, some Asian black bears would grow accustomed to the sound and encroach anyway.


title: Asian black bear

text: Of 1,375 livestock kills examined in Bhutan, Asian black bears accounted for 8% of attacks. Livestock predation, overall, was greatest in the summer and autumn periods, which corresponded with a peak in cropping agriculture; livestock are turned out to pasture and forest during the cropping season and, subsequently, are less well-guarded than at other times.


title: Asian black bear

text: Livestock killed by Asian black bears in Himachal Pradesh, India increased from 29 in 1988–1989 to 45 in 1992–1993.


title: Asian black bear

text: In the remoter areas of Japan, Asian black bears can be serious crop predators: the bears feed on cultivated bamboo shoots in spring, on plums, watermelons and corn in the summer, and on persimmons, sweet potatoes and rice in the autumn. Japanese black bears are estimated to damage 3,000 bee hives annually. When feeding on large crops such as watermelons or pumpkins, Asian black bears will ignore the flesh and eat the seeds, thus adversely affecting future harvests. Asian black bears can girdle and kill trees by stripping their bark for the sap. This can cause serious economic problems in Asia's valuable timber forests. In the late 1970s, 400–1,200 hectares of land had been affected by Asian black bears bark-stripping Japanese conifers. There is evidence that 70-year-old conifers (commanding the highest market values) may also have been bark-stripped.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears will prey on livestock if their natural food is in poor supply. They have been known to attack bullocks, either killing them outright, or eating them alive.


title: Asian black bear

text: Along with sun bears, Asian black bears are the most typically used species in areas where bears are used either in performances or as pets. Asian black bears have an outstanding learning ability in captivity, and are among the most common species used in circus acts. According to Gary Brown:


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears are easily tamed, and can be fed with rice, maize, sweet potatoes, cassavas, pumpkins, ripe fruit, animal fat and sweet foods. Keeping captive Asian black bears is popular in China, especially due to the belief that milking the bear's gall bladder leads to quick prosperity. Asian black bears are also popular as pets in Vietnam.


title: Asian black bear

text: According to "The Great and Small Game of India, Burma, and Tibet", regarding the hunting of Asian black bears in British India:


title: Asian black bear

text: The book also describes a second method of black bear hunting involving the beating of small patches of forest, when the bears march out in single file. However, black bears were rarely hunted for sport, because of the poor quality of their fur and the ease by which they could be shot in trees, or stalked, as their hearing was poor.


title: Asian black bear

text: Although easy to track and shoot, Asian black bears were known by British sportsmen to be extremely dangerous when injured. Brigadier General R.G. Burton wrote of how many sportsmen had been killed by Asian black bears after failing to make direct hits.


title: Asian black bear

text: Today, Asian black bears are only legally hunted for sport in Japan and Russia. In Russia, 75–100 Asian black bears are legally harvested annually, though 500 a year are reportedly harvested illegally.


title: Asian black bear

text: After the introduction of Buddhism in Japan, which prohibited the killing of animals, the Japanese compromised by devising different strategies in hunting bears. Some, such as the inhabitants of the Kiso area in the Nagano Prefecture, prohibited the practice altogether, while others developed rituals in order to placate the spirits of killed bears. In some Japanese hunting communities, Asian black bears lacking the white chest mark are considered sacred. In the Akita Prefecture, bears lacking the mark were known by "matagi" huntsmen as (all-black) or (black-chested), and were also considered messengers of '. If such a bear was shot, the huntsman would offer it to ', and give up hunting from that time on. Similar beliefs were held in Nagano, where the completely black Asian black bears were termed or cat-bear. communities believed that killing an Asian black bear in the mountains would result in a bad storm, which was linked to the belief that bear spirits could affect weather. The would generally hunt Asian black bears in spring or from late autumn to early winter, before they hibernated. In mountain regions, Asian black bears were hunted by driving them upland to a waiting hunter, who would then shoot it. Bear hunting expeditions were preceded by rituals, and could last up to two weeks. After killing the bear, the would pray for the bear's soul. Asian black bear hunts in Japan are often termed , meaning "bear conquest". The word itself is often used in Japanese folklore to describe the slaying of monsters and demons.


title: Asian black bear

text: Traditionally, the Atayal, Taroko, and Bunun people of Taiwan consider Asian black bears to be almost human in their behaviors, and thus unjust killing of bears is equated with murder and will cause misfortunes such as disease, death, or crop failure. The Bunun people call Asian black bears "Aguman" or "Duman", which means devil. Traditionally, a Bunun hunter who has accidentally trapped an Asian black bear has to build a cottage in the mountains and cremate the bear within it. The hunter must stay in the cottage alone, away from the village until the end of the millet harvest, as it is believed that the killing of an Asian black bear will cause the millet crop to burn black. In the Tungpu area, Asian black bears are considered animals of the "third category": animals with the most remote relationship to humans and whose activity is restricted outside human settlements. Therefore, when Asian black bears encroach upon human settlements, they are considered ill omens. In this situation, the community can either destroy the trespassing bears or settle somewhere else. The Rukai and Paiwan people are permitted to hunt Asian black bears, though they believe that doing so will curse the hunters involved: Rukai people believe that hunting Asian black bears can result in disease. Children are forbidden from eating bear meat, which is itself not permitted to be taken within homes.


title: Asian black bear

text: Accounts on the quality of the Asian black bear's fur vary. According to "Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon", "Their skins are always poor and mangy, and generally so greasy that they are very difficult to keep until you can make them over to the dresser", which is corroborated by "The Great and Small Game of India, Burma, and Tibet", which states "... the skins are never of any particular value, and in autumn, owing to the masses of yellow fat that are accumulated beneath them, are absolutely useless." In British India, grease was the only practical use for Asian black bear carcasses. Bears living near villages were considered the most ideal, as they were almost invariably fatter than their forest-dwelling counterparts. In the former USSR, the Asian black bear yielded fur, meat and fat of greater quality than those of the brown bear.


title: Asian black bear

text: Asian black bears have been hunted for their parts in China since the Stone Age. Bile is most appreciated, as it supposedly cures many diseases, effectively treats the accumulation of blood below the skin, and counters toxic effects. Also, bear bone glue is used as a tonic, and bear fat is also used as a traditional medicine and a tonic. Asian black bear meat is also edible. Due to their many uses, Asian black bears are worth about 20–30 million dong (US$1,500–2,250) each in Vietnam.


title: Vince Offer

text: Offer Shlomi (; born April 25, 1964), better known as Vince Offer or Vince Shlomi is an Israeli-American infomercial pitchman, director, writer, and comedian. Offer's first major work was the 1999 comedy film "The Underground Comedy Movie". Offer owns, produces, and appears in television commercials for his products "ShamWow!", an absorbent towel; the "Slap Chop", a kitchen utensil; a lint roller called the "Schticky"; a liquid cleaner called "InVinceable"; and another kitchen utensil called "Crank Chop". He has also officially advertised other products that he does not own, such as Quicky Grass.


title: Vince Offer

text: Offer Shlomi was born in Beersheva, Israel and grew up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York. As a child, he was fascinated by Crazy Eddie commercials. Offer would shovel his neighbors’ driveways as a teen, working until the night. He dropped out of high school when he was 17 and moved to Los Angeles, changing his name to Vince Offer.


title: Vince Offer

text: In 1999, Offer directed and appeared in "The Underground Comedy Movie", which was met with extremely negative reviews. DVDs of the film were marketed via television infomercial. The film also led to several lawsuits. Although the film was released and screened in 1999, Offer was bankrupt by 2002 and home video distribution plans were shelved. Offer, who had previously been a successful vegetable chopper salesman and businessman, resumed selling vegetable choppers at swap meets to support himself and raise money to complete his film project. Within a few months, he had earned enough to resume production, and the movie was finally completed, released, and marketed entirely on late-night infomercials that Offer paid for with his earnings from the swap meet vegetable chopper sales. The film has sold in excess of 100,000 copies and Offer has used the proceeds from sales to file a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology. He is an ex-Scientologist.


title: Vince Offer

text: In 2011, he appeared as himself in the Adam Sandler film "Jack and Jill". Title character Jill, played by Sandler, referred to him as "the ShamWow guy".


title: Vince Offer

text: In 2013, Offer released the universally panned "InAPPropriate Comedy", which he directed, wrote and appears in as a character called 'Peeping Tom'. The film was originally envisioned as a sequel to "Underground Comedy Movie". The film features stars Rob Schneider, Michelle Rodriguez, Adrien Brody, and Lindsay Lohan. Examples of film sketches include comedian Ari Shaffir as 'The Amazing Racist', with deliberately offensive hidden-camera encounters with members of different minority groups, and Brody as 'Flirty Harry', a "Dirty Harry" spoof.


title: Vince Offer

text: Offer funded "The Underground Comedy Movie" with his own money, but had difficulty selling it. He put the trailer in an infomercial, and claims to have sold 50,000 copies via direct order and 50,000 more in stores. In 2010, he advertised Eminem's "Recovery" album. In 2020, Eminem celebrated the 10th anniversary of his album, "Recovery", by introducing merchandise and sharing the original commercial starring Offer.


title: Vince Offer

text: In 2006, Offer began to market a cleaning product that he saw in flea markets, an absorbent towel that he called the "ShamWow!" The title of the product derives from the French pronunciation of the chamois, pronounced "shammy" in English. Offer visited the factory in Germany where the product is made, and he decided to incorporate that fact into the TV pitch.


title: Vince Offer

text: The advertisement, filmed in the summer of 2007 with a budget of $20,000, received critical praise. "Slate"s Seth Stevenson praised Offer for his "impressive and subtle mastery of the pitchman's art" (with lines such as "you know the Germans always make good stuff"), and wondered if Offer's "abrasive manner might also mark a unique, new strategy in the annals of pitchdom." Stevenson compared Offer to earlier, "more upbeat" television pitchmen like Billy Mays and the Home Shopping Network hosts and concluded that Offer's "smooth-talking condescension" was more suited to the present "zeitgeist" than the "earnest fervor" of spokesmen like Mays and Ron Popeil.


title: Vince Offer

text: "Consumer Reports" reported that the infomercial for "ShamWow!" initially featured Offer claiming that the product held "20 times its weight in liquid". Later, the infomercial was changed to Offer claiming the "ShamWow!" held "12 times its weight in liquid", then again to "10 times". "Consumer Reports" did its own test on the product and found that it does indeed hold 10 times its weight in liquid but no more.


title: Vince Offer

text: Offer says that he has sold millions of the towels. In contrast to claims that the absorbency of the towels is over-hyped, he responds that returns of the product are low.


title: Vince Offer

text: Pitchman Billy Mays had been promoting a similar product called Zorbeez two years prior to Offer's "ShamWow!" product. Mays noted that the "ShamWow!" commercials use many of the same product demonstrations as the earlier-produced Zorbeez commercial. "Popular Mechanics" tested the absorbency of the two towel products and declared "ShamWow!" was the more effective of the two, but noted "If you have reusable cloth rags (and a roll of paper towels for backup), then neither product is necessary." During the episode, it was suggested that the "Popular Mechanics" tester did not use the Zorbeez correctly.


title: Vince Offer

text: Following the popularity of the commercial, "TMZ" in 2009 posted a remix of the commercial on their site. The remix was originally created by DJ Steve Porter and uploaded on YouTube.


title: Vince Offer

text: In 2020, Offer started to sell "ShamWow!" masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He appeared in an infomercial showing the cloths, followed by wearing the face mask, which are made up of viscose/polypropylene thermally bonded non-woven cloth, and then giving a thumbs up.


title: Vince Offer

text: In December 2008, Offer, who had previously sold kitchen utensils at swap meets, appeared in another kitchen gadget infomercial, advertising the Slap Chop and the Graty. The Slap Chop is a hand-held chopping device with internal blades; to operate it, the user places it over a food item and slaps down the button on the top. The Graty is a cheese grater operated by placing the cheese inside and then turning the outside housing of the utensil which causes the cheese to be grated. Offer's aggressiveness and use of double entendres like "you're gonna love my nuts" have been noted by "AdWeek", and, according to an "Adweek" blog, helped make Offer "the man who could beat Billy Mays at his own game."


title: Vince Offer

text: Mays had been promoting a similar product set which included the Quick Chop utensil and the Quick Grater utensil prior to Offer's Slap Chop/Graty product set. Mays again noted that the Slap Chop commercials use many of the same demos as the earlier-produced Quick Chop commercial. Mays said in the same Adam Carolla radio show interview in February 2009 that Offer stole not only the Zorbeez product idea, but also the Quick Chop idea.


title: Vince Offer

text: In April 2009, DJ Steve Porter posted an electro-themed "Slap Chop Rap" Auto Tune remix which grew a cult following during July 2009.


title: Vince Offer

text: An excerpt from a televised Slap Chop commercial featuring Offer is briefly on screen during the 2013 blockbuster Marvel superhero movie "Iron Man 3".


title: Vince Offer

text: In April 2019, DJ Steve Porter posted a 10-year anniversary video of the original electro-themed "Slap Chop Rap" Auto Tune remix.


title: Vince Offer

text: In 2012, Offer returned to television selling the "Schticky", a reusable lint roller that comes in three sizes: little Schticky, Schticky, and big Schticky.


title: Vince Offer

text: The commercial makes many references to his other two commercials for the ShamWow and the Slap Chop, with Offer saying many of his catchphrases. He also pokes fun at his 2009 arrest by posing for a fake mugshot.


title: Vince Offer

text: An excerpt from the Schticky commercial can be seen in the TV show "Breaking Bad" during season 5, episode 7's "Say My Name".


title: Vince Offer

text: In December 2015, Offer appeared in a Crank Chop infomercial demonstrating the abilities of the product that slices and dices food with the pull of a nylon cord.


title: Vince Offer

text: "The Underground Comedy Movie" was the subject of a lawsuit filed on September 23, 1998, by Offer against 20th Century Fox and Bobby and Peter Farrelly, the co-directors of "There's Something About Mary". Offer claimed that 14 scenes in "Mary" were lifted from his film. The case was dismissed in 2000, with the judge ordering Offer to pay over $66,000 in attorneys' fees.


title: Vince Offer

text: In 2004, Offer sent out a press release through prnewsonline.com announcing his intention to sue the Church of Scientology. In 1997, while production on "The Underground Comedy Movie" was in progress, the Church of Scientology had allegedly begun a large-scale smear campaign against Offer and his film (Offer was a Scientologist at the time). The director claimed the Scientologists' "Celebrity Center" in Hollywood threatened his Scientology friends in the movie business if they did not write malicious reports against Offer.


title: Vince Offer

text: In 2011, he was sued by his former personal assistant Jennifer Kosinski, who alleged that he stalked and emotionally abused her, forced her to be with him at all times, groped her, and offered her $20,000 for her to vacation with her family in exchange for her eggs.


title: Vince Offer

text: On February 7, 2009, Offer and a 26-year-old prostitute were arrested in Miami Beach, Florida, after a physical altercation. The police report stated that the woman had bitten onto Offer's tongue and refused to let go, at which point Offer began beating her and left her with lacerations and fractures. Police later released photos of the bloodied Offer, hotel room, and the battered woman. Prosecutors later declined to file formal charges against either person. When Offer later spoke of the arrest, he stated, "It probably saved my life."


title: Vince Offer

text: Vince Offer married Melody Claire Mandate on April 18, 2014. He has one daughter with her. Mandate filed for divorce on October 18, 2018.


title: Fair Credit Reporting Act

text: The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 "et seq", is U.S. Federal Government legislation enacted to promote the accuracy, fairness, and privacy of consumer information contained in the files of consumer reporting agencies. It was intended to shield consumers from the willful and/or negligent inclusion of erroneous data in their credit reports. To that end, the FCRA regulates the collection, dissemination, and use of consumer information, including consumer credit information. Together with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the FCRA forms the foundation of consumer rights law in the United States. It was originally passed in 1970, and is enforced by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and private litigants.


title: Fair Credit Reporting Act

text: Before standardization of credit scoring, statements of character were integral to credit reports well into the 1960s. With credit reports containing probing details about personality, habits, and health, in the hearings on the Fair Credit Reporting Act lawmakers were troubled that individuals were helpless to clear up errors.


title: Fair Credit Reporting Act

text: The Fair Credit Reporting Act, as originally enacted, was title VI of , entitled "An Act to amend the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to require insured banks to maintain certain records, to require that certain transactions in United States currency be reported to the Department of the Treasury, and for other purposes". It was written as an amendment to add a title VI to the Consumer Credit Protection Act, .


title: Fair Credit Reporting Act

text: The Fair Credit Reporting Act was one of the first data privacy laws passed in the Information Age. The findings of the U.S. Congress that led to the Act and the Act's regulatory goals set the direction of information privacy in the U.S. and the world for the next sixty years. Among these innovations were the determination that there should be no secret databases to make decisions about a person's life, individuals should have a right to see and challenge the information held in such databases, and that information in such a database should expire after a reasonable amount of time.


title: Fair Credit Reporting Act

text: Commonly referred to as credit reports, a consumer report "contains information about your credit - and some bill repayment history - and the status of your credit accounts. This information includes how often you make your payments on time, how much credit you have, how much credit you have available, how much credit you are using, and whether a debt or bill collector is collecting on money you owe. Credit reports also can contain rental repayment information if you are a property renter. It also can contain public records such as liens, judgments, and bankruptcies that provide insight into your financial status and obligations."


title: Fair Credit Reporting Act

text: A 2015 study released by the Federal Trade Commission found that 23% of consumers identified inaccurate information in their credit reports. Under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), an amendment to the FCRA passed in 2003, consumers are able to receive a free copy of their consumer report from each credit reporting agency once a year. The free report can be requested by telephone, mail, or through the government-authorized website: annualcreditreport.com.